Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), a program of The DC Center dedicated to preventing and responding to violence against the District's LGBT community, will celebrate six honorees with the GLOV Guardian Award for contributions to combating hate crimes at an awards ceremony Dec. 18.
Guardian Awards are given annually to those individuals and organizations that have been proactive in combating anti-LGBT violence in Washington. This year's awardees include two GLOV volunteers, Paul Tupper, who also serves as the group's secretary, and Alan Shih.
Guardian Awards will also go to Ruby Corado, executive director of the LGBT community center Casa Ruby, and the Network for Victim Recovery of DC. Closing out the list of 2013 recipients are Roxana Olivas, director of the Mayor's Office of Latino Affairs, and Matthew Mahl, a sergeant with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
''GLOV is honored to recognize the 2013 recipients of the Guardian Award,'' Hassan Naveed, co-chair of GLOV, said in a statement praising the award recipients. ''They have gone above and beyond in their efforts to make our city safe for the LGBT community. We are grateful for their service, dedication, and commitment to ending hate crimes.''
GLOV's Guardian Awards reception will take place at Number Nine, 1435 P St. NW, Wednesday, Dec. 18, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The ceremony begins at 7 p.m. Suggested donation is $5. For more information, call 202-682-2245 or visit glovdc.org.
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Christian Lezzil
(Photo by Julian Vankim)
''You can always join the circus.''
Christian Lezzil is in many respects your typical 23-year-old, still plotting exactly what he wants to do with his life. But when people joke he could always fall back on Ringling Bros., Lezzil ripostes, ''I've done that already. I was a balloon artist [in high school] and I worked in the great circus of a strip club.''
Chances are, you remember if you ever caught Lezzil at Secrets, where he performed over the past year. ''When I started stripping,'' he says, ''I thought, well, I'm not really happy standing here just accepting money. It's an opportunity for me to enact all of these bizarre [performance] fantasies I've ever had.'' His chief inspiration was hair-metal bands, such as Kiss, ''the ones who make a spectacle of themselves.'' Lezzil's performances weren't ''sexual, short of me being naked.'' And they sometimes ended in the splits a la David Lee Roth from Van Halen's ''Jump'' video. In fact, the multi-tattooed Lezzil's first piece of body ink, seared on his ankle at age 17, is that exact image. ''I always identified with David Lee Roth,'' Lezzil says. ''He's been kind of my guardian angel for a while.''
Coverboy: Christian
(Photo by Julian Vankim)
Lezzil wasn't a natural stripper. For one thing the man born Eddie Generazio in Yorktown, Va., near Williamsburg, calls himself an intense introvert. ''I didn't like all the attention sometimes,'' he says about dancing naked. ''I don't see myself as too attractive, so I couldn't revel in it.''
Lezzil's biggest claim to fame while growing up was being part of an ''experimental rock band,'' one that truly experimented with genre and performance. ''We were the weirdest guys in high school,'' Lezzil says of his bandmates in Black Clover. A singer and drummer, Lezzil was every bit as focused on making a spectacle of himself then as now. In addition to playing instruments, ''We would put on puppet shows, with Care Bears and whatnot.'' The ''whatnot'' including balloons. ''It was just a real mess. We got a big kick out of it.'' The band recently regrouped and will release a new album on Amazon this month with the winking title We Used to Have a Band. Lezzil says he's unsure if they'll tour in support -- with or without puppets and balloons.
Coverboy: Christian
(Photo by Julian Vankim)
Lezzil's parents long ago made peace with the fact that both their children, including a daughter who's a photographer, are ''really sentimental children who enjoy finding beauty in life.'' He reasons his parents tell themselves, ''Well, he's not a physicist. And he wants to be a poet. And well, he's stripping now. He's just a weirdo. We'll just let him be a weirdo.''
Yes, his parents know about his stripping. ''I wear everything on my sleeve,'' he says. He's also embraced the ''weirdo'' term. He's currently in the editing phase of a book recounting his days as a stripper with the working title, I'm A Weird Guy Now: Christian Lezzil's Guide to Stripping. Lezzil considers writing his true calling. ''I've always wanted to be a writer,'' he says. ''I've always written in my journal to publish it.'' It's no wonder, then, that he's working toward his master's degree in literature at George Mason University.
Coverboy: Christian
(Photo by Julian Vankim)
Lezzil's book on stripping is very much informed by his classes in feminist theory and gender studies at Mason. The focus is more sober than erotic -- more on the logistical and sociological sides of stripping than the sexual. ''I do touch on my sexual misadventures,'' he explains, ''but not in a way that titillates. I kind of place it in a light that's repulsive. It's like dragging a club rat out into the pale, hungover morning.''
In any case, Lezzil's so-called sexual misadventures include both male and female participants. ''[Secrets] is a gay club, so we're all engaging in some sort of gay act,'' he laughs. More specifically, when asked how he identifies, Lezzil says, ''I used to tell people I was bi. I found it a really exhausting title because it leaves opportunity for every schmo to come into your life and move you. But honestly, when it comes down to it, I don't really see gender at all. … I wouldn't feel comfortable identifying one way or the other. I think 'pansexual' is the term, but I don't know if I agree with that either.''
Coverboy: Christian
(Photo by Julian Vankim)
For now, Lezzil isn't really ready to be moved romantically, much less domestically. ''I've always been running from a domestic life,'' he says, ''because I've always been traveling and I've always been doing weird things, like picking up stripper jobs.'' Lezzil, who has a pug named Gilbert back home, has also ''raised'' a ''drag daughter,'' Rumor Millz Lezzil, whom he began fostering after catching her at an amateur drag contest. ''I don't know anything about drag,'' he says. ''I just give her advice about performances and stuff like that. I'm just really proud of the way that she's taken that little bit of support that I gave her from the onset and turned it into her own career.''
''I think eventually my mind will be calmed,'' Lezzil says, ''and I'll be okay with having a normal domestic life and a real job that gives constant income. And I could have a dog that isn't at my parents' house.''
Coverboy: Christian
(Photo by Julian Vankim)
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Jared Lee
(Photo by Julian Vankim)
In his previous interview with Metro Weekly, Jared Lee said his life's philosophy was "Don't be an asshole." But that's not a hard task for the 27-year-old Baltimore resident, who comes across as eminently likable the moment he shakes hands and introduces himself.
Born and raised as in a conservative Baptist family in Virginia's Hampton Roads region, Jared excelled in sports, particularly soccer -- he earned All-State honors his senior year -- and went to play for Hampden-Sydney College, a small all-male institution in Farmville, Va. During that time, he was very closeted.
Relating the story of his first gay club experience, Jared says it was both eye-opening and surprising, because he had only ever seen stereotypical glimpses of gay life on TV, only to find himself smack-dab in the middle of a bunch of shirtless gay boys dancing to Robin S.'s "Show Me Love" at the Wave, a gay club in Norfolk, Va.
Coverboy: Jared
(Photo by Julian Vankim)
"It was a very weird feeling," he says. "It was a mix of ‘Everything is right with the world' and kind of overwhelming -- but in a good way."
Jared still plays soccer for recreational leagues in Baltimore and D.C. to keep his competitive edge. But he has also gotten into aerial silks, an athletic activity that fuses artistic expression with physical exertion requiring tremendous amounts of upper body strength, where performers hoist themselves into the air via two long cables of silk before completing acrobatic moves.
"There's a proper way, once you've climbed to a certain height, you can hold yourself up," he says. "There's a way you can wrap your foot in the silk, and a basic technique is to fall into a split once both your feet are wrapped independently."
"It' a lot like origami, because it's a lot of remembering different wrapping techniques for your hands and feet," he adds.
A graphic designer who one day hopes to become an art director for a fashion house or magazine, Jared devours fashion magazines and books on graphic design and typography. He recently quit his full-time job to focus more on his art, and plans to soon move to New York to break into the fashion and design world.
Coverboy: Jared
(Photo by Julian Vankim)
"Getting back to my artwork was one of my biggest triumphs," he says of his long-term plan to return to the Big Apple, where he once did a four-month internship. "I needed incentive to get back to it, because I had become complacent. I'd done well for myself and didn't want for anything, but I wasn't challenging myself."
While he saves up money for his planned move, Jared can be spotted bartending at Baltimore's Grand Central nightclub on weekends. A self-described "foodie" who abandoned his microwave to stop it from "nuking" the nutritional value out of his food, Jared's ideal first date would be going out to eat and enjoying an engaging conversation about music, art or movies.
Coverboy: Jared
(Photo by Julian Vankim)
"I love going to restaurants," he says. "I think that in a restaurant setting it's easier to sit down and talk to somebody and see them unplugged from other distractions."
And, yes, that would include the dreaded cellphone.
"That's my pet peeve," he says. "If somebody were to take their phone out while I was on a date with them, I'd be irritated."
With a weakness for bearded or scruffy men with dark features and light eyes, Jared's dated men of different ages, weights and races.
Coverboy: Jared
(Photo by Julian Vankim)
"I think it's very boring to date somebody who looks like yourself, and does what you do, and doesn't bring any kind of harmony or balance to the relationship or to your life," he says.
While Jared is not currently dating anyone, a potential suitor could always try to tempt him by ordering him a gin and tonic or bourbon on the rocks. "I'm very purist when it comes to spirits, because I have this obsession with the old-school bartending era," he says. "I appreciate the old-school cocktails. I just don't like the sugary sweet stuff. If it's blue or green, I'm not going to drink it."
Jared is appreciative of the many friends and acquaintances who supported him in his bid to become Metro Weekly's Coverboy of the Year. "I've had a lot of people come up to me and tell me they voted for me," he says. "It's been a really great opportunity, and it was a good win for the Charm City."
Coverboy: Jared
(Photo by Julian Vankim)
...moreBeyonce secretly released her new album today and almost broke the internet. Here are the funniest responses from our Gaysayer Twitter feed.
Both activists and lawmakers vow immediate action in response to the recent decision by India's Supreme Court to recriminalize same-sex relationships.
Medicare and Medicaid could cover gender-confirming surgery for transgender people for the first time, if the final policy review turns out similarly to this initial ruling.
The phrase "That's so gay!" has been used mostly in a negative context for decades. Some people use it as a way to attack or vilify the community, and others use it in fun, not realizing the damage it can do. As with the reclaiming of negative words and phrases such as "queer," this game seeks to turn "That's so gay!" into a positive opportunity to educate LGBTQs and allies, and even those people who use the phrase as an attack.
Produced by Windy City Times publisher Tracy Baim, says Online orders can be made through http://thatssogaygame.com .
The game will be made available to student and adults LGBTQ groups, including GSAs, as a fundraising tool, where they can keep $5 for every game sold.
"Words can be a tool of our enemies, or can empower us in our work," said Baim. "This game hopes to break down stereotypes while having some fun with our LGBTQ history. There are the well-known celebrities and media sensations, but also obscure authors, scientists, athletes and pioneers. The scope of the game goes back thousands of years and across multiple continents, all with more than 2,400 questions that will tease you, taunt you, and treat you to some amazing facts."
The game features questions in six categories, plus wild card questions. Each category coincides with a color of the rainbow flag-you get a question right, you get that color chip, and you build a rainbow flag to win the game. The categories are:
- RED: Celebrities, Athletes and Historical Figures
- ORANGE: Politics, Protest and the Courts
- YELLOW: Movies, Television and Media
- GREEN: Music, Theater and Dance
- BLUE: Literature, Art, Fashion and Culture
- PURPLE: Science, Spirituality, Health and Grab Bag
See https://www.facebook.com/
Gay nightlife awards season is in full effect, and the first red carpet rolls out this weekend at XL Nightclub or the 4th Annual Get Out Awards hosted by Sir Honey Davenport, Barbara Herr and Coco DeBall. Awards will be handed out in a variety of categories including Party Promoter of the Year, Best Go-Go […]
The post 4th Annual Get Out Awards this Saturday appeared first on GaySocialites.com.
We’ve got a change to report! Our new talk show, “The Buzz”, will now debut on Tuesday, December 17, 2013 with our “The Buzz: 2013 Glam Awards Special.” Since this is our first show, we want everything to be on key. Therefore, we are pushing the debut episode of “The Buzz” back to Tuesday, December […]
The post New release date for “The Buzz: 2013 Glam Awards Special” appeared first on GaySocialites.com.
The Met is currently reviving one of the oldest productions in its repertoire, Nathaniel Merrill’s 1969 staging of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. This revival is wonderfully sung, and Robert O’Hearn’s sets and costumes remain a lush evocation of 18th Century Vienna. The Met has announced that it this is the last time it will present […]
The post Opera Review: “Der Rosenkavalier” appeared first on GaySocialites.com.
Borough President Marty Markowitz says Brooklyn is the place to be for lesbians. In an interview with WNYC radio, Markowitz said: “We remain the lesbian capital of New York City and the Northeast,†Markowitz proclaimed. “In other words, we have a much larger lesbian population in Brooklyn. New York City is fortunate to have a […]
The post Brooklyn: The ‘lesbian capital’ of the Northeast? appeared first on GaySocialites.com.
The lively revival of Oliver! at Paper Mill Playhouse reminded me what a fundamentally odd musical it is. Composer Lionel Bart adapted it from Charles Dickens’s 1838 novel Oliver Twist, one of his darkest works, featuring thieves, whores and murderers galore. Bart lightened the overall tone of this young orphan’s quest to find home and […]
The post Theatre Review: “Oliver!” appeared first on GaySocialites.com.
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