In the Galleries: Anna Campbell

In her show, ‘Etiquette Kit’ Anna Campbell pokes wryly at the status quo concepts of gender and sexuality.

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Christopher Harrity

www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/art/2015/01/16/galleries-anna-campbell

“Lonely Homosexual Virgin” College Student Can Hardly Believe What Happened After He Gave Up Drinking

“It’s with a fresh set of eyes that I greet my final semester at UVA, and for the first time, sober ones,” college student Joe Leonard writes in a humorous new op-ed published in the Cavalier Daily. “That’s right kids, I am clean and sober, on the wagon, and going to AA.”

Leonard is a senior at the University of Virginia and a self-proclaimed “lonely homosexual virgin” who recently came to terms with the fact that he’s an alcoholic. But he says he’s determined to get his life back on track.

“No more stumbling outside of parties, throwing up and returning with the excuse that I was ‘praying,’” he writes. “No more waking up naked in my bed, finding my Lady Gaga T-shirt in the dishwasher with no memory of the night before.”

“Now my days are filled with waking up and going to class, doing simple chores like buying a lamp and going to AA meetings,” he says. “[A]nd no, I can’t tell you what we say in them, so stop asking.”

Leonard writes that before joining AA his days off from school consisted of “sleeping until 5 p.m., watching gay TV shows with my mother, and drinking until 5 a.m.”

In 2013, Leonard tried seeing a psychologist about his drinking habit, but balked after he saw the guy’s business card, which read “Combining modern behavioral psychology with traditional Christian values.”

“While I am a perfectly happy Presbyterian, I am also a notorious homosexual, so needless to say I was apprehensive,” he writes. “My fears were quickly realized when he asked me ‘Now, did anyone introduce you into homosexuality?’”

Leonard left the therapy session and never went back.

A few months later, in April of last year, he decided it was time to make a change. Or at least try to make a change.

“On April 1, 2014 … I called my father and told him I was an alcoholic in a conversation that lasted 2 minutes and 36 seconds,” Leonard recalls. “It probably would have been quicker had I not spent an entire minute convincing him it was not in fact an April Fool’s joke.”

Leonard vowed to lay off the booze for a while. His sobriety lasted about a month, before he went back to drinking. The none night he consumed 10 vodka cranberries and somehow wound up in ambulance ride with a broken ankle.

“While it gave everyone a good laugh to see me wheeling down the streets of New York city on my knee scooter every day,” he writes, “I realized it was probably time to quit drinking permanently.”

“What is my life like now, you ask?” he continues. “Well, I wake up, actually go to class, meet some pretty amazing people at AA meetings, and have time to think about what the hell I’m going to do with my life once I graduate.”

“See kids,” he concludes, “sobriety isn’t all that bad.”

Related stories:

Ten Signs You Are Partying Way Too Much

STUDY: Gay And Lesbian College Students At Higher Risk For Alcohol Abuse

Back To School: 10 Essential Items Every Gay Guy Must Bring To College

Graham Gremore

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Can Mike Huckabee Out-Santorum Rick Santorum?

The two possible presidential nominees would both be lousy leaders when it comes to LGBT equality. But which would be worse?

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Matt Baume

www.advocate.com/politics/election/2015/01/16/can-mike-huckabee-out-santorum-rick-santorum

Gay Star Travel Expo 2015: exhibitor round up

  One-stop travel shop returns to London’s Heaven nightclub this Saturday (Jan 17)

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jamiet

www.gaystarnews.com/article/gay-star-travel-expo-2015-exhibitor-round150115

Justin Bieber Proves His Bulge Is Real And John Travolta Has A New Gym Buddy

Justin Bieber really, really wants you to know that those Calvin Klein photos weren’t photoshopped, you guys, so he posted this pic to Instagram. Fine, JB, now take this guy on his sex offer and all is forgiven.

Benedict Cumberbatch was nominated as best actor for his remarkable portrayal of late gay hero Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, but our favorite moment from the Oscar nominations being announced this morning was definitely when Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs accidentally said “Dick Poop,” instead of Mr. Turner‘s cinematographer Dick Pope. Hooray for live TV!

If it’s not already on your radar, mark your calendar for the film adaptation of the cult musical The Last Five Years. The intimate deconstruction of a love affair and marriage stars Into the Woods‘ Anna Kendrick and Smash‘s Jeremy Jordan and will be in theaters and avail on VOD February 13.

Look out Las Vegas, Mariah Carey is coming for you. The entertainer is taking her girls to Sin City for a residency at Caesar’s Palace beginning May 6.

Did you hear the one about John Travolta pumping iron? Nope, that’s not the name of the other guy in this photo. The 60-year-old entertainer, who is 1000 percent hetero, went to the gym at 3 a.m. and made a new friend. But, ahem, probably not in the way you’re thinking.

Travolta’s Hairspray costar Queen Latifah will portray bisexual blues legend Bessie Smith in a biopic helmed by out director Dee Rees (Pariah) that HBO will premiere sometime this spring.

Jeremy Kinser

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