Arts & Entertainment
Best of Gay D.C. 2016: MEDIA
Blade readers voted for their media favorites
Best Local Blog
Brightest Young Things
Runner-up: DCist
Brightest Young Things (Photo by Ike Hayman; courtesy BYT)
Best Local Podcast
JellyVision
Runner-up: C.L.I.T. by Lezlink
JellyVision (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
“The JellyVision Show” combines humor with creative entrepreneurship co-hosted by standup comedian Tim Trueheart and Jennifer Crawford, also known as Jelly.
Crawford says she came up for the idea of the podcast in 2010 while running her own creative co-working space. Visual artists, performing artists and writers were coming to work on projects and Crawford was amazed by the level of creativity.
“If you weren’t in the building, you weren’t in the building,” Crawford says. “So I thought if we had a podcast we could expose people who weren’t coming into our building to these people that we were meeting every day. We could interview them and if just a few people tuned in it was a few people who didn’t know these creative entrepreneurs beforehand. It was really just an experiment.”
The experiment turned into a real project once Crawford’s business closed. Saddened, she and Trueheart, with whom she had improvised in a theater troupe for years, decided to keep the podcast going.
Now the podcast is recorded from Crawford’s dining room every Monday with episodes released on most podcast platforms, including iTunes and Google Play, weekly. The podcast now rakes in 5,000-7,000 downloads per month.
Crawford notes the podcast isn’t about how to become a millionaire, but how to live a lifestyle that incorporates doing what you love.
“But we wanted to bring an entertainment value to the table,” Crawford says, “so we throw in some fart jokes along the way.” (Mariah Cooper)
Best Local Twitter Feed
@DCHOMOS
“News, noise, food, sports, art, charity, fashion, TV, film, happy thoughts, all things LGBT+DC.”
(Second consecutive win in this category)
Runner-up: @alexmorash
@DCHOMOS (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Best Local TV Personality
Chuck Bell, NBC 4
(2015 runner-up; 2014 winner in this category)
Runner-up: Kidd O’Shea, ABC 7
Chuck Bell (Washington Blade photo by Jonathan Ellis)
Best Radio Station
Hot 99.5
“D.C.’s No. 1 hit music station and home of ‘The Kane Show.’”
(Second consecutive win in this category)
Runner-up: WAMU 88.5
HOT 99.5 at the Capital Pride Festival (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
To see winners in other categories in the Washington Blade’s Best of Gay D.C. 2016 Awards, click here.
Celebrity News
Madonna announces release date for new album
‘Confessions II’ marks return to the dance floor
Pop icon Madonna on Wednesday announced that her 15th studio album will be released on July 3.
Titled “Confessions II,” the new album is a sequel to 2005’s “Confessions on a Dance Floor,” an Abba and disco-infused hit.
The new album reunites Madonna with producer Stuart Price, who also helmed the original “Confessions” album. It’s her first album of new material since 2019’s “Madame X.”
“We must dance, celebrate, and pray with our bodies,” Madonna said in a press release. “These are things that we’ve been doing for thousands of years — they really are spiritual practices. After all, the dance floor is a ritualistic space. It’s a place where you connect — with your wounds, with your fragility. To rave is an art. It’s about pushing your limits and connecting to a community of like-minded people,” continued the statement. “Sound, light, and vibration reshape our perceptions. Pulling us into a trance-like state. The repetition of the bass, we don’t just hear it but we feel it. Altering our consciousness and dissolving ego and time.”
Denali (@denalifoxx) of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” performed at Pitchers DC on April 9 for the Thirst Trap Thursday drag show. Other performers included Cake Pop!, Brooke N Hymen, Stacy Monique-Max and Silver Ware Sidora.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Arts & Entertainment
In an act of artistic defiance, Baltimore Center Stage stays focused on DEI
‘Maybe it’s a triple-down’
By LESLIE GRAY STREETER | I’m always tickled when people complain about artists “going political.” The inherent nature of art, of creation and free expression, is political. This becomes obvious when entire governments try to threaten it out of existence, like in 2025, when the brand-new presidential administration demanded organizations halt so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programming or risk federal funding.
Baltimore Center Stage’s response? A resounding and hearty “Nah.” A year later, they’re still doubling down on diversity.
“Maybe it’s a triple-down,” said Ken-Matt Martin, the theater’s producing director, chuckling.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Gay D.C. police lieutenant arrested on child porn charges
Demonstrators disrupt OMB director hearing over PEPFAR
HIV/AIDS group NMAC is ‘destabilized’ and in financial crisis: sources
Madonna announces release date for new album
Senegalese court issues first conviction under new anti-LGBTQ law
An effort to increase the number of psychiatrists of color
Comings & Goings
Trump budget targets ‘gender extremism’
Minimal version of ‘Streetcar Named Desire’ heading to Dupont Underground
