Cyndi Lauper

NEW YORK — Cyndi Lauper is helping establish Manhattan’s first permanent housing for homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in Harlem.
Many homeless LGBT youth face violence in mainstream shelters, forcing them to rely on a small network of gay-friendly facilities, advocates say. The True Colors Residence, set to open in winter 2011, will provide young people between 18 and 24 with a place to live while helping them get back on their feet.
“Kids are coming out in greater numbers as they see themselves accepted and represented on TV and in movies, but they’re still being kicked out of their homes or running away and living on the streets,” Lauper said in a statement.
“We need to make sure we’re taking care of them. This is the next generation of the LGBT community.”
The residence, which will be built on W. 154th Street near Frederick Douglas Boulevard, was the brainchild of Lauper, her publicist Lisa Barbaris, and Colleen Jackson, executive director of the West End Intergenerational Residence, an Upper West Side facility geared toward young families and older low-income adults.
Floor plan of the True Colors Residence, the city’s first shelter for homeless LGBT teens.
The 80s pop singer, known for her hits “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “True Colors,” will donate money for the facility through her True Colors Fund, is an honorary board member and is championing and promoting it, Jackson said.
“There are no permanent residences [in Manhattan], and LGBT youth make up 40 percent of the runaway and homeless population, maybe even more,” said Jackson. “It’s outrageous.”
There are between 15,000 and 20,000 homeless youth in New York City, according to estimates from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Roughly 3,000 to 8,000 of them are LGBT, or comprising 20 to 40 percent homeless youth in the city, the Task Force said.
Currently, there are four emergency shelters and two transitional living shelters that house youths for up to two years. The True Colors Residence will provide young people with a permanent residence.
The six-story building will contain 30 studio apartments, a communal space, a library and computer room. It’s expected to cost roughly $11 million. Residents will sign a year-long Section 8 lease, and pay rent according to their income.
Most of the funding came from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, with additional funds from several city, state and corporate sources.
“New York is an expensive city for most people, much less young people with no support,” said Theresa Nolan, director of Green Chimneys, which runs programs for LGBT youth, including a West Harlem facility that provides temporary housing. She said most youth programs only accept people up to age 21, “so a lot of people fall out of youth housing when they’re just getting the hang of living independently and they’re most vulnerable.
“[True Colors] is affordable, and they get a little bit of support,” she said. “That’s priceless for young people.”
from DNAinfo

Adam Lambert

NEW YORK – “American Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert will mentor the show’s current crop of contestants next Tuesday, and will perform his single “Whataya Want from Me” on the following night’s results show.
“It’s true!” the glam-pop singer wrote on his Twitter page Tuesday. “In addition to performing on Idol April 14th, I will be mentoring the top 8 on the 13th. I feel honored to be asked.”
While the theme for next week’s performance show has not yet been announced, Tuesday’s top nine contestants tackled the John Lennon/Paul McCartney songbook.
Though “American Idol” mentors typically have decades of success under their belts, the show has been using younger artists this season. Miley Cyrus and Usher mentored the contestants through their Billboard No. 1s and R&B/soul-themed performances, while Katy Perry, Joe Jonas and Avril Lavigne served as guest judges during the early audition rounds.
Lambert was confident that he would have useful advice for those hoping to follow in his footsteps. “Even though I’m just at the start of my recording career, I hope to lend some insight as one who’s been thru the Idol adventure.” Lambert said on Twitter. “Excited!!”
Lambert also announced that he will release a new EP containing remixes of his first two singles — “For Your Entertainment” and “Whataya Want from Me” — and a third track from his debut album entitled “Voodo.” The “Remixes” EP will be released on Lambert’s Web site adamofficial.com on Friday and to digital retailers next Tuesday.
Evidently alluding to his controversial performance at the American Music Awards last November, when the openly gay singer kissed a male keyboardist, Lambert promised fans he would keep next week’s “Idol” appearance PG-rated. “Don’t worry America,” Lambert tweeted. “I will be beyond family friendly. Relax and enjoy. For Your Entertainment.”
from Reuters

NEW YORK – Some people work out to look good naked. Others skip a step.
Inside a heavily curtained fourth-floor dance studio is a male-only class specializing in “Hot Nude Yoga,” a form of sensualized tantric yoga practiced nude.
A few classes are coed, but male-only gatherings tend to be more popular and have become a mini-phenomenon in the gay community, with studios in Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. A studioless group in Chicago practices in the apartment of a nude yoga enthusiast.
Fans say the nudity aids in deepening their yoga practice while building a close, and emphatically nonsexual, community. “A lot of people, especially living in New York, don’t get the opportunity to connect with people in an intimate way,” said Aaron Star, who started the naked yoga movement.
And while participants do occasionally report a frisson of excitement, Star and the practice’s aficionados make one thing clear: This is about physical fitness.
“This is about yoga and appreciating your body,” said John Cottrell, 40, who teaches naked yoga classes in Salt Lake City twice a month. He calls them a safe, nonthreatening space “to help men especially look at themselves in a different way.
“It’s just fun. It’s a great workout,” he says.
Star began the practice to appeal to a primarily gay male audience and achieved fame in the yoga world with his DVD series “Hot Nude Yoga,” which allows aspiring yogis to practice in the privacy of their homes.
Hot, yes – in temperature, for starters.
Awkward? That, too.
At the small class I attended, an undeniable sexual charge hung in the room, making the exercise at times painfully weird and embarrassing. Many nude yoga classes revolve around partnering positions, a series of postures that put two men within striking distance of the other’s privates.
Not all serious yogis think the practice makes sense.
“I don’t see the point,” said Mary Dillion, who teaches clothed yoga in Manhattan. “I have a yoga practice that I like and I can be naked in my home. I don’t need to do naked yoga.”
And Joshua Stein, editor-at-large for OUT Magazine, who attended a class in 2008, says the quality of the yoga was diminished by the heightened sensuality.
“It’s almost as if the yoga is something between an afterthought and an excuse,” said Stein, who is heterosexual. “It gives you this gray area where you can be intimate physically, but not so aggressively intimate as in a bath house or in a bar.”
He describes being asked to do a child’s pose – a kneeling pose with arms stretched forward on the ground – while a partner draped himself on his back. “It’s not something you really need a partner to do,” he said.
Star acknowledges that partner work is a popular feature of Hot Nude Yoga that “generates a certain amount of heat” and keeps his client list high. Still, practitioners say they constantly combat the notion that their classes are orgies veiled as exercise.
At Nude Yoga NYC in Manhattan, nude yoga is not such a boys club. Instructor Isis Phoenix, 29, said her coed nude yoga studio attracts “a well-rounded population of ages, genders and sexual orientations.” The men usually outnumber women two-to-one, however.
Phoenix sees nudity as an extra pull for men, who often need an incentive to practice yoga. Still, she nixed the idea that nudity created a sexual element, but one of comfort.
“Men more often fall into a general greater ease with their bodies than women do,” she said.
But the trend seems to appeal mostly to gay men. David Flewelling teaches Mudraforce Yoga at a home studio in Montreal, Canada. As at Star and Cottrell’s studios, the majority of attendees at Mudraforce are gay.
Flewelling said sex is never part of the experience. Nude yoga, while extremely sensual, is not sexual, he said.
“There’s something fantastic about exercising without clothes,” he said. “You’re free of the restrictions that clothes put on and it puts everyone on an even keel.”
Even teachers of naked yoga, while railing against the suggestion that the class is tantamount to foreplay, can send mixed signals. When my class ended, I took aside the instructor, Jeffrey Duval, and asked how he got into naked yoga. Duval acknowledged he attended his first class because he thought it was about sex.
But his experience surpassed all his expectations.
“You’re shedding away your clothes, but you’re also shedding away insecurities and fear,” he said. “I can’t think of a more perfect way to practice.”
from The Associated Press