L. Jason Metcalf (Lazaros)

"We had nights spent looking for campsites that resembled mars, nights out provoking art world tycoons with inappropriate questions , days in meditating and trying astral projection, sunsets roaming the red rocks in Sedona making statues from pebbles Making wishes in rivers and picking up soothsaying hitchhikers. Laz befriended everyone - from Haitian high priests to morman missionaries. Laz recognized people’s missions and never sought to interfere, but instead, honored and practiced a life of spiritual purpose, led by a endless childlike curiosity and dedication to craft. Laz had a high pitched laugh and moved with a sense of urgency that kept things interesting. When we met, he had a white dove named Thoth and drove a white mazda, which we jokingly referred to as his spaceship. On many of our adventures it would break down and we would have to coax it into working by reciting it affirmations. It worked, obviously. We met right before his 33rd birthday. That year, he smoked cigarettes, drank Red Bull and listened to a lot of bon iver. It was a year he often described as his “Jesus year” as he felt as though he had been saved by a series of strange spiritual expereinces, some of which i was lucky to bear witness to. We were both strict vegans that year, constantly on road trips, which resulting in us only eating at the whole foods hot bar, which became an expensive habit, untl he figured out how to make their garlickly kale salad himself. Laz was a ferocious and hard-working artist who liked to do everything himself . He figured out how to have internet without a major internet provider that year. He built everything by hand, from websites, to light boxes, to airbrushed images of our galaxies brightest stars. He was pathologically kind, generous, and open-hearted- a rarity in Los Angeles, and it wasnt long before I was convinced he must have come from some civilization much more advanced than ours. His greatest strength was his ability to see the divinity in everyone. That was his gift. He could see God everywhere. In license plates, in colors. He was the holiest man I have met or seen or will ever meet. The most colorful, inclusive, beautifully bizarre, spiritual art warrior of our generation. He perceived the world in Hi-Res, attuned to the beauty and miraculousness of everything around him. Laz, The hardest part about this grief is understanding the impossibility of you. Of someone who was a connector, a giver; a believer, a prophet, a protector and a catalyst for so many. If I were to describe you to someone who never got to meet you, words would fall short. I would probably sound like I was making you up, because You were beyond explanation. Your legacy is a legacy of light. It lives within Jenny, Ryan, Rachel, Jan and Brad. Within the friends you made all over the world. Within Dual Forces, and the group of people who choracled around you learning to defend themselves against complicated things. Your life was complicated, your death, was complicated, but your legacy was very simple. God. Love. Truth."

June 10, 2026