August 4, 2016 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

SF Pride to members: Pay dues

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Vol. 46 • No. 31 • August 4-10, 2016

Gay man to head SF school district

Courtesy Sabrina Moultrie

Teqnika Moultrie, left, and her wife, Sabrina Moultrie

by Seth Hemmelgarn

Peninsula A lesbian killed in Austin Sign of the (leather) times F T Steven Underhill

by Heather Cassell

his was the happiest time in Teqnika Moultrie’s life, but it was tragically cut short early Sunday morning in Austin,

Texas.

The 30-year-old school bus driver for the Sequoia Union High School District in Redwood City was shot in the head and killed instantly at 2:13 a.m. July 31. She died in her wife’s arms.

The Austin Police Department announced Wednesday that the suspect they had previously identified, Endicott McCray, 24, was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals in Atlanta.

Moultrie and her wife, Sabrina Moultrie, were enjoying an evening out on Sixth Street, a popular entertainment district a few blocks away from the Lone Star State’s Capitol.

They were in Austin visiting Sabrina Moultrie’s sister and brother-in-law, Tabatha and Timothy Volking, and her niece.

High school sweethearts and Bay Area natives, the lesbian couple married in a private civil ceremony in San Mateo April 18, said Sabrina Moultrie. They were planning a big wedding ceremony at Teqnika Moultrie’s aunt and uncle’s home in Atherton October 15. Sabrina Moultrie, 32, whose maiden name is Rudd, took her wife’s last name.

This Sunday they were going to have their wedding shower. Instead, Sabrina Moultrie is planning her wife’s funeral.

The Bay Area Reporter spoke with a heartbroken Sabrina Moultrie on the phone from Austin Tuesday morning.

Vacation gone wrong

Sabrina and Teqnika Moultrie had arrived in Austin on Saturday. The couple spent the day having a good time tubing down a local river and visiting the biggest gas station in the world, Buc-ee’s.

That night, Teqnika Moultrie, who was full of life, wanted to experience Austin. She rallied everyone to hit the town. They headed downSee page 13 >>

rom taking a selfie to checking their cellphones, these four guys also checked out the Up Your Alley street fair Sunday, July 31.

The South of Market tradition gets locals into the leather and fetish spirit for the much larger Folsom Street Fair in late September and helps raise money for local charities. Demetri Moshoyannis, executive director of Folsom Street Events, which produces the fair, told the Bay Area Reporter Mon-

day that an estimated 12,000 people attended Up Your Alley, a slight increase from last year. The associated parties were a huge hit, he said, with Bay of Pigs selling out and Rough kicking it up a notch with DJs Paul Goodyear and Russ Rich and some artistic flair from Brian Kent Productions. For more information on upcoming events, visit http://www.folsomstreetevents.org. For more photos from Up Your Alley, see page 35 in BARtab.

gay man is set to lead the San Francisco Unified School District on an interim basis as the city searches for a replacement for the outgoing superintendent.

Myong Leigh has Jane Philomen Cleland worked for the district Interim since 2000, most recently Superintendent as deputy superintendent. Myong Leigh Superintendent Richard A. Carranza announced last week that he’s accepted a preliminary offer from the Houston Independent School District Board of Education to lead that district. The San Francisco Board of Education unanimously agreed to appoint Leigh as interim superintendent upon Carranza’s likely departure early next month.

See page 13 >>

SF Sisters headed to Prague Pride

by Heather Cassell

T

ing the week filled with more than 100 events at the Pride Village, the Sisters will speak at panel discussions about HIV/AIDS, be present at a screening of The Sisters, take a trolley ride through Prague, hold a trivia night, and meet up with Sisters from the Czech Republic, Germany, and other countries.

wo Sisters of the San Francisco order of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are going to Prague Pride to educate around LGBT issues and to spread goodwill in the Czech Republic.

Sister Vicious Power Hungry Bitch, 64, and Sister Roma, 53, will HIV/AIDS travel to Prague to participate in The Czech Republic is also batthe weeklong celebration, themed tling a serious problem with HIV/ “Love is Love,” August 7-15.

AIDS and government officials’ The Sisters are two of 50 interperception of individuals infected national guests of Prague Pride with the virus. At the beginning Rick Gerharter at the celebration that is also a of the year 30 people were crimiSisters Vicious Power Hungry Bitch, left, and Roma surround human rights conference. nally charged with spreading husbands Czeslaw Walek, second from left, and Willem Van Der Bas, “This theme ‘Love is Love’ just HIV/AIDS and there are reports right, at the July 26 fundraiser and send off party at the Pilsner Inn. couldn’t be more important at that 100 more people are set to this time,” said Roma, pointing be similarly charged, said Czeslaw tivism in the past,” said Willem Van Der Bas, to current headlines in the news.

Walek, chairman of Prague Pride international public relations of Prague Pride.

“Now is the time for love. I’m excited to share who is married to Van Der Bas. Added Roma, “The thing about Pride celthe Sisters’ message of love.”

The country’s LGBT community needs to ebrations anywhere you go in the world ... it’s The sixth annual Prague Pride will also mark learn how to fight for their rights, Walek and Van the beginning of a marriage equality campaign, just our chance for our community to get toDer Bas believe. For too long the community begether to celebrate each other, our freedom, and lieved that the government was going to take care #CzechMarriageEquality.

Sister Vicious PHB is also going to address free- to take Pride in who we are. It’s our special day of the issue, but “now we are starting to realize ... to celebrate the obstacles that we have over- that this is something that we have to fight for dom of expression around the world, she said. come and just look toward the future with hope Two Prague Pride organizers were in San ourselves, that this is our issue,” said Walek.

Francisco for the past year, returning home last and realize we are surrounded by love.”

“We are opening our eyes that we have to step Their goal as ambassadors of San Francisco is week. The Bay Area Reporter interviewed them up,” he added. to raise awareness around HIV/AIDS, the order, before they left.

See page 12 >> and to spread joy in the way only they can. Dur“We invited the Sisters because of their ac-

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2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

t

SF Pride to institute member dues

by David-Elijah Nahmod

T

he San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, the organization which oversees the city’s annual Pride parade and other related events, has announced that members of the organization will need to begin paying annual membership dues of $15.

This is the first time in SF Pride’s 46-year history that dues are being charged – membership was previously free.

According to a July 19 email sent to its members, all memberships will be honored through November 12, at which time the $15 requirement will go into effect for new and renewing members.

Pride Executive Director George Ridgely explained to the Bay Area Reporter why the fee was being implemented.

“The cost to produce the annual SF Pride parade and celebration has been increasing significantly over the past several years and membership dues are just one of several avenues we are exploring to secure the funding we need to ensure the sustainability of the event,” Ridgely said.

Ridgely hopes that as revenues increase, SF Pride can offer more events for its members to attend.

“We want to expand on our yearround engagement with the membership via community forums, speakers series, and other activities that go beyond our typical membership meetings,” he said.

Ridgely added that members’ input about the dues was solicited at SF Pride’s monthly membership meetings during the past year.

“SF Pride members feel passionate about SF Pride and the importance of the event to the LGBTQ community in the Bay Area and around the globe,” Ridgely pointed out. “Many of our members have been with the organization for a very long time and the feedback received during the development of the pro-

Rick Gerharter

Matching flaggers joined the line of marchers during this year’s LGBT Pride parade.

gram indicated that they were more than willing to show their investment in the organization.”

Brian Basinger, of Q Foundation, a nonprofit that provides rental subsidies to low-income LGBTQ people who live with HIV or other disabilities, as well as to LGBTQ seniors, told the B.A.R. that he understands the need for SF Pride to charge annual dues.

“As a former grand marshal and as someone who wears the responsibility for leading an organization, including managing its finances, I understand the need to pay the bills,” Basinger said.

Basinger served as a community grand marshal in 2015.

“I support Pride’s efforts at exploring all available avenues to remain financially healthy, including mobilizing the community to apply pressure for the city to provide adequate resources for Pride,” he added.

Basinger pointed out that Q Foundation does not court money from corporate or wealthy donors.

“We understand the tendency that wealth has in influencing an agenda,” he said. “I know that Pride has historically been very sensitive to erecting economic barriers to participa-

tion for our community members, and so I trust they have thought through that issue when it comes to membership dues,” he said.

Patrick Henry, a gay man who lives near Dolores Park, told the B.A.R. that paying dues most likely wouldn’t influence his decision on whether or not to join SF Pride.

Henry is not currently a member.

He did, however, express a few concerns about the dues.

“I’m unclear what the reasoning is for this new policy,” he said. “I’d be concerned that the committee might be trying to discourage fairweather participants, if that has been a problem. If the money is needed and there’s no hidden agenda, then $15 wouldn’t be prohibitive to me.”

Ridgely said that reaction from SF Pride’s current members has been positive.

“As we grow the program we will be looking for partners to join us in adding value for the membership, such as the recent partnership we forged with the Commonwealth Club of California,” he said. “If the dues program is successful it will provide the additional funds we need to expand upon our engagement.”t

Green accused in phone smuggling attempt

by Seth Hemmelgarn

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ichael Sione Green, who’s on trial in the 2013 fatal shooting of a lesbian in San Francisco, has been accused of trying to have a cellphone smuggled into him in jail.

Christian Cornejo also faces charges in the alleged incident, which was first reported by the San Francisco Examiner.

Cornejo, 23, and Green, 27, are both accused of having an unauthorized cellphone or electronic device in a correctional setting and conspiracy, according to Eileen Hirst, Sheriff Vicki Hennessy’s chief of staff.

Green is being tried on charges of murder and attempted murder, among other counts, after he allegedly shot Melquiesha “Mel” Warren, 23, and a friend of Warren’s in a parking lot November 17, 2013 near Club OMG, the gay nightclub at 43 Sixth Street.

Warren died of her injuries, but her friend survived. The shooting occurred after a minor collision involving the car Warren was in and another vehicle.

The trial began July 13 and is expected to conclude within the next couple of weeks.

Green, who’s in custody on $50 million bail, fled to Florida after the shooting but was arrested there in May 2014 and extradited to San Francisco.

Cornejo, who was booked into custody Friday at 5:24 p.m., remains in jail on a state parole hold, Hirst

said. She didn’t know Eileen Burke, Green’s what he was on parole attorney, didn’t respond for. to requests for comment.

“We had informaAssistant District Attion that there may be torney Heather Trevisan an attempt to smuggle a rested her case last week. cell phone into the jail,” In her opening stateHirst told the Examiner. ment Wednesday, July “We ... were able to inter20, Burke told jurors Courtesy SFPD cept before it made it to that the evidence would the jail.”

Michael Sione Green show Green isn’t the perHirst told the Bay son who killed Warren.

Area Reporter that the sheriff deBurke said that, among other differpartment’s internal affairs and ences, the shooter is 6 feet 8 inches criminal investigations units both tall, nine inches taller than Green. have open investigations of the alShe also said that the shooter was leged cellphone incident. wearing a black top, while Green Hirst said she couldn’t discuss had worn royal blue that night. whether law enforcement officials Monday, Joselito Perez, a parking had known about the alleged plan attendant who witnessed the shootbefore Friday. ing, described the shooter as an “AfInvestigators are trying to deterrican guy” who was 5 feet 5 inches mine whether Cornejo had visited tall weighing 140 to 150 pounds Green before, she said. Asked how who was wearing a blue Polo shirt. the two men knew each other, Hirst Looking at Green in court, Perez said, “We hope to find that out.” said he wasn’t the shooter.

She couldn’t comment on whethOther witnesses have said that the er Green’s jail cell has been searched man who shot Green and her friend since Cornejo’s arrest. was wearing a black shirt.

This type of incident is “thankDr. Scott Fraser, a neurophysiolofully not very common,” Hirst gist and expert in eyewitness memsaid. ory, testified Monday that it’s not She added, “I would assume” the unusual for people to misremember district attorney’s office and the FBI specific colors. are also investigating the incident “People get colors mixed up all “since they assisted us, but I really the time,” said Fraser, although don’t know.” they’re “very good” at remembering Alex Bastian, a spokesman for the whether colors were light or dark.

DA’s office, declined to comment.

Sheriff ’s deputies had been FBI spokesman Prentice Danchecking people’s pockets and ner said, “We don’t discuss ongoing See page 9 >> investigations.”

t

International News>>

August 4-10, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 3

PrEP tops news at AIDS conference

by Liz Highleyman

H

IV prevention including PrEP grabbed the headlines at the recent 21st International AIDS Conference, in Durban, South Africa.

With medical breakthroughs in the areas of antiretroviral treatment and biomedical prevention, the focus has turned to access for everyone who needs it worldwide. The previous AIDS conference in Durban in 2000 spearheaded the drive for global access to antiretroviral therapy, and some hope the July 18-22 meeting will play the same role for prevention.

“PrEP can and does work remarkably well, and combining PrEP and ART can virtually eliminate HIV transmission,” said outgoing International AIDS Society President and AIDS 2016 co-chair Chris Beyrer. “Let’s take these compelling findings and make Durban 2016 the start of the PrEP access era.”

PrEP use rising in US

The U.S. – where daily Truvada (tenofovir/emtricitabine) for HIV prevention was approved in 2012 – has seen a surge of interest in PrEP, especially among gay and bisexual men. The biggest gains have been seen in cities like San Francisco and New York, where gay men and community groups have promoted its use.

Scott McCallister from Gilead Sciences reported new findings from a survey of retail pharmacies, showing that a total of 79,684 individuals started Truvada for PrEP between 2012 and the end of 2015 – a 738 percent increase.

At the recent American Society for Microbiology’s Microbe meeting the Gilead researchers reported that approximately 49,000 people had started PrEP, but McCallister told the Bay Area Reporter that the team has switched to a more comprehensive pharmacy data source that captures more users.

About three-quarters of the PrEP users are men. While the absolute number of women taking PrEP rose slightly since 2012, the much larger increase among men lowered women’s share of the total. Pharmacy records often do not include information about race or ethnicity, but among those that did, McCallister said users were largely white.

Looking only at 2015, the pharmacy survey found that PrEP was prescribed to 2,936 people in New York City; 1,094 in San Francisco; 1,001 in Chicago; 840 in Washington, D.C.; 660 in Los Angeles; and 574 in Seattle.

Experts agree that these numbers are too low, but it is not clear exactly how low. A recent informal survey by the B.A.R. of large PrEP providers in San Francisco put the cumulative number of users at more than 6,000, including 1,000 at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation’s Strut sexual health center and 1,800 at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco.

Pierre-Cédric Crouch, Strut nursing director, gave an overview of its PrEP program, where care is led by nurses and navigators are available to help clients figure out how to pay for Truvada. Among the more than 1,000 clients enrolled so far, retention and adherence have been good and there have been no new HIV infections. Crouch said.

“Community-based organizations can step up to deliver PrEP,” Crouch concluded. “PrEP helps people build better relationships with their positive partners – HIV status doesn’t matter anymore when it comes to love and dating.”

Turning to potential drawbacks, researchers at the conference reported that young adults taking Truvada for PrEP experienced a modest decrease in bone density after starting, but this stabilized after several months and mostly reversed after stopping. Another study found that clinically meaningful declines

Liz Highleyman

Strut nursing director Pierre-Cédric Crouch gave an overview of the health center’s PrEP program at the 21st International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa.

in kidney function among Truvada PrEP users are rare and monitoring every six months appears adequate for most people.

Finally, Dr. Robert Grant from the UCSF Gladstone Institutes reported that drug resistance in key PrEP trials was very low, at just 0.05 percent.

Even among people who accidentally started PrEP while unaware that they were already HIV infected, a majority did not develop resistance, and for those who did it could easily be overcome by using different drugs.

PrEP outside the US

Daily Truvada is the only PrEP option approved by the FDA, but taking PrEP on an “as needed” basis before and after sex is also effective, the French Ipergay study found.

The Ipergay regimen consists of two Truvada pills taken in the 24 hours before anticipated sex and one pill on each of the two days afterwards. Last year lead investigator Jean-Michel Molina reported that

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“on-demand” PrEP reduced the risk of HIV infection by 86 percent compared to a placebo.

At AIDS 2016 Molina presented findings from an open-label extension of Ipergay, in which everyone took the active drug. Annual HIV incidence was 6.6 percent in the placebo arm versus 0.4 percent in the Truvada arm in the randomized trial plus the open-label phase combined, a risk reduction of 97 percent.

France was the second country to approve Truvada for HIV prevention, and Molina reported that a total of 1,077 people – mostly gay men – had started PrEP through July. He added that wider use is hampered by lack of funding and not enough trained providers.

Gilead’s McCallister said Truvada for PrEP is also approved in Canada, Australia, Peru, Kenya, and South Africa, and is pending in Brazil and Thailand. The European Medicines Agency approved PrEP last month.

On August 2 a high court in the U.K. ruled that the National Health Service in England is responsible for funding PrEP, rebutting the agency’s position that the decision should be left up to local councils. But NHS England has challenged the ruling and called on Gilead to make Truvada affordable enough for wider use.

PrEP options in the pipeline

While oral Truvada is the only drug formulation currently used for PrEP, other options are being tested, including long-acting injectable drugs and antiretrovirals delivered in gels or vaginal rings.

Roy Gulick from Weill Cornell Medical Center reported findings from an early PrEP study of another daily oral medication already approved for HIV treatment, maraviroc (Selzentry). This study saw no new HIV infections among 188 non-trans women, and maraviroc was safe and well tolerated. A related study, howev-

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er, found that oral maraviroc did not prevent baby monkeys from becoming infected with an HIV-like virus.

David Margolis from ViiV Healthcare reported findings from an HIV treatment study showing that a pair of long-acting injectable antiretrovirals – the experimental integrase inhibitor cabotegravir and the approved nucleoside analog rilpivirine – administered once every four or eight weeks maintained undetectable viral load.

While this study looked at HIV treatment, long-acting injectable cabotegravir, rilpivirine, and another nucleoside analog – Merck’s MK8591 or EFda – are also being studied for PrEP. Myron Cohen from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine said that MK-8591 so far looks like an “exceptional agent” with a long half-life that might potentially be used in a long-lasting implant for PrEP. The drawback of long-acting drugs is they cannot be removed from the body if side effects occur, and if one drug lasts longer than others (known as a “long tail”) it could lead to resistance.

Although most people in Margolis’ study experienced some injection site pain, they agreed that getting shots was worthwhile and they liked not having to think about HIV every day.

For HIV serodiscordant couples, combining PrEP and antiretroviral treatment provides extra protection.

Jared Baeten, lead investigator for the Partners PrEP study, reported that when HIV-negative partners took daily PrEP for the first six months after their HIV-positive partner started treatment, the risk of transmission fell by 95 percent.

“Interventions like this could have a substantial effect on the HIV epidemic,” Baeten said. “Both PrEP and ART are extremely important interventions that can virtually eliminate HIV transmission.”t

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4 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

Volume 46, Number 31 August 4-10, 2016 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Michael M. Yamashita Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013) Publisher (2003 – 2013) Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman BARTAB EDITOR & EVENTS LISTINGS EDITOR Jim Provenzano ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko • Seth Hemmelgarn CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ray Aguilera • Tavo Amador • Race Bannon Erin Blackwell • Roger Brigham Brian Bromberger • Victoria A. Brownworth Brent Calderwood • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Belo Cipriani Richard Dodds • Michael Flanagan Jim Gladstone • David Guarino Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell • John F. Karr Lisa Keen • Matthew Kennedy • Joshua Klipp David Lamble • Max Leger Michael McDonagh • David-Elijah Nahmod Paul Parish • Sean Piverger • Lois Pearlman Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota • Bob Roehr Donna Sachet • Adam Sandel • Khaled Sayed Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Sari Staver • Jim Stewart Sean Timberlake • Andre Torrez • Ronn Vigh Ed Walsh • Cornelius Washington Sura Wood ART DIRECTION Jay Cribas PRODUCTION/DESIGN Max Leger PHOTOGRAPHERS Jane Philomen Cleland • FBFE Rick Gerharter • Gareth Gooch Lydia Gonzales • Jose Guzman-Colon Rudy K. Lawidjaja • Georg Lester • Dan Lloyd Jo-Lynn Otto • Rich Stadtmiller Steven Underhil • Dallis Willard • Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge • Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING Scott Wazlowski – 415.829.8937 NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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<< Open Forum

t FDA’s door ajar for blood ban change

I

t’s urgent that LGBTs and allies press the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to change its gay ban on blood donations. The FDA announced last week that it is accepting public comment, supported by scientific evidence, to develop options to replace time-based blood donation deferrals with blood donation guidelines based on individual risk. This move is long overdue and we support the FDA’s decision to finally solicit evidence-based documentation – which is plentiful.

The FDA has been dithering on changing its policy for years. As it stands now, only blood donations from gay and bisexual men who have been abstinent for one year can be accepted. It’s not as strict as the previous ban, which prohibited blood donations from men who’ve had sex with men even once since 1977. But as we noted last December, even this one-year prohibition continues to discriminate against and stigmatize gay and bi men. Decades of scientific research have advanced our understanding of HIV transmission. When the AIDS epidemic was raging, there were no accurate tests and blood centers didn’t screen donations. Now blood donations can be tested more accurately for many diseases. After the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June, sexually active gay and bi men were turned away from Florida blood banks under the FDA’s current policy, which apparently renewed the effort of activists and others to call for changes, and for the FDA to take notice.

Equality California, the statewide LGBT rights group, has made changing the federal blood donor policy a priority.

It started the Every Drop Counts initiative, which has mobilized the LGBT community and its allies to send thousands of emails and letters to the FDA asking for an end to the ban. EQCA also sponsored a resolution in 2014, authored by Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), and another one in 2015 by Assemblymen Bloom, Eduardo Garcia (DCoachella), and Evan Low (D-Campbell) calling on the FDA to end policies based on fear and ignorance and replace them with rules based on current science and

understanding of HIV. Low is a gay man who has consistently challenged the FDA’s policies since he was elected to the Assembly.

The FDA’s request for comments supported by scientific evidence, such as data from research, is a critical new development. It means that the agency is giving serious consideration to revising its policies. Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat who is the only out U.S. senator, has been active at the federal level on this issue. She also praised the public comment announcement. “It is encouraging that the FDA is taking another step forward to develop better blood donor policies that are grounded in science, don’t unfairly single out one group of individuals, and allow all healthy Americans to donate,” she said in a statement. “I will continue to push for policies that secure our nation’s blood supply in a scientifically sound manner based on individual risk.”

Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund is another LGBT organization that has been critical of the FDA ban. In a statement, it also

referenced the Orlando tragedy, saying that the attention garnered by the rejection of gay and bi blood donors put a human face on the discriminatory policy. “We know how HIV is – and is not – transmitted, we know the degree of risk presented by different types of activities and we know how long it takes before tests are able to detect it in a person’s blood,” the agency stated. “The only thing that should be required once the FDA gets on board with an individualized risk assessment is the development and testing of a questionnaire that will provide an accurate picture of the potential donor’s risk activities over the prior two months.”

We encourage LGBT and allied doctors, researchers, and health advocates to submit public comment to the FDA. The comment period is open until November 25 and statements can be made electronically by following the instructions at https://www.federalregister. gov/articles/2016/07/28/2016-17804/blooddonor-deferral-policy-for-reducing-the-riskof-human-immunodeficiency-virus-transmission-by. The FDA has taken three decades to open this door to change and we must prevent it from shutting.t

CA must lead on gun violence research

by Alan Martinez

jority, Initiative 594, which has put into place universal background hen my nephew, Chris, was checks. Nevada and Maine will murdered two years ago in have similar initiatives on their state the Isla Vista massacre near UC ballots this November. When the Santa Barbara, I thought that all the issue is put to the voters, they supNational Rifle Association did was port sensible measures to make gun block gun control legislation the ownership safer. every few years that such legislation In 1996 Congress threatened to appeared before Congress. But the strip the Center for Disease Control NRA is doing much, much more. It and Prevention’s funding if it did Alan Martinez is lobbying and proposing legislaany research or collected any data tion constantly at the state and local regarding gun violence. As a conlevels. In 2015 the NRA and the gun lobby insequence of this, the CDC will not be able to troduced 70 – that’s right 70 – bills at the state do such research until there is a Democratic level that would make guns easier to purchase majority in the House and a filibuster proof and carry. majority in the Senate.

Bills that would force colleges to allow guns In June the American Medical Association on college campuses have been introduced this adopted a policy of calling gun violence year in 18 states – they have been defeated in 16 a “public health crisis” and called states so far. Bills to allow guns in K-12 schools for Congress to overturn the ban have been introduced in 14 states and defeated on gun violence research by the in 12. Bills that would dismantle state conCDC. “Even as America faces a cealed carry permitting systems and let people crisis unrivaled in any other decarry hidden, loaded handguns in public withveloped country, the Congress out a permit or training have been introduced prohibits the CDC from conin 22 states this year and been defeated in 13 ducting the very research that so far. New Stand Your Ground legislation was would help us understand the introduced in six states this year and has so problems associated with gun far failed in five. In addition to this the NRA violence and determine how to and other gun lobbies have lawsuits pending reduce the high rate of firearm-related deaths against states and localities regarding existing and injuries,” said Dr. Steven Stack on behalf gun control laws. of the AMA. Who is currently fighting the gun lobby in The Institute of Medicine of the National the legislatures and the courts? Right now the Academies has called for research in the area fight is carried on by a variety of organizations: of which firearms interventions are effective in Moms Demand Action, Everytown for Gun reducing gun violence, research on the potenSafety, the Brady Campaign, the Coalition to tial of different safe gun technology approaches, Stop Gun Violence, No Notoriety, Sandy Hook and research on the effect of video games and Promise, Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, other media on gun violence. Between 2010 and and many other groups. It is a complex and con2014 an estimated 43,000 hate crimes commitstant fight, spread out over the entire country. ted in the U.S. involved guns. More than one But the scene is not all bleak: last year Washin three hate crimes against persons is a crime ington state approved, by a 59.27 percent maof violence (Everytown, 2016). More research

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needs to be done in this area.

California already has some of the toughest gun control laws in the U.S. and more could be in California, but what is missing nationally is the funding for research on gun violence commensurate with the public health emergency it really is. This is where California could really step up to the plate by providing funding to the University of California and state university systems to do the research that the CDC is prohibited from doing.

Recently, state Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis) successfully sponsored legislation to give the University of California $5 million over five years for research on gun violence. The best contribution that California can make to this fight right now is to fund a multi-campus research effort that would take the place of what the CDC would be doing if it could. This research is a pressing need that could inform and guide sensible legislation to make gun ownership safer. Since18.6 percent (FBI, 2015) of hate crimes are against LGBT people, and since more than a third of the crimes against persons involved violence, this is an issue for the LGBTQ community. We particularly need to have queer academics step up to the plate, put their thinking caps on, and come up with research projects in the area of gun violence in general and hate crimes in particular – we need to get the funding needs established and develop the grassroots political will to get the funding. Earlier this month the San Francisco Latino Democratic Club voted to ask the Legislature to provide such funding and I am hoping other LGBT groups will follow its lead. Since Orlando, people ask me what they can do to help with this issue.

This is what California can do.t Alan Martinez is a San Francisco resident.

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Letters >>

August 4-10, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 5

Stepping on the honorees

Bob Lehr San Francisco

his country (not unbelievable, right?) And, he served in the 1940s and 1950s; when the services were totally intolerant of anything (even appearing) gay [“US set to name ship after gay icon Harvey Milk,” blog, July 28]. If your secret were uncovered, you would automatically receive a dishonorable discharge, which could screw up your entire life, forever; the consequences were devastating. That he served, enjoyed ship life, and being around other men all day long in community and brotherhood, and received an honorable discharge. It is something special, and that he made it. Too many did not make it.

In many ways this ship-naming honor is a token of love, and comradeship, and honors all the LGBTQI military folks, especially those dishonorably discharged and including those of us who served honorably and with valor.

Harvey Milk made a decision as a young man to serve

Ken Jones San Francisco

Remarking about the recent exchange about putting Thom Gunn on the Rainbow Honor Walk [Mailstrom July 21, 28]: It’s way too late to comment on the whole Rainbow Honor Walk concept, but did anyone at the time this got started think that putting our heroes’ faces on the ground where people would walk on them might not be an appropriate way to honor someone? After all, to say someone walked all over someone else is stating that the person being walked on is clearly not being honored.

Plaques on building walls seem more appropriate (and, yes, very likely to provoke huge resistance from the building owners). Just sayin’, ya know.

Navy honors Harvey Milk

Out candidates seek SF BART board seat

Barry Schneider Attorney at Law

family law specialist* • Divorce w/emphasis on Real Estate & Business Divisions • Domestic Partnerships, Support & Custody • Probate and Wills

by Matthew S. Bajko

www.SchneiderLawSF.com

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hree out candidates are running for an open BART seat to represent San Francisco on the oversight body for the regional transit agency.

After serving two decades on BART’s Board of Directors, gay board member Tom Radulovich has decided not to seek re-election.

Instead, he is supporting Lisa Feldstein, who is bisexual and a former city planning commissioner, to succeed him when his current term ends this December.

Two gay men will also be running for Radulovich’s District 9 seat, which covers the transit system’s 16th Street Mission, 24th Street Mission, Glen Park, Civic Center, and Powell Street stations, as well as a portion of the Balboa Park station. Former District 8 Supervisor Bevan Dufty and activist Michael Petrelis have also announced their candidacies.

Radulovich had told the Bay Area Reporter in February that he planed to seek re-election. But in an interview Tuesday, Radulovich said he felt it was a good time to transition off the board and bring in new leadership. Rather than focus on running for re-election this fall, he plans to push for passage of a $3.5 billion bond measure, which needs a two-thirds majority, that the BART board placed on the November ballot in order to upgrade the 44-year-old transit system’s tracks, equipment, and other aging infrastructure.

“It is time to go,” said Radulovich, the executive director of the urban planning think tank Livable Cities.

“I am approaching my 20th anniversary in December.”

Among his successes while on the BART board, Radulovich pointed to his pushing for transit-oriented development at and near BART’s stations and the purchase of new BART train cars that will begin rolling out later this year. He believes Feldstein, who served on Livable Cities’ board for nine years, has the experience to advocate for more progressive changes to the transit system.

“She is one of the brightest people I know and is really thoughtful about all of these issues,” he said.

Feldstein, 52, lives in Cole Valley with her husband and their 18-yearold daughter, whom the couple is taking by train this month to Oberlin College in Ohio. A graduate of the Boalt Hall School of Law and a doctoral student in the Department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, Feldstein is currently on leave from her faculty job at the University of San Francisco.

415-781-6500 *Certified by the California State Bar 400 Montgomery Street, Ste. 505, San Francisco, CA

Courtesy Feldstein for BART campaign

Rick Gerharter

BART board candidate Lisa Feldstein

BART board candidate Bevan Dufty

She served on the planning commission from 2002 to 2004, resigning in order to run for District 5 supervisor that fall. According to her LinkedIn account, the New York City native enjoys “gardening, cooking, food preservation, and playing in the blood sport that is San Francisco politics.”

This is her first bid for elected office since losing her supervisor race 12 years ago.

“BART is of great interest to me. From the time I have lived in the Bay Area, I have commuted by BART to the East Bay 11 of those years between jobs and schools,” said Feldstein. “BART has been a pretty constant part of my life since I moved here.”

She is supportive of the BART bond measure, which has drawn opposition from some East Bay lawmakers who have excoriated the transit system’s leaders over their fiscal decisions.

“I think that BART has exceeded its capacity and we are seeing the results of a lot of years of deferred maintenance to keep the system running and safe and able to accommodate the ever-increasing ridership,” she said. “We need to spend some money on it.”

Dufty, 61, speaking Tuesday by phone from Provincetown, where he was vacationing with his daughter, told the B.A.R. he respects Feldstein and plans to run a positive campaign. He also said he is “a strong supporter” of the bond measure.

Also a New York City native, Dufty pointed to his years spent as a congressional aide on Capitol Hill and time at San Francisco City Hall, both as a city staffer and elected official, as experiences that he can bring to bear as a BART board member. While working as the chief legislative assistant to late Congressman Julian Dixon (D-Los Angeles),

Dufty crafted the legislation that created the Los Angeles Metro rail system.

He later worked for the Los Angeles County Transportation system handling its federal affairs. During his time on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, he chaired the county transportation authority and represented the city on the board that oversees the Golden Gate Bridge district.

“Much of my public service has been about rail transit systems,” said Dufty, noting he was living in California when BART started running its trains. “I think I have a lot to offer as a BART director, particularly, my strength has been going and securing federal dollars.”

Should he be elected, Dufty pledged to lobby federal officials in Washington, D.C. to ensure “we are getting the dollars we are entitled to support and improve the system.”

Petrelis, 57, has served as a protest candidate in recent elections, including the races for mayor and District 8 supervisor. He said he is running “as a BART rider, transit advocate, public space activist, and yes, a proud protest candidate.”

He announced his run for BART via his blog, noting in 2014 he criticized the transit system, as well as city agencies, for not cleaning up the trash and pigeon droppings at its stations in the Mission, particularly at 16th Street. That experience prompted him to enter the race.

As for the BART bond measure, Petrelis said he needed to learn more about the details. But were the vote held today, he would support it.

“I would vote yes because BART has been starved of financing,” he said.

It is unclear if any other candidates will file to run for Radulovich’s seat. The deadline to do so will be August 17 since the incumbent is not running.

The BART board’s other out member, Rebecca Saltzman, a lesbian who holds the District 3 seat See page 6 >>

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<< Commentary

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

Breaking conventions

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

I

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McBride, as groundbreaking as her speech was, may end up a footnote from a convention that brought a lot of firepower to the microphone. For that matter, it was another speaker that night, Khizr Khan, who will likely end up known even more for his speech criticizing Republican nominee Donald Trump and the fallout in the wake of it. This is OK. As important as McBride’s speech was, let it too serve as a point along a much longer path.

At the Democratic National Convention, in addition to McBride, were a total of 27 out transgender delegates. This is, as you could imagine, the highest number of trans delegates ever at a political convention.

Among those delegates, Marisa Richmond was the official timekeeper for the convention. Richmond is the first transgender woman to be appointed to a local government board in her home state of Tennessee.

Next time the Democratic convention rolls around, we may see more transgender delegates.

We may see another transgender woman filling Richmond’s shoes.

We may even see more speakers like McBride.

Yet, at some point, we’re going to go beyond being merely delegates, timekeepers, and speakers. Eventually we will be there because of the political offices we have gained in our home districts, serving in local and state positions. Yes, we may eventually see us in Congress, or vying for the presidency itself.

There were transgender people for centuries before me. We began to flourish in the first half of the 20th century, leading to Christine Jorgensen pushing the A-bomb off the front page of newspapers nationwide. Our numbers continued to increase, taking a mere 20 years to go from that nascent community hidden in bars and hotels to addressing one of the biggest political events in the country.

We likely can accomplish much in the next two decades, as we keep coming out and the rest of the country sees us.t

t was one of those rare moments of kismet. I had just come downstairs and turned on the television. On it was an attractive young woman with brown hair curled away from her face, wearing a sleeveless, purple dress. She smiled Surrogacy • Adoption • Prenuptial Agreements and spoke.

“My name is Sarah McBride, and Divorce • Custody • Parentage Disputes I am a proud transgender American,” she said.

With that, McBride became a part of history as the first out transgender person to speak at a presidential convention.

Her brief speech was a powerful Christine Smith one, centering on the loss of her husband, Andy, who succumbed to creating a new identity and “going cancer just days after their marriage. stealth.” Some therapists at the She spoke about her coming out, her time also pushed their transgender time interning at the White House, patients not to develop friendships and her hand in getting Delaware to with other transgender people, and pass transgender protections. would threaten the loss of their care She also spoke about upcomto ensure it. ing struggles, including the need to Once the internet came along, all pass the Equality Act, which would this changed. Transgender people amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 could, at last, meet and share with to include sex, sexual orientation, each other, and even associate with and gender identity. McBride, naGenuine & Personal Homecare offers compassionate care non-transgender people within tional press secretary for the Human for LGBT seniors who want to age in place but need what we then called “cyberspace.”

Rights Campaign, also spoke about support to live comfortably in their own home.

Nevertheless, this remained a purthe need to end the HIV/AIDS episuit largely behind closed doors. demic and halting the overwhelmLight Housekeeping • Companionship • Mobility Support The nascent transgender commuing violence against transwomen of Dementia/Alzheimer’s Care • Medication Reminders nity was small in visible number color.

Fall Prevention • Shopping • Personal Appointments and in spirit, and the notion of I first discovered that there were Eating Assistance • Menu Planning and Preparation being out and seen was extremely other transgender people in the uncommon. world when I was a pre-teen, but it Kevin Pete & Kenneth Boozer, Owners The cost of being out in any sort wasn’t until the late 1990s at college of public sense was simply too high that I discovered there was a transfor most. The notion of being out We invite you to contact us directly to discuss your gender community. Well, the beand in politics then was something ginnings of a community, at best. I needs or a FREE initial in-home assessment. largely in the realm of pure fantasy. learned about a meeting being held A lot has changed in 20 years. monthly out of the back of a HoliNow, I can turn on my television day Inn about an hour or so from www.GPinHomeCare.com and see a transwoman proudly home. In between those monthly speaking at the Democratic Nameetings, sometimes we’d visit each tional Convention. I can be proud other’s homes, or go to a “friendly” for her, I can be proud for me, and bar or eatery and sit somewhere in I can be proud for my community. the back.

It has been an amazing ride The conventions of the time, getting to this point. From those however, suggested it was best we early days of backroom meetings did not meet at all. The notion was to the work of radical groups like that the more of us in any one given TS Menace and more politically place, the more likely we’d all be cautious groups like the National outed and face danger. At the time, Center for Transgender Equality to too, being a transgender person was the time we live in now, past the sostill very much a shameful secret to called tipping point of transgender have for many, and this notion of people in popular culture. We live living in safe isolation only fed into in a time when an out transwoman our guilt. can take the stage at a national conFor many who were aiming for vention – and be broadcast around surgical intervention, too, it was SPRING Gwen Smith hopes to see the the country – andgot discover that she considered part of the process to day. You’ll find her at http://www.

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Political Notebook

“As we celebrate and look back As more votes were tallied, Nguyon the past 40 years, we are also en emerged as the second place finthinking about the future and the isher with nearly 15 percent. Should continued importance of queer he win come November, he would representing parts of Alameda and Hybrid/City progressive leadership. Mayor Bao be the first out immigrant to serve Contra Costa counties, is seeking Hybrid/City Kid’s Nguyen represents that future,” in Congress and the second out re-election to a second term this fall. wrote Gallotta in an emailed reply. member of California’s congres“As an immigrant and openly gay sional delegation. Gay CongressGay congressional candidate progressive Democrat in Republiman Mark Takano (D-Riverside) is to headline Milk dinner can ruled Orange County, Bao has expected to easily win a third term Gay Garden Grove Mayor Bao Road been a political trailblazer on the this fall.

Nguyen, who is running for a conNow Op local level, much like Harvey was.”

In its endorsement announcegressional seat in southern CaliforHAPPY The Milk club dinner takes place ment, EQCA noted that Nguyen has nia, will headline this year’s Harvey Ever y Thurs from 6:30OFF to 9:30 p.m. Thursday, already logged 20% a number of firsts: as Milk LGBT Democratic Club gala take a Road Mountain August 11 at the SOMArts Cultural the first non-white mayor of Gardinner in San Francisco.

Center, 934 Brannan Street. For den Grove and the country’s first The news came as Nguyen, conNow Open Thursday to 7pm! ticket information, visit http://www.

Vietnamese-American Democrat sidered the underdog in his race, milkclub.org.t mayor. won the endorsement of statewide Nguyen told the B.A.R. via a LGBT advocacy group EqualEvery Thursday in April between 4 & 7pm 1 Facebook message he is “honored” ity California. In November he will Web Extra: For more queer polititake 20% OFF all parts, accessories & clothing.* 1065 & 1077 Vale to have EQCA’s backing in the runcompete against former state Senacal news, be sure to check http:// SALES 415-550*Sales*Sales limited to stock ononhand. *Sales*Sales limited toMonday stock ononhand. limited to stock hand. www.ebar.com mornings limited to stock hand. off race. tor Lou Correa, SPRING who finished first Mon.Sat. 1 at noon for Political Notes, the “As the first directly elected openin the June primary withvalenci nearly 44 We’ve got m notebook’s online companion. ly gay mayor in Orange County, I percent of the vote. EQCA had reready to ride This week’s column looked back have been personally affected by mained neutral in the primary. at stories about SF’s LGBT histhe amazing work that EQCA has On election night Nguyen had tory run by the New Yorker 30 done,” he stated. landed in third place in the race for years ago.

With the Milk club marking its the 46th Congressional District seat Keep abreast of the latest LGBT 40th anniversary this year, club in Orange County. The current ofpolitical news by following the President Peter Gallotta told the ficeholder, Congresswoman Loretta Political Notebook on Twitter @ 1065 & 1077 Valencia (Btwn 21st & 22nd St.) • SF Hybrid/City B.A.R. the progressive political Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), placed http://twitter.com/politicalnotes.

SALES 415-550-6600 • REPAIRS 415-550-6601 group wanted a keynote speaker second in the June primary behind Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call representative of its history of backfront-runner state Attorney General Mon.- Sat. 10-6, Thu. 10-7, Sun. 11-5 Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 829ing LGBT candidates and of its fuKamala Harris in their contest for 8836 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com. ture work to elect out offi cials.

U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer’s seat.

From page 5

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Community News>>

August 4-10, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

Lyon-Martin Health Services plans move

by Seth Hemmelgarn

L

yon-Martin Health Services, a San Francisco nonprofit that provides primary medical care to women and transgender people regardless of their ability to pay, is planning to move as the site it occupies is set to be replaced by a ninestory mixed use building.

The city’s planning commissioners approved a conditional use authorization for the new project.

Lyon-Martin, which is currently based at 1748 Market Street in a timeworn, two-story building, will move to the first floor of 1735 Mission Street, which is currently occupied by one of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics.

Last year, Lyon-Martin merged with HealthRight 360. That organization, which is the result of the merger of Haight Ashbury Free Clinics and Walden House, is reconstructing a five-story building at 1563 Mission Street.

If the free clinic moves into the new HealthRight 360 building by the summer of 2017, then LyonMartin would “probably” move into the 1735 Mission Street space by the fall of 2017, after some renovations

are made, HealthRight 360 spokeswoman Michelle Hudson said in response to emailed questions.

Asked about changes that would be made as a result of the move, Hudson said Lyon-Martin could potentially “expand behavioral health services, as there are constraints” with the clinic’s Market Street space.

“We can also expand medical services if there is demand,” she said.

Lyon-Martin, which was founded in 1979, won’t move into the new HealthRight 360 building because of a desire to keep Lyon-Martin “separate to better serve the needs of their community. This will give them more space to expand services as the demand arises,” Hudson said.

Lyon-Martin, which saw 1,300 clients in 2015, has a budget of $2.7 million.

Hudson couldn’t say what the rent on Lyon-Martin’s new space would be. It’s not “an apples to apples comparison as the new space will be larger,” she said. “We don’t have exact details.”

Dr. Dawn Harbatkin, LyonMartin’s executive director, said in response to emailed questions, “We have not heard any concerns from

told her and others that he planned to sell the building.

The property also includes the restaurant Proposition Chicken.

Commission approval

Jane Philomen Cleland

Dr. Dawn Harbatkin

patients.” The Bay Area Reporter wasn’t able to contact any of the patients for comment.

The clinic nearly closed in 2011 after a surprise announcement from then-board members that the group was heavily in debt.

Hudson said that there is “absolutely” no chance now of the clinic shutting down.

In a 2013 interview, Harbatkin said that the clinic’s landlord had

Thursday, July 28, the planning commission approved a conditional use authorization for the new project. The address is listed as 1740 Market Street.

The developer’s proposed a ninestory, mixed-use building containing 100 dwelling units, about 4,385 square feet of ground floor retail space, and several affordable housing units, among other features.

Planning department staff recommended the approval, citing in agency documents reasons that include “The project would replace an underutilized lot with housing and retail, activating Market Street,” and the number of dwelling units that would be added to the city’s housing supply “in a walkable and transit-rich area suited for dense, mixed-use development.”

Department documents say the anticipated start date for the project is July 2017. The estimated construction cost is $15 million.

Patrick Szeto, whose name is listed as the main contact for Divco Group, LLC, the project sponsor, didn’t respond to interview requests.

In a July 1 letter to the planning commission, Jason Henderson, who chairs the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association’s Transportation and Planning Committee, offered the committee’s support for the project.

“Significantly,” Henderson said, 12 or 13 of the units would be priced below market rate.

“While we’d like to see a higher increment of affordable housing ... the developer of 1740 Market has worked in good faith within the city rules. Significantly, the developer is opting to put the BMR in the project, rather than paying in lieu fees for offsite units. With zero parking, overall building costs are reduced and so all of the units will be less expensive than if parking were supplied.”

The planning commissioners’ approval came with conditions, including “Once a site or building permit has been issued, construction must commence within the timeframe required by the Department of Building Inspection and be continued diligently to completion.”t

Urgent care centers welcome Castro patients

by Matthew S. Bajko

O

pening within days of each other in prominent upper Market Street storefronts, two urgent care centers are now welcoming Castro residents in need of minor medical care.

The first to open its doors was Direct Urgent Care, 1998 Market Street, in the corner ground floor space at Linea, the mixed-use development across Buchanan Street from the U.S. Mint building. It soft-opened last Thursday, July 28 and had already seen nearly a dozen patients within 24 hours.

The location is the first in the city for the company, which began in Berkeley and now has four locations in the Bay Area. Co-owners Dr. Caeser Djavaherian and Dr. Jeff Kaufman opened their first Direct Urgent Care two years ago with the aim of providing patients a more affordable, and more convenient, alternative to a hospital emergency room.

“There is a trend toward commercialization in health care. The patient is making decisions based on quality, cost, and convenience,” said Djavaherian. “Before, patients were going where their insurance companies told them to go.”

On Monday, August 1, Dignity

Health-GoHealth Urgent Care softopened its first location in the Bay Area at 2288 Market Street, which was formerly occupied by RadioShack and is part of the Market and Noe Center. GoHealth, which also operates urgent care centers in New York and Portland, Oregon, partners with local health systems to offer care to their patients.

Its centers in the Bay Area – it plans to open 12 in the coming months, with locations in the city’s Glen Park and Cole Valley neighborhoods set to open in September – are a joint venture with Dignity Health, which is based in San Francisco and operates St. Mary’s Medical Center and Saint Francis Memorial Hospital. The care center accepts people with various health insurance plans or those looking to pay out-of-pocket for minor procedures.

“The Dignity Health-GoHealth Urgent Care centers serve patients across the board – this includes patients with various health care needs and insurance,” explained Chuck Kroger, GoHealth’s president of the northern California market. “The partnership, itself, was created to help provide local Bay Area community members with the highest quality of care at reasonable costs.

Through this, we can make health care accessible to all, and encourage

Kelly Sullivan

Dr. Caeser Djavaherian, co-owner of Direct Urgent Care, stands in one of the new exam rooms at the San Francisco location.

residents to visit one of our centers and personally experience its culture of care, themselves.”

In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Kroger said the company is targeting neighborhoods with a lot of foot traffic on the street and easily accessible by transit.

“We got extremely lucky with this particular spot at Duboce and Market,” he said. “It is the perfect example of where we want to be.”

While the two urgent care providers are competitors, neither is

worried about being able to attract patients.

“I think the market is large enough, and clearly there is a need for care easily accessible and affordable that people can access in their own neighborhoods,” said Kroger.

Direct Urgent Care also accepts various health insurance plans and has priced its services to make it an affordable option for those paying out-of-pocket. It is also offering video consultations and house calls for patients that cost a flat fee of $175 plus

the cost of any blood or urine tests.

“We are hoping to differentiate ourselves in the market,” said Djavaherian. “San Francisco for us is a great way to access all the startups that are likeminded.”

Direct Urgent Care has 15 employees staffing the Castro location.

It is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week, while its mobile service is available from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day.

Dignity Health-GoHealth has hired four full-time practitioners, who are either physicians or nurses of the Dignity Health Medical Group, and one part-time person to staff its center at all times. It is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Friday, and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

It is hosting a grand opening event and ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m. Tuesday, August 9 for the Castro location.

“At this location, and future Bay Area centers, Dignity Health clinicians will have the resources and tools they need to ensure that all urgent care patients are treated with the same level of high-quality, low cost care that we provide to all of the patients in our health system,” stated Dr. Todd Strumwasser, senior vice president of operations for the San Francisco Bay Area.t

SF development with LGBT ties faces appeal

by Matthew S. Bajko

A

Kelly Sullivan

The Old Crow bar used to be at 962 Market Street.

Market Street redevelopment project at a site with historical ties to San Francisco’s LGBT community is again facing calls for greater scrutiny.

The site in question is located at 950-974 Market Street where Group I, a San Francisco-based real estate development company, wants to demolish the existing buildings in order to construct a 12-story, 120-foot-tall building. It would include a 232-room hotel, 242 housing units, ground floor retail, and space for a local nonprofit theater company.

The triangular block sits where Market, Turk and Mason streets intersect and straddles both the Mid-Market and Tenderloin neighborhoods.

According to the Citywide His-

toric Context Statement for LGBTQ History in San Francisco, the buildings on that block once housed the Tenderloin’s first gay bars and helped facilitate gay and transgender prostitution and hustling. The Old Crow Bar opened at 962 Market Street around 1935, according to the report, while the Silver Rail opened at 974 Market Street about 1942.

Additionally, the Flagg Brothers shoe store that had occupied 950 Market Street was documented in the report as a well-known gay cruising spot.

Shayne Watson, a lesbian and local LGBT historian who co-wrote the context statement, filed an appeal this winter against the planning department’s initial analysis of the Group I project for omitting the site’s historical ties to the LGBT community.

As the Bay Area Reporter reported in February, it was the first time that the nearly 400-page context statement adopted last fall had been used to question whether a development project in San Francisco should be allowed to demolish buildings cited in the report. In response, city planners agreed to re-examine the 950 Market Street project.

A new preliminary mitigated negative declaration was released in early July that went into some detail about the site being home to the former gay bars and a “center of activity” for the city’s LGBT community.

Yet it concluded that none of the existing structures would qualify for federal or state landmark status due to the extensive alterations made to the buildings over the years.

See page 13 >>

<< National News

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

t

LGBT groups slam states in federal trans case

by Lisa Keen

L

GBT legal groups say some states are attempting to circumvent federal appeals court rulings that require they respect the rights of transgender students.

In a friend-of-the-court brief to a federal district court in Texas July 27, the five groups say more than a dozen states are attempting to avoid complying with federal non-discrimination laws and court rulings interpreting those laws by seeking a “national injunction” to prevent the Obama administration from enforcing the laws.

The brief urges the U.S. District Court in Wichita Falls, Texas, to deny a motion from the states seeking a national injunction through a lawsuit filed in May by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The Paxton-led lawsuit claims that Obama

administration agencies, to refer “only to one’s including the Departbiological sex, as male or ments of Education and female, and not the radiLabor, have “conspired to cal re-authoring of the turn workplaces and eduterm ...” cational settings across Starting in 2010, the country into laboraObama administration tories for a massive social agencies began interexperiment, flouting the preting “sex” to include Courtesy Texas Attorney democratic process, and “gender identity” and General’s office running roughshod over Texas Attorney transgender people. Most commonsense policies General Ken recently, in May, the Deprotecting children and Paxton partments of Education basic privacy rights.” and Justice issued guidePaxton’s lawsuit says policies lines saying discrimination against adopted by the administration are transgender students violates fedattempting to rewrite federal laws eral law and that schools failing to that prohibit sex discrimination in comply with the laws could lose employment (Title VII of the Civil their federal funding.

Rights Act) and education (Title IX The Paxton-led lawsuit, Texas of the Education Amendments Act) v. U.S., says the Obama administo define “sex” in a radical way. In tration guidelines in this area are writing these laws, says the Paxton exceeding what Congress intended lawsuit, Congress intended “sex” when it passed the two federal laws.

It says the administration guidelines violate both the 10th Amendment, which reserves to the states all powers that the Constitution does not specifically delegate to the federal government, and the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection.

In an unusually broadly written request, Texas v. U.S. seeks both preliminary and permanent injunctions that would prevent the federal government from implementing “the new rules, regulations, and guidance interpretations.”

“What that means is anyone’s guess,” quipped the brief filed by the five LGBT legal groups. The groups include Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, GLBT Legal Advocates and Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Transgender Law Center.

The 13 states joined in the lawsuit

against the Department of Education guidelines are Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. The brief filed by the five legal groups notes that federal appeals courts governing half of these states have already ruled that sex discrimination includes discrimination against transgender people. It argues that appeals courts governing the remaining states are the appropriate forum for any challenge of the guidelines.

And it notes that some cases are already underway in other legal jurisdictions. Among these lawsuits are challenges to North Carolina’s recently passed law, House Bill 2, prohibiting transgender people from using a public restroom that See page 14 >>

Senate recess stalls lesbian judicial nominee

by Lisa Keen

A

s Congress began its summer recess last month, the nomination of one openly gay nominee was left behind in the stacks of deliberately neglected judicial nominations – along with President Barack Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court and his nominees to various other federal bench seats.

Obama nominated lesbian Inga Bernstein to a U.S. district court seat for Massachusetts in July 2015.

Although Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Charles Grassley (Iowa) didn’t show up for her confirmation hearing April 20, he submitted questions to her in writing, noting that, while she was at Harvard Law, Bernstein “supported a proposed ban

on hate speech.” He asked committed to “comportBernstein whether “hate ing myself in conformity” speech” is protected under with the rule of law as the First Amendment and necessary to ensure juswhether she still supports tice and fairness. bans on hate speech.

Asked by Senator Ted Bernstein said that Cruz (R-Texas) to name “much” hate speech is proher “favorite Supreme tected and that she would Court decision in the Courtesy Zalkind Duncan follow the precedent of past 10 years,” Bernstein and Bernstein LLP the Supreme Court and Attorney Inga replied, “I do not have a the First Circuit, which Bernstein favorite Supreme Court includes Massachusetts. decision.”

Grassley also asked Bernstein Bernstein, 54, was one of five what assurances she could offer candidates whose nominations that her judicial decisions would were considered at the April hearbe grounded in law “rather than ing. Senator Michael Lee (R-Utah) any underlying political ideology or presided over the event. motivation or any personal views.”

Senate Republicans have said they She said she was “deeply comwon’t consider Obama’s U.S. Sumitted to the rule of law” and was preme Court nominee because it’s a

presidential election year. But Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Bernstein’s home state of Massachusetts, tried to get the Senate to confirm Bernstein and 14 other lower court nominees last month and she was rebuffed.

“This is not how the Senate is supposed to work,” said Warren.

“The Senate’s job is to provide advice and consent on the president’s judicial nominees.”

A report prepared by Warren’s office and released last month shows that Republicans have held up most non-controversial nominees for 200 days or more.

Bernstein was nominated July 30, 2015 and, while the Judiciary Committee has advanced her nomination to the full Senate, it will sit on the

Senate calendar until at least next month, while Congress is in recess.

Warren, who recommended Bernstein’s nomination to Obama, noted that an independent commission in Massachusetts recommended her for the job.

Bernstein attended UC Berkeley and graduated from Wellesley College and Harvard Law. She is a partner at the Boston criminal defense law firm of Zalkind Duncan and Bernstein.

During her confirmation hearing, both Warren and Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) noted that Bernstein’s spouse, Christine Nickerson, and their twin daughters were in the audience.

See page 11 >>

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Community News>>

August 4-10, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

NLGJA names hall of fame inductees

Recode reporter Ina Fried

ESPN’s LZ Granderson

compiled by Cynthia Laird

N

LGJA, the Association of LGBTQ Journalists, has announced two new inductees will be enrolled in its hall of fame.

Ina Fried and LZ Granderson will be inducted into the LGBTQ Journalists Hall of Fame in September in Miami’s South Beach district.

Fried is a Bay Area-based tech journalist, currently writing for Recode. She also covers and comments on tech news on CNBC, National Public Radio, and a host of broadcast, online, and print media outlets.

Her current beat focuses on, as she puts it, “wireless issues and devices, including tablets, smartphones, and even some phones of average intelligence.” A trans woman, Fried has covered some of the top stories in her field, including the Hewlett-Packard-Compaq merger, Bill Gates’ transition from software pioneer to philanthropist, and interviewing the late Steve Jobs while covering the iPhone location tracking controversy.

“Being a journalist is what I have always wanted to be and I feel fortunate to have been able to spend my career doing so even at a time when there is so much uncertainty around the business of our profession,” Fried said in a Facebook message to the Bay Area Reporter. “When I made the decision to transition at work more than a decade ago, I wasn’t entirely sure the world was ready for an openly transgender beat reporter.

Happily, the very public coming out experience only brought me closer with readers and sources.”

Fried added that she loves being visible in the media as a transgender woman.

“I get to go on places like CNBC and NPR and be openly trans, but talking about things that have nothing to do with my gender,” Fried said.

“I hope that this honor helps spread the word to the next generation of trans youth that they can be whatever they want, including a journalist.”

Granderson is considered the nation’s most visible gay sports journalist and has been out his entire professional career while working exclusively within mainstream media.

He is currently an ESPN senior writer for the Undefeated and a regular contributor to SportsNation, Around the Horn, and Outside the Lines, while also a tennis analyst and reporter at Wimbledon and the US Open.

Granderson co-anchored ABC News’ digital coverage of the Republican and Democratic conventions last month.

An African-American man, Granderson offers unique observa-

<<

tions on the intersections of athletics, race, identity, culture, LGBT issues, and politics.

Granderson was previously named NLGJA’s Journalist of the Year in 2012.

NLGJA is the leading professional organization for LGBTQ journalists with 22 chapters nationwide, as well as members around the globe.

Its convention takes place September 8-11. For more information, visit http://www. nlgja.org.

Night Ministry cabaret benefit

The San Francisco Night Ministry will hold its seventh annual cabaret benefit Friday, August 12 from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, 101 Gold Mine Drive in San Francisco.

The night ministry provides crisis intervention, counseling, and referral services every night of the year. Last year the nonprofit served 26,379

people and had conversations on everything from spirituality to ethics to relationships and family. It also operates a crisis line from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. nightly.

Tickets for the cabaret are $35 at the door.

Snacks and beverages will be provided.

For more information, visit http://www. sfnightministry.org.

The nighttime crisis line is (415) 441-0123.

Pride Law Fund bay cruise

The Pride Law Fund will have a San Francisco Bay cruise Sunday, August 14 that’s a benefit for its Tom Steel Fellowship.

Aboard the USS Potomac, President Franklin Roosevelt’s “floating White House,” the law fund will honor Russell Robinson, a law professor at UC Berkeley, with its Trailblazer Award. Robinson will be recognized for his legal scholarship that has highlighted the abuses LGBTQ people face See page 14 >>

Green

From page 2

bags and wanding everyone before they entered the courtroom Monday. One deputy said it was for everyone’s safety. Another said he couldn’t comment specifically on why the precaution was being taken.

Hirst said Wednesday she couldn’t say whether the extra security was related to the alleged cellphone incident.

Several people have been in court since the trial started to support Green, including his sister and brothers.t CCT6915-1 LGBT_ManifestoPrint_Flyer_BayAreaReporter.indd 1

7/20/16 10:26 AM

<< Community News

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

t

New laws needed to monitor police, panel says

by Sari Staver

C

ity residents must push for new laws to independently monitor the San Francisco Police Department, a retired judge told a standing-room-only audience of over 800 people during a panel on “Policing the Police” held at Glide Memorial United Methodist Church August 1.

The panel, co-hosted by the Commonwealth Club, was held in the wake of a blistering report on the SFPD and police accountability issued last month.

The Blue Ribbon Panel on Transparency, Accountability, and Fairness in Law Enforcement issued that report. It was established by San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón as an advisory body in May 2015, following revelations that 14 police officers had exchanged racist and homophobic text messages. The panel, made up of three retired judges, issued its recommendations and described their investigation into the Police Department’s use of force, stops, searches and arrests, personnel practices, culture, internal discipline, and external oversight.

Judge LaDoris Cordell, a blue ribbon panel member, retired Santa Clara County Superior Court judge, and former independent police auditor in San Jose, said Monday that public discourse is important but “we need more than a change in hearts and minds. We need a change in the law.”

Cordell, a lesbian, suggested that San Francisco consider establishing an independent inspector general office to oversee complaints related to the Police Department. She warned against adopting volunteer

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Retired Judge LaDoris Cordell, center, talks about policing issues at a Commonwealth Club panel August 1, as panelists W. Kamau Bell, left, and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón listen.

review boards, which “often are ineffective” because the members have to serve on their own free time, making it difficult to get a quorum.

The great majority of the nation’s 18,000 police departments do not have independent oversight to review complaints, she added.

“We now understand it is unacceptable to have the police police themselves,” she said.

Cordell also criticized the California Peace Officers Bill of Rights, which she said results in “very little sunshine” in the investigation of police misconduct. Under the bill of rights, citizens are unable to see, for example, if an officer has had prior complaints or what discipline an officer was given in misconduct cases. Citizens are also not given access to footage recorded by body cameras, she said.

“Juries tend to believe police offi-

See page 14 >>

Frank minces no words in support of Clinton

by Khaled Sayed

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cers” testimony in court, she added.

“The system is stacked against defendants.”

Gascón, also a panelist Monday night, described the issues he encountered during his career with the Los Angeles Police Department. He also served as San Francisco’s police chief before being appointed DA. Gascón said he “learned early” in his career that many citizens “just don’t trust the police,” he said.

While Gascón believes most police officers are honest, the misconduct of a few “has a large impression” on the public, he noted.

Recently publicized problems of police using excessive force and targeting minorities “aren’t new,” he said, “but now we have cameras,” which have given visibility to the issue.

ormer Congressman Barney Frank implored LGBTQ delegates at last week’s Democratic National Convention to get their friends to vote for nominee Hillary Clinton.

Frank, long known for his blunt talk, minced no words as he addressed the LGBTQ Caucus July 28 at the Philadelphia Convention Center.

“I’m not going to tell you to vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump because I’m assuming you already understand that,” he said as the crowd responded with laughter and cheers for Clinton.

“One of Donald Trump’s promises is to protect us from a foreign invasion,” Frank said. “As a gay man we have many things we are concerned about, but the prospect of foreign invasion has never been high on our list.”

Frank, who long represented Massachusetts in the House of Representatives and was one of the first members of Congress to come out as gay, urged people in the room to find their friends who are opposed to voting for Clinton and try to convince them that voting for somebody else is a vote for Trump.

“You have a responsibility to confront them in a polite way – I don’t always do that but that is the goal – and insist that they take into account our rights,” Frank said.

This year’s LGBTQ Caucus was especially large. There were 516 delegates who self-identified as LGBTQ, including a record-breaking 28 transgender delegates; that’s

Khaled Sayed

Former Congressman Barney Frank spoke to LGBTQ delegates at their caucus meeting in Philadelphia.

11.5 percent of all delegates. To put it in perspective, in 2008 the LGBTQ delegates made up 5.8 percent of all delegates. In 2012 LGBTQ delegates made up 7.8 percent.

The LGBT Caucus heard from many high-profile politicians such as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo; Congressman Mike Honda of San Jose; and Senator Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin). Former NBA player Jason Collins and his twin brother, Jarron, also made an appearance.

The meeting started with a moment of silence for the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.

Cuomo was greeted with protesters shouting “Free Palestine” after he took to the podium. Other protesters held signs to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Anti-TPP protest-

ers were very visible throughout the convention.

“New York is 18 million people, people from across the globe,” Cuomo said. “We are the welcome mat for the nation. We had a decision very early on that we have to find commonality, and the ethic of our culture has to be acceptance and non-judgmental.”

“This campaign on the other side talks about building walls, but we talk about building bridges, and how can we find ways to connect people,” he continued. “That is what New York is all about. There is no secret why so many LGBT people went to New York early on when they didn’t feel safe or comfortable in their home or their state; because in New York you are accepted. That is what Stonewall is all about.”

Ted Jackson, a disability rights advocate who worked for the convention in its ADA and community engagement unit, believes that it is extremely important to participate and attend the LGBTQ Caucus and be active in politics in general.

“Everything from the grassroots level starts with councils and caucuses and grows upward to the elected officials and delegates,” Jackson said. “The Democratic Party isn’t just what you see on TV. It’s really grassroots of all people coming together from all over the country who work in different caucuses to the national convention where we nominate every four years. So a lot of work goes into it. It is important for the LGBTQ people – as a queer person myself – to know that the party recognizes my community by holding these caucuses.”t

t

Commentary>>

August 4-10, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 11

A look at what’s at stake under Prop 64

by Sari Staver [Editor’s note: This week we begin a new column, Bay Area Cannasseur, looking at issues and ideas around marijuana. It runs the first Thursday of the month.]

C

annabis industry leaders have high hopes that California voters will approve the recreational use of cannabis this November, legalizing the cultivation, sale, and use of cannabis for adults over age 21.

In late June, Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, qualified for the ballot, when backers submitted the 400,000-plus signatures required.

Recent polls indicate that 60 percent of likely voters favor the proposition, which is backed by Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom and District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, as well as a wide variety of organizations, including the California Medical Association.

In addition to opposition by many law enforcement groups, activists are divided on the proposal, with many feeling it doesn’t go far enough.

When a similar statewide measure was on the ballot six years ago, the state’s growers mounted an aggressive campaign to defeat it, and voters ultimately rejected it 53.5 percent to 46.5 percent. This year, the growers have taken a neutral position on Prop 64.

Groups advocating the passage of the measure (http://www.yeson64. org) as well as defeat (http://www. stoppot2016.com) have launched competing campaigns to sway voters.

Four states – Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington – and the District of Columbia have already passed similar laws.

If a majority of voters approve Prop 64, hundreds of detailed restrictions and regulations will be written into state law, making it more expensive to grow and sell cannabis, but bringing safer and higher quality products into the marketplace.

AUMA, a 62-page initiative, would allow adults 21 and over to possess up to an ounce of marijuana and cultivate up to six plants for personal use; regulate and tax the production, manufacture, and sale of marijuana for adult use; and rewrite criminal penalties, reducing the most common marijuana

<<

Senate recess

From page 8

Bernstein joked about meeting her spouse of 18 years at “a bar” – a bar association meeting. Markey described Bernstein as a “diversity activist” at Harvard.

In chairing her confirmation hearing, Lee noted that he had been mentored by Bernstein’s cousin, Richard Bernstein, and said it was an honor to meet her.

During the hearing, Senator Christopher Coons (D-Delaware) noted that the April hearing was the first confirmation hearing since January 2016 and that there are 79 vacancies in federal courts. The Senate, he said, had allowed only 11 nominees to be confirmed in the past year.

On her Senate questionnaire, Bernstein indicated she was a member of the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association from the late 1990s until 2013. According to her law firm website, Bernstein heads up the firm’s employment law section and has represented clients in various discrimination complaints, includ-

felonies to misdemeanors and allow prior offenders to petition for reduced charges.

Currently, only patients with a physician’s note are allowed to grow and possess cannabis for medicinal purposes, although anyone with $30 and an internet connection can obtain such a note from dozens of online physicians in less than 30 minutes.

The ballot measure doesn’t affect the rights of medical marijuana patients established when Californians passed the Compassionate Use Act in 1996, becoming the first state to do so. Since then, 22 more states have passed similar measures.

In fact, AUMA’s regulatory provisions are largely patterned on California’s Medical Marijuana Regulation and Safety Act, which took effect in January after the Legislature approved it last year. AUMA would take effect January 1, 2018.

SF prepares for passage

A lot of how Prop. 64 plays out would depend on how cities and counties react, since they would control what types of, if any, marijuana businesses could operate within their boundaries.

In San Francisco, the Cannabis State Legalization Task Force will be issuing recommendations to the city on local guidelines.

Task force chair Terrance Alan, a gay man who said he became an “accidental activist” when his lover was dying of AIDS and cannabis became a part of his treatment regimen, said approval of Prop 64 would mean improved “safety and consistency” of products in the marketplace.

“As a medical patient myself, I’d like to know that if I purchased a particular strain that when I went back for that same product it would be identical,” he said.

New regulations would also require sellers to test products to be certain they are free of pesticides, fungus, and mold.

Alan conceded that such testing would add costs that could be passed along to consumers but over time, the increased supply “should even that out,” he said.

Activist Clint Werner, a gay man who is the author of Marijuana Gateway to Health, supports Prop 64 because it is “more good than bad” and a “huge step” forward for the cannabis community.

He believes that if voters approve the measure, “it will change the ening sexual orientation. She has also represented “numerous” same-sex couples in a range of family law disputes.

Bernstein has been nominated to replace Judge Douglas Woodlock, the same judge she clerked for from 1994-1995. Woodlock went into semi-retirement last June.

Prior to her clerkship, Bernstein co-chaired the Harvard Law School Coalition for Civil Rights and was a member of the law school’s Committee on Gay, Bisexual and Lesbian legal issues. Her Senate questionnaire noted that she has been a “referral attorney for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders for many years.”

Nine out of 11 of Obama’s openly lesbian and gay nominees to federal judicial posts have been confirmed since 2009. In addition to Bernstein’s nomination, which is still pending, Obama initially nominated Washington, D.C. attorney Ed DuMont to the federal circuit appeals court, but Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee blocked DuMont’s nomination and he withdrew it.t

Courtesy Terrance Alan

Local cannabis legalization task force chair Terrance Alan

tire zeitgeist” and law enforcement may feel less need to pursue people for cannabis violations.

AUMA, said Werner, “takes three felonies off the books” immediately.

“That’s really an important step,” he added.

Debby Goldsberry, executive director of the Magnolia Wellness dispensary in Oakland, said that while AUMA would be a “vast improvement” over the current prohibition, “there are also some big downsides.”

Because Prop 64 would still carry legal penalties for possessing over an ounce of cannabis, the community “must be careful that police do not continue to target people of color,” said Goldsberry, a straight ally.

Activist Brent Saupe, 50, who has built and operated several large nonprofit cooperative gardens in the city, predicts that passage of AUMA will spark “a gigantic increase in supply” of cannabis. Saupe, previously a member of then-Mayor Newsom’s advisory panel on cannabis, said that farmers now have machinery that can harvest and trim acres at a time. In addition, if the law

passes, gardeners from all over “will flood the market” in San Francisco.

“Growing,” he said, “is getting easier all the time.”

J. Erich Pearson, a gay man who owns San Francisco dispensary SPARC and is a founding board member of the National Cannabis Industry Association, believes marijuana retail prices could “spike” as manufacturers and retailers incur the many extra costs of complying with the law.

“Regulatory compliance is not cheap,” he said.

But once the large-scale cultivators and distributors come into the market, “the prices will fall,” Pearson added.

Passage of Prop 64 will also lead to increased access, he said. “I am confident that San Francisco’s elected officials will understand the demand in this city” and approve regulations that will make it easier for people to open retail stores, he explained.

Based on the work the task force has done in its first several meetings, Pearson is confident that San Fran-

cisco will be one of the first cities in the state to have local regulations in place to implement AUMA. “The city will be ready, I know that,” he said.

In an email to the Bay Area Reporter, Wiener, who is running for a state Senate seat this fall, said, “A whole industry is at stake if adult use of cannabis is approved by the voters this fall. There will be a huge need for action around regulation and implementation at the local level so that we create a system that works for both consumers and cannabis businesses. San Francisco and the Bay Area will immediately become a magnet for new business growth, but we need to think long and hard about doing this the right way ...

“There are so many ways legalization of cannabis will impact our city and our residents,” Wiener added, “and we need to be sure that this industry, if AUMA is approved, is implemented in an equitable way that also continues to allow for a thriving medical cannabis industry for those who need it.”t

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<< Sports

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

Here come the Rio games

by Roger Brigham

T

he quadrennial international fire drill known as the Summer Olympics debut this week, preceded by a number of amuse-bouche in anticipation of the triumphs, tragedies, and buffooneries the next three weeks are sure to disgorge.

In the end, it may seem like the presidential conventions all over again. There will be moments where you will be appalled or outraged – but you won’t be able to stop watching. The difference is that out of this wreckage, there will be sure to emerge some unchallenged champi-

ons we all can admire.

In the days directly leading up to the Olympics, the Australian team had to wonder whether its berth in the Olympic Village wasn’t a bit like the Hotel California: they could check out but they could never leave.

They tried to leave because of what they reported were gas and water leaks and crappy electrical service, but after being offered a kangaroo by the mayor of Rio de Janeiro to help make them

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feel at home (can’t make this stuff up) and teams of plumbers, electricians, and other workers scrambled to get things back in order, the Aussies stayed. They were rewarded by a fire drill after a small fire broke in the basement of their lodgings – and then discovered that their rooms had been robbed of laptops and other personal items.

Welcome to Rio. That was nothing compared with the greeting a Chinese track athlete and cameraman from China received while checking into their hotel. An apparent drunk hurled on hurdler Shi Dongpeng, causing Shi to go to a restroom to clean off the vomit while the cameraman chased the vomiter from the building. Turns out it was all a set up: camera equipment and baggage were all gone when they returned to the lobby.

So much for the hundreds of thousands of police and military personnel providing security for the Olympics.

Among other incidents leading up to the competition, Anna Paula Cotta, a member of the host shooting team, was herself shot in the head in July in an attempted mugging; Jason Lee, a jiu-jitsu athlete from New Zealand, reported he had been kidnapped by fake police officers who forced him to withdraw money from an ATM to pay them bribes in order to avoid arrest; and Paralympic sailor and wheelchair basketball player Liesl Tesch of Australia was robbed at gunpoint near the Olympic sailing venue by a man who pushed her off of her bicycle and stole it and that of a team physiotherapist.

In the long run, the impact of the shoddy preparations, shaky security, and hazardous health conditions may be on other potential Olympic

<<

Out in the World

From page 1

This is one of the reasons the Sisters are going to Prague.

They are taking their groundbreaking sex education pamphlet, “Play Fair,” to distribute at Prague Pride.

“San Francisco’s AIDS prevention model is something that you guys should be very proud of.

It’s not seen anywhere else.

It is a model that is working,” said Walek.

“The Czech Republic is making criminals out of people with HIV,” said Roma, who said people living with the virus should be shown compassion, care, and treatment.

“San Francisco is the epicenter where that movement started. We taught the world how to respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis and we are going to go and share it with our friends in Prague.”

Love and Pride

The upcoming festival is one of the biggest and most colorful, attracting an estimated 76,000 Pridegoers throughout the week, said Walek.

t

Among the LGBTI faces that will compete in the year’s Olympics are, from left, Caster Semenya, track and field, South Africa; Tom Daley, diving, Great Britain; Megan Rapinoe, soccer, USA; Kelly Griffin, rugby, USA; Brittney Griner, basketball, USA.

bidders in India, Africa, and South America.

“Rio has been the biggest challenge we have ever faced,” longtime International Olympic Committee member Gerhard Heiberg told the Wall Street Journal. Speaking of hopes to bring the Olympics to Africa or India, he said, “Maybe we will spend some more time thinking about going. We need some assurance it will be a success.”

As far as being more inclusive and representative of the LGBTI community than it has been in the past, color these Olympics a big success.

Delegations will include numerous LGBTI coaches and advisers, such as Greg Louganis in diving for the U.S., Pia Sundhage for the Swedish women’s soccer team, and Jill Ellis for U.S. women’s soccer. Outsports. com, which keeps track of these things, worked with historian Tony Scupham-Bilton to identify 42 out LGBTI athletes who will compete in Rio, from intersex sprinter Caster Semenya of South Africa to lesbians Brittney Griner and Seimone Augustus on the U.S. basketball team.

The 2012 London Olympics had 23 out LGBTI athletes. Outsports tells us that there are 10 gay men competing in this year’s, but none

from the United States.

The IOC was also scheduled to decide this week whether to add a handful of sports, most notably men’s baseball and women’s softball, to future Olympic Games. Because baseball teams carry more players than softball teams, adding them would potentially hurt the Olympics’ goal of reaching gender parity.

And it is already apparent that the Olympics are faced with issues of size and scope that suggest it may be lathering on too much of a good thing. Cities such as Athens and Rio have shown us that the legacy of hosting such an extravaganza may tax the limits of over-taxed economies, and fewer and fewer cities have been lining up to run the risk.

Perhaps it’s time for the Olympics to realize it dazzles by offering the best, not the most. Maybe it should be looking at dropping some of its elitist sports (are you really tuning in to watch Olympic golf?) or novelties (BMX cycling? Really?) or sports that are oh, so charming but are from a bygone era (i.e., equestrian).

But definitely keep in the wrestling, shooting, boxing, and martial arts events. The security forces could use the practice.t

Prague Pride operates on an annual budget of about $130,000, which is raised between corporate and private donors as well as the Prague city government and tourism board, said Walek. The U.S. Embassy has also provided inkind support, he added.

The Sisters will also present the organizers, Walek and Van Der Bas, with proclamations and honors from California and San Francisco politicians and the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee.

Walek, 41, was a Fulbright scholar working on a global platform at Out and Equal Workplace Advocates during the past year. Van Der Bas, 44, joined him in the “gay mecca” for the yearlong adventure, learning about the LGBT community and movement.

They plan to take what they learned in San Francisco back to the Czech Republic, infusing it into their movement for marriage equality and LGBT family rights, said Walek.

The gay couple married in the Netherlands in 2010. However, their marriage isn’t recognized in the Czech Republic. They can only

be recognized as registered partners in a civil partnership, which doesn’t grant as many rights as marriage.

They refused and sued the government. The couple are awaiting the court’s decision, which they anticipate will be against them, they said.

They are prepared to take their case all the way to the European Court.

The marriage equality conversation has already started in the country. A recent survey conducted by Prague Pride found that 86 percent of respondents “said they want marriage,” said Walek. “So, it’s good.”

They are taking their inspiration from America, Europe, and Ireland, which won same-sex marriage at the ballot in 2015, and Slovenia, which lost its referendum for same-sex marriage in a popular vote last year.

Walek and Van Der Bas have a five-year plan, starting with mobilizing the Czech LGBT community, financial support, and an education campaign that will kick into action this month at Prague Pride.

However, the couple got a head start before returning home July 31. At their first American fundraiser with the Sisters in San Francisco July 26, they raised $2,000 for the Czech marriage equality campaign.

Marriage equality is the cause they’ve chosen because as part of the European Union, Czech citizens are already granted anti-discrimination protections in the workplace and in education, Walek said.t To learn more about Prague Pride, visit http://www. praguepride.cz/en or http://www. friendsofpraguepride.org Got international LGBT news tips? Call or send them to Heather Cassell at 00+1-415-2213541, Skype: heather.cassell, or oitwnews@gmail.com.

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Community News>>

SF school district

From page 1

Leigh, 45, said in a phone interview that he doesn’t want the superintendent’s job permanently.

“I’ve never seen myself as a superintendent,” he said. “What I’m best at is implementing work, thinking strategically,” and “working to implement change rather than to be the public face of the district.”

The district, which has a general fund budget of $745 million, has worked for years to ensure LGBTQ students are protected from bullying and discrimination, through efforts such as inclusive curriculum and professional development.

Leigh said those efforts would continue.

“We’re a leader across the country in terms of our support for LGBTQ students and also our efforts to teach

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Austin

From page 1

town to Sixth Street, which is filled with bars, nightclubs, and restaurants.

“The first thing when Teqnika got there, we had just gotten a drink and she’s like, ‘Thinking about all of the food I’m going to eat tonight. What am I going to eat tonight?’” Sabrina recalled, laughing for a moment at the memory.

The foursome bar-hopped, grabbed slices of pizza, and picked up some doughnuts, said Sabrina Moultrie.

“We had been just having a good time. We were just dancing and having fun,” she said, recalling how Teqnika Moultrie even went back to one of the bouncers at the door of one of the clubs they were at and “told him what a great time she had” and “just wanted to say thank you.”

“She was just amazing. She had such a big heart and she just loved everyone and everyone loved her,” said Sabrina Moultrie.

They were heading back to their car when gunshots rang out. At first Sabrina Moultrie thought it was a car backfiring, she said, but her brother-in-law told everyone to get to the ground.

It was too late. Teqnika Moultrie was hit. They attempted to save her, but she took two last breaths and died instantly as Sabrina Moultrie

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Development

From page 7

“There is nothing but the location and setting of the building that remains to convey its historical significance,” concludes the new analysis. “Although rare, the former Old Crow, a post-Prohibition gay bar that remained in operation for nearly 45 years in the Tenderloin, does not appear to be such a unique property type that location and setting alone would be sufficient integrity to convey significance even by the evaluation standards for integrity outlined in the” city’s LGBT context statement.

The planning department also concluded after its review of the various gay bars that once operated at the site that, “while popular,” none of them “appear to be historically significant.”

The agency did conclude that, due to the number of LGBT businesses from the “post-Prohibition period” that once operated on the site, as well as nearby, that the Tenderloin is eligible for listing as an historic district for its LGBTQ context. Yet it questioned if the properties Group I plans to demolish would be needed in order to establish a Tenderloin LGBT historic district.

Watson, in an emailed response to the B.A.R., praised the planning department for its revised analysis of Group I’s project. In particular, she pointed to the discussion about creating a Tenderloin LGBT historic district, “a legal designation that adds

August 4-10, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 13

all students about LGBTQ students and our history,” he said. “I think it’s a matter of continuing those efforts. This year we’re expanding our LGBTQ history program from one high school to three high schools in terms of curriculum.”

The district is also working to provide more gender-neutral bathrooms.

“We do have work to do, just like everybody, but I think we’re further along than most places,” Leigh said.

The news release from the school district announcing Carranza’s likely departure said that high school graduation rates increased 7.7 percent since 2009-10, when Carranza was first hired as a deputy by the district. The rise has been most significant for subgroups who have historically low graduation rates.

One difficulty the district faces is drawing workers to San Francisco, Leigh said.

“Something we’re confronting is the challenge of recruiting and retaining teachers and other employees. There’s a teacher shortage nationally and in the state,” he said, adding that San Francisco’s high cost of living “is very challenging.”

“We’re working hard to keep and attract our employees, and it’s becoming harder,” he said.

Leigh, whose salary is about $242,000, lives in San Francisco with his husband, Mark Haugen, 48.

His work has involved working with staff on issues including financial planning and resource allocation, student assignment and desegregation, and collective bargaining.

Carranza praised Leigh in a statement from the school district.

“San Francisco Unified has the most talented team of professionals I have ever had the honor of working with, and Deputy Superintendent

Leigh is among the best of the best,” he said. “Together with the community, I am confident Leigh and other district leaders are moving our schools toward our bold vision.”

Board of Education President Matt Haney stated Leigh “has been with SFUSD since 2000 and has successfully managed day-to-day operations and overseen key district wide initiatives. SFUSD has a strong foundation, a recently updated strategic plan, and tremendous leadership throughout our schools and central offices. Mr. Leigh will be working with a great team.”

In a statement Thursday, July 28, Mayor Ed Lee said, “The San Francisco Unified School District has thrived under Richard’s leadership during his seven-year tenure, and it is because of his dedication to collaboration and relationship building. ... I have full confidence

that interim Superintendent Myong Leigh will continue to build upon this foundation and continue the creation of an educational pipeline that serves the needs of our city’s children.”

Mark Murphy, a gay man who’s run for the school board, said in an email to the Bay Area Reporter, “Through my four years of work on the Public Education Enrichment Fund Community Advisory Committee, advocating how [more than] $75 million is spent annually, Myong has always delivered a strong and measured approach to expanding opportunities for our SFUSD students while making sure we solidify the great programs already in place.”

Murphy added, “He is perfectly prepared for this job. I can think of no better person to fill this role at this critical time of transition.”t

held her. Four other women were also shot and wounded. Three of the victims were taken to University Medical Center Brackenridge. The fourth victim refused treatment, Mike Benavides, the emergency medical services commander, told the Austin American-Statesman.

room with her smile,” said Sabrina Moultrie.

Teqnika Moultrie, who identified as white in spite of her estranged father being black, moved back in with her mother’s parents, who raised her in Redwood City, Sabrina Moultrie said. She was the youngest child with two older brothers.

Teqnika Moultrie became a bus driver for the Redwood City School District and taught special education between her morning and afternoon bus shifts for eight years.

In February, she transferred to the Sequoia Union High School District. She loved her job and everyone loved her, said Sabrina Moultrie, who is a hair stylist in San Carlos.

“She loved children and loved her job,” said Sabrina Moultrie. The couple were planning to start their own family.

“We thought we had it all figured [out],” she said, talking about going to church, involvement in the com-

munity, and building their lives together. “We figured it out together.”

Life was good and moving closer to their dreams of having a normal life with their pit bull, Tiggy, and dreams of becoming parents.

“We just wanted to live a normal everyday life and raise a family. Be good moms and do it together,” said Sabrina Moultrie. “Now we don’t get to do any of that.”

American-Statesman. McCray was also scheduled to appear in court on separate charges for marijuana possession next month, according to a July 31 news release from the Austin Police Department.

McCray’s mother had publicly urged her son to turn himself in, Sabrina Moultrie told the B.A.R. “No matter what happens to him, it’s still not going to bring her back,” said Sabrina Moultrie. “It’s so wrong. I hope he’s caught. I hope he rots in hell.

“It’s not going to give me my life back,” she continued, “because now I’m forever changed. My wife died in my arms and there’s no going back from that.”

Sabrina is making funeral arrangements for Teqnika Moultrie, whose body was cremated in Austin.

No date has been set yet.

In addition to her wife, Teqnika is survived by her grandparents, Bob and Cathy Galbreath.t

Promising life snatched away

Sabrina Moultrie was a senior and Teqnika Moultrie was a sophomore when they met at Woodside High School in Woodside.

During Teqnika Moultrie’s senior year she left high school and moved to Sacramento to take care of her mother, who was fighting kidney disease. She gave up a basketball scholarship and other college opportunities, but never regretted it, said Sabrina Moultrie. She earned her general education certificate. In 2008, Teqnika Moultrie’s mother died. “[It] kind of speaks to what a great human she is to give up her future,” said Sabrina Moultrie, who helped her during that time.

The couple were together for four years, but split up for about five years soon after Teqnika Moultrie’s mother’s death. The couple reunited in May 2015. They got engaged in October.

“I loved everything about her, but it was her big heart and her beautiful smile. She would just light up the a layer of protection to LGBTQ-associated properties in the Tenderloin.”

But she took issue with the department’s conclusions regarding the cultural significance of the existing buildings set to be torn down.

“I disagree with the determination that the physical fabric of the buildings has been so altered that they are unable to convey their significance related to LGBTQ history,” wrote Watson. “In my opinion, the buildings’ significance is intangible and has very little to do with how the storefronts looked in the 1930s or if the interior configurations have changed.”

She argued that the patrons of the Old Crow or Silver Rail bars didn’t go there for their architectural details but “because they were relatively safe spaces where people could meet each other and form communities. LGBTQ community formation couldn’t have happened without these early bars.”

Unsatisfied with the new preliminary mitigated negative declaration for the project, the Q Foundation filed an appeal of it late last month.

The gay-led nonprofit is seeking to have the city’s planning commission require that a full environmental impact report be done of the project.

“In the context of efforts to create an LGBT historic district in the Tenderloin, we want to make sure we have all avenues open for getting to the appropriate level of exploration so we don’t lose historic resources See page 14 >>

PROUD MEDIA SPONSOR

Random attack

According to media reports, McCray was allegedly aiming for his brother-in-law, who he got into a fight with that night.

McCray was already known to police, who issued a warrant shortly after the shooting. He served time in jail on multiple burglary convictions and was recently arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and released on $6,000 bail in June, according to Hays County court records, reported the

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

<<

Police panel

From page 10

Still, said Gascón, when the racist and homophobic messages were discovered, “I was completely taken by surprise,” he said.

Gascón said he realized the problem must have been more widespread than it appeared initially.

“It couldn’t have been limited to just 14 officers” initially identified, he said. “And when we tried to investigate, we ran into a lot of walls.”

In addition to the problem of racism within the department, the texts brought into question the district attorney’s reliance on police officers providing testimony for cases they were prosecuting.

Adoption of the blue ribbon panel’s recommendations, said Gascón, could prevent similar situations from happening in the future.

Panelist Van Jones, a political activist, said he realized as a Yale law student that police were targeting

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Federal trans case

From page 8

corresponds with their gender identity and a Virginia lawsuit over whether a transgender student may use a school restroom that corresponds with his gender identity.

“By choosing to instead file their claims in this court, the non-Texas [states] are forum shopping, a practice which should not be countenanced,” said the five groups’ brief.

In a joint statement released July

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News Briefs

From page 9

in incarceration and has helped shape the conversation around the arbitrary and discriminatory processes for incarcerated LGBT people to access “protective” spaces, according to an event announcement.

The Potomac departs the San Francisco Ferry Building, Gate E at 3 p.m., returning at 6. Tickets are $125 and include wine and hors d’oeuvres. All proceeds benefit the law fund’s year-round fellowships for new lawyers and law students focusing on LGBT civil rights advocacy. For more information, visit http://www.eventbrite. co m / e / 2 0 1 6 - p r i d e - l aw - f u n d annual-bay-cruise-honoring-ucberkeley-professor-russell-robinson-tickets-24222986605?aff=es2.

Dem club to host Kennedy author

The Robert F. Kennedy Demo-

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Development

From page 13

that actually help create the district,” said Brian Basinger, the Q Foundation’s founder and director.

Rick Galbreath, the foundation’s manager of finance and administration, stressed that the organization is not demanding, at this point, that the existing buildings need to be preserved or incorporated in some way into the new development.

“That is what a full EIR would tell us is: Can it be saved or documented? That is why we are asking for a full EIR, to tell us what the options are,” said Galbreath.

As for Group I, it continues to

minorities. “I’d never seen so much felonious activity” on the Yale campus, he said.

“But police would drive past us to the housing projects to arrest those kids, who were doing fewer drugs,” he said.

Jones, who comes from a family with a number of police officers, said there must be “consequences” for officers who violate rules on the job. Frequently, he said, those who do violate rules are not fired or demoted because of the “culture of corruption” in police departments across the nation.

Organizers had invited a representative from the SFPD but it declined. About halfway through the evening, a cop in the audience identified himself. He was invited to join the panelists on stage and did, but didn’t say much.t To read the blue ribbon panel’s report, go to http://sfdistrictattorney.org/sites/default/files/Document/BRP_report.pdf.

27, the five groups said the state officials involved in the Texas v. U.S. lawsuit “want to block implementation of guidance issued by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice recognizing that schools must be safe, respectful and nurturing environments for all students and that singling out transgender students for separate and unequal treatment is demeaning and harmful to them.”

Texas v. U.S. is one of dozens of lawsuits filed by Texas against Obama administration policies.t

cratic Club will host a conversation about RFK’s 1968 presidential campaign and the lessons to be learned as the 2016 presidential election kicks into high gear when it meets Monday, August 15 in San Francisco.

The club will welcome Larry Tye, a former Boston Globe reporter who has just written a new biography, Bobby Kennedy, the Making of a Liberal Lion. Daniel Ellsberg, a personal friend of RFK, will join the conversation to share his memories and highlight the similarities between the divisiveness of today’s election compared to 1968. (Kennedy was assassinated just after he won the California primary in June 1968.)

The club meets at 7 p.m. (doors open at 6:30) at Valencia Gardens, 390 Valencia Street. There is no cost to attend.

People can RSVP via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ events/102258023523333.t

move forward with its plans for the site, announcing last week that the Magic Theatre would operate tuition-free after school programs for nearby youth out of a corner space in the new building.

“We are so pleased to bring them to the project and look forward to working with them on developing community-based programming and educational opportunities for Tenderloin residents,” stated the developer in an emailed update.

The new preliminary mitigated negative declaration for the 950 Market Street project can be downloaded at http://sf-planning.org/ environmental-impact-reportsnegative-declarations.t

t

Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037145400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: N3XT, 340 PAGE ST #207, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ROBERT J. THOMAS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/20/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/20/16.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUGUST 04, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037170700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VILLA AROMA, 801 GEARY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DAVID CHANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/11/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/11/16.

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This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MICHAEL DAVID NELSON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/26/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/11/16.

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ARIEL EXPRESS #2, 2359 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARTA S. FIGUEROA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/16.

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NOE VALLEY SMILES AND BRACES; NOE VALLEY SMILES & BRACES; NOE VALLEY SMILES FOR KIDS, 3932 24TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed JAFARI DMD INC. AND SIAMAK JAFARI DENTAL CORP (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/24/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/24/16.

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ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-16-552231

In the matter of the application of: TINA BHUTANI, 350 EWING TERRACE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner TINA BHUTANI, is requesting that the name TINA BHUTANI, be changed to TINA BHUTANIJACQUES. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 30th of August 2016 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUGUST 04, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037170800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LIMONCELLO, 1400 SUTTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed ALIMENTO, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/11/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/11/16.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUGUST 04, 2016 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-037077700

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: GREEN SPA & NAIL, 347 JUDAH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by MUI CHANH VONG. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/03/16.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUGUST 04, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037181500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HALAL SF GYRO, 1301 MARKET ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MUHAMMAD AKMAL KHAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/18/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/18/16.

JULY 21, 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037181400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HALAL SF GYRO, 1390 MARKET ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MUHAMMAD AKMAL KHAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/18/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/18/16.

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CONNIE’S BEAUTY SALON, 5011 GEARY BLVD APT C, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JIAHUA ZHENG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/28/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/28/16.

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DREAMSCAPES, 980 TERESITA BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SUSAN LANDRY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/08/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/08/16.

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GREEN SPA & NAIL, 347 JUDAH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed HAO KIM LAM & HOANG CHUC PHUNG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/07/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/11/16.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NAAN N CURRY, 2154 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed ALMEER FOOD INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/15/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/18/16.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUGUST 04, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037145900

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PICCIONE FLOREALE, 1254 MASON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed GENNARO PICCIONE & BELEM PICCIONE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/20/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/20/16.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WEST HALYARD, 924 MINNESOTA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CAPITO LIFE TECHNOLOGIES INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/12/16.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUGUST 04, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037146700

JULY 21, 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037172901

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-16-552291

In the matter of the application of: TAI STILLWATER-MOON & MAXINE ZYLBERBERG, 32 DEARBORN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner TAI STILLWATER-MOON & MAXINE ZYLBERBERG, is requesting that the name SIERRA ZYLBERBERG STILLWATER, be changed to CIARA ZYLBERBERG STILLWATER. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 29th of September 2016 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037152000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE JELLY BUS; THE PIANO BUS, 171 COLERIDGE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed ABACAXI, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/16.

JULY 21, 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037185900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FANTA TRADING COMPANY, 556 5TH AVE #3, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LINGXIA XU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/21/16.

JULY 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037187200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: IRONDOZEN, 1549 CAYUGA AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed HARUMI DEBONO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/21/16.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/22/16.

JULY 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037187300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MELISSA KLEIN CONSULTING, 246 2ND ST #605, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MELISSA KLEIN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/22/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/22/16.

JULY 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037183100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MASI PUBLISHING, 1404 FLORIDA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed EDDY A. MARTINEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/18/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/19/16.

JULY 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037184800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JAMBA JAMBA COMPANY, 1838 42ND AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RIGGIES B. TANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/15/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/21/16.

JULY 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037183900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THEA VISION SERVICES, 305 24TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MONICA CHERNOGUZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/20/16.

JULY 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037183500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SOCCER TROPHY AWARDS, 1189 GENEVA AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARIANA JIMENEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/18/16.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/20/16.

JULY 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037155800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MONCLER, 212 STOCKTON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed MONCLER USA RETAIL LLC (NY). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/21/16.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HEADS FIRST SALON; H F SALON, 1700 A UNION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed LINETTE WATSON & GEORGE WATSON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/12/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/12/16.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: OM INDIAN CUISINE, 1668 HAIGHT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed AJAY RAJ KHADKA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/29/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/29/16.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUGUST 04, 2016

JULY 21, 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 2016

JULY 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 2016

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Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037185500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PENSIONE BENEDETTI HOTEL, 556 GREEN ST #211, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed JAMES T. FIORUCCI & GINO T.L. FIORUCCI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/08. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/21/16.

JULY 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037170100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MASHIKO FOLKCRAFT, 1581 WEBSTER ST #216, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed TERENCE DENNIS COOKE & EDWARD WAYNE SANDERS JR..The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/08/16.

JULY 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037187700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: INN AT GOLDEN GATE, 2707 LOMBARD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed MANGAL INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/22/16.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/22/16.

JULY 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037187800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HOTEL 32ONE, 321 GRANT AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed HOTEL 32ONE, LLC (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/22/16.

JULY 28, AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037198400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GHETTOSABERS, 1883 PALOU AVE #B, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DANIEL EDWARD FARR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/01/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/01/16.

AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037196800

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037188300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MINDFUL LIVING, 2676 PINE ST #A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed AMY HEPHNER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/17/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/25/16.

AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037178000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CANTON HOUSE GOURMET, 1936 IRVING ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed K&K INVESTMENT INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/22/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/22/16.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TERRA COTTA WARRIOR, 2555 JUDAH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JIE YANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/25/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/25/16.

AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016

Movers>>

AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037195100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GOLDEN BAY INSURANCE INC., 2826 SAN BRUNO AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed GOLDEN BAY INSURANCE INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/28/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/28/16.

AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037178100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ABBOTT WENDLER ARCHITECTS, 760 SOUTH VAN NESS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA. 94110.

This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed LUKE ABBOTT WENDLER & ANN ABBOTT WENDLER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/08/11.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/27/16.

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HUNAN HOUSE, 826 WASHINGTON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed WASHINGTON CAFE INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/25/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/01/16.

AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037192200

AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037188400

Pet Services>>

AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037198300

AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037191100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ALEKSANDRA D FASHION & DESIGN, 643 SPRUCE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALEKSANDRA SOTELO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/27/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/27/16.

Counseling>>

AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037187600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SUITSUPPLY, 173 MAIDEN LANE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SUIT SUPPLY SAN FRANCISCO, INC. (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/07/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/15/16.

AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037192100

Classifieds The

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DIM SUM KITCHEN INC, 2520 SAN BRUNO AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed DIM SUM KITCHEN INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/15/16.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: STOP & SAVE MARKET, 784 O’FARRELL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DAWLAH MUSAED ALHASHI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/27/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/29/16.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KREHBIEL CONSTRUCT, 4718 BALBOA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LAURA KREHBIEL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/29/16.

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AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037193300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DECCAN SPICE BY M&M, 1142 VALENCIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed M&M FOODS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/26/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/27/16.

AUGUST 04, 11, 18, 25, 2016

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Gallery crawl

23

Rated X

24

Out &About

Lear's treasures

21

O&A

20

Vol. 46 • No. 31 • August 4-10, 2016

www.ebar.com/arts

She’s beautiful as she feels

by Richard Dodds

T

he creators of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical expected the woman of their inspiration to show up at the Curran Theatre for its 2013 world premiere prior to Broadway. But she was a no-show. Certainly, they thought, she’ll be at the New York opening. And again, no Carole.

The singer-songwriter wasn’t keen at seeing her life, and most dramatically, her failed marriage to songwriting partner Gerry Goffin, put on display as a Broadway musical. Doug McGrath, whose job it was to create a biographical script on which King’s songs could be hung, empathized with the reluctant Broadway debutante for shying away from what became a big hit and is now making its first return to San Francisco, arriving Aug. 9 at the Orpheum Theatre.

See page 25 >> Abby Mueller, as Carole King, reluctantly heads into the recording studio to sing her own songs in a scene from Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, arriving Aug. 9 at the Orpheum Theatre.

Joan Marcus

Ballet in the great outdoors

by Paul Parish

Y

ou always take your chances when you see a performance outdoors. Last Sunday’s outing by the San Francisco Ballet at Stern Grove was a welcome sighting of the dancers, even if you couldn’t really see them for the glare and the waving screen of large heads in wide, floppy-brimmed hats that kept popping up like unwelcome ads. The weather was muggy, borderline oppressive, but the crowd was huge and enthusiastic, and our internationally famous dancers did us all proud in their only hometown appearance before Christmas.

See page 23 >>

fall

At Stern Grove, San Francisco Ballet dancers Frances Chung and Tiit Helimets in Helgi Tomasson’s Swan Lake.

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS }

Erik Tomasson

ARTS PREVIEW Coming August 25 and September 1 Call 415-829-8937 for advertising information

<< Out There

18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

Opera over the airwaves

t

by Roberto Friedman

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2pub-BBB_BAR_080416.pdf

1

7/25/16

10:14 AM

he Fall 2016 San Francisco Opera broadcasts on Classical KDFC begin this Sunday, Aug. 7, with a broadcast of the gala concert honoring David Gockley’s career as General Director of the Houston Grand Opera and SFO. Hosted by mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade and baritone Thomas Hampson, the three-hour celebration features an all-star line-up of vocal soloists including sopranos Julie Adams, Renée Fleming, Ana María Martínez, Karita Mattila, Patricia Racette; mezzo-sopranos Catherine Cook, Sasha Cooke, Dolora Zajick; tenors Michael Fabiano, Brian Jagde, Simon O’Neill; baritone Edward Nelson; bass-baritone Eric Owens; basses René Pape and Anthony Reed. SFO Music Director Nicola Luisotti, Company Principal Guest Conductor Patrick Summers, Jiří Bělohlávek and John DeMain conduct the SFO Orchestra, Chorus and soloists in selections by Gershwin, Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Wagner and others, including living composers John Adams, Carlisle Floyd, André Previn and Marco Tutino.

SFO’s 1982 production of Handel’s Julius Caesar, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras and starring mezzosoprano Tatiana Troyanos in the title role, will be broadcast on Sept. 4.

Troyanos was a beloved artist who died in 1993 at 54. This From the Archives performance, sung in English, also features Valerie Masterson as Cleopatra, Sarah Walker as Cornelia and Delia Wallis as Sextus.

On Oct. 4, Bizet’s Carmen, starring Irene Roberts in the title role and Brian Jagde as Don José, will be the featured broadcast. Exploring the opera’s realism and violence in a production by Calixto Bieito,

Cory Weaver/SFO

“Make Our Garden Grow” from Candide at the gala concert honoring David Gockley: baritone Edward Nelson, tenor Pene Pati, soprano Julie Adams, General Director David Gockley, tenor Brian Jagde, mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook, bass Anthony Reed, San Francisco Opera Chorus.

the cast also included soprano Ellie Dehn as Micaëla, baritone Zachary Nelson as the bullfighter Escamillo and Carlo Montanaro, in his Company debut, conducting.

Presented in the five-act, Italian version, Verdi’s Don Carlo will air on Nov. 6. SFO Music Director Luisotti conducted Verdi’s dark, majestic masterpiece. American tenor Fabiano made his role debut as Carlo, the prince torn between love and duty. Baritone Mariusz Kwiecień was Rodrigo. The cast also featured soprano Martínez as Elisabetta, mezzo-soprano Nadia Krasteva in her SFO debut as Princess Eboli, bass Pape as Philip II, and Andrea Silvestrelli as The Grand Inquisitor.

Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa concludes the fall broadcasts on Dec. 4. The June 2016 production of this gripping tale of a young woman’s coming of age and the morally conflicted stepmother who attempts to protect her honor was a huge success. The cast featured Malin Bystrom in her SFO and role debut as Jenůfa, veteran soprano Mattila

Field fearlessness

by Jim Piechota

C

M

Y

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MY

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CMY

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Fair Play by Cyd Zeigler, Akashic Books, $15.95 here has always been a great divide between the LGBT community and the sports arena, and much of it relates more to the politics of masculinity and locker room homophobia than to the challenge and rivalry of the games themselves.

Sports journalist and Outsports online magazine co-founder Cyd Zeigler understands this and has spent a great portion of his career “in a continuous struggle to balance the two worlds in which I came of age: sports and the gay community.”

Zeigler denotes the 2000s as the pivotal decade when the climate of organized sports began to change, though not always for the better.

He vividly describes a defining moment in 2007 when Tim Hardaway, then a first-round NBA draft choice, was asked on a radio program what his thoughts were about the recent coming out of basketball player John Amaechi. Hardaway vocally and vehemently admitted to hating homosexuality and his open disgust for a gay teammate. Though he was largely criticized for his perspective, the “culture war” between the LGBT community and organized sports had escalated with just a few words.

In hindsight, the author writes, “After every storm there is an opportunity for growth.” Great strides have been made to bring both communities together through the bravery of several gay athletes Zeigler profiles. Legendary football running back Dave Kopay came out

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in 1975, “years ahead of Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova, because it was the right thing to do.”

Derrick Gordon, a perseverant college basketball player, came out and remained in the game amidst the threat of ostracization. These are just two of the examples the author provides of outstanding athletes who paved the way for others in the LGBT community. The difference in many of these coming out stories is that some boldly revealed their personal lives while they were still active pro athletes, while others, like NFL defensive tackle Esera Tuaolo and baseball great Billy Bean, came out in post-career retirement.

A chapter on the controversy that surrounded the first openly transgender mixed martial arts professional, Fallon Fox, is a prime example of how provocative the LGBT sports arena can become.

as Kostelnička, tenor William Burden as Laca, and Scott Quinn as Števa. Czech conductor Bělohlávek led a dynamic performance.

The SFO broadcasts air on KDFC on the first Sunday of each month at 8 p.m. (7 p.m. for Don Carlo) and are hosted by radio announcer Dianne Nicolini. The performances are also available at kdfc.com for streaming on demand for four weeks after each initial broadcast.

On the keys

Joey Alexander is a 13-year-old jazz piano prodigy whose second album Countdown will release on Sept. 16 (Motéma Music). Out There listened to an advance copy, and now we know the future of jazz pianism is promising. Alexander keeps up with the daunting fingerwork on John Coltrane’s “Countdown” and Thelonious Monk’s “Criss Cross.” He puts his stamp on Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile,” Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage,” Billy Strayhorn’s “Chelsea Bridge” and Wynton Marsalis’ “For Wee Folks.”

Already the recipient of two Grammy awards (the youngest jazz artist to win), this talented musician’s future looks bright.t

Zeigler admits that his involvement with athletes and coaches has mostly been with men, and his book largely reflects this. But a chapter on female sports pros and lesbian athletes proves just as illuminating as sections on their masculine counterparts. Both courage and fear are the common denominators in all of these stories, and pride and resilience win out on the playing field.

Late in the book, Zeigler discusses current sports figures like Tim Tebow, Troy Aikman, and Aaron Rodgers, who have not come out, but remain under public scrutiny for the possibility that they may be gay (or not). He mines the tricky subject of outing in sports, and reiterates that his magazine does not out anyone.

But athletes should be prepared in advance for the ups and downs that result from exposing their private side to the world. By championing the lives of out sports figures, Zeigler hopes readers will understand the double-edged reality of LGBT athletes who have experienced both “the powerful acceptance so many of them have faced, and the limited yet enduring scope of rejection by people in power.”

Part of Brooklyn indie publisher Akashic Books’ imprint Edge of Sports Books spotlighting sports titles with a progressive political message, Fair Play presents LGBT history and shows how far the movement has come. It’s also an important scrapbook of past and present-day gay athletes who have bravely tested America’s social climate and come out, even when their careers were at risk.t

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<< Music

20 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

Illuminating George Benjamin

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by Tim Pfaff

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s I write this, the curtain is going up on the premiere of Thomas Ades’ new opera The Exterminating Angel at the Salzburg Festival, while word comes out that Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara – like Ades, another fine composer in whose work opera has figured prominently – has died, eliciting lamentations worldwide.

There seems to be a new tempest in a teapot about whether “classical” music is dead, hand-wringing that “new” music doesn’t speak to audiences. But that doesn’t square with a veritable epidemic of productions/ performances of music as demanding as Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you and George Benjamin’s full-length opera Written on Skin, that wring out breathless audiences and become the hottest tickets in town. Furthermore, the contribution of out gay composers – Ades and Benjamin perhaps the most prominent among them – cannot be overestimated. I don’t know (or care) if Abrahamsen is gay, but Alexandre Tharaud, the dedicatee and trenchant, lithe first performer of his brilliant new concerto for piano left-hand Left Alone, takes up any slack with stylish panache.

I can’t name a living composer with a stronger deserved reputation than Ades’, and like Benjamin, he is also a renowned pianist and conductor. Still, the quality of music being composed and performed today is so high that, with The Exterminating Angel, Ades has something to prove, even devils to exterminate.

His first, “chamber” opera, Powder Her Face, despite featuring the first onstage blowjob actually in the libretto, has won a more solid place in the repertoire than in fans’ hearts; its music is that difficult.

And his first “big-house” opera, The Tempest, which has earned competing productions at Covent Garden and the Met, also commands more esteem than love. No composer

Joseph Molina Nimbus Records

Composer George Benjamin: coronas of choral song.

has yet out-Barded Shakespeare’s visionary late play, thought many have understandably tried.

It’s odd that in our century we would have something like a replay of the Benjamin Britten-Michael Tippett “rivalry” with Ades and Benjamin, who are likely no more actual rivals than were their predecessors, both of whom were also gay.

Listing the qualities of Ades’ and Benjamin’s music brings interesting overlap, particularly with respect to the deep thoughtfulness of overall conception (particularly audible when verbal texts are aspects of a piece), the extreme fine grain of the imagination of sound, and its realization in scores of masterful orchestration – music that’s all about illumination, not obfuscation. The difficulty is not exhibitionist, but rather expressionist, if sometimes in an impressionistic kind of way.

One of the most clarifying thoughts about music I’ve heard came from venerable SF Opera

publicist Kori Lockhart, who said, with reference to the two most famous Rossini singers of the time, “Horne makes it sound hard, but Bartoli makes it sound easy.” Moving back to the realm of composition, to my ears Ades is Schoenberg to Benjamin’s Berg: two gods, one the Father, the other the Son sent to dwell among us. Even at its loftiest, Ades’ music sounds tough, almost forbidding, and even at its most searching – say, performing Schubert’s Winterreise with Ian Bostridge – his live music-making always declares how damn good he is. Benjamin is the kind who can as easily slip into a dark pit to accompany a silent film on an old piano; I mean that metaphorically, but I heard him do just that in San Francisco.

Put yet another way, Ades clobbers you over the head, while Benjamin insinuates himself into your capillaries, headed for your heart.

Through the marvel of European radio (why did America get off that

Countertenor Bejun Mehta: the deepest soul.

boat?) I’ve heard snatches of The Exterminating Angel, and reflexively, my ear-eyes crossed, I can’t wait to hear it all. But I would be dissembling not to say that I fantasize more about the forthcoming full-length opera from Benjamin and his Written on Skin librettist, Martin Crimp, slated for Covent Garden in 2018.

That fantasy has been piqued

by Benjamin’s latest vocal-choralorchestral work Dream of the Song, the premiere of which has just been released on the house label of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, where it was conducted by the composer and featured the singer for whom it was composed, out countertenor Bejun Mehta; among all his extraordinary colleagues working today, he has consistently evinced the greatest instinctual dramatic sense, keenest intelligence, and yes, deepest soul of them all. (The RCO label has done everything in its power to obscure the work behind the CD title Horizon 7 and some flabbergastingly

bland cover art.)

In Dream of the Song, Benjamin, who claims some Sephardic blood in his heritage, sets poems by 11th-century Hebrew poets Samuel HaNagid and Solomon Ibn Gabirol (if you like Rumi, this is your stuff) for the countertenor, and sets them spinning in coronas of choral song that sets texts by Federico Garcia Lorca. It’s spellbinding first to last.

The vocal line is so melismatic and the spare orchestral textures so fine-grained that you have to listen as keenly as you ever do to Ades, but while no one would call the vocal music of either composer earworms, Benjamin’s slips into the ear canal in a way that immediately makes you cock your head. There’s something happening here.

The CD also has terrific performances of Magnus Lindberg’s “Era,” Tan Dun’s “The Wolf ” and Richard Rijnvos’ “Fuoco e Fumo,” and it will all make you thrilled that you’re alive in 2016 to hear it. But Dream of the Song is a dream of a song.t

King Lear

by David-Elijah Nahmod

N

ow 94 years old, the still-active Norman Lear is considered by many to be the most influential television producer of all time. Legendary sitcoms All in the Family, Maude, Good Times and The Jeffersons changed the television landscape. They also changed America’s dialogue on race, gender and sexuality. No one pushed the envelope more boldly than Lear.

All in the Family, Lear’s first big television hit, is perhaps his greatest work. Lear somehow managed to make right bigot Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor) appear likable even as the character spewed non-stop racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and xenophobia. In scenes that are still shocking today, Archie sparred with his liberal, hippie son-inlaw Mike (Rob Reiner). Lear and his writers intentionally threw offensive barbs at viewers in order to underscore the ignorance of prejudice.

Lear was the first showrunner to put LGBT people on the tube in a

positive light. In the courageous “Judging Books by Covers,” a 1971 episode of AITF, Mike’s effeminate friend turns out to be straight. It’s Archie’s macho, beer-drinking buddy who ends up being gay. In “The Gay Bar,” a 1977 episode of Lear’s series Maude, uber-feminist Maude Findlay (Bea Arthur) takes her bigoted neighbor Arthur (Conrad Bain) to the local gay bar in order to show him that “homosexuals are just regular people.” The screamingly funny episode features both characters making embarrassing faux pas as they attempt to “educate” each other.

Perhaps the most daring of Lear’s LGBT-themed episodes was “Edith’s Crisis of Faith,” AITF’s 1977 Christmas show. After her cross-dressing friend Beverly (Lori Shannon) is gay-bashed to death on Christmas Eve, Archie’s wife Edith (the always sublime Jean Stapleton) refuses to go to Midnight Mass, saying that going to church does no good.

Lori Shannon, who died of a heart attack in 1984, was then a popular

/lgbtsf

San Francisco drag performer and a B.A.R. columnist.

In Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, a new documentary by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, Lear’s immense influence on American culture is recalled.

Lear never backed away from controversy – he had no qualms about inserting words like “fag” and “n-” into his scripts. Suits at CBS were so horrified that disclaimers were placed at the beginning of some of Lear’s shows. But audiences ate it up. Lear made it possible for Americans to engage in honest dialogue about important issues including race, sexuality, abortion, women’s rights, and people’s perceptions of other religions and cultures. Ewing and Grady’s film recalls this era, alternating 30-year-old interview clips with newly shot footage of Lear talking about his life.

Lear came from a broken home.

His dad served a long jail sentence for stock fraud. He speaks eloquently about the influence of his own parents in the creation of Archie and Edith Bunker. He sees those characters, and the black families seen in Good Times and The Jeffersons, as extensions of each other. “I’m just another version of you,” he says.

“We’re all versions of each other.”

The film also spends time on Lear’s third act. In the mid-1980s he retired from producing so he could devote his time to People For the American Way, an organization he formed specifically to challenge attempts by the far right to make their conservative

Steven Underhill

Norman Lear was the 2016 Freedom of Expression Award recipient at this year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

religious beliefs the law of the land.

Lear has lived an amazing life.

He’s come a long way from his humble beginnings as a joke writer for The Colgate Comedy Hour during the early days of live TV. The filmmakers tell the whole story in a fast-paced 90 minutes. It’s a story as

breathtaking as anything that Lear has put on the screen.t Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You opens on Fri., Aug. 5 at Landmark’s Clay Theater in SF and the Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley.

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Fine Art>>

August 4-10, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 21

August at the art galleries

by Sura Wood

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rt never sleeps, even during the summer when most of us are kicking back and swinging in our hammocks. Time has come to put aside that refreshing pitcher of Tom Collins, get out of the house, and imbibe some culture. Here are a few suggestions on where to go.

Rena Bransten Gallery: Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Love & War. Ferlinghetti, an activist, poet, cofounder of City Lights Booksellers and all-round local legend, has been a familiar fixture on the literary scene for years, and can still draw a crowd. Though poetry has been his claim to fame, unbeknownst to many he has pursued his second love, painting, for more than six decades. In his latest solo exhibition, the 97-year-old, self-taught artist brings a long life well-lived and his exposure to the atrocities of WWII, which turned him toward “radical pacifism,” to reflections on the ties that bind and the conflict that tears them apart. Bodies of water, avian life, the human figure and text scrawled on canvases are recurring motifs and, as one might expect, literary references abound: side-by-side images of T.S. Eliot’s wife Vivienne on the eve of her marriage and 20-odd years later upon her commitment to an insane asylum; Beckett’s Godot; a mournful Edna St. Vincent Millay, her eyes downcast, words covering a portion of her face; and “The Howl” (2002/13), invoking both Edvard Munch’s disturbing lithograph “The Scream” and the Allen Ginsberg opus published by Ferlinghetti in 1956, an act that led to his arrest and a highly publicized obscenity trial. An almost boyish, minimalist technique is applied to serious, politically charged subjects. In “Boat People” (2006), for example, a small

John Janca

Installation view of Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Love & War at Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco.

green craft with mast and no sail is tossed by rough, bleak seas, carrying its passengers – one of them blindfolded, another gagged – on a perilous passage; and two ghoulish antagonists, naked except for their helmets, face off in the grotesque “C’est la Guerre” (1982). Through Aug. 20; renabranstengallery.com.

Vessel Gallery: Disruptus, a group exhibition of painting, poetry, sculpture and photography, which takes its title in part from Silicon Valley tech-speak, explores timely topics to consider in this tumultuous election season: the unsettling impact of technology, globalization and political upheaval on our daily lives. Fast-changing communities like Oakland, where this gallery and many priced-out SF transplants are located, have borne some of the brunt of these forces, though they’re felt around the world in places like Russia, for instance, the native country of those irrepressible feminist/ punk rockers Pussy Riot, who’ve provoked the iron hand and punitive wrath of Putin’s government. Their rebel spirit is captured at full tilt in

a colorful collaborative work by Christa Assad and Kevin Wickham.

It’s displayed along with the team’s giant pink grenade sculpture (“Disruptor”), which could be mistaken for a toy, a devilish play on the concept of war games. Sculptor Todd Laby’s morphing installation “Migration,” a cluster of wooden houses built on unstable ground, grapples with displacement head-on, and David Burke’s acrylic-and-ink painting “What’s Yours Is Mined,” informed by animation and a steampunk aesthetic, addresses the clash between protecting the fragile environment and ruthless industrial imperatives.

Through Aug. 27; vessel-gallery.com.

SOMArts Cultural Center: Women, generally speaking, get less exhibition space than their male counterparts, and artworks by black women are shamefully underrepresented in most galleries and museums. Ergo The Black Woman Is God, a mix of performance and visual art projects exclusively focusing on the roles of black women and their impressive, often overlooked contributions as artists, feminists and

Courtesy Haines Gallery and the artist

“Chez Tortoni” (2015), duratrans transparency and lightbox by Kota Ezawa, part of The Stand-Ins at Haines Gallery in San Francisco.

change-agents. This expansive show includes 60 black female artists who work at the intersection of race and gender, expressing their personal perspectives in a range of mediums and styles. Joan Tarika Lewis created “The New Seal of California,” a reimagined state emblem with a tribal black woman as its central figure; and curator Karen Seneferu screens her African-inflected art video Hotcomb: The Masquerade. Shot

by Idris Hassan largely in Oakland, and featuring local dancers and performers, it depicts the return of spiritual ancestors who visit various historical sites inside and outside the Bay Area black community in an attempt to heal old wounds.

Through Aug. 17; somarts.org.

Haines Gallery: The Stand-Ins features works by a quartet of artists

– Kota Ezawa, Maurizio Anzeri, Chris McCaw and Allison Smith – who enlist digital and photographic images as surrogates for real people, places and things. Never failing to intrigue, Ezawa, who splits his time between Berlin and San Francisco, has set his sights this time out on the notorious 1990 grand theft from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in which a pair of thieves, disguised as police officers, stole 13 works of art valued at upwards of $500 million.

Those works haven’t been recovered, but now, two of them, Manet’s “Chez Tortoni” and “The Concert”

by Vermeer, have been transmuted in Ezawa’s distinctive style and resurrected as custom-designed light boxes whose scale mimics the vanished originals. Through Sept. 3; hainesgallery.com.t

The Super Tour 2nd Show Added by Popular Demand!

Fox Theater - Oakland 10.27.16 Friday, 10.28.16

under the direction of Another Planet Entertainment Buy tickets online: apeconcerts.com thefoxoakland.com ticketmaster.com petshopboys.co.uk

<< Film

22 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

August up on the Castro Theatre screen

by David Lamble

High Sierra (1941) This Raoul Walsh-directed, John Hustonwritten Bogart vehicle thrust the B-actor into one of Hollywood’s greatest iconic runs. Bogart brought a unique mix of individual bravura and idealism to a series of screen roles never duplicated. (both 8/20) Dial M for Murder (1954) Originally shot by Alfred Hitchcock in an early version of 3-D, the regularprint version holds our interest for its lurid plot: a husband (Ray Milland) hires a professional killer to dispose of his wife (Grace Kelly).

Wait Until Dark (1967) Audrey Hepburn gives a brave performance as a young blind woman terrorized in her Manhattan flat by a nasty trio of thugs. Alan Arkin is a sadistic villain who may do wicked deeds for the pure thrill of it all. (both 8/21) Female on the Beach (1955) Joan Crawford heads the cast of this murder tale involving a beach bum and an uptight widow.

Wicked Woman (1953) Russell Rouse helms this tale of a waitress who sets out to knock off her bartender’s wife. (both 8/24) Harold and Maude (1971) Bud Cort, 20, and Ruth Gordon, 80, become the oddest couple of the American sound era. Comes complete with fake suicides. Remember, it’s OK to laugh.

Minnie and Moskowitz (1971)

John Cassavetes departs from his usual macho-boys tales with this funny romance between a seemingly mismatched couple, Gena Rowlands and Seymour Cassel. (both 8/25) Repo Man (1984) Alex Cox’s sleazy world of guys who take back cars on behalf of the banks has lost none of its cruel charm and punk sensibility. The movie belongs to its odd-couple leads: the crewcut Emilio Estevez and the rumpled Harry Dean Stanton.

Pulp Fiction (1994) Quentin Tarantino is on top of his game in this darkly funny shoot-em-up that gave Samuel L. Jackson a platform from which to shine. Uma Thurman is the sexy damsel brought back from the dead by a drug-addled dealer with attitude (Eric Stoltz).

This is the flick that comes to mind if you ever have to talk some lunatic out of a killing spree. (both 8/26) Superman: The Movie (1978) Campy revival of the man-of-steel franchise, with Gene Hackman as villain Lex Luthor, and Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent and the big guy.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) Robert Wise’s large-scale adaptation of the cult TV show made universal stars of William Shatner (Admiral Kirk) and Leonard Nimoy (Captain Spock). (both 8/27) The Wizard of Oz (1939) What child of queerdom hasn’t experienced Dorothy’s wild ride from Kanas to Oz and back? I first saw it on my family’s 12-in. B&W Motorola, so I missed the great moment when Dorothy (Judy Garland) arrives in the colorful land of Oz. Gone With the Wind (1939) A four-hour translation of Margaret Mitchell’s bestseller about a woman (Vivien Leigh) who fights to save her family’s plantation and the lost world it represents. (both 8/28) Kiss Me Deadly (1955) This hard-hitting noir features a violent private dick, Mickey Spillane’s signature anti-hero Mike Hammer, given a coarse turn by Ralph Meeker directed by Robert Aldrich. The film represents nuclear annihilation with a suitcase that, when opened, emits a blinding white light.

Five (1951) Radio guru Arch Oboler’s own dark view of the nuclear holocaust, in a film he shot in his Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home. A bit talky, like one of Oboler’s Lights Out radio scripts. (both 8/31)t

released last year and problematic, but a more significant film, which netted Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander Oscar nominations. While he chooses most of the obvious candidates (Children’s Hour, Boys in the Band, Midnight Cowboy, Cabaret, La Cage Aux Folles, My Beautiful Laundrette, Maurice, Torch Song

Trilogy, Philadelphia, My Own Private Idaho), there are some glaring omissions of important titles, such as Tea and Sympathy, Sunday Bloody Sunday Sunday, Wedding Banquet, Longtime Companion Companion, and especially Desert Heart, arguably the most successful lesbian film. While there are lesbian and transsexual movie entries, 90% of the coverage in Out is gay.

For the average reader seeking a broad survey of popular LGBT movies, this flawed book will suffice for now, and will trigger memories of these groundbreaking movies. It might also draw the reader’s attention to films they might not have considered, such as Suddenly Last Summer, Lilting, The Naked Civil Servant, Victim, Parting Glances, and Get Real.

Davies avoids academic jargon.

Perhaps his book will encourage Murray to update his indispensable resource, spark a rereading of Russo’s still-relevant book, or embolden another critic to compile a more indepth history of LGBT cinema.t

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ugust is a fantastic month for Castro Theatre regulars who come for the organist, the popcorn and a full month of great old flicks on the movie palace’s 40-foot screen. The only bad news: the theatre is dark Mondays and Tuesdays throughout the month.

Cabaret (1972) This multi-Oscar classic will have you doing your own private sing-along in your seat.

Based on British gay author Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, this Bob Fosse-directed blockbuster provided sweet moments for Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli.

Victor Victoria (1982) Blake Edwards directs his wife Julie Andrews in her most ambitious role as a genderbending nightclub singer.

With lovely turns from James Garner, Alex Karras and Robert Preston. (both 8/4) Sing Along Mary Poppins (1964) The bouncing ball gives as many as 1,450 Castro patrons a chance to raise their voices with an all-star Disney cast. (8/5, 7) Under Age (1941) Edward Dmytryk directs a rare example of a socially conscious film noir. The 59-min. feature presents the plight of young women preyed upon by pimps.

I Wake Up Screaming (1941) A Broadway promoter is suspected of murdering a young woman whose career he has been supporting.

The Monster and the Girl (1941) This 65-min. noir focuses on the sordid world of WWII-era prostitution, a subject verboten in the official Hollywood production codes. (all 8/10) A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Shot when the sight of Brando in a tight-fitting T-shirt could turn heads and buckle knees, the strongest of Tennessee Williams’ taboo-shattering dramas holds our attention despite some cruel cuts forced by production codes. Oscars for Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden.

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) Williams’ brutal conflict between a young woman (Elizabeth Taylor) and her cruel aunt (Katharine Hepburn). Monty Clift pops up as a brain surgeon who is supposed to lobotomize the woman on instructions from the aunt. (both 8/11) The Goonies (1985) The kids are definitely not alright in this

Reagan-era spoof directed by Richard Donner and written by Chris Columbus. With Josh Brolin and Corey Feldman.

The Lost Boys (1987) Santa Cruz-shot teen adventure flirts with vampires and the cute kids of that moment, Coreys Haim and Feldman. (both 8/12) The Godfather (1972) Al Pacino takes over the reins of his New York crime family in the first part of Francis Ford Coppola’s trilogy based on Mario Puzo’s pulpy bestseller. Oscars for Best Picture, Actor (Brando) and Screenplay (Coppola & Puzo). An Italian-American origin-myth epic.

The Freshman (1990) This parody comedy from director Andrew Bergman finds Brando sending up his biggest triumph as Don Corleone, complemented by the freshfaced Matthew Broderick as a cocky film student. (both 8/14) 99 River Street (1953) Phil Carlson spins the hard-hitting tale of an ex-boxer thought to have killed his ex-wife.

The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) Earl McEvoy directs this noir about a terrible disease that stalks the big city. (both 8/17) Cruising (1980) William Friedkin directed this fascinating mess of a film. Its detractors called it an open invitation to murder gay

men in the S/M bars of Lower Manhattan. Rising star Al Pacino played a cop who goes undercover to catch a gay-slayer. The NYC opening produced a huge backlash from gay protesters; the demos spread to the West Coast and destroyed the film’s commercial prospects.

My conversations with Friedkin convinced me of his sincerity as a filmmaker, but I suspect he never quite got the real issues the film raised in our community. It will be interesting to gauge the reaction of a new generation.

Kamikaze 89 (1982) In his final film-acting turn Rainer Werner Fassbinder plays a hard-drinking cop in this melodrama that draws on the energy of the early-80s German punk scene. (both 8/18) Halloween (1978) John Carpenter’s cheapie chill-fest has survived numerous bad sequels. Jamie Lee Curtis debuts as a sister fending off her criminally lunatic brother’s blood lust.

It Follows (2014) David Robert Mitchell updates the classic horror film in a young woman’s encounter with a supernatural force. (both 8/19) Casablanca (1942) Humphrey Bogart double bill kicks off with his turn as a go-his-own-way cafe owner with a personal code not even Hollywood Nazis could crack.

Defining gay cinema

by Brian Bromberger

Out at the Movies: A History of Gay Cinema, Updated and Expanded Edition by Steven Paul Davies; Kamera Books, $27.95 t is hardly an original observation to note that LGBT cinema has mirrored the community’s journey from persecution to liberation to acceptance, shifting through the years from being fringe to independent to mainstream. Steven Paul Davies, a gay English film critic and broadcaster at BBC Radio London, wanting to analyze this metamorphosis, has updated and expanded his 2008 popular history of gay cinema, “celebrating films which have defined the genre, “ including recent movies such as Carol, released just last year.

The films are arranged decadeby-decade, with an introduction to each period covering major themes and brief mentions of movies made during that time. It is followed by detailed reviews of what Davies feels are the most important films, as well as capsule biographies of key gay actors, writers, and directors, with snippets of memorable dialogue as well as glossy color photos. The final

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chapter is an appendix of the Gay Oscars, presumably gay-themed films that have won or been nominated for Academy Awards, that seems incomplete. It is not meant to be encyclopedic in the way Ray Murray’s Images in the Dark was in 1994, a classic reference guide of over 3,000 movies, long out of print.

Nor can Out touch Vito Russo’s Celluloid Closet for depth or searing insight into homosexuality in the movies.

Still, one of the pluses of the book is the foreword by Simon Callow, the openly gay English actor, writer, and director perhaps best known for his portrayal of the gay friend Gareth who dies in Four Weddings and a Funeral. Like Davies, Callow sees Brokeback Mountain as the great LGBT breakthrough because it had two big well-known actors making love to each other, whose careers were actually advanced by appearing in it. Callow notes that when he began his career 40 years ago, such a development would have been inconceivable. He also evaluates Gareth as being a new kind of gay character in films, not a stereotype: masculine, occasionally offensive, generous, and

passionate. The most important moment in FWaaF comes when Hugh Grant remarks that amidst their group of friends in relationships, the most ideal “marriage” was Gareth and Matthew, who delivers a moving oration at the funeral.

Callow comments that since it is now feasible for straight actors to play gay and not be penalized, it has become harder for gay actors to get parts for which they are qualified. In four pages, Callow provides more illumination than Davies does in 220 pages.

Frustratingly, Davies highlights only about a dozen films per decade, about 65 total, and some of his choices are idiosyncratic. For example, in the 2010s chapter, he selects 2015’s I Am Michael, a deeply flawed film starring James Franco as Michael Glatze, a gay journalist and activist who, after a transformative religious experience, renounces his homosexuality and “gay lifestyle.”

But he does not choose The Danish Girl, about the transsexual artist Lili Elbe in 1920s Copenhagen, also

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Theatre>>

August 4-10, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 23

Peaches Christ gets down & dirty

the San Francisco-shot Behind the Green Door, all released during that same period, the X rating became synonymous with porn, and Hollywood studios began shying away from X-rated “art films.”

In 1995 director Paul Verhoeven, fresh off the success of his erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992), tried to revive the X-rated art-film genre with Showgirls. Produced for the then-unheard-of budget of $45 million, Showgirls was an All About Eve-inspired tale of Las Vegas strippers, one of whom claws her way to the top on the back of the Strip’s reigning jiggle queen. The film featured as much full-frontal nudity as Verhoeven could cram in. He also

included a notoriously raunchy lap dance sequence that pushed the mainstream envelope. Unfortunately for the auteur, Showgirls tried so hard to be shocking that it became hilarious. It’s now considered a camp classic. That’s where Peaches Christ comes in. On Aug. 10, Christ takes to the stage of the Victoria Theatre as the star of Showgirls: The Musical! She will be directed by Joshua Grannell, her alter ego.

“I love to say that Showgirls is the best movie ever made because people who love it like I do know what I mean, and that same statement infuriates and confuses people who don’t really get it,” Grannell told the B.A.R. “If a movie could be a drag queen, it would be this one. The film is so extreme and beautiful, overly dramatic, offensive, funny, glamorous, and scandalous. It’s drag! It’s nonstop entertaining.”

Grannell is also a filmmaker whose credits include All About Evil, a low-budget slasher flick primarily set at the Victoria Theatre. All About Evil’s cast includes gay actor Patrick Bristow, who stole a few scenes in Showgirls as Marty, the bitchy queen choreographer.

“Patrick is a brilliant comedy actor, so it was a real thrill after we’d done a Showgirls event together that he agreed to be in my first feature film,” Grannell said. “I’ve been fortunate that in my strange career as a cultmovie leader I’m able to work with people from the movies we worship!

But we don’t have any of the movie cast in the musical version.”

Grannell promised that Showgirls: The Musical! will delight fans of the original, as well as the many who enjoy Peaches’ incomparable brand of over-the-top humor. “This truly is a complete musical version of the movie Showgirls, from start to finish. The creators Bob & Tobly McSmith are brilliant parody writers and musicians. It’s as epic as the film is, with over 22 songs, live singing, live musicians, incredible dancing, and onstage nudity.”

shapes they make as well as in their timing, so each picture flashes at the same moment. It was a stunning example of the power of dancers of widely different backgrounds to commit to a single ideal, and of a ballet company to present a production in which no small mistake distracts from the overall effect.

The mesmerizing pas de deux from After the Rain, by Christopher Wheeldon, to hypnotic music by Arvo Part, proved once again to be able to cast its spell despite complete lack of stage decoration or atmospheric lighting. Wearing the simplest costumes – he bare-chested, in grey leggings, she bare-legged in a saffron leotard, they moved in infinitely slow motion with astounding intimacy through a range of contortions that held our attention through every transition. It’s an acrobatic adagio that’s been filled with spiritual content, wherein the noblest positions alternate with the most abject, as the music winds its dreamy way through permutations like those of the Moonlight Sonata translated into a major key. At one point, Luke Ingham (from Australia) supports Yuan Yuan Tan (born and trained in Shanghai) as she telescopes herself out horizontally into space, as if she were leaning out over the Grand Canyon only anchored to existence by faith in her partner and by his rock-solid commitment to her. This duet resembles The Dying Swan in its simplicity, coherence and universal appeal; it has one great idea, developed to perfection. There is no one who does not understand that a great deal has been communicated with no words spoken.

The afternoon ended with a brilliant reading of Rubies, the playful setting of a jazzy capriccio of Stravinsky’s for piano and orchestra, played to the hilt by the SF Ballet orchestra (Martin West, conductor) and Natal’ya Feygina at the piano. They’re all in red, the dancing is American Broadway hoofing done with classical technique, and the ballerina Vanessa Zahorian (Armenian-American) rollicked through it like a great comedian.

The corps dancers threw themselves into it with huge panache. I especially liked Francisco Mungamba (from Spain). But the laurels went to Joseph Walsh, a principal dancer (from Pennsylvania) who’s built low to the ground like the tennis player John McEnroe, with a fantastic grip on the floor and an ability to hurl into the air that resembles that of Edward Villella, on whom the role was created.

They all made the dance and the music seem as American as George Gershwin, to inflect the steps with syncopations and everyday gestures that pulled you into the action and made you feel like you were flying around the stage with them. At one point Walsh cocks his head in the universally understood gesture “come on, guys” and races clockwise round the stage, throwing in 720s every now and then, whereupon the other guys hit the ground as if a bomb had gone off. But it doesn’t feel like a bomb went off, it just feels like you just had the time of your life.

Finally, I was able to forget my troubles and get happy for the time being.t

Jose A. Guzman Colon

Peaches Christ as Cristal Connors in the West Coast premiere of Showgirls: The Musical!, playing San Francisco’s Victoria Theatre.

by David-Elijah Nahmod

B

ack in the late 1960s-early 70s, many filmmakers coveted an X rating. The adults-only label was considered during those early days of the movie rating system to be a sign of artistic maturity. Mainstream films like the Oscar-winning Midnight Cowboy, A Clockwork Orange, Ken Russell’s still shocking The Devils, and Last Tango in Paris starring Hollywood legend Marlon Brando, were all released with X ratings. Though none were pornographic, they were deemed unsuitable for children. With the proliferation of XXX classics like Deep Throat, The Devil in Miss Jones and

<<

SF Ballet

From page 17

It always makes me swell with civic pride to see our premier dance troupe dance for free for the fans in this noble philanthropic institution. The Stern family set the bar high for the new money to come when they gave this sublime natural park to the city, challenging the Googles, Facebooks and Twitters to step up and do something magnificent, high-minded, no-stringsattached for the community they call home.

This year it was harder to feel that way, partly because of the actual weather, but mostly for the tempestuous political atmosphere, which has made all but the most captivating diversions seem but shadows. The turbulent Zeitgeist kept tugging at me, reminding me as SFB wheeled into a beautifully danced Act II of Swan Lake that our Chinese-Canadian ballerina Frances Chung, who made an immaculate debut as Odette, comes from north of the border, and that her Prince Siegfried, the danseur noble Tiit Helimets, who came to us from Estonia, becomes a naturalized American citizen on Aug. 3.

Yes, the corps de ballet danced like a dream. Yes, the four little swans – Isabella deVivo, Jahna Frantziskonis, Norika Matsuyama, Emma Rubinowitz – stole the show, as the cygnets always do. How beautifully they matched each other in the precision, clarity, and attack of their brilliant movements, and how anatomically the same these dancers are in feet, calves, and thighs, in the

But don’t bring the kids, Grannell warned. “The musical is as offensive as the film is. This is why the show is age-restricted. Fans of the film will appreciate all of the special nuggets and nods that have been included.”

Showgirls: The Musical! has already amassed a following after its two successful runs in New York City. “Three of the original New York cast will be performing in the San Francisco version, including Rori Nogee, Marcus Desion, and April Kidwell as Nomi.” Nomi, portrayed by Saved by the Bell’s Elizabeth Berkley in the film, is the story’s ambitious stripper, determined to become a star at any cost.

Berkley threw caution to the wind when she performed that infamous lap dance, shocking her TV show’s family-friendly fan-base. “April’s performance as Nomi must be seen to be believed,” said Grannell. “It’s a spectacle in its own right.”

Grannell is particularly happy

that Showgirls will be mounted at the Victoria Theatre, and says the cast will be available for nightly meet-and-greets with the audience.

“I’m super-excited to be moving into the Victoria for a while because this theater is such a gem in the Mission and has hosted so many community events over the years. It’s also where we shot All About Evil, so I’ll always feel connected to it. Right now, there is so much great musical theater happening at the theater thanks to Ray of Light, who mount incredible musicals there, and now Bay Area Musicals as well. It’s wonderful to see the theater so alive!”

Grannell’s stay at the Victoria has already been extended. Due to popular demand, Showgirls: The Musical! will offer performances until Aug. 27, Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m.

Tickets ($32-$45) are available at the Victoria Theatre box office or by visiting store.peacheschrist.com/ category/9-show-tickets.aspx.t

Packing heat

by David Lamble

I

n the parlance of gifting, the larky video package Hot Guys with Guns (Wolfe Video) is what you might call a stocking stuffer.

In a non-too-subtle spoof on guys white and black who are packing – handguns, not cocks – writerdirector Doug Spearman lets the obvious gags fly. Spearman, creator of TV’s gay show Noah’s Arc, got his spoof into a quartet of prestigious queer film festivals:

SF’s Frameline, LA’s Outfest, and LGBT fests in Boston and Miami.

Where’s the beef? Well, six of eight responders on the Internet Movie Data Base voted HGWG a winner.

Years ago, passing a Lower Manhattan videostore near bars with names like The Cock and The Urge, I mused aloud that you’d think every young man in America had at one time posed gay for pay. True or not, HGWG is more product than pleasure, and unless you’re being paid to watch, I’d give it a pass.t

<< Out&About

24 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

O&A

Thu 4

Suddenly, Last Summer, Aug. 11; See New & Classic Films @ Castro Theatre

Augustian

by Jim Provenzano

F

orget that this month is named after a Roman emperor. Come, see and conquer (Veni, vidi, vinci). For more events, visit us online at www. ebar.com. For nightlife events, check out On the Tab in BARtab.

Thu 4 Barbra Streisand @ SAP Center, San Jose The music icon performs in a rare tour. $95-$510. 8pm. 525 West Santa Clara, San Jose. ticketmaster.com

Colette Uncensored @ The Marsh Berkeley Lorri Holt’s acclaimed solo show about the pioneering writer moves to the East Bay theatre. $20-$100. Thu 8pm, Sat 8:30pm. Thru Aug. 20. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Cruising the Tenderloin @ Tenderloin Museum Compton’s Cafeteria Riot exhibit, Aug. 4, 7pm: Cruising the Tenderloin in the 1960s with Felicia Elizondo. Reg. hours Tue-Sun 10am-5pm, $6-$10 ($15 includes walking tour). 398 Eddy St. 351-1912. tenderloinmuseum.org

The Gathering @ Live Oak Theater, Berkeley West Coast revivial of Arje Shaw’s drama about the Holocaust’s legacy in Reagan ‘80s America. $35. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Aug. 20. 1301 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. www.thegatheringplay.com

John Leguizamo: Latin History for Morons @ Berkeley Rep The award-winning comic, stage, TV and film actor performs his solo show about trying to teach his son about Latin history, with satirical takes on the Civil War, Aztec and Incan history. $35-$60. 8pm. Tue-Fri & Sun 8pm.

Sat 7pm & 10pm. Also Sun 2pm. Thru Aug. 14. 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. www.berkeleyrep.org

Leanne Borghese @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko

KALW radio station’s 75th anniversary is celebratedat this music concert. $35.

8pm. 275 Hayes St. cityboxoffice.com

The powerhouse musical and cabaret singer-actress returns with a new show, BDSM: Beautiful Dirty Sexy Me! $25-$45. 7pm. Aug. 6 at 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com

New & Classic Films @ Castro Theatre

Macy Gray @ Yoshi’s Oakland

Kronos Quartet, Bruce Cockburn @ Nourse Theatre

Aug. 4: Cabaret (2:15, 7pm) and Victor Victoria (4:30, 9:15). Aug, 5: Sing-Along Mary Poppins with hosts Laurie Bushman and David Hawkins (7pm. Aug 7 at 2pm & 7pm). Aug. 6: Weaving Shibusa (9pm). Aug. 10: Noir triple-feature Under Age (6:30), I Wake Up Screaming (7:45) and The Monster and the Girl (9:30). Aug 11: A Streetcar Named Desire (7pm) and Suddenly, Last Summer (9:15). $11.

429 Castro St. castrotheatre.com

The Grammy-winning singersongwriter performs at the upscale restaurant-nightclub. $47-$79. 8pm & 10pm. Aug. 6 at 7:30pm & 9:30pm.

510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. www.yoshis.com

Twelfth Night @ Forest Meadows Ampitheatre, San Rafael

Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition @ Contemporary Jewish Museum

Marin Shakespeare Company’s outdoor staging of The Bard’s genderbending romantic comedy. $10-$35.

Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 4pm. Thru Aug. 21.

Dominican University of California, 890 Belle Avenue, San Rafael. 4994488. www.marinshakespeare.org

Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition, a new multimedia exhibit about the prolific filmmaker (thru Oct. 30). Free (members)-$12. Fri-Tue 11am-5pm, Thu 11am-8pm (closed Wed). 736 Mission St. 655-7800. thecjm.org

Sat 6 .66 @ Qulture Collective, Oakland Opening reception for a varied-media group exhibit of women of color representing the gender wage gap and feminist issues, with MC Dok Vital, performances by Imerald Brown and Omi Bahari. Exhibit thru Aug. 1714 Franklin St., Oakland. www.herresilience.org

Heidi Schreck’s new witty drama about the volunteers at a community soup kitchen. $23-$35. Wed-Sun, thru Aug. 21, then in repertory Nov. 26-Jan. 31. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley.

(510) 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org

Hearts of Palm @ Berkeley City Club World premiere of Patricia Milton’s political comedy about capitalism and romance. $15-$30. Thu-Sat 8pm.

Sun 5pm. 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley.

(510) 558-1381. centralworks.org

The Grace Jones Project, Dandy Lion @ MOAD Dual exhibitions of video, performance and artwork about the iconic singer and queer identity; and Dandy Lion: (Re)Articulating Black Masculine Identity. Free-$10. Both thru Sept. 18. Wed-Sat 11am-6pm.

Sun 12pm-5pm. Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission St. at 3rd. www.moadsf.org

World premiere of Oren Stevens’ drama based on Kate Chopin’s feminist masterwork novel. $20. 8pm. Thru Aug. 20. 156 Eddy St. breadboxtheatre.org

City of Angels @ SF Playhouse Cy Coleman and David Zippel’s Tonywinning film noir musical is produced by the acclaimed local theatre company. $20-$125. Tue-Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Sept. 17.

Kensington Park Hotel, 2nd floor, 450 Post St. 677-9596. sfplayhouse.org

Sun 7 Abrazo, Queer Tango @ Finnish Brotherhood Hall, Berkeley Enjoy weekly same-sex tango dancing and a potluck, with lessons early in the day. $7-$15. 3:30-6:30pm. 1970 Chestnut St., Berkeley. (510) 8455352. www.finnishhall.com

Ed Ruscha @ de Young Museum Ed Ruscha and the Great American West, an exhibit of the artist’s landscape/text paintings; thru Oct. 9. Also, exhibits of Bruce Davidson photos, Printed Stories, The Sumatran Ship cloth, and works by Kay Sekimachi. Free/$25. 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. www.famsf.org

The Wild Bunch @ SF Conservatory of Flowers New Spring exhibit of oddly-shaped succulents, cacti and fat plants. Thru Oct. 16. 100 John F. Kennedy Drive, Golden Gate Park www.conservatoryofflowers.org

Perfectly Queer @ Dog Eared Books Authors Willy Wilkinson ( Born on the Edge of Race and Gender: A Voice for Cultural Competency) and Vincent Meis ( Tio Jorge and Down in Cuba ) read from and discuss their writing.

7pm. 489 Castro St. facebook.com/perfectlyqueerreadings

Stroke @ GLBT History Museum

The Awakening @ Exit Theatre

Queerest Library Ever @ SF Public Libraries Mohsin Shafi @ Strut

Top of the Pyramid @ Destiny Arts Center, Oakland American Conservatory Theatre’s student-cast production of Obiewinning playwright Nikkole Salter’s drama about race, segregation and education in Ferguson, Missouri. $20.

Thru Aug. 7. 970 Grace Ave. www.act-sf.org

The political comic’s updated solo show, Elect to Laugh: 2016, adds topical jokes about the bizarre election season. $15-$100. Tuesdays, 8pm. Extended thru Nov. 8. 1062 Valencia St. www.themarsh.org

Wed 10 10 Percent @ Comcast David Perry’s online and cable interviews with notable local and visiting LGBT people, broadcast through the week. ComcastHometown.com

Author Willy Wilkinson at Perfectly Queer @ Dog Eared Books

Mon 8

Opening reception for an exhibit of the artist’s multi-layered mixed media collages that depict the complicated life of being a queer Pakistani. 8pm10pm. Thru August. 470 Castro St. www.strutsf.org

Will Durst @ The Marsh

Grand Concourse @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley

Fri 5

Mohsin Shafi @ Strut

6pm, and by appointment. Thru Aug 12. 1349 Mission St. www.sexandculture.org

Mon 8

China at the Center: Rare Ricci and Verbiest World Maps; Extracted: a Trilogy of Ranu Mukherjee (thru Aug. 14); Chinese Laquerware (thru July 31), and more. Free-$25. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. 200 Larkin St. 581-3500. www.asianart.org

Don Seaver and Sean Owens’ drag parody musical blends Southern wit, green tomatoes and designing women. $25-$35 (VIP tables $225). Thu-Sat 7pm.

Thru Aug. 6. 298 11th St. sfoasis.com

Fri 5

New exhibit of the amazing walking sculptures that resemble giant insectlike creatures. Thru Sept. 5. Free-$25.

Pier 15 at Embarcadero. Tue-Sun 10am5pm (Thu night 6pm-10pm, 18+). 5284893. exploratorium.edu/strandbeest

China at the Center @ Asian Art Museum

Stale Magnolias @ Oasis

Stroke: From Under the Mattress to the Museum Wall, Robert W. Richards’ exhibit of gay men’s erotic magazines from the 1950s to the ‘90s. Thru Oct. 16. Also, Dancers We Lost: Honoring Performers Lost to HIV/AIDS, an exhibit of photos and ephemera, curated by Glenne McElhinney, about Bay Area dancers who died of AIDS. Thru Aug. 7. $5. 4127 18th St. www.dancerswelost.org/exhibit/ www.glbthistory.org

Strandbeest: The Dream Machines of Theo Jansen @ Exploratorium

t

The Real Americans @ The Marsh

Hormel at 20: Celebrating Our Past/ Creating Our Future, a dual exhibit of archival materials celebrating two decades of the LGBTQ collections. 100 Larkin St., 3rd floor, and at the Eureka Valley Branch, 1 Jose Sarria Court at 16th St. www.sfpl.org

Dan Hoyle returns with his hit solo show about the polarized sides of right and leftwing America. $25-$100.

Fri 8pm & Sat 8:30pm. Thru Aug. 27.

1062 Valencia St. www.themarsh.org

Tue 9

SF Hiking Club @ Big Basin Park

Exhibit of works reclaining “the God Code,” exploring race and women as icons. Thru Aug. 17. Tue-Fri 122pm7pm. sat 12pm-5pm. 934 Brannan St. www.somarts.org

Join GLBT hikers for a 10-mile hike amid redwoods and waterfalls at Big Basin State Park, California’s oldest state park. Carpool meets 8:15 at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores.

652-4496. Also, Aug. 10: Sutro Cloud Forest, a four-mile hike in Parnassus Heights; meet 8:15am at Safeway sign. www.sfhiking.com

The Black Woman is God @ SOMArts Cultural Center

Charles Gatewood @ Center for Sex and Culture Exhibit of prints by the late prolific photographer of rock music icons and fetish subcultures. Tuesdays 11am-

Mame @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko Jerry Herman’s rollicking musical gets a concert performance with Meg Mackay, Sharon McNight, Jesse Cortez and others; directed by Allen Sawyer; music direction by Joe Wicht. $40-$60. Wed & Sat 7pm. Thu-Fri 8pm. Sun 3pm. Thru Aug. 14. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Showgirls! The Musical @ Victoria Theatre Peaches Christ and April Kidwell star in West Coast premiere of Bob and Tobly McSmith’s hilarious musical adaptation of the high camp film about female strippers, with musical direction by Peter Fogel (Whoa Nellies) and choreography by Rory Davis (Baloney). $32-$45. Wed-Sat 8pm. Thru Aug. 27. 2961 16th St. www.peacheschrist.com www.showgirlsthemusical.com

Thu 11 Altered State: Marijuana in California @ Oakland Museum The first-ever museum exhibition to focus on pot, with art, political documents, scientific displays. Thru Sept. 25. Other exhibits include Oakland, I want you to know.., an exhibit of Oakland resident portraits and reflections on gentrification.

Free/$15. Reg. hours Wed-Sat 11am5pm (Fri til 9pm). 1000 Oak St., Oakland. (510) 318-8400. www.museumca.org

Desi Comedy Fest @ Various Venues 3rd annual festival of comics from nine countries, all with South Asian heritage, including Irene Tu, Vasu Primlani, Arjun Banerjee and more.

Thru Aug. 21 ineight cities. www.desicomedyfest.com

Man Francisco @ Oasis The popular sexy male burlesque show returns for three nights. $20$35. $200 VIP tables. 7pm. Thru Aug. 13. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

Porchlight @ Verdi Club The unusual reading and storytelling event this time features Moon Zappa, Ben McCoy, Mary Roach, Dominic riley, Adam Savage and Dixie De La Tour. $20-$25. 8pm. 2424 Mariposa St. www.porchlightsf.com

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Theatre>>

August 4-10, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 25

Backstage

From page 17

“It wouldn’t be my idea of entertainment to see dark chapters of my life put up in front of me for the entertainment of other people,” said McGrath, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter who made his own Broadway debut with his book for Beautiful.

“But she had another reason as well.

She was afraid that if she came to see it, it would be like, oh my God, Carole King is in the house, and they’re going to turn to clap toward her every time there’s a song, or to see if she’s crying when something terrible is happening to her in the show.”

McGrath was at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre in New York when, four months into the run, King finally succumbed to entreaties from friends and fans that she should see the show. He had been alerted that she would be at a particular performance, but he had no idea where she was sitting because she came in a disguise that included a wig over her famously long curly tresses. No one in the cast or the audience knew she was there.

“The curtain call is almost over, and then out she comes,” McGrath recalled. “I can’t tell you how electrifying it was, and yet how slow it was, because she walks out and the cast and the audience on that side of the stage realize that it’s her and they start to gasp, and then it’s like a wand as she goes across the stage as everything builds until she’s center stage and Jessie Mueller, who was playing Carole, is in tears. Carole couldn’t get a word out for two minutes.”

Someone in the audience then shouted, “Sing something,” and since the cast was raising money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS at this performance, she said she would sing if someone offered a big enough donation. When three people each pledged $10,000, that got

Joan Marcus

Courtesy Doug McGrath

In Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Abby Mueller and Liam Tobin play a teenage songwriting team whose move into romance has messy results.

Doug McGrath, who wrote the script for Beautiful, poses with Carole King at the celebration of the musical’s 1,000th performance on Broadway.

King to sing. “And the song she sang,” McGrath said, “was that old bugaboo of mine, ‘You’ve Got a Friend.’”

How to work this song into the show was one of the challenges that arose during the musical’s preBroadway run in San Francisco.

It was not being used at all in the show when performances began here, and audiences noticed. “We were always at the back of the theater with our pads,” McGrath said of his collaborators and himself, “and people would figure out we had something to do with the show. And every night someone would float up to me and say, ‘Why isn’t “You’ve Got a Friend” in the show?’ So we tried putting in in twice, and both times the placement of the song was so bad we had to take it back out that very night. I had to write a whole separate scene to make it work.”

What they learned in San Francisco was that audiences wanted a context for the songs, not just arriving like a hit parade. “The songs all have to come out of these people and their stories and their struggles,” McGrath

story.’ Carole placed no preconditions other than that Cynthia and Barry be characters in the story.” But he didn’t know where the story should stop, and King’s becoming a recording star in her own right with the seminal 1971 album Tapestry wasn’t even in the first incarnations of the script.

That was another case where audience expectations had to be honored.

Many of the songs begin in the songwriters’ humble studios before the set breaks open and we see replications of the original artists performing the songs in full costume and choreography in concerts, nightclubs, and on television. McGrath’s background is in movies, having written the scripts for and directed such films as Emma, Infamous, and Nicholas Nickleby, and earned an Oscar nomination for coauthoring Bullets Over Broadway with Woody Allen.

“The cinematic quality was always in my script, but I had no idea how it would actually work on stage.

But director Marc Bruni was excited by the transitions, and with set designer Derek McLane, they worked it out in those sweeping ways.”

McGrath is now set to write the screenplay for a movie adaptation

said. “The other song that gave us trouble, funnily enough, was ‘Natural Woman.’ The audience just didn’t want to hear the song just by itself, so I wrote a scene in the recording studio where she’s hesitant to sing it because Gerry wrote the lyrics and she’s trying to move past that part of her life.”

In addition to focusing on King and Goffin’s marriage and career, which began when both were still Brooklyn teens during the late 1950s, the musical was also able to pull from the bountiful song catalog of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, with whom King and Goffin shared adjoining offices at 1650 Broadway. The couples became friendly rivals, watching as their songs vied for positions on the record charts. The musical alternates between such early Goffin-King compositions as “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,” “The Loco-Motion” and “Up on the Roof,” and such Mann-Weil songs as “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “On Broadway” and “Walking in the Rain.”

McGrath interviewed the four songwriters at length, almost as if he were writing biographies on each. “I said right away, ‘I don’t want to do the Mamma Mia version where we take the songs and put them in a fictional

2016 NGLCC INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS & LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

CALIFORNIA

AUGUST 23-26

www.nglcc.org/nglcc16

that Sony Pictures hopes to start next year, but he said the project is moving at a “glacial” pace.

Jessie Mueller won a Tony Award for her performance as Carole King on Broadway, and her sister Abby Mueller is heading the cast of the touring company. It might seem like a bit of gimmick casting, and McGrath and his collaborators knew the dangers of that perception and had to convince themselves that Abby deserved the role in her own right.

“For the show to work as more than a nostalgic experience, you have to have an actress who can make a fully nuanced emotional commitment, because the part is very carefully written to mine a lot of unspoken vulnerabilities,” McGrath said. “I can confidently say that Abby has all those skills and more. And I’ll tell you one more thing, she sings ‘Natural Woman’ in a way that I think is the defining performance of that song of all the people who have played the part so far. If you disagree, you can call and yell at me later.”t Beautiful will run Aug. 9-Sept. 18 at the Orpheum Theatre. Tickets are $45-$212. Call (888) 746-1799 or go to shnsf.com.

28

31

Outside Lands

35

Karrnal Knowledge

Shining Stars Vol. 46 • No. 31 • August 4-10, 2016

www.ebar.com ✶ www.bartabsf.com

C

On the Tab

oncerts and carnivals swi ng us through the summe r days and nights. Enjoy the diversity of sounds, from rock and soul to a classic music diva.

August 4-11

Listings begin on page 29 >>

Sun 7 Afternoon Delight @ The New Parish, Oakland

Leanne Borghesi musical montage at Feinstein’s

by David-Elijah Nahmod

S

inger Leanne Borghesi returns to Feinstein’s for a show which promises to push the cabaret envelope. She’ll be performing BDSM at San Francisco’s premiere club on Friday August 5 and Saturday August 6 at 8PM. See page 29 >> BDSM?

fall

Leanne Borghesi

{ THIRD OF THREE SECTIONS }

ARTS PREVIEW Coming August 25 and September 1 Call 415-829-8937 for advertising information

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

28 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

Outside Lands Music in the Park

▼

by Jim Gladstone

T

he sold-out eighth annual Outside Lands festival kicks off tomorrow in Golden Gate Park, with gates opening at 11am and the day’s first performers hitting two of the festival’s four live music stages at noon.

One of the day’s first acts, Whitney –a Chicago-based duo with an unlikely vintage-Neil Young meets Beach Boys sound– points to the delightfully idiosyncratic nature of this year’s line-up, a genre-agnostic confetti cannon of wildly disparate sounds.

From the deliciously sweaty jazzfunk of local up-and-comers Con Brio (Saturday, 4:30 pm) to the folkrock of Sufjan Stevens (Saturday, 6:35 pm) to the slick smut-soul of Miguel (Sunday, 6:40), the weekend’s bill simulates a car radio with a permanently depressed search button.

If you’re searching for queeridentified acts like last year’s highprofile double scoop of Elton John and Sam Smith, you’ll have to look a little harder this year. But there’s treasure to be found at the end of the rainbow: Years & Years, the British electronic trio fronted by openly gay, vocally gifted Olly Alexander, plays on Saturday afternoon at 3:20 pm. Among the weekend’s brightest rising stars, the band is best known in the U.S. for its recent single, “King,” but its 2015 debut album Communion hit #1 on the UK charts. Its throbbing, dreamy mid-tempo synth-soul will make an ideal soundtrack for spreading out on the lawn and staring at the clouds roll by.

Alexander, 27, also an actor who has been featured in the TV series Skins and Penny Dreadful, has been an outspoken anti-bullying advocate and has frankly addressed his own history of anxiety and depression in an effort to help de-stigma-

Clockwise from top left: Outside Lands acts with queer flair include Peaches, Duran Duran, Years & Years and Halsey.

Top: Crowds pack the park at Outside Lands. Bottom: The windmills at the Polo Fields, a great meeting spot at Outside Lands.

tize mental health issues.

Genderqueer Canadian former Hebrew school teacher Peaches will be strutting the stuff that makes her a San Francisco favorite as she showcases tunes from her latest album, Rub, on Saturday at 6:05 p.m. Not so much fierce as feral, Peaches’ lyrically explicit electropop paved the way for the sex-and-drugs frankness of Miley Cyrus and it can easily be argued that her stark, stunning costumes and cosmetics make her the protoGaga. More political and less bent on crowd-pleasing than her musical offspring, 47-year-old Peaches is the godmother of feminist freakpop.

Judge for yourself on Saturday at 6:55.

Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran, which plays Friday evening at 6:15 pm, has been called “the world’s first metrosexual” and every member of the ‘80s pop phenom –not to mention many of their male fans– was once dissed as soooo gay.

But the flag bearers of New Romantic pop, with their fabulous hair, shiny lipgloss, surreal lyrics and spiky bass lines have shown remarkable staying power. A band that at the beginning of the MTV era seemed as likely to stick around as a fleeting Flock of Seagulls is still going strong, with most of the original lineup intact and a consistently strong live show.

They may not be gay themselves, but Simon Le Bon and the boys never seemed uncomfortable being heartthrobs for a generation of young queers and are likely to receive a particularly warm San Francisco welcome. Here’s hoping for a salacious rendition of “Union of the Snake.”

Other acts of queer interest include Queen of Bounce Big Freedia, who stops by the Gastromagic tent on Saturday at 1:30 to serve up a Beignets and Bounce Brunch with Brenda’s Soul Food.

One of the youngest artists in Peaches’ musical lineage is Halsey, the 21-year-old singer-songwriter described as “biracial, bisexual and bipolar” by The New York Times.

But what of her music, Gray Lady?

A little bit of Lorde, a pinch of Rihanna and a whole lot of hype, the New Yorker’s debut album New Americana feels vacuum-packed, overdetermined by chart-minded production. But reviews of her live performances –including a soldout Fillmore show earlier this year– suggest that outside the studio, a stronger sense of personality and charisma come through.

I am the future of the LGBT community.

I was married to a wonderful woman for 30 years. Now it’s time to be who I really am. Now I’m happy, authentic, and dating a wonderful man. I read EDGE on all my devices, because I have a whole future to look forward to - and that’s where I want it to be.

Gay rocker Bob Mould guests on the Barbary comedy stage with Portlandia creator Fred Armisen (4:45 Sunday).

Eats & Drinks

Outside Lands has a reputation as the foodies’ favorite music festival, and again this year, dozens of local restaurants and food trucks will sell sustenance for concertgoers. New gastronomic highlights include a twice daily ticketed ‘Forest Feast’ sit-down four-course meal with wine pairings prepared by Chef Jason Halverson of Trestle and accompanied by a diners-only private jazz concert (2pm and 4pm daily); Raspberry Beret, a jazz tribute to Prince accompanied by a made-forthe-occasion Humphry Slocombe ice cream (Friday, 7:25 pm).

Didn’t manage to score tickets this year? Can’t bear the crush of a festival crowd? Website LiveXlive will be streaming selected performances all weekend long. Check for a detailed schedule at www.LiveXlive.com.

Detailed festival schedules and maps are available at www.sfoutsidelands.com and in the Outside Lands app, available free for iPhone and Android.▼

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Leanne Borghesi

From page 27

Borghesi assures us in an interview that most people won’t bat an eye at the show’s title, which is a reference to the world of kink and S & M. But don’t be surprised if there aren’t any whippings during Borghesi’s set. The singer tells us that in this case BDSM stands for Beautiful Dirty Sexy Me. “It represents the artistic journey of self-liberation with the fearlessness to bring an authentic voice as a strong woman to my work,” Borghesi said. “As a supple, robust woman in my prime, this comedic theatrical cabaret challenges me to be my own dominatrix: whipping my strengths, weaknesses, truths and fears into shape.”

Borghesi added that creating the show has been “a blast!”

“I am calling it a comedic theatrical cabaret, because I am sharing a

August 4-10, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 29

full story, blending over 25 years of my cabaret and theatrical training into one piece,” she explains. “I have focused on the trajectory of women using the trope of the 1950s housewife. In this show I play a character extremely disconnected with the situation of her life.”

That characters, Borghesi, promises, finds her voice.

“Supported by up-tempo and comedic musical choices, she finds the strength and power to ask for what it is she wants in life,” she said. “I have included a lot of new and surprising elements with original erotic poetry, props and puppetry.”

Borghesi, an out lesbian, continues to maintain homes in both San Francisco and New York City. The bi-coastal life allows her the freedom to travel to where the work is, and to maintain her relationship with wife Sharon Boggs, a sound designer in San Francisco.

“The ability to engage artistically on both coasts has given me great perspective within my work,” said Borghesi. “I’m thrilled to be able to rehearse this new onewoman show with my team in New York and then to transfer it to Feinstein’s to share with my San Francisco audiences.”

Borghesi noted that she combined over fifteen years of cabaret experience and over twenty-five years of musical theater experience into one show.

“It’s an entertaining evening with the Borghesi flair for fun,” she promises. “It’s definitely a spanking good time!”▼ Leanne Borghesi performs at Feinstein’s at the Nikko $25-$45.

August 5 at 7pm. Aug. 6 at 8pm.

Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Leanne Borghesi at New York’s 54 Below cabaret.

Happy Friday @ Midnight Sun

Polyglamorous @ Oasis

The popular video bar ends each work week with gogo guys (starting at 9pm) and drink specials. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Mark O’Brien and the Poly crew welcome guest DJs Sappo, Stormy Vigil and SPRKLBB, at the cruisy fun dance night, popular with cbs, queers and queens. $7-$10 9pm-3am. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Hard Fridays @ Qbar DH Haute Toddy’s weekly electro-pop night with hotty gogos. $3. 9pm-2am (happy hour 4pm-9pm). 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Latin Explosion @ Club 21, Oakland

Fri 5 Macy Gray @ Yoshi’s Oakland

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On the Tab

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Thu 4

Barbra Streisand @ SAP Center, San Jose The music icon performs in a rare tour. $95-$510. 8pm. 525 West Santa Clara, San Jose. www.ticketmaster.com

Bulge @ Powerhouse Grace Towers hosts the fun sexy night. $100 cash prize for best bulge. $5-$10 benefits various local nonprofits. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Kingdom of Sodom/ Naked Night Stripdown like the strippers at the cruisy sex party. $20, cash bar. 8pm.

729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Kronos Quartet, Bruce Cockburn @ Nourse Theatre

Rock Fag @ Hole in the Wall Enjoy hard rock and punk music from DJ Don Baird at the wonderfully divey SoMa bar. Also Fridays. 7pm-2am. 1369 Folsom St. 431-4695. www.hitws.com

Stale Magnolias @ Oasis Don Seaver and Sean Owens’ drag parody musical blends Southern wit, green tomatoes and designing women. $25-$35 (VIP tables $225).

Thu-Sat 7pm. Thru Aug. 6. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Thursday Night Live @ SF Eagle Music night with local and touring bands. $8. 9:30pm. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge Disco guru DJ Bus Station John spins grooves at the intimate retro music night. No cell phones on the dance floor, please! $5. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Fri 5

Ain’t Mama’s Drag @ Balancoire

Enjoy Latin, hip hop and electro, plus hot gogos galore, and a big dance floor. $10-$20. 9pm-3am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. www.club21oakland.com

Leanne Borghese @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The powerhouse musical and cabaret singer-actress returns with a new show, BDSM: Beautiful Dirty Sexy Me! $25-$45. 7pm. Aug. 6 at 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Red Hots Burlesque @ The Stud The saucy women’s burlesque show hosted by Dottie Lux has moved, with new acts. $10. 8pm-9:30pm. 399 9th St. Also Sunday brunch shows at PianoFight Theatre, 4pm. www.redhotsburlesque.com

The Sheepdogs @ The Chapel Groovy Canadian retro-blues band performs. Quaker City Night Hawks open. $15. 9pm. 777 Valencia St. www.thechapelsf.com

Some Thing @ The Stud Mica Sigourney and pals’ weekly offbeat drag performance night. $7.

10pm-3am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Fri 5

Weekly drag queen and drag king show hosted by Cruzin d’Loo. 8pm10pm. No cover. 2565 Mission St. www.balancoiresf.com

The Sheepdogs @ The Chapel

Boy Bar @ The Cafe Gus Presents’ weekly dance night, with DJ Kid Sysko, cute gogos and $2 beer (before 10pm). 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Gamer Night @ Club BnB, Oakland Join Eastbay Gaymers for video gameplaying on the big screens in the spacious LGBT nightclub; monthly 1st Fridays. Board games, too. 8pm. 2120 Broadway, Oakland. club-bnb.com

Gogo Fridays @ Toad Hall Hot dancers grind it at the Castro bar with a dance floor and patio. 4146 18th St. www.toadhallbar.com

KALW radio station’s 75th anniversary is celebratedat this music concert. $35. 8pm. 275 Hayes St. www.cityboxoffice.com

Macy Gray @ Yoshi’s Oakland The Grammy-winning singersongwriter performs at the upscale restaurant-nightclub. $47-$79. 8pm & 10pm. Aug. 6 at 7:30pm & 9:30pm.

510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. www.yoshis.com

Sat 6

La Bota Loca @ Club 21, Oakland

Mercedez Munro and Holotta Tymes’ weekly drag show. $5. 10:30pm show.

DJ Philip Grasso. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Manimal @ Beaux

Latin, hip hop and Electro music night.

June 11, Banda Tierra Del Sol performs live. $5-$25. 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. www.club21oakland.com

Gogo-tastic dance night starts off your weekend. $5. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Bohemian Carnival @ Ferry Point, Alameda

The Monster Show @ The Edge

Midnight Show @ Divas

Mary Go Round @ Lookout

The weekly drag show with DJ MC2, themed nights, gogo guys and hilarious fun. $5. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Weekly drag shows at the last transgender-friendly bar in the Polk; with hosts Victoria Secret, Alexis Miranda and more. Also Saturdays. $10. 11pm. 1081 Polk St. divassf.com

Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences

Outside Lands @ Golden Gate Park

Themed event nights at the fascinating nature museum, with DJed dancing, cocktails, fish, frogs, food and fun.

Aug. 4: Lapsley and Brogan Bentley perform. Aug. 11: Superhero nightlife with DJs Raffaello and Palermo; dress as your favorite superhero! $10-$12.

6pm-10pm, 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

Thu 4 Barbra Streisand @ SAP Center, San Jose

The annual large outdoor multi-stage music concert features Radiohead, Duran Duran, Big Freedia, LCD Soundsystem, Lionel Richie, Lana Del Rey and many more, plus comedy tents, dance music stages, food, beer, desserts. $75-$260. Thru Aug. 7. Soccer field and adjoining areas. www.sfoutsidelands.com

Vau de Vire’s 10th anniversary tented music and circus show, with EDM DJ Lafa Taylor, funk band Planet Booty, The Klowns, trapeze acts, Fou Fou Ha! and dancing afterwards. $20-$500 (VIP front row package). 8pm-2am. Taxiway, 2135 Ferry Point, Alameda. www.vaudeviresociety.com

Bootie SF @ DNA Lounge The mash-up DJ dance party, with four rooms of different sounds and eight DJs. $10-$15. 9:30pm-3am. 375 11th St. www.bootiesf.com www.dnalounge.com

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Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

30 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

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On the Tab

From page 29

Boy Division @ Codeword Enjoy retro New Wave, Brit Pop and electro grooves at the Red Party and Leo birthday night, with DJs Xander, Tomas Diablo, Starr and Donimo; plus Culture Club and Nena ticket giveaways. $5-$8 (Leos free).

9:30pm-2:30am. 917 Folsom St. www.codeword-sf.com

▼

Sat 6

Bohemian Carnival @ Ferry Point, Alameda

Club Rimshot @ Club BNB, Oakland The weekly hip hop and R&B night.

8-$15. 9pm to 4am. 2120 Broadway.

(510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Dance Party @ Port Bar, Oakland Enjoy relaxed happy hour cocktails early (open at 5pm) and later dancing in the cozy back room at the newest LGBT bar. Daily 5pm-2am. 2023 Broadway, Oakland. www.portbaroakland.com

Go Bang! The Stud Resident DJs Steve Fabus, Sergio Fedasz and Prince Wolf welcome Shawn Davis and Jeremy Rosebrook to their monthly queer disco and mixed grooves dance night. $10 (free before 10pm). 9pm-3am. 399 9th st. at Harrison. www.studsf.com

Hard French @ El Rio

Strangelove @ Great American Music Hall

Stanley Frank spins house dance remixes at the intimate Castro dance bar. $3. 9pm-2am (weekly beer bust 2pm-9pm). 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Depeche Mode tribute band performs; Temptation (New Order tribute band) and PulseWaveMod also play. $15-$17 ($40 with dinner). 9pm. 859 O’Farrell St. www.slimspresents.com

Ships in the Night @ The New Parish, Oakland

Sugar @ The Cafe

The monthly queer, women and transfriendly dance night with hip hop DJs Durt, Cremnosa, Jibbz and Lady Ryan. $5. 9pm-2am. 1743 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. www.thenewparish.com

Arkansassy

Sweater Funk DJs takeover the rousing patio soul dance party, with residents Carniata and Brown Amy, BBQ while it lasts. $10. 2pm-8pm. 3158 Mission St. www.hardfrench.com www.elriosf.com

Saturgay @ Qbar

Dance, drink, cruise at the Castro club.

9pm-2am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Sun 7

Afternoon Delight @ The New Parish, Oakland Birds of a feather flock to the club’s patio for the monthly queer T-dance, with DJs Justime and guests Sir Ellis and Jasmine Infinity, with performer Bernadette Bohan. 3pm-8pm.

1743 San Pablo Ave, Oakland. facebook.com/afternoondelightoak thenewparish.com

BeBe Sweetbriar’s Brunch Revue, Femme @ Balancoire Weekly live music shows with various acts, along with brunch buffet, bottomless Mimosas, champagne and more, at the stylish nightclub and restaurant. BeBe hosts, with live entertainment and DJ Shawn P. $15$20. 11am-3pm. After that, Femme T-Dance drag shows at 7pm, 10pm and 11pm. 2565 Mission St. at 21st.

920-0577. www.balancoiresf.com

Ships in the Night @ The New Parish, Oakland

Mother @ Oasis Heklina’s weekly drag show night with different themes, always outrageously hilarious. Aug. 6: Christina vs. Britney night. $15-$25. 10pm-2am. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

Nitty Gritty @ Beaux Weekly dance night with nearly naked gogo guys & gals; DJs Chad Bays, Ms. Jackson, Becky Know and Jorge T. $4.

9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Sat 6 Go Bang! @ The Stud

Soul Delicious @ Lookout Brunch, booze, sass and grooves, with the Mom DJs, Motown sounds, and soul food. 11am-4pm. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Soul Party @ Elbo Room DJs Lucky, Paul, and Phengren Osward spin 60s soul 45s. $5-$10 ($5 off in semi-formal attire). 10pm-2am. 647 Valencia St. 552-7788. www.elbo.com

Beer Bust @ SF Eagle The classic leather bar’s most popular Sunday daytime event in town draws the menfolk. Beer bust donations benefit local nonprofits (Check the website for a list of recipients). 3pm6pm. Now also on Saturdays. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Big Top @ Beaux The fun Castro nightclub, with hot local DJs and sexy gogo guys and gals.

Aug. 7: RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Kennedy Davenport. $5. 9pm-2am.

2344 Market St. www.Beauxsf.com

See page 32 >>

Gareth Gooch

Sat 6

▼

Read more online at www.ebar.com

Playing Poole

Poster for I Always Said Yes

by John F. Karr

W

akefield Poole, the maker of classic erotic films The Boys in the Sand and Bijou gets to tell his own story, in the documentary feature, I Always Said Yes. Director and producer Jim Tushinski’s handsomely crafted film, which has just become available for rental or download ownership at www.IAlwaysSaidYes.com, finds Poole, now in his 80s, alive and well in his Florida hometown, and as self-aware, candid, and not infrequently sassy, as we remember him from his autobiography, Dirty Poole, upon which the documentary is based.

With clever split-screen technique that lets Poole commune with his long-gone collaborators, Tushinski illustrates Poole’s reminisces with an array of imposing talking heads (I’m honored to be included briefly among them), and some priceless vintage footage. I flipped for the clips of Poole on stage and in rehearsal at his Broadway shows.

Poole narrates a story of surprising reversals of fortune. Childhood stardom led him to New York’s ballet world, and thence onto Broadway.

He was building what looked to be a successful career in musicals (directing the London production of No Strings, and teaching tap to the stars of Follies), when he was hit with a double whammy. A controversial lawsuit concerning his choreographic work on Do I Hear a Waltz? led to his being unjustly blacklisted (boy, his revelations about that show will singe your ears).

Filling an employment void, and being handy with a camera, it seemed to make sense that when he saw one of the era’s typically awful bits of porn (okay, it was Highway Hustler), he thought, Hey, why don’t I do that?

‘That’ turned out to be Boys in the Sand, an erotic and cultural

August 4-10, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 31

‘I Always Said Yes’ documents the iconic porn auteur

He’s the delightful, domineerlandmark for its quality filmmaking Skippy Baxter. The name may ing, and a sociological landmark of sound twinky, but he isn’t. He’s a no small importance in the march sparkling though manly 23-yearof gay liberation and sexual idenold power bottom. An Aussie, he tity. The movie was such a success was first seen in a handful of Bentthat the entire Broadway commuley Race scenes in 2013, and is now nity turned out to see it. And then being spread around the various the entire Broadway community RagingHotFalcon brands as their turned against Poole because he Exclusive. was a pornographer.

Skippy is just plumb entertainHe wanted to make artistic films, to take the shame out of ing, usually while happily enduring the sexual act, so people could see some deep depth charges, but also them and say, ‘That was a beautiful while dishing ‘em out. Whether top movie.’ Perhaps with some naivety, or bottom, he doesn’t let his parthe saw himself as an experimental ners off easily. He’s got a manly face filmmaker. But the world saw him (it’s those laugh lines), bulging bias a pornographer. There’s no esceps, and a succulently bulging cock caping that box. What could he do head. (Incidental: His boyfriend but continue? is Rogan Richards, with whom he shares a penchant for cockrings).

There were some quality films, some glory days in San Francisco. Then came drugs, a long slide to bottoming out, and a resurrection in a brand new career, as a chef. Tushinski lets Poole exult where he should, and is nearly too generous with time for some later stories, although these do culminate in the public’s renewed knowledge of Poole’s accomplishments.

Here’s why Poole is important. It’s not just the quality of his films. Boys in the Sand appeared two years after Stonewall, and is, let’s declare it, the Stonewall of gay sexuality’s representation. Poole’s pioneering validation made it matter to its audience.

And now I’d like to give some validation to Jim Tushinski. Gay and lesbian documentarians are frequently lauded. Their films may even show up on television.

But those who document erotica can’t expect any TV broadcast at all. After all, a glimpse of penis may fry Falcon Studios viewers. And you’d be surprised how many gay film Top: Shouldn’t every home should have festivals are likewise wary of one just like Skippy Baxter? Bottom: genitals. At the same time, Lively and receptive Skippy Baxter, very little of our history is with Austin Wolf, in Hot as Fuck. taught in schools.

So, to me, Jim Tushinski Raging Stallion’s Hard Friction is as much a culture hero as Wakeline had him first, in Hot as Fuck, field Poole. If we are beneficiaries which was directed with typical in Poole’s legacy, we must salute heat by Steve Cruz. He gave Skippy the legacy of Jim Tushinski, whose a two-scene debut, first with the handful of films about erotic permighty brawn of Austin Wolf, and formers and sexographers has then with the massive everything of brought a neglected and sometimes Rocco Steele. scorned history to us with dedicaNewly out is the exciting Falcon tion and skill.

Edge brand title, Ultra Sex, in which Yippy for Skippy he wrangles the block-long cock of While praising some newcomlean J.J. Knight, and gets a hefty oral ers last month, I ran out of room to cum squirt as reward (the movie’s enthuse about a mate from Down other irresistible come-on delivers Under who’s mighty arousing when Sebastian Kross topping muscular down under some top stars. bottom Derek Bolt).▼

Gorilla Productions

Wakefield Poole communes with long-gone collaborators, in director Jim Tushinski’s I Always Said Yes.

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

32 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

Wed 10 Bedlam @ Beaux

Weekly event with DJs Haute Toddy, Guy Ruben, hosts Mercedez Munro and Abominatrix. Wet T-shirt/jock contest at 11pm. $5-$10. 9pm-2am.

2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Bone @ Powerhouse Weekly punk-alternative music night hosted by Uel Renteria and Johnny Rockitt. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Bottoms Up Bingo @ Hi Tops Play board games and win offbeat prizes at the popular sports bar. 9pm.

2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Sun 7 Kennedy Davenport at Big Top @ Beaux

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On the Tab

From page 30

Domingo De Escandal @ Club OMG Weekly Latin night with drag shows hosted by Vicky Jimenez and DJ Luis.

7pm-2am. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

GlamaZone @ The Cafe Pollo del Mar’s weekly drag show takes on different themes with a comic edge. 8:30-11:30pm. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Jock @ The Lookout Enjoy the weekly jock-ular fun, with DJed dance music at sports team fundraisers. 12pm-1am. NY DJ Sharon White from 3pm-6pm. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Sensation Sundays @ Oasis Ky Martinez and Mohammad Vahidy DJ the weekend t-dance. $7. 3pm9pm. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 7953180. www.sfoasis.com

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room Donna Sachet hosts the weekly fabulous brunch and drag show, now celebrating its tenth anniversary. $45.

11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square. 395-8595. www.starlightroomsf.com

Sunday Brunch @ Thee Parkside Bottomless Mimosas until 3pm at the fun rock-punk club. 1600 17th St. 2521330. www.theeparkside.com

Mon 8

Drag Mondays @ The Cafe Mahlae Balenciaga and DJ Kidd Sysko’s weekly drag and dance night.

9pm-1am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Epic Karaoke @ White Horse, Oakland Mondays and Tuesdays popular weekly sing-along night. No cover. 8:30pm1am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 6523820. www.whitehorsebar.com

B.P.M. @ Club BnB, Oakland

No No Bingo @ Virgil’s Sea Room

High Fantasy @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge

Mica Sigourney and Tom Temprano cohost the wacky weekly game night at the cool Mission bar. 8pm. 3152 Mission St. www.virgilssf.com

Weekly drag and variety show, with live acts and lip-synching divas, plus DJed grooves. $5. Shows at 10:30pm & 12am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Opulence @ Beaux Weekly dance night, with Jocques, DJs Tori, Twistmix and Andre. 9pm-2am.

2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni’s Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht.

9pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market.

Underwear Night @ 440 Strip down to your skivvies at the popular men’s night. 9pm-2am. 440 Castro St. 621-8732. www.the440.com

Tue 9

Bandit @ Lone Star Saloon New weekly queer event with resident DJ Justime; electro, soul, funk, house.

No cover. 9pm-1am. 1354 Harrison St. www.facebook.com/BanditPartySF www.lonestarsf.com

Block Party @ Midnight Sun Weekly screenings of music videos, concert footage, interviews and more, of popular pop stars. 9pm-2am. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Cock Shot @ Beaux Shot specials and adult Bingo games, with DJs Chad Bays and Riley Patrick, at the new weekly night. No cover.

9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Gaymer Night @ Eagle Gay gaming fun on the bar’s big screen TVs. Have a nerdgasm and a beer with your pals. 8pm. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Hella Saucy @ Q Bar Queer dance party at the stylish intimate bar. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Olga T and Shugga Shay’s weekly queer women and men’s R&B hip hop and soul night, at the club’s new location.

No cover. 8pm-2am. 2120 Broadway, Oakland. www.bench-and-bar.com

Mame @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko Jerry Herman’s rollicking musical gets a concert performance with Meg Mackay, Sharon McNight, Jesse Cortez and others; directed by Allen Sawyer; music direction by Joe Wicht. $40-$60.

Wed & Sat 7pm. Thu-Fri 8pm. Sun 3pm. Thru Aug. 14. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Miss Kitty’s Trivia Night @ Wild Side West The weekly fun night at the Bernal Heights bar includes prizes, hosted by Kitty Tapata. No cover. 7pm-10pm.

424 Cortland St. 647-3099. www.wildsidewest.com

Open Mic/Comedy @ SF Eagle Kollin Holts hosts the weekly comedy and open mic talent night. 6pm-8pm.

398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Hysteria @ Martuni’s Irene Tu and Jessica Sele cohost the comedy open mic night for women and queers. No cover. 6pm-8:30pm. 4 Valencia St.

Meow Mix @ The Stud The weekly themed variety cabaret showcases new and unusual talents; MC Ferosha Titties. $3-$7. Show at 11pm. 9pm-2am. 399 9th St. at Harrison. www.studsf.com

Wed 10

Showgirls the Musical @ Victoria Theatre

Naked Night @ Nob Hill Theatre Strip down as the strippers also take it all off. $20. 9pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Retro Night @ 440 Castro Jim Hopkins plays classic pop oldies, with vintage music videos. 9pm-2am.

44 Castro St. www.the440.com

Tap That Ass @ SF Eagle Bartender Steve Dalton’s beer night happy hours. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Floor 21 @ Starlight Room

Trivia Night @ Hi Tops Play the trivia game at the popular new sports bar. 9pm. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Una Noche @ Club BnB, Oakland Vicky Jimenez’ drag show and contest; Latin music all night. 9pm-2am. 2120 Broadway. (510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Underwear Night @ Club OMG Weekly underwear night includes free clothes check, and drink specials. $4.

10pm-2am. Preceded by Open Mic Comedy, 7pm, no cover. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Juanita More! presents the weekly scenic happy hour event, with host Rudy Valdez, and guest DJs. No cover, and a fantastic panoramic city view.

5pm-9pm. Sir Francis Drake Hotel, 450 Powell St. www.starlightroomsf.com

Latin Drag Night @ Club OMG Weekly Latin night with drag shows hosted by Vicky Jimenez. 9pm-2am.

43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

LGBT Pub Crawl @ Castro Weekly guided tour of bars. $10-$18.

Meet at Harvey Milk Plaza, 7:45pm.

Also morning historic tours on Mon, Wed, & Sat. www.wildsftours.com

Pussy Party @ Beaux Ladies night at the Castro dance club.

9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Showgirls! The Musical @ Victoria Theatre Peaches Christ and April Kidwell star in West Coast premiere of Bob and Tobly McSmith’s hilarious musical adaptation of the high camp film about female strippers, with musical direction by Peter Fogel (Whoa Nellies) and choreography by Rory Davis (Baloney). $32-$45. Wed-Sat 8pm. Thru Aug. 27. 2961 16th St. www.peacheschrist.com www.showgirlsthemusical.com

So You Think You Can Gogo? @ Toad Hall The weekly dancing competition for gogo wannabes. 9pm. cash prizes, $2 well drinks (2 for 1 happy hour til 9pm). Show at 9pm. 4146 18th St. www.toadhallbar.com

Gaymer Meetup @ Brewcade The weekly LGBT video game enthusiast night includes big-screen games and signature beers, with a new remodeled layout, including an outdoor patio. No cover. 7pm-11pm.

2200 Market St. www.brewcadesf.com

Sat 6 Hard French @ El Rio

Karaoke Night @ SF Eagle

Way Back @ Midnight Sun Weekly screenings of vintage music videos, and retro drink prices. 9pm2am. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Wooden Nickel Wednesday @ 440

Sing along, with guest host Nick Radford. 8pm-12am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Buy a drink and get a wooden nickle good for another. 12pm-2am. 440 Castro St. 621-8732. www.the440.com

Mahogany Mondays @ Midnight Sun Honey Mahogany’s weekly drag and musical talent show starts around 10pm. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Thu 11

Bulge @ Powerhouse

Dallis Willard

Musical Mondays @ The Edge Sing along at the popular musical theatre night; also Wednesdays. 7pm2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing.

4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

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Grace Towers hosts the racy night with a $100 wet undies bulge contest at midnight. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

See page 34 >>

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

Personals

August 4-10, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 33

The

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Roses are yellow. Roses are blue.

If you want to be sucked, text face and cock pic to 415-806-7349.

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MEN TO MEN MASSAGE I’m a Tall Latin Man in my late 40’s. If you’re looking, I’m the right guy for you. My rates are $90/hr & $130/90 min.

My work hours are 10 a.m. to midnite everyday.

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To place your Personals ad, Call 415-861-5019 for more info & rates

Shining Stars Steven Underhill photos by

Sisters Speak @ Spark Arts

S

isters Speak, the new intimate speaking series featuring Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, opened on July 28 with Sister Hera Sees Candy, who discussed queer spirituality and its impact on gay culture.

Catered tasty bites were prepared by McQuade’s Chutney, Velo Fromage, Five-Star Truffles, wine from Oro En Paz, bourbon-tasting hosted by Brandon Phillips, and raffle tickets and prizes.

The monthly events will be held at Spark Arts Gallery in the Castro. The August 25 event will feature Sister Roma. Spark Arts, 4229 18th St. www.sparkarts.com www.thesisters.org More photo albums are on BARtab’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife. See more of Steven Underhill’s photos at www.StevenUnderhill.com.

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

34 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 4-10, 2016

My So-Called Night @ Beaux Carnie Asada hosts a new weekly ‘90s-themed video, dancin’, drinkin’ night, with VJs Jorge Terez. Get down with your funky bunch, and enjoy 90cent drinks. ‘90s-themed attire and costume contest. No cover. 9pm-2am.

2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Nap’s Karaoke @ Virgil’s Sea Room Sing out loud at the weekly least judgmental karaoke in town, hosted by the former owner of the bar. No cover. 9pm. 3152 Mission St. 8292233. www.virgilssf.com

Picante @ The Cafe Lulu and DJ Marco’s Latin night with sexy gogo guys. 9pm-2am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Thu 11

<<

On the Tab

From page 32

Desi Comedy Fest @ Various Venues 3rd annual festival of comics from nine countries, all with South Asian heritage, including Irene Tu, Vasu Primlani, Arjun Banerjee and more.

Thru Aug. 21 ineight cities. www.desicomedyfest.com

Skate Night @ Church on 8 Wheels

Thump @ White Horse, Oakland

Groove on wheels at the former Sacred Heart Church-turned disco roller skate party space, hosted by John D. Miles, the “Godfather of Skate.” Also Wed, Thu, 7pm-10pm.

Sat afternoon sessions 1pm-2:30pm and 3pm-5:30pm. $10. Kids 12 and under $5. Skate rentals $5. 554 Fillmore St. at Fell. www.churchof8wheels.com

Weekly electro music night with DJ Matthew Baker and guests. 9pm-2am.

6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com

Throwback Thursdays @ Qbar Enjoy retro 80s soul, dance and pop classics with DJ Jorge Terez. No cover.

9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge Disco guru DJ Bus Station John spins grooves at the intimate retro music night; 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com Want your nightlife event listed?

Email events@ebar.com, at least two weeks before your event.

Event photos welcome.

Gym Class @ Hi Tops Enjoy whiskey shots from jockstrapped hotties and sexy sports videos at the popular sports bar.

10pm-2am. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

The Monster Show @ The Edge The weekly drag show with themed nights, gogo guys and hilarious fun. $5. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Steven Underhill

Porchlight @ Verdi Club

Arjun Banerjee at Desi Comedy Fest @ Various Venues

The unusual reading and storytelling event this time features Moon Zappa, Ben McCoy, Mary Roach, Dominic riley, Adam Savage and Dixie De La Tour. $20$25. 8pm. 2424 Mariposa St. www.porchlightsf.com

Queer Karaoke @ Club OMG Dana hosts the weekly singing night; unleash your inner American Idol. 8pm.

43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

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Thu 11

Gym Class @ Hi Tops

▼

Read more online at www.ebar.com

Shining S'tars

August 4-10, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 35

photos by Steven underhiLL Up Your ALLey StrEEt Fair

T

housands of kinksters, shirtless bears, rubber-clad Spidermen, pups in faux-fur, and more creatures came out for the annual fun daytime street fair at Folsom and Dore. The signature fair was bracketed by a weekend of related parties, including official events like the salacious Bay of Pigs at Sound Factory, Hog Wild at the Eagle, and other events with kink or fetish-themes like Sneaks and Device. Hopefully, you got to unleash your inner kink and get it on or get off, whichever you prefer! www.folsomstreetevents.org More photo albums are on BARtab’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife. See more of Steven Underhill’s photos at www.StevenUnderhill.com.

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For headshots, portraits or to arrange your wedding photos

call (415) 370-7152 or visit www.StevenUnderhill.com or email stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com