January 7, 2016 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

Gay couple win adoption ruling

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New laws take effect Permit flap is proxy fight in 2016 against AHF

Vol. 46 • No. 1 • January 7-13, 2016

by Seth Hemmelgarn

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ith the beginning of the new year, several California laws affecting LGBTs have gone into effect. The legislation addresses collection of data on sexual orientation and Rick Gerharter gender identity, as well as providing benefits Assemblyman to transgender people, David Chiu among other areas. Arguably the most consequential bill to advance last year was Assembly Bill 959, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Disparities Reduction Act authored by Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco). It requires four state agencies to start collecting demographic data on gender identity and sexual orientation by July 1, 2018. The bill specifically instructs the departments of health care services, public health, social services, and aging to collect the “voluntary self-identification information” pertaining to LGBT people. “After years of being left out of statewide demographic data, LGBT individuals will now be able to share their experiences to provide much-needed data to understand and ultimately reduce long standing health disparities that have disproportionately impacted these communities,” stated Chiu. Equality California sponsored AB 959. Rick Zbur, EQCA’s executive director, has told the Bay Area Reporter that he expects to see state forms and computer systems be updated with LGBT-specific questions prior to the deadline set in the legislation. “I think many of the agencies will do it faster,” said Zbur. “From our perspective, we didn’t want to give them too much time but enough time to update their forms under the normal rotation for updating forms and computer systems. This is not a hard thing for them to do.” Like the other LGBT-related laws, AB 959 took effect Friday, January 1. One of the many other bills Governor Jerry Brown signed into law was gay Senator Mark Leno’s (D-San Francisco) Senate Bill 703, which requires out-of-state companies bidding on state-funded contracts to offer their transgender employees the same benefits other employees receive. California-based companies are already required to do so. Specifically, the bill prohibits a state agency from entering into a contract in the amount of $100,000 or more with any company that does not offer equal benefits based on an employee’s gender identity. “Denying equal benefits to employees at See page 13 >>

by Matthew S. Bajko

A A notice for public hearing is taped to the window of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation clinic on 18th Street.

permit request by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation to relocate its pharmacy in the Castro has turned into a proxy fight over the Los Angeles-based agency’s stances regarding HIV prevention and AIDS funding. The agency has faced derision in San Francisco for its opposition to

widespread usage of PrEP as an HIV prevention tool. AHF does support PrEP as “a good solution for individuals who have multiple partners and never use condoms,” but contends strategies such as HIV testing, treatment for people living with HIV and AIDS, and condom usage should be given higher priority by health officials when it comes to funding. See page 13 >>

SFAF’s Strut center opens at last

Rick Gerharter

by Liz Highleyman

Four years in the making, the new building will house the foundation’s he San Francisco AIDS Founservices geared toward gay, bisexual, dation’s new Strut health and and trans men, including sexual health wellness center opened its services (formerly Magnet), substance doors at 470 Castro Street Monday use services (formerly the Stonewall after a long delay, and hosted an Project), Positive Force, the Elizabeth opening celebration and ribbonTaylor 50-Plus Network for men age cutting ceremony Tuesday, January 5. 50 and older, the DREAAM Project for “We’re here to encourage and young African-American men, and the support a new era of care in the Bridgemen volunteer program. HIV/AIDS world that is focused “It’s an entirely new model – a on the whole individual – holistic one-stop shop,” SFAF social marhealth and wellness, not just sickness keting manager Lyndal Cairns told Liz Highleyman and disease,” said former SFAF CEO the Bay Area Reporter. “Even when Neil Giuliano, who flew up from Former San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO Neil Giuliano, going from one site to another Tempe, Arizona for the occasion. left, joined foundation board member Michael Kidd, city there’s a disconnect. We want to take “The model of care taking place at Treasurer José Cisneros, SFAF interim CEO Tim “TJ” Jones, that disconnect out and make it as Strut will be replicated around the Supervisor Scott Wiener, Campaign for Health and Wellness easy as possible for people to maincountry and most likely around the leadership committee chairman Tom Perrault, Strut Executive tain their health.” world, just like the San Francisco Director Tim Patriarca, and foundation board chair Philip Strut’s sexual health services – model of care has been for 30 years.” Besirof in the Strut ribbon cutting Tuesday, January 5. which include the popular PrEP Gay District 8 Supervisor Scott program – opened for business in its Wiener, who identified himself as important effort to visualize a new day when new location January 4. To date the both a neighbor and a client of Strut, recalled that we no longer have any new HIV infections or program has helped more than 600 men access he moved to the Castro in 1997 when protease HIV deaths. We’re going to get there, and Strut PrEP and figure out how to pay for it. inhibitors were a new thing and the city was just is going to be a key part of that, because we’ve “When I arrived at 9:30 yesterday there was starting to turn the corner on the HIV epidemic. come to recognize that it’s not just about HIV, already a line,” sexual health services director “For so many years it was all about playing it’s about overall wellness and making sure Steve Gibson told the B.A.R. “About 50 percent defense against HIV and to try and survive as people have access in one place to all of their of our daily clients come for PrEP, and our a community. But gradually over the past 20 health and wellness needs.” combination of clinical services and benefits years we’ve been turning that around so that He was referring to the city’s Getting to Zero counseling is key.” we’re on offense and in a position to defeat this initiative to drastically reduce the number of See page 14 >> epidemic,” he said. “Getting to Zero is such an HIV infections by 2020.

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Brief Summary of Patient Information about GENVOYA GENVOYA (jen-VOY-uh) (elvitegravir, cobicistat, emtricitabine, and tenofovir alafenamide) tablets Important: Ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist about medicines that should not be taken with GENVOYA. There may be new information about GENVOYA. This information is only a summary and does not take the place of talking with your healthcare provider about your medical condition or treatment.

What is the most important information I should know about GENVOYA? GENVOYA can cause serious side effects, including: • Build-up of lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis). Lactic acidosis may happen in some people who take GENVOYA. Lactic acidosis is a serious medical emergency that can lead to death. Lactic acidosis can be hard to identify early, because the symptoms could seem like symptoms of other health problems. Call your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the following symptoms, which could be signs of lactic acidosis: • • • • • • •

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• Severe liver problems. Severe liver problems may happen in people who take GENVOYA. In some cases, these liver problems can lead to death. Your liver may become large and you may develop fat in your liver. Call your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the following symptoms of liver problems: • your skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow (jaundice) • dark “tea-colored” urine • light-colored bowel movements (stools) • loss of appetite for several days or longer • nausea • stomach pain • You may be more likely to get lactic acidosis or severe liver problems if you are female, very overweight (obese), or have been taking GENVOYA for a long time. • Worsening of Hepatitis B infection. GENVOYA is not for use to treat chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV). If you have HBV infection and take GENVOYA, your HBV may get worse (flare-up) if you stop taking GENVOYA. A “flare-up” is when your HBV infection suddenly returns in a worse way than before. • Do not run out of GENVOYA. Refill your prescription or talk to your healthcare provider before your GENVOYA is all gone. • Do not stop taking GENVOYA without first talking to your healthcare provider. • If you stop taking GENVOYA, your healthcare provider will need to check your health often and do blood tests regularly for several months to check your HBV infection. Tell your healthcare provider about any new or unusual symptoms you may have after you stop taking GENVOYA.

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What is GENVOYA? GENVOYA is a prescription medicine that is used without other HIV-1 medicines to treat HIV-1 in people 12 years of age and older: • who have not received HIV-1 medicines in the past or • to replace their current HIV-1 medicines in people who have been on the same HIV-1 medicines for at least 6 months, have an amount of HIV-1 in their blood (“viral load”) that is less than 50 copies/mL, and have never failed past HIV-1 treatment HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS. GENVOYA contains the prescription medicines elvitegravir (VITEKTA®), cobicistat (TYBOST®), emtricitabine (EMTRIVA®) and tenofovir alafenamide. It is not known if GENVOYA is safe and effective in children under 12 years of age. When used to treat HIV-1 infection, GENVOYA may: • Reduce the amount of HIV-1 in your blood. This is called “viral load”. • Increase the number of CD4+ (T) cells in your blood that help fight off other infections. Reducing the amount of HIV-1 and increasing the CD4+ (T) cells in your blood may help improve your immune system. This may reduce your risk of death or getting infections that can happen when your immune system is weak (opportunistic infections). GENVOYA does not cure HIV-1 infection or AIDS. You must stay on continuous HIV-1 therapy to control HIV-1 infection and decrease HIV-related illnesses. Avoid doing things that can spread HIV-1 infection to others: • Do not share or re-use needles or other injection equipment. • Do not share personal items that can have blood or body fluids on them, like toothbrushes and razor blades. • Do not have any kind of sex without protection. Always practice safer sex by using a latex or polyurethane condom to lower the chance of sexual contact with semen, vaginal secretions, or blood. Ask your healthcare provider if you have any questions about how to prevent passing HIV-1 to other people.

Who should not take GENVOYA? Do not take GENVOYA if you also take a medicine that contains: • alfuzosin hydrochloride (Uroxatral®) • carbamazepine (Carbatrol®, Epitol®, Equetro®, Tegretol®, Tegretol-XR®, Teril®) • cisapride (Propulsid®, Propulsid Quicksolv®) • ergot-containing medicines, including: dihydroergotamine mesylate (D.H.E. 45®, Migranal®), ergotamine tartrate (Cafergot®, Migergot®, Ergostat®, Medihaler Ergotamine®, Wigraine®, Wigrettes®), and methylergonovine maleate (Ergotrate®, Methergine®) • lovastatin (Advicor®, Altoprev®, Mevacor®) • midazolam, when taken by mouth • phenobarbital (Luminal®) • phenytoin (Dilantin®, Phenytek®) • pimozide (Orap®) • rifampin (Rifadin®, Rifamate®, Rifater®, Rimactane®) • sildenafil (Revatio®), when used for treating lung problems • simvastatin (Simcor®, Vytorin®, Zocor®) • triazolam (Halcion®) • the herb St. John’s wort or a product that contains St. John’s wort

What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking GENVOYA?

What are the possible side effects of GENVOYA?

Before taking GENVOYA, tell your healthcare provider if you: • have liver problems including hepatitis B infection • have kidney or bone problems • have any other medical conditions • are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if GENVOYA can harm your unborn baby. Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking GENVOYA. Pregnancy registry: there is a pregnancy registry for women who take HIV-1 medicines during pregnancy. The purpose of this registry is to collect information about the health of you and your baby. Talk with your healthcare provider about how you can take part in this registry. • are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed if you take GENVOYA. – You should not breastfeed if you have HIV-1 because of the risk of passing HIV-1 to your baby. – At least one of the medicines in GENVOYA can pass to your baby in your breast milk. It is not known if the other medicines in GENVOYA can pass into your breast milk. – Talk with your healthcare provider about the best way to feed your baby. Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. Other medicines may affect how GENVOYA works. Some medicines may interact with GENVOYA. Keep a list of your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist when you get a new medicine. • You can ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist for a list of medicines that interact with GENVOYA. • Do not start a new medicine without telling your healthcare provider. Your healthcare provider can tell you if it is safe to take GENVOYA with other medicines.

GENVOYA may cause serious side effects, including: • See “What is the most important information I should know about GENVOYA?” • Changes in body fat can happen in people who take HIV-1 medicine. These changes may include increased amount of fat in the upper back and neck (“buffalo hump”), breast, and around the middle of your body (trunk). Loss of fat from the legs, arms and face may also happen. The exact cause and long-term health effects of these conditions are not known. • Changes in your immune system (Immune Reconstitution Syndrome) can happen when you start taking HIV-1 medicines. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections that have been hidden in your body for a long time. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you start having any new symptoms after starting your HIV-1 medicine. • New or worse kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do blood and urine tests to check your kidneys before you start and while you are taking GENVOYA. Your healthcare provider may tell you to stop taking GENVOYA if you develop new or worse kidney problems. • Bone problems can happen in some people who take GENVOYA. Bone problems may include bone pain, softening or thinning (which may lead to fractures). Your healthcare provider may need to do tests to check your bones. The most common side effect of GENVOYA is nausea. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effect that bothers you or that does not go away. • These are not all the possible side effects of GENVOYA. For more information, ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist. • Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.

How should I take GENVOYA?

Medicines are sometimes prescribed for purposes other than those listed in a Patient Information leaflet. Do not use GENVOYA for a condition for which it was not prescribed. Do not give GENVOYA to other people, even if they have the same symptoms you have. It may harm them. This Brief Summary summarizes the most important information about GENVOYA. If you would like more information, talk with your healthcare provider. You can ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist for information about GENVOYA that is written for health professionals. For more information, call 1-800-445-3235 or go to www.GENVOYA.com. Keep GENVOYA and all medicines out of reach of children.

• Take GENVOYA exactly as your healthcare provider tells you to take it. GENVOYA is taken by itself (not with other HIV-1 medicines) to treat HIV-1 infection. • GENVOYA is usually taken 1 time each day. • Take GENVOYA with food. • If you need to take a medicine for indigestion (antacid) that contains aluminum and magnesium hydroxide or calcium carbonate during treatment with GENVOYA, take it at least 2 hours before or after you take GENVOYA. • Do not change your dose or stop taking GENVOYA without first talking with your healthcare provider. Stay under a healthcare provider’s care when taking GENVOYA. • Do not miss a dose of GENVOYA. • If you take too much GENVOYA, call your healthcare provider or go to the nearest hospital emergency room right away. • When your GENVOYA supply starts to run low, get more from your healthcare provider or pharmacy. This is very important because the amount of virus in your blood may increase if the medicine is stopped for even a short time. The virus may develop resistance to GENVOYA and become harder to treat.

General information about the safe and effective use of GENVOYA.

Issued: November 2015

EMTRIVA, GENVOYA, the GENVOYA Logo, GILEAD, the GILEAD Logo, GSI, TYBOST, and VITEKTA are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. All other marks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners. © 2015 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. GENC0004 11/15

12/3/15 3:23 PM

<< Community News

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 7-13, 2016

SF gay couple change Czech family law by Heather Cassell

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San Francisco couple who challenged the Czech Republic’s ban on gay adoption won a landmark decision for their family, and they hope it will better the lives of other LGBT families in Europe. On November 5, a judge in the Prostejov court in the southern Moravian region of the Czech Republic recognized the gay men’s international adoption of 10-year-old fraternal twin boys, stating that it didn’t go against the Czech Republic’s public policy, said the couple’s attorney Petr Kalla. Conservatives were using the public policy to block gay adoptions as they had with civil partnerships, according to Czech gay activist Czeslaw

Walek. Civil partnerships became law in 2006, but didn’t allow for same-sex or second-parent adoptions. Last June, an opinion poll found that 49 percent of Czechs oppose joint adoption by gay couples, compared to 44 percent who support it. However, 59 percent of respondents to the survey supported stepchild adoption, reported Gay Star News. Kalla said that the men, Jindra Vackar and Franck Marchis, are now able to register the boys as citizens of the Czech Republic and receive the children’s Czech birth certificates with both father’s names on them. At the end of the long decision, the judge wrote in bold type, “Either way I don’t believe that by giving two gay dads onto the birth certifi-

ESCAPE TO PALM SPRINGS

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cate that the defense of the government or the civil order of the whole country will collapse,” summarized Vackar, who’s a director of financial planning and is originally from the Czech Republic. “For the first time there is a person or a Czech citizen that has on the birth certificate two people of the same gender,” said Vackar. “That has never happened.” Up until that point, even Vackar didn’t have rights to his children when they visited the Czech Republic, where his family still lives.

The path to making history

Vackar met Marchis, an astronomer from France, in San Francisco in 2003. Vackar, 41, is currently a permanent resident of the U.S., but he’s working on obtaining his citizenship, he said. Marchis, 42, holds dual citizenship in France and the U.S. Two years after the couple met, they married in Vancouver, Canada in 2005. The couple didn’t know it at the time, but by coincidence, their sons, Etian and Viktor MarchisVackar, were born the same day they wed, the two men said. Marchis and Vackar welcomed the then-5-month-old foster babies into their home through Family Builders by Adoption, a foster care and adoption organization based in Oakland. A year and a half later they officially became a family when their adoption was finalized in May 2007. Three years later, Vackar filed to have the boys recognized as Czech citizens to obtain their birth certificates. Vackar explained to the Bay Area Reporter that in Europe, unlike the U.S., citizens’ identification cards are tied to their birth certificates and hold detailed information about a person’s parentage, place of birth, and profession. The couple fought for the right for their sons to have dual citizenship in the Czech Republic because a representative of the French Embassy pretty much told Marchis “not to waste your time,” even just eight months ago, he said. Having the European IDs would make their lives easier while traveling throughout Europe as well as give them options, they said. Currently, it’s a complicated legal situation with American, Czech, and French citizenship on top of

Steven Underhill

Franck Marchis, left, and Jindra Vackar, won a key adoption ruling in the Czech Republic for their twin sons, Viktor Marchis-Vackar and Etian Marchis-Vackar.

being two gay men with children. Marchis explained that Europeans have specialized passports within Europe that are automated, making travel between countries, especially with a family, easier, as just one of the many reasons the couple jumped through the legal hurdles. “As any family, we wanted to make sure that we cannot be divided,” said Vackar. Marchis agreed, recalling a story when they were traveling across a border. They were stopped. The border guard was confused as to who the father was. “She thought something funny was going on and we called the supervisor of the border crossing,” said Marchis. The situation was cleared up and they moved on, but having the correct European IDs will help significantly. “When they receive their Czech citizenship we will all be on the same level for the American and the European,” said Vackar. However, a process that would take heterosexual couples in a similar situation six months to be granted the correct documentation took the couple and their attorney five years. “To be honest, they didn’t want to decide in our favor, but they didn’t want to decide against us either. So, that’s why it was taking a very long time,” said Vackar. The court’s stalling in Prague was

upended two years ago by a new civil code that allowed for international decisions to be accepted by any court that has a jurisdiction in the Czech Republic. Judges could make a decision as long as a permanent residency was established. “That meant that I could actually go to the court in my hometown rather than waiting in Prague because the Prague court is notoriously very slow and had not decided,” said Vackar. The couple jumped at the opportunity, filing a case in the Prostejov court in the southern Moravian region, where Vackar is from and retains his residency and where the boys spend vacations with their grandmother. The Prostejov court made a landmark move by deciding against the Czech Republic government’s position that the law is above children’s rights by deciding that a gay couple could adopt because “every child has the right to have parents,” said Vackar. The boys, who consider themselves partially Czech and French, now know that they will have dual citizenship like their other Czech friends in San Francisco. “We have told them that the court has decided that they have the right for Czech citizenship, just like their Czech friends that they have here in town,” said Vackar. “We told them that they can stay with their grandma if they want to in the future.”t

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ransgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner has canceled her upcoming speaking engagement in San Francisco. The event had been scheduled for February 29 but an email from http://www.UniqueLives. com, which promoted the talk, said that Jenner, who came out as transgender last year, had an “unforeseen scheduling problem.” It appears that Jenner has canceled her appearances in other cities as well. UniqueLives said that tickets would be refunded.

SF Pride seeking grand marshal nominees

The San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee is now seeking nominations for community grand marshals. The SF Pride Committee is looking for local heroes to honor in the 2016 Pride Parade. The committee is also accepting suggestions for organizational grand marshals, which are local nonprofits, and those who should receive the pink brick for

doing harm to the LGBT community. Community grand marshals must be local heroes who reside in the nine county Bay Area who have made lasting contributions to the Bay Area LGBTQ community, or, as LGBTQ individuals, contributed to the welfare of the ally community. To make a nomination, email communityaffairs@sfpride.org by Wednesday, January 13. SF Pride officials said that up to 10 people will be selected as nominees, along with five organizational and three pink brick suggestions for the annual public vote.

Glide talk looks at women in prison

Glide Memorial United Methodist Church will hold a free performance and discussion centered on women, incarceration, and HIV Friday, January 8 from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at 330 Ellis Street (at Taylor) in San Francisco. An opening reception precedes a performance of the Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women/ HIV Circle. That will be followed at 8:30 by a discussion with acclaimed storyteller, interdisciplinary artist,

Caitlyn Jenner

and social justice activist Rhodessa Jones and criminal justice reform advocate Lateefah Simon. Jones is director of the Medea Project, which is a performance workshop designed to achieve personal and social transformation with incarcerated women and women living with HIV. Simon, who announced last fall that she’s running for the District 7 BART board seat this year, is currently the executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. She also lectures across the country at See page 12 >>

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Community News>>

January 7-13, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

Gay rector to lead San Leandro Episcopal church by Jason Hanasik

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hen Father Justin Cannon begins his tenure as rector at San Leandro All Saints Episcopal Church this month, he will, at 31, be one of the youngest senior pastors in the Episcopal Church. And that’s not the only distinction he bears. Cannon is gay, and, as rector, he will be one of just a handful of LGBT leaders in the Bay Area’s Episcopal diocese. For Cannon, the position comes with a mission: “Marginal populations haven’t always been embraced by Christianity. I want them to know that they are welcome at this church,” he said in an interview. While Cannon describes himself as a “cradle Episcopalian,” born into the faith, understanding how his sexuality and faith could live alongside each other came to a head in 2002 when a student at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, wrote a letter condemning homosexuality in the Earlham Press, the school’s student newspaper. The letter cited Leviticus 18:22 as a reason to repudiate homosexual people. Cannon, then a freshman at Earlham College, responded to the letter and pointed out the contradiction of citing a specific Israelite law while ignoring the other edicts in the Bible like the prohibition on shellfish or mixing fabrics. “While writing the letter to the editor, I admitted to myself that I wasn’t just defending my gay friends, I was doing this because I was defending myself as a gay man,” said Cannon. Cannon said the admission scared him, but after two and a half years of solo Bible study, Cannon reconciled his sexuality and his religious beliefs. Prior to coming out to his par-

ents and Bishop Edwin for spiritual community Leidel, Cannon orand letting them know ganized what he had that they are welcome learned during his Bible in the Episcopal Church study into an essay about just as they are,” said homosexuality and the Cannon. Christian faith. KnowAt All Saints, Caning that he eventually non’s sexuality was not wanted to be a pastor, the driving force for his Wesley D. Capps Cannon said he wanted appointment as rector. his family and the church Rector Justin Cannon Claire Burke, the recleadership to understand tor’s warden – the ofhow he could come out as gay and ficial head of the congregation that maintain his Christian faith. is not a priest or deacon – said that After reading the essay, Leidel the search committee was attracted suggested that he publish the text to Cannon’s engaging personality, and arranged to assist with the cost familiarity and expertise with social of printing a book. media, inclusiveness, and his knowlPublished under the title The edge of ecology and its relationship Bible, Christianity, and Homosexuto Christian stewardship. ality, Cannon’s book was reviewed While All Saints does have memfavorably by the Los Angeles Times bers who identify as LGBT, Burke and other media outlets. said that church leaders hope to In 2005, shortly before Cannon expand their outreach to the queer graduated from Earlham, he was community and believes that Canrecognized as a “Future Gay Hero” non will be able to help them do so. in an article in the Advocate and “We feel Justin will challenge us interviewed on the Michelangelo and take us in some new directions,” Signorile Show on SIRIUS OutQ. said Burke. Out magazine recognized Cannon Still, Cannon recognizes that in 2006 in its annual Top 100 most growing the 150-member church influential gay people of the year. has its hurdles. Cannon has since edited two “Christianity has, over the centuother books on the subject of homories, been used to hurt a lot of peosexuality and the church, launched a ple. There is work we need to do to website called Inclusive Orthodoxy, reach beyond our walls to welcome and, in 2010, founded a group called people. The burden now is on us. Holy Hikes. We need to go out into the commuHoly Hikes meets monthly in nity and find ways to restore those various Bay Area locations to celrelationships,” said Cannon. ebrate the Holy Eucharist via a naCannon’s first service as the new ture hike. Cannon has confirmed rector will be Sunday, January 10 that Holy Hikes will continue while during a traditional service at 8 he is serving as rector at All Saints. a.m. and a contemporary service at “I’m always 9.75 looking 10:15. The church is located at 911 in. for ways to bring us beyond the walls of Dowling Boulevard in San Leandro. the church. Trying to reach out to For more information, visit www. people who might be hungering saintsalive.net.t

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Surrogacy • Adoption • Prenuptial Agreements Divorce • Custody • Parentage Disputes

<< Open Forum

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 7-13, 2016

Volume 46, Number 1 January 7-13, 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 • 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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Clear the smoke on cannabis plan T

ime is running out for proponents of marijuana legalization to join forces in support of a single ballot initiative for 2016. In late December, San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Steven Greenhut wrote that the numerous groups that support legalized recreational marijuana use for adults had coalesced around a proposal backed by former Facebook president Sean Parker. Called the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, it also earned the backing of Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom. Parker, of course, is a billionaire and he has said he will “dedicate millions to the effort,” Greenhut wrote. He also said that six people who had been part of ReformCA, another coalition that had submitted its own initiative to the attorney general’s office, had signed on to the Parker-backed measure. This week, ReformCA sent out a news release declaring that “not everyone in the cannabis community is ready to sell out to Sean Parker’s highly publicized and supposedly well-funded effort to legalize cannabis in the state of California, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act.” The statement went on to note that ReformCA had raised $250,000 in four days – with a goal of $2 million – to place an alternative measure on the ballot. Uh oh. We need to be clear here: getting voter approval for legalized marijuana in California will not be easy. The first attempt at a statewide initiative was soundly defeated in 2010. If there is more than one competing initiative on the ballot, it’s likely that voters will reject all of them, so it’s critical to have a single

proposition on the ballot. ReformCA folks need to seriously rethink their plan for an alternative measure. The Adult Use of Marijuana Act has three basic components, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. It would allow adults 21 years and older to possess up to one 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 so as to reduce the most common marijuana felonies to misdemeanors and allow prior offenders to petition for reduced charges. But some in the cannabis community fear the Parker-backed proposal is overly restrictive, and it contains 62 pages of new rules. However, as the state has discovered, it took years to regulate medical marijuana, which has been legal since the passage of Proposition 215 in 1996. We expect any statewide legalization effort to include many regulations. People

aren’t going to vote for this if it’s lax. San Francisco is among several cities that saw a significant crackdown on legal medical cannabis during the tenure of former U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag, who was hell bent on closing dispensaries that she thought were too close to schools. San Francisco also recently established a task force so that it’s ready if marijuana legalization passes statewide. The Adult Use of Marijuana Act is modeled on the new state law that creates a state bureau to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries, as Greenhut noted. It makes sense that a proposal for legal recreation use would rely on the same framework that state lawmakers have already approved. One of ReformCA’s complaints rings hollow: that law enforcement opposes the Parkerbacked measure. We suspect that many law enforcement officials will oppose any effort to legalize marijuana for adult use, whether it’s the Adult Use of Marijuana Act or something else. People who think California voters will check the yes box next to a marijuana legalization initiative that doesn’t include penalties or explicit definitions are not realistic. This is a large state, and while it leans left politically, it’s also a state that has already voted down a legalization effort. There are lots of people who are concerned about marijuana legalization, and their fears must be neutralized during the campaign, which, by the way, will cost a lot more than $2 million. Newsom headed the state’s blue-ribbon commission on marijuana. He also has a knack for reading the politics of hot-button issues. If he thinks the adult use initiative is the way to go, he’s probably right. And while there are problems with the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, we’re sure that bringing a competing measure to the ballot would send both up in smoke.t

Beware of AHF knocking at Castro’s door by Eric Paul Leue

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ext Thursday the San Francisco Planning Commission will take up the issue of AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s conditional use application for a formula retail pharmacy at 518A Castro Street. San Francisco remains a one of a kind community, despite the gentrification and housing challenges of the Peninsula. Planning regulations seek to preserve San Francisco’s unique character by barring chains to overtake the city, but when it comes to sexual health and HIV, an issue our city has always been a progressive leader on, why would we ever oppose an HIV nonprofit pharmacy to open in the Castro? The devil is in the details, and once you know the details you are likely to feel the same way as the Castro Merchants and many other San Francisco-based associations did who voted to oppose AHF’s plan with an overwhelming majority. Big business is not something we usually associate with nonprofit organizations, and much less so HIV nonprofits. AHF, however, has developed into an organization with an annual budget of hundreds of millions of dollars and a CEO who earns approximately $400,000 per year, an unimaginable amount of money to many people who live with HIV. We know by experience that AHF uses its financial superiority against smaller organizations by leading excruciating lawsuits; advertising and lobbying against the community’s best interest, HIV vaccine research, and HIV prevention methods like PrEP; perpetuating fear and stigma toward people living with HIV; and recently launching this campaign to expand in San Francisco following a model that has already destroyed local nonprofits in Ohio, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. It’s important for all of you to understand who is knocking at your door. AHF crusaded to end the “hold harmless” provision of the Ryan White Treatment Modernization Act, resulting in a $3 million loss of federal funding for services in San Francisco, while simultaneously extracting revenue from San Francisco via its Out of the Closet con-

signment stores. AHF refused to pay rent to San Francisco’s Maitri Hospice, totaling about $160,000 and therewith a large chunk of the hospice’s annual budget. AHF tried to skirt our SF formula retail rules and sued Supervisor Scott Wiener when he asked them to follow the rules. In Los Angeles County, AHF overbilled the already scarce public funding by $5.2 million and entered a legal battle that has cost the county more than $1.8 million to date. Also in LA County, AHF’s attorney, Samantha Azulay, argued to invalidate county funding contracts for REACH LA, an organization with specific focus on HIV-affected African-American, Latino, and transgender youth with the words: “... You know, there might be some impact on these contracts, but maybe you’ve got to cut up a couple trees to save the forest.” Consequently, REACH LA lost $100,000 in funding. In Florida, a whistleblower lawsuit against AHF charged the agency with 10 counts of defrauding the government, conspiracy, and a “multi-state kickback scheme” – an abuse of more than $100 million in funding. In Atlanta, AHF is opening a thrift store to compete with an existing community thrift store next door, which raises funds to support a much-needed LGBT homeless youth shelter and health program. Additionally, AHF spent millions to block the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of Truvada, a drug that is proven up to 99 percent effective in preventing HIV transmission when taken as prescribed. AHF President Michael Weinstein last year sparked nationwide outrage by calling it a “party drug” and the people who use it reckless and irresponsible. AHF spent almost $4 million on trying to mandate condom use in porn, which threatens medical record privacy and personal rights, perpetuates HIV discrimination and will allow uninvolved third parties to sue anyone who doesn’t use a condom; a huge issue in a country where HIV is still criminalized.

In response to a labor dispute and an attempt by AHF employees to unionize citing unfair working conditions, overspending on political campaigns and underspending on client services, AHF threatened legal actions against its staff and responded: “We have created the largest and most successful AIDS organization in the world. We make no apologies for our success.” AHF’s service model targets clients on public assistance so it can capture reimbursement revenue from public programs like Medi-Cal while delivering substandard patient care, no hospital privileges and no referral network for marginalized patients. AHF fights to eviscerate Title I funding (i.e. meals, legal services, emergency financial assistance, housing, etc.) in favor of primary care. It has actively crusaded against HIV vaccine and cure research in favor of federal funds for its nationwide medical model. AHF’s legislative allies are the same U.S. senators that opposed repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” supported removing protections for same-sex couples and their children and have promoted passing a ban on gay marriage and defunding Planned Parenthood. Every community member I have spoken to about AHF has responded with the same message: “Keep your cookie-cutter medical model and sex-shaming, fear-based politics out of San Francisco. You’re not welcome here. This is our community, and we will not let you defile it.” What is your take?t Eric Paul Leue is the director of sexual health and advocacy for Kink.com in the San Francisco Armory. He is a commissioner on the Los Angeles County Commission on HIV, a Ryan White planning body, and a well-known HIV/LGBTQQI advocate. He splits his time between LA and San Francisco and works closely with approximately 50 HIV organizations nationwide. He was recognized for his untiring advocacy and exemplary service to the community by LA’s mayor.

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Politics>>

January 7-13, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

LGBTs peer into their 2016 political crystal balls by Matthew S. Bajko

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t is an annual tradition for the Political Notebook to turn over its column inches the first week of January to LGBT politicos and opinion leaders and have them delve into what may (or may not) occur over the coming 12 months in the political world. This year, the 11th installment of the political guessing game, has a sense of déjà vu harkening back to 2008 when one of the biggest questions was whether Hillary Clinton, then a U.S. senator from New York, would secure the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Of course, she lost that race, and now the former secretary of state is again pursuing a path to the White House. The races this year for a California U.S. Senate seat and a San Franciscobased state Senate seat also feature prominently in the guesses submitted by this year’s sextet of prognosticating participants, as do a few Oscar guesses. Before diving into their predictions, here is a quick look back at the 2015 submissions. Those that hit the mark included samesex marriage being legalized across the country, that Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) would retire, and that federal LGBT legislation would face a bottleneck in the Republican-controlled Congress. Among the misses were San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee would face a re-election challenge from a prominent progressive opponent (though several guessed correctly he would easily win a second full term against a bevy of lesser known candidates) and that he would pick a leader from within the city’s Chinese community to fill the vacant District 3 supervisor seat. By December it will be evident how this year’s predictions fared.

2016 predictions

It’s hard to believe just how fast 2015 has flown by and how the political landscape has changed, not only here in San Francisco, but also around the country. Here Coma Te are my predictions for 2016. For president: Hillary Clinton; U.S. senator: Kamala Harris; state Senate: Scott Wiener. I believe we’ll see a larger and younger voter base mobilized to come out and vote along with more representation among minority groups. What will 2016 bring? Will it be the first female U.S. president? I hope so. It’s been long overdue and we, as a country, are ready for Hillary. Locally, housing will be a big focus as we continue to figure out how to create more affordable housing, and as always, nationally, immigration and education will be a big focus. As a community, LGBT issues facing us next should be focused on supporting our most vulnerable community members; homeless youth and aging seniors, affordable housing, medical care, and more needs to be done to combat employment discrimination. We tend to forget, living in the Bay Area Rainbow Bubble, that many people around the country still face varying degrees of discrimination to this day based on sexual orientation. I hope we continue the good work and strides that have been achieved these past few years and focus on making this country great again. Coma Te Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club board member California Democratic Party Assembly District 17 Delegate

2016 will be an interesting year filled with good news and bad. Throughout the year, the LGBT community will Jeff have to continue Koertzen our fight for equality nationwide as conservatives push anti-gay agendas disguised as pro-religion and pro-free speech legislation. The Black Lives Matter movement will grow as more black men, women, and children are brutally murdered, and Congress will get a chance to vote on gun control legislation, but unfortunately it will go down to defeat in a presidential election year. While California Democrats are wrapping up a weekend of convention and statewide endorsement activities at the end of February, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will gather and give out their own endorsements. In an attempt to appear progressive, Eddie Redmayne will be given the statuette for his performance in The Danish Girl, which will immediately be dismissed by some in the LGBT community for awarding a cis man for playing a trans woman. The academy will also try to send a message to politicians (and fail) by declaring The Big Short as the best film of 2015. In the summer, the political season will come to a boil. Donald Trump’s campaign will have stumbled, allowing a more establishment-friendly conservative to win the Republican nomination and pushing Trump to run as an independent. The Democratic Party will have many arguments over our nominee, but we will be victorious in November, keeping the White House in Democratic hands for another four years. Here in California, Kamala Harris will be elected U.S. senator. Jeff Koertzen Contra Costa County Democratic Party chair It’s not uncommon for me to be asked for my advice and opinions on a range of matters. Just the other night, I had to lend my ex- Juanita pertise to a delicate More situation involving the rather prickly issue of whether or not the 1980s contributed meaningfully to fashion. I don’t need to tell you what my answer is. However, what many of you may not know about me is that I’m somewhat of a political junkie (more Maddow than McLaughlin, to be honest). Yes, predicting fashion trends is not my only forte. And to be sure, my sense of style is undoubtedly more on point than Nate Silver’s (I love you, Nate). 2016, is of course, a wildly important political year, especially with the presidential primaries in full swing. First and foremost, to be fair, while I love dear Bernie (Sanders), I see Hillary as the Democrats’ nominee. As for the Republicans (dear lord), it’s like picking muumuus over tube-tops, but I feel the nomination will go to Marco Rubio (is Ben Carson even awake at this point?). And in a dust-up between those two, I’d bet my family jewels – my dear grandmother’s, of course – on Hillary. But beyond the pending presi-

dential cat fight, there are a whole host of other bouts to keep an eye out for, especially the U.S. Senate races in Ohio, Nevada, and importantly New Hampshire. Also, it’s sad to see darling Barbara Boxer retire (Barbara, come over and I’ll make you a batch of my tamales and you can tell me all about Paul Ryan’s beard before I tell you about another kind of beard). That said, I’m excited to see former San Francisco DA Kamala Harris throw her hat into the ring for that seat. Yes, 2016, I predict, will be the year of powerful women coming to the fore in politics. And, in keeping with Hillary and her fellow women in politics, I’ll be holding off on any commentary regarding their choice of attire or hairstyle (who doesn’t love a sensible pantsuit?). After all, us ladies have to stick together. Juanita More Drag queen, club promoter, and chef I predict that Mayor Lee will be visited by the Ghost of SF Past in early February and suffer a crisis of conscience when Mahnani he is forced to face Clay what he had done to our once vibrant and colorful city. He will choose to immediately resign, thereby uncharacteristically opting to save the taxpayers the unnecessary expense of arduous, costly court proceedings. Once again, San Francisco’s most brilliant and principled legal mind (yes, of course I mean David Waggoner) will identify an irrefutable procedurally correct means of standing up for the needs of the underserved community. This will allow for John Avalos to become our appointed mayor until the next scheduled election. Mayor Avalos will then put and end to mayoral appointments and other such nonsense once and for all. As she begins to prepare to pass the baton, Supervisor Malia Cohen will totally follow President Barack Obama’s lead and be blacker than anyone would have ever predicted. She’ll shock critics by suddenly unabashedly speaking the uncomfortable, unpopular truth about what her community needs most. Then she and board President London Breed will join forces to spearhead drastic, responsive emergency legislation to immediately protect the last remaining (+\- 3 percent) of black San Franciscans. The goal will be to keep us in our current homes for the next two to four years. This plan will have a waterfall implementation map that prioritizes relief for any population that is forecasted to dip below 15 percent in the next 18 months. Class and income classifications will also be considered, but not at the expense of addressing the glaring racial impact and implications. All the while, the entire Board of Supervisors will devote their energies toward developing an equitable and sustainable solution to keep San Francisco diverse. Oh, and obviously as any proud progressive (and most mindful moderates) will tell you, Supervisor Jane Kim is going to thoroughly trounce Supervisor Scott Wiener in the state Senate race. And in much cuter shoes! Mahnani Clay Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club vice president political affairs See page 13 >>

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10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 7-13, 2016

Mixed reaction to culinary school’s closure by Sari Staver

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s San Francisco’s beleaguered Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts begins the 18-month process of closing down, some say the school won’t be missed.

On January 4, the 38-year-old vocational school, located at 150 Rhode Island Street in San Francisco, admitted its last class of students into its culinary training program. The school will continue to offer shorter educational programs and online instruction until it closes in September 2017. The closure, announced in midDecember by parent company Illinois-based Career Education Corporation, caps a long descent from a once highly regarded school (Julia Child trained at its Paris school in the 1950s) to one accused of using shady recruiting campaigns that misled students about its track record in getting jobs. In 2011, the school settled a class action lawsuit for $40 million, without admitting any wrongdoing. The closure, according to the parent company, was a result of changes in recent federal regulations limiting federal funding to for-profit schools. CEC tried unsuccessfully to sell the schools. There are 16 located across the country. While complaints about the school revolved mainly around exaggerating career opportunities, it was also accused of using high pressure sales techniques to convince students to enroll and pretending the admis-

Rick Gerharter

The campuses of Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, including the one in San Francisco, will close in September 2017.

sions process was competitive, while in fact almost anyone with a high school diploma was admitted, according to plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The San Francisco school was established in 1977 – then known as the California Culinary Academy and located on Polk Street in the Tenderloin. For years, it had an excellent reputation, with graduates going on to head kitchens at some of the city’s most prestigious restaurants, including Michael Mina and the Slanted Door.

But after it was acquired by CEC, complaints about the program became increasingly loud. Even graduates with successful careers took issue with the school. For example, 2002 graduate Chris Kronner, named one of the “Rising Star” chefs in 2013 when he was a chef at the Slow Club, said he would “absolutely never” have recommended the school to students who wanted to prepare for a professional cooking career. “A lot of the teachers were really

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great,” said Kronner, who now owns his own restaurant, Kronnerburger, in Oakland, “and I met a lot of people I’m still in touch with and like a lot. “But 90 percent of the people I went to school with are no longer in this industry,” he said, blaming that in part to the program’s inability to prepare students for the “real world” of fast paced restaurant cooking. Some of the basic classes, he said, were well done, but in general, the level of the material taught was not what one would expect from higher education, he said. Prospective chefs seeking training have a number of options, he said, including culinary training at Mills College in Oakland or City College of San Francisco. Others, he said, might feel comfortable “going right into a kitchen” without any formal training and be able to learn on the job. Le Cordon Bleu, Kronner said, seemed like “a mechanism to sell loans” more than a place to train chefs. Kronner was among the majority of students who took out loans for the $50,000 program. But Kronner, unlike most of the other graduates, went on to hold a series of increasingly responsible jobs, including chef of Bar Tartine, and he was able to repay his loans easily, he said. Some of the students’ loans ballooned up to $100,000, he said, and with many holding entry-level kitchen jobs, it was impossible to repay them. The inability to repay the loans became a “lifetime problem” for some of the graduates, according to San Rafael attorney Ray Gallo, who represented several hundred plaintiffs in the San Francisco class action suit. Gallo, who estimates that “about 5 percent” of the school’s graduates “make it” in the world of professional cooking, noted that those with large student debt are unable to declare bankruptcy because such loans can’t be discharged. Many of those students, he said, “are insolvent for life.” The problem with the school, said Gallo, is that “they teach you stuff you could learn for free” through books, online videos, and entrylevel jobs in kitchens. The school spent “a vast amount of money” on marketing, he said, with little left to spend on education. Following Gallo’s 2011 class action lawsuit against the San Francisco campus, he also represented several hundred students who accused Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena of similar wrongdoing. Those cases were settled out of court, Gallo said. Gay San Francisco chef Ryan Nguyen, an executive chef at BiRite Markets before joining Boulette’s Larder, was among those with gripes about the Pasadena program. Nguyen graduated in 2009 but said he “totally regrets” his 18 months at the school. With a background growing up working in his family’s Vietnamese restaurant, Nguyen said he was seeking “formal training” as a chef. School marketing materials and recruiters promised him just that, he said. What he found, however, “was just completely dumbed down,” he said, possibly a result of having recent high school graduates in the same class with those who already had advanced degrees. “I love what I do,” said Nguyen, but “clearly the system is broken.” While still enthusiastic about the world of professional cooking, Nguyen said students must be warned that the majority of graduates begin jobs at $10-12 an hour and many are never able to move up to better paying jobs. See page 14 >>

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National News>>

January 7-13, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 11

2016 can decide how long the LGBT golden moment will last analysis by Lisa Keen

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oming off another high achievement year, the LGBT community can relax and take it easy for a while now, right? The federal Defense of Marriage Act is gone. Same-sex couples can obtain marriage licenses and recognition in all 50 states. LGBT people can serve in the military. LGBT people working for the federal government can file employment discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Those working for companies that contract with the federal government now have protection under a presidential executive order. Those visiting a same-sex spouse in the hospital are also protected by a presidential executive order. And, perhaps most importantly, the current presidential administration has made clear, through actions and words, that it will stand up for the civil rights of LGBT people. This is the LGBT Golden Age, right? That may depend on whether LGBT people seek 24-karat gold equality or something less pure, and the length of that golden age, however pure it might be, may be shortlived, depending on how certain lawsuits and presidential campaigns turn out this year.

Court cases

In terms of the quality of LGBT equality, under federal and state laws, Americans are protected from private job discrimination based on race, sex, religion, and national origin. But there is no federal law prohibiting private job discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. And of the 50 state laws prohibiting discrimination in private employment, only 22 prohibit sexual orientation discrimination and only 19 prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, including California. This is why so many legal activists were quick to note, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision (Obergefell v. Hughes) striking down state bans on marriage for same-sex couples, that LGBT people “can be married on Saturday and fired on Monday” in many states. There is also a looming threat to LGBT equality under “religious freedom restoration” laws. Twenty-one states already have such laws, giving people and businesses a path to circumvent nondiscrimination laws by claiming their religious beliefs require discriminating against LGBT people. And, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 12 more states will consider adopting such legislation this year. Opponents of equal rights for LGBT people have been trying this religious exemption argument for years, but following last June’s marriage decision, those efforts increased. Florists, bakers, wedding vendors, and others have tried to use such laws to avoid doing business with same-sex couples getting married. And there’s concern others might use them to deny LGBT people jobs, housing, and service in restaurants and hotels. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to take a case to test the constitutionality of such laws in the LGBT context. It refused to hear a wedding photographer’s appeal in 2014, but more lawsuits are coming through the system and the argument is evolving to include the First Amendment right to freedom of expression. Just last month (December 16), a Massachusetts judge ruled that – despite an exemption for religious institutions to the state’s human rights law – a Catholic school did not have constitutional protection to violate a state law when it rescinded

Clinton 2016 campaign

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton takes a selfie with supporters in Memphis during a campaign stop in November.

a job offer to a food services employee “because he was a spouse in a same-sex marriage.” The school had argued it had a First Amendment freedom of expression right to deny employment to a man married to a man. But the judge agreed with Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, who sued the school on behalf of the gay employee. GLAD expects the school to appeal. And because the case involves a federal constitutional issue, it could end up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

In another case, the LexingtonFayette Urban Human Rights Commission in Kentucky is suing a commercial printing company for using that same freedom of expression argument to refuse to print T-shirts for a gay Pride event. “If that argument were sufficient to allow [the company] Hands On Originals – a for-profit business that markets its services to the public at large – to violate the antidiscrimination laws, a host of other businesses would be able to engage

in illegal discrimination as well,” argued a December 28 friend-of-thecourt brief from Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Several county clerks – most notoriously Kim Davis in Kentucky – have tried to cite their personal religious beliefs as justification for refusing to enforce the Obergefell ruling’s requirement that same-sex couples be treated as other couples in obtaining marriage licenses. The American Civil Liberties Union is representing several same-sex couples in a lawsuit against Davis that is now pending before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral argument on that appeal could come as early as this month. Jon Davidson, national legal director for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, noted that some states are trying to avoid recognizing marriages of same-sex couples who married before the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell. One of Lambda’s lawsuits, filed last month in a federal court, challenges North Carolina’s refusal to issue corrected birth certificates for two children born to a lesbian couple who married in Canada in 2003. The National Center for Lesbian Rights has one of the more important post-Obergefell cases, pending now at the U.S. Supreme Court

level. It is challenging a decision by the Alabama Supreme Court to refuse to recognize an Alabama lesbian’s adoption of children she raised from birth with the children’s biological mother. The adoption took place in Georgia in 2007 and, since the women’s relationship broke up, the biological mother has sought to block the other mother from visitation. NCLR legal director Shannon Minter said NCLR hopes the Supreme Court will agree to review the case. As the group’s brief notes, “all families who obtained adoption judgments in [other] states may now have a parent whom Alabama courts may hold to be a legal stranger to her children in Alabama.” On December 14, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of the Alabama Supreme Court decision until the full court can decide whether to take the appeal this year. And some efforts to thwart full equality for LGBT people are using a combination of legal arguments and political tactics. “Plan A was stopping LGBT equality. Plan B is using [religious] exemptions,” said ACLU LGBT Project director James Esseks in a recent telephone conference call with reporters. Plan C appears to tie See page 13 >>

<< Commentary

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 7-13, 2016

Button, button by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

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t’s a great irony about being trans: we are expected to both look and act in certain ways to fit into gender roles defined by non-transgender people, yet are also criticized by non-transgender people for adhering to gendered standards developed by non-transgender people. It’s a classic no-win situation. The Transportation Security Administration recently released its

new policy change to better serve transgender people. Rather than referring to the particulars of our anatomies as “anomalies” when we pass through airport body scanners, we shall now be known as “alarms.” TSA is not making any other change, however, just using an even worse term to describe our bodies. As an aside, I think it is worth mentioning that these scanners have cost the TSA $160,000,000. That’s more than $150,000 per unit. In a

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recent security audit, these scanners failed to stop weapons and explosives passing through security checkpoints a staggering 96 percent of the time. Oh, and in recent news, TSA is now moving toward mandatory full body scanning for some passengers, but have opted not to clarify what would cause a person to lose the right to a pat down. Let me back up a moment, however. When you go through a full body scan at your local airport, the TSA agent operating the machine chooses one of two color-coded buttons for you: these buttons are pink and blue. So a TSA agent visually determines what gender you are, presses a button, and if the machine does not agree with his findings, you now have triggered that alarm. I can’t think of a more appropriate analogy for the lived experience of many transgender people. We’re expected to be stereotypically handsome or beautiful, and if we are not we are the subject of insults and death threats. Sometimes we are murdered. Yet if we are to fit well into our preferred genders, and someone discovers we are transgender, we still face insults and death threats – and yes, still sometimes are murdered. When someone is identified as transgender, those who are not transgender immediately descend to pick them apart. Either they look too much like their birth sex, or act too much like it, or they’re trying to “trap” straight men and women, or they’re acting too stereotypically masculine or feminine and reinforcing gender norms. More years ago than I care to count, when I had just begun living in my preferred gender, I had an experience that many other transgender people have discovered. At the time, I was working for a large reprographics and desktop publishing company, serving up freshly laser-printed lay-

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Call us at 415-668-6104 or 415-771-0717. Visit us at 1 Loraine Court, in the Richmond District COA 660

Serving the LGBT Community with Pride!

San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener has announced that his public safety meeting for District 8 will be held Thursday, January 14 at 6 p.m. at St. Philip School, 725 Diamond Street. Wiener said last month that he wanted to have the meeting, which is separate from a hearing he’s hoping to schedule soon at City Hall. The public safety meeting for January will look at property crimes and “discuss the situation, including ways to make our community safer and how to have strong communication between the police and the community,” he told the Bay Area Reporter last month. Those invited to the meeting include Mayor Ed Lee, District Attorney George Gascon, Police Chief Greg Suhr, Mission Station Captain Dan Perea, Ingleside Station Captain Joseph McFadden, Park Station Captain John Sanford, adult probation officer Karen Fletcher, and San Francisco Safety Awareness for Everyone Executive Director Sarah Burton.

FedEx loses round in court case

A federal judge this week denied FedEx’s attempt to throw out a lawsuit filed by a North Bay widow of a

outs for resumes and party fliers. I was pretty good at my job, able to crank out a professional layout quick and fast, and had developed a good and loyal customer base. I also had the respect of my co-workers and management. Once I transitioned, this changed. I still had my customers and they were still plenty happy with my work, but things were clearly deteriorating among the staff. I had co-workers who would refuse to do anything I asked of them, and I was written up a couple times by the assistant manager.

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ber of stereotypes to me. They’re determining how I should look, act, and feel based on their assumptions of my gender identity and how I choose to express it. In the course of that interaction, if their mental alarm is tripped, I am judged unfit and treated accordingly. I have to live in this world, and one has to interact with others on a daily basis. We end up having to traverse the pink and blue buttons of people all day long, from the bagger at your local supermarket to television pundits and political leaders. Today we’re in the midst of a pushback against transgender rights, with people trying to literally police gender identity. While we dodged a bullet in California in the battle over

“We’re expected to be stereotypically handsome or beautiful, and if we are not we are the subject of insults and death threats.” –Gwendolyn Ann Smith It wasn’t my appearance that caused the trouble, I was told, and me being transgender had nothing to do with how I was treated at work. Rather, it was my attitude. When I was still presenting as male, my assertiveness was perceived as an asset, but post transition, it was identified as “bitchiness.” To me, I’d rather that all women could be perceived as assertive and not be labeled for speaking up. This is but one example of many similar tales you’ll hear from transfolks, of how they have had to change their ways or end up being seen as somehow “imperfect.” In some cases, they’ve even been disallowed care because they have opted not to fall into expected gendered stereotypes. Every situation I walk into, someone is pushing their mental blue or pink button, and assigning a num-

bathrooms and public facilities, the fight is heating up elsewhere. While it does, I will never be able to live up to the conflicting standards nontransgender people will put up to fight against my identity. The majority of the time I really don’t care about your judgment of me. As a friend of mine taught me many years ago, my body is not a democracy: you do not get a vote. This is my flesh and blood, and I get to choose what I do with it. Thing is, I really am not the person with the problem here. I got to spend a lot of time trying to figure out which button to press for myself. I also know there’s a whole hell of a lot more options than just a pink and a blue one.t

longtime FedEx employee who has been denied survivor pension benefits her same-sex spouse earned during her career with the company. U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton made the decision Monday, January 4. Stacey Schuett sued FedEx last year. She and Lesly Taboada-Hall were together for 30 years before they married June 19, 2013 in their Sebastopol home. The next day, Taboada-Hall died after a threeyear battle with uterine cancer. At the time of her death, Taboada-Hall had been an employee of FedEx for more than 26 years and was fully vested in her pension. Schuett is represented by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Feinberg Jackson Worthman and Wasow, the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center, and the Birnie Law Office. James McCluskey, a spokesman for FedEx, said, “The court has dismissed two of Ms. Schuett’s three claims. We are reviewing the court’s ruling on the remaining claim and will consider our options on that portion of the decision.”

day, January 14, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department announced this week. The completed improvements mean that the entire park will now be open, following a $20.5 million renovation using funds from the voter approved 2008 Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond. As previously reported, the south side of Dolores Park includes the popular “gay beach” area, which will now feature additional restrooms and a pissoir, or public urinal. In fact, the entire park will now have more restrooms – 31 in all, not including the pissoir. Other improvements include new sidewalks, new grass, new picnic area, and an overlook. The park’s completed northern section opened last June.

Opening set for Dolores Park

The renovated south side of Mission Dolores Park will open Thurs-

Gwen Smith believes in a much broader spectrum. You’ll find her on Twitter at @gwenners.

LGBT history curriculum available for teachers

Now that teachers have returned from their holiday break, they may want to check out new curriculum for a series of four coming out videos that a local group has uploaded that allows educators to encourage dialogue between generations. New curriculum guides have now been developed to accompany the See page 14 >>

Obituaries >> Memorial set for Ruth Spiegel

A memorial will be held for Ruth Helen Weinstein Spiegel, her son, Charles Spiegel, has announced. The memorial will be held Sunday, January 17 at 3 p.m. at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, 290 Dolores Street in San Francisco.

Ms. Spiegel died October 22, 2015 in Washington, D.C. She was 88. She had lived in San Francisco for almost a decade starting in 2001. She retired as managing editor of the Smithsonian Institution Press after the September 11 attack on Washington, and moved to San Francisco to help raise her granddaughter, Nora. For more information on the upcoming memorial, email charlesspiegellaw@gmail. com.

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Community News>>

LGBT golden moment

From page 11

scare tactics in political messaging to misrepresent the impact of nondiscrimination laws. In the upcoming state legislative sessions, said Esseks, many predict a “tremendous wave of anti-trans bills” prompted in large part by the vote in Houston in November. In that vote, citizens repealed a new law prohibiting discrimination based on a wide variety of characteristics. Voters seemed largely persuaded by a campaign from opponents who claimed the prohibition of gender identity discrimination would lead to sexual predators attacking young girls and women in public restrooms. The anti-trans trend is longstanding. When the federal Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, it explicitly excluded from protection “transsexualism ... [and] gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments.” Last month, a case GLAD is involved in challenged that exclusion in a hearing before a federal judge in Pennsylvania, said GLAD Execu-

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New laws

From page 1

the same company based on gender identity is harmful and wrong,” Leno stated. In a brief call this week, he added, “Our tax dollars should not benefit businesses that discriminate.” Geoff Kors, government policy director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, a co-sponsor of the bill, noted that the legislation makes California the first state in the nation to refuse to contract with businesses and other entities that discriminate against their transgender employees in benefits. Brown also signed Leno’s SB 731, which requires the consideration of gender identity when officials place youth in the state’s foster care system. Supporters argue that the policy will result in transgender foster youth being placed in appropriate homes where they feel safe and accepted. NCLR youth policy director

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Political Notebook

From page 9

It’s 2016! It’s a new year! It’s an election year. This political junkie is excited and anxious about what lies ahead. The implications that will follow Election Day on November 9, 2016 are drastic. Will it be President Trump? President Sanders? President Clinton? Vice President Rubio? Will we have a Senator named Rocky (Chavez)? Here in the South Bay, voters will be voting for five San Jose City Council members (two incumbents and three open seats). Mayor Sam Liccardo, a Democrat, needs to retain his pro-business/Chamber of Commerce majority that currently stands at 8-3. However, the South Bay Labor Council is surely going to work hard

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AHF

From page 1

AHF has also come under criticism locally for supporting condom usage on all porn sets in the state. After legislative efforts to enact such a policy failed, the agency worked to put an initiative before voters this November. It was behind a similar ballot measure in Los Angeles County that passed in 2012. Those policy fights are now at the center of opposition to seeing AHF be granted city permission to relocate the pharmacy it owns on 18th Street into the street-facing portion of the storefront at 518 Castro Street. It relocated its health clinic

January 7-13, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 13

tive Director Janson Wu. The U.S. Department of Justice also submitted a brief that argued that gender dysphoria should not be excluded from ADA’s definition of disability, and a decision is expected this year.

Presidential race

There are other political influences on legal rights for LGBT people this year: One is a serious effort to denigrate the authority of the judicial branch to declare which laws are constitutional and which are not. Nearly all of the Republican presidential hopefuls have loudly proclaimed they think the Supreme Court exceeded its authority by declaring state bans on marriage for same-sex couples to be unconstitutional. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who is currently leading the large field of GOP candidates in Iowa, called the decision in Obergefell v. Hodges “lawless” and likened the five justices who supported it to “jackboots” in Nazi Germany. Obviously, there will be much at stake legally for LGBT people in who is elected president in November. Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton issued a fact sheet Decem-

Courtesy CBS News

Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz

ber 17, detailing how, as president, she would attempt to “fight for full federal equality for LGBT Americans.” Among other things, she says she would “work with Congress to pass” a federal law prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation in “employment, housing, schools, access to credit, public education, jury service, and public accommodations.”

And she says she would also support efforts by the courts to interpret existing federal law prohibitions on sex discrimination to include sexual orientation and gender identity. Donald Trump, who is leading the Republican field in New Hampshire and in nationally based polling of Republican voters, is “one of the best, if not the best, pro-gay Republican candidates to ever run for the presidency,” according to Gregory Angelo, head of the national gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans. Trump, he added, opposes an amendment to the federal Constitution that would ban marriage for same-sex couples, and he supports amending the Civil Rights Act to include a prohibition against sexual orientation discrimination. But Trump has also said that, while he acknowledges the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell as the law of the land, he does not support “gay marriage.” And he hasn’t been pinned down on other issues relating to the LGBT community specifically. If elected, Cruz said in his first 100 days he would fight for the “First Amendment Defense Act,” which seeks to circumvent laws

prohibiting discrimination against same-sex couples by urging that such discrimination is a product of a person’s free exercise of religion. It also seeks to prohibit the federal government from taking any adverse action against a person who “acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman.” Cruz is one of two Republicans still in the race (the other is Ben Carson) who signed the National Organization for Marriage’s pledge, promising to “work to overturn” the right of same-sex couples to marry and to change all “regulatory, administrative and executive actions” to “be consistent with the proper understanding of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.” The outcome of that presidential race is far from predictable at this point. But one thing does seem clear: Whatever golden moment the LGBT community might be enjoying now, the line-ups in the courtroom and political arena this year will almost certainly have a significant impact on how lasting and solid that moment will be.t thored by gay Assemblyman Rich Gordon (D-Menlo Park). It caps the amount an individual pays out-ofpocket at $250 for a single 30-day prescription. Backers of the bill, which will go into effect January 1, 2017, expect it will be a boon for those Californians with cancer, HIV/AIDS, and other diseases. EQCA backed several successful bills in 2015. In a recent interview, Zbur said “a very high priority” for EQCA this year is modernizing the “draconian” laws related to HIV transmission. Current laws are used to “intimidate” people who are living with HIV, he said, and “they are really out of step with other kinds of transmission laws for other diseases.” According to EQCA, many people who are living with HIV “remain criminalized for their status, often facing severe sentences for engaging in any sexual act without disclosing their status, regardless of the level of risk associated with the behavior.”t

Shannan Wilber said in an email that the nonprofit has “received many calls from transgender foster youth who have experienced bias and mistreatment in foster and group homes, subjecting them to instability, trauma, and poor outcomes.” Another new law, AB 87, authored by Assemblyman Mark Stone (D-Monterey Bay), prohibits peremptory challenges during the jury selection process of a prospective juror based on an assumption they will be biased because of his or her gender identity, gender expression, ethnic group identification, genetic information, or disability. “This new law will take a modest but necessary step to ensure that defendants are allowed a trial by an impartial jury that reflects a cross section of the population in a community,” Stone stated. AB 830, which Brown also signed into law, allows transgender crime victims, as well as anyone subjected to violence due to their sexual ori-

entation, to bring a civil action for damages against the responsible party. Lesbian Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton), chair of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus, authored the legislation, which clarifies that legal remedies for the victims of violence motivated by a person’s gender are also available to transgender people and others who’ve been targeted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Some new laws are meant to protect LGBT students. Assemblywoman Shirley Weber (D-San Diego) authored AB 329, the California Healthy Youth Act. It requires sex education for students in grades seven to 12 to provide medically accurate and age-appropriate instruction on LGBT youth and families, and the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, HIV, and pregnancy. AB 827, authored by Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell (D-Long

Beach), calls for the creation of a training program to help teachers combat bullying and support LGBT youth who are coming out of the closet or being targeted by other students. Among other bills that took effect last week is Chiu’s AB 960, which modernizes California law to protect families using assisted reproduction methods. Under the new law, sperm donors will not be legally considered a parent and unmarried people using assisted reproduction would have the same parental rights as married parents. AB 865, authored by Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Salinas), requires recipients of California Energy Commission grants or loans to increase procurement from minorityowned business enterprises, including those run by LGBT individuals.

to regain its first majority since the mid-2000s. With Democrats duking it out in the U.S. Senate race and Hillary Clinton on top of the ticket, Democrats will be energized, thus helping the Labor Council elect pro-labor Democrats to the San Jose City Council. After all is said and done, I predict that Liccardo will retain a slim 6-5 majority. Unlike his predecessor Chuck Reed, the mayor is progressive on many issues and has had a collaborative approach to moving San Jose forward. The big question is, will the mayor select a vice mayor who is labor friendly? We shall see! California is electing a new U.S. senator for the first time since 1992, the year Senators Boxer and Dianne Feinstein were elected. Attorney General Kamala Harris and south-

ern California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez are the front-runners in the race to succeed Boxer. I predict that both Democrats will advance to the general election. We can thank Proposition 11 for that. I believe it is Harris’ race to lose. Sanchez is gaffe prone, but if she solidifies the Latino vote and conservatives coalesce around this Blue Dog Democrat, she might make it competitive. One cannot forget the elephant in the room: the electing of a new president. On the Republican side, it’s Donald Trump’s to lose. Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, and Rand Paul are fading fast and have not gained traction. Ted Cruz has been on the upswing and will win Iowa. Trump and Chris Christie will do well in New Hampshire. Trump will have the nomination wrapped up by the

end of March. I predict we will have a scary Trump-Cruz ticket for November’s general election. On the Democratic side, it’s between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders has made strong inroads with progressives and young voters, but Clinton still has the core Democratic base in her corner: Latinos, African-Americans, LGBTQs, single working-class mothers, and union members. She has learned her lesson from the 2008 primaries against Barack Obama and is not taking anything for granted this time around. Clinton will win Iowa, take a respectable second in New Hampshire, and will win Nevada and South Carolina handily. She will have the nomination wrapped up after Super Tuesday on March 1. Al-

though many want to see a Hillary Clinton-Jerry Brown or a Hillary Clinton-Joe Biden ticket, I predict that Hillary will choose U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro as her vice presidential nominee. I predict Clinton will go on to defeat Trump by 6-8 percentage points and will garner 330-plus electoral votes. Democrats will recapture the U.S. Senate, as Republicans will be defending incumbents in Democratic leaning states, a disadvantage especially during presidential election years. Omar Torres California Democratic Party District 7 region director Franklin-McKinley School District board member

into the rear of the space in the fall of 2014. The city’s Planning Commission is slated to vote at its meeting Thursday, January 14, on whether to approve AHF’s permit request. The need for the AIDS agency to seek a permit has been the focus of an ongoing spat between AHF and city officials. Initially, city planners in 2014 had granted the permits “over the counter,” meaning AHF did not have to argue its case at a public hearing before the planning commission. The planning department then reversed course and said that AHF’s pharmacy fell under the rules governing chain stores, even if it changed the name from AHF Pharmacy to Cas-

tro Pharmacy, and would need to secure a conditional use permit in order to relocate it. AHF appealed that decision to the city’s Board of Appeals, which last March ruled against it. Also, in July 2014, the city’s Board of Supervisors passed interim legislation aimed at closing the naming loophole AHF had used to skirt the formula rules. The temporary zoning change was recently extended due to the pharmacy permit request still pending. In response to the city’s actions, AHF filed a lawsuit against it and gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, who represents the Castro, claiming the city had unlawfully targeted it with the interim zoning

rule. But last April AHF announced it was putting its lawsuit on hold and would seek a conditional use permit in order to consolidate its pharmacy under the same roof as its health care center. “We are asking them to approve a project that gives our patients the highest quality of care in a single location. It is not a novel model,” Dale Gluth, AHF’s Bay Area regional manager, told the Bay Area Reporter this week.

tive Director Curtis A. Moore wrote, “AHF has been one of our main HIV service partners because of the expertise of their staff, flexibility, and convenient location.” And Glenn-Milo Santos, Ph.D., a senior research scientist at the San Francisco Department of Public Health Substance Use Research Unit, also submitted a letter to the planning commission encouraging it to approve the pharmacy permit. “Similarly, it is important that persons seeking health care have access to services in locations that are convenient with different options to choose from. AHF is one of those options,” wrote Santos, who noted

Looking ahead

Another bill of significant benefit to the LGBT community that passed in 2015 was AB 339, au-

Support

AHF has received support from Bay Area Young Positives, which it has funded over the years, for its permit request. In a letter to the planning commission, BAYP Execu-

See page 14 >>

See page 14 >>

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 7-13, 2016

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Culinary school

From page 10

The Bay Area Reporter wanted to interview Le Cordon Bleu graduates who felt the educational program prepared them well. The San Francisco school referred requests to CEC, which did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment or referral to other graduates. While most of the recent Yelp reviews of the school were negative,

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News Briefs

From page 12

videos. Developed by the Pye-Harris Legacy Project in conjunction with a team at Mills College, the curriculum targets middle school and high school students as a way to learn LGBT history from those who actually lived it. Guides to develop questions that will spark conversations between generations, lists of age-appropriate classroom activities, and a resource

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Political Notebook

From page 13

Hillary Clinton will lead a strong sweep in the presidential election, with Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro (D) Rick Gerharter as her vice president. Bevan Dufty Clinton’s electoral strength against Republican nominee Ted Cruz will help Democrats gain the 30 seats for Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) to return as speaker of the House of Representatives. Democrats will also flip five Republican Senate seats to return to a narrow majority. Democratic House victories will include Josh Gottheimer unseating seven-term Republican Congressman Scott Garrett in New Jersey’s 5th Congressional District. Garrett self-destructed in 2015 when he re-

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AHF

From page 13

that AHF has granted the unit access to its Castro clinic in order to conduct its research. “Further, it is well established that patients are more adherent to medication and their overall health improves when they are afforded care under one roof. As such, AHF’s patients will benefit from collocated services.”

Opposition

Yet the agency’s permit request has attracted strong opposition from Castro groups, residents, and HIV advocates. Both the Castro/ Upper Market Community Benefit District and the Castro Merchants group voted to oppose AHF’s pharmacy permit request. In its letter explaining its opposition, CBD Executive Director Andrea Aiello wrote that AHF “has not significantly contributed to the neighborhood” despite its having

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Strut

From page 1

Strut’s other programs, including those for gay men already diagnosed with HIV, are scheduled to move into the new building mid-month. SFAF will continue to offer additional services and see other client groups at its 1035 Market Street location. “Having HIV is a lifelong process and people need support along the way,” said Julie Lifshay, SFAF’s director of health navigation services, whose focus is helping people with HIV remain in – or get back into – care. “We’re here to help people wherever they are in their process and whatever their life needs are that keep them from focusing on their health.” The Castro Street building features 14,700 square feet of space

two were positive. A 2012 graduate, identified as Kristy S., said she was “happy and proud” to have graduated from Le Cordon Bleu. “It was by no means a perfect school, as I think every institution has its faults. But (most) of the instructors are passionate about food, the industry, and most of all their students. It was a positive experience that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.” And on December 16, 2015, So-

phie J., who identified herself as a current student, wrote, “It’s sad to see a lot of the reviews on here. Like anything in life you reap what you sow. I learn something new everyday at Le Cordon. Do I expect to get a high paying job by getting a certificate in Culinary Arts? No. Like anything in life you have to put in the time to build a career and to build your skills. Are people in the back of the house underpaid? Yes. But that’s not because of Le Cordon Bleu.”t

guide for different eras will give students an overview of modern LGBT history. The videos – Coming Out in the 1950s, Coming out in the 1960s, Coming Out in the 1970s, and Coming Out in the 1980s – compare and contrast the coming out experience in different eras as the political and social landscape changed in each decade. “Every older gay person can be a rich source of history for young people to learn the continuum of

activism,” said Phil Siegel, president of the board of Pye-Harris. “Simple coming out stories can teach how the modern LGBT movement has grown and changed over the past 50 years.” The Coming Out videos served as a catalyst for a new display at the Stonewall Museum and Archive in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which includes a live video booth where guests can share personal coming out stories. To get copies of the curriculum or to view any of the videos, teachers can visit www.pyeharrisproject.org.t

fused to pay his dues to the National Republican Campaign Committee because it supported and funded gay Republican candidates in 2014. Gottheimer has already raised over $1 million and was one of the youngest presidential speechwriters in U.S. history when he worked for Bill Clinton. He co-authored Power in Words with historian and civil rights leader Mary Frances Berry about Barack Obama’s 2008 speeches. Gay Pennsylvania state Representative Brian Sims will be elected to Congress from Philadelphia, unseating 10-term incumbent Congressman Chaka Fattah in the state’s April primary. Fattah could not shake the cloud of 29 criminal indictments in 2015. Sims, a former policy attorney, has been a leading voice for LGBT civil rights since he played football at Bloomsbury University and became America’s first NCAA college

football team captain to come out. He is the first LGBT person elected to the Pennsylvania Legislature and, through the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, he developed the national following and fundraising needed to become the first LGBT elected to Congress from the Keystone State. John Gregg, his 2012 Democratic opponent, will unseat Indiana GOP Governor Mike Pence, who drew national scorn when he signed a so-called religious freedom bill that legalized anti-LGBT discrimination. It resulted in major companies, such as Salesforce, Charles Schwab, and Apple, threatening to take jobs and business elsewhere. 2016 will be remembered as the curtain call for candidates who pander to anti-LGBT bigots, starting with the Republican presidential ticket. Bevan Dufty San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee membert

a presence in the Castro for years. And she pointed to AHF’s dispute over a rent hike with local hospice Maitri, its landlord at its former space on Church Street, which resulted in a legal dispute the two agencies agreed to settle. Aiello also noted how AHF’s policy stances are counter to the city’s plan to eliminate new HIV infections. “They clearly are not working with San Francisco’s model to get to zero HIV infections; a model recently adopted by the World Health Center,” she wrote. Speaking before Castro business leaders at their meeting in November, Eric Paul Leue, the director of sexual health and advocacy at Kink.com, urged them to oppose AHF’s permit. “Every community member I have spoken to about AHF has responded with the same message: Keep your cookie-cutter medical model and sex-shaming, fear-based

politics out of San Francisco,” said Leue, who splits his time between the city and Los Angeles, where he serves on the LA County HIV Commission. “You’re not welcome here. This is our community, and we will not let you defile it.” At the merchants’ meeting, AHF’s Gluth said the agency had donated $480,000 to local Bay Area groups in 2015. He also noted that AHF does prescribe PrEP to clients who wish to use it and that its pharmacy fills prescriptions for the once-a-day drug. “This project has gotten pretty political. But it can’t be about competition or disagreement over HIV prevention,” said Gluth. “This is a land use issue.” The planning commission meets at noon Thursdays in Room 400 at City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place.t

on three floors. Facilities include six medical exam rooms – up from two at the old Magnet location on 18th Street – a pharmacy, rooms for private counseling and support groups, and open spaces that will host art exhibits and other community events. The new space will enable the foundation to expand case management services by 25 percent, mental health counseling by 25 percent, substance use and harm reduction counseling by 50 percent, and HIV and sexually transmitted infections screening by up to 40 percent, according to an SFAF news release. The project is funded by SFAF’s Campaign for Health and Wellness, which aims to raise $15 million to cover the costs of building renovation and expansion of services,

which are offered for free. Giuliano said the campaign has “about a million or so” left to raise. The building’s planned opening was pushed back several times, first due to construction delays and more recently in order to obtain approval from the city’s fire department and the California Department of Public Health. “I think I’m not alone when I say I started to think this day would never come,” said Strut Executive Director Tim Patriarca. “But I’m truly excited we’re open and the community is now able to experience a new approach to supporting their health. The staff and volunteers have created really something special here – the care-focused atmosphere is unlike any other health care setting anywhere.”t

For more, see Eric Paul Leue’s Guest Opinion on page 8.

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Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036835200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GROTE BOARDS, 1079 QUESADA AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MATT GROTE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/15/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/15/15.

DEC 17, 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036796700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MH ENGINEERING AND CONSTRUCTION GROUP; ROBERT H. CHAN CONSULTING, 2000 OAKDALE AVE UNIT 1A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ROBERT H. CHAN. 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 11/20/15.

DEC 17, 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036827200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AL-AMANA SERVICES, 1740 BANCROFT AVENUE #356, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LOUBNA, SALEH. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/19/10. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/10/15.

DEC 17, 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036826400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MR. T CAFE, 4689 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ZHONG MING ZHOU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/09/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/09/15.

DEC 17, 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036816800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TESSA ORLEANS COMPANY; SHADOW BOUND LEATHER, 2309 NORIEGA ST #42, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed FIONNESSA CRONIN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/03/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/04/15.

DEC 17, 24, 31, 2015 JAN 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036789200

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036832800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE WALSTON LAW GROUP, 4 CHARLTON CT., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed WALSTON AND ASSOCIATES (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 12/14/15.

DEC 17, 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036831600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EZ RIDER BIKE RENTALS & TOURS; EASY RIDER BIKE RENTALS & TOURS, 2715 HYDE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed AMERICAN SCOOTER & CYCLE RENTALS (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/14/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/14/15.

DEC 17, 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036841100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: COLLECTIVE LINES, 1886 18TH AVENUE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MELANIE HALIM. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/17/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/17/15.

DEC 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 14, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036835700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FEED THE PRISONERS, 505 CASTRO ST, SAN FRANCISO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BAO QUEC NGUYEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/15/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/15/15.

DEC 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 14, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036845200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JZA ARCHITECTURE, 152 LUNDYS LANE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOSEPH Z. ARMIN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/18/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/18/15.

DEC 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 14, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036843800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JONATHAN JOYA SERVICES, 6298 3RD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JONATHAN JOYA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/18/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/18/15.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PHILOSOPHY DESIGN STUDIOS, 4570 EIGHTEENTH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BRITTNEY ANDREWS. 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 12/18/15.

DEC 17, 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036788800

DEC 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 14, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036838200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: L.Z. PROFESSIONAL SERVICES, 2565 3RD ST #302, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GUADALUPE ZARATENCO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/18/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/18/15.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VIVE LA TARTE, 1160 HOWARD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed DIMENSION HILL FOODS INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/16/15.

DEC 17, 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036821500

DEC 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 14, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036805000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: OPEN MASTERS; WAYFINDER, 452 PAGE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed WEBB, ALAN & BRADLEY, SARAH. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/01/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/07/15.

DEC 17, 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036826600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SECURITY SPECIALIST GROUP, 2912 DIAMOND ST #396, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SECURITY SPECIALIST GROUP, 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 12/09/15.

DEC 17, 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036807500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TGI JUSTICE PROJECT, 1372 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed JUSTICE NOW (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/25/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/25/15.

DEC 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 14, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036845800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SCHOOL BUS MOVIE; PICTURE A CHANGE, 24 BONVIEW ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed MAXEBOY MEDIA CORPORATION (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/21/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/21/15.

DEC 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 14, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036846100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: 1944 OCEAN COOPERATIVE, 1944 OCEAN AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SF 710, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/30/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/30/15.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GOLD LION, 111 TOLAND ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed STURDIVANT VENTURES, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/16/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/21/15.

DEC 17, 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 2016

DEC 24, 31, 2015, JAN 07, 14, 2016

▼

Read more online at www.ebar.com

January 7-13, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 15

Legal Notices>> ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-15-551759

In the matter of the application of: SUSAN ANNA FROHLICH, 350 ARBALLO DR #12L, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner SUSAN ANNA FROHLICH, is requesting that the name SUSAN ANNA FROHLICH, be changed to SUSAN ANNA CHRISTIANO. 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 23rd of February 2016 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

DEC 31, 2015, JAN 07, 14, 21, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036863600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MARGARET MARIE DESIGNS, 1546 GREAT HWY #45, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARGARET O’MAHONY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/04/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/04/16.

JANUARY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036864400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RAINBOW JUSTICE, 674 CASTRO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JEANINE K. REISBIG. 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 01/05/16.

JANUARY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036851600

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-15-551777

In the matter of the application of: JUAN BOSCO HERNANDEZ BASULTO, 487 VALLEJO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JUAN BOSCO HERNANDEZ BASULTO, is requesting that the name JUAN BOSCO HERNANDEZ BASULTO, be changed to BOSCO HERNANDEZ BASULTO. 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 1st of March 2016 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

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JANUARY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036841600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SPUNTINO; CAFFE SPUNTINO, 543 COLUMBUS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CAFE CALABRO INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/15/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/17/15.

JANUARY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036858300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: POPSONS, 330 TOWNSEND, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed B & M BURGER, 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 12/30/15.

JANUARY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2015 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-035706000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LOWER FALLS, 2318 36TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SARAH KLEIN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/23/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/23/15.

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: COLD STONE CREAMERY, 119 ELLIS ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business was conducted by a married couple and signed by CRISELDA DIAZ & EDWIN DIAZ. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/10/14.

JANUARY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2016

JANUARY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2016

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Notice of Availability of Request for Proposals for a Retail Leasing Opportunity for the Pier 29 Bulkhead Building, located at Chestnut Street and The Embarcadero The Port of San Francisco is seeking proposals from qualified respondents to propose potential use(s) for a lease to improve and operate a visitor-serving facility within the Pier 29 Bulkhead Building, located in the Port’s Northeast Waterfront adjacent to the James R. Herman Cruise Terminal at the foot of Chestnut Street on the Embarcadero. The subject property consists of approximately 20,000 s.f. of interior space located within the Pier 29 Bulkhead Building. The property fronts The Embarcadero and is within walking distance of the Ferry Building, the City’s central business district, Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown and North Beach. The property is well placed on The Embarcadero Promenade adjacent to the Port’s recently opened James R. Herman Cruise Terminal, the adjoining 2.5 acre Cruise Terminal Plaza and historic Beltline Building. The Pier 29 Bulkhead Building has been tested as a successful public destination during the 34th America’s Cup events in the Summer of 2013. Based on the public’s positive response to this temporary use, the Pier 29 Bulkhead Building now is envisioned as a site for a unique destination use and walkup attraction that is “San Francisco Bay Area flavored” that will create and draw activity in the environs of Pier 29. This exciting opportunity will augment the rich experience of cruise passengers, visitors and residents in the Northeast Waterfront and highlight and promote that which is unique to our region and culture. The Port purposefully is being less prescriptive as to specific uses in order to generate a wider array of creative responses to the RFP. Port staff believes a new combination of unique visitor serving, destination attraction uses can be conceived of and launched in this exceptional space to serve waterfront visitors, cruise passengers and neighbors without replicating a pre-existing waterfront use. RFP packages will be available from the Port of San Francisco, Pier 1, San Francisco, CA 94111. Interested parties may obtain a hardcopy at Pier 1 or by download from the Port’s website at www.sfport.com. Further information concerning the availability of these documents may be obtained by contacting Mark Lozovoy, Project Manager at (415) 274-0575 or mark.lozovoy@sfport.com. Submittals must be delivered by hand to the Port of San Francisco, Pier 1, San Francisco CA 94111, no later than 5:00 P.M. PST on Thursday, March 10, 2016. APPROVED BY ORDER OF THE SAN FRANCISCO PORT COMMISSION

Susan Reynolds Deputy Director, Real Estate

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1

Castro new year

25

East side story

www.ebar.com/arts

Duo action

ON A NEW ON I S S I M

Sutton Foster drops in

Out &About

23

O&A

18

22

Vol. 46 • No. 1 • January 7-13, 2016

by Richard Dodds

T

wo-time Tony Award winner Sutton Foster became a high school dropout the first time she played San Francisco, and a college dropout for her second visit. Cast at age 17 in The Will Rogers Follies, which began its national tour at the Golden Gate Theatre in 1992, she quit school in Troy – which proudly bills itself as the safest city in Michigan – and headed to the wooly West to become a showgirl. “It was the first time I was away from home, and I got to live in San Francisco,” she said. “It was, like, life-changing.” See page 26 >>

Broadway and TV star Sutton Foster will perform in concert on Jan. 16 at the Nourse Theatre. Stephen Sorokoff

Art world

2016 Alamo Drafthouse at the New Mission.

by Sura Wood

“Vue du port de Saint-Tropez (View of the Old Port Saint-Tropez)” (1911), oil on canvas by Pierre Bonnard, part of Pierre Bonnard: Painting Arcadia, coming to the de Young Museum.

by Sari Staver

G

et ready for an onslaught of new art complexes and renovated and expanded spaces in the first half of this brand new year, along with a plentitude of artworks that will fill them. See page 25 >>

F

ilm buffs are giving an enthusiastic thumbs-up to the recently opened New Mission Theater, a five-screen restored Arc Deco movie palace at 2550 Mission Street in San Francisco. They give high marks to the meticulous renovation,

Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS }

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ambitious programming, and state-of-theart projection and sound systems. They also hope that the theater’s full-service bar and kitchen, which deliver to the seat, have the potential to bring out a new audience of moviegoers who may be looking for a new entertainment experience. See page 20 >> Tommy Lau Photography

<< Out There

18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 7-13, 2016

New year, still queer by Roberto Friedman

Y

es indeed, Brava’s 4th Annual New Year’s Eve Comedy Fiesta: Latino Power Edition! was everything we wanted from our NYE: hilarity, festivity, and sexual innuendo. Comics Marga Gomez, Lydia Popovich, Monica Palacios, Chris Storin, Baruch PorrasHernandez & Betty Pazmiño kept us in stitches. Gomez remarked that New Year’s Eve is the most delusional of holidays, in that we all pretend everything’s magically going to get better the next day, after we turn the calendar page. And of course, things only get worse. But, Marga

went on to say, we – gesturing to the progressive, multicultural, allover-the-map sexually, partying and high-spirited crowd at the Brava Theatre – we only get better. And she was so right. The whole line-up was superb. PorrasHernandez described blowing white straight dudes’ minds by coming out as a lightskinned Mexican gay guy. Storin explicated being the mixed-race son of a sexy Latina mother and a hick Oklahoma father – which turned out to be a pretty hot mix. And Popovich turned us all out with several spirited riffs on women’s breasts and men’s testicles – using other, more colorful terms.

Anastacia Powers Cuellar

Marga Gomez and Lydia Popovich rang in the new year with hilarity at the Brava Theatre.

The after-show Countdown Party included “champagne,” a Midnight countdown and dancing. Then it was time to head out into the freezing Deep Mission night and the uncharted waters of 2016. We were happily buzzed. Thanks for getting us there, Comedy Fiesta crew!

her entire life in a nexus of Victorian social understandings too near to be identified by the naked eye, like viruses, or radiation.” Descriptions are delightful. “She blinked two or three times like a Guernsey surprised to have just delivered an aria.” “He moved by in a froth of white whiskers.” Maguire broadens the scope of the story to encompass the American abolitionist movement and the groundbreaking theories of Charles Darwin Darwin, who is a character. His book is a joy to read from beginning to end, and our first impression was most incorrect. Herewith recommended.

Wonder bred

We must admit, our first impression on coming upon After Alice, a novel by Gregory Maguire (William Morrow), wasn’t all that charitable. Maguire is the author, you see, of Wicked, Son of a Witch, and other reimaginings of the characters and settings found in L. Frank Baum’s classic Wizard of Oz series of books, and After Alice is a similar recasting of Lewis Carroll’s immortal Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Oh dear, we thought to ourselves, this man has made a cottage industry of rewriting staples of children’s literature. Better look elsewhere. Also, the Alice story has already been reset in countless plays, musicals, even an opera. It’s as if Carroll’s fantastic tale of the Oxford girl who fell down a rabbit hole into a mysterious, topsy-turvy universe were some sort of primal text, a creation myth that modern audiences have not been able to resist since its inception. Must we follow the blonde child through the looking glass yet again? But After Alice, we discovered in just a few pages, is another animal entirely. It uses the Wonderland premise and characters as a jumpingoff place (falling-down place?), but then takes them somewhere entirely new. Its protagonist is not Alice but Alice’s friend Ada, mentioned in Carroll’s tale, off to meet Alice, who

▼

Dance stars

falls right down that rabbit hole after her. We then experience Wonderland through new eyes, as well as get alternating chapters of what’s happening meanwhile in Oxfordshire, with Alice’s sister Lydia and others wondering where in the dickens Alice and Ada have gone off to. Maguire’s fiction is oh so droll. A few examples, such as his description of Ada’s world: “Ada was encased in the husk of Ada, which consisted, largely, of these: parents distracted and obscure; Miss Armstrong, not obscure enough, in fact screechy, bothersome, and all too adjacent; and the new Boy Boyce, with his tiny boyness perched between his legs. Ada wished it might fly away. Or sting itself. Quite hard.” Maguire puts the story in its larger social context. “Lydia will spend

It’s that time of year when the San Francisco Ballet School announces the recipients of the Bob Ross Scholarship, the Keith White Memorial Scholarship, and the Eric Hellman Memorial Scholarship for the 2016-16 school year. We’re here to report them. Bob Ross Scholarship recipient Nathaniel Remez, 19, from Washington, DC, wins support from the fund for the second year. He attended SFBS’ 2013 and 2014 summer programs, and was invited to stay for this year. The Keith White Memorial Scholarship goes to India Nunes, 18, from Carnaxide, Portugal; and the Eric Hellman Memorial Scholarship was awarded to Sarah Drake, 17, from Alhambra, CA. This year marks the 20th anniversary of these worthy scholarships. Congratulations to these up-andcoming young stars of the ballet!▼

Castro incoming

Matt Damon stars as a stranded American astronaut in director Ridley Scott’s The Martian, coming to the Castro Theatre.

by David Lamble

J

LENA HALL

ALEXANDER JEAN FEAT. MARK BALLAS

MARILYN MAYE

January 15 - 16

January 22 - 23

January 28 - 29

For tickets:www.feinsteinsSF.com Feinstein’s | Hotel Nikko San Francisco 222 Mason Street 855-MF-NIKKO | 855-636-4556

anuary at the Castro Theatre is taken up with three outstanding festivals: the 15th Edition of the comedy festival SF Sketchfest; the 20th anniversary of Berlin & Beyond, the Goethe-Institut’s collection of new films from Germany, Austria and Switzerland; and the 14th edition of the Noir City film noir festival. Sketchfest highlights (1/7-10): 1/8: Teen Witch, a 1989 teen cult comedy with 50s standup star Shelley Berman, presented by Peaches Christ (7 p.m.), followed at 9:30 p.m. by indie-film legend John Lurie (Stranger than Paradise) in conversation with indie princess Parker Posey. 1/9: Hook (1991) Steven Spielberg’s version of James M. Barrie kid’s classic is mainly recommended for its star cast (Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts). ($20, 11:30 a.m.) Waiting for Guffman (1996) Mock doc about pre-Broadway tribulations of a new musical. Cast includes director Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy,

Parker Posey, Bob Balaban and Paul Dooley. (Moderated by Kevin Pollak, $30, 3:30 p.m.) 1/10: An Afternoon with Alan Arkin Rare screening of farce The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), enjoyable Cold War companion piece to the bloated Stanley Kramer romp It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Both films benefit from sheer kinetic energy produced by big-name personalities trying to survive a mediocre script. Arkin shines as a Russian sub officer trying to keep his hot-tempered captain from opening fire on annoying American vacationers. Supporting cast includes Carl Reiner as a paranoid American, Jonathan Winters as a trigger-happy Army reservist, and Brian Keith as a sheriff trying to prevent WWIII from breaking out on his watch. (Arkin in person, $25, 2 p.m.) Billy Crystal, the SNL veteran, chats with Alan Zweibel. ($35, 7 p.m.) 1/11 & 12: The Martian (2015) Low-key space thriller stars Matt Damon as an American astronaut See page 20 >>

Photo by Kevin Yatarola

TAYLOR MAC

A 24-DECADE HISTORY OF POPULAR MUSIC: 1776-1836 JANUARY 21-30

WE’RE GOING THROUGH A STAGE.

SFCURRAN.COM 445 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA Artwork by Aaron De La Cruz, commissioned by the Curran

<< Film

20 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 7-13, 2016

<<

New Mission

From page 17

Owned by the Austin, Texas-based Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, the New Mission was initially built in 1915 to screen silent movies in what was then named the Idyll Theater. It was enlarged and renovated several times in the 1920s and 30s, when famed Bay Area architect Timothy Pflueger designed the marquee, sign, and lobby, which have since been restored. San Francisco’s film community has anxiously anticipated the opening, delayed by several years due to construction delays and permitting issues. Now that it’s open, they are brimming with positive comments. When gay filmmaker Joshua Grannell, aka Peaches Christ, saw the new Star Wars film at the New Mission last month, “It felt like San Francisco just got a great, big holiday gift – and I’m not talking about the movie, although I really enjoyed it.” Grannell, who produces film extravaganzas at the Castro Theatre several times a year, told the B.A.R. in an email, “It was almost overwhelming to step inside this local, old, formerly abandoned moviehouse to see its multi-million-dollar renovation as it re-opens as a cinema. It is beautiful and exciting, and they’ve done a wonderful job with it. I walked around the New Mission Theater yesterday in awe of the fact that it actually even happened.” Local film programmers also see the potential in the new venue. Noah Cowan, executive director of the San Francisco Film Society, told the

<<

Castro Theatre

From page 18

stranded on the red planet. NASA brains struggle to bring him home. (3-D; 1/11: 2:15, 7 p.m.; 1/12: 2:30, 7 p.m.) With (1/11): Total Recall (1990) Philip K. Dick’s story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” is the basis for this Paul Verhoeven-helmed, Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring sci-fi adventure about a man seeking his true identity by traveling to Mars. (4:50, 9:35 p.m.) With (1/12): Ghosts of Mars (2001) Ice Cube is a dangerous criminal joining forces with a Martian female cop to defeat cannibal zombie psychopaths in John Carpenter’s sci-fi classic. (2:05, 9:35 p.m.) 1/13: Blade Runner (1982/2007) Ridley Scott’s popular cult classic (based on Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) has Harrison Ford on patrol as a 21st-century cop in LA gone terribly to seed. With Sean Young, Rutger Houer, Edward James Olmos, and Daryl Hannah. (7 p.m.) Trouble in Mind (1985) Alan Rudolph’s return to film noir has dogged cop Kris Kristofferson saving damsel Lori Singer from bad guy Keith Carradine. With the late Divine dressed as a man, Genevieve Bujold, and music by Marianne

Annie Ray

Alamo Drafthouse at the New Mission creative managerprogrammer Mike Keegan.

B.A.R. in an interview that the SFFS is working with the New Mission “to see how we might collaborate with them” on the screenings. “I’m impressed by the quality of their projection and sound systems,” said Cowan, who ran the prestigious Toronto Film Festival before he came to San Francisco in 2014. Based on his recent visit to the New Mission, Cowan, who is openly gay, says it offers a “great visitor experience.” When you walk in, he said, “you feel like you’re a part of a community of kindred spirits” who love film. Local filmgoers have been anxious to see the calendar, published online on January 1. All programming will be done locally by veteran Mike Keegan, who was director of programming at the Roxie from 2010-14. As expected, the calendar promises a quirky mix of first-run blockbusters, independent films, and classics. There Faithfull. (9:15 p.m.) Berlin & Beyond (1/14-17): 1/14: Opening Night, Who Am I – No System Is Safe, fest star Tom Schilling in person. 1/15: Accent on German youth in a quartet of films, The Spiderwebhouse (10 a.m.), Head Full of Honey (Noon), Chucks (3:45 p.m.), centerpiece We Are Young. We Are Strong. (6 p.m.), plus US Premiere Toro (9 p.m.) 1/16: Berlin & Beyond features The Pasta Detectives (11 a.m.), Tour de Force (1 p.m.), After Spring Comes Fall, director Daniel Carsenty in person (4 p.m.), Family Party (7 p.m.), A Coffee in Berlin (Oh Boy), star Tom Schilling in person. (9:30 p.m.) 1/17: Berlin & Beyond features Iraqi Odyssey (1 p.m.), Mrs. Mueller Must Go, actress Anke Engelke in person (5 p.m.), closing night feature Berlin, Symphony of a Great City (8 p.m.) 1/19: Orson Welles double bill. Chimes at Midnight (1966) Writer-director-actor Welles offers Shakespeare’s War of the Roses cycle with himself as Falstaff, a knight to Prince Hal on the battlefield who suffers cruel rejection when Hal becomes Henry V. (3, 7 p.m.) F for Fake (1975) Welles revels in fakery of

will be $5 late shows dubbed “Music Mondays,” “Terror Tuesdays” and “Weird Wednesdays.” Ticket prices are competitive, according to Keegan, $15.50 in the evening for a reserved seat, $2 less for matinees. In addition to its own programming, the New Mission will collaborate with local festivals. Next month, IndieFest will be screening films at the New Mission, according to IndieFest programmer Jennifer Morris. She said a series of IndieFest genre films will be held at the New Mission, and “we’re thrilled” with the prospect. “They’ve done a magnificent job renovating a classic old theater unheard of in San Francisco until now,” Morris said, noting that “we haven’t had a new destination for festival screenings” in many years. Theaters like the New Mission “might just be able to bring people out to the theater” instead of

steaming movies at home. “You’ve got to offer them something more” than just a movie, she said. Gay film impresario Marc Huestis, who recently put his 20-yearlong series of celebrity specials “on hiatus,” wonders if the smaller screening rooms at the New Mission might be a less expensive location to produce shows. In an interview with the B.A.R., Huestis emphasized that he “loves, loves, loves the Castro Theatre.” In recent years, however, that venue became too expensive to produce his shows. “We used to sell out there,” he said. “And if I could still do that, I’d never want to leave them,” he said. “A smaller room in a new place with a lot of excitement could be very interesting.” Huestis, a founder of Frameline, said he would love to do a series of vintage LGBT films, bringing a group of people into a room

Tommy Lau Photography

Alamo Drafthouse at the New Mission, newly renovated.

all kinds, including Clifford Irving’s long-ago fake Howard Hughes biography scandal. (5:10, 9:10 p.m.) 1/22-31: Noir City 14: 1/22: Rear Window (1954) James Stewart’s finest turn for Alfred Hitchcock, as a middle-aged magazine photographer who’s a temporary shut-in due to an accident on the tarmac that leaves one leg in a cast. Stewart and Hitch deliver a riveting study of a frustrated “type-A” personality whose disability turns him into a busybody spying on his neighbors across a Lower Manhattan courtyard. Thelma Ritter, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey and a pre-Perry Mason Raymond Burr provide memorable supporting turns. The moral paradox of voyeurism vs. crime-fighting vigilante is laid out as both thriller and philosophical puzzle. (7:30 p.m.) The Public Eye (1992) Howard Franklin recalls the era of New York Daily Mirror tabloid photographer Weegee in this atmospheric piece starring Joe Pesci and Barbara Hershey. (9:30 p.m.) Noir City 14 highlights: 1/24: Humoresque (1946) Joan Crawford, John Garfield and Oscar Levant headline this Jean Negulescohelmed melodrama between an unstable patroness (Crawford) and an ambitious young violinist (Garfield). (3:50, 8:45 p.m.) 1/25: In a Lonely Place (1950) Nicholas Ray directs this high-octane Hollywood drama, a doomed tryst between screenwriter Humphrey Bogart and aspiring actress Gloria Grahame. (7:15 p.m.) The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947) Littleknown Humphrey Bogart vehicle has Bogey as a disturbed artist who paints female clients as Angels of Death, then murders them. Co-starring Barbara Stanwyck. (9:15 p.m.) 1/26: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) Albert Lewin directs the best (or least offensive to gays) version of Oscar Wilde’s icon of decadence, meaning a sexual sensibility or values at odds with the prudish, anti-queer sensibility of his own Victorian era. Dorian (Hurd Hatfield) is a young painter who retains his youthful good looks down through the ages, while a self-portrait starts to reflect the “sins” of his (to the Victorians) wanton lifestyle. Warning: Gay cinema maven Vito Russo (The Celluloid Closet) had

major reservations about this film, noting that Wilde’s work reached the screen “shorn of its more bizarre sexual implications, while offering George Sanders (‘I choose all my friends for their good looks’) as a symbol of sophisticated decadence. Such ghettoized characters had their roots in the same anti-intellectualism and mistrust of difference that had characterized the shaping of Hollywood’s image of the normal American man.” Russo also cites a remark Greta Garbo made about her desire to star in a film of Dorian Gray with herself as Dorian, and Marilyn Monroe “as a young girl ruined by Dorian.” (7:15 p.m.) With director Terence Young’s 1948 noir Corridor of Mirrors. (9:30 p.m.) 1/27: Love Me or Leave Me (1955) Director Charles Vidor tells the story of singer Ruth Etting, with intense turns from Doris Day and James Cagney. Daniel Fuch’s story garnered an Oscar. Doris shone with her versions of “I’ll Never Stop Loving You,” “10 Cents a Dance” and “Shaking the Blues Away.” (1, 7 p.m.) Young Man with a Horn (1950) Russo appends an advisory warning to this Michael Curitzdirected bio-pic on jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke. Carl Foreman-Edmund H. North’s screenplay drew from Dorothy Baker’s book. Russo quotes the Baker book that Bacall’s character Amy North is “a neurotic young girl who’s tried everything,” and adds, “Unable to make a heterosexual relationship work [with Kirk Douglas’ musician], she is finally taken with a young woman artist whose patron she becomes. The two women leave together for Paris. A shattered Kirk Douglas, left in the consoling arms of a wholesome Doris Day, tells Bacall at the kiss-off, ‘You’re a sick girl, Amy. You’d better see a doctor.’” Douglas’ trumpetplaying was supplied by the great Harry James. (3:30, 9:30 p.m.) 1/28: Screaming Mimi (1958) Russo argues that “Gypsy Rose Lee [’s character] almost certainly has a brief affair with a stripper who works in her club, ‘The Gay and Frisky,’ which features a sadomasochistic strip scene unusual for 1950s Hollywood.” Director Gerd Oswald. (7:30 p.m.) Mickey One (1965) Arthur Penn directs Warren Beatty as a nightclub artist fleeing

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and discussing the film after it is screened. “The possibility of doing small-scale events might be just perfect for me. It’s no longer practical to conceptualize large events and spend a lot of time worrying that I might be losing money.” As far as making money goes, it’s too soon to say if and when the New Mission might be profitable, said CEO Tim League in an interview. “Attendance has been great so far, but we are in a very busy time of year.” If and when the San Francisco venture turns profitable, League says he is planning to look for other local locations. “I love San Francisco and the film community in the city. The San Francisco Film Society and the fantastic network of film festivals have fostered a really great film-savvy community. I think our venue and our programming will fit right into an already fabulous film scene.” While most film aficionados publicly applaud the New Mission, dozens of Yelpers, known for their vicious anonymous posts on any new venture, have criticized the New Mission. Their complaints have focused not on the film experience, but on the food and drink. “Most complaints have been service-related,” said League. “We did have a few shows with slow food service during our first couple of weeks. Those are already clearing up as our staff acclimates to the service. I have personally read every single Yelp review and every comment we get back from our site, and our team is adjusting process and retraining our staff every day.”▼ the mob. A stab at an American expression of the French New Wave sensibility. (9:15 p.m.) 1/29: The Bad and the Beautiful (1953) Vincente Minnelli uses harddriving Kirk Douglas as a ruthless producer who inflicts psychic and professional damage on an ambitious young actress (magnificent Lana Turner), a struggling writer (Dick Powell) and vulnerable director (Barry Sullivan). Five Oscars, including Best Supporting Actress Gloria Grahame. (7:15 p.m.) The Big Knife (1955) Robert Aldrich helms this intense view of the Hollywood jungle, based on Clifford Odets’ play. With Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Shelley Winters and Rod Steiger. (9:40 p.m.) 1/30: The Lodger (1944) John Brahm directs this turn-of-the-century origin myth about Jack the Ripper. The atmospheric tale features Merle Oberon, George Sanders, Laird Gregor and Sir Cedric Hardwicke. (1 p.m.) Bluebeard (1944) Edgar G. Ulmer directs a sickly John Carradine in this neglected noir. (2:50 p.m.) Scarlett Street (1945) Fritz Lang directs Edward G. Robinson as a beaten-down husband targeted for descent into crime by Joan Bennett and her bad boyfriend Dan Duryea. Dudley Nichols’ script reworks Jean Renoir’s La Chienne. (4:15 p.m.) 1/30: The Red Shoes (1948) Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger created the ultimate tribute to a young girl’s dreams of dancing fame. (7:15 p.m.) Specter of the Rose (1946) Directors Ben Hecht and Lee Garmes produced this minor noir remembered for its ties to the creator of journalism classic The Front Page. (10 p.m.) 1/31: Peeping Tom (1960) Almost ended the career of its embattled director, Michael Powell. A young photographer snaps a picture of his female victims at the moment he kills them. This 101-minute version restores footage cut when the film came under attack. (1:30, 6:30 p.m.) Blow-Up (1966) Antonioni’s first English-language feature stars David Hemmings as a young British fashion photographer who obsesses over a murder he may have captured on film in a public park. A great cinematic expression on the ambiguity of the photographic image. Music by the Yardbirds and Herbie Hancock. (2:30, 8:45 p.m.)▼

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<< Out&About

22 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 7-13, 2016

O&A

Thu 7 Neil Folberg’s Celestial Nights @ The Dryansky Gallery

From Our Own Hands @ Glama-Rama Salon

Queer Jitterbugs @ Club Deluxe

Opening reception for a group exhibit of varied visual art (paintings, stained glass, jewelry, photography) by the hair salon’s talented staff, including Leigh Crow, Tina Sogliuzzo, Lady Nigel, Dottie Lux, Gunner & Deena Conway-Davenport and Jennifer Hoffmann. 7:30pm-10pm. Thru Feb 7. 304 Valencia St. 861-4526. www.glamarama.com

The weekly LGBT-friendly swing dance event return, with lessons, social dancing and fun. $25-$40 for 4-week lessons at 6:30-7:30pm (also ASLfriendly). Free drop-ins 7:30pm-8pm. Dancing til 11pm. 1511 Haight St. at Ashbury. www.QueerJitterbugs.com

Itzhak Perlman @ Davie Symphony Hall

January jonesin’ by Jim Provenzano

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ew entertainments should help you continue to ring in the new year, and brush those January jonesing blues away for a while, at least until you stop writing checks with the wrong year.

Thu 7 Black Virgins are Not for Hipsters @ The Marsh Echo Brown’s hit solo show about desire and doubt returns. $20-$100. Thu 8pm Sat 8:30pm. Thru March 5. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Forever Tango @ Herbst Theatre Anna Trebunskaya and Dmitry Chaplin ( Dancing With the Stars pro dancer-choreographers) join the splashy Spanish dance concert with live music (an 11-piece orchestra), choreographed by Luis Bravo. $25$125 (VIP meet & greet). Almost nightly, various times thru Jan. 10. 401 Van Ness Ave. 392-4400. www.cityboxoffice.com

Neil Folberg’s Celestial Nights @ The Dryansky Gallery Exhibit of beautiful black and white night nature photography by the local artist. Thru Jan. 17. 2120 Union St. 932-9302. www.thedryansky.com

Pippin @ San Jose Center for the Performing Arts

Cavalia @ AT&T Park The sweeping horse and acrobatic show returns with the new Odysseo. $44.50$289. Tue-Fri 8pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Jan 10. (866) 999-8111. Embarcadero at AT&T Park. www.cavalia.net

Salve Regina @ Noh Space PunkkiCo’s performance of choreographer Raisa Punkki’s sixpart ensemble work celebrating the strength and beauty of the female form. $10-$50. Fri & Sat 8pm, Sun 7pm. Thru Jan. 17. 2840 Mariposa St. www.punkkico.com

Teen Witch @ Castro Theatre Peaches Christ hosts a screening of the 1989 cult favorite flick, with a jam-packed pre-screening drag show, and film stars Robyn Lively (Louise), Josh Miller (Richie) and Mandy Ingber (Polly). $22. 7pm. 429 Castro St. sfsketchfest.com castrotheatre.com

Tower of Power @ Yoshi’s Oakland The legendary funk band performs classics and new grooves. $45. 8pm & 10pm.Various double showtimes thru Jan. 13. 510 Embarcadero West. (510) 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

The Broadway touring company of the hit revival, with music by stephen Schwartz, comes to the Bay Area. $30-$110. Thru Jan. 10. 255 South Almaden Blvd., San Jose. www.sanjosetheaters.org

Opening reception of a group exhibit (Seth Eisen, Jack Davis, Dan Becker, Lord Huckleberry, Dogtor Woof!, Lou Rudolph, & Jim James) of homoerotic art inspired by the men’s sex parties, at the new SF AIDS Foundation facility. 8pm-10pm. Thru Jan. 30. 470 Castro St. www.strutsf.org

Mother’s Milk @ The Marsh Berkeley

From Our Own Hands @ Glama-Rama Salon Leigh Crow

Sat 9 Avenue Q @ New Conservatory Theatre Center Those naughty puppets and their human pals are back yet again, in the company’s third revival of the Tony Award-winning musical comedy. $30-$50. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Extended thru Jan. 31. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. 861-8972. nctcsf.org

Date Night at Pet Emergency @ The Marsh Berkeley Lisa Rothman’s comic solo show about domestic hell, pet panic and trying to find a date night amid it all. $20$100. Saturdays, 5pm. Extended thru Jan. 23. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. www.themarsh.org

Tony Tabangeura @ Castro Country Club Visions for You: Quilts, an exhibit of the artist’s craftsmanship. Thru Jan. 15. 4058 18th St. www.castrocountryclub.org

Fri 8

Gabriel Marin and Carrie Paff star in Sarah Ruhl’s new romantic farce that blends on- and offstage romance between actors. $20-$45. Tue-Thu 7pm, Fri & Sat 8pm, Wed, Sat & Sun at 2pm & 3pm. Thru Jan. 9. 450 Post St. www.sfplayhouse.org

Sun 10 Abrazo, Queer Tango @ Finnish Brotherhood Hall, Berkeley

Join GLBT hikers for a 9-mile hike in Garin and Dry Creek Parks, hidden gems that are tucked in the hills behind Hayward but feel miles and decades away. Enjoy a panoramic view of Coyote Hills, the South Bay, and the Santa Cruz Mountains. Bring water, lunch, hat, layers, sturdy shoes, sunscreen. Carpool meets 8:30 at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. 6524496. www.sfhiking.com

Student & Faculty Concerts @ SF Conservatory of Music Jan. 10: Gift of Music, a day-long symposium. $50. 9:30am-5pm. Jan. 14: Biasini Guitar Competition and Festival opening night. $30. 8pm. Other concerts thru the month. 50 Oak St. 503-6322. www.sfcm.edu

Mon 11 Lori Ostlund, Andrew Demcak, Natasha Dennerstein @ Books Inc. Three authors read from their new books; part of the new monthly Perfectly Queer: LGBTQ Readings series. 7pm. 2275 Market St. 8646777. www.booksinc.net

New exhibition showcases 120 artworks and designs by the prominent Disney animator, whose own life was full of adventures. Free (members)-$20. Thru Sept. 12. 104 Montgomery St., The Presidio. 3456800. www.waltdisney.org

Volunteer Fair @ Tenderloin Museum Discover new volunteer opportunities with several local nonprofits. Reception 6:30pm. Program 7pm. 398 Eddy St. 351-1912. www.tenderloinmuseum.org

Thu 14 Gem of the Ocean @ Marin Theatre Company August Wilson’s first in his ten-part African American historical play series, set in 1900s Pittsburgh, gets a local production. $20-$47. Tue-Sun 7:30pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Feb. 14. 397 Miller Ave., San Rafael. 388-5200. www.marintheatre.org Russian auteur Aleksei German’s 2014 cinematic masterpiece, described as “Game of Thrones meets Salo,” gets a rare screening. $8-$10. Thu-Sat 7pm. Sun 2pm. 7pm. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. www.ybca.org

Shotgun Players’ production of Agatha Christie’s British mystery drama (the longest-running show in modern history). $20-$40. Wed-Syb. Thru Jan. 24. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. (510) 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org

Stage Kiss @ SF Playhouse

Mel Shaw: An Animator on Horseback @ Walt Disney Family Museum

Hard To Be a God @ YBCA

The Mousetrap @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley

SF Hiking Club @ Garin & Dry Creek Parks

Sat 9

Exhibit of 1970s San Francisco drag ball photos by Roz Joseph; with curator Joey Plaster, DJ Irwin Swirnoff. Thru Feb. Reg, hours Mon, Wed-Sat 11am-6pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Wayne Harris’ solo show, Mother’s Milk: A Blues and Gospel Riff in Three Acts, returns to the intimate stage. $20-$100. Sat & Sun 5pm. Thru Jan. 31. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. 2823055. www.themarsh.org

Special initmate screening of the homoerotic military film, at the Mission bookstore; part of the queer film series curated by Irwin Swirnoff. 6pm. 3036 24th St. www.alleycatbookshop.com

SF Sketchfest @ Castro Theatre

The Art of Jacks @ Strut

Exhibit of fascinating multimedia sculptures. Artist reception Jan. 21. Thru Feb 13. 473 25th St., Oakland. Fri & Sat 12pm-5pm. (510) 277-5972. www.mannagallery.com

Beau Travail @ Alley Cat Books

Opening reception of a new exhibit of paintings by local artist Jacinto Castillo depicting old San Francisco. 7pm-10pm. Regular hours Tue-Sun 10am-5pm, $6-$10 ($15 includes walking tour). 398 Eddy St. 351-1912. www.tenderloinmuseum.org

Fri 8

Luz Marina Ruiz @ Manna Gallery, Oakland

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

San Francisco in Ruins @ Tenderloin Museum

Opening night of the comedy festival features the RiffTrax gang ( MST3K alumni) and comedic short films. $30. 8pm. Jan. 8: Teen Witch screening with Peaches Christ (see Fri. 8). Jan 8, 9:30pm: Parker Posey in conversation with actor/composer John Lurie. $25. Jan. 9: 25th anniversary screening of Hook, the Peter Pan film, with a few actors from the film. $20, 11:30am. 3:30pm screening of Waiting for Guffman, with actors Bob Balaban, Christopher Guest, Parker Posey and Fred Willard; moderated by Kevin Pollak. $30. Many other celeb-filled events thru Jan. 24. See website. 429 Castro St. www.sfsketchfest.com www.castrotheatre.com

The celebrated violinist performs works by Beethoven, Mozart and Brahms with the SF Symphony. $35$159. 8pm. Also Jan. 10, 2pm. 201 Van Ness Ave. www.sfsymphony.org

Reigning Queens @ GLBT History Museum

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Missing Places @ GLBT History Museum The Art of Jacks @ Strut

Tue 12 The Sprawl @ YBCA Amsterdam-based design team Metahaven’s immersive video installation about the mutation of propaganda. Free/$8. Thru April 3. Also, Kevin Cooley’s Golden Prospects, a visual survey of water and waste in California. Thru April 3. Also, Won Ju Lim: Raycraft is Dead, thru Feb. 14. $5-$12. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. www.ybca.org

Vernacular Vixens @ Robert Tat Gallery Robert E. Jackson’s collection of found photos of women (Note: Due to increased lease costs, this may be the gallery’s last exhibit). Thru Feb 6. 49 Geary St., Suite 410. roberttat.com

Wed 13 Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin @ Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts The acclaimed pianist-actor, whose shows portray various composers, performs as he tells the inspiring life story of the prolific songwriter. $35-$100. Thru Feb. 14. 500 Castro St., Mountain View. (650) 463-1960. www.TheatreWorks.org

Fri 8 Salve Regina @ Noh Space

Lost and Endangered Queer Historic Sites of San Francisco and the Bay Area, a guest lecture by Historical Society founding member Gerard Koskovich, focusing on processes that have led to the loss of GLBT historic sites and to their absence from public memory. 7pm-9pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Ralph Josiah Bardsley @ Books Inc. The local author discusses his acclaimed debut novel, Brothers. 7pm. 2275 Market St. 864-6777. www.booksinc.net

San Francisco Symphony @ Davies Hall The Symphony performs works by Beethoven and Dvorak with pianist Emanuel Ax. $15-$185. Open rehearsal 10am. 8pm. Also Jan 15 & 16, 8pm. 201 Van Ness Ave. www.sfsymphony.org

Take This Dance and Shove It! @ ODC Dance Commons Showcase of new dances in varied styles by choreographers Shinichi Iova-Koga, Amy Seiwert and Scott Wells, who each perform in their works. $20-$35. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 7pm. Thru Jan. 17. 351 Shotwell St. www.counterpulse.org

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DVD>>

January 7-13, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 23

Web series returns by David-Elijah Nahmod

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s being in love enough of a reason to stay together? This question is the primary issue raised by Eastsiders, a darkly comic web series starring openly gay actors Kit Williamson (Mad Men) and Van Hansis (As the World Turns). It’s set in Silverlake, a gaycentric neighborhood in Los Angeles. Williamson plays Cal, who’s devastated when Thom (Hansis), his boyfriend of four years, has cheated on him. Williamson also serves as Eastsiders’ writer and director. The show’s no-holds-barred look at gay relationships quickly earned it a sizable and fiercely loyal audience. Released on DVD and Vimeo on Demand, Eastsiders has also been seen on Logo. As season two commences, Cal and Thom have begun seeing each other again – against their own better judgment. They’re seen in a threesome and are drinking heavily. “Cal and Thom basically sleep their way through Silverlake together,” Williamson told the B.A.R. “We’ve also introduced a lesbian couple who are raising two kids together, and Traci Lords returns as Cal’s mom Valerie.” The actor spoke of what inspired him to create Eastsiders. “Initially, I wanted to give myself the opportunity to play a gay character, because I had never been cast as my actual sexual orientation professionally,” he said. “From there, I asked myself what I wanted to see in a gay character, since we’ve gotten a lot of representation in the last few years of

the idealized gay man. I was eager to see gay characters afforded the same right to fuck up their lives as straight characters in black comedies. Everyone has flaws and complexities, and we all make mistakes, but so often gay characters are held to a different standard and expected to act as role models. As a writer, and as a gay man, I reject that.” Hansis added that his and Williamson’s co-stars would be given more to do in season two. “Characters who were more in a supporting role really get to shine and have their own story-lines, and really amazing new characters are introduced,” he said. “It feels like a true ensemble show. Tonally, I think there may be more of a lightness this season. Even though the first season was quite funny, this season really embraces

the humor of being young, confused and in love.” Not long ago, Hansis was a TV heartthrob. As Luke Snyder on the now-cancelled daytime drama As the World Turns, he was half of the soap world’s first gay super-couple. The role garnered Hansis a great deal of attention. Hansis and World Turns co-star Jake Silbermann made TV history in 2007 when they kissed onscreen – this was a daytime television first. Hansis told the B.A.R. that he’s not concerned about typecasting as his latest gay role increases in popularity. “I remember reading the first script of the first episode of Eastsiders’ first season and wanting more than anything to be a part of it,” he said, adding that many Luke/ Luke/World Turns fans have followed him to his new show. As before, Hansis finds himself playing to a mixed audience. “Lots of straight women like this show,” he said. “A lot of our most vocal supporters have been women,” Williamson added. “I think it’s great that the show appeals to a lot of different groups.” So will there be a season three? “We’ll see!” said Williamson. “We just released our season two DVD through Wolfe Video. It’s really been an intense year, and we need a second to breathe before we commit to anything. But I’d love to continue this story and work with these actors again and again.”▼ To watch Eastsiders, visit the show’s site: eastsiderstheseries. com.

Latin American & queer by David Lamble

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wo new DVD releases from TLA focus on queer-positive filmmaking from Mexico and Brazil. Velociraptor (Mexico) Hang with two buddies, the openly gay Alex and undecided Diego. Alex, a pushy, dark-curly-haired imp, is eager to screw with his best friend, crewcut-sporting Diego. Writer-director Chucho E. Quintero makes deft use of a seemingly emptied-out Mexico City to support the film’s conceit that we’re facing the end of the world as these chums have known it. This dramatic framing device is too cute for its own good, but works to get inarticulate teen boys to open up about their feelings. Just when the proceedings feel claustrophobic, the film switches gears and allows the boys to leave Alex’s parents’ cozy abode to interact with other young people. The piece opens up with Diego chatting about his flings with young women, including some borderline gross-out moments. This low-budget feature makes good use of its prime resource: the vitality and good humor of its young cast, especially Carlos Hendrick Huber as the athletic Diego. He dribbles and shoots basketballs through hoops like an American. Co-star Pablo Mezz imbues Alex with just the right blend of sexual charisma and sloppy teen-boy behavior. Velociraptor joins a short but distinguished list of Latin American slacker films: 25 Watts, Glue, Duck Season, and the granddaddy of them all, Y Tu Mama Tambien, the breakout 2001 Mexican teen-buddy comedy from Alfonso Cuaron that gave us Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna as future world stars. Spanish w/English subtitles. Bonus features:

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chats with actor Carlos Hendrick Huber, production designer Irina Miroslava, HP Mendoza. Spanglish commentary with director Chucho E. Quintero. Tattoo (Brazil) And now for something largely different from Brazil, South America’s largest, most perplexing country. Writerdirector Hilton Lacerda plants us in the repressed Brazil of the 1970s, when the military was nominally in charge, but dissenting forces were stirring. Queer ones at that. Tattoo opens with a barker not unlike the MC who hosts the subversive Cabaret. “Here in Showland, everyone is part of the fun, which is why our weapon is mockery. We’ve got Paulete and the sensational golden member contest! A blockbuster night that makes all forms of authority quake! The Moulin Rouge of the outskirts, the Broadway of the poor, the Studio 54 of the slums! Welcome to the Star-Spangled Floor!” Paulete (a divinely mad Rodrigo Garcia) is a skinny, headstrong queen who rules with his voice and a talent for outrageousness at the Star-Spangled Club. He wakes up

at the crack of 10 o’clock, peels a banana, and starts stirring the pot. Paulete and his friends are part of a drag artistic collective that promotes liberty, nudity, licentious behavior – all threats to the ruling military junta, uniformed thugs who overthrew a populist government in 1964. Paulete’s nephew, stuck playing soldier in a nearby army barracks, is suddenly put on leave and winds up in the Star Spangled Revue, which Paulete and drag buddies put on to improve civilian morale. With the kid’s arrival, all hell starts to break loose. By film’s end we can see forces of democracy and theatrical anarchy rising to overthrow the junta. Tattoo is an exuberant display of the new spirit of South America, most certainly queer-friendly. It’s a bold re-imagining of the creative forces unleashed in Cabaret. Where Velociraptor is a partially nude but penis-free zone, Tattoo lets it all hang out, as befits that wild and woolly, still frontier-like nation. The film suggests it’s a country whose future is hard to predict, and potentially as glorious as any. Portuguese w/English subtitles.▼ CY

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<< Music

24 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 7-13, 2016

Pianism phantasmagoria by Tim Pfaff

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f you know anything by Alexander Scriabin, it’s probably his solo-piano “poeme” “Vers la flamme” (“Into the flame”). All the Scriabin pianists play it, and when Vladimir Horowitz did, you knew from the first notes that you were in a room full of high explosives where boys from The Lord of the Flies were playing with matches. When Stephen Hough plays it on his new CD of works by Scriabin and Janacek (Hyperion), inexorability replaces excitability. Hough’s movement toward the flame has the tread of a Poe story, with familiar words (here, sounds) deployed to create a phantasmagoria. You don’t realize you’re on the coach to hell until it’s moving too fast for you to get off. That’s a lot for six minutes of music. The out pianist frames his CD with two Scriabin sonatas, the single-movement fifth and the rarely heard two-movement (though together shorter than the fifth) fourth.

No one familiar with this singular pianist’s work will be surprised to learn that what distinguishes his Scriabin is its clarity – at times almost blinding clarity. For once you really do hear all the notes, the correct ones even, and in the right relationship to one another, none of which has been a given in the recorded performances of the great Scriabinists. Marc-Andre Hamelin comes close, but the Canadian shorts the composer by leaving out that other essential of a great Scriabin performance: the ecstatic utterance. The blaze of sound that sums up Hough’s reading of the Fifth Sonata has the impact of a Jackson Pollock action painting: fission in which all the particles remain almost defiantly visible. The almost otherworldly delicacy you hear in Hough’s performance of the other Scriabin work, the Poeme in F-sharp Major, Op. 32, No. 1, returns at the beginning of the initially more orthodox-sounding Fourth Sonata, soon to be overtaken

Statuesque

by Ernie Alderete

Masculine Beauty, photos by David Vance (Bruno Gmuender) y favorite composition in Masculine Beauty presents a very handsome, clean-cut, almost hairless young man standing tippy-toes on a simple black pedestal, as if he were a classic marble statue on display in some museum or art gallery. Statue boy has excellent musculature, wearing nothing more than a rough-hewn, pale loin cloth – although “wearing” that flimsy piece of material is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. It seems to float across his private parts, perhaps blown onto his crotch by an unseen electric fan (as opposed to a human fan). I like the way his long, well-formed arms are outstretched from his sides, the way we can appreciate the muscles in his hands and fingers. His fullfrontal pose lets us admire almost every inch of his choice physique. This is the art of photography at its best. Within a split-second this pose was gone. We know he couldn’t maintain that stance on his tippy-toes for long. We know that the piece of cloth, no matter how little it weighed, would be pulled by gravity down to the floor, leaving the emperor with

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no clothes at all. Unfortunately, no other picture in Masculine Beauty approaches this magnificent revelation. “Masculine beauty” is not the first thought that sprang to mind as I leafed through the book. The men pictured look more like gay male circus performers, like acrobats you might see in a performance of Cirque du Soleil. This is especially true of a pair of naked dudes in tight embrace, facing each other kissing, while suspended high above the unseen circus or gymnasium floor below. A similar picture depicts a solo dude holding onto an overhead iron pipe, exposed household plumbing. Masculine Beauty is technically masculine, if by masculine you mean the models are indeed males. But they aren’t particularly exemplars of masculinity, not he-men. Another picture I call, “Honey, I have a sick headache!” A blond guy has both hands on his head as if he’s suffering from a migraine. Only his hands are out of focus, creating the illusion of motion. Masculine Beauty is definitely G-rated. Maybe back in the 1950s it was a turn-on to see a guy in his white briefs, undershirt and tube socks, but not today. At least not for me.▼

David Vance, courtesy Bruno Gmuender

“Statue boy” from Masculine Beauty.

– overwhelmed, really – by a fiveminute “flying” Prestissimo of unmistakable erotic charge. Hough pairs the Scriabin with Leos Janacek’s On the overgrown path (Book I) and the Piano Sonata 1.X.1905, “From the street.” The title alone of the Janacek sonata – his only piano sonata and one that was very nearly lost, the composer himself having first torn a third, final, funeral-march movement from the score before the premiere, then thrown (impulsively, he later thought) the shredded manuscript of the first two into the Vltava River – makes it plain that, like Scriabin, Janacek was making the sonata “form” his own. Like the story behind the work, the piece is as politically inspired, and impassioned, as the boldest of Frederic Rzewski’s work, and one can already imagine Igor Levit having at it. Hough gives a titanic (and of course pellucid) performance of the seldom-recorded and lessseldom-played piece, not a few of the notes of the first movement of which sound like gunshots, and have that effect on the listener. There’s feeling aplenty in it, and passion and fervor of an unmistakably political kind. There also are, in recorded music, things you can never forget and inevitably, however unwillingly, bring to a later performance or recording. The late Rudolf Firkusny, the greatest pianist no one remembers, was a student of Josef Suk and of Janacek himself, and was a Czech-born New York transplant. His two recordings of the sonata, more remarkable in their similarity than in their small differences, hover over all others. Perhaps no one who did not himself spring from the Sonata’s roots, and watch his native country’s eventual Velvet Revolution as a pained, expatriate conscientious objector to the oppression that it threw off, could recreate the particular ache Firkusny

heard in the work. His was a view through a window pane cracked in an upper corner, smudged on the outside by gunpowder and strife, looking down onto the public square. If there is more abrading personal music than Janacek’s two string quartets, I don’t know it. And I don’t know how to praise the Takacs Quartet’s new recording of them, preceded by a relatively sunny First Quartet of fellow Czech Bederich Smetana (Hyperion), more highly than by saying that the first couple times I put the CD on – with excitement and knowing-what’s-coming nerves – I couldn’t take it. I mean I had to stop listening, quit, recover and try again, at first unable to listen

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to the Janaceks in the light of day, then only slowly, under the cover of dark. That the quartets have names, the first “The Kreutzer Sonata,” the second “Intimate Letters,” tells of their particularity, their psychological depth and their specific gravity. Their shared ground is Kamila Stosslova, an antique-dealer’s faithful wife whom the unhappily divorced Janacek transformed into his personal muse, communicating with her over the years of his great late-blooming career in letters of intense if coded passion. It’s a story along the lines of Alban Berg’s hidden, also musically coded, love for Hanna Fuchs-Robettin. Words really do besmirch both composers’ “affairs,” which, however “imaginary” as sex, yielded such remarkable, tortured music, expressions of love that both are and transcend the romantic. Czech sting quartets, and a few others, have made superb recordings of these two quartets. But, as they did with the three Benjamin Britten quartets, the Takacs – at its best, the best ensemble performing today – have made a recording of such savage, penetrating beauty that you really can, and will, put the competition back on the shelf. These interpretations reach into the farthest emotional corners of this music and express it completely and unsparingly. These musicians have earned this scorching, radiant music, and they make you earn it, too. But once you can endure it, it will have changed you in ways you’ll never turn back from, or want to.▼ Stephen Hough joins the San Francisco Symphony in SaintSaens’ Piano Concerto No. 5, Egyptian, Thur.-Sun., Jan. 28-31. sfsymphony.org.

Friends & lovers by Jim Piechota

Immaculate Blue by Paul Russell; Cleis Press, $16.95 evisiting characters first seen in his 1990 novel The Salt Point, in Immaculate Blue Vassar College English literature professor Paul Russell thrusts Anatole, Leigh, Chris, and Lydia back into a place where the ravages of time and economic recession have taken their toll: Poughkeepsie, New York. A wedding reunites them all, and even though 20 years have passed, some things have not been forgiven. They were “a pack of stupid, self-absorbed predators back then,” and now, Chris “the wanderer” manages to travel internationally to reconnect with his former friends. He finds himself still under scrutiny for his betrayal of Anatole 27 years ago when a boy came between them. Sentimental hair stylist Anatole finds himself wracked with anxiety over reuniting with Chris (a Xanax didn’t help), even as his own wedding looms. Fifty-something Lydia, who manages the salon and searched out Chris, is happily married to her conservative husband. Together they’ve raised hearing-impaired teenage son Caleb. Though she attempts to wrangle them all together, it’s “barely two hours into the weekend, and they’re at odds with each other.” As the wedding proceedings plod

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forward, the novel backtracks to establish points in the characters’ relationships. Instead of stalling the narrative, this technique deepens the emotional and unresolved melodrama still simmering after decades. Chris is now an oil company “private military contractor” in Nigeria and the Middle East. His attitudes toward his brackish life and controversial work, and Caleb’s objections to them, add spice and sexiness to a character who takes

center stage throughout. Russell is smart to add sex and passion into the mix, if only to humanize these pushy characters and make them more likeable. They’re obsessed with the past and continually betrayed by age and bodily changes (Anatole has “gone rubbery”). The author’s sense of place in Upstate New York is expertly conjured and romanticized; Poughkeepsie is a “forest from which slender church spires and squat apartment towers rise.” The third section reunites Chris with Leigh, the beautiful former hustler who insinuated himself into their lives and loves with destructive results two decades prior. It’s an incendiary coupling which is by turns transformative, sexy, and riveting. Writing through the everchanging perspective of each character in turn, Russell shows himself a master of the flashback and the flashforward, without sacrificing narrative tension or the story’s integrity. Altogether, this quartet of sadness, longing, joy and revelation is an intimate delight in the form of a richly realized novel. Readers who have left behind friends to depart for greener pastures of personal growth will relate to Russell’s tale of friendship, jealousy, and the unfortunate staying power of resentment and broken hearts.▼

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Music>>

January 7-13, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 25

Seven by two by Gregg Shapiro

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nara George and Greg Kurstin are two busy people. Both have been members of other bands (the Living Sisters and Geggy Tah), and both are prolific songwriters. So it’s nice that they still find time to get together to write and record as The Bird and the Bee. Their previous album found the duo paying homage to Hall & Oates, one of pop music’s most enduring pairs. On Recreational Love (Rostrum), The Bird and the Bee’s first album of original tunes in seven years, they take a gently electro turn for the better. The style is more 1980s synth-pop with a human touch than mind-numbing EDM. The 10 songs owe a debt to Tom Tom Club and Nu Shooz while remaining true to the groundwork laid on “Young and Dumb,” “Jenny” and “Will You Dance?” Yes, we will dance. Over the course of five durable albums, the duo Beach House has maintained a high level of artistry. The twosome’s new disc Depression Cherry (Sub Pop) takes its place on the musical landscape somewhere

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Art 2016

From page 17

There’s lots to look forward to, starting this month with the public opening, Jan. 15, of the restored 1886 Edwardian house on 500 Capp Street in the Mission District that was the brainchild, home of three decades, and a living art installation by and tribute to the late San Francisco conceptual artist David Ireland, whose residence and its contents may have been his greatest creation. The Berkeley Art Museum, which boasts multiple galleries, a view to the street and two state-ofthe-art theaters for the Pacific Film Archive, plus an outdoor screen, opens Jan. 31 in its new red, white and stainless steel Art Deco digs on Center Street in downtown Berkeley. The venue, located in the renovated former UC Berkeley printing plant, is still a stone’s throw from the campus, but happily, it’s now located within a block of the BART station, free of the parking hassles one was once forced to endure near the old building on the upper campus. The inaugural exhibition Architecture of Life, curated by the museum’s director Lawrence Rinder, is a grab bag of works loosely related to the role of design and architecture. It fills almost the entire facility through May 29, along with a specially commissioned, monumental art wall mural by Chinese artist Qiu Zhijie. Coming in March: Arts patrons Deborah and Andy Rappaport, co-founders of Minnesota Street Project, have converted a mammoth warehouse into a facility in the city’s Dogpatch neighborhood.

between Cocteau Twins and Galaxie 500. Beach House finds a way to evolve without alienating its core fan-base on “Space Song,” “Bluebird” and “10:37.” Depression, cherry or otherwise, has never sounded so good. Wow, what a comeback! On Born in the Echoes (Virgin), its strongest album in more than 10 years, The Chemical Brothers are back to set the record straight about the EDM trend they helped to launch 20 years ago. Kicking things off with the beatand-buzz-driven “Sometimes I Feel So Deserted,” the Chem Bros. stake their claim with some invited guests. Q-Tip provides the voice for “Go,” while St. Vincent illuminates “Under Neon Lights.” That’s Cate Le Bon on the title cut, and Beck chimes in on the pretty “Wide Open.” The deluxe edition contains extended mixes of the distorted “Reflexion,” “Go,” the psychedelic “Let Us Build a City” and The over-100,000 sq. ft. complex will ultimately be an affordable home to artist studios, exhibition venues, art-related nonprofits and commercial galleries, a number of which were displaced from their downtown venues. Rena Bransten, Jack Fischer Gallery, Eleanor Harwood, Nancy Toomey Fine Art, and Themes + Projects (formerly Modernbook) are among the confirmed tenants. Sadly, Robert Tat Gallery, a longtime denizen of 49 Geary, will not be resurfacing in a new location. The gallery’s delightful current show Vernacular Vixens, up through Feb. 6, will be its last. Rob’s engaging warmth and discerning eye for found and vintage photography will be missed, though he may work out of an office or by appointment in the future. Ciao, Rob! But the biggest story of 2016 and the winner of the “Finally, we thought it might never happen” award of this fledgling year is the much-anticipated opening of the expanded, Snohetta-designed SFMOMA on May 14. Larger and better, with 10 stories and 460,000 sq. ft., 235,000 more than the existing Botta building, and with three times the previous exhibition space, we’re promised the arrival of the Pritzker Center for Photography, a boon to those who love the medium, the display of 260 of some 600 works from the Fishers’ postwar art collection, and many more galleries in which to wile away an afternoon. And here’s a sampling of what’s coming to museums in 2016: The Contemporary Jewish Museum continues its interest in the nexus of Judaism and music with

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Oscar de la Renta for Pierre Balmain Evening Dress, Autumn/ Winter 1998-99. Silk taffeta, bead, sequin and metallic thread embroidery, chenille yarn, from Oscar de la Renta: The Retrospective, coming to the de Young Museum.

the breathy “Wo Ha.” Attractive Australian brothers Keith and Michael Jeffrey of Atlas Genius made a splash with “Trojans” on debut disc When It Was Now, mixing electronic dance and rock. Inanimate Objects (WB) sticks with the formula, but is not as immediately agreeable. You have to wait until the second track, “Molecules,” for a burst of energy. Atlas Genius maintains the momentum on “Refugees”

and “A Perfect End,” but the rest is too generic to be memorable. Caitlyn Jenner isn’t the only one who went through a significant transition last year. The duo of Josh Epstein and Daniel Zott have shortened their moniker to JR JR, and their first album on Warner Bros. under the new name is self-titled. “As Time Goes” is over-the-top dance pop, and “In the Middle” will keep dancers stuck to the dancefloor. “Gone,” story

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

The daughters of former caretaker Grady (Lisa and Louise Burns) from The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick (1980), from Stanley Kubrick, an exhibition coming to the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco.

Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution, a comprehensive retrospective of the life and career of the cranky rock concert impresario that covers his early escape from Nazi persecution and his long and fruitful if somewhat tumultuous association with Bay Area icons Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead and the Fillmore Auditorium. March 17-July 5. Down the line, I’m really looking forward to Stanley Kubrick, a look at the career and completed as well as unfinished projects of the notoriously controlling, reclusive Jewish filmmaker through early photographs, annotated scripts, lenses, cameras, production photography, costumes and props from his films. June 30Oct. 30. The Asian Art Museum celebrates its 50th anniversary this year with a major exhibition, Emperors’ Treasures: Chinese Art from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, which explores the identities and contributions of eight rulers who reigned from the early 12th through the early 20th centuries, and the differing styles, subjects and craftsmanship of their respective eras. Nearly 700,000 priceless imperial artworks were whisked away and protected at the Taiwanese institution during China’s Civil War/Communist Revolution in 1948. In the ensuing years, some government officials of the People’s Republic of China claimed the trove was stolen. For this show, NPM agreed to lend the Asian over 150 objects, 30 of which are rare masterpieces, dating from the Song to the Qing dynasties. June 17-Sept. 18. Legion of Honor: Sublime Beauty: Raphael’s ‘Portrait of a

Lady with a Unicorn’ focuses on an enigmatic, Italian High Renaissance masterpiece, characterized by the artist’s signature eye for beauty; it will be shown in the U.S. for the first time Jan. 9 through May 15. But for my money, the show I’m counting down the days to see is Pierre Bonnard: Painting Arcadia, which arrives here via the Musee d’Orsay. It includes 60 works by this genius of warmth, color, patterning and composition, from his early Nabi

song “Philip the Engineer” and “Listening to Outkast, June 23, 2013” are all worth hearing. If you miss the music of The Civil Wars duo, you’ll find something to like about Americana/ bluegrass duo Mandolin Orange’s new disc Such Jubilee (Yep Roc). The title is a bit of a misnomer because there isn’t much jubilation to be found. But the domestic bliss of “Settled Down” and “Daylight,” and the powerful anti-gun-violence tune “Blue Ruin” are special. Working again with producer Chris Stamey, North Carolina duo Birds and Arrows, Andrea and Pete Connolly, return with Edge of Everything (birdsandarrows.com) as they prepare to make a new nest for themselves in Tucson, AZ. You can hear more Southwest influence than Southeast on this disc, in songs “Desert Home,” “Fool’s Gold” and “Edgewood.”▼ paintings and experimentation with photography to the irresistible interior scenes of his late career. Feb. 6-May 15. de Young Museum: No one does costume shows like the Fine Arts Museums, so hold onto your stylish booties for Oscar de la Renta: The Retrospective, an overview of a supremely elegant, influential tastemaker and a true gentleman who, as his New York Times obit stated, “clothed stars and became one” (de la Renta died in late 2014.) The exhibition, divided into thematic sections, features 130 ensembles produced over five decades, beginning with his rise to prominence in Franco’s Spain. He dressed some of the world’s most famous and discriminating women, from First Ladies to Penelope Cruz. If you have any doubt as to his rarified place in the pantheon, consider the coup shortly before his death: Amal Clooney chose him to design the exquisite wedding dress she wore to the altar in Venice. Bravo! March 12-May 30. Oakland Museum of California: We knew this one was coming, and here it is: Altered State: Marijuana in California, the first museum exhibition to highlight the controversial cannabis plant and provide perspective on the smoke surrounding its legalization. Inhale, if you must. April 16-Sept. 25.▼

<< Books

26 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 7-13, 2016

Artists & politics: new dual biography by Tavo Amador

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ow should artists respond to politics? That’s the subject of Karin Wieland’s ambitious Dietrich and Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives (translated by Shelley Frisch; Liveright, $35). Marlene Dietrich (1901-92) and Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) were born eight months apart in Berlin. They came from different worlds, but became casual acquaintances. Dietrich’s family was haute bourgeois. Her father died when she was seven. She and her older sister were enrolled in piano, ballet, English, and French lessons by their mother, Josefine, who stressed discipline and duty. At 21, against her family’s wishes, Dietrich pursued a show business career, working in films, theatre, and cabaret. Early on, she studied at Max Rhinehart’s highly regarded acting school. Although she had built a small reputation, stardom seemed unlikely. That changed when American movie director Joseph von Sternberg came to Berlin to film Heinrich Mann’s novel The Blue Angel. He was impressed by Dietrich’s confident disdain in a revue, and against all odds, cast her as the wanton Lola Lola, an amoral temptress. He also photographed her properly. Together, they created a new woman, earning international acclaim. Riefenstahl’s family was workingclass. Her mother was a seamstress, her father a plumber who eventually became a prosperous contractor. She, too, overcame harsh parental objections to become a dancer, then

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an actress in a series of “Mountain” movies, a genre peculiar to Germany, which emphasized athleticism, stoic courage, and physical beauty. From 1925-29, she made five hugely popular “Mountain” movies, but Riefenstahl wanted recognition for her acting as well as her physical prowess. Over dinner, she unsuccessfully asked von Sternberg to cast her as Lola Lola. Later, to save face, she claimed to have suggested Dietrich, having thought it apt to have a whore play a whore. Dietrich came to Hollywood in 1930 and became one of Tinseltown’s most glamorous stars. Riefenstahl remained in Berlin. She wrote, directed, and appeared in The Blue Light (1932), playing a beautiful, spiritual peasant who, threatened by local villagers, finds refuge in a crystal cave. Although it won a prize at the Venice Film Festival, it wasn’t universally admired and failed commercially – for which she blamed (mainly) Jewish critics. She became mesmerized watching Hitler speak in 1932 and wrote him a flattering letter. He summoned her to meet him. He was smitten, although their relationship was likely platonic. Responding to Hitler’s request, she directed a documentary about the Nazi rally in Nuremberg. Brilliantly filmed and edited, The Victory of Faith (1933) earned great praise. She followed with the even more dazzling Triumph of the Will (1934). She would later insist that she didn’t want to make it – she had

hoped to direct and star in a movie based on Hitler’s favorite opera, Eugene d’Albert’s Lowlands. It wasn’t made, but at Hitler’s urging, and with approval of the International Olympics Committee, she directed Olympia, a documentary about the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. It premiered on Hitler’s birthday in April 1938, to tremendous acclaim. She came to America, hoping a Hollywood studio would acquire Olympia, but found doors closed because of Kristalnacht, the November 9, 1938, Nazi attack on Jews, their homes, synagogues, and businesses. She adamantly denied the truth of American newspaper accounts of the killings. In 1937, she

Sutton Foster

From page 17

Two years later, with a high school diploma finally in hand, she bailed on college after just a year. “I moved home. I was feeling completely lost, and then I flew to New York to go to open calls,” she said recently by phone. “I ended up booking the national tour of Grease, and four days later we shipped out to San Francisco. So I feel a very personal connection to the city.” Foster will be back in San Francisco on Jan. 16 for a concert at the Nourse Theatre. Part of the Broadway @ the Nourse series, Foster will be accompanied by pianist and musical director Michael Rafter in a show that will benefit San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Project Open Hand, and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. “It was originally going to be with Seth Rudetsky, but his musical Disaster! is getting ready for Broadway, and he was unavailable,” Foster said. “Michael Rafter is my go-to guy, and we did shows at Cafe Carlyle and Carnegie Hall together, and we’re working on a new album. When I was doing my concerts with Seth, they were a little more like a walk down memory lane. My concerts with Michael are a more intimate window into who I am as a person right now.” But Broadway babies needn’t worry. “We’ll definitely do things from Thoroughly Modern Millie, Anything Goes, Little Women, and Violet,” Foster said of four of her Broadway credits, which also include The Drowsy Chaperone, Young Frankenstein, and Shrek the Musical. “These concerts are also an opportunity to try out material for the new album, which is about 90% done, but missing a couple of elements that we think will make it feel really complete.” Foster was also having a feeling of incompleteness just days before she was to make her solo concert debut

Joan Marcus

Sutton Foster won her first Tony Award for playing the title role in Thoroughly Modern Millie.

at Carnegie Hall earlier this year. “I woke up one morning, and I was making pancakes in my pajamas for my husband, and I suddenly had this insane notion to do ‘Rose’s Turn,’” she said of Mama Rose’s raging aria of anger and frustration that comes at the end of Gypsy. “It was one of those coolass insane things that could have gone really well or really badly, and it ended up going really well.” It was an acknowledgement that at 40, her ingenue days were moving into the rearview mirror. “I don’t have the life experience to play Mama Rose right now, but it was, like, okay, I’m going to sing it from where I’m at now. It was definitely a career highlight.” Will she sing it in San Francisco? “Probably not, but who knows? I’ve been known to pull off some crazy stuff.” Foster actually grew up with a mother who was, if not of Mama Rose caliber, someone who was always encouraging and enabling any showbiz tendencies that her children displayed. (Her brother is actor-writer Hunter Foster.) By

age 15, she was a contestant on Star Search and a finalist for the cast of the rebooted Mickey Mouse Club. And hence the lack of objections to quitting high school for a gig in the chorus of a touring show. “When I was 20, I had to figure out if I was living my dream and not my mom’s unfulfilled dream. Growing up in a really small town in North Carolina, she had wanted to be a model and move to New York, and her father said, ‘No way,’ so she got married and had kids. During my 20-year-old crisis, I realized it was also something that I actually wanted for myself.” Foster paid her dues, climbing up the ladder through the chorus and understudy roles, with her big break coming when Thoroughly Modern Millie was trying out in San Diego in 2000. She was understudying Erin Dilly, and before the first preview, the creators decided to move her up into the title role. “I was so naive and green when all that happened with Millie, which was good because I didn’t realize that an $11 million musical was on my shoulders until after we opened in New York. I was more like, ‘Let’s go and put on a show,’” Foster said. “Then I had the feeling I had failed

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had told the Detroit News that “Hitler was the greatest man who had ever lived.” Back in Germany, she agreed to film the 1939 invasion of Poland, but walked away from it after witnessing the ugliness of war. She only wanted to make movies about beautiful people in glorious settings. For several years, Dietrich had been helping Jews escape to America. By 1938, however, her career was floundering. Along with Joan Crawford, Mae West, and Fred Astaire, she was declared “box-office poison.” She made a spectacular comeback in 1939’s Destry Rides Again, and became a U.S. citizen. Following America’s entry into World War II, she tirelessly, fearlessly, and at great personal risk entertained Allied troops in North Africa, Italy, and elsewhere. She was made a Colonel and wore a vial of cyanide around her neck, prepared to take it if captured by Fascist soldiers. After the war ended, she continued making movies, but also became a legendary cabaret and concert artist. She eventually performed in Berlin, where some considered her a traitor, but others praised her. Her last screen appearance was in 1978’s Just a Gigolo, in which she hauntingly sang the title song. She died in Paris, having become an alcoholic recluse. During the war, Riefenstahl made several movies for the Nazis. Afterwards, she was arrested but acquitted of any crimes. She insisted for

the remainder of her life that she had no knowledge of the Nazi horrors, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. Ironically, Dietrich’s mother, who had refused to leave Germany, would deny any knowledge of the Nazi atrocities. Dietrich modeled her character in 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg on her mother, passionately insisting that most Germans had been ignorant of Hitler’s crimes. In the 1970s, Riefenstahl became a successful still photographer, earning kudos for her portraits on the Nuba people in Africa, although Susan Sontag said the images were evidence of her “Fascist aesthetics,” i.e., an obsession with physically beautiful people. She also published her sanitized memoirs and other books. Wieland is often too detailed – she didn’t need to summarize so many movie plots, for example. Her discussion of her subjects’ love lives, however, is appropriately thorough. Dietrich’s many affairs with men and women are chronicled, although no mention is made of a possible liaison with Greta Garbo. Riefenstahl also had many lovers, all male, some of whom financed her career. The book is well-illustrated. The bibliography and source notes are excellent. Wieland succeeds in showing how two gifted artists reacted to the politics of their era. As artists, both deserve acclaim. As people, however, only Dietrich, despite her demanding and manipulative personality, merits admiration.▼

and let everyone down when the show received mixed reviews.” Yet Foster went on to win the Tony Award as Best Actress in a Musical, and the show itself was a hit and won a Tony Award as best musical. She won her second Tony Award for the 2011 revival of Anything Goes, and was nominated three years later for her performance as the title character in Violet. And then she was not singing and not dancing on television in Younger, which begins its second season on TV Land on Jan. 13. In the comedy-drama from Darren Star (Sex and the City), she plays a 40-year-old divorcee who can only land a job by pretending she’s 26. She not only dupes her boss, but also the hip tattoo artist who becomes her boyfriend. He had learned the truth at the end of the first season, and now the two must navigate the new realities of their relationship while also maintaining the ruse for everyone else. “I posted something on

Instagram about a concert I was doing, and Younger fans were, like, You sing? There’s this whole other group of people who have no idea that I’m a Broadway performer. Theater and singing will always be my number one passion, but it’s nice to be able to be a straight comic actress.” Unlike her Younger character, Foster is forthright about her age and what that will mean to her career. “I haven’t really had to face ageism head-on in my professional life yet,” she said, “but the fact is I am getting older and it’s making me think differently. I’m excited about the roles that are opening up for me, the roles I couldn’t play in my 20s. I’m excited about the actress I’m becoming because I’ve got more shit going in my life, and that’s the kind of stuff you get to work with.”▼ Sutton Foster will perform in concert at Nourse Theatre on Jan. 16. Tickets are $50-$100. Call (415) 392-4400 or go to cityboxoffice.com.

Andrew H. Walker

Playing Reno Sweeney in the revival of Anything Goes, Sutton Foster won a second Tony Award.

▼

Books>>

January 7-13, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 27

Including queer people in religions by Brian Bromberger

Struggling in Good Faith: LGBTQI Inclusion from 13 American Religious Perspectives, edited by Mychal Copeland and D’vorah Rose; Skylight Paths Publishing, $19.99 ith the recent anti-Muslim fever sweeping the country, any understanding of Islam as well as lesser-known religions is not only welcome but also required in our pluralistic culture. And because same-sex civil weddings are now the law of the land, discovering how different American religions view LGBTQI people is essential if there are to be spiritual components to these marriages. Fortunately, local lesbian rabbi Mychal Copeland, Bay Area director of InterfaithFamily, which helps couples navigate diversity of religious backgrounds, has risen to the challenge in her new anthology Struggling in Good Faith, with gay/ lesbian clergy, activists, and scholars exploring LGBTQI inclusion in their communities. How are 13 faith traditions struggling with the changing reality of LGBTQI people filling sacred spaces, creating theology and liturgy, and leading congregations? This timely, multifaceted compendium covers Buddhists,

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Muslims, Hindus, First Nations (Native Americans), Mormons, the Black Church, Unitarians, Jews, Protestants, and Roman Catholics, with the most up-to-date positions. In his forward, retired gay Episcopalian bishop Gene Robinson asserts that despite the presumption that religions are the keepers of unchanging eternal truths, they are constantly changing in a process that initiates dialogue between their own religious and cultural contexts, keeping them alive and relevant. Still, almost all the voices here decry sluggish progress, seeing misogyny where gay men are criticized as assuming the passive position of women, mandatory celibacy of LGBTQI people, hating the sin/loving the sinner paradigm masquerading as homophobia, and seeing sexual attraction as immutable, as the prime stumbling blocks in many traditions. In her conclusion Copeland notes that LGBTQI people often live “fragmented lives, bringing only certain aspects of themselves to their jobs, family, school, or church.” Quoting black queer essayist Audre Lorde, denying parts of ourselves is “not only internally destructive; it keeps us from accessing our fullest potential.” It is only when all the fragments are integrated that one

can be at peace and energetic in service to the ideals of a religion. So radical inclusivity of LGBTQI people challenges all members in a religion to bring their full selves to their spiritual lives. As long as gay/lesbian folks are excluded, the tradition is incomplete and doomed to continual struggle. There is no single path for LGBTQI inclusion given the diversity among American faith communities. Progress in a tradition needs to be seen in historical context. For example, Orthodox Judaism’s rejection of reparative therapy is revolutionary for such ultra-conservative Jews. Even in liberal bastions such as Episcopalians, LGBTQI people can still be informally treated as second-class citizens, with qualified rather than unconditional acceptance. Many contributors are well aware that religions bear some culpability when it comes to the rise in violence against LGBTQI people, their being fired from their jobs or denied services, and youth committing suicide and at increased risk for alcohol and drug use. The key to combating these ills is suggested in the comprehensive chapter on Presbyterians by Marvin Ellison

and Sylvia Thorson-Smith when they write, “The change agenda is not how to include ‘outsiders’ and bring them inside, but how to create together the communal conditions of hospitality, safety, and respect so that people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities can share what they have come to know, often at great risk, about resisting

injustice, enhancing human dignity, and revitalizing community.” Full inclusion of LGBTQI people is not so much about changing a tradition as it is recognizing that being welcoming is consistent with a community’s foundational principles. “Reform” is really returning to the original founders’ spiritual vision. All the contributors in Struggling in Good Faith are superb, with special kudos to Shehnaz Haqqani on Islam, Alex Wilson on First Americans, Sr. Jeannine Gramick on Catholicism, and Rita Gross on Buddhism. Copeland ends on an optimistic note. LGBTQI issues in American religion are constantly changing, but the doors to all traditions need to swing open more widely because “when religious institutions find ways to integrate the diversity of people ready to bring their fullest selves to the table, all of our voices will become clearer.” At a time when Americans are becoming more secular and less religious as well as more tolerant of sexual and gender diversity, this clarion call for LGBTQI inclusion in all religions should ring loud and clear.▼

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Top: Yuan Yuan Tan in Possokhov’s Magrittomania. Bottom: Vanessa Zahorian and Pascal Molat in Balanchine’s Jewels. (Choreography by George Balanchine © The Balanchine Trust) // © Erik Tomasson

Yuri Possokhov’s Magrittomania is a clever and colorful homage to the surrealist painter, René Magritte. Also on stage are Tomasson’s 7 for Eight and the North American premiere of Forsythe’s superbly crafted Pas/Parts.

JAN 27 – FEB 06

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Rubies Set to a driving, jazzy score by Stravinsky, “Rubies”, typically the second work in Balanchine’s three-act abstract ballet, Jewels, sparkles.

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36

Leather

NIGHTLIFE

DINING

39

Karrnal Knowledge

SPIRITS

Shooting Stars

SOCIETY

ROMANCE

PERSONALS Vol. 46 • No. 1 • January 7-13, 2016

www.ebar.com V www.bartabsf.com

Fly her friendly skies

n n A m Pa Carlos Aguayo

LEATHER

h Nahmod by David-Elija the her name from eram Ann gets Am n Pa t) defunc legendary (if long ardw ste y ht ug na e ican Airways. Th litically incorrect po up g in rv se be ess will ming weekend. co is th x laughs at Beatbo See page 30 >>

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On the Tab

Sun 10 Brendan MacLean @ Oasis

January 7-14, 2016

, and the pace new year’s groove on e’ve finally got our ic with flair us steady beat. Live m is picking up to a drag shows zy cra d cktail events, an and class, social co s the new batch! and year out. Here’ in ar ye t, tan ns co are a

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Listings begin on page 30

>>

{ THIRD OF THREE SECTIONS }

DRIVE WITH UBER. Sign up now and receive an additional $50 after your first trip T.UBER.COM/BAYAREAREPORTER

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

30 • Bay Area Reporter • January 7-13, 2016

Carlos Aguayo

Pam Ann

<<

Pam Ann

From page 29

Gayle Laird

Pan Am, Pam tells us, folded in 1988. “Pan Am serves as an inspiration, but I don’t reference Pan Am in my shows,” she said. “The premise of my shows is airlines, but I talk about topical and cultural things. The character is everyone you’d love to hate if you

were to fly. I’m the voice of flight attendants. I say what they wish they could say to people.” Pam dropped a few hints at what she might be addressing at Beatbox. “I talk about my experiences,” she said. “I also talk about ISIS, terrorism, fucking; everything that people are afraid of right now. I might put the show all together on the plane on the way over. It’s very improvised, not a scripted show.”

Pam has no qualms about offending people. “My friends come to see me get out of the holes I create,” she said. “I’ve had numerous people walk out of my shows, so I know that I’m doing my job.” Pam was quick to point out that she’s neither a drag queen, nor is she transgender. “A lot of people think I’m trans, which is good, because transwomen are so beautiful. They’re always stunningly put together.” In keeping with her politically incorrect image, Pam had no qualms about referring to herself as a cunt. “It means stylish,” Pam pointed out. “Vogue had a thing on it. It depends on how you say it.” The Australian native is now a resident of New York City. While still living Down Under, Pam starred in her own television show and hosted the broadcast of Australia’s Mardi Gras in 2009. Since arriving in the states she’s toured to sold out crowds, and has also performed across Europe. She’s also appeared in a training video for British Airways and was the opening act for Cher’s UK Farewell tour. “I’m fucking shitting in my pants!” she said of the Cher experience. Pam said that she was quite happy with her career as an airline hostess and wasn’t particularly interested in expanding her horizons as a performer. “I’ve no desire to be an actress,” she said. “I’d like to do a movie as Pam Ann. If it happens, then fantastic. Maybe I could be The Danish Girl as an Australian Girl.”t Pam Ann at Beatbox: the popular comedic “air hostess” lands with her caustic wit and witty baggage. $35. ($60 VIP First Class includes early admission, champagne and meet & greet). Jan. 8 & 9, 8pm. 314 11th St. www.beatboxsf.com

Friday Nights @ Oakland Museum

The hilarious popular drag parody performance (with kings and queens) of the original Star Trek series’ episode, “Mudd’s Women,” returns, with Leigh Crow, Honey Mahogany, Jef Valentine, Persia and many other talents. Enjoy special space-age cocktails. $25-$35 and up. Wed-Sat 7pm. Thru Jan. 23. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

The family-friendly night events returns, with exhibit tours, dancing, food, drinks, and live music. 5pm9pm. www.museumca.org/2016/ friday-nights-omca-january-8

Disco guru DJ Bus Station John spins grooves at the intimate retro music night. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Fri 8

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

After Dark @ Exploratorium

Comedy Noir @ Balancoire

Thu 7

After Dark @ Exploratorium The monthly adult party at the hands-on science museum this time is themed Let’s Have a Ball. $10-$15. 6pm-10pm. Pier 1 at Embarcadero. www.exploratorium.edu

Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi The musical comedy revue celebrates its 40th year with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs. $25-$160. Beer/wine served; cash only; 21+, except where noted. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St.). 421-4222. www.beachblanketbabylon.com

Bulge @ Powerhouse Grace Towers hosts the fun sexy night. $100 cash prize for best bulge. $5-$10 benefits Groundswell Institute, the queer retreat camp. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Mazel Top @ Oasis The monthly social event for Jewish gay men and their pals/admirers returns. $5. 9pm. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences Themed event nights at the fascinating nature museum, with DJed dancing, cocktails, fish, frogs, food and fun. Jan 7: How-To, with fermentation experts, sushi tasting, digestif demo by Punk Domestics, a crafting fun. $10-$12. 6pm-10pm, 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

Carlos Aguayo

Pam Ann

Star Trek Live @ Oasis

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge

Thu 7

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Valerie Branch’s weekly comedy night, where she embodies her faux queen character Pia Messing for some offbeat wit, along with guest performers. $5. 8pm-10pm. 2565 Mission St. www.balancoiresf.com

Cubcake @ Lone Star Saloon The bears, cubs and friends party with desserts and DJed music. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Curtain Call @ Hotel Rex Host Bill Cooper and pianist Barry Lloyd welcome new singers at the cool open mic night. $15-$20. 7pm. Dining and cocktails available. 562 Sutter St. www.societycabaret.com

Force @ Oasis Dance night with DJs Franko, Kiro Ordin, Erik Withakay. $20. 10pm-2am. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

Happy Friday @ Midnight Sun 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

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

Ladies of San Francisco @ Club OMG Galilea hosts the new weekly “old school drag show” with guest performers and DJ Jack Rojo, and a special Christmas night show. $4. 9pm-2am. 43 6th St. www.clubOMGsf.com

See page 31 >>

Fri 8 Cubcake @ Lone Star Saloon

January 7-13, 2016 • Bay Area Reporter • 31

Bowie/Elvis Birthday Bash @ Edinburgh Castle Enjoy tunes from “Hound Dog” to “Diamond Dogs” at the unusual birthday night celebrating David Bowie and Elvis Presley. $5. 9pm-2am. 950 Geary St. at Polk. www.thecastlesf.com

Rich Stadtmiller

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On the Tab>>

Cabaret Showcase @ Hotel Rex Host-pianist Barry Lloyd welcomes Jacquie McCarley, Eileen & Brett Zamora and Diane Kluft. 8pm. Dining and cocktails available. 562 Sutter St. www.societycabaret.com

Fri 8 Friday Nights @ Oakland Museum

<<

On the Tab

From page 30

Latin Explosion @ Club 21, Oakland Lulu Ramirez hosts the drag show and dance night, with Mitzy Lee and Jacqueline Aguilar La Gata; gogo guys, drink special. $6 before 10:30pm. Til 3am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. www.club21oakland.com

Club Rimshot @ Club BNB, Oakland

Tower of Power @ Yoshi’s Oakland The legendary funk band performs classics and new grooves. $45. 8pm & 10pm.Various double shw time thru Jan. 13. 510 Embarcadero West. (510) 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

Lianne Marie Dobbs @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko Broadway musical theatre actress and Bay Area native makes her debut at the stylish cabaret with her show, Everything Old is New Again. $25-$45. 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.liannemariedobbs.com www.ticketweb.com

Fri 8 Lianne Marie Dobbs @ Feinstein’s

Some Thing @ The Stud Mica Sigourney and pals’ weekly offbeat drag performance night. 10pm2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

The fun Castro nightclub, with hot local DJs and sexy gogo guys and gals. $5. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.Beauxsf.com

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). 3pm-6pm. Now also on Saturdays. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Brendan MacLean @ Oasis The Aussie indie pop singer performs original music and unique covers of songs by Leonard Cohen, Sia, Lady Gaga and others. $15. 7pm. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

See page 34 >>

The celebrated local drag performer returns with a classy solo night of songs and skits as Bette Davis, Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn, Susan Hayward and Miss Peggy Lee. $20. 7pm. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

BEAUTIFUL BODIES

Stunning Photography QUALITY PRINTING

Remembering Mr. Marcus @ The Armory

El Mundo @ Empire Ballroom

The popular comedic “air hostess” lands with her caustic wit and witty baggage. $35. ($60 VIP First Class includes early admission, champagne and meet & greet). 8pm. Also Jan. 9. 314 11th St. www.beatboxsf.com

Big Top @ Beaux

Beer Bust @ SF Eagle

Heklina’s weekly drag show night with different themes, always outrageously hilarious. Jan. 9: Trixie Mattel guesthosts. $10-$25. 10pm-2am. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 7953180. www.sfoasis.com

Weekly drag shows at the last transgender-friendly bar in the Polk; with hosts Victoria Secret, Alexis Miranda and several performers. Also Saturdays. $10. 11pm. 1081 Polk St. www.divassf.com

Pam Ann @ Beatbox

Opening reception for a group exhibit of varied visual art (paintings, stained glass, jewelry, photogrpahy) by the hair salon’s talented staff, including Leigh Crow, Tona Sogliuzzo, Lady Nigel, Dottie Lux, Gunner & Deena Conway-Davenport and Jennifer Hofmann. 7:30pm-10pm. Thru Feb 7. 304 Valencia St. 861-4526. www.glamarama.com

Sun 10

Mother @ Oasis

Midnight Show @ Divas

The new weekly Latin night at the Civic Center renovated nightclub features drag shows, gogo guys and gals, and DJed grooves. 9pm-3am. 555 Golden Gate. www.theempireroomsf.com

From Our Own Hands @ Glama-Rama Salon

Remembering Mr. Marcus @ The Armory

Matthew Martin @ Oasis

Manimal @ Beaux Gogo-tastic dance night starts off your weekend. $5. 9pm2am. 2344 Market St. www. beauxsf.com

Sat 9

Get groovin’ at the weekly hip hop and R&B night at their new location. 8-$15. 9pm to 4am. 2120 Broadway. (510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Sat 9 Shana Morrison @ Feinstein’s

Sat 9

See 12 gorgeous men IN NOTHING AT ALL

The late great Leather and Imperial Court community icon is remembered in a festive event, with entertainment, refreshments, cash bar, all in the stylish Victorian Upper Room. $10. 21+. 7pm-10pm. 1800 Mission St. www.facebook.com/ events/959836194094626/ www.armorystudios.com

(except a pool, a jacuzzi, the rain!)

WET HOT SEXY and ALL MALE. https:/youtu.be/XGRczQQrddo Help us reach our fundraising goal by visiting http://getwet.sexy and contribute to our Indiegogo Campaign. Many great reward packages to choose from. Please be sure to contribute beginning January 8 and throughout the rest of the month.

Saturgay @ Qbar

La Bota Loca @ Club 21, Oakland

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

Latin, hip hop and Electro music night. $5-$25. 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. www.club21oakland.com

Shana Morrison @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko Bay Area singer (and Van Morrison’s daughter) performs jazz and rock with her band, Caledonia. $25-$45. 7pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.ticketweb.com

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

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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

Sugar @ The Cafe Dance, drink, cruise at the Castro club. 9pm-2am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Sat 9 Matthew Martin @ Oasis

Writers With Drinks @ The Make Out Room Charlie Jane Anders hosts the stimulating literary reading and chat night. $5-$20. 7:30pm. 3225 22nd St. www.makeoutroom.com

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Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

32 • Bay Area Reporter • January 7-13, 2016

Best Moments of 2015 by Race Bannon

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n my previous column I laid out my own personal wishes for 2016. Many of those wishes did, admittedly, take the scene to task to improve in some way per my own perspective. Here instead I’m going lay out what I consider some of the best moments in 2015 for our local leather and kink scene. I hope this will gently counter the somewhat corrective tone of my last column. While this column’s focus is best moments from the San Francisco Bay Area, readers from elsewhere may recognize similar moments in their own localities. I urge you to celebrate those moments too. As was the case in my previous column, these “best” moments are subjective and seen entirely through the lens of my perceptions. When it

comes to your own personal set of best scene moments from the past year, you might have an entirely different list. I was frankly challenged to select only a handful of such moments because we have so much good stuff happening locally. Why am I picking these particular moments? Because they all in some way embody for me what I consider what’s wonderful and great about our scene. They are representative of something bigger than just the particular moment itself. So here are just a few of my best moments of 2015. I urge you to also think about your own best of 2015 list. Why? Because while it’s important to point our shortcomings and offer improvement suggestions, it’s just as important, if not more so, to revel in what’s good and awesome about our scene too. There is far more

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Ceridwyn Asher

Sharrin Spector, Producer of International Ms. Leather, speaks to contestants before this year’s competition.

good than bad and it’s valuable to acknowledge that. When Erick Lopez organized a bunch of men to walk in the Pride Parade’s leather contingent in high heels in support of Tugger, I smiled. Tugger was at the center of quite a ruckus because he eloquently and fully embraced his feminine side when he competed in International Mr. Leather (called “TuggerGate” by some). Heels aren’t my thing, but I loved how someone decided to show support for our scene’s diversity in such a fun and public way. It showed that while each of us can live our kinky lives and identities as we see fit, there’s room for a wide swath of the experience in our tent. When a rather volatile situation arose surrounding this year’s International Ms. Leather (IMsL) contest that is held in San Jose, the event organizers generally handled it with a lot of grace, sensitivity and skill. While I might have chosen to han-

dle a few things differently myself, what they demonstrated was that even when confronted with some rather loud and ardent voices of discontent, one can still handle oneself with dignity and without resorting to attacks. Brava to Sharrin Spector, the Producer of IMsL, and everyone on her production team for navigating that tricky territory with aplomb. May all producers emulate such skill in the future. Late one night I walked into a 15 Association men’s BDSM play party. I had not been to one in a while. I was confronted with dozens of men playing with dozens more socializing in the non-play areas. This made me think of two things. First, that for those for whom the older leather institutions are important, the 15 Association (founded in 1980) is proof that one can keep such institutions alive if there is an interested constituency and enough will to do so.

Second, play parties always remind me that for most people the play is the thing. It’s not the politics, fundraising, contests and titles, or other trappings that have become part of our scene. For the vast majority of kinksters, the play remains their primary focus with the rest a distant second in importance. The Rubber Men of San Francisco (RMSF) sadly endured a theft at one of their events this year. One item stolen was an iPad from a well-known local leatherman who was volunteering at the event. This particular volunteer helps out at so many local events that it’s impossible to count them all. As RMSF was working to get the stolen items and cash replaced, a generous donor came forward and gave the volunteer a brand new iPad. The donor asked for no acknowledgement or thanks. See page 33 >>

Leather Events, January 8-23, 2016

Rich Stadtmiller

Leathermen and leatherwomen gathered at the 15 Association’s 35th anniversary dinner.

Fri 8

Sun 10

Gear Party @ 442 Natoma

Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club

Paul Needham Fetish Gear and Leather Auction @ Don Ramon’s

Sat 16

Officially a CMA meeting, but open to all Anonymous 12-step Fellowship members, 4058 18th St., 9:30pm. www.castrocountryclub.org

Gear Party @ 442 Natoma Gear play party (leather, rubber, harnesses, etc.) for gay men. 442 Natoma St., $15 (requires $5 membership), 10pm. www.442parties.com

Sat 9 Leather Pride Contingent Monthly Meeting @ SF Eagle The first meeting of the San Francisco Leather Pride Contingent for the 2016 SF Pride Parade. 398 12th St., 2-3pm.

Remembering Mr. Marcus @ San Francisco Armory An event to fondly remember the famous Mr. Marcus. 21+/ Adults only. Imperial Court and leather community retrospective slideshow of his life. Entertainment, refreshments, cash Bar. 1800 Mission St., 4th floor, 7pm.

Bid on more than 100 quality items from the late Paul Needham’s vast collection including boots (most approximately size 9D), bondage benches, uniforms, leather, and much more fetish gear. Benefitting the 2016 Bare Chest Calendar and AIDS Emergency Fund. 225 11th St., 1pm-3:30pm

Mr. Lone Star 2016 Meet and Greet @ The Lone Star Saloon Come meet the 10th contestant to join the Class of 2016 who will compete for Mr. SF Leather 2016. 1354 Harrison St., 5pm. www.lonestarsf.com

Mon 11 Ride Mondays @ Eros A motorcycle rider and leathermen night at Eros, bring your helmet, AMA card, MC club card or club colors and get $3 off entry or massage. 2051 Market St. www.erossf.com

Fri 15 Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club See Fri 8

See Fri 8

So You Can’t Afford MAL Alternative Men’s Party @ SF Citadel A men’s play party. $10, 181 Eddy St., 1-7pm. www.sfcitadel.org

Leather and Gear Social @ SF Eagle Gear up, get out of the house and hang out with other leathermen in a cigar-friendly space. The intended focus is just to meet up. 398 12th St., 9pm-12am.

Mon 18 Ride Mondays @ Eros See Mon 11

Fri 22 Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club See Fri 8

Gear Party @ 442 Natoma See Fri 8

Sat 23 The 15 Association Men’s Play Party @ Alchemy A men’s BDSM play party. 1060 Folsom St., 7pm-12am (doors close at 10pm). www.the15sf.org

Race Bannon is a local author, blogger and activist. You can reach him on his website, www.bannon.com.

Left: Tugger holds up a sign referencing “TuggerGate” as men walk with him in heels to show their support in this year’s Pride Parade. Top Left: Joe Gallagher (left), owner of Joe’s Barbershop and International Mr. Leather 1996, gave a moving presentation at Leathermen’s Discussion Group. Top Right: Deborah Hoffman-Wade (right) and her partner, Schon Wade (left), at this year’s Ms. SF Leather contest. Right: Some of the many handsome models, and co-MC Tim Seelig (lower left), at the 2014 Rubber Men of San Francisco Tenacious Runway fashion show held at Beatbox.

Rich Stadtmiller

This showed me there’s a lot of love and caring in our scene, even for people we might not know personally. I’ve seen such kindness happen so many times and this moment made me realize that. The San Francisco Leathermen’s Discussion Group (LDG) is both an educational and social linchpin organization for the local men’s scene. While each of their monthly programs stands out, one in particular did for me. It was Joe Gallagher’s “Punching and Seducing Consent” presentation that impacted me most. Joe’s presentation embodied how I wish more BDSM education was done. The “how to” portion was basic, simple and explained in a concise way that allowed everyone in the audience to absorb and learn something that might actually stick with them. But much more importantly, the demonstration that accompanied the presentation was such a beautiful illustration of why the most important part of all the kinky stuff we do is connection. Not technique. Not theory. Not how it looks. Connection. Bonding. Being “with” the other person or persons you’re playing with in a fully intimate way. Thanks Joe for reminding us of that. When the era of HIV was thrust upon us, lots of kinky gay men compartmentalized their sex into a separate box from their kink. For many, sex and kink were not often mixed. Especially in public play settings. A while back, the 442 Natoma club started hosting Friday night “gear” parties where gear-centric guys can find a welcoming place to fully explore their sexual sides as well. The guys at 442 have created an erotic environment reminiscent of the more primal play spaces of yore and it’s awesome. As I watched a bunch of hot, geared up men having sex during one of those nights, it gave me hope that the sexual side of our scene will again be more fully merged with the rest of our kinky pursuits. During this year’s Ms. San Francisco Leather contest, I remember clearly a moment when I was having a lovely chat with Deborah Hoffman-Wade, one of the judges for this year’s contest, during a break in the proceedings. First, I was struck by how Deborah is the embodiment of everything I love about so many stalwart members of the local women’s community. Smart. Passionate. Welcoming. Diplomatic. Dedicated. Second, as I gazed upon the large and packed hall, it was heartening to see the local women’s scene not only alive, but thriving. And while I believe in separate spaces at times for different types of people, it was nice to see the women and men at the event getting along so well. Getting along while acknowledging our differences and the need for both separation and inclusion at various times is a message I’d like to see embraced more in our scene and this moment was a great example of that for me. So, as I finish this column, it’s important for you to know that I have about a dozen other best of 2015 moment ideas scribbled on a pad in front of me. I have no doubt I could have come up with dozens more. I chose the ones in this column that were special for me. I hope you take a moment right now to think about your own best of 2015 leather and kink moments. We have much to be thankful for and highlighting these special moments makes us realize that.t

Rich Stadtmiller

Leather

From page 32

Rich Stadtmiller

January 7-13, 2016 • Bay Area Reporter • 33

Race Bannon

t <<

Read more online at www.ebar.com

<< On the Tab

34 • Bay Area Reporter • January 7-13, 2016

Tue 12

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

Funny Tuesdays @ Harvey’s Ronn Vigh hosts the weekly LGBT and gay-friendly comedy night. One-drink or menu item minimum. 9pm. 500 Castro St. at 18th. 431-HARV. www.harveyssf.com

Gaymer Night @ Eagle

Sun 10

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

Eric Himan, Gregory Douglass Band, Jeff Campbell @ The Chapel

On the Tab

From page 31

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

Femme, Xtravaganza @ Balancoire Weekly live music shows with various acts, along with brunch, mimosas, champagne and more, at the stylish nightclub and restaurant; shows at 12:30pm, 1:30pm and 2:45pm. After that, T-Dance drag shows at 7pm, 10pm and 11pm. 2565 Mission St. at 21st. 920-0577. www.balancoiresf.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

Gregory Douglass Band, Eric Himan, Jeff Campbell @ The Chapel Sun 10 Three musicians, gay and straight, and their bands perform at the popular Mission nightclub. $15-$20 (VIP $75 and up). 7:30pm. 777 Valencia St. www.gregorydouglass.com www.erichiman.com www.thechapelsf.com

Jock @ The Lookout Enjoy the weekly jock-ular fun, with DJed dance music at sports team fundraisers. 12pm-1am. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.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

Mon 11

Drag Mondays @ The Cafe Mahlae Balenciaga and DJ Kidd Sysko’s weekly drag and dance night, 2014’s last of the year. 9pm-1am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Epic Karaoke @ White Horse, Oakland Mondays and Tuesdays popular weekly sing-along night. No cover. 8:30pm-1am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com

Gaymer Meetup @ Brewcade The weekly LGBT video game enthusiast night include 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

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 (aka Trauma Flintstone). 9pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market. www.dragatmartunis.com

Bone @ Powerhouse New 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

B.P.M. @ Club BnB, Oakland 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

Latin Drag Night @ Club OMG Weekly Latin night with drag shows hosted by Vicky Jimenez. 9pm-2am. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Man Francisco @ Oasis

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

The sexy, funny weekly male burlesque show returns; choreographed by Christopher James Dunn, with Colin, Darius, Thomas and Jon. Mr Pam MCs. $20. 2-drink min. 9:30pm. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 7953180. www.sfoasis.com

Naked Night @ Nob Hill Theatre

Miss Kitty’s Trivia Night @ Wild Side West

Strip down as the strippers also take it all off. $20. 9pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

PhotosbyDot

<<

Meow Mix @ The Stud

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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

Tue 12

Meow Mix @ The Stud

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.

Mahogany Mondays @ Midnight Sun Honey Mahogany’s weekly drag and musical talent show starts around 10pm. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Monday Musicals @ 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

No No Bingo @ Virgil’s Sea Room Mica Sigourney and Tom Temprano cohost the wacky weekly game night at the cool Mission bar. 8pm. 3152 Mission St. www.virgilssf.com

Queer Jitterbugs @ Club Deluxe The weekly LGBT-friendly swing dance event return, with lessons, social dancing and fun. $25-$40 for 4-week lessons at 6:30-7:30pm (also ASLfriendly). Free drop-ins 7:30pm-8pm. Dancing til 11pm. 1511 Haight St. at Ashbury. www.QueerJitterbugs.com

Underwear Night @ 440 Strip down to your skivvies at the popular men’s night. 9pm-2am. 440 Castro St. 621-8732. www.the440.com

Retro Night @ 440 Castro Jim Hopkins plays classic pop oldies, with vintage music videos. 9pm-2am. 44 Castro St. www.the440.com

Switch @ Q Bar Weekly women’s night at the stylish intimate bar. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

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

Wed 13 Bedlam @ Beaux

Wed 13 Man Francisco @ Oasis

New weekly event with DJs Haute Toddy, Guy Ruben, Mercedez Munro and Abominatrix. Wet T-shirt/jock contest at 11pm. $5-$10. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.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

Pussy Party @ Beaux Ladies night at the Castro dance club. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.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

Way Back @ Midnight Sun Weekly screenings of vintage music videos and retro drink prices. Check out the new expanded front window lounge. 9pm-2am. 4067 18th St. 8614186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Wooden Nickel Wednesday @ 440 Buy a drink and get a wooden nickle good for another. 12pm-2am. 440 Castro St. 621-8732. www.the440.com

Thu 14

Bulge @ Powerhouse Grace Towers hosts the racy night with a $100 wet undies buldge contest at midnight. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

t

On the Tab>>

January 7-13, 2016 • Bay Area Reporter • 35

Thirsty Thursdays @ The Cafe

Todd Rundgren @ The Fillmore

Drink specials, Top 40, gogo studs and no cover, 2 for 1 cocktails until 10:30pm. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

The veteran rock-pop singer-composer performs at a special celebration of Bill Graham’s 85th birthday; proceeds benefit the Bill Graham Memorial Foundation. $42.50. 7pm. 1805 Geary Blvd. www.thefillmore.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

Thump @ White Horse, Oakland Weekly electro music night with DJ Matthew Baker and guests. 9pm-2am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com

Thursday Night Live @ SF Eagle

Thu 14 Skate Night @ Church on 8 Wheels

Confess @ Oasis BedPost Productions’ skit and improv night. $15. 9pm. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

Funny Fun @ Club 21, Oakland Weekly LGBT and straight comedy night hosted by Dan Mires. $10. 8pm. 2111 Franklin St. Oakland. (510) 2689425. www.club21oakland.com

Mazel Top @ Oasis The monthly social event for Jewish gay men and their pals/admirers returns. $5. 9pm. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.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

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

Gym Class @ Hi Tops

Nap’s Karaoke @ Virgil’s Sea Room

Enjoy whiskey shots from jockstrapped hotties and sexy sports videos at the popular new sports bar. 10pm-2am. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

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

Mary Go Round @ Lookout

Picante @ The Cafe Lulu and DJ Marco’s Latin night with sexy gogo guys. 9pm-2am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Kate Fomina

Mercedez Munro and Holotta Tymes’ weekly drag show. $5. 10:30pm show. DJ Philip Grasso. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Music night with local and touring bands. $8. 9:30pm. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Queer Karaoke @ Club OMG Dana hosts the weekly singing night; unleash your inner American Idol. 8pm. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Skate Night @ Church on 8 Wheels 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 Wednesday, Thursday, 7pm-10pm. Saturday afternoon sessions 1pm-2:30pm and 3pm5:30pm. $10. Kids 12 and under $5. Skate rentals $5. 554 Fillmore St at Fell. www.churchof8wheels.com

Thu 14 Todd Rundgren @ The Fillmore

I am the future of the LGBT community. I’m gay. I’m 55. I’ve been out to my family for twenty years. I married a wonderful woman six years ago, and we adopted a baby girl from Vietnam. My family is everything to me. That’s why I’m an avid follower of LGBT rights. Not just marriage, either. I want to make sure that I can travel safely, enjoy my retirement and have my child benefit from my life’s work. I’m the future of the LGBT community. And I read about that future every morning on my work laptop. Because that’s where I want it to be.

Mon 11 Mahogany Mondays @ Midnight Sun

The person depicted here is a model. Their image is being used for illustrative purposes only.

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge Disco guru DJ Bus Station John spins grooves at the intimate retro music night; December 31: a “cheap New Year’s Eve.”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.

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

36 • Bay Area Reporter • January 7-13, 2016

Go ass, Alex by John F. Karr

We begin the new year with a 21Cock Salute to Chris Ward, founder and former chief film director of Raging Stallion Studios. His company has just hit its 15th birthday, and Ward has just announced his retirement; Ward’s was an accomplished career. We also give three cheers for Tommy Defendi, who has also announced his retirement. Tommy

was vastly popular, and had a fine career during which he really delivered. We now applaud the good sense of his exit. If only some other long-in-the-tooth performers would follow his example. Me, I’m mad for new meat, so I’m launching into a new year by singling out in upcoming columns some guys I’ve recently gotten

hip to. At the very top of that list is Alex Mecum. His name is so right. Me see him and me cum. He’s quite the cummer himself, shooting loads like a Marvel super hero filmed in 3D. I first encountered Alex in the cock-worshipping photos and luxuriant JO solo of LegendMen. com (You can find the scene free at pornhub.com). The first sight of his beautiful cock enslaved me. It’s a prodigious pecker with an immense, polished dome. Oh, for the hinged jaw of a snake. Its presentation package includes blue eyes, a dusting of fine dark hair across meaty pecs, and, most notably, an adorable and winning personality. Though ingenuous enough to blush easily, the 28-year-old is a natural tease. He’d been mostly a top, but LegendMen bought him some butt plugs; the first time one popped in, he came. So now, he’s gotten into bottoming, in a big way. Finally, and how this lights up my life, he’s a cum eater, eagerly dropping his jaw for a hurtling jet stream. So it’s no surprise that Alex made me do it. He made me subscribe to Men.com. I’ve got a love/hate thing with Men. For reasons of space, I’ll skip my rant about Gay4Pay performers, who are the specialty of Men.com, and where their scenes are notable for those prefab performances that are athletic but mostly vapid. On the other hand, a lot of actual gay guys show up at Men, and you’d be missing some exciting and genuine male4male lusting if you didn’t tune in to Brent Everett, Luke Adams, Mike Demarco, Jessy Ares, and buoyant Alex.

t

John Clum

The bulge has it, in an Alex Mecum glam shot.

Among a dozen scenes he’s made for Men, he’s eagerly paired with new, blond yum-yum Scott Riley, and has a sensational encounter with Colby Keller. It’s the living end, a profound demonstration of how G4P guys skim the surface, shortchanging us. They just can’t respond to each other like Alex and Colby. Yet Alex always tries to relate to his str8 partners, and manages to

soar when bottoming for G4Pers like steely Vadim Black and severe Adam Bryant. Oh yeah, he seems born again when sucking their admittedly top notch knockers. Alex has only recently jumped into the mainstream, where he’s given royal treatment at Falcon, and makes a decent show at Hot House. See page 37 >>

Men.com

The lovemaking for Colby Keller and Alex Mecum heats up.

t

Read more online at www.ebar.com

January 7-13, 2016 • Bay Area Reporter • 37

REMEMBERING

Mr. Marcus January 9, 2016 • 7pm • $10 SF Armory, 4th Fl, 1800 Mission St., SF 94103 21+ Adults Only

Falcon

Imperial Court & Leather Community Retrospective Slideshow of Marcus’ Life Entertainment • Refreshments • Cash Bar

Johnny V passionately succumbs to Alex Mecum in this VIP After Hours.

<<

Karrnal Knowledge

From page 36

He’s in both volumes of Falcon’s VIP. Part One is The Hustle; Part Two is After Hours. Although I prefer The Hustle, which has Sebastian Kross with Scott Riley, and Armando De Armas with Brian Bonds, both movies are top notch examples of the best commercial porn has to offer. Director Tony Dimarco has brought a focus, an intimacy of contact, superb technical expertise, and a good deal of freshening in both volumes to the oft-told tale of a male strip club. You know, the dancer who auditions for a job by throwing his prospective boss a hot fuck; the performers who can’t keep their hands off each other; the john getting a lap dance, and, in a real keeper of a scene, business partners Alex M and Johnny V locked in a knock-down fight that morphs into a deeply burning lust-letting. That’s the finale of Vol 2, After Hours, following an earlier, good bash Alex has had with Kyle Kash. But Kash isn’t the star the Johnny is, and Johnny and Alex together seem to invent combustion. If there’d been an OCS (Oral Cum Shot), I’d be a smoldering mess on the floor, instead of spent but upright. Hardly less effective but with a smoother emotional climate, is the opening of Vol One, The Hustle, in which voluptuous Killian James wakes up one morning to the warm boner of his lover, Alex Mecum, pressed against his butt crack. That boy rocks in deep ecstasy while straddling Alex’s cock, and Alex’s seconds that emotion with a far ranging cum-geyser. The RagingHotFalcon family being a sharing family, Alex was scuttled from Falcon over to Hot House, where the product of director Nick

For more info email msqcougar@comcast.net Tel (510) 996-2235

Queer Me Now

Alex Mecum behind the scenes with voluptuous Killian James.

Foxx in Deep Examination is enjoyable, if not as singular as Dimarco’s two Falcon titles. The movie continues a HotHouse infatuation with doctor-and-patient scenarios, with examination room settings that are appropriately if not welcomingly sterile; they’re not at all as cushiony as the hot house environments of the Falcon VIP scenes.

Kevin D. Hoover

Alex Mecum shows some serious glamour.

The music at Hot House is hardly as stimulating as Falcon’s, and the recorded sound is, at any rate, tinny. Lowdown Seamus O’Reilly may be a slip of a thing, but he and his big dick are certainly up to Hugh Hunter’s rambunctiousness. Wow! is what I say to Colt Rivers’ eye-opening ride upon the gigantic cock of Rocco Steele, who has a second scene, in which both his hole-choking cock and a silver dildo prove no problem for delicious Bruno Bernal. Alas, though, that while Alex and his estimable partner Chris Bines are good to the eyes, their scene is somehow cursory. Here are a few more pertinent comments. Men.com features lots of oral cum shots, but weakens many of them by posing the recipient in a recumbent position instead of the more effective kneeling. Men. com collects their well-made scenes onto commercially released DVDs. While they aren’t at all expensive, for the price of one DVD with several scenes, you can have a month’s membership to the site, and own scores of scenes. The website is very generous with photos, unlike the Hot House site, which is not only very stingy with photographs, but employs DRM (Digital Rights Management) so you can’t download scenes. And fellas, I’m loath to watch but not own. When I lay down my credit card, I wanna bring home the boys. So, when I come to Hot House, I cum to a DVD.t

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

38 • Bay Area Reporter • January 7-13, 2016

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Waiting to Port I

t’s been two years since their Indiegogo campaign raised nearly $13,000, and the LGBT bar Port is scheduled to open this spring. We’re wishing them well in their work towards creating another fun venue in Oakland. In the meantime, a new mural featuring LGBT icons has been completed to perk up the construction boards outside the “hetero-friendly” bar-to-be (located on 2023 Broadway, next to the Fox Theatre). Let’s hope our queer Port of call docks soon. www.portbaroakland.com

Above: The new mural outside the future site of The Port Bar. Right: Richard Fuentes, co-founder and vice president of The Port Bar, stands by the new mural.

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

Shooting Stars

January 7-13, 2016 • Bay Area Reporter • 39

photos by steven underhill photos by Colossus steven underNew hill Year’s Eve

W

hile only the first of a trio of New Year’s Eve weekend parties, Gus Bean’s Colossus saw the ball drop at 470 Stevenson Street. Festive partiers enjoyed traditional champagne, balloons and “Auld Lang Syne” with a buoyant circuity flavor, set to grooves spun by DJs Twisted Dee and Nina Flowers. www.guspresents.com More event 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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call (415) 370-7152 or visit www.StevenUnderhill.com or email stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com