January 8, 2015 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

Trans camp expands horizons

ARTS

10

17

27

Cris Williamson

Midnight at the Oasis

The

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Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971

Police district changes proposed

Vol. 45 • No. 2 • January 8-14, 2015

Schaaf era begins in Oakland

by Seth Hemmelgarn

M

any of San Francisco’s 10 police districts are getting new boundaries, and officials are seeking public comment on the changes, which impact neighborCourtesy SFPD hoods including the Tenderloin, but leave Tenderloin police other areas, such as Captain Jason the Castro, largely Cherniss untouched.

The proposed changes are driven be several factors, including a new police station in the Southern district, expected population growth, and an imbalance of the workload between police districts. Additionally, the Board of Supervisors has required the district station boundaries be analyzed every 10 years.

The boundary plan was presented to the police commission December 10. Public input will be taken through March 10, with meetings planned at various stations throughout the city.

The first neighborhood gathering is planned for the Tenderloin police station, which is seeing some of the biggest proposed changes. Police commissioners will be at the Kelly Cullen Community building, 220 Golden Gate Avenue, at 6 p.m., Wednesday, January 28 to discuss the boundaries with community members.

With the changes, the boundaries for the area, which is home to many of the city’s poorest residents, including those who are LGBT, would encompass both sides of Larkin Street. Among other shifts, both sides of Market Street, from Third Street to South Van Ness Avenue, would also be included in the district.

Captain Jason Cherniss, who oversees Tenderloin station, was part of the working group that developed the proposed boundaries.

The changes around Larkin may address the concerns of people who felt policing of drug dealing and other problems has been hampered by the current district line splitting the street.

“We heard that one a lot,” Cherniss said of the concerns around Larkin. He said many people felt the new line doesn’t “go far enough,” and should be extended one block west to Polk Street. But “if you go to Polk Street, then you’re looking at taking up a lot more calls for service” from Geary Street to the north and Market Street to the south.

See page 13 >>

by Cynthia Laird Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, holding her daughter, Lena, prepares to greet well-wishers on Broadway after her inauguration at the Paramount Theatre.

O

akland Mayor Libby Schaaf pledged this week to rebuild the city’s police department and expand popular crime reduction programs during her inaugural address in front of a packed crowd at the Paramount Theatre.

Protesters at the beginning briefly interrupted the two-hour ceremony Monday, January 5, but Schaaf and the other newly sworn in City Council and school board members gave their speeches with many of them pointing to Oakland’s diversity.

See page 13 >>

Gay man picked for CA employment, housing post

by Seth Hemmelgarn

A

gay civil rights lawyer has been selected

by California Governor Jerry Brown to head the troubled state Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

Brown announced the appointment of Kevin Kish, 38, of Los Angeles, in a news release last week. LGBT advocates expressed confidence in Kish’s ability to lead the department, which aims to protect people against unlawful discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations, and from hate violence. The agency has faced controversy for some internal issues.

In response to interview requests, Kish said in an email, “I haven’t even discussed a transition timeline yet, so all I can say at this juncture is that I’m excited and looking forward to the challenge.”

The Yale Law School graduate has been director of the Employment Rights Project at Bet Tzedek Legal Services since 2008 and an adjunct professor of law at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, since 2012. He’s also served as a law clerk at the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Alabama.

Kish’s appointment requires Senate confirmation. The compensation for the position is $150,198.

People who know him suggested he’s an ex-

Jane Philomen Cleland

cellent choice for the post.

Work, called Kish, “one of Carmina Ocampo, staff atthe best litigators I have ever torney at Lambda Legal Deknown,” and said, “LGBT fense and Education Fund, a Californians are gaining a national LGBT organization, strong and passionate legal has known Kish since 2008 champion who will work and called him “a perfect fit hard to ensure everyone in for this kind of job.”

California gets a fair shot on Kish “is the expert in the job and a fair chance to southern California about rent or own housing.” representing low-wage Almeida, who’s gay, added workers,” and Ocampo sugthat Latinos in the state gested he’s been especially would gain “a strong advocommitted to helping workcate” who’s “won significant ers who face retaliation. victories” against people “He has relentlessly fought accused of exploiting immifor workers who have exergrants, human trafficking, cised their right to complain” Kevin Kish was appointed to “and all those criminals who about abuse and harassment, head the state Department of would put corporate profit and he’s also helped craft Fair Employment and Housing. above human fairness.” state anti-retaliation laws, He also lauded Kish for his she said. “impressive” Spanish-speakOne of the issues Lambda Legal is concerned ing skills and said, “We urge California legislators about is anti-LGBT employment discriminato approve his nomination without delay.” tion, and “we hope to partner with Kevin in Kate Kendell, executive director of the San finding cases we can work on to help eliminate Francisco-based National Center for Lesemployment discrimination against LGBT bian Rights, doesn’t personally know Kish, but workers,” Ocampo, a straight ally, said. praised Brown for choosing him to head the In a news release, Tico Almeida, president DFEH. of the national LGBT organization Freedom to See page 12 >>

{ FIRST OF THREE SECTIONS }

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by Seth Hemmelgarn

P

eople in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood are remembering a homeless person who died recently outside a Peet’s coffee shop as a Rachel Swann troubled person who had frequently REALTOR®,Top Producer Top 10% Citywide declined help.

415.225.7743 The person was known as Anasrachel@theswanngroupsf.com Rachel Swann tasia. The medical examiner’s office BRE License # 01860456 Rachel Swann REALTOR®,Top Producer TheSwannGroupSF.com hasn’t released information in the REALTOR®,Top Producer Top 10% Citywide Top 10% Citywide case, and it will probably be months 415.225.7743 415.225.7743 before the cause and manner of death rachel@theswanngroupsf.com rachel@theswanngroupsf.com BRE License # 01860456 BRE License # 01860456 is made public, but officials have not TheSwannGroupSF.com TheSwannGroupSF.com indicated there were any signs of foul play. The city has been experiencing severe cold snap, and it appears AnREV 2014 Rachel Castro Festival Guide ad.indd 1 9/14/14a 5:12 PM astasia had been ill and had spent the night outside the coffee shop.

14 Rachel Castro Festival Guide ad.indd 1 9/14/14 5:12 PM Many who knew Anastasia use BESPOKE MATCHMAKING feminine pronouns when referring to her and have indicated she was EXECUTIVE GAY MATCHMAKING FIRM likely transgender, although it’s not clear if that’s how she self-identified.

NEW YORK REV 2014 Rachel Castro Festival Guide ad.indd 1 9/14/14 5:12 PM According to police, Anastasia, TORONTO whose age was reportedly 45, was found outside the coffee shop, at LOS ANGELES 2257 Market Street, at about 10 SAN FRANCISCO a.m., Wednesday, December 31. Anastasia’s legal name and age couldn’t Rachel Swann be confirmed.

REALTOR®,Top Producer At least one media outlet said Top 10% Citywide people had tried to help Anastasia 415.225.7743 in the hours before she died. rachel@theswanngroupsf.com BRE License # 01860456 Roy McKenzie wrote in a story for TheSwannGroupSF.com the Hoodline news website that he and a friend saw Anastasia at about 10 that morning.

“I shook her and found her stiff,” CONTACT US TODAY TO SCHEDULE S McKenzie, who called Anastasia’s A COMPLIMENTARY CONSULTATION death “surreal and heartbreaking,” wrote. “We immediately called 911 and paramedics responded within BespokeMatchmaking.com five minutes.”

In an email, Mindy Talmadge, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco REV 2014 Rachel Castro Festival Guide ad.indd 1 9/14/14 5:12 PM Fire Department, said, “An engine, ambulance, and rescue captain were dispatched at 10:01 to the location. ... The reporting party said that it looked as though a homeless person had passed out.”

Talmadge added, “Upon arrival it was determined that the individual was deceased. There was no indication that there was any trauma involved.”

People who knew Anastasia, who wore a scarf around her head, high heels, and had been known to wear a fur coat, said she was often outside Peet’s. She’d also regularly been seen outside the nearby Cafe Flore and the Harvest grocery store, or walking around the neighborhood. She was usually talking to herself.

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outside Harvest, where he works, and last saw her at about 12:30 a.m. on the bench outside Peet’s the morning she died.

Holley offered Anastasia a sandwich. She declined, but asked for a Coke.

She seemed “pretty miserable,” Holley said. She was covered with just a blanket, and she was “shivering.”

Hoodline shared a Facebook post from William Salt, who said that the morning Anastasia died, a Peet’s worker had told him “he’d called an ambulance earlier, which came and then left without Anastasia. He then did the same with the police.”

A Peet’s worker who others said had been at the shop that morning said employees had been instructed not to talk to reporters, and referred the Bay Area Reporter to the district manager, who couldn’t be reached for comment.

Francis Zamora, a spokesman for the Department of Emergency Management Services, wasn’t immediately able to provide records related to the time leading up to Anastasia’s death.

‘Your Majesty’

Greg Carey, chair of the Castro Community on Patrol volunteer group, said Anastasia “probably” identified as transgender.

“In our encounters with her, she insisted you call her, ‘Your Majesty,’” Carey said. “... She always spoke of herself in the feminine.”

Most of his group’s interactions with her involved “trespassing situations,” Carey said, but he wasn’t aware of any criminal complaints against her.

People who knew Anastasia said she hadn’t looked well.

Carey said Anastasia, who’d been in the neighborhood for over a year, “never seemed healthy” to him.

“She always walked with a shuffle, and kind of hunched over,” he said. “... She always walked as though she was not comfortable, or in pain.”

The Castro patrol group had offered her shelter and other assistance, Carey said, but “she always refused services.” She didn’t explain why she didn’t want help, he said, but she “was very strict about it.”

Anastasia was always alone, and she always talked to herself, Carey said.

“It was a private conversation.

It wasn’t something where she was trying to attract attention or make people uncomfortable,” he said.

Like others, Bill Tarquino, 52, who had frequently seen Anastasia outside of Peet’s, said her health had declined. He said Anastasia had recently appeared to be “at death’s door ... You could see it in his face.”

Jimmy Strano, 51, a gay fundraiser and activist who lives in the neighborhood, said he knew Anastasia “fairly well.”

Strano said he and others had given Anastasia coffee and food, and when he first knew her, she’d been “polite,” but she’d then “started on a downward spiral, and it was very noticeable she had issues.”

However, he said, “She didn’t really want to speak about herself ” and “she was always refusing help.”

He also said she eventually “wasn’t the kindest person.”

Strano last saw Anastasia “wrapped in a blanket” sitting on the bench outside Peet’s early in the evening before she died.

“She said, ‘I’m fucking cold,’” Strano said, and he gave her a hand warmer.

Rough expriences

Stu Gerry, who’s co-owned Cafe Flore for about six months, was one of the people who’d had some rough experiences with Anastasia. He said she’d been “a thorn in my side.”

Gerry said she virtually lived on the bench outside his eatery, where “for a long period of time,” she didn’t bother anybody, “but then she would have crazy days.”

Among other problems, he said, Anastasia threatened him or others at least five times. She had said See page 14 >>

SF man arrested in trans stabbing SAN FRANCISCO

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by Seth Hemmelgarn

A

San Francisco man is being accused of trying to fatally stab a transgender woman in an attack that started on a Muni bus last weekend.

Brodes Wayne Joynes, 54, faces charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, battery causing serious bodily injury, false imprisonment, two criminal threats counts, and hate crime enhancement allegations in connection with the January 3 incident, according to Alex Bastian, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office.

Joynes, who’s in custody on $250,000 bail, was set to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon, after the Bay Area Reporter went to press.

In a Facebook post Saturday, Rau Raucci wrote that her friend Samantha Hulsey, 24, “was stabbed twice in the upper chest” as they headed home on Van Ness Avenue.

“We were both on the bus together when a man across the way accused us both of defrauding him by pretending to be female,” Raucci wrote. “At one point he asked Sa-

Courtesy Samantha Hulsey’s Facebook page

Stabbing victim Samantha Hulsey

mantha ‘do you look female?’ for example, and repeatedly called us ‘faggots.’”

He continued harassing them, she said, and the bus driver “stopped to get help.”

After she and Hulsey got up to leave, the man “pulled out a knife” and “followed us out of the bus doors,” she said. The man stabbed

Hulsey once, Raucci said, and she “got a second stab wound trying to get between me and the maniac.”

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, which first reported about the stabbing, the incident started on the 49 bus. The paper also said that a steak knife was used in the attack, and that Raucci is 52.

Raucci and Hulsey agreed through Facebook to be interviewed by the B.A.R. but haven’t spoken directly to the paper.

In her summary of the incident, Officer Grace Gatpandan, a police spokeswoman, said Hulsey and Joynes had been in the back of the bus “in an argument.” Gatpandan indicated the bus stopped at Van Ness and Golden Gate avenues at about 6 p.m. Hulsey was transported to San Francisco General Hospital with a non-life threatening stab wound to the chest, Gatpandan said. Police hadn’t released Joynes’ booking photo as of Wednesday morning.

Muni spokesman Paul Rose said there is video of the incident, which has been submitted to police “for their investigation.”t

Community News>>

t LGBTs welcome new San Jose mayor

January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 3

by Matthew S. Bajko

S

outh Bay residents are heralding the inauguration of Sam Liccardo as San Jose’s 65th mayor as a sea change in relations between City Hall and the LGBT community.

After battling the previous mayor, Chuck Reed, for the past eight years over his refusal to back same-sex marriage, many LGBT residents had turned a cold shoulder to him.

In contrast, even before he took his oath of office January 1, Liccardo had signed on to the Mayors for the Freedom to Marry initiative, upholding a campaign pledge.

In a phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter in late December a day after signing up with the mayoral group online, Liccardo said that it was “long past time for San Jose to join the ranks of other large cities with mayors supporting marriage equality.”

Liccardo, 44, and his wife, Jessica Garc’a-Kohl, live in the Northside section of downtown San Jose.

Elected to the City Council in 2006, he noted that his former district covered areas of the city with large concentrations of LGBT residents.

“I am proud to represent a city with great diversity, which has been a great source of strength to our economy and to our community,” said Liccardo, who has presided over the weddings of several samesex couples. “Our ability to attract talented, creative, innovate people depends on our ability to continue to be the place that welcomes diversity.”

Although the South Bay’s LGBT political club known as BAYMEC, which stands for the Bay Area Municipal Elections Committee, backed his opponent in the mayoral race, Liccardo expects to have a good working relationship with the group. He noted its endorsement decision had more to do with labor union and police interests than with concerns over his record on LGBT issues.

“I understand the political winds blow the way they do. I plan to work strongly with BAYMEC and the

New San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo

LGBT community,” he said. “I think anyone would be hard pressed to point to instances where I have not been supportive.”

James Gonzales, a gay man and San Jose police officer who is president of BAYMEC, told the B.A.R. that having a mayor again who is a proponent of marriage equality “is a breath of fresh air there.”

As for Reed, he “was a mayor you could expect in the Midwest or other parts of the country, certainly not California and certainly not Silicon Valley,” said Gonzales, who as vice president of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association already met with the new mayor to discuss public safety issues. “Having the mayor of the country’s 10th largest city not joining the mayors for marriage equality pledge was a real black eye for our city. Having Mayor Liccardo do that immediately is a great sign and everything points to him being a great partner for our community.”

Santa Clara Unified School District board member Noelani Sallings, a Filipino-American straight ally and former BAYMEC vice president, said the new mayor needs to repair relationships with many of San Jose’s minority communities as well as its unions.

See page 9 >>

Community Initiative offers events compiled by Cynthia Laird

T

he Community Initiative is starting the new year with a full schedule of events for queer men.

The grassroots nonprofit aims to strengthen ties that bind the community’s diverse groups together, and has long held a variety of social and other events.

On Saturday, January 10 the weekly Wilde Chats discussion group will be held at 10 a.m. at Sweet Inspiration, 2239 Market Street. People use the first half hour to determine the topic and then the discussion, using the Socratic Method (loosely), takes place between 11 a.m. and noon.

Later that evening, from 5 to 9 p.m., the initiative will hold Resilient, a monthly social event by and for HIVpositive guys and allies, at Truck, 1900 Folsom Street. There are drink specials for the first hour. There is a suggested donation of $3, although no one is turned away for lack of funds.

On Monday, January 12, from 7 to 9 p.m. the initiative holds Sex Talk, a facilitated, open discussion. The meeting will be held at Magnet, 4122 18th Street. Attendees are encouraged to explore sex, in its broadest

sense, with Richard Carrazza and other men from the community.

For more offerings, visit the group’s Facebook page at h t t p s : / / w w w. f a c e b o o k . c o m / TheCommunityInitiative.

Surrogacy conference for gay men

Our Family Coalition and Men Having Babies will present a surrogacy conference Saturday, January 10 from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street.

The conference will include a comprehensive surrogacy workshop that includes an expert panel on the medical, legal, and psychological aspects of surrogacy; step-by-step guidance and peer advice on picking providers and budgeting; and a resource fair with 20 leading surrogacy providers from across the U.S. and beyond.

There will also be breakout sessions.

Registration is $15 in advance or $20 at the door, and includes lunch and a coffee break. To register, visit http://www.menhav ingbabies. org/surrogacy-seminars/sf-2015/ registration/.

See page 4 >>

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The Bay Area Reporter, the undisputed newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area’s LGBT community and the nation’s longest continuously-published and highest circulation LGBT newspaper, has immediate openings for Freelance Reporters.

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<< Community News

t CA Assembly aging report includes LGBT seniors 4 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

by Matthew S. Bajko

G

reeting all 80 members of California’s Assembly as they return to the Statehouse this month will be a one-inch thick report detailing the needs of the state’s minority senior populations, including LGBT older adults.

Compiled by the Assembly Committee on Aging and Long-Term Care, it is drawn from a series of informational hearings held throughout 2014 that explored “the intersection of diversity and aging.”

A “silver tsunami” is already hitting California, with the state’s population of people age 60 and older expected to reach 13.9 million by 2050, accounting for more than 25 percent of residents.

“It will be an issue that comes up this next legislative session. I think there will be a lot more legislation from different members,” predicted Assemblywoman Cheryl B. Brown (D-San Bernardino), who is the new chair of the aging committee.

The committee’s former chair, Mariko Yamada, who was termed out of the Assembly in December, made it a priority during her final year to conduct seven different hearings regarding aging minority Californians, which included sessions on seniors in the state’s African American, Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, and

<<

News Briefs

From page 3

Fundraiser for elder conference

Organizers with the Howard Grayson LGBT Elder Life Conference will hold a Hot Salsa Sunday benefit January 11 from 3 to 8 p.m. at El Rio, 3158 Mission Street in San Francisco. The cover charge at the door, $8-10, will generously be given to the conference from 3 to 4.

Native American communities.

The other hearings focused on women’s aging concerns and the obstacles men face when they become caregivers for aging adults, whether spouses, relatives, or friends. The one focused on LGBT seniors, held in June, was the first of its kind that Yamada held over her six years of chairing the committee.

While the “Faces of Aging” report doesn’t call for any specific legislation, it is meant to serve as a resource for lawmakers interested in pursuing bills aimed at addressing senior needs.

“I think just pulling the series off in itself, which had not been done before, it is the tip of the iceberg,” said Yamada, who is expected by the end of January to announce her 2016 bid for the District 3 Senate seat covering a number of Bay Area counties. “We did not want to make it a conclusionary – or this is the way it is going to be – series of recommendations. It will be the beginning of the story, not the ending.”

Dating back to 2012 Yamada had wanted the Assembly aging committee to hold a hearing specifically focused on LGBT seniors. That idea morphed into having a more expansive look at minority senior populations in the state over the course of her last year in the Assembly.

The report’s section on LGBT seniors in the Golden State is by far “This is our year for action,” said Sue Englander, conference convener.

This year’s elder conference is scheduled for Saturday, June 6 at the LGBT Community Center. It honors the life and legacy of Grayson, an African-American LGBT activist who died in September 2011. After Grayson’s death in an emergency room, his family and friends were not notified for several days. Grayson was an active member of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic

the longest. It features nine separate reports detailing the various needs of the state’s estimated 215,000 LGB people age 55 and older. (There is no statewide data for the transgender senior population.)

Included are two reports specific to the needs of San Francisco’s nearly 20,000 LGBT residents 60 years of age or older. They are the work of a special LGBT aging panel the city tasked with making recommendations for how to best meet the needs of its graying queer population.

As the Bay Area Reporter noted in a story last week, the Board of Supervisors is expected to see the first local legislation stemming from the

task force’s report be introduced this month. It will require city agencies to collect data on the LGBT people they serve as well as require providers of aging services funded by the city to conduct LGBT cultural competency training with their staffs.

“Clearly, cultural competency issues in the LGBT community requires federal and state attention as well as community attention,” said Yamada during an interview with the B.A.R. in late December.

“It would be a tragedy, specifically in the LGBT community with all the gains that have been made, to not want LGBT elders to feel like they have to go back into the closet in order to get services. We are not going to let that happen.”

Also speaking to the B.A.R. late last month, Brown agreed that a main theme from the hearing on LGBT seniors was the need for caregivers to understand their issues in a culturally competent way. Under a new law that took effect January 1, continuing medical education curriculum in the state must now include a discussion of LGBT-specific issues.

“I think that is the biggest issue,” said Brown. “In the LGBT community, because of the past, they felt as though people didn’t take care of them or didn’t understand their needs. Those are things we have to work on.”

Brown said she had yet to deter-

mine specific aging-related legislation she intends to introduce this year. She said she was reviewing if she should reintroduce a bill that calls for a blue ribbon committee to focus on how the various state departments handle senior issues.

Pointing to the fact that there are 33 different agencies that deal with senior issues, Brown said, “there is a need to have a common place to go to talk about these issues.”

Robert MacLaughlin, a gay man who serves as a consultant to the Assembly aging committee, said the oversight body would readdress the issues in the “Faces of Aging” report as part of its work this year.

He also said the committee staff, as part of its assessments of legislation focused on senior issues, could include a segment on how the bills address the needs – or don’t – of the various minority senior populations covered by the report.

“When a bill comes through committee, one of the new components of analysis can be how does this bill create environments, or support or enhance welcoming environments of inclusion, in programs and services,” said MacLaughlin. “And can this bill be amended to achieve it?”

It is a suggestion Brown said she is likely to adopt.

“That can be our start, our beginning,” she said.t

Club, which is co-sponsoring this weekend’s fundraiser.

Englander said that Grayson believed that LGBT seniors deserved the services, housing, and other resources they needed for safe and vital lives. To that end, he volunteered for and worked with many organizations devoted to those purposes.

The elder conferences, which have been held since 2012, are set up to address the predicaments as well as opportunities of aging in the LGBT

community, Englander noted.

“The convergence of these two life problems for elders in our community has created a crisis, especially for seniors whose HIV/AIDS care depends on maintaining their San Francisco residency,” Englander said. “To worry about losing both at this point in their lives can be overwhelming. We want to promote proactive strategies for dealing with these two inextricably connected issues.”

PrEP forums announced

Assemblywoman Cheryl B. Brown

Two AIDS service organizations have scheduled information sessions for men to learn about using pre-exposure prophylaxis – better known as PrEP, to prevent HIV. The Food and Drug Administration approved Truvada (tenofovir and emtricitabine) for PrEP in July 2012, based in part on data from the iPrEx trial of mostly gay and See page 14 >>

WE HAVE MOVED! dear wonderful neighbors and friends, thank you for the best 5 years ever. we are regretfully leaving our birthPlace at church and market and we are going to miss this magical corner. fortunately, we are moving to a great sPot on the corner of valencia and 19th street!

The magic continues...

Please come visit us for our January 2015 grand oPening

798 Valencia st. @ 19th st Owner | Founder

James Peo

<< Open Forum

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

Volume 45, Number 2 January 8-14, 2015 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 Chuck Colbert • 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 Elliot Owen • 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 Rich Stadtmiller • Steven Underhil Dallis Willard • Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge • Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING Scott Wazlowski – 415.861.5019 ADVERTISING ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Lance Roberts NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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‘Religious liberty’ is the new code

A

s the 2016 presidential race begins, we’re learning that one leading Republican candidate wants to have it both ways – and has flipped and flopped accordingly. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush wants to appear tolerant on the marriage equality issue, while at the same time signal to his conservative base that he’s opposed to it. This week the issue came to the fore as Florida began allowing same-sex couples to wed – becoming the 36th state to do so – and Bush has found code words he can use to appease his supporters: “religious liberty.” As several pundits, gay and straight, have pointed out, by using the term, Bush gains instant credibility with his base.

Mainstream reporters, however, haven’t quite picked up on the finer point of Bush’s nuanced statement, which he made to the New York Times. In it, Bush appeared to be more sympathetic to the nuptials now taking place in his state.

“We live in a democracy, and regardless of our disagreements, we have to respect the rule of law,” Bush said in the statement issued Monday. “I hope that we can show respect for the good people on all sides of the gay and lesbian marriage issue – including couples making lifetime commitments to each other who are seeking greater legal protections and those of us who believe marriage is a sacrament and want to safeguard religious liberty.”

That statement is far softer than the one he first gave to a Miami newspaper. On Sunday, he told the Miami Herald, “It ought be a local decision – I mean, a state decision. The state decided. The people of the state decided. But it’s been overturned by the courts, I guess.”

Since the courts are the place where laws are upheld or overturned, we’re not sure what Bush meant by his statement to the Herald, unless he was trying to

drop the old trope of “activist judges” as appeasement to marriage equality opponents.

While groups like the Human Rights Campaign praised Bush’s Times statement, it remains to be seen how supportive Bush really is.

Religious liberty, after all, is what the owners of Hobby Lobby relied on when they challenged the Affordable Care Act and took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in their favor last year. In its decision, the court allowed the privately held family company to deny certain health coverage for employees under the company’s health plan by saying the owners have religious objections to providing the coverage. (There’s the religious liberty code.)

LGBT legal activists have rightly called the decision a “dangerous and radical departure from existing law,” saying it could provide a means for employers to discriminate against LGBT people by denying coverage for such things as reproductive insemination, gender reassignment treatments, or HIV prevention efforts. In fact, several states have attempted to pass so-called religious liberty laws to allow businesses not to provide services for samesex couples, such as catering or flowers for weddings.

Democrats, however, aren’t buying the new Bush. “It took Jeb Bush 69 words to say absolutely nothing – 69 words not to say, ‘I support marriage equality.’ Nothing’s changed,” Mo Elleithee, communications director for the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement. “At the end of Bush’s statement, he still had the same position: he opposes the right of gay and lesbian Floridians – and all LGBT Americans – to get married and adopt children. If he wants to tell us he’s changed his position, great. But this was not that statement.

It was typical Jeb Bush.”

As Bush continues exploring a presidential bid, he needs to realize that this is not 2012 or even 2008. Today, a majority of states allow same-sex couples to marry, and that’s largely because judges have determined that the ballot amendments passed in the days when Bush’s brother, George, was president aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on and are, in fact, unconstitutional. By the time the 2016 presidential race actually takes place, the Supreme Court may very well conclude that marriage is marriage, no matter whether you’re gay or straight.

San Jose moves into 21st century

Kudos to new San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, who’s been sworn in as the new leader of the Bay Area’s largest city. Liccardo hadn’t even officially taken over when he did the one thing his predecessor refused to do: sign on to the Mayors for the Freedom to Marry campaign. That simple act, done online, speaks volumes about Liccardo’s support of the LGBT community, which suffered under repeated rebuffs from former Mayor Chuck Reed.

We never understood why Reed, a Democrat, was so adamantly opposed to marriage equality, or why it took years for him to personally meet with members of the city’s LGBT community – only to tell them he wouldn’t support same-sex marriage. But Liccardo has delivered new hope for improved relations between the community and City Hall, and that’s a great way to start the new year.t

This is Oakland’s time

by Libby Schaaf

ticularly the ones serving our neighborhoods. We need to help them am proud to be made in Oakgrow with interest-free loans and land. I have lived here all my promote the importance of spendlife, but I have spent my life frusing your money where your heart is. trated by Oakland’s lack of safety Some of my favorite LGBT owned and the inequities of our public businesses include Laurel Bookschools. I have been miffed when store, which just opened an amazing investment has passed us by, and downtown location near City Hall, I have been furious when people and Paws n Claws in my Dimond disrespect our beautiful city with neighborhood, where I buy supplies graffiti, trash and most recently, for my two shelter-adopted cats. with smashed windows. Other It is time we see more businesses cities have shown us that transcalling Oakland home, recognizing formative change is possible. If that today’s millennial workforce they can do it, so can we. wants to both live and work in OakJane Philomen Cleland This is Oakland’s time. It is our land. This city is exciting, this city Oakland City Clerk LaTonda Simmons, left, administers the oath time to finally overcome these is beautiful, and all the smart, cool of office to Mayor Libby Schaaf as her husband, Sal Fahey, and son, longtime challenges and realize Dominic, look on. Daughter Lena is peeking out from behind the podium. people are already here. our city’s great potential. And as It is time to build more housing Oakland’s 50th mayor elected to and lots of it – at all income levlead this incredible city, I am ready and make it easier to transact business and get els – near public transit, so the new to attack these problems with a tenacity and the city to respond faster and more effectively residents who are coming to Oakland do not determination that has never been seen before. to problems like dumping and blight by using push out or price out the Oaklanders who are It is time that we get off the top 10 list of technology and data analytics. It is time to pave already here. It is time that people invest and most dangerous cities in America by relentlessly Oakland’s raggedy roads and to repair and revihelp revitalize Oakland, and do it in a way that focusing on building up our police departtalize our public spaces because our Oakland benefits our long-term residents and lifts up ment, implementing modern commudeserves to look polished and clean. those who have gone too long without decent nity policing practices and expandWe must revitalize and grow, but wages or the ability to build wealth. ing proven prevention efforts like do so in a way that keeps Oakland I know it is time for Oakland because there Ceasefire and restorative justice. affordable and does not push out are so many amazing Oaklanders, so many of It is time we finish implementing what makes Oakland Oakland. them who are part of Oakland’s LGBT comthe police reforms we promised Our Oaklandishness – our divermunity, with a burning commitment to helpto complete a decade ago. sity, our artists, our gritty indusing this city realize its potential right now. Two It is time we provide enough trial flavor, our natural and archisuch committed LGBT Oaklanders include free quality pre-school, so all of tectural beauty, our embracing of my two highest-ranking mayoral staffers – my Oakland’s children start kindersocial movements – that magical chief of staff Tomiquia Moss and my senior garten ready-to-learn, instead of mix that makes up Oakland’s popadviser Peggy Moore, a prominent LGBT acthe unacceptable 40 percent who do so now. It pin’, sizzling secret sauce! As the city with the tivist and founder of Sistahs Steppin’ in Pride. is time we support educational initiatives, like most lesbian couples per capita and the thirdI have lived here all my life, I am finally seethe office of African American Male Achievemost gay and lesbian heads of household of any ing it; I’m feeling it – a time of great progress, ment, to end the morally outrageous racial American city, Oakland’s vibrant LGBT compromise and growth for our city is here. Join disparities in every aspect of educational atmunity is a necessary ingredient in that secret me in saying, it is hella time for Oakland.t tainment – from early literacy, to high school sauce! Oakland’s recipe is one no other city can and college graduation. steal or imitate – and doesn’t it taste great?

Libby Schaaf was sworn in January 5 as It is time to modernize government services It is time to support our small businesses, parOakland’s new mayor.

I

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Letters >>

January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

Sorrow at homeless person’s death

On behalf of Castro Cares (http://www.castrocares.org), I am writing to express our sorrow upon learning of the death of Anastasia, the homeless, possibly transgender woman who lived in the Castro this past year. Many of us in the neighborhood saw her daily. Scarf wrapped around her head, cup of coffee, no socks, talking to herself and often in her own world. She was seriously ill and incredibly vulnerable.

I know I didn’t understand how ill she was, but the homeless outreach team (HOT) workers assigned to Castro Cares did. In mid-September, on their very first day working in the Castro, they asked about her and if I’d seen her lately. They knew her, knew she was very vulnerable and she was a top priority for them. The

homeless outreach workers, several of whom are LGBT, are incredibly culturally competent, expert at what they do and passionate about helping the most vulnerable. But they were unable to help her; and her refusal of help was probably part of her illness.

It’s all so sad; and I was reminded that untreated mental illness really is a fatal disease.

So the next time we walk by someone talking to themselves and seeming out of it, let us understand how vulnerable they are and they need help. Call HOT at 311 or call (415) 7344233 (24/7) or call the police dispatch number at (415) 553-0123. Let’s each of us take action to help the most vulnerable among us.

Andrea Aiello Chair, Castro Cares Executive Director, Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District

San Mateo County LGBTQ Commission selects co-chairs

by Matthew S. Bajko

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

T

he San Mateo County LGBTQ Commission this week named its first female and male co-chairs to lead it in its inaugural year.

Believed to be the first county commission of its kind in California, it was established last summer by the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors at the urging of then board President Dave Pine. In the fall the supervisors named 11 people to serve on the countywide oversight committee.

They increased the number of commissioners from an initial nine seats due to the impressive qualifications of the 50 people who had applied to serve.

At their first meeting in 2015, the night of Tuesday, January 6, the commissioners decided to split the chairmanship duties between lawyer Jennifer Walter, a resident of Half Moon Bay, and Redwood City resident Jason Galisatus, a senior at Stanford who was instrumental in seeking the LGBTQ commission’s creation.

Elected as vice chair was Pacifica resident Richard Faust. A San Francisco firefighter and paramedic, he lost his re-election bid last fall for his seat on the Pacifica School Board.

All three will serve one-year terms.

“Our skills mesh in such a way that we think a co-chair position will provide for strong leadership,” said Galisatus, who interned over the summer in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (DSan Francisco) Washington, D.C. office. “She is a lawyer and has a lot of technical skill. I have a lot of community organizing work under my belt.”

The commissioners have been meeting since October to create a mission statement and establish its priorities. Its strategic plan should be approved in February.

“Last night we made a lot of progress on developing our vision and values,” Galisatus told the Bay Area Reporter in a brief phone interview Wednesday morning. “A clear understanding of our goals and objectives will be presented in February.”

The other members of the commission include San Mateo residents Jei Africa, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist who is director of the San Mateo Health System’s Office of Diversity and Equity, and Stan Kiino, the Association of Flight Attendants SFO Council 11 member and former national co-president for Pride at Work.

Also serving are Dr. Gabriel Garcia of Portola Valley, a gastroenterologist and professor at Stanford University Medical Center; Kate MacKay, who ran for a South San Francisco City Council seat in 2013; East Palo Alto Sanitary District

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Members of the San Mateo County LGBTQ Commission selected as their leaders Co-Chair Jennifer Walter, left, Vice Chair Richard Faust, and Co-Chair Jason Galisatus at the group’s meeting January 6.

board member Glenda Savage; and Pacifica resident Lynn Schuette, who served on the San Mateo County Rainbow Community Assessment Task Force that released a report in 2001 on the issues facing the county’s LGBT community at that time.

The other members of the new LGBTQ commission are transgender activist Stevie Stallmeyer of Menlo Park, and youth representative Alex Neumann of Atherton.

According to a report by the county manager’s office in September, San Mateo supervisors would like the new commission to tackle a variety of issues within the county’s LGBT community. Some of the specific areas it listed were bringing greater recognition and visibility to LGBT events in the county such as annual Pride celebrations; reducing harassment and bullying of LGBTQ youth in local middle schools and high schools; and recommending initiatives to support LGBTQ families with children.

The county board also suggested that the commission develop policy recommendations to improve outcomes for underserved and at-risk segments of the LGBTQ population, including youth, communities of color, non-English speakers, seniors, and immigrants. It would also like the commission to promote transgender inclusion among private and public entities in San Mateo County, including access to health care and to gendered spaces such as bathrooms and shelters.

“It is important for us to be very clear about what we want and how we are going to do it,” said Galisatus.

“We have been really making sure we are doing the ground work and setting a strong foundation to begin to be an effective commission.”

A key issue confronting the commission, said Galisatus, is the lack of demographic information on San Mateo County’s LGBT residents.

“A major concern of the commission is that we don’t have a strong quantitative understanding of the community in terms of data,” he said. “I know that is something we hope to look into ... I know the com-

mission is committed to seeking to better understand the community.”

It is tasked with presenting a report on its work to the county supervisors by the end of the year, though it can suggest policy recommendations at any time. The county hired Honora R. Miller, who is bisexual and has extensive experience working with boards and commissions in San Mateo, to be the LGBTQ commission’s director.

“As it goes forward, one role I play is to bring institutional knowledge to newer commissioners as they come on board,” said Miller, who has worked for San Mateo County since 2000. “Right now a lot of the work is foundational, doing planning and establishing goals and objectives.”

Miller is currently working to update the commission’s webpage, at http://lgbtq.smcgov.org/, and to compile a list of San Mateo County LGBTQ resources and groups.

Anyone with information for the resource guide should email Miller at lgbtqinfo@smcgov.org.

The LGBTQ commission also can be followed via its Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ SanMateoCountyLGBTQ.

Ammiano to consult for Palm Center

Gay former state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has landed a job as a government relations consultant for the Palm Center at San Francisco State University.

The Palm Center, long known for its studies on out service members, announced Wednesday, January 7 that it had hired Ammiano, who was termed out of office in December.

No salary information was disclosed.

His duties will focus on the center’s relations with the administration at SF State; the Board of Trustees of the California State University; and the California State Assembly Committee on Higher Education.

Palm Center Director Aaron Belkin, an SF State political science professor, stated, “I am honored to be associated with Tom Ammiano, who is a true civil rights hero. His assistance will be invaluable in the Palm Center’s relations with educational leaders in San Francisco and Sacramento.”

See page 12 >>

<< Business News

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

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In-home care providers cater to LGBT seniors

by Matthew S. Bajko

W

ithout the support of his in-home care assistants, Elliott Christian would be trapped inside his second floor apartment in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood.

Christian, 78, a gay man who has lived in the city since 1971, has trouble navigating his wheelchair on his own.

“I have to have assistance. I had a stroke recently and it affected my short-term memory and balance,” said Christian, who also has a heart arrhythmia. “But I am as strong as a horse.”

Single and living alone, Christian about 18 months ago opted to hire someone to look after him around the clock. That is how he first met Kenneth Boozer, a certified nursing assistant who was employed at

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an in-home care company.

When Boozer and his partner, Kevin Pete, who is also a certified nursing assistant, opened their own company, Genuine and Personal HomeCare, Christian became their first client last June. The couple shares in providing Christian with round-the-clock assistance during the week, while they hired others to take weekend shifts.

“Ours is the first agency to specialize in LGBT seniors,” said Boozer. “There is a need for services for LGBT seniors.”

Christian prefers to remain at home rather than have to move to an assisted living facility.

“Because it makes me feel like I am at home and not incarcerated,” said Christian, who recommends other seniors look into using inhome care services. “If they can afford it, there is no place like home.”

He is not alone in wanting to age in place in his own abode. A report based on the responses of 616 LGBT seniors over the age of 60 living in San Francisco, which was released in July 2013, found that just 7 percent were in a senior living facility while 88 percent remained in their house, apartment or condominium.

The report also noted that one of the larger unmet needs in the city was in-home care, with only 32 percent of the survey respondents “very confident” they would be able to remain living in their current housing. Among the participants, 14 percent said they already use in-home care services, while 18 percent said there was a need for such offerings.

Many cited the cost as an impediment to seeking out in-home care support. Boozer, 50, and Pete, 39, charge $29 an hour for their services, which can range from light housekeeping work and helping prepare meals to bathing and dressing assistance as well as running errands and providing transportation to medical visits or other appointments. They are based out of Oakland and will work with clients in Alameda County and San Francisco.

“In-home care is one of the fastest growing components to health care,” said Pete. “People want to age in place in the comfort and convenience of their own home. We want to help them to be able to do that.”

Also seeing a need for such services in the East Bay, Karen Wells recently opened a franchise of Nurse Next Door in Walnut Creek to market services to the 900,000 people over the age of 65 living in the area. She offers a variety of options for seniors, from three hours-per-week of companionship and light housekeeping to aroundthe-clock care. The out of pocket cost can be as little as $120 a week depending on the client’s needs and their insurance coverage.

“Right now we have three pillars of care. The first being someone who is independent and doesn’t need as much care,” said Wells, 50, who had been working in commercial real estate. “The second level is someone who needs more care but not medical care. The third level is a person who does need some medical care at home.”

The cost depends on what level of care the person requires, said Wells, who is still in the process of signing up her first clients and hiring staff, including registered nurses. She herself is not trained as a nurse, and instead, focuses on running the business.

Nurse Next Door staff will visit clients in their homes to do an intake and assessment of their needs.

The company’s questionnaire includes asking about a person’s sexual orientation.

Rick Gerharter

Kevin Pete, left, and Kenneth Boozer, right, owners of Genuine and Personal HomeCare, visit with their client, Elliot Christian, in his apartment.

“We are usually in a person’s home one-on-one with them and hope they are comfortable talking to us about it,” said Wells. “Whether it is the religious side of their life or sexual side of their life, we ask those questions. It goes much deeper into who that person is and what they care about.”

With an estimated 20,000 LGBT seniors living just in San Francisco, Boozer and Pete see their being a gay-owned company as an advantage, especially with many older adults wary of coming out to their health care providers due to past experiences with homophobia and discrimination.

“Most everyone just describes themselves as gay-friendly, and that is as far as they will go with it. No one is specifically targeting the LGBT community,” said Pete.

Older LGBT adults should not have to go back into the closet and feel “like a prisoner in their own home,” added Boozer, when hiring an in-home care assistant.

“There are unique needs in the LGBT community. As my partner was saying, there are a lot of LGBT seniors who do not have family,” said Boozer. “Either their family is dead or they have no children.

All they have is themselves or their community. We really felt we needed to reach out to LGBT seniors to make sure they are taken care of and their needs as LGBT adults were met.”

For more information about Genuine and Personal HomeCare visit http://www.gpinhomecare. com or call (510) 285-6484.

To reach Wells with Nurse Next Door call (925) 278-6300 or email karenw@nursenextdoorwalnutcreek.com.

Honor Roll

Longtime gay barber James “Robbie” Robertson has cut his last head of hair at Viking Hair Styling, which claims to be one of the oldest LGBT-owned businesses in the Castro district of San Francisco.

“Hard to believe this is happening,” Robertson said a week before

his last day on Tuesday, December 23 when his final customer was the first person to become a client of his.

Robertson, who turns 80 in March, started working at the business in 1970 when it was located on Market Street. He bought the barbershop in 1974, and in 1980, moved it to its current location near the intersection of 17th and Sanchez streets.

When he turned 65 he sold Viking to his employee Jane Lloyd. He continued to see customers twice a week, but with his becoming an octogenarian, Robertson decided it was time to put down the scissors for good.

“I don’t want to work till I die,” he said.

The secret to his success, he said, wasn’t so much his talent but his personality.

“I don’t think I am the best barber in the world, but my customers love me,” he said.

He is planning several trips this year, one to Italy in October and Puerto Vallarta for Thanksgiving.

He also plans to increase his volunteer hours at Openhouse, the nonprofit that works with LGBT seniors.

Other than that, “I don’t know,” Robertson said when asked about his plans. “I’ve worked all my life.”

District 8 business summit

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and gay Supervisor Scott Wiener are co-hosting a neighborhood business summit for merchants and residents of District 8.

Along with an opportunity to direct business-related questions to Wiener, attendees will also have a chance to address a number of city officials that provide resources to business owners.

PG&E and Recology are sponsoring the free event. It will take place from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, January 14 in the Rainbow Room at the LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street. To register online, visit http:// events.sfchamber.com/events/District-8-Neighborhood-Business-Summit-with-Supervisor-Wiener-2670/ details.t Got a tip on LGBT business news? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 829-8836 or e-mail m.bajko@ ebar.com.

Rick Gerharter

James “Robbie” Robertson, who retired after 44 years as a barber, cuts the hair of Scott Anderson, a customer of 31 years.

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Commentary>>

Fix it

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

E

arly in the morning of December 28, a 17-year-old transwoman by the name of Leelah Alcorn was struck and killed by a semitruck on Interstate 71 near Union Township, Ohio. At 5:30 p.m., hours after the accident, a post by Alcorn automatically posted to her Tumblr page. Displayed with black text on light pink, with a pixilated unicorn cat in the background, it was titled, simply, “Suicide Note.”

“I have decided I’ve had enough,” wrote Alcorn. “There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say ‘it gets better’ but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse. That’s the gist of it, that’s why I feel like killing myself. Sorry if that’s not a good enough reason for you, it’s good enough for me.”

Also in the post, she discussed her life with her parents, a heartbreaking story of rejection.

“When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness,” wrote Alcorn. “After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told

<<

San Jose mayor

From page 3

“People of color and working class people make up half of the city. But he didn’t get much support from them,” said Sallings, who works at San Jose Jazz as its director of business development. “I would like to see him reach out to those groups and labor unions, the police, and fire and really work on building those relationships

January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong.”

According to Alcorn, her parents chose to isolate her, taking away her laptop and phone, and removed her from public school. She was also forbidden from going to a gender therapist, instead being sent to Christianbased conversion therapists.

“I only got more Christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help,” wrote Alcorn.

Just before noon on December 28, Carla Alcorn, Leelah’s mother, posted to her Facebook page, letting family and friends know that her “son ... went home to heaven this morning.” She did not know that Alcorn’s Tumblr – and another post by her on Reddit some time before – would give a very different tale later that day.

In the wake of Alcorn’s death, her parents have been called into CNN and elsewhere, speaking about the “son” that they loved “no matter what,” but how they did not support her transition for religious reasons.

These same parents have since gotten Alcorn’s Tumblr account wiped clean, erasing her last wishes to “fix society.”

“The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was,” wrote Alcorn. “They’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something.”

Alcorn’s death has shaken the transgender community to its foundations. We’re all upset, we are all grieving, and we’re all angry. After a year in which one saving grace has been an increase in trans visibility and legal protections comes a death that we were powerless to prevent – and equally powerless to prevent her family from further erasing her chosen identity.

“Concern trolls” have come out of the woodwork, telling people that we should not share Alcorn’s last words as it could potentially encourage others to follow her lead.

Meanwhile, other trolls have been jamming transgender suicide hotlines, continuing a brutal online campaign to prevent transgender people from accessing help that was born out of some of the dimmer passageways on the Internet.

“My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year,” wrote Alcorn. “I want someone to look at that number and say, ‘that’s fucked up’ and fix it.”

She’s right. It is fucked up. It needs to be fixed.

I talk about anti-transgender murders quite a lot – but stories like this highlight that suicide is just as much an epidemic within the transgender community. A study from American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law at the beginning of last year showed that 41 percent of transgender or gender nonconforming people have attempted suicide at some point. That is nine times the national average. The percentage rises even higher for those who face homelessness, or have turned away from medical care for being transgender. Important to note that this same study also showed a decrease for those who had strong ties with a supportive family.

Alcorn’s parents may well be a

again. With the past mayor, a lot of damage was done with those groups.”

The divide between Reed and LGBT leaders became so heated that gay Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager, a former San Jose city councilman, refused to meet with Reed during his two terms as board president, eschewing the customary practice of weekly sit downs between the leader of the countywide body and the Bay Area’s largest city.

Yeager told the B.A.R. during a recent interview that he stopped meeting with Reed “because I just couldn’t stand communicating with somebody who didn’t think I should have the same rights as he had. Sam is a totally different animal. He is very supportive of gay issues.”

While he backed his board colleague, Supervisor Dave Cortese, in the mayoral race, Yeager attended Liccardo’s inauguration ceremony,

Tuesday, January 6 at the Center for Performing Arts. Administering the oath of office to the mayor was retired state appellate justice LaDoris Hazzard Cordell, who is black and an out lesbian and San Jose’s independent police auditor. Cordell swore Yeager into office when he won his city council seat 14 years ago.

“I am very excited about Sam being the new mayor,” said Yeager, who with his partner has regularly

Christine Smith

lost cause. They loved their son so much that they were willing to lose their daughter. They’ve chosen to pretend that this entire, vital part of their child’s life simply did not exist. I suppose that’s their right to do, even though I personally feel they were plenty culpable in her death.

There are a great many other parents out there, however, and a whole lot more young transfolk of all stripes that need support and need help. It is up to all of us to reach our hand out and do so.

Our community needs to look ahead.

We need to look for ways we can help provide a nurturing, supportive environment for our youth. How can we reach out to the next Leelah Alcorn, give them hope, and provide for them the strength to carry on.

We also need to do what we can to stand with our larger LGBT community and together see an end of conversion therapy that seeks to “pray away the gay.” These same therapists are preying on us as much as they prey on our lesbian, gay, and bi youth.

We need to fix it. Not just in Alcorn’s memory, but for every other young transgender person.t Gwen Smith wants more lives to celebrate, not mourn. You’ll find her at @gwenners on Twitter.

dined with Liccardo and his wife.

“We have had a total void in welcoming LGBT people here. We see a lot of talent going up to San Francisco; we need to do more to keep LGBT people in San Jose.”

LGBT issues

There are several LGBT issues facing Liccardo as he assembles his new administration, including hirSee page 10 >>

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<< Community News

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

Camp for gender-variant kids takes off

by Heather Cassell

M

arci was relieved when she found Camp Aranu’tiq for her 13-year-old daughter, Nikki, three years ago. It was a different experience from her first trip to summer camp when Nikki was in the sixth grade. This time Marci didn’t have to explain to camp leaders that Nikki is a transgender girl, which pronouns to use, or educate camp leaders about which camp she should be in and which bathroom she should use.

Instead of coming home upset because things went awry, Nikki returned happier than Marci had seen her daughter in years.

Marci and Nikki requested that their last names not be used to protect their privacy.

Prior to Nikki attending the nonprofit Camp Aranu’tiq, now operating as Camp Aranu’tiq of Harbor Camps, Marci was concerned about her. She watched as her usually happy daughter grew older and started becoming withdrawn because she was being forced to live as a boy, Marci said. Nikki has known she wasn’t a boy since she was 2 years old, she and her mother told the Bay Area Reporter.

Nikki said that she had some “ups and downs,” believing that she was alone and “not with any sort of community or anything.”

Marci began searching for how to help her daughter live as her “true authentic very girly self,” she said. During her research she stumbled upon a video about Camp Aranu’tiq.

“Then I went to camp [and] I noticed that there are a lot more people like me and I’m not alone,” said Nikki. “I’m very grateful for that.”

Marci agreed.

“It was amazing. When we picked her up I just saw a difference in her.

She just seemed more comfortable and I could tell that she had the best time and didn’t have to worry about her gender at all,” said Marci.

It was a change for Nikki, who is the only transgender kid at her school in their conservative Central California town and was transitioning that first year of camp in 2010.

“It’s a pretty amazing camp for sure,” Nikki said.

That’s because at Camp Aranu’tiq being transgender or gender-variant isn’t unusual, it’s the norm.

Camp Aranu’tiq, which is the Chugach Eskimo word for twospirited, is a camp for transgender and gender-variant kids. It has locations in New Hampshire and California.

The camp was a big part of Nikki’s transition and Marci has been sending her daughter there every summer since. She hopes to send Nikki to camp again this year.

At Camp Aranu’tiq trans kids simply enjoy being at camp. They don’t have to worry about basic things such as being questioned by other campers and staff about staying in the boy’s or girl’s campground or which bathroom to use or uncomfortable moments of being referred to by the incorrect gender.

“The kids can just be who they are and there’s no worries about their gender because it doesn’t matter, they are just kids,” Marci said. “They are just there to have fun and experience camp like other kids without worrying about their gender, which is something they worry about all of the time when they are at home.”

At Camp Aranu’tiq the days are filled with arts and crafts, drama, and music culminating in a talent show at the end of the week. Kids also enjoy outdoor activities, such as canoeing; “gaga,” a type of dodge ball; windsurfing; swimming; hiking; and exploring nature. Many of the camp counselors identify as trans and serve as role models to the genderqueer youth, wrote Tori Gabriel, MBA-HA, director of development of Camp Aranu’tiq, in an email.

Summer memories

Nick Teich, LCSW, founder and CEO of Camp Aranu’tiq, loves hearing comments like those from Marci and Nikki.

“It’s wonderful,” said the 31-yearold straight trans man, who launched the camp five years ago while he was earning his master’s degree in social work at Boston College.

“It just makes me feel so grateful to be able to do what I do,” said Teich, who enjoys the positive feedback and simply seeing the kids “having fun and letting go.”

Courtesy Camp Aranu’tiq of Harbor Camps

Nikki, left, with friend Zoey, (their last names are omitted for privacy) get ready for the annual formal dinner at Camp Aranu’tiq in California.

Courtesy Camp Aranu’tiq of Harbor Camps

Camp Aranu’tiq participants prepare to catch a fellow camper in the “trust fall” at the California camp.

“It’s all for them and its super fun at the same time,” he added.

At the time, he was volunteering at a camp, not the one that he grew up attending, and he began to go through his transition. The camp leadership asked him to leave. Upset by the situation he began thinking about what happens to kids who are transitioning at a younger age.

Doing some research, he quickly found out that there weren’t any overnight camps that catered to trans kids.

Additionally, many parents of transgender kids were resigned to not having the opportunity to send their kids to summer camp. Further complicating matters, many mainstream camp leaders and staff members were apprehensive

<<

San Jose mayor

From page 9

ing a new, permanent city manager.

National LGBT advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign penalized San Jose on its 2014 Municipal Equality Index for not having, for instance, an LGBT liaison at either City Hall or within the police department. Out of a possible score of 100, San Jose earned a mark of 88.

Asked about the city’s score by the B.A.R., Liccardo said he is willing to address each of the areas where San Jose lost points. In terms of the liaison position, he said he is “happy to designate” someone to be a point person with the LGBT community but would wait to do so until he had finished hiring his team at City Hall.

“I have no objection to myself or someone on my staff to be routinely meeting with community members to discuss LGBT issues,” he said. “I hope and expect the LGBT community will find they have a friend in the mayor’s office.”

He was less sure of a need for a liaison at the police department, though he was not opposed to it.

“Knowing several officers who are out has led me to believe it has not been a source of concern,” said Liccardo. “Now, of course, if I learn otherwise that is something we need to do.”

about the “trans kid question” and believed it was too difficult to deal with kids who didn’t fit in with the general gender binary system and the needs of the rest of the campers, he explained.

Knowing how his experience as a transgender adult and recalling his summer camp years and how transformational they were for him he wanted other trans kids to have the same experience.

A new type of camp

At first, Teich thought it would be a passion project he volunteered for in his spare time, he said, but Camp Aranu’tiq has experienced exponential growth.

In five years, Teich has grown the camp from its East Coast location

In terms of the city providing transgender-inclusive health care benefits to employees or enacting a city contractor equal benefits ordinance – two other areas where San Jose lost points on the HRC index – Liccardo said he is open to discussing the merits of enacting both.

Before adding transgender health benefits, Liccardo said he “would want to talk to our bargaining unit representatives and our staff about the costs of doing so. Presuming it is not cost prohibitive, I would support going forward.”

Regional issues

Asked about his endorsement of Liccardo to be San Jose’s new mayor, gay San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener said, “I’ve known Sam for over 20 years.”

Liccardo attended law school at Harvard with Wiener, gay Supervisor David Campos, and Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco).

“He’s terrific,” Wiener said. “He’s very smart, he’s very policy-oriented, and he thinks regionally, and so he’ll be a good regional partner. I was happy to endorse him.”

Several regional issues, from housing to transportation needs, will confront Liccardo during his first year as mayor. He is a big champion of building a downtown base-

t

that saw 40 kids its first year in 2010 to adding a West Coast location, a leadership camp for youth ages 1618, and a family camp, called Harbor Camp, for families with LGBTQ parents. The camp now serves nearly 400 youth and families annually.

“I’m very surprised,” said Teich.

The cost for Camp Aranu’tiq/ Leadership Camp is $700 (one week) or $1,400 (two weeks). Family camp rates are $225 per adult and $175 per child (children under 2 years of age are free).

It was his vision to simply allow the kids to have the summer camp experience of his childhood and not to process what it means to be transgender.

“I guess it’s organically therapeutic, it just sort of happens by kids being themselves and being with others who have gone through or are going through similar things,” said Teich. “We really want them to be their 100 percent authentic selves at camp. That’s all we ask.”

This year is a big one for Camp Aranu’tiq. Teich and his team of three full-time employees, including himself, and a group of mostly volunteer camp counselors will see the fruits of their labor. Last year they launched a $3.6 million capital fundraising campaign. They are currently at 61 percent of their fundraising goal, and plan to purchase a new campground in New Hampshire.

He also rebranded the camp changing the overarching name to Harbor Camps to serve more underserved communities, said Teich.

The new 116-acre New Hampshire camp features a mile of lakefront, can house up to 200 cabins or tents.

Last year, Teich expanded family camp to include LGBT families. The camp is also heading west to California for the first time, March 2729. The East Coast camp is expanding from one week to an optional two weeks at Camp Aranu’tiq and the Leadership Camp, said Gabriel and Teich.

To protect the kids and respect parents’ privacy the sites of the camps aren’t publicly disclosed, said Teich, who travels between the camp locations to serve as director during the season.

For 2015 camp dates, visit www. camparanutiq.org or www.harborcamps.org. For applications, visit http://aranutiqforms.webs.com.t ball stadium in San Jose as a new home for the Oakland Athletics.

“I don’t know any other city in the country with the opportunity to have private investors finance a half a billion dollar catalyst for economic development in the heart of their city,” he said. “Urban ball parks have had a transformative impact in cities from Baltimore to Denver to San Diego. And so long as taxpayers are protected, there is no downside for San Jose residents.”

His stance may cause friction with Oakland’s new mayor, Libby Schaaf, who also was sworn into office this week. Yet Liccardo said his entreaties to the A’s are not driven by a desire to steal them away from Oakland but have more to do with not wanting to see them depart the region.

“The A’s are going to leave Oakland. Whether they go to San Jose or some other city is not the issue,” he said. “There is no plausible future scenario where the team considers to stay and play where it is losing money. I would like to keep the A’s in the Bay Area and San Jose provides for the best option of doing it.”

He could also find himself at odds with San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee over transit funding priorities and See page 14 >>

Community News>>

t Ex-caregiver charged in theft from disabled lesbian

by Lois Pearlman

T

he Sonoma County District Attorney’s office has charged a disabled lesbian’s former caregiver with stealing $65,000 from the legally blind Guerneville woman.

According to Melanie “Mel” Stapper, who lost her sight when she and two other San Francisco firefighters were trapped in a burning home in 1995, Kimberley Van Vorst forged checks and made unauthorized money withdrawals using Stapper’s credit card.

“She started out borrowing money by telling lies, then taking my ATM card, sometimes withdrawing money three times in a day,” Stapper said. “Eventually she stole my checkbook.”

Stapper, 54, said she met Van Vorst in 2012 when the former Sacramento woman was working as a deli clerk at the Guerneville Safeway.

She hired Van Vorst to care for her 87-year-old mother who had come to Guerneville in the last weeks of her life.

After her mother’s death, Stapper, who suffers from brain damage induced blindness, kept Van Vorst on as her own assistant. But, not being able to see her own financial records, Stapper said she was unaware that Van Vorst was stealing. When Van Vorst left, Stapper hired a new assistant who discovered discrepancies in Stapper’s finances.

According to Stapper, the money that Van Vorst allegedly stole was Stapper’s inheritance from her mother.

“She wanted to fulfill some of my dreams for me, and Kim knew that,” Stapper said of her deceased mother.

The dreams, according to Stapper, included travel, fixing up her vintage 1873 Guerneville home, and

January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 11

hiring someone to help her write a book about her life. She said she also enjoyed being able to help other people with her money.

“When I had money I used to be able to do nice things for people. I bought the workers at Safeway a picnic table. I can’t really be generous anymore. Kim took that away from me. I lost a lot of faith in people because of this.”

But, according to Sonoma County Deputy District Attorney Joe Langenbahn, Stapper might be able to recover some of her money if a jury finds Van Vorst guilty of the charges against her.

“Restitution would be a mandatory part of sentencing,” he said.

Stapper, however, is doubtful that she will ever see her money again because she believes that Van Vorst has already spent it. Although the charges against Van Vorst allege a theft of $65,000, Stapper said she

Now, following Van Vorst’s arrest in August, Stapper’s new assistant has created a Facebook page asking anybody who is able to donate money so Stapper can restore some of her losses. There is also a petition at Change.org requesting that Van Vorst receive “just punishment.”

A preliminary hearing for Van Vorst is scheduled for January 28 in Sonoma County Superior Court.

Her attorney Kevin McConnell did not return the Bay Area Reporter’s calls seeking comment.t

Lois Pearlman

Former San Francisco firefighter Melanie (“Mel”) Stapper

believes it was $135,000.

“The idea that someone could do this is stunning,” Stapper said.

For donation information, visit “Calling All Philanthropists! Mel Got Screwed!” on Facebook. For the change.org petition, visit https://www.change.org/p/jillravitch-d-a-impose-full-legal-actions-against-the-predator-thatvictimized-retired-firefightermelanie-mel-stapper-includingbut-not-limited-to-pc-368-theftfrom-elder-dependent-adult.

End of rental subsidy may mean homelessness for trans vet

by David-Elijah Nahmod

T

he end of a rental subsidy might result in homelessness for a senior transgender military veteran.

Hollie Beck, an artist and veteran, is facing the possible loss of her Richmond district apartment. Beck said that she’s lived in her apartment near the Balboa Theatre for over 20 years, but the death of her 86-yearold spouse has made it impossible for her to keep up with her unit’s $1,600 monthly rent. Beck receives $720 per month in Social Security.

Beck, 73, told the Bay Area Reporter that she transitioned at around age 40.

“The reality about transitioning in the 1950s is that it wasn’t a reality,” she said. “As a child I knew I was different. I got tired of living in a

false, gay male closet. I came to San Francisco for the promise of a new beginning.”

She found what she was looking for, she said. But now, like many longtime residents, she feels the squeeze of the escalating evictions and skyrocketing rents across the city.

“To speculate on the backs of others is a terrible thing to do,” she said. “It sucks the blood out of the city. There’s room for everybody.”

Beck hopes to stay in her apartment. Food is not an issue for her, as she receives food stamps and has signed up for several senior meal programs. Her basic expenses are low: she has a landline, but not a cell phone, and doesn’t use the Internet.

The only issue she faces is making her rent.

Brian Basinger, director of the

Jane Philomen Cleland

Trans artist and veteran Hollie Beck

AIDS Housing Alliance, is trying to help Beck stay in her home. Since last August, Beck has been a client T:9.75” Homelessness in AHA’s LGBTQ Prevention and Rapid Rehousing

program. Beck is HIV-negative, but AHA has expanded its services to include seniors, the disabled, and illnesses other than HIV, according to Basinger.

“As part of our work with HESPA [Homeless Emergency Services Providers Association] we have been successful in getting $800,000 plus in add-back funds from the Board of Supervisors,” Basinger explained.

The funds, he said, would cover needs-based rental subsidies for senior and disabled San Franciscans, and would specifically target the disproportionate unmet needs of the LGBTQ and HIV communities.

Through Swords to Plowshares, a veteran assistance organization, Basinger was able to negotiate with Beck’s landlord and provide a rental subsidy. Beck’s housing was covered

through December.

But now, a more permanent rental subsidy is needed. AHA helped with January’s rent, and continues to apply for a permanent subsidy that will keep Beck’s rent covered indefinitely.

Both Basinger and Beck said that Beck’s landlord, Tom Ng, is working with them. Ng did not return a request for comment made through Basinger about the situation.

“I’m not throwing in the towel just yet,” Basinger said. “We are raising funds to keep Hollie housed while we apply for, and hopefully secure, some grant proposals. We are also working on helping her find a more permanently affordable place to live.”

Beck remains hopeful.

“I still feel alive,” she said. “San Francisco means so much to me.

I’m alive here in San Francisco.”t

I can’t schedule an accident.

So I got a health plan.

Maurice’s business can be physically demanding, and accidents can happen. With a health plan through Covered California, he can focus on his work and not worry about unexpected medical costs. To find free in-person enrollment help, or to see if you’re eligible for financial help paying for your coverage, visit CoveredCA.com.

T:7.625”

Are You?

Find health insurance at CoveredCA.com Don’t wait! Open enrollment ends February 15.

TM

<< Sports

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

In defense of masculinity

by Roger Brigham

W

e begin the new year with a new era in college football and a fresh round of playoffs in professional football. Over the next few weeks this will provide a tremendous source of inspiration for betting fools and conspiracy theorists, many of whom will tell you about the relative incompetence of the folks who selected the four teams that made up the inaugural college Division I championship series, leaving the states south of the Mason-Dixon Line woefully underrepresented, and why it will be necessary to expand the college playoffs to eight teams – or 16, or 32. Others will try passionately to persuade you that the NFL conspired to knock the Detroit Lions out of the playoffs with a blown pass interference call, or corral you into conversations about which of the current top quarterbacks is the league’s Most Valuable Player, worthy of our undying admiration above all others, living or dead.

But these discussions do not intrigue me.

I spent much of the past year reading distressing news, occasionally dominating the sports headlines, more often just filling up background notes, that made me wonder just how

healthy things are in the supposedly good-for-you world of sports. Stories about football players who beat their kids with sticks or girlfriends with their fists. Stories about swimming and diving coaches who sexually abused their athletes, then had their transgressions tolerated and covered up by the very aquatics organizations that are supposed to exist for the betterment of the athletes. Stories about universities that drop women coaches when their salaries or coaching styles become too much like the men’s. Stories about athletes heaping verbal and physical abuse, ripe with racial and homophobic overtones, on teammates and opponents they perceive as weaker than themselves.

Sadly, I have read stories like these not just in the past year, but in virtually every year of my life.

Stories of harassment and bullying, stories of violence and betrayal, stories of unbridled arrogance and corruption. And then, inevitably, I read expert commentaries that seek to lay the blame at its source: the scourge of sports that, in oftrepeated opinions, is at the root of all evil in modern athletics.

Masculinity. The cult of masculinity. The arena of masculinity. Hypermasculinity. Masculinity run amok.

Again and again, I hear apologists

DISPLAY OBITUARIES & IN MEMORIAMS

and attackers cite masculinity as the driving force that drags sports down into the gutter. But it is a simplistic explanation that I must reject utterly.

I would say the common thread in the dismal stories I have cited is not an excess of masculinity, but rather a failure to adhere to “masculine values.”

The vast majority of my personal values were instilled in me by my father – a feisty self-made man with a deep-seated Napoleonic complex.

They were instilled in me through sound bites and life lessons that reverberate through the years, nuggets that provided strength and clarity in moments of peril and indecision.

Service to others before yourself. Never let fear make a decision for you. Attack problems head on.

Defend those who need defending.

Never take what is not yours to take.

Do what is right no matter the pain.

Now, do men have a monopoly on these masculine values? Hell, no. But for me, they lie at the core of the masculine ideal. And I think what we have seen in the male-dominated sports world too often is a failure to teach and uphold those masculine values.

There is nothing inherently masculine about being a bully, about being a racist, about being a sexist.

Those are signs of immaturity, of weakness. Arrogance and sense of privilege are failures of the human heart. That such behavior exists so often in sports indicates to me that too many parents and coaches have

Former NFL player Ray Rice, shown at a news conference last year with his wife, Janay, where he talked about punching her in a casino elevator.

lost sight of what they should have been teaching their young ones: that to be a champion, you must be a champion for and of something beyond your own benefit.

The first Sunday of 2015, however, I was not reading stories. I was attending a holiday party for a community-based youth wrestling club.

It is one of a few initiatives I was able to help launch in the San Francisco area to help revitalize the sport of wrestling locally, and I was intrigued to see where it was headed.

The party was held in the home of one of the high school wrestler’s families in Marin County. The club supports a small number of young wrestlers (currently six boys and one girl) with extracurricular intense practices and training. On this day, they gathered with their parents

and their friends and their siblings and their coaches and spent the day eating, taking pictures, joking, and sharing memories.

I sat at a table and perused two photo albums the club had assembled from its past training sessions. The pages were filled with scraps of paper, which in turn were filled with words of encouragement and inspiration.

They were words about personal responsibility and sacrifice and accountability. They were words about trying to make the people around you better every day of your life. They were the words the athletes had heard from their coaches and had told each other. They were the words they tried not just to say, but to live.

Here’s hoping they’re the kinds of words we can read more about in 2015.t

next day for a week of kayaking and sunshine in Tomales Bay. Mr. Letellier, 51, is a professional writer and a native of Mystic, Con-

necticut. Mr. Collyer, 54, is a psychiatrist and a native of Chile. Both men have lived in the Bay Area for the past three decades and consider it their home. They met online and have lived together for five years in Butano Canyon, near Pescadero, California, with their dog Matthew.

The marriage reaffirmed their loving commitment to each other and to living together through times good and difficult. They enjoy their house in the redwoods, hiking, backpacking, traveling, and reading together in bed. They are also delighted that after beginning their seventh year together, they still set that bed on fire.t

Wedding announcements compiled by Cynthia Laird Patrick Gerald Letellier and George Henry Collyer

The Bay Area Reporter can help members of the community reach more than 120,000 LGBT area residents each week with their display of Obituary* & In Memoriam messages.

Patrick Gerald Letellier and George Henry Collyer were married at San Francisco City Hall on December 19, 2014, after six years of courtship. Their marriage was witnessed by their dear friend, Rachel Bauman. The marriage was followed by a day of enthusiastic consummation at the Harbor Court Hotel and walking on the Embarcadero in blissful post-coital reverie. That evening they gathered with a handful of friends for dinner at Zuni Cafe, their favorite restaurant, leaving the

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In the release Ammiano, an SF State graduate, stated, “It is a pleasure to work with the Palm Center, which has provided outstanding service and unique value to the university community, the people of California and the LGBT community nationally.”

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JANUARY 29 www.ebar.com/besties

Political Notebook

From page 7

Lee picks library activist as D3 supe

Wednesday afternoon San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee appointed North Beach neighborhood activist

<<

VOTING BEGINS

t

Employment post

From page 1

“This is what we want,” Kendell, a lesbian, said. “We want LGBT people to be in a position” where they can have influence, “where they can be out and open, where they can serve as examples and mentors, and where hopefully they can engage in advocacy,” particularly when it comes to “the most vulnerable” people in the state, LGBT or otherwise.

One issue Kendell would like to see addressed is the lack of affordable housing.

“We’re living with that reality every day in San Francisco,” she said.

“An agency like this with leadership that can think outside the box can perhaps design and help implement policies to assist low-income individ-

and businesswoman Julie Christensen to the vacant District 3 seat on the Board of Supervisors. Lee made the announcement at the new North Beach Library, which Christensen helped champion.

Christensen will be sworn into office Thursday, January 8 in time to help elect the board’s president for the new term. District 4 Supervisor Katy Tang has been serving as the interim board president since December due to former president David Chiu’s resignation from the D3 seat following his election to the city’s 17th As-

sembly District seat.t

uals in securing affordable housing.”

Phyllis Cheng, who left the DFEH director’s post in the fall, retired from state service and has resumed private practice. Annmarie Billotti served as acting director.

several years ago that allows the governor’s office to veto without public disclosure any discrimination complaints filed by public employees,” among other issues.

In response to emailed questions, DFEH spokeswoman Fahizah Alim said the agency isn’t required to submit requests “seeking approval from the governor’s office before initiating a lawsuit against a public entity.”

Alim also said, “We’re pleased” with Kish’s appointment, and department employees “look forward to working with him when he begins.”

Almeida seemed certain Kish is up to the task of leading the department.

“He’s managed employees, and he’s managed large and complex cases,” Almeida said. “I am completely confident he can help fix the mistakes of his predecessors.”t

Troubled agency

If Kish’s appointment is confirmed, he’ll be heading an agency that has had some problems.

According to a January 2014 Sacramento Bee story, the State Personnel Board had concluded DFEH “twice promoted an employee into jobs for which she wasn’t qualified.”

Department officials had said “they didn’t violate civil service laws,” the Bee says, but the story also mentions “recent news reports” that included allegations that DFEH had “quietly signed off on an agreement

Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http:// www.ebar.com Monday mornings at noon for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion.

The column returns Monday, January 12.

Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes.

Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 8298836 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.

t

International News>>

January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 13

Trans woman elected mayor of Indian city

by Heather Cassell

A

transgender woman who ran as an independent mayoral candidate made history when she was elected mayor of Raigarh, India.

The win by Madhu Kinnar, 35, was a major upset. She garnered 4,537 votes against opponent Mahaveer Guruji, a member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, on January 4.

Outgoing Mayor Mahendra Chauhatha, who was also a member of the BJP, was denied another bid for the office by party officials.

Kinnar invested her own money, an estimated $945 to $1,102 (60,000-70,000 rupees), to support her bid for the mayor’s office, reported the Press Trust of India.

Kinnar is the first transgender individual in the state to be elected as mayor. Her win comes on the backs of transgender candidates Madhya Pradesh and Kamla Jaan, who were both elected by the citizens of Katni (1999) and Sagar (2009). The two transgender women didn’t get a chance to fulfill their tenure heading their respective cities. Both elections

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Oakland mayor

From page 1

Schaaf ’s remarks, delivered via a wireless mic as she walked around the stage, were long on praise and her love for the city but short on specific policy proposals. She did propose free pre-school for all Oakland kids, but did not say how such a program would be paid for.

In one of her more humorous lines about bringing new business to town, she suggested Google would benefit from setting up shop in the city.

“Google, you wouldn’t need all those buses if you just opened an office here,” she quipped, as San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, whose administration was criticized last year for allowing the tech buses to use Muni stops, sat a few rows back in the theater.

In a brief interview as he was leaving, Lee said that he looks forward to working with Schaaf.

“She expresses strong appreciation for all the challenges Oakland’s got,” Lee said. “I’ll work with her as much as I can.”

Schaaf, 49, also talked about the need for more housing “at all levels” in the city, built near transit, but added, “When new people come in, we don’t push people out.”

In a nod to her reputation as someone who can get things done, Schaaf, who served on the City Council for four years and was a City Hall aide prior to seeking elected office, said that she would run the city “with a determination and a tenacity that you haven’t seen.”

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Police districts

From page 1

Including Polk would also mean cutting through Civic Center, which is the site of the city’s LGBT Pride celebration and numerous other events.

Police Chief Greg Suhr, the command staff, and the working group “were really trying to avoid having a lot of carve outs,” Cherniss said.

“We wanted cleaner lines to make it easier for everyone to work with.”

The captain also said he’s heard concerns about his station picking up the added burden of the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall at Market and Fifth streets.

“I’m not for or against it one way or another,” Cherniss said of the proposed inclusion.

Asked whether he has enough

were declared null and void by the courts as the offices were reserved for women, reported the Indian Express.

The win comes nine months after the Indian Supreme Court’s landmark ruling legally recognizing transgender individuals, also known as hijras, a community that is estimated to be as large as 2 million in India.

The decision was a monumental win for a community that has historically been denied many rights and pushed to the sidelines of society forcing individuals to often beg on trains or turn to prostitution to earn a living. In one fail swoop the court declared all legal documents include a third category for transgender individuals and instructed the government to designate separate public bathrooms and special hospital wards for transgender people.

The ruling came after the same court reinstated Section 377, the country’s colonial era anti-sodomy law.

Raigarh, the sixth largest city in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh with 300,000 residents, is a bustling center of industry and steel plants.

Both political parties accepted the defeat.

“People of Raigarh were fed up with the corruption of the BJP, hence they voted for Madhu,” Narendra Negi, president of the Raigarh district Congress, told the Trust.

Chauhatha, who will give up his office to Kinnar, pointed out that the people rejected both of the leading party candidates.

make a bid for the mayor’s office. At that time she stopped dancing and singing to focus on her campaign, she told reporters after her win.

“It was public support that encouraged me to enter the poll fray for the first time,” said Kinnar.

“Because of their support only, I emerged as the winner.”

For the people, by the people

An Egyptian judge in Cairo announced that he’s postponing until January 12 his verdict in the trial against 26 men who were arrested at a bathhouse for alleged “debauchery.”

Four of the men face charges of “running a place that organizes paid sexual orgies,” reported the Associated Press.

Consensual same-sex relationships aren’t specifically outlawed in Egypt but there is social stigma as homosexuality is taboo in the conservative country.

Debauchery is often code for homosexuality.

The arrest and circumstances have angered global LGBT and human rights activists.

Kinnar, who stepped out into the media limelight after the election, told reporters that she was overwhelmed, but focused on her new job.

“People have shown faith in me. I consider this win as love and blessings of people for me,” said Kinnar.

“I’ll put my best efforts to accomplish their dreams.”

She plans on giving transgender people municipal jobs so they no longer have to beg on trains for a living and to revive the ration cards, which were halted in recent years due to a fake ration cards scam, reported the Express.

Kinnar, who dropped out of school in the eighth grade, was shunned by her family until her victory.

Born Naresh Chauhan into a

Egyptian judge postpones verdict in bathhouse case

Courtesy Hindu Business Line

Newly elected Mayor Madhu Kinnar

working class family, Kinnar, like many transgender people, displayed her gender identity throughout childhood, according to her father Nanki Ram. Prior to her transition she was married and has three children, but left the marriage and joined the Dalit caste. She danced and sang on the trains and performed in street plays and folk dances to earn money.

She had no political ambitions until the public encouraged her to

Schaaf told reporters that she spent Tuesday, her first day on the job, at Oakland Police headquarters where she met with every line-up change and talked to officers.

Brendalynn Goodall, president of the East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club, told the Bay Area Reporter that she found Schaaf ’s speech “interesting.”

“The theme was about new beginnings and a new era,” Goodall said. “Libby’s a great cheerleader and I wish her the best. But the question is how to pull people in to rally the community.”

Goodall, who said that Schaaf was one of her votes under the city’s ranked choice voting but that she backed former Mayor Jean Quan, said that like Schaaf, she is an Oakland native.

“I’ve been here 64 years,” Goodall said. “I’m very passionate about Oakland.”

Neither Schaaf nor any of the other elected officials specifically mentioned LGBTs in their remarks, and given that the city touts itself as having the highest concentration of lesbian couples in the country, some found the omission surprising, including Goodall.

But Schaaf, in an op-ed she wrote for this week’s B.A.R., did announce that two lesbians would assume high-profile roles in her administration. She said that her chief of staff is Tomiquia Moss and her senior adviser is Peggy Moore, a longtime LGBT leader in Oakland who was Schaaf ’s campaign manager.

Goodall, who said she heard the news from Moore, said that the

women were “inspired hires” by the new mayor.

“I think Libby’s staff is diverse,” Goodall said.

Schaaf also gave a shout out to Quan, who was in the audience.

“I’m incredibly grateful for outgoing Mayor Jean Quan,” Schaaf said. “Thank you, Mayor Quan, for leaving me a great foundation on which to build.”

During her speech, Schaaf touched on the recent protests that have engulfed the city on a regular basis for more than a month. The protests, like those in other cities, stem from the failure of grand juries in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, New York to indict white police officers in the shooting deaths of unarmed black men.

While Schaaf said she is “frustrated” by the lack of public safety and eco-

nomic disparities, she also said she was angry at the recent vandalism that some people have caused to local businesses and the Christmas tree in Jack London Square and the vandals’ “disrespect for our city.”

Protesters lined the outside of the Paramount before the ceremony began, remaining silent and holding “Black Lives Matter” signs. Some of them slipped into the audience inside and began singing, “Which Side Are You On” as a banner with those words was unfurled from the balcony. The banner was later removed and the singing stopped after the Pledge of Allegiance was recited.

Re-elected Councilwoman Desley Brooks, who wore a Black Lives Matter T-shirt, gave an impassioned speech about how some people in Oakland are disenfranchised.

“I wore this T-shirt for a reason,”

staff to cover the proposed area, Cherniss said, “At the moment, no,” but he’s “waiting to see” how many officers would be proposed for the new boundaries.

“I think that’s the real issue people have,” he said. “... The concern I’ve heard is they think [the area] is too much, but my feeling is if we have the officers, we can do it.”

Cherniss said Proposition 47 could also have an impact. The new state law reduces petty crimes and simple drug possession to misdemeanors.

“We have yet to see how that’s going to impact our retail theftrelated cases,” he said of the law. “It puts the onus on the retailer a little bit.”

Cherniss said there was an effort to hear the concerns of the many people who live in the Tenderloin

neighborhood, but outside the police district that shares the name.

“There’s always going to be a border, and the police station is where it is,” he said. “San Francisco is very challenging as it relates to infrastructure. ... It’s not like we can create a police district and all of a sudden drop a police station in the center of it.”

Collette LeGrande, a transgender woman who has lived in the Tenderloin for about 30 years, didn’t know about the proposed changes.

LeGrande, who works at the gay bar Aunt Charlie’s, expressed concern about drug dealing and use in the neighborhood, especially near the playground at Larkin and O’Farrell streets, but said she feels safe in the area.

“I never really had any particular problems, but I don’t look for any

trouble,” she said.

Ivy Lee, an aide to Supervisor Jane Kim, whose District 6 includes the Tenderloin, said for Kim, “the boundaries are not as important as whether or not there are sufficient resources allocated to whatever those boundaries might be.”

Lee said Kim has been “advocating for additional resources” and has been “extremely supportive of additional academy classes” to boost police force numbers.

See page 14 >> Brooks said. “We have to hear voices other than our own. We have to make room for everybody. We have to come out of our comfort zone.”

Brooks went on to say that the police department has “some good officers,” and “we have some great people here” but that Oakland needs to “move it forward.”

She said the Oaklanders “need to define ourselves by the positives.”

Other speakers Jane Philomen Cleland

Oakland City Clerk LaTonda Simmons, left, administers the oath of office to City Councilmembers Abel Guillen, Annie Campbell Washington, and Desley Brooks Monday, January 5 at the Paramount Theatre.

The Castro

The largely gay Castro district, which lies mostly south of Market Street in the Mission police station area but also includes a few blocks north of the city thoroughfare, would be largely untouched by the proposed boundary changes.

People associated with the neigh-

Newly elected District 2 Councilman Abel Guillen, who identifies as Two-Spirit, said he represents “the most diverse district in the most diverse city in America.” His district, which includes part of Lake Merritt and Adams Point, is home to a number of LGBTs. Guillen said his priorities are to have “police officers build trust with residents and especially, young people.”

Annie Campbell Washington, who was elected to Schaaf’s former District 4 seat, recounted her start in city government as a budget and policy analyst. She said she envisions business and labor working together.

Also taking oaths of office were new school board members Aimee Eng, Nina Senn, and Shanthi Gonzales. All talked about the importance of teachers and improving the city’s public schools.

New city Auditor Brenda Roberts also took the oath of office, pledging to bring accountability and transparency to the department. She said she wanted the city to work as a unit, rather than devolve into factions.

“My hope is that everyone can come to the table,” she said.t borhood seemed fine with the lines affecting the Castro mostly staying where they are.

Alan Beach-Nelson, the gay president of the Castro/Eureka Valley Neighborhood Association, said Captain Daniel Perea, who leads Mission station, has been “incredibly involved” with work in the area, including the Castro Cares program and “he’s actually been stepping up police presence” in the neighborhood. The Castro Cares initiative is designed to help people in the neighborhood through added police presence and outreach workers.

Beach-Nelson said he’d heard someone once suggest a Castro police substation, a facility that he would welcome since he thinks it would mean “an added police presence.”

See page 14 >>

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

<<

News Briefs

From page 4

bisexual men. This trial showed that once-daily Truvada reduced the risk of HIV infection by 42 percent overall, rising to 92 percent among participants with blood drug levels indicating regular use. In an openlabel extension of iPrEx, none of the men who took Truvada at least four times per week became infected. In May the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that people at substantial risk for HIV infection should consider PrEP. First up is the San Francisco AIDS

<<

San Jose mayor

From page 10

the city’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Liccardo said while having the international sporting event in the Bay Area “would be a wonderful thing,” he has concerns about the costs and if it would benefit the entire region.

“We all need to understand the price tag. And it is also important to understand if this is an initiative truly regional or simply in the proprietary interest of a single city,” he said. “I look forward to discussing all of these details and do so without judgment.”

Financing for transportation proj-

<<

Homeless person

From page 2

things like, “I’m going to kill you tonight,” and “I will kill your whole staff,” he said.

Gerry said he had called the police, who declined to file a report, and at the time Anastasia died, he was in the process of filing for a restraining order.

“I didn’t hate her,” he said. “I wasn’t angry with her. But I wasn’t

<<

Out in the World

From page 13

On December 7, the men were arrested and paraded naked with towels around them on the Al-Qahera Wal-Nas channel after TV reporter Mona Iraqi tipped police off and then filmed the raid.

The defendants’ attorneys were also highly critical of how the arrest happened. In court, they claimed that the men’s constitutional right to privacy was violated by having the TV cameras present during the raid and the investigation was faulty, according to media reports.

Medical examinations to test to see if any of the men had anal sex were conducted on 21 of 26 of the men, reported the AP. Islam Khalifa, one of the lawyers representing 14 of the men, told the court that the defendants suffered “psychological duress” from the

<<

Police districts

From page 13

But gay Supervisor Scott Wiener, whose District 8 includes the Castro, said, “I don’t think that a substation makes sense, because when you set up a substation, it requires a lot of overhead,” devoting police department resources to building and staffing the station with officers.

Wiener said he’d rather have more officers patrolling the streets and walking beats.

“Having more beat cops in the Castro is going to be a much better use of resources than creating a substation,” he said.

Like others, Wiener also expressed concern about police staffing levels. He pointed to ongoing work to address the police department being about 300 officers short of the city charter-mandated 1,971.

“I have been working so hard to make sure we keep funding police academy classes in order to address

Foundation, which will hold a PrEP open house Sunday, January 11 from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Eureka Valley Recreation Center, 100 Collingwood Street. The forum will include remarks by current PrEP users, as well as information on various payment options for the medication. Representatives from insurance plans available from Covered California and other community resources will be available and people can talk in a small group setting.

To RSVP, visit www.sfaf.org/ prepforum.

On Wednesday, January 14, the UCSF Alliance Health Project will

hold a community discussion about PrEP. The event takes place from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the AHP Services Center, 1930 Market Street.

People can join AHP staff and volunteers to discuss concerns that PrEP raises in terms of how it works, who it’s for, pros and cons, and its effects on relationships and the community.

All are welcome, but space is limited and people are urged to RSVP to chidinma.offomah@ucsf.edu by January 12. People can arrive early and get an HIV test.

Refreshments will be provided at both events.t

ects will be another key area of focus for the new mayor. Liccardo has already come out against seeing the number of BART stations be reduced on the line extension into downtown San Jose and its Alum Rock neighborhood. And he has been vocal in questioning how the planned electrification of Caltrain’s tracks – ahead of building a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco – will increase capacity on the Peninsula’s commuter rail line.

“I would rather that we think bigger about improving and about expanding the number of riders served by that rail line, even if it costs more money, than to be spending a billion dollars on a system that is not going

to deliver significantly more ridership,” he said. “We are spending a lot of money to continue to leave Highways 101 and 280 in gridlock. I am vey interested in seeing how we can serve more people along the corridor than simply applying lipstick to a 19th century rail technology.”

As he settles into his new offices at City Hall, Liccardo said he is excited to tackle the challenges being mayor brings.

“I am thrilled. We got a great team and we are all rolling up our sleeves to get to work,” he said. “We have got plenty of challenges here in San Jose. But I wouldn’t exchange our challenges or opportunities for any other city in the country.”t

about to put up with that. She was troubled.” Gerry added that before he bought the cafe, Anastasia had been a “good customer,” tipping well and paying for food.

Some have raised the issue of using a 5150 in cases like Anastasia’s.

Rachael Kagan, a spokeswoman for the health department, noted in an email that the code refers to the process of holding someone “involuntarily for up to 72 hours while they undergo assessment for possible

psychiatric disorders.”

In response to a question about whether Anastasia may have met the criteria for a 5150, Kagan said with the details the B.A.R. was able to provide, “There just isn’t enough information to base an answer on.”

However, she said, “I would say that 5150 is a crisis designation, and is not usually applied to ongoing circumstances.”

Kagan called Anastasia’s death “a very sad situation.”t

arrests that were publicly televised, defaming and endangering them and their families.

The arrests, which activists claim are the worst that they have seen in more than a decade, are a part of a larger crackdown.

An estimated 150 men have been arrested for alleged homosexual conduct since Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi took office last May, reported United Press International.

Sisi has also effectively silenced political groups and is aggressively leveraging the religious establishment and public sentiment.

Graeme Reid, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch told the Wall Street Journal that he believes Sisi is attempting to “burnish his conservative credentials.”

The raid has been denounced by

global LGBT activists and human rights organizations who demanded the Egyptian government halt the persecution of LGBT people.

The suspects’ family members believe their innocence. They weren’t allowed in court on Sunday, but they were outside the courthouse yelling out to the men as they were escorted to a van to be transported back to jail.

“We are innocent! We were scandalized! No one in our family is gay!” one screamed, reported the AP. Another relative yelled out, “Raise your heads up high. Acquittals, God willing.”

“You are men! You are men!” they shouted as the van drove away.t

the severe staffing shortage in the police department,” he said.

Before he took office in 2011, Wiener said, the department went for five years without academy classes and also was hit by a wave of retirements. The city is now almost three years into a six-year staffing plan, so by 2018, “the department will be back up to about 2,000 police officers, which I still don’t think is enough,” he said.

Beach-Nelson said there’s still concern around the boundaries affecting the Castro.

North of Market Street, the neighborhood has been covered by Park police station.

That split has been “difficult,” he said, since it sometimes creates “a little bit of confusion” about which station to call for help. “It would be nicer if Market Street were all within one station or another.”

There is some change north of Market, though. With the proposed new lines, Northern police station

would expand its western border from Sanchez and Steiner streets to Castro/Divisadero Street.

Wiener said the changes mean Duboce Triangle, which includes the Safeway supermarket at Market and Church streets and has drawn some increased attention around violence, would no longer be split up and would lie completely within Northern police station. Park police station had shared some of the neighborhood.

The supervisor said both Park station Captain Raj Vaswani and Northern station Captain Greg McEachern are “superb” and “have gone out of their way” to focus on the issues of Duboce Triangle.

“I think having an entire neighborhood in either station would be terrific,” Wiener said.

Detailed maps and other information related to the proposed changes are available at http://www. sf-police.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentID=27425.t

Got international LGBT news tips? Call or send them to Heather Cassell at 00+1-415-2213541, Skype: heather.cassell, or oitwnews@gmail.com.

t

Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036201900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CM INTERNATIONAL, 301 CRESCENT COURT #3409, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JAVAD MIRSAIDI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/16/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/16/14.

DEC 18, 25, JAN 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036180600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAMSON SOLOMON GROUPPE INTERNATIONAL; CLEANTECH SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS AND SOLUTIONS; ANYTIME CUSTOM DESIGN; 2139 O’FARRELL ST #301, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115-3481.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DONALD A. FRANKLIN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/01/14.

DEC 18, 25, JAN 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036200200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NAPA VALLEY SPICE CO, 2450 FRANCISCO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed FREDERICK DAVID HALPERT. 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 12/15/14.

DEC 18, 25, JAN 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036164600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PECO JANITORIAL, 511 BIRCH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RAMIRO VASQUEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/19/14.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/19/14.

DEC 18, 25, JAN 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036195400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BIG DOG SAUSAGES, 300 7TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed BLAGO OGNIANOV & GEORGI KRISTOV. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/10/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/10/14.

DEC 18, 25, JAN 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036198400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ICYBOTTOM SPORTS CAFE, 2275 SAN JOSE AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PREMIER BEANS (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/12/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/12/14.

DEC 18, 25, JAN 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036202900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: REAL ESTATE TIMES OF SAN FRANCISCO; SAN FRANCISCO REAL ESTATE TIMES; 696 AMADOR ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 941241241. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SAN FRANCISCO BAY DISTRIBUTORS (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 12/16/14.

DEC 18, 25, JAN 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036172500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO COLLATERAL RECOVERY AGENCY, 1 AVENUE OF THE PALMS #10B, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94130. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SAN FRANCISCO COLLATERAL RECOVERY AGENCY (CA) The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/24/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/24/14.

DEC 18, 25, JAN 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036192400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BIOGENIC ENERGY LLC, 184 MENDELL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed BIOGENIC ENERGY LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/12/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/09/14.

DEC 18, 25, JAN 01, 08, 2015

NOTICE TO CREDITORS OF JENNIE V. MAYBON, SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO CASE NO. PTR-14-298395 Notice is hereby given to the creditors and contingent creditors of the above-named decedent, that all persons having claims against the decedent, Jennie V. Maybon, who died on November 14, 2014, are required to file them with the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco at 400 McAllister Street, San Francisco, California 94102-4515, and mail a copy to Howard J. Lewis, as trustee of the Jennie V. Maybon Trust, Dated December 06, 2011, wherein the decedent was the settler, c/o Law Office of Justin W. MacNeil, P.O. Box 26024, San Francisco, California 94126-6024, within the later of four months after January 08, 2014, the date of the first publication of notice to creditors or, if notice is mailed or personally delivered to you, 60 days after the date this notice is mailed or personally delivered to you. A claim form may be obtained from the court clerk. For your protection, you are encouraged to file your claim by certified mail, with return receipt requested.

Howard J. Lewis, Successor Trustee Jennie V. Maybon Trust Dated December 06, 2011 c/o Law Office of Justin W. MacNeil, P.O. Box 26024, San Francisco, California 94126-6024

JAN 08, 15, 22, 29, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036206200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RONA CAREER AND LIFE COACH, 1425 FILLMORE ST, #609, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RONA DANEILO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/03/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/17/14.

DEC 25, 2014, JAN 01, 08, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036210100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PHYSIOROBOTICS CONSULTING, 399 STEINER ST, #19, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ANN STERNIN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/12/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/19/14.

DEC 25, 2014, JAN 01, 08, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036201500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ALYSSA BLOCK STUDIO, 1015 PACIFIC AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARY ALYSSA BLOCK. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/01/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/16/14.

DEC 25, 2014, JAN 01, 18, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036207600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LEILA’S FLORAL DESIGN, 1950 15TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LEILA SIMMS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/18/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/18/14.

DEC 25, 2014, JAN 01, 08, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036194900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BOTANICA LOS SUENOS, 3274 23RD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MELISSA TREJO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/10/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/10/14.

DEC 25, 2014, JAN 01, 08, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036211000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ASCEND FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS, 1957 BEACH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CARGO CORP (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/19/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/19/14.

DEC 25, 2014, JAN 01, 08, 15, 2015

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Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036205400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: INTACT QUALITATIVE RESEARCH CORP., 599 THIRD ST, #104, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed INTACT QUALITATIVE RESEARCH CORP (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/17/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/17/14.

DEC 25, 2014, JAN 01, 08, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036193100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MAREEN SWIMWEAR, 2400 PACIFIC AVE, #408, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed MAREEN SWIMWEAR LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/06/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/09/14.

DEC 25, 2014, JAN 01, 08, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036211700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ITTY BITTY VITI, 820 SCOTT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed ITTY BITTY VITI, 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 12/22/14.

DEC 25, 2014, JAN 01, 08, 15, 2015 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-034305500

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: BOTANICA LOS SUENOS, 3274 23RD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by MARIA G. PATINO. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/30/2012.

DEC 25, 2014, JAN 01, 08, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036211300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CHRYSALIS DEVELOPMENT GROUP, 2838 BUSH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SIUYIN SHALVARJIAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/22/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/22/14.

JAN 01, 08, 15, 22, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036215800

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January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 15

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In the matter of the application of: ROBERT HORVAT & VESELKA BUDIMIR, 615 ORTEGA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ROBERT HORVAT & VESELKA BUDIMIR, are requesting that the name ADRIENNE BUDIMIR HORVAT, be changed to ADRIANA BUDIMIR HORVAT. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 12th of March 2015 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

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Theatre ahead

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Merchant music

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Out &About

Anarchy rules

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The

Vol. 45 • No. 2 • January 8-14, 2015

www.ebar.com/arts

Celebrating Cris Williamson

by Jason Victor Serinus

I

f any one recording helped define the Women’s Music movement, it was 27-year-old Cris Williamson’s The Changer and the Changed.

Released in 1975 by the LA-based lesbian collective Olivia Records, Williamson’s recording became a source of hope, strength, and empowerment both for women on the path to owning and loving themselves, and for all people who honor justice, freedom, and nature.

See page 26 >>

Recording artist Cris Williamson: “ I wrote something that is broadshouldered and very wide in its embrace.”

Cris Williamson in 1975.

Cynthia McAdams

Irene Young

Nothing but

the truth with

Ty Herndon

by Gregg Shapiro

C Out gay country music star Ty Herndon: “Sometimes I’m grateful for my mistakes, because I don’t think I’d be the man I am today if it wasn’t for them.”

ountry singer Ty Herndon, who began topping the country music charts nearly 20 years ago, came out publicly as a gay man a week before Thanksgiving 2014. Country music fans, gay and straight, can be thankful. A country chart-topper in the 1990s, Herndon’s hits include “What Matters Most,” “Living in a Moment,” “It Must Be Love” and “Loved Too Much.” Now an out and proud gay man with a partner of five years named Matty, Herndon is one of the LGBT artists in Nashville working to make the country music capital a safe and productive place for queer musicians and queer fans. I spoke with Ty about coming out, his career and more, late last year.

See page 24 >>

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS }

<< Out There

18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

Romeo, O Romeo!

t

by Roberto Friedman

W

herefore art thou, Romeo?

Well, he’s right here in San Francisco! Now that the old year is behind us and the new year is here, Out There has some exciting news to report. One of the most famous asses in film history will be coming to the Castro Theatre for a rare public appearance in February. Yes, Romeo himself, actor Leonard Whiting, will be jetting in from London for a very special VD (Valentine’s Day) celeb-ration. Those keen on film history will remember that Whiting set the screen ablaze in the Swinging Sixties with his creamy asset on display in director Franco Zeffirelli’s classic 1968 film version of Romeo & Juliet. OK, you might say that by today’s standards, the cheeky display of buns might be much ado about nothing, but, but – butt! It was the daring derriere that launched a gayzillion queers of a certain generation, including the event’s producer, Castro showman Marc Huestis.

And speaking of Mister Huestis, this event marks the kickoff of his 20th Anniversary at the Castro. Wow, time sure does fly when you’re having buns! Throughout the years, our indefatigable impresario has presented such screen legends and luminaries as Debbie Reynolds,

Romeo (Leonard Whiting) goes to a masked ball in director Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet (1968).

Ann-Margret, Ann Miller, Jane Russell, Tony Curtis, John Waters and John Cameron Mitchell, and this is to name but a few. For this Valentine’s Day event, he’ll be turning the old ’Stro into a romantic masked ball, replete with men in tights, a Romeo & Juliet lookalike contest, special tribute performances, and rare film clips. It will all climax with an on-stage interview with honored guest Leonard Whiting and a screening of Romeo & Juliet, which critic Roger Ebert described as “the most exciting film of Shakespeare ever made.” So get your butts in gear, call (415) 863-0611 by Jan. 14, ask for

Tybalt, and get an Early Bird Special on tickets. Hurry, because good seats, like all good things in all good time, are limited!

Happy nude queer

So here we are at the other side of the calendar. So far 2015 feels rather like 2014, except maybe a trifle more frigid. Out There’s New Year’s Eve was spent at the festive Brava’s New Year’s Eve Comedy Fiesta show, thrilling to sets by comedians Marga Gomez, Diane Amos and Betsy Salkind. The whole she-bang was emceed by local personality Betty Pazmiño, and was given climax by a post-show countdown to New Year’s with audience and performers cozily commingling in the spacious theatre lobby, festive party sounds sup-

Booty-licious scene from director Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo & Juliet.

plied by legendary DJ Page Hodel, and an abundance of yummy finger food and complementary Barefoot bubbly, serving to make OT complimentary.

We realized that this annual event is usually the one time all yearround that OT and the pepilicious pup Pepi are proud participants in a lesbian-majority event. This meant that the line for the women’s room circled the block and so the women colonized the men’s room, as they well should have, taking over the stalls while leaving the all-important urinals for those of us of the weaker sex. It also meant that the line for the bar moved perhaps a trifle more slowly than it would have at a gay men’s event, as lesbians considered

their choices for libations carefully and considerably. “It’s a lesbian event,” the woman in front of OT in line said apologetically. “We know,” we replied knowingly.

But as Gomez, who delightfully christened herself the “Dyke Clark” of New Year’s Eve, commented from the stage, people of all types were fully welcome at the Brava’s New Year’s Eve Comedy Fiesta. It didn’t matter if you were man or woman, black or white, gay or straight – all that mattered is whether you’re a top or a pushy bottom.

The clock struck Midnight, the ball(s) dropped, our carriage turned into a pumpkin (BART), and OT, with Pepi the Boy Wonder in tow, was off into the bottomless night.t

visceral work they create.”

One of Castillo’s plays has found its way to the Windy City. Between You, Me and the Lampshade will premiere at Teatro Vista in Chicago in April 2015. The play is described as “hilarious and searing,” and tells the story of a single mom with a teenage son in South Texas. Complications ensue when they take in an undocumented immigrant who breaks into their trailer.

Castillo is excited about the play, and about Looking’s second season.

“It’s going to reflect the change in the writers,” he said. “They’re doing a beautiful job.”

Castillo and the Looking company spent about 10 weeks in San Francisco this past autumn, shooting season two. The crew, complete with its

trucks, lights, and portable dressing rooms, could often be seen around the Castro. “I love San Francisco,” Castillo said. “If I could make a living as an actor, I’d move here. There’s a cultural tolerance that I appreciate, and that’s very appealing to me.”

He also said that he was touched by the way the local community embraced the Looking cast and crew.

Castillo described Looking for potential new viewers who might not have tuned in for the freshman year. “It’s a very realistic portrayal of the romantic and social lives of a group of men in San Francisco who happen to be gay.”t

HBO’s ‘Looking’ returns

by David-Elijah Nahmod

I

t seemed to be love at first sight when Richie (Raul Castillo) first approached Patrick (Jonathan Groff) on Muni. Their chemistry was intense and romantic. They quickly became the central characters on HBO’s Looking, but a mere eight episodes later, it appeared that Patrick and Richie had split up. On the season one finale, viewers were left hanging as the guys decided to “take a little time off.”

On Jan. 11, Looking, HBO’s continuing gay drama about a group of gay men who call San Francisco home, returns for its second season. Patrick and Richie are back.

Whether or not they’re back with each other remains to be seen.

“I love the element of surprise, so I’m not going to say,” Raul Castillo said, speaking to the B.A.R. by phone from Los Angeles. But Castillo assured us that Richie will get ample screen time as Looking continues. “We’ll get to know more about his background, his family,” Castillo promised. “Viewers will learn a little bit more about his history, pre-dating San Francisco.”

Castillo, who is straight, feels perfectly at ease portraying the romantic scenes required of his character. He has no issues with kissing Jonathan Groff, his gay costar. “There’s more stubble with a

man,” he said with a laugh. “Other than that there’s no difference. Portraying relationships is tricky and complicated either way, with a man or with a woman. When you have a great scene partner, it’s the easiest and most fun thing in the world.”

Castillo takes great pride in his work as an actor, and in his Latino heritage. “I’m a member of the Labyrinth Theater Company in New York,” he said. “It was a Latino company that began in the early 90s, but it quickly became multicultural.

I’ve been involved as an actor and a playwright since 2006.”

At its website, Labyrinth describes itself as “a home for diverse theater artists and the daring and

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Actor and playwright Raul Castillo: “There’s more stubble with a man.”

t

Theatre>>

January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 19

Rehabilitation of a radical revolutionary

by Richard Dodds

S

everal years ago, playwright David Mamet gathered notice by coming out as a – well, actually he came out as what he isn’t. “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’” was the title of the widely disseminated newspaper article, but my initial intent was not to reference it when it came time to review The Anarchist. But after seeing the play, and then rereading Mamet’s treatise, I find that the play is very much a dramatization of the nonliberal ideas he set forth in that essay – largely based on his realization that people are not “inherently good at heart.”

“Dramatization” may be an overreaching word in the case of The Anarchist, seen on Broadway in 2012, which can feel like a debate between a terse philosopher and a clever student. Every word spoken is subject to challenge, and any slip in attention takes its toll. But give credit to director John Fisher and his cast, whose Theatre Rhino production does find a dramatic tension beyond an exchange of ideas.

True, the empathy solicited in support of that tension is something of a ruse to slap down an audience’s

brain-dead liberal instincts, but it is at least theatrical.

The setting is a prison office where an official of unspecified title is interviewing a convicted murderer before making a recommendation at a parole hearing. This is a murderer with celebrity, albeit fading after 35 years, who killed two police officers while she was part of a radical Weather Undergroundtype movement. The rather innocuously named Cathy (you’d think she’d be Catherine by now) grew up in privilege and wealth before finding her youthful calling at the feet of an iconic revolutionary. She believes she deserves her freedom for length of time served, remorse for her actions, good deeds done in prison, and the forgiveness she has found in her embrace of Jesus Christ as her lord and savior.

As Cathy makes her case for freedom, Ann, the starchy prison official, finds ways to undermine her charge’s arguments. Mostly, she wants Cathy to give up the location of her still-on-the-lam lesbian lover and accomplice, but Ann also aims to dismantle the notions that once motivated Cathy and suss out any residue beliefs that the prisoner may still hold. Cathy suggests that

Ann has some lesbian inclinations, but the same-sex angle doesn’t seem pivotal in the matters of real importance to the play.

The play’s two roles are not created equally, as Ann is mainly there with a stick to poke Cathy into doing linguistic maneuvers. Velina Brown plays Ann with a laser focus that can only hint at what may lay beneath a duty-bound surface.

As Cathy, Tamar Cohn gets to take us on a journey through a life she claims she has righted in prison.

This is where the pulse of the play can be found, sharply rendered in Cohn’s performance, as Cathy’s seeming self-assurance gives way to desperation that causes her to say a bit too much.

On Jon Wai-keung Lowe’s institutionally austere set, Fisher keeps the verbal duels vital, which is not something the play easily offers up.

As to Mamet’s declaration of his de-liberalization, it is best not to be a “brain-dead” anything, and The Anarchist takes pains to make that point.t The Anarchist will run through Jan. 17 at Eureka Theatre. Tickets are $15-$30. Call (800-838-3006) or go to therhino.org.

David Wilson

Tamar Cohn, right, plays a former radical who pleads to prison official Velina Brown for parole in David Mamet’s The Anarchist at Theatre Rhino.

More stage offerings for the new year

by Richard Dodds

J

anuary was bustin’ out all over, and last week’s 2015 stage preview had filled the page before anything beyond Jan. 31 could be acknowledged. So this week, it’s Part II, as the spotlight moves into February for some theatrical highlighting.

Polishing the Silver

Nicky Silver has a talent for revealing the tarnish that can lurk beneath societal veneers, and if it isn’t a pretty picture, the gay playwright can damn well sure make it’s a funny one. After such off-Broadway hits as Pterodactyls, Raised in Captivity, and The Food Chain, Lyons made his Broadway debut in 2012 with The Lyons. This caustic family comedy will make its Bay Area debut on Feb. 5 at Aurora Theatre.

Dysfunction runs amok in the Lyons family, and as much as its members would like to avoid each other, a hospital bed has pulled them together. Papa Lyons lies in that bed, and while awaiting his life to end, takes this terminal opportunity to let forth with all the resentments he has harbored against his wife and two grown children. But they aren’t there just to be targets, as the guilt-spewing wife, the gay son in a dubious relationship, and the alcoholic, newly single daughter have quivers filled with their own bitter-tipped arrows.

Forgiveness does find, barely, a toehold, as the Lyons contemplate their changing family landscape.

The Lyons is the centerpiece in Aurora’s annual Global Age Project that encourages playwrights and directors to explore life in the 21st century and beyond. In addition to the fully staged production of The Lyons, the 2015 GAP edition will include staged readings of three new plays: Don Nguyen’s Red Flamboyant, about otherworldly forces that help an ailing Vietnamese woman maneuver though unresponsive bureaucracy; Jonathan Spector’s FTW, in which three young women working for Google find their idealism tested while sharing an Oakland apartment; and Martyna Majok’s Ironbound, which follows a Polish immigrant over 22 years and three

relationships as she awaits an elusive combination of love and security. A full GAP schedule is available at auroratheatre.org.

World according to Homer

Should we fret that so many books, plays, and movies want to thrust us into post-apocalyptic societies?

Count among that group Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, but with a premise so disarming that another journey into dystopia sounds like storytelling around a campfire. With a carton of donuts and a case of Duff beer.

Anne Washburn’s play, opening Feb. 25 at ACT, imagines a group of strangers bonding over an episode of The Simpsons that they struggle to recreate in their newly desolate surroundings.

They have chosen the Cape Feare episode, inspired by two movies of a similar name, in which Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie are terrorized by the murderous Sideshow Bob. Generational storytelling becomes a building block of a new society as we see how the Homer legend evolves over eight decades.

Mr. Burns, named for Homer’s nefarious boss on the animated series, will have an “OUT with ACT” reception for LGBT audiences following the 8 p.m. March 4 performance. Ticket info at act-sf.org.

Turning the beat around

“Queen of Disco” is a title that has been bestowed on several performers, but only one of those queens was a man. His story is told in Mighty Real: A Fabulous Sylvester Musical, which had a New York run last year and is now coming to the city where this queen first ascended the throne.

The musical, written by and starring Anthony Wayne, will play Feb. 14-March 1 at Brava Theatre Center, and follows the cross-dressing Sylvester’s rise from a difficult childhood in Watts to performances with the Cockettes to his solo career as a disco star. Wayne has Broadway credits in Pippin, Anything Goes, and Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and he co-directs the production with his partner, Kendrell Bowman, who is also the costume designer.

David Allen

Nicolas Pelczar plays the gay son of a bickering family in Nicky Silver’s The Lyons at Aurora Theatre as he deals with a nurse (Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe) in the hospital where his father is dying.

After recording such hits as “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and “Dance (Disco Heat),” the beat came to an end when Sylvester died of AIDS in 1988. But the musical, according to The New York Times, ends with a “fabulous finale” that does “lusty honor to a singular performer.” Tickets are available at brava.org.

Shooters, straight & otherwise

The title character in Edith Can Shoot Straight and Hit Things provides home security even though she’s only 12. As the title indicates, she’s handy with a bow and arrow.

Her brother, Kenny, is four years older, and he keeps the household running in the absence of any adult supervision. Problems begin, and the outside world comes barging in, when Edith shoots something that she shouldn’t have, and Kenny finds himself falling for a boy in his advanced math class.

Crowded Fire is presenting A. Rey Pamatmat’s play as the first show of its 2015 season, beginning performances Feb. 26 at Thick House.

Edith was the breakout hit of the 2011 Humana Festival in Louisville, and it has also been the breakout play for Pamatmat, whose plays often deal with gay, lesbian, and trans characters. Info on the SF production is available at crowdedfire.org.t

Nathan Johnson Photography

Anthony Wayne plays the title character in the Brava-bound Mighty Real: A Fabulous Sylvester Musical that tells the story of the late disco star.

<< Music

20 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

A pound of flesh on the opera stage

by Tim Pfaff

T

he best explanation for the eventual if unconscionably belated production of Andre Tchaikowsky’s opera The Merchant of Venice is that it was music-theater too strong to hold down. Tchaikowsky, who shares only his sexuality and genius as a composer with his better-known 19th-century Russian forebear, composed the piece over 12 years until his early death in 1982, at 46, having finally completed all but the orchestration of the final 24 bars. A Polish emigre to Britain, he was, professionally, a concert pianist of consequence, and a tormented composer on the side and by first choice. The Merchant was eyed for production in Tchaikowsky’s lifetime but had to wait for the July 2013 Bregenz Festival for its premiere. Only the extraordinarily high quality of that production, captured live on a EuroArts DVD, partially justifies the wait.

Gay and Jewish, restless and political, Tchaikowsky (there’s a wonderful website, andretchaikowsky.com) was called to Shakespeare’s play, which he knew as few second-language Anglophones might. The drama is suspended between the poles of Shylock, the Jewish usurer, and Antonio, the eponymous merchant who literally puts his flesh on the line to help his beloved friend Bassanio in love. Experts bicker about whether

Shakespeare intended Antonio’s love to be homosexual, but the composer and the producers of this premiere aren’t hedging their bets.

The anti-Semitism in the piece, rife in the Venice of that time, is undiluted, the societal perception of manlove as a substratum of the real thing less pronounced – but in this production sealed with a kiss, Antonio’s to the departing, shamed Bassanio. The work is true to Shakespeare in all essentials, perhaps most so in the fact that it doesn’t stand back to condemn either prejudice outright; merely depicting them shows their cravenness.

The score is astounding, immediate in its impact then not slackening for a measure, lyrical in its accommodation of the human voice, vaulting in line if not expressly melodious. It’s unsparing but not “hard” listening; it puts its cards on the table, and you instinctively play along. Start to finish it’s an ensemble piece, pellucid in both its blends and clashes of tautly woven musical lines, out of which the solos, including the long speeches devotees of the play wait for, lift like seabirds taking flight. Its

Epilogue is as luminous as Verdi’s in Falstaff or Mozart’s in Figaro.

Tchaikowsky has a clear compositional voice, his music a consistent, characterful clang, yet it’s at no point derivative. Remarkable for a firsttime opera, it knows itself. It’s got the Britten of another remarkable Venice opera in its sideview mirror, and in its

t

rearview mirror, Berg, Beethoven, Mozart and Monteverdi. It nods cannily to those other great paeans to marital love, Fidelio and Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten, and it slyly quotes Wagner’s Ring Motif when those all-signifying love tokens take prominence in the drama. It never settles for second place.

The Vienna Symphony, under Erik Nielsen, plays it like it’s Mozart.

Director Keith Warner passes on nothing in this rich, complex music, keeps all the plates in the air, yet never makes the action seem rushed.

Ashley Martin-Davis’ designs are a complete meld with the direction, and the stage picture is consistently striking. Its main features are walls decorated to look like antique safe-deposit boxes, repositioned to represent all the important houses, and tellingly, a maze for the middle-act winning of Portia’s hand in Belmont and the news of Antonio’s undoing in far-off Venice. One sign of the brilliance of John O’Brien’s libretto (which mostly retains Shakespeare’s poetry) is its confident placement

of a largely comic middle act, in which neither Antonio nor Shylock appears, between the grinding two outer acts, about the men’s mutual hatred. The action climaxes in a horrifying enactment of Shylock’s intended revenge, with supreme deliberation laying out a tablecloth, now become an operating sheet, over what was moments before the court table, preparing the scales and scalpel as Antonio sings his terrified farewell and all look on in alarm.

A stronger cast is all but unimaginable, and the singers are tireless explorers of their music and roles. As she does in the play, Portia becomes the heart and soul of the action. Soprano Magdalena Anna Hoffmann (who has sung Wagner’s Kundry) exalts in the challenging, mercurial yet steady role. Tenor Charles Workman’s dashing, virile Bassanio is her perfect foil.

Countertenor Christopher Ainslie brings a tortured lyricism to the seemingly static, in truth deeply conflicted Antonio. And a notably young-looking Adrian Eroed, as Shylock, is as spellbinding as Pacino.

He’s a multifaceted character whose music makes you understand him fully at the same time you’re recoiling. Repeatedly called a dog, he gains sympathy as a mistreated cur would.

Now here’s a role for Placido Domingo, whose name alone would get this opera, and perhaps this production, back onstage, where it belongs.t

collaborative effort to date. The 11 songs, with music co-written by Sobule and queer musician/composer Fred Hersch, Dan Wilson, Mike Viola and others, tell the story of the charms on an old-school charm bracelet found by Sobule. Sobule turned to writer friends Luc Sante, Mary Jo Salter, Nina Mehta, Jonathan Lethem, Rick Moody, David Hadju and others to create the right words for each charm. Listeners are sure to be charmed by “My Chair,” the union anthem “Women of Industry,” “The Mezuzah” and the in-

credible “Wedding Ring.”

Unless you listened to Christian rock at the end of the 20th century, the name Jennifer Knapp probably won’t ring a bell.

But things changed for Knapp when she came out as a lesbian and released her Letting Go disc in 2010. Now signed to Ani DiFranco’s label, Knapp has returned with Set Me Free (Righteous Babe).

The 10 original tunes, including standout “Remedy” and the rocking “Why Wait,” are firmly based in the singer-songwriter tradition. Knapp’s respectful reading of Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love” is an added bonus.

Chicago, and its fertile music scene, continues to be home to many talented LGBT artists. Emily White’s strong new album Staking Flags in the Valley (Fresh Squeezed Productions) is bolstered by memorable songs “Crooked Teeth,” “Black Highway,” “Starve the Dog” and “Go Now.” Cool Choices (Hardly Art) by S, the solo project

by Jenn Ghetto of Carissa’s Wierd [sic], is definitely cool. Opening with the lo-fi piano/vocal track “Losers,” the disc continues with knockout number “Like Gangbusters!” the subtly funky “White House,” the gorgeous “Remember Love,” the vintage electro of “Tell Me” and the retro Riot Grrrl of “Balderdash.”

The prolific Sean Wiggins is (bare) back with Clothing Optional Fridays (seanwiggins.com). Backed by her rocking band, Wiggins performs this set of blues-based original tunes with flair, energy, and a powerful set of pipes. The countryinfluenced “Thank God for My Stalker” and the swinging “You Are the One” are especially good.t

For the love of lesbians

by Gregg Shapiro

H

ot on the stylish heels of her New Destination EP, queer singer/songwriter Rachael Sage has released the full-length album Blue Roses (MPress), a definite careerhigh. The new direction hinted at in the four songs on the EP is fully realized on Blue Roses’ 13 tracks.

Sage wisely included a pair of songs from the EP, “Misery’s Grace” and the marvelous “Wax,” on the new disc. Longtime fans will be happy to hear that Sage hasn’t abandoned

her trademark keyboard work or her distinctive vocal style or phrasing, as you can hear on “Happiness (Maddie’s Song).” She shows a more mature songwriting style on “English Tea,” “Newspaper,” and the trans tune “Used To Be My Girl” (reminiscent of Shawn Colvin). The cover of Neil Young’s “Helpless,” a duet with Judy Collins that closes the disc, is stunning.

Jazz/cabaret vocalist Ann Hampton Callaway pays homage to one of her heroes on From Sassy to Divine: The Sarah Vaughan Project (After 9/

/lgbtsf

Shanachie). Recorded live at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Callaway reimagines a set of Vaughan standards, including “Misty” and “Someone To Watch Over Me,” as well as a pair of tunes by queer songwriters Billy Strayhorn (“Chelsea Bridge”) and Stephen Sondheim (“Send in the Clowns”).

Callaway sounds fantastic, taking ownership of the songs while still respecting Vaughan’s versions.

Possibly because it’s her first album on her own label imprint, This Is M.E. (M.E. Records)

by Melissa Etheridge finds the lesbian rock goddess stretching her musical limbs. More than 25 years since her debut record was released, Etheridge still sounds good writing catchy pop songs for the Dinah Shore Weekend set and others. Slightly bombastic opener “I Won’t Be Alone Tonight” sounds fresh and familiar, while “Take My Number” recalls the best of Etheridge’s downhome comfort tunes. “A Little Hard Hearted” is a reminder of Etheridge’s history of heartbreak, featuring pleasing vocals

by Neyla Pekarek. “Ain’t That Bad” and “All the Way Home” would have fit perfectly on Etheridge’s first disc, and “Like a Preacher” and “A Little Bit of Me” play with interesting beats.

Dottie’s Charms (Pinko) by underrated, brilliant and witty singer/ songwriter Jill Sobule, who recently made it to Jeopardy clue status, is one of the most intriguing concept albums you will ever hear. Sobule, who has made a name for herself as a collaborator (The Jill and Julia Show, featuring Sobule and Julia Sweeney), has created her most

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Film>>

January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 21

German Expressionism uncut!

by Erin Blackwell

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naccustomed as we are to watching European drama, the prospect of a biopic on the life or loves of a German Romantic poet throws us for something of a loop.

Who remembers Byron, Shelley, or Keats? Let alone Schiller. Yes, arts education in this country has experienced a woeful slippage. The media still lumps us together with Europe as “the West,” but wouldn’t it be truer to call them the West and us the Wild West, since we’ve dropped our classical roots and slid into a state of perpetual distraction lorded over by the Kanye Wests? Be that as it may, Germans don’t give up so easily. Their Oscar hopeful is 179 minutes of a Schiller love thriller called Beloved Sisters, opening January 9 in San Francisco and Berkeley.

Titular sisters Caroline and Charlotte are perhaps not so unlike the Kardashians they couldn’t pull in a younger crowd, and like the Kardashians, Beloved Sisters is both very pretty and pretty annoying. Shot on location inside several gorgeous period houses, the film functions as a late-18th-century fashion, arts and decor show interrupted by dialogue.

If you’re a sucker for breeches, waistcoats, fichus, and ladies’ hats, feel free to ignore the subtitles and simply ogle the cute cast. The storyline is really very simple: two sisters

Courtesy of Music Box Films

Charlotte (Henriette Confurius), Friedrich Schiller (Florian Stetter) and Caroline (Hannah Herzsprung) in director Dominik Graf’s Beloved Sisters.

love poet-about-town Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805).

Although not as tightly plotted, Beloved Sisters is reminiscent of Gone With the Wind (1939), a stirring melodrama no longer considered in good taste. Two sisters, Caroline and Charlotte, try to monopolize the same man. One is a headstrong vixen like Vivien Leigh, the other a demure maternal type like the onscreen Olivia de Havilland. Neither is as beautiful. Schiller, portrayed as a simple-minded, wil-

lowy hunk, is as helpless as Ashley, but sluttier. Or less hypocritical, or more. Depending on your point of view. Or more spineless. Or simply a Romantic doing what Romantics did, which is to follow all impulses, poetic and otherwise.

In filming his version of this beloved Romantic ménage à trois, director Dominik Graf seems to have forgotten about a key element, the script.

Between watching part one and part two on DVD – yes, the film is so bloated as to be divided in two, like Gone

With the Wind – I caught All About Eve at the Castro Theatre. Now there’s a script. Characters with clear needs pursue goals that conflict, resulting in winners, losers, and snappy dialogue.

Unlike Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Graf seems to have decided that a movie about a writer doesn’t need to be wellwritten, that indeed he, Graf, could write with his camera as with a quill pen – ink blots, smears, and curlicues part of the charm.

In fact, Beloved Sisters could have easily been titled Beloved Typogra-

phy, since we’re treated to many earnest scenes amidst the rudimentary presses of the Age of Enlightenment, which facilitated the dissemination of revolutionary tracts, broadsides, and pamphlets, not to mention pornographic slanders of poor, misunderstood Queen Marie-Antoinette of France, who never quite gave up on her Hapsburgian hopes of being rescued from the guillotine by a foreign power. Alors. When we’re not admiring printing plates – and don’t get me wrong, they’re very pretty! – we watch various actors write various letters with quill pens, doing the best they can. They also fold and seal them with hot wax.

Therein lies perhaps the ultimate triumph of Beloved Sisters: to prove that in a pre-Kardashian world, sisters could squabble and scheme to possess a rock star without the aid of so-called social media. All you needed was a slip of paper to start an intrigue. As for fulfilling Schiller’s own requirements for tragic art? “It is an obligation for tragedy to subject historic truth to the laws of poetry, and to treat its matter in conformity with requirements of this art.” That, dear viewer, is for you to judge.t Landmark Theatres engagements begin Friday, January 9, at Opera Plaza Cinemas, 601 Van Ness, SF, and Shattuck Cinemas, 2230 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley.

Remembering Mike Nichols on screen

by David Lamble

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ike his talented friend and colleague the Vienna-born but Hollywood-famous director Billy Wilder, Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky, better known to legions of fans as director Mike Nichols, had a life and career far too fabulous and way beyond the wildest dreams of a child born in Berlin (November 6, 1931).

One of only a handful of artists to have won an Oscar (The Graduate), a Grammy (Best Comedy Album for An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May), multiple Emmy Awards (Wit, Angels in America) and numerous Tony Awards (Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Real Thing, Death of a Salesman, Spamalot, and Annie), Nichols helped launch Hollywood careers for actors spanning the generations, from Dustin Hoffman to Andrew Garfield.

Beginning as an improv comedy artist forever linked with professional partner Elaine May, Nichols quickly leapfrogged to Broadway and ultimately Hollywood, creating his own incredible canon, many of his films coming with queer pedigrees, including Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (based on openly gay playwright Edward Albee’s seminal work), Silkwood and The Birdcage, and concluding with the Tom Hanks

dramedy vehicle Charlie Wilson’s War, which garnered a front-page B.A.R. arts review in 2007.

A Mike Nichols sampler of works on DVD indicates how deeply this German Jewish refugee probed into the heart of his adopted country’s culture, neatly addressing its LGBT concerns on several occasions.

Angels in America This six-hour HBO adaptation of Tony Kushner’s existential AIDS-era wail got a soulful boost from career-high turns from Meryl Streep as the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, and a pugnacious Al Pacino as a bewildered Roy Cohn dying from AIDS. Nichols manages to capture Kushner’s glorious American sampler with its mischievous references to both the Mormon Church and early-50s Joe McCarthy-style red-baiting paranoia.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Nichols skillfully adapts Edward Albee’s play about two couples experiencing a long-night-of-the-soul journey into the depths of martial discord into a big-screen primal scream that somehow leaves us with anything but false hope. Nichols created a safe space for Elizabeth Taylor’s penultimate screen turn as the brassy “take-no-prisoners” Martha who really loves her human punching-bag hubby George.

The Graduate Nichols had the insight to shun the obvious casting of a

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OFF WITH

Robert Redford-type blond hunk as the charming drifter Benjamin Braddock in favor of film newbie Dustin Hoffman, who famously thought his career launch was a glorious mistake.

Catch-22 Seldom has a diabolically smart and darkly funny novel

received such a transcendent bigscreen makeover. The DVD release features a savvy commentary conversation between Nichols and fellow auteur Steven Soderbergh.

Primary Colors Nichols was whipsmart to see in former cute-boy star

John Travolta the makings of a witty and seriously revealing undressing of former President Bill Clinton. British character actor Adrian Lester shines as a black boy-wonder political prodigy who learns to trust his upscale redneck liberal bosses.t

KATHY NAJIMY

FRANC D’AMBROSIO

BILLY PORTER

January 9 -10

January 14

January 30 - February 1

For tickets:www.feinsteinssf.com

Director Mike Nichols, with (inset) film newbie Dustin Hoffman as the charming drifter Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate.

Feinstein’s | Hotel Nikko San Francisco 222 Mason Street 855-MF-NIKKO | 855-636-4556

095235.01_HNSF_Bay_Area_Reporter_1-8_MECH ROUND #: MECH Trim: 5.75in x 7.625in Bleed: none Live: 5.75in x 7.625in Color Space: CMYK

Fonts: Futura

<< Out&About

Out &About

O&A

22 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

Fri 9 Felix d’Eon

Fri 9 The Anarchist @ Eureka Theatre Velina Brown and Tamar Cohn costar in Theatre Rhinoceros’ production of David Mamet’s tense drama about a lesbian anarchist who’s forced to confront a prison psychologist in order to get parole. $15-$30. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm.

Sun Jan. 4 3pm & 7pm. Thru Jan. 17. 215 Jackson St. at Front. (800) 838-3006. www.therhino.org

Avenue Q @ New Conservatory Theatre Center The local production of the naughty hit Broadway puppet musical returns! (Music and lyrics by Robert Lopez & Jeff Marx; Book by Jeff Whitty). $22.50-$45. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Extended thru Feb 1. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. www.nctcsf.org

Cirque du Soleil @ AT&T Park Lot

Janu-wary

by Jim Provenzano

J

anuary may not be your favorite month, but it’s one of mine. I get along with Capricorns, I like a chilly breeze, and I enjoy the duty of completely renovating these listings.

Lots of shows and exhibits have closed, while others have opened.

It’s the circle of art life!

Thu 8 Carolyn Meyer @ ArtHaus Opening reception for an exhibit of the artist’s modern urban landscape paintings of San Francisco and New York. 6pm-8pm. Also group exhibit.

Reg. hours Tue-Fri 11am-6pm. Sat 12pm5pm. 411 Brannan St. at 3rd.

977-0223. www.arthaus-sf.com

Jean Conner @ Gallery Paule Anglim Opening reception for the prolific artist’s exhibit of whimsical collage art from the 1960s to the present.

Reception 5:30-7:30pm. Reg hours Tue-Fri 10am-5:30pm. Sat 10:30am5pm. Thru Feb. 7. 14 Geary St. 4332710. www.gallerypauleanglim.com

Neighborhood Turf Wars @ GLBT History Museum Anna Conda and Maria Poblet in conversation about Neighborhood Turf Wars and Questions of Territory.

7pm-9pm. Also, 1964: The Year San Francisco Came Out, an exhibit focusing on San Francisco’s emerging gay culture at the time of the pivotal LIFE magazine feature “Homosexuality in America.” Reg. hours Mon-Sat 11am-7pm. Sun 12pm5pm. ($5/free for members). 4127 18th St. 621-1107. glbthistory.org

New and Classic Films @ Castro Theatre Jan. 8: Birdman (3pm, 7pm) and Persona (5:15, 9:15). Jan. 9: Hour of the Wolf (7pm) and The Shining (8:50). Jan. 10: Rear Window (2:45, 7pm) and Road Games (5pm, 9:10).

Jan. 11: Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1pm), Gone Girl (3pm, 8pm) and White of the Eye (5:45). Jan. 13: Pulp (7:30) and 20,000 Days on Earth (9:15). Jan. 14: Planet of the Apes (original: 7pm) and Escape From New York (9:05).

Jan. 15: InForum with Cornel West: a Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (7pm) $11. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

Shit & Champagne @ Oasis D’Arcy Drollinger’s hilarious nightclub hit, a whitesploitation comedy with action-packed models fighting a drug cartel, returns at the new SoMa nightclub; featuring Matthew Martin. $20-$25. Thu-Sat 7pm. Thru Feb. 14.

298 11th St. at Folsom. www.sfoasis.com

The Montreal acrobatic circus returns with their new show, Kurious: Cabinet of Curiosities, a steampunk-themed spectacle. $53-$135. Tue-Sat 8pm. Fri & Sat 4:30pm. Sun 1:30pm & 5pm.

Thru Jan. 18. Third Street at Terry A. Francis Blvd. (800) 450-1480. www.cirquedusoleil.com

Edith Piaf: Beneath Paris Skies @ Cinnabar Theater, Petaluma World premiere of a concert/ theatre tribute to singer Edith Piaf, with five singers and a five-piece band; adapted for the stage by Valentina Osinski, Michael Van Why and Lauren Lundgren. $9-$66. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Jan. 18. 3333 Petaluma Blvd. North, Petaluma. (707) 763-8920. www.cinnabartheater.org

Felix d’Eon @ Magnet Opening reception for We Blaze Away, a new exhibit of art by the unique local painter who blends vintage looks with contemporary homoeroticism.

8pm-10pm. Reg. hours Mon-Wed 10am-6pm. Thru Jan. 4122 18th St. 581-1600. www.magnetsf.org

Fresh Festival @ Joe Goode Annex Revisiting Ritual, a showcase of dances by choreographers Christine Bonansea, Violeta Luna and Meg Wolfe. $15-$25. 8pm. Also Jan. 10.

401 Alabama St. Other experimental dances and intensive workshops at several venues thru Jan. 18. www.freshfestival.org

Glamorgeddon: The Spectacle @ SOMArts Cultural Center

Our Town @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley

Red Hot Patriot @ Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Shotgun Players’ unusual take on the classic drama by Thornton Wilder (a 1915 Berkeley High graduate!) includes live music and a haunting take on life and death in a small town. $23-$30. Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm.

Sun 5pm. Extended thru Jan. 25. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. (510) 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org

Kathleen Turner stars in the onewoman show, The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, Allison and Margaret Engel’s acclaimed show about the late Texan political columnist. $29-$81.

Tue, Thu-Sat 8pm. Wed & Sun 7pm.

Sun 2pm. Extended thru Jan. 11. Roda Theatre, 20171 Addison St., Berkeley.

(510) 647-2949. berkeleyrep.org

Promises, Promises @ SF Playhouse

Wilde Chats @ Sweet Inspirations

Burt Bacharach, Hal David and Neil Simon’s lighthearted swingin’ ‘60s Broadway hit gets a local production.

Tue-Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm, Sun 2pm. Thru Jan 10. Kensington Park Hotel, 450 Post St., 2nd floor.

677-9596. www.sfplayhouse.org

Community Initiative’s weekly informal discussion group at the dessert shop. 10:30am-12pm. 2239 Market St. 621-8664. www.sweetinspirationbakery.com

Sets @ Southern Exposure Christy Chan, Chris Kallmyer and Olivia Mole are artists-in-residence in two-week sets, where each perform and create video, installation and other media works. Special performances through the series. Thru March 7. Tue-Sat 12pm-6pm. 3030 20th St. 863-2141. www.soex.org

Fri 9 Kathy Najimy

Sat 10 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. Reg: $25$160. Beer/wine served; cash only; 21+, except where noted. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St.). 4214222. beachblanketbabylon.com

Classical Concerts @ SF Conservatory of Music Jan. 10, 5pm: pre-college student showcase (free). Jan. 15, 9am-5pm: New Music gathering with flutist Clair Chase, concerts, lectures. Also Jan. 16 with pianist Sarah Cahill; Jan 17 with Kronos Quartet. $30-$60. 50 Oak St. at Franklin. 503-6322. www.sfcm.edu

Cris Williamson @ Freight & Salvage, Berkeley The veteran lesbian folk singer celebrates the 40th anniversary of her milestone album The Changer and the Changed, with guests Vicki Randle, Barbara Higbie, Shelley Doty, Julie Wolf and others. $42-$46. 7pm.

Also Jan 11, 7pm. 2020 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 644-2020. www.criswilliamson.com www.freightandsalvage.org

Hick: A Love Story @ Berkeley City Club

Society Cabaret presents the tango singer, with pianist Barry Lloyd. $25$45. 8pm. 562 Sutter St. www.ticketmaster.com www.societycabaret.com

Kathy Najimy @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The accomplished film, stage and TV actress performs excerpts from her solo show, Lift Up Your Skirt, which includes stories and monologues. $45-$60. 8pm. Jan. 10 at 7pm. $20 food/drink min. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. kathynajimy.com ticketmaster.com

Keith Haring: The Political Line @ de Young Museum New exhibit of 130 large-scale paintings, sculptures and retrieved subway drawings by the late great gay graffiti artist who came to global fame. Free-$26-$41. Tue-Sun 9:30am-5:15pm. Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. 7503600. www.famsf.org

Reaction @ Gallery Route One, Point Reyes

Group exhibition of works focusing on a freeform interpretation of glamour, with opening night Jan. 8, 6pm-9pm, with live music by Fuzzybunny with Chris Brown, Tim Perkis, Scot-Gresham Lancaster, Theresa Wong as Dolly-Lama and Guillermo Galindo in over-the-top performances, plus limited-edition, artist-created swag, and roving pink limosine rides (Jan. 30 event 5pm-9pm: $20). Exhibit thru Feb. 4. 934 Brannan St. at 9th. somarts.org

Terry Baum returns with her show subtitled The Romance of Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt, written with Pat Bond, about the secret affair of FDR’s wife. $20 Thu (pay what you can) & Fri 8pm. Sat 2pm & 8pm. Sun 5pm. Thru Jan. 25. 2315 Durant St., Berkeley. (800) 838-3006. www.crackpotcrones.com

Sun 11

Maria De Beunos Aires @ Hotel Rex

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott @ St. Cyprian’s Church Noe Valley Music Series presents the two-time Grammy winner, who performs a concert of American folk music. $22-$25. 8pm. 2097 Turk St. at Lyon. www.noevalleymusicseries.com

SF Hiking Club @ Golden Gate Park Join GLBT hikers for a six-mile, dog-friendly hike in Golden Gate Park. See buffalo, lakes, waterfalls, a fern forest, and more. Also, Jan. 11: hike through Castle Rock State Park; meet 9am at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. www.sfhiking.com

Opening reception for a juried group exhibit of landscapes, portraits and works by local artists. 3pm-5pm. Thru Feb. Reg hours Wed-Mon 11am-5pm.

11101 Highway One, Point Reyes Station. www.galleryrouteone.org

Roads of Arabia @ Asian Art Museum Roads of Arabia : Archeology and History of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (thru Jan. 18); Dual Natures in Ceramics : Eight Contemporary Artists from Korea (thru Feb. 22). Other fascinating exhibits as well. Free (members, kids 12 and under)-$15.

Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. 200 Larkin St. www.asianart.org

Vanessa Bousay @ Martuni’s The local drag chanteuse’s new monthly cabaret show, with Steven Satyricon; Alan Choy accompanies. 7pm.

4 Valencia St. vanessabousay.com

Mon 12 All Aboard @ Walt Disney Museum A Celebration of Walt Disney’s Trains, thru Feb. 9, plus classic art work and ephemera from the park and animated films. Free/$20. Open daily 10am-6pm. 104 Montgomery St., the Presidio. 345-6800. waltdisney.org

Sex Talk @ Magnet Community Initiative open discussion about sex. 7pm-9pm. 4122 18th St. 581-1600. www.magnetsf.org

Woods to Wildflowers @ SF Botanical Gardens See blooming floral displays, trees and exhibits. Also, daily walking tours and more, at outdoor exhibits of hundreds of species of native wildflowers in a century-old grove of towering Coast Redwoods. Free-$15.

Daily. Golden Gate Park. 661-1316. www.SFBotanicalGarden.org

Tue 13 Meditation Group @ LGBT Center Weekly non-sectarian meditation group; part of the Let’s Kick ASS AIDS Survivor Syndrome support group.

Tuesdays, 5pm, 1800 Market St. www.letskickASS.org sfcenter.org

Stranger Than Life @ Cartoon Art Museum The Cartoons and Comics of M.K. Brown (thru Feb 15). Other exhibits and events. Free-$8. Tue-Sun 11am-5pm. 655 Mission St. 227-8666. cartoonart.org

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Wed 14 Karen Ripley

Wed 14 At Large: Ai Weiwei @ Alcatraz Island The internationally acclaimed Chinese sculptor’s exhibit of seven site-specific multimedia installations; the largest art exhibit ever hosted by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. $18-$30. Daily thru April 26. www.AiWeiWeiAlcatraz.org

Elephant Walk Celebration @ Harvey’s 40th anniversary commemoration of the Castro bar/restaurant’s historic location, with a panel including Cleve Jones, Rink Foto, Fred Rogers and Elephant Walk employees, a disco performance by Sylvester cover singer Amoray, followed by Bebe Sweetbriar’s trivia night. 8pm-10pm. 500 Castro St. 431-4278. HarveysSF.com

Indian Ink @ Geary Theatre American Conservatory Theatre presents a new production of Tom Stoppard’s drama about a 1930s poet, her relationship an Indian artist, and their descendants’ search for truths about her life. Special events thru the run, including Out with A.C.T. (LGBT after-party) Jan. 28. $20-$120. Tue 7pm. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sat & Sun 2pm.

Also Sun 7pm. Thru Feb. 8. 415 Geary St. 749-2228. www.act-sf.org

Karen Ripley @ The Marsh The veteran lesbian stand-up comic premieres her solo show, Oh No, There’s Men on the Land!, about lesbian separatists, Bay Area life and more. $10-$15. 7:30pm. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. themarsh.org

Utah Phillips Tribute @ Freight & Salvage Stories and music performed by Duncan Phillips and Erin Inglish, with special guests Larry Hanks and Deborah Robins, Misner & Smith, Joe Stevens, Ben Pearl, and Nell Robinson & Jim Nunally. $16-$18. 8pm. 2020 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 6442020. www.freightandsalvage.org

Thu 15 Haiku Tunnel @ The Marsh Josh Kornbluth returns with his acclaimed solo show about being a temp worker in a local law office. $20-$100. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru Feb. 7.

10162 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

J. Otto Seibold and Mr. Lunch @ Contemporary Jewish Museum New exhibit of works by the beloved children’s book author. Also, Arnold Newman: Masterclass, an exhibit of prints by the influential photographer.

Other exhibits, lectures and gallery talks as well. Free (members)-$12.

Fri-Tue 11am-5pm, Thu 11am-8pm (closed Wed). 736 Mission St. 6557800. www.thecjm.org

Wendy Wheelan @ YBCA Theater San Francisco Performances presents the innovative choreographer, who performs four duets with different male dancers. $40-$60. 7:30pm. Also Jan 16. 700 Howard St. 392-2545. www.SFperformances.org To submit event listings, email jim@ebar.com. Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication. For more bar and nightlife events, go to On the Tab in our BARtab section, online at www.ebar.com/bartab

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DVD>>

January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 23

Gay master of codes

Heklina & Meat and Cheese Productions Present

by Brian Bromberger

I

n 2009, when Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized posthumously on behalf of the British government for its treatment of Alan Turing, the father of computer science who broke the German Enigma spy code during World War II, he wrote, “You deserved so much better.” One could express the same sentiment about The Imitation Game, the movie biography about Turing that opened last month, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. While not ignoring Turing’s homosexuality, the film does play it down, with the romantic focus more on his unconventional platonic relationship with his fellow woman decoder Joan Clarke. Even Turing’s oppression by the police and intelligence officers due to his homosexuality gets short shrift, becoming a postscript to the great Allied victory in WWII. Turing is far better served in the superb docudrama Codebreaker, a huge hit at Frameline’s SF International LGBT Film Festival in 2013, and recently released on DVD by Story Center Productions, now available on Amazon.com. Primarily a documentary, Codebreaker does reenact seamlessly, with actors, conversations Turing had after his arrest with his psychiatrist Franz Greenbaum. The film is based on writings, historical records, and accounts of those who knew him, including Dr. Greenbaum’s daughters, Joan Clarke, Turing’s nephew Dermot, and gay fiction writer David Leavitt, author of a biography on Turing, The Man Who Knew Too Much. No less a tech icon than Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says that Turing is one of the greatest original thinkers of the 20th century, “who came up with everything computers do today.”

An eccentric math prodigy, Turing attended private school at Sherbonne, where he met the most important person of his life, fellow scientific geek student Christopher Morcum. They bonded intellectually and emotionally, stargazing together, though their relationship re-

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mained nonsexual until Morcum’s tragic early death of tuberculosis in 1930, which devastated Turing.

In tribute to Morcum, Turing was determined to put as much energy into his work as he could, “since that was what Christopher would have wanted.” Fulfilling Morcum’s dream for them, Turing studied at King’s College, Cambridge, and as a graduate student published a seminal paper in 1936 introducing the idea of a computer, and mapping out its geography such that all our modern technological incarnations, including laptops and video games, can find their roots here.

Recruited by the military in 1939 to use his genius at Bletchley Park, all

of Turing’s work was top secret and would not be publicly revealed until 40 years later. Thus his war efforts were never acknowledged or given thanks during his lifetime. Outside of Winston Churchill, no Englishman made a greater contribution to winning the war. Historians estimate Turing, by cracking Enigma, shortened the war by two years, and potentially saved 14 million lives.

For example, the Allies could not have invaded Normandy at D-Day without reading the decoded German military reports made possible

by Turing’s invention. After the war, he taught at Manchester University,

Sordid & sorted out

by Gregg Shapiro

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ob Williams, director of Make the Yuletide Gay, one of the best gay Christmas movies ever made (if you’re looking for the worst one, try Scrooge & Marley), has yet to make a film to equal it in terms of writing and acting. Unfortunately, his latest film, the gay whodunit Out To Kill (Guest House) fails solidly.

Exhibitionistic, bear-loving, queer indie musician Tom Goss tries his hand at acting, playing Justin, a bear-chasing gay indie musician (now there’s a stretch!). For Justin, something good (an inheritance that allowed Justin to buy a place in the Lofts condo complex in Tampa) came out of something bad (the death of Justin’s older lover).

Considered to be something of a druggy slut by his neighbors, including a muscled triad known as the Steves (Steve played by Lee Williams, Steven played by Christopher Cutillo, and Stephen played by Nicolas Burgos), nerdy dentist Vic (Mark Strano, who was so good in Tiger Orange) and gossipy matchmaking hairdressers Gene (Rob Moretti) and Henry (Christopher Patrino), Justin ends up floating dead in the complex’s pool. Good thing hairychested and bearded P.I. Jim (Scott Sell) has moved in just in time to try to solve the murder mystery.

See page 25 >>

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<< Music

24 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

<<

Ty Herndon

From page 17

Gregg Shapiro: It’s been five days since your coming out story ran on People.com and you were discussed on CBS’ The Talk and CNN, and interviewed on Entertainment Tonight. How has the experience been so far?

Ty Herndon: I feel so incredibly blessed. I have struggled with being gay my entire career and life. Of course, I’ve had so much support from my friends and close family that knew I was gay. But it’s been so freeing for the fans to know, the fans in country music, especially. They have really been supportive and awesome. There are always going to be naysayers, and we’ve had a few of those. 99% of the feedback from the fans and in Nashville has been incredibly supportive. It’s blown my mind. I feel extremely happy and excited about the future because I just want to be authentic and continue to make great music. That’s what I was what put on this planet to do, that’s my gift. I’m singing better than I ever have. There’s lots of music coming in the new year. That really makes me happy.

You performed at the Grand Ole Opry last night. How was that show?

I was nervous walking into it.

To my knowledge, no openly gay man has ever walked on the Ryman stage and performed. That is the Mother Church. I’ve performed at the Grand Ole Opry 25 times in my career, but this one was a big deal to me simply because I am a part of the fabric of country music, and was hoping that I would be accepted. I told my manager last night, “If there’s security at the back door, I hope they’re just there to shake my hand and say come on in.” That’s exactly what happened. All of the artists were supportive. We walked onstage to a full house and a big, loving, cheering crowd.

Did you consult with other out country artists, such as Brandy Clark or Chely Wright, before making your decision to come out?

Chely Wright and I have been friends for many years.

Our paths are so similar in country music. We went to great lengths to hide the fact that we were gay. Five years ago when Chely came out, I was blown away by her bravery and courage. About six months later, we started talking about it. I didn’t want her to be alone out there. It took a while for me to get my courage up, just to wrap my brain around it. I was really fearful about being able to continue doing my job, working 200 tour dates a year. Through Chely, I was able to get educated about the new landscape of what my life would be like. I became comfortable with the fact that I wasn’t going to let who I authentically am stop me from making the music I love. God gave me great courage, and Chely was my Godsister through all of it. We did it together.

Shortly after coming out, Chely was invited to be the Grand Marshal at the Chicago Gay Pride Parade. What would it mean to you to be the Grand Marshal of a Pride parade in any city?

I would be so incredibly honored.

Just to know that my LGBT brothers and sisters would welcome me in that. It would be very humbling.

Billy Gilman, who also came out on Nov. 20, credits you with helping him with the coming out process. What does that mean to you?

I have known Billy since he was 12. We were on the same record label, Epic/Sony. I’d had a few hit records when they signed Billy. He has been like a kid brother over the years. We had lost contact, and all of a sudden he’s 26 years old. Last year,

suicide is not an alternative, that they know that they can come and find love and acceptance. That coalition is important to a lot of us in Nashville behind the scenes, as well as the few that have bravely come out.

he reached out to me and we started talking about his sexuality. I began mentoring him because I was also mentoring myself – actually, Chely was mentoring me. I was trying to pay it forward. It’s a big decision to take that step. I was really happy that he chose to do that, two hours after I did. That we could take this journey together and be a support system is pretty awesome. Between Billy and Chely and me, who knows, maybe we’ll do us a little world tour next year.

Do you see this as a potential domino effect, or more of an anomaly in country music and Nashville?

I think country music’s growing up. Nashville, in general, is growing up a lot now. Country is so big now, they’re on the world stage. If you’re going to be on the world stage, you have to have a different mentality. I credit Nashville a lot now. They’re moving forward. I would love to see a better coalition here in Nashville of affirmative hearts so we can get an LGBT center open, so we can see Pride and GLSEN come to town.

All of these kids in these Southern states that we’re surrounded by in Nashville, when they’re kicked out of their homes and the churches, that they have a place to go, that

How much influence did your religious background have in the process?

I grew up in a great church with a lot of affirming people. I never had to worry about being kicked out of anything. I grew up in bluegrass, gospel and country music. I had this amazing grandmother who had her own radio show on WPRN in Alabama. She was broadcasting live from the senior citizens’ center at 90 years old, talking about controversial things. She was awesome. You didn’t mess with Grandma Myrtle.

But I had no one to talk to about my feelings of being gay at 10 years old.

I was 20-something when I came out to my mom. I think moms always know. My mother was more concerned about the profession I had chosen. Her main concern was that I live an authentic, good life, and that I was healthy. Of course, I went down some roads and that was not the case. She was right to worry about that. But I grew up with a very loving God in my life, and that’s something I want to pass on to these kids that don’t have that.

You released your major-label debut almost 20 years ago and have been a country music mainstay since. Did you ever consider performing in a genre such as pop, where there are more openly LGBT artists?

I considered doing a pop record.

I went to my record label and talked about it. But when you’re a country artist through and through, all you accomplish is a pop-sounding record with a country-singing fella. It just didn’t fit. At one point, I made

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a lot of bad choices, and I take full responsibility for them. The addiction and the hard stuff I put myself through, it’s now a part of the fabric of my story. God bless the broken road that has led me to sit here talking to you today. Sometimes I’m grateful for my mistakes, because I don’t think I’d be the man I am today if it wasn’t for them.

If there was a movie version of your life story, who would you like to portray you?

There are very few actors who have great singing voices. I think Hugh Jackman or Neal Patrick Harris would do a great job playing me.

We would have to bring them to Nashville and teach them the cowboy ways!

You are embarking on a 2015 concert tour with Andy Griggs and Jamie O’Neal. What are you most looking forward to about that?

I love those two, number one.

We’re three very different people.

Andy’s very much the bow-hunting, beer-drinkin’ redneck fella. Jamie, on the other hand, is definitely our diva. She’s not a diva-in-training, she’s a full-blown diva. And I’m the gay guy who’s just about as country as they come. The dynamic is the crazy friendship. Those guys will play a Pride festival with me, they’ll go anywhere I go. And I will go anywhere with them. I feel protected and loved.

As same-gender marriage continues to make strides across the country, if you and your boyfriend Matty were to marry, to what song would you like to walk down the aisle?

That’s an easy question for me.

There’s a Rascal Flatts song that I referred to, “God Bless the Broken Road That Has Led Me Straight to You.” That would be our wedding song. And if I had my wish, I would have my friend LeAnn Rimes come and sing it.t

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DVD>>

January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 25

Before the revolution

by David Lamble

U

nabashedly witty and quite shamelessly entertaining, British film director Sir Carol Reed’s Our Man in Havana is described in the back of its DVD liner notes as a classic example of the film noir genre. But in point of fact, this is a subversively droll dark comedy that defies all labels: you could quite properly stick it in any of a half-adozen slots in a well-stocked video store.

A first-act title card proclaims, “This film is set in Cuba before the recent revolution.” And what a deliciously bizarre setting this proves to be. With a screenplay by Graham Greene adapted from his own novel, the story unfolds during the final days of the corrupt “thugocracy” that marked the end of the dictatorship of former Army Sergeant Fulgencio Batista. We know we’re in for a wickedly funny if bumpy ride during an opening sequence in which a debonair British diplomat (Noel Coward) is hounded during his frenetic slog through a fetid Havana slum by a slovenly street merchant who pesters him with the cry of, “Shoeshine? Pretty girls? Dirty movies?” Undeterred, the diplomat arrives at a squalid little shop whose proprietor, Jim Wormold (Alec Guinness), barely survives selling Hoover vacuum cleaners.

The diplomat has an ulterior motive: to recruit the unsuspecting Mr. Wormold as an agent of Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Standing in Wormold’s shop, the diplomat’s eye falls on a gleaming metal machine whose proper name is the Midget Made Easy Small Power Suction Small Home Cleaner. Asked by the diplomat to provide the British government with drawings of a supposedly top-secret military base hidden away in the mountains, the sly merchant submits a detailed drawing of his top-of-the-line cleaning machine. The diplomat is nonplussed.

“Atomic carpet cleaner? I didn’t know science had got that far.”

“Oh, it works off the light plug, the same as all the others.”

“You do pretty well?”

“Yes, but there’s not much electric power since ‘the troubles’ began.”

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Out To Kill

From page 23

Out To Kill plays out like a combination Hagatha Christie mystery (so many people have a reason to kill Justin), an Alfred Hitchcock movie with emphasis on the “cock” (wait until you meet “Mr. Rear Window”), and a twisted “revenge of the fat kid” story. DVD special features include Goss music videos, an extended scene, commentary, cast video interviews and more.

Written and directed by Del Shores, Sordid Lives (Wolfe), now available in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, has attained cult status since its 2000 release, even spawning a short-lived but beloved TV series of the same name. Described as “a black comedy about white trash,” Sordid Lives is as funny today as the first time you saw it.

Featuring the feistiest bunch of southern belles since Steel Magnolias, Sordid Lives takes place in the hours before the funeral of Peggy (Gloria LeRoy), who died in a seedy motel room where she was carrying on an affair with married G.W. (Beau Bridges). How did she die, you ask? She tripped over G.W.’s carelessly splayed prosthetic legs and hit her head on the bathroom sink. That’s how!

Preparing and gathering for the funeral are Peggy’s sister Sissy (the amazing Beth Grant), who picked the wrong time to quit smoking; Peggy’s

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“When was that?”

“About the time Queen Victoria died.”

“You’re British, aren’t you? British passport and all that?”

“Yes.” “Enjoyed our chat. I’ll be seeing you again.”

This “chat” will carry Wormold, foxier than he first appears, through a series of crazy encounters with about the oddest assortment of mischievous characters ever assembled for an art-house British comedy.

Even the film’s format hints at a perversely mixed bag of cinematic tricks: it’s a widescreen, b&w noir adventure – complete with gunplay and hints of torture-driven police interrogations – littered with absurdist humor-driven subplots, including a teenage girl’s scheme to

convince her financially strapped dad to bankroll her dreams of owning a thoroughbred horse and to look the other way while she dates the sinister secret-police chief (a gloriously hip turn executed by the comic genius Ernie Kovacs).

In an odd way, this most untypical of Cuba-situated comedies is perfectly timed to reflect the weirdly conflicted motives of Obama Administration officials pushing their recent move to defrost our Cold War relations with Castro-era Cuba.

Bonus features include the original theatrical trailer; recipes for making the drink concoctions featured in the movie, Martini Minutes; plus the short features Secrets of Seduction and How to Travel in Style. (Sony Pictures Classics)t

dueling daughters Latrelle (Bonnie Bedlia) and LaVonda (Ann Walker); and G.W.’s wife Nolita (Delta Burke), who convinces LaVonda to join her in a Thelma and Louise-style rampage.

Peggy’s son Earl, aka Brother Boy (the always hilarious Leslie Jordan) as he is called by his sisters Latrelle and LaVonda, a Tammy Wynette-obsessed drag queen who has been in a psych hospital for more than 20 years, also

makes an appearance. So does Latrelle’s gay son Ty (Kirk Geiger), who, following years of therapy, braves a return to his Texas hometown.

Unabashed campy fun, Sordid Lives earns its place among the best and most popular of the 21st century’s gay comedies. Bonus features include original commentary, new interviews with the cast and director, and more.t C

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26 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

Divas of wintertime

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by Gregg Shapiro

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ike Mavis Staples and Bettye LaVette, Candi Staton has enjoyed the fruits of being rediscovered by a younger generation of musicians, and gaining a new audience. To be fair, gay men helped give Staton a career boost in the 1970s when her disco singles “Victim” and “Young Hearts Run Free” were spun regularly by DJs in gay clubs. There are no especially clubby cuts on Life Happens (Beracah/Fame), but there are heartfelt soul tunes delivered in Staton’s distinctive vocal style sure to appeal to fans from all over.

Standout numbers include “Commitment,” “I Ain’t Easy to Love” (featuring John Paul White, formerly of The Civil Wars, and Jason Isbell of Drive-By Truckers), the musical lesson of “She’s After Your Man,” “My Heart’s on Empty” and the bonus track “Where I’m At.” Jennifer Hudson could be one of the great dance divas of her generation. Well aware of and grateful to her LGBT fans, her JHUD (RCA) album was intended to be the disc to earn her rightful disco-diva crown.

The disc, featuring strong songs such as the R. Kelly duet “It’s Your World,” the booty-bumping “I Can’t Describe” featuring T.I., and the retro disco of “I Still Love You,” could have used more tunes like these, and fewer like “He Ain’t Going Nowhere,” featuring the ubiquitous Iggy Azalea, and the safe “Dangerous.”

Here’s the irony. Modern soul diva Mary J. Blige, who has never really positioned herself as a dance artist, has some excellent dance tracks on

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Cris Williamson

From page 17

On Saturday and Sunday, January 10 and 11, at 7 p.m., the South Dakota native returns to Berkeley, where she landed in 1969 after being raised in the wilds of Wyoming and Colorado. Supported by a stunning line-up of friends, Williamson will celebrate her music past and present, as well as the community with which it is entwined, at Freight & Salvage. Vicki Randle, Barbara Higbie, Shelly Doty, and Julie Wolf are just some of the artists who will join her in making the evenings unforgettable.

Talking with Williamson feels like talking with a sage. What better reason to step aside and let this wise woman speak for herself about her evolution, and the deep-rooted spirituality that distinguishes her latest album?

“Spirituality has always been important to me, but it has risen in importance of its own accord,” she says. “About three years ago, I lost my voice from mold in my lungs. It was staggering for me. I didn’t quite know what had happened. There were places in my voice that were missing that had always been there.

It was pretty frightening.

“I took a year’s sabbatical, which was more than a bit for someone who had always been working.

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Codebreaker

From page 23

creating the field of artificial intelligence, the idea that machines can think. He proposed the “imitation game” or Turing test, which stated that if a machine can convince you that it can solve a problem just like a human would, it should be considered intelligent.

The docudrama methodically charts Turing’s downfall following a chain of unfortunate events after meeting Arnold Murray, which led to a burglary of his home and eventual arrest. Turing was interested

her new album The London Sessions (Capitol), on which she collaborated with gay blue-eyed soul Brit Sam Smith, hot dance duo Disclosure and others. “My Loving,” “Nobody But You” and even the funky “Right Now” qualify as damn fine tracks, elevating Blige to disco-diva status. Albumcloser “Worth My Time” has all of the drama and fierceness we’ve come to experience from Blige and then some.

Welcome to the nightclub, Miss Mary.

“Reality” TV star K. Michelle can sing. There’s no disputing that fact with her second album Anybody

Wanna Buy a Heart? (Atlantic). Just listen to ballads “Cry” and “How Do You Know?” for verification. Right before things start to get a little monotonous, seven songs in, Michelle wisely throws in some variation with the exceptional “Something About the Night.” “Drake Would Love Me” is an unintentionally amusing power-ballad title, and the urban twang of “God I Get It,” with its pedal-steel guitar, has the potential to be a hit with the Nashville crowd.

With the exception of a “Cherish/ Monday Monday” medley, the songs

on the expanded CD reissue of Life Goes On (Real Gone/RCA/Sony/ SoulMusic), the second album by 70s soul trio Faith, Hope & Charity (Brenda Hilliard, Albert Bailey and Diane Destry), were written by disco godfather Van McCoy, who also produced the disc. Originally released in 1976, Life Goes On has that distinctive pre-disco breakout sound, heard most clearly on the title track and “Positive Thinking” (reminiscent of songs by Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band). The four bonus tracks consist of 12” versions of the

title cut, “You’re My Peace of Mind,” “Gradually” and “Positive Thinking.”

Goapele deserves a gold star for making the best use of rapper Snoop Dogg in a song. Usually, a rapper’s presence in a song comes across as a disruption that should be discouraged. On the track “Hey Boy” from Goapele’s Strong As Glass (Skyblaze/BMG), Snoop Dogg is actually a pleasant distraction who adds to the enjoyment instead of detracting from it. Other strong tracks include “What in the World,” “Some Call It Love” and “Powerful.”t

While I was being quiet, I could more easily hear voices that were speaking to me about Spirit, kindness and generosity – the things that really matter to me in human beings. I am so moved these days when people are kind.

“I’ve been watching the striving for justice and fairness in the world, where people see you as a human being rather than judging you by your color or sexuality or any of those things. For years, we’ve been struggling to be seen as human beings and, at the same time, keep our individuality. It’s a constant struggle for human beings to be apart and yet to belong.

“Somewhere in that struggle to keep my individuality and really care about myself and see myself clearly, I crouched down and tried to figure out what was really important in my life. I asked myself if I couldn’t sing, could I still be Cris Williamson, do what I really want to do, and be who I am in the world? I came to an agreement that I could.

With healing and practice, my voice came back, for which I’m eternally grateful.

“It was a test of faith. I know I’m not the first. It’s as though I’d stumbled across some place that’s a wilderness, and you know other people have been in this place because they’ve left notes, and scratches on the rocks. A runner who can’t run – you can think of a million examples.

“If you’re only gathered around one means of expression – if you only eat eucalyptus leaves, and that tree dies – you die. So it’s best to range widely and wisely, and really start paying close attention. I think the older we get, it’s demanded of us more and more to wake up and pay attention.

“As I rose back up again, I had 24 songs in hand, which I combined with a few from other CDs because they seemed to want to belong to this particular gallery showing. I’m well pleased with the album and its minimalist presentation.

“Forty years ago I made The Changer. Thankfully, I wrote something that is broad-shouldered and very wide in its embrace. Even though I was only a young 27 when I made that music, it amazingly still holds true.

“My goal was always to sing for the world. But I realized that at that time in my life, I had to help create rooms of our own for women. They were the one who wanted my music more than anyone. They begged for it, clamored for it, had to have it. You have to pay attention to that. Necessity is the mother of invention. So I tended to them and to myself, because I always write for myself. The miracle to me is that it has been useful for anybody else beyond my own devices.

“When people are starving, it’s hard to measure if you’re any good.

Sometimes they’ll eat anything. But

the fact that it’s held up all these years says I made something very nourishing that can still be sampled and tasted.

“The concert is going to be a unification of people who were there then, people who are there now, and people who haven’t seen each other in a long time. It’s going to be a knitting together of a lot of strands that came apart

in all those rough in-between days.

Community can be lost, memory can be lost. This is a way to remember who we are, why we do what we do, and what we’re here for.”t

in retrieving some personal stolen items, while the police were more centered on arresting a well-known professor on charges of gross indecency (homosexuality was illegal in Britain until 1967). As one of the officers mocked him, “If you consort with naughty people, naughty things are bound to happen.” Publicly disgraced, and to avoid a jail term, Turing consented to a year of chemical castration (to cure his homosexuality) involving injections of synthetic female hormones that curbed his libido, shrank his testicles, and enlarged his breasts. Codebreaker shows that unlike the neu-

tered, emotionally stunted figure depicted in The Imitation Game, Turing had an active sex life before and after his arrest, especially during his trips to Corfu and Norway, even meeting potential boyfriends.

But, due to the Cold War paranoia of the times, which worried officials that Turing might reveal classified secrets, he was put under constant surveillance, and any suitor was scared away. Even during this traumatic period, Turing virtually invented the field of morphogenesis, applying mathematics to biology to decode nature and answer questions about patterns such as why tigers

have stripes and flowers have petals.

In 1953, when the estrogen therapy ended, its effects were immediately reversible, theoretically.

But this didn’t happen for Turing, and he feared he would never recover. Far worse for Turing was that the hormones played havoc with his brilliant brain, such that his thinking and concentration were muddled, a demoralizing and embittering catastrophe for him. Even his sessions with Greenbaum, which had now developed into an admiring friendship, provided little relief, and in June 1954 he committed suicide by eating a cyanide-poisoned

apple, dying at the age of 41.

Codebreaker is more emotionally shattering than The Imitation Game. At the end of Game, the viewer exits the theater proud of Turing’s war achievement. But when leaving Codebreaker, we are angry at the huge waste and persecution of a once-in-a-century talent, as well as at the disregard of his vital role in WWII, this in spite of his royal pardon a year ago. This enlightening docudrama concludes with a devastating comment from a contemporary scientist: “British science would have advanced further and been more creative if Turing had lived.”t

For tickets to the 40th Anniversary Celebration of Cris Williamson’s generation-defining recording, head to TicketFly.com.

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On the Tab

NIGHTLIFE DINING

SPIRITS

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PERSONALS Vol. 45 • No. 2 • January 8-14, 2015

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Midnight at the Oasis The newest club has opened up

D’Arcy Drollinger and Heklina inaugurate Oasis with a retro disco dance number.

W

ith much deserved fanfare, Oasis, the newest south of Market nightclub, opened with a rousing and raunchy drag show on December 31, bringing in what will hopefully See page 28 >> become a new era in nightlife fun.

The Power of an Open Kinky Mind Robbie Sweeny

by Race Bannon

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n odd thing has happened in the wake of the technological revolution regarding how we hookup and otherwise connect with each other erotically. Unlike what I remember from the pre-internet era, nowadays I hear a constant drone of complaints about how hard it is to See page 28 >> find people to connect with sexually.

Tattooed and leatheredup men at Recon.com’s Folsom party, held at Factory last September.

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Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

28 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

Gareth Gooch

Left: U-Phoria leads a pack of gal pals onstage at the new Oasis.

Right: A trio of adorably handsome Oasis staff members.

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Midnight at the Oasis

From page 27

It’s hard to believe that only a few weeks before, my afternoon visit to the space revealed bare wood studs, crated furniture and barren walls. A crew of half a dozen men had been busy on multiple projects at the time as two of the four new owners, D’Arcy Drollinger and Geoff Benjamin, gave me a mini-tour. It seemed a monumental task to complete the renovations. Drollinger remarked that the last-minute décor and technical work had been a wild race even to opening night, and promised more improvements soon, like a sprung wood dance floor to cover the cement.

But despite the numerous license requirements and construction tasks, by opening night, Oasis was ready to open.

More than 20 people were lined up outside upon our arrival on New Year’s Eve, standing under a multi-bulb-lit letter O. Eventually, it seemed everyone was allowed entry, all in accordance with the fire marshall’s careful capacity specifics.

Entering through the front lounge, the decor reflects a cool combination of goth industrial chic, with burgundy banquettes. The roomy dance floor is bracketed by a cute and surprisingly spacious stage, with a lengthy second bar on the opposite side. Several mirrors lined one wall, giving the dance floor a more spacious look, and a traditional disco ball spun and glimmered throughout.

The venue is well-lit, yet appropriately dark in some areas. The floors and ramps are mostly ADAcompliant (except the night’s makeshift coat check; we’ll get to that later), and while there was the usual bathroom line, the newly installed

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Open Kinky Mind

From page 27

When it comes to leatherfolk and kinksters, there are times the complaints seem even more common, perhaps exacerbated by the more complex combination of deeper negotiations necessary and the wider range of sexual interests than the typical less kinky hookup site profiles might represent.

The complaints befuddle me because I don’t honestly feel it is harder to hookup today than in the past. Of course, maybe I’m wrong. I’ve thought a lot about this lately.

Here are my guesses as to why this might be happening. Admittedly I err on the side of assuming that most people use websites and apps like Recon (www.recon.com) and Scruff (www.scruff.com) to find sexual partners. In my experience that’s generally true. And while I use the term “hookup,” I think many use such sites as places to find dating material as well.

I believe a portion of the complaints stem from our on-demand

fixtures are clean and ready for use.

Structurally, the club echoes a few of its previous incarnations; as Oasis in the 1980s and ‘90s, and as The Leatherneck in the ‘70s. The venue was even a sex club at one time, and had an indoor pool and retractable skylight. Plans are underway to eventually reopen the upstairs outdoor patio (but not the pool).

As we waited a few minutes for drinks (which were generously poured; cocktails were $10.), we enjoyed an array of TV screen retro clips from films like Can’t Stop the Music, Tommy and the wonderfully awful classic, The Apple. The DJed music offered a classic disco theme.

The crowd ranged from formally dressed male, female and straight couples, goateed younger guys, glittery genderfuck dragsters and performers, who hung out with guests, but soon disappeared into the new spacious private dressing rooms.

Just after 11p.m., masterminds Heklina and D’Arcy Drollinger opened with a space age-themed number set to Sarah Brightman’s ‘70s disco classic “I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper,” signaling that the venue will reflect our groovy past while heading wig-first into the future.

“We just popped this stage’s cherry,” Heklina crowed before making introductory comments. Throughout the night, she and Drollinger thanked the many people who made their first night a success, including “my stage bears,” she said, the crew of cute and familiar bearded men who swept the stage between numbers.

The dynamic duo also thanked partners Geoff Benjamin and Jason Beebout for their months of dedication toward making the club happen.

Then, several other drag acts took to the cute yet roomy stage. Errant smokers in the alley and those in the culture. We have instant or nearly instant everything these days. So why not instant sex? Perhaps we are simply less patient with the effort and thought that might go into fostering more readily accessible connections.

The ease with which we can connect with others, seeing in often painstaking detail the range of people’s sexual proclivities, might actually be working against us. Let’s say you see a list of 15-20 sexual interests listed on someone’s profile. You notice one or two that don’t turn you on. I think the tendency for many of us is to write off that person because we’re not an “exact” match in terms of interests.

The same goes for sexual positions, roles, body types, and so on. No two people will be an exact match. That’s just not how our sexualities work. We are all truly unique in the exact combination of physicality, erotic turn-ons and chemistry that trip our sexual and compatibility triggers.

Lost sometimes in the online hookup culture is simply finding someone who appears interesting and figuring out what might work

lounge crowded toward the stage.

The space was blessed by a few Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, including Sister Roma.

Then the first show at this new nightclub continued. Our hosts introduced several drag acts, which ranged from lightly comic to downright crass, in true Trannyshack style.

Michael Phillis’ dance crew Exhibit Q wore, then ripped off, Tshirts emblazoned with the logos of local revered (or despised) tech companies (Twitter, Google, Dropbox, etc.), offering a bite at the hand that some claim is leading to the demise of San Francisco’s alternative culture.

After a short video where Roxy Cotton Candy lamented her bad tuck, a pair of evil medics operated on her, not before a puppet version of Roxy’s testicles sang a lament before a fake-bloody castration.

Queen brought more raunch with a wild duet, where she lubed up, then mimed inserting herself into the rear of a frightened young hunk in what could only be called a

fisting pas de deux.

Stalwart trooper Ethel Merman sang a wacky live version of Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High.”

Heklina didn’t refrain from her usual catty humor after an extended group number led by U-Phoria, which excerpted the appropriate song, “Midnight at the Oasis.”

“That last act was so long, I went home, shaved, and watched an episode of The Golden Girls,” she joked.

Before the last few acts, at the stroke of midnight, the balloons dropped, complimentary champagne was served, and celebrants rung in the new year at the new nightclub.

The show continued with a retro-perfect trio of Cookie Dough, Bebe Sweetbriar and a Divine-esque WooWoo Monroe lip-synching to a medley of classic Donna Summer and Sylvester songs, even a chorus of five Village People hunks dancing to “Y.M.C.A.” Rahni NothingMore performed a brilliant Indipop solo, twirling and gesturing with élan.

The closer began with Sue Casa being carried through the crowd to the stage, where she performed faux-rim jobs to yet another chorus of hunks who stripped down to jock straps before spewing popped champagne bottles over the crowd and each other.

“It isn’t a good drag night without a little onstage rimming,” joked Heklina before DJ MC2 continued the dance music with an array of pop songs.

The only snafu was the coat check.

Set in a small balcony alcove above the front lounge and up a flight of metal stairs, the line to retrieve garments snailed down the stairs and around the lounge, leaving many patrons waiting for more than half an

Gareth Gooch

Festive fans of the new Oasis nightclub.

erotically at the time through conversation. Absent a detailed sexual resume, we are forced to engage and converse with someone to find out their interests, needs and desires. I believe many people can more easily find common erotic ground this way than they might using someone’s profile for reference accompanied by a few, quick back and forth messages.

Our erotic fantasies to which we masturbate and otherwise ruminate over are fed by a steady stream of images, video and hookup site profiles. On the face of it, this might seem like a good thing. But what if it’s actually feeding into a more solidified and unyielding self-definition of our erotic selves? What if instead of opening our minds to a range of possibilities, it’s instead closing them to options?

Online hookup sites reduce many of our sexual identities into values in a database. Top, bottom or versatile.

Dominant, submissive or switch.

Hairy versus smooth. Height, weight, hair color and body type all clearly specified. Sexual interests categorized into check boxes on a screen. It all seems so neat and tidy.

But how many of us are actually accurately described by such pre-de-

fined data values in a database sitting on someone’s server? No one. The uniqueness that is each individual’s sexuality and identity simply can’t be reduced to such simplistic information. Lost amid the data is the actual person behind the data. Lost are the subtle nuances that can be the more interesting aspects of a person.

Consider also that when someone reads a long list of erotic interests the reader often translates that in their mind to, “I’m really good at all

t

hour. My friend almost lost the glasses and case in his coat pockets, and my coat was nowhere to be found.

Apparently someone else with a similar coat (and there were many black overcoats) went home with mine.

In a call a few days later, co-owner Benjamin replied quickly, assuring me that the coat check situation will be moved and improved. Two more bathrooms will soon be completed in the upstairs area.

Gareth Gooch

Rahni NothingMore performs a twirling Indipop dance at Oasis.

Upcoming shows include cabaret acts and dance nights. Talented performers this week include Our Lady J, and the hilarious Shit & Champagne continues its run through mid-February.

Future nights include actordrag artiste Matthew Martin’s solo show, Heklina’s new twice-monthly Mother drag night, and in February on first Fridays, Polyglamorous with BAAAHS DJs Mark O’Brien and Mo JoR. For most of the stage shows, cabaret tables and seating will be available.

As the New Year’s Eve show reached its end, before shifting to dancing, Heklina joked from the stage, “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not gonna do this. I’m moving to Puerto Vallarta. You can have it all, D’Arcy.”

But we know that’s not going to happen, of course. “I was joking!”

Heklina said. “We are so glad you chose to be with us on New Year’s Eve. Thank you so much!”

So, let’s welcome the newest queens on the block at Oasis.t Oasis, 298 11th Street at Folsom.

985-4442. www.sfoasis.com www.facebook.com/sfoasis

of this stuff with lots of experience – so you have to be also” when that might not be the case at all.

This is especially disconcerting to a newcomer to kink. One might be incredibly skilled at some BDSM activity, for example, but a complete newcomer to yet another. But when they’re read by someone in a profile, there’s usually no distinction. This leads to further apprehension to See page 32 >>

Rich Stadtmiller

Beary pals at BigMuscle.com’s event at DNA Lounge in September 2014.

t

Read more online at www.ebar.com

Imperial Court of SF

January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 29

Five decades and counting

by Donna Sachet

torcycle to find Shirley and deliver the news 015 marks 50 years since the that she was now the Imperial Court of San Francisco Peacock Empress III. began its rich history of community (Notice the growing service. In this, the first in a series of bird theme here?) five articles, we’ll reflect back on five In 1968, there were decades of activism, altruism, and again seven candidates, camp. Other than readily available but less controversy, as historical information on the interReba stepped up as the net, many of the details contained Swallow Empress IV. herein are derived from Emperor By now, the Imperial Matthew Brown, a devoted supCourt began to adopt porter of the Imperial Court and its a little more structure, history. Credit is also due to Paul establishing an official Gabriel, formerly of the Gay/Lescrown style, purchasbian Historical Society. ing a symbolic State By 1962, the civil rights struggles Crown, and adding a of the late 1950s and ‘60s had made robe, ring, and Privy it apparent that organizing in numCouncil. bers was key to successful advance1969 saw five canment. That year, San Francisco gay didates for Empress; bar owners and employees joined Willis emerged victoritogether in the Tavern Guild, findous, the Dove of Peace ing strength in numbers.

Empress V. After that One of the most successful early year the election proceevents was the first Beaux Arts Ball dure changed; now the in 1963, sponsored by the Jumpin’ candidates would be Frog bar on Polk Street. The event presented at the Beaux attracted record crowds and left a Arts Ball, but then run lasting impression. a campaign for two For the second Beaux Arts Ball, months before election. the Tavern Guild invited Jose Sarria Because of this alto attend as a special honoree. By teration, Willis has the José Sarria, aka Her Royal Majesty, then, he had already distinguished record of being the lon- Empress of San Francisco, José I, The Widow himself as the first openly gay pergest reigning Empress, Norton in the mid-1960s. son to run for political office when just over a year and two he ran for city supervisor in 1961 months. She also has During his reign Hernandez creand was an immensely popular the distinction of being the earliest ated the “Spoon Awards,” presented drag entertainer, particularly at The living Empress and currently resides to various individuals in 20 different Black Cat in North Beach, until it in Palm Springs. categories for continuously stirring lost its liquor license and was forced In 1971, Cristal became the Black the pot, as some are known to do. The out of business in 1963. UnfortuSwan Empress VI from a field of King and Queen of Spoons became nately, Sarria was working at the three candidates and the Court of one of the first truly camp titles.

New York World’s Fair and declined San Jose began its own formation.

Maxine was elected the invite. the Bird of Paradise EmWith a little more press VIII in 1973 and preparation, Jose was was the first Empress to able to attend the 3rd reign with two different Beaux Arts Ball on OcEmperors, since the protober 31, 1965, where cedures and timing for he was honored by the each title were different.

Tavern Guild with the Her second Emperor title Queen of the Ball. became Russ HigginAs legend has it, true botham. Rumors have it to form, Jose stated he that Maxine was so excitwas “already a queen” ed to be announced that and proclaimed himshe was unable to get her self “Her Royal Majesty, shoes back on and was Empress of San Francrowned without them! cisco, José I, The Widow The Owl Empress IX Norton.” The public Frieda was crowned in had little choice but to 1974, evidently in the acquiesce, and so the face of racial prejudice, Imperial Court of San Empress Maxine VIII on the cover of a even from within the ImFrancisco was born.

January 1973 Bay Area Reporter. perial Family. She won At the next Beaux by one vote over three Arts Ball, held at the hoother candidates. Intertel now known as Hotel Whitcomb In 1972, out of four candidates, estingly, Frieda was averse to flying, on Market Street, candidates for Jonni became the Flamingo Emso she traveled by car or sometimes Empress, officially approved in the press VII. It was at this time that a by train. When the porter on the preceding weeks, were presented, group of individuals, led by John train back from Seattle found out and attendees voted by dropping Chase, against considerable oppothat an Empress was on board, he their marked tickets into a ballot sition, particularly from the Tavasked her to draw numbers for binbox at the event. As a reflection of ern Guild, established the title of go in the Club Car, which she did the times, the two candidates used Emperor of San Francisco, elected gladly in full regalia. their actual male first names, Gene at a different time and in a differNext week: Do the Emperors and and Michael, but their drag names ent manner, but overlapping with Empresses ever get together? When were Bella and Michelle. Bella the Empress reign. That first year, will this bird obsession end? What emerged victorious at midnight, there were seven candidates, then happens in the second decade of thereafter known as the Hummingfour finalists, and finally Marcus the Imperial Court of San Franbird Empress II, the first elected Hernandez, a very familiar name to cisco? Watch right here for more Empress of San Francisco. the LGBT and leather communities, next week!t The election of the next Empress was elected Emperor. is full of intrigue and scandal, unfortunately only through word of mouth. Out of seven candidates in 1967, there was a tie between Fanny and Shirley; the room was pandemonium!

Some report that the crowd attempted to break the tie with a yelling match, others remember Shirley grabbing the crown and stating “I am the Empress,” and still others say the Jose himself made the decision to crown Shirley for personal reasons.

By that late hour of the evening and with no compromise in sight, Marcus Hernandez (third/left) with his Emperor entourage “Thom, Shirley had left the event and gone Sterling, Jim, Doug, and Michael”) at the Fairmont Hotel in 1973; to a bar Baj near North Beach, so from California Scene magazine fall 1973.

Jose hopped aboard a friend’s mo-

2

Steven Underhill

PHOTOGRAPHY

415 370 7152

WEDDINGS, HEADSHOTS, PORTRAITS

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<< On the Tab

30 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

AB f eON THE8T –15 January

The weekly jock-ular fun continues, with special sports team fundraisers.

3pm-7pm. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Club Rimshot @ Club BNB, Oakland

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and the Radical Faeries cohost a new T-Dance with DJs Digital Wildlife, Justime, Colin Bass, and Jim Hopkins.

Proceeds benefit the 14th Street House Project. $10. 4pm-9pm. 298 11th St. 985-4442. www.sfoasis.com

Kegan Marling

Hip Hop, Top 40, and sexy Latin music; gogo dancers, appetizers, and special guest DJs. No cover before 11pm and just $5 after all night.

Dancing 9pm-3am. Happy hour 4pm8:30pm 2111 Franklin St. (510) 2689425. www.club21oakland.com

Fri 9 Asheq Party @ Slate LGBT Middle Eastern dance party, with belly dancers and gogos; DJ Khalis spins grooves with a multiculti style. $7. 9pm-2am. 2925 16th St. www.slate-sf.com

W

Happy Friday @ Midnight Sun

My So-Called Night @ Beaux

Thu 8 Beats Reality @ Trax Resident DJs Jim Hopkins and Justime welcome guest DJs and play groovy tunes. Weekly, 9pm-2am. 1437 Haight St. 864-4213.

B.P.M @ Club BnB, Oakland Grand opening of Beats, People, Music, Olga T’s new weekly R&B/ soul/variety dance night at the newly moved LGBT (and straight-friendly) nightclub, with DJ Lady Lu. No cover.

9pm-2am. 2120 Broadway at 21st.

Oakland. www.bench-and-bar.com

Bulge @ Powerhouse Grace Towers hosts the weekly gogotastic night of sexy dudes shakin' their bulges and getting wet in their undies for $100 prize (contest at midnight), and dance beats spun by DJ DAMnation. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Fuego @ The Watergarden, San Jose Weekly event, with Latin music, halfoff locker fees and Latin men, at the South Bay private men's bath house. $8-$39. Reg hours 24/7. 18+. 1010 The Alameda. (408) 275-1215. www.thewatergarden.com

Funny Fun @ Club 21, Oakland Weekly LGBT and straight comedy night hosted by Dan Mires. $10.

8pm. 2111 Franklin St. Oakland.

(510) 268-9425. www. club21oakland.com

The popular video bar ends each work week with gogo guys (starting at 9pm) and drink specials. Check out the new expanded front lounge, with a window view. 4067 18th St. 8614186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Heklina hosts a new weekly '90s-themed video, dancin', drinkin' night, with VJs Jorge Terez and Becky Knox. Get down with your funky bunch, and enjoy 90-cent drinks!

'90s-themed attire and costume contest. No cover. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Incredibly Strange Dance Party @ SF Eagle Jon Ginoli (Pansy Division) and Chi Chi LaRue (veteran porn director) co-guest-DJ Jello Biafra's monthly unusual music night at the fame leather bar. 9pm-2am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Nap's Karaoke @ Virgil's Sea Room Sing out loud at the weekly least judgmental karaoke in town, hosted by the former owner of the bar. No cover. 9pm. 3152 Mission St. 8292233. www.virgilssf.com

Kathy Najimy @ Feinstein's at the Nikko

Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences

The accomplished film, stage and TV actress performs excerpts from her solo show, Lift Up Your Skirt, which includes stories and monologues. $45-$60.

8pm. Jan. 10 at 7pm. $20 food/drink min. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.kathynajimy.com www.ticketmaster.com

Themed event nights at the fascinating nature museum, with DJed dancing, cocktails, fish, frogs, food and fun. Jan. 8: How-To Nightlife, with music by DJ Jamie Jams, metalworking with instructo/artists from The Crucible, plus lots more. $10-$12.

6pm-10pm, 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

Latin Explosion @ Club 21, Oakland The festive gogo-filled dance night; no cover before 10pm. ($10) 9pm-4am.

2111 Franklin St., Oakland. (510) 2689425. www.club21oakland.com

Pan Dulce @ The Cafe Amazingly hot Papi gogo guys, cheap drinks and fun DJed dance music. Free before 10pm. $5 til 2am. 2369 Market St. www.clubpapi.com www.cafesf.com

Manimal @ Beaux Gogo-tastic dance night starts off your weekend. $5. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Shit & Champagne @ Oasis

Fri 9

D'Arcy Drollinger's hilarious nightclub hit, a whitesploitation comedy with action-packed models fighting a drug cartel, returns at the new SoMa nightclub; featuring Matthew Martin. $20-$25. Thu-Sat 7pm. Thru Feb. 14. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 985-4442. www.sfoasis.com

Asheq Party @ Slate

Some Thing @ The Stud

Mary Go Round @ Lookout

Mica Sigourney and pals' weekly offbeat drag performance night.

10pm-2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Suppositori Spelling, Mercedez Munro and Holotta Tymes host the weekly night with DJ Philip Grasso, gogo guys, drink specials, and drag acts. 10pm-2am. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Our Lady J @ Oasis The sassy singer with a great style performs at the new SoMa nightclub. $20. 10pm. 298 11th St. 985-4442. www.sfoasis.com

Sat 10

The Monster Show @ The Edge

Beat to the Beat @ SF Citadel Dance party at the BDSM kink space, featuring a dungeon with a lighted dance floor; with tunes spun by DJ Justime. 8pm-1am. 181 Eddy St. 757-0090. www.sfcitadel.org Jeremy Shane

Cookie Dough's weekly drag show with gogo guys and hilarious fun.

Jan. 8: TV Sketch Fest vs. Viral Video, where popular YouTube videos and comedy sketches are performed live. $5. 9pm2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Jock @ The Lookout

The classic leather bar's most popular Sunday daytime event now also takes place on Saturdays. 3pm-6pm. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

VIP @ Club 21, Oakland

hat a wonderful new array of nightlife options we have in store for you in 2015. Okay, most of them are the same events. But it’s a new year, so it’s different, kind of.

Enjoy cheap/free whiskey shots from jock-strapped hotties and sexy sports videos at the popular sports bar. 10pm-2am.

2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Beer Bust @ SF Eagle

Women's happy hour, with all-women music and live performances, 2 for 1 drinks, and no cover. 5pm-9am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Disco guru DJ Bus Station John spins grooves at the intimate retro music night. $4. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Trixxie Carr @ Oasis

Gym Class @ Hi Tops

Pussy Party @ Beaux

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie's Lounge

Wed 14

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Beer Bust @ Hole in the Wall Saloon Beer only $8.4pm-8pm. 1369 Folsom St. 431-4695. hitws.com

Get groovin' at the weekly hip hop and R&B night at their new location. $8-$15. 9pm to 4am. 2120 Broadway. www.bench-and-bar.com

Cris Williamson @ Freight & Salvage, Berkeley The veteran lesbian folk singer celebrates the 40th anniversary of her milestone album The Changer and the Changed, with guests Vicki Randle, Barbara Higbie, Shelley Doty, Julie Wolf and others. $42-$46. 7pm.

Also Jan 11, 7pm. 2020 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 644-2020. www.criswilliamson.com www.freightandsalvage.org

Daddy @ Powerhouse Andy Cross hosts a night of leather, gear, and adult manly men cruising, right after the Mr. Powerhouse contest; with DJ James Torres, Scout bootblacking, slutty daddy and boy gogos and drink specials. $5-$10.

9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Maria De Beunos Aires @ Hotel Rex Society Cabaret presents the tango singer, with pianist Barry Lloyd. $25$45. 8pm. 562 Sutter St. www.ticketmaster.com www.societycabaret.com

Resilient @ Truck The monthly social event by and for HIV+ guys and allies, with local DJs and sexy gogo guys. $3.

5pm-9pm. 1900 Folsom St. www.trucksf.com

Writers With Drinks @ The Make Out Room

Saints and Sinners @ Oasis

Salsa Sundays @ El Rio Salsa dancing for LGBT folks and friends, with live merengue and cumbia bands; tapas and donations that support local causes. 2nd & 4th Sundays. 3pm-8pm. 3158 Mission St. 282-3325. www.elriosf.com

Sundance Saloon @ Space 550 The popular twice-weekly countrywestern dance night includes linedancing, two-stepping and lessons. $5. 6:30-10:30pm. Also Thursdays 6:30pm-10:30pm (closed dec 25). 550 Barneveld Ave. at Industrial. www.sundancesaloon.org

Sunday's a Drag @ Starlight Room Donna Sachet hosts the weekly fabulous brunch and drag show. $45.

11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square. 395-8595. www.starlightroomsf.com

Vanessa Bousay @ Martuni's The drag chanteuse’s new monthly cabaret show, with Steven Satyricon; Alan Choy accompanies. This month, a world tour of music favorites. 7pm. 4 Valencia St. www.vanessabousay.com

Sat 10

Our Lady J @ Oasis

Authors Octavio Solis, Sandra Lim, Joshua Davis and Tim Johnston are featured at the reading series. $5-$20.

7:30pm. 3225 22nd St. makeoutroom.com

Sun 11 Beer Bust @ Lone Star Saloon The ursine crowd converges for beer and fun. 4pm-8pm. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Beer Bust @ SF Eagle The classic leather bar's most popular Sunday daytime event in town draws the menfolk. 3pm-6pm.

Now also on Saturdays! 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Beer Bust @ SF Mix The popular Castro bar hosts its weekly softball team beer bust fundraiser. 3pm-7pm. 4086 18th St. 431-8616. www.sfmixbar.com

Big Top @ Beaux Joshua J.'s homo disco circus night returns, now weekly, with guest DJs and performers, hotty gogo guys and drink specials. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.BeauxSF.com

Brunch Sundays @ Balancoire

Mon 12 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. 8:30pm1am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 6523820. www.whitehorsebar.com

Karaoke @ The Lookout Paul K hosts the amateur singing night. 8pm-2am. 3600 16th St. at Market. www.lookoutsf.com

Weekly live music shows with various acts, along with brunch, mimosas, champagne and more, at the stylish nightclub and restaurant. 2565 Mission St. at 21st. 920-0577. www.balancoiresf.com

Mahogany Mondays @ Midnight Sun

GlamaZone @ The Cafe

Monday Musicals @ The Edge

Pollo del Mar's weekly drag shows takes on different themes with a comic edge. 8:30-11:30pm. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

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

The popular Castro bar's musical theatre night. 7pm-2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

t

On the Tab>>

Name That Beat @ Toad Hall BeBe Sweetbriar hosts a weekly musical trivia challenge and drag show. 8:30-11:30pm. 4146 18th St. at Castro. www.toadhallbar.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

Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht (aka Trauma Flintstone). 9pm.

4 Valencia St. at Market. www.dragatmartunis.com

Elephant Walk Celebration @ Harvey's

Wooden Nickel Wednesday @ 440

40th anniversary commemoration of the Castro bar/restaurant's historic location, with a panel including Cleve Jones, Rink Foto, Fred Rogers and Elephant Walk employees, a disco performance by Sylvester cover singer Amoray, followed by Bebe Sweetbriar's trivia night. 8pm-10pm.

500 Castro St. 431-4278. www.HarveysSF.com

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

Underwear Night @ 440

Tue 13 Weekly screenings of music videos, concert footage, interviews and more, of popular pop stars. 9pm-2am.

4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Circle Jerk @ Nob Hill Theatre

WARNING HOT GUYS!

Comedy Returns @ El Rio

Strip down to your skivvies at popular men's night. 9pm2am. 440 Castro St. 621-8732. www.the440.com

Block Party @ Midnight Sun

Thu 15 Get very interactive with fellow horny patrons and upcoming headlining stripper David Benjamin (who performs onstage Jan. 16 & 17, 8pm solo, 10pm with Brian Bonds). $25.

8pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell.

397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Maria Mendez

Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni's

January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 31

Thu 15 Voices of Latin Rock includes Quino of Big Mountain @ Bimbo’s

Funny Tuesdays @ Harvey's Ronn Vigh hosts the weekly LGBT and gay-friendly comedy night. Dec. 2; Thai Rivera headlines. one-drink or menu item minimum. 9pm. 500 Castro St. at 18th. 431-HARV. www.harveyssf.com

Meow Mix @ The Stud The weekly themed variety cabaret showcases new and unusual talents; MC Ferosha Titties. $3-$7. Show at 11pm. 9pm-2am. 399 9th St. at Harrison. www.studsf.com

Naked Night @ Nob Hill Theatre Strip down with the strippers at the cruisy adult theatre and arcade; free beverages. $20. 8pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Piano Bar @ Beaux Singer extraordinaire Jason Brock hosts the weekly night, with your talented host –and even you– singing.

9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

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

Underwear Night @ Club OMG Weekly underwear night includes free clothes check, and drink specials; different hosts each week. $3. 10pm2am. Preceded by Open Mic Comedy, 7pm, no cover. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Follies & Dollies @ White Horse Bar, Oakland Ana Mae Coxxx hosts the genderqueer variety drag show (2nd & 4th Wed), this time featuring the best songs of 2014. $5. 9pm-1am. 6551 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (510) 6523820. www.whitehorsebar.com

Franc D'Ambrosio @ Feinstein's at the Nikko The Broadway singer (Phantom of the Opera) performs his new cabaret show, with stories and songs from show bix. $25-$40. 7pm. $20 food/drink min.

Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 6631063. www.ticketmaster.com

Play board games and win offbeat prizes at the popular sports bar. 9pm.

2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Bromance @ Beaux DJ Kidd Sysko spins tunes for the brotastic midweek night, with $2 beer pitchers, beer pong, $1 shots served by undie-clad guys. I8:30-10pm. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

510.343.1122

Cookie Dough's weekly drag show with gogo guys. Jan. 15: '90s Throwback Thursday. $5.

9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

San Jose

408.514.1111

Voices of Latin Rock @ Bimbo's Benefit for Autism Awareness includes performances by $55-$150. 6pm.

1025 Columbus Ave. at Chestnut. www.bimbos365club.com Want your nightlife event listed?

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Kollin Holts hosts the weekly comedy and open mic talent night. 6pm-8pm.

398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Rookies Night @ Nob Hill Theatre Watch newbies get nude, or compete yourself for a $200 prize. Audience picks the winner. $20. 9pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

So You Think You Can Gogo? @ Toad Hall

Trivia Night @ Harvey's

Bottoms Up Bingo @ Hi Tops

Oakland

Open Mic/Comedy @ SF Eagle

Booty Call @ QBar

The (mostly straight) kinky weekly dance night, where fetish gear is welcome; DJs Damon and Tomas Diablo play electro, goth, industrial, etc. 9:30pm-2:30am. 1190 Folsom St. www.bondage-a-go-go.com

415.430.1199

The Monster Show @ The Edge

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

Wed 14 Bondage a GoGo @ Cat Club

San Francisco

Miss Kitty's Trivia Night @ Wild Side West

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

Juanita More!'s weekly intimate dance night. $5. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.qbarsf.com

Sampson McCormack, Charlie Ballard, Francesca Fiorentini, Bobby Golden, and Lisa Geduldig make you laugh with their unique perspectives on life, at the popular monthly comedy night. $7-$20. 8pm.

3158 Mission St. (800) 8383006. www.elriosf.com

BeBe Sweetbriar hosts a weekly night of trivia quizzes and fun and prizes; no cover. 8pm-1pm. 500 Castro St. 4314278. www.harveyssf.com

Trixxie Carr's Maneater @ Oasis The drag/faux queen artiste's tribute to Hall & Oates includes half a dozen live performers with a four-piece band. $15. 8pm. 298 11th St. 9854442. www.sfoasis.com

Utah Phillips Tribute @ Freight & Salvage Stories and music performed by Duncan Phillips and Erin Inglish, with special guests Larry Hanks and Deborah Robins, Misner & Smith, Joe Stevens, Ben Pearl, and Nell Robinson & Jim Nunally. $16-$18. 8pm. 2020 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 6442020. www.freightandsalvage.org

Here’s Looking at You! EDGE will keep you informed, as the world’s largest LGBT network, with all the sparkling news, entertainment, and photos you’ll need in 2015!

edgeonethenet.com

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32 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

t

Robbie Sweeny

Left: Woofy hunks at Recon’s September 2014 Folsom party. Top Right: Buddies at last year’s Recon party in San Francisco. Bottom Right: A harnessed hunk checks his phone at the September 2014 Recon.com party.

<<

Open Kinky Mind

From page 28

play, it can elevate their reality threshold. Is this good or bad? Well, neither really.

But generally, the lower a person’s reality threshold, the easier it is for them to realize their erotic fantasies.

The reason is obvious. Their mind can more easily fill in the reality gaps.

For example, while one person might need a fully equipped dungeon with lots of ornate BDSM gear and a partner who maintains a strict role persona, another person might only need a dimly lit bedroom with

contact that person.

Some people also create intimidating erotic personas online. The persona isn’t their day-to-day presentation, but rather the fantasy (or perhaps part-time authentic) self that they use to satisfy their own erotic play needs. However, those same personas can make some people reconsider contacting them because of the uncertainty of where the persona and real person intersect.

I also think that the constant exposure to the highly detailed information some provide in their profiles, both in terms of photos and descriptions, coupled with other erotic images and video we view, elevates what I call people’s “reality threshold.” This threshold is the degree of reality someone finds necessary to enjoy an erotic experience.

In other words, how much of the situation must be based in reality for there to be a successful experience? Some find they need very little based in reality while others find it quite necessary. No two people are the same.

As examples, when people view such things as well-equipped dungeons and playrooms and profile pictures and descriptions Muscle daddies smooch at the representing highly geared, 2014 BigMuscle.com Folsom party. structured or orchestrated

a few BDSM toys and a partner who maintains some semblance of the role they are playing. Neither way is more correct, but the latter person is going to find it a lot easier to get their BDSM needs met. So it goes with all forms of sexuality and successfully finding partners.

I believe much of the dissatisfaction people have with their erotic experiences can be traced to their self-elevated reality threshold.

When we masturbate or otherwise have moments of erotic fantasy in our lives, I contend we can, at least to some extent, consciously link our erotic fantasies to more realistic expectations. This can improve our chances of creating real life sexual situations that satisfy us.

Can I prove this? No. But my instincts tell me this is true. It just makes sense. Detailed and specific expectations, lower chance of happening. A more open and free flowing erotic mind, higher chance of connection.

So maybe more of us need to keep our kinky minds open to a wider range of options in terms of types of people, play environments, sexual interests and role dynamics.

Maybe we’d all end up having a lot more sex and fun if we do, and meet some interesting people along the way.t

Rich Stadtmiller

Race Bannon is a local author, blogger and activist.

You can reach him on his website www.bannon.com.

Leather Events, January 9-24, 2015 Fri 9

Mon 12

Mon 19

Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club

Ride Mondays @ Eros

Ride Mondays @ Eros

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

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

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

Sat 10

Wed 14

Fri 23

Mr. Powerhouse Leather 2015 Contest @ Powerhouse

Golden Shower Buddies @ Blow Buddies

Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club

A men’s water sports night, Golden Shower Buddies, $15 with membership, 933 Harrison St., 8pm. www.blowbuddies.com

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

Fri 16

Sat 24

Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club

Defenders/SF 21st Anniversary Party @ Powerhouse

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

Party to celebrate this club’s anniversary, 1347 Folsom St., 6pm. www.sfdefenders.org

Contest to pick the next Mr. Powerhouse Leather, 1347 Folsom St., 7:30pm. www.powerhousebar.com

Daddy! Mr. Powerhouse Edition @ Powerhouse Party dedicated to daddies and their admirers, 1347 Folsom St., 9pm. www.powerhousebar.com

t

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January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 33

Summer & submission

by John F. Karr

W

hat better way to launch a new year than with a pair of movies by mr. Pam, whose upbeat, festive personality seems to so frequently breathe life into her movies. It shows in the night and day pair of flicks, Addict, and Summer of Fuckin’.

To me, a summer of fucking means 1967, the Summer of Love.

That’s when I came here, and that’s what I came here for. What an open, expansive place San Francisco was then, filled with the best and most free spirited fucking ever. Pam’s movie isn’t historical reminiscence, however. It takes place in the here and now, as indicated by its subtitle, “Castro 2014 SF.”

Scene two presents the movie’s second ginger beard, although in top man Connor Maguire, the carpet matches the curtains. His bottom is Paul Wagner—it’s so fine to watch his sveltely contoured body in action.

Things shift into a higher gear when another ginger boy, the rangy bottom Blake Daniels is lustily topped by Max Cameron. Both have very hard cocks and tight balls. Blake’s a nasty sexmate, but also a good natured one—he smiles when getting sucked and slammed.

A hungry bottom, he takes the lead in providing himself an effective bounce atop Cameron’s cock, which

NakedSword

Top: Jordan Foster (left) gets a backyard slam from Valentin Petrov in Summer of Fuckin’. Bottom: Cam Christou (left) and Adam Ramzi get nasty, in Summer of Fuckin’.

Filmed in some verdant Castro backyards, Summer of Fuckin’ depicts warm summery lovin’ that makes for fine viewing on these cold January nights. It’s free of dialogue, and doesn’t even pause to depict the building of relationships between performers (perhaps a bit to its detriment). It’s direct and to the point, though ultimately more congenial than compelling. Still, its guys are ardent and intent in pleasuring each other, in performances that are gratefully unforced.

Pam’s done a good job on technical aspects of both movies—framing is good, with only infrequent lopsided lovin’ going on, and the free-floating camera moves smooth and not too quickly. Excellent music

by Keith Kurtis, lighter textured in Summer and stormy and moody in Addict, soon gives way to the natural sounds of sex.

Each scene of Summer of Fuckin’ begins in smooches of hot makeout. The first scene depicts Valentin Petrov topping Jordan Foster, who’s got a gingery beard and sandy, half-visible pubes above loose balls that swing as they fuck, standing up against a fence. Foster squirts with a cock up his butt while riding Petrov and jacking furiously. Then he makes sure that a fair amount of his partner’s cum gets squirted into his mouth.

culminates in an effective explosion.

Cameron licks it up and delivers his mouthful to Daniels in a spermy kiss. And you know Daniels, he’s not gonna miss any of Cameron’s cum, and positions his open mouth right below the spot from which it’s gonna spew. He gets it, and kisses it back to Cameron.

An even hotter scene closes the film, with swarthy, handsome Adam Ramzi forcefully topping smutty-boy Cam Christou. They start out slowly, with lingering kisses, and Christou lavishing attention on Ramzi’s nipples. Their pacing and continued eye contact heighten the scene’s low down feel.

They’re working as one while they fuck, with Christou giving off nasty attitude while suspended by ropes from a tree as Ramzi plugs him.

Ramzi blasts a mighty load all over Christou’s face and mouth, and the postlude they share is as sexy as the sex just passed.

Compulsive rituals Addict is very much opposite in mood. It’s set amidst the jumble of some shadowed warehouse, where projections of sexual imagery flicker on the walls, contributing to a dream-like visual aesthetic for scenes that are dark-of-night, compulsive rituals. The four scenes illustrate addictions to power, lust, fame and cock. What we get is guys in overdrive, aggressive and rather untamed.

Trenton Ducati, in the first scene, delivers the sexuality that made him a star while he’s bound and gagged and writhing under Max Cameron’s fervently applied arousements.

Ducatti sucks cock vehemently, making sure we understand the depth of his experience by gagging himself, and exploding back off Cameron’s cock to gasp for air. Finally unbound, he smashes his cock into Cameron’s butthole. Talk about a power fuck! And then they flip, and Ducati causes further great excitement by riding Cameron’s cock unto both their explosions.

Depicting lust, Christian Wilde sucks sexy Trelino at a slower speed that suggests cock-enslavement.

The quick plunging fuck you expect from Wilde makes Trelino whimper.

But he takes it—and he also takes

NakedSword

Top: Trenton Ducati (right) is a captive of versatile Max Cameron, in Addict. Bottom: Leo Forte gives himself over to anonymous marauders, in Addict.

Wilde’s cum, which is deposited neatly on his tongue.

Connor Kline’s scene with Jimmy Durano is only so-so. But now that he’s retired, it’s a strong reminder of his lusty career. The movie is fittingly concluded with a smashing threeway, in which bottom Leo Forte gets pulverized by pile driver Drew Sebastian and unyielding Max Cameron. Naturally, this culminates in a DP that Forte accommodates

with great groaning effort. Then he’s mesmerized, as both guys JO toward his mouth, leaving him with drops of precious souvenir. All told, Addict is a pretty pungent movie.t www.store.falconstudios.com Enjoy John F. Karr’s NSFW versions of his film reviews at www.karrnalknowledge.com

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

34 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 8-14, 2015

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Shooting Stars

January 8-14, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 35

photos by Steven Underhill New Year’s Eve

C

astro bars filled with New Year’s Eve revelers, who rang in 2015 at The Edge, Twin Peaks, Midnight Sun, and The Mix. Happy New Year to all our readers!

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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For headshots, portraits or to arrange your wedding photos

call (415) 370-7152 or visit www.StevenUnderhill.com or email stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com