December 12, 2013 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

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Manning's atty visits Oakland

A 'royal' wedding in SF

ARTS

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Portraits of dance

The

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Vol. 43 • No. 50 • December 12-18, 2013

Homeless youth space to close

A global affair

LGBTs mourn Mandela

by Seth Hemmelgarn

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by Heather Cassell

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GBT human rights leaders mourned the death of former South African President Nelson Mandela, calling the Nobel Peace Prize recipient a true global leader.

Mandela, 95, died December 5 at his home in South Africa. He had grown frail and suffered from recurring lung problems many believe began during his 27 years as a political prisoner on Robben Island during the apartheid era.

South African PresRick Gerharter ident Jacob Zuma anNelson Mandela nounced his death.

Speaking about Mandela, President Barack Obama described him as “a man who took history in his hands, and bent the arc of the moral universe toward justice.”

Mandela held a special place in the hearts and minds of LGBT rights activists for many reasons, chief among them was his work in drafting South Africa’s new constitution that included protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Jessica Stern, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, called Mandela’s life and legacy “incomparable gifts to the world.”

Julie Dorf, senior adviser for the Council for Global Equality and a former executive director of IGLHRC, agreed, emailing the Bay Area Reporter from Germany.

“There isn’t a greater symbol of equality for anyone involved in social change than Nelson Mandela,” she wrote.

Dorf recalled meeting Mandela at the 10th anniversary of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was honored with the Freedom Award in the early 2000s.

“He just had an amazing power to inspire,” wrote Dorf.

“He was not only fully inclusive in his vision for South Africa, but more than anything he inspires us to be fiercely ambitious in our vision, while steadfast and forgiving in our approach,” added Dorf. “I encourage our movement to learn from the legacy of Mandela’s life, as we fight for our own better future.”

Carolyn Wysinger, a Hayward LGBT activist and author of Knockturnal Emissions: Thoughts on #race #sexuality #gender #community, agreed.

“We don’t really have activists like Nelson Mandela was in our community anymore. We have plenty of activism, but he was truly an extraordinary being,” said Wysinger.

“Learn from him. Don’t just honor him just See page 2 >>

Jane Philomen Cleland

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he holiday spirit was evident Tuesday, December 10 in San Francisco City Hall at the lighting ceremony for the Rainbow World Fund’s World Tree of Hope. The LGBT-centered humanitarian fund’s executive director, Jeff Cotter, second from right, was joined by Masato Watanabe, Consul General of Japan, right, and, from left,

emcee and Bay Area Reporter society columnist Donna Sachet, RWF board member Karen N. Kai, and Clarence Jones, Ph.D., who helped write the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. The tree features origami cranes from around the world that contain messages of hope and peace.

site in San Francisco’s Upper Haight neighborhood that’s provided mental health services, clean syringes, and other assistance to homeless neighborhood youth for over a decade will shut down Christmas Day. Jane Philomen Cleland Homeless Youth Alliance recently announced Homeless Youth that its landlord isn’t re- Alliance director newing the lease on the Mary Howe space beyond January 1.

Mary Howe, Homeless Youth Alliance’s executive director, said in an interview that that property owner Happening House Ventures has been supportive of her agency, including giving it a discount on the rent, but “I think they are ready for a change in the building.”

On the agency’s website, Howe said, “The building will be renovated, and reopened with See page 13 >>

Artworks to benefit history project

by Matthew S. Bajko

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he estate of a deceased Castro artist has donated a number of her portraits of denizens of the gayborhood toward the fundraising effort for a sidewalk-based LGBT history project.

The 16 watercolors and drawings by Beth Van Hoesen, who died in 2010 at the age of 84, will be on display starting in January at the George Krevsky Gallery. Her works normally sell for $12,000 to $15,000.

The portraits, four of which have duplicates, will be available on a first-come, firstserved basis for purchase via a donation of more than $10,000 to the Rainbow Honor Walk.

The history project aims to install plaques honoring famous and accomplished LGBT people in the sidewalks throughout San Francisco’s Castro district. The bronze markers for the first set of 20 honorees will be installed as part of the sidewalk-widening project for Castro Street scheduled to begin in February.

Boosters of the walk need to raise $100,000 to pay for the initial 20 plaques being produced by Berkeley-based Mussi Artworks Foundry. They have already surpassed the $25,000 mark thanks in part to three $5,000 donations and an Indiegogo campaign that netted $5,500.

The Human Rights Campaign at its Castro Street store has been selling special pins

Rick Gerharter

Colton Windsor holds a Rainbow Honor Walk pin, for sale at the Human Rights Campaign store on Castro Street.

to raise funds for the Rainbow Honor Walk.

Later this month the HRC store will also be selling mugs featuring the first 20 inductees to benefit the project.

The batch of Van Hoesen artworks could net more than $200,000 if the special sale is successful.

Asked if he was confident the honor walk will raise enough money to pay for the first plaques by Pride 2014, when they are expected

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to be unveiled to the public, project co-founder David Perry stated “absolutely,” noting that the project is in talks with additional funders who have expressed an interest.

“I have no doubt we will have the rest of it

by Pride,” said Perry, who owns his own public relations firm and teamed up with gay Castro business owner Isak Lindenauer four years ago to push for the creation of the Rainbow Honor Walk.

Van Hoesen and her husband of 52 years, artist Mark Adams, who died in 2006, had lived in an old firehouse on 22nd Street in the Castro. It became known as the Firehouse studio as the couple hosted drawing classes there and had their own studios in the home.

In addition to her beloved portraits of animals – one of a rabbit called “Sally” and that of a rooster called “Boris” are among her most famous works– Van Hoesen liked to walk around the Castro finding individuals to draw. She was particularly enamored with drag queens, and her portraits of members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence charitable group and the late Jose Sarria, the founder of the Imperial Court system who died in August at the age of 90, are among those available for purchase next month.

In an emailed statement to the Bay Area Reporter, Mary Connors, the longtime personal assistant to Van Hoesen and Adams, stated that, “Beth was always excited when the See page 13 >>

<< Community News

2 • Bay Area Reporter • December 12-18 2013

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DOMA IS DEAD! PETITION FOR YOUR PARTNER The Supreme Court decision to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act now opens the door for members of samesex couples to sponsor their foreighn-born partners for green cards.

With Proposition 8 overturned as well, making all samesex marriages in California legal, this path is available to all multi-national California same-sex couples. For more information contact office of California Bar Certified Immigration and Naturalization Specialist Love Macione, Senior Immigration Counsel at Schein & Cai, LLP.

To schedule a consultation contact Bobby at (415) 360-2505 or by email at bsmith@sacattorneys.com Offices in San Francisco and San Jose.

Visit our website at

www.myimmigrationlaywers.com You can also visit us on Facebok: Schein and Cai, LLP

Castro fair shares the joy

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epresentatives from many of the 30 organizations who received grants from the 40th annual Castro Street Fair gathered at a reception at Toad Hall Tuesday, December 10 to

Rick Gerharter

learn of the grant totals and receive their checks. Almost 500 volunteers worked 2,000 hours during the fair, held the first Sunday of October. A little over $70,000 was distributed.

Manning lawyer in Oakland

by David-Elijah Nahmod

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TERRY MURPHY 760-832-3758

s Chelsea Manning remains confined in the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, her attorney, David Coombs, addressed a packed house at Oakland’s Humanist Hall this week.

Manning, an Army private who announced that she is transgender immediately after her court-martial this summer, was convicted under the Espionage Act for releasing classified documents to WikiLeaks while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison, and will be eligible for parole in 2020.

During Manning’s announcement about her gender identity, she also requested to begin hormone replacement therapy. That request has not been granted.

Coombs addressed Manning’s transgender status during his talk, as well as the ramifications of her actions. He stood before a blow-up photograph of Manning when she was known as Bradley. The photo was there to point out that Manning must live in male appearance in prison against her wishes.

Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, a Manning supporter, addressed the crowd briefly before Coombs took to the podium.

“I don’t mind being in prison for life or facing execution,” said Ellsberg, as he quoted Manning while standing before the photo. “Except for having my picture painted all over the world as a boy.”

Coombs said Manning spoke out

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Mandela

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because you think that he should be honored, but really learn about who he was and take the meaning of the lessons that you can and put them into practice,” said Wysinger, who credits Mandela for teaching her how to bring humility, love, and passion to her work.

Boris O. Dittrich, advocacy director of the LGBT program at Human Rights Watch, said it was the end of an era.

“He embodied hope,” Dittrich said in an email to the B.A.R. “Without him the world needs to find a new moral leader and people of his caliber are very, very hard to find.

“The world has become an empty place without him. He will be sorely missed. South Africa became a beacon of hope in a continent where most countries criminalize homosexual

Jane Philomen Cleland

Attorney David Coombs

and that her actions made a difference.

“Time has a way of healing all wounds,” said Coombs. “For me, it hasn’t, and won’t, until Chelsea is out of prison. Chelsea did a dangerous thing, she showed people the truth. A very dangerous thing to do when your country doesn’t want you to speak the truth. She spoke out, and it made a difference. The documents she released ended the Iraq War and started the Arab Spring. The documents shed a light on how we deal with other countries. We don’t always do what’s best for the world, but what’s best for ourselves.”

Coombs pointed out that Manning had access to millions of documents that she didn’t release. The documents she sent out were carefully chosen.

“Chelsea was struggling,” he said.

“She had a conscious. She wanted to spark debate.”

behavior and where LGBT people are treated as second-class citizens. Let us hope that those who follow in his footsteps will show the same magnitude and wisdom as Madiba did,” Dittrich added, using Mandela’s clan name.

Mandela served as South Africa’s president from 1994 to 1999. He was the nation’s first elected black president. In 1993, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former South African President F.W. de Klerk, who released him from prison in1990.

Mandela was born Rolihlahla Mandela on July 18, 1918. He was a son of the chief councilor to the paramount chief of the Thembu people in Transkei. He received his more familiar name from a teacher, according to the New York Times.

Rainbow leader

Mandela’s record on LGBT rights was strong, in spite of rarely speaking about LGBT people and fighting for

Coombs said he hopes that Manning’s actions will inspire others to speak up.

“We need whistleblowers like Chelsea,” he said. “There’s too much that we don’t know. Are we going to demand accountability and transparency?”

Coombs said that Manning was in a safe environment and was being well treated in prison. She has telephone privileges and is allowed to call friends and relatives on an approved calling list. Coombs said that he and his wife speak to Manning often, and that the two women had become quite friendly.

The military prison is not acknowledging Manning’s gender identity.

“Many federal prisons recognize gender dysphoria as a standard of care,” Coombs said. “It’s a matter of the military catching up.”

He said that transgender rights attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union and Southern Poverty Law Center were working on the issue of getting hormone therapy for Manning.

Coombs remains involved in the Manning case. On September 3, he petitioned President Barack Obama to grant Manning a presidential pardon. The request, which is being supported by Amnesty International, states that the information leaked did no actual harm and did not deserve protection, as it was not sensitive. The petition, which refers to Manning as Bradley and uses male pronouns, is now pending.

After the talk, people were asked to make donations to the Manning Defense Fund. An estimated $7,000 was raised.t

HIV/AIDS rights late in South Africa’s epidemic. In 2005, Mandela lost his son to AIDS. During his presidency he fought to decriminalize homosexuality and provide legal protections of LGBT individuals all the way up to enshrining rights in South Africa’s constitution.

Mandela wrote in his book Long Walk to Freedom, “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

He appointed the country’s first openly gay, HIV-positive judge, Edwin Cameron.

“Without Nelson Mandela’s great-hearted commitment to humanity and justice, sexual orientation equality would never have found its way into the South African constitution in 1994,” wrote Cameron in an email to the B.A.R.t A longer version is online at ebar.com.

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Community News>>

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 3

Feds approve two new hepatitis C meds

by Liz Highleyman

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he Food and Drug Administration has approved Gilead Sciences’ new hepatitis C drug sofosbuvir (brand name Sovaldi), following the recent approval of Janssen’s simeprevir (brand name Olysio). The drugs promise to dramatically improve cure rates – in some cases without interferon – but their high prices may present a barrier to widespread use.

“With the recent approval of Sovaldi and Olysio, we have entered the highly promising hepatitis C treatment era that we’ve all been waiting for,” Ryan Clary, director of public policy for the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable, told the Bay Area Reporter. “Our priority now is to ensure that all public and private insurers provide immediate access to these lifesaving drugs, and to make sure that everyone with hepatitis C knows about the companies’ patient assistance programs.”

An estimated 3.2 million people in the U.S. are living with hepatitis C, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with the majority being baby boomers born between 1945 and 1965. Over years or decades chronic hepatitis C can lead to serious liver disease

Courtesy Gilead Sciences

The FDA has approved Gilead Sciences’ new hepatitis C drug sofosbuvir.

including cirrhosis and liver cancer, and it is the leading indication for liver transplants.

“CDC continues to urge every baby boomer in America and others at risk to get tested for hepatitis C,” said John Ward, director of the CDC’s Division of Viral Hepatitis.

“Widespread screening, together with new cures, promises to slash the burden of hepatitis C in this country and save thousands of lives.”

The development of direct-acting antiviral agents has brought about a revolution in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C. For many years the standard of care has been pegylated interferon plus ribavirin, which requires up to a year of treatment, causes difficult side effects including flu-like symptoms and depression, and cures fewer than half of people with HCV genotype 1. Because of the difficulty of treatment, many people with hepatitis C and their doctors have been waiting for promising new drugs, especially interferon-free regimens.

The FDA approval for sofosbuvir came December 6. That followed by about a week its approval of simeprevir.

Sofosbuvir (formerly known as GS-7977 and PSI-7977) is the firstever nucleotide analog HCV polymerase inhibitor. Gilead purchased the drug’s initial developer, Pharmasset, in 2011. Simeprevir (formerly TMC435) is a next-generation HCV protease inhibitor discovered

by Sweden’s Medivir and developed

by Janssen (now part of Johnson and Johnson). As with antiretrovirals for HIV, combining drugs that target different steps of the HCV lifecycle improves potency and reduces the risk of drug resistance.

El/La to get anti-violence funding

by Seth Hemmelgarn

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he San Francisco Human Rights Commission has announced that it’s awarding up to $200,000 in anti-violence funding to an organization that helps transgender Latinas.

El/La Para TransLatinas, a Mission district-based education and outreach group that’s primarily been focused on HIV prevention but also addresses violence, is expected to use the money for violence prevention and intervention services for trans Latinas in the neighborhood.

Earlier this year, many expressed increased concerns about attacks on trans women in the Mission and other parts of the city.

“Keeping San Francisco the safest big city in the United States requires successful partnerships with our diverse communities and neighborhoods,” Mayor Ed Lee said in a December 4 HRC news release.

“This new partnership between the Human Rights Commission and El/ La will make our city and our communities safer for everyone.”

HRC Executive Director Theresa Sparks, who’s transgender, stated, “We are proud of El/La’s efforts to address violence against the trans Latina community and look forward to working with El/La in order to increase safety in the Mission.”

In an interview, El/La program director Marcia Ochoa said her agency’s “really honored” that Lee, the HRC, and the Board of Super-

visors, which provided the funds, “have faith in our ability to do this work. We really work from our hearts.” Ochoa added that the population El/La works with is “one of the most marginalized in San Francisco.”

Among other plans, Ochoa said the group is proposing a program in which, during the first year, 12 trans Latina participants will be trained to be luchadoras, which translates to “fighters.”

These will be “peer advocates who can provide supervised case management, health, and rights education to other trans Latinas,” the organization’s funding proposal states.

“We’re training the luchadoras, who will work within the trans Latina community and greater Latino community to raise awareness” about transphobic and intimate partner violence, along with other issues. The aim is also “to reduce some of the myths people have about how they should expect to be treated by law enforcement and different institutions,” said Ochoa.

Trans women in San Francisco have often been reluctant to report crimes because they don’t trust the police and face language barriers and other issues, advocates have said.

El/La also expects to expand staff, and it will also open earlier in the afternoon beginning February 1. The organization has a budget of about $156,000, not including the grant money. That additional funding is for one year.

The Board of Supervisors gave the

Rick Gerharter

El/La program director Marcia Ochoa, second from right, shown here at a budget town hall meeting this spring listening to trans activist Jovana Luna, left, said a new city grant will enable the organization to do violence prevention work.

HRC $200,000 in add-back funding to address ongoing violence against trans Latinas. The commission issued a request for proposal “from community-based organizations working on violence prevention with the trans Latina community” and decided that El/La was the best fit, according to the news release. Only See page 14 >>

Sofosbuvir and simeprevir are both taken as a single once-daily pill. They produced overall cure rates of around 80 to 90 percent in phase 3 clinical trials, though individual response varies based on several factors including HCV genotype, prior treatment history, and extent of cirrhosis.

Simeprevir was approved as an add-on to interferon-based therapy for people with HCV genotype 1.

Triple therapy is used for 12 weeks, followed by pegylated interferon/ ribavirin alone for an additional 12 or 36 weeks. It is not yet approved for interferon-free combinations.

Sofosbuvir was approved for use with ribavirin for people with HCV genotypes 2 or 3, making it the first-ever interferon-free hepatitis C treatment. Reflecting the recent realization that genotype 3 is more difficult to treat, recommended duration is 12 weeks for genotype 2 and 24 weeks for genotype 3.

Sofosbuvir was also approved in combination with pegylated interferon and ribavirin for 12 weeks for people with harder-to-treat HCV

genotypes 1 or 4. But the FDA said sofosbuvir plus ribavirin without interferon for 24 weeks may be used for genotype 1 patients who are ineligible for or unable to tolerate interferon. The FDA unexpectedly also expanded sofosbuvir’s indication to include HIV/HCV coinfected people and patients with liver cancer awaiting transplants.

The current approved indications do not include combining simeprevir plus sofosbuvir in an oral regimen that eliminates both interferon and ribavirin. However, some people with hepatitis C have expressed interest in trying this combination off-label, and it produced a high cure rate in a phase 2 trial. Gilead is currently testing a combination pill containing sofosbuvir plus its HCV NS5A inhibitor ledipasvir.

Price a potential barrier

Janssen set the wholesale acquisition cost of a 12-week course of simeprevir at $66,360. Gilead upped the ante, pricing sofosbuvir See page 14 >>

<< Open Forum

t Mandela was a true champion for all

4 • Bay Area Reporter • December 12-18, 2013

Volume 43, Number 50 December 12-18, 2013 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 assistant editors Matthew S. Bajko Seth Hemmelgarn Jim Provenzano contributing writers Dan Aiello • Tavo Amador • Erin Blackwell Roger Brigham • Scott Brogan Victoria A. Brownworth • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Chuck Colbert Richard Dodds • Raymond Flournoy David Guarino • Peter Hernandez Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell • John F. Karr Lisa Keen • Matthew Kennedy • David Lamble Michael McAllister • Michael McDonagh David-Elijah Nahmod • Elliot Owen Paul Parish • James Patterson • Lois Pearlman Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota • Bob Roehr Philip Ruth • Donna Sachet • Adam Sandel Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Jim Stewart Ed Walsh • Sura Wood art direction T. Scott King PRODUCTION/DESIGN Jay Cribas Photographers Danny Buskirk • Jane Philomen Cleland Rick Gerharter • Lydia Gonzales Rudy K. Lawidjaja • Steven Underhill Bill Wilson illustrators & cartoonists Paul Berge Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Scott Wazlowski – 415.359.2612 NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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he world lost an extraordinary leader when former South African President Nelson Mandela died last week. The reverence for Mandela only increased when he publicly forgave his tormenters and torturers, rising above all of them as his country’s first elected black president.

Mandela spent 27 years in the brutal isolation of Robben Island prison. He was 44 when he was sentenced and 71 when released.

Yet it was in his senior years that he achieved the height of his power, negotiating with the white president, F.W. de Klerk, to end white rule in the majority black country. The end of apartheid signaled a new era, and the shared power agreement provided that whites would not be subjected to reprisals for their years of mistreating blacks, as well as free elections, which enabled the country to move forward.

During the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s, Californians helped lead divestment of South African-related investments. Berkeley was one of the first municipalities to divest and later the UC system divested $3.1 billion in assets. When Mandela visited the Bay Area four months after his release from prison in June 1990, he credited California’s actions with helping to drive a stake through the heart of apartheid, as Mother Jones magazine noted.

It was during his presidency that the world fully realized Mandela’s commitment to human rights and his inspiring leadership style.

He led the country on a path toward reconciliation and forgiveness – after years of conflict – and the new constitution contained explicit prohibitions against discrimination based on sexual orientation, protections that LGBT people still do not have in the United States.

Mandela served one term as president.

When his successor, Thabo Mbeki, started questioning mainstream medical explanations for the cause of AIDS (due to misinformation from, among others, members of the now-defunct AIDS denialist group ACT UP/ San Francisco) Mandela, who had generally refrained from directly criticizing him, disclosed that his eldest son had died of complications from the disease. Mandela spoke up of the need for safe sex and cheaper medications. He addressed the closing ceremony of the International AIDS Conference in 2002 in Barcelona, Spain.

Mandela lent his charisma to reaching out to white South Africans through sport. When the South Africa rugby team, long a symbol of white ar rogance, won the W o r l d Cup final, Mandela strode onto the field wearing the team’s green jersey, the New York Times reported in its lengthy o b i t u a r y, and 80,000 fans, mostly Afrikaners, erupted with the chant of

“Nel-son, Nel-son.”

This is not to say that there are no problems in South Africa today. Many areas of the country remain impoverished. AIDS continues to affect millions of people on the continent and in South Africa. But Mandela was able to transcend chaos and assert his governing style, one based on compromise in the interest of unity, so that South Africa could emerge from apartheid.

At a time when LGBT equality was hardly the most pressing issue, Mandela, who reportedly evolved in his stance on gay rights, enabled South Africa to ratify one of the most progressive constitutions on the planet.

True leaders take on the tough challenges. And while South Africa is not perfect, Mandela was the right man for the right time and the world is a better place for his contributions.t

More fallout from tax rule change

by Alma Soongi Beck

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ast July, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court marriage decisions, the Bay Area Reporter published an op-ed that I wrote regarding two crucial changes in property tax rules that took effect in 2013. These rules especially impact co-owners of property who are neither married nor California state registered domestic partners (SRDPs).

That piece was an attempt to bring the issue of property tax reassessment back to the forefront for those couples who choose not to marry or become SRDPs. Prior to 2003, same-sex couples – regardless of marriage or domestic partnership status – had almost no way to avoid an expensive property tax reassessment upon the death of a co-owner. Then, for the first time in California history, an exemption from reassessment was permitted to some same-sex and unmarried couples under a 2003 expansion of property tax rule 462.040 (discussed below). This change occurred before SRDP status became equivalent to marriage, which later came in 2005. Soon thereafter, in 2006 and 2008, the state began permitting exemptions from reassessment to SRDPs (under Senate Bill 565) and then to same-sex married couples (based on the California Supreme Court marriage cases).

For those couples who remain unmarried and non-SRDPs, the 2003 change still applied, at least until October 2013. The expansion of Rule 462.040 consisted of two parts: (A) transfers by co-owners from tenancy in common (TIC) to joint tenancy; and (B) transfer by co-owners from joint tenancy into trust (e.g. revocable trust) that names the other co-owner(s) to inherit at death.

However, earlier this year, two changes occurred that completely changed the game. First, a new rule, the cotenancy rule, took effect January 2013, expanding reassessment exemptions to owners who meet certain criteria. The new rule requires (a) two owners, (b) who, together, own a 100 percent interest, (c) who lived in the property as a primary residence for at least a year, (d) where the property interest passes upon death of an owner completely to the other owner (e.g., by right of survivorship or via will or trust).

Secondly, repeal of Part B of the expanded Rule 462.040, which omitted from exemption transfers from joint tenancy into trust that occur October 1, 2013 or later.

So first, the good news. The cotenancy exemption now protects many unmarried, non-SRDP

couples who were not previously protected. It is also straightforward, avoiding the need for the convoluted legal analysis and attorney intervention that Rule 462.040 often requires. Lastly, the new exemption logically and intuitively protects the most important property owned by couples – their primary residence.

Now the bad news. On October 1, 2013, Part B of the expanded version of Rule 462.040 was repealed, leaving some gaps that even the cotenancy exemption does not fill. Specifically, the cotenancy exemption does not cover couples who: • Own real property that is not a primary residence for one or both; • Own with other people, even if it is their primary residence (e.g., TIC ownership of one unit in multi-unit buildings); • Have owned real property for less than one year, such as where one person may be terminal and possibly dying before the one-year mark; • May have previously relied on Part B of Rule 462.040 (transfers from Joint Tenancy to Trust), where the property was removed from Trust (e.g., during a refinance), but may not have put it back.

Even worse, the repeal of Part B of Rule 462.040 has created some unexpected and counterintuitive problems for unmarried, nonSRDP couples who own real property.

For this reason, co-owners of real property who are unmarried and non-SRDPs, may want to consider taking immediate action. Some ideas include the following: (1) Check with an attorney about whether you ‘re covered by any of the current exemptions, and if not, consider marriage or SRDP registration.

Marriage and SRDP registration can be excellent options for couples, but not always. If you are considering this option, consider first consulting with your estate planning attorney, tax preparer, and financial planner to help you understand the implications.

(2) If you do not marry or register as SRDPs, and have previously done a transfer prior to October 1, 2013 from joint tenancy into a trust (where the trusts each name the other owner as beneficiary upon death), you can still qualify for Part B of Rule 462.040, but only if you never take their property out of trust, even for refinance purposes.

The repeal of Part B of the expanded Rule

462.040 does not affect pre-October 1, 2013 transfers. It only affects future transfers from joint tenancy to revocable trust. This means that if you can still rely on the Part B exemption if the transfer occurred prior to October 1, but only if the property is never removed from the Trusts.

To avoid problems, be particularly careful: During estate planning, if you set up new trusts instead of amending and repealing current trusts; During refinance, if anyone tells you that you can "just take the property out of the trust and put it back."

(3) If you have previously transferred from a TIC to joint tenancy, thus qualifying for Part A of the expanded Rule 462.040, a subsequent transfer from joint tenancy into trust will now disqualify you from property tax protection, if it occurred October 1, 2013 or later.

The problem with this last point: it is counterintuitive. The exact thing that used to bring more protection before October 1, 2013, is now the exact thing that eliminates the same protections now for co-owners who are not married or SRDPs. This situation most commonly arises when a couple sets up revocable living trusts, and are then advised to transfer all real property into the trust(s). In fact, making the transfer could make sense for other reasons – e.g., avoiding double counting for estate tax purposes, lack of control over who inherits after the second co-owner dies, probate risk upon the second death.

But now, this same routine advice can disqualify a couple from Part A of Rule 462.040, such as if the couple had relied on their transfer from TIC to joint tenancy for reassessment exemption.

The potential increase can be massive, depending on how much the property has appreciated beyond its current assessed value.

As I previously emphasized, don't be caught unaware. Make sure you understand the rules affecting your property tax situation and seek competent legal counsel if you need help.t Alma Soongi Beck is an attorney in San Francisco. For more information, visit www.becklawgroup.com. This column is not intended as legal advice and people should consult with their attorney. To read the initial op-ed, see www.ebar.com/openforum/ opforum.php?sec=guest_op&id=426.

t

Letters >>

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

No doubt about Milk remembrances

When considering the two marches and their merits one need only ask, “Which would Harvey have gone to?” [“Housing takes center stage at Milk-Moscone vigil,” December 5.] Those of us who were around when Harvey was with us know the answer.

Ric West San Francisco

New neighbors for Delancey tree lot

The former site of Delancey Street’s Christmas Tree Basement, at Noe and Market streets, is now filling with luxury housing, causing them to move their tree lot 10 blocks from your neighborhood to mine – now at 25th and Castro streets. I’d leave it at that, because I’m a bah humbug type in December – except for the story Delancey Street Foundation President and CEO Mimi Silbert, Ph.D., told in the letter she wrote to neighbors introducing themselves (and apologizing for the noise and loss of some on-street parking).

“Aside from the lot managers and cashiers, a number of [these Delancey Street ‘residents’ ex prisoners] are somewhat new ... quite uncomfortable with talking with ‘square people’ (smiley face) and really have to learn to expand their vocabulary and get along with people who are different from their prior lives. ... In a much more important fashion [than merely raising money], it helps many of our residents learn to talk with and get along with people who come for trees. They are thrilled to learn to care about you, their neighbors, during Christmas. They want to help everyone get the right tree, and make sure you’re excited about the holidays they had a little part in helping.”

What more can be said about the part of meaning during this season?

Having crossed the street to meet the guys, I’m the lucky one because you have to drive (lots of free parking available I can attest). There is so much unspoken between us squares – gay couples without kids, and all kinds of families with kids, and our good fortune, perhaps sharing visions of caring and carrying on that have undoubtedly been missing in some Delancey Street residents past and present. Now l have something far more positive to look forward to every December. I encourage you to come meet the guys, too.

Charlie Spiegel San Francisco

Mandela tribute MIA in Castro

Around the city and the world, millions of flags have been lowered to show respect for the recently deceased great humanitarian Nelson Mandela.

President Barack Obama and Mayor Ed Lee have ordered flags on public property to fly at half-mast to honor Mandela’s life and valuable legacy.

Sadly, one prominent flagpole that was not used in any way to link the LGBT community with the people of South Africa and Mandela is the flagpole on municipal land at Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro.

The Merchants of Upper Market Castro and political leaders are using the Republican Party of No playbook, so no accommodation was made to use the Harvey Milk Plaza flagpole and display solidarity from gay mecca with everyone across the globe honoring Mandela.

If Harvey were alive, I’m sure he would have created a way to use that public flagpole to honor Madiba.

Michael Petrelis San Francisco

Katz fails to secure Stonewall endorsement

by Matthew S. Bajko

A

n East Bay bisexual Assembly candidate is hoping the proverbial “third time’s a charm” proves true after failing for a second time to secure a local LGBT Democratic club’s endorsement.

East Bay Municipal Utility District board member Andy Katz fell short of the 60 percent threshold he needed to secure the backing of the East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club when it voted December 3 to consider giving Katz its sole endorsement in the race for the 15th Assembly District seat.

Now the club intends to open up its endorsement process to all of the candidates irrespective of their sexual orientation in the race. It plans to hold a third endorsement vote sometime in March.

The club had initially voted to award a sole endorsement to its former chair Peggy Moore over Katz when it held its first early endorsement vote in October. But the day prior to Halloween Moore, an out lesbian and former Obama campaign staffer, announced she had decided to drop out of the race.

Due to her surprise decision, the Stonewall club elected to hold a re-vote on giving Katz, now the sole out candidate in the race, its early endorsement nod. The club is not releasing the vote totals but Katz reportedly came very close to winning the club’s support.

Asked about the outcome of the second endorsement vote, Stonewall political action committee Chair Michael Colbruno told the Bay Area Reporter he couldn’t reveal the final vote tally but did say that had Katz “put in a minimal amount of effort he’d have been endorsed.”

Katz, 33, a Berkeley resident who is the government affairs director at Breathe California, told the B.A.R. that the night of the vote coincided with a number of local city council meetings as well as the annual holiday party hosted by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), resulting in scheduling conflicts for a number of his supporters within the club.

“So I expect many more support-

Katz for Assembly campaign

Assembly candidate Andy Katz

ers will be available for the next vote,” said Katz. “I think it may have been the smallest endorsement meeting that the club has ever had.”

Katz declined to comment directly when asked if he remains confident of his chances in securing the club’s backing come March. He did note that a number of Moore’s supporters within the club have now signed on to his campaign after she dropped out of the race.

“What I can say is that my campaign will be working hard to engage the East Bay LGBT community to get involved in the club and on the issues that matter in Sacramento like addressing health disparities and civil rights,” said Katz.

His biggest challenger for Stonewall’s endorsement appears to be Oakland resident Elizabeth Echols, a former regional administrator for the Small Business Administration appointed by President Barack Obama.

An elected member of the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee, Echols is also an executive board member of the National Women’s Political Caucus Alameda North chapter.

Echols, a formidable fundraiser in the race, urged her backers within the club to vote against Katz in order to block his getting the endorsement this month. Echols’s campaign did not respond to an interview request by press time this week.

She likely will once again play spoiler in the endorsement vote next year

in order to dent Katz’s reach within the East Bay LGBT community.

Other Democratic candidates now able to seek Stonewall’s endorsement include Emeryville resident Sam Kang, general counsel at the Greenlining Institute; former Richmond City Councilman Tony Thurmond; West Contra Costa Unified School District Trustee Charles Ramsey; and San Pablo Councilwoman Cecilia Valdez.

Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) currently holds the seat but will be termed out of office next December. Her district includes portions of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, including the cities of Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Piedmont, El Cerrito, Hercules, Pinole, Richmond, San Pablo, the community of Kensington, and a portion of Oakland, including Montclair and North Oakland.

Campos plans holiday wedding

Gay District 9 Supervisor David Campos and his partner of 17 years, Philip Hwang, plan to wed during the board’s holiday recess sometime after Tuesday, December 17, its last meeting of 2013.

Back in July Campos had told the B.A.R. that he and Hwang were planning to have a private ceremony sometime prior to the new year. In 2014 Campos will be focused on his bid for a state Assembly seat in a race that is pitting him against his board colleague, District 3 Supervisor David Chiu.

In an email he sent out to his supporters December 5, Campos announced that the couple “will be saying ‘we do’ later” in the month.

“After that, we’ll be taking a few days to honeymoon before our campaign shifts into high gear in January,” added Campos.

The couple is keeping details of their ceremony private, but Campos did tell the B.A.R. this week that it would occur in southern California where his close family lives. And rather than jetting off to an island locale or European capital, their honeymoon will also be spent “just visiting family,” said Campos.

He added, “We will have a larger celebration after the election.”

Chiu himself was recently married to Candace Chen at a private wedding ceremony the couple held in late October.t

6 • Bay area reporter • December 12-18 2013

Come one, come all ...

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Celebrate christmas at St.John’s ST JOHN’S UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST 501 Laguna Honda Boulevard, San Francisco (two blocks from Forest Hill Muni)

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<< Community News

t Bar landmarking wins award compiled by Cynthia Laird

T

he San Francisco Planning Department has announced that its Twin Peaks Tavern historical designation work was awarded the 2013 Governor’s Historic Preservation Award by the California Office of Historic Preservation.

In addition, the department was recognized by the LGBT Preservation Committee at this year’s National Preservation Conference for the city’s efforts on the designation of the bar at Castro and Market streets for its architectural significance to the LGBT community.

Twin Peaks was the first known gay bar to feature full length open plate glass windows, becoming a visible beacon in the LGBT movement.

“Both of these recognitions reflect the outstanding work our staff has put into preserving one of the most iconic buildings to San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood,” Planning Director John Rahaim, who is gay, said in a statement.

The state Office of Historic Preservation recognized the Twin Peaks Tavern Article 10 Landmark Designation project for its significant public outreach program as a cornerstone to the development for the designation report. Led by the planning department, outreach efforts included “Historic Happy Hour” events at the tavern, where patrons and owners had an opportunity to share their past and present stories.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved designating Twin Peaks Tavern a historic landmark in January. Gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, who sponsored the legislation, noted at the time that the gay bar has been “at the center of our LGBT community for over 40 years.”

Karl Hasz, president of the Historic Preservation Commission, said it was an honor to work on the landmark designation for the bar.

“Documenting the history within a building is no easy task,” Hasz said

in a statement. “I would like to recognize and thank our staff for the terrific community outreach, as well as the city’s community for their participation in cataloging the history that happened within the Twin Peaks Tavern.”

The award winners were announced at a presentation November 21 in Sacramento.

Help Tessie for Christmas

Tenderloin Tessie is seeking volunteers to help with its Christmas Day dinner on Wednesday, December 25.

Board President Michael Gagne said that volunteers are needed to help with the dinner itself, which will take place from 1 to 4 p.m. at First Unitarian Church, 1187 Franklin Street (at Geary) and primarily serves those in need.

Gently-used coats, clothes, and blankets are also being accepted to give to attendees, Gagne noted.

Additionally, this year Gagne is also looking for someone who can tune the church’s piano. “We started to entertain our clients last year and have been doing that ever since,” he said in an email. “But the piano at the church is in need of tuning badly.”

Several shifts are available for the dinner, including prep work on December 24, and set-up, serving, and tear-down December 25, and storage on December 27. Those interested in helping out should contact Gagne at (415) 584-3252 and leave their full name and which shifts they are interested in working. For clothing donations, contact Claire Brees at brees.c@gmail.com.

DeFrank Center holiday party

The Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center in San Jose will hold a holiday party fundraiser to benefit its HIV testing program and other programming needs. The event, co-hosted by TJ Zmucki, will take place Saturday, December 14 from 4 p.m. to midnight at the center, 938 The Alameda.

The minimum donation to attend

Rick Gerharter

The San Francisco Planning Department was recognized for its historical designation work on Twin Peaks Tavern.

is $25. There will be casino tables and players will have the opportunity to win raffle prizes, including a Dell tablet computer. There will also be 100 gift boxes with prizes ranging from $5 to $100 to purchase by picking a number for $20. Silent auction items include autographed San Jose Sharks memorabilia.

The evening will include appetizers and drinks, along with music and dancing.

To purchase a ticket, email Zmucki at TJ_Smucki@msn.com or call (408) 829-7216.

Sylvester celebration at library

Join Oakland poet Marvin K. White and friends as they pay literary and musical tribute to the beloved Sylvester James, better known by his first name, 25 years after his December 16, 1988 death from AIDS-related complications.

Sylvester was an early founder of the black cross-dressing and transwomen’s group the Disquotays.

Later he joined the drag troupe, the Cockettes. He went on to have several disco hits such as “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).”

The tribute takes place Thursday, December 19 at 6 p.m. in the Koret Auditorium of the main library, 100 Larkin Street. The program, free to the public, is co-sponsored by the library’s African American center.t

Dukes tie the knot

by David-Elijah Nahmod

pal Church, offered a final blessing as the Toomey-Garcias were rag queens and friends conunited as one. verged upon the gay South “I never thought I’d see it,” of Market Club OMG for the Desaid Darlene Neal, Alan Toomcember 8 “royal” wedding of two ey-Garcia’s mother. “We’re fipast Grand Dukes of the Ducal nally taking steps in the right Court. direction. They have as much As the 38th reigning Grand right to love and happiness as Duke, Alan Toomey-Garcia, 42, anyone else.” served from 2011-2012. His sucAfter the final proclamation cessor was his husband, Moses and the couple’s first dance as Toomey-Garcia, 33, who served legally wed spouses, the party Rick Gerharter as Grand Duke 39 from 2012began.

2013. The couple will now jointly Grand Duke 39 Moses Toomey-Garcia, “I always wanted to have be known as the Toomey-Gar- left, places a ring on the finger of his new church in a bar,” said Wheeler. husband, Grand Duke 38 Alan Toomeycias.

“I’ve known Moses and Alan for The couple met five and a Garcia, following their wedding, officiated the last few years. I’m so thrilled half years ago at a Latin themed by the Reverend Diana Wheeler of the San to have joined them together. dance party. They recalled that Francisco Night Ministry, at Club OMG. They’re an example of commitfirst meeting, as Alan Toomeyment in good times and bad.”

Garcia stared at Moses ToomeyBoth men worked hard durclad in their Grand Duke formal Garcia, too nervous to approach ing their title years. Alan Toomwear, accompanied by the Lady him. ey-Garcia raised $47,503 for charity, Gaga anthem “Born This Way.” As “Alan’s friends saw him staring while Moses Toomey-Garcia raised they stood under the dome at the at me and tried to call me over,” $54,600. Beneficiaries included the far end of the club, the Reverend Direcalled Moses Toomey-Garcia.

Stop AIDS Project (now part of ana Wheeler, a volunteer with San “Then Alan came over and said, ‘I the San Francisco AIDS FoundaFrancisco Night Ministry, officiated. think you’re cute.’” tion), the AIDS and Breast Cancer There were tears from the grooms “I was nervous as hell,” Alan Emergency Funds, and the Lavenand guests alike as rings and vows Toomey-Garcia recalled. “I’m suder Youth Recreation Information were exchanged. per-super shy when I’m interested.

Center.

The service included a recitaI think I sounded nervous.”

The men were overjoyed to be tion from Song of Songs by King “I was surprised,” said Moses surrounded by family and friends.

Solomon, which is believed to be Toomey-Garcia. “I thought, he’s “I’m speechless, emotional, hapthe first gay love poem to become cute. I couldn’t believe he was talkpy,” said Moses Toomey-Garcia. “I publicly known. Night Ministry’s ing to me.” can’t put it in words.” the Reverend Tommy Dillon, who’s The teary-eyed couple marched The couple is planning a Hawaialso the rector at St. Aidan’s Episcodown the aisle at the 6th Street club ian honeymoon in 2014.t

D Thank you Bay Area Reporter readers for voting us Best Medical Marijuana Dispensary

2095 Market Street @ Church & 14th Open Daily 11am-8pm www.APOTHECARIUMSF.com Only individuals wwith legally recognized medical cannabis cards or a verifiable written recommendation from a physician for medial cannabis may obtain medical cannabis from medical cannabis dispensaries.

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Commentary>>

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 7

Of petitioners, privacy, and ‘Pacific justice’

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

C

alifornia’s Assembly Bill 1266 is still facing a struggle. The bill, signed by Governor Jerry Brown in August, provides a number of protections for transgender students in public schools. It’s a great law that reduces a lot of sex-based discrimination in school as well as providing for transgender students’ needs in classrooms. The law, which takes effect January 1, amends section 221.5 of the education code to read as follows: “A pupil shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

Of course, it is this section that has some people upset. Leading the way is the Pacific Justice Institute, a conservative legal defense organization.

I first heard of PJI back in 1999, when it was involved in the termination of Dana Rivers from Center High School in Sacramento, California. Rivers, a transgender woman, had challenged her dismissal, and PJI found four parents supposedly upset with Rivers, as well as hired a private investigator to collect information on Rivers.

The school settled the case to the tune of $150,000.

PJI jumped on AB 1266, and has spearheaded efforts to force a ballot measure to repeal the bill. Labeling it a “bathroom bill,” PJI has tried to float the idea that allowing transgender students to use their preferred restroom will allow male students to predate female ones. Images and text on PJI’s AB 1266-specific website (http://www.genderinsanity.com) paints a vision of “your 7-year-old daughter” in tears about a boy in the girls’ restroom, and a school that

cannot do anything about it.

A hastily assembled referendum effort was launched under the name Privacy for All Students, with signature gatherers touting the same concept, or outright claiming that AB 1266 would lead to “co-ed” restrooms in schools. Some of these same petitioners were caught spreading lies and half-truths, claiming stories about students in both Los Angeles and the Bay Area who supposedly had used similar rules to assault students. Further review of these claims proved them to be baseless.

The story they have mostly chosen to fall back on, however, is that of a trans student in Florence, Colorado. The initial reports claimed that the student was harassing others in the restroom. PJI also misgendered the student, again painting a picture of a male high school bathroom predator. Within days, its story was shot down.

PJI backpedaled, claiming that it was the mere presence of the student in question that was causing “harassment,” not the actions of the student

Horizons’ holiday cheer

R

epresentatives of some of the over 70 organizations that received grants totaling $4,350,000 in 2013 from Horizons Foundation gathered Tuesday, December 10 at the Westin St. Francis for a breakfast and to share stories of their work. Horizons distributes grants throughout the year and annually holds the breakfast reception to recognize the recipients and to have some of them share updates on their organizations.

Rick Gerharter

T:9.75”

Christine Smith

in question. It claimed that this student “is not completely transitioned” and that it had “reports” that she was presenting in both genders.

Meanwhile, the student they painted as a predator has been under suicide watch as a result. The so-called harasser has most certainly become the harassed, all for being herself.

Thanks to the efforts of Privacy for All Students, some 614,311 signatures were turned in to county officials across California. This is where it gets sticky. At this time, opponents need 82 percent of those signatures to check out in order to get the referendum on the November 2014 ballot.

So far, however, they are falling short – with around a 76 percent validation rate. This could be good news for transgender people in California, particularly those in public schools.

Privacy for All Students has vowed to keep up the fight, making sure that “every signature is counted, and that the rights of those who signed the petitions are protected.”

PJI is far from done, however.

Much like with Rivers, it is not satisfied with waiting for the signatures to be counted, and is seeking parents willing to be plaintiffs in federal court.

As PJI’s Brad Dacus put it, “If that child can validate that this transgender has expressed their intention to use the opposite sex’s bathroom or locker

room or showers, and they’re willing to come alongside to be a plaintiff at our action ... then they should contact us because that gives us standing to be able to have a preemptive action.”

To date, there have been no known cases of a student using any similar legislation to actually harass others in the restroom. It’s also not been seen among adults in areas with transgender-inclusive public accommodations. Much like the student in Colorado I mentioned, the closest the PJI seems to hope to find is a transgender student who may have “expressed their intention” to use a facility.

I find myself wondering who is the victim here. The best case PJI and others have managed to dig up has resulted in a transgender student becoming suicidal: hardly the predator they had hoped to paint her as.

So now, in order to attempt to fight AB 1266, PJI is party to a witchhunt, trying to track down transgender students based purely on hearsay and speculation, in the hope they can be party to a federal lawsuit to overturn the law. All of this while Privacy for All Students cannot presumably garner enough signatures with a deceptive campaign claiming that AB 1266 forces “co-ed” facilities onto elementary students.

This is the chilling part. If you are a transgender student in the state of California right now, know that these are the people who are seeking to harm you. They’re trying to get any student in your school to turn to them, potentially breaking any confidence you may have had to rob you of your rights.

Let us hope, for our sake, that they fail.t Gwen Smith takes this seriously: she was once assaulted in a restroom. You can find her at http:// www.gwensmith.com.

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Welcome

Obituaries>>

t Retired Stanford professor Ronald Rebholz dies

by Cynthia Laird

S

tanford professor emeritus Ronald A. Rebholz, one of the early openly gay teachers at the university, died November 3. He was 81.

Mr. Rebholz was a longtime English professor who kept teaching even after his retirement in 1997.

He died of natural causes at Lytton Gardens, a senior living facility in Palo Alto. He had been admitted to the facility’s skilled nursing center for rehabilitation therapy following a few falls, according to a Stanford University obituary.

Rebholz’s teaching career at Stanford began in 1961, when he was hired as an instructor in the English

Obituaries >> Jonathan Eugene Baker April 12, 1973 – November 18, 2013 Jonathan Baker, 40, of San Francisco, died unexpectedly November 18, 2013.

He was born on April 12, 1973, in Brevard, North Carolina. He is survived by his beloved parents, Sally Kemp and Eugene R. Baker; his sister, Meg Baker Buchanan and husband Travis; niece Gracie Carrick and nephews Baker and Grant Buchanan, all of Brevard.

Jonathan graduated from North Carolina School of Science and Math as a national merit finalist and earning the Ecusta National Merit scholarship. He earned a Bachelor of Science in physics (with honor) from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1990 where he received a Caltech Merit Prize (full tuition), a Robert A. Milliken Scholarship, and a Barry Goldwater Scholarship for Science and Engineering. In 1994 Jonathan entered UC Berkeley, where he received his Master of Arts in astronomy and was a Ph.D. candidate, astrophysics.

<<

Artworks

From page 1

Sisters were coming to sit for her.

She enjoyed them, and found them so interesting to draw. She was fascinated by their costumes and makeup. She was also impressed with their activism in the community. She loved anything out of the ordinary.”

In her will Van Hoesen stipulated that a portion of her artworks

<<

Youth space

From page 1

apartments on the upper floors. The ground floor storefront, where HYA’s drop-in center and needle exchange currently operate, will be turned into a restaurant or retail space.” (The drop-in is at 1696 Haight Street. The needle exchange is at 584 Cole Street.)

Asked about the building’s ownership, a city planning department staffer provided the name David E. Smith and gave the address for Gaetani Real Estate Inc., in San Francisco. Paul Gaetani didn’t respond to an interview request.

Despite losing the space, Howe said Homeless Youth Alliance is committed to helping homeless youth in the Upper Haight past the December 25 closure. There are some things staff can provide on a mobile basis, including food, safer sex supplies, harm reduction trainings, and therapy. The group also plans to continue connecting participants with medical care, housing, and other resources.

The agency is looking for a van so it can provide services on a mobile basis and is hoping to find a new space in the Upper Haight.

“We don’t always want to be the homeless Homeless Youth Alliance,” said Howe.

The organization may make a stationary space available at various locations, including Golden Gate Park, which is near the drop-in center.

Howe said Bevan Dufty, who serves as director of Housing Opportunity,

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 13

Department. He became graduate studies in 1979, an assistant professor in Mr. Rebholz was active in 1965, and associate proan informal network of fessor in 1969, and a full openly gay faculty. professor in 1978.

Those faculty members He was credited with “supported the gay stuwriting the definitive dent group, then known as critical biography of the Gay People’s Union at Fulke Greville, the 16th Stanford, and who lobbied century English poet. He the administration for polL.A. Cicero also wrote two books on icy changes to support gay Ronald A. Rebholz Shakespeare and edited students,” Koskovich said.

The Complete Poems of Mr. Rebholz is survived Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Stanford by his partner of 30 years, Patrick obituary noted.

Smith. In an email, Smith said that Gerard Koskovich, a former board the two met at a gathering of Stanmember of the GLBT Historical ford gay faculty and staff. Mr. RebSociety, told the Bay Area Reporter holz was a co-founder of the group. that when he arrived at Stanford for Mr. Rebholz was born in May

1932 in St. Louis, Missouri. He earned a bachelor’s degree at St. Louis University in 1953 and another bachelor’s degree at Oxford in 1958. According to the Stanford obituary, he earned a master’s degree in 1961 and a doctorate in 1965 at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

Smith, who is a technical manager in the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, said that Mr. Rebholz was a first year graduate student at Stanford when he won a Rhodes scholarship.

“Prior to leaving for Oxford he was drafted into the army and served two years in Japan,” Smith said. “He finally went to Oxford in 1956. In the early 1960s, while

working on his dissertation in philosophy, he was offered a teaching position at Stanford.”

Friends said he was an avid fan of the San Francisco Giants and Stanford football.

Smith said that the couple enjoyed the theater and went to Ashland every summer for years for the annual Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Mr. Rebholz received many awards during his career, including the Richard W. Lyman Award for faculty volunteer service in 1993.

Plans are under way for a memorial service during winter quarter.

Donations in Mr. Rebholz’s memory may be made to the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival.t

Russell, Emmons, Robert, Stearns, Donald and William. He is survived by brothers, Emmons and Robert. Stearns was always very dedicated to the family and shall be remembered as the family historian and for the generosity shown to his nieces and nephews and their children.

Stearns loved the city in which he lived for over 50 years but never lost his fondness for the New England area. Stearns made the long trip to attend the family reunion each June and annual Thanksgiving gatherings. Stearns was deeply attached to Clifton Heights, Marblehead, Massachusetts where his family summered through his childhood.

Plans for a memorial service to be held in Winchester, Massachusetts will be announced soon.

Stearns Russell Ellis died peacefully at his beloved San Francisco home, Tuesday, November 19, 2013, after a brief decline in health. Stearns was born to Artemas Russell Ellis and Lila Webb Ellis, June 20, 1926

in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He grew up in the nearby town of Winchester and attended Mystic Elementary School just below the family home on 9 Madison Avenue.

Stearns graduated from Phillips Andover Academy, class of 1944 and Harvard College, class of 1952. Prior to attending college, Stearns was stationed on a Navy vessel in the Pacific. He served in Greece as a courier for a short while.

After graduating from college, Stearns took a job in advertising at Time Sales Radio and TV. He had a very nice apartment near Rockefeller Center in New York City.

In 1962, he moved to San Francisco and served as an advertising manager for Newsweek International. Around that time, Stearns founded the International Advertising Association of San Francisco.

While working for the magazine Stearns obtained his real estate license and eventually made a career as a real estate broker. He eventually purchased a Victorian house that survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. He cherished his house and formal rose garden. Over the decades he acquired New England antiquities and his house was a showcase for many family heirlooms.

Stearns is the fourth of six brothers:

rope, the Middle East, and South America.

He enjoyed the Amtrak trips to Reno, “roughing it” in Yosemite Valley, climbing the cracks and crevices behind Yosemite Lodge, and sipping Kona coffee in Hawaii.

TD moved to San Francisco in 1972 after attending the University of Missouri and working for the “Frisco” Railroad in Kansas City. In the past TD had worked for the Fred Furth Law Firm, the California State Bar, Veteran’s Cab, and Zephyr Real Estate.

He received his Bachelor of Arts from UC Berkley, an MBA from the Haas School of Business, and earned a paralegal certificate from San Francisco State University.

For over 20 years he donated his services as a notary through the AIDS Legal Referral Panel.

TD was an opera lover and participated as an extra in numerous opera productions in San Francisco, most recently The Flying Dutchman. He combined his enjoyment of good food and railroading as a member of the San Francisco Prime Timers.

Donations can be made to the AIDS Emergency Fund, Project Open Hand or the AIDS Legal Referral Panel.

be sold to benefit an LGBT charity. Local artist Diane Roby, who worked with Van Hoesen to inventory her artworks for her estate, has long been friends with Perry and called him to inquire about an appropriate LGBT beneficiary.

“I was aware of the Rainbow Honor Walk but didn’t know how far along they were. It ended up being very good timing,” said Roby.

Anne Kohs, the executor of Van Hoesen’s estate, then contacted the

artist’s heirs, several nieces who live on the East Coast, who were “thrilled” with the suggestion, said Roby.

“One was telling me that when she was young she would be visiting Beth and there would be a knock on the door. A handsome man would be there. They would let him in and he would go straight into the bathroom. Then an incredibly flamboyant, gorgeous woman would walk out of the

bathroom and sit for Beth,” recalled Roby.

The gallery has posted images of the 16 artworks, that also include several portraits of punks from a series Van Hoesen did in 1988, on its website at http://georgekrevskygallery. com/dynamic/exhibit_detail. asp?ExhibitID=207.

They will be on display at the gallery, located on the second floor at 77 Geary Street, January 3

through February 1.

In addition to buying the artwork outright, anyone who donates between $1,500 and $10,000 to the Rainbow Honor Walk will be able to select a limited-edition print of Van Hoesen’s work. The gallery is forgoing its usual commission but will keep 10 percent of the donation to cover its marketing costs and other expenses, said Perry.

See page 14 >>

Partnerships and Engagement for Mayor Ed Lee, has been “very helpful.”

Dufty didn’t provide comment for this story, despite multiple requests.

Howe was the only person who came to see him in the hospital right after he was stabbed in an attempted carjacking and almost died, and she got in touch with his family in Tennessee.

Welch also spent 16 months in prison for fraud, and Howe and others helped him get housing when he got out.

Without that assistance, “I would have been in the streets, and I would have had to go right back to stealing and hustling again,” he said.

Welch moved off the streets around 2008 and has volunteered with the agency for several years. He just helped out “for what will be the last Thanksgiving dinner there,” said Welch, who now lives in Oakland.

Gay Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) said that it was “devastating” to learn of the impending closure.

“Young people are coming from around the country to the Haight, and many of them find it hard to survive on their own,” Ammiano said in an email. “Food, clothing, counseling, medical aid – those kind of resources have to be available to youth in that neighborhood. I’m glad a few city officials are helping, because it’s critical that HYA find an affordable space in the Haight so that they can keep providing help in the kind of non-judgmental setting that teens and 20-somethings need.”

Howe, who identifies as “nonspecific,” recalled “sobbing a lot” when she informed participants of the closing October 30. She said the

group is “strongly committed” to helping the youth.

“We have looked all over the neighborhood,” Howe said. “We’re really committed to staying in the Upper Haight.”

However, said Howe, “We’re not going to get another space” in the neighborhood for what her organization currently pays.

The rent for the 2,100-squarefoot space is $3,100 a month. Howe assumes that without the discount the landlord’s given the nonprofit, the rent would be $8,000 to $10,000 a month. She said she offered to pay more “years ago,” but that offer was rejected. With some fundraising, the organization “could probably pay double” what it currently spends on rent, she said.

Homeless Youth Alliance has 13 paid staff and 20 volunteers. Howe, whose $55,000 salary likely makes her one of the lowest-paid nonprofit executive directors in the city, said nobody would be laid off.

“don’t get along or talk” to each other. The agency has given them a space to “just relax” and “let their guards down a little,” she said. Among other things, the drop-in offers bathroom and shower facilities, phones, and serves as a place to pick up mail.

Many residents, activists, nonprofits, and some city officials have been expressing concern about the influx of high-tech companies and employees resulting in higher rents in the city as the tech boom has taken off, most notably in the last year.

Howe said what’s happening to her agency is somewhat related to the changes, but she said the Upper Haight “gentrified a long time ago,” and “social service providers have been pushed out of the neighborhood for decades.”

Over the years, Homeless Youth Alliance has itself received criticism from some in the neighborhood. The nonprofit has had neighbors who are “very vocally” against seeing homeless people in the area, said Howe.

But other Upper Haight residents have been supportive.

“We didn’t want to close before Christmas because the neighbors cook for the kids every single year,” she said.

Like others, Welch has heard the site will house a pizzeria.

“That’s exactly what [the street] needs,” he said. “Another fucking pizza place. That’s ridiculous.”

Anyone interested in donating a van or contributing to purchasing one can contact Howe at mary@ homelessyouthalliance.org.t

He was employed by Alexa Internet where as minister of data he was responsible for some of Alexa’s most complex and important data analysis of global web traffic.

Jonathan’s love of nature and adventure led him to travel throughout the world. On his first trip to China in 2001, he served as a diplomatic courier. He also traveled to Japan, Thailand, Tibet, Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chili, and much of Europe. In 2004 he biked from Lhasa to Kathmandu in the Himalayas.

Last summer he participated in the AIDS/Life Cycle, a seven-day bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, which covered 545 miles, as part of Team Unpopular.

Stearns Russell Ellis June 20, 1926 – November 19, 2013

‘Shock and anger’

Homeless Youth Alliance works with young people aged 13-29 who live on the street in the neighborhood, which draws youth from around the world who are often seeking refuge from abuse and alienation, the website notes.

The agency has a budget of approximately $650,000 and sees from 45 to 150 youth each day. Based on a biannual survey of participants, Howe said about 47 percent identify as LGBTQ or a similar category.

One previous participant described how Homeless Youth Alliance, especially Howe, repeatedly helped him.

Krackamya Welch, 30, has been involved with the nonprofit since around 2003, about two years after it started and when it was still known as Haight Ashbury Youth Outreach Team.

Welch said his reaction when he learned of the center shutting down was “shock and anger.”

“They helped me out a lot when I was a homeless youth out there,” said Welch, who’s “mostly straight.”

He was a heroin addict and the needle exchange, where he learned how to inject safely and got access to clean needles, “probably saved my life many times over.” He also received mental health services and food, along with other help.

Thomas David Walsh February 14, 1949 – November 19, 2013 Thomas David Walsh, known to his friends as TD or David, led a full and active life, traveling throughout the U.S. and the world – to Eu-

A place to relax

The agency has been having focus groups with participants to ask, “What are the things most important to you? How do you think we should deliver those things?” said Howe.

A large number of the people Homeless Youth Alliance serves have faced “constant trauma” in their lives, and it’s “very hard” to accept what’s happening, said Howe.

The nonprofit works with participants that few other nonprofits serve, and the youth are people who often

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

14 ••BBay AYA Area REAR Reporter EPORTER • December December12-18, 12-18 2013

<<

Artworks

From page 13

Roby and gallery manager Lori Sottile co-curated the show, which will have additional works from Van Hoesen’s series of Castro portraits available for purchase through the gallery and a portion of each sale benefiting the Rainbow Honor Walk.

“We very much believe in the project,” said Krevsky, who is straight and lived in the Castro for several years in the mid 1970s.

First plaque to be unveiled

The first completed plaque honoring the disco star Sylvester, a Castro resident who died of AIDS complications in 1988, is set to be unveiled next week during a private preview with the artist who created their design.

It was announced last fall that Venezuelan-born architect Carlos Casuso had won an international competition to create the look of the plaques. Casuso happens to be Perry’s brother-in-law, and Perry learned that he had entered the contest after a jury chose Casuso’s submission as the winning entry.

He disclosed their family ties to the Rainbow Honor Walk’s steering committee prior to its voting to accept the jury’s decision.

The event will also acknowledge the trio of donors who each gave $5,000 to the project: local philanthropist Al Baum, Herth Real Estate, and Brand X Antiques on Castro Street.

<<

El/La

From page 3

a handful of organizations in San Francisco do work similar to El/La. Gay Supervisor David Campos, whose District 9 includes the Mission, stated, “El/La has a strong track record of engaging, supporting, and informing trans Latinas” in the neighborhood “and I am thrilled that they will now be able to expand and deepen their role in the community through this grant. I look forward to continue working with the Human Rights Commission and the trans Latina community in our district in order to ensure that our neighborhood is safe for everyone.”

According to the HRC, “Since

<<

Hepatitis C meds

From page 3

at $84,000 for a 12-week course, or $1,000 per pill.

“While we are very excited to have more effective and more tolerable treatment options for people living with hepatitis C, we are concerned about the overall cost of treatment,” said Lorren Sandt of the Fair Pricing Coalition. “Treatment is just too costly for the majority of people living with chronic HCV and we fear that barriers to patient access will be inevitable as a result.”

“Gilead’s predatory pricing of Sovaldi is a direct threat to public health, and it sets the stage for legislators and advocates to demand that officials who purchase drugs for government programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and the AIDS Drug Assistance Programs act decisively to rein in pricing and protect patient access to lifesaving medications,” declared AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein.

The Fair Pricing Coalition worked with Janssen and Gilead to develop patient assistance programs for people who are uninsured, underinsured, or otherwise in need of financial assistance to pay for simeprevir or sofosbuvir.

Janssen’s Olysio Savings Program will cover people with incomes up to 500 percent of the federal poverty level, while Gilead’s Support Path program offers assistance for people

Following the event the plaque will be publicly displayed at the HRC store as a way to boost sales of the pins ($6 with $5 donated to the walk) and the mugs ($19.50 with $10 donated to the walk).

HRC sales associate Colton Windsor, 54, who also serves on the advisory board for the Rainbow Honor Walk, was instrumental in having the national LGBT rights group help fundraise for the LGBT history project.

Windsor became involved with the walk because he liked that it is celebrating LGBT accomplishments rather than commemorating tragedies the community has endured.

“This is such a wonderful thing,” said Windsor, adding that he is an “avid believer in our history being the basis for our future. I want future generations to appreciate where we have been and where we are headed.”

For more information about the Rainbow Honor Walk and a full list of the first 20 inductees, visit http://www.rainbowhonorwalk. org. On December 20 fundraising appeals for each individual plaque will launch on Indiegogo.t

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Movers>> 2010, the district attorney’s office has reviewed 13 transgender hate crimes cases and brought charges in nine of them, resulting in seven convictions.”

District Attorney George Gascón stated, “My office will continue to work on violence reduction policies that will help make our community safer.”

Police have noted incidents where transgender women are victims may also include crimes such as robberies, where the women aren’t necessarily targeted for their gender identity.

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with incomes up to $100,000 for a family of one to three people. Both companies will provide co-pay assistance for people with private insurance who need help paying for out-of-pocket medication costs and covering insurance deductibles. Gilead also said that it is developing a treatment access program focusing on countries with the greatest burden of hepatitis C. “The approval of sofosbuvir and simeprevir are historic events, both for folks with hepatitis C alone as well as those with HIV/HCV coinfection, where complications from liver failure have emerged as a major cause of suffering and death,” Jay Lalezari of Quest Clinical Research told the B.A.R. “These new drugs, along with others in the pipeline, will render hepatitis C easy to treat in most cases and, in their way, are as life-changing as the drugs we use to treat HIV.” Quest is currently enrolling people with hepatitis C and HIV/HCV coinfection for several clinical trials of sofosbuvir as well as experimental regimens from AbbVie (formerly Abbott) and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

“All the studies are now showing sustained response rates in the 90 percent range, so it’s really about bringing new drugs to market to force price competition,” Lalezari said. “Say what you like about pharmaceutical companies, but in these two arenas, the research effort has been extraordinary.”t

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Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035459600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ASPIRE SALON, 447 SUTTER ST. #428, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed AMANDA SIMPSON. 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 10/28/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035491300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE QUEERIST, 1085 SOUTH VAN NESS #307, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LISSA DOTY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/21/08. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/15/13.

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ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CAlIFORNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FRANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549837 In the matter of the application of: WADE LEVAR ANDERSON NANDRAMSINGH, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner WADE LEVAR ANDERSON NANDRAMSINGH, is requesting that the name WADE LEVAR ANDERSON NANDRAMSINGH, be changed to ANDE NANDRAMSINGH. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 514 on the 19th of December 2013 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035485300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: J & K CO., 2407 43RD AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed IVAN NGOK CHUN KWOK. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/12/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035470300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CASTELLANOS TRUCKING, 1788 19TH AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SANDRA J. CASTELLANOS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/01/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035482600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: 4 TO THE FLOOR!, 290 TURK ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KELLY KATHLEEN HALL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/08/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035454200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TEXIS JEWELERY, 2933 24TH ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BERTA H. CAMPOS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/24/13.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/24/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035454100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CAMPOS TRANSPORT, 2275 MISSION ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BERTA H. CAMPOS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/24/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/24/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035454101 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JAIME’S JEWELRY, 2275 MISSION ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BERTA H. CAMPOS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/24/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/24/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035495700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: YURPATH; YURPATH SOLUTIONS; 3 BAYSIDE VILLAGE PL. #219, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KIMBERLY J. PUGH. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/14/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/18/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035494800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MERCI LIMOUSINE, 749 LIBERTY ST., EL CERRITO, CA 94530. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SAID LAOUARI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/13/13.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/18/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035480100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EBISU RESTAURANT, 1283 9TH AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed KATSUTOSHI STEPHEN & TAKAKO STEPHEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/15/82. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/07/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035484700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CITYWIDE TAXI, 2060 NEWCOMB AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BIG DOG CITY CORP (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/12/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/12/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035483900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NORTH AMERICA INFORMATIONAL EDUCATION ORGANIZATION, 287 TEDDY AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed ZHIJIANG LU & RUNHUA ZHANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/12/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035487800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CHATIME, 2437 NORIEGA ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed JIAO LI & HONG WEI YIN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/13/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035458400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAIWALKS, 3348 STEINER ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed VICTORIVIC, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/28/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/28/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035455800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CALI’S FINEST PARTY BUS, 1577 OAKDALE AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed CALI’S FINEST PARTY BUS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/24/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/24/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035458500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BURRITO LOCO, 850 ULLOA ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by a corporation and is signed FRIENDS DYNASTY, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/28/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/28/13.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 NOTICE OF APPlICATION TO SEll AlCOHOlIC BEVERAGES Dated 11/18/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: LORIS DINER INTERNATIONAL INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 449 POWELL ST., 2ND, 3RD & 4TH FL., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102-1503.

Type of license applied for

47 - ON-SAlE GENERAl EATING PlACE NOV 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 NOTICE OF APPlICATION TO SEll AlCOHOlIC BEVERAGES Dated 11/20/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: SNAKEBITE LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 2200 MARKET ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114-1506. Type of license applied for

47 - ON-SAlE GENERAl EATING PlACE NOV 28, DEC 05, 12, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035496900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MOTION STARVED, 2626 GOUGH ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KELLEY D. HEYE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/14/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/19/13.

NOV 28, DEC 05, 12, 19, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035504500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MARINA GRINS DENTAL, 3210 FILLMORE ST. #2, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a corporation and is signed ELENA HEREDIA DDS, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/22/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/22/13.

NOV 28, DEC 05, 12, 19, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035490300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BEL SF, 3215 MISSION ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company and is signed BELAMIS 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 11/14/13.

NOV 28, DEC 05, 12, 19, 2013 NOTICE OF APPlICATION TO SEll AlCOHOlIC BEVERAGES Dated 11/08/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: NITE CAP BAR, INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 699 O’FARRELL ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109-7403. Type of license applied for

48 - ON-SAlE GENERAl PUBlIC PREMISES DEC 05, 12, 19, 2013

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay area reporter • 15

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CAlIFORNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FRANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549946 In the matter of the application of: JOHN ANTHONY RYAN, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JOHN ANTHONY RYAN is requesting that the name JABARI EZEKIEL FANNER be changed to JABARI EZEKIEL FANNER RYAN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 4th of February 2014 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 28, DEC 05, 12, 19, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035485500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE BASEMENT, 222 HYDE ST., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LARRY LIVINGSTON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/12/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/12/13.

NOV 28, DEC 05, 12, 19, 2013 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CAlIFORNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FRANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549936 In the matter of the application of: KATHERINE ROSE COFFEY for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner KATHERINE ROSE COFFEY, is requesting that the name KATHERINE ROSE COFFEY be changed to RED ZACHARIAH ROSE COFFEY. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 514 on the 28th of January 2014 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

DEC 05, 12, 19, 26, 2013 SUMMONS SOlANO COUNTy SUPERIOR COURT NOTICE TO DEFENDANT: RICHARD kING; ANNIE NGO; DOES 1 TO 10; yOU ARE BEING SUED By PlAINTIFF: RAFAEl ARROyO, jR. CASE NO. FCM131920 Notice: You have been sued. The court may decide against you without your being heard unless you respond within 30 days. Read the information below.

You have 30 CALENDAR DAYS after this summons and legal papers are served on you to file a written response at this court and have a copy served on the plaintiff. A letter or phone call will not protect you.

Your written response must be in proper legal form if you want the court to hear your case. There may be a court form that you can use for your response. You can find these court forms and more information at the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www. courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp) your county law library, or the courthouse nearest you. If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the court clerk for a fee waiver form.

If you do not file your response on time, you may lose the case by default, and your wages, money, and property may be taken without further warning from the court. There are other legal requirements.

You may want to call an attorney right away. If you do not know an attorney, you may want to call an attorney referral service. If you cannot afford an attorney, you may be eligible for free legal services from a nonprofit legal services program. You can locate these nonprofit groups at the California Legal Services Web site (www.lawhelpcalifornia.org), the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www. courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp), or by contacting your local court or county bar association. NOTE: The court has a statutory lien for waived fees and costs on any settlement or arbitration award of $10,000 or more in a civil case. The court’s lien must be paid before the court will dismiss the case.

The name and address of the court is:

SOlANO COUNTy SUPERIOR COURT, 321 TUOlUMNE ST., VAllEjO, CA 94590.

The name, address, and telephone number of the plaintiff’s attorney, or plaintiff without an attorney, is:

RAyMOND G. BAllISTER, jR., ESQ., CENTER FOR DISABIlITy ACCESS, 9845 ERMA RD. #300, SAN DIEGO, CA 92131; (858) 375-7385.

Date: Oct. 12, 2012; Clerk, by A. GARCIA, Deputy.

DEC 05, 12, 19, 26, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035505900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HONG KONG MONA HAIR STUDIO, 307 4TH AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LIPING WU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/22/13.

DEC 05, 12, 19, 26, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035481800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CAROUSEL CAFE, 221 4TH ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed IRENE HOFMANN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/08/13.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/08/13.

DEC 05, 12, 19, 26, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035497900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MERCADO BRASIL, 1252 VALENCIA ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed MERCADO DO BRASIL INCORPORATED (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 11/19/13.

DEC 12, 19, 26, 2013, jAN 02, 2014

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035516500

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035523100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SHUTTER SHELF, 929 PINE ST. #301, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GLIB SMAGA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/03/13.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/03/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: QUARTET FILMS, 33 ENCLINE COURT, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CENTIGRADE INC. (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/05/13.

DEC 05, 12, 19, 26, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035514200

DEC 12, 19, 26, 2013, jAN 02, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035520300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SF KANKO, 631 O’FARRELL ST. #1702, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MANABU MORIKAWA. 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 12/02/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MILLICAN JONES, 445 BUSH ST. #400, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed MILLICAN JONES (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/04/13.

DEC 05, 12, 19, 26, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FIlE A-032886500

DEC 12, 19, 26, 2013, jAN 02, 2014 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FIlE A-032817000

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: HONG KONG MONA HAIR STUDIO, 307 4TH AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by LILY FENG XIU WU. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/02/10.

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: GLADSTONE & ASSOCIATES, 177 POST ST., PENTHOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by M. BRETT GLADSTONE. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/02/10.

DEC 05, 12, 19, 26, 2013 NOTICE OF APPlICATION TO SEll AlCOHOlIC BEVERAGES

DEC 12, 19, 26, 2013, jAN 02, 2014 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FIlE A-035333100

Dated 11/26/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: NOODLE SHOP CO COLORADO INC THE. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 575 MARKET ST. #150, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105-2854. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SAlE BEER & WINE - EATING PlACE DEC 12, 19, 26, 2013 NOTICE OF APPlICATION TO SEll AlCOHOlIC BEVERAGES Dated 11/22/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: GARFIELD BEACH CVS LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 1760 OCEAN AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112-1737. Type of license applied for

20 - OFF-SAlE BEER & WINE DEC 12, 19, 26, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035526900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BIRCH GROUP, 468 TEHAMA ST. #7, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JASON GLASS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/05/13.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/09/13.

DEC 12, 19, 26, 2013, jAN 02, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035518700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FRANCK DAUDE FINE ART, 1355 VAN DYKE AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed FRANCK DAUDE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/03/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/03/13.

DEC 12, 19, 26, 2013, jAN 02, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035519100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CHARNEL GROUND PUBLISHING, 601 O’FARRELL #608, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DANIEL C. HILL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/03/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/03/13.

DEC 12, 19, 26, 2013, jAN 02, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-035527600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CARO & VITALE, 190 CERVANTES BLVD. #201, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALIZA MARKS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/09/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/09/13.

DEC 12, 19, 26, 2013, jAN 02, 2014

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: DOMBROWSKI CLEANING SERVICES, 227 JENAY COURT, MARTINEZ, CA 94553. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by NICHOLAS DOMBROWSKI. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/28/13.

DEC 12, 19, 26, 2013, jAN 02, 2014 SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT NOTICE TO PROPOSERS GENERAL INFORMATION The SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT (“District”), 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, California, is advertising for proposals for On-Call General Engineering Services for BART Projects, Request for Proposals (RFP) No. 6M8067, on or about December 4, 2013, with proposals due by 2:00 PM local time, Tuesday, January 21, 2014.

DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES TO BE PROVIDED The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (“BART” or “District”) is soliciting the services of a consulting firm or joint venture to provide General Engineering Services for BART Projects on an on-call basis. The selected consultant shall assist and advise the District in engineering and procurement activities. Areas in which the consultant may provide services include facilities, systems, transit power, controls and communications, rail vehicle support, standard BART and eBART DMU equipment. General task areas consist of project development, engineering and design services, advanced technologies, procurement services, emergency response, design support during construction, project administration, and agreement administration.

The District intends to award four (4) Agreements with each Agreement having a term of five (5) years. A Pre-Proposal Meeting will be held on Tuesday, December 17, 2013. The Pre-Proposal Meeting will convene at 10:00 AMlocal time in the Garden Room at the Kaiser Center Mall, 344 – 20th Street, Third Floor, Oakland, California 94612.

At the Pre-Proposal Meeting the District’s DBE Program will be explained. All questions regarding DBE participation should be directed to Hayden Lee, Office of Civil Rights at (510) 464-6209 or E-mail, hlee2@bart.gov.

Prospective Proposers are requested to make every effort to attend this only scheduled Pre-Proposal Meeting and to confirm their attendance by contacting the District’s Principal Contract Specialist, Ms. Irene G. Gray, telephone (510) 464-6390, or E-mail igray@bart.gov prior to the date of the PreProposal Meeting. Networking Session: Immediately following the Pre-Proposal Meeting, the District’s Office of Civil Rights will conduct a networking session for subcontractors to meet the prime contractors for DBE participation opportunities. For questions regarding the networking session, contact Hayden Lee at (510) 464-6209.

WHERE TO OBTAIN OR SEE RFP DOCUMENTS (Available on or after December 4, 2013) Electronic version (PDF) of the RFP may be obtained by sending an E-mail request to the District’s Principal Contract Specialist, Ms. Irene G. Gray, igray@bart.gov. Your firm will also be placed on the Interested Parties List (IPL) for this RFP in the event any Addenda or Question and Response Letters are issued.

Hard copies of the RFP can be obtained by calling the District’s Principal Contract Specialist at (510) 464-6390.

Dated at Oakland, California this 2nd day of December 2013. /s/ Kenneth A. Duron Kenneth A. Duron, District Secretary San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District 12/12/13 CNS-2564569# BAY AREA REPORTER

In the Matter of Adoption of a MALE CHILD, Born on: 7/24/01

by Jason Keoni Fung, the legal spouse of Stephanie Loretta Fitiausi Fitiausi Fung, the child’s legal parent, Petitioners

THE STATE OF HAWAI’I TO: Joseph Elroy Conolly, Jr. CASE NUMBER FC-A NO. 13-1-6203

YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED that a petition for adoption of the above-identified child born to Stephanie Loretta Fitiausi Fung, the child’s mother, has been filed in the Family Court, First Circuit, State of Hawai’i.

THE PETITION ALLEGES that your consent to the adoption of the above-named child by the Petitioner(s) above-named is not required and may be dispensed with pursuant to Hawai’i Revised Statutes Section 578-2( c) as amended.

A hearing on the Petition will be held on FEB 4, 2014 at 1:30p.m. at the Family Court, Kapolei Court Complex, 4675 Kapolei Parkway, Third Floor, Kapolei.

IF YOU FAIL to appear at the hearing on date and time and at the place noted above or if you fail to file a written response to the allegations reflected in the Petition for Adoption, further action may be taken including the granting of the adoption without further notice to you. Your written response should be addressed to the Presiding Judge, Family Court, First Circuit, Kapolei Court Complex, 4675 Kapolei Parkway, Kapolei, Hawai’i 96707-3272.

FAILURE TO OBEY this notice may result in an entry of a default and default judgment against you. YOU ARE FURTHER NOTIFIED that the child, the adoptive parents and the natural parents have rights under H.R.S. Section 578-15 regarding confidentiality of adoption records after the child reaches age 18.

Date Nov. 22, 2013, Signature of the Clerk: R. Molina

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The

Vol. 43 • No. 50 • December 12-18, 2013

www.ebar.com/arts

Dancers from the dance

A

by Roberto Friedman

“Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers” (1936), gelatin silver print by unidentified artist.

museum show devoted to still photography of dynamic dancers might seem at first to be an oxymoronic concept, like “jumbo shrimp” or “guest star.” But the National Portrait Gallery’s current exhibition Dancing the Dream succeeds in looking at dance and dancers, the very embodiments of grace in motion, through the static medium of portrait photography. Out There visited the show during a recent trip to Washington, DC, and it remains on view through July 13, 2014.

With images from the Portrait Gallery’s estimable collection, the exhibition celebrates key figures in American dance from Josephine Baker, sporting only a tutu made of bananas, to Beyoncé, who puts a ring on it. The show, which fills several galleries, is presented in six categories: “Broadway and the American Dream,” “Lights! Camera!

Action!” “Choreographing Modern America,” “The Rise of American Ballet,” “Choreography Goes Pop” and “Dance in the Media Age.” Iconic figures of dance? This show has got them all: Fred Astaire, Mikhail Baryshnikov, San Francisco-born Isadora Duncan, Savion Glover, Michael Jackson, Gene Kelly, Rudolph Valentino – the list goes on and on. Legendary choreographers are also honored: Alvin Ailey (photographed by Carl Van Vechten), George Balanchine (photographed by George Platt Lynes), Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, Mark Morris, Jerome Robbins, Twyla Tharp, Bill T. Jones (photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe), and other immortal dancemakers. The portraits are complemented by large-scale video installations showing examples of timeless dance. One clip, which documents Fayard and Harold Nicholas (famed tap-dance duo the Nicholas Brothers) descending a staircase by leapfrogging over each other and landing in a split on each successive step – ouch! – had us gobsmacked. Also, for the first time ever at a Smithsonian museum, a dance company will be in residence at the Gallery for the duration of the exhibit. The Dana Tai Soon Burgess Dance Company is rehearsing in the galleries for performances to be given in the spring.

Two terpsichorean quotations that are cited in exhibition wall texts are worth savoring. The first is from immortal dancer Rudolf Nureyev: “I fly. I am Nureyev, dancer. I See page 18 >>

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

A visit from gay St. Nick

by Richard Dodds

T

he play’s title, its author agrees, may suggest something Santa Claus Is Coming Out is not. “You might dismiss the show based on the title as a silly farce without a lot of depth,” said playwright Jeffrey Solomon, who also portrays 20 characters in the solo show.

“Originally the play had a subtitle, Or How the Gay Agenda Came Down My Chimney, which captures some of the subversive leanings of the play.”

Solomon first performed Santa Claus Is Coming Out in 2001, and he tries to revive it annually in different cities. He’ll be making his San Francisco debut on Dec. 19 when he begins a six-performance run at the Eureka Theatre, performing Santa Claus in repertory with Combined Artform’s annual production of the David Sedaris comedy Santaland Diaries.

Santa Claus Is Coming Out is presented in the docudrama style of an Anna Deavere Smith play, in this case with a tongue-in-cheek program note informing theatergoers that all of the text came from Solomon’s interviews with the key players in what became known as “Santagate.” Through the course of the play, Solomon adopts the personae of his supposed interview subjects, from age 7 to 87, including a monologue from Rudolph, who has left Santa’s team to start his own rent-a-reindeer enterprise.

“The emotional core of the story is about this little boy, Gary, whose parents love him but don’t really get him,” Solomon said in a Thanksgiving Day interview from his father’s house in Connecticut. “When he asks Santa Claus See page 26 >>

A worldwide controversy erupts when Santa Claus acknowledges that he is gay in Santa Claus Is Coming Out, Jeffrey Solomon’s SF-bound solo show in which he plays 20 characters.

Diverse City Theater Company

{ SECOND OF TWO SECTIONS }

<< Books

18 • Bay area reporter • December 12-18, 2013

Lucky charms

by Jim Piechota

Queer & Celtic: On the Irish LGBT Experience, edited by Wesley J. Koster; Handtype Press (Squares & Rebels), $14.95

P

ublished by Minneapolis, MNbased Squares and Rebels Press, which primarily promotes literary works by LGBT poets and writers “who have a strong connection to the Midwest,” Queer & Celtic, a new collection of Irish memories, poetry, essays, plays, and short stories, is a powerful reflection on family, community, and Celtic culture.

Among the 12 writers featured are well-known names from the LGBT literary community as well as some newer scribes making their debut within this anthology. Each piece artfully and beautifully represents what it means to be gay and Irish, and as editor Wesley Koster, an Irish Gaelic instructor, comments in his introduction, they signify the “coterie of traditional expression, not taking lightly any

additions to its recipe.”

Seasoned gay writer, Lambda Award winner, and self-admitted “Byronic posturer” Jeff Mann generously contributes pages of pitch-perfect poetry and a series of imaginatively impressive travel essays, the best of which includes “Ireland,” where he laments the imminent departure of a six-month secret lover who is leaving with another man, both more than likely never to be reunited again. Mann also wrote the longer, more sensually realized piece “Dublin,” where he has chosen his lodging accommodations with “lust in mind, for in the basement of my hotel is Incognito, a gay bath.”

Elsewhere, Galway writer Micheal O Conghaile offers a beautiful piece of memory-driven short fiction entitled “Father,” directly followed by its translation into Gaelic, “Athair.”

Prolific playwright Carolyn Gage’s stage adaptation of “The Countess and the Lesbians” is a passionate melodrama between period-history, outspoken Irish women. Michigan native Arthur Durkee writes crisp,

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provocative verse on the magnified vision of a male bather whose body was “as long and awkward and powerful and restless as a new-born colt’s,” and who possessed a grin with the “radiance of forest mornings, the river’s promise to the rocks it breaks.”

Representing “the friction between parochial tradition and the LGBT community as it gains traction in Irish society” is Minneapolis writer Trisha Collopy’s “21 Meditations on the Catholic Body,” a bullet-point list of thoughts on the church’s claustrophobically insular intentions. Along the same lines is the majestic stage artistry found in Brian Merriman’s contributions, which include the closing piece, a play called “The Gentleman Caller,” where “Little Martin” is eulogized by a lover and a community at odds with its own homosexuality and the Catholic Church.

Significant and moving, this Celtic anthology resonates with tradition, prideful heritage, and the spirit of the orange and the green.t

<<

Dancing the Dream

From page 17

am on sale. If you like, you buy.” The second is attributed to Ted Shawn, a pioneer of American modern dance, promoter of masculine beauty, and founder of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Shawn gave his dancers the classic advice, “When in doubt, twirl.”

District follies

Also on view in Washington, DC, during our visit, Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950 at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum is an unusual exploration of the destructive impulse in art (through May 26, 2014).

This nihilistic motif takes many forms in the exhibition, from Harold Eugene Edgerton’s haunting footage of nuclear explosions to the reprise of Raphael Montanez Ortiz’s 1966 “Piano Destruction Concert,” in which the artist summarily destroyed a grand piano with an ax.

The result, a piano carcass if you will, is on view in the show’s first gallery,

rather hard to see for lovers of this most beautiful of instruments, and a harbinger of what’s to come.

There’s lots of death, anarchy and mayhem represented in this show, but Out There’s favorite pieces here are a bit on the quiet side: for example, Robert Rauschenberg’s “Erased de Kooning Drawing” (1953), in which the artist bought a drawing by his esteemed colleague, then systematically erased it; and “The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire,” a painting by Ed Ruscha in which the artist imagines the end of the institution, and by implication, the end of the art world.

So is DC the gayest town in the US? That’s what The New York Times’ Styles section wondered last month, in an article that declared, “A decade ago, Washington was an often intolerant and closeted city for gay men and lesbians. But that was then.”

The piece cites a Gallup survey that shows DC with the highest percentage of adults who identify as LGBT, at 10%, compared with all 50 states.

Robert Rabin, an assistant attorney general during the Clinton years, says, “There’s an openly gay presence that makes you think you’re in the Castro or West Hollywood, and it wasn’t always the case. The federal government was a nightmare for

homosexuals for decades, and then it wasn’t.”

The article name-checks popular gay spots Nellie’s Sports Bar and Number 9, as well as perennial haunts like JR’s. Since Washington was where Out There first tasted the gay life – when we were still underage, had a flat stomach and a full head of hair – we have to agree that DC was always tres gay, it just didn’t come crashing out of the closet until way later in life. But if there’s any doubt that “we are everywhere,” especially in the District, here’s a bit of gay spice from the DCist website, offered under the header, “What passes for cool these days.”

“At Nellie’s a few days ago: “Guy 1: ‘Not to brag, but I totally hooked up with a guy in one of the rowhouses you see on the intro credits in House of Cards.’

“Guy 2: ‘That one on North Capitol Street?’

“Guy 3: ‘DC gays are always sleeping themselves into bragging rights.’”

Future ballet stars

And since we started the column with dancers, let’s end it that way as well. San Francisco Ballet School has announced the recipients of the Bob Ross Scholarship, the Keith White Memorial Scholarship, and the Eric Hellman Memorial Scholarship, named for, respectively, the See page 19 >>

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

“Martha Graham” (1931), gelatin silver print by Edward Jean Steichen.

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TV >>

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay area reporter • 19

Babs follows her bliss

by John F. Karr

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didn’t come to bury Barbra, but I’ll admit I was a little skeptical.

Her career has been so embalmed by her perfectionism that I’d basically given up. Talk about peeing up my back and calling it rain – you can’t sing an endless succession of the same old ballads in the same old excruciatingly careful way and call it jazz just because there’s a pianoplayer noodling around behind you.

But sure, I watched the telecast of Babs’ Back to Brooklyn concert.

No matter how divided my loyalty, it was a Big Event. Bottom line?

The faults I expected are still to be found, like the pretensions of her spoken song intros. Oy. They’re mini-episodes of Babs’ Road to Achieving Inner Serenity and World Peace. Years ago she played a yeshiva student; since then, she’s graduated to Rebbetzin.

And the longueurs of all those ballads, in warm-bath arrangements that are at first anodyne, then anesthetic. And the pandering shtick, with shots of audience members dissolved in tears, and the manipulative moment of her singing “Sam, You Made the Pants Too Long” to a six-year-old boy in the audience who’s cynically been wired up for sound so his participation can be heard. And the special material that ain’t that special, especially the couple of songs effortfully re-written in praise of a hometown she wrote off so long ago. The jokes sound like Babs wrote them herself. Where’s Bruce Vilanch when we need him?

And Jason. Babs’ son. It’s a little embarrassing when they lock eyes to swear eternal love by singing “How Deep Is the Ocean” at each other.

Yet another ballad, and not helped

by Jason’s thin, toneless voice. If his mom’s name weren’t Babs, he’d never be on a stage. And yet she’s so proud of him. And she doesn’t introduce him as a singer. He’s “My son, Jason.” Oy, such nachas. On the other hand, Jason’s 46. It’s time for Babs to stop treating him like Bubeleh. As for the solo he gets, his mother may kvell, but the rest of us will be reaching for the remote.

Sing a duet with the old broad if she wants you to, Jason. But then get off the stage.

Okay, okay, there’s all of that. But there’s also so much really great stuff that I’m a fan all over again. Halfway through the show I went online and bought a DVD/CD combo (it’s really cheap!). The chaptering unfortunately doesn’t separate the intros from the songs, but the sound recording is the best a live concert ever had. Why isn’t there a Blu-ray? Is

Golden Gate Men’s Chorus, Joseph Piazza, Music Director, presents Babs concerned about the pitilessness of a Blu-ray close-up? Who cares if she’s had work done? It’s the world’s best. Hello, gorgeous. And you know what? She got over her fear of flying. She’s relaxed, loose, obviously having a good time.

She’s gratified by the audience’s reaction, takes pleasure in giving her performance to them, even genuinely announces regrets at not having done more concerts. Makes me wonder what other late-career regrets she might have about cocooning herself the way she has. My god, she could have sung Jacques Brel, she could have filmed A Little Night Music. On and on, the first-class projects she could have done. I’m sorry, I haven’t come to bury Babs.

It’s not too late for her to film Sunset Blvd., and someone should tip her off about Dear World. At any rate, there’s no regret about this concert.

Her voice? She’s singing beautifully, and even seems to have conquered a lot of that inhibiting perfectionism. With extreme help from her mic, she’s got a couple of money notes that sound belted. She can’t put much pressure on the voice, so she works at lower volumes, but there’s a freeing security in what she does, and her breath control is still impressive. And – this is really swell – she has accepted and doesn’t try to mask the husky grain that’s a natural development of age. It sounds good to me, authentic, and it even ameliorates her much-satirized nasality.

Babs goes for variety by singing duets with guest stars, trumpeter Chris Botti and teenage cutie Ital-

ian tenors Il Volo, but only on more ballads. As for her proposed film remake of Gypsy, well wow, how skeptic can I get? She squelched that in the smart moves of a medley, replacing the traditional belt she can’t do on “Some People” with a staccato punchiness for each word that still delivers the song’s pow. Made me think, “You go girl, make that movie!”

Then there’s the not-to-bemissed great thrill of Babs’ finale, the Bernstein/Wilbur anthem from Candide, “Make Our Garden Grow.”

It’s overwhelming, with Babs’ voice soaring above a symphony orchestra, the trumpeter, the Italian tenors and the hundred-voiced Brooklyn Youth Chorus. You know how everything these days gets a standing ovation? I stood up in my living room, clapping away.t

2013 Holiday Concert Thursday, December 12 Friday, December 13 Sunday, December 15 Tuesday, December 17

8 pm 8 pm 3 pm 8 pm

St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church 3281 16th Street, San Francisco General $25 / VIP $35 Tickets: www.ggmc.org or at the door.

Student discount available at the door.

www.ebar.com

CONNIE CHAMPAGNE

KATYA SMIRNOFF-SKYY

WELL-STRUNG

MICHAEL FEINSTEIN

December 18

December 19

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution

“The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire” (1965-68), oil painting by Ed Ruscha, from Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950.

<<

Dancing the Dream

From page 18

co-founder of the B.A.R., a B.A.R. dance writer, and a B.A.R. arts editor, may they all rest in peace.

The Bob Ross Scholarship was awarded to Mattia Santini, 15, who came to SF Ballet School from Milan’s prestigious La Scala Theatre Ballet School. The Keith

White Scholarship was awarded to Anastasia Kubanda, 15, who hails from bucolic Front Royal, VA. And the Eric Hellman Scholarship was awarded to Veronika Selivanova, 16, originally from provincial Vancouver, WA. Congratulations to all three students, who surely have stellar careers in the ballet ahead of them.t

December 27 - 28

December 31 - Two Shows

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

088736.01_HNSF_Feinsteins_Bay_Area_Reporter_12_12_MECH ROUND #: MECH

<< Books

20 • Bay area reporter • December 12-18, 2013

Page-turners for holiday giving

by Tavo Amador

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hopping in your local bookstore for holiday gifts is a calm and civilized contrast to mall madness. This year’s selections are varied and sure to please recipients.

Classic movie-lovers will be thrilled by Kendra Dean’s lavishly illustrated and sympathetic biography, Vivien Leigh (Running Press, $30).

One of the great beauties of her era, Leigh (1913-67) was a brilliant film actress and ultimately acknowledged by skeptical critics for her superb and far-ranging stage performances, often opposite long-time husband Sir Laurence Olivier. Dean chronicles her troubled life (she was bi-polar when the disease was little understood) and her refusal to be dismissed because of her striking loveliness. Photos range from her childhood to the Oliviers’ triumphant Antony and Cleopatra and Caesar and Cleopatra (alternating the plays on Broadway), to socializing with friends like Noel Coward, Joan Crawford and John Gielgud.

2pub-BBB_BAR_121213.pdf Intelligence and keen obser-

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vation are the hallmarks of The Richard Burton Diaries (Yale University Press, $22, edited by Chris Williams). The celebrated actor, whom many felt failed to reach his potential, claimed he would have been happier as a writer, and he clearly had a gift for words. He chronicles the scandal that erupted when he left his wife to marry Elizabeth Taylor, their extraordinary passion, his infi2:08 delities, 11/25/13 PM his guilt and joy over his success – feelings the son

of a poor Welsh coal miner from a large family could not reconcile. His remarks about the famous people he knew, including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace, Luchino Visconti (then having an affair with Alain Delon), Vivien Leigh, and John Gielgud, are fascinating.

Beijing’s emergence as a major economic power may seem to have happened suddenly, but as June Chang demonstrates, the ground was prepared by the remarkable Dowager Empress Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (Knopf, $30). One of many imperial mistresses, she survived court intrigue to see her son become that vast nation’s Emperor in 1861. She, however, was the country’s unofficial ruler from that date until her 1908 death. She was determined, successful, feared, and because of her gender, subjected to scurrilous gossip, including a rumor that she used her exceptionally large clitoris to anally penetrate male lovers.

Chang’s lively, erudite biography brings this amazing woman to life.

The oldest non-biblical reference to Jesus is a brief mention in the histories of the Roman Josephus, written a century after Christ’s death. In Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus (Random House, $27), Reza Aslan puts him into the political context of the period. The historical Jesus seems to have been a political activist. Much about his life will never be known, and the Western world has created a different Jesus to suit specific eras and cultures. Aslan’s prose is highly readable without losing its scholarly value. His bibliographical essay is exceptional.

R.B. Parkinson’s A Little Gay History: Desire and Diversity Across

the World (Columbia University Press, $19.95) is an entertaining and comprehensive look at primarily male/male sexual behavior in many cultures. Examples range from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, including reallife relationships, i.e., the Emperor Hadrian and the beautiful Antinous, to Samurai Japan, and E.M. Forster’s Maurice.

Escapist fiction is often welcome, and Rhys Bowen’s latest Royal Spyness mystery, Heirs and Graces (Berkeley Crime, $24.95), finds lady Georgiana, 35th in line to succeed King George V to the throne, broke but willing to tackle an assignment from Queen Mary. This one involves teaching the hitherto unknown son of a Duke, raised in Australia, how to behave at court and among other nobles. Who would have thought those lessons would be so dangerous? Bowen knows the foibles of the upper classes, and her prose is consistently engaging. Georgie is a funny, sympathetic heroine, and her longtime suitor, the handsome, dashing, penniless and secretive Irish peer Darcy O’Mara, is once again on hand to arouse and frustrate her.

The Jewels of Paradise (Grove Press, $14) is Donna Leon’s first non-Inspector Guido Brunetti novel. Catarina Pelligrini, Ph.D., a specialist in baroque opera, is hired by a handsome and intelligent attorney to assess the content of two trunks, over which a pair of greedy

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cousins are battling for ownership.

Each claims the contents, which may be valuable. As always, Leon captures the allure and challenges of modern-day Venice. The middleaged, never-married Catarina is a witty, intelligent protagonist with a remarkable family and a vast social network, which in the insular, corrupt society of La Serenissima, is essential.

The City of Light in 1938 is the setting for Alan Furst’s atmospheric Mission to Paris (Random House, $16), which features Viennese-born Hollywood leading man Frederic Stahl being sent to France to make a film. Stahl, horrified by the Nazis, decides to work against them.

To his dismay, many prominent Parisians are sympathetic to Hitler.

Others will do anything to prevent another world war. Stahl is an appealing hero, and Furst deftly blends the world of movies and the politics of the era – and he knows Paris very well.t

Hot reads for cold months

by Gregg Shapiro

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rom the fiction shelf: Midwestern writer and Wisconsin native Glenway Wescott, who counted Monroe Wheeler as a lover and Paul Cadmus and George Platt Lynes among his social circle, has been dead for more than 25 years. “A Visit to Priapus,” one of his more homoerotic works of short fiction, remained unpublished until after his death. In A Visit to Priapus and Other Stories (University of Wisconsin Press, $26.95), edited and with an introduction by Wescott biographer Jerry Rosco (and a foreword by Wendy Moffatt), the title story, nine more stories and two essays have been collected under one cover for the first time.

Wally Lamb, a straight writer who is a favorite of Oprah’s and book clubs around the world, has a lesbian as his main character in his new novel We Are Water (Harper, $29.99). The impact of artist Annie Oh’s impending marriage to her art dealer Viveca on her family is the main focus of this timely novel.

Popular gay writer Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club and others,

is back with Doomed (Doubleday, $24.95), the sequel to his 2011 novel Damned, in which he first introduced us to dead adolescent protagonist Madison. As irreverent as ever, Palahniuk’s vision of the afterlife, and the battle of good and evil, is distinctly his own.

Multi-award-winning lesbian mystery writer and author of the well-liked Jane Lawless Mysteries series Ellen Hart returns with two new books, The Mirror and the Mask and The Cruel Ever After (Bywater Books, $14.95).

Both Minneapolis-set novels find Lawless doing what she does best, solving mysteries as only she can.

Set in Victorian England, The White Forest (Touchstone, $16), the debut novel by gay writer and teacher Adam McOmber, combines psychic powers, a questionable cult, love and friendship, and the rise of industry, for a thrilling and chilling tale.

Frank Anthony Polito, Lammywinning author of Drama Queers! and Band Fags!, pays homage to Michael

Chabon’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh in his new novel The Spirit of Detroit (Woodward Avenue Books, $15). Set in the Motor City in 1992, the book tells the story of Bradley Dayton, making his way through Detroit during a period of great personal and social upheaval.

Perfectly timed for the season, Gifts Not Yet Given (Circumspect Press, $15.99) by Kergan Edwards-Stout is a collection of 14 tales of the holidays.

Among the stories, you will find a few set at Christmas, including “The Nutcracker,” “The Fourth Christmas,” “The Cape” and “A Doris Day Christmas.”

An out and proud member of the Romance Writers of America (and prez of the LGBT chapter), homoerotic romance author Damon Suede’s latest novel Bad Idea (Dreamspinner, $17.99) takes on “comic books, stupid heroes,” and the “terrible risks” one takes for love.

From the nonfiction shelf: As 2013 comes to a close, two more states, Hawaii and Illinois, have legalized same-sex marriage, moving the battle for marriage equality forward. We Do! American Leaders Who Believe in Marriage Equality (Akashic, $15.95), edited by Jennifer Baumgardner & Governor Madeleine M. Kunin, compiles speeches, interviews and commentary from 1977 through 2013, in which an array of political leaders, such as the late Supervisor Harvey Milk, Senator Tammy Baldwin, Senator John Kerry, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Corey Booker, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton voice their unconditional support for the queer citizens of the US in their quest for same-sex marriage rights.

See page 27 >>

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DVD >>

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay area reporter • 21

Picture perfect for the gift list

by Tavo Amador

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nsure what to give people on your holiday gift list? DVDs are excellent options.

Michael Douglas was an unexpected but brilliant choice to play flamboyantly gay pianist Liberace in HBO’s Behind the Candelabra (2013), based on the (unreliable) memoirs of the celebrated entertainer’s lover, Scott Thorson (an equally memorable Matt Damon). Starting in the 1950s, Liberace’s (1919-87) public persona of a devoted son unable to find the right woman fooled millions of adoring females. His glittery costumes and flashy nightclub act played to SRO audiences for decades. Douglas doesn’t flinch from showing the star’s manipulativeness, narcissism, sexual tastes, and shrewdness. Damon, exceptionally sexy, is mesmerizing as an uneducated, wholesome youth seduced by proximity to fame, with ultimately destructive results. Rob Lowe is terrific as a plastic surgeon whose face has been pulled too tightly. Cheyenne Autumn is the boyfriend whom Scott replaces, and Debbie Reynolds, unrecognizable, is Liberace’s mother.

Superbly directed by Stephen Soderbergh, from a crackerjack script by Richard LaGravenese. Marvin Hamlisch wrote the original music. The dazzlingly vulgar sets are by Barbara Munch Cameron. Ellen Mirojnick designed the perfect costumes.

Maggie Smith keeps coming up with original ways to play elderly ladies. In Quartet (2012), she’s a retired opera star moving into senior housing designed for musicians. Among those living there are former colleagues (Pauline Collins, Billy Connelly) and an ex-husband (Tim Courtney). Michael Gambon wants them to sing the quartet from Rigoletto at the annual benefit honoring Verdi’s birthday.

Dustin Hoffman, in his directorial debut, keeps things lively. Old age is tough, and the movie doesn’t pretend otherwise or patronize it. Smith is splendid as the self-centered diva who realizes her divorce was a mistake.

Courtney, looking very fit, matches her. Collins is funny and touching battling dementia. With opera great Gwyneth Jones as Smith’s retired rival.

Leonardo di Caprio gives a ferocious performance in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (2013), which, despite the anachronistic music, is a fine interpretation of F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s masterpiece.

Toby Maguire is excellent as narrator Nick Carraway, Joel Edgerton is a scary Tom Buchanan, and Isla Fisher is moving as Myrtle Wilson. Carey Mulligan captures Daisy’s vapidness, but lacks the necessary star power.

The extraordinary sets (by Beverely Dunn) and costumes (by Catherine Martin) bring the Jazz Era to wild, vulgar life. Luhrmann and Craig Pearce wrote the screenplay. Too bad Luhrmann didn’t trust audiences to realize how revolutionary the period music was.

The further we get from the Fabulous Fifties, the easier it is to assess the era’s icons. The Grace Kelly Collection shows what audiences saw before she left Hollywood to become Princess of Monaco in 1956 at age 27. Kelly was Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite icy blonde, the beautiful personification of “the lady in the parlor and the whore in the bedroom.” His Rear Window (1954), starring James Stewart, is her best film, and she’s seductive and effective. In Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief (1955), she tempts Cary Grant by offering him a breast or a leg (of chicken) as they picnic on the Riviera. She won the Best Actress Oscar for The Country Girl (1954), as alcoholic entertainer Bing Crosby’s suffering wife, resisting the charms of handsome William Holden. Her performance doesn’t hold up – most contemporary critics correctly felt the

Courtesy HBO

Michael Douglas and Matt Damon in HBO’s Behind the Candelabra, now out on DVD.

award belonged to Judy Garland for A Star Is Born. She declaims nicely as Gary Cooper’s Quaker bride in Fred Zinneman’s brilliant High Noon (1952), but Katy Jurado steals the picture. She’s good in Charles Walters’ High Society (1956), an entertaining Cole Porter musical based on Philip Barry’s The Philadelphia Story. She and Crosby have a lovely duet, “True Love.” With Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holm, both splendid, and Louis Armstrong, jazzing things up. Kelly mounted the throne after The Swan

(1956), playing a marriageable royal.

Co-starring Alec Guinness and sexy Louis Jourdan. With Agnes Moorehead. Based on Frederic Molnar’s drama. Charles Vidor directed.

If Kelly’s legacy is uneven, bisexual James Dean’s (1931-55) continues to resonate. His three starring movies are now available in a Blu-ray set, The James Dean Ultimate Collector’s Edition. After bit parts in a couple of films and stage and television appearances, he exploded onscreen in Elia Kazan’s East of Eden (1955), based on John

Steinbeck’s novel. As Cal, the rebellious, sensitive son of stern rancher Raymond Massey, Dean is riveting.

With the haunting Julie Harris as Abra, whom Cal loves, Jo Van Fleet in an Oscar-winning performance as the prostitute mother who abandoned him, and handsome Richard Davalos as Aron, the good older brother (a role Paul Newman unsuccessfully tested for). Dean played a suburban youth in Nicholas Ray’s powerful Rebel Without a Cause (1955), eloquently capturing a generation’s angst and fury at their parents’ complacent conformity.

He and gay Sal Mineo, as a lonely rich boy, have a moving homoerotic

relationship. Natalie Wood is Dean’s more conventional love interest. In George Stevens’ Giant (1956), he was billed after Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. Based on Edna Ferber’s sprawling novel about Texas ranchers, oil, and romance, it was much acclaimed, earning Stevens a Best Director Oscar and nominations for Picture, Hudson and Dean. Today, it’s slow. Nonetheless, Dean is fascinating if mannered, more convincing as the young Jett Rink than as the older one.

Hudson is sincere. Taylor, however, is glorious. With a butch Mercedes McCaimbridge, Sal Mineo, and Jane Withers.t

Head into tHe Holidays witH tHe asian art MuseuM

Find peace in our galleries of world-renowned art, bring family and friends for fun quality time, and maybe even get some shopping done. www.asianart.org.

In Grand Style: Celebrations in Korean art during the Joseon dynasty Final Weeks—Closes Jan 12 Much of Korean culture today derives from the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), when personal milestones were celebrated with elaborate procedures. Discover these colorful ceremonies with more than 110 exquisite artworks.

proxImItIeS 3: Import/export Opens Dec 20 In Proximities, our trilogy of contemporary art exhibitions, Bay Area artists grapple with ideas emerging from Asia’s cultural and geographic vastness. This final installment explores trade and commerce as influences on Asia’s global presence.

28th annual JapaneSe Bell-rInGInG Ceremony Tues, Dec 31, 11:30 am, FREE with museum admission Gather your loved ones and say goodbye to 2013 by striking a giant 16th-century temple bell from Japan (it’s an actual object from our collection). According to Buddhist belief, each ring of the bell wipes the slate clean of bad experiences and ill luck. Bask in the positive and peaceful vibes, and stick around for art activities.

Please note, get your numbered ticket at the admission desk upon arrival. You’ll need it to ring our bell.

Asian Art Museum Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art & Culture 200 Larkin Street San Francisco, CA 94102 415.581.3500

In Grand Style was organized by the Asian Art Museum in collaboration with the National Museum of Korea and the National Palace Museum of Korea based on the exhibition Scenes of Banquets and Ceremonies of the Joseon Period held by the National Museum of Korea in 2009. Presentation at the Asian Art Museum is made possible with the generous support of Koret Foundation, Samsung, The Korea Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Silicon Valley Bank, Jamie and Steve Chen, John and Barbara Osterweis, and Suno Kay Osterweis.

Image: Royal Protocol for King Jeongjo’s Visit to His Father’s Tomb in Hwaseong (detail), 1800–1900. Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910).

Album; ink and colors on paper. Courtesy of National Museum of Korea.

Proximities was organized by the Asian Art Museum. Presentation at the Asian Art Museum is made possible with the generous support of Graue Family Foundation, Columbia Foundation and an anonymous donor. Image: Double Barbershop Poles, Askew, 2011, by Amanda Curreri (American, b. 1977). Part of screen-printed triptych on paper, edition of five, H. 30 x W. 20 in. each. © Amanda Curreri. Courtesy of the artist and Romer Young Gallery.

<< Out&About

22 • Bay area reporter • December 12-18, 2013

O&A

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San Francisco Symphony @ Davies Symphony Hall The San Francisco Symphony performs a series of holiday special concerts. Dec. 12, 7:30pm, LA’s Grammy-winning crosscultural band Ozomatli. Dec. 13 (8pm) and 14 (8:30pm) Burt Bacharach. Dec. 14 (1pm & 4pm) John Lithgow and the SF Symphony Youth Orchestra perform Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Dec. 15, 8pm, Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s Creole Christmas. Dec. 16, 17 & 18, 8pm, Colors of Christmas features Peabo Bryson, CeCe Winans, Melissa Manchester, and Ruben Studdard with the First A.M.E. Oakland Mass Choir. Dec. 19, 20 & 21, 8pm, Handel’s Messiah with the Symphony Chorus. $25-$180. 201 Van Ness Ave. 864-6000. www.sfsymphony.org

Out &About

Fri 13 Fri 13

Russ Lorenson’s Christmas in San Francisco

Holly Jolly

by Jim Provenzano

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hris Kringle may not be stuffing himself down your chimney just yet, and let’s face it, few of us even have chimneys, let alone adequate heat for the seasonal cold weather; damn drafty Victorians. But you can warm up theoretically with a few of these tasty holiday theatrical, choral and artistic chestnuts.

Thu 12 Arlington @ Magic Theatre Victor Lodato and Polly Pen’s dramatic musical about a soldier’s wife and her sacrifices and doubts. $20-$60. Tue 7pm.

Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2:30, 7pm. Fort Mason Center, Building D, 3rd floor. 441-8822. www.magictheatre.org

Betty Buckley @ Feinstein at the Nikko The iconic Broadway, film and TV singer-actress performs The Vixens of Broadway, her cabaret show of classic “other women,” aka second female leads in hit musicals ( Chicago, Evita, Company, Oklahoma, Into the Woods). $50-$80. Dec 5 & 12, 8pm. Dec. 6 & 13, 8pm. Dec 7 & 14, 7pm. Dec 8 & 15, 7pm. Thru Dec. 15. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St.(866) 663-1063. www.ticketweb.com

The Book of Mormon @ Orpheum Theatre The mega-hit multi-award-winning musical comedy parody about the wacky religion returns. Ticket lottery $29. Other $80$210. Tue-Sat 8pm. Sat 2pm. Sun 1pm & 6:30pm. 1192 Market St. (888) 746-1799. www.shnsf.com

Cirque Dreams Holidaze @ Curran Theatre Holiday circus kid-friendly theatrical spectacle. $45-$160. Wed-Sat 7pm. Fri & Sun 1pm. Also Sun 6:30pm. Thru Dec. 15.

445 Geary St. (888) 746-1799. www.shnsf.com

Cirque du Soleil @ AT&T Park The visually stunning Montreal circus brings their new show Amaluna, loosely based on Shakepeare’s The Tempest, to their big tent. $50-$140. Tue-Sat 8pm. FriSun 4:30pm. Also Sun. 1pm. Thru Dec. 31.

Third St. at Terry A. Francois Blvd. www.cirquedusoleil.com

Fri 13

Drag Queens on Ice @ Safeway Holiday Ice Rink The annual festive event includes skating acts with Sister Roma, Mutha Chuka, Ana Conda, Holotatt Tymes, Nellie, Kim ChiChi and Mahlae Balenciaga, and (non-skated) MC Donna Sachet. 8pm-9:30pm. Rent a pair of skates and enjoy the downtown tradition. $5-$11 10am-11:30pm daily thru Jan. 20. www.unionsquareicerink.com

New and Classic Films @ Castro Theatre Dec. 12: The Mystical Traveler Marathon; seminars (9am-2pm), workshops and booksigning (2:30-5:30), and the SF film premiere (7:30) featuring best-selling spirituality author Dr. John-Roger. Free$25. Dec. 13, Killer of Sheep (7:15) and Eraserhead (9pm). Dec. 14, The Nutcracker in 3D (1:30, 4pm) and Children of Paradise (7pm). Dec. 15, To Catch a Thief (2:25, 7pm) and Dial M for Murder (4:55, 9pm).

Dec. 16, Wurlitzer Holiday Concert, 7:30pm. Dec. 17, Rick Prelinger’s Lost Landscapes of San Francisco (7:30pm).

Dec. 18, Noir City Xmas, with Blast of Science (7pm) and Christmas Eve aka Sinners’ Holiday. Dec. 19, Gremlins (7pm) and Lethal Weapon (9pm). 429 Castro St. 621-6120. www.castrotheatre.com

Nicole Kidman is Fucking Gorgeous @ CounterPulse Mica Sigourney, John Foster Cartwright, Maryam Rostami’s new performance work about the actress’ fame, glamour and absence. $15-$20. Thu-Sun 8pm. Thru Dec. 15. 1310 Mission St. 626-2060. www.counterpulse.org

Radar Reading @ SF Public Library Author/host Michelle Tea welcomes Cheeming Boey, Aya de Leon, Wonder Dave and Rotimi Agbabiaka to the eclectic reading series, with a cookie-infused Q&A. 6pm. 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

Avenue Q @ New Conservatory Theatre Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx and Jeff Whitty’s Tony Award-winning puppet/human musical parody of Sesame Street gets a local production. Warning: not for kids and includes puppet nudity! $25-$45. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Jan. 12. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. 861-8972. www.nctcsf.org

The musical comedy revue celebrates its 40th year with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs. Holiday shows, including tap-dancing Christmas trees and more thematic characters, now on sale. $25$160. Wed & Thu, 5pm* (* = under 21 allowed) & 8pm (also Dec 26). Fri & Sat 6:30* & 9:30pm. Sun 2pm* & 5pm*.

Christmas Eve special 2pm*. New Year’s Eve 7pm & 10:15pm (with champagne).

Beer/wine served; cash only; 21+, except where noted. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St.). 421-4222. http://beachblanketbabylon.com/when/ Holidayschedule%202013.shtml

Chanticleer @ Various Venues The multiple award-winning men’s a cappella ensemble performs their annual Chanticleer Christmas, a concert of traditional holiday-themed music, at various beautiful churches and cathedrals in Northern California. $30-$65. Dec 13, 8pm, Cathedral of Christ the Light, 2121 Harrison St. Oakland. Dec 14, 8pm, First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. Dec 15, 8pm, St. Ignatius Church, 650 Parker Ave., San Francisco.

Dec 17, 6 & 8:30pm, St. Vincent Church, 35 Liberty St., Petaluma. Dec 18, 8pm, Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, 1017 11th St. Sacramento. Dec 19, 6 & 8:30pm, Mission Santa Clara, 500 el Camino Real.

392-4400. www.chanticleer.org

A Christmas Carol @ Geary Theater American Conservatory Theater’s 37th annual lively and lavish musical production of Paul Walsh and Carey Perloff’s stage adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic holiday story stars James Carpenter (Scrooge), Ken Ruta (the Ghost of Marley) and many of A.C.T.’s MFA and Young Conservatory students. $20-$95. Wed-sat 7pm (no show Dec. 24, 26, 28). Sundays 5:30pm. Several 1pm & 2pm matinees.

Thru Dec. 28. Geary Theatre, 415 Geary St. 749-2228. www.act-sf.org

Christmas in San Francisco @ Pa’ina Lounge & Restaurant Russ Lorenson’s eighth annual holiday jazz concert includes guest performers Wesla Whitfield, Mike Greensill and Veronica Klaus. $25-$45. 7:30pm. Also Dec. 14.

1865 Post St. 674-3863. www.ChristmasInSF.com

Embodiment Project @ ODC Theater House of Matter, the ensemble’s street dance-drama, includes vocals and live muisc accompaniment by Valerie Trout’s MoonCandy ensemble, with a vibrant eclectic work about sexism in contemporary culture. $18-$38. Fri-Sun 8pm. 3153 17th St. www.odcdance.org

The Golden Girls @ Victoria Theatre Heklina, Cookie Dough, Matthew Martin, Pollo Del Mar and guest performers haul out the classic senior women’s TV show scripts and do drag parodies. $30. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 7pm. Thru Dec. 22. 2961 16th St. at Mission. www.trannyshack.com

Top Guys @ Stage Werx Theatre

Chanticleer

Sat 14

Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi

SF Indie presents a wacky stage parody of the the ‘80s Tom Cruise film Top Gun. $20.

Wed-Sat 8pm. Thru Dec. 14. 466 Valencia St. at 15th. 820-3907. www.sfindie.com

Crackpot Crones

Kitka @ Various Venues The women’s traditional folk ensemble known for hauntingly beautiful harmonies performs Wintersongs: A World Unknown at a variety of evocative settings. Dec. 13 8pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave., Oakland, $15-$40. Dec. 14 8pm at Dance Palace, 503 B St., Point Reyes Station, $15-$31. Dec. 15, 4pm at Arts at St. Bede’s, 2650 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, $10-$35. (510) 444-0323. www.kitka.org

My Beautiful Laundrette @ New Conservatory Theatre Center U.S. premiere of Hanif Kureishi’s tale (adapted by Andy Gram and Roger Parsley) about two gay men in 1980s England and their unlikely romance spurred by coowning a laundromat. $25-$45. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 3pm. Thru Dec. 22. 25 Van Ness Ave at Oak. 861-8972. www.nctcsf.org

The Oy of Sex @ The Marsh Alicia Dattner’s solo show explores her life with ex-boyfriends, family, love addiction, and how they all sometimes clash. Thu & Fri 8pm. Sat 8:30pm. $20-$100. Thru Jan. 18. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

The Rocky Horror Show @ Boxcar Theatre Live performance of the original Richard O’Brien musical (about sexed-up alien transsexuals) that became a cult film. $20-$55. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru Dec. 21. 505 Natoma St. at 6th. www.sfrockyhorror.com

Snoopy! @ Eureka Theatre 42nd Street Moon theatre company’s production of family-friendly sequel to the Peanuts-themed musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. $25-$75. Wed & Thu 7pm. Fri 8pm. Sat 6pm. Sun 3pm.

Thru Dec. 15. 215 Jackson St. 255-8207. www.42ndStMoon.org

Treasure Island Hop @ SFGG Clubhouse Three-day swing dance and Queer Jitterbugs festival, with costume and vintage-themed nights, competitions, live and DJed music, vintage car show, and social events. $5-$15 single event; $150 full pass. Thru Dec. 15. 725 California Ave., Treasure Island. www.TreasureIslandHop.eventbrite.com

Tristan & Yseult @ Berkeley Repertory West Coast premiere of Emma Rice’s innovative acrobatic and music-filled adaptation of the classic mythical love story. $20-$72. Tue, Thu-Sat 8pm. Wed 7pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

Urinetown: The Musical @ Lisser Theater, Oakland Student theatre department performs Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis’ darkly comic musical about a town where peeing for free is illegal. $13-$26. Fri & Sat 7:30pm.

Sun 2pm. Thru Dec. 15. Mills College campus, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland.

(510) 595-5514. www.ymctberkeley.org

2

The Velveteen Rabbit @ YBCA ODC/Dance’s annual production of the children’s story ballet about a toy rabbit who longs to become real. $10-$75.

Various times, mostly 11am. LGBT Family Day Nov. 30, 2pm. Thru Dec. 15. Lam Research Theatre, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard St. www.odcdance.org www.ybca.org

Sat 14 Can You Dig It? @ The Marsh Berkeley Don Reed’s autobiographical solo show explores the 1960s: Beatles, Black Panthers, MLK, JFK and the KKK. $20-$50.

Sat 8:30pm and Sun 7pm thru Dec. 15.

2120 Allston Way. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Capacitor @ Aquarium of the Bay Okeanos, an aquatic dance show, is performed by the creative Bay Area dancetheatre team. $15-$30. 4:30 and 7pm.

Saturdays thru 2013. Pier 39 at Embarcadero.

623-5300. www.capacitor.org www.aquariumofthebay.org

Crackpot Crones @ Eddy Theater Terry Baum and Carolyn Myers second annual comedy sketch show, with decidedly lesbian and feminist themes from the veteran wits. $15-$20. Saturdays 3pm & 6pm. Sundays 3pm. Thru Dec. 29.

156 Eddy St. www.crackpotcrones.com

Crosscurrents @ MoAD Africa and Black Diasporas in Dialogue, 1960-1980, an exhibit of contemporary art.

Thru April 13. $5-$10. Wed-Sat 11am-6pm.

Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission St. 358-7200. www.moadsf.org

Dance-Along Nutcracker @ YBCA Forum The annual family-friendly wacky particpatory performance and holiday party takes on a Nutcrackers of the Caribbean theme, with the SF Gay/Lesbian Band, Lesbian/Gay Chorus and other performers. $10-$45. 7pm. Dec 15 at 11am & 3pm. 701 Mission St. www.ybca.org

Doing It for Ourselves @ LGBT Center Holiday and community-building health information and social event for 40+ lesbian and bisexual women, with yoga, open mic, and DJed dancing. $1-$5. 1pm-5pm. 1800 Market St. www.difobayarea.org

Our Vast Queer Past @ GLBT History Museum See the new exhibit, Vicki Marlane: I’m Your Lady, which displays video, images and ephemera documenting the pioneering local drag, cabaret and carnival perfomer, known for decades of performances. Thru Feb 28, 2014. Also, The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus: Celebrating 35 Years of Activism Through Song, includes other archival materials from the chorus’ history; other permanent exhibits as well. Reg. hours Mon-Sat 11am-7pm (closed Tue.) Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. 621-1107. www.glbthistory.org

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Out&About >>

Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay area reporter • 23

Tue 17

Shotgun Player’s production of Anthony Neilson’s darkly comic play is set in an Edwardian traveling theatre troupe, whose backtage lives sometimes overshadow their characters. $20-$35. Previews thru Dec. 12. Opens Dec 13. Wed & Thu 7pm.

Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 5pm. Thru Jan. 11. (510) 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org

Holiday Bash @ The Marsh, Berkeley Josh Kornbluth, Marga Gomez, Don Reed, Alicia Dattner, Jeff Greenwald, Marsh Jam improv artists and others perform at the annual multicultural celebration. Cash bar includes wamr and cold drinks, wine, beer. $20-$100. 7pm party, 7:30pm show. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

A Swell Noël @ Harry’s UpStage, Berkeley

Craig Jessup’s A Swell Noël

Impressionists on the Water @ Legion of Honor Touring exhibit of French Impressionist aquatic works. Also, Darren Waterston: A Compendium of Creatures (thru Dec), and permanent exhibits (ongoing). $10-$25.

Lincoln Park, 100 34th Ave. 750-3600. www.legionofhonor.famsf.org

Jason Lazarus: Live Archive @ Contemp. Jewish Museum

Enjoy coffee, hot chocolate, cider and cookie treats with some live holiday music performances at the local nonprofit. $10 donation and/or gifts of new unopened toiletries. 2pm-5pm. 401 Duboce Ave. at Church. 558-3003. www.maitrisf.org

Exhibit of unusual work by the Chicago artist who explores collective public archives, personal memory, and the role of photography and collecting in contemporary art and identity. Also, two exhibits about Jewish life: To Build & Be Built: Kibbutz History (thru July 1) and Work in Progress: Considering Utopia (thru Jan 20). 2pm-5pm. Free (members)-$12.

Thu-Tue 11am-5pm (Thu 1pm-8pm) 736 Mission St. 655-7800. www.thecjm.org

Nutcracker Sweets @ Fort Mason Center

Safeway Holiday Ice Rink @ Union Square

Holiday Open House @ Maitri Compassionate Care

Mark Foehringer’s annual lighthearted shortened version dance concert of the holiday-themed Tschaikovsky ballet is accompanied by a 9-person chamber orchestra. $18-$28. 11am, 2pm, and some 4pm shows. Thru Dec. 24. Bldg. D, 3rd floor, Marina Blvd. at Buchanan. (800) 838-3006. www.kidscangroove.com

SF Hiking Club @ Crystal Springs Reservoir Join GLBT hikers for an 8-mile hike on the paved trail; walk across the San Andreas Reservoir, which straddles the San Andreas Fault. Bring water, lunch, layers, comfortable shoes. Carpool meets 9am at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. (650) 615-0151. www.sfhiking.com

Storefront Church @ SF Playhouse Local production of Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley’s uplifting holiday-themed drama. $20-$100. Tue-Thu 7pm, Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm and Sun 2pm. Thru Jan. 11. 450 Post St. 677-9596. www.sfplayhouse.org

Sun 15 David Hockney: A Bigger Exhibition @ de Young Museum New exhibit of 300 portraits, still lifes, and landscape paintings by the gay British painter. Free-$25. Thru Jan. 20. Also, The Art of Bulgari: La Dolce Vita & Beyond, an exhibit of 150 pieces of exquisite Italian jewelry made between 1950 and 1990, including gems from Elizabeth Taylor’s personal collection. Thru Feb 17. $10-$25.

Tue-Sun 9:30am-5:15pm. (til 8:45pm Fridays) Thru Dec. 30. Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. 750-3600. www.famsf.org

Butterflies & Blooms @ Conservatory of Flowers Popular exhibit transforms the floral gallery into a fluttering garden with 20 species of butterflies and moths. Reg. hours, 10am-4pm. Free-$7. Tue-Sun 10am4:30pm. Extended thru March 16, 2014.

100 JFK Drive, Golden Gate Park. 8312090. www.conservatoryofflowers.org

In Grand Style @ Asian Art Museum In Grand Style, Celebrations in Korean Art During the Joseon Dynasty, a new exhibit of works from 1392-1910. Thru Jan. 12.

Also, Proximities 2, a contemporary exhibit of works by Bay Area artists focusing on the concept of family, and cultural and geographical distances. Thru Dec. 8.

Also, Art of Adornment, Southeast Asian Jewelry; Thru Nov 24. Free (members)-$12.

Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. 200 Larkin St. 5813500. www.asianart.org

Tue 17

Rent a pair of skates and enjoy the downtown tradition. $5-$11 10am11:30pm daily thru Jan. 20. www.unionsquareicerink.com

Various Exhibits @ Cal. Academy of Sciences New exhibits and planetarium shows with various live, interactive and installed exhibits about animals, plants and the earth. Special events each week, with adult nightlife parties most Thursday nights. $20-$30. Mon-Sat 9:30am-5pm.

Sun 11am-5pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

Mon 16 Jack Smith Films @ YBCA Restored 16mm prints of the gay experimental filmmakers’ lush and eccentric short films are screened weekly $8-$10.

Jan. 16, 7:30pm: Flaming Creatures. Jan. 19, 2pm, the documentary Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis. Jan 23, 7:30pm, No President and I Was a Male Yvonne deCarlo.

Jan. 26, 2pm, Jill Godmilow’s Roy Cohn/Jack Smith and shorts. Jan. 30, 7:30pm, Normal Love. Thru Jan. 30. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. 978-2787. www.ybca.org

Wulitzer Holiday Concert @ Castro Theatre Resident Castro organist David Hegarty will be performing, along with guest organists Nahri Ahn, Benjamin Bachmann, David Hatt, and Jerome Lenk. All proceeds go directly toward saving, restoring, and enlarging the iconic Castro Wurlitzer organ. $20. 7:30pm. 429 Castro St. 6216120. www.castrotheatre.com

Cabaret performer Craig Jessup’s holiday concert includes songs by Noël Coward, Jacques Brel, Stephen Sondheim, the Gershwins, and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, plus original songs, with pianist Ken Muir. $23-$32. 7:30pm (Dec. 22, 5pm). Thru Dec. 22. 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org

Wed 18 Connie Champagne @ Feinstein's at the Nikko The local chanteuse performs an updated version of her delightful annual cabaret show, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – An Evening with Connie Champagne as Judy Garland, with piano accompanist Barry Lloyd and drummer Alex Szotak. $25-$30. $20 food/beverage minimum. 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.feinsteinssf.com

Hymns to Hermes: The Poetics of James Broughton @ SF Public Library Local activist and archivist Joey Cain’s exhibit of the gay poet and filmmaker includes rare personal items from his estate.

Exhibit thru Jan. 16. James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center, Main Library, third floor, 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

Michelle Schmitt @ SF Jazz Center The local singer-songwriter’s fifth annual holiday benefit concert’s proceeds benefit Meals on Wheels of San Francisco. $20-$100. 8pm. 201 Franklin St. (866) 920-5299. www.sfjazz.org

Moscow Ballet @ Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, Santa Rosa The Russian ballet company performs their traditional Nutcracker as part of their U.S. tour. $27.50-$102. 7pm. Also Dec. 19.

50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa.

(707) 546-3600. www.nutcracker.com

Smuin Ballet @ YBCA The local ballet company’s annual concert includes Michael Smuin’s The Christmas Ballet, and works by Amy Seiwert and Robert Dekkers. $45-$65. Wed-Sat 8pm.

Tue, Sat Thu and Sun 2pm. Sun 7pm. Thru Dec. 28. Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard St. 912-1899. www.smuinballet.org

Thu 19 Katya Smirnoff-Skyy @ Feinstein's at the Nikko Our favorite Russian exiled countess revives her vodka-infused holiday cabaret show, filled with songs and stories. $25-$30. $20 food/beverage minimum.

8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.feinsteinssf.com

Peter Stackpole: Bridging the Bay @ Oakland Museum Exhibit of 1935-36 photos showcasing the original construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. Thru Jan 12, 2014. Also, Above and Below: Stories From Our Changing Bay, about our landscape and its people. Thru Feb 23, 2014, in the renovated Gallery of California Natural Sciences. Special Friday night holiday-themed early evening event thru Dec. 5pm-9pm. Wed-Sun 11am-5pm (Fri til 9pm). Thru June 30. 1000 Oak St. (510) 318-8400. www.museumca.org

Santa Claus is Coming Out @ Eureka Theatre Jeffrey Solomon’s comic mockumentary show, an Off-Broadway hit, tells the multicharacter “Santa-gate” tale of a young boy’s gift request that leads to the outing of Kris Kringle; in repertory with The Santaland Diaries. $25-$35. Thu & Fri 8pm.

Dec. 21 at 9:30pm. Dec 24 at 3pm. Thru Dec. 24. 215 Jackson St. (800) 838-3006. www.combinedartform.com

Mon 16

Jack Smith Films

To submit event listings, email jim@ebar.com. Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication. For bar and nightlife events, go to www.bartabsf.com, and www.ebar.com/bartab

A Chanticleer Christmas A Chanticleer December 13-23 A Chanticleer Christmas Christmas December 13-23 Performances in:

Berkeley Carmel December 13-23 Oakland Performances in: Petaluma Berkeley in: Performances Sacramento CarmelClara Berkeley Santa Cla Oakland Carmel San Francisco Petaluma Oakland Sacramento Petaluma Santa Clara Cla Sacramento DATES & TICKETS: San Francisco Santa Clara Cla www.chanticleer.org San Francisco

415-392-4400 | 800-407-1400 DATES & TICKETS: DATES & TICKETS: www.chanticleer.org www.chanticleer.org 415-392-4400 | 800-407-1400 415-392-4400 | 800-407-1400

t H e C H riS t maS

revelS The Bay Area’s Most Treasured Holiday Family Tradition

S piritS of H addon H all Celebrate the Solstice with song, dance, & seasonal merriment.

December 13–15 & 20–22, 2013 Tickets $20–$55 Oakland Scottish Rite Theater

sfmedia.californiarevels.org 510.452.9334 Dirk Burns, Producer

<< Film

24 • Bay area reporter • December 12-18, 2013

Two forays into modern Italian lives

by David Lamble

O

ur full immersion into the sublime wackiness of modern Italian culture begins with Italy’s Best Foreign Film Oscar entry The Great Beauty. It’s director Paolo Sorrentino’s beautifully composed, at times surreal, yet always grounded tour through a remorseful rake’s reflections on love, loss, death and regret on his 65th birthday. Our guide through a modern Rome that will remind some of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita is the aging writer Jep Gambardella (regally handsome Toni Servillo). A man whose lifetime pass to Rome’s “beautiful people” decadence is from penning one unforgettable novel long ago, Jep lives next door to the Colosseum. He floats through social escapades with old friends and a glossy magazine job that allows him to hang onto a shard of respectability.

The movie opens on a droll party moment. A vain, handsome actor chats with an actress who could have slipped effortlessly into a road company of The Addams Family.

“I’m starring in two TV dramas.

I’m playing a Pope in one, and a junkie on the road to recovery in the other.”

“Impressive! No theatre work?”

“I’m supposed to do Shakespeare with Pietro, but it has to be at least three hours long, an ambitious project, and no more small cities!”

At this point a short, sweaty, fat, balding man tries to interject himself

Toni Servillo plays writer Jep Gambardella in director Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty.

into the conversation: “I’m trying to write a piece for theatre, and the concept is –” The handsome actor ignores the little man and addresses the actress: “What about you?”

“I might give up acting. In this shitty country there are never any good female roles. I’ll write my first novel, a Proust-style piece.” Then the actress pulls the fat writer’s leash, her personal fool-for-love and part-time driver.

After this cocktail-party mauling we’re happy to spend the balance of the film’s 142 minutes in Jep’s excellent company, gliding through a se-

TV on DVD

by Gregg Shapiro

N

etflix be damned! For the people on your holiday list who don’t

just want to watch their favorite TV shows, but also want physical copies for their library, there are plenty of options from which to choose.

ries of increasingly outlandish social confabs. Sorrentino nails the Fellini update.

Tell No One A startling dream sequence kicks off director Ivan Silvestrini’s playful farce about the awkward coming out of cute Italian man-child Matthia (Josafat Vagni).

We see the nervous, curly-haired 21-year-old practicing his speech in front of a bedroom mirror. Each time Matthia searches for the right way to break the news that he’s both queer and about to run off to Spain to live with his gorgeous, dark-haired boyfriend Eduard (Jose Dammert),

Finally “liberated from the vaults,” Here’s Edie (MVD/Ediead), singer/ actress Edie Adams’ groundbreaking early 1960s variety show (later known as The Edie Adams Show), is available for the first time in a four-DVD set, with a wealth of bonus footage. During the run of the show, Adams’ guests

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the whole exercise seems terribly wrong. “‘Mama, papa, I’m homosexual.’ God, how awful, ‘homosexual!’

Sounds dreadful! “‘Mama, papa, I’m queer.’ Lousy, no! “‘Mama, papa, I’m gay, gay, gay!’”

Screaming the taboo word in his sleep, the boy wakes up in a sweat beside his best female friend, who of course is both supportive of his plans and still harbors that obligatory not-sosecret crush on him. Tell No One, just out on DVD from TLA, is no great work of art, but like many foreign-language excursion through the ABCs of bursting out of the closet in a macho society, this slapdash, bordering-on-absurdist modern comedy offers a useful template for how a young country but ancient civilization can teach post-Stonewall America a thing or two about adapting to the recently unthinkable.

We watch Matthia’s private hell unfold in real time and in a series of flashbacks where he cute-meets Eduard on a bike trip; is bullied at school by a handsome thug; is forced to kiss a nerdy male classmate at a party truth-or-dare; has to referee the kitchen spats between

his divorced parents; endures his rugby-coach dad’s inquiries about his supposed virginity; and finally faces the moment of decision while his female friend keeps his boyfriend from bursting in on a family dinner. It’s a lot to pack into 85 minutes, and there are bumpy moments, but they’re easily ignored due to the powerful ensemble cast. Tell No One, with a third-act surprise or two, is an entertaining holiday stocking-stuffer. (Screenplay: Roberto Proia; bonus: widescreen and theatrical trailer.)t

included Johnny Mathis, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Duke Ellington, Allan Sherman, Nancy Wilson and Bobby Darin. The accompanying booklet features words of praise for Adams from Sandra Bernhard, Paul Reubens, Shirley MacLaine, and others.

Michael C. Hall, who played gay mortician David Fisher in the acclaimed HBO series Six Feet Under, went on to star as the title character, Miami forensics expert/vigilante Dexter Morgan, in the Showtime series Dexter (Showtime/ CBS DVD). The 12 episodes of the eighth and final season, in which Dexter’s dualities begin to unravel (his police officer sister is on to him), promises and delivers a “bloody amazing send-off.”

Speaking of “bloody amazing,” the HBO Select edition of True Blood: The Complete Fifth Season (HBO) gives viewers choices in how they can watch the sexy/scary vampire series (six Blu-rays, two double-sided DVDs, or via digital copy) set in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. The fifth season featured not only an abundance of scenes featuring Jason (Ryan Kwanten), Alcide (Joe Manganello) and Eric (Alexander Skarsgård) in various states of undress, but also queer relationships, including the one between Russell (Denis O’Hare) and Steve (Michael McMillan).

Complex gay characters continue to be featured in prime time network TV series such as Scandal (ABC Studios), as well. The ABC series (presented in five DVDs) about political crisis manager Olivia (Kerry Washington) includes openly gay White House Chief of Staff Cyrus (Jeff Perry, who also played a gay character on My So-Called Life) and his journalist husband James (out actor Dan Bucatinsky). Gay actor Guillermo Diaz is also among the main cast as a former CIA op turned techie.

Actor/filmmaker Christopher Guest has often included queer characters in his work (see Best in Show).

Guest’s HBO mockumentary series Family Tree (HBO), starring Chris Dowd as lead character Tom, a man researching his lineage, is no exception. Fred Willard, who has appeared in a number of Guest’s films, plays Mike, the gay neighbor of Tom’s uncle Al (Ed Begley, Jr.).

The seven-part series North America (Discovery/Gaiam) hosted by Tom Selleck has made its way onto a double-disc Blu-ray set. “Where civilization collides with untamed wilderness, just feet beyond our own backyards,” the beautifully filmed program takes us from the upper reaches of the continent through the mountains and forests, through extreme storms and blizzards, to the water’s edge and the depth of the desert, to reveal the wildlife and wonders of North America.

Bonus material includes a colorful booklet and filmmakers’ commentary.

It may have been on TV for only four seasons, but the Vietnam War-set series China Beach (Warner Home Video/StarVista/Time Life) made an impression on viewers. In addition to making actress Dana Delaney a star, it also co-starred Michael Boatman, who would later play a gay character in the Michael J. Fox series Spin City. The 21-DVD/62-episode complete series box set includes 10 hours of bonus feaSee page 25 >>

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DVD >>

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 25

Olympia Dukakis: a goddess among us?

by Gregg Shapiro

there with a younger woman, and I could see that there was kind of a thing between the two of them, they were very deep in conversation. I just went up and inserted myself and told her how much I enjoyed her music, and she was very sweet to me, and made it clear to me that she wanted me to fuck off! I didn’t stay long, of course, but that was my only connection with her. I even remember the restaurant, the Ivy. The movie actually takes its title from one of her songs.

I

n Cloudburst (Wolfe), Stella (Olympia Dukakis), a foul-mouthed, oldschool butch dyke, and her longtime partner Dottie (Brenda Fricker), a visually-impaired, doughy femme, are threatened with separation after Dottie takes a fall. Dottie’s clueless granddaughter tricks her into signing a legal guardianship document, then moves her into a long-term care facility. But Stella will not be deterred, and busts Dottie out of the home. As the pair heads to Canada to get married so they can have some kind of legal rights, they pick up hitcher/hustler Prentice (Ryan Doucette) and embark on a series of adventures none of them had ever anticipated. Cloudburst is a sweet comedy with serious undertones in which the women actually talk and relate to each other the way longtime couples do. It’s like Hannah Free with a real script and real actresses. Cloudburst, now on DVD, includes a behind-the-scenes featurette and cast interviews among its bonus features. I spoke with Olympia Dukakis about the movie and her LGBT following.

Gregg Shapiro: The character you play in Cloudburst, Stella, has, shall we say, a way with words.

Olympia Dukakis: And gestures!

Have you ever had the opportunity to play a character in possession of such a vast vocabulary of profanity?

No, I’ve never played anyone so openly rebellious! Unfortunately, it’s a real part of my nature, so I kind of

<<

TV on DVD

From page 24

tures, an exclusive 32-page collector’s booklet and China Beach dog-tags.

Actress Olympia Dukakis: “Everyone should live and be the way they want!”

took to it like a fish to water!

Stella, who lives in Maine, is what I would describe as a classic Northern New Englander. As a New Englander yourself, have you ever encountered anyone like Stella?

I’ve encountered people who have insisted on their own lifestyle even against what might be considered the grain, what might be considered the acceptable. There is a kind of eccentricity that some people have in the New England area. They don’t succumb to what’s expected, but decide they’re going to have the life they want.

But the time when Stella came out and connected with her partner Dottie was a time when lesbians and gays – it was

Created to compete with NBC’s NYC-based Saturday Night Live, ABC’s late-night comedy sketch and music show Fridays premiered in 1980 and ended in 1982. The five-

not as it is today, where many insist on being open and honest about who they are and how they want to live.

Stella took it on and was rebellious in that way. She was probably one of the few at the time, because she didn’t live in a community of people who could be supportive of each other. In that first scene she jumps from that policeman’s back, and she’s yelling and carrying on. She starts off that way, and she changes and becomes much less rebellious by the end of the movie.

Stella and Dottie, her partner of more than 30 years, head to Canada so that they can get married. Where do you stand on the subject of same-sex marriage?

Stand on it? There’s no stand, everyone should live and be the way they want!

Although it’s full of humor, Cloudburst takes on the serious subject of aging queer people, and how there is the potential of their being separated in their twilight years.

Oh my god, it’s a painful, painful thing, which is something that Stella just refuses to accept. That’s why she abducts Dottie and takes her off.

Event, a story about a gay guy who wants to take himself out because he’s going into the last phases of AIDS, and he has a party. The mother is the one who actually helps him die. That’s an unusual story and a real heartwrencher. And then 3 Needles. I would do anything in a movie with Thom Fitzgerald. I told him I’ll play a small part, I don’t care. In 3 Needles, I played this small part of a nun.

Before appearing in The Event, you had already made a considerable impression on the LGBT community with your wonderful portrayal of Anna Madrigal in the Tales of the City series. Were you aware of an LGBT following before that?

Steel Magnolias, to a certain degree, a lot of gay men enjoyed the things that my character said. They loved her humor, her honesty, and her phrasing. “If you’ve got nothing good to say about anybody, come sit by me.” Things like that. I think they enjoyed a lot of it.

Stella is obsessed with k.d. lang and her music. How do you personally feel about k.d. lang?

Oh, I love her songs. I remember once I was in a restaurant, and k.d. was

You previously worked with writer/ director Thom Fitzgerald on The Event. What do you like about working with him?

He’s damn good, that’s what I like about working with him. I like the stories he tells, I like the way he shoots.

He makes beautiful films. Just to look at them, they’re great. The stories are all varied and unique. I was in The

What does your LGBT audience mean to you?

It means that there is a large group of people who have enjoyed my films.

They feel that somehow what I do is an honest representation. That’s important to me. So many have spoken to me about Anna Madrigal, how much they appreciated that I didn’t sensationalize it. I was really only interested in a human being and her efforts to survive herself, which I certainly understand and identify with. I have had my own efforts and journey to survive myself.t

DVD The Best of Fridays (Shout Factory) features 16 episodes of the cult comedy series. In addition to including performances by an amazing assortment of musical guests including

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The compilation also includes the legendary “Andy Kaufman incident” and special features such as a cast and writers reunion, a discussion of the Kaufman incident, and more.t

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<< Music

26 • Bay area reporter • December 12-18, 2013

Passion play

by Tim Pfaff

T

here are good new recordings of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio out there right now (particularly Hyperion’s), but the great Bach recording of 2013 has turned out to be one about Jesus’ death: the MatthewPassion in an autumnal realization

by Rene Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi).

As seasoned followers of the earlymusic scene will instinctively know, Jacobs has come up with a performing version different from all others before it and that he thinks brings listeners closer to the music the congregation would have heard at the work’s premiere at Leipzig’s St. Thomas’ Church.

This project is the result of Jacobs’ lifetime’s experience of the work as a performer and his everdeepening curiosity about Bach’s intentions in one of his greatest and most genre-breaking works. Jacobs’ realization feels more lived-in than sensation-seeking, and whatever you make of any of its particulars, cumulatively it draws you deeper into this unfathomable work and – here passing the acid test – envelopes you in the Passion story and in myriad ways moves you.

The over-arching difference in Jacobs’ approach is fundamentally acoustical. For generations, even

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Santa Claus

From page 17

for a gender-atypical toy, Santa is afraid to say yes because he’s a closeted gay man and just gives Gary a truck instead.”

But at the North Pole, the issue begins to snowball as Santa is nudged out of the closet

by Gary’s heartfelt letters, while Mrs. Claus is revealed to be a secondtier character actress hired by Coca-Cola, and

in the brave new world of historically informed performance practice, the double chorus that marks one of Bach’s most striking innovations in the genre has been divided into two more or less even entities and deployed leftright to achieve one particular kind of antiphonal effect. Jacobs uses a larger chorus, instrumental ensemble, and vocal solo quartet in the front of the acoustical space, with a smaller complement of the same forces at the rear.

But rather than being disorienting, the arrangement brings a keener, more clarifying orientation to the music. Up front is the “action” of the Passion story, with its characters. Behind, and at a subtle but felt time lag, are the arias, choruses, and chorales that reflect on the events, as Bach would have wanted the St. Thomas congregation to. Effectively, it puts the post-Passionstory listener in the sonic picture.

For me, the result is as clarifying as Jacobs’ re-visioning of Don Giovanni as the dramma giocoso (comic, of laughing, drama) Mo-

zart called it. By letting the two elements speak on their own terms, the work feels more unified.

In this case, the disposition of the two differently scaled ensembles means differing ways of actually playing the accompaniments of the recitatives, and those who think that this is an area in which Jacobs indulges some extravagant compositional whims will only have their worst fears confirmed – and in the “untouchable” music of Bach. But the prominent (uncredited) harpsichord and lutes hardly breach the bounds of propriety, and they add necessary color that Bach would have expected to the

story-telling.

As the chief story-teller, the Evangelist, tenor Werner Guera, in commanding voice, is incisive and impassioned. As protagonist Jesus, Johannes Weisser is almost shockingly human, particularly in his pleas that he be spared his grisly destiny. Since his breakaway performance as Don Giovanni (an unknown!) for Jacobs, Weisser has continued to develop as a singer of the greatest individuality while at the same time honing his singing to the essentials of expression. His final words to God from the cross – why have you forsaken me? – are shattering.

The other vocal soloists, largely Jacobs regulars, are splendid. Alto Bernarda Fink, who seems only to grow as an interpreter, is as great a singer as has ever ventured into this music, and her “Erbarme dich” is a model of “bridled passion,” investigating the text to its corners and not relying on its overall thrust to carry her performance.

The two basses, Konstantin Wolff and Arttu Kataja, balance each other effectively, and both sing with real penetration. Wolff ’s “Komm, suesses Kreuz,” sung over the tripping sounds of a plucked

Jeffrey Solomon tries to annually revive Santa Claus Is Coming Out, his solo play that mixes gay politics and humor.

Diverse City Theater Company

A little boy who writes to Santa asking for a doll sets up a chain of unexpected events in Santa Claus Is Coming Out, in which playwright Jeffrey Solomon plays all the characters.

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lute, is one of the moments when this performance stops you in your tracks. Tenor Topi Lehtipuu is less steady, and affecting, than he was for Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic in their now-legendary performance of the MatthewPassion in Peter Sellars’ “ritualization,” yet you want to hear more from him.

First violinist Bernhard Forck’s exemplary solo in “Erbarme dich” is representative of the fine-grained playing of Jacobs’ Akademie fuer Alte Musik throughout. The two choruses, too, give faultless, involving performances.

The pace of the drama is fleet in Jacobs’ tempos, but never rushed.

More than in any other MatthewPassion in my experience, I felt not just the inexorability of the familiar story but the quiet psychological horror of it, too. Other interpretations and realizations have moved me as much, but no other has gotten more under my skin.

Two booklet essays, one by Jacobs, explaining the whys and wherefores of this approach in detail – and an accompanying film that takes us into the studio – may seem like pleading too strong a case for this version. But its sheer impact is all the justification it needs.t

the religious right goes into high dudgeon as they see it all as a gay plot to indoctrinate children.

In fact, fiction became fact when one performance of a 2009 off-Broadway run of Santa Claus Is Coming Out was a fundraiser for GLSEN, the national organization that promotes gay-straight alliances in schools. While the play is intended for adults, and the audience at the performance in ques-

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tion was adult, it set off alarm bells at the anti-gay watchdog group Focus on the Family. Candi Cushman, billed as the group’s education analyst, tore into Santa Claus.

Four years later, Solomon can still recite the blogged attack. “The headline was ‘Gay fundraiser sexualizes Santa Claus,’ and the first line of the post said, ‘GLSEN, which pretends it wants to protect kids, has chosen to use a fundraising tool that perverts the innocence of Christmas.’ And then they went on to say about me, ‘Clearly homosexual activist Jeffrey Solomon has no qualms about using shock tactics to expose children to homosexuality.’ It felt like a page taken right from my play.”

In fact, a fictional anti-gay activist who offers testimony as part of the

mock-umentary came from undercover interviews Solomon conducted when an Orange County school moved to ban a gay-straight alliance. But what really set Solomon on the road to create Santa Claus was his anger at Measure 9, which appeared on Oregon’s ballot in the 1990s. It declared homosexuality to be “abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse,” and insisted that public schools promote that position.

The measure was defeated, but Solomon sees its attitudes persisting. “The bigots’ last refuge is saying that we are doing all this for the children, and it’s tragic,” he said.

“The play is from the point of view of a kid who really needs some adult to be there for him or he will live a

life of pain and shame. When I was coming up as a kid, there was little discussion of these issues, and if there were any, they were negative.

So I created in Santa Claus the hero I needed as a kid.”

During most of the year, Solomon serves as founding artistic director of Houses on the Moon Theatre Company, which creates issue-oriented plays for both general audiences and as teaching tools at schools, universities, and social agencies. He lives in Queens with his husband and their adopted son, and that his husband is a physician figures into mother/SON, his solo drama about coming out to his mother. “My mother really lived up to the stereotype of a Jewish mother with her level of excitement in having a doctor join the family,” he said.

“I think it really helped on her journey to accepting me as a gay man.”

As a Jewish kid, Solomon had a Santa Claus obsession that his parents didn’t discourage. “One year my father actually hired a guy dressed as Santa to come to our door. I was 4, and I remember it as being total magic. But then I looked out the window and saw him leaving in a VW bug.”

Ticket info on Santa Claus Is Coming Out is available at combinedartform.com.t

t

Film >>

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay area reporter • 27

Robert’s rude awakening lost at sea

by David Lamble

that her greatest agony in performing her ice-queen mom for Redford’s directorial debut in Ordinary People came in a wordless kitchen scene where Bob merely wanted to observe her fussing with a cake pan. There

were 20-plus takes, and none made it into the final cut. It might be said that practically all of All Is Lost consists of the 77-year-old actor – looking better than most of us ever look – acing every one of his cake-pan moments.

He swabs the deck, patches the hull (punctured by a container-box floating free in the Indian Ocean), climbs up the mast, etc., like a freshly minted 17-year-old naval cadet. At times the camera gets so close to the icon that you’re not always sure what’s happening. But Chandor, who so brilliantly orchestrated his financial-meltdown thriller Margin Call, has a sense of just when to pull back and let us exhale.

Otherwise, the claustrophobic camerawork serves to reinforce the restrained panic that the old salt must be feeling.

Later, Redford’s character will give vent to feelings most of us would have had right out of the box.

All Is Lost divides more or less neatly into the first-act crisis, which the old man surmounts, and the larger threat to his welfare that has been the subject

of several lively film blogs. A film that has virtually no peers – except perhaps Spencer Tracy’s bravura 1958 turn for John Sturges based on Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea – can leave many award-season prognosticators almost literally at sea trying to figure out the odds on Bob reeling in the big Oscar. In a year that finds Tom Hanks fending off Somali pirates in Captain Phillips and George Clooney expelled into eternity as just so much useless space-junk ballast in Gravity, anything is possible. Perhaps the sight of Redford’s desperate old salt shouting out in vain to a passing container ship may send a shiver of recognition through legions of semi-employed souls in the Screen Actors Guild, whose members make up the largest single Oscar-voting bloc.

My black-sheep branch of the Lamble clan has a longstanding affinity for anything Redford. Back in 1973 when my kid brother was bunking down in my Houston garage apartment, we loved going to sleep to Bob’s

long-playing album of wolf howls, back when the North American critters were a severely endangered species.

A few years later, I would provoke my male bride Michael into an aching fit of grouchiness as we ran a mile to the last Dallas bus leaving a screening of Redford’s incomparable Watergate-era thriller Three Days of the Condor. My sister has confessed to loving the Redford-commissioned All the President’s Men so much she’s often put it on at bedtime just to ensure quickly falling into a deep sleep. And I know my mom would have vastly preferred Bob at her hospice bedside to her oldest son.

So when you catch All Is Lost, and you should, remember you’re entering into an icon zone so rarefied that the only comparison would be standing in Cary Grant’s shoes on Mount Rushmore as Lincoln yawns or sneezes. Yes, All Is Lost reeks of metaphors of a clueless species fouling a fragile planet, but in the end it’s the big guy who holds you like nothing else in this truly mad season at the movies.t

edited and introduced by Katherine Bucknell, is the third volume in the series, and covers the period during which the Oscar-winning film version of Cabaret was made.

Full of great period photos, See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody (Cleis Press, $16.95), Bob Mould’s revealing memoir written with Michael Azerrad, would make a great gift for the music-lover on your list. Mould, who played in groundbreaking bands such as Husker Du and Sugar, was that rare commodity in the alternative and college rock scene, an out gay man.

Legendary songwriter and “ladies man” Leonard Cohen is as straight as they come. But he does have some notable connections to the queer community. Two of the most celebrated versions of his song “Hallelujah” were recorded by out artists Rufus Wain-

wright and k.d. lang (lang’s version has brought Cohen to tears). Cohen’s daughter Lorca is the mother of Wainwright’s daughter Viva Katherine Wainwright Cohen, who is being coparented by the old friends and “progeny of two Canadian musical dynasties.”

I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen (Ecco, $16.99) by Sylvie Simmons has all the details.

Reissued to mark the 20-year anniversary of its publication, Travels with Lizbeth (St. Martin’s Griffin, $15.99) by Lars Eighner chronicles the gay writer’s “descent into homelessness and his adventures on the streets.” Traveling through the Southwest with his dog Lizbeth, Eighner vividly recounts his experiences from Texas to California in moving detail.

A longtime performer, and one who was mentored by Divine as well as the

infamous performance troupe the Cockettes, Delores Deluce, “a five-foot diva in six-inch heels,”tells her story in her memoir My Life, A Four Letter Word: Confessions of a Counter Culture Diva (Double Delinquent Press, $13.98). The book features appearances by everyone from John Waters to Joan Rivers.

Christine Benvenuto’s “journey of love and anguish” Sex Changes: A Memoir of Marriage, Gender, and Moving On (St. Martin’s Griffin, $15.99) allows readers to get up-close and personal with her experience as a wife whose husband transitions from male to female after more than 20 years of marriage and raising three children.

The AIDS crisis is far from over. In The AIDS Generation: Stories of Survival and Resilience (Oxford University Press, $44.65), Dr. Perry N. Halkitis examines the “bravest generation” of

HIV-positive gay men, who navigated the treacherous times from the 1980s to the present. David France, director of the acclaimed AIDS doc How to Survive a Plague, wrote the introduction.

In Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive (Seal, $17), feminist and queer activist Julia Serano reports on the matter of exclusion while providing new approaches to dealing with the topics of gender, sexuality and sexism, and encouraging inclusion.

Intimate Activism (Duke University Press, $19.72) by Rice University associate professor Cymene Howe takes readers to Nicaragua, where in 2007, sexual-rights activists overturned “the most repressive anti-sodomy laws in the Americas,” almost 30 years after they were passed.t

T

o watch All Is Lost, Bob Redford’s intimate lost-at-sea epic, in one of the Opera Plaza Cinema’s tiny screening rooms is to experience something that is somehow much more than a mere movie. Directed by sophomore feature-helmer J.C. Chandor and based on a 32-page script with a $9 million budget raised by 11 executive producers, All Is Lost gets right down to business as Redford’s unnamed solo sailor is rudely awoken by seawater gushing into the sleeping compartment of his 39-foot sloop. “This is the Virginia Jean with an SOS call, over.”

Perched in the OP screening room’s second row, watching a man struggle in an enclosed space in tight close-ups, I felt like I could be called upon to pitch in at any minute.

Most movie mavens know without being told that the best pure acting can be found in those dialogue-free moments when a performer simply is the character. Mary Tyler Moore reported

<<

Hot reads

From page 20

Blogger and man of many talents Joel Derfner takes readers along on his and boyfriend Mike’s journey to become spouses in Lawfully Wedded Husband: How My Gay Marriage Will Save the American Family (University of Wisconsin, $26.95). Expect to laugh out loud and shed some tears, just like you would at any wedding.

Christopher Isherwood remains a subject of fascination more than 25 years after his death at 82. The musical Cabaret, based on his Berlin Stories, continues to be produced and performed. Tom Ford’s film version of Isherwood’s A Single Man was an Oscar nominee. Featuring a preface

by Edmund White, Liberation: Diaries 1970-1983 (Harper Perennial, $19.99),

Icon across the water: Robert Redford as the nameless sailor in J.C. Chandor’s All Is Lost.

A New LGBT Science Fiction Epic

A New LGBT Murder Mystery

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Singing Out

NIGHTLIFE PORN

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SPIRITS

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SOCIETY

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PERSONALS Vol. 43 • No. 50 • December 12-18, 2013

www.ebar.com ✶ www.bartabsf.com

Amanda L epore:

the Bombshell Babe

Transtastic singer at Beaux and Midnight Sun

by Ronn Vigh

A

manda Lepore calls New York City home and it’s a place where she often gets paid to enter a room lips first! Her vavoomy looks and commanding presence will certainly not be lost on San Francisco, where the “most famous transsexual in the world” will be performing at Beaux and Midnight Sun on December 14 and 16. I got to ask Amanda about her transformation as an individual and entertainer, plus her upcoming trip to the Bay Area.

See page 2 >>

Oakland Ops Lakeside date-friendly destinations

by Jim Provenzano

E The Grand Lake Theater

LEATHER

ver had a bridge and tunnel romance? For San Franciscans whose friends or person of affection live in Oakland, it’s time to return the favor and visit the other side. You owe your guy or gal-pal a visit, and there are plenty of fun venues for a date, from bars to cafes, theatres and more.

See page 2 >>

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

2 • Bay area reporter • December 12-18, 2013

<<

t

Amanda Lepore

From page 1

Ronn Vigh: We’re both originally from New Jersey. Is there anything from your Jersey roots that still sticks with you today?

Amanda Lepore: Not really! I have lived in New York since 1989, at this point I feel like this is home.

It’s a happier place for me. The only things that I have from my childhood days are memories of my mother and friends from that time.

You started as a host at various nightclubs in New York City but have certainly evolved as a performer since then. Can you tell me a little about the evolution of Amanda Lepore and where you draw your inspiration from?

Being bullied in my past and my mother being schizophrenic, I spent a lot of time in solitude without selfconfidence. Once I began modeling for David LaChapelle, the level of exposure and having to interact with people and perform, and even being nude in front of people, broke down my barriers. The reaction from people began building my self-confidence and I started enjoying what I was doing. Also, getting a positive reaction to the work was satisfying, and the feedback was empowering!

photo

Amanda Lepore performs in Tokyo.

When you’re in San Francisco, you will be performing “’Tis The Season- A holiday performance

by Amanda Lepore.” Do you get caught up in the spirit of the holidays?

I like the spirit of the holidays, the warmth of it. I have happy early childhood memories of my parents bringing out the tree and my father dressing up as Santa. The Christmas decorations, holiday parties; how could you not be happy during the holidays?

Is there anything at all you dislike about this time of year?

I don’t like cold because I don’t wear much. But the snow is pretty!

EDITOR Jim Provenzano DESIGNERS Jay Cribas, Scott King ADVERTISING SALES Scott Wazlowski 415-359-2612 CONTRIBUTORS Ray Aguilera, Matt Baume, Scott Brogan, Heather Cassell, Coy Ellison, Michael Flanagan, Dr. Jack Fritscher, John F. Karr, T. Scott King, Sal Meza, David Elijah-Nahmod, Adam Sandel, Donna Sachet, Jim Stewart, Ronn Vigh PHOTOGRAPHY Biron, Marques Daniels, Don Eckert, Lydia Gonzales, Rick Gerharter, Jose Guzman-Colon, Georg Lester, Dan Lloyd, Jim Provenzano, Rich Stadtmiller, Monty Suwannukul, Steven Underhill BARtab is published by BAR Media, Inc. PUBLISHER/PRESIDENT Michael M. Yamashita CHAIRMAN Thomas E. Horn VP AND CFO Patrick G. Brown SECRETARY Todd A. Vogt BAR Media, Inc. 225 Bush Street, Suite 1700, San Francisco, CA 94104 (415) 861-5019 www.BARtabSF.com NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media 212.242.6863 LEGAL COUNSEL Paul H. Melbostad Member National Gay Newspaper Guild Copyright © 2013, Bay Area Reporter, a division of BAR Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

What can we expect from your performances at Beaux on December 14 and The Midnight Sun on December 16?

I’ll be performing numbers from my album and newer stuff I do at the SoHo Grand in New York, and I also will be singing “Santa Baby.”

You didn’t start singing until later on in your career. However, was it something you always planned on doing?

As a kid I did want to be a singer and would play around with a hair spray can as my microphone, so I did envision myself someday doing it. But then I was more preoccupied with my transition.

<<

Terry Richardson

Amanda Lepore with a pair of hunky models in a Terry Richardson photo shoot.

What are some of your favorite songs?

I like girly stuff like Marilyn Monroe and Peggy Lee, and music

by Lana Del Rey and Emeli Sandé’s cover of “Crazy In Love” for The Great Gatsby – I like the feeling the music and visuals of these evoke, the glamour that we don’t see much of anymore.

You are often described as “The Most Famous Transsexual In The World.” I have two friends in San Francisco who are wonderful transsexual stand-up comedians, both with amazing stories to share. While their stories are very unique, they still have a way of being unabashedly open and honest yet completely relatable to a broader audience of vastly different backgrounds. Why do you think so many people can relate to you and how have you overcome struggles along the way in becoming the strong woman you are today?

People being inspired by me make me feel good and it inspires me in turn. The risk I took with David LaChapelle was big to me; it could have gone a complete other way. I was one of the first people to become famous going against the mold. I don’t think that Lady Gaga could have made it at that time. Models looked like models, pop stars looked like pop stars, there was a formula,

and I did not fit the description of what was going on in pop culture at the time – let alone an openly transsexual figure. Being at the right place at the right time with courage and hard work, I survived the era and went on to establish myself and turn into my own person. I think why people relate to me so much and why I have longevity is because they look at me and see a symbol for survival, strength and success.

I myself am a stand-up comic but I’m also a yoga teacher, so I “retox” just as quickly as I detoxed. Working in clubs and performance venues with late nights and booze a plenty, do you have any secrets on how you keep such a beautiful figure?

I don’t follow a strict diet! I eat as healthy as I can and I don’t really drink. I make it look like I’m drinking, I normally order a ginger ale in a champagne glass. It does look more glamorous to have a drink in your hand. And I practice yoga too! I also dance a lot when I’m out working at the clubs, and living in New York City I walk everywhere to take care of my errands.

Celebrities often have clothing and accessory lines, and you have had your face on a watch, your own lipstick, bath products and perfume. But one thing most don›t have is their own doll

modeled after them! How did that come about and what does it mean to have your own doll created for you?

It was incredible because it was so beautiful and it was made so well. It even had nipples, a pussy, my lips, boobs and ass were bigger than Barbie’s! And I wasn’t made out of plastic. I was made out of porcelain that had perfume baked in the porcelain.

It was very lux! If anyone has an additional one and would like to give it to me as a gift, I would love to have one. Jason Wu who made the doll, now dresses the First Lady – which is ironic since the doll is like Marilyn and he would’ve been making clothes for Jackie O. What was the best advice ever given to you?

My mother would always say, “When people make fun of you, ignore them and hold your head high with dignity and pride.” I think that was very classy advice.

And what›s the best advice you have for others?

My advice is, “Really do what you want in your heart, no matter how hard it is, because you’ll be happier and more fulfilled in the end.”t Amanda Lepore will be performing at Beaux, 2344 Market St. on December 14 and The Midnight Sun, 4067 18th St on Decemebr 16.

Oakland

From page 1

And they’re all easy to get to, barring the occasional BART strike, catastrophic toxic cloud incident or train derailment. Did we mention the ferrys?

Since Oakland’s a big city, we decided to focus on the fun area around Lake Merritt’s north side. Say your East Bay pal’s a movie fan. Why endure the hordes at the Metreon when you can enjoy the stylishly retro Grand Lake Theater? The crowds are much smaller and well-behaved, even for the blockbuster flicks like The Hunger Games, and there are plenty of preand post-film options within walking distance.

Grand Lake Theater, 3200 Grand Ave. (510) 452-3556. www.renaissancerialto.com One of the hottest restaurants along Grand Avenue is Boot and Shoe. The simple one-page menu features homemade Italian dishes like rigatoni, pasta and fagioli (no jokes) and house-made sausage ($15). All the produce and meats used in their dishes are locally made and grown. Pressed for time? Try one their unusual cocktails (Dead Ringer, High Plains Drifter, Monks Garden; $10 each) and a margherita di bufala pizza ($16). Choose from more than two dozen white and red wines.

Boot and Shoe, 3308 Grand Ave. (510) 763-2668. www.bootandshoeservice.com

Margherita di bufala pizza at Boot and Shoe

Don’t go running off to catch a train the morning after. Show your willingness to make time and relax in this exotic East Bay environs by settling in for a scenic cuppa at Monkey Forest Road. The spacious coffee shop is a bit over-styled, but roomy. Yes, the artisanal baristas sport ironic facial hair, but they do care about your latté, so enjoy the queer-centric patrons. Thursdays through Saturdays, their wine and beer bar is open from 5pm to 10pm.

If you’re feeling really romantic, pop the question with a hand-crafted ring or other bauble from Monkey Forest Road’s jewelry shop.

Monkey Forest Road, 3265 Grand Ave. (510) 327-2400. www.monkeyforestroad.com Further north on Grand Avenue, share some sweets with your sweetie at Michael Mischer Chocolates.

With delicious handmade chocolate bars encrusted with your choice of nuts, cherries and other ingredients ($10-$12), to full gift box sets ($29$70), you and your special someone

Monkey Forest Road’s coffee display

will enjoy the flavors, along with the alleged aphrodisiac of cocoa.

Michael Mischer Chocolates, 3352 Grand Ave. (510) 986-1822. michaelmischerchocolates.com Continuing north on Grand Avenue, things get more domestic; A Safeway, bridal shop, cycle shop and a host of nail salons. There’s no need to stroll further, unless you’re planning on moving in with your Oakland lover to buy some used furniture at Uhuru. And given that many of us in San Francisco are doomed for eviction, you might consider it.

If your East Bay romance includes gift-giving, or shopping of an intimate kind, head back south around the Grand Lake Theater to Lakeshore Avenue. First stop, Good Vibrations, where fondling a variety of sample dildos and sex toys and devices has never felt so normal.

What better way to expand your erotic boundaries?

Good Vibrations, 3219 Lakeshore Ave. (510) 788-2389. www.goodvibes.com

Michael Mischer Chocolates’ holiday wreath with almonds

If your date/pal isn’t vegan, veggie or lactose intolerant, skip the other nearby fast food joints for The Cheesesteak Shop. The locally-owned small chain started in 1981 on Divisadero St. in San Francisco. You can debate the merits of the Philadelphia classic’s Bay Area version, and afterward, the two of you can compare onion breath.

The Cheesesteak Shop, 3308 Lakeshore Ave. www.cheesesteakshop.com Sorry, you wanted classy? Just up the street, Mezze offers a full upscale menu and wine list. Entrees include Moroccan Lamb Shank Tagine ($23) and Coriander Crusted Yellow Fin Tuna ($24). Yep, it’s pricey, but nothing says love like sugar daddy/ mamma spending.

Mezze, 3407 Lakeshore Ave. (510) 663-2500. www.mezze.com Take a stroll along the southwestern part of Lake Merritt if you like, but be warned; navigating the lake’s circumSee page 4 >>

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 3

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

4 • Bay area reporter • December 12-18, 2013

Holiday Cheer

t

Cocktails with a Christmasy Kick story and photos

by Ray Aguilera

A

hh, the holidays... it’s that time of year when there’s an endless stream of parties, events, and yes, family. All that activity means the holidays are also a good time for some tippling. While beer or whiskey and ginger is our usual go-to, we wanted something a little more festive. We checked in with some of our favorite bars to see what they have in their bag of tricks for this holiday season. What we found were trends toward darker spirits, and a tendency toward seasonal flavors.

I sat down with Mike Pell, a bartender over at The Pilsner Inn, which has been slinging drinks to the Castro locals and visitors alike since 1980.

Mike’s been around for the last 12 of those years, so he’s seen it all, and when I asked him about his favorite holiday drinks, he had plenty to say.

“I go for the classics,” said Mike “but I like to throw a little bit of a twist in there.” Mike then showed me the Pilsner’s Hot Tommy (named after a Pilsner stalwart), a variation on the classic Hot Toddy that was perfect for a rainy San Francisco day.

Mike uses rye whiskey to add a bit of bite to the wintertime classic.

Hot Tommy from The Pilsner Inn • 1 cinnamon stick • 3-4 cloves • 1 Tbs honey • 6 oz hot water • 1.5 ounces Bulleit Rye whiskey • Lemon peel Place cinnamon stick and cloves to a mug. Add water and honey. Let steep for a few minutes, then add bourbon. Lightly twist the lemon peel to release oil, and add to mug.

With 30 rotating taps, the recently-remodeled Pilsner is known for being a great beer bar, and if you like your holiday cheer served cold and carbonated, Mike had some great options for that, too. One of his current favorites is Stupid Stout from Coronado Brewing Co. The rich, malty brew definitely has a wintery, Christmas-y, chocolate-y vibe, and at The Pilsner’s Hot Tommy ten percent alcohol, it is a rather stout drink indeed. Don’t say we didn’t warn you, if you end up imbibing in just a bit too much Christmas cheer. And if you’re interested in entertaining at home, Stupid Stout can be found in bottles.

Blackbird has quickly made a name for itself with it’s laidback speakeasy vibe, and the innovative, ever-changing seasonal cocktail menu. I spoke with proprietor Shawn Vergara about what makes a great holiday drink.

Blackbird’s Fernet Alexander “A great holiday cocktail should warm the soul or put a sparkle in your eye. It’s all about the right Winter’s Cup as being a top seller drink to fit the occasion.” in the bar right now, and graciously Shawn mentioned sherry as a offered to share both recipes. popular ingredient during this I asked Shawn if he had any tips time of year, as well as a few exotic for merry-makers looking to host ingredients that Blackbird has been a holiday party, and he suggested experimenting with lately, including keeping things simple. genever (a gin-like liquor popular in “Make a punch and have backup The Netherlands) and Branca Menbatches ready to go if needed. Now ta, a mintier kissing-cousin to San enjoy the party!”

Francisco’s beloved Fernet Branca.

“Our bar manager Matt Grippo has concocted quite a few interestWinter Cup from Blackbird ing, but approachable cocktails.

• 1.5 oz Lairds Bonded apple One of the standouts would be the brandy Fernet Alexander which is a riff on • .75 oz simple syrup the classic Brandy Alexander. The • .75 oz fresh lemon juice warming notes work really well • .50 oz egg whites when the right balance is found.”

• Cardamom bitters and spice Vergera also mentioned the tincture

<<

Blackbird’s Winter Cup

Maven’s Liar’s Bench

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Strain into a tall glass filled with ice, and garnish with fresh nutmeg.

The Fernet Alexander from Blackbird • 1.5 oz Fernet Branca Menta • 1 oz heavy cream • .5 oz white creme de cacao Shake ingredients with ice, and strained into a coupe glass. Garnish with nutmeg.

Kate Bolton, bar manager and partner at the Lower Haight’s Maven, agrees that the holidays bring to mind drinks that warm the soul.

She likes working with comforting flavors like honey, maple, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Kate said, “I’m using chestnuts, hazelnuts, sage, pomegranate, a lot of ginger, although ginger’s not all that exotic, I suppose.”

The chestnuts are put to good use in the Fireside Cocktail. With a combination of rye whiskey, lemon, egg white, and a “Fireside syrup” of chestnuts, apple, cinnamon, clove, and star anise, it’s good enough to make you hope for cold weatherconducivetohangingoutin Maven’s upstairs fireplace lounge.

Another wintery favorite is the Liar’s Bench, which Kate offered to share with us. Brandy, pomegranate, and sage give the drink some seasonal flair.

When it comes to entertaining, Kate also recommends keeping things simple and crowd-friendly.

But the real question this time of year is naughty or nice?

“A little of both I think,” Kate said. “It keeps people guessing.”

The Liar’s Bench from Maven • 1.5 oz tempranillo (or other dry wine) • 1 oz apple brandy • .5 oz grenadine (real grenadine from pomegranates, not the scary fluorescent pink stuff) • 3 sage leaves • 3 dashes Angostura bitters Stir all ingredients well with ice and pour over a large ice cube.

Garnish with a sage leaf.

Experiment on your own at home with these recipes, but try them out at the bars first, and invite friends on your wish list.t

Oakland

From page 2

ference all the way to FairyLand (the kids’ park) isn’t a quick stroll. Either way, if you’ve got room for dessert, stop by Gelato Firenze for a scoop.

The authentic ice cream shop is the best gelato this side of North Beach.

Gelato Firenze, 478 Lake Park Avenue, (510) 414-9997.

Another round

You’ve wined, you’ve dined, and now you want to kick it up. Before we get to the gay bars, which are a car’s drive away, consider the local gay-friendly taverns with their own eccentric style.

For a dark, murky cluttered environment (Hey, did we scare you off?) along with cheap drinks and walls covered in thousands of business cards, The Alley offers enough to test your date’s ObsessiveCompulsive Disorder. Cluttered and cozy, the food menu’s bearable when served with several beers, which are cheap.

The Alley, 3325 Grand Ave. (510) 444-8505.

Slightly more spacious, with retro sofas for hanging out, Kingman’s Lucky Lounge wasn’t too hopping upon our last visit, but it was early in the evening. First Fridays are allegedly LGBT nights, but we noticed a mixed/queer clientele on each of several visits. Hang out, relax and enjoy the groovy music mix.

Lucky Lounge, 3332 Grand Ave. (510) 465-5464. www.kingmanscocktails.com Also laid back, and with a spacious patio, the Heart and Dagger Saloon attracts a mixed younger clientele that isn’t too hipstery, and is definitely queer-

Heart and Dagger Saloon

friendly, oh and pet-friendly, so long as your pet is, too. Cheap drinks, a pool table and retro pinball and video games add up to a fun hang-out, kind of like your aunt’s basement, if she were a tattooed Sapphic sister biker chick who moved to the suburbs.

Heart & Dagger Saloon, 504 Lake Park Ave. (510) 444-7300. heartanddaggersaloon.com Continuing our blurred lines bar tour, The New Easy lives up to its name with a gay-straightwhatever ambiance, combined with a creative menu of holidaythemed hot and cool drinks that will please the discerning booze Taco Tuesdays at The New Easy palate. Named drinks have run the gamut, from “And She Was” Getting back to traditions, the (after the Talking Heads song) to oldest gay bar in the country sure Playa Dust. Try the Flaming Bloody doesn’t act like it. The White Horse Mary on Sundays. This amusing Bar’s nearly four miles north of our gastropub and lounge also offers a Grand Lake chosen ground zero, and small patio and more than the usual closest to the BART Ashby stop. But bar food, including their delish Taco it’s worth a visit. Rock or disco muTuesdays. sic will be played, and there’s a small The New Easy, 3255 Lakeshore cover on some nights, but the oldAve. (510) 338-4911. school bar’s got cheap drinks, a hardy www.facebook.com/easy510 See page 5 >>

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

BARchive: Singing Out Fa-la-la-la-la: San Francisco’s Gay Men’s Chorus

by Jim Stewart

I

t was December 1978. Evergreen garlands draped the Castro Street window of the Norse Cove Café. I was wolfing the lamb and cabbage stew when Steve Prokasky walked in.

“Steve!” I hollered across the room. He headed in my direction.

We hugged hello.

“House-sitting in Marin again this year?” I said.

My first Christmas in San Francisco I’d spent with Steve watching whales migrate while we looked after a place whose owner was in Hawaii.

“No,” Steve said. “I got my hands full getting ready for the concert.”

“What concert?” I said. “I didn’t know you were a musician.”

“The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus,” Steve said. There was a note of pride in his voice. “I’ve finally found my place in this gay city by the bay.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “That must have been you I saw at City Hall the day Harvey was murdered.”

“I was there,” Steve said.

We were both silent for a moment as we remembered that dreadful day.

“So what’s up with the Gay Men’s Chorus?” I asked.

Over our tart-Tatin, Steve filled me in. He told me Jon Reed Sims had founded the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus earlier in 1978. There was a squabble over whether to include the word “gay” in its name. A call for members went out. The first rehearsal was on October 30, and Sims had appointed Dick Kramer as conductor.

Less than a month later, on November 27, the Gay Men’s Chorus assembled on the steps of City Hall in a memorial just hours after gay supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone had been gunned down inside. It was their first public appearance. They sang Mendelssohn’s Thou Lord Hast Been Our Refuge.

“How big a group is it?” I asked.

“There are 115 of us with all four

Jim Stewart

Steve Prokasky, one of the chorus’ first members.

sections,” Steve said. “First tenor, second tenor, baritone, and bass.”

“What section are you in?”

“I’m in the second tenor section,” Steve said.

As we got ready to leave, Steve handed me something.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“It’s a pass for our concert at the Everett Middle School on the 20th.”

I thanked him. We hugged goodbye. I pocketed the pass.

Everett Middle School is on Church between 16th and 17th Streets. The neo-Spanish-colonial structure was built in 1924. Its auditorium has a seating capacity of more than 1300. On December 20, 1978, the Wednesday before Christmas, it was jam-packed for the first official concert of the world’s first openly gay chorus. The eclectic mix of songs included traditional choral, classical, jazz, Broadway hits, seasonal and popular tunes. The audience was enchanted, enthralled.

When it was over, I made my way through the crowd down from the balcony. I found myself humming, “San Francisco, open up your Golden Gate.”

Today the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus has grown tremendously since its early beginnings.

It’s gone on national tours, issued recordings, commissioned new music, and helped spur the LGBT choral movement. A “Fifth Section” was added to the Chorus listing all members who have died, most from AIDS, over the years. It is listed on every performance program today.

Steve Prokasky joined the “Fifth Section” on November 18, 1993.

In addition to their War Memorial Opera House concert, which took place December 6, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus will perform with guest artists San Francisco Opera soprano Marina Harris and singer-songwriter Matt Alber, December 24 at 5pm, 7pm and 9pm at the Castro Theater, 429 Castro St. Tickets are $25 and $35.

392-4400. www.sfgmc.orgt © 2013 writerJimStewart@ hotmail.com For further true gay adventures check out the award-winning Folsom Street Blues: A Memoir of 1970s SoMa and Leatherfolk in Gay San Francisco

by Jim Stewart.

<<

Oakland

From page 4

clientele and decades of tradition.

White Horse Inn, 6551 Telegraph Ave. www.whitehorsebar.com Back near lakeside and in the heart of downtown Oakland (near the 19th Street BART stop), the city’s two Latin bars will inspire dancing until the late hours. Bench and Bar and Club 21 bring live acts, elegant drag shows, and some of the hottest gogo guys in the entire Bay Area.

Covers range from $5-$20, depending on the time and if there’s a live act, like the recent hella fun Cazwell concert.

BARtab

The dance floor at Club 21

Bench and Bar, 510 17th St. (510) 444-2266. www.bench-and-bar.com Club 21, 2111 Franklin St. (510) 268-9425. www.club21oakland.com For some rock or pop in a beautiful environment, two architectural landmarks, the Fox Theatre and the Paramount, are host to touring bands like Scissor Sisters and Pet Shop Boys, plus classical music concerts and screenings of classic films.

Each theatre serves adult beverages, too.

Fox Theatre, 1807 Broadway.

(5100 302-2250. www.thefoxoakland.com

courtesy White Horse Bar

Shaking it up at The White Horse

Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway. (510) 465-6400. www.paramounttheatre.comt

Jim Stewart

San Francisco Gay Mens Chorus’ first conductor Dick Kramer

<< On the Tab

6 • Bay area reporter • December 12-18, 2013

Bf eON THE- TA 2013 December 12 19,

★

Go-Beaux @ Beaux Gogo-tastic weekly night at the new Castro club. Bring your dollahs, ‘cause they’ll make you holla. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Happy Friday @ Midnight Sun Open during renovations, the popular video bar ends each week with gogo guys (starting at 9pm) and drink specials. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Hard @ Qbar DJ Haute Toddy spins electro beats; cute gogo guys shake it. $3. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

HYSL @ The Lookout

Wed 18 Alaska Thunderfuck

S

anta, babies, hurry out and have some fun tonight, or any night this week. Whether undie-clad runners, muscled strippers or hilarious drag queens are on your gift list, get out and shop for fun.

Thu 12 Betty Buckley @ Feinstein at the Nikko The iconic Broadway, film and TV singer-actress performs The Vixens of Broadway, her cabaret show of classic “other women,” aka second female leads in hit musicals ( Chicago, Evita, Company, Oklahoma, Into the Woods). $50-$80. Dec 5 & 12, 8pm. Dec. 6 & 13, 8pm. Dec 7 & 14, 7pm. Dec 8 & 15, 7pm. Thru Dec. 15. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St.(866) 663-1063. www.ticketweb.com

Comedy Thursdays @ Esta Noche The revamped weekly LGBT- and queerfriendly comedy night at the Mission club is hosted by various comics (1st Thu, Natasha Muse; 2nd Thu, Emily Van Dyke; 3rd Thu Eloisa Bravo and Kimberly Rose; 4th Thu Johan Miranda). No cover; one-drink min.

8pm. 307916th St. www.comedybodega.com

Drag Queens on Ice @ Safeway Holiday Ice Rink The annual festive event includes skating acts with Sister Roma, Mutha Chuka, Ana Conda, Holotatt Tymes, Nellie, Kim ChiChi and Mahlae Balenciaga, and (non-skated) MC Donna Sachet. 8pm-9:30pm. Rent a pair of skates and enjoy the downtown tradition. $5-$11 10am-11:30pm daily thru Jan. 20. www.unionsquareicerink.com

Fuego @ The Watergarden, San Jose Weekly event, with Latin music, half-off 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

Gym Class @ Hi Tops

The Monster Show @ The Edge Cookie Dough’s weekly drag show with gogo guys and hilarous fun. $5. 9pm-2am.

4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Pan Dulce @ The Café 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

Thursday Night Live @ SF Eagle The weekly live rock shows have returned.

9pm-ish. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge Enjoy the intimate groovy disco night with DJ Bus Station John. $7. 10pm-2am.

133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Tuck & Patti @ Yoshi’s Husband and wife jazz duo perform; bring canned goods for the Glide Food Drive. $22-$23. 8pm. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Fri 13 Bad Girl Cocktail Hour @ The Lexington Club Every Friday night, bad girls can get $1 dollar margaritas between 9pm and 10pm. 3464 19th St. between Mission and Valencia. 863-2052. www.lexingtonclub. com

Christmas in San Francisco @ Pa’ina Lounge,Restaurant

Enjoy cheap/free whiskey shots from jockstrapped hotties and sexy sports videos at the popular new sports bar. 10pm-2am.

2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Russ Lorenson’s eighth annual holiday jazz concert includes guest performers Wesla Whitfield, Mike Greensill and Veronica Klaus. $25-$45. 7:30pm. Also Dec. 14.

1865 Post St. 674-3863. www.ChristmasInSF.com

Jukebox @ Beatbox

Fedorable @ El Rio

Veteran DJ Page Hodel (The Box, Q and many other events) presents a new weekly dance event, with soul, funk, hip-hop and house mixes. $10. 21+. 9pm-2am. 314 11th St. at Folsom. www.BeatboxSF.com

Free weekly queer dance party, with gogos, prizes, old groovy tunes, cheap cocktails. 9pm-2am. 3158 Mission St. 2823325. www.elriosf.com

Shots, drinks and DJed fun with the adorable David and Trevor. $2. 10pm-2am.

3600 16th St. at Market. www.lookoutsf.com

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. Holiday shows, including tap-dancing Christmas trees and more thematic characters, now on sale. $25-$160. Wed & Thu, 5pm* (* = under 21 allowed) & 8pm (also Dec 26). Fri & Sat 6:30* & 9:30pm. Sun 2pm* & 5pm*. Christmas Eve special 2pm*. New Year’s Eve 7pm & 10:15pm (with champagne).

Beer/wine served; cash only; 21+, except where noted. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St.). 421-4222. http:// beachblanketbabylon.com/when/ Holidayschedule_2013.shtml

t

Fri 13

Drew Sumrock

Josh Klipp and The Klipptones @ Palace Hotel The local jazz crooner and his band perform weekly shows at the hotel’s lounge, which draws a growing swingdance audience. 7pm-11pm. 2 New Montgomery. www.joshklipp.com

Latin Explosion @ Club 21, Oakland

We don’t jus

Eight bars, more dance floors, and a smoking lounge; the largest gay Latin dance night in the Bay Area. Happy hour 4pm-8:30pm. Dancing 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St. (510) 268-9425. www.club21oakland.com

We

Picante @ Esta Noche Weekly show with drag queens and the Picante Boys; hosted by Lulu Ramirez; DJ Marco. 9pm-2am. 3079 16th St. 841-5748. www.jceventssf.com

Release @ Club OMG Weekly party at the intimate mid-Market club; rotating hosts and DJs, Top 40 dance remixes, giveaways, gogo hunks. Free before 11pm. $3. 9pm-2am. 43 Sixth St. www.clubomgsf.com www.facebook.com/ReleaseSF

Sheila E. @ Yoshi’s The talented singer-percussionist-producer celebrates her birthday and new CD release ( Icon ) with a lively concert. $34-$39. 8pm & 10pm. Also Dec. 14. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Some Thing Mica Sigourney and pals’ weekly offbeat drag performance night. 10pm-2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Treasure Island Hop @ SFGG Clubhouse Three-day swing dance and Queer Jitterbugs festival, with costume and vintage-themed nights, competitions, live and DJed music, vintage car show, and social events. $5-$15 single event; $150 full pass. Thru Dec. 15. 725 California Ave., Treasure Island. www.TreasureIslandHop.eventbrite.com

Winter Gala @ Grand Hyatt

edgeon

Reason to Party and dot429 (the LGBT networking group) cohost their annual festive party. Proceeds benefit the Colon Cancer Alliance. $50-$200. 8pm-1am.

Skyline Room, 345 Stockton St., 36th floor. www.reasontoparty.org

Sat 14 Amanda Lepore @ Beaux The transtastic talent performs, with tunes

by DJ Jodie Harsh. $5-$10. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Sun 15

Beer Bust @ Hole in the Wall Saloon Beer only $8 until you bust. 4pm-8pm.

1369 Folsom St. 431-4695. hitws.com

Bootie SF @ DNA Lounge Weekly mash-up dance night, with resident DJs Adrian & Mysterious D. No matter the theme, a mixed fun good time’s assured. $8-$15. 9pm-3am. 21+. 375 11th st. at Harrison. BootieSF.com DNAlounge.com

La Bota Loca @ Club 21, Oakland Live bands, DJed tunes, gogo hotties, drag shows, drink specials, all at Oakland’s premiere Latin nightclub and weekly cowboy night. $10-$15. Dancing 9pm4am. 2111 Franklin St. (510) 268-9425. www.club21oakland.com

Club Gossip @ Cat Club Mixed gay-friendly goth-electro-retro-ish club night; monthly (2nd Sat.). $8. 21+.

9pm-3am. 1190 Folsom St. sfcatclub.com

Club Rimshot @ Bench and Bar, Oakland Weekly hip hop and R&B night. $8-$15. 9pm to 4am. 510 17th St. bench-and-bar.com

Santa Skivvies Run Steven Underhill

Drew Sumrock @ Nob Hill Theatre The muscled tattooed porn hunk shares his holiday treats at the famed strip club’s holiday party, with food and drinks. $25.

8pm & 10pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 3976758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Frolic @ The Stud The fun furry dance night invades SoMa, with DJs Switchblade, NeonBunny, Chaos and Barksquad. Animal costumes most welcome, but not required. $5-$10. 9pm2am. 399 9th St. at Harrison. studsf.com

Galaxy Radio @ The Knockout Space disco (house, italo) dance party with guest DJ Charlie Duff. No cover. 9pm-2am.

3223 Mission St. www.theknockoutsf.com

Love Will Fix It @ Hot Spot DJ Bus Station John spins classic R&B grooves at the monthly event that turns the dive bar into a funk palace, this month with Part 2 of the Paradise Garage tribute. $5. 9pm-2am. 1414 Market St. at Polk.

Shangri-La @ The EndUp Party with the gaysians at the Big Gay Wedding Party of Jezebel Patel and Khmera Rouge; DJs Byron Bonsall and Jack Rojo.

10pm-4am. 401 6th St. theendup.com

t

On the Tab>>

Writers With Drinks @ The Make Out Room The eclectic reading series hosts local and visiting authors who sip and speak. $5$10. 7:30-9:30. 3225 22nd St. www.makeoutroom.com

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay area reporter • 7

Full of Grace @ Beaux New weekly night with hostess Grace Towers, different local and visiting DJs, and pop-up drag performances. This week, DJ Robin Simmons. No cover. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Rant @ Martuni’s

Sun 15 Beer Bust @ SF Eagle The classic leather bar is back, with the most popular Sunday daytime event in town. 3pm-6pm (Also now open daily 11am-2am). 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Brunch @ Hi Tops Enjoy crunchy sandwiches and mimosas, among other menu items, at the popular sports bar. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Eliza Leoni and Alex Martinez’ cabaret musical parody of Rent. $15. 7pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market. www.rayoflighttheatre.com

Santa Skivvies Run @ Castro/Lookout The fifth annual holiday fundraiser for the SF AIDS Foundation brings hundreds of festive underwear and Santa-hat-(un) dressed participants in a brisk run around the Castro district that starts and ends at the gayborhood bar. Register online, raise funds, and have drinks at the bar’s afterarty. $35 participant entry fee. 1pm. 3600 Market St. at Noe & 16th. www.santaskivviesrun.org

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room

Tamale Night @ Bomarzo Floral Design Juanita More hosts a delicious night of homemade food and tequila drinks. $25.

6pm-9pm. 410 Vallejo St. at Larkin. www.juanitamore.com

Mon 16 Cock and Bull Mondays @ Hole in the Wall Saloon Cock and Bull ginger ale (Jack and Cock, Russian Mule, and more). 8pm-closing.

1369 Folsom St. 431-4695. www.hitws.com

Comedy Returns @ El Rio Sammy Obeid (1001 consecutive comedy gigs) headlines the monthly comedy night (2nd Mondays), with Marga Gomez, Bob McIntyre, Kevin Young, and Lisa Geduldig. $7-$20. 8pm. 3158 Mission St. at Precita.

(800) 838-3006. www.elriosf.com

st cover it...

Live It.

Mahogany Mondays @ Midnight Sun Amanda Lepore performs at Honey Mahogany’s weekly drag and musical talent show, which starts around 10pm.

4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Monday Musicals @ The Edge The cast of New Conservatory Theatre’s Avenue Q performs at the popular Castro bar’s musical theatre night. 7pm-2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni’s Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht (aka Trauma Flintstone). 9pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market. www.dragatmartunis.com

Sports Night @ The Eagle

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Sun 15

Donna Sachet hosts the weekly fabulous brunch and drag show. December shows A Miracle on Powell Street, take on a holiday theme. $45. 11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square. 395-8595. www.starlightroomsf.com

The legendary leather bar gets jock-ular, with beer buckets, games (including beer pong and corn-hole!), prizes, sports on the TVs, and more fun. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Tue 17 Accidental Bear Party @ SF Eagle Singer-songwriter Eric Himan and local band Zbornak perform at the three-year anniversary party for the locally-run sexy bear website. 9pm-2am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

SF Fog Rugby Beer Bust

Torch @ Martuni’s

Veona @ Yoshi’s

Veronica Klaus hosts the weekly night of cabaret, jazz and blues music, with Tammy L. Hall and special guests. $15. 7pm.

4 Valencia St. at Market. www.facebook.com/veronica.klaus

The international children’s choir performs Voices of the Season: Starry Night. $14$21. 7pm. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Trivia Night @ Hi Tops Play the trivia game at the popular new sports bar. 9pm. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Weekly screenings of vintage music videos, and retro drink prices. 9pm-2am. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Wed 18

Thu 19

Alaska Thunderfuck @ Rebel

Fauxgirls @ Infusion Lounge

The wacky RuPaul’s Drag Race finalist performs her holiday show, Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus. $22-$40. 7:30 & 10:30pm. Also Dec. 19 & 20. 1760 Market St. www.alaskathunderfuck.com www.brownpapertickets.com

The monthly drag show features upscale acts (Victoria Secret, Alexandria, Chanel, Maria Garza, Mini Minerva, Kipper, and Ruby LeBrowne), plus early dinner seating at the swanky downtown club, 7pm9:30pm. 124 Ellis St. 421-8700. www.fauxgirls.com

Booty Call @ Q Bar Juanita More and Joshua J’s weekly night packs the intimate stylish bar with grooves and a groovy younger crowd. $3. 9pm2am. 456 Castro St. www.juanitamore.com www.QbarSF.com

Bottoms Up Bingo @ Hi Tops Play board games and win offbeat prizes at the popular new sports bar. 9pm. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Connie Champagne @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The local chanteuse performs an updated version of her delightful annual cabaret show, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – An Evening with Connie Champagne as Judy Garland, with piano accompanist Barry Lloyd and drummer Alex Szotak. $25-$30. $20 food/beverage minimum. 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.feinsteinssf.com

Tue 17

Beaux Tie Ball @ Beaux Don your favorite bowtie and help raise funds for a sock drive for homeless LGBT youth, with hostess Dulce de Leche and other drag talents. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Fri 13

Support the men’s and women’s rugby club at the popular bear bar, with drinks, rugger elves serving Jell-O shots, and a pulled pork barbeque. Bring new unwrapped toys for local needy kids. 4pm-8pm. 1354 Harrison St. 863-9999. www.sffog.org www.lonestarsf.com

Sundance Saloon Holiday Ball @ Space 550

Sheila E.

The popular country western LGBT dance night celebrates the holidays with the annual toy drive. Bring a new unwrapped toy for a needy kid and get $3 off admission, Then enjoy two-stepping and linedancing. $8. 5pm-10:30pm with lessons from 5:30-7:15 pm. 550 Barneveld Ave. www.sundancesaloon.org

The weekly burlesque show of women dancers shaking their bonbons includes live music. $10. 9pm. 647 Valencia St. 5527788. www.elbo.com

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

Naked Night @ Nob Hill Theatre Strip down like the strippers, and enjoy a beverage at the erotic male theatre. $20.

8pm and 10pm. Also Sept 28. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Soma Country @ Beatbox Sundance Saloon’s monthly SoMa twostepping dance night now takes place every Tuesday. $8. 8pm-12am. Lessons 8pm. 314 11th St. at Folsom. www. sundancesaloon.org www.beatboxsf.com

Enjoy a Sweet Soul Christmas concert with the R&B funk band. $25. 8pm. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Gym Class @ Hi Tops Enjoy cheap/free whiskey shots from jockstrapped hotties and sexy sports videos at the popular new sports bar. 10pm-2am.

2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Katya Smirnoff-Skyy @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko Our favorite Russian exiled countess revives her vodka-soaked holiday spectacular cabaret show. $25-$30. $20 food/beverage minimum. 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.feinsteinssf.com

Pan Dulce @ The Café Open Thanksgiving night; enjoy 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

French jazz singer Raquel Bitton hosts a gala screening of the documentary about Edith Piaf. $25. $40 VIP ticket includes champagne, an open wine bar and food, plus prizes and gift baskets for a few attendees.

Proceeds benefit the French Cinema Club.

8:15pm. 3117 16th St. roxie.com

Block Party @ Midnight Sun

Bombshell Betty & Her Burlesqueteers @ Elbo Room

Greg Adams & East Bay Soul @ Yoshi’s

Piaf: Her Story, Her Songs @ Roxie

Weekly screenings of music videos, concert footage, interviews and more, of popular pop stars. 9pm-2am. 4067 18th St. 8614186. www.midnightsunsf.com

SF Fog Rugby Benefit @ Lone Star Saloon

Way Back @ Midnight Sun

Sundance Saloon @ Space 550 Eric Himan at Accidental Bear’s party

Queer Salsa @ Beatbox

The popular country western LGBT dance night celebrates a decade and a half of fun foot-stomping two-stepping and linedancing. $5. 5pm-10:30pm with lessons from 5:30-7:15 pm. Also Sundays. 550 Barneveld Ave., and Tuesdays at Beatbox, $6. 6:3011pm. 314 11th St. sundancesaloon.org

Weekly Latin partner dance night. 8pm1am. 314 11th St. www.beatboxsf.com

Tony! Toni! Toné @ Yoshi’s Oakland

Rookies Night @ Nob Hill Theatre

The stylish R&B trio performs a series of concerts. $34-$39. Thu & Fri 8pm & 10pm.

Sat 7:30 & 9:30pm. Sun 7pm & 9pm. 510 Embarcadeo West, Jack London Square, Oakland. (510) 238-9200. yoshis.com

Compete for $200 prize in this amatuer strip contest, or watch the newbies get naked. $20 includes refreshments. 8pm11pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

So You Think You Can Gogo? @ Toad Hall New 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

Trivia Night @ Harvey’s Bebe Sweetbriar hosts a weekly night of trivia quizzes and fun and prizes; no cover.

8pm-1pm. 500 Castro St. 431-4278. www.harveyssf.com

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge Retro disco tunes and a fun diverse crowd, each Thursday; DJ Bus Station John plays records. $4. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Want your nightlife event listed?

Still taping posters to telephone poles? Nobody reads those. Email events@ebar.com, at least two weeks before your event. Event photos welcome.

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

8 • Bay Area Reporter • December 12-18, 2013

The Boys are Back

t

by Scott Brogan

T

he SF boys of Leather disbanded a few years ago. Now, a new organization has been formed not to take its place but as a new, wider reaching club for boys in the Bay Area: The Bay Area boys of Leather.

Club president Ryan M. told me, “With the help of six other people, we are restarting the Bay Area boys of Leather in the San Francisco Bay Area for the purposes of coming together for social bonds, philanthropic efforts and to support each other and our leather community.

Coming up for the boys of BAboL, we will continue to have social events and come together for fun and bonding.”

Also, at the end of February, in early March, they will open up the group to interested parties. Look for more info on their website: www.BayAreaBoys.org.

This is great news! The boys of our community haven’t had a solid outlet in quite some time, and I’m glad that they’re Bay Area-wide in both name and mission. With Ryan and his team in charge, I’m sure they’ll be a huge success. Be sure to contact them through their website to get details and to become a member.

Currently they’re running a food drive to benefit the San Francisco and Marin Food Banks. You can donate either via this website: www.holidaydrive.sffoodbank.org/ team/bay-area-boys-leather or by dropping off non-perishable items at Mr. S Leather (385 8th Street).

Speaking of giving during this holiday season, most of you already know about Mama’s Toy Drive. If you can’t attend any of the following events, feel free to send gift cards to Mama directly (her address is at her website: www.mamasfamily.org). Drop off gifts (gift cards for the older kids to Target, Best Buy, etc. are appreciated) at: Body on Castro (450 Castro), The Mix (4086 18th St.) and Chaps (4057 18th St.). Coming up: The Trailer Trash Christmas Show and Toy Drive this Saturday 4-7pm.

Join Miss Muffy Tuff and her trailer trash girls for a show like no other.

On December 15, Sundance Saloon is noting a Holiday Ball and Toy Drive beginning at 7pm (550 Barnveld St.).

Scott Brogan

New Mr. Edge Leather 2014 Stephen Taylor (left) with contest producer Erick Lopez.

es, outgoing Mr. Edge Leather 2013 Patrick Holstine took the stage for his step-down speech. Patrick, you did a great job representing The Edge and San Francisco. We look forward to your continued involvement in our community.

Kudos to The Edge bar, especially producer Erick Lopez, for producing a no-frills contest that was everything a bar contest should be: Fun, fast and enjoyable.

Stephen Taylor was named the winner, and he’ll go on to represent

The Edge at the Mr. SF Leather contest in February. Congratulations, Stephen. You were awesome and I’m sure you’ll do us all proud.

I was very impressed by Mr. Feldman as well. He is 44 and Taylor is 26. It’s no small feat for a man of 44 to get up there and give a 26-yearold solid competition, especially in the jock department. Great job!

I won’t have any more columns after next week, only calendars. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas (or whatever you choose to, or not to, celebrate) and Happy New Year.

Have fun, play hard, be safe and buy me lots of presents. See you next year!t

Gift Ideas

It’s never too late to go shopping! Some of the best items and deals can be found for kinksters right here in SF at Mr. S Leather.

They currently have free shipping on orders of $49 or more through December 16. One of their most fun recent items is the new Parolee Neo jocks from Cellblock 13. They’re the perfect stocking stuffers. Order online or go to their store at 385 8th Street and try them on in the Locker Room section.

Another one of my favorite vendors is Nasty Pig (www.store. nastypig.com). When it comes to gear, they’re second to none. Last but not least, OffRamp Leathers is another resource for great leather and gear, all made to order. Check them out at offrampleathers.com.

A Sexy New Mr. Edge Leather

Last Saturday night, the Edge in the Castro was packed for the Mr. Edge Leather 2014 contest.

Two great contestants, Daniel Feldman and Stephen Taylor, charmed the crowd, as did MC John Brosnan. After seeing both men in bar wear and jockstraps, and listening to their well-given speech-

Mr. S Leather

The “Parolee Neo” jock available at Mr. S Leather.

t

Read more online at www.ebar.com

December 12-18, 2013 • Bay area reporter • 9

Military Inspection

by John F. Karr

J

oe Gage’s trademark topic—str8 guys availing themselves of situational homosex—gets a workout in Armed Forces Physical. I wouldn’t slide out of my seat over this one, but it’s got a memorable scene and a half, nearly two, that prompted some happy hand-sliding. The rest of the movie’s five scenes, which are spread in generous half hour segments over two and a half hours, have their share of steamy moments, and every one of them concludes with oral cum shots. Jake Cruise humors his hankering for the hot honey by downing the contributions of two guys, and Conner Habib gets to slake his thirst for the holy sauce from that paired set of top flight suppliers, Joe and CJ Parker. For the flick’s finale, Habib hurls his own home brew into the jubilating jaws of Andrew Justice.

I’m a big fan of Mr. Justice, of his foxy attitude, handsome face, and the high-ridge corona crowning a husky cock that’s surrounded by a nimbus of glinting gold hair. This is only Justice’s second movie this year, so I’m glad to report the bang the gong success of his two scenes.

He ends each with a feast—getting Habib’s hot jets of jiz, and, earlier, ravenously taking raucous rations from Dale Cooper.

In the opener, lookalike real-life lovers Joe and CJ Parker patrol the woods and accost trespasser Habib. There’s the challenge of a lengthy piss-off, with sustained arcs of piss soaring high. When the Parkers order Habib to strip down, he acquiesces, and rather than protest when they grab his cock, he gets pronto hard. Too bad their fuck, with little interaction, doesn’t go anywhere. CJ’s kind of abstract, staring into space. Joe’s very present and focused, dark eyes flashing, and he provides the more voluminous climax. Expert editing loops it into a creaming flash flood which will satisfy the viewer as much as it most evidently does Habib.

Jake Cruise plays doctor to Joe Parker and bearded, butch Rich Kelly in a somewhat stolid scene in which they’re joined by muscle stud Nick Anvil and a blond and bland husky named Butch. Next up is that swell scene with Justice and Cooper. These two guys have matching lust levels, and give the segment mounting excitement.

Colby Keller launches with lust a four-way in which he shows the spirit of Cooper and Justice. Matter of fact, I’ll give Keller the Michael Kearn’s Salacious Sucker Award for the way he kneels to suck cock with such slobbering sluttiness (Michael’s gleeful lechery is immortalized in his only sexo, the 1979 Joe Gage classic, L.A. Tool and Die).

It’s too bad Keller’s co-stars are such a let down, even when two of

Dale Cooper and Andrew Justice in Joe Gage’s Armed Forces Physical.

‘em ride the opposite ends of a dildo for nearly five minutes.

It’s neither sexy nor fun.

Like much of the movie’s action, there’s something detached about it.

This effect may stem from the curve ball Gage throws his actors. He’s written them a comedy, and tasked with playing it, you’ll pardon the expression, straight. Asking less experienced actors to deadpan their lines has lead to the flatlined performances that have drained much of this movie of the energy a sexo needs.

Comedy in a sexo is generally regarded as a bone-wilter. But encouraging a little levity on his obvious laugh lines would have lightened the potential dampening effect of the Gage approach, and boosted the spirits of his players. Like, when Dr. Cruise locks eyes with a recruit and intones, “Let’s see what you’re swinging, soldier.” That’s funny, but fails to give us at least a chuckle, or to send the performers swinging into sex.

And though there’s nothing that I hate more in gay porn than declarations of heterosexuality, I found this Cooper/Justice exchange pretty snappy. The scene launches with the guy’s boners tenting their basketball shorts while they discuss the rack and the pussy of Pvt. Cooper’s girl-

Joe and CJ Parker work their wiles on Conner Habib in Armed Forces Physical

friend. Sergeant Justice eggs Cooper on with detail—it’s a juicy pussy.

Pvt: “Don’t get me started, Sarge.”

Sarge: “Why not? You liked it last time.”

Pvt: “C’mon Sarge, I gotta girlfriend.”

Sarge: “Is she here?”

Pvt (his resolve weakening as his boner strengthens): “Good point.”

Sarge: “Does she touch your dick like this?”

Pvt (giving in): “Aaaahhhhh.”

That’s a good laugh, “Good point,” and delivered by Cooper with a soupçon of humor that kindles the scene’s increasing heat.

Colby Keller is even better at sly innuendo. When he barges into the clinic in pursuit of CJ Parker, he spies the doctor milking another guy’s meat. Says Colby, with a wisp of twinkle in his eye, “Jees, that’s some kind of physical.” Too bad there’s no twinkle in Dr. Rich Kelly’s reply, “You never know, you may be needing one yourself.” It’s a sharp lead-in for all present to get physical, but its low-keel delivery doesn’t energize the guys—despite Keller’s presence.

Gage’s lines intend to give the guys a goose, but his direction undoes it. The dudes in Armed Forces Physical—despite having some good sex, and ingesting some fine semen, oh man, they’ve got to carry that weight.t www.RayDragonVideo.com

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • December 12-18, 2013

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December 12-18, 2013 • Bay area reporter • 11

Shooting Stars photos by Steven Underhill More than a dozen stars of Broadway hit musicals traveled from around the country to participate in this year’s annual Broadway Against Bullying, a fundraiser for NoBully, the San Francisco-based nonprofit that takes anti-bullying efforts to schools nationwide. The stellar gala performance, hosted by Liam Mayclem, took place Monday, December 2 at Club Fugazi. Among the performers were Daniel Reichard (Jersey Boys), Julia Murney (Wicked), and Keala Settle (Hairspray, Priscilla Queen of the Desert). For additional information on No Bully, please visit www.nobully.com and their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/nobully.

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For more photos, and to arrange your own wedding, headshot or portrait photos,

call (415) 370-7152 or visit www.StevenUnderhill.com

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