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Lesbians develop book

Help for hoarders

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Vol. 44 • No. 01 • January 2-8, 2014

Housing a top issue for 2014

by Seth Hemmelgarn

O Associated Press

Hundreds lined up outside the Weber County clerk’s oﬀice on December 23, the ﬁrst day the county began accepting applications for same-sex marriage licenses.

Utah marriages continue, for now by Lisa Keen

ame-sex marriages continued in Utah after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal declined to grant a stay to a federal judge’s order last week. State officials are expected to make an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court this week, but at press time that action had not been taken. Such an appeal would first go to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who oversees the 10th Circuit. The New York Times reported Monday, December 30 that she was likely to refer the matter to the entire court and the justices could rule within days. As many as 900 marriage licenses have been issued to same-sex couples in Utah since Judge Robert Shelby issued his 53-page opinion in Kitchen v. Herbert on December 20, saying the state’s current definition of marriage is not permissible under the U.S. Constitution. Noting that a court interferes with a law adopted by voters “only under exceptional circumstances,” Shelby, a registered Republican appointed by President Barack Obama, said, “Utah’s prohibition on same- sex marriage conflicts with the United States Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process under the law.” “The state’s current laws deny its gay and lesbian citizens their fundamental right to marry,” wrote Shelby, “and, in so doing, demean the dignity of these same-sex couples for no rational reason.” In a brief statement issued after Shelby’s ruling Republican Governor Gary Herbert See page 10 >>

ne of the biggest stories of the last year, San Francisco’s housing crunch will continue to command attention in 2014 as officials and housing advocates address the city’s lack of affordable housing and as concerns over evictions and skyrocketing rents remain. Protests have taken place in recent weeks around tech companies that have received tax breaks for moving into the Mid-Market area, adding employees who often have the means to buy into the high-end complexes that are coming online, while at the same time driving up demand – and rents – for existing housing stock. Many have looked to gay Supervisor David Campos for help. Campos, whose District 9 includes the Mission and other neighborhoods hit with displacement, recently introduced legislation to address what he’s described as “the widespread practice of landlords trying to harass tenants into self-evicting from their homes.” The 11-member Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the legislation December 17. Campos said he thinks the proposal will come up for a second and final vote at the board’s January 7 meeting. He’s also been working to craft legislation to increase relocation funds that landlords make available to evicted tenants. Currently, landlords have to pay amounts starting at about $5,000 per tenant, with an ad-

Jane Philomen Cleland

Ross Rhodes of ACE Alliance of Community Empowerment spoke at an aﬀordable housing demonstration outside the Mid-Market oﬀices of Twitter in late 2013.

ditional approximate $3,400 paid to tenants who are senior or disabled. Such payouts are supposed to occur when tenants are ousted through owner move-ins or similar “no fault” evictions. Evictions under the Ellis Act have also drawn attention. The Ellis Act is a 1986 state law that allows landlords to evict tenants in order to get out

of the rental business. The landlord must remove all units from the rental market. Campos said details haven’t been finalized and the city attorney’s office is currently working on the proposal, but “the main objective” is to increase relocation funds “so if people go through See page 2 >>

Pope removes influential cardinal

by Chuck Colbert

nce again Pope Francis is shaking up the Roman Catholic Church and its 1.2 billion members worldwide. This time, it’s actions rather than words that signal change, giving LGBTs among the faithful hope for more hospitable pastoral ministry. Last month, the pope removed a conservative U.S. cardinal, a vociferous opponent of same-sex marriage and abortion, from an influential Vatican committee and replaced him with a more moderate American, someone not so strictly identified with culture war oratory. In removing Cardinal Raymond L. Burke from the Congregation of Bishops, the pope named Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington to that Vatican congregation, a committee that selects new bishops. It was Burke, many church observes believe, who played a key role in the appointment of Salvatore J. Cordileone, an ardent same-sex marriage detractor, as archbishop of San Francisco. In addition to upholding doctrinal orthodoxy, Burke is also known for his sartorial exuberance, what the New York Times described as a “preference for the long train of billowing red silk known as cappa magna, and other such vestments.” And his accompanying galero. Such attire, the Times noted, “has made [Burke] seem out of step” with Francis’s pref-

Cardinal Raymond L. Burke

erence for “more humble attire.” In other action, Francis also dismissed Cardinal Justin F. Rigali, the former archbishop of Philadelphia, from the same committee. Like Burke, Rigali was also in a key position to influence the make-up of the American episcopacy. A former archbishop of St. Louis (20032008), Burke, 65, remains as head of the Vatican’s highest court, the Apostolic Signatura. A former archbishop of Philadelphia (20032011), Rigali, 78, stepped down amid the cler-

gy sex-abuse scandal. Equally noteworthy, the pope’s move in replacing Burke and Rigali comes in advance of what may be Francis’s first key appointment of a U.S. archbishop – a successor for the soonto-be-retiring Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, who rose to prominence by attacking LGBT people, same-sex marriage, and women’s health care. George, 76, is nearly two years past the church’s mandatory retirement age for prelates. He turns 77 on January 16. Since he submitted his retirement letter two years ago to then-Pope Benedict XVI, moreover, speculation has swirled around his likely successor, as well as if and when George, who has battled cancer, would step down. Coincidentally, both Time and the Advocate magazines recently named the pope Person of the Year. In all, the importance of Pope Francis’s recent moves was not lost on church observers. As the Reverend Thomas J. Reese told the Times, “The Congregation for Bishops is the most important congregation in the Vatican. It decides who are going to be bishops all over the world. This is what has the most direct impact on the life of the local church.” A Jesuit priest, Reese is the author of Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church. For her part, Sister Jeannine Gramick took See page 10 >>

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<< Community News

2 • Bay Area Reporter • January 2-8, 2014

Lesbian authors retool book reading experience by Matthew S. Bajko

ighting off a serious staph infection following her back surgery in 2003, Margaret Hultz looked forward to the nightly phone calls from her friend Marie Davis to ease the pain of her nursing home stay. “It was very, very serious and I really just about died from that. It was terrible; I can’t express to you how sick I was,” recalled Hultz, 53, who lives in Louisville, Kentucky. “I would sit on the phone at the nurses’ desk and laugh and laugh and laugh. I was surrounded by all these older people asking me what was so funny. I couldn’t tell them they were naughty stories.” Wanting to perk up her friend’s mood, Davis would spin humorous, racy tales featuring lesbians, transsexuals, a lactose intolerant cow, and a lying pair of panties. “The only thing I could think to do other than get her lunch and call her every evening was to write some funny things. It was written so one very sick woman could laugh herself well,” said Davis. Once Hultz returned home, the women began collecting the stories into a narrative in book form. “It really started off as little vignettes, little stories,” said Hultz. “It wasn’t planned as a book but that is exactly what it became.” In 2010 one publisher approached them about turning their novel into an app. “Marie and I looked at each other and said what is an app?” recalled Hultz. “If they can build an app, why can’t we?” After hiring assistants to help with

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Housing

From page 1

an Ellis Act eviction,” the money they receive “is sufficient to give them an opportunity to stay in San Francisco.” Campos, Mayor Ed Lee, gay state Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), and others have been working to address the Ellis Act, which has been blamed for many people in San Francisco losing their homes either through actual evictions or threats of evictions. “We’re still trying to work that out,” Campos, who is running for Assembly this year, said about what legislation from the coalition would look like. Board of Supervisors President David Chiu is also running for the Assembly seat, which is currently held by gay Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D). In a news release from Lee’s office, Chiu stated, “We need serious reform of California’s housing laws to keep real estate speculation from displacing more San Franciscans. I am committed to working with Mayor Lee, my colleagues, our state legislative leaders and advocates to ensure that we are protecting tenants and affordable housing.” Previous efforts to modify the Ellis Act have stalled in the Legislature. Campos said one area of focus is “speculators coming in and buying properties” under the Ellis Act, and evicting tenants in order to make profits. More recently, in December, Lee’s office announced a mayoral executive directive ordering all city agencies with legal authority over permitting or mapping new existing housing to prioritize building and developing “all net new housing including permanently affordable housing.” “Our city’s growing economy requires a diverse supply of new housing stock, and San Francisco needs to remain focused on protecting our

Courtesy Margaret Hultz/Marie Davis

A devilish cow is one of the characters in Margaret Hultz and Marie Davis’s e-book.

the coding and technical know-how required, the two turned their tales into an award-winning interactive e-book called Spoon and the Moon that debuted in January 2012. In addition to hand drawn animation, each chapter opens with a song. “Marie is an artist and I am a musician, so we are able to combine those elements along with our writing. It is the perfect medium to combine all of those talents into one,” said Hultz, a former San Francisco resident who relocated after her Noe Valley apartment was damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. “It really is the first fulllength novel made into an app. We are really, really proud of it.” Davis, 51, the creator of a syndicated cartoon about Kentucky history geared toward middle school

existing rental housing,” Lee said in a statement. “Through the Housing Trust Fund, we created a permanent source of revenue to fund affordable housing production and with our city departments, we are going to build more housing in San Francisco more effectively so our city remains an affordable place to live for people at all levels of the economic spectrum and keep families in our vibrant city.” The fund, which voters approved in 2012, replaces the redevelopment agency and sets aside tens of millions of dollars over the next three decades to support the creation of affordable housing as well as homeownership programs. Lee has formed a working group that includes the heads of the building inspection and planning departments, the rent board, and other agencies. The group is supposed to “make recommendations to the mayor for city policies and administrative actions to preserve and promote rental housing in San Francisco,” among other actions. Gabriel Metcalf is the executive director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, a nonprofit that works to develop solutions to urban policy problems. In a November interview Metcalf, who mentioned the Housing Trust Fund, said “the pressure on the preexisting housing supply is really heightened” by “how difficult we’ve made it to add new housing supply.” “When you have a regional economy that is generating jobs – which is generally a good thing – but you’ve made it really difficult, really expensive, and really time-consuming to add new housing supply, that’s a recipe for prices going through the roof and puts a lot of pressure on the existing housing stock,” he added. Evictions can result. Metcalf said “there is no easy answer” to address the city’s housing problems, but “building subsidized,

students, first met Hultz in 2001 at a bar one night when she was attempting to sing the Jimmy Buffet song “Margaritaville.” Hultz joined in and the two out lesbians became fast friends. Their professional collaboration led them to forming their own publishing house called Wickedly Sisters. They are working on releasing two new e-books this year, one similar in format to their first title that features clothing in a hall closet that set out to murder their owner called Pocket Murder. The other is based on the real life story of a Catholic nun called A Civil War Truce. Both will include new music and animation created by the women. “We don’t really call our readers ‘readers.’ We call our audience media voyagers. That is what we are doing, we are setting these people up to sail through an adventure,” said Davis. They hope to inspire other women to learn the tools to create their own apps and eBooks as the popularity of tablets and other devices continues to grow. “We want to encourage women to go out and build apps. It is not that difficult to build apps,” said Davis. “There is a revolution going on in the way the arts and sciences can be experienced.”t To learn more about their work, visit http://www.wickedlysisters. com/ or send them an email at spoonandthemoon@yahoo.com with the words “Free App” in the subject line to receive a promo code for one of their titles.

affordable housing” is one “important solution.” He added, “I think in the longer run, the only way to really fix the housing market is to get much, much more housing built” at all income levels “for a sustained period of time.”

Homeless

One man who’s felt the pinch of San Francisco’s housing crisis is Victor Arreola, 58. Arreola, who’s gay, had been living at 1049 Market Street, a complex of live-work lofts that’s drawn attention since the landlord has been seeking to evict tenants, many of whom are LGBT. John Gall, one of the building’s owners, hasn’t responded to the Bay Area Reporter’s interview requests, but many believe he is getting rid of tenants so he can take advantage of the city’s tech boom. In an interview last week, Arreola said living conditions at the building had been crumbling – there hadn’t been hot water for weeks, among other problems – and he was tired of fighting to hold on. He left in late November, and ended up being homeless for almost three weeks. That included sleeping on a cardboard box for three nights. “I froze my butt off,” he said. Arreola, who’d worked at Macy’s and had been set to pay $817 a month beginning in November, couldn’t find affordable housing in San Francisco. He’s now staying at a friend’s home in Kirkland, Washington, near Seattle, for a couple of months. He isn’t sure what he’ll do after that.t

Correction The photo of the Bay Area Reporter staff that appeared on the back page of the December 26 BARtab was taken by Rick Gerharter and James LaCroce.

Community News >>

January 2-8, 2014 • Bay area reporter • 3

Funds to help hoarders by Seth Hemmelgarn

local organization that assists people with hoarding and cluttering issues is set to receive grant funding to help it determine how to best serve clients, many of who are LGBT. The Mental Health Association of San Francisco offers support groups and other services to people who struggle with the issue. All services are free. The association is partnering with UCSF, which is set to receive an estimated $2 million in grant funding over three years from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, which is based in Washington, D.C. The Mental Health Association’s part of the funding will be about $200,000 a year, although the details are still being worked out. The funds are meant to study the efficacy of peer-led treatment groups compared with therapist-led groups. Julian Plumadore, 43, a community advocate with the association, said data already show the peer-led groups are “slightly more effective.” “The peers identify with having these issues,” said Plumadore, who identifies as queer. Describing how one may recognize hoarding, Plumadore said, “Usually” the accumulation of possessions has begun to affect someone’s quality of life and is keeping them from using their home for its intended purposes. Someone may be unable to sleep in their bed, not have access to their bathroom, or be prevented from using their stove. The problem often comes up when someone experiences “a life-altering event” such as a health crisis or losing a partner, said Plumadore. He estimated 100 people are involved with his association’s hoarding groups, and he said interest is growing, which he attributes to outreach, wordof-mouth, and other factors.

Courtesy Julian Plumadore

Community advocate Julian Plumadore

The organization collects demographic information on participants, and 40 percent of the people it works with identify as LGBT. Gay men who are 55 and older and living with HIV make up “a significant portion” of LGBT participants, said Plumadore. This population may be strongly represented among hoarders because of diminished support systems, and being diagnosed with HIV can be “a catastrophic health crisis,” among other factors, he said. Also, Plumadore said, “A lot of folks have ended up being the recipients of the belongings of everyone around them who’s passed away,” including family members and partners. “A lot of people in general have significant difficulty discarding the belongings of loved ones,” he said. Items can include pictures, furniture, and boxes of clothing. Peer response team members may go to an individual’s home to help strategize how to cut down on clutter, but they don’t physically move things. People often meet up with “clutter buddies” and help with each other’s homes. Plumadore, who’s been doing this work professionally for more than two

years, has dealt with hoarding and cluttering personally. He said there’s “absolutely hope” for people who struggle. “I could invite you over to my home today and you would never ever know I struggled with this,” said Plumadore, who lives in Oakland. He also said he and others who deal with the problem “hate” the word “hoarder.” “We’re trying to get away from the terms ‘hoarding’ and ‘hoarders,’” because they’re virtually the only mental health diagnoses that carry “the weight of moral condemnation,” he said. “They imply someone is greedy or grasping, and that’s not the case at all,” said Plumadore. People aren’t sure what term to use instead, he said, and many continue “to use the word hoarding because that’s the official diagnosis” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-V Hoarding is related to acquiring items while cluttering is connected with the difficulty in discarding them, said Plumadore. He said hoarding is “not necessarily correlated with the holidays specifically, but this time of year can sure be a tough time for folks,” and the holidays can “trigger” people to acquire more belongings.

Expanding support

With the grant funding, the Mental Health Association will also establish support groups in Alameda and San Mateo counties. Michael Gause, the association’s deputy director, said the funding is significant in part because “Some of these services aren’t as available in other counties,” and providing the free support for three years to people in those areas “is obviously a big deal.”t

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

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<< Open Forum

4 • Bay Area Reporter • January 2-8, 2014

Volume 44, Number 01 January 2-8, 2014 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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Duck and cover

id anyone really believe that cable network A&E would keep embattled Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson off the air permanently? We didn’t and we weren’t surprised when the network announced last week that the popular reality show would resume filming in the spring with the entire clan, bigot Robertson included. This is just the latest culture war red herring that distracts attention from the bigger picture of LGBT rights and only serves to give A&E a boatload of free publicity. Sure, we should call out homophobia, but going to the extreme of boycotts and shutting down free speech is not the answer. Robertson had been “under hiatus from filming indefinitely,” in A&E’s words, because of the anti-gay comments he made in an interview with GQ magazine. Robertson was asked what he thought was sinful and replied, “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men.” He also said, “It seems like, to me, a vagina – as a man – would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: there’s more there. She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes!” Cue the outrage. As predictable as last year’s Chick-fil-A dustup – when president Dan Cathy told the Baptist Press that the company was “guilty as charged” for “backing the biblical definition of family” – gay rights groups sounded the homophobe alarm and right wing groups rallied around the duck family. An online petition calling on Robertson to be reinstated drew 250,000 signatures. A&E was reportedly deluged with comments from Duck Dynasty fans, many of whom, it turns out, are Christian conservatives. Well, duh: it’s a show about a family of Christian conservatives in the Deep South that earns millions by making successful duck calls and par-

layed that into a goldmine of lucrative endorsement deals. It turns out that A&E could only stand the heat for about a week. That’s not surprising either. The network brass went through the scripted responses: non-apology from Robertson and the network’s message of disapproval and “indefinite” suspension. Then on a Friday afternoon during the holiday season A&E essentially announced the suspension’s over. Of course A&E will benefit from the free publicity – when the series resumes more people will watch just to see if any of the Robertsons say anything about the controversy or, in what would be a ratings bonanza, actually expand on Phil Robertson’s anti-gay comments. Last season’s finale drew nearly 10 million viewers. Did anyone think that Robertson would do anything other than play into the stereotypical white Southern man? The demands for the show’s cancelation, and by extension, removing Robertson’s platform, by some LGBTs would be counterproductive. Robertson has the right to express himself. A&E has a right to suspend or fire him or cancel the show. Gays weren’t “thrown under the bus” as A&E has pledged to air public service announcements “promoting unity, tolerance, and acceptance

among all people.” Those messages should air during Duck Dynasty so that millions will see them. Some gays fret about a backlash. It’s doubtful that many opinions will change on one side or the other. Here’s the news flash: it’s all fake anyway. Reality shows are inherently more about good editing and over-the-top characters than anything remotely resembling real life. While Robertson might be anti-gay, in the long run it’s a flash in the pan. When the shouting and tweets are over, there will still be the LGBT community and its supporters and those who oppose us. Both are influential. Both are powerful. The barriers to same-sex marriage are coming down quickly and the forces of equality will not be stopped by a show like Duck Dynasty. And by the way, no one is forcing anyone to watch. If people are uninformed enough to base their beliefs or voting decisions on the views of a duck call maker, well, then our democracy is in deeper trouble. Happy New Year. May 2014 being fewer of these false controversies. t

SF Pride poised for success in 2014

by Gary Virginia

t was only six months ago that this publication gave San Francisco Pride a failing grade on many aspects of its operations, from community relations and board performance to membership process. I want to thank the Bay Area Reporter for providing continuous coverage of Pride’s performance before, during, and after the 2013 parade and celebration. In the last three months, the membership and new board have made remarkable progress to not only right past wrongs, but set a course that will poise the organization for success this year and beyond. Many people have questioned how an esteemed, 43-year-old organization could derail so badly over the last three years. As board president, I’ve consulted with former SF Pride executive directors and board presidents, as well as other stakeholders. With the help of board and staff, we investigated past problems and set strategy to correct course. Briefly, the agency fell short on proper management, ethics, and transparency. Those days are behind us. A common complaint about the past management was that the organization was not following its own policies and procedures. I’m committed to make sure we do so moving forward, including a complete review of the governance documents, and making changes where necessary. That will include a more transparent and straightforward grand marshal selection process and annual board election. The night the new board was seated, we voted to expand the director seats from 10 to 13, quickly surveying skill sets and the diversity of the current board to seek better balance. Until the membership votes were counted, we could not predict the diversity or skill sets lacking. We have several board candidates in the pipeline and are still seeking transgender representation. The new board immediately began a search for a new executive director (doing away with the former CEO title) and we’ll be announcing a very qualified candidate to take the helm in January. This person was the unanimous choice by our board, staff, and contractors and has excellent experience in managing large, outdoor events in San Francisco. Once the new executive director and board members are oriented, the organization will enter a strategic planning process in the spring. We’ll be

Rick Gerharter

Guys danced aboard the Beatbox float during the 2013 Pride parade.

looking closely at diversifying our funding stream for long-term financial stability, examining our governance structure to best support our organization, and working with the community to make sure our growing event remains safe and relevant to our mission. Other accomplishments include: returning to easy, online membership applications; using our website to be more transparent with meetings, minutes, IRS Form 990s, bylaws, policies and procedures; holding general member meetings in larger venues while encouraging greater member participation; using public forums to engage the community on issues such as military recruiters’ participation in Pride; partnering with other groups to build alliances and revenue such as Parking Panda, Pridestache, and the SF Bulls Hockey team. (See http://www. sfbulls.com/lgbt for tickets to LGBT Pride Night on January 11 at the Cow Palace, which benefits SF Pride.) Our stakeholders wanted to see major changes in the management of SF Pride and this new board is delivering. Ninety percent of our contractors – the experts in their fields who manage key parts of the parade and festival – are back on

board for 2014. We signed a two-year contract with Joe Wagenhofer as a part-time consultant to assist the new executive director and continue mentoring key contractors. Wagenhofer has a long history with Pride including service on the board, development, and as the former event manager. Our online “store” where parade entries, vendor and exhibitor applications are processed was set up on time and our revenue is ahead of last year. We’ve met with key city officials and have heard nothing but positive feedback regarding our changes in leadership, as well as final follow-up to the 2010 city controller’s report. And we’re excited to participate in the city’s upcoming economic impact study for our event so we can garner more support. Our membership chose the 2014 theme “Color Our World With Pride” and we’ll be featuring the best of our Bay Area resources to put on a worldclass event, while leveraging opportunities to support our global LGBT sisters and brothers. Also, we’ll be revamping all of our signature events, from the media party and annual June fundraiser, to the VIP party and main stage and parade grandstand activities. In every way, we are preparing for the best event ever in 2014. With 2013 behind us, it’s time to set aside internal politics and get our house in order. An event that draws 1.8 million people and 240 parade contingents is a complex, expensive endeavor. Equally important is our responsibility to serve our social mission locally and fulfill our role as a global pacesetter. With growing persecution of LGBT people in Russia, Uganda, Jamaica, and throughout the Middle East, San Francisco’s Pride event is a huge platform to fulfill our mission: To educate the world, commemorate our heritage, celebrate our culture, and liberate our people. When the Dykes on Bikes roar down Market Street to lead 200-plus parade contingents on June 29, know that the original spirit and fight for gay liberation are alive and well. This community, parade, and celebration are moving forward – join us!t Gary Virginia is the president of the SF Pride board of directors and can be reached at: president@sfpride.org. Membership, donor, and volunteer opportunities are at www.sfpride.org.

Politics >>

January 2-8, 2014 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

LGBT politicos make 2014 political predictions by Matthew S. Bajko

t was a snooze of a year in 2013 for local politicos, as the off-year election brought uncontested races in San Francisco and blink-andyou-missed-them local Bay Area city council contests. About the only excitement was feverish dinner table debates (again) on WWHD – What Will Hillary Clinton Do – about the 2016 presidential race? Reviewing the predictions a number of local political leaders sent in 12 months ago for the Political Notebook’s annual tradition, now in its ninth year, many focused on how the U.S. Supreme Court would rule in two same-sex marriage cases. As most expected, the rulings issued in June brought the demise of California’s ban against same-sex marriage known as Proposition 8 and struck down a section of the Defense of Marriage Act, opening the door for federal agencies to provide rights and benefits to same-sex married couples. Lacking heated electoral matchups to weigh in on, some predictions for 2013 bordered on the outlandish, and unsurprisingly, didn’t come true. Texas did not secede from the U.S., though a number of California counties made noises to depart from the Golden State to form the new state of Jefferson. Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi saw no reason to resign following a yearlong effort to oust him in 2012. Instead, he quietly settled into his job and began thinking about his re-election plans in 2015. No San Francisco supervisor was indicted, and Oakland Mayor Jean Quan did not get tapped to be the U.S. ambassador to China. As the saying goes, boy what a difference a year makes! The new year is shaping up to be a busy one for politics as attention is paid to a number of high-profile races for local, state and federal offices. It’s no shock then to see that this year’s prognosticating participants have a few thoughts on who will win, who will lose, and what issues will be the hot topics over the next 12 months. In December circle back to the column to find out who was insightful and who was way off base.

2014 predictions

We will see the election of two more LGBT Republicans in California: Carl DeMaio will be elected to Congress in San Diego and Anne Marie Schubert will be the next district attorney of Sacramento County, bookending with the reelection of Bonnie Dumanis as San Diego’s district attorney. LGBT-friendly Republican Kevin Faulkner will be elected the next mayor of San Diego, ending the yearlong drama of disgraced exmayor Bob Filner, and return some conservative sanity to “America’s Finest City.” Even with the divisions nationally, the Republican Party of California will continue to inch its way back to relevance under the guidance of Chairman Jim Brulte, a former state senator, and Vice Chairman Harmeet Dhillon from San Francisco by incrementally winning elections; building an effective, selfsustaining party apparatus; and regaining confidence from the donor class. The real question lies in the ability to keep extremist conservatives from scuttling their work by pro-

Courtesy Charles T. Moran

Charles T. Moran

moting out-of-the-mainstream candidates that tarnish the party’s image. Mainstream Republicans need to step forward and publicly denounce the “looney-toon” candidates and get involved so the vacuum isn’t a place for extremist candidates to hide. Even with the weakened role of the political parties post-Proposition 14, where the top two primary vote-getters regardless of party affiliation advance to the general election, the no-party-preference candidates will fail at the ballot box. The simple fact is that motivated voters vote in primaries – and if you’re motivated, you’re most likely informed and have an opinion that falls in either the Republican or Democratic parties. In 2014, I also predict a realignment with public employee unions – the public is fed up with the shenanigans of employment contracts and benefit packages that are literally bankrupting our cities and the state, creating drag on the economy. It won’t come from the outside like a typical ballot initiative, but the inside. California can do better. The race I will most enjoy watching will be the Los Angeles County supervisorial seat being pursued by two major LGBT candidates – lesbian former state Senator Sheila Kuehl and gay West Hollywood City Councilman John Duran. My money is on Duran. He’ll work harder and smarter. Get out your popcorn and a glass of wine because this is going to be a slug-fest. Charles T. Moran California Log Cabin Republicans Chairman Governor Jerry Brown has one of the highest approval ratings ever and will win re-election easily as there’s no significant Republican on the horizon to defeat him. Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom also easily wins a second term. In the secretary of state race, the top two candidates are state Senators Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) and Leland Yee (D-San Francisco). The party is split so the outcome has a lot to do with name recognition and affiliations. The race is a tossup right now, and in order to win, they’ll have to work in the parts of the state that they’re less known in. The race to be state controller will get messy with the top two candidates Democrats: gay Assembly Speaker John A. Perez (Los Angeles) against Board of Equalization member Betty Yee. The party right now is very split, especially LGBT Dems. Do we support the gay candidate or do we support a great ally? My thoughts are, although John is amazing at his job, Betty has better

background for the job. In the congressional race between Democratic venture capitalist Ro Khanna and incumbent Congressman Mike Honda (D-Campbell), Khanna has made early fundraising goals, but really has no substance. He has some interesting big, young Silicon Valley Republicans behind him, but many of Honda’s constituents are pissed off that he’s taken on an effective congressman. It’d be different if it was Mike’s time to bow out, but it’s not ... watch for a big fight! The Congressional District 10 race between Democrat Michael Eggman and incumbent Congressman Jeff Denham (R-Turlock) is where Democrat Jose Hernandez, a former astronaut, came from nowhere and did okay in the last election cycle. He didn’t win but had a lot of party support. He hasn’t filed yet – he has till March 7 – so it’ll be interesting to see if he does. Eggman is the brother of lesbian state Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) and has received a lot of support from Bay Area Democrats and is a great local guy, born and raised in that area. The repeal effort of the transgender youth bill AB 1266 so far is not looking like it will get enough signatures to qualify. It has to be over 95 percent, and they are in the 70s and 80s right now in random counts across the state. The deadline for signature verification is January 8, and activists are on pins and needles because this will be the Prop 8 of this decade, funded and masterminded by Frank Schubert of Prop 8 infamy. In San Mateo County we have two supervisor races next year in Districts 2 and 3. It will be interesting to see what happens as we are finally in step with the rest of the state and will for the first time elect supervisors by district and not county-wide. This eventually will bring about a more diverse representation of the demographics in each district, however, not sure it’ll show up in these two districts. No one has entered the race yet but it’s incumbent Supervisors Carole Groom in 2 (San Mateo, Foster City and Belmont) and Don Horsley in 3 (lots of rural and coastal county as well as more affluent and therefore more Republican parts like Atherton). They are both in their first terms and they can hold office for a total of 12 years, so they may not be done. Jeffrey Adair Founder and Chair Peninsula Stonewall Democrats GOP House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) will bring an immigration reform bill up in the House to stop his party’s free fall with Latino voters and to appease tech and business lobbies. The Tea Party will revolt, it will pass with Democratic votes, and his speakership will be challenged in 2015. Unfortunately, Democrats won’t retake the House, but they will keep the Senate, holding Alaska, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Arkansas in close races. They will also hold Montana narrowly after Lieutenant Governor John Walsh is appointed when Senator Max Baucus is named ambassador to China. Now that a federal judge has ruled Utah’s marriage equality ban unconstitutional, cases will be brought across the country and equality will be won state by state until the Supreme Court takes up a case where they’ll rule for samesex marriage nationally in 2015. In See page 9 >>

<< Obituaries

6 • Bay area reporter • January 2-8, 2014

Retired Episcopal Bishop Otis Charles dies by Cynthia Laird

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Vol. 44 • No. 01 • January 2-8, 2014

www.ebar.com/arts

by Sura Wood

Marilyn; 28 years old; Las Vegas, Nev.; $30 (1990), chromogenic print by PhilipLorca diCorcia; part of Gorgeous, coming to the Asian Art Museum.

he biggest news of the coming year concerns the Anderson family, South Bay collectors who gave 121 postwar modern and abstract expressionist artworks to Stanford University. The core collection debuts in a new building on campus in the fall. In the meantime, 2014 rolls in with an array of exhibitions at Bay Area venues. With-

out further ado, a look at the year ahead. Asian Art Museum Though a dose of meditation and physical discipline might be in order after the holidays, Yoga: The Art of Transformation bypasses the trendy aspect of the popular practice to delve into its origins and philosophical tenets, as well as its role in a variety of religious traditions. (through Feb. 21);

SFMOMA continues to combine forces with other museums during its expansion project to keep its name and collections in the public eye, ergo Gorgeous, which brings together masterpieces from both institutions to investigate the definition of a familiar if subjective term and its ambiguities. (June 20-Sept. 14) YBCA SFMOMA also teams with YBCA

for Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa, a multi-disciplinary show in which artists question issues of gender, sexuality and violence in South Africa during three critical periods of the country’s history: the 1960s, the post-apartheid mid1990s and the present. (Feb. 21-June 29) See page 22 >> Don Ross, courtesy of Philip-Lorca diCorcia

The long & winding road to ‘Road Show’ by Richard Dodds

f ever there was an apt title for a musical, it is Road Show. Not only does it describe the transcontinental riches-to-rags-squared adventures of two real-life brothers at the start of the 20th century, it is also fitting for a show that had to creatively travel nearly 15 years before composer Stephen Sondheim and librettist John Weidman could finally declare to themselves that their work was finished. “Whatever the impulse that drew us to the material in the beginning never went away,” Weidman said in a recent telephone interview. “We were frustrated that from our point of view, we hadn’t gotten it right. The show that you will be seeing in San Francisco was the show we were aiming for from the beginning, although we couldn’t have articulated that back then.” Theatre Rhino is among the first regional theaters to secure permission to stage Road Show following its 2008 off-Broadway run. Rhino Executive Director John Fisher had made frequent inquiries about the musical’s availability, both as a Sondheim fan and for the fact that the story contains a pivotal gay component that helped further a connection to the city’s long-running LGBT theater. Opening night is Jan. 4 at the Eureka Theatre.

Stephen Sondheim, left, and John Weidman spent nearly 15 years until they were satisfied with the musical finally known as Road Show.

See page 23 >>

{ SECOND OF TWO SECTIONS }

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<< Out There

14 • Bay area reporter • January 2-8, 2014

Celebrating a benefactor

by Roberto Friedman

rand-new year, brand-new opportunities for adventures in the arts! Over at Davies Hall, the San Francisco Symphony, with dynamic music director Michael Tilson Thomas conducting, will offer a special concert on Mon., Jan. 6, celebrating the 80th birthday of composer-philanthropist-SF royalty Gordon Getty. On the program, the Symphony, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus conducted by Ragnar Bohlin, tenor superstar Placido Domingo, beloved mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, soprano Lisa Delan, and pianist Robin Sutherland will add to the star power. Getty has been a major benefactor for the musical life of the Symphony and the city. Since 1979, when he joined the SF Symphony Board of Governors, the SFS has presented the full-concert world premiere of his opera Plump Jack; has performed Getty’s Annabel Lee for Men’s Chorus and Orchestra; and has offered the West Coast premiere of his Young America, set to texts by the composer and by the poet Stephen Vincent Benét. Getty and his wife Ann have given generously to the SFS, making possible the much-needed 1991-92 acoustic renovation of the Hall, and helping to fund MTT and the SFS’ acclaimed Mahler Recording Project on SFS Media. Next week’s concert will feature the world premiere of Getty’s new work A Prayer for My Daughter per-

Kristen Loken

Composer Gordon Getty, San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas, and former SFS president John Goldman in 2007.

formed by MTT, the SFS and the SFS Chorus; Getty’s Four Dickinson Songs, with soprano Delan and keyboardist Sutherland; and three movements from his Ancestor Suite. Domingo returns to perform with the SF Symphony for the first time since his debut with the orchestra more than 40 years ago. He will sing from Verdi’s La Traviata, and with von Stade, from Lehar’s The Merry Widow. Von Stade will sing from Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder as well; the program also includes overtures from Rossini and Strauss, and tops it all off with the Fourth Movement from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. Rather an abundance of riches, no? Out There was privileged to be seated across the table from Gordon Getty at a lunch celebrating the Balboa Café’s 100th anniversary last

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year. We found him charming, personable, great fun to drink wine with, and a fellow baseball fan who kept us apprised of the score from a TV over the bar. We may not own a private jet or have penned a full-length opera, but we felt right at home in his company, which only shows his good character. Tickets for the event ($75$350) may still be available at sysymphony.org, at the SFS box office on Grove St., or at (415) 864-6000.

Brit hit

Hard to believe, but Four Weddings and a Funeral came out 20 years ago, becoming a surprise boxoffice hit and making actor Hugh Grant famous for his little-boy-lost smile and trademark stutter. This movie not only stands up by today’s standards, but also beats most romantic comedies that followed, which just don’t get the right mix of confusion when lovers meet. Grant

Lovebirds Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant in director Mike Newell’s Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).

and actress Andie MacDowell toy with the idea they might have met their future mate, but need to see each other again and again to be sure. Director Mike Newell (Enchanted April, Awfully Big Adventure) knows how to set a mood and keep it as Grant’s character’s adorable and very British friends circle around him. It’s worth another viewing just to see Rowan Atkinson again as the bumbling vicar. There will be a free screening of the film on Thurs., Jan. 9, 7:30 p.m. at the Vogue Theater, 3290 Sacramento St. (at Presidio), put on by the folks who produce the Mostly British Film Festival. For two complimentary tickets, e-mail voguersvp@gmail.com and put Four Weddings and a Funeral in the subject line. Then just show up at the Vogue Theater with a smile for the special screening. The Mostly British Film Festival program will be announced, and there will be an opportunity to

purchase a discounted series pass.

Good work

On Sun., Jan. 12, at 4 p.m., musicians from the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony will perform a chamber concert at the Community Church of Mill Valley, 8 Olive St. in Mill Valley, CA. The concert will feature a string quartet and a woodwind quintet or mixed quintet performing music by Beethoven, Ireland, and Poulenc. Tickets are $25. Members of the Rainbow Symphony took an interest in CCMV when they learned in August that vandals had destroyed the rainbow flag displayed on church property in support of gay rights. The Bay Area Rainbow Symphony, at BARS-SF. org, is primarily composed of LGBT musicians; many of them perform with other symphonic groups. Tickets are available on the CCMV website, millvalleyucc.org. Good music for a good cause.t

Ella swings at the BBC by Jason Victor Serinus

ne of the most exciting vintage jazz releases of 2013, Ella Fitzgerald: Best of the BBC Vaults presents, on CD and DVD, four never-before-released live performances by one of the greatest vocalists of the 20th century. Long buried in the library of the British Broadcasting System, the films of four

BBC-TV shows, highlights of which are excerpted on the CD, showcase the great Ella at her most vivid, before live audiences. The first two shows were taped in 1965, the year Fitzgerald turned 48. Beginning with “Goody Goody” and ending with “That Old Black Magic,” the renditions of 19 songs show her in full command of her astounding resources. Of course it helps that her sidemen include Tommy Flanagan on piano, Keter Betts on bass, and Ed Thigpen on drums. The sonics can’t compete with the sound on Ella’s studio efforts or many of her live audio-only concert recordings, but the vocal energy and unerring pitch are astounding. One of the most valuable aspects of the set is its 10 pages of biographical notes and analysis by Stuart Nicholson, author of Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography of the First Lady of

Jazz. Nicholson makes clear that the last two shows, “Omnibus Presents Ella Fitzgerald at Ronnie Scott’s” (1974) and “Jazz from Montreux” (1977), were recorded in a period when the great artist’s decades of nonstop touring, increasingly problematic diabetes, and off-stage loneliness had begun to take their toll. All of which makes the vitality of performances from a woman who turned 60 in 1977 nothing short of miraculous. Nicholson is not an apologist. Not all of the material in these concerts, including “You are the Sunshine of My Life” and the Streisandowned “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” was ideally suited to Ella’s style. But when she was on, she was so on that crowds went wild. Don’t miss the opportunity to see and hear this great woman swing her way through songs and caress ballads as no one else could or can.t

Music>>

January 2-8, 2014 • Bay Area Reporter • 15

Looking backward & forward: SFO & SFS by Philip Campbell

he San Francisco Opera’s 2013 fall season ended in December with a well-received production of Rossini’s reliable crowd-pleaser The Barber of Seville. In October, bassbaritone Bryn Terfel had them rolling in the aisles with his wonderful portrayal of the title character in Verdi’s Falstaff. There was less unanimity of praise for the other operas in the 2013 repertory, but no one will say SFO general director David Gockley is facing financially challenging times with any sense of overt timidity. Franco-Romanian director Petrika Ionesco’s take on Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman had critics out for blood, but Gockley made an 11th-hour rescue, dispatching the controversial Ionesco and making some sense of the confusing staging. The streamlining process reportedly helped, and there was always Wagner’s score to rely on. We may not like the man, but San Francisco loves the composer. There was more at stake (and lots more offstage drama, too) with Gockley’s and the SFO’s commission of Tobias Picker to write an operatic version of bestselling author Stephen King’s disturbing novel Dolores Claiborne. Picker is a solid and gifted composer, and he wisely chose American poet J.D. McClatchy to write the libretto. The framework of the complicated story of murder, dirty secrets and indomitable female strength could have been and almost was an artistic success; much more than a merely intriguing concept. Major problems beset the production when scheduled star mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick withdrew (with Gockley’s forbearance) for health reasons. Wonder of wonders, locally and nationally admired soprano Patricia Racette was still in

Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Patricia Racette (Dolores Claiborne) and Wayne Tigges (Joe St. George) in San Francisco Opera’s Dolores Claiborne.

town performing dual roles in the SFO’s season opener, a revival of director Robert Carsen’s spectacular Mefistofele by Arrigo Boito. Trouper, fearless good sport and seasoned pro Racette took over frighteningly late in rehearsals, and her superior acting skills managed to mask most of the patchwork. With some musical changes from the composer and staging adjustments by the excellent creative team led by director James Robinson, set designer Allen Moyer, lighting designer Christopher Akerlind and projection designer Greg Emetaz, the potential disaster actually seemed to be enjoying a curious stroke of good fortune. Despite sturdy and surprisingly sympathetic portrayals by other members of the cast, notably bassbaritone Wayne Tigges as the monstrous child molester Joe St. George and coloratura soprano Elizabeth Futral as Dolores’ horrible boss Vera, the opera still had problems that couldn’t be resolved before the end of the run. I can’t remember ever having an outright disagree-

ment with another audience member at a world premiere, nor will I soon forget the somber looks on patrons’ faces as they headed up the aisles at intermission. Still, Picker stood by his artistic guns, and even if I think it was more than a little hard on the ears (“three sopranos shrieking” is not from The Twelve Days of Christmas), having the role of the stubborn daughter Selena sung by yet another high voice (soprano Susannah Biller) seemed a willful test of listeners’ patience. I returned to see if mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook (originally Zajick’s understudy, who stepped in for the last two performances) could vary the overall sound, and she did make her Dolores dramatically believable and far more listenable. There were few in agreement with my general admiration of Picker’s and Gockley’s remarkable intentions, but let us hope the reception of Dolores Claiborne will not dampen their courage. In 2014, SFO starts the summer

Spanish firebrand conductor Pablo Heras-Casado returned to Davies Hall.

season with a mounting of the great granddaddy of all serious American musicals, Jerome Kern’s and Oscar Hammerstein II’s Showboat, directed by Francesca Zambello. We are fans of Zambello (remember her amazing “American” Ring cycle?), and the dream cast includes Patricia Racette (she’s back), Heidi Stober and Nathan Gunn. The classic masterpiece is certainly opera-houseworthy, and I can hardly wait to hear conductor John Demain leading the SFO orchestra in the splendid score. Verdi’s La Traviata and Puccini’s Madame Butterfly follow, with La Racette onstage again as the tragic Cio-Cio-San. She is fast becoming a legend in her own time, and who thinks she isn’t the hardest-working soprano in the business?

Symphonic sounds

Across Grove Street, the San Francisco Symphony is roughly approaching the midpoint of the 2013-14 season, and we look at the past year with satisfaction and continuing admiration. The SFS has never lost steam

since Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas arrived in 1995, and how lucky we are to have the maestro still on the podium after the beloved institution’s fabulous centennial season in 2011-12. From the joyful celebration of the opening-night gala featuring Audra McDonald singing delightfully offbeat selections as part of an allAmerican bill to the emotionally shattering recent performances in November of the Britten War Requiem, the season has been adding memorable concerts on a weekly basis. Some unexpected pleasures derived from the Film Night with the San Francisco Symphony series and the extraordinary Halloween week featuring Hitchcock movies accompanied live by the orchestra. In February, the big screen in Davies Symphony Hall will showcase A Night at the Oscars, and Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights follows in April. I might even be able to coax non-believers into DSH for Disney’s Fantasia in late May. 2013 welcomed back Spanish firebrand conductor Pablo HerasCasado for thrilling concerts that juxtaposed works influenced by Shakespeare. Modern master Thomas Adès featured on the programs with excerpts from his glittering opera based on The Tempest, pleasantly surprising game SFS subscribers. Early in the new year, MTT conducts Beethoven and Bates (that’s Project San Francisco Mason Bates) for concerts that include the massive Beethoven Mass in C and two works by the contemporary composer. Let’s see if the patrons are still up for trying new music. The season-long Benjamin Britten centennial celebration concludes big-time in June with four tempting programs crowned by a concert performance of the darkly haunting opera Peter Grimes. It has been a good year for Bay Area music-lovers, and 2014 looks to be just as exciting.t

<< Film

16 • Bay area reporter • January 2-8, 2014

The Wizard of Id by David Lamble

he emotional lynchpin of The Wolf of Wall Street, the ode to carnal decadence, capitalist pigging out, and master-of-the-universe hubris from Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, unfolds up in the clouds during a penthouse lunch between two beautiful guys with a highfalutin’ sense of entitlement and brass balls. “The name of the game: move the money from your client’s pocket into your pocket.” “But if you can make your clients money at the same time, it’s advantageous to everyone, right?” “No.” In the first act of this three-hour tour of the financial world’s lower depths, we meet fresh-faced if hardly innocent stockbroker trainee Jordan Belford. Yes, Leo can still play 22 as convincingly as when he actually was that age. It’s 1987, and young Belford is cold-calling client/suckers for an old-line Wall Street firm whose Svengali is Mark Hanna, dressed for success – still another audacious turn from Matthew McConaughey. For two hyper-hetero dudes, this lunch chat is almost as erotically charged as if they were balling each other at the Club Baths. Hanna, Belford’s first and seemingly last mentor, is telling the young hot-shot exactly what he’s dying to hear, that his new broker’s license is absurdly close to a license to steal. Hanna opines that larceny is so easy on the street because nobody knows anything. “Nobody knows if a stock is going to go up, down or sideways, or in circles. You know what fugazzi is?” “It’s a fake.” “It’s fairy dust.” Hanna then proceeds to the kicker in his broker’s training kit: the successful go-getter will jack off at least twice a day – at work, mind you.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jordan Belford, the title character of director Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street.

Just as young Belford is getting the hang of things, the Street suffers the Crash of 1987. Last hired, first fired. It’s then that our boy stumbles into his true calling. Desperate for some kind of job, Belford finds a small Long Island “boiler room” operation that specializes in so-called penny stocks, securities of companies so marginal nobody knows their real value, that carry a hefty 50% commission for the brokers. In a room full of college dropouts and low achievers, young Jordan comes off as a world-beater. Pretty soon he’s got these guys selling junk stocks over the phone by reading his high-pressure scripts. Scorsese and company give short

shrift to arcane descriptions of the chiseling techniques that are soon netting Belford $1 million a week presiding over an army of cold-calling snakes. The real heart of Wolf of Wall Street, as was the case with Scorsese’s 1990 true-crime masterpiece Goodfellas, is the deadly combination of hubris and runaway Id that pushes Belford and his work chum Donnie (Jonah Hill) to bouts of over-the-cliff excess: from rigging IPOs by hiding their own stake in the offerings and dumping the stock when the clients buy in, to every miscue possible with almostnaked babes – there’s one nasty gay episode involving a drug-crazed queer butler that hurtles by at warp

speed – to bizarre stunts like workplace dwarf-throwing contests and a Swiss-bank money-laundering scheme that is jaw-dropping in its audacity. Wolf is at its laugh-out-loud peak during the first hour’s slapstick setup where deft one-liners and the sheer brazenness of their schemes carry the day. The second and third hours have their bravura moments – the highlight being a drug overdose so overwhelming that Leo has to slither to his luxury sports car like an inebriated anaconda – but try as they do to vamp up the domestic fisticuffs, as Belford escalates his distress with his trophy second wife Naomi (a feisty turn

from Australian Margot Robbie), there’s really no one to stand up to Jordan’s maniacal ravings. Patrick Denham puts on a brave show as FBI agent Kyle Chandler, who in one amusing moment contrasts his pathetic daily subway commute to Belford’s 170-ft. yacht, but Wolf is stuck in the downbeat dilemma of drama where the hero is not only his worst enemy, but his only true opponent. Apparently, Scorsese and writer Terence Winter, drawing on Belford’s memoir, felt every moment in the drawn-out debacle essential to the story. Scorsese spent a year pruning four hours down to a anticlimactic three. It’s not Scorsese’s style to moralize against Wall Street sleaze. What, then, should he have done? Unlike J.C. Chandor’s superior 2011 Wall Street undressing drama Margin Call, Wolf lacks a tickingtime-bomb dramatic structure allowing us to relish the inevitable collapse of Jordan’s house of cards. Unlike Oliver Stone’s 1987 monster money-guy classic Wall Street, Leo’s Belford is too pretty and too erotically distracted to be the villain the film cries out for, like Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko. The closest we get to a dirty-rascals buddyboy dynamic that really cooks is Leo’s pairing with the capable Jonah Hill as the volatile Donnie. But Hill, despite some terrific line-readings and physical shtick, doesn’t reach Joe Pesci’s psychotic edge that provided Goodfellas with its dangerous frisson. The crackling first-act chemistry between Leo’s broker ingénue and McConaughey’s ballsy charmer is never matched. Leo’s Jordan needs more of McConaughey’s “fairy dust” to give the audience the next best thing to crooked straight-boy screen sex.t

Film>>

January 2-8, 2014 • Bay area reporter • 17

Secrets & lies by David Lamble

atching the latest highly charged family drama from Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, we learn that the man has divorce on the brain. The Past is the third of his features to use the emotional undertow of a breakup between headstrong individuals as a tool to explore every pothole in modern life, and a few sinkholes to boot. If you’re a fan of Farhadi’s previous film, the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar-winning A Separation, you’ll recall a man and a woman pleading their case for custody of their spunky 11-year-old daughter before a Tehran municipal judge. By film’s end the couple, chastened by unimaginable calamities, agree to let the kid decide whether her future should lie with mom in another country or with dad. In A Separation, the child discovers that adults lie, and that women must cope with modern problems while overdressed in a miserably hot climate, in a land run for and by guys with hair-trigger tempers and bleak prospects. The Past begins with an attractive if high-strung woman, Marie (Berenice Bejo), picking up a subdued gent at the Paris airport. We quickly learn that Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) is Marie’s estranged husband, back to consent to a quickie civil divorce, after which he’ll resume life in Iran. But the next few days will prove a lot more taxing than Ahmad was prepared for. Soon he’ll be smack-dab in the middle of a huge meltdown in Marie’s reconstituted clan. The ex will be expected to talk Marie’s almost-grown daughter through the consequences of a terrible secret involving her mom’s much younger

boyfriend, his young son, and, most devastatingly, his now-comatose estranged wife. Arriving at Marie’s ramshackle home in a bland Paris suburb, Ahmad’s first chore is to tame the boyfriend’s tantrum-prone eightyear-old son Fouad, a precocious performance from Eyles Aguis. There are several scenes where Fouad’s desire to bolt the house is so frenetically acted out that the film threatens to dissolve into a domestic farce. Ahmad learns that the boy was deceived about the nature of home life with his prospective stepmom while he still grieves for his not-yet-deceased birth mother. A potent scene set in the Paris Metro finds the boyfriend, Samir (Tahar Rahim, breakout star of Jacques Audiard’s prison drama A Prophet), pleading with his son to leave his girlfriend Marie’s home. Later, father and son will broach the pricklier subject of why his mom tried to kill herself by swallowing dry-cleaning fluid. Fouad: “Why don’t they separate her from medical instruments?” Samir: “Because they don’t know if she wants to live with them or die.” “She wants to die.” “Why do you say that?” “That’s why she committed suicide!” Marie’s headstrong, near-adult daughter Lucie (Pauline Burlet) is dead-set against her mom’s impending marriage to Samir, for reasons that will become clear. “He’s my mom’s third guy. I don’t want to see that jerk around.” “Your mom can live with whom she wants.” “I don’t want them to be together.” “You think it’s up to you and me?

Either you suffer this secret for the rest of your life, or you talk to your mom. She has a right to know.” Director/writer Farhadi concedes in the press notes that setting this story in Paris caused him to grapple with the different ways people communicate personal matters in Iran as opposed to France. “In my [Iranian] films, the characters express themselves indirectly. Generally speaking, the French are more straightforward.” While the characters in A Separation were influenced by their inhabiting an authoritarian Islamist dictatorship, the denizens of The Past experience their pain in the land of liberty, equality and fraternity. Farhadi, to his credit, has cradled his agonizing drama about daughters and mothers, sons and fathers, married partners and exes, in the grammar, pacing and feel of modern French cinema, except for leaving out the sex scenes. This is an extraordinary achievement for a non-French-speaking artist, but to top it off Farhadi reminds us how much of our 21st-century quest for connectedness occurs regardless of the political culture. The Past never quite reveals why Ahmad walked out on Marie, igniting her perilous bid to form a new family with a man still legally bound to a woman in a coma. But with its whiplash bursts of lies and secrets, the film demonstrates that people are blessed and scarred by every deed, misstep and half-remembered dream. Farhadi has created a diverting drama that combines the French penchant for emotional directness with modern Iranian cinema’s talent for eliciting truthful performances from children acutely aware that there are no unimportant lies.t

Sony Pictures Classics

Marie (Berenice Bejo) and Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) in director Asghar Farhadi’s The Past.

Spellbinding by David-Elijah Nahmod

Bewitched: The Complete Series (Sony DVD) t’s difficult to believe nearly 50 years after its debut that anyone seriously wondered if the supernatural sitcom Bewitched might be viewed as Satanic. Yet in one of the numerous short documentaries included in Sony’s recently released complete series box set, producer William Asher, former husband of star Elizabeth Montgomery, recalls that such concerns were raised when the show was in development. It seems as though Agnes Moorehead saved the day. Asher and TV historian Herbie J. Pilato reveal that the actress who played the villainous Endora was a devout, conservative Christian. If Moorehead, once a member of Orson Welles’ stock company, was willing to lend her name to the series, then Bewitched must be OK. The show was an instant ratings smash. Samantha (Montgomery) and Darren (Dick York, later Dick Sargent) offered viewers a look inside TV’s first “mixed” marriage. She was a centuries-old if youthful-looking witch. He was a mortal, a regular guy. Perhaps the most shocking aspect of Bewitched was the fact that the happy couple was the first in television history to be seen sleeping in the same bed. Unlike other TV couples, they acted like they were in love. Viewers were left with the impression that they might really be having sex! During the latter half of its eightyear run, Bewitched took on a slapstick tone, but the earlier episodes, in particular the first two seasons, had a much darker vibe. By the time Dick Sargent assumed the role of Darren at the beginning of season

six, he and mother-in-law Endora seemed to be egging each other on and giggling as they waged their ongoing battle of wills. Early on, Endora was an angrier character who seemed as if she might hurt Darren if he dared to mess with her beloved daughter Samantha. That version of Endora was more interesting than the silly caricature she became. The early Endora had depth. She was a fully developed character with a sharp, sometimes scary edge. Occasionally the early shows would deal with the actual problems that a couple like Samantha and Darren might face. How would they face the fact that he’d age at a much faster rate than she? Could they cope with the fact that Sam might outlive Darren by centuries? Every now and then Bewitched even had a social conscience. It tackled issues such as the sexism of Darren as he demanded that Sam not use her powers so she could be a “normal” wife. Three times in its history, Bewitched offered stories that can now be seen as metaphors for racism and homophobia. No less than two episodes dealt with

the resentment felt by Sam and her fellow witches at the incorrect way they were perceived in popular culture. And in a daring episode from 1971, little witchling Tabitha (Erin Murphy) befriends a young black girl. Not understanding why anyone would view her and her friend differently, Tabitha casts a spell. Both girls then sported matching black-andwhite polka-dotted skin. Montgomery introduced this episode, which was written by a 10th grade English class. “Conceived in the image of innocence, and filled with truth,” the actress said on camera. For the most part, however, Bewitched was fun. One of the most good-natured series ever produced, it’s filled with hilarious sight gags and a strong cast which played off each other beautifully. After all these years, scenes featuring Samantha’s bumbling Aunt Clara (Marion Lorne), nosy neighbor Mrs. Kravitz (Alice Pearce, later Sandra Gould), and the mad practical joker Uncle Arthur (Paul Lynde, playing what might have been the first obviously gay character on the tube) remain fresh and as funny as they were all those decades ago. Bewitched is a fast-paced delight. Sometimes it plays like a romantic comedy, sometimes like a hilarious ensemble piece. More than 200 episodes were produced. Not one of them is dull. Sony presents superbly remastered, uncut copies of every single show, offered on more than a dozen discs. Picture quality, sound, and colors are sharp. The first two seasons, originally presented in blackand-white, are colorized here. The colorization techniques are quite good. They match the coloring seen in the later episodes, which were shot in color. Purists can always turn the color on their receivers off.t

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<< Out&About

18 • Bay area reporter • January 2-8, 2014

O&A

Sat 4

Sat 4 Can You Dig It? @ The Marsh Berkeley

Out &About

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 Feb. 2. 2120 Allston Way. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

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

David Hockney: A Bigger Exhibition @ de Young Museum

Sat 4

Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness

Brain matters

Pak Han

by Jim Provenzano

ou’ll notice a slightly more political edge to some events this week, from lectures to film screenings. With historical oppression often matching contemporary problems, start of your new year with more than a bit of thought-provoking controversy.

Thu 2 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

New and Classic Films @ Castro Theatre Jan. 2, Blue Jasmine (2:30, 4:45, 7pm, 9:15). $8.50-$11. 429 Castro St. 621-6120. www.castrotheatre.com

Road Show @ Eureka Theatre Theatre Rhinoceros presents the Bay Area premiere of Stephen Sondheim’s rarelyproduced musical (with a book by John Weidman). Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 3pm. Thru Jan. 19. 215 Jackson St. at Battery. (800) 838-3006. www.therhino.org

Fri 3 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

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. Extended thru Jan. 18. Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

Fri 3

Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi The musical comedy revue celebrates its 40th year with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs. $25-$160. Wed & Thu, 5pm* (* = under 21 allowed) & 8pm (also Dec 26). Fri & Sat 6:30* & 9:30pm. Sun 2pm* & 5pm*. Beer/wine served; cash only; 21+, except where noted. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St.). 421-4222. www.beachblanketbabylon.com

Foodies, the Musical @ Shelton Theater Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue of songs and sketches about food. $32-$34. Fri & Sat 8pm. Open run. 533 Sutter St. (800) 838-3006. www.foodiesthemusical.com

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

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

Sea of Reeds @ Jewish Community Center Shotgun Players presents Josh Kornbluth’s latest show explores his personal conﬂicts with Judaism, and his decision to get bar-mitzvahed in Israel as an adult, despite being an atheist; performers also include Amy Resnick and a four-musician band, with an original score by Marco D’Ambrosio. $25-$35. Thru Jan. 13. Kanbar Hall, 3200 California St. (510) 841-6500. www.jccsf.org/arts-ideas/performances/ theater/sea-of-reeds/

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

Ric Omphroy

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast @ Curran Theatre Touring production of the Broadway musical based on the Disney animated ﬁlm. $45-$180. Mon-Fri 2pm. Sat 2pm & 7:30pm. Sun 12pm & 5:30pm. Thru Jan. 5. 445 Geary St. (888) 746-1799. www.beautyandthebeastontour.com www.shnsf.com

Edward Gant’s Amazing Feats of Loneliness @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley Shotgun Player’s production of Anthony Neilson’s darkly comic play is set in an Edwardian traveling theatre troupe, where the performers’ 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

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Fiddler at 50 @ Jewish Community Center Celebrating a Half-Century of Fiddler on the Roof, drama critic and Jewsish historian Alisa Solomon’s lecture based on her book, Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof, the groundbreaking hit Broadway musical. $15. 7pm. 3200 California St. at Presidio. 292-1233. www.jccsf.org/arts

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 3: Import/Export, an exhibit that explores Asian uses of commodities and ideas; thru Feb. 23. Free (members)-$12. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. 200 Larkin St. 5813500. www.asianart.org

This exhibit the artist. D The Michae Dibble, Ray

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 archival materials from the historic chorus, leadcurated by Tom Burtch, with a touchscreen display by multimedia producer John Raines. Other permanent exhibits as well. Reg. hours Mon-Sat 11am-7pm (closed Tue.) Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. 621-1107. www.glbthistory.org

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. Wed-Sun 11am-5pm (Fri til 9pm). Thru June 30. 1000 Oak St. (510) 318-8400. www.museumca.org

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

Josh Kornbluth’s Sea of Reeds

Don Reed’s Can You Dig It?

David Hockn London, pu visitor ticke

U.S. Department of Illegal Superheroes @ Galería de la Raza Neil Rivas’ multimedia exhibit, a mix of dark parody and journalistic critique of government agencies, immigration policies, and race-based politics. Free. Reg hours Wed-Sun 12pm-6pm. Thru Jan. 18. 2857 24th St. at Bryant. 826-8009. www.galeriadelaraza.org

Vintage Paper Fair @ County Fair Building The West Coast’s largest selection of antique paper items includes postcards, photography, prints, art deco, movie memorabilia, local history and pin up art. Free. 10am-6pm. Also Jan. 5 11am-5pm. Hall of Flowers, County Fair Bldg., Golden Gate Park, 9th Avenue at Lincoln. www.vintagepaperfair.com

Sun 5 Andres Zorn @ Legion of Honor Exhibit of the Swedish masterpainter’s works; also, paintings by Matisse from the SF MOMA holdings. and permanent exhibits (ongoing). $10-$25. Lincoln Park, 100 34th Ave. 750-3600. www.legionofhonor.famsf.org

New Exhibits @ Museum of Craft and Design Dogpatch warehouse is now a museum store, gallery and program space. Inaugural exhibitions are Michael Cooper: A Sculptural Odyssey, 1968-2001 and Arline Fisch, Creatures from the Deep. Mon-Fri 9:30am-5:30pm. 2569 Third St. 773-0303. www.sfmcd.org

Science Exhibits @ The Exploratorium Visit the fascinating science museum in its new Embarcadero location. Free-$25. Pier 15 at Embarcadero. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm (Thu night 6pm-10pm, 18+). 528-4893. www.exploratorium.edu

SF Hiking Club @ Garin, Dry Creek Regional Parks Join GLBT hikers for an eight-mile hike in these two contiguous East Bay parks near Union City. Hike several trails, stroll along the ridge with stunning views of the entire bay, and ﬁnish the day at the charming, relaxing Dry Creek Garden. Well-behaved dogs are welcome. Bring water, lunch, hat, layers, sturdy boots. Carpool meets 8:30 at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. (510) 684-6506. www.sfhiking.com

Out&About>>

Sing-Along The Little Mermaid @ Castro Theatre Participatory screenings of the Disney animated ﬁlm based (very loosely) on the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale. $10-$16. 7pm nightly, (also 2:30pm Jan 5). Thru Jan. 10. 429 Castro St. 621-6120. www.castrotheatre.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

January 2-8, 2014 • Bay area reporter • 19

Mon 6

Thu 9

All About Image @ Robert Tat Gallery New exhibit of exceptional images from a variety of 20th and 21st-century photographers. Thru Feb 22. 49 Geary St. #410. 781-1122. www.roberttat.com

California Native Plant Bloom @ SF Botanical Gardens Seasonal ﬂowering of hundreds of species of native wildﬂowers in a century-old grove of towering Coast Redwoods. Free$15. Daily. Golden Gate Park. 6612-1316. www.SFBotanicalGarden.org

Final Week close s! s jan 2 0

Liz Fain Dance’s After the Light RJ Muna

rated British artist David Hockney returns to rnia with an exhibition assembled exclusively e de Young. Expansive in scope and monumental le, this is the first comprehensive survey of st-century work. Renowned for his use of ional materials as well as evolving technologies, ney has created new art in an array of media, watercolor on paper to iPad drawings, and oil nvas to digital movies.

Lectures & Discussions @ Commonwealth Club

Russia Solidarity Meeting @ SF Public Library

Jan. 6: author Patricio Pron (My Father’s Ghost Climbing in the Rain), about Argentina’s dark political past $5-free. 5:30pm. Jan. 6: Who Will Own the Future? Privatization and the Threat to the Urban Environment, with George Wooding, Aaron Peskin, Tim Redmond and Dennis Antenore. $7-$20. 6pm. Jan. 7: Nob Hill Walking Tour, $35-$45. 1:45-4:30pm. Preregistration required. Jan. 7: The New Rules of Getting and Keeping a Job You’ll Love, with Ryan Coonerty and Anna Binder, and a post-panel job fair. Jan. 8: Marty Brounstein discusses his book, Two Among the Righteous Few: A Story of Courage in the Holocaust. $7-$20. 6pm. Jan. 8: Reducing the Nuclear Nightmare, with Joseph Cirincione (Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It’s Too Late) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation). $7-$20. 6pm. Jan. 9: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for the Truth, with ESPN reporters Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada. $7-$5 (includes a book). 6pm. 595 Market St., 2nd ﬂoor. 597-6712. www.commonwealthclub.org

All are welcome to attend a community organizing meeting to develop plans for a public rally demanding queer and civil rights in Russia and to show solidarity with targets of escalating fascism on the eve of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Free. 6pm. Mary Louise Stong Room (1st ﬂoor), 100 Larkin St. at Grove. Sponsored by SF’s Socialist Party. www.socialism.com

San Francisco Symphony @ Davies Hall Michael Tilson Thomas conducts a concert with tenor Placido Domingo, soprano Lisa Delan, mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade and pianist Robin Sutherland in a concert of works by Rossini, Tallis, Gordon Getty, J. Strauss, Verdi, Lehar and Beethoven. $75$350. 8pm. 201 Van Ness Ave. 864-6000. www.sfsymphony.org

tion is organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in collaboration with Director’s Circle: Penny and James George Coulter, David Davies and Jack Weeden, el Taylor Trust, and Diane B. Wilsey. Curator’s Circle: The Bequest of Dr. Charles L. and Dagmar Dolby, and Marissa Mayer and Zachary Bogue.

ney, Self-Portrait with Charlie (detail), 2005. Oil on canvas. National Portrait Gallery, urchased with help from the proceeds of the 150th anniversary gala and Gift Aid et donations, 2007, NPG 6819. © 2013 David Hockney. Photo: Richard Schmidt.

Sun 5

Tue 7 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

Foodies, the Musical @ Eureka Theatre Theatre Rhino’s New Year’s Eve production of the wacky comedy about food, and eating food. $20-$25. 8pm. 215 Jackson St. at Battery. (800) 838-3006. www.therhino.org

The News @ SOMArts Cultural Center The monthly queer experimental works program this time presents The Ages, a group work by the OutLook Ensemble, a diverse ensemble of young and old LGBT performers: Derik Cowan, Rebecca Schultz, Anthony Julius Williams, and Jason Wyman, as well as Shirley Acuna, Star Amerasu, Donald Curry, Dazie Grego, Lynn Johnson, Allison Kenny, Anne Carol Mitchell, and Ida VSW Red. $5. 7:30pm. 934 Brannan St. at 8th. www.somarts.org

Noontime Concerts @ Old First Church Farley Pearce, John Domenburg (viola da gamba) and Yuko Tanaka (harpsichord) performs music of the French Baroque by Marin Marais and Charles Dollé. $5. 12:30pm. 660 California St. at Grant. www.NoontimeConcerts.org

Sing-Along The Little Mermaid

Wed 8 Jason Lazarus: Live Archive @ Contemp. Jewish Museum 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

Major Barbara @ Geary Theatre

The Ghosts of Jeju Island @ Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists’ Hall Screening of the compelling documentary ﬁlm about the U.S. military presence on the small South Korean island, and the local resistance to arrests and brutality that continue to this day. $5-$10. 7pm. 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita, Berkeley. www.bfuu.org

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

Lesbian/Gay Chorus Open Rehearsal @ MCC Participate in the local chorus’ rehearsal and consider auditioning. Free. 7pm-10pm. Metropolitan Community Church, 150 Eureka St. www.lgcsf.org

Liz Fain Dance @ Z Space

American Conservatory Theatre presents a co-production with Theatre Calgary of George Bernard Shaw’s classic satirical play of morality and religion, centered around a Salvation Army ofﬁcial who must confront her organization when it takes donations from a weapons manufacturer. (Special nights incldue LGBT Out with A.C.T. Jan. 22). $20-$140. Thru Feb. 2. 415 Geary St. 749-2228. www.act-sf.org

After the Light, a performance installation created in collaboration with visual designer Matthew Antaky, costume designer Mary Domenico and composer Dan Wool, is presented as part of the vibrant local company’s 2014 season; the work explores boundaries, real and imagined. Audience members may choose to sit, stand, or walk about through this open-environment work. $15-$35. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Jan. 12. 450 Florida St. (800) 8383006. www.zspace.org

Musical Pacifica @ Trinity Chapel, Berkeley

Magic Parlor @ Chancellor Hotel

The chamber music ensemble performs Sweet Accents: In Praise of Harmony, a concert of works by Handel, Rameua, Telemann and other composers. $10-$30. 7:30pm. 2320 Dana St. at Durant, Berkeley. www.musicapaciﬁca.org

Whimsical Belle Epoque-style sketch and magic show that also includes historical San Francisco stories; hosted by Walt Anthony; optional pre-show light dinner and desserts. $40. Thu-Sat 8pm. 433 Powell St. www.SFMagicParlor.com

Safeway Holiday Ice Rink @ Union Square

Tom Wopat @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko

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

San Francisco Symphony @ Davies Hall Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the Beethoven and Bates Festival, a threeconcert series of works by Beethoven and contemporary composer Mason Bates, who also performs electronica, with violinist Alexander Barantschik. $15-$156. 8pm. Also Jan. 9, 2pm; Jan. 10, 8pm, and Jan. 11, 8pm. 201 Van Ness Ave. 864-6000. www.sfsymphony.org

Thu 9 FCC Town Hall @ Nile Hall, Preservation Park, Oakland Oakland Voices presents a town hall panel discussion with new FCC chairman Tom Wheeler and local ofﬁcials; discuss freedom of communication and censorship issues over the airwaves. 7pm. 1233 Preservation Park Way. www.eventbrite.com www.freepress.net

Recording artist, Tony-nominated star of numerous Broadway musical hits (Annie Get Your Gun, Chicago, 42nd Street, Catch Me If You Can, City of Angels, Guys & Dolls), fi lms (Django Unchained) and yes, The Dukes of Hazzard, performs his new cabaret show, “I’ve Got Your Number.” $35-$45. 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.ticketweb.com

Twisted Sisters @ City Hall Gallery Twisted Sisters: Reimagining Urban Portraiture, a large-scale photo exhibit and art exchange between SF and Zurich. Thru Jan. 27. SF City Hall, North Light Court, and various outdoor kiosks. www. sfartscommission.org

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 our new merged section, www.ebar.com/bartab

<< TV

20 • Bay Area Reporter • January 2-8, 2014

Much-awaited gay series debuts by Victoria A. Brownworth

hat better way to herald the new year than with the first new gay TV series in, well, forever? In two decades of writing this column we’ve only gotten to say “new gay TV series” a total of four times, the last time being Showtime’s The L Word. Hard as it is to believe, Irene Chaiken’s The L Word debuted a full decade ago, running through 2009. That series gave us the delicious butches Shane and Papi for girls all over America to dream about. But it’s been gone for more years than it aired. What did gay men have while lesbians had The L Word? RuPaul’s Drag Race, while fun, was not scripted TV. The reality show characters were enjoyable to follow, but different from scripted characters. And as fabulous as the gay male characters on Glee, Scandal, Smash, and a handful of other shows have been, the series they were in have not been gay series, but straight series with major gay characters. All of which means Looking is that gay series everyone has been waiting for. Jan. 19 marks the launch for HBO’s eight-episode drama set and filmed in San Francisco about a group of gay men, led by out gay ac-

tor Jonathan Groff as Patrick. Be still our hearts. The Castro has been abuzz over Looking since the show started filming back in September, but now the clock is ticking down. HBO has floated two hot video trailers from the first episode (view them and you will be hooked) in the past week. The men of Looking are overwhelmingly hirsute (a whole lotta facial hair going on here) and range in age. They are not privileged, except inasmuch as they actually live in SF. Michael Lannan, the show’s writer and creator, lived in the Castro for several years and was striving for verisimilitude. We think he got it right, from the Muni bus trip to the wandering across town to Zuni Café. SF is a character, not an aside, in Looking. This isn’t stock footage, it’s the city: your gay, gayer, gayest city. You’ll recognize not just the sights, but the realities of SF, from the struggle to pay the exorbitant rents to the struggle to find a boyfriend. Viewers will be familiar with the Obie-winning and Tony-nominated Groff, who played Jesse St. James on Glee, guest-starred on The Good Wife, was a series regular on Boss, voices Kristoff in Frozen, and was boyfriends with American Horror Story star Zachary Quinto for a few

Courtesy HBO

(Left to right:) Frankie J. Alvarez, Murray Bartlett and Jonathan Groff in the new series Looking.

years until their recent break-up. Groff is gay entertainment royalty. Of course he’s in Looking. Co-starring in the series are Australian actor Murray Bartlett (Guiding Light, Farscape, Sex and the City) as Dom, Frankie J. Alvarez (Smash) as Agustin, Russell Tovey (Being Human, Sherlock) as Kevin, and Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap, Star Trek) as Lynn. Patrick, Dom and Agustin struggle with the vicissitudes of gay life in San Francisco. It’s a very different time and place from Tales of the City, the last gay TV show like this series. It feels fresh and new and most of all, gay. The only flaw we see in Looking is it’s only a half-hour and only eight episodes. Hopefully critical response will be such that it becomes the gay Girls. If you miss the debut, it will reprise every day thereafter for a week. We’re so chuffed about Looking we want all the new shows to be gay, but just because they aren’t doesn’t mean they aren’t worth watching. ABC premieres The Assets, another eightepisode drama, on Jan. 2. If you miss the first episode, you can catch it at ABC.com, but you have to watch this show from the beginning. The limited series is based on the book Circle of Treason: A CIA Account of Traitor Aldrich Ames and the Men He Betrayed, by Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille, the two CIA counterintelligence agents who caught Ames. Ames was a double agent, a Soviet mole working with the KGB. The information he handed over to the Russians led to the killing of at least 10 agents (assets). Paul Rhys (Being Human, Luther) plays Ames. British actress Jodie Whittaker, who starred in BBC’s Broadchurch, stars as Grimes. British actress Harriet Walter (Downton Abbey) plays Vertefeuille. Yes, it’s an all-British cast playing Americans. Grimes and Vertefeuille are working to find the mole and uncover him as the worst traitor in U.S. espionage history. But Grimes also has to do the proverbial race-against-time to keep Soviet intelligence agents from being caught and killed. The series parallels Grimes’ life at home as wife and mother with her work as a CIA secret agent. It’s compelling stuff, as we usually only see solo characters as Jason Bourne types. Seeing women in the key roles of capturing such a huge villain in American history is itself reason to watch. Period dramas are doing very well on cable and PBS: The Hours, Mad Men, Downton Abbey. How a period drama like The Assets, set 30 years ago in the waning days of the Cold War, will fare on network remains to be seen. But with the strong cast,

true-life story and that adrenalinepumping quality to the action, it should be a powerful series. The show’s Thursday-night slot is usually held by Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, two ratings-grabbers, both on hiatus until February. The Assets fits the space just fine, but the lead-in is The Taste, the contestant cooking show with the now-infamous Nigella Lawson and several other chefs, including the pompous Anthony Bourdain. We pretty much hated this show last season when it debuted, despite having a few gay chefs in the running and Lawson, whom we have always had a crush on. The Taste was like The Voice for food, with the same team set-up. But we hated the concept of one spoonful of food, which runs counter to all things foodie in our perception, given how important presentation is. The show also got pretty low ratings, so we’re surprised it’s back. We wonder how the show will address the Lawson scandal, since the recent trial did not end in her favor. Perhaps that will bring in a larger audience, but the show is dull and the food uninteresting, so we’re still going to pass. Plus the show is now two hours. One was more than enough. Will that lead audiences away from The Assets? It’s hard for us to see how these shows have anything to do with each other. Two other new shows debuting in early January are Intelligence on CBS and Killer Women on ABC. They compete with each other on the debut night, Jan. 7, then Intelligence moves to Mondays. Killer Women is executive produced by Modern Family star Sofia Vergara, and as a consequence ABC is giving it huge promotion. The crime series is based on the Argentinian Mujeres Asesinas, adapted to an American audience by Hannah Shakespeare. Molly Parker (Tricia Helfer, Battlestar Gallactica) is a former beauty queen and recently divorced. Her father is a sheriff and she follows in his path, rising through the ranks of the elite Texas Rangers. She’s involved with a DEA agent, has a sixth sense for dangerous women and why they kill, and is all around badass. We’re pretty sure Killer Women is going to be like Hawaii Five-O for women and teenaged boys (the promos already have Helfer undressing), but we’re willing to give it a look. More intriguing to us is Intelligence, starring Josh Holloway (Lost) and Marg Helgenberger (CSI). Holloway plays Gabriel Vaughn, an operative in an elite government cybersecurity agency headed by Lillian Strand (Helgenberger). Vaughn has

been implanted with a micro-chip in his brain which basically turns him into computer head, as he’s linked to the global information grid. This drama is part Person of Interest (though not as smart) and part Unforgettable (definitely smarter), two of CBS’ other high-tech procedurals. We like Holloway and Helgenberger a lot and we’re fans of the genre, so we’re giving this one a look. The debut of HBO’s True Detective on Jan. 12 is one we anticipate without equivocation. This crime drama will follow the same anthology style as American Horror Story and be a distinct arc with separate characters each season, following detectives. Like AHS, TD features heavyweight film actors, notably Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. The showrunner is novelist Nic Pizzolatto. The first season is directed by Cary Fukanaga (Sin Nombre), whose work is stunning. Fukanaga and Pizzolatto also executive produce. McConaughey has been doing extraordinary work lately. His portrayal of a closeted gay man in The Paperboy, a killer in Mud, and an AIDS patient in Dallas Buyer’s Club have lifted him out of his status as romantic lead in chick flicks to serious actor. It’s the serious actor who plays Rust Cohle, one of the lead detectives in the HBO series. Harrelson plays Martin Hart. Elizabeth Reaser, who has done fabulous work on Grey’s Anatomy and The Good Wife, plays Laurie Perkins. The show is filmed and set in New Orleans and follows the detectives’ search for a serial killer in Louisiana over 17 years. Yes, it’s going to be great. Premiering on TLC on Jan. 7 is My 600 Pound Life. We have a love/ hate relationship with TLC, like most sentient people. The network leans toward the voyeuristic, and M600PL may be the most voyeuristic of all. It follows morbidly obese women and men as they try to save their lives from their extreme weight. Unlike other weight-loss shows, these people are not going to be running on beaches. They are struggling for every movement and every breath. The CDC estimates there are 58 million overweight Americans, 40 million obese Americans, and three million morbidly obese Americans like those portrayed. Three million people so crippled by their weight they need oxygen to breathe and walkers to move, if they can. Some are literally trapped in their homes, but all are trapped in their bodies. M600PL is raw: we see the man who must shower with a hose outside and the woman in a hospital bed explaining that this is where she lives, goes to See page 21 >>

Music>>

January 2-8, 2014 • Bay area reporter • 21

Stormy weather

by Tim Pfaﬀ

EMAIL NEWSLETTER

ne of the things you can’t help noticing about the Metropolitan Opera’s highly accomplished 2012 production of Thomas Ades’ The Tempest, recently released on DVD (DG), is what a monstrously difficult piece the gay composer’s opera is. Since its premiere at Covent Garden in 2004, it’s rightly been acknowledged as one of the handful of undeniably great operas of our young century. But given how manifestly hard work it is for everyone, not least the audience, you wonder what kind of long-term future it has in a culture that increasingly wants things bite-sized and easily digestible. For the record, the Met threw its considerable weight and seemingly endless resources at the Robert Lepage production – clearly on the books well before the director’s gargantuan flop of a Wagner Ring burned holes through the company’s budget and the goodwill of Wagner-lovers everywhere – and scored an improbable box-office hit with it. It would be an insult to the work to say that only the composer could conduct it, but having Ades in the pit was clearly one key to that success. By any reckoning the music is tough-going, and Ades doesn’t grease the skids with his densely expository first act. The only thing in the ballpark of entertainment in it is the stratospheric music Ades has composed for Ariel, much of which unfolds on the nosebleed side of Joan Sutherland’s top notes and with the intensity of Lulu. Surely Ades, a practical and practicing musician, must have known that the future of his opera would depend in part on the availability of sopranos who so much as have the notes. It’s not until the second act when Shakespeare’s music finds its lyrical equivalent in Ades’, but it’s worth the wait, and the payoff is considerable. You may not leave for intermission humming the Ferdinand-Miranda duet, but the music is transporting – and Lepage’s stage picture of the couple walking off into the stormbecalmed sea is bewitching. It’s not all that smooth-sailing. In his own version of the most widespread, self-referential, and bankrupt directorial conceit of our time, Lepage sets the action in a Baroquestyle opera house. There’s a bit of payoff in the final act, which takes place backstage – at once distancing and genuinely “behind” the story. But except for striking tableaux from time to time, the concept does little but add another layer of diffi-

Lavender Tube

From page 20

the bathroom, sleeps and eats. We’re not sure the series answers the question of how and why someone becomes 600 lbs., but if it does nothing else, it will send you to the gym and away from those fries or cake. For over 20 years, Dick Wolf ran the NBC Law & Order franchise like a well-oiled machine. Then it lost its luster. The only remaining show in the once four-show franchise is L&O: Special Victims Unit, now in its 15th season. That series is still strong, and Emmy-winning star Mariska Hargitay is arguably doing her best work ever this season. Wolf started another series in 2012, Chicago Fire, which we tried to ignore but couldn’t, because one of the main characters was Leslie Shay, Leslie the lesbian, played by Lauren German. Shay has such woman troubles she makes every character in The L Word look emotionally healthy. Her last girlfriend at season’s

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culty to the audience’s understanding of the piece. The Met’s cast is nothing short of astonishing. Audry Luna, the Ariel, gets top billing on the DVD box, and by the time the opera has run its course, it’s clear why. She knocks off the coloratura as if it’s fun and matches it with a physical performance that puts Chinese acrobatics to shame. None of that would be as impressive did she not, in the final act, descend onto and below the “stage” and sing, tenderly, the music in a more womanly range that makes the bridge to the reconciliation at the drama’s end. Two carryovers from the London premiere – Simon Keenlyside as Prospero and Toby Spence as Antonio – also make their daunting music sound lived-in and affecting. Keenlyside crowns a career as one of the finest singing actors of our time with this towering role, and he brings such depth to it that both you and he can overlook the fact that Maori-ish tattooing of his bare torso draws a disproportionate amount of attention to his right nipple. Isabel Leonard and Alek Shrader are similarly natural, and heart-breaking, as Miranda and Ferdinand, and they sing to each other as if this were Puccini. And it helps that they’re a lit-

erally beautiful couple. Where has the boyishly handsome, smooth-voiced Shrader been hiding until now? There are homoerotic overtones – or is it just drunken conviviality? – in the capers of Stefano and Trinculo, and Kevin Burdette and countertenor Iestyn Davies act the pants off the buffo roles. Only Alan Oke in the critical role of the “monster” Caliban disappoints, barking a role that is this opera’s counterpart of Mime in the Ring. The gruffness might have gone unnoticed had Ian Bostridge not been so vivid and otherworldly in the EMI recording of the Covent Garden revival. Ades’ view of his own work seems to have changed little since its premiere, but his conducting of it has a depth and flow only time could have achieved. He looks none-too-comfortable in the pit, but the responses he draws from the top-flight Met Orchestra and Chorus seem to drive him as much as he does them. Because the visual components – and, on the DVD, the English subtitles – do so much to clarify this densely composed opera on a famously mystifying play, this new DVD is as essential as that EMI audio-only recording. Who knows when a Tempest will blow through here again?t

end trashed her apartment and stole not just her stuff, but her roommates’ stuff. Shay was so devastated she considered suicide, but was saved by her straight girlfriend Gabriela Dawson (Monica Raymund). Over the past few weeks of Chicago Fire, a storyline was evolving with some Chicago PD detectives, notably Gabriela’s detective brother, Antonio (Jon Seda), who will be starring in the new spinoff Chicago PD. The show debuts Jan. 8 in tandem with the return of Chicago Fire. There’s the potential for gay, there will be crossover with both SVU and Chicago Fire, and look at that: Dick Wolf has another franchise. The CW is touting The Vampire Diaries’ return as well as the show’s 100th episode on Jan. 23. Gay show creator Kevin Williamson has big plans for the new season. Also back is the spin-off The Originals, which got a lot stronger at the end of the first season and returns Jan. 14. Another of Williamson’s shows also returns to Fox on Jan. 19. Full of homoerotic drama, we weren’t sure

The Following could sustain its darkness and intensity over a full season. But it did and then some. Season 2 is bound to be extraordinary. First Lady Michelle Obama is a devotee of Downton Abbey, and asked the producers to see the new season in advance, a perk of being First Lady. For the rest of us, the show returns to PBS Masterpiece Theater on Jan. 5. Teen Wolf returns to MTV on Jan. 6, while the lesbian-friendly Pretty Little Liars and spin-off Ravenswood return Jan. 7 to ABC Family. Edgy, edgier, edgiest. Other shows with queer appeal coming back are SyFy’s Lost Girl and Bitten on Jan. 13, while Arrow on the CW and Suburgatory on ABC return Jan. 15. The new year is starting off strong and gay. We hope it sustains past January. But we’ll take Looking for now. So because you never know what’s going to show up on the small screen, how gay it might be, and if it’s set in your own city, you really must stay tuned.t

<< DVD

22 • Bay area reporter • January 2-8, 2014

Welsh worthies by David Lamble

n the rare queer kitchen-sink comedy/drama Dream On, director Lloyd Eyre-Morgan introduces us to two unlikely teen-boy lovers. The depressed Paul, already displaying the bad posture of an old man, and the flirty, hard-drinking South London bad boy George meet in the summer of 1987 at a dilapidated summer camp just off Trecco Bay, Wales. Maggie Thatcher has just aced her third term as PM as the work-

ing lads confess their dreams. The bashful Paul, whose outfit of rubber boots, short pants and an old sweater reeking of mothballs makes him appear more like an aging Welsh fisherman than a recent high school grad, sketches a life plan that’s downright sad. “I just finished school. My mum says I could get a job at the local post office.” “Dream on.” “What is it you want to do?” “I’m going to open my own beach bar, I reckon in Australia.”

“Wow! I’ve always wanted to travel the world, mate. It’s just if I ever tried to leave home, my mum would probably try and nail me to the gate.” The set-up’s not promising. Paul’s practically married to his sharptongued, clingy mum, and George puts way too much faith in following the example of his abusive drunk of a dad. But the fine cast allows you to hope, at least for a moment, that the boys just might have a future together. Director Eyre-Morgan appears to have strived mightily to

retain the integrity of his stage play, complete with its tragic climax. The handsome, boyish leads, Bradley Cross and Joe Gosling, have a weird but fetching chemistry that gets you rooting for the best while fearing the worst. The Welsh scenery is lovely, the boys’ accents thick (you may wish it were subtitled for the British dialect-impaired), but all in all it’s a pretty engaging minor gay treasure. Bonuses: Original play footage; deleted scene; theatrical trailer (TLA).t

Fine art, 2014

From page 13

OMCA Record Store strolls down memory lane recalling the once lost, nearly forgotten, lately resurging pleasure of listening to vinyl recordings. Thousands of LPs will be offered up like ancient artifacts for visitors to touch, read, listen to and marvel at, while Giant Robot showcases the creative souls associated with the groundbreaking former punk magazine of the same name that hawked Asian and AsianAmerican pop/alternative culture and the edgy, multi-platform scene they spawned. (April 19-July 27); Fertile Ground: Defining California Moments from Kahlo to Kilgallen looks at how artists in the Golden State have influenced and been influenced by trends, cultures and the art world at large, beginning in the 1930s and moving through the present. Clyfford Still, David Park, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Barry McGee, Diego Rivera, Wayne Thiebaud, Manuel Neri, Mark Rothko and Chris Johanson are among those featured. (Sept. 20Jan. 25, 2015) Chinese Cultural Center Between Modern and Contemporary: Fong Chung-ray After a long career as a pioneering and respected abstract painter in Taiwan, the Bay Area-based Fong, now in his 80s, incorporates calligraphy, acrylics and found materials to forge an unusual visual language. (Feb. 15- May 31)

Julius Shulman, J. Paul Getty Trust

Kaufmann House designed by Richard Neutra (Palm Springs, CA) (1947), gelatin silver print by Julius Shulman; part of Designing Home: Jews and Mid-Century Modern, coming to the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco. Ruth Simboa, courtesy of Athi-Patra Ruga and WHATIFTHEWORLD/GALLERY

The Future White Women of Azania (2012) by Athi-Patra Ruga; performed as part of Performa Obscura in collaboration with Mikhael Subotzky; commissioned for the exhibition Making Way, Grahamstown, South Africa; part of Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa, coming to YBCA.

Contemporary Jewish Museum Arthur Szyk and the Art of the Haggadah highlights the work of Szyk, a Polish Jew whose Haggadah, created in 1940, was a visual commentary on the parallels between the exo-

dus story and the Nazi persecution of the Jews. (Feb. 13-June 29); Designing Home: Jews and the MidCentury Modern may be the first exhibition to explore the role played by Jewish architects, art patrons and design professionals in shaping the modern aesthetic of the American home during the mid-20th century. Vintage furnishings, textiles, assorted ceramics and dinnerware will be on view. (April 24- Oct. 6); Arnold Newman: Masterclass celebrates one of the most prolific, innovative and influential portrait photographers of the 20th century with his portraits of the famous – Marilyn Monroe, Picasso, Chagall, JFK – as well as 200 vintage black & white pictures, examples of early street photography and architectural studies. (Oct. 23-Feb. 1, 2015) MoAD Crosscurrents: Africa and Black Diasporas in Dialogue, 196080 examines the myriad ways in which Black Liberation movements have expressed themselves through music, visual art, documentary photographs, poetry and film, with a spotlight on the Bay Area, home to revolutionary thought, the Black Panther party and student activism. (through April 13) Walt Disney Museum Magic, Color, Flair: The World of Mary Blair Known for her eye-catching compositions, gorgeous color palette and modernist style, Blair’s distinctive contributions endure in the artistry of animated classics such as Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, as well as themepark attractions. Over 200 original artworks, including rarely seen conceptual pieces done in gouache and watercolor, trace the Disney designer/art director’s development and her later work as a freelance commercial illustrator. (Mar. 13-Sept. 7) Legion of Honor Matisse and the Artist Book It wasn’t until the age of

60 that Matisse began to do original illustrations for livres d’artiste. But by the time of his death a quarter of a century later, he had completed 14 fully illustrated volumes, many of which are considered masterpieces. Among the seven rare books on view are Poesies and Pasiphae. (Jan. 11-Oct. 12); The main thrust of Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art, an exhibition of 70 Impressionist and PostImpressionist seascapes, landscapes, interiors and portraits on loan from one of Washington, D.C.’s most revered museums, is the process of painting in plein air that inspired practitioners such as Monet, Degas, Renoir, Sisley and Pissarro. Renoir’s voluptuous young women, and his portrait of Monet, depictions of the artists’ families, self-portraits by Gauguin and Vuillard, dancers and racehorses by Degas, and Cezanne still lifes round out the show. (Mar. 29-Aug. 3) de Young Museum The Bay Bridge: A Work in Progress, 193336 The building of the new Eastern span launched a spate of photography shows. The latest one, a treat for engineering buffs, features a group of pictures by Peter Stackpole documenting the bridge’s original construction during the 1930s. (Feb. 1-June 8); Modern Nature: Georgia O’Keeffe and Lake George explores work produced by the artist, from 1918 until the early 1930s, when she lived part of the year at Alfred Stieglitz’s family estate in the Adirondacks. It was during this period she developed her signature style. (Feb.15- May 11); Bouquets to Art, now in its 30th year, is simultaneously one of the most fun and beautiful events of the year, a spectacular display where floral designers strut their imaginative interpretations of artworks from the museum’s permanent collection. (Mar. 1823); Modernism from the National Gallery of Art: The Robert & Jane Meyerhoff Collection delivers an overview of postwar masterworks by the likes of Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, Barnett

Newman and the other usual suspects. (June 7-Oct. 12) Cantor Arts Center Flesh and Metal: Body and Machine in Early 20th-Century Art Constructivism, Purism and Precisionism perceived beauty in machines, while the Dadaists and Surrealists worshipped at the altar of chance, accident and dreams. In this exhibition, European and American artists attempt to reconcile these schools of thought in paintings, sculptures, drawings, photos and illustrated books from SFMOMA’s collections. (through March 16); Her Story: Prints by Elizabeth Murray, 1986-2006 “The subconscious is what you paint about,” observed Murray, a painter and draftsman whose emotionally charged prints, produced at Universal Limited Art Editions, are shown together as a group for the first time, along with a trio of paintings. (Jan. 22-Mar. 30); Carleton Watkins: The Stanford Albums commemorates the 150th Anniversary of the Yosemite Act with a major exhibition of Watkins’s mammoth images of Yosemite Valley, the Pacific Coast and the Columbia River and Oregon. (April 23-Aug. 17); Robert Frank in America, an insightful show of 125 photographs, sheds light on this seminal photographer’s extensive work from the 1950s and the making of his 1958 book, The Americans. (Sept. 10-Jan. 4) San Jose Museum of Art David Levinthal Admired by iconic pictorial fabulist Cindy Sherman, Levinthal made his reputation early, sparking controversy in photographs of his disquieting tableaux created with kids’ toys and miniature dioramas. For these artificial fictions, Levinthal staged lurid, sometimes menacing scenes with a menagerie of Barbie dolls, star athletes, pornographic imagery, action figures and political targets ripe for satire. He got his start down this treacherous road, in 1971, with fellow Yalie and “bad influence” Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury) when the pair devised WWII vignettes using toy figurines. (May 8- Nov. 30)t

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

January 2-8, 2014 • Bay area reporter • 23

Road Show

From page 13

As with the evolution of the musical itself, through four incarnations and evolving titles, the manner in which to acknowledge Addison Mizner’s closeted homosexuality took several turns before Sondheim and Weidman arrived at a solution that, in a way, turned the tables on brother Wilson’s raging heterosexuality. The score’s main romantic ballad, “The Best Thing That Has Ever Happened,” went from Wilson singing about a woman when the show was titled Bounce to Addison singing about another man in Road Show. “Now it feels as if it was written just for Addison and Hollis, and it’s only a curiosity that it had actually been written for the other situation,” Weidman said. But before delving further into how the musical’s authors turned the dilemma of Addison’s homosexuality into an advantage, the Brothers Mizner may need further introduction. They were born in the 1870s to one of the most prominent families of Benicia (where the Benicia Historical Museum currently has an exhibit exploring the Mizner story), and from this Bay Area hamlet, Addison and Wilson developed resumes together and apart of astounding proportions that included digging at the earth during the Alaska gold rush, writing for Broadway and Hollywood, managing a champion prizefighter, designing mansions for millionaires in Palm Beach, and helping introduce the Florida land boom of the 1920s before bringing on its crash a few years later. The brothers’ bond could be loving or adversarial or enabling, but finally, it was tragic. Long before Sondheim and Weidman started their long journey to Road Show, Sondheim first tried to option a biography about the Mizners in the 1950s, only to find that producer David Merrick had

Kent Taylor

Rudy Guerrero, left, and Bill Fahrner play brothers Wilson and Addison Mizner, whose picaresque lives and complicated relationship are told in Theatre Rhino’s production of the Stephen SondheimJohn Weidman musical Road Show.

High-society architect Addison Mizner was a closeted homosexual of the 1920s who gained a lover in Road Show in the musical’s final iteration.

sewn up the rights for an Irving Berlin musical that never happened. After working together on Pacific Overtures and Assassins, Sondheim suggested the Mizner story to Weidman as the source of a third musical collaboration on an American theme. “I was interested in the relationship between the brothers independently of their historical period,” Weidman said, “but I was particularly interested in them as emblematic of a particular period in American history, a particular kind of American behavior of irresponsibility, self-indulgence, and leaving behind the messes you’ve made. That really characterized the way Wilson made his way through life, and while Addison may have had more admirable ambitions, his brother’s ambitions trumped Addison’s in the end.” Wise Guys was the first title of the

that the story needed a female character to represent the women in Wilson’s life, while remaining silent on Addison’s sexuality. The critical reaction to Bounce was poor, but more importantly, Sondheim and Weidman felt the story had lost its way. The script hit the desk of Oskar Eustis, artistic director of New York’s Public Theater, who had ideas for another overhaul and a new director. John Doyle, who had devised stripped-down revivals of Company and Sweeney Todd with actors also serving as musicians, proposed a streamlined, intermissionless revision that finally gave open expression to Addison’s sexuality. “Addison certainly never publicly acknowledged his homosexuality,” Weidman said of the famed architect, “but he had a friend in Florida who wrote about him after his death and described his gay life in Palm Beach as kind of melancholy. There was no way for him to have an open

musical, which had a workshop run in 1999 under the estimable Sam Mendes’ direction. But the creators knew it was a misfire, and found their next director in Hal Prince, who had worked with Sondheim so brilliantly on Company, Sweeney Todd, Follies, and the aforementioned Pacific Overtures. Briefly known as Gold, the show opened a commercial run as Bounce in Chicago in 2003 before moving to the Kennedy Center. “The opening number of the show in Chicago and Washington was ‘Bounce,’ a song about American resilience,” Weidman said, “and that opening number became ‘Waste’ in Road Show, and it’s a more melancholy view of how people’s potential can be undermined by a certain kind of opportunistic ambition.” With Bounce, Hal Prince convinced Weidman and Sondheim

relationship, but we created one for him. Our ambition was not to highlight the fact that he was gay, but to indicate that he finally was able to be separate from his brother and create a life of his own and a connection to another person. The most dramatic way we could represent that was by showing him with a gay lover. Then Wilson comes down to Florida and destroys not only Addison’s professional life, but undermines his personal life as well.” Road Show played its limited run at the Public Theater in 2008, and while the critics did not warm to it, Sondheim and Weidman felt their work on the show was finished. “We finally felt we had gotten it right,” Weidman said, “and by right, I mean, right for us.”t Road Show will run at the Eureka Theatre through Jan. 19. Tickets are $15-$30. Call (800) 838-3006 or go to therhino.org.

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PERSONALS Vol. 44 • No. 01 • January 2-8, 2014

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Twin Peaks celebrates historic status by Michael Flanagan

henever I see the iconic sign for the Twin Peaks Tavern with San Francisco’s Twin Peaks and fog depicted on it, I am reminded of the ad campaign for Blackglama: ‘What becomes a legend most?’ Twin Peaks is indeed legendary as the first bar to install floor-to-ceiling windows, replacing the covered windows when it was purchased in 1972 by Mary Ellen Cunha and Peggy Foster. And ‘the girls’ (as they came to be known) were not opening up the bar to the world to make a statement – they simply wanted to be able to watch the world go by on the corner of 17th and Market. They did so much more. On January 15, 2013, the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to give the bar landmark status. Making this kind of simple change which accidentally changed so much tells says a lot about the Peggy, who

Twin Peaks owner/ managers George Roehm and Jeffrey Green.

Michael Flanagan

died in 2008, Mary Ellen, and the bar they have left us. Though they were running a business, they also were in the business of building a community at Twin Peaks. When the current owners Jeffrey Green and George

Comfort me, food

Roehm took over the bar in 2003, they maintained these traditions. One tradition was to treat employees well so that they would stay with the bar for a long time. Jeff had See page 2 >>

Hearty cuisine for the New Year by Sean Timberlake

he social swirl of the holidays has passed. New Year’s Eve has come and gone, a memory washed away in a storm surge of champagne bubbles. More than a month of cocktails and canapés has left you in a hedonic haze. But before you kick off that healthy new year thing, treat yourself to a little weekend comfort to recalibrate the senses. You can start the juice cleanse on Monday. San Francisco has always been a brunchy town, with people queuing up for their weekly dose of omelets and mimosas. Here’s a few favorite spots that go above and beyond the obvious eggs and pancakes, and puts their particular stamp on comfort food.

Heart of the City Breakfast at Plow

Anchor tenant to the newly gentrified stretch of Divisadero that’s looking a lot like Valencia Street circa 1999, Nopa’s brunch See page 3 >>

Follow America’s oldest and best-read LGBT newspaper and the undisputed newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area LGBT community at

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2 • Bay area reporter • January 2-8, 2014

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

Twin Peaks

From page 1

been working as a bartender at Twin Peaks since 1989 and George since 1990 when they took over the bar. Regarding the long tenure of employees at the bar, Jeff remarked, “There is a sense of family in the bar,” and this sense of family is enhanced by the owners, who have two holiday parties annually to celebrate their community; one for employees and one for the bar patrons. When I asked what they feel distinguishes Twin Peaks from other bars in the neighborhood Jeff replied, “Ours is more of a conversation bar. We keep the music to a decent level.” Though the neighborhood has changed much since they took over, the change Jeff notices most is a positive one. “The bar is more diverse now, and we have a good mix of gay and straight.” It’s clear that they have found their niche. This positive tone is noticable on frequent visits. One patron said that he had been meeting friends there weekly for years. Asked whether he had noticed this phenomenon, Green

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 © 2014, Bay Area Reporter, a division of BAR Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Georg Lester

The view from the intimate balcony at Twin Peaks.

commented that there were One of the things that 1972, the owners wanted the bar some patrons who met with one distinguish Twin Peaks from any to be the gay answer to Henry another there “on almost a daily other bar in the Castro is the Africa’s and other fern bars of basis.” And they the day. The have a set of stained glass game players lamps, paintings who come to and photos on the bar for card the walls of the games as well, bar give it that both canasta same feel to this and cribbage. day. It’s no But when accident that I asked what there is a sense they felt was of community the outstanding at Twin Peaks. feature of the The community bar, Green and events that they Roehm answered sponsor there in unison, “the make it clear back bar.” An that there is a astounding and spirit in the bar beautiful piece that connects of Art Nouveau them with the woodwork, world. This goes ‘the girls’ had back in time moved it from a to the previous banquet room in owners. Mary the Mission. Ellen and A n o t h e r Peggy’s friend feature which Charlotte goes back to the Coleman, who opening of the at the time bar is the framed owned the text which says Mint, among ‘No Cross No other bars, Crown’ mounted Georg Lester started an event A trio of drag Twin Peaks fans outside the historic bar. between the called The windows facing Great Tricycle Castro Street. Race in 1972. The quote is It was also the year Twin Peaks décor. Again, this is something originally from a tract by William “went gay” and became a major that goes back to the previous Penn. But in the context of the stop in the event. Participants owners. When the bar opened in LGBT world and Twin Peaks rode tricycles from bar to bar in outlandish drag. Much drinking and revelry was associated with the event, which lasted until the early 1990s and raised money for charities from Guide Dogs for the Blind to Project Open Hand and the AIDS Emergency fund in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. When I visited the bar, there was a flyer up for the San Francisco Fire Fighters Toy Program, an annual holiday event. Other recent charity events include fundraisers for Lighthouse for the Blind and a fundraiser for hurricane relief in Haiti. The bar participates in the AIDS Walk annually. Green is rightfully proud of participation in this event. “We do really well for AIDS Walk,” he said. “We raised $34,000 last year.” Clearly the torch for community spirit has been passed from the past owners and continues to the current day. Twin Peaks patrons on a Saturday night.

Tavern, it clearly means that without struggle and suffering there is no victory. Another prominent feature of the bar is the small balcony, which allows you to sit with your drink and survey the bar. “It’s a great first date spot,” Roehm said. The décor of the bar changes to accommodate the holiday season as well. There is a collection of nutcrackers collected by Roehm and his partner Fred, “which gets bigger every year,” Roehm added. Over the years the nutcrackers have been named after patrons and friends of the bar they resemble, including a recent nutcracker named after the Empress Marlena. Because of the prominent spot the bar maintains on the corner of Castro and 17th, and its long history, it continues to accumulate renown as time goes on. The bar was featured in the film Milk and both Roehm and Green appeared in the movie, George serving Sean Penn a drink and both bartenders appearing in the scene where the Coors beer boycott was featured. During filming, the bar became something of a home for some of the cast and crew: Gus Van Sant and Dustin Lance Black both came into the bar repeatedly. The bar is often featured by the press when looking for comments for LGBT-related events. In preparing for this article, I came across an article from the Los Angeles Times in which George Roehm was quoted regarding President Obama’s inclusion of gays and lesbians in the inaugural address last year. “I was very proud,” was George’s response when I asked what it was like to be quoted in the national press. But beside the historic nature of the bar, there is something to be said for simply sitting at the epicenter of gay San Francisco. “It’s a great place to watch the world go by,” said Green. He added that whenever anything is going on in the Castro, it’s a prime location. And in a world where there is so much change, it’s nice to have an anchor. Asked for his plans for the future, Green said, “We’ll be here for a long time to come.”t The San Francisco Planning Department’s work to designate the Twin Peaks Tavern a landmark won the Governor’s 2013 Historic Preservation Award from the California Office of Historic Preservation on Nov. 21, 2013. The report can be read at www.sf-planning. org/ftp/files/Preservation/ landmarks_designation/ Adopted_TwinPeaksLM_Report.

Georg Lester

t <<

Read more online at www.ebar.com

Comfort Food

From page 1

menu takes aim at the classics, and gives each a modern twist. Tangy goat cheese gives bread pudding a savory note, complemented with grapes, tarragon and cress. Your basic scramble goes upscale with maitake mushrooms, leeks and parmesan. Even the humble bagel gets a facelift with smoked trout, dill farmer’s cheese and crisp radish. Don’t miss the braised pork; Nopa has a way with the hog. They also have a way with the bottle; the brunch cocktails center on bright flavors and complex bitters, all the better for digestion, and to settle a weary stomach. Nopa, 560 Divisadero Street. 864-8643. www.nopasf.com 6pm1am all week; brunch Saturday and Sunday 11am-2:30pm.

Bayou by the Bay

Over the years, Just For You Café’s menu has expanded from its New Orleans roots, with Mexican fare, Northern California classic Hangtown Fry and even Filipino sausage longanisa as a

powdered sugar, perfect paired up with a mug of diner-grade coffee. Creole crab cakes and Louisiana hot links also tip the hat to Crescent City. The menu is both eclectic and cheeky, with quirky clip-art insets with helpful info. “What’s grits?” ponders a mid-century housewife. “It’s that pasty white stuff … like you had in prison.” The crowd is as mixed as the menu; with the local branch of the Hell’s Angels just around the corner, you never know who you’ll sidle up next to at the communal table. Just for You Café, 732 22nd Street. 647-3033. www.justforyoucafe. com Monday-Friday 7:30am-3pm; Saturday and Sunday 8am-3pm.

Modern Rustic

There’s something about the soft colors and minimalistic interior of Plow that’s reminiscent of the pages of Kinfolk magazine: austere yet homey. That aesthetic is reflected

January 2-8, 2014 • Bay Area Reporter • 3

A gathering at Nopa

come with your dish. Baked goods like coffee cake and scones are also a highlight. If you’re really hungry, go whole hog with The Plow; two eggs, choice of protein, two lemon ricotta pancakes and crispy potatoes, or the Chinese breakfast, a rice bowl with braised pork, bok choy and two eggs. This is a spot you’ll need to get to early; waits can be long, and the good stuff sells out early. Plow, 1299 18th Street. 821-7569. www.eatatplow.com TuesdayFriday 7 am-2 pm; Saturday and Sunday 8am-2pm.

Mexican Comfort

If you’re more in the mood for comfort food like your abuelita made, head deep into the Mission to San Jalisco. On a fairly nondescript corner, far from the crowds, San Jalisco is that holy grail of a San

Just For You Café

side option, but you’d be missing out if you didn’t nab an order of their signature beignets. These fluffy puffs of fried dough come screaming hot, generously dusted in

in the food, as well. Fluffy lemon ricotta pancakes are light as clouds, yet not insubstantial. The crispy potatoes are a big draw, so be sure to order some on the side, if they don’t

It ain’t pretty, but it’s tasty: lunch at San Jalisco

The festive décor at San Jalisco

Francisco restaurant, serving a quality brunch at a good price, and no wait. Chilaquiles are arguably, and rightly, the most popular dish here, tortilla chips simmered in salsa and mixed with scrambled eggs. Indecisive? Try the huevos divorciados, two fried eggs with chile verde and chile colorado.

Branch out and try some of their other specialties, like the hearty and warming posole, and when it’s on the menu be sure to get the birria— goat stew. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it; you’ll be a convert. San Jalisco, 901 South Van Ness Avenue. 648-8383. www.losjarritos. com Daily 8am-10pm. t

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

4 • Bay Area Reporter • January 2-8, 2014

Curtain calls & Community by Donna Sachet

y a weird trick of the calendar, we haven’t the timely ability to wish our readers either a Merry Christmas or a Happy New Year, but by another weird trick of journalism… we just did! We hope your holiday season was as full of fulfilling events as ours and that you spent your special days with those you love with wonderful memories of 2013. Since our last column, we’ve had the opportunity to see what all the fuss is about as we attended the touring production of The Book of Mormon at the Orpheum Theatre. In the splendid company of Will Whitaker, Sunday’s a Drag producer Michael Pagan, and the Reigning Emperor Drew Cutler, we took in the Broadway sensation and rose to our feet in appreciation. If we think of things for which we are grateful at the end of each year, we are certainly grateful for the great variety of entertainment available to us

every night of the week, whether brought to us by Shorenstein/ Hayes Theatre Group or New Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco Ballet or Man Dance, American Conservatory Theatre or Golden Girls at the Victoria Theatre, we have a chance to attend it all! On a smaller scale, we spent a lovely preChristmas evening at Feinstein’s at the Nikko with Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, again demonstrating the variety of entertainment all around us. Think of those magical nights at Martuni’s, special nights with the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation, or recent musical evenings at Paina Lounge in the Fillmore District. It isn’t hard to proceed in our thinking to boisterous Musical Mondays at The Edge, shows at Midnight Sun and Toad Hall, and beer busts at 440 or The Eagle. Entertainment comes in many forms and our gay bars continue to provide lots of stimulation.

Closer to home, when we reveled in the music and entertainment of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus at the Castro Theatre on Christmas Eve, we were reminded of the very special place our LGBT community holds within the world of entertainment and how groups like this chorus were born from our struggles and continue to champion our causes. Your attendance and financial support makes a tremendous difference in their continued success. And as we attended the much anticipated holiday party at the home of Jerome Goldstein and Tommy Taylor, we reflected on the many friends who have opened their homes to private events, fundraisers, and community occasions to many to list here. Without these heartfelt individual efforts, many causes would never gain traction with our community and many ideas would never see reality. As we witnessed the unveiling of the first of the sidewalk plaques in the Castro Rainbow Honor Walk, in the company of Supervisor Scott Wiener, Human

Steven Underhill

Donna Sachet at the annual Rainbow World Fund Tree of Hope at City Hall.

Steven Underhill

Donna snags the best arm candy! Here en route to a Folsom Street Fair week event.

Rights Campaign’s Don Kiser and Shane Martin, Isak Lindenauer, David Perry, Al Baum, and Colton Windsor, we thought of how we got to where we are today and how lucky we truly are. Pioneers in the gay civil rights movement would be amazed at the progress we’ve made, while those currently leading are impatient with incomplete results. Never underestimate the importance of our continued efforts to assure complete equal rights for the LGBT Community and our role in that battle! And as the holiday season wound down for us, we thought about how easy it would be to wind down personally. Haven’t we come so far? Aren’t there others doing more important work? Aren’t the biggest battles behind us? We say without reservation that our work is far from done!

Even as legal battles are won, hearts and minds continue to be locked against us. Even as specific inequities are corrected, others present themselves. Simply reach out to the many active LGBT organizations in the City to see if our work is done. You’ll find small groups struggling for existence, yet providing vital services. You’ll find HIV/AIDS service organizations fighting against fatigue. You’ll find successful charities confronted with donors overwhelmed with conflicting concerns. Thank you to those of you who continue to be engaged in the ongoing struggle and the dayto-day celebration that is the LGBT community. And a special thank you to those of you who have become loyal readers. We love being here and we love being read. All the best in 2014!t

Steven Underhill

Thespian Sachet (right) guest-stars at the annual Golden Girls shows at the Victoria Theatre.

<< On the Tab

6 • Bay area reporter • January 2-8, 2014

Bf eON THE- TA 014 January 2 8, 2

★

Pan Dulce @ The Café

Some Thing

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

Mica Sigourney and pals’ weekly offbeat drag performance night. 10pm-2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Thursday Night Live @ SF Eagle

Sat 4

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

Underwear Party @ Powerhouse Strip down to your skivvies at the weekly cruisy SoMa bar night. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhouse-sf.com

VIP @ Club 21, Oakland Hip Hop, Top 40, and sexy Latin music; gogo dancers, appetizers, and special guest DJs. No cover before 11pm and just $5 after all night. Dancing 9pm-3am. Happy hour 4pm-8:30pm 2111 Franklin St. (510) 268-9425. www.club21oakland.com

Thu 2

Natasha Muse hosts Comedy Thursdays

Fri 3 Bad Girl Cocktail Hour @ The Lexington Club

Sat 4

Peaches Christ’s Birthday Party

Jose Guzman-Colon

esolutionary fun awaits as the new year gets its groove on. Funk concerts, a prominent drag queen’s birthday party, and DJ-tastic dance nights will help you leave 2013 in a blur.

Thu 2 Brian McKnight @ Yoshi's Multi-award-winning R&B/soul singer, composer and producer performers with his band. $50-$60. 8pm & 10pm. Thru Jan. 5 (at 7pm & 9pm). 1330 Fillmore St. 6555600. www.yoshis.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

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 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

Jukebox @ Beatbox 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

Magic Parlor @ Chancellor Hotel Whimsical Belle Epoque-style sketch and magic show that also includes historical San Francisco stories; hosted by Walt Anthony; optional pre-show light dinner and desserts. $40. Thu-Sat 8pm. 433 Powell St. www.SFMagicParlor.com

The Monster Show @ The Edge

Every Friday night, bad girls can get $1 dollar margaritas between 9pm and 10pm. 3464 19th St. between Mission and Valencia. 8632052. www.lexingtonclub.com

Fedorable @ El Rio Free weekly queer dance party, with gogos, prizes, old groovy tunes, cheap cocktails. 9pm-2am. 3158 Mission St. 2823325. www.elriosf.com

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

Josh Klipp and The Klipptones @ Palace Hotel

Cookie Dough’s weekly drag show with gogo guys and hilarous fun. $5. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

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

Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences

Latin Explosion @ Club 21, Oakland

Themed event nights at the fascinating nature museum, with DJed dancing, cocktails, ﬁsh, frogs, food and fun. $10$12. 6pm-10pm, 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

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

Picante @ Esta Noche

Fri 3

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

Pharoah Sanders Quartet @ Yoshi’s Oakland The Grammy Award-winning legendary jazz saxophonist performs with his band. $26-$35. 8pm & 10pm. Jan. 4, 7:30 & 10pm. Jan. 5, 7pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakland. (510) 2389200. www.yoshis.com

Beer Bust @ Hole in the Wall Saloon

Point Break Live @ 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. www.BootieSF.com www.DNAlounge.com

Dude! The hilarious live staged version of the surf action thriller ﬁlm that starred Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze is, like, totally back! See ﬂying surfers hoisted midair, one lucky audience member recruited to perform the lead role of Johnny Utah with script in hand, and a gnarly fun time to be had by all. $25-$35 ($615 for VIP food, drinks and souvenirs for six). 7:30pm and 11pm. Also Dec. 6 and Jan. 3. 375 11th St. 626-1409. www.dnalounge.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

Happy Friday at the Midnight Sun Georg Lester

Beer only $8 until you bust. 4pm-8pm. 1369 Folsom St. 431-4695. www.hitws.com

Bootie SF @ DNA Lounge

La Bota Loca @ Club 21, Oakland Xmas party with Pancho Claus, plus DJed tunes, gogo hotties, drag shows, drink specials, all at Oakland’s premiere Latin nightclub and weekly cowboy night. $10$15. Dancing 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St. (510) 268-9425. www.club21oakland.com

Club Rimshot @ Bench and Bar, Oakland Weekly hip hop and R&B night. $8-$15. 9pm to 4am. 510 17th St. www.bench-and-bar.com

Doll House @ Midnight Sun Emperor Drew Cutler and Empress Patty McGroin’s new monthly (ﬁrst Saturdays) fundraiser beer bust includes rafﬂe prizes, drag acts and a $10 beer bust. 4pm-8pm. 4067 18th St. www.midnightsunsf.com

Go Bang @ The Stud DJs Michael Seraﬁni and Jeremy Rosebrook guest-spin at Sergio Fedasz and Steve Fabus’ monthly disco groovy dance night. $7 (free before 10pm). 399 9th St. at Harrison. www.gobangsf.com

Odyssey @ Public Works Severino and Robert Jeffrey headline a DJ-tastic dance night, with Robin Simmons. $10. 9:30pm-3:30am. 161 Erie St. www.odysseysf.com

Sex & Drag & Rock n Roll @ Midnight Sun Celebrate 2014’s Year of the Horse with the Charlie Horse drag crew performing: AnnaConda, MuthaChucka, U-Phoria, Dulce De Leche, Christina Msladybug Gilmore and others. 10:30pm. 4067 18th St. www.midnightsunsf.com

On the Tab>>

January 2-8, 2014 • Bay area reporter • 7

Peaches Christ’s Birthday Party @ Rebel

Mon 6

The towering local cinematic drag genius celebrates her 40th birthday partyoh,yeah, and Martini, too- with host Heklina, and performances by Honey Mahogany, Fauxnique, Exhibit Q, Peggy l’Eggs, Trixxie Carr, Raya Light, Sue Casa, cousin Wonderlette, Suppositori Spelling, D’arcy Drollinger and others. No cover. DJS Perv and Hugz Bunny. 10pm. 1760 Market St. at Octavia. www.peacheschrist.com

Sun 5 Beer Bust @ SF Eagle The classic leather bar’s most popular Sunday daytime event in town draws the menfolk. 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

Wed 8

Cock and Bull Mondays @ Hole in the Wall Saloon Specials on drinks made with Cock and Bull ginger ale (Jack and Cock, Russian Mule, and more). 8pm-closing. 1369 Folsom St. 431-4695. www.hitws.com

Kai Eckhardt Band @ Yoshi’s Oakland

Thu 9 Tom Wopat

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

Original modern jazz and R&B are performed by the talented ensemble. $15. 8pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakland. (510) 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

Karaoke @ The Lookout Paul K hosts the amateur singing night. 8pm-2am. 3600 16th St. at Market. www.lookoutsf.com

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

Young Dubliners

Monday Musicals @ The Edge

Queer Salsa @ Beatbox

Gym Class @ Hi Tops

The casts of local and visiting musical soften pop in to performs at the popular Castro bar’s musical theatre night. 7pm2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Weekly Latin partner dance night. 8pm1am. 314 11th St. www.beatboxsf.com

Red Hots Burlesque @ El Rio

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

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 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 7 13 Licks @ Q Bar Weekly women’s night at the stylish intimate bar. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Block Party @ Midnight Sun Weekly screenings of music videos, concert footage, interviews and more, of popular pop stars. 9pm-2am. 4067 18th St. 8614186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Bombshell Betty & Her Burlesqueteers @ Elbo Room 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

Ink & Metal @ Powerhouse Show off your tattoos and piercings at the weekly cruisy SoMa bar night. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhouse-sf.com

Naked Night @ Nob Hill Theatre

Women’s burlesque show performs each Wed & Fri. Karaoke follows. $5-$10. 7pm. 3158 Mission St. 282-3325. www.elriosf.com

Rookies Night @ Nob Hill Theatre Watch the newbies get nude, or compete yourself for a $200 prize. Sign-up 8pm, show 9pm. $200 includes refreshments. 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

Way Back @ Midnight Sun Weekly screenings of vintage music videos, and retro drink prices. 9pm-2am. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Young Dubliners @ Yoshi’s

Salsa dancing for LGBT folks and friends, with live merengue and cumbia bands; tapas and donations that support local causes. 2nd & 4th Sundays. 3pm-8pm. 3158 Mission St. 282-3325. www.elriosf.com

Sundance Saloon @ Space 550 The popular 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 Thursdays. 550 Barneveld Ave., and Tuesdays at Beatbox, $6. 6:30-11pm. 314 11th St. www.sundancesaloon.org

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room Donna Sachet hosts the weekly fabulous brunch and drag show. $45. 11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square. 395-8595. www.starlightroomsf.com

Pharoah Sanders Band

Tom Wopat @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko Recording artist, star of numerous Broadway musical hits (Annie Get Your Gun, Chicago, 42nd Street, Catch Me If You Can, City of Angels, Guys & Dolls), ﬁlms ( Django Unchained) and yes, The Dukes of Hazzard, performs his new cabaret show, “I’ve Got Your Number.” $35-$45. 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.ticketweb.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

Thu 9 Andy McKee @ Yoshi's Masterful acoustic guitar virtuoso performs pastoral compsitions and compelling covers. Janet Noguera opens. $31. 8pm. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Charlie Murphy @ Yoshi’s Oakland The stand-up comic performs his solo show, Acid Trip. $32. 8pm & 10pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakland. (510) 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

VIP @ Club 21, Oakland Hip-hop, Top 40, and sexy Latin music; gogo dancers, appetizers, and special guests. No cover before 11pm and just $5 afterward. Dancing 9pm-3am. Happy hour 4pm-8:30pm 2111 Franklin St. (510) 2689425. www.club21oakland.com

Want your nightlife event listed? Email events@ebar.com, at least two weeks before your event. Event photos welcome.

Thu 9

Tower of Power @ Yoshi’s Oakland The East Bay soul funk band performs classic hits. $35-$45. Jan 7-10 8pm & 10pm. Jan. 11, 7:30 & 9:30pm. Jan. 12, 7pm & 9pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakland. (510) 238-9200. 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

Wed 8 Bottoms Up Bingo @ Hi Tops

2 2

Cookie Dough’s weekly drag show with gogo guys. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Enjoy special ‘Dick the Halls’ post-Christmas fun; strip down to your skivvies at the weekly cruisy SoMa bar night. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhouse-sf.com

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

Play board games and win offbeat prizes at the popular new sports bar. 9pm. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

The Monster Show @ The Edge

Underwear Party @ Powerhouse

Torch @ Martuni’s

Fri 3

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

Celtic rock band performs. $19-$23. 8pm. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Strip down at the strip joint. $20 includes refreshments. 8pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Salsa Sundays @ El Rio

Pan Dulce @ The Café

Andy McKee

<< Leather

8 • Bay Area Reporter • January 2-8, 2014

Greased Lightning Spark up your sex life

by Scott Brogan

ebar.com

remember my first trip to IML (International Mr. Leather) in Chicago in 2000. My husband and I were socializing amidst the mass of leather men and women in the lobby of the Congress Hotel. On a couch nearby sat a group of guys. Nothing unusual. I wouldn’t have paid much attention except that suddenly one of them shook and sort-of jumped up a bit. Seconds later, another guy on the couch did the same thing. Laughter ensued. The scenario repeated itself on and off for the next few minutes. I then noticed that about ten feet away to my right was a small group of guys holding small remote control devices and laughing hysterically each time a guy on the couch would have a spasm. It wasn’t difficult to figure out that the two were obviously connected. Come to find out that the men had TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) Units that were remotely connected to the guys on the couch, either up their asses, around their cocks, or some other spot below the waist. Each electrical pulse caught them off guard and made them jump. It was fun to watch and was my introduction to what is usually called Electro Play or Erotic Electrostimulation. Electro Play is the fetish of, naturally, playing with electricity in a sensuous, erotic way. There are two main devices that accomplish this: The Violet Wand and the TENS Unit. The main difference between the two is that the Violet Wand is static electricity whereas the TENS Unit is an actual electrical current. Electro play is a fetish that is oftentimes misunderstood or simply overlooked. I recently went to Mr. S Leather (385 8th Street) to get more info on both devices. I had played around with both, but I wanted solid details. Their resident expert Josh “Cuddles” Runyon helped fit me with a few cock and ball attachments. He gave me a great demonstration of both units and clarified the ins and outs (so to speak) and the do’s and dont’s. If you want to get firsthand experience and figure out what’s right for you, he’s your man. There’s no question he can’t answer on the subject. The Violet Wand is a surface only device, using static electricity on the skin with a variety of glass attachments or one’s own body. It never goes under the skin or in an orifice. Unlike the TENS Unit, the Violet Wand can be hooked up to your partner’s body, making them the “conductor” – meaning that their body (usually their fingers) creates the static electricity. You can imagine the feeling one gets when fondled by electrified hands or the metal device they’re holding, like a pinwheel. The key here is that although I say “fondled,” the effect is nontouching. To create the best static electricity sensation, the fingers (or cock or whatever) hover close to the skin without touching it, creating the electric arc of static. The Violet Wand isn’t the best for your solo masturbatory sessions. You need the other person to give you the sensations. You can use the attachments alone of course, but that’s not much fun. It’s definitely much better to have someone else do it. Being blindfolded makes it even better. With the right attachment and energy level, Violet Wands can also be used for scarification and body modification. That’s more on the extreme side, as most enthusiasts enjoy the temporary sensations during kink play. They’re also great for killing acne bacteria. That’s right! They also,

Scott Brogan

Josh Runyon presides over the vast array of Electro Play devices and attachments at Mister S.

Scott Brogan

Violet Wand device and a few attachments.

allegedly, promote hair growth, but not on all types of hair. If that were the case, we’d all be using them to make our asses and chests hairier. But take note: Stay away from concentrating on tattooed areas because they can, with repeated use, possibly break down the ink molecules. Violet Wands have been around since at least the late 1800s. They were hawked by quack estheticians as a cure for all kinds of medical ailments. A f t e r my trip to Mr. S Leather, I turned on my TV and what was on but an episode of Pawn Stars featuring a woman trying to sell a vintage 1920s Violet Wand set! Funny how things work out like that. The attachments looked more recent, but the machine and case was most definitely vintage ‘20s. TENS Units are electrical currents, modulated by the user or user’s partner. The best aspect of the TENS Unit, for me anyway, is that attachments can be inserted inside one’s ass. Plus, the degrees of the current can be modulated in a wide variety of combinations and power levels. There are several different kinds of control units out there, running from cheap to expensive. I like the Erostek unit. It’s not overly expensive and has a wide variety of settings (pulse, throb, stroke, thump, random, combo, and more), with knobs that let you manually control the current levels and the frequency of the waves of current. You can spend eons playing around with the settings while it’s attached to your cock and/or inside your ass. You can also set it to use the ambient sound around you. That’s a lot of fun if you’re at a club with some pulsing music and an Erostek unit hooked up to your crotch or inside your ass. No one will ever know that you’re constantly edging yourself. Or will they? And who can say no to a pulsing vibration right on the prostate? I know I sure can’t. That’s what’s great about a TENS Unit: It’s perfect for edging and masturbating. With the two outputs, you can hook up your cock and the inside of your ass at the same time.

The control knobs separately control the levels for each. Trust me, it’s a lot of fun playing around with the wide variety of levels and settings. Do it just right and you’ll give yourself an hands-free orgasm. Are you into CBT (Cock & Ball Torture)? There’s a special attachment for that too. Who needs a husband when you’ve got a TENS Unit? Seriously, they’re tons of nasty fun, and although I stress the masturbatory benefits, they can be used with a partner as well, hence the wicked fun the men at IML in 2000 were having. A word of caution: TENS Units are to be used solely below the waist. While proper use will ensure your safety, you should not attach anything above the waist for kink play. You should also only use waterbased lube. Most people are either frightened of, or intrigued by, electro play especially after my statement above. It’s the electrical current aspect that seems scary. No one wants to shock themselves to death! When you see all of the attachments, wires, and devices in the display case at Mr. S, you might think you’ve stepped onto the set of American Horror Story: Asylum. The reality: When used properly, these devices are completely safe. You can try them out at the store before purchasing anything to see if they’re worth exploring further. No need to buy everything first. That’s my advice. Go into the store and test them out. Let Josh or one of the other staff members give you a quick demo. You’ll enjoy it more than you think. Once you find what you like, you can then go online and build up your collection of attachments. The possibilities are almost endless. A big plus with a TENS Unit is that it’s therapeutic for muscle aches and pains. The theory of electrical currents to aid in legitimate medical muscle therapy has been around for a long time. It just took us kinky fuckers to take it to the next level. Go to Mr. S (or whoever your local kink store is) to test these out and to get more details. Check out their website as well: www.mr-s-leather.com. You’ll either love these toys or hate them. Whatever the case, you’ll at least have an electrifying experience.t

Karrnal >>

January 2-8, 2014 • Bay area reporter • 9

Year’s End by John F. Karr

ere it is, my year in review column. It’s time for the traditional perusal of the past twelve months’ ups, downs, and otherways. I can’t name a Best Sexo, because I just don’t see enough of ‘em. Everyone thinks that all I do all day is watch porn, but it’s not true. While I’ll admit that I nearly always fulfill my Minimum Daily Requirement (I like some ruffians along with my ruffage and vitamins), I do get culture from other places. This year, I read a book, watched Barbra Streisand’s Back to Brooklyn concert, and suffered through a truncated Porgy and Bess that disrespected George Gershwin every chance it got. So there. And, sure, I can comment on the fabulosities and frivolities I encountered amidst the admittedly large amount of sexography I consumed. Shall we begin? But first, a question: Despite what Liza said, do we always have to ring those bells? It’s because I’m a kneejerk iconoclast that I comment on the Rainbow Honor Walk that’s coming to the Castro, not because it isn’t a good idea. It is a good idea, isn’t it? It’s not too Hollywood, too theme park-y? Maybe performers could be hired to wear oversized plastic heads of famous gay people and greet tourists. And maybe there could be a Rainbow Arch straddling the street from Jane Warner Plaza to Harvey Milk Plaza, proclaiming, “Welcome to the Gayborhood!” Or maybe it should just simply say, “Castro Land!” How about openly gay movie stars putting their handprints in cement in front of the Castro Theatre? And here’s an idea that perhaps only the author of Karrnal Knowledge would entertain: how about famous San Francisco porn stars hardening their cockprints into cement? Those squares could be placed along the street’s gutters.

RagingStallion

Adam Killian directed Cock Craze, as well as dominating Derek Parker in it.

Department of Effective Therapy: Here are some of the movies I found lively (full reviews are in the archive at www.ebar.com). Leader of the pack is director mr. Pam, continuing a fecund reign at Naked Sword, with Frat House Dreams, and Undiscovered; Adam Killian’s MonsterBang marvel, Cock Shot (for which he’s not merely director, but also a marvelous performer); Tony Buff ’s Raging Stallion show, Behind the Big Top; Joe Gage’s Titan title, One Thing Leads to Another; Chis Roma’s Pantheon Men movie, All Play and No Work; for Falcon, there were Andrew Rosen’s Rock Star!; Steve Cruz and Bruno Bond’s, Sun Kissed, and Tony Dimarco and Bruno Bond’s Seduced (both issued late in 2012, but reviewed here in 2013); and, for his debut in Paul Wilde’s fetish titles for TitanRough, Wet and Wide and Heavy Duty, I named

/lgbtsf NakedSword

First, fabulous, then ﬂame-out. Jake Genesis in Hooker Stories 2.

San Francisco’s 18+ Sex Club!

TitanMen

In debut performances that were a decathlon of ass-events, Thor Larsson was a TitanMan thriller.

Thor Larsson “Asshole Assoluta.” Flame Out, or Born Again: Iconically handsome Jake Genesis preceded a gargantuan selfimmolation of Christian-motivated, internalized homophobia with a scene I called a classic, all-time favorite. In mr Pam’s Naked Sword feature, Hooker Stories 2, former policeman Genesis exerts a hushed intimacy with masterfully controlled force (with co-star JD Phoenix), showing that the Master/ Servant thing doesn’t always have to be barked commands and “Yes, Sir!” It’s quite a performance, and a great way to remember a gifted yet unfortunately troubled performer. Youth, Of Course, Must Have Its Fling, But This Kid Sure Got Flung: When the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School learned that their dancer Jeppe Hansen had filmed what I thought to be a sensational debut solo and a couple softer- hued duo scenes under the name, Jett Black, the company bounced him. Sex, it seems, is incompatible with the ballet. And then, following some

CockyBoy contractual difficulties (or duplicities) of which I have no knowledge, the 22-year-old kid was bounced from porn. Will Jett ever return to porn? Has Jeppe returned to dancing? Let’s hope that all that dance training, along with an innate talent for performing sassy and sensual sexuality, hasn’t gone phhht. Biggest Ho-Hum of the Year: Paddy O’Brian bottoms for the first time. My Parting Shot goes to the producers who hire Gay4Pay: When Just Us Boys magazine asked hottie ginger-man Spencer Todd, who is unabashedly G4P, if he preferred straight or gay scene partners, Mr. T answered, “Straight, because I know they’re not enjoying it either.” I think I got off some lively writing in 2013. A moment I most enjoyed might have come when I notated Jessie Colter’s fuckability, with, “the way Anthony’s cock glides so easily right up the copacetic Colter’s cul-de-sac.” Ain’t alliteration a lark? I hope you were entertained and enlightened by my kolumns this past year.t

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10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • January 2-8, 2014

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January 2-8, 2014 • Bay area reporter • 11

Shooting Stars photos by Steven Underhill

The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus’ annual Christmas Eve concert series was held at the Castro Theatre. Three packed shows warmed audiences with holiday cheer. Featured guest singers included Matt Alber and soprano Marina Harris.

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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