July 18, 2019 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

SF Pride names interim ED

by Meg Elison

Fred Lopez, who has worked for the organization that oversees San Francisco Pride for the last several years, was tapped by the board to be its interim executive director.

The July 12 announcement follows the departure of former executive director George Ridgely, who left after the June 30 parade and celebration.

Most recently, Lopez served as the communications manager and contractor for the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee. He has primarily worked in LGBTQ and HIV/ AIDS nonprofits and is a former executive director of the Castro Street Fair.

Earlier this year, Lopez responded to protest

AIDS Walk draws crowd

About 10,000 people took part in the 33rd annual AIDS Walk San Francisco Sunday, July 14, and raised nearly $1.5 million for PRC, Project Open Hand, the POP-UP clinic at Ward 86 at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, as well as dozens of other Bay Area HIV/AIDS service organizations. Agency representatives said

East Bay programs go on hiatus

by Meg Elison

Rick Gerharter

they were grateful for the funds. “The joyful crowd today offers a welcome reminder that the Bay Area cares for our community and is committed to helping the critically ill,” Project Open Hand CEO Paul Hepfer said in a news release. This year’s amount was less than last year’s reported $1.8 million.

Sam Ames has now taken over as interim executive director at Our Family Coalition, and with East Bay programming on hiatus for the summer, they are working to familiarize themselves with the LGBT family agency and gear up for the fall.

The organization serves people primarily in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley.

OFC’s website states, “In late spring, we were surprised to hear that our longtime funding for East Bay programs would not be renewed by the city of Oakland. Following much advocacy, on our part, and on the part of allies, community

Southern California dreaming

LGBTs flock to downtown Long Beach

by Matthew S. Bajko

Having grown up in the East Bay city of Fremont, Antone Sylvia spent most of his early 20s living in San Francisco. A gay man and business analyst for Wells Fargo, he dreamed of owning his own home.

Priced out of the city’s sky-high housing market, however, Sylvia decided to relocate to southern California four years ago. He transferred with his company and rented a place in Orange County until purchasing a three-bedroom condo for $425,000 in downtown Long Beach in 2017.

“I wanted to try a different area in my life but didn’t want to leave California. Southern California was the only choice in my mind, and I wasn’t getting any younger,” said Sylvia, 37, who can walk to work. “San Francisco got so expensive, if I ever wanted to buy property I couldn’t be able to do it in the city. Southern California is a bargain compared to San Francisco.”

Located along the coast in Los Angeles

Long

County, Long Beach has a population of 467,354, according to 2018 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, making it the state’s seventh most populous city. In 2012 the city adopted a development plan to guide growth in its downtown core near the beach, calling

See page 12 >>

Palm Springs attracts younger LGBTs

by Matthew S. Bajko

Mention Palm Springs to most LGBT people and they will think of it either as a winter tourist hotspot or a retirement community for gay men. But those characterizations no longer paint as accurate a portrait of the Coachella Valley city in Riverside County.

For years the joke was that Palm Springs was where older gay men go to die. Today, the city of 47,700-plus residents is increasingly where LGBT people become first-time homeowners.

And many of those LGBT residents are in their 30s and 40s, said city leaders. Priced out of the Bay Area, they are turning to the southern California city in search of cheaper housing, as the median home price in 2018 was $395,000.

“When I moved here the first time I was in my 30s. At the time that was very unusual,” recalled Geoff Kors, 58, a gay man who serves on the Palm Springs City Council.

In 2011, Kors and his husband, James Williamson, left San Francisco to permanently move back to the desert city where they had maintained a parttime home. The couple, who married in 2014, no-

ticed right away there was a cohort of newer, younger residents calling Palm Springs home.

It is evidenced in this year’s election for three seats on the city council, as a number of the candidates are in their 30s and 40s, noted Kors, who is seeking re-election come November.

“There is so much more going on in Palm Springs,” explained Kors about the city’s changing demographics. “The city is really going through a renaissance with a lot of new restaurants, bars, and more job opportunities.”

Our Family Coalition marches in last month’s San Francisco LGBT Pride parade.

Rick Gerharter

Fred Lopez

Keri Vaca

Palm Springs resident Matt Vandeberg Courtesy Matt Vandeberg

Beach Mayor Robert Garcia speaks at a housing news conference.

Courtesy Mayor’s office

A solemn task at AIDS grove

Maitri names 5th ED in 5 years

1987, this month announced its new executive director.

The organization said that the Reverend Rusty Smith, a gay man and Anglican priest, started the job just after the Fourth of July holiday.

Smith’s appointment to this position comes after an unstable period in Maitri’s leadership, with five executive directors in as many years in a long period of unexplained churn.

One of those directors, Anne Gimbel, the organization’s first woman in the role, started in October 2017. However, her tenure abruptly ended when Maitri announced in March of this year that retired executive director Michael Smithwick would resume the position on an interim basis. This announcement did not mention Gimbel, and representatives from Maitri did not answer the Bay Area Reporter’s request for more information at that time.

The B.A.R. attempted to contact each of the recent former executive directors, including Smithwick and

Gimbel, as well as William Musick and Michael Sorensen. Only Sorensen responded to a request for comment. Smithwick, who had previously served as executive director from 2011 to 2017, is retiring again now that Smith has taken the helm.

Smith spoke with the B.A.R. by phone about his eagerness to begin work, and how he feels about taking the job.

“Smithwick came out of retirement because of challenges Maitri was facing, and he stepped back in

and did a remarkable job,” Smith said, when asked about the frequent changes in leadership. He added that he did not know anything about the end of Gimbel’s tenure, nor suspect internal turmoil was to blame.

Questioned about his ability to take on this difficult role, Smith was more explicit.

“I specialize in organizational redevelopment, to help people refresh and fall back in love with their mission,” Smith said. “I know the importance of developing the mission so that it’s relevant to its community’s condition. Maitri hasn’t lost its way – AIDS has changed. In my earlier years, AIDS was a death sentence. Now it’s not. Palliative care is an evolving mission of who we are. Nonprofits have to adjust to the people that we serve, or we become irrelevant.”

When asked if he was worried about the brief tenures of those before him, Smith was adamant.

“I want to stay here until I retire –that means the next nine years,” Smith, 62, said.

Smith’s plans for the future are concrete and focused, as well.

See page 12 >>

San Francisco leads in PrEP use

by Liz Highleyman

Almost all gay and bisexual men in San Francisco who are at risk for HIV know about PrEP and more than one in six are using it, according to new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nationwide, about a third of at-risk men who have sex with men are using PrEP, but this varies by demographic group and region. While PrEP awareness and use have increased across the board, it remains lower among black gay men, who have the highest rate of new infections.

“HIV PrEP awareness and use is increasing in the United States among [men who have sex with men] who are at risk for acquiring HIV, but higher coverage is needed, especially among black and Hispanic MSM, to end the HIV epidemic in the United States by 2030,” said Teresa Finlayson and colleagues from the CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention.

In his February State of the Union address, President Donald Trump proposed an Ending the HIV Epidemic plan that aims to reduce new infections by 75% in five years and by at least 90% in 10 years.

The number of people using PrEP

has steadily increased since the Food and Drug Administration approved once-daily Truvada (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine) for HIV prevention in 2012.

CDC researchers previously reported that in 2015, only 8% of the more than 1.1 million people at substantial risk for HIV were using PrEP, falling to just 3% among Latinos and 1% among African Americans. Since that time, advocates, community organizations, and county health departments have pushed to increase PrEP awareness and use, and these efforts appear to be paying off.

Finlayson’s group analyzed changes in PrEP awareness and use among men who have sex with men between 2014 and 2017, using data from the

National HIV Behavioral Surveillance system.

As described in the July 12 CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the researchers interviewed nearly 8,000 HIV-negative gay and bi men considered to be at risk for HIV, recruiting them at gay bars and other venues in 20 cities. Eligible participants had an HIV-positive male partner, two or more male partners, or had a sexually transmitted infection within the past year. They were asked if they had heard about the HIV prevention pill and whether they had taken it during the past year.

Nationwide, 90% of survey respondents said they were aware of PrEP in 2017, up from 60% in 2014. During the same period, PrEP use rose to 35% in 2017 – a remarkable 500% in

See page 12 >>

Correction

The July 11 Guest Opinion, “Jose Sarria’s history is important,” contained the incorrect year of his discharge from the U.S. Army. It was 1947. The online version has been updated.

Rick Gerharter

The Reverend Rusty Smith Courtesy Maitri

Mission Wellness in the Castro offers pharmacy-based PrEP.

Liz Highleyman

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Last month, the New York Times published a feature article about GLAAD, the supposed national LGBT media watchdog organization.

It began, “GLAAD almost died in 2014.”

To which we say: too bad it didn’t.

If there was ever an organization that has strayed so far from its founding mission as to become irrelevant, it’s GLAAD, which is based in New York City and now focuses on kissing up to celebrities and raising money from wealthy donors like the Getty family and its ritzy media award galas in New York and Los Angeles.

Its name, which used to stand for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, was jettisoned years ago, reduced to a jumble of letters that, if you weren’t around in the late 1980s or 1990s, wouldn’t know what they stood for. At one time, GLAAD was front and center in the culture wars over gay rights. It ran a regular media column in this publication, where it called out egregious offenders of anti-gay bias among mainstream media outlets.

It got its start going after homophobic coverage of HIV/AIDS in the New York Post.

Last week, when faced with a perfect example of homophobia, GLAAD couldn’t so much as type out a tweet, much less issue a news release condemning it. Yes, we’re talking about the lengthy homophobic rant about gay presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg that was written by Dale Peck, a gay man, and published online by the left-leaning New Republic. The magazine quickly removed the article when it was met with howls of protest, which proves that it should have never been published in the first place. And, whereas GLAAD should have taken the lead on issuing a denouncement, that was left to right-leaning publications like the Washington Examiner, of all outlets.

Sheesh.

For those who may have missed it, Peck’s article stated that Buttigieg is an “Uncle Tom”

of the gay community. But instead of using the phrase “Uncle Tom,” Peck called him “Mary Pete.”

“Clever,” Examiner writer Becket Adams wrote in a scorching takedown. Peck’s passage that caused the most outrage read in part: “All this makes Mary Pete different from every other left-leaning neoliberal in exactly zero ways. Because let’s face it. The only thing that distinguishes the mayor of South Bend from all those other well-educated reasonably intelligent white dudes who wanna be president is what he does with his dick (and possibly his ass, although I get a definite top-bydefault vibe from him, which is to say that I bet he thinks about getting fucked but he’s too uptight to do it) ... So let’s dish the dish, homos. You know and I know that Mary Pete is a gay teenager. He’s a fifteenyear-old boy in a Chicago bus station wondering if it’s a good idea to go home with a fifty-year-old man so that he’ll finally understand what he is. ... the last thing I want in the

White House is a gay man staring down 40 who suddenly realizes he didn’t get to have all the fun his straight peers did when they were teenagers. ... I want a man whose mind is on his job, not what could have been – or what he thinks he can still get away with.”

This piece of garbage deserved swift condemnation from GLAAD when it was blowing up online – but that never materialized.

We’re not the only ones to find fault with GLAAD. Mark Segal, publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News and a Stonewall veteran, took the organization to task for the terrible job it did for the recent Stonewall 50 celebration in New York. Segal was unsparing in a recent PGN editorial about GLAAD failing to involve activists who were at Stonewall or the first gay Pride as primary resources to mainstream media outlets.

“Mainstream media wanted to understand how coverage had changed in 50 years,” Segal wrote. “From GLAAD, they received a false timeline and a lack of resources.”

Segal accused GLAAD of ignoring not only those who were at Stonewall, but also those who created the first gay youth organization and the LGBT community center in New York. Media sources, he wrote, “actually did the homework and changed GLAAD’s timeline, making a mockery of the LGBT org’s socalled guide.”

He called out GLAAD President and CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis, for its guide’s historic omissions. We last criticized Ellis about a year ago when she wrote an op-ed for the Advocate stating that GLAAD would embark on a multi-year education effort for a constitutional amendment for equality – basically an Equal Rights Amendment like the one that failed back in the 1970s, except this one would include sexual orientation and gender identity. She is still stumping for that amendment – it was a topic in the recent Times piece –despite it having zero chance of passage. What a waste of community resources at a time when we have real issues before us such as religious freedom exemptions and a racist president to defeat. t

Biz support needed beyond Pride Month

by Ruth Borenstein

Another Pride, another year of people expressing frustration about the large corporate presence at the parade. Like many others, I’m tired of companies that engage in “rainbow washing” by slapping Pride flags on merchandise and ads in an attempt to profit from the LGBTQ+ community without actually doing anything to help the community.

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But our frustration with companies that exploit Pride should not blind us from recognizing that some businesses have taken significant steps to support LGBTQ+ equality, including by taking our side in key U.S. Supreme Court cases addressing our rights. Indeed, just two days after this year’s San Francisco Pride parade, 206 businesses filed an amicus brief in the pending Supreme Court cases that will decide whether federal law prohibits employers from discriminating against LGBTQ+ workers – a crucial issue, given that the majority of states provide us no protections against employment discrimination. The brief proclaims that these 206 companies “support the principle that no one should be passed over for a job, paid less, fired, or subjected to harassment or any other form of discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

This is not the first time that a coalition of businesses has filed amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases involving LGBTQ+ equality. Similar briefs were filed in 2013 in the case challenging Proposition 8 (Hollingsworth v. Perry, which was decided on procedural grounds and did not address the merits) and the successful challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (U.S. v. Windsor). And 379 small and large employers were on the right side of history when the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the U.S. Constitution mandates marriage equality (Obergefell v. Hodges).

We may never know how much influence these types of briefs have on the outcome of cases. And there is reason to be concerned about the pending cases seeking to prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ+ workers, given that Justice Anthony Kennedy (who was the swing vote in our favor in the key cases on LGBTQ+ equality) has retired and two Trump appointees have joined the court. But we do know that Supreme Court

justices are far more familiar with, and attuned to, corporate interests than the interests and experiences of our community. And the current brief should get the court’s attention. According to the brief, the 206 busi nesses “collectively employ over 7 million people, and comprise over $5 trillion in revenue.” This is power speaking to power. It could make a difference.

Although the corporations that have signed on to these amicus briefs have made significant contributions to the fight for LGBTQ+ equality, that does not immunize them from criticism – just ask Google. Some of Google’s own employees demanded that the company be barred from this year’s parade due to inadequate policies and practices on issues such as harassment and hate speech directed at LGBTQ+ people on Google-owned YouTube. But the businesses’ participation in amicus briefs certainly distinguishes them from the rainbow washers.

Some people – like the small group that shut down this year’s parade for about an hour – appear to object to any corporate presence at Pride, regardless of what a company has done for the LGBTQ+ community. Given the hundreds of thousands of people who now participate and watch the San Francisco parade, it’s hard to

imagine we could ever turn SF Pride back into the kind of marches that happened after riots at Compton’s Cafeteria here and the Stonewall Inn in New York City. And since the 2016 election, SF Pride has made an effort to highlight activism by having resistance contingents follow Dykes on Bikes at the beginning of the parade. For those who want even more, the Dyke March and Trans March are largely of and for the people.

If we are going to continue to have a corporate presence at Pride, I hope that the SF Pride organizers question the business participants about what they have done for the community and make them aware of the community’s expectations that they take concrete steps to support equality. Of the many companies that marched in the parade this year, more than 25 signed onto the recent amicus brief in the employment discrimination cases. Some of them had also participated in one or more of the earlier marriage equality briefs, including Amazon, Apple, CBS, Cisco Systems, Comcast, eBay, Facebook, Google, Intuit, JPMorgan Chase, Levi’s, LinkedIn, Microsoft, the SF Giants, Salesforce, Starbucks, The Walt Disney Co., and Wells Fargo. Businesses may offer support in other ways as well, including by funding organizations working for LGBT+ equality. I don’t begrudge having true allies in the parade.

But I have no use for rainbow washers that exploit our community. As consumers, when we see businesses wave Pride flags and decorate with rainbows in June, we should ask them what they’ve done to support LGBTQ+ equality the other 11 months of the year. And if they haven’t done anything, we should ask them to step up or spend our money elsewhere. t

Ruth Borenstein was a party in the lawsuit that asked the California Supreme Court to invalidate Prop 8 (Strauss v. Horton). She marched with Brady United Against Gun Violence in the resistance contingent in this year’s Pride parade. The brief from the 206 businesses, with a full list of the amici, can be found at https://bit.ly/2YVx1R6.

The Facebook contingent marched in last month’s San Francisco Pride parade.

Rick Gerharter

GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis

Courtesy GLAAD

Sex-positive SF Dem Club seeks chartering from local party

by Matthew S. Bajko

Anew political club for polyamorous, queer, and kink Democrats is seeking to be officially chartered by local party officials next week.

Started last year, the San Francisco Sex-Positive Democratic Club is believed to be the first of its kind in the country.

It will be going before the Democratic County Central Committee Wednesday, July 24, in hopes of becoming the 35th sanctioned club for Democrats in the city. Known as the DCCC for short, the oversight body for the San Francisco Democratic Party is responsible for chartering local Democratic clubs.

“I am not expecting us to have any real opposition,” said campaign consultant Mark Press, 29, the new club’s president and treasurer who is polyamorous and bisexual. “We are in the process of reaching out to members of the DCCC, letting them know what we are about, and asking if they have any questions for us.”

San Francisco Democratic Party Chair David Campos, a gay man who was a former city supervisor, told the Bay Area Reporter he expects the club’s charter request will be approved.

“What I understand from reviewing what has been presented is that they have met all the requirements for chartering and I expect they will get chartered,” said Campos. “We welcome them into the San Francisco Democratic Party and look forward to working with them.”

There are already two official LGBT Democratic clubs in the city, as well as ones for Jewish, black, Latino, and Asian Democrats, according to the list of official clubs on the local party’s website.

In order to seek chartership, a club has to have at least 20 members who are registered Democrats in the city of San Francisco.

“We have more than that,” said Press, though he didn’t know the total membership count when the B.A.R. spoke with him this week.

Any registered Democrat can join the club; they don’t have to live in San Francisco to do so. Regular membership costs $25 a year, while a founding membership costs $100. The club, whose slogan is “Get In Bed With Us,” also has a hardship level of $10 for those struggling financially and is willing to waive the fee on a case-bycase basis, said Press.

“We welcome all folks who believe the sex-positive community should be represented in government and the law,” said Press, who has been involved in the BDSM/poly/queer communities for more than a decade, including hosting and managing public and private parties. “We are hoping to go advocate for non-monogamous folks, queer folks, sex workers, and the kink community.”

The club already has filed with the IRS and local and state political watchdog officials in order to become an official political action committee, allowing it to raise money. To date, it has yet to report doing so with state officials.

Courtesy Facebook

Sex-Positive SF Dems president Mark Press, right, was joined by Rebecca Motola-Barnes, left, the club’s internal communications director, and Christine Genero, vice president of events, at a happy hour for members earlier this year.

“We are a functioning PAC, which is great,” said Press.

In May last year the B.A.R.’s Political Notebook first reported about how members of the city’s sex-positive community, from leathermen and women to those in polyamorous relationships, decided it was time they formally organized in order to exert political power at City Hall.

Their concerns run the gamut from protecting sex-positive venues and establishing the leather LGBT cultural district in the city’s South of Market neighborhood to the creation of housing that can accommodate polyamorous families that need three bedrooms or more. A key goal would be seeing more housing built in SOMA, particularly in or near the leather district, so that people are closer to the venues that cater to the sex-positive community.

Another priority, said Press, is seeing the city adopt a policy banning discrimination based on non-monogamous relationships. Even in San Francisco, noted Press, people fear losing their jobs or housing due to their relationship status.

The Sex-Positive Dems, as the club refers to itself for short, has taken steps to ensure the privacy of its members and leadership. In addition to Press, the club’s board of directors includes four vice presidents and four other members, not all out, he said.

“We have made them a promise that they don’t have to be out if they don’t want to,” said Press. “With some of the issues we deal with there is still a very present concern of discrimination.”

The club is aiming to host monthly events, from social gatherings to policy forums, and quarterly membership meetings.

The Facebook page for the Sex-Positive Dems group is https:// www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoSPDC/ and its website is at https://www. sfspdc.org/.

Milk club still discussing East Bay chapter

As the Sex-Positive Dems formalize their club, the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club is still pondering forming a chapter in the East Bay.

Didn’t mind police presence in Castro

I disagree with the writer’s point of view in the “Common sense missing in Castro” letter [July 11] regarding Pride Saturday evening.

First, I would say that Castro Street is a major north-south thoroughfare, made even more challenging by the recent narrowing of the street. And, since San Francisco claims to be a “Transit First” city, any closure affects the 24-Divisadero Muni line.

Second, what’s wrong with police presence? I read no reports of any incidents that night, so it would appear that their presence had the desired effect. Someone needs to protect us from the bridge-andtunnel thugs who like to cause trouble at these events.

The issue came up last fall after the more progressive of San Francisco’s two main LGBT political clubs held a special meeting in Oakland to vote on endorsing in races on the November ballot throughout Alameda County. Because the county’s Democratic Party hasn’t chartered the club, some viewed Milk’s endorsements as illegitimate.

Those criticizing the Milk club included members of the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee and leaders of two East Bay LGBT Democratic clubs. In light of the controversy, the idea of having the Milk club form an East Bay chapter and seek chartership by the Alameda County Democratic Party was raised.

So far the Milk club has yet to officially seek doing so, though members who live in the East Bay are talking about it. Due to rising housing costs, many LGBTQ people have moved from San Francisco in recent years to Oakland and other cities throughout the region.

“I think the goal is to create a progressive LGBT Democratic club in the East Bay. Over the course of the next year, I think, is the plan,” said former club president Gabriel Haaland, a local union leader who lives in Vallejo. “There is definitely an appetite for a progressive LGBT Democratic club in the East Bay. I would hope the DCCC understands there is political diversity in our community and the fact the community needs more than one club to represent them.”

Current Milk club President Kevin Bard told the B.A.R. that he supports the idea and has been encouraging members who live in either Alameda or Contra Costa counties to take it on. There is no timeline, as of yet, for creating it, he said.

“As a board and membership we would have to determine what the process would be,” he said. “Ideally, the membership would vote to allow for a chapter to come into existence.”

During an interview this spring with the B.A.R., Oakland City Council President Rebecca Kaplan, a lesbian and currently the most prominent out elected progressive politician in the East Bay, expressed support for seeing the Milk club create a satellite chapter. Kaplan noted that many of the issues the Milk club is working to address, including mass incarceration, racial justice, economic equity, and the treatment of the homeless, are concerns she and others are tackling in the East Bay.

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Kaplan, whose current term in her atlarge council seat expires next year. t

Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http:// www.ebar.com Monday mornings for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion. This week’s column caught up on news regarding a trio of out Latino leaders in California.

And, I say that the only people who fear the police are those who have something to be afraid of.

Ed Rose San Francisco

Farewell to Castro eatery

So sorry to hear the Eureka Restaurant and Lounge closed. I hope someone takes over and maintains the upper East Side ambiance of the wonderful bar upstairs. The Castro needs a classy sit-down bar in a gorgeous setting. Plus their happy hour was terrific.

Not your performance

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

Scarlett Johansson has ended up in the news again. The actress and sometimes singer faced heavy criticism after she – a white woman –played an Asian woman in the live-action adaptation of “Ghost in the Shell” in 2015.

She decided to follow up that film by agreeing to play the lead in “Rub & Tug” about a transgender man, Dante “Tex” Gill, but killed the project after intense backlash by trans activists. I feel it’s worth noting that Johansson looks less like a husky, dark-haired transgender man than she looked like any version of “Ghost in the Shell’s” cybernetic character, Major Motoko Kusanagi.

Johansson was initially defiant over the backlash, pointing to other then-recent films that included non-transgender men in transgender female roles, such as Jared Leto as Rayon in “Dallas Buyers Club” and Eddie Redmayne as Lili Elbe in “The Danish Girl.” Apparently, Johansson was unaware that these portrayals, too, were panned by the trans community.

Now, hot on the heels of what may be her last ride in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Black Widow – at least within the Avengers – Johansson is back to complaining.

In an interview with As If magazine, Johansson is quoted as saying, “you know, as an actor I should be al-

lowed to play any person, or any tree, or any animal because that is my job and the requirements of my job.”

She added, “I feel like it’s a trend in my business and it needs to happen for various social reasons, yet there are times it does get uncomfortable when it affects the art because I feel art should be free of restrictions.”

As soon as the article started to make the rounds, Johansson walked back these remarks a bit, saying on CNN that, “I personally feel that, in an ideal world, any actor should be able to play anybody and art, in all forms, should be immune to political correctness. That is the point I was making, albeit didn’t come across that way.”

“I recognize that in reality, there is a widespread discrepancy amongst my industry that favors Caucasian, cisgender actors and that not every actor has been given the same opportunities that I have been privileged to,” added Johansson. “I continue to support, and always have, diversity in every industry and will continue to fight for projects where everyone is included.”

I find it darkly humorous that Johansson decided to speak out about the perils of “political correctness” neat ly between the announce ments of Halle Bailey as a fictional mermaid in a live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid” and Lashana Lynch as the new “007” in what is likely Daniel Craig’s final spin as James Bond.

The actresses have already faced a firestorm over being black and playing fictional roles widely considered to be fair-skinned. Then again, I suspect they’re only considered such by a certain level of “defaultism,” where it is simply assumed that an attractive, non-trans, straight, Caucasian performer would be the default for practically any role, while a performer who doesn’t fit the above is considered more of a “niche” actor only viable for a role constrained to their exact physical being.

Now, sure, if Johansson feels that she should play a birch or a marmoset, that’s her business. I’m surely not going to stand in her way. I will, however, call her out on the issue of political correctness driving people to be turned off of her playing Gill.

“Rub & Tug” had Johansson as an executive producer, and I have little doubt that the studio felt it was politically correct that the lead part go to her. That she wielded her power to kill the project when popular opinion turned against that casting decision, to me, proves that point.

While she could decide that she still deserves that part, or any other trans part, I would hope that she – and everyone – understands that she is not making a film for transgender people, but is making a movie designed for non-transgender eyes, and a story by her very presence in that part that would “other” her main character.

For better or worse, I have seen decades of non-transgender people play trans parts, and while a small handful of those earlier films gave me role models for my own transition, I can certainly look back at every last one of them and see gaping flaws. This was, after all, all we had.

Things are different now. While there still not enough good trans performers on screen, we now live in an era where “Pose” brings in several trans and nonbinary performers presenting a story of LGBT life in the 1980s and 1990s. We have Laverne Cox, coming up through “Orange is the New Black” and now appearing in film, television, and any number of celebrity circles. We have Jamie Clayton on the now-canceled “Sense8” and Jen Richards as a young Anna Madrigal in “Tales of the City,” both on Netflix.

We are reaching a time when there are transgender people who can take on transgender roles. Or, heck, even non-transgender roles. This needs to grow. After all, where is the brilliant transmasculine actor who can fit into Gill’s shoes? They should share his story, not Johansson.

Johansson can mine all sorts of parts where she can play any number of characters – including presumably all the flora and fauna of the forest –but she is never going to be able to represent the life of a transgender person as a transgender person. As good an actress as she is, her performance of Gill would be as hollow as Redmayne’s or Leto’s transgender takes.t

Gwen Smith wonders if Jackie Chan is available to play Scarlett Johansson in a biopic. You’ll find her at www.gwensmith.com.

SFO to hold open house for new Milk terminal

compiled by Cynthia Laird

San Francisco International Airport

will hold a free community day Saturday, July 20, to offer the public a sneak preview of the new Harvey Milk Terminal 1 and a look at the upcoming Grand Hyatt at SFO.

The event, which runs from 12:30 to 5 p.m., will include remarks from Mayor London Breed and other officials, including airport director Ivar Satero and District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who led the legislative fight to force the airport to prominently feature Milk’s name in the signs for the terminal. Gay San Francisco Arts Commission Director of Cultural Affairs Tom DeCaigny will also speak.

In addition to the speeches, there will be songs performed by the cast of “Beach Blanket Babylon” (1:50 p.m.) and the Glide Ensemble (1:55).

There will also be games, prizes, and other activities.

The new terminal is the first airport facility in the world named after an LGBT leader, as Milk was the first gay person to win a political office in San Francisco and California with his 1977 election to a seat on the Board of Supervisors. Tragically, disgruntled former supervisor Dan White killed Milk and then-mayor George Moscone inside City Hall the morning of November 27, 1978.

As previously reported in the Bay Area Reporter, Harvey Milk Terminal 1 will open to the public July 23 when the first nine-gate section becomes operational for Southwest and JetBlue flights.

The Grand Hyatt will open September 30 and there will be a model hotel room at the open house.

Visitors to the community day will also be able to see the mammoth Milk installation curated by the SFO Museum, which includes photos, campaign ephemera, newspaper clippings, and other items.

Gay former supervisor David Campos, now chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, first proposed in 2013 naming all of SFO after Milk. When that idea didn’t fly with much of the public, Campos and the late mayor Ed Lee compromised on naming one of SFO’s four terminals after the beloved gay leader.

Ronen, who had worked for Campos as a City Hall aide, pushed to ensure that happened after joining the board in 2017.

The event takes place at Terminal 1, departure level. The entrance is next to the security checkpoint for Gates 20-28.

Milk club dinner to honor Kim

Former San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim will be among those honored by the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club at its 43rd annual Gayla Monday, July 29, from 6 to 9 p.m. in the Green Room at the San Francisco War Memorial, 401 Van Ness Avenue.

Kim will receive the club’s Community Ally Award, president Kevin Bard told the Bay Area Reporter. She now serves as the Bay Area regional campaign director for Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont).

In a shift this year, Bard said that the club would only present three awards. He wrote in a Facebook message that the change was made to both keep the program from going too long and to shine a brighter spotlight and give more time to the awardees.

The other honorees will be Aria Sa’id, executive director of the Compton’s Transgender Cultural District, who will receive the Jazzie Collins Community Leadership Award, and

Our Trans Home SF, which will receive the Bill Kraus Leadership Award. General admission dinner tickets are $75 and can be purchased at https://bit.ly/2XXptQF.

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

BofA awards $1.8M in grants

Bank of America announced that in its first grant cycle of the year, it has awarded $1.8 million to San Francisco and East Bay nonprofits.

Of that amount, $200,000 went to organizations that provide services to the LGBT community, Liz Minick, managing director, San Francisco-East Bay Market Executive at Bank of America, said in a July 12 phone interview.

The grants will aid the nonprofits in advancing economic mobility for individuals and families and put them on a path toward financial stability, according to a news release.

Minick said that Larkin Street Youth Services received $50,000. The organization provides homeless and at-risk young people in San Francisco – including LGBTQs – with health care, housing, employment, and education services.

“The Bank of America grant will help us sustain our programs and move toward our overall goal of ending youth homelessness,” Sherilyn Adams, Larkin Street executive director, said in the release.

She added, “Homelessness is not a choice, and at Larkin Street we strive to offer a continuum of care for San Francisco’s young adults who find themselves without shelter, schooling, or jobs.”

Other nonprofits that serve LGBTs that received grants included the Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center, or LYRIC ($10,000); Project Open Hand ($10,000); San Francisco AIDS Foundation ($25,000); and the San Francisco LGBT Community Center ($10,000). Meals on Wheels San Francis co, which also serves many LGBT clients, received a grant of $25,000.

In all, more than 70 nonprofits were awarded funding, ranging from food banks to veterans organizations to museums and cultural institutions.

Minick explained that BofA has two grant cycles per year; the second one will be in the fall. Nonprofits apply through a request for proposal, and those are reviewed by bank officials and a local committee.

“BofA has been here for 115 years and was founded in San Francisco,” Minick said. “We are connected to the community.”

She added that the LGBT community “is a huge part of who we are.”

The bank was the first financial institution to institute domestic partner benefits for its gay and lesbian employees more than 20 years ago. Ten years ago, it revised its health benefits to provide insurance for trans employees. Today, Minick said, BofA has an in-house concierge to help with transitions for trans workers.

“San Francisco and the East Bay are two urban areas where there is a tremendous financial disparity among various populations,” Gioia McCarthy, BofA’s San Francisco-East Bay market president, said in the release.

Last year’s grants for LGBT nonprofits totaled $385,000, Minick said.

Yoga charity event

CorePower Yoga San Francisco will hold a Yoga for the Brain charity event Saturday, July 27, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 100 Church Street, Suite A.

The yoga studio is teaming up with mindbodygreen to extol the benefits of practicing yoga, focusing on how it is a great way to support brain health.

Attendees will hear tips from neuroscientist and wellness expert Leigh Winters, followed by CorePower’s signature Sculpt class. Post-yoga snacks and a swag bag will also be distributed.

Tickets are $20, with all proceeds benefiting Yoga Foster, which provides school teachers with training, lesson plans, and tools they need to practice with their students.

For tickets, go to https://bit.ly/2LpkmTl.

Breed announces consumer rights legal clinic

San Francisco Mayor London Breed has announced a new free monthly consumer rights legal clinic that will begin Thursday, July 25.

The clinic is in partnership with the San Francisco Law Library and is co-sponsored by Bay Area Legal Aid, the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, and the San Francisco Treasurer’s Office of Financial Empowerment.

The clinic is made possible through a grant from MOHCD. It will provide people the opportunity to speak with an attorney about a broad range of consumer legal issues, such as bankruptcy, student loan debt, credit card debt, debt collection lawsuits, harassment by debt collectors, errors in credit reports, judgments for unpaid debt, foreclosure, and garnished wages.

“Every San Franciscan should have the opportunity to get sound legal advice, regardless of their ability to pay,” Breed said in a statement. “The new clinic will empower people to make informed decisions about their finances and provide a legal safety net for people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to talk to a lawyer.”

The clinic will run in two sessions, one at 9:30 a.m. and another at 1 p.m. on the fourth Thursday of every month in the law library, located at 1145 Market Street, fourth floor. An RSVP is required and people can call (415) 982-1300 to secure a spot. t

Christine Smith

Kai Caemmerer, curator of photography and student art at SFO Museum, stood in front of part of the “Harvey Milk: Messenger of Hope” exhibition at San Francisco International Airport during a media preview last month.

Bill Wilson

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SACRAMENTO Located at the Promenade in Natomas

SF Suicide Prevention merges with Felton Institute

by Charlie Wagner

Tobetter provide a “continuum of care,” two San Francisco nonprofits, one 57 years old and the other 130 years old, merged last month under the name of the older and larger agency, the Felton Institute, formerly Family Service Agency of San Francisco.

The other merger partner is San Francisco Suicide Prevention, founded by the late gay Anglican priest Bernard Mayes in 1962. Mayes moved to San Francisco in 1960 as a BBC journalist researching San Francisco’s suicide rate, then the highest in the United States.

According to Eve Meyer, former executive director of SFSP, when Mayes inquired about suicide hotlines like he had seen in Britain, he was told, “we don’t believe in them.”

With the LGBTQ community in mind, Mayes handed out matchbooks in Tenderloin bars with his phone number and the words, “Thinking of ending it? Call Bruce.” Mayes later founded the public radio station KQED and helped organize National Public Radio.

“We were honored when SFSP reached out to us in 2018,” Felton President and CEO Al Gilbert said in a phone interview. “It made sense because we serve many of the same clients. We could provide a continuum of care for people considering suicide.”

The merger was finalized June 7.

Peter Rojo, former board chairman for SFSP, said in a phone interview that Felton has created an SFSP advisory committee with nine of the 11 members of the former SFSP board. Rojo has also joined the Felton board. Gilbert and Rojo identify as straight allies.

Asked whether Felton will convert all former SFSP employees to Felton employees, Gilbert responded, “We definitely are.” He confirmed the SFSP office will remain downtown.

“We will share all other locations as we think about how we can support our expanded service model,” he said.

Gilbert said the current Felton budget is $30 million. He explained that 95% of the funding is from federal, county and state contracts, with a majority of that funding from county contracts.

In 2018, about half of the SFSP budget came from the City and County of San Francisco, the rest from private contributions.

Rojo wrote in an email that SFSP sought the merger because it wanted to preserve its strengths while also figuring out how to deepen its scale and impact.

“Looking back at our history, we have a lot of which to be proud, but looking forward, we can clearly see

“The merger of San Francisco Suicide Prevention and Felton Institute will strengthen and preserve crucial prevention, outreach, case management, and crisis intervention services for San Franciscans with mental illness and substance use issues, benefitting people who are experiencing homelessness and people who are housed,” Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax, a gay man, said in a news release. “These two organizations have strong track records of providing quality services to those in need, and it is great for San Francisco that they

Rojo said that the Department of Public Health did not request the merger, but was approached by SFSP as part of its vetting process to determine whether it was feasible and an appropriate fit for the two agencies.

Gilbert described Felton as “one of San Francisco’s biggest well-kept secrets” and described some of the programs it offers in five different counties: San Francisco, Alameda, San Mateo, Marin, and Monterey.

change in their lives – financial security, losing their home, losing a job, a dramatic change in their family or within their social network.”

Gilbert is pleased with how the merger evolved.

“I thought it was so powerful and courageous for an organization that had been around for 57 years to consider ‘How can we do things more effectively?’” he said.

“We provide services in 11 different languages including ASL. Our agencies are aligned to serve a diverse demographic in age, orientation, and race,” Gilbert said.

Rojo added, “It’s important to position ourselves for all the different populations that Felton and SFSP help, who reach out to us in many different ways, any time of day or night.”

City health officials praised the merger.

Felton runs over 50 programs with special emphasis on the needs of low-income families, children, the elderly, and people living with disabilities, organized within multiple divisions.

Its Children, Youth and Family Division includes food-related services; early care and education programs in multiple locations in San Francisco; outpatient mental health services for children, teens, and their families; programs for infants and toddlers, including those with autism and the medically-fragile; and several parenting programs for teenagers and young parents.

“We provide services from birth to end-of-life,” Gilbert said, “and we are the largest outpatient mental health provider in San Francisco. We are very involved in the mayor’s programs to eliminate homeless. We also partner with the San Francisco school district to run a high school which helps teens figure out how to be a teenager

and a parent, stay in school and have a chance to grow up.”

The Adult Division serves low-income and homeless adults seeking employment or with mental health issues, and youth 18 to 25 who have mental health or substance abuse disorders. It has a job readiness program to connect with career opportunities, counseling services for the deaf community, and homeless prevention services including eviction assistance.

Several programs assist those in the criminal justice system.

In its Senior Division, Felton offers home and clinic-based services for older adults with disabilities or mental health concerns, health and wellness programs, geriatric mental health services, services for aging or disabled persons living in care facilities, foster grandparent and senior companion programs, an employment program, and a program designed for LGBTQ seniors.

Felton also offers programs treating early psychosis and bipolar and other mood disorders.

“Our goal is to identify somebody in their first year of having a break and create a process to manage it and address the challenge of living with it,” Gilbert said. “We can reduce hospitalization between 50% and 75%.”

A separate Training and Research Division works with both employees and outside organizations, offering training tailored to the needs of immigrants, LGBTQs, and other clients. Research projects used Felton’s own “client- and community-centered research and program evaluation” to develop what Felton calls a “decision-making toolkit,” in partnership with the University of New Mexico and UCSF.

“We created software on the Salesforce platform, now used by 15 other nonprofits across the country,” Gilbert said. “We track outcomes so we can demonstrate the value of working with our program.”

Felton also works with San Francisco law enforcement agencies to offer alternatives to jail and prosecution for those experiencing mental health, substance abuse, and co-occurring disorders, as well as offering services to prevent recidivism in youths and adults.

Its Engagement Specialist Team provides assistance to insecurely-housed individuals in various San Francisco locations, including the Castro.

Felton will celebrate its 130th anniversary in October with a fundraiser, with details to be announced on its website. t

SFSP’s 24-hour crisis line is (415) 781-0500. Its HIV Nightline is (415) 434-2437 or 1-800-273-2437. For the crisis text line, text MYLIFE to 741741. For more information, visit www.sfsuicide.org or www. felton.org.

Castro landlord Steven David Tessler dies

by Sari Staver

Steven David Tessler, a gay man and longtime Castro landlord, died July 9 in San Francisco. He was 75.

Mr. Tessler, widely known as David, suffered a debilitating stroke a year ago, his niece, Betsi Steinberg, told the Bay Area Reporter. She said he died in the skilled nursing facility at the Sequoias.

Mr. Tessler, originally from New York, owned a number of apartment buildings in the Castro since the 1970s. His largest property was the five-story Art Deco building at 577 Castro, (near 19th Street) where the Anchor

Oyster Bar occupies the ground floor. Mr. Tessler also owned a clothing store across the street from that building, where Buffalo Foods is now located.

Terry Asten Bennett, co-owner of Cliff’s Variety, said she had known Mr. Tessler “for my entire life” because she grew up in the Castro and Mr. Tessler knew her parents through their Castro Street store.

“David was a funny guy,” Asten Bennett told the B.A.R. in an interview. “Some people found him very difficult but, to me, he was always very sweet to me. He always reminisced about walks he took in the neighbor-

hood with my mother, when she was pregnant with me. I’m very sorry to hear he passed away.”

In recent years, Mr. Tessler took an active interest in the San Francisco Central Seventh-day Adventist Church, where he frequently volunteered.

In addition to his real estate business, Mr. Tessler was an avid collector. He sold collectibles at various antique malls in the Bay Area and frequently had garage sales in his building on the 500 block of Castro Street, where he lived from time to time. Mr. Tessler was often seen chatting with neighbors in front of his building, often wearing his signature denim overalls and a cap.

Felton President and CEO Al Gilbert, left, praised the merger with San Francisco Suicide Prevention and is joined by Felton’s Phyllis Hogan, training and volunteer/intern coordinator; Dolores Terrazas, children, youth, and families division director; and Peter Rojo, former SFSP board member who now serves on Felton’s board.

Charlie Wagner

Steven David Tessler

HIV may persist in brain despite treatment

by Liz Highleyman

HIV can remain in the fluid surrounding the brain even after a decade on antiretroviral treatment, which may help explain persistent cognitive problems in some people with undetectable viral load, according to a study published Monday in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

A national study of HIV-positive people on long-term treatment found that nearly half had persistent viral DNA in immune cells in their cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which circulates around the brain and spinal cord. These participants had a higher likelihood of cognitive impairment than those without detectable CSF virus.

“It is difficult to target infections that lurk in the brain, and HIV is probably not an exception to the rule,” said study author Dr. John Mellors of the University of Pittsburgh School of

Medicine. “We have our work cut out for us in the quest for an HIV cure, but knowing is half the battle, so I’m cautiously optimistic.” Although antiretroviral therapy

can halt HIV replication, viral genetic material persists in a so-called reservoir of long-lived immune cells. If treatment stops, this viral blueprint can reactivate, leading to viral load rebound. HIV is known to hide in the brain, where many medications cannot reach it due to the protective blood-brain barrier. This may explain why some people with well-controlled HIV still experience problems with memory, concentration, and the ability to perform complex mental tasks.

Mellors and colleagues evaluated HIV in CSF samples from 69 HIV-positive people, mostly white men, who had been on antiretroviral therapy for an average of nine years and had undetectable blood viral load and high CD4 T cell counts. The study participants received concurrent blood tests, spinal taps, and neurocognitive assessment including tests of language, fine motor skills, processing speed, at-

tention and working memory.

The researchers used sensitive tests to measure HIV RNA and HIV DNA in CSF immune cells. HIV’s genetic blueprint is stored in the form of DNA, which is converted to RNA to produce new virus. Most previous research has looked at free-floating HIV RNA in the CSF, but this is usually not detectable in people on effective treatment.

The tests showed that 48% of participants had HIV DNA in their CSF immune cells, even though only 4% had free-floating HIV RNA and just 9% had RNA in CSF cells. Pretreatment CD4 count, viral load, and number of years on antiretrovirals did not predict detection of HIV DNA in CSF cells. Biomarkers of inflammation also were not correlated with HIV DNA or RNA in the CSF.

People with HIV DNA in their CSF cells had significantly worse cognitive test outcomes, although they generally

fell within normal limits. Fine motor function, executive functioning, and attention were particularly affected, according to the researchers. Thirty percent of those with detectable HIV DNA met criteria for cognitive impairment, compared with 11% of those without detectable viral DNA.

“HIV-infected cells persist in CSF in almost half of individuals on longterm antiretroviral therapy, and their detection is associated with poorer neurocognitive performance,” the study authors concluded. They added that it is not clear whether persistent HIV is causing ongoing brain injury, or whether the impairment is due to irreversible injury that occurred before starting treatment.

In addition to the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, scientists at Yale University and the University of North Carolina led the study. t

Gay bathhouse proponent Reid Condit dies

by Cynthia Laird

Reid

Condit, a gay man who for decades supported reopening bathhouses in San Francisco, died July 10, according to the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s office. He was 78.

Robert Brokl, a friend of Mr. Condit’s, said that he and others stopped by Mr. Condit’s residence in the Tenderloin that day to collect a Richard Caldwell Brewer painting Mr. Condit wanted them to have when they found his body.

“We made the sad discovery,” Brokl wrote in an email Monday.

Over the years, Mr. Condit was a regular letter writer to the Bay Area Reporter, and was quoted in news stories concerning the closure of the bathhouses during the height of the AIDS epidemic. Mr. Condit had long advocated for the bathhouses to reopen.

The fight over bathhouse closure divided the gay community in the 1980s. At the time, public health officials and many community leaders saw the move as a way to curb transmission of the HIV virus, while those who wanted to keep them open argued that they provided an ideal setting for safer sex education.

Others, such as Mr. Condit, viewed the issue as a governmental violation of personal freedom as well as a missed opportunity for safer sex education.

Ultimately, in October 1984, the bathhouses in San Francisco were closed. The ban did not target bathing facilities per se, but rather private rooms with closed doors that could not be monitored. Mr. Condit became radicalized once the bathhouses closed, according to an obituary provided by friends.

“Although over a decade ago the efforts of Community for Sexual Privacy were largely successful in obtaining endorsement for ending the ban on privacy in sex clubs – the ban that keeps traditional gay bathhouses closed – then-Health Director Dr. Mitch Katz quashed any reopening by rejecting the vote of the HIV Prevention Planning Council to end the privacy ban,” Mr. Condit wrote in a 2012 letter to the editor.

ing. He used his discerning eye to launch a successful antique rug and furniture business.

“It is absurd that 21 years after the court order that banned privacy in gay bathhouses has expired, aging gay men, or any of San Francisco’s gay or bisexual men for that matter, should have to travel to Berkeley or San Jose to visit a bathhouse.”

According to friends, he campaigned to reopen the baths every day of his life to the end.

Mr. Condit was raised in Whittier, California. He received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Stanford University in 1962. During his time at Stanford, he studied in Germany, which he said was his most significant experience at the university.

According to the obituary, he learned Serbo-Croatian in Monterey and in the U.S. Army he was

assigned to spy on the Russians. He always respected the security of the effort, never telling where he was stationed or what he learned, his friends said.

Released from the Army, he remained in Europe for a year.

Upon returning to California, he studied architecture at UC Berkeley. He was there for the People’s Park demonstration of 1969 and wouldn’t leave, even though he was breathing tear gas, his friends said.

Mr. Condit went on to become a specifications writer at the firm of Esherick, Homsey, Dodge, and Davis, also known as EHDD Architecture.

He and a former partner bought a house on Mars Street.

Mr. Condit fell on hard times,

lost his money and possessions, and moved into assisted living at 666 Ellis Street, his friends said.

During the rise in gay liberation, Mr. Condit was active in the parade planning committee, as the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee was known, and in successive years worked in the beer booths at the Pride celebration.

“As a gadfly, his fervor was mitigated by a generous heart and open mind,” his friends wrote. “Reid never met a person he didn’t like. He became a leader in his assisted housing building. Articulate and informed, he never missed an opportunity to attend a lecture or an opera, his great love and why he could never abandon his adopted city.” t

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Mr. Tessler was born December 26, 1943 in the Bronx, New York City, and was the third child of Leo Joseph Tessler and Doralee Simon Tessler. He enjoyed summers on City Island with his sisters, Naomi and Toby, including excursions to art and history museums in New York. According to an obituary from his family, he was an accomplished flute player and briefly attended the prestigious LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts prior to his family moving to Miami, where he finished high school and attended two years of college.

After serving two years in the Navy, Mr. Tessler moved to San Francisco in the late 1960s. He fell in love with the city that ignited his creative spirit and enjoyed attending the opera and the symphony.

Mr. Tessler had a strong entrepreneurial spirit and engaged in a number of successful professional endeavors, all of which expressed his aptitude for art and design. He owned a trendy boutique clothing store on Castro Street, City Island Dry Goods, and was quoted in a book about Giorgio Armani on fashion and expressing one’s individual style through cloth-

It was, however, in renovating Victorian and Edwardian buildings that he found his true passion and joy as it combined his love for real estate, historic architecture, preservation, and art, his family noted.

In addition to his niece and her husband, David, Mr. Tessler is survived by his sister, Naomi Fine Sloan, nieces Ivy Fine (Rebecca Westerfield), Nevada Smith (Stephen Smith); grandnieces Elie Steinberg, Charlotte Smith, Averill Smith, and Blaine Smith; grandnephews Ari Steinberg and Joshua Fine. His parents and sister, Toby, predeceased him. He is also survived by many friends and extended family in California, Florida, and New York.

A service will be held Sunday, July 28, at 3 p.m. at the San Francisco Central Seventh-day Adventist Church, 2880 California Street. A private family interment will be held at a later date in Miami.t

Full disclosure: Reporter Sari Staver rented an apartment from Mr. Tessler in the early 1990s and purchased the building from him in 1992.

California Senate Bill 1 (SB1) will provide $54 billion over the next 10 years for state and local transportation projects. This creates additional opportunities for all small businesses, including businesses owned by women, minorities, disabled veterans, LGBT, and other disadvantaged groups, to participate on public works projects with local and state transportation agencies.

Now is the time to get involved. Visit Caltrans’ SB1 web site, www.rebuildingca.ca.gov, and learn more about planned improvements. Review Caltrans’ online “look ahead” reports of upcoming construction and architectural and engineering contracts to identify potential opportunities for your business. Attend contract-specific outreach events, that include pre-bid meetings and pre-proposal conferences, and meet with prospective bidders/proposers. Learn about Caltrans contracting requirements at a free training or workshop.

Caltrans needs your help to repair and rebuild California’s transportation system. We are looking for qualified contractors, consultants, suppliers, truckers, and service providers to help fix our roads, freeways, and bridges. Construction look-ahead report: http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/oe/contractor_info/12_month_Advertising_Schedule.pdf

Architectural and Engineering look-ahead report: http://www.dot.ca.gov/dpac/ae/doc/lookahead.pdf

Caltrans Events Calendar: http://www.dot.ca.gov/obeo/calendar.html

For more information, contact Caltrans’ Small Business Advocate at smallbusinessadvocate@dot.ca.gov

Researcher Dr. John Mellors Liz Highleyman

Reid Condit

for 5,000 new residential units to be built by 2035.

As of last year 1,787 new homes either had been approved or were under construction, with 367 already completed. Another 1,276 were pending approval, according to a summary on the progress of the downtown plan.

One project supported by the plan was a reimagining of a public parklet downtown that Long Beach had named in honor of the late gay San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, the first out LGBT person elected to public office in California only to be killed 11 months into his first term in November 1978.

Officially known as Harvey Milk Promenade Park and Equality Plaza, the 500 square foot piazza located at 185 East Third Street reopened in May 2018. Just around the corner from it, at 330 Pine Avenue, is the drag restaurant Hamburger Mary’s, which relocated in 2013 to become the first gay bar in the city’s downtown.

Its doing so helped usher in other businesses to the area and alerted its LGBT clientele to the transformation that was taking shape downtown, gay Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia told the Bay Area Reporter during an interview Easter morning. Seated at an outdoor table in a dining patio built in front of the eatery, Garcia was there to help kick off the city’s annual drag Easter Walk through the streets of downtown.

“I think Long Beach is a great place for anybody to move to. But especially, I think, for LGBTQ people. Its got one of the largest LGBTQ populations, per capita, anywhere in the U.S.,” said Garcia, 41, who became the first gay person elected to Long Beach’s City

Council in 2009 and then its first gay elected mayor in 2014.

Garcia and his husband live downtown, and he said that the majority of people in his building are gay. Apart from offering an urban style of living, downtown Long Beach is the terminus for the regional Metro subway system’s Blue Line, offering a direct connection to downtown Los Angeles. (The line has been undergoing an update requiring bus shuttles for passengers along certain segments and is expected to be back to full operation this fall.)

“It’s also been a progressive city for a long time. And it’s also affordable,” said Garcia as far why his hometown attracts LGBT residents. “And so you know, I wish it was as affordable today as maybe it was, you know, 30 or 40 years ago,

but it’s an affordable city and so I think a lot of people came here and moved here because of that.”

As mayor, Garcia said he has advocated for more housing development in Long Beach in order to maintain its reputation as being relatively affordable compared to other areas of the state. According to the real estate website Zillow, the city’s median home price is now at $595,400, an increase of 2.2% from last year.

The average rent in Long Beach is now at $2,295, though the company noted that it is lower than the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim Metro median rent of $3,200. Nonetheless, housing costs are an ongoing issue for the city, acknowledged Garcia.

“There’s been a huge housing crunch. We’ve built units, but we haven’t built enough, and we also have not built enough affordable units,” he said. “And so those are the challenges that we’re facing. How do we get more affordability, and it has to be through both production and through policy.”

It is a topic that Garcia has discussed with Governor Gavin Newsom, who sought the mayor’s advice during his transition period following last November’s election and visited Long Beach in February for a press event to highlight housing issues.

“What I think a lot of big cities are struggling with is we just have not built enough housing, especially housing that people can afford,” Garcia told the B.A.R. “And so that’s the big challenge in Long Beach. I think it’s a big challenge everywhere.”

Another key concern for the mayor is housing his city’s homeless population. Compared to San Francisco, Long Beach has noticeably fewer people living on its streets. According to its homeless count this year, its homeless population was largely flat, increasing by 31 people over the last two years to a total of 1,894 people.

The city also found an 8% reduction in its count of chronically homeless individuals, from 686 in 2017 to 632 in 2019. During that time the city reported more than 2,150 people had found permanent housing.

“Homelessness is a statewide crisis that impacts all of us. The data shows that Long Beach continues to make progress in housing people in need, but we must do more to get folks into permanent housing and to protect vulnerable populations,” wrote Garcia in a recent Facebook post about the latest count.

living downtown. Today, it is a “super walkable neighborhood” he said, with a growing population.

“In the early 2000s most people looked at downtown as just a place to drive to. It was not necessarily focused on people having the work-life experience in downtown. That has shifted in the last several years,” he said. “My generation and the next generation are looking for that lifestyle where we can have a high walkability score where we live.”

Sylvia considers the neighborhood, and Long Beach in general, to be a smaller version of San Francisco and its LGBT community.

“Long Beach still has a small city feel,” he said.

At the same time, it is developing, Sylvia noted, and dealing with gentrification and rising housing costs similar to other cities.

“I do hear concerns about people being priced out, and they are similar to what I used to hear in San Francisco,” he said. “I just think that is happening everywhere in California along the coast. It is hard to avoid.”

Diverse city

Over the last half century the city has become significantly more diverse, leaving behind its old nickname of “Iowa by the Sea,” said Justin Ramirez, 40, a gay man who was born and raised in the city and currently works for Garcia as his deputy chief of staff. Following World War II the city experienced a housing growth spurt, he said, that brought with it discriminatory policies.

“There was a lot of redlining done in Long Beach to keep people of color from getting into most neighborhoods and getting homes,” said Ramirez, who is of Mexican-American heritage. “My parents were one of the few families of color in their neighborhood. The only one other family of color on the block was my uncle and aunt, otherwise we had mostly white neighbors.”

Today, according to the 2018 U.S. census, the city is close to 43% Latino. Following a four-year stint in San Francisco, Ramirez moved back to Long Beach in 2014. He went to work for the mayor, his friend since college, in 2017 and recently moved from the city’s downtown to Los Altos, the neighborhood where he grew up, to help care for his father, who has Parkinson’s.

“Long Beach will always be my home,” said Ramirez.

He marveled at the changes his hometown has undergone in his lifetime, noting that when he was in college no one would think of

In the short time he has lived downtown, Sylvia has witnessed a number of changes to the neighborhood. Foremost, he said, has been an influx of new stores and cafes, including a smoothie joint, a gourmet chocolate shop, and a locally-owned coffeehouse.

“Shortly after I moved into downtown like five or six new small businesses opened up within a few months,” he said. “I am able to walk to great stuff like I used to do in San Francisco.”

While the two cities share similar characteristics, Sylvia noted that the cost of living is far less expensive in Long Beach.

“Your dollar will go a lot further, obviously,” he said. “I would say Long Beach is very similar to San Francisco in a lot of ways. It has interesting neighborhoods, good food, a gay community that is a decent size and it is friendly. The weather is better and there are a lot of exciting changes happening.”

Garcia told the B.A.R. that he believes Long Beach can find a balance between managing its growth in order to welcome new residents and ensuring longtime members of the community aren’t priced out of their neighborhoods.

“I really think it’s a city that’s just growing and it’s very progressive,” said Garcia. “And we’re just really proud of the growth and we just want to make sure that it stays a place that’s accessible to everyone.” t

Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia rides a rental bike during a community event.

Courtesy Mayor’s office

Long Beach’s Harvey Milk Promenade Park and Equality Plaza is in the downtown area.

Matthew S. Bajko

Blind EDM artist Lachi champions the gig economy

by Belo Cipriani

H aving a job is important. Aside from generating income, it provides independence and can boost a person’s self-esteem. But for people with disabilities, landing that one job is extremely tough.

According to a study released by Melwood, a nonprofit providing jobs and opportunities to people with disabilities throughout the greater Washington, D.C. area, only four out of 10 individuals with disabilities are employed in the U.S. While the study points to some grim figures when it comes to work participation for people with cognitive or mobility conditions, the Melwood study highlights that people with disabilities have a lot to contribute, if given the opportunity.

For example, the report states Melwood workers of differing abilities earned wages of about $27.7 million in 2017 and paid about $6 million in federal, state, and local taxes.

Melwood’s CEO, Cari DeSantis, believes the disability community has a lot to offer employers.

“This group of people is creative, hardworking, and loyal,” she said.

Legally blind electronic dance music star Lachi, who only uses one name, fits DeSantis’ description like a glove. In addition to being a performer, she is an entrepreneur and author. She also does a lot of freelance work to support herself.

“In today’s industry, you gotta keep the bills paid between the major projects,” she said. “So apart from live engagements, I also write toplines and produce vocals for other artists; compose music or vocals for producers, production studios, and ad agencies; and create vocal packs for club DJs.”

While Lachi has no problem landing projects, she said that her disability sometimes impacts how her clients perceive her.

“I tell artists and clients about my visual impairment right at the gate, if they don’t already know,” she said. “Usually they start off a little taken aback by the way I work, then they get all ‘Oh, wow, she’s really good for a blind person,’ but it usually ends with ‘Wait, she’s actually just really frickin’ good.’”

Lachi recognizes looking for work with a disability has its chal-

Obituaries >>

John “Lud” Langan

June 3, 1951 – July 1, 2019

We are all saddened by the unexpected loss of John Langan (aka “Lud”). His sister Carol, from Texas, will be joining his friends for a celebration of his life Saturday, July 27.

For more information, please contact Don Olson at sfdonolson@gmail.com. Rest in Peace, my friend.

Brian Timothy Mailman

June 24, 1952 – July 11, 2019

Brian Timothy Mailman, born June 24, 1952 in Bakersfield, California, died July 11, 2019 in San Francisco. Raised in Salinas, Brian Mailman refused to be defined by his disease. He struggled for decades against pain and suffering while affirming life and love. Brian was no less hard on himself than on others.

From short-order cook at Church

Lachi

Electronic dance music artist Lachi also works on many other projects.

lenges. And to all those individuals that are having a tough time securing a job, she encourages exploring the gig economy.

“If you’re having a hard time finding work,” she said, “consider ditching the traditional work-grinder and joining the gig economy. With micro-skills such as writing ad copy, Photoshop editing, virtual assisting, people are making livings without leaving the house or interacting with other humans beyond a few messages. Sites like UpWork or even Fiverr allow you to post your skills on their sites and find clients. SoundBetter is a great marketplace for experienced musicians to acquire independent projects.”

For Lachi, being an entrepreneur means she has to be constantly networking. And with just one partially-seeing eye, meeting people at events often presents barriers.

“Well,” said the LGBTQ ally, “being blind makes networking quite the endeavor. I’m on a constant split-test of how best to shock people into engaging with me. Learning and navigating new locations is always a thing, namely because I’ve gotta figure things out super fast and somewhat furtively. People have no idea that most of the simple tasks I do in new locations (i.e. sitting in a chair, opening a door, shaking a hand) is about 60% based on intuitions and deductions, not on actual physical knowledge.

“People sometimes assume I’m aloof because I don’t wave back, or approach, or make direct eye contact, or acknowledge social cues altogether,” she continued. “People also render me a bit pushy, because I often have to really focus on the situation at hand to comprehend it. Failing to see and needing to work

Street Station to working as a sous chef under MOF Chef Paul Duford at San Francisco’s P.S. French Restaurant, Brian’s love of food and cooking was a lifetime passion. He wrote a column, FWIW, for Empire Kosher and was an http://www. oucooking.org columnist (“Slow Food in the Fast Lane”). Along with Maxine Wolfson he co-moderated www.jewishfood-list.com with over 2,000 members around the world. He was happily active with rec.food.cooking in its early days.

He is survived by Stephen McNeil, his husband of 30 years, his Saipan family of brother Bruce Mailman, sister-in-law Maya Kara, niece Lila Rachel and her husband Broc Calvo, nephew Brian G. Mailman, and cats Rodger Dodger and The Sam. Thanks to caregivers Luana McAlpine and Lucia Hau, the staff of DaVita, especially Eleanor Fabro, Kaiser ICU staff, and Kaiser Drs. Jeffrey Fessel, Jonathan Lieberman, Sumie Iwasaki, and Derek Blechinger, Jazmin and Hung of Westside, PAWS, JCFS Chicken Soupers, Project Open Hand, his Yiddish class, and Openhouse’s Friendly Visitor Brian Schneider.

Family may be contacted at mcneilstephen2@gmail.com.

Funeral services were held. Donations can be made to Danny & Ron’s Rescue P.O. Box 604, Camden, South Carolina 29021.

hard to focus are both physical traits – resulting from my disability –that have seeped into the macrocosm of my personality. But once I can see you, and even when I can’t, I’m super social.”

Lachi’s determination has made her an artist to watch out for. Her recent release “Fire” debuted on international dance charts, and “Go” hit over one million streams in three months, and hit the BeatPort Top 100 for EDM/Drum & Bass. She also has a few releases dropping in July and August – including a dub track titled “Unafraid,” featuring emerging Milano DJ duo RIOHTZ.

Lachi represents a small section of the disability community that is employed. As the Melwood study pointed out, and as we have learned through meeting Lachi, the disabil-

ity community has many creative and hardworking individuals that would be an asset to any organization. Improving the work participation of people with disabilities can seem like a huge undertaking; however, it is an issue that anyone can support in several different ways.

If you are a supervisor or work in human resources, you can talk to the leadership in your company to see about starting a program that recruits from the disability community. Additionally, employers can establish partnerships with nonprofits that help people with disabilities find work to create hiring events. And if you are one of those people that likes to volunteer, you can reach out to nonprofits and offer to provide interview coaching, or simply

help out through any volunteer need the agency may have.

For those who may not have much free time to get involved, you can pledge your support for increasing the number of employed people with disabilities by donating to the agencies that do work in this space, as well as by buying the goods created by people with disabilities. Also, liking and sharing the social media posts of disability advocates, and the agencies that support them, helps them to be seen by more people.

To learn more about Melwood, visit www.melwood.org. To follow Lachi’s work, visit http://www.lachimusic.com. t

Belo Cipriani is an award-winning author and prize-winning journalist. His new book, “Firsts: Coming of Age Stories by People with Disabilities,” is now available. Learn more at www. belocipriani.com.

The people of the State of California, to All Persons Claiming Any Interest in, or Lien Upon, the Real Property Herein Described or, Any Part thereof, defendants, greeting (See Memorandum Disclosing Adverse Interest [CCP § 751.07] attached.): You are hereby required to appear and answer the complaint of CALIFORNIA BARREL COMPANY LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, plaintiff, filed with the clerk of the above-entitled court and county, within three months after the first publication of this summons, and to set forth what interest or lien, if any, you have in or upon that certain real property or any part thereof, situated in the City and County of San Francisco, State of California, particularly described as follows: REAL PROPERTY, SITUATE IN THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, COMPRISED OF SIX (6) PARCELS, DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEING A PORTION OF PARCEL A, AS SAID PARCEL A IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN GRANT DEED RECORDED SEPTEMBER 26, 2016 AS DOCUMENT NUMBER 2016-K334613 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, IN THE OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: PARCEL ONE BEING ALL OF MARYLAND STREET, AS SAID STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, LYING WITHIN SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEGINNING AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID MARYLAND STREET; THENCE, FROM SAID POINT OF BEGINNING, ALONG SAID NORTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), EASTERLY 80 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID NORTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH THE EASTERN LINE OF SAID MARYLAND STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID EASTERN LINE OF MARYLAND STREET, SOUTHERLY 279 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID EASTERN LINE OF MARYLAND STREET WITH THE SOUTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613); THENCE, ALONG SAID SOUTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016K334613), WESTERLY 80 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID SOUTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH SAID WESTERN LINE OF MARYLAND STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF MARYLAND STREET, NORTHERLY 279 FEET TO SAID POINT OF BEGINNING. PARCEL TWO BEING ALL OF LOUISIANA STREET, AS SAID STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, LYING WITHIN SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEGINNING AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID LOUISIANA STREET; THENCE, FROM SAID POINT OF BEGINNING, ALONG SAID NORTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), EASTERLY 80 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID NORTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH THE EASTERN LINE OF SAID LOUISIANA STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID EASTERN LINE OF LOUISIANA STREET, SOUTHERLY 279 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID EASTERN LINE OF LOUISIANA STREET WITH THE SOUTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613); THENCE, ALONG SAID SOUTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), WESTERLY 80 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID SOUTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH SAID WESTERN LINE OF LOUISIANA STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF LOUISIANA STREET, NORTHERLY 279 FEET TO SAID POINT OF BEGINNING. PARCEL THREE BEING A PORTION OF GEORGIA STREET, AS SAID STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, LYING WITHIN SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEGINNING AT A POINT ON THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID GEORGIA STREET, SAID POINT BEING THE SOUTHWESTERN CORNER OF PARCEL 1, AS SAID PARCEL 1 IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN JUDGMENT RECORDED FEBRUARY 1, 2001, AS DOCUMENT NUMBER 2001-G897578 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, IN SAID OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO; THENCE, FROM SAID POINT OF BEGINNING, ALONG THE SOUTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 1 (DN 2001-G897578), EASTERLY 80 FEET TO A POINT IN THE EASTERN LINE OF SAID GEORGIA STREET, SAID POINT BEING THE SOUTHEASTERN CORNER OF SAID PARCEL 1 (DN 2001-G897578); THENCE, ALONG SAID EASTERN LINE OF GEORGIA STREET, SOUTHERLY 406.42 FEET TO THE NORTHEASTERN CORNER OF PARCEL 3, AS SAID PARCEL 3 IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN JUDGMENT QUIETING TITLE RECORDED MAY 26, 1960 IN BOOK A127 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, AT PAGE 596, IN SAID OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO; THENCE, ALONG THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 3 (A127 OR 596), NORTHWESTERLY 18.79 FEET TO A POINT ON THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613); THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), THE FOLLOWING TWO (2) COURSES: 1) NORTH 03°10’16” WEST 125.39 FEET, AND 2) SOUTH 86°49’44” WEST 63.85 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2001-K334613) AND SAID WESTERN LINE OF GEORGIA STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF GEORGIA STREET, NORTHERLY 271.42 FEET, MORE OR LESS, TO SAID POINT OF BEGINNING. PARCEL FOUR BEING A PORTION OF MICHIGAN STREET, AS SAID STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, LYING WITHIN SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEGINNING AT A POINT ON THE EASTERN LINE OF SAID MICHIGAN STREET, SAID POINT BEING THE SOUTHEASTERN CORNER OF PARCEL 2, AS SAID PARCEL 2 IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN JUDGMENT RECORDED FEBRUARY 1, 2001, AS DOCUMENT NUMBER 2001-G897578 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, IN SAID OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO; THENCE, FROM SAID POINT OF BEGINNING, ALONG SAID EASTERN LINE OF MICHIGAN STREET, SOUTHERLY 157.42 FEET, MORE OR LESS, TO THE NORTHEASTERN CORNER OF PARCEL 4, AS SAID PARCEL 4 IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN JUDGMENT QUIETING TITLE RECORDED MAY 26, 1960 IN BOOK A127 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, AT PAGE 596, IN SAID OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO; THENCE, ALONG THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 4 (A127 OR 596), NORTHWESTERLY 2 FEET, MORE OR LESS, TO A POINT ON THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613); THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), THE FOLLOWING TWO (2) COURSES: 1) NORTH 03°10’16” WEST 9.01 FEET, AND 2) SOUTH 86°49’44” WEST 11.12 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2001-K334613) AND SAID NORTHERN LINE OF PARCEL 4 (A127 OR 596); THENCE, ALONG SAID NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 4 (A127 OR 596), NORTHWESTERLY 6 FEET, MORE OR LESS, TO A POINT ON SAID WESTERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613); THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), NORTH 03°41’19” WEST 143.4 FEET, MORE OR LESS, TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH THE SOUTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 2 (DN 2001-G897578); THENCE, ALONG SAID SOUTHERN LINE OF PARCEL 2 (DN 2001-G897578), EASTERLY 18.62 FEET TO SAID POINT OF BEGINNING. PARCEL FIVE BEING A PORTION OF HUMBOLDT STREET, AS SAID STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, LYING WITHIN SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEGINNING AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE SOUTHERN LINE OF SAID HUMBOLDT STREET (33 FEET WIDE) WITH THE EASTERN LINE OF MICHIGAN STREET, AS SAID MICHIGAN STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, SAID POINT BEING THE NORTHEASTERN CORNER OF PARCEL 2, AS SAID PARCEL 2 IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN JUDGMENT RECORDED FEBRUARY 1, 2001, AS DOCUMENT NUMBER 2001-G897578 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, IN SAID OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO; THENCE, FROM SAID POINT OF BEGINNING, ALONG THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 2 (DN 2001-G897578), WESTERLY 18.62 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID NORTHERN LINE OF PARCEL 2 (2001-G897578) AND THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613); THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), THE FOLLOWING TWO (2) COURSES: 1) NORTH 03°41’19” WEST 1.31 FEET, AND 2) NORTH 87°24’17” EAST 18.63 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2001-K334613) AND SAID EASTERN LINE OF MICHIGAN STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID EASTERN LINE OF MICHIGAN STREET, SOUTHERLY 1.12 FEET TO SAID POINT OF BEGINNING. PARCEL SIX BEING A PORTION OF HUMBOLDT STREET, AS SAID STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, LYING WITHIN SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEGINNING AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE SOUTHERN LINE OF SAID HUMBOLDT STREET (33 FEET WIDE) WITH THE EASTERN LINE OF GEORGIA STREET, AS SAID GEORGIA STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, SAID POINT BEING THE NORTHEASTERN CORNER OF PARCEL 1, AS SAID PARCEL 1 IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN JUDGMENT RECORDED FEBRUARY 1, 2001, AS DOCUMENT NUMBER 2001-G897578 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, IN SAID OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO; THENCE, FROM SAID POINT OF BEGINNING, ALONG THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 1 (DN 2001-G897578), WESTERLY 80 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID PARCEL 1 (2001-G897578) AND THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID GEORGIA STREET, SAID POINT BEING THE NORTHEASTERN CORNER OF SAID PARCEL 1 (DN 2001-G897578); THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE GEORGIA STREET, NORTHERLY 33 FEET TO THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID HUMBOLDT STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID NORTHERN LINE OF HUMBOLDT STREET, EASTERLY 80 FEET TO A POINT ON THE EASTERN LINE OF SAID GEORGIA STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID EASTERN LINE OF GEORGIA STREET, SOUTHERLY 33 FEET TO SAID POINT OF BEGINNING. PARCELS ONE THROUGH SIX BEING PORTIONS OF APN 4175-017. ATTACHED HERETO IS AN ILLUSTRATIVE INDEX MAP, AND BY THIS REFERENCE, MADE A PART HEREOF.

And you are hereby notified that, unless you so appear and answer, the plaintiff will apply to the court for the relief demanded in the complaint, to wit: quiet title to the Property consistent with the legal description above, against all adverse claims of all claimants, known and unknown, as of the date the Complaint in this case was filed.

members, and Oakland City Council President Rebecca Kaplan, the City Council unanimously voted to restore funding enabling us to continue our support of LGBTQ families in the East Bay.

“We’ll take the summer to regroup. And we’ll be excited to return on September 8 with our not-to-bemissed Oakland LGBTQ Festival Family Garden,” the statement reads, referring to Oakland Pride, which is that day.

Ames clarified the specifics of that regrouping period via email to the Bay Area Reporter.

“The funding cut is what affected our East Bay programs, which are planned several months in advance,” they wrote. “As a result, we put our weekly playgroup, monthly support groups, and a few parent education workshops on hiatus for the summer. These are generally our lightest in terms of both programming and family attendance, and several of the programs were already scheduled to take their annual breaks during those months. We used this time to restart our planning process, and programming will resume as normal when the school year does.”

In an interview Sunday, June 30, at the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club Pride breakfast, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf weighed in on OFC’s funding and said a recent B.A.R. edi-

Maitri

From page 2

“I like to connect mission to donors, so I’ll be doing a lot of outreach to donors,” he said. “I need younger people to recognize that people living with AIDS need us. There’s been so much improvement in the stigma around AIDS, but it’s still hard to talk about.”

He said there is still awkwardness for people disclosing their status.

“We have to realign our mission so that we can lessen that,” he added. “As a gay man, I think that we’re one of the most courageous communities in the world. It was the lesbians who showed up at bedsides of people dying, and that’s the community that Maitri has grown in. I’m going to be focused on creating those connections.”

A former Maitri executive director echoed Smith’s sentiments about the changing nature of both

SF Pride

From page 1

ers asking SF Pride to remove Google from the event following its inaction when its subsidiary YouTube allowed a creator to use homophobic slurs against a journalist with impunity. Lopez and SF Pride decided to take no action in the fight over Google.

Lopez, a 43-year-old gay man, communicated with the Bay Area Reporter by email about his plans, focusing on the importance of finding a new permanent executive director.

“My intent is to be a considerate caretaker of the organization as the interim director,” he wrote. “I know the search for the permanent director will start very soon, and for now I am excited to continue working alongside the talented team we have at Pride.”

In a news release from the organization, Lopez remarked that the

crease over the 6% rate in 2014.

While PrEP awareness and use rose across groups, some notable disparities remain. In 2017, PrEP awareness was lower among black men (86%) and Latino men (87%) compared with white men (95%). Black men were also less likely to use PrEP (26%) than white men (42%), though us-

torial was inaccurate. Specifically, the editorial stated that Schaaf had “cut” OFC funding from her proposed budget, which she disputed.

“The grant that funded Our Family Coalition was a competitive one. The council or the mayor had no influence,” Schaaf said. Therefore, she believes it was inaccurate that the B.A.R’s editorial called her out for “cutting” funds, since those funds ultimately came from a grant, rather than the general fund.

“OFC didn’t score high enough in the latest round,” Schaaf said, adding that the city “didn’t add funding for anything” in the new two-year budget, “and stuck to revenue projections.”

Ames confirmed Schaaf’s comments. OFC did get $200,000 from

HIV/AIDS and the community the organization serves.

Sorensen, who is currently the director of the Oregon Society for Universal Healthcare, worked briefly as executive director at Maitri in 2016, taking over for Smithwick when the latter announced his first retirement. However, a combination of internal factors and his own family issues forced Sorensen to leave the organization only six months later.

Sorensen spoke with the B.A.R. by phone, expressing regret for what he had to leave behind.

“Maitri was one of the best, most meaningful experiences of my life. If I could still be there, I would,” he said.

When asked about the instability in leadership and what might be causing it, Sorensen was careful, but candid.

“The demographics of who comes to Maitri for end-of-life care is not the same as it was in the early days of the epidemic,” he explained. “When

Pride “movement is rapidly evolving worldwide.” The B.A.R. asked him to expand on that.

“In communities around the world, Pride commemorations are growing and changing with the involvement of more and more generations of LGBTQ+ folks and allies,” he wrote. “Recognition and visibility that may once have seemed impossible are now matter-of-fact. Pride organizations are being asked how best to acknowledge our progress, while understanding that there is still much work to do to gain equity for our communities.”

Lopez’s comment may refer to connections between the San Francisco event and those in nations where homosexuality is still criminalized and Pride celebrations are embattled and dangerous events, such as Uganda.

Even as recently as this year, Pride events were canceled in Cuba over safety concerns and ongoing public

age among Latino men was similar (30%). Older and younger were about equally likely to know about PrEP, but the older group was more likely to use it (38% versus 32%).

PrEP awareness was highest in the West (96%), followed by the Northeast and South (both 90%) and the Midwest (81%). A similar pattern was seen for PrEP use (43%, 37%, 30%, and 33%, respectively).

San Francisco and Seattle were among the first cities to widely adopt

the new “Oakland Together” two-year $3.2 billion budget that was approved last month.

Ames, who started July 8, most recently served as interim executive director at Trans Lifeline, a peersupported nonprofit hotline run by transgender people and based in Oakland. Ames also worked as a staff attorney and policy fellow for the National Center for Lesbian Rights from 2011 to 2016, and founded and coordinated its #BornPerfect campaign to protect LGBTQ children and youth by outlawing conversion therapy, which is still legal in 32 states.

Former OFC Executive Director Renata Moreira announced her departure in May, citing a desire to spend more time with her family and following the death of her sister, 43-year-old Isabel de Lima Garcez Moreira in Brazil. She officially departed at the end of June, leaving Ames temporarily at the wheel.

In an email interview, Moreira offered sentiments of both concern and confidence for Ames and OFC.

“This is an exceptional time for our community: we’re facing unprecedented challenges immediately following historic wins,” she wrote. “Some of us are well-protected, others more exposed and at-risk than ever before. And the funding landscape for non-profits is equally paradoxical and rapidly-changing.”

Ames, 32, identifies as a nonbinary queer person and uses they/ them pronouns. They spoke to the

it was professional and artistic white men getting HIV and dying, it was different. People used to die and leave the organization thousands, millions of dollars. Those days are over.

“Now, it’s folks with mental illness and addiction issues, folks who have very little outside support. The hardest part [of leading the organization] was convincing people that there is still a need to donate. Maitri takes care of people who probably didn’t have much comfort or safety in their life, and their last days are kind and humane and all the things that make a safe space possible for death with dignity,” he said.

According to its website, Maitri’s total revenue is $2.5 million, with 77% coming from government support and another 9% from corporate and foundation grants. Less than 10% of its funding comes from individual contributions.

Wanting to be fair to Maitri’s

scrutiny over LGBTQ events.

When asked to comment on this year’s Google controversy, Lopez was reticent to engage with the issue in any specific way.

“We continue to face challenges together and celebrate victories together. But Pride is not monolithic. We have great opportunities to share with each other the many meanings of Pride as we move into the next 50 years of our movement,” Lopez wrote, referring to next year being the 50th anniversary of the first San Francisco Pride.

The inaugural 1970 event was referred to as a “gay-in,” consisting of a march down Polk Street and a gathering in Golden Gate Park that commemorated the 1969 Stonewall riots and kicked off the tradition of gay Pride events as an annual city tradition. In SF Pride’s news release, Lopez referred to the upcoming 2020 event

PrEP, and both of them – along with Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington, D.C. – had awareness rates exceeding 95%. San Francisco had the highest PrEP use rate by a considerable margin (61%), followed by Boston (50%), Chicago (47%), Washington, D.C. (47%), Seattle (46%), New York City (41%), and San Diego (41%). New Orleans was a bright spot in the South, with 95% awareness and 39% use. Not surprisingly, men with more

B.A.R. by phone, expressing their eagerness to help guide the organization through what they described as a “period of transition” for OFC and other LGBT groups.

“This work couldn’t be more critical in light of the successes and challenges of the last few years,” Ames said. “The needs of these organizations are very different now from what they were 20 years ago when we were just getting started. It’s time to reexamine priorities. This is the time for next steps, now that we have some protections and we’re making sure people get them in the light of these new attacks.”

When asked about the specific challenges and attacks that worried them most, Ames cited the recent fight over religious exemption legislation.

“At the state and federal level under current leadership, we want to ensure that families remain protected from the effects of this legislation. We want to protect families of faith, as well. Our constitutional right is to protect the people that we serve, more than it is to deprive them of care,” Ames said.

They went on to explain that OFC can do critical work in this state, since California is kind of a laboratory for the rest of the nation.

“I was born here and raised in the California public school system,” Ames said. “I know what a difference it would have made to have programs like ours in place. We do programs all over the Bay Area for queer families

board, Sorensen described it as being made up of passionate and wellmeaning individuals.

“They’re trying to fight the good fight in services for HIV, but to be honest, my conversation there was often focused to suggest that the organization merge with another hospice or health-specific LGBT or HIV group like the San Francisco AIDS Foundation,” he said. “But very few larger organizations are going to want to merge with a smaller one that’s fighting for its bottom line on a daily basis.

“The board is trying to chase stability. It’s a super caring board with big hearts, but they don’t understand that some history may not be able to be repeated. You have to roll with the times and the business and be open to the possibility that being autonomous might not be sustainable,” Sorensen added.

Members of the board at Maitri did

as a “landmark anniversary.”

Jacquelene Bishop, president of the SF Pride board of directors, commented in the release, stating, “We are delighted to welcome Fred Lopez into the interim executive director role. He has been a valuable member of the team and will make us proud serving us through this transition. The board is embarking on a larger search to fill the role permanently.”

Neither Lopez nor board members contacted, including Bishop, responded to questions asking whether Lopez is in consideration for the permanent role of executive director. Ridgley’s five-year tenure was mostly smooth, but marked by controversy surrounding the Black Lives Matter Movement a couple of years ago. Lopez declined to share his salary information. According to SF Pride’s 2016 IRS Form 990, Ridgely was compensated at $126,472 in salary and benefits.

education, higher incomes, and health insurance were more likely to be aware of and using PrEP. While 39% of insured men were using PrEP, this fell to 19% of uninsured men, indicating that the cost of Truvada is still a barrier.

This may change following the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force’s recommendation last month that health care providers should offer PrEP to men and women at high risk for HIV. The Affordable Care Act requires in-

considering raising kids, considering configurations that aren’t written in stone in the way that traditional families are. We look specifically to serve POC and low-income, and offer child care while they’re going on.”

Ames told the B.A.R. that their position is interim-only. They are contractually excluded from becoming the permanent executive director, and expect the search for a long-term replacement to take six to nine months. Ames said their salary is confidential with the board, and would not share it with the B.A.R.

According to OFC’s 2018 IRS Form 990, Moreira’s salary was $104,867. OFC’s budget is about $1.2 million, according to its 2015 annual report, the most recent on its website. OFC’s stated mission is pursuing equity for LGBT families with children. As recent controversial moves made by the State Department have sought to deprive children of LGBT parents conceived through surrogacy outside the United States of U.S. citizenship, OFC and organizations like it have unusual and difficult work ahead of them.

While OFC’s East Bay programming is on break until school resumes in the fall, its calendar offers ongoing events throughout the summer. t

To learn more about OFC, visit https://www.ourfamily.org/.

Cynthia Laird contributed reporting.

not respond to requests for comment, but two wrote about Smith’s hiring in the organization’s recent newsletter.

Board Chair Mike Niemeyer welcomed Smith to the organization.

Board member Ray Lapointe, who was head of the executive director search committee, wrote that Smith brings nonprofit experience to Maitri, as he managed a staff of 110 at St. Martin’s Hospitality Center in New Mexico, among other prior jobs.

Smith is a graduate of Loyola University in New Orleans and also attended St. Mary’s University Seminary/Anglican Institute He is married to his husband, Scott Reiber. Smith declined to share his salary. According to the agency’s IRS Form 990, in 2016 Smithwick made $143,806. t

To learn more about Maitri’s work or to make a donation, visit https:// maitrisf.org/.

Ridgley’s five-year tenure was mostly smooth, but marked by controversy surrounding the Black Lives Matter Movement a couple of years ago. Ridgely’s predecessor, Earl Plante, left after the wrangling over naming and then rescinding community grand marshal honors for trans former Army private Chelsea Manning, who at the time was in the midst of a court-martial for leaking documents to WikiLeaks.

Prior to that, SF Pride saw the short tenure of Executive Director Amy Andre, who quit the job as the organization’s finances crumbled in 2010. t

More information about the executive director position will soon be available at www.sfpride.org.

surers to cover USPSTF-recommended prevention services.

To address barriers to access, the CDC has started the Targeted HighlyEffective Interventions to Reverse the HIV Epidemic (THRIVE) initiative, which will establish collaborative programs in seven heavily impacted cities to offer comprehensive HIV prevention and care services for black and Latino gay and bi men. t

Sam Ames

Courtesy OFC

<< Palm Springs

From page 1

One of the newer arrivals was Matt Vandeberg, 46, who moved into the Desert Park Estates neighborhood north of the city’s airport in the first quarter of 2018. He has found that the city’s reputation as solely being a gay retirement mecca no longer rings true.

“That myth is dispelling and times are a changing,” said Vandeberg.

After moving to San Francisco in 1995, Vandeberg lived through several tech-driven boom and bust cycles. Yet the gay marketing professional was never able to buy a home in the city and, for years, rented a one-bedroom apartment in the Duboce Triangle neighborhood.

Like many of his peers now in their 40s, Vandeberg found himself priced out of the city’s housing market and two years ago began seriously considering his options. He quickly ruled out leaving California and turned his focus toward Palm Springs, a favorite vacation spot of his.

“When I thought about places to move to I knew I wanted to stay in California, especially in Trump’s America, right? So I needed to stay in California and I wanted a place somewhere that was liberal and had a vibrant gay community,” said Vandeberg. “I had been vacationing in Palm Springs for years, so it really was a natural place to look to and a place I could easily consider home.”

In August 2017 he spent a week in a rental home to see if he could handle the town’s notorious summer heat, with temperatures above 100 degrees most days, and envision himself as a full-time resident.

“I simply wanted to do a litmus

test and put myself in the most brutal conditions Palm Springs could offer –the heat, being alone, working and not on vacation – to see how I could manage those factors. I did fine,” recalled Vandeberg. “I could see myself living there. It transitioned in my mind from being a vacation place to a home with work and friends and everything else.”

Last year on March 31 Vandeberg moved into a two-bedroom, twobath furnished condo he had bought in the low $200,000 price range. His monthly mortgage payments plus the HOA fees he pays worked out to be $500 less than his San Francisco rentcontrolled apartment.

“Basically, when I started thinking about a place I met with a financial adviser and I worked with my brother who is a mortgage broker. I quickly found out I could afford a nice condo with today’s interest rates and pay less in my housing than I was in San Francisco,” he said. “For sure that sealed the deal to move.”

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‘Pleasantly surprised’

As for the age range of his new hometown, Vandeberg has been “pleasantly surprised” by the age diversity within the local gay community.

“Sure it does tend to skew a little bit older,” he acknowledged. “But there are definitely other folks like me in their 30s and 40s moving to Palm Springs from San Diego, from Los Angeles, and from San Francisco. I have had several friends and acquaintances from San Francisco who have done the same thing I have done.”

According to the most recent population figures from the American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census, in 2017 there were 18,231 residents of Palm Springs between the age of 30 and 59. Those age 60 and older numbered 18,485, with the city’s median age at 54.

A report this May by the Southern California Association of Governments noted that the 55-64 age group increased the most in Palm Springs between 2000 and 2018. It grew from 12.6% to 18.2% of the town’s total population.

Those numbers are likely to trend downward in the coming years as more people in the lower age brackets move into town. And it is not just Palm Springs but several nearby cities that are attractive to younger people searching to buy a home.

Jasmine Brandolini, 40, and her wife, Laura Kutch Brandolini, 43, left the East Bay city of Alameda in October to move into a three-bedroom house with three full bathrooms, a two-car parking garage, and pool they bought in Rancho Mirage in the $500,000 range. The couple had been paying $3,000-a-month for the threebedroom townhouse with one and

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half bathrooms they had rented.

Despite having saved up a nest egg toward the purchase of a house, the couple found the only homes they could afford in northern California were on the outskirts of the Bay Area. Even then they would be stuck with costly monthly mortgage payments on a relatively small home.

After ruling out Las Vegas, which they didn’t find very welcoming to a same-sex couple during a weekend house-hunting visit, and a number of other cities along the West Coast, the women turned their sites on the Palm Springs region.

“We only visited here once before like five or six years prior on a weekend trip. We never left the tiny downtown area near our hotel,” recalled Kutch Brandolini, who for years had worked for the ABC affiliate in San Francisco. “We didn’t know the Palm Springs area at all.”

Their new hometown has been an adjustment for the Bay Area natives. They are living in a gated community and many of their neighbors are older gay retirees.

“I don’t think it is regrets. It is a change. It is really different is the thing,” said Kutch Brandolini of their move. “There is a ton we still love about living down here. The pace of life is a lot calmer and there is so much less traffic.”

Like the Bay Area, the region has a sizeable LGBT population, she noted, with a number of gay-owned businesses, community groups and established nonprofits. They did discuss if moving to a place known as a gay retirement mecca made sense for them.

“We definitely thought about it,” said Kutch Brandolini. “We are not partiers. We don’t go out to bars and

Tech Support >>

clubs. We are fairly homebodies and we like quiet, so it was a little bit of a bonus living in a more senior area.”

Plus, many of their friends in the Bay Area like to vacation in Palm Springs and it is easy for them to travel back to see their families. They have made friends with people their age since moving and are adjusting to the hotter climate; this summer they are installing solar power in order to cut down on their electricity bill.

“It is a really great area to be and really comfortable to live here, minus the heat, as long as you have good AC,” said Kutch Brandolini. “We strongly suggest solar power ... your electric bills easily can be $800 to $900 a month. Solar will help cut that bill drastically.”

In addition to bracing oneself for the hot weather, new residents should also be aware that the job market is nothing like it is in the Bay Area, cautioned both Vandeberg and Kutch Brandolini. He was able to transfer his job with him when he moved, while she landed a job with a San Franciscobased public relations firm owned by a friend that allows her to work remotely from home.

“If you are looking to move down here the job market is not going to pay you anything close to what you can get in the Bay Area,” noted Kutch Brandolini.

Vandeberg agreed that there aren’t as many economic opportunities in the area as one can find in the state’s other metropolitan regions.

“So that can be a challenge and could be a challenge for me in the future,” he said. “But I am willing to do what I can to make it work living in Palm Springs.” t

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Laura Kutch Brandolini, right, and her wife, Jasmine Brandolini, stand outside their Rancho Mirage home.

Courtesy Laura Kutch Brandolini

Tattoo you!

by Sura Wood

What accounts for the popularity of tattoos across time and multiple civilizations? They’re found on all continents, save for Antarctica. Some have even been discovered on Egyptian mummies and cave dwellers frozen in the tundra. Through the ages, they’ve served as a handy form of recordkeeping, tribal markings, badges of masculinity, denotations of status and class, celebrations of events and declarations of love. Today they’re everywhere, especially among Americans between the ages of 18 and 39, approximately 30% of whom have them. Their hold on millennials may explain why, in the last year or so alone, there have been two local museum shows on the subject.

See page 20 >>

Before Stonewall’ returns

by David-Elijah Nahmod

When “Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community” was first released in 1985, the Stonewall Riots were fewer than 20 years in the past and still fresh in many people’s minds. This gave the film a special

See page 16 >>

Jewish spectacle

From “Army of Lovers in the Holy Land.”

by David Lamble

The 39th edition of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival unspools July 18-28 at the Castro Theatre, July 20-25 in Palo Alto, July 25-Aug. 1 in Albany, Aug. 2-4 in Oakland, and Aug. 2-4 in San Rafael. The offerings include a documentary on a queer Israeli disco band (“Army of Lovers in the Holy Land”) and portraits of two Jewish film icons, “Casablanca” director Michael Curtiz (“Curtiz”) and Petaluma-born New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael (“What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael”).

See page 20 >>

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS }

Ed Hardy speaks about his designs printed on boogie boards, on display as part of the exhibit “Ed Hardy: Deeper than Skin” now at the de Young Museum.

Rick Gerharter

Two shirtless guys on the beach, circa 1960s.

Courtesy of First Run Features

Lunar illuminations

by Roberto Friedman

The Moon is such a constant presence in human arts & culture, it’s easy to forget it’s just an accident of astrophysics that we Earthlings happen to have one, and only one. Through July, the Exploratorium in San Francisco is offering a full range of lunar programming to celebrate their 50th anniversary and the 50th year since the Apollo 11 moon landing. Last week Out There attended a spacethemed “After Dark” adults-only Thursday-night program, when the museum is open late, bars serve up liquor, and one can look up and bay at the moon.

All month long, UK artist Luke Jerram’s “Museum of the Moon” looms over the galleries like the moon’s own selfie. The surface of the photorealistic sculpture appears hyperreal due to its “high-resolution, topographically-correct NASA imagery.” It’s easy for a viewer to get lost in its cliffs and craters.

Last week’s “After Dark” featured a live webcast all about objects built for space travel.

“Lunar Lore” (7/18) will examine the stories we see in the night sky. “Out of This World” (7/25) takes up the search for life and theoretical models of the future universe.

“Discover what we’re learning about the most ‘out there’ parts of space.” They’re playing our song!

In a full-day celebration of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, the museum will be open from 10 a.m.-Midnight on July 20. Events will include expert presentations, screenings of NASA’s newly-restored footage of the 1969 landing, and a late-night dance party with food, bars, retro

cocktails and music. Take one small step for (wo)man, one giant leap for (wo)mankind!

This truly fun science museum has over 650 interactive exhibits that challenge what you think you know about science, perception and the natural world. Also on display through Sept. 2 is “Self, Made: Exploring You in a World of We,” an exhibition focused on exploring the converging facets of identity. The Exploratorium, Pier 15, SF, is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sun.; 6-10 p.m. every Thurs. night (ages 18+).

Vintage gays

A recent exhibition at a local history museum featured nightlife photography from 1990s San Francisco, and it’s not a knock on that particular photographer’s body of work, but publicity materials claimed she was a singular sensation in chronicling that era’s

party life, which is completely and outrageously false. Out There can think of at least a dozen Bay Area photographers who were snapping away pictures during that era of Club Uranus and Club Universe, and that’s just photogs we happen to know personally!

Top of the lot is the echt-San Francisco nightlife photographer Jim James, who has been capturing not only nightclubs and disco halls, but Gay Pride parades, street fairs and other louche scenarios and scenesters for many decades now.

Last Friday night, OT was proud to be part of the jubilant crowd celebrating the opening of “Black and White Nostalgia: Vintage Gay SF,” an exhibition of James’ work showing through the month at Strut, 470 Castro St. We revisited favorite portraits, ran into old friends, enjoyed the gay social scene, and were able to make our way through the mob to blow air kisses at the man of the moment, our dear friend and recognized artist, JJ. Mm-whah, darling, major congratulations!t

Before Stonewall

resonance. Now, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the riots, “Before Stonewall” has been re-released to theaters. A powerful piece of moviemaking, the film screens at the Roxie Cinema on July 18, 19 & 22.

Narrated by acclaimed lesbian author Rita Mae Brown, “Before Stonewall” is a documentary about what LGBT life was like during the decades that preceded the riots. It’s a powerful testimony to how difficult and dangerous life was for queer people during the 1920s, 30s, 40s &

50s, when people were forced to live in secret, when being out or “discovered” could mean arrest, loss of jobs, or even jail time.

Co-directors Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg do an impressive job of finding people who recall those bygone years with great clarity. Participants who were around during the 1920s and 30s were quite old by the time the film was made. These interviews were the last chance the filmmakers had to speak to people who were alive during that time. The film is therefore an important historic document.

the coded language they used to find each other. There was enormous societal pressure to marry. What little community there was existed underground. Yet a few dared to live quasi-open lives, such as Gladys Bentley, an African American lesbian who performed in clubs in Harlem. Bentley dressed like a man, and ran off to Atlantic City to marry her girlfriend. Harlem and the Barbary Coast of San Francisco were among the few places where LGBT people could gather and create community. The film takes viewers through the WWII era, when many LGBT

From page 15 See page 17 >>

Interviewees speak of the secretive lives they were forced to live, and

A view of Luke Jerram’s “Museum of the Moon.”

Courtesy Exploratorium

Audre Lorde (right) and friend, New York City, circa 1950s.

Courtesy of Audre Lorde

Take part & stay still: ‘Kill Move Paradise’

by Jim Gladstone

Back in 1944, Sartre’s “No Exit” set a famously high bar for dramas about limbo. Playwright James Ijames has stepped onto that philosophically provocative dance floor with his 2018 “Kill Move Paradise,” now playing in a handsomely mounted Bay Area premiere coproduction by Berkeley’s Shotgun Players and the Lorraine Hansberry Theater. But he’s added a twist.

After meeting in the afterlife, the lead characters in “No Exit” come to realize that the ways they reflexively interact with each other – suspiciously, critically, judgmentally – is a form of never-ending torture: “Hell is other people.”

In “Kill Move Paradise,” directed here by Darryl V. Jones, Ijames emphasizes the commonalities of his four protagonists (played by Tre’Vonne Bell, Dwayne Clay, Edward Ewel, and Lenard Jackson) more than their differences. All of them are black – three men and a 16-year-old boy – and they each arrive suddenly, to their own surprise, in the netherworld of Celeste Martore’s blindingly white set, with its curving central ramp and round entry portals. They’re unexpectedly dead, at the hands of the play’s fifth character: Hellish Other People.

That would be the audience, openly acknowledged and named “America” by the onstage cast. By “America,” Ijames means our country’s dominant culture, and its White Gaze through which black males are seen as problematic actors, potentially violent troublemakers to be watched carefully – and killed as necessary for the ruling class’ sense of self-defense.

State Department building in Washington, DC, and demanded employment rights. They still had a long way to go: inside the building, people were laughing at them.

But in asking its audience to identify as this America, “Kill Move Paradise” becomes as messy as it is meta. The self-selecting theatergoers likely to attend a production of this play by this socially conscious pair of companies are more the exception than the rule when it comes to dominant culture. The racially mixed crowd at the performance I attended clearly appreciated the

overall message and intellectual gamesmanship of Ijames’ writing, but there was little sense of surprise or drama in the room. It’s a sermon delivered to devout believers.

Even setting the demographics of the crowd aside, “Kill Move Paradise” has little momentum, because it takes place within a metaphorical Mobius strip. “America” clinically observes black men performing

under a ghastly spotlight, and this perspective leads to more suffering as the evening continues. In addition to the cast members arriving on stage one-by-one, a dot matrix printer onstage generates an evergrowing list of innocent black men killed by whites. The characters occasionally read from this painful litany of familiar names: Eric Garner, Amadou Diallo, Trayvon Martin …

The endless loop structure of Ijames’ script leads to an awkward closing sequence, in which a set of starry galactic projections fills the stage and all four characters manage to climb through a mysterious aperture toward the top of the set, leaving an empty stage behind. Are they making their way to heaven? Is there a better world ahead? Somehow, they’ve broken out of the cycle we’ve been sharing with them, but it’s not at all clear how or why. Ugly truths have been cleverly demonstrated, but nothing has changed over the course of the play. In this riff on “No Exit,” the exits feel unmerited.t

Kill Move Paradise, through Aug. 4. Shotgun Players’ Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. Tickets, $23-$35: (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org

Before Stonewall

From page 16

people heeded the call to fight for their country. But they also had to fight for their right to remain in the military. One woman who during the war worked for future president Dwight D. Eisenhower remembers being ordered to weed out all the lesbians who were serving in his unit.

“My name will be first on the list,” she told the general.

The chilling witch-hunts of the McCarthy era are recounted, as is the first emergence of a visible gay movement. During the 1950s the Mattachine Society, a gay men’s organization, and the Daughters of Bilitis, a San Francisco-based lesbian activist group, were formed. At a time when gay materials were viewed as obscene, both organizations had the courage to publish magazines, the first regular gay publications in US history. Interviews with Mattachine co-founders Harry Hay and Chuck Rowland are included, as is an interview with a woman who recalls going to her first Daughters of Bilitis meeting around 1955. She speaks excitedly of how it felt to be in a room full of lesbians for the first time. “Oh, what a thrill that was!”

In the 60s, many LGBT people involved themselves with the civil rights movement, and this inspired some to take a stand for gay rights for the first time. In 1965, a small but hearty group of gay men and lesbians marched in front of the

It was no walk in the park to be queer in the decades that preceded Stonewall, and the film does an amazing job of recreating that history. Besides interviews with dozens of “old timers,” the film includes a gold mine of archival footage. We see actual footage of Dean Rusk, who served as Secretary of State under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, assuring his colleagues that the department does not knowingly employ “homosexuals,” and that when “homosexuals” are discovered in the department they are dismissed.

Jose Sarria, who might have been San Francisco’s earliest out gay activist, is also remembered.

Sarria was a drag performer at The Black Cat, a popular gay hangout on Montgomery Street that operated from 1933-63. In 1961, Sarria ran for Board of Supervisors, and though he didn’t win, he garnered over 5,000 votes, far more than anyone thought he would. The film includes footage of a 1980s reunion among Black Cat patrons, over which Sarria presided.

The scope and depth of the research that went into creating “Before Stonewall” are breathtaking. This nearly 50-year history of the LGBT community makes it easy to understand why patrons at the Stonewall Inn exploded that night in June 1969. Their resentment at how they’d been treated went far beyond the police raids they’d been enduring at the Stonewall. People were tired of being treated like second-class citizens, of hiding who they were, of the harassment and bigotry they’d been forced to live with.

“Before Stonewall” holds special resonance today, with the Trump administration’s attempts to roll back LGBT rights. The community’s hold on the rights that have been gained is tenuous at best. This film reminds us what was fought for, and that the battle is far from over.t

Growing up and going through life as a gay man is not easy. Most of us find our way by trial and error because, until now, being born gay has not come with a manual. Queer Answers is just that. It answers many of the questions gay men have. Those answers are based upon objective scientific studies and the experiences of the author. Trial and error offers more adventure than Queer Answers does but can cost a lot more in the end. Get the book and arm yourself with knowledge.

The cast of Shotgun Players’ production of playwright James Ijames’ “Kill Move Paradise.”

Robbie Sweeny

Megan Rapinoe is all over the tube

by Victoria A. Brownworth

There is always a little frisson of sadness when Pride Month is officially over. But this year is Stonewall 50, so we can keep the Pride stoked through December. What’s more, America now has an unofficial queer ambassador to the world in Megan Rapinoe. The co-captain of the USWNT, winner of the FIFA World Cup soccer championship and MVP of the World Cup is all over the tube, and OMG are we ever here for it. That the lavender-haired goddess is putting GOP panties in a bunch is the proverbial cherry on top of a month of spectacular play from USWNT. The final game itself was amazing. We were screaming, our friends were screaming. But there was so much more.

At game’s end, Rapinoe ran over to the stands to kiss girlfriend Sue Bird. Then Kelly O’Hara ended all speculation about whether she was or wasn’t a lesbian by going to kiss a woman in the stands. Then the team’s engaged couple, Ali Krieger and Ashlyn Harris, kissed each other. Coach Jill Ellis, a married lesbian, kissed everyone. Yes, lesbians won the World Cup, and it was the queerest event in sports history.

Rapinoe, who turned 34 during the month of games, came out publicly nearly a decade ago, saying that it was important for others to see her modeling out gayness on the field. “When you’re out, it’s only one part of who you are,” Rapinoe explained. “But when you’re not out, it’s just this all-consuming thing. The deeper in the closet you are, the more you lie, the more it becomes this allconsuming thing that it really doesn’t have to be, and it takes over your life. So people getting to a point where they can just live their lives and be happy, if I can have any part in that, that’s pretty special.”

Rapinoe’s outspokenness throughout the World Cup events has been unlike anything we’ve seen from a professional sports figure. Rapinoe has become an advocate for gender equality and LGBTQ rights. During an interview after the U.S. beat France in the quarterfinal right before France’s Pride Day on June 29, Rapinoe said, “Go gays! You can’t win a championship without gays on your team, it’s never been done before, ever. That’s science, right there!” Rapinoe added, “For me, to be gay and fabulous, during Pride Month at the World Cup, is nice.”

Nice for us, too. The USWNT tweeted out her quote. After the team won the World Cup, they added to their original tweet with a photo of Rapinoe, Krieger and Harris with the message, “Told ya!”

The USWNT’s support for Rapinoe and the other gay players has been remarkable. But even better has been the way Rapinoe has used her celebrity to speak out for LGBTQ people on every network. In her appearance on Anderson Cooper’s

“AC360,” Rapinoe took President Trump to the woodshed that Joe Biden has only talked about. Trump has attacked Rapinoe in tweets. Rapinoe, who calls herself a “walking protest against Trump,” has called him “sexist, misogynistic, small-minded, racist” and “not a good person.”

On July 9, Rapinoe told CNN’s Cooper (her World Cup trophy beside her) that if she could speak to Trump directly, she would say, “Your message is excluding people. You’re excluding me. You’re excluding people that look like me. You’re excluding people of color. You’re excluding Americans that maybe support you.”

She added about Trump’s MAGA message, “We need to have a reckoning. You’re harking back to an era that was not great for everyone. It might have been great for a few people, and maybe America is great for a few people right now, but it’s not great for enough Americans in this world.” Rapinoe said to Trump, “I think that we have a responsibility, each and every one of us – you have an incredible responsibility, as the chief of this country – to take care of every single person, and you need to do better for everyone.”

These words and the way Rapinoe presented them – calmly, directing herself to the audience as if she were giving her own State of the Union Address – was like nothing else we’d ever heard. We’ve heard many Democratic presidential candidates and members of Congress take Trump to task. But this was so different. It cut across all divides.

Rapinoe’s words resonated. The next morning the front page of The New York Daily News had the headline, “Megan America Great” over a photo of Rapinoe, arms spread wide with the other women of the USWNT.

Rapinoe also appeared on “The Rachel Maddow Show.” Watching two butch lesbian icons chatting was its own unique TV event and made us a bit verklempt. Maddow asked Rapinoe what was next on her agenda, citing a poll that has her beating Trump in an election. The soccer star isn’t running for president, but she is going to keep talking about what needs to happen for women’s soccer, women’s sports, and gender and queer equality. She took that message to “GMA,” “CBS This Morning” and the “Today” show. Then she won an ESPY Award. You can watch all these great queer TV moments online, and we urge you to do so. It’s truly empowering to have Rapinoe speak to us and for us.

Candy crush

So everything else on the tube feels like less after the Rapinoe-a-thon. Everything except (major spoiler alert coming here) Candy’s death on “Pose.” As much as we were cheering Rapinoe, that’s how much we cried The Ugly Cry during “Pose,” as Candy Ferocity (Angelica Ross) was found dead in a closet after a bad trick. We were always cheering Candy when Pray Tell (Billy Porter) was slamming her for not being talented enough or pretty enough. We were devastated to know that she would never get a chance to get that 10 she’d been aching for.

But Candy’s funeral was so deftly done, it gave everyone a chance to say to her in death what they never could in life, starting with Pray Tell and including her very straight parents who Angel (Indya Moore) managed to convince to come to their child’s funeral, even if Mom kept referring to Candy as her son.

More than perhaps any other in the series, this episode of “Pose” highlighted how much so many of us are forced to depend on our found family, because our families of origin often can’t (or won’t) love us enough to accept who we are. If

you haven’t seen it, watch. Bring a full box of tissues. Ryan Murphy announced this week that Ross will be joining the next season of “American Horror Story,” which premieres in September.

If you want lighter fare, MTV’s bisexual reality romp “Are You the One?” is so worth watching. MTV describes Season 8 of the ongoing relationship reality series: “On the history-making eighth season, 16 singles head to Hawaii to find their perfect matches and for a chance to split the $1 million prize, and for the first time ever, all the singles are sexually fluid, which means there are no gender limitations: The one could be anyone.”

We admit we mostly live in that world between political TV, PBS and Netflix, with some network and cable TV tossed in. Much as we love TV, we still read books as well as write them, so we try to limit our trash TV watch ing to cooking shows and talent shows, all of which highlight queers.

MTV has always been queer-friendly, but we sort of aged out of that network a while ago, and relationship shows tend to be either really tedious or scarily sociopathic and always straight, so we don’t watch. But after five years of straightness, “Are You the One?” decided to change it up this season, and it’s just like watching your friends have drama.

This season of “Are You the One?” is the kind of train wreck that “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelortette” only wish they could be. It’s fabulous. As one of the contestants, Danny, said, “If you have a reality TV show that includes the entire spectrum of, like, racial, sexual, and gender identities, you’re gonna have a really interesting show!” Yes, baby, you are.

So we have queer-poly-bi-pan folks. And of course they are all beautiful, because this is still TV, and young, and buff and ready for anything. There is a lot of backstory about the contestants who uniformly have the stories we all have: claustrophobic small-town closeting to scary only-out-kid-at-school-object-ofbullying. So it feels very real and very personal in the way those straight reality series must feel to straight people.

Most of these people are immensely likeable (Basit, a black queer poly, is our personal fave). What feels best about this series is the messiness of the show. The drama is not because the people are queer, but because they are people. So this isn’t one of those point-andstare exploitative series where the queer contestants are being made examples of, but a really enjoyable and emotional party where everyone is searching. We feel empathy for most of the contestants (a few can be over-much, but that’s every episode of “Big Brother” we have ever seen) and we have so much affinity for the queerness. It just feels good to be immersed in a group where no one is straight. As Remy notes, “Some of us are not what you would want to maybe represent you, and that’s fine, but we’re real people, and we exist and deserve to be seen, and we deserve to express how we feel.”

Amen to that. In a culture that shows us out-of-control straight people on TV 24/7 (looking at you, Meghan McCain, and you, Laura Ingraham, and you, too, Tucker Carlson, and every Real Housewife ever), the queer contestants on “Are You the One?” seem normative in their own milieu.

The show has all the things we expect to see on a relationship reality series, from hook-ups to catfights. But it also layers those things with

moments of intense realness as the contestants reveal who they are under their hotness and prettiness and of-course-none-of-us-are-fatness (if the show really wanted to break out, they’d have had some folks who weren’t perfectly model-sized).

Kai talks about becoming a trans man. Basit talks about being in love with love, no matter who the person is they fall for. Danny reveals some experiences that send him into tears.

Of course there are the aspects that make your eyes roll and set your teeth on edge, but then it is still TV. There’s also a lesbian relationship guru, Dr. Frankie Bashan, who gives everyone some therapy on how to avoid the pitfalls of bad relationships. Not for everyone, but we definitely want to see who “wins.” Wednesdays on MTV, with repeats; also available online.

We happened to catch Madonna on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” on July 11, and it felt like a real blast from the past. The entertainer, who is the wealthiest woman in the music industry, the bestselling female recording artist of all time, and the highest-grossing single touring artist of all time, was there to promote her latest album, “Madame X.”

The current season of “Pose” uses Madonna’s 1990 hit “Vogue” as a foundation for some of the action, putting the importance of the entertainer and her role as a superstar in historical context. For us, seeing Madonna on late-night TV seemed a bit of a fall for someone of her legendary status. But then, presidents have been on the show, too, and she mentioned Fallon introducing her to President Obama, so maybe not.

At 61, with a not-too-obvious facelift, Madonna’s nobody’s grandmother, and she still has the edginess and elan that made her iconic. At one point Madonna got up and taught Fallon and the audience to cha cha, lifting her diaphanous black fishnet skirt all the way up. After watching years of aging male rockers, it’s good to see Madonna refusing to bow to gender dictates about what is and is not allowed for older women performers, when every few years Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart take a younger wife and have a new baby.

Everything old is new again in the era of streaming, and a series we fell into when it popped up on our Amazon Prime is the 2013 “In Between Men.” The series is described as “a sexy new dramedy about AllAmerican masculine gay men who live ‘in between’ a gay world, whose cliches they don’t relate to, and a straight world they don’t belong to.”

There are trailers on YouTube. The men are hot, ripped, of various races, and there are two seasons to binge.

“Eastsiders” is another gay series now available on Netflix and Amazon Prime. The 2012 series follows the relationship between Cal (Kit Williamson) and boyfriend Thom (Van Hansis). The series also co-stars Constance Wu.

We wrote about Van Hansis here years ago when he broke ground on daytime TV as Luke Snyder on CBS’ “As The World Turns.” Luke and boyfriend Noah became the first gay male supercouple on daytime. Hansis is terrific in “Eastsiders” as well.

Williamson wrote and directed the series, which explores everything that can go wrong in a relationship, as well as the explicitly sexy good parts. There are three seasons, so it’s definitely bingeworthy.

So for the queen of queer, the fun and frolicsome, and enough heat to keep you sweating, you really must stay tuned.t

Megan Rapinoe, the co-captain of the USWNT, winner of the FIFA World Cup soccer championship, and MVP of the World Cup.

Web-TV

Summer concert introduces opera stars

by Philip Campbell

Fresh faces, big voices, and an enthusiastic audience charged the San Francisco Conservatory of Music last week at the 62nd season opener of the Merola Opera Program. The high-status springboard for promising opera talent showcased selected participants in the annual Schwabacher Summer Concert. Full semi-staged scenes from the operatic repertoire offered a fine first encounter with singers we will get to know better throughout the summer.

Twenty-nine Merola artists, chosen from over 800 contenders, coming from Brazil, South Korea, New Zealand, and Colombia, but mostly from across the U.S., are participating in master classes and coaching with the industry’s best singers, conductors, and directors. Between production of the first opera commissioned in the Program’s 62-year history, the world premiere of “If I Were You” by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer, Aug. 1-6; and the concluding Merola Grand Finale, Aug. 17, participants will receive free training in repertory, languages and acting. Only Merola graduates are considered for the San Francisco Opera Adler Fellowship Program, which is a guarantee of mainstage roles with the Company.

It is a high-stakes game, but with little need for ongoing competition. No one appearing at the Schwabacher concert was there by luck. Becoming a Merolini is already a big win. Director Jose Maria Condemi wisely made sure everyone appearing in the Schwabacher Summer Concert got their own chance to validate his or her place at the table.

Quickly setting the mood, conductor Craig Kier got the beautifully prepared orchestra in synch with the ensemble of 11 chosen vocalists for the complete first act of Puccini’s molto Italiano take on Viennese operetta, “La rondine.” The recurring theme of the gorgeous aria “Chi il bel sogno di Doretta” is instant ear-candy, and the audience settled in for a long but swift moving concert of highlights from great operas.

Soprano Amber R. Monroe (Youngstown, OH), as the Parisian courtesan Magda, took center stage to give a lovely rendition of the famously memorable tune.

Tenor Victor Starsky (Richmond Hill, Queens, NY), as poet Prunier, gives her the song to begin with. He coupled later with Magda’s saucy maid Lisette, soprano Hyeree Shin (Cheon-an, South Korea), for a charmingly flirtatious duet.

The first half ended with Act I, Scene 4 of Donizetti’s bel canto masterpiece “Lucia di Lammermoor.”

Soprano Chelsea Lehnea (Chattanooga, TN) was spectacular in the challenging coloratura of the title role. Tenor Salvatore Atti (Buffalo, NY) as Lucia’s secret lover Edgardo, and mezzo-soprano Alice Chung (Loma Linda, CA) as her companion Alisa, supported Lehnea’s star turn with admirable contributions of their own.

The evening’s lone misfire could not be blamed on the singers. Act II, Scenes 3 & 4 from “Die schweigsame Frau” (“The Silent Woman”) by Richard Strauss ended unsatisfactorily, something of a bleeding chunk from an organically seamless score. Still, bass Stefan Egerstrom (Brooklyn Center, MN) as Morosus, a rapidly aging retired naval officer, was heartfelt and moving (though nowhere near old enough) in his expression of longing for Hyeree Shin, who convincingly portrayed the deceitful Aminta, pretending to be a more demure Timidia. It’s complicated, but if you know the

plot of Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale” you will appreciate the kinder treatment Strauss gives the hoodwinked Morosus. He certainly gives him some soulful music.

Act IV, Scenes 5-8 from Gounod’s “Faust” allowed baritone Laureano Quant (Barraquilla, Colombia) and bass-baritone Andrew Dwan (Mountain View, CA) ample op-

portunity to impress the receptive audience, and they ran with it. Quant was thrilling in full voice as Valentin, angrily cursing his cruelly ravished sister Marguerite, soprano

Anna Dugan (Cranford, NJ), before dying at the hand of Salvatore Atti’s Faust. Dwan was alternately droll and malicious in his mock serenade, with rich and flexible tone and convincing acting.

Act IV, Scene 2, to the end of opera from Verdi’s classic “Il trovatore” (the “pot-boiler where every tune is a hit”) proved a passionate if rather dark way to end an exhilarating night. Soprano Anna Dugan changed from Marguerite in “Faust” to a strong and heartbreaking Leonora, who poisons herself to escape the clutches of Il Conte di Luna, forcefully portrayed by baritone Jeff Byrnes (Baton Rouge, LA). They couldn’t avoid being upstaged somewhat by Victor Starsky’s powerful Manrico (Leonora’s beloved) and Alice Chung’s startling transformation to Manrico’s mother, the alleged witch Azucena. It is all in the libretto and Verdi’s over-the-top melodies. Starsky and Chung filled the dry acoustic of the Conservatory with enough sound to carry over to the War Memorial Opera House.t For more info on coming Merola events, Heggie and Scheer’s “If I Were You” and the rest of the summer season: merola.org

(L-R) Chelsea Lehnea (Soprano) and Alice Chung (Mezzo-soprano) performing selections of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” in Merola Opera Program’s Schwabacher Summer Concert at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Kristen Loken

Now comes #3, “Ed Hardy: Deeper than Skin,” which opened last week at the de Young Museum. Widely regarded as the father of modern tattoo culture, Hardy’s reputation on that score will no doubt lure many visitors, but he also created exceptional paintings and prints. Their tightly controlled compositions, faboo colors and meticulous attention to detail are rooted in his tattooing, which melds old school Western imagery, Japanese ukiyo-e era motifs and ancient Asian brush painting.

The big, expansive show is brimming with allusions to mentors and influences that shaped Hardy’s sensibility, colorful characters like Bert Grimm, who tattooed Pretty Boy Floyd; Honolulu-based Sailor Jerry; and Phil Sparrow, a Bay Area author-pornographer-tattooist who gave Hardy one of his first tattoos and was well-known in the gay and leather communities in the 1950s and 60s. And there’s lots of cool stuff on hand: a floor-to-ceiling wall of tattoo flash accompanied by a touch screen that enlarges individual images, videos of Hardy at work, numerous preparatory drawings, and a 500-foot-long Tyvek dragon scroll. While it’s a bit much to take in, the exhibition succeeds at being both an introduction to the uninitiated and a wonderland for fans.

Case in point is a chart highlighting factoids of 19th- and 20th-century tattoo history. For instance, did you know President Andrew Jackson was rumored to have a tomahawk

From page 15

Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles”

The Castro Opening Night doc provides a moving and highly entertaining history of one of Broadway’s longest-running and most cherished musicals. Launched in 1964, “Fiddler on the Roof,” (music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick; book writer Joe Stein, direc-

tattoo on his thigh; Sitting Bull forcibly administered tattoos to the first tattooed lady, or so she claimed; and Popeye the Sailor began working his way into American consciousness as early as 1929?

Most of the show is devoted to the life and career of Hardy, a 74-yearold Southern California native credited with re-energizing the art-form and elevating it from its outsider, back-alley origins. A precocious lad who got an early start on his chosen path, he was drawing tattoos by the time he hit the ripe old age of 10.

Photos and some of his sketches from the 1950s are stationed at the entry to the exhibition. As a kid, he was exposed to tattoo parlors on Long Beach Pike, an amusement area near his Corona Del Mar home, and when he was a teenager, he took cues from SoCal’s hot rod

tor-choreographer Jerome Robbins) ran for a record 10 years and taught a generation of theatergoers about late-19th century Russian Jewish life, based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem. Director Max Lewkowicz will appear for a post-film Q&A.

(Castro, 7/18)

“What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael” The daughter of a Petaluma egg farmer, the late Pauline Kael (1919-2001) had a daughter

and surf cultures. Years later, images of horned red devils, shooting the curl or riding the perfect wave, appeared in his prints and paintings; the mischievous streak remained a constant.

While attending SFAI in the mid1960s, Hardy was introduced to the prints of Goya, Durer and Rembrandt, which led him to specialize in intaglio printmaking and eventually produce the fierce “butterfly woman” of “Lupe’s Feast” (1992). His rendition of the 19th-century design includes punctured eyeballs, slabs of meat and a carving knife floating above the figure’s head. “Mondrian’s Girlfriend” (1997), a feminine, vintage-looking variation on the same theme, is displayed nearby.

In 1967 Hardy took a crucial step: he turned down a fellowship at Yale

by a gay man (Bay Area poet James Broughton), programmed an East Bay art-house cinema, and began what would prove a five-decadeplus film-critic career by delivering capsules for the Pacifica Foundation’s KPFA Radio in Berkeley. Curiously, her lavender connection would cause some Kael detractors to accuse her of homophobia when perhaps she was merely being true to her deeply contrarian roots. Rob Garver’s engrossing new bio-doc makes liberal use of rarely seen archival footage with filmmakers whose work was praised or assaulted in Kael’s long-running New Yorker column. (CineArts, 7/20; Castro, 7/28; Piedmont, 8/4)

Army of Lovers in the Holy Land” In a doc likely to be a LGBTQ audience favorite, Asaf Galay presents the singular journey of queer disco-pop band Army of Lovers, whose charismatic frontman JeanPierre Barda moves them from their home in Sweden to the flowering desert of Israel. The film examines the age-old question of the attraction of immigration to Israel, even for Jews who are not facing persecution in their countries of origin. (Castro, 7/26; Albany Twin, 7/28)

Curtiz” From “Here’s looking at you, kid,” to “We’ll always have Paris,” the 1942 classic “Casablanca,” shot at Warner’s Burbank studios at a time when the outcome of the Allied struggle against Nazi aggression was anything but certain, continues to resonate with the fates of ex-pats and refugees on a chaotic, shrinking planet. Hungarian filmmaker Tamas Topolanszky honors his countryman, “Casablanca” director Michael Curtiz, with a detailed profile of how this artist (with 200 films to his credit) managed to bring this timely war romance into theaters despite the misgivings of studio executives. The awesome cast (Bogart, Bergman, Rains and Veidt) was assembled while, at the same time, Curtiz was desperately attempting to ferry family members out of Nazi-controlled Europe. Featuring an onstage chat between noir expert Eddie Muller and Curtiz biographer Alan K. Rode. (Castro, 7/20; CineArts, 7/24; Albany Twin, 7/27)

“Cooked: Survival by Zip Code”

and opted to make tattooing his profession. He commemorated the decision with the etching “Future Plans (Leaving Art School),” a cocky self-portrait of a bespectacled young man who looks more like a mildmannered science teacher than the iconoclastic artist he would become.

After spending six or eight months in Japan studying at the feet of a master, he returned to San Francisco and set up Realistic Tattoo, the first-ever by-appointmentonly studio. His clientele ranged from lawyers and doctors to rockers, movie stars and the Hell’s Angels, whom he met through actor Peter Coyote, who, you guessed it, has a coyote tattoo. In keeping with the shop’s slogan “Wear your Dreams,” Hardy collaborated with customers on designs for epic chest, back and full-body art. The show features photographs of the work emblazoned on actual people, and imagery projected onto a peculiar, androgynous mannequin.

Hardy branched out, painting on digital prints sealed with resin on panels and boogie boards, like one from 2007 with a gorilla head and go-go girl legs. For several largescale pieces in “Skeleton, Skulls & Ghosts,” a section featuring Gothic and Asian-inspired works from the 1990s, he used Mexican amate (bark) paper whose texture has the irregular properties of human skin. Hmm.

Don’t miss two spectacular, vividly colored depictions of tigers on the move. In “Climber” (2011), an extraordinary lithograph recalling traditional Chinese landscape

painting, a giant orange and blackstriped cat ascending a dark scholar rock appears almost upside down from our vantage point; its sharp claws are out, and you can count the tiny white hairs on its paws. Another that rocks the joint is “Red Wind Tiger” (2010), an oil-painted print of a snarling scarlet predator with glowing eyes. Surrounded by yellow bolts of lightening, the swirling Op Art background receding as the animal advances in hot pursuit, one can feel the power of its body surging toward us. Wow!t

Through Oct. 6. deyoung.famsf.org

Chicago, America’s historic “Second City,” recently elected its first black lesbian Mayor. This hard-hitting nonfiction film reveals why this political upheaval may have come just in the nick of time. Docmaker Judith Helfand probes a deadly 1995 heat wave that took at least 739 lives in Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. Helfand deftly connects the climate-change dots from Chicago’s “unnatural disaster” to Hurricane Katrina, which drowned historic New Orleans, to an East Coast superstorm that flooded parts of Long Island. Helfand recalls when Chicago Mayor Richard Daley appointed a task force to address the heat storm that brought temps in the Loop up to toasty 104 in the shade. She quotes a local sage, “No one ever appoints a task force to discover the cause of a problem, only to make it go away.” Plays as part of the fest’s Freedom of Expression Award to filmmaker Helfand, who’ll be on hand at the Castro (7/22; CineArts, 7/24; Piedmont, 8/3).

“Advocate” In this time-shifting bio-doc Rachel Leah Jones profiles Israeli defense attorney Lea Tsemel as she defends clients her country’s prosecutors, media and citizens consider terrorists. Tsemel takes on the case of a Palestinian teenage boy charged with a knife attack on a pair of Jewish teens. She also sticks up for a traditionally garbed Arab woman accused of being a suicide

bomber. Israel’s 2019 top doc is an unflinching look at a woman who hangs out in a very bad neighborhood, with only words to protect her and her clients. (Castro, 7/27; Albany Twin, 6/28)

“Carl Laemmle” James Freedman provides an extraordinary profile of a German Jewish man who battled master American inventor Thomas A. Edison for access to the burgeoning film industry, from the early silent era to the decade of movie monsters (“Dracula,” “Bride of Frankenstein”), then went on to rescue European Jewish families from the Holocaust. Many LGBTQ film fans will be fascinated by Laemmle’s role in providing gay director James Whale the opportunity to create “Bride of Frankenstein,” one of the all-time great exercises in big-screen horror. (Castro, 7/19; CineArts, 7/20; Albany Twin, 7/27; Smith Rafael, 8/2)

“American Muslim” Following Trump’s intemperate attempts to ban Muslim immigrants from a host of Middle Eastern countries, Adam Zucker takes us on a tour of Islamic communities throughout the five boroughs of New York City. From longtime American citizens to wary recent immigrants, Zucker portrays a pivotal time in the lives of human beings, many of whom arrived here fleeing abuse from the very dictators the president opposes. (Castro 7/22; Albany Twin, 7/26)

“

Before You Know It” Hannah Pearl Utt embeds us with a New York theater family just as their lives are coming unstuck. Watching helplessly as her stubborn playwright dad (Mandy Patinkin) dies with his boots on, Rachel discovers that the deed to their Greenwich Village theater/home rests with a TV soapopera-actress mom they had long thought dead (diva turn from veteran Judith Light). (CineArts, 7/20; Castro, 7/21; Albany Twin, 7/26)

Seder-Masochism” An animated musical version of the stories around Passover and the Exodus, Nina Paley’s film explores the pressing question of women’s role in a traditionally male-dominated faith. (Castro, 7/21; Piedmont, 8/3)t More info: sfjff.org.

Don Ed Hardy, “2000 Dragons” (detail) (2000). Acrylic on Tyvek, collection of the artist.

Don Ed Hardy, courtesy of FAMSF

Don Ed Hardy, “El Tigre” (2009). Acrylic on digital print, collection of the artist.

Don Ed Hardy, courtesy of FAMSF

“What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael.”

Courtesy SFJFF

by Gregg Shapiro

Stonewall 50 celebrations may have come and gone, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an abundance of good LGBTQ reading to be found to take you through the summer and into the fall. All titles are out now unless otherwise indicated.

Poetry pages: According to gay poet Aaron Smith in “The Book of Daniel” (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press), he needs his Frank O’Hara and Denise Duhamel, among other poets, and he certainly gets them in this 47-poem collection that merges pop culture references and sensibility with his own personal and political struggles for an intoxicating concoction. (Oct.)

Curated by the poet and spokenword artist herself, “Crossfire: A Litany for Survival” (Haymarket Books) by Staceyann Chin is the first full-length collection by the “out poet and political activist,” featuring more than 50 of Chinn’s pieces, as well as a foreword by Jacqueline Woodson, and advance praise from Rosanne Cash and Eve Ensler. (Oct.)

The fourth book in gay poet Tommy Pico’s Teebs tetralogy, “Feed” (Tin House Books) is an appetizing love letter addressed to the “dear reader” (who’s “easy to love but hard to get close to”) that employs heart, humor and hunger to spell out its messages involving sex, travel, politics and the dangers of life now. (Nov.)

The 43 poems in “Aviva-No” (Alice James Books) by Israeli writer Shimon Adaf, translated from Hebrew by Yael Segalovitz, mirror the age that Adaf’s sister Aviva was when she died. They are a potent reflection of grief and loss, incorpo-

rating “Biblical, Talmudic, and Rabbinic intertextualities.”

(Nov.)

Screen and stage pages: Dustin Lance Black, the Oscarwinning screenwriter of “Milk,” turns his pen to his mother and himself in his memoir “Mama’s Boy: A Story from Our America” (Knopf), in which he writes about his conservative religious upbringing (Mormon), his relationship with his mother, and how she came around to acceptance after meeting his friends.

“Disasterama!: Adventures in the Queer Underground 1977-1997”

(Three Rooms Press) is writermusician-exotic dancer Alvin Orloff’s memoir of life among San Francisco’s queer alternative scene during the zenith of the AIDS crisis, following his odyssey from the city’s suburbs into the “lavender twilit shadow world of the gay ghetto” and beyond. (Oct.)

Legendary music journalist and NYU professor Vivien Goldman returns with “Revenge of the ShePunks: A Feminist Music History from Poly Styrene to Pussy Riot” (Univ. of Texas Press), which opens with the author’s “Womanifesto” and continues with interviews, historical and personal perspectives.

Goldman includes a wide swath of queer acts, including Le Tigre, Tribe 8, Sleater-Kinney, and Girl in a Coma.

Featuring essays by queer artists such as Joan Jett, Allison Wolfe and Tara Jane O’Neil, “Frame of

Mind: Punk Photos and Essays from Washington, DC, and Beyond, 1997-2017” (Akashic Books) is a cool coffee-table book by Antonia Tricarico, containing pics of The Gossip, The Julie Ruin and many others.

Published to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the beloved 1990s NBC sitcom “Friends,” Saul Austerlitz’s “Generation Friends: An Inside Look at the Show That Defined a Television Era” (Dutton) is the ultimate peek behind the scenes into the creation and execution of the series that broke new ground with its inclusion of a lesbian wedding and other LGBTQ-related storylines. (Sept.)

Almost Biblical in scope, Jeanine Basinger’s encyclopedic “The Movie Musical” (Knopf) has the benefit of being written by someone who “was raised on musicals” and loves them. Basinger describes the book as her effort to relate the story of the genre “from then to now,” from the arrival of sound to the most recent version of “A Star Is Born.” (Nov.)

Speaking of Bibles and movies,

Second novelist tells all

by Tim Pfaff

Only the excellence of Nicole Dennis-Benn’s writing got me all the way through her second novel, “Patsy” (Liveright). Her first, “Here Comes the Sun” (2016), hit like one of those acts of nature — hurricane, tornado, tsunami — from which no one can look away, events of awe and power. I can count on one hand the number of books I cannot put down, and “Here Comes the Sun” was somewhere around the ring finger.

“Patsy,” a sequel in only the broadest sense in that it depicts the hardship of Jamaican women of color and othersexuality who make it out of Jamaica, is tough going. An illustrative precedent might be the primal sweep of Maxine Hong Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior” so strongly contrasted with its successor, the denser, grittier, literarily more advanced but daunting “China Men,” about the hardships of Chinese male immigrants in the US.

“Patsy” is yet another entrant in the tidal wave of LGBTQ literary fiction about the immigrant experience, a topic that is forcing the world to look it directly in the face in our moment. Its eponymous protagonist lands a legitimate visa to come to the U.S., escape the grind of Jamaican oppression, and, as double-dealingly as not in these circumstances, get a crack at prosperity, which of course she will share with the less fortunate back home, here Patsy’s mother and Tru, the five-year-old daughter she is guiltily leaving behind.

The larger theme is the interminable struggle for freedom in the fullest sense that is universal, but bought at a higher price, with greater hazards, for

immigrants. Patsy’s conflicted break for her illusion of liberty, and its discontents, makes “Patsy” a far harder read than “Here Comes the Sun,” ironically a book with even grittier realities but more palpable sun.

Patsy also has a second, secret motive, hardly abnormal or reprehensible on its own, for leaving the island. She hopes to resume a love affair with Cicely, a fellow black (but, and this is Dennis-Benn’s rebuke of racial typing, “high yellow”) lesbian, that first bloomed in Jamaica and was interrupted by Cicely’s emigration to Brooklyn, as it happened more than a Caribbean away.

When Patsy gets to Brooklyn, the high-rises of New York prove no more uplifting than the beaches of Jamaica when she discovers, promptly, that Cicely has found herself a man and a ticket to affluence, fame and misery. Both Cicely

and economic prosperity slip Patsy’s desperate grasp.

Dennis-Benn is unflinching in her depictions of the difficulties of life in America for those, especially women, who don’t have “papers.” Patsy’s dreams of a place to pursue higher education quickly collapse into off-the-books jobs first as a restaurant bathroom attendant, then, more wholesomely but understandably for her more emotionally painfully, a nanny.

The novel is hugely ambitious, and Dennis-Benn proves her mastery at controlling a very large body of prose. “Patsy” is a story that would wilt in a linear telling, and the author deftly shifts perspectives across time and over a large cast of characters. In almost the exact middle of the book, Tru begins to dominate the narrative, wincingly denied, for a decade, any direct guidance her own

in “Latter-day Screens: Gender, Sexuality, and Mediated Mormonism” (Duke Univ. Press), Brenda R. Weber takes a look at the pervasiveness of Mormons and Mormonism in American popular media, including Sister Wives, Big Love and the Broadway musical “The Book of Mormon,” as well as gay filmmaker C. Jay Cox’s underappreciated feature-length debut “Latter Days,” co-starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. (Sept.)

Pages for all ages: In “To Night Owl from Dogfish” (Dial/Dutton), Meg Wolitzer teams up with Holly Goldberg Sloan for a Y/A novel told via emails and letters, a correspondence between Avery and Bett, daughters of gay dads who have fallen in love with each other.

Based on a series of Facebook posts from 2013, “St Sukie’s Strange Garden of Woodland Creatures” (Rattling Good Yarns Press) by St Sukie de la Croix, with drawings by Roy Alton Wald, compiles and expands on the original text with delirious results.

If you or any of the little ones

in your life somehow managed to miss the Stonewall 50 commemorations, you can read all about it in the official Who HQ book “What Was Stonewall?” (Penguin Workshop) by Nico Medina with illustrations by Jake Murray. Set in 1973, “Ziggy, Stardust and Me” (Putnam), the debut novel by gay actor-filmmakeractivist James Branden, imagines what it was like to be the boy, in this case 16-year-old David Bowie-obsessed Jonathan, who changed the mind of his psychiatrist, Dr. Evelyn in the book, regarding homosexuality’s classification as a mental illness.

“Like a Love Story” (Balzer + Bray), a “bighearted and sprawling epic” by Abdi Nazemian, is set in NYC in 1989, and follows teenagers Reza, Judy and Art as they navigate a world in which being gay is tangled up with the specter of AIDS.

The title character of “Zenobia July” (Viking), by Y/A novelist and New Hampshire’s first transgender state representative Lisa Bunker, is a transgender tech whiz coming out of her online shell, and finally living openly as a girl who has a chance to confront an online troll. But at what personal cost?

Part of the Ordinary People Change the World series, “I Am Billie Jean King” (Dial Books for Young Readers) by Brad Meltzer, with illustrations by Christopher Eliopoulos, tells the true story of one of the world’s best tennis players and LGBTQ activists from childhood to championship. King herself loves the book!t

lesbian mother might have provided. The plot is like a “slow” tropical storm that gathers shape and strength as it crawls over treacherous waters, reaches a climax of devastating impact before an only partially convincing happy ending. The task Dennis-Benn has set herself is the slippery, slowly turning sculpting of a protagonist who is superficially likable, nearly sympa thetic, but, in test after test, harder to admire or even feel for, so numer ous and complex are her character flaws. She’s an ever-fattening human molecule whose compo nent atoms are envy, re sentment, unalloyed shame, uninhibited self-centeredness paired with equally unmanageable self-hatred and, we’re told again and again, disappointment, this last the ground bass supporting the harmonic structure of this novel. Perhaps it’s only Dennis-Benn’s unwavering empathy that gets her readers through the thickets of her protagonist’s flaws.

Without sparing them their dignity and self-determination, in passages of terrifying compression

Dennis-Benn gives us mother’s and daughter’s reasons for their pain, directly related to damage to their genitalia. These are self-consciously haunted women whose torment is modified only by their highly individual ways of setting each other free, to be who they are, through hard-fought and only partially won self- and mutual forgiveness.

To the extent that it’s true that there are authors that show and others that explain, Dennis-Benn has, this time, taken the latter route, almost compulsively telling us what her more than amply vivid characters are enduring psychologically. The occasional result is an off-putting monotony redolent of the immigrants’ own punishing circumstances. Still, she leaves us with characters we can’t get out of our minds, most particularly the ones that stab at our hearts.t

Since 1977

“Patsy” author Nicole Dennis-Benn.

Jason Berger

Arts Events

July 18-25, 2019

This area of text, in journalism terms, is called a blandishment. But you’ll find in the listings provided here each week that the local artistic scene is far from bland!

Fri 19

Cabaret @ SF Playhouse

Listings start on page 23 >

Nightlife Events

July 18-25, 2019

Ryan Raftery

The comic actor-singer cooks up Martha Stewart

by Jim Gladstone

Things you might expect to find at Feinstein’s at the Nikko: a moonlighting Broadway star translating her life story into song; a jazzy medley of tunes about Manhattan; a performer extolling the virtue of embracing one’s ‘authentic self.’

Things you might not expect to find at Feinstein’s at the Nikko: a Sloppy Joe sandwich (It’s actually on the menu –and quite tasty– with a side of mac and cheese); an onstage demonstration of how to fold a fitted sheet.

See page 24 >>

Sat 20

Listings start on page 25 >

Ryan Raftery as Martha Stewart

Jessica Palopoli

Piano-playing in the Park, lunar love and Apollo anniversaries, hunky strippers telling tales via Terpsichore, Broadway cabaret crooners, queenly queens; variety is the spice of nightlife this week!

Pottymouth @ The Ivy Room, Albany

t Arts Events>>

Kill Move Paradise @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley

Shotgun Players’ production of James Ijames’ modern choral tone poem that imagines an afterlife where the spirits of young Black men try to comprehend how and why they died. $7-$45. Thru Aug. 4. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. www.shotgunplayers.org

Lua Hadar

@ Harvey Milk Arts Center

The cabaret and opera singer shares songs and stories, with moderator Paula Heitman and pianist Jason Martineau. $15-$30. 8pm. 50 Scott St. www.societycabaret.com

Passion

@ Custom Made Theater

Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical gets a local production. $10-$30. Thru July 20. 533 Sutter St. custommade.org

Queer California: Untold Stories

For full listings, visit www.ebar.com/events

THU 18

Aunt Charlie’s

@ Tenderloin Museum

Multimedia exhibit about the historic Tenderloin drag bar; thru Dec 1. July 18, 7pm: screening of Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight, the documentary about about Vicki Marlane. July 20, 6:30pm: LGBT history walking tour. 398 Eddy St. www.tenderloinmuseum.org

The Book of Mormon

@ Broadway San Jose

Touring company of the mega-hit Broadway musical comedy, created by the South Park guys, returns. $73-$93. Thru July 21. San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 255 S Almaden Blvd., San Jose. www.broadwaysanjose.com

Building the Building @ SOMArts Cultural Center

SOMArts 40th anniversary exhibition with works by 16 artists; opening recption 6pm-9pm, with special performances by Rhodessa Jones and former curatorial residents Louis Chinn and missTANGQ as Jyun Jyun Show; thru Sept. 3. 934 Brannan St. www.somarts.org

Cityscape

@ Creativity Explored

Opening reception for the new exhibit of urban-themed works by artists with disabilities; 7pm-9pm. Thru Sept 5. 3245 16th St. www.creativityexplored.org

Events @ Manny’s

July 18, 7:30pm: Chesa Boudin, SF District Attorney candidate. July 19, 7pm: free screening of Paris is Burning, live comedy 9pm. July 23, 6:30pm: ‘The State of Syrian Civil War’ talk. July 24, 6am: community watch of the Robert Mueller congressional hearing. July 25, 6:30pm: Helen Zi discusses her book, Last Boat Out of Shanghai, about Chinese who fled Mao’s Revolution. 3092 16th St. www.welcometomannys.com

Flower Piano

@ SF Botanical Garden

Fifth anniversary series of scheduled and impromptu concerts on a dozen pianos placed outdoors throughout the Garden. Night-time concerts and parties with beer, wine and food trucks July 18-20 ($55), plus art exhibits and gift shop; free entry with SF proof of residency. $5-$10 for others. 7:30am-closing. 9th Ave at Lincoln Way. www.sfbg.org

A Great Ride

@ GLBT History Museum

Screening of Deborah Craig’s A Great Ride: Adventures in Lesbian Aging. July 25: Early Leather: San Francisco’s Leather Scene, 19661992. Both $5, 7pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Hairspray @ Victoria Theatre

Bay Area Musicals’ new production of Mark Shaiman, Scott Wittman, Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan’s toe-tapping Tony-winning musical about a Baltimore ‘60s TV show, based on the John Waters film. $35-$100. 8pm. Thu 7:30pm.

Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat & Sun 2pm, thru Aug. 11. 2961 16th St. bamsf.org

The Matthew Shepard Story @ SF Main Library

Staged dramatic reading adapted by Out West producer Gregory Hinton from a Wyoming State Archives oral history project for the University of Wyoming Matthew Shepard 20th A nniversary Remembrance. 6pm. James C. Hormel Center, 3rd floor, 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

Jim James @ Strut

The photographer’s exhibit of ‘Black and White Nostalgia: Vintage Gay SF’ photos from the 1970s to 1990s, thru July. 470 Castro St.

https://photojimsf.com/

San Francisco Mime

Troupe @ Bay Area Parks

The company celebrates its 60th anniversary and performs Treasure Island, an update on the classic tale, with a development/greed scandal as the story. Free/$20 donations; at Bay Area locales thru Sept 8. www.sfmt.org

Stonewall: 50 Years @ Harvey Milk Photo Center Group exhibit of LGBT photography focusing on Pride events. Thru

July 21. Reg. hours Tue-Thu 3pm9:30pm. Sat 10am-5:300pm, Sun 11am-5:30pm. 50 Scott St. http://harveymilkphotocenter.org

Fri 19

Bay Area Playwrights Festival @ Potrero Stage 30+ actors 20+ plays, staged readings, and more. $10-$20. Thru July 28. 1695 18th St. www.playwrightsfoundation.org

Border People @ The Marsh

Dan Hoyle’s new solo show embodies multiple characters based around the U.S./Mexico border wall controversies; extended thru Aug. 30. $25-$100. Wed-Fri 8pm, Sat 5pm. 1062

Valencia St. themarsh.org

Cabaret @ SF Playhouse

New local production of Kander & Ebb and Masteroff’s classic musical based on the John Van Druten play and stories by Christopher Isherwood, set in Weimar Germany. $35-$125.

www.sfplayhouse.org

@ Oakland Museum

Multimedia exhibition documenting California LGBT lives, with contemporary artwork, rare historical materials, film, photography, sculpture; thru Aug. 11. Friday 5pm LGBT film screenings. July 25, 6pm9pm: Queer Showga (yoga class with live music, aromatherapy and light bites). Free/$15. 1000 Oak St. http://museumca.org/

Shortlived VIII

@ PianoFight

PianoFight and A.C.T. present the nation’s largest audience-judged theater competition, with multiple short plays performed over several weeks. $20; thru Aug. 10 (Finals at the Strand Theater Sept 7 & 8). 144 Taylor St. www.PianoFight.com

You Betta Work

Comedy Fiesta @ San Mateo County Pride Center

Jesus U. Bettawork’s monthly gigglefest this time features comics Natasha Muse, Sarah Kari, Mike Whitaker, Kelly O’Kelly, and Imran-G. $5. 7:30pm. 1021 South El Camino Real, San Mateo. www.jesusubettawork.com

Sat 20

Apollo 11 50th

@ Exploratorium

Day-long series of events celebrating the lunar landing half a century ago. Free/$20. 10am-12am. Pier 15, Embarcadero at Green St. www.exploratorium.edu/

Apollo 11 Celebration

@ Chabot Space & Science Museum, Oakland

50th anniversary celebration of the moon landing, with day-long family activities (10am-5pm) and a 21+ cocktail party ($14, 6pm-10pm). Space, science and planetary exhibits, including planetarium shows and the Observatory; special

nighttime events like meteor shower shows. Free-$18. 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. chabotspace.org

Big, The Musical

@ Berkeley Playhouse

Local production of John Weidman, David Shire and Richard Maltby’s musical adpatation of the hit Tom Hanks film about a kid who magically becomes an adult (on the outside). $20-$40. Thu-Sun thru

July 28. Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Avenue, Berkeley. www.berkeleyplayhouse.org

Comic Exhibits

@ Cartoon Art Museum

Surfside Girls, original work from book illustrator Kim Dwinell; other ongoing exhibits. Free-$10. 11am5pm, except Wed. 781 Beach St. www.cartoonart.org

Laborfest @ 518 Valencia

‘Press Freedom, Whistleblowers and the Case of Assange, Manning and Carmody,’ a discussion with Mickey Huff, Project Censored; Steve Zelter, KPFA WorkWeek Radio; Ann Garrison, Black Agenda KPFA. 2pm. Other events thru July 31. 518 Valencia St. www.laborfest.net

Leslie Odom, Jr. @ Davies Symphony Hall

The Tony-winning singer-actor performs his first concert with the SF Symphony. $45-$109. 7:30pm. July 21, 2pm. 201 Van Ness Ave., www.sfsymphony.org

Lush’n Roulette @ Harvey Milk Arts Center

Paul Araquistain, Donald Martin and pianist Stephanie Lynne Smith perform at the cabaret music competition. $30-$50. 8pm. 50 Scott St. www.societycabaret.com

Orchids in the Park

@ County Fair Building

Two-day festival of floral beauties, including vendors, displays and workshops. 10am-5pm. Also July 21. Hall of Flowers, 1199 9th Ave at Lincoln way, Golden Gate Park. www.orchidsanfrancisco.org

Roan at the Gates @ Berkeley City Club

Central Works’ production of Christina Gorman’s political thriller (adapted from her novel) about an NSA analyst’s secret life, and his wife’s possible betrayal. $22-$38, thru Aug 18. 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. www.centralworks.org

That Don Reed Show @ The Marsh Berkeley

The local actor-playwright’s solo show combines autobiographical storytelling, improv and comedy. $20-$100. 8:30pm. Also 5:30pm Sundays, thru July 21. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. www.themarsh.org

We Were Promised Jetpacks @ Slim’s

The Scottish indie rock band performs; Catholic Action opens. $25-$27. 9pm. 333 11th St. www.slimspresents.com

Sun 21

Expedition Reef @ California Academy of Sciences

Exhibits and planetarium shows with various live, interactive and installed exhibits about animals, plants and the earth; Skin, a multi-species hands-on exhibit; Deep Reefs, Giants of Land and Sea, Gems and Minerals, and more. $20-$35. Mon-Sat 9:30am-5pm. Sun 11am-5pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

Marc Huestis @ Alibi Bookshop, Vallejo

The author of the acclaimed new memoir The Impresario of Castro Street reads from and discusses his book about 60s-90s SF life, and producing celebrity tributes at the Castro Theatre. 3pm. 624 Marin St. www.alibibookshop.com

Tattoos in Japanese Prints @ Asian Art Museum

Tattoos in Japanese Prints and The Bold Brush of Au Ho-Nein, both thru Aug. 18; also, Contemporary works by Kim Heecheon and Liu Jianhua; exhibits of sculpture and antiquities. Sunday café specialties from $7-$16. Free-$20. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. 200 Larkin St. www.asianart.org

Then They Came For Me @ Futures Without Violence

Incarceration of Japanese Americans

During WWII and the Demise of Civil Liberties, a touring multimedia exhibit documenting the terrifying period in U.S. history when the government scapegoated and imprisoned thousands of people of Japanese ancestry. Extended thru Sept 1. 100 Montgomery St. www.thentheycame.org

Mon 22

Annabeth Rosen @ Contemporary Jewish Museum

Annabeth Rosen: Fired, Broken, Gathered, Heaped, an exhibit of works by the Californian sculptor; thru Jan 19. Also, In That Case: Havruta in Contemporary Art— Oxossi Ayofemi and Risa Wechsler thru July. Other exhibits, too. Free/$17. 736 Mission St. https://thecjm.org/

Before Stonewall @ Roxie Cinema

Screening of the fascinating historic documentary about LGBT lives before 1969. $9-$13. 9pm. 3117 16th St. www.roxie.com

Chosen Familias @ GLBT History Museum

Chosen Familias: Bay Area LGBTQ Latinx Stories. Also, The Mayor of Folsom Street: Alan Selby’s Legacy an exhibit of the leather culture pioneer. $5. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Queer as German Folk @ SF Public Library

Exhibit of ephemera and memorabilia about Stonewall rebellion commemorations in Germany and worldwide; film series Thursdays in August; additional exhibit also at Eureka Valley branch, 1 Jose Sarria Court at 16th; both thru Sept 26. 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

We Are More @ California Humanities, Oakland

Exhibit of art by four queer comic artists; Ajuan Mance, Breena Nuñez, Lawrence Lindell, and Trinidad Escobar. Thru Sept. 538 9th St. Suite 210. Oakland. calhum.org

See page 24 >>

Sat 20

Leslie Odom, Jr. @ Davies Symphony Hall

Mon 22

Annabeth Rosen @ Contemporary Jewish Museum

But lo! The elasticized equivalents of hospital corners are on the bill on July 26 and 27 in one of the swanky nightclub’s more eclectic bookings of late: Comic actor Ryan Raftery’s one-man musical, The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of Martha Stewart.

Over the past five years, the Brooklyn native has generated rave reviews, and a few raised hackles, with similar salutes to Anna Wintour, Calvin Klein and Andy Cohen at venues in New York, Los Angeles and Provincetown.

“I heard that Donna Karan wasn’t thrilled when, in my Calvin Klein show, I said she’d gotten her start as Ralph Lauren’s cleaning lady,” Raftery noted in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

“But I’m not looking to hurt anybody’s feelings or to represent real life. It’s so clearly a joke. I’m a comedian first and foremost.”

Wintour, on the other hand, was quietly supportive of Raftery’s The Most Powerful Woman In Fashion after her daughter, Bee, attended the show and assured her mom it was silly fun. She even donated a pair of her trademark Chanel sunglasses to a silent auction held at a benefit performance of the show.

Andy Cohen sent flowers on opening night of his gentle roasting (a tidbit from Raftery: When Cohen was growing up, his mother was obsessed with Gloria Vanderbilt. Hence…).

And Martha Stewart’s staff attended Rise and Fall en masse.

“I mean it was her entire company,” says Raftery, who reports they enjoyed it.

“Recently, I was in the lobby of an office in Manhattan and Martha was there coincidentally. The assistant who was with her recognized me from the show and brought me over to say hello. I just said, ‘Thank you for being so cool about the whole thing.’”

Rise and Fall begins on the day that Stewart is about to go off to prison and proceeds to flash back and forward to episodes throughout the Domestic Diva’s storied life, each accompanied by one of Raftery’s parodies of pop songs and show tunes.

“Once I choose a character to build around,” says Raftery, “the songs are what come next.”

It’s as if Weird Al Yankovic, rather than jumping haphazardly from topic to topic, made biographical concept albums. Rise and Fall features the Marthafication of melodies made famous by Beyonce, Moana and even Metallica.

Raftery says he’s reluctant to discuss many specifics about the musical selections because, “part of the fun for audiences are those moments when the tune and my lyrics click together in their minds.” He said. “I want them to figure out what song it is within the first five seconds so they can get invested in the parody and listen to words.”

While Raftery wears wigs and costumes when he performs his Stewart and Wintour shows, there’s no effort at drag verisimilitude: He aims for just enough iconic elements to let the audience in on the joke.

“There’s a little camp factor,” he says, “but it’s not about impersonation. The wig is a signal that I’m Martha Stewart and after a couple minutes the audience just accepts that. Even with the success I’ve had, my mother still doesn’t like when I dress as a woman. She brings all her yenta friends to the shows though, and then they tell me how handsome I am without a wig.”

Stage creature

Growing up in Brooklyn, Raftery, who says “I’m a stage creature,” always had his eye on Broadway. After attending NYU’s Tisch School of the Performing Arts, he briefly moved to Los Angeles and began auditioning, winning the occasional guest appearance on shows including Law & Order: SVU and Ugly Betty

“My problem in LA,” which followed him back to New York and Broadway musical casting calls, “is that I have the face of a tenor and the voice of a baritone.”

Raftery showed some grit when, while taking a series of copywriting jobs to pay the bills, he began to develop his own stage material so he would be less dependent on auditioning for others.

“I really admire the way that Martha Stewart wants to keep on working,” says Raftery of his latest muse. His first cabaret concoctions, including Ryan Raftery and Friends: A Solo Show, won him good notices and a small band of admirers, but didn’t do much to propel his career forward. Then he decided to try the Wintour parody.

<< Arts Events

From page 23

Tue 23

Smoke & Mirrors: The War on Drugs @ AAACC

Exhibit of works by six muralists and 20 artists focusing on pot use, hemp, and historical elements of cannabis in communities of color.

Tue-Fri 12pm-6pm. Sat til 5pm. Thru Aug 31. 762 Fulton St. www.aaacc.org

Wed 24

Exclusion @ Presidio Officers Club

Exhibit documenting the Presidio’s JapaneseAmerican incarceration during World War II; other exhibits show the history of the former military base and the SF peninsula. Free, TueSun 10am-5pm; extended thru June 2020. 50 Maraga Ave. www.presidio.gov

Ken Burns’ Country Music @ Palace of Fine Arts

Screening of the first episodes of Burns’ new documentary about the roots of Country music, with the director and KQED moderator Mina Kim. $35$125. 7:30pm. 3601 Lyon St. www.eventbrite.com

“That show really changed my life,” says Raftery. “It carved out a niche for me as someone who does celebrity bio musical parodies. I hadn’t quite realized it before, but you really need to do something that stands out from the crowd. Before, I was a cabaret artist people had never heard of, performing as myself. It was very hard to get people interested.”

Raftery says his parody shows have proven to be much more than an initial attention-getting gimmick to boost his profile.

“I really started in cabaret because I couldn’t get cast on Broadway. But now, as a creator, it’s hard to imagine what could be more fulfilling than writing, producing and starring in my own work and having people want to see it. Now I’m working on some projects with

Thu 25

Early Leather @ GLBT History Museum

July 25: Early Leather: San Francisco’s Leather Scene, 19661992, a slideshow and discussion. $5. 7pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Literary Speakeasy @ Martuni’s James J. Siegel s monthly authors and cocktails night welcomes poets Hilary Brown, Hadas Goshen, and Kevin Madrigal; author Chris Delyani; and musical guest Lisa Azzolino. 7pm. 4 Valencia St.

other people, but I will always keep doing this kind of live show. I’d love to do them with really high production value, maybe to film for Netflix or HBO.”

Later this year in New York, Raftery will debut his latest, a saga of Ivana Trump before it likely makes its way to San Francisco.

“I was never interested in political humor before,” he says. “But this has turned out to be my favorite. It’s also the first time I’ve really had to play a girl. Anna and Martha have a very masculine energy.”t

The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of Martha Stewart with Ryan Raftery, July 26 & 27, 8pm at Feinstein’s at the Nikko, 222 Mason St. Tickets: $35-$70. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com www.twitter.com/ryanraftery

Various Events

@ Oakland LGBTQ Center

Social events and meetings at the new LGBTQ center include film screenings and workshops, including Bruthas Rising, trans men of color meetings, 4th Tuesdays, 6:30pm. Film screenings, 4th Saturdays, 7:30pm. Game nights, Fridays 7:30pm-11pm. Vogue sessions, first Saturdays. 3207 Lakeshore Ave. Oakland. https:// www.oaklandlgbtqcenter.org/

To submit event listings, email events@ebar.com Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication.

Thu 25

Early Leather @ GLBT History Museum

Ryan Raftery

From page 22

Ryan Raftery

Ryan Raftery as Anna Wintour

Fri 19

For full listings, visit www.ebar.com/events

Thu 18

After Dark @ Exploratorium

Enjoy cocktails and science demos at the hands-on museum; tactile dome evening hours Fri & Sat, weekly 6:15 and 7:30pm. July 18: Lunar Lore (folklore inspired by the stars). July 25: Out of This World (space discoveries). $20. Pier 15, Embarcadero at Green St. www.exploratorium.edu

Baloney @ Oasis

The studly gay male revue returns with SPF 69, new and favorite male burlesque dances and sketches that’ll make you laugh and turn you on, with “Roryography” by Rory Davis, and host Michael Phillis. $35-$70. Thu-Sat 7pm thru July 27. 298 11th St. sfbaloney.com www.sfoasis.com

Dee’s Keys @ Beaux

Weekly live piano and open mic night with Dee Spencer. 4pm-8pm. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Flower Piano at Night @ SF Botanical Garden

Fifth anniversary series of scheduled and impromptu concerts on a dozen pianos placed outdoors throughout the Garden. Night-time concerts and parties with beer, wine and food trucks July 18-20 ($55), (Daytime events include art exhibits and gift shop; free entry with SF proof of residency. $5-$10 for others. 7:30amclosing.) 9th Avenue at Lincoln Way. www.sfbg.org

Sundance Saloon @ Space 550

The popular two-stepping linedancing, not-just-country music night, with free lessons. $5. 6:30pm-10:30pm. Also Sundays 5pm10:30pm. 550 Barneveld Ave. www.sundancesaloon.org

Thursday Night Live @ SF Eagle

Rock bands play at the famed leather bar. July 18: Latitude, Sarah Bethe Nelson and Jon Bernson. July 25: electro gay duo Probe 7. $8. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Fri 19

La Bomba Latina

@ Club OMG

Drag show with DJ Jaffeth. $5. 9pm2am. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Bryan Callen

@ Cobb’s Comedy Club

The goofy-sexy comic and actor performs. $25-$35. 7:30pm & 9:45. Also July 20. 915 Columbus Ave. www.cobbscomedy.com

Comedy Returns @ El Rio

The monthly comedy show features Diane Amos (the “Pine Sol Lady”), Eve R. Meyer (former Executive Director of SF Suicide Prevention), Scott Lettieri (KCBS Radio journalist), Nick Leonard (Bay Area favorite), and Lisa Geduldig. $10-$20. 7pm. 3158 Mission St. www.elriosf.com

Drummer @ Powerhouse

Gear night with Mr. Powerhouse A.J. Huff.. $5. 9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

Laura Osnes & Corey Cott

@ Feinstein’s at the Nikko

The Broadway stars perform Let’s Duet, their new cabaret show. $70$105 ($20 food/drink min.) 8pm. Also July 20. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinssf.com

Latin Explosion @ Club 21

The popular Latin club with gogo guys galore and Latin music. $10-$20. 9pm-3am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. www.club21oakland.com

Piano Bar @ Martuni’s Musician extraordinaire Joe Wicht leads tasteful sing-along selections.

5:30-8:30pm. 4 Valencia St.

Seoul Train @ Oasis

Enjoy K-pop, hip-hop and other grooves, with DJ Peter Lo. $10-$15. 10pm-2am. 10pm-2am. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Uhaul @ Jolene’s

The popular women’s dance party returns at the new nightclub, now weekly. 10pm-2am. 2700 16th St. at Harrison. www.jolenessf.com

Underwear Night @ SF Eagle

‘Night of the Package’ at the leather bar, with a Big Package $100 prize contest. 9pm-1am. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Sat 20

Apollo Party @ Chabot

Space and Science Center

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing at the planetarium and observatory’s out of this world party, with cocktails, dancing, live set by Blue Eternity, karaoke, astronaut training room, lunar exhibits and telescope viewings. Space costumes encouraged. $14. 6pm-10pm. 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. www.chabotspace.org

Beatpig @ Powerhouse

Juanita MORE! and crew’s fun eclectic night, with dJ Stanley Frank. $5. 9pm2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

La Bota Loca @ Club 21, Oakland

Banda Los Shakas performs live at the LGBT Latinx night. $10. 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St. club21oakland.com

Fake and Gay @ The Stud

Dance and drink, you fakers, with DJs Nonsuit and Adam Kraft, plus a live set by Banoffee. $10. 10pm-4am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

GameBoi SF @ Origin

The gay Asian party, now twice monthly at two nightclubs, takes on an ‘Aloha’ theme. Free/$20. 9:30pm2am. 1538 Fillmore St. www.facebook.com/GAMeBoiSF

Lips and Lashes Brunch @ Lookout

Weekly show with soul, funk and Motown grooves hosted by Carnie Asada, with DJs Becky Knox and Pumpkin Spice. The yummy brunch menu starts at 12pm, with the show at 1:30pm. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Macho Macho @ SF Eagle

Latin leather dudes, lucha libre gogos and Latin house music with DJs Marco and Sucia. $8. 9pm-2am. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Mother @ Oasis

Heklina’s popular weekly drag show, with special guests and great music themes. July 20 includes guest-host WooWoo Monroe, Lady Satan, Mary Lou Pearl, Saki Samora, Loma Prietta and special guest Aquaria. $15-$25. 10pm-3am (11:30pm show). 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

One Small Step @ Paul Mahder Gallery, Healdsburg Midsummer Moonwalk/Dance Party at the spacious arts center, with winded luna dancers, ecletic space-aged dance tunes, gourmet snacks, sparkling & regular wine, beer, and ambiance to celebrate the first moon landing. Space costumes encouraged. Proceeds benefit local homeless services. $25 and up. 7pm-011pm. 222 Healdsburg Ave. paulmahdergallery.com

Pottymouth, Dressy Bessy, Colleen Green @ The Ivy Room, Albany

Three pop-punk rocker bands play. $13-$15. 9pm. 860 San Pablo Ave., Albany. pottymouthworld.com

Prince & Bowie Tribute @ Rickshaw Stop

Dance night of hits and mixes by the two departed musicians, with live sets with tribute bands Queen Bitch and Controversy. $12-$15 ($10 in Bowie or Prince attire). 8:30pm. 155 Fell st. www.rickshawstop.com

Laura Osnes & Corey Cott @ Feinstein’s

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The Rocket Man Show @ Marin Center, San Rafael Elton John music tribute night with Rus Anderson and his band, including festive costumes. $40-$70. 7:30pm. 3501 Civic center Drive, San Rafael. https://tickets.marincenter.org

Sucia AF @ El Rio

Bollywood Fusion, a daytime, Latinx queer dance party with DJ Sazon Libre. $10. 3pm-8pm. 3158 Mission St. www.elriosf.com

Sun 21

Dirty Musical Sundays @ The Edge

Sing along at the popular musical theatre night, with a bawdy edge; also Mondays and Wednesdays (but not as dirty). 7pm-2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Disco Daddy @ SF Eagle

Dive deep into disco dementia with Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer grooves, courtesy DJ Bus Station John. $5-$7. 7pm-1am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Gigante @ Qbar

Frisco Robbie spins Latin and Hip-Hop grooves. $5. 9pm-2am (weekly beer bust 2pm-9pm). 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Lip Service @ The Stud

Hair Metal Madness night with DJ Raton Rose, drag acts hosted by Mary Vice. $5. 10pm-4am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Palace of Trash @ The Stud

Early eve drag show with a “womb” theme (expect a lot of ‘bloody’ plastic baby dolls). 6pm-8pm. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Shag @ Powerhouse Groovy sleazy night with host Nic Candito. $5. 9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Mon 22

Pillows @ Powerhouse

Glamamore’s crafts and drag night. 9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

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Tue 23

Jackie Beat @ Oasis

LA’s sassy sarcastic drag comic and parody singer returns for a birthday show celebrating herself! $30-$40. 7pm. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

TnT with the Meme Boys

@ Powerhouse

Travis, Traci and Tyler cohost the game night. 9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Vice Tuesdays @ Q Bar

Queer femmes and friends dance party with hip hop, Top 40 and throwbacks at the stylish intimate bar, with DJs Val G and Iris Triska. 9pm2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

WED 24

Cabaret Karaoke

@ Feinstein’s at the Nikko Dick Bright MCs the new karaoke night at the elegant nightclub. $12$15. ($20 food/drink min.). Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinssf.com

Dirty Alley @ Powerhouse

Up Your Alley events begin with a night of demos, dancers and bondage boys. $5. 9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

NSA @ Club OMG

Weekly underwear party at the intimate mid-Market nightclub. $1 well drinks for anyone in underwear from 9pm-10pm. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Pan Dulce @ Beaux

Drag divas, gogo studs, DJed Latin grooves and drinks at the Hump Day fiesta 9pm-2am (free before 10:30pm). 2344 Market St. www.clubpapi.com

Two Dykes and a Mic @ Cobb’s Comedy Club

McKenzie Goodwin and Rachel Scanlon cohost a touring all-female stand up comedy night. $18-$24. 8pm. 915 Columbus Ave. www.cobbscomedy.com

THU 25

Fuego @ The Watergarden, San Jose

Weekly DJed sex party with Latin videos and musics, free salsa bar, half-price lockers, at the famed South Bay bath house. 4pm-12am. 1010 The Alameda, San Jose. www.thewatergarden.com

Latin Explosion @ Club 21

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The Stylistics @ Yoshi’s Oakland

The iconic vocal group performs classic songs from the ‘60s onward at the stylish restaurant-nightclub. $43$89. 8pm nightly thru July 25. 5210 Embarcadero West, Oakland. www.yoshis.com

Underwear Night @ 440

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

Vamp @ Beaux

Women’s night with a sultry vampire theme; goth, red & black, lingerie attire welcome but not required; bondage and BDSM demos, too. DJs Olga T and Jayne Grey. $5-$15. 8pm2am. 2344 Market St. beauxsf.com

Follies & Dollies @ White Horse Bar, Oakland Weekly drag show at the historic gay bar. 9:30pm-11:30pm. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com

Freeball Wednesdays @ The Cinch

Free pool and drink specials at the historic neighborhood bar. 8pm-1am. 1723 Polk St. www.cinchsf.com

Miss Kitty’s Trivia Night @ Wild Side West

The weekly fun night at the Bernal Heights bar includes prizes, hosted by Kitty Tapata. No cover. 7pm-10pm. 424 Cortland St. 647-3099. www.wildsidewest.com

Latin beats, Lulu and Jacqueline’s drag show, gogo hotties and a packed crowd. $10-$15. 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St. www.club21oakland.com

Robyn, Troye Sivan @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium

Pop groovy singer returns and the out gay singer opens. $80. 7pm. 99 Grove St. www.apeconcerts.com

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

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

“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”

– Audre Lorde

Sat

The Rocket Man Show @ Marin Center, San Rafael

Robyn, Troye Sivan @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium

Shining Stars

Photos by Steven Underhill

Euphoria Cast @ Swedish American Hall

Cast members from the new HBO series Euphoria attended a screening of an episode of the provocative new show about teenagers, sex and drugs, on July 8 at the Swedish American Hall (2174 Market St.). A pop-up shop on Market Street showcased the new Phluid Project X line of non-gendered upscale apparel. See plenty more photos on BARtab’s Facebook page, facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife. See more of Steven Underhill’s photos at StevenUnderhill.com.