March 16 2017 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter by Bay Area Reporter

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Vol. 48 • No. 11 • March 16-22, 2017

SF bans travel to South Dakota

Acting SF schools chief vies to keep post by Seth Hemmelgarn

by Matthew S. Bajko

he gay man who’s serving as interim superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District has applied to keep the job permanently. Myong Leigh, 46, said last summer that he Jane Philomen Cleland didn’t want to keep the top job. SF schools chief “I’ve never seen Myong Leigh myself as a superintendent,” he said at the time. “What I’m best at is implementing work, thinking strategically,” and “working to implement change rather than to be the public face of the district.” But in an email last week, Leigh, who declined an interview request, said that he’d changed his mind “after thorough deliberation.” “I’m committed to the San Francisco Unified School District and want what is best for our students, staff, and community,” Leigh said. “SFUSD is a great school district, so I imagine many strong candidates are interested in this role. I know the Board of Education will carefully weigh many important considerations about what our district needs at this time.” Commissioner Mark Sanchez, the only gay member of the school board, said in an interview, “I’m supportive of [Leigh] applying. ... I have a deep amount of respect for him. Over the years, I’ve gotten to know him very well. He’s very steady, he’s honest, and he’s extremely likeable and humble. I think he has a lot of the qualities we like to see in a leader. He also knows the district really well.” Leigh has worked for the district since 2000, most recently as deputy superintendent. Former Superintendent Richard A. Carranza left the post last summer to lead the Houston Independent School District Board of Education. San Francisco’s school board unanimously agreed to appoint Leigh as interim superintendent upon Carranza’s departure. Sanchez said that among other achievements, Leigh helped design the district’s weighted student formula, “which allows us to use the needs of the individual student to drive the funding” for how that student is supported. “It’s a better way of funding than just giving a flat amount for every student.” Sanchez said. The district received applications from 30 people for the position, Sanchez said, and the board hopes to make a selection “by the end of March or early April.” Gay San Francisco Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, who’s daughter is a San Francisco public school student, said that he doesn’t know Leigh well, but “I think he would be a great choice,” since his selection would “send a clear signal to LGBTQ students” that San Francisco’s school district “is a safe and welcoming place.” t

Harvey rides again Kelly Sullivan

heryl Brinkman, chair of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors, shares a laugh with fellow MTA officials and Castro leaders during the rededication of the Harvey Milk streetcar Wednesday, March 15 at Jane Warner Plaza. MTA spokesman Paul Rose said the streetcar, number 1051, was completely rebuilt and restored during a two-year upgrade by

the agency and the Market Street Railway. The new streetcar now has improved braking and the latest security cameras, while inside there are placards about Milk, the first openly gay person elected to office in San Francisco who was murdered in 1978. Rose said the project was part of a $31 million contract to restore 26 different streetcars.

LGBTs condemn attacks on Jewish community by Heather Cassell

ay Area Jewish LGBTs have condemned the more than 100 anti-Semitic bomb threats that have occurred at Jewish community centers and other places around the country and vow that they won’t be deterred from being open and welcoming. The bomb threats have been made at Jewish community centers and day schools. Additionally, hundreds of headstones have been desecrated at several Jewish cemeteries since the beginning of the year. One of the most recent incidents occurred March 9 when a bomb threat was called in to the Jewish Community Center in Los Gatos. No device was found during a search. Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who is Jewish, condemned the threats. “These despicable attacks on the Jewish community show, yet again, that anti-Semitism is alive and well in our country and around the world,” Wiener wrote in an email to the Bay Area Reporter. “The Jewish people are never truly safe, as we have learned the hard way many times over the millennia.” The first wave of threats across the U.S. began January 9. Authorities are treating the threats as hate crimes.

Jo-Lynn Otto

The Oshman Family Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto was one of many Jewish centers and day schools that have received bomb threats in recent weeks. Authorities said that all the threats have been hoaxes.

All the bomb threats have been hoaxes, according to law enforcement authorities. The FBI is investigating. Locally, the Osher Marin Jewish Community

an Francisco this week banned its employees from using taxpayer money to travel to South Dakota now that lawmakers in the Mount Rushmore State have become the first to enact anti-LGBT legislation in 2017. Last Friday, March 10, South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard signed into law Senate Bill 149, which legally protects faith-based adoption and foster care organizations that refuse, based on their religious beliefs, to place children in LGBT households. A broad coalition of national adoption advocates and LGBT rights groups had opposed the bill, noting that same-sex couples are six times as likely to become foster parents than different-sex couples. Now South Dakota could also become the fifth state on the travel ban list maintained by California officials due to passage of the law. At the start of the year, California named a quartet of states – Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kansas – to its list banning state officials from using taxpayer money to travel to those states due to their having enacted See page 14 >>

Center in Marin and the Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City received bomb threats that forced evacuations on January 18. On February 27, another double bomb threat happened, first at the Anti-Defamation League headquarters in San Francisco and an hour later at the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life in Palo Alto. The Bay Area is North America’s fourth largest – and the United States’ third largest – Jewish community, according to J. magazine, a local Jewish weekly publication. Jewish LGBTs make up 8 percent of the Bay Area’s LGBT community, according to the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin, and Sonoma Counties and the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay’s 2010 survey, the most recent available. The overall Bay Area’s Jewish population currently is estimated to be 391,500, reported J. Authorities have made one arrest so far, but do not believe the man is responsible for all of the bomb threats. Juan Thompson, 31, was taken into custody March 3. Thompson is suspected of making eight bomb threats, including the ADL. However, authorities believe Thompson, a St. Louis resident and former journalist who was fired from the Intercept for fabricating See page 14 >>

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3/1/17 10:35 AM

IMPORTANT FACTS (des-KOH-vee)

This is only a brief summary of important information about DESCOVY® and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your condition and your treatment.

MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT DESCOVY

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF DESCOVY

DESCOVY may cause serious side eﬀects, including:

DESCOVY can cause serious side eﬀects, including:

• Buildup of lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious medical emergency that can lead to death. Call your healthcare provider right away if you have any of these symptoms: feeling very weak or tired, unusual muscle pain, trouble breathing, stomach pain with nausea or vomiting, feeling cold (especially in your arms and legs), feeling dizzy or lightheaded, and/or a fast or irregular heartbeat.

• Those in the “Most Important Information About DESCOVY” section.

• Severe liver problems, which in some cases can lead to death. Call your healthcare provider right away if you have any of these symptoms: your skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow (jaundice); dark “tea-colored” urine; loss of appetite; light-colored bowel movements (stools); nausea; and/or pain, aching, or tenderness on the right side of your stomach area. • Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. DESCOVY is not approved to treat HBV. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking DESCOVY. Do not stop taking DESCOVY without ﬁrst talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months. You may be more likely to get lactic acidosis or severe liver problems if you are female, very overweight, or have been taking DESCOVY or a similar medicine for a long time.

ABOUT DESCOVY • DESCOVY is a prescription medicine that is used together with other HIV-1 medicines to treat HIV-1 in people 12 years of age and older. DESCOVY is not for use to help reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 infection. • DESCOVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. Ask your healthcare provider about how to prevent passing HIV-1 to others.

• Changes in body fat. • Changes in your immune system. • New or worse kidney problems, including kidney failure. • Bone problems. The most common side eﬀect of DESCOVY is nausea. These are not all the possible side eﬀects of DESCOVY. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new symptoms while taking DESCOVY. Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with DESCOVY.

BEFORE TAKING DESCOVY Tell your healthcare provider if you: • Have or had any kidney, bone, or liver problems, including hepatitis infection. • Have any other medical condition. • Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. • Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed if you have HIV-1 because of the risk of passing HIV-1 to your baby. Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take: • Keep a list that includes all prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist. • Ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist about medicines that should not be taken with DESCOVY.

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DESCOVY, the DESCOVY Logo, GILEAD, the GILEAD Logo, and LOVE WHAT’S INSIDE are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. All other marks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners. © 2016 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. DVYC0021 11/16

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Community news>>

March 16-22, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 5

Woman says she ‘blacked out’ during standoff by Seth Hemmelgarn

he San Francisco woman police say launched an hourslong standoff after she brandished a gun and barricaded herself for hours in her Mission district residential hotel room says she only had an airsoft rifle and was “blacked out” on tequila during the incident. In a jailhouse interview Monday, Samantha Helstrom, 57, said she doesn’t remember most of what transpired Friday, March 10 when much of her neighborhood was placed on lockdown as police negotiated with her. “I just don’t know what happened,” she said, but the police response “seems so outrageous and over the top.” Helstrom pleaded not guilty in Superior Court Tuesday to two counts of drawing or exhibiting an imitation firearm. Judge Ross Moody told her that she was “lucky to be alive,” since police had believed “she had a weapon.” Helstrom told the Bay Area Reporter that she was “kind of depressed” when she got off work Friday afternoon and bought a quart of tequila on her way home. She sometimes does webcam videos for adult websites, and she said when she got back to the Crown Hotel, at 528 Valencia Street, “I was going to do some theme photos” with her airsoft rifle. Within about 30 minutes, though, she’d drunk the entire bottle. She set aside the rifle, turned on Netflix, lay down, and “passed out,” she said. Helstrom said when she came to, someone was saying, “Samantha, we need you to come out,” and there was a speaker in one of her secondfloor windows. “I didn’t know what was going on,”she said. She stepped into her hallway, and saw “a couple rows” of

Andraychak, when a police officers “with their pest control worker weapons trained on me.” and the building manHelstrom told them that ager went to Helstrom’s she hadn’t done anything, unit at about 1:55 p.m. but they shot her with rubFriday, she “opened ber bullets, she said. the door and pointed a “I started getting agihandgun at them.” tated,” Helstrom said, and “At approximately she went back inside her 6:45 p.m.,” as negotiators room. Helstrom, who Courtesy SFPD communicated to her remembers going in and Samantha from the street, Helstrom out of her unit about Helstrom walked out of her room three times during the inand confronted officers in cident, showed a reporter the hallway, Andraychak said. two gray, pink, and purple welts “Helstrom stated several times, that took up most of her left upper ‘Kill me’ to the officers and adleg. vanced on their positions,” he said. At one point after officers shot “Officers noted that Helstrom’s her with the projectiles, she told shirt was un-tucked covering her them, “Go ahead and shoot me. Go waistband. They saw the outline of ahead. I don’t care.” an object in her front waistband. She doesn’t remember pointing The officers knew that Helstrom a gun at anyone, and she said “the had brandished a firearm at the two only thing I have resembling a pisvictims and the officers had reason tol” is the airsoft rifle. to believe that she was still armed.” Helstrom recalled a negotiator Two officers “delivered four foam talking to her, but she couldn’t rebatons, which struck Helstrom,” and member what was said. she went back inside. Negotiators She’s also not sure why she’s been continued to talk to her, and at about described as barricading herself in 9:05 p.m., she “stepped into the hallher room, since all she had on the way and surrendered,” Andraychak door was a deadbolt and a small said. He added that “a handgun was chain lock. recovered” from her apartment. Helstrom recalled having her arms outstretched during the Court appearance incident and eventually walkIn court Tuesday, Deputy Public ing down the hall toward officers Defender Sierra Villaran said, “I and putting her hands behind her understand the court is concerned back. She was placed in handabout public safety,” but she recuffs and taken to Zuckerberg quested that Helstrom be released San Francisco General Hospital. on her own recognizance. Police description She said someone from the VetA text message that went out at erans Administration would be able about 2:45 p.m. Friday urged people help Helstrom with services, includto avoid Valencia Street between 16th ing housing. and 17th streets “due to police activAssistant District Attorney Chloe ity” and shelter in place” if in the area. McLean said that Helstrom had According to a news release “brandished ... what appeared to be from police Sergeant Michael a firearm” Friday, and along with the

South Bay man faces child porn charge by Seth Hemmelgarn

man associated with the Silicon Valley Gay Men’s Chorus who also worked at a youth-related nonprofit in Santa Clara faces a charge of possessing child pornography. David Bruce Lang, 63, of Santa Clara, was arrested March 2. Santa Clara police Lieutenant Dan Moreno, a spokesman for the agency, said in a news release that at about 7 a.m., detectives working with the Silicon Valley Internet Crimes Against Children and Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement task forces served a search warrant at a home on Bret Harte Court. They arrested Lang after finding that he possessed child pornography, and he was booked into Santa Clara County Main Jail in San Jose. Police noted that, at the time of his arrest, Lang was the chief financial officer for the Bill Wilson Center, which provides programs, including counseling and education, for youth and families. Lang, who’s out of custody, didn’t respond to a voicemail left at a phone number listed for him online, and he didn’t respond directly to a note left at his home. In a phone interview, Bruce Nickerson, Lang’s attorney, said that even though authorities searched Lang’s home “upside down, they didn’t find anything.” “There’s no indication of anything illegal that they found in the house or that he did,” Nickerson said, adding that he’s “puzzled” why Lang’s being charged. Nickerson, who hadn’t yet seen

Courtesy Santa Clara Police Dept.

David Bruce Lang

the police report, said he didn’t know why police had been investigating Lang. He said that “more than one” computer, and Lang’s cellphone and cameras, were taken from his home. Lang is “frightened about having his place ransacked and being charged,” Nickerson said. He added that Lang didn’t have a criminal record prior to his arrest this month. “He has a spotless record,” Nickerson said. “He’s a man who’s lived his entire life as a law-abiding citizen.” Deputy District Attorney Carolyn Malinsky said prosecutors have filed a felony complaint of possessing child pornography in the case, but she couldn’t provide more details. Nickerson said the case was being charged as a misdemeanor. Lang faces at least a year in jail if convicted. Arraignment is set for May 1. Robin Reynolds, a spokesman for the Bill Wilson Center, said that the agency was “surprised and disappointed” about Lang’s arrest.

Police seized Lang’s work computer, but “at this time our initial report is there has been no material found at his work,” Reynolds said. He added that Lang had worked in Bill Wilson’s “administrative offices in a staff-only area,” and there was no indication he’d had any illegal contact with the center’s clients. Lang, who was the center’s CFO for five years, “was suspended immediately” when his arrest was announced, and he resigned the next day, Reynolds said. In response to an email from the Bay Area Reporter, Silicon Valley Gay Men’s Chorus President Jason Hough said that Lang “has been a respected singer and member of the board” for the chorus. Hough said the organization had “no further commentary.” It’s not clear from the chorus’ website whether Lang is still singing with the group, but he’s not listed as a current board member. Moreno, the Santa Clara police spokesman, said that Lang had “volunteered as an assistant scoutmaster for a Sunnyvale Boy Scout troop in the 1970s.” Moreno added that the investigation of Lang was ongoing. Three women sitting in a yard near Lang’s house Saturday expressed surprise at his arrest. “He’s a good man,” said one of the women who, like the others, didn’t want her name published. “We all love him. He’s part of the ‘hood.” Police are asking anyone with information about Lang to contact Detective Frank Hagg at (408) 6154821. Hagg didn’t respond to an interview request. t

standoff, McLean also noted a conviction Helstrom has from a 2012 incident. Helstrom told the B.A.R. that in that case, she’d accidentally shot a hole in the door of her North Beach apartment with a real gun when someone had banged on her door. She said she pleaded to assault with a deadly weapon other than a

firearm in that case. Moody denied Villaran’s request to have Helstrom released and set bail at $25,000. Her next court date is Monday, March 20 for a pre-trial conference. (Helstrom has had gender reassignment surgery but said, “I generally don’t” identify as transgender.) t

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Volume 47, Number 11 March 16-22, 2017 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Michael M. Yamashita Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013) Publisher (2003 – 2013) Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman BARTAB EDITOR & EVENTS LISTINGS EDITOR Jim Provenzano ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko • Seth Hemmelgarn CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ray Aguilera • Tavo Amador • Race Bannon Erin Blackwell • Roger Brigham Brian Bromberger • Victoria A. Brownworth Brent Calderwood • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Belo Cipriani Richard Dodds • Michael Flanagan Jim Gladstone • David Guarino Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell • John F. Karr Lisa Keen • Matthew Kennedy • Joshua Klipp David Lamble • Max Leger Michael McDonagh • David-Elijah Nahmod Michael Nugent • Paul Parish • Sean Piverger Lois Pearlman Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota Bob Roehr •Donna Sachet • Adam Sandel Khaled Sayed Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Sari Staver • Jim Stewart Sean Timberlake • Andre Torrez • Ronn Vigh Ed Walsh • Cornelius Washington • Sura Wood ART DIRECTION Max Leger PRODUCTION/DESIGN Ernesto Sopprani PHOTOGRAPHERS Jane Philomen Cleland • FBFE Rick Gerharter • Gareth Gooch Jose Guzman-Colon • Rudy K. Lawidjaja Georg Lester • Dan Lloyd • Jo-Lynn Otto Rich Stadtmiller • Steven Underhil Dallis Willard • Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge • Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small Bogitini VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING Scott Wazlowski – 415.829.8937 NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

LEGAL COUNSEL Paul H. Melbostad, Esq.

he National AIDS Memonot receive government money now, rial Grove’s news that it wants to and will not in the future. The grove build a national museum to chronicle long ago made a commitment not to the story of the epidemic was met compete with direct service providers largely with support on social media and the AIDS museum project would and from local officials. After speaknot change that, he said. That’s good ing with grove Executive Director news, because right now San FranJohn Cunningham Tuesday, we see cisco Mayor Ed Lee won’t even fund his point “that one organization $2.5 million in housing subsidies for should hold the full story of the AIDS people with HIV/AIDS and other illepidemic.” We’re just not sure that a nesses that was approved by the Board stand-alone museum is the answer, of Supervisors. We wouldn’t want to and eagerly await the results of the see government funds go to support grove’s feasibility and testing study a museum when basic services like due this fall. housing are still critically needed and The project is indeed in its nascent massively underfunded. stage, according to a New York Times Location, location, location story, and Cunningham said that the Courtesy NAMG We’re not keen on an AIDS mugrove is “not in a place” to launch a seum situated right next to the grove capital campaign yet. The museum is The National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park in Golden Gate Park, and we suspect projected to cost tens of millions of many others won’t be either. Heck, the dollars, so lining up significant donors disease. A creative option may be combining city’s plan to renovate the park’s soccer fields would be an early priority for the grove, which the two projects into a larger museum for evled to multiple ballot fights. The grove is in a is the country’s only federally recognized AIDS eryone. Separate wings could be dedicated to peaceful, serene setting that allows visitors a memorial. Cunningham said that the grove takes HIV/AIDS and general LGBT history. Poolquiet place to meditate, pray, and contemplate its national status very seriously, and thus, feels it ing financial resources would make it easier lost loved ones. Erecting a museum nearby is the best entity to “keep the story.” to raise money, and could be a dynamic single would disrupt that. Cunningham said that A world-class museum won’t be cheap. San project rather than two competing ones. And the Recreation and Park Department, which Francisco’s Mexican Museum had to raise $50 make no mistake, despite what Cunningham oversees Golden Gate Park, “is aware” of the million for its part of a $500 million project says, the AIDS museum would be in competiAIDS museum project. To be fair, no site has on the ground floor of a condo building. That tion with the historical society – for donors, been suggested or identified yet. Cunningham museum is 60,000 square feet. visitors, and exhibition materials. said grove officials have not even looked at a Cunningham rightly pointed out that the Terry Beswick, executive director of the location, except to say that it would be in San grove, while located at San Francisco’s Golden society – and an early AIDS activist himself Francisco. Gate Park, is not a local project because of – told us he’s supportive of the two museum Cunningham said that attendance proits federal designation. Indeed, people from concept. “The history of HIV/AIDS is part jections have been done, but he declined around the world visit the grove, however, loof LGBTQ history, so it will always hold a to share the numbers. Any project would cals feel very connected to it. central place in the museum and likely need thousands of visitors a year to archives of the GLBT Historical Dueling museums be sustainable, hence the need for a central Society,” Beswick wrote in an A primary concern is that the location. Having a combined LGBT history email. “But the history of the AIDS museum would compete and AIDS museum could easily bolster atpandemic also demands a major for donors with the GLBT Histendance for both. museum of its own that will torical Society’s plans for its own We aren’t entirely convinced of the feasibility allow for all the diverse stories larger museum. In fact, the society of a stand-alone AIDS museum, although we do to be told and understood in their is expected to launch its own capunderstand the importance of keeping materials global context.” ital campaign soon, likely tapin a single location and appreciate that the grove He said the society “embracping the same wealthy donors wants to tell the story of the epidemic from a naes” the grove’s project. ahead of the grove’s project. tional perspective, housed in a dedicated interFor his part, Cunningham said Conversely, some people may be pretative/visitors center where future generations grove officials have had several inclined to withhold donations can learn about the disease, the response, and conversations with Beswick and from the historical society in favor of the the aftermath. It’s also crucial to remember that believes “both entities see synergy” between grove’s project. While the historical society AIDS isn’t over, and a museum might be a good their projects. Collaborations are planned, he does have a deep archive that includes subway to impart that message on visitors. But the added. jects beyond HIV/AIDS, it has an extensive grove needs to conduct its research and finalize One positive aspect to the project is that collection of materials from the epidemic, its plans – and it should keep an open mind to the grove would not seek public funding. donated by many gay men who died of the collaborating on the project.t Cunningham was clear that the grove does

LGBTs deserve full support from DeVos

by Richard Johnson

stroke of her pen. We don’t yet know whether she has plans to make such hen we (allies included) in a move, but certain aspects of her the LGBT community talk background and positions are of about where to focus when working concern to members of the LGBT to protect our rights and to continue community and their allies. DeVos to fight for the rights denied us, we was listed on tax forms as the vice often talk about the Supreme Court; Courtesy ABC president of her mother’s foundaabout local, state, and federal election, the Edgar and Elsa Prince tions; or about equal protection Foundation, from 1999 to 2014. The from law enforcement. But right Education connection raised flags because of now our community must place its Secretary Betsy that foundation’s generous donation focus on an area that hasn’t tradi- DeVos testified to Focus on the Family, the Family tionally attracted the attention that at her Senate Research Council, and other groups it deserves: education policy. With confirmation that aren’t shy in their opposition for billionaire philanthropist Betsy hearing. gay rights. During her confirmation DeVos at the helm of the Departhearing, DeVos denied involvement ment of Education, we must waste with the foundation, and explained no time in educating ourselves on that the inclusion of her name on tax forms the many ways DeVos’ agency affects the lives for 17 years must have been due to a of LGBT students – and then we must move “clerical error.” During her hearimmediately into mobilizing to demand for ing, she insisted that she’s “never the full protection of those students. believed in” the harmful fakeLGBT youth are four times more likely to atscience of conversion therapy, tempt suicide than straight youth, according to a practice that the groups long the Trevor Project. The Obama administration supported by the Prince Fountook the mental health and physical dangers dation strongly promote. A faced by LGBT youth seriously. The adminrecent New York Times article istration proved that by issuing guidance to makes the case that DeVos prischools and universities to stress the ways in vately holds different beliefs than which civil rights laws apply to bullying, and her anti-LGBT family, but that she’s been also by making sure Title IX clearly applies to careful to keep those beliefs private. But this transgender students and their right to choose supposed privately held support for LGBT intheir bathrooms. In other words, education dividuals doesn’t comfort me. What matters policy matters – really matters – in the lives to our youth is that the person in DeVos’ role of LGBT youth. [The Trump Justice and Eduwill fight, as hard and as loudly as she needs cation departments recently rescinded that to, for policy that protects their rights. guidance.] We must demand that DeVos states loud DeVos is now iºn a position in which she and clear that she will protect the rights of could theoretically turn back gains for LGBT all students. As a first step, our community youth won in the realm of education with a should articulate our specific demands of

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<< Open Forum

t Museum projects should coordinate

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 16-22, 2017

the new education secretary and her department, so that DeVos understands our asks and so that we will all know when to spring into protest actions once our lines have been crossed. I submit the following as my top asks of the new education secretary: First, we insist that you and your agency be proponents of transgender students and their bathroom choice. Second, we recommend the creation of an LGBT national task force to work with thought leaders, activists, and educators on ways to improve school conditions for LGBT students attending public schools. Such a task force should also be responsible for the creation of national policies that affirm LGBT students as well. Finally, we urge the education department to make a point to recognize public and private schools that are succeeding in creating environments where LGBT students are affirmed. The recognition could take the form of a new national award or showcasing on the department’s website. We have recent inspiration in the civic response happening all around us, and we should feed on that. We will let DeVos know: she will make it a priority to protect our students or we will simply not calm down. If we come together and respond to this call to action by exercising our civic duties, we can turn that feeling into hope, into a chance to stand up and protect a rollback. But if we fail to stand up, what’s happening now could push us backward. t Richard Johnson is a professor of public administration at the University of San Francisco. For more information, see http:// onlinempadegree.usfca.edu/mpa-degree/ faculty/dr-richard-greggory-johnson-iii/.

Letters >>

March 16-22, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

No need for trans bathroom debate Regarding your editorial, “Straight-up stupid,” [March 2]: My freedom to love isn’t contingent on Gavin Grimm being guaranteed access to a urinal. So much for “something as simple as the need to pee.” So much for “gender identity” (given the option of unisex bathrooms and private stalls).

If Gavin Grimm didn’t want to become a spectacle, what was he doing at the Supreme Court? Mitchell Halberstadt Oakland, California

rom the get-go, the political career of gay state Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) has mirrored that of lesbian state Senator Toni Atkins (D-San Diego). It is a fact Gloria readily acknowledges, crediting her for giving him his start in politics when Atkins, in 2005, named him a San Diego housing commissioner. “She appointed me to the city’s housing council, and I have made a career of following Toni Atkins ever since,” Gloria told the Bay Area Reporter one rainy morning in February during an interview at coffeehouse Spike’s in San Francisco’s gay Castro district. In 2008, he succeeded her on the San Diego City Council in the District 3 seat, centered in the southern California city’s gay-centric neighborhoods of Hillcrest and University Heights. Both served as interim mayors after scandals led the elected occupants of the position to resign, Gloria from August 2014 through March 2015 and Atkins during the last six months of 2005. Last year, with Atkins termed out of her 78th Assembly District seat and running for a state Senate seat, Gloria entered the race to succeed her in the Legislature’s lower chamber. With her endorsement, he faced only token opposition from a Republican opponent in the heavily Democratic district. “I tried to debate my opponent,” said Gloria. “I was delighted that he challenged me to debate and then he was a no show. I had a lovely, lengthy conversation about my constituents’ needs.” Similar to Atkins, who by the end of her first term was named majority leader of the Democrats in the Assembly, Gloria has also been

tapped for a top don’t know about party post as a that. It is a tough freshman lawjob,” noting he maker. Assembly knew from exSpeaker Anthony perience having Rendon (Dserved as presiParamount) in dent of the San December named Diego City CounGloria as one cil. (It is one area of two assistant where his resume majority whips, diverges from Attasked with helpkins, who never ing to count votes served as council for legislation. president.) (Atkins was first When asked named majority about possiwhip shortly after bly running for Rick Gerharter being elected in mayor of San 2010.) Diego in 2020 Assemblyman Todd Gloria “That was when Kevin entirely up to Falconer, now the speaker. I told him I am here serving his second four-year term, to help,” said Gloria when asked will be termed out of office, Gloria if he had sought out to be part of didn’t rule it out. the leadership. “I like being part “If you had asked me before of a team. I found success on the the whole disaster of November, city council being a team player. I I would have said, ‘No,’” replied told him I would be happy to serve Gloria, referring to the election of wherever I can be most successful.” Donald Trump as president. He His trajectory up the Democratic added he is “lucky” in that he does Party leadership ranks leads to the have “good options” in terms of his inevitable question if Gloria, 38, will political future. vie for the speakership himself. In For now, Gloria said he is “really May 2014 Atkins became the first enjoying” serving in the Assembly, lesbian, and only second out lawadding that, “I came to the Capitol maker, to become Assembly speaker, to do important things,” pointserving in the powerful poing, in particular, to the bill he has sition until March of co-authored with gay state Senator last year. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) to The answer deamend the state laws that criminalpends, in part, on how ize HIV transmission. “On the city long Rendon remains in council you find out very quickly the Assembly; under the the state is really important.” state’s term limit rules, Named chair of the Assembly’s he could retain his seat Select Committee on Housing through 2024. As for Affordability for the Middle and Gloria, should he opt Working Class, Gloria has also to run for and serve made addressing the state’s housing all of the 12 years he is crisis a top concern. allowed to as a state law“My focus is on middle class and maker in the Assembly, he won’t be workforce housing. These are folks termed out until 2028. See page 12 >> Asked if he was interested in being speaker one day, Gloria replied, “I

Campos lands high-profile job in South Bay compiled by Cynthia Laird

ormer San Francisco Supervisor David Campos has been appointed a deputy county executive for Santa Clara County. Campos, 46, a gay man, was termed off the Board of Supervisors after serving eight years representing the Mission district. He started his new position Monday, March 13. “David is known as a good government advocate and has a proven track record for requiring transparency and accountability for government agencies,” County Executive Jeffrey V. Smith said in a news release. “He possesses the right combination of management expertise, knowledge of policy implementation, and a clear understanding of how to meet the needs of a diverse community.” Prior to serving on the Board of Supervisors, Campos was a member and vice president of the San

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Career trajectory has Assemblyman primed to be next speaker by Matthew S. Bajko

Barry Schneider Attorney at Law

Francisco Police Commission. He also served as general counsel for the San Francisco Unified School District and, prior to that, was a deputy city attorney in the San Francisco City Attorney’s office. “Santa Clara County and its Board of Supervisors are national and regional leaders on many critical issues and I look forward to serving the diverse communities of this great county,” Campos said in a news release. “I have great respect for the excellent work Jeff Smith has done for Santa Clara County and I am honored to join his stellar team.” Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager, the only out elected LGBT official on the board, praised Campos’ hiring. “I am excited that David is joining the Santa Clara County

leadership team,” Yeager wrote in an email to the Bay Area Reporter. “His intimate knowledge of government operations and passionate community advocacy are incredible assets. I also applaud County Executive Jeff Smith for his continued dedication to hiring and promoting LGBTQ people to top management positions. In fact, David will be the third of five deputy county executive positions to be held by an out LGBTQ person.” In a phone interview Monday, Campos said he was “very excited” to be starting his new job and said he met with Yeager. Asked if he might run for office in the county at some point, Campos said he was “very committed to this job” and noted that he “still lives See page 14 >>

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<< Commentary

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 16-22, 2017

A tale of two dolls by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

n 1976, as Georgia peanut farmer Jimmy Carter was elected to the presidency and America went into a patriotic fervor over its bicentennial, the Ideal Toy Company decided to cash in on a popular television show. “All In The Family,” a Norman Lear production that was starting to grow a little long in the tooth, graced characters Michael and Gloria Stivic with a child, Joey. The show, no stranger to controversy with its socially conscious scripts centered on bigoted Archie Bunker and his family, added one more notch to its belt by having Bunker become the first character to change a diaper on national television. Ideal saw a marketing opportunity in little Joey Stivic, creating a baby doll in the rough likeness of the newborns used on the show. This was a largely typical baby doll, featuring vinyl skin and rooted blond filaments for hair. Perhaps so you could relive that important television moment, the doll could “drink” from a bottle, and “wet” its diaper. While it was not entirely unique at the time, one other feature did make it noteworthy. The doll had

genitals. While Mattel Inc. had beaten Ideal to the punch by three years, it was Ideal’s Joey Stivic doll that promoted itself based specifically on what was in this doll’s simulated diaper. “This is the new baby in our family. A baby doll. A famous doll. Archie Bunker’s grandson, Joey Stivic. So of course he’s special. Your child can give him a drink from his bottle, then he wets – and when his diaper is changed, it’s clear that Joey Stivic is a physically correct boy doll. My husband and I think that’s terrific,” boasted the faux mother in the television commercial for the doll. Indeed, it mentions the “physically correct” nature of the doll twice within the 30-second ad. This was not without contention, which, of course, was exactly what I think Ideal was aiming for. I suspect the company knew it would likely sell more units by courting controversy than it ever could have hawking the doll of a 5-year-old television franchise. In 1976, I had been on earth only a few years more than “All in the Family,” and I can recall the big news about Ideal’s Joey Stivic doll. It was controversial, and therefore a hot property. I did not want one, however, having grown

too old for a baby doll and moving onto Mego Wizard of Oz dolls and my long-loved Bionic Woman doll, complete with faux hair and bionic modules you could reveal under a roll-up skin sheath on her arm. Perhaps the Stivic doll was a sign of the sexually liberated 1970s, or a harbinger of things to come. Today, we live in a world where babies are ruthlessly gendered, from parents throwing “gender reveal” parties to endless “pink princess” and “blue action hero” playsets. While anatomically correct dolls never fully caught on, we certainly apply a lot of heavy gendered expectations on our flesh-and-blood offspring. In 2017, as New York property developer and reality show host Donald Trump assumed the presidency and America felt more divided than ever, the Tonner Doll Company decided to cash in on a popular television show. “I Am Jazz,” a reality show on TLC, focuses on the life transgender teen Jazz Jennings and her family. Unlike “All In The Family,” the show is likely only controversial in the eyes of those offended by anything to do with transgender people. The show, if anything, shows how conventional the life of a teenage girl in America can be, regardless of trans status. Much like Ideal, I’m sure the Tonner Doll Company saw a marketing opportunity in a doll in the likeness of Jennings. It’s a high quality

doll, along the lines of an American Girl doll, and from a company that is more designed to appeal to an adult, rather than child, toy market. The company also expected to retail it at around $90, which is a steep increase over the Stivic doll, which can be found on the secondary market today, in box, for less than half that price. The Jennings doll itself is, of course, being hailed as the “first transgender doll” in the press, and that may be true. I don’t recall any that predate it, in spite of a few Ken doll mishaps and one-offs from doll enthusiasts. There’s no Christine Jorgensen or Renee Richards dolls floating around that I know of, nor any other trans celebs. Unlike the Stivic doll, however, Tonner Dolls does not seem all that intent on pushing the transgender angle on its Jennings doll. “I don’t even know if the word ‘transgender’ will be on the package,” Robert Tonner, the company’s owner and sculptor, was quoted as saying in the New York Times. “She’s a great kid. She’s a very brave, special person. And that’s what we’re trying to get out there.” Of course, the Jennings doll is

Christine Smith

only a transgender doll because it is based on a transgender person. If you have a prurient interest, you will not find genitalia under her garments. I might even argue that this is the point: this is a doll of a girl. That she is transgender is, in its own way, irrelevant to the doll. She is, both in life and in doll form, simply another young woman in this world. If the Stivic doll heralded an era of increasing gender specialization and separation, perhaps the Jennings doll will open doors for transgender people in the decades to come in its own way. We certainly need some of hope in these difficult, uncertain times. t Gwen Smith still plays with dolls. You can find her at http://www. gwensmith.com.

Anti-LGBT group opposes medical cannabis dispensary by Sari Staver

Oakland mayor Jean Quan, are hoping to open a dislongtime anti-LGBT hate pensary at 2505 Noriega group has taken on another Street in partnership with cause: opposing new medical marithe current owners of the juana dispensaries. Apothecarium, he told the The Pacific Justice Institute, which B.A.R. in an interview. has a long record of opposition to a Huen, a soft-spoken man wide variety of LGBT-related issues, who has prescribed mediclaims that new dispensaries located cal cannabis for the past near facilities used by children are a decade, said he “decided it danger to the neighborhood. would be best to leave.” The “We’re concerned about the chilformer medical director of dren,” said Frank Lee, a vocal supthe Alameda County Mediporter of PJI, citing a refrain often cal Center and director used by so-called pro-family orgaof a pioneering Berkeley nizations, in a telephone interview community health clinic with the Bay Area Reporter. for seniors, Huen now has PJI announced a news conference a part-time private practice for Wednesday, March 15 to detail and consults for the state Sari Staver its opposition to the dispensary. on the medical evaluation Dr. Floyd Huen is working with the The PJI’s concerns about medical Apothecarium to open a dispensary in the of injured workers. marijuana dispensaries came to a Huen told the B.A.R. that Sunset. head at a raucous community meetthere is a “great need” for a ing of the People of Parkside Sunset, dispensary in the Sunset, medical adviser to the Apothecariheld at the Taraval Police Station in where some 3,500 residents um, began to introduce himself to early March. At the meeting, memtravel to the Castro dispensary. the some 100 neighborhood resibers of PJI, a Sacramento-based “Our main interest is to introduce dents crowded into a small confernonprofit with offices throughout the product to that community,” he ence room, he said in an interview the state, shouted down a represaid. with the B.A.R. But before he could sentative from the Castro medical Huen said that the incident at finish his first sentence, a number of marijuana dispensary, the Apoththe community meeting “makes me people in the audience shouted him ecarium, who was invited to speak very sad.” down, chanting “no cannabis.” about the proposal to open a medi“Physically, it was very intimidatcal marijuana dispensary in the Convinced of cannabis’ ing,” said Huen. neighborhood. effectiveness Huen and his wife, former Dr. Floyd Huen, an internist and Huen said that 20 years ago, he became convinced of the effectiveness of cannabis in treating pain in elderly patients, many of whom had been prescribed opiates. “This is an important health care issue. The notion that dispensaries lead to crime is just not supported by any of the data,” he said. “I’ve been a community organizLGBT PROGRESSIVE CATHOLICS † OUR FAMILIES & FRIENDS er for over 40 years,” he said. “Here in San Francisco, and in this country, free speech is a sacred right and the basis for democracy.” Huen believes the community supports cannabis, citing statistics that the majority of voters in the Liturgy & Social: Every Sunday 5pm Sunset supported Proposition 215 First Sunday Movie Night in 1996 that allowed the use of canSecond Sunday Potluck Supper nabis for medical purposes and anThird Wednesday Faith Sharing Group other measure last November, Prop1329 Seventh Avenue † info@dignitysanfrancisco.org Follow us on Facebook! osition 64, which legalized adult use

Celebrating our Sexuality and Love as Gifts of God

of cannabis throughout the state. PJI’s Lee told the B.A.R. in a phone interview that he represents “the neighborhood” as well as the institute. PJI’s founder and president, Brad Dacus, said that Lee is not an official spokesman or employee but “understands our goals.” “I’m not familiar with the particulars of this case,” said Dacus, “but I’m confident that whatever Frank Lee says is accurate. He knows the neighborhood and the issues.” According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, PJI has been listed as an “anti-LGBT hate group” for several years, following repeated incidents where members of the group publicly demonized the LGBT community. According to Heidi Beirich, director of SPLC’s Intelligence Project, Dacus “has a horrible track record” regarding LGBTs, including defending a pastor who wanted to stone gay people to death and saying that homosexuality was “more dangerous” than cigarette smoking. In an announcement written by Lee, the purpose of Wednesday’s news conference is to announce PJI’s “serious protest” to the Noriega Street dispensary and other proposed dispensaries at 2442 Bayshore Boulevard and 3150 San Bruno Avenue. In order to gain the city’s permission to open, medical marijuana dispensaries must go through a lengthy and expensive application process, which typically sparks controversy from neighbors, who, for a variety of reasons, object to the establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries. Most dispensaries try to meet with community groups during the application process, as the Apothecarium did with the Sunset residents. According to Lee, the Noriega facility is in violation of city regulations prohibiting a medical marijuana dispensary within 1,000 feet of “registered children’s facilities.” Lee also said he believes dispensaries bring more crime to a neighborhood. A query to the office of District 4 Supervisor Katy Tang was

unanswered at press time. Elliot Dobris, head of community outreach for the Apothecarium, said the dispensary “is totally confident” that its application to open a dispensary at Noriega and 32nd streets does not violate city regulations. Dobris pointed out that while the city does prohibit dispensaries from opening near a private or public school or a city-run children’s program, the regulations do not cover privately owned businesses that cater to children. “If that was the rule,” said Dobris, “we wouldn’t have any dispensaries in San Francisco.” Dobris noted that there is a children’s ballet school near the Apothecarium on Market Street and a martial arts studio near the company’s proposed location on Lombard Street. The PJI representatives “are deliberately misreading the law,” said Dobris. According to Dobris, the city will hold a hearing about the Apothecarium’s proposed location on Noriega, likely in late spring, with hopes that it might open in 2018. The Apothecarium is also building a dispensary in the Marina, scheduled to open in late spring and is planning to open a location in Berkeley in the latter half of 2017. Terrance Alan, the chairman of San Francisco’s Cannabis State Legalization Task Force, said that when it comes to cannabis, “a big part of the problem is that the cannabis story has been narrated for 50 years by untrue, fear-based proclamations from parts of our government.” “It has been a masterful hoax, which played on people’s most devote values of family, children, public safety and community,” said Alan. “Today, right here in San Francisco, we have evidence those fearbased claims about cannabis are just not true,” Alan added. “We need a new story about the role of cannabis in our lives written by experience and facts. I urge people on both sides of this issue to look at the realities of the other’s position and help write this new story where the patients don’t get forgotten.” t

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10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 16-22, 2017

Gay Indian prince touts LGBT center in SF visit by Heather Cassell

ndia’s gay prince, Manvendra Singh Gohil, the crown prince of Rajpipla, will be making his first visit to the Bay Area to raise money for his new LGBT community center in Rajpipla. Rajpipla is in the Indian State of Gujara, about seven hours north from Mumbai. This is the first time the prince has visited the Bay Area, which 244,493 Indians call home, reported the Mercury News, including a thriving queer Indian community. The Bay Area is also home of the world’s first LGBT South Asian organization, Trikone. Manvendra will be interviewed by David Perry of San Francisco’s “10 Percent” TV show during a benefit event in the Castro March 21. He will also be feted at a dinner with LGBT leaders Wednesday, March 22 that is being organized by MAX, a social club for gay men and their friends, and is a benefit for the center. Manvendra’s visit to San Francisco is to raise awareness and money not only for the center, but also for The Freedom to be Who You Are, a social justice entertainment organization. The new LGBT center, which is envisioned to provide a variety of services, including health care, shelter, and yoga and music classes, will be housed in a building that was owned by the prince’s great grandfather, His Highness Maharaja Vijay Singhji Rajpipla. Maharaja was the last ruler of Rajpipla before it merged with India, the prince told the Bay Area Reporter in a Whats App interview last weekend. Manvendra hopes that his visit will be mutually beneficial – that San Franciscans can be inspired by his experiences and that he can build relationships that will support his work in India. “I would feel happy that I could help somebody in that part of the world,” he said, adding that he will also be selling select royal scarves made of Pashmina from his new collection, which will also benefit his projects.

Courtesy Lakshya Trust

Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil of India

Growing pains

India has undergone a number of changes during the past decade and since Manvendra, 51, came out as a gay man. Upon his coming out, he was disowned by his parents and suffered a nervous breakdown. He had also been married to a woman. He was then discovered by the BBC and Oprah Winfrey. In 2009, the Delhi High Court ruled that Section 377, an 1861 British colonial-era law that was used to criminalize homosexuality, was unconstitutional. But India’s Supreme Court reinstated the law in 2013, and it remains on the books today. Violators face up to 10 years in prison and a fine if caught. The prince said that there has been a great deal of support from Indians in general to overturn the supreme court’s decision. “A lot of people came in support because I think that the society felt that really an injustice has been done,” said Manvendra, who views the law as more of a human rights issue than a gay issue because it in effect criminalizes anyone who isn’t having sex to procreate. Additionally, he believes that the law shouldn’t have ever been carried over after India gained its independence from the British in 1947. The prince pointed out that prior to

British rule, India had a long history of homosexuality that was accepted in its art and culture. A prime example being the Kama Sutra, he pointed out. Currently, from his perspective, there isn’t a law that criminalizes homosexuality in India. But the law prohibits sexual activity between persons of the same gender and same-sex couples cannot marry or obtain a civil partnership. Section 377 has also had a profound effect on the rise of HIV rates in India, said the prince. He claimed that authorities misuse the law, enforcing it to criminalize handing out condoms to promote safer sex practices. “It’s a dispute of hypocrisy versus humanity ... put it in very, very simple language it’s nothing else but hypocrisy,” the prince said about Section 377.

India rising

The prince is hopeful about India reclaiming its understanding of human sexuality, pointing out that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is a member of the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party, the health ministry has released a sex education app that includes positive information about homosexuality that has gained popularity among students. “This itself is a positive step which we have seen in India now with the present government,” he said. “I think that there is a bright future in India.” Another sign of progress, a year after the reinstatement of Section 377, the high court recognized a third gender, ordering the government to provide official documentation and a pathway to education and employment for trans people.. The ruling has helped India’s transgender community with programs, such as transgender-operated taxis, a new school established in the Indian state of Kerala, and the country’s first transgender principal of an all-women’s college. In July 2015, India elected its first transgender mayor. “I would never have expect[ed]

this would happen in my lifetime, so the transgenders have all of the rights now,” said Manvendra. Yet, the fight is far from over in India for transgender rights. Currently, there’s a transgender rights bill poised to pass in the Indian Parliament later this year. It’s not completely supported by the transgender community, because one clause attempts to define all transgender people as intersex, Abhina Aher told the Business of Fashion.

A prince’s movement

Manvendra has also become a leading advocate for HIV/AIDS and LGBT and human rights in India. In 2000, he launched the Lakshya Trust after hosting a successful LGBT rights conference in his state. The trust’s name means “goal” and its work is focused on helping the LGBT community. It was financially backed by the state’s government with its HIV/AIDS program, said the prince. The new community center will operate under the trust. Today, the trust has about four centers across his home state, employing upward of 300 people, 90 percent of whom identify as LGBT and 10 percent as non-queer. The trust operates on an estimated annual budget of $151,055 (10 million rupees), the prince said. It receives funding from the Elton John AIDS Foundation through a grant to the AIDS India Alliance. The prince is also working closely with the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, serving as its ambassador in India, and the Impulse Group ambassador working on HIV prevention and treatment programs in India, he said. AHF confirmed it is working with the prince on the programs. Manvendra is a trained counselor and yoga instructor and a student of Indian classical music. He is working on incorporating programs, such as music therapy and yoga, into the offerings at the new center. The center will provide an important resource to LGBT people. It will serve as a safe space where LGBT

Indians in his region will be able to be themselves and receive the support they need to become independent, he said. This is important because many LGBT Indians continue the tradition of living in multigenerational households, leading them to live double lives at home and in heterosexual marriages when they fulfill their parents’ wishes, he said. Few establish their own independence, which often requires running away from home and finding their own way, which requires education, employment, and housing. It also requires a great deal of emotional strength as family is very important in Indian culture, said Manvendra, who still lives in his own wing of the royal palace. His own personal experience is why it’s important to him to offer ways for LGBT people to become independent and self-sufficient through programs at the center, he said. The other issue is education. Many Indians still face hurdles to access education, which can lead to gainful employment, especially speaking English and having skills in technology, he said. “It’s very important that the community gets empowered,” said Manvendra, who added that the center is open to the entire community, not just LGBTs. “It’s basically to empower them, to educate them, [and] to develop skills in them,” he said. t The Lakshya Trust benefit event with Prince Manvendra takes place March 21, from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at Beaux Bar, 2344 Market Street in San Francisco. The program will begin at 6:45 p.m. Indian food and beverages will be served. Tickets are $35 per person. For more information, contact Phil Walker at (415) 8163527 or phil@askphilwalker.com. For more information about the Lakshya Trust, visit http:// lakshya-trust.org and http:// thefreedomtobewhoyouare.com. For more information about MAX SF, visit http://www.meetup.com/ MAXSanFrancisco. Got international LGBT news tips? Call or send them to Heather Cassell at Skype: heather.cassell, or oitwnews@gmail.com.

Bags packed, but trans judge denied visa by India by Seth Hemmelgarn

ndian officials have failed to issue a visa to a transgender Alameda County Superior Court judge who had been invited to talk to people about LGBT issues. At least one bureaucrat has indicated the problem lies with that subject matter. The trip was formally canceled Wednesday morning. In early February, the U.S. Embassy in India invited Victoria Judge Victoria Kolakowski Kolakowski, who in 2010 became the first transgender person in the Indian government to issue her a country to be elected as a trial court business visa. judge, to participate in a program Indian officials use an outside on LGBT law and policy as part of contractor, CKGS, to handle visas, the agency’s speaker program. She “but the decisions are made at the was to leave Friday, March 10 and local consulates,” Kolakowski said. return Sunday, March 26. “All inquires made to the consulate The embassy and the U.S State are directed to CKGS, no matter Department arranged a program what or why.” including New Dehli and three She sent in her visa materials, other cities in which Kolakowski, which made it to the consulate who’s married to Bay Area Reporter February 20. As her departure date news editor Cynthia Laird, was to approached, Kolakowski and the meet with judges, attorneys, law U.S. Embassy’s outside contractor students, and the public. communicated daily with CKGS to “Everything was arranged,” Kocheck on her visa status. They were lakowski, 55, said in a post on her assured there were no problems and Facebook page Tuesday. “I was her application was being processed. packed and ready to go.” Last Thursday morning, Laird went However, she still needed the to CKGS’s office, but she was told to

come back in the afternoon. When she returned, she was told to come back again the next morning in order to get a manager’s authorization to pick up Cynthia Laird the visa at the consulate. “We came back Friday morning at 9 a.m., with my bags in the car, awaiting a 1:40 p.m. flight,” but the couple were told the visa was still not available, Kolakowski said. She said organizers told her “they were in urgent discussions” with state department officials. Kolakowski and Laird then went to the consulate, where Kolakowski presented her invitation letters and other documentation. “Just before they closed at noon, a man came out to return the letters,” she said. “He pointed to the letter where it said ‘to participate in a program on LGBT law and policy in India.’ He explained that they needed to know more about the program, so they had directed their inquiries to

the Indian Embassy in DC, who forwarded the matter to the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi.” Kolakowski was told officials were awaiting authorization from New Dehli, but by then, “everything in India was closed until Tuesday because of the Holi holiday.” She said officials insisted to her that the State Department had already provided details of the trip to the Indian government “well in advance,” meaning there shouldn’t be any cause for delay, but as of Tuesday afternoon, she still didn’t have her visa. “It’s in limbo waiting, trapped someplace where we don’t know where it is and it may never see the light of day again,” Kolakowski said. “I’m just befuddled.” The Indian consulate did not return a message seeking comment. In preparation for the journey, Kolakowski and others had planned her court dates carefully. “I cannot extend or reschedule the trip, as I don’t have time to reset what averages to 30-40 attorney appearances in cases each week,” she said. “It took us weeks to clear out these two weeks.” Kolakowski had planned to use her own vacation time for the trip. “I’m very disappointed, and I’m

frustrated that this got caught up in a bureaucratic loop,” Kolakowski said in a call with the B.A.R. Tuesday afternoon. “... I’m not even being told ‘No.’ I’m just being told ‘Wait’ until it’s too late to do anything.” On Wednesday, however, Kolakowski received an email from U.S. officials saying they had pulled the plug on the trip. “I personally met with director general of the India Council for Cultural Relations to try to get you the requested visa, but ultimately also didn’t succeed,” Craig L. Dicker, counselor for cultural affairs at the U.S. Embassy in new Delhi, wrote in an email. “I’m sorry to say that we have been left with no choice other than to cancel your program as currently scheduled.” Kolakowski said the embassy has sent many other people to India to discuss issues including technology and climate change, and there hadn’t been any trouble with visas. Referring to assumptions some have made that it’s the Trump administration that’s causing the problems, Kolakowski said, “I find it ironic that the problem we’re having is not with the U.S. government that wants to send me to do this, but with the Indian government that’s blocking things.” t

<< National News

t Critics blast ACA repeal plan

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 16-22, 2017

by Liz Highleyman

Republican proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act will lead to millions of people losing their health insurance and raise costs for low-income and older individuals, according to opponents of the plan. People living with HIV or other chronic conditions likely will be heavily affected. The proposal aims to revoke the ACA’s Medicaid provisions, which would have a big impact in states that opted to receive federal funds to expand their programs. But some cities and states are making contingency plans to continue coverage for vulnerable residents. “In San Francisco, the Affordable Care Act has worked. It has provided stability for many people, cut our uninsured population by half, and strengthened the health care system, making us a healthier city overall,” lesbian Health Director Barbara Garcia told the Bay Area Reporter. “While there are significant threats to the health care system being discussed at the federal level, here in San Francisco we are committed to providing access to high quality health care for everyone, and that has not changed.” The ACA has extended health coverage to 133,000 San Franciscans, including 93,000 covered under expanded Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program) and 40,000 who purchase coverage through Covered California, mostly using federal subsidies, according to Garcia. She estimated that the Republican plan could lead to a loss of $125 million for local health care providers, hospitals, and clinics.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan (RWisconsin) unveiled the American Health Care Act March 6. The Republican plan would roll back Medicaid expansion by the year 2020, revoke the requirement that individuals must carry health insurance and most employers must provide it, cut taxes that bankroll the ACA, and stop federal funds going to Planned Parenthood. The AHCA keeps the ACA’s prohibitions on lifetime spending caps and refusal to cover people with pre-existing conditions, and allows young people to stay on their parents’ policies until age 26. It removes the ACA’s tax penalty on people who do not carry insurance, but those who do not maintain continuous coverage would face increased costs. The proposal expands health savings accounts, adds some funding for community health centers, and gives states more support to assist “high-risk” individuals. According to a Congressional Budget Office report released this week, the AHCA would slash federal spending on Medicaid by 18 percent, or about $880 billion. Over time the changes would lower the federal deficit by $337 billion. An estimated 14 million Americans could lose their health coverage next year, rising to 24 million being uninsured by 2026. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price told reporters that the CBO’s figures “defy logic,” but

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From page 7

who will never qualify for Section 8 housing because they make too much money but they are also housing insecure,” said Gloria, who is single and lives in San Diego’s Mission Hills neighborhood. A native of San Diego, Gloria graduated from the University of San Diego and worked for the county Health and Human Services Agency.

Rick Gerharter

San Francisco Health Director Barbara Garcia

an internal White House analysis reportedly put the number of people who would lose insurance even higher, at 26 million. Instead of federal subsidies based on income, under the Republican plan people would receive tax credits based on age. While some young and healthy individuals could see lower monthly premiums, costs are expected to skyrocket for older individuals. Subsidy reductions would be largest in high-cost states. As an example, the CBO calculated that under the ACA, people of any age earning $26,500 a year would pay $1,700 annually in subsidized insurance premiums. Under the AHCA, premiums for a 21-yearold would fall a bit, to $1,450, while premiums for a 64-year-old would rise to $14,600 – more than half their income.

Negative reaction

So far response to the AHCA has been largely negative. “As drafted, the AHCA would result in millions of Americans losing coverage and benefits,” American Medical Association president Dr. Andrew Gurman said in a statement. “By replacing income-based premium subsidies with age-based tax credits, the AHCA will also make coverage more expensive – if not out of reach – for poor and sick Americans.” The American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, American Hospital Association, and AARP have also opposed the plan, while America’s Health Insurance Plans – the insurance industry’s largest trade association – expressed reservations about parts of it. Some Republican legislators – especially from states that have expanded Medicaid – fear the plan could hurt them politically. And some Donald Trump supporters have criticized the plan, citing the president’s promise that people would not lose their coverage or be worse off. At the same time, some conservatives and libertarians complain that the plan does not go far enough in dismantling the ACA, also known as Obamacare.

LGBT and people with HIV hard hit

LGBT people and people living with HIV or other chronic conditions will be particularly hard hit

He also served as district director to Congresswoman Susan A. Davis. (A Democrat, Davis will turn 73 in April and is regularly rumored to be thinking of retiring. When she does, Gloria is well positioned to run for her seat, potentially becoming the second gay man among California’s congressional delegation, though Atkins has also been floated as a potential successor.) He is the Assembly’s first Native American, Filipino, Puerto Rican,

by replacing the ACA with the Republican plan, according to several officials. “The LGBT community traditionally, and for many, many years, has lacked the same access to health care as the community at-large. For that reason, the Affordable Care Act was an absolute godsend for many LGBT people,” said gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), speaking in favor of a Senate resolution opposing the AHCA. “The repeal, or demolition, or whatever you want to call Trump and Congress’ gutting of the ACA will have profoundly negative consequences for LGBT people around this country, ranging from increased HIV infection rates to more people dying from HIV to more transgender people experiencing severe health problems.” Rolling back Medicaid expansion would have a disproportionate impact on HIV-positive people. Medicaid is the largest source of insurance coverage for people with HIV, covering more than 40 percent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. “People with HIV, hepatitis C, and other chronic conditions will be devastated by proposed cuts to the Medicaid expansion and proposals to make health coverage more expensive for older Americans,” Emalie Huriaux, Project Inform’s director of federal and state affairs, told the B.A.R. “If the Medicaid expansion is eliminated, many of these individuals will have nowhere else to go for affordable coverage. If health coverage is unavailable or unaffordable, many individuals with HIV and hepatitis C will go without the care and treatment they need.” The HIV Medicine Association, which represents nearly 5,000 physicians, scientists, and other health care professionals working in the HIV/AIDS field, expressed concerns about the Republican proposal. “If advanced, the ACA replacement bill stands to threaten our progress in diagnosing and treating patients with HIV and increase healthcare disparities both between states and based on socioeconomic status,” said HIVMA Chair Dr. Wendy Armstrong. “These proposals will not only harm individuals with HIV, but will compromise our nation’s public health by leaving fewer with access to the antiretroviral treatment that keeps patients healthy and reduces their risk of transmitting HIV to near zero.” The National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors, National Coalition of STD Directors, National Minority AIDS Council, AIDS United, and the AIDS Institute also issued a joint statement opposing the Republican plan. “We believe that the proposed legislation would make it much harder, if not impossible, for people living with HIV and other chronic conditions to get the coverage needed to meet their care and treatment needs,” said NASTAD executive director Murray Penner. “We need a system of health coverage that works for everyone, including people with chronic conditions and disabilities and the proposed legislation achieves the exact opposite.” t and Dutch gay member. His maternal grandparents were Native American and white but identified as Caucasian, while his paternal grandfather was a member of the Tlingit Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, of which Gloria is an enrolled member. “My grandparents come from all over the world,” Gloria explained. His mixed ancestry has benefited him in unlikely ways at the ballot See page 13 >>

Community News>>

t Women’s strike events draw crowds by Liz Highleyman

Women’s and gender strikes

he “A Day Without a Woman” actions on International Women’s Day drew crowds in cities around the country, while more marches and demonstrations are planned next month. The Republican plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act – which could result in some 24 million people losing their health coverage – has prompted calls for a March for Health Saturday, April 1. Activists are organizing a large national march in Washington, D.C., and satellite marches in several cities, including New York, Nashville, and Seattle, according to the http://www.MarchforHealth. org website. In the Bay Area, a march is planned for Santa Rosa and an Oakland march appears to be in the works. April will be a busy month for coordinated national actions including a Tax March on April 15

Eric James

Sex workers joined other women at Oakland’s “A Day Without a Woman” protest March 8.

to demand that Donald Trump release his tax returns (http://www. TaxMarch.org), a March for Science Saturday, April 22 (MarchforScience.com), and a People’s Climate March Saturday, April 29 (http://www.PeoplesClimate.org). Bay Area cities, including San Francisco and Oakland, are planning satellite marches for all three dates.

International Women’s Day events on March 8 were well attended in the Bay Area. To recognize “A Day Without a Woman,” women were encouraged to take the day off from paid or unpaid labor and shopping to demonstrate their economic impact. In some cities so many teachers took off work that schools were forced to close. Whether rallying or working, many women wore red to show their solidarity. In San Francisco around 1,000 people participated in a spirited morning rally outside City Hall, organized in part by women involved in the massive January 21 Women’s Marches. Oakland saw an evening Women’s Strike rally, also attended by at least 1,000 people, according to various news reports. Elizabeth Lanyon from the National Center for Lesbian Rights,

Strut celebrates first year by Liz Highleyman

trut, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation’s health and wellness center for gay, bisexual, and trans men, celebrated its first anniversary with a party at its Castro Street headquarters. Best known for its Magnet sexual health services – including the popular PrEP program – Strut is also home to Positive Force, the Elizabeth Taylor 50-Plus Network for men age 50 and over, the DREAAM Project for young African-Americans, the Stonewall substance use health program, and the Bridgemen volunteer program. “San Francisco AIDS Foundation is incredibly proud of all that Strut has accomplished during its first year,” SFAF CEO Joe Hollendoner told the Bay Area Reporter. “In the months and years ahead we will continue to build upon Strut’s innovative model in order to ensure that San Francisco achieves its goal of getting to zero new HIV infections and zero AIDS-related deaths.” The wall-to-wall crowd at the March 6 event heard an overview of programs and services from Strut staff, enjoyed entertainment by Miss GAPA Juicy Liu, and had an opportunity to get a spanking from newly sashed Mr. San Francisco Leather Jeff Millard. Victor Ruiz-Cornejo from state Senator Scott Wiener’s (D-San Francisco) office presented a proclamation commending Strut on its anniversary. Wiener came out publicly as a PrEP user in 2014 while he was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and Ruiz-Cornejo said Strut was the first place to help him get on PrEP after his regular doctor didn’t feel comfortable prescribing it. Strut provides support services for HIV-positive people, prevention services for HIV-negative people, and community events open to all. “Last year alone we helped more than 150 HIV-positive individuals access health care, find a doctor, improve medication adherence, and access all the specific services that

Political Notebook

From page 12

box, with some voters selecting him thinking he is Latino. Others have checked off his name believing he was a female candidate. “Because of my last name, people have thought it was a woman’s name,” said Gloria. “The council

told the B.A.R. “The campaign has not only allowed SFAF to co-locate some of our most beloved and effective programs at Strut, it has also allowed us to expand services, including the provision of same-day PrEP services.” The Strut building at 470 Castro Street, with nearly 5,000 square feet of space on three floors, has enabled SFAF to expand its case management, mental health counseling, substance use and harm reducLiz Highleyman tion services, and sexual health services, including Stephanie Nicole LeDream, left, also sexually transmitted disknown as Jimmy Gale, joined Miss ease screening. GAPA Juicy Liu, also known as Michael Nguyen, in singing “Happy Birthday” at But even with the added Strut’s one-year anniversary party. space, sexual health services are bursting at the seams. Since Strut opened its will keep them healthy and happy doors last year, more than and living a long and successful life,” 16,700 clients have used Magnet’s said Strut health navigation managsexual health services, according er Jimmy Gale, appearing as his alter to director of sexual health Joshua ego Stephanie Nicole LeDream. O’Neal. Between 60 and 80 people “We’re helping people access housper day take advantage of Strut’s ing, food, transportation, and most clinical services. Over 2,000 people importantly, providing support so have now enrolled in the PrEP they don’t feel alone.” program, including 1,000 last year Representatives from the comalone. munity engagement team reported At the International AIDS Conthat they have held more than 80 ference last July, Strut’s director events at Strut, bringing over 9,000 of nursing, Pierre-Cedric Crouch, people through the doors. The team reported that the PrEP program hosts art openings every first Friday, has enjoyed great success – inpoetry nights, comedy nights, and cluding no new HIV infections to drag nights. In addition, Bridgemen date. But as with most PrEP efforts members volunteered for 30 differin the U.S., more work is needed ent organizations, contributing a to address disparities, especially total of 2,613 hours of community reaching young gay and bi men of service. color. A little over a year after Strut’s Crouch said that 4 percent of long-delayed opening, SFAF is close Strut’s PrEP clients are black, a to reaching its financial target for group that accounts for 17 percent funding the new center. of all new HIV infections in San “Strut would not be possible Francisco and about 40 percent of without the generous support of the new diagnoses among gay and bi individual, institutional, and govmen nationwide. ernment partners that have helped The DREAAM Project aims to San Francisco AIDS Foundation help fill this gap. Along with its regto achieve 97 percent of our $15 ular Friday evening events for young million goal for the Campaign for black gay, bi, and same-gender-lovHealth and Wellness,” Hollendoner ing men and trans women under 18,

field I ran in in 2008 was devoid of women. But some people, when I would knock on their front door and meet them, would say I am voting for that Gloria woman.”t Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion, will return Monday, March 20.

March 16-22, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 13

who is also an organizer for the annual San Francisco Dyke March, spoke at the San Francisco rally. “We will mark today – International Women’s Day – by recognizing the essential economic value that women of all backgrounds add to our socioeconomic system, even though women receive lower wages, experience great inequities, and are more vulnerable to discrimination, sexual harassment, and job insecurity,” Lanyon said. “We are here because we believe that misogyny has no place in our communities, in our workplaces, in our homes, or in our government. And never, ever in our bodies.” Taking a more radical stance, a noon Strike Against Gender at Justin Herman Plaza was followed by a march to the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on Sansome Street to protest Trump’s

immigration restrictions and recent stepped up enforcement. And on Saturday, March 11 an International Working Women’s Day march took place in the Mission. Both the San Francisco and Oakland events put out calls for participation by sex workers, many of whom bear the brunt of crackdowns on immigration and cuts to services for low-income people, including Republicans’ proposed defunding of Planned Parenthood. “Sex workers and migration are inherently linked because many people – especially LGBT people all over the world – leave home due to stigma” and end up doing sex work as part of the informal economy, sex worker rights advocate Carol Leigh told the Bay Area Reporter. “Now in the era of Trump’s Republican administration, women in general are more vulnerable, facing issues of losing health care and losing vital services.”t

it will host a daytime PrEP rally for young people of color at Strut Saturday, April 22, program manager Tony Bradford announced. With community support, Strut plans to continue building on its “under one roof” model in the years to come.

“We couldn’t undertake this innovative and impactful sexual health work without the backing of our communities and we are truly grateful for all of their support,” O’Neal told the B.A.R. “Strut is still young, and we look forward to the growth and transformation ahead.” t

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<< Community News

March 16-22, 2017

South Dakota

On Monday, San Francisco officials said they were reviewing the law to determine if South Dakota should be added to their list. A day later they had decided that it qualified. “After review of the South Dakota bill the City and County of San Francisco is adding them to the list. We are currently in the process of adding the information to the Office of Contract Administrations

site and bidding information,” Jack Gallagher, a policy aide in the city administrator’s office, wrote in an emailed reply to the B.A.R. As for the attorney general’s press office, it had yet to respond to the B.A.R.’s inquiry by press time Wednesday. But sources in Sacramento said Becerra’s office is looking into if it should add South Dakota to its travel ban list. It is unclear how long the review will take. The website for the state travel ban – https://oag.ca.gov/ ab1887 – had not been updated as of Wednesday morning. In an emailed response to questions, gay state Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), who authored the legislation creating California’s travel ban, told the B.A.R. that he was “disturbed and disappointed” by the actions of South Dakota lawmakers. He indicated that the state should now be placed on the travel ban list. “In California, we are dedicated to safeguarding the civil rights of all residents. And with last year’s passage of Assembly Bill 1887, we took an important step to ensuring our state funds do not benefit discrimination against LGBT

people,” wrote Low. “AB 1887 serves two important purposes: to ensure employees are not required to travel to discriminatory states as part of their employment, and to prevent our public funds from benefiting states that pass anti-LGBT laws.” He added that, “As the world’s sixth largest economy, California is ready and able to use its economic power to hold discriminatory states accountable for their hateful policies.” Statewide LGBT advocacy group Equality California, which backed Low’s bill, declined to comment when asked by the B.A.R. this week if it was calling on the AG’s office to now add South Dakota to the travel ban list. Kelsey Pritchard, a spokeswoman for South Dakota’s governor, did not respond by press time Wednesday to the B.A.R.’s questions about the state being placed on the travel ban lists. Tennessee’s state Senate passed a resolution Monday condemning California’s travel ban policy and urging other states not to engage in “economic warfare” by adopting similar policies. It plans to send the resolution to members of every

legislative body in the country as well as to organizers of several major state government conferences. South Dakota could also find itself on the travel ban list maintained by Santa Clara County, which in June 2015 became the first municipal government to adopt a travel restriction to states with anti-LGBT laws. As of December, Santa Clara County had banned taxpayer-funded travel to North Carolina, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Asked Monday if Santa Clara County officials would be adding South Dakota to the travel ban list, gay deputy county executive David Campos told the B.A.R. “I’m not sure.” Noting it was his first day on the job, Campos, a former San Francisco supervisor, added, “but LGBTQ issues are a top priority here.” He said the county is “proudly at the forefront and will fight any effort to target the LGBTQ community.” Both the state and local travel bans exempt trips necessary for law enforcement reasons, those needed to meet prior contractual obligations, or for the protection of public health or welfare. t

Jewish LGBT community at the synagogue after a decade of progress. “It has our community on edge,” said Riter. “Our members are feeling the weight of ... our fragile world right now after a period of time when we have felt more and more secure both as Jews and members of the LGBTQ community over the last decade. “To have it feel like such a huge switch happen so quickly has been very challenging,” he added, pointing out that he’s seen an increase in attendance since the attacks began as people seek out their community. However, Elle McCool, a 31-year-old gay woman who is the Jewish values specialist for Club J, an afterschool program at the Oshman Family JCC, told the B.A.R that she feels safer in the Bay Area than she’s ever felt growing up in Washington, D.C. and living in Israel and Australia. She wouldn’t feel as safe if she wasn’t in the Bay Area, she said. When the bomb threat happened at Oshman February 27, McCool followed the well-prepared emergency instructions along with everyone else as if it was another drill. If anything, the growing anti-Semitism and threats helped her feel closer to her Jewishness and her community, she said. McCool only hopes non-Jewish people pay attention to the plethora of threats against the Jewish community. “I almost have more hope for the

non-Jewish people to see that anti-Semitism is still very much a real thing and it still exists,” said McCool. The San Francisco Human Rights Commission called the acts “horrendous incidents of unequivocal acts of hatred and anti-Semitism.” “The very foundation of our democracy and system of liberty and justice is compromised when these occurrences go unchallenged and where they are not dealt with immediately and decisively,” said the statement. “These attacks on the Jewish community and the desecration of sacred Jewish landmarks are painful reminders of a history of hatred and bigotry that must never be allowed to fester again in a compassionate and socially conscious society.” Wiener agreed. “We, as a community, must speak out against these attacks in the strongest possible terms and demand that our government stamp them out,” he said. “We also must hold Donald Trump and his cronies accountable for opening a Pandora’s box of hate that impacts many communities, including our own.” Trump’s initial response to the attacks came February 17 during his first news conference since taking office. “I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life,” he said. He also added that he is the “least racist person.” The Trump administration

tweeted a statement from the White House to a NBC News reporter February 20 condemning the attacks on Jewish institutions across the country. “Hatred and hate-motivated violence of any kind have no place in a country founded on the promise of individual freedom,” the statement said. “The president has made it abundantly clear that these actions are unacceptable.”

do what we know is right,” he said, adding that the community will continue to work with refugees and other marginalized communities. “As much as we might personally be under threat as an LGBTQ community and as a Jewish community, we recognize that we are not the only ones who are under threat.” He said the issue was a human one. “We are increasing our efforts because it’s not a Jewish issue. It’s not an LGBTQ issue,” Riter said. “It’s a human issue. It’s an American issue.” Congregation Sha’ar Zahav is hosting a free workshop on how to respond to racism and keep the community safe. “Standing Up to Hate: A Workshop on What to do When You Witness Racism” will be facilitated by Renato Almanzor, Ph.D., an expert in organizational psychology, a community organizer, and diversity trainer. It takes place Sunday, March 19 from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. at 290 Dolores Street. The workshop is open to the public by sliding-scale donations, though no one will be turned away for lack of funds. It is co-sponsored by the First Mennonite Church, the San Francisco Interfaith Council, and Keshet. For more information, contact Adam Pollack at (415) 861-6932 or adam@shaarzahav.org. To register, visit http://conta.cc/2lBFhGo t

who lives in the East Bay city of Rodeo, California. Salman pleaded not guilty in January to charges in San Francisco” and of aiding and abetting is commuting to work. Mateen’s support of the Campos is married terrorist group ISIS and to to Phil Hwang. His new obstruction of justice. She salary will be $245,000, was arrested January 16 at according to Santa Clara Courtesy Santa Clara County her family’s Rodeo home. County officials. In his Friday, March 10 Santa Clara revocation of Ryu’s order, Judge keeps OrlanCounty deputy do shooter’s widow county executive U.S. District Judge Paul Byron said that Ryu “misin jail David Campos apprehends the meaning A Florida judge has of danger to the commuruled that that the widow nity by asking the governof Omar Mateen, the ment to identify a specific threat. man who fatally shot 49 people and Defendant Salman is charged with wounded 53 others at Orlando’s gay aiding and abetting a horrific terror Pulse nightclub last June, should reattack.” main in custody. Byron added that the charges are U.S. magistrate Donna Ryu had “supported by numerous admisruled earlier this month that Noor sions made by the defendant ... . The Salman, 30, should be released on existence of the defendant’s past bond, saying federal prosecutors involvement in a terrorist attack, hadn’t shown sufficient evidence even recognizing that she did not that she posed a serious flight risk pull the trigger, poses too great of or danger to the public. a danger to the community to warAfter a hearing in federal court in rant pretrial release. While [Ryu] Oakland, Ryu ordered that Salman found defendant Salman does not should be able to stay with her uncle

have any ties to the Islamic State and has not personally exhibited extremist views, [Ryu] minimizes the defendant’s admitted knowledge of Mateen’s own extremist and violent views, his preparation for the attack, and the defendant’s admission that Mateen departed the family home on June 11, 2016, armed with an assault weapon and ammunition.” The former Fort Pierce, Florida resident’s 29-year-old husband was killed in a shootout with police at Pulse. She faces a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted. She’s currently being held without bail in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. Salman declined a visit from the Bay Area Reporter earlier this year. Salman’s attorneys had asked for her to be released on bond, saying she was a battered woman with learning disabilities who doesn’t pose a danger. Prosecutors have said Salman had been with Mateen when he went to Pulse and other sites to scout locations to attack. Salman’s attorneys have said she only went as a “bystander,” Byron noted, but he said that during one trip, Mateen had

asked his wife, “How bad would it be if a club got attacked?” In response to Byron’s order, Charles Swift, an attorney for Salman, said in an email to the B.A.R., “Ms. Salman has pled not guilty to the charges. She persists in her claim of innocence and we are currently exploring all available legal remedies on her behalf. Until all the facts come out in trial, we urge the community to withhold judgment.”

From page 14

legislation that discriminates against LGBT people since June 26, 2015. The law, which went into effect January 1, also applies to the University of California and California State systems and has impacted sports teams’ schedules and student participation at conferences in the banned states. In February, San Francisco officials announced the city would follow the state’s lead and banned city and county employees from using municipal funds to travel to the four states on California’s list. The city’s law, however, goes further than the state’s and also bans San Francisco city departments from contracting with businesses headquartered in the states on the travel ban list. Following Daugaard’s decision, the Bay Area Reporter last week asked both the office of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and San Francisco City Administrator Naomi Kelly if they were reviewing whether to ban taxpayer-funded travel to South Dakota.

Jewish community

From page 14

sources, was a “copycat” and wasn’t involved in any vandalizing of Jewish cemeteries, reported Slate. No other suspects have been arrested for bomb threats against Jewish institutions. Interim Rabbi Ted Riter at Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, the LGBT synagogue in San Francisco, told the Bay Area Reporter that he wasn’t surprised by the threats, as anti-Semitism was on the rise throughout the election last year. However, he expressed concern about the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. “Once they started desecrating cemeteries, desecrating a sacred space, that’s very real,” said Riter, a straight ally. “If you are willing to desecrate a sacred space, I don’t know where you stop.”

On alert and prepared

The Bay Area’s LGBT Jewish community is prepared for the threats, said community leaders and members who, along with allies, have condemned the attacks. “We were seeing people being much more free with their hate,” said Riter, 48, referring to last year’s election campaign. “It’s certainly increased since the election and even more so since the inauguration.” He noted that it has worried the

News Briefs

From page 714

South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard

Standing up, speaking out

However, San Francisco’s LGBT Jewish community isn’t swayed by Trump’s comments, which follow his consistent incitement of hatred and his relationships with known racists, white nationalists, and others. Congregation Sha’ar Zahav is reaching out to others in the community to build and strengthen alliances and giving individual members tools to fight back during these challenging times, said Riter. He believes that love will win and it’s a path of love that the LGBT Jewish community will walk. “We are going to respond to hate with love and we are going to respond to darkness with light,” Riter said. “That’s the path that we’ve always chosen as Jews and that’s the path that we will continue as Jews. “You can try to scare the community and we are going to still

SF Pride names 3 grand marshals

With the public voting ended the organization that oversees San Francisco Pride has announced that Chris Carnes and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus were the winners for individual and organizational grand marshal, respectively. Additionally, the membership of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee selected Alex U. Inn, (also known as Carmen Alex Morrison) a member of the drag king troupe Momma’s Boyz, as a community grand marshal. Carnes is a longtime LGBT activist, fundraiser, and event producer

who used to serve on the board of Equality California. Inn is an advocate for justice and equality and a Gay Games gold medal winner. The gay men’s chorus, established nearly 40 years ago, was the first choral organization to proudly proclaim its orientation in its name and is credited with helping start the LGBT choral movement. On its Facebook page, SF Pride said that additional grand marshals and other honorees would be announced soon.

Artists can take part in ‘Windows for Harvey’ project The Castro Merchants group is again planning its “Windows for Harvey” campaign to observe Harvey Milk Day, but this year it is asking artists and designers to create imaginative window displays honoring the slain San Francisco supervisor. Brian Springfield with the merchants group, and Angie Sticher,

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Community News>>

March 16-22, 2017

• BAY AREA REPORTER • 15

Legal Notices>>

News Briefs

4 From page 15

the founder and studio manager for Spark Arts, said that interested artists are welcome to contact Castro Merchants to participate. This year’s Windows for Harvey initiative will run May 18-31 (Harvey Milk Day is May 22). Springfield said that artists can donate work they’ve already done or complete new work. Sticher will pair the artist with a merchant for the window display. Last year, Springfield explained, the merchants group had posters made that businesses placed in their windows. The thought was to do something different this year, he said. Once the window displays are up, people can stroll through the neighborhood to look at them. Milk, the first out gay person to win elective office in San Francisco, was himself a small business owner in the Castro, having operated his camera store for many years. He was also a founder of the merchants organization, Springfield noted. Milk was assassinated by disgruntled ex-supervisor Dan White in 1978. Interested artists can contact Castro Merchants at info@castromerchants.com for more information.

Blade to launch LA edition

The Washington Blade has announced it will start a southern California edition next week. Troy Masters, who had run the Pride LA gay newspaper until earlier this month, will oversee the Los Angeles Blade as publisher and editor, according to an email from Lynne Brown, publisher of the Washington Blade. Additionally, lesbian veteran journalist Karen Ocamb will be senior contributing writer. The paper will focus on Los Angeles and California news, politics, opinion, arts, and entertainment, the news release stated. The first issue is due March 24; the paper will be published bi-weekly. Both Blade publications are members of the National Gay Media Association.

Garza to moderate plenary at Greenlining summit

Queer Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza will moderate the opening plenary of the Greenlining Institute’s 24th annual economic summit next month. This year’s summit theme is “Racial Justice on the Frontlines,” and will take place Friday, April 14 at the Oakland Marriott City Center, 1001 Broadway. Joining Garza will be community activists and political and business leaders who will tackle issues such as gentrification, tech diversity (or the lack thereof), possible repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and the impending arrival of Uber in downtown Oakland. The Greenlining Institute holds its daylong summit each year to connect, brainstorm, and strategize on important economic issues affecting communities of color. Last year’s event was sold out, and a large crowd is expected this year. Other notable speakers will include Zachary Norris, executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights; Matt Haney, San Francisco school board commissioner; Kim Carter, founder and executive director of Time for Change; and Angela Glover Blackwell, chief executive officer of PolicyLink. Tickets range from $18-$150; all include a continental breakfast and refreshments at the networking reception. Some ticket prices include the luncheon program. For more information, visit http://greenlining.org/economic-summit/summit-2017/. t Seth Hemmelgarn contributed reporting.

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-552788

In the matter of the application of: GOLEE ABRISHAMI CASTLEBERRY, 10 LUNADO WAY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner GOLEE ABRISHAMI CASTLEBERRY, is requesting that the name GOLEE ABRISHAMI CASTLEBERRY, be changed to GOLEE FARSHBAF ABRISHAMI. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 18th of April 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FEB 23, MAR 02, 09, 16, 2017 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-552779 In the matter of the application of: AARON BARBER, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner AARON BARBER, is requesting that the name AARON BARBER AKA AARON MICHAEL BARBER, be changed to ELEMENT ELEFTHERIOS ECLIPSE. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 11th of April 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FEB 23, MAR 02, 09, 16, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037477600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LOGOPEDA SPEECH THERAPY, 1768 PAGE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALINA MIHAL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/17/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/17/17.

FEB 23, MAR 02, 09, 16, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037466000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ELEMENT D, 55 DUBOCE AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NICHOLAS SETIAWAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/09/17.

FEB 23, MAR 02, 09, 16, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037448200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BE KIND, 890 BUSH ST #301, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed VICTORIA RAYLES. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/19/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/30/17.

FEB 23, MAR 02, 09, 16, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037470700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DRESS YOU UP, 1815 BROADWAY ST #1, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARIA CHRISTINA MANALO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/14/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/14/17.

FEB 23, MAR 02, 09, 16, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037469100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: 6DAYS PRODUCTIONS, 686 11TH AVE #12, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed MARIO MARE & TAE HO YOON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/17/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/13/17.

FEB 23, MAR 02, 09, 16, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037476900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE POP AGENCY, 2010 CHESTNUT ST #105, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed GREENSENSE MEDIA INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/16/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/17/17.

FEB 23, MAR 02, 09, 16, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037474800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: OM INDIAN CUISINE, 1668 HAIGHT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed A & A RESTAURANT GROUP INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/16/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/16/17.

FEB 23, MAR 02, 09, 16, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037465600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MARUFUKU RAMEN, 1581 WEBSTER #235, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed EK FOOD SERVICES, INC. (CA) The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/23/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/09/17.

FEB 23, MAR 02, 09, 16, 2017

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037477000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TAQUERIA ZORRO, 308 COLUMBUS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SF NICE LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/11/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/17/17.

FEB 23, MAR 02, 09, 16, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037461600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: OPEN ACCESS, 475 CONNECTICUT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed OPEN ACCESS, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/07/17.

FEB 23, MAR 02, 09, 16, 2017 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-037155800 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: OM INDIAN CUISINE, 1668 HAIGHT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by AJAY RAJ KHADKA. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/29/16.

FEB 23, MAR 02, 09, 16, 2017 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF HARUYOSHI IIDA IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-16-299459

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of HARUYOSHI IIDA. A Petition for Probate has been filed by JUNJI SUZUKI in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that JUNJI SUZUKI be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: MARCH 20, 2017, 9:00 am, Dept. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: EDWARD S. MIYAUCHI (SBN 230553), MARSHALL SUZUKI LAW GROUP, LLP, 150 SPEAR ST #725, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105; Ph. (415) 618-0090.

MAR 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-552820

In the matter of the application of: NICHOLAS STEVEN BIRTH, 2782 22ND ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner NICHOLAS STEVEN BIRTH, is requesting that the name NICHOLAS STEVEN BIRTH, be changed to NICHOLAS STEVEN BEAR. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 25th of APRIL 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037480800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EXPRESS PHOTO AND MAIL; PASSPORT DEPOT, 1388 HAIGHT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MICHAEL YOUNG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/28/98. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/22/17.

MAR 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037479500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CLEANING & MORE, 1015 CORTLAND AVE, SAN FRANCISCO CA, 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOSE D. ROMERO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/21/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/21/17.

MAR 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037481000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: C PLUS TRAVEL, 2555 44TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MINGFENG WU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/11/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/22/17.

MAR 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037477300

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037494000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RENE HEALTH, 5 THIRD ST #501, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BEN BEDI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/28/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/01/17.

MAR 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037480500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE TRAINING ZONE STUDIO, 5332 GEARY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CAN 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed FRANCISCO A. NIEVES. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/22/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/22/17.

MAR 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037487000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FOUNDATIONS R US, 1291 11TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOHN O. DONOGHUE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/17/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/17/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HEIT CERAMICS, 75 MANCHESTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GAY LEAH HEIT. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/24/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/24/17.

MAR 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037483500

MAR 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037491200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SANS DESIGN, 415 CLYDE AVE #106, MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA 94043. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SANS DESIGN LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/23/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/23/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JAY HORNE, 1355 HUDSON AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JAQUITA HORNE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/27/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/27/17.

MAR 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037490200

MAR 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037489900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HI-VIS BRANDING, 8 NEWELL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed HI-VIS BRANDING (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/27/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/27/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PALAYAN’S ORIENTAL RUG CLEANING, 2115 VICENTE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SHANT PALAYAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/14/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/27/17.

MAR 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037478800

MAR 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037486500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MEDIA NOCHE, 3465 19TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed DOS PULPOS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/21/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/21/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TENANTS BUYING REAL ESTATE, 870 MARKET ST #315, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed TENBUY CORPORATION (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/24/17.

MAR 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037462300

MAR 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037493800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MOONRISE TATTOO WATERS GALLERY, 446 TARAVAL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed WATERS MELANDRES. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/07/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/07/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ROYAL INDIAN CUISINE, 1740 FILLMORE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BELLA FOODS INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/01/17.

MAR 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-034571700

MAR 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037494500

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: AUERBACH GLASOW FRENCH, 225 GREEN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business was conducted by a corporation and signed by AUERBACH + ASSOCIATES, INC (CA). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/07/12.

MAR 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-552810

In the matter of the application of: FNU KAREN, 2263 37TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner FNU KAREN, is requesting that the name FNU KAREN, be changed to KAREN EFFENDI. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 20th of April 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037501500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LALIGURASH JEWELLERY, 910 STOCKTON ST #12, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RAM KRISHNA LAKANDRI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/06/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/06/17.

MAR 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037502100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FCA COMPANY, 579 GEARY ST, 2ND FLR, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GUILLAUME COUTHEILLAS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/06/17.

MAR 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SILVER SPUR, 1914 IRVING ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SHOTSKI LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/01/17.

MAR 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037499000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: O/M, 1095 NATOMA ST #2, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed YOUNG DESIGN LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/03/17.

MAR 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-034401800 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: TENANTS BUYING REAL ESTATE, 870 MARKET ST #315, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by RICHARD HURLBURT. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/11/12.

MAR 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-552848 In the matter of the application of: JAZMIN ELEK, 965 TERESITA BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JAZMIN ELEK, is requesting that the name JAZMIN ELEK, be changed to JAZMIN KELLY ELEK. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 4th of MAY 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017

16 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 16-22, 2017

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Legal Notices>> ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-552856

In the matter of the application of: MARINA MCCORD GELMAN, 646 CLARENDON AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner MARINA MCCORD GELMAN, is requesting that the name MARINA MCCORD GELMAN, be changed to MARINA GELMANMCCORD. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 9th of May 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-552851

In the matter of the application of: BRYAN BERNARD FINLEY, 130 CAINE AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner BRYAN BERNARD FINLEY, is requesting that the name BRYAN BERNARD FINLEY AKA BRYAN FINLEY, be changed to BRYAN BERNARD VILLASEÑOR. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 4th of May 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037483100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JIFFY DOG, 300 DEHARO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALEX TAO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/23/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/23/17.

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-552843

In the matter of the application of: ANTHONY STEPHEN WILEY-GREEN, 1147 HOLLISTER AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124, for change of name having been ﬁled in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ANTHONY STEPHEN WILEY-GREEN, is requesting that the name ANTHONY STEPHEN WILEY-GREEN AKA ANTHONY WILEY-GREEN AKA ANTHONY STEPHEN GREEN-WILEY, be changed to ANTHONY STEPHEN GREEN-WILEY. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 2nd of May 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037502400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SFWOOFPACK, 219 LEAVENWORTH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NATHAN E.GUIDAS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/06/17.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037508900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BAY AREA EFFICIENT MOVERS, 1238 NORTHPOINT DR UNIT D, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94130. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed DZIANIS VASILEUSKI & GULZHAN BEISENOVA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/02/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/10/17.

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037483200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JIFFY DOG, 2175 MARKET ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALEX TAO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/23/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/23/17.

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037501700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TYE’S BARBER SHOP, 570 MONTEREY BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed TYRONE D. POWELL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/06/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/06/17.

MAR 16, 23, 30 APR 06, 2017

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037502900

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037509100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SWEET SURRENDER STUDIOS, 1801 TURK ST #22, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RICHARD DOUGLAS SHARON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/07/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DIG IT EVENTS, 77 SHOTWELL ST #3, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LUKE WEBSTER JOHNSTONE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/10/17.

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037503800

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037504000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VIDEO/PHOTO EFFECTS FROM THE HOOD, 1883 PALOU AVE #B, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DANIEL EDWARD FARR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/07/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/17.

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037508700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DENIS ENGLANDER PHOTOGRAPHY, 687 2ND AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DENIS ENGLANDER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 01/01/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/10/17.

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037501100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AGUILA DEFENSE TRAINING, 588 SUTTER ST #750, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed LYU LOPEZ & SEAN D. O’CONNOR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/17.

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037490600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TENDER ROSE DEMENTIA CARE SPECIALISTS, 120 GREEN ST #200, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed TENDER ROSE HOME CARE, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/12/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/27/17.

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: INTERIM CMO; OXGN, 463 MISSISSIPPI ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed OXGN, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/06/17.

MAR 16, 23, 30, APR 06, 2017

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415 861-5381 Notices>> THANK YOU ST. JUDE –

May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, gloriﬁed, loved and preserved throughout the world now and forever. Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us. St. Jude, worker of miracles, pray for us. St. Jude, helper of the hopeless, pray for us. Say prayer nine time a day for nine days. Thank you Jesus and St. Jude for prayers answered. Publication must be promised. S.W.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that sealed Proposals will be received until the hour of 2:00 p.m., Tuesday, April 4, 2017 at the District Secretary’s Office, 23rd Floor, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, California 94612 (mailing address: P.O. Box 12688, Oakland, California 94604-2688) for General Engineering Services for BART Projects, Request for Proposals (“RFP”) No. 6M8119. Such Proposals will thereafter be accepted or rejected by the District. The Proposers are responsible to ensure their Proposals are received at the time and location specified. A second Pre-proposal meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 8, 2017. The Preproposal meeting will convene at 2 PM to 5 PM at the Joseph P. Bort Metrocenter, 101 Eighth Street, Oakland, CA. 94607. At the Pre-proposal meeting the District’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) and Small Business Entity Participation Program and goals will be explained. All questions regarding the DBE and SBE participation should be directed to Mr. James Soncuya, Office of Civil Rights at (510) 464-7578, FAX 9510) 464-7587. Prospective proposers are requested to make every effort to attend this PreProposal Meeting and Network Meeting.

Networking Session: Immediately following the Pre-Proposal meeting, the District’s Office of Civil Rights will be conducting a second networking session for subconsultants to meet the prime consultants. Dated at Oakland, California, this 7th day of March 2017.

/S/ Richard Wieczorek Richard Wieczorek, Procurement Manager San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District 3/16/17 CNS-2984282# BAY AREA REPORTER

Full eclipse

Tickled pink

Out &About

Blue period

O&A

Vol. 48 • No. 11 • March 16-22, 2017

www.ebar.com/arts

Ambitious ballet by Paul Parish

ig events are crowding each other out as we reach the peak of the Bay Area’s dance season. Two ambitious mixed bills alternate at San Francisco Ballet through this Sunday at the Opera House, while last weekend Cristal Pite’s dance company Kidd Pivot from Canada outdanced anything I’ve seen at the ballet, at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. Her show Betroffenheit, like the much-anticipated Salome at the ballet, revolved around drug-induced frenzy, but her dancers floated in a magical way, like figures in a dream or nightmare in the process of detoxing from an addiction. The choreography boasted extended passages of magnificently sustained phrases supported by powerful movement logic. The suffering depicted was hard to bear, but I’m not sorry I went. See page 26 >>

Erik Tomasson

San Francisco Ballet dancers Dores Andre and Aaron Robison in Arthur Pita’s Salome.

Director Jonathan Moscone, right, rehearses his cast for Magic Theatre’s “legacy” production of Paula Vogel’s The Baltimore Waltz.

Fine Arts Museums Curator Esther Bell speaks about the two surviving panels of Claude Monet’s “Luncheon on the Grass,” part of the exhibit Monet: The Early Years now at the Palace of the Legion of Honor.

Becoming Monet

50 nifty years onstage by Richard Dodds

t’s difficult to picture Claude Monet as a young starving artist, little-known outside a small coterie of fellow artists, critics and collectors, but indeed, he was once just that. So how did he emerge from deprivation, sacrifice and relative obscurity to become the lauded, successful Monet so many adore? Monet: The Early Years, a new exhibition at the Legion of Honor, which covers the See page 26 >>

n the event of a birthday cake decorated with 50 candles, the State of California requests you make note of your nearest exit. Two San Francisco theaters have reached the semicentennial stage, and are celebrating in various ways beyond the confectionary. For the Magic Theatre it’s another in a series of “legacy” revivals, while ACT is publishing a book to detail its 50-year history. See page 23 >>

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS } 2017 Season

MAR 07 – 18

Infinite Worlds

Program 04

Must-See Balanchine

BUY TICKETS TODAY sfballet.org Yuan Yuan Tan and Anthony Vincent in Balanchine’s Stravinsky Violin Concerto // Choreography by George Balanchine © The Balanchine Trust // © Erik Tomasson

Courtesy Magic Theatre

Rick Gerharter

by Sura Wood

<< Out There

18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 16-22, 2017

Musical melange an Francisco musician Pamela Rose wrote and produced Blues Is a Woman, a musical theater piece making its Bay Area debut at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley on Thurs., March 30, at 8 p.m. It’s a performance of 25 songs that show

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women musicians in the piece include Memphis Minnie, Peggy Lee and Bonnie Raitt. In a press statement Rose said her theater piece is “about that specific, fierce, independent voice of women in the blues, from the beginning to now. As you can imagine, that voice which re-emerged in the 1960s through artists such as Nina Simone has particular weight as these songs of resistance and power resonate today more than ever.” We get it. Rose’s celebration of women in blues involves an ensemble of players (Tammy Hall, Ruth

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Davies, Pat Wilder, Daria Johnson and Kristen Strom) performing blues songs, complemented with storytelling and rare historical film. The show at F&S, a concert and CD release party for the cast recording, is also a preview of sorts of a monthlong run coming to the Custom Made Theater, 533 Sutter St., SF, this summer, Aug. 3-27. The Freight & Salvage is found at 2020 Addison St., Berkeley. Info:

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the role of women in blues music history. Just as playwright Jewelle Gomez’s new play Leaving the Blues is about blues singer Alberta Hunter (reviewed in this issue), Rose’s concert theater piece showcases other notable lesbian blues musicians including Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Sophie Tucker. Other

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Jane Higgins

Daria Johnson and Pat Wilder seen in a performance of Pamela Rose’s Blues Is a Woman, coming to the Freight & Salvage.

thefreight.org/pamela-rose-wildwomen-song. Meanwhile this summer will mark the sixth season of Broadway Under the Stars at Jack London State Historic Park in Sonoma. In this series, Broadway artists perform in concerts among the 150-yearold Winery Ruins in Jack London Park. But we don’t have to wait until summer to experience what the Broadway troupe will bring. Transcendence Theatre Company will present Best of Broadway Under the Stars at the Marin Center (10 Ave. of the Flags, San Rafael) this coming Sat. & Sun., March 18 & 19. Tickets: BestOfBroadwayMarin.com. Info: transcendencetheatre.org And the musical notes keep coming. This week soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci is appearing in composer Francis Poulenc’s 1958 monodrama La Voix humaine (The Human Voice) at SF Opera Lab, accompanied by pianist Donald Sulzen. Antonacci is an internationally acclaimed artist who rarely performs outside of Europe, but she enjoys a special connection with San Francisco, and this will be her fifth engagement with San Francisco Opera since 1992. To have seen her in the 2015 summer season Les Troyens is to be in thrall to the opportunity to hear her in closer proximity as she performs La Voix in an intimate space. One remaining performance, this Friday night, March 17. Info: sfoperalab.com. t

Judy’s other half by John F. Karr

id Luft was Mr. Judy Garland for 13 years, from 1952, when the aspiring producer married the star, until 1965. Just think of the inside stories he never told. Until now, that is. A manuscript he left unfinished at his death in 2005 has just been published as Judy and I – My Life with Judy Garland (Chicago Review Press, $30). It is not only a swell addition to Judyanna, but also a revelatory look at the inside workings

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of the movie biz. It should fascinate and scare Hollywood fans of any ilk. Even the ones who don’t give a hoot for Ms. Garland. Luft dispenses with his own back-story in what is, after all, his autobiography, in 124 pages, leaving the subsequent 321 to the story of greater precedence. It’s an intimate look at the time when Luft loved Judy, managed her career, fathered two of her three children, and strove, sometimes successfully, to contain her drug intake and to survive the tumult of her life. Luft has been categorized as an overly frequent fornicator, a brute and a brawler (he’d been known as “One-Punch Luft”), and worst of all, a social climber and mere dabbler who had aspirations for power and class. He admits to all this, with thorough amplification. Despite his love for Judy, his insecurities caused him to be unsupportive or entirely absent from her life at multiple key moments. Like when she had to have an abortion alone. “I was as unjustified as I was insensitive,” he admits. Yet you cannot doubt that he truly loved Judy. She wasn’t merely his access to the high lifestyle he longed for, as has been claimed, but also a beloved woman whose career was his utmost interest. Most of all, and unlike the other three of her four husbands, Luft wasn’t gay. Atlantic columnist Mark Steyn wrote, “Luft was an all but unique figure: a rare friend of Judy who wasn’t a friend of Doro-

thy.” Just listen to Luft rhapsodize: “She had a very sensuous body and, up close, her skin was like porcelain, pure white. She had incredibly kissable lips. You don’t fall out of love with somebody like her.” And what exactly was “somebody like her?” Well, Luft writes that she “was a very rare mix of shattered nerves and insecurities, self-destructiveness and suicidal tendencies, but also a true genius. She was to me the greatest talent who ever lived.” Luft writes with neither sensation nor sentiment. Much like himself, his writing is masculine and unflinching. Imagine Hemingway writing about the girl from Oz. It makes for a pretty fascinating book. I’d really like to know what Liza and Lorna make of it. t

> On the web This week, as baseball season approaches, find movie writer David Lamble’s 2017 guide to Baseball movies for LGBTQ fans, online at ebar.com.

New Butterfly Experience | Now Open

This spring, watch the Academyâ€™s four-story rainforest begin to evolve. See butterflies emerge before your eyes and enjoy special spring programming to celebrate the season in bloom. Plus, spot colorful new species among 1,600 live plants and animals from around the world. Get tickets at calacademy.org The Osher Rainforest is generously supported by The Bernard Osher Foundation.

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3/9/17 1:15 PM

<< Theatre

20 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 16-22, 2017

Alberta Hunter sings the blues by Richard Dodds

lberta Hunter had to leave the spotlight to get back in it. When she quit show business in the 1950s, with the blues style that had brought her international recognition years before no longer in fashion, few people took note of her absence. But after two decades working as a fulltime nurse, she was lured back to the stage, and audiences welcomed someone they didn’t even know they had missed. Hunter was still booking gigs right up until her death at age 89, with new audiences relishing this authentic connection to what had become a fabled musical era that survived mainly on scratchy recordings. It was also a feel-good story: little old lady has a triumphant final act. Jewelle Gomez’s new play Leaving the Blues seeks to provide a deeper context for the simple outline of a geriatric fairytale comeback. Now having its world premiere at New Conservatory Theatre Center, the play opens in the 1970s, travels back to earlier parts of the 20th century, and then returns us to where we started as Hunter reluctantly accepts a promoter’s propitious invitation to sing again. While segregation and discrimination inevitably helped define and limit any black artist’s career when

Lois Team

Desiree Rogers as Alberta Hunter consults with a theater manager (Matt Weiner) as the spirit of an old vaudevillian (Gene Michael Sullivan) looks on in the world premiere of Leaving the Blues at New Contemporary Theatre Center.

Hunter was starting out, Gomez doesn’t use that as a driving force. The grit necessary for dramatic traction is instead provided by Hunter’s sexuality, and specifically her love for one woman in particular. As depicted by Gomez and rendered in a low-key performance by Desiree Rogers, Hunter isn’t a guilt-ridden lesbian but rather

a private one whose inability to acknowledge that her longtime companion is more than a no-innuendo companion becomes that relationship’s undoing. That real-life companion was Lottie Tyler, niece of vaudeville star Bert Williams whose acrossthe-board popularity helped break many of the color lines in entertain-

ment even as blackface was part of his act. In Gomez’s dramatization that admittedly takes liberties with the facts, Lottie has been renamed Lettie, and her vaudevillian uncle is known as Will. It is the long-dead Will, who periodically appears in ghost form to Alberta, who stirs her memories and encourages her to confront her regrets, even pushing for a reunion with Lettie although he had disapproved of the relationship when he was alive. Michael Gene Sullivan is outstanding as Will, always the showman when he materializes, as Sullivan layers irony onto the minstrel persona he forever carries with him. The production gets another lift with recurring appearances of the Calabash Cousins, a tap-dancing duo played with exuberant finesse by Paul Collins and Anthony Rollins-Mullens, who have stayed in touch with Hunter throughout the years. They are actually lovers, a secret long assumed by Hunter. When one dies, the scene of grief shared by Hunter and the survivor is considerable, although, oddly, Lettie’s death is acknowledged largely as an aside. Leontyne Mbele-Mbong plays Lettie with a dignified reserve that only cracks when Hunter pushes to maintain a heterosexual image and shifts her out of the picture As Hunter, Rogers doesn’t strive

for imitation in her work, which is pitched at a much quieter level than her fellow performers. It’s an appealing performance that is low on passion, and the few musical interludes rendered in talk-song fashion don’t nearly suggest the feisty swagger that Hunter could still effortlessly muster in her final years. The cast also includes Jasmine Milan Williams in a nice turn as a vaudeville newbie, Tai Rockett as a young butch lesbian who befriends Hunter in her later years, and Matt Weimer in a series of supporting roles. Director Arturo Catricala’s production smoothly unfolds on Kuo-Hao Lo’s bric-a-brac set that suggests many locales and times. By the time Hunter died in 1984, she seems to have made no nod to the changing sexual times, still singing double-entendre songs about handy men and never addressing her sexuality in public. But the play conjures a bit of breakthrough liberation for Hunter in the end with a song dedicated to Lettie, but with lyrics that reserve their real message for their ears only. t Leaving the Blues will run at New Conservatory Theatre Center through April 2. Tickets are $25-$50. Call (415) 861-8972 or go to nctcsf.org.

Liberian lives by Richard Dodds

n Eclipsed, it isn’t a love that dare not speak its name. The names themselves have been obliterated by those who once carried them, a kind of self-dehumanization that helps them survive in their grim circumstances. The characters in Danai Gurira’s play instead refer to themselves by numbers corresponding to the order in which they were forced to become wivesservants-sex slaves to a rebel officer in war-torn Liberia. Number One can’t remember how long she has been living in the remnants of an abandoned house, while Number Four is the most recent arrival and is reluctantly learning the ways of survival in her new environment. When an outsider asks Number One her real name, she is reluctant to say it out loud. She can only whisper it, hoping that will help keep her worlds from painfully colliding. For the audience, it is a quietly painful moment in an emotionally charged play that mirrors a title

suggesting both darkness and a promise of returned light. Following Fun Home, this is the Curran’s second production after its renovation and independence from the SHN combine. It comes six months after Gurira’s play concluded its Broadway run, with original director Liesl Tommy and her design team, along with both new and original cast members (who create an excellent ensemble), regrouping for this two-week run commissioned by the Curran’s Carole Shorenstein Hays. It’s unlikely a lucrative proposition, and one more encouraging sign that the Curran will not be a businessas-usual venue. The early scenes are designed to settle us into the numbing rhythms of everyday life for these women. They bicker, tease, tell jokes, and share occasional fragments of their earlier lives as chores are done. A portable radio provides an unreliable ear to the outside world as news of the 2003 Liberian civil war aimed at toppling President Charles Taylor can be heard briefly

Little Fang Photography

Ayesha Jordan (left), and Adeola Role play characters who were both enslaved wives to a rebel officer in Liberia who have broken free by taking up arms in Danai Gurira’s Eclipsed at the Curran Theatre.

through the static. While there is a pecking order to be observed, with Number One (Stacey Sargeant) reminding the others of her dominant position, the atmosphere is generally casual, at least until their unseen master signals he’s ready for sex and the women hurry to form a line of military precision to await the man they refer to as CO as he makes his choice. These getting-to-know-you scenes may at first feel dramatically light, and while English is the official language of Liberia, the patois that has developed since the country was created as a supposed haven for freed slaves and free people of color from America has become thick and can be tricky to decipher in Gurira’s dialogue. But our ears have become accustomed by the time two women from outside the camp arrive that will upset the balance. There is Rita (Akosua Busia), an emissary from a women’s peace initiative (based on an actual movement of mass protests that helped end the war), who unsettles Number One with her talk of a life

of different possibilities. Then there is Maima (Adeola Role), now a rebel soldier who was once Number Two and is trying to convince Number Four (Ayesha Jordan) to join her brigade. Besides killing the bad guys, Maima tells her, her job will include procuring other young women to satisfy the soldiers. Number Four knows she will soon become CO’s favorite sex object, now that Number Three (Joniece Abbott-Pratt) is pregnant, so she joins Maima’s brigade, learning to use a rifle to shoot the enemy (although she can never quite see the distinction between the good guys and the bad guys). It comes to a head in a riveting monologue as Number Four relates her experience at a rebel camp as a complicit player in an unconscionable act of sexual violence. If it seems otherwise, there are indeed moments of levity in the play. Number Four is the only member of the household who can read, and the only book available is a battered biography of

Bill Clinton. The other women look forward to hearing it read in installments like a bedtime story. And then the book comes to Monica Lewinsky. “So who dis Monica?” ask Number Three. “She his Number Two, no?” says Number One. “I tink so,” says Number Four, “but he no supposed to have a Number Two.” The play ultimately finds its heart in the sometimes-wary warmth that develops among these women who have been thrust unwillingly together. They have become a family, and when the opportunity to leave finally arrives, emotions and decisions are mixed. Eclipsed is set at a specific time in a specific country, but its situations seem to be too easily transferable. Somewhere, it seems with increasing regularity, there is always an eclipse to throw yet another dark spot on what we have long imagined as the forward march of civilization. t Eclipsed will run at the Curran Theatre through March 19. Tickets are $29-$140, available at sfcurran.com.

Music>>

March 16-22, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 21

LGBTQ pride at the symphony hall by Philip Campbell

ver since the election, individuals and organizations with hearts wounded by the nation’s shocking division of sympathies have sought ways to resist or respond to the shocking rift with expressions of positive energy. The San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, along with everybody’s favorite Broadway baby Audra McDonald, are bringing the joy of music to the call for unity with a special concert in Davies Symphony Hall “recognizing and supporting the Bay Area LGBTQ community.” The concert, Symphony Pride, on Tues., April 4, will also provide the opportunity for a heartfelt thank you from MTT, “for the generous welcome extended to me and my husband Joshua Robison since our arrival here over 20 years ago.” Everyone knows the community is hardly monolithic, but we always come together when the going gets tough, and the wondrous diversity of the Bay Area is the bond that makes us strong.

Symphony Pride is scheduled shortly before the Orchestra leaves for its East Coast tour. Two concerts in North Carolina have been cancelled in response to legislation overturning transgender protections in that state. MTT & the SFS “believe strongly in representing the values of the community it serves.” The concert also celebrates gay composers from Aaron Copland to Stephen Sondheim, and it will be thrilling to hear La McDonald narrating Copland’s stirring A Lincoln Portrait. She is also slated to bring her own patented brand of radiant cheer to a selection of songs by Leonard Bernstein and Kander & Ebb. Musical mavericks Lou Harrison (remember, it’s his centennial), Henry Cowell and John Cage – old friends of MTT, whose work he has championed for years – are included in the roster, along with personal favorite (and very much alive) Meredith Monk. Concluding the concert is the triumphant final movement of Gustav Mahler’s mighty Symphony No. 1, often called Titan. Let the trumpets sound!

A broadcast of the event will air on Tues., April 11, at 8 p.m. on Classical KDFC 90.3 San Francisco, 104.9 San Jose, 89.9 Napa, and kdfc. com, where it will be available for on-demand streaming. This is not the first time the SFS has broken with policy to stage a benefit for other organizations. Decades ago, a concert benefiting the Names Project and other Bay Area AIDS agencies titled Threads of Love was mounted during the darkest days of the crisis. In the

1990s, the Orchestra joined with the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Ballet for the largest live-performance benefit ever staged in San Francisco, Classical Action: A Concerted Effort Against AIDS. I get a little verklempt thinking back on those tumultuous days and the remarkable shows of sympathy and support received from the Bay Area fine arts community. AIDS isn’t gone yet, and neither, it appears, is ignorance. If we didn’t

have each other to ponder solutions to curing the hurtfulness of the unaware, who knows what the future might bring? In heartening solidarity, Symphony Pride reminds us that, no matter what, we rise. It’s also a chance to put on our party clothes and get down righteously at DSH – how San Francisco is that?t Tickets ($25-$50) are available at sfsymphony.org, at (415) 864-6000, and at the Davies Symphony Hall Box Office.

Spotlight on online abuse by David-Elijah Nahmod

t first glance HBO’s new feature-length documentary Tickled might appear to be an amusing, homoerotic look at guys who like to be tickled. But the film turns out to be a disturbing true-life tale about online abuse run amok. When David Farrier, an entertainment and light-news TV journalist in Auckland, New Zealand, first spots a YouTube video about “competitive endurance tickling,” he envisions a fun, light-hearted story similar to his recent interview with New Zealand’s “donkey lady.” Instead he finds a lengthy trail of blackmail, harassment, libel, threats, and false identities. Red flags are raised when Farrier contacts Jane O’Brien Media, the company that promotes “competitive tickling,” and requests an interview. The stunning response from O’Brien “associate” Debbie Kuhn includes insulting references to Farrier’s homosexuality and threats of legal action if Farrier continues his pursuit of a story. With a camera in tow, Farrier and his co-director Dylan Reese fly to the US and interview a few of the models who appear in Jane O’Brien videos. Several young men speak of being coerced to appear in the videos for huge sums of money and lavish gifts. Some of the videos are filmed without the participants’ knowledge. When models decline to appear in more videos, they find themselves targeted for shocking levels of abuse: their videos are posted and reposted. Their real names and contact information are also posted. Families, schools and employers are contacted. Some are “outed” as gay, even if they’re not. One young man speaks of losing jobs because of these incidents. In the most extreme case, one model’s online identity is impersonated in threatening messages sent to the White House. The model is shocked when the Secret Service comes knocking on his door. Hundreds of former models are targeted for these kinds of abuses. As Farrier and Reese follow the electronic trail, they discover that Jane O’Brien and Debbie Kuhn are both pseudonyms for David D’Amato, a wealthy, sexually repressed heir in Woodmere, NY,

who appears to be spending his fortune producing the tickling videos for his own gratification. He spends even more money “punishing” those who choose not to participate in his fantasies. D’Amato may also have been Terri DiSisto, aka “Terri Tickle,” a tickle video producer from the 1990s who vanished without a trace. The most stunning realization about D’Amato, who continues to deny the film’s allegations, is that he was once a teacher. The camera follows Farrier and Reese across the US, back to New Zealand and to the US again, as they piece the puzzle together.

What emerges is a mesmerizing yet unsettling portrait of a broken system that allows such abuses to go on. Law enforcement, judges, and social media platforms continue to look the other way as D’Amato destroys one life af ter another. Tickled raises many issues: mental illness, a broken legal system, and an anythinggoes internet where people are not held accountable for their actions. Hopefully Tickled will plant the seeds of change.t Courtesy HBO

Airing in rotation on HBO. The film can be viewed On Demand and at HBO Go.

Filmmaker David Farrier (left) visits a production set in the HBO documentary Tickled.

One Week Only! March 14–19, 2017 Whispers of subtle charm, gasps of beauty—art is in lively conversation with nature during Bouquets to Art, where the most in-demand floral designers from the Bay Area and beyond create stunning arrangements inspired by the de Young’s collection.

Speakers for BTA 2017:

GRAND PATRON Diane B. Wilsey MEDIA SPONSORS

Françoise Weeks, Portland Oregon, Haute Couture Florist Elizabeth Murray, Monterey, California, Monet Garden Scholar Mark Welford and Stephen Wicks, Bloomsbury Flowers, London Ariella Chezar, Ariella Flowers J. Riccardo Benavides, Ideas Event Styling

Floral display by Ariel Ermatinger. Artwork: Seasons of Astringency, 1958, by Jess (1923-2004), reproduced by permission of the Jess Collins Trust. Photograph by Drew Altizer.

BTA2017_BayAreaReporter_PrIsd_Ad.indd 1

2/27/17 10:37 PM

<< Out&About

22 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 16-22, 2017

O&A

Grab ‘Em by the Songs @ The Lost Church

Out &About

Cindy Emch and her band, plus The Kim Lembo Project, perform their rousing music. $ 8pm. 65 Capp St. www.thelostchurch.org

Everything That’s Beautiful @ New Conservatory Theatre Center

Thu 23 ODC Dance Downtown @ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Capacity by Jim Provenzano

How many creative people’s art can you ﬁt inside your mind? Try to expand that capacity by seeing as many events as possible. For more arts events, see www.ebar.com. For nightlife events, see On the Tab listings.

Thu 16 Baloney @ Oasis

Rory Davis and Michael Phillis’ sexy fun male burlesque show returns with a Spring edition, with special gogo guys for each show. $25-$50. 8pm. Mar. 17 & 18 7pm. 298 11th St. sfoasis.com

Beartoonist of San Francisco @ GLBT History Museum Beartoonist of San Francisco: Sketching an Emerging Subculture, featuring art work by bear cartoonist Fran Frisch. $5. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Classic & New Films @ Castro Theatre Mar. 16 & 17: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (4:30, 7pm, 9:30). Mar. 18: Peaches Christ and Bob the Drag Queen in the live show Legally Black (3pm, 8pm) with a post-show screening of the film Legally Blonde. ($25 and up). Mar. 19: CAAMfest closing night feature, The Chinese Exclusion Act (7pm). Mar. 21: Julieta (5pm, 7pm, 9pm). Mar. 23: Lost Highway (7pm) and In Cold Blood (9:30). $11-$16. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

Daughter of a Garbageman @ The Marsh KGO host and stand-up comic Maureen Langan’s solo show about her family life, and the endurance of working class people. $20-$100. Thu 8pm. Sat 5pm. Thru March 25. 1062 Valencia St. themarsh.org

Eat, Pray, Laugh! @ The Marsh Berkeley Alicia Dattner’s comic solo show about a Jewish princess seeking a guru. $20-$100. Thu 8pm, Sat 8:30pm. Thru April 1. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Eclipsed @ Curran Theater Danai Gurira’s acclaimed drama about young Liberian women gets its West Coast premiere. $39-$135. Thru March 19. 445 Geary St. www.sfcurran.com

John @ Strand Theatre American Conservatory Theatre’s production of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker’s drama about a couple’s increasingly strange stay at a bed and breakfast in historic Gettysburg; co-starring Georgia Engel (The Mary Tyler Moore Show). $20$105. Tue-Sat 7:30pm. Wed & Sat 1pm. Thru April 23. (Out with A.C.T. night Mar. 15). 1127 Market St. 749-2228. act-sf.org

Kilgallen/Jones @ Exit Theatre World premiere of Allison Page’s unusual thriller about the life and death of the 1960s writer and TV personality. $20-$30. Thru March 25. 156 Eddy St. www.theexit.org

Peerless @ Marin Theatre Company

World premiere of Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder’s play about a gay couple whose child lives a girl, until an accident disrupts their Midwestern life. $25-$50. Previews; opens Mar. 25. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru April2 3. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. www.nctcsf.org

Flim-Flam @ Eureka Theatre World premiere of John Fisher’s new comedy about three actors who hit the road in search of roles. $15-$40. WedSat 8pm. Sat 3pm. Thru March 18. 215 Jackson St. www.TheRhino.org

Hamilton @ Orpheum Theatre The mega-hit multiple Tony-winning hip hop musical about President Alexander Hamilton makes its Bay Area premiere. Previews thru Mar. 23. $100-$868. Thru April 23. 1192 Market St. www.hamilton.shnsf.com

Hand to God @ Berkeley Repertory

Jiehae Park’s dark satire of academic ambition, about twin girls who murder their way to the top of their class. $25$60. Thru April 2. 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. www.marintheatre.org

Robert Askins’ dark comedy about a hand puppet that speaks to a young man in a far-right religious church. $29$89.. Thru March 19. 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

Silence: The Musical @ Victoria Theatre

Holding the Edge @ The Marsh

Cloud 9 Theatricals and Ray of Light Theatre present the Bay Area premiere of Jon Kaplan, Al Kaplan and Hunter Bell’s acclaimed unauthorized musical parody of the film/book Silence of the Lambs. $35-$45. Thu-Sat 8pm (Some Saturdays 7pm and/or 10pm). Extended thru April 1. 2961 16th St. 863-7576. www.silencethemusicalsf.com

Soledad: Queer Tango Festival @ Various Venues Abrazo, the LGBT partner dance event, celebrates with tango workshops, performances, and parties. $15-$30 per event/$220 full package. Thru March 19. Finnish Hall, 1970 Chestnut St. Berkeley; Lake Merritt Dance Center, 200 Grand Avenue, Oakland. abrazoqueertango.wordpress.com

Fri 17

Anniversary Party @ GLBT History Museum Celebrate the GLBT Historical Society’s 32nd –and the Museum’s sixth– anniversary at a DJed dance and drinks party. $15-$20. 7pm-9pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Apocalypse, Please @ PianoFight Noelle Viñas and Kevin Vincenti’s new science fiction play about a computer programmer framed for the deaths of millions via futuristic cell phones. $25$30. Thu-Sat 7:30pm. Thru April 1. 144 Taylor St. www.pianofight.com

Billy Elliot @ Berkeley Playhouse Local production of the (10 Tonywinning) musical, with music by Elton John, based on the film about a poor British boy who aspires to become a ballet dancer. $22-$40. Note earlier curtain times (7pm or 1pm). Thru Mar. 25. Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave., Berkeley. www. berkeleyplayhouse.org

Gay Mens’ Sketch @ Strut Opening reception for a group exhibit of works by past and current participants in Mark I. Chester long-running drawing group; see 30 curated years of male nude art. 7:30pm-9:30pm. 1st & 3rd floor. Thru April. 470 Castro St. www.markichester.com www.strutsf.org

Elaine Magree’s solo show recounts a part of her life as a lesbian hospice AIDS nurse in the 1980s. $20-$100. Thru April 1. 1062 Valencia St. www.themarsh.org

Into the Woods @ Golden Gate Theatre Stephen Sondheim’s fairy tale-themed musical about morals and hard truths gets a new narrator-free production. $75-$275. Thru April 2. 1 Taylor St. www.intothewoodstour.com www.shnsf.com

Larger Than Life @ Strut Joseph Abbati’s exhibit of tapestries depicting local drag celebrities (Peaches Christ, Sister Roma, Juanita More, Honey Mahogany, Heklina, Grace Towers, and Creme Fatale). Thru March. 470 Castro St. www.strutsf.org

Leaving the Blues @ New Conservatory Theatre Center World premiere of Jewelle Gomez’ commissioned music drama about the life of singer-songwriter Alberta Hunter. $25-$50. Previews; opens March 11. Wed-Sat 8pm, Sun 2pm. Thru April 2. 25 Van Ness Ave, lower level. www.nctcsf.org

Leni @ Aurora Theatre, Berkeley

Sat 18

Behind the Scenes @ GLBT Historical Society Get a fascinating look at the new archives for the queer historical organization. 11am-1pm. RSVP online. 989 Market St., lower level. www.glbthistory.org

Beowulf @ Aquatic Park, Fort Mason Chapel We Players, the innovative site-specific theatre company, premieres , performed with Inkboat Physical Theatre/Dance and Rova Saxophone Quartet. $30-$80. Various dates and times thru April 16. 1100 Bay St. www.weplayers.org

Broadway Under the Stars @ Marin Center Performers from Wicked, Mamma Mia, The Book of Mormon, Mary Poppins and other Broadway shows perfroma variety song and dance show. $39-$129. 7:30pm. Mar. 19, 2pm. 4736800. www.marincenter.org

Brook Pessin-Whedbee @ Laurel Bookstore, Oakland The author of Who Are You? The Kid’s Guide to Gender Identity discusses her non-fiction picture book about gender diversity. 3pm. 1423 Broadway, Oakland. www.kidsguidetogender.com www.laurelbookstore.com

Carey Leibowitz: Museum Show @ Contemporary Jewish Museum Exhibits about Jewish culture and by Jewish artists, including Carey Leibowitz: Museum Show (witty pop art with a queer edge, thru June 25), Roz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs (thru Sept. 3). Free (members)-$12. 736 Mission St. 655-7800. thecjm.org

Chocolate Salon @ Hotel Kabuki Kick off SF Chocolate Week with a delicious sampling event featuring dozens of chocolatiers, cooking presentations and more. $10-$30. 10am-5:30pm. Garden Level, 1625 Post St. www.SFChocolateSalon.com

East 14th @ The Marsh Don Reed’s multi-award-winning solo show about his unusual relationship with his father in Oakland. $20-$100. Sat 8:30pm, Sun 5:30pm. Thru April 15. 1062 Valencia St. www.themarsh.org

Legally Black @ Castro Theatre Bob the Drag Queen (RuPaul’s Drag Race) joins Peaches Christ in a drag parody of the film Legally Blonde, which screens after the live show. $30-$140 (VIP). 3pm & 8pm. 429 Castro St. peacheschrist.com castrotheatre.com

SF Hiking Club @ China Camp, Rodeo Beach/Marin Headlands Join GLBT hikers of the SF Hiking Club for a 12-mile hike at China Camp State Park; Carpool meets 8:30 at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. 652-4496. March 19: 12-mile hike from Rodeo Beach through the Marin Headlands. 8:30am carpool meet-up. sfhiking.com

Bay Area premiere of Sarah Greenman’s innovative biographical play about the German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, whose cinematic brilliance promoted the Nazi regime. $36-$65. Tue & Sun 7pm. Wed-Sat 8pm. Also Sun 2pm. thru May 7. 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 843-4822. auroratheatre.org

We Can be Heroes @ Minnesota Street Project

Roe @ Berkeley Rep

Sun 19

Lisa Loomer’s rousing drama about the landmark 1973 lawsuit that legalized abortion, and the divergent personal journeys of lawyer Sarah Weddington and plaintiff Norma McCorvey (“Jane Roe”). $29-$100. Thru April 2. 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. www.berkeleyrep.org

Summer in Sanctuary @ The Marsh Al Letson’s solo show about working as a creative writing teacher in a poor Florida town. $20-$100. Fri 8pm, Sat 8:30pm. Thru March 18. 1062 Valencia St. www.themarsh.org

Southern Exposure’s annual fundraiser and art auction, with hundreds of art works up for auction, plus drinks and food. $50-$75; VIP reception $150 and up (6pm). 7pm-11pm. 1275 Minnesota St. 863-2141. www.soex.org

Joanneh Nagler @ Dog Eared Books The author of How to Be an Artist Without Losing Your Mind, Your Shirt, or Your Creative Compass discusses her book. 3pm. 489 Castro St. www.dogearedbooks.com

Spring Equinox Ceremony @ East Bay Locale Daughters of the Goddess, the East Bay women’s group, celebrates spring rituals. $15. 7:30pm. (925) 787-9247. www.DaughtersoftheGoddess.com

Standing Up To Hate @ Sha’ar Zahav Workshop to offer training on how to deal with the flood of bigotry and violence unleashed by the Trump election. 2:30pm. 290 Dolores St. shaarzahav.org

Mon 20 Into the Woods Cast @ Martuni’s

Cast members from the new touring production of the fairy tale Stephen Sondheim musical perform in a benefit for an AIDS LifeCycle team. $10. 6:30pm-9pm. 4 Valencia St.

Vintage Prints @ William Blake Gallery New gallery of historic art by the 18th and 19th-century poet and illustrator. Mon-Fri 10am-5pm. Sat 11am-5pm. 49 Geary St. #205. williamblakegallery.com

Tue 21

Cleve Jones @ Folio Books The author of the memoir When We Rise, creator of The Names Project AIDS Quilt, and a longtime gay activist, discusses his life and new book with author Wayne Goodman; part of Noe Valley Word Week book festival (March 16-21). 7pm. 3957 24th St. foliosf.com

Prince Manvendra Singh @ Beaux India’s leading gay rights activist, and the first out royal in India, is interviewed by local talk show host David Perry at a fundraiser hosted by Max SF; proceeds go to the Prince’s Trust, which funds an LGBT center in Mumbai; enjoy Indian wine, beer and food. $35 5:30pm-8pm. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Ten Percent @ Comcast David Perry’s online and cable interviews with notable local and visiting LGBT people, broadcast through the week. Wed 7pm,. Thu-Tue 11:30am & 10:30pm. ComcastHometown.com

Wed 22

Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia @ Berkeley Art Museum/ Pacific Film Archive New large-scale multimedia exhibit about 1960s-1970s counterculture. Thru May 21. Free-$12. 2625 Durant Ave., Berkeley. bampfa.berkeley.edu

Shaping Sound @ SJ Center for the Performing Arts The vibrant modern-contemporary dance company performs After the Curtain, with cofounders Teddy Forance& Nick Lazzarini, plus Travis Wall (So You Think You Can Dance) and a corps of powerhouse dancers. $39$79. 7:30pm. 255 S. Almaden Blvd., San Jose. www.ShapingSoundCo.com www.SanJoseTheaters.org

Thu 23

Indigo Girls @ Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, Santa Rosa The Grammy-winning folk duo perform a concert of their hits and new songs. $39-$49. 8pm. 50 Mark West Springs Road. (707) 546-3600. lutherburbankcenter.org

ODC Dance Downtown @ YBCA The prolific local dance company performs Brenda Way’s new What we carry What we keep, KT Nelson’s Blink of an Eye and other works. $25-$80. (Gala fundraiser Mar. 24) Thu-Sat 7:30pm. Sun 5pm. Thru April 2. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard St. odcdance.org ybca.org

SF Opera Lab @ Uptown Nightclub, Oakland Operatic funfest with host Aria Umezawa and SF Opera’s young artists; DJed party afterwards. $25. 8:30pm. 1928 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. sfoperalab.com uptownnightclub.com

t <<

Theatre>>

Backstage

From page 17

The Magic first presented the West Coast debut of The Baltimore Waltz in 1992, only weeks after Paula Vogel’s breakthrough play had made its debut in New York, and several years before the lesbian playwright won a Pulitzer for How I Learned to Drive. The new production, being directed by Jonathan Moscone, begins performances March 22 with a cast headed by Patrick Alparone and Lauren English as siblings on a vacation together to Europe. It was the trip that lesbian playwright Vogel never got to make with her own brother, who was working as a San Francisco librarian when AIDS forced him to return to his family in Maryland. “While I was in the halls at Johns Hopkins Hospital, I thought, I have to write this play. There’s no other way to get through all this,” Vogel said back in 1992. “But after he died in 1988, I then thought, ‘I will never write again.’” But Brown University, which had recently hired her to teach playwriting, gently reminded her that a slot on the tenure track required her to occasionally write plays. “So I literally went to a cabin in the woods,” she said, and was prepared to write a play about elderly prostitutes that eventually became Hot n Throbbing. “I had done all the research on that, and then I went, screw that. I’m going to write about Carl.” But she could not deal with the subject head-on, and pulled from the ideas of Russian literary theorist Viktor Shklovsky. “He said the thing is not to write into the subject matter but write away from the subject matter,” Vogel said. “Then I needed a plot form, and I knew just what form I had to steal: Ambrose Bierce’s Incident at Owl Creek.” In Bierce’s short story, a Civil War traitor is about to be hung from a train trestle, but as the noose tightens, the rope breaks, and he is able to swim to shore. He makes his way back to his wife and home, when it is revealed all this has happened in his imagination in the split-second before the noose has fatally tightened. “I could then write the play as if my brother had taken me to Europe, and I could create this imaginary journey,” Vogel said. In the play, it is the sister who is suffering from a fatal illness – the fictitious Acquired Toilet Disease – and the siblings search the continent for both hedonistic sexual pleasure and a cure for ATD. The play’s actual setting is a hospital room in Baltimore where Carl is dying, with the trip a hallucination of something that never happened. The published edition of The Baltimore Waltz contains a letter

March 16-22, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 23

Carl wrote to his sister shortly before his death, and Vogel encourages all theaters who produce the play to include it in their program. It starts, “I thought I would jot down some of my thoughts about the (shall we say) the production values of my ceremony. Well, I want a good show, even though my role has been reduced involuntarily from player to prop.” The Baltimore Waltz will run at the Magic through April 16, with tickets available at magictheatre.org.

Pages & stages at ACT

ACT has announced three of the plays that will be part of its coming season, as well as the publication of a new book detailing the theater’s half-century history. Written by ACT’s dramaturg Michael Paller, A Five-Act Play: 50 Years of ACT is divided into five chapters: “196769: Settling in San Francisco,” “The 1970s: Triumph,” “1979-89: Disaster,” “The 1990s: Rebirth,” and “The Millennium: Growth and Renewal.” “In doing the research and interviews for this book,” Paller said, “I discovered a story that’s incredibly dramatic, like a great play with an unforgettable cast of larger-than-life characters.” The book will go on sale next month at the Geary and Strand theaters, as well as at Bay Area bookstores. Preorders are now being taken at act-sf. org/fiveactplay. As the book looks back, the theater is looking ahead to its 2017-18 season. Three titles have been announced, including ACT’s first staging of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, which will return longtime ACT stalwart Marco Barricelli to the Geary stage. Tony Award-winner Judith Ivey will also star in director Carey Perloff’s production. The Strand Theater will be home to Qui Nguyen’s Vietgone, a recent off-Broadway hit that follows three young Vietnamese immigrants escaping their war-torn country for an irreverent road trip through the pop culture of 1970s America. The Geary will be home to Suzan-Lori Park’s Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3), which tells the story of a Southern slave who leaves his family to join his master to fight with the Confederacy in the Civil War. Park, best-known for her Pulitzer Prizewinning Topdog/Underdog, uses the template of Homer’s The Odyssey to “smoothly blend the high and the low, the serious and the humorous, the melodramatic and the grittily realistic,” according to The New York Times’ review of a 2014 production at the Public Theatre. Four productions are still to be announced, along with performance order and run dates. t

A Five-Act Play: 50 Years of ACT is a new book arriving next month that will help celebrate the theater’s semicentennial.

MISSION: 1210 Valencia St. • 415-647-8332 HAIGHT: 1555 Haight St. • 415 -43 BERK: 2585 Telegraph Ave. • 510 1-7733 -644-9202 BUFFALOEXCHANGE.COM •

<< Books

24 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 16-22, 2017

Whitman sampler: a discovered novel by Tim Pfaff

Whitman. But what of Whitman’s own late-life plea that his early alt Whitman’s own feelings journalism and fiction kindly be about his writings prior to forgotten? Would Jack Engle be any Leaves of Grass made me approach good? with trepidation, even reluctance, Then I read it in a single sitting the recently discovered Life and (and then again), partly because it Adventures of Jack Engle: An weighs in at a slim 36,000 words, Auto-Biography, an anonymously but far more because I found it a penned, serialized novel from 1852 ripping good read. The idiom was that likely is one of the two or familiar from my own year-long imthree novels Whitman is thought mersion in 19th-century American to have written. The novel is an fiction, but Whitman – who very even more sensational find by the likely wrote Jack Engle quickly, for intrepid Zachary Turpin, a Univerurgently needed money – is so adept sity of Houston graduate student, at the forms and formulas that than his discovery last year of the the potboiler story, of an orphan pseudonymous newspaper series transcending his roots, proves as Manly Health and Training, which involving, if less transcendent, than he credibly demonstrated was by Dickens. The constraints of serialization, and the likelihood of fast composition, yield some lurches in narrative time, backwards, forwards and sideways, but otherwise the writing is solidly professional and frequently much more. Even passages in which the reader senses Whitman is padding for length, or making pointless diversions, often have considerable impact. Late in the novel, first-person narrator Jack ambles through a New York cemetery, riffing on the sparse words he reads on headstones, and his thoughts on the transitory nature of human life – and far more, the style itself – Poet, newspaperman and novelist Walt Whitman. are startlingly like that of George Saunders’

recent Lincoln in the Bardo. (Saunders could not have known of Whitman’s novel while writing his.) Reading it is in every way hair-raising. The story’s surface sentimentality and the often-heavy coincidences of plot fall just this side of irksome, and even if the characters do tend to be awfully good or awfully bad, they’re three-dimensional and have individual voices. The hitch for the modern reader is the almost casual anti-Semitism, which gratefully figures very little and is far less virulent than what was regrettably common in 19thcentury writing. Much as I loathe present-day journalistic references to Trump and Trumpism when the matter at hand is not the 45th president, there’s no suppressing a sly smile when reading Whitman’s accounts of Mr. Covert, the villainous lawyer and political aspirant who is the craven heart of the tale. Although the widower of a kindly Quaker, he is introduced as having a “certain sanctimonious satanic look” and bears that out in his conniving behavior. Here’s Whitman: “The two scoundrels had taken their precautions, and prepared their way, and the mechanic and his family were ruined. For a trumpery claim of damages was established, and not a dollar did Covert pay for the work. The lumber and hardware merchants levied their bills, on the carpenter’s own little property, all of which it took to pay them, and every dollar of his toil-earned savings was at once swept away.” The genre Whitman mined was not just that of the orphan story, but also of the struggle of the “wealthy ten thousand” – today’s 1% – against the scrabbling

millions. But it’s the little rascal characters in Jack Engle that do the stealing, mostly of readers’ hearts. The plot’s power lines shift as precariously as these things do in real life, and Whitman manages the central implausibility – the slowly emerging realization that two main characters are orphaned by the same deed of capricious tragedy – so smoothly that the reader is somehow prepared for the result that they become happily-foreverafter spouses. Lest it seem that the novel is one long saccharine toothache in the making, a cunning story within the story – a document left by the murderer of Jack’s real father, and father of his bride-to-be – is a passage of such emotional directness, a contemplation of the ruin wrought by a quick temper, that you hold your breath while reading it. Turpin’s suspicion that the novel existed came from his close read-

ing of Whitman’s notebooks, in one of which the author made an outline of the story and provided character names, some of them memorable for their very eccentricity. Scanning digitized records of 19th-century newspapers, he found an ad from March 13, 1852, in The Sunday Dispatch, a New York newspaper Whitman was known to write for, promising the serialization of the novel. The sole existing copies of the whole paper were in the Library of Congress, which scanned and digitized the pages for Turpin. It’s now readable free in the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=2251&context=wwqr, and due for publication in book form by the University of Iowa Press. The Manly Health and Training series was a revealing Whitman curiosity, but a curiosity. Life and Adventures of Jack Engle is a real find. t

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DVD>>

March 16-22, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 25

Smoldering passions by Brian Bromberger

f we are drowning, what will we do to catch our breath to survive? How do we cope when our world is slipping away? These elegiac questions are at the heart of Departure, the new DVD release from Wolfe Video, which explores loss and the role it can play in awakening sexuality. Subtlety with minor eruptions pervades this very English film, as reserved characters struggle to communicate with each other, and secrets are revealed. The movie’s opening line, “Do you think you can know something before you know it?” expresses the dilemma of all its characters, in a story of emotional meltdown and coming of age. Beatrice (Juliet Stevenson) and her 15-year-old son Elliot (Alex Lawther) arrive at their family holiday home, which has been sold, in the rural Langue doc region of southern France to pack up their belongings and dispose of the furniture. Bea-

trice’s marriage to Elliot’s father Philip (Finbar Lynch) is ending. While hiking through the countryside, Elliot spies the slightly older local boy Clement (Phenix Brossard) stripped to his shorts as he jumps into the local reservoir for a swim. Infatuated with lust, he introduces himself and gets Clement to help finish packing the house as a way to get closer with him. Elliot is becoming aware of his burgeoning gay sexuality. Although Clement is primarily straight, he doesn’t discourage Elliot’s feeble attempts at intimacy, appreciating the attention and companionship. There is an unintentionally funny scene with a carrot that will have the audience seeing the vegetable in a non-culinary light. Elliot, a quiet, aspiring poet, dresses in an oversized military jacket, carrying a notebook to scribble down thoughts, mimicking his hero Rimbaud. But the brash Clement is not afraid to call him on his pretentiousness. Elliot learns how

to smoke from Clement, becoming increasingly centered on him. They do more hiking than packing. Clement is a temporary lodger in the village, living with his aunt as his mother dies of brain cancer in Paris. Beatrice is growing increasingly erratic, mourning memories of a life that grounded her. Now she dreads starting over. She is attracted to Clement as well, which drives a wedge into her relationship with Elliot, who sees her as a threat. Philip arrives to sign the sale papers for the house and reveals his own secrets. How these smoldering passions are reconciled constitutes the remainder of the film. Departure is a moody eulogy abetted by the shimmering cinematography of Brian Fawcett, which transforms the French countryside into an elegant Monet painting. Yet this tranquility is pierced by resentments and repressed desires, as each character tries to escape from isolation. Do they realize that

healing can come only by opening up to each other? Departure is awash in loss metaphors, from the title to autumnal imagery to Elliot’s dreams of leaping into water and not drowning, an obvious symbol of accepting his sexuality. Lawther, who played the young Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, shows he is comfortable playing unsettling characters. At times peevish, self-absorbed and manipulative, Elliot eventually gains the audience’s sympathy. Stevenson is used superbly here as a woman overwhelmed by regret. Stage writer/ director Andrew Steagall, in his debut, avoids melodrama. For those willing to allow its simmering turmoil to

erupt and become restorative, the rewards of Departure will be many. t

Troubled soul by David Lamble

he recent epidemic of desecrations at American Jewish cemeteries – tombstones overturned, the dead disrespected, the living traumatized – brings to mind a powerful, disturbing 2002 film whose young lead, shaggy-haired and disarmingly boyish, would strike many as all wrong for the role. But one of Canadian-born star Ryan Gosling’s talents has been to flesh out a dazzling range of troubled boys. In director Henry Bean’s The Believer, Gosling’s Danny Balint has the sad-eyed intensity of a soul whose complex love-hate relationship with his Jewish identity has sent him into a tailspin, emerging as a neo-Nazi skinhead. From moments of skin-crawling violence when Danny mugs a young Yeshiva student on a New York subway, to Lenny Bruce-like comic absurdity as he riffs about the “sinister” influence of Jewish men on a range of activities from land reform to oral sex, Gosling can make you feel you’re witnessing a man in the throes of an unbearable passion. It’s a tribute to a style of acting largely missing from the big screen since the 70s. At the core of Gosling’s grasp of such disparate characters may be his own lonely days trapped as a special education student in Cornwall, Ontario, an isolated Canadian town known for its paper mill and proximity to the St. Lawrence Seaway. Gosling says that

while he wasn’t learning to read or add, he was getting a grasp on the people around him. “I was always kind of watching. I was never really in anything, but I was kind of outside and watching it. All I could really do is think about how I felt about it all.” Gosling says coming from a Mormon family also helped him play characters who love perhaps too intensely. “I’m not particularly religious, but there are a lot of fanatics that I grew up with. They would have these kind of testimonies on Sunday. They would get up, and it was coming from their guts how much they believed. It was this amazing expression of emotion, but there was always this resentment against it because they couldn’t exist without it. They knew they needed it, they didn’t know where they were outside of it, they loved it so much that they hated it.” After filming this brutally intense role, very loosely based on a real-life Jewish neo-Nazi fanatic outed and driven to suicide by exposure on the front page of The New York Times, Gosling said he never wanted to utter the word “Jew” in anger again. DVD special features include a thought-provoking commentary from director Henry Bean, an Anatomy of a Scene segment about the real-life person whose behavior inspired the film, plus theatrical trailer, scene access, and English and Spanish subtitles. t

f i nd your own paradise with the acclaimed

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<< Dance

26 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 16-22, 2017

SF Ballet 4&5

From page 17

It’s with a heavy heart that your reporter confides that Arthur Pita’s Salome, the big new item on SFB’s contemporary Program 5, is a terrible ballet that shoots its wad with the very first effect, when a limo as long as the Ritz rolls onto the stage and various expensive-looking people get out and prepare for vicarious thrills. They’re going to drug up a hot ingenue (Dores Andre) and feed her some sexual gladiators fetched from the set of Blade Runner. But though the sex-slaves are hunky and abject, and the one who gets chosen (Aaron Robison) is as hunky as one of Martha Graham’s back-up men, the choreography has no movement logic, no force in phrasing, nothing but some opportunities to display some

well-developed shoulders, thighs, throats. It would have taken me a whole bottle of poppers to make up for the lack of significant phrasing and the bathos that this inept spectacle kept falling into. The limo was fabulous, but the potion was downhill from there. When Salome (Dores Andre) drank her Mickey Finn, I didn’t believe it for a minute. That’s not what my drug experiences have been like, when my libido suddenly went into orbit. It was like a porno with condoms. Extra violence to amp up excitement when there’s not much actual erotic feeling at play. Much pasting of pelvis to pelvis, front and back, and also to the face, sometimes done with the force of a jump, where the legs go like a tuning fork past the body of the guy. British sex: you know what they’re talking about, but it just didn’t seem sensuous enough to qualify as sex.

San Francisco Ballet dancers in George Balanchine’s Diamonds.

Monet

From page 17

now-famous French Impressionist’s life and nascent work from the late 1850s through the early 1870s, offers clues and more than enough gorgeous paintings to make anyone’s day. While not solving the mystery of artistic genius or why it comes to fruition in some and not others, those paintings will certainly captivate visitors at what is sure to be a crowd-pleasing, heavily attended show. This is the first exhibition to focus on a formative phase when

Monet was poor, struggling and in the process of defining his style and developing a visual language regarded as radical at the time. Without a home of his own, he was often an itinerant painter, moving from France to England and the Netherlands, and finally back to France. But his affinity for landscapes, an ineffably lovely color palette coupled with the shimmering effects of light, especially its interplay with bodies of water, and intimations of the virtuosity to come are all present in many of the show’s rarely seen works, produced before the artist blossomed

There were some great production values. Colored feathers got shot out of guns and filled the stage-picture. But they did this over and over, perhaps as blackouts between scenes, but they didn’t have that effect. The tone was all over the place. The poor sexual gladiators brought for the subject to choose from looked so abject, with their shoulders pinching the collarbones, I couldn’t get into it. All the men of SF Ballet would look wonderful in their birthday suits, but I don’t like watching anybody cringe. No offense to the leather community: I’d like to know what Mr. Marcus would have said, and I do hope John Karr will post an opinion. The ballerina Dores Andre did not convince me, despite the way her legs snaked out from under her long red dress and hooked themselves over the victim’s shoulders,

Erik Tomasson

into a full-blown Impressionist. The exhibition ends in 1872, after Monet had achieved a measure of financial comfort, and two years prior to the debut exhibition of the group with which he’ll always be identified. Monet got an early start on the road to immortality. He was only 17 when he painted his first publicly exhibited work, “View near Rouelles” (1858), a gentle rural landscape completed while he was a protégé of Eugene Boudin, from whom he learned the pleasures and advantages of painting en plein air. But it wasn’t until seven years later

Rick Gerharter

Admiring “The Magpie” by Claude Monet, part of the exhibit Monet: The Early Years now at the Palace of the Legion of Honor.

or around his waist, always like tentacles pulling the creature towards her “nether mouth.” But we’d seen all this earlier in the week, in Balanchine’s Prodigal Son, starring Joseph Walsh as the youth and Sofiane Sylve as the Siren who feeds on his soul. Both were making their debuts in the roles. Both were wonderful in this Biblical tale of the youth who ran away from home and “wasted his substance in riotous living.” In every case, the application of clitoris to pubic bone, or the top of the head, or around the waist, was done better by Balanchine back in 1929 – and to much better music, by Serge Prokofiev, who, incidentally, had expected something more genteel than the frank sexual acrobatics Balanchine employed, and hated it. The whole Balanchine Program 4 is worth seeing. The stylized folk dancing of Stravinsky Violin Concerto, danced to an acerbic score from 1931, is buoyant at the highest levels. The arias, despite the

scrubbed, anti-sentimental clarity of their knotty phrases, are in fact full of emotion – grief. The piece was choreographed after Stravinsky’s death in tribute to him. The finale is the dance equivalent of a wake, where everyone gets drunk and tells stories. It’s hilarious, kvelling with love for the man whose music put the kick in the chicken. Diamonds ends that program with magnificent display of dance-counterpointe. The cheap seats upstairs are best for this one, you’ll want to see the interlocking trajectories. Program 5 is saved by Liam Scarlett’s wonderful setting of John Adams’ Fearful Symmetries, a big work for many dancers to a hugely rhythmic score that’s filled with heroic dancing, especially from Joseph Walsh, Jennifer Stahl, Max Cauthorne, Frances Chung ,Vitor Luiz, Lorena Feijoo, Isabella De Vivo, James Sofranko, and Wei Wang – wonderful performances from all of them, and they are dancers you could go round the world to see.t

Erik Tomasson

San Francisco Ballet dancers in Liam Scarlett’s Fearful Symmetries.

that a pair of the neophyte’s paintings was warmly received both by the Salon and the critics. One of them, on view here, “The Pointe de la Heve at Low Tide,” an almost Gothic, ominously thrilling moonlit sea scene, hints at his future direction, and his innate grasp of the emotional properties of light and the forces of nature. Only an art historian or a curator would recognize that the epic “Luncheon on the Grass” (186566), a response to Edouard Manet’s scandalous 1862 work of the same name, is by Monet’s hand. For starters, Monet’s glamorous, fashionably dressed, life-sized figures, demurely picnicking in the park, are wearing substantially more clothing than Manet’s. Only two immense panels from what was once a much larger canvas measuring 13’x20’, survive. Admittedly, there’s something reassuring that not every work Monet created from day one was a masterpiece. Two 1867 paintings of his cherubic infant son Jean asleep in his basinet, for instance, could have been painted by any number of other artists. The same cannot be said of “The Red Kerchief ” (ca. 1869), an unconventional portrait of his wife Camille. Standing outside in the snow like a character out of a Tolstoy novel, she looks longingly through the paned windows into the living room where her husband presumably sat. Monet kept this deeply personal, melancholy work close to him until his death. A similar undercurrent of sadness as well as tension runs through “Adolphe Monet Reading in a Garden” (1866), an emotionally laden portrait of his estranged father that reflects their troubled rela-

tionship. Wearing a straw boater, Monet pere is in sight but out of reach. Seated under shade trees on a bench in a public park exploding with sun-dappled flowers, he’s absorbed in his newspaper, and oblivious to his son. One can nearly feel the chill in the crisp country air as a blanket of high clouds descends in “The Magpie” (1869), a large-scale, wintry masterpiece. Framed by skeletons of bare trees whose branches are coated with icy filigree, the bird of the title, perched on a wooden gate, presides over a scene of yellow-tinged snow yielding to the lengthening, lateafternoon shadows. The beach scenes and a gallery of seascapes are among the show’s high points. In “The Green Wave” (ca. 1866-67), fishing boats mightily attempt to scale the steep, rolling waves – painted in an astonishing deep teal – as they navigate the ocean’s incessant motion. Get close in and note that the artist had applied thick wet paint to the canvas, adding dimension and the impression of relentless thrust. “Seascape,” from the same year, depicts the power of an unpredictable ocean whose choppy, brackish waters, whipped up by the wind, toss small crafts that register as tiny black dots on an uncertain horizon. Painted in 1872, the year that concludes the exhibition, “Apple Trees in Blossom” is a vibrant harbinger that seems to announce the splendor of spring with a profusion of fragrant blooms, newborn greenery, and the freshness of a dazzling day, as it heralds an artist on the cusp of greatness. t Through May 29. Info: famsf.org.

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Vol. 48 • No. 11 • March 16-22, 2017

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Veronica’s au revoir

Bonjour, Bob! by David-Elijah Nahmod

Chanteuse says farewell to San Francisco

by David-Elijah Nahmod

ob the Drag Queen’s honestly fantastic. When RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bob the Drag Queen takes to the stage, the now famous moniker lets you know what you’re getting, and it’s all in good fun. See page 28 >>

Rich Stadtmiller

eronica Klaus, a fixture of San Francisco’s cabaret scene for decades, will perform a farewell concert at Martuni’s on Sunday March 19. But don’t say goodbye just yet. See page 28

Celebrating alliances by Race Bannon During the weekend of March 3-5, 2017, the San Francisco Bay Area Leather Alliance produced their latest incarnation of their Leather Alliance Weekend. The weekend offers local and visiting leather and kink folks a wide range of events to attend. See page 30 >>

Mr. SF Leather 2017 contestants (left to right): Matt McGowen, Al Rahm (first runner up), Casè “Cito” DaMoude, Geoff Millard (winner), Travis Santell Rowland (second runner up), and Connor Hochleuntner.

{ THIRD OF THREE SECTIONS }

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

28 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 16-22, 2017

Bonjour, Bob!

From page 28

“I think I’m universally funny,” he said. “Funny is funny.” His audience is primarily gay, Bob tells Bay Area Reporter, but there are exceptions. “I’m usually performing in gay bars,” he said. “When I play theaters, I do get straight women.” Bob recalls the Season 8 Drag Race competition fondly, but surprisingly has little to say about it. “It was an experience,” she said. “It felt different at different times. Winning is honestly fantastic.” And what about RuPaul? “RuPaul is an icon,” said Bob. “She’s fierce. I love RuPaul.” Bob said that he sees nothing wrong with Drag Race’s recent move from Logo to the more mainstream network VH1 (both networks are owned by Viacom). Once considered an LGBT channel, Logo now fills much of its schedule with classic sitcoms such as All in the Family, Bewitched, Roseanne, and other shows that appeal to gay viewers. “A larger network means a larger audience,” Bob said. “Drag Race may have outgrown Logo. But Logo is still a gay channel. The gay reality show Fire Island is coming to Logo soon.” Thanks to the Drag Race win, Bob has been able to launch a fulltime career travelling around the country performing, and always arriving (to use his now-famous catch phrase) “purse first.”

On Saturday March 18, he’s starring alongside local drag superstar Peaches Christ in Legally Black at the Castro Theater. The show promises to be a wild cross dressing send-up of the 2001 film Legally Blonde, which made Reese Witherspoon a star. Bob said that he isn’t too worried about audiences taking offense to the new show’s title. “I am a black person born and raised,” he said. “I do real black things. There are a lot of stereotypes about us; that we’re loud, that we have large sex organs. The play is about how people navigate around these things.” As with his put-it-all-on-thetable stage name, Legally Black promises to put these issues out there bluntly, albeit with a lot of good humor. “People will probably shit in their pants,” Bob says. “Peaches is a little nervous that someone might be offended by the show’s title, but I don’t give a fuck!” Legally Blonde will also be shown as part of the presentation. Now living in New York City, Bob the Drag Queen was born Christopher Caldwell in Columbus, Georgia 30 years ago. His comic style derives from his work in children’s theatre, with an adult stand-up edge. An earlier stage name was Kittin Withawhip. Since his Drag Race victory, as Bob the Drag Queen, Caldwell has made four music videos, and numerous live and TV appearances. Bob said that he always enjoys trips to San Francisco.

“It’s still a gay mecca,” he notes. “I appreciate all the queens who came out of San Francisco, like Peaches, who is amazing!” March will be a big month for Bob the Drag Queen in San Francisco. One week after appearing in Legally Black he’ll be back, appearing at Public Works as hostess of Bob the Drag Queen’s After School Special. The free event promises to be “everything that was fun about school. Only this time around, the shenanigans happen either above or below Bob the Drag Queen shows glam style. the bleachers.” The event is 21+ Bob noted that PrEP does not only, according to its protect people from non-HIV Facebook page. STDs, and urges people to combine Produced in conjunction with the pill with condoms. Impulse San Francisco, the After While not claiming to be an exSchool Special will include music pert, Bob wants to help get the word by local DJs as well as raffle prizes out on how people can stay healthy. for concert and show tickets, in“I’m not a lecturer, a scholar, or a cluding Lady Gaga and the musical fountain of knowledge,” Bob said. “I’ll Hamilton. The main After School just share what I know. I’m an enterevent will be HIV prevention edutainer; professionals will be there.” cation, plus learning how to avoid Bob will surely be back in San other STDs. Francisco soon for more appear“PrEP is great!” Bob said, referances. While maintaining a busy ring to the HIV prevention drug. work and travel schedule, Bob is “Take it once a day and it reduces currently working on a film called your risk of infection. It’s quite the A Queen For the People, which miracle drug. When used in conhe describes as “half comedy, half junction with condoms, you’re prodocumentary.” tected from all kinds of infections.”

“I’d like to be the ruler of the free world,” said Bob. “Seriously, I don’t have an ‘end game’ for my career. I just like to keep people entertained.” ▼ Bob the Drag Queen and Peaches Christ in Legally Black at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., Saturday March 18, 3pm and 8pm. $30-150. www.peacheschrist.com www.castrotheatre.com Bob the Drag Queen’s After School Special, Saturday March 25, 1pm-6pm, at Public Works, 161 Erie St. at Mission. Free. www.publicsf.com

Bob the Drag Queen performs in Legally Black with Peaches Christ; crowned on Season 8 of RuPaul’s Drag Race; and a few more of Bob the Drag Queen’s glam styles.

when, but eventually I’ll be back.” After thirty years as an iconic hostess and cabaret artist, Klaus is moving to Sharon Springs, New York where she plans to open a Bed and Breakfast. The singer assures us that she has not been evicted from her Hayes Valley apartment of 28 years, where she has hosted numerous holiday private dinners. “It’s not a crisis at the moment,” she said. “Now is just the time. I love San Francisco dearly. It’s been thirty years. But I’m ready for a new adventure. I want something that’s mine, and I know that I’ll never be Jose A. Guzman Colon able to do that here. Veronica Klaus I want a home and a business that’s mine to own and create.” Veronica’s au revoir That home, which she’s already From page 28 purchased, will also serve as a restaurant and a performance space. “I’ll be back,” the beloved perEventually there will be rooms for former said in a phone interview with overnight guests. the Bay Area Reporter. “I’m not sure “It’s a Greek revival church from

the 1860s,” Klaus said of her new home, which she describes as “a gorgeous shell. The whole main room is filled with fresco murals from the 1860s,” she said. “I have to put in plumbing, heat and a bathroom.” She plans on continuing her singing career once the space is opened for business. Klaus admits that she never thought she’d leave San Francisco, but is happy now that the decision has been made. “I’ve been performing in San Francisco for nearly thirty years,” said the singer, who draws upon the classic Great American Songbook for her shows. “I’ve always been attracted to music which feels like it has a soul: jazz, cabaret and Blues. It’s always what I’ve related to. I like songs that tell a story.” When Klaus takes to the Martuni’s stage for her Bay Area swan song, she’ll be performing a “best of ” retrospective from across the years of her career. “I’ll be singing with my favorite musicians,” she said. “I’ve worked with them for twenty years. We’ll be doing a sampler of stuff for about 90 minutes.” Klaus added that she doesn’t have a favorite song. “There are so many good ones,” she said. “Whatever it is, it’s sentimental.” Klaus doesn’t want her friends and fans to be sad about her departure. Instead, she hopes they’ll come

to visit her in New York and enjoy her unique song stylings there. “People are never that far away,” she pointed out, noting that phone, email and social media makes it easy for people to remain in touch. She says that San Francisco will remain in her heart. “My years here have been my formation time,” she said. “Everything about who I am came to fruition here. It’s hard to leave but it’s time for a new adventure.” You can see Veronica Klaus’ farewell concert at Martuni’s (4 Valencia Street at Market) on Sunday, March 19 at 4pm and 7pm. Tickets are sliding scale, $20-30. Reservations can be made by Pay Pal: voilaveronica@gmail.com Klaus asks that you let her know which show you’d like to attend. The singer also invites you to dine in her elegantly appointed San Francisco apartment for an Easter Sunday Brunch on April 16. A five-course meal will be served at a cost of $200 per plate. For more details refer to Cafe Klaus on Facebook: www.facebook.com/cafeklaus/ Klaus asks her friends and fans to keep in touch after she moves, and to consider her new abode for upcoming vacations. Write to her at 6569 State Route 10, Sharon Springs NY 13459 “I love you all,” she said. “Don’t be a stranger.” ▼

▼

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with performances by Veronica Klaus,Jason Brock, Alex U. Inn & Kingdom, and DJ MC2, with accompanist Tammy L. Hall

298 11th Street at Folsom Thursday, April 6 • 6-9pm FREE COMMUNITY EVENT • OPEN TO THE PUBLIC (21+) (Hosted cocktails and light refreshments)

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Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

30 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 16-22, 2017

Celebrating alliances

From page 27

Mr. S Leather hosted the opening meet and greet party at their store on Friday night. I really enjoy the various gatherings that take place at the store. It’s always a sexy experience to mingle with fellow kinksters in an atmosphere of a wide range of gear, garb and toys that the store offers. People cruised, drank and ate. Then the Mr. San Francisco Leather contestants, judges and contest staff were introduced. As the party wound down, most of the crowd moved on to the SF Eagle for the International Titleholder Reunion. This was the first time the titleholder reunion was held. Organized by Ray Tilton and cohosted by the Los Angeles Band of Brothers, the event brought together titleholders from all over the country including a rare appearance by Judy Tallwing McCarthey, the first International Ms. Leather in 1987, who spoke at the event. Mike Gerle, International Mr. Leather 2007 and a founding member of the Los Angeles Band of Brothers also spoke. The formation of the San Francisco Band of Brothers was announced as well. One by one the titleholders were introduced as they lined up on stage, eventually filling the entire Eagle outdoor raised patio. Seeing more than 80 titleholders from all over the country was an impressive sight. On Saturday, the day began with the judges interviewing the six Mr. SF Leather contestants. Contestant interviews are held early on contest day with no audience present. It’s

Rich Stadtmiller

On the right is Rich Stadtmiller, winner of the 2016 Jim Remer Unsung Hero Award, with friends Raymond Sherwin (left), and Daniel Hawkins (middle). photo: Rich Stadtmiller

not a part of the contest the public gets to see, but interviews weigh heavily in the overall scoring. The interviews were the first of the weekend’s happenings to take place at a new venue for many of the events, SOMArts Cultural Center, a wonderful nonprofitrun space in the South of Market. I think the space worked out well and it’s great to see the local leather and kink communities gathered in a venue our scene hasn’t used much in the past. Such big gathering spaces can be hard to come by and I’m grateful that SOMArts

agreed to lease the space to the Alliance. Two workshops took place at SOMArts on Saturday afternoon. Roz and Shelby led a workshop on dog and pup play. The human pup scene is a popular kink, especially among younger people and the next generation of BDSM kinksters. Tomo led a workshop on pressure points to cause pain. They explored several effective pressure points to get a bottom’s attention. The vendor area welcomed leather and kink vendors and businesses, who set up shop with a variety of wares and services. Participating were Frugaldomme, Wicked Grounds, Killer Bob and Conzept Dezigns. A silent auction was followed by winners being announced late Saturday. Saturday night was what many consider the main event, the Mr. SF Leather contest. This year there were six contestants and they all did themselves and their sponsors proud. While I wasn’t privy to their interviews, all six men held their own during every aspect of the nighttime competition: strutting in a jockstrap, answering a pop question, presenting their best leather image and delivering a short speech. Last year’s contest MCs, Pollo Del Mar and Don Mike, kindly

ceded the stage for this year to long-time contest MCs Lenny Broberg and Donna Sachet, so they could celebrate Lenny’s 25th anniversary since being Mr. SF Leather and International Mr. Leather, and the 35th anniversary of the Mr. SF Leather contest. It was great to see the well-honed team of Lenny and Donna once again commanding the stage with their witty repartee and skilled management of the contestants. After the opening color guard, opening entertainment, and midway through the contest, included performances by Peter Feliciano, Kippy Marks, Damien Alvarez, Julia Austenfeld, Stela Furtado, and Azalea (the current Ms. SF Leather). At one point during the evening, the past Mr. SF Leather titleholders were invited on stage and Raquela Singer sang a beautiful, touching song to them. Bootblacking during the contest was provided by Douglas Ambrose and Vivian. There was the traditional parade of colors where clubs and organizations were introduced through a single representative on stage. Similarly, later in the night all current titleholders in atten-

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dance were introduced. The contestants this year for the Mr. SF Leather title were: Connor Hochleuntner, Mr. Edge Leather 2017; Geoff Millard, Mr. Daddy’s Barbershop Leather 2017; Travis Santell Rowland, Mr. Powerhouse Leather 2017; Casè “Cito” DaMoude, Mr. Chaps Leather 2017; Al Rahm, Bay Area Sober in Leather 2017; and Matt McGowen, Mr. SF Eagle Leather 2017. Charged with the difficult task of determining the winner was a stellar judging panel. In honor of the 35th anniversary of the contest, many past Mr. San Francisco Leather winners were asked to judge. Judges this year were: Wolf Marisol, Mr. SF Leather 1995; Julian Marshburn, Mr. SF Leather 2004; Lance Holman, Mr. SF Leather 2010; Queen Cougar, Ms. SF Leather 1993; Mike Gerle, International Mr. Leather 2007; Garry McClain (Marlena), Judge Emeritus; and Cody Elkin, Mr. SF Leather 2016. District 8 City Supervisor, Jeff Sheehy, presented a Board of Supervisors recognition and State Senator Scott Wiener presented a similar recognition from the State Legislature. Before the winners were announced, the awarding of the Brotherhood Award took place. This award is given to the man his fellow contestants believe best represents the spirit of comaradery and brotherhood. This year they chose Geoff Millard. Finally, the winners were announced. The winner of the Mr. SF Leather 2017 contest was Geoff Millard. First runner up was Al Rahm. Second runner up was Travis Santell Rowland. I asked Geoff for his thoughts about his contest experience and what he hoped his title year would be like. “The experience of running for Mr. SF Leather was one of building bonds with my classmates over drinks, jokes, food, dance and even protesting while still trying to study everything, while rocking hot brown leather. So, all in all, it just went by too fast.” “In my title year, I want this to be a working title. I’ll be working stands as a bootblack and raising money. I want to help raise money for Swords to Plowshares that has a program to help veterans upgrade their discharge from the military, which is extra important

Rich Stadtmiller

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