March 22, 2012 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

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Gay Iraqi outraged at killings

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'Life & Death in Black & White'

Welts, Parker honored in SF

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

Packer takes over HIV prevention office

by Seth Hemmelgarn

A

familiar face is taking the lead at San Francisco’s HIV Prevention Section, at least temporarily.

Tracey Packer became acting director of the agency after the departure last week Jane Philomen Cleland of Dr. Grant ColTracey Packer fax. President Barack Obama has selected Colfax as the new director of the Office of National AIDS Policy.

Among other functions, the city’s HIV prevention office funnels money to numerous nonprofits that are trying to help reduce new infections by half by 2017.

“I’m really excited to have this opportunity, and I’m really committed to ensuring that we’re [using] a collaborative approach with our clients, our communities, our providers, and the press to be successful in preventing new infections in San Francisco,” Packer, 52, said.

“Having the voice of the consumer, the client drive our work is key to our success,” she added.

Packer, an HIV-negative straight ally, has worked in HIV prevention for the city for 20 years. She began as a health educator and, before Colfax’s departure, served as the section’s deputy director. Packer was the unit’s interim director from the end of 2005 to September 2007. Her salary is approximately $100,000.

San Francisco Health Director Barbara Garcia praised Packer in her recent written report to the city’s Health Commission.

“Her background and experience in leading the community planning process will go a long way to helping us continue the successful HIV prevention program that has become a national model throughout the country,” Garcia said.

Challenges Packer has her work cut out for her.

“We still have 500 to 1,000 new infections each year. We need to address that,” she said of perhaps the biggest challenge.

Progress that the city’s made in reducing infections has meant it can be harder to get funding, however.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s allocation to San Francisco is being reduced as the federal agency shifts spending to places that “bear the greatest burden of new infections,” such as the southeastern U.S., Packer said.

See page 12

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Vol. 42 • No. 12 • March 22-28, 2012

25 years later, activists recall ACT UP’s legacy

by Liz Highleyman

T

he AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, better known as ACT UP, held its first action on March 24, 1987, a protest on Wall Street demanding access to experimental drugs and an end to discrimination against people with AIDS. A quarter century later, many of ACT UP’s aims have been realized – at least for people in industrialized countries with money or good insurance. Activist pressure, along with the efforts of dedicated researchers and a dose of good luck, produced combination antiretroviral therapy that dramatically reduced death from AIDS and allows HIV-positive people who receive timely treatment to live a nearnormal lifespan.

But some of ACT UP’s grander ambitions – including elimination of homophobia, racism, and sexism, and establishment of social and economic justice – proved harder to attain and remain goals for contemporary activists.

“ACT UP brought thousands of powerful voices together, worldwide, crying out for ecoSee page 12 >>

Rick Gerharter

San Francisco activists David Stern, Camo, who only went by one name at the time, and Michael Ryan participate in the successful shut down of the national Food and Drug Administration headquarters on October 11, 1988 in Rockville, Maryland. Stern and Ryan have since passed away.

EQCA struggles for direction

by Seth Hemmelgarn

months our community will come to understand that is indeed the case.”

F

or the last several months, Equality California, the statewide LGBT lobbying organization, has struggled for direction.

Since its founding more than 10 years ago, the organization has helped bring about state laws that address everything from student bullying to employment and housing protections for transgender people.

But when former Executive Director Geoff Kors left in March 2011, after nine years in the post, EQCA appeared to lose its focus, and the leadership since then has been in flux.

After a lengthy search, Roland Palencia became executive director last July, but he resigned just three months later. His departure came soon after EQCA’s board decided not to pursue a repeal of Proposition 8, the state’s same-sex marriage ban, this year.

Last month, EQCA brought in interim Executive Director Laurie Hasencamp, who’s expected to be with the group for about four to six months.

But the organization hasn’t announced any plans for what it will do after her stint is over.

The cluster of bills that EQCA recently announced it’s backing this legislative session is smaller than in previous years. And people who’ve worked with the nonprofit are concerned that it continues to be a strong organization.

Spokeswoman Rebekah Orr said EQCA re-

Slim slate of bills

Rick Gerharter

Equality California supporters marched in last year’s Pride Parade.

mains “an essential organization not only to the movement in California, but nationally. We continue to advance legislation that serves as a model for potential advances in equality.”

She also pointed to EQCA’s support of elected officials, among other activities.

“I think it’s understandable for people to wonder, ‘Where is Equality California?’” Orr said. She said recent months have been “very challenging,” but said, “We are in a position now to be very forward looking, and I think over the next several

{ FIRST OF TWO SECTIONS }

EQCA is so far formally backing only a handful of legislation this year.

Assembly Bill 1505, introduced by Assemblyman Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), would guarantee support for LGBT military families.

Assemblywoman Betsy Butler’s (D-Marina Del Rey) AB 1700 is designed to keep LGBTs from losing their homes when a partner dies.

AB 2356, introduced by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), would ensure that women in same-sex relationships can access fertility services on the same terms as women in opposite-sex relationships.

Finally, gay state Senator Mark Leno’s (D-San Francisco) Senate Bill 1140 would clarify that religious leaders wouldn’t be punished by the state for refusing to marry same-sex couples.

Most of the legislation isn’t new. Except for AB 2356, EQCA has previously backed the proposals in some form.

Orr, who joined EQCA around the same time as Palencia, defended the organization’s slim list of legislation.

“In the past, what we have done is come out with a whole bunch of bills at the beginning of the session,” she said. “ ... We’ll be announcing some additional legislative work in the coming weeks.”

See page 12 >>

<< Community News

2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 22-28, 2012

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Rick Gerharter

Happy birthday, Bayard S

tanding in front of a photo display of the Fillmore District when it was predominantly African American and a jazz center, activists from the Bayard Rustin Coalition – Justin Morgan, Lawrence Shine, Andrea Shorter, and Joshua Smith – get ready to cut a cake for the 100th birthday of Bayard Rustin. Rustin was an openly gay African American

man who worked closely with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and was the chief organizer for the landmark 1963 March on Washington, where King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. The Bayard Rustin Coalition, which hosted the party March 17, is a Bay Area organization for African American LGBT people and their allies.

Silence isn’t an option for SF gay Iraqi

by Heather Cassell

O

utraged by the Iraqi government’s sanctioned killings of alternative youths and LGBT individuals, Ghazwan Al-Sharif, a gay Iraqi living in the Bay Area, won’t remain silent.

“We are born this way,” Al-Sharif, quoting Lady Gaga and his voice lowering in anger and sadness about the government-sanctioned murders, said during a phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

“They did not do any harm; they just wanted to be themselves,” said Al-Sharif, who decided to publicly come out in 2009.

Reports during the first wave of murders of his fellow gay country-

men three years ago angered, saddened, and pushed him to speak out about LGBT Iraqis.

“I was not out. I saw online that people were killing gays. I was so mad and had this anger inside of me. I am gay. We are human beings,” said Al-Sharif, 40.

He said that he didn’t leave Iraq because he was gay, but because as a translator for the U.S. Army his work became life threatening. He was given the opportunity to leave and he took it.

Al-Sharif said that gay life is largely hidden in Middle Eastern culture where men are openly affectionate in the streets holding hands and greeting each other with a kiss on See page 13 >>

Courtesy Project Open Hand

Chef Ghazwan Al-Sharif is a gay Iraqi who lives in the Bay Area.

Man to face homicide charge

by Seth Hemmelgarn

A

San Francisco man is expected to face a homicide charge today (Thursday, March 22) in the recent killing of a gay San Francisco man who was left to die on a Mission district sidewalk last month.

Roland Pouncy, 42, had already been charged with a crime in the death of Richard Sprague, 47. In February, he pleaded not guilty in San Francisco Superior Court to a felony count of receiving or possessing stolen property. Sprague’s partner has said that Pouncy allegedly had Sprague’s ATM card.

The district attorney’s office announced Tuesday, March 20 that it would formally file homicide and robbery charges. San Francisco homicide Inspector John Cagney said that Pouncy was booked on the charges Tuesday.

DA spokesman Omid Talai said in a statement Tuesday that the charges are “based on DNA evidence that corroborates [Pouncy’s] involvement in these crimes.”

Pouncy’s arraignment on the new charges is expected this week. Talai said he anticipates that hearing will be Thursday.

Deputy Public Defender Stephen Rosen, who is representing Pouncy, has previously declined to comment

Courtesy SFPD

Roland Pouncy

on the case, and didn’t respond to an interview request Tuesday.

Pouncy is being held without bail in San Francisco County jail.

Sprague was found dead in the 100 block of Julian Avenue, between 15th and 16th streets, Sunday, February 19. Police say that he cried out for help but nobody reported finding him until about 7 a.m., hours after the incident appears to have started.

Dave Nielsen, 59, Sprague’s registered domestic partner, has said that Sprague told him that he was going to get cigarettes at about midnight the day he died.

Cagney has said that the attack occurred around 2:30 a.m. Pouncy was arrested later that day.

Citing an examination performed by medical examiner staff at the scene, Cagney has said “preliminary indications” were that the cause of death was strangulation.

It’s not clear what Sprague had been doing in the small residential block.

Sprague and Nielsen’s home in the city is near 18th and Dolores streets. The place where Sprague’s body was found appeared to be outside of an obvious route to buy cigarettes. Nielsen said the nearest place to buy cigarettes was a gas station about halfway between their home and where Sprague’s body was found.

In an interview Tuesday, Nielsen said, “It’s hard for me to imagine why he was there either,” but he said there’s an ATM machine near the scene.

He also said the expected charges don’t bring him any relief.

“They don’t do anything, because actually I’ve known they were coming for quite a while,” based on evidence in the case, he said.

He’s said that Sprague was “a wonderful person. Everybody loved him. He was fun and outgoing, and extremely caring.”▼

Read more online at www.ebar.com

March 22-28, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 3

<< Open Forum

4 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 22-28, 2012

Volume 42, Number 12 March 22-28, 2012 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Thomas E. Horn Bob Ross (Founder, 1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko Seth Hemmelgarn Jim Provenzano CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Dan Aiello • Tavo Amador • Erin Blackwell Roger Brigham • Scott Brogan Victoria A. Brownworth • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Chuck Colbert Richard Dodds • David Duran Raymond Flournoy • David Guarino Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell John F. Karr • Lisa Keen • Matthew Kennedy David Lamble • Michael K. Lavers Michael McDonagh • David-Elijah Nahmod Paul Parish • Lois Pearlman • Tim Pfaff Jim Piechota • Bob Roehr • Donna Sachet Adam Sandel • Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Ed Walsh • Sura Wood

ART DIRECTION Kurt Thomas PRODUCTION MANAGER T. Scott King PHOTOGRAPHERS Jane Philomen Cleland Marc Geller Rick Gerharter Lydia Gonzales Rudy K. Lawidjaja Steven Underhill Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge Christine Smith GENERAL MANAGER Michael M. Yamashita DISPLAY ADVERTISING Simma Baghbanbashi Colleen Small Scott Wazlowski NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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ACT UP changed face of AIDS T

wenty-five years ago this week, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power announced itself to the world by holding a demonstration on Wall Street in New York City, which changed not only the face of AIDS activism, but also the federal government’s response to diseases and nonprofits’ engagement with the public and the government to help their own missions.

Gay playwright Larry Kramer was the inspiration for ACT UP, and the protest on Wall Street, the financial capital of the world, held March 24, 1987, demanded greater access to experimental AIDS drugs and protested profiteering by the pharmaceutical companies. Keep in mind that at the time only AZT (manufactured by Burroughs Wellcome) was available and it wasn’t very good; it wasn’t effective and the side effects were brutal. According to ACT UP/New York’s website, shortly after this action, the federal Food and Drug Administration announced that it would shorten its drug approval process by two years. It was a major victory and a turning point.

In fact, a quick search through ACT UP/ New York’s capsule history on its website details numerous protests, many of which resulted in policy reversals by various agencies or social changes in the national culture, such as reporting by the New York Times.

Before long, chapters were formed in other cities, including San Francisco, the East Bay, and Philadelphia. A 1988 action that focused on nine days of protests against various unattended aspects of AIDS – IV drug use, homophobia, women, people of color, testing programs, and more – occurred in more than 50 cities. It was an example of direct action at its best: specific goals, focused demonstrations, and media attention.

One of the most important protests was in 1990, when ACT UP “zapped” the National Institutes of Health campus outside Washington. An estimated 1,000 activists from across the country demanded more AIDS treatments for the opportunistic infections that were killing people, the inclusion of more women and

people of color in clinical trials, and the formation of a women’s health committee in the AIDS clinical trial system at the NIH. ACT UP accomplished many of its goals: clinical trials were changed and drug approval was accelerated. Decision-makers took notice, as did companies when they were zapped.

Locally, ACT UP/San Francisco eventually splintered into two groups, one with its traditional focus on treatment and clinical trials (Golden Gate), the other taken over by AIDS denialists, most of whom are now dead (SF). Before it was disbanded, ACT UP/ Golden Gate could be counted on to speak up when medical centers weren’t providing acceptable treatment or when funding cuts threatened HIV/AIDS service organizations. Many ACT UP members, like the late Jeff Getty, refused to sit by quietly and watch friends die and their

own health decline. Members of ACT UP were instrumental in getting the drug companies to change their ad imagery by criticizing glamorized ad campaigns that featured good-looking, athletic men climbing mountains, when in reality many people taking the drugs were stuck on a toilet with diarrhea.

Today, more than 30 years after the first reported AIDS cases, a lot has changed. New drugs are more effective and less toxic, though side effects remain an issue. AIDS nonprofits have mostly expanded their donor bases so that they don’t depend as much on government funding. Today many groups employ ACT UP’s tactics to demand accountability from organizations and funding from the government for research and treatment of various diseases.

ACT UP may not be as active as it was 25 years ago, but it forever changed the way the general public sees people living with AIDS, and while there was often a lot of screaming and shouting, PWAs were fighting for their lives – and still are.▼

The ‘third rail’ of California politics

by Tom Ammiano

O

n March 1, students under the banner of Occupy Education came to Sacramento for a day of action, calling on the governor and the Legislature to fully fund education. Since state funding for education has declined by 42 percent over the last decade, the students were angry. With a recent article showing that a freshman at CSU would pay more per year than at Harvard, they have every reason to be.

The most direct cause for the loss of education funding is a tax system that makes no sense.

As a result we are losing the California that we worked so hard for the last 40 years to create that offered educational opportunities for all of its residents.

In response to this reality, I requested a hearing that was held last week at the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee to look into a relatively unknown but gaping hole in the state’s tax system: the assessment of commercial property. In the big picture, the complexity of property ownership for commercial property will require a constitutional change and that raises the issue of changing Proposition 13, long considered the “third rail” of California politics, meaning instant defeat for any politician who dared touch it. Behind that fear however, the facts speak for themselves. Namely that homeowners are paying more than corporations in property tax and we are leaving millions of dollars on the table that should be going to public safety, schools, parks, libraries, and health services at the local level.

Joining me for the hearing was Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who testified that “Proposition 13 has fallen victim to the law of unintended consequences, what was conceived of as a measure to relieve the tax burden on homeowners has had the effect of benefiting commercial property owners at the expense of homeowners.” The current system is actually more loophole than tax, and is so confusing to administer that it cries out for change in the name of tax fairness and it all starts with the

sale of commercial property.

Californians know when they buy or sell a house the property is reassessed, and property tax bills are based on the reassessed value. But when a Wall Street investment bank buys a chain of hotels, that property may not be reassessed. Companies with complex ownership structures often avoid reassessment because no one owner acquires more than 50 percent of a property.

This indefensible loophole lets the same Wall Street banks that collapsed the economy walk away with millions of dollars each year.

Meanwhile, students can’t afford school, teachers are being laid off, public safety cuts hurt our communities, and health care and home care services for seniors and people with disabilities are on the chopping block.

But it’s not just banks – a recent report released by the California Tax Reform Association shows that the richest Silicon Valley corporations, such as Intel, Google, and Apple pay incredibly low taxes by land leasing and using other techniques for avoidance of change of ownership. Who bears the brunt for these avoided property taxes?

California homeowners and our education system.

Since the passage of Prop 13 in 1978, in virtually every county in the state, the property tax burden has shifted from commercial property onto the backs of residential property. Some examples: in Contra Costa County, the residential share of the property tax went from 48 percent to 73 percent. In Santa Clara County, the residential share went from 50 percent to 70 percent, despite massive industrial/ commercial growth. In Los Angeles County, for example, from 1975 to 2009, the share of property tax paid by residential taxpayers has increased from 53 percent to 69 percent. But not only are corporations paying less of a share of the property tax, corporations are exploiting loopholes in the law to avoid reassessment

upon change in ownership.

What does it all add up to, the loopholes of this third rail of California politics? Hundreds of millions of dollars of lost revenue that could go to our schools, our police, and our communities. As private economist Christopher Thornberg told the committee at the hearing, “California is a ‘dumb tax state’ and Proposition 13’s provisions ‘awful.’” By dumb he must mean that not only are we the only state in the nation to not have an oil severance tax (costing billions in revenue each year) but we also allow corporations to benefit from egregious methods of tax avoidance, hidden behind the false rhetoric of protecting homeowners under Prop 13.

Thankfully just because we’re dumb doesn’t mean we can’t learn, but even discussing this issue generates enormous resistance from the corporations that benefit from the current system. Why? Because even raising the issue, and trying to have a rational discussion of the problems in the system, gets the defenders of unfair taxation up in arms. That’s because they know if this state were ever to have a rational conversation about taxes, the system would never stand up to the slightest scrutiny. While everyday people continue to pay for the abuses of Wall Street, big banks and other large corporations keep playing by different rules.

Last week’s hearing was evidence that there is momentum for touching this mythical third rail and addressing the need for new revenue and an equitable tax system. It’s time that we take back the millions in lost revenue and move us forward to when we can enact major constitutional reform-the future of California depends on it.▼ Assemblyman Tom Ammiano represents the 17th Assembly District in San Francisco.

Community News>>

▼ SF State to hold ‘No Hate’ day

by Elliot Owen

S

an Francisco State University will be honoring International Transgender Day of Visibility by facilitating its first No Hate/Erase Hate campaign to be held on Monday, March 26. Cosponsored by student-run organizations Queer Alliance and the Disabled Students Association, the event aims to expand transgender awareness, visibility, and safety on campus.

Highlighting the day’s agenda is keynote speaker Ms. Bob Davis, City College of San Francisco’s first openly transgender tenured faculty member. Serving as dean of liberal arts since September 2010, Davis dresses in women’s clothing for herself, and also, to serve as a role model for the transgender community.

“Since I’ve been dressing everyday, I’m doing a certain kind of transgender outreach or advocacy because people see me,” Davis said. “I’m telling people that transgender people live in their world. You can be who you are in the world without letting the world force you to change.”

Activities are planned from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and include music, raffles, and speeches by members and allies of the transgender community. Initially designed as a small gathering on the campus’ center lawn, the event’s location has been expanded to San Francisco State’s Malcolm X Plaza and Jack Adams Hall as a result of the increasing number of both studentrun and outside organizations willing to participate.

Among the confirmed participants

Elliot Owen

City College Dean Ms. Bob Davis

are Gold’s Gym, which will be handing out free gym passes to students, LaCasa.org and San Francisco State’s Women’s Center. Groups and individuals will also have the opportunity to contribute videos to the It Gets Better project, a movement created in 2010 to stop the growing number of LGBT teen suicides caused by experiencing bullying at school.

The National Transgender Discrimination Survey, a report released last year by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, found that 51 percent of the transgender and gender non-conforming participants who reported being harassed or bullied in school had attempted suicide.

Marthese Marina-Espinoza, vice president of the Disabled Students

Association, is excited about contributing to a more trans-friendly atmosphere on campus.

“We’ve been noticing that some people have been looking strangely at other people, making comments and gestures. That’s just not acceptable,” said Marina-Espinoza, a 29-year-old sociology student.

“We want to promote people coming out. It’s okay to be transgender and not okay for people to express hate toward you,” she said.

Lexi Adsit, 21, a gender studies student who identifies as a transgender woman of color, is no stranger to the difficulties of being a transgender student.

“There are a lot of issues I experience through the institution,” she explained. “One example would be the use of my legal name on the class roster. When I start a new class each semester, they use my legal name and that’s not what I go by. It creates an awkward experience.”

Despite confronting adversity, Adsit remains optimistic about the future of transgender equality at educational institutions.

“There are very trans-specific issues that I think could be easily remedied. We just need the right kind of community to call for it and the right people in charge to meet us half way.”

While donations are welcome, the event is free and open to the public.

Proceeds will go toward the opening of the San Francisco State University Equity Center, an LGBTQ resource center that will include a library and LGBTQ-centered counseling.▼

Milk Club honors member with elder conference compiled by Cynthia Laird

T

he Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club will honor the late Howard Grayson with its first Howard Grayson LGBT Elder Life Conference Saturday, March 24 at the 30th Street Senior Center, 225 30th Street (between Chenery and Dolores streets), from 1:30 to 5:30 p.m.

Grayson died suddenly last September 29 of apparent heart failure at the age of 66. He had been a longtime Milk Club member and was active in many club activities. Additionally, before retiring he worked professionally as a home care provider and was a member of the Senior Action Network and was a delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council.

“Howard spent years speaking out for the right to Social Security, teaching elders computer skills, and directly caring for them in their homes. We come together to honor that life and to extend the work that Howard did on behalf of his friends and community,” said Susan Englander, coordinator of the afternoon conference. “In planning this event, more people are learning about Howard Grayson and his devotion to his peers.”

The event, which is free, will offer resources and information. Some of the participating organizations include: Asian Pacific Island Queer Women and Transgender Community, California Alliance for Retired Americans, Gray Panthers, the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, On Lok Lifeways, Openhouse, Outlook Theater Project, the San Francisco Department of Aging and Adult Services, and Senior Action Network.

Englander said that honored guest – and lesbian pioneer – Phyllis Lyon will welcome attendees,

The late Howard Grayson

while Assemblyman (and former stand-up comic) Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) and Karen Ripley will provide comic relief. The Stonestown Senior Taiko Drummers will open the afternoon and members of Outlook Theater Project will perform.

The center is wheelchair accessible. People can take Muni’s J-Church line or the No. 24 bus to the center.

Mayor, supes to hold budget town halls San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and members of the Board of Supervisors will hold a number of community engagement meetings around the city in an effort to encourage the public to get involved with the budget process. The mayor is working on a two-year balanced budget.

“We need to hear directly from our residents about the issues that matter most to them,” Lee said in a statement announcing the upcoming community meetings. “My goal is to stimulate the local economy, create good jobs, and encourage innovative efficiencies with city departments and programs ...”

The town hall meetings, to be

co-hosted by the mayor and various supervisors, start March 29 with Districts 5 and 6 with Supervisors Christina Olague and Jane Kim. The meeting runs from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Tenderloin Community School, 627 Turk Street.

Other meetings are scheduled as follows: Districts 8 and 9 with Supervisors Scott Wiener and David Campos, Wednesday, April 4 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Horace Mann Middle School, 3351 23rd Street.

Districts 2 and 3 with Supervisors Mark Farrell and David Chiu, Monday, April 9 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Center, 660 Lombard Street.

Districts 4 and 7 with Supervisors Carmen Chu and Sean Elsbernd, Saturday, April 14 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the San Francisco Zoo, 1 Zoo Road.

Districts 1 and 5 with Supervisors Eric Mar and Olague, Wednesday, April 25 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the County Fair Building, Golden Gate Park.

Districts 10 and 11 with Supervisors Malia Cohen and John Avalos, Saturday, April 28 from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at City Arts and Technology High School, 325 LaGrande Avenue.

Additionally, the mayor will be holding a series of community coffees; to join, residents are invited to call 311 where they can leave their name, contact information, and brief details of what they would like to discuss. Participants in the coffees will be selected at random and residents will be notified of their appointment the Thursday prior to the meeting. The session for District 11 was held earlier in March, the other districts are upcoming: District 6, Saturday, April 21; District 1, Saturday, May 19; Districts 8 and 9, Saturday, June 9; District 10, Saturday, July 14; Districts 4 and 7, Saturday, September 15; and District 5, Saturday, October 13.▼

March 22-28, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 5

<< Community News

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 22-28, 2012

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Gay theater show to play Central Valley towns

by Matthew S. Bajko

A

gay theater company in San Francisco will be packing up its latest production and taking it to four Central Valley cities in June as the inaugural show in its new Pride on Tour program.

The New Conservatory Theatre Center has partnered with 15 different community organizations to stage performances of its premiere run of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, which begins previews Friday night, during Pride Month in Fresno, Modesto, Fairfield, and Grass Valley in the state’s Gold Country.

“I really think rural areas have so much more to gain from productions like this. We don’t normally get exposure like bigger cities do to more types of entertainment that is educational,” said Pat Rose, a lesbian who lives in Grass Valley, and as president of the local PFLAG chapter, is helping to mount the local performance. “I am really excited

we are going to be bringing it here to Nevada County.”

More than just presenting LGBT theatrical productions to rural audiences, Pride on Tour is meant to spark a broader community dialogue, said Ed Decker, New Conservatory’s artistic and executive director.

“The play is a catalytic moment for these communities. We are using it to bring gay and allied communities together in these cities and look at things they have in common,” said Decker. “Such things as preventing violence and living in a safe environment where kids can go to school without fear ... all communities want to be safe.”

The James Irvine Foundation in 2011 gave the theater company a $200,000 three-year grant to mount traveling productions of its shows.

It is similar to its YouthAware program, which stages plays in northern and central California schools and communities.

“This is a project I have wanted to

Jane Philomen Cleland

Cast members Timothy Beagley, left, Sal Mattos, and Alex Hero of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later rehearsed this week in San Francisco.

do for a long time, at least the last decade,” said Decker.

The inaugural Pride on Tour play examines what happened to the residents of Laramie, Wyoming a decade after the brutal killing of gay college student Matthew Shepard.

Presented partly by the Bob Ross Foundation, named after the Bay Area Reporter’s founding publisher, the play is set to end its San Francisco run on April 29.

Eight actors, four men and four women, play 30 different roles re-

enacting different moments based on the interviews the playwrights conducted.

“It is a very technically challenging piece,” said Sara Staley, director of the YouthAware programs who directed the new show.

The play is the Tectonic Theater Project’s sequel of sorts to its initial work The Laramie Project, which was based on interviews with numerous townspeople conducted a month after the October 1998 murder. The play debuted in 2000 and has stirred debate ever since, with some high school theater departments banned from producing it.

The material in the follow up play, which was first presented publicly in 2009, is no less socially charged. It includes interviews conducted with Shepard’s mother, Judy, and one of his killers, Aaron McKinney.

It is unclear how the work will be received in the more conservative Central Valley locales.

See page 8 >>

Out & Equal honors Warriors exec, Houston mayor in SF

by Chris Carson

R

ick Welts was flying high over the Midwest when the story about his coming out as a gay man working in men’s professional team sports was posted on the New York Times website.

Somewhere above Kansas City he thought to himself, “Holy cow, my whole life is changing down there.”

For decades Welts, who is now the president and COO of the Golden State Warriors, worked in the NBA with one corner of his life a secret, for

fear that revealing his full self would put his job at risk.

The decision to finally come out was made even more difficult by the fact that, as Welts put it, “there was nobody to go before me in a position like mine.”

But in the end, he said, getting the message of acceptance to just one person was more important, and in spring of last year Welts became the first senior executive of a men’s professional sports organization to come out publicly.

It was Welts’s openness, along with

his philanthropic work with the You Can Play Project, which seeks to promote inclusiveness of LGBT people in team sports at all levels, that encouraged Out & Equal Workplace Advocates to honor him at its Leadership Celebration, held at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel on March 14.

Out & Equal is an organization founded by Selisse Berry in order to promote acceptance of LGBT people in the workplace and every year the organization hosts the gala to honor those who are open about their sexu-

Rick Gerharter

Recipients of the 2012 Out & Equal Advocacy Awards join supporters of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates during their Leadership Conference. Neil Giuliano, left, accepted the honor for country music star Chely Wright; founding Executive Director Selisse Berry; award recipient Houston Mayor Annise Parker; dinner hosts Renee Brown and Mike Feldman; and award recipient Rick Welts, president and COO of the Golden State Warriors.

ality and exhibit leadership in their fields, furthering the cause for LGBT rights.

Along with Welts, Out & Equal also honored Houston Mayor Annise Parker and country music star Chely Wright.

In 2009, Parker was elected mayor of Houston, making her the first openly gay mayor of any major American city.

After the election, she said, “I got a personal call from President Obama.

Unfortunately, it went to voicemail.”

Now in her second two-year term as mayor, Parker has been vocal about her support for marriage equality and believes that the Democratic Party should adopt it as national policy.

As a result many of her political opponents in Texas feel she should resign as mayor, for putting what has been called “gay activism” above the state constitution. Texas is one of many states that bans same-sex marriage.

“Our honest approach to our lives,” Parker told those at the leadership celebration, “makes differences in other peoples lives. Creates ripples in the pond.”

“Remember a few things. We are not seeking equality; we are equal. We do not want rights; we have rights.

Yes, there is an agenda. The agenda is to end bulling of our youth, to serve our country with courage, to work with integrity, and to marry our spouses. We do not seek equality. We have to assert that equality, to educate those who don’t understand it,” Parker added.

Wright was not in attendance,

as her flight from New York to San Francisco was canceled due to bad weather.

But like Welts, Wright has also done a wide array of philanthropic work.

Recently, her Like Me nonprofit organization opened the Like Me Lighthouse in Kansas City, Missouri, as a safe haven to provide support and education for teens and their families during the coming out process.

She also provides scholarships for incoming college freshmen who are active in their support for the LGBT community.

All three honorees represent LGBT people working in professions that are perceived to be without gays and lesbians. In order to provide support for others working in such professions, Out & Equal also used the event as a fundraiser.

Tickets cost $300 and there was a silent auction, with items as varied as a football autographed by Joe Montana to a painting of Winnie-the-Pooh.

The items were donated by sponsors, among them Hewlett-Packard and the Walt Disney Company, or brought in by an outside company that chose to remain anonymous.

For the week of fundraising, Out & Equal garnered well over $150,000, said director of communications Justin Tanis.

Every dollar will surely be needed going forward, as Out & Equal plans to go international this summer with its first Global LGBT Workplace Summit, which will be held in July in London, just weeks before the Summer Olympics.▼

▼

Politics>>

March 22-28, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

Lesbian attorney seeks East Bay judgeship

by Matthew S. Bajko

A

champion-winning national women’s rugby player turned family law attorney has now entered the scrum for an open seat on the Alameda County Superior Court.

Should she win the race, Oakland resident Tara M. Flanagan would be the second out lesbian elected to the East Bay court. She is one of three people who filed to seek the seat; family law attorney Catherine Haley and civil litigator/mediator Andrew Wiener are also running.

If no one receives a majority on the June 5 primary ballot, the top two vote getters advance to a November runoff.

Flanagan told the Bay Area Reporter that she had been preparing to seek a judicial appointment through Governor Jerry Brown, whose duties include filling court vacancies, when Judge Carl Morris earlier this year decided to retire.

“I’ve always thought about it,” said Flanagan, 48, of becoming a jurist. “It is a job I could do and a job I would be very passionate about. It is the ultimate in public service and something I’ve always wanted to aspire to.”

A Bay Area native, Flanagan was born in San Francisco, attended high school in Concord and moved back a few years after earning her law degree at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. She has been a lifelong athlete and played on the women’s basketball team at Cal State Northridge.

Between 1990 and 1996 Flanagan played on the U.S. Women’s National Rugby Team, which won the sport’s World Cup in 1991. She also won a gold medal in women’s basketball as a member of Team L.A. at the 1990 Vancouver Gay Games.

She believes her athletic accomplishments have prepared her well for her first political campaign.

“A judge works very hard and long hours. It is the same thing as an athlete,” she said. “You don’t get to be a champion just one day by showing up at the field with your cleats.”

Her legal experience runs the gamut from the criminal courts to family law. Flanagan worked as a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles after law school then joined the law firm of Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard and Smith in San Francisco 10 years ago.

She later worked with domestic violence survivors at the Family Violence Law Center in Oakland, and in early 2011, opened her own private practice. For the last six years she has been a judge pro tem for the Alameda County court, handling small claims cases on a volunteer basis.

“A superior court judge hears three types of cases: civil, family, and criminal. I have broad experience in all three, and I’ve represented people on both sides of each type of case,” states Flanagan on her campaign site. “I’m committed to an efficient judicial system, which treats everyone with dignity and fairness.

I’m ready to put my experience to work as your judge.”

While she believes her broadbased legal knowledge is an asset in

Correction A caption in the March 15 article, “Advocates, IRS try to help LGBT tax filers” contained the incorrect spelling of the surname of volunteer tax preparer John Caton. The online version has been corrected.

the race, her sexual orientation, on the other hand, likely won’t matter to voters, said Flanagan in an interview last week.

“People are more interested in my experience. They want to know what skills and temperament I will bring to the law,” said Flanagan.

In 2010 Judge Victoria Kolakowski, a transgender woman who identifies as lesbian, became the first out person to win a seat on the Alameda County Superior Court. She and her wife, Bay Area Reporter news editor Cynthia Laird, live in the same condo building in Jack London Square as Flanagan.

Kolakowski wrote on Twitter earlier this month that she is “endorsing/supporting Tara Flanagan for the open Alameda County Superior Court judgeship. She will be an outstanding judge.”

According to a recent report on the LGBT makeup of the California court system, the Alameda bench has two gay men and a lesbian in addition to Kolakowski, the only known transgender judge on the state’s courts. Two of the judges have not publicly discussed their sexual orientation, while Judge Hugh Walker came out in a legal paper last year.

Flanagan is the only known LGBT judicial candidate in the Bay Area this year. She has just begun to seek endorsements from other judges and LGBT political groups, as well as fundraise. She estimates she needs $150,000 to be competitive in the race.

Serving as Flanagan’s campaign consultant is Doug Linney, who ran Kolakowski’s campaign and that of Judge Dennis Hayashi’s four years ago.

She plans to expand her website taraflanaganforjudge.com in the coming weeks.

Gay Sacto council candidate would donate pay Steve Hansen, a gay man running to be Sacramento’s first out city council member, plans to donate his pay toward helping small businesses should he win his race this June.

His salary of nearly $60,000 a year would go toward creating a venture capital fund focused on entrepreneurs in the state capitol.

A former LGBT rights lobbyist for Equality California, Hansen discussed his proposal at a fundraiser held in San Francisco last Thursday, March 15. Council seats are considered to be part-time positions, and Hansen said he would continue to work for biotechnology company Genentech in its Sacramento office should he be elected.

While his donation would be minimal, Hansen believes it could be leveraged to attract more contributions. The fund would be used “to invest in our small business community,” he said.

He also announced he had raised more than $100,000 toward a goal of $150,000 for his campaign coffers. He is facing six opponents, including Planning Commission Chair Joseph Yee and attorney Phyllis Newton, in the city’s District 4 council race.

On the web Online content this week includes the Jock Talk and Transmissions columns, the Bay Area Reporter’s online columns, Political Notes and Wedding Bell Blues, more News Briefs, and a photo of San Jose Pride at Monday’s Sharks hockey game. www.ebar.com.

Jane Philomen Cleland

Alameda County judicial candidate Tara M. Flanagan

Another gay candidate is also in the race, Terry Schanz, 34, who works as a policy director for Assemblyman Isadore Hall III (D-Los Angeles). According to his campaign site, Schanz is a Sacramento native and lives with his partner, Guy Strahl, in Land Park with their two Labrador retrievers, Nelson and Winnie.

He is banking on his family’s long ties to the city to boost his chances in the race.

“I am a fourth generation Sacramentan; I grew up in the house my great-grandparents built,” said Schanz, whose grandfather was a local firefighter and both parents are civil servants.

This week the Sacramento Central Labor Council gave a sole endorsement to Schanz.

“We are poised to be truly competitive in the primary election,” said Schanz, adding he plans to work part-time as a legislative aide should he win.

The other candidates are estate planning attorney David Turturici, DUI lawyer Michael Rehm, and Neil Davidson, an information technology analyst. If no one wins a majority of the vote in June there will be a runoff election between the top two finishers in November.

Hansen, 32 and single, lives in Alkali Flat and is running to represent

Sacramento’s downtown neighborhoods. It is the first time the city’s LGBT-centric areas are clustered in the same council district, a change Hansen helped push through as a member of Sacramento’s redistricting panel last year.

“The balance of power in Sacramento is shifting toward the urban core away from the suburbs,” Hansen said at the fundraiser held atop the Transamerica Pyramid.

Steve Adams, a fellow gay Irishman and president of the San Francisco Small Business Commission, hosted the event.

“I am a longtime supporter of LGBT people getting into office and making inroads” outside of the Bay Area, said Adams, a regional vice president of Sterling Bank and Trust.

“It is good to get our candidates into office in these other areas.”

Among those in attendance included lesbian San Francisco Port Commissioner Leslie Katz; gay mayoral homeless czar Bevan Dufty; and gay attorney Frank Lindh, whose son John Walker Lindh is serving a 20-year prison sentence in connection with his participation in Afghanistan’s Taliban army back in 2001.▼ Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check www.ebar.com Monday mornings around noon for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion.

This week’s column reports that four out judicial appointees in the Bay Area are unopposed at the ballot box.

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

Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 8615019 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.

<< Community News

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 22-28, 2012

▼

Tax issues add up to new business for preparers

by Matthew S. Bajko

A

ebar.com

ccountants and lawyers who handle tax issues in California report they have seen a bump in business since 2010 due to changes in how the Internal Revenue Service treats same-sex couples.

Two years ago the federal agency agreed to recognize the community property rights of registered domestic partners or married same-sex couples in a number of Western states. But as a story in last week’s Bay Area Reporter pointed out, the rule change has been anything but easy to implement.

The result, say tax experts, has been more LGBT couples seeking out professional assistance in figuring out their tax returns. While a financial drain for the tax filers, it has been good for business for preparers and tax attorneys.

“Certainly, helping taxpayers get their tax issues worked out is good for business, but it is a double-edged sword for taxpayers,” acknowledged Aubrey Hone, who left Ernest and Young a year ago to open her own firm, Hone Tax Law, in downtown San Francisco.

Hone, who worked with the LGBT Community Center to set up its free tax help for low-income LGBT people, said she has worked with many same-sex couples that have encountered issues with the IRS. “I handle a lot of controversies and disputes,” said Hone. “I represent taxpayers in audits.”

Since last year Jeff Johnston has advertised his tax group’s services to LGBT people through a marketing campaign in the B.A.R. As soon as city inspectors sign off on his permits, which he hopes will occur this week, Johnston will open a second location in the Castro.

“A lot of business has come to us from registered domestic partners because of the change in the way the IRS processes federal returns since 2010,” said Johnston, whose staff has been working out of a temporary location near the new Castro office. “Certainly, it is a big part of our business. It is one of the areas we specialize in.”

The cost of using a tax professional is usually balanced out by the economic benefits from the recognition of a couple’s community property rights, said Johnston.

“Almost always we can find where it saves a couple money,” said Johnston, especially when one partner makes considerably more than the other.

“Once in a while that is not true.”

Elisha Wiesenberg, an L.A.-based certified public accountant, hired a new staffer last year due to an uptick in business since 2010.

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Gay theater

From page 6

“I really feel it will be received well in terms of I don’t anticipate demonstrations or anything negative,” said Rose.

Based on her experience of doing the youth productions over the last decade, Staley expects the Pride on Tour performances will be embraced.

“YouthAware used to get more blowback in conservative communities when I first started. I have seen change in that respect,” she said.

“Education is still needed with some people but I don’t see their panties getting into a wad as much as we did 10 years ago.”

The tour kicks off June 1 at Nevada

Jane Philomen Cleland

San Francisco tax preparer Jeff Johnston specializes in work for same-sex couples.

“We are growing. I would say the fastest growing segment is LGBT couples,” he said.

To help LGBT couples figure out the new IRS tax rules, Wiesenberg issued a list of the top five tax tips they should observe. Chief among them is not to rely on computerized tax filing services.

“At-home software programs are great for simple tax situations, but registered domestic partners can have enormously complicated returns,” Wiesenberg said. “The new federal guidelines obligate RDPs and same-sex married couples to com-

bine their income and split it, and athome tax software just isn’t capable of handling these situations.”

Couples need to discuss each other’s incomes and debt obligations, said Wiesenberg, and share their financial documents with each other.

They also should keep copious notes when talking with the IRS or a tax preparer.

He also suggests same-sex couples fill out forms 8821 and 2848 so that either partner can discuss tax issues with the IRS. “Even though you’re filing as a couple, the federal government and IRS don’t permit you to talk about each others’ taxes or make decisions without the proper forms,” noted

Wiesenberg.

One area causing confusion is selfemployment income. Tax preparers have been arguing with the IRS over how to ensure a self-employed person receives the full Social Security benefits from their income, even though half of it is being designated as their partner’s income.

“People who are self-employed want full credit for social security purposes, but the IRS says you only get half,” said Santa Clara University law professor Patricia Cain, who blogs about tax issues samesex couples encounter at tinyurl. com/7wd7o2l. “It is very complicated. Whatever positions the IRS takes, there are winners and losers.”

Cain has advised a number of couples that received notices from the IRS saying they miscalculated their self-employment taxes last year.

“Even though the full self-employment tax has been paid by the earner, they are saying, ‘No, it’s got to be paid by the non-earner.’ We may have to go to court to challenge it because the IRS said it is not going to change its mind,” said Cain. “I would be willing to litigate it pro bono for anyone who wants to challenge it.”

Asked to articulate the IRS’ stance on the issue, a spokesman pointed the B.A.R. to the agency’s Q&A on the subject at tinyurl.com/66n5ahk.

Until the federal government treats same-sex couples the same as heterosexual married couples, LGBT partners with complicated tax returns should seek professional help, said Wiesenberg.

“So many people want to do it themselves and do it themselves every year. Now all of a sudden they can’t do it themselves,” he said. “They are stuck going to a tax preparer and it is costing them money. That is the biggest area where it is unfair.”▼

Union High School’s Don Baggett Theater and will end in Fresno on June 17 at The Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno. It stops at the Solano Community College Fairfield Campus Theatre June 9 and the Gallo Center for the Arts in downtown Modesto June 15.

Ticket prices for the shows vary, from free to $25, with all the proceeds funding the local groups helping to mount the productions. In Fresno adults can purchase higher-priced tickets that will sponsor one youth seeing the Sunday afternoon performance.

Each performance will feature a cast talk with the audience to discuss the topics broached by the play, such as homophobia, social isolation, and

anti-gay bullying.

“Often in these communities they don’t have other resources to teach around these issues so they put on The Laramie Project,” said Staley.

For ticket information for any of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later shows, visit www.nctcsf.org/press_ room/laramie_project.htm.

New Conservatory in conjunction with the Yale Alumni Association will also present a Mother’s Day benefit for its youth programming at 5 p.m.

May 13 at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts. Tony Award winner Brian Stokes Mitchell and Yale’s male a cappella group the Whiffenpoofs are scheduled to perform. Tickets go on sale April 1 and range from $200 VIP to $25 general admission. ▼

“We are growing.

I would say the fastest growing segment is LGBT couples.”

–Elisha Wiesenberg

Read more online at www.ebar.com

March 22-28, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 22-28, 2012

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

▼

National News>>

March 22-28, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 11

O’Malley a hit at Catholic conference

by Michael K. Lavers

F

resh off his signing the state’s marriage equality bill, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley told a group of progressive Catholics in Baltimore over the weekend that the new law upholds both individual and religious freedoms.

“At the end of the day, all of us want the same thing for our kids – we want our children to grow up in caring, committed and loving homes, protected equally under the law,” O’Malley said in a speech at the New Ways Ministry’s annual symposium. “Our success in this recent debate in the Maryland General Assembly was a success that was based on those fundamental beliefs, those fundamental principles that we share – foremost among them in our belief in the dignity of every individual.”

O’Malley, who is Catholic and a Democrat, received a standing ovation as he entered a ballroom at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel and took the stage to deliver his remarks Friday, March 16. He specifically thanked New Ways Ministry for its efforts in support of the marriage equality bill.

“Thank you, especially for your voice in the debate that we just con-

Michael K. Lavers

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley spoke at New Ways Ministry’s annual symposium in Baltimore last weekend.

cluded in the General Assembly of Maryland on the issue of how we will protect freedom of religions and rights equally,” said O’Malley.

O’Malley on March 1 signed his state’s marriage equality bill. Seven other states and the District of Columbia have legalized marriage for gays and lesbians.

Washington Governor Chris Gregoire (D), who is also Catholic, in February signed a bill that will allow

same-sex couples to legally marry in the Evergreen State. New Jersey lawmakers also approved a similar measure last month, but Republican Governor Chris Christie vetoed it.

Rhode Island legislators introduced a bill in February that would allow gays and lesbians to marry in the Ocean State.

New Hampshire lawmakers are scheduled to vote this week on a bill that would repeal their state’s marriage equality law. North Carolinians will vote on a proposed constitutional amendment in May that would ban nuptials for gays and lesbians, while Minnesotans will consider a similar measure in November. Maine voters will vote on a referendum that would allow samesex couples to marry.

Former Baltimore Archbishop Edwin O’Brien was among those who lobbied against Maryland’s marriage equality bill, but a national Public Religion Research Institute poll last May found that 56 percent of white Catholics and 53 percent of Latino Catholics support nuptials for gays and lesbians. The same survey found that nearly three-quarters of Catholics favor marriage or civil unions for same-sex couples.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) and New Hampshire

Governor John Lynch (D) are among the other Catholic governors who have also signed marriage equality bills into law. Maryland House Speaker Michael Busch (DAnne Arundel) is among the Catholic lawmakers who voted to allow same-sex couples to tie the knot in the Free State.

“I’m not here as a Catholic, I’m here as the governor for all of Maryland,” said O’Malley. “What we should expect and demand of all of our leaders is that when they take an oath to uphold the constitution it is to protect rights equally of all people ... and that’s really what this is all about.”

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, welcomed the governor’s remarks.

“As Catholics, we are proud of Governor O’Malley’s ardent support of marriage equality,” he said.

“His support is in the best tradition of Catholicism’s legacy of social justice for all.”

Phil Attey, executive director of Catholics for Equality, applauded O’Malley’s leadership on the issue.

“Without his pro-equality leadership, this legislation would not have reached his desk today,” said Attey in a statement shortly after O’Malley signed the marriage equality bill.

Maryland’s marriage equality law is slated to take effect on January 1, pending the outcome of a likely referendum that will challenge the statute. O’Malley cited the state’s founders, who sought to create a refuge from religious persecution, as he expressed optimism that Marylanders will vote against the ballot measure.

“I truly believe that ultimately the voters of our state will once again, as they have many times before throughout our history together, come down on the side of human dignity,” he said.▼

Johnson recalls parents’ love, support

by Chuck Colbert

day is the story of a daughter, a lesbian daughter, who felt her mother’s love and acceptance deeply,” Johnson told several hundred people during the closing session of New Ways Ministry’s seventh national Symposium on Catholicism and Homosexuality.

“I remember when I first came out, and my mom was not happy,” said Johnson. “Each year at the Gay Pride Parade, I would stand and applaud those P-FLAG moms and dads for their courage and their compassion.

And I would pray that one day mom and dad would walk beside me in that contingent.”

“As I got older, I stopped needing parades,” Johnson continued. “And what I got was even better. I got a life where my mother and father adored my life partner. I got a life where my

parents walked me down the aisle at our (not so legal) wedding. I got a life where, on our last happy time together, I thanked my mom for accepting and embracing me and for loving my partner so much. Her response was to pat Ruth on the leg as she looked her in the eye with the most beautiful smile and said, ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way – right?’”

As Johnson spoke, any number of symposium attendees fought back tears.

“You see Midge and Dick Johnson’s youngest daughter who is deeply heartbroken her parents are no longer here on this earth with her and her family,” said Johnson.

“You see this daughter who wound up in a whirlwind of media spectacle,” she continued. “You see this daughter who was placed in a state of grace by none other than her beloved mother.”

“For there is no more amazing state of grace than the one I was honored to receive as my mother allowed me to witness her passing from this life and into the dancing arms of my dad,” she added.

Afterwards, Johnson said several priests approached her, apologizing on behalf of the church for the painful incident and the priest’s pastoral insensitivity.

For his part, Father Guarnizo, who has been placed on leave, insists, “I did the only thing a faithful Catholic priest could do,” in refusing communion to Johnson, he said, according to a written statement that he issued on March 14 and was first published by Catholic News Service.▼

hotel management, limousine chauffer, and most recently as a corporate concierge. Jim was the ultimate tour guide.

Previously, Jim lived and worked in Atlantic City, New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.

Born in Norristown, Pennsylvania on October 11, 1952, he was the oldest son of the late G. Harold Snively Jr. and Peggy (Baker) Snively and the brother to the late William (Bill) Snively.

He was a graduate of Plymouth Whitemarsh High School, class of 1970.

Surviving are his sister Jeanne (Sniv-

ely) Somerville and her husband Joe, of Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania; a nephew, Kevin Snively Somerville, and a niece, Caitlin (Caity) Somerville. Two nieces from his late brother Bill: Amanda (Mandy) S. Claussen (husband, Erich) of West Chester, Pennsylvania, and Jill Snively (fiance Kenny Roy) of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania; two grandnieces, Brianna and Ashleigh, and a grandnephew, Nathan.

A memorial service will be held at a later date. For more information please email JimSnivelyMemorial@gmail.com.

A

progressive Catholic symposium dealing with gay and lesbian relationships in the church concluded on an affective note here when the woman who was denied communion at her mother’s funeral spoke poignantly about the experience.

“It’s my mother’s love and compassion, and willingness to stand up for what is right that you see standing before you today,” Barbara Johnson told conference attendees.

“And not ‘Barbara Johnson, lesbian denied communion’ or ‘Barbara Johnson, Buddhist Catholic,’” she added.

During the funeral Mass on Saturday, February 25, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, the Reverend Marcel Guarnizo refused the Eucharist to Johnson, telling her, “I cannot give you communion because you live with a woman, and in the eyes of the church that is a sin.”

The communion incident caused a media stir and dismayed Catholics nationwide and around the world.

In the several weeks since, detractors have attempted to discredit Johnson, a 51-year-old artist, labeling her an activist, Buddhist, communist, and even atheist.

But Johnson would have none of it on St. Patrick’s Day. A lifelong Catholic and former Catholic schoolteacher, Johnson lives in Washington, D.C., with her partner of many years. She formerly lived in Chicago.

“What I want to share with you to-

Chuck Colbert

Barbara Johnson gave an emotional speech at New Ways Ministry’s conference last weekend.

Obituaries >> James Harold Snively October 11, 1952 – March 14, 2012

James (Jim) Harold Snively passed away on Wednesday, March 14 at his home in San Francisco. He was 59.

Jim spent the last 26 years as a proud resident of San Francisco. His professional experiences included retail sales,

ebar.com

<<From the Cover

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 22-28, 2012

<<

EQCA

From page 1

The bills are “under development,” Orr said. She declined to offer more specifics. “We want to make sure we are careful about alerting our opposition to what we’re working on and limiting their time to organize against us,” she said. She did say, “The bills will be primarily youth focused.”

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Packer

From page 1

For fiscal year 2012-13, the HIV Prevention Section, which currently has a budget of about $17 million, is expecting a cut of $3.1 million from the CDC and the California state Office of AIDS. In the 2013-14 fiscal year, the city’s prevention agency is expecting a cut of $2.1 million from the CDC. Those decreases come on top of cuts to San Francisco’s share of federal Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act money. City officials, including Mayor Ed Lee, have expressed a commitment to preserving services that have been paid for by that funding.

“In terms of specific service cuts, we have not identified that at this time, but we know it could be a potential of a 20 percent cut to our community programs,” Packer said, referring to the $3.1 million reduction.

She added that the department would “look at internal cuts as well,” but it hasn’t been determined whether there would be staff cuts. The prevention section has a staff of about 50, plus recruiters that they hire as they roll out studies.

Packer, who recently met with a group of providers to talk about finances, said she didn’t know of any mergers coming among the organizations.

Priorities include continuing to

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ACT UP’s legacy

From page 1

nomic justice and treatments and cures for HIV disease,” ACT UP/New York member George Carter told the Bay Area Reporter. “Desperation, suffering, and death drove us then and drive us still.”

A brief history ACT UP was founded in March 1987 by a group of activists who attended a talk by author Larry Kramer at the LGBT Community Center in New York City. Kramer asked twothirds of the audience to stand up, and told them they would be dead in five years. Attendees agreed to hold a follow-up meeting and were soon planning actions.

“What happened at the Monday night meetings was a miraculous coming together of assorted tribes with one goal in mind: stop people from dying of AIDS or getting infected,” recalled early member Michael Petrelis. “We brought our fears and love, fierce intelligence, desperate hopes, political ideas, crazy anger, sexual desires, and do-able demands to keep more of us alive longer and as healthy as possible.”

On March 24, ACT UP held its first demonstration, a “die-in” on Wall Street to protest the high price of AZT (then the sole approved AIDS drug), lack of access to experimental compounds, and placebo-controlled clinical trials in which some participants received no treatment.

The group’s stylistic flair, eyecatching graphics, and savvy use of media garnered widespread attention, and ACT UP chapters soon sprang up across the United States and in other countries.

Many of ACT UP’s largest protests were aimed at the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. Presidents from Ronald Reagan through George Bush

‘Significantly stronger’ Despite EQCA’s struggles, Orr said, “I would say we’re in significantly stronger shape than we were several months ago.”

Among the factors she pointed to are that “the financial picture is significantly better” and “the staff has grown significantly in the last several months.”

Orr said, “I think an indicator of our strength as an organization is

strengthen the “really strong partnership” the prevention office has with community-based agencies, clients, research participants, and others, Packer said.

She also emphasized “the importance of the strategy that San Francisco is using to prevent HIV.” That strategy’s focus includes preventing new HIV infections through getting people tested and linking HIV-positive people to “appropriate, effective care,” and addressing disparities.

“The providers have it down, and they are doing an amazing job providing services,” Packer said.

PrEP San Francisco is expected to become the first city in the country to offer gay men an anti-HIV pill that has proven successful in stopping transmission of the virus that causes AIDS. Officials with the National Institutes of Health and the city’s health department have been working on an agreement to launch a demonstration project for usage of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. The combination pill contains tenofovir and emtricitabine (Gilead Science’s Truvada) and has proven to be highly effective during clinical trials studying its efficacy.

Last year, Colfax said, “We are hoping the demo project would be implemented in the first quarter of 2012.”

Packer said last week that the defelt the group’s wrath. The Catholic Church was a frequent target due to its homophobic policies and opposition to condom use. Memorable actions included disrupting a CBS Evening News broadcast to protest the first Gulf War, draping a giant condom over Senator Jesse Helms’s (R-North Carolina) house, and depositing the corpse of a person with AIDS on the White House lawn.

“ACT UP’s greatest accomplishment was shaming the country and two Republican presidents to dramatically increase the NIH AIDS research budget,” said Peter Staley, who was handed a flier about the first demo while working on Wall Street, saw it on the national news that night, and showed up for the next ACT UP meeting. “Those billions of dollars spent on basic research led to the treatment breakthroughs we take for granted today.”

Locally, ACT UP had a more fraught history. ACT UP/San Francisco started not long after the New York group, building on earlier activist efforts such as the AIDS/ARC vigil at Civic Center Plaza.

Following a rousing week of actions at the sixth International AIDS Conference in June 1990, the group split in the fall as advocates who wanted to focus on HIV treatment rather than a broad social justice agenda formed ACT UP/Golden Gate (later renamed Survive AIDS).

The original ACT UP/SF dwindled in numbers and within a few years became dominated by AIDS dissidents, who at first promoted unorthodox treatments and later denied that HIV was the cause of AIDS and discouraged use of antiretroviral drugs.

By the late 1990s, many ACT UP veterans had been lost to AIDS, effective new treatments began to restore health and allow HIV-positive people to resume normal lives, many activists had joined AIDS service organizations, and having a Democrat

▼

where we are in terms of raising our total anticipated budget for the year.”

She said that in 2011, the initial projected budget for EQCA and its affiliated Equality California Institute had been $3.5 million. EQCA ended up raising just $2.5 million.

This year, Orr said, the budget for the organization, which is based on the calendar year, hasn’t yet been finalized. However, she said, the goal is to bring in about $2.5 million. As of last

week, EQCA had raised almost $1.4 million. The majority of that money has come from foundations.

Orr said that money would be used for activities including the Breakthrough Conversation project, a campaign designed to educate people about LGBT issues; advance legislative work; and help “elect and protect” pro-equality officials.

The funds may also be needed for an initiative campaign if opponents

of the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Education Act succeed in getting a repeal measure on the ballot in November. The law, also known as Senate Bill 48, requires that California school students be taught about LGBTs’ historical contributions.

Orr acknowledged the budgeting process this year has been slow.

“In an ideal world, I think we would finalize a budget very early in the See page 13 >>

partment’s STD Prevention and Control Services Section and City Clinic, which is part of the health department and offers testing for sexuallytransmitted diseases and other services, are “very close” to rolling out the demonstration project.

“We’re really excited about this opportunity,” Packer said. “I think it’s the first demonstration in the country, if not the world, looking at the feasibility of PrEP.”

living with HIV/AIDS in San Francisco.

“I really, honestly do see the value of testing and treatment, but not at the expense of primary prevention, and the psycho-social issues that place people at increased risk,” Hernandez said.

He said problems such as a lack of decent employment opportunities can lead transgender clients to engage in sex work, and “The more unsafe sex they have, the more money they can make,” he said.

His agency’s staff used to ask clients more about housing, employment, and other concerns. Now, he said, “The emphasis has shifted toward how many transgender women can we test every month” and similar concerns.

Speaking to the example of housing, Packer said, “We of course need more supportive housing, but HIV prevention absolutely allows for that linkage, and we strongly encourage our organizations to be linked to housing organizations” so they can refer clients.

She also said that “Evidence-based interventions that are addressing the factors that put people at risk for HIV is essential for this approach that we’re using.”

Despite his issues with the prevention section’s shift, Hernandez had praise for Packer.

“She truly cares about the work that we’re all doing, and I think she

really wants to work collaboratively with all the organizations in San Francisco,” he said.

Kaushik Roy, executive director of the San Francisco nonprofit Shanti, also gave high marks to Packer.

In response to emailed questions, Roy said Packer “has been highly competent, professional, approachable, attuned to the needs of San Francisco and its many communities, and is very knowledgeable about the system of care.” He added that she’s “a natural fit” for the director’s position.

Shanti uses HIV Prevention Section funding to support its Learning Immune Function Enhancement program. LIFE offers workshops, individual health counseling, and other services for people living with HIV. Roy said outcomes include more engagement in primary care and clients having “greater levels of self-esteem and confidence in their ability to manage their HIV disease.”

change. This is what we hope to reinspire on April 6.”

ACT UP’s success can be attributed to the single-minded focus of desperate people trying to save their own lives and those of their friends and lovers, coupled with the experience and know-how of seasoned activists from the feminist and gay liberation movements.

“People felt they had the power to change things, and it gave people who were facing death something to do to fight for their lives,” John Iversen, founder of ACT UP/East Bay, told the B.A.R. “One of the results of AIDS was that it brought lesbians together with gay men, and that’s something I am so proud to have been part of,” said longtime activist Kate Raphael.

“When so many activist dykes began putting more of our energy into the LGBT and AIDS movements, and less into the women’s movement, it helped to radicalize queer movements and, I think, hastened the decline of the more radical strands of feminism.”

Despite its radical image, ACT UP’s goals were largely reformist. On the whole, it did not seek to overthrow the state or abolish capitalism, but instead demanded that government and industry respect and meet the needs of people with AIDS. As an advocacy movement, ACT UP is credited with lasting changes in the way new drugs are developed, clinical trials are conducted, and health care providers relate to patients. As an identity movement, it contributed to changing attitudes and increased acceptance of LGBT people.

“Every treatment for HIV/AIDS exists because gay activists, almost all from ACT UP and Project Inform, fought for them,” Kramer told the B.A.R. “This should stand as one of the great examples of what the gay population can achieve when they

want something badly enough.”

But the larger vision that was also central to ACT UP – an egalitarian society with economic justice for all and freedom from discrimination and oppression – remains the goal of a new wave of activists.

“We did make enormous changes and brought medications to millions, but the struggle against greed, ignorance, and stupidity continues to this day,” said Carter. “ACT UP and Occupy must unite to bring economic justice – which means, among other things, health care for every human as a right – in order to exert the lasting systemic changes that are so necessary at this point in human history.”

Concerns Colfax recently ushered in a new direction for how the city, and the community-based agencies it funds, approach reducing the spread of HIV. A higher focus is being given to testing people regularly and offering treatment sooner to people who are HIV-positive in an attempt to further reduce new infections in San Francisco. More attention is also being paid to the overall HIV viral load in the community, as new research has shown reducing viral load counts helps bring down new HIV infections.

Health education and risk reduction has been de-emphasized.

Asked what he would like to see from the city’s prevention agency, Armando Hernandez, who manages the Si a la Vida program at Instituto Familiar de la Raza, brought up the changes. His program provides a range of culturally based services for Latinos at risk of infection, and those in the White House encouraged an “insider” strategy.

The focus of AIDS activism shifted overseas, with efforts to help poor people in Africa and elsewhere gain access to the drugs that had transformed the epidemic in high-income countries. But some activists kept their focus on the domestic side, fighting for funding and services for marginalized people with HIV in the U.S.

Lasting legacy Today ACT UP is widely acknowledged for bringing back militant street activism and for its skillful use of art and media. Sociologist Benjamin Shepard and others have cited ACT UP as an influence for the global justice movement – best known for the “Battle of Seattle” World Trade Organization protests in 1999 – and this influence continues with today’s Occupy movement.

“In 1993 when I was 19 I moved to [New York] city and found ACT UP,” recalled Amanda Ream, a union organizer who works with Pride at Work and Occupy Oakland. “I learned how to take personal risks in ACT UP, and that when you are willing to put your personal comfort level on the line, and do the thing that is the hardest but the most urgent and necessary, that’s when you win.”

“ACT UP was community driven – what it became in the world was the sum of the people who were in it: creative, smart and fighting for their lives,” said Cyd Nova, who with Ream is helping organize a commemorative protest next month. “Now, the representation of HIV/AIDS has become the territory of non-government organizations and pharmaceutical companies. We have lost a culture where communities affected by HIV were part of vibrant grassroots movement, where they could funnel their love and their rage toward demanding governmental action and social

Packer’s future As to whether she wants her current job permanently, Packer said, “I am here to serve and to provide the support to our communities, our clients, and our staff as long as I can.

We’ll see what happens.”

Asked in an email about a search for a new HIV Prevention Section director, health department spokeswoman Eileen Shields responded, “Can’t we just let Tracey have her moment here?”▼

Commemorations The 25th anniversary of ACT UP’s founding has inspired various commemorations in the days ahead.

Two documentaries about ACT UP, David France’s How to Survive a Plague, which premiered at Sundance, and Jim Hubbard and Sarah Schulman’s United In Anger, which debuted recently at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, are expected to be shown in San Francisco later this year.

The GLBT History Museum in the Castro last week unveiled a new exhibit, Life and Death in Black and White, showcasing photographs of early AIDS activism in San Francisco.

A panel discussion about ACT UP’s legacy and lessons for contemporary activism will take place this Saturday, March 24, at 5 p.m. at the Women’s Building, 3543 18th Street.

Finally, an anniversary protest on April 6 will bring the ACT UP spirit to bear on current struggles including gentrification and evictions, criminalization of sex workers, and the Catholic Church’s continued oppression of LGBT people and opposition to reproductive rights. The action will start at 4 p.m. at the 16th Street BART plaza, ending at 6 at Castro and Market streets.▼

▼ <<

Community News>>

EQCA

From page 12

year,” she said. However, she said, the organization “has been in flux. We’ve been looking at how we prioritize the work that we’re doing, and we’re being really realistic about what it will really cost. I think we’ve taken a very cautious approach ... to make sure we really maximize donor dollars.”

One area EQCA is cutting expenses in is the San Francisco Equality Awards, which is planned for April 14. Last year, the organization spent $119,000. Orr said they’re anticipating expenses of $90,000 this year.

Orr said they’ve also increased the size of their field team, while the development staff is “much leaner.”

She said in October 2011 there were 12 staff members. Now, EQCA has over 50, and they’re recruiting for more.

Field staff accounts for much of that growth. Orr said those people are talking to voters through streetbased and door-to-door canvassing, primarily in southern California; and phone banking statewide.

She said they’re mainly talking to people about the FAIR Education Act and also “identifying new supporters of marriage equality.”

Optimism Several people seemed to express cautious optimism about EQCA’s future.

Gay Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), who’s worked with the organization on legislation, said, “My experience this year has actually been a positive one.” He pointed to EQCA working again with Alice Kessler, who previously served as EQCA’s government relations director from 2005 to 2009, and said,

<<

Out in the World

From page 2

each cheek, but that affection crosses a line when it becomes sexual.

He himself is only out to his younger brother in Iraq, who doesn’t speak about it. The rest of his family doesn’t know, he said.

In spite of the secrecy and living in the shadows under Saddam Hussein’s rule, Al-Sharif said he “never heard about gays being killed” or “death squads” for “emos” and LGBT individuals under his regime. Emo, short for “emotional” or “emocore,” is slang for a style influenced by Western Goth or punk movements. Emo is often mistakenly used interchangeably to describe LGBT individuals, according to experts.

Targeting, harassing, and murdering emos and LGBT individuals is a recent occurrence under the Shiite rule and religious practices imported from Iran, Al-Sharif said, agreeing with experts.

Al-Sharif is even more outraged and upset after the recent killings of emos and LGBT Iraqis, especially after watching Ammar Al-hakim, a powerful Shiia leader, on YouTube claiming emos as a security risk.

“I was very upset to see that picture in front of me. A leader who puts such nonsense to people [to] make them do a death squad ... and legalize killing ... gay people ... it’s just ridiculous for me,” said AlSharif.

Photos and video of the murders of emos and LGBT Iraqis, such as the one released by Live Leak and circulated on international queer listserves last week (http://www. liveleak.com/view?i=66f_1331855 655&comments=1) are only evidence of a few of the reported murders.

Most of these deaths have been sanctioned by Iraq’s top officials and have gone without an in-depth investigation and remain unsolved, according to media reports and international human rights experts.

According to the Associated

March 22-28, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 13

“She’s been extremely helpful.”

Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, worked closely with EQCA’s former director Kors during the unsuccessful No on 8 campaign in 2008. Both served on the campaigns’ executive committee.

Like others, Kendell indicated that she wasn’t intimately familiar with EQCA’s staffing and financial troubles.

However, she said, “I think it’s very important for California to have an effective and muscular statewide LGBT political organization. We’ve won huge gains based largely on EQCA’s leadership, but those can slip, and we can go backwards.”

EQCA’s “rebuilding mode needs to be supported, and we need them back at full staff, and full strength, being the go-to organization for political, legislative, and policy development in California,” she said.

Kendell’s made financial contributions to the statewide lobbying organization in the past, but she said she hasn’t decided whether to support it this year.

EQCA is a member of the national Equality Federation. Executive Director Rebecca Isaacs said her organization aids groups with capacity building, communications issues, and other matters.

Like others, Isaacs talked about the importance of EQCA being strong, but seemed hesitant to say the nonprofit’s in good shape.

Asked about that, Isaacs said, “I think that basically the life of all the states’ organizations involves ebbs and flows, and I think after a major campaign there’s often a retrenchment. ... Fundraising ebbs and flows, the issues ebb and flow, and our goal is always to work to help the organi-

zations be as strong as they possibly can.”

San Jose resident Clark Williams, a co-chair of the state Democratic Party’s LGBT Caucus, invited EQCA’s Kessler to give caucus members an update on the agency during the party’s convention earlier this year.

“I think all of us are concerned about the status of EQCA. I still really believe there is a critical role for EQCA to play,” said Williams. “And I want to see them to continue and secure investments from our community to do a lot of legislative work they have been engaged in for many years.”

The leadership vacuum at EQCA could be a major opportunity for the agency, said Williams. Who EQCA hires as its new leader could be as impactful as the recent hiring of Chad Griffin as the next president of the Human Rights Campaign, he said.

“There has been a lot of celebration over the new leadership of HRC. In some parts of California people don’t like HRC because of the views they have about the leadership. I think EQCA is the same way,” he said. “One good hire could make a big difference in what the LGBT community feels about that organization.”

He also said, “My belief is we all need to give them some room to try to fix what may be broken,” said Williams. “At the end of the day I believe there is a role for EQCA to play in our LGBT community. It may be different than the work it was doing a few years ago, but we are also a different community than a few years ago.”

For more information on Equality California and the San Francisco Equality Awards, visit www.eqca.org.▼

Press, the Iraqi government hasn’t offered “any specific protections for emos or given any other assurances that they won’t be targeted with violence” since news of the murders spread globally, putting Iraq in the hot seat.

Earlier this week, students protesting at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad were harassed by officers on campus for their “clothing styles” or “mannerisms,” reported the news agency.

The U.S. and other governments, along with international human rights and LGBT organizations, condemned the violence and insisted on an investigation late last week.

The Iraqi government is now backtracking following the international outcry and the U.S. Embassy there is stepping in, according to the statement posted on its website (http://iraq.usembassy.gov/violencestatement.html) March 15.

Within the past week a representative of the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani condemned the violence, calling the killings “terrorist attacks.”

The chairperson of the Human Rights Committee in Iraq’s Parliament and other public officials’ also denounced the killings, according to the San Francisco group Gays Without Borders, who said it heard from Michael McClellan, spokesman of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

“Through our advocacy and diplomatic efforts, we will continue to urge the Iraqi government to condemn attacks on the LGBT community and to devote all possible attention to preventing such crimes,” McClellan said in the email.

“We are giving a whole lot of money to Iraq. The minimum expectations we have are that they demonstrate an iota of responsibility when it comes to human rights and prosecuting or condemning them,” said Gays Without Borders member Clinton Fein at last week’s protest in the Castro.

Al-Sharif welcomes international support and LGBT human rights activists’ public protests against Iraq.

“I support them 100 percent,”

said Al-Sharif, who is known as “Chef G,” at Project Open Hand, where he works. “I support any person in the world who wants to do right, kindness, and justice.”

Al-Sharif stays in touch with friends in Iraq who, along with queer news on Facebook, keep him up to date on what is happening in the community. But there is no mobilization of the queer Iraqis who have found comfort and safety in the Bay Area and Western nations.

His small group of friends doesn’t want to talk about what is happening to their community and friends back home, or they are “scared to talk about it,” he said.

Many of his friends want to come out, but they are afraid of their family, reputation, and what will happen to them, he said. But he questions his friends and community living in the Western world, “You are here. Why are you afraid?”

They “just want to live their secret lives,” he said.

Yet, he is also unsure of the effectiveness of Iraqi LGBT, a Londonbased organization that is forcefully speaking out and attempting to galvanize the Iraqi queer community globally.

Until the walls of fear and shame come down and real movement is seen, Al-Sharif doesn’t believe more queer Iraqis will be protesting the murders of emos and LGBT Iraqis in the streets of the Castro or any other queer-friendly city, much less Baghdad, anytime soon.

For more information, visit http://gayswithoutborders.wordpress.com or http://iraqilgbt.org.uk.

To contact the Embassy of the Republic of Iraq, write to 3421 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W, Washington, D.C. 20007, phone (202) 742-1600, ext. 136, or email info@iraqiembassy.us.▼

Matthew S. Bajko contributed to this report.

A longer version is online at ebar.com.

Got international LGBT news tips?

Call or send them to Heather Cassell at 00+1-415-221-3541, Skype: heather.cassell, or heather@whimsymedia.com.

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This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Matthew G. Chang. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/07/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/12.

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 statement file A- 034187100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SIMPLY BEAUTY SKIN CARE, 2701 Judah St., SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Kim Hung Lee. 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 03/08/12.

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 statement file A- 034185500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MOE HARB LIMOSINE SERVICES, 2048 Polk St. #331, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Moe Harb. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/07/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/12.

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 statement file A- 034191000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BODYWORKS WITH JAMES GIRARD, 32 Sanchez St., SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed James Girard. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/09/12.

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 statement file A- 034180700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PEDIATRIC NEUROPSYCHOLOGY CLINIC, 3641 Sacramento St. #B, SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Lisa Sporri. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/06/12.

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 statement file A- 034197500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CONCART FURNITURE, 1120 Illinois St., SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Carlos I. Concuan. 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 03/13/12.

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 statement file A- 034197000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MINI SMOKE SHOP, 581 Ellis St., SF, CA 94109.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Nghia Tran. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/08/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/13/12.

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 statement file A- 034182800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LUPITA SHOES & GIFT, 4489 Mission St., SF, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Guadalupe Garibay Leon. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/12.

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 Statement of abandonment of use of fictitious business name FILE# A- 032047700 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: LUPITA SHOES & GIFT, 4489 Mission St., SF, CA 94112. This business was conducted by a general partnership, signed Xian Xiao Ng. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/10/2009.

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 notice of application FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF alcoholic beverage LICENSE Dated 03/08/12 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: SUGITA FOODS INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 1515 Clay Street, Suite 2208, Oakland, CA 94612 to sell alcoholic beverages at 101 4th St. Spc 1, SF, CA 94103-3003. Type of license applied for

41-On-sale beer and wine eating place MAR 22, 2012

state of california in and for the county of san francisco file# CNC12-548511 In the matter of the application of: JI YUNG YANG for change of name. The application of JI YUNG YANG for change of name having been filed in Court, and it appearing from said application that JI YUNG YANG filed an application proposing that ELLIYH YEOM be changed to ELLIYH YANG and ELLIANAH YEOM be changed to ELLIANAH YANG. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Room 514 on the 22nd of May, 2012 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MaR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 state of california in and for the county of san francisco file# CNC12-548474 In the matter of the application of: JOSEPH PAUL BAQUERA for change of name. The application of JOSEPH PAUL BAQUERA for change of name having been filed in Court, and it appearing from said application that JOSEPH PAUL BAQUERA filed an application proposing that his/her name be changed to JOSEPH MICHAEL PAUL. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Room 514 on the 3rd of May 2012 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MaR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 state of california in and for the county of san francisco file# CNC12-548496 In the matter of the application of: DAREL OCTAVIUS AYAP for change of name and gender.

The application of DAREL OCTAVIUS AYAP for change of name and gender having been filed in Court, and it appearing from said application that DAREL OCTAVIUS AYAP filed an application proposing that his/her name be changed to DEE AYAP. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Room 514 on the 15th of May 2012 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MaR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 statement file A-034211100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: UB TRANSPORT, 5035 Geary Blvd. #B, SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Baatar Sandag. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/19/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/19/12.

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 statement file A- 034209200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE FAIRY DOGFATHER, 64 Caselli Ave., SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Eric Burford. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/06/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/16/12.

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The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/15/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/14/12.

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MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 statement file A- 034158700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: OZIMO, 1116 Shotwell St., SF, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Richard Freitas. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/16/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/27/12.

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MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 statement file A- 034176100

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NEW MONTGOMERY ASSOCIATES, 5 Freelon St., SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a husband and wife, and is signed Chi Pin Wong.

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/03/96. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/05/12.

FOXY LADY BOUTIQUE

Is Up For Sale Due to Health Reasons. Negotiate Price. Foxy Lady Boutique is San Francisco’s legendary apparel superstore. From formal dresses to lingerie and sexy costumes, it’s the place to shop for the latest fashions and sexiest items with the highest quality and the lowest prices. 2644 Mission St. San Francisco JANINE 650-992-3772

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 statement file A- 034195000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ANDOVER STREET ARCHIVES, 508 Andover St., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed Elizabeth Benford. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/12/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/12/12.

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MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 statement file A- 034157200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MEGAPIX IMAGING, 190 8th St., SF, CA 94103.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Leonard Githere. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/24/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/24/12.

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MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 Statement of abandonment of use of fictitious business name FILE# A-033937200 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: GOLDEN GATE SPEED DATE, 2206 Bryant St., SF, CA 94110. This business was conducted by a general partnership, signed Joanne Gunderson.

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

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012

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Photography>> Real Estate>> WWW.GAYREALESTATE.COM Instant Free Database of San Francisco’s Top Gay Realtors

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 statement file A- 034192500

E52

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NIFNAKS, 1420 Alabama St., SF, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Nifer Kilakila. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/09/12.

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 statement file A- 034199000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HOPE ARCHITECTS, 328 Rutledge St., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Ari Hope. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/31/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/13/12.

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 statement file A- 034194300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VALUEAPP DEVELOPMENT, 472 Euclid Ave., SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Anthony C. Stagliano.

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/12/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/12/12.

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March 22-28, 2012 • Bay Area Reporter • 15

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E12,14,16

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Read the special issue of the B.A.R. in print or online at ebar.com on April 5, 2012.

Join the LGBT community in celebrating the best!

The Bay Area Reporter has been the undisputed newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area’s vibrant LGBT community since 1971.

We’re the oldest continuously published and the most widely circulated LGBT newspaper in the United States of America.

Our annual Readers’ Choice Awards, The Best of the Gays will publish on April 5, 2012.

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Vol. 42 • No. 12 • March 22-28, 2012

www.ebar.com/arts

Dewey Bunger looks at photos of AIDS activism in the exhibit Life and Death in Black and White: AIDS Direct Action in San Francisco 1985-1990 at the GLBT History Museum in the Castro District.

Rick Gerharter

S

an Francisco was one of the first cities to experience the pernicious effects of AIDS, a then-mysterious, unnamed plague. By the time the virus was identified in 1984, approximately 50% of the city’s gay men were already infected. Life and Death in Black and White: AIDS Direct Action in San Francisco, 1985-1990, a concise, laser-focused exhibition at the GLBT History Museum consisting of 17 carefully selected black-and-white photographs, distills the

tenor of those times and provides a microcosm of what was at stake as the federal government, either out of obliviousness, callousness, prejudice or a combination of all three, turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the proliferation and devastating impact of the disease.

With their strong tradition of civil rights and anti-war protest, San Francisco activists began launching civil disobedience and direct action campaigns in 1985 to response to the AIDS cri-

sis – tactics which started here, by the way – to make themselves heard. Daniel Nicoletta’s “AIDS Vigil, San Francisco, 49th Day” (1985) captured the initial demonstration, the first of its kind in the U.S., in which activists, demanding funding for research and a cure, chained themselves to the doors of the Federal Building on U.N. Plaza. Nicoletta, along with four other queer local photographers – Jane Philomen Cleland, Patrick Clifton, Marc Geller and Rick Gerharter – were

among the journalists who took to the streets to document a crucial period of militant activism, and whose work is displayed in the show. All are alive and well and living in the Bay Area, and, wherever possible, the activists seen in the pictures, many of whom have since died, are named.

More artful historical examination than pure art exhibition, the images in the show are of high quality. Lining a single wall of the museum, See page 29 >>

Deep-rooted choreography Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater & ODC/SF

by Paul Parish

I Andrew Eccles

Clifton Brown of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

t was a great week for popular dance-theater. Both the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (from New York, in Berkeley) and ODC/SF (dancing downtown at the Yerba Buena Center) had great crowds and presented beautifully rehearsed, thought-provoking, superbly danced programs that gave major satisfactions. The Ailey run is over, but ODC is still at the Novellus Theater through this weekend and deserves a look. Gay men should seriously consider going to see KT Nelson’s Cut-out Guy, set on

{ SECOND OF TWO SECTIONS }

the five men in the company, since it presents a kind of same-sex partnering I’ve never seen before and found piercingly moving.

Both shows were gay-friendly.

Alvin Ailey, who was a closeted African-American gay man – well, he couldn’t hide the dark skin – created a multi-racial company that began to flourish in the 1950s and has survived him because of the deep-rooted genius of his dances and the power of his superbly trained, glamorous dancers in putting the material across. His mas-

terpiece Revelations (1960), which is performed as the finale to every program, invariably brings down the house and sends the audience out transfigured. It’s not just a feelgood piece; it’s a brilliant composition with Aristotelian economy of means, a Dionysian, overflowing spirit, and the soul-stirring rhythms and moves of the black Christian church into which his mother and her community poured their hopes of salvation. The piece is so generous it slays you in the spirit See page 28 >>

<<Out There

18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 22-28, 2012

▼

Photographic memories

by Roberto Friedman

A

t the opening night last week of the new exhibition Life & Death in Black & White: AIDS Direct Action in San Francisco, 1985-1990 at the GLBT History Museum, Out There saw many familiar faces. When the GLBT Historical Society’s Gerard Koskovich asked how many attendees had participated in some sort of direct action during the early years of the AIDS crisis, nearly every hand in the room shot up.

The show features the work of Jane Philomen Cleland, Patrick Clifton, Marc Geller, Rick Gerharter and Daniel Nicoletta, all of whom have captured AIDS activism memorably over the years, and still more shutterbugs were present at the opening, including Jim James and Bill Wilson. It takes a certain kind of personality to be a good scene photographer, and our community is all the richer for having them among us. They know where to point the camera lens to find ever-elusive truth and justice.

Mostly Brits

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The Mostly British Film Festival will soon present another of their free Saturday morning previews, this time featuring The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, screening on April 14, 11 a.m. at the Vogue Theater in San Francisco.

Those of us who are missing Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey can catch her in this delightful new film also starring favorites Judi Dench and Bill Nighy. A veteran cast has helped propel this comedy to the top of the box-office chart in the UK. Dench and Highy play British retirees who are looking for ways to economize. Lured by promotional materials for a newly restored hotel in India, they decide to move there for their retirement. But their fantasies of a luxurious life of leisure are deflated when they see that the hotel is far from what was advertised. Director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) delicately shows how a change in environment allows the expats to let go of the past and embrace the present. For free tickets, e-mail voguersvp@gmail.com and put Marigold in the subject line.

There is a two-person limit, and you

Jim James

The five photographers featured in the exhibit Life and Death in Black and White: AIDS Direct Action in San Francisco 1985-1990 at the GLBT History Museum (l. to r.:) Patrick Clifton, Jane Philomen Cleland, Dan Nicoletta, Marc Geller, and Rick Gerharter.

should note the number of tickets you are requesting in your e-mail.

Triangle Awards nominees announced The 24th annual Triangle Awards, honoring the best lesbian and gay fiction, nonfiction, and poetry published in 2011, will be presented on April 19 in New York City. The Publishing Triangle association of lesbians and gay men in publishing began honoring gay or lesbian writers in 1989, and has partnered with the Ferro-Grumley Literary Awards to present an array of awards each spring.

Alison Bechdel is the 2012 recipient of the Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement, named in honor of the legendary editor of the 1970s and 80s. For 25 years, Bechdel wrote and drew the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For; collections started being published in book form in the late 80s, culminating in The Compleat Dykes to Watch Out For, which won the FerroGrumley Award for LGBT Fiction in 2009. Bechdel is also the author of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, a memoir in graphic-novel form, which won the Publishing Triangle’s Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction. Her new book, Are You My Mother?, will be published in May. The Publishing Triangle began giving the Shilts-Grahn awards for nonfiction in 1997. The Judy Grahn Award honors the American writer (b. 1940) best known for The Common Woman (1969) and Another Mother Tongue (1984). It recognizes the best nonfiction book of the year affecting lesbian lives. Finalists for the Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction: Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader by Gayle S. Rubin (Duke U. Press); Sister Arts: The Erotics of Lesbian Landscapes by Lisa L. Moore (U. of Minnesota Press); When We Were Outlaws by Jeanne Córdova (Spinsters Ink).

The Randy Shilts Award honors the journalist who did groundbreaking work on the AIDS epidemic for the San Francisco Chronicle. Shilts (1951-94) was the author of The Mayor of Castro Street, And the Band Played On, and Conduct Unbecoming. Finalists for the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction: A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski (Beacon Press); Recruiting Young Love: How Christians Talk About Homosexuality by Mark D. Jordan (U. of Chicago Press); A Saving Remnant: The Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds by Martin Duberman (The New Press).

The Audre Lorde Award honors the American poet, essayist, librarian, and teacher. Lorde (1934-92) was nominated for the National Book Award for From a Land Where

Other People Live and was the poet laureate of New York State in 1991.

She received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement shortly before her death. Among her other 16 books are Zami (1982) and A Burst of Light (1989). Finalists for the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry: Cow by Susan Hawthorne (Spinifex Press); Inside the Money Machine by Minnie Bruce Pratt (Carolina Wren Press); Open Winter

by Rae Gouirand (Bellday Books); The Stranger Dissolves by Christina Hutchins (Sixteen Rivers Press).

The Thom Gunn Award honors the British poet Thom Gunn (19292004), who lived in San Francisco for much of his life. Gunn was the author of The Man with Night Sweats (1992) and many other acclaimed volumes.

Gunn won the first Triangle Award for Gay Poetry in 2001 for Boss Cupid. Finalists for the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry: A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos

by Tim Dlugos (Nightboat Books); Love-in-Idleness by Christopher Hennessey (Brooklyn Arts Press); Motion Studies by Brad Richard (The Word Works); Touch by Henri Cole (FSG).

The Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction is named in honor of the esteemed novelist and man of letters who won the first Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1989. The Edmund White Award awards a prize to an outstanding first novel or story collection. Finalists for the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction: Mitko by Garth Greenwell (Miami U. Press); My Sister Chaos by Lara Fergus (Spinifex Press); We the Animals by Justin Torres (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt); Zipper Mouth by Laurie Weeks (The Feminist Press).

Frances Goldin is the winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Leadership Award, which recognizes contributions to lesbian and gay literature by those who are not primarily writers: editors, agents, librarians, and institutions. Since founding her literary agency in 1977, Goldin has been a tireless advocate for her writers, for LGBT literature, and for progressive politics and the free exchange of ideas.

The Ferro-Grumley Awards for LGBT fiction were established in 1988 to recognize excellence in fictionwriting from lesbian and gay points of view, and honor the memory of authors Robert Ferro (Second Son) and Michael Grumley (Life Drawing), life partners who died that year of AIDS within weeks of each other. Finalists for the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction: Monoceros by Suzette Mayr (Coach House Books); The Necessity of Certain Behaviors

by Shannon Cain (U. of Pittsburgh Press); Quarantine by Rahul Mehta (Harper Perennial); Remembrance of Things I Forgot by Bob Smith (U. of Wisconsin Press); The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst (Knopf); The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov by Paul Russell (Cleis Press). All winners in our book.▼

Read more online at www.ebar.com

March 22-28, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 19

20 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 22-28, 2012

<< Music

▼ Mavericks on our frequency

by Philip Campbell

T

he San Francisco Symphony’s immense and awesomely organized American Mavericks Festival has hit the road. As a matter of fact, the first concert program of the tour opened at Orchestra Hall in Chicago on Wednesday of this week. By the time the starry band, led by intrepid Michael Tilson Thomas, with accompanying guest soloists, composers, stage technicians, et al., hit Carnegie Hall by the end of the month, we may have been able to process better our reactions back home.

It has been an exhaustive education with a lot to consider, but thank the SFS for also making it a rip-roaring thrill ride of an entertainment as well. The last orchestral concert of the festival at Davies Symphony Hall started with the first performances of not one but two major compositions

by Bay Area composers. Mason Bates and John Adams got the full treatment from the SFS, and both works premiered successfully. The artistic merits were obviously more variable.

At 35, Mason Bates is getting a bit long in the tooth to be considered an enfant terrible or prodigy anymore.

He has been given lots of attention locally, and his alter ego as a DJ (aka Masonic) has earned him some street cred over the years, but his attractive compositions have never really broken new ground (definitely remove the terrible after enfant) or fully explained MTT’s ongoing confidence in his ability. Don’t misunderstand, Bates is talented, and his music is always a pleasure to hear. It is just that his works for symphony are usually a little too cautious and conventional and (dare I say it?) pretty to elicit much more than polite praise or notice.

The new piece, called Mass Transmission, scored for electronica (the composer on computer), organ and mixed chorus. is highly representative of what we are learning to expect from the energetic and affable Bates. It is a nicely arranged, dreamily evocative and mildly modernsounding score that takes a nostalgic look back at some of the earliest long-distance communications ever recorded or documented between vast global spaces.

The Dutch government sent some youngsters abroad to Java in the early years of the last century to act as pages in their colonies. Setting up a remarkably advanced telephonic system between the two countries allowed them periodic calls back home that could actually last for several minutes. The story supplies Bates with text for the chorus to sing in the three sections of Mass Transmission.

The opening movement, “I. The Dutch Telegraph Office,” is prefaced by a brief electronic prelude backgrounding the operators as they search for a radio frequency. This is Bates, in careful and timid mode, easing us into what later develops as a very pleasant rumination on technology.

The second section, “II. Java,” uses the words of a young woman reminiscing about her time in the Dutch East Indies, and allows the composer a chance at evoking the lovely sound of a gamelan ensemble. We have been there and done that with many composers for many years now, but it always seems to provide new musical inspiration.

The closing, “III. Wireless Connections,” is partially slowed by the sentimental dialogue between a parent and child, but it recovers somewhat as the mother ponders on the wonder of that wireless connection.

So Mass Transmission displays a neat concept, neatly conveyed, and it is a very pleasant listening experience. Now, when will Bates muscle up and make some attempt at scaring the horses? If he keeps on like this, his music may someday be

Kristen Loken

Mason Bates performing on electronica during the world premiere of his work Mass Transmission (for organ, electronica and chorus) during the American Mavericks festival at Davies Symphony Hall.

Kristen Loken

Violinists Geoff Nuttall and Scott St. John of the St. Lawrence String Quartet in the world premiere of John Adams’ Absolute Jest (for orchestra and string quartet) during the American Mavericks festival at Davies Symphony Hall.

called New Age. I think he has got a much stronger voice than that – so come on, yell a little.

It didn’t help that the short premiere piece was being performed as the opening act for the first performances of local and world favorite, reigning living composer extraordinaire and all-around universally acknowledged genius John Adams’ Absolute Jest. Yikes, sort of like a local indie band warming up the crowd for the Rolling Stones! If you are wondering whether Adams delivered like a rock star this time out, the answer would be a qualified pretty much so.

Commissioned for the SFS centennial, Absolute Jest for String Quartet and Orchestra is vintage Adams.

Appropriate for the occasion, not too ponderous or intense, but full of delightful homages to the string quartets of Beethoven (so influential to the composer) and chock-full of that trademark energy, bordering on ecstasy, that is unmistakably his own voice. The audience response was thunderous and prolonged. Even when Adams is dashing off a celebrational score, he manages to get his licks in with a few surprising twists.

At times the orchestra seemed to rise above the clouds like some great aircraft glistening in the sun, and I was reminded of earlier Adams premieres that were more truly revelatory.

He wasn’t aiming that high this time, but it was stirring just the same.

Sound designer Mark Grey was mentioned in the program, billed just below the St. Lawrence String Quartet, but I’m thinking his contributions were less as a performer than as a technician. I suspect he was there to make sure the Quartet soloists could be heard against the dense orchestration. Adams is a known master orchestrator, and MTT certainly knows how to keep things audible, so Mr. Grey was probably more useful to the sound engineers who were recording the Mavericks concerts for future use.

The second half of the bill had Emanuel Ax as soloist for Morton Feldman’s deeply contemplative Piano and Orchestra (1975). These were, surprisingly, the first SFS performances, and MTT (long a champion of Feldman) and Ax created a timeless experience that had me thinking (at MTT’s suggestion) of the art of Mark Rothko.

The program ended with Ameriques (1927) by Varese. These were not the first local performances, and the conductor and his mighty band tore through the amazing score with glorious physical strength. Ameriques could have opened the festival and been a part of every orchestral concert in the series. It was the perfect closer.

You wouldn’t necessarily want to hear it too often (wow, is it a workout!), but it really sums up the sound of the Americas, and defines, in spades, the model of the maverick composer.▼

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Theatre>>

March 22-28, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 21

Give ’em the old Rrazzle-dazzle Koldewyn, who wrote the music, is at the piano.

Hot Greeks will run March 22-May 5 at the Hypnodrome. More info and tickets at 377-4202 or www.thrillpeddlers.com.

by Richard Dodds

I

Rhino revelry

David Wilson

Tom Orr and Noah Haydon are romantically entangled in an expanded revival of the Cockettes’ Hot Greeks at the Hypnodrome.

You can get up-close and personal with Elaine Stritch at the Rrazz Room in May, when she brings her act Singin’ Sondheim to SF.

cabaret favorite Karen Akers with Live, Laugh, Love: Akers Sings Sondheim on Sept. 9-16, and the unpredictable Betty Buckley with Ah Men! The Boys of Broadway on Oct. 30-Nov. 4.

The mad, mad, mad, mad world of Joan Crawford, at least as interpreted

by Lypsinka, makes a return to the city after five years. In The Passion of the Crawford, running Sept. 4-16, John Epperson in Lypsinka guise employs his uncanny lip-syncing skills in a show based around a recording of a late-career interview with Crawford that builds into a kind of mommie-dearest breakdown.

Musicals, of both the stage and screen variety, are specialties of two incoming acts. Shirley Jones, on screen in The Music Man, Carousel, Oklahoma! – not to mention The Partridge Family – has songs to sing and stories to tell Oct. 23-27.

Long-running Phantom of the Opera star Franco D’Ambrosio will team with musical theater star Jeri Sanger in Together Again … for the First Time on Dec. 10-15.

And now we’re pushing into the holidays. Katya-Smirnoff-Skyy, the trilling Russian countess of reduced circumstances created by J. Conrad Frank, returns to the Rrazz Room with a new Yule show on Dec. 17. And the indefatigable Leslie Jordan, who rode his success in Will & Grace to a spate of solo shows, will be back in town with Deck Them Halls, Y’all on Dec. 18-22.

The above list comprises only the theatrically oriented elements of the Rrazz schedule, which has announced

many more acts for the coming months and still has room to plug in even more. You can monitor the schedule at www.therrazzroom.com.

the earlier revival.

Many of the players on genderbended display are new to this production, though Thrillpeddlers founder Russell Blackwood remains as director and continues in the role of Mata Dildoes. And, of course, original Cockettes member Scrumbly

Theatre Rhino’s annual “benefit extravaganza” is designed to raise funds and spirits. Tickets to the March 26 event and party are $25, a modest tariff that includes not only performances by some of queer theater’s big names but also a gratis array of food and drink.

Many of the local celebrities who will take to the Eureka Theatre stage often get star billing wherever they perform. These above-the-title personalities include Marga Gomez, Connie Champagne, Tom Orr, and Matthew Martin. The bill also includes Dave Dobrusky, Mike Finn, Natasha Muse, Carlos Barrera, Holly Nugent, Jef Valentine, and the cast of Shopping, the Musical!

Theatre Rhino is now in its 34th year. Tickets to its benefit are available at 552-4100 or www.therhino.org. ▼

Grecian mash-up The worlds of Greek fraternities as construed in vintage Hollywood musicals and Greek comedies of an even more distant vintage collide in Hot Greeks, a 1970s Cockettes show being revived by Thrillpeddlers. A touch of déjà vu would be warranted at this point.

After Thrillpeddlers’ stunningly successful revival of Pearls Over Shanghai, another Cockettes musical, had been running for a year, a condensed version of Hot Greeks joined the other show on a rotating schedule in 2010. The new production of Hot Greeks represents the full show and restores three songs not performed in

MEDIA NETWORK

t’s time for some tasty Rrazz berries. The downtown nitery, now celebrating its fourth year in the Hotel Nikko, has just announced a new roster of theatrically connected acts that make up a good part of its schedule through 2012. And there’s a sprinkling of fairy dust over the season as well.

Perhaps the biggest news is that the Rrazz Room will allow you to get up-close and personal with the formidable Elaine Stritch, who arrives May 23 for a 12-performance run of her acclaimed nightclub act Singin’ Sondheim … One Song at a Time.

A tribute to Broadway songsmith Jerry Herman (La Cage aux Folles, Hello, Dolly!) is a key component of The Prince and the Showboy (March 25-27). That’s the title that Broadway and cabaret stars Faith Prince and Jason Graae have given their collaboration that combines Herman, humor, and other theatrical tunes.

With Miss Streisand limiting her farewell concerts to every few years, you may need a Babs fix. Steven Brinberg is heading back on April 3 with his Simply Barbra: The What Matters Most Tour. Not one to provide lipsync service, Brinberg performs a la Streisand with his own pipes.

The Book of Mormon is the biggest hit that Broadway has seen in years, and its touring equivalent is due in SF in November. In the meantime, we will have The Book of Merman on April 17-29, with the Merman in this case also known as Varla Jean, who is also known as Jeffery Roberson. “OK, I admit it,” Varla Jean told an interviewer last year.

“It’s just a catchy title used as a cheap trick.”

Poppy Champlin adds the “Q” to comedy. Her touring revue The Queer Queens of Qomedy lands at the Rrazz Room on April 29. Now in its sixth year, the show will feature Christian Shim and Kira Soltanovich in addition to cablecomedy vet Champlin.

Ben Vereen, whose buzz started in 1972 with Jesus Christ Superstar before his breakthrough role in Pippin a year later, will play June 12-17 in a show the Rrazz Room is billing as a “special theatrical event.”

In late summer, as the presidential conventions approach, the Rrazz Room will go political in a below-thebeltway world premiere. Electile Dysfunction: The Kinsey Sicks for President will feature the dragapella beauty shop quartet on Aug. 7-19 in its campaign for the Republican nomination.

On the chantoosey front, we have Marilyn Maye, one of the old-school cabaret crooners, offering Her Own Kind of Broadway on Aug. 21-25,

COAST TO COAST..

EDGE IS THERE! H HERE! JOIN THE CONVERSATION ON ON FACEBOOK: EDGE MEDIA NETWORK DIA NETWO ORK RK AND ON TWITTER: @EDGEontheNet DGE Eonthe eNet et

Courtesy Varla Jean Merman

Varla Jean Merman (aka Jeffery Roberson) returns to the Rrazz Room in April with The Book of Merman.

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<< Music

22 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 22-28, 2012

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Wondrous Lynda Carter

by David-Elijah Nahmod

T

o millions of teens who came of age during the 1970s, Lynda Carter, who performs at the Rrazz Room this weekend, will always be Wonder Woman.

The Wonder Woman character first appeared in All Star Comics #7 (December, 1941) and quickly became the third most popular superhero in the DC comics universe, after Superman and Batman. In addition to her super powers, Wonder Woman

was shown to be quite agile in handto-hand combat. She became a fantasy figure for young straight males, and is considered an iconic role model to lesbian comic-book fans.

In 1976, a young, stunningly beautiful actress named Lynda Carter was cast in the Wonder Woman TV series. It was an instant hit. Carter, now a renowned performer on the jazz/cabaret circuit, reminds us that the show had two separate incarnations. During its first season, it was set in the 1940s, and attempted to emulate the style of the early comic books.

“The 1940s episodes were somewhat limiting,” she recalled. “They were a little tongue-in-cheek and downplayed the female aspects of the character. The modern-dress episodes opened up Wonder Woman’s Diana Prince alter ego to being more capable of being female.

“But,” Carter pointed out, “it’s all really one series with the same characters.”

Though she continued to act over the years, music has been her primary career goal. “I’ll be trying out new things at the Rrazz Room before I perform at Jazz at the Kennedy Center,” she told us. “I’m really having a good time working with the caliber of people that I work with. There are no slackers at all, we all enjoy working together.

“I sing what I want to sing, and my tastes run the gamut. When I listen to my iPad, I have all kinds of things

Singer and actress Lynda Carter: ‘I’ll be trying out new things.’

on my playlists. There are a lot of surprises in my show and on my new CD. I’ve re-imagined a lot of songs.”

San Francisco may be the perfect city to host a Lynda Carter performance. Her support for gay rights is absolute.

“I’ve worked with a lot of gay people,” she said. “It’s just one part of their lives. I don’t need to know if someone is heterosexual or homosexual, it’s all so irrelevant. I’m glad the movement is being talked about as civil rights. Those people [the right wing] are bullies. They think they’re the religious police.”

She shared details of a conversation she had with a right-wing author whose daughter is a lesbian.

“How sad that your daughter has to listen to your constant judgement of her,” Carter told the author, whom

she didn’t name.

B.A.R. asked the chanteuse if she had a preference for acting or for singing. “I always like best what I’m doing at the moment,” Carter replied. “When I do a film, that’s my focus. When I’m performing, I’m out there to have fun. It’s a thrill to sing what I feel like singing. It’s such a joyous thing for me.”

She summed up her future plans simply yet elegantly. “I’m going with the flow. When the time comes, I’ll decide what to do. I do get offered things, but I don’t want to give up my family time. I’m pretty happy.”▼ Lynda Carter: The Wonder of Song, at the Rrazz Room inside Hotel Nikko, SF. March 22-24 at 8 p.m., March 25 at 7 p.m. Tickets ($45-$55): www.therrazzroom.com

After the flood

by Tim Pfaff

A

s a slow-moving flood of inky, malodorous water slimed half of Thailand for months late last year, I found myself wondering if there were any great floods in classical music.

The only one I could think of was the Biblical Noah’s Flood in Benjamin Britten’s Noye’s Fludde, the composer’s retooling of the 15th-century Chester mystery play, which I hadn’t listened to in decades. Dipping back into it on a whim, I bit into the sweetest Proustian madeleine moment of my musical life.

So rarely done you’re unlikely ever to hear it live (though LA Opera’s indefatigable James Conlon led a performance of it at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels only a year ago), Noye’s Fludde was broadcast in both the UK and the US in the years after its 1958 Aldeburgh premiere, and I was one of the American kids lucky enough to hear it – having no idea what it was before its music, as strange as the “misspelling” of its title, began. It was my first-ever Britten, and I was bewitched.

One of his most exotic scores (the instrumentation includes recorders and bugles typical of the boys’ schools

of Britten’s day, and, for the storm, tuned tea cups), Noye’s Fludde was written for performance mostly by amateurs and may be Britten’s most ambitious work for children musicians. During the preparation of its premiere, Britten had his biggest rage

ever over the ribbing – most of it playful – he and his partner Peter Pears regularly took from musician colleagues over their love of boys.

Think what you will about Britten’s influence on children, that magical Noye’s Fludde on the radio led this South Dakota grade-schooler into a world of enchantment far more habitable than the one the guy in the

literal trenchcoat tried to lure me into in the Sioux Falls Public Library every Saturday. If there’s a child left in you, rush it to the Aldeburgh-based Noye’s Fludde on Decca before it’s too late.

But I have digressed extravagantly.

Astoundingly, within days of my idle query about flood music, I got word of the first-ever release of Michelangelo Falvetti’s Il Diluvio Universale (Ambronay), a 17th-century Italian oratorio aabout, yes, Noah’s Flood. The 1682 work had its modern prem miere in 2010, and it’s the kind o of piece that makes you cheer tthe scholars who keep divining ffor lost or forgotten Baroque m masterpieces, for this is one.

The enterprise was led by L Leonardo Garcia Alarcon, musiccologist and leader of the Capp pella Mediterranea and Choeur d de Chambre de Namur, the p principal performers of this arrrestingly vivid work. For a point of reference, think Carissimi, whose oratorios on Biblical themes are some of the great masterworks of the 17th-century Italian Baroque.

But to Carissimi’s sound add touches of flamenco, Islamic percussion, and dizzyingly ornate vocalism. It’s a heady brew.

By the time Alarcon brought it to See page 29 >>

▼

Film>>

March 22-28, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 23

Scene from Project X: can a teen trio engineer a mega party?

Party hearty

by David Lamble

I

n the eye-popping trailer for Project X, the new year’s crackerjack best teen exploitation flick, a disheveled, clearly wasted, very white teen boy begins a camera-phone apologia.

“Um, dad, it’s me, Thomas. Where do I start: it was just supposed to be a small get-together. I wanted to be cool for one night. Then things got a little out of control.”

Pitching this one for you, gentle queer reader, I could say Risky Business meets the White Night Riot with not too much hyperbole or exaggeration, and without any overt homophobic aftertaste. The MPAA censors stamp it a hard R for “Crude and sexual content throughout, nudity, drugs, drinking, pervasive language, reckless behavior and mayhem, all involving teens.” Whew!

In 1983’s Risky Business, a squeaky clean Tom Cruise punched his card as the decade’s coolest teen by hosting a very wild party (including rent ladies) whose high point was Cruise’s solo dance in his tighty whites. Presidential scion Ron Reagan got huge style points for his SLN homage, both damping down and escalating buzz about his then-disputed sexual orientation. In 1993, Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused spotlighted a Lone Star version of frat-boy hazing (with a discreet cautionary queer subtext) as then up-and-coming Ben Affleck got to paddle the butt of seventh grade pitcher, future hip blogger Wiley Wiggins. In 2001, Alfonso Cuaron contributed Y Tu Mama Tambien, a randy road movie about two Mexico City teens whose search for a mythical beach ended any ambiguity about their bond. This tip towards a queer sensibility received a slight encore in 2007’s Superbad, as two sensitive teens used the lure of an incredibly raunchy party to cap their friendship and soften the blow of parting.

The common thread is Hollywood’s insatiable desire to employ realistic-appearing teen characters as crash-test dummies for whatever the culture fears and not so secretly craves at some bumpy moment. The very title Project X implies a dangerous lab experiment, in this case on whether a trio of fresh-faced white teens can engineer a mega party using every possible social networking orifice.

It’s a bash that literally destroys their posh neighborhood, without harm to innocent human or animal life. The boys – Thomas, Costa and JB – are after the cool girls, the kind they can’t even speak to at school. But in the process they invite a cross-section of het-

ero teens of all ethnicities. In real life, parties like this frequently involve gun violence or drug meltdowns. Project X’s nihilistic hoedown, like Dorothy’s tornado in The Wizard of Oz, has almost no body count, despite the presence of powerful mind-altering drugs, big-time fireworks, flame-throwers, and a taser employed by an overzealous Afro-teen “security guard” on a raging white neighbor.

Project X’s techno ace-in-the-hole is the device of having the movie viewed from several angles, supposedly through partygoers’ cell-phone cameras – including through the mildly creepy sensibility of their rogue camera guy Dax (Dax Flame) peeping out of bedroom closets. This works brilliantly to create the impression that we’re embedded with future Hunter Thompsons who are just losing the last vestiges of their innocence while reinventing the gonzo dialectic.

Anything might happen at any moment. This fresh fizz is enhanced by hundreds of non-professional young extras whose brush with all manner of hedonism feels as genuine as the denizens of pre-1980s queer male porn.

What’s lost is the ability of all but our core trio to deliver well-crafted zingers.

Actor Thomas Mann commands the camera sublimely as the sincere, Tom Hanks-like teen everyman who could probably have skated across the multiple layers of debauchery in Pasolini’s Salo without loss of street cred or permanent exile from Hollywood’s sleaze-without-consequence theme park. Oliver Cooper’s Costa injects the necessary element of adolescent hustler in the making, the lewd and rude kid who survives by always being a step ahead of the shit storm.

The filmmakers also spotlight Costa’s secular Jewish background without shame or obvious disclaimers.

Project X is most definitely not the kind of thang from which Oscars are hatched, but rest assured that firsttime British director Nima Nourizadeh, producer Todd Phillips, writers Matt Drake & Michael Bacall and especially cinematographer Ken Seng and editor Jeff Groth will not go unrewarded for pulling off the ultimate seemingly innocent Hollywood block party with all nature of covert agendas.

Back in the days when Hollywood considered it a casting coup to have Paul Lynde headline as Ann-Margaret’s musical dad in Bye Bye Birdie, many of us old-fashioned, culturally deprived teens could dig Lynde’s filmstopping middle-class wail: “What’s the matter with kids today?” Project X is an enjoyable, empty-calorie snack from flash-mob central.▼

ebar.com

<< Out&About

24 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 22-28, 2012

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Lynda Carter @ The Rrazz Room Dazzling actress-singer (yes, she also played Wonder Woman on TV) returns by popular demand, to perform pop, rock, R&B and Broadway classics. $45-$55. 2-drink min.

Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (800) 380-3095. www.TheRrazzRoom.com

The veteran lesbian comic gets a little more serious in her solo show about her parents’ tragic murder-suicide deaths. $15-$35-$50.

Thu 8pm, Sat 8:30pm, Sun 7pm thru April 15. Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia St. (800) 838-3006. www.themarsh.org

ODC Dance @ Novellus Theater Cellist Zoe Keating accompanies a new dance by Brenda Way; plus dances by KT Nelson and bicycle art by Max Chen. $20-$55. Wed-Thu 7:30pm. Fri Sat 8pm. Sun 4pm. Thru March 25. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard St. www.odcdance.org

Tina D’Elia

Talent shown

by Jim Provenzano

W

ith some talents, one name says it all, like Gaultier, sweetie darling.

For others, you may not know them by name, but you should.

Solo performer Tina D’Elia’s new show (photo above) The Rita Hayworth of this Generation tells the story of Carmelita Cristina Rivera, a queer Latina performer whose passion, power and heartache impacts her drive to stardom. $10-$15. Fri & Sat, 8pm, March 23 thru April 7. Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St. 289-2000. www.ftloose.org Fashion! Beep, beep! The de Young Museum dresses up with The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, the first exhibition devoted to the gay French fashion designer. Previously shown in Montreal and Dallas, the exhibit includes film and stage costumes, haute couture gowns and men’s clothes, prints, video clips and more.

Grand opening party Friday, March 23, 8pm ($250-$300). Reg admission $6-$20.

Tue-Sun 9:30am-5:15pm. Thru Aug. 19.

50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden The Fashion World of Gate Park. 750-3600. www.famsf.org Jean Paul Gaultier

San Francisco Ballet’s Program 6 includes Raymonda, Act II, RaKu and a world premiere, Guide to Strange Places, choreographed by Ashley Page. Thru April 3. Friday, March 23 is the third and last Nite Out LGBT post-concert party of the season. $32-$78. 8pm. War Memorial Opera House, 201 Van Ness Ave. San Francisco Ballet’s RaKu www.sfballet.org/niteout

Amy Ray

Amy Ray performs at the Great American Music Hall, Sunday, March 25. The Indigo Girl, currently on her U.S tour, performs faves and music from her new CD, Lung of Love. Lindsay Fuller opens. $16 (show only) $49 (with dinner). 8pm. 859 O’Farrell St. 885-0750. www.amy-ray.com www.gamh.com For more music with heart, Ani DiFranco performs at The Fillmore with Seth Glier opening. $33-$45. Tuesday, March 27, 8pm. 1805 Geary Blvd. www.livenation.com

Thu 22>> Certitude & Joy @ Bindlestiff Studio Chamber opera by composer Erling Wold ( Queer, Taking the Veil) based on a true story of a woman who tossed her children into a river “under God’s instructions.” $25$35. Thu-Sun 8pm. Thru April 1. 185 6th St. www.erlingwold.com

Hope Mohr Dance @ Z Space Former dancer with Trisha Brown premieres new works, and works by New York-based Dušan Týnek Dance Company. $20-$25.

Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru March 24.

450 Florida St. (800) 838-3006. www.hopemohr.org

Hot Greeks @ The Hypnodrome Thrillpeddlers revives the Cockettes’ hilarious college comedy revue that meets ancient Greek bawdy burlesque in a new expanded version, with a new cast, costumes, songs and fabulous camp. $30-$35; $69 for a pair. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru May 5. 575 10th St. at Bryant & Division. (800) 838-3006. www.thrillpeddlers.com

Lisa Townsend, Mica Sigourney @ CounterPulse Performance work exploring Camus’ The Stranger (Townsend) and egocentric nightlife personae (Sigourney, aka VivvyAnne ForeverMore). $17-$30. Thu-Sun 8pm.

1310 Mission St. at 9th. 626-2060. www.counterpulse.org

Sarah Deragon

Ralph Carney @ Oddball Films Jazz multi-instrumental musician performs, along with screenings of jazzy animated short films; proceeds benefit Save KUSF. $10-$15. 8pm. Also, Experimental Indian films, Mar. 23, 7:30pm $10. 275 Capp St. 558-8117. www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Fri 23>> Choose Paint! Choose Abstraction! @ MOAD Opening reception for a new exhibit of abstract art by African American artists.

Members preview 6:30, public opening 7:30-9pm. Museum of the African Disapora, 685 Mission St. 358-7200. www.moadsf.org

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley Shotgun Players’ staging of Tom Stoppard’s first in a trilogy of works exploring a wealthy family in pre-revolutionary Russia. $7-$32.

Wed & Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 5pm Thru April 15. 1901 Ashby Ave. (510) 8416500. www.shotgunplayers.org

High @ Curran Theatre Kathleen Turner stars (with young actor Evan Jonigkeit) in this limited run of Matthew Lombardo’s drama about a nun working as a rehab counselor forced to confront her ideas about faith and recovery. $30$100. Wed-Fri 8pm. Sat 2pm & 8pm. Sun 2pm, 7pm. Thru March 25. 445 Geary St. at Taylor. (888) 746-1799. www.shnsf.com

The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later @ New Conservatory Theatre The sequel to the groundbreaking drama, based on real interviews with people effected by the murder of Matthew Shepard, gets its San Francisco premiere. $18 (previews) $25-$40. Opening night March 31. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru April 29. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. www.nctcsf.org

Maurice @ New Conservatory Theatre Andy Graham and Roger Parsley’s erudite stage adaptation of E.M. Forster’s pioneering 1914 novel about the romance between an aristocratic Englishman and a workingclass groundskeeper. $22-$45. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Extended thru April 7. 25 Van Ness Ave. at Market, lower level. 8618972. www.nctcsf.org

Merchants @ Exit Stage Left No Nude Men Productions’ staging of Susan Sobeloff’s drama about an artist and her financial consultant sister’s collaborative and lucrative scheme. $10-$25. Most Fri & Sat 8pm. Thru March 24. 156 Eddy St. www. brownpapertickets.com/event/221334

The Real Americans @ The Marsh Dan Hoyle returns with his fascinating multiple-character solo show based on his cross-country trek into America’s red states and liberal cities. $25-$50. Fri 8pm. Sat 5pm. Sun 2pm. Thru April 14. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Red @ Berkeley Repertory John Logan’s (screenwriter of The Aviator, Gladiator and Hugo) Broadway hit about abstract painter Mark Rothko, engaged in a battle of wits, makes its West Coast debut. $14-$72. Tue-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. & 7pm Thru April 29. 2025 Addison St., Berkeley.

(510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

Sing-Along The Wizard of Oz @ Castro Theatre Have a jolly old time somewhere over the rainbow at the participatory screening of the musical classic, with hosts Laurie Bushman and David Hawkins. Costumes encouraged, with a contest. $10-$15. 7pm. Thru Mar. 25

Robyn Navarro

Marilyn Pittman @ The Marsh

Sat 24 Soiree 10 @ Design Center Galleria The SF LGBT Community Center celebrates its first decade at a fun fundraiser. Themed “Belle Epoque,” the vintage Parisian style gala’s performers include guest MC Marga Gomez, Veronica Klaus, Glamamore, Fauxnique, Bombshell Betty, Honey Mahogany, DJs from Hard French, Stay Gold Viennetta Discoteche and Some Thing; silent auction, food, drinks and fabulous gay fun. $95-$125. 7pm-11pm. 101 Henry Adams St. www.soiree10.com

at 2:30pm & 7pm; Also Mar. 30-April 1. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

True West, Buried Child @ Boxcar Theatre Gritty dramas of battling brothers and family secrets; the first and second of four Sam Shepard plays the company will perform in repertory thru April 26. True West and Buried Child thru April 7. $25-$35, or $85-$120 full pass. 505 Natoma St. 967-2227. www.boxcartheatre.org

Sat 24>> Arthur Tress: San Francisco 1964 @ de Young Museum Veteran photographer of classic black & white images is featured in an exhibit of rarely seen prints. Also, The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler, whose figurative clay work draws inspiration from primitive cultures and artifacts; thru April 22. The Art of the Anatolian Kilim: Highlights from the McCoy Jones Collection; thru June 10.

Free-$10. Tue-Sun 9:30am-5:15pm. Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive.

750-3600. www.famsf.org

Audience as Subject @ YBCA Mark Bradford (found material sculptures) and Audience as Subject, Part 2, (big photos of fans at soccer matches and rock concerts), plus other exhibits. Thru May 27.

701 Mission St. 978-2787. www.ybca.org

Bad Habits @ Variety Theatre Screening of a new Canadian documentary about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. $10. 5pm-8pm. 582 Market St., Hobart Building. www.thesisters.org

Bay Area Rainbow Symphony @ SF Conservatory of Music Violinist and conductor Dawn Harms leads and performs, along with guests Symphony Parnassus, mezzo soprano Federica Von Stade and sopranos Melody Moore and Nadine Sierra; works by Aaron Copland, Richard Strauss, Hansen and a world premiere by Clarice Assad. $15-$30. 8pm. Also Mar. 25. 50 Oak St. www.sfcm.edu

Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi Musical comedy revue, now in its 35th year, with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs. Reg: $25-$130. Wed, Thu, Fri at 8pm. Sat 6:30, 9:30pm. Sun 2pm, 5pm. (Beer/wine served; cash only). 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St.). 421-4222. www.beachblanketbabylon.com

The Cult of Beauty @ Legion of Honor Subtitled The Victorian Avante-Garde, 18601900, this new exhibit focuses on the British Aesthetic Movement; paintings, architecture and decorative arts. Free-$20. Tue-Sun 9:30am-5:15pm. Thru June 17. Lincoln Park, 100 34th Ave. 750-3620. www.famsf.org

David Finchel, Wu Han @ First Congregational Church, Berkeley Cellist and pianist perform Schubert Through Brahms: the Romantic Legacy. $46. 8pm.

2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. (510) 6429988. www.calperformances.org

Digital Pics Sessions @ Mark I. Chester Studio Fundraiser for the artist; get free photos for liking and linking on Facebook, or donate for a photos session. Sat & Sun and by appintment. 1229 Folsom St. at 8th. www.markichester.com

A Doctor in Spite of Himself @ Berkeley Repertory Moliere’s classic comedy –about a man who impersonates a physician to woo his girl– gets a zing-filled contemporary pop culture

update in this co-production with Yale Repertory Theatre. $14-$73. Tue, Fri-Sat 8pm.

Wed 7pm. Sun 2pm & 7pm. Thru March 25.

2015 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

Eco Ensemble @ Hertz Hall, Berkeley David Milnes conducts Berkeley’s new music ensemble in four new works. $30-$85.

8pm. Bancroft Way at College Ave., UC Berkeley campus. (510) 642-9988. www.calperformances.org

Eli Conley, Myles, Amy Bleu @ Actual Café, Oakland Queer folk-rock singer-musicians perform. $5. 7pm-10pm. 6334 San Pablo Ave. www.eliconley.com

Julius Caesar @ Buriel Clay Theater African-American Shakespeare Company’s production of The Bard’s classic tragedy of Roman intrigue and betrayal. $10-$35.

8pm. Sat 8 & Sun 3pm thru April 1. African American Art & Culture Complex, 762 Fulton St. at Webster. (800) 838-3006. www.African-AmericanShakes.org

Photography in Mexico @ SF Museum of Modern Art New group exhibit of historic prints documenting Mexican life and culture since 1920.

Free-$18. Open daily (except Wednesdays) 11am-5:45pm.; open late Thursdays, until 8:45pm. Thru July 8. 131 Third St. 357-4000. www.sfmoma.org

The Pirates of Penzance @ Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, Berkeley Berkeley Playhouse adapts the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta as a post-apocalyptic punk extravaganza. $17-$35. Special “pay what you can” Fridays. Fri 7pm. Sat 2pm & 7pm.

Sun 12pm & 5pm. Thru April 1. 2640 College Ave., Berkeley. (510) 485-8542. www.berkeleyplayhouse.org

Rocket @ Rickshaw Stop Rocket Collective’s (DJs Brian Maier, Trevor Sigler, David Sternesky and Mat dos Santos) monthly night of tech, deep house, acid house and other genres; with guerilla-style surprise performances and a Burning Man ambiance. Proceeds go to various Burning Man camps. Space Age and Playa gear encouraged. $7. 10pm-2am. 155 Fell St. www.rocketsf.com www.rickshawstop.com

Ruth Ann Miller @ Martuni’s Veteran comic and singer is joined by Pattie Lockard, John Miller, Donald Arquilla and the Tom Shaw Trio. $7. 7pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market. www.lynnruthmiller.net www.TomShawTrio.com

SF Hiking Club @ Mt. Wittenberg Join gay outdoors enthusiasts for a 13-mile scenic hike along the Point Ryes National Seashore. Carpool meets 9:45am at the Safeway sign, Market St. at Dolores.

(510) 910-8734. www.sfhiking.com

Titus Andronicus @ La Val’s Subterranean, Berkeley Impact Theatre’s up-close production of Shakespeare’s most violent, gory drama.

Prepare to be splattered. $10-$20. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru Mar. 31. 1834 Euclid Ave. (510) 224-5744. www.impacttheatre.com

Zakir Hussain @ Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley Hussain and the Masters of Percussion perform Indian genre-defying works with dancers. $20-$85. 8pm. Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave., UC Berkeley campus. (510) 642-9988. www.calperformances.org

▼

Out&About >>

Sun 25>> Do Not Destroy @ Contemp. Jewish Museum Trees, Art and Jewish Thought, a group exhibit exploring the tree in Jewish tradition; thru May 28. $5-$12. Thu-Tue 11am-5pm.

736 Mission St. at 3rd. 655-7800. www.thecjm.org

Faith Prince & Jason Graae @ The Rrazz Room Broadway actress ( Billy Elliot) and cabaret veteran perform their witty musical duo act, The Prince and the Showboy. $40. 3pm.

Also Mar 26 & 27 at 8pm. 2-drink min. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (800) 380-3095. www.TheRrazzRoom.com

Jessica Coker @ Martuni’s Comic singer, one third of the women’s singing trio BOOBS, performs solo. 7pm. Part of Ray of Light Theatre company’s spotlight Series. 4 Valencia St. at Market. www.roltheatre.com

Richard Goode @ Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley Renowned pianist performs works by Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin. $30-$85.

3pm. Bancrioft Way at Telegraph Ave., UC Berkeley campus. (510) 642-9988. www.calperformances.org

SF Girls Chorus @ Calvary Presbyterian Church Opera great Frederica Von Stade joins the chorus and other guest artists in a concert of works by Joan Szymko, David Conte, Purcell, Schubert, Paulus, Holst and others. $18-$35.

4pm. 2515 Fillmore St. 392-4400. www.cityboxoffice.com

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room Donna Sachet and Harry Denton host the weekly fabulous brunch and drag show. $45. 11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show

at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square.

395-8595. www.harrydenton.com

Mon 26>> Daniel Dallabrida @ Magnet Exhibit of ceramic and décollage works depicting themes of AIDS survivors, activism and elders in the gay community.

Thru March 28. 4122 18th St. 581-1613. www.dallabrida.com www.magnetsf.org

Equality California Party @ Amber India Cocktail party fundraiser for the marriage equality nonprofit. Donations. 5pm-7pm.

25 Yerba Buena Lane at 4th. RSVP: (310) 266-0502. www.EQCA.org

Theatre Rhino Gala @ Eureka Theatre Gay theatre company’s benefit show, with Carlos Barrera, Connie Champagne, Dave Dobrusky, Mike Finn, Sarah Fiske and Collage Theatre, Marga Gomez, Casey Ley, Natasha Muse, Matthew Martin, Jim McCunn, Holly Nugent, Tom Orr, Valentine and the cast of Shopping, the Musical! $25 includes food and drinks. 8pm. 215 Jackson St. at Front. (800) 838-3006. www.TheRhino.org

Tue 27>> The Drag Show @ Various Channels Stu Smith’s weekly LGBT variety show features local talents, and not just drag artistes.

Channels 29 & 76 on Comcast; 99 on AT&T and 30 on Astound. www.thedragshow.org

Elect to Laugh @ The Marsh Will Durst welcomes comic commentator pals to a new weekly political humor night. $15-$50. 8pm. Thru Nov 6. 1062 Valencia St. at 21st. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Write on L

ocal and nationally known and admired authors, a playwright, and a producer whose work you probably know, step away from their manuscripts, out from behind the camera, and into the spotlight.

Local gay author Kirk Read (How I Learned to Snap) brings forth Computer Face, another witty insightful solo show about everything from Republicans to drugs and sex work. $10-$20. Fri & Sat 8pm. March 23 thru 31. The Garage, 975 Howard St. www.975howard.com www. brownpapertickets.com/event/231453 Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) shares an on-stage conversation, and gets a humanitarian award for his nonprofit work in literacy and education at the InForum Awards. $10-$45. Thursday, Kirk Read March 22, 7pm. Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave. 392-4400. www.cityboxoffice.com Enjoy a staged reading of Terminating, a new play by Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner (Angels in America), with an onstage discussion between the playwright and The Psychotherapy Institute’s Associate Director, Mark Bronnenberg. Proceeds benefit The Psychotherapy Institute. $35-$65. Friday, March 23, 8pm. 2025 Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Addison St. 510548-2250. www.tpi-berkeley.org/kushner Meet the potential literary stars of tomorrow at Queer Open Mic at Borderlands Café.

Barack Porres Hernandez hosts the reading/ performance series. This month Jack McNa- Tony Kushner mara and Sean Patrick Mulroy are featured.

Friday, March 23. Sign-up 7pm. Event 7:30pm. 870 Valencia St. 970-6998. www.borderlands-cafe.com A producer works behind the scenes, but Dante Di Loreto, TV and film producer (Glee, American Horror Story, Temple Grandin, Die Mommy Die!) discusses his career with the SF Chronicle’s David Wiengand. $10-$25. Monday, March 26, 7pm. Kanbar Hall, Jewish Community Center, 3200 California St. at Presidio. 2921233. www.jccsf.org The Magnet Book Club welcomes K. M. Soehnlein, the acclaimed local gay author of The World of Normal Boys and other works, in Dante Di Loreto conversation with host Oscar Raymundo. Tuesday, March 27.

7pm. 4122 18th St. www.magnetsf.org You want more books? How about 400,000? Dig through stacks, plus DVDs, CDs, books on tape and records for $3 or less at the Spring Book Sale at Fort Mason. Member/donor preview sale and reception Mar. 28, 4pm-8pm. Free admission March 29-April1, 10am-6pm. Festival Pavilion, Buchanan St. at Bay. 626-7500. www.FriendsSFPL.org – J.P. K.M. Soehnlein

March 22-28, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 25

Pierre-Laurent Aimard @ Herbst Theatre Brilliant pianist performs a concert of works

by Kurtág, Schumann, Liszt and Debussy. $38. 8pm. 401 Van Ness Ave. 392 2545. www.sfperformances.org

Wed 28>> Children of Paradise: Life With the Cockettes @ Canessa Gallery Exhibit of Fayette Hauser’s rarely seen photos of the famed drag theatre collective. Closing night party March 30. Exhibit hours Wed 12pm-3pm and by appointment. 708 Montgomery St. 296-9029. www.canessa.org

Life & Death in Black & White @ GLBT History Museum AIDS Direct Action in San Francisco, 1985–1990, focuses on the work of Jane Philomen Cleland, Patrick Clifton, Marc Geller, Rick Gerharter and Daniel Nicoletta, five queer photographers who documented the emergence of militant AIDS activism in San Francisco through the medium of blackand-white film. $5. Wed-Sat 11am-7pm.

Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

New Dances @ The Garage Works by Angela Mazziotta, Julia Cost, Requisite Dance, Frederick Gaudette, Baindu Conté-Coomber and Opal Street Dance Improvisation Theater. $10-$20.

8pm. Also Mar. 29. 975 Howard St. www.975howard.com

Shame, Take Shelter @ Castro Theatre Michael Fassbinder’s compulsive sex film (2:30, 7pm), and Michael Shannon in a haunting rural allegory (4:35, 8:55).

Double feature $10. Also, March 29, Pretty Poison (7pm) and Remember My Name (8:45). 429 Castro St. 621-6120. www.castrotheatre.com

Thu 29>> Human Rights Watch Film Festival @ YBCA Last night of weekly screenings of films from around the world that focus on human rights abuses and freedoms. $6-$8. 7:30pm. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. 978-2787. www.ybca.org

Maple & Vine @ American Conservatory Theatre West Coast premiere of Jordan Harrison’s dark comedy about a couple who give up contemporary life and join a group of 1950s reenactors who want to live life like “the good old days.” Special LGBT Out With A.C.T. after-party April 11. $10-$95. Tue-Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru April 22.

415 Geary St. 749-2228. www.act-sf.org

Pink Ribbons, Inc. @ YBCA Leo Pool’s examines the devastating reality of breast cancer versus the pink-themed fundraising industry’s hypocrisy. $6-$8. 7pm & 9pm. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. 978-2787. www.ybca.org

Russell Thomkins, Jr. & The New Stylistics @ The Rrazz Room Original member of The Stylistics performs (with his unmistakably unique falsetto styling)R&B classics (“You Are Everything,” “Stone in Love With You”). $42-$47.50.

8pm. Also Mar. 29 & 30, 8pm. Mar. 31, 7pm & 9:30pm. April 1, 7pm. 2-drink min. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (800) 380-3095. www.TheRrazzRoom.com

Sean Dorsey Dance @ Dance Mission Theater The Secret History of Love, Dorsey’s expanded dance-theatre work about the underground ways LGBT people have communicated and expressed their affections; based on oral histories of senior LGBTs. $15-$25. Thu-Sun 8pm. Also Sat & Sun 4pm.

3316 24th St. at Mission. www.seandorseydance.com www.dancemission.com

To submit event listings, email jim@ebar.com.

Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication.

For more bar and nightlife events, go to

www.bartabsf.com

www.ebar.com

<< Leather+

26 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 22-28, 2012

▼

Scott Brogan

Seven Mitchell presents his rubber fashion show at the SF Leathermen’s Discussion Group on Feb. 29.

Help Joe’s Barbershop

by Scott Brogan

S

ometime during the night of March 10, a fire broke out in the basement of Joe’s Barbershop on Market Street. Thankfully no one was in the building when the fire occurred, which was apparently arson. The damage necessitates its closing for at least a few months.

The insurance will take care of the repairs, but not the livelihood of the barbers themselves. The best way to help out is to give them your business at their temporary locations. The following guys are already set up in temporary quarters: Joe is at Mystic Hair (14 Haight St.); Basil is at Up Hair (4084 18th St.); Mark D. is at Every6Weeks (323 Noe); Ben is at Louie’s Barbershop (422 Castro); James is at Freemans Sporting Club (696 Valencia); and Ray is at Razors (4249 18th St.). If you’d like to donate more than a haircut fee, go here: https://www. wepay.com/xc6fsb/donations/joe-

s-barbershop-fire-assistance-fund.

For updates on the rest of the men and the progress of the repairs, go to www.joesbarbershop.com or their Facebook page.

Rubber and Gear: Rick Holte and Seven Mitchell of the Rubbermen of SF (RMSF) were the featured guests at February’s installment of t h e Leathermen’s Discussion Group, “Rubber: Gear and Kink.” The discussion featured a lively runway showing of Mitchell’s latest rubber designs. These designs showed off the versatility, fun and fashion of rubber. Holte and Mitchell fielded questions about rubber gear, how and why to wear it, how to care for it, and the fun one can have with it. Go to: www.sfldg.org for details about upcoming events.

Don’t forget to sign up to gear up at this year’s Gear Up Weekend, July 12-15 at the Saratoga Springs Retreat Center in Upper Lake. Due to the amazing response from last year,

they’ve added an extra day! Plus, the first 75 men to register will receive a $75 discount, and the next 50 will get a $25 discount. Go to: www.gearupweekend.com for details.

Happenings: The SF Citadel has moved to 363 6th St. Due to zoning issues (I’m unclear on the details) they cannot sponsor any play parties, only workshops, meetings and discussion groups. Be sure to check the calendar at their website: www. sfcitadel.org.

The Golden Gate Guards are busy!

Yep, it’s time again for the Golden Dildeaux Awards. Voting began online on March 9, and continues through April 12. If you’re mailing votes in, the cutoff is April 5. Voting is $1 each. The money goes to the Golden Gate Guards, who do amazing charitable work. The awards will be given out at the Powerhouse on Saturday, April 14. I’m not campaigning for any votes (the “Shameless Award”), but I will say that I’m the Susan Lucci of the awards in that I’ve been nominated but have never won.

The Golden Gate Guards have a See page 27 >>

Coming up in leather and kink Thu., Mar. 22: Daddy Thursdays at Kok Bar (1225 Folsom). Shot & drink specials. 10 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Thu., Mar. 22: Bare Chest Calendar Contest at The Powerhouse (1347 Folsom). 8-10 p.m.

Go to: www.barechest.org.

Thu., Mar. 22: Underwear Night at The Powerhouse (in conjunction with the Bare Chest Calendar contest). $5 cover to benefit Project Inform. 10 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Thu., Mar. 22: Dynamic Scening and Spiritual Connection presented by Master Hines at the SF Citadel (363 6th St.). 8-10 p.m. Demonstrations include flogging, spanking, knife play, and more. $20.

Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Fri., Mar. 23: Steam with Pinkyring at The Powerhouse. $100 wet towel contest, go-go boys! $5 cover goes to the SF LGBT Center. 10 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Fri., Mar. 23: Truck Wash at Truck (1900 Folsom).

10 p.m.-close. Live shower boys, drink specials!

Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Sat.-Sun., Mar. 24-25: Rent Party Digital Pix Special at the Mark I Chester Studio (1229 Folsom). 1-5 p.m. both days. Get one free pic for liking Mark I Chester Studio on Facebook. Go to: www.markichester.com.

Sat., Mar. 24: Community Gear Swap Meet dedicated to Joe’s Barbershop. 3-7 p.m. Join Mr. Powerhouse Leather 2012 Brent Gannetta, get a raffle ticket, and you might win two IML Gold Packages, the grand prize! Look it up on Facebook.

Sat., Mar. 24: Klub 86’d at Kok Bar. 4-9 p.m. Different Malibu Koktails. Get your Klub 86 card stamped.

Guber spins. Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Sat., Mar. 24: 15 Association Play Party at Mr. S Play space (385A 8th St.). Doors open 8 p.m., close at 11

p.m. (play continues). Go to: www.15sf.org.

Sat., Mar. 24: Boot Lickin’ at the Powerhouse.

It’s all about the boots! 9 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Sat., Mar. 24: Open Play Party at the SF Citadel.

8 p.m.-1 a.m. Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Sat., Mar. 24: All Beef Saturday Nights at the Lone Star (1354 Harrison). 100% SoMa Beef! 9 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.facebook.com/lonestarsf.

Sun., Mar. 25: Baby Daddy, a new social event at Kok Bar. 9 p.m.-close. Drink & shot specials, cartoons, great music and no cover! Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Sun., Mar. 25: Nasty at the Powerhouse. Get nasty and dirty! 10 p.m.-close. Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Mon., Mar. 26: Trivia Night with host Casey Ley at Truck. Featuring prizes, insane fun and ridiculous questions! 8-10 p.m. Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Mon., Mar. 26: Flogger-Works with Daddy Darin and Jerry at the SF Citadel. 8-9:30 p.m. $10.

Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Tue., Mar. 27: Busted at Truck. $5 beer bust. 9-11 p.m.

Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Tue., Mar. 27: Ink & Metal at the Powerhouse.

9 p.m.-close. Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com Wed., Mar. 28: Nipple Play at the Powerhouse.

Drink specials for the shirtless. 10 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com Wed., Mar. 28: Leather Buddies at Blow Buddies (933 Harrison). Feel the need to tinkle? A male-only club. Doors open 8 p.m.-12 a.m. Play till late.

Go to: www.blowbuddies.com.

Wed., Mar. 28: Leathermen’s Discussion Group at the Mr. S Play space (385A 8th St.), “Reflections of a Texas Leatherman: Hardy Haberman.” 7:30 p.m.

Go to: www.sfldg.org.

▼

Karrnal>>

March 22-28, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 27

Boyfriend material

by John F. Karr

I

was so hot to write about The Boyfriend when it came out some time ago that I almost lost my nipples. Yet somehow, the review didn’t happen. Until now, kick-started by Raging Stallion’s announcement that they’d hired Zeb to star in their 100th feature (due out in May). So, adhering to my favorite maxim, It’s Never Too Late to be Up to Date, I herewith tender Zeb Atlas’ self-produced and directed feature, The Boyfriend (my other standby maxim comes from that great American philosopher Cole Porter, who wrote, “It’s always darkest just before they turn on the lights.”)

Zeb’s director skills aren’t bad, but could use developing. He hasn’t focused the movie’s narrative – its casual structure matches Zeb’s laidback personality, but it isn’t until an epilogue that we find out there’s been a through-line at all. We first get a 10-minute tour of Zeb’s house, which is followed by 74 minutes of his play dates with three fuckbuddies: muscle god Skye Woods, “wild buck” Adam Killian (that’s the box cover’s description), and All American blonde Casey Daniels (who is usually billed as Christopher). Only after these three sexy vignettes, when everyone’s cum and you think the show’s over, does the movie reveal itself as a reality show: Which date will Zeb choose to be The Boyfriend?

I’m a devout fan of Mr. Atlas, of his towering size, mighty and meaty member, and the manly directness with which he makes us confidants.

Did I mention the fine wonder of his cock? I’ve recently felt he’d gotten overbuilt (I, who stand in awe of hard muscle-size!), but I never cared that he was straight. He played coy, sure, but he didn’t dissemble. I’ve lambasted other gay-for-pay performers, though. Where do I draw the line?

I’ve totally dismissed the automatons Kris Bjorn hires “because they’re easier to work with than gay guys.”

And I thought it was an embarrassment for Raging Stallion to employ the slimy Cody Cummings, who has repeatedly announced his disdain for gay sex. But what about Reese Rideout, whom I’ve adored?

He’s so buoyant, such a natural and dynamic performer who, like Adam Killian, knows how to give himself to the camera, and who seems to make personal connection to his partners. But in an interview that was published just last week, describing the degree of enjoyment he gets from having sex with another man, Reese smugly gave out, “Well, the whole time I’m doing ‘it’ I’m imagining that my luscious cock is in a wet pussy – then I try to block it out.”

Well, I gotta admire Reese’s acting

<<

Raging Stallion

The Boyfriend cast in a clinch (l. to r.:) Skye Woods, Zeb Atlas, Casey Daniels, and Adam Killian.

Raging Stallion

If you were there, you’d be licking him, too. Zeb Atlas and Casey Daniels are captured in a screen grab from The Boyfriend.

chops. He sure had me fooled. But the arrogance of the guy! The stupidity.

To hurl his disdain at us in a gay magazine. Can I enjoy him now, with these rude words ringing in my mind?

Do I even want to try? He’s despoiled himself for me.

As for Zeb, he’s never made demeaning remarks about our sexuality. And I don’t have to rationalize and/or admire that he’s bisexual – because he’s not, not really. He’s buysexual: having gay sex enables him to buy things. As you’ll see during the tour of the house I can barely believe is his. It’s the home of a rich person: a Bentley Continental Coup and a GL550 Mercedes parked on the driveway, a huge Jacuzzi alongside a swimming pool in the backyard, a kitchen costly with equipment, and three bedrooms (one, an office;

Leather +

From page 26

fantastic run planned for this May 18-20, called “Springtime in Yosemite.” Join them for a beautiful weekend in a beautiful setting. Various fun events are planned along with the run. Go to: www.ggguards. com for details about this and the Dildeaux Awards.

On Friday, March 30 at Kok Bar SF, the guys from Edger9 will host a porn casting call. The fun starts at 10 p.m. If you think you have what it takes, or just want to watch, be sure to show up and show it off. Go to: www.edger9.com to see what they’re all about.

IMsL/IMsBB coming up: Leather men and women of all kinds will descend upon the Holiday Inn on Van Ness to engage in the 2012 International Ms. Leather/International Ms. Bootblack weekend March 29

Queen Cougar

The B.A.R.’s legendary leather columnist, the late Mister Marcus.

through April 1. The highlight is the contest on Saturday night, when the 2012 International Ms. Leather and

another, a gym). Can my support of Zeb’s slightly feeble earlier jack-off movies and his dancing and stripping in gay bars have paid for all this?

At any rate, I’ve been able to accept Zeb’s G4P status with lascivious ease. He’s got the looks, and he lacks the lies. So I was predisposed to like The Boyfriend. Adam Killian’s casting was a snare I was as eager to be caught in as Zeb himself – I guess Zeb liked Adam so much when they first, and famously, tangled in Falcon’s Best Men Part 2: The Wedding Party that he asked for an encore. Christopher (or, if you insist, Casey) Daniels is a nice guy, a shiny blonde with a sleek body, no pubic hair, and a zest for sex.

And Skye Woods – well, I kneel before Skye in wonderment. Has there ever been a bodybuilder so gargantuan big, yet so sweet, playful and horny at sex?

I don’t think so. Next time: The Boyfriend blow-by-blow.▼

International Ms. Bootblack will be chosen out of (so far) nine contestants. But the contest isn’t all. There are tons of great workshops, special events, and play spaces. This year is the first to feature a male-only play space. Obviously, there will also be women’s and mixed-play spaces. Be sure to cruise the Vendor Marketplace on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This is one weekend you don’t want to miss! Go to: www.imsl.org for details and to get your tickets for this once-a-year event.

In Memory of Marcus: Today (March 22) is the anniversary of Marcus Hernandez’ birthday. Mister Marcus, as most of us knew him, was the leather columnist for the B.A.R. for over 30 years. It was he who blazed the way and dared to write about our community in a time when everything about us was underground and very “hush-hush.”

We owe him a great debt.▼

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

28 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 22-28, 2012

▼

Music>>

Roberta Flack lets it be Beatles

by Gregg Shapiro

S

till killing us softly more than 40 years since the release of her first album, Roberta Flack says she was sure that she “was going to be the first short black girl from North Carolina to be applauded for her knowledge and ability to play Scriabin.” Now she has turned her attention to the Beatles. On Let It Be (429), the diva who ruled the charts in the 1970s and 80s leaves her distinctive mark on a dozen Beatles classics, refreshing them in ways that only she could do. I spoke with her about her new album and her career last month.

Gregg Shapiro: With such a vast array of material to choose from, how did you select the Beatles songs you included on Let It Be? Roberta Flack: It wasn’t easy. What was involved in the final selection was my commitment to what I thought the songs deserved, in terms of my musicianship and my musical decisions.

For instance, I have two versions of “And I Love Him.” The first one is strictly jazz, in the sense that the melody is improvised. But I wanted to express an ageless attitude of a woman who loves another person.

So we went with almost a Brazilian feel. As a matter of fact, I started to do Portuguese lyrics. That’s how I got to this little arrangement we did for “And I Love Him,” which I think is perfect.

Looking back at your catalog of studio albums, were you surprised to discover that you hadn’t included a Beatles cover until now?

I wasn’t surprised. You probably know that I came up through the clubs: a club in Washington, DC, on Capitol Hill, Mr. Henry’s. I had artists in the audience handing me songs and they would say, “Why don’t you sing a Spanish song? I’ll give you the words to ‘Angelitos Negros.’” Or they would say, “Bette Midler is doing this song, why don’t you do that one?” But I did do “Here, There, and Everywhere,”

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Alvin Ailey

From page 17

whether you believe in Jesus or not; it does not require more than poetic faith, but it does allow you access to the inner sanctum, to see what

“Let It Be” and “Yesterday,” all of the obvious ballads. I’m the kind of musician, if I hear it in my head, my fingers somehow can find the notes.

The arrangements are quite diverse, from the bluesy treatment of “Oh Darling” and the acoustic reading of “Hey Jude” to funky

renditions of “I Should Have Known Better,” “In My Life” and “We Can Work It Out.” I wanted to include voices from the generation that’s making music today. I thought, this has got to have a hip-hop sound. I hope that when people sit down and listen to the words to “Let It Be,” “When I find myself in times of trouble,” it doesn’t mean that it has to be Mother Mary, it can be some other source that replenishes your spirit, revitalizes you, and makes you get up off your butt and keep going.

The album closes with a live recording of “Here, There, and Everywhere” from 1972. Where have you been keeping it all this time?

It was a live concert that I did at Carnegie Hall. As a classically trained student of piano, my dream was to play Carnegie Hall. And here I was, playing “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” but not “Killing Me Softly” yet. The audience was my audience, and when we had a chance to stretch our limbs, I said I’m going to do “Here, There, and Everywhere.” It worked, and it was wonderful. kind of strengths religion could give those with almost no worldly power, to hold their heads high. Revelations is a sovereign remedy for depression. “Motherless Child,” “O Sinner Man” take you to a place of great vulnerability and pain; “Wade in the Water” to a beatific vision of hope; “Rocka my Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,” the finale, gets happy in community. The rhythms are so infectious, the physical gladness they induce in your body is strong as any drug. Very good medicine.

Program 2 included Arden Court (1980), a classic modern dance by Paul Taylor (also gay), which I’d hoped to enjoy more than I did. But in motion, live, despite the clean action and wellstudied posturing the dancers gave it, the pompous Baroque symphony by William Boyce seemed to bring them down, and pomp is pretty much what we got.

Brilliantly playful was Takademe, a witty solo by the company’s new director Robert Battle, who seems likely to take the company into the middle of this century with all streamers flying. It was danced by Kirven James Boyd, bare-chested with red Missoni harem pants. The dance uses the syllabic rhythmic teaching-method of the dance of India, which sets up a swirling fantasia of shifting beats and micro-beats, realized in the body of the dancer using the isolation tech-

Reading what Yoko Ono wrote in the liner notes, it’s clear she gave you her blessing for the project.

Was that important to you?

Yoko and I have a very nice relationship. I had just come back from Iceland with her, where she goes every year since John’s death to light the Imagine Peace Tower, this incredible light that goes up to the sky. Once she lights it on his birthday, it stays llit until the day he was asssassinated. I was so moved b by her invitation. She had h heard a little bit of the alb bum and she said, “Oh R Roberta, I like that.” I asked h her to write the liner notes, aand she sent me back a note ssaying, “I’m tired, but I’ll llisten to the album and I’ll m make a comment.” And she d did, it was just wonderful.

W Was Mr. Henry’s on C Capitol Hill where you d developed your gay ffollowing?

Yes. That’s where I develo oped myself, because my aaudience, they were gay and straight and undecided, and not telling and telling. But the one thing we all had in common was our love for music. I had a little brandy snifter on top of the piano for tips. I had a chance to sing “Let It Be Me” and “Until It’s Time for Me To Go.” Please, there was not a dry eye in the house when you sang songs like that.

I was singing them with all the love, all the musicianship that I had. I had people doing my hair for free, making my clothes. These were young gay artists who wanted to help, and they did.

In 1982, you recorded the theme song to the gay movie Making Love, which was a daring move at the time.

It was a daring move to make the movie. We were still living in the dark ages. I don’t know if it was don’t ask, don’t tell, or don’t think about it. As an artist you took chances if you did something like that.

Have you been asked to sing at any same-sex weddings?

No, but I would sing! If you know somebody who’s getting ready for one, tell them have I got a surprise for you!▼

Eduardo Patino

Yannick Lebrun of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

niques of African dance. The entire body remains still while the rib-cage moves, then a hip does a small undulation, then the neck tilts in a bird-like move, then there’s a huge jump with the legs splitting horizontally to 90 degrees, all in rapid succession, with nothing happening except the isolation. Battle got the idea when he was a student at Juilliard and passed by the classroom teaching Kathak, and listened to the intoxicating sounds of the dance-instruction.

Unfortunately, the thunderous See page 29 >>

▼

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March 22-28, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 29

Film>>

Double feature

by David Lamble

C

asa de mi Padre If you’ve been hankering for the sight of Mexico’s most delicious brother act with their guns a-blazing, Diego and Gael are back. But sorry to say, they have a rather large American co-star, who is the brains behind an undernourished comedy set in the drug-engorged precincts of Northern Mexico.

The new Will Farrell spoof Casa de mi Padre, with its winking send-up of drug lords transmitted in the overthe-top deadpan of Mexican telenovelas, is not entirely toothless. There is an absurdist moment when Farrell’s feckless rancher confesses to the “accident” that killed his mother that’s almost worth the price of admission. But your Spanish had better be a whole lot better than Farrell’s to appreciate the cultural in-jokes. The premise behind this campy homage to Mexican “spaghetti Westerns,” with their loopy jump-cuts and sloppy continuity, is that Farrell’s Armando Alvarez is the emotionally underdeveloped, eldest son of a Northeastern Mexico ranch family under siege from a vicious drug lord – a sneering, saucy brigand inhabited with undisguised relish by Gael Garcia Bernal. Fans of Bernal’s childhood friend Diego Luna (Milk) will appreciate his fleshed out if underwritten supporting role as the prosperous drug-dealing brother back

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After the flood

From page 22

performance at the Ambronay Festival, Falvetti’s “dialogue for five voices and five instruments” (as it’s called on the original libretto) had become a rather more boisterous work for six vocal soloists (all superb), a chorus of 20, and 18 instrumentalists including Iranian percussionist Keyvan Chemirani, whose contribution is felt

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Jiro Dreams of Sushi For a sly doc that’s so on-the-nose that it almost functions like a spoof, try David Gelb’s perceptive, culturally resonant profile of Tokyo subway station sushi chef Jiro Ono. If this detailed examination of one of Japan’s favorite “fast” food joints intrigues you enough to fly over for samples, note that the 10-seat Sukiyabashi requires reservations for lunch and dinner, and there’s a onemonth backlog.

Even more impressive than the tiny eatery’s three-star Michelin rating, the first of its kind for a sushi establishment, are the back story and ferocious work ethic of its 85-year-old proprietor. Jiro works from sunrise to past sunset, hates holidays, and confesses that he was a bad father who hardly

laid eyes on his sons until they began to apprentice at the restaurant. Even his most appreciative Tokyo restaurant critic admits that eating at the tiny counter in front of the briskly efficient Jiro can be a tad scary. Jiro believes sushi should consumed the moment it’s served, so your palate had better be up to his standards.

Eating at Jiro’s is pricey, and the rules strict: no starters, appetizers or desserts, just a three-course dinner composed in movements like a symphony: 20 pieces of fresh-catch tuna, octopus (Jiro confesses that his kitchen staff massages their octopus meat an extra bit to minimize the rubbery taste) and whatever else Jiro’s vendors have saved just for him.

As a guide to how deeply patriar-

chal Japanese society remains, there are no women at all for the first 45 minutes. You’d think that Jiro had hatched his sons through some mysterious form of asexual reproduction.

The “boys,” the eldest in his 60s, had to endure the same 10-year apprenticeship as other members of Jiro’s kitchen staff. Despite this monk-like training, even the master confesses he hasn’t learned all he could about slicing, dicing and serving some of the world’s tastiest seafood.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi, while a lusty rebuttal to veganism, does contain cautionary comments from Jiro’s eldest son about irresponsible mechanized fishing and the threat this profit-driven technology poses to the world’s remaining sea creatures.▼

in subtle ways throughout and particularly so in the music depicting the flood itself.

The problem with floods, musically speaking, is that they don’t have trademark sounds. (Ask anyone in Thailand, who felt it silently oozing down from the north of the country, seeping up from below rather than cascading down from above.) So, as Britten later did, Falvetti had to concentrate his musical energies on the depiction of

the rain storms – the 40 days and 40 nights of them – that caused the annihilating flood.

In Britten, characteristically, it’s a musically dense and complex passacaglia. In Falvetti, it’s sound painting of the most direct and affecting kind.

Just after God (the agile bass Matteo Bellotto) promises his “scourges” of “slaughter, ruin, destruction and death,” the drops begin falling audibly in a captivating “sinfonia di tempeste,”

Death (countertenor Fabian Schofrin) extols his role in “the funeral of the world,” and a double chorus bewails the events in a syncopated lament. It’s juicy stuff that never leaves the listener in the least doubt about what is going on.

The third part, which is devoted to the flood itself, ends with an exquisite, plaintive chorus followed by one of the most arresting numbers in the piece. Death revels in his victory in an

aria, “Ho pur vinto,” set to a rippling plucked-string accompaniment so affecting you share his jubilation.

There’s some astonishingly virtuosic singing throughout the piece, and none of the expert soloists disappoints. Even so, the most involving music of all, for humans, is for Noah (Fernando Guimaraes) and his wife, Rad (Mariana Flores). Their duet welcoming the rainbow, set to an infectious dance rhythm, rocks.▼ speaker, HHS Secretary Louis Sullivan, whose image is projected on a giant screen in the background, and drown out his speech. (San Francisco Bay Times reporter Tim Kingston and Bay Area Reporter journalist Michael Botkin can be seen in the crowd.)

For those old enough to have been there and lived through it, the show will bring back memories, while younger visitors will learn about a chapter in history that pre-dates the Occupy movement, which has its roots, to some extent, in the direct action protests pictured here. It’s heartening to remember, though, that there actually was a time when it was possible to mobilize large numbers of people without benefit of the Internet or social media, and record events for posterity if you didn’t own a cellphone camera.▼

the subject of rock-your-world choreography by many hands, nobody’s ballets mattered more than hers. At the time she herself had cancer, and it was anyone’s guess whether she or her star dancer Tracy Rhoades (who had HIV) might die first. Rhoades created his own Requiem, one of the greatest ballets ever to come out of the Bay Area and perhaps the supreme monument to those who died in our holocaust. She outlived him by 20 years, and only this year won the dance community’s highest accolade, the Dancer’s Choice Award, for her continuing impact on dance in the Bay Area. She was a hero of our dance community, and a true friend of the gay community.▼

Gael Garcia Bernal as a sleazy drug lord in Casa de mi Padre, told in the style of a telenovela.

Life & Death

notified in advance by members of Stop AIDS Now or Else, an independent ACT UP/SF group planning to blockade the Golden Gate Bridge in 1989. As a result, he shot the sole professional picture of the event, the first and last sit-in ever to transpire on the

bridge, where a dozen or so people sat in the middle of the roadway and blocked traffic for seven hours as fog shrouded the city’s most famous landmark. A year later, the Federal government passed a law making it a felony to sit-in on the GGB.

Protestors chanting “shame” during an ACT UP demonstration in 1990 seem to be aiming their rage directly at lesbian photojournalist Jane Philomen Cleland’s camera – and us – but Cleland also conveys the exuberance and solidarity of a painful struggle in her photograph of a seemingly impromptu, permit-free party on Castro Street initiated by AIDS activists the night before the 1990 Pride Parade and the closing session of the International Conference on AIDS. The gathering inspired Pink Saturday, a street party held in the Castro every Pride weekend since then.

Patrick Clifton, an activist turned high school teacher, has the last word, so to speak, in the grace note, the exhibition’s multi-layered final picture, a visual representation of dissonant agendas. In “Sixth International Conference on AIDS: ‘No More Words, We Want Action’” (1990), demonstrators holding a banner turn their backs on the closing night

Ben Frost) were thrilling, especially those of Daniel Santos, who can really get his butt into the air. ODC does not adopt the heroic attitudes of classic modern dance. They come in the postmodern tradition, and cultivate the “pedestrian” look of people waiting for the bus. Indeed, ODC has mastered the power of staying relaxed in moments of maximum exertion.

Curiously, the last time dancers were this good at landing as if it were nothing was the Romantic era, when Marie Taglioni could land from a jump in which she had beat her legs like eyelashes fluttering to alight like a feather in a pose of artless grace.

Daniel Santos can do this. All of ODC’s dancers can do this, and San-

tos and Vanessa Thiessen did this in a rather old-fashioned pas de deux set to Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, in the finale of the show. But more wonderful than that was the duet for Santos and Jeremy Smith that ended Cut-out Guy – which gave us an image of deep masculine friendship that reminds me of my father and his best friend, who died in Daddy’s arms.

Two decades ago, my predecessor at the B.A.R. Keith White wrote that Brenda Way, co-founder of ODC, was going further into the real emotions that same-sex pioneering could convey than any other dance group he knew of anywhere. It is probably just serendipitous that Mark Morris’ Beaux and KT Nelson’s Cut-out Guy

should present within a month of each other deeply observed portraits of the way guys interact. It’s wonderful that Nelson’s should be operating on the same level as Morris’.

Also on the show was a brilliant comedy by Kimi Okada, with crack timing, fantastic observation of the akimbo postures of young people choreographed into intricate patterns that were always clear and perfectly timed to the sound-score, which ranged from English as a Second Language to “Hello Kitty” pop songs.

Brilliant.

A sad note. Modern dancers here mourn the death of Della Davidson, who died this week. During the AIDS era, when the plague among us was

From page 17

they’re presented in chronological order, and each is accompanied by meticulously researched text. Despite its limited size, the show has a narrative flow, and the detached though not disengaged photojournalistic take on this emotionally charged subject effectively trains our attention on the critically important nature of the content.

Gerharter’s “AIDS Action Pledge: Protest at the San Francisco Office of U.S. Senator Alan Cranston,” taken in 1988, captures a moving theatrical moment when a man dressed as a widow, his head swathed in black, applies a sticker to a concrete column in a gesture resembling a farewell to the departed. The image evokes death, mourning and a haunting, Goya-like intensity. Gerharter, a regular contributor to this publication whose artistry often enhances this writer’s articles, was the only photojournalist

<<

to save the ranch from the doofus and marry the lovely ranch lass Sonia, played with aching faux sincerity by rising starlet Genesis Rodriguez.

The 86 minutes between meeting Farrell’s Armando and the balletof-bullets climax feels a lot longer, perhaps due to the inexplicably slow pace. It’s very much like those onejoke SNL skits where Farrell cut his comic teeth, that begin with a promisingly outrageous premise, but then spin their wheels without advancing the theme. So the 86 minutes feel like one very dead horse kicked over and over in quarter-hour loops. Part of the dilemma is Farrell’s penchant for delivering his lines while staring off to the horizon, a technique Bernal in an interview called “looking to Paris,” the home of melodrama.

While Farrell has some amazing chops for physical comedy – I’m still chuckling over his bathrobe caught in a door in Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda – he has the nebbish vibes of an upscale Adam Sandler. Every nitwit beat is flogged beyond endurance. To work, satire has to bite, has to really punish somebody down to the bone. Casa’s swipes at clueless American druggies and ham-handed DEA agents are lethargic. For a better time, rent the Farrell-less Gael/Diego soccer romp Rudo y Cursi, which cuts deeper, and has our handsome lads engaging in some droll, homophobiaspoofing, shower-room antics.

Alvin Ailey & ODC

From page 28

drumming of Les Tambours du Bronx, who accompanied Battle’s other work, The Hunt (all the dances were set to canned music), gave me such a headache I could not admire this quasi-ritual dance, which set six men in black samurai skirts to heroic martial-arts moves in geometric patterns while slapping themselves and jumping as high as they could, which was very high indeed.

Curiously, the athletic moves and very high jumps of KT Nelson’s five men in their underwear did not give me the same heebie-jeebies. To the contrary, their jumps (set to music by

Rick Gerharter

Activists from Stop AIDS Now or Else block the morning commute on the Golden Gate Bridge in an action to protest the lack of action by the federal government in addressing the AIDS epidemic (Jan. 31, 1989).

Through June at the GLBT History Museum, SF. Info: www. glbthistory.org or (415) 621-1107.

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30 • Bay Area Reporter • March 22-28, 2012

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