March 28, 2013 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

HIV/Hep C news

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Rally against trans violence

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'The Whipping Man'

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Vol. 43 • No. 13 • March 28-April 3, 2013

Supreme Court hears marriage cases Thousands march for equality in SF

Justices skeptical of DOMA

by James Patterson

by Lisa Keen

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oy at the prospect of marriage equality and sorrow for countless LGBT families that never were due to AIDS and bigotry rested in the hearts and minds of an estimated 3,000 people who gathered in the chill at Harvey Milk and Jane Warner plazas Monday, March 25 ahead of historic arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court on same-sex marriage.

In what was described as one of the largest gay rights demonstrations in San Francisco in recent years, activists, LGBT leaders, and allies marched to City Hall with some saying that they were inspired by civil rights leaders the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and slain city supervisor Harvey Milk.

From a mobile stage on Castro Street, a succession of speakers vigorously called for an end to Proposition 8 – California’s same-sex marriage ban – and the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing samesex marriages. A poor sound system muted See page 11 >>

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Jane Philomen Cleland

A crowd estimated at several thousand filled Market Street Monday as people marched to City Hall to show support for marriage equality.

ednesday’s argument in the U.S. Supreme Court over the Defense of Marriage Act sounded at times as if President Barack Obama was on trial for enforcing the law even though he considers it unconstitutional. At other times, it sounded like Congress was on trial for attempting to cloak its moral disapproval of gay people under the guise of seeking “uniformity.” And at the end of two hours, LGBT legal activists seemed cautious but optimistic that there are five votes to find DOMA unconstitutional.

March 27 was the second and final day of two historic sessions at the nation’s highest court to hear oral arguments in cases challenging the federal law denying recognition of marriage licenses granted to same-sex couples and challenging a state law banning same-sex couples from obtaining marriage licenses.

Wednesday’s case, U.S. v. Windsor, posed the question of whether Section 3 of DOMA violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. New York lesbian Edith WindSee page 10 >>

Scarcity of affordable housing seen in Castro

by Matthew S. Bajko

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enderloin resident Marcelle Million would like to live closer to the city’s gay Castro district.

“I’ve always loved that neighborhood. It is a really wealthy neighborhood now and I feel like it would be nice to live over there,” said Million, a transgender woman. “I feel it is really safe and becoming more diverse. It is not just a gay mecca; it is sort of upper middle class and working class people.”

The 23-year-old moved to San Francisco in April 2010 from her hometown of Beaverton, Oregon. She at first stayed in hostels and shelters until finding full-time work, and for the last two years, has been renting a studio apartment for $800 a month.

“I wanted to be in a more cosmopolitan city,” said Million, who works for the AIDS Housing Alliance. “I really liked San Francisco. It is a little more international and a little more low-key and less pretentious than New York.”

This year she decided to try to move into one of the affordable housing units, known as BMRs or below-market rate, scattered around the city. One in a building near the Civic Center she liked, but Million did not make enough money per month to qualify.

“I think people, when they think afford-

able housing, think Section 8 or SSI. Often they don’t think about people who are gainfully employed, pay their taxes, and want to live in a good, safe neighborhood,” she said.

“Oftentimes those opportunities are limited to just the Tenderloin area.”

As for BMRs available in her ideal neighborhood of the Castro, she is finding out that few exist.

“Right now there haven’t been as many options as I thought there would be,” Million said.

Those that are available in other parts of town are either two or three bedrooms and don’t fit her needs, or have an income requirement she does not meet. She is hopeful that she will land a BMR unit in one of the new developments being built in the upper Market corridor, close to the heart of the gayborhood.

“I feel like San Francisco is a really expensive city to live in and not a lot of low-income people or minorities get a chance to live in a variety of areas,” said Million. “Right now I live in the Tenderloin because I wanted to live in a studio and not someone’s living room.

Having more affordable housing in higher priced neighborhoods allows there to still be a mix.”

Beginning this fall, when the first new mixed-use housing developments along the

Jane Philomen Cleland

An apartment building next to the LGBT Community Center is under construction.

The 114-unit complex will have 17 affordable units on site.

upper Market corridor start leasing or selling their units, the first batch of new BMRs in a generation will be up for grabs near the vicinity of the Castro.

Six of the nine projects already approved will include affordable housing on site, while

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a seventh will result in a separate building comprised of 23 affordable units built two blocks away on the boundary of Hayes Valley and upper Market. A total of 228 new BMR units will be created along the upper Market See page 3 >>

<< National News

2 • Bay Area Reporter • March 28-April 3, 2013

HIV and hep C advances at CROI

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ew HIV drugs and treatment strategies look promising, especially for people with resistant virus, and hepatitis C treatment has entered a new era, researchers reported at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections this month in Atlanta.

As the pace of antiretroviral drug development has slowed, CROI – now in its 20th year – has largely shifted its focus toward treatment access, biomedical prevention, and related conditions such as cardiovascular disease and hepatitis C. There is also growing interest in research that might one day lead to a functional cure for HIV, as demonstrated by the biggest news out of Atlanta: a toddler in Mississippi who appears free of active virus after starting antiretroviral therapy within two days of birth.

As antiretroviral drugs have become more effective, less toxic, and easier to use, there is now more emphasis on the “cascade of care” – the shrinking proportion of people with HIV at each successive stage from testing to starting antiretroviral therapy to staying on treatment and maintaining an undetectable viral load.

Looking at new HIV drugs presented at CROI, first out of the pipeline is likely to be dolutegravir, ViiV Healthcare’s next-generation integrase inhibitor, which was submitted for Food and Drug Administration approval late last year. New data from the SAILING study show that dolutegravir worked better than raltegravir (Isentress) – the sole approved drug in this class – for treatment-experienced people with resistant HIV currently on failing therapy.

Andrew Zolopa from Stanford presented findings from a study comparing Gilead Science’s widely used TDF version of tenofovir (Viread, also in the Truvada, Atripla, Complera, and Stribild coformulations) to a new version known as TAF. TAF reaches higher concentrations in cells than TDF, meaning it can be used at much lower doses.

People taking TAF in a new four-inone pill similar to Stribild had equivalent viral suppression and CD4 Tcell gains, but less evidence of kidney dysfunction and bone loss.

Joseph Gathe from Therapeutic Concepts in Houston reported good results with Tobira Therapeutics’ dual-action cenicriviroc, which blocks both the CCR5 co-receptor – one of the two gateways HIV uses to enter cells – and the CCR2 co-receptor, which plays a role in inflammation.

Further back in the pipeline, Merck researchers presented promising early data on MK-1439, its next-generation NNRTI.

Are NRTIs necessary?

People with highly resistant HIV – especially those who started treatment with less effective therapy early in the epidemic – may take multiple drugs in an effort to suppress the virus and make it less “fit.” But each additional medication adds cost and side effects, leading Karen Tashima from Brown University and colleagues to ask whether fewer might be better.

The ACTG OPTIONS trial enrolled 360 participants on failing regimens with resistance to nucleoside/nucleotide analogs and NNRTIs. They had been on treatment for 12 years on average and had a median CD4 count of only 200. Investigators put together optimized regimens, choosing among 20 combinations of potent modern drugs. Patients were then randomly assigned to either add nucleosides/

Liz Highleyman

Researchers Andrew Zolopa, left, Matt Anderson, and Joseph Gathe discussed their findings at this month’s Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta.

nucleotides or go nuke-free.

Omitting nucleoside/nucleotides worked just as well as traditional regimens, with more than two-thirds of patients taking either nuke-free or nuke-containing combinations achieving viral suppression within one year. People in both groups had similar rates of side effect, but there were significantly fewer deaths among the nuke-avoiders.

This study is a “game-changer,” said Zolopa. “Many of us are recycling nukes, but it looks quite convincing that we don’t have to do this.”

Hepatitis C

Direct-acting antiviral drugs that target the hepatitis C virus lifecycle – working much like HIV therapy – have ushered in a new era of treatment. But the two drugs approved so far, Merck’s boceprevir (Victrelis) and Vertex’s telaprevir (Incivek), must still be used with pegylated interferon and ribavirin, and many patients and providers are waiting for more tolerable therapy.

Researchers at CROI presented promising data on several interferonfree combinations studied in HIVnegative people. The latest findings from Gilead’s ELECTRON trial showed that a 12-week triple combination of the once-daily HCV polymerase inhibitor sofosbuvir (GS7977), NS5A inhibitor ledipasvir (GS5885), and ribavirin cured 100 percent of hard-to-treat HCV genotype 1 patients, including prior null responders.

Gilead is currently testing a fixed-dose coformulation of sofosbuvir and ledipasvir without ribavirin, which can cause anemia.

Anu Osinusi from the National Institutes of Health reported results from the SPARE study, testing a simple two-drug combo of sofosbuvir plus ribavirin for an inner-city population in Washington, D.C. Treatment was generally well tolerated and cured 68 percent of participants taking the full standard dose of ribavirin, but only 48 percent of those randomly assigned to a lower ribavirin dose.

Sofosbuvir also looked good in a dual regimen with Janssen/Medivir’s once-daily HCV protease inhibitor simeprevir (TMC435). An interim analysis of the COSMOS study, which looked at difficult-to-treat genotype 1 prior null responders, showed that 92 percent treated for 12 weeks and 100 percent treated for 24 weeks had undetectable HCV four weeks after finishing treatment. This is too soon to declare a cure, but all 24 participants followed so far through post-treatment week 12 remain virus-free.

AbbVie (formerly Abbott) also saw some favorable data showing that interferon-free regimens containing its once-daily HCV protease inhibitor ABT-450, one of two HCV polymerase inhibitors (ABT-072 or ABT-333), and ribavirin cured approximately 90 percent of previously untreated people, though this fell to

around half for prior non-responders.

HIV/HCV co-infection

CROI also offered good news for people with HIV/HCV co-infection.

Co-infected people experience more rapid liver disease progression and do not respond as well to interferon, and many with advanced liver damage cannot wait for interferon-free treatment.

Douglas Dieterich from Mt. Sinai School of Medicine presented data showing that adding simeprevir to pegylated interferon and ribavirin allowed many co-infected people to shorten treatment to 24 weeks and increased the cure rate to 77 percent for treatment-naives and prior relapsers. Null responders are still being followed, but so far two-thirds are still HCV-free.

While post-treatment cure rates are not yet known, Boehringer-Ingelheim’s HCV protease inhibitor faldaprevir (BI 201335) also looks like a promising add-on to interferon and ribavirin, with 82 percent of treatment-naive co-infected patients and 91 percent of prior relapsers showing undetectable viral load after 12 weeks of therapy.

Dieterich said the combined findings are “very encouraging,” with a consistent theme that HIV/HCV coinfected people have outcomes about equal to those of patients with hepatitis C alone, although the potential for interactions with antiretroviral drugs requires extra caution.

At a CROI news conference on hepatitis C research, experts discussed what these mean for patients and providers. David Thomas from Johns Hopkins predicted that the first components of interferon-free therapy will likely be approved by the FDA by the end of the year. Comparing the hepatitis C drug development timeline to HIV, he said, “It’s as if we’re going from Crixivan to Atripla in a year and a half.”

“It’s like HIV drug development at warp speed,” Dieterich concurred. “It’s a really good time to have hep C.”

Acute hepatitis C

Finally, Daniel Fierer, also from Mt. Sinai, looked at treatment of HIV-positive gay and bisexual men with new sexually transmitted HCV infection. Acute hepatitis C often has no symptoms, so most people do not seek treatment when they first become infected. But HIV-positive people taking antiretrovirals receive regular liver function tests, and unexpected elevations can reveal recent HCV infection.

Interferon-based treatment is very effective for early HCV infection, but less so for people with HIV. Fierer asked whether adding telaprevir to pegylated interferon and ribavirin for 12 weeks could improve response for HIV-positive men with newly acquired genotype 1 HCV. Interim findings showed that 82 percent had undetectable HCV at 12 weeks after finishing treatment. t

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Community News>>

Castro housing

From page 1

corridor due to the new buildings.

It did not come easy, as housing advocates and neighborhood groups pressured developers of the projects to include the BMR units on site and not opt to pay an in-lieu fee, as two of the project sponsors decided to do.

“Site by site, project by project, process by process, we had to go through and convince each developer to include on site housing units.

With the exception of two projects, we were successful,” said Peter Cohen, the former co-chair of the Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association’s land use committee. “The upshot is we will see in almost all those projects 12 to 15 percent of the units will be affordable units. I think that is a really positive thing for our community, otherwise we would get zero affordable units.”

The developments with BMRs on site run the gamut from smaller in-fill projects, such as the 22-unit building under construction at the corner of Market, 15th and Sanchez streets that will have three affordable units, to large redevelopment projects like the former UC Berkeley Extension campus where 110 units of affordable housing for LGBT seniors will be built.

The site a block away from the city’s LGBT Community Center will have 460 total units with 50 BMRs included in the property’s various residential buildings. Construction is set to begin this fall.

Next door to the LGBT center a 114-unit apartment building is nearing completion. When it opens it will have 17 affordable units for rent on site.

Just down the street from the center, at the corner of Market and Franklin streets, is where the 23-units of BMRs is being built. The off-site affordable housing is to fulfill the requirements stemming from a 118unit housing project going up at the corner of Market and Buchanan.

Five BMRs will be included in the 35-unit building that will replace the old S&C Ford garage site at 35 Dolores Street just off Market.

And two gas station sites being turned into housing will also include BMRs on site. The old 76 station at 2175 Market Street at 15th will set aside 16 of its 80 rental units as affordable. At the Arco station at 376 Castro Street at Market a 24-unit housing project is slated to be built with four BMRs on site.

Brian Basinger, the founder and executive director of the AIDS Housing Alliance, said having all but two of the approved developments along upper Market include BMRs is “excellent” because having on site inclusionary housing has several benefits.

“First, we want to have diverse, economically mixed communities, and on site inclusionary provides that,” said Basinger. “Secondly, I believe that people have a right to live in their communities of origin. This is especially true for LGBT people who deserve to live in neighborhoods wherever we have a sense of being the majority.”

The two properties that paid into the city’s affordable housing fund overseen by the Mayor’s Office of Housing are the 18-unit project dubbed Icon at the corner of 16th, Noe and Market streets, and the 85unit project that will include a Whole Foods grocery store at 2001 Market Street, at Dolores. It had been the site of the S&C Ford showroom.

Approximately $5.1 million will be generated from those two projects, but the money will likely be used to construct affordable housing elsewhere in the city and not near the Castro district. State law does not permit for there to be restrictions imposed on where the money must be spent.

“The question is, what do we lose by not having those on site units and

what does the city gain by having that cash?” asked Cohen, who works at the Council of Community Housing Organizations. “What we lose is the upper Market Castro community does not have those units available for folks in the community, period.

What the city gains is $5 million. But it is not spent in upper Market; it is gone.”

Olson Lee, director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing, acknowledged in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter that his office is not obligated to spend that money in the Castro district. But he pointed out that he has been able to use money from projects elsewhere in the city to help fund the LGBT senior housing that Openhouse will oversee at the former UC campus.

“The in-lieu fees go anywhere in the city. We use it for a variety of housing. It is a function of what projects are available,” said Lee, who expects his office will provide additional funding to see that the Openhouse project is built.

That is why Castro neighborhood groups are now focused on trying to convince Greystar, the developer of an 85-unit development slated for a corner lot at Sanchez, Market and 15th streets, next door to the Swedish American Hall, to include the required 10 BMR units on site and not pay an in-lieu fee as they have proposed to do.

City officials, such as former District 8 Supervisor Bevan Dufty, have long eyed the former gas station site as a potential parcel to build affordable housing. But a deal could not be reached with the family that owns the land to sell it to the city or a nonprofit developer of affordable housing.

“In fairness to the community it is something they should do,” said Dufty, who now focuses on homelessness issues as the mayor’s director of Housing Opportunity, Partnerships and Engagement. “It would be very disappointing. I think it would generate ill will toward the approval process for a project there.”

Having worked on crafting zoning plans covering the upper Market area during his two terms as supervisor, Dufty said he is pleased to see that many of the new housing developments do include BMRs on site.

“That was a goal of the upper Market plan, to have on site. It certainly has been my philosophy that is the best and that is really encouraging,” he said.

Demand outstrips supply

Yet the BMR units that will be available are nowhere near enough to meet the need for affordable housing in the city’s gayborhood. And not everyone will be able to afford them, even at their reduced prices.

“Honestly, the big problem is we are building too much market rate housing. We have the worst public housing policy imaginable,” said queer housing activist Tommi Avicolli Mecca. “What people don’t understand about the affordable housing fight is it really focuses on the AMI level.”

AMI stands for area median income, and even when priced at 50 percent of AMI, many low-income people find BMRs unaffordable, said Mecca.

“The need in the Castro area is for affordable housing for people that make less than 50 percent of AMI,” he said. “We have totally fucked over people with AIDS and low-income queers and we are doing nothing for them in District 8.”

Mecca argues that the BMRs are also not going to be of help to homeless LGBT youth in the city. He believes those residents who will be able to buy or rent the BMRs will end up not being members of the LGBT community.

“So who is all this development in upper Market about? Who is going to live in upper Market in these units? I don’t even think it is going

March 28-April 3, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 3

to be queer people,” said Mecca. “I think we are looking at the Castro turning into a non-queer neighborhood. And all this development in upper Market is going to aid and abet the de-gayification of upper Market.”

Basinger believes it is possible that some of the new BMR units along Market Street will be leased to people living with HIV or AIDS or to lowincome LGBT seniors.

“We want to make sure the developers are not discriminating against gay men with AIDS who have a HOPWA rental subsidy or are not discriminating against a lesbian senior who has a Section 8 voucher,” he said, referring to the Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS. “We do have the possibility of helping people who have access to one of these rental subsidies to get into one of these units.”

Although he concedes that they aren’t a “solution for everybody,” Cohen argues that the new BMRs in the Castro, which will be priced at 55 percent of the AMI, will provide “deep affordability.” To qualify to buy a BMR unit, the income level for a one-person household is $38,950, while for a two-person household it is $44,500.

In terms of BMR rentals, a one bedroom would be priced at $1,113-a-month with utilities included, according to the mayor’s housing office. A two-bedroom unit with utilities included would be priced at $1,253-a-month.

The BMRs rentals at the 2175 Market development, which will include 11 one bedrooms and seven two bedrooms, will be priced at 50 percent of AMI. Rents at that level, according to the housing office, would be $1,013 including utilities for a one bedroom, and $1,139 including utilities for a two bedroom “In upper Market the fact that we will have apartments coming on line at that pricing is hugely beneficial.

Nothing comes close to that on the market,” said Cohen. “When we start seeing the new developments come on line and we start seeing what the rent is for those apartments, it is going to be astronomical. We are talking market rate rentals 150 percent of AMI or higher. In other words, off the charts expensive.”

Center’s housing program

To help LGBT people navigate through the process to become eligible for BMR units, the LGBT Community Center launched a housing program two years ago as a pilot project with an outside contractor.

Last year it hired a former real estate agent to work in-house and run the programs.

The center offers a course that helps enrollees be approved for a Homebuyer Education Certificate, which is required in order to apply for a BMR unit or the city’s first-time homebuyer programs.

Open to anyone, not just LGBT people, the program has seen 13 of its clients close escrow on homes since last July. The center also organizes bus tours of BMR units that have become quite popular.

“Most people coming through this program are interested in the BMRs,” said Shannon Way, a financial services specialist who oversees the center’s housing programs. “We are having phenomenal success with it.”

Rebecca Rolfe, the center’s executive director, hopes the owners of the new buildings nearby will work with the center on finding people eligible for the BMR units.

“We want to make sure LGBT folks can make San Francisco their home and that the diversity of San Francisco continues,” said Rolfe.

When the BMR units do become available, there is going to a “high demand” for them, warned Way, so the center is encouraging people to enroll in the program now in order

to have their paperwork approved.

“We want to help LGBT people get a foot in the door and to be prepared,” she said. “It is a lottery so there will be multiple applicants on a unit.”

Last summer Adam Eden, 64, a straight man and former city employee, enrolled in the center’s program at the recommendation of the mayor’s housing office. In the fall he went on one of the BMR bus tours, and by December he had closed escrow on an affordable unit in a downtown building that cost him $359,000.

“It is very difficult to buy in San Francisco. Everything is in the millions of dollars. The BMR worked out for me,” said Eden, who retired in January 2011 and had been renting his former apartment in the Tenderloin for 20 years.

He had high praise for the center’s program.

“I learned a lot from the program.

Even if you don’t buy an apartment, the information you are getting from there is still very important for personal use,” said Eden.t Next week the Bay Area Reporter will examine the obstacles affordable housing builders face in the Castro and some ideas activists are working on to help house LGBT seniors, youth and others priced out of the gayborhood.

On the web Online content this week includes the Bay Area Reporter’s online columns, Political Notes and Wedding Bell Blues; the Jock Talk and Out in the World columns; a story on a protest at the Hyatt Hotel, and a photo from the LGBT Community Center’s annual benefit. www. ebar.com.

<< Community News

4 • Bay Area Reporter • March 28-April 3, 2013

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Rally to address anti-trans violence

by Seth Hemmelgarn

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iting concerns about violence against transgender Latina women and others, a nonprofit in San Francisco’s Mission district is planning a rally for tonight (Thursday, March 28).

People with El/La ParaTranslatinas are organizing the rally because “the girls” want to “create visibility that violence is still an issue in our community,” Isa Noyola, El/La’s program supervisor, said.

The event is from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the 16th Street BART station plaza (at Mission). The location is near the offices of the agency, which is primarily an HIV prevention organization. El/La’s staff have said assaults and other incidents against transgender women in the neighborhood, as well as other parts of the city, are common. The agency, located at 2940 16th Street, is seeking new office space, due at least in part to safety concerns.

“It’s so much and it’s so constant that it’s part of what they have to deal with as part of being a transgender Latina mujer,” Noyola, who identifies as gender fluid, said, using the Spanish word for woman. “... Violence and harassment and transphobia are just part of the daily

Jane Philomen Cleland

El/La program supervisor Isa Noyola

routine.”

Details of recent specific incidents are difficult to find, and most city officials say no cases have been reported to them in the last few months. People who work with the women have said victims are often reluctant to report incidents for many reasons – they think police won’t do anything or will even harass them, many of the women are undocumented, and there can be See page 10 >>

Plea deal in ’83 murder

by Seth Hemmelgarn

A

San Francisco man accused in the fatal 1983 strangling of a man he’d had sex with has pleaded guilty to vo l u n tary manslaughter after DNA test results Courtesy SFPD weakening the case William Payne against him recently became available.

William Payne, 48, had been charged with first-degree murder during the course of sodomy in the death of Nikolaus Crumbley, 41, whose half-naked body was found in McLaren Park almost 30 years ago.

Following a trial last fall the jury deadlocked. The case had been proceeding toward a retrial.

Earlier this month, however,

DNA test results came back matching evidence from the steering wheel of Crumbley’s rental car to an unidentified person’s DNA that had been found in the victim’s underwear, according to Tamara Aparton, a spokeswoman for the public defender’s office.

“There is clear and convincing evidence of William Payne’s innocence,” Deputy Public Defender Kwixuan Maloof said. “I did not want him to plead guilty to this, but I understand why he did.”

Going to trial would have been “a huge gamble,” and “although the gamble is way in our favor,” Payne was facing life in prison without the possibility of parole if he had been convicted, Maloof said.

Payne is now expected to receive a five-year prison sentence and, with credit for time served, he will likely be released in 16 months. He entered the guilty plea March 21 in San Francisco Superior Court before Judge Jim Collins.

Police arrested Payne, who had See page 11 >>

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Politics>>

March 28-April 3, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

LGBT CA Dems push state party to pass Prop 8 resolution

by Matthew S. Bajko

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GBT Democrats in California are pushing to see the state party adopt a resolution urging the United States Supreme Court to strike down the Golden State’s ban against same-sex marriage.

The pro-gay resolution is one of hundreds the state Democratic Party is being asked to vote on at its biennial convention in Sacramento next month. Officials on the party’s resolutions committee normally whittle down the list to just a handful of resolutions that get voted on by delegates during the Sunday session at the confab.

Members of the party’s LGBT caucus, who submitted the marriage equality resolution, are hopeful it will be put up for a vote. They obtained more than 100 cosponsors for it – the rules require a minimum of 25 – and the list includes all of the current state party officers, such as party chair John Burton and gay vice chair Eric Bauman, as well as Art Torres, a gay man who is the party’s chair emeritus.

A majority of the Democratic National Committee members from California, 11 out of 19, agreed to be sponsors of the resolution, as did 10 of the party’s county chairs in the state, including those from the more conservative counties of Fresno, El Dorado, Stanislaus, and Placer.

The nation’s highest court this week held two days of hearings regarding the issue of same-sex marriage. Tuesday, March 26 it took up the lawsuit seeking to overturn Proposition 8, the 2008 voter-approved ballot initiative that defined marriage in California as between a man and a woman.

Both a federal court judge in San Francisco and a panel of judges for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Prop 8 is unconstitutional. The appellate court’s ruling, however, was not as sweeping as the district court opinion, and it was unclear from Tuesday’s proceeding how the Supreme Court justices will rule in the case.

They also heard oral arguments Wednesday, March 27 in a case out of New York aimed at Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. That clause bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages legally sanctioned at the state level, and a number of lower courts have ruled that portion of DOMA is unconstitutional.

Rulings in both cases are not expected until sometime during Pride Month in June.

The resolution California Democrats are being asked to support does not focus on the DOMA lawsuit. It is solely concerned about the Prop 8 case.

A draft provided to the Bay Area Reporter states that because the California Democratic Party has already taken an official stand against Prop 8 and supports marriage equality in the party’s platform, it “is united and speaks with one voice as it calls on the U.S. Supreme Court to recognize the validity of the plaintiffs arguments seeking to overturn Proposition 8 in order to guarantee full equality under the law for same-sex couples.”

What impact, if any, the resolution will have on the nine justices and how they decide the case, known as Hollingsworth v. Perry, is unknown. But it will add to the public discourse about the lawsuit and the issue of marriage equality,

Jane Philomen Cleland

On the eve of U.S. Supreme Court arguments in the Proposition 8 case, the Castro saw one of the largest rallies in years Monday evening, as hundreds of people gathered in Harvey Milk Plaza before marching down Market Street to City Hall.

argued John Cleary, the LGBT caucus’ current vice chair for the southern region of the state.

“It has no legal impact but rather is part of the contributions to the national dialogue and momentum in support of marriage equality,” said Cleary,

who now lives in Fremont.

(It is expected that Cleary will be elected the LGBT caucus’ northern co-chair during the state convention, which takes place April 12-14 at the Sacramento Convention Center. See the Political Notes online column Monday, April 1 at ebar. com for more on the slate of candidates seeking LGBT caucus leaderSee page 10 >>

www.ebar.com

<< Open Forum

6 • Bay Area Reporter • March 28-April 3, 2013

Volume 43, Number 13 MArch 28-April 3, 2013 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 Peter Hernandez • Liz Highleyman Brandon Judell • John F. Karr Matthew Kennedy • David Lamble Michael McDonagh • David-Elijah Nahmod Elliot Owen• 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 T. Scott King ONLINE PRODUCTION Jay Cribas PHOTOGRAPHERS Danny Buskirk 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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No fees for court files

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or the past few years, California courts have made budget cuts that have delayed justice. Court workers have been furloughed and courtrooms have been closed because of the state’s fiscal woes.

Now, the California Judicial Council has a new scheme to generate income by requiring a $10 fee to access court papers. Some counties, like San Diego, have instituted fees for online access as well. These fees are wrong. Public records mean just that: they are open for public scrutiny without cost. Anyone should be able to go to their local courthouse or peruse a court website without paying a fee.

(Parties to a case would not be charged.)

One of the most troublesome aspects of this plan, which came to light in media outlets last week, was that it was proposed without any public input. All sorts of people seek access to court records, including the media, which often relies on the documents to shine a light on alleged wrongdoing by companies, landlords, and others. Print outlets like ours have been severely affected by the recession and the decreased advertising revenue that accompanied it. Some four years after the recession, we have yet to return to the pre-bust days of increased page counts that are a direct result of increased ads. Most of our colleagues have fared no better. The San Francisco Chronicle made drastic cuts over the years and its parent, the Hearst Corporation, is now seeking deep payments from staffers for their health coverage.

These court fees would negatively affect

newsgathering organizations as they work to bring important legal issues to the public’s attention. Terry Francke, co-founder of the media-supported open-government group Californians Aware, said the fee would make it “prohibitive” for the media to cover the courts.

Ordinary citizens would also be adversely affected. They, too, often seek access to court records for a variety of reasons, and if

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this new fee is adopted, it’s easy to spend hundreds of dollars looking up files. Peter Scheer, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, thinks the $10 fee is “too much of a penalty on ordinary citizens’ access to the legal system,” as he told the Chronicle.

Lawmakers are considering the fees as part of what’s called a trailer bill to the budget. We urge our legislators, state Senator Mark Leno and Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, to reject this plan, which would in essence put the courts behind an expensive paywall.t

Resurrection is racial reconciliation

by Jim Mitulski

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ost of us who celebrate Easter focus on the events of 2,000 years ago, when a Jewish dissident named Jesus was arrested for disturbing the peace. Religious leaders, politicians, and a few of his disappointed friends collaborated to have him arrested, tried without due process, and given the death penalty for his actions. They hoped to discourage his followers who were no longer content to live under Roman occupation, and whose lives were controlled by religious customs based on tradition and which emphasized difference over unity.

The “Jesus movement” was a haven for people who questioned the status quo; they protested against the privileges of a few at the expense of the many and fought for the right for spiritual and political self-determination. Through the power of resurrection, the death of Jesus managed to galvanize his followers, who created communities of resistance where an ethic that “Love is Stronger than Death” supplanted fear of the state and the desire to conform.

Some Christians might dispute my re-telling of this familiar story in these terms, but my work in LGBT religious communities over the past 30 years as a minister revealed these dimensions to me as I witnessed the power of this story to give hope to marginalized communities. I especially came to appreciate this Easter story during the harshest of the AIDS years. I saw many crucifixions – and many resurrections. I marvel I am still alive after so many years of living with HIV/ADS, and I know that resurrection is real because I cried like a baby when I read last month of the unnamed baby in Mississippi, who because of aggressive post-natal treatment, may well have been cured of AIDS. Easter happened early for me this year, just in hearing her story. But there is another Easter story I want to bring to our collective attention, as important as the one that took place in Palestine/Israel so long ago.

Fifty years ago on Good Friday (the exact date was April 16, 1963), the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and put in jail for his role in calling for a boycott of the still segregated downtown stores in Birmingham, Alabama during one of their peak profit periods. White merchants, angry that their Easter sales were being discouraged, collaborated with white officials (including law enforcement and the newly elected mayor) to enjoin King from his activism. Though he had been warned of the consequence of any public demonstration, King and his clergy companion the Reverend Dr. Ralph Abernathy led a march from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which led them straight into the wait-

ing arms of Sheriff Bull Connor’s deputies.

Despite the presence of a thousand or more singing and praying witnesses, mostly black, and entirely peaceful, King, Abernathy, and 50 of their fellow marchers were arrested. King was placed in solitary confinement, “the hole” as some called it, no doubt like “the tomb” in which Jesus was confined. We know that King derived strength and solace from the example of Jesus, and I can’t even imagine how he didn’t lose his mind as King spent that Easter in prison, alone, cut off from friends, family, and supporters. President Kennedy would eventually intervene and allowed a phone call to take place between King and his wife Coretta, and this sacrificial action on King’s part drew unprecedented attention to the plight of African Americans throughout the South and in Birmingham in particular.

While incarcerated, King penned his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” patterned after a New Testament epistle, and written on scraps of newspaper and smuggled out through his attorney. King drew upon his considerable memory to make a case for Christian activism on behalf of the oppressed. Several liberal white clergymen in Birmingham (a rabbi and the Catholic, and Episcopal and Methodist bishops) had issued a public letter criticizing King for his actions, saying, “We are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our Negro citizens directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.”

King was deeply wounded by this betrayal of progressive white Christian leaders, and their dismissal of him as an extremist.

He replied, “The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three men were crucified for the same crime – the crime of extremism ... Jesus Christ was an extremist for love, truth and goodness ... perhaps the South, the entire nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”

In re-reading the letter this year, I was as stirred by the ancient accounts of crucifixion and resurrection. Shortly after it was written some clergy called for its inclusion as an additional book in the New Testament. With the passage of 50 years the clarion call to resurrection as racial recon-

ciliation is even more relevant, I am proud to say that the church I serve, on a seminary campus in Berkeley, keeps copies of the letter in the pews and we encourage people to take them and read them. I urge you to do the same.

If you want to understand how suffering, death, and sacrifice in the service of liberation still has meaning, read the letter and give it to others. Michelle Alexander’s brilliant book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, has convinced me that if we aren’t talking about racism right now, and in particular the plight of incarcerated African American men, then we aren’t engaged in the work of liberation and we are complicit in the perpetuation of slavery and its legacy. And if we are moved by the Jesus story, or the King story, and aren’t paying attention to the fact the our own government is relegating people awaiting trial to unhealthy periods of solitary confinement at Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers, then we aren’t ready to live fully into the Easter story of liberation, or claim a place in its lineage.

My Easter vow this year is to make it more than a recollection of what happened then, as beautiful a story as that of Jesus and Mary Magdalene finding themselves in the garden three days after Jesus was executed, and realizing in tangible ways that Love Never Ends.

When we celebrate marriage equality it will be in part a direct legacy of the African American civil rights movement, an unfinished project that compels all of us to participate in it until it is achieved. My Easter vow is to proclaim a faith that includes the full equality of women and men in church and society, despite the continued intransigence of the leaders of largest groups of Christians, the Roman Catholics, on this issue. My Easter vow is to pray for more cures like the baby in Mississippi. I’m expanding Easter and Resurrection to mean racial reconciliation and gender justice, and while I am proud to sing “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today,” this year, a song popularized by Nina Simone is a more accurate reflection of my Easter hope: Stars when you shine you know how I feel/Scent of the pine you know how I feel/Oh freedom is mine/And I know how I feel/And this old world is a new world/And a bold world/For me/It’s a new dawn/It’s a new day/It’s a new life/For me/ And I’m feeling good.t The Reverend Jim Mitulski is pastor at New Spirit Community Church, 1798 Scenic Avenue, in Berkeley. For more information, visit www.newspiritchurch.org.

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Letters >>

March 28-April 3, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 7

Capitalism didn’t help Poland

In “Supe proposes end to Walesa street” [March 21], Heather Cassell writes that Polish anticommunist Lech Walesa “founded the Solidarity union and led the battle for democracy against the former Soviet Union.” This reflex version of the communist collapse beginning in the 1980s needs to be examined. What has resulted from Poland’s dumping communism for American-style capitalism and NATO? Consider the Gdansk shipyards, scene of Walesa’s strikes. “In recent years,” according to local publication Gdansk Life, “the state-owned Gdansk shipyards have fallen on hard times, as the wave of capitalism has created havoc ... Once a place of work for over 20,000 people, the Gdansk shipyards provide only 3,000 jobs today.” Instead of jobs, Poles now have debt, in 2012 reaching a record 56 percent of GNP. Poland also has war. In 2001 NATO roped its new member into sending troops to Afghanistan, which 73 percent of Poles oppose, according to a 2011 poll. Post communism, women’s rights have been threatened: as president, devout Catholic Walesa vetoed a liberalized abortion bill.

And now this hero of democracy has attacked gays in Parliament, saying we should sit in back or behind a wall, and not try to impose our will on the majority.

Homophobia is to be expected from a right-wing Catholic who conspired with the church to destroy a state where workers had some guarantees of survival. The U.S. government, which touts itself as champion of human rights, willingly partnered with this man. The fall of communism was no victory for all in Poland or Eastern Europe. Polls show that many preferred life under communism. Poland now has a “democracy” much like ours in the U.S. – stuck with joblessness, debt, war, and bigotry.

Hate speech on Internet sex site

If the community is going to go after Michelle Shocked [“Michelle Shocked shocks at Yoshi’s with anti-gay rant,” online, March 18] and Lech Walesa for outbursts of hate speech, why allow it to go on day and night on Niteflirt, a telephone sex site?

Why not log onto Niteflirt and see what’s going on?

You will find ads such as “USMCstudTx,” pictured in Marine uniform, looking for “loser fags.” He reiterates twice that he “hates faggots” and will make them as poor as the people living in Iraq. Look at “Big Bad Boss Man,” looking for loser sodomites to humiliate and degrade. (As a retired San Francisco sheriff ’s deputy, this would not be a good match for me.) These are just two examples. The point: it’s hate speech. Niteflirt’s own bylaws posted on the site stipulate that no racist content can be discussed over the phone. Why allow fag bashing? This is a money-making operation – money not even going back into the gay community. One can only shudder and suspect the elf-esteem and mental health ramifications. I suspect there’s little aftercare. It’s more like after they get their money, they flip the bird, “Fuck you, faggot.”

Why not shine a light on these cockroaches? I say anti-gay homophobic hate speech should not be advertised or discussed for profit over the phone lines. Go after them. Break their balls. Where is GLAAD? I would be happy to discuss this, having monitored the site, not spent any money there, and been thrown off.

Steve Evers San Francisco

Jay Lyon San Francisco

Sisters to host Easter party compiled by Cynthia Laird

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he Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will mark Easter Sunday, March 31, with their annual party at Dolores Park in San Francisco.

Billed by the Sisters as the “greatest show in San Francisco,” the party runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. This year’s theme is “Under the Big Top,” and, as Sister Connie Pinko noted in a news release, “No one throws a three-ring spectacle better than those sacred clowns, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.”

The fun begins with an Easter egg hunt for kids, followed by a parade of contestants in the Easter bonnet contest. The always-popular Hunky Jesus contest is sure to draw enthusiastic contestants Entertainment will include Honey Mahogany, Klown Korps, Bright Side Band, Ethel Merman, Beard Summit, and more.

The party also commemorates the 34th anniversary of the Sisters, a group of predominately gay drag nuns.

People should bring their own food and beverages, and a blanket. Additionally, partygoers are asked to clean up after themselves.

The Sisters are also calling for volunteers to help them clean the park before the party. On Saturday, March 30, the Sisters and Dolores Park Works will be at the park from noon to 3 p.m. to “exorcise those trashy demons and get the park sparkly clean for Sunday’s party.” Volunteers will be treated to free food from some of 18th Street’s tastiest restaurants.

Easter bunny cutouts stolen

The owner of Cafe Flore reported this week that six large wooden Easter bunny cutouts were stolen from the eatery’s exterior walls early Tuesday morning, just days before it is to hold holiday events.

Gary Virginia, who helps with marketing at the restaurant, located at 2298 Market Street, said that the cutouts, which were secured with multiple screws, were taken sometime between 1 and 7 a.m. Tuesday. Each rabbit measures about 40 inches tall.

Jane Philomen Cleland

The Sisters’ Easter party in 2011 drew a huge crowd, including Joshua Devore, right, the runner-up in the Easter bonnet contest.

Cafe owner JD Petras is concerned that the thief may return for the remaining props on the exterior walls. The decorations have been used annually for the holiday when Cafe Flore hosts the Ducal Council’s Mr./Miss Bunny benefit contest and show, which is set for March 31 from 4 to 7 p.m.

“They were custom made so surely someone will recognize them and be a good Samaritan to report the theft,” Petras said in a statement.

Petras is offering a reward for any information leading to the return of the six painted decorations or information on who has possession of them. Petras filed a police report Tuesday, March 26.

Tenderloin Stations of the Cross

San Francisco Network Ministries and other groups will hold their annual Tenderloin Stations of the Cross on Good Friday, March 29. The event takes place from noon to 1:30 p.m. and begins in front of City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place. From there, organizers said, the group will walk through the Tenderloin “in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who suffer daily from hunger and lack of services.”

The Society of Franciscan Workers and Temenos Catholic Worker

are co-sponsors. For more information, contact Father River Sims at (415) 305-2124 or punkpriest1@ gmail.com.

Tenderloin Tessie to provide Easter dinner

Tenderloin Tessie volunteers will be providing Easter dinner to those in need Sunday, March 31 from 1 to 4 p.m. at First Unitarian Church, 1187 Franklin Street (at Geary) in San Francisco. Volunteer shifts are still available. If you are interested in helping out with the event, call Michael Gagne, Tenderloin Tessie board president, at (415) 584-3252 with your full name and phone number.

Man robbed in Castro early Monday

San Francisco police are seeking two men who robbed a man in the Castro neighborhood early this week.

At about 12:55 a.m., Monday, March 25 near 18th and Hartford streets, a man described only as a 30-year-old black male approached the victim and knocked him to the ground. He then punched and kicked the victim, went through his pockets, and fled on foot.

The second suspect “just stood by during the incident and fled” with the other man, according to a police summary. The victim’s wallet and money were stolen.

The victim, 38, suffered a cut to See page 11 >>

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8 • Bay Area Reporter • March 28-April 3, 2013

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March 28-April 3, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 9

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The Institute on Aging hosts a conference next month.

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IOA to present aging conference T

he Institute on Aging and UCSF Division of Geriatrics, Northern California Geriatric Education Center will present LGBT and Aging: Focus on Equality Wednesday, April 10 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco.

“There are an estimated 25,000 older adults living in San Francisco who identify as LGBT. When they were coming of age, they faced years of discrimination, prejudice and harassment in their lives,” said Karyn Skultety, PhD, vice president of home care and support services at the Institute on Aging.

“Even with the positive changes in our society and laws in the past 10 years, LGBT seniors have a hard time trusting that society and service providers will have their best interest at heart.”

Skultety said that the conference would bring together LGBT leaders and hundreds of providers to improve their individual and agency level care; understanding of older LGBT adults; and their approach to serving the community.

“This is an important step in improving care but also in setting the tone for an unwavering commitment to equality and support of the LGBT community,” she added.

The conference will cover the following topics: * A National Call to Action to End LGBT Health Disparities by Claire Pomeroy, MD, MBA, CEO, UC Davis Health System, UC Davis vice chancellor for human health sciences, dean, School of Medicine. * Understanding Government Benefits for LGBT Seniors by Angela Perone, JD, staff attorney, National Center for Lesbian Rights. * The Spirituality of LGBT Aging

by Rabbi Elliot Kukla, Bay Area Jew-

ish Healing Center * Smoking: An Overlooked Health Risk for LGBT Elders by Amanda Fallin, Ph.D., RN, postdoc fellow, Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education * Giving Visibility to the Invisible: SF LGBT Aging Policy Task Force by Larry Saxxon, SF LGBT Aging Policy Task Force * Planning Ahead: How LGBT Older Adults Can Protect Their Rights by Choosing Health Care and Financial Agents by Heather Marler, licensed fiduciary, director of financial services, IOA * Professional Leadership Series, Session #4 by Michelle Alcedo, director of programs, Openhouse * Best Practices for LGBT Equity and Inclusion by Shane Snowdon, MA director, Health and Aging Program, Human Rights Campaign Foundation The conference is supported by Openhouse and funded in part by Horizons Foundation and Health Resources and Services Administration/Bureau of Health Professions, Grant # UB4HP19046.

Additional information and registration is available at http://www. ioaging.org.

Institute on Aging is a community-based, nonprofit organization that touches the lives of thousands in San Francisco, Marin, and the Peninsula. IOA’s breadth of services enable adults to maintain their health, well-being, independence and participation in the community. For more than 25 years, IOA has developed and provided innovative programs in health, social service, creative arts, community and professional education. Visit www.IOAging.org or call (415) 750-4111 for more information.t

<< Community News

10 • Bay Area Reporter • March 28-April 3, 2013

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Anti-trans violence

From page 4

language barriers.

Susan Parra, El/La’s outreach coordinator, said through an interpreter that she was attacked at about 12:30 a.m. February 26, outside the City Club bar, located at 2950 16th Street, across from El/La’s offices.

Parra, 31, said she and another transgender woman had been inside the bar, where a man had been making comments like “You’re not a woman” and “You’re a faggot.”

Outside, someone came up from behind and hit her in the head, knocking her unconscious, she said.

She was hospitalized for several hours.

Parra didn’t see the person who hit her, but she said she’s “pretty sure” it was the man who’d made the remarks inside the bar. She said she didn’t get follow-up on the case from police and she wasn’t asked many questions about what happened. An officer who

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DOMA

From page 1

sor, 83, filed the lawsuit with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union when the federal government demanded she pay more than $360,000 in estate taxes after her same-sex spouse died. Surviving spouses in opposite-sex marriages do not have to pay estate taxes.

The first 50 minutes of the twohour argument was given to a discussion of whether the case was properly before the court, given procedural questions. On the issue of whether DOMA’s constitutionality, former George W. Bush Solicitor General Paul Clement, an attorney hired by the Republican-led Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, said the Congress, in passing the law in 1996, did not discriminate against gays but simply decided to define the term “marriage” “solely for federal law” in order to ensure “uniformity” in the deliverance of benefits.

“It’s rational for Congress to say it’s treating same-sex couples in New York the same as same-sex couples in Nebraska,” said Clement.

That assertion did not go unchallenged.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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took the report didn’t respond to her messages afterward, Parra said.

That officer wasn’t available for comment for this story, but the case apparently made it to the district attorney’s office. Parra said someone from the DA’s victim services division told her they couldn’t pursue the case since she couldn’t identify the person.

Sergeant Chuck Limbert, who said he plans to be at Thursday’s rally, is the LGBT liaison for the San Francisco Police Department’s Mission Station.

Limbert said officers are “extremely sensitive” toward the transgender community, and cases involving transgender people are “flagged immediately” if victims identify themselves as such, he said. Limbert indicated he was only able to find one recent case that might have involved a transgender woman. It didn’t appear to be Parra’s.

Rebecca Prozan, the district attorney’s director of community relations, is hopeful there will soon be a

Political Notebook

From page 5

ship positions.)

The California Legislative LGBT Caucus, comprised of the eight openly gay and lesbian members of the state Legislature, is expected to add its endorsement to the party resolution when it meets next week. Gay Assembly Speaker John A. Perez (DLos Angeles) is already an individual sponsor of it.

“The Legislative LGBT caucus will consider endorsing the resolution at our meeting the first week in April. I do hope that we can play a role in se-

Bill Wilson

Edith Windsor was greeted by supporters after she left the U.S. Supreme Court hearing Wednesday.

all questioned Clement on it.

“What gives the federal government the right to be concerned at all about the definition of marriage?” asked Sotomayor, noting that marriage has always been considered an area of state law. She suggested members of Congress appeared to create a law to disfavor a “class they don’t like.”

When Clement suggested Congress was helping the states by put-

curing passage of the resolution at the state convention,” gay Assemblyman Rich Gordon (D-Menlo Park) told the B.A.R. in an emailed response.

Former Openhouse ED tapped for senior panel

Last week the Board of Supervisors’ rules committee voted 3-0 to nominate Molli Steinert, 60, a former executive director at the LGBT seniors nonprofit Openhouse, for a vacant seat on the city’s LGBT Aging Policy Task Force.

Executive director of SteppingStone Adult Day Health Center, Steinert beat out attorney Helene

Obituaries >> Roger Paul Friedrich December 19, 1937 – March 9, 2013

Our friend, mentor, and brother, Roger Friedrich, passed away March 9, 2013 in San Francisco. He was 75.

Roger was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, where he graduated high school and became an Eagle Scout. He earned a college degree in forestry and later earned a theological degree at Virginia Theological Seminary. Roger was employed for many years in Virginia as an Episcopal minister. Roger was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Air Force and served

in Korea. In the late 1960s, he moved to the city he loved, San Francisco. He worked in myriad capacities, including several years as the manager of Blow Buddies. A man with a generous spirit, Roger would offer to help out his friends via house-sitting, offering rideshares, or offering counseling through a midnight chat.

Roger is preceded in death by his parents, Florence and Paul, and is survived by his sister, Pauline (Corrales, New Mexico), and his brother, John (Fallon, Nevada). Roger was very active in several Bay Area clubs including SF Primetimers and LIAHO. Roger was cremated at Pacific Internment (SF) and his brother, John, will disperse his cremains over the many places Roger called home.

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meeting that includes her agency, the transgender community, the city’s Human Rights Commission, and police.

“If the police aren’t getting reports, then there’s a reporting problem, and if there’s a reporting problem, there’s a trust problem,” Prozan, an out lesbian, said. District Attorney George Gascón is “committed” to ensuring there are “direct lines of communication” with his office, she said.

Human Rights Commission Executive Director Theresa Sparks, who’s transgender, confirmed that a meeting is in the works, and she’ll be at the rally.

Prozan, who said her agency would be represented at Thursday’s event, encourages people with concerns about these issues to contact her at (415) 558-2449 or email her at rebecca.prozan@sfgov.org.

Limbert said people can contact him or Mission Station Captain Robert Moser. The station’s phone number is (415) 558-5400.t

ting the issue on “pause” and letting the states work through the democratic process in deciding the law in each state, Kennedy noted that DOMA seemed instead to be “helping states if they do what [members of Congress] want them to do.”

Ginsburg said DOMA appears to affect same-sex couples by turning their marriages into a sort of “skim milk,” in comparison to the whole milk, or “full” version enjoyed by opposite-sex couples.

Kagan perhaps hit the hardest note when she said the record of House proceedings around DOMA in 1996 seemed to indicate Congress “had something else in mind than uniformity. ... something that’s never been done before.” She quoted a passage of the House report that said that DOMA was intended to express “moral disapproval” of marriage for same-sex couples.

“That’s a pretty good red flag,” said Kagan.

Clement seemed to be caught off guard by the excerpt. “Does the House report say that?” he asked.

The challengers of DOMA appeared off guard at times, too.

Chief Justice John Roberts asked both Solicitor General Donald Verrilli and plaintiff ’s attorney Roberta Kaplan whether it would be perSee page 11 >>

Wenzel, 68, an out lesbian who focuses on elder law issues, for the vacancy. Both women had applied to serve on the panel last year when it was first formed and were the top candidates for the open seat.

The task force is working on developing a detailed report about the issues LGBT seniors face in San Francisco and how the city can address their concerns. It is expected to launch an online survey in April to gather input from LGBT adults aged 60 and older.

In November transgender activist Felicia Elizondo, also known as Felicia Flames, decided to resign from the task force. Due to an imbalance of male versus female members, task force officials had asked that a woman be chosen to fill the vacancy.

The full board must now approve the committee’s pick of Steinert. The vote is expected to take place at the board’s Tuesday, April 2 meeting.t Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http:// www.ebar.com Monday mornings at noon for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion.

This week’s column reported on lesbian state Senator Cathleen Galgiani’s decision to join the Legislative LGBT Caucus.

Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 861-5019 or e-mail mailto:m.bajko@ebar. com.

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Community News>>

Thousands march

From page 1

their message for many. The Reverend Victor H. Floyd, pastor of San Francisco’s Metropolitan Community Church, who wore a black leather stole with crosses made of chrome studs, later confirmed he told the crowd, “We are marching for marriage equality for those present and for those lost to AIDS and those who are afraid and live in fear.”

The Supreme Court on Tuesday, March 26 heard arguments in the Prop 8 case, with many observers saying the justices seemed reluctant to offer a sweeping “marriage for all” opinion. The justices heard the DOMA case Wednesday, March 27, which hinges on whether a part of the law that denies same-sex married couples federal benefits is constitutional. Opinions in both cases aren’t expected until June.

Due to the sound problem, Grace Cathedral provided an e-mail of comments by California Episcopal Bishop Rt. Reverend Marc Handley Andrus. “When one group of people, holding power, makes decisions about who a person can love, what is at stake is the question of who is a human being and who is not,” Andrus, a straight ally, said. He said he was “committed to solidarity with LGBT people for the recognition of their full human rights.”

Neil Giuliano, CEO of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, said he brought about 20 staffers to march for equality.

“Public sentiment is on our side and we are on the threshold of full legal equality,” he said, adding, “[Memories of] Harvey and many, many others are with us tonight.”

Gay District 9 Supervisor David Campos said the Supreme Court should “do the right thing” and overturn Prop 8 and DOMA. “I am for full legal equality for LGBT people,” he said.

The crowd began marching down Market street at 7 p.m. with popular

<<

DOMA

From page 10

missible for Congress to adopt a definition for federal purposes that included gay couples, rather than excluded them.

Verrilli said the House report excerpt “makes glaringly clear” that

<<

Plea deal

From page 4

been questioned as early as 1984 in the death, in January 2012 after matching DNA from Crumbley’s body to him. Assistant District Attorney Michael Swart has said “large amounts” of Payne’s sperm were found on Crumbley’s body.

<<

News Briefs

From page 7

his palm and pain to his head. He refused medical treatment.

SF civil grand jury seeks applicants

The San Francisco judges who comprise the Civil Grand Jury Committee are reaching out to minority groups, including the LGBT community, in an effort to bolster diversity among civil grand jury applicants for the 2013-2014 term, Superior Court Judge Teri L. Jackson announced.

“To adequately represent the city and county of San Francisco, the civil grand jury must include members with diverse viewpoints and experiences,” Jackson, chair of the committee, said in a news release.

She added that the effort has been in place the past three years.

March 28-April 3, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 11

local lesbian DJ Page Hodel spinning 2009’s “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eye Peas. Change was in the air commingled with a healthy aroma of medical marijuana as marchers carried rainbow flags and equality signs. One sign read: “Saving sex until marriage sucks if you can’t marry.”

Some enthusiastic marchers held hands with partners and children.

Some had their arms around others.

Some temporarily left the march to kiss on the sidewalk. Some marched with assistance of caregivers and friends. Chants included “Si, se puede!” (Yes, it is possible”) and “Equal Rights Now!” From apartment windows, people shouted support.

Bystanders and onlookers were few. San Francisco Deputy Sheriff Brian Stahely said no altercations, arrests, or counterdemonstrations occurred.

Longtime LGBT and civil rights activist Gary Virginia, a 16-year Castro resident, said the march is historic and he reflected on pioneers like late leather enthusiast and tireless HIV fundraiser Alan Selby. “My heart is full,” Virginia said, “for those who got us here tonight.”

San Francisco singer-songwriter Gypsy Love, a 30-something who identifies as a “passionate ally of the LGBT movement,” said she was “inspired to promote love.”

“For people to oppose love with laws is wrong,” she said.

San Rafael resident Nancy Mancias, 43 and a Code Pink activist, said she attended to “support my sisters and brothers working for marriage equality.”

“Struggling student” Erin Lavery, 48 and who identifies as lesbian, had a message for opponents of marriage equality: “If you don’t believe in the right to same-sex marriage, then don’t marry someone of the same sex.”

Mark King, an East Bay banker and for 15 years a board member at the Rainbow Community Center in Contra Costa County, road a fourwheel scooter because he “couldn’t

walk all that much.” King, gay and 56, said he did not want to miss the march because he strongly believed in marriage equality.

South of Market sex worker Somsri Yuan, 25 and who identifies as transgender and pansexual, said she believed in freedom for people to marry the gender of their choice.

Others were excited that the march drew such a large crowd.

Hilary Burdge, a 36-year-old San Franciscan who identifies as queer and works as a research project manager at the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, said she was “thrilled at the turnout” for the march and she was “excited at support for marriage equality” but she had concerns. She urged LGBT leaders to “not forget those left behind such as queer and transgender youth and their issues of discrimination and bullying.”

Gay retired finance director Troy Burnet, 48, president of Castro Lions Club, said he “wanted the opportunity to marry his partner if I so desire.” He marched for “all those who didn’t live to see this come to fruition.”

Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club President Tom Temprano, 27 and a self-employed San Francisco DJ, promoter, and event planner, expressed thanks to the organizers for the grassroots effort in making the event successful.

“The event was as celebratory as I recall anger being when Prop 8 passed,” he said, referring to the angry demonstrations that took place after the ballot measure passed in 2008.

DOMA was intended to exclude lawfully married same-sex couples.

“Are you saying that 84 senators were motivated by animus?” asked Roberts in follow-up to both Verrilli and Kaplan.

Both Verrilli and Kaplan clearly avoided saying they think DOMA was motivated by animus.

“It could have been a lack of reflection or an instinctive response,” said Verrilli. But, he added emphatically, “Section 3 discriminates and it’s time for this court to recognize that discrimination cannot be reconciled with our fundamental commitment to equal protection See page 13 >>

“Thirty years later, a homicide case has been resolved,” Alex Bastian, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said when asked about Payne’s guilty plea. “This case was made possible because DNA linked the defendant to the crime. After a jury trial where the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict, the district attorney’s office

believed that this resolution was in the best interest of the victim’s family and the community.”

In September, Payne testified that he and Crumbley had had sex in Crumbley’s Ellis Street hotel, but that he hadn’t learned of Crumbley’s death until days later.

The next court date is April 11 for sentencing.t

The civil grand jury is a group of city residents who are empanelled to study the workings of local government. The panel generally issues a report at the end of its term.

The deadline for applicants to be on the next civil grand jury (July 1-June 30) is April 15. Eligibility requires applicants to be U.S. citizens who are at least 18 years old.

Applicants must also have lived in San Francisco for at least one year, among other requirements.

Generally, applicants must be prepared to devote at least 15 hours per week to civil grand jury service.

The entire panel meets at the Civic Center Courthouse from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Mondays, and separate committee meetings are scheduled as necessary. Members receive a $15 per diem for each meeting attended during the term.

For more information, visit http://www.sfsuperiorcourt.org and

click on the “Civil Grand Jury” link.

Eligible applicants are interviewed before judges, who select a pool of 30 people. The 19 members of the civil grand jury are selected, with the remaining 11 individuals serving as alternates.

City Hall

It took marchers about an hour to trek the two-mile route to City Hall, where gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener stood on the steps and enthusiastically welcomed them. He said nine years ago City Hall stood for marriage equality, when thenMayor Gavin Newsom ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Gathering for Catholic parents of LGBT kids

The group Fortunate Families will have a daylong retreat next month for Catholic parents of LGBT children. The event is for parents to affirm, celebrate, and seek equality for their families. The gathering will be held in Pleasanton on Saturday, April 6 beginning with a light breakfast at 8:30 p.m. and concluding with mass at 5. Lunch is included and the event is free.

The registration deadline is March 31. For more information or to sign up, visit http://www.fortunatefamilies.com or call (585) 698-6100.t

Wiener called on the Supreme Court to do the same and to “put Prop 8 and DOMA on the garbage heap of history.” Crowd reaction to Wiener was loud, proud, and long.

District 6 Supervisor Jane Kim and District 3 Supervisor David Chiu attended but did not speak.

Organizer Gregg Cassin, 50, also welcomed marchers and thanked co-planners for what he called a “wonderful success.” Speakers included bi-national same-sex couples separated by unjust immigration laws as a result of DOMA. Glide Memorial Church pastor Karen Oliveto said, “The country is more than ready to embrace marriage equality.”

Cassin reminded the crowd March 25 was the 48th anniversary of the historic Selma-Montgomery march for voting rights in Alabama.

“With Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall, future political leaders will include San Francisco,” he said, borrowing from President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address where he referenced three key moments in the fight for equality.

YouTube sensation Daniel Leffew, 12, read his letter to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts asking him to legalize marriage for his two dads. Wildly enthusiastic cheers followed his reading.

Following the Prop 8 hearing Tuesday, marriage equality supporters gathered for the first night of a planned two-night vigil at the California Supreme Court Building. According to planner Billy Bradford, the vigils will “show the diverse support for marriage equality.”

The Reverend Janie Spahr, 70, who was tried by the Presbyterian Church for marrying same-sex couples, was ready to respond to Justice Samuel Alito’s comment during court that “same-sex marriage is very new.” She said it dated back to the 13th century.

Castro resident Brandon Brock, 31 and a PFLAG-SF board member, said he is “optimistic same-sex marriage will be recognized again.”

He and his husband Alexis Caloza, 31 and a trust attorney in San Francisco, were married in New York in 2011.

Cassin reflected on Monday’s march. “Harvey Milk always said ‘You’ve gotta give them hope,’” Cassin said. “Hope was evident in the spirit of the march. It was incredibly hope-filled.”

Two events tonight (Thursday, March 28) will recap the Supreme Court arguments.

Out in the Bay Area, a radio show broadcast on KALW 91.7 FM at 7 p.m., expands to an hour call-in format with guests Kate Kendell, executive director National Center for Lesbian Rights who attended the oral arguments, and Oakland attorney Fred Hertz, author of Essential Advice for Same-sex Couples.

Horizons Foundation and other LGBT groups will host a community discussion on Prop 8 and DOMA from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Rainbow Room at the LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street.

Guests include Matt Coles of the American Civil Liberties Union and Chris Stoll, senior staff attorney at NCLR.t

<< Travel

12 • Bay Area Reporter • March 28-April 3, 2013

A whirlwind of fun awaits in Chicago

by Heather Cassell

a shared shower, cuffs and swings, a kitchen, and snacks, among other amenities. Kugelman runs the dayto-day operations of the immaculate, chic and kinky B&B. The guesthouse is already booked for IML, which takes place over Memorial Day weekend.

Dykes and transgender individuals looking for a play party during IML will enjoy going to Vespertine, an all-women and transgenderfriendly play party, on May 26.

cago’s lesbian community co-organizing socials, such as the springtime Chicago Curve Annual Sunday Social (http://www.chicagocurve. com). The event, happening April 7, attracts more than 100 women for an afternoon of food, drinks and live music.

Chicago has one lesbian bar, Parlour, and three other bars that are popular among lesbians: Joie de Vine, T’s Bar and Restaurant, and Rosco’s, which hosts a ladies night on Thursdays.

This year’s BackLot Bash, the allwomen’s weekend party, is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

“We always knew we had a busy, vibrant Chicago LGBT community,” said Amie Klujian, 44-year-old Chicago native, who co-founded and co-produces BLB along with Wiesmore, 37.

A decade ago the two lesbian friends simply wanted to “create an event geared toward women,” said Klujian.

“Honestly, we sometimes forget that we live in an open and accepting community in our city,” said Klujian, about queer women who live outside of Chicago in parts of the Midwest that aren’t as accepting and open.

It’s true, my girlfriend and I were surprised that no matter where we went in Chicago no one gave us a second look if we were holding hands or sharing each other’s food.

It felt pleasantly like we were back at home.

Women’s community

Boys, boys, boys

C

hicago offers all of the excitement of a bustling American city with unique neighborhoods, great art and culture and nightlife, a vibrant LGBT and leather community, and a big Midwestern heart.

The Windy City is historic and legendary in its own right. Chicago became a city in 1837. Historically, Chicago might be best known as the home of 1920s mob boss Al Capone; for being the founding city of social work with Hull House, established by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to help the needy with food, education, employment; and being the starting point of Route 66 that heads west to California.

Today, Chicago, which sprawls 237 square miles into its surrounding suburbs, is known for being President Barack Obama’s hometown and is on the forefront of marriage equality as Mayor Rahm Emanuel and former mayor Richard M. Daley support the move for same-sex marriage under way in the Illinois Legislature.

Chicago truly offers something for any visitor. It’s no wonder the Windy City was selected as this year’s host for the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association’s 30th convention.

“I know Chicago very well,” said John Tanzella, executive director of IGLTA. “They have a wonderful gay village called Boystown with lots of great restaurants and cafes and things to do there. The city has tremendous architecture, shopping, dining, culture, and arts. There’s so much for folks to see and do there.”

“There’s definitely something for everyone here,” agreed Christina Wiesmore, co-founder and coproducer of BackLot Bash, the allwomen party event that takes place

Cesar Russ Photography/Courtesy Choose Chicago

Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower, is a popular tourist attraction in downtown Chicago.

during Chicago Pride. “That’s what makes it special.”

Who’s your daddy?

Aside from its LGBT community, Chicago also has a large leather community. The International Mr. Leather competition and American Brotherhood Weekend both call the Windy City home.

“We have a really solid leather community,” said Dean Ogren, a 55-year-old gay man who is the owner and executive producer of ABW. The city’s leather community is unique in the fact that it has a leather bed and breakfast, the Ashland Arms Guest House, and the Leather Archives and Museum.

The leather neighborhood, Eddgewater, borders Andersonville,

the lesbihood, in the northern part of Chicago. Ashland Arms Guest House resides on the top floor of an apartment building over 64 Ten Leather Shop, and leather bars Jackhammer and Touche. The leather archive is located about 12 blocks from the guesthouse.

In 2008, inspired by their own B&B experiences traveling around the world, Eric Kugelman, 48, and Michael Syrjanen, 66, who have been together for 16 years, decided to open the BDSM guest house.

They also own the 64 Ten Leather Shop downstairs. Syrjanen, a designer, created an exhibition of original kink artwork throughout the guesthouse and designed the five themed rooms, such as the Bunk Room, that overlooks the district’s police station. The B&B also sports

t

“There’s a lot more things going on for women now than there used to be,” said Amy Bloom, a lesbian native Chicagoan who owns Amy Bloom Inc., an event planning company.

Bloom, 40, is very active in Chi-

Gay men can be found in Boystown, where a concentration of the gay bars, gay-centric shops and the Center on Halsted, Chicago’s LGBT community center, is located.

See page 13 >>

t <<

Travel >>

Chicago

From page 12

Boystown is also the home of Steamworks Chicago, the men’s gym and sauna, which provides one of the few alcohol- and drug-free spaces for gay men to hang out. It’s operated by the same folks who run the bathhouse in Berkeley.

“It’s a great community space to hang out,” said Nirmalpal Sachtev, general manager of Steamworks Chicago. Sachtev, 39, a San Francisco Bay Area transplant, said that the Windy City’s LGBT community is “blossoming.”

Once the snow melts after the harsh winters, Chicagoans, including the LGBT community, come out to play.

“It’s such a beautiful city in the summer,” said Michael Snell, who owns http://www.BestGayChicago. com with his business and life partner Derrick Sorles. “[It’s] such a lively city [with] so much going on [with] the nightlife and the events.

On any given night there is always something going on.”

The unofficial gay beach, Hollywood Beach, often attracts upward of 600 sunbathers and volleyball players, said Snell.

Lesbian locals pointed out that Chicago has the largest women’s softball league in the nation.

Sleeping around town

Chicago is so vast it’s best to find a hotel either near where you believe you will spend most of your time or a central location, like downtown, where the neighborhoods are easily accessible.

Boystown currently offers three nice options with sister hotels City Suites, the Majestic, and the Willows. City Suites is the closest to the action at the south end of Boystown. It’s not quite as nice as the others. What it offers is proximity

<<

March 28-April 3, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 13

DOMA

From page 11

of the law.”

But it was during questioning about the procedural matters that Roberts and other conservative justices hammered on what came across as much as a political jousting as it was a legal matter.

Roberts wondered why Obama didn’t have “the courage of his convictions” that DOMA was unconstitutional and “instead, wait until the Supreme Court” rules it so.

Justice Samuel Alito said he thought it odd that Obama would continue to enforce DOMA “until the court tells him to stop.”

Breyer commented that the president has an “obligation” to faithfully execute the laws, whether he likes them or not.

Reactions

LGBT legal advocates were cautiously optimistic that DOMA would be thrown out.

Jon Davidson, legal director for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, said he was “very encouraged” by the argument.

“When it comes to the merits, I think there are at least five justices who are prepared to strike down Section 3 of DOMA,” he said. “One of the things that Justice Ginsburg said at the end, about the beginning of the sex discrimination cases, the court did strike down laws that discriminated based on sex based on rational basis, and saw it as discrimination.”

Mary Bonauto, head of civil rights for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, said she thought the questioning was “vigorous” on the procedural issue of standing. On the issue of DOMA’s constitutionality, she said she thought Kagan “called out” the discriminatory statement in the House report.

“Overall, they were asking the

Geena Dabadghav

Ashland Arms owners Eric Kugelman, left, and Michael Syrjanen

Aqua is the first of the European style Radisson hotels to be built in America.

Around the corner is the Hyatt Regency Chicago, which is the official host hotel for both the IGLTA conference and IML. There is something to say about historic style at the Drake. Our room came with two full bathrooms, which for women and stylish men is sometimes important.

The room was also spacious and elegant and overlooked Lake Michigan. On the bottom floor of the hotel was Coq d’Or, the first bar in the city to open its doors after Prohibition.

The Drake isn’t as close to the theater district, restaurant row and other attractions as the Hyatt and the Radisson, but it is near highend shopping and the Signature Room.

to Boystown, a block away, and the Red Line, which runs right past the hotel.

The Majestic, where we stayed, is the other closer option to Boystown. A boutique hotel located about three blocks from N. Halstead, the main strip of Boystown, it is charming, the nightlife is easily accessible, and it offers a quiet retreat.

The Willows is a beautifully appointed hotel and popular among women, but the farthest from Boystown.

We spent the rest of our time downtown where we stayed at the newly built Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel, Hyatt Regency Chicago, and the historic Drake Hotel.

The Radisson is impressive. Designed by architect Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects, the hotel is beautiful inside and out and overlooks Millennium Park and Navy Pier (as our room did) on one side and the cityscape on the other side of the building. The Radisson Blu

The food

right questions and the right themes were in play,” said Bonauto.

Jennifer Pizer, a Lambda Legal attorney, said she thought it was clear that the argument of “uniformity” made “no sense at all.”

“It was surprising to me the suggestion from some of the conservative justices that the administration should not enforce laws when they have questions about constitutionality or have a view of constitutionality different from previous administrations have said. That seems immensely impractical,” said Pizer.

“One thing that did seem clear yesterday and today,” said Pizer, “is that we’re witnessing a moment of recognition of anti-gay discrimination and the government trying to come to terms with how it should change. Perhaps we shouldn’t be that surprised that some justices are resistant to addressing the merits of question, but the justices are particularly well situated to address them.”

Tuesday’s argument was over the constitutionality of Proposition 8,

California’s voter-approved ban on marriage licenses for same-sex couples. The court heard 80 minutes of argument in Hollingsworth v. Perry over whether it should find California’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.

In both cases, both sides see Kennedy as the most likely justice to provide a fifth vote for the winning side. But Tuesday’s argument in the Prop 8 case left many speculating that the court may decide that opponents of marriage e quality did not have proper legal standing to appeal the case.

Legal standing was an issue in the Windsor case, too, because the Obama administration appealed the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that DOMA violates the equal protection clause of the constitution. A party bringing an appeal must show it is injured by the lower court holding.t

Once my girlfriend knew we were heading to Chicago she couldn’t stop talking about getting her hands on a classic Chicago hot dog. She grew up in a suburb of Chicago and misses some of the foods from her childhood. Surprisingly, it was a tough task to accomplish with Chicago’s vast and rapidly growing food scene. But on our final night, we dug into the city’s classic deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria and for lunch on the way out of town enjoyed a hot dog with all of the fixings at Portillo’s Hot Dogs.

Foodies to the bone, we were dazzled by Chicago’s booming restaurant scene. Chicagoans are leaving behind their “meat and potatoes” plates, opting for a diverse array of delectable dishes from around the world and of course giving global fare a Windy City twist, such as at Zed451, a Brazilian-style steakhouse.

Zed451 is an experience not to

Lisa Keen’s report from Tuesday’s Prop 8 argument is online at ebar.com.

miss. If you know you are heading to Chicago, make reservations as this downtown restaurant is a unique three-hour dining experience that is popular among locals and visitors alike.

Harvest fresh food has hit Chicago’s restaurants. Nearly every restaurant is boasting fresh and flavorful in season produce seen more often on the restaurant tables in the Pacific Northwest and in New York City.

It’s a part of Chicago’s health kick that the city’s been getting on within the past year. Three healthy eating restaurants have popped up in Boystown alone recently. For healthy dining downtown, Roti Mediterranean Grill offers a quick bite to eat, but if you’ve got some time while shopping or taking in the sights check out La Madia for artisan pizzas and light Italian dining or Filini at the Radisson Blu Aqua

Hotel.

Hanging out in Boystown we enjoyed dinner at the Kit Kat Lounge and Supper Club, a toned down version of AsiaSF, and Bountiful Eatery.

For outdoor entertainment, Edward Disiger, 44, who owns Kit Kat with his business and life partner of 15 years Ramesh Ariyanayakam, 46, shows screenings of movie classics on the side of the restaurant.

Getting to Chicago

We love Virgin America, which we flew directly from San Francisco International to O’Hare. The flight was comfortable, even with delays, and the staff was friendly.

We couldn’t have asked for a more pleasant flight.t A longer version of this story is online. Check ebar.com for a quick guide to Chicago.

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 28-April 3, 2013

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March 28-April 3, 2013 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 15

Legal Notices>> ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC13-549313

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC13-549307

In the matter of the application of: VICTORIA LEIGH ROBINSON, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner VICTORIA LEIGH ROBINSON, is requesting that the name VICTORIA LEIGH ROBINSON, be changed to VICTORIA ROBINSON SALEEM. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 30th of April 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

In the matter of the application of: EDMUND PENDLETON GAINES III, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner EDMUND PENDLETON GAINES III, is requesting that the name EDMUND PENDLETON GAINES III be changed to COOPER GAINES. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 514, Dept. 514 on the 30th of April 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034935400

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034942800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VALOR SECURITY SERVICES, 750 SUTTER ST., SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Mydatt Services Inc. (OH). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/09. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/28/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CAFE MADELEINE, 149 NEW MONTGOMERY ST., SF, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed San Francisco Madeleine Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/04/04. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/13.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034937300

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034942900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: OCEAN BEACH YOGA SF, 3925 A JUDAH ST., SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed Christina Beer & David Beer.

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 03/01/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CAFE MADELEINE, 300 CALIFORNIA ST., SF, CA 94104. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed San Francisco Madeleine Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/09/02.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/13.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034939500

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034943000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NEAT ASIAN THINGS, 1825 POST ST., SF, CA 94115.

This business is conducted by a trust, and is signed Steven T. Taylor, Shuji Shimada & Rieko Shimada. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/13/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CAFE MADELEINE, 43 O’FARRELL ST., SF, CA 94108.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed San Francisco Madeleine Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/01/99. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/13.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC13-549336

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034950500

In the matter of the application of: MERCEDES KEARNS, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner MERCEDES KEARNS, is requesting that the name MERCEDES KEARNS, A.K.A. MERCEDES MORGAN KEARNS, A.K.A. MERCEDES M. KEARNS, be changed to MERCEDES KEARNS HOGLUND. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Rm. 514 on the 9th of May 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034947600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: APL THE WORLD OF ART, 1 DANIEL BURNHAM COURT #412, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Anson Poon Yu 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 03/05/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034941800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: STUDIO B DESIGN, 5425 COLLEGE AVE. #2, OAKLAND, CA 94618. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Maria Victoria O. Montilla. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034951000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CORT CRITTER CARE, 4323 20TH ST. #3, SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Deborah Stacey Cort. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034951400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SMALL TRADE COMPANY, 550 FLORIDA ST. #D, SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Matt Dick. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/15/10. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034947700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AVRORA LOGISTICS, 3626 GEARY BLVD. #206, SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Atlant Consulting Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034941700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VIRGIL’S SEA ROOM, 3152 MISSION ST., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Triple Digits, Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034947000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LITTLE PAPER PLANES, 855 VALENCIA ST., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Little Paper Planes, Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/05/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034947500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BASH CONTEMPORARY, 210 GOLDEN GATE AVE., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Bash Fine Art LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/05/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034900500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EUREKA ST BOWTIES, 270 EUREKA ST., SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Kasey Spickard. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/12/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/13/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034953600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CLAY HILL CONSTRUCTION, 1675 CLAY ST., SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Vincent Cosgrove. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/08/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-03372760

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034898400

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034971100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JAY + RENAE, 1327 CABRILLO ST., SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Rebecca K. Scott. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/13/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/13/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BARROW, 256 SUTTER ST. 4TH FL., SF, CA 94108.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Queen of Clubs LLC (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/18/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034958000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AL JAZEER MARKET, 1209-1211 SUTTER ST., SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Mohamed A. Abdullah. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/11/13.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/11/13.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034948300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CUT TO CONTRAST, 1907 OCEAN AVE., SF, CA 94127.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Jerry Jay Tupas. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/06/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/06/13.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034970900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PRECISION HAIR DESIGN, 1622 POLK ST., SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Yan Li Lu. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/15/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/15/13.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034965900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: IMAGINARY DEN, 640 MASON ST. #503, SF, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Karan Jain. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/14/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/14/13.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034964800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AARON SIGN & CONSTRUCTION, 4 DORMAN AVE., SF, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Harun Cetin. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/14/13.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/14/13.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034968900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EMPEROR’S KITCHEN, 418 LARKIN ST., SF, CA 94102.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Ben Gu Yu. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/15/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/15/13.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034965500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE HAPPY EGG COMPANY, 50 FRANCISCO ST. #203, SF, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Noble Foods Inc. (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/14/13.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034945600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: D&H SUSTAINABLE JEWELERS, 2323 MARKET ST., SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Daunell and Higgins Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/05/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/05/13.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034967400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: REGROUP, 709 NOE ST., SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Dais, Inc. (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/14/13.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034956200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: YAN YANG BEAUTY SALON, 864 JACKSON ST., SF, CA 94133. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Timothy Vong. 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 03/05/13.

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: YAN YANG BEAUTY SALON, 864 JACKSON ST., SF, CA 94133. This business was conducted by an individual and signed

by Yan Miao Chen. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/01/11.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: YOUR COMMUNITY FOODS, 1711 REVERE AVE., SF, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed The Center for Self Improvement and Community Development (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/08/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013

MAR 14, 21, 28, APR 4, 2013

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034969300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TAPS, 1516 BROADWAY, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Red Stick Enterprises, LLC (DE). 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 03/15/13.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-033292100 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: AL DESIGN, 239 CERVANTES BLVD. #1, SF, CA 94123. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by Ana Lazaro Campos. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/24/11.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-032975000 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: MISSION DELI & CAFE, 5457 MISSION ST., SF, CA 94112. This business was conducted by a general partnership and signed by Po Ka Yim & Yim Fan Li. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/17/10.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-031312300 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: FRANCES LEGAL NURSE CONSULTING, 1484 33RD AVE., SF, CA 94122. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by Frances Woo. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/17/08.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE LICENSE Dated 03/20/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: JIN KWON KIM, JOHN H KIM. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 1380 9TH AVE., SF, CA 94122-2309.

Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE - EATING PLACE MAR 28, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 03/07/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: TOLIAO IOROI HOLDING, LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 3519 BALBOA ST., SF, CA 94121-2601.

Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE - EATING PLACE MAR 28, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 03/21/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: CHUBBY MARINA, LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 2205 LOMBARD ST., SF, CA 941232703. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE - EATING PLACE MAR 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 02/15/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: SERGIO HUAMAN, EPIFANO C MOREANO. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 3299 MISSION ST., SF, CA 94110-5006. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE - EATING PLACE MAR 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE LICENSE Dated 03/14/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: 55 LOUIE’S SF, LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 55 STEVENSON ST., SF, CA 94105-2936. Type of license applied for

47 - ON-SALE GENERAL EATING PLACE MAR 28, 2013

STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-031881300 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: EMPEROR’S KITCHEN, 418 LARKIN ST., SF, CA 94102. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by Sharon V. Tran. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/27/09.

MAR 21, 28, APR 4, 11, 2013 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME & GENDER IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC13-549384 In the matter of the application of: RAVEN LEE PARDUE, for change of name & gender having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner RAVEN LEE PARDUE is requesting that the name RAVEN LEE PARDUE be changed to VINCENT LEE PARDUE, and requesting a decree that the petitioner’s gender be changed from female to male. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 30th of May 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 28, APR 4, 11, 18, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034973900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LEVIS SPEECH AND LANGUAGE THERAPY, 3150 18TH ST. #264, SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Bailey Venkatraman Levis. 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 03/18/13.

MAR 28, APR 4, 11, 18, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034951800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ONENINETYSEVEN, 450 TOWNSEND, SF, CA 94107.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Eric Thoreson. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/07/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/13.

MAR 28, APR 4, 11, 18, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034985700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HIGH RISE JANITORIAL & MAID SERVICES, 1026 ALABAMA ST., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Alberta Teran. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/22/13.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/22/13.

MAR 28, APR 4, 11, 18, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034963100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CITY LUNCH, 2101 INGALLS ST., SF, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Jae Sup Choi. 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 03/13/13.

MAR 28, APR 4, 11, 18, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034991300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: V.I.P. MASSAGE, 266 SUTTER ST., 5TH FLOOR, SF, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Paul Young. 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 03/25/13.

MAR 28, APR 4, 11, 18, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034986300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: UNCONQUERABLE, 1 POLK ST. #605, SF, CA 94102.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Carey Leo. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/22/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/22/13.

MAR 28, APR 4, 11, 18, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034980300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LEADER HOUSE, 1409 SUTTER ST., SF, CA 94109.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Yorbarn USA Corporation (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/20/13.

MAR 28, APR 4, 11, 18, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034981700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: R&D CONSTRUCTION CO INC., 224 ELMIRA ST., SF, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed R&D Construction Co Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/20/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/20/13.

MAR 28, APR 4, 11, 18, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034954600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JW DECORATION, JW FLORAL, 1916 LAWTON ST., SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Infinite Creation LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/08/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/13.

MAR 28, APR 4, 11, 18, 2013

Pride plays

20

Silent night

Mad woman

Out &About

20

O&A

19

22

The

On ‘ negin’ O

www.ebar.com/arts

Vol. 43 • No. 13 • March 28-April 3, 2013

The Whipping Man playwright Matthew Lopez found empathy for outsiders growing up gay on the Florida panhandle.

How to be free

by Richard Dodds

T

he time, the place, and the characters of The Whipping Man are so far removed from playwright Matthew Lopez’s actual experiences that it wasn’t until he was on a therapist’s couch that he found the underlying connections. In his plays, he discovered, he writes about characters who are out of place in their respective worlds.

“It was a long time before I could see that was where I automatically went as a storyteller,” Lopez said. “I cannot help but see that as a direct result of growing up identifiably gay but not yet identifying as gay. There’s a big difference between claiming your identity and having

it thrust on you.”

In The Whipping Man, opening April 2 at Marin Theatre Company, its three characters have become ultimate outsiders in the days following the Confederate surrender ending the Civil War. Having gone into hiding together, the trio is made up of a former plantation owner and two of his emancipated slaves who are coping with sudden freedom. Their legal bonds have been severed but they share a common faith. They are all Jews, as the slaves had been raised in the master’s religion, as was the tradition.

Though a distinct minority, there were See page 19 >>

San Francisco Ballet dancers Maria Kochetkova and Pascal Molat in choreographer John Cranko’s Onegin.

by Paul Parish

T

here was a thick line of standees at the Opera House last Saturday night for the San Francisco Ballet’s Onegin (1965, John Cranko). The floor of the house was packed; the person sitting next to me had been to the ballet several times already, and was

Erik Tomasson

planning to come back for a fourth. “It’s so romantic!” she said, and I couldn’t agree more.

If romantic tragedies are often love triangles, this one is a pentagon. The principals are all Russian. “How is it possible for me to speak of Pushkin’s poem Eugene Onegin,” asked Balanchine in his Stories of the Great Ballets, “without emotion? His work is the beginning See page 25 >>

Hard-won humanity

by Sura Wood

T

he first thing you sense Gallery view of Summoning about Hung Liu’s art is its Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu deeply rooted humanity. at the Oakland Museum of In some of the 40 large-scale oil California. paintings in Summoning Ghosts, the first major retrospective of this Chinese-born, Oaklandbased artist’s work, its presence is stronger than in others, but it’s always there, like an insistent, reassuring backbeat. That essential humanity was hard-won.

Liu, who emigrated to the US from China in 1984, when she was 36, has a life story that would have embittered and crushed the spirit of a lesser person. It’s a story of coming of age under the authoritarian mind-control of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, a period when speaking out and selfexpression were dangerous to your health; the imprisonment of her father, whose sole apparent “crime” was being an intellectual; and the four years she was forced to spend, beginning at the tender age of 20, in a proletariat “re-education” program of heavy farm labor in a rural ChiShe restores their identities and fragments of forgotten personal nese village. But rather than breaking her, those experiences only narratives in mournful, sometimes bitingly ironic paintings that intensified her resolve to remember her past and revive, through translate the mutable, shifting nature of cultural memory. her art, the anonymous souls who perished or were destroyed.

Much of Liu’s work is based on historical documents and old

{ SECOND OF TWO SECTIONS }

photographs, many of which are discreetly piled on tables throughout the galleries. She dilutes her paint with linseed oil, and as the washes drip onto the canvas, the present seems to dissolve away, blurring the edges of her photorealist imagery, lending it the distortion and instability of fading memory. It’s a technique the artist describes as “sweet revenge” on the social realist training she received at art school in Beijing. While studying there, she covertly painted Secret Freedom, a group of 27 miniature, bucolic oil landscapes on paper, each representing a tiny act of defiance and subterfuge.

Created at a time when the Communist regime decreed that painting for pleasure was corrupt and decadent, she painted one a day to prove to herself she hadn’t fully surrendered, and kept them hidden from sight. In microcosm her Rick Gerharter sensitivity to light emerges, as does a nascent exploration of the exciting properties of color.

The paintings foreshadow what burst forth on a bigger playing See page 18 >>

<< Out There

18 • Bay Area Reporter • March 28-April 3, 2013

The dirt on Mommie

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by Roberto Friedman

J

ust like the Easter Bunny with a basket of crazy eggs, intrepid impresario Marc Huestis seems to be hopping and on quite a roll! Next Saturday, April 6, his show with Miss Coco Peru hits the boards of the Castro Theatre. Tickets are quickly selling out, and it should be quite a treat.

Indeed, Out There attended last year’s affair with Miss Coco, and can report she’s a class act with a potty mouth, singularly gifted at dishing the dirt. And speaking of dirt, tireless Huestis reveals that he’s just snagged Carol Ann – that is, actress Rutanya Alda – the loyal maid from Mommie Dearest, for a wacky Mother’s Day-weekend tribute to the camp classic. Yes, that Carol Ann, as in, “Carol Ann, I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at the dirt.”

Thespian Alda bore witness to the unhinged, over-the-top glory that was Faye Dunaway’s performance as Joan Crawford, and has written her remembrances in an upcoming book, The Mommie Dearest Diaries. She’ll preview a few choice chapters to the assembled fans who gather at the Castro. We’re told the hysterical sequence of Alda’s encounter with Dunaway in a coffin for the famous wake scene is to die for!

This only-in-SF gayla will be hosted by drag diva Matthew Martin, and will feature a “Mommie Severest” look-alike contest judged by Carol Ann herself. Then fasten your seatbelts for the evening’s climax, the ultimate Castro experience, a scream-along “No More Wire Hangers ever!” screening of the classic Mommie Dearest on the glorious Castro silver screen. It all occurs

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Actress Rutanya Alda played Carol Ann, the loyal maid from Mommie Dearest. She is coming to the Castro Theatre in May.

Sat., May 11. Tix are cheap ($15) and available, but get them early: the first 200 ticket-buyers will get Orchestra Center “Hollywood Royalty” seating at no extra price. Ticket info at (415) 863-0611.

Art party

Last Wednesday night Out There and our cheerful consort Pepi attended the unveiling of a mural by San Franciscobased artist Jessica Anne Schwartz entitled, “You Gonna Eat That?” It adorns a wall of Bluestem Brasserie, the elegant restaurant at 1 Yerba Buena Lane. The mural is a colorful portrayal of a cattle egret, done up in springlike colors and fanciful vision, strutting like a peacock. As the artist says, “For every egret a cow, for every cow an egret. A field of Yin and Yang.”

The party celebrated Bluestem’s new springtime menu with passed samplers, so we nibbled on steak tartare and duck liver pate and

Hung Liu

From page 17

field later in her career.

Loosely organized along chronological and thematic lines, the exhibition, which opened recently at OMCA, begins with Liu’s student sketchbooks, her cherished, dog-eared copy of a Chinese translation of Les Miserables, photographs she took of village farmers in the late 1960s and didn’t print

Rick Gerharter

Artist Hung Liu speaks about her paintings during a preview of Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu at the Oakland Museum of California.

until 2010, and early charcoal portraits drawn in her late 20s. Remarkable for their draftsmanship, the latter convey her alertness to the personal qualities of people she encountered, a perceptiveness that continues to characterize her work as she matured.

It was in 1991, on her first return visit to her native country, that Liu made the pivotal discovery that became the basis of her art practice: a cache of historical photographs. Some featured late-19th and early-20th century prostitutes posed in staged studio settings. The pictures were often shot by Western photographers who used automobiles, telephones, and modern Victorian furniture to sell the girls by associating them with Western civilization. Liu adds a feminist subtext and attempts to elevate the status of shunned, shadowy women. In “Madonna” (1992), for instance, she imbues a woman, little more than a girl herself, with Western ideals of beauty and saintliness, while

washed them down with neon-gray lavender collins. Spotted at the reception in the brasserie’s airy mezzanine: artists Mark Garrett, who shares a studio with Schwartz, and Daniel Goldstein (We Were Here), whom Schwartz describes as her mentor.

Finally, apropos of this week’s review of The Madwoman of Chaillot on DVD, this anecdote. Actor John Barrymore played Katharine Hepburn’s father in her star-making debut film, A Bill of Divorcement (1932). She didn’t like him, and when filming was over, reportedly said, “I hope I never act with you again, Mr. Barrymore.” He replied, “I was unaware you ever had, Miss Hepburn.”t

On the web This week, find Victoria A. Brownworth’s Lavender Tube column, “Tops on the tube,” online at www.ebar.com.

echoing motifs from master works of Western art like the gilt archway that curves over the top of the canvas. The subject looks young, defeated, resigned to her destiny. Here and in other works Liu is particularly attuned to the suffering of women in China, like those assembled for “Strange Fruit” (2001), a gathering of doomed Korean women captured by the Japanese in WWII and forced to serve as prostitutes. Set against a vermilion backdrop, unadorned and subjugated, they form a portrait of sex, pain and powerlessness. Japanese butterflies, emissaries of beauty, dot the surface of the canvas.

Based on a formal photograph of a Manchu bride in Peking, “September” (2001) is an arresting, complex painting of a feminine, sad-eyed, very young bride probably no more than 13, headed for an uncertain fate with a man she likely didn’t know or love, and dressed for the occasion in a red tunic crowned with a spray of flowers and feathers extending from her splendid headdress; a Song Dynasty duck protrudes from her neck. Liu may intend a connection between the unthinkable event of planes piercing the steel of the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the loss of innocence facing the girl, but the relationship is a stretch. However one reads its meaning, it’s a spectacular piece. The layers of associations and emotion, hope and anguish in concert, act on the brain and touch the unconscious, as they do in “Annunciation,” painted the same year. Drenched in melon shades, a pair of herons full of life and harbingers of paradise and renewal – one can almost feel the warmth and contours of their graceful feathered bodies – alights near a child, whose hands cover her ears, comforting her before taking flight.t Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hung Liu is at OMCA through June 30.

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Theatre >>

March 28-April 3, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 19

Season of gay issues onstage

by Richard Dodds

A

world premiere will launch New Conservatory Theatre Center’s 2013-14 season, and with a single exception, each of the 10 titles is heralded as one form of premiere or another. Artistic Director Ed Decker announced this week the plays that will make up NCTC’s 19th Pride season, a wildly diverse collection that explores gay issues directly, obliquely, and musically.

The world premiere of SF playwright Brad Erickson’s American Dream opens the season on Aug. 24 with a story of a recently divorced California man and a male Spanish teacher he meets in Mexico. The American must enlist some unlikely compatriots in his efforts to smuggle his beau across the border.

The provocatively-titled Band Fags! makes its West Coast debut on Sept. 21. Adapted by Frank Anthony Polito from his 2008 novel, this is a 1980s coming-of-age story of two teenage best friends and high school band-mates whose relationship is unhinged as they differ on how and when to embrace their sexuality.

It’s back. Dirty Little Showtunes, Tom Orr’s revue made up of saucy parody lyrics to popular Broadway songs, returns to NCTC for an encore following a 2010 run. The very first staging dates back to 1997, and the latest incarnation opens Sept.

21.

My Beautiful Laundrette makes its U.S. premiere on Nov. 16. Adapt-

<<

Matthew Lopez

From page 17

indeed Jewish slaveholders in the Confederate South.

As for Lopez, 35, he was raised in a casually Episcopalian household on the Florida panhandle with Civil War buffs as parents. Lopez had come to New York in 2000 to be an actor, but wanted to move into playwriting as the inkling of what became The Whipping Man developed. During his research, he learned that the Passover observance began the day after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox. So his characters became a Jew bemoaning the loss of his slaves just as he was preparing to celebrate the liberation of Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

In the six years since The Whipping Man was first produced, it has become one of the most popular contemporary plays for production in regional theaters. Lopez has written four more plays, including Somewhere, which was staged earlier this year by TheatreWorks in Mountain View. Pulled from his relatives’ stories, it focused on a Puerto Rican family hoping to be cast in the movie of West Side Story just as they are being evicted from their West Side home to make way for Lincoln Center. His next premiere will be at the Denver Theatre Center in 2014 with The Legend of Georgia McBride, the story of a straight Elvis impersonator who must learn to adapt when the bar owner hires a drag act to replace him.

Carol Rosegg

Daniel Day-Lewis and Gordon Warnecke were the stars of the 1985 movie My Beautiful Laundrette, adapted into a play that will be part of NCTC’s 2013-14 season.

ed by Andy Graham and Roger Parsley from the 1985 movie, it’s the story of a young Pakistani in London who enlists a street punk to become his partner, and eventually lover, in turning a rundown launderette into a wash-and-dry palace.

The play was first presented in the UK in 2002.

Avenue Q, Broadway’s grownup spin on Sesame Street, will have its first homegrown SF staging with the Dec. 14 opening. Populated with puppets and humans, it won the 2004 Tony Award for best musical.

Internalized homophobia, clanWhile he says he has written about gay characters in “a very glancing sort of way,” the play he is currently writing under commission from Hartford Stage charges head-on into gay life.

Tentatively titled The Inheritance, it focuses on three generations of gay men whose ages define their feelings about the emergence of the AIDS crisis and its evolution as a defining part of gay life. “It’s kind of a loose adaptation of Howards End, and instead of three families from three different social classes, it’s three generations of gay men, each of whom has a very different idea of sex and relationships.”

As busy as Lopez is as a playwright, he augments his income as a staff writer on Aaron Sorkin’s HBO series The Newsroom. “Staff writer” is a bit of a misnomer when working with Sorkin. “Aaron writes every single script,” he said, “so we are there to be of service to Aaron’s writing process. We are a little idea machine.”

Lopez embraces his success with a hefty dose of caution. “It’s a great blessing to be able to work as a writer, but the day I start looking at it as my birthright is the day I’m going to set myself up for a great disappointment. That was a shocking realization to me, that you can have wonderful success in your career and it’s not going to save you.”t The Whipping Man will run at Marin Theatre Company through April 21. Tickets are $36-$52. Call 388-5208 or go to www.marintheatre.org.

Nicolas Pelczar (center) plays a former slave owner who must turn to his emancipated servants (Tobie Windham and L. Peter Callender) for refuge in The Whipping Man at Marin Theatre Company.

Original Avenue Q cast member John Tartaglia is seen with the puppet Princeton; the musical is part of NCTC’s new season.

destine liaisons, betrayed friends, and a high-flying investor’s financial meltdown are among the ingredients in the SF premiere of The Paris Letter, a 2004 play that opens at NCTC on Jan. 25. Playwright Jon Robin Baitz is the creator of TV’s Brothers & Sisters and author of Broadway’s Other Desert Cities.

Del Shores is best known as the author of the comedy Sordid Lives, but he heads into more serious ter-

Carol Rosegg

Devil Boys from Beyond, seen here in its NY production, mixes up hunky aliens and frumpy housewives to close out NCTC’s upcoming season.

ritory with Yellow, having its SF premiere on March 1. Parents and their sons deal with complex issues as a gay teen develops a crush on an ailing high school football star in the 2010 play.

Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays, opening March 29, is yet another SF premiere. Mo Gaffney, Jordan Harrison, Moises Kaufman, Neil LaBute, Paul Rud-

nick, and Doug Wright are among the writers who have contributed short pieces in support of same-sex marriage. Rotating casts of celebrities presented staged readings of the plays in New York and Los Angeles in 2011.

Philip Dawkins’ The Homosexuals tells in a reverse chronology the story of a failed gay relationship between a younger man and his older, theatrically involved partner, who find that generational baggage is hard to shed. Chicago critics likened its 2011 debut to a modern-day Boys in the Band. The West Coast premiere opens May 24.

NCTC will close out its season with the SF premiere of Devil Boys from Beyond on May 31. First staged in NY in 2009, Buddy Thomas and Kenneth Elliot’s farce features an allmale cast playing the citizens of Lizard Lick, Fla., and the hunky aliens who crash-land their saucer in a frumpy housewife’s backyard.

More information on these shows and when season tickets will go on sale is available at www.nctcsf.org.t

<< Film

20 • Bay Area Reporter • March 28-April 3, 2013

Bavarian crime chills

by David Lamble

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he Silence, a slow-moving but harrowing emotional thriller from Germany (opening Friday at Landmark Theatres), is bookended by two horrific crimes and a sucker punch of a finale. In an understated feature film debut, the Swiss-born director Baran bo Odar sets the crimes, the murder/rapes of two prepubescent girls, in a beautiful slice of the Bavarian countryside.

The sweep of golden wheatfields is broken up by a narrow lane, beside which a mom has erected a simple wooden cross with the handwritten inscription “Pia.” We observe Pia’s mom jogging up to the cross, replacing dead flowers with a fresh bouquet, and looking like her grief has found a lonely but appropriate resting place.

But nothing in a crime-fiction masterpiece is ever quite so simple, and soon Pia’s cross has a compet-

ing attraction: another girl is missing and presumed slain in these same amber fields of grain. People familiar with both crimes – occurring on the same date, 23 years apart – suspect a copycat sending a macabre message, but to whom, and about what?

Director Odar deploys droll observations of his small-town police force that slip over to the dark side.

Just back to work, not recovered from his wife’s cancer death, detective David Jahn (Sebastian Blomberg) is subject to fits of crying and bursts of rage, and his daily hygiene leaves everything to be desired. Jahn pleads to be assigned to the latest child murder at a retirement party while standing side-by-side at the men’s room urinals with his martinet superior, Grimmer (Oliver Stokowski). “I’m happy to be back. I’m fit for service.”

No sooner are these words uttered than the party’s guest of honor, the

drunk-as-a-skunk detective Krischan (Burghart Klaussner) quitting the force after 44 years, stumbles in, ready for a fight with his sworn enemy Grimmer, who stokes the fire by reviving an old bit of office politics.

“I requested to have the new system put on the computers. It’s such a mess.”

“Good luck. I tried to do the same thing last year.”

“They’ll listen to me.”

“They always listen to assholes.”

The two men fall into a party brawl, separated by the hapless Jahn.

Along with the pregnant detective Janna (Jule Boewe) and a cute blond policeman who hovers in the background in every station-house scene, The Silence contains the seeds of a dark comedy. The pratfalls and bureaucratic infighting are ample evidence of why these goofball Bavarian cops aren’t up to busting the case. A semi-farce breaks out when the bitter Krischan tries to crack the crime that got away from him a generation ago and cost him his marriage. Ulrich Thomsen gives a persuasive performance as a diabolical killer, the Danish-born handyman Peer.

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Courtesy of Music Box Films.

David Jahn (Sebastian Blomberg) and Matthias Grimmer (Oliver Stokowski) in director Baran bo Odar’s The Silence.

Odar offers breathtaking visual compositions and shrewd insights into how grieving parents are often further damaged by a callous justice system. But his film’s main triumph is a close-up of a strong man with the heart of a beast who seduces the younger, weepy Timo (Wotan Wilke Moehring) into a deadly pact of silence. Late in the film, the two

partners in crime have a reunion next to a child’s swing set. Peer, attempting to seduce Timo back into their long-ago pastime of watching pedophile porn, issues an invitation to his now happily married friend. A young boy standing next to the men innocently pipes up, “I like movies, too.” To which Peer ominously replies, “Wait until you’re older.”t

DVD>>

Not so crazy

by Tavo Amador

A

fter a few, checkered Broadway plays, Katharine Hepburn (1907-2004) became a Hollywood star in her first film, George Cukor’s A Bill of Divorcement (1932).

The next year she won the first of an unmatched four Best Actress Oscars for Morning Glory. Critics and

public were divided: praising and flocking to see her in Little Women (1933) and Alice Adams (1935), but staying away from other films. Her patrician, imperious manner earned her the title Katharine of Arrogance. In 1938, she was declared box-office poison, and her studio, RKO, wanted to end her contract with Mother Carey’s Chickens. She refused and paid for her release. Few at the time would have predicted that she would remain a star for 46 more years.

Following the commercial successes of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) and The Lion in Winter (1968), for which she won her second and third Oscars, she starred in Bryan Forbes’ adaptation of Jean Giradoux’s 1943 comedy The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969), reset in contemporary Paris. The film opens with a title: “This is the story of the triumph of good over evil. Obviously, it is a fantasy.”

Countess Aurelia (Hepburn), dressed in Edwardian costume, walks around Paris, watering plants, greeting friends, and ignoring the modern world. All around her, greedy men are plotting to destroy her city, which they claim is sitting on huge oil reserves. These men include the General (Paul Henried), the Broker (Charles Boyer), the Commissar (Oskar Homolka), the Prospector (Donald Pleasance), the Chairman (Yul Brynner) and the Reverend (John Gavin). The Prospector dupes his idealistic nephew, Roderick (a stunning Richard Chamberlain), into bombing the office of a local bureaucrat who won’t issue the necessary drilling permits.

At the last minute, Roderick relents, throwing the bomb into the Seine, where it explodes. He is beaten by the police, but Aurelia intercedes.

He reminds her of her long-ago lover Alphonse. A friendship develops.

Aurelia’s friend the Ragpicker (Danny Kaye) warns of the threat posed by the Prospector and his cohorts. “What a wretched world they live in,” she replies. But the danger is real, and she makes plans to thwart their scheme. She enlists help from Constance, the Madwoman of Passy

(Margaret Leighton), the equally odd Gabrielle (Giuletta Massina), and Josephine (Edith Evans), a retired judge. Aurelia entices each of the men to come to her home, which she has convinced them is located at the very center of the oil field. Before they arrive, she stages a trial, with the Ragpicker acting as defense attorney and witnesses, revealing why these men act the way they do.

Josephine presides, and Constance, Gabrielle and other marginalized friends are the jury. With help from Roderick and his girlfriend Irma (Nanette Newman), whom Aurelia believes will replace her as the Madwoman of Chaillot, the plot is foiled and the villains are punished.

Edward Anhalt’s screenplay is funny and remains relevant – the arguments posed by those who justify their pursuit of unchecked profits seem to come from recent headlines. The price paid by society remains painfully obvious.

Hepburn is perfectly cast, and her superb comic abilities shine. Her Aurelia is confident that her vision of the world is right. She’s charming, touching, and displays a Gracie Allen-like logic that is often hilarious. In a few serious moments, she borrows from past performances, but this is easily the best acting she did after her unforgettable work in Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962).

The rest of the cast is splendid, especially Kaye, who is nothing like his usual manic screen persona.

Brynner is scathingly funny. Pleasance’s scenes bragging about his art collection, which includes grafSee page 25 >>

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Books>>

March 28-April 3, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 21

Left behind in this cruel world

by Tavo Amador

T

he relatively recent progress gays and lesbians have made in obtaining our legal rights and in social acceptance in the US, Western Europe, and parts of Latin America has been extraordinary. Those benefits, however, may not be equally realized. Those who through circumstance or by choice live outside the bourgeois/capitalist model are often rejected or find assimilation suffocating. These outsiders are given an eloquent voice in Luis Negron’s superb collection of short stories Mundo Cruel (Cruel World), translated from Spanish by Jill Levine (Seven Stories Press, $13.95).

Negron (b. 1970) lives in his native Puerto Rico, an island where an imposed Anglo-Saxon culture has had uneven effects. Its inhabitants are American citizens, but have long been treated with xenophobia on the mainland. An independence movement has been discussed but has gained little traction. Its Hispanic heritage, with strong vestiges of misogyny, isn’t conducive to a cultural acceptance of homosexuality, yet many men who identify as heterosexual routinely have sex with other men. It’s the latter who make up most of the characters in Negron’s collection.

The first story, “The Chosen One,” is narrated by a boy who grew up in a rural family of Jehovah’s Witnesses and always knew he was gay. He’s seduced by other boys (including relatives) and men, all of whom believe themselves to be straight. His father beats him mercilessly, determined to “cure” him, but nothing works.

The boy’s inner glow and physical presence, his belief that God made him this way, attract men everywhere he goes. His sense of self is so strong that it overcomes oppression, yet it’s unlikely that he will ever be assimilated into a more mainstream world.

“The Garden” is the most touching, and comes closest to a bourgeois norm. It’s narrated

by Nestito, whose lover Willie is dying from AIDS. They met at a lesbian party on the day Willie got his diagnosis. He told Nestito the truth at once. Willie is blanco (a white Puerto Rican), part of an upper-middle class family of academics. He lives with his sister Sharon and Nestito in a large, elegant house. Sharon loves Nestito and promises to give him the house when Willie dies. The differences between the couple and their acceptance of each other’s quirks are charmingly narrated.

Willie, for example, loathes Nestito’s favorite movie, The Sound of Music. Sharon, too, is an outsider because of the man she has been having a long-term affair with, an affair never acknowledged or discussed. She meets her lover, who resembles Sidney Poitier, clandestinely in the garage. The affair began in secret because her father would have disapproved of a black son-in-law. The affair may never be a “secret,” but it doesn’t matter.

The love that Willie, Nestito, and Sharon share is an affirmation of family.

“Botella” is about a hustler who finds a john dead several hours after they’ve had sex. He fears he will be arrested for murder and takes desperate measures to protect himself. The almost casual revelations about his sex life and what it takes to survive – and how he identifies as straight – are startling. “Junito” is an amazing por-

trait of a straight man speaking by phone to his gay friend and telling him to be careful, that people are talking about him, and that he is moving to Boston because he knows his younger of two sons is gay and he will kill anyone who harms the boy.

The most outrageous and scathingly funny of all is the last story.

“Mundo Cruel” reveals how “Jose A. and Pachi, the most spectacular boys in the bar, had an ominous foreboding.” Jose A. dreamt that he was in “Boccaccio, a gay bar in Hato Rey with an outdated dance floor. According to Pachi, the only people who went there were living room hairdressers, male nurses, civil servants, and, horror of horrors, bulldykes [sic].” Pachi is terrified that his cell phone service will be disconnected. The day gets stranger and stranger. What they feared most happens: their world is transformed. It becomes one without homophobia, where political correctness and acceptance become the norm. The janitor in Pachi’s office admits he’s a “passive bisexual,” and management is cool with the news. Cops in drag and boys holding hands in the center of town don’t attract any attention. A local DJ announces that the first Thursday of every month will be “gay nights” in Santurce. Pachi sees his boyhood love, Papote, the fireman’s son. “Papote, with gray hairs and the extra weight that the straight life causes, grabbed him by the hands and said to him, ‘Babe, come with me, I came out of the closet and came here to find you.’”

It’s all too much for Jose A., who, disappointed in Pachi, makes plans to leave town at once.

Besides homophobia and sexual identity, Mundo Cruel touches on other, often unspoken Latin American issues: racism and class distinction. Negron’s deft touch is humane, warm, and funny. Using

economical, vivid prose, he makes a compelling case that assimilation isn’t for all, and that those outside the mainstream are worthy of respect.t

<< Out&About

22 • Bay Area Reporter • March 28-April 3, 2013

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Fri 29

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma. Thu 28

The Bus @ New Conservatory Theatre James Lantz’ drama about two boys living in a rural conservative church town who have romantic rendezvous in an abandoned bus. $14-$45 (also pay what you can nights). Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru April 28. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level.

Also tours May 3-11 in Central California. www.nctcsf.org

The Chairs @ Exit Theatre Cutting Ball Theater’s production of Eugene Ionesco’s new translation of the satirical play about some allegedly priceless chairs, and the greedy connivers who fight over them. $10-$50. Thu 7:30pm. Fri-Sat 8pm. Sat also 2pm. Sun 5pm. Thru Mar. 31.

277 Taylor St. 525-1205. www.cuttingball.com

The Coast of Utopia @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley

Oh, Mary!

by Jim Provenzano

W

hat is the derivation of the phrase, “Oh, Mary?” It doesn’t take a sleuth to recogznie the relationship between camp and Catholicism, between Pagan and Passover seasonal rituals and…well, any other stuff that might pop up in

Thu 28 A Deeper Shade of Blue @ Century 9 SF Centre Dazzling new documentary about the history of surfing. Also at other NorCal cinemas. $10.50-$12.50. 7:30pm. 835 Market St. www.fathomevents.com

Sing-Along Beauty and The Beast @ Castro Theatre Be our guest, with the Disney musical animated film. Mar. 27-April 5, 7pm, also 2:30pm Mar. 30/31 (no shows April 1 & 2). $8.50-$15. 429 Castro St. 621-6120. www.castrotheatre.com

Flower Show @ Macy’s Annual colorful large-scale floral displays, this year with an Asian theme. In-store events, fashion shows and other events thru the run, including a floral demo with Billy Cook (Mar 28, 2pm), a National AIDS Memorial Grove Art exhibition (on the main floor), and designer Bouquet of the Day displays. Thru April 7. Geary St at Union Square. www.macys.com/flowershow

GLAAD SF Kick-off Party @ Cityscape Meet National Spokesman (out gay fab actor-singer) Wilson Cruz at a meet & greet where you’ll find out how to buy tickets, tables, become a sponsor, auction donor for the upcoming 24th annual awards ceremony (May 11), and support the group’s efforts toward equal representation in media. 6pm-9pm. 333 O’Farrell St. www.glaad.org/events/sfkickoff

Dan Nicoletta

the future; robot fatted calves, zombie butter sheep. Who can say? It’s Spring. Can we all agree on that?

Thankfully, comic, cantankerous, and even sincere celebrations take place, whether you’re into hunky Jesuses, furry bunnies, or a little of both.

Science of Color Nightlife @ Cal. Academy of Sciences Celebrate color with arts displays and interactive areas at the weekly museum party. Music, DJs, cash bar. $10-$12. 21+.

6pm-10pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. www.calacademy.org

Sean Dorsey Dance @ Dance Mission Theater The Secret History of Love, Dorsey’s dancemonologue work based on the intimate oral histories of LGBT seniors, returns. $10$25. Thu-Sun 8pm. Sat & Sun also 4pm.

Thru Mar. 31. 3316 24th St. at Mission. www.seandorseydance.com

Shih Chieh Huang @ YBCA Taiwanese artist’s colorful installations create sculptural ecosystems from found objects. $8-$12. Exhibit thru June 30.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. 979-2787. www.ybca.org

Strange Shorts @ Oddball Films

Matt Alber @ Swedish American Hall The marvelous gay singer-composer performs with The Cello Street Quartet. Feona Jones opens. $20. 7:30pm. 2170 Market St. 861-5016. www.mattalber.com www.cafedunord.com

Onegin @ War Memorial Opera House San Francisco Ballet’s encore performances of last year’s romantic ballet hit, choreographed by John Cranko, and based on the Pushkin novel, and set to a score

by Tchaikovsky. $15-$175. 8pm. Various dates/times, thru Mar. 28. 301 Van Ness Ave. 865-2000. www.sfballet.org

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright/journalist Lawrence Wright’s intriguing twoperson play dramatizes an interview with real-life journalist Oriana Fallaci, whose career included ferocious questions put to world leaders, but who reacts differently when the questions are aimed at her. $14.50-$89. Tue, Thu-Sat 8pm. Wed & Sun 7pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru April 21. Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

Friday Nights @ De Young Museum Season 9 of the popular weekly early evening museum parties commences, with live music and performance, exhibit-themed workshops and food and drinks. 5pm8:30pm. Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. 750-3600. www.deyoung.famsf.org/deyoung/fridays

Hedwig and the Angry Inch @ Boxcar Theatre New local production of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s popular transgender rock operetta, with multiple actor-singers perfoming the lead, including Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, Jason Brock, Arturo Galster and Trixxie Carr. $25-$40. Wed-Sat 8pm. Also Sat 5pm. Extended thru April 13. 505 Natoma St. 967-2227. www.boxcartheatre.org

Sing-along Jesus Christ Superstar @ Victoria Theatre

The Happy Ones @ Magic Theatre

Holy holla; enjoy a participatory screening of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice rock musical classic, with a preshow and Chunky Jesus Contest (ASL-interp) hosted by Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and Storm Florez; proceeds going to the Trans March. $15-$35. 7pm. 2961 16th St. brownpapertickets.com/event/233798

Bay Area premiere of Julie Marie Myatt’s play about a 1970s appliance store owner in Orange County whose life gets upended. $22-$45. Wed-Sat 8pm. Tue 7pm. Sun 2:30pm. Thru April 21. Fort Mason Center, Bldg. D, 3rd floor. 441-8822. www.magictheatre.org

The Waiting Period @ The Marsh Brian Copeland returns with his popular solo show about chronic depression and his near-suicidal thoughts while awaiting a gun permit. $30-$50. Fri 8pm. Sat 5pm.

Thru Mar. 30 (100th performance!). 1062 Valencia St. at 22nd. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Zombie Christ Haunted House @ Former Tower Records Feyboy Collective, Calamus Fellowship, Comfort & Joy and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence present a parody of haunted houses, with queer Pagan reflections on the holiday, living exhibits and frivolity guaranteed to delight and offend! $10$20. Fri & Sat 9pm-12am. March 31 Easter Sunday T-dance 4pm-7pm. 2278 Market St. www.feyboy.com

Sat 30 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.). 4214222. www.beachblanketbabylon.com

China’s Terracotta Warriors @ Asian art Museum The First Emperor’s Legacy, an exhibit of ten of the famous life-size sculptures of guards of China’s first emperor, and 100-plus other treasures from 2,200 years ago. Free-$22 ($10 Thu eves, 5pm-9pm).

Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. Thru May 27. 200 Larkin St. 581-3500. www.terracotta-warriors.asianart.org

Corpo Insurrecto @ Performance Art Institute Janis Ian. Fri 29

Janis Ian @ Freight & Salvage, Berkeley Resurrection of She. Thu 28

K-11 @ Roxie Cinema Goran Visnjic, D.B. Sweeney and Kaye Del Castillo star in Jules Stewart’s compelling film about inmates at Los Angeles County Jail’s LGBT unit. $6.50-$10. Thru March 29. 3117 16th St. www.K11themovie.com www.roxie.com

Fallaci @ Berkeley Rep

Visions of Verses: Poetry in the Dark, a collection of odd short filmed poetic moments. March 29: Antique Animal Antics, strange “funny” films with animals, including Mae West Meets Mr. Ed. Each $10, 8pm. 275 Capp St. 558-8117. www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Guys and Dolls @ Julia Morgan Theatre, Berkeley Berkeley Playhouse stages the classic Loesser Swerling/Burrows musical comedy about oddball romances between New York gamblers and missionaries. $17-$60.

Thu-Sat 7pm. Sat 2pm. Sun 3pm. Thru April 28. 2640 College Ave., Berkeley. (510) 845-8542. www.berkeleyplayhouse.org

Shotgun Players performs Shipwreck and Voyage, two parts of Tom Stoppard’s shipwreck utopian trilogy, about Russian pre-Revolutionary artists and lovers, in repertory. $8-$35. Wed & Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 5pm. Thru April 21. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. (510) 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org

Sing-Along Jesus Christ Superstar. Fri 29

The Resurrection of She @ Brava Theatre Rhodessa Jones’ new music play about women’s lives hidden from mainstream society. $15-$30. Thu-Sat 8pm Sun 3pm.

Thru April 7. 2781 24th St. at York.

641-7657. www.brava.org

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma @ The Hypnodrome Thrillpeddlers performs Scrumbly Koldewyn and Pam Tent’s new, full-length restored version of The Cockettes’ 1971 wacky drag musical comedy on the 42nd anniversary of the original production.

Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru June 1. 575 10th St. at Bryant. (800) 838-3006. www.thrillpeddlers.com

Grammy-winning singer, who’s also an out lesbian, performs at the popular nightclub; Diana Jones opens. (www.thefreight.org), $30-$33. 8pm. 2020 Addison St. Then, on Mar. 30 at the Dance Palace, the scenic oceanside venue. $16-$32. 8pm. 50 B St., Point Reyes. 663-1075. (dancepalace.org) www.janisian.com

Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Roberto Sifuentes and Erica Mott’s performance project, subtitled The Robo-Proletariat, full of characters like an aging deviant shaman, a Neo-Aztec priest making romantic religious tableaux vivants with a goat, a flamenco drag king and an Oil Spill Madonna. $20.

8pm. 75 Boardman St. 501-0575. www.theperformanceartinstitute.org

New exhibit of works: Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey, Where Art and History Intersect offers an inspirational journey through five centuries of African American history. Thru May 19. Free-$10.

Wed-Sat 11am-6pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 685 Mission St. at 3rd. 358-7200. www.moadsf.org

Magnificent Magnolias @ SF Botanical Garden New seasonal exhibit of colorful floral displays, with special events, for evening adult events, lectures, classes, and kids events. Thru March. Also, beautiful floral drawing exhibit of watercolor works by Ernest Clayton. Thru April. $2-$15. 9am7pm. 9th Avenue at Lincoln Way, Golden Gate Park. 661-1316. www.sfbotanicalgarden.org

Out of Order Seder @ Contemp. Jewish Museum Hip-hop musical reimagining of the Four Sons story, inspired by the Kehinde Wiley exhibit; gourmet dinner, wines galore and live music. $100-$125. 7pm. 736 Mission St. www.thecmj.org

Reasons to be Pretty @ SF Playhouse Local production of Neil Labute’s dark comedy about superficial “beautiful” straight people. $30-$100. Tue-Thu 7pm.

Fri/Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm. Thru May 11. Kensington Park Hotel, 2nd floor, 450 Post St. 677-9596l. www.sfplayhouse.org

Tarot: Art of Fortune @ Modern Eden Gallery Large group show of 75 artists’ interpretations of the entire deck of Rider-Waite Tarot cards. Thru April 9. Tue-Sat 10am6pm. 403 Francisco St. 956-3303. www.moderneden.com

We Live Here @ SF Public Library

Easter in the Park @ Dolores Park

The Real Americans @ The Marsh Berkeley

Student concert of new dance works. $10-$15. 8pm. Also March 30, April 5 & 6. James Dunn Theatre, 835 College Ave., Kentfield. 485-9385. www.marin.edu

Kinsey Collection @ MOAD

Sun 31

The Oakland funky fun band performs; Super Adventure Club and Spirit Animal open. $10-$12. 9:30pm. 1233 17th St. www.bottomofthehill.com

Spring Dance Concert @ College of Marin

New exhibit, The World Stage: Israel, a series of vibrant portraits of Middle Eastern and African men, created by the gay artist.

Thru May 27. Also, The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League. Other exhibits ( California Dreaming and Black Sabbath ) ongoing. Free (members)-$12. Thu-Tue 11am-5pm (Thu 1pm-8pm) 736 Mission St. 655-7800. www.thecjm.org

San Francisco 1960s-1970s, a new exhibit of historic local photos by photojournalist Phiz Mezey. Thru June 2. Jewitt Gallery, lower level, 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

Planet Booty @ Bottom of the Hill

Dan Hoyle returns with his acclaimed solo show with multiple characters based on his travels to the most liberal and conservative regions of America. $25-$50. Fri 8pm.

Sat 5pm. Thru April 6. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. 826-5760. www.themarsh.org

Kehinde Wiley @ Contemp. Jewish Museum

Jason Brock. Sat 30

Jason Brock @ Martuni’s The gay singer with a powerful vocal talent performs X in the City, his story-song show about The X Factor, ex-boyfriends and more. $25. 7pm. Also, Mar 30, 7pm and April 6, 5pm & 7pm. 4 Valencia St. martunisshow2013.brownpapertickets.com

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s annual concert and holiday celebration, with bonnet and Hunky Jesus contests, plus live bands and drag acts, this year with a circus theme. 11am kids events. 12pm-4pm adults. Trash exorcism on March 30, 12pm3pm; volunteers welcome. www.thesister.org

Lesbian/Gay Chorus of SF @ Martuni’s Something Foolish, the chorus’ witty revue of April Fool’s and Easter-themed comic songs. 4pm. Also April 1 at 7pm.

4 Valencia St. www.lgcsf.org

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Out&About >>

March 28-April 3, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 23

Funny Tuesdays @ Harvey’s Ronn Vigh hosts the weekly LGBT and gayfriendly comedy night. One drink or menu item minimum. 9pm. 500 Castro St. at 18th. 431-HARV. www.harveyssf.com

The Queens of Boogie Woogie @ Yoshi’s, Oakland 13th annual concert of rousing women performs: Lady Bianca, Sue Palmer, Dona Oxford and Wendy deWitt. $17. 8pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square.

(510) 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

Without Reality There Is No Utopia @ YBCA Group exhibit/installation of politicallythemed art focusing on the clash of Capitalism/Communism, propaganda/disinformation, financial lies and truths, and other global issues. Free/$10. Thru June 2.

701 Mission St. 979-2787. www.ybca.org

Wed 3 Carnival! @ Eureka Theatre 42nd Street Moon theatre company performs Bob Merrill’s jaunty music about a girl who falls in love with a carnie. $25$75. Wed- 7pm. Thu 7 Fri 8pkm. Sat 6pm Sun 3pm. Thru April 21. 215 Jackson St. 255-8207. www.42ndstmoon.org

Conversation 6 @ SF Arts Commission Gallery SF-based Jason Hanasik and Amsterdam artist Berndnaut Smilde’s dual installation about home, dislocation and impermanence, which includes Smild’e fascinating indoor clouds. Thru April 27. Main gallery, 401 Van Ness, Veterans Bldg. Hours WedSat 12pm-5pm. www.sfartscommission.org

Andy Diaz Hope and Laurel Roth’s The Conflicts at the de Young. Sun 31

Girl With a Pearl Earring @ de Young Museum

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room

Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis, a new touring exhibit of Dutch Masters paintings, drawing and etching; Thru June 2. Also, Eye Level in Iraq: Photographs by Kael Alford and Thorne Anderson, thru June 16. Also, Objects of Belief from the Vatican, thru Sept 8. Also, artist fellows Andy Diaz Hope and Laurel Roth’s triptych mural, The Conflicts, a contemporary tribute to ths historic Unicorn Tapestries. $10-$25. Tue-Sun 9:30am-5:15pm. (til 8:45pm Fridays) Thru Dec. 30. Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. 7503600. www.famsf.org

Donna Sachet and Harry Denton host the weekly fabulous brunch and drag show; special Easter Bonnet Contest, with performers and audience invited to show off their holiday hats. $45. 11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square. 395-8595. www.harrydenton.com

Outlook Video @ Channel 29

Seasonal flowering of hundreds of species of native wildflowers in a century-old grove of towering Coast Redwoods. Free$15. Daily thru May 15. Golden Gate Park.

6612-1316. www.SFBotanicalGarden.org

The monthly LGBT news show boradcasts two episodes this time, with segments on world gay rights, Rainbow World Fun, Chick-fil-A protests, other civil rights issues and musical performances. 5pm. Also streaming online. www.outlookvideo.org

SF Hiking Club @ Mitchell Canyon Join GLBT hikers for a 9-mile hike on Mt. Diablo. Beginning at the Mitchell Canyon trailhead, hike the Little Giant Loop which circles Eagle Peak and Twin Peaks through beautiful forest and open spaces; many colorful wildflowers. Bring layers, hat, sunscreen, sturdy boots, water, lunch. Carpool meets 8:45 at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. 794-2275. www.sfhiking.com

Summoning Ghosts: The Art of Hun Liu @ Oakland Museum Exhibit of haunting paintings by the U.S.based Chinese artist. Thru June 30. Also, Beth Yarnelle Edwards: Suburban Dreams a photo exhibit of 22 large-scale evocative portrait/tableaux of California families.

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

Mon 1 California Native Plants @ SF Botanical Gardens

Monday Musicals @ The Edge

Legendary @ GLBT History Museum African American GLBT Past Meets Present, an exhibit focusing on African American words, images and sounds that connect inspirational commentary by local queer community leaders with historic artifacts. Thru April 2013. Also; Migrating Archives: LGBT Delegates From Collections Around the World. $5. Reg hours Mon & Wed-Sat 11am-7pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistorymuseum.org

On the Clock @ SF Public Library On the Clock: A Playful Guide to Working Life, a new exhibit in the Skylight Gallery, 6th floor. Will Durst performs Elect to Laugh on April 3 (in the Koret Auditorium, lower level). Exhibit thru May 31. 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

Steven Slatten @ Martuni’s

The renovated bar now shows fun musicals each week, with Broadway touring performers occasionally stopping by to sing, too. 7pm-1am. 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni’s Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht (aka Trauma Flintstone). 9pm-1:30am. 4 Valencia St. at Market.

Tue 2 Music Recitals @ SF Conservatory of Music Student and faculty recitals of classical, renaissance and contemporary music.

April 2, 8pm: Duos by student composers.

April 4-6: Die Fledermaus, Strauss’ opera. $15-$20. April 4-6 7:30pm. April 7, 2pm.

50 Oak St. at Van Ness Ave. www.sfcm.edu

The New York comic singer performs his witty show, Obsessive Compulsive Broadway, with Daniel Allan and accompanist Ben Prince. $7. 7pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market. www.brownpapertickets.com

Thu 4 Alfred Hitchcock Films @ Pacific Film Archive Screening of the major works of the master of cinematic suspense. Tonight, The Wrong Man. 7pm. Thru April 24. $5.50-$13.50.

UC Berkeley Art Museum, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 642-1124. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Comedy Bodega @ Esta Noche The weekly LGBT and indie comic stand-up night. 8pm-9:30pm. 3079 16th St. at Mission. www.comedybodega.com

Tede Matthews @ GLBT History Museum The Life and Times of Tede Matthews, Poet and Revolutionary; historian Greg Youmans presents a talk about his biography of the gay activist, performer and Modern Times Bookstore cofounder, with video clips and a discussion. 7pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistorymuseum.org

Pharoah Sanders @ Yoshi’s Grammy-winning legendary jazz saxophinist and John Coltrane collaborator performs with his trio. $21-$32. 8pm & 10pm. Also April 5 & 6. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Reel to Real Nightlife @ Cal. Academy of Sciences The fascinating museum’s weekly nightlife event; Music, cash bar, DJed music and entertainment. This week, exhibits and screenings about the scientifc magic of cinema. $10-$12. 21+. 6pm-10pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. www.calacademy.org

Sean Dorsey Dance.

Thu 28

Lydia Daniller

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

<< Society

24 • Bay Area Reporter • March 28-April 3, 2013

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Steven Underhill

International flava at the LGBT Community Center’s Soiree: Club 11 at the Galleria Design Center: Spain’s Alex Albelda, Dubai’s Dave Ibraim, and France’s Antoine Berlier.

Talent will out!

by Donna Sachet

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t long last we visited the muchpublicized new home of Live at the Rrazz, formerly the Rrazz Room at Hotel Nikko, now located in the historic Cadillac Building, 1000 Van Ness. Also the home of a multiplex theatre and a health club, the building takes a bit of figuring out the first time around. Inside the sprawling main lobby, look for the impressive wooden staircase winding up to the second floor. At the top, behind plush velvet curtains, we were greeted by Robert Kotonly & Rory Paull and seated in this spacious new room accented with massive columns and polished wood details. As Patti LuPone walked on stage, the packed house went crazy.

She flew through an eclectic barrage of songs, deftly accompanied by Christopher Fenwick, eschewing songs from her well-known Broadway career in favor of more obscure pieces from a wide range of eras.

LuPone’s tribute to Edith Piaf and her three-song encore were the highlights of the night for us. Only true LuPone devotees picked up on her sly reference to her infamous Broadway rant, but those who got it loved it, including Jan Wahl, John Vidaurri & Ney Christianson, Tim Seelig, Dan O’Leary, Vincent Tamariz, and Richard Sablatura. As Live at the Rrazz completes the costly process of sound-proofing this room, we hope they can receive final approval from the city so that their appealing schedule of events can continue.

We started Friday night at a lovely reception and thank you party at the home of Lu Conrad, member of the Board of Directors of AIDS & Breast Cancer Emergency Funds, for tireless workers Cynthia Hester and Neil Figurelli. A string trio set just the right tone on this sparkling spring day! Among the guests were Derek Brockelhurst & Robert Rushin, Mike Smith, Lenny Broberg, Susannah Dunlap, Lee Harrington, Gavin Middleton & Glennon Sutter, and Lance Holman. Hors d’oeuvres were passed, toasts were made, and appreciation was shown for these two outstanding individuals.

We next headed to LGBT Night at ODC Dance at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. After a lively pre-show reception, attendees were offered three contemporary works: “Cut-Out Guy” (all male dancers, with music by Ben Frost), “Breathing Underwater” (all female dancers, to Zoe Keating music), and the world premiere of “Livesaving Maneuvers” (full dance company, with Jay Cloidt score). The last piece included delightful juxtapositions of dark emotions and humorous moments. All in all, we were reminded

of the rich variety of art-forms readily available to us in San Francisco.

Saturday night we donned our shiniest disco-wear and joined K.C. Dare (channeling Andy Warhol for the night) for the LGBT Community Center’s annual Soiree: Club 11 at Galleria Design Center. The place exploded with entertainment, including Sean Dorsey Dance, Honey Mahogany, Miss Rahni, Dia Dear, Ambrosia Salad, and Alotta Boutte, all amiably emceed by a glittering Tita Aida. The silent auction was extensive, restaurant samplings were plentiful, Skyy vodka cocktails were abundant, and the crowd was very happy. We chatted with Supervisors David Campos and Scott Wiener, City Treasurer Jose Cisneros, Michael Albert & Clarence Franks, Alec Hughes & Gavin Hamilton, Sister Roma, Juanita More!, Christopher Vasquez, La Moni Stat, Bob Michitarian, Tommy Taylor, Jewelle Gomez & Diane Sabin, Michelle Meow, Rafael Mandelman, Gregory Marks, and many others, some of whom danced with abandon well into the night.

We adjourned to Beatbox for Locoya Hill’s monthly I Just Wanna F***ing Dance party, packed with people who took the name of the

event to heart. Around Midnight, the music abruptly stopped and an amazing but unrecognizable drag queen descended the staircase to the signature song from Jerry Springer: The Opera. We’ve attended this dance club several times and seen performances by Mahlae, Mercedez Monro, and Suzan Revah, but there was something different about this one. Backed up by three sexy male dancers, she took the stage as the tempo increased, bringing the crowd to a frenzy. As the last note hit, she snatched off her wig, revealing Locoya Hill himself in one of the most successfully kept secrets in memory. You go, girl!

Don those festive bonnets and other paraphernalia, because Easter is this Sunday! The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will take over Dolores Park as usual, and other parties abound throughout the city. And a little further out, mark your calendars for the Investiture of Reigning Emperor Drew Cutler & Empress Patty McGroin on Sat., April 13, at 6 p.m. at 400 Castro Street – yes, the previous Diesel Store directly beneath the LGBT flag at Market and Castro! The Imperial Court takes over this historic location for one night only, and you don’t want to miss it!t

Steven Underhill

Donna with some talent at the LGBT Community Center’s Soiree: Club 11 at the Galleria Design Center.

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DVD>>

March 28-April 3, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 25

Three for the road

by David Lamble

the pent-up anxieties and paranoia of a wealthy white enclave in post-

Apartheid South Africa. Casting well from his country’s small pool of film actors, he shows why this emotionally stunted man suddenly runs amok in a Cape Town motel room. Beauty is relevant to issues raised by America’s current epidemic of sexual assaults on college campuses and military bases.

Molly’s Girls Given our community’s fixation on the great marriage equality debate before the US Supreme Court, director Scott Thompson’s prickly satire arrives at a perfect time. The film opens on Molly, a compulsive liar who’s the black-sheep daughter of a powerful, anti-marriageequality state senator. One night, Molly hooks a live one, Mercedes, a drunk lesbian pro-marriage lobbyist who’s on the rebound from a big fight with her girlfriend. Groggily recovering consciousness the next morning in Molly’s bed, Mercedes is greeted by a mad monologue comparing the mechanics of lesbian versus straight sex.

“Morning, Honey Bunny! I knew when you came into the bar last night you were hot for me. But I get that all the time, so I basically ignored it, since you’re a girl and everything. And I usually party with really hot guys.

You know what’s weird, though, I never really thought about what lesbians did in bed before. For the most part, I really enjoyed myself, but I wasn’t really sure what to do with my hands. It’s kind of like riding a bicycle without hanging onto the handle bars.”

“I kind of like not talking about sex in the morning, if that’s okay.”

“I don’t really miss the whole penis thing, to be completely honest with you.”

Molly’s Girl benefits from two tour de force central performances and a host of nifty supporting turns. Kristina ValadaViars imbues the motormouth Molly with a dizzy but non-malicious ability to bore all comers with her inflated biography and talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Emily Schweitz gives the ambitious and single-minded Mercedes just the right dollop of self-doubt to retain our sympathies.

The women bond together for a foray behind enemy lines: the birthday party of Molly’s Dick Cheney-style dad. This lesbian Primary Colors offers a fresh and funny account of what it means to “take one for the team.” (All TLA Releasing)t

need to act, is quite funny as the hypocritical Southern reverend.

Forbes, who replaced John Huston, directs crisply. Rosina Delamare designed the glorious costumes. Shot on location in Paris, the picture was neither a critical nor commercial success. Warner Bros., which produced the movie, forgot that Hepburn needed a major male co-star (Cary Grant,

Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart) to drag people into theatres. Forty-four years later, however, The Madwoman of Chaillot seems prescient, entertaining, and deserving of an audience. As for Hepburn, she had one more box-office triumph ahead of her: 1981’s bathetic On Golden Pond, winning her final Oscar opposite Henry and Jane Fonda.t

Eve of St. Agnes and turns a letterwriting scene, in which Pushkin’s Tatiana confesses her love for Onegin, into a scene where he walks into her dream. In the letter, she confesses how for the first time she’s felt the emotions for a real human being (Onegin, the visitor from St. Petersburg whom she’s just met today) that she’s only felt when reading novels. Cranko invented a new choreographic language, with soaring lifts that sweep her over his head then gently set her down on the floor. He’s used the materials of

the new Soviet ballet-style of heroic overhead lifts, but translated it into a totally 60s, Beatles-style hallucinogenic imagery, where the constraints of gravity seem as nothing against the druggy sense of eros set free to float.

Davit Karapetyan (Onegin) and his real-life wife (Vanessa Zahorian), who were our stars Saturday night, have the strength, style, and grace to conceal the heroic difficulties of these staggeringly difficult lifts, and make them seem part of the flow of See page 26 >>

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n veteran queer director Todd Verow’s 21st production Bad Boy Street, a Parisian office worker finds a sexy young stray cat (Kevin Miranda) passed out on his doorstep. Claude (Yann de Monterno) carries the inebriated beauty across his threshold, jumpstarting an ambiguous relationship. The young hunk answers to Brad, is proficient at oral sex, and appears available for more than a one-night-stand.

Claude has been burned in the past. He migrated to the States once in pursuit of a love that wilted during a steamy Texas summer. On a whim he invites Brad to join him for a late-night dinner. The meal, lovingly whipped up by his close friend and neighbor (Florence d’Azemar), would seem the perfect occasion for launching a torrid affair, except that Brad is a no-show.

Verow, whose treatment of Dennis Cooper’s homicidal fantasy Frisk was the talk of this town in the mid-1990s, uses a minimalist approach to capture the boys’ version of gay Paris.

Production values are several notches above smart phone, but still give off a home-movie funk that compensates for the absence of hard-core action. The first 40 minutes move at a glacial pace that lowers our expectations and prepares us for second-act surprises. Brad, it turns out, has more than one name and a plausible excuse for his fickle ways.

Bad Boy Street is an engaging fantasy low-key in its execution.

Bonus features: over an hour of extended, deleted scenes and bloopers.

Beauty South African director Oliver Hermanus rode a wave of critical buzz at Cannes for this brutal portrait of a middle-aged Afrikaner’s descent into madness, prompted by an escalating obsession with a beautiful young friend of his extended family. Francois (stolid but emotionally supple Deon Lotz) is bored at work (a lumberyard in an all-white suburb) and at home, trapped in a dead marriage while boozing it up with a secret fraternity of old guys who temper their hunger for young male flesh with a racist and homophobic social code.

A chance encounter at a family wedding prompts Francois to begin stalking a gorgeous young lawyer who’s dating Francois’ adult daughter.

Hermanus shows a keen eye for

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Madwoman

From page 20

fiti of a phallus from the Jerusalem YMCA, are terrific. Chamberlain, the always-effective Boyer, Henried, Homolka, Leighton, Evans, Massina, and Newman are at their considerable best. Most surprisingly, Gavin, whose astonishing handsomeness often mitigated any

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Onegin

From page 17

of greatness of the Russian language.”

It was relevant again in 1965, the romantic era of the 20th century, and it is relevant again now, but for completely different reasons. When Cranko made this dance, he solved the greatest problem that a choreographer faces – how to translate a story in words into a movementpoem – by thinking way outside the box. Cranko steals from Keats’ The

<< Books

26 • Bay Area Reporter • March 28-April 3, 2013

Hate crimes

by Jim Piechota

American Honor Killings: Desire and Rage Among Men by David McConnell; Akashic Books, $15.95

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ruesome murders and serial slayings are horrifying enough to read about in a well-written novel, but when they fall into the world of nonfiction, these gory offerings become a harrowing part of the “true crime” genre. Worse yet, when the killings are about men, gay or straight, who find themselves driven to kill gay men out of a sense of “honor,” the distinction slips beyond classification.

Such is the case with novelist (2010’s The Silver Hearted) and Lambda Literary Society co-chair David McConnell’s American Honor Killings, a meticulously researched examination of what it means to be a man and the ways in which that meaning, when threatened or compromised, is interpreted through heinous acts of unspeakable violence.

McConnell asserts that sexual metaphors are ever-present in male relationships, and while “we see the obvious link to competition, violence, and aggression, we don’t want to think deeply about what

the sexual words actually mean.”

The rigid standards which men who consider themselves “masculine” hold each other to can be tested, primarily when confronted with perceived unmanly homosexual behavior. When this occurs, the author notes, violent tendencies arise, often to an excessive extent, leading to a hate crime or what the homophobic murderer would justify as an “honor killing.”

Notions of “gay panic” are brought forth during McConnell’s astute investigation, and to illustrate his point best, he selected several American murders from 19992011, re-telling them in narrative form using cold, clear language, with details that are often startling, stark, and grisly. Among the crimes analyzed is the case of Jon Schmitz, better known as the “Jenny Jones Killer,” who murdered a gay friend who revealed a secret crush on him on national television. Also featured is the brutal slaying of longtime Redding, CA gay couple Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder by white supremacist brothers, and the case of Darrell Madden, an ex-porn star-turned-homophobicneo-Nazi responsible for the brutal murder of Steve Domer. Juxtaposing these cases with the Matthew Shepard killing does little to tem-

per these crimes’ viciousness, but it does place the notion of masculinity and a man’s fight to retain it at all costs into perspective. What the murderers were killing, McConnell suggests, may not be the flesh and blood before them, but what that body represented. With their masculine identity called into question, anger surfaces and violent action is taken to snuff any doubt of unmanliness or gender confusion.

Therein lies the problem, but as a culture slanted toward masculine identity and dominance, the solutions are fleeting.

To fully immerse himself in the experience of these murders, the author drew extensively on references from books, newspapers, television feature segments, then personally visited significant locations mentioned in the book. McConnell’s attempts to compare the ideal of threatened masculinity with the murderous rampages of young men are thoughtfully considered, fleshed out to the point where his narrative reenactments are chilling to read and not for the faint of heart. Though the varied conclusions (and inconclusiveness) offered won’t raise any eyebrows, any effort to focus in on this issue and incite intelligent discussion is greatly respected and necessary.t

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www.ebar.com

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Onegin

From page 25

consciousness. He is an exceptionally powerful and stylish premier danseur, broad in the shoulders, huge in the chest, powerful in the thighs and beautifully turned-out. He is almost better built for a villain than for a romantic lead, so the dark and emotionally difficult role of Onegin is perfect for him. When in the last act, he finally feels a reciprocal passion for Tatiana, and begs, implores, abases himself on his knees begging her to take him back, and she rejects him, the drama has come full circle. Karapetyan’s power in hurling himself into this passion at the end makes the drama powerful. People started to stand and cheer as the curtain came down. The response to him – and to her rejection of him, which also showed tremendous reserves of power in Zahorian – meant that the drama built steadily to an overwhelming climax.

What makes the story relevant today is the similarity of Onegin’s plight with that of young people today. There’s nothing to do with your life except maybe make some money, or at least not lose caste. You don’t want to be poor, unless you’re an artist. Pushkin began writing

Onegin just after the fall of Napoleon, when the Congress of Vienna reinstated the old aristocracies and monarchies, which all instituted terrifying secret-police forces. The liberal spirit, which the French Revolution had set free, became dangerous to manifest. Onegin’s boredom is typical of every youth who came of age in this period. It lays waste to his soul, and is at the heart of his tragedy, and of Tatiana’s.

She is young, alive, and as a countrysquire’s daughter, immune to revolutionary hopes. Indeed, she is still vibrating to the idealistic image of Richardson’s Grandison when Onegin swims into her ken. She’s just a country girl who reads a lot.

This sounds very formulaic, but something like this happened to me when I was 13. I became entranced with a guy, I dreamt about him, I told him so, he was horrified, he rejected me and made a scene, and tormented me for the rest of high school.

Tatiana is not hounded afterwards.

Onegin (in Pushkin) is touched, but he knows himself, very decently tells her that it wouldn’t be fair, he’s not the marrying kind, he’d hate himself when he started to get tired of her.

But what teenage girl could stand to hear that?

The other principals in the story,

her silly sister Olga and her boyfriend (Onegin’s friend, the naive romantic poet Lensky), and her older kinsman Prince Gremin are all crucial figures.

All are the prisoners of their moods.

Silly Olga (Dana Genshaft) is besotted with Lensky (the noble Jaime Garcia Castillo), except when Onegin flirts with her. Onegin is horrified by this provincial society, and by Tatiana’s embarrassing declarations, and by all these gossipy old people who come to her birthday party.

Poor Olga experiences for the first time the attractions of a hot, unscrupulous seducer. She has no idea that she is making poor Lensky so ridiculous he will have to challenge his best friend to a duel – and he’ll be shot, dead. Prince Gremin, in the end, rescues Tatiana from her disgrace.

When, after returning from many years of exile, Onegin sees Princess Tatiana and finally falls for her, it’s her turn to say, “No.” There are ridiculous scenes. The set is too busy, there are so many birch trees, we cannot see the people for the trees. And why are the genteel girls dancing with the serfs? That does not make sense in the narrative, though the dancing is very exciting. But the ballet itself will tear your heart out, and the dancers are tearing it up.t

Erik Tomasson

San Francisco Ballet dancers in John Cranko’s Onegin.

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