March 29, 2012 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

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AIDS doc receives award

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17

Terence Davies' 'Deep Blue Sea'

Escape to Monterey

The

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

Vol. 42 • No. 13 • March 29-April 4, 2012

LGBTs weigh in on Mirkarimi

Lee ousts gays from health panel

by Seth Hemmelgarn

T

by Seth Hemmelgarn

M

ayor Ed Lee has ousted the only two openly gay people from the San Francisco Health Commission.

His decision leaves the seven-member panel, which overRick Gerharter sees a Department of Mayor Ed Lee Public Health budget of about $1.6 billion – including millions related to HIV and AIDS – without anyone from the gay or HIV/ AIDS communities for the first time in nearly 20 years.

Steven Tierney, 60, who had been serving as the commission’s president, and Jim IlSee page 11 >>

Rick Gerharter

A toast to the center S

tate Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), left, backed by a large group of elected officials, leads a champagne toast and prepares to cut a birthday cake to celebrate the 10th anniversary of San Francisco’s LGBT Community Center. The annual

Soiree, held March 24 at the Design Center Galleria, had a Parisian theme, complete with performances by an Edith Piaf impersonator and other chanteuses, streetwalkers, living Impressionist paintings, and a 10-foot tall Eiffel Tower.

he domestic violence case against Ross Mirkarimi, who was suspended as sheriff last week by Mayor Ed Lee, has caused concern among LGBTs and progressives in San Francisco.

Mirkarimi, who repJane Philomen Cleland resented District 5 on Ross Mirkarimi the Board of Supervisors for seven years before being elected to the sheriff’s post last November, pleaded guilty this month to a misdemeanor charge of false imprisonment.

The charge stemmed from a December 31, 2011 incident in which Mirkarimi allegedly bruised the arm of his wife, Eliana Lopez. According to news reports, Lopez has disputed the charges.

Mirkarimi’s sentence includes counseling and three years of probation.

See page 12 >>

Computer upgrade will enable PRC clients to hone skills U

by David Duran

Courtesy of Rudy Molinet

Harry Hoehn and Rudy Molinet

Customs plan would ease travel for gay couples

by Michael K. Lavers

S

ame-sex couples would be allowed to reenter the country with a single customs declaration form under a new proposal that the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and the Departments of Homeland Security and Treasury formally unveiled on March 27.

See page 7 >>

sing a computer is a must these days for job seekers and next week, Positive Resource Center will unveil a brand new computer lab that will be a big boost to its clients.

PRC, as it is known, is marking its 25th anniversary this year. The agency, which offers benefits counseling and job placement services to those with HIV/AIDS and other disabilities, sees the computer upgrade, which includes new equipment, a classroom projector, and software and servers, as essential to its clients.

The new computer center with adaptive technologies for clients with physical and learning disabilities includes ZoomText for the visually impaired and Nuance Speak and See that will allow people to use speech recognition and text-tospeech technology.

The $50,000 contribution for the upgrade, provided by AT&T, will help enhance PRC’s technology center to create a better learning environment for its clients and will provide them with the tools they need to be successful.

“We are providing access to those that might generally not have it,” said Brett Andrews, executive director.

PRC’s employment services help three types See page 12 >>

Jane Philomen Cleland

Positive Resource Center Executive Director Brett Andrews sits at one of the adaptive work stations that are part of the new computer lab at the agency.

{ FIRST OF TWO SECTIONS }

<< Community News

2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 29-April 4, 2012

▼

Hetch Hetchy holds Nob Hill fundraiser ahead of signature drive

by Dan Aiello

I

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n the ballroom of the Mark Hopkins Hotel atop San Francisco’s Nob Hill recently, more than 200 supporters of the initiative to restore Yosemite National Park’s Hetch Hetchy Valley gathered for a fundraiser for Restore Hetch Hetchy.

Although this has been an annual gathering for many years and a fundraiser since 2009, this year’s event was electrified by the organization’s recent submission of a ballot initiative and a signature gathering effort that is expected to start soon.

The proposal, if it qualifies for the ballot, would ask city residents to vote on creating a task force and determine where the water currently kept in Hetch Hetchy would be stored. The plan would then go back to voters for approval with a set timeline.

There weren’t many LGBT supporters at Restore Hetch Hetchy’s fundraiser.

“My boyfriend and I are pretty much all of us here tonight,” said Restore Hetch Hetchy Executive Director Mike Marshall.

Spreck Rosekranz, the former state water expert for the Environmental Defense Fund, left the group last year to become Restore Hetch Hetchy’s policy director. He introduced Marshall to supporters, who paid $125 per person for the event.

“Mike Marshall is the leader who can bring this issue to a close and this valley back to the American people,” Rosekranz told the audience.

Marshall addressed the crowded room, quoting the late environ-

Dan Aiello

Mike Marshall, right, and his boyfriend Rob Walker mingled with guests at the Restore Hetch Hetchy fundraiser in San Francisco.

mentalist David Brower: “Politicians are like weathervanes. Our job is to make the wind blow,” he said.

“We must change the political dynamic in San Francisco as well as Sacramento, and in Washington where a certain senior senator likes to cast a dark shadow but who I believe will be the one to cut a deal and make this happen, so I hope for her re-election,” Marshall added.

The audience laughed at Marshall’s reference to Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California).

Feinstein, San Francisco’s former mayor, is credited with seeing to fruition Mayor Joseph Alioto’s “Manhattanization” building boom of the city. She has also been a career-long opponent of the restoration of the

Hetch Hetchy Valley. Feinstein has used her offices to block the idea since it was first looked into by the Reagan administration while Feinstein was still mayor.

In 2007, Feinstein managed to pull $7 million from a Department of Interior funding bill set aside for a feasibility study for restoring Hetch Hetchy.

Feinstein is not alone in her opposition to restoring the Hetch Hetchy. San Francisco’s elected officials from its current mayor, Ed Lee, to out state Senator Mark Leno (D) to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D) universally oppose the initiative. The San Francisco Public See page 12 >>

SOMA alleys revamp moves forward

by Matthew S. Bajko

R

eviving Ringold Alley’s historical significance to the gay community’s leather past moved closer to reality this week. It is part of a plan to revamp three alleyways South of Market into pedestrian-friendly corridors that city officials approved this week.

The trio of streets runs parallel to nearby Folsom Street, long home to a multitude of leather bars that earned the roadway its “Miracle Mile” moniker back in the 1970s. Today only three gay bars remain on the stretch of Folsom that runs between 8th and 10th streets.

Ringold was once known as the goto place to cruise for sex after the bars closed at night. It was the home of the city’s first Up Your Alley daytime leather fair in 1985.

Under the new transit plan the alley would become a meandering “shared street,” meaning pedestrians and vehicles would share the roadway. Color or texture treatments and landscaping would be used to demarcate the pedestrian-only versus shared space within the alley.

Five of the current 12 on-street parking spaces would be converted to seating areas or bicycle parking. The changes are meant to complement Archstone’s proposed mixed-use development project at 350 8th Street, which would include more than 400 units of housing, retail, and a small new park with a clubhouse at 8th Street and Ringold Alley.

The street project design would also include public art recognizing

Jane Philomen Cleland

Jim Meko

the alley’s historical and cultural significance to the LGBT community.

“What’s exciting about Ringold is that it’s a work in progress,” said Jim Meko, a gay man who chairs the Western SOMA Citizens Planning Task Force. “We stand a very good chance of getting funding for some commemorative art. Perhaps some displays in the community building, maybe some leather memorabilia.”

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority unanimously signed off on the plans at its meeting Tuesday, March 27. The authority is comprised of the city supervisors and is chaired by out District 9 Supervisor David Campos.

“I think it is great. It is an important part of that history,” Campos said of Ringold Alley. “We need to recognize

it and make sure when people come to visit that part of San Francisco they are aware of its history.”

In addition to Ringold, both Natoma and Minna streets between 7th and 9th streets would see changes under the proposal. The ideas include bulb-outs, landscaping elements, and enhanced entry and exit features.

To reduce traffic speeds parking will alternate between the two sides of the streets while the alley entries and exits will be enhanced with raised crosswalks and bulb-outs. The changes are designed to reduce vehicle speeds and enhance pedestrian visibility.

Of the existing 97 street parking spaces, 18 will be repurposed as pedestrian areas, with new trees planted and public art installed honoring the areas’ Filipino heritage.

New signalized midblock crossings at 7th and Minna streets and 8th and Natoma streets will be installed to help pedestrians who already cross the busy thoroughfares at those points. The signals will be pedestrianactuated, and bulb-outs will be added to reduce the distances pedestrians must cross.

Transit and city planners have been working with the public since 2009 on developing plans for the three streets.

Several transit agencies awarded $100,000 toward its development.

The proposed changes to all three alleys are estimated to cost between $2.4 and $4.7 million. If funding can be secured, the transit agency predicts the improvements could be in place by 2014.▼

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Community News>>

March 29-April 4, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 3

PUC GM defends SF water system

by Matthew S. Bajko

D

espite the lack of rain this winter, Ed Harrington isn’t worried about meeting the water needs of San Francisco residents later this year.

As general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, Harrington is paid to worry about such matters. As of midMarch the city’s Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park, which stores the bulk of San Francisco’s water supply, was at 33 percent of normal.

But due to an unusually wet season last year, there is still enough water to make up for the lack of rainfall this year.

“We will be okay,” said Harrington in mid-March as rain from the first major storm system to hit the Bay Area this year pelted the windows of an 11th floor conference room at the PUC’s Market Street headquarters. “Our storage up country is high enough that if there is any snow anywhere we get it. And we are able to store a lot in Hetch Hetchy.”

More worrisome for Harrington is a proposal to tamper with the city’s O’Shaughnessy Dam and reservoir inside the national park. The group Restore Hetch Hetchy is trying to place a measure on the fall ballot that would require the city to store its drinking water supply elsewhere and return the valley to its natural state.

“It doesn’t keep me up at night but it is disappointing,” Harrington said of the proposed measure.

While environmentalists have long decried the flooding of the Hetch Hetchy Valley since Congress approved the plan in 1913, others point out that the system is gravitydriven and does not require vast amounts of energy to deliver water to the 30 cities that rely upon it.

“The cost of moving and filtering water is just huge, and we avoid all of that,” noted Harrington.

The dam produces electricity to run San Francisco’s municipal buildings and transit system. And the high quality of the water requires little filtering; it is treated with chloramine, fluoride, and passed under ultraviolet light to kill any organisms in it.

“All the things that make this such an incredible system you would be destroying much of if you got rid of Hetchy,” said Harrington. “Hetchy is the heart of the system.”

Backers of the valley restoration measure have until July 9 to collect 9,702 valid signatures of San Francisco registered voters in order to qualify it for the November 6 election. They turned to the ballot box after years of failed attempts to get the PUC to hold hearings on the issue.

“What has been lacking up until now is the political will or vision here in San Francisco to make reforms,” Mike Marshall, the restore group’s openly gay executive director, told reporters in late February.

He later added that, “We are green in many ways and we lead the country in many ways relative to the environment. But when it comes to water standards, we are dead last.”

Should it pass, the measure would require the city to create a task force and determine where the water cur-

Rick Gerharter

General manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Ed Harrington along with his husband Dan Scannell, center, are congratulated March 19 by friends and colleague Sharyn Saslafsky, left, and Tony Bardo, right, after Harrington received the Municipal Fiscal Advisory Committee’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his many years working for the city, most of them as controller. This is only the second time in the 32 years of the Good Government Awards that a Lifetime Achievement Award has been given.

rently kept in Hetch Hetchy could be stored. The plan would then go back before the voters for approval within a set timeline.

“Recognizing the longstanding opposition to reform at the very senior levels of the PUC, we thought it best to share responsibility to implement it,” Marshall said of the measure’s mandate for a panel made up of various constituencies to look at how to implement restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley.

“It doesn’t mandate any particular action relative to these things.

It just requires the city to develop a plan,” he added.

Since the PUC has no interest in demolishing Hetch Hetchy, and numerous agencies have already studied the idea, there is no reason for the water agency to discuss the matter further, Harrington told the Bay Area Reporter during an interview March 16.

“Studying something we would never do, I don’t see us spending time on it,” said Harrington. “It’s been heard; it’s been studied.”

The PUC’s two former lesbian general managers, Susan Leal and Pat Martel, both told the B.A.R. in separate interviews last week that they continue to oppose efforts to eliminate the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.

“I used to tell people I didn’t disagree with the philosophical interests of people who would like to see Hetch Hetchy restored. But that battle, I think, has come and gone,” said Martel, a San Francisco resident who is the city manager for Daly City. “It is not as simple of a proposal as Restore Hetch Hetchy has always made it seem.”

Leal, who now consults on various engineering projects around the country, called plans to do away with the Hetchy reservoir “a waste of time and a waste of money.”

As climate change wrecks havoc with rainfall patterns around the world, Leal cautioned against jettisoning the water catch basin high in the mountains.

“We have a fantastic system, which we were very lucky to get,” she said. “To undo that now, with climate change being a big factor

leading to uncertainty of our snowpack and snowfall in the future, this is not the time to be messing with our water system,” said Leal.

They also objected to comments Marshall made to the B.A.R. in which he equated the fight over the reservoir to the LGBT community’s struggle to win marriage rights. Just as San Francisco has been in the forefront of seeking marriage equality, Marshall argued that the city should also be in the vanguard of environmental protection and water conservation efforts.

As someone who married in 2008 while it was legal in California, Leal said she found the statement “quite offensive.”

Martel, who is also married and was the PUC’s first out GM, added that she took “great umbrage” with Marshall’s statement because the

two are “completely different issues and to try to combine them, I think, is inflammatory.”

While he remains employed at the PUC, Harrington is limited in what he can and cannot say about the ballot measure. But as the B.A.R. reported last week in its Political Notes online column, Harrington, 62, plans to retire in late August.

The openly gay administrator, who is also married, is ready to step down from civic life after 28 years working for the city. Therefore, he would be free to speak out against the measure come the fall.

“As a city official I can’t go out and advocate for or against something. But If I retire I could,” said Harrington. “It may free me up to have more of a discussion on it.”

See page 13 >>

<< Open Forum

4 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 29-April 4, 2012

Volume 42, Number 13 March 29-April 4, 2012 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Thomas E. Horn Bob Ross (Founder, 1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko Seth Hemmelgarn Jim Provenzano CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Dan Aiello • Tavo Amador • Erin Blackwell Roger Brigham • Scott Brogan Victoria A. Brownworth • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Chuck Colbert Richard Dodds • David Duran Raymond Flournoy • David Guarino Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell John F. Karr • Lisa Keen • Matthew Kennedy David Lamble • Michael K. Lavers Michael McDonagh • David-Elijah Nahmod Paul Parish • Lois Pearlman • Tim Pfaff Jim Piechota • Bob Roehr • Donna Sachet Adam Sandel • Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Ed Walsh • Sura Wood

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NOM truths are exposed T

his week the country is finding out what most of us already knew: the National Organization for Marriage is a sham operation that sought to circumvent elections laws and hide its donors. And now, most importantly, a cache of previously confidential documents reveals without doubt that NOM tried to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks.” According to the documents, which were released Tuesday by the Human Rights Campaign after they were made public during a court case, part of NOM’s plan is to manipulate Hispanic communities by “making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity” and “to make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker, a badge of youth rebellion to conformist assimilation to the bad side of ‘Anglo’ culture.”

NOM’s $20 million “Strategy for Victory” campaign documents state in part: “The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks – two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize, and connect African American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right, provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots.”

For the most part, the gay community did not slide down that slippery slope of identity politics. In California, we saw NOM at work during the Proposition 8 campaign, when it funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Yes on 8 coffers. The Yes on 8 campaign, in turn, bought into NOM’s divisive strategy by targeting African American voters with a last-minute mailer that used then-candidate Barack Obama’s photo and his quote that he did not support same-sex marriage.

But as a long-term strategy, NOM has fallen short in California. In fact, since Prop 8’s passage, more people of all ethnicities support marriage equality as evidenced by recent polls showing nearly 60 percent of Californians fa-

vor same-sex marriage.

In the bitter aftermath of Prop 8’s passage, we were angry. But we did not stop reaching out to others. LGBT organizations began outreach in earnest, with many hiring LGBT people of color to work in the African American and Latino communities, to share their stories and listen to people’s concerns. We worked with the faith community and had gay and lesbian people of faith connect with black churches. Significantly, we fell back on lessons we learned during the AIDS crisis – which continues to disproportionally affect blacks – that people are more likely to listen to their neighbors, friends, and co-workers. We began to tell our stories.

Early reaction to NOM’s “strategy” seems to be backfiring. African American clergy point

out that the community is not a political football and they are deeply offended.

Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said, “The National Organization for Marriage’s ‘divide and conquer’ tactics are desperate and despicable. African Americans, Latinos, and sexual minorities recognize injustice when they see it, and they recognize when they’re being used. NOM has no standing in minority communities, and these documents further underscore this reality.”

It’s long past time for NOM to end its charade. And if it doesn’t, we hope that leaders in the African American and Latino communities will no longer look to NOM for leadership on the marriage equality issue. It’s obvious to NOM and now the general public that NOM can’t win on the merits of its arguments against marriage equality and it must resort to dishonesty to pit minority communities against each other’s interests.▼

Reading 8 with Harvey

by Eugene McMullan

A

s the saga of Proposition 8 continues to unfold, LGBT families can take comfort in recent polls showing that 59 percent of Californians now support marriage equality and only 34 percent remain opposed. Less than four years ago, the California ballot initiative that outlawed same-gender marriage passed by a margin of some 52 percent to 48 percent. But how did we get from there to here? In retrospect it appears that religiouslymotivated Catholic, Mormon, and evangelical activists won the battle that may have had the unintended effect of losing the war. Americans resent, it would seem, religious interventions in the public square, especially when those are perceived as shady, secretive, and managed from afar (read: Catholic).

The play 8 by Dustin Lance Black is drawn mostly from the transcripts of Perry v. Brown, the legal challenge to Prop 8 that may or may not go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A star-studded reading of the play was posted for a time on YouTube. The video included samples of the revealing Yes on 8 television ads. One such ad featured a young girl telling her mother what she learned in school that day: that she could grow up to marry a princess.

In 1977 Anita Bryant and Save Our Children won the repeal of a gay rights ordinance in Miami by casting LGBT persons as sexual deviants and seducers of children. Shortly thereafter California state Senator John Briggs of Fullerton mounted an unsuccessful bid to rid state schools of LGBT teachers. Because of California’s Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful Education Act (FAIR) – thank you, Mark Leno! – students are now more likely to learn about the Briggs initiative and its defeat by Harvey Milk, Paula Lichtenberg, and a broad coalition that included labor unions, pro-LGBT religious leaders, and pro-LGBT religious groups.

Because of the culture wars, we tend to think of religion as being in opposition to LGBT

civil rights. The No on 8 campaign was justifiably criticized for having hidden the faces and silenced the voices of LGBT families and proLGBT religion. As confirmed by the success of recent lobbying efforts for marriage equality in Washington, New Jersey, and Maryland, the witness of LGBT families and pro-LGBT religious leaders are both important. Thankfully the wisdom encapsulated in the anti-Briggs slogan “Come out, come out wherever you are” has been recovered.

Indeed, since Prop 8 passed, the religious witness for marriage equality has been amplified, in California and throughout the nation.

In Maryland, for example, recent lobbying efforts were aided by Maryland Faith for Equality and persons of seemingly every religious background, including numerous Catholic individuals, and several Catholic groups. To take just one example, in a photo posted on the New Ways blog, Sr. Jeannine Gramick – who does not typically wear a veil – stands proudly in modified habit with a young samegender couple. She stands in the tradition of Sr. Eileen Delong of Catholics for Human Dignity, who in 1978 joked frequently of the necessity of outing the veil for a good cause every now and again. (See http://newwaysministryblog.wordpress. com/2012/03/02/scenes-fromthe-signing-of-mar ylandsmarriage-equality-bill/.)

In his movie Milk, however, screenwriter Black presents a less subtle, less inclusive account of religion. Only Bryant is religious, and his Anita is a villainous, Bible-thumping beauty queen who more than deserved the taunts led by megaphonewielding Milk protege Cleve Jones: “Anita, you liar, we’ll set your hair on fire!” Fast forward to the recent 8 and the villain is Maggie Gallagher, read by Jane Lynch, who plays Sue Sylvester on Glee.

Lynch’s portrayal of Gallagher was quite gentle, considering how so many people actually feel about her. A recently circulated social-

media postcard featured Gallagher’s photo with the caption “Hate Makes You Ugly.” I have no idea if the postcard was created by a gay man, by any man, or if misogyny rather than simple looks-ism was involved. But it reminded me of a political cartoon from the archive c. 1978 in which Bryant was drawn as a pig.

Black’s treatment of religion in 8 is not fundamentally different from that in Milk; religion is the enemy of LGBT life, families and relationships. Even if we’d rather laugh than set Gallagher’s hair on fire, it is a foregone conclusion that religion is a bitch.

Representing the National Organization for Marriage, Gallagher angrily spars with marriage equality champion Evan Wolfson, for whom her outdated and inadequate arguments are simply no match. Unlike Bryant in Milk, however, Black’s Gallagher does not cite scripture, but is confined to seemingly secular (but recognizably Catholic) arguments concerning nature and the common good. As Judge Vaughan Walker would ultimately rule, none of the arguments advanced in defense of Prop 8 proved rational, a conclusion that was upheld by the recent decision of a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Since family and domestic partner law in California treat same-gender and opposite-gender couples as equivalent, and since same-gender marriage was legal in California when Prop 8 was passed, the referendum was obviously intended not to advance a positive notion of marriage, as the proponents claimed, but solely to deprive same-gender couples of the dignity of the word “marriage.”

As those who have followed the culture wars and/or seen The Mormon Proposition will know, NOM is an anti-gay religious front group. Gallagher is an anti-gay Catholic who has worked closely with the Knights of Columbus and many anti-gay Catholic bishops. They See page 13 >>

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Letters >>

March 29-April 4, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 5

Long live activism Thanks to the Bay Area Reporter for covering the 25th anniversary of ACT UP, a truly momentous occasion – especially when you pause to reflect on all that ACT UP accomplished [“25 years later, activists recall ACT UP’s legacy,” March 22]. The brilliant strategy, militant and creative tactics, fierce commitment, and significant success in changing the way the public, medical establishment and government responded to the AIDS crisis are lessons since taken up by other movements for justice.

An important piece of information so that our history in San Francisco is correctly recorded: ACT UP/San Francisco did not spring from ACT UP/New York, as is commonly assumed. In 1986, Keith Griffith asked me to work with him in putting together what we called the AIDS Action Pledge. We modeled it on work I had done with the Pledge of Resistance, a group formed to resist U.S. intervention in Central America. We brought in Michelle Roland (who later became director of California’s Office of AIDS). The three of us organized the first San Francisco meeting at precisely the same time – and with quite similar politics – as ACT UP/New York. We asked everyone to “pledge to join others in fighting for all our lives and liberties during the AIDS crisis” and to commit to defeating AIDS by whatever nonviolent means necessary (from getting arrested to drafting legislation, lobbying Congress, writing letters to the editor and speaking out as HIV-positive). A movement was born in San Francisco and took off like wildfire, with many becoming initial members and new activists.

The AIDS Action Pledge then partnered with ACT UP/New York in creating ACT NOW, a national network of ACT UPs (and an organizing tool to form new ACT UPs) during the 1987 March on Washington for [LGBT] Rights.

The AIDS Action Pledge eventually changed its name to ACT UP/San Francisco in order to fully reflect our common politics and unity with ACT UP/New York and the many new ACT UPs around the country.

Long live activism!

Eileen Hansen San Francisco

Together we can solve this In response to Tommi Avicolli Mecca’s column, I am confused [“Ending poverty in the LGBT community,” Guest Opinion, March 15]. The kind-hearted activists on the front lines of the war on poverty should not be criticizing the landlords and businesses that are successful and pointing at them as the reason that these marginalized groups are caught in a never-ending cycle of poverty. Society cannot help those who need it the most without successful people and businesses – those same

people and businesses are the ones that are paying taxes, and spending their time and hard-earned money buying sponsorships and tickets to charity fundraisers. Wouldn’t you want someone in our community to be successful and encourage them and cheer them on so they have the ability to give back? Why is being successful a bad thing?

The boom of the late 1990s (and eventual burst of the dot-com bubble) actually helped our local economy.

Would it really have been better to have stagnant or even negative growth just so we could keep rents low?

To lay the number one blame for LGBT homelessness on “landlords anxious to rent to dot-comers with big bank accounts” is misguided and just wrong. The majority of landlords in SF who own small two- to four-unit buildings live with ever increasing maintenance and operating expenses and live month to month for the rental check to pay for the mortgage, taxes, insurance, and expenses. Instead of excoriating the hard-working people who give us a roof over our heads, how about easing up on the layers of bureaucracy and ever-changing laws that chip away at our small businesses?

I must defend Supervisor Scott Wiener’s position on the middle income households; if we do not shore up that section of the community and we let it fail (move away in droves as it is happening now) there will be no one left to help the poor. The shrinking middle class is by far one of the biggest threats to increasing the number of households that will be under the poverty level in this city. Instead of Avicolli Mecca’s analogy of “Imagine two people calling for help in a lake: one can’t swim and is clearly drowning, the other is sitting in a life raft and though not in danger of drowning, is tired of waiting to be rescued. Whom do you rescue first?” why not look at this way? You are on an airplane that drastically loses cabin pressure – who do you help first, you or the people that cannot put the oxygen mask on? Of course put yours on first then help all those you can. You can do no one any good if you have passed out!

Anyone who is successful or advocates for business and free enterprise should not be an automatic target of the very poor and those working on their behalf. That is just biting the hand that could possibly feed you.

I want to be very clear here, the work that Avicolli Mecca and Gabriel Haaland do is amazing and invaluable and I fully support it. But it does not serve their cause if they are critical of the people that can help them the most. Pointing the finger and blaming gay marriage proponents, landlords, or the people that created the tech industry is not a solution and they are not the problem. I do not pretend to know the solution to poverty in the LGBT community (besides working hard, earning money, and giving back to my community) but I do know if we start blaming each other we will never get out of it and prosper. Together we can solve this.

Bill Hemenger San Francsico

Transgender and aging symposium Wednesday compiled by Cynthia Laird

A

half-day symposium on transgender people and aging will take place Wednesday, April 4 from noon to 5:30 p.m. at the State Building, 350 McAllister Street in San Francisco.

The seminar, presented by the LGBT Community Partnership, is for professionals, providers, and advocates and will include speakers from the transgender community and from the medical field and social service system.

Organizers pointed out that transgender seniors and people with disabilities often fall through the cracks of the city’s strong but fragmented network of support systems.

The event is free, thanks to major funding by California Pacific Medical Center and numerous co-sponsors. The Institute on Aging will also provide continuing education credit for MFTs, psychologists, social workers, and nurses.

Scheduled speakers include community advocates Felicia Elizondo and Jazzie Collins; Joanne Keatley and Jamison Green from the UCSF Center of Excellence in Transgender Health; Danny Kirchoff from the Transgender Law Center; Alameda County Superior Court Judge Victoria Kolakowski; Cecilia Chung from the San Francisco Human Rights Commission; Dr. Nick Gorton from Lyon-Martin Health

Services; Michelle Alcedo from Openhouse; and Jeanna Eichenbaum, a licensed clinical social worker.

To register, visit www.lgbtcommunitypartnership.org/register. For more information, visit www.lgbtcommunitypartnership.org or call (415) 404-9440.

Easter goes to the dogs Wag Hotel, a top-shelf pet boarding facility, will host its third annual Easter Egg Hunt for Dogs on Saturday, March 31 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the rooftop of the building at 25 14th Street in San Francisco.

In addition to having their dogs play and hunt for 1,000 treat-filled eggs, human companions can check out adoptable dogs from San Francisco Animal Care and Control; the event is also a benefit for the agency. There will be refreshments available for humans, photo opportunities for guardians and their dogs, and raffle prizes.

The cost is $20 per family (prepurchased) or $25 at the door, with a portion of proceeds going to SFACC. Space is limited. Tickets are available online at www.waghotels.com/promo/sfeasteregghunt2012.htm

Easter volunteers needed for Tessie dinner It’s almost Easter and that means the folks at Tenderloin Tessie are ur-

gently seeking volunteers to help with the Easter Sunday dinner, to be held April 8 from 1 to 4 p.m. at First Unitarian Church, 1187 Franklin Street (at Geary).

Michael Gagne, board president, said that help is needed Saturday, April 7 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to load and unload the truck. On Easter, assistance is needed from 9 a.m. to noon (set up, decorating); noon to 4 p.m. (dinner and mandatory meeting around 12:15); and 3 to 6 p.m. (last hour of the dinner, tear down, and load the truck). Additionally, volunteers are needed Tuesday, April 10 for about an hour (9 to 10 a.m.) to unload the truck at the storage area.

Interested people can call Gagne and leave their name, days and shifts, and position (server, coffee, etc.) at (415) 584-3252.

LGBT exhibit at Cal The Friends of the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley and the Division of Equity and Inclusion together with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas will have a salon celebration to mark the opening of a new exhibit, “A Place at the Table” on Wednesday, April 4 from 6 to 8 p.m. The exhibit features a collection of LGBT text, image, and voice and features four photos from out photographer Cathy Cade.

The exhibit’s regular hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through July.

For more information, visit bancroft.berkeley.edu.▼

<<Community News

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 29-April 4, 2012

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Counselors work to make college campuses safe for LGBT students

by Chris Carson

S

ince Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi committed suicide in September 2010 the nation has been taking notice of the bullying of LGBT students on college campuses, and the effects it can have on their lives.

Just about two weeks ago Dharun Ravi, the roommate who filmed Clementi with another man through a webcam, was convicted of invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, and a hate crime following a jury trial that was widely followed.

Though the verdict shows there can be justice for victimized LGBT individuals, it doesn’t answer the bigger question – how can universities provide the kind of programs, counseling, and care LGBT students need?

At the American Counseling Association’s 2012 Conference and Expo, held last weekend at Moscone West, three counseling educators provided some answers to an audience made up mostly of student affairs professionals.

“Thirty percent of LGBT students have some diagnosable mental illness,” said Jane E. Rheineck, associate professor of counseling, adult, and higher education at Northern Illinois University.

Therefore, she added, universities need to work to create feelings of safety for LGBT students, while also providing them with systems of both psychological and emotional support.

The presentation was called “Diversity within the LGBT Population on College Campuses: How Coun-

Jane Philomen Cleland

Caitlyn Ryan, Ph.D., director of the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University.

selors and Student Affairs Professionals Can be Advocates.”

A timely subject, not just because of the recent decision in the Clementi case, but also because Counselors for Social Justice, an arm of the ACA, said it would be awarding Caitlin Ryan, Ph.D. the 2012 Mary Smith Arnold Anti-Oppression Award.

Ryan is the director of the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University, where she has done important research on how family acceptance during the coming out process effects the quality of life LGBT individuals have as adults.

Rheineck acknowledged Ryan’s work in the field of LGBT psychology, and said, “Her research influenced a lot of what I did, as far as

career development went.”

Some steps universities can take to ensure a higher quality of life for LGBT college students, said Nicole Pacheco, is having counselors who recognize the layers of victimization that LGBT students, especially LGBT students of color, may be experiencing.

“They may be coming in with a lot more than they present, a lot more than can be seen,” said Pacheco, the assistant director and career adviser at the Cahill Center for Experimental Learning at New Jersey’s Ramapo College and a doctoral student at Montclair State University.

She said the student may be thinking, “I’m already feeling enough stress, do I want to add another layer of victimization,” by coming out as gay or lesbian on a campus that may not welcome it?

For example, Rheineck told the Bay Area Reporter after the presentation, that when her partner came out to her parents, “she was cut off financially.”

Things like that, along with issues of identity, and even the regular stresses of being a college student, can make life difficult for LGBT students.

“We need to recognize the diversity within diversity,” said Jane Mazzarella.

Mazzarella worked as a guidance counselor for 30 years, but is now a doctoral fellow in the Counselor Education program at Montclair State University.

“We need to account for unique and individual differences and we See page 13 >>

Conant honored with public health award

by Elliot Owen

H

e was among the first physicians to identify AIDS in 1981 and helped create one of the largest private AIDS clinics. Last week Dr. Marcus Conant’s years of activism and medical accomplishments were honored by UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, which presented him with the 16th annual Public Health Hero Award.

The honor is bestowed upon exceptional leaders committed to safeguarding the health of the human population in significant and innovative ways.

Working as a dermatologist at a Haight-Ashbury clinic in 1981, Conant identified Kaposi’s sarcoma, a cancerous disease that causes tumor-like lesions on the skin, as an opportunistic infection of a highly contagious blood borne virus later called acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

“All of us thought early on this was going to be some disease where we would find the cause very quickly and fix it,” said Conant in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

“None of us thought it was going to be a life changing phenomenon.”

Conant then switched to primary care and opened up a clinic in the Castro that would become one of the world’s largest private practices specializing in HIV/AIDS treatment.

“The early years were tough,” he recalled. “At one point, we had 5,000 HIV-positive men at the clinic. Everyday, literally, we saw patient after patient who was dying. Most doctors didn’t want to take care of these patients. They were afraid of it.”

Alain McLaughlin

Dr. Donald P. Francis, left, presented the UC Berkeley School of Public Health’s Public Health Hero Award to Dr. Marcus Conant last week in San Francisco.

In 2010, Conant closed the clinic due to rising costs and complications caused by health insurance companies. During the nearly three decades his practice was open, Conant treated almost 8,000 AIDS patients. He has also contributed to the development of many of today’s cutting-edge HIV/AIDS treatments.

While his notable achievements include an exhaustive list of scientific endeavors, those who know Conant see him as much more than just a really good doctor. He’s an activist.

“He’s an incredible doctor but he could recognize that it didn’t stop there. He just can’t help but teach,” said Dr. Donald P. Francis, executive director at Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases. Francis, who presented Conant with the award last Wednesday during a gala at the

Hotel Nikko in San Francisco, has worked with Conant on AIDS research and prevention since 1985.

“AIDS was fatal,” said Conant.

“These patients were all dying. It became important to get out of the clinic and down into the community. Instead of being an academic physician, writing papers and studying things, I went out to educate doctors and patients about the disease.”

In 1982, Conant founded the Kaposi’s Research and Education Fund, a nonprofit organization that would later become the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

He facilitated monthly informational meetings with his patients in the waiting room of his clinic, discussing infection, diagnosis, progression, treatment and research of See page 13 >>

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Politics>>

March 29-April 4, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

Gay student looks to make history at UC Berkeley

by Matthew S. Bajko

A

gay student at UC Berkeley is looking to make history this spring as the East Bay campus’ first out student body president.

Andrew Albright, 20, a political science and sociology major, is running to be the next president of what is known as the Associated Students of the University of California, or ASUC for short. Currently serving as a senator on the governmental body, Albright is heading up the slate of candidates from CalSERVE, one of four political parties at UC Berkeley, running for four executive positions.

CalSERVE, which stands for Cal Students for Equal Rights and a Valid Education, is the more progressive of the two main parties but has faired poorly in presidential races. Its main rival, Student Action, has dominated the political scene at Cal since its founding in 1995, noted a recent article in the campus paper.

This is the third time the CalSERVE’s presidential candidate has been an LGBT student – in 2010 Eunice Kwon, a queer student, lost her bid for the post.

“Honestly, I am not sure why there has been no gay president yet,” said Albright, who grew up in Folsom, during a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

On his senator’s blog Albright boasts that he is “representing Cal’s queer community, as well as progressive, politically-minded students and communities on campus.” He said one of his goals he had after being elected a senator last year was to unite Cal’s disparate LGBT groups under the banner of the Queer Alliance and Resource Center.

“I ran for senate on a queer platform. There are quite a number of LGBT groups on campus but none talked to one another,” said Albright, a member of the gay fraternity Sigma Epsilon Omega. “There was no centralized voice. I worked to create a central organization to act as an umbrella.”

While he said his candidacy is not as important as the fight for marriage equality or electing the first out person to the U.S. Senate, Albright acknowledged his winning would be symbolic and have an impact.

“Things even as little as a campus election can change people’s perceptions,” he said. “Things that happen

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Customs plan From page 1

Current policy allows members of a family who are related through blood, marriage, or adoption and live in the same household to file a single customs declaration form. The proposal would expand the definition of “members of a family living in one household” to include domestic partners, same-sex couples, and those in other relationships where “the partners share financial assets and obligations, and are not married to, or a partner of, anyone else.”

A customs spokesperson declined to comment on the proposal, but an Obama administration official told the Bay Area Reporter that the White House “welcomes this move.”

“Separating families in the customs line was a waste of government resources and a painful symbol of the double standard LGBT families face at the federal level,” said Rachel Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality. “This proposal ends that insult. It sends

Jane Philomen Cleland

Andrew Albright is running for student body president at UC Berkeley.

on a small scale can have the biggest impact on people’s attitudes and beliefs in my opinion.”

Yet Albright doesn’t intend to play up his sexual orientation and the historic significance his victory would mean in the presidential race.

“I didn’t focus on the idea of being the first queer president,” said Albright. “I do want to represent the entire student body. There are real issues students are facing now.”

Chief among them is the rising cost of tuition at the state’s universities as lawmakers in Sacramento continue to cut spending on higher education. College students recently converged on the state Capitol to demand more financing from the Legislature and Governor Jerry Brown (D).

Already in town for a student leadership conference, Albright joined in the protest.

“I have focused a lot this year on getting students out to lobby at Sacramento,” he said. “The affordability of textbooks and dorms is something I want to focus on as president.”

He has spoken out in favor of asking incoming Cal students about their sexual orientation, something currently being considered.

“It could provide a lot of good options in terms of the university knowing how many students are LGBT or queer-identified on campus and providing more resources for them,” he said.

But Albright is not in favor of ask-

an unmistakable message that the administration and the United States recognize gay families as ‘real families,’ too.”

Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Family Equality Council, also welcomed the proposal.

“President Obama and this administration have recognized the

ing applicants if they are LGBT, as he believes many students fill out the forms with their parents and may not be comfortable or able to disclose their sexual orientation on their application.

“My mom was sitting with me when I filled out my applications to college. If I wasn’t ou t, I would have said straight,” said Albright, who came out prior to his senior year in high school.

Voting for the ASUC election will take place April 10-12. Even if Albright falls short, his supporters expect he will win public office one day.

As an example they point to gay state Assembly Speaker John A. Perez (D-Los Angeles). He was a CalSERVE member when he attended UC Berkeley.

“I just think Andy will have a lot of potential in the future. He will be one of our LGBT leaders in the very near future,” said Nicholas Gonzalez, 20, a gay student who is serving as Albright’s campaign manager.

Program to feature retired gay judge The gay former federal judge who ruled that California’s ban against same-sex marriage is unconstitutional will be the featured guest at a Commonwealth Club program in April.

Vaughn Walker, who was the chief U.S. district court judge for the Northern District of California, two years ago struck down Proposition 8, the anti-gay constitutional amendment voters passed in 2008. Only after he left the bench in 2011 did Walker publicly discuss his sexual orientation.

Following the 2010 trial on Prop 8, but before Walker had issued his ruling, the San Francisco Chronicle outed the judge. It led Prop 8’s backers to petition a federal appeals court to toss Walker’s decision based partly on the argument that Walker should have recused himself from hearing the lawsuit.

Not only did a three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit find Prop 8 a violation of LGBT people’s rights, it also found no reason for why Walker should not have heard the case because he is gay. The matter is now on appeal before the full appellate court.

Peter Keane, a professor of law at UC Hastings, will moderate the April 19 talk with Walker. It will take place at the club’s offices at 595 Market Street; doors open at 11:30 a.m.

Tickets cost $12 for club members; $20 for non-members; and $7 for students with valid ID. To buy tickets call (415) 597-6705 or visit www.commonwealthclub.org.▼

need to modernize forms and regulations to reflect the reality of today’s American families and we applaud them for that,” she said.

Key West, Florida, real estate agents Rudy Molinet and Harry Hoehn filled out a joint customs declaration form to use to re-enter See page 11 >>

www.ebar.com

<< Travel

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 29-April 4, 2012

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Seaside escapes abound in Carmel, Monterey

by Heather Cassell

S

eeking to get away from the hustle and bustle of the San Francisco Bay Area’s city life for a little romance or peace and serenity? LGBT travelers might consider a quick weekend getaway to Carmelby-the-Sea, known simply as Carmel, or Monterey, in an area that is known as the state’s other Bay Area.

The neighboring seaside escapes have been a source of rejuvenation and seclusion, feeding creative juices for America’s legendary movie stars and writers alike and a cozy retreat for couples for more than a century.

My girlfriend and I were looking forward to a quick romantic getaway when we journeyed down Highway 101 to 156 to Carmel and Monterey. The historic Pacific Highway, known also as Highway 1, is a more leisurely drive along the coast from the Bay Area through Santa Cruz to Monterey for travelers opting to ease into dialing down the pace.

When we arrived we had quite a bit on our agenda: eating and wine tasting, long walks from Cannery Row to the wharf, observing the bay and the historical city in Monterey (look for the gold seals in the sidewalk), visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and most of all taking some time to savor life and enjoy each other’s company.

Our mission was accomplished with a more than perfect weekend.

Coastal charm One of California’s earliest cities, Monterey was founded in 1770. Six years later Spain named it the capital of the Golden State. It held its position through Mexico’s rule of California until 1849 when the state became a part of the United States and the capital was moved to San Jose and later to Sacramento.

Today, Monterey is best known

Geena Dabadghav

Jellyfish are the stars of the Monterey Aquarium new exhibit, “The Jellies Experience,” which opens March 31.

for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, fine dining along the famed Cannery Row and nearby wharf, the Central Coast’s wine country, and calm climate ideal for a plethora of outdoor activities.

Carmel was founded a year after Monterey when Father Junipero Serra moved the mission from Monterey to Carmel, but its charm wasn’t captured until the turn of the 20th century when artists and intellectuals discovered it.

The cozy seaside town began to flourish when artists and others began developing the main strip peppering the six blocks along Ocean Avenue with galleries, boutiques, craft shops, and restaurants giving the town its character and charm.

Today, the sloping tree-lined street is the jewel of the town that continues to provide a bounty of creative delights.

Thanks to animal loving celebrities Doris Day and Betty White, Carmel is also one of the most pet-friendly travel destinations in the United States. Dogs and their guardians often are seen popping in and out of the shops and restaurants that welcome the four-legged friends with pet treats and water bowls.

Carmel Carmel was our first destination.

We checked into the Carmel Mission Inn, close to the wine trails, which provided easy access for our

personal wine tour along Carmel Valley Road, where we stopped off at Chateau Julien, Boekenoogen, organic winery Heller Estates, among others.

The moderately priced hotel off of Cabrillo Highway, which is a short drive away from the heart of Carmel down Junipero Street that turns into Rio Road, was charmingly updated to a comfortable, modern chic and offered decent sized rooms without pinching the pocketbook. At night there was live music in the lounge, a comfortable inviting atmosphere with plenty of space to hang out.

One could sink into the large chairs around the wheel-sized wood tables that encircled a huge fireplace in the center of the room. Guests could

choose to sit close to the fireplace, around the bar and stage, or near the large windows overlooking the interior garden and pool.

Carmel is home to a number of charming bed and breakfasts and inns. Travelers desiring being in walking distance of old Carmel might consider the Carmel Country Inn, which is about four blocks from the heart of the town. The former apartment building was converted into a luxury inn with a fireplace, Jacuzzi tub, and all of the amenities of an upscale resort in every room.

When we weren’t on the wine trail we relaxed while window shopping along Ocean Avenue and ventured out to the beach to watch the waves teasing the shore at dusk.

On our first night in Carmel we enjoyed dining at Grasing’s Restaurant, which is just off of the main street. The restaurant is one of several upscale dining experiences, another is Clint Eastwood’s famed the Restaurant at Mission Ranch, where we had a romantic dinner the following night. Both experiences were exceptional from the atmosphere to the food.

Grasing’s was intimate and charming with is dark chocolate walls softly lit with low light and small tables allowing couples and friends to be closer to each other.

The Restaurant at Mission Ranch was open, from the expansive widows that provided a perfect view from each seat to the larger tables providing guests space to stretch and move freely while dining.

Carmel and Monterey each have a hot brunch spot that bring locals and tourists together: Kathy’s Place in Carmel and the Wild Plum Cafe and Bakery in Monterey across the street from the Casa Munras Hotel and Spa. There is always a line out the door at both of these places See page 10 >>

Read more online at www.ebar.com

March 29-April 4, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

<< Travel

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 29-April 4, 2012

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Carmel, Monterey From page 8

with menus that offer the standard breakfast and brunch fair. Wild Plum Cafe and Bakery has a hint of Mexicana, offering some spicier options on its menu and it serves its espresso drinks with sprinkles of the best chocolate.

Cannery Row My girlfriend and I left Carmel’s quaint charm for Monterey’s casual California style to explore its famed Cannery Row and historic downtown. Monterey offers a bit more of a cosmopolitan taste that embraces the natural beauty of its landscape and spirit of its Spanish history.

We checked into the Portola Hotel and Spa for our first night and the historic Casa Munras Hotel and Spa, once the home of Spanish ambassador Don Estenban Munras, who also owned much of Monterey at one time, on our second night.

Guests seeking luxury and being in the heart of historic Monterey will enjoy either of these resorts. The Portola Hotel and Spa offers spacious suites and rests at the end of the History of Monterey Park and the Wharf. Cannery Row is an easy mile-long bike ride or walk along a scenic route.

The Casa Munras Hotel and Spa is a sprawling hacienda that greets guests when they enter Monterey through the Presidio on Fremont Street overlooking the historic district. Guests, especially those looking for romance, will enjoy the cozy bungalow-style rooms heated with

Geena Dabadghav

Evan Oakes is the owner of Ag Venture Tours.

gas fireplaces.

Travelers looking for luxury, location, and a softer hit on the pocketbook might also consider the Hotel Pacific.

Unfortunately, the weather didn’t permit us to enjoy the leisurely stroll, but on better days the city offers a variety of outdoor activities.

“There is so much to do and people are in the mindset to be outside,” said Kim Powell, owner, operator, and head naturalist of Blue Water Ventures, which offers a variety of outdoor adventures. It is “the most active community I’ve ever lived in.”

Powell, 54, who lives with her partner of 12 years Nellie Farstad, didn’t move to the Monterey area 15 years ago for the queer lifestyle. The 25-year veteran naturalist and guide See page 11 >>

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Community News>>

March 29-April 4, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 11

Supes’ letter outlines pot club concerns

by Seth Hemmelgarn

S

an Francisco’s three out supervisors have written to Health Director Barbara Garcia expressing concerns about her department’s stance on medical marijuana.

Gay Supervisors David Campos and Scott Wiener, along with bisexual Supervisor Christina Olague, signed the letter, which is dated Monday, March 26.

In their message, the three write they’re concerned about “some recent media statements” from the health department on medical marijuana.

“Medical cannabis has a long histo-

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Health panel From page 1

lig, 63, a former president, received news earlier this month that Lee had decided not to reappoint them. Their terms expired in January but they had continued to serve as the mayor made his decision.

Tierney, who once served as the city’s HIV prevention director, said, “My hope would be that somebody from our community” gets a commission appointment.

“In a city with the HIV situation we have, and other lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender health issues, it would be important to have at least one from our community,” said Tierney, who’s HIV-negative.

Illig, who works at Project Open Hand, a local nonprofit that provides meals to people with HIV and AIDS and seniors, said having experience in the HIV/AIDS field “is just as important as having a doctor and a nurse on the commission.” Illig is also HIVnegative.

Nicole Wheaton, the mayor’s appointments secretary, couldn’t be

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Carmel, Monterey From page 10

was drawn to the nature and the weather, which is moderately warm year-round.

Cynthia L. Vernon, vice president of education, guest, and research programs of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, described the area’s natural beauty as “spectacular.”

“It’s just really easy to get out into nature and I find that very rewarding,” said Vernon, 58, who moved with her partner of 15 years from the Midwest more than 10 years ago.

“It feeds my soul.”

Vernon declined to disclose her partner’s name to protect her privacy.

Queer life, like the weather, is quite mellow in these coastal towns, attracting many outdoorsy queer and straight residents and visitors looking to live, play, and relax.

The area’s queer nightlife experience happens weekly in Castroville at Franco’s Night Club on Saturday nights, the only night the club is open. Other events include TGIF Monterey’s popular monthly LGBT

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Customs plan From page 7

the country last fall after their vacation on the French Riviera. The couple presented the document to a customs agent at George Bush International Airport in Houston, but Molinet said he refused to accept it.

“The guy was like, really rude, for one, and really aggressive,” he said, noting the agent was armed. “He basically ordered me back into line and said, ‘You know you’re not a couple.

We don’t recognize you. You have to get back in that line. You have to fill

ry of support in San Francisco, especially within the LGBT community,” the supervisors write. They point to the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, also known as Proposition 215. That California law allows for use of medical marijuana, which many people believe helps ease pain related to HIV and AIDS and other illnesses.

“All of us singing this letter have lost someone we know and love to a tragic illness, including AIDS,” the supervisors say.

As an example, they point to Michael Goldstein, a local political activist who lived with HIV for nearly 25 years before he died in December. The supervisors say he relied on

Rick Gerharter

Supervisor David Campos

medical marijuana products such as edibles to ease his suffering.

“We were all comforted knowing that the medical cannabis products he received were tested and prepared to extremely professional standards,” the letter says.

The supervisors say that the rules on medical pot that the health department helped establish “serve as a model for the rest of the state and the country.”

They also say, “[T]hat in order to protect our community’s safe access to medicine, the medical cannabis community should have a seat at the table before the city changes the regulatory structure we have carefully

put in place.”

In an email to the Bay Area Reporter, Campos said the media reports that he and the others refer to include a San Francisco Chronicle story. That March 3 article discusses an attempt at “limiting dispensaries’ efforts to those made with members’ pot.” The story explains that the effort aimed to align collectives more closely with state law. A “backlash” to a letter from the health department persuaded the agency not to make the requirement, the article says.

Garcia said Tuesday, March 27 that she hadn’t read the supervisors’ letter and couldn’t immediately comment on it.▼

reached for comment.

However, Christine Falvey, the mayor’s press secretary, did not rule out that an LGBT person would be appointed to the one vacancy. The mayor earlier named Belle TaylorMcGhee to fill one of the vacancies.

“The mayor has several very wellqualified candidates for the open seat” on the commission “including LGBT candidates. He will fill the vacancy as soon as he has met with candidates.”

It’s not clear why exactly Tierney and Illig were booted from the commission.

Tierney noted the terms are four years.

“I had one, and it’d be nice to get another one but when you get a new mayor it’s his or her right to appoint his or her own people. ... I don’t think it was anything personal,” he said.

Tierney supported former Supervisor Bevan Dufty in the 2011 mayor’s race. Lee became interim mayor last year and was elected to a full term in November.

Asked why he hadn’t been reappointed, Illig, who was first appointed in 2004, laughed and said, “You tell

me. ... I have no idea.” However, he added, “I know it’s politics,” since the new mayor gets to put his own people in place. Illig supported Lee for mayor.

Tierney and Illig’s departure had left five people remaining on the commission. Taylor-McGhee, whose background includes work in women’s reproductive health, was recently sworn in, bringing the total to six.

Taylor-McGhee, who’s HIV-negative and straight, said, “I certainly have worked on a number of public health issues, including HIV/AIDS, so I think as a public health advocate I’m concerned about all public health issues,” and ensuring that regardless of race, sexual orientation, or other factors people have “access to affordable, quality health care.”

She said that asking her about her ability to address HIV and AIDS issues is like asking someone who’s HIV-positive if they could relate to other health issues.

One of Illig’s concerns about the changes at the commission involves the potential impacts of national health care reform. Some people will

have to switch from private to public clinics and may not get all the services they need, he said.

He said Health Director Barbara Garcia “totally understands those issues,” but “it’s important to have somebody there who understands the HIV system as Steven and I did.”

Garcia declined to comment for this story.

Devesh Khatu, 43, is a gay San Francisco man who’s living with HIV and serves on the board of directors for the Asian and Pacific-Islander Wellness Center, a nonprofit that provides services to people with HIV and AIDS. Khatu said he’s “somewhat aware” of the commission’s work, and “I definitely have concerns” about the lack of LGBT or HIV/AIDS community representation on the city panel.

He said that given the “significant” numbers of people in San Francisco who are LGBT and living with HIV or AIDS, “I think there needs to be somebody that represents this community on the Health Commission, so that all of our issues are adequately addressed.”

The gay members of the Board of Supervisors also expressed concern over the lack of LGBT representation on the commission.

“There has to be LGBT representation on the Health Commission.

Having someone who comes from the community and understands the issues around AIDS and HIV is really important,” said Supervisor David Campos.

Campos said has addressed the issue with Lee and would do so again.

“The mayor has been very responsive to the needs and the interests of the LGBT community,” Campos said.

“I’m sure he will be receptive to that conversation.”

Supervisor Scott Wiener said he was “disappointed” that Tierney and Illig weren’t reappointed.

“It’s critical that the mayor appoint an LGBT person” to the remaining open seat, “and I’ve expressed that to the mayor,” Wiener said. He said Lee’s considering “exceptionally qualified” LGBT candidates for the commission, and “I’m confident the mayor will select a very strong LGBT commissioner.”▼

social mixer, and Pride of Monterey’s ongoing events throughout the year, such as the forthcoming second annual Art Full of Pride (May 26, noon to 5 p.m.) featuring local artists at a private venue, Swing for Pride Golf Tournament in June or July, and the annual Pride of Monterey Festival.

For most of the year, Monterey’s LGBT community connects at house parties and monthly socials at local events and restaurants or blends into the community, said Powell, Vernon, and Evan Oakes, owner of Ag Venture Tours, an agriculture and wine tour company.

When weather calls for indoor activities travelers can learn about the local environment at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which has preserved the bay’s natural habitat for nearly 30 years. The aquarium will open its new one-time exhibit, “The Jellies Experience,” beginning March 31.

Wine tasting is another good indoor option. Cannery Row offers local wines all in one place at the Taste of Monterey in the wine gallery on the pier, but for the full wine experience travelers might want to

go on an Ag Venture Tours’.

Oakes, 50, a gay man who has worked in the agriculture and wine industry all of his life, has introduced travelers to the wonders of the nation’s “salad bowl” and the Central Coast’s wine country for the past 15 years. Monterey’s 10 Appalachians produce a variety of wines, but it’s best known for its Chardonnay and Pino Noir, he said.

“There are so many different kinds of wine,” said Oakes, who loves educating his guests about the area and pairing wines with food during his half-day, full-day, and private tours to the region’s various wine trails. “It makes me feel good that I’m educating people about food and wine” Pairing food and wine is easy in Monterey with its plethora of restaurants inspired over the past 40 years by celebrity chef John Pisto, who owns the Whaling Station, a block off of Cannery Row, and Paradiso Trattoria, on the waterfront. The family of Pisto, one of the founders of the farm-to-table movement, is carrying on their Italian tradition at his wharf restaurants, Abalonetti

and Domenico’s. Dinning in Monterey can’t get any better than at the Whaling Station, which offers a blend of old Italy and California style, from the atmosphere and food that is the heart of Pisto to the witty service offered up by the wait staff.

The restaurant is a favorite with the locals, unlike its counterpart, Paradiso Trattoria, which offers visitors spectacular views of the bay and if diners are lucky a glimpse of porpoises playing in the water. Each Pisto restaurant offers atmosphere, experience, and local food prepared

and designed with the rare quality of taste and fashion at a variety of price points.

On our final night in Monterey we enjoyed dessert at Esteban, recently crowned “Best Happy Hour” by readers of the Monterey County Weekly. My girlfriend enjoyed a decaffeinated espresso cocktail while we shared the warm chocolate cake with raspberry sorbet, closing the book on a satisfying weekend.▼

out two forms.’”

The couple faced a similar situation in 2003 when they tried to re-enter the country after their wedding in Canada. Molinet said the agent who refused to accept their joint customs declaration form called a supervisor to calm him down.

“I just refused to go to the back of the line,” he said.

While Molinet welcomes the proposal, he still bristles over what he describes as his “lunch counter moment” in Houston.

“There were people in line that were clearly heterosexual couples,

many of whom weren’t even American citizens, and they were allowed to go in together,” he said. “I, as a citizen, didn’t have the same right.”▼

On the web Online content this week includes the Jock Talk and Inside the Beltway columns, the Bay Area Reporter’s online column, Political Notes, and articles on the health care hearings before the U.S. Supreme Court and a poverty panel that Horizons Foundations held. www.ebar.com.

A list of resources is online at ebar.com.

Obituaries >> John Britton September 5, 1943 – February 3, 2012

John Britton passed away on February 3 at his home in San Francisco.

He was 68 years old. John arrived in San Francisco in 1968, coming from Illinois. He worked

at the Embarcadero for many years, along with various jobs in the Castro.

He always loved living here and will be missed by many. John is survived by his sister, Carol, in Illinois. Any donations can be made to any gay rights group. I am holding his ashes for a memorial at sea, to be planned for later. Rest in peace, my dear friend. For information on the memorial contact Duane Fortier at duane4ta@gmail.com.

<<Community News

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 29-April 4, 2012

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Hetch Hetchy From page 2

Utilities Commission board refuses to hold hearings on its feasibility. In this political landscape, where San Francisco Democrats oppose this

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Mirkarimi From page 1

Lee suspended Mirkarimi without pay on grounds of official misconduct on Wednesday, March 21. The mayor appointed Vicki Hennessy to serve as interim sheriff.

Lee transmitted the charges to the city’s Ethics Commission and the Board of Supervisors and asked that Mirkarimi be removed from his job.

David Waggoner, Mirkarimi’s attorney as of last Wednesday, filed a petition in San Francisco Superior Court this week seeking to have Mirkarimi reinstated. In the filing, Waggoner says that Mirkarimi’s suspension “for alleged official misconduct was an abuse of discretion and not supported by substantial evidence.”

If the case makes it to the Ethics Commission, that panel is expected to issue a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors. Nine of the 11 supervisors would have to sustain the charges against Mirkarimi for him to be removed from office.

If the supervisors don’t act within 30 days after receiving the Ethics Commission’s recommendation, or if they don’t sustain the charges, Mirkarimi would be reinstated, according to the mayor’s charging documents.

The case could put the city’s progressive supervisors in a bind.

Gay Supervisor David Campos, and Supervisors Eric Mar and John Avalos are up for reelection in November.

Lee appointed Christina Olague, who’s bisexual, to fill Mirkarimi’s District 5 term after he became sheriff, and she’s running to hold on to that position.

Board President David Chiu, who entered office as a progressive but is now considered more moderate, also is up for re-election.

Waggoner, Mirkrarimi’s attorney, is a past co-president of the Harvey Milk

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PRC From page 1

of clients. The contemplative client who is exploring his or her options, the client who is ready to work but needs help with skills and training, and the job-ready client who just needs help with leads. PRC offers workshops, skill programs, and it also focuses on mock interviews with clients.

“We are testing our clients to see how long they can stay focused,” said Andrews.

The agency has connections with small mom and pop shops, nonprofits, as well as large corporations.

“We continue to educate and reeducate them on what it means to employ the disabled,” said Andrews.

Of PRC’s 2,200 clients, approximately 900 of them use the employment services.

“We have a 27 percent job placement rate,” said Leigh Illion, managing director of development, “and the average salary for a PRC client is $19.21 per hour, which is significantly more than minimum wage in San Francisco.”

Illion explained that the job placement rate is considered very good when compared to other employment organizations.

Mike T. Polyack, 67, is a PRC client who utilized the agency’s employment services, including job counseling, updating his resume, and learning to write a targeted cover letter. He said that he left his long-term job of 15 years just over two years ago.

“It was the result of technology changes, the Internet, and my former position not being as relevant as it had

▼

environmental cause, Restore Hetch Hetchy has found allies on the other side of the aisle, with one of the most prominent being Representative Dan Lungren (R-California).

The Hetch Hetchy Valley is nothing if not a partisan issue, but state

Senator Lois Wolk (D), in attendance at the fundraiser, said, “It’s important for Bay Area residents to know their water rights are safe. They will not be giving up the water. This is simply a matter of where to store that water.”

Marshall said plans are on track

for the signature gathering effort.

Restore Hetch Hetchy has until July 9 to collect 9,702 valid signatures.

“We will begin signature gathering by mid-April,” Marshall told the B.A.R. “We have raised the money we need to pay for all the signatures

but will also be using our volunteers to gather signatures. Hence, I’m 95 percent sure we’ll be on the November ballot.” ▼

LGBT Democratic Club.

In an interview, he staunchly defended Mirkarimi.

“This suspension is not simply a loss to the sheriff, it’s a loss to the entire LGBT community,” Waggoner said. “Like his predecessor Sheriff [Michael] Hennessey, Ross is an outstanding advocate for LGBT issues as they relate to the criminal justice system. With all due respect to Mayor Lee, the mayor has exceeded his authority.”

Waggoner said that from the outset of when the controversy erupted in January, “It seemed to me the sheriff was being unfairly attacked.”

He said when others “contacted me about getting involved, it was a very easy decision.”

Waggoner, who voted for Mirkarimi as sheriff, wouldn’t say who had approached him about taking the case. He also declined to say how much he was being paid.

He acknowledged Mirkarimi’s guilty plea, but said, “According to the courts, false imprisonment is not a crime of moral turpitude.”

The court will probably hold a hearing on Waggoner’s petition within two to three weeks, he said, but it could take longer.

“Depending on what the court does, we may or may not proceed” to an Ethics Commission hearing, he said.

Waggoner declined to speculate on what the supervisors would do if the case gets to them.

In his defense of Mirkarimi, Waggoner largely argues that the incident involving Mirkarimi and his wife doesn’t rise to “official misconduct” because it’s not directly related to his duties as sheriff, and it occurred before he was sworn in in January.

Among other arguments, the mayor notes that Mirkarimi is responsible for cooperating with the city’s adult probation department, and he’s now

on probation himself.

Advocates for victims of domestic violence have raised money for five Spanish-language billboards encouraging victims to reach out for help.

In a statement critical of Mirkarimi, Kathy Black of La Casa de las Madres said, “These billboards send a critical message to victims that they are not alone and to perpetrators that their actions are unacceptable.”

nity should be really strongly aware of our history as one of being accused of inappropriate behavior.” She said the case presents “a slippery slope in something that really shouldn’t have been charged at all, in my opinion. I really don’t know where it stops.”

She said the false imprisonment charge “is as little as me locking the door and saying, ‘Don’t go. I want to talk to you.’ It is a broad charge that does not rise, in my mind, to official misconduct.”

Walker, who supported Mirkarimi’s bid for sheriff, said he and Lopez are both friends of hers. She said Mirkarimi is “devastated” about the situation, and he and his wife both “want their family back.”

As far as how the supervisors will vote if the case reaches them, Walker said, “I think that progressives who are strong and stand up are going to be appreciated by the public, and I think it’s way past time for that to happen.”

Mirkarimi didn’t respond to an interview request. Paula Canny, who has represented Lopez, was unavailable for comment.

The city attorney’s office has advised supervisors not to comment on Mirkarimi’s case.

Campos wouldn’t say much, but he said more than most of the other supervisors “The only thing I can tell you is I’m going to be a fair, objective adjudicator,” he said, adding he’d make his decision on the facts and the evidence presented.

Like others, Jeff Sheehy, an out gay man who once served as former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s adviser on HIV and AIDS policy, said all he knows about the case is what he’s read in news reports.

The former supervisor married Sheehy to his husband in 2008,

when same-sex couples could still get married legally in California. Last fall, Sheehy urged others to vote for Mirkarimi for sheriff.

Sheehy noted his friendship with Mirkarimi, but said, “Domestic violence is unacceptable.” He once worked in the district attorney’s office as a victim advocate in same-sex domestic violence cases.

After some consideration, Sheehy said resigning is “the best thing” Mirkarimi could do.

He called the situation “terrible,” but said Mirkarimi should focus on “moving on” and making his family “healthier and stronger if he still has that opportunity.”

Former board president and current San Francisco Democratic Party Chair Aaron Peskin recently issued a statement calling on Mirkarimi to resign.

In a phone interview, Peskin said, “The conclusion I basically came to is that as tragic a situation as this is for Mr. Mirkarimi and his family, his viability as sheriff is no longer tenable, and while he may have been, for lack of a better term, over-prosecuted, he nonetheless is, I think, in an untenable situation. For the good of the city, the sheriff’s department, and Mr. Mirkarimi and his family, I think it’s time for him to step down and move forward with his life, and I sincerely wish him all the best in figuring out what he’s going to do next.”

Peskin asked to retract the word “over-prosecuted” and said that he meant Mirkarimi’s case “received a disproportionate amount of resources for the kind of case it was.”

He also said, “My profound hope is that Mr. Mirkarimi sees his way where he doesn’t have to put the city through all that. Enough is enough.”

District Attorney George Gascon has stated, “I make no apologies for acting aggressively to wipe out domestic violence.”▼

been,” he said in an email.

Shortly after becoming unemployed he contracted pneumonia and had a car accident, which left him hospitalized for three months.

“Classes at PRC helped me recover from the accident,” he said. “The regular schedule of classes and the various work assignments renewed my sense of worth and gave me the confidence to pursue a position in today’s difficult job market.”

He now is on-call with the city of San Francisco and expects to find a full-time job in the coming months.

“The job market and job search techniques had changed enormously in the 15 years since I last sought a position,” he said. “PRC brought me up to date on current job search practices.”

He also credited the staff, whom he called “remarkably professional and capable.”

youth services program. PRC’s budget at that time was just over $1 million. He said that the board at the time was very forthcoming about the challenges and in February 2003, Andrews ultimately came on board as executive director.

Andrews, 46, is in his ninth year as executive director. During that time, PRC’s annual operating budget has grown to $2.7 million. His salary is $130,100, according to the agency’s 2010 IRS Form 990.

The agency’s mission is to provide services to the HIV community and recognize other communities that could also benefit from the services at PRC. Although HIV is a significant barrier to unemployment and SSI insurance, mental health proved to be an apparent issue as well.

“We’ve expanded our core mission of service to clients with or at risk of HIV/AIDS to now include another atrisk community – clients with mental disabilities – offering benefits counseling services to this community in 2004 and employment services in 2010,” said Roger Kent, president of PRC’s board.

Kent also praised Andrews’s leadership.

“Brett has built and maintained a staff of top flight benefits counseling and employment service professionals who deliver amazing results for our clients and an enviable return on our funders’ dollars,” he noted.

When PRC decided to expand its services to clients with mental health issues, more benefits counseling programs were added and as a result, more SSI cases have been won due to claiming mental illness versus HIV. PRC

started its mental health program with a $200,000 grant from the San Francisco Department of Public Health. The pilot project proved successful.

According to Andrews, 90 percent of SSI claims have a positive outcome, taking into account those that required appeals, while 33 percent of the cases have a positive outcome on the first attempt. The grant from DPH has since grown to a $1.7 million contract.

Several years ago, a client with an HIV diagnosis had an easier route to achieving SSI insurance, but now that HIV is becoming a more manageable disease, the state of California is no longer granting SSI on just the basis of one having HIV. “Disease doesn’t manifest itself the same in every person,” said Andrews.

Some symptoms of having HIV can be depression, PTSD, and isolation.

For benefits counseling assessments, PRC asks that potential clients call or come to its offices on the first or 15th of each month. For employment services, those interested are encouraged to attend orientations held each Wednesday at 2 p.m.

PRC currently is compromised of 28 employees. Twelve employees make up the legal department, 11 attorneys and one advocate who helps with monolingual clients. The agency receives 68 percent of its revenue from public funds while the remaining 32 percent is provided by foundation and individual support.

As it commemorates its 25th anniversary, Andrews said that AIDS fatigue and donor fatigue are among the challenges his agency is addressing.

“It’s important to educate our cur-

rent donors in order to prevent them from taking ‘a disease of the day’ attitude,” said Andrews. “We are competing for LGBT and community dollars.”

Andrews is also keeping on eye on federal funding, as the city is expected to lose several million dollars through the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act, although the mayor and several supervisors are working to find funding.

In an effort to attract new donors and maintain existing ones, PRC has received a $25,000 matching challenge grant from former Ambassador James C. Hormel and his partner, Michael P. Nguyen.

“This challenge is our opportunity to connect with new donors and also to inspire current donors to increase their gifts,” said Kent.

Next week’s computer lab launch will take place Wednesday, April 4. Invited guests will include PRC donors, clients and staff, AT&T officials, and elected leaders.

The agency is also planning several public events around its milestone year. These include a special edition of Donna Sachet and Gary Virginia’s Pride Brunch in June (both at one time served on PRC’s board), and a silver anniversary gala, “Windows of Opportunity,” on October 23.

“Thankfully, people with HIV/ AIDS are living longer and an increasing number of these individuals are interested in, and are successfully returning to work,” said Andrews. “Over the past 15 years, we have seen such a demand for our Employment Services, which is a program that ultimately increases a person’s quality of life.” ▼

Rebound after adversity PRC experienced financial problems about 10 years ago, before Andrews arrived at the agency. At the time, PRC had staff layoffs and saw the loss of a major grant. At one point, board members had to ask themselves if they would call it a day or keep going. Community members rallied around the agency, holding fundraisers in local gay bars and drawing substantial support. Ultimately, the board decided to continue operations by streamlining and restructuring the programs. Andrews, who is openly gay, was the agency’s first permanent executive director.

Before Andrews came on board, he was living in Los Angeles running a

Mirkarimi should stay Eileen Hansen, an out lesbian who served on the Ethics Commission from 2005 to 2011 and considers herself an LGBT and progressive activist, expressed support for Mirkarimi.

She said she doesn’t think Mirkarimi should resign, “Because I don’t think he engaged in official misconduct.”

Hansen said she opposes the mayor’s charges because she doesn’t think Mirkarimi’s behavior meets the criteria for official misconduct. She expressed reasoning similar to Waggoner’s.

She said she supported Mirkarimi during his bid for sheriff, including encouraging others to vote for him, but she said that for her, it’s “not about defending him or supporting” Mirkarimi, or “passing judgment on his behavior either in a positive or negative way.”

However, Hansen said if Mirkarimi continues to fight, “That’s a very difficult position to put the supervisors in.”

Debra Walker, a lesbian artist, also supports Mirkarimi remaining in office.

“I believe that this is a really unfortunate situation that should never have been charged, and the fact that it just continues on and is being used as fodder to get rid of him is railroading, in my mind,” said Walker, who also referred to the case as “a lynching.”

Walker said, “The LGBT commu-

Calls for resignation

A longer version of this story is online at ebar.com.

â&#x2013;ź <<

Community News>>

PUC

From page 3

But Harrington was quick to add â&#x20AC;&#x153;that is not why I am retiring.â&#x20AC;?

Several projects he has helped steer through the approval process will be coming to fruition this summer. Chief among them is moving his departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1,000 staffers into a brand new headquarters building near City Hall.

The building on Polk Street, which features eight wind turbines and solar roof panels, is close to completion.

The $190 million project should wrap up by early July, when the PUC expects to move in.

It is also expected to save ratepayers money over the long-term, as the agency will no longer have to rent

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Counselors From page 6

need to accommodate them,â&#x20AC;? she said.

Some ways that universities can do that, she pointed out, are the creation of LGBT centers on campus, and other safe zones where students can feel welcome to go and talk about their personal issues with counselors.

Also, she said faculty and staff, from professors to administrators, should be trained on how to recognize and handle instances of LGBT harassment.

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Guest Opinion From page 4

have funded and helped to support NOMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work in ways that have yet to be fully disclosed. NOM has since worked with the Knights of Columbus and the bishops to produce an anti-gay video that was distributed to hundreds of thousands of Catholic households in Minnesota. Voters in that state will decide this November whether to ban same-gender marriage by constitutional amendment. So Blackâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s critique of religion is more than justified.

But Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d rather read 8 with Harvey.

Milk was a devout atheist, a proud Jew, and a member of the predominantly-LGBT Congregation Shaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ar Zahav. While not a religious believer, his words and deeds show that he believed in belief, especially in the important role of LGBT-positive religion in supporting queer/human dignity and

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Conant From page 6

the HIV virus. The meetings were open to the public and soon grew in size. After being moved to an auditorium, Conant welcomed up to 1,500 people at a time. The Conant Foundation was later founded in 1989 to support the expansion of these meetings and today remains a valuable resource for HIV/AIDS patients and their caregivers.

Conant, 75, is no stranger to politics, either. In 1987, he served as co-chair of the California AIDS Leadership Committee to formulate the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first policies in response to the AIDS epidemic. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The CDC was told to do nothing by the Reagan administration,â&#x20AC;?

Francis said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, â&#x20AC;&#x153;so the response for prevention, care, and education had to come from state level. Marcus was on the state AIDS task force and worked with me to make a very logical response plan. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He shook things from the bottom. San Francisco and the state of California came forth in a way that led the nation and hopefully other parts of the world in being more forthright about HIV,â&#x20AC;? Francis said.

As antiretroviral treatment be-

March 29-April 4, 2012 â&#x20AC;˘ BAY AREA REPORTER â&#x20AC;˘ 13

space for its staffers. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We had been looking to buy a building for years and years,â&#x20AC;? said Harrington.

When she was at the PUC Leal pushed for the agency to have its own headquarters and wanted it to use green building techniques. Shortly after he succeeded Leal, Harrington, the former city controller, sent the project back to the drawing board in 2009 to cut costs. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think he has done a very good job,â&#x20AC;? Leal said of his stewardship of the agency. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are going to see a good building that will save the ratepayers money and will show what you can do with conservation.â&#x20AC;?

Harrington acknowledges the city needs to look at how to reclaim more of the water it now uses. The PUC is

working to construct a new facility near Ocean Beach that would be the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first treatment plant to recycle water for irrigation and other nondrinking purposes.

It is intended to provide 2 million gallons per day of treated water for non-potable purposes, such as irrigation and toilet flushing, for fields and buildings in Golden Gate Park, Lincoln Park, and the California Academy of Sciences.

He hopes that whomever Mayor Ed Lee taps to be his successor will be free to spend their time focused improving the current water system rather than re-engineering it. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Right now we do very little water recycling,â&#x20AC;? said Harrington. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is something we should do more. But it will never replace Hetchy.â&#x20AC;?â&#x2013;ź

Nathan Brown, a student conduct doctoral fellow at the University of Georgia, agreed with Mazzarella on the need for safe space programs. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I work in higher education,â&#x20AC;? he said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;and there is not a lot of discussion at the administrative level.â&#x20AC;?

As a result, few universities have the centers. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The way to get lasting change is to get the students going, get them to meet and ask for these things,â&#x20AC;?

Brown added. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop students from meeting.â&#x20AC;?

As a gay African American, Brown said he is worried about finding work in Georgia after com-

pleting his Ph. D. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to have to move to San Francisco,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;After walking around last night, I saw a black guy and a white guy holding hands and nobody batted an eyelash. I thought okay, people here just do their thing.â&#x20AC;?

Rheineck said in big urban environments there is a complacency that can happen, â&#x20AC;&#x153;and people forget that outside those urban areas, it is not as safe for LGBT students.â&#x20AC;?

Unfortunately, she noted, those are the areas that need presentations like the one she gave.â&#x2013;ź

aiding the struggle for LGBT civil rights. He bore witness by engaging religion, as demonstrated in a 1978 clip from a San Francisco television program in which he addressed religious concerns head-on.

Building on arguments developed and disseminated by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (founded in San Francisco in 1964), Milk argued for a pro-LGBT reading of the Christian scriptures: â&#x20AC;&#x153;In the teachings of Paul, whose own life is questionable, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reference to it. But the gospels, which is Christianity, you know, Jesus â&#x20AC;&#x201C; his life, his teaching â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it is never, ever even hinted at ... just the opposite. Christ says â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Love thy neighbor; Do unto the neighbor as you would want them to do unto youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ... To the Bible thumpers, those who are out there, re-read the gospels, and live the life of the gospels, and you would do what Christ says ... accept everyone.â&#x20AC;?

(See http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=XVlxq7wqgeU.) The No on 8 campaign featured Milk colleague, and now Senator Dianne Feinstein in its ads, rather than LGBT families and pro-LGBT religious witnesses. In retrospect that was a mistake. We tried to be sneaky and it backfired. This is who we are, we should have said; this is how present inequality affects our families; and this is what secular reason and our many diverse faith traditions can teach us about how to get along.â&#x2013;ź

come widely available in the mid1990s, HIV/AIDS dropped from the leading cause of death among people ages 25-44 to the third-leading cause of death a year later. By 2010, HIV/AIDS had dropped to the seventh-leading cause among the same age group.

When asked how the virus can be eradicated, Conant said that the answer is simple. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is now unequivocally shown that if you treat somebody with highly active antiretroviral therapy and you get their viral load undetectable, they are no longer infectious to their sexual partner. If you can identify everybody thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s positive and put them and keep them on treatment, we can stop this epidemic.â&#x20AC;?

So then, he says, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s one problem with the San Francisco Department of Public Healthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;test and treatâ&#x20AC;? strategy, which operates under the premise that by expanding testing methods, diagnosing early, and treating HIV-positive people quickly and consistently, the community viral load will drop and with it the rate of transmission. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not testing everybody,â&#x20AC;? said Conant, â&#x20AC;&#x153;only the people that want to be tested. The trouble is that thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lots of people who donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to be tested or donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know

they should be tested. Every time someone comes in contact with the health care delivery system â&#x20AC;&#x201C; test them.â&#x20AC;?

While being diagnosed with HIV today is no longer a death sentence and available treatments are becoming incrementally better, Conant admits an HIV vaccine is a long way off. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not going to happen in the foreseeable future,â&#x20AC;? Conant said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re just beginning to find little places where the virus is consistently vulnerable. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very, very early.â&#x20AC;?

After closing his San Francisco practice in 2010, Conant moved to Manhattan where he still sees a few patients for private pay and others for free. His line of work seems to have taken little to no toll on him. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He looks tired sometimes,â&#x20AC;? said Francis, â&#x20AC;&#x153;but he generally always looks forward.â&#x20AC;? â&#x2013;ź

Eugene McMullan will graduate with a Ph.D. in history from the Graduate Theological Union this May. His dissertation was entitled â&#x20AC;&#x153;Queer Witness: Religion and the History of the LGBT Movement in San Francisco, 19481981.â&#x20AC;? He is also the co-editor of Communion, the monthly newsletter of Catholics for Marriage Equality in California.

Correction The March 22 Article, â&#x20AC;&#x153;EQCA struggles for directionâ&#x20AC;? incorrectly said that Equality California had previously backed Assembly Bill 1505.

Although EQCA announced support for the proposal last year, it had not yet been introduced. The online version has been corrected.

Legal Notices>> City and County of San Francisco April, 2012 Monthly Notice of Funds Availability Training and Coordination of Family Serving Agencies First 5 San Francisco announces the Availability of Funds for Training and Coordination of Family Serving Agencies. Approximately $188,000 is available for the period of 07/01/2012 to 06/30/2013 and renewable up to two years. Funding supports training and coordination of agencies serving San Francisco families. Final awards and renewals are subject to availability of funds, grant terms, and rights.

The Request for Proposal (RFP) will be released on or about 03/30/2012. The RFP may EH GRZQORDGHG IURP ZZZ Ă&#x20AC;UVW VI RUJ RU SLFNHG XS LQ SHUVRQ DP ² SP 0RQGD\ ² )ULGD\ DW )LUVW 6DQ )UDQFLVFR 0DUNHW 6W 6WH 6DQ )UDQFLVFR $ QRQ PDQGDWRU\ ELGGHU¡V FRQIHUHQFH ZLOO WDNH SODFH RQ 0RQGD\ $SULO DW D P DW 0DUNHW 6W 6DQ )UDQFLVFR 6XLWH 3URSRVDOV DUH GXH E\ S P RQ 0RQGD\ *XLGHOLQHV are noted in the RFQ. )RU PRUH LQIRUPDWLRQ FRQWDFW 'HULN $RNL DW GHULN#Ă&#x20AC;UVW VI RUJ RU Notice of Funds Availability RFQ - Financial and Expanded Audit Services First 5 San Francisco announces the Availability of Funds for Financial and Expanded Audit Services. Approximately $30,000 is available for the period of 08/01/2012 to DQG UHQHZDEOH XS WR WZR \HDUV )XQGLQJ VXSSRUWV Ă&#x20AC;QDQFLDO DXGLW UHYLHZ Ă&#x20AC;QDQFLDO UHSRUWLQJ DQG H[SDQGHG DXGLW VHUYLFHV )LQDO DZDUGV DQG UHQHZDOV DUH VXEMHFW WR availability of funds, grant terms, and rights.

The Request for Proposal will be released on or about 03/30/2012. The RFQ may be GRZQORDGHG IURP ZZZ Ă&#x20AC;UVW VI RUJ RU SLFNHG XS LQ SHUVRQ DP ² SP 0RQGD\ ² )ULGD\ DW )LUVW 6DQ )UDQFLVFR 0DUNHW 6W 6WH 6DQ )UDQFLVFR $ QRQ PDQGDWRU\ ELGGHU¡V FRQIHUHQFH ZLOO WDNH SODFH RQ :HGQHVGD\ $SULO DW D P DW 0DUNHW 6W 6DQ )UDQFLVFR 6XLWH 3URSRVDOV DUH GXH E\ S P RQ 7XHVGD\ *XLGHOLQHV DUH QRWHG LQ WKH 5)4 )RU PRUH LQIRUPDWLRQ FRQWDFW 'HULN $RNL DW GHULN#Ă&#x20AC;UVW VI RUJ RU Notice of Funds Availability of Draft 2012-2013 Action Plan and Draft Substantial Amendment to 2011-2012 Action Plan Including Preliminary Funding Recommendations 7KH 'UDIW $FWLRQ 3ODQ DQG WKH 'UDIW 6XEVWDQWLDO $PHQGPHQW WR WKH $FWLRQ 3ODQ ZKLFK LQFOXGH SUHOLPLQDU\ IXQGLQJ UHFRPPHQGDWLRQV IRU WKH &'%* (6* +20( DQG +23:$ SURJUDPV ZLOO EH DYDLODEOH IRU SXEOLF UHYLHZ DQG FRPPHQW WKURXJK $SULO )RU PRUH LQIRUPDWLRQ SOHDVH FDOO RU YLVLW ZZZ VIJRY RUJ PRK San Francisco Redistricting Task Force (RDTF) 7KH 5'7) PXVW SUHVHQW D Ă&#x20AC;QDO SODQ RXWOLQLQJ WKH QHZ VXSHUYLVRULDO GLVWULFW OLQHV WR WKH Board of Supervisors before April 15, 2012. The San Francisco RDTF has been holding meetings in each of the supervisorial districts to maximize public participation in the redistricting process. The April 2012 meeting schedule is below.

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6DWXUGD\ ² $SULO DP 5RRP 7%' &LW\ +DOO Information meeting changes and updates on the TBD locations will be available at sfgov.org/rdtf The City and County of San Francisco encourage public outreach. Articles are translated into several ODQJXDJHV WR SURYLGH EHWWHU SXEOLF DFFHVV 7KH QHZVSDSHU PDNHV HYHU\ HIIRUW WR WUDQVODWH WKH DUWLFOHV of general interest correctly. No liability is assumed by the City and County of San Francisco or the newspapers for errors and omissions.

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT NOTICE TO PROPOSERS GENERAL INFORMATION The SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Districtâ&#x20AC;?), /DNHVLGH 'ULYH 2DNODQG &DOLIRUQLD LV advertising for proposals for Safety Certi Ă&#x20AC;HG 7HPSRUDU\ +HOS6HUYLFHV 5HTXHVW IRU 3URSRVDOV 5)3 1R 0 RQ RU DERXW 0DUFK ZLWK SURSRVDOV GXH E\ 30 ORFDO WLPH 7XHVGD\ 0D\ DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES TO BE PROVIDED The District is soliciting the services of a Temporary Personnel Services Agency to SURYLGH WHPSRUDU\ KHOS SHUVRQQHO TXDOLĂ&#x20AC;HG by experience, training and/or education to SHUIRUP ZRUN DV UHTXLUHG IRU WKH 'LVWULFW 7KH VHUYLFHV ZLOO EH UHTXLUHG RQ DQ DV QHHGHG RQ FDOO EDVLV DQG DV VSHFLĂ&#x20AC;HG LQ WKH RFP Scope of Services. The Agreement will be for a term of four years.

2XWUHDFK 1HWZRUNLQJ 6HVVLRQ 7KH 'LVWULFW¡V 2IĂ&#x20AC;FH RI &LYLO 5LJKWV ZLOO FRQGXFW DQ RXWUHDFK QHWZRUNLQJ VHVVLRQ IRU subcontractors to meet the prime agencies for DBEparticipation opportunities. The 2XWUHDFK 0HHWLQJ ZLOO EH KHOG RQ 7XHVGD\ $SULO 7KH 2XWUHDFK 0HHWLQJ ZLOO FRQYHQH DW $0 LQ WKH 'LVWULFW¡V %RDUG 5RRP ORFDWHG DW WK 6WUHHW LQ WKH .DLVHU &HQWHU WK 6WUHHW 0DOO ² UG )ORRU 2DNODQG &DOLIRUQLD $ 3UH 3URSRVDO 0HHWLQJ ZLOO EH KHOG RQ 7XHVGD\ $SULO 7KH 3UH 3URSRVDO 0HHWLQJ ZLOO FRQYHQH DW $0 LQ %$57 2IĂ&#x20AC;FHV ORFDWHG DW /DNHVLGH 'ULYH WK )ORRU 0DLQ &RQIHUHQFH 5RRP 1R 2DNODQG &DOLIRUQLD $W WKH 3UH 3UR SRVDO 0HHWLQJ WKH 'LVWULFW¡V 'LVDGYDQWDJHG Business Enterprise (DBE) Program will be explained. All questions regarding DBE SDUWLFLSDWLRQ VKRXOG EH GLUHFWHG WR 0V %HQGX *ULIĂ&#x20AC;Q 2IĂ&#x20AC;FH RI &LYLO 5LJKWV DW

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&RSLHV RI WKH 5)3 PD\ EH REWDLQHG (1) By written request to the Districtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Senior &RQWUDFW $GPLQLVWUDWRU /DNHVLGH 'ULYH WK )ORRU 2DNODQG &$ 5HIHUHQFH 5)3 1R 0 6DIHW\ &HUWLĂ&#x20AC;HG 7HPSR rary Help Services, and send requests to Fax 1R

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'DWHG DW 2DNODQG &DOLIRUQLD WKLV QG GD\ RI 0DUFK V 3DWULFLD . :LOOLDPV for Kenneth A. Duron, District Secretary San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District Â&#x2021; &16 BAY AREA REPORTER

STATEMENT FILE A- 034172900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KARAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S K9-LIVES, 669 Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Farrell St., SF, CA 94109.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Kara Williams. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 03/02 /12.

The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/02/12.

MAR 8, 15, 22, 29, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034173600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WHIPPED & BEATEN, 701 Taylor St. #502, SF, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Michelle Kelly. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 03/02/12. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/02/12.

MAR 8, 15, 22, 29, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034175300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MISSION OASIS PROPERTIES, 3118 22nd St., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed James Boyd Lappin. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on NA. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/02/12.

MAR 8, 15, 22, 29, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A-034173300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE COOKIE BAKERY, 1035 PaciďŹ c Ave., SF, CA 94133. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Patricia Prislin. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 03/02/12. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/02/12.

MAR 8, 15, 22, 29, 2012 STATEMENT FILE# A-034174100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BAYOU BY THE BAY, 1599 Howard St., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed Marisa Palen. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 03/0212. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/02/12.

MAR 8, 15, 22, 29, 2012 STATEMENT FILE# A-034128500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EL METATE, 2406 Bryant St., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited partnership, and is signed Francisco Hernandez. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 09/02/02. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/14/12.

MAR 8, 15, 22, 29, 2012 STATEMENT FILE# A-034160500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WINE TASTING ON THE BAY, Pier 39 The Embarcadero Dock 1, SF, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Melissa McDowell. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on NA. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/27/12.

MAR 8, 15, 22, 29, 2012

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14 • Bay Area Reporter • March 29-April 4, 2012

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Legal Notices>>

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Legal Notices>> STATEMENT FILE A- 034176500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NEWCALI CONSTRUCTION, 465 6th St., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Xiao Xuan Du. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/05/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/05/12.

MAR 8, 15, 22, 29, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034181000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SLR TRANSPORTATION, 6222 3rd St., SF, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Mohammed Chadhery.

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

MAR 8, 15, 22, 29, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034132600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RIDVAN KAYA, 1405 21st Ave., SF, CA 94122.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Ugur Y. Kaya. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/1512. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/15/12.

MAR 8, 15, 22, 29, 2012 STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE# CNC12-548490 In the matter of the application of: JASON CHAZ DRAVEN for change of name. The application of JASON CHAZ DRAVEN for change of name having been filed in Court, and it appearing from said application that JASON CHAZ DRAVEN filed an application proposing that his/her name be changed to CHAYNE LOWELL LYNSKEY. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept 514 on the 17th of May, 2012 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034184800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MR. GOODMAN’S LIMOUSINE, 309 Holloway Ave., SF, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Boris Zeltser. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/07/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/12.

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034188900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BARBARY COAST BEVERAGE CATERING, 3139 16th St., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Tom Basso. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/08/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/12.

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034186500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WEBWORKS, 743 Polk St. #320, SF, CA 94109.

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

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034185800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RENKON STUDIOS, 527 9th Ave., SF, CA 94118.

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

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034187100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SIMPLY BEAUTY SKIN CARE, 2701 Judah St., SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Kim Hung Lee. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/12.

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

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012

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

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

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034197500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CONCART FURNITURE, 1120 Illinois St., SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Carlos I. Concuan. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/13/12.

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

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

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

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

MAR 15, 22, 29, APR 5, 2012 STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE# CNC12-548511 In the matter of the application of: JI YUNG YANG for change of name. The application of JI YUNG YANG for change of name having been filed in Court, and it appearing from said application that JI YUNG YANG filed an application proposing that ELLIYH YEOM be changed to ELLIYH YANG and ELLIANAH YEOM be changed to ELLIANAH YANG. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Room 514 on the 22nd of May, 2012 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE# CNC12-548474 In the matter of the application of: JOSEPH PAUL BAQUERA for change of name. The application of JOSEPH PAUL BAQUERA for change of name having been filed in Court, and it appearing from said application that JOSEPH PAUL BAQUERA filed an application proposing that his/her name be changed to JOSEPH MICHAEL PAUL. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Room 514 on the 3rd of May 2012 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE# CNC12-548496 In the matter of the application of: DAREL OCTAVIUS AYAP for change of name and gender.

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

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012

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

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

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034192500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NIFNAKS, 1420 Alabama St., SF, CA 94110.

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

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

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034194300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VALUEAPP DEVELOPMENT, 472 Euclid Ave., SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Anthony C. Stagliano. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/12/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/12/12.

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034203400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JJMS GROUP, 201 Spear St. #1100, SF, CA 94105.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed James M. Fazackerley. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/15/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/14/12.

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

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

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034176100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NEW MONTGOMERY ASSOCIATES, 5 Freelon St., SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a husband and wife, and is signed Chi Pin Wong. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/03/96. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/05/12.

MAR 22, 29, APR 5, 12, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034195000

NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE LICENSE Dated 02/21/12 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: PAPAZOTE COLE LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 1515 Clay Street, Suite 2208, Oakland, CA 94612 to sell alcoholic beverages at 101 Carl St., SF, CA 94117-3905. Type of license applied for

42 - ON-SALE BEER AND WINE PUBLIC PREMISES MAR 29, 2012 NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE LICENSE Dated 02/21/12 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: PAPAZOTE COLE LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 1515 Clay Street, Suite 2208, Oakland, CA 94612 to sell alcoholic beverages at 901 Cole St., SF, CA 94117-4315. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SALE BEER AND WINE EATING PLACE MAR 29, 2012 NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE LICENSE Dated 03/08/12 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: CAPITAL STONE GROUP LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 1515 Clay Street, Suite 2208, Oakland, CA 94612 to sell alcoholic beverages at 680 8th St. Ste. 170, SF, CA 94103-4942. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SALE BEER AND WINE EATING PLACE MAR 29, 2012 STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE# CNC12-548520 In the matter of the application of: SARAH QUEEN BROWNING for change of name, having been filed in Court, and it appearing from said application that SARAH QUEEN BROWNING filed an application proposing that his/her name be changed to SARAH COOK QUEEN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept 514 on the 22nd of May 2012 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 29, APR 5, 12, 19, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034209400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GRAMLY SYSTEMS, 1499 Sutter St. #303, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Lawrence Berkowitz.

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/16/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/16/12.

STATEMENT FILE A- 034221700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EDEN CAFE, 47 Franklin St., SF, CA 94102.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Angela Chang. 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 03/23/12.

MAR 29, APR 5, 12, 19, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034199200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: R.J.P. ASSOCIATES, 1288 Columbus Ave. #254, SF, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed Peter Maguire.

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 03/14/12.

MAR 29, APR 5, 12, 19, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034197400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FLORIST BY GRACE, 298 Market St., SF, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Jie Su. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/12/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/13/12.

MAR 29, APR 5, 12, 19, 2012 STATEMENT FILE A- 034217300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CHROMIUM, 440 Brannan St., SF, CA 94107.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Anthony D. Wessling. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/15/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/21/12.

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Vol. 42 • No. 13 • March 29-April 4, 2012

Director Terence Davies on ‘The Deep Blue Sea’ ~ by David Lamble ~ Rachel Weisz plays Hester Collyer in Terence Davies’ film The Deep Blue Sea, based on the Terence Rattigan play.

Courtesy Music Box Films

T

erence Rattigan, meet Terence Davies.

Perhaps the best drama by a happy if discreetly closeted British playwright/ screenwriter is brought up to date in a beautifully staged, emotionally precise new screen version by an openly gay if bitterly unhappy filmmaker whose greatest work commemorates those bleak post-WWII years when Britain was forever stripped of its greatness.

The Deep Blue Sea opens as Hester, a 40-year-old woman who has fled a sexless

marriage for erotic bliss with a younger man, leaves a suicide note on the mantle of a dimly lit rooming house, a shabby oasis in a neighborhood still dotted with bombed out buildings.

Hester’s world is shaken to the core when she discovers that the boundless joys of sex with ex-RAF pilot Freddie end abruptly when they leave the confines of his shabby bed-sitter. The handsome bounder is visibly bored when she takes him to an art gallery, can’t remember her birthday, and is driven to rage when she invades

his lair, the local pub with its huge pints and music hall sing-alongs.

In a scene that perhaps belongs more to the cheeky farcical world of the Pythons than to either Terence, Hester’s bid to extinguish herself is frustrated when the shilling she inserts in the gas heater abruptly runs out, and her life is spared by the boarding-house’s motley crew.

Faced with the prospect of moving on without either the wealthy judge or the feckless Freddie, Hester (a sensational Rachel Weisz, an Oscar

winner for The Constant Gardener) will discover just how much pluck it takes to endure life in a bankrupted Britain without social status, inherited wealth, job skills or good cocksmanship.

“Beware of passion, Hester, it always leads to trouble.”

“What would you replace it with?”

“A guarded enthusiasm. My garden is my See page 29 >>

Seeking shelter from the storm Pinter’s ‘The Caretaker’ brings Jonathan Pryce to SF

by Richard Dodds

J Steven Underhill

Actor Jonathan Pryce in front of the Curran Theatre, home to an acclaimed revival of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker.

onathan Pryce has scant San Francisco connections on his bulging résumé, a situation now changed with the arrival of his acclaimed performance in Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker at the Curran. He had been here before briefly for vacation, and then to shoot a scene or two for an unremembered movie, but there is one more memory painted – literally – in bright colors. To help make his way through drama school in London, he went door-to-door selling paintings on velvet. His best seller: scenes of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Talking by phone from Australia,

where he was appearing in The Caretaker as part of the Adelaide Festival, he said he suggested San Francisco to the producers when they needed another stop on a short tour that will end at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. “Somehow they did slip in Columbus, too,” he said of an Ohio stop between SF and BAM. “It’s like the old bus-and-truck tours. The set is being driven from San Francisco to New York, and the truck has to stop somewhere. So we’re going to meet the set in Columbus.”

Pryce’s film choices veer from the classy to the wantonly commercial; look for him soon in G.I. Joe: Retali-

{ SECOND OF TWO SECTIONS }

ation playing opposite Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. But then there are films such as Carrington, in which he played the gay literary figure Lytton Strachey of London’s Bloomsbury group. “When I was doing Carrington and the press asked, ‘Have you ever played a gay character before?’ I said, ‘Many times, you’ve just never known it.’”

He is much more cautious in selecting stage roles. It’s a policy that has stood him in good stead. On Broadway, he has won Tony Awards for CoSee page 29 >>

<< Out There

18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 29-April 4, 2012

▼

Wilde imaginings

by Roberto Friedman

T

he eternal spirit of playwright, poet, novelist and gay icon Oscar Wilde was certainly wafting around the Castro Theatre last Wednesday night when star Al Pacino attended the North American premiere of his film Wilde Salomé, a star-studded affair produced by Mark Rhoades as a benefit for the GLBT Historical Society.

Out There sipped bubbly at the VIPpy reception in the Castro’s mezzanine while ogling diverse celebs such as fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier, model Dita von Teese, actress Joan Chen, filmies Peter and Stefanie Coyote, CA attorney general Kamala Harris, SF public defender Jeff Adachi, socialite Joy Bianchi, journo heavyweight Phil Bronstein, and other boldface names.

Playwright Tony Kushner was a noshow. We were chasing the champers with a box of Raisinettes when the glam crowd was called down to our

seats by the pre-film serenade on the theatre’s mighty Wurlitzer organ.

The film turned out to be sort of a making-of documentary about the theatrical production of Wilde’s Salomé spearheaded by Pacino. Original plans called for a complete film of the play, too, but that project apparently fizzled due to time and budget constraints, so instead there is this hybrid, part footage from the play and film, part rehearsal angst, part travelogue of Wilde’s life. The staged reading in Los Angeles drew “mixed reviews,” including a scathing one from the Los Angeles Times, and there are intimations in the film as to why this was so. Though Hollywood “it” girl Jessica Chastain fits Salomé’s veils to a fare-thee-well, Pacino inexplicably chooses to play King Herod as a fey, lisping creature – the way, come to think of it, that Herod was portrayed in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. Wondered the Times, “What was he thinking?”

In any case, the film was fun, the house was full, the Wilde wor-

Chanteuse and actress Ute Lemper is coming to town.

ship was entirely appropriate, and Pacino swanned onstage to the pop of paparazzi flashes. He recalled his last appearance in San Francisco 30 years ago, starring in David Mamet’s American Buffalo, a visit which coincided with his being snubbed for an Oscar nomination for his star turn in director Brian De Palma’s Scarface. To cushion the blow, stage-door Johnnies bestowed a homemade Oscar upon him. Pacino said that to this day, when people ask to see his Oscar, he shows them the ersatz SF one. (He was later to win his certified authentic Best Actor trophy not for Serpico or Dog Day Afternoon, but for – cringe – Scent of a Woman. No comment.)

It was the first big-time film premiere event at the Castro Theatre since Gus Van Sant’s Milk, and it left us hankering for more. Castro St. looks good in red carpet.

Weimar vibes San Francisco Performances will present German chanteuse and actress Ute Lemper in an unusual pairing with the Vogler Quartet and clarinetist Stefan Malzew (all are SF Performances debuts) on Saturday, March 31, 8 p.m. at the Herbst Theatre.

Spotlighting Weimar chansons and the classical works they influenced, the pairing of Lemper and Malzew with Vogler Quartet musicians Tim Vogler and Frank Reinecke, violins, Stefan Fehlandt, viola, and Stephan Forck, cello, will explore the boundaries between popular and high art during one of history’s most vibrant eras. From Weill to Piazzolla, from Schulhoff to Piaf, the concert will be a portrait of the cultural melting pot of 1920s Europe.

Lemper is internationally ac-

Steven Underhill

Star of stage and screen Al Pacino arrives for the Wilde Salomé premiere last Wednesday night at the Castro Theatre.

claimed as a recording artist, actress, cabaret and film star. Her repertoire ranges from musicals and Berlin cabaret songs to the dark songs of Kurt Weill. From playing Velma Kelly in Chicago (London, New York, Las Vegas) and Peter in Peter Pan (in Berlin), she frequently returns to the dark, complex and powerfully creative songs of Weimar Germany. “I cannot stress enough my life’s journey exploring repertoire inspired by art of the Weimar Republic,” she said.

Tickets for the performance start at $45. For more information, visit www.sfperformances.org or call (415) 392-2545.

Jean Paul on film Have you got your Jean Paul Gaultier groove on yet? Fasten your seat belts, because in addition to the blockbuster museum show now packing them into the de Young (reviewed in these pages next week), the Castro Theatre has fashioned a little retrospective of their own. Quoth the press release: “The Castro Theatre brings the fashion world to the silver screen with Jean Paul Gaultier: Maverick Fashion Icon, a two-day series highlighting the work of the innovative and provocative fashion designer. On April 5 & 6, the Castro Theatre will showcase films that exemplify Gaultier’s distinctive style and creativity in costume design. The timing of this series celebrates the de Young Museum’s exhibition The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, on view through August 19. The series features four unique, groundbreaking, and rarely screened films – one screening only of each – in two evenings of double features: “Truth or Dare, an outrageous, insightful, carefully controlled documentary of Madonna’s 1990 Blonde Ambition tour, which features Gault-

ier’s then-notorious, now-iconic cone bra (on view at the de Young).

“The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Peter Greenaway’s complex and lavish film in which a tyrannical restaurateur tightly orchestrates a bizarre exchange of power, sensuality and confrontation – and which may be the best example of Gaultier’s personal motto ‘equality, diversity and perversity’ in cinema.

“The Fifth Element, Luc Besson’s high-octane, 23rd-century ‘Sci-Fi Pop Epic’ which Gaultier takes even more over-the-top with his futuristic designs.

“The City of Lost Children, JeanPierre Jeunet and Marc Caro’s (Delicatessen) exquisite fairy tale for adults, the hyperreality of which Gaultier enhances with his iconic nautical strongman motifs.” Quite a queerish quartet, non?

Hormel meets The JCCSF Arts & Ideas series will present James Hormel in conversation with KQED’s Scott Shafer, in a presentation called Private Struggles & Public Battles, on Monday, April 9, at 7 p.m. Let’s go to the release: “James Hormel was brought up among privilege and with high expectations. In the face of opposition from family, friends and society at large, he had the courage to be himself, meeting those expectations on his own terms. Despite personal despair and family anguish, Hormel came out of the closet to battle homophobia, losing many friends to AIDS, and went on to become an antiwar activist and the first openly gay United States Ambassador, serving during the Clinton administration.”

The talk, to be presented at Kanbar Hall, JCCSF, 3200 California St. in San Francisco, is free. For reservations, call (415) 292-1233, or go to Arts@jccsf.org.▼

Steven Underhill

Designer Jean Paul Gaultier and modeling beauty Dita von Teese arrive at the Wilde Salomé premiere at the Castro Theatre.

▼

Theatre>>

March 29-April 4, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 19

Coco’s time

by David-Elijah Nahmod

I

t’s been said that the best comedy springs forth from the pain of the comic, and Miss Coco Peru is no exception. When she’s on stage, inspiring both applause and laughter, she often shares stories from her own life. It’s a life that many of us can relate to, whether we’ve appeared in drag or not. On Sunday, April 1, Miss Coco Peru will perform her brand new show, There Comes a Time, at the Victoria Theater in San Francisco.

“I was an effeminate, damaged boy from the Bronx who was called a girlboy for many years,” said Clinton Leupp, the actor who gives life to Coco. “I led a life filled with shame and self-loathing because I was gay and was told in school that I was never going to make it in show business, that I’d better ‘butch up.’

Fortunately, because of the queens who came before me, I discovered that embracing the very thing I was so ashamed of was the key to my freedom, not to mention a successful career! I am celebrating 20 years of doing Coco with my new show There Comes a Time!”

Leupp shared the real-life tale that brought about the creation of his now-iconic character. “Years ago, before I did drag, my first boyfriend was a Peruvian guy. I traveled to Peru with him, where I met a drag queen named Coco. She was quite famous, and I was sort of fasci-

nated that, whereas being gay was a huge taboo in Peru, she had crossed over into the mainstream and had people’s respect. I was very inspired that she was celebrated in such a Catholic and macho society. When I started to do drag, I called myself Coco. The name grew on me, and I stuck the Peru on it in honor of the country I had been inspired in.

“I realized that there was power in drag,” Leupp continued. “There’s a somewhat natural human respect that others have for you when you not only embrace your whole self, but celebrate it.

“Coco is really just an extension of me. I don’t pretend to be a woman. I tell autobiographical stories that I hope are universal. I guess you can call me a Drag Queen-Monologist-World Savior – well, maybe not the World Savior part, but it’s important to have goals. I like to think that with my show I create a safe environment where I can do what I do best: change lives! I’m inspired by everyday things. I grew up around a lot of funny people and alcoholics, not that being an alcoholic is funny.

But they were survivors and still found humor in their pain. I would listen in awe to my parents’ friends tell hilarious stories about their lives. I really believe that was my introduction to good storytelling.”

As Coco, Leupp has also enjoyed a film career, appearing in a number of gay independent films like Girls Will Be Girls, and most memora-

Clinton Leupp as Miss Coco Peru.

Bill Santoro

bly, Trick, which is the role that put Coco on the gay map. There’s even been some mainstream work. In 2006, Leupp provided the voice for Mama Hippo in the G-rated animated film The Wild. He says he’d like to play male roles, but has no plans to abandon Coco. “Coco is paying the bills, so I have to respect her for that,” he said.

On April 1, Miss Coco Peru will perform There Comes a Time at the Victoria Theater. Producer Marc Huestis promises “a gazillion laughs” in a performance that’s a little lighter, a night of pure fun with Coco. The show was recently hailed as one of LA’s best by The Los Angeles Times, and will feature the wryly pointed observations of life that only Miss Coco can deliver. Among other things, audiences can look forward

Clinton Leupp: ‘I was an effeminate, damaged boy from the Bronx.’

to her hysterical reportage on her appearance at her friend Bea Arthur’s memorial service at New York’s Majestic Theater. “I was obsessed with Bea Arthur and her comic timing,” Leupp recalled. “Imagine my thrill when we became friends! It still amazes me that I was fortunate enough to be friends with my idol.

How many people get to say that?”

Welcome Miss Coco Peru to the historic Victoria Theater on Sunday, April Fool’s Day, for two special performances of There Comes a Time.

The live shows will be preceded by a special Noon screening of the cult film classic Girls Will Be Girls, starring Miss Coco, Varla Jean Merman

and Jack Plotnick. Huestis describes the film as an 80-minute festival of campy trash, hilarious one-liners, and bitchy, catty women. Miss Coco will appear on stage for a brief Q&A after the screening, which benefits the making of the film’s sequel, now in post-production.

“Coco’s a real mensch,” said Huestis. “And so is Clinton!”▼ Coco Peru: There Comes a Time, April 1 at 7 & 9:30 p.m., Victoria Theater, 2961 16th St., SF. Tickets ($29.95 for evening shows, $10 for matinee screening) available at www.ticketfly.com or (415) 863-0611.

Iconoclast with a paintbrush

by Richard Dodds

I

t’s a widely shared experience, I suspect, that of walking into a museum room, immediately recognizing a towering painting as a Rothko, scanning it with quickness bred of familiarity, and moving on.

If the artist himself were lurking in that room, he’d likely throttle you, verbally at least, before having you evicted from the museum.

In John Logan’s play Red, now at Berkeley Rep, we encounter a Mark Rothko who feels organic pulsings from his juxtapositions of shapes and colors, and holds in contempt anyone who can’t share in his experience. A London and Broadway success, Red is about more than the obsessions of a single artist, but part of its attraction is to feel, and begin to understand, Rothko’s individual passion for each of his paintings that can seem so similarly formulaic. When hung side by side, he imagines that his paintings actually communicate supportively with one another.

But the even bigger picture in Logan’s play is an eternal generational relationship that begins with nurture before becoming competitive and eventually destructive, as elders

must be disempowered if they do not themselves cede authority. It is in this realm that Logan’s play can grow formulaic, as our notions of Rothko’s repetitive formulas are undercut, but the dramatic device that will give a platform to the play’s themes is set into place.

Red takes place in the late 1950s as Rothko works on a lucrative commission to create a collection of paintings that will decorate the walls of the upscale Four Seasons restaurant in the architecturally prestigious Seagram Building. Perversely, he told a friend, his goal was to create paintings “that will ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room.”

In the play, that line is delivered to a minion hired to perform the mundane chores in the paint-splashed studio of Louisa Thompson’s set. At first, the assistant is mostly an acquiescent cipher who is there to give the playwright a reason for the Rothko character to rant, berate, and educate both the young man and the audience. It’s a serviceable theatrical maneuver, setting up a fatherson dynamic as well as offering a sounding board, but it begins to go awry when the assistant reveals an unnecessarily lurid backstory that

then hangs over the remainder of the play.

While the audience may be taken aback, the assistant’s horrific tale seems to barely register on the selfabsorbed Rothko. But David Chandler, as Rothko in the Berkeley Rep production, still manages to draw us into his iconoclastic world with a passionate, believable performance that reveals kernels of vulnerability beneath his misanthropy. As the assistant, John Brummer handles well the character’s gradual transformation from supplicant to effective philosophical opponent.

Director Les Waters’ production is solid in every way that the play allows, though he can’t cure a conclusion of paint-by-numbers sentimentality that Rothko himself would surely despise.▼ kevinberne.com

David Chandler, right, plays artist Mark Rothko, who becomes something of a father figure to a young assistant (John Brummer) in playwright John Logan’s Red at Berkeley Rep.

Red will run at Berkeley Rep through April 29. Tickets are $14.50-$83. Call (510) 647-2949 or go to www.berkeleyrep.org.

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

20 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 29-April 4, 2012

Theatre >>

Historically high levels of evil-doing

by Richard Dodds

T

ony Kushner may have jumped the gun with A Bright Room Called Day. This pre-Angels in America drama works hard to find equations between the Reagan years and the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Germany. “From National Socialism to National Senility,” remarks a contemporary character, who has fled America to explore her angst in Berlin. George W. Bush may well have pushed her over the edge with his policies labeled in patriotism. And what to make of his successor, considered soft on everything by the righteous enemies who would replace him, who has actually hardened Big Brother tactics that followed 9/11? Angst squared and beyond. Now is the time to invoke senility.

Most of A Bright Room Called Day, which had its official premiere at SF’s Eureka Theatre in 1987, takes place in a Berlin apartment in the early 1930s as the Nazis consolidate their power.

It is the home of Agnes, a mild-mannered bit-part actress who has dipped her toe into communist activism and regularly hosts gatherings of other party members and sympathizers.

They talk and fret and make posters and put on puppet shows, but flight

or acquiescence decimate the group as Hitler becomes unstoppable.

This outline sounds straightforward enough, even with the occasional “interruptions” (as billed via projections) by the modern-day Zillah, who has been called by some vague spiritual magnetism to Agnes’ apartment to find answers to what she feels is ailing in America. But simplicity has never been an adjective suitable for Kushner, and the play travels to numerous stylistic, linguistic, and discursive ports without ever leaving a single room. Oh, and Satan dramatically shows up for one scene with his own set of problems.

To say that the play works in any traditional sense would be wrong, and its theatrical power is meager compared to what Kushner conjured in Angels in America and later works.

But there is obviously a heady, feverish mind at work, and compelling moments limned with provocative ideas are scattered throughout the long play. It’s a formidable play for a small troupe to undertake, but the Custom Made Theatre Company has admirably risen to the challenge in its current production at the Gough Street Playhouse.

Artistic Director Brian Katz has guided his large cast carefully through

Jay Yamada

Tensions rise as the Nazis gain power in Berlin, and a hostess (Xanadu Bruggers) to the opposition tries to break up a fight between friends (Chris Morrell and David Vega) in Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day, presented by Custom Made Theatre.

the verbal contortions that Kushner can inflict, and with video designer Maxx Kurzunski, he has made sophisticated use of historical photos, film footage, and obtuse Kushnerwritten scene titles projected on the rear of Marci Ring’s set that finds

evolving tones in Andrea Schwartz’s lighting design.

Xanadu Bruggers tugs at your heart with her portrayal of the kind but timid Agnes, who cannot commit in any direction. She is eventually deserted by all her friends and comrades,

▼

including her one-eyed cinematographer lover (David Vega), a glamorous fellow actress (Megan Briggs), a sexdriven homosexual hanger-on (Chris Morrell), a steely visual artist (Jessica Jade Rudholm), a pair of comically arguing communist agents (Nick Trengove and Vahista Vafadari), and even the witch-like crone (Shelley Lynn Johnson) who comes begging for food. Maggie Ballard crisply plays the modern American drawn to Berlin, and Trengove reappears as her libidinous, monolingual German lover who can’t understand a word she is saying, to her relief. Steve Budd appears briefly as the enfeebled Satan of confusing significance.

Perhaps the most cogent and effective dialogue in the play comes from Zillah, with her advantage of hindsight. Hitler and the Holocaust gave us “the standard of absolute evil,” she says, and nothing else can “qualify as evil with a capital ‘E.’” A main issue on Kushner’s mind at the time was AIDS, and Reagan’s lack of response to the plague. “ I mean, do you have to pile up some magic number of bodies before you hit the jackpot?” Even more contemporary evil deserving of a capital “E” probably would give the play’s devil a new burst of energy.▼ A Bright Room Called Day will run at the Gough Street Playhouse through April 8. Tickets are $32.

Call (510) 207-5774 or go to www.custommade.org.

Music >>

Hello, Gorgeous!

by David-Elijah Nahmod

S

teven Brinberg has never considered himself a drag queen. He sees himself as an actor playing a role. That role happens to be Barbra Streisand.

When the B.A.R. caught up with the New York-based performer, he was

preparing to once again embark on a tour as his favorite diva, which includes a stop at San Francisco’s elegant Rrazz Room. Brinberg happily shared his recent experience of performing as Barbra at fashion icon Donna Karan’s 60th birthday bash.

“Barbra couldn’t be there, so

Marty Erlichman, her manager, hired me,” he said. “Barbra then directed my performance through her concert director Richard J. Alexander, and told him to tell me what to say to Donna. At birthday parties I usually do ‘The Way We Were,’ then ‘Happy Birthday,’ but Barbra want-

Mark Rupp

Simply Barbra performer Steven Brinberg will be in SF.

ed me to do the birthday song first.”

He was particularly proud of the fact that Streisand personally approved of his appearance after viewing some of his performances online, though his idol has yet to see him perform live. He’s confident that they will eventually meet. He’s performed many times with her musical arranger Marvin Hamlisch, and told the B.A.R. that Streisand sibling Roslyn Kind has been to see his shows.

Brinberg doesn’t always perform in gay-friendly cities, yet is applauded wherever his stage might be. “My audience is as wide as Barbra’s herself,” he said. “In Idaho and in other conservative areas, the audience gets it. I told Bush jokes in Texas, and people laughed.” He also performed in upstate New York at a conference of Republican mayors, and was warmly received. “But I won’t perform for Republicans now on principle,” he said.

Brinberg hopes that Streisand, who turns 70 on April 24, will do another

great big movie musical. A new version of Gypsy, with Streisand as Mama Rose, has been in development for some time, but no starting date has been announced. “Barbra Streisand in one more great big movie musical.

Is that a reason to live, or what?”

Those who have not yet seen a Simply Barbra performance should prepare themselves. There’s no lipsyncing. Brinberg effectively recreates the ambiance of an actual Streisand concert through body language and by using his own powerful voice, live on stage. He’s titled his new show the What Matters Most Tour, as a nod to the same-named CD recently released

by Barbra. “I added a lot of songs from her last album, and put in a song that she’s not done, ‘I’d Love To Be in Love with You.’ No one has recorded it yet, it’s a pretty song.”

Of course, he’ll also include great old Streisand classics. “No matter where I sing, I have to do ‘Evergreen’ and ‘People,’” he said. His act often includes a “duet” with Neil Diamond.

In his wildly popular, showstopping rendition of “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” Brinberg performs as Streisand and Diamond simultaneously, switching voices effortlessly throughout the song.

Brinberg will be at the Rrazz Room almost in time for Streisand’s 70th.

“Don’t rush me! I’ve still got a couple of weeks!” he said in his finest Barbra voice.▼ Steven Brinberg as Simply Barbra, the What Matters Most Tour, April 3-4 at 8 p.m., the Rrazz Room in the Hotel Nikko, SF. Tickets ($35): www.therrazzroom.com

▼

Dance>>

March 29-April 4, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 21

Queen bees, czardas & stylized mating rituals

by Paul Parish

S

Erik Tomasson

Sofiane Sylve and Tiit Helimets in Rudolf Nureyev’s Raymonda Act III.

height of the Cold War, the headlines were colossal, since the heroic Soviet male dancers were instruments in the propaganda war of cultures, and his “leap to freedom” was a coup for NATO as well as for the dance world. Insiders knew he was gay, the world saw that he was raw sex. He instantly revived all the Ballets Russes hype about exotic poshlust Russians.

Meanwhile, he took his passion for classicism and knowledge of the classic Russian ballets to the bank, staging one after another of the Petipa masterpieces, for which he got royalties for the rest of his life.

SFB has staged Nureyev’s Raymonda twice in the last dozen years.

This version is preferable, coming as it does from Nureyev’s English period, just after his defection in 1966, and has fewer of the gaudy extra steps he crammed into the edition that he staged for the Paris Opera Ballet’s version (which SFB staged in 2000). It’s great to see the dances so cleaned up, with their natural rhythms restored.

And it has exquisite British stagecraft in its designs by Barry Kay, which set the dances in a ballroom that echoes the architecture of our opera house uncannily. The stage seems almost to be a section of the building one had not visited before, so nicely does the arched colonnade echo the War Memorial’s proscenium. And the proportions of these arches echo those of the human body, so that formal dancing seems to belong there.

SFB cast the opening night very high indeed, with three ballerinas (Sarah Van Patten, Frances Chung, and Vanessa Zahorian) dancing the soloist roles, which are fiercely exposed and very difficult. They danced accurately and graciously, but without totally concealing the effort required.

Raymonda is a medieval Eastern European extravaganza involving Saracens and Christians, and the classical way of telling you which side is winning is to present squads of performers doing national dances – in Act III, it’s victorious Hungarians, doing the czardas in many ways, both in heeled boots and on pointe. The great

Erik Tomasson

San Francisco Ballet dancers Frances Chung and Pascal Molat in Ashley Page’s Guide to Strange Places.

Russian companies each have a whole department devoted to maintaining these stylized dances. The hardest thing for American dancers to do is these booted dances, which have finesse and flair of their own. It’s hard not to overdo the Hungarian cortege, and Friday night, only Elana Altman (as the principal lady), Dustin Spero, Ben and Matthew Stewart in the corps seemed to have found the right amount of contrapposto for the style.

Since Act III is a victory celebration, it’s a dance of joy: four guys do their bravest tricks in the canon (wonderful all, they were Hansuke Yamamoto, Daniel Deivison, Isaac Hernandez, and Stephen Morse), the Prince does double cabrioles, and the Princess has a fantastic variation with Hungarian plastique to a sensuous, intoxicating piano melody that Danilova called “Arab song.” It is a sensational solo, and in it Sofiane Sylve brought down the house.

The story for me Friday night was the power of British stagecraft: Ashley Page’s premiere was beautifully lit and staged with an extraordinarily beautiful setting. Page has created a futuristic Utopia in a dark but not unhappy realm where creatures with beautiful bare legs dart about, flashing their legs like neon tetras in front of a fascinatingly deep backdrop. Designer Jon Morrell has up-ended colossal discs in the far distance – they resemble spider webs or phonograph records spinning, or the inside of a watch, which David Finn has lit to make the space seem glamorous, deep, and expensive. The sense is there’s all the room you could want, and the 18 dancers charge through it with funky grace – they hit their marks hard, then melt like Salvador Dali clocks. I can’t tell you why, but it was hella fun for a long time. Jaime Garcia Castillo was brilliant beyond anything.

John Adams’ score seemed unusually raucous in its blattier sections, and I found it thrilling. The whole thing appealed to me and to a small section of the audience, who stood and cheered almost in defiance of those who had gone so crazy over RAkU. I don’t know that there’s much more to Page’s choreography than a brilliant mode of attack, where the moves initiate with a powerful onslaught that slams into position like a hip-hop dancer – sforzando – then melts into a haunting diminuendo, sustained through a long followthrough that often lasts for several counts. It will be interesting to see what can be made in this mode, and if it retains its novelty long.

Program 5 I have not yet seen, but my spies tell me it’s very fine indeed.

It includes the much-anticipated Symphonic Dances by Edwaard Liang to Rachmaninov’s great music (a world premiere), Helgi Tomasson’s gorgeous The Fifth Season, and Glass Pieces by Jerome Robbins. Both shows continue through Tues., April 3.▼

PERSONAL TRAINER

an Francisco Ballet is back in the Opera House with two mixed bills, alternating through this weekend.

Program 6 opened on a gay NiteOut last Friday night, and tout le monde was there, including critics from New York and Washington, D.C. It was a spectacular evening.

The show had something for everyone: the three ballets each roused different parts of the audience. I could feel the excitement mounting around me during Yuri Possokhov’s Japanese soap opera RAkU, and was not surprised to see the entire floor of the orchestra – which must be 900 people – spring to their feet in applause at the first curtain call when the ballerina Yuan Yuan Tan stepped forward, still drenched in the ashes of her samurai lord, to take her bow – but I did not feel moved by it at all myself.

There were two “pure dance” ballets surrounding RAkU: the wedding divertissement from Marius Petipa’s classic Raymonda (1898), and a world premiere, Guide to Strange Places, a high-energy, fleet sensation of a ballet set to music by John Adams, choreographed by the rising star Ashley Page of the Scottish Ballet.

Interesting programming. RAkU and Raymonda are contrasting “Orientalist” ballets that use the technique to enlarge the scale of the body to depict stylized mating rituals. Raymonda is classical, cool and very sexy in its way – the Queen bee gets all the sex.

RAkU is post-Soviet dramballet, in which the men get to be sexy (and the shoulders! the thighs! the glutes on those guys, costumed like gladiators).

Meanwhile the only woman onstage spreads her legs to 180 degrees and is manipulated, pulled in all directions, displayed from every angle as the victim of man’s inhumanity to man. The formula comes from Spartacus.

It’s a matter of taste. I’m impressed

by RAkU in many ways. Shinji Eshima’s score is beautiful, the SFB orchestra plays it wonderfully. All the performers are committed; Possokhov’s choreography is inventive, Alexander V. Nichols’ sets and projections are very effective. If you like to see your queens on top and in charge, go for Raymonda; if you like to see the tragedy of it all, go for RAkU. Me, I’d rather see Sofiane Sylve as sovereign than Tan as the melodramatic victim any day – even in Rudolph Nureyev’s over-embroidered distortion of the Petipa classic, wherein Raymonda herself is camped up into a Gloria Swanson, Theda Baraesque poisonous cobra of a queen.

She dramatizes every little shift of weight as a caprice; the feet are like talons, the arms are like snakes, the neck offered as if to bite – all with impeccable technique and aplomb and stunningly glamorous posturing. You really have to see this to believe it.

When Nureyev defected at the

Balance, Flexibility, Endurance and Strength Training

ASCEND STUDIOS San Francisco

Christopher Watros 408-710-2670

christopher@phoenixtraingandfitness.com www.phoenixtrainingandfitness.com

<< Film

22 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 29-April 4, 2012

▼

Scene from Rafi Pits’ The Hunter: pregnant pauses and meaningful looks, and not a mullah in sight.

Iranian crises

by David Lamble

T

www.ebar.com

here’s a moment in Iranian writer/director Rafi Pits’ absorbing, methodically paced and very timely thriller The Hunter (opening Friday at the Roxie) that has an ironic correspondence to scenes in 1930s-40s Warner Brothers gangster flicks where a convict, about to be released, is brought to the warden’s office for an inspirational pep talk. “Listen, Johnny, we don’t want to see your face around here again.” Depending on whether the tough guy about to be paroled was played by James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart or Paul Muni, there would be varying degrees of sincerity or false braggadocio in the felon’s reply. For us, of course, the guy is a “dead man walking,” with the fun residing in how he meets his blood-splattered fate.

In the Pits version, Ali, the character he plays, is greeted by an authority figure (the personnel director of a large factory) who’s an obvious weasel. The scene is important for the unvarnished cruelty projected by this phantom authority figure, for the inscrutable, tight-lipped stoicism of Ali, and for the almost Japanese-like obligatory ritual that bad news be delivered over hot tea, complete with tea boy.

“With your background, you can’t expect the day shift. You should thank God you have a job. The night shift has to be covered.”

“But I want to see my wife and daughter.”

“That’s your problem. You have a bad record. You’ve been to prison.

What do you expect of me?”

Significantly, we never learn the nature of Ali’s crime, what kind of a man he was before prison, or what dreams he had as a kid. We observe him on a tea break at the plant taking a ribbing from a bratty younger worker, blowing off steam hunting for game in the barren woods north of the city, and, most joyfully, spending precious time with his young, activist wife Sara (Iranian film star Mitra Hajjar) and his daughter Saba (Saba Yaghoobi), just turning seven.

It’s a sign of the subtlety of Pits’ emotional palette that a high point finds Ali going through a car wash with his women.

Iranian filmmakers who expect to see their work shown domestically learn to avoid all big-P politics: the mullahs and the Ayatollah are rarely even glimpsed. It is the ultimate version of primitive folk myths about “he who must not be named.” The “baddies” are inevitably toady-like, bullying cops, haughty lower-eche-

lon bureaucrats, overworked, angry medical professionals. It’s a vaguely Kafkaesque world, not unlike that captured so deliciously by Orson Welles in The Trial, or Star Wars without the hint of a Darth Vader.

The brilliant, not entirely unintended effect is that the best Iranian films about how hard and unforgiving life is for ordinary people without “the juice” are beat-for-beat accurate to the plight of working Americans barely getting by. And just as in “real life” here, on occasion Iranian characters express their opposition to the state of things by “going postal.”

One of Rafi Pits’ strongest assets here as actor/filmmaker is reflected in The Hunter’s agonizingly deliberate pacing. Bearing a slight resemblance to the late John Cassavetes, Pits has actually given himself very few lines, but there are whole freight trains’ worth of subtext that can be inferred during some of his most pregnant pauses and meaningful looks.

Perceptive American fans of Tehran-based dramas will have grasped the uncanny resemblance the city bears to Los Angeles. In the film’s encyclopedic production notes, Pits explains that due to the post-revolutionary decision to structure Tehran with highways, “Today Iranians abroad have even nicknamed Los Angeles, ‘Tehrangeles!’”

Pits deftly employs his native city’s barren, anonymous car culture as the perfect setting for Ali’s brazen decision to assassinate two city cops as their patrol car navigates a freeway interchange. This moment conceals his politically necessary strategy of depicting the death of Ali’s wife and child, at the hands of cops suppressing a political demonstration, off-screen. Throughout

the film, as Ali drives towards his gloomy fate, we hear snippets of political speeches on the radio, speeches leading up to the fateful 2009 presidential election that would result in a massive crackdown.

Pits ends his tense parable/drama in the bleakly bare woods north of the city where three men – Ali and two quarreling cops – will meet their fates in a ballet of self-pitying machismo, framed by one of the most deeply effective rainstorms since Wong Kar-wai’s rain-soaked drama of repressed feelings, In the Mood for Love.

This Is Not a Film This one-ofa-kind “home movie” (April 6-12 at the San Francisco Film Society Cinema, 1746 Post St.) arises out of the need of noted Iranian director Jafar Panahi to send out a cinematic message in a bottle to the civilized world as he was under house arrest, facing six years in prison and a 20-year ban on directing. Panahi invites his buddy, the documentary maker Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, to film him reading his now-forbidden screenplay.

At first warming to his task, taping off sections of his posh living room as if it were a set, Panahi starts to appreciate the absurdity of the project, especially after cell-phone chats with his wife and attorney informing him that he won’t beat the rap on appeal. Here is an artist, living in the lap of luxury with all the Western high-tech toys at his disposal, who is literally under a feudal-like vow of silence.

Blessedly, the arrival of a college student/janitor collecting the trash gives Panahi a subject equal to his résumé. It is sublimely fitting that the non-film ends with a non-actor warning, “Careful, they might see you!”▼

Courtesy of San Francisco Film Society

Scene from director Jafar Panahi’s This Is Not a Film, opening April 6 at the San Francisco Film Society Cinema.

▼

Books >>

March 29-April 4, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 23

Private dicks

by Jim Piechota Best Gay Erotica 2012; Hot Jocks: Gay Erotic Stories; both edited by Richard Labonte; Cleis Press

B

with size 13 shoes!) is adventurous and provocatively unique. Tales of “beautiful” long-distance runners in Martin Delacroix’s “Track Meat,” and steamy safe sex between gym rats in “Muscle Memory” by female entrant Rachel Kramer Bussel, nicely enmesh with the wriggling singlets in the three stories from the wrestling section, and a hockey story, “Pucking Prince Charming,”

by Minneapolis short story writer Logan Zachary, that’s stroke-worthy with its exacting descriptions of sculpted torsos, furry legs, and the “wet pop” of an eager butthole.

Labonte’s goal in editing these sex-drenched niche books has always been “good writing, good wanking,” and that’s definitely been delivered once again.▼

ebar.com MEDIA NETWORK

erkeley-based Cleis Press offers up more erotic tales with two recently published compilations that will have readers taking matters into their own hands soon after these paperbacks are opened. Both are edited by Richard Labonte, Cleis Press’ reliably randy, go-to guy for this type of material – possibly because he’s Canadian, or possibly because he has his finger on the sexual pulse of contemporary gay culture, and it shows with the selections in these two books.

With the 2012 edition of Best Gay Erotica, Labonte teams up with guest judge and popular Los Angeles gay novelist Larry Duplechan to amass an impressive 14 hot-blooded stories that “balance craftsmanship with cocksmanship.” It all begins with Seattle writer David May’s heady take on a Daddy/Boy relationship set in the halcyon days of 1980s San Francisco (one character laments needing $50, “a quarter of the rent he’d pay in the Castro.”)

Another standout, “Once Upon a Time, in 1969,” is placed in the Castro’s early days by Dirk Vanden and is both sexy and wildly melodramatic. Tony Pike’s 1976 summer story about an ever-expanding group of horny British boys getting it on is also titillating, as is South African writer Shaun Levin’s hot, quick four-pager about the seduction of a straight boy and the ensuing consequences. The heterosexual temptation theme is drawn ever more deliciously in 25-year-old upstate New Yorker Jace Barton’s “Training Tyler,” which provides a fresh take on the “straight roommate/gay room-

mate” theme. Here, the “straight” roommate eventually admits to the gay roommate: “I want to fuck you on every piece of furniture in every room in this apartment.”

Those who enjoy their sexual stimulation through visual media will greatly enjoy Spanish graphic artist Kardyman’s entry “Touched,” a sexy short that uses pictures (no text) to convey the hot, hirsute, and heavy sexual attraction between a blonde rock star and a closeted, muscle-bound groupie.

Never to be outdone is Lammy Award-winning editor and erotic writer Simon Sheppard, who contributes a steamy story that’s gastronomically sound in its use of raw eggs, jockstraps, and prose like this: “I do ask for the chance to bury my face in your armpit just once more,”as one of Sheppard’s characters drools. “You never seem to use deodorant, which makes me very happy, and the smell will linger on my face for hours.”

Sheppard, whose work has appeared in more than 300 anthologies, has a story in the “Swimmers” section of Hot Jocks as well, about a championship swimmer and a sadistic boy who insists to the waterlogged jock that he “show you what you really are.” This book is effectively categorized by sport, and runs the gamut from football, baseball, hockey, and tennis players to martial artists, wrestlers, bowlers, bodybuilders, and cheerleaders.

As expected, clichés about jocks, sexual frustration, masculinity, and the domination of the weak run rampant throughout this collection. This fact alone might leave the book overlooked on store shelves, but writers like local San Francisco scribe Rob Rosen offer material that rises above the usual raw schlock.

His story “Bowling for Boners” about two naked bowlers (one

COAST TO COAST..

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<< Out&About

24 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 29-April 4, 2012

Thu 29>>

Wed 4

Jonathan Pryce stars in a new London touring production of the revival of Harold Pinter’s comic yet menacing drama. $25$175. Tue-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm & 7:30pm.

Thru April 22. 445 Geary St. (888) 746 1799. www.shnsf.com

Sat 31>>

Hot Greeks @ The Hypnodrome The Lexington Club

Crowd source

by Jim Provenzano

T

Steven Underhill

his week, let’s focus on events that draw a large crowd, or are best enjoyed with a lot of people. Others include large casts, or are sure to induce a big reaction.

At Dance Anywhere events, watch or join in as half a dozen local dance companies perform in outdoor and unusual settings around San Francisco; other events take place in more than 300 cities worldwide. March 30, 12pm. Free. www.danceanywhere.org With a large cast that represents an entire town, The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later at New Conservatory Theatre Center, the sequel to the groundbreaking drama, is based on real interviews with people effected by the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard. See the Dance Anywhere San Francisco premiere. $18 (previews) $25-$40. Opening night March 31.

Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru April 29. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. www.nctcsf.org Wait, what? You haven’t yet experienced the Sing-Along The Wizard of Oz at the Castro Theatre? Have a jolly old time somewhere over the rainbow at the participatory screening of the musical classic, with hosts Laurie Bushman and David Hawkins. Costumes encouraged, with a contest. $10-$15.

7pm. March 30 through April 1. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com The Lexington Club, the hot women’s bar in the Mission, celebrates 15 years Sing-Along of dancing, drinking and debauchery, The Wizard of Oz with hosts Aysha and Tanya, DJs Jenna Riot, Miss Pop, Durt and Andre, plus gogo gals, cake and giveaways.

Saturday, March 31. No cover 8pm-2am. 3464 19th St. 863-2052. www.lexingtonclub.com While you’re clubbing Saturday night, catch Double Duchess at the Rickshaw Stop; the CD release party for the wild electro-hop duo includes performances by VivvyAnne Forevermore and Glamamore; DJs Brown Amy, Carnita, Rapidfire Bunnystyle and DavO. $8-$10. March 31.

9pm-2am. 115 Fell St. at Van Ness. www.doubleduchess.com www.rickshawstop.com For a fascinating out of town trek, enjoyed best with others, board The Big Gay Train at various Napa Vineyards.

Out in the Vineyard’s second annual

Jess Meets Angus @ CounterPulse Jess Curtis and Angus Balbernie’s danceperformance work about the relationship between elder artists and their protegees; part of The Generation Project. $15-$20.

Thu-Sun 8pm. Thru April 1. 1310 Mission st. at 9th. www.counterpulse.org

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

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

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

Thu 8pm, Sat 8:30pm, Sun 7pm thru April 15.

Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia St. (800) 8383006. www.themarsh.org

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

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

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

Spring Book Sale @ Fort Mason 400,000 books, DVDs, CDs, books on tape and records on sale for $3 or less. Member/ donor preview sale and reception Mar. 28, 4pm-8pm. Free admission Thu-Sun 10am6pm. Festival Pavilion, Buchana at Bay sts.

626-7500. www.FriendsSFPL.org

Fri 30>>

Double Duchess

Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi

wine tour by rail includes a fivecourse dinner on board, wine-tastings and a wonderful way to visit several vineyards. $160-$175. March 31. 6:30-9:30pm. 800-427-4124.

The Big Gay Train www.outinthevineyard.com How about a big crowd, a big beautiful theatre, and the biggest silent film ever? We’re talking Napoleon at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre. The Silent Film Festival presents screenings of the classic masterpiece, Abel Gance’s wide-screen epic about the French ruler; Kevin Brownlow’s 5 1/2-hour restored version is shown with the U.S. premiere of Carl Davis’ musical score. $50-$115. March 31 and April 1, 1:30pm. 2025 Broadway.

(510) 465-640. www.silentfilm.org

Musical comedy revue, now in its 35th year, with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs.

Reg: $25-$130. Wed, Thu, Fri at 8pm. Sat 6:30, 9:30pm. Sun 2pm, 5pm. (Beer/wine served; cash only). 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St.). 421-4222. www.beachblanketbabylon.com

Napoleon

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

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

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

Seth Glier @ Red Devil Lounge

Choose Paint! Choose Abstraction! @ MOAD

Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter pops back to town after his soldout show opening for Ani DiFranco at The Fillmore. $10. 8pm. 1695 Polk St. www.sethglier.com www.reddevillounge.com

Exhibit of abstract art by African American artists. Museum of the African Disapora, 685 Mission St. 358-7200. www.moadsf.org

Heavy Pedal Crank Art @ The Lab Two-day exhibit and parties with art about –and made of– bicycles, with Cyclecide performers and sculptors. Free 6pm-10pm, and March 31, 1pm-6pm. Party March 31, 8pm-11pm: $7-$15. 2948 16th St. 8648855. www.thelab.org

Kirk Read @ The Garage Local gay author of How I Learned to Snap brings forth Computer Face, another witty insightful solo show about everything from Republicans to drugs and sex work. $10-$20. Fri & Sat 8pm. Thru Mar. 31. 975 Howard St. www.975howard.com www. brownpapertickets.com/event/231453

Maurice @ New Conservatory Theatre Andy Graham and Roger Parsley’s erudite stage adaptation of E.M. Forster’s pioneering 1914 novel about the romance between an aristocratic Englishman and a workingclass groundskeeper. $22-$45. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Extended thru April 7.

25 Van Ness Ave. at Market, lower level.

861-8972. www.nctcsf.org

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

Red @ Berkeley Repertory John Logan’s (screenwriter of The Aviator, Gladiator and Hugo) Broadway hit about abstract painter Mark Rothko, who engages in a verbal battle with his assistant, makes its West Coast debut. $14-$72. Tue-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. & 7pm Thru April 29. 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

San Francisco Ballet @ War Memorial Opera House Program 6: Raymonda, Act II, the dramatic RAkU, and a world premiere, Guide to Strange Places, choreographed by Ashley Page. Progam thru April 3. $32-$78. 8pm.

201 Van Ness Ave. www.sfballet.org/ niteout

Tina D’Elia @ Shotwell Studios The solo performer’s The Rita Hayworth of this Generation is the story of Carmelita Cristina Rivera, a queer Latina performer whose passion, power and heartache impact her drive to stardom. $10-$15.

Fri & Sat, 8pm; thru April 7. 3252-A 19th St. 289-2000. www.ftloose.org

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

Jean Paul Gaultier @ de Young Museum The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, the first exhibition devoted to the gay French fashion designer (previously shown in Montreal and Dallas), includes film and stage costumes and haute couture, prints, video clips and more. Also, Arthur Tress: San Francisco 1964.

Also, The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler, whose figurative clay work draws inspiration from primitive cultures and artifacts; thru April 22. The Art of the Anatolian Kilim: Highlights from the McCoy Jones Collection thru June 10. $6-$20. Tue-Sun 9:30am5:15pm. Thru Aug. 19. 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park. 750-3600. www.famsf.org

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

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

The Pirates of Penzance @ Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, Berkeley Berkeley Playhouse adapts the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta as a post-apocalyptic punk extravaganza; think Terry Gilliam’s Brazil meets Glee. $17-$35. Fri 7pm. Sat 2pm & 7pm. Sun 12pm & 5pm. Thru April 1. 2640 College Ave., Berkeley. (510) 485-8542. www.berkeleyplayhouse.org

Robert Buelteman @ Sanchez Art Center, Pacifica Exhibit of luminous floral photograms; plus works by other local artists in residence at the seaside arts center. Thru April 1.

Fri-Sun 1pm-5pm. 1220-B Linda Mar Blvd.

(650) 355-1894. www.buelteman.com www.sanchezartcenter.org

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

Prepare to be splattered. $10-$20. Thu-Sat 8pm. Extended thru April 7. 1834 Euclid Ave. (510) 224-5744.www.impacttheatre.com

Ute Lemper @ Herbst Theatre Stunning vocalist performs with the Vogler Quartet along her “Paris Days, Berlin Nights” international tour. $45-$70. 8pm.

401 Van Ness Ave. www.utelemper.com www.sfperformances.org

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

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley

The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later

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

The Caretaker @ Curran Theatre

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

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Shotgun Players’ staging of Tom Stoppard’s first in a trilogy of works exploring a wealthy family in pre-revolutionary Russia. $7-$32. Wed & Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 5pm Thru April 15. 1901 Ashby Ave. (510) 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org

Sat 31 Sat 31- Chanticleer @ de Young Museum What Do You Think I Fought For?, the Grammy-winning vocal ensemble’s concert of five works that make personal reflections on the aspects of war, includes a film score by composer Brent Michael Davids for the silent film Leatherstocking. $20-$44. 8pm.

April 1, 2pm. Also April 3, 8pm at First Congregational Church, Berkeley; April 4, 8pm, Menlo-Atherton High School Pac Theater. 392-4400. www.chanticleer.org

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Out&About >>

March 29-April 4, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 25

A Place at the Table @ Bancroft Library, Berkeley A Gathering of LGBT Text, Image and Voice showcases literature, film, photography and other work of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender artists, including Alice B. Toklas and other prominent people. Opening reception April 4, 6pm-8pm. South Hall Road, UC Berkeley campus. (510) 642-3781. www.bancroft.berkeley.edu

Regreturature @ Verdi Club Authors and journalists Heather Donohue, Jeff Greenwald, James Nestor, Mary Roach and others read passages from their own favorite worst writing. $10-$12. 8pm. 2424 Mariposa St. www.litquake.org

Lydia Daniller

Singing the Golden State @ Society of California Pioneers

Thu 29 Sean Dorsey Dance @ Dance Mission Theater The Secret History of Love, Dorsey’s expanded dance-theatre work about the underground ways LGBT people have communicated and expressed their affections, is based on oral histories of LGBT seniors. $15-$25. Thu-Sun 8pm. Also Sat & Sun 4pm. 3316 24th St. at Mission. www.seandorseydance.com www.dancemission.com

Sun 1>> Dawn Upshaw @ Herbst Theatre Talented soprano performs works by Purcell, Bach, Haydn, Bartok, Debussy, Rachmaninoff and other composers. $38-$68.

7pm. 401 Van Ness Ave. www.sfperformances.org

Do Not Destroy @ Contemp. Jewish Museum Trees, Art and Jewish Thought, a group exhibit exploring the tree in Jewish tradition; thru May 28. $5-$12. Thu-Tue 11am5pm. 736 Mission St. at 3rd. 655-7800. www.thecjm.org

Miss Coco Peru @ Victoria Theatre Los Angeles drag queen tells Hollywood tales, along with a screening of the indie film Girls Will Be Girls. $30. 7pm & 9:30pm.

2961 16th St. 863-0611. www.ticketfly.com

Russell Thompkins, Jr & the Stylistics @ The Rrazz Room Veteran R&B vocalist performs classic songs. $42-$47. 7pm. 2-drink min. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (800) 380-3095. www.TheRrazzRoom.com

SF Hiking Club @ SF Peaks Join GLBT hikers for a 13-mile hike that includes the tops of Corona Heights, Mount Olympus, Buena Vista Park, Twin Peaks, Diamond Heights, Holly Park, and Bernal Hill. Bring lunch, water, sunscreen, hat, layers, good walking shoes. Meet at 9:00 at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. 837-8990. www.sfhiking.com

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room Donna Sachet and Harry Denton host the weekly fabulous brunch and drag show. $45. 11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square.

395-8595. www.harrydenton.com

Mon 2>> Persons of Interest @ John Pence Gallery Group exhibit of fascinating realist portraits and figures. Exhibit thru April 11. Mon-Fri 10am-6pm Sat til 5pm. 750 Post St. 4411138. www.johnpence.com

Ten Percent @ Comcast 104 David Perry’s talk show about LGBT people and issues. Mon-Fri 11:30am & 10:30pm. Sat & Sun 10:30pm. www.comcasthometown.com

Tommy Igoe Band @ The Rrazz Room Talented rock drummer performs weekly shows with members of Tower of Power, Santana and The Doobie Brothers. $25.

Mondays , 7:30pm Thru August. 2-drink min. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (800) 380-3095. www.TheRrazzRoom.com

Tue 3>>

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

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

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

Poetry & Prose @ Harvey Milk Library Clara Hsu, Al Averbach, Fiona Page and Stephen Kopel read. 7pm. Free. Drinks and healthy snacks. 1 Jose Sarria Court at 16th.

St. near Market. 355-5616. www.sfpl.org

Steven Brinberg @ The Rrazz Room Simply Barbra, the drag impressionist’s live (not lip-synched!) musical tribute to Barbra Streisand. $35. 8pm. Also April 4, 8pm.

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

Wed 4>>

Life & Death in Black & White @ GLBT History Museum AIDS Direct Action in San Francisco, 1985–1990 focuses on the work of Jane Philomen Cleland, Patrick Clifton, Marc Geller, Rick Gerharter and Daniel Nicoletta, five queer photographers who documented the emergence of militant AIDS activism in San Francisco through the medium of black-and-white film. $5. Wed-Sat 11am7pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Exhibit of beautiful sheet music and artwork from 1849 -1930s, all with California themes; curated James M. Keller, the exhibit includes a few subtly gay and historically transgender subjects. $2.50-$50. Wed-Fri 10am-4pm. First Saturdays 10am-4pm. 300 Fourth St. 957-1849. www.californiapioneers.org

Sugar @ Eureka Theater 42nd Street Moon’s production of Peter Stone, Bob Merrill and Jule Styne’s 1972 comic drag musical based on the Billy Wilder film Some Like It Hot; starring award-winning drag actor Scott Hayes.

Special Marilyn Monroe drag contest April 11. $20-$50. Wed 7pm. Thu & Fri 8pm. Sat 6pm. Thru April 22. 215 Jackson St. 2558205. www.42ndstmoon.org

Thu 5>> Comedy Bodega @ Esta Nocha The new LGBT and indie comic stand-up night’s hosted by “Mr. Gomez” (retired Telemundo extra and associate of comic Marga Gomez). 8pm-9:30pm. 3079 16th St. at Mission. www.comedybodega.com

God-Des & She @ Red Devil Lounge Lesbian music duo performs. Aima the dreamer opens. $10-$14. 8pm. 21+.

1695 Polk St. www.god-desandshe.com www.reddevillounge.com/event/106101/

Great Directors @ YBCA Weekly series of documentaries about great directors. First, a double feature: Marcel Ophuls and Jean-Luc Godard: The Meeting in St-Gervais and John Cassavetes. $6-$8.

7:30pm. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts screening room, 701 Mission St. 978-2787. www.ybca.org

Hairspray @ Fox Theatre, Redwood City The national touring company of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical based on the campy John Waters film makes a Bay Area appearance. $20-$48. Thu-Sat 8pm.

Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru April 22. 2215 Broadway St., Redwood City. (650) 579-5565. www.broadwaybythebay.org

Jean Paul Gaultier Films @ Castro Theatre Two days of films featuring Gaultier’s unique fashion designs. April 5, Madonna’s Truth or Dare (7pm), The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (9:20pm). April 6, The Fifth Element (7pm) and The City of Lost Children (9:30pm). $7.50-$10. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

Melissa Manchester @ The Rrazz Room Grammy-winning singer-songwriter returns for an intimate concert of her classic hits and new music. $45. 8pm. Also April 6, 8pm and April 7, 7pm & 9:30pm. 2-drink min.

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

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

SF Museum of Modern Art

Xavier Castellanos @ Si Pietro Todd Exhibit of quaint colorful paintings by the Mexican-Swiss gay artist. 2239 Fillmore St. Thru April 21. www.xavierart.com

Sat 31 The Utopian Impulse: Buckminster Fuller and the Bay Area @ SF Museum of Modern Art Exhibit about the innovative architect’s influence in the Bay Area. Also, Photography in Mexico, a group exhibit of historic prints documenting Mexican life and culture since 1920, and a new mural by Dutch artist Parra. March 31-July 29. Free-$18. Open daily (except Wednesdays) 11am-5:45pm.; open late Thursdays, until 8:45pm. Thru July 8.

131 Third St. 357-4000. www.sfmoma.org

For more arts events, visit www.ebar.com To submit event listings, email jim@ebar.com.

Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication.

For more bar and nightlife events, go to www.bartabsf.com

bartabsf.com

<< On The Town

26 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 29-April 4, 2012

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Standing ovations

by Donna Sachet

C

ebar.com

elebrity autobiographies are sometimes overblown, perhaps self-indulgent, and often unintentionally funny. Imagine hearing select excerpts read by local personalities at the Elbo Room! That is exactly what happened last Monday night at an event hosted by James Siegel and Baruch Porras-Hernandez of GuyWriters, a local group encouraging original gay literary efforts. Readers included Heklina, Fernando Ventura, Jim Provenzano, Joshua Grannell, and this columnist. Autobiographies included those of Liberace, Levi Johnston, Tallulah Bankhead, Britney Spears and her mother, and Susan Lucci. Need we say more?

The SF Gay Men’s Chorus under the direction of Tim Seelig presented Enchantingly Wicked at a packed Davies Symphony Hall last Tuesday and Wednesday, and they never sounded better! Composer and lyricist of Godspell, Pippin, Wicked, and more Stephen Schwartz was on hand during rehearsals and both nights of performance, guiding, inspiring, and even singing himself.

He contributed a piece written specifically for the chorus inspired by the It Gets Better campaign called Testimony, which took the audience on a painful but ultimately triumphant journey, leaving no dry eye in the house. A specially produced video of that song, made while recording at the Skywalker Ranch studios, is now accessible on YouTube. We can’t say enough about the musical precision and beautiful performance this chorus of nearly 300 voices delivered, including outstanding soloists, small ensembles, and eye-popping choralography.

Don’t miss their next appearance on June 14, 15 & 16 at a location soon to be announced.

The Rrazz Room at Hotel Nikko, a city treasure offering an intimate space for cabaret, jazz, comedy, and other entertainment, celebrated its fourth-year anniversary last Wednesday. The stage filled with talent, most notably Freda Payne,

Steven Underhill

Composer Stephen Schwartz takes a bow with artistic director Tim Seelig and the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus during Enchantingly Wicked at Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall last week.

Steven Underhill

Celebrated performing artists (l. to r.:) Linda Lavin, Lynda Carter and Mary Wilson share a moment at the Rrazz Room 4th anniversary party and concert, last week in the Hotel Nikko.

Deana Martin, Mary Wilson, and Pete Escovedo, emceed by the always entertaining Sharon McNight.

Among the audience we saw Veronica Klaus, Lynda Carter, Richard Sablatura, Michael Loftis & Erik Nickel, and Reverend Cecil Williams & Janice Mirikitani.

This special night benefited St. Jude’s Childrens’ Research Hospital.

We thank Robert Kotonly and Rory Paull for countless evenings of rich entertain-

ment and for supporting our fundraising efforts with the annual Songs of the Season.

On Friday, we returned to the Opera House for the finale in the LGBT NiteOut series of the SF Ballet. The program included classical dance choreographed by Rudolf Nureyev, an Ashley Page world premiere, and a stunningly staged and executed piece, RAkU, which left the audience spellbound. During intermissions and after the performance, we caught up with Jacques Michaels, Josh Moreno, Gary Virginia, Steve See page 27 >>

Coming up in leather and kink Thu., Mar. 29-Sun., Apr. 1: International Ms. Leather/Community Bootblack Weekend at the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway (1500 Van Ness). Tons of great events, workshops, play spaces, and the IMsL/IMsBB contest on Sat. night. Go to: www.imsl.org

will be on display. 3-4 p.m. Go to: facebook.com/ events/257523881000474/.

Thu., Mar. 29: Daddy Thursdays at Kok Bar (1225 Folsom). Shot & drink specials. 10 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Sun., Apr. 1: Men in Gear monthly Beer Bust at Kok Bar. $8 if in gear, $10 if not. 3-7 p.m.

Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Thu., Mar. 29: Bare Chest Calendar Contest at The Powerhouse (1347 Folsom). 8-10 p.m.

Go to: www.barechest.org.

Sun., Apr. 1: Nasty at The Powerhouse. Get nasty and dirty! 10 p.m.-close. Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Thu., Mar. 29: Underwear Night at The Powerhouse. $5 cover to benefit Project Inform. 10 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Thu., Mar. 29: Creepy, Crawly Little Suckers: Playing with Leeches presented by Miss Bethie Bee at the SF Citadel (363 6th St.), 8-10 p.m. $20.

Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Fri., Mar. 30: Truck Wash at Truck (1900 Folsom).

10 p.m.-close. Live shower boys, drink specials, loads of fun! Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Sat., Mar. 31: Klub 86’d at Kok Bar. 4-9 p.m. Get your Klub 86 card stamped. Photos will be taken for Facebook. Guber spins. Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Sat., Mar. 31: Boot Lickin’ at The Powerhouse.

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

Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Sat., Mar. 31: Open Play Party at the SF Citadel.

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

Sat., Mar. 31: All Beef Saturday Nights at The Lone Star (1354 Harrison). 100% SoMa Beef!

9 p.m.-close. Go to: www.facebook.com/lonestarsf.

Sun., Apr. 1: Celebration of Life for Mike McKale at The Edge (4149 18th). Celebrate the late Mike’s live and legacy. Baseball caps from his collection

Sun., Apr. 1: Truck Bust Sundays at Truck. $1 beer bust. Warm bar, hot men, cold beer. 4-8 p.m.

Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Tue., Apr. 3: Busted at Truck. $5 beer bust. 9-11 p.m.

Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Tue., Apr. 3: Dominant’s Discussion Group at the SF Citadel. Top side of a power-exchange relationship.

7:30 p.m. $5-$15 donation. Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Tue., Apr. 3: Ink & Metal at The Powerhouse.

9 p.m.-close. Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Wed., Apr. 4: Newcomer’s Series Class at the SF Citadel. Practical information for those relatively new to BDSM (three years or less). 7:30-10: 30 p.m.

Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Wed., Apr. 4: Nipple Play at The Powerhouse.

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

Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Wed., Apr. 4: Naked Buddies at Blow Buddies (933 Harrison), a male-only club. Doors open 8 p.m.-12 a.m. Play til late. Go to: www.blowbuddies.com.

Wed., Apr. 4: Wolf! for Furry Men on the Prowl at The Watergarden (1010 The Alameda, San Jose).

4 p.m.-1 a.m. Go to: www.thewatergarden.com.

Wed., Apr. 4: Leathermen’s Discussion Group at the Mr. S Play space (385A 8th St.). Reflections of a Texas Leatherman: Hardy Haberman. 7:30 p.m.

Go to: www.sfldg.org.

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Karrnal>>

March 29-April 4, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 27

Pound for pound

by John F. Karr

N

ow it’s time to discuss the sex to be seen in the Zeb Atlas showcase The Boyfriend. During the movie’s 93 minutes, Zeb makes it with three handpicked partners: Skye Woods, Adam Killian, and Casey (née Christopher) Daniels.

Each one is the near-epitome of his type – one huge bodybuilder, one wild and handsome hottie, and one boyish blonde power bottom.

After a brief titillation of Zeb in the shower, and the curious, unnecessary tour of his home, Zeb greets a longtime favorite of mine, humungous muscle bottom Skye Woods. Is he the biggest of the big?

Either of his thighs could crowd the redwoods out of Muir Woods, and merely one of his buttocks could forever end canned-food drives.

When in doggie position for the fuckings he so loves, the view from the rear resembles nothing so much as a hippopotamus after a good course of dermabrasion. And his muscle isn’t that striated, aching type of the steroidally overbuilt; it’s just good solid bulk. The guy’s got a playful personality, and a surprisingly large cock that disproves the bodybuilder stereotype that they’re all Princess Tiny Meat. As does Zeb’s. When a cock looks big hangin’ on a guy Zeb’s size, you better believe it – it’s Big. The guys go pound-for-pound poolside, where Zeb suckles Skye’s nips, and Skye kneads sunblock onto Zeb’s breasts (each one of them a couple pounds of mammary). You know I love to see a guy walkin’ around preceded by his boner, and that’s how the guys get indoors for the Major Event – Skye settles his bulk on Zeb’s bone and bounces, as thoughtful Zeb jacks Skye’s joint. Skye’s so turned on he has to stay Zeb’s hand. And though it’s swell how masterfully Skye indulges our fantasies of making love to Zeb, many place greater importance on Zeb’s reciprocation.

Which arrives, unfortunately without preamble, as Zeb inhales Skye’s cock so well the big guy cums. After which, more fucking brings on Zeb’s orgasm.

And then comes the scene in which the predatory Adam Killian crawls all over Zeb when they’re nestled into the crevasses of craggy rocks in some Southern California outback. Both men are master kissers, and theirs is some awesome osculation. Adam rips open Zeb’s button fly, exposing the cotton-clad boner beneath. He licks and laps it, loves it, and sets it free. He wraps his lascivious lips around Zeb’s so-plump cockhead, then lavishes his tongue ’round Zeb’s rosebud. And then Zeb does unto Adam what was done to him, following up with a forceful fuck and a particularly well-observed and raucous RC, during which Adam gives out breathless testimony to the huge size of the cock within him.

<<

On the Town

From page 26

Valdez, and a host of colleagues from this publication.

Our weekend ended with Soiree 10, the annual fundraising gala for the SF LGBT Community Center, this year with a Parisian Belle Epoque theme at the Design Center.

Corporate support from CPMC Sutter Health, Target, State Farm, and Levi Strauss Foundation set this event apart. Cocktails flowed, silent auction bids rallied, restaurant samplings continued, and entertain-

Zeb Atlas Productions

Adam Killian and Zeb Atlas in a screen grab from The Boyfriend.

Zeb Atlas Productions

Skye Woods and Zeb Atlas in a screen grab from The Boyfriend.

In an interview published last week at the Men of Porn website, Casey Daniels relates that his scene with Zeb was his porn debut. He’s a dancer and escort in Las Vegas, where Zeb was filming The Boyfriend in the fall of 2010. When a performer didn’t show, Zeb found Daniel’s profile at Rentboy, called him up, and asked if he wanted to be in a porn. “I figured it was now or never,” Daniels explained, “so I said sure, and was filming porn two hours later.”

He’s hardly been idle since, having made in 18 months some 20 feature films as well as countless Web scenes. He shows such zeal for Zeb in his Boyfriend debut that you’d never guess this was his first time out. Zeb asks for a kiss at the top of the scene, and gets the whole kaboodle. Daniels

slides onto Zeb’s pole til it’s buried deep in his ass, and proceeds to kiss Zeb passionately during his impalement.

Likable background music is mostly jettisoned for the performers’ actual sex-sounds; the number of drop-outs announces sloppy post-production.

And though the action as described could have been entirely fulfilling, it’s unfortunately marred by both execrable, hyperventilated editing, and videography from the schools of Wobbly, Palsied, and Loop-de-Loo. May Biblical curses rain down upon its unnamed perpetrator. Was there a rationale for this, or was it as irrational as it looks?

So though I relished The Boyfriend (its COLE rating – that’s Count of Loads Engendered – was way above the norm), I’m eagerly awaiting Zeb’s appearance in the more professional product I expect from Raging Stallion.▼

ment filled the stage as hundreds of guests, many dressed thematically, showed their support for the Center.

The torrential rains were not about to keep this crowd at home! We saw Craig Miller, Kaushik Roy, Stu Smith, Chris Carnes, James Holloway, Tony Leo & Amie Spitler, and Chris Edwards & Scott Butler.

Emcee Marga Gomez did an excellent job keeping the evening on schedule. The highlight was an onstage appearance of former board members, city elected officials, and Center staff as a birthday cake was wheeled in and State Senator Mark

Leno presented a Champagne toast.

You’ll find us enjoying the Thrillpeddlers’ latest Cockettesinspired production Hot Greeks at the Hypnodrome Theatre, viewing the photo exhibit Life & Death in Black & White at the GLBT Historical Society Museum, and trying out new eateries including Jake’s on Market Street, Flying Pig on Castro, and Tartine Talbot coffee shop on Gough, while enjoying the ongoing hospitality of the 32 or so gay bars scattered throughout the city. There’s always something unique happening in our little paradise by the Bay!▼

www.ebar.com

<< TV

28 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 29-April 4, 2012

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Boys, boys & even girls

by Victoria A. Brownworth

I

f only the networks understood how little it takes to please the queer viewer. If only sponsors reminded them of how much money we spend. If only, we’d get so many more queers on the tube. For example, we’re watching Days of Our Lives now because the show has the only queer storyline on daytime. (Plus we’ve always wanted to call it Gays of Our Lives.) And we’re committed, despite having avoided this show forever because it was the least hip soap on the tube and had a retro feel, but not in a good way. Nevertheless, we want to see gay boys (and one day, lesbians again, too, now that All My Children has left the airwaves, taking Bianca with it) on daytime.

Since Days had its first gay kiss on Feb. 23 between Will Horton (cutiepie Chandler Massey – which, forgive us, sounds like a porn name) and Neil (Jesse Kristofferson, Kris Kristofferson’s son), we’ve been tuned in. NBC and Sony (the show’s sponsor) knew what they were doing. Smart.

And the show is trying. We like that Days understands that Will’s being gay impacts everyone. Will’s family and friends have to deal with his coming out, and they have to do it in character. When Luke came out on As the World Turns, the show sent his mother, Lily, totally out of character. She sought out an Exodus-style gay conversion group to “fix” Luke, taking the advice of her psycho ex-husband, Luke’s biological father Damian. Meanwhile, Luke’s stepfather Holden was totally supportive, which just made Lily’s behavior seem even more out of character and wrong. Days isn’t making those mistakes.

Will’s father Lucas (Bryan Dattilo) is a nice guy who has had a complex relationship with his son.

Lucas wants to protect Will and keep him safe from bullying and backlash.

And since Salem only has one other gay person, Sonny Kariakis (Freddie Smith), it seems a reasonable concern for Lucas to have. Plus, Lucas’ mother Kate (the exquisite Lauren Koslow, whom we have loved since her days as Margot on Bold & the Beautiful) hates Will’s mother Sami (Alison Sweeney), Salem’s perennial bad girl.

Kate is always looking for new ways to take Sami down. Will being gay provides yet another avenue for Kate to cause trouble for Sami.

Will is conflicted about being out, very conflicted. He told his parents

in a big drama meant to hurt them.

Will is a little unstable, so we hope that’s not the route the story is taking because, you know, we hate that.

Still, we’re eager for more.

Nate Berkus also wants more queers on Days, obviously, since he agreed to guest on the soap as, surprise, an interior decorator. We caught Berkus doing his thing in out-takes on his March 21 show, which also featured Days diva Deidre Hall (Marlena, Sami’s mother). The outtakes gave Berkus an opportunity to be oh-sogay as he got Brady Black (Eric Martsolf) to take off his shirt and show his magnificent abs.

See: so easy. One character, one gay day player, and there we are. If only the networks could just pay attention, we’d have more queer programming in no time. NBC already has a clear queer run on daytime: Days, The Nate Berkus Show, then Ellen. It really is Gays of Our Lives.

And the ratings are still there, regardless.

Speaking of the minority audience grab, Shonda Rhimes’ new show Scandal debuts April 5. ABC is running promos 24/7, as they should be. This show is Grey’s Anatomy (Rhimes’ mega hit) meets The West Wing. Awesome.

And the main character, Olivia Pope, is – wait for it – black. Yes, an African-American woman is the lead character on the show. There is no other show on TV with a black female lead. Or a black male lead, for that matter. The original CSI put Laurence Fishburne in the lead after William Petersen left the series, but Fishburne’s character never had the authority that Petersen’s did. The show was much more ensembledriven after Petersen left. The only other show that has had a black female lead recently was HawthoRNe, with Jada Pinkett Smith in the title role as the nurse in the TNT medical drama.

Cable can afford low numbers, network cannot. Risk-taking is minimal on network. Which is why this casting is so huge. We have said forever that the more minorities – queers, people of color, women (we know women are actually the majority, but they read as minority in the culture) – work behind the camera, the more realistic portrayals there will be in front of the camera.

Rhimes exemplifies this because she has several hit shows, and all of them have successfully integrated casts where the characters of color are neither background nor filler, and are in

positions of import in the storylines themselves.

Rhimes’ casting differs from most because when African-Americans are present at all on TV programming in other than tertiary or ensemble roles, they are almost exclusively in the role of BBF, black best friend. There are tons of shows with that characterization, among them Criminal Minds, Person of Interest, NCIS: Los Angeles, Awake, Grimm, Ringer, Psych, Mike & Molly, Breaking-In – it’s a longer list than that, but there’s not one show on the tube with a black lead. Outside of HawthoRNe, there haven’t been any others since The Cosby Show that haven’t been relegated to the “for blacks only” programming, like the Tyler Perry shows on TBS. NBC had a show, Undercovers, with two black leads, that debuted in the 2010 fall season. As we had predicted prior to its premiere, the show was cancelled after a few episodes, even though it was definitely as good as the network’s other lineup at the time.

It’s not necessarily axiomatic that minorities behind the camera will lead to more presence in front of the camera – Marc Cherry didn’t exactly expand the roles of queers on the tube with Desperate Housewives, despite the eight seasons it’s been on – but it certainly becomes more likely. Although as the show moves toward the May series finale, Bree’s son Andrew has returned home with a female fiancé, to which Bree said in the March 25 episode, “You’re here, you’re queer and I’m used to it!”

Greg Berlanti, for example, definitely used his bully pulpit of Brothers & Sisters to make queer characters central to his plotting. Kevin was always a main character, and his relationships were as important as that of the other Walker siblings. And Saul became the only out queer over 60 on the tube, as well as the only HIV+ man in a recurring role on a prime time series.

Rhimes has definitely advanced ABC’s representation of African Americans (as well as queers and other minorities) with her programming. Grey’s Anatomy has the best integrated cast on TV. We don’t know if Scandal will succeed, although ABC has positioned it with a prime Thursday nighttime slot that is keyed to Rhimes’ already established audience. Rhimes’ name is in the promos.

Scandal stars Kerry Washington, who has been featured in many films, including the Oscar-winning Ray and The King of Scotland. But she has never had a starring role in anything prior to Scandal. On the small screen she most recently spent two seasons on Boston Legal.

Scandal star Kerry Washington.

Scandal will put both Washington and Rhimes to the test: Is prime time ready for a black leading lady?

We hope so. It seems bizarre that we can have a black man leading the country, but we can’t have a black leading women or man on a prime time TV show.

Bully pulpit, cont.

Speaking of leading, the tabloid TV shows (ET, Extra, The Insider) were abuzz after the Manhattan celeb premiere of Bully, which details the lives of a handful of kids (including a young lesbian) bullied mercilessly by classmates and peers. The film, which opens in limited release on March 30, got actresses (but not any actors) talking at the preview.

On ET and Extra the stars spoke out. Meryl Streep talked about her own horrifying experiences of bullying. Katie Couric, Kathy Griffin, Dana Delaney, Jeri Ryan and of course Ellen, who has made the bullying issue central on her show, were among the celebs attending a GLSEN event. Each discussed the importance of having the film shown to kids as a warning.

All of the actresses spoke about lowering the film’s MPAA rating from R to PG-13. Producer Harvey Weinstein noted that kids are being killed in films with PG-13 ratings all the time, but a few F-words were keeping this film away from the very audience who most needs to see it. Even on ET they were bleeping “faggot.” Yet it was being said by a boy who was being called that by bullies. Nightline also did a segment on the efforts to get the rating lowered, and showed some harrowing clips from the film. (These can be seen at ABCnews.com, click on Nightline.)

Speaking of bullies, Dhuran Ravi gave an exclusive interview to Chris Cuomo for ABC’s 20/20 on March 23. Those who watched the trial, which we covered in another capacity, saw Ravi sit expressionless through the trial that he demanded. (He was offered but rejected a plea bargain that would have meant no prison time, just community service and an admission of guilt. His accomplice in the events that led to the suicide of his roommate Tyler Clementi, Molly Wei, took the plea in exchange for testifying against Ravi.) Ravi’s interview with Cuomo is disturbing. Cuomo promoted it as explaining the complex nature of the case, but it does not. Rather, it paints an unpleasant portrait of a young man whose attorney presented a defense of “stupid, jerky mistake” for the actions that are alleged to have culminated in Clementi’s death.

Ravi has zero remorse for what happened to Clementi. He doesn’t get why he was tried, let alone convicted.

That he was convicted of a hate crime escapes him. He doesn’t think he did anything wrong, and doesn’t think Clementi was upset by anything he did. Except, of course, Clementi is dead and Ravi is due to be sentenced to prison time (as much as 10 years) followed by possible deportation to India.

This episode of 20/20 should be titled Interview with a Bully. It clarifies how distanced bullies are from the

pain of their victims. When Cuomo asks Ravi if he hates gay people, Ravi looks blank, but says no.

An unindicted co-conspirator in this case is social media. What used to be a whisper campaign is now tweeted out over the Internet to millions. Ravi’s Twitter musings about his roommate took on a life of their own. And helped take a life. If ever there were a moral to a story, that’s the moral to this one: think before you tweet.

Speaking of speaking out, we were sorry but not surprised to hear that Rosie O’Donnell’s show on OWN has been cancelled. The tabloid shows were a-Twitter with the news and the rumors that Rosie was being replaced by Oprah’s good pal Maria Shriver, who is currently working for O magazine. But The Insider reported from Oprah herself that while Rosie was indeed out, Maria was not in. Inside Edition covered the shakeup in detail. It looks like Rosie’s efforts to revive the 1960sstyle variety show just didn’t work.

Oprah’s BFF Gayle King told ET that Oprah is revamping, which may be like rearranging chairs on the Titanic. The new network is failing, and some pundits note that unless Oprah starts doing a talk show herself, soon it will go under. She’s done some highprofile interviews recently that have garnered a lot of attention, like the only interview with Whitney Houston’s daughter Bobbie Christina and an in-depth interview with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Speaking of big interviews, ABC’s senior investigative reporter Brian Ross got removed forcibly from Fashion Week in New York by some big burly security folks when he confronted Tommy Hilfiger about his sweatshops in Bangladesh. Hilfiger initially told Ross he had closed those down, but later revealed that was an “error.”

ABC’s Diane Sawyer reported the reporter making news as news.

What Ross uncovered was quite unsettling: sweatshops in Bangladesh where workers are grossly underpaid are also incredibly dangerous.

Numerous workers have been killed recently in fires that resemble the horrors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire a century ago. Implicated by Ross’ report (which can be seen in detail at ABCnews.com) are Hilfiger’s clothes as well as clothing from the GAP and Kohl’s. Check your labels before you buy.

Speaking of clothes, Dancing with the Stars hottie William Levy, the Cuban-born telenovela star, isn’t just a set of fab abs, he’s so much more.

The Insider showed pics of him that surfaced last week. He’s completely naked except for a cowboy hat over his particulars. Allegedly the shoot was done for fun. And it is definitely fun. He’s in our top five for DWTS, and he’s drop-dead gorgeous.

The token queer this season is Martina Navratilova, who at 55 has never looked better. Martina said the most difficult aspect of the show for her is the high heels, and that she hasn’t worn a dress in 20 years. As with Carson Kressley last season, who we thought should have been paired with a male dancer, we think Martina should have been paired with one of the female dancers. We also think she’d look great in a tuxedo or other less girly attire.

This is going to be a really interesting season because everyone can dance. Gladys Knight, 67, can still tear up the floor. Jack Wagner is a supersexy 52. The View’s Sherri Shepherd is having a great time. The biggest surprise is Jaleel White, better known as the nerdy bully-bait Steve Urkel on a gazillion seasons of Family Matters.

We’ll be surprised if White doesn’t end up in the top three.

With so much on the tube to anticipate, from Will to Olivia to Martina, you really do have to stay tuned.▼

▼ <<

Read more online at www.ebar.com

March 29-April 4, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 29

The Deep Blue Sea

From page 17

calm place – so much safer than people.”

“Not in the long run.”

Offered a shot at adapting a classic Rattigan play to observe the centennial of his birth (1911), Terence Davies explains why this once-famous playwright – pushed rudely from the stage by the 1960s batch of angry young men led by John Osborne – is once again relevant.

“Some people say he’s the British Chekhov. I don’t think that’s true, but he is very important – he was the last of the ‘well-made play’ playwrights, who rapidly fell out of fashion after [Osborne’s] Look Back in Anger. The irony is you read Look Back in Anger now, and that’s the one that seems antiquated. All it is is a rant and you think, ‘Shut up,’ you want to hit him over the head with the ironing board, you know.”

Davies, who can be said to have led a kind of counterrevolution against the 60s angry boys with his bitterly nostalgic, postwar, Hollywood-influenced, music-fueled dramas (Distant Voices, Still Lives; The Long Day Passes), admits the uprising was needed.

“There needed to be a revolution in British theatre because it was suffocatingly bourgeois, but there are always casualties in revolutions.”

Davies notes that in deciding to jettison the bulk of the play’s first act in favor of telling the story from Hester’s point of view. he was able to overcome many of Rattigan’s limitations as a dramatist.

“He’s a craftsman, but for me the biggest drawback is that he’s too restrained, too elliptical, even for the period. You think, couldn’t it have been just a little more full-blooded?”

“They [the Rattigan Estate] said,

Courtesy Music Box Films

The Deep Blue Sea director Terence Davies.

‘Be radical,’ and I was: collapsing the first act to nine minutes, opening it up slightly to show the world she comes from. Plus, the sing-along in the pub is not in the play, her husband’s mother is not in the play. As long as you maintain the integrity of the tone and subtext, it works, but if all you’re doing is photographing the play, there’s just no point!”

Davies produces a casting coup, putting American Weisz up against rising British phenomenon Tom Hiddleston as the devilish seducer Freddie. Davies explains the aura that Freddie’s status as an ex-RAF pilot, hero of the Battle of Britain, still holds for members of the immediate postwar generation (born in 1946).

“The reason we’re obsessed with that war is that it’s the last time we were important. It was the last time that literally the whole country came together. These lads – the average age was 22 – when you saw a German aircraft, you had eight seconds to respond, or you were dead!

After living life at that pitch, you

Courtesy Music Box Films

Rachel Weisz plays Hester Collyer and Tom Hiddleston plays Freddie Page in Terence Davies’ film The Deep Blue Sea, based on the Terence Rattigan play.

come back to drab England with no money. It’s ruined his life, too. He’ll end up either killing himself as a test pilot or he’ll just be a drunk saying, ‘I was once in the Battle of Britain.’

“It was extraordinary, we did stand up and fight, and I think [my generation] will never get over that. For the next generation, it might as well be the Punic Wars. It’s like Americans who were changed by Vietnam. In another generation, people will think it was just another war.”

Frank talk The last time I chatted with Terence Davies, it was two wars ago: January 2001, in the very same Hotel Prescott, San Francisco’s thenreigning “love boat for film puffery.”

I reminded the ebullient ex-Liver-

pudlian of his comment in his elegiac documentary on his hometown (Of Time and the City) about his bitter dislike of the town’s biggestever sensation, The Beatles.

“Those bloody awful songs: they’re so banal. ‘Money can’t buy me love.’ God, isn’t that original! I thought they were awful. With the rise of Elvis Presley, I just ceased to be interested, the great American songbook came to an end. I remember one of my sisters taking me to see [the Elvis film] Jailhouse Rock. I was only 11, but I cringed with embarrassment all the way through it. I remember thinking, ‘Doesn’t he look ridiculous, and that awful music!’”

One thing Terence Davies hasn’t budged a wit on is the absolute unredeemed awfulness of the Ameri-

where he established his acting career.

It was also a venue he visited as a teen when it was a music club not far from his north Wales home.

The Caretaker, which debuted in London in 1960, was the first production when Everyman opened its doors four years later, and for sentimental reasons, Pryce wanted to perform it there before the old structure was razed to make way for a new auditorium now under construction.

After the Everyman production transferred to London’s West End, Pryce began to feel the toll of playing such an amoral character. “It’s quite draining and quite wearing psychologically,” he said. “You’re not always in a happy place in your head playing Davies. Then there was an almost twoyear gap since I last did it, and I came back to it with a great sense of excitement, and then I started doing it, and it was like, ‘Oh, my God. He’s back. I thought I had got rid of him.’”▼

Helen Warner

Jonathan Pryce plays the wily Davies in a revival of Pinter’s The Caretaker that originated at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre.

<<

Jonathan Pryce’s film career has included the role of gay Bloomsbury writer Lytton Strachey in the movie Carrington.

Jonathan Pryce

From page 17

medians and Miss Saigon, and a passel more citations for his London stage work. After The Caretaker, he heads into rehearsals for King Lear in London.

In The Caretaker, Pryce plays the role of Davies, a shabby but canny homeless man given lodging by one of two delusional brothers in the hovel they share. Back in 1961, when The Caretaker made its Broadway debut, the reviewer for The New York Times described the character Davies as “scrofulous.” I had to look up its definition, which turns out to be “morally contaminated,” and repeating this to Pryce, he said, “I’ll go with that. He is absolutely morally contaminated.”

Not a word out of Davies’ mouth can be trusted, as he verbally parries, shifts, and bobs in order to play brother off brother to keep a roof

over his head. While his true history is never confirmed in the text, Pryce said he has a clear take on the character’s motivations. “The joy of playing him is that there are no rules to him,” Pryce said. “He can behave in the moment, and there’s never a point where you can say, ‘Oh, Davies wouldn’t do that.’”

While Pryce can’t imagine that Pinter wanted to evoke pity for Davies, the actor does find his own sympathy for the character. Indeed, it seems imperative for an actor to find some way to embrace even a repellant character, I remarked, or you would be practically vomiting on stage. “Well, I am sometimes,” Pryce replied, “because for four months they didn’t wash my clothes. It’s my one concession to method acting.”

Pryce is eager for theatergoers to know that the play is not so obscure as to be feared, and that it contains considerable humor. “There are some small jokes early in the play,

can-inspired Stonewall gay revolution and its culture of pretty lads with huge penises. I asked if he had ever enjoyed a queer-themed film.

“They’re always obsessed with what people look like. They’re always very young, always going to the gym; I just don’t care about them.

Whenever my fridge has broken down, no one has ever come to fix it and taken all their clothes off, and even if they did, I’d probably be so embarrassed, be British and pretend not to notice.

“It’s the reason I became celibate.

I hate being gay, it’s ruined my life, I’ll never, never accept it. I just don’t like the whole gay scene. I went to a couple of clubs once and I thought, ‘If this is the way it is, I’d sooner be on my own and lonely.’”▼

and if they laugh at those, you can feel them relax. But if the audience is getting too much of the light side, you can darken it. It’s like playing a piece of music, where you can put more energy here and back off there.”

Pryce appeared once before in The Caretaker, playing the thuggish, swaggering, self-deceiving brother Mick at the National Theatre in 1981. “I can remember tiny moments of playing Mick,” Pryce said. “I can mostly remember Warren Mitchell playing Davies, and I had always hoped I would get a chance to play him.”

When British director Christopher Morahan suggested such a project, Pryce was eager to sign on with a major stipulation. While he wanted the production to be eventually seen in London and New York, he insisted that it originate at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. That is where Pryce, 64, first fell in love with theater, and

The Caretaker will run at the Curran Theatre through April 22.

Tickets are $31-$100. Call (888) 7461799 or go to www.shnsf.com.

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30 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 29-April 4, 2012

Spring tea dance W

ayward Fire (Modern Art), the funky flame of a debut disc by The Chain Gang of 1974 (a.k.a. the versatile Kamtin Mohager), is a musical mash note to 1980s synth pop from beginning to end.

While the subject matter (a breakup) is no reason for dancing, TCG 74 keeps the beats free-flowing and the funky bass-line snapping. So what if you’re dancing with tears in your eyes, just try to keep your feet and pelvis still when you hear the mind-blowing “Hold On,” or “Devil Is a Lady,” “Taste of Heaven,” “Undercover,” “Ethical Drugs” and “Tell Me.” Mohager, another straight dude with a serious appreciation for the power of the BPM, has a bright future on the club circuit.

On An Album by Korallreven (Acephale), Swedish electro pair Korallreven also gives a tip of the stocking cap to the 1980s, on tracks such as “As Young as Yesterday,” “The Truest Faith,” “Keep Your Eyes Shut,” “Comin’ Closer” and the mini chill-out epic “Comin’ Down.” But they also sound like they are keenly aware

of their responsibility to keep electronic music both hot and cool in the 21st century. Guest appearances

by The Concretes’ Victoria Bergsman and the whack-a-doodle Julianna Barwick also do much for the duo’s credibility.

Is anyone else out there having as much fun as Brite Futures on their album Dark Past (Turnout)? Previously known as Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head (really!), Brite Futures haven’t lost their sense of humor in the course of the name change, a fact that is immediately obvious on dance-beat-driven opener “Baby Rain,” about “how you make a baby.” “Kissed Her Sister” details twin trouble, and “Jag in a Jungle” is such a pure dance-party anthem it’s bound to make LMFAO jealous.

Ditto for “Best Party Ever (So Far).”

The “black light fantasy” of “Cosmic Horn” sounds like it owes a debt to the B52’s, while “Black Wedding” will have you checking your mailbox for your invitation.

Lead singer Adeline Michèle and head songwriters and musicians Eugene Cho and Dan Balis are the core trio of “disco orchestra” Escort on their self-titled Escort Records debut. When the disc begins with the Latin-beat of “Caméleon Chameleon,” you might think you were listening to a track from a Ze Records release from 30 years ago.

Escort’s respectful cover of the late70s classic “Cocaine Blues” further emphasizes the vintage vibe, as does a Doctor Buzzard-style disco remake of the 1937 tune “A Sailboat

in the Moonlight.” But Escort is hip to the calendar, and songs such as “Starlight,” “Why Oh Why,” the Casablanca Records-style “A Bright New Life” and “Karawane,” timeless though they may be, belong to today’s discos and dance-floors.

If you dig Chromeo, then you’ll gobble up Social Studies (Om) by Body Language. But Body Language one-ups the Chromeo dudes with the female presence of Angelica Bess, whose XX chromosomes make the chemistry bubble. The disco delights of “Falling Out” and “We’ve Got Enough” and the slinky soul of “You Can” and the title track are just a few of the reasons to add Body Language to your social network.

Even though the first three, brief songs on Out of Frequency (BMG

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“When It Come to Us” is a heartbreaker with a beat, worthy of the application of iridescent lipstick and wet-look go-go boots. Appealing, if dark, closer “Givin’ It Back” does just that.

If you saw the pared down (two members) acoustic Graffiti6 tour in late 2011, you might be surprised at the dance-oriented direction of the band’s full-length debut album Colours (Capitol). Songs such as “Stone in My Heart,” “Annie You Save Me,” “Stare into the Sun,” “Free,” “Stop Mary” and “Lay Me Down” are undeniably destined for the nearest dance club or party. Can’t you just picture the eagerly awaiting paws of a salivating DJ or remixer rubbing together in anticipation?

Possibly the most bizarre and challenging of all the discs here, Keep Your Dreams (Modular) by Canyons can also be the most rewarding. Unwilling to be labeled as a dance duo, the Aussie pair makes music that makes your head spin, along with your body. From the bouncy and brassy French disco of “Circadia” to the rhythmic gallop of “My Rescue,” the acid-house flashback of “See Blind Through,” the slithery funk of “Blue Snakes” and the visionary “When I See You Again,” these are the kinds of dreams you wake up remembering.▼

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Join the LGBT community in celebrating the best!

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

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

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

It is one of the largest editions we produce annually and one of our most popular as our readers dictate its content, ensuring the highest possible level of audience engagement.

Our readers voted during February for all of their favorites - from local restaurants and shopping options, to services, the best places to work, live, travel and play.

Position your business as one of the best choices for our readers to consider.

Reserve your place among the Best!

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Call 415-861-5019 for details.