March 6, 2014 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

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Hercules attack fabricated

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Vol. 44 • No. 10 • March 6-12, 2014

LGBT aging panel zeroes in on housing

by Matthew S. Bajko

A Jane Philomen Cleland

API Wellness Center Executive Director Lance Toma is concerned that the term “MSM” creates division in the LGBT community.

Advocates take issue with ‘MSM’

by Chuck Colbert

A

s more and more baby boomers age, some gay men are feeling a whole lot more than the physical challenges of growing older, especially in a youth-obsessed culture, perhaps more pronounced among LGBTs than overall society at large.

For HIV-positive gay men now entering their 50s, some of whom have lived with HIV for decades, being alive is an achievement.

And yet stigma around HIV-positive status, let alone gayness, persists, along with the general overall invisibility of long-term survivors of the epidemic, some of whom often experience trauma, depression, and isolation, even survivors’ guilt.

Just as the numbers of gay seniors are increasing, some of these gray-haired gays are organizing to press local AIDS service organizations and health care providers for better mental health and medical services to meet a host of health care needs of older people living with HIV. And along with organizing comes some push back against a widely used term by epidemiologists and researchers: MSM, or men who have sex with men. At issue is nothing less than preserving gay male (and bisexual) identity in the midst of MSM’s widespread use.

MSM was coined in 1994 and “moved beyond HIV literature to become established in both research and health programming,” according to Rebecca Young, Ph.D., and Ilan H. Meyer, Ph.D., in a July 2005 article from the American Journal of Public Health, in which the authors suggest the term MSW, as well as WSW (women who have sex with women), erases sexual-minority persons from public health discourse.

“MSM and WSW often imply a lack of lesbian or gay identity and an absence of community, networks and relationships, in See page 10 >>

San Francisco panel reviewing LGBT aging issues has zeroed in on housing as the number one concern in its report it is preparing to send to city leaders at the end of March.

According to a draft version of the LGBT Aging Policy Task Force’s 78-page report it shared with the Bay Area Reporter, the volunteer body has concluded that the number one problem LGBT older adults are dealing with in the city is ensuring they have stable housing.

The task force has concluded that LGBT seniors “are especially vulnerable to eviction” and is calling on the city to increase eviction protections for them. It is recommending the city provide rental and homeowner assistance, legal services, and increased restrictions on evictions as a way to deal with the issue.

“The number one goal is for people to stay and age in San Francisco,” said task force member Ashley McCumber, a gay man who is executive director of Meals on Wheels of San Francisco Inc. “Also, any recommendations we make right now will be helpful to all seniors.”

The draft report calls on the city to explore the legality of restricting seniors from evictions and to require landlords to accept rental assistance that a senior receives. One idea calls for the Department of Public Health to create a fund that would help LGBT seniors with first month’s rent,

Rick Gerharter

A rainbow painted fence encloses a temporary parking lot at the site of the senior housing component of the 55 Laguna housing project. Preserved structures from the old San Francisco State Teachers College and construction for new housing can be seen in the background.

security deposit, and to meet minimum income requirements to qualify for affordable housing.

Another proposal asks the Mayor’s Office of Housing to provide grants to LGBT senior homeowners who are in danger of losing their homes. The task force would also like to see the office offer tenants rights education and advo-

cacy for LGBT seniors.

The task force is also set to lend its support to state efforts to repeal the Ellis Act, which allows building owners to leave the rental business and turn their units into condos for sale.

“Rent control is the number one housing proSee page 10 >>

Lesbian techies energize SF

by Heather Cassell

N

early 800 digital dykes and their friends geeked out and were ready to revolutionize the tech industry at the first-ever Lesbians Who Tech Summit at the Castro Theatre.

The energetic conference brought together trailblazing lesbian technology leaders and a new generation of queer women from around the U.S. and abroad.

“It’s the sexiest job there is,” said Alice Reeve, a 29-year-old queer woman who recently entered the tech industry after a series of sales jobs.

More than 35 industry leaders representing companies like Google, Facebook, Indiegogo, Pixar, and Golden Seeds were at the February 28 summit.

The women made clear that there wasn’t a singular path or magical formula – in spite of being in the math and engineering fields – to pursuing a career in technology.

Over and over again the speakers encouraged attendees to reach for the stars, not to be afraid of failure, and to be authentic about who they are and tell their story.

Sara Sperling, who built the diversity and inclusion program at Facebook, cheered the crowd on to say “yes” and “fail gloriously” in order to open themselves up to opportunities in life and work.

There was much excitement after National Center for Lesbian Rights Executive Director Kate Kendell, second from left, turned a contest for $5,000 for one of five nonprofits into a flash fundraiser that raised $30,000 to be shared among the groups.

Kendell was joined by Lesbians Who Tech founder Leanne Pittsford, left, Astraea Executive Director J. Bob Alotta, and Code 2040 Executive Director Laura Weidman.

Jane Philomen Cleland

Sperling told the audience that she knew instinctively, “I was going to have to take gigs that fed my soul or I was going to need a ton and ton of therapy,” as the audience laughed.

Her inspirational speech was contrasted

by Kathy Levinson, former chief operating officer of E-Trade, and Lisa Sherman, former managing director of Logo, the Viacomowned LGBT cable channel, who shared their experiences of learning how to come out without committing career suicide.

“I just feel really blessed to come out as my

career kicked off in my early 20s,” said Erica Anderson, a 29-year-old lesbian who’s now at Twitter after stints with Katie Couric at CBS, MTV, and other networks. “That has nothing to do with me, but more kind of time and place and what was happening with acceptance.”

Anderson was most impressed by Sherman learning about what it was like to work in the closet and come out during a not-so-accepting time.

At Twitter, Anderson connects journalists See page 6 >>

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Call 415-359-2612 or email scott@ebar.com to reserve your space or for more information.

2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

<< Community News

t SF man claims police brutality

by Seth Hemmelgarn

A

gay San Francisco man is claiming he was the victim of police brutality, saying an officer recently dragged him on his stomach out of a Mid-Market area department store.

In a complaint filed with the Office of Citizen Complaints, John Vance, 61, said that the incident began at about 10:30 a.m. January 21 as he entered the Ross Dress for Less at 799 Market Street.

Vance was carrying a bag of DVDs and books from the public library.

Because of an illness, he also has a steel plate in his neck. Either the contents of his bag or the steel plate apparently set off the store’s alarm.

A salesperson told Vance it was okay to enter, but after he couldn’t get any assistance in the store, he decided to go to another shop.

On his way out, the alarm again went off. An officer with the San Francisco Police Department, whom in an interview Vance identified as Richard Araujo, told him to empty his bag. Vance complied.

“Next thing is [Araujo] threw me on the ground face down, put me in a hand lock,” with his arms pulled behind his back, and yelled at him to “get up,” Vance claimed.

Vance, who has myoclonic jerking, a movement disorder related to epilepsy, said he repeatedly told Araujo that he’s disabled and couldn’t get up, but the officer persisted.

In his complaint, Vance wrote, Araujo dragged him out of the

Surrogacy • Adoption • Prenuptial Agreements Divorce • Custody • Parentage Disputes

Rick Gerharter

John Vance

store on his stomach, with his arms still pulled behind him, and then slammed him against a pillar.

Vance, who had been handcuffed, said after he told Araujo he “could smell pot on his breath,” the officer un-cuffed him and told him, “Get your bag and go.”

He wrote in his filing that another officer at the scene “allowed this brutality to go on.” Other officers also failed to intervene, Vance indicated. He said he wasn’t sure which officer had handcuffed him or when exactly he’d been placed in cuffs.

He said he eventually encountered a man who had seen the incident, but he didn’t know the man’s name, and there weren’t other witnesses besides a store cashier.

Araujo didn’t respond to an interview request made through the police department’s Southern Station, which oversees the area that includes the Ross store.

Officer Will Palladino, who took the message for Araujo, referred questions to the SFPD’s media relations unit.

Officer Albie Esparza, an SFPD spokesman, said he wouldn’t comment because “OCC is an independent agency, so they do their own investigation,” and “It’s a personnel matter. We don’t discuss those things.”

However, he added, “A citizen has a right to file a complaint against any officer [if] they feel they were treated unfairly.”

Vance showed the Bay Area Reporter a letter from the OCC indicating the agency had received his complaint. In a phone message to the B.A.R., Joyce Hicks, OCC’s executive director, said, “I cannot confirm or deny whether I have any particular case,” and she’s prohibited from sharing details on any cases.

A manager at Ross said he hadn’t heard about Vance’s incident and referred questions to the store’s corporate office. Corporate staff didn’t respond to an email.

Vance said he suffered pain in his left shoulder, which he already had trouble with before the incident.

He said Amy Smolinski, a nurse practitioner at UCSF, told him the day after the incident to put ice on the shoulder and take ibuprofen.

Smolinski didn’t respond to a request for comment.t

Crime victim unhappy with police, DA’s response

by Seth Hemmelgarn

A

Castro area businessman who said a woman held a knife to his throat and grabbed his phone away from him feels San Francisco’s law enforcement officials aren’t taking his case seriously enough.

Jeff Johnston, 56, is complaining because, among other reasons, police failed to collect witness information, and the district attorney’s office isn’t pressing charges.

“Did I actually have to lay bleeding on the sidewalk from my [jugular] vein before the police and the DA’s office takes an attack with a knife seriously?” Johnston wrote in an email to Police Chief Greg Suhr and another police official. “Would even that have been enough?”

Johnston, the principal of Johnston Tax Group, 2327 Market Street, said in an interview that the incident started at 2:15 a.m. Friday, February 28. Several people “had been screaming and yelling” on the sidewalk near his office for half an hour, said Johnston, who had been working.

When he got outside, “about a dozen young kids” were stand-

Jane Philomen Cleland

Jeff Johnston

ing outside the shuttered Blue Restaurant, 2337 Market Street, he said.

They “were all drunk and loitering around on the sidewalk,” Johnston said. “Then they started fighting with each other and screaming.”

Johnston, who’s gay, was taking video of them because he wanted to document the ruckus that he attributes to the Cafe bar, which is

nearby at 2369 Market Street.

As he walked, Johnston said someone came up from behind him and held a knife to his neck.

“Three times, she asked me if I wanted her to stab me in the throat and kill me,” Johnston said.

“Each time, she’d push the point up against my neck stronger.” She finally grabbed the phone and threw it into Market Street, he said. He retrieved his phone as soon as the woman released him. He said he received a surface cut on his left arm.

Police arrived about 10 to 15 minutes later. The woman had discarded the knife but police retrieved it. The woman and the other young people remained at the scene, Johnston said.

He said officers interviewed the woman and others, but they apparently only took down the names of the woman and a man who police told Johnston was her brother.

Police identified the woman to the Bay Area Reporter as Karla Hernandez, 21, of San Francisco.

Hernandez was booked in the incident on charges of making criminal See page 12 >>

Brinkin to start jail term soon

by Seth Hemmelgarn

G

ay rights advocate Larry Brinkin is expected to start a six-month jail term this month after being sentenced this week to five years of probation for felony possession of child pornography. Brinkin, 67, pleaded guilty to the charge in January.

“I deeply, deeply, deeply apologize for my actions,” he said Wednesday, March 5 in San Francisco Superior Court, directing his comments toward friends, community members, and others, as well as “all children across the globe,” and those who’ve

been exploited by child Assistant District Attorney pornography.

Leslie Cogan has said that Judge Brendan Conroy there were “numerous ordered Brinkin to return items of photographs as to court March 12 to surwell as videos” involved, render. After his stay in and that Brinkin’s activity custody, Brinkin will have had gone back to October six months of home de2011. tention with a monitorBrinkin was a compliing bracelet. He must also ance officer for the San Rick Gerharter register as a sex offender Larry Brinkin Francisco Human Rights for life, among other conCommission for more ditions. than two decades before San Francisco police he retired in 2010. initially arrested Brinkin on child His attorney in the case was pornography-related charges in 2012.

Randy Knox.t

t

Community News>>

March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 3

Renovations begin at Dolores Park

by Paul Dardzinski

D

olores Park, long a popular hangout for gay men and others that sits on the edge of the Castro, is set to get a multimilliondollar makeover that will see portions of the area closed during construction.

Park officials, who noted that the park has been “loved to death” over the years, held a ceremonial groundbreaking March 1, which signaled the long-awaited start to infrastructure improvements. The ceremony brought together local officials and others to celebrate the culmination of prolonged renovation planning.

During the ceremony, park activists and community leaders gave Dolores Park high marks for its significance in the city of San Francisco, while highlighting the importance of parks in all cities.

San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu spoke about the significance the park has had to him.

Chiu shared his hopes for raising his own children and spoke of memories

yet to be made in what will place for him and friends. be the renovated Dolores Throughout the course Park. of his speech, Wiener comRecreation and Park mended the community Department staff were for the positive influence it also on hand. had during the park’s meta“This park is going to be morphosis. built to last,” announced “The community came Phil Ginsburg, Rec and in and took the park Park general manager. back,” he said.

With better pathways With its importance and and improved Americans service to different commuwith Disability Act acnities throughout decades, cess, Dolores Park’s new Mission Dolores Park, as Rick Gerharter layout will make facilities, it’s formally known, has like the renovated public An enthusiastic group of San Francisco officials and been a significant place for bathrooms, more acces- neighbors of Dolores Park, including Board of Supervisors Sam Mogannam, a Bi-Rite sible to all of its visitors. President David Chiu and Supervisor Scott Wiener, Market owner.

Amenities include new center, participated in a group groundbreaking to initiate “This park has a special bike racks, a new multiuse phase one of the rehabilitation of Dolores Park. place in my heart and it’s court, renovated tennis been a part of my life since Gate Park is the lungs of our city, then and basketball courts, an I can remember,” he said Dolores Park is its heart and soul.” improved irrigation system, and a Looking back on the park’s tranGay District 8 Supervisor Scott new overlook at the southeast corner. sition period, Mogannam made Wiener, who has long lived within Of interest to the many city resilight of an unfortunate situation the vicinity of the park, reminisced dents with dogs, off-leash dog play arsating, “The first time I got mugged on the park’s transition period during eas are to be designated on both north was in Dolores Park.” the mid-1990s, and said that the “gay and south sides of the park.

In 2008, San Francisco voters apbeach” area was always a gathering Ginsburg later added, “If Golden proved the $185 million Clean and

Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond, which assigned approximately $13.2 million to improve Dolores Park.

From that time on, during a lengthy community design process, park and recreation advocates elaborated on the plan. After various delays in the approval process, which had to be worked around the diversity of the park’s visitors and accommodated to their variant needs, the Rec and Park Department decided on a final plan.

During the first phase of construction, which will begin on March 13, the northern section of the park will be closed until fall. Upon the completion of the northern side, the second phase, which will focus on the southern plot of the park, will begin.

Helen Diller Playground is planned to remain open throughout the two phases of construction. The entire construction process is estimated to last 14 months, with the reopening of the park in summer of 2015.

The crowd applauded and cheered as the ceremony ended when community advocates broke ground with eight golden shovels.t

Trans teen recants sex assault story

by Heather Cassell

A

transgender student at Hercules Middle/High School who reported he was physically and sexually assaulted by three teenage boys on campus this week recanted his story late Tuesday after his claims unraveled during the police investigation, authorities said.

On Monday, March 3, the unidentified 15-year-old female-to-male student said that he was assaulted in the handicap stall of a boy’s bathroom by three boys during the late morning hours of March 3.

Hercules Police Department

Detective Dwayne Collard concluded that the teen’s story was fabricated after the student lacked physical evidence of bruising, scrapes, or any other signs typical of the type of assault the student described happened, authorities said.

“The longer we looked into the situation, the more that we were able to try to dissect the young man’s story and we couldn’t verify it,” said Connie Van Putten, public information officer for the Hercules Police Department.

Hercules authorities waited until Tuesday to see if any other signs of the assault appeared, but none did.

Finally, the student admitted that

he made up the story, police said.

“I talked to the young man and he is telling us the truth right now,” Van Putten told the Bay Area Reporter, quoting Collard.

There is the possibility that the student could be charged with making a false police report. Authorities are waiting until the final reports are completed before making a recommendation to the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Juvenile Department, said Van Putten.

School district officials expressed relief that no assault occurred.

T:9.75” “We are relieved that there was no victim here. No one was harmed,”

said Charles Ramsey, president of the board of the West Contra Costa Unified School District, who expressed great relief that an assault didn’t actually occur on the school campus.

He told the B.A.R. that his next focus is on finding out why the teen would make up this story and get him help.

Hercules Middle/High School, with 1,800 students, has been in the news recently with regard to campus bullying. In November, 16-year-old Jewlyes Gutierrez, a transgender student at the high school, defended herself during an altercation involving three other

Pete Thoshinsky

The boy’s bathroom stall where a transgender teen said he was sexually assaulted. The boy later recanted.

students. She is currently completing a restorative justice program.t

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<< Open Forum

4 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

Volume 44, Number 10 March 6-12, 2014 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Michael M. Yamashita Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013) Publisher (2003 – 2013) Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko Seth Hemmelgarn Jim Provenzano CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Dan Aiello • Tavo Amador Erin Blackwell • Roger Brigham Victoria A. Brownworth • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Chuck Colbert Richard Dodds • David Guarino Peter Hernandez • Liz Highleyman Brandon Judell • John F. Karr • Lisa Keen Matthew Kennedy • David Lamble Michael McAllister • Michael McDonagh David-Elijah Nahmod • Elliot Owen Paul Parish • James Patterson • Lois Pearlman Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota • Bob Roehr Philip Ruth • Donna Sachet • Adam Sandel Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Jim Stewart Ed Walsh • Sura Wood ART DIRECTION T. Scott King PRODUCTION/DESIGN Jay Cribas PHOTOGRAPHERS Jane Philomen Cleland Rick Gerharter • Lydia Gonzales Rudy K. Lawidjaja • Steven Underhill Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Scott Wazlowski – 415.359.2612 NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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Castro can handle in-law units

A

s housing continues to be the most urgent issue defining San Francisco, lawmakers have responded with various pieces of legislation at the local and state level to rein in evictions and address the overall lack of affordable and middle class housing. Thursday (March 6), one of those local ordinances heads to the San Francisco Planning Commission, where it has been recommended for approval.

The commission should approve it and send it on to the Board of Supervisors.

The proposal, by District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, would amend the planning code to allow for construction of an additional dwelling unit within the existing envelope of a residential building or auxiliary structure on the same lot on any parcel in the Castro Street Neighborhood Commercial District (with a few exceptions). It would also authorize the zoning administrator to waive density and other planning code requirements in order to create the accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, more commonly known as in-law units. The proposed ordinance would also amend the administrative code to provide that an in-law unit constructed with a waiver of code requirements shall be subject to provisions of the San Francisco Residential Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Ordinance if the existing building, or any existing dwelling unit, is already subject to rent control.

For buildings with 10 units or less, one in-law unit would be allowed; for buildings with 10 or more units, 2 would be allowed. Height or bulk increase would not be allowed.

The planning department estimates that there are 1,506 parcels in the Castro that have the physical space to accommodate an in-law unit.

Of those, 30 percent have 10 or more units and could potentially accommodate two in-law units (78), while the remaining 1,467 parcels could only each add one unit. There is a theoretical maximum potential of 1,545 additional units in the project area. The planning department esti-

mates that about 25 percent of the parcels would utilize this new provision and build an in-law unit, or about 390 new units. That’s nearly 400 new housing units that could be created, with the potential for more. While that increase would affect the density of the Castro, we believe the neighborhood could accommodate such growth, especially given the reality that not all of these units will be completed at the same time.

There are also potential ownership issues with regard to tenancy-incommon and condominiums that the property owners would have to sort out, as well as the cost to property owners in constructing the units, estimated by planning staff to be $100,000 or more, excluding permit fees.

Wiener’s proposal is not the only attempt to address the city’s housing shortage, as he readily acknowledged in an op-ed he wrote last fall. But

t

he is correct in that we need to think differently about housing issues and make adjustments to housing policy to meet the new reality. His inlaw unit proposal does just that. The units could be accessible for seniors and others with mobility challenges; as we see with this week’s coverage on the report soon to be released by the San Francisco LGBT Aging Policy Task Force, housing is the number one need, and preventing LGBT seniors from being evicted is a top priority.

The planning department recommends that a report be compiled a year after the effective date of the ordinance to evaluate the types of units being developed and their affordability rates. That would inform decision makers and the public with regard to the success of the ordinance and whether people are responding to it.

In the meantime, the Board of Supervisors, which will first discuss the proposal at the land use committee later this month, should approve this innovative plan that is one piece of the housing puzzle.t

Why we ride, rain or shine

by Terry Beswick

E

arly last Sunday morning my best buddy James Casad and I set out on our bikes from the Castro Country Club to join a couple dozen others on an AIDS/LifeCycle training ride. It was a bit cold and misty and the roads were wet, but we were determined to ride the entire 72-mile route across the Golden Gate Bridge, through Marin, up to China Camp and back.

But within the first minute, one of the newer riders slipped on the road and fell. Then Casad almost fell, and another rider was almost hit by a car barreling through a stop sign. And then it began sprinkling. I became alarmed when I had trouble braking while coming down a steep, slick hill into traffic.

Still, we told each other, it was all good training for AIDS/LifeCycle, the annual fundraising ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The ride was almost rained out a couple years ago, my friend Jose “Pepe” Sanchez reminded us, and with the June ride just three months away, we need to keep going. So on we rode, for a while.

The day held special significance for me because it was the anniversary of my very first AIDS/LifeCycle training ride one year ago when, at the age of 53 and not having been on a bicycle in many years, I somehow rode over 60 miles. I had trouble walking for a few days, but eventually conquered all 545 miles to LA, so I thought it was pretty cool to still be riding strong a year later.

Also riding Sunday were several of our fellows from the Castro Country Club cycling team. So far there are 17 of us, riders and roadies, newbies and veterans, and we have 17 very personal reasons for doing the ride. Being the Castro Country Club team, many of us are in recovery from one addiction or another, but what brings us together on the ride is one vision: the end of HIV and AIDS. This year’s ride to LA will be Bob Katz’s 15th.

Katz seroconverted in 1980, testing positive in 1985. He was my tent-mate and mentor on last year’s ride, sharing generously from his wealth of experience, and a living example of the spirit

David Bruce Langley

AIDS Life/Cycle teammates Terry Beswick, back, James Casad, and Jose “Pepe” Sanchez leave the Castro Country Club last Sunday for a training ride.

of service. “As someone who’s been there from the beginning,” Katz said, “it seems as though the least I can do is to ride in memory of those who have been lost and to make sure, as much as I can, that everyone currently living with HIV is able to do so with a maximum of dignity.”

Riding for his third time this year, teammate Sanchez lost his brother Gerardo to AIDS in 1995 “just as the cocktails were coming out. Unfortunately a bit late for him,” said Sanchez. “But not for my Tio Pepe, who managed to live until the age of 80. Thanks to the cocktails, his HIV status didn’t stop him from living life to the fullest.”

My buddy and teammate Casad did the ride once before, in 1999 when he was 22 years old, four years after he tested positive for HIV. I was proud to sponsor him then, never imagining I would ever do the ride myself. “I gained a sense of accomplishment and pride that I had never felt before,” Casad said. “I was able to ride out of the shadows of shame around being HIVpositive and into the light of personal wholeness.” Now he’s riding again, inspired to give back and to continue fighting HIV stigma.

I am old enough to remember how all the

lesbians in our community stepped up to the front lines to care for the sick and fight AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. My teammate and sophomore rider Angela Hallinan reminds me of those brave young women. “Last year was an incredible life-changing experience,” she said.

“I was able to witness and be a part of a ride that embodies dedication, love, and hope.”

There are so many stories among the thousands of riders and roadies who will make the journey this year. The money we raise goes directly to support the life-saving HIV programs of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. If you haven’t checked out the work they do lately, take another look. Just as the “cocktails” signaled a sea change in the treatment of HIV, I believe that with the latest medical advances such as PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, we are on the verge of a new day for the prevention of HIV. I myself have been HIV-positive since 2000, but another of our teammates just tested positive a few months ago. With tools we have available today, we can do better, but we all need to do our part.

Sometimes I am riding my bike on a long stretch by myself, just daydreaming and thinking about all the reasons why I ride. I imagine what my life might have been like without HIV, or I think about my 18-year-old nephew and the world he is growing up in. And I know there will come a day when that last ride, that last donated dollar, will be enough to get us over the tipping point to the end of HIV and AIDS. In the end, last Sunday’s training ride got called for safety reasons and, yes, we were all a bit disappointed. But we’ll be back next weekend, and in June, and every year, rain or shine, until HIV/AIDS is a thing of the past.t Terry Beswick is the manager of the Castro Country Club. To read more about the Castro Country Club team for AIDS/ LifeCycle, or to sponsor any of the team members, visit www.tofighthiv.org/goto/ CastroCountryClub. Full disclosure: Although the Castro Country Club is fiscally sponsored by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, it is entirely self-supporting.

The AIDS Life/Cycle benefits SFAF and the LA Gay and Lesbian Center.

t

Politics>>

March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 5

Slight increase seen in number of CA LGBT judges

by Matthew S. Bajko

6) and should be approved in April. he number of LGBT judg“I think this is a really exes serving on California citing time in the Castro with state courts continues to inch the sidewalk widening projupwards. ect set to begin, and so much Since 2011, when the state new retail space coming on first began compiling demoline along Market Street,” graphic information about Bergerac told the B.A.R. “I’m judges’ sexual orientation and very proud to have been asked gender identity, the number to take over the helm of the of judges and justices who Castro Merchants, and to folself report being LGBT has low such dynamic presidents increased by four. as Terry Austin Bennett and As of December 31, 2013 Steve Adams. I believe in the number of LGBT judges small business. I believe in had grown to 41, accordthe power of groups working to the 2014 annual reing together to effect positive port issued by the California change.”

Administrative Office of the Bergerac doesn’t expect any Courts and released Friday, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Victoria competition for the presidenFebruary 28. There are a total Kolakowski remains the only out trans jurist in cy, though he said he “would the state. of 1,681 judges serving on the welcome it.” state bench.

Bennett, whose family has As has been the case in years long owned Cliff ’s Variety, The vast majority of the LGT past, no judges identified as being oversaw the merchant group’s judges serve on the state’s trial bisexual, while Alameda County recent name change from the courts. Los Angeles has the most Superior Court Judge Victoria Merchants of Upper Market and with 10, while San Francisco has Kolakowski remains the state’s sole Castro to the shorter, and simpler, the second highest with six judges. transgender jurist. Twenty judges Castro Merchants and the re-launch Twelve of the state’s 58 trial courts said they were gay, and 20 identified of its website. have judges who identify as LGT. as lesbian.

Her tenure was also embroiled by Two gay men are serving on The LGT judges comprise 2.46 a series of highly public debates that the state’s Court of Appeal, one in percent of the state’s judiciary, buffeted the city’s gay district. the First District and compared to the 60.4 The controversies ranged from the other in the Fifth percent who identify as chain stores coming to upper Market District. Of the 95 heterosexual.

Street, homeless people congregattotal appellate court Another 37.2 pering on benches at Harvey Milk Plaza, justices, 31 declined to cent, or 625 judges, and the nudists who frequently gathanswer the question. declined to state their ered at Jane Warner Plaza.

Of the seven justices on sexual orientation or Under her watch, the business the California Supreme gender identity on the group enacted a policy to never lowCourt, six marked survey. It was the lower the over-sized rainbow flag flying heterosexual on their est number of judges above the intersection of Castro and forms, with the seventh who did not answer Market streets and ended raising the declining to answer the the question since it leather flag during the city’s annual question. The identities was first added.

Leather Week. of the individual justices are not disThe tally shows that the LGBT The issue had been percolating for closed, but it has long been rumored community remains under-represome time due to complaints from that one of the female justices is a sented on the state’s bench, Bay Area activists upset that their demands to closeted lesbian.

Lawyers for Individual Freedom lower the flag in honor of high-proIn his report on the diversity of Co-Chair Jamie Dupree told the file people, whether LGBT or straight his judicial picks, Governor Jerry Bay Area Reporter. allies, when they died were not grantBrown reported that his office had “It is BALIF’s top priority to place ed. The mishandling of a request to received 23 LGBT applicants for jumore LGBT judges on the bench. fly the transgender community’s flag dicial seats last year. He appointed The latest report demonstrates in 2012, which led some to call for one LGBT person to the bench, that we still have a lot of work a boycott of Bennett’s family busihowever it is unclear who that perto do,” Dupree, an attorney with ness, ultimately led to the decision to son was as the governor’s office San Francisco law firm Futterman adopt the new flag policy. rarely discloses the sexual orientaDupree Dodd Croley Maier LLP, Her term officially ends in April. tion of its judicial appointees. wrote in an email. “We are pleased Bennett told the B.A.R. she wants to Over the last three years Brown that there is some progress in the focus on transitioning the managereported receiving 39 applications number of LGBT judges, but the ment of her family’s store to her and from LGBT people and appointing overall number of LGBT judges reher husband from her elderly parents. five LGBT judges. With a vacancy mains disappointingly low.” to fill on the state Supreme Court Kolakowski said she’s not surNo fee hike for F-Line trolley and the local First District Court of prised that there aren’t more openly Don’t expect to see fares rise to $6 Appeal, the governor could make transgender judges. for a ride on the historic F-Line streethistory by naming LGBT people to “It is still difficult for us to obtain cars running up Market Street from the seats. the experience that people look for the waterfront to the Castro district.

BALIF has publicly called on on a judge’s resume,” she said in an During a meeting with the Bay Brown to name San Francisco Chief email. “Many transgender attorneys Area Reporter last week, Tom Nolan, Deputy City Attorney Therese had to continually weigh being open a gay man who chairs the city’s Stewart to the appellate court bench. about their gender identity against Municipal Transportation Agency “Governor Brown currently developing their career, a choice that board, which oversees budget issues has an opportunity to appoint the nobody should have to make.” for the city’s public transit system, first openly LGBT justice on the Kolakowski said she’s not surwas unequivocal in opposing a fare California Supreme Court and the prised that there aren’t more openly hike for the historic trolley cars. first lesbian on the California Court transgender judges.

“We are not going to do that,” of Appeal,” noted Dupree. “The “It is still difficult for us to obtain Nolan said. governor has made many historic the experience that people look for The MTA board has until May 1 to appointments and we continue to on a judge’s resume,” she said in an submit its budget proposal for fiscal urge him to do so with LGBT juemail. “Many transgender attorneys years 2015 and 2016 to Mayor Ed Lee dicial candidates. A state as rich had to continually weigh being open and the Board of Supervisors.t and diverse as California can only about their gender identity against be served through a judiciary that developing their career, a choice that properly reflects our population.”

Web Extra: For more queer politinobody should have to make.” cal news, be sure to check http://

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Castro biz group prez stepping down

On the web Online content this week includes the Bay Area Reporter’s online column Political Notes and the Jock Talk, Out in the World, and Transmissions columns. www.ebar.com.

After two years at the helm of the Castro’s business association, Terry Asten Bennett has opted to step down and not seek another term as president.

Expected to succeed her is Daniel Bergerac, a co-owner of Mudpuppy’s Tub and Scrub dogwashing service. His nomination for the post will be put forward at the group’s meeting Thursday (March

www.ebar.com Monday mornings at noon for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion.

This week’s column reported on the plan to ban plastic water bottle sales in SF. Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes.

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

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<< Community News

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

Badlands faces discrimination complaint

by Seth Hemmelgarn

A

San Francisco man is claiming that he was discriminated against at the popular Badlands nightclub when he tried to enter with his service dog.

Paul Ponsiglione, 25, said he and several friends went to the gay club, located at 4121 18th Street in the Castro district, at about 11:30 p.m.

Sunday, February 9.

In a complaint filed with the city’s Human Rights Commission just over two weeks later, Ponsiglione said the doorman stopped him and told him his dog, Xerxes, wasn’t allowed inside. Ponsiglione told the man that Xerxes is a service animal and tried to show him the dog’s tags.

The doorman “not only refused to look, but told me that he didn’t care if the dog was a service animal, the bar policy was not to allow dogs in, period,” even if they’re service animals, Ponsiglione said.

In an interview, Ponsiglione, who asked that his medical conditions not be published, said Xerxes is a five- to six-month-old Great Dane, who’s approximately 60 pounds and about two feet tall.

He provided the Bay Area Reporter with a letter from Jeffrey Manese at

Kapla Medical Group that says, “Mr. Ponsiglione is using his dog as a service dog. His dog provides him with emotional comfort and support, which helps manage his long-standing medical condition.”

Ponsiglione said he called Badlands owner Les Natali February 12 and told him what had happened.

Natali said he’d investigate and call Ponsiglione back. Several days later, Ponsiglione said, Natali cited information from the doorman and said he’d been denied entry “because the bar was too crowded.”

“Normally, they would never deny me service, only when the bar is too busy,” he said Natali told him.

Ponsiglione told Natali “it is illegal for him to deny me service due to my service animal and medical need regardless of what time of day it is” or other factors. Natali told him “he would take this into consideration,” he said.

On February 25, Ponsiglione said, Natali gave him a statement that says the dog had been “straining on its leash” and Ponsiglione and his friends “acted as if they had been drinking.”

When the doorman said pets aren’t allowed, Ponsiglione “claimed the dog was a ‘service dog,’ but he did

Jane Philomen Cleland

Paul Ponsiglione with his service dog, Xerxes

not identify the service ... . Observing the dog appeared to be untrained, and its owner apparently inebriated and hostile, the doorman denied entry to the bar,” Natali wrote.

He added that Badlands management “regrets this incident.” The club’s policy is to comply with the law, including allowing patrons with service dogs, he said.

Ponsiglione said, “I don’t need to say what the service animal does, and it’s actually not legal for him

to ask me what the service animal does.” He also said the bar had been “relatively busy,” but there had been no line to get in.

He said he didn’t believe it was accurate that Xerxes had been “straining.” He also said he’d had “maybe one drink,” but one of his friends was “tipsy.”

In an interview, Natali said video shows the dog “trying to enter the bar and pulling on its leash,” along with Ponsiglione “and his friends talking to the doorman, then it shows them walking away.”

Natali refused to provide a copy of the footage.

In his complaint, Ponsiglione, who asked that his sexual orientation not be published, said he had six witnesses to the incident, but he didn’t provide the B.A.R. with contact information for any of them.

In a revised statement that he sent to the B.A.R., Natali wrote that Ponsiglione had “offered to re-

<<

Lesbian techies

From page 1

with tools to help them while out in the field as product marketing, pro users of Twitter. She also helped kickoff Twitter Open, the company’s LGBT employee resource group.

Queer women living and working openly and thriving was truly inspiring to attendees who chatted excitedly at the after-party at the Cafe.

“The ambition coming out of these women talking today, just the sheer ambition to be who they are and to succeed shook me a little,” said Reeve.

“That’s what I was hoping to get out of it, so it was a good experience.”

Reeve changed her tune toward the tech industry, dazzled by the “great pursuit of money” and the “sheer ambition and innovation” the industry symbolizes, she told the Bay Area Reporter at the after-party.

She feels for the conflict between longtime San Francisco residents and the insurgence of techies, particularly from Google and Facebook. The tech giants often use buses to transport their San Francisco employees down the Peninsula’s artery, Highway 101, to sprawling campuses in Mountain View and Palo Alto, unlike Twitter and Yelp that are based in San Francisco.

Google streets

The influx of urban techies has been heating up, reminding longtime residents of the dot-com boom of the 1990s as an uptick in evictions and high rent once again dominate the political landscape.

“I wouldn’t say [it’s] a bad word, but like so many other designations of a group it can get a bad stigma,” said Reeve, referring to “techie.” “I think that people see the money and there is envy there, see the growth and feel left behind, people can just feel a lot of things.”

At the same time, Reeve isn’t opposed to progress that comes with the tech industry. She’s just not happy with the bumpy road to balance as she brushes away the fumes spewed into her face from the employee buses that traverse the Castro, where she lives.

“The fact that there is not a high speed train between the Peninsula and San Francisco is just retarded,” said Reeve.

She’s not alone. Leanne Pittsford, a 32-year-old bicoastal lesbian who founded Lesbians Who Tech, the organization that hosted the summit, agreed.

“It’s very tough,” said Pittsford.

“It’s a very multifaceted in terms of the conversation, obviously.”

There are two conversations happening around housing and transportation.

Pittsford’s fiancee and business partner, Leah Neaderthal, said

t

frain from making the claim if the bar paid him $10,000 in damages, which the bar declined to do.”

Ponsiglione denied he made that offer, but, among other things, he said he had told Natali he’d had to take time off work and was racking up expenses. He told the B.A.R. $5,000 to $10,000 would be “reasonable.”

He had also wanted an apology and is seeking “as much negative press for [Natali] as possible,” Ponsiglione said. “ ... I just don’t want him to continue to get away with this.”

Bianca Polovina, the HRC staffer Ponsiglione said has been assigned to his case, declined to comment on the matter, citing the agency’s privacy practices.

This isn’t the first time Natali has faced discrimination complaints. In 2004 a group of former patrons and employees accused Natali of racist and discriminatory business practices. Natali denied the accusations and the case was settled in mediation.t that she always had a difficult time finding a place in the city that was affordable and would allow their two dogs. But in a single year since they relocated to San Francisco they saw rent for an apartment similar to their old one jump by $800 and cameras put up around their old building where two of their former neighbors were evicted, she said.

Pittsford, who also is the CEO and founder of Start Somewhere Communications, splits her time between the couple’s apartments in the West Village in New York, and the Mission district in San Francisco.

With the hike in rents Pittsford noted, “We’ve definitely lost some of our diversity,” pointing to the money “flowing in the technology world right now.”

Pittsford loves technology, but at the same times she’s a social justice advocate who hopes a balance can be struck.

In December 2012, the former Equality California senior director launched Lesbians Who Tech as a monthly happy hour for queer women in tech in San Francisco that exploded from 30 attendees to up to 200.

The gathering spread to 12 other cities across the U.S. and three international cities. Lesbians Who Tech now has a list of 3,500 subscribers, she said.

Pittsford pointed out that “people in technology believe they can solve the world’s problems and that they are building something to help everyone.”

Megan Smith, 49, a vice president of Google and a former executive at the now-defunct Planet out, also talked about balance.

“You don’t want to change your city or destroy the culture of our city, so part of our job is to collaborate together to do extraordinary things to keep the astonishing city that we have in the way that we have See page 12 >>

Correction The February 27 headline accompanying the page 1 photo paying respects to Jose Sarria should have read “Remembering the Widow Norton.”

Clarification

The February 27 article, “Lutherans install first trans pastor” should have included that pastor Megan Rohrer was ordained in 2006 and that Rohrer’s recent installation marks the first time a trans person was installed as a lead or solo pastor at a congregation. It should have also been noted that Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The online versions have been updated.

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Community News>>

March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

SF rule aims for LGBT tenant protections nationwide

by Matthew S. Bajko

S

an Francisco lawmakers are being asked to adopt a new rule aimed at providing nationwide protections for LGBT tenants.

National developers wishing to build residential projects with 10 or more units in San Francisco would have to disclose if they prohibit LGBT discrimination under a proposal gay District 9 Supervisor David Campos is championing.

According to the ordinance, which Campos plans to introduce Tuesday, March 11 and provided to the Bay Area Reporter this week, developers with projects outside of California would have to list the location of those developments and disclose if they have a national policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity for all dwelling units in every property in the U.S. where they have an ownership or management interest.

The policy would apply to the developer’s national company and any investors in their San Francisco projects. The city’s planning department would include the questions on the applications it requires developers for residential or mixed-use residential projects to submit when seeking approval for their building permits.

“We know in San Francisco there are protections we benefit from, but those protections do not exist in the vast majority of states in the rest of the country,” said Campos. “I think it appropriate for us when a developer does a project of a certain size and wants to come here, if they own or manage property in other states we find out if they have policies that protect LGBT people.”

There is no federal law requiring such protections for LGBT tenants,

Jane Philomen Cleland

Supervisor David Campos

though in 2012 the Department of Housing and Urban Development did enact a rule protecting LGBT people seeking housing that is financed or insured by HUD from being discriminated against.

According to HUD, 16 states and the District of Columbia ban housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Another five states ban sexual orientation-based discrimination in housing.

The city lacks the legal authority to require housing developers to enact nationwide policies protective of LGBT tenants, said Campos, whose office has been working with housing activists, LGBT rights groups, and the city attorney’s office for months on crafting the ordinance.

Thus, the planning department or planning commission could not automatically deny a housing project because the developer does not have a national policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

“We can’t require they have these

Students on a mission to bring Obama to Cal

by Khaled Sayed

A

group of UC Berkeley students is trying to succeed where administrators have so far been unsuccessful: bringing President Barack Obama to the East Bay campus to deliver next year’s commencement address.

Students have formed a coalition, Students for Change at UC Berkeley, trying to persuade Khaled Sayed Obama to visit the university and speak to graduating seniors.

“For the first time students have reached out to President Obama,” Zeferino Lara, left, and Elias N. Saigali said Elias N. Saigali, with Students for Change are working president of the coali- to bring President Barack Obama to UC Berkeley for next year’s commencement tion.

Zeferino Lara, vice address. president of Students for Change, is a member of is for public education, it makes many LGBT groups on campus and sense that he would choose a public is working to get them to support university in one of the states where the Obama effort. Lara and other he has the most supporters. We feel queer identifying law students on he would be enthusiastic to speak campus have started a group called here.”

Outlaw, in which they discuss queer Previously, college administraissues on and off campus and tie tors have invited Obama to the their legal interests into that. campus three times since he be“We are actually reaching out to came president but their invitaother LGBT groups on campus and tions were not accepted. we think that they would be pretty New UC President Janet enthusiastic to join our cause, since Obama has been a strong supporter See page 9 >> to LGBT rights.” Lara said. “Obama

policies, but by having this information, we are trying to hold those developers accountable,” said Campos.

“Since we are not able to do that, there is something to be said for having the information out there.”

San Francisco would be the first city in the country to require developers to disclose this information, said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. She likened the policy to when companies were asked if they offered domestic partner benefits to their employees.

“Some did, and for that, we listed their names, we applauded their efforts, and we asked them to reach out to their colleagues, and we used them as an example,” said Kendell.

“For those who didn’t, there was no punishment, no legal action because it wasn’t illegal to not provide these benefits.”

San Francisco did require that companies granted city contracts offer domestic partner benefits, which led to a protracted legal fight waged by United Airlines. The city

prevailed, and now it is commonplace for national companies to offer such benefits.

“Just asking the question begins a dialogue and essentially draws a line in the sand that says you should think about measuring up to this standard,” said Kendell.

Those housing developers that do not may face opposition to their projects from activists and neighborhood groups. In San Francisco, such opposition often derails housing projects seeking city approval.

Last year residential developer Greystar, based in Charleston, South Carolina, encountered just such a situation with a project it is pursuing on upper Market Street in the city’s gay Castro district. In response to community concerns about its plans, the company agreed to expand its national fair housing policy to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

“To its credit the company did it,” said Victor Gonzalez, Greystar’s senior director for western development.

By having the city ask developers about their fair housing policies, AIDS Housing Alliance/SF director Brian Basinger believes it will prompt other companies to follow Greystar’s lead.

“This measure will start a dialogue and these developers will say of course we want to provide basic protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity across the country,” he said. “We don’t need to compel them; I think they will jump on board. This is a structured way of initiating that dialogue.”

The proposed ordinance would take effect immediately once signed into law. The city’s Human Rights Commission would also be tasked with presenting a yearly report to the Board of Supervisors based on the information gathered by the planning department.

The board’s land use and economic development committee will first review the proposed ordinance before it goes to the full board for a vote.t

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<< Community News

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

candlelight meditation prayer chant Thursdays at 6pm during Lent March 13–April 10

St. John the Evangelist Church 1661 15th Street at Julian Avenue (Near 16th Street BART) www.saintjohnsf.org

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Catholic group to screen award-winning doc compiled by Cynthia Laird

D

ignity San Francisco, an affirming group for LGBT Catholics and allies, will screen the awardwinning documentary Alfredo’s Fire Sunday, March 9 at 7 p.m. at Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church, 1329 7th Avenue.

The film, completed last year, tells the story of Alfredo Ormando, a gay Italian writer who traveled from Palermo to St. Peter’s Square, where he set himself on fire on January 13, 1998. The demonstration was an act of protest against the Roman Catholic Church’s historic persecution against gay people. Ormando, who suffered thirddegree burns over 90 percent of his body, died 10 days later.

Organizers of the local event said that filmmaker Andy Abrahams Wilson, president of Open Eye Pictures, will be in attendance to introduce the movie and participate in a question and answer session with the audience.

“The reason why we want to screen this documentary is to show how current teaching of the church can generate a sense of hopelessness within the LGBT community, who really believe that poison that the Vatican has been teaching for the last few decades,” said Ernest L. Camisa, Dignity SF secretary. “I know the current pope has given some of us in the LGBT community some hope that the teachings of the church can be changed, and that the current teachings are in error.”

Alfredo’s Fire made its world premiere screening at the Santa

Barbara International Film Festival in early February, where it was part of a special program of social justice documentaries. Previously, it won the Award of Excellence from the International Film Festival for Peace, Inspiration, and Equality, as well as the CINE Golden Eagle Award.

There is a suggested donation of $5$10 per person, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

For more information about Dignity San Francisco, visit www.dignitysanfrancisco.org.

Parenting a genderqueer kid

Bay Area Humanists will sponsor a discussion on parenting a child with a non-binary gender identity Saturday, March 8 from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at the Women’s Building, 3543 18th Street in San Francisco.

Parent Phil Crawford will share his experiences since his kid came out as genderqueer two years ago and how his thinking has changed about gender. He will discuss deconstruction and expansion of what gender means and a definition of non-binary gender. Crawford will also answer questions about his experiences.

The meeting is open to the public and there is no charge. For more information, visit www.sfhumanists. org.

Equality Awards kickoff party

Equality California will hold a kickoff cocktail party for its San Francisco Equality Awards Thursday, March 13 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Matrix, 3138 Fillmore Street.

EQCA Executive Director John O’Connor will be on hand to talk about the LGBT rights group’s plans for 2014, and Equality Awards CoChairs Suzy Jones and Bevan Dufty will also be in attendance as they drum up support for the actual awards gala, which will take place Saturday, April 12 at the Palace Hotel, 2 New Montgomery Street in San Francisco.

To get free tickets for next week’s kickoff event, visit http://tinyurl. com/or5zckz. Tickets for the April gala are $350. For more information, visit www.eqca.org.

Seminar for HIVers

The San Francisco AIDS Foundation’s next Positive Living for Us seminar will take place Saturday, March 15 and Sunday, March 16 at the Stop AIDS Project.

Organizers said there are still some openings for the two-day seminar and the Positive Force team is also looking for volunteers to help out.

To find out about attending or helping out, contact (415) 575-0150 or pforce@sfaf.org.

Late night HIV testing in SOMA

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation has announced that it is now offering late night HIV testing in San Francisco’s South of Market district.

The testing is offered Thursdays and Fridays from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. at AHF’s SOMA testing center, which is located just above its Out of the Closet thrift shop at 1295 Folsom Street (at 9th Street).

The testing center uses the INSTI Rapid HIV test and staff will be able to provide people with results in just See page 9 >>

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Community News>>

Obama

From page 7

Napolitano reached out to Students for Change via email as a sign of encouragement. Saigali and the others are hoping that Napolitano and her close ties to the president – she served in his Cabinet as his first homeland security secretary – might work in their favor.

Students for Change collected 1,600 petition signatures so far.

Saigali tried to invite Obama to speak at Santa Monica Community College when he was a student there, however his efforts were unsuccessful. Now he is transferring the idea to UC Berkeley.

“Back in Santa Monica I was the vice president of leadership at Phi Beta Kappa, an honors society,” he said. “We were inviting him to ceremonial events although this time our invitation is shadowed by commencement, this is strictly an invitation for him to come and speak and to give knowledge and wisdom to the graduating class about the responsibility they are going to hold in the future regarding to public education and how they can implement it for the fu-

<<

News Briefs

From page 8

60 seconds. AHF staff said the testing center would provide another option for people outside of regular business hours. To contact the testing center, call (415) 558-8155.

Talk about gay sex culture in San Jose

South Bay First Thursdays and the HIV Outreach Prevention and Education program are having an event Thursday (March 6), entitled “Hooking Up and Getting Off: A Night to Talk About Gay Sex Culture in the Digital Age.” The event takes place from 7 to 9 p.m. at San Jose State University, Dudley Moorhead

March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

ture of this nation.”

Students For Change was initially named Students for Obama, but organizers soon realized that the name was too restrictive.

One of the main reasons why Students for Change is convinced that Obama should come to UC Berkeley is that the president has been pushing for affordable higher public education and college affordability.

“Given that we are at the number one public institution in the world, we feel it would be most appropriate for him to speak on such a national issue within the state of California,” Saigali said.

“Last year our government aid was 30 percent and it went down to 12 percent this year,” Saigali added.

“That makes it harder for future generations to get into a public educational institution like this one.

Not having government aid causes cuts in programs and faculty, and significant cuts in financial aid as well. We want Obama to speak on this issue.”

According to Saigali all these cuts and tuition hikes are discouraging students from getting into public education.

Saigali, a political science major with a minor in law, feels that UC Berkeley has had a tremendous influence on history and politics for more than half a century, and therefore it is an appropriate place for Obama to speak.

“It is about time to step forward with that and use that to our advantage.” he said.

No sitting U.S. president has visited the campus in recent years. A 2012 story by the UC Berkeley News Center noted that six sitting presidents have visited the campus; the last one was John F. Kennedy in 1962.

Students for Change has also been in contact with Senator Dianne Feinstein’s (D-California) office. They will be meeting with her deputy state director Sean Elsbernd in a few weeks.

Shin Inouye, director of specialty media in the White House Office of Communications, said in an email to the Bay Area Reporter that he has no scheduling announcements to make.

Saigali is hopeful the students’ plan will come to fruition.

“Me personally, I would like to shake his hand, and I want to become a politician in the future,” he said.t

Hall, Room 227.

The presentation will address terms, gay and bi culture, homophobia, and internalized homophobia.

HOPE will also screen its short documentary, False Realities: Gay Men, Sex & Party Drugs. Food will be provided.

For more information, check out the Facebook page, “SBFT & AACI HOPE Workshop: Hooking Up and Getting Off.”

vamped volunteer program to coordinate activities Suzi Kalmus, Openhouse’s firstever volunteer coordinator, recently sent out an email introducing herself and her plans to kick-start the organization’s “Year of the Volunteer,” with a volunteer information night Monday, March 24 at 6 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street, Room 306.

“We look forward to supporting a more diverse group of volunteers to strengthen our social services and community-building programs,” Kalmus stated.

For more information or to RSVP to the information night, contact Kalmus at (415) 296-8995, ext. 310 or suzi@openhouse-sf.org.t

MAKE CONTACT

Join us for our signature monthly networking event!

Make contact and connect with LGBT & Allied business professionals at this month’s Make Contact event.

This month, the Women’s MEGA Make Contact event is sponsored by San Francisco Federal Credit Union, ellaprint, and the National of Association of Women Business Owners.

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Openhouse announces new volunteer program

Openhouse, the San Francisco agency that is constructing LGBTfriendly senior housing, also provides various services to older LGBTs and has announced a re-

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‘MSM’

From page 1

which the same-gender pairings mean more than merely sexual behavior,” the authors write, explaining, overuse of those terms “adds to a history of scientific labeling of sexual minorities that reflects, and inadvertently advances heterosexist notions.”

While not suggesting an outright jettisoning of the MSM or WSW terminology, Young and Meyer advocate “public health professionals should adopt more nuanced and culturally relevant language in discussing members of sexual-minority groups.”

Voicing agreement, local and national HIV/AIDS activists, organizational leadership, and medical researchers flesh out in further detail the problematic nature of MSM terminology and usage.

“Nobody says, ‘Hi, I am an MSM,’” said Tez Anderson in a recent telephone interview. Anderson is a founder of the San Francisco grassroots group http://www.

LetsKickASS.org. (The acronym ASS stands for AIDS Survivor Syndrome.)

Anderson readily acknowledges MSM came into acceptance with the changing face of the epidemic, particularly the rise of HIV infection among African Americans and Latinos, many on the down low and reluctant to identify as gay although enjoying sex with other men.

Nonetheless, he said, “As a gay man, I kind of resent it because let’s face it: AIDS has been, is, and probably will be a largely gay men’s epidemic.”

Anderson went on to say, “What’s wrong with [MSM] is that it separates a single sexual act from an identity.”

Longtime gay-rights and AIDS activist Jeff Sheehy also finds the term MSM somewhat problematic. However, he said during a recent telephone interview, “I think it made a lot of sense from a surveillance point of view in counting” HIV infections, adding, “It did capture a lot behavior” and is “a way to capture a much broader risk population, a way to define risk,” that is “almost clinical.”

While MSM “made developing programming and programming more accessible,” he said, “It is also disempowering to gay men.”

But MSM nomenclature is okay for blogger, educator, and HIV/ AIDS activist Mark King.

“It always sounded clinical to me, as an out gay man, but nothing that particularly offends me,” he said. “I see it as casting a wider net to capture those who don’t consider themselves gay, and that’s cool.”

Dr. Kenneth Mayer, medical re-

<<

LGBT aging

From page 1

gram in San Francisco for seniors.

Once you lose it, it is likely you will have to move out of the city,” said attorney Bill Ambrunn, who chaired the task force. “We focus on trying to prevent evictions. Whatever is necessary to prevent a senior being evicted is what the city should be doing.”

A main driver for the report’s focus on housing assistance, said task force members, is the lack of services for LGBT seniors who are forced to move out of San Francisco to other cities or states.

“The question is where do you go? San Francisco is our home,” said Tom Nolan, an employee with the city’s Department of Aging and Adult Services assigned to assist the task force. “It cuts across the board for all income ranges.”

Rather than call for new agencies to be created, the panel tailored many of its suggestions to be implemented by already existing service providers and city departments.

t

ity was hampered by this barrier of identity. So on that point, it makes absolute sense.”

But he added that the number of people who fall into that “gay for pay” category is small.

“On the other hand, I believe this risk group is extremely small.

So we are catering to a small group of people who are at risk, and in the process dismissing identities,” Heywood said. “As a self-identified queer man, I find this troubling. It allows, and has allowed, the LGBT national community to completely avoid the continuing impact of this epidemic on gay and bisexual men in particular, and homosexually active men in general. You certainly don’t see the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force or Human Rights Campaign announcing they represent the MSM community, and the thought of that would appall most American LGBT community members, because it strips us of our community, our social identities and reduces us to sex – something we have always been defined by, and often oppressed for. So being defined solely by what we do, or do not do, in our bedrooms, becomes deeply offensive. It ignores this rich diverse community of ours.”

Yet another concern said Heywood, “Is this construct implies that somehow all MSM activity is inherently the same risk level, and that all MSM engage in the same sexual activity. It also implies that somehow heterosexuals do not practice the riskiest sexual activity, anal sex, which we know is simply untrue. This in turn serves to create us as ‘other’ in the minds of modern America, when in fact, we do many of the same things sexually.”

Heywood advocates finding “a balance between the behavioral risk and identity – both for more accurate epidemiology and for more effective prevention messaging.”

“I would caution, however, so many younger folks reject labels, and are happy just being who they are, with whomever they choose.”

For her part, Julie JD Davids, director of the Chicago-based HIV Prevention Justice Alliance, said in an email that her organization “considers MSM to be an epidemiological term, which even at that is often used incorrectly or incompletely, for example, to include men who have sex with men and women, or is used too broadly as with transgender women.”

She added, “Gay and bisexual men is generally preferred as descriptive and culturally-relevant language.”

Still, said Davids, “I sometimes write, cumbersomely, ‘gay and bisexual men, and other men who have sex with men’ if I want to be as all-encompassing as possible.”t

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In offering an assessment, Lance Toma, executive director of San Francisco’s Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center, voiced concerns about transgender exclusion and divisions caused within the LGBT community over MSM’s continued usage.

“The term ‘MSM’ emerged during a time when we were trying to identify and target high-risk behav-

iors in our approach to HIV prevention,” he said in an email. “As our efforts have evolved over time, we now approach this work from both a behavioral lens and an identity lens, meaning that the identity of gay and bisexual men matters when it comes to addressing their needs and concerns related to HIV prevention. MSM must only reflect those men who do not identify as gay or bisexual, but who do have sex with other men. MSM should no longer be used as a catchall term that encompasses identity and behavior.”

Toma continued, “The longstanding injustice of the term MSM at a national level is that it also encompassed the behavioral category of transgender women who were having sex with men. It is imperative that we move beyond this. Our country lagged in its response to the HIV epidemic in the transgender community because of this behavioral targeting in isolation of sexual orientation and gender identity.

This was exacerbated by the fact that data was being collected in this way, completely obscuring the HIV epidemic in the transgender community. The current unacceptably high rates of HIV prevalence in the transgender community is a horrible ramification, and it is our responsibility as a community to make this right and go above and beyond for the health of our transgender community.”

Toma also said the term creates division between the HIV and LGBT communities. “‘MSM’ does not fit in the LGBT community-organizing framework, and it shouldn’t have to. This is where language matters. If we are truly committed to an AIDS-free generation, we must have both the HIV community and the LGBT community working together,” he said.

Based in Lansing, Michigan, freelance journalist and HIV/AIDS educator Todd Heywood went even further, calling out MSM as “inherently transphobic,” adding he struggles with MSM terminology for a couple of reasons.

“The term was adopted by CDC, WHO and other health officials in an attempt to identify behavior and not identities,” Heywood said in an email. “This was done in large part to minimize the stigma of being male and HIV-positive – the implication, of course, was that you were gay. In real terms, there are real people, often young people, struggling for economic survival, who engage in male/male sexual activity as survival sex strategies. They do not identify as gay, and in fact many of them are not gay. They are gay for pay, as the old porno adage goes. So messaging to men at risk because of male/male sexual activ-

“We need to be savvy about what services are out there. The LGBT community seems to be really off the radar,” said task force member Moli Steinert, executive director of Stepping Stone, an adult day health care agency based in San Francisco.

The draft report does call for more affordable housing for LGBT seniors to be built. It includes a number of proposals for how to accomplish that, such as having the city work with the SF Land Trust to set up “at least one” LGBT senior housing co-op and building 200 very lowincome units in the Castro area for LGBT seniors with incomes less than 30 percent of the area median income.

Another suggestion is to have the city fund housing search counseling and rental assistance for LGBT seniors. And the draft report calls on the mayor’s Housing

Opportunity, Partnerships and Engagement office to “commit to a plan” that would reduce LGBT senior homelessness and need for affordable housing by 50 percent by 2019.

The 110 LGBTfriendly rental apartments for low-income seniors that the nonprofit Openhouse is building in the upper Market Street area “is a drop in the bucket,” said Ambrunn.

The oversight body, however, does not expect that building new units will solely solve the housing problem, Ambrunn told the B.A.R. The city estimates there are already 25,000 LGBT residents over the age of 60, and that number is predicted to double by 2030.

Thus, the task force has prioritized improving the housing conditions in apartment buildings and single-room-occupancy hotels where many LGBT seniors who are low-income and/or living with

HIV and AIDS currently reside.

The draft recommendations include having the city’s Department of Building Inspection prioritize addressing complaints from seniors in SROs. The draft report also calls for making it city policy that any organization receiving public funds to place people in SRO hotel rooms and apartments be required to have city inspectors sign off on the units before a person moves in.

“Building more affordable housing is really, realistically, not going to produce enough units for the needs of LGBT seniors,” said Ambrunn.

The LGBT Aging Policy Task Force will meet Tuesday, March 11 to review the draft report and is expected to vote on the final version at its March 25 meeting. Legislation to enact its recommendations is expected to be introduced to the Board of Supervisors in April.

The panel’s meetings begin at 4 p.m. and are held at 25 Van Ness Avenue, Suite 800.t

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: BANKERS PREFERRED, 100 CALIFORNIA ST #1100, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business was conducted by a limited liability company, and signed by BAY EQUITY LLC (CA). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/10/12.

search director and co-chair of the Fenway Institute at Boston’s Fenway Health, discussed MSM’s usefulness within the nuanced and complicated landscape of human behavior.

“Context is key. Sexuality involves a complex array of issues, including attraction, identity, and behavior, and they do not always vary together, and their alignment will differ among different individuals and between different cultures. Specific words are appropriate in different settings,” he said in an email.

“For example,” Mayer continued, “when talking about identity, I think the majority of gay men and transgender women in the U.S. would probably not think ‘MSM’ was an appropriate term, but when the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] or WHO [World Health Organization] is trying to explain how HIV is being transmitted in different parts of the world, then ‘MSM’ is highly appropriate.”

Rafael Mazin, a senior adviser for HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and hepatitis at the Pan American Health Organization, which is the WHO office for the Americas, said that the agency uses the term “MSM as a construct that explains behavior rather than identity or belonging to a certain group or cultures.”

He said the term is useful because it allows policy makers and people responsible for intervention development of provider services that target certain populations who don’t identify as gay or bisexual men.

The agency also acknowledges gay and bi men, for example using “gay men” in its reports, while at the same time “MSM” catches certain behavior and in some cases men who don’t want to acknowledge a gay or bi identity.

Scott Bryan, director of news media for the CDC, said in an email that the agency uses the term “MSM” in CDC surveillance systems and when referring to specific HIV risk behaviors. He added that the following notation is used in many of the agency’s communications materials: “The term men who have sex with men is used in CDC surveillance systems. It indicates the behaviors that transmit HIV infection, rather than how individuals self-identify in terms of the sexuality.”

Trans exclusion

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035635400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TOP LINE APPAREL, 5009 3RD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SARA FRANCISCA BONILLA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/31/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/05/14.

FEB 13, 20, 27, MAR 06, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035647300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FARM TO VINE TOURS, 3055 CALIFORNIA ST #B, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JANETTE DECAIRE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/05/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/10/14.

FEB 13, 20, 27, MAR 06, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035633300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GT APPREAL, 1563 MISSION ST 2ND FL, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GWENDOLINE TAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/02/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/04/14.

FEB 13, 20, 27, MAR 06, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035616500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: IGLESIA CHRISTIANA NO TEMAS QUE YO ESTOY CONTIGO, 3476 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed IGLESIA CHRISTIANA NO TEMAS QUE YO ESTOY CONTIGO (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/28/14.

FEB 13, 20, 27, MAR 06, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035603100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GOLDEN GATE PARK GOLF DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION, 970 47TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed GOLDEN GATE PARK GOLF DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/23/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/23/14.

FEB 13, 20, 27, MAR 06, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035634300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SORELLA SWEETS, 2002 BUCHANAN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SORELLA SWEETS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/17/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/04/14.

FEB 13, 20, 27, MAR 06, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035626100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FIDELITY MORTGAGE, 100 CALIFORNIA ST #1100, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed BAY EQUITY LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/01/09. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/31/14.

FEB 13, 20, 27, MAR 06, 2014 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-034284703

FEB 13, 20, 27, MAR 06, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035648300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TOP MARK TOURS, 435 BROADWAY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARK GITTUS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/11/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/11/14.

FEB 20, 27, MAR 06, 13, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035595200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: S&J SUPPLY, 572 VALENCIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed SAMUEL GENTHNER & JAMES FERNANDEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/17/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/17/14.

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FEB 20, 27, MAR 06, 13, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035664400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PIZZERIA DE BRUNO, 1330 9TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BM HOLDINGS, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/18/14.

FEB 20, 27, MAR 06, 13, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035652800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KROYER CYCLES LLC, 3210 B 22ND ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed KROYER CYCLES LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/12/14.

FEB 20, 27, MAR 06, 13, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035654000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE CASTANET GROUP, LLC, 475 CONNECTICUT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed THE CASTANET GROUP, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/27/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/12/14.

FEB 20, 27, MAR 06, 13, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035656400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BENEDICT ARNOLDS, 930 UNION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed FOOD REVOLUTION LLC, (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/13/14.

FEB 20, 27, MAR 06, 13, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035601100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ANNA’S COTTAGE COLLECTIONS, 245 WEST PORTAL, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed ANNEMARIE HIGGINS & KENNETH L. HIGGINS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/22/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/22/14.

FEB 20, 27, MAR 06, 13, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035636600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: I/O LEGAL GROUP, 2261 MARKET ST #140, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MOIRA LUZ DAWSON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/05/14.

FEB 27, MAR 06, 13, 20, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035648900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GUYS FLOWERS, 2198 15TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GUY CLARK. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/11/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/11/14.

FEB 27, MAR 06, 13, 20, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035675300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FRESH AND FOOLISH, 66 CLEARY CT #509, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed RAHUL NIHALANI & JONATHAN ELLENBOGEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/05/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/18/14.

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FEB 27, MAR 06, 13, 20, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035672600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CABLE CAR WINE & SPIRIT GROCERY, 841 CLEMENT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed CABLE CAR WINE AND SPIRITS, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/21/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/21/14.

FEB 27, MAR 06, 13, 20, 2014 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-033558100

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The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: CABLE CAR WINE & SPIRIT GROCERY, 841 CLEMENT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by KENNY TSANG. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/12/11.

FEB 27, MAR 06, 13, 20, 2014 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-14-550771 In the matter of the application of JOHN LANCE WHITEFORD, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JOHN LANCE WHITEFORD, is requesting that the name JOHN LANCE WHITEFORD, be changed to JACK SORIANO WHITEFORD. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Rm. 514 on the 13th of May 2014 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 06, 13, 20, 27, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035670700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MADISON DREW PHOTOGRAPHY, 1209 37TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ANDREW Y. LEE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/20/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/20/14.

MAR 06, 13, 20, 27, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035687900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FLUIDITY, 143-A PIERCE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JEFFREY ARNOLD TAYLER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/28/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/28/14.

MAR 06, 13, 20, 27, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035676500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SEW; WALKERSHAW CLOTHING, 29-1/2 WEST PORTAL AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed CONNIE WALKER & IRA SHAW. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/24/14.

MAR 06, 13, 20, 27, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035689600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LOUIS, 914 LARKIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed LOUIS GOUDEAU, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/28/14.

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FEB 27, MAR 06, 13, 20, 2014 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035664900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SILVANA SAN FRANCISCO, 2559 38TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed JOSEPH SONG RIN PARK & CHARLES MCHAEL SCHWENKE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/05/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/05/14.

March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 11

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<< Community News

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

t

LGBT activists rally for Honduran community

by Heather Cassell

L

ocal activists have returned from a recent trip to Honduras inspired by the country’s LGBT community.

The delegation of 14 LGBT American activists – three of whom were from the Bay Area – detailed what they learned and actions Americans can take to help queer Hondurans in a new report, “The State of the LGBT Movement in Honduras.”

“It’s the first report of its kind,” said Melissa Stiehler, international coordinator of the Honduran Equality Delegation. “The in-depth report that is focusing on the state of LGBT issues in Honduras hasn’t been done before.

It especially it hasn’t been done before on a grassroots level.”

Stiehler is also the vice president

<<

Lesbian techies

From page 6

it,” said Smith, talking about ideas from U.C. Berkeley economics professor Enrico Moretti’s book, The Geography of Jobs.

“We need to work really collaboratively to get incredibly creative about how to solve,” the transportation issue, continued Smith, who drives her partner, Kara Swisher, and her two boys to school before heading down to Mountain View every morning.

Swisher, who is founder and

<<

Crime victim

From page 2

threats, vandalism, and public intoxication, police said. She was later released.

Hernandez couldn’t be reached for comment.

Police eventually showed Johnston the knife, which he described as “a little jackknife” with a blade that was about two inches long.

of the Cross Border Network for Justice and Solidarity.

The group was in the Central American country in November and December 2013 to observe the presidential election.

This was the second time Stiehler, a 24-yearold queer woman, organized a delegation of LGBT activists to travel to Honduras, a country that is known as the “murder capital of the world” and is on Newsweek’s list of “Twelve Most Homophobic Nations in the world.”

Since 2008, there have been 116 documented murders of LGBT individuals (nine lesbians, 53 gay men, and 54 transgender women), accord-

ing to the 20-page report.

The resistance movement (Popular Front of National Resistance) formed the Libre political party in 2011. The newly formed party made up of laborers, educators, and other disenfranchised groups placed a gay man, the late Erick Martinez Avila, and a transgender woman, Claudia Spellman, on the congressional ballot, an unusual move in a homophobic society.

Martinez was murdered in 2012 and his best friend, fellow gay activist and Libre party member Erick Vidal Martinez Salgado, took his place on the ballot.

One local gay man who went to Honduras in 2012 to observe the

election, Charlie Hinton, 68, returned last year as part of the delegation.

Hinton, along with fellow Bay Area activists Roy Schachter, a 58-year-old gay man, and Mena Tajrishi, a 25-year-old lesbian, to follow up with Honduras’ LGBT activists he met and to be an Heather Cassell observer at the country’s elecSan Francisco Bay Area LGBT toral polls again.

The three activists sat down Honduras delegates, Mena Tajrishi, with the Bay Area Reporter in left, Charlie Hinton, and Roy Schachter talked about their recent visit to the January to recount their trip Central American country. to Honduras and their observations and thoughts about Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula.t the experience.

The group spent 12 days meetA longer version is available at ing with Honduran LGBT leaders ebar.com. and visited queer organizations in

co-executive editor of recode.net, spoke at the summit about journalists marrying entrepreneurialism with their journalistic training and technology in the new media world.

Smith pointed out that with each technology or bioscience job five other jobs are created.

“It’s [an] amazing economic engine for us to pay taxes and fund our schools,” said Smith, stating that urban and transportation planners, politicians, tech industry leaders, and communities can collaborate to solve San Francisco’s modern problems.

“Let’s get really smart about the community we want to be in and evolve together and design together,” she said.

At around the same time as the summit, Google announced it would provide $6.8 million to the city to provide two years of Muni passes to San Francisco youth.

Pittsford put her beliefs into action at the summit by bringing technology and social justice together with a panel discussion about how LGBT nonprofits are using the digital revolution to revolutionize the world.

Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, hijacked the fundraising portion of the panel discussion, “Social Good Pitches,” moderated

by Courtney Cuff, CEO of the Gill Foundation. Kendell not only got each of the five organizations on the panel to receive $1,000 each of the $5,000 donation that was on the table but started a donation bid ending with Smith plopping down $25,000. Together, Kendell and Smith challenged everyone in the room to match the donation to be

shared among the organizations to great applause and cheers.

The business pitches weren’t as lively as four seedling tech companies competed for $2,500. In a Shark Tank-type of presentation Dattch, a lesbian dating app based in England, but which launched in San Francisco the day of the summit, won the prize for being the most innovative tech pitch.t

Johnston’s video, which he sent to the B.A.R., shows brawling among several people standing near Blue.

However, the video doesn’t clearly show anyone making threats to Johnston or holding a knife.

The police report doesn’t list any witnesses other than the victim, according to a department staffer.

Johnston said Sergeant Christopher Beauchamp has been investigating the case.

Beauchamp declined to be interviewed, saying in an email that the case “is still being actively investigated.”

In an email to Johnston, Suhr said, “I don’t blame you for being upset. I’m happy to hear Sgt. Beauchamp’s ‘worked very hard’ on your behalf. I’m sure he is frustrated as well.” Suhr said he’d follow up with Captain Robert Moser, his investigations commander, “to find

out what happened and what can happen going forward.”

Rebecca Prozan, community relations director for District Attorney George Gascón, said, “unfortunately, we did not have enough evidence to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Prozan said, “The video didn’t show what happened,” and prosecutors “needed independent evidence,” such as other video or witnesses

“that corroborated the incident.”

“We want the Castro to be safe for everyone,” she said. “We wish there was more evidence in this case. It’s disturbing to have anyone threatened by a knife in the neighborhood.”

Prosecutors could still charge the case “if we find the evidence,” Prozan said, but because of the time that’s passed, “that’s going to be very difficult at this time.”t

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Remembering Philip

21

Gay 'Days'

18

Out &About

Yellow fever

20

O&A

16

The

Yoga for the ages

Vol. 44 • No. 10 • March 6-12, 2014

www.ebar.com/arts

by Sura Wood

O

ne doesn’t have to a be a yogi, a devotee of same, or a seeker of spiritual enlightenment and a better body to enjoy Yoga: The Art of Transformation, the latest exhibition at the Asian Art Museum. But it does help to possess an inclination toward the subject, if not a fundamental understanding of it, and some familiarity with the basic concepts and terminology. The show bypasses the trendy aspects of the practice and attendant fashion controversies, as well as its appropriation by pop culture and new age cults. Instead, it delves into a surprisingly rich 2,500-year history that reaches from 100 CE through the 1940s, exploring Yoga’s origins and centrality in India, its underlying philosophical tenets, and its role in Jain, Buddhist, Hindu and Sufi religious traditions. Even a dabbler can appreciate the exhibition’s illuminating historical perspective as well as the paintings, illustrated manuscripts, old photographs and especially the sculptures. My own experience with Yoga is limited to exercises picked up in dance classes over the years, but I was nonetheless intrigued by the art it engendered and the historical narrative expertly amplified by the curators.

See page 23 >>

Vishnu as Vishvarupa: Vishnu Vishvarupa (approx. 1800-20), opaque watercolor and gold on paper by Bulaki.

Yoga Vishny in his ManLion Avatar: Vishnu in his man-lion incarnation as Yoga-Narasimha (approx. 1250), bronze.

Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art

Seasons on stage to come

by Richard Dodds

T

hese seasons’ greetings are neither highly belated nor extremely premature, since it’s not sleigh bells we are hearing, but rather the trumpets of several area theaters heralding what shows will carry them through the 2014-15 season. But much like the piles of wrapped presents beneath a Christmas tree, the contents will variously produce smiles, frowns, shrugs, and a few heads scratched in bemusement. Here are some of the highlights, starting with one of the expected smiles.

See page 22 >>

David Shiner and Bill Irwin of Fool Moon fame reunite in Old Hats to open the ACT season.

{ SECOND OF TWO SECTIONS }

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<< Out There

14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

Coming symphonic attractions

by Roberto Friedman

are ordinary people in ordinary circumstances, and they include a fair representation of gay people. Case in point: Sabelo Mlangeni’s photograph of two gay men in intimate posture relaxing in a public park.

It immediately went to the top of OT’s list of favorite contemporary portraiture.

There’s lots more to see in this big group show, including work by apartheid-era photographers such as Ian Berry, Ernest Cole and David Goldblatt; issues of Chronic from the pan-African publishing collective Chimurenga; documentation of performance art by AthiPatra Ruga; props and video from Handspring Puppet Company’s Or You Could Kiss Me, about elderly male partners; and animation from William Kentridge, one of the master artists of our time. Set aside a good chunk of time to go through the show, as it’s large and will reward close attention. Info: www.ybca.org.

A

special press event last week supplied details of the San Francisco Symphony’s 2014-15 Season, which celebrates the 20th anniversary of the artistic partnership between Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and the Symphony he leads. Out There was in the house in Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall as maestro MTT, SFS cellist Margaret Tait representing the musicians, SFS President Sakurako Fisher, Executive Director Brent Assink, Director of Artistic Planning John Mangum, and composer Samuel Adams announced the orchestra’s 2014-15 season of concerts and events commemorating 20 years of MTT & the SFS. There are a lot of intriguing offerings coming up next season, including a multimedia Missa Solemnis and a concert staging of Fidelio with opera luminaries Nina Stemme and Brandon Jovanovich, both part of a promising Beethoven Festival; a new version of John Cage’s Renga; and a performance of Liszt’s seldom-staged powerhouse Hexameron for Six Pianos and Orchestra. The season calendar also promises gems by contemporary American composers including John Adams, his son Sam Adams, no relation John Luther Adams, and wunderkind Mason Bates. The popular SFS film series continues, bringing The Wizard of Oz and The Godfather, accompanied by orchestra, to Davies Hall.

But the masterpieces of the classical repertoire are still the bread-and-butter of SFS programming, and rightly so. MTT likened these master symphonies to America’s national parks, which are a joy to return to no matter how many times you visit them. “We know the map to the park (the score),” we’re paraphrasing MTT, “but being on the trail is very different from looking at the map. It’s a different experience every time.”

The Symphony pulled out all the stops for this season announcement, even putting its prized trophies on display, in a case of Grammys and Emmys. The institu-

t

Courtesy the artist and Stevenson, Cape Town and Johannesburg

“Couple Bheki and Sipho,” gelatin silver print from the series Country Girls (2009) by Sabelo Mlangeni.

Zero hour Art Streiber

San Francisco Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas has a lot to celebrate this coming year.

tion is feeling especially celebratory, as MTT’s 70th birthday also comes up next season, a milestone that will be honored with a January gala. Drapes hung in the rehearsal hall glowed a resplendent, royal blue, MTT’s favorite color. Study the hue of his shirt in the press photo, and show up in the color on your next visit to the symphony hall for brownie points.

Intimate acts

The art exhibition Public Intimacy – Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa, a co-presentation of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) at YBCA through June 29, presents the work of 25 artists and artist collectives who will change your preconceived notions of that nation. Many of the subjects of these photographs and artworks

One of the most profound art experiences of the year so far for OT has been a screening of Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki’s latest movie, The Wind Rises, at Landmark’s Embarcadero Center Cinema. It’s based on the biography of the Japanese WWII-era aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi, who designed what would become the Zero fighter plane. It seems odd to celebrate the design genius behind martial terror, but it’s clear from Miyazaki’s hagiographic creation that Horikoshi was interested in the beauty, the metaphysics, and the art of aviation design, not so much in its horrific application.

The film contains masterful depictions of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which razed Tokyo, and other historical events.

But at its heart it’s a romance and a romantic meditation on human flight. It takes its title from a poem

by French poet Paul Valéry: “The wind is rising./We must try to live.”

Landmark is offering screenings in both subtitled and dubbed versions; the latter, which we saw, includes voicings by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, John Krasinki, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, Martin Short and Mandy Patinkin. The caliber of the names attached to it gives a clue to the prestige of the project, which Miyazaki claims will be his last. t

Courtesy Touchstone Pictures

The young Jiro Horikoshi, as seen in Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki’s film The Wind Rises.

You are what you see

by Michael McDonagh

Y

ou could live in a palace and be unhappy, or live in a hovel and be happy. It all depends on your point of view. Strong points of view have defined Godfrey Reggio’s silent films with music for over 30 years. His latest, Visitors, is all about perception, though it’s considerably different from his Qatsi trilogy, which made his reputation. Koyaanisqatsi (1982), Powaaqatsi (1998) and Naqoyqatsi (2002) were, like Visitors, produced by his social awareness group the Institute for Regional Education, and took on the destructive effects of technology on American landscapes; the preying of the industrial world on the “undeveloped” Third World; and the global effects of “civilized violence,” or life as war. Visitors is a logical extension of these concerns.

This time, Reggio’s film (Jon Kane is co-director and chief editor) is shot in sumptuous black-and-white 4K HD digital, and its images are severely circumscribed. Triska, a female lowland gorilla from the Bronx Zoo, faces staring at the viewer for what seems an eternity (a minute) in our sped-up time; a Louisiana bayou is shot in extreme slow-motion; and a crowd at a movie reacts to what they see but we can’t. It’s obviously a personal film, and its success or failure depends on what you bring to it.

Reggio has once again brought composer Philip Glass on board.

Collaborations between directors and composers have played a big part in film history: Prokofiev with Eisenstein, Herrmann with Welles and Hitchcock, Rota with Fellini, Alex North with John Huston, and John Williams with Spielberg. Glass’ work with Reggio is equally seminal, though in a different way, because his music locates the images and their meanings in a different kind of musical space. It has no story to tell, and can therefore accommodate almost anything the listener brings.

Glass’ music director/conductor Michael Riesman is happy to talk

A dummy in director Godfrey Reggio’s Visitors.

about Visitors via e-mail and phone from New York. “There are both tritones and augmented triads in many places,” he says. Glass has exploited these harmonic tactics in works as disparate as his 9th Symphony (2012) and opera The Voyage (1991). “The opening track is all in 3/4 except the opening harp rolls, but you wouldn’t know where the downbeat is without a score. Phrases go against the meter in the first movement particularly.”

We focus on the music’s technical demands – the repetitions, of course, but “there are different counts in different lines,” winds vs. brass vs. strings.

Riesman stresses the irregular counts and phrase lengths. And he says conducting it live with the film, which he did at its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival last year and at the Sydney Opera House, is different from doing the Qatsi films live, because the music doesn’t line up as specifically as, say, the cues in Koyaanisqatsi. “I didn’t have to be as close to my prescribed time, and could skip a 16th note or two. I could use vibrato and sometimes a little ritard.” Delayed tempo or a delayed sense of time seems to be what Visitors is about.

But what you see will be determined by what you feel. Where you are when you see it is how it will be, as when, not caffeinated enough, I caught it just days before Christmas at a morning press showing on a huge screen at the Embarcadero, then stepped out into that brisk, full-color day.t

Dance>>

t Like stars on a summer night

March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 15

Erik Tomasson

San Francisco Ballet in “The Kingdom of the Shades” from Makarova/Petipa’s La Bayadére, Act II.

by Paul Parish

A

ll three ballets on San Francisco Ballet’s third program were thrilling, each in its way, and in such different ways they make the case for the triple bill. It’s box-office wisdom now that “full-evening” story ballets are what the public wants, but I seriously doubt that as many balletomanes will go back for third and fourth visits to the forthcoming Cinderella (smash hit though it was last year) as returned to see La Bayadere, Ghosts and Firebird last week. Each ballet was enthralling in its way and repaid all the attention you could give it. Each deserves more discussion than space allows.

Bayaderka (as it’s known in Russia) premiered in St. Petersburg 150 years ago; created by Marius Petipa to rival Aida, it is a ballet on the grandest scale, doom-laden and exotic, luxuriating in triumphal marches, rajahs, tropical beasts, palm fans, palaces and temples that collapse – and rival ballerinas: the temple dancer Nikiya and her archenemy, the rajah’s daughter, who has her murdered, by snake-bite. We saw one scene from it, the third-act “ballet blanc” which constitutes a ballet within the ballet – our grieving hero’s opium dream in which he sees a vision of his dead beloved (Maria Kochetkova) mirrored in countless ghostly echoes of herself (27 soloists and dancers from the corps de ballet). The scene was staged by Natalia Makarova, herself once a great Nikiya.

The entrance of the shades is perhaps the most mesmerizing display of the power of classical ballet ever.

The dancers come out like stars on a summer evening – first one, who immediately expands her image by several orders of magnitude by raising her back leg. From finger to toe she’s doubled in length, and takes the light in such a way as to brighten the whole stage. She then steps for-

ward, the place behind her is taken by another, and these two repeat the same fascinating modular phrase.

And so on: dancers enter, proceeding down a ramp, then crisscrossing the stage, one after another, slowly filling the stage with 24 dancers (in 1871, there were 64 dancers on their colossal stage). The effect is hypnotic. When the ballet was first seen in New York in the middle of the last century, minimalists like Carl André went crazy over it, since the dancers seemed to prophesy the aesthetic of his installations. The exactness of the dancers’ positions, the austerity, geometry, and the intensity of the negative space certainly echo the Minimalists’ aesthetic, and they also evoke the uncanny world of loss.

Petipa develops this mood with sparkling variations for three soloists, the first a trail of stardust for a soloist running effortlessly on her pointes (the adorable Mathilde Froustey), the third a stunning series of springs to a dead stop (Frances Chung), also with grand entrances for the hero, danced with wild abandon by the Russian guest artist Denis Matvienko, and a grand duet where he is reunited with Nikiya.

The drama on opening night was complicated by Matvienko’s disregard for his ballerina’s needs. He presented himself with a wildness that won the audience but made me worry he’d overshoot himself.

Perhaps he was ill. Kochetkova pulled more and more into herself as Matvienko left her unsupported, and proved that she is such a powerful dancer she could do this dance by herself if she had to. The public did notice that Nikiya was not giving her grieving lover a warm welcome; dancers in the audience could tell she was nailing her phrases to the beat – her wrist would put the finial on the pose as if she were striking a chime. It works as an interpretation, though it is more minimalist than romantic. Applause was

thunderous for the corps; Elizabeth Powell led the Shades onto the stage.

Drowning world

Christopher Wheeldon’s Ghosts (2010) is liquid where Bayadere is crystalline, but the dancers melted and poured through it with such grace and awareness of all its nuances that this ballet seemed to continue the atmosphere of the uncanny that had been established by the shades. The piece is even more abstract than Bayadere. We do not know what Elysium these dancers inhabit, though the scenery suggests a wreck at sea, as if debris were slowly descending from on high, as if a whole world were drowning. The serenity of the community here is suggested by the way the dancers move, which infuses ballet See page 22 >>

ebar.com

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CHEYENNE JACKSON

VONDA SHEPARD

STEVE TYRELL

March 6 - 9

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March 14 - 16

March 27 - 30

For tickets: www.feinsteinssf.com Erik Tomasson

San Francisco Ballet in Christopher Wheeldon’s Ghosts.

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<< Theatre

16 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

Mississippi emotions

by Richard Dodds

T

here are reviewer’s cliches that have been so overworked that they now read as punchlines. “Run, don’t walk” is one of them, and “If you see just one show this year” is also high on the list. But the topper must be “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry.” I never thought I’d be starting a review with that topper, but those are the words that kept reverberating after seeing Yellow at New Conservatory Theatre Center. So, damn it all, here it is: You’ll laugh, you’ll cry. And I’ll admit it. I did both.

Even though playwright Del Shores’ more recent works have gone into darker territories, he will probably always be best remembered as the man who wrote Sordid Lives – the play, the movie, and the television series. And I suspect many in the opening-night audience still had the campy southern-fried comedy of Sordid Lives in mind as Yellow unfolded in director Ed Decker’s high-quality production.

There is campy comedy in the new play, especially in the first act, but it comes in the specific context of a more traditional family story with its own share of laugh-producing

peccadillos. And some of that camp – mainly represented in a musical theater geek’s elaborately displayed passions – is used in the second act to help keep the play from plummeting into despair and recriminations. Not that Shores completely avoids overplaying melodrama, but there is compensating honesty with flashes of humor to ultimately provide a satisfying journey through its emotional spirals.

All the action unfolds at the Westmoreland home, a reasonably sane and liberal household in Vicksburg, Miss. The father is a high school football coach, his wife a psychotherapist, and their son a star athlete. Their daughter is fixated on becoming the next Meryl Streep, and her lust for fame is abetted by a high school friend who everyone knows is gay except himself.

His own aspirations of Broadway glory are condemned by his Biblethumping mother, who considers even a high school production of Oklahoma! to be the devil’s work.

And so we mostly merrily roll along until shortly before the first-act curtain, when a one-two punch sends us into the lobby knowing we are in for a rough ride in the second act.

Because there are enough hints throughout the first act, it’s not giving too much away to say that one of those dramatic punches has the son falling ill, but further plot twists are best left to audiences to discover. The illness does cause every other character to reevaluate his or her life, some of which involves wrenching emotional confrontations that the playwright can extend beyond their dramatic need or that involve contrivances straining at the foundations of credibility.

There is no dispute, however, with a top-notch production that begins with Kuo-Hao Lo’s multiarea set that has been masterfully designed to fit into a relatively small space. Then come the performances that lead us confidently into the world that Shores has created.

Andrew Nance and Dana Zook play the parents with dreamy-eyed affection before they must tear out their hearts in scenes so wrenching that I briefly feared for the actors’ abilities to arise from these depths.

Damion Matthews could hardly be more appealing as their son, a jock who shakes the audience with a moment of brave kindness. His younger sister who always feels she’s

Look back in bewilderment

by Richard Dodds

T

here is “Q,” and then there is “q.” In one version of the string of letters in current use to denote alternative sexualities, LGBTQQI, the first “Q” is for “queer,” and the second for “questioning.” At the start of Mommy Queerest at the Exit Theatre, Kat Evasco argues that the questioning “Q” should actually be lower-cased since it lacks the commitment of the other initials. While

Evasco definitively declares herself a lesbian deserving of an upper-case “L,” she spent years coping with a heartbroken mother certain her daughter was destined for hell, or at least for heaven with her eyes poked out. But all along, Mom was sharing a bed with another woman who took refuge in claims of a lower-case “q” status.

Evasco’s one-woman show, cowritten with and directed by John Caldon, is an explosively funny and

seductively revealing look back in bewilderment as her own sexuality came into focus amid the mores of Filipino-American culture and a mother in denial. Graphic sexual remembrances that might seem shocking if simply written out here become part of the high-comedy fabric of the show thanks to Evasco’s affable, informal, and even jubilant presentation and a matter-of-fact delivery of what could be disturbing revelations.

Developed by Guerilla Rep and

t

Lois Tema

Maurice Andre San-Chez, right, tries to cheer up his ailing high school friend (Damion Matthews) in a scene from Del Shores’ Yellow at NCTC.

an afterthought is played with glorious brattiness by Ali Haas. Maurice Andre San-Chez is a delight as the frequent houseguest, a queen in the making, who is variously rehearsing his dance steps for Oklahoma!, fantasizing with the daughter about their inevitable roles on Glee, or reenacting Kiss of the Spider Woman as a bedtime story for the ailing son.

Linsay Rousseau, in the unenviable role of the religious fanatic, a kissing cousin to the mom in Carrie, has a steely conviction that is properly scary.

Shores is unlikely to ever fully pull audiences away from Sordid Lives expectations, at least not those who have yet to see Yellow. Those who do get to see it during the NCTC run won’t soon forget that the playwright is willing to radically veer from the road that led to his first glory, yet still leave audiences happy that they took the ride.t

DIVAfest from a 2011 workshop production, this official premiere of Mommy Queerest has a simple but imaginative set by Caldon, oftenhilarious video elements by Julien Elstob, and a busy sound design

by Alejandro D. Acosta. The show goes far beyond a single performer taking occasional steps away from center stage as Mommy Queerest often erupts into elaborate exaggerations on the story Evasco has to tell.

At one point, we are thrust into

a Jerry Springer episode as Evasco and her mother confront each other before Evasco’s abusive girlfriend and her mother’s live-in companion are brought onto the stage as accusations, profanities, and even chairs are thrown – and remember, this is a solo performance. At other points, Evasco evokes her story in Filipino soap opera styles or as the pastor at her mother’s church working the

Yellow will run at New Conservatory Theatre Center through March 23. Tickets are $25-$45. Call 861-8972 or go to www.nctcsf.org.

See page 17 >>

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Music>>

March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 17

Massive performances in Davies Hall

by Philip Campbell

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an Francisco Symphony Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas was back on the podium at Davies Symphony Hall last week, guiding massive performances of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 in D minor.

The week preceding MTT’s return brought another maestro back to the hall after a much longer absence.

Spanish conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos was last here in 1985 when he was 52 years old. He turned 80 last September. Considering the legendary longevity of orchestra leaders, his age would not ordinarily be an issue, but it is remarkable how the intervening years have brought such an abundance of late-in-life accolades and professional success.

In 2011, Musical America named him Conductor of the Year, and he began his post as Chief Conductor of the Danish National Orchestra at the start the 2012-13 season. Not bad for an old dude; really must have something to do with upperbody strength and living one’s passion. Whatever the reasons for the elder maestro’s vitality, his artistry was what we appreciated most when he joined with the SFS for a lovely and suitably seductive magic carpet ride through Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade.

The first half of the program was devoted to a very different kind of music-making. Opening the bill with a crisp and nicely plump rendition of Haydn’s Symphony No. 6 in D Major, Le Matin (The Morning), led to the appearance of young cellist Alisa Weilerstein performing the same composer’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major.

The difference in sound between the first half of the program and the second was less jarring than one might have imagined. Both

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de Burgos and Weilerstein took a robust approach to Papa Haydn’s witty compositions with a distinctly human narrative that propelled both scores musically while engaging the listener’s imagination. Weilerstein’s open and rich tone, with a pleasant edge, made her interpretation both satisfying and individual. We also appreciated her subtle air of authority and obvious enjoyment. It was good to see a young artist delivering on the promise of an early career.

The Scheherazade that followed after intermission was another kind of storytelling altogether. You would have to be made of wood not to be swept along with the gorgeous sweep of Rimsky-Korsakov’s invention, and the Spanish maestro clearly got the sinuous Oriental appeal of the composer’s tale, with an interpretation that let the orchestra revel in the sheer sensuality of the orchestration. He even got a few sly dance moves in while allowing associate concertmaster Nadya Tichman a deserved starring role as the fabled narrator. Her playing was both controlled and beautifully persuasive.

We don’t get nearly enough of her as a soloist, so it was especially gratifying how she took ownership of the all-important violin assignment.

Epic storytelling

Last week MTT was telling an epic tale as well with the huge Mahler Third. The SFS welcomed guest soloist mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke with the Women of the SFS Chorus (Ragnar Bohlin, director) and the San Francisco Girls Chorus (Valerie Sainte-Agathe, music director) to Davies Hall for a glorious “preview” presentation that will also be performed several times on the orchestra’s European tour this month.

Mahler wanted to do no less than tell the story of the world in the Third Symphony, and he wrote about his cerebral subtext at length.

Ultimately he decided to let the music speak for itself, and brave conductors have been grappling with the mighty masterpiece ever since. The stop-start mood of the long opening movement was emphasized to great effect by MTT in his latest effort, and it set the mood (to say the very least) for the arduous journey to a triumphant finale.

Sasha Cooke, a favorite to MTT and to everyone who has the privilege to hear her, was predictably impressive singing the words of Nietzsche in “O Mensch! Gib Acht!” (“Take heed, humanity!”). Cooke’s

Dario Acosta

Soloist mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke: a treat is in store for the tour.

career has really taken flight, and she will doubtless prove a revelation to European listeners as well.

The choral contributions were spot-on too, with the Women of the SFS Chorus projecting a strength that still managed a clear delicacy.

Principal trombonist Timothy Higgins and principal trumpeter Mark Inouye both performed ex-

quisitely moving solos off-stage, but the entire SFS deserved the extended standing ovation that came at the thrilling conclusion. This was a fine example of how music has the power to tell a story, express a philosophy, and heal the listener.

MTT’s mature mastery of Mahler should make the upcoming tour a huge success.t

Mommy Queerest

From page 16

center aisle as she preaches against homosexuality.

The tale ends on a note of reconciliation and understanding between mother and daughter, with Evasco claiming her right to go to heaven. “It doesn’t matter if I eat pussy or suck dick,” she says, “I’m a loving person.”

And on opening night, there was physical evidence in our midst. In a curtain-call speech, Evasco introduced her mother and her mother’s companion seated in the audience holding a bouquet of flowers. t Mommy Queerest will run at Exit Theatre through March 29.

Tickets are $15-$25, available at brownpapertickets.com/ event/547871.

In Mommy Queerest, Kat Evasco plays multiple characters as she recalls her youth as an emerging lesbian with a closeted mother.

Explore the exuberant charm of Mary Blair, one of Walt Disney’s most inventive and influential designers and art directors. Blair’s joyful creativity, her appealing designs, and her energetic color palette endure in numerous media, including the classic Disney animated films Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan, and also in the theme park attraction it’s a small world.

WALTDISNEY.ORG 104 Montgomery Street San Francisco, CA 94129 Mary Blair, concept artwork for Peter Pan (1953); collection Walt Disney Family Foundation, gift of Ron and Diane Disney Miller; © Disney | MAGIC, COLOR, FLAIR: the world of Mary Blair is organized by The Walt Disney Family Museum | © The Walt Disney Family Museum® Disney Enterprises, Inc. | © 2014 The Walt Disney Family Museum, LLC | The Walt Disney Family Museum is not affiliated with Disney Enterprises, Inc.

<< Out&About

18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

O&A

Escabana in da Moonlight @ Live Oak Theatre, Oakland

Out &About

Theatre First’s production of Jeff Daniels’ comedy about the kooky residents of a deer farm. $15-$30. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun. 5pm. Thru March 8. 1301 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 981-8150. www.theatrefirst.com

Gideon’s Knot @ Aurora Theatre, Berkeley

Sat 8

Henry Schreiber’s Hollerbound paintings

Creative creatures

by Jim Provenzano

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bit of rain, a bit of sun; talent in this town’s like the weather. One day it sucks beans, another day a creature from heaven-on-earth pops into town to burn your ears with auditory beauty, stunning images, or a searingly honest memoir.

Thu 6 Bread and Circuses @ La Val’s Subterranean, Berkeley Impact Theatre’s spicy mix of new and action-packed (i.e. violent) short plays

by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Prince Gomolvilas, Declan Greene, Lauren Gunderson, Dave Holstein, J.C. Lee, Ross Maxwell, Lauren Yee, and Steve Yockey. $10-$25. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 7pm. Thru April 6. 1834 Euclid Ave., Berkeley. www.impacttheatre.com

Crystal Springs @ Eureka Theatre Kathy Rucker’s drama about a mother who gets caught up in her daughter’s online world. $20-$65. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm.

Thru March 23. 215 Jackson St. (800) 8383006. www.CrystalSpringsThePlay.com

Healthier Living @ LGBT Center Openhouse presents weekly workshops for LGBT adults ages 55+ that share information and motivation. Thru March 13. 10am-12:30pm. Community Room 306, 1800 Market St. www.openhouse-sf.org

Lasso of Truth @ Marin Theatre Carson Kreitzer’s lighthearted play about William Moulton Marston (creator of Wonder Woman and inventor of the first working lie detector) and the women in his life. $20-$53. Thru Mar. 16. 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. 388-5208. www.marintheatre.org

Michelle Coltrane @ Yoshi’s Oakland Enjoy classic and contemporary jazz from the talented singer, who performs music from her new CD. $25. 8pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square.

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

Napoli! @ Geary Theatre American Conservatory Theatre presents Beatrice Basso and Linda Alper’s new translation of Eduardo De Filippo’s Italian dramedy about a family’s black market business during the tumult of World War II in Italy. $20-$120. Wed-Sun various times.

Thru March 9. 415 Geary St. 749-2228. www.act-sf.org

food/beverage min. Thu 8pm, Fri 7pm & 9:30pm, Sat & Sun 7pm. Thru March 9.

Hotel Nikko lobby, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.feinsteinssf.com

Robert Moses’ Kin @ ODC Theater Draft/BY Series, Moses’ latest work, presented as part of the Black Choreographers Festival. $18-$25. Thu-Sat 8pm. 3153 17th St. 863-9834. www.odcdance.org

San Francisco Symphony @ Davies Symphony Hall Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the symphony, with violinist Julia Fischer, in performances of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Opus 19, and Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique, Opus 14 $15-$180. 201 Van Ness Ave. 864-6000. www.sfsymphony.org

The Scion @ The Marsh Solo performer Brian Copeland’s new show focuses on privilege, murder and sausage in his retelling of the triple murder crime at the Santos Linguisa Factory. $15-$60. Thu & Fri 8pm. Sat 5pm. Extended thru April 18. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Fri 7 Asaf Avidan @ Bimbo’s 365 Club The amazing Israeli blues-folk-R&B vocalist, who’s been compared to Jeff Buckley, Nina Simone and even Janis Joplin, performs at the North Beach nightclub. $25. 9pm. 1025 Columbus Ave. 474-0365. www.asafavidanmusic.com www.bimbos365club.com

Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi The musical comedy revue celebrates its 40th year with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs. $25-$160. Beer/wine served; cash only; 21+, except where noted. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St.). 421-4222. www.beachblanketbabylon.com

New and Classic Films @ Castro Theatre Mar. 6 & 7, American Hustle. Mar. 8, Peaches Christ presents Clueless (see Sat).

Mar. 9, William Holden double feature, Sunset Boulevard (2:30, 7pm) and Picnic (4:35, 9pm). Mar. 10, Nebraska (7pm) and Smile (9:10). Mar. 11, Inside Llewyn Davis (4:45, 7pm, 9:10). Mar. 12, Philip Seymour Hoffman double feature: Flawless (7pm) and Boogie Nights (9:05). Mar. 13, CAAMfest opening night, How To Fight in Six Inch Heels (7pm). $11. 429 Castro St. 621-6120. www.castrotheatre.com

Paula West @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The renowned Bay Area jazz vocalist performs an all-new show with her fourpiece band in a special four-week residency at the elegant nightclub. $35-$50; $20

Johnna Adams’ award-winning twoperson drama between a teacher and a problem student’s mother explores issues of personal responsibility, freedom of expression, bullying and blame. $32-$50.

Tue 7pm, Wed-Sat 8pm, Sun 2pm & 7pm.

Extended thru March 9. 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org

JD Samson & MEN @ The Chapel The fab lesbian singer (Le Tigre) performs new punk/pop/alt music from the new CD Labor at the popular bar-nightclubrestaurant. Skip the Needle and People at Parties open. $16-$18. 9pm. 777 Valencia St. 551-5157. www.thechapelsf.com

Jerusalem @ SF Playhouse Local production of Jez Butterworth’s Tony and Olivier-winning witty British drama, where the values of losing ancient Celtic ruins vs. building council flats compare to the loss of family cohesion. $20-$100. Tue & Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm, Sun 2pm. Thru March 8. 450 Powell St., 2nd. floor. 677-9596. www.sfplayhouse.org

Josh Klipp and The Klipptones @ Palace Hotel The local jazz crooner and his band perform weekly shows at the hotel’s lounge, which draws a growing swingdance audience. Thru March 21. 7pm11pm. 2 New Montgomery. www.joshklipp.com

Julia Jackson @ Stage Werx Theatre Children are Forever (All Sales are Final!), the solo performer’s comic show about motherhood. $15. Fri & Sat 8pm. Thru Mar. 22. 446 Valencia St. www.stagewerx.org

Little Shop of Horrors @ Lohman Theatre, Los Altos Hills Foothill Music Theatre’s production of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s hit Off-Broadway musical based on the Roger Corman film about an alien carnivorous plant that also talks and sings. $13-$28.

Thu 7:30, Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru March 9. Foothill College, 12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills. (650) 949-7360. www.foothill.edu/theatre/shop

Magnificent Magnolias @ SF Botanical Gardens See blooming magnolia trees and exhibits.

Also, daily walking tours and more. Thru March 31. Also, hundreds of species of native wildflowers in a century-old grove of towering Coast Redwoods. Free-$15.

Daily. Golden Gate Park. 6612-1316. www.SFBotanicalGarden.org

A Maze @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley Shotgun Players present Just Theater’s production of Rob Handel’s play about three intertwined stories: a teenage girl recovering from a years-long kidnapping, a post-rehab rock band, and an artist dealing with his cult following. $25-$25. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 5pm. Thru March 9. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. (510) 214-3780. www.justheater.org

Sunday in the Park With George @ Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, Oakland Stephen Sondheim’s beautiful stirring Pulitzer Prize-winning musical about painter George Seurat (and his artistic grandson) is performed by Youth Musical Theatre Company. $13-$26. Fri & Sat 7pm.

Sun 2pm. Thru March 9. 1428 Alice St., Oakland. (510) 595-5514. www.ymtcberkeley.org/sunday-in-the-park

Ubu Roi @ Exit on Taylor Cutting Ball Theater’s production of Alfred Jarry’s 1896 parody of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (the original premiere induced riots, and is considered a pivotal early experimental absurd comedy), newly translated by Rob Melrose. $10-$50. Thu 7:30, Fri & Sat 8pm, Sat 2pm, Sun 5pm.

Extended thru March 9. 277 Taylor St. 5251205. www.cuttingball.com

Yellow @ New Conservatory Theatre Center Bay Area premiere of Del Shores’ new play about a Southern family, and how a catastrophe forces them to unite. $25-$45.

Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru March 23.

25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. 861-8972. www.nctcsf.org

Sat 8 Accidental Death of an Anarchist @ Berkeley Repertory Comic actor Steven Epp stars in Dario Fo’s political farce about bureaucratic duplicity and political corruption. $29-$57. Tue-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm & 7pm. Roda Stage, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

After the War Blues @ Zellerbach Playhouse, Berkeley UC Berkeley’s Theatre department performs Philip Kan Gotanda’s compelling drama about a post-WWII JapaneseAmerican jazz trumpeter who returns to San Francisco’s Tenderloin after being interred in a POW camp. $10-$15. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru March 16. UC Berkeley campus. www.tdps.berkeley.edu

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The House That Will Not Stand @ Berkeley Repertory World premiere of local playwright Marcus Gardley’s historical drama about Creole Women in 1830s New Orleans who had common-law marriages with wealthy white men. $29-$59. Tue, Thu-Sat 8pm.

Wed & Sun 7pm. Also Sat & Sun 2pm.Thru March 23. Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2918. www.berkeleyrep.org

In Love and Struggle @ La Pena Cultural Center, Berkeley Vixen Noir, Kaila Love and The Average Dyke Band perform at an International Women’s Day celebration, and a fundraiser for Berkeley Cop Watch, which monitors police abuse; spoken word and DJed dancing, too. $10-$15. 7:30pm. (510) 5480425. www.lapena.org

Marga Gomez @ The Marsh Lovebirds, the lesbian comic’s new solo show, portrays an array of wacky characters, from different eras, each searching for love. $15-$50. Thu & Fri 8pm.

Sat. 8:30pm. Thru March 15. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Medea @ Buriel Clay Theatre African-American Shakespeare Company’s production of Euripedes’ classic tragedy about Jason’s vengeful wife. $12-50-$50.

Sat 8pm. Sun 3pm. Thru Mar. 30. 762 Fulton St. www.african-americanshakes.org

The Music Man @ Berkeley Playhouse The East Bay youth theatre company performs Meredith Wilson’s Tony Awardwinning musical about a con artist and small town values. $17-$60. Thu & Fri 7pm. Sat 1pm & 6pm. Sun 12pm & 5pm.

Thru Mar. 23. Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave., Berkeley. (510) 845-8542. www.berkeleyplayhouse.org

Sat 8

Clueless @ Castro Theatre Peaches Christ hosts a screening of the comedy film, with a drag pre-show “Get a Clue” featuring Willam and Mahlae Balenciaga. $15-$25. 8pm. 429 Castro St. www.peacheschrist.com www.castrotheatre.com

Feisty Old Jew @ The Marsh Charlie Veron’s new solo show about a fictional elder man who hitches a ride with surfer-hipsters, and rants about what he hates about the 21st century. $25-$100.

Sat 8pm, Sun 7pm. Thru March 16. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Henry Schreiber/The Grotesque @ Modern Eden Gallery Hollerbound, the artist’s strangely cute kitsch paintings of anthropomorphic groundhogs, visualize his comic edge.

Also, The Grotesque, a group exhibition of delightfully disturbing paintings and multimeda. Opening reception Mar. 8, 6pm-10pm. Both thru Mar. 22, Tue-Sat 10am-6pm. 403 Francisco St. at Powell. www.moderneden.com

Scott Dreier

Scott Dreier @ Hotel Rex Society Cabaret presents the singer-actor ( Forever Plaid and other shows), who performs Doris and Me, his music and story tribute to Doris Day, and his obsession with the cheerful actress-singer. $20-$45. 8pm.

Also March 9, 2pm. 562 Sutter St. www. societycabaret.com

SF Hiking Club @ Del Valle Regional Park Join GLBT hikers for a 10-mile hike in a valley framed by oak-covered hills in Del Valle Regional Park near Livermore.

Carpool meets 8:45 at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. (510)684-6506. www.sfhiking.com

New Experimental Plays Festival @ Exit on Taylor Cutting Ball Theater’s 15th annual new experimental theatre series includes staged readings and productions of five new plays. $20-$50 (5-play pass). Fri & Sat thru March 29. 277 Taylor St. 525-1205. www.cuttingball.com

Public Intimacy @ YBCA

Sat 7

Darlene Love

Darlene Love @ Nourse Theater Singer-author performs her music and discusses her book My Name is Love with Steven Winn. $27-$35. 7:30pm. 275 Hayes St. 392-4400. www.cityarts.net www.booksinc.net

SF MOMA on the Go exhibit Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa, a collection of photography, with artists Kemang Wa Lehulere, AthiPatra Ruga, Sello Pesa, and Vaughn Sadie, among others. Thru June 29. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. 3211307. www.sfmoma.org www.ybca.org

Shit & Champagne @ Rebel D’Arcy Drollinger’s “whitesploitation” drag satire musical play kicks up the laughs; also starring Matthew Martin. $20-$25.

Fri & Sat, 8pm. Open-ended run.

1772 Market St. at Octavia. www.shitandchampagne.eventbrite.com

Sat 8 Yellow

Lois Tema

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Out&About>>

March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 19

Thu 13

Companhia Urbana de Dança

The Speakeasy @ Boxcar Theatre

Our Vast Queer Past @ GLBT History Museum

Meditation Group @ LGBT Center

Nick A. Olivero’s immersive up-close experiental theatrical spectacle, where audience members enjoy a three-hour retro-drama while gambling and drinking at a “speakeasy” dive bar. $60-$90. Thu, Fri & Sat, admission times 7:40-8pm. Thru March 15. (hush! Address provided for guests only!) www.boxcartheatre.org

See the exhibit The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus: Celebrating 35 Years of Activism Through Song. And, Premarital Bonds: Creating Family Before Marriage Equality. Other permanent exhibits as well.

Reg. hours Mon-Sat 11am-7pm (closed Tue.) Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. 6211107. www.glbthistory.org

New weekly non-sectarian meditation group is led by Daishin Sunseri; part of the Let’s Kick ASS AIDS Survivor Syndrome support group. Tuesdays, 5pm, 1800 Market St. www.LetsKickASS.org –www.sfcenter.org

Tipped & Tipsy @ The Marsh

Linedrives and Lipstick @ SF Public Library

A “Best of Fringe” show, Jill Vice’s solo work portrays an array of characters from the bartending world. $15-$50. Sat 5pm, Sun 7pm. Thru April 6. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Writers With Drinks @ The Make Out Room Rachel Cantor and Clifford Chase headline the authorial reading event, with AV Flox and Melissa Broder. Charlie Jane Anders hosts. $5-$10. 7:30-9:30pm. 3225 22nd St. www.makeoutroom.com

Sun 9 Arthur Szyk and the Art of the Haggadah @ Contemp. Jewish Museum New exhibit of 48 fascinating and richly detailed illustrations of Hebrew stories by the early 20th-century artist (thru June 29).

Also; Jason Lazarus: Live Archive (thru March 23). Also, To Build & Be Built: Kibbutz History (thru July 1). 2pm-5pm. Free (members)-$12.

Thu-Tue 11am-5pm (Thu 1pm-8pm) 736 Mission St. 655-7800.thecjm.org

Crosscurrents @ MoAD Africa and Black Diasporas in Dialogue, 1960-1980, an exhibit of contemporary art.

Thru April 13. $5-$10. Wed-Sat 11am-6pm.

Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission St. 358-7200. www.moadsf.org

Georgia O’Keeffe @ de Young Museum Modern Nature: Georgia O’Keeffe and Lake George, a new exhibit of paintings focusing on the artist’s New York landscapes. $25.

Thru May 11. Tue-Sun 9:30am-5:15pm.

Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. deyoungmuseum.org

Igor Sazevich @ Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station Exhibit of the Inverness painter’s works, at the scenic Headlands arts center.

Reg. hours Wed-Mon 11am-5pm. 11101 Highway One, Point Reyes Station. www.galleryrouteone.org

Maggie McClure @ Hotel Utah The LA-based folk-pop singer-songwriter performs music from her new CD Time Moves On ; Jessica Campbell, Essence, and Sara Beth Go also perform. $10. 8pm. 500 4th st. 546-6300. www.maggiemcclure.com www.hotelutah.com

The Untold Story of Women’s Baseball, an exhibit of images, and ephemera that, with text, tells the story of the world of women’s baseball since the 1870s. Thru March 16. Also, The Black Woman is God, Karen Seneferu’s exhibit focusing on the art of Tarika Lewis, Karen Seneferu, Malik Seneferu, Sydney “Sage” Cain and Ajuan Mance, whose work explores the divinity of Blackness. Thru May 15. Also, Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013, 4th floor. Thru June 5. 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

A Starry Evening @ Davies Symphony Hall Annette Bening, Danny DeVito, Josh Groban, Randy Newman, Jack Nicholson, Bonnie Raitt, Renee Zellweger and others perform at this benefit show for UCSF’s Children’s Hospital. $125-$1,000 and up.

7:30pm. 201 Van Ness Ave. 476-6400. www.ucsfmedctr.org

Tue 11 Butterflies & Blooms @ Conservatory of Flowers Popular exhibit transforms the floral gallery into a fluttering garden with 20 species of butterflies and moths. Reg. hours, 10am-4pm. Free-$7. Tue-Sun 10am4:30pm. Extended thru March 16. 100 JFK Drive, Golden Gate Park. 831-2090. www.conservatoryofflowers.org

Clifford Chase @ Magnet Gay author of The Tooth Fairy: Parents, Lovers, and Other Wayward Deities (A Memoir) reads from and discusses his new book. 7:30pm. 4122 18th St. 581-1600. www.booksinc.net www.magnetsf.org

Los Angeles Philharmonic @ Davies Symphony Hall Gustavo Dudamel conducts the symphony in a performance of John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Opus 64. 8pm. March 12, 8pm: pianist Yuja Wang and the symphony perform a new work by Daniel Bjarnason, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Opus 30 and Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 in D major, Opus 73. $25-$160. 201 Van Ness Ave. 864-6000. www.sfsymphony.org

The fine art photography gallery presents an exhibit of Sokosh’s contemporary faux-vintage imagery, created with a 19th-century Wet-Plate Collodion process. (artist talk April 5). Tue-Sat 11am-5:30pm.

Thru May 31. 49 Geary St., #410. 781-1122. www.roberttat.com

Xavier Castellanos @ Munchboxx Café Exhibit of the local artist’s colorful landscapes. Thru Mar 28. 643 Clay St. Also, at Blue Fig Café, 990 Valencia St. (Meet the artist Mar. 14, 6pm and Mar. 16, 4pm6pm. www.xavierarte.com

Yoga: The Art of Transformation @ Asian Art Museum New exhibit of visual art representing the 2,500-year-old health practice.

Other ongoing exhibits as well. Free (members)-$12. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. 200 Larkin St. 581-3500. www.asianart.org

Thu 13 Companhia Urbana de Dança @ YBCA Forum The dynamic Brazilian dance troupe C performs two signature works; Id: Entidades and Na Pista. $25-$30. Mar. 13-M 15 8pm. 401 Mission St. 978-2787.

Y www.ybca.org

Gender Schmear @ Minna Gallery

CM

MY

The LGBT Jewish (and friends) Purim partyCY includes food, drinks, dancing, raffles, a CMY costume contest (free drink if in costume!), and performances by Jill Felta-Fish, K Arty Fishal and Starr 69; DJ Wam Bam Ashleyanne, and MC Ms. Shechina Weena. $10-$25. 7pm-11pm. 111 Minna St. www.keshetonline.org

Geoff Hoyle @ The Marsh, Berkeley The veteran comic actor returns with his solo show, Geezer, a nostalgic meditation on his lengthy career and life. $25-$50.

Thu 8pm. Sat. 5pm. Extended thru April 26. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org The local author reads from and discusses his story collection Fire Year, about gay and Jewish men living in Georgia and the Deep South. 7:30pm. 2275 Market St. 864-6777. www.booksinc.net

10 Percent @ Comcast

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

David Perry’s interviews with notable LGBT people; Mon-Fri 11:30am, Sat & Sun 10:30pm. Channel 104.

Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication.

Diane Cluck @ The Chapel

Tue 11

Clifford Chase

For bar and nightlife events, go to www.bartabsf.com, and our new merged section, www.ebar.com/bartab

weddings • headshots• portraits

415-370-7152

www.stevenunderhill.com • stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com 2pub-BBB_BAR_030614.pdf

David Sokosh: American Tintypes @ Robert Tat Gallery

Jason Friedman @ Books Inc

Mon 10 The neo-folk singer-songwriter performs songs from her new CD Boneset on a bill with Sondra Sun-Odeon. $13-$15. 8pm.

777 Valencia St. www.thechapelsf.com

Wed 12

STEVENUNDERHILLPHOTOGRAPHY 1

2/26/14

11:17 AM

<< Film

20 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

Recipe for romance

by David Lamble

I

n the richly entertaining new Indian romance The Lunchbox, first-time feature director Ritesh Batra packages his tale of lovers who never actually meet around a traditional Mumbai menu grounded in curry and rice. While the pleasures of real-life meals usually hinge on a synchronicity of perfect moments meshing seamlessly, that would be a dull movie. Instead, The Lunchbox, a delightful exception to chaste Bollywood fare, launches its accidental love story through an unlikely flaw in a century-old system by which hot lunches are delivered to Indian office-workers.

Trapped in a boring marriage, Ila (Nimrat Kaur) prepares hubby a lunch fit for royalty. The meal is misrouted to the desk of a lonely bureaucrat about to retire. Saajan (Life of Pi’s Irrfan Khan) notices a handwritten note with the scrumptious meal. His reply kicks off an old-fashioned pen-and-paper romance, with heartfelt ramifications for the lovers and the audience.

Part of the reason Ila consents to this odd twist of fate is found in a wacky scene where she complains

Michael Simmonds, Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics

Irrfan Khan as Saajan in director Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox, opening Friday.

to an unyielding official in charge of seeing that as many as 200,000 lunches get to their rightful recipients without slip-ups. The gentleman running an institution that has logged in 120 years of unblemished perfection finds it impossible to admit that his

system could be flawed.

“My lady, the people from Harvard came here and declared that we don’t deliver to the wrong address!”

“Do you think I’m a liar?”

“Missus, the King of England

himself came in person to see our system!”

Reader advisory: it wouldn’t be a bad idea, given this film’s leisurely pace, to have smuggled in a little Indian takeout. Also, accustom your ears to a brand of English as heav-

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ily accented as Ila’s lunches. The Lunchbox would benefit from the subtitles Ken Loach offered to decipher his dialect-challenged Scottish slum-boys in Sweet Sixteen.

The real subject here is not lunch or romance, but rather the insidious tricks time and loss play on the hearts and minds of wily urban survivors. Saajan is dealing rather stoically with far too many life-changing dilemmas. Facing retirement as a paper-shuffler, he’s to train his replacement, a naive bungler who clings to his tutor like an un-housebroken puppy. The unexpected treat of the free lunches comes with the dicey problem of whether it’s appropriate to meet his mystery cook.

Finally, Saajan is a widower in a society where close to a billion souls clamor daily for fresh air, a place to stand on the train, and most absurdly, the prospect of fighting for one’s final resting place.

“When my wife died, she got a horizontal burial cot. I tried to buy a cot for myself the other day, and what they offered me was a vertical one. I’ve spent my entire life standing on trains and busses, and now I will have to stand even when I’m dead!”t

Philip Seymour Hoffman, RIP

by David Lamble

T

he stunning range of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman is on display in a month-long Castro tribute.

Flawless (1999) In this Joel Schumacher-directed drama, Hoffman is transsexual Rusty Zimmerman, who knows what it means to be fabulous. “Most drag queens just want to parade around

looking flawless. If they sing, they lip-sync to records. I’m a singer and I’m a female impressionist. I’m an artist.” Co-starring Robert De Niro.

(3/12) Boogie Nights (1997) In Paul Thomas Anderson’s breakout hit, Hoffman gives an unforgettable performance whose afterglow hangs over the balance of the film.

Hoffman is the sweaty gaffer Scotty, who shakes up a porn movie set

when he plants a big, wet kiss on the lips of the film’s young, straight star stud (Mark Wahlberg). (3/12) Doubt (2008) Hoffman is a brazenly self-confident, possibly rogue priest whose alleged misdeeds come to the attention of a stern Mother Superior (a dogged Meryl Streep) and a nervous young nun (Amy Adams). (3/19) Love Liza (2002) Hoffman’s everyman has his world rocked by the

sudden suicide of his young wife.

Blindsided by cruel tragedy, Wilson gives in to dysfunctional behavior, sleeping in his car and sniffing gasoline to get high. In a pivotal early scene, Wilson joins in a lunchroom laugh and is unable to stop. After a few moments, his co-workers leave the room, as if fearful that this severe manifestation of his grief might prove contagious. (3/19) Synecdoche, New York (2008) “I’m afraid I’m going to die, and I want to do something important while I’m still here.” Hoffman is the driven playwright in prodigy screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s boundary-stretching conceit about a man who struggles to immortalize himself on stage. (3/26) Punch-Drunk Love (1998) Hoffman is the immovable object to Adam Sandler’s irresistible force in this early Paul Thomas Anderson dark comedy. The guys first butt heads over the phone. “You’re sick!”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” “Are you threatening me? You’re dead!”

Punch-Drunk Love was hailed for showcasing an entirely different view of the talents of lowbrow film comic Sandler. (3/26) Happiness (1998) In Todd Solondz’s blackest of black comedies, Hoffman displays both his craft and ability to gracefully walk a sexually obsessed loner’s wild side with total aplomb, sans even a trace element of embarrassment or knowing winks to the audience.

(Midnites for Maniacs, 3/28)

25th Hour (2002) This Spike Lee “joint” tracks the last day of freedom for its regular-guy protagonist, Monty Brogan (Edward Norton), who lives it up with his best buds.

Hoffman is Brogan’s sad-sack high school English teacher, doomed to lose the girl and wind up with the dog. (MsforMs, 3/28) Capote (2005) Hoffman’s Oscar turn is a mesmerizing take on a tortured soul many still regard as one of America’s greatest writers.

Truman Capote is depicted in the throes of a life-altering period as he completes his pioneering nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood. It’s an exhaustively researched account of the 1959 murder of a Kansas farm family, with reverberations that followed the killers to the gallows and doomed Capote to the premature death of his literary talent.

Hoffman’s Capote is a ferociously conflicted queer man who is in turn powerful, ruthless and haunted by the parallels between his own unhappy childhood and that of one of the killers. (Already played the Castro; DVD: www.sonypicturesclassics.com.)

The Master (2012) The harddrinking Freddie (Joaquin Phoenix) and Hoffman’s charismatic cult leader, modeled on Scientology’s L. Ron Hubbard, are hip to each other’s game. It’s the spiritual conman who’s drinking the milkshake.

(Already played the Castro; DVD: www.theweinsteincompaby.com.)t

Celebrating 30 Years March 18–23

Enjoy this annual exhibition featuring unique art and floral mash-ups where floral designers create arrangements that pay tribute to and draw inspiration from works in the de Young’s permanent collections.

Grand Patron Corporate Leader

Diane B. Wilsey

William Joseph McCloskey, Oranges in Tissue Paper, ca. 1890. Oil on canvas. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, gift of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd. Floral design by Friends of Filoli. Photograph © Greg A. Lato / latoga photography

Philip Seymour Hoffman in director Joel Schumacher’s Flawless.

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Film>>

March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 21

Unholy doings in the Holy Land

by David Lamble

makers make strategic use of big speeches to show us the many conflicting motivations pushing each of the major characters to his possible doom. The film’s most tender moment unfolds in an Israeli emergency ward, where Sanfur has been taken after one of his stunts with a bulletproof vest goes awry. His Jewish doctor speaks to a worried Razi, who hovers at the wounded kid’s bedside.

“We took some shrapnel out of his stomach.”

“What happened to you? You did that stunt with Jamal? Why do you do shit like that?”

“No reason.”

“You could have been killed. Who lets himself get shot? Why didn’t you call me?”

“I knew exactly what you would have said. You’re not going, right?”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Stay here. Don’t leave me. I don’t want my father to see me injured.”

“I won’t leave until we figure it out.”

Bethlehem keeps you guessing whether an Israeli cop can really raise a confused Palestinian boy whose own people push him to be a martyr, without both becoming collateral damage. The filmmakers are adept at showing the bewildering variety of factions and forces that push in on every human living dangerously in what American Christians persist on calling the Holy Land.t

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he West Bank-set moral fable Bethlehem opens with a ragtag group of Palestinian teenage boys playing their version of chicken. The boys have found a discarded bulletproof vest and are taking turns challenging each other to shoot the boy in the vest. The scene crackles with gallows humor, providing a dire view of kids with nothing to lose and an overwhelming need to prove manhood just out of reach. The boy with the most desperate need to prove himself, the curly-haired Sanfur (Shadi Mar’i), screams at a rival to shoot him or “I’ll beat the shit out of you!”

Flash-forward and Sanfur is showing a different side of himself sitting next to a shaggy-haired, boyish-appearing adult. The man, Razi (Tsahi Halevi), could easily pass for the boy’s older brother or uncle, and the affectionate, teasing banter between man and boy reinforces this impression.

“What about the jeans you promised me?”

“You don’t deserve it.”

“But you promised. The last ones cost 700 shekels and were ruined in the laundry.”

“I’ll make you pay for that.”

For queer audiences, this and subsequent encounters between Razi and Sanfur could play as a grown man having an illicit sexual liaison with a barely underage youth. In

Adopt Films

Tsahi Halevi as Razi in the Israeli/Palestinian thriller Bethlehem.

other scenes, Israeli security cops will scornfully refer to Sanfur as a human “asset,” a disposable figure whose life is ultimately worth little.

Ironically, the boy will later plead for his handler to “take me with you to Israel.”

In Bethlehem, Israeli director Yuval Adler (with Palestinian cowriter Ali Waked, who does double duty in a cameo playing a journalist) provides a frightening look at a younger generation of Palestinian

youth who live in a disturbing state of limbo, assigned by a feckless older generation of guerrilla fighters to do things no one in a civilized society would ask a child to do.

The affectionate, avuncular relationship we’ve observed between Razi and Sanfur is not what it first appears. The man is a veteran Israeli security operative who’s spent the previous two years grooming the kid, Sanfur, for the dangerous role of being an informant on his own

people. And it gets worse. Not only is Sanfur feeding Razi information about the movement of the area’s “freedom fighters,” but Sanfur’s older brother Ibrahim is the area’s leading terrorist, the televised face of terror. When an Israeli Jerusalem neighborhood is struck by a suicide bomber, it’s Ibrahim who delivers the bad tidings, to a chorus of sirens.

This is the rare action thriller that is also character-driven. The film-

Gays of our lives

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Trey McIntyre Project The Farewell Performances NBC-TV

Guy Wilson and Freddie Smith as Will and Sonny in Days of Our Lives.

by David-Elijah Nahmod

F

ans of NBC’s long-running daytime drama Days of Our Lives were horrified in 2013 when Chandler Massey, longtime portrayer of gay character Will Horton, announced that he was leaving the show. Massey, who had just won an Emmy Award for his groundbreaking work, said he wanted to take time off to go back to school.

At the time, Will was in the middle of a passionate onscreen love affair with Sonny (Freddie Smith). Will and Sonny were fan favorites, and have been credited, in part, for the show’s recent rise in the ratings. Could Sonny and Will, could Days itself, survive the loss of heartthrob Massey?

In early January, a little-known actor named Guy Wilson stepped into Will’s shoes. He and Freddie Smith immediately sizzled onscreen.

In one particularly moving episode, Sonny asks Will to marry him. Will isn’t yet ready to take that plunge, but they profess their love for each other.

A sizzling bedroom scene follows.

“I’m not uncomfortable with the scenes at all,” Wilson told the B.A.R. “It never bothers me. Freddie is such a connected and present actor, so it’s easy to be grounded in those moments.”

He says that he was embraced by the Days cast. “I thought it would be difficult, but everyone was so welcoming and gracious,” he said.

“They helped me fill in the blanks and get caught up to speed.”

The actor took the fan base’s apprehension about his arrival in stride.

“I don’t take it personally,” he said. “I look at it as the fans caring about the show and about this relationship. If someone you care about leaves the show, you feel uncomfortable.”

Wilson is immensely proud of the

impact that Sonny and Will’s relationship is having. The show has a huge fan-base among older, female viewers, and has been credited with helping to turn the tide of public opinion on gay relationships and marriage equality.

“We won a GLAAD Media Award,” he said proudly. “I’m honored and privileged to be part of a show that’s a social institution.

It’s in its 48th season, and it’s still trailblazing, still making headlines.

These are exciting times.”

And how has the religious right reacted to Sonny and Will? “I wouldn’t feel the need to say much about that,” said Wilson. “There are many reasons people have reservations towards this issue. Lead by example, any way we can broaden people’s awareness. Act and speak by example.”t Days of Our Lives airs weekdays at 1 p.m. on KNTV, channel 11.

Episodes also stream at NBC.com.

www.ebar.com

Featuring: The Vinegar Works: Four Dances of Moral Instruction Inspired by the work of illustrator and writer Edward Gorey (music: Shostakovich) Mercury Half-Life featuring excerpts from 16 classic Queen songs

Mar 21 & 22

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<< Dance

22 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

SF Ballet

From page 15

with modern release-technique in a fruitful way, to import sensuality, softness, floating, the pouring of weight from one limb into another, thus to create a new world of grace.

These dancers fully own and command this idiom and now dance this ballet with such commitment, it’s almost a revelation. At the end, when Gaetano Amico and Rubén Martín Cintas bear Lorena Feijóo across the stage, the image echoes Eliot’s mermaid “riding seaward on the waves/combing the white hair of the waves blown back/when the wind blows the water white and black.” There was a huge emotion in the audience at this finale, we all felt it. All the dancers deserve praise; special notice to Lee Alexandra Meyer-Lorey, Miles Thatcher, Maria Kochetkova, and Vitor Luiz.

‘Firebird’ delight

Finales need to send the audience out singing the tunes, waving their arms in the air, stamping the floor, deliriously happy with the whole evening, and Yuri Posskohov’s de-

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Theatre seasons

From page 13

In on the ACT

ACT recently revealed which show would fill the opening spot in its season. For those who remember Bill Irwin and David Shiner’s runs in Fool Moon in 1998 and 2001, the news that their reunion show Old Hats will open the season should be joyful news.

These new-age vaudevillians performed Old Hats to wide acclaim last year in New York, and they will be bringing with them the evocatively quirky chanteuse Nellie McKay. The precise dates for Old Hats and other productions will be announced later. In addition to Old

Erik Tomasson

San Francisco Ballet in Yuri Possokhov’s folk-dance recreation of the Diaghilev-era Firebird.

lightful folk-dance recreation of the Diaghilev-era Firebird made all that happen. His production is lighter in tone than the original, with airy suggestions of the folk-tale forest

setting designed by Yuri Zhukov, and a finale that creates a utopian community that reminds me of Jerome Robbins’ “place for us.” The bridegrooms bring out their liveli-

Hats, the current roster includes Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, which can briefly be described as a dystopian paean to The Simpsons; Colm Toibin’s Testament, a one-woman play that looks in uncharacteristically real-life terms at how Mary deals with being the mother of Jesus; a return to Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink, a time-traveling study of the after-effects of British colonialism; and the Stephen Sondheim waltzing musical A Little Night Music.

Two more titles are still to be announced, and one of the seven shows will apparently be done at ACT’s newly restored Strand

Theater on Market Street. Season info is available at act-sf.org.

weddings • headshots• portraits

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est footwork to offer themselves to their girls, the princesses twirl their wrists like the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the whole thing has been universalized and made

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into a gift to San Francisco from an émigré choreographer who grew up in Moscow, came to love folk dance there as a child, came up through the Bolshoi school and the heroic Soviet ballets of the Cold War era, and now lives here, knows us and loves his new city.

The dancers completely own his idiom – the Firebird (Yuan Yuan Tan) has pointe steps of considerable delicacy and a plastique that makes her wonderfully remote and powerful in her magic. The Princess (Sasha de Sola) is like the most popular girl in high school, a bit of a bitch but nobody cares, everybody loves her and she is hilarious. When she wants a golden apple, she goes up to the tree and stamps her foot, and Lo! Apples all come tumbling down. Best of all were Pascal Molat as an outrageously evil but not really frightening monster-wizard who tries to imprison the goofy young man, wonderfully epitomized by Tiit Helimets, who’s hunky and knows it, like Curley in Oklahoma!

Of course he gets the girl, and everybody gets what they want, and we all get to go home, happily dazzled after a fabulous evening at the ballet.t

Headed up north

There are two plays in Marin Theatre Company’s newly released 2014-15 season that are specifically underlined here. Perhaps you remember back in 2010 when ACT, Magic Theatre, and MTC each took one play in Tarell Alvin McCraney’s acclaimed Brother/Sister trilogy to introduce the Bay Area to this young gay African-American playwright.

MTC will present McCraney’s newest play, Choir Boy, as the capper for the upcoming season, with another of his highly individualistic looks at the American gay black experience – this one through a competition for the top spot in a school choir that unravels friends, family, and history, with a cappella gospel music as a recurring motif.

Playwright Samuel D. Hunter, another new and celebrated gay voice, was first represented in the area last year with A Bright New Boise at Aurora Theatre. In The Whale, which MTC has set for October, Hunter focuses on the declining fortunes of an obese gay man who is eating himself to death following the loss of his lover, and the unexpected events that begin to pull him out of his isolation.

The new MTC season also includes Will Power’s Fetch Clay, Make Man, which imagines a friendship between boxer Muhammad Ali in his prime and the infamously stereotyped actor Stepin Fetchit; the Reduced Shakespeare Company in a holidaytimed production of The Complete History of Comedy (abridged); Danai Guira’s The Convert, the story of a young Rhodesian girl who escapes an arranged marriage by refuge in a remnant of colonial missionaries; and Mona Mansour’s The Way West, a family saga of a mother who tries to rally her daughters through an onslaught of adversities. Tickets for the season are available at marintheatre. org.

Courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Marin Theatre Company’s season includes Choir Boy by acclaimed gay playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney.

Stephen Sondheim’s musical pennydreadful Sweeney Todd; Rick Elice’s Peter Pan prequel Peter and the Starcatcher; Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt’s much-produced 2 Pianos 4 Hands; Rajiv Joseph’s The Lake Effect, set in a shuttered Indian restaurant where the owner’s children ponder their legacy; Randal Myler and Dan Wheetman’s Fire on the Mountain, a bluegrass revue about Appalachian mining families; and Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels, a seldom-revived 1925 comedy about married friends who entertain a

shared old flame while husbands are away. Ticket information can be found at theatreworks.org.

San Jose Rep opens its season in late August with the world premiere of Robert Schenkkan and Neil Berg’s musical The 12, which uses new and classic rock music to tell of how a dozen ordinary people of the time cope in the aftermath of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ; Herbert Siguenza’s A Weekend with Pablo Picasso, a fantastical imagining of the life of the great artist; the world premiere of Kristen Brandt’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights; Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, to star Danny Scheie as Lady Bracknell; the musical revue Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris; and one show still to be announced.

More info at sjrep.com.

Tickets to Broadway

Headed down south

First to TheatreWorks of Mountain View and Palo Alto, and then on to San Jose Rep. The July world premiere of David West Read’s The Pretender gives TheatreWork a head start on new seasons. Described as a bittersweet comedy about a children’s TV host who mourns the death of a beloved puppeteer, it comes with a “mature language” advisory.

Also in the season: Quiara Alegria Hudes’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Water by the Spoonful, about a webmaster who moderates a group for troubled souls whose own life is crumbling;

Bay Area comedy luminary Danny Scheie will play Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest at San Jose Rep in the new season.

Matthew Murphy

Billy Porter stars in the Broadway company of Kinky Boots, coming to town via SHN in a new touring company.

All five musicals in SHN’s upcoming season are currently playing on Broadway, four of them of recent creation and the fifth being, well, Phantom of the Opera, although promised in “a spectacular new production.” Starting in August, the season includes Motown the Musical, a memory-lane journey through Barry Gordy’s career; Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper’s Tony Award-winning Kinky Boots, based on the 2005 movie about a floundering shoe factory and the drag queen who saves the day; Newsies, based on the 1992 Disney movie musical about a newsboy strike in 1899; and Matilda, the London import about put-upon schoolchildren who rise up against a tyrannical teacher. Season ticket info at shnsf.com.t

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Fine Art>>

March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 23

Bats, balls & birds

by Murray Paskin

W

omen playing baseball were never an unknown phenomenon, but they were long seen as no more than a novelty. You got a kick out of seeing women playing what was heretofore a man’s game.

Linedrives and Lipstick: The Untold Story of Women’s Baseball, an exhibition currently on show at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library, opens our eyes to women’s baseball as a serious phenomenon beyond novelty. The exhibit is a detailed history of the subject, dating from the mid-19th century into the present. Its variety is particularly impressive. Some 50 pieces that fill the downstairs Jewett Gallery – photographs, artifacts, objects, posters, advertisements, and cartoons – tell the story. Many photos feature some

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Yoga

From page 13

Filtering down through the ages – its key precepts and vocabulary were well established as early as the 7th century – and transmuted by Western and South Asian cultures, Yoga as we know it today is a comparatively tame, diluted version of its ancient antecedents. The first gallery and the strongest of the three sections that comprise the exhibition is where goddesses, or Yoginis, as fierce as they are voluptuous, reign.

These lithe, full-breasted deities, whose loose-flowing hair connoted female rage – some were believed to fly after nightfall – were not to be tangled with. Three life-sized granite statues that once graced a 10th-century South India temple line a wall, looking like a menacing celestial chorus line. Illustrating duality, they’re voluptuous yet spiritual, auspicious and benevolent, though they wouldn’t give a second thought to eating you alive if the spirit moved them. One divine four-armed creature, seated on an owl and brandishing a sword, pulls her mouth open and bares her jagged teeth, enabling her to emit a piercing cry. Another spectacular figure, swathed in an armor of writhing cobras and wielding a club and shield, is perched atop a pedestal engraved with the image of a headless corpse, a reference to Tantric ritual cremation grounds she stalked. Combining both healing and threatening powers, a third yogini with a jar is a sky traveler, an ability prized by Tantric practitioners and hatha yogis. Between the 9th and 13th centuries, one could find up to 100 of these goddesses occupying a single temple. What a sight that must have been to behold.

Near to this unholy trio sits a stone sculpture of the four-headed Brahmani (approx. 875-950), one of seven mother-goddesses equipped with four heads, including one conveniently located at the back. The quality and quantity of sculptural detail achieved by artists who made these ethereal beings materialize are impressive. Take, for example, the Shiva as Bhairava (1200-1300), who guarded the inner sanctum of the temple. With red paste smeared over its third eye, snakes slithering through its orifices, and its head and body adorned with elaborate ornamentation carved into the stone, it’s a horrifying yet uncannily human apparition. The Hindu deity Vishnu, seen in an imposing bronze from the same era, is shown meditating and transcending the suffering endemic to human existence in his incarnation as half-man/halflion. Replete with a leonine ruff and mane, he wears a conical headdress and a strap across his knees to maintain stillness; a pair of extra hands proffers flaming chakras.

Awash in cerulean blue and gold, a

of its pitching, batting, running, and base-stealing superstars in action.

Upon entering the exhibit, you are greeted by photos of celebrated pitchers in action. One is that of Helen Carson, a 19-year-old whose slow, fast curve, and drop balls made her particularly outstanding. She was also a switch-hitter.

Women’s baseball attained a prominence in the 1930s and 40s it had not known previously. World War II prompted Philip Rigley, the owner of the Chicago Cubs, to organize professional female teams and leagues to compensate for famous ball players like NY Yankee’s Joe DiMaggio and Boston Red Sox’s Ted Williams being drafted into the army. The film A League of Their Own in the late 20th century brought yet another kind of prominence to women’s baseball.

Suddenly the mainstream became aware of its professionalism and commercial value. (Through March 16.)

A National Geographic article on the threat to the survival of the Great Philippine Eagle prompted internationally recognized artist David Tomb to visit the Philippines’ forests. To his surprise, he encountered many birds in addition to the Eagle whose survival and habitat were threatened. So taken was he by their beauty and differences, and concerned for their survival, that he proceeded to paint many of them.

Some 22 paintings, drawings, and collages form the exhibit he created, Endangered Birds of the Philippines, now on view on the fifth floor of the SF Public Library. The artistic richness and variety of the pieces are impressive. (Through March 28.)t

Pitcher Helen Carson is one of the portraits included in Linedrives and Lipstick: The Untold Story of Women’s Baseball.

beautiful watercolor portrait depicts the universe embodied by Vishnu (approx. 1800-1820) in his cosmic form. Standing on a multi-headed serpent, he has a sun and moon for eyes, a mouth that breathes fire, a golden halo populated with tiny faces, four hands holding a discus, conch, lotus and mace, a cluster of gods painted on his upper torso, and seven

netherworlds residing in his legs.

A gallery dealing with differing cultural perceptions of Yoga contains curiosity photographs of naked or nearly naked yogis taken

by Europeans, pictures which say more about the vulgarity of a Western market hungry for exoticism than the ostensible subjects.

The spectacle of lying on a bed of

nails had its appeal, as did staged photos like that of a group of yogis in the 1880s gathered in a studio in front of a fake jungle backdrop and surrounded by potted plants.

Evidently, a lack of authenticity was no barrier. Then there are shocking images of mortification of the flesh, like those of an ascetic with a steel grid locked around his neck

Courtesy SFPL

from which there’s no visible means of escape, or another snapshot of a man with his genitals padlocked posed next to a yogi with a ring on his penis, the latter suggesting a mastery of sexual desire.

You may never think of the lotus position the same way again.t Through May 25 at the AAM.

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Mr. SF Leather

NIGHTLIFE FOOD

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SPIRITS

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PERSONALS Vol. 44 • No. 10 • March 6-12, 2014

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Esta Noche patrons enjoy the bar while they can.

by Michael Flanagan

Night’s End

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ne day in 1983 when I was living on Valencia Street, one of my housemates brought home a handsome guy named Miguel, who was originally from Columbia and was living with his grandmother. I was told that his grandmother didn’t approve of the way he dressed to go out to the bar, so he was changing at our apartment.

See page 2 >>

Saying Goodbye to Esta Noche After 34 Years

Georg Lester

T S E B S E T I BIN THE CASTRO

Pesce’s sumptuous cichéti.

by Sean Timberlake

F

or too many years, the Castro was a dining desert, an anomaly in this foodiest of cities. The merit of many restaurants seemed to be determined more by the hunkiness of the waitstaff than the caliber of the food.

Things have changed in recent years, though, and now there are more than a few respectable restos peppered throughout the neighborhood.

Moreover, the diversity is unprecedented. I’ve done some diligent dining in the neighborhood, and so am serving forth a few favorite specific bites in the ‘Stro.

Sean Timberlake

Fable’s parsnip cake.

Sean Timberlake

See page 4 >>

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

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Georg Lester

Enjoying what will soon be a last chace for fun at Esta Noche.

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Esta Noche

From page 1

About an hour later, Miguel was nowhere to be seen, and in his place was a ravishing young lady ready to take to the stage. It was because of Miguel that I became aware of the world of Esta Noche.

So it was like having a Google bus driven through my heart when I read the news on Wednesday, February 26 that Esta Noche was closing after 34 years. I had not been

EDITOR Jim Provenzano DESIGNERS Jay Cribas, Scott King ADVERTISING SALES Scott Wazlowski 415-359-2612 CONTRIBUTORS Ray Aguilera, Race Bannon, Matt Baume, Heather Cassell, Coy Ellison, Michael Flanagan, Dr. Jack Fritscher, Peter Hernandez, John F. Karr, T. Scott King, Sal Meza, David Elijah-Nahmod, Adam Sandel, Donna Sachet, Jim Stewart, Ronn Vigh PHOTOGRAPHY Biron, Wayne Bund, Marques Daniels, Don Eckert, Lydia Gonzales, Rick Gerharter, Jose Guzman-Colon, Georg Lester, Dan Lloyd, Jim Provenzano, Rich Stadtmiller, Monty Suwannukul, Steven Underhill BARtab is published by BAR Media, Inc. PUBLISHER/PRESIDENT Michael M. Yamashita CHAIRMAN Thomas E. Horn VP AND CFO Patrick G. Brown

there for a while and decided to return to check out the reaction of the community to the closing.

I stopped by during the Comedy Bodega on Thursday night and spoke with Marga Gomez, who said, “My biggest sadness is that Este Noche has been here for 34 years and it was special for the gay and Latino community when there was nowhere else to go without racism and homophobia. I have no beef with the new owners and I’m impressed with Arturo and Augustine (the bartenders). They’re all smiles; they’re survivors. I’m going to miss it and miss it dearly.”

I stopped back on Saturday and the bar was packed. I spoke with patron Joel Gomez, who was back at the bar with his husband for the first time in years for the bittersweet evening. He recalled partying during the 1980s in the parking lot next door (and hiding from San Francisco police in the bar).

“Men would come here from Sacramento, Redwood City and Vallejo. But many of the men I remember are no longer here; they’re all gone,” said Gomez. “The bar was a base. I wish it was here for the next generation.”

Another patron, Jose Lizarraga, told me, “It was my very first gay bar fourteen years ago. The bar has changed already. There are more white faces and more people with money and more voyeurs who don’t participate. But when I first came here, I was welcomed with open arms. Change is inevitable, but it’s hard not to see it in social and racial terms. It’s in the center of the Latino community; it’s a Mecca. I can come to the neighborhood and get tortillas or avocados and come to the bar. I can come here on Day of the Dead. If you’re not accepted at home because of religion, you can be accepted here. But I was surprised this happened after the fundraiser in May.” Lizarraga was referring to the ‘Save Esta Noche’ fundraiser which took place on May 18, 2013, when word first came that the bar was having money problems, and featured a large group of performers. Although the Indigogo campaign did not meet their goal, by all accounts the benefit was quite successful and patrons had not heard the bar was having further

Georg Lester

The bar at Esta Noche on a packed Saturday night.

trouble until hearing this week that the bar will close. It will reopen under the auspices of Wish Bar and Lounge owners Andrea Minoo and Callum Hutchins.

The new owners have been quoted as saying that, after a few months of running the bar as is, they will change the venue to (according to the blog SF Eater), “a New York-style lounge featuring the best local House music DJs in a sexy den of wood, leather, red velvet, and glowing candles.”

One terse comment on that web post, from Joseph Nikolaou, read, “It’s like a gay pogrom going on in San Francisco’s gay community. The rich, straight, white techies are liquidating the gay community in San Francisco.”

KQED blogger Emmanuel Hapsis was equally upset in his recent article, writing, “A bar dedicated to the gay Latino community in what used to be a predominantly Latino neighborhood is wiped away for a vaguely pornographic-sounding cocktail lounge for fancy straight people who like house music.”

Georg Lester

Esta Noche patrons.

La Ultima Noche

Also at the bar on Saturday was Stephen Dorsey (Mr. Gay San Francisco 2004), who told me, “This is my second closing; the first was Marlena’s. Gentrification is taking over and it’s just not right. I’m a man of a certain age and I feel welcome here, but not in the Castro. I feel this is pushing older gays to stay home.

It’s sad that we’re losing some of the best bars in the city.”

Two of the performers on Saturday were Persia and Lulu Ramirez. Persia’s satirical song “Google Google Apps Apps” (viewable on YouTube) says much about what is happening to the Mission.

She said, “I’m disappointed that San Francisco is losing an establishment which has meant so much to so many. I’ve been performing for six years, and the first five of those were at Esta Noche.”

Ramirez added, “I’ve been performing here for fun since 1999, and ran the show since 2008. My

SECRETARY Todd A. Vogt

Georg Lester

Lulu Ramirez (right) and a friend at Esta Noche.

heart is breaking.”

Later that night, Persia performed onstage and crowdsurfed as well.

The mood on her Facebook page (as Per sia) was less cheerful, as she wrote, “I don’t hate but when I do, hate Manuel and Tony, owners of Esta Noche! They FUCKED our community over!”

On Sunday, I spoke with bartender Arturo Mora, who has been working at the bar for four years.

Mora said, “I’m sad. It’s the first bar I’ve worked at. I met my partner

here six years ago. I had my first experience working with stand-up comics here. I’m sad we’re losing the only Latino gay bar in San Francisco. I will miss all my friends and regulars.”

Asked if he had any idea if the owners had other plans for a club, Mora said, “They were just here and didn’t say anything. If they have any plans, I don’t know what they are.”

Richard Mason, a longtime See page 3 >>

BAR Media, Inc. 225 Bush Street, Suite 1700 San Francisco, CA 94104 (415) 861-5019 www.BARtabSF.com NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media 212.242.6863 LEGAL COUNSEL Paul H. Melbostad Member National Gay Newspaper Guild Copyright © 2014, Bay Area Reporter, a division of BAR Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Georg Lester

Georg Lester

Super friends at Esta Noche.

Persia and an Esta Noche staffer.

t

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March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 3

Gender Schmear Jewish Gays’ Purim Party

by David-Elijah Nahmod

O

n March 13, Keshet, an advocacy and networking group for LGBT Jews, will host Gender Schmear, a wildly fun party in celebration of Purim, an annual Jewish festival.

“Purim is the Jewish Carnivale,” said David Robinson, executive director of Keshet’s Bay Area office.

“The holiday is a story and a celebration of liberation. In ancient Persia there was a plot to destroy the Jews: we were liberated from that threat.”

Thousands of years later, the Jewish people party hearty as they commemorate their freedom and survival. “It’s evolved into a holiday where you are commanded to get intoxicated with joy,” said Robinson.

“That can be through dancing, drinking, costumes, which can include drag. There’s a lot of identity role-playing. Purim is a holiday where even non-queer Jews can dress up as their alter egos.”

Jews and LGBT goyim (non-Jews) have a lot in common, Robinson says.

“Queers and Jews understand oppression, persecution, and the importance of joy and liberation,” he said.

Robinson feels that LGBT people have a lot to share with other communities. “We can teach everyone a lot about not taking yourself too seriously,” he said. “It’s crucial to be silly and joyous, to put on that costume and risk looking ridiculous. Humor is very crucial to Jews and to queer people.”

The party, Robinson warns, might be R-rated. “Its going to be on the racy side,” he said. “It’s not going to be your average synagogue Purim celebration. Alcohol will be served, so it’s not for kids. We are reaching out to a very broad audience, but we’re not competing with Folsom Street Fair or Dore Alley.”

Childcare will be available for those who need it. Robinson urges parents who wish to attend Gender Schmear to contact

maya@keshetonline.org.

So how naughty will the party get?

Robinson reports that there will be a Jewish burlesque show with Starr 69. Drag King Arty Fishal, who sees gender as a playground, will be seen in performance. Jill Felta-Fish, Goddess of the Kosher buffet, will also be on hand. There will be free ten-minute astrology readings, and music from DJ Wam Bam Ashleyanne. All of it brought to you by your lovely host,

Ms. Shechina Weena.

And there will be booze, lots of booze. Those who attend in costume get a free drink. Costume wearers will also get to compete in a contest.

“There will still be plenty of time to eat, drink, shmooze, and dance up a storm,” said Robinson.

“Whether you’re Jewish, queerish, or something else entirely, you’ll feel like a Purim Queen before the night is through.” t Gender Schmear: a sexy, shmoozy, joyous, juicy Queer Purim party, will be March 13 from 7pm to 11pm at 111 Minna Gallery. $20 in advance, $25 at the door. www.keshetonline.org/event/ gender-schmear/

Justin Utley

Arty Fishal and Super Fishal

<<

Esta Noche

From page 2

patron, was in the bar Sunday as well and was quite interested in my conversation with Mora. I mentioned how sad it was to be losing the bar after Marlena’s closed, and Mason explained that he saw quite a bit of difference between the two bars.

“Marlena maintained her bar. In the last year the owners here have shown contempt for their customers. They haven’t maintained the bar. You can’t have customer loyalty without care. Marlena gave the people working for him three

/lgbtsf

David C. Hill

Jil Felta Fish and her stylish Menorah hat.

months’ notice. The people working here didn’t get any notice.”

This was verified with Mora, who said the employees found out last week, at the same time as the public.

Regarding the importance of the bar, Mason said, “The minority community had a place to be accepted here. Many don’t feel accepted at places that ask for several IDs at the door like they do in the Castro.

When we lose a bar like this, the city and the community lose a great deal.

It feels like we’re doing a dance out the door and we’re not looking back.”

It is strange that Esta Noche should announce that it’s closing

REAL STEAKS. REAL MARTINIS. REAL SAN FRANCISCO.

Starr 69, one of the performer’s at the first annual Gender Schmear

the same week I would hear Gerard Koskovich, Curator at the GLBT History Museum, speak at the History Expo at The Old Mint about the ‘urban renewal’ that took place on the Embarcadero in the 1960s. In his talk, Koskovich said that “marginal areas are tempting for gentrification.”

There is no evidence of the gay culture that once existed on the Embarcadero. I cannot help but wonder if Esta Noche is yet another tempting target for gentrification, and if Latino gay culture will be some day erased from the Mission in the same way. t

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4 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

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t

Best Bites

From page 1

Better with Bacon

When Frances opened, the gauntlet had been thrown down, turning the neighborhood into a dining destination. Chef Melissa Perello brought with her some serious cred, garnering the mantle of Food & Wine’s Best New Chef in 2004. While executive chef at Fifth Floor, she gained the restaurant a Michelin star, and within a year of opening Frances in 2009, got her star there as well. For all the fanfare, Frances is an amiable spot with approachable food. Be sure to start with the applewood smoked bacon beignets, fried perfectly and paired with a lightly sweet-tangy maple chive crème fraîche. I’m also a fan of their house wine program, custom blends that you can drink what you like for $1.50 per ounce.

Frances 3870 17th Street 415-621-3870 www.frances-sf.com

A Dessert Like You Read About

Last year a couple colleagues were in town for a conference. I was eager to take them to Fable, at the time relatively newly opened, to show off the newest addition to this burgeoning food scene. The meal did not disappoint, but it was the closing note that sealed the deal: a moist, sophisticated parsnip cake. At first it felt familiar, like a simple carrot cake, but the herbaceous flavor of parsnip shone through, enhancing the subtle sweetness of the cake.

We spent the previous hour talking food and politics; now we spoke only of the cake. We speak of it to this day.

Fable 558 Castro Street 415-590-2404 www.fablesf.com

Kicked-Up Kebabs

Anyone who knows me knows I have an insatiable craving for spicy

Vicente Garcia, VittleMonster.com

Kasa’s turkey kebabs and chicken tikka masala thali.

Sean Timberlake

Mama Ji’s Chongqing chicken.

foods. Not a meal passes my lips that doesn’t have some sort of capsaicin kick applied to it. While most of Kasa’s Indian street food-themed menu is mild to my tastes, their turkey kebabs fix my jones, with a sharp, forward chili heat offset with fresh garlic, ginger and cilantro and. Swathed in naan as a kati roll, it makes my favorite quick lunch in the neighborhood. What’s that? Add hot sauce? Oh, all right. (Urp.) Kasa 4001 18th Street 415-621-6940 www.kasaindian.com

Chicken ‘n’ Dumplings

I never thought I’d see the day when dim sum would come available in our humble ‘hood, and Mama Ji’s is a welcome addition.

There’s a lot to like on the dim sum menu – like fluffy steamed buns with barbecue pork filling; pretty good soup dumplings and shumai; and balls of sticky rice filled with Chinese sausage and mushrooms, steamed in a fragrant lotus leaf – and it’s hard to argue with the portions. For a more substantial bite, I’m hooked on the Chongqing chicken, chunks of dark meat and slivers of ginger fried crisp with dry chilies and clusters of long pepper.

The resulting oil leaves an angry orange slick on the dish, and as the

Sean Timberlake

Eiji’s miso eggplant.

Carmen Dunham

Dinosaurs’ banh mi.

pieces are slightly more than bitesized, coats your gums and lips for a lingering tingle of balanced yet persistent burn. The selection of Belgian beers pairs curiously well.

Mama Ji’s 4416 18th Street 415-626-4416

Heaven in a Bowl

I don’t always need my palate punished. Tiny Eiji tempts me with something so subtle it’s sublime.

Starting with a single-burner hot plate and a ceramic pot, the softspoken server gently stirs a liquid until, magically, it coalesces into a fluffy curd of fresh oboro tofu.

Oboro means “cloudy” in Japanese, and indeed, this is like eating a cloud. Try it plain first – soft, silky, faintly nutty, strangely comforting and utterly unlike any tofu you’ve had before. Then you may accent it with tiny dashes of condiments – slivers of shiso, a few sesame seeds, a grate of ginger – but only enough to balance, not to bludgeon. It’s big enough to share, and still leave room for a few of their other delectable bites.

Eiji 317 Sanchez Street 415-558-8149

Saigon on Sixteenth

As far as I am concerned, the banh mi is the platonic ideal of sandwichdom, and oddly named named Dinosaurs gets it just about right, even if they do call it the Special for some reason. The elements are on point: Crisp-crust baguette, pork three ways (pâté, roast, and barbecue), the sweet-sour pickled carrot and daikon known as do chua, fresh cilantro and fat slices of jalapeños.

They have variations with shaking beef, chicken and crispy tofu if you must, but for my money I’ll stick with the basic.

Dinosaurs 2275 Market Street (enter @ 16th) 415-503-1421 www.eatdinosaurs.com

Speaking of Pâté…

Just across the street, Starbelly’s menu of pizzas, sandwiches, salads and more is an easy choice, with enough selection to be sure there’s something for everyone. It’s a go-to for any meal. They manage to toe a fine line of being consistent yet market-driven, with simple, fresh flavors. In the words of a fellow deep-diner friend of mine, though, when it comes to their housemade chicken liver pâté, paired with sweet onion marmalade and grainy mustard, “no one does it better.”

Starbelly 3583 16th Street 415-252-7500 www.starbellysf.com

Old School

Sean Timberlake

Blush Wine Bar’s grilled cheese salad.

Having grown up in the Northeast, the somewhat campy maritime décor of mainstay Anchor Oyster Bar harkens back to summers on Cape Cod, which is enormously comforting. It’s remained largely unchanged in their nearly 40 years on Castro – just watch the film Milk to see for yourself. Everything is solid here, but they raise the bar for that most San Franciscan of dishes,

cioppino, featuring a hearty serving of fresh seafood in a balanced broth with tomatoes and herbs. Don’t be daunted if you don’t see it on the menu; just ask.

Anchor Oyster Bar 579 Castro Street 415-431-3990 www.anchoroysterbar.com

Get Your Tentacles on This

Recently relocated from their twelve-year home on Polk Street, Pesce is another fishy spot, in a good way. Venetian fare is the focus here, and the all-day lounge menu offers up a tempting selection of low-cost cichéti, or bar bites to nibble alongside a tipple. The cocktail menu is divided into “Easy” – lighter, tarter, more food-friendly – and “Drinking” for the more serious sippers out there. Do yourself a favor and splurge on at least one regular small plate, though, the polpo. A classic Adriatic dish, tender slices of octopus, boiled potato and celery are tossed in a bright vinaigrette.

Pesce 2223 Market Street 415-928-8025 www.pescebarsf.com

Waffle Good

Blink and you might stroll right past Blush!, the petite wine bar sidled up next to Walgreens. Despite the diminutive kitchen with little more than a convection oven, they manage to turn out some creative dishes. The brunch menu is quirkily waffle-driven, with waffles standing in for bread in sandwiches, in lieu of tortillas in huevos rancheros, and of course standing proudly next to crispy chicken. One of the more unusual applications is in the grilled cheese salad, with squares of waffle grilled with creamy comté cheese, tossed with arugula and pumpkin seeds.

Blush 476 Castro Street 415-558-0893 www.blushwinebar.comt

t

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March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 5

A Weekend of Leather

by Race Bannon

very year when the week surrounding the Mr. San Francisco Leather contest rolls around, there is a flurry of activity that will keep any local leather kinkster as busy as they want to be. The entire weekend’s events take place under the banner of the Leather Alliance Weekend since the San Francisco Bay Area Leather Alliance (www. leatheralliance.org) produces most of the weekend’s activities. The Leather Alliance is a nonprofit organization with a Board that reflects the clubs, groups and individuals within the local leather, fetish, kink, gear and motorcycling communities.

Mark Ingham and Deborah Hoffman-Wade served as co-chairs for the weekend with Ray Tilton, Jessie Vanciel, Jim Remer, Rod Wood, Beth Downey, Ava Schmidt and Dahn Van Larz also serving in various capacities on the weekend’s 2014 organizing committee.

They were, of course, assisted by an army of dedicated volunteers who together pulled off this marvelous weekend.

The weekend kicked off with a contestant meet and greet at Mr. S Leather, a casual social mixer that also served as the first public introduction of some of the event staff as well as the contest MCs, judges and contestants. Introduced at the event were co-MCs Darren Bondy (Mr. San Francisco Leather 2013) and Mike Pereyra (International Mr. Leather 1988). The contest judges were Andy Cross (Mr. San Francisco Leather 2013 and International Mr. Leather 2013), Garry McLain (also known as Marlena and now lifetime Judge Emeritus), Justin Emerick (Mr. Los Angeles Leather 2013), Thib

weddings • headshots• portraits

415-370-7152

Rich Stadtmiller

www.stevenunderhill.com • stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com

STEVENUNDERHILLPHOTOGRAPHY

E

Scott “Big Red” Farrell, Mr. San Francisco Leather 2014.

Guicherd-Callin (Mr. Santa Clara County Leather 2012 and International Mr. Leather 2013 first runnerup), Val Langmuir (Ms. San Francisco Leather 2013) and Robert Brooks (Mr. Bolt Leather 2013).

Then the contestants were introduced, and they were Gage Fisher (Mr. SF Eagle Leather), Stephan Ferris (Mr. Edge Leather), Nile Eckhoff (Mr. Daddy’s Barbershop Leather), Scott “Big Red” Farrell (Mr. Legion of Sin), Jay Hall (Mr. Sober Leather) and Will Victoria (Mr. Powerhouse Leather). After the meet and greet

Rich Stadtmiller

Man of the Year co-winners Erik (Will) Gibb and Rich Stadtmiller stand on either side of Woman of the Year winner Deborah Hoffman-Wade.

Rich Stadtmiller

Contestants in the Mr. San Francisco Leather 2014 contest - Will Victoria, Stephan Ferris, Gage Fisher, Scott “Big Red” Farrell, Jay Hall and Nile Eckhoff.

some folks then attended separate men’s and women’s play parties.

Saturday began with four educational seminars, while behind the scenes the judges were spending time interviewing each contestant, a segment of the contest that is responsible for a significant percentage of overall contest points.

The Saturday evening contest included a parade of club colors, singers Raquela and Berlin, various introductions, contestant speeches, the ever-popular jockstrap segment, and much more. This year’s Lenny Broberg Award, given annually to someone who has consistently dedicated time and effort to helping with the contest, went to Desmond Perrotto.

I’ve attended and judged countless contests over the years and I must say that all six contestants did themselves and their respective sponsors quite proud. At the end of the night, Scott “Big Red” Farrell emerged victorious as the new Mr. San Francisco Leather, with Gage Fisher in second place and Nile Eckhoff in third. The contestants chose Will Victoria to receive the Brotherhood Award. Much of the crowd then converged on the Powerhouse to help celebrate the new local titleholder.

On Sunday, weekend attendees helped the SF Eagle celebrate its one-year anniversary and also danced at the closing Repent victory tea dance at Beatbox, which was cosponsored by Folsom Street Events and the Leather Alliance.

But Sunday’s centerpiece event was the Community Awards Brunch at Beatbox. Local people, clubs, organizations and events were honored with various awards to single out their valued contributions to the local leather community.

Winners included Leathermen’s Discussion Group, Folsom Street Events, the Ms. San Francisco Leather contest, The Exiles, GearUp Weekend, Dykes on Bikes, Golden Gate Guards, Rover Spotts, Beatbox, the Center for Sex & Culture, TASHRA, Tony Delfino, and Ava Schmidt. Man of the Year was a tie between Erik (Will) Gibb and Rich Stadtmiller. Woman of the Year went to Deborah Hoffman-Wade. Ms. Margaret, the Executive Producer of the Northwest Leather Celebration, and Iain Turner (In Memoriam) both won Philip M. Turner Lifetime Achievement Awards.

See page 8 >>

On April 3, 2014 America’s oldest, highest-circulation LGBT newspaper celebrates our 44th Anniversary with our biggest edition of the season.

Call 415-359-2612 or email scott@ebar.com to reserve your space or for more information.

<< On the Tab

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

eON THE -TAB f March 6 13

Bad Girl Cocktail Hour @ The Lexington Club Every Friday night, bad girls can get $1 dollar margaritas between 9pm and 10pm. 3464 19th St. between Mission and Valencia. 863-2052. lexingtonclub.com

Fedorable @ El Rio

★

Free weekly queer dance party, with gogos, prizes, old groovy tunes, cheap cocktails. 9pm-2am. 3158 Mission St. 2823325. www.elriosf.com

Go-Beaux @ Beaux Gogo-tastic weekly night at the new Castro club. Bring your dollahs, 'cause they'll make you holla. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Happy Friday @ Midnight Sun The popular video bar ends each week with gogo guys (starting at 9pm) and drink specials. Check out the new expanded front lounge, with a window view. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. midnightsunsf.com

Hard @ Qbar

Fri 7

JD Samson and MEN

Allison Michael Orenstein

P

erhaps it's the timing, or my clever editorial skills, but notice how this week's best talents are dressed nicely. The typical band PR photos get more and more pretentious each week. But these folks are far from it.

Authentic, unique sounds are the attraction, along with their sartorial savvy.

As for the gogo guy; nice bowtie! And Casey, nice sweater. This week, dress up, iron your shirt, skirt or skort, get out and stay classy.

Thu 6

Paula West @ Feinstein's at the Nikko

Ashling Cole @ Yoshi's

The renowned Bay Area jazz vocalist performs an all-new show with her fourpiece band in a special four-week residency at the elegant nightclub. $35-$50; $20 food/beverage min. Thu 8pm, Fri 7pm & 9:30pm, Sat & Sun 7pm. Thru March 9.

Hotel Nikko lobby, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.feinsteinssf.com

The powerhouse vocalist performs a Teena Marie birthday tribute concert. $19-$57 (with dinner). 8pm. 1330 Fillmore St. 6555600. www.yoshis.com

Comedy Thursdays @ Esta Noche The revamped weekly LGBT- and queerfriendly comedy night at the Mission club is hosted by various comics (1st Thu, Natasha Muse; 2nd Thu, Emily Van Dyke; 3rd Thu Eloisa Bravo and Kimberly Rose; 4th Thu Johan Miranda). No cover; one-drink min.

8pm. 307916th St. comedybodega.com

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie's Lounge

La Femme @ Beaux

Hip Hop, Top 40, and sexy Latin music; gogo dancers, appetizers, and special guest DJs. No cover before 11pm and just $5 after all night. Dancing 9pm-3am.

Happy hour 4pm-8:30pm 2111 Franklin St. (510) 268-9425. www.club21oakland.com

New ladies' happy hour at the new Castro nightclub, with drink specials, no cover, and women gogos. 4pm-9pm. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Gym Class @ Hi Tops Enjoy cheap/free whiskey shots from jockstrapped hotties and sexy sports videos at the popular new sports bar. 10pm-2am.

2247 Market St. 551-2500. HiTopsSF.com

Jukebox @ Beatbox Veteran DJ Page Hodel (The Box, Q and many other events) presents a new weekly dance event, with soul, funk, hip-hop and house mixes. $10. 21+. 9pm-2am. 314 11th St. at Folsom. www.BeatboxSF.com

Michelle Coltrane @ Yoshi's Oakland Enjoy classic and contemproary jazz from the talented singer, who performs music from her new CD. $25. 8pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square.

(510) 238-9200. yoshis.com

The Monster Show @ The Edge Cookie Dough's weekly drag show with gogo guys and hilarious fun. $5. 9pm-2am.

4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Retro disco tunes and a fun diverse crowd, each Thursday. $4. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com

VIP @ Club 21, Oakland

Yuri & Friends @ Esta Noche Gay comics Yuri Kagan, Casey Ley and Scott Capurro, plus Stefani Silverman, Joe Gorman, Zach Chiappellone and Veronica Porras perform at the (sadly doomed to close) gay Latin bar. No cover. 8pm. 3079 16th St. www.yurikagan.blogspot.com

Fri 7 Asaf Avidan @ Bimbo's 365 Club The amazing Israeli blues-folk-R&B vocalist, who's been compared to Jeff Buckley, Nina Simone and even Janis Joplin, performs at the North Beach nightclub. $25. 9pm. 1025 Columbus Ave. 474-0365. www.asafavidanmusic.com www.bimbos365club.com

Thu 6

Amazingly hot Papi gogo guys, cheap drinks and fun DJed dance music. Free before 10pm. $5 til 2am. 2369 Market St. www.clubpapi.com www.cafesf.com

Asaf Avidan

Picante @ Esta Noche Weekly show with drag queens and the Picante Boys; hosted by Lulu Ramirez; DJ Marco. 9pm-2am. 3079 16th St. 841-5748. www.jceventssf.com

Shit & Champagne @ Rebel D'Arcy Drollinger's "whitesploitation" drag satire musical play kicks up the laughs; also starring Matthew Martin. $20-$25. Fri & Sat, 8pm. Now with an open-ended run.

1772 Market St. at Octavia. www.shitandchampagne.eventbrite.com

Show Guise @ Longobard Margarita Bar, Pacifica The (mostly) straight surf bar goes drag-gay for the monthly show (first Fridays) with MC Woo Woo Monroe, Ana Mae Co, Ruby Holiday and other talents. 10pm. 180 Eureka Square, Pacifica. thelongboardbar.com

Some Thing Mica Sigourney and pals' weekly offbeat drag performance night. 10pm-2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Taboo @ Bench and Bar, Oakland David Harness DJs a night of house music, with hosts Mama Leslie, Byron Mason, Taylor Barros, Marvin K. White, and The People Of Taboo. $5. 9pm-3am. 510 17th St. at Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (510) 4442266. www.bench-and-bar.com

Sat 8 Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi

La Bota Loca @ Club 21, Oakland

Casey Ley at Yuri & Friends

Vixen Noir, Kaila Love and The Average Dyke Band perform at an International Women's Day celebration, and a fundraiser for Berkeley Cop Watch, which monitors police abuse; spoken word and DJed dancing, too. $10-$15. 7:30pm.

(510) 548-0425. www.lapena.org

The local jazz crooner and his band perform weekly shows at the hotel's lounge, which draws a growing swingdance audience. 7pm-11pm. 2 New Montgomery. www.joshklipp.com

Weekly mash-up dance night, with resident DJs Adrian & Mysterious D. No matter the theme, a mixed fun good time's assured. $8-$15. 9pm-3am. 21+. 375 11th St. at Harrison. www.BootieSF.com www.DNAlounge.com

Pan Dulce @ The Cafe

In Love and Struggle @ La Pena Cultural Center, Berkeley

Josh Klipp and The Klipptones @ Palace Hotel

Bootie SF @ DNA Lounge

Themed event nights at the fascinating nature museum, with DJed dancing, cocktails, fish, frogs, food and fun. Mar. 6 includes DJ Jonas Reinhardt, live mountain lion and bobcats (nothing could go wrong there!). $10-$12. 6pm-10pm, 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 3798000. www.calacademy.org

Monthly costume dance party (2nd Saturdays) for Furries and friends celebrates four years, with DJs Neonbunny and guest house music DJs. Dance, you animals! $4 in costume-$8 without. 8pm2am. 399 9th St. at Harrison www.frolicparty.com www.studsf.com

The fab lesbian singer (Le Tigre) performs new punk/pop/alt music from the new CD Labor at the popular bar-nightclubrestaurant. Skip the Needle and People at Parties open. $16-$18. 9pm. 777 Valencia St. 551-5157. www.thechapelsf.com

Beer only $8 until you bust. 4pm-8pm.

1369 Folsom St. 431-4695. www.hitws.com

Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences

Frolic @ The Stud

JD Samson & MEN @ The Chapel

Beer Bust @ Hole in the Wall Saloon

Sing out loud at the weekly least judgmental karaoke in town, hosted by the former owner of the bar. No cover. 9pm.

3152 Mission St. 829-2233. www.virgilssf.com

Fri 7

Peaches Christ hosts a screening of the comedy film, with a drag pre-show "Get a Clue" featuring Willam and Mahlae Balenciaga. $15-$25. 8pm. 429 Castro St. www.peacheschrist.com www.castrotheatre.com

DJ Haute Toddy spins electro beats; cute gogo guys shake it. $3. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

The musical comedy revue celebrates its 40th year with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs. $25-$160. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St.). 4214222. beachblanketbabylon.com

Nap's Karaoke @ Virgil's Sea Room

Clueless @ Castro Theatre

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DJed tunes, gogo hotties, drag shows, drink specials, all at Oakland's premiere Latin nightclub and weekly cowboy night. $10-$15. Dancing 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St. (510) 268-9425. www.club21oakland.com

Nick Waterhouse @ Great American Music Hall

Writers With Drinks @ The Make Out Room

The talented retro-R&B musician performs music from his new CD Holly and his acclaimed debut Time's All Gone. Boogaloo Assassin and DJ Donnell open. $21.50-$46 (with dinner). 9pm. 859 O'Farrell St. 8850750. www.nickwaterhouse.com www.gamh.com

Rachel Cantor and Clifford Chase headline the authorial reading event, with AV Flox and Melissa Broder. Charlie Jane Anders hosts. $5-$10. 7:30-9:30pm. 3225 22nd St. www.makeoutroom.com

Scott Dreier @ Hotel Rex Society Cabaret presents the singer-actor ( Forever Plaid and other shows), who performs Doris and Me, his music and story tribute to Doris Day, and his obsession with the cheerful actress-singer. $20-$45. 8pm.

Also March 9, 2pm. 562 Sutter St. www.societycabaret.com

ShangliLa @ The Endup It's the Varsity Party at the monthly Gaysian dance night. $5-$20. 10pm4am. 401 6th St. www.facebook.com/ ShangriLaSF www.theendup.com

Shoop @ Qbar R&B/pop dance night at the intimate Castro club, with DJs Tommy T. and Bryan B. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. qbarsf.com

Sun 9 Beer Bust @ SF Eagle The classic leather bar's most popular Sunday daytime event in town draws the menfolk. 3pm-6pm, with an '80s-themed dance party 7pm-1am. $5. Also now open daily 11am-2am. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Cocktailgate @ Truck Suppositori Spelling's wild weekly drag show night. $3. 10pm-2am. 1900 Folsom St. www.trucksf.com

t

On the Tab>>

March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

Fruit Cocktail @ Bench and Bar, Oakland

Maggie McClure @ Hotel Utah

Sundance Saloon @ Space 550

The new monthly event (2nd Sundays) features fruity drinks, DJs Mr. Brandon David Bu Hau and guests spinning house and hip hop. 21+. No cover. 9pm-2am. 510 17th St. (510) 444-2266. www.fruitcocktailevents.com www.bench-and-bar.com

The LA-based folk-pop singer-songwriter performs music from her new CD Time Moves On ; Jessica Campbell, Essence, and Sara Beth Go also perform. $10. 8pm. 500 4th st. 546-6300. www.maggiemcclure. com www.hotelutah.com

The popular country western LGBT dance night; enjoy fun foot-stomping twostepping and line-dancing. $5. 5pm10:30pm with lessons from 5:30-7:15 pm.

Also Thursdays. 550 Barneveld Ave., and Tuesdays at Beatbox, $6. 6:30-11pm. 314 11th St. www.sundancesaloon.org

Full of Grace @ Beaux Weekly night with hostess Grace Towers, different local and visiting DJs, and pop-up drag performances. No cover. 9pm-2am.

2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

GlamaZone @ The Cafe Pollo del Mar's weekly drag shows takes on different themes with a comic edge.

8:30-11:30pm. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Jock @ The Lookout The weekly jock-ular fun continues, with special sports team fundraisers. 3pm-6pm.

3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Resilient @ OMG The monthly dance/social event (second Sundays) by and for HIV+ guys and allies.

Dance under the dome to beats from the best local DJs. No cover. 5pm-12am. 43 Sixth St. www.facebook.com/ResilientSF www.clubomgsf.com

Salsa Sundays @ El Rio Salsa dancing for LGBT folks and friends, with live merengue and cumbia bands; tapas and donations that support local causes. 2nd & 4th Sundays. 3pm-8pm.

3158 Mission St. 282-3325. www.elriosf.com

Sat 8 ShangriLa

Sunday's a Drag @ Starlight Room Donna Sachet hosts 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.starlightroomsf.com

Mon 10 Cock and Bull Mondays @ Hole in the Wall Saloon Specials on drinks made with Cock and Bull ginger ale (Jack and Cock, Russian Mule, and more). 8pm-closing. 1369 Folsom St. 431-4695. www.hitws.com

Irish Dance Night @ Starry Plough, Berkeley

Trivia Night @ Hi Tops

Weekly dance lessons and live music at the pub-restaurant, hosted by John Slaymaker. $5. 7pm. 3101 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. www.thestarryplough.com

Play the trivia game at the popular new sports bar. 9pm. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Mahogany Mondays @ Midnight Sun

Wed 12

Honey Mahogany's weekly drag and musical talent show starts around 10pm, with a RuPaul's Drag Race viewing as well.

4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Monday Musicals @ The Edge The casts of local and visiting musicals often pop in to perform at the popular Castro bar's musical theatre night. 7pm2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

No No Bingo @ Virgil's Sea Room

So You Think You Can Gogo? @ Toad Hall The weekly dancing competition for gogo wannabes. 9pm. cash prizes, $2 well drinks (2 for 1 happy hour til 9pm). Show at 9pm.

4146 18th St. www.toadhallbar.com

Trivia Night @ Harvey's

Bottoms Up Bingo @ Hi Tops Play board games and win offbeat prizes at the popular new sports bar. 9pm. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Broadway Bingo @ Feinstein's at the Nikko Joe Wicht and Katya Smirnoff-Skyy cohost the weekly fun musical theatre trivia singalong night. Pull up a comfy chair or sofa, enjoy a cocktail or three, and test your Broadway knowledge. Kanpai Lounge, Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. No cover. 7pm10pm. 394-1111. www.hotelnikkosf.com/ feinsteins.aspx

BeBe Sweetbriar hosts a weekly night of trivia quizzes and fun and prizes; no cover.

8pm-1pm. 500 Castro St. 431-4278. www.harveyssf.com

Underwear Night @ SF Eagle Strip down to your skivvies at the popular leather bar. 9pm-2am. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Way Back @ Midnight Sun Weekly screenings of vintage music videos and retro drink prices. Check out the new expanded front window lounge. 9pm-2am.

4067 18th St. 861-4186. midnightsunsf.com

VivvyAnne ForeverMORE and Tom Temprano's wacky game night.

8pm-12am. 2nd & 4th Mondays. 3152 Mission St. www.virgilssf.com

Thu 13

Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni's

Circle Jerk @ Nob Hill Theatre

Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht (aka Trauma Flintstone). 9pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market. www.dragatmartunis.com

Porn performer Max Cameron leads a sexy downstairs event in the strip club's playroom. $10. 9pm.

729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Shanté, You Stay @ Toad Hall

Gender Schmear @ Minna Gallery The LGBT Jewish (and friends) Purim party includes food, drinks, dancing, raffles, a costume contest (free drink if in costume!), and performances by Jill Felta-Fish, Arty Fishal and Starr 69; DJ Wam Bam Ashleyanne, and MC Ms. Shechina Weena. $10-$25. 7pm-11pm. 111 Minna St. www.keshetonline.org

BeBe Sweetbriar hosts a weekly viewing party of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 6, with a live drag show challenge. 8:30-11:30pm. 4146 18th st. at Castro. www.toadhallbar.com

Sports Night @ The Eagle The legendary leather bar gets jock-ular, with beer buckets, games (including beer pong and corn-hole!), prizes, sports on the TVs, and more fun.

398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Tue 11

Sat 8 Vixen Noir performs at In Love and Struggle

13 Licks @ Q Bar Weekly women's night at the stylish intimate bar. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. QbarSF.com

Block Party @ Midnight Sun Weekly screenings of music videos, concert footage, interviews and more, of popular pop stars. 9pm-2am. 4067 18th St. 8614186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Bombshell Betty & Her Burlesqueteers @ Elbo Room The weekly burlesque show of women dancers shaking their bonbons includes live music. $10. 9pm. 647 Valencia St. 5527788. www.elbo.com

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

Ink & Metal @ Powerhouse Show off your tattoos and piercings at the weekly cruisy SoMa bar night. 10pm-2am.

1347 Folsom St. www.powerhouse-sf.com

Sat 8

Naked Night @ Nob Hill Theatre Strip down at the strip joint. $20 includes refreshments. 8pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell.

397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Nick Waterhouse Nick Walker

Gym Class @ Hi Tops

Dream Queens Revue @ Aunt Charlie's Lounge Enjoy a classic drag show with Collette LeGrande, Ruby Slippers, Sophilya Leggz, Bobby Ashton, Sheena Rose, Kipper, and Joie de Vivre. No cover. 9:30-11:30pm. 133 Turk St. 441-2922. dreamqueensrevue.com

Miss Kitty's Trivia Night @ Wild Side West The weekly fun night at the Bernal Heights bar includes prizes, hosted by Kitty Tapata.

No cover. 7pm-10pm. 424 Cortland St. 6473099. www.wildsidewest.com

Queer Salsa @ Beatbox Weekly Latin partner dance night. 8pm1am. 314 11th St. www.beatboxsf.com

Red Hots Burlesque @ El Rio Women's burlesque show performs each Wed & Fri. Karaoke follows. $5-$10. 7pm.

3158 Mission St. 282-3325. elriosf.com

Rookie's Night @ Nob Hill Theatre Watch competitors shake it for a $200 first prize in stripping, or sign up yourself by 8pm. The audience picks the winner. $20 includes refreshments. 8pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Enjoy cheap/free whiskey shots from jock-strapped hotties and sexy sports videos at the popular new sports bar. 10pm-2am. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Momentum @ Bently Reserve Out & Equal's annual leadership celebration and gala, with drinks and a four-course meal, live and silent auctions, performances by Paula West, MC Kate Clinton, and honors tributes to marriage equality/Prop 8 litigants Kris Perry and Sandy Stier. $175 and up. 6pm-9:30pm.

301 Battery St. www.outandequal.org

Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences Themed event nights at the fascinating nature museum, with DJed dancing, cocktails, fish, frogs, food and fun. Mar. 13 event goes March Madness, with sportsscience pop-up exhibits, DJs Loco and Mawkus. $10-$12. 6pm-10pm, 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 3798000. www.calacademy.org

Pan Dulce @ The Cafe Enjoy amazingly hot Papi gogo guys, cheap drinks and fun DJed dance music. Free before 10pm. $5 til 2am. 2369 Market St. www.clubpapi.com www.cafesf.com

Want your nightlife event listed?

Email events@ebar.com, at least two weeks before your event.

Event photos welcome.

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

t

Rich Stadtmiller

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<<

Leather

From page 5

Since the Mr. San Francisco Leather contest serves as the centerpiece event for the weekend, I chatted with a couple of former Mr. San Francisco Leather titleholders.

Of particular interest to me was their opinion on why someone should consider running for a leather title.

Andy Cross, the outgoing Mr. San Francisco Leather, said, “The main reason to run for a title is to have fun. Period. We aren’t trying to solve the world’s problems here.

I mean, we literally walk around in a jockstrap onstage. How serious can you take that? We’re showing people how great this leather thing makes us feel and what it does for us. We’re saying, ‘I like how being a part of this community makes me feel. I like how I look in my leather.

I’m proud of myself and the community that built me.’”

Jessie Vanciel, Mr. San Francisco Leather 2013, said, “For the titleholder not only to represent the community, but to learn from the community to find out the wants and needs and see what can be accomplished. Sometimes people just want the opportunity to be heard.”

I also asked Cross and Vanciel how they felt about the current state of the leather/kink scene in San Francisco.

Cross said, “I’ve had the opportunity to travel a lot this past year, and I’ve seen a lot of leather communities. San Francisco has one of the best leather communities. I have yet to see another community with an ongoing education program, like SF’s Leathermen’s Discussion Group. Just the sheer size of our kink population here in the Bay Area allows us to have things like Folsom Street Fair and Dore Alley Fair and to sustain fetish establishments like Mr. S Leather.

“All of these things are in our backyard and are world renowned,” Cross added. “We also have a very diverse population including not

Rich Stadtmiller

Judges Garry McLain (Marlena) and Andy Cross.

Rich Stadtmiller

Desmond Perrotto is awarded by Lenny Broberg and Lance Holman.

only leather folk, but groups for people who identify as trans, as puppies, as bears, and pretty much anything else. We have the Bay Area Leather Alliance, which is a great leather charity resource, and have a host of leather bars and stores. We are fortunate to live in an area that allows us a certain freedom that the majority of the country, if not the world, has yet to obtain.”

Vanciel offered, “I think we are at the beginning of a new way of leather, kink and sex where all kinks, genders and representatives will join together to form one loving body, accepting of each others’ sexual

fluidity. I want new people to know that they belong, no matter their kink or orientation or gender, or lack of.”

I think Cross and Vanciel sum up nicely why San Francisco Bay Area kinksters are so lucky to have the supportive and vibrant people, clubs, organizations, institutions and venues that we have that make us one of the preeminent leather/ kink scenes in the world.t Race Bannon is a local author, blogger and activist. You can reach him through the contact page on his www.bannon.com site.

Leather Events, Mar. 6-15, 2014 >>

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here’s always a lot going on in the San Francisco Bay Area for leather and other kinksters.

Thu 6 Bay Area boys of Leather @ After Dark at Exploratorium Bay Area boys of Leather attend this adult night at the Exploratorium, 6pm. www.bayareaboys.org

Sun 9

Fri 14

Men’s Spanking Party @ Power Exchange

Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club

Spanking party for men. $20, 220 Jones St., 1pm. www.voy.com/201188

Officially a CMA meeting, but open to all Anonymous 12-step Fellowship members, 4058 18th St., 9:30pm.

Wed 12 Bay Area boys of Leather Cocktail Hour @ Powerhouse

Sat 15 Hell Hole @ Alchemy

Fri 7

Casual gathering for leather boys. 1347 Folsom St., 7pm. www.bayareaboys.org

Men’s fisting party. $25, 1060 Folsom St., 8pm. http://hellholesf.com/

Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club

Golden Shower Buddies @ Blow Buddies

GearUp Men’s Play Party @ Mr. S Leather

Officially a CMA meeting, but open to all Anonymous 12-step Fellowship members, 4058 18th St., 9:30pm.

A men’s water sports night, Golden Shower Buddies, $15 with membership, 933 Harrison St., 8pm. www.blowbuddies.com

Sat 8 Fist City @ Mr. S Leather Men’s fisting party. 385A 8th Street, $20, 8pm. www.mr-s-leather.com/studio

Friendly erotic space where kinky men can socialize with, learn from, and play with other men. $20, 385A 8th St., 9pm. http:// gearupweekend.com/play-parties

BLUF Invasion @ SF Eagle Bar meetup for all gear men sponsored by BLUF men of San Francisco. 398 12th St., 9pm. www.bluf.com

March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

Toy Stories, too

by John F. Karr

Nob Hill Theatre

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his week we’ve got dildo flicks from five decades and two continents.

On the more successful side is a C1R anthology, I Can’t Fit That in My Ass! But I’ll Try. It’s a bit of a mystery DVD. You won’t find a thing if you Google it, and it seems to be available only through C1R. com. Cast members are listed on the box, but nowhere are we told who’s in each scene, or which movie a scene came from. I did the research.

I’m just that kind of guy.

First up are famed rough-housers Corey Jay, Cole Tucker, Jared Wright and the lesser known Jack Steele, in a heated scene from Chi Chi LaRue’s 1998 Link2Link. It’s chaps, cockrings, slings, aggressive ass-eating and rough fucking. The toy play is creative, and powerfully applied, with a pair of fat, clear Lucite tools punched into holes butted up tight together, and then some really big toys, swallowed all the way by some voracious assholes. There’s momentary diversion with chain link, and, finally, bruiser buddies Jared and Corey kissing while pumping their toy-filled asses. Pretty potent.

Unfortunately, whoever put this collection together forgot to edit in the orgasms, which in the original arrived at the movie’s end. We’re bereft of them here, and aggrieved.

Though not famed, the blond and brunet duo in a scene from the 2002 Catalina Direct are attractive and have a passionate encounter. Their toy application is good, though they only get to play for four minutes. They do, however, get to cum.

And then there’s a killer scene, from director Doug Jeffries’ 2002 Bearing Leather (definitely not to be confused with a CyberBears chubs flick of the same name). You might want to seek out this little known leather classic—it’s got a second, unusually raunchy dildo encounter that could have fit on this DVD. The memorable star is ultimate daddy Steve Dragon, with tattooed cock.

NAKED thNIGHT TUESDAYS th th

MARCH 11 , 18 & 25 @ 8PM www.thenobhilltheatre.com JAKE STEEL

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Sizzlin’ Luke Bender and Andy Mantega, in a screengrab from Falcon’s Deep Driving Dildos.

The scene’s three way action rises to a dildo chain-fuck, in which Larry Wolfe stuffs Dragon with a rubber immensity, as the husky dad stuffs his boy, Robert Gunn, with a merely normal-size toy. It sure is rousing. Ah, the family that plays together is hair-raising together. For a smash finale, Dragon’s solo squat causes a fireplug-sized thing to disappear from sight.

A clean-cut couple of uncut French Canadians have an okay make-out, but their momentary balls-on-a-rope isn’t impressive.

Then, in a sequence with six minutes of dildo play, from the 2009 A Toy Story, fierce bottom Jackson Lawless gets stuffed by handsome Jeremy Bilding. Yes, he’s str8, but he gives

C1R

Dildo buddies Steve Dragon, Robert Gunn and Larry Wolfe in a screengrab from I Can’t Fit That In My Ass!

Pornteam

Which toy to use first? Ryan the Accountant preps for a selfie in a screengrab from Tom Crews’s Bath & Toy Fantasies.

good performance. So, although it’s a shame I Can’t Fit That in My Ass! wasn’t served up with greater care, toy fans will be pleased to have these scenes collected together—especially the two leather lollapaloozas.

Deep Driving Dildos is Volume 15 in Falcon’s series of pre-condom bareback movies. Go ahead and search the title at www.FalconStudios.com.

You’ll enjoy it. It’s hard to go wrong with six scenes in two hours of pretty classic Falcon stuff. The house style submits you to tinkly music (oh, how porn soundtrack music has improved!), along with some delightful high contrast tan lines, big hair, and extra large toys. Nobody in Falcon land ever takes a small one.

Also, house style is the way bottoms bounce on their ass-fillers while blowing their buddy. On the distaff, several of the toy sequences are short. A bedroom bout for tautly buff blond beauty Jim Bentley, with the superbly hung Brad Mitchell as his bottom (remember the manly cleft in Mitchell’s chin?) has some wildly effective toy play, but for only two minutes. Handsome blond Joe Gere gets his ass well stuffed, but for only two minutes. Brothers (or were they cousins?) Justin and Joe Cade get five strong minutes, plying the toys to make each other cum. Joey Stefano shows why he was a star when Steve Kreig tops him forcefully, but the strong dildo play’s only three minutes. The DVD’s honors go to masculine Andy Mantegna, for his extended solo work out with several toys, after which he’s joined by hot Luke Bender, who throws a couple more dildos Andy’s way.

What a boffo pair they are.

From Eastern Europe, in the Colt Olympus series (www.

ColtStudioGroup.com), come six uncut lads in Show Offs, with three solos and two duos. But you know what? It’s just not competitive. And the dildo action that had at first enticed me is only two minutes, and hardly emphatic. More to my liking was a long solo in Bent Production’s DVD, Tom Crews’s Bath & Toy Fantasies (www.Pornteam.com). Its selfie soloist is unaccountably billed as Ryan, the Accountant. He’s a little doleful-looking, but not unattractive, and offers a good JO, working with a long, nicely sculpted and uncut cock, before going to town for eleven minutes of urgent butt probing.t

Photo Credit: Bobby DeCanio

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 6-12, 2014

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Contact Information Name Address Number of Issues

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

March 6-12, 2014 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 11

Shooting Stars photos by Steven Underhill

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he Academy of Friends’ 34th annual Oscar gala, themed Return to Emerald City, brought out friends of Dorothy, and even a few Dorothys.

Held at Terra Gallery, guests enjoyed viewing the Oscars on many large-screen TVs. They laughed at host Ellen DeGeneres’ jokes, pizza-doling, and the group selfie that temporarily shut down Twiiter.

Guests enjoyed tasty bites from Venga Paella, 25 Lusk, Rosa Mexicana, Hayes & Kebab and other restaurants and caterers, beverages from Hagafen Clos du Val, Pilsner Urquell, Barefoot Cellars, and other Napa wineries, and some with a festive “emerald” tinted drinks. For more info on AOF, visit www.academyoffriends.org.

See more event photo albums on BARtab’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife and on www.StevenUnderhill.com

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For headshots, portraits or to arrange your wedding photos

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4

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