May 10, 2012 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

Online at ebar.com

2

NCLR celebrates 35 years

17

Brian Stokes Mitchell

Amendment One passes in NC

The

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

Vol. 42 • No. 19 • May 10-16, 2012

Obama backs marriage equality

by Lisa Keen

P Jane Philomen Cleland

Friends of Brandy Martell pay their respects at a memorial Wednesday at the spot where she was killed.

Probe of woman’s death continues

by Seth Hemmelgarn

O

akland police are continuing to investigate the death of a transgender woman who was shot in the city’s downtown as family and friends mourn.

Brandy Martell, 37, was shot as she sat in her car with friends early Sunday morning, April 29.

Oakland police Officer B. Baker, who is working the case, said Wednesday morning, May 9 that no arrests had been made and no suspects had been identified.

The motive for Martell’s murder remains unclear, but a woman who was sitting next to Martell when the shooting started told the Bay Area Reporter this week that she suspects the reasons are hate crime and robbery.

Either way, Felisha Johnson, who had known Martell since 1995, said she wants her friend’s killer brought to justice “immediately.”

“They entered our world, and they took my sister’s life,” said Johnson, 32.

Johnson said that she, Martell, who lived in Hayward, and two others were socializing in Martell’s car when two men approached around 4 a.m. One spoke with Johnson, while the other talked to Martell.

The men told them their names and where they were from. She said the men told them they were Ethiopian, but she couldn’t remember their names.

They also told Martell and Johnson to come home with them, she said.

She said the men “kept trying to touch us” and put their hands down their tops. Johnson said she swatted away the hand of the man at her window.

Johnson said she’d been drinking, and “I was pretty wasted, but it wasn’t like I was so See page 6 >>

resident Barack Obama said in a White House-arranged interview Wednesday, May 9 that “same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

The statement, in an interview with ABC News, marks a significant and long expected “evolution” for Obama in his political position concerning same-sex marriage.

“I’ve always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally,” said Obama. “ ... I hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought civil unions would be sufficient.”

But after talking to friends and family, neighbors and staff, he said, “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

Reaction, coming one day after voters in North Carolina passed an amendment recognizing only heterosexual marriage in that state, was dramatic.

“The president’s support marks a historic turning point for the freedom to marry movement,” said Evan Wolfson, head of the national Freedom to Marry group.

Incoming Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin said Obama’s remarks would be “celebrated by generations to come.”

“For the millions of young gay and lesbian Americans across this nation, President Obama’s

President Barack Obama, shown at a campaign rally Saturday in Ohio, came out Wednesday in support of marriage equality.

words provide genuine hope that they will be the first generation to grow up with the freedom to fully pursue the American dream,” said Griffin. “ ... As President Obama recognized today, the fight to secure marriage equality is the defining element of our generation’s search for greater freedom.”

MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews called it “earthshaking” and predicted right-wing conservatives “will use everything they can to exploit

this” politically in the November campaign.

Theodore Olson, lead attorney for the samesex couples challenging California’s Proposition 8 ban, said, “Today is a proud day for all Americans.”

“The bedrock American principles of freedom and human dignity are central to the political and legal convictions of Republicans, Democrats, libSee page 13 >>

B.A.R. election API Wellness endorsements boasts

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY President Barack Obama

State Senate (San Francisco) Dist. 11: Mark Leno

Dist. 3: John Garamendi Dist. 5: Mike Thompson Dist. 11: George Miller Dist. 12: Nancy Pelosi Dist. 13: Barbara Lee Dist. 14: Jackie Speier Dist. 17: Mike Honda Dist. 18: Anna Eshoo Dist. 19: Zoe Lofgren

State Assembly (San Francisco) Dist. 17: Tom Ammiano Dist. 19: Phil Ting

Judges Alameda County Superior Court Seat 9: Tara Flanagan

State Senate (East Bay) Dist. 9: Loni Hancock

South Bay San Jose City Council Dist. 6: Steve Kline

State Assembly (Regional) Dist. 15: Nancy Skinner Dist. 18: Abel Guillen Dist. 24: Rich Gordon

SAN FRANCISCO PROPS Vote NO on A, B

U.S. Senate Dianne Feinstein

Congress (Bay Area) Dist. 2: Jared Huffman

CALIFORNIA PROPOSITIONS Vote YES on 28, 29

SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY CENTRAL COMMITTEES Democratic – District 17 David Campos, David Chiu, Matt Dorsey, Bevan Dufty, Zoe Dunning, Gabriel Robert Haaland, Leslie Katz, Rafael Mandelman, Hydra Mendoza, Carole Migden, Justin Morgan, Joaquin Torres, Christopher Vasquez, Scott Wiener Democratic – District 19 Kat Anderson, Kevin Bard, Kelly Dwyer, Tom Hsieh, Mary Jung, Susan (Siki) Kott, Meagan Levitan, Arlo Smith, Jim Weixel, Jason Wong Republican – District 17 Jason Clark

Remember to vote on June 5!

{ FIRST OF TWO SECTIONS }

broad scope T

by Seth Hemmelgarn he name of the Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center might imply a narrow focus, but Executive Director Lance Toma said that since the agency’s start 25 years ago, the nonprofit has never been meant just for Asians and Pacific Islanders.

Toma said that San Francisco-based nonprofit, which offers HIV testing, primary health care, advocacy, and other services, works to help people of all sexual orientations, gender identities, races and ethnicities, and immigration status.

“We’ve always served clients in communities beyond Asians and Pacific Islanders,” said Toma.

“What makes me proud is that in this point in time, we are providing services to all our communities in San Francisco, and I’m proud that API Wellness Center can demonstrate the kind of bold leadership that our communities deserve.”

See page 12 >>

<< Community News

2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 10-16, 2012

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AOF issues checks I

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t was a happy occasion Monday, May 7 when representatives of Academy of Friends issued checks to this year’s beneficiaries after two years in which full payments were not made. The reception took place at the Omni Hotel and organizations represented included Huckleberry Youth Programs, Maitri, Shanti, Tenderloin Health, and the Women’s HIV Program at UCSF. AOF board Chair Howard Edelman, fourth from left, said a total of $53,075 was distributed. Since Tenderloin Health has closed, that money will go to API Wellness Center.

Minnesota students, Lynch honored by NCLR

by Elliot Owen

I

magine the social and political atmosphere for members of the LGBT community in 1977.

Openly gay employees risked termination in every state, adoption was impossible for openly gay applicants, custody loss for openly gay parents was common, same-sex marriage was hardly on the horizon, and there were no openly LGBT government officials at the national level.

It was also the year that attorney Donna Hitchens founded what would become the National Center for Lesbian Rights, a nonprofit legal firm that protects the civil and human rights of LGBT people and their families. This year marked the organization’s 35th anniversary, which was celebrated during a gala dinner at the Westin St. Francis and at an after-party at the Metreon on May 5. (Hitchens recently retired from the San Francisco Superior Court, where she served for many years as a judge.)

At the annual event, NCLR awarded actor, singer, and comedian Jane Lynch with the Vanguard Award for using her fame as a platform to promote LGBT equality. Lynch’s advocacy for LGBT youth, integrity, and authenticity as an out lesbian were also recognized.

“From the very first moment I met Jane, she was so down-to-earth, ac-

Elliot Owen

Wilson Cruz presented NCLR’s Courage Award to Dylon Frei, one of the six Minnesota students honored at the organization’s 35th anniversary gala.

cessible, and lovely,” NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter.

“This is a woman that’s never been in the closet and has never tried to trade in on heterosexual privilege.

She’s unapologetic about being a lesbian. It’s a part of who she is along with being a singer, an actor, six-footone, and honest with a sense of self that is refreshing. She’s a role model in a vast number of ways – not just to the

LGBT community,” Kendell said.

Lynch, a star of the award-winning television series Glee, was presented with the award by her wife Lara Embry, whom she met at NCLR’s 32nd anniversary celebration. That year, Embry received the Justice Award for her role in a same-sex custody case undertaken by NCLR. Lynch and Embry were married in 2010.

The Courage Award was also presented to six students from Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District for bravery exhibited during a 2011 sexual-orientation and gender discrimination lawsuit.

NCLR clients Brittany Geldert, Damian McGee-Backes, Dylon Frei, Kyle Rooker, Ebonie Richardson, and Kyrstin Schuette filed the lawsuit in response to the school district’s policy-backed refusal to protect them from anti-LGBT bullying. According to NCLR, nine student suicides have occurred in the same district in recent years, four of which are believed to have been caused by anti-LGBT harassment, exemplifying the district’s need for change. The case was resolved earlier this year after the district agreed to an LGBT-friendly policy overhaul.

“I’m really excited and proud,” Frei, 15, told the B.A.R. “To me it means a lot because now I have support when before I didn’t.”

See page 13 >>

Castro Walgreens robbed

by Seth Hemmelgarn

ebar.com S

an Francisco police are investigating a robbery that occurred at the Walgreens at 498 Castro Street this week.

At around 2:45 p.m., Monday, May 7, a man walked into a drug store and handed the victim a note that said he had a gun and he wanted medication, according to information provided by San Francisco

Police Department spokesman Sergeant Daryl Fong.

The suspect handed the victim another note that said if the victim didn’t give him what he wanted, he’d shoot him. The victim handed the suspect the medication, and the suspect fled the store on foot.

“The victim did not see a gun,” said Fong. “However, he was in fear for his safety, so he provided the medication.” He said that he

couldn’t say what type of medication it was but it was prescription and the suspect got “a small amount.”

Fong described the suspect as white, 30 to 35 years old, 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing 165 pounds and wearing a black and blue North Face jacket and black pants. The victim was listed as a 27-year-old Asian man. There were no injuries.

See page 13 >>

Read more online at www.ebar.com

May 10-16, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 3

<< Open Forum

4 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 10-16, 2012

Volume 42, Number 19 May 10-16, 2012 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Thomas E. Horn Bob Ross (Founder, 1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko Seth Hemmelgarn Jim Provenzano CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Dan Aiello • Tavo Amador • Erin Blackwell Roger Brigham • Scott Brogan Victoria A. Brownworth • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Chuck Colbert Richard Dodds • David Duran Raymond Flournoy • David Guarino Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell John F. Karr • Lisa Keen • Matthew Kennedy David Lamble • Michael K. Lavers Michael McDonagh • David-Elijah Nahmod Paul Parish • Lois Pearlman • Tim Pfaff Jim Piechota • Bob Roehr • Donna Sachet Adam Sandel • Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Ed Walsh • Sura Wood

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

LEGAL COUNSEL Paul H. Melbostad

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News Editor • news@ebar.com Arts Editor • arts@ebar.com Out & About listings • events@ebar.com Advertising • advertising@ebar.com Letters • letters@ebar.com A division of Benro Enterprises, Inc. © 2012 Published weekly. Bay Area Reporter reserves the right to edit or reject any advertisement which the publisher believes is in poor taste or which advertises illegal items which might result in legal action against Bay Area Reporter. Ads will not be rejected solely on the basis of politics, philosophy, religion, race, age, or sexual orientation.

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Our list of subscribers and advertisers is confidential and is not sold. The sexual orientation of advertisers, photographers, and writers published herein is neither inferred nor implied. We are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork.

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Leno for state Senate F

our years ago, when then-Assemblyman Mark Leno squared off against incumbent state Senator Carole Migden, it was one of the most divisive intraparty races of the election cycle. We backed Migden in that race, but she came up short.

Now, the legislative districts have been redrawn and for awhile it was feared Leno’s seat would be lost. It wasn’t, and we are pleased to endorse him in his re-election bid.

One of the state’s most high-profile LGBT politicos, Leno has taken on important issues over the years, including the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Education Act, which ensures that the historical contributions of LGBT Americans and people with disabilities are fairly portrayed in instructional materials.

But Leno is more than a “gay” politician. He has authored (and seen passed) bills addressing in-custody informants, gas pipeline safety, and electronic medical records. This year he is working on bills about medical cannabis, location privacy, and strip searches. He is a progressive Democrat who works to build consensus on legislation that helps people.

Of course, most of Leno’s time is spent dealing with state budget matters; he is chair of the Senate Budget Committee. In that capacity, he is working to help pass Governor Jerry Brown’s tax measure that will be on the November ballot.

“The comprehensive tax measure is critically important,” Leno told us, adding that it’s a “breath of fresh air” to have Brown in the governor’s office after seven years of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Leno is smart, capable, and gets things accomplished. We recommend Leno for the newly drawn 11th Senate District seat.

Ammiano for 17th Assembly District In the newly drawn 17th Assembly District, covering eastern San Francisco, we recommend incumbent Assemblyman Tom Ammiano for his third term. Since being elected four years ago, Ammiano has passed some important legislation, including Seth’s Law, which tightens anti-bullying policies in schools. A former teacher and member of the San Francisco school board (as well as the Board of Supervisors), Ammiano has championed legislation that will help students. This year he is working on bills addressing discipline policies.

Like Leno, Ammiano has not limited himself to LGBT legislation. He is an advocate of medical cannabis and is trying to work with the U.S. attorney’s office to reach an agreement around dispensary operations. He is also one of the few politicians willing to go near the “third rail” of California politics, Proposition 13. The 1970s-era property tax rollback law was passed by voters, but now, some 30-plus years later its effects are being felt as local governments face critical revenue shortfalls. Ammiano wants to start with closing the commercial property tax loophole and, while it’s a daunting prospect, the issue should at least be given a full hearing.

Ammiano faces Republican Jason Clark, a young man who faces an uphill fight in one of the state’s most liberal districts. Clark has some interesting ideas on tax policy, including taxing pensions of municipal workers. Somehow, we don’t see that idea gaining traction.

Ammiano is deserving of another term.

Ting for 19th Assemby District Phil Ting, San Francisco’s assessor-recorder, did not fare well in last year’s mayoral race, a consequence, he told us, of so many highprofile folks running. But almost as soon as the results were counted, he launched a bid for this open Assembly seat. (Current Assemblywoman Fiona Ma is termed out.) This race, Ting told us, is “very, very different.” For one thing, he has the backing of both the Harvey Milk and Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic clubs, not an easy feat in this politicized city.

Ting is a straight ally who supports marriage equality and other LGBT issues. Running in a heavily Asian district that includes the west side of San Francisco and portions of northern San Mateo County, Ting could help broaden support for same-sex marriage, antibullying efforts, and other issues.

He wants to work on economic development and job creation, two areas that are in need of innovative programs. California’s unemployment rate, at 11 percent, is above the national rate.

Rick Gerharter

Jane Philomen Cleland

State Senator Mark Leno

Judicial candidate Tara Flanagan

Ting came out of the Asian Law Caucus and said that Asian American attitudes are evolving on LGBT issues. One of the first steps in gaining support, he said, is visibility and samesex families sharing their stories.

Ting would add an important voice to Sacramento and has our recommendation.

DCCC Endorsements

Guillen for 18th Assembly District In the East Bay, the newly drawn 18th Assembly District includes most of Oakland, Alameda, and part of San Leandro. Abel Guillen, a Peralta Community College trustee, is our recommendation for the seat. (Assemblyman Sandre Swanson is termed out.)

Education, and the funding for it, is Guillen’s main issue. He told us that community colleges in California have been hit hard by budget cuts, the Peralta district alone has slashed 600 classes in the last two years, including basics like English and math. Community colleges are often the starting point for university-bound students, but the budget cuts, coupled with high tuition in the UC and CSU systems, means that access isn’t available to everyone.

“We really need someone who understands higher education and economic development,” Guillen told us.

He’s in favor of an oil severance tax. “We’re the only state that doesn’t have one,” he noted, and said that could raise $1.2 billion. What cannot continue to happen, he said, is to balance the state budget on the backs of students.

Guillen would also be the Legislature’s only out Two Spirit member; he recently came out publicly and said that if elected he would join the LGBT Legislative Caucus.

Guillen is a good fit with the progressive East Bay district.

Kline for SJ City Council The city of San Jose has been without an out LGBT member on its City Council for several years, since Ken Yeager was elected to the county Board of Supervisors. This year, voters in the city’s District 6 can change that by electing out gay candidate Steve Kline, whom we recommend.

Incumbent Pierluigi Oliverio is an ally – he supports marriage equality, for example, and we have no fault with him. It just seems to us that Oliverio is absent on LGBT issues and a voice seems to be missing on the City Council.

It was Kline who recently raised concern of the Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center being put up for sale due to the dissolution of the state’s redevelopment agencies, and is just one example where having an out LGBT person on the council would be influential.

Kline would provide that voice.

Flanagan for Alameda County judge There is one open judicial seat in Alameda County and we recommend attorney Tara Flanagan for the position.

Flanagan, an out lesbian, has the experience and qualification. She is a former prosecutor and legal aid attorney who is currently in private practice. She believes that the judicial system should treat everyone fairly. She has also been a temporary judge since 2006, so is familiar with the process. She is backed by numerous judges, elected officials, and community leaders. In a county where only 30 percent of the judges are women, Flanagan would add some much-needed diversity to the bench.

For decades, the principal functions of the Democratic County Central Committee have been basics associated with grassroots politics: voter education, registration, and turnout to elect Democrats to office and achieve electoral aims on ballot measures that reflect the party’s values. The central committee oils the machine of the political process for the party and makes it function smoothly. Additionally, because it is non-paying and not glamorous, it is a good starting point for young, energetic aspirants to elected office. It’s a way for them to pay their dues, so to speak, and to become candidates themselves. In recent years, however, we have observed the DCCC straying from its principal functions and becoming increasingly ideological, dividing between the “progressive” and the more “moderate” factions of the party, and often seeking to drive policy more than sticking to its core missions. We are troubled by the increasing number of local elected office holders also seeking seats on the DCCC. Their name recognition gives them an advantage in these entry level positions and makes it harder for the younger, worker bees, who are the future of the party, to get started.

The B.A.R. sent each of the candidates a detailed questionnaire asking their opinions on the concerns expressed above and their own personal motivations. The responses were very thoughtful and helpful to us. It definitely changed some opinions we had going into the process and now realize that there is no simple solution to these complex issues. We have been convinced that it is not democratic to ban elected office holders from running for the DCCC. Not only have voters already rejected that proposal at the ballot box, but many elected office holders remain just as committed to the core missions of party organizing as they ever were. However, we agree with one candidate who opined in her response that elected officials should “self-regulate” when considering a run and make sure that they are doing so for the right reasons.

Likewise, we don’t buy into the idea of any sort of slate, whether it be based on gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, political philosophy or ideology, or race. We looked for diversity, balance, conscientiousness, and willingness to work hard for the core missions of the party in a non-confrontational and hopefully respectful fashion as well as for those who hopefully will be our future Democratic candidates for elected offices in our city, state and nation.

Our recommendations for DCCC in the 17th Assembly District are: David Campos, David Chiu, Matt Dorsey, Bevan Dufty, Zoe Dunning, Gabriel Robert Haaland, Leslie Katz, Rafael Mandelman, Hydra Mendoza, Carole Migden, Justin Morgan, Joaquin Torres, Christopher Vasquez, Scott Wiener Our recommendations for DCCC in the 19th Assembly District are: Kat Anderson, Kevin Bard, Kelly Dwyer, Tom Hsieh, Mary Jung, Siki Kott, Meagan Levitan, Arlo Smith, Jim Weixel, Jason Wong

RCCC With only 9 percent of registered voters in San Francisco, the Republican Party also has a central committee, the RCCC. In the 17th AD, we recommend Jason Clark, an openly gay incumbent who was the only person in that race to return his questionnaire.

In the 19th AD, the number of people running for positions does not exceed the number of seats available so they will not be on the ballot. ▼

Open Forum >>

▼ Ballot measure endorsements San Francisco Propositions

environmental progress at risk and invites large multi-national companies to bid on the more profitable contracts while leaving the less profitable contracts to others. It emphasizes profit over environment. It would likely cost many good-paying local jobs. And who wants the Board of Supervisors to set rates rather than the independent Rate Board that currently sets rates? One only has to look at the broad opposition to Prop A to see its lack of support. Opposing Prop A are the Democratic and Republican parties, the chamber of commerce and the San Francisco Labor Council, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, the Harvey Milk and Alice Toklas LGBT Democratic clubs, and many more. As the saying goes: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Vote NO on A.

Proposition A: Garbage Collection and Disposal. NO. San Francisco is the greenest city in North America. Seventy-eight percent of San Francisco waste is recycled or otherwise converted to useful purposes rather than being dumped in a landfill. The city currently contracts with Recology, a local, employee-owned company, to collect and dispose of waste. Rates are set by a Rate Board consisting of the Chief Administrative Officer of the City, the Controller and the Public Utilities Manager. It has been remarkably successful, resulting in San Francisco being named Greenest City in the Country by the International Green City Index.

Prop A is an initiative that seeks to divide waste management collection and disposal into five separate contracts: one for residential collection, one for commercial collection, one for the recovery and processing of recyclables and compostables, one for transportation to disposal sites, and one for actual disposal. Each contract would be citywide and subject to public bid, and no single company could provide both recycling recovery services and garbage disposal services.

The Board of Supervisors would approve the maximum rates that residential and commercial customers would pay.

This is truly a solution in search of a problem. It puts San Francisco’s

Proposition B: Coit Tower Policy. NO. Prop B is a nonbinding policy statement to limit outside activities in and around Coit Tower and setting priorities for funds generated from its operation.

Coit Tower and Pioneer Park, sitting high on Telegraph Hill are iconic, historic landmarks, different but just as important to the fabric and legend of San Francisco as City Hall, the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Opera House and are entitled to the same care and conservation from

No need for crime scene photo I just read the front page of your May 3 issue and I am absolutely aghast that the murder photo of Ms. Brandy Martell is published there [“Trans woman killed in Oakland”]. Out of respect for her family, loved ones, and in the name of decency, there was no need for this photo to be included in your story. The photo added nothing to help understand the senselessness of the tragedy or gain journalistic credibility for the Bay Area Reporter. However, it unnecessarily emblazoned the violent image in the conscious of your readers who – for the most part – are already sensitized to the reality of violence perpetrated upon its community members. My first thought was, “What if it were me lying there?” I pose that same question to you, “What if it were you?” There is no dignity in the image of a bullet-riddled body, covered in a white sheet, lying on the cold, blood-soaked asphalt pavement.

Darryl Lampkin Hayward, California

[Editor’s note: On the contrary, the powerful image of a murdered transgender woman speaks volumes about the violence many trans folks experience. It goes to the very heart of what the paper does – convey the news to our community.]

Lavender, not pink, for City Hall As a native and lifelong resident of San Francisco, I agree that lighting up the dome of City Hall during Pride Week is a good idea [“Pride Committee, SF city agencies prepare for Pride,” Political Notebook, May 3]. However, the color should be lavender, not pink.

City Hall is located on Polk Street.

(About 13 years ago, then-Mayor Willie Brown renamed the two blocks of Polk Street that City Hall is on after an African American leader named Dr. Carleton B. Goodlett.) During the 1950s and 1960s, Polk Street (called “Polkstrasse” by the gay community) was the main street of what was then the primary gay neighborhood, a neighborhood still called Polk Gulch today. During the 1950s and 1960s, lavender, and not pink, was considered the primary gay color. Therefore, since the City Hall is on Polk Street, lavender, not pink, is the color in which the City Hall dome should be lit.

P.S. The hex code of lavender is #B57EDC. Dick Johnson San Francisco

Vasquez for DCCC I enjoyed reading Matthew Bajko’s article on the upcoming DCCC race [“SF Dem candidates differ on party panel makeup,” April 26], however, one LGBT candidate’s name was left out, Christopher Vasquez. He is running

those responsible for their stewardship. Designed by famed architect Arthur Brown Jr. in 1933, Coit Tower was made possible by a generous gift from the eccentric Lillie Hitchcock Coit in 1929 “to add to the beauty of the city I have always loved.” Inside the monument are more than 3,500 square feet of murals depicting California life as it appeared to the broad range of artists selected and funded by the Public Works of Art Project, one of the most innovative pilot federal programs of the New Deal. Decidedly leftist in their political slant, these museum-quality murals, mostly fresco, tell the stories of different slices of life in San Francisco and California during difficult but important times. They must be respected and preserved. If you have never seen them, take an afternoon and spend it at Coit Tower. It’s as important a monument and museum as we have in San Francisco.

And when you go, you will see what this ballot proposition is all about.

The Tower is nearly 80 years old. It is showing its age. Water has seeped into the interior and caused some peeling of the art.

Coit Tower and Pioneer Park are under the jurisdiction of the city’s Recreation and Park Department.

The murals inside are maintained by the city’s Arts Commission.

Both being city agencies, they are confronted with the same budget cutbacks and reduction of services facing the city generally. This is no excuse not to take proper care of city treasures. But it does provide a context to begin the analysis. The See page 10 >>

for the DCCC and has widespread community support and endorsements including Mayor Ed Lee, Supervisor Christina Olague, former Supervisor Bevan Dufty, Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Prozan, Rafael Mandelman and myself. Vasquez was (2008) and is working for Gays for Obama and is a tireless campaigner for LGBT rights and causes. Because Vasquez enjoys widespread support from both moderates and progressives, I feel he is a great choice to be on the DCCC. Steve Adams San Francisco

[Editor’s note: There are so many LGBT candidates that we couldn’t get them all in one article. Mr. Vasquez was included in the April 30 Political Notes, the B.A.R.’s weekly online column. Link is http://www.ebar.com/news/ article.php?sec=news&article=67664.]

LGBT center is a wreck Has anyone in the community taken a good look at the LGBT Community Center on Market Street? It’s dirty, it’s ugly, and it is using city funds that are badly needed elsewhere to perpetuate a lost dream. At a recent function I attended even the young people we were honoring commented on the center’s state of disrepair and dirt. As a native San Franciscan I am ashamed that this building is so poorly run and in its current condition. The function I attended was on the fourth floor, the only good space in the building. The view across the open terrace would have been beautiful, but could not be seen because we were told the window shades are broken in the closed position. Of course, if we had been able to open them they would have revealed windows that haven’t been washed in many years. Whoever came up with the juvenile color scheme only compounded this building’s big problems. The fourth floor directory shows only two out of 10 offices occupied. My negative review could go on for days.

I’m sure the health inspector would prefer not to go near the kitchen facilities on the first floor. In the long run the center’s board would do a great service to the gay community and the city’s budget by getting out some Windex and cleanser and doing some real work – then deciding how this white elephant should be dumped.

The gay community should stop trying to make this work and face the facts: the design is sub-standard and its operations model is not realistic. The center should stop trying to pull money from both private and public sources and let the organizations who have successful operating models receive the extremely limited funds that are available in a constricted economy.

It’s time to stop throwing good money at a project that has failed in a very large way.

Frank Morris San Francisco

May 10-16, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 5

<< Community News

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 10-16, 2012

<<

Woman’s death

From page 1

drunk I didn’t know what was going on.” The conversation lasted about 10 minutes.

At one point, she said, she told Martell, “I don’t think they know what’s going on,” referring to their gender identity. She said that Martell said, “Let them know,” and Johnson said she replied, “’You let them know.’”

“We kind of giggled about it,” she said. “Basically, they figured it out,” and she didn’t directly tell the men they were transgender.

The men’s reaction was “Nah, nah, I’m good,” and they left without any argument or saying anything anti-gay or anti-trans, said Johnson.

About half an hour after the men left, the one who’d been talking to Martell returned.

“I looked over and there was a gun in the car,” said Johnson. The man demanded money, and Johnson tried to hand him her purse, but he rejected it.

“I kept my eyes on the gun,” said Johnson. “I don’t remember Brandy saying anything. He just shot.”

Johnson said she “took off running” down the street, screaming for others to call the police as the shots continued.

Martell drove off and made it

about 50 feet to the corner of Franklin and 13th streets, said Johnson, but when she returned to the car, Martell wasn’t moving.

Oakland Police Department spokeswoman Lea Rubio said last week that police responded to the scene at 5:16 a.m. Martell was pronounced dead at the location.

Asked about the possible motive, Johnson said, “I think it was robbery and a hate crime, because all of a sudden, he wanted to come back after everything had been going on all fine and dandy.”

She indicated that she thinks if the motive had just been robbery, he wouldn’t have taken the extreme actions that he did.

“Everything you needed was right there, if you would have just taken that car,” she said.

Two services Martell’s family planned her funeral for Wednesday, May 9 at C.P. Bannon Mortuary in Oakland. Tiffany Woods, a transgender advocate who’d worked with Martell, shared information this week that the family planned to bury Martell as a man.

The service was packed with mourners. An open casket showed Martell dressed in a dark men’s suit, although the casket was closed before the service itself started.

An alternate memorial was set for Wednesday at the site where Martell

▼

was killed, said Woods, who added that Martell’s “favorite things” would be there.

“This service is for people who don’t want to attend her actual funeral, for whatever reason,” the announcement stated.

Erica Cleveland, who knew Marvell for more than 20 years, was at the memorial at 13th and Franklin Wednesday.

Cleveland chose the memorial over the funeral because Martell’s family had “disrespected” what she’d “fought so hard for all her life,” including her name, even though “they respected it while she was alive.” Cleveland said she didn’t know Martell’s family.

A cluster of flowers, heart-shaped balloons, and posters with Martell’s image were attached to a lamppost at the corner.

Johnson said that she never saw Martell as male, except for pictures.

“I never met this person they’re burying her as,” said Johnson, referring to her family’s decision. “I personally don’t agree with what they’re doing, but how can I tell a grieving family how to deal with their child ... and how they want to put her to rest?... That would be totally disrespectful and inappropriate.”

Johnson said Martell “had a really close bond with her mom and her dad. I know that for a fact. She was basically like ‘Daddy’s girl.’”

Betty Massey, Martell’s mother, said last week that Martell hadn’t legally changed her name, and she wanted police to refer to Martell as Milton Massey Jr. She declined to answer further questions.

Talishia Massey, 29, Martell’s sister, said Martell’s gender identity didn’t keep her parents from loving her.

Talishia Massey, who identifies as lesbian, said that Martell had legally changed her name at least 15 years ago. She used male pronouns when discussing Martell.

“I call him ‘Turkey,’” said Massey, referring to Martell’s nickname. “That was my brother. That’s how I grew up with him.”

Last week, the authorities identified Martell as Milton Massey Jr. and media outlets, including the Bay Area Reporter, reported that fact. Sean Troiano, an Alameda County coroner’s office technician, said that the identification was made through fingerprints.

Johnson also said that Martell legally changed her name about 16 years ago, and she lived in Hayward at the time. She said Martell’s driver’s license matched her female gender identity.

Mike Marando, spokesman for the California Department of Motor Vehicles, said the agency’s records show a Brandy Martell with the same birthdate as the homicide victim.

A search of Alameda County Superior Court records did not reveal that Martell had legally changed her name. The search covered records back to 1985.

Referring to how Martell’s family has been doing since the killing, Talishia Massey, who called Martell “an uplifting person,” said, “Everybody has their moments where they break down, but for the most part everybody is holding up. You accept the will of God.” Anyone with information in the case is asked to call the homicide unit at (510) 238-3821 or the dispatch office at (510) 777-3333.▼

On the web Online content this week includes the Bay Area Reporter’s online column, Political Notes; the Jock Talk and Out in the World columns; more News Briefs; and articles on Amendment One, Zach Wahls’s new book, and the recent Methodist conference. www.ebar.com.

▼

Politics >>

May 10-16, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

CA LGBTs host Obama fundraisers

by Matthew S. Bajko resident Barack Obama’s evolution this week into a supporter of same-sex marriage is sure to receive thunderous applause at two upcoming California fundraisers his LGBT backers are hosting that he is expected to attend.

Obama is headed to the Bay Area for several events on the Peninsula Wednesday, May 23, which happens to be a day after the Golden State celebrates Harvey Milk Day in honor of the slain gay rights leader. Obama will attend a dinner in Atherton and then appear at a reception at the Fox Theatre in Redwood City.

One of the lead organizers is Los Altos resident Kathy Levinson, an out lesbian who serves as co-chair of the National Finance Committee of Obama for America. She has been trying to bundle LGBT donors together for the events in order to “make ourselves be known,” as she wrote in a Facebook invite.

Levinson is also a member of the group throwing a June 6 fundraiser in Los Angeles that is being billed as a “National LGBT Gala” for the president. The Facebook page for the event

P

at the start of Pride month says it will be “the campaign’s premiere fundraising event for the LGBT community.”

The Obama for America’s 2012 LGBT Leadership Council is the host of the fundraiser. But who is a member of the council remains somewhat of a mystery.

Neither Clo Ewing, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign, nor Linda M. Serrato, the recently hired California press secretary for Obama for America, would disclose the names of the council members to the Bay Area Reporter.

“As we get closer to the event we will have more details on the event and who is chairing,” Ewing told the B.A.R. Levinson would only confirm that she is a member of the group, while Clark Williams, the northern chair of the state Democratic Party’s LGBT Caucus, said he had never seen a membership list for the council.

“The Obama Victory Fund/LGBT Leadership Council has held several large fundraisers already this year (New York, Florida, Chicago, etc.) and the LA fundraiser is another effort to ‘bundle’ our LGBT dollars for the Obama re-election,” wrote Williams in an email.

Details on the June event have begun to slip out this week. The singer Pink is slated to perform at the gala at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills.

One source told the B.A.R. the event hosts include gay film producer Bruce Cohen, who financed the Milk movie; Human Rights Campaign board members Dana Perlman and Barry Karas; and David Cooley, the owner of West Hollywood gay club the Abbey.

A spokesman for Cooley said he is not chairing the event, tickets for which start at $1,250 per person, but is serving as a host.

“David supports President Obama and wants to make sure he gets reelected,” said Brian Rosman. “We do expect a sell-out crowd but we have no idea what President Obama will say.”

According to Vanity Fair’s Wilshire and Washington blog the co-creators

Rick Gerharter

Democratic National Committee Chair Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was joined by San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and San Jose Congressman Mike Honda at the launch of Asian American Pacific Islanders for Obama 2012.

of the TV comedy Will and Grace, David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, are among the gala’s chairs paying $25,000 per couple to attend. Mutchnick had told the magazine earlier this week that he found Obama’s “still evolving” stance on same-sex marriage “wholly offensive.”

Obama told ABC News in an interview Wednesday, May 9 that he had

changed his thinking on the issue. It came after Vice President Joe Biden’s remark that he is “absolutely comfortable” with gays and lesbians marrying on Meet the Press Sunday set off a media firestorm about the issue. [See story, page 1.]▼ A longer version of this column is online at ebar.com.

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 10-16, 2012

<< Business News

▼ Celebrating small businesses

by Raymond Flournoy

M

onday, May 14 marks the beginning of Small Business Week in San Francisco. Produced with major sponsorship from Wells Fargo Bank, the week comprises a series of social and educational events designed to support, connect, and celebrate the city’s small businesses.

Small Business Week kicks off with the Flavors of San Francisco gala on Monday night. This event allows the public to sample tasty bites from restaurants, caterers, food businesses, and bars from across the city. This year the Castro district will be represented by Cafe Flore (2298 Market Street), Dancing Pig (544 Castro Street), Ike’s Place (3489 16th Street), Kasa Indian Eatery (4001 18th Street), and Urban Bread (3901 18th Street).

The event takes place in the City View Room at the Metreon, 101 Fourth Street, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.

Tickets are $10, and can be ordered at www.flavors2012.eventbrite.com.

On Tuesday, May 15, the Board of Supervisors, the mayor’s office, and the Small Business Commission will honor exceptional small businesses in a ceremony at City Hall.

One small business from each district will be recognized during the afternoon event.

Gay Supervisor Scott Wiener, whose District 8 includes the Castro neighborhood, has selected Orphan Andy’s (3991 17th Street) for this year’s honor.

“Orphan Andy’s leaped at the chance to be the community partner in moving chairs and tables into and out of the Jane Warner Plaza each day.

They are an exemplary business and neighbor in the Castro Street neighborhood,” said Wiener in nominating the Castro eatery.

The centerpiece of Small Business Week is the third annual Small Business Conference, taking place on Wednesday, May 16. Featuring 50 free workshops and seminars, the conference brings together small business owners with experts on topics ranging from social media and financing, to the food industry and ADA compliance.

For the full schedule and instructions for registering, visit www.sfsmallbusinessweek.com.

Next Thursday, May 17, the Golden Gate Business Association and the Merchants of Upper Market and Castro are co-sponsoring the Mega Make Contact LGBT Mixer.

The event takes place at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center (1800 Market Street) and runs from 6 to 8 p.m.

The event is free to the public, but registration is encouraged at the Small Business Week website.

The week draws to a close on Saturday, May 19 with the annual Small Business Week Sidewalk Sale in the Castro. MUMC is once again organizing businesses to turn the neighborhood into a bargain hunter’s paradise. Shops will be hosting special sales, along with other offers and promotions.

The highlight of the day will be the rededication of the Harvey Milk plaque at 1 p.m. at Harvey Milk Plaza. After remarks by local dignitaries, the crowd will process through the Castro to the site where Milk once ran his camera store, and which now houses the Human Rights Campaign Action Center and Store (575 Castro Street).

A new skin for old wines Castro Village Wine Company (4119 19th Street) is about to prove that all things old are new again, with

Steven Kasapi

Castro Village Wine Company manager Joseph Estrada, center, joins new owners Todd McElhatton, left, and Matt Porta at the renovated wine tasting bar in preparation for the grand reopening celebration on May 12.

new owners and a new interior but under a name that harkens back to the days of Milk himself.

The wine and spirits store dates back to 1980 when original owners Boyd Swartz and Joe Chavez set up shop. The two were part of the new wave of gay entrepreneurs in Eureka Valley, and they took the name of their wine store from the Castro Village Association, the merchants association established

by Milk in the early 1970s.

Last year as Swartz and Chavez prepared for retirement, three loyal customers banded together to purchase the business. “We were afraid that our little oasis in the Castro was going to go away,” said new owner Matt Porta.

Porta, along with co-owners James Kelm and Todd McElhatton, have a background in the Silicon Valley tech community, but under the guidance of store manager Joseph Estrada and longtime employee Keith Schroder they aim to preserve the spirit of the original wine shop. The three are also gay, and are proud to continue the tradition of gay-owned businesses in the Castro.

After a $20,000 renovation, the trio is inviting the neighborhood to a grand reopening celebration on Saturday, May 12. The event will feature the shop’s signature selection of California wines.

Along with the refreshed interior, the Castro Village Wine Company is now offering wine tastings every day of the week, and they will soon begin weekly special programs on Thursdays. They hope to feature presentations from wineries and other wine experts.

The grand reopening is open to the public, but reservations are encouraged at events@castrowine.com.

Concierge tours of the Castro On June 5, about four-dozen concierges from hotels around the city will tour businesses and attractions of the Castro district, in a program that local shopkeepers hope will produce increased tourist traffic to the neighborhood.

Beth Feingold, executive director of Under One Roof (518A Castro Street), and Richard Shiu, owner of Best in Show (545 Castro Street), organized the first concierge tour in 2011. Encouraged by the feedback they received they have doubled the number of participating concierges for this year’s tours.

“I was hearing about it for months

afterwards, and many of the concierges have kept in touch since then,” said Feingold.

The tours will happen in two shifts to accommodate the schedules of the participating hotels. The tours will begin with a reception, hosted at Under One Roof for the morning crew, and at Mudpuppy’s Tub and Scrub (536 Castro Street) in the afternoon.

Kathy Amendola will lead a shortened version of her Cruisin’ the Castro tours (http://www.cruisinthecastro.com), and 20 Castro businesses have signed on as check-in points for the concierges.

Any Castro businesses interested in participating in the tour are encouraged to contact Shiu at info@ bestinshow.com by today (Thursday, May 10).

New care option in the Castro On May 1, One Medical Group, a member-supported primary care provider organization, opened its latest location at 595 Castro Street.

The medical provider differentiates itself from other medical offices by offering a higher level of service, including technology-leveraged services such as online appointments, digital prescriptions, and email access to physicians. These extra services are supported by annual patient membership fees ranging from $149 to $199.

The Castro location will initially be served by two physicians, Michelle Rhee and John Nienow.

Rhee specializes in family medicine and women’s health issues, including pregnancy and fertility. Nienow is an out, gay man, and has a special expertise in HIV, hepatitis C, and LGBT health issues.

According to Dr. Sally Ward, also with One Medical Group, the Castro Street location was chosen in part because of its residential location.

“We saw that the Castro could use a centralized community-based practice to serve the diverse population of the neighborhood, and this happened to be a good fit for us.

While we started in San Francisco’s Financial district, we’re trying to reach people closer to their homes and are glad to offer primary care services to the community,” said Ward.

Quick takes Soup Freaks closed its Castro location earlier this month. The business continues to operate at its original 667 Mission Street location.

Fork Cafe (469 Castro Street) is in the middle of a monthlong “soft opening,” with a grand opening celebration scheduled for June 1.▼

▼

Community News>>

May 10-16, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

Pride looks to replace rainbow flags compiled by Cynthia Laird

O

ne of the hallmarks of San Francisco’s annual Pride celebration is seeing Market Street lined with rainbow flags throughout the month of June.

But the city’s main thoroughfare doubles as a wind tunnel, wrecking havoc on the LGBT symbols attached to light poles along the street. After delighting visitors for the last decade, the current stash of 500 flags has reached its durability limit.

“Our current set of rainbow flags have been in rotation in the Market Street display for 10 years,” Pride Executive Director Brendan Behan told the Bay Area Reporter in an email. “We have reached the very end of the current generation of flags’ lifespan, and we will need to replace the entire inventory, which will require purchasing 500 new flags as well as the equipment that is required to hang the flags.”

The Pride Committee each year pays for the permit needed in order to fly the flags. This year the cost is $3,614.06.

The cost to replace the flags is estimated at $40,000. As Pride has struggled to clear away a fiscal deficit it incurred in 2010, the committee does not have the funds to cover the expense.

“We have been putting that cost off but the time has come,” said Behan in an interview, adding that he would like to have new flags in place for 2013.

The Pride Committee has decided to ask the community not only to help pay for the replacement flags but also to help decide what type of flag to buy.

Rick Gerharter

The group that puts on San Francisco’s Pride Parade is raising money to replace the worn rainbow flags that line Market Street each June.

“We are appealing to the public for donations to support funding the next generation of flags, which with diligent care and many volunteer hours to make repairs to torn or weather-damaged flags after each June’s display, can last us for another decade,” wrote Behan.

“We will be raising two prototype flags for the next generation outside of our Market Street office and inviting community members’ input about their preferred version.”

The prototypes will be on display the beginning of June when the Pride flags are installed. Starting this week those who would like to contribute can do so online at www.SFpride.org/ See page 12 >>

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 10-16, 2012

<< Community News

▼ 2 out supes withdraw support for Milk naval ship resolution

by Matthew S. Bajko

T

wo out members on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors have withdrawn their support for a resolution calling on the U.S. Navy to name a vessel after slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk.

Both gay District 9 Supervisor David Campos and bisexual District 5 Supervisor Christina Olague initially agreed to co-sponsor the resolution crafted by their colleague, gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener.

But after a number of people raised concerns last week about the proposal, Campos and Olague removed their names as co-sponsors.

Milk served in the Navy as a diving instructor and was discharged in 1955 at the rank of lieutenant, junior grade. Later in life he was an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, according to his friends.

After learning more about Milk’s military views and hearing the objections some have expressed seeing a naval vessel named in his honor,

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Ballot endorsements

From page 5

murals were last restored in 1989.

Recent deterioration has caused some new damage. Rec and Park has recently transferred $250,000 to the Arts Commission to repair and restore the murals. This will give the Arts Commission sufficient resources to conduct a professional study of necessary repairs and then to undertake them.

Coit Tower itself needs infrastructure repair and continued maintenance. As it remained seismically sound following the 1989 earthquake, it was not included in the bond measure passed by the voters, which has permitted the repair and upgrade of other city monuments built around the same time, such as City Hall, the Opera House, and Bill Graham Auditorium. In meetings with the Bay Area Reporter editorial board, the heads of the Rec and Park Department as well as the commission which oversees it described to us the major study currently being undertaken to ascertain what damage has been done to the tower and what repairs are necessary.

They commit that they will follow the recommendations of the study and fund the necessary repairs.

Prop B, while nonbinding, sets as policy that outside activities, including rental events by private organizations, be strictly limited. This focus is misdirected. Public buildings should be available to the largest numbers of people possible. And outside of public opening hours, activities are an important source of revenue that helps support not only the maintenance of Coit Tower but other recreational facilities around the city, such as parks and playgrounds. The issue isn’t the number

Rick Gerharter

Supervisor Christina Olague

Olague had a change of heart about endorsing the idea.

“I heard from a lot of people who actually knew him,” Olague told the Bay Area Reporter. “He had an anti-war, anti-military philosophy toward the end of his life.”

Campos also told the Bay Area

of activities held but that the level of security present be sufficient to assure the safety of the facilities and the people attending the event. Outside events are managed by an exclusive concessionaire under contract with Rec and Park, not unlike a private caterer. The department is currently preparing a request for proposal (RFP) to find a long term (and more satisfactory) concessionaire to manage the facility on a day-to-day basis.

They assure us that any new licensing agreement will contain provisions that any rental of the facility for private usage will obligate the user to pay for additional department security to assure that no damage is caused to the tower or to the art.

Prop B would also tell the city how to spend the revenue from operations. We consistently oppose ballot measures that “set aside” revenue and direct it be used for specific purposes. That type of “ballot box budgeting” is not good public policy. While these are particularly difficult economic times, we are convinced that Rec and Park and the Arts Commission are both serious about their commitment to Coit Tower and its preservation as one of San Francisco’s most iconic landmarks. Vote no on B.

State Propositions Proposition 28: Limits on Legislators’ Terms in Office.

YES. This is an initiative constitutional amendment that seeks to address a problem we all saw coming when term limits were imposed on the state legislators 20 years ago, i.e. that elected officials subject to term limits would spend most of their time in office looking for their next job in order to extend their political careers by rotating from one office to another

Reporter that he withdrew as a sponsor due to the “legitimate concern” he received about the idea, adding that “many, including some who knew Harvey, feel that there are better ways to honor Harvey Milk.”

He added that he originally supported the resolution because he believes that, “given the number of LGBT people who serve in the military, including the Navy, it is appropriate for a Navy ship to be named after a member of the LGBT community. I still believe that.”

Wiener now is the sole sponsor of the resolution, as he had only asked his out colleagues on the board to co-sign it.

It states, in part, that “it is time to recognize the contributions of United States Navy LGBT service members by naming a ship after an LGBT veteran; and ... Milk, in light of his role as a community leader, trailblazer, visionary elected official, and Navy veteran, fits such a role See page 12 >>

and never really master the job they have. We opposed term limits then and still think they are undemocratic, but that’s not the issue on the ballot.

Prop 28 modifies the current law to imposing a 12-year limit on the time a person can spend in the Legislature.

It improves the current law in that it permits the office holder to spend his/ her entire 12 years in one chamber, the Assembly or the state Senate. Or s/he can divide the 12 years between the two bodies but isn’t required to do so. This will permit the legislator to better understand the issues as well as the body in which s/he serves and reduce the influence of lobbyists and special interests. It is an improvement on a seriously flawed concept. Vote YES on Prop 28.

Proposition 29: Imposes Additional Tax on Cigarettes for Cancer Research. YES. This initiative statute would impose an additional $1 tax per pack of cigarettes distributed. The tax revenues are required to be deposited into a special fund to finance research and research facilities, tobacco-related diseases, and prevention programs.

Smoking is the leading cause of cancer, the world’s most deadly killer.

The cost to our health care system is staggering, not to mention the pain caused to the familiezs and loved ones affected by smoking-related disease.

In spite of the evidence, many young people start smoking. While only one factor, there is a certain price point where kids think twice and smokers wonder if it’s worth it. Public health experts estimate Prop 29 will stop 228,000 kids from smoking and will save the lives of 104,000 smokers who quit. And the money will fund research on cancer and tobacco-related diseases. This is a no-brainer. Vote YES on Prop 29.▼

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Obituaries >>

May 10-16, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 11

Wild Things’ author Maurice Sendak dies

by Heather Cassell

U

nruly like his famous character, Max, who sailed away to the land of Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak refused to conform to a world that encouraged conformity.

In doing so, he opened generations of young readers’ eyes into the unknown and to imagine their wildest adventures.

Mr. Sendak is now onto new adventures. He died on May 8 in Danbury Hospital near his home in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The cause was complications from a stroke he suffered on May 4, his friend and caretaker Lynn Caponera and longtime editor Michael di Capua, told the Los Angeles Times and New York Times, respectively. He was 83.

Mr. Sendak, who was gay, was preceded in death by his longtime partner, Eugene Glynn, a child psychiatrist, who died of cancer in 2007.

He had no immediate surviving family members, according to multiple media sources.

Mr. Sendak came out as gay in a 2008 NY Times interview.

“His gay identity was something that was not really discussed or he didn’t promote, but he didn’t hide it.

He certainly didn’t integrate it into his work, but what I think he did integrate into his work was understanding of diversity and an understanding of difference and an understanding of surviving,” said Connie Wolf, the out director of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford.

Wolf oversaw the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s 2009 exhibit, There’s a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak, as the former director of the

Maurice Sendak

San Francisco museum.

Martin and Shelli Rawlings-Fein, bisexual parents of two children, weren’t surprised he was gay, but they were saddened that he wasn’t more public about his relationship.

“I felt sad that so many gay youth may not have been aware of his being gay and how much of a role model he might have been for them,” wrote Shelli Rawlings-Fein in an email.

The award-winning author and illustrator, probably best known for Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963, was also a collaborator on films, operas, plays, and television. Yet, the unruly Max and his wild beastly friends in Wild Things changed the world of children’s literature during Mr. Sendak’s more than 60-year career.

Max’s adventures to the land of the wild things after he was sent to his room without supper became one of the 10 bestselling children’s books of

all time, reported the LA Times. It also dominated the NY Times’ 50-yearold annual best-illustrated children’s book list and inspired films, operas, and plays.

Twenty-two of Mr. Sendak’s books also made appearances on that very list as books of the year.

He followed Wild Things, with In the Night Kitchen, Outside Over There, The Sign on Rosie’s Door, Higglety Pigglety Pop!, and The Nutshell Library, four tiny volumes included in a box set: Alligators All Around, Chicken Soup with Rice, One Was Johnny, and Pierre.

In his 80s, he was still publishing with the recently released BumbleArdy, his first book in 30 years, and his forthcoming, My Brother’s Book, scheduled for release in February.

Mr. Sendak bristled at the label of being a “children’s author and illustrator” as it was never a goal or anything he knew how to do, he said in interviews. Perhaps because he was more than simply an illustrator and writer, his influence and work crossed nearly all creative platforms of his time.

The darkest moments of the 20th century and his own childhood sickliness were the backdrops of his upbringing. Born Maurice Bernard Sendak, the youngest of three siblings, into a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York on June 10, 1928, his life was shaped by the Holocaust that wiped out his European relatives and the Lindbergh kidnapping in 1932. He found inspiration and his life passion in comic books and Walt Disney.▼ A longer version of this article is online at ebar.com.

Longtime community activist Larry Wisch dies

by Naphtali Offen

T

he irrepressible and indefatigable Renaissance man Larry Wisch died on May 5 after a long battle against AIDS. He was 59.

Co-founder of the Choral Majority and of Three Stone Hearth, gay activist, Jewish and Buddhist, entrepreneur, horticulturalist, and Dolphin Club swimmer, Mr. Wisch had his finger in many pies. To the end, he celebrated each moment, reveling in the closeness he shared with his lover and caregiver Giancarlo (John) Calabrese.

Mr. Wisch was born in the Amalgamated Co-ops in the Bronx on February 6, 1953, surrounded by

Larry Wisch

four generations of his family. He was proud of his family’s history of community activism in the first housing co-op of its kind in New York City.

When he was 9, his family moved to Cranford, New Jersey. Mr. Wisch attended Johns Hopkins and Antioch College for his undergraduate degree in urban human ecology and UC Davis for graduate work. He settled in San Francisco in the late 1970s, where he was a founding participant of the Central Page limited equity co-op, a not-for-profit venture that continues to provide affordable housing.

Like so many of his generation, Mr. Wisch had an eclectic career See page 13 >>

Obituaries >> Wally Betts 1926 – 2012

Known as “Dub” to his family, Wally Betts, a San Francisco resident since 1960, passed away during heart surgery.

Wally was from Arkansas and the oldest of 12 children where they lived on a farm and raised cattle and picked cotton. Eventually, Wally made it to San Francisco where he was a longtime Castro resident and a fixture in the community. He worked for 30 years in the pharmacy at Rexall and after retiring worked at the Diamond Senior Center and Java Road Coffee House. He volunteered at Coming Home Hospice and was a Most Holy Redeemer parishioner. Wally loved traveling, gardening, good food, trains, and telling stories – the spicier the better. He collected fashionable

hats and was always wearing one.

Wally had several medical problems in his last years but he never let it get him down or steal the mischievous twinkle in his eye. It just wasn’t in his nature to give in. Wally’s kindness, good nature, and humor left a mark on his many friends who miss him. We prefer to think he is now in a beautiful garden free of pain sitting alongside Sweeney his longtime companion who predeceased him. Private family services were held in Sacramento.

Walter “Walt” J. Breen April 22, 1956 – April 30, 2012

Born in Rhode Island, Walter lived in San Francisco for the past 30 years.

The son of Walter Breen Sr. and Betty (Archambault) Breen, he is survived by sisters Patricia and Caroline, and by countless friends

from coast to coast. Final arrangements were handled by College Chapel Mortuary in San Francisco.

A passionate student of linguistics, Walter graduated from Brown University in 1977, and previously acted as ESL program director at Jewish Vocational Services in San Francisco. His last two years were spent pursuing the goal of reading The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) in each of the 100-plus languages it was published. An exceptionally charitable man, Walter knew every homeless person in his neighborhood by name. He was rarely seen without a smile, even in his final days.

In lieu of flowers please send donations to the angels who cared for Walter during his transition, at Maitri Compassionate Care, 401 Duboce Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117. You can also donate online at www.maitrisf.org.

A small, private ceremony of remembrance is planned for late May in San Francisco. Details are available under “Announcements” at: walterbreen.remembered.com.

ebar.com

<< Community News

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 10-16, 2012

<<

API Wellnes Center

From page 1

API Wellness Center will mark its anniversary with a benefit next week.

The Asian AIDS Project was established in 1987 within Asian American Recovery Services. According to API Wellness Center’s website, AAP is the first HIV/AIDS service organization to specifically target Asians and Pacific Islanders in North America with outreach and HIV/AIDS prevention education.

In 1996, API Wellness Center was formed out of the merger of the Asian AIDS Project and Living Well Project. Toma, who’s 42 and joined the agency’s staff in 2000, became executive director in 2006.

Recently, the nonprofit, which has 2,000 to 3,000 unduplicated clients and a current budget of $3.9 million, has seen more change. In March 2011, its Wellness Clinic opened. The program provides primary health care and other services free-of-charge for low income, uninsured or under-insured San Franciscans who wouldn’t otherwise have access to health care.

Earlier this year, many clients who had received care through the nonprofit Tenderloin Health, which had served some of the city’s poorest residents, were transferred to API Wellness Center. Tenderloin Health shut down due to funding problems.

The expansion has presented his agency’s biggest challenge, but Toma said, “It’s a good challenge.”

He said, “It’s a lot of work to do to ensure we can continue all the programs” and ensure that “we’re aligned with all the reform that’s happening with respect to health care.”

Among Toma’s concerns is the national Affordable Care Act.

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Milk naval ship

From page 10

perfectly on his own behalf and on behalf of the LGBT community.”

Due to the controversy his resolution has stirred, Wiener decided to send it first to a board committee prior to having the full board vote on it.

The City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee, on which Olague sits, will take up the matter at its 10 a.m. meeting Monday, May 14

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News Briefs

From page 9

donate. Be sure to select Pride flags under the “program designation” options.

CBD seeks Castro ambassadors With summer quickly approaching, the Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District is accepting applications from people interested in volunteering as Castro ambassadors for the 2012 season.

The focus of the program is to help visitors find their way and feel welcome in the neighborhood.

Ambassadors receive training in greeting visitors, street safety, and providing information about the area’s amenities and history. They are issued photo ID badges, “Castro Ambassador” jackets, satchels full of tourist information, and are deployed in the central business district throughout the week from June through October.

“The Castro ambassadors are a fun and exciting way for volunteers to share their love for the neighborhood with tourists, meet people, and have fun,” said Andrea Aiello, CBD executive director. “It’s also a great way for people to give back to the community.”

The program assisted 6,000 visitors from around the world last summer during its pilot run, and received praise from visitors and

“With respect to HIV and other marginalized communities, there’s still a lot of work to be done about how health care reform truly includes all of our communities in our country,” he said.

He said those groups include people of color, LGBTs, immigrants, and people living with HIV. Though the API Wellness has worked to reach out to people in a variety of demographics, the nonprofit still offers comfort to members of the Asian community.

Edwin Mah, who’s 62 and is living with AIDS, is a client of the nonprofit who serves on its consumer advocate board. He said the API Wellness Center helps him with psychotherapy and a monthly social where he learns about new developments in treatment and other topics.

“I still feel like kind of an outsider in the gay community,” Mah said, and he’s encountered situations where he is “the only Asian in the room.” For him, he said, the center has become a “close-knit community.”

Toma said that he works closely with his nonprofit’s board to oversee finances. According to the nonprofit’s estimates, for the 2011-12 fiscal year, which ended March 31, total revenue and expenses were both $3.4 million. Program service costs accounted for about 80 percent of the agency’s expenses.

The agency has no debt, and about $450,000 in reserves.

Rick Gerharter

API Wellness Center Executive Director Lance Toma, center, joined Michaela Hoffman, far left, and members of the Tahitian dance troupe Hui Tama Nui at the kickoff of Taking Root: Our Stories, Our Community, a storytelling campaign the agency launched to end HIV stigma.

▼

controller’s departure “the interim replacements could not handle the record keeping for the organization.

Therefore, there was no reliable financial reporting after the controller left, and our audit was prolonged because of the poor condition of the accounting records.” Documents included with the audit also say, “Billings were not done timely and it caused cash flow problems.”

The accounting firm’s letter says, “All material misstatements detected as a result of audit procedures were corrected by management.”

In an interview, Toma said that he delayed the billing “in order to bring in the right level of leadership for the organization” and “I don’t think we were in danger.”

In emailed comments provided by agency spokeswoman Stephanie Goss, Toma said the billing delay issues were corrected by hiring current Director of Finance and Administration Yvonne Watson “and having skilled leadership in our finance area to fully comply with all accounting standards.” Watson was brought in as a consultant in August 2011 and hired full time in October.

Toma added that “a separate issue” is “the fact that we are often late closing our books. ... The city asks that we close our books and invoice them 10 days after the month ends.”

He added, “I want to be clear that this does not mean we fail to regularly invoice our funders. We are vigilant about receiving payments owed to us for the services we provide.”▼

Asked if he’d take a salary cut if the 20 percent reduction comes, Toma said, “I would explore all options. I’ve done that in the past, and so all options would be on the table.”

But API Wellness Center and other organizations in San Francisco are facing a shortfall in federal funding from Ryan White HIV/ AIDS Treatment Modernization Act and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

He said that from what he can tell, his and other agencies would face a

cut of “upwards to a 20 percent decrease” in funds.

For API Wellness Center, that could translate to a loss of up to $340,000 in funds for the city’s fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Some city officials have expressed determination to preserve funding, as did Toma.

But if the 20 percent reductions do come, staff cuts would be part of his savings strategy, and program cuts would also have to be considered, he said.

Toma’s salary for the 2011-12 fiscal year was $111,000. He said that the budget just passed by the board includes “a modest surplus,” and includes an average of a 2 percent salary increase for all staff. The plans are still being finalized, but for Toma, the raise would mean an increase of about $2,000 to $3,000.

in Room 260 at City Hall.

“I sent it to committee because I believe the issue is important enough to warrant a committee discussion and because if there’s going to be significant public comment, it’s better for that to occur at a committee hearing,” Wiener told the B.A.R. this week.

In late April LGBT activists in San Diego launched a campaign to convince Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to name a Navy ship the USS Harvey

Milk. Milk’s family, along with several friends and former aides, has endorsed the idea.

Congress members Bob Filner (D-San Diego), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) also back the proposal. But it also has attracted a fair share of detractors.

While she understands people want to honor Milk’s memory,

Olague said she is not convinced this is the best way to do so.

“I understand wanting to name a warship in his memory. I can also understand why Harvey Milk is not the appropriate person for that honor,” Olague said.

She suggested she could support a resolution calling on the Navy to name a vessel after Leonard Matlovich. The onetime Castro resident served in the Air Force and appeared on the cover of Time magazine in

1975 as part of an article detailing his legal battle over the military’s anti-gay ban.

At Tuesday’s board meeting Olague submitted a resolution calling for Milk’s birthday on May 22 to be declared a national holiday to be heard by the supervisors May 15.

California already recognizes the date as a day of special significance in honor of Milk, the first gay person to hold elected office in the state who was killed in 1978.▼

neighborhood residents alike.

To complete an application online, visit castrocbd.org/content/ ambassador-program or call Aiello at (415) 500-1181.

Anyone with information on the case can contact Maguire at (415) 553-1753 or the SFPD’s Mission Station anonymous tip line at (415) 552-4558. The case number is 120 347 194.

issues of housing facing the LGBT community on Tuesday, May 15 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center, 730 Polk Street (at Ellis) in the Banyan Room.

The session is billed as one in which people can ask questions and learn of plans and programs. Guests and panelists will include Bevan Dufty, the mayor’s homeless policy aide; Kathy Treggiari of Episcopal Community Services; Lee Harrington of AIDS Emergency Fund; Seth Kilbourn of Openhouse; Brian Basinger of AIDS Housing Alliance; and Jodi Schwartz of the Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center.

Light refreshments will be provided.

The event is part of Inforum, the club’s division for people in their 20s and 30s, although the program is open to all.

Tickets are $25 standard, $15 members, and $10 students. Standard tickets with book are $55, $40 members. Premium tickets (include the reception, book, and priority seating) are $80 standard and $60 members.

To purchase tickets online, visit www.commonwealthclub.org/ events.

Possible cuts

Police seek suspect in assault The San Francisco Police Department is seeking a man suspected of attempting to sexually assault another man in the Castro neighborhood last week.

Citing information from the victim and police, Castro Community on Patrol Vice Chair Ken Craig said in an email advisory that the incident occurred around 2 a.m., Wednesday, May 2 in the 3900 block of 17th Street. The suspect forced his way into the victim’s residence as the victim was entering his front door.

The man tried to sexually assault the victim and physically assaulted him “causing serious head trauma,” according to Craig’s Monday, May 7 email. The suspect stole a notebook computer and fled east on foot up 17th Street.

The man is described as black, approximately 32, with short hair, a “stocky build” and clean-shaven.

San Francisco police Inspector Thomas Maguire declined to provide many more details on the case but said, “We’re actively working on this.”

Maguire said the victim is “good, he’s stable” and is not hospitalized.

Early voting has started The San Francisco Department of Elections has announced that early voting started this week, and vote-by-mail ballots are beginning to be sent out.

Registered voters can cast ballots on the ground floor of City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday (the department is closed Monday, May 28 in observance of Memorial Day).

Weekend voting will take place at City Hall May 26-27 and June 2-3, for access enter on Grove Street.

People can request a vote-by-mail ballot but completed applications must be received by May 29.

Additionally, you can still register to vote, the deadline is May 21. For more information, visit www.sfelections.org.

Other counties may also have early voting, check with your registrar of voters.

Panel to discuss LGBT housing issues The LGBT Advisory Committee of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission will hold a panel presentation to address and discuss

Other problems Financial records provided by API Wellness Center show the agency has also experienced troubles related to billing, an area that’s been problematic for other nonprofits.

An audit of API Wellness Center that covers the 2010-11 fiscal year mentioned problems that occurred after the nonprofit’s controller left in October 2010. A November 2011 letter to APIWC from the CPA firm Le, Ho and Company, LLP says, “We encountered no significant difficulties in dealing with management in performing and completing our audit,” but the letter says that after the

Andy Cohen at Castro Theatre Andy Cohen, the out executive vice president of development and talent at Bravo and executive producer of the hit shows like Top Chef and The Real Housewives will be the speaker at a Commonwealth Club event Wednesday, May 16 that will take place at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street. A premium ticket reception is at 6:30 p.m., followed by the program at 7, and a book signing at 8.

Cohen’s recent book, Most Talkative: Stories from the Front Lines of Pop Culture, is included with some ticket packages.

From 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, May 17, API Wellness Center will hold Bloom, its annual fundraising gala, at the San Francisco Design Center Galleria, 101 Henry Adams Street, San Francisco. Individual tickets are $100. For more information, visit www.apiwellness.org.

SFPD fishing program seeks LGBT youth The San Francisco Police Department’s fishing program is reaching out to LGBT youth. As soon as schools let out for the summer, volunteer SFPD officers will be taking kids out on the bay for a fun day of deep-sea fishing. The program was created decades ago to foster closer relationships between local kids and law enforcement officers.

The fishing program is a nonprofit organization that is focused exclusively on providing an exciting day of fishing free of cost to interested young anglers.

For more information, contact Officer Bob Ford at (415) 558-5527 or visit www.sf-police.org/index. aspx?page=1708.▼ Matthew S. Bajko and Seth Hemmelgarn contributed to this report.

â&#x2013;ź <<

Community News>>

Castro Walgreens

From page 2

San Francisco police typically donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t release names of businesses targeted in crimes, and Fong wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t say specifically which drug store was involved in this case.

Victor Lee, an assistant manager at the Walgreens at 18th and Castro

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NCLR

From page 2

Frei is now being homeschooled as a result of the traumatic abuse he experienced at school.

Out gay actor and LGBT youth advocate Wilson Cruz presented the students with the award during the anniversary dinner in front of 1,100 applauding guests. Cruz, best known for his roles in My So-Called Life and Noahâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Arc, has worked with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

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Larry Wisch

From page 11

history. He fondly remembered one of his first jobs, driving a Good Humor ice cream truck when he was in college in Baltimore. He studied horticulture at Davis and in Israel and at Chelsea Physic and Kew Gardens in England. He taught Plant identification at City College of San Francisco and at Berkeley for years.

Mr. Wisch had a remarkable talent for seizing opportunity and making the most of it. In the mid1980s, he was recruited on the street for a focus group, which morphed into a job with the market research firm. Within a couple of years, he quit to start his own firm, Larry Wisch and Associates, which rapidly grew to employ dozens. A financial kerfuffle forced him to file for bankruptcy, about which he was philosophical. He scaled back and was proud that within several years, all of his creditors were paid in full and the business was in the black again.

In the late 1970s, Mr. Wisch and four friends, in mockery of the socalled Moral Majority, created the popular Choral Majority, an a cappella group that sang irreverent song parodies celebrating queer love, us-

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Obama

From page 1

erals, and conservatives alike,â&#x20AC;? said Olson, who served as solicitor general under President George W. Bush. â&#x20AC;&#x153;President Obamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s words remind us that marriage and equality are universal values that unite us all.

They remind us that we are all â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as a people and a nation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; striving to form a more perfect union.â&#x20AC;?

The interview, according to numerous media reports, was pre-arranged by the White House to take place with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts. The media speculated the interview was set up hastily and deliberately to quell the political conflagration that erupted Sunday, when Vice President Joe Biden told NBCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Meet the Press that he is â&#x20AC;&#x153;absolutely comfortableâ&#x20AC;? with gay couples marrying and that he believes they should have the â&#x20AC;&#x153;exact same rightsâ&#x20AC;? as straight couples do.

Prior to Wednesday, Obama has not previously expressed pro-active legal support for same-sex marriage. In October 2010, he told gay political blogger Joe Sudbay that he

May 10-16, 2012 â&#x20AC;˘ BAY AREA REPORTER â&#x20AC;˘ 13

streets, said that his shop was the one involved, but he couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t discuss the case. He referred questions to Walgreens spokesman Robert Elfinger.

Elfinger referred queries to the police but said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re cooperating fully with the investigation.â&#x20AC;?

Fong said that investigators from SFPDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mission Station â&#x20AC;&#x153;are reviewing all evidence available, including

any potential video at that location which might assist in identifying and apprehending the suspect.â&#x20AC;?

Anyone with information regarding the case may contact Mission Station at (415) 558-5400, the SFPD anonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444, or text a tip to 847411 and type SFPD, then the message. The case number is 120 363 087.â&#x2013;ź

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m so incredibly proud of these young people who really put themselves out there and with the support of their parents and families helped change the face of their school district,â&#x20AC;? Cruz said in a brief interview. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t say enough about how much courage it takes. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m truly honored to be here honoring them.â&#x20AC;?

While Lynch was honored and grateful for her award, she emphasized that recognition should be forwarded to the six students. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I should be honoring them,â&#x20AC;? she said in an interview. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sometimes just writing a check feels like an

empty gesture. But when you come to these events and hear the stories and talk to the kids â&#x20AC;&#x201C; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really wonderful.â&#x20AC;?

Hosted by comedian Kate Clinton, the anniversary dinner raised $150,000 for the organization. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was one of the most, if not the most, successful dinners weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever had,â&#x20AC;? Kendell said.

Between the gala dinner and the after party, around 2,000 people celebrated NCLRâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 35th anniversary.

To donate or learn more, visit nclrights.org http://nclrights.org.â&#x2013;ź

ing the music of familiar Christian hymns. Mr. Wisch wrote many of the songs. He had previously sung and played guitar with Carry It On, a ragtag band providing music at rallies and marches, such as demos against the infamous Briggs initiative targeting LGBT teachers.

More recently, he was a founding member of the innovative Berkeleybased Three Stone Hearth, which makes and delivers nutritionally dense meals throughout the Bay Area. He was a fan of the Bioneer conferences.

He took great pride in his Glen Park home of many years, and did much of the remodeling himself, including creating a celebrated terraced garden out of a steep, neglected hillside that included a koi pond, exotic chicken run, and hot tub at the top with a breathtaking view of downtown. His garden was included in tours of unique gardens in San Francisco.

Mr. Wisch was an athlete. As a member of San Franciscoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s iconic Dolphin Club, he would swim early mornings in San Francisco Bay year round. He was a basketball player, an avid cyclist and roller blader.

He was fortunate to be able to indulge his love of travel and visit

many far off places from Namibia to Thailand to New Zealand, to name a few. Mr. Wisch committed himself fully to whatever interested him. In 2005, he took up country western dancing and West Coast Swing, becoming, as his partner said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;my favorite lead.â&#x20AC;? He played the accordion until an arm fracture caused him to stop. He enjoyed being a member of the Gay Buddhist Fellowship and Gay Menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Spiritual Retreat.

Mr. Wisch was fortunate to remain a non-progressor for decades after becoming HIV-positive. In 2000, he contracted lymphoma, for which he was treated successfully, after a challenging ordeal. He subsequently enjoyed several years of fair health until he was diagnosed with MAC in 2009. Notwithstanding significant struggles and declining health, Larry continued to put up a valiant fight and celebrate life, an inspiration for his forbearance and gratitude.

In addition to his loving partner Mr. Wisch is survived by his mother and stepfather Harriette and Sol Koved; brothers Alec and Andy Wisch and Lance Koved, their families; and a host of loving friends.

Details of a celebration of his life will be forthcoming.â&#x2013;ź

was â&#x20AC;&#x153;unwilling to sign onto samesex marriage primarilyâ&#x20AC;? because of his â&#x20AC;&#x153;understandings of the traditional definitions of marriage.â&#x20AC;?

He said â&#x20AC;&#x153;attitudesâ&#x20AC;? about same-sex marriage â&#x20AC;&#x153;evolve, including mine.â&#x20AC;?

And he reiterated that position two months later, in an interview with the Advocateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Kerry Eleveld, saying, â&#x20AC;&#x153;My attitudes are evolving on this.â&#x20AC;?

Numerous times since then, Obama and White House press secretary Jay Carney have been asked whether the presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s position had yet evolved. With the Republican presidential race settling on Mitt Romney, one national poll indicated the public didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see much difference between Obama and Romney on same-sex marriage.

The ABC-Washington Post poll, conducted in early April, found 46 percent of 1,103 adults nationwide thought Obama would â&#x20AC;&#x153;do a better jobâ&#x20AC;? at â&#x20AC;&#x153;dealing with social issues such as abortion and gay marriages,â&#x20AC;? and 38 percent said Romney would. But the margin of error was 3.5 points, making the difference as small as 4.5 points.

Although there were many big

news stories erupting at the same time â&#x20AC;&#x201C; including news that the CIA had stopped a plot to blow up a plane â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the mainstream media swarmed all over the Biden story. CNN media commentator Howard Kurtz wrote, in a DailyBeast.com blog, â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is absolutely no question that Bidenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s response was cleared by the White House. Vice presidents are not allowed to freelance on talk shows, especially on such a sensitive issue.

So Obama was sending out Biden to further mollify the gay community without having to actually take a stand himself.â&#x20AC;?

MSNBC news anchor Chuck Todd said the White House was being especially â&#x20AC;&#x153;sensitiveâ&#x20AC;? about the remarks because â&#x20AC;&#x153;gay money, in this election, has replaced Wall Street money.â&#x20AC;?

Asked about same-sex marriage on the campaign trail, Romney said Wednesday he supports neither same-sex marriage nor civil unions.â&#x2013;ź The presidentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s remarks can be viewed at tinyurl. com/7b8hhaw.

ebar.com

Legal Notices>> SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT RFP NO. 6M4189 EXTENSION OF TIME FOR RECEIPT OF PROPOSALS NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the General Manager of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District has extended the time for receipt of Proposals until the hour of 12:00 p.m., Thursday, May 17, 2012, DW WKH 'LVWULFW¡V 2IĂ&#x20AC;FHV UG )ORRU 5HFHSWLRQLVW /DNHVLGH 'ULYH 2DNODQG &DOLIRUQLD E\ +DQG 'HOLYHU\ RU WR WKH 'LVWULFW 6HFUHWDU\¡V 2IĂ&#x20AC;FH 3 2 %R[ 2DNODQG &$ E\ 8 6 0DLO IRU 6DIHW\ &HUWLĂ&#x20AC;HG 7HPSRUDU\ +HOS 6HUYLFHV 5)3 1R 0 DV PRUH IXOO\ GHVFULEHG LQ WKH 5)3 'RFXPHQWV 'DWHG DW 2DNODQG &DOLIRUQLD WKLV VW day of May, 2012. /s/ Kenneth A. Duron Kenneth A. Duron, District Secretary San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District Â&#x2021; &16 BAY AREA REPORTER

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC12-548572 In the matter of the application of: ALTANTSETSEG YANSANJAV for change of name having been ďŹ led in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ALTANTSETSEG YANSANJAV is requesting that his/her name be changed to VICTORIA KRAJCI. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 12th of June 2012 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 19, 26, MAY 3, 10, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034263400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KGB INTERIOR DESIGN, 245 Vallejo St., SF, CA 94111. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed KGB Associates LTD. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 04/10/12. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/10/12.

APR 19, 26, MAY 3, 10, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034273300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: UCSH CONSTRUCTION, 5316 Geary Blvd,, SF, CA 94121. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Sean Hsieh. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 04/12/12. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/13/12.

APR 19, 26, MAY 3, 10, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034272500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LANIADO DIAMONDS, 3145 Geary Blvd. #702, SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Yaniv Laniado. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on NA. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/12/12.

APR 19, 26, MAY 3, 10, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034254100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CALAR MUSIC, 221 11th St., SF, CA 94103.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Cristian Lopez. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 04/05/12. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/05/12.

APR 19, 26, MAY 3, 10, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034274800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EVA LINDAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CLEANING SERVICE, 1118 Fitzgerald Ave., SF, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Michael Mellegers. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 05/17/11.

The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/13/12.

APR 19, 26, MAY 3, 10, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034276500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SANDRA CLEANING SERVICES, 240 Arguello Ave., Vallejo, CA 94591. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Devon Willis. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 04/16/12. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/16/12.

APR 19, 26, MAY 3, 10, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034286600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TT HANDYWORK, 535 Columbus Ave. #14, SF, CA 94133. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Shufen Wen. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on NA. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/19/12.

APR 26, MAY 3, 10, 17, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT RFP NO. 6M4191 EXTENSION OF TIME FOR RECEIPT OF PROPOSALS NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the General Manager of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District has extended the time for receipt of Proposals until the hour of 12:00 p.m., Thursday, May 17, 2012, DW WKH 'LVWULFW¡V 2IĂ&#x20AC;FHV UG )ORRU 5HFHSWLRQLVW /DNHVLGH 'ULYH 2DNODQG &DOLIRUQLD E\ +DQG 'HOLYHU\ RU WR WKH 'LVWULFW 6HFUHWDU\¡V 2IĂ&#x20AC;FH 3 2 %R[ 2DNODQG &$ E\ 8 6 0DLO IRU 5HJXODU 7HPSRUDU\ +HOS 6HUYLFHV 5)3 1R 0 DV PRUH IXOO\ GHVFULEHG LQ WKH RFP Documents.

'DWHG DW 2DNODQG &DOLIRUQLD WKLV VW day of May, 2012. /s/ Kenneth A. Duron, District Secretary San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District Â&#x2021; &16 BAY AREA REPORTER

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC12-548552 In the matter of the application of: RENEA MARIE HATCHER for change of name having been ďŹ led in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner RENEA MARIE HATCHER is requesting that his/her name be changed to RENEA CLAY STEWART. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 514 on the 5th of June 2012 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 26, MAY 3, 10, 17, 2012 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC12-548600 In the matter of the application of: KIMBERLY LAURA FIFE for change of name having been ďŹ led in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner KIMBERLY LAURA FIFE is requesting that his/her name be changed to KIMBERLY LAURA GARRISON. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept.

514 on the 21st of June 2012 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 26, MAY 3, 10, 17, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034277000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAINT & OLIVE, 610 Webster St. #14, SF, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Olive A. Loew. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on NA. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/16/12.

APR 26, MAY 3, 10, 17, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034279400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FRIENDLY LIMO, 1420 Bel Air Dr. #103, Concord, CA 94521, Contra Costa County. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Leonid Shagalov. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 04/17/12. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/17/12.

APR 26, MAY 3, 10, 17, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034249600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BABYLON B.C., 301 Crescent Ct. #3103, SF, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Sameh Zahda. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on NA. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/04/12.

APR 26, MAY 3, 10, 17, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034286100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JON SF ENERGY, 145 Madrone Ave., SF, CA 94127. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Jonathan Chan. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 04/19/12. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/19/12.

APR 26, MAY 3, 10, 17, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034288300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PRO IMAGE PRINTING, 3216 Geary Blvd. #A, SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Victoria S. Lauretta. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 04/01/12. The statement was ďŹ led with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/20/12.

APR 26, MAY 3, 10, 17, 2012

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Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034292300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GIBRALTAR REALTY, 2521 18th Ave., SF, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Harry Philibosian. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/23/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/23/12.

APR 26, MAY 3, 10, 17, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034284700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BAY EQUITY HOME LOANS; COVENANT MORTGAGE; EMAC HOME LOANS; BANKERS PREFERRED; TRISTAR HOME LOANS; BELL FINANCIAL; PE FINANCE; 100 California St. #1100, SF, CA 94111-4516. This business is conducted by an limited liability company, and is signed Bay Equity LLC. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/18/12.

APR 26, MAY 3, 10, 17, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034286900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DEVSWAG, 156 2nd St., SF, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Tilde Inc. (Delaware). 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 04/19/12.

APR 26, MAY 3, 10, 17, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034283300

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034297000

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034311800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SUREFIRE ONLINE MARKETING, 3487 16th St., SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed by Pamela H. Card. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/30/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/25/12.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: J&L AUTOMOTIVE REPAIR, 1634 Howard St., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed by J&L Automotive Repair Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/10/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/30/12.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034293900

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034273200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SIN CHERRY, 1228 Grant Ave., SF, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed by Allam Bitar & Khaidoun Alsalti.

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/24/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/24/12.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GYROTONIC PACIFIC HEIGHTS, 2999 Washington St., SF, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed by Trinity Fitness LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/06/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/13/12.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034296900

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME state ment file A-034312000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DRINKBOX, 414 Brannan St., Hattery Labs, SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed by H2DP, Inc. (Delaware). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/24/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/25/12.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MAJOR PARKING, 155 Eddy St., SF, CA 94102.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed by Ilknur Civelek. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/30/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/30/12.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034295000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TAI CHI RESTAURANT, 2031 Polk St., SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Colin TC Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/98. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/18/12.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RCOMMUNITY RECYCLE CO., 1634 Alemany Blvd., SF, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed by Southpark Capital Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/24/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/24/12.

APR 26, MAY 3, 10, 17, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034295900

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034294500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PRIME LIMOUSINES, 1054 Paintbrush Dr., Sunnyvale, CA 94086, Santa Clara County. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed Nikolay Penev. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/24/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/24/12.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EASY BREEZY FROZEN YOGURT, 4437 20th St., SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed by Manitou Inc. (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/20/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/24/12.

APR 26, MAY 3, 10, 17, 2012 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF california, county of san francisco file CNC12-548629

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034295200

In the matter of the application of: MARIA MICHELLE OLLILA for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner MARIA MICHELLE OLLILA is requesting that his/her name be changed to TOIVO KALEVA OLLILA. 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 17th of July 2012 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034299300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BAYVIEW EMPLOYMENT AGENCY, 1650 Quesada Ave., SF, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed by Robert Davis.

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 04/25/12.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034290000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JOE88 CONSTRUCTION CO, 156 Dartmouth St., SF, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed by Joe Zu Qing Lin. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/20/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/20/12.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034303000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JENNIFER GUSTAFSON INTERIOR DESIGN, 785 Golden Gate Ave. #302, SF, CA 94102.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed by Jennifer Ann Gustafson. 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 04/26/12.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CALIFORNIA MORTGAGE DIRECT; HOMETOWN LENDING, 100 California St. #1100, SF, CA 94111-4516. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed by Bay Equity LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/01/12.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/24/12.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034307900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BRIGHT FOG PHOTOGRAPHY, 564 Roosevelt Way, SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by state or local registered domestic partners, and is signed by Laurence Peiperl & Charles G. Still.

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 04/27/12.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034313300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BERNARDA, 2522 Mission St., SF, CA 94110.

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

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/01/12.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 notice of application TO SELL alcoholic beverageS Dated 05/07/12 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: JEFFREY ZHIGUAN LI. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 1515 Clay Street, Suite 2208, Oakland, CA 94612 to sell alcoholic beverages at 1535 Franklin St., SF, CA 94109-4564. Type of license applied for

41 - On-sale BEER & WINE - Eating place MAY 10, 17, 24, 2012

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 Statement of abandonment of use of fictitious business name FILE A-032682800 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: VOLARE PIZZA, 456 Haight St., SF, CA 94117.

This business was conducted by an individual and signed by Mohamed Bouabibsa. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/01/10.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 Statement of abandonment of use of fictitious business name FILE A-029253400 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: DO UC US MOBILE CATERING, 2500 38th Ave., SF, CA 94116. This business was conducted by a general partnership and signed by Vladimir Goldfeld & Mark Kobzanets. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/09/06.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 Statement of abandonment of use of fictitious business name FILE A-030406500 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: J&L AUTOMOTIVE REPAIR, 1634 Howard St., SF, CA 94103. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by Xiao Szu Tang.

The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/20/07.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 Statement of abandonment of use of fictitious business name FILE A-030568500 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: COLE VALLEY FITNESS, 957 Cole St., SF, CA 94117. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by Betty L. Doza. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/28/07.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034314100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE SCORPION COMPANY, 617 York St., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed by Nathan S. DeSomber. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/01/12.

MAY 10, 17, 24, JUNE 7, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034293300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BIG T’S INTERNET, 376 Ellis St., SF, CA 94102.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed by Orangevale Commons 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 04/23/12.

MAY 10, 17, 24, JUNE 7, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034320400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ALFIO BOUTIQUE ITALIANA, 526 Castro St., SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed by Aranciatamara Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/03/12.

MAY 10, 17, 24, JUNE 7, 2012

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034320100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SF ANTIQUE & DESIGN MALL, 1122 Howard St., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed by Marmat 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 05/03/12.

MAY 10, 17, 24, JUNE 7, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034320200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SF ANTIQUE & DESIGN MALL, 538 Castro St., SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed by Marmat 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 05/03/12.

MAY 10, 17, 24, JUNE 7, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034330300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HEWN, 2423 Polk St., SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed by Jak Home 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 05/08/12.

MAY 10, 17, 24, JUNE 7, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034321700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ARIA PROPERTIES, 4406 18th St. #B, SF, CA 9114.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed by Masood Samereie. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/03/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/03/12.

MAY 10, 17, 24, JUNE 7, 2012 notice of application FOR CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP OF alcoholic beverage LICENSE Dated 05/02/12 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: NAMTHIP WONGLUENG. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 1515 Clay Street, Suite 2208, Oakland, CA 94612 to sell alcoholic beverages at 3166 24th St., SF, CA 94110-4033. Type of license applied for

41 - On-sale – BEER & WINE Eating place MAY 10, 2012 notice of application FOR CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP OF alcoholic beverage LICENSE

Dated 01/26/12 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: MANDALA PARTNERS LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 1515 Clay Street, Suite 2208, Oakland, CA 94612 to sell alcoholic beverages at 38 E 25th Ave., San Mateo, CA 94403-2334. Type of license applied for

48 - On-sale GENERAL PUBLIC PREMISES MAY 10, 2012

NOTICE TO PROPOSERS GENERAL INFORMATION The SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT (“District”), 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, California, is advertising for proposals for Real Property Comprehensive Acquisition and Relocation Services, Request for Proposals (RFP) No. 6M4186, on or about May 3, 2012, with proposals due by 2:00 PM local time, Tuesday, June 19, 2012.

DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES TO BE PROVIDED The Consultant shall furnish management, technical and administrative personnel required to support District-wide projects as requested by the Project Director pursuant to Work Directives. These services may include, but are not necessarily limited to real property acquisition, relocation assistance, property management, underground utility location and geographic information system as requested. The services will not be required on a constant or continuous basis, but rather on an as-needed, on-call basis during the term of the proposed Agreement.

A Pre-Proposal Meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 22, 2012. The PreProposal Meeting will convene at 2 PM at the District’s Office, located at 300 Lakeside Drive, 15th Floor, conference 1500, Oakland, California 94612. At the Pre-Proposal Meeting the District’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program will be explained. All questions regarding DBE participation should be directed to Mr. Maceo Wiggins, Office of Civil Rights at (510) 464-7194 – FAX (510) 464-7587. Prospective proposers are requested to make every effort to attend this only scheduled PreProposal Meeting.

WHERE TO OBTAIN OR SEE RFP DOCUMENTS Copies of the RFP may be available on or after May 11, 1012 and obtained: (1) By written request to the District’s Contract Administrator, 300 Lakeside Drive, 17th Floor, Oakland, CA 94612.

Reference RFP No. 6M4186 Real Property Comprehensive Acquisition and Relocation Services and send requests to Fax No. (510) 464-7650.

(2) By arranging pick up at the above address. Call the District’s Contract Administrator, (510) 287-4717 prior to pickup of the RFP. (3) By E-mail request to the District’s Contract Administrator Gary Leong, Gary.Leong@BART.gov. The email request shall include the company’s mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and a contact person and their email address.

Dated at Oakland, California this 30th day of April, 2012. /s/ Kenneth A. Duron Kenneth A. Duron,District Secretary San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District 5/10/12 • CNS-2307008# BAY AREA REPORTER

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O&A Out &About

Arnel's Journey

Woman's best friend

Wright stuff

The

Vol. 42 • No. 19 • May 10-16, 2012

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Challenging bullying head-on Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell performs in SF

by Richard Dodds

B

rian Stokes Mitchell, the Tony Award-winning Broadway star, played legendary surfer Duke Kahanamoku in a TV movie a dozen years ago, and he’s still riding the waves.

“The longer you live, the more you can make sense of the waves as they come along,” he said. “You begin to see the patterns, and since you can’t stop them, I just think, ‘Go for it, world. I’ll just do what I do and ride the waves you send.’

I’ve always been kind of Eastern in my philosophies.”

But when he says he’ll “just do what I do,” he sets a high bar for his actions as a performer. “I want people to leave the theater feeling closer to the people they saw the show with, closer to the people in the world,” Mitchell said. “I know it’s a huge thing to aspire to.”

When he was invited to perform with Yale’s legendary Whiffenpoofs choral group in a concert billed as A Gala Performance to End Bullying, he was happy to sign on. In the May 13 event at the Palace of Fine Arts, Mitchell will perform one or two songs with the 14-member a cappella choir and half a dozen more songs from his own diverse repertoire that can range from “The Impossible Dream” to “Take the ‘A’ Train.” Presented by the Yale Alumni Association and New Conservatory Theatre Center, and also featuring the Stanford Mendicants, the concert will benefit NCTC’s Youth-Aware program.

While he has chosen the six songs for his solo singing, he couldn’t rattle off the titles. “I have so many concerts going on that I can’t keep them straight,” he said from the New York home he shares with wife Allyson Tucker and their 8-year-old son Ellington.

It was the birth of Ellington that led Mitchell to start seeking out concert appearances and TV guest spots (including playing one of Rachel’s two gay dads on Glee this season) rather than continue his ascent as a sought-after Broadway leading man. He had had long runs in Ragtime and the revivals of Man of La Mancha and Kiss Me, Kate, which won him his Tony in 2000, but the weekly

Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell will join Yale’s Whiffenpoofs at A Gala Performance to End Bullying at the Palace of Fine Arts on May 13.

Courtesy Yale Alumni Association

See page 29 >>

Considering the penis ‘The Dick Show’ at the Center for Sex and Culture

by John F. Karr

T

wo of my favorite things are most fortuitously coming together this month. The first is a chance to look at a select collection of penises (certainly important for a guy such as I, whose oft-repeated goal in life is to see everyone naked with a boner at least once). And the second is the chance to ballyhoo the Center for Sex and Culture, where you’ll find The Dick Show, a month-long art exhibit and a benefit evening of performance. And since you’ve probably never heard of the place, I’ll tell you about it right away. Then I’ll get to the penises.

First, a bit of disclosure is necessary. The founders of the CSC, Dr. Carol Queen and Dr. Robert Morgan Lawrence, are my longtime friends. After Mayoress DiFi closed the bathhouses, we helped preserve the public’s right to

sexuality by serving together on the Coalition for Healthy Sex. Carol’s recommendation to SFSU led me to many semesters as guest lecturer for the Varieties of Human Sexuality course, and over the years, the CSC has been the site where I and some like-minded gentlemen co-host “meatings” of the SF Jacks.

Dr. Lawrence reminded me last week that we’d met in the early 1980s, when I was what he humorously called the Party Management Administrator at 890 Folsom. (I ran the clothes-check room, and helped him get naked.) The hall was leased by Buzz Bense, who later created Eros.

Robert reminisced, “Carol and I met there at a COYOTE party [Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics, John F. Karr supporting the rights of sex workers], and the Center for Sex and Culture founders, Drs. Robert Morgan Lawrence and Carol Queen.

See page 29 >>

{ SECOND OF TWO SECTIONS }

<< Out There

18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 10-16, 2012

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Just a singer in a rock ’n’ roll band

by Roberto Friedman

F

or their closing night film, the 55th San Francisco International Film Festival’s presentation of Ramona S. Diaz’s documentary Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey seemed like the ultimate feel-good movie. Big-time rock band Journey needed a new singer for a major world tour. They found Manila-born and bred Arnel Pineda singing Journey songs with cover band Zoo after the videos were posted on YouTube. The unlikely Cinderfella story that results could as well be titled A Star Is Born.

As a roadie on the band tour says, “To Filipinos, Arnel is like Elvis!”

The sold-out Castro Theatre screening erupted in wild audience ovations at film’s end, and the Q&A afterwards brought director Diaz and Journey players Neal Schon, Jonathan Cain, Ross Valory, Deen Castronovo, and Pineda to the stage.

The diminutive frontman proved

to be charismatic and charming in the flesh – and he sure can sing up a storm. Tears were wept.

The glamorous afterparty was held at Sloane Square[d], a new club built into and beyond the old Headquarters space on Mission St. Our own basket of charm Pepi was rocking a new haircut, so he left his Newsies cap at home.

“I now understand that I exist for you primarily as a plot device for your column,” Pepi told us.

Well, er, yes, as kind of a handsome plot device – but so much more!

The film fest’s presenting agency, the San Francisco Film Society, also announced this year’s Golden Gate Award Documentary Feature Winners, which include, winning for Documentary Feature, It’s the Earth Not the Moon, directed by Gonçalo Tocha (Portugal), filmed on the Azores island of Corvo. Honorable Mention went to Meanwhile in Mamelodi by Benjamin Kahlmeyer (Germany/South Africa).

The prize for Bay Area Documentary

Steven Underhill

(Left to right:) Journey band member Neal Schon, filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz, new lead singer Arnel Pineda, and Jonathan Cain at the closing night of the 55th San Francisco International Film Festival.

Feature went to The Waiting Room by Peter Nicks (USA), a day in the life of Oakland’s Highland Hospital. The New Directors Prize was awarded to Policeman by Nadav Lapid (Israel).

Honorable Mention was garnered by OK, Enough, Goodbye by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia (Lebanon/ UAE), a suitable wrap-up for this item.

fair with the local manicurist, and her own marriage to a recovered alcoholic pulling at the seams, Eileen decides to take action, ramping up her meddling to hilarious new heights.”

The casting seems well nigh perfect, and we’ll be interested to see if this works.

Up on the roof Perfect binding Director Anne Renton’s new film The Perfect Family has already opened in Los Angeles and NYC last week, and opens in San Francisco on this Friday, May 11, at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas. We think the film distributor’s synopsis sums it up. “Suburban supermom Eileen Cleary (Academy Award nominee Kathleen Turner) is the ultimate Catholic, and when she’s nominated for the coveted Catholic Woman of the Year Award at her local parish, it looks like she’s about to get the plaque to prove it. Only one final test remains, introducing her family to the church board for the seal of approval. Now she must face the truth about her nonconformist family – a truth she has been glossing over for years. With her gay daughter (Emily Deschanel) about to marry her life partner, her unhappily married son (Jason Ritter) having an af-

Last week we also attended an opening party for the renovated City View event space high atop the Metreon mall overlooking Yerba Buena Gardens in beautiful downtown San Francisco. This once-beleaguered building has become newly lively again with new dining and retail space, a renovated AMC Theatres, and now City View on the penthouse floor. In late 2012, Target’s first San Francisco CityTarget is slated to open.

A lot about Metreon has changed over the years. Remember the Where the Wild Things Are attraction? Remember when this top floor was supposed to become a West Coast branch of Tavern on the Square? The renovated City View offers 20,000 square feet for special events indoors, 10,000 sq. ft. of outdoor terrace, 20-ft. floorto-ceiling windows and panoramic views of the city. It can accommodate up to 2,000 guests. New features include a contemporary lobby, elevated DJ platforms, new flooring, adjustable “living wall” treatments, a coat check room, movable electric terrace heaters and new restrooms. It’s quite the party space. Bookings are being accepted for the next three years.

On the air & beyond L.A. Theatre Works announced last week that it has recorded 8, a dramatization of the legal fight against California’s Proposition 8 written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, for release on audiobook and for broadcast on LATW’s nationally syndicated radio theater series. Directed by Rob Reiner and featuring an all-star cast that includes Kevin Bacon, George Clooney, Jamie Lee Curtis, Christine

Lahti, Jane Lynch, Brad Pitt, Martin Sheen and John C. Reilly, 8 will air on public radio stations across the U.S. during the week of June 9 (check local listings for times). The broadcast will also include conversations with Black, Reiner, Clooney and other members of the cast, as well as interviews with lawyers David Boies and Ted Olson, who led the charge against Prop 8.

Pepi wanted us to do an advance item about a film coming soon from his favorite filmmaker. The San Francisco premiere of Keyhole will open on Friday, May 25, at the Roxie Theater.

From the press materials: “Turning away from ‘cinematic rehab’ (his words), director Guy Maddin strikes out into pure narrative filmmaking with Keyhole, a rousing 1930s-style gangster picture set in a haunted house. A deadbeat dad returns home, but he doesn’t recognize his own son.

He only knows he must make the trek through every doom-struck, ghostridden room in his house, to the marriage bedroom where his grieving, cancer-stricken wife waits – with her new lover! Starring Jason Patric, Isabella Rossellini, Udo Kier and Brooke Palsson. (Canada, 2012)” Finally, actress Kim Novak, the star of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 classic San Francisco thriller Vertigo, will receive the San Francisco Cinematic Icon Award by Standing Ovations at a gala event on June 14 at the Old Mint in San Francisco. Standing Ovations is a benefit for the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society, and will help support the SFMHS’ educational public programs, as well as its campaign for a new museum devoted to the history of San Francisco.

“San Francisco has always been my favorite city of all times,” said Novak in a press statement. “I was privileged to feel a part of this magical place in two films: Pal Joey with Frank Sinatra, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

What an honor it will be to receive this special award from San Francisco.

It will be like coming home again!”

But didn’t Thomas Wolfe say – oh, never mind!▼

Variance Films

Kathleen Turner as suburban mom Eileen Cleary in The Perfect Family.

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

May 10-16, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 19

Theatre>>

The element of surprise

by Richard Dodds

T

he Peter O’Toole-Petula Clark film musical of Goodbye, Mr. Chips has at least two fans. I am one of them, but Tom Judson pulled the ace by performing a song from the Leslie Bricusse score that I had no idea existed. The M.O., as he calls it, of his cabaret act now at New Conservatory Theatre Center is obscure songs from well-known sources. It’s a 70-minute mini-treasure trove for fans of musicals and film scores, as the handsome and personable performer weaves in entertaining anecdotes of varying relevancy as he robustly accompanies himself at the piano.

While Judson’s career has included film and theater songwriting, singing and dancing on Broadway, a two-year jaunt as a porn star, and his current cabaret profile, this is not a heavily autobiographical show as was the case in his solo show Canned Ham. While there are personal stories, The Tom Judson Show is mostly about the songs – songs you may have never heard before, but are definitely worth lending an ear.

The element of surprise is part of the fun of the show, as Judson

reveals a song’s source after its performance. I don’t want to give much away, but I’ll cite my favorite example: It’s a song with touches of Cole Porter and Noel Coward, as the lyrics start by extolling the wonders of a summer day before the narrator increasingly seeks out another cocktail as he descends, amusingly but also a little worrisomely, into an alcoholic haze. The composer, Judson reveals to the audience’s audible surprise, was Andrew Lloyd Webber, who wrote the song “Summer Day” with Alan Ayckbourn for Jeeves, his big-flop follow-up to Jesus Christ Superstar.

Judson can also take us down curious lanes of movie-music trivia.

From director Leo McCarey’s 1939 movie Love Affair, Judson performs the charmingly simple “Wishing” that Irene Dunne sings to a group of orphans. When McCarey remade the movie in 1957 as An Affair to Remember, the director, now a rabid anti-communist, supplied the lyrics for a new song that Deborah Kerr trills to the orphans. “The song is a little repressive, with hints of surveillance,” Judson says, before performing “Tiny Scout.” A sampling of the lyrics: “Listen to the tiny scout.

He knows you inside, he knows you

Music>>

Little Richard is back!

by Jason Victor Serinus Here’s Little Richard (Specialty Records)

O

MG. Little Richard, the true king and queen of rock ’n’ roll, is back, and sounding better than ever. Here’s Little Richard, his gamechanging debut album for Specialty Records, is now beautifully remastered and enriched for CD with significant bonus material and an illuminating essay by Lee Hildebrand.

For vinyl lovers, there’s also an LP version from Concord Records with sound that puts the original pressing to shame.

Once more, the man whose LPs I used to play at top volume to drive my mother out of the house is whooping it up, hollering, and having a ball. As Little Richard sings “Tutti Frutti,” “Ready Teddy,” “Long Tall Sally,” and the nine other classics he recorded in 1955 and 56 for his Specialty Records debut, it’s impossible not to be caught up by his youthful, all-gonads-loaded energy.

The lyrics may be repetitive, and the piano’s even-eight-note patterns very even indeed, but Little Richard’s seemingly boundless elation gives notice that a new music is about to seize and transform entire generations of listeners in ways their parents and preachers, babysitters and teachers desperately warned them about.

Eventually, it was Little Richard

who heeded the warning. In October 1957, after cutting his final track for Specialty Records, boyfriend threw in the towel for the Gospel, and gave up rock ’n’ roll for Jesus.

His renunciations – there were more than one – didn’t last that long; as the saying goes, it’s easier to rout the devil than rout the devil out of rock ’n’ roll.

You may have seen Little Richard’s many later appearances on TV, including the most recent, the 78year old’s wheelchair-bound 2011 performance on the nationally televised A Capitol Fourth. You’ve probably also heard his frequent denunciations of how he was cheated out of royalties by many o the major artists of ( (Elvis Presley, Pat B Boone, Bill Haley) w who subsequently r recorded his music.

B to hear him in But h early-20s prime, his w with every falsetto y yelp, raspy hoot, and h high-fl ying holler i intact, there is nothi better under sun ing a sin than Here’s and L Little Richard.

Especially important is the CD’s bonus material. The two audio demos of “Baby” and “All Night Long” that he sent to Specialty Records – the demos that secured his contract – show him in far lighter voice. And the bonus screen-test videos, one shot with his eyes darting this way and that as someone was probably shouting things at him while he was lip-synching, prove that it wasn’t only Elvis Presley’s pelvis that Ed Sullivan and the censors had to be concerned about.

Equally revealing are audio excerpts of a curious interview with Specialty Records founder Art Rupe, who offhandedly discusses his singer’s gifts and limitations in ways that reveal both admiration and regrets.

Don’t miss Hildebrand’s illuminating history, which reveals that the original lyrics to “Tutti Frutti” were far more juicy than Mom and the masses were prepared to accept.▼

John Skalicky

Tom Judson pulled the ace in his cabaret act at New Conservatory.

outside. You’re on the mean side, he’s on the clean side.” And then to complete the circle, Judson notes that the film was remade yet again as the critically reviled Love Affair with

Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.

He didn’t see it, but since the music was by the estimable Ennio Morricone, he interpolates a piece of that score into the medley.

Judson has a charming way with this kind of arcana, and the journey can easily veer from Henry Mancini to Art Garfunkel. There are often some light autobiographical connections to the stories and songs, but he gets poignantly personal in a remembrance of a road trip he made with his late husband. The monologue, he reveals, is adapted from his recently published collection of essays titled Laid Bare.

But mostly Judson’s show is a wry and humorous affair, and his good spirits are summed up in one of his own compositions. “Your Best Suit” has the kind of Jerry Herman optimism that leaves you with a smile on your face as you scuttle back into the real world.▼ The Tom Judson Show will run through May 12 at New Conservatory Theatre Center. Tickets are $31-$36. Call 861-8972 or go to www.nctcsf.org.

<< DVD

20 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 10-16, 2012

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Odd couple on film: Lean directs Coward

by Tavo Amador

D

ebar.com

irector David Lean (1908-91) is best remembered for his sweeping epics: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957); Lawrence of Arabia (1962), for which he won Oscars; Dr. Zhivago (1965); and A Passage to India (1984). In his more intimate films like Summertime (1955), the drama is played out against a glorious setting – in that case, Venice.

His versions of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948) are dark and frightening, their young heroes small in comparison to the hostile world around them.

He hardly seemed the right director for Noel Coward (1899-1973), the master of high comedy and elegant dialogue.

Yet it was Coward who gave Lean, an experienced film editor, his first chance at directing movies. They collaborated four times, and the results can be seen in the recently issued DVD set, David Lean Directs Noel Coward.

The pair co-directed In Which We Serve (1942), Coward’s stirring tribute to England during the darkest days of WWII. The movie tells the story of the HMS Torrin, from the day she is built to her capsizing in the Mediterranean Sea while fighting the Fascists. Coward plays

Captain Kinross, who exemplifies courage, gallantry, and confidence that England would triumph over her enemies. The crewmen face terrible losses – families during the Blitz, shipmates at sea – with great

heroism. Lean also edited, and the movie is action-filled. With a young Michael Wilding, a decade before he would marry Elizabeth Taylor, and John Mills, father of Hayley. Released in the United States the next year, it earned Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.

The Happy Breed (1944) is a rarity in the Coward canon. Rather than his usual sophisticates, the film deals with a typical middle-class suburban family during the decades between the two World Wars. The 1926 General Strike, the Jazz Age, the rise of Socialism, and the Great Depression are seen through their eyes. Based on Coward’s 1939 play, adapted by Lean, Anthony Havelock-Allan, and Ronald Neame. With Robert Newton, Celia Johnson, and Mills. Laurence Olivier provided the uncredited narration. The title comes from John of Gaunt’s Act II monologue in Shakespeare’s Richard II. Blithe Spirit, Coward’s brilliant 1941 comedy, was adapted by Lean, Neame, and Havelock-Allan for the 1945 film. A superbly cast Rex Harrison is socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, whose marriage to his second wife, Ruth (Constance Cummings), is complicated by the ghost of his first wife, Elvira (the ethereal Kay Hammond). Margaret Rutherford is unforgettable as the bicycle-riding Madame Arcati, a medium who, much to her own surprise, stages a successful seance.

Only Charles can see and hear Elvira, who is determined to undermine her successor. Hammond and Rutherford repeated their West End stage successes. The entire cast handles the elegant banter with aplomb, but the play’s serious undertones remain.

The ending is ironic.

Coward, however, w unhappy with the was m movie.

He had offers f from every major stud to film his hit play, dio b but chose his own c company to produce, w Lean to direct, to with h regret. his Despite their diff ferences, Lean dir rected Brief Encounter ( (1945), based on Cowa ard’s one-act 1936 play, S Still Life. Once again, L Lean, Neame, and H Havelock-Allen adapteed Coward’s work, but th this time, oddly, no one w was given credit for the sc screenplay. Narrated b

by Laura Jesson (Celia Jo Johnson), a suburban h housewife whose humd drum, conventional life ch changes after a chance m meeting with an idealis istic married doctor, A Alec Harvey (Trevor H Howard). The two see ea each other furtively but in public, then, when a private tryst is interrupted without physical consummation, they realize they cannot betray their families and values.

He decides to go to South Africa.

They plan a final meeting, eager to express their hopeless passion, only to have it spoiled by a talkative acquaintance (Everely Gregg). The story is a model of British self-sacrifice and repressed emotions. Coward’s bleak ending was softened for the movie. Women throughout the English-speaking world wept copiously, watching the sad-eyed Johnson suffer and exchange poignant looks with the sympathetic Howard.

Johnson won the New York Film Critics Award for her performance and received a losing Oscar nomination as Best Actress In addition to being a successful writer, Coward, known affectionately as “The Master,” was a celebrated actor/matinee idol, singer, director, composer, and lyricist. Most people in show business and café society knew he was gay, but he never came out in public and kept his personal life very private. He denied a physical relationship with Prince George, Duke of Kent, although the two were very close for 19 years. It’s easy to see the elements of a life in the closet in Brief Encounter. Lean, who was married six times, also refused to discuss his private life. This may have been another strong bond they shared that allowed them to work so well together.▼

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Music>>

May 10-16, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 21

Women conductors step up to the podium

by Philip Campbell

O

ne might think that the sight of a woman leading a major American orchestra would be less of a novelty by now, especially in the Bay Area.

Unfortunately, that is still not reality.

When recent weeks of concerts with the San Francisco Symphony featured two female guest conductors on the podium at Davies Symphony Hall, it seemed to be more of an event than an interesting coincidence.

It is not that we have never seen a woman in charge of an orchestra hereabouts. We remember the glory days of the Women’s Philharmonic with JoAnne Falletta (she has since been appointed Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra), and current Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Marin Alsop conducted some high-profile performances in Berkeley as recently as March. That tour reminded us of her many years with the exciting Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz.

The recent guests at DSH included English conductor Jane Glover and Finnish shooting star Susanna Mälkki. Both are internationally recognized musicians with well-established careers, and both have been roundly endorsed by European critics and audiences with scarcely a mention of their sex. Each may be noticeably committed to certain repertoire, but they do share some personal performing characteristics. Neither of them uses a baton, and both wear pants on the podium. They also seem well past caring about the significance of their gender in the historically male world of classical music.

Glover, Music Director of Chicago’s Music of the Baroque and Artistic Director of Opera at London’s Royal Academy of Music, made her SFS debut in 2006, three years after being named a Commander of the British Empire. Mälkki, who was making her

Jerry Bauer

English conductor Jane Glover.

Simon Fowler

Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki: expectations ran high.

debut here, is Music Director of the insanely prestigious Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, and was also the first woman to conduct an opera at La Scala, in 2011. After facing the notoriously tough crowd in Milan, San Francisco must have seemed like a walk in the park for her.

There is no denying expectations ran high for Mälkki’s visit, but she boldly presented a program that included a difficult modern piece by Gerard Grisey, a spectacular appearance by guest soloist Horacio Gutierrez playing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, and a restrained and subtly emotional interpretation of a symphony by fellow Finn Jean Sibelius.

In a welcome Q&A session with the audience after the concert, Ms.

Mälkki appeared ambivalent about the importance of her gender in a male-dominated field, and was far more articulate when talking about her viewpoint of music and personal approach to conducting. Fair enough, if we are going to be politically correct and just focus on the job at hand.

She did admit to some loneliness on the road, and the difficulty of starting fresh with new orchestras, but her pleasant confidence and obvious intelligence charmed us past any caring about her position on feminism.

She is clearly capable of leadership without proselytizing about how to get there.

Mälkki’s presentation of Grisey’s Modulations proved loyal to the Ensemble Intercontemporain (commis-

sioned in 1976-77, and premiered by that group in Paris, 1977). It certainly started her debut concerts with a bang (and a crash and a boom, too).

The single movement, extracted as a stand-alone piece from a six-movement cycle, sounded at first like an avant-garde cliché: the stereotypical dumping of a bunch of instruments on the ground, then hearing the results. Soon enough the music “made with sounds, not with notes” created an ambient mood. The description of the composer’s work as musique spectrale (spectral music) is apt. It wasn’t an easy hello from the unfamiliar conductor, but it made us immediately aware of her musical integrity.

The Symphony No. 1 by Sibelius was the biggest part of the program, following after Gutierrez’s virtuoso dash through the dazzling Prokofiev Concerto. Mälkki seemed frustratingly obstinate about giving in to the composer’s great gushes of melody for most of the performance, constantly making big gestures, only to immediately tamp them down. Her ultimate vision was only revealed by the conclusion, when a great cumulative

power was finally unleashed. The suddenly quiet ending seemed to be both the conductor and the composer saying, alright, it wasn’t easy, but I did try to show you my heart. I hope Mälkki returns with more Sibelius one day. To think, his music is still condescended to in Europe (at least according to the conductor).

Jane Glover is altogether more lowkey onstage, and her well-established niche in the world of Early Music performance has never made her controversial. Years spent as artistic director of the London Mozart Players and music director of the Glyndebourne Touring Opera, along with a large discography that includes excellent performances of Haydn, Mozart and Handel, have made her a familiar figure both here and in Europe.

Glover’s recent appearances at DSH featured beautifully shaped renditions of suites from both the Music for the Royal Fireworks and Water Music by Handel, and three of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. The confidence and sympathy Glover showed her colleagues from the SFS were repaid by elegant playing and committed interpretations. Violinist Nadya Tichman; Robin McKee, flute; Jonathan Fischer, oboe; and most especially, John Thiessen, trumpet, and Jonathan Vinocour, viola, all stood out as soloists throughout the gracious concert.

Gender never seems to be an issue with the orchestra itself, so maybe we shouldn’t make a fuss when a woman does occasionally emerge to take charge. Susanna Mälkki sees a big improvement in the numbers overall, and she also notes that there really are only about 10 or 12 ladies to go around, currently. She comes from a background and training as a cellist. Let’s hope the music schools are continuing to inspire and support the leap from chair to podium for other talented female musicians, and pump up the numbers.▼

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

22 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 10-16, 2012

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Film >>

Doggone dramatics

by David Lamble

I

t’s a bit of shock to realize that his doggy-obsessed family comedy Darling Companion is writer/ director Lawrence Kasdan’s (with co-writer Meg Kasdan) 11th feature and first indie. This shaggydog ensemble piece kicks off when an empty-nester wife of a successful surgeon, Beth (Diane Keaton), makes her adult daughter, Grace (Elizabeth Moss), stop by the side of the road to rescue an injured mutt they promptly name Freeway

(the role is doubled by Kasey, a Collie mix, and Kuma, an Aussie mix).

Taking the stray to a handsome vet, Sam (Jay Ali), Beth decides to keep Freeway over the strong objections of her grumpy hubby, Joseph (Kasdan veteran Kevin Kline), distracted by patients while Grace zeroes in on Sam as potential husband material.

“Darling, why have we acquired a dog?”

“If you just spent more time with your family and less time in surgery, maybe you’d figure out why.”

“I don’t hate dogs, I’m just not obsessed with them like some people.”

Flash-forward a year, and see the happy nuptials of Grace and Sam. Following the couple’s honeymoon departure, Joseph and Beth quarrel over simmering resentments, and soon over a real crisis when Joseph, absently-mindedly walking Freeway near their cabin summer home, loses the dog in a wild patch of rural forest.

The film then either takes off or crumbles, depending on your taste for Deliverance-style mad, bearded hermits. A wildly improbable extended family is enlisted to find the dog and save a failing marriage: a psychic, an angry younger doctor and a couple looking to sink their life savings into opening an oldfashioned English pub in Middle

America.

It’s an uneven mash-up that’s a little like Lawrence Kasdan meets mumblecore (including the casting of one of its foremost practitioners, actor/writer/director Mark Duplass) meets Howard Hawks (specifically the Hawks of Bringing Up Baby screwball fame). There are pratfalls, clichés and some refreshingly rambunctious outdoor acting by an amazing cast including Richard Jenkins and Dianne Wiest.

The Kasdans have based this adventure on some improbable reallife events, which becomes a source of inspiration and also a possible cause of the picture’s herky-jerky rhythms. It falls to Kline, who was also the stuffy and/or adulterous heavy in the Kasdan-helmed The Big Chill and Grand Canyon, to lead the anti-dog faction. Joseph isn’t really a pet-hater, so his arguments ring a little hollow. The movie flirts with but never really confronts the fact that the bone (pun intended) of contention is not really animals, but animals as proxies for warring humans. A tougher-minded approach might have produced a more consistently satisfying movie. At times, especially after Freeway decamps for the whole middle section, we’re left in search of a surrogate grownup.

In his 80s and 90s, writer/direc-

Sony Pictures Classics

Beth (Diane Keaton) with Freeway (Kasey) in Darling Companion.

tor Kasdan created a body of work that reclaimed the virtues of large ensemble casts to fashion showy generational statements about the Boomers’ loss of innocence, and the increasing fragility and racial polarization of mega-cities like Los Angeles. While easy to spoof and condemn (as Leonard Maltin did in dismissing Grand Canyon’s bid to find human connections in unlikely places as “mushy, superficial and unconvincing”), Kasdan’s heart-onhis-sleeve confessional melodramas scored by putting terrific actors like Kline and Danny Glover just ahead of the curve of horrible events: Grand Canyon anticipates the Rod-

ney King LA riots by a full year.

With Darling Companion, which the director considers a long-delayed third part of a trilogy with Chill and Canyon, Kasdan makes a rambling, chaotic, at times incoherent but still heartfelt family comedy about the decision by many Americans to treat pets, especially dogs, as a new kind of citizen child. Darling Companion faces its box office Waterloo in the Bay Area: if this most canine-grounded of movies can’t make it here – where health insurance for pets, off-leash park spaces and canine-friendly apartments and stores are fighting issues – it probably can’t make it anywhere.▼

DVD >>

After the gay dance

by David Lamble

I

n the breakthrough family comedy Every Day, a bright teen just out to his parents, Jonah (New Jersey-born Ezra Miller), pushes the envelope by insisting on going to a queer dance. Dad (Liev Schreiber) accuses the boy of dressing like a hustler. Jonah agrees to a more demure sweater outfit, setting the stage for an emotional ride home.

“Oh, my god, that was so much fun. I think I just lost five pounds in dancing.”

“Who’d you dance with?”

“I met this group of girls from Taft, and I became their best friend.”

“Who was the guy you were with when I came in?”

“Ian, I think, was his name, but I’m not sure, the music was too loud.”

“How old was he?”

“I feel like this is the third degree or something.”

“No, I’m just interested.”

“Well sorry, he didn’t show me his birth certificate. I’m not sure how old he was.”

“I personally think you’d be better off going with somebody who was a little more your age.”

“We’re not going out, we danced!

We met at a dance. You mind if we not talk about this because I had a good time, and I’d rather not wreck it.” Jonah ends the conversation by switching the car radio to a heavy metal rock station.

Writer/director Richard Levine based much of this tale of an ordinary family under siege on his own home life. Dad (Schreiber) is melting down at work as staff writer for a sexually explicit cable TV show, ordered specifically by his out, rather bitchy producer (Eddie Izzard) to keep the pot boiling with subject matter that is increasingly raunchy, if not downright pornographic.

Mom (Helen Hunt) is having her own crisis having to care for her senile, distinctly hostile father (a bitterly funny Brian Dennehy). Every

Day ricochets between family pratfalls. Dad slips into an awkward affair with a woman at work while Granddad turns ttesty, drinking and trying to o overdose on his medications u until the family has to consider a nursing home.

Drawing on experiences with h his own gay son, Levine charts a ttense but remarkably frank and rrewarding dialogue between a w worried straight Dad and a gay sson testing the limits on prom d dress codes, dating, and Intern net chat rooms.

“You’re not talking to people yyou don’t know, are you?”

“You mean potential pedop philes?”

“Yeah.”

“Just ones who live around h here.”

“Alright, it’s after 10, why d don’t you shut it down now.”

“Can I have a few minutes?’

“Do you think I like coming down here and being the Internet police guy? It’s after 10, shut it down!”

“Okay, I just don’t want to be rude to a priest.”

Jonah’s flirtation with a college boy lands him in a sticky situation when drugs and sex are proposed at a fast-lane club. Escaping with his homo virginity intact, Jonah has an unexpectedly sweet chat with Dad on the drive home.

“Did you meet anybody interesting?”

“No.” “You will, you know. You’re going to find someone great – a great guy, just right for you, I promise.”

In an interview during the Mill Valley Film Fest, actor Ezra Miller was amused that this gay teen drama hadn’t played here.

“It’s like they’re covered, they have all they can handle. Every Day was my third film. Jonah is incredibly intelligent. He’s pretty much executing the adolescent search, the struggle to figure out your emotional, sexual being. He’s handling See page 23 >>

▼

Read more online at www.ebar.com

May 10-16, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 23

Film >>

Hot butterfly takes wing

by Cornelius Washington

S

an Francisco’s film festival season is in full swing, and one of the highlights so far has been the featurelength directorial debut of HBO True Blood star Tanya Wright, whose film Butterfly Rising, based upon her novel of the same name, debuted at the recent San Francisco Women’s Film Festival. For his interview, photojournalist Cornelius Washington amassed questions from a diverse cross-section of her fans, from the famous to the infamous.

Cornelius Washington: After seeing your film, darling, only two descriptions come to mind: the word lyrical, and the 21st-century Thelma & Louise.

Tanya Wright: Thank you, baby!

That was the idea.

Your first question is from writer Bob Mathis-Friedman, who will write a critique for the True Blood fansite. Compare the types of roles you’ve been offered before and after True Blood.

My career has been strong and wonderful from the very beginning.

Things are getting better for black female actresses, particularly on television, but they have to work at it, and create their own opportunities.

Former international creative director for Revlon and L’Oreal David Leddick wants to say congratulations on your hard work, and asks, What foundation is used on the show?

I don’t think that I’m allowed to say.

Things are that secretive on the show, but check out Makeup Forever’s HD line. My lip color, which is a great color and lasts forever, is by L’Oreal.

B.A.R.’s reigning Best Porn Star Adam Killian, who performs a striptease to TB’s theme song and would kill to dance on your show, asks, What’s been your most unusual celebrity meeting and fan mail?

Well first let me say, oooh, a gay male porn star who dances naked to our theme song? Honey, I’d like to see that! Regarding fan mail, mostly I get letters from male prisoners. It’s been that way from the beginning of my career, and now that I’m playing a sheriff, you can only imagine! As for celebrities, my mother Debra FrazierHowze is a celebrity in her own right, because she is the founder of the 25-year-old nonprofit National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, and her courage and determination inspire me. The next celebrity is Mr. Bill Cosby. I played Theo’s girlfriend on The Cosby Show, and Bill is the most multi-talented, multi-tasking, hardest-working man I’ve ever seen in my life. I saw,up-close what it means to be a cultural icon.

Gabriel Carvalho, manager of San Francisco’s Out of the Closet

<<

Every Day

From page 22

it in the most mature, intelligent way somebody could. And that’s not enough, he’s still fucking up and out of control in his father’s eyes, and they can’t find a middle ground. And then he’s dealing at school with homophobia as a still rampant reality.”

David Lamble: His older date bullies him into going beyond his limits.

Ezra Miller: He is bullied, because open gay kids, trans kids, kids who are not adhering to a hetero-normal standard get bullied, even if you’re in San Francisco or Mill Valley. It’s an area of discomfort that’s overridden with anger, masculinity, hatred. That just exists, and there’s no quick and easy way to sort that out in the world.

Cornelius Washington

Actor, writer and director Tanya Wright: ‘I like to be comfortable.’

flagship store, asks, What is your most decadent purchase?

I’m a Taurus, so by nature, I like my money organized, but I like to be comfortable. My friends kept bagging on me to get a new car. I thought about it, and bought myself a Mercedes SLK 320. It’s totally tricked out, honey. It’s two-tone, cream and caramel, very 1950s. My friends named it Silk. The car has drama, darling!

Chi Chi LaRue, the world’s most prolific gay male porn director, says that True Blood creator Allen Ball truly has his finger on what the LGBT community wants to see in a TV show. Chi Chi asks, If Ball were to direct a dream sequence threesome with you and two of your co-stars, who would they be?

Oh, it would have to be Nelsan Ellis (“Lafayette”) and Ryan Kwanten (“Jason Stackhouse”).

Chi Chi also asks, Girl, you’re so busy, what made you want to direct a feature-length film?

The short explanation is that I did the film in memory of my late brother, Barron Wright. I love him and miss him.

Your film has such a beautiful color sense. I’d love to see you direct a music video, and if you did, what recording artist would it be?

Oooh, baby, that would have to be Beyonce! She’s so beautiful and glamorous, and as a director, I may as well start at the top!

Commercials are big. For whom

Jonah’s first date?

Jonah goes on a date with an older boy, exactly what his father fears.

When you’re a kid, no matter what gender or orientation, and the attractive older person asks you out, you say, “Yes.” At first it’s good, but it moves quickly in a wrong direction that he’s actually not comfortable with. Jonah lets it ride a little too long, and yes, there’s a kiss with a boy.

How was that?

Fantastic. He was a fine, kind and fetching young man. He was very cool and good about it. These things are well-handled in our industry, especially if it’s a smart director who’s going to make sure, because that’s how you get a good performance.

DVD’s special features: Cast interviews, deleted scenes and trailer. ▼

would you like to direct?

One more thing about fans. The LGBT community are the show’s most enthusiastic fans. All of us on the show love their colorful intensity. It’s wonderful. I also want to say that I researched the B.A.R. and you before I consented to this interview. I think you both are fabulous!

I hope that the B.A.R. continues for another 40 years at least. I’m very honored to have been interviewed and photographed by you.▼

<< Out&About

24 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 10-16, 2012

formed in French and Russian with English subtitles. $22.50-$125. Tue, Thu-Sat 8pm.

Wed 7pm Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru May 13.

Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St. at Shattuck.

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

Live Art Auction @ Chronicle Books Visual Aid’s annual art auction fundraiser, with champagne, a dessert bar and other food and drinks. $75-$150. 6:30-9pm.

680 2nd St. www.visualaid.org

Million Dollar Quartet @ San Jose Center for the Arts

Rufus Wainwright

Touring company of the Broadway musical hit about the famous one-time recording session with Rock ‘n’ Roll icons Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins. Thru May 13. (408) 792-4580. www.broadwaysanjose.com

that appears in their home, unveiling a strange alternative world. $10-$20. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru June 9. 1834 Euclid Ave. www.impacttheatre.com

Friday Nights @ de Young Museum Weekly parties, live performances and quick art installations, paired with current shows, including the Jean Paul Gaultier couture/costume exhibit. Tonight: Golden Gate’s Swingin’ 75th Birthday Bash. Free$18 (tickets required for exhibit entry).

5:30pm-8:30pm. 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park. www.deyoung.famsf.org

Sat 12

Author Michelle Tea welcomes Alysia Angel, Keely Hyslop, Erick Lyle and Bucky Sinister to the eclectic reading series. Free 6pm. LatinoHispanic Community Room, lower level.

100 Larkin St. 557-4400. www.sfpl.org

Cameron Carpenter, the talented organist, is one of several guest performers with the SF Symphony, as Michael Tilson Thomas conducts Barbary Coast and Beyond: Music from the Gold Rush to the Panama-Pacific Exposition. $35-$140. 8pm. 201 Van Ness Ave. www.cameroncarpenter.com www.sfsymphony.org

SF International Arts Festival @ Various Venues

Sing-ularity

by Jim Provenzano

C

antors, crooners and composers of songs pop-py, folky and choral, should provide auralgasms through this post-Super Moon week.

Friday, May 11, Rufus Wainwright performs at the beautiful Fox Theatre in Oakland. The melodic gay singer performs new and older music and Krystle Warren opens. $39-$45. 8pm. 1807 Telegraph Ave, Oakland. www.rufuswainwright.com Broadway and TV star Kristin Chenowith performs a concert of her fourth album and other songs, also Friday, May 11, in Berkeley. $45-$75. 8pm. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley campus. (510) 642-9988. www.apeconcerts.com Saturday, May 12 the Oakland East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus fills Lakeshore Ave. Baptitst Church with The Writes of Spring, a choral conKristin cert of original compositions by chorus members Chenowith and colleagues, and a celebration of their 10-year anniversary CD. $20. 8pm. Also April 13, 5pm. 3534 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. (800) 706-2389. www.oebgmc.org Sunday May 13 the second annual Anti-Bullying Concert is this year at the Palace of Fine Arts.

Broadway (and Glee) star Brian Stokes Mitchell and the Yale Whiffenpoofs perform, with guests the Stanford Mendicants, in a choral concert with proceeds supporting New Conservatory Theatre’s anti-bullying Youth Aware program. $25Brian Stokes $125. 5pm. 3301 Lyon St. www.nctcsf.org Also Sunday, Bijou at Mitchell Martuni’s offers a Special Mother’s Day edition of the fun cabaret show, with hostess/accompanist Mrs. Trauma Flintstone, and guest vocalists Brooke Michael Smith, Tina Sogluzzo, and Kitten on the Keys. Moms admitted free! $7. 7pm. 4 Valencia St. Wednesday, May 16 is a perfect midweek date night for those who crave male romantic Tina Sogliuzzo musicality sung by hunks. Tom Goss, Bobby at Bijou Jo Valentine and Jeb Havens perform at The Lost Church, an intimate new music space. $15. 7pm. 65 Capp St. www.tomgossmusic.net www.thelostchurch.com

Fascinating rare performances with intrigue and innovation; White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour’s script, read unrehearsed by a slew of local artists, because Iran refused to grant the playwright a travel visa. Festival Lounge, $12-$15. 540 Sutter St. May 3-20. Other works include Inkboat, Earplay Ensemble, Mansaku-no Kai and AXIS Dance Company (see separate listing). More shows thru May 19. 771-6900. www.sfiaf.org

The Tom Judson Show @ New Conservatory Theatre Center Tom Judson, the cabaret singer-pianist, sings about his life and career (and other career, in porn) with classic and obscure songs. $18-$36. Wed-Sat 8pm. Thru May 12.

25 Van Ness Ave. at Market, lower level.

861-8972. www.nctcsf.org

Valerie Simpson @ The Rrazz Room Singing partner of the late Nick Ashford performs a tribute concert. $45-$55. 8pm (7pm May 12 & 13; and 9:30pm May 12).

Thru May 13. $25. 8pm. 2-drink min. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (800) 380-3095. www.TheRrazzRoom.com

Thu 10>> Comedy Bodega @Esta Nocha The new weekly LGBT and indie comic stand-up night; special pre-Cinco De Mayo Show, with Kurt Weitzmann, Miss Persia (Esta Noche’s Drag Diva), Marga Gomez, Milo Klein Dash Kwiatkowski. 8pm-9:30pm.

3079 16th St. at Mission. www.comedybodega.com

Tony Award winner Bill Irwin stars in American Conservatory Theatre’s production of two Samuel Beckett one-act plays, directed

by Carey Perloff. Out With ACT LGBT night May 30. $10-$95. Tue-Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru June 3. 415 Geary St. 7492228. www.act-sf.org

In Paris @ Berkeley Repertory Mikhail Baryshnikov stars in Dmitry Krymov’s innovative and intimate romantic play per-

Fwd: Life Gone Viral @ The Marsh David Ford, Jeri Lynn Cohen and Charlie Varon’s comic play about the foibles of Internet-ruled living. $20-$50. Previews; opening May 12. Thu 8pm, Sat 8:30pm, Sun 7pm. Thru June 10. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Hot Greeks @ The Hypnodrome Thrillpeddlers revives the Cockettes’ hilarious college comedy revue that meets ancient Greek bawdy burlesque in a new expanded version, with a new cast, costumes, songs and fabulous camp. $30-$35; $69 for a pair. Thu-Sat 8pm. Extended thru May 19. 575 10th St. at Bryant & Division.

(800) 838-3006. www.thrillpeddlers.com

Tino Rodriguez’ art

Arthur Schnitzler’s play about a Viennese philanderer, in the world premiere of a newly translated adaptation by Margret Schaefer. $34-$55. Tue 7pm. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm & 7pm. 2081 Addison St. Thru May 13.

(510) 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org

Conspiracy of Beards @ Center for Sex & Culture 30-member male chorus sings songs by Leonard Cohen at a benefit for participants in the AIDS Life/Cycle Ride. Erin Brazill and Fancy Dan also perform. $25 or more donors get one of their CDs. $10-$25. 8pm. 1349 Mission St. www.conspiracyofbeards.com www.sexandculture.org

Crevice @ La Val’s Subterranean, Berkeley World premiere of Lauren Yee’s dark comedy about a family shaken by a sinkhole

The veteran lesbian comic gets a little more serious in her solo show about her parents’ tragic murder-suicide. $15-$35-$50. Thu 8pm, Sat 8:30pm, Sun 7pm. Extended thru May 27. Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia St. (800) 838-3006. www.themarsh.org

Red @ Berkeley Repertory John Logan’s (screenwriter of The Aviator, Gladiator and Hugo) Broadway hit about abstract painter Mark Rothko, engaged in a battle of wits with his young assistant, makes its West Coast debut. $14-$72. Tue-Sat 8pm.

Sun 2pm. & 7pm Extended thru May 12.

2025 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

Verbatim Verboten @ The Garage

Sat 12>> Bearracuda @ Holy Cow 3/4ths of Rocket Collective (DJs Brian Maier, David Sternesky and Trevor Sigler) spin grooves at the beartastic dance party. $6-$8. 9pm-2am. 1535 Folsom St. www.bearracuda.com

Crackpot Crones @ The Dark Room Terry Baum and Carolyn Myers sketch comedy show about mothers. $20. 3pm.

Also May 13. 2263 Mission St. at 18th.

(800) 838-3006. www.crackpotcrones.com

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

The Dick Show @ Center for Sex & Culture Group exhibit celebrating the male penis, with works by Michael Rosen, Mariah Carle, Mark Garrett, Katie Gilmartin, Justin Time, Mitcho, Dwoo, Jesse Williams and Jack Davis.

Thru May (performance show May 18, 8pm).

1349 Mission St. at 9th. www.sexandculture.org

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

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

A Hot Day in Ephesus @ Live Oak Theatre, Berkeley Vicki Siegel’s musical comedy based on Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, about twin servants, mistaken identity and love. $12-$15. Fri & Sat 8pm. Thru May 19.

1301 Shattuck at Berryman. (510) 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org

Screening of Lourdes Portillo’s experimental documentary about the corruption and violence caused by Mexican drug traffiking; featuring Madeleine Lim, Executive Director of Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project, who screens some of their recent documentaries. $5-$10. 7:30pm.

3105 Shattuck Ave. www.lapena.org

Poet Yosimar Reyes returns to MC a night of queer and trans spoken word, music, dance and video performances by Nomy Lamm, Maisha Z. Johnson, Josh Merchant, Our Space, El/LA, and others. 7pm.

2868 Mission St. at 25th. 643-2785. www.missionculturalcenter.org

Endgame, Play @ A.C.T.

Oakland-based physically integrated dance company performs U.K.-based Marc Brew’s fascinating 2011 commissioned Full of Words ; Saturday includes Brew performing his solo Remember When and a duet section from Nocturne. Sunday’s concert includes Sebastian Grubb’s male duet The Narrowing. (pre-performance discussions one hour prior to curtain). Part of the SF Int. Arts Fest. $16-$25. 7pm. Also May 13, 4pm.

609 Sutter St. 771-6900. www.sfiaf.org www.axisdance.org

Al Más Allá @ La Peña Cultural Center, Berkeley

The Color of My Spirit @ Mission Cultural Center

Bobby Jo Valentine, Jeb Havens and Tom Goss

AXIS Dance Company @ Marines Memorial

Fri 11>>

Anatol @ Aurora Theatre, Berkeley

Marilyn Pittman @ The Marsh

Clove Productions’ satiric comedy improv shows with an unusual script based on randomly selected wiretapped conversations, surveillance tapes, on-camera diatribes amd 911 calls. $12-$15. Fri & Sat 8pm Thru May 19. 715 Bryant St (note: new address). 5181517. www.brownpapertickets.com

Radar Reading @ SF Public Library

SF Symphony @ Davies Symphony Hall

▼

Laura Benanti @ The Venetian Room

Sat 12 Tino Rodriguez, Virgo Paraiso @ Modern Eden Gallery Opening reception for Pagan Poetry, a duo exhibit of fantastic and vibrant paintings by the two artists, with live music by Sylvi Alli. 6pm-10pm.

Reg hours Wed-Sun 11am-7pm. Thru June 10. 403 Francisco St. 956-3303. www.moderneden.com

Kronos Qartet @ Novellus Theatre The acclaimed music ensemble performs Bay Area premieres of works by Laurie Anderson, Nicole Lezee, and Derek Charles, plus guest performers Van-anh Vanessa Vo and Tanya Tagaq. $20-$30. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard St. ww.ybca.org

Marga Gomez @ The Marsh, Berkeley The lesbian comic returns with Not Getting Any Younger, her witty solo show about ‘coming of middle age.’ $15-$35, $50. Fri 8pm. Sat 5pm. Extended thru June 30.

2120 Allston Way off Shattuck. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Tony Award-winning actress-singer (who starred in the recent Broadway revival of Gypsy) performs Let Me Entertain You, her cabaret act of show tunes, Lady Gaga and even Vanilla Ice songs, interspersed with her personal stories. Robert Conte Thornton opens. $40-$45. 8pm. The Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason St. 392-4400. www.BayAreaCabaret.org

Modern Cartoonist: The Art of Daniel Clowes @ Oakland Museum Exhibit of original art by the Oakland graphic novel illustrator and Academy Award-nominated screenwriter (Ghost World). Free-$12.

Wed-Sun 11am-5pm. Thru Aug. 12. 1000 Oak St. (510) 318-8400. www.museumca.org

Perverts Put Out @ Center for Sex & Culture Erotic readings by Greta Christina, Midori, T. R. Moss, Thomas Roche, Sam Sax, Lori Selke, and horehound stillpoint. Co-hosted by Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard. $10-$20.

1349 mission St. www.sexandculture.org

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

Also, The Utopian Impulse: Buckminster Fuller and the Bay Area, and a new mural by Dutch artist Parra. Thru July 29. Free-$18.

Open daily (except Wednesdays) 11am5:45pm.; open late Thursdays, until 8:45pm.

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

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Out&About >>

May 10-16, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 25

A Raisin in the Sun @ Buriel Clay Theater African American Shakespeare Company’s production of Lorraine Hansberry’s timeless play about a 1950s-era Chicago family longing for a better life. $10-$30. 8pm. Sat 8pm and Sun 3pm Thru May 27. African American Art & Culture Complex, 762 Fulton St. at Webster. (800) 838-3006. www.African-AmericanShakes.org

Splish @ Rebel San Francisco Tsunami Polo team’s annual wild shindig fundraiser, with guest MC Heklina, a swimsuit show, guest bartenders, raffles, prizes, Jell-O shots and aquatic hilarity. Donations. 7pm-10pm. 1760 Market St. www.tsunamipolo.org www.rebel-sf.com

Sun 13>> A Funny Night for Comedy @ Actors Theatre Natasha Muse and sidekick Ryan Cronin cohost the monthly faux-talk show, with guests Marga Gomez, Mike Spiegelman and Brian Fields. $10. 7pm. 855 Bush st. 345-1287. www.NatashaMuse.com

Hella Gay Comedy @ 50 Mason Social House Charlie Ballard’s monthly very gay comedy night. This month, a Mother’s Day extravaganza, with Cassandra Gorgeous, Casey Ley, Steve Lee, Pearl Louise, Sandra Risser, Deb Campo and more. Extensitve beer menu. $10. 21+. 8pm. 50 Mason St. www.50masonsocialhouse.com

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

395-8595. www.harrydenton.com

Mon 14>> Comedy Returns @ El Rio Producer/host Lisa Geduldig welcomes comics Shazia Mirza, Marga Gomez, Jeff Applebaum, Brendan Lynch, $7-$20. 8pm.

3158 Mission St. at Precita. www.koshercomedy.com www.elriosf.com

Life & Death in Black & White @ GLBT History Museum AIDS Direct Action in San Francisco, 1985–1990, focuses on the AIDS activism photos of Jane Philomen Cleland, Patrick Clifton, Marc Geller, Rick Gerharter and Daniel Nicoletta. Selection of other LGBT historic items also on display. $5. Wed-Sat & Mon 11am-7pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Radically Gay: The Life of Harry Hay @ SF Public Library New exhibition that celebrates the remarkable life and work of activist Harry Hay, who laid the foundation for the modern lesbian and gay rights movement. Free.

Thru July 29. Jewitt Gallery, lower level, 100 Larkin St. 557-4400. www.sfpl.org

Sat 12 Bayeté Ross Smith @ CIIS Artist-in-residence discusses her new solo exhibit of works, Mirrors, Taking AIM and Got the Power. Free. 6:30pm. California Institute of Integral Studies main building, 3rd floor, Namaste Hall, 1453 Mission St. 575-6242. www.ciis.edu/arts

Wed 16>> Andy Cohen @ Castro Theatre

Matthew Hines @ Magnet

The Commonwelath Club presents a guest lecture and book signing event with the gay Bravo TV executive (The Real Housewives, Top Chef ) and host. $10-$80 (some tickets include book purchase). Premium ticket reception 6:30pm, program 7:30, book-signing 8:30pm. 429 Castro St. 597-6705. www.commonwealthclub.org

Exhibit of modern mythological imagery.

Free. 8pm-10pm. Thru May 4122 18th St. 581-1613. www.magnetsf.org

Comedy Wednesdays @ George’s, San Rafael

No Day But Today @ The Rrazz Room Sean Ray’s tenth annual Cabaret to Fight AIDS, with eight notable local singers performing witty and touching songs, plus special guest Donna Sachet. Proceeds benefit Project Open Hand. $35-$50. 8pm. Also May 15. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (800) 380-3095. www.cabaray.yolasite.com

Ten Percent @ Comcast 104

Marga Gomez MCs and does stand-up with her “funny lady friends” Karinda Dobbins, Amy Miller, Lydia Popovich and Shazia Merza. 8:30pm. 842 4th St. San Rafael.

226-0262. www.georgesnightclub.com

Khaira Arby @ The New Parish, Oakland Malian vocalist and her band perform their amazing traditional-contemporary “desert rock” songs. $10-$15. 9pm. 579 18th St. (510) 444-7474. www.myspace.com/khairaarby www.thenewparish.com

David Perry’s talk show about LGBT people and issues. This week: David speaks with Jim Provenzano of The Bay Area Reporter (Oh, that’s me!) and interviews Juan Torres, a board member from the Golden Gate Business Association. Mon-Fri 11:30am & 10:30pm. Sat & Sun 10:30pm. www.comcasthometown.com

Peter Asher @ The Rrazz Room

Tue 15>>

Saints and Sinners @ Visual Aid

Dorothea Lange @ Scott Nichols Gallery Exhibit of prints by the acclaimed 20thcentury photographer. Thru June 30. Tue-Sat 11am-5:30pm. 49 Geary St. 4th fl. 788-4641. www.scottnicholsgallery.com

Housing Panel @ API Wellness Panel discussion of LGBT senior housing issues, with Bevan Dufty, Brian Basinger, Jodi Schwartz, Lee Harrington and representatives from several government and community and faith outreach organizations. food and drinks served. 5:30-7:30pm.

730 Polk St. at Ellis. www.apiwellness.org

British musician presents his 1960s biographical song-show. $40-$45. 8pm. Thru May 20, 7pm. 2-drink min. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (800) 380-3095. www.TheRrazzRoom.com

Exhibit of colorful multimedia works by David Faulk and Michael Johnstone in a sitespecific installation. 5:30-7:30pm. 57 Post St. #905. www.visualaid.org

Smack Dab @ Magnet Jai Arun Ravine (And Then Enztwine) is the guest artist at the eclectic reading/open mic show with frequently queer themes. Larrybob Roberts and Kirk Read cohost. Sign-up 7:30pm. Show 8pm. 4122 18th St. www.magnetsf.org

Thu 17>> API Vagina Monologues @ Castro Theatre Asian and Pacific Islander performance of the Eve Engler show about women’s body issues and acceptance. Proceeds benefit local women’s organizations. $20-$65. 7:30pm.

429 Castro St. www.apavaginamonologues. com www.castrotheatre.com

Arisa White @ SF Public Library Poet, author and playwright reads from her debut poetry collection, Hurrah’s Nest. Free.

6pm. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center, third floor. 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

Bloom @ Galleria Design Center

Dennis Ziemienski

“California Theater” at artMRKT.

Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center’s eighth annual gala fundraiser, with food, drinks, festively dressed supporters, a silent auction; awards given to Mayor Ed Lee and drag performer/activist Tita Aida. $100 and up. 6pm-11pm. 101 Henry Adams St. 2923400. www.apiwwellness.org

We Players’ The Odyssey

Mt. Diablo State Park

Stately I

mmerse yourself in the lovely Californian spring with live outdoor theatre, hiking and a buffet of local art.

The Odyssey invades Angel Island as We Players takes on another innovative environmental theatre project (their Alcatraz Hamlet was a sell-out). The Homerian ancient Greek adventure tale is performed at locations on scenic and historic Angel Island. $40-$78. $10 lunches available. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays,10:30am-4pm (not including ferry travel times). Thru July 1. 547-0189. www.weplayers.org Sunday, May 13, join the SF Hiking Club’s GLBT hikers for a 12-mile hike starting in Jackass Canyon of Mt. Diablo State Park. See wildflowers, including the Mt. Diablo Fairy Lanterns. Bring water, lunch, sunscreen, hat, sturdy boots. Carpool meets at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores, at 9amm. (650)763-8537. www.sfhiking.com Thu. 17, ArtMRKT fills the Concourse Exhibition Center with a large-scale showcase of visual arts and crafts, with booths by dozens of local and national galleries. Thursday preview VIP party, 6pm-8pm $150. Fri & Sat 11am-7pm, $20-$40. Thru May 20 (12pm-6pm). 620 7th St. at Brannan. (212) 518-6912. www.art-mrkt.com/sf – J.P.

Phantoms of Asia @ Asian Art Museum New exhibit of bold contemporary art with perspective on life, death, nature and other themes. Opening night party tonight, with DJ Vin Sol, King Most, drinks, food and fun. $12$15. 7:30pm-12am. 200 Larkin st. 581-3500. www.asianart.org

Pink Smoke Over the Vatican @ Embarcadero Cinema Award-winning documentary about the movement to ordain women in the Roman Catholic Church. Producer/director Jules Hart will speak at the screening, followed by Fr. Roy Bourgeois. $15. 7pm. One Embarcadero. www.pinksmokeoverthevatican.com

Portland Cello Project @ Swedish American Hall Amazing string ensemble blends baroque, hiphop and other genres into a rousing musical mix; Emily Wells headlines. $15. 8pm.

2170 Market St. 861-5016. www.cafedunord.com

For more arts events, visit www.ebar.com

<<Society

26 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 10-16, 2012

▼

Dancing & prancing

by Donna Sachet

T

he Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation has a new winning formula with Dances from the Heart, its recent benefit at Fort Mason, featuring dancers from several Bay Area companies in varying styles, music, and impact.

Many of REAF’s most faithful supporters attended, including Patrik Gallineaux, Beth Schnitzer, Joel Goodrich, Larry Horowitz, John Newmeyer, Andrew Freeman, and Lawrence Helman, but we also welcomed many new faces.

Our favorite selections were the opening sequence from Ballet San Jose to the music of Gustav Mahler with breathtaking costuming, a stirring performance by Patrick Makuakane’s Na Lei Hulu to traditional Hawaiian music and “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” Christy Cote’s Argentine Tango sultry couples, and Company C’s talented ensemble frenetically moving to music by Elvis Costello & The Attractions. In addition to its signature Help Is on the Way and One Night Only events, REAF has provided a new, thoroughly entertaining production that we hope becomes an annual fundraiser.

If you want ideal weather, evidently Project Inform has the power to deliver! Their Saturday Swimwear for a Cause fundraiser, poolside at the Phoenix Hotel, was blessed with sunny skies and hundreds of summery-attired attendees, including Dr. Mark Illeman & Stephen Andrews, Richard Sablatura, Jeff Doney, Suzan Revah, Joanna Parks, Brian Kent, Henry Lucero, Steve Gibson, and Bevin Shamel.

Guests nibbled on hors d’oeuvres, sipped cocktails, and reveled in the sunshine until a Macy’s fashion

Steven Underhill

Classically-trained dancers perform for REAF’s recent Dances from the Heart benefit at the Cowell Theatre in Fort Mason.

show commenced, featuring sexy models in hot Speedo swimwear, cool Sunglass Hut shades, and flirty Cute Tank tops. After a short presentation by Executive Director Dana Van Gorder (not in a Speedo, regrettably), raffle prizes were awarded, the temperature began to drop, and the event came to a close.

We rushed from there to the W Hotel for Bliss, Maitri’s annual fundraising gala, celebrating 25 years of compassionate AIDS hospice care. The evening began with an evocative Buddhist blessing referring back to Maitri’s roots in this faith, with Jana Drakka and Issan Dorsey’s monks leading guests into the elegant ballroom, where hundreds of paper origami cranes reminded us of the lives which have benefited from this program. Executive Director Michael Smithwick spoke briefly and rec-

ognized California Pacific Medical Center as the major event sponsor, followed by a beautifully produced video about Maitri and remarks from Patsy Dorsey (sister of the founder), Supervisor Scott Wiener, and Bevan Dufty. The heart of the program was a fashion show with dresses from acclaimed New York designer Carmen Marc Valvo, modeled by Maitri volunteers, staff and a board member. We joined Carmen in providing commentary throughout the show, as Gary Virginia, Ari Kalfayan, Dan Glazer, Gregory Marks, Tommy Taylor & Dr. Jerome Goldstein, Ken Gorczyca, Stu Smith, and many others looked on. And yes, we wore two dresses made specifically for us by Carmen. The audience then enjoyed music from singer and pianist Wade Preston and chanteuse Connie Champagne, also wearing Carmen Marc Valvo. To the room’s surprise, this generous designer then announced that he was giving each See page 27 >>

Coming up in leather and kink Thu., May 10: Koktail Club Happy Hour at Kok Bar (1225 Folsom). Drink specials and Hamisi doing Hammy Time. 5-10 p.m. Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Sun., May 13: Pillow Talk - INappropriate Behavior Party at Hunters (302 E. Arenas, Palm Springs).

1-4 p.m. Go to Facebook for details.

Thu., May 10: Underwear Night at The Powerhouse.

Strip down for drink specials. 10 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Sun., May 13: Truck Bust Sundays at Truck. $1 beer bust. 4-8 p.m. Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Fri., May 11: Cockstar at Kok Bar. DJ Gehno Sanchez hosts. No cover. Drink specials, the Cock of the Star Contest at Midnight! 10 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Fri., May 11: Foreplay at The Barracks (67625 E Palm Canyon Dr., Ste C7, Cathedral City). Kick off Michael Brandon’s INappropriate Behavior Party Palm Springs, benefits Palm Springs chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Raffles, live performances! 9 p.m.Midnight. Go to Facebook for details.

Fri., May 11: Truck Wash at Truck (1900 Folsom).

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

Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Sat., May 12: Inappropriate Behavior Party, White Trash BBQ/Pool Party at Helios Resort (280 E. Mel Ave., Palm Springs). 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Go to Facebook for details.

Sat., May 12: All Beef Saturday Nights at The Lone Star (1354 Harrison). 100% SoMa Beef! 9 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.facebook.com/lonestarsf.

Sat., May 12: IML or Bust! IML Send Off Party for Mr. SF Leather Jesse Vanciel at The Powerhouse.

Demos, raffles, and auctions of several jocks from the hottest men in SF. The fun starts at 10 p.m.

Go to Facebook for details.

Sat., May 12: Stallion Saturdays at Rebel Bar (1760 Market). Revolving DJs. Stay for afterhours fun!

9 p.m.-4 a.m. Go to: www.stallionsaturdays.com.

Sun., May 13: SF Men’s Spanking Party at the Power Exchange (220 Jones St.). Must be 18 years or older. $20 (Half-Price with student or military ID). 1-6 p.m.

Go to: http://www.voy.com/201188/ Sun., May 13: MAsT (Masters and slaves Together) at the SF Citadel (363 6th St.) 7:30-9:30 p.m.

Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Sun., May 13: Newbie Munch at Wicked Grounds Coffee House (289 8th St.) Curious about Kink, Leather, BD/SM? Mr. SF Leather 2012 and friends answer your questions. 12-1:30 p.m. Go to Facebook for details.

Sun., May 13: Making the Connection, a Newbie Panel hosted by Mr. SF Leather Jessie Vanciel at the Mr. S Leather playspace (385A 8th St.) 2-4 p.m.

Go to Facebook for details.

Sun., May 13: Men in Gear Monthly Beer Bust at Kok Bar. 3-7 p.m. Gear up! Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Sun., May 13: Baby Daddy at Kok Bar. 9 p.m.-close.

Drink & shot specials all night, cartoons, music and no cover! Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Mon., May 14: SF MAsT (Masters and slaves Together) at the SF Citadel. 7:30-9:30 p.m.

Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Mon., May 14: Dirty Dicks at The Powerhouse. $3 well drinks. 4-10 p.m. Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Tue., May 15: Busted at Truck. $5 beer bust. 9-11 p.m.

Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Tue., May 15: Safeword: 12-Step Kink Recovery Group at the SF Citadel. 6:30 p.m. Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Tue., May 15: Ink & Metal at The Powerhouse.

9 p.m.-close. Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Tue., May 15: Flogging: Amazing Hands-on Training presented by Midori at the SF Citadel. 8-10 p.m.

Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Wed., May 16: Pit Stop at Kok Bar. Happy Hour prices 5 p.m.-close. Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Wed., May 16: Underwear Buddies at Blow Buddies (933 Harrison), a male-only club. Doors open 8 p.m.12 a.m. Play till late. Go to: www.blowbuddies.com.

Wed., May 16: Bare Bear, a Night at the Baths at The Water Garden (1010 The Alameda, San Jose).

6-10 p.m. Go to: www.thewatergarden.com.

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DVD >>

May 10-16, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 27

‘Leave it to Beaver’ meets John Holmes

by Ernie Alderete

J

ack Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon (TLA Releasing) will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about one of porn’s early shooting stars. His unlikely beginnings as Jack Stillman in his hometown of Beverly Hills, his career off-Broadway, his meteoric ascent first in gay film porn, then in straight porn, and his surprising personal life including his puzzling marriage to singer Margaret Whiting – it’s all here.

A solidly gay man marries a heavyset straight woman 20 years his senior. Although I realize that people are drawn to each other regardless of sexual preferences, even beyond gender, both members of this odd couple gave up even the possibility of entering into a fulfilling relationship more appropriate to his or her own sexual preference to be with each other. Jack gave up not only any possibility of a same-sex relationship, but even man-toman sex, to avoid embarrassing his overly protective and possessive wife. A person identified by his gay male sexuality renounced it to please someone who was little more than a roommate to the outside world.

The most surprising revelation in Anatomy of an Icon is how insecure young Jack Stillman was. Jack confessed he felt like a runt, that he wasn’t manly enough, that he could never earn his father’s approval.

“Every dad in the 1950s wanted his son to be a jock, at least to be muscular, and I felt I really let him down. My dad made it pretty clear, I was a sissy!” These are, I think, typical concerns for any young gay

<<

man, they’re only surprising to us because of the masculine image Wrangler portrayed onscreen.

There really are three distinct beings rolled into one person in Jack Stillman Wrangler: The nerdy, gangly, prissy boy who was Jack Stillman in his Leave it to Beaver-era

youth, seen in grainy old black-andwhite family movies. The macho, hairy, hard-bodied erotic superstar of the 1970s. And the white-haired, overly chatty, pudgy, self-neutered retiree we see in interviews for this film released in 2008. It’s hard to reconcile the three conflicting images. I couldn’t detect the slightest glimmer of the carnal career that lay ahead for young Jack Stillman. Nor is there any resonance of his longgone sexual magnetism in the later, mature Jack Stillman. Of course, he had a hard image to live up to. And he was a survivor, although some people resented him for surviving.

The most shocking moment in Jack Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon comes when Jack describes visiting the sick and dying at an AIDS hospice, and patients repeatedly asking him, “Why am I the one in bed about to die, and you [the sluty porno star] are walking around in seemingly perfect health?”

As if they were wishing him dead. Wrangler admits he would certainly have died of AIDS, as d did most of his onscreen ccontemporaries such as JJon King, Al Parker and d dozens more, had he not w walked away from porn w when he did.

Half of the film is m made up of vintage and m more current interviews w with the star, and choice cclips from his movie ies. There are interviews w with directors Chi Chi L La Rue, Jerry Douglas aand Gino Colbert, Williliam Ivey Long, Samuel D Delaney, Bruce Vilanch, filmmaker Robert Alvare rez, playwright Robert P Patrick, and half-a-dozen o other superannuated ind dustry insiders who are m mostly behind-the-scenes ce celebrities. These, to the ve very last one, would have b been better as off-camera vo voiceovers.

Sometimes le less is indeed more. Much to my surprise, Wrangler reveals he was on the Dating Game. And he won a date with a real live girl.

There is no clip of the program provided, just a still photo of Wrangler and his date.

The Silver Screen dimmed just a bit when Wrangler passed away in April 2009 from emphysema. Jack Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon is as good as it gets. Funny, engaging, fast-paced, informative, the works.

Good enough to play on mainstream cable, but don’t expect to see it on HBO any time soon. It is available on Netflix.▼

On the Town

From page 26

model her featured dress, including Connie and Yours Truly! We can still hear Connie’s shriek of delight! The evening wrapped up with a vigorous live auction conducted by that auctioneer par excellence, Lenny Broberg, and dancing into the night with DJ Piechota.

Tomorrow night, May 11, Pets Are Wonderful Support (PAWS) returns to the Palace Hotel for Petchitecture, that gala like no other where four-legged friends accompany their elegantly dressed two-legged hosts for food, drink, auctions, and lots of photography. You have to see it to believe it!

Sean Ray returns to the Rrazz Room at Hotel Nikko with his 10th annual cabaret to fight AIDS, No Day But Today, Mon. & Tues., May 14 & 15, at 8 p.m. This spirited fundraiser for Project Open Hand features the musical talents of 10 of Sean’s close friends, a three-piece instrumental combo, raffle prizes, and this singing columnist as emcee. With song selections from standards, show tunes, pop, and country, it’s guaranteed to warm hearts, tickle funny bones, and amaze audiences. Don’t miss it!

Harvey Milk Day in California is closer than you think: May 22! We hope your celebration plans include the Runway Couturier fashion show

Steven Underhill

Swimwear models “backstage” at Project Inform’s Swimwear for a Cause fundraiser, poolside at the Phoenix Hotel.

at Infusion Lounge on Sun. night, May 20, hosted by Anne Kronenberg and judged by Project Runway’s Christopher Collins, the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club’s 36th anniversary soiree Out of the Bars and into the Street, at Beatbox on Mon. night, May 21, and a ben-

efit screening of the award-winning Milk movie at the Castro Theatre with special guests Cleve Jones, Dustin Lance Black and Frank Robinson on Tues., May 22. Thank you, State Senator Mark Leno, for making sure this day is recognized throughout California!▼

www.ebar.com

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28 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 10-16, 2012

▼

May days

by Victoria A. Brownworth

W

e like milestones. We especially liked the one marked by anchor Diane Sawyer on the May 4 ABC evening newscast. Sawyer noted the 15-year anniversary of Ellen DeGeneres coming out on her sitcom Ellen, for the “Person of the Week” segment, which focuses on someone who has made a significant difference in the world.

Most queers remember the episode where Ellen comes out as if it were yesterday.

Ellen sits on the sofa in her shrink’s office (Oprah played the therapist) and explains about her feelings for – Susan. Then she and Susan (Laura Dern) are in the airport together and Ellen leans forward, not noticing she’s standing over the microphone used to call passengers to the gate, and says, “I’m gay,” which reverberates throughout the airport. It was a case of comedy imitating life, because Ellen’s coming out reverberated throughout the country. Sure, most queers knew she was gay, but the rest of the world? Stunned.

Sawyer showed clips of her interview with Ellen back in 1997.

It had a heartbreaking poignancy.

The comedienne teared up as she explained wanting to be accepted as normal. There were also clips of Ellen’s mother Betty and her outrage at how her daughter had been treated, as well as a montage about the backlash from advertisers.

Fast-forward 15 years and Ellen is the doyenne of daytime now, not Oprah. She’s #31 on the list of Hollywood’s 100 most powerful people, and married to actress Portia De Rossi. Plus, irony of ironies, she’s now the spokesperson for JCPenney, the first advertiser to pull out of her show 15 years ago. Ellen is also one of the strongest voices in the public sphere talking about the importance of making LGBT youth

feel safe, protected and not bullied.

Sawyer made a definitive link between Ellen’s coming out and the shift in public attitudes toward queers. Those of us who had been working on the front lines of the queer civil rights movement for years knew then and know now that Ellen didn’t single-handedly turn the tide in America. But she was and is an icon because she was brave enough to declare what other celebrities and stars had died trying to hide: She was queer and didn’t want to hide it any more. Kudos to Sawyer for recognizing how important one person can be by being a recognizable face of a movement.

If this isn’t a statement about the importance of coming out and how much it can do for others in the closet, we don’t know what is. But we hope the message it sends reverberates as strongly as that first “I’m gay.” Later that night after Sawyer’s segment, we saw Anderson Cooper on Letterman and thought what a great place it would be for him to make it official, but no such luck, for him or for us.

Lips unsealed We know for sure that quite a bit has changed in the 15 years since Ellen leaned over that mic. This week we saw something on network TV we never thought we’d see: two African-American men in a fullon, super-passionate, un-neutered lip-lock. It’s already steamy summertime over on the CW, where everyone is always pretty and hip, whether they are regular humans (90210, Gossip Girl, Ringer) or members of the supernatural set (The Secret Circle, Vampire Diaries, Supernatural). They are also so rarely over 25 that when Sarah Michelle Gellar of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer fame was cast as the lead in Ringer, talk was that at 34, she was past it for the CW. It’s the network

Lesbian trail-blazer Ellen DeGeneres, now doyenne of daytime.

for pretty young things and those who like to bed or at least fantasize about bedding pretty young things.

The latest pretty young things show, The L.A. Complex, is the midseason replacement for Ringer, one of the network’s top-rated shows.

LAC debuted the week after Ringer’s phenomenal season finale.

The Canadian import got a super-low opening rating, despite hot trailers of the 20something cast in this Melrose Place meets Rent drama series about a group of wannabe actors and musicians trying to make it in Hollywood. We had already mapped that space between Glee and Private Practice, so we decided to give it a spin.

The first episode was so-so. We like Cassie Steele, who plays Abby, the lead character in the six-member ensemble cast. We liked a few edgy things that happened: sex on a roof, going to get the morningafter pill the next day, one character telling another at an audition when she’s told that the character has been made the black best friend of the white lead that in real life that doesn’t happen, it happens only on TV. How long have we been saying that here?

But it was still just okay. So we were only half-watching the second episode while we answered e-mails.

But then there was this intensity between Kal (Andra Fuller) and Tariq (Benjamin Charles Watson), the show’s two black music guys, so we started to focus. The two had a pretty deep afternoon together, replete with Tariq giving a fan a beatdown, and then they had gone back to Tariq’s, where he put on some heavy music. Then he turns, looking super buff in his white wife-beater and tats, and he kind of shoves Kal and tells him to “do something” and gets all up in his face, and the tension is amazing and hot, and then Kal kisses him, and wow – we so did not see that coming, since Tariq has a homophobic streak, and the kiss was a totally real kiss, not the TV kisses between gay men that we usually see. We haven’t seen a kiss like this since The Wire on HBO. So now Tuesdays are locked for LAC until the show gets canceled for low ratings or for too much soft porn. The CW is running full episodes online if you want to catch up.

Hotness all around Meanwhile, the season finale of Smash is nearly upon us, and this show just gets sexier and song-y-er and gayer with each successive episode. Tom is so hot for his dancer.

Eileen is hot for her thuggish bartender. Julia is trying to be hot for her husband, but her old flame is coming back to “Bombshell,” so trouble is brewing. Ellis so wants to be hot for someone that he’s hot for everyone. And Ivy and Karen are both utterly screwed because the men they are hot for are hot for other people.

We like that there is more than one gay man on this show, it being about the theater. On the front

burner we have a Christian black dancer who loves sports, a white songwriter who’s never had a serious relationship, and a half-heartedly bisexual (because he’s really gay) Asian. We also have gay men in supporting roles. Not only do the gays have someone else to be gay with for once, but they actually are being gay not neutered.

Speaking of gay, we really like the way ABC has arrayed its Wednesday night sitcom lineup to be pitchperfectly funny and gay. The lineup has always had a wrong note somewhere. The dreadful Cougar Town.

The equally unfunny Happy Endings. But with its new sitcom Don’t Trust the B- in Apt. 23, it has finally found the show to take it beyond the comedic trifecta of The Middle, Suburgatory and Modern Family.

Then the evening is rounded out with the ultra-dark Revenge. Let’s spend a minute lauding the fact that there’s so much gay here.

Okay. Now let’s note that The B- is incredibly funny. Krystel Ritter’s Chloe is fabulous as a Breakfast at Tiffany’s Audrey Hepburn meets Parker Posey. Dreama Walker is great as her sidekick (emphasis on kick), June. And James Van Der Beek has finally found the perfect post-Dawson’s Creek role for himself as – himself. If you have not yet seen this show, do. Hilarious.

Speaking of hilarious, chronic insomnia combined with newsjunkie-itis has us watching the tube till the wee hours most nights.

Which is how we caught World News Now anchors Rob Nelson and Sunny Hostin acting out love letters and diary excerpts about Barack Obama’s two affairs prior to his romance with First Lady Michelle. The bits were from a new book detailing the amorous and apparently poetic young Barack, and the responses from the two steady girlfriends.

Nelson did the Quiet Storm routine while Hostin did a very good Sex and the City-style act. The bit is on YouTube now, as it should be (it aired May 4 around 3:30 a.m.) Nelson closed, noting that “Joe Biden is right. Apparently Obama does carry a big stick.” Oh my.

Speaking of comedic responses to politics, we haven’t had the opportunity to note lately for the record that Keith Olbermann is a humorless egomaniac. This fact was evidenced yet again when he behaved super-badly in response to a joke

by Jimmy Kimmel at the Correspondents Dinner. Everyone else accepted their roasting well, especially the President. But not the man one blogger referred to as “that insufferable dickhead.” Olbermann had to immediately head to Twitter to bash Kimmel and say Kimmel was just angry because Olbermann wasn’t on his show. Really? Because Kimmel has better ratings for a rerun episode than Olbermann has ever had for a week of shows back when he was on a real network – oh wait, he’s not on any network, is he? When the pundits started pointing fingers at his bad form (Nelson was the first

to do it on WNN, and stopped just short of calling Olbermann a big baby), Olbermann tried to un-tweet or de-tweet his snarky comments, but the Internet is forever and unforgiving. We hope his 15 minutes are up soon.

Speaking of pundits, brava to Rachel Maddow for not letting herself get smacked down on Meet the Press, where she was a guest talking head last week. Maddow was striving to explain that women make less money than men when Republican strategist Alex Castellanos interjected, telling her she was wrong.

She told him she liked him but that he was wrong and that they were “working from different fact pages.”

Maddow went on (with no help from useless NBC moderator David Gregory) to explain that if people aren’t working with the same facts, it really vitiates the debate.

The debate itself made more news than the facts involved, so we just thought we’d point out that Maddow was right and yes, women do make less than men. Sometimes as much as 50% less. We hope that she continues to raise this issue on her own show.

Speaking of sexual politics, there we were watching Nightline on the eve of Cinco de Mayo and being really grateful that we are not straight.

The episode was about Lifetime’s new reality show 7 Days of Sex, in which married couples have to have sex with each other (filmed, btw) every day for a week. Why were we feeling grateful? Because straight sex looks so tedious and unsexy, and straight lives look so unappealing.

The show highlights what women want (men to do housework and chores and take care of the kids) versus what men want (sex in any form at any time and always much more often than the women).

According to stats presented on the show, sex (or lack of it) is the reason given for 50% of straight divorces. Between 20-25% of marriages are completely sexless. Yikes.

Perhaps the grass isn’t greener on the other side of the Brazilian.

Meanwhile, over at Days of Our Lives, the hopelessly heterosexual Sami Brady is about to discover that her son Will is gay. In the longest, most drawn-out revelation in TV history, the big declaration is set to occur on May 15. Chandler Massey has done great work as Will – the storyline feels more real than almost anything else on this show, which is often unwatchable – and Alison Sweeney has always been fantastic as Sami. But when worlds collide, who will be left standing?

Who is left standing is always the question come summer: Tis the season to be a contestant. May is kickoff month for the summer contest shows, notably NBC’s perennial ratings-grabber America’s Got Talent, which has divested itself of its pompous Brit judge Piers Morgan, and replaced him with an arrogant American, Howard Stern. Now it will be the two Howards Stern and Mandel, and Sharon Osbourne. Not sure about that chemistry, but we love the show, and it has had casting changes before and survived.

Another new contest show is ABC’s Duets, with John Legend and Kelly Clarkson, and on the CW, Breaking Pointe, another dance show, this time ballet.

Finally, we bid farewell to Desperate Housewives. The series finale airs May 13. Marc Cherry’s baby has had a real roller-coaster of a ride, and while it may be the most uneven show to ever grace the small screen, it did bring gay characters to the fore while poking fun at the dark underbelly of suburban living.

It was mostly fun while it lasted, and the finale promises to be quite the spectacle. So for that and so much else, you really must stay tuned.▼

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

May 10-16, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 29

Brian Stokes Mitchell

From page 17

eight-performance grind did not suit his concept of fatherhood.

“You end up having no life outside of the show, because you have to save yourself for the performance,” he said. “There were weeks sometimes in which I wouldn’t talk to my wife, communicating with notes and sign language. She called it my ‘monk mode.’ And when my son was born, I knew I wanted to be able to laugh and scream and make silly noises, and not have to worry about doing a show that night.”

He’s open to returning to Broadway in a new show that excites him, though his only dream revival at the moment is Sweeney Todd. “Limited run” are magic words to Mitchell now, and he was back on Broadway in 2010 for three months in the musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

“I find three months is the place where you kind of hit the wall in a show, where it goes from being fun to being hard.”

Mitchell, 54, was doing professional theater in San Diego even before he was out of high school. The family had moved around a lot before that, as his father’s job as a civilian engineer took him to Navy bases both Stateside and abroad. There was nothing but support from his parents as he pursued a performing career, at least partly because “they could see how audiences were reacting to what I did.”

Courtesy Fox Television

Earlier this year, Brian Stokes Mitchell (right) and Jeff Goldblum played the character Rachel’s two gay dads on the Fox-TV series Glee.

Since his upcoming SF appearance is tied into the anti-bullying movement, he talked about his own experiences with bullying as a school kid. Actually, they were nonexperiences. “I was usually the tallest kid in the class, and people don’t pick on big people, so I was lucky.

I also had kind of a charming per-

sonality. I liked people, and people seemed to like me back.”

The arts have always been a haven for societal outsiders, he said, because an artist’s basic goal is “to find the truth in things, find what we all have in common, and find where we connect. I think it’s why people love going to the theater, because it con-

nects to your own humanity and to those around you. It really is a tribal experience.”

Playing the African-American musician Coalhouse Walker in the musical Ragtime has come closest of all his roles to achieving the communion he seeks with audiences. He received hundreds of notes and letters from

audience members telling him how the show personally affected them, including a long hand-written letter from a white Southern kid who realized the internalized racism he had been carrying. “That’s one letter I will never forget,” Mitchell said.

There was another Ragtime experience that shook Mitchell to his core.

Both he and the show had been favored to win Tony Awards, and when they didn’t, he and the company were “bummed out” over their losses, and the actors had to struggle to reignite their performances in the first days after the awards ceremony.

“Then I had a personal epiphany when this story came out about an African-American gentleman in Texas who was tied to the back of a car and was dragged so far and so long that his body basically just fell apart.” That was the case of James Byrd, Jr., whose drawn-out death came at the hands of three men with white-supremacist associations.

“I read that article and thought, ‘That’s why we’re doing this show.

We’re not doing it for a Tony Award,’ which suddenly seemed so trivial. I actually felt ashamed that I was disappointed that I didn’t get a Tony Award, but I felt relief because it finally put everything into perspective.”▼ A Gala Performance to End Bullying with Yale’s Whiffenpoofs and Brian Stokes Mitchell will take place at 5 p.m., May 13, at the Palace of Fine Arts. Tickets are $50$125, available at www.ayayale. tix.com or (800) 595-4849.

John F. Karr

The Dick Show artist Dwoo with his oversize oil painting.

John F. Karr

The Dick Show curator Jack Davis: ‘I’m not interested in being funny or humorous.’

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The Dick Show

From page 17

moment was memorialized by none other than Herb Caen in the Chronicle. I was acting as doorman, dressed as a Ringmaster, with tit clamps and no shirt. When Carol and I ended up kissing, I set down my top hat, but saw one of my boyfriends jerking off nearby and accidentally about to shoot in it. I yelled, ‘Please, sir! Do not cum in my hat!’ The remark made its way to Mr. Caen, and he ran it in his column.”

890 Folsom was a radical space, home to multiple groups espousing sexuality. It’s where I met, at its spacesharing meetings and over my clothes check counter, many local sex activists. “Out of the people sharing that building,” Robert said, “came Jacks, Blow Buddies, Eros, and the Jack and Jill-off parties, which Carol and I later turned into the Queen of Heaven safer sex events, and the CSC.” Today, the couple are globally known sex educators, who got there the hard way. Robert narrates: “We’d been driving all over the country in a battered van, giving sex-ed presentations at any facility that would have us. In 1994 we stopped to visit Betty Dodson in New York City. She took

one look at us and warned, ‘You’re gonna burn yourselves out! You need a permanent space, with a library, an exhibit hall, and performance stage.’

“And that’s the model we’re finally realizing in our new location,” Robert said. A nonprofit certification came first, then several local rentals, each more awful than the last, before the CSC finally landed in its suitable and semi-permanent home (their fiveyear lease has a renewal option). The CSC is between 9th and 10th Sts., at 1349 Mission. It’s on the corner of Grace Alley, which seems wonderfully portentous. It’s a long shoebox of a building with a central open space that’s grand. One wall is reserved for art exhibitions, while the opposite wall, lined with bookshelves, houses the library. Overhead is a peaked roof supported by exposed wood beams, and area rugs warm the dark wood floor. All that wood, carpet and books led one guest of Jacks to exclaim, “It’s like masturbating in a baronial mansion!”

“As long as an adult event is legal,” said Robert, “we’ll host it. Besides the Jacks, we have the Society of Janus, an erotic hypnosis group, an erotic reading circle, a dominant/submissive discussion class, a photo club, and men’s wrestling. The Men’s Pleasure Work-

shop in August will be a hands-on event. We also archive personal collections: we have the papers of Larry Townsend, Nina Hartley, Patrick Califia, and others. Coming up are workshops about gender.”

Serious dick That brings us finally to The Dick Show, which brushes against ideas of gender. The show has been curated

by Jack Davis, a long-time Radical Faerie well known for crocheting and exhibiting penis covers, who describes himself as “a visual artist who contemplates fags, dicks and naked men in high heels.” But don’t let that image mislead you about the exhibit.

“I’m not interested in being funny or humorous,” Davis said emphatically.

“I’m interested in being edgy and serious.”

So the show is more than just a bunch of dicks up on the wall. It asks, What’s the Big Deal about Penises?

And why is it essential that a man have a penis? How do you have sex if a penis is not involved?

“I really wanted to bring up the issue of men of my age group being confronted with a whole new group of gay men: the transmen,” Davis explained. “I heard of mistrust, a feeling of betrayal, from men who were born

with a penis, and I wanted to investigate that. I wanted to look at the idea that if you have a penis, you’re cool or better than anyone else. I wanted to look at what has changed in our thinking about penises, and how important they are to sex.”

I saw the artworks at last Friday’s opening, and I feel they address these issues less overtly than the May 18 evening of performances will; the exhibit was not curated to explicate an Issue, although it gently offers illumination. Among the artists, I liked Mark Garrett’s arresting collage of an exploding cock, made of cut-paper silhouette and pasted with semen. It looks to me like the blooming of an exotic blood flower. Artist Dwoo created his oversize oil painting of a cock especially for this show, and hoped at the opening that the thick, Impressionist-style daubs of paint had dried.

Stand far back and you’ll see the Star Child of the movie 2001 in the left testicle. Which begs the exhibit’s question, what can you see in a cock?

Katie Gilmartin drolly imagines a pulp paperback cover with the pertinent title, The Lady Was a Man; its author is Richard Tucker (winkwink). The nude study taken by photographer Mariah Carle is razor-crisp yet warm, revealing a one-armed and much-scarred man, defiant and proud.

“It’s physically demanding,” says Just¿in T^me of his work in linocuts.

Since a dear friend of mine who died of AIDS made memorable erotic woodcuts, I was drawn to the sharp contrasts and clean lines of Just¿in’s work. One piece has the intense, wavy

lines that recall Van Gogh.

Michael Rosen is showing two black-and-white photographs that pitch bold moments of auto-fellatio as practiced by both men and women, even one who doesn’t identify as such, bringing us back to the show’s questions of penis and personhood.

For his contribution, curator Davis shows the tracing he made when the scarification on his shoulder was created, whose outlines of blood he later beaded.

Complementing the month-long exhibit is a one-evening benefit for the CSC. Davis explains, “My method for producing benefits is to gather together a dream team of performers and artists, then let something happen.” The Dick Show in Performance, on Fri., May 18, will find eight performers of varying disciplines offering their takes on dick. Cayenne will offer songs and a crash course in tucking – ouch! Also on the bill are bodybased performer Jess Curtis, documentary filmmaker Ed Wolf, author Kirk Read, interdisciplinary artist and sexual healer TTBaum, and sexologist and witch Captain Snowdon. Expect Davis’ promise of edgy, questioning viewing.

Would you flee from an intimate encounter with a transman?

If gender politics aren’t part of your life, or if you are scared by the very thought, then the potentially disarming Dick Show in Performance is calling to you.▼ Info: www.sexandculture.org; performance tickets: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/245517.

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30 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 10-16, 2012

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lesson in not getting too comfortable, the dreaded boy band genre has resurfaced with a vengeance, and it wants your soul. TV talent show contestants One Direction make music for the Disney Radio generation – hollow, glossy, fizzy and forgettable – on their disc Up All Night (SYCO Music/Columbia). Taking the safetyin-numbers concept seriously, this quintet, with its Justin Bieber combovers and references to Katy Perry (seriously!) in the title cut, is already a hit with the training-bra/trainingjock set. It’s too bad no one thinks that these blank-slate tweens (or their parents, for that matter) deserve to listen to something more meaningful.

It’s inconceivable that boy-band pop music could sound more prefabricated than acts such as Backstreet Boys or NSync, but all you have to do is listen to the poseur product that is Introduction (Hollywood Waste) by It Boys! to see that a new low has been reached. Trite, generic, unoriginal, suburban and offensive, It Boys!’ debut album not only liberally borrows from the boy bands of the 90s, but also utilizes the faux-dance party atmospherics of LMFAO. One minute the airbrushed five-piece whines about how “Guys Don’t Like Me,” the next they’re bragging about how they’re “Better than Your Boyfriend.” One can only hope that none of the five is able to reproduce. This is one introduction you definitely want to avoid.

The Wanted is a perfect name for a dismal and tedious “boy” band that deserves to be wanted – for crimes against humanity. The quintet’s eponymous domestic disc on Mercury is a compilation of tracks from their Euro releases. How a country that gave us Downton Abbey can also be responsible for sophomoric sludge such as The Wanted is mind-boggling. Incorporating sense-numbing dance beats

to distract listeners from the moronic lyrics, songs such as “Glad You Came” (get it?), the aptly titled “All Time Low,” “Lose My Mind” (maybe if you had one to begin with) and “Rocket” (a contribution from the shameless Diane Warren) certify this disc as boy-banned material. Seriously, these dudes would be better served at home, jerking off on their webcams.

The All-American Rejects have done some growing up in the 10 years since they released their majorlabel debut, fresh out of high school.

Although the band failed to put out a full-length disc that lived up to expectations (although their “Gives You Hell” single did well), Kids in the Street (DGC/Interscope) comes close. Songs such as “Fast and Slow,” “Heartbeat Slowing Down,” “Beekeeper’s Daughter,” and “Bleed Into Your Mind” exhibit a pleasant maturity that bodes well for what’s to come.

Max Bemis of Say Anything continues to make screamo for the masses on Anarchy, My Dear (Equal Vision). Where One Direction cites Katy Perry, Say Anything gives shoutouts to Randy Newman in “Night’s Song” and Stephen Hawking in “The Stephen Hawking,” and dares to speak the truth about Rihanna. Say Anything continues to rage against the machine, but they frame it in listenerfriendly arrangements, making songs such as “Admit It Again,” “Peace Out” and “Overbiter” more approachable and not bland in the least.

Canadian band Barenaked Ladies has its roots in school friendships. The rarities collection Stop Us If You’ve Heard This One Before (WB/Rhino) digs deep into BNL’s early days, spanning an 11-year period, including vintage selections such as live versions of “Same Thing” (from 1992) and the Beastie Boys’ “Shake Your Rump,” the “Old Apartment” demo, the Pull’s Break remix of “One Week” and more.▼

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