May 17, 2012 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

Online at ebar.com

9

A Pride honor for Baker

17

New photography

New coming out book

The

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

Lee urged to backfill AIDS cuts

Obama marriage stance resonates

by Seth Hemmelgarn

A

by Lisa Keen

I

t has been a dizzying week for same-sex marriage.

Consider this: The cover of Newsweek magazine on Monday carried a photograph of President Barack Obama with the caption “The First Gay President.”

The president appeared on a nationally televised women’s talk show to discuss his position.

Republican presidential nominee-apparent Mitt Romney reiterated his opposition to allowing gays to marry at a speech before Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.

The Washington Post ran a well-sourced story reporting that, in high school, Romney had led an assault on a fellow student that many believed to be gay.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (DNevada) said May 10, a day after Obama’s historic announcement, that, because “the president’s in favor of it – I’m sure” a plank See page 12 >>

FDA panel OKs Truvada for HIV Prevention

by Liz Highleyman

T

ruvada, a oncedaily antiretroviral pill, is effective for preventing sexual transmission of HIV and should be approved as postexposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, a Food and Drug Administration Liz Highleyman advisory committee Researcher voted last week.

“We don’t know Jared Baeten how PrEP will work in the real world, but at this point the benefits of people taking a pill to prevent HIV transmission outweigh any risk in clinical trials to date,” said Matt Sharp, who served as a community representative on the committee. “Given the critical need to reduce new infections – especially among gay men, where the numbers have remained flat – I don’t see how we cannot get behind PrEP.”

Vol. 42 • No. 20 • May 17-23, 2012

Jane Philomen Cleland

Remembering Brandy A

rally was held Sunday, May 13 in Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of Oakland City Hall to remember transgender murder victim Brandy Martell and to call for an end to violence against transgender people. Above, some of the more than 65 people who at-

tended held up posters depicting Martell.

The 37-year-old Hayward resident was shot in her car a few blocks from the rally on April 29. Oakland police said this week that they are continuing to investigate the case, but so far, no arrest has been made.

B.A.R. election endorsements 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!

See page 13 >>

{ FIRST OF TWO SECTIONS }

dvocates for people living with HIV and AIDS are increasing their calls for San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee to backfill federal funding for services they describe as lifesaving even as the city must close a Rick Gerharter steep budget shortfall.

Mayor Ed Lee For the fiscal year beginning July 1, there will be a reduction of $4.6 million in funds from the federal Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act. There will also be a $3.2 million drop in money from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to Supervisor Scott Wiener.

Wiener, who’s on the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee, said that he and others want to get “as much of it restored as possible, hopefully 100 percent” when the See page 13 >>

Talks for single LGBT sports event collapse

by Elliot Owen

R

ecent negotiations between the Federation of Gay Games and the Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association aimed at initiating the creation of a joint international LGBT sporting event in 2018 ended in disagreement GLISA’s and suspension by both Julia Applegate groups this month.

Informal talks between both organizations about holding a single quadrennial event in lieu of two competing events began in late 2009 at the Copenhagen World Outgames. The FGG has been holding the Gay Games since the event’s founding in San Francisco 30 years ago while GLISA has been holding the World Outgames since 2003.

“A letter was delivered at an open meeting in Copenhagen by the Berlin team signed by See page 12 >>

<<Community News

2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May17-23, 2012

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Ship naming vote set for Harvey Milk Day

by Matthew S. Bajko

S

an Francisco supervisors are set to vote on a resolution in support of naming a Navy vessel after slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk next week as the state celebrates Milk’s birthday.

At its meeting May 14 the Board of Supervisor’s City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee recommended on a 2-1 vote that the supervisors endorse the proposal. LGBT leaders in San Diego, in conjunction with Milk’s family and several friends, are urging Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to designate a ship the USS Harvey Milk.

The former San Francisco supervisor served in the Navy during the Korean War and was stationed in San Diego. Milk was a diving instructor and was discharged in 1955 at the rank of lieutenant, junior grade.

“He would have loved this and would have thought this was the greatest thing that could happen,” said gay retired Naval Reserve Captain Bob Dockendorff, who knew Milk and is a former president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club. “I think he would have considered this a great honor.”

But other progressive leaders are against having a warship named after Milk due to his opposition of the Vietnam War. Their arguments led bisexual District 5 Supervisor Christina Olague to vote against the resolution this week at the committee hearing. (District 7 Supervisor Sean Elsbernd and District 4 Supervisor Carmen Chu voted in support.)

“I received quite an outcry,” explained Olague, who has suggested the navy instead name a vessel after

Rick Gerharter

Supervisor Scott Wiener speaks during Monday’s hearing on his resolution in support of the Navy naming a ship after slain Supervisor Harvey Milk.

Leonard Matlovich, a gay Air Force member who came out in a 1975 Time magazine cover story about the military’s anti-gay policies.

As reported in last week’s Bay Area Reporter, the concerns raised by progressives led gay District 9 Supervisor David Campos to also withdraw his support of the resolution submitted by gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener.

Olague introduced a separate resolution calling on Congress to declare May 22, Milk’s birthday, a

national holiday. Her resolution was unanimously approved by the board at its meeting Tuesday, May 15.

The board will take up Wiener’s resolution at its meeting next Tuesday, which falls on Milk Day this year. California celebrates May 22 as a day of special significance in honor of Milk, who gained international notoriety after being killed by a former board colleague in 1978.

“Some have questioned the appropriateness of naming a warship after Harvey Milk. I respectfully disagree,” said Wiener.

The proposal would not only honor “one of the most prominent gay men to serve in our nation’s military,” said Wiener, but would also be “inspirational” for LGBT service members.

It is up to the Navy secretary to decide the names for naval ships.

Just last week Mabus announced the names for a Navy destroyer and two high-speed ferries.

“Every year the secretary of the Navy’s office receives hundreds of recommendations from members of Congress, citizens, military members and retirees, industry leaders and others suggesting names for U.S. Navy ships. Secretary Mabus appreciates the interest of all who participate in the ship naming process and gives careful consideration to all inputs prior to designating ship names,” Captain Pamela Kunze, a naval spokeswoman, told the B.A.R.▼

Queer foster youth get their close up

by Heather Cassell

S

hani Heckman is coming out, not as a butch lesbian, but as a former foster kid, with her new documentary America’s Most Unwanted, about queer foster kids, premiering tonight (Thursday, May 17) at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center.

As a teenager living in a foster home in Delaware, Heckman, 42, knew she was different from the other foster kids. She wasn’t taken from a bad home. She didn’t go to the same school as the other foster kids in her home. She stayed in the first home she was placed in rather than moving from home to home like the other kids.

All of these factors distinguished her from the other kids in the working class religious and dysfunctional household where she lived for five years, she recalled. It was the 1980s, AIDS gripped the nation just as much as homophobia. Keeping her head down and not being quite aware of her sexuality in a very heterosexual world avoided making an intolerable situation worse, she said.

“Sometimes in life you are just in the situation and you just have to accept it and get through it. If you fight back it’s only going to be worse. I just decided to bite my lip. I decided to just play the game,” said Heckman.

Even today she has a difficult time coming out about being a former foster kid, in large part due to the stigma the label holds. Her first instinct is to push the period of her life – after her adopted parents died and she was separated from her 15-year-old adopted brother from the age of 13 – away, she said.

Yet, she was brought back to her youth while reading an article about queer foster youth.

“It made me cry. The article, it’s

Courtesy Shani Heckman

Director Shani Heckman

so sad to realize how bad it was. I knew nothing about foster kids,” said Heckman.

“Since I had nothing in common with the other girls [it] helped me stay on the path to be my own,” recalled Heckman, who graduated from high school and got into college in California when she aged out of the system.

Other miracles happened after she left the system. Her elderly aunt, who signed her over to the state, temporarily took her in for the summer. Around the same time the state informed Heckman that she had $18,000 from her parent’s retirement saved for her. She took the money, bought a truck, and drove to California, never looking back.

According to the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which prepared a guide for California child welfare workers in 2006, 70 percent of LGBT foster youths reported physical violence due to their sexual orientation See page 12 >>

Read more online at www.ebar.com

May17-23, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 3

<< Open Forum

4 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May17-23, 2012

Volume 42, Number 20 May 17-23, 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

▼

City must backfill AIDS funds B

ack in March city leaders learned that San Francisco would face cuts from the federal Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The cuts, about $4.7 million from Ryan White and approximately $3.1 million from the CDC, will significantly impact the HIV/AIDS service organizations that provide treatment and services (Ryan White) and prevention (CDC).

Additionally, there’s another $500,000 in Ryan White Part D money that may also be at risk. These are funds that agencies apply for themselves, unlike the main Ryan White money that is allocated to the health department, which then disburses it to contracted agencies.

All of these cuts go into effect July 1.

The $4.7 million Ryan White cut looks to be a onetime adjustment that resulted from special funding that Nancy Pelosi was able to secure when she was speaker of the House, AIDS advocates said. But this decrease is much larger than previous Ryan White cuts, which have been in the .5 percent to 5 percent range.

Combined, the Ryan White and CDC decreases represent a 20 percent cut to San Francisco.

Federal decreases to AIDS funding have happened before, and in the past, the city, through the mayor and the Board of Supervisors, have backfilled the cuts with general fund dollars.

However, with the 2012 decreases larger than ever, combined with the sluggish economy and the dismal news from Sacramento concerning the state’s $15.7 billion budget gap, we call on Mayor Ed Lee to close the shortfall of federal dollars in the city’s budget he is expected to unveil June 1.

San Francisco has done extraordinary work in combatting the AIDS epidemic for more than 30 years. But AIDS is far from over. Prevention efforts have been successful in lowering the number of new HIV infections to about 900 per year. Ideally, these 900 people would immediately begin treatment upon learning they are HIV-positive, with the goal of reducing their viral load to zero, thus greatly increasing the likelihood of preventing new infections. But even with the existing funding for care and prevention, people fall out of care and do not maintain their medication regimen.

in federal HIV/AIDS funds would be dramatic – for community-based service providers, the city’s health clinics, and programs at UCSF. AIDS advocates fear that programs could be destabilized. There will be fewer services, longer waiting lists, and fewer resources for clients. And keep in mind that Ryan White dollars provide services to those who are uninsured and low-income – in other words, people who need help the most.

For example, the Ryan White cuts would mean the likelihood of a nurse practitioner and physician’s assistant losing their jobs at Mission Neighborhood Health Center, reducing available appointment slots by 20 percent.

Tightening of eligibility guidelines at AIDS Emergency Fund would curtail services for 200 clients needing short-term financial assistance to move off the street and into an SRO. Project Open Hand – already facing a deficit and a new tiered structure of services beginning July 1 – may have to distribute fewer meals and smaller grocery bags. (Tenderloin Health, of course, closed its doors last month.) All of these services are designed to

keep people healthy enough to avoid emergency room care (a huge drain on the city’s budget) and to keep their viral loads low enough to avoid transmission of the virus to others.

And we must say a few words about the critical importance of housing for people living with HIV/AIDS. It is the most important factor in getting someone who is on treatment to maintain that regimen.

As soon as the federal decreases were announced a few months ago, Supervisors Scott Wiener, David Campos, and Christina Olague began working on plans to replace the money.

The board can’t supply the entire amount in its budget; the leadership must come from the mayor and his spending plan.

We know that devising the budget is difficult this year. And we know that no one wants service cuts. But the significant funding decreases for HIV/AIDS services will affect hundreds of people in San Francisco. They will have a devastating impact on people living with HIV/ AIDS, people at risk for becoming infected, and the service providers who are already trying to do more with less.

Mayor Lee and his budget director must find a way to fill the gap and restore the $7.8 million that San Francisco will soon lose.▼

Real harm The human cost of a 20 percent reduction

DISPLAY ADVERTISING Simma Baghbanbashi Colleen Small Scott Wazlowski NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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The challenges of aging

by Kyriell Noon

I Best Bay Area Community Newspaper 2006 San Francisco Bay Area Publicity Club

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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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n March, the New York Times ran an article about the tragic suicide of popular gay therapist Bob Bergeron. The article made mention of the fact that Mr. Bergeron had recently completed a self-help guide entitled, The Right Side of Forty: The Complete Guide to Happiness for Gay Men at Midlife and Beyond. At age 49, Mr. Bergeron took his own life, leaving friends and family to grieve and wonder: was this man who tried to help other gay men grow old gracefully struggling with his own aging?

Shortly after the article ran, Folsom Street Events Executive Director Demetri Moshoyannis posted a link to it on his Facebook page.

More than 60 people (mostly gay men) responded, referencing the unique challenges facing gay men as we age. Some said that as they get older they feel invisible, unattractive, and overlooked. Others were more optimistic, saying they felt stronger, wiser, and better than ever. In either case, it was clear from the thread that there is a genuine hunger to have a community conversation about the ways in which aging impacts our lives as gay men.

It’s important to ask this insightful question: as gay men, do we allow ourselves to age?

Whether it’s feeling the urge to lie about our ages in online profiles or feeling the lack of inter-generational role models who were lost during the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic or trying to find a healthy, sex-positive niche in a culture that conflates youth and

beauty – the simple, inevitable process of aging affects us in ways that our straight counterparts don’t generally experience. Though this is changing in some ways, conventional wisdom says that there is no well-trod “life path” for us, no norm that dictates that we find a nice boy, get married, and settle down to the serious adult business of career and family. For us there is no timeline by which any of those things should occur, nor even a general consensus that they need to happen at all. Unmoored from those expectations, we can still go to the White Party at age 55 or date a man 30 years our junior without any of our peers looking at us askance.

Freedom from heteronormative expectations about our life trajectories seems like a very good thing. However, that freedom does leave us with questions about how to choose a trajectory and select the metrics by which its (and our) success or failure can be measured. As we inch ever closer to full equality more and more personal and professional options become available. Young people are coming out earlier and earlier and many can attend their proms with their same-sex date with no fear of retribution. Out gays and lesbians serve as anchors on news programs or cable shows: Don Lemon, Thomas Roberts, and Rachel Maddow are three examples. Marriage equality is just around the corner, with even conservative operatives throwing in the towel. Thirty years ago, none of these things seemed possible. Now that so many more doors are open to us how do we choose one?

The luxury of many options is remarkably exciting to some gay men, and a source of tremendous anxiety for others. In a city like San Francisco, no gay man should feel alone, no matter what age they are. We would all benefit from hearing the experiences of other guys about how to get the most out of the decades to come and what resources are available to us, because there are many. So why have this conversation only in social media when we can sit down face-to-face and truly connect with one another? Isn’t that what we all owe each other as gay men – to make sure we feel supported by one another as we grow older? Don’t we owe it to ourselves to do everything we can to prevent another tragedy like Mr. Bergeron’s? There is so much wisdom in our community and we can all become better and stronger by sharing it.

One of the many exciting things to come out of the merger of Stop AIDS Project and San Francisco AIDS Foundation is a new community forum series that we’re calling Real Talk. The series will take on emergent and potentially controversial issues as they arise and will provide the community with opportunities for candid public discussions about topical issues. The first in the series, entitled, “Are We Allowed to Age: Growing Older as a Gay Man,” will take place on Wednesday, May 23 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street. Please join us for what will surely be a robust and informative conversation moderated by acclaimed TV news personality Hank Plante.▼ Kyriell Noon is the director of prevention services at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

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Letters >>

May17-23, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 5

Milk vessel a good idea It’s regrettable that Supervisors Christina Olague and David Campos withdrew their support for Supervisor Scott Wiener’s resolution calling on the U.S. Navy to name a vessel after Harvey Milk [“2 out supes withdraw support for Milk naval ship resolution,” May 10].

Olague explained that Milk “had an anti-war, anti-military philosophy toward the end of his life.” No doubt. In the 1970s, the military was extremely hostile to gays and lesbians. But the battle over the right for us to serve openly in the military has been won, and we won it. Now when we say “the military,” we’re not talking about an institution that repudiates us: we’re talking about one that includes and represents us, and one that offers career opportunities to gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people.

Let’s also keep in mind that in our country, the military is under civilian control. Our sad misadventures in the Middle East are a public failing and not the fault of the military, which is required to carry out the orders of the commander in chief. Our objections to those orders should be directed toward the people responsible for them.

Imagine the powerful message a military vessel bearing Milk’s name would send to gay, lesbian, and bisexual people not only in America but around the world – a message that would also be seen and heard among those nations who continue to deny the human dignity and rights of their LGBT citizens.

I find it very hard to believe that somebody who fought so hard and for so long as Milk to win equality for us all would object to Mr. Wiener’s proposal. In fact, I think he’d be awed that in a quarter of a century we’d go from fighting for the right to keep our jobs and be free from persecution to debating whether or not we want to submit for consideration his name on a military vessel that includes among its complement openly gay and lesbian enlisted personnel and officers.

Logan Decker San Francisco

Time stands incorrectly The clock above 463 Castro Street should be set to keep the correct time or removed from the building. A functioning clock would be an asset to the neighborhood.

Phil Points San Francisco

No word about Mormon polygamy Amidst all the right-wing hoopla over our president endorsing same-sex marriage, and the conservatives’ righteous sputtering about how the “institution” has always been defined as being between one man and one woman, I find it fascinating that none utter a peep about the Mormon traditional support for the – still-existent – practice of polygamy.

Leaving aside many other cultures and social traditions, which have celebrated loving and committed life bonds in a variety of ways, I smell rank hypocrisy in their stampede to attack Barack Obama for standing up for the core issue of social equality while so studiously ignoring Mitt Romney’s roots and the original founding principles of his Mormon faith.

Adrian Brooks San Francisco

Obama’s ‘evolution’ is a little late So Barack Obama finally came out in favor of gay marriage. Big deal. How short our memory is.

In July, 2009 when being interviewed at the Gerald Ford Foundation former Vice President Dick Cheney was asked, “Is some form of legalized gay marriage inevitable in the U.S.?” Cheney replied, “Well, I think that freedom means freedom for everyone. ... I think people ought to be free to enter any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish.”

On the September 13, 2011 episode of The View Barbara Walters asked Lynne Cheney her opinion about gays. Her reply, “As you know Dick and I have a daughter who is gay with a wonderful partner and two wonderful grandchildren.” On the same show, when asked his opinion on gay marriage, Mr. Cheney said, “You ought to have the right to make whatever decision you want to make.”

So Obama’s sudden support of gay marriage during a reelection campaign is obviously a little late. I must admit his timing does make a lot of sense, the next day his campaign received $15 million from a fundraiser in Beverly Hills. I would like to know if the first lady even has an opinion she might be allowed to publicly state during the campaign.

Tom McCloskey Burlingame, California

LGBT center helps people I would like to take a moment to come to the defense of the LGBT Community Center. In his letter published May 10, Mr. Morris seems to suggest that the center serves no valuable purpose in our community and should be shut down. While I can agree with the gentleman that the facility does need to be better maintained I cannot agree that its programs are a waste of limited public funding. Over a year ago I stumbled into the center unemployed, homeless, destitute, and in poor health. I was new to San Francisco, I was unfamiliar with the city, and had nowhere and no one to turn to. It was the staff and programs at the center that helped me figure out how to access health care, get into a rehabilitation program, and eventually find employment. Today I am a happy, healthy, sober and productive member of our community thanks in part to the wonderful people and resources I found at the center. Like any other organization the center has its share of obstacles but our community would be better served by helping solve the problems rather than ending its service.

David Clayton San Francisco

Center volunteer weighs in As a regular volunteer at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center’s front desk, I couldn’t be prouder of the work currently being done by the center’s dedicated staff, including its facilities team, all of whom combine to make the center a welcoming and vital space for the Bay Area’s LGBT community.

If you’re looking for work, you can get free one-on-one counseling throughout all the stages of your job search. If you’re a self-identified woman, and want to begin the process of producing an affinity group, stop by and ask for more information. If you’re young and want a place to make friends and/or access the many services available to gay and lesbian youth in this city, you can join us for Youth Meal Night every Tuesday at 5 p.m. If you’re involved in the many wonderful programs of SF Openhouse, you know the center as your host. And that’s not even the beginning of what you can find at the Center.

In short, if you want an answer to a question, or help of any kind, walk through our front door. There are no forms to fill out – just friendly, knowledgeable volunteers and dedicated staff members who believe in our community.

We take care of each other in this city, and the center helps make that possible.

Dan Stewart San Francisco

Center is a source of support For the past four years, the LGBT Community Center has been a tremendous support in my life. When I first came to the center, it was to obtain help to adjust to my new life in San Francisco. The staff was kind and courteous and really amazing. As a person with disabilities, they helped me with several problems. I continued to use the center for many reasons, such as support groups, and when I was in dire circumstances the center helped me out at every level.

I was even able to pick up my mail at the center. They were extremely helpful to this lower income person who was out of work, including giving me advice on budgeting and payment of bills. They also provided health information pertaining to my diabetes and other health issues, including proper behaviors to avoid STDs. I was also able to use their computer when I needed to. It is not an exaggeration to say that the center saved my life.

Mark Pettis San Francisco

Cuba’s Mariela Castro to discuss LGBT rights in SF compiled by Cynthia Laird

M

ariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro and the niece of former President Fidel Castro, will Mariela Castro address LGBT rights in her country during a visit to San Francisco next week.

The director of the Cuban National

Center for Sex Education in Havana, Mariela Castro for years has been a vocal advocate for LGBT rights in Cuba. She led the push to offer free gender-reassignment surgeries to Cubans and has urged lawmakers to adopt pro-gay laws.

But she has also been criticized for not supporting same-sex marriage and for her country’s laws that forbid LGBT organizations or pride marches.

Her talk May 23 at the LGBT Community Center is being billed as

“a conversation” that will touch on “same-sex marriage, HIV/AIDS, and LGBTQI rights in Cuba.” It is being co-hosted by the center, gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, and Rainbow World Fund, an LGBT humanitarian aid group that visited Cuba in March.

The fund’s executive director, Jeff Cotter, is set to moderate the discussion. The event, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., is free and open to the public. Seating is limited.

See page 10 >>

<< Commentary

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May17-23, 2012

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A transgender tragedy

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

O

n June 5, 2011 a tragedy began to unfold. A 23-year-old African American transwoman by the name of CeCe McDonald was walking down a street in Minneapolis, Minnesota with a couple of friends, on their way to the grocery store.

As they crossed in front of Schooner Tavern at the corner of 27th Avenue South and 29th Street, a group in front of the Tavern confronted McDonald and her friends, taunting them with homophobic, transphobic, and racist language.

Things did not end there, and a fight broke out. McDonald was struck by a piece of glass, possibly a beer mug.

Her cheek was severely damaged.

Dean Schmitz, a 47-year-old who was one of the three attackers, was stabbed with a pair of scissors. He would later die from his injury.

McDonald was then taken into custody, and placed in solitary confinement “for her protection.” She was later moved to the male psychiatric unit. Then, nearly a year later, she was placed on trial for Schmitz’s murder.

I think it is important to note that, at the same time McDonald was going to trial, the news media was covering the Trayvon Martin murder. Martin was a 17-year-old African American youth who was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a half-Hispanic, half-Caucasian 28-year-old. Zimmerman has claimed self-defense, and has thus far been shielded by Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.

Zimmerman, who has since been charged with Martin’s death, was originally let go by police, and not charged. The case opened a national dialogue on race, on gun violence, and even on the wearing of hoodies.

While there are scores of differences, I suspect you can easily see why these two cases compare.

Unlike Florida, Minnesota does not have a Stand Your Ground law, but one could just as easily assume that McDonald was doing just that.

She was attacked, she defended, and a melee broke out. She was injured, and one of her attackers ended up dead.

Zimmerman was allegedly acting as part of his local neighborhood watch, and viewed Martin’s actions as suspicious. Although a 911 operator asked him to stop following Martin, a confrontation between the two did presumably break out. Unlike the McDonald case, however, there weren’t eyewitnesses when Martin was shot.

Zimmerman was free for several months before he was eventually charged. When the story started to gain media coverage, he even was able to raise thousands of dollars for his defense via his own website. He was not placed in solitary, or stuck in a psych unit. Instead he was out on bail in short order, with only an electronic monitoring device keeping an eye on him.

Like Zimmerman, McDonald’s bail was set initially at $150,000, although the prosecution had pushed for a $500,000 bail. It was later reduced to $75,000. It was still more than could be raised, and she remained behind bars.

The Martin case was not the only thing worth noting that happened around the time McDonald was going to trial.

Another 23-year-old African American transwoman, Paige Clay, was found murdered on the West Side of Chicago. She had been shot

Christine Smith

in the face. Two weeks later, a 37-yearold African American transwoman, Brandy Martell, was sitting behind the wheel of her car in downtown Oakland, when two men approached on foot. According to witnesses, one of the men later returned and shot Martell.

Now I feel it important to add something about these two murders.

They are terrible crimes, yes, but they are all the worse for how commonplace they are. Through the work I’ve done with the Transgender Day of Remembrance, I have seen scores of similar stories. We are killed roughly once a month in the United States under similar circumstances as Clay or Martell. Further, the majority of those victimized in anti-transgender murders are young, African American transwomen.

Indeed, the very genesis of the Transgender Day of Remembrance was due to the deaths of Channelle Pickett, a 23-year-old African American transwoman murdered in 1995, and Rita Hester, a 34-year-old African

American transwoman murdered in 1998. They are only two of the dozens of young transwomen of color killed in the last few decades.

McDonald, unlike Pickett, Hester, Clay, Martell, and so many others, is alive. For all we know, she may very well only be alive because of Schmitz’s death. She successfully stood up to her attackers, and survived – and for standing her ground, she got to spend nearly a year either in solitary confinement or in a male psychiatric ward before going to court.

On May 2, the tragedy continued to unfold. McDonald, at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter. Due to the nature of the plea, she has given up her claim to legally acting in selfdefense. The recommended sentence is 41 months in jail – three-and-a-half years behind bars, though presumably with credit for time served. She’ll be sentenced on June 4, one day before the anniversary of the altercation that started it all.

Perhaps the others who were with Schmitz, including the person who tore McDonald’s cheek, can celebrate at Schooner Tavern that night. You won’t find me there, however.

I’m a pacifist at heart. I abhor violence. Yet I do support the right to defend one’s self in the face of violence.

With so many anti-transgender murders, particularly of young African American transwomen, I find it hard to see fault with McDonald’s actions.

Yet rather than die like so many others, she will be in jail, simply for defending herself against a violent attack. That doesn’t sound right. To me, that sounds like a tragedy.▼ The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee will consider a resolution in support of CeCe McDonald at its next meeting. Gwen Smith asks her readers to Support McDonald at www. supportcece.wordpress.com.

You can find Smith online at www.gwensmith.com.

Politics>>

▼ Milk foundation pushes LGBT education efforts

by Matthew S. Bajko

A

foundation whose purpose is to promote the values espoused by slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk is increasingly focused on LGBT education efforts around the globe.

Since its inception in late 2009, the Harvey Milk Foundation has worked to use Milk’s legacy to promote the inclusion of LGBT history in school curriculums. Last year it teamed with the Center for Excellence in School Counseling and Leadership as a cosponsor of its second annual conference focused on addressing LGBTQ student issues.

In California the Milk foundation has used the creation of a special day of significance for Milk, the first out person to win elective office in San Francisco and the Golden State, to push educators to teach about the former supervisor and Castro merchant each May 22, which is Milk’s birthday.

Its website at www.milkfoundation.org has a page dedicated to teaching materials about Milk that educators can download for free.

It includes a PDF of pro-gay curriculum developed by San Francisco’s public school district.

Tuesday night in Sacramento the foundation hosted a public forum with state leaders to discuss legislation that requires public schools to teach about the accomplishments of LGBT people. Known as the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act (SB 48), it became law in January but has yet to be implemented into the state’s public school curriculum standards. And anti-gay groups are trying to repeal the law at the ballot box this fall.

The aim of the forum was to push the state to begin implementation on SB 48 “in a nonaggressive way,” said Stuart Milk, Milk’s gay nephew.

“I believe equality in the law does not equal societal equality. If we can move SB 48 forward, I think we have a greater chance of changing things,” said Milk in a phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter prior to the forum.

Due to existing statute, the State Board of Education is barred from adopting new instructional materials until 2015. But state lawmakers have introduced SB 1540 to push the deadline up to June 30, 2014.

Tom Adams, director of the California Department of Education’s Curriculum Frameworks and Instructional Resources Division, attended the Milk foundation’s event with Stephanie Papas, a safe schools consultant for the state agency.

He told the B.A.R. this week that the agency’s staff has been working with education leaders across the state on how they can implement SB 48.

“If we can get the opportunity to complete the history social science framework then we will address the requirements for SB 48 there,” said Adams. “If SB 1540 passes then we will be able to complete it by 2014.

We are not far away from finishing it.”

During the forum Milk delivered to Adams LGBT education materials created by Italian officials translated into English that California schools could use for free.

Milk began meeting with the Italian education ministry in 2011 to discuss how the European country could teach students about LGBT topics. Those talks led to a recent rollout in 1,000 Italian schools of an LGBT inclusive curriculum paid for by the European Union that first debuted in Belgium.

“It is very groundbreaking. It actually takes on religion head-on and tries to find a way to be inclusive,”

May17-23, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

said Milk, who just visited Italy to attend the May 4 dedication of an LGBT center in Rome named for Harvey Milk.

Milk would like to see American schools start using the material. In response to the B.A.R.’s questioning, he said he would inquire with Italian officials to see if he could circulate the curriculum for free on the Milk foundation’s website.

The timeframe restrictions placed on state leaders or lack of funds for new textbooks at the district level should not preclude educators from finding ways to implement the FAIR Act, said Milk.

“There are answers and things they can do that are fiscally low cost,” said Milk, who will be attending the unveiling of a Harvey Milk plaque at the Castro’s Muni station this Saturday, May 19. “Sometimes there are things invented by other cultures around the globe that can be effective here.”

Adams said Wednesday that he had yet to review the LGBT curriculum Milk gave him. The material is considered “non-adoptive” and will be reviewed to ensure it meets the education agency’s social content standards.

Rick Gerharter

Stuart Milk

“If they pass that, they would be made available for use in schools,” said Adams.

Finances are opaque In terms of the foundation’s own finances and budget, it is rather opaque. While its website has a wealth of information for educators, there is very little explanation for donors about how their money is used.

Stuart Milk co-founded the foundation with Anne Kronenberg, Harvey Milk’s campaign manager and political aide who now heads San Francisco’s Department of Emer-

gency Management. Formed as a 501(c)3, the nonprofit currently does not have any paid staff and is overseen by a volunteer board.

The Miami Foundation oversees its financial contributions, and therefore, the Milk foundation does not prepare its own tax reports for the IRS. The Miami Foundation does not break out the financial information for the 500 various nonprofits it sponsors on the 990s it files with the IRS. Milk told the B.A.R. this week that in the last three years the Milk foundation has raised roughly $72,000. A spokeswoman with the Miami Foundation did not respond to requests to verify the figure by press time.

“Fundraising neither Anne nor I are good at,” said Milk, who recently quit his fulltime job but works as a consultant.

The majority of the foundation’s funds have covered the costs of an anti-hate crime rally held each October in London’s Trafalgar Square that the Milk foundation co-organizes.

While the foundation’s website says it has a speakers bureau and boasts that both Milk and Kronenberg have spoken at events around the globe, he insisted that their travel is not paid for by the foundation.

“What I will say is my income is suffering. I have dipped into my

401(k) to pay for stuff,” said Milk.

The foundation has sought out fiscal sponsors to help cover its travel costs. The U.S. Embassy in Rome, for instance, paid for half of the recent visit to Italy, Milk said.

He estimated that the foundation’s donations so far this year total about $5,000.

“Most of that money went into being able to do what we are doing like tonight’s event, which is educational and meant to push the public policy arena,” said Milk.

If it can raise an additional $6,000 in 2012, the foundation would like to hire a part-time administrator and redesign its website.

Pittsburgh Pride just announced that it is donating $2 from each ticket sold to its June 9 event, headlined by Melissa Etheridge, to the Milk foundation.

The foundation is hosting a fundraiser Sunday, May 20 at San Francisco’s Infusion Lounge it hopes will net $2,000. The event will feature a runway fashion show of designs incorporating a custom-printed Harvey Milk-graphic fabric that will be auctioned off.

The party runs from 4 to 7:30 p.m. with tickets starting at $35. The club is located at 124 Ellis Street at Powell near Union Square.▼

<< Community News

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May17-23, 2012

▼

Church stands by pastor who married gay couples

by Lois Pearlman

I

n a precedent setting act of defiance the Presbytery of the Redwoods Tuesday, May 15 voted to ignore a rebuke by the national church against one of its ministers for performing same-sex marriages.

By a vote of 74-18 representatives from congregations along the northern California coast passed a motion saying a decision to rebuke the Reverend Jane Spahr of San Rafael “continue(s) the grievous harm that has been, and continues to be, done by the church to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Spahr was ecstatic following the decision.

“I think love and justice came together here,” Spahr said immediately following the decision. “This is a place that said yes.”

The vote came during a daylong meeting of the Presbytery of the Redwoods held in the First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo.

It was based on a decision handed down in 2010 by the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbytery of the Redwoods that said Spahr violated the church’s constitution by marrying 20 gay and lesbian couples during 2008 when it was legal in California.

But the presbytery also acknowledged that the rules had not kept up with the times and needed to be reconsidered.

The church upheld the 2010 decision through appeals by Spahr’s lawyers at both the synod (regional) and national levels. But Tuesday the local body broke with the church’s official sanctions to support Spahr in continuing to perform same-sex marriages.

“What the presbytery did today was it took a stand,” said Scott Clark of the San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo. “We said we stand with our ministers.”

Clark was the author of the motion

Lois Pearlman

The Reverend Jane Spahr performed the wedding ceremony for Sara Taylor and Sherrie Holmes at the Marin Civic Center in 2008.

to support Spahr against the church’s decision to rebuke her.

“It creates second-class citizenship.

It makes us children of a lesser God and it is against the gospel of Jesus Christ. It harms people in the name of Jesus Christ,” Clark said during his presentation.

During an hourlong process that was both emotional and orderly, several church representatives spoke both for and against the motion. Don Emmel, a retired minister who lives in Napa, compared the Presbyterian Church’s rules against same-sex marriage to a garden plant that has outlived its usefulness.

“It’s time for this plant to be removed and replaced with a plant of love,” he said.

Kelsey Ingalls, a pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Ukiah, said she opposed the motion because it violates biblical law.

“There are many, many people who feel our (church) constitution should follow gospel,” she said.

Spahr said, “I’m not afraid to be rebuked, but stop rebuking this great love.”

This was not the first time the Pres-

byterian Church had charged Spahr with violating its rules by performing same-sex marriages.

In 2006, based on a complaint from a church member in Washington state, the Presbytery of the Redwoods held a two-day trial at the Church of the Roses in Santa Rosa at that time the presbytery’s permanent judicial commission found Spahr innocent because the weddings she performed were not “legal” marriages.

This time the presbytery has taken a stronger stand, saying the rules that led to Spahr’s rebuke are inhumane and the presbytery is willing to take up the banner of changing them.

“They said we are taking this off Janie’s shoulders. We are going to handle this for you,” said Sara Taylor, one of Spahr’s attorneys and also, with her spouse Sherrie Holmes, one of the lesbian couples who was named in the 2010 complaint against Spahr.

An ordained Presbyterian minister for the past 38 years, Spahr retired from active duty four years ago when she turned 65. But she continues to perform both gay and heterosexual marriages – work that she describes as her “calling.”▼

Former foster youth is ready to graduate SF State

by Elliot Owen

K

ayla Daniels was 7 years old the first time social services took her away from her mother.

By age 18, eight different houses had been her “home,” she’d discovered that the man she had called “Dad” growing up was not her biological father, she had come out as queer, and witnessed her mother and stepfather succumb to the devastating consequences of drug use.

Growing up a ward of the court in Lompoc, California, her chances for success were slim. But she defied the odds.

On May 19, Daniels will be participating in San Francisco State University’s graduation ceremony.

She represents the 1 percent of former foster youth that attend college and the 3 percent of that number who actually graduate.

“A lot of people don’t overcome those obstacles,” Daniels said. “I am very proud that I was able to. It has a lot to do with the support I’ve had in my life. I feel really good.”

Daniels, 23, is graduating magna cum laude with a degree in psychology. But her minor in human sexuality studies is the discipline she plans to pursue in graduate school.

Her eye is on a master’s program in Pennsylvania that combines human sexuality education and social work.

“I know I can’t change the world,

Elliot Owen

Kayla Daniels, left, who will graduate this weekend from San Francisco State, shares a moment with her mentor, Xochitl SanchezZarama of the Guardian Scholars Program.

but I really want to make a positive impact,” Daniels said. “I have two smaller nieces and their self-esteem is already being targeted. My goal is to bring things into sex education like body image and healthy relationships. I hope to teach a more holistic and open approach where it’s not just about STIs and sex but about being self-aware and liking who you are.”

Daniels wouldn’t have found her niche without participating in a job shadow day organized by the on-campus Guardian Scholars Program, a service that guides former

foster youth through their undergraduate experience.

“It’s a new component to Guardian Scholars,” program co-founder Xochitl Sanchez-Zarama said.

“We’re focusing on student interests and seeing where those may lie within our community. Kayla took part in the San Francisco Unified School District’s school health program.”

After shadowing a social worker that helps facilitate sex education for the school district, Daniels finally had some answers.

See page 9 >>

Pride 2012>>

▼ Baker to receive Pride honor

by Seth Hemmelgarn

T

he San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee has announced more honorees for this year’s parade and festival. They include the creator of the rainbow flag and several grand marshals.

Gilbert Baker, 60, who designed the internationally recognized gay banner and was an early member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, will be presented with the Gilbert Baker Pride Founders Award. The honor will be presented on the main stage on Sunday, June 24.

“I was surprised, truthfully,” said Baker of the honor. “I caused so much trouble in that town. ... It’s really nice that people would recognize my work.”

Baker, who now lives in New York City, said, “I’ve been pretty privileged to go to gay prides around the world,” and San Francisco’s celebration, which draws hundreds of thousands of people, “is pretty special.”

The festival “really is a beacon of hope, and it’s so much fun,” said Baker.

One challenge Baker faces is figuring out what to wear. He said based on his recollection of the chilly San Francisco nights, stiletto heels and a chiffon dress won’t do.

The Pride Committee’s board recently selected former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to be this year’s lifetime achievement grand marshal. Brown, who was also once speaker of the California Assembly, has been a staunch advocate of LGBT rights.

“From civil rights to education reform, tax policy, economic development, health care, international trade, domestic partnerships, and affirmative action, [Brown’s] left his imprimatur on every aspect of politics and public policy in the Golden State,” a Pride Committee news release said. Brown didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Pride’s electoral college, which is composed of former community grand marshals, has selected Gary Virginia as its choice for individual community grand marshal.

Virginia, a fundraiser, activist, and a person living with AIDS, has produced numerous benefits for

<<

SF State

From page 8

“Going there really gave me some direction,” she said. “I hadn’t yet figured out what option was best for me.

By the end of the day, I was all smiles.”

The Guardian Scholars Program has supported Daniels since she moved into the dorms the summer of 2007. Sanchez-Zarama remembers the day Daniels was dropped off by her county social worker.

“She was bright-eyed, super excited and full of life,” Sanchez-Zarama said. “I just knew I was lucky to get to go on this new journey with her.”

Daniels’s undergraduate journey has included being the recipient of multiple scholarships, earning Dean’s List honors every semester, volunteering with on-campus sexeducation organization EROS, facilitating substance abuse workshops with on-campus drug education organization CEASE, and studying abroad in Amsterdam from 2010 to 2011.

She was also the recipient of a student-nominated academic achievement award and nominated for the prestigious Dean of Students Social Justice Award.

“I don’t think I would be as successful as I am now without the Guardian Scholars,” Daniels said. “I come in and they’ll sit me down and ask me how I’m doing, not just academically but personally. They give me great advice and keep me moti-

Darlene/PhotoGraphics

Rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker, shown at last year’s Palm Springs Pride, will receive a special award at SF Pride.

AIDS, breast cancer, emergency humanitarian relief, and U.S. and international LGBT civil rights. He’s on the executive committee of Gays Without Borders/SF and founded the Krewe de Kinque Mardi Gras charitable club, among many other achievements.

“I’m really honored” by the recognition, said Virginia, 52, who pointed out it gives him another platform to encourage others to get more involved in human rights.

There are “so many atrocities going on in the world that this theme of Global Equality is terrific this year, because we can act collectively so easily through the Internet” and other means, he said, referring to the 2012 Pride theme.

The Pride Committee’s board has selected Edaj, Olga Talamante, and Morningstar Vancil as individual grand marshals.

Edaj, 39, who uses only one name, is a choreographer, producer, emcee, and DJ. Among her other work, she was executive producer of Pride’s women’s stage from 20022010.

“She ensured there was a space for women at the celebration and showcased a diverse, multi-talented global representation of the women’s community on the stage,” stated Pride officials.

In an interview, Edaj said she was “very surprised” to be selected as a grand marshal.

“I’ve been working with Pride so long I didn’t imagine myself as anything other than someone there to support Pride,” she said.

Talamante, 62, is the executive director of the Chicana/Latina Foundation, which works to empower Chicanas and Latinas through their personal, educational, and professional advancement.

Talamante said she was “honored” to be selected. There’s “a lot to celebrate,” she said, and “a lot to continue to work for. I hope everyone comes out that day and celebrates together.”

Vancil, a former Pride Committee board member, didn’t provide comment for this story.

Previously announced individual community grand marshals are Sister Roma of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Prozan. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California is the community organizational grand marshal.

This year’s San Francisco LGBT Pride celebration is set to include main stage entertainment by Gypsy Love and J.C. Jones. Celebrity grand marshals this year will include comedian Sarah Silverman and Carmen Carerra, who’s appeared on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

The 42nd annual San Francisco Pride Parade and celebration is June 23-24. For more information, visit www.sfpride.org.▼

vated. Any support I’ve needed, they were there.”

Giving back to the community is the next step for Daniels. She is currently in the process of co-founding an on-campus organization that would provide foster children with college-educated mentors at an early age. She stresses the importance of support systems and urges foster and queer youth to seek them out.

“There is so much support out there,” Daniels said. “If you just reach out and embrace it then you will really be fulfilled. There’s a lot of bad people in the world but there’s a lot of awesome people, too. Often, you can’t find every one of us but if you even see them, reach out.”

Founded in 2005, the Guardian Scholars Program at SFSU was the first of its kind in northern California.

The nonprofit survives off donations and staff payroll deductions.

While some former foster youth opt out of participating in Guardian

Scholars, the 89 percent who do graduate. Students receive priority registration, 12-month housing, and assistance with internships, employment, and graduate school applications.

“We’ve served 64 students since our inception,” Sanchez-Zarama said. “Our students’ graduation rates, retention rates and GPAs exceed the university’s as a whole.

We’re very proud of everybody.”

The program also paid for Daniels’s cap and gown.

“I want to see her up there,” Sanchez-Zamara said proudly.▼

On the web Online content this week includes the Bay Area Reporter’s online columns, Political Notes and Wedding Bell Blues; the Jock Talk and Out in the World columns; and articles on a book launch event at Magnet and attempts in Congress to undermine DADT repeal; and a photo from Small Business Week. www.ebar.com.

For information about how to donate to the Guardian Scholars Program, visit www.sfsu.edu/~eop/gs.html.

May17-23, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

<< Obituaries

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May17-23, 2012

▼

Gay playwright George Birimisa dies

by Cynthia Laird

G

eorge Birimisa, a beloved San Francisco playwright, teacher, and firebrand, died on May 10. He was 88.

Mr. Birimisa died at California Pacific Medical Center of cumulative complications related to emphysema, said his friend Steve Susoyev.

Mr. Birimisa was the first openly gay playwright to receive a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Friends said that the award was a mixed blessing for Mr. Birimisa, who had grown up in dire poverty and for whom the name “Rockefeller” was synonymous with the worst of capitalism.

Mr. Birimisa began writing stories at age 8, just after his father died in jail and his mother placed him in an orphanage. Insecure about his lack of education beyond the 10th grade, in writing for the stage

during the 1960s, he discovered an art form in which he didn’t have to worry about his grammar.

With enthusiastic reviews for his early work in the Village Voice, the New York Times and the Advocate, a world of creativity opened up to him. Tennessee Williams wrote of the wildly controversial Georgie Porgie: “Bravo! A beautiful, courageous play. I loved it.”

During his early theater career, friends said that Mr. Birimisa alienated many people through backbiting behavior that, he later acknowledged, was motivated by envy.

“Other playwrights were a threat to my self-esteem,” he admitted in a 2009 interview. “I couldn’t see anything worthwhile in anyone else’s work.”

He demonstrated introspective insight in other ways as well. At age 67, after a near-fatal encounter with a street hustler whom he had paid to rough him up, Mr. Birimisa entered

12-step recovery for sex addiction.

During the next 20 years, he sponsored dozens of people who had found themselves on the same path.

A former sex worker himself, he was a favorite performer in Kirk Read’s Sex Worker Art Show. Abstinence from his sexually compulsive behaviors never made him shy about discussing his past in the most colorful terms possible.

Mr. Birimisa moved to San Francisco in 1980, where he facilitated an intergenerational writing workshop at the old LGBT center, a group that included an 18-year-old lesbian and two transgenders in their 70s.

His plays Pogey Bait and The Man With Straight Hair premiered at Theater Rhinoceros in San Francisco, and he starred in Looking for Mr. America, which premiered at Josie’s Cabaret in San Francisco and later moved to La Mama E.T.C. in Greenwich Village.

Never content to pursue only

one passion, in 1986 Mr. Birimisa founded the gay and lesbian Arcadia Bodybuilding Society. He participated in five Gay Games as a bodybuilder, and won one gold medal, two silver and one bronze.

Throughout his life, Mr. Birimisa was a tireless advocate for oppressed people. He won the Harry Hay Award in 2005 for his decades of inspiration to gay activists and writers.

He received numerous literary and theatrical awards as well, including a 2007 Lambda Literary Foundation book award for co-editing Return to the Caffe Cino, published by Moving Finger Press. In 2010 he released Birimisa: Portraits, Plays, Perversions – a collection of his plays, short stories, and profiles by his friends, colleagues, and rivals.

A celebration of Mr. Birimisa’s life will take place in early July. Updates on preparations for the event can be found on his blog site, http:// www.GayGeorge.com.▼

age of 70. Born and raised in Mississippi, he was an Air Force veteran, lived various places, and then came to San Francisco about 30 years ago. He is survived by a brother, Preston, in Florida; two sisters, Minnie and Flora, in Mississippi; and many friends and neighbors.

George goes to join his life’s love, Todd, who predeceased him by 16 years.

Many thanks to Hospice by the Bay and the IHSS employees who helped George so much during the last year.

A special thanks to “Angel” Sue, who stayed by him until the end.

The center is located at 1800 Market Street in San Francisco.

designs from architect Willett Moss of CMG Landscape Architecture.

The ribbon cutting will be followed by kid-friendly activities until 2:30 p.m.

AEF hits Castro for pennies (and more)

Pacific Center photo shoot Saturday

$7 before 10:30 and $10 after. DJs are Ivan and Elliot Live.

Finally, on Wednesday, May 30 dust off your roller skates and get ready to rock at Rainbow Skate Night at the Redwood Roller Rink, 1303 Main Street in Redwood City. The fun starts at 8 p.m. with a $9 cover.

Proceeds from these events benefit the San Jose Pride celebration, which takes place the third week in August.

For more information, visit www.sanjosepride.com.

Steve Susoyev

George Birimisa, seen here in 2010, performed in Kirk Read’s Sex Workers Art Show.

Obituaries >> George Ponder February 22, 1942 – April 17, 2012

Our friend George, a longtime resident of Noe Street, passed on April 17 at the

<<

News Briefs

From page 5

The AIDS Emergency Fund’s longrunning Every Penny Counts campaign is getting updated with Empty Your Drawers, in which people are urged to look in drawers and pockets, and under the sofa cushions for loose change or a misplaced bill to donate.

The new campaign will make its quarterly debut in the Castro this weekend, May 19-20.

Lance Brittain, the Every Penny Counts coordinator, said that the “penny posse” will be at Castro and Market streets, at the top of the Castro Muni station’s main entrances, from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Since 1987, Every Penny Counts has raised over $2.7 million, with 100 percent of the funds raised through the program going directly to help pay the basic living expenses of AEF clients. The program is all volunteer, and is looking for more penny posse members. If you are interested, contact Brittain at (415) 558-6999, ext. 232 or lance.brittain@aef-sf.org.

New play area at Duboce Park Mayor Ed Lee, Supervisors Scott Wiener and Christina Olague, San Francisco Recreation and Park chief Phil Ginsburg, and others will be on hand Saturday, May 19 for the grand opening of the new youth play area at Duboce Park near Duboce Triangle and the Lower Haight. The ribbon cutting takes place at 10:30 a.m., and coincides with the San Francisco Parks Alliance’s Love Your Parks Day. The alliance, Friends of Duboce Park, and Rec and Park worked together on the $270,000 project, which reclaimed unused space at Duboce Playground and transformed it into a vibrant new play area for youth.

Funding came from the 2008 Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond’s community opportunity fund, a mayor’s office community challenge grant, private contributions, and donated

The Pacific Center for Human Growth, Berkeley’s LGBT community center, is having a photo shoot Saturday, May 19 and invites people to participate. The center is working with photographer Sarah Deragon to create an archive of stock photography documenting the rich diversity of the East Bay queer community.

Executive Director Leslie Ewing said that if the center has touched your life in some way, to please consider participating in the photo shoot. The images will be used on the center’s new website, in publicity and marketing materials, and will serve as an archive of the center’s community.

The center is looking for individuals and families, young and old folks who represent the sexual, gender, and racial diversity of the center’s peer groups, clients, and volunteers – in short, anyone is welcome.

If people aren’t interested in being models they can volunteer to help check people in, guide folks, and assist the photographer.

To participate or for further details, email egesso@pacificcenter.org or call (510) 548-8283, ext. 210.

SJ Pride to host gay prom for adults The Gay Pride Celebration Committee Inc., which produces San Jose Pride, has several events coming up.

On Saturday, May 19, Splash Video bar will host the Big Gay Prom for adults 21 and over. Cover charge is $10 or two-for-one cover with your prom date. There will be prizes for prettiest prom dress and tackiest tux.

The prom goes from 10 p.m. until closing; Splash is located at 65 Post Street in San Jose.

A party to benefit San Jose Pride will be held Sunday, May 27 from 9 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. at Splash. This event is in collaboration with Club Papi and features a fiesta with Latin dance music, go-go boys, and more. The cover is

Benefit concert for WCRC The Community Women’s Orchestra will hold its spring concert Sunday, May 20 at 5 p.m. at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, 1330 Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland.

Conductor Kathleen McGuire said that an orchestra member was diagnosed with breast cancer and the group decided to contribute 100 percent of ticket sales to the Oaklandbased Women’s Cancer Resource Center.

The concert will include works by Peggy Glanville-Hicks, Max Bruch, Richard Wagner, and Ludwig von Beethoven.

Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors, and $5 for students and youth under 18. They can be purchased at the door or online at www.communitywomensorchestra.org.

Gay men’s weekend coming up Discovery Community, a group for gay men, will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a weekend gathering over the Memorial Day holiday, May 25-28.

Taking place at the Wildwood Retreat Center in the hills above the Russian River, the gathering will recreate the best from the group’s traditions and has a theme of “Let Your Colors Soar.”

The weekend provides opportunities for self-exploration, making new connections, and having lots of fun.

Amenities include a 12-man hot tub, pool, dry sauna, 200 acres of woods, meadows, and hiking trails, and more.

The cost is $390.25 (plus an $8.80 fee) or if space is available, you can bring your own tent for $250.25 (plus a $6 fee). Complete information and online registration is available at www. discoverycommunity.org.▼ Matthew S. Bajko contributed to this report.

Read more online at www.ebar.com

May17-23, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 11

<< Community News

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May17-23, 2012

<<

Marriage

From page 1

that supports the legal right of gays to marry will be part of the Democratic Party platform this year. Reid, a Mormon, told reporters that, while his “personal belief” is that marriage is between a man and a woman, he now believes “people should be able to marry whomever they want, and it’s no business of mine if two men or two women want to get married.”

Asked in a press conference to comment on the president’s remarks, House Speaker John Boehner (ROhio) said he believes marriage is between one man and one woman, but quickly ignored related questions and said the focus needs to be on the economy and jobs. And yet the Republican-dominated House passed an amendment to the Department of Justice appropriations bill the night after Obama’s ABC interview to “prohibit the use of funds to be used in contravention of the Defense of Marriage Act.” The House Armed Services Committee on that same day passed an amendment to the defense authorization bill to ban “marriage or marriagelike ceremonies” between same-sex couples on American military bases.

These and other congressional measures – including a bill to repeal DOMA – will serve as individual battlegrounds over same-sex marriage.

On The View May 14 (broadcast May 15) Barbara Walters repeatedly pressed Obama whether he would personally fight to repeal DOMA and secure equal rights for gays through Congress. Obama sidestepped, saying

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Queer foster youth

From page 2

or gender identity. Seventy-eight percent of LGBT youths were removed or ran away from their foster placements due to the hostility because they were queer. More than half of LGBT foster youths spent time living on the streets and reported they felt “safer” there than living in a foster home.

The price tag American taxpayers pay is an estimated $8 billion yearly, wrote Congressman Pete Stark (D-

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LGBT sports event

From page 1

all their members asking the organizations to come together and talk to produce joint games,” GLISA representative Julia Applegate said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “They made it very clear that this was something they wanted to see happen and that there were many other teams that wanted the same thing.”

FGG board member Roger Brigham also remembers the request for a joint event. He said the small number of registrants at the Copenhagen Outgames prompted the call. An estimated 8,000 participants were expected but only around half that number showed.

“Some of the organizations in Europe started calling for just one quadrennial event,” said Brigham, who is the sport columnist for the B.A.R. “Well, for 20-something years there was just one quadrennial event which was the Gay Games. Essentially, they were saying that they did not want the World Outgames to continue. It was a redundancy that could not be afforded.”

A year later, the 2010 Gay Games in Cologne drew 10,000 participants.

To address the issue of a joint event, a formalized working group comprised of four representatives from both FGG and GLISA was created earlier this month. Over the weekend of May 5, the group met in Montreal on behalf of their respective boards to produce a memoran-

simply that “Congress is clearly on notice that I think it’s a bad idea.”

The president explained that his administration had come to the conclusion that DOMA was unconstitutional and that he was troubled about the inequities in Social Security and estate taxes. But what really motivated him to make his remarks May 9, said Obama, was “knowing friends and family, people that I’d gotten to know who had these wonderful relationships.”

“And they’d say to me, ‘You know what: The words matter. So, even though you’re a strong supporter of civil unions, somehow it still says we’re different.’ And that particular set of conversations that I had is ultimately what led me to this conclusion.”

Official White House photo

ABC’s Robin Roberts interviewed President Barack Obama last week, when he came out in support of same-sex marriage.

In a May 10 interview with Fox News, Romney suggested Obama’s position in support of same-sex marriage is a political calculation.

“You don’t change your positions to try and win states, or certain subgroups of Americans,” said Romney.

“You have the positions you have.

And, as you know, for a long time, I think from the beginning of my political career, I made it very clear that I believe marriage should be a relationship between a man and a woman.

I know other people have differing views, but that’s my view.”

When Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto suggested there has been at least some confusion over Romney’s position, Romney thanked him for the opportunity to make it clear: He would prefer there be “a national standard

that defines marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman.”

“That would then allow states to determine what rights would be provided for people of the same gender that wanted to have a relationship,” said Romney. “There could be domestic partnership benefits, for instance, where one state might decide to provide hospital visitation rights, another state might decide to provide that, as well as benefits of other kinds. States could have their own decisions with regard to the domestic partnership rights, but my preference would be to have a national standard for marriage and that marriage will be defined as being between a man and a woman.”

Cavuto noted that many gay people would consider it discriminatory “that a President Romney would etch in the Constitution something that discriminates against a large swath of

people in this country, gays. What do you say?”

“You know, we, as a society, take action which we believe strengthens the nation,” said Romney. “I happen to believe that the best setting for raising a child is where there’s the opportunity for a mom and a dad to be in the home. I know there are many circumstances where that is not possible – through death or divorce. I also know m any gay couples are able to adopt children. That’s fine. But my preference is we encourage the marriage of a man and a woman and that we continue to define marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman.”

Cavuto also asked Romney whether he considers the push for marriage equality to be “sort of like the civil rights movement all over again?”

“I don’t see it in that light,” said Romney. “I believe my record as a

Fremont) in an opinion piece for the Huffington Post earlier this year.

Heckman believes foster kids deserve better than what the current system offers them. She hopes her film will open people’s eyes to the reality of what is happening to foster youth in America, especially queer foster kids, she said.

Teruko Dobashi, one of the stars of America’s Most Unwanted, couldn’t agree more with Heckman.

“It’s something that needs to be brought to light so that foster youth who are LGBT don’t feel as stigmatized. It’s hard enough that foster

youth don’t have the resources and the advocacy that they deserve. If you are LGBT, you might need even more support and even more love because you might not have felt that from your biological family,” said Dobashi, who is anticipating seeing the film Thursday night.

Dobashi, a 21-year-old black lesbian who grew up in Hunter’s Point, turned herself into the foster care system at the age of 17 because she simply couldn’t cope with her mother’s drug addiction.

Speaking to the Bay Area Reporter right after she completed her last

final to graduate from UC Berkeley, she was bursting with excitement about her future. She earned a B.A. in social welfare with a double minor in pre-education and creative writing, while teaching other at-risk youth during college. At the end of May she will drive to Mississippi to begin teaching high school English for Teach for America.

“I want people to truly believe that they can make it and that they can succeed,” said Dobashi.

“After all the hurt and all the pain there is something better there for you.”▼

dum of understanding that would serve as the first step toward a joint event to be held in 2018.

received from the host would be split and additional revenue would be shared based on an assessment and evaluation of both organizations. GLISA declined the proposal.

“It was not a financial arrangement that would have been viable for GLISA,” Applegate said. “The concept of equity was a driving force behind GLISA’s approach to these talks. We needed to come to that table as equals and the revenue split offered was so unbalanced that we felt it was not going to be a good foundation for doing joint games together.”

Former FGG president and current board member Gene Dermody argues that the organizations are fundamentally different and therefore cannot be seen as equals.

“GLISA is not at the level of the federation in terms of business,” Dermody said. “The FGG has been around for a long time, is a nonprofit sponsored by the state government and has a huge amount of intellectual property. GLISA has just a dozen people with no I.D. and no databases. They just get together in a room and have a site selection whereas we have a whole event like the Olympics.”

ed him two years prior, asking him to oversee the martial arts section of the event.

“I figured it would be worth trying to support the event basically so that there would be an event for anybody that had already signed up,” Craig said.

But from the beginning, he said, GLISA was less than forthcoming about the number of participants registered.

“When I finally got the numbers, I think it was 25 participants. I was pretty disappointed by the lack of communication and openness.

I’d indicated that at Gay Games they get 100 to 150 participants. I thought that to be the minimum needed to make it a successful, useful event and they ensured that they would get that number.”

After his experience, Craig decided that he and his martial arts club would not support future World Outgames.

Dermody also attended the 2009 Copenhagen World Outgames and thinks that the problem with the GLISA model is that after leasing the license to the host city to hold the event, GLISA takes the registration fee money and neglects to involve itself further.

“They run it like it’s a rock concert; you buy tickets to it but there’s no delivery on the back end, no information,” he said.

GLISA and FGG also could not agree on the method through which voting on the host city would occur.

The FGG insisted that a selection meeting be held where delegates

Romney speaks out

Sticking points According to FGG’s press release, the two organizations found common ground on issues like “the division of voting rights, governance for site selection and host relations, the time and location of the joint site selection meeting and the name of the joint event” but two major points of contention stalled the negotiations.

“A major sticking point was the revenue structure for the host city,” Applegate said. “There was a sense that because [FGG has] been around longer, their brand is stronger and so they should take a larger percent of the revenue.”

The initial revenue structure proposal outlined that the first $400,000 made by the host city would be split evenly by FGG and GLISA and the next $100,000 would go to FGG. Any additional revenue would be allocated based on a third-party assessment and evaluation of the two organizations. “[GLISA] did not agree to an external evaluation and assessment until late and said the assessment would only kick in after there had been a distribution of $500,000 between the two organizations,” Brigham said. “They were talking about revenues that had never been produced by any such event so that would render an evaluation meaningless.”

The FGG team proposed another offer. The first $200,000 in revenue

Outgames experiences Ken Craig, an eighth-degree black belt tae kwon do instructor, has participated in both the Gay Games and World Outgames. While Craig maintains respect for GLISA, he remembers that his experience at the 2009 Copenhagen World Outgames was disappointing. GLISA contact-

▼

person who has supported civil rights is strong and powerful. At the same time, I believe that marriage has been defined the same way for literally thousands of years, by virtually every civilization in history, and that marriage is literally, by its definition, a relationship between a man and a woman. And if two people of the same gender want to live together, want to have a loving relationship, and even want to adopt a child in my state – individuals of the same sex were able to adopt children – in my view, that’s something which people have the right to do. But to call that marriage, is, in my view, a departure from the real meaning of that word.”

Gay author Armistead Maupin, speaking to Weekend Edition Saturday on National Public Radio, said his reaction was more “something I felt in my heart,” than political.

“As a gay man who’s been an activist for almost 40 years now, it was an extraordinarily moving thing to hear an unequivocal statement to the effect that gay love was the equal to opposite sex attraction. Gay people are used to hearing something, you know, especially from Democrats some little nod toward ‘I’m with you folks’ but usually in some private dinner, never publicly, never without equivocation like this, so it was a big moment, whatever the reason for it, it was a big, big moment.”

Maupin said he thinks the president’s remark, coming “from the top, from the very top” of society, “will filter down, it can’t help but filter down.”▼ A longer version of this story is online at ebar.com.

The premiere of America’s Most Unwanted is from 7 to 9 p.m. at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, Rainbow Room, 1800 Market Street.

Tickets are sliding scale $10-$25.

The benefit event, which includes a raffle, is to support the film’s national tour and is sponsored by the Horizons Foundation. For more information, visit www.mostunwantedfilm.org or contact fosteryouthfilm @gmail.com.

from both organizations attend and vote in person. However, GLISA favored electronic voting.

“We see ourselves as a global organization,” Applegate said, “and given people’s finances, distance and time, travel, and the technology that’s available right now, we’re confident a host city can produce and conduct a presentation of what they have to offer electronically so that our voting members can see that wherever they are in the world.”

Both organizations have suspended future negotiations regarding a joint event in 2018, citing the need to focus on their own upcoming 2013 World Outgames in Antwerp and 2014 Gay Games in Cleveland.

Conflict between GLISA and FGG dates back to 2003 during the site selection process for Gay Games VII. After Montreal was selected, a licensing agreement could not be agreed upon and prompted the city’s representatives to walk out on negotiations. Subsequently, GLISA was founded and planning for the first World Outgames began.

While official site selection for the 2018 Gay Games has not officially started, Craig is among many who have expressed their support for San Francisco being the host for future events.

“A lot of people think it would be a reasonable idea,” he said. “I’m not sure we could do it in time for Gay Games X, which is in 2018. I think it’s more likely we could look at Gay Games XI in 2022.”▼

â&#x2013;ź <<

From the cover >>

AIDS cuts

From page 1

mayor submits his budget proposal June 1.

If all of the money isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t restored, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d work to backfill the federal cuts through the board process, said Wiener. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is my top priority in the budget process,â&#x20AC;? said Wiener.

Restoring the money is important â&#x20AC;&#x153;because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll save lives,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have a responsibility in San Francisco to support those living with the disease and those at risk for the disease,â&#x20AC;? Wiener said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;... We as a city made a commitment 30 years ago to do that, and we need to keep that commitment.â&#x20AC;?

Wiener and his fellow LGBT supervisors, David Campos and Christiana Olague, held a news conference Wednesday in front of City Hall with HIV/AIDS providers and clients in which they called on Lee to backfill the federal dollars that will be lost.

Leeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spokespeople didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t respond to requests for comment Tuesday, May 15. Earlier this month, the mayorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office said that by June 1, he has to propose a citywide budget that closes a $170 million general fund shortfall in fiscal year 2012-13.

Mike Smith, president of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s HIV/AIDS Provider Network, said the Ryan White award for 2012-13 is about $16 million. He estimated the current CDC funding at $16 or $17 million.

Smith said that if the reduction is distributed proportionately and the expected Ryan White cut of 20 percent is not backfilled by the city, the agencies that would probably be hit hardest â&#x20AC;&#x153;are those that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have large amounts of community resource to augment their Ryan White award.â&#x20AC;?

Those organizations are often medical clinics, and agencies that provide mental health or substance abuse services, he said. At those

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Truvada

From page 1

Truvada, produced by Foster Citybased Gilead Sciences, contains two drugs, tenofovir and emtricitabine, that are among the most widely used medications for HIV treatment. The combination has also recently been shown to dramatically reduce the risk of HIV sexual transmission in different population groups.

The FDAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Antiviral Drug Advisory Committee voted decisively in favor of approving Truvada PrEP for the most extensively studied groups, men who have sex with men (19-3) and HIV-negative partners in serodiscordant couples (19-2). The vote was closer for others at risk of acquiring HIV through sex (12-8).

Gilead requested approval for Truvada PrEP in December based on evidence from large clinical trials showing that it can lower the risk of becoming infected with HIV if taken regularly. In all studies participants also received risk-reduction counseling and were encouraged to use condoms, which were provided free.

The iPrEx trial, which enrolled nearly 2,500 gay and bisexual men and a small number of transgender women in six countries (including San Francisco and Boston in the U.S.), found that daily Truvada reduced the risk of acquiring HIV by 42 percent overall, rising to 92 percent for participants who had drug levels in their blood indicating good adherence.

Two other large trials conducted in Africa â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Partners PrEP and TDF2 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; showed that the drugs in Truvada reduced the risk of HIV infection among heterosexual men and women by 60 percent to 75 percent, again rising among those who took it as directed.

The Fem-PrEP study of daily Truvada for African women did not demonstrate a protective effect, but further analysis showed that participantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; blood drug levels were low despite

agencies, reductions in Ryan White funding can mean fewer available appointments. Such changes â&#x20AC;&#x153;really can destabilize somebody who would otherwise have no detectible viral load,â&#x20AC;? said Smith, who is the executive director of the AIDS Emergency Fund.

Michaela Hoffman, HIV services director at Mission Neighborhood Health Center, is one of the providers concerned about funding.

Almost all of the health centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s funding comes from Ryan White.

The centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s budget is about $1.5 million, and the nonprofit receives approximately $1.3 million from the Ryan White program.

Hoffman said that the Ryan White reduction alone would result in a one-time cut of approximately 20 percent, or about $260,000, for medical care and supportive services. Most of the decreases would be in supportive services. The case management program, which helps link clients to housing, employment, and other services â&#x20AC;&#x153;would be substantially reduced,â&#x20AC;? she said. She also said that they would probably lose the counselor who helps people adhere to their treatment regimens.

The reductions would add up to â&#x20AC;&#x153;less effective treatment,â&#x20AC;? said Hoffman. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The reason HIV care works right now is because of the comprehensive model,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cuts of this size start to chip away at that comprehensive model,â&#x20AC;? and the decreases threaten to â&#x20AC;&#x153;whittle it downâ&#x20AC;? so that only primary care is provided, said Hoffman. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Primary care alone doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You have to have supportive services.â&#x20AC;?

Hoffman acknowledged times are tough for the city. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We know how many competing priorities are on the table,â&#x20AC;? she said, but the cuts could have a â&#x20AC;&#x153;ripple effect,â&#x20AC;? and HIV infections could in-

self-reported good adherence. â&#x20AC;&#x153;PrEP offers a new prevention tool for those most at risk for HIV, and should be provided in the context of other prevention strategies, including HIV and [sexual transmitted infection] testing, condoms, and with adherence support,â&#x20AC;? Partners PrEP principal investigator Connie Celum told the Bay Area Reporter. â&#x20AC;&#x153;To turn the tide on the HIV epidemic in the U.S. and globally, we need to be guided by evidence in developing our approach to HIV prevention.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;The meeting and vote represent a tremendous milestone for HIV prevention,â&#x20AC;? added Partners PrEP medical director Jared Baeten. â&#x20AC;&#x153;While implementing PrEP will face logistical and financial challenges, it is imperative to determine how this effective prevention strategy can be made available to those at greatest risk worldwide.â&#x20AC;?

Reaction mostly positive While Truvada PrEP appears highly effective when used consistently as part of a comprehensive prevention approach, some advocates have raised concerns about the difficulty of ensuring good adherence, long-term side effects â&#x20AC;&#x201C; especially bone and kidney problems associated with tenofovir â&#x20AC;&#x201C; drug resistance, reduced emphasis on safer sex, and cost and access issues. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I believe it will result in less condom use and more infections,â&#x20AC;? cautioned AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no reason for somebody to use condoms if they are taking this medication. They wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be taking heavyduty chemotherapy if they intended to practice safe sex.â&#x20AC;?

But most other advocates applauded the committeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decision. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is easy, but somewhat naive, to say that people should just try harder to use condoms to prevent HIV,â&#x20AC;?

Project Inform Executive Director Dana Van Gorder said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We must give people at risk for HIV the ability to choose for themselves which proven

May17-23, 2012 â&#x20AC;˘ BAY AREA REPORTER â&#x20AC;˘ 13

crease again.

R. Lee Jewell, co-chairs the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s HIV Health Services Planning Council and uses Ryan White-funded programs, including dental care.

He said heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s already seen his ability to get dental services impacted, and heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s worried about the impact further cuts would have.

Jewell said he told a mayoral staffer that heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s concerned about â&#x20AC;&#x153;the most vulnerableâ&#x20AC;? people, but there are also people like him who are doing â&#x20AC;&#x153;fairly well.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;If we start losing services weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to start moving down to that bottom tier as well,â&#x20AC;? said Jewell, and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s where places like emergency rooms will get â&#x20AC;&#x153;overwhelmedâ&#x20AC;? because â&#x20AC;&#x153;thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nowhere else to go.â&#x20AC;?

Legal Notices>>

State deficit looms

Dated at Oakland, California, this 9th day of May 2012.

Kenneth A. Duron Kenneth A. Duron, District Secretary San Francisco Bay Area Transit District Â&#x2021; &16 BAY AREA REPORTER

On Monday, May 14, California Governor Jerry Brown released his May budget revisions that showed the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s budget gap has swollen to almost $16 billion. He has proposed $8.3 billion in cuts to state programs, including health care.

A statement Monday from the San Francisco AIDS Foundation said that the governorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest budget calls for participants in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program to share costs. In some cases, monthly copayments could reach nearly $400 for life-saving medications, according to the AIDS foundation. â&#x20AC;&#x153;ADAP is an essential life-line to people who are already living on the margins and would not otherwise be able to access HIV medications,â&#x20AC;? stated Courtney Mulhern-Pearson, SFAFâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s director of state and local affairs. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Forcing co-payments for AIDS drugs will ultimately result in people dropping out of the program altogether, putting their health and the greater community at risk. We now call on the legislature to make sure the governorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cuts are rejected.â&#x20AC;?â&#x2013;ź

prevention methods are most likely to respond to their needs in the effort to remain HIV-negative.â&#x20AC;?

Project Inform and a coalition of other advocacy groups urged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health agencies to quickly issue guidance on the appropriate use of Truvada PrEP for different populations. They also stressed the need for demonstration projects â&#x20AC;&#x201C; like one currently in the works in San Francisco â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to study real-world PrEP use in high-risk groups such as young black gay men. â&#x20AC;&#x153;After more than a decade of research we are tantalizingly close to having the first new effective HIV prevention tool in 30 years,â&#x20AC;? stated Project Inform research director David Evans. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We must deploy it as quickly, but safely, as possible.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;We can now envision the end of AIDS transmission in the world,â&#x20AC;? iPrEx principal investigator Robert Grant told the B.A.R., â&#x20AC;&#x153;not just because of PrEP, but because of the combination of different ways we can offer for helping people stay free of HIV.â&#x20AC;?

The FDA is expected to make a decision about approval of Truvada PrEP by June 15; the agency is not required to follow committee recommendations, but it usually does so.

Other FDA action In related news, the FDAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Blood Products Advisory Committee on Monday, May 14 unanimously recommended approval of the OraQuick In-Home HIV Test. If granted final approval, it will be the first over-thecounter HIV test that can be used without participation of medical professionals or trained counselors. (A currently available test allows people to take a sample at home and send it to a laboratory for analysis; the new test will provide results directly.)â&#x2013;ź A longer version of this story is online at ebar.com.

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL NO. 6M4182 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 2:00 p.m., Tuesday, June DW WKH 'LVWULFW 6HFUHWDU\¡V 2IĂ&#x20AC;FH 23rd Floor, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, California 94612 or to the mailing address: P.O. Box 12688, Oakland, California, 94604-2688 for, TO PROVIDE REAL PROPERTY APPRAISAL SERVICES FOR BART PROJECTS, Request For Proposal No. 6M4182.

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-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 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

ebar.com

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 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 ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 04/23/12. The statement was ďŹ led 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 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 04/18/12.

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 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 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034283300 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 ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 03/01/98. The statement was ďŹ led 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-034295900 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 ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 04/24/12. The statement was ďŹ led 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 In the matter of the application of: MARIA MICHELLE OLLILA for change of name having been ďŹ led 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 ďŹ ctitious business name or names on NA. The statement was ďŹ led 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 ďŹ ctitious business name or names on 04/20/12. The statement was ďŹ led 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 th e 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 04/26/12.

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012

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Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034297000 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.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034273200

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034320400

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.

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

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

MAY 10, 17, 24, 31, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034320100

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.

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

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 Statement of abandonment of use of fictitious business name FILE A-032682800

MAY 10, 17, 24, 31, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034320200

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.

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

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

MAY 3, 10, 17, 24, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034295200 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 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034311800 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

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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 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 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, 31, 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, 31, 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, 31, 2012

All the news that’s fit to post.

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, 31, 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, 31, 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 10, 17, 24, 31, 2012 notice of application FOR CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP OF alcoholic beverage LICENSE Dated 05/09/12 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: COMET CLUB, INC.. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 1515 Clay Street, Suite 2208, Oakland, CA 94612 to sell alcoholic beverages at 3111 Fillmore St., SF, CA 94123. Type of license applied for

48 - On-sale GENERAL PUBLIC PREMISES MAY 17, 2012 notice of application FOR CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP OF alcoholic beverage LICENSE

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034326700

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034341000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JOHN K ANDERSON DESIGN, 1510 35th Ave., SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed John K. Anderson. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/04/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/04/12.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CLUB 280, 280-284 7th St., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PPK Holdings Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/14/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/14/12.

MAY 17, 24, 31, June 7, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034340100

MAY 17, 24, 31, JUNE 7, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034336100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JJARDINE CATERING & EVENTS, 5235 Diamond Heights Blvd. #211, SF, CA 94131. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed James M.S. Jardine. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/15/12.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/11/12.

MAY 17, 24, 31, June 7, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034339700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KATERINA’S IMPORTS, 4150 17th St. #22, SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Katerina Zisman. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/20/01. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/11/12.

MAY 17, 24, 31, June 7, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034332300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SFADM/SFFLEAMARKET.COM, 1122 Howard St., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed 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 05/09/12.

MAY 17, 24, 31, JUNE 7, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034339000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ILANA CAFE, 2314 Clement St., SF, CA 94121.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Ilana Coffee, Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/10/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/10/12.

MAY 17, 24, 31, JUNE 7, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-032575700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SUPER DUPER, 783 Mission St., SF, CA 94103.

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

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/10/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/10/12.

MAY 17, 24, 31, JUNE 7, 2012 Statement of abandonment of use of fictitious business name FILE A-033655400 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: LOTUS CAFE, 1551 Mission St., SF, CA 94103. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by Suheir Michael. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/29/11.

MAY 17, 24, 31, JUNE 7, 2012

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: POPSUGAR MUST HAVE, 111 Sutter St., 15th Fl., SF, CA 94104. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Sugar Publishing Inc. (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/11/12.

MAY 17, 24, 31, JUNE 7, 2012

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Dated 05/10/12 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: PROJECT CHEESE 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 2400 Harrison St., SF, CA 94110-2711. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE EATING PLACE MAY 17, 2012 notice of application TO SELL alcoholic beverageS Dated 05/09/12 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: IBRAHIM ELIAS ALHAJ. 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 2060 Fillmore St., SF, CA 94115-2709. Type of license applied for

41 - On-sale BEER & WINE Eating place MAY 17, 24, 31, 2012 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME statement file A-034331800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SF ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE, 101 Oakridge Dr., Daly City, CA 94014. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Julio L. Campos.

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/08/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/08/12.

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Vol. 42 • No. 20 • May 17-23, 2012

www.ebar.com/arts

Photography shows are an art-world rite of spring

by Sura Wood

O

“Lucca Luna” by Tom Chambers, part of the series Illuminations.

nce in a while one stumbles upon an artist whose psychological bent intersects perfectly with one’s own, and for me that would be photographer Tom Chambers. Since I happened onto the Modernbook Gallery and had a chance encounter with Chambers’ work, I can’t get his hyperreal images out of my mind. They’re on display in a retrospective drawn from six series he created between 1997 and the present; selections have also been assembled in a book titled Entropic Kingdom.

A Vietnam vet and trained graphic designer with a love of travel, music and literature, Chambers shoots in digital, producing luminous, color-saturated photomontages, a form with origins in Dada. These composites of multiple photographs melded into a single stirring image conjure the golden light of Renaissance art, Andrew Wyeth’s pastoral landscapes, Old Europe, magical realism and Grimm’s Fairy Tales, where non-conforming, tousled-haired, little bad girls dressed in flowing pastel crinolines disappear into the woods – kidnapped, eaten or bewitched – never to return. This is not necessarily what Chambers intends, but it’s one of the places he can transport you, depending on your frame of mind; his pictures are Rorschach tests for the psyche. Through the artist’s magic portal one ventures into the mysterious, enchanted, untamed world of children and animals, whose interactions he observed first-hand growing up on a Pennsylvania farm with grandparents who were both farmers and professional artists. Now Chambers ploughs the fields of his imagination and nature untethered.

In his feral imagery, there are intimations of the apocalyptic and the sublime: a pack of wild black dogs charge through a russet field; a loose white horse gallops down a shaded cobblestone street See page 28 >>

Courtesy the artost

Depp shadows Tim Burton & Johnny Depp resurrect TV classic ‘Dark Shadows’

by David-Elijah Nahmod

I

Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins in director Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows.

ran home from school to watch Dark Shadows” is the mantra often heard at annual Dark Shadows Festivals in New York City and Los Angeles. These fan gatherings continue a full four decades after the legendary, horrorthemed daytime soap opera was cancelled by ABC, in April 1971. Much to the surprise of the fan base, those captivated kids included director Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer, all of whom have admitted in recent interviews that they’ve been lifelong fans of the series. Now these three Hollywood A-listers offer their own big-screen spin on the classic tale of Barnabas Collins, the 200-yearold reluctant vampire. Moviegoers who expect a rehash of the TV series are in for a big surprise. Mostly it’s a pleasant surprise, though

auteur Burton does stub his toe in parts.

Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows, now playing in theaters nationwide, is exactly what people have come to expect from a Burton/Depp collaboration, the duo’s eighth. The film is a very dark comedy, though it has its serious moments. A 10-minute pre-credit sequence is set in the 18th century. Shot with an epic sweep, this intense segment tells us how Barnabas (Depp) was cursed with vampirism when he spurned the love of a servant girl, the evil witch Angelique (Bond girl Eva Green). This storyline was presented as a five-month arc on the tube, so it’s impressive how effectively Burton tells us everything we need to know in so short a time.

We then jump to 1972, “Nights in White Sat-

Peter Mountain, Warner Bros. Pictures

{ SECOND OF TWO SECTIONS }

in” by The Moody Blues setting the right mood.

As Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcoate) arrives at the great house of Collinwood to work as a governess, we meet Barnabas’ descendants, the very kooky Collins family. A creepy breakfast scene is hilarious, though some viewers may find themselves cringing, but in a good way.

Dark Shadows is funny in the way that James Whale’s The Bride of Frankenstein was funny.

It’s gallows humor at its best.

Burton’s film takes “The Return of Barnabas” storyline from the TV series and re-imagines it, with many recognizable references to the original. The screen sizzles when Barnabas, newly freed from his coffin after a 200-year imprisonment, introduces himself to family See page 29 >>

<< Out There

18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 17-23, 2012

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In the realms of Henry Darger

by Roberto Friedman

I

n Darger’s Resources, a new Duke University Press paperback, Emory University professor Michael Moon explores the work of Henry Darger (1892-1973), the prolific “outsider artist” and writer who created a whole fictive universe populated by phalanxes of little girls perpetually endangered by marauding armies. In his down time from his lifelong work as a janitor, Darger wrote a 15,145page epic, The Story of the Vivian Girls in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, then went on to illustrate it in drawings and watercolors he created with collaged images from comic books and advertising circulars. Moon’s thesis is that, far from the deranged and possibly pedophilic loner he is often taken for, Darger was a uniquely gifted artist quite in touch with the popular culture of his time.

The fantastic, violent images in his

works may not be pathological wishfulfillment, but an authentic artistic response to the increasingly apocalyptic century in which he lived.

Moon, also the author of Displacing Homophobia, finds instances in Darger’s work of “stories in which the girls eventually discover that a longtime boy ally is actually a girl.” For instance, there is “James Radcliffe, the dashing Rattlesnake Boy. Through many volumes of the narrative, Radcliffe is simply an ace boy scout and a champion boxer and wrestler, but at least a few times the narrator drops hints that suggest that young James may be even more interesting than he already appears to be (‘there was something queer about Radcliffe’). Finally, it is revealed that the Rattlesnake Boy is a girl disguised as a boy.”

Moon shows that Darger was greatly influenced by pulp fiction, mass-produced religious art, comics, illustrated children’s books, and specifically in this case, the Oz chronicles

by L. Frank Baum. A similar event to the Rattlesnake Boy’s sex change “occurs in a key moment in a book that Darger most likely knew well, Baum’s The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904), the first sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). In it the boy hero, Tip, is a girl called Princess Ozma, who had been turned into a boy by the sorceress Mombi.”

At book’s end, “Tip is changed back into Princess Ozma so that she can take her place as the rightful successor to her father as ruler of Oz.” Another odd feature of Darger’s illustrated universe is that he often drew “schematic little male genitals on his legions of (as he put it) ‘nuded’ girl warriors.” Moon raises the interesting question, “If everyone in Darger’s world has male genitals and no one has female ones, what is it that is supposed to mark true gender” in their bodies? The work also offers the radical notion that “being successfully ‘masculine’ in Darger’s world in the most obvious and unchallengeable ways (by being a champion athlete and a courageous soldier) is a role that can be played exceedingly well by a child, especially by a little girl.”

Moon comes to the conclusion that “the spectacularization of girlish bravado in In the Realms may be reparative in a somewhat displaced way: if little girls can not only show valor on the battlefield but can also outwit and even outmaneuver gangs of male bullies, maybe sissy boys have a chance in the battle of life, too.” A nice moral to the story, no?

Frameline teaser Frameline36 is coming up, June

Images of Men Strangling Children (detail, not dated) by Henry Darger.

14-24 at the Castro, Roxie and Victoria Theatres in San Francisco. This year’s LGBT film festival will feature a retrospective of 1990’s New Queer Cinema, celebrating 20 years since film critic and academic B. Ruby Rich coined the term in 1992. Featured films in the series will include Gregg Araki’s The Living End, Cheryl Dunye’s Watermelon Woman, Alex Sichel’s All Over Me, and Ana Kokkinos’ Head On. In conjunction with the focus on New Queer Cinema, Frameline will present the annual Frameline Award to the deserving B. Ruby Rich.

The opening-night film will be Vito, Jeffrey Schwartz’s documentary about one of the most influential people in the history of LGBT cinema, late gay activist, film historian and author Vito Russo. Watch this space for more festival details, coming soon.

Happy anniversary, Sasha Just room for a brief mention of the San Francisco Symphony’s subscription concerts this weekend (through May 19). This season is concertmaster Alexander Barantschik’s 10th Anniversary with the SFS, and the concerts this week are their “Happy Anniversary” celebration for him, as he’s performing the Schnittke Violin Concerto No. 4 with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting. The Beethoven Symphony No. 6, Pastoral – aka the best Fantasia vignette of all time! – is also on the program.

Barantschik joined the SFS as Concertmaster in 2001. He made his solo debut with the SFS in 2002 in performances of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in D minor, and most recently soloed with the orchestra in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor (2011). Through an arrangement with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Barantschik has the

exclusive use of the 1742 Guarnerius del Gesù violin bequeathed to the museums by Jascha Heifetz and once owned by the virtuoso Ferdinand David, who is believed to have played it in the world premiere of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor in 1845. Go to www.sfsymphony.org for tickets and more information.

Papa dearest HBO, director Philip Kaufman and the San Francisco Film Society will present the West Coast premiere of Hemingway & Gellhorn on Sun., May 27, 5 p.m. at the Castro Theatre as a thank you to the city for serving as its shooting locale. Though the movie’s story takes place in nine different countries, the film was shot over 40 days entirely on location in San Francisco and the Bay Area, which stood in for Spain, Finland, Cuba, New York, Shanghai, Key West and Idaho.

Hemingway & Gellhorn recounts one of the greatest romances of the last century, the passionate love affair and tumultuous marriage of literary master Ernest Hemingway and trailblazing war correspondent Martha Gellhorn. The story follows the two writers through the Spanish Civil War and beyond. The screening will be free to the public, but there’s limited seating, so RSVP to (888) 560-5856.

Hemingway & Gellhorn will have its broadcast premiere on HBO on Mon., May 28, at 9 p.m.

Finally, everybody has some quirky little hobby that brings him or her pleasure. Ours is perusing other newspapers’ corrections boxes. So sue us. Here’s a cute one from The New York Times: “A picture caption on Tuesday with an article about mysterious dolphin and seabird deaths in Peru misidentified the dead bird shown. It was a blue-footed booby, not a cormorant.” Booby: got it.▼

Courtesy San Francisco Symphony

San Francisco Symphony concertmaster Alexander Barantschik.

Read more online at www.ebar.com

May 17-23, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 19

<< Theatre

20 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 17-23, 2012

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Summertime approaches

by Richard Dodds

T

he weather may not be the best gauge of the seasons around these parts, but those theaters that arise when the year’s calendar has flipped six pages are one way to know that summer is at hand. California Shakespeare Theater is the

first big gun to herald the approaching solstice, launching its 39th season with Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone’s unusual take on The Tempest.

The namesake playwright will bookend the season at the Bruns Amphitheater in the hills near Orinda, with The Tempest begin-

ning performances on May 30, and Hamlet arising on Sept. 19 under Liesl Tommy’s direction. The season’s middle will be filled first with Spunk (previews begin July 4), a trio of stories by Harlem Renaissance figure Zora Neale Hurston, adapted

by George C. Wolfe and with music

by Chic Street Man. Patricia McGregor will direct. Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit (Aug. 8) comes with ACT connections, with ACT acting mainstay Rene Augesen as Ruth, second wife of a novelist bedeviled by the ghost of his first wife, and staged by ACT Associate Artistic Director Mark Rucker (Once in a Lifetime, Maple and Vine).

The Tempest was part of Cal Shakes’ debut season in 1974, and Moscone’s production will be the theater’s seventh staging of the magic-infused play. Veteran Shakespearean actor Michael Winters heads the cast as deposed-duke-turnedsorcerer Prospero, which is his second go at the role. He first played Prospero for the Seattle Shakespeare Company in 2009.

“One of the reasons I’m so excited to do it at Cal Shakes is that I know Jonathan’s production will be completely different and provocative, so it’ll be like starting from scratch,” said Winters, who may be known to TV viewers as the fussily self-serving small-town power broker Taylor Doose on Gilmore Girls.

In an example of the transparently theatrical nature of Moscone’s concept, Winters also plays the drunken steward Stephano. A cast of six shuttles among all the characters, and three dancers add atmospheric population to the island where Prospero is exiled. Choreographer Erika Chong Shuch also plays the spirit Ariel, and the other principals include James Carpenter, Catherine Castellanos, Emily Kitchens, and Nicholas Pelczar.

Single tickets to each of the four productions are now on sale, as are season subscriptions, at www. calshakes.org or (510) 548-9666.

John Ulman

Michael Winters is seen here in a 2009 Seattle production of The Tempest. He returns to the role of Prospero in director Jonathan Moscone’s very different take on the play that opens the Cal Shakes season.

Cook’s new recipe Illness forced the Rrazz Room to postpone Elaine Stritch’s May engagement, but the replacement act is hardly second-tier. Broadway star and cabaret legend Barbara Cook will be performing May 29-June 12, and even if you’ve seen her before, you have never heard her sing these songs before.

At 84, she purposefully challenged herself to create a new repertoire that she introduced last month at Feinstein’s in New York.

No Sondheim. No Rodgers and Hammerstein. But you will hear an a cappella medley of “The House of the Rising Sun” and “Bye Bye Blackbird.” John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Dan Hicks’ “I Don’t Want Love” are also in the set.

The latter is one of the tongue-twisting “list” songs that she set out to learn, a grouping that also includes “Makin’ Whoopee” and “Let’s Do It.” For traditionalists, there are such standards as “The Nearness of You,” “When Sunny Gets Blue,” and “Georgia on My Mind.”

In New York, she told audiences that this is the first show for which she chose all the songs herself. Good choices, apparently. “In each,” wrote The New York Times’ Stephen Holden, “she located its universal sweet spot and extended herself as if she were telling her own personal stories of happiness and loss.” Tickets are available at www.therrazzroom.com.

Diva dramas The 11th DIVAfest is underway at the Exit Theatre, anchored by three

Stephen Sorokoff

Barbara Cook offers a collection of songs she has never sung before for her Rrazz Room debut beginning May 29.

solo plays running in repertory. Girl in, but not of, the ’Hood, created and performed by Genevieve Jessee, focuses on a young woman’s reluctant return to her mother’s home in a rough Oakland neighborhood.

Pussy, created and performed by Maura Halloran, concerns a loveon-the-rocks lesbian couple, their homophobic bi-curious landlady, and a homicidal cat. Alma Colorada, created and performed

by Catherine Debon, is based on a true story of Spanish/Basque resistance fighters during World War II. DIVAfest, running through May 26, also includes Songwriter Saturdays that showcases rising Bay Area singer-songw r iters, Diva or Die Burlesque that puts a new spin on an old form, and a workshop production of Margery Fairchild’s behind-the-scenes comedy-drama Pas de Quatre. A full calendar of DIVAfest events is available at www.theexit.org.

Magic witchery The Magic Theatre is closing out its current season with the world premiere of Bruja, Luis Alfaro’s contemporary Latino variation on the Medea myth. Bruja, the Spanish word for witch, brings the Los Angeles playwright back to the Greeks as well as to the Magic, where his

Claire Rice

Maura Halloran created and performs Pussy, a play about a cat, two lesbians, and their bi-curious landlady, as part of DIVAfest.

Chicano-populated Oedipus el Rey had its premiere in 2010.

The Magic’s Artistic Director Loretta Greco is staging the production, which features Sabina Zuniga Varela as scorned wife Medea, as well as Armando Rodriguez, Sean San Jose, Wilma Bonet, and Carlos Aguirre. Bruja will run May 24-June 24. Following the June 3 matinee, the playwright and the director will take to the stage for a dialogue about the creative process leading up to the premiere. Ticket info at www. magictheatre.org.▼

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Music>>

May 17-23, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 21

Courtesy NCCO

New Century Chamber Orchestra Music Director and Concertmaster Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg is featured on a new recording.

Raising the bar

by Philip Campbell On Our Way: The Journey of Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and the New Century Chamber Orchestra; Paola Di Florio, director (NSS Music)

I

n a recent review reporting on female orchestra conductors and their increasing presence on the American music scene, Bay Area readers probably noted an interesting omission. Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, famous and well-established in her own solo career, became music director of the New Century Chamber Orchestra in 2008. She has spent the first four years of the partnership striving to bring them “to a position of recognition.” She wants the 19-member string ensemble “to be a household name.” If anyone can raise and maintain the energy level of a group that celebrates its 20th anniversary this season, it would be the plucky, immensely talented Salerno-Sonnenberg. Always known for her wit and emotive performances, the once mildly controversial violinist (surprised the classical music world could be a bit conservative?) appears to have bonded and blended beautifully with the conductorless NCCO. A new DVD has been released this month that chronicles SalernoSonnenberg’s partnership with the NCCO. On Our Way includes a pleasing concert of complete works taped in Santa Monica at the Broad Stage as the culmination of the ensemble’s tour in 2011.

The documentary itself is pretty generic stuff, and the endless quotes from NCCO members about the diversity of members and their individual personalities ultimately forging a cohesive whole get boring. Alright, if they say so, but there is little evidence of temperament on display here, and if it weren’t for the wry humor and seasoned attitude of the group’s Music Director and Concertmaster, the documentary would simply be a pleasant introduction to an organization that deserves more attention. Thankfully, the DVD is cued so that we can watch the full concert performances separately.

After a first viewing, the documentary part can be skipped. And the concert is worth the price of admission. The NCCO has a big, vibrant sound that belies the numbers. With members taking their cues from one another and especially Salerno-Sonnenberg, the performances are lush and dramatic.

A major highlight is a complete rendition of Astor Piazzolla’s tango-

infused The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, with its cleverly enfolded references to Vivaldi’s immortal score, and moments of electrifying passion shifting to bittersweet reflection. Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings also gets a vibrant reading that is surprisingly fresh-sounding and involving. There is also some Hugo Wolf and encores by Gershwin and Alfred Schnittke. As the amusing music director says at the conclusion, “I bet you were hoping for an encore by Schnittke.”

Well, we hadn’t thought of it, but as she happens to bring it up, a Polka by the crazy genius of modern Russian music would actually hit the spot. Watch the video once straight through for the introduction. Keep it in the library for the concert portion, beautifully recorded and sensibly filmed. On Our Way is available through CDbaby.com.

Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 and Overture No. 3 from Leonore; Michael Tilson Thomas, San Francisco Symphony (SFS Media) Touting the latest Beethoven release in the slowly growing discography of the San Francisco Symphony on its own SFS Media label as an “ongoing exploration” strikes me as a pretty vague excuse for throwing yet another Seventh Symphony into an overstocked inventory already filled with choice. If we opt for this perfectly respectable rendition it will be more out of loyalty than anything else, but we can also say you would be hard-pressed to ever find a better recorded performance.

The dynamic range alone captures every nuance, and MTT’s decision to record “live” is repaid with stunning presence and rich acoustics (actually better than Davies Hall itself). If we can expect a full cycle of Beethoven, these careful and gorgeously played renditions should make a good library choice.

In the meantime, we can muse on the maestro’s early forays into Beethoven (back during his time in London) and how he went about the task with all the cheek and drive of a young man making his mark.

He has certainly matured since then, but that hasn’t dimmed his vigor in other repertoire. Does this new “exploration” stuff with Beethoven and the SFS mean he that he is now looking for some middle ground?

I doubt the maestro is slowing down, but if the developing set of Beethoven recordings helps finance the orchestra’s more exciting Ives and Copland releases, then I’m definitely still in. Currently available for download from the iTunes store, with general release on June 12.▼

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

22 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 17-23, 2012

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DVD>>

Magnificent Meryl, then & now Reconsidering her brilliant career, comparing early & later work

by Tavo Amador

J

ane Fonda, the star of Meryl Streep’s first movie, Julia (1977), says she knew she would be a great success in films. Fonda was prescient, but her opinion was far from universal. Critics like David Thomson and Pauline Kael had doubts. Kael, who had greatly admired Streep (b. 1949) on stage, felt she was being miscast in pictures and had to struggle to overcome that problem. Even after winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her tough mother and wife in Kramer vs Kramer (1979), a film career as a leading player wasn’t assured. She proved skeptics wrong, however. The newly issued DVD of Sophie’s Choice (1982), for which she won her first Best Actress Oscar, enables a comparison with her second win in that category, 29 years later, as The Iron Lady (2011).

Her performance as the Polish Sophie, a gentile survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, earned rave reviews and swept all the major acting awards. For the first time, she used a flawless continental accent. Helped immensely by Nestor Almendros’ superb cinematography, she was

convincing as a desirable if unconventionally beautiful woman.

With the precision of a great stripper, she slowly revealed the character’s complex and shocking history. The audience believed that Kevin Kline (never more attractive) as Nathan, a Holocaustobsessed American Jew who suffers from schizophrenia, loves her, and she him. Their unstable, unhealthy co-dependent relationship has touching moments, yet is often frightening. Viewers accepted the perspective of the callow young writer, Stingo (Peter MacNichol), who narrates the story.

He is fascinated by the couple, and falls in love with her. All three seem plausible living in post-WWII Brooklyn. Streep relates well to her co-stars, never hogging scenes. She appears to have paid close attention to director Alan Pakula’s instructions and to have read the book carefully. She focuses on understanding what novelist William Styron felt about his creation.

As Sophie, she has to convey a broad range of emotions, witty, warm, romantic, sensual, enigmatic, hysterical, and tragic. Yet her performance, though technically superb, now seems calculated, as though she were thinking about each gesture, each inflection, rather than feeling them. She does not seem at ease in front of the camera.

That’s no longer the case. The turning point was Silkwood (1983). Director Mike Nichols’ dexterity with actors, and her own growing confidence that audiences were connecting with her, make this a landmark film in Streep’s career. That new assurance made her romantically mesmerizing in Out of Africa (85); startling in A Cry in the Dark (88), as an Australian mother who mourns for her dead daughter, yet remains publicly stoic and self-controlled; and brings looseness and wit to Postcards from the Edge (90). Her singing in the last was

surprising and expert.

More recently, her work has shown greater emotional range and suggests more belief in her own attractiveness.

She has given a series of dazzling performances that have had critics and viewers exhausting superlatives, appropriately so. In the right role, she’s also been a box-office star – almost unheard of for a woman over 50.

She looked stunning and was wickedly funny in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), was tart and conflicted as the suspicious nun in Doubt (08), and made middle-age sexy, romantic,

and exciting opposite Stanley Tucci in the moving Julie and Julia (09).

Her work as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady is full of unexpected touches. Her acting is as technic assured as it was in Sophie. She’s cally s a generous co-star. Despite the still a amazing make-up, which helped her p performance enormously, she is not r remotely self-conscious. Her work s seems natural, innate, spontaneous.

N doubt every scene was carefully No t thought out, but once conceived, she a allows it to play naturally. Whatever o thinks of Margaret Thatcher as one a person or feels about her politics, a England’s first woman Prime as M Minister, she was fiercely intelligent, c committed, and principled. She had to overcome her middle-class backg ground in a country steeped in snobb bery.

Streep unaffectedly conveys all o this with humor and vulnerability. of It a performance of such depth that It’s the often disappointing moments in the movie hardly matter.

Has any other star, at her age, accomplished so much at such a high standard? What’s more, Streep continues to stretch herself. Upcoming projects include the film version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama August: Osage County, which will allow her to be belligerent and angry on screen. She continues to surprise audiences with her choice of roles.

With luck, that will go on for many more years.▼

by Jim Provenzano

Eat Your Heart Out by Dayna Ingram; Lethe Press, $13

Wingmen by Ensan Case; Cheyenne Publishing, $17.99

H

Considered a gay From Here to Eternity when it was originally published in 1979, Ensan Case’s World War II epic Wingmen offers a discreet romance full of more battle scenes than love scenes. Captain Jack Hardigan doesn’t exactly understand why he feels differently about handsome young pilot Fred Trusteau until well into the novel. They each fool around with women, and prove themselves more than worthy in tense training and battle situations set in the Pacific.

Both men do eventually fall in love and find some private R&R together, despite a suspicious fellow pilot’s snooping.

After reading a reprinted paperback edition in the 1980s, I gave it to a closeted serviceman who at the time remarked on its accuracy in describing the tension of life aboard a battleship. Fans of war stories will prefer this tome, whose focus gets very specific with the details of flying planes and crashing them. Case’s writing isn’t the least bit “gay,” with the serious tone of its older protagonist Hardigan. The book reads like postwar fiction of the 1950s, but with a discreet gay affair that does eventually inspire a late dramatic turn of events. The pre-Stonewall epilogue offers a pleasant yet too-short “happy ending” set in San Jose.

Feeling a bit noir-ish? Shifting from WWII to postwar paranoia, Kevad (aka David Kentner)’s Whistle Pass offers up a tough-punching, chain-smoking, square-jawed lug in the manly form of Charlie Harris.

He’s just shown up in a tiny railroad town after a cryptic telegram from a former war-era beau, Roger Black.

But upon arrival in the strange burg, Charlie discovers that his one-time lover is the town’s mayor, whose wife may be trying to kill him. The town police aren’t much

friendlier, and Charlie ends up winning and losing a few violent attacks. Fortunately, Charlie gets a bit of help from the lithe Gabe Kasper, whose attraction to Charlie is quickly surmised by his coworkers and few friends who don’t mind being close with one of the town “queers.”

The crosses and double-crosses, perplexingly over a mere photo of two men kissing, provide plenty of action between Harris’ too-frequent cigarette smoking. That’s my only complaint, that the author captures the tobacco-infested 1950s a bit too well. His expansive descriptions of each light-up may be a sign of a writer either enjoying a smoke, or allowing his characters the indulgence after quitting himself.

For a cure for withdrawals of another addiction, say, zombie shows like The Walking Dead, author Dayna Ingram has penned a lighthearted comic and contemporary take on the zombie-killing genre with Eat Your Heart Out. Devin, who understandably doesn’t care for her uneventful job at a furniture store in a small Ohio town, perks up considerably when her favorite probably-lesbian action film star Renni Ramirez shows up at her store. Bearing a distinct resemblance to Lost actress Michelle See page 23 >>

Books >>

Heroes Whistle Pass by Kevad; Dreamspinner Press, $14.99

eroic acts by gay men and lesbians transcend time and writing styles in three new paperback works of fiction.

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Film>>

May 17-23, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 23

Conflicted matriarch

by David Lamble

A

veteran critic who likes his ladies tough and ball-busting once described the young Kathleen Turner as possessing “angry eyes.”

Based on her breakout 1981 turn as the socialite who seduces an equally fetching William Hurt into killing her inconveniently aging hubby in the sultry retro noir Body Heat, the critic forecast her successful career as a femme fatale who stays home and feeds on “weaker men forever.”

Before the Tinseltown rule that women age three times as fast as men in movies caught up with her in the late 1990s, Turner had more than held her own slugging it out with the boys in bruising domestic mash-ups like The War of the Roses. The clincher for John Waters fans was her embrace of the foul-mouthed suburban hausfrau who punishes infractions of her social code – recycle, wear your seatbelt, and no white shoes after Labor Day – with homicidal glee in Serial Mom. It’s no faint praise to say that an aging but still hard-charging Turner is the best reason to catch the new

preachy Catholic dramedy The Perfect Family. Her Eileen Cleary is enslaved to a code of conduct enforced by grumpy guys in dresses. In a naughty opening-credit sequence, Eileen pulls a Lucy-worthy bit of slapstick when she accidentally spills a tray full of communion wafers (“the body of Christ”), then gets down on all fours to dispose of the evidence.

Eileen is the weary head of a frisky clan that falls far short of the Vatican’s moral playbook: dad Frank (Kris Kristofferson lookalike Michael McGrady) is a longrecovering alcoholic; son Frank, Jr. (Jason Ritter) has left his wife for an affair with a manicurist; and daughter Shannon (Emily Deschanel) is pregnant and about to marry her life partner Angela.

For reasons not fully disclosed until the third act, Eileen has turned pious if not downright fanatical about keeping up the ruse that her family is “perfect.” At stake is Eileen’s semi-farcical bid to wrest the title “Catholic Woman of the Year” from her childhood rival, the sneaky, pseudo-pious, manipulative Agnes

Dunne (Sharon Lawrence). As it becomes clear that Eileen must make a hard choice between honoring her lesbian daughter’s relationship and hypocritically supporting the political agenda of her nemesis, daughter and mom have it out. Shannon learns that mom has signed an antigay marriage petition.

“You signed the petition? How could you do that?”

“What if I don’t agree with your lifestyle? You just assume I’ll accept you, what about accepting me?”

“I don’t petition against you!”

“That was Agnes Dunne’s idea, not mine.”

“But you signed it. What is it about my life that you find so reprehensible?”

“You’re living in sin!”

“Says who?”

“The Pope!”

“But what do you think?”

“I don’t have to think, I’m a Catholic!”

At a time when American Catholic bishops are stepping up their campaign against our community, and when it’s just been revealed that

Oana Marian, Courtesy Variance Films

Kathleen Turner as Eileen Cleary in a scene from The Perfect Family.

the American Church has launched an investigation against the Girl Scouts for supposedly indoctrinating pre-teens on the contraception mantra of Planned Parenthood, The Perfect Family director Claire V. Riley and co-writer Paula Goldberg seem timid in flat-out staging the kind of dark-comedy assault that would be so refreshing and affirming post-North Carolina.

There are moments – some zingy

one-liners and moving beats involving Eileen and Frank’s troubled marriage – when The Perfect Family seems to go after an all-too-tempting target, but the filmmakers never quite figure out where they come down on the big issues of faith vs. tolerance. Ultimately the film comes off a little bit like Eileen’s attempt to placate both Rome and gay-accepting Catholics. But there are times when less is just not enough. ▼

Davidson takes the unprecedented stand of asking a judge to move the trial to a more provincial town beyond the reach of Bernie’s fan base.

Bernie breaks some new ground in celebrating a peculiar kind of gay hero, but the third act is hobbled by being too bound up in the real events. While Jack Black’s low-key performance avoids caricature, we are dying to see more of what inspired and ultimately destroyed this odd coupling. Shirley MacLaine, clearly cast for the resonance to her controlling-mom star turn in Terms

of Endearment, never really gets to wail. The crime, a delicious reversal of Sunset Blvd.’s swimming pool mayhem, is too abruptly staged.

This is a story that cries out for more, not less black humor.

Bernie flinches from the implications of its weird story precisely when it should double down on all its dark themes. Linklater had the raw material for one of the bitter, perhaps cynical classics we associate with the late master Billy Wilder.

What does it say about our national moral fiber when a gay man earns a kind of respect and almost reverence in a most unlikely place, defying what we think we know about our common humanity?▼

East Texas odd couple

by David Lamble

possessiveness and paranoia just got too much to bear. He shot her four times in the back with a squirrel rifle. The fact that Mrs. Nugent lay in the freezer for nine months is mordantly dramatized when a local Bubba quips, “The truth was that no one really cared about looking for her, because no one missed her.”

When the good folks of Carthage virtually acquit Bernie without a trial, DA Danny Buck Davidson sees it as an affront to decency and an assault on his powers. Realizing that he can’t get a hanging jury locally,

T

he road to hell is paved with good intentions, and so are movies purported to be based on “actual events.”

Bernie opens with the title character (Jack Black) updating Evelyn Waugh’s guide to modern mortuary science, dripping with black humor.

We learn the fine touches for preparing our loved ones for their final viewing, like the delicate application of a tiny amount of Super Glue to ensure that the eyes of the dearly departed don’t sudden snap open “for one last peek.”

“I’m not fond of cremations. I just don’t like the idea of somebody spending an eternity in something like a motel ice bucket.”

In a story set in the late 1990s in the tiny East Texas hamlet of Carthage (just west of the Louisiana border), a roly-poly guy like Bernie Tiede, a little too eager to please, fits in about as well as a YouTube dancing hippo. This Piney Woods region has traditionally identified with the Deep South, with its denizens seldom straying far from home, suspicious of “homo-permissive” fleshpots like Dallas or, God forbid, the “People’s Republic of Austin.” But Bernie’s charm offensive carries the day, and pretty soon good old boys who once snickered that he was a bit “light in the loafers” are boasting that “with Bernie doing your service, you just know you’re going to get to heaven.” The only two holdouts are Carthage’s “oil widow” and “meanest woman alive,” Mrs. Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine), and the local prosecutor, Danny Buck Davidson (Matthew McConaughey).

We never learn exactly why Bernie is so painfully eager to have

<<

Heroes

From page 22

Rodriguez (the book is dedicated to her), Devin nearly forgets about her girlfriend when the feisty star shows up while on a road trip.

But before Devin’s dream scenario results in a star smooch session, a customer walks, or rather, slumps in, craving not sofas but human flesh. A manic retreat to the shop’s

everybody in his fan club. Tongues start wagging when Bernie and Mrs. Nugent become an item, and everybody is properly astonished when “the widow’s mite” starts funding all sorts of civic foolishness like a bootn-saddle shop. In Carthage, this is practically a local branch of Neiman Marcus.

In a better world, Bernie and Mrs. Nugent would have lived on forever in platonic bliss. But it turns out she may just have been truly too mean to live. Director Richard Linklater – known for launching the screen careers of Parker Posey, Ben Affleck, Anthony Rapp, Adam Goldberg, and McConaughey in the uproarious last-day-of-school teen classic Dazed and Confused – treats cowriter Skip Hollandsworth’s original Texas Monthly piece “Midnight in the Garden of East Texas” as an excuse for creating a Greek Chorus of East Texas types. They explain their dazed and confused reaction when Mrs. Nugent turns up dead and frozen solid in the bottom part of a home freezer located in a garage. A contrite Bernie confesses to having snapped when the widow’s

storeroom ensues, with Ramirez conveniently proving that her action movie heroism is applicable in real, er, zombie fiction, life.

With a dry wit and a sense of the absurdity of the situation (zombies?

In the middle of Ohio? Who would notice the difference?), author Ingram keeps the action brief and the tale short enough to avoid indulgence. It’s a romp you can sink your teeth into.▼

<< Out&About

24 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 17-23, 2012

The Devotion Project @ Michaan Theater, Alameda

musical mix; Emily Wells headlines. $15. 8pm. 2170 Market St. 861-5016. www.cafedunord.com

Screening fundraiser of a film about LGBT couples and their families. Proceeds go to Children’s Hospital & Research Center, Oakland. $20. 4pm. 2700 Saratoga St., Alameda. www.thedevotionproject.org

Unusual Films @ Oddball Films Trash & Treasure, short films about garbage (including a Donald Duck cartoon), 8pm.

May 18, 8pm, Blackballed Cartoons!, racy animated shorts. May 19, 8pm, Pop Goes the Classroom, groovy ‘70s schoolkid shorts. $10. 275 Capp St. 558-8117. www.oddballfilm.com

Homophonic @ Martuni’s Monthly LGBT songwriter showcase (3rd Saturdays, celebrating its 1st anniversary) includes performances by co-hosts Jeb Havens, Tawnee Kendall, and Derek Schmidt, with guest performer Jeremiah Clark (on his West Coast tour). $5. 5pm. 4 Valencia St.

Fri 18>> Augusten Burroughs @ Books Inc. Author of bestselling books ( Running With Scissors, Dry) signs and discusses his new book This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike. 7pm. 2275 Market St. 864-6777. www.booksinc.net

Post: Ballet

The Avengers @ Café DuNord

Painted love

by Jim Provenzano

V

isual and performing arts are shared in abundance this week. The SF International Arts Festival continues, and ArtMRKT and the SF Fine Arts Fair showcase hundreds of visual creative works.

Fascinating rare performances with intrigue and innovation are always part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival, including 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. Thru May 20.

Other works include Switzerland’s Compagnie 7273 with Sir Richard Bishop and Dance Elixir (May 19, 7pm, May 20, 8pm, at Marines Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter St.); Cid Phantoms of Asia Pearlman Performance Project, Post: Ballet and Susanna Leinone Company (May 19, 9pm; May 20, 5pm also at Marines Memorial). More shows thru May 19. 771-6900. www.sfiaf.org ArtMRKT, the large-scale showcase of visual arts and crafts, with booths by dozens of local and national galleries, includes a Thursday May 17 VIP preview party, 6pm-8pm $150. Fri & Sat 11am-7pm, $20-$40. Thru May 20 (12pm-6pm). Concourse Exhibition Center, 620 7th St. at Brannan. (212) 518-6912. www.art-mrkt.com/sf Phantoms of Asia, the new exhibit of bold contemporary art with perspectives on life, death, nature and other themes, kicks off with an opening night party Thursday May 17, with DJ Vin Sol, King Most, drinks, food and fun. $12-$15. 7:30pm-12am. Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St. 581-3500. www.asianart.org The San Francisco Fine Art Fair, the third annual large-scale San Francisco Fine Art Fair visual arts showcase, brings dozens of galleries exhibiting and selling works by hundreds of artists. $25-$125. 11am-7pm. Thursday May 17 thru May 20 (Sun til 6pm). Fort Mason Center’s Festival Pavilion, Buchanan at Bay. www.sffineartfair.com And for yet another art party, don’t miss ArtPad SF at the Phoenix Hotel, with art, entertainment and performances with DJed music, a hosted bar (til 8pm), hors d’eouvres and a bevy of arts cogniscenti in attendance. Proceeds benefit the Burning Man Black Rock Arts Foundation. $30-$40, $125. Friday, May 18, 6pm-1am. 601 Eddy St. www.blackrockarts.org/events/artpad-sf

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.castrotheatre.com www.apavaginamonologues.com

Arisa White @ SF Public Library 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 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

Endgame, Play @ A.C.T. Tony Award winner Bill Irwin stars in American Conservatory Theatre’s production of two Samuel Beckett one-act plays, directed

by Carey Perloff. Special post-show performance on May 24 with Killing My Lobster; Beckett Design Contest, too. Out With ACT LGBT night May 30. $10-$95. Tue-Sat 8pm.

Wed, Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru June 3.

415 Geary St. 749-2228. www.act-sf.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.tickets.landmarktheatres.com

Portland Cello Project @ Swedish American Hall Amazing string ensemble blends baroque, hiphop and other genres into a rousing

Historic punk band (yeah, they’re a bit older, but so are you) performs live. Also Erase Errata and Carletta Sue Kay. $15. 21+. 9pm.

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

Crevice @ La Val’s Subterranean, Berkeley World premiere of Lauren Yee’s dark comedy about a family shaken by a sinkhole that appears in their home, unveiling a strange alternative world. $10-$20. Thu-Sat 8pm.

Thru June 9. 1834 Euclid Ave. www.impacttheatre.com

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

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. Free-$18 (tickets required for exhibit entry). 5:30pm-8:30pm. 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park. www.deyoung.famsf.org

Hot & Healthy @ Café Flore

Fri 18 Clairdee @ The Rrazz Room Stellar vocalist performs her “SoulO-ist” concert. $30-$35. 7pm.

Also May 19, 7pm; May 20, 4pm.

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

Verbatim Verboten @ The Garage Clove Productions’ satiric comedy improv shows with an unusual script based on randomly selected wiretapped conversations, surveillance tapes on-camera diatribes, 911 calls and more ‘private’ texts. $12-$15.

Fri & Sat 8pm Thru May 19. 715 Bryant St (note: new address). 518-1517. www.brownpapertickets.com

Sat 19>> Audience as Subject @ YBCA Mark Bradford (found material sculptures) and Audience as Subject, Part 2, (big photos of fans at soccer matches and rock concerts), plus other exhibits. Thru May 27.

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

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

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. Thu 8pm, Sat 8:30pm, Sun 7pm. Thru June 10. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.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

Marilyn Pittman @ The Marsh 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

Oakland East Bay Symphony @ Paramount Theatre Paula West, Taylor Eigsti and Daniel Bernard Roumain guest-perform at Do That Voodoo, a concert of jazz and Haitian-inspired music. $20-$70. 8pm. 2025 Broadway. Oakland.

(800) 745-3000. www.oebs.org

Shades @ Brava Theater Broadway n’ Black Series presents a musical play about the fashion industry, and one woman’s quest for success. $25-$50. 8pm.

Also May 19, 2pm & 8pm. 2781 24th St. 641-7657. www.brava.org

Sudden Impact, Robocop @ Castro Theatre Double feature of ‘80s action flicks starring Clint Eastwood (2:30, 7pm) and Peter Weller (4:50, 9:20). $7.50-$10. 429 Castro St. 6216120. www.castrotheatre.com

Garza hosts the second anniversary of the fun drag show with safe sex tips, and sexy raffle prizes; DJ Ken Vulsion. Proceeds benefit Bay Area Young Positives. 9pm-11pm.

2298 Market St. at Noe. www.cafeflore.com

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

Mascara @ Castro Country Club New monthly drag show, hosted by UPhoria, at the sober space. $3-$6. 10:30pm.

4058 18th St. www.castrocountryclub.org

The Odyssey @ Angel Island We Players takes on another innovative environmental theatre project, the Homerian ancient Greek adventure tale, performed at locations on scenic and historic Angel Island. $40-$78. $10 lunches available. Fri-Sun 10:30am-4pm (not including ferry travel times). Thru July 1. 547-0189. www.weplayers.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

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

Tino Rodriguez, Virgo Paraiso @ Modern Eden Gallery

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

▼

Pagan Poetry, a duo exhibit of fantastic and vibrant paintings by the two artists. WedSun 11am-7pm. Thru June 10. 403 Francisco St. 956-3303. www.moderneden.com

Sun 20>> Sat 19 Tales of Pangu: Lifting Up the Sky @ CounterPulse Eth-Noh-Tec & Gay Asian Pacific Alliance (GAPA) explore a metaphorical history of the Asian & Pacific Islander experience; with Nancy Wang and Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo of Eth-Noh-Tec, GAPA Men’s Chorus, and featuring Kenji Oshima (photo), who shares the story of his Japanese father and Anglo mother and how that resonates within his own queer, biracial identity. $1020. 8pm. 1310 Mission St at 9th.

282-8705. www.counterpulse.org

Children of Paradise @ Castro Theatre French cinema classic, a lavish black & white romance filmed in Nazi-occupied Paris. $7.50-$10. 2:30, 7:30. Thru May 21.

429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.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 by Gabriel Rossetti, James McNeill Whistler, Edward BurneJones, E.W. Godwin, William Morris, Christopher Dresser and others. Free-$20. Tue-Sun 9:30am-5:15pm. Thru June 17. Lincoln Park, 100 34th Ave. 750-3620. www.famsf.org

AIDS Candlelight Memorial @ Harvey Milk Plaza Annual somber commemoration of the loss from the AIDS epidemic. 8pm. Castro & Market Streets. www.candlelightmemorial.org

Animals Are People Too @ Marin Headlands Center Artists Rachel Mayeri and Laurel Braitman discuss the topic of cross-species behavior, screen films of apes and humans interacting, and explore mental illness in mammals.

Free. $20, $25 with post-discussion dinner.

4:30pm. Building 944, Eastwing, Marin Headlands Center for the Arts, 944 Fort Barry. www.headlands.org

Armistead Maupin @ Grace Cathedral Celebrated author of the Tales of the City series in conversation with Reverend Dr. Jane Shaw. Free. 9:30am. 1100 California St. www.gracecathedral.org

Chanticleer @ Bankhead Theater, Livermore Grammy-winning a cappella ensemble performs traditional and contemporary vocal arrangements. $39-$62. 2pm. 2400 First St. (925) 373-6800. www.chanticleer.org

Eco-Sexual Hike @ Redwood Regional Park, Oakland Annie Sprinkle, Beth Stephens and Kim Marks lead a lighthearted hike and tour exploring the sensual aspects of nature appreciation. $25. 1pm-4pm. Canyon Meadow, main entrance, 7867 Redwood Rd., Oakland.

(971) 266-8631. www.AsYouLikeItPDX.com

▼

Out&About >>

May 17-23, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 25

Flight to Mars @ The Independent

(fundraiser for HRC, with Cleve Jones, $15$50. 7:30pm, 429 Castro St.), and take tours of local historic Castro venues, including the GLBT History Museum, 4127 18th St. www.castrotheatre.com

Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, Chronic Illness, Vendetta Red, Hydrophonic and other musicians perform a UFO tribute night at a benefit for CCFA Camp Oasis and Advocacy for Patients with Chronic Illness. $20. 8pm.

628 Divisadero. www.theindependentsf.com

Radically Gay: The Life of Harry Hay @ SF Public Library

Nature @ Castro Country Club

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

Opening reception for a group photography exhibit of nature scenes. 1pm-3pm. Thru June 30. 4058 18th St. www.castrocountryclub.org

Norman Vane @ Martuni’s Cabaret artiste and bon vivant Norman Vane returns with more musical mayhem, with guest Darlene Popovic, Joe Wicht on piano. $7. 7pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market. www. facebook.com/events/327866990618345

SF Hiking Club @ Wildcat Canyon Join GLBT hikers for a 9-mile hike in Wildcat Canyon Regional Park in the East Bay hills. Clear views of San Pablo Reservoir and Tilden Park will be your reward. Lots of spring green and flowers will add to the enjoyment. Bring water, lunch, hat, sunscreen, layers, sturdy boots. Carpool meets at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores, at 9:30am.

(510) 506-2707. www.sfhiking.com

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room

Mon 21 Veronica Klaus @ The Rrazz Room Fab local chanteuse celebrates her new CD release in a concert with the Tammy L. Hall Quartet. $30. 8pm. Also May 22, 8pm.

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

AIDS Memorial Grove cofounder Kile Ozier.

Mon-Fri 11:30am & 10:30pm. Sat & Sun 10:30pm. www.comcasthometown.com

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

Tue 22>>

Sunday Tea with Juanita & Fe @ Wo Hing General Store

Exhibit of prints by the acclaimed 20thcentury photographer. Thru June 30. Tue-Sat 11am-5:30pm. 49 Geary St. 4th fl. 7884641. www.scottnicholsgallery.com

Juanita More teams up with Felix Torricer for a fun unusual afternoon of Dim Sum specialties, rum punch cocktails, dessert specials and DJed music. $variable. 6pm-10pm. 584 Valencia St. at 17th. 552-2510. www.juanitamore.com www.wohinggeneralstore.com

Mon 21>>

Dorothea Lange @ Scott Nichols Gallery

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

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

Out of the Bars and Into the Streets, the LGBT political club’s 36th anniversary celebration, with food, drinks, live and DJed entertainment. $40 and up. 7pm-10pm. 314 11th St. www.milkclub.org www.beatboxsf.com

AIDS Direct Action in San Francisco, 1985–1990, focuses on the AIDS activism photography of Jane Philomen Cleland, Patrick Clifton, Marc Geller, Rick Gerharter and Daniel Nicoletta. Selection of other LGBT historic items also on display. $5. Wed thru Sat & Mon 11am-7pm. Sun 12pm-5pm.

4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Matthew Hines @ Magnet Exhibit of modern mythological imagery.

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

Q Comedy @ Stage Werx Theatre Lisa Geduldig, Matina Bavis, Marie Lake, Bob Macintyre, Pippi Lovestocking, Dana Cory and Natasha Muse do LGBT standup. $8-$20. 8pm. 446 Valencia St at 16th. www.Qcomedy.com

Ten Percent @ Comcast 104 David Perry’s talk show about LGBT people and issues. This week, David interviews Lewis DeSimone, author of The Heart’s Story and chats with creative consultant and

Wed 23>> Choose Paint! Choose Abstraction! @ MOAD Exhibit of abstract art by African American artists. Special lectures and programs thru exhibit run. Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission St. 358-7200. www.moadsf.org

The Dramatics @ The Rrazz Room Smooth soul quartet performs classic songs. $35-$45. 8pm. May 24 & 25, 8pm. May 26, 7pm & 9:30pm. 2-drink min. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (800) 380-3095. www.TheRrazzRoom.com

Harold and Maude, Brewster McCloud @ Castro Theatre Double feature of classic 1970s films starring Bud Cort. $7.50-$10. 429 Castro St. 621-6120. www.castrotheatre.com

Jeremiah Jenkins @ Ever Gold Gallery

Real Talk @ LGBT Center “Are We Allowed to Age?” a panel and audience discussion about gay men and aging, hosted by KPIX-TV former anchor and political editor Hank Plante. Free. 6pm-8pm.

1800 Market St. www.sfaf.org/hiv-info/hottopics/real-talk/are-we-allowed-to-age.html

I Surrender @ Verdi Club

Life & Death in Black & White @ GLBT History Museum

Center Repertory Company’s production of the stage adaptation of the wacky 80s roller disco movie. $40-$47. Tue & Wed 7:30pm.

Thu-Sat 8pm. Sat & Sun 2:30pm. Thru June 23. 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek.

(925) 943-7469. www.CenterREP.org

Shit doesn’t have to be so fucked up, the artist’s collection of ironic collage and sculptural works. Thru June 9. Wed-Sat 1pm-6pm. 441 O’Farrell St. 796-3676. www.evergoldgallery.com

Harvey Milk Club Soiree @ Beatbox

Porchlight Storytelling Series hosts a wacky night of tales about giving in, giving up, letting loose and letting go, with Harold Atkins, Dennis Collinson, Heather Gold, Les Milton and chris Von Sneidern. $15.

8pm.2424 Mariposa St. at Potrero. www.brownpapertickets.com

Xanadu @ Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek

Tue 22 John Irving @ Herbst Theatre City Arts & Lectures presents the bestselling novelist (The World According to Garp and the new bisexual and trans-themed In One Person) in a conversation with KQED’s Michael Krasny. $22-$25.

8pm. 401 Van Ness Ave. 392 4400. www.cityarts.net

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

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

431-HARV. www.harveyssf.com

Harvey Milk Day @ Castro Street See a screening of the Academy Awardwinning film Milk at the Castro Theatre

Saints and Sinners @ Visual Aid 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

Thu 24>> Barfly, Roadhouse @ Castro Theatre Double feature of films set in bars, starring Mickey Rourke (7pm) and Patrick Swayze (9pm). $7.50-$10. 429 Castro St. 621-6120. www.castrotheatre.com

Cindy Sheehan @ Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists’ Hall Local activist discusses her new book, Revolution, A Love Story. $5-$10. Potluck 6:30; talk 7pm. 1924 Cedar at Bonita, Berkeley.

(510) 841-4824. www.bfuu.org

Colla Voce @ ODC Theatre Vocal a cappella ensemble performs a concert benefit for The Family Link (housing for hospitalized patients’ loved ones). $20$25. 7pm. 3153 17th St. at Shotwell. www. thefamilylink.com www.odcdance.org

The Human Form @ Robert Tat Gallery Exhibit of vintage and contemporary photographic prints, including some stunning male and female nudes by James Bidgood, George Platt Lynes, Wilhelm Von Gloeden and others. Tue-Sat 11am-5:30pm. 49 Geary St. #410. 781-1122. www.roberttat.com

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

Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication.

Sun 20 Pansy Division @ Café DuNord The fab fun gay rock band performs favorite queer-themed songs; Swann Danger opens. $12. 21+. 8pm. 2170 Market St. 861-5016. www.cafedunord.com

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

ebar.com

<< Leather+

26 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 17-23, 2012

▼

On the road to IML

by Scott Brogan

B

oth Mr. SF Leather 2012 Jesse Vanciel and Mr. Hayes Valley Leather 2012 Michael Zane had their IML [International Mr. Leather] send-off parties this past weekend. It’s a longstanding tradition that contestants have a party to raise money for a charity, and thank sponsors and others who have helped get them on their way.

One aspect of these send-offs that I enjoy is the diversity of the crowds.

They’re a chance to hang out and reconnect with people I haven’t seen in a while.

Vanciel and Zane are sure to have amazing experiences at IML. I know. It’s been 10 years since I competed and had my own amazing experience. I can’t believe it’s been that long, as it still seems like yesterday.

Competing for anything is what you make of it, that’s for sure. But it’s also the cumulative efforts of many, many people that make it successful for you. Like everyone, I went into it excited, thrilled, and nervous. But any trepidation I may have felt was dashed the first day.

The people who ran IML were incredible. The best way I can explain it is that they run a well-oiled machine. Everything went without a hitch. Communication was clear and concise. If there was any drama it was kept from us. They made us feel welcome and somehow managed to alleviate most of the stress of the weekend. They understood how we felt and what emotions were flowing through our veins. And we felt every conceivable emotion at least once during the process. But even more than that, the overall experience is one of those oncein-a-lifetime events that you never forget.

It stays with you. As contestants, most of us have something that we’re proud of, or some “personal best” from the week-

Scott Brogan

Mr. SF Leather 2012 Jessie Vanciel thanks his supporters at his IML send-off party at the Powerhouse last Saturday night.

end. One of my main goals was to make the top 20 so I could give a speech. I wanted to prove to myself that I could deliver a good speech.

I wasn’t so successful in the speech department at the Mr. SF Leather contest that year. So if I could do that, then I would be happy. Luckily I did, and I was.

So I say to Jessie and Michael: Enjoy yourselves. You’ll have a great time, you’ll make new friends, and you’ll have an amazing experience you’ll never forget. You both have already made us proud.

Leather Pride Marshals announced: The 2012 SF Leather Pride Contingent Leather Marshals were announced at the contingent meeting last Saturday. Sadly, after the votes were tallied, I didn’t

win. I’m bitter. I’m ready to mow down the winners. For the record, the Marshals are Leland Carina and Race Bannon. I mean, sure they’re tireless contributors to our community and have earned the respect and admiration of us all. Whatever.

Seriously, congratulations to you both! You more than deserve the honor and will do us proud as you always do. I know it’s trite to say, “It’s an honor to be nominated,” but it really was, especially when considering the caliber of my fellow nominees. Besides, I don’t think I’ve been nominated for anything since Junior High. Back then I was nominated for “Most Talkative.” I won.

Imagine.

Please note that the Leather Pride Contingent needs wheel monitors.

Be sure to volunteer. The vehicles and floats can’t participate without monitors. Even if you’ve had the trainSee page 27 >>

Coming up in leather and kink Thu., May 17: Koktail Club Happy Hour at Kok Bar (1225 Folsom). Drink specials. 5-10 p.m.

Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Thu., May 17: Underwear Night at The Powerhouse.

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

Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Fri., May 18: Men in Gear Monthly Cruise Night at Kok Bar. Gear up for hot cruising. 10 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Fri., May 18: Edging at The Edge (4149 Collingwood) with Michael Brandon. Demos, shot specials, “sexiest happy trail” contest! 9 p.m.-Midnight.

Go to: www.edgesf.com.

Fri., May 18: Hardbox at The Powerhouse with DJs Guy Rube and Gehno Aviance. Proceeds go to the SF Intergenerational Council. 10 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Fri., May 18: IML Send-Off Party for Mr. Bolt Sacramento 2012 Miguel Rubio at the Bolt (2560 Boxwood, Sacramento). Help send Miguel to International Mr. Leather in style! 9 p.m.-close. Look it up on Facebook.

Fri., May 18: Truck Wash at Truck (1900 Folsom).

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

Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Sat., May 19: 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 19: Beatpig at The Powerhouse with Juanita More! Spinning saucy grooves.

Go to: www.beatpigsf.com.

Sat., May 19: Wild Nights at Kok Bar. Join Frank Wild and Steamworks for this fun night of giveaways and hot men!

Sat., May 19: Stallion Saturdays at Rebel Bar (1760 Market). Revolving DJs, afterhours fun!

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

Sat., May 19: Mama’s Birthday Bash at Beatbox (314 11th St.): Mama turns 70. Charity beer bust, enter-

tainment, and cake! 3-8 p.m.

Go to: www.mamasfamily.org.

Sun., May 20: Sisters’ International AIDS Candlelight Memorial. Vigil begins at Harvey Milk Plaza, Castro & Market St., 8 p.m. Go to: www.candlelightmemorial. org/list/details/12/244.

Sun., May 20: Truck Bust Sundays at Truck. $1 beer bust. 4-8 p.m. Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Sun., May 20: Jockstrap Beer Bust at Kok Bar. Jockstraps: You know the drill! 3-7 p.m.

Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Sun., May 20: Nasty at The Powerhouse. Get nasty and dirty! 10 p.m.-close. Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Mon., May 21: Dominant Discussion Group at the SF Citadel (363 6th St.), 7:30 p.m. Go to: www.sfcitadelorg.

Mon., May 21: Trivia Night with host Casey Ley at Truck. Prizes, insane fun and ridiculous questions!

8 p.m. Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Tue., May 22: Safeword: 12-Step Kink Recovery Group at the SF Citadel. 6:30 p.m. Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Tue., May 22: Creating a Hot Scene with Cleo Dubois at the SF Citadel. 8 p.m. Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Tue., May 22: Ink & Metal at The Powerhouse.

9 p.m.-close. Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Tue., May 22: Kok Block at Kok Bar. Happy hour prices all night. Pool tournament 7-10 p.m., winner gets $25.

Go to: www.kokbarsf.com.

Wed., May 23: Leathermen’s Discussion Group at Mr. S Playspace (385A 8th St.). The Valley of the Kings presented by renowned leather historian Gayle Rubin.

7:30 p.m. Go to: www.sfldg.org.

Wed., May 23: Leather 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 23: Bare Bear, Night at the Baths at The Water Garden (1010 The Alameda, San Jose).

6-10 p.m. Go to: www.thewatergarden.com.

▼

Karrnal >>

May 17-23, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 27

The red & the black

by John F. Karr

L

ast week I wrote about an art exhibit and performance evening that considered the idea that some gay men feel betrayed by transmen. And this week, I consider my own feeling of betrayal.

I read that Phenix Saint, a performer I’ve enjoyed, is leaving porn. He’s fed up with the big complications it’s been causing with his girlfriend.

She wanted reassurance he was only gay for pay. She twittered that Phenix has a daughter he’s not allowed to see because the child’s mother doesn’t condone his career in gay film. Continuing in this scurrilous vein, the MenOfPorn blog reports some fellow models ratted out Phenix to the girlfriend, telling her that Phenix was bi, or that he’s flirty off-camera, or that they think he likes filming gay sex but they don’t think he’d “mess around” with men off camera. Girlfriend thinks he’s in denial about being bi and/or gay.

And then I read that Gavin Waters, a performer I can really get off to, is considering leaving porn. His wife’s going to have their baby, and he may join the Air Force, presumably for the security it represents.

Since when do gay porn stars have girlfriends, wives, and children? Sure, I knew Phenix was trade, but I didn’t know that Gavin, too, was str8, bi, heteroflexible, or whatever gay-forpay is now being called. And I feel betrayed. Not so much by the guys themselves, because porn has always attracted unstable people whose sexual identity was, at the least, fluid. No, I feel betrayed by the gay producers who engage them. Sure, some of the G4P guys come through.

Those are the ones I call bi. But to the others?

Producers should say, “Bye.” Would there be anybody left after that decimated the pool of “gay” performers?

So much for selected short subjects. Let’s get to the feature. It’s Chi Chi LaRue’s Cock Trap. I’ve not been seeing too many of LaRue’s Channel1Releasing movies recently, but was drawn to the cast of this one, which top-bills Riley Price, Cameron Marshall, and Brent Everett, a C1R Exclusive. Just as I expected, they pay off with true star power.

So, for the most part, does young Russ Ryan. Cock Trap is his feature film debut; previously, he’s been an Exclusive at BrentEverett.com.

He gets a star’s build-up in Cock Trap. He’s prominently featured on the box cover, and is the only performer in the film to appear in two scenes. He’s built, he’s attrac-

<<

Channel1Releasing

Is young Russ Ryan a new porn star? Cock Trap is his feature debut.

tive, has a fine cock, and flip-fucks with both his partners. He conveys the movie’s pervasive sultry mode well, but somehow, after enjoying his attributes, I didn’t become a fan.

He’s too poker-faced, and remained a stranger to me (one of Chi Chi’s stars related to me how the director insisted he not smile).

The real star of the movie is its Art Direction, and I apologize for missing the Art Director’s credit. The movie’s set in a sex club where the color scheme is red and black. Absolutely everything is either fire engine red or shiny black, and boy, it looks spiffy.

We’re far, far past the days when the unwritten Code of Butch restricted the sex club palette to black alone. The scheme is carried out even in the clothes.

Black leather vests have red piping; red suspenders clasp black jockstraps (although suspenders as a fashion accessory are pretty gay in my book; since when did a jockstrap need to be held up?). You can even tell who’s who when the guys are locked together, if you’ve previously noted who’s in the black jock and who’s in the red one.

Did you hear me say absolutely everything on the set was red or black? One hot scene takes place in the loo, where the urinal is red (and curiously mounted five feet up the wall). Even the dildo pretty Cameron Adams is twirling around inside

Channel1Releasing

Brett Everett and Riley Price show star power in Cock Trap.

his butt is red.

Cock Trap eschews LaRue’s frequent, forced up-tempo pace, and offers long sequences of slow-simmering, intensely focused kissing, cocksucking and rimming. It’s the fucking that feels rote, not sustaining the taut involvement we felt in its prelude, and reverting to standard default fuck. Except for the Brent Everett bashathon with Riley Price, who is at his sluttiest.

A big surprise is one scene’s oral cum shot. I never expected the Queen of Safer Sex to allow one in his movie. Because, technically, an OCS is not safer sex, though most of us feel it’s Safe Enuf Sex.▼

Leather +

From page 26

ing before, you have to take it again.

That’s the SF Pride organization’s rule, not ours. Don’t ask me why they make us take the same damn class each year instead of issuing a certificate or card that’s good for a few years. Personally, I think it’s stupid, and probably a power trip on their part. We don’t have to go through training classes each year to drive our cars down the streets, so you’d think walking alongside one once a year would be less strict. But it’s not, so we have to endure the classes.

Luckily they’re not very long, and they’re free. The contingent is always in need of extra monitors. It’s a fun way to be a part of the parade. SF Pride hasn’t released a schedule of classes yet. The training schedule will be posted on the Leather Pride Contingent’s website as soon as it’s available: www. sfleather.org.

Mama’s 70th: That’s right! Mama’s turning 70! She’s our very own Betty White. Obviously she’s not 90 like

Scott Brogan

Gary (Marlena) and Mr. Hayes Valley Leather 2012 Michael Zane pose at Zane’s IML send-off party at Marlena’s this past Sunday evening.

Betty, but she’s similar to Betty in that she seems 20 years younger than her real age. Plus, like Betty, she’s out there working for our community with the energy and eagerness of a 20-year-old.

Stop by The Beatbox (314 11th St.) this Sunday to help her celebrate. The event is scheduled for 3-8 p.m. and will feature cake (of course), entertainment, and libations. Don’t miss it!▼

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

28 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 17-23, 2012

▼

Courtesy the artist

X-ray-like images covering stripped walls in This Darkroom’s Gone to Heaven, an installation

by San Francisco-based artist Eric William Carroll at SF Camerawork.

<<

Photography shows From page 17

in a deserted ancient town; young twin girls, standing on a dirt road beneath a stone archway in matching white dresses, wear hoops of fire on their hips; and a girl, kneeling on the leaf-covered ground, embraces a stag with a full rack of antlers. In “Winged Migration,” Chambers aims his camera upward, catching a fleeing barefoot girl as a flock of birds darkens skies overhead. A young girl clad in confirmation white sits bareback on a magnificent Marwari stallion fording a stream; the equine breed’s proud lineage reaches back to 12th century India, when they were considered divine beings. In “Prom Gown #2,” a young girl holding the edges of her flowing orange skirt stands barefoot on the back of a slate gray mare, while in “Prom Gown #3,” a young woman is laid out several feet off the ground on a bare structure of tall sticks like a sacrifice to the gods, as ominous clouds gather on the horizon.

Moved by the metaphysical, transformational properties of Tuscan light during a visit to Italy, Chambers created his newest series, Illuminations. In the dazzling “Lucca Luna,” a girl with pigtails and iridescent lavender party dress leans forward holding a bow and arrow – a female cupid – and a dramatic sunset drenches the stucco buildings of the Italian village square seen in the distance, in peach and violet tones.

Assembling the sacred, the beautiful, the dangerous and the sexual, Chambers provides enough reality to anchor us in the known world, and a sufficient amount of the surreal to

www.ebar.com

carry us far from home and trip the light fantastic. Put away the pocket Freud and drift away on a dream.

Through June 2 at Modernbook gallery.

Info: www.modernbook.com

Natural light Climb a steep flight of stairs to the second floor of an otherwise nondescript downtown building and you’ll discover San Francisco Camerawork’s new home: an urban loft space with open galleries flooded with natural light, freshly painted white walls, refinished wood floors, high ceilings and a bank of large windows overlooking the carnival on Market Street below. Founded 38 years ago by a group of local artists and devoted to supporting emerging local photographers, this nonprofit contemporary photography center, which sponsors classes, discussion forums, artist residencies, publications and exhibitions, celebrated the official public opening of their spiffy 4,000 sq. ft., architecturally designed space in the Mid-Market area last Friday.

Located near 6th St. next to the Luggage Store gallery, they’re down the street from the old Strand Theater, recently purchased by American Conservatory Theater. ACT is one of several arts organizations, along with Black Rock Arts Foundation and the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, who’ve set up shop in this dodgy transitional neighborhood the city hopes will evolve into a revitalized arts district. Whether this grand vision materializes is anyone’s guess. But it’s easily accessible by public transportation, and rents

are lower here than in other parts of San Francisco, factors that contributed to Camerawork’s decision to relocate from their previous location on Mission St. Coinciding with the opening, they’re presenting an exhibition by the 2012 winner of the Baum Award, Eric William Carroll, a San Francisco-based artist who has made the photographic process the subject of much of his work. Emphasizing his explorations of the medium’s history and his manipulation of its technological properties, the show features a sampling of Carroll’s images, like a large format, bluish-fogged negative that recalls color field painting but is actually a souvenir from a sheet of film accidentally exposed to light during a shoot; and a reproduction of a drawing by Henry Fox Talbot, a British inventor who pioneered the calotype, a forerunner of photogravure.

(Talbot went on to invent the first photographic negative in 1835.) The exhibition includes This Darkroom’s Gone to Heaven, an installation that recreates a functional communal darkroom inside the gallery. It’s part of Carroll’s ongoing deconstruction of the form and his meditation on the evanescent, fast-changing nature of photography in the digital age. Entering through a black revolving door, one finds X-ray-like images covering stripped walls, empty spots where it looks as though equipment has been removed, and illumination provided by “safelights.” The overall effect evokes a once-thriving space that has been abandoned. Might old-school photography meet a similar fate?▼ Through June 30.

Info: www.sfcamerawork.org

▼

Read more online at www.ebar.com

May 17-23, 2012 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 29

Theatre>>

Queering La Peña

by Jason Victor Serinus

F

or the first time in its long history, the LGBT-supportive La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley is in the midst of its first multicultural arts collaboration with a queer organization.

The four remaining presentations in the series, which continue through the summer solstice (June 21), have enabled San Francisco’s Queer Cultural Center [Qcc] to bring some of its most dynamic programming to the East Bay. The brainchild of Jeff Jones, who co-founded Qcc 15 years ago, and Paul Chin of La Peña, Qcc @ La Peña! is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, in response to a proposal from Jones.

The programs in the series were chosen in consultation with Pam Peniston, Director of the Qcc and curator of the annual National Queer Arts Festival, which takes place in San Francisco in June.

“It’s been really quite something working with La Peña,” says Peniston.

“They’re so grounded in a global vi-

sion of the arts as social justice, and that’s exactly what we do. And because they want to present high-quality arts programs that address underserved communities, they were more than excited to bring more queer arts to their space.”

Next up at La Peña, on May 18 at 8 p.m., Radar Productions presents Sister(Spit)hood is Powerful! 15 Years of Sister Spit on the Road. A benefit for the Radar LAB, Radar’s annual queercentric writers’ retreat in Mexico, the evening is a celebration of the rambling roadshow in which Michelle Tea continues to bring the spoken word revolution to towns large and small.

Tea, a novelist, poet, and journalist, won the 2000 Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Fiction, a San Francisco Bay Guardian Goldie Award for Literature, and the Rona Jaffe Foundation award for early-career female writers. “The evening is a very exciting and wonderful collection of dyke voices, and represents women of all classes and abilities,” says Peniston. In addition to Tea’s contributions, the evening promises

words and images by Nomy Lam, Tamara-Llosa Sandor, Kat Marie Yoas, MariNaomi, Brontez Purnell, and Texta Queen.

Eight days later, on May 26 at 8 p.m., Qcc at La Peña presents Harlem’s Poetic Rebellion: A Salon for the People. A salon version of the annual San Francisco sell-out event Queer Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance, the evening includes poetry, movement, and music that celebrate Harlem’s queer tradition of dissent, swank (described by Peniston as “the sense of posturing to something completely glamorous and wonderful”), and aesthetics.

Skip to June 16 at 8 p.m., when La Bomberas de la Bahia, the Bay Area’s first and only all-women’s Bomba ensemble, brings Puerto Rico’s oldest African-influenced music and dance tradition to Berkeley. Created by slaves as a form of resistance to the masters who consigned them to labor in the island’s sugar cane plantations, the evening promises to have you on your feet.

If you’re not already over-sated,

Lydia Danille

Musician KB Boyce worked on Qcc’s multicultural arts collaboration.

how about Enrique Urueta’s Sex Tips for Straight Chicks? Scheduled for June 21 at 7:30 p.m., this refreshing change of pace, something that every gay boy and girl needs, is a sneakpreview reading of an edgy new queer comedy of love advice gone wrong.

Presented by the sketch comedy troupe Killing My Lobster, the evening should be a riot.

“Enrique is an amazing poet and playwright,” says Peniston, who has six or seven years of work with Urueta

to back up her claim. “This is probably the most sarcastic, edgy, wacko queer comedy of love advice gone wrong that you’ll ever see. Another of Enrique’s plays, Learn to be Latina, was sold out every night. Even I had to pull strings to get a seat on the floor. This new comedy will have you weeping.”▼ For tickets to Qcc at La Peña, go to www.brownpapertickets.com or call (800) 838-3006.

Books>>

Queen of the night

by Jim Piechota Most Talkative: Stories from the Front Lines of Pop Culture, by Andy Cohen; Henry Holt & Co., $25

A

s the executive vice president of development and talent for TV’s Bravo network and executive producer of the only late-night interactive talk show Watch What Happens Live, Andy Cohen’s plate is full. But there always seems to be enough time remaining in a celebrity’s shelflife to pen a memoir these days.

So, in his book Most Talkative, dedicated to Mom and Madonna, Cohen becomes shamelessly talkative about everything from foul-mouthed “Bravolebrities” to an Oprah Winfrey fixation to Atlanta’s effervescent Dwight Eubanks’ penile implant and fur bikini. He opens (and closes) his chatty autobiographic confection with details about a juvenile and somewhat creepy lifelong obsession with soap opera doyenne Susan Lucci, then me-

<<

Dark Shadows

From page 17

matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Pfeiffer). Depp and Pfeiffer do a superb job at recreating the acting styles of Jonathan Frid and Joan Bennett, who played these roles on the small screen. They’re particularly entertaining when they intentionally mimic the Frid/Bennett habit of staring soulfully off in the direction of the TV teleprompter. Throughout the film, Depp strikes poses that harken back to Frid’s on-camera body language.

Angelique is still around in 1972.

The plot involves her and Barnabas’ love/hate relationship: the pair can’t stand each other, nor can either let the other go. As Angelique, Green is “bewitchingly” sexy. She and Depp create an erotic co-dependent tension as they spar with each other again and again. Burton’s real-life spouse Helena Bonham Carter steals a few scenes as Dr. Julia Hoffman, the hard-boiled, chronically drunk lady doctor who promises Barnabas she can “cure” him.

Visually, Dark Shadows is stunning.

Collinwood is a massive, decaying Gothic labyrinth that makes the Munsters’ house seem cozy in comparison.

Burton’s camera glides through Collinwood’s chilly corridors and secret

anders through a pleasant suburban Jewish childhood in the 1980s writing daily letters to his mother from Camp Nebagamon, courting a love of television, and denying an obvious gayness that everyone (but him) could see while he fraternized with a consistent string of “boy-girl non-romantic bestfriendships” in grade school.

Enrolled in Boston University’s international exchange program, he spent several semesters absorbing the culture of London, working hard with internships at CBS News, succumbing to extreme paranoia of contracting AIDS in the late 1980s, and finally coming out to his parents (Mom had already discovered the Honcho magazine under his bed). Pages of personal photographs decorate and complement Cohen as a silly boy donning hair curlers and as an attractive young man with an enormous, self-described “Jewfro, brushed out to full effect.” He also offers pictures during interviews with Tammy Faye Bakker in Palm Springs,

Ralph Fiennes in the “Bravo Clubhouse,” and knee-deep in the fiery high drama of the Housewives reunion specials.

As the book progresses and Cohen fans have satiated their nagging curiosity about his upbringing and how he managed to get practically naked with Cybill Shepherd (he forgot to wear underwear that day), the pages turn more gossipy and shift their focus to the Top Chef and Real Housewives franchises, of which the author oversees production. Habitual viewers of both the series and the late-night live broadcasts should, by now, be well aware of Cohen’s habit of cocking his head at the camera and of his lazy eye, but what’s genuinely shocking (and admittedly not so shocking in mid-2012) are several of the revelations the author admits

to. For instance, he reveals that, in one season of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, an editing ratio of 85

h hours of footage is recorded ffor every hour used on televvision: the standard average.

N Not so real, after all.

But can true diehard Bravvo fans ever get enough of tthe backbiting, catcalling, b bitch-fighting, name-calling, eexcessively-spending lovely lladies (and lady-boys) of B Beverly Hills, Miami, New Y York, Atlanta, and New Jerssey (and Vancouver and Isrrael, internationally)? Time w will tell, but for Cohen, w who continues to steamroll th through his television career aaspirations with the dedicati tion, resourcefulness, creat ativity, and determination o of Ryan Seacrest, the Emmy an and two Peabody Awards he re recently won surely prove he is just beginning the grand ascent to fame and fortune. Just no more books, please. This one is more than enough.▼

passageways as though it were one of the ghosts who walk its halls. Outside the great house, the TV series’ trademark waves crash against the rocky cliffs beneath Widow’s Hill.

Towards the film’s end, the story loses a bit of steam when it descends into a video game-style battle between Barnabas and Angelique. But overall, Burton’s Dark Shadows is a silly, creepy delight. The director had to walk a fine line in order to please the old-school fans of the TV series and the sizable Burton/Depp fan base. For the most part, he succeeded admirably.

Friday the 13th Sadly, Jonathan Frid didn’t live to see the film released. The actor died on Friday, April 13, at age 87. Shortly before he passed, he and three of his TV co-stars (Kathryn Leigh Scott, Lara Parker, David Selby) appeared briefly in the new film during a party at Collinwood. Classically trained Frid was the reason the film was made – before he was introduced as Barnabas nine months into the TV show’s run, the low-rated show was nearly cancelled. Soon after Frid’s debut, Dark Shadows became one of the most talked-about shows on TV. Frid often said that his favorite role was Shakespeare’s Richard III, and he played Barnabas as though

Peter Mountain, Warner Bros. Pictures

(Top to bottom) Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, Jonny Lee Miller as Roger Collins, and Charlotte Spencer as the love object in Tim Burton’s new film Dark Shadows.

he were playing Richard. Audiences were stunned. Nothing like this character had ever before been seen on a daytime drama. Frid’s portrayal of Barnabas resonated particularly with young, closeted LGBT viewers: they

had to choose their words as carefully as Barnabas did to hide who they were, just as Barnabas had to go to great lengths to hide his vampirism.

Frid lived a long and accomplished life, and lived long enough to see that

his work on Dark Shadows would remain beloved by many. In an ironic way, his cameo in the new film and his passing shortly before its release serve as a passing of the torch. Farewell, Mr. Frid. Safe journey.▼

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

30 • BAY AREA REPORTER • May 17-23, 2012

▼

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Rock history vast array of musicians crossed paths in the 1960s and 70s. Listening to the radio on a typical day, it wouldn’t have been all that surprising for a song by Janis Joplin to be followed by one by mono-monikered Brit hippie folk/psychedelic pop singer/songwriter Donovan (Leitch).

The double-disc comp The Essential Donovan (Columbia/Legacy) lives up to its claim, assembling 36 tracks by the 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. From his acoustic folk roots on “Catch the Wind” and his cover of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “Universal Soldier” to his paisley pop breakouts “Sunshine Superman,” “Season of the Witch,” “Mellow Yellow,” “Wear Your

Love like Heaven,” “Jennifer Juniper,” “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” “Lalena,” and “Atlantis,” Donovan has definitely earned his place in rock history.

The band Mark Lindsay sang in during the mid-to-late 1960s may have been called Paul Revere & The Raiders, but it was the pouty and sexy (in period costume) frontman Lindsay who got most of the attention. Lindsay’s 1970 solo debut album spawned the catchy hit single “Arizona,” one of 24 tracks found on The Complete Columbia Singles (Real Gone/Sony Music). Lindsay’s other considerable hit “Silver Bird” is also included, as well as originals and covers of songs by Jimmy Webb, Bacharach and David, Mann and Weil, Neil Diamond and Tim Hardin, among others.

Nine years before he was a soapopera heartthrob riding high with inescapable hits such as “Jessie’s Girl” and “I’ve Done Everything for You,” Rick Springfield had a hit single with the song “Speak to the Sky,” taken from his newly reissued 1972 solo debut album Beginnings (Real Gone).

It’s a good title for the album because it does sound like someone making a fresh start. It also didn’t hurt that Springfield, with his David Cassidy shag haircut, was adorable, in addition to being a songwriter and performer with promise, one that paid off several years later.

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San Francisco art-rockers The Tubes also had a musical presence in the 1970s and 80s. Bizarre mid-70s cuts such as “What Do You Want from Life?” and “White Punks on Dope” became staples on FM radio, as did the retro-style track “Don’t Touch Me There” and “Slipped My Disco” from 1976’s Young And Rich, reissued on Real Gone/A&M in a double-disc set with 1977’s Now. It would only be a few years later, in 1981, that The Tubes would change record labels and modify their sound, transforming into an arena rock act with mega-hits such as “Talk To Ya Later” and “Sushi Girl.”

While The Tubes held down the art-rock fort on the US’s West Coast in the 70s, the Brit band Japan was doing its part in Europe. Led by Davvid Sylvian, Japan developed a cult following in the States, and are often cited as major influences on the new wave scene that followed in their w wake.

Sylvian himself has h had a productive solo career sspanning some 30 years. The d double-disc set A Victim of SStars: 1982-2012 (Virgin) ccompiles 31 tracks, including ccollaborations with former JJapan-mates Steve Jansen ((Sylvian’s brother) and Richaard Barbieri, Ryuichi Sakam moto and Arto Lindsay. Most rrevealing is the song “Red G Guitar,” which reveals an unexpected Joni Mitchell influence.

Saint Patrick’s Day may have come and gone, but Celtic new age/pop group Clannad makes Irish music to enjoy year round. The Essential Clannad (RCA/Legacy) is a 30-track double-disc collection that covers a 14year period (1983-97), just after lead vocalist Maire Brennan’s sister Enya (remember her?) departed the group.

As it turns out, this was the period during which Clannad had its biggest success, via albums Macalla (featuring the Bono duet “In a Lifetime,” included here), Anam and Banba.

FIREHOSE, the short-lived trio featuring Minutemen Mike Watt and George Hurley (following the sudden death of D Boon), released a pair of full-length albums on Columbia following a series of well-received releases on the highly regarded indie SST label. Both major-label efforts, as well as a live EP and previously unreleased live tracks, can be found on lowFLOWS: The Columbia Anthology (1991-93) (Columbia/Legacy).

One of the hardest rocking acts in hip-hop, N.E.R.D. (Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo and Shae Haley), is joined

by Kelis and others on the 16-track The Best of N.E.R.D. (Virgin). Culling tracks from N.E.R.D.’s first two full-lengths and tossing in a couple of remixes for good measure, this singledisc assortment represents a specific time in the group’s existence.▼

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