October 17, 2013 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter by Bay Area Reporter

Shafer adds TV to radio gig

Small sedans, big comfort

ARTS

Falstaff triumphs

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Vol. 43 • No. 42 • October 17-23, 2013

Immigrant, youth bills signed by gov. by Seth Hemmelgarn

P Jane Philomen Cleland

Several hundred people took to the streets in the Mission district last weekend to protest increasing evictions.

400 protest evictions in Mission by Peter Hernandez

lively blend of Latin percussion and angry rhetoric roared through San Francisco’s Mission district last weekend, where some 400 people assembled in protest amid an escalating housing crisis. Organizers declared a state of emergency due to a record rate of evictions while evictees decried affluent newcomers, largely from Bay Area tech companies. And protesters joined in an uproar, reclaiming the neighborhood amid more frequent evictions. “The tech bubble is going to pop, and the working class is going to take over,” said Jose Luis Pavon, a 35-year-old public health worker and lifelong Mission resident. The parade of dancers, drummers, and protesters commenced at 24th and Hampshire streets and snaked through the cultural corridor of 24th Street, which roughly spans from Potrero to South Van Ness and remains the cultural epicenter of San Francisco’s Mexican-American heritage. While walking through the Mission Saturday, October 12, nearly 20 speakers demanded more racial sensitivity, reformed tenant rights, an end to luxury condo developments in the Mission, and more affordable housing. The assembly stopped in front of the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, which may evict St. Peter’s Bookstore and G.G. Tukuy Indigenous Arts and Crafts in order to bring in higher rent and an upscale restaurant. The church was made an offer of $100,000 by a prospective buyer, said Erick Arguello, founder of the 24th Street Merchants Association. “How dare they talk about evicting when the Bible says we should love and care for one another,” said speaker Brooke Oliver. A spokeswoman at the archdiocese did not return a call seeking comment. See page 12 >>

rotections for people who entered the country illegally but don’t have documentation and for LGBT foster youth are among the bills California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law. Most of the bills are effective January 1. Among the pieces of legislation that Brown approved before the October 13 deadline was Assembly Bill 4, the Transparency and Responsibility Using State Tools Act – more commonly known as the TRUST Act. The bill, authored by gay Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), addresses issues with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s Secure Communities program, widely known as SComm. According to Ammiano, S-Comm was promoted as a way to deport dangerous criminals, but most of the 100,000 Californians forced out of the country through the program didn’t meet that description. “Some were even crime victims, leading members of some communities to avoid reporting crimes for fear of deportation,” a news release from Ammiano said. Carolina Morales is programs co-director at Community United Against Violence, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that’s been critical of S-Comm. She noted the city al-

Rick Gerharter

Lydia Gonzales

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano

Governor Jerry Brown

ready has a similar ordinance. “For people in San Francisco, the TRUST Act is more about continuing to feel like we’re not being punished for just being undocumented,” said Morales in an interview. Allan Martinez, a 47-year-old transgender man who lives in San Francisco but is originally from Mexico, has been afraid to call police for help in the past because of S-Comm. He didn’t report incidents like abuse from his

ex-girlfriend and a little girl who was being mistreated by her parents. Among other fears, Martinez, who doesn’t have legal documentation to be in the United States, said there was “the possibility of being deported.” Martinez spoke to the Bay Area Reporter through Morales, who provided translation. AB 4 prohibits law enforcement officials See page 9 >>

Grooms throw block party wedding

Jane Philomen Cleland

Tom Taylor, left, and Jerry Goldstein embrace at their wedding block party in Noe Valley October 13.

by David-Elijah Nahmod

he street in front of their Noe Valley home was closed and LGBT boldface names were in abundance as Tom Taylor and Jerry Goldstein exchanged vows in front of hundreds of their friends last weekend. The two men, who have been together for 40 years, might be known to locals for their elaborate holiday decorations outside their

21st Street home. Rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker and Dr. Robert Akeley, who were deputized marriage commissioners for the occasion, performed the October 13 ceremony, which took place outside the home Taylor and Goldstein have shared since 1973. Akeley, a founder of Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights, recalled the early days of the gay rights movement, when he, joined by Baker, Taylor, and Goldstein, waged many hard-won battles. “We fought to make this moment happen,” said Baker. Goldstein recalled just how bad things could get in those early days. He explained to the Bay Area Reporter why it was important to the couple that their marriage ceremony be held in the street in front of their home. “[Our ceremony] was a bit grand and in the street where the SFPD stopped Tom Taylor and almost arrested him in 1976 because he allegedly had no right to live with me,” Goldstein said in an email Monday, referring to the San Francisco Police Department. But times have changed. The couple received a plaque from gay state Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). Wedding guests included longtime activist Cleve Jones and out District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener. “I love the idea of a wedding block party,” said Wiener. “It’s a great neighborhood celebration for two guys who are extraordinary

community leaders.” Goldstein and Taylor never thought they’d live to see the day: the longtime HIV survivors were expected to die in 1983. “For reasons inexplicable we are alive and See page 12 >>

B.A.R. election endorsements

General election

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<< Election 2013

2 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

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Gay man runs for Redwood City council seat by David-Elijah Nahmod

fter years of community activism, most recently with the Occupy movement, James (Lee) Han is running for city council in his hometown of Redwood City. He’s the first openly gay candidate in the history of the Peninsula suburb. “I don’t know how I’m doing in the polls,” he said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “I know that I’m dead last in money raised, but you can knock on doors, do mailings, and I’m getting great responses as a candidate.” According to campaign forms, Han has raised just $3,055. There are three seats up for grabs November 5 and six candidates, including two incumbents, running. Han’s parents moved to Redwood City from Korea in 1976. He was born three years later, and came out to his parents at age 16. “It was the mid-1990s, before Ellen and Will and Grace,” he recalled. “My mom’s okay with it now, but my dad still has trouble with it.” Han currently works with his father in property management. “It’s not where I want to be,” he said. His parents, he said, were surprised by his decision to run for office. “We didn’t talk about politics much at home,” he said. “We did talk about global warming, and I had sex-ed courses in school, so there were little pockets of awareness. My parents didn’t think I was political, but they do remember that I was always organizing things, so in that context my candidacy isn’t much of a surprise.” Han, 33, said that he finds organizing on a local level to be particularly gratifying. “We don’t have a big activist community like San

Courtesy Han for City Council campaign

Redwood City council candidate James (Lee) Han

Francisco or Oakland, so one or two people can make a difference. It’s more immediate, it’s more about your local community. It’s not abstract, you can see the results of what you’re doing.” Han said that his sexual orientation has been a non-issue on the campaign trail. “Redwood City has been older, whiter, and needs someone on the council who represents the new energy and diversity,” he said. That diversity includes an emerging LGBT population. “We now have an LGBT night at Backyard Coffee on Brewster Avenue,” he said. “It’s a new thing, and it’s gone over well. I’d like to see more things like that in our community, maybe our own Pride parade. I’d love to make that happen.” Affordable housing and responsible development are a big part of the fledgling candidate’s platform. “Redwood City has always been

diverse in its income levels,” Han said. “We have a high percentage of working class people, but now we’re gentrifying at an extremely fast rate, which puts us in danger of losing our diversity. We’re not doing enough to keep people here.” Han isn’t completely against development, but wants developers to be responsible and to contribute to the community. “Can we handle all the people we’re bringing in?” he wondered. He pointed to increased traffic at the Woodside Avenue exit along Highway 101. The nearby neighborhoods have experienced increased traffic and increased auto emissions. “There’s been a push to build in Redwood City along the freeway, and in flood zones. Isn’t it better to have parks in those areas? There needs to be someone who’ll talk about these issues, there needs to be balance on the council,” he said. Han feels that developers have made money in Redwood City and should share the wealth. “City Hall has lost about 100 positions in the past year,” he said. “City workers are feeling overwhelmed. If there are more people coming in, why isn’t this being reflected in our city services?” he said. “There needs to be more police and more firefighters. Why are we not asking developers to do more for us if they’re going to profit off our community so we can increase city services?” Han is hopeful of an Election Day victory and is greatly enjoying the campaign. “It’s inspiring,” he said. “I did a photo shoot with supporters who were holding signs that had my name on it. It gave me motivation and energy.”t

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October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 3

VOTE bY NOVEmbEr 5

SHow YouR PoweR BY ALwAYS VoTInG! This year, the Supreme Court granted the LGBT community federal marriage rights and granted LGBT people in California the right to marry. This historic event could not have happened without our community being visible and becoming an important voting bloc in the Democratic Party. It is important that we continue to vote in every election. This November 5th, we hope you will join the Alice B Toklas LGBT Democratic Club in supporting these candidates and issues: Support the candidateS who Supported the LGBt community

Re-eLeCT ouR

City Attorney Dennis HerrerA

treAsurer JosÉ Cisneros▼

Assessor–reCorDer CArmen CHu

He fought for our right to marry all the way to the Supreme Court

Innovative Treasurer and proud member of the LGBT community

Granting us marriage licenses within hours of an historic decision

▼ indicates that the candidate is LGBT

LocaL BaLLot meaSureS

YES ProP A: Retiree Health Care Trust Fund. Good policy for our city workers, vote yes.

Now, more than ever, our community must show our strength by voting in every election. With the Voting Rights Act under attack, we need to value our right to vote. Our recent marriage victory at the Supreme Court showed, yet again, that electing Democrats matters! I urge you to Vote November 5! – Supervisor Scott Wiener

YES ProP B: 8 Washington Initiative. Support a waterfront that is true to San Francisco values: accessible to all. Prop. B will create waterfront parks and open spaces and neighborhood housing, while generating hundreds of jobs, $11 million for the creation of affordable housing and millions of dollars more to support city and port infrastructure and services. Yes on B is good for our city! YES ProP C: 8 Washington Referendum. Don’t be fooled by the rhetoric. Vote YES on C and choose progress over the status quo. Support smart urban planning that creates green spaces and housing and generates over $100 million in city benefits. YES ProP D: Prescription Drug Purchasing. Join the coalition for a San Francisco policy for fair drug pricing, vote yes. Paid for by Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club PAC, FPPC #842018.

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<< Open Forum

4 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

Volume 43, Number 42 October 17-23, 2013 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Michael M. Yamashita Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013) Publisher (2003 – 2013) Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman BARTAB EDITOR Jim Provenzano assistant editors Matthew S. Bajko • Seth Hemmelgarn contributing writers Ray Aguilera • Dan Aiello • Tavo Amador Matt Baume • Erin Blackwell • Roger Brigham Scott Brogan • Victoria A. Brownworth Philip Campbell • Heather Cassell Chuck Colbert • Richard Dodds • Coy Ellison Michael Flanagan • Raymond Flournoy Jack Fritscher • David Guarino Peter Hernandez • Liz Highleyman Brandon Judell • John F. Karr • Lisa Keen Matthew Kennedy • T. Scott King David Lamble • Michael McAllister Michael McDonagh • Sal Meza David-Elijah Nahmod • Elliot Owen Paul Parish • James Patterson • Lois Pearlman Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota • Bob Roehr Philip Ruth • Donna Sachet • Adam Sandel Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Jim Stewart • Ronn Vigh Ed Walsh • Sura Wood art direction T. Scott King PRODUCTION/DESIGN Jay Cribas Photographers Danny Buskirk • Jane Philomen Cleland Marques Daniels • Don Eckert Rick Gerharter • Lydia Gonzales Jose Guzman-Colon • Rudy K. Lawidjaja Georg Lester • Dan Lloyd • Jim Provenzano Rich Stadtmiller • Monty Suwannukul Steven Underhill • Bill Wilson illustrators & cartoonists Paul Berge • Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Scott Wazlowski – 415.861.5019 NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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News Editor • news@ebar.com Arts Editor • arts@ebar.com Out & About listings • jim@ebar.com Advertising • scott@ebar.com Letters • letters@ebar.com 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. Advertising rates available upon request. Our list of subscribers and advertisers is confidential and is not sold. The sexual orientation of advertisers, photographers, and writers published herein is neither inferred nor implied. We are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork.

A web of insinuation

ance Williams should be ashamed of himself. The former San Francisco Chronicle reporter was once regarded as a dogged investigative journalist. He and fellow former Chronicle scribe Mark Fainaru-Wada broke the BALCO sports doping scandal wide open several years ago, both with their reporting for the paper and in a well-received 2006 book Game of Shadows that convincingly made the case that former Giants slugger Barry Bonds was using more than flaxseed oil when he shattered baseball’s career home run record. Last week, however, a front page story ran in the Chronicle and was reported for the Center for Investigative Reporting, where Williams now works, that was anything but a deeply reported investigation. Instead, it was a tabloid-ready account about a man that gay Assembly Speaker John Perez (D-Los Angeles) used to date. The headline in the print edition read, “Speaker linked to target of suits.” In the online version, the headline was “Assembly leader dated figure in funeral scandal.” The story purports to “link” Perez with a lawsuit against a man he used to date, Tyler Cassity, proprietor of a boutique Hollywood cemetery called Hollywood Forever and a cemetery in Mill Valley. Cassity is a defendant in a $600 million fraud lawsuit in Missouri, along with several family members. We’re still scratching our heads as to why this was even a news story. We can’t recall similar, sensational treatment given to straight politicians and people they used to date. Mind you, according to Williams, Cassity and Perez did not have a serious relationship – they were not registered domestic partners or married – they simply dated, like thousands of gay and straight people do all the time. Williams’s story states that in July 2011 Perez took Cassity to a Los Angeles party to honor Britain’s Prince William and his wife, Catherine, and later that year, Perez took Cassity on a weeklong junket to Israel, where they met President Shimon Peres and other officials, apparently the crux linking the two men. It’s important to note here – and the story does not reveal this detail until much later – that neither international event was a state visit and that the British and Israeli governments did not

ask for background inforfor Investigative Reporting’s mation about Cassity. Perez apparent zeal in reporting also persuaded Sacramento on a gay politician’s dating political types to donate to habits, especially when that Cassity when he participolitician just announced a pated in an AIDS Life/Cycle run for statewide office, as bike ride. Perez did a day before WilThese are not liams’s story appeared in the links to any Chronicle. Coincidence? We wrongdoing by think not. This was a cheap either man. Casshot to undermine his cansity’s legal probdidacy and cast doubt on his lems will be adqualifications. Perez, who is dressed in court, running for state controller, as they should would be the official who be. He has not oversees the state’s finances. been charged While Williams’s story rests with a crime. The on the multi-million dolRick Gerharter tone of Williams’s Assembly Speaker John Perez lar lawsuit, it’s important article, however, seeks to to note that the legal acpaint Perez as a scandaltion does not involve Perez, tinged politician because he dated someone which would have made the story newsworthy. who was named in a lawsuit. There are plenty of legitimate issues to So what? pursue as Perez begins his campaign. Topics The story would have legs, as we say in the like examining the controller’s office’s perfornews business, if, for example, Perez was inmance and what skills Perez brings to the job. volved in the funeral home operation or if he How will handling the state’s many budget issteered public money to his former boyfriend. sues prepare Perez for statewide office? All of There is no indication either of those things these topics are fair game, as are Perez’s fundhappened. Instead, Perez found himself the raising and other campaign activities. His past subject of a front-page story that hinted at dating life, however, in this case, is irrelevant.t some scandal yet failed to deliver the goods. In fact, according to the story, it’s been a year or more since the two men dated. Yet Williams was able to find a Santa Clara University ethics expert to say that Perez displayed “colossal bad judgment” in the relationship. Really? Because you’re dating someone named in a lawsuit? That doesn’t rise to the level of bad judgment in our book. Of more concern, though, is the Center

What is our story? by Jeffrey Leiphart

wasn’t listening. We realized, “Help is not on the way; we ext week, San Francisco have to save ourselves.” AIDS Foundation and We had to build our own Stop AIDS Project will host service organizations. So a public forum, “What is Our much of the energy and efStory? Perspectives from the fort that had been going into AIDS Generation,” to conbuilding the community was tinue conversations about shifted to building support our community’s needs, prifor the sick and dying. orities, and legacy – and to But there are important help shape the 50-Plus Netlegacies from that time. AIDS work, the foundation’s new provided the perfect storm program for older gay and to allow patients to bisexual men. instruct physiMy own story as a gay man cians on how to in the Castro starts in 1977. do a better job. There was a huge influx of Somebody with Courtesy SFAF gay men from around the Jeffrey Leiphart, Ph.D. Kaposi’s sarcountry who were feeling coma would go discrimination and lack of to the doctor safety for being gay. Once armed with repeople got to San Francisco, it was like, “The search they had gleaned from the shackles are off!” And that wide-open sexuality library; docs weren’t used to that. brought so much energy. You could see it spill Most diseases hit isolated individuals. But out of the bars and parties and start going into when AIDS hit this already organized comcommunity-building. munity, there could be a community response. The late 1970s saw the flourishing of a gay And out of that community response came all bank; all of the tellers and officers were gay, the ACT UP organizations and the challenging and gay people were coming in, giving their of medical and research institutions. gay money to the gay bank. There was the Gay When we did focus groups for the 50-Plus Men’s Chorus, the San Francisco Gay Freedom Network, almost universally, older guys said, Day Marching Band and Twirling Corps, the “We’re not here asking for you to give us help Gay Police Officer’s Association, gay profesbecause we have some kind of pathology and we sional guilds, artistic groups. The community want you to fix us. What we want is to move forwas really starting to mature. ward in a positive way – but none of us individuAnd then I remember reading in the New ally knows how to do that. We’re looking to this York Times in June 1981: “Gay Men Get Cangroup to provide some structure and guidance.” cer.” And slowly I would hear more, and it was There are four components to 50-Plus. The getting closer and closer. I remember thinking, first is processing the transition from youth to “Death is marching toward us.” adult to aging adult. We meet twice a month When people realized how widespread this and focus on specific topics – say, sex. We’ll new illness was becoming, they turned to the ask, “What is the role of sex in your life, and doctors and the government for help. Well, what is its meaning for you – then, and now the doctors had no clue, and the government that you are aging?”

Guys also asked for a social group that’s more meaningful than going to a bar. So we helped them put together a mailing list and a social network. It started off with a bang: Someone posted, “I’ve got 10 free tickets to the Diana Ross concert. First 10 people who say ‘yes’ get to go with me!” The third component is community projects. As older gay men, they have learned a lot about life, and they want to share their wisdom and make a contribution. And the fourth part is about social isolation, which puts people at risk for depression and health problems. We’re training volunteers to reach out to older gay men who are isolated and bring social activities to them or get them out and about. The response so far has been terrific. We’re still developing, but we have about 50 members on the mailing list. One man who came to 50-Plus told us, “I never leave the house, but my friend hammered on me until I finally agreed, just to shut him up. But now I’m glad he dragged me here.” I think today many people who lived through those days are like war veterans; there was such solidarity then, and mobilization, and they’re not finding that anywhere today. There is a conversation today about where the community would be if AIDS hadn’t happened. What if all those people were still alive and had grown into powerful positions?t Jeffrey Leiphart, Ph.D., is director of clinical services at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. To share your own story and your perspective – on where the community would have been, and where you think it should go next – come to the forum Wednesday, October 23 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street. For details and to RSVP, visit http:// www.sfaf.org.

Letters >>

October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

Reopen SF bathhouses

I second Richard Carrazza’s call for the reopening of bathhouses in San Francisco [“It’s time to bring bathhouses back to SF,” Guest Opinion, September 12]. The 1984 ordinance was written at a time of hysteria and ignorance about the cause of HIV. Now we know, and we know how to protect ourselves. The ordinance was written to monitor unprotected anal sex, but now any casual perusal of hook-up sites makes it clear that barebacking is all over the place. If people want to bareback they are going to do it, bathhouse ordinance or not. Besides the safety issues Carrazza raises, bathhouses provide a space for educating the public about the risk factor involved in different sexual practices, and they can offer testing and counseling, thereby decreasing the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. We are not little boys that need to be monitored and patronized. We’ve made it this far in life by taking care of ourselves the best we can, and most of us want to keep on going for a while. Trust us. It’s time to get rid of this anachronistic ordinance. Charlie Hinton San Francisco

Are you crazy?

Endorsing Propositions B and C [“Yes on 8 Washington,” Editorial, October 3]? Either the developer with too much money, Simon Snellgrove, gave you some of it for something or you are afraid you won’t be invited to a cocktail party with Willie Brown and Ed Lee. Either excuse, and those are the only two kind of rational ones, would explain your endorsement of a wall along the waterfront. Daniel Detorie San Francisco

This is what we waited for?

For 30 years we’ve all been waiting to see what would be

done to the location where the former Methodist church on Noe and Market had burned down. Would it be a park? A community center? Perhaps a boutique hotel? A local restaurant? No, it’s ugly overpriced condos and a Bank of the West. How did this happen? Whoever is responsible for this, should be chased out of the city. When was the last time anyone even walked into a bank? Now while sitting at Cafe Flore, instead of a beautiful view of the hills of Eureka, we have a view of a fu#king bank. What’s next? A CVS Pharmacy in the old Tower Records! Oh, right, that’s actually gonna happen. Over in the Portola, residents successfully protested a CVS moving into an old movie theater. Not us, as long as we have enough dildo shops and bars, we’re stoked. Maybe in a few years we can turn the Castro Theatre into a giant Vanguard real estate office. Fu#k you Planning Director John Rahaim. Go to hell, Supervisor Scott Wiener. And thanks for nothing, president of the Castro merchant group Terry Bennett. Shame on all of us for letting this happen to our once special neighborhood. Brett Kaufman San Francisco

[Editor’s note: We’re not sure where Mr. Kaufman has been in recent months, as the Bay Area Reporter, in its print and online editions, has covered this development project for more than a year. In fact, the planning department changed its policy for future projects to ensure that more customer-friendly, non-chain businesses are included in ground floor retail space of various projects. See these links: http://ebar.com/news/article. php?sec=news&article=67808 and http://www.ebar.com/ news/article.php?sec=news&article=68494.]

Correction

In Steven Kyle Weller’s October 10 letter about Michael Petrelis, he stated that Petrelis “stalked” a county supervisor. That was inaccurate, as Petrelis was not charged with stalking during his legal problems stemming from his attempt to photograph Supervisor Scott Wiener in a City Hall men’s room. The online version has been corrected.

TI obstacle race benefits Project Open Hand compiled by Cynthia Laird

unique event happening on Treasure Island next month will not only be fun for participants but also help provide meals to clients of Project Open Hand. The Ultimate Towner Obstacle Course Race is coming to San Francisco Saturday, November 2. Produced by Wyoming-based Grand Dynamics International, the fourmile event features 25 obstacles in two race classes. Entry-level participants can join with friends, family, or co-workers as a team in the Fun class. Uber-athletes can test their grit over eight miles and 50 obstacles in both the Fun and Fast classes. Heats for the Fast class start at 10 a.m., the Fun class starts at noon. Some of the obstacles include climbing over walls, crawling through mud, traversing over balance beams, and much more. The race begins and ends on Treasure Island’s Great Lawn, which will feature a beer garden, local vendors, and live entertainment. Michael Saberman, head of west coast sales and events for Grand Dynamics, told the Bay Area Reporter that this is the first time they’ve done an event in San Francisco. The theme of the race, he said, is “Overcome Your Obstacles.” And the Treasure Island setting will offer great views of the city and the new Bay Bridge. Saberman said that they expect to have 3,000 participants and more spectators. They are looking to make the obstacle course an annual event. Project Open Hand, which provides meals and groceries to people who are critically ill, will receive $5 from every registration. Registration for adults is $69 (Fun class) and $89 (Fast class). For chil-

Courtesy Grand Dynamics International

Participants crawled through mud at an Ultimate Towner Obstacle Course Race in Jackson, Wyoming in April.

dren 12 and under the cost is $49. Spectators can purchase tickets for $10. Saberman said that he is offering a $20 per registrant discount to the Castro community. The discount can be found at www.ultimatetowner. com, use the code CASTRO20 when registering.

AEF cancels holiday dinner for PWAs

The AIDS Emergency Fund’s annual free Christmas Eve dinner for people living with HIV/AIDS has been canceled this year, after agency officials were unable to secure a venue. The usual site of the dinner, the War Memorial Building, is now closed for a two-year renovation. Attended by more than 1,100 people in three seatings, the all-day event had featured a lavish dinner of turkey with all the trimmings and entertainment by some of San Francisco’s most popular performers, said AEF Executive Director Mike Smith.

“We’ve been looking at dozens of options since May, but there are so few low-cost venues that can accommodate so many people on Christmas Eve,” Neil Figurelli, head of the all-volunteer committee that puts on the event, said in a statement. Smith said that with entirely donated food and labor the dinner can be produced for about $10,000. “A hotel venue would cost 10 times that, and church spaces are being used that day for services or don’t have big enough kitchens for prep,” Smith said. The mostly low-income or homeless attendees arrive on foot or by public transit, so an alternative would need to be near the Tenderloin or along the Market-Van Ness corridors. “We never knew what a community treasure the War Memorial Green Room was until we lost it,” Smith added. The War Memorial building is not scheduled to re-open until early See page 8 >>

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<< Politics

t Peninsula LGBTs seek greater political influence 6 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

by Matthew S. Bajko

GBT residents of cities south of San Francisco are seeking greater political influence in their backyards. Despite having had out elected officials (as well as those living in glass closets) in various capacities since the mid-1980s, the Peninsula’s LGBT community has not been as politically organized as its neighbors to the north in San Francisco or south in San Jose. That began to change earlier this year with the creation of the Peninsula Stonewall Democrats, a political club for LGBT people and their straight allies. Eight months after its first meeting, the group has 22 dues-paying members and an inaugural list of 16 endorsed candidates seeking local offices this November. “Politically, as candidates go and the party goes, everybody is excited about what we are doing. We have that support and that is pretty exciting,” said Redwood City resident Jeffrey Adair, who co-founded and

chairs the club and is the southern vice chair for the San Mateo County Democratic Central Committee. The Peninsula is primarily comprised of San Mateo County and includes the northern section of Santa Clara County. There are currently four out elected leaders: gay Assemblyman Rich Gordon (D-Menlo Park), a former San Mateo County supervisor who represents parts of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties in the state Legislature; longtime lesbian San Mateo County Board of Education member Rhonda Ceccato; and San Mateo County Harbor Commissioners Robert Bernardo and Sabrina Brennan. “I think the great big significance is we need to get more gay people running for political office in San Mateo County, that is what it means,” Bernardo replied when asked about the importance of his election in July as the first openly gay president of the harbor commission. “There aren’t that many LGBT candidates is the thing.” Bernardo is a member of the new

Courtesy Gavin Escolar

Brisbane City Council candidate Gavin Escolar

Stonewall club, and both he and Gordon plan to address the members at their November meeting. The club’s formation is “fantastic,” he said, and hopefully can spur other LGBT people to pursue elective office on the Peninsula. “It can help foster LGBT leadership on the Peninsula and really harness

our collective strength. That is the greatest benefit I see,” said Bernardo. Three gay men are seeking election next month to seats on city councils in their hometowns. None, however, qualify to be an endorsee of the Stonewall club. Redwood City native and community advocate James (Lee) Han is one of six people running for three seats up for grabs on the seven-person city council. (See story, page 2.) Since he is not a Democrat, Han is ineligible from being endorsed by the Stonewall club. San Carlos City Council candidate Michael Corral, a gay man who is one of six people vying for three seats, is a registered Republican and also unable to seek the club’s backing since it can only endorse Democrats even in nonpartisan races. In Brisbane, where he has lived for four years, artist Gavin Escolar is one of four candidates running for three seats on the five-member city council. He is a registered independent. “I know I can create an impact on a small city like Brisbane,” said Escolar, 38, who was born in the Philippines and migrated to the U.S. with his mom after his parents separated in his youth. “I am not bad mouth-

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Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http:// www.ebar.com Monday mornings at noon for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion. This week’s column reported on the first meeting the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club held west of Twin Peaks. Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes. Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 8615019 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.

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ing the current city council, but it is the same old people. If I want change, I have to do it myself.” After earning a degree in business economics from UC Santa Cruz, Escolar worked in various positions that took him first to Boston and then to Asia, eventually devoting his time to building up his own fine jewelry business. “I put my passion into artistry,” he said. “I do a lot of same-sex wedding jewelry and custom pieces.” He hopes to bring his business acumen and international experience to Brisbane, which the real estate website Trulia last year suggested as a cheaper alternative for LGBT people priced out of the Castro. But as the Bay Area Reporter noted in an article at the time, the town of nearly 4,400 residents at the foot of San Bruno Mountain has few LGBT residents. Nonetheless, several gay male townspeople described it as being very gay-friendly and having elected out council members in the past. Escolar said he has met a few gay and lesbian neighbors, mostly couples who like to “stay at home,” since he relocated there. Running against two male incumbents and a female attorney with strong community ties, Escolar is the underdog in the race. This is his first bid for political office, and if he doesn’t win a council seat, he has pledged to remain civically engaged. “I don’t see myself as a politician. I just see myself as a representative of the people,” Escolar said. “I am very committed to the city of Brisbane. Even if I don’t win this upcoming election I need to get my name out there to run in two years.” Bernardo told the B.A.R. that none of the gay candidates had asked for his endorsement. He volunteered that he is willing to help mentor any LGBT people who want to seek political office. “The most important piece for people who are interested in politics is to learn the tools and skills to run,” he said. The Peninsula Stonewall Democrats is also eager to see more LGBT people seek public office. In addition to transgender and education issues, the club highlights on its website that a main goal is to “find, promote, support, and elect LGBT candidates and our straight allies on the Peninsula at all levels of elected office.” To learn more about Escolar’s candidacy, visit http://www.gavinforcitycouncil.com/. For more information about the Stonewall club, visit http://www. penstonedem.com/.t

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Online content this week includes the Bay Area Reporter’s online column, Political Notes; the Jock Talk, Out in the World, and Transmissions columns; this week’s LGBT History Month story; a story on the recent infectious disease confab; a story on a recent symposium on the Prop 8 and DOMA cases; and more News Briefs. www.ebar.com.

October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 7

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<< Community News

8 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

KQED debuts new show with gay news anchor by Matthew S. Bajko

ongtime KQED News radio reporter and host Scott Shafer is coming out from behind the microphone to serve as the senior correspondent of a new weekly television news program. Called KQED Newsroom, the news and public affairs show hosted by well-known local TV journalist Thuy Vu debuts Friday, October 18 on KQED Public Television 9. It is a reincarnation of the long-running This Week In Northern California hosted by Belva Davis that went off the air when the groundbreaking journalist retired last November. Shafer, 55, will continue to host and report for The California Report that airs weekdays on KQED Public Radio 88.5 FM in the Bay Area and on stations throughout the state. “I am the first employee in KQED history to be assigned to more than one platform,” said Shafer. His new assignment will also

make the gay San Francisco resident one of the most visible out journalists on local television. “I have been doing a little television in the past few years. I would appear on Belva’s show as a guest host. I would go to the gym and – not a lot of people but occasionally – people would recognize me,” said Shafer, honored in 2004 as Journalist of the Year by the Northern California chapter of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. “Radio is very anonymous.” In 1981 Shafer relocated west from Buffalo, New York and worked for several Bay Area radio stations. From 1988 to 1992, he served as press secretary for former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos and later as chief of staff to then-state Controller Gray Davis. He eventually made his way back to journalism, joining KQED radio in 1998. In the 1990s Shafer served on the board of the LGBT Community Center as its president prior to

its construction. He is a longtime member and former president of the gay Tsunami water polo team, where he met his partner of 12 years, John Ignacio Kennedy. The couple married back in 2004 when same-sex marriages were briefly allowed in San Francisco; although that marriage was later voided by the state Supreme Court they have yet to remarry. He had a front row seat for the lengthy fight over marriage equality in California as he covered the multiple lawsuits and electoral battles for the radio station. Earlier this year he flew to Washington, D.C. to report on the oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in two federal marriage lawsuits. “I am so lucky to work for a news organization willing to assign me to cover those things in depth,” said Shafer. The revamped TV show will continue to be 30 minutes and maintain This Week’s local journalist round-

14 one and two-bedroom “Below Market Rate” rental units available: Venn, 1844 Market Street, San Francisco 14 below market rate (BMR) units available in this new 113 unit building. All 14 BMR units will rent and qualify at 55% of Area Median Income. Renter households must earn no more than the income levels listed below: A one person household can make no more than $38,950 A two person household can make no more than $44,500 A three person household can make no more than $50,100 14four one and two-bedroom “Below rental units$55,650 available: A person household can Market make Rate” no more than Venn, 1844 Market Street, San Francisco A five person household can make no more than $60,100

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table. But it will also feature conversations with other experts and newsmakers. There will also be feature stories covering various topics and an interview segment conducted either by Vu or Shafer. “We are packing a lot into this,” Shafer said of the new program. “Nowadays people expect things to move along. By having three or four segments in a half-hour show will make the show feel like it moves more quickly.” Those who have known and worked with Shafer praised his being hired to launch the new program. “Scott Shafer is a magnificent choice for KQED’s new news show because he has a ‘Peace Corps heart and linebacker eyes.’ That means he brings the idealism and deep com-

mitment to public service reflected in the peace corps as well the capacity of a tough linebacker on a football team who must comprehensively cover the entire field to his newest top assignment,” Agnos, who was traveling out of the country this week, wrote in an emailed reply. Former San Francisco Chronicle reporter Rachel Gordon, an out lesbian who now is the spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Public Works, has known Shafer since he worked for Agnos. She said his new position is “well deserved” as Shafer is well versed in California issues as well as local politics. “He has a firm grasp of things and is just a nice guy,” said Gordon, who was a frequent guest on Davis’s show. “He is funny and charming, nice to be around, and easy to talk to.”t

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2015, so negotiations are under way to hold the December 24, 2014 event at the nearby Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, which was unavailable this year. The dinner would return to its original home in 2015. “We’ve come to realize that an event of this nature needs to be in a city-owned facility that is welcoming to our hard-to-serve population,” Figurelli explained.

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*+"#$+(#"/&'",&+$-)(&()%$(#2$#+"%@&A#%#$&BBB@%7C*+-2,@+(/&7+(&=(+/('*&#"7+(*'$#+"@ & Community Units are monitored through the San Francisco Mayor’s Office3 of Housing and D+%$&<+$$)(4&2(),#$E&()"$'<&-#%$+(4E&2(#*#"'<&>'2F/(+.",&'",&',,#$#+"'<&#"2+*)&;)(#7#2'$#+"&B#<<&$'F)&=<'2)@&G+$$)(4&B#"")(%&B#<<&>)& Development and are subject to monitoring and other restrictions. Visit www.sf-mohcd.org 2+"$'2$),&#"&('"F&+(,)(&7+(&7.($-)(&=(+2)%%#"/&'",&*+;)C#"&'==(+;'<@& for program information. Post lottery credit, rental history, criminal background and additional HDDGI9HJI6K0&:!L&MN&O&D3&+"&K+;)*>)(&PP$-E&QRPS@&D+%$*'(F),&'==<#2'$#+"%&$-'$&'((#;)&'7$)(&$-)&,)',<#")&B#<<&>)&2+"%#,)(),& income verification will take place. <'$)&'",&K6J&)<#/#><)&7+(&$-)&<+$$)(4@& Lottery winners will be conbtacted in rack order for further processing and move-in approval. & !"#$%&'(')*&$"+(",%$($%$-)$".+/0$%1"*%$"2%'3*%'/4".+51$.+/01"0'12/*)$0"'-"6$0$7$/+23$-&",%+8$)&"9%$*1"05%'-:"&.$";<=>?1"*-0";<@>A1B"C5&"3*4" */1+"'-)/50$"+&.$%"2$%1+-1"0'12/*)$0"C4"9:$-)4"*)&'+-D""#+-&*)&"E;FG@>;GF=;H"(+%"3+%$"'-(+%3*&'+-"

" " & APPLICATIONS DUE BY 5PM on November 11th, """ 2013. Postmarked applications that arrive after the deadline will be considered late and NOT eligible for the lottery.

*Certificate of preference holders are primarily households displaced in Redevelopment Project Areas during the 1960’s and 1970’s, but may also include otther persons displaced by Agency action. Contact 415-701-5613 for more information.

The San Francisco Healthcare Reform Task Force is holding three information fairs to help people living with HIV understand their options under the new Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Certified enrollment workers and benefits counselors will be available. The information fairs will guide consumers with an overview of health care reform and practical information about eligibility. The first information fair will be held Monday, October 21 at Project Open Hand, 730 Polk Street, in

the grocery center (second floor). The other information fairs will be held Monday, November 18 at the Bayview Hunters Point YMCA, 1601 Lane Street; and Monday, December 9 at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, 1035 Market Street. All the fairs take place from 2 to 4 p.m. Organizers said that to get the most out of the forums, people should consider the following questions before they attend: Where do you receive care? Who currently pays for your medication? Are you on the AIDS Drug Assistance Program? Do you have insurance? What is your income?

Bad glamour shots for a good cause

Get your Aquanet and Spandex out for a glittery evening of bad glamour shots, 1980s hits, and the best dance music today for an evening benefit Saturday, October 19 at New Parish, 579 18th Street in Oakland. The 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. party benefits Our Space, a queer and trans youth center in Hayward. DJs Val G, Trinity, Motive, and See page 10 >>

t <<

From the Cover>>

Bills signed

From page 1

from detaining someone on an ICE hold after he becomes eligible for release from custody, unless that person’s been convicted of a serious or violent felony such as murder or rape. “This bill caps a great year for California’s immigrant communities,” Ammiano stated. “With the TRUST Act, Governor Brown is recognizing the importance of immigrants to the economy, culture and vitality of the entire state. I look forward to the nation as a whole adopting this stance.” Another Ammiano-authored bill that Brown signed into law is AB 868, which is meant to help LGBT youth who find themselves in the foster care system. The bill requires the training necessary for court employees who work with LGBT youth to understand their experiences in the judicial system. It also requires cultural competency and sensitivity training related to providing adequate care for LGBT youth in the child welfare system. Sherrie Wise, 52, said in an interview that the law would be helpful to people like her. Wise, who’s straight, is a court-appointed special advocate in Sacramento County. In recent years, she’s worked with a 15-year-old transgender girl who’s transitioning. Wise had been through a onenight class that included training related to LGBT youth in foster care, but she felt it didn’t adequately equip her for communicating with the girl. The girl had been rejected by her grandparents, and had been suspended from school for fighting. among other problems. “Here she’s already been kicked around since she was little, and now she has so many obstacles. I don’t want to add to the problem. ... It was like walking in the dark,” said Wise. Scott, 38, the gay man who’s in the process of adopting the girl, said the new law should cut down on the time it takes for children and care workers to get oriented with each other and increase trust. Scott, who lives in a Sacramento suburb, didn’t want his last name published for fear of jeopardizing the adoption process. AB 868 isn’t the only Ammiano bill addressing the needs of youth. AB 652, which the governor also approved, takes on the reporting of child abuse and neglect as they relate to homeless youth. Teachers and other mandated reporters are required to report cases of known or suspected child abuse. AB 652 says that the condition of homelessness alone isn’t a basis for reporting abuse or neglect. “This is important, because teens were staying away from shelters, health care and schools because they feared they would be reported to law enforcement or child welfare,” a news release from Ammiano said. The bill doesn’t prevent reporting instances where there’s reason to believe a child has been a victim of neglect or abuse. Brown also signed into law AB 256, which was authored by Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens). The bill updates state anti-bullying law to allow school superintendents and principals to discipline students who use computers, smartphones, or social media to harass or threaten others on or off campus. Another bill related to youth that Brown signed was gay state Senator Mark Leno’s (D-San Francisco) Senate Bill 274, which is meant to protect children who have more than two legal parents. The law allows courts to recognize the rights and responsibilities of each parent if recognizing only two parents would be detrimental to the child. “It is critical that judges have the ability to recognize the roles of

all parents so that no child has to endure separation from one of the adults he or she has always known as a parent,” Leno said in a statement.

Marriage, infertility

Brown also signed AB 362, which is meant to provide tax fairness for same-sex couples. The law, authored by Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) exempts from state income tax until 2019 any incremental increases in salary workers receive to compensate for additional federal income taxes that are incurred by the employee on employer-provided health-care benefits because, for federal income tax purposes, the same-sex spouse or domestic partner of the employee is not considered the spouse of the employee. Ting’s bill follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings in June that killed California’s same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8, and struck down a key section of the anti-gay federal Defense of Marriage Act. California already exempts from state income tax calculations the value of health benefits that employers provide employees’ samesex partners and their children. “This new law is the first of its kind to ensure that all couples are taxed equally by the state, regardless of who they love,” Ting said in a statement. “It also provides samesex couples a window of time to transition to marriage, which shows California’s commitment to fairness for its lesbian, gay and bisexual residents in spite of continued federal discrimination.” AB 362 went into effect October 1. Ammiano also authored AB 460, another bill that Brown signed. The bill guarantees non-discrimination in the provision of infertility coverage under medical insurance. Under current law, when infertility coverage is purchased, it’s subject to non-discrimination in insurance laws. However, some individuals and couples have been denied coverage because they’re not heterosexual married couples, according to Ammiano’s office. Brown also signed AB 1121, from lesbian Assemblywoman Toni Atkins (D-San Diego). The law simplifies the processes people have to go through to legally change their name and gender. Anti-trans activists are trying to overturn a different transgenderrelated bill that Brown signed into law. Ammiano’s AB 1266 aims to make sure that transgender youth can fully participate in all school activities, sports teams, programs, and facilities that match their gender identity. Activists have until November 10 to submit at least 504,760 valid signatures to put their attempt to repeal AB 1266 on the state ballot next year. Other bills that Brown signed include AB 446, by former Assemblywoman Holly Mitchell (D-Culver City), which is related to expanding HIV testing; AB 506, which is also by Mitchell and provides social workers with additional authority to consent to HIV testing for infants under certain circumstances; and AB 663, by Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles), which addresses cultural competency and sensitivity training in LGBT aging issues for adult residential care facility administrators. (Mitchell is now a state senator.)

HIV/AIDS

Brown also acted on a couple of other HIV-related bills. He signed Leno’s AB 249, which aims to help people who are living with HIV, especially those in programs funded by the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act, coordinate care as they transition to new coverage under federal health care reform. The bill also ensures the privacy of all HIV blood tests. However, the governor vetoed

October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 9

AB 999, authored by Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Oakland). The bill would have required the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to develop a plan to expand the availability of condoms to all state prisons. In his veto message, Brown said, “The department currently allows family visitors to bring condoms for the purpose of the family overnight visitation program. While expansion of the program may be warranted, the department should evaluate and implement this expansion carefully and within its existing authority.” AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which is based in Los Angeles, criticized the governor’s decision. “We are extremely disappointed that Governor Brown vetoed AB 999, a fairly prudent health measure intended to protect inmates as well as their post-incarceration partners – often, wives and girlfriends – from possible transmission of HIV and other STDs,” stated AHF President Michael Weinstein. Other bills that Brown vetoed included two LGBT-related proposals by Assemblyman Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento). Pan’s AB 1208 would have added voluntary questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to the application Californians complete for insurance affordability. In his veto message, Brown said, in part, that the changes didn’t need to be mandated. AB 411 would have required all Medi-Cal managed care plans to analyze performance data by, when it was available, sexual orientation and gender identity, among other characteristics. Brown said in his veto message that if the state’s Department of Health Care Services “sees a need or benefit that justifies the costs of procuring this additional data, I am confident that they will procure it.” In a statement to the B.A.R., Pan responded to Brown’s vetoes by saying, in part, “As a physician, I know how important it is to identify and understand the causes of these disparities. I was disappointed that the governor decided to veto bills that would have provided a clearer picture of these disparities in California, and which I authored because such actions are not being taken administratively. ... I look forward to working with the administration to reduce health disparities for communities, such as LGBT Californians, that have suffered because we do not have sufficient data to guide efforts to address their specific health care challenges.” One state LGBT community leader indicated this year’s legislative successes weren’t necessarily partisan. The statewide LGBT lobbying group Equality California backed several bills that Brown signed into law this year. In a phone interview, John O’Connor, the group’s executive director, said having a Democratic governor and Democratic majorities in the Legislature has been “very important, and not necessarily because of party affiliation,” but because of the “alignment with the values of equality. I would be reluctant to characterize our success as partisan.” He added, “Some Republicans have voted with us some of the time.”

Resolution on anti-gay Russian policy

Last month, the Senate passed Leno’s Senate Resolution 18 by a vote of 29-1. The nonbinding resolution, which didn’t need Brown’s signature, urges the state’s pension funds to halt future investments in Russia due to the nation’s anti-gay laws. SR 18 is aimed at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the state’s two largest pension funds.t

My passions haven’t changed.

I just have more time for them. Pottery artist and community volunteer, Richard Williams has more time now; time to create and enjoy his friends. Freed from life’s chores like cleaning and cooking which are provided by The Sequoias, he invests his time in his real love, throwing pottery. Call us to learn more and how to manage future health care costs. Be passionate!

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BARtab’s Fourth Annual Lit Crawl Reading Writers share what happens when their fictional familiars get flushed.

October 19 • 6pm MARTUNI’S, 4 Valencia Street www.LITQUAKE.org

<< News Briefs

10 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

1788 Clay Street at Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco

News Briefs

From page 8

Becky Knox will spin dance hits while photographers will take the best soft focus, bad glam shots. The event is being produced with an inaugural $5,000 grant awarded by Horizons Foundation’s Young Professionals for Equality program, which engages young people 35 and under to become donors of Our Space. Tickets are $7 in advance or $10 at the door. Proceeds will go to fund internship positions in Our Space’s youth leadership program. For more information, visit http://tinyurl.com/kdyxmsg.

OFC town halls in SF, Oakland

Our Family Coalition is holding town hall forums in San Francisco and Oakland to look at ways families and educators can create a positive climate in elementary schools. The first session will take place Thursday, October 24 at Buena Vista Horace Mann Elementary School, 3351 23rd Street in San Francisco. Next month in Oakland, the forum will be held Thursday, November 7 at Emerson Elementary School, 4803 Lawton Avenue. Both meetings take place from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Subjects that will be discussed include how do families and educators organize in more intersectional ways, considering race, gender, ability, language, class, culture, and sexual identity, to make schools more inclusive of all families? Attendees will also look at the connection between school climate and academic achievement and how to create environments where all children can thrive, including the LGBTQ community. The evening includes dinner for families and activities for children to participate in while the adults engage with speakers and each other. There will also be community part-

ner resource tables and screening of new films that can be used to promote change at your school. For more information, visit http://www.ourfamily.org.

Condom couture coming to SF

Project Inform’s annual benefit, Evening of Hope – A Night of Lifesaving Fashion, will take place Saturday, October 26 from 6 p.m. to midnight at City View Metreon, 135 4th Street in San Francisco. Organizers said that they would also like to call this year’s event “Evening of Cool” because Heklina, a.k.a. Stefan Grygelko, will be sprinkling her glamour around as the emcee. The fun continues as 16 fashion designers show their looks on the runway. Each piece contains condoms – there will be about 25,000 of them in this year’s creations. Cocktails, great food, a live auction, and an after-party round out the evening. Tickets are $200 general admission or $250 for the VIP package. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit http://www. projectinform.org.

2014 window slots available

There are still a few remaining slots for nonprofits to advertise their services for free in the windows of the Walgreens at 18th and Castro streets and California Check Cashing at Market and 16th Street. Paul Margolis, who handles the reservations, encouraged nonprofit agencies to apply for the two-week time slots. Interested groups should submit their contact name and phone number, along with dates of their major fundraisers. Applications should be emailed to otsanfran@gmail.com. Additionally, Margolis is now managing the new www. ourtownsf,org site, which includes a calendar of San Francisco LGBT nonprofit fundraising events as well as a listing of local groups.t

October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 11

<< From the Cover

12 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

DOMA IS DEAD! PETITION FOR YOUR PARTNER The Supreme Court decision to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act now opens the door for members of samesex couples to sponsor their foreighn-born partners for green cards. With Proposition 8 overturned as well, making all samesex marriages in California legal, this path is available to all multi-national California same-sex couples. For more information contact office of California Bar Certified Immigration and Naturalization Specialist Love Macione, Senior Immigration Counsel at Schein & Cai, LLP.

To schedule a consultation contact Bobby at (415) 360-2505 or by email at bsmith@sacattorneys.com Offices in San Francisco and San Jose. Visit our website at

www.myimmigrationlaywers.com You can also visit us on Facebok: Schein and Cai, LLP

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And in front of a new eatery at 23rd and Bryant called Local’s Corner, Sandy Cuadra, 48, recounted an episode of discrimination that occurred on Cesar Chavez Day. She and her family of five were allegedly told they couldn’t be accommodated though there were many open seats. Yaron Milgrom, who owns upscale eateries Local’s Corner and Local: Mission Eatery, met with Cuadra to apologize for the incident; he still has not publicly stated a reason for refusing service.

Rising evictions

Gloria Vasquez, a Mission homeowner since 1990, has seen friends harassed out of their homes by landlords eager to profit from the recent boom. She often receives mail from real estate agents offering four to five times the original price of the building. “Since the new people are already here – our upscale neighbors – we need to come to the table to help balance what they love about this neighborhood and to keep it here,” Vasquez said. The beloved elements of the Mission – the Latin drums, Spanish protest mantras, and mariachi trumpets – sonorously reflected off the clean facades of new businesses that have replaced Latino businesses along the 24th Street corridor. “The dynamism and eclecticism due to the mix of people are being gentrified and homogenized, undermining what makes this neighborhood attractive,” said Rafael

Mandelman, a gay lawyer and City College trustee. Mandelman lives at 24th and Valencia streets, which has seen an influx of trendy new businesses in the past two years. The Ellis Act, a state law that bypasses the 14 just causes for evicting unwanted tenants in San Francisco, essentially states that the owner is “going out of business,” opening the property for purchase. Since August, there were 228 units evicted under the Ellis Act in the past calendar year, compared to 125 the year prior, according to the San Francisco Rent Board. “Behind every nasty eviction is a greedy Realtor,” said bisexual former Supervisor Christina Olague, speaking on 24th Street. Rene Yanez, who brought Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) to San Francisco in 1972 by establishing the November 2 parade and exhibiting Frida Kahlo before SFMOMA, was threatened with an Ellis Act eviction this year. He and his wife, who are in their 70s, are both diagnosed with cancer and have applied for a one-year postponement of their eviction due to their disability. “I see them everyday, the hordes of iPad and iPhone texting zombies, oblivious to us and our lives, our inspirations and tribulations,” wrote Yanez’s friend, Guillermo GomezPena, in an open letter on his blog. “I see them in my building and on the street, invading the city with an attitude of unchecked entitlement, taking over every square inch and squeezing out the last drops of otherness.”

Kevin Jaksik, a founding employee of ParkMe, recorded the protest with his iPhone from the sidewalk. The 26-year-old entrepreneur had purchased a hedge fund two days prior and was preparing for an 18-month trip around the world in January. He sees the prevalence of affluence in other terms. “We live in a capitalistic society. The higher of a demand on an area, the higher the prices. I want to keep people happy – we all have an equal right to live and work here,” Jaksik said. “But it’s also fair that some people want to move in because of the culture, food, diversity, and lack of classism.” Regarding the protest, Jaksik added that Mission newcomers “might be charmed by what’s happening here.” Gay Supervisor David Campos, who lives in Bernal Heights and represents the Mission, said that a comprehensive report on evictions citywide would soon be available. He is also drafting legislation that would protect tenants from harassment by landlords, which he said will be introduced within a month. District 11 Supervisor John Avalos denounced new luxury condo developments, which have sprouted mostly near the Castro district along Market Street. “The only way we’re going to get out of this eviction and gentrification epidemic is to have demonstrations like this, bigger and bigger,” Avalos said on stage. “I’m so sick at heart to see luxury housing developments. There should be a call across the city. No luxury rate housing.”t

Steven Underhill

21st Street was full of people who attended the block party wedding of Tom Taylor and Jerry Goldstein last weekend in Noe Valley.

TERRY MURPHY 760-832-3758

Evictions

From page 1

Block party wedding

From page 1

well and giving what we can to productive projects in the community,” said Goldstein. Goldstein, 72, and Taylor, 70, spoke of their intent to be cremated when their times come. They plan to have their ashes placed together in a single urn, where they will rest together in the San Francisco Columbarium. The wedding was a grand affair. Comedian Bruce Vilanch, who served as host, kibitzed with the crowd as everyone celebrated the joyous occasion. “The oldest standing structure in San Francisco Bay is the relationship between Tom and Jerry,” quipped Vilanch. Cabaret artist Sharon McNight

sang a lovely rendition of Dan Hill’s romantic ballad “Sometimes When We Touch.” There was much laughter when Bruna Palmeiro and Zelda Koznofski of Thrillpeddlers performed a lively, Mae West-style number called “Nasty Boy.” The grand ceremony saw the couple escorted down 21st Street by dancers and a marching band. Two women sprinkled flowers on the path before them. The ceremony was short and simple. After they said, “I love you” to each other, they smashed a glass – a Jewish wedding tradition – and were pronounced legally wed as the guests burst into applause. There were tears of joy on the podium and in the seats. After the ceremony, guests gathered in Goldstein and Taylor’s backyard. Drinks and food were served

buffet style as the revelers stood in a long receiving line to congratulate the radiant couple. It was a balmy, sunny day, and many enjoyed the impressive view of the city and the bay from the hilltop abode. It’s a house familiar to many in the community. Every Christmas, Goldstein and Taylor decorate their home with thousands of colorful Christmas tree lights: many people consider it a pilgrimage each year to see Tom and Jerry’s Christmas Tree, as it’s known. “I’ve never done anything like this,” Vilanch said during the reception. “It’s totally San Francisco, eccentric, and unique. And it was fun!” “Never before and never again will we see a wedding like Tom and Jerry’s,” said Wiener. “Very befitting for two guys who are truly Castro royalty.”t

Italy, Austria, Greece, and Spain. He earned a master’s degree in education from Michigan State University, taught middle school, and was an elementary school principal before moving to San Francisco in 1983. Here, his career included positions at the American Heart Association, United Way of the Bay Area, American Cancer Society, Nestle, Clorox, and, most recently, Coca-Cola. He donated time and resources to many organizations, including Project Open Hand, Giants Community Fund, Community United Against Violence, San Francisco

Suicide Prevention, Out and Equal Workplace Advocates, and NPR. His favorite sports teams included the Michigan State Spartans, the Detroit Lions and Tigers, and the San Francisco 49ers and Giants. Dale is survived by his partner of 33 years, Dave Bueché; brothers Ron (Jo), Huntsville, Ohio; and Gary (Vicky), Hong Kong. His youngest brother, Duane, died unexpectedly in Alma, Michigan, August 30, 2013. A private celebration of Dale’s life will take place on November 12 at the San Francisco City Club.

Obituaries >> Dale A. Lietzke November 25, 1951 – August 7, 2013

CA BRE# 01346949

Longtime San Francisco resident Dale Lietzke died accidently August 7, 2013, in Palm Springs, California. He was born in Lansing, Michigan on November 25, 1951. A devoted music fan known for his quick wit and love of cooking, Dale traveled extensively in Germany,

Automotive News>>

t Comparing Toyota, Kia sedans

October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 13

by Philip Ruth

his month, we’ll look at three small sedans, first comparing a Toyota and Kia and then checking out a more upscale Acura. The 2014 Toyota Corolla (LE Premium, 183-inch length, $22,570 as tested) and the 2014 Kia Forte (EX, 180-inch length, $25,515 as tested) are clawing for position in the small-sedan market like angry drag queens with new nails. The Corolla and Forte were revised for 2014, the Forte perhaps a bit more extensively than the Corolla. You can’t go wrong with either, but if you’re buying one, you’re probably not interested in the other. Let’s take a closer look. First, the basics. Corollas were once about 175 inches in length, but this new one has stretched to 182 and change, and the Forte bumps up against 180. So if you’re trading up from a 10-year-old model, you’ll want to be aware of the extra inches you’ll be parking. Both have very similar amounts of people room, with the Corolla’s advantage in rear-seat legroom balancing the Forte’s extra width for elbows and hips. Interior design is rich in both, richer than a compact car has had a right to be, and their option packages can load them up like luxury cars. The Kia is more luxurious. I was surprised to find the driver’s seat powering itself back a few inches when I removed the key; last time I saw that ease-ofexit aid was on a $63K Infiniti. The exterior mirrors can be powerfolded in, the steering wheel can be heated and you can have LED lights front and rear with Xenon HIDs (high-intensity discharge) carving your path. The perforated leather seats can be heated front and rear, and the driver’s seat can also be cooled. Some of these items are standard, some are in option packages and all are kind of amazing to be offered on a compact sedan. The Corolla brings its own bling, with a shifter that snicks into gear with syrupy goodness and “SofTex” imitation leather seating that has real depth but had me sweating through the backs of my T-shirts. Trim on the tested LE Premium’s dash was “piano black,” which became sparkly in direct sunlight, and the bright blue striping on the dash and door panels was a neat accent. Speaking of the dashboard, the Corolla’s is tall and bluff-faced, with smoothly contoured plastics and a nice high screen. What’s also high is the base of the windshield, which has an enclosing effect when combined with the high windowsills and kicked-up trunk. It can feel pretty dark in there. Worse is when you’re cresting a hill and can see the sidewalk next to you but are blocked by that tall, bluff face from seeing the cars in the cross streets – you have to proceed into the crosswalk and bring the car more level with the intersection before you have a sense of the cars around you. It is not an issue specific to Toyota, but it does bring to mind the clients who bought a Toyota Venza with my help and then wanted to sell it, largely because the high sills made it cumbersome to drive. This ends up being a major difference between the Corolla and Forte; the latter feels wide-open in comparison, with a low dash panel and extra triangular windows à la Honda Civic. Another difference was performance, but it wasn’t really a fair fight. The tested Forte EX’s 173-horsepower, 2.0-liter engine

Philip Ruth

Toyota’s best-selling Corolla has been updated for 2014.

Philip Ruth

The Kia Forte has been revised for this model year and has a lot of horsepower for its class.

walked all over the Corolla LE’s 132hp, 1.8-liter. Compounding that difference was the kicky six-speed transmission in the Kia, which clicked in much more quickly than the gearless CVT did in the Corolla. A word about the CVT: it stands for continuously variable transmission, and it’s coming into greater use for its fuel economy benefits. The CVT is more efficient because it can engage in many more places than normal gears, obviating the need for a full downshift, for example. But in hilly San Francisco, if you’re say, doing the long climb up Castro to 21st and suddenly have to slow down for a delivery truck and then speed up to steer around it, a CVT can feel like you’ve stepped into a Slurpee right when you need that speed. In the case of this Corolla, I found it best to pretend that there were distinct gears at one-quarter and three-quarters the accelerator’s travel. Rather than flooring it, which let flow the Slurpuccino, a push directly to a certain position made the car clamp down and go. The Corolla will behave with some training, but the Forte was still more direct. Not that the Forte was perfect. While the Corolla avoided deviation from a formless and forgettable drive, the Forte tended to squat and bounce its rear end when things got hairy, which chipped a bit at the confidence generated by the spry adjustable steering. If it were me, I’d look to stiffen it up from bits in the aftermarket. That’s how it would go for me: I’d get the Forte. But the Corolla was no dead fish: once I made nice with the CVT, I was zipping to Trader Joe’s like the bag of frozen Mandarin Orange Chicken I wanted would be the last they’d ever sell. Dollars to doughnuts the Corolla will get better mileage than the more powerful Forte, and the Corolla nameplate hasn’t sold 40 million units on a reputation of unreliability. Kia’s cred is a work in progress, and there are some who would just as soon pose with the naked guys at Jane Warner Plaza than choose a Kia over a Toyota. So while the Corolla is not the tour-de-force we know Toyota is capable of creating, the wind is at its back. The Forte faces a strong headwind, but the car is impressive enough to power through it.t Philip Ruth is an automotive journalist and consultant at http://www.gaycarguy.com. Go online to ebar.com for the Acura ILX review.

Oakland Color Fight

Sunday October 27, 2013 Lake Mer r itt Edoff Memor ial Bandstand • 10:00 AM

Oakland Color Fight is a feel-good, happy, colorful event. “Color Swags” of all shapes and sizes happily go from wearing pristine white clothing, to being covered in prismatic color. At each stage (kilometer), a different color of powder fills the air and covers the participants, creating an ever-increasing spectrum of color and beauty. At the finish line, the color festival kicks off and the air is filled with millions of vivid color combinations as participants get in on the color throwing fun as well. For more information, go to www.oaklandcolorhaunt.bpt.me.

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14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • October 17-23, 2013

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Mobile DJ. Music customized for you. Salsabrate@sbcglobal.net or call 650-464-3730 or 707-6230140.

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Chef Greg, Personal Chef. From small impromptu ceremonies to lavish all-out extravaganzas. Visit ChefGreg-SF.com or call 145-3785963

Tech Support>>

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Just Dreaming Yachts! Weddings on the Bay! Prvt yacht, SF Bay backdrop, personal attn. Visit JustDreamingYachts.com or call 415-294-0681

MACINTOSH HELP * home or ofﬁce * 22 years exp * sfmacman.com

Quiet disabled HIV+ 51yo artist seeking studio/in-law to rent for $1,000-$1,200. 415-6767152. More about me www. artistswithaids.org/artforms/ dance/catalogue/diaz.html

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For Rent>>

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BAYB AAY AR REPORTERFax to:Fax to: REA EPORTER REA Household Services>>

395

Quality housecleaner kitchen and baths. Polish, wash, and iron call Jose 415-832-9254

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Health & Fitness>>

Housecleaning since 1979. Many original clients. All supplies. HEPA Vac. Richard 415-255-0389

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Vacation Rental>> PV Gay Beachfront Condo Beautiful 2 bdrm/2bath condo right on the gay beach. Pool, laundry, security & breathtaking views! Walk to town, clubs & restaurants. garwood49@aol.com

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Hauling >> Hauling 24/7 441-1054 Lg. Truck

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Need an Electrician? Home or Office: Remodeling, Troubleshooting, Service Changes. No job too small. Low rates. Peter 415-577-1665. Lic#897793

Fax from: Fax from:

E25-E42 PHONE 415.861.5019 FAX 861-8144 PHONE 415.861.5019 FAX 861-8144

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Photography>>

RICK GERHARTER PHOTOGRAPHY Portraits, Events, Architecture 20 years experience. Dependable. 415-823-8716 rgerharter@igc.org www.rickgerharterphotos.com

Weddings, parties & special occasions! Catering by Joshua Charles. Visit JoshuaCharles.net or call 650-288-8829

SMB CONCRETE: Driveways, Walkways, Patios, Repairs, Overlay Concrete, Stamp Concrete, Design Concrete, Special Jobs! 20 years experience. No job too big or too small. Servicing the Entire Bay Area. Licensed & Bonded #987386. Call 650-422-0266 or 925-250-9338

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Synchronicity Strings Stunning string music for your wedding: Pop, Rock, Classical, Special Requests. Call Rachel 510-367-0979, email booking@synchrostrings.com. Visit SynchroStrings.com

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Maintenance & Upkeep>>

A Luna La Vie Design event is characterized as Eye Candy, Couture & Artistry. Luna La Vie Design is an “All In One Company” bringing an avantgarde design, floral & lighting experience. Personal Note for Proposition 8 Same Sex Marriages: Luna La Vie Design congratulates the decision by the Supreme Court. Love is not just a right; it is what beats within every human being! Event Design, Florals / Flowers, Lighting & Sound, Custom Linens, Vases & Décor, Social & Corporate Events, Weddings, Multi-Cultural Events, Destination Events, Design.

The Cliff House. Terrace Room is ideal for wedding ceremonies, receptions & private events! Visit CliffHouse.com or call Virginia at 415-666-4027

Wedding & Special Events Venue! Discount avail thru Aug 31. Convenient SOMA location near City Hall. Visit 180eleven.org or call events director Mark Kirk at 415-863-0596

Rental Wanted>>

Cleaning Professional 25 Years Exp.S.F. (415) 794-4411 Ninth CA 395Street NinthS.F. Street CA * Roger Miller

Wedding Celebrations! Loving, Inclusive, and Meaningful Wedding Ceremonies. Contact: Walt, Marriage Officiant WaltAnthony@att.net

LGBT WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY City Hall Ceremonies basic package $400. Digital photography. Including the ceremony, candid and group photos on CD. San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and San Mateo counties Additional services available including, use of traditional film and “non city hall” weddings Jane Philomen Cleland a lesbian professional photographer with 25 years experience weddings, events and… Published weekly in the B.A.R. since 1989 CALL 415-505-0559 www.janephilomencleland.com

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Ric k 415 . 8 2 1 . 1 7 92

2 Bdrms+ / 1 Hr to SF 80 acres, 2 baths, garage + 2 studios. See website: www.100ridgewood.com

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Visit our website to view profiles of over 150 therapists.

Movers>>

Wedding Disc Jockey DJ Dave 415-472-6303

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EIB

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EIB

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For Sale>> Storage Lien Auction 10/21/2013 at 9 am: 12 containers 5x7x7 Household goods & furniture of customers Karen Heck, Francisco Solis, Karen Rivas, Wayne Soldati, & Susie Park at Celtic Moving, 1480 Donner Ave., SF, CA 94124. Containers not for sale individually. All contents to be removed within 24 hours.

JADE SAN FRANCISCO BUYER

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ETERNAL PRIDE

A prime double niche is for sale in the beautiful, historic, San Francisco Columbarium - the only cemetery for cremated remains in the City of San Francisco. Provide a unique, final resting place for yourself and your loved one with a showcase of pictures and personal memorabilia, for a unique celebration of life. Ten thousand dollars. 415-786-8045 or vprimus51@gmail.com

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Private collector seeking old jades. Pendants, beads, figures, bowls, etc. Send photos and asking price to sfJADEbuyer@gmail.com

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

October 17-23, 2013 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 15

Legal Notices>> ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC13-549764 In the matter of the application of: DAVID WEINAR, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner DAVID WEINAR, is requesting that the name DAVID WEINAR, be changed to D W. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 19th of November 2013 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 09/20/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: ABVSF LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 3174 16TH ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103-3363. Type of license applied for 47- ON-SALE GENERAL EATING PLACE OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 09/24/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: ELECTROCELT PROMOTIONS INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 256 COLUMBUS AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133-4518. Type of license applied for 47- ON-SALE GENERAL PUBLIC PREMISES OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035381800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FOUNDATION HOUSE, 300 FUNSTON AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed KAHLE-AUSTIN FOUNDATION HOUSE 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 09/20/13. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035387700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BAY AREA GARAGE DOOR, 1238 VERMONT ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOHN KELLY WILSON JR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/28/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/23/13. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035386100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HAIROINE SALON SF, 3150 18TH ST. # 201, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LINDA M. THOMAS-MAYFIELD. 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 09/23/13. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035383400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BLACK & GOLD, 2200 15TH ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SAMUEL B. GENTHNER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/20/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/20/13. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035376400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AHHH EROTIC ARTISTIC EXPRESSION, 1390 MISSION ST. #403, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103-2670. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALLEN E. HAYER. 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 09/18/13. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035379400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LUNA ROSSA, 2221 CLEMENT ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ANGELO PICCININI. 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 09/19/13. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035378100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BORNEO INTERNATIONAL, 360 POST ST. #404, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YERIANTO PIAUWASDY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/10/89. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/19/13. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035367000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CLEAR WINDOWS AND DOORS, 50 WABASH TERRACE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed FREDDY K. LEUNG. 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 09/16/13. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035378200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ONE PLUS TEA HOUSE, 853 CLAY ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed ZHIMING LEI & DELIANG LIU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/19/13. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035387800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GUDDU DE KARAHI, 1501 NORIEGA ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed ASMAAN 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 09/23/13. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035344700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MEIFEI, 2418 CHESTNUT ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed MEIFEI ALTERATIONS & DESIGNS INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/04/13. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035390900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VALENCIA FARMERS MARKET, 1299 VALENCIA ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed SAM HORT, MALINDA HING. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/05/85. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/24/13. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-035340300 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: GUDDU DE KARAHI, 1501 NORIEGA ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by MOHAMMAD ZULFIQAR HAIDER. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/30/13. SEPT 26, OCT 03, 10, 17, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035409100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JONATHAN TEMPLETON EVENTS, 1725 HYDE ST. #2, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JONATHAN TEMPLETON. 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 10/01/13. OCT 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035385900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EBBS; EBBS BAKERY, 1727 HAIGHT ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ROBERT DUC HAC. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/23/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/23/13. OCT 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035358800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GOOD TIMES CONSULTING, 153 COOK ST. #301, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YULIYA RASHKOVSKAYA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/11/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/11/13. OCT 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035400000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MAVERICK SF; MAVERICK EVENTS; MAVERICK STYLE, 1449 ALABAMA ST., CA 94110-4755. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MICHELLE MCFARLAND. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/15/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/27/13. OCT 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035393300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TARIQS PROPERTY MANAGEMENT, 2340 LANE ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MUBASHER CHOUDHERY. 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 09/25/13. OCT 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035382900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: REGISTRY OF ACCREDITED INVESTORS, 505 SANSOME ST. #850, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed MICHAEL C. BERG & KEN NANGLE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/20/13. OCT 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013

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FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035405600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AFFIRM IDENTITY, 325 PACIFIC AVE. # 201, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed AFFIRM, INC. (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/11/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/30/13. OCT 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035395100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE UPS STORE #6431, 222 MASON ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed JING STORE, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/25/13. OCT 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035395200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE UPS STORE #4592, 660 4TH ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed JING STORE, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/01/05. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/25/13. OCT 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035377800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SPAN, 333 BRYANT ST. # 110, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SPAN VENTURES, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/15/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/18/13. OCT 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035391300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BRANCH, 18 BARTOL ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed MORENSTEIN CRONAN 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 09/24/13. OCT 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-034605600 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: S AND E CAFE, 2406 19TH AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by WEI HONG LIU. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/26/12. OCT 03, 10, 17, 24, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 10/07/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: MV BRILLIANT CORP. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 501 BROADWAY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133-4506. Type of license applied for 41 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE - EATING PLACE OCT 10, 17, 24, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 09/20/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: SOMA RESTAURANT GROUP INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 186 2ND ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105-3809. Type of license applied for 21 - OFF-SALE GENERAL, 41 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE - EATING PLACE OCT 10, 17, 24, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 09/30/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: LIQUID GOLD LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 1040 HYDE ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109-4917. Type of license applied for 42 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE - PUBLIC PREMISES OCT 10, 17, 24, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 09/27/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: SIMPLY SMART FOODS L-PSHIP. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 22 4TH ST. SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103-3139. Type of license applied for 41 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE EATING PLACE OCT 10, 17, 24, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035420200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CASTRO CONCIERGE, 545 DUBOCE AVE. #4, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALFONSO JULIO MENDOZA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/08/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/08/13. OCT 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035414200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THRIVE WELLNESS, 2636 OCEAN AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CONNIE CHUCK. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/03/13. OCT 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035404200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THUMBTAP CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, 3574 PIERCE ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed PAUL CHEN. 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 09/30/13. OCT 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035412500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AMY ROSE MOORE ILLUSTRATION, 947 BUSH ST. #321, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed AMY ROSE MOORE. 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 10/02/13. OCT 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035417000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VANUATU COFFEE ROASTERS, 3118 22ND ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JAMES B. LAPPIN JR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/04/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/04/13. OCT 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035360100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PARKFIT SF, 1945 CLAY ST. #2, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MATTHEW SILVA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/11/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/11/13. OCT 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035415200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: IRVING PIZZA, 1825 IRVING ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed AWADALLA AWADALLA & MOHAMMED AWADALLA. 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 10/03/13. OCT 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035421100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AMAZON BROADCAST TELEVISION CO., 6137 GEARY BLVD. 2/F, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed FH VIDEO INC H.C. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/08/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/08/13. OCT 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035416100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LITTLE BEAR SCHOOL, 65 OCEAN AVE., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a limited partnership, and is signed J&B ECE MANAGEMENT (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/04/13. OCT 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035421900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: OCEAN BEACH YOGA SF, 3925 A JUDAH ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed OCEAN BEACH YOGA SF, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/23/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/08/13. OCT 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035389600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ROBBERBARON, 2032 POLK ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed FLORES TORRES LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/02/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/24/13. OCT 10, 17, 24, 31, 2013

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Vol. 43 • No. 42 • October 17-23, 2013

www.ebar.com/arts

Falstaff rises above the fray by Philip Campbell

hakespeare is having a good month in the major arts houses at Van Ness and Grove. The San Francisco Symphony has been featuring works inspired by the Bard for the past fortnight, and, ironically, the San Francisco Opera is celebrating the Verdi bicentennial with performances of his final opera Falstaff, based on The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV. Shakespeare wouldn’t mind the publicity, and Giuseppe Verdi would be pleased as Prosecco at the rollicking treatment his late masterpiece is getting at the War Memorial Opera House. Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel has returned to the SFO after a memorable run in 2000 as Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress to recreate what has become a signature role. Originally too young for the part, Terfel has built a characterization over See page 26 >>

Greg Fedderly (Bardolfo), Bryn Terfel (Falstaff) and Andrea Silvestrelli (Pistola) in San Francisco Opera’s Falstaff.

Bryn Terfel (Falstaff) and Ainhoa Arteta (Alice Ford) in San Francisco Opera’s Falstaff. Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Life after women’s prison Author Piper Kerman appears at Litquake literary festival by Sura Wood

Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison author Piper Kerman.

iper Kerman’s brush with the law and her candor about the price she paid for her youthful transgressions launched a successful literary debut that has brought her unexpected fame. But then again, nothing about the author’s adult life has gone quite as planned. Shortly after graduating from Smith College, Kerman, who comes from a WASP East Coast family, fell for and in league with a glamorous woman who was a heroin dealer for a West African drug lord. After ending that relationship, she fled to San Francisco, where she met and married journalist Larry Smith, and lived for several years before moving to New York. Then her criminal past caught up with her. Kerman’s memoir, Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, tells the story of her 13-month incarceration in a minimum security federal prison in Connecticut for the drug trafficking and money laundering offences she had committed a decade earlier. (Her high-rolling ex-lover turned her in.) The

book, adapted for an engrossing series of the same name that aired on Netflix last summer, has already been renewed for a second season. Kerman, who’s now in her early 40s, is a vice president at a communications firm working with nonprofits, and serves on the board of the Women’s Prison Association. Still, if there’s one concept that courses through Kerman’s conversation, it’s the notion of “consequences,” something she learned about the hard way. Sura Wood: How do you feel about the loss of privacy that has resulted from the publication of your memoir and the subsequent TV series? Piper Kerman: Of course, writing a memoir requires an enormous amount of self-revelation. And to write a memoir that’s not about your biggest accomplishment, but your biggest mistake and moral lapse and the consequences, was definitely a little scary. But my feeling is that our prison and criminal justice systems are the place where many people are living out their struggles, and those folks are not necessarily who we imagine them to be. The women who I was incarcerated with do not fit the stereo-

types of dangerous, hardened, career criminals. I believe that my personal story offers a more nuanced and multi-faceted idea about who is locked up in the biggest prison system in the world. So for that reason, I was motivated to push myself on the self-revelation front. Has there been a downside to the recognition? I committed the crime that landed me in prison 20 years ago, and I was released nine years ago. So, for me, the ground that’s covered in the book is old history. I don’t feel that opening up about that period of my life has had anything but See page 18 >>

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<< Out There

18 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

Barstools we have known & loved by Roberto Friedman

uthor Rosie Schaap’s memoir Drinking with Men (Riverhead) goes against the grain of most addiction memoirs by openly celebrating – nay, extolling – the joys of what might be considered substance-abusing, out-ofcontrol behavior. But in Schaap’s case, drinking in bars is all about the camaraderie. “Sharing the joys of drink and conversation with friends old and new, in a comfortable and familiar setting, is one of life’s most unheralded pleasures,” she writes. She adds, “At its best, bar culture is both civilized and civilizing, and at the end of a long, stressful day, I know I can head to my local and the bartender will know exactly what I want.” Ah, the soothing consolations of the happily addicted – and Out There very much counts as one of their number. Schaap recalls bars that were her headquarters at different times of

her life, in Dublin, New England and New York City. She calls being a regular there “the thing that interested me most, the thing I had craved and missed, the singular condition of bar culture that confers both comfort and privilege.” She’s the right kind of patron, one who treats bar staff as people. “Next time you’re at a bar, just observe how many people even bother to say please and thank you. It will be less than half.” Further, “No matter how polite one is, one should never feel entitled to free drinks. If you contribute to the culture of the bar in some way, the bar will want to keep you around. Never ask for a freebie. That’s up to the bartender – not you. (As one Brooklyn barman I know memorably put it, ‘Buybacks are like blow jobs. If you have to ask for one, you don’t deserve one.’)” Bars compel congeniality. “If you don’t want to talk, you might

M. Sharkey/Riverhead Hardcover

Rosie Schaap, author of Drinking with Men.

as well stay at home and drink and not bother with bars. But if you’re at the bar, brace yourself: You might be called upon to argue in favor of cannibalism, or recount the history of the Bull Moose Party, or make NFL draft predictions. You never know. And that’s one of the great pleasures of drinking in bars.” OT is pleased to be a regular at the plank of at least one local. We’re intimate enough with the bartenders there that they will ask us, about a kegger tap that they have rigged up, “Is this too ghetto?” (“Just ghetto enough.”) When one youngster was trying to remember the surname of the Funkadelic George, we filled him in gently: “Clinton. The first President Clinton, before Bill or Hillary.” And when we asked another bartend why the TV was always tuned to sports, he replied, “So we don’t have to talk about religion or politics.” Smart. We’re the kind of regular that, when we order a third glass of wine, another regular will admonish us, “Bad boy!” And know that we love being thus addressed. Our time in bars, drinking with men (and a few women), has been an unsentimental education.

After the Fall

So there we were back in the lounge of Bluestem Brasserie at One Yerba Buena Lane in SF last Thursday night, there to get a sneak preview of Bluestem’s new Fall bar bites and Fall cocktail menu that the restaurant will be launching later this month. Co-founder Adam

Saoirse Ronan in director Kevin Macdonald’s new film How I Live Now.

Jed told us that everyone always wants something new, so the brasserie features a seasonal menu. For bites, these included Reuben fritters, truffle-specked potatoes and lobster ravioli. For cocktails, we downed porcini mushroom manhattans, sage-infused gimlets, and cranberry and rosemary-infused vodka. Now that’s a new sensation! Bluestem also launched its America Road Trip 2 at the fall event. Every Thursday night, the restaurant will “visit” a different state and create a menu inspired by ingredients indigenous to the state and inspired by the state’s history and culture. It’s a culinary road trip to all 50 states paying homage to America’s gastronomic heritage and seasonal bounty. Bluestem will also create a cocktail Sip of the State, as well as a lunch plats de jour. Seems like a road trip with all of the fun and none of the hassle.

Teenage apocalypse

Actress Saoirse Ronan’s latest movie How I Live Now will be screened for free at 11 a.m. on Sat., Nov. 9, at the Vogue Theater in SF. Since her starring role in Atonement, Saoirse has grown up in front of the camera. In How I Live Now, she is a full-fledged teenager caught up in a romance with extenuating circumstances. In this adaptation of a bestselling young adult novel, the characters are living sometime in the future. Saoirse plays a bigcity punker complete with pierced eyebrows who has been dispatched from America to stay with her cousins in remote rural England. No sooner does she arrive than apocalypse threatens. The futuristic story has parallels with The Hunger Games, though How I Live Now is said to be more of an interior journey focusing on Saoirse’s teen’s attempt to save herself. It’s directed with an indie sensibility by Kevin Macdonald (The Last Kind of Scotland). For free tickets, e-mail voguersvp@gmail.com with “Live” and

Piper Kerman

From page 17

great results. Did you encounter homophobia in prison? Homophobia in prison is present from day one, when you are repeatedly admonished, “Don’t be gay for the stay!” by correctional officers. Because sexual contact is strictly forbidden in prison, homosexuality and homophobia are heightened – both more normative and more sanctioned. Gay sex is very top-ofmind for a lot of people in prison, whether they are having it or not. What were the upsides and downsides of having sexual relationships during incarceration? Human beings are fundamentally sexual and crave companionship, comfort and human contact. A re-

your name in the subject line, and say how many tickets you want (up to two).

Back in print

From the OT mailbag: “Hi Roberto, It’s Bob Glück here. I hope all’s well! Back in 1983, John Karr wrote an amazing review of my book Elements of a Coffee Service, and now the tiniest of presses, Ithuriel’s Spear, has brought it back into print with a lovely cover image by Joe Brainard (finally, a penis on the cover) and a preface by Eileen Myles. It’s such a tiny press that I am wanting to make some something happen for the book.” The book has been retitled Elements, and here are a few lines from Karr’s long-ago review: “San Francisco author Robert Glück combines the categories porno, satire, poetry, belles-lettres, and nonfiction in his first work of fiction, Elements of a Coffee Service, an achievement I find continually amazing. It doesn’t read ‘literary’; it reads like a friend is talking to you, and what stories he has to tell! It incorporates so many elements of our lives that I’d love to call it an epic, but it’s too condensed. It doesn’t have a scrap of fat. But rich? I shouldn’t have to tell you – it’s sexy and serious and funny and heavy and poetic and – enough already! Go read it!”t

lationship behind bars may provide all of these things, but it can also land you in solitary confinement. There may be possibilities for lesbian sex or relationships that some women would not typically encounter in their day-to-day lives on the outside. I was completely celibate during my 13 months in prison. Not easy! Were you subjected to sexual abuse by guards? Like almost all the women in the prison, I experienced groping during pat-downs, verbal abuse from my work supervisor, and so on. Fortunately, I didn’t experience what I’d describe as an assault. If you haven’t been incarcerated, it’s hard to fully imagine the complete loss of control and autonomy and freedom. It has certainly haunted me. See page 27 >>

Theatre>>

October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 19

Absurdist play considers queerness by Richard Dodds

ourage of your convictions is a good thing, but there is also something to be said for courage of your confusions. That’s a central theme running through Basil Kreimendahl’s Sidewinders, a new play having its world premiere Oct. 24 under the aegis of Cutting Ball Theatre. The confusion in this case is rooted in gender, and the fluidity extends into finding further ways to describe the play. “It’s hard to describe because it is absurdist,” Kreimendahl said during a recent interview. “We are setting it as a more grounded period piece in the Old West, but because it is absurd we could have gone really absurd with the location as well.” M. Graham Smith is directing the production at Exit on Taylor. Into a Wild West landscape wander two characters, Dakota and Bailey, who aren’t quite sure if they are men, women, or something else entirely. “They are the ones who are courageous enough to be confused,” she said. “They don’t know what sex they are, and the play

Laura Mason

Donald Currie plays a drag queen who further confuses gender issues faced by the characters in Sidewinders, a new play being presented by Cutting Ball Theatre.

is sort of them wanting to nail it down.” Sara Moore and DavEnd play Dakota and Bailey, roles that require a lot of clowning skills but can be cast, the playwright

said, in “any combination of genders, even though I think audiences will probably assign them a gender.” Casting needs are a bit more restrained for the character of Sandy (played by Donald Currie), whose appearance further confuses Dakota and Bailey. “Sandy is a bit of a sad drag queen and a bit of a diva, so it’s a little more important that the character be played by a man.” Kreimendahl, 33, drew initial inspiration for Sidewinders from William Faulkner’s 1932 novel Light in August, and specifically from the character Joe Christmas. “He doesn’t know his background, and his ethnicity is up for question,” she said. “Wherever he goes, people assign to him whatever they want.” The play also wound up as an unexpected homage to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. “Structurally, I think it’s a lot like Godot, and maybe language-wise too,” she said. “I wasn’t intending to adapt Waiting for Godot, but I do love that play, and I think that unconsciously it came through, because I knew I wanted to write an absurdist play about queerness.” The search for gender identity in a culture deeply invested in the male-female construct is something that Kre-

Basil Kreimendahl

Sidewinders playwright Basil Kreimendahl had never seen a play until a theater produced one she had written.

imendahl knows a lot about. “I grew up as a girl,” – Basil is a nickname that stuck – “and now I would use the term ‘gender queer’ if I had to pick a label. I actually prefer ‘gender neutral,’ because none of the labels really fit.” Growing up in Louisville, Kreimendahl was already projecting a masculine persona when school

became untenable at age 14. “I dropped out for a multitude of reasons, and the social aspects of school were difficult. My parents were very upset about it, but I was pretty stubborn. The truancy officer did come to my house a couple of times, and then she just stopped coming.” But this high school dropout recently received an MFA from the University of Iowa, and is now teaching there on a one-year fellowship. Kreimendahl has written several other plays, but Sidewinders is the first to receive a professional production. She had never even seen a play until an Atlanta theater produced a 10-minute play she had written after taking a theater class at a community college. Her parents were not theatergoers but did travel to Atlanta to see the play. “There is usually a gender aspect in my plays even if I’m writing about something else,” she said. “With Sidewinders, it wasn’t something that I just wanted to explore from a personal perspective, but to add something to the conversation happening in the world.”t Tickets for Sidewinders are available at cuttingball.com.

King of Tin Pan Alley by Richard Dodds

e’re here. We’re normal. Get used to it. “Who wants to hear a normal person sing?” Carole King asks when prodded to perform her own songs. “Other normal people” is the reply. There was a houseful of happy normals as Beautiful: The Carole King Musical officially premiered its pre-Broadway run at the Curran Theatre. This is a fast-paced, smartly tailored, and insistently tuneful condensation of King’s career from teen upstart on Tin Pan Alley to Carnegie Hall headliner. It also arrives on a wave of goodwill – the songs’ demographics have a huge sweet spot – and the glad tidings are intact when the final curtain comes down. But King’s songs may not seem to have the dramatic punch to buttress a plot, at least not if you are thinking in terms of her pivotal, ubiquitous Tapestry LP. But the show reveals a catalog much more diverse than the one contained on that 1971 release – I had no idea that King and husband Gerry Goffin wrote the propulsive Little Eva hit “Locomotion” – and yet the Tapestry songs that are used wind up packing the most emotional wallop. The biographical facts of King’s life are more interesting than dramatic; the D-word – divorce – is about the darkest element evoked. But librettist Douglas McGrath brings easy-going humor to many situations while creating a fun sort of tension and surprise while dou-

bling down on our musical pleasures. Who will be the first team to hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts: King and Goffin or their friendly rivals Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill? In a clever move, the Goffin-King songbook is interspersed with performances of the equally impressive Mann-Weill catalog. We’re talking about such songs as “On Broadway,” “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.” In director Marc Bruni’s fullsteam-ahead production, accented by Josh Prince’s swirling musical staging, various aspects of a new song might be discussed by its songwriters, but we don’t know which future hit it is until performers impersonating the likes of the Shirelles, the Righteous Brothers, or the Drifters come sweeping onto the stage with theatrically amped-up arrangements. These are moments that can bring gasps of happy surprise. Virtually all the songs arise in performance context; characters don’t suddenly break out into a song shoehorned into a quasi-relevant moment. But the songs match the flow of the story, whether it’s “One Fine Day” or “Up on the Roof,” and do become clearly autobiographical when King launches a solo career as singer-songwriter with such charttoppers as “So Far Away” and “It’s Too Late.” The musical is a comfortable, handsome construct that follows familiar templates with its own agility. And the characters are simply drawn, with rough edges mostly smoothed

or at least shepherded into comedy. While the versatile ensemble shape-shifts through various musical groups of the 1960s, the Carole King role doesn’t so much dominate as unite the other principal characters. Jessie Mueller mirrors King’s demurring tone with a performance that reminded me of a low-key, selfdeprecating Judy Holliday. As fellow songwriter Cynthia Weill, Anika

Larsen is more of a revved up Judy Holliday given to epigrammatic wisecracks. Barry Mann (Jarrod Spector) becomes the comic neurotic of the group, Gerry Goffin (Jake Epstein) is a ticking time bomb, Don Kirshner (Jeb Brown) is the slick but caring record producer, and Genie Klein (Liz Larsen) is Carole’s familiarly kvetching Brooklyn mother. All of this befits a musical that

linDa EDER

October 17 – October 19

tonY DEsaRE October 25 – October 26

Joan Marcus

Jessie Mueller, as songwriter Carole King, reluctantly agrees to sing her own songs in a scene from the musical Beautiful, now in a preBroadway production at the Curran Theatre.

gives a shout-out to normalcy. But the extent of entertainment provided by Beautiful is not of normal proportions. Will you feel the earth move by the time the show wraps up its tale? I do believe you will.t Beautiful: The Carole King Musical will run at the Curran Theatre through Oct. 20. Tickets are $50-$210. Call (888) 749-1799 or go to shnsf.com.

JoEY aRias October 24

Rita Wilson

October 31 – November 2

For tickets: www.feinsteinssf.com Feinstein’s | Hotel Nikko San Francisco 222 Mason Street 855-MF-NIKKO | 855-636-4556

087729.01_HNSF_Feinsteins_Bay_Area_Reporter_10_17_MECH

ROUND #: MECH

<< Film

20 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

Middle Eastern buddy road movie by David Lamble

aytoun, a seriocomic fable set during Israel’s 1982 war in Lebanon, opens Friday at Landmark’s Opera Plaza Cinemas. An Israeli pilot (Stephen Dorff) has a potentially deadly encounter with a Palestinian orphan boy, Fahed (Abdallah El Akal), that slowly turns into an intergenerational-buddy road movie. When fighter pilot Yoni’s jet is shot down in a contested slice of Lebanon, it’s as if he landed inside a Middle Eastern remake of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Taken prisoner near a Palestinian refugee camp, Yoni attempts to bribe his way out of Dodge and runs into a pint-sized enemy who is more than his match. Fahed, 10, not only wounds Yoni in an embarrassing part of his anatomy, but also insists on coming along on the Israeli pilot’s jail-break. The boy has a special mission: to replant a small, sickly olive tree, left him by his nowdead dad, in the sacred soil of the family’s Israeli-occupied homestead.

Zaytoun (the Palestinian word for olive) gradually turns zany, but never entirely sentimental, as man and boy hail an Arab-driven Mercedes taxi and, before journey’s end, convince its driver that he should take up another line of work. Israeli director Eran Riklis is carving out a reputation for himself as the big-screen author of what one critic referred to as “mournful shaggy-dog” stories. These tales – The Lemon Tree, The Human Resources Manager – are sophisticated moral parables with liberal doses of slapstick and black humor. They deal with the need of people from warring tribes to figure out new ways to gain respect and carve out their own piece of the pie in the Jewish state. Appreciation of Zaytoun’s frequently screwball antics is enhanced by the surefooted chemistry between emerging indie star Dorff and his buddy/surrogate son, played by an animated young Palestinian, Abdallah El Akal. This personable child actor, from a beleaguered culture

that has up to now offered few Disney Channel opportunities for its burgeoning youth population, has the comic chops to pick our pockets emotionally before sealing the deal with some high-stakes dramatics. Zaytoun co-star Stephen Dorff was in town recently to promote his first Israeli film appearance along with his new existential brother road-trip, The Motel Life. In-between bites of French fries from his Nob Hill hotel-catered lunch, the dirty blonde actor, who’s gaining buzz for injecting tough-guy roles with touches of humor and vulnerability, discussed the way he gets to duke it out with a scene-stealing kid. “Zaytoun was a movie that I didn’t really think I could do, but I liked the script. I came from a family where my mom was Catholic and my dad was Jewish. I had never been to Israel, so I thought this would be a great adventure for me. It’s a movie about two enemies who hate each other, who ultimately form a unique bond over a three-week pe-

Strand Releasing

Stephen Dorff and Abdallah El Akal in a scene from director Eran Riklis’ Zaytoun, opening Friday at Landmark Theatres.

riod. God, it could have been an alQaeda member and a New York City policeman. “Our story takes place in 1982, two weeks before the Lebanon War. This kid shoots me in the ass. I want to kill him, but over three weeks we have a incredible journey, and there’s a bittersweet ending. It couldn’t be more different from The Motel Life, but it was a character I wanted to go for once director Eran Riklis said, ‘I believe you could be Israeli, if you get the Hebrew and get the accent. You actually look Israeli.’ He showed me a picture of the [real-life] pilot.” David Lamble: The kid is amazing. Stephen Dorff: He’s a natural, he’s not a trained actor. He’s a kid who came into the audition who Eran had known from some bank commercial he shot. He came in with this attitude when he saw there were other kids auditioning: “How many times do I have to come here? You don’t know I’m the right one for the part?” I said, “That’s the kid,” and Eran said, “I know, I hope we

Strand Releasing

Abdallah El Akal in a scene from director Eran Riklis’ Zaytoun.

can get him to show up for work. He doesn’t have an agent. He comes from a family where his parents were born in the West Bank. He speaks Hebrew, Arabic, English. He’s got his fucking iPad.”t

Drowning in urban America by David Lamble

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generation ago, just as my longrunning gig as a queer radio impresario in Berkeley was running its course, I started a broadcast chat with Jon Ginoli of the queer punk band Pansy Division. Jon was, and still is 20 years later, a brave musical pioneer who dares to think that LGBT folks have a place in the popmusic universe beyond disco, house and Broadway. Pansy Division got a tremendous boost from an invitation to be the opening act for Berkeleybased band Green Day’s national tour. Back in 1995, it barely seemed possible that there was some kind of queer/punk alliance in the making. Opening Friday for a week’s run at San Francisco’s Vogue Theatre, Broadway Idiot is an energetic new doc that is both enthralling for its backstage peep at the process behind turning a bestselling punkrock opera into a hit Broadway show, and frustrating for all the hotbutton cultural questions it neither raises nor answers. Green Day – lead singer/lyricwriter Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool – are products of a downwardly mobile Northern California suburban belt that encourages its younger denizens to drop out, smoke pot and raise hell. For braver souls like Armstrong, channeling a Johnny Depp-style talent for straight-boy gender-diving would pay off in a 2005 Rolling Stone cover story proclaiming, “Green Day’s Front

Scene from director Doug Hamilton’s American Idiot.

Man Finds His Inner Rock God: a Story of Anger, Protest and Artfully Applied Eyeliner.” The article detailed the bizarre back story behind American Idiot, Green Day’s smash-hit rock opera, with its savage take on George W. Bush: “But my friends call me asshole!” The band had originally cut 20 tracks for another album when the master tapes were stolen from their Oakland studio. Improvising like crazy, the trio devised an archetypal story about three alienated lads drowning in urban America from an excess of drugs and sex, and the absence of meaningful work and relationships. Fast-forward to 2009, and ArmSee page 24 >>

DVD>>

October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 21

Homage to the cinema of yesteryear by David-Elijah Nahmod

he odds were against him, yet he pulled it off. Ansel Faraj was barely 21 years old when he wrote and directed Doctor Mabuse, the new, no-budget thriller/noir film in which the young auteur attempts to emulate the cinema of Fritz Lang. Lang (1890-1976) was the great German filmmaker whose Metropolis (1927) remains one of the most innovative and groundbreaking science-fiction films of all time. Faraj shot his film primarily in a garage, his actors performing before a blue screen. The youthful auteur added the backdrops via computer during post-production. The final product is impressive. Set in a dark, dreamlike netherworld in which the time and place are implied but not specified, Doctor Mabuse is a film that could have been made in Europe 80 years ago. “I was born in Los Angeles,” Faraj told the B.A.R. “In LA, movies are part of the city. They’re present in the traffic, the smog, the beach and the mountains. I grew up on the old Universal monster movies, Roger Corman’s Edgar Allen Poe films with Vincent Price, so those have a strong influence on my work. I was blown away by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis when I saw it at age 8. It’s an amazing film from all aspects: the story, the effects, the design, absolutely amazing for 1927.” It was Lang who first brought Doctor Mabuse to the screen, in a series of well-regarded films made during the 1920s and 30s. The character was created by writer Norbert Jacques in 1921. “I’m a comic book geek, and to me, Mabuse is the first truly great supervillian,” said Faraj. “He’s a master of disguise, a master of hypnosis, an illusionist. Those ideas intrigued me. He wanted to destroy everyone and

Kathryn Leigh Scott as Madam Von Harbau, Nathan Wilson as Inspector Carl Loehmann in Doctor Mabuse. Doctor Mabuse director Ansel Faraj (center) with Kathryn Leigh Scott (left) and Lara Parker at the film’s premiere in San Diego, April 2013.

everything, he wanted to ‘rule the ashes.’ He was going to destroy everything so he’d be the only person left. That’s very strange, and that’s what attracted me. What kind of villain wants to do that? And the answer is chilling: because he can. That’s very disturbing to me, more so than him being a tyrannical leader or just some sociopath who targets an individual. I wanted not to do a remake, but to create an original story about him.” Finding an actor who could play such a character convincingly was going to be a tall order, yet Faraj found his perfect Mabuse. Jerry Lacy, a character actor best-known for his portrayal of the fanatical witch-hunter Reverend Trask on the horror-themed soap opera Dark Shadows, brings a chilling, almost Satanic presence to the role of Doctor Mabuse. Casting Lacy was a dream come true for Faraj, as the cult TV series is another of his influences. “Dark Shadows has got a very strange tone,” said Faraj. “I like the idea of this group of actors playing

different roles, and all the parallel times. You could literally change up the show and have it work at any time, it was so multi-layered. It had such a great style, the production design was so over-the-top Gothic, and I mean that in the best way. You could feel the heaviness in the air, the spider webs and the sense of decay and mystery. I would kill to do a movie like that.” In a way, Faraj’s dream came true. Doctor Mabuse’s supporting cast includes Kathryn Leigh Scott and Lara Parker as a pair of mysterious sisters who may or may not be helping the mad Doctor. Scott and Parker were also major players on Dark Shadows. Faraj learned very quickly to separate the fan from the filmmaker. “But you do, you get over it, and you get on with the job,” he said. Faraj’s stars, who have had long careers as character actors on the stage, on TV, and in film, were most impressed with their director. “How gratifying to be a part of the emergence of a young filmmak-

Jerry Lacy, in white hair, as Doctor Mabuse, Derek Mobrattan as Tom Smith in director Ansel Faraj’s Doctor Mabuse.

er with such great potential,” said Kathryn Leigh Scott. Scott’s feelings were echoed by Jerry Lacy. “After seeing the finished product, I am deeply impressed by Ansel’s abilities, not only as a writer and director, but also as an editor,” said the actor who played Humphrey Bogart in Woody Allen’s Play It Again Sam. “I cannot even imagine the number of hours he must have

put into editing the final version of the movie. I am most impressed by his vision. He thinks way beyond what most of us expect, he sees far into the future, imagining what may be and where all his characters are headed. All in all, it is but the beginning of a great adventure.”t Look for Doctor Mabuse on DVD in November.

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<< Out&About

22 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

Out &About

O&A

Sat 19 Adam Tendler

Randy Roberts @ Alcove Theatre, Martuni’s

Dirty Little Showtunes @ New Conservatory Theatre

Veteran gender illusionist performs live songs as Bette Midler, Cher, and other female music icons. $40. Thu-Sat, 9pm. Oct. 10-Nov 2. 414 Mason St. at Geary, 5th floor. 992-8168. At Martuni’s, and accompanied by Tammy L. Hall, Oct. 14, 21 & 28, 7pm. $20. 4 Valencia St. at Market. 241-0205. www.randyroberts.net

The return engagement of Tom Orr’s zany, racy Broadway parody song show, now in its 16th production! $25-$45. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Nov. 10. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. 861-8972. nctcsf.org

Shocktoberfest 14: Jack the Ripper @ Hypnodrome Thrillpeddlers’ new show takes on a creepy-fun Halloween theme, with Grand Guignol-styled tales of the famous London serial killer, plus the one-act Salome and more fun. $25-$35. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru Nov 23. (800) 838-3006. thrillpeddlers.com

Spencer Day @ Yoshi’s Oakland The local crooner performs new and classic songs. $16-$24. 8pm & 10pm. 510 Embarcadero West. (510) 238-9200. Dinner options. www.yoshis.com

Orangiana by Jim Provenzano

othing rhymes with orange, but it’s the ubiquitous color of the month; autumnal, ripe, harvesty and hearty. You’ll go out of your gourd for all the music, art and celebratory events this week.

Litquake @ Multiple Locations

Thu 17 Beautiful, The Carole King Musical @ Curran Theatre Song-filled show about the early life and career of the hit-making singer-songwriter. $50-$210. Tue-Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat & Sun 2pm (a few variations). Thru Oct. 20. 445 Geary St. at Mason. (888) 746-1799. www.shnsf.com

Drowning Ophelia @ Mojo Theatre Repurposed Theatre’s inaugural production and world premiere of Rachel Luann Strayer’s play about a modern-day woman who’s visited by the Shakespearian character. $20. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru Nov. 2. 2940 16th St. #217. At Capp. www.repurposedtheatre.com

Garret + Moulton @ Jewish Community Center Award-winning choreographers Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton present the premiere of A Show of Hands, a commissioned New Music USA site-specific work exploring the articluate nature of human hands, with live music by the Friction Quartet. 12pm. Various times thru Oct. 25. 3200 California St. www.garrettmoulton.org

Sun 20

Enjoy dozens and dozens of readings, literary panels and parties at the annual nine-day literary festival. Thru Oct 19, culminating the the three-section Lit Crawl, with dozens of reading events at venues along Valencia St. www.litquake.org

New and Classic Films @ Castro Theatre Cleverly-paired double features and special events include: Oct. 17: Project Happiness ; 7pm. Oct. 18: The Blair Witch Project (7:30) and Ringu (9:20). Oct. 20: Cinematic Titanic (some of the MST2K crew) riff on The Doll Squad (7pm) and The Astral Factor (9:30); $35-$60. Oct. 19, The Monster Squad 25th anniversary screening, with several cast members in a Q&A (1pm, $15). Oct. 20, Fiddler on the Roof, including a Q&A with lead actor Topol (6pm). Oct. 22, The Grandmaster (2:30, 4:445, 7pm, 9:15). Oct. 23, Alien (7pm) and Dark Star (9:10). Oct. 24, Allegiant and author Veronica Roth in a Q&A ($30). Reg. admission $8.50-$12. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

Our Vast Queer Past @ GLBT History Museum See the new exhibit, The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus: Celebrating 35 Years of Activism Through Song, which includes archival materials from the historic chorus, lead-curated by Tom Burtch. Also, Be Bad…Do Good: Activism With a Beat, a multimedia exhibit highlighting the history of the Real Bad benefit dance parties, which have raised nearly $1.7 million for local nonprofits. Oct. 17: Bad for Good: The History and Legacy of a Legendary Dance Party, with panelists Dominick Albano; Gina Gatta (exhibit curator); Matthew Johnson; Scott Saraceno (documentary director); and Jeff Stallings. Moderator: Suzan Revah. Exhibit thru Oct. 27. Other permanent exhibits as well. Reg. hours Mon-Sat 11am7pm (closed Tue.) Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. 621-1107. www.glbthistory.org

Positively Powerful @ The Center SF

Norm Lewis Peter Hurley

Fri 18

Gala fundraiser for Bay Area Young Positives, which celebrates its 23rd anniversary, with a reception, live entertainment (Bebe Sweetbriar, Patty McGroin), a silent auction and refreshments. $30. 7pm-10pm. 584 Fillmore St. brownpapertickets.com

Glass Pumpkin Patch

Strange Shorts @ Oddball Films Unusual vintage short films, Thursdays and Fridays. Oct. 17, 8pm: Monster Mash-up, with lots of Halloween horror-comedythemed trailers and shorts. Oct. 18, 8pm. Punk art Surrealism of Winston Smith. Each $10. 8pm. 275 Capp St. 558-8117. www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com

The Taming @ Thick House Crowded Fire Theater company’s production of Lauren Gunderson’s political comedy about a conservative senator’s aid, a liberal activist and a beauty pageant queen’s interactions in a Georgia bar. $10-$25. Wed-Sat 8pm. Thru Oct. 26. 1695 18th St. 746-9238. www.crowdedfire.org

Writing Between Worlds @ Contemp. Jewish Museum The supernatural and time travel are part of two authors’ fascinating books: Andrew Sean Greer ( The Confessions of Max Tivoli, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells), and Helene Wecker ( The Golem and the Jinni ). The authors read and share a discussion and book-signing. Free with museum admission. 6:30pm. 736 Mission St. 655-7800. www.thecjm.org

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s Superman! @ Eureka Theatre

Dissident Futures @ YBCA Opening night event for a new exhibit of varied artists’ interpretations of the future, science and technology’s role in shaping it. Free/$12. 8pm-10pm. Reg adm. $8-$12. Thru Feb. 2, 2104. 701 Mission St. ybca.org

Emily Bergl @ Hotel Rex Society Cabaret presents the accomplished actress-singer in her cabaret show of classics and restyled pop songs. $25-$55. 8pm. Also Oct. 19, 8pm and 20, at 2pm. 562 Sutter St. 857-1896. www.SocietyCabaret.com

42nd Street Moon theatre’s production of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams’ ( Bye, Bye, Birdie, Applause ) vintage musical based on the superhero comic strip. $21-$75. Wed & Thu 7pm. Fri 8pm. Sat 6pm Sun 3pm. Thru Oct. 20. 215 Jackson St. 255-8207. www.42ndstmoon.org

A Midsummer Night’s Dream @ Zellerbach Playhouse, Berkeley UC Berkeley’s theatre department performs the Shakespeare comedy about fairies and mistaken love affairs in the magical woods. $10-$15. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Oct. 27. Behind Zellerbach Hall on Spieker Plaza, near the corner of Bancroft and Dana streets. (510) 642-8827. www.tdps.berkeley.edu

shirts Italian

for men

Fri 18 Autumn Lights Festival @ Lake Merritt, Oakland Fundraiser for the Gardens at Lake Merritt includes a sparkling light installation, sound installations and fire art performances. VIP tickets include wine and beer tastings, and illuminated souvenir toys. $12.50-$50. 6pm-10pm. Also Oct. 19. 666 Bellevue Ave., Lake Merritt, Oakland. (510) 548-5335. autumnlightsfestival.eventbrite.com

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. Holiday shows now on sale. 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

www.NARACAM

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane @ YBCA Exhibit and series of events celebrating the 30th anniversary of the innovative dance company and its diverse collaborators. Included are several offsite performances and discussion panels. Free/$10. Thru Nov. 3. Also, Migrating Identities, an eight-artist exhibition visualizing cultural diversity in the U.S. Thru Nov. 30. 701 Mission St. 9792787. www.ybca.org

Carrie: the Musical @ Victoria Theatre Ray of Light Theatre company premieres its much-anticipated version of the rarely-produced musical adaptation of the Stephen King horror tale about an awkward high school girl with special powers. $25-$36. Wed-Sat 8pm. Special late show Oct. 26 at 11:30pm. Nov 2 matinee at 2pm. Thru Nov. 2. 2961 16th St. at Mission. www.rayoflighttheatre.com

Cypress String Quartet @ David Brower Center The acclaimed local string ensemble performs a series of concerts in three different intimate venues. $50-$120 (3part series). 8pm (also Jan. 24 & May 9). 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley. Also Oct. 19, Jan. 25 & May 10 at the SF Jazz Center, 201 Franklin St. 500-2150. www.cypressquartet.com

Forbidden Fruit @ The Garage Back Alley Theatre and Footloose present a dance-theatre-music story of gay male ‘90s romance; for mature audiences (since there’s a bit of nudity). $20-$25. 8pm. Fri, Sat & Mon thru Oct. 28. 715 Bryant St. (800) 838-2006. www.backalleysf.org

Glass Pumpkin Patch @ Cohn-Stone Studios Annual outdoor exhibit of fascinating glass sculptures shaped like colorful gourds. FriSun 10am-6pm. Thru Oct. 27. 560 South 31st St. Richmond. www.cohnstone.com

Gruesome Playground Injuries @ Tides Theatre Local production of Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph’s drama about two selfdestructive adults who once met in a school nurse’s office. $20-$40. Wed-Sat 8pm. Thru Nov. 9. 533 Sutter St. 2nd. floor. 399-1322. www.tidestheatre.org

Next Fall @ San Jose Repertory Theatre Local production of Geoffrey Nauffts’s Tony-nominated play about a gay couple facing a family crisis. $25-$75. Tue & Wed 7pm. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm & 7pm. Also Sat 3pm. Thru Nov. 10. 101 Paseo De San Antonio Walk, San Jose. (408) 367-7255. www.sjrep.com

Picasso at the Lapin Agile @ Live Oak Theatre, Berkeley Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performs Steve Martin’s intelligent comedy about painter Pablo Picasso and scientist Albert Einstein, who meet in a Paris bar. $12-$15. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Oct. 26. 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, Berkeley. (510) 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org

Shakespeare Night at the Blackfriars @ Phoenix Arts Theatre George Crowe’s comicm play about a playwriting contest, London Idol 1610. $20-$25. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 7pm. Thru Nov. 17. 414 Mason St. (510) 276-3871. www.subshakes.com

Out&About>>

October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 23

Sidewinders @ Exit on Taylor

La Cage aux Folles @ Cinnabar Theater, Petaluma

Lit Crawl @ Valencia Corridor

Cutting Ball Theater presents the world premiere of Basil Kreimendahl’s play about a couple who find themselves in a genderblurring other world. Previews. Opening Oct. 25. $10-$50. Thu 7:30, Fri & Sat 8pm. Also Sat 2pm & Sun 5pm. 277 Taylor St. 525-1205. www.cuttingball.com

Sonoma production of Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman’s musical adaptation of the French film about a gay couple’s comedic attempt to cover their relationship when their son’s fiancé’s conservative parents visit their home above the gay nightclub they own. $9-$35. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Extended thru Nov. 10. 3333 Petaluma Blvd. North, Petaluma. (707) 763-8920.

Choose from dozens of reading events at bars, clubs, cafes, bookstores, and even barbershops, at the three-part closing event of the annual Litquake literary festival, with hourly time slots at 6pm, 7pm and 8pm. Get a map at any locale, or check online at www.litquake.org

Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike @ Berkeley Repertory

www.cinnabartheater.org

Christopher Durang’s Tony Award-winning comedy about a wacky family’s absurd country weekend includes a mom with a ditzy new boy toy. $29-$89. Tue-Sat 8pm. Sun 7pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Oct. 25. Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

First @ Stage Werx Evelyn Jean Pine’s fictional retelling of the young innovative and competitive life of computer guru Bill Gates. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Nov. 3. 446 Valencia St. www.firsttheplay.com

Live in the Castro @ Jane Warner Plaza New twice-weekly (Sat & Sun) live outdoor music concerts presented by the Castro/ Upper Market Community Business District. 2pm and 3pm. Free. Castro St. at Market. 500-1181. www.castrocbd.org

Michael Amico @ Books Inc. Co-editor of You Can Tell Just By Looking (with Michael Bronski and Ann Pellegrini) discusses the new book about homosexuality, stereotypes, and visibility. 7:30pm. 2275 Market St. 864-6777. www.booksinc.net

Les Misérables @ Saratoga Civic Theatre

UNION SQUARE: 352 Sutter Street 415-683-3204 WALNUT CREEK: 31 Broadway Lane 925-988-0844

South Bay production of the hit Broadway musical about the French Revolution, adapted from Victor Hugo’s novel. $26$35. Thu-Sat 8pm. Also Sat 2:30pm. Thru Oct. 19. 13777 Fruitvale Ave., Saratoga. (408) 266-4734. www.SouthBayMT.com

New contemporary exhibit of works by Bay Area artists focusing on the concept of family, and cultural and geographical distances. Thru Dec. 8. Also, Art of Adornment, Southeast Asian Jewelry ; Thru Nov 24. Free (members)-$12. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. 200 Larkin St. 581-3500. www.asianart.org

SF Hiking Club @ Coyote Hills Join GLBT hikers for a 7-mile hike in Coyote Hills Regional Park on the southeast side of SF Bay. It’s a good place to see shorebird life and marsh habitats. This will be a fairly leisurely hike. Carpool meets 9:15 at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. 596-1304. www.sfhiking.com

Family Halloween @ Sweet Inspiration Bring the kids for a magic show (11am), and ‘all you can eat’ pancake breakfast with a Halloween theme. 9am-1pm. 2239 Market St. SweetInspirationBakery.com

The Hula Show @ Palace of Fine Arts Theatre Patrick Makuakane and his award-winning dance troupe, Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu, present their annual festive celebratory dance concert of traditional and contemporary hula dances. $25-$75. 2pm & 8pm. Oct. 25 & 26 at 8pm; Oct. 27 at 3pm. 392-4400. www.cityboxoffice.com www.naleihulu.org

Norm Lewis @ The Venetian Room Tony-nominated star of Broadway ( Porgy and Bess, Dreamgirls, Tommy) and TV ( Scandal ) performs a concert of show tunes and cabaret standards. $43-$48. 5pm. Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason St. 392-4400. www.BayAreaCabaret.org

MICIEUSA.com The two musicians perform varied contemporary works by several gay and lesbian composers in a program titled Modern Piano Lineages, including an original work by Tendler, Hate Speech, for piano and audience cell phones. $10-$15. 8pm. 55 Taylor St. 275-2466. centerfornewmusic.com

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo @ SF Playhouse

Annual gala benefit for San Francisco Night Ministry, the crisis intervention hotline. The evening will feature a red carpet reception, hors d’oeuvres, family-style dinner, drinks, raffle, silent and live auctions, entertainment and much more. 935-7862. www.sfnightministry.org

Hedwig and the Angry Inch @ Boxcar Theatre

Rajiv Joseph’s Pulitzer Prize finalist drama about the ghost of a tiger who changes the lives of U.S. Marines and an Iraqi translator. $30-$70. Tue-Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 3pm. 450 Post St. 677-9596. www.sfplayhouse.org

The hit local production of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s popular transgender rock operetta features multiple actor-singers performing the lead. $25-$40. Wed-Sat 8pm. Also Sat 5pm. Extended with open-ended run. 505 Natoma St. 967-2227. www.boxcartheatre.org

Capacitor @ Aquarium of the Bay

HRC Gala @ Westin St. Francis

Okeanos, an aquatic dance show, is performed by the creative Bay Area dance-theatre team. $15-$30. 4:30 and 7pm. Saturdays thru 2013. Pier 39 at Embarcadero. 623-5300. capacitor.org

The Human Rights Campaign’s 29th annual Bay Area gala, with a dinner, entertainment and auctions. $150 and up. 5pm-10pm. 335 Powell St. www.sfhrcgala.org

Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe is the guest vocalist at this concert by the Quebec City string ensemble, in a concert of works by Telemann, J.S. Bach, Haydn and Handel. $30-$68. 3pm. UC Berkeley campus, Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave., Berkeley. (510) 642-9988. www.calperformances.org

Mon 21 10 Percent @ Comcast Cable David Perry’s LGBT-themed talk show features a variety of local and visiting guests. Rebroadcast various times thru the week. www.comcasthometown.com

Healthcare Reform Info Fair @ Project Open Hand Learn about updates on the Affordable Care Act, ADAP and AIDS/HIV issues related to the new plans; presented by the SF HIV Healthcare Reform Task Force. Free. 2pm-4pm. Project Open Hand, 730 Polk St. 2nd floor.

Adam Tendler, Sarah Cahill @ Center for New Music

Les Violons du Roy @ Hertz Hall, Berkeley Gold Rush ‘49 @ St. Mark’s Square

The Hula Show Lin Cariffe

Thu 17

Proximities 2 @ Asian Art Museum

Sun 20

Sat 19

Sun 20

Drowning Ophelia

We Have This @ Z Space West Wave Dance Festival presents new works by artists paired with choreographers: Jesse Hewit and Sara Shelton Mann, Monique Jenkinson and Liz Tenuto, Keith Hennessy and Mica Sigourney, Jose Navrette and Amara Tabor-Smith, Laura Arrington and Brontez Parnell. $15-$20. 8pm. 450 Florida St. (866) 811-4111. www.westwavedance.org

Tue 22 The Art of Beer @ City Beer Exhibit of beer-label collages by local artist Tofu, at the beer store and bar. 21+. Exhibit thru Nov. 3. Tue-Sun 12pm-10pm. 1168 Folsom St. 503-1033. www.tofuart.com www.citybeerstore.com

Charles Gatewood: Fifty Years @ Robert Tat Gallery Exhibit of photos from five decades of prints by the fine art photographer and photojournalist. Thru Nov. 30. 49 Geary St. #410. 781-1122. www.roberttat.com

Twisted Sisters @ City Hall Gallery Twisted Sisters: Reimagining Urban Portraiture, a large-scale photo exhibit and art exchange between SF and Zurich. Thru Jan. 27. SF City Hall, North Light Court, and various outdoor kiosks. sfartscommission.org

Will Durst @ The Marsh Boomeraging: From LSD to OMG, the comic wit’s one-man show about aging Baby Boomers. Tuesdays thru Oct. 29. $15-$50. 8pm. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.TheMarsh.org

Wed 23 Q Salsa @ Symbolic Dance & Fitness LGBT same-sex partner dance lessons; five weekly sessions $17 each or $65-$75 for the series (free for 12 to 18). Thru Nov. 27. 8:30-9:30pm. 672 South Van Ness Ave. www.QueerBallroom.com

Richard Meyer @ Books Inc. Author of the “curatorially promiscuous” Queer Art and Culture discusses his book on LGBT arts achievements since 1880, which features 180 color images. 7:30pm. 2275 Market St. 864-6777. booksinc.net

Underneath the Lintel @ American Conservatory Theatre Actor David Strathairn performs Glen Berger’s intriguing solo drama about a librarian haunted by ghosts unleashed from a mysterious antique book. $20-$95. Tue-Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat, Sun 2pm. Oct. 23 valet bike parking. Nov. 6, Out with A.C.T. LGBT night includes after-party. Thru Nov. 17. Geary Theatre, 415 Geary St. 749-2228. www.act-sf.org

Robbie Sweeny

Thu 24 Jason Lazarus: Live Archive @ Contemp. Jewish Museum Exhibit of unusual work by the Chicago artist who explores collective public archives, personal memory, and the role of photography and collecting in contemporary art and identity. Also, two exhibits about Jewish life: To Build & Be Built: Kibbutz History (thru July 1) and Work in Progress: Considering Utopia (thru Jan 20). 2pm-5pm. Free (members)-$12. Thu-Tue 11am-5pm (Thu 1pm-8pm) 736 Mission St. 655-7800. www.thecjm.org

Dia de los Muertos @ SOMArts Cultural Center Large group exhibit of Day of the Dead altars and artworks honoring the deceased, with interactive installations and Día de los Muertos-inspired artist market. Tue-Fri 12pm-7pm. Sat 11am-5pm. Sun 11am-3pm. Thru Nov. 9. 934 Brannan St. 863-1414. www.somarts.org

Hymns to Hermes: The Poetics of James Broughton @ SF Public Library Local activist and archivist Joey Cain’s exhibit of the gay poet and filmmaker includes rare personal items from his estate. Thru Jan. 16. James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center, Main Library, third floor, 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

Macy Gray @ Yoshi’s Wildly soulful pop R&B singer performs with her band. $48-$75. 8pm & 10pm. Special meet & greet pre-show (7pm). Dinner options. 1330 Fillmore St. 6555600. www.yoshis.com

Night of the Living Dead @ Century 9 Cinema Riff Trax Live blends live simulcast commentary by the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 crew to the classic Roger Corman original zombie classic film. $12-$15. 8pm. 835 Market St. fathomevents.com

Unmasked @ Regency Center The GLBT Historical Society’s annual gala includes drinks, food, a tempting variety of historic LGBT-themed auction items (plus wines, show tickets and luxury items). Entertainment at the event will include drag stars Miss Rahni and Landa Lakes, swing dancers Ron Jenkins and Photis Pishiaras, erotic cabaret performers from SF Boylesque, and DJs from Stay Gold. Festive attire encouraged. $75 and up. 7pm-10pm. 1290 Sutter St. at Van Ness. www.unmaskedgala.org

To submit event listings, email jim@ebar.com. Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication. For more bar and nightlife events, go to www.bartabsf.com, and our new merged section, www.ebar.com/bartab

<< Books

24 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

Poetry unleashed by Tim Pfaff

o one who has followed lesbian poet Mary Oliver’s verse will be surprised that her latest collection, Dog Songs (The Penguin Press), is about woman’s best friend. A nature poet par excellence, Oliver has trained her view in these poems less on the skies, trees, and birds above us – though they make important cameos, too – but on the furry quadrupeds at her feet. Like the guides that have seen the classic poets through hell and back, dogs have been Oliver’s companions on

the deep personal journeys of recent years – through the loss of her life partner of four decades, Molly, and into the life thereafter. Joy in the deepest sense has never deserted her. What has returned – you feel it in every bounding line of Dog Songs – is the exuberance. She uses the word herself. In “The Storm (Bear),” she observes her little dog on the snow: ‘Running here running there, excited/ hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins/ until the white snow is written upon/ in large, exuberant letters,/ a long sentence, expressing/ the pleasures

of the body in this world.” There, in that last line, is her theme. The closest she comes to the polemical is stated near the beginning. “You may not agree,” she writes, “but if you are holding this book you should know that of all the sights I love in this world – and there are plenty – very near the top of the list is this one: dogs without leashes.” But her plea is not shrill. In a bit of prose called “Ropes,” she tells a bewitching story about a dog named Sammy, who continually – daily – chewed threw the rope its owners put on him and made it, intuitively, to Oliver’s house. No spoilers here, but Sammy’s escapades into freedom eventually charm not just the townsfolk but even the authorities who are charged with nabbing him. “Maybe,” Oliver writes, the story is “about the wonderful things that may happen if you break the ropes that are holding you.” In San Francisco, a city where the road to gay liberation had, near its trailhead, a pooper-scooper law, and where, as my father fretted, “the houses touch,” and there are rules for dogs and what they leave behind, Oliver’s concluding essay, “Dog Talk,” may read like a scold, actual or implied. The leashed dog, she says, “is what a chair is to a tree. It is a possession only, the ornament of a human life.” Unleashed dogs, by contrast, “are a kind of poetry themselves when they are devoted not only to us but to the wet night,

to the moon and the rabbit-smell in the grass and their own bodies leaping forward.” Not everyone can live in Provincetown. These are not, for the most part anyway, sentimental rhymes, though dog-lovers reading them can count on choking up regularly. In the most ambitious of them, “For I Will Consider My Dog Percy,” she literally builds – overlays – her own poem on the 18th-century poet Christopher Smart’s “For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffrey.” Percy was the smaller dog Molly asked for in her later years, and Oliver’s observation – “he came to me impaired and therefore certain of short life, yet thoroughly rejoiced in each day” – makes reverberant intimations of mortality. “Often I see his shape in the clouds, and this is a continual blessing.” Some may balk at Oliver’s spurn-

ing of species-ism – or indeed, her embrace of a reverse-species-ism. A dog is never a lesser being. She hymns dogs’ keen sense of hearing, feeling, and particularly, smell, routinely regarding it as advanced relative to hers – a big salute from anyone as keenly tuned to nature and its rhythms as she. “I have seen Ben place his nose meticulously into the shallow dampness of a deer’s hoofprint and shut his eyes as if listening. But it is smell he is listening to. The wild, high music of smell, that we know so little about.” Midway through Dog Talk she intones: “But I want to extol not the sweetness nor the placidity of the dog, but the wildness out of which he cannot step entirely, and from which we benefit. For wilderness is our first home too. Dog is one of the messengers of that rich and still magical first world. The dog would remind us of the pleasures of the body with its graceful physicality, and the acuity and rapture of the senses, and the beauty of forest and ocean and rain and our own breath.” Beware those, like me, who live in “pet-free” apartments. Reading these poems could lead to major changes. “We’re, as the saying goes, all over the place,” she writes in “How It Is with Us, and How it Is with Them.” “Steadfastness, it seems, is more about dogs than about us. One of the reasons we love them so much.”t

From beaches to bathhouses by Jim Piechota

Steam Bath: Sweaty Gay Erotica edited by Shane Allison Beach Bums: Gay Erotic Fiction edited by Neil Plakcy; both Cleis Press, $15.95 ackling saunas, steam baths, sand and surf, two recently published erotica story collections from Berkeley-based Cleis Press, Steam Bath and Beach Bums, focus on the rush and the sweat of sexual attraction when the heat is on. Floridabased veteran erotica anthology editor Shane Allison has done a terrific job amassing these wet and wonderful pieces, which have a little something for everyone’s personal taste. It’s all about the beauty of the male ass in Troy Storm’s bottom-heavy opening story, followed by erotica veteran Shaun Levin’s short-andsweet tale about rediscovering a lost love in a sauna, and the three-way sex romp that fires things back up. Ratcheting things up a notch is local scribe Rob Rosen, who contributes heady fiction in “The Key,” about a co-worker fantasy come to life thanks to a misplaced bathhouse key. More pants-shedding continues with Eric Del Carlo’s by-the-numbers tour of a bathhouse in “Steam Punk.” A first-timer in the form of a “skinny, tattooed kid, pale with boot-polish black hair in a limp Mohawk” searches for the perfect partner and finds him in a haze of thick moist steam. Roscoe Hudson’s story “The Chaperones” handles the issue of aging well, with a character nearing 50 and eager to reinvigo-

Broadway Idiot

From page 20

strong is approached by the team behind the hit Broadway musical Spring Awakening to collaborate on a theatre-friendly version of American Idiot pitched to the even more uncertain cultural vibe of Obama’s America. Directed by Frontline veteran Doug Hamilton (The Long Walk of Nelson

rate his sex life while vacationing in Belgium. The carefully-realized set-piece in T. Hitman’s Roman fantasy “The Aqueducts” is provocative without being sleazy, as is Australian (living in Paris) writer Jimi Goninan’s hilarious “Meanwhile in the Sauna,” which left this reader wanting more – preferably in the form of a novel-length work. It’s all sunglasses and sunscreen (and lube, lots of lube) in Beach Bums, which includes works from several Steam Bath writers. Rosen contributes a San Francisco-based story, “Rules is Rules,” which follows a Harley-riding horndog to Baker Beach for some nude nastiness on the cold sand. The “beach find” in D.K. Jernigan’s tale “What Washed Ashore” turns out to be a lightlytanned demigod who sexes up the narrator in much the same way as the masseuse does in Logan Zachary’s steamy entry “Sex on the Beach.” Editor Neil Plakcy includes sev-

eral female authors on the bill, and their stories are among the best in the collection. Massachusetts-based writer Miss Peach takes a different approach to the sandy shores of New England in her story “February Fantasy,” which describes a winter beach scenario that really heats up. Raven De Hart’s “The Ultimate Breakup Cure” is a standout for its depiction of a casual set-up by a gay man’s fag-hag. New Zealand dark fantasy writer Emily Veinglory contributes a polished yarn whose lead character, with familial roots in the indigenous Polynesian Maori population, finds much to savor after a kayak river excursion clutching a shape-shifting talisman. A reader’s preference for beach or bathhouse will dictate which of these bright, buxom books wins out, but with either choice, there’s plenty of good writing and a wealth of filthy imagination on display.t

Mandela), Broadway Idiot lets us witness the growing creative bond between Armstrong and the show’s Broadway director Michael Mayer. Taking a project originally developed at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Mayer and Spring Awakening actor alumnae John Gallagher, Jr. strip the show’s book of some of its Berkeley dialogue and create an experience that’s closer to a true marriage between today’s arena-staged rock

concerts and big theatre’s expensive, Hollywood-driven production values. Broadway Idiot is at its best illustrating the heavy lifting involved in putting an $8 million Broadway show on its feet creatively. To recoup its backers’ dough, it must reach out well beyond the traditional $500 orchestra seat crowd, drawing club kids and the downtown set to Broadway’s See page 25 >>

Books>>

October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 25

Pact alleged between Hollywood & Hitler by Tavo Amador

n December 1930, Nazis in Berlin staged a riot to protest the Oscarwinning American movie All Quiet on the Western Front, which was based on German author Eric Maria Remarque’s novel about World War I. The Nazis felt the picture negatively portrayed Germans, and they succeeded in having it banned. How did the major Hollywood studios respond? That’s the question discussed by Ben Urwand in his controversial The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler (Bellknap/ Harvard University Press, $26.95). Germany, France, and England had healthy cinemas of their own, but none produced sufficient movies to meet popular demand. They and other European countries were, therefore, an important market for classic Hollywood’s studios. Urwand alleges that the studios, which, with one exception, were run by Jews, “collaborated” with the movie-loving Adolph Hitler (who came to power in 1932) and the Nazis by not making films that accurately portrayed what was happening in Germany, rarely showing Jews on screen, and by allowing the German Consul General in Los Angeles to view and suggest changes to movies before they were released. The last point is a major discovery, but as Urwand himself admits, the Motion Picture Production Code specified that films could not be offensive to

Broadway Idiot

From page 24

august St. James Theatre. Hamilton’s cameras show how Armstrong, initially an enthusiastic if silent partner in the enterprise, gets totally sucked in, to the point of making his own New York

foreign nationalities – a tenet that seems only to have been applied to Europeans. To prove his point, he painstakingly analyzes one unproduced screenplay, Mad Dog of Europe, and the impact of and issues surrounding several released movies, including King Kong, Gabriel Over the White House, The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933), and The House of Rothschild (1934). Independent producer Sam Jaffe wanted to film Herman Mankiewicz’s play Mad Dog of Europe, which dramatized Nazi persecution of Jews. Mankiewicz was under contract to MGM, so Jaffe sought another writer to adapt the play. The story became so convoluted and improbable that no studio would film it. Undoubtedly, there was concern about offending the German government, but the absurd plot provided a ready excuse to reject the proposal. Urwand concedes that the Jewish studio executives, like many immigrants or first-generation Americans, strongly wanted to assimilate into the dominant Protestant European culture. He also acknowledges the existence of widespread antiSemitic sentiments that blamed Jews for the Great Depression. Yet following American boxer Max Baer’s victory over Germany’s Max Schmeling, MGM’s Louis B. Mayer cast the triumphant, Jewish American pugilist in The Prizefighter and

the Lady. The movie didn’t hide Baer’s character’s Jewishness, and showed him in romantic situations with gentile women. It initially did well in Germany, but the dubbed version fell afoul of the censors, who felt that portraying a Jew having intimate relationships with non-Jewish women was offensive to the population. Baer had also criticized Hitler, which made him suspect, although Schmeling denied that Baer made those derogatory comments. The movie was subsequently withdrawn from circulation. Darryl Zanuck, the head of Twentieth Century Fox, was the only gentile mogul of the era, and he insisted on filming The House of Rothschild, which, while including some negative Jewish stereotypes, also had many positive images. The film was a hit in America, but it indirectly resulted in the neardisappearance of Jewish characters in American movies. Jewish civil rights organizations were divided in their opinions about the picture, as they were about how the studios censored films being released in Germany. Urwand reveals that Mayer was a major shareholder of Twentieth Century Fox, and used that leverage to persuade Zanuck to stop making similar pictures. (Zanuck did return to the subject with

1947’s Gentlemen’s Agreement.) Classic Hollywood’s studios were called “factories” because they produced so many movies. They wanted to make money for shareholders, not to arouse public opinion about controversial topics. The German market was important to them, and they did use their leverage to mitigate some of the proposals coming from the Nazis. For example, they threatened to close down their offices in Germany, which would have resulted in thousands of job losses – at a time when unemployment was rampant.

Could the studios have done more to alert America to the horrors of the Nazi regime? Certainly. So could the mainstream press and the government. It’s important to remember that the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Joseph P. Kennedy, father of the future president, felt strongly that Hitler was the best defense against the dangers posed to democratic capitalism by Joseph Stalin’s Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. That belief was also shared by Winston Churchill. In the UK, Sir Oswald Mosley founded the British Union of Fascists. Urwand holds Hollywood to a higher, anachronistic standard of behavior than most other institutions of the era, but is selective in his revelations. Surprisingly, he fails to mention how the publicly anti-Nazi Marlene Dietrich refused Hitler’s orders to return to her homeland to make films, and instead became an American citizen. The sensationalist title does the book a great deal of harm. The studios negotiated with the Nazis. The two sides accommodated one another, which is not the same thing as collaboration. The academic prose often makes for tough reading, although the footnotes and bibliography are thorough. It’s also wellillustrated. These virtues, however, are not sufficient to prove Urwand’s thesis.t

stage debut as the character St. Jimmy, the drug-dealing Id of Gallagher’s confused hero Johnny. Hamilton gets Armstrong to reach back to a 2003 evening when he had an epiphany about the character that would tap into his earlier life and old friendships. “I went on a walk, and I remem-

ber thinking, ‘I’m the son of rage and love, the Jesus of suburbia.’ Those two lines came out and both excited and scared the living piss out of me.” Armstrong is a creative personality willing to tap into his own dark side, a five-foot-seven spitfire with a similar world view to Nirvana sur-

vivor Dave Grohl. So it’s a pity that Hamilton doesn’t get him to dredge through memories of growing up a high school dropout in the dreary Berkeley suburb of Rodeo. Connecting the dots between the bratty punks and punk-aspiring queers would have added zest to this ambitious making-

of film, with its brilliant soundtrack. In the end we have to settle for Broadway naïf Armstrong’s surprise and chagrin at the motley upscale crowd drawn to American Idiot’s opening night. “It was really strange to see Donald Trump. What the fuck are you doing here?”t

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26 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

Tempest at the Symphony Hall by Philip Campbell

other compared to the blazing innovation and in-your-face uniqueness of Adès’ take on The Tempest. Barihunk Rod Gilfry sang the role of Prospero with a burning intensity that is well-suited to the composer’s rougher (and younger) conception of the character. A previous time I saw Gilfry onstage, he was wearing an athletic T-shirt and ravishing Renée Fleming in André Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire at the San Francisco Opera. He cleans up well, but even white tie and tails can’t cover a certain intensity of emotion. His moments during the carefully chosen excerpted scenes were too brief, and judging by the overwhelming (and frankly surprising) ovation he received with his fellow soloists, the enthusiastic audience agreed. The cheekiest part of Adès’ vocal writing is for Ariel, sung here by soprano Audrey Luna. Seemingly impossible high notes are shrieked and spit and blurted alongside moments of quite ethereal beauty. Of course, it renders the text unintelligible, but it sure makes for a bold and effective impression. Luna seemed unfazed, and she actually managed to

panish conductor Pablo HerasCasado has just completed a two-week guest shot at Davies Symphony Hall that has managed not only to showcase the wonders of the San Francisco Symphony, but also to provide a provocative glimpse of the world of contemporary opera. His most recent program had a Shakespearean motif, with performances of Mendelssohn’s evergreen Suite from A Midsummer Night’s Dream opening for Scenes from The Tempest (2004) by red-hot British composer Thomas Adès. The concert closed with a full rendition of Mendelssohn’s Die Erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night), featuring rich and idiomatic singing by Ragnar Bohlin’s SFS Chorus, a trio of vocal soloists (two borrowed from the earlier Tempest), and beautifully detailed playing by the orchestra. Pleasing as that performance proved to be, and hearing mezzosoprano Charlotte Hellekant again was a big part of it, the opening and closing Mendelssohn works went fairly in one ear and out the

give some character to the cruelly demanding musical requirements expected of her. As the lovers Miranda and Ferdinand, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard and tenor Alek Shrader were well-suited to the more conventionally appealing aspects of the score. They sang with personality and excellent technique, and they also looked just right for their parts. As a matter of fact, all the soloists flanking the darkly handsome HerasCasado were every bit as physically appealing as their voices. That’s not something you ordinarily expect from a classical concert, but it certainly added a nice dividend. The previous week brought some more of Adès’ first SFS performances to DSH, with another all-too-brief but thoroughly delightful Three Studies from Couperin. Flavored a bit like Gunther Schuller’s interpretations of the baroque, Adès is less intrusive, and seems to be offering less in the way of commentary than some illuminating bits of orchestration. The results are predictably charming, and left us only wanting more. The concert had opened with a clear and strong reading of Lully’s

Felix Broede

Guest conductor Pablo HerasCasado: musical insight.

Overture and Passacaille from Armide, alerting the audience to the conductor’s focus and ability to lend passion to even the stateliest of music. The first half of the bill brought violinist Leila Josefowicz center stage for an equally impassioned performance of Stravinsky’s remarkable Violin Concerto in D Major. Talk about lookers in the

concert hall. Sorry, but it isn’t inappropriate to mention that two audience members sitting behind me referred to the young virtuoso as hot, as long as her performance proved transcendent. It did. Josefowicz thrust and parried her way through the fast pages with dexterity and wit (not to mention strong and lustrous tone), and also showed a clear understanding and enjoyment of Stravinsky’s infectious dance rhythms. Would her rendition have been as pleasing strictly as a listening experience? Maybe not, but that is hardly the point during a live performance. We are judging the entire package, and this was a thoroughly satisfying interpretation by any standard. The fellows who made the observation about the soloist’s looks were later heard to remark that she was just as good as Kyung Wha Chung and Anne Sofie Mutter in the same repertoire, and they aren’t exactly chopped liver themselves. Pablo Heras-Casado has made his mark before at DSH, and if he continues with his intriguing programming and musical insights, we hope he will become a regular staple of future seasons.t

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Fabio Capitanucci (Ford) and Bryn Terfel (Falstaff) in San Francisco Opera’s Falstaff.

Falstaff

From page 17

the years as prodigiously impressive as the vainglorious knight’s protruding belly. He still needs some costume padding, but his persona is certainly big enough, and most importantly, he has always been capable of singing the breeches off the role. So Terfel stands most righteously at the center of this latest mounting by the SFO (11 previously) of Verdi’s and librettist Arrigo Boito’s warm and wise and genuinely funny take on life, aging, and comical self-delusion. This production new to San Francisco is owned by Lyric Opera of Chicago, with delightful sets and costumes by Frank Philipp Schlössmann, and generally unfussy stage direction by Olivier Tambosi. The musical direction by SFO conductor Nicola Luisotti sets the seal on a surefire audience-pleaser that was eliciting gales of laughter from the very opening of the fast-paced and heartily sung first act. There are some who still don’t understand all the fuss about Verdi’s wonderful score, but there are many more who still marvel at the seamless inevitability of the action and the composer’s perfect collaboration with Boito. It is one of those operas that simply couldn’t be improved on. The warmth and lyrical flow of Verdi’s melodic line is always in service of the action, and the tightness and timing of each scene never dawdle telling the tale, while still managing moments of reflection and even a charming love duet. The faux-oaken sets give a sort of Old Globe flavor to the proceedings in this well-traveled production,

and they function well mechanically, but why there should be such long and mood-breaking intervals between acts poses a distracting question. It is a small quibble amidst the fun, and the hubbub created at times by director Tambosi is never really confusing visually, even if it does create an audibility problem for Luisotti. At least Terfel can always be heard above the fray. The night of my attendance was being simulcast to the Frost Amphitheatre at Stanford, and the cameras in the house were always remarkably discreet. What really threw the performance for a loop was the announcement by soprano Heidi Stober that she could not continue singing during the third act, due to a worsening cold. Her ailment was announced at the start of the show, but there was no standby for the role of Nanetta, so she went on and sounded just fine for the first two acts. Her duet with an ardent Francesco Demurro as her lover Fenton was good and perfectly believable. At first shockingly unprepared for the potentially calamitous turn of events, management got hold of former Adler Fellow soprano Nikki Einfeld, who lives locally, fairly quickly during the intermission, and after making necessary arrangements, brought her to the opera house. The intermission was delayed, and the performance resumed after a break of one hour, 12 minutes. Ms. Einfeld sang Act III from the side of the stage while Ms. Stober acted the role on stage. A good quarter of the audience reluctantly left before the performance resumed, and their disappointment was clear, no matter how good-natured their acceptance of the “stuff

happens” philosophy. Nikki Einfeld has previously performed the role of Nannetta in Falstaff with Edmonton Opera in 2008, and her presence at a music stand wearing an unobtrusive frock was no detriment to Stober’s miming of the part. It seriously threw the performance off-track, however, and the curiously un-magical staging of the final scene (lighting designer Christine Binder could have provided a bit more mystery) was out of synch with all the pleasures of the earlier acts. Still, there is no denying the show remains a huge hit, and Verdi triumphed over all. There is Terfel’s magnificently textured portrayal; I can’t remember the last time I laughed out loud just at a performer’s entrance (that souped-up allred costume is really hilarious). The supporting roles are wellcast and sung, with an especially ingratiating performance by soprano Ainhoa Arteta (remember her lovely Roxane in Cyrano de Bergerac?). She sparkles with wit and fire as Mistress Alice Ford, alongside the ample and richly humorous Dame Quickly of Meredith Arwady. Arwady is a contralto with a vibratofree tone that beams through the orchestral fabric, showing the same kind of natural power exhibited by Terfel. Her scenes with the conniving Sir John were wonderfully droll. I can never get enough of Falstaff, and even with fond memories of the old Ponnelle production in mind, this latest incarnation is a keeper.t Falstaff continues in repertory through Nov. 2 at the War Memorial Opera House.

Music>>

October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 27

Queer songwriting all year by Gregg Shapiro

fter detours into blues (Blood, Bones & Baltimore), Latin music (Tango) and other genres, Disappear Fear, led by the versatile SONiA, returns with its best album in years, Broken Film (disappearfear. com). Incorporating politics and social commentary in her distinctive style, SONiA takes on family (“Farmland and the Sky”), spirituality (“Ari Ari”) and of course, love (the anthemic “Love Out Oud” and “L Kol L Vavcha,” partially sung in Hebrew). But the album’s high point is the breathtaking “The Banker,” in which SONiA deftly addresses the impact of the financial crisis with wisdom, sensitivity and fury. Bi singer/songwriter Ezra Furman includes a quote by trans writer/activist Kate Bornstein in the liner notes of his new disc Day of the Dog (Bar None), credited to Furman “with his band The Boy-Friends.” Considered to be the suburban Chicago Bob Dylan of his generation, Furman wastes no time whipping us into a frenzy on “I Wanna Destroy Myself,” which combines the garage heat of Hunx & His Punx with the Violent Femmes. “Tell Em

Piper Kerman

From page 18

Are you still in touch with women you met in prison? Yes, I treasure those friendships. Is it true that your former lover, the woman who got you involved in the crime that landed you in prison, was incarcerated with you? Yes, but not the way it’s depicted in the show. The trajectory of that relationship is different in the book. We were in the same facility for a period towards the end of my time. In fact,

All to Go to Hell” is a slicked-back rockabilly rouser. “My Zero” is easily one of Furman’s catchiest and most pop-friendly tunes. Listening to Day of the Dog is a little like walking through the pound and looking at all the pooches in cages, each with its own distinctive personality. There’s the fierce “Maybe God Is a Train,” the affectionate “Been So Strange” (dig that brass) and “Slacker/Adria,” the kind of mixed breed that stops people in their tracks. The subject of Lily Keber’s fascinating doc Bayou Maharaj: The Tragic Genius of James Booker, the late, queer New Orleans piano legend James Booker was both a genius and tragic. A gifted performer with a serious substance abuse problem, Booker, who died at 43 in 1983, was so unpredictable when it came to recording that he only made a few studio albums. One of them, Classified, is considered to be his masterwork. Reissued in time to coincide with the release of the doc, Classified: Remixed and Expanded (Rounder) is an exceptional 22-track crash course in Booker. Almost half of the songs are previously unreleased, including the extraordinary Booker original “I’m Not Sayin’,” which says

plenty about his talent. Elton John also battled his demons. Fortunately for him, he was able to overcome the obstacles and is still here with us today. Elton John’s new album The Diving Board (Capitol) finds the piano man re-teamed with T Bone Burnett (who produced EJ’s collaboration disc with Leon Russell) for an admirable return to form. In essence, his playing is sensational and not buried under distracting production. Just listen to “Oscar Wilde Gets Out,” one of the best songs on the album, which is a reminder of the way Elton first made us swoon many years ago. His piano playing is also on fine display in “The Ballad of Blind Tom,” “My Quicksand,” “Home Again” and “The New Fever Waltz.” While he deserves to be commended for making a move as daring as this, he hasn’t had a hit single in a while, and may not have one on The Diving Board. “Can’t Stay Alone Tonight” does recall some of Elton’s 1980s hits. Is there anything more thrilling than connecting with a band and following it from its first album to its latest, charting its evolution and growth? A melding of Tegan and Sara, Le Tigre and Luscious Jackson, the queer Portland band Lovers has

we shared the same cell. I was grateful [for it] because that strange twist in the universe made it possible for me to have a very important confrontation with my past, and take responsibility for my actions.

at an elite college prepared me, perhaps shockingly, for living in a very different women’s community, albeit an involuntary one, which is what you find behind the walls of a women’s prison. I think the show implies that Piper had never had a female lover before, and that was not the case for me. It was not an aspect of life in prison that I found the least bit startling.

Have you seen her since your release? No, I have not. You had lesbian relationships before you went to prison. Did that make life easier for you there? When I was at Smith College, I was very active in what was then called the Lesbian Bisexual Alliance. Living within that tight women’s community

In the show, one of the raps on Piper is that, for her, having a lesbian relationship was just a girl’s big adventure before settling down to a conventional

been through a series of incarnations in its more than 10 years of existence. A trio since 2010’s Dark Light, Lovers delivers on the promise of that record with the brilliant A Friend in the World (Badman). Aurally delightful, Lovers finds space for acoustic and electronic soundscapes, exemplified on “Girl in the Grass,” increasing the overall appeal. Equally adept at a dance track such as the amazing “The Modern Art Museum of the Modern Kiss Goodbye” as they are at the funky strut of “Oh Yeah,” the dreamy pop of “Lavender Light” and the subtle electro of “James Baldwin & the Diagonal Trance,” Lovers gives the listener plenty of reasons to fall in love with them. Of course, there are many more LGBT artists out there. The prolific Eric Himan (who recently scored an opening slot for Patty Griffin)

delivers his most soulful recording on Gracefully (Thumbcrown). Making the most of Ryan Tedder’s sassy horn arrangements and the talents of backing vocalists Tylisha Oliver and Tina Phillips, Himan, on Rhodes and piano, gracefully and smoothly enters soul revivalist territory on “Red Hot Tears,” “The Only Way,” “Hard To Please” and “Call Yourself a Friend.” Lesbian folk legend Linq returns with Disconnect (linqmusic.com), songs featuring her unique perspective on contemporary society and culture, including “Seneca Falls to Selma,” “Patriarch (Apron Strings),” “Pillow” and “Oh Bully.” Queer rapper Young Kaii, who has proclaimed herself the new LGBT artist of the year, has her say on This Is Love (iamyoungkaii. com), including the suggestive “Everytime” and “Juliett.”t

life. Was this true for you? No, I was a real live lesbian until I met Larry Smith and ended up marrying him, which was pretty much the last thing I expected. I considered myself to be a lesbian before I met him.

and like all choices, you have to live with the consequences. When you’re younger, you think you don’t have to give up certain things, but you do.t

Do you ever feel like you’re denying part of yourself? I’ve been in a monogamous relationship with my husband for a long time now, but I agree with the idea that sexuality is a continuum. We have different parts of ourselves, but when you decide to be in a particular type of relationship, that’s a definitive choice,

Kerman will be in town this Saturday for the Litquake literary festival, participating in Loose Lips Sink Ships, an event where writers recite a six-word memoir, and have six minutes to explain its origins. It’s part of Words on the Waves, a popular festival program that takes place on private houseboats in Sausalito. For more info, schedule and tix: www.litquake.org

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Photographer: Shawn K. Welch

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Justin's Time

Literarium

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Personals Vol. 43 • No. 42 • October 17-23, 2013

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Adult video performer Jimmy Durano and director Christian Owen enjoy a drink at Beaux’s bar.

Rad Beauxmance

f by Jim Provenzano

fter enduring months of extensive renovations, and no small volley of rumors and speculation, Beaux, the stylish Castro gay nightclub, has opened. See page 30 >>

The newest club has opened up.

Georg Lester

c i s u M s Klau

by Jim Provenzano

he eerily wonderful popopera singer Klaus Nomi is long gone, but Joey Arias and Kristian Hoffman, his two close friends and collaborators, will return to the stage in a rare duo concert. Lightning Strikes, a musical tribute to the man who “came from outer space to save the human race,” plays at Feinstein’s at the Nikko for one night only October 24 at 8pm. In addition to a few Nomi songs, Lightning Strikes features a mix of 1970s rock anthems, popular standards, original material and Arias’ signature ‘channeling’ of Billie Holiday. The show debuted in Los Angeles earlier this year and toured to Portland, Salt Lake City, Seattle and New York. A European tour is being planned for early 2014 in conjunction with what would have been Nomi’s 70th birthday. I spoke with Arias when he was in London performing his solo show. Hoffman spoke separately via phone from his home city Los Angeles, where he was preparing for a concert with his own band. “Kristian was the man who originally got Klaus to start a band,” said Arias. “I knew him,

honor Nomi n a m ff o H n a risti Joey Arias & K

Joey Arias and Kristian Hoffmann on the road with their Lightning Strikes show.

and we were good friends. But at first, Klaus was just going to parties and singing arias. I wasn’t even an opera fan. But I loved him and we had a great time.” With his oddly robotic gestures and iconic Kabuki make-up, Nomi grew to local fame in New York City at a new wave vaudeville show and soon became the toast of the downtown performance scene, most notably with his counter-tenor solo of the “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix” aria from Camille Saint-Saëns’ Samson and Delilah. “He was a hit, like some alien character,” said Arias. “It was the beginning of New Wave and Klaus was doing a couple of club scenes.” “Kristian came up with this idea to do Max’s Kansas City,” said Arias. “Klaus had been working on some bands with people, but it hadn’t worked out. So Kristian put this band together.” They collaborated on some covers of old songs, and soon Nomi, with Hoffman’s arrangements and Arias’ style inspiration, became the talk of Lower Manhattan. Arias made a splash early on after moving from Fayetteville with his family to Los Angeles, where he worked with the comSee page 30 >>

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<< Nightlife

30 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

Georg Lester

One of the friendly staff serves up drinks.

Mood-lit couple on the dance floor at Beaux

New fans of Beaux at a pre-opening party.

for drinks. The main bar has been reduced in size from the old Trigger U-shaped bar. There’s a side “boomerang” bar near the DJ booth underneath the mezzanine, and a third smaller bar upstairs. “All three fully stocked,” Cook added. Patrons can hang out by the wooden wall structure, dance by the DJ booth, or sit at one of the oversized comfy leather chairs, sofas and ottomans on the mezzanine. You can also find ample seating up front, where the one-way windows offer a scenic view of the Castro streets outside. The mezzanine can be accessed by stairs or the elevator. Despite the upscale design, there will not be a strict dress code. The days of restrictive door policies from the Trigger days are over. “People have been asking about that, and I’ve been told we should have a dress code,” said Joshua. “The

thing is, I’m from the Bay Area, and I know that all different styles mean nothing about what a person is like. We don’t mind if you spent the day at Dolores Park in flip-flops and then stop by. It’s San Francisco. We’re casual. Though the club is sophisticated, it should be approachable. Just come with a friendly attitude.” This is not to say that patrons can’t go upscale on their own, with mezzanine bottle service, an element Joshua said will soon be included. But don’t expect snobbery. “Though it’s fun to have a VIP space when it’s needed, I don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t enjoy a portion of the club, including being straight-friendly,” said Joshua. “There will be a time when we expand our services, and I think everyone will be impressed by our wine list.” He called the growing list affordable, but inclusive of upscale champagnes by the bottle. Signature craft cocktails created by the President of the U.S. Bartenders Guild David Nepove include libations such as the “BeauxTox,” a drink made with cucumber vodka, coconut water, and muddled kiwi. Try the “James Dean” bourbon-based drink fused with unfiltered apple juice and cinnamon syrup. Beaux will also offer wine (red, white and sparkling) featuring Pine Ridge, Chalone, and Veuve Clicquot. With “a cute staff that’s also talented,” (Joshua’s words, but we concur), Beaux stands to become a new signature of Castro nightlife. Those who like to shake their groove thing will enjoy the lighting by Blue Haze Entertainment, and a top-notch audio experience from JK Sound. But is creating new venues an uphill battle? Nearly half a dozen gay bars have changed owners in the past few years, not including the Beaux team’s efforts. With twelve years of independent

nightclub promotion experience (the weekly Booty Call, and the notorious yet sadly gone Big Top and Stallion), Cook said when he was asked to consider the project by its prospective owners, he didn’t hesitate. “We decided to reclaim the space that was Trigger,” Cook said. “We had long conversations. Are people interested in nightlife? I advocate that there is, but the city is disappointed by what they’re being offered. We don’t want be a just vodka/soda bar.” And keeping the gayborhood gay was also a priority. “The space has historically been one of the oldest gay bars in Castro,” said Cook. “So we were determined to not go to a straight conglomerate, and that was on the slate.” Cook cited co-owner Tim Eicher as “a huge advocate for the community. The Edge closed down and was not going to re-open” until Eicher and his partners stepped up. After the change of ownership, the historic bar enjoyed a spacious renovation and a renewed popularity. Cook said he hopes similar support shines on the new Beaux. “We all worked very hard over the past year,” he said. “As a party promoter, I’ve stepped away from producing and am focused on one venue to call my home base. Instead of being all over town, I wanted a place to oversee, and invite and provide a consistent event.” So, order a cocktail, find a big comfy chair to enjoy the view, or strut your stuff on the new dance floor, where you can expect hot local DJs like Guy Ruben, Russ Rich and Juanita More. Fridays, handsome gogo guys should distract you from the week’s worries. Either way, welcome Beaux to the neighborhood.

But then, rock icon David Bowie heard about Nomi and Arias, and asked them to sing back-up for his now-famous December 4, 1979 performance on Saturday Night Live. Generous to a fault, through three songs, Bowie both absorbed the duo’s fashion sense, while possibly acknowledging their unique upstaging, along with a toy poodle with a television in its mouth. (See “The Man Who Sold the World,” at www. vimeo.com/49104160, “Boys Keep Swinging” on YouTube, and “TVC 15” at www.vimeo.com/40895664). From that night on, everything changed for Arias and Nomi. “Everybody I knew in the world went bananas!” Arias laughed. “Of course Klaus was the diamond on the cherry of that evening. We went beyond whatever that show was all about. It was indefinable, like a trio of aliens that met up.”

Greater success soon followed. Nomi recorded a few studio albums and a live album, which included Hoffmann’s arrangements of vintage pop songs like “Lightning Strikes, “Simple Man,” an eerie take on Chubby Checkers’ “The Twist,” and a witty version of “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.” Sadly, Nomi’s rising star burned brightly yet all-too briefly. He died of AIDS in 1983, and is considered one of the first celebrities to succumb to the disease before the ensuing epidemic ravaged New York, San Francisco and the gay male community, among others. How did Arias endure those years? “You did what you did,” he said bluntly. “Music changed, but people kept creating. You went out at night. People talked about events. There was no such thing as all this media

that’s going on.” It was one show that toured New York, which Arias saw, that would later bring him to even greater fame. Cirque du Soleil’s first tour in 1988 fascinated the singer. His later friendships with trapeze artist Andrew Watson and filmmaker Bobby Sheehan led to an unusual job offer decades later. “Bobby had become the creative director of shows for Cirque,” said Arias. “They had finished one show and were getting ready to create a cabaret erotic show to premiere in Las Vegas, and he asked me if I was interested. He wanted Thierry Mugler to costume the show. I thought, ‘That sounds sexy; it would be beyond anything I’ve done.’” But with a demanding contract for one year of creation in Montreal,

Georg Lester

Beaux

From page 29

As several other gay bars have closed and morphed into straight venues, it is with pleasure – and perhaps a sense of relief – that the former site of Trigger and The Detour at 2344 Market Street has retained its gay identity. After a first weekend of soft openings, the club opened to the general public on October 10. Marketing Director Joshua J. Cook called the design “an organized chaos of blacks and grey and dark navy, polished and sophisticated design.” Beaux is the newest joint venture from owners Tim Eicher and partner Jeff Eubanks. Along with partners Rob Giljum and Rob Cotterman, the group has brought new life into the Castro district in the past four years with venues such as Qbar, The Edge

and Midnight Sun. Some credit these entrepreneurs for saving gay nightlife in the Castro district by renovating and keeping such venues alive. Beaux will be the first venue that the group has created from the ground up. The old décor of Trigger was basically gutted to make way for a space that offers a contrasting sense of intimacy and openness. Designer Lauren Geremia, (Bloodhound, Churchill) took inspiration from the new club’s name and created a sophisticated yet approachable room that “evokes feelings of romanticism with a heavy touch of timeless masculinity.” Allnew dark hardwood floors handmade from oak, walnut and brass give the venue a solidity, while the high ceilings and angled frames above the bar offer an open feel. With three bars, there’s little chance patrons should wait too long

Klaus Nomi in his iconic plastic tuxedo

Klaus Nomi

From page 29

edy troupe The Groundlings, and got other performing gigs. Arriving in New York City after a cross-country trek with Kim Hastreiter (who would later cofound Paper magazine) Arias started off like many others, in retail – but not just any retail. The chic fashion boutique Fiorucci made good use of Arias’ unique stylings, and his pal Nomi even participated in the windowdancing and then-unusual promotional efforts. “I had dropped music and got involved with fashion, but then all of a sudden through Klaus I got back into performance,” said Arias. His unique song stylings as Billie Holliday were at the time only performed for small intimate shows and for friends.

Beaux, 2344 Market Street. 8634027. www.facebook.com/beauxsf www.beauxsf.com

See page 31 >>

t <<

Music>>

October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 31

Klaus Nomi

From page 30

and a two-year performing run, Arias initially, and repeatedly, said no. He had his own evolving work, including his hit show Strange Fruit, which ran for more than a year at the Astor Theater. “Then Bobby said, ‘We can’t do the show unless you’re involved,’ Arias recalled. “So then they got Mugler on board, and they called me for three months. Eventually, I got sucked into the machine.” Sexy and sensual, but not campy, Arias sang and performed as Mistress of Seduction in Cirque du Soleil’s 2003 show Zumanity. With his tight corsets and gowns, “I came out looking like an insect,” he recalled. “I had six costume changes. People were shocked. It was intense. I sang all the time. I sang my ass off. I sang a lot. And I was really very dominant.” Arias also co-wrote two of the show’s songs. And although he enjoyed Las Vegas, and working, the often restrictive nature of the company irked him. “They would change the gay content for some shows,” said Arias. “I kept asking in my renewal contract for more days off. I want to do a good show, and not miss any from exhaustion. But they thought that was too much.” After a long run, Arias left Vegas and returned to creatively remaking another show, Arias With a Twist, which he created and performed with puppeteer Basil Twist. The show ran in New York for six months, and toured San Francisco and other cities. Along with recurring performances of Lightning Strikes, fans can look forward to a biographical film of Arias, which is in development, and set to star Alan Cumming. “Kristian is a fantastic director and creator,” said Arias of his current and old time collaborator. “Unfortunately, this age kills a lot of fucking great artists. I literary cry almost every day, thinking about Klaus and others who’ve gone.” Thus, the tribute show shares his love of Nomi, and he and Hoffmann’s mutual friendship.

Heath McBride

Joey Arias

Living Out Loud Like Arias, Kristian Hoffman is also an accomplished musician on his own, with multiple albums, songs and collaborations. But he also shared the spotlight with another gay pop icon, Lance Loud. As American TV audiences viewed the groundbreaking first reality show, An American Family, the gay son of the tribe began his career in New York City with his band The Mumps, which Hoffmann cofounded and served as songwriter and keyboardist. Hoffmann’s other credits, including visual art, album cover designs and collaborations, read like a Who’s Who of alternative rock and contemporary music (Rufus Wainwright, Deborah Harry, Lydia Lunch, X, Green Day and many others). “At first, I had only heard Joey perform when he was a back up singer for Klaus 40 years ago,” said Hoffmann. “I loved hearing him sing with Klaus and as Billie Holiday. Lance and I lived in New York from 1970 to 1984. When Klaus and Joey were on Saturday Night Live, projects with me and Klaus were underway.” As the mid-1970s unleashed a volley of innovative music groups, Hoffmann was at its epicenter. The Mumps start playing CBGBs in 1975. “It all exploded around ‘76 or ‘77,” said Hoffman. “I knew the producers of a new wave show. They asked me to be involved, and

I wrote two theme songs, one about ‘the new new no wave’ style. We got every weirdo that we knew to be in the show. Ann Magnuson brought Klaus in.” The myth is that Nomi met Ann Magnuson in New York, Hoffmann recalled. “She met him on a street in New York and asked him if he wanted to do something in their little talent show. He just climbed on top of a snowdrift and spontaneously burst into song. He just literally came out of nowhere.” Actually, he emigrated from Germany, but being the first countertenor to resemble an Weimar-era alien was pretty novel at the time. The vaudeville show first opened in 1978. Klaus performed the Samson and Delilah aria to wild acclaim. (You can see the rare video footage from the show, featured in the documentary film The Nomi Song, on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=I4sMKzT1uME) “For the first couple shows, it was fine,” said Hoffmann, “except the MC had to say that he was actually singing, not lip-synching. Then Anya Philips said I should make Klaus a band. We were so naïve at the time. He didn’t vet me or even find out about me, he just said ‘okay.’” Then earning a living as a pastry chef, Nomi was also known for his culinary skills, and the delicious cakes and desserts he brought to parties. “You had New Wavers and Punkers, and Klaus shows up in the middle of a chaotic party with a dark chocolate Austrian torte. It was amazing.” With his incredible vocal range, and Hoffmann knowing nothing about opera, his decision to arrange retro pop songs proved brilliant. “I was thinking about what would be funny for him to revive and it was the first thing that popped into my head,” said Hoffmann. It set the template for pop-opera sensibility.” He wrote “The Nomi Song” as a

Kristian Hoffman

sort of announcement for the persona of Klaus Nomi (his real last name was Sperber). “When Bowie declared Ziggy Stardust, the character was fully formed,” Hoffmann explained. “We had to have a declarative song.” Hoffmann recalled Nomi as a bit of a mystery. “Sometimes he’d play dumb and sometimes be so eloquent.” Graceful even through his declining health, Nomi nevertheless suffered greatly. “Since I was there through all of that stuff, I have very clear memories of how he was treated,” said Hoffmann. “AIDS was still called gay cancer and GRID. They didn’t know if it was airborne. People were scared. We didn’t know how you caught it. He got KS lesions. He even had it documented in a filmed interview.” Despite his openness, or because of it, Nomi’s record label halted any support. “His management completely cut him off,” said Hoffmann. Yet despite his friend’s tragic death, Hoffmann doesn’t dwell on that. “I don’t think of that as the Klaus story. I like to think of him standing and in full bloom. He had so much more to give. I think ‘Simple Man,’ for example, was light years away

from what was going on in music at the time. He just never got the chance to continue.” Hoffmann recalled Nomi as a truly dedicated performer. “Doing all these crazy performances, he just was that guy; the crazy clothes, and counter-tenor singing. At that time, his opera trainer told him he’d never have a career.” Hoffmann’s close friend Lance Loud also succumbed to AIDS, in 2000. Could such performers rise to fame in this day and age? Hoffmann mentioned his work with the talent show sensation Prince Poppycock, a dandy variation on Nomi’s style. And he even has musicians who want to perform old Mumps songs. Hoffmann compared New York then to its contemporary version of the ultra-rich shutting out artists. At the beginning of their own creative jumpstart, “New York was bankrupt, and since it was bankrupt, every artist who wanted to meet Andy Warhol got to go there,” Hoffmann said. “The migration of artists from small towns and Europe made this magic city that had been abandoned by white flight. I would walk out my door and be asked to be in a movie or a concert. By the middle of the ascendance of CBGBs, I began to comprehend how precious it all was.” Today, the rarity of experiencing art has become so commodified and recorded, spontaneity has been lost. “Nobody has to travel, or earn an experience any more,” he said. “No one has to discover.” And yet, Hoffmann remains optimistic. “There’s always gonna be a revolution that we might miss. There’s gonna be some next step.”t Joey Arias and Kristian Hoffman perform Lightning Strikes at Feinstein’s at the Nikko, Thursday, October 24, 8pm. $25-$35. Cocktails and small-plate food available. 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.ticketweb.com

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Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias in New York, 1980.

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Joey Arias and Klaus Nomi singing backup for David Bowie on Saturday Night Live in 1979.

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<< Music

32 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

Justin’s Time by Jim Provenzano

here is a big, open, hearty sound to the music of Justin Utley that matches the width of his boyish grin and his muscular frame; big and hearty and, well, wholesome. That may seem a pejorative term to some people. For others, including his growing legion of fans, Utley’s music not only inspires, it grows on you. The out gay singercomposer, while not a country singer per se, Justin Utley does have a heartland upbringing that may have led to his catchy music and vocals, which would fit right in at a state fair. San Franciscans can enjoy Utley’s music on October 18 at Beatbox, where he will perform in Boys Life, a new “Out Male Concert Series,” along with Jason Brock, Jeb Havens and Brian Kent. A veteran of many LGBT Pride performances, Utley’s used to performing for large audiences. Back in his native Utah, when he was a member of the Church of LatterDay Saints, he performed religious music since childhood. His talent led to praise from within and outside the Mormon Church, culminating in a performance at the 2002 Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics. Musical theatre acclaim followed when he starred in lead roles of both Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Elton John’s Aida. But somewhere along the way, and after a two-year endurance of

Mormon-dictated “ex-gay therapy,” Utley bolted. After the 2005 release of his first CD, Runaway, Justin followed his own song’s advice and moved to New York City. The country boy became a city man who’s passionate about LGBT rights and equality. His song “Stand For Something,” serves as a downloadable fundraiser for equality non-profits. The song received four OUTMusic Award nominations by the LGBT Academy of Recording Arts, winning Best Country/Folk Song of the Year. Utley continues to wow Pride audiences around the world, most recently in Sweden. Outspoken yet measured in expressing his thoughts on his former religion, Utley recently appeared on CNN, where he politely countered the claims of a former friend from the Mormon-run “ex-gay ministry.” With a certain other “gay country” singer making YouTube viral sensations, I asked Utley whether he felt a bit upstaged by Steve Grand, the former underwear model-turned pop singer. Bloggers and mainstream media reacted to Grand’s marketing campaign as if they had never heard of a gay country singer. “It’s kind of funny, although I feel that the music will speak for itself,” said Utley. He questioned the breadth of a musical career prefaced by nearly nude photo shoots. Not that Utley’s camera-shy. He’s happy to pose shirtless if it gets the attention of potential music fans.

y s p i t The pe ty “What shall we do with a drunken character?”

Blythe Baldwin

James J. Siegel

Sarah Maria Griff

Jim Provenzano (Also MC)

BARtab’s Fourth Annual Lit Crawl Reading Writers share what happens when their fictional familiars get flushed.

October 19 • 6pm MARTUNI’S, 4 Valencia Street www.LITQUAKE.org

“He’s having a good time, and I wish him all the best,” said Utley. “But I don’t view him as competition. I’m pursuing my art in a different way and for different reasons. I’m not really all that put out.” Utley has a life full of music experience. “I was writing Mormon contemporary music in my youth and all through my ex-gay therapy as part of my mission.” Utley also taught himself guitar, and while his parents supported his church-based music, inside, his inner conflict was growing as he became aware that he was gay. “That kind of …the divide if you will, was when I started writing what you’re hearing today.” On the sly, Utley started seeking out non-faith-based music. “I listened to a lot of rock, Pearl Jam, and other music.” While still in high school, Utley learned about a casting call for a touring musical theatre company. “That was in the midst of my ‘ex-gay’ transition,” he said. Cast in the lead role for the Biblethemed Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Utley got some valuable experience in performance. Naturally, the show was popular among Mormons. “After Donnie Osmond toured with that show, the whole of Utah wagged their tales and loved it.” Utley still finds himself catching up on aspects of pop culture and gay culture which eluded his conservative upbringing. When he was cast in a production of Fiddler on the Roof as Fyedka, during rehearsals, he watched the girls who played the daughters rehearse the “Matchmaker” song. “I was confused and thought it was from the movie Mrs. Doubfire,” he chuckled. And then, there was the time he was asked to sing a few songs at the birthday party of a famous gay musical composer, who, after meeting him, wished a Happy Birthday to “Mister Sound-heim.” So why would this ex-Mormon country hunk choose Metropolis (other than possible having a secret superhero identity)? “I did a few shows in Los Angeles and New York,” Utley explained. “In LA, it seemed like everybody that was in the arts thought they were the best thing in the world, and there is no honest feedback. Here in New York, it seems like there’s less of a country rock hub, but people are listening and giving you honest feedback. So you know how to better yourself. New York may not be the place I land, but it’s done me well.” It’s actually done him quite well. Utley starred in Our Country, an Off-Broadway show that mirrored his own life, in a way. Composerplaywright Tony Asaro heard about Utley, and practically begged him to consider the work he created (with Dan Collins), a musical about a gay country music star. “It kicked ass. It was great,” said Utley with pride. “That show got me motivated to get back on the horse, so to speak. I kinda got lost in the machine. Now I’m performing elsewhere more often, so New York’s a great hub, too.” Some of his gigs are a bit unusual. This past July, the FBI asked Utley to perform in New Jersey as part of a diversity awareness day. Utley has become an understandable indemand performer for Pride events, which he said he enjoys. “For smaller Prides, they’re more about visibility,” Utley said. “It was inspiring when I first started performing. I would go into a Wichita pride, and they are small, kind of out of the way. Typically, that would be a gig that other performers would not care for. But I felt like they’re reaching out to me. The promoter finds out about me, and they are just trying to have a march and a good day.

Patrick Salazar

Justin Utley

Justin Utley in the musical Our Country.

Springfield finally approved their pride march and it only went two blocks!” Along with performing his recent music, including “Great Escape,” his musical allegory about leaving the Mormon Church, Utley’s developing a new CD of cover songs, and new material of his own. “A relationship recently ended, so there’s a whole new wave of lyrics and passion that came out,” he said. Utley will perform one of his new songs at the October 18 San Francisco concert. His song “Great Escape” tells of his decision to leave Utah and Mormonism, and to “move spiritually to a place where I could heal and become who I wanted to be, and enter the new chapter in my life,” he said. “In Utah, there is still outright discrimination. I needed to be in a better place.” So, with an ex-religion and an ex-boyfriend as inspiration, how specific does he like to get with his music? “I tend to leave my songs open enough that any listener can pull some of the meaning out from my back story,” Utley said. “But mostly I try to make it listenable to a wider audience. The new stuff is pretty short and sweet…well, actually not sweet.” Asked about the concept of suffering as a consistent theme in country music, Utley considered that genre label as if he were trying

on a new Stetson. “Sometimes I shy away from that, but it does seem to be more akin to putting out some raw emotion, some real grit. Some people call my music alt-country. My roots being in Utah has lent itself to my vocal style.” Asked about his fictional musical character of a gay country singer, and a similar character on the ABC show Nashville, Utley considered the possibility of a larger fandom, a big record label contract, and all that goes with it. “I was talking to a representative at Universal a while back,” Utley said. “He said yep, they know about a certain country star who’s gay, but they’re not gonna touch it. They might not support an out gay country artist, or they think the fans won’t. Either way, it’s all about money.” For Utley, developing his craft and growing fans is a bit more important, as is adjusting to city life. “New York is like a mechanical bull,” he mused. “Sometimes it kicks your ass, and you have to decide when to step off.” For now, Justin’s still in for the ride.t Boys’ Life: an Out Male Concert Series, features Jason Brock, Jeb Havens and Brian Kent and Justin Utley. October 18, 10pm at Beatbox. $10. 314 11th St. at Folsom. www.beatboxsf.com

Nightlife>>

October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 33

Literarium Highlights of Lit Crawl

A popular Lit Crawl reading at Beauty Bar

By Ronn Vigh

here Literature Hits The Streets,” is the tagline of LitCrawl 2013, a free three-hour event which organizers describe as an attempt to transform the commonly seen Mission bar crawl into a mob scene of literary mayhem. This year’s event caps off the week-long Litquake festival with an evening of live readings through a variety of venues including bars, restaurants, cafes, bookstores, laundromats, a police station and even a beekeeping supply shop. As a writer, I’ve had long evenings where I would pour myself a cocktail or two and pull an all-nighter hoping to meet my deadline. Then, I would wake up the next morning and think, “Oh crap, what have I done? I can’t use any of this!” Luckily, the majority of these pieces have already been written. But with unusual venues and weekend partiers in full force, who knows what might happen at the readings. Bars usually require minimal focus of their patrons whose top priorities are typically to get plowed and then perhaps later in the evening “get plowed” again. Below, we explore several Lit Crawl events that are taking place in the unusual setting of bars and nightclubs.

“

Phase 1: 6 - 7pm BARtab: The Tipsy Type Martuni’s will have to turn up the lights a bit on their dark back room to allow four writers, including BARtab’s editor, Jim Provenzano, to read booze-soaked scenes from their works that involve their fictional characters being lit. Serving up martinis in glasses nearly the size of a bird fountain, Most Martuni’s patrons barely have the attention span to last through one song at the infamous piano bar, so let’s hope they can hold tight for one hour and delight in the author’s presentations. And, if not, perhaps the writers will have found new inspirations for their next scenes. Martuni’s, 4 Valencia St.

Barruch Porras Hernandez reading at BARtab’s Litquake event at Martuni’s

shifting identities and unreliable narrators. I actually went on a date at Double Dutch once with someone who could best be described as shifty and unreliable, but this hour it will be quite a treat for our ears to hear actual literature and not a cheesy pick-up line from the person standing next to you. Double Dutch, 3192 16th St.

Phase 2: 7:15 - 8:15pm Radar Productions and Sister Spit I’ve always enjoyed the Lexington Club for its rocking jukebox. However, it will have to go silent for an hour and the hardcore pool players may chomp at the bit for 8:15 to arrive. But they will just have to wait, as the beloved bar hosts its annual LitCrawl reading atop a pool table. Readers include Beth Lisick, who co-founded the very popular PorchLight Storytelling series in San Francisco. Lexington Club, 3464 19th St.

The Day My Nipple Fell Off On a normal Saturday evening at Public Works you can barely hear the person dancing with you when they ask if you want a bump. However, the music is turned down this hour for a very touching and healing set of readings featuring young women who have been diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Public Works, 161 Erie St.

Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls On Life, Love & Fashion Any time I’ve been near The Beauty Bar on a Saturday night, the ladies were past the “beauty” part of the evening and on to the “Here, honey hold my heels. I am so drunk, my lipstick is smeared, my mascara is running and I can barely stand,” portion of their night. That’s pretty much the scene every weekend evening in the Mission district up until BART stops running. Anyway, the title says it all, the babes of Hot & Heavy are empowered and at Beauty Bar to share excerpts from their anthology about body love, fat awesomeness and losing hate not weight. The Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission St.

Portugese Artist Colony Presents... False Biographies Double Dutch hosts this series of writers whose works navigate

Coliloquy Presents: Bad Boys, Good Decisions? It’s an evening of interactive storytelling where audience members

help choose what happens next! Um, if I’m in that crowd and have my way, every interactive story will end in a round of free shots for the audience. The Liberties Bar & Restaurant, 998 Guerrero St.

Phase 3: 8:30 - 9:30pm Writing From The Cunt: Six Female Writers From Mills College Mills College MFA writers will read along side alumna and awardwinning novelist Micheline Aharonian Marcom. Revolution Cafe hosts this hour of female writers who cry “writing doesn’t have to be dry.” And, luckily the venue isn’t either. There is beer and wine aplenty on the menu, in case things get too intense for you! The Revolution Cafe, 3248 22nd St. For We Have Fallen To Our Knees: The Rumpus Lit Crawl This hour features works from songwriters, playwrights, poets and comedy by the inimitable Caitlin Gill all encompassed by the whimsical surroundings of The Make Out Room. It’s also in the last hour of the crawl, so go ahead and order one more drink at The Make Out Room and then maybe, just maybe sneak a peck to your favorite presenter. The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd St. Celebrity Twitterature Lit Crawl has called upon a band of San Francisco’s sauciest “ladies” who will act out the breakdowns, rants, raves and other nonsense spewed forth in 140 characters or less by celebrities on Twitter, while we all get sauce! D’arcy Drollinger hosts the cast of drag queens and there better be some good Amanda Bynes reenactments or I want my money back. Oh wait. Lone Palm, 3394 22nd St.t

<< On the Tab

34 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

AB f eON THE-24T , 2013 October 17

Sat 19

Thursday Night Live @ SF Eagle The weekly live rock shows have returned. 9pm-ish. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge Retro disco tunes and a fun diverse crowd, each Thursday; DJ Bus Station John plays records. $4. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Vikesh Kapoor @ Amnesia Folk singer performs his new (yet very Bob Dylan-influenced) music on a bill with The Barbary Ghosts, Adam Kirk and Olive Mitra. $7-$10. 8pm. 853 Valencia St. 9700012. www.amnesiathebar.com

VIP @ Club 21, Oakland  Hip Hop, Top 40, and sexy Latin music; gogo dancers, appetizers, and special guest DJs. No cover before 11pm and just $5 after all night. Dancing 9pm-3am. Happy hour 4pm-8:30pm 2111 Franklin St. (510) 268-9425. www.club21oakland.com

Frolic vs. Bootie

ariations on dressing up or down can be debated this week. From classy cabaret shows to costumed frolics, with Halloween approaching, some folks get more daring in their outerwear.

Thu 17 Circle Jerk @ Nob Hill Theatre Enjoy onanistic adventures with porn dudes and patrons. $10. 9pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. ww.thenobhilltheatre.com

Comedy Thursdays @ Esta Noche The revamped weekly LGBT- and queerfriendly comedy night at the Mission club is hosted by various comics (1st Thu, Natasha Muse; 2nd Thu, Emily Van Dyke; 3rd Thu Eloisa Bravo and Kimberly Rose; 4th Thu Johan Miranda). No cover; one-drink min. 8pm. 307916th St. www.comedybodega.com

Fuego @ The Watergarden, San Jose Weekly event, with Latin music, half-off locker fees and Latin men, at the South Bay private men’s bath house. $8-$39. Reg hours 24/7. 18+. 1010 The Alameda. (408) 275-1215. www.thewatergarden.com

Gym Class @ Hi Tops Enjoy cheap/free whiskey shots from jockstrapped hotties and sexy sports videos at the popular new sports bar. 10pm-2am. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Jukebox @ Beatbox Veteran DJ Page Hodel (The Box, Q and many other events) presents a new weekly dance event, with soul, funk, hip-hop and house mixes. $10. 21+. 9pm-2am. 314 11th St. at Folsom. www.BeatboxSF.com

Fri 18

Linda Eder @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko Celebrated Broadway and cabaret vocalist performs classic songs from various genres. $45-$80. 8pm. Also Oct. 18 & 19. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 6631063. www.ticketweb.com

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

Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences Themed event nights at the fascinating nature museum, with DJed dancing, cocktails, fish, frogs, food and fun. $10$12. 6pm-10pm, 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

Pan Dulce @ The Café Amazingly hot Papi gogo guys, cheap drinks and fun DJed dance music at this weekly event. Free before 10pm. $5 til 2am. 2369 Market St. www.clubpapi.com www.cafesf.com

Positively Powerful @ The Center SF Gala fundraiser for Bay Area Young Positives, which celebrates its 23rd anniversary, with a reception, live entertainment (Bebe Sweetbriar, Patty McGroin), a silent auction and refreshments. $30. 7pm-10pm. 584 Fillmore St. www.brownpapertickets.com/ event/464484

Randy Roberts @ Alcove Theatre, Martuni’s Veteran gender illusionist performs live songs as Bette Midler, Cher, and other female music icons. $40. Thu-Sat, 9pm. Oct. 10-Nov 2. 414 Mason St. 992-8168. At Martuni’s, and accompanied by Tammy L. Hall, Oct. 14, 21 & 28, 7pm. $20. 4 Valencia St. at Market. 241-0205. www.randyroberts.net

Shocktoberfest 14: Jack the Ripper @ Hypnodrome

Emily Bergl

Thrillpeddlers’ new show takes on a creepy-fun Halloween theme, with Grand Guignol-styled tales of the famous London serial killer, plus the one-act Salome. $25-$35. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru Nov 23. (800) 838-3006. www.thrillpeddlers.com

Spencer Day @ Yoshi’s Oakland The local crooner performs new and classic songs. $16-$24. 8pm & 10pm. 510 Embarcadero West. (510) 238-9200. Dinner options. www.yoshis.com

Thu 24

Release @ Club OMG

Cherub @ Slim’s

Weekly party at the intimate mid-Market club; rotating hosts and DJs, Top 40 dance remixes, giveaways, gogo hunks. Free before 11pm. $3. 9pm-2am. 43 Sixth St. www.clubomgsf.com www.facebook.com/ReleaseSF

Witty pop duo performs music from their 100 Bottles EP. Mansions on the Moon opens. $13 ($40 with dinner) 10pm. 333 11th St. 255-0333. cherublamusica.com www.slimspresents.com

Some Thing @ The Stud Mica Sigourney and pals’ weekly offbeat drag performance night. 10pm-2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Sat 19 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. Special holiday show tickets also on sale. Reg: $25-$130. Wed, Thu, Fri at 8pm. Sat 6:30, 9:30pm. Sun 2pm, 5pm. (Beer/wine served; cash only). 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St.). 4214222. www.beachblanketbabylon.com

Club Rimshot @ Bench and Bar, Oakland Weekly hip hop and R&B night. $8-$15. 9pm to 4am. 510 17th St. www.bench-and-bar.com

Frolic Vs. Bootie @ DNA Lounge The club theme night for Furries meets the mash-up fun at this combined event. Enjoy a Bowie vs. Stevie Nick mashup, DJed sets with “Nothing Compares to Wrecking Ball” mash-ups, and partying in the comfort of your own Banana Splits garb. $10-$15. 9pm-4am. 375 11th St. neonbunny.com www.BootieSF.com

Fri 18

Bad Girl Cocktail Hour @ The Lexington Club Every Friday night, bad girls can get $1 dollar margaritas between 9pm and 10pm. 3464 19th St. between Mission and Valencia. 863-2052. lexingtonclub.com

Fedorable @ El Rio Free weekly queer dance party, with gogos, prizes, old groovy tunes, cheap cocktails. 9pm-2am. 3158 Mission St. 2823325. www.elriosf.com

Friday Nights @ De Young Museum Season 9 of the popular weekly early evening museum parties continues, with live music and performance, exhibitthemed workshops and food and drinks. 5pm-8:30pm. Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. 750-3600. www.famsf.org

Happy Friday @ Midnight Sun Open during renovations, the popular video bar ends each week with gogo guys (starting at 9pm) and drink specials. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. midnightsunsf.com

Hard @ Qbar DJ Haute Toddy spins electro beats; cute gogo guys shake it. $3. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

HYSL @ The Lookout Shots, drinks and DJed fun with the adorable David and Trevor. $2. 10pm-2am. 3600 16th St. at Market. www.lookoutsf.com

Josh Klipp and The Klipptones @ Palace Hotel The local jazz crooner and his band perform weekly shows at the hotel’s lounge, which draws a growing swingdance audience. 7pm-11pm. 2 New Montgomery. www.joshklipp.com

Latin Explosion @ Club 21, Oakland Eight bars, more dance floors, and a smoking lounge; the largest gay Latin dance night in the Bay Area. Happy hour 4pm-8:30pm. Dancing 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St. (510) 268-9425. www.club21oakland.com

Picante @ Esta Noche Weekly show with drag queens and the Picante Boys; hosted by Lulu Ramirez; DJ Marco. 9pm-2am. 3079 16th St. 841-5748. www.jceventssf.com

Unmasked Gala

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS

701 M

A benefit for The Sisters’ Com

Beatpig @ Powerhouse Juanita More spins saucy grooves and dudes cruise at the eclectic music (DJ Sidekick), drag and kink night; each 3rd Saturday. $5. 9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. 552-8689. beatpigsf.com powerhouse-sf.com

Beer Bust @ Hole in the Wall Saloon Beer only $8 until you bust. 4pm-8pm. 1369 Folsom St. 431-4695. hitws.com

Bootie SF @ DNA Lounge Weekly mash-up dance night, with resident DJs Adrian & Mysterious D. No matter the theme, a mixed fun good time’s assured. $8-$15. 9pm-3am. 21+. 375 11th st. at Harrison. BootieSF.com DNAlounge.com

La Bota Loca @ Club 21, Oakland Live bands, DJed tunes, gogo hotties, drag shows, drink specials, all at Oakland’s premiere Latin nightclub and weekly cowboy night. $10-$15. Dancing 9pm4am. 2111 Franklin St. (510) 268-9425. www.club21oakland.com

Gold Rush ‘49 @ St. Mark’s Square Annual gala benefit for San Francisco Night Ministry, the crisis intervention hotline. The evening will feature a red carpet reception, hors d’oeuvres, family-style dinner, drinks, raffle, silent and live auctions, entertainment and much more. 935-7862. www.sfnightministry.org

HRC Gala @ Westin St. Francis The Human Rights Campaign’s 29th annual Bay Area gala, with a dinner, entertainment and auctions. $150 and up. 5pm-10pm. 335 Powell St. www.sfhrcgala.org

Lit Crawl @ Valencia Corridor Choose from dozens of reading events at bars, clubs, cafes, bookstores, and even barbershops, at the three-part closing event of the annual Litquake literary festival, with hourly time slots at 6pm, 7pm and 8pm. Get a map at any locale, or check online at www.litquake.org

On the Tab>>

October 17-23, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 35

Magic Show @ Hotel Rex

Salsa Sundays @ El Rio

Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni’s

Old-fashioned magic show with Sebastian Boswell III, Adam Sachs and guest performers, weekly in the parlor of the elegant downtown hotel. Two-drink min. Light fare menu. Saturdays thru 2013. $25$30. 8pm. 562 Sutter St. 895-0090. www.MagicattheRex.com

Salsa dancing for LGBT folks and friends, with live merengue and cumbia bands; tapas and donations that support local causes. 2nd & 4th Sundays. 3pm-8pm. 3158 Mission St. 282-3325. www.elriosf.com

Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht (aka Trauma Flintstone). 9pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market. www.dragatmartunis.com

Sundance Saloon @ Space 550

Proximities 2 @ Asian art Museum Second annual karaoke part, “From ABBA to ZZ Top,” at the art museum, woith host Glen Helfand. Free with museum admission ($12). 1:30-4pm. 200 Larkin St. 581-3500. www.asianart.org

Straight Bar Takeover @ Playland

The popular country western LGBT dance night celebrates a decade and a half of fun foot-stomping two-stepping and linedancing. $5. 5pm-10:30pm with lessons from 5:30-7:15 pm. Also Thursdays. 550 Barneveld Ave., and Tuesdays at Beatbox, $6. 6:30-11pm. 314 11th St. www.sundancesaloon.org

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room

Join drag queens and queers in a friendly “gayvasion” at the former location of Kimo’s, a historic gay bar. Dress gay. Be polite. Tip well. Meet at The Cinch (1723 Polk St.) 9pm. 1351 Polk St. at Pine. www.underthegoldengate.com

Donna Sachet hosts the weekly fabulous brunch and drag show. $45. 11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square. 395-8595. www.harrydenton.com

ecycled fashion + The Sisters + YBCA = Futurist Art Party!

ALTAR BUILDING AT 4:20 PM FASHION SHOW AT 8 PM AFTER PARTY 9 PM TO 1 AM DIVA $99.99 Open Bar + Premium Seating + Invite to Dress Rehearsal Sneak Peek Party on Nov 1

VIP $51.50 2 drinks + guaranteed seating

GENERAL $20.13 standing room +/or festival seating (as available). YBCA Members $15

AFTER PARTY $5/Free with show ticket CO-HOSTS

SISTER ROMA + JANE WIEDLIN WI T H GUEST STAR PANDORA BOXX YBCA.ORG/PROJECT-NUNWAY

M I S S I O N S T R E E T, S A N F R A N C I S C O , C A 9 4 1 0 3

mmunity Grants Program

Treasure Island Music Festival @ Treasure Island Annual big festival on the small island, this year with Beck, Animal Collective, James Blake, Giraffage, and a bunch of other pretentiously-named bands I’ve never heard, so go find out the info yourself on the website, hipsters. Also Oct. 20. www.treasureislandfestival.com

Sun 20 Beer Bust @ SF Eagle The classic leather bar is back, with the most popular Sunday daytime event in town. 3pm6pm (Also now open daily 11am-2am). 398 12th St. at Harrison. sf-eagle.com

Daytime Realness @ El Rio Daytime party, fun hosted by Heklina, DJ Carnita (Hard French) and Stanley Frank (Viennetta Discotheque); performances by Turleen, Lady, Randy Roberts, and Dolly Pardon-My-Mess; guest DJs Robin Simmons and Chipmint. $6-$8. 3pm-8pm. 3158 Mission St. elriosf.com

MEDIA SPONSOR

Mon 21 Cock and Bull Mondays @ Hole in the Wall Saloon Specials on drinks made with “Cock and Bull” ginger ale (Jack and Cock, Russian Mule, and more). 8pm-closing. 1369 Folsom St. 431-4695. www.hitws.com

Karaoke @ The Lookout Paul K hosts the amateur singing night. 8pm-2am. 3600 16th St. at Market. www.lookoutsf.com

Mahogany Mondays @ Midnight Sun Honey Mahogany hosts the weekly drag and musical talent show, which starts around 10pm. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Monday Musicals @ The Edge The popular Castro bar shows fun musicals each week. 7pm-2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Cherub

Sacred Cocktails @ Twin Peaks Weekly gathering for Christian and other faithful LGBTs, sponsored by Oasis, the GLBT Ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of California. Upstairs, 7:30-8:30pm. Castro St. at Market. www.saintaidan.org

Sports Night @ The Eagle The legendary leather bar gets jock-ular, with beer buckets, games (including beer pong and corn-hole!), prizes, sports on the TVs, and more fun. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Tue 22 13 Licks @ Q Bar Weekly women’s night at the stylish intimate bar. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Block Party @ Midnight Sun Weekly screenings of music videos, concert footage, interviews and more, of popular pop stars. 9pm-2am. 4067 18th St. 8614186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Funny Tuesdays @ Harvey’s

SAT, NOV 2, 2013

Sat 19

Ronn Vigh hosts the weekly LGBT and gay-friendly comedy night. This week, guest Carla Clayy. One-drink or menu item minimum. 9pm. 500 Castro St. at 18th. 431-HARV. www.harveyssf.com

Naked Night @ Nob Hill Theatre Strip down like the strippers, and enjoy a beverage at the erotic male theatre. $20. 8pm and 10pm. Also Sept 28. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Soma Country @ Beatbox Sundance Saloon’s monthly SoMa twostepping dance night now takes place every Tuesday. $8. 8pm-12am. Lessons 8pm. 314 11th St. at Folsom. www. sundancesaloon.org www.beatboxsf.com

Torch @ Martuni’s Veronica Klaus hosts the weekly night of cabaret, jazz and blues music, with Tammy L. Hall and special guests. $15. 7pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market. www.facebook.com/veronica.klaus

Trivia Night @ Hi Tops Play the trivia game at the popular new sports bar. 9pm. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Wed 23

Ford Fairchild

Way Back @ Midnight Sun Weekly screenings of vintage music videos, and retro drink prices. 9pm-2am. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Thu 24 Gym Class @ Hi Tops Enjoy cheap/free whiskey shots from jockstrapped hotties and sexy sports videos at the popular new sports bar. 10pm-2am. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Macy Gray @ Yoshi’s Wildly soulful pop R&B singer performs with her band. $48-$75. 8pm & 10pm. Special meet & greet pre-show (7pm). Dinner options. 1330 Fillmore St. 6555600. www.yoshis.com

Magic Parlor @ Chancellor Hotel Whimsical Belle Epoque-style sketch and magic show that also includes historical San Francisco stories; hosted by Walt Anthony; optional pre-show light dinner and desserts. $40. Thu-Sat 8pm. 433 Powell St. www.SFMagicParlor.com

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

Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences Themed event nights at the fascinating new nature museum; plus food, cocktails and DJed dancing. 21+. $10-$12. 6pm10pm, 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

Unmasked @ Regency Center

Play board games and win offbeat prizes at the popular new sports bar. 9pm. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

The GLBT Historical Society’s annual gala includes drinks, food, a tempting variety of historic LGBT-themed auction items (plus wines, show tickets and luxury items). Entertainment at the event will include drag stars Miss Rahni and Landa Lakes, swing dancers Ron Jenkins and Photis Pishiaras, erotic cabaret performers from sfBoylesque, and DJs from Stay Gold. Festive attire encouraged. $75 and up. 7pm-10pm. 1290 Sutter St. at Van Ness. www.unmaskedgala.org

Dream Queens Revue @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge

Thursday Night Live @ SF Eagle

Booty Call @ Q Bar Juanita More and Joshua J’s weekly night packs the intimate stylish bar with grooves and a groovy younger crowd. $3. 9pm2am. 456 Castro St. www.juanitamore.com www.QbarSF.com

Bottoms Up Bingo @ Hi Tops

Retro-classic drag show (2nd and 4th Wednesday) at the classic Tenderloin bar, featuring Collette Ashton, Ruby Slippers, Sophilya Leggz, Bobby Ashton, Sheena Rose, Davida Ashton and Joie de Vivre. No cover. 10pm. 133 Turk St. 441-2922. www.dreamqueensrevue.com

The weekly live rock shows have returned. 9pm-ish. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Queer Salsa @ Beatbox Weekly Latin partner dance night. 8pm1am. 314 11th St. www.beatboxsf.com

Red Hots Burlesque @ El Rio Women’s burlesque show performs each Wed & Fri. Karaoke follows. $5-$10. 7pm. 3158 Mission St. 282-3325. www.elriosf.com

Rookies Night @ Nob Hill Theatre Compete for $200 prize in this amatuer strip contest, or watch the newbies get naked. $20 includes refreshments. 8pm11pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Trivia Night @ Harvey’s Bebe Sweetbriar hosts a weekly night of trivia quizzes and fun and prizes; no cover. 8pm-1pm. 500 Castro St. 431-4278. www.harveyssf.com

Thu 24

Thu 17 Pan Dulce dancer

Macy Gray at Yoshi’s

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge Retro disco tunes and retro cruisy crowd, each Thursday; DJ Bus Station John plays records. $4. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Underwear Party @ Powerhouse Strip down to your skivvies (free clothes check) and watch or compete in the wet underwear contest ($100 prize!) at midnight; gogo guys and DJ Dam Nation. $5. 9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhouse-sf.com

VIP @ Club 21, Oakland  Hip-hop, Top 40, and sexy Latin music; gogo dancers, appetizers, and special guests. No cover before 11pm and just $5 afterward. Dancing 9pm-3am. Happy hour 4pm-8:30pm 2111 Franklin St. (510) 2689425. www.club21oakland.com

Want your nightlife event listed? Email events@ebar.com, at least two weeks before your event. Event photos welcome.

<< Karrnal

36 • Bay Area Reporter • October 17-23, 2013

Stranded

photo

The Strand Theatre in its younger days, boasting “top entertainment” at “bottom prices.”

by John Karr

T Reach more than 120,000 consumers per week and the only audited and verified audience of LGBT newspaper readers in the San Francisco Market. Call 415-861-5019 or email us at advertising@ebar.com

he rejuvenation of mid-Market is being given a boost by American Conservatory Theatre, which is going to make that tired old broad, the Strand Theatre, into a grand dame by restoring it to a legit theatre. That’s a full circle for the Strand, which had started legit in 1917, but had been a grind house for years when I arrived on the scene in 1967, and made it one of my first stops. When I was coming out, starting in my freshmen year of high school in 1963, I didn’t have any gay friends. I learned about gay life by reading. There wasn’t much to read then, but there was a surprise best seller. City of Night, which traced a hustler’s trip across the country, was John Rechy’s startlingly real tale about the underbelly of gay life. It was, and still is, a sensational, and depressing book. For me, it was enlightening, depressing –and a roadmap to where gay people could be found. Or, more specific, the places where hustlers picked up their johns. It led me to Bryant Park, the cruisy square across from the New York Public Library, where as a 15-year-old I allowed myself to be picked up –not by a hustler– and had my first gay sex, in a dingy little room nearby that rented by the hour. It’s where I was first introduced to cockroaches, a New York speciality, and giving a guy head, a rather more universal speciality. And it led me to the Strand Theatre. When Rechy’s hustler got to San Francisco, he joined his brethren in front of the Florsheim shoe store at the corner of Ellis and Market–curiously enough, a building that A.C.T. considered for its second theatre before it settled on the Strand. That’s where Rechy’s hustler went for indoor action, to score a john or a joint, or get serviced. The action in the rear of the Strand’s balcony was famously infamous. The walls bellowed in and out from all the sucking going on. Strange coincidence that A.C.T.’s announcement of its stride into the future comes within a few days of the 50th anniversary of the publication of City of Night, the book that jolted gay literature into its future. In the 1940s and ‘50s, there’d been a Vidal book, in which the hero died

A.C.T.

Yes, Maude, A.C.T.’s Strand theatre will have a second balcony, shown in this visualization.

because he was gay; a Baldwin book, in which the hero lived but was wracked with guilt, and a Capote book, where the hero is wracked with perfume. Rechy’s book announced the era of gay writing that was bold and inventive, and didn’t kowtow to hetero expectations. As the blurb at Amazon reads, City of Night “remains the classic document of the garish neon-lit world of hustlers, drag queens, and men on the make who inhabited the homosexual underground of the early sixties.” So that’s where I went soon af-

The Strand in the 1980s.

ter I got here. Not to get head, for sure. The scene in the balcony of the Strand was too furtive for me. And besides, by then there were so many more hospitable places to get a blow job, some of them even in the great outdoors. Buena Vista Park. Land’s End. I went to the Strand in homage. It was 1967, the Summer of Love. I couldn’t predict Stonewall, but coming from the light and love being celebrated in Golden Gate Park, into the darkness of the Strand, where people preyed, and guilt and loathing caked the walls like the dried sperm caking the floors, it was obvious gay life was not for long going to be part of that old, old, city of night. I went back to the Strand in 1995,