April 22, 2021 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

04

Milk plaza concepts unveiled

Stevens reacquires Curve

ARTS

11

13

Documenting David

Since 1971

The

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

Vol. 51 • No. 16 • April 22-28, 2021

Yearslong halt for F Line streetcar draws outrage from Castro

Scott Saraceno

Gold “Oscar guys” have been a staple at Academy of Friends Oscar galas, where in 2019 a couple of them overlooked the crowd.

Popular SF Oscar party scrapped due to pandemic

by John Ferrannini

T

he stylish crowd that usually enjoys watching the Oscars at the Academy of Friends gala in San Francisco won’t be noshing on hors d’oeuvres or sipping bubbly this year. The event has been scrapped due to the COVID pandemic.

As of April 20, AOF’s website and social media feeds had yet to reflect the cancellation. The online channels had not been updated in months.

Meanwhile, questions remain about the future of the fundraiser. The president of the organization’s board of directors told the Bay Area Reporter he hopes the fundraiser can be held in 2022. But its returning will be dependent on the status of the health crisis, he noted.

“Unfortunately, we will not be able to produce the annual gala this year,” Michael Myers, the president of the Academy of Friends’ board, stated in an April 15 emailed reply. “The Academy of Friends annual gala requires many months of social get-togethers, sponsor donations to defer production costs, ticket sales, etc. ... that begin, usually three to four months prior to the actual gala.

“The nature of our organization is truly based upon social gatherings, unique locations, great food, interesting cocktails and the goodwill and generosity of our community,” he added.

When asked why the website and social media feeds have not been updated, Myers wrote that the situation has been “in flux” and that the organization does not have a paid staff.

“As far as updating the website/social media – keep in mind, unlike most organizations in the area, we have no paid staff,” he stated. “Additionally, the COVID situation has been so in flux that it’s challenging to make long term decisions that can raise or lower expectations.”

Last June the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced it was postponing the 2021 Oscars ceremony set to take place February 28 because of the health crisis. The Academy Awards telecast will take place Sunday, April 25, from Los Angeles.

See page 11 >>

The Harvey Milk F Line streetcar No. 1051 was rededicated in 2018.

by John Ferrannini

J

ust as the historic streetcars are slated to resume service after being suspended during the COVID pandemic, a city plan to stop Muni’s F Line service to the Castro for up to four years is eliciting strong negative reactions in the neighborhood.

The streetcars – which traverse from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Castro – have been replaced by bus service for much of the health crisis. They are scheduled to restart service May 15 along with the resumption of some subway service on the K and N lines.

But as part of the multi-agency Better Market Street project, the F Line is slated

to be substituted by bus service again “for the duration of phase I construction, which is anticipated to take approximately two to four years,” Coma Te, public affairs officer for San Francisco Public Works and the head of communication and outreach for Better Market Street, confirmed to the Bay Area Reporter April 12.

See page 2 >> Courtesy SFMTA

Bisexual candidate seeks San Jose council seat

by Matthew S. Bajko

I

t has been 15 years since the LGBTQ community in San Jose has had out representation on the city’s governing body.

During that time three gay men and one lesbian have mounted unsuccessful bids to win council seats.

Now planning commissioner Justin Lardinois, a bisexual man who is a San Jose native, is aiming to break that losing streak. He is the first person to declare their candidacy for the San Jose City Council’s District 1 seat that includes the famed Winchester Mystery House and the city’s west side neighborhoods to the south of the tourist attraction.

The current officeholder, Vice Mayor Chappie Jones, will be termed out in 2022. If no candidate to succeed him secures a 50% plus one vote in the June primary next year then the top two vote-getters will compete for the seat in the November general election.

Should Lardinois win the race, he would be only the second LGBTQ council person in San Jose. The first was Ken Yeager, a gay man elected in 2000 who departed in 2006 when he became the first, and so far only, LGBTQ person elected to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.

Lardinois, 27, would also be one of the highest-ranking bisexual elected leaders in the Bay Area. And at age 29 when sworn in, he would be the youngest person to serve on

Ali Sapirman

San Jose City Council candidate Justin Lardinois

the San Jose City Council in more than four decades. (Jim Beall was elected in 1980 at the age of 28.)

“San Jose has offered me a lot of opportunities. I owe this community everything I have and for my success,” Lardinois told the Bay Area Reporter when asked during a recent phone interview why he wanted to seek the council seat.

His parents both relocated to the Bay Area’s largest city from other states, fell in love, married, and raised two children in West San Jose in District 1. Lardinois works at Facebook and previously was employed

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by Google Cloud, while his sister works on Fox’s long-running animated show “The Simpsons.”

A 2015 UC Santa Cruz graduate, with a double major in computer science and politics, Lardinois lives in the council district’s Blackford neighborhood. Three years ago Jones appointed him to San Jose’s housing and community development commission; last July Lardinois was seated to the city’s planning commission.

(Due to his working for Google, he has recused himself from voting on the company’s sprawling mixed-use development plans for downtown San Jose.)

He pointed to the planning commission’s recent vote to approve the Villa Del Sol mixed-use project in the city’s Alum Rock neighborhood as the type of development he would champion for District 1. Being built by a nonprofit developer, 100% of its rental apartments will be designated as affordable for residents making 30 to 80% of the Area Median Income. Its 3,000 square feet of commercial space is to be leased rent-free to a nonprofit or displaced small business.

“Building more housing at all income levels is crucial to addressing San José’s housing crisis, and I want to see builders talking to existing residents from day 1 to ensure their projects integrate into the community,” Lardinois told the B.A.R. See page 2 >>

<< From the Cover

2 • Bay Area Reporter • April 22-28, 2021

<<

F Line

From page 1

Rick Laubscher, president and CEO of the nonprofit Market Street Railway, told a meeting of the Castro Merchants Association earlier this month that this phase of the project is slated to begin in 2021. Still, speaking to the B.A.R. April 19, he finds the timetable “incomprehensible.”

“As we recover from this pandemic, is three years of disruption really a good idea?” he asked. “Is it really necessary?”

To answer these questions, city officials from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and Public Works will be appearing at a virtual meeting of the community working group for the Better Market Street project Monday, April 26, at 6 p.m.

Laubscher said he wants to know “what exactly is the schedule? How long will the disruption to the F Line go? And, is there anything that can be done to shorten the schedule?”

Although the streetcars will be replaced with bus service, Laubscher stressed that this is not adequate for such a long stretch of time, especially for seniors and tourists, many of whom make their way to the Castro using the rail line.

“The visitors who love to take the F Line are not going to have the Castro as the end of the line anymore,” Laubscher said. “The F Line should be exploited for the best value up and down the line, especially on the upper Market Street area, where they provide more than the Muni Metro.

Between Church [Street] and Van Ness [Avenue] there are no Metro stops.”

The line is a rolling history exhibit popular with locals and tourists alike.

In addition to celebrating historic trolley lines from across the world with streetcars representing various cities, streetcar No. 1051 celebrates the late gay supervisor Harvey Milk, who represented the Castro when he served on the Board of Supervisors in the late 1970s.

Not only is streetcar No. 1051 painted in the same green and cream colors they had when Milk used them, inside it is a historical exhibit about Milk, who was assassinated

<<

San Jose

From page 1

A progressive Democrat, Lardinois said ensuring other families and San Jose residents have the same opportunities that his fam-

–Terry Asten Bennett, Cliff’s Variety general manager

along with then-mayor George Moscone in 1978.

Laubscher isn’t the only one who wants answers from city officials about the length and necessity of the project. Masood Samereie, a straight ally who is the president of the Castro Merchants Association board, stated to the B.A.R. through spokesman Dave Karraker that the group’s position is that these repairs should be put off at least two years to assist the neighborhood’s economic recovery from the unprecedented loss of business due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

“Castro Merchants is working very hard with city officials to develop a workable solution and we are pleased to see they are open to discussing it,” the statement reads. “Our position is we need to find other solutions that would keep the F-Market streetcar operational for its full route for at least two years post the California reopening date announced by [California] Governor [Gavin] Newsom of June 15.

“Anything short of that would be a devastating blow to the Castro as the F-Market has proven to be a constant lifeline bringing tourists to the neighborhood from the hotel districts,” it continues. “City busses will simply not be as appealing. The city needs to carefully consider any project that might disrupt the ability for customers to get to the Castro and for our neighborhood businesses to recover from this horrible pandemic.

We look forward to finding a solution cooperatively with them on this critical issue.”

‘Devastating’ to community

Terry Asten Bennett, a straight ally

ily had, from finding affordable housing to being able to attend college, is what motivates him to seek the council seat.

“How do we offer that level of opportunity to families in San Jose?” he asked.

who is general manager of Cliff’s Variety on Castro Street, expressed much the same sentiment.

“This is going to be devastating to the community,” she wrote to the B.A.R. “As a mobile tourist attraction, the Castro depends on it to bring tourists from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Castro [the route of the F Line]. Our community depends on visitors coming to the Castro to thrive. When it is made unnecessarily difficult, we are all hurt by it.”

Even gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman – himself the chair of the San Francisco Transportation Authority board – is uneasy about it. (The Transportation Authority is made up of the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors.)

“I have concerns,” wrote Mandelman, who represents the Castro at City Hall. “Certainly, after Van Ness [bus rapid transit] and Central Subway, San Franciscans understand that these large infrastructure projects can drag on much longer than expected. We need more clarity and certainty on the projected duration of the entirety of the Better Market Street Project. That’s important for the F, but for a lot of other interests and priorities as well.”

The Van Ness BRT project, which broke ground in 2017, was planned to be completed in 2019. Still ongoing, the estimated completion date is 2022.

The Central Subway project was initiated after the Embarcadero Freeway (which spat out Bay Bridge traffic onto Broadway, bringing motorists to the Chinatown and North Beach neighborhood businesses) was torn down following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Construction on the new subway line that will connect

Chinatown and the South of Market neighborhood began in 2012. Originally scheduled to be completed in 2018, its opening has been delayed until mid-2022 at the earliest.

Mandelman added that an update on Better Market Street is planned for the May 25 meeting of the Transportation Authority board.

Better Market Street project manager Cristina C. Olea said that the four agencies involved in the project (BART is the other one) are each in charge of what work needs to be done.

Gay BART director Bevan Dufty, himself a former supervisor who represented the Castro, told the B.A.R. that he “intends to pursue change with Supervisor [Rafael] Mandelman.” He intends to participate in the April 26 meeting to “get a handle on the leadership.”

Dufty said that BART needs to add canopies above entrances to comply with state law.

“BART’s role in Better Market Street has been focused on our escalator replacement project – most escalators on Market Street are over 40 years old, but they’re only good for 25 years,” he explained. “I was not aware of the disruption to the F Line. ... But three blocks, two-to-four years, doesn’t make much sense.”

Dufty, a Castro resident, said shutting down the streetcar would “discourage people staying on the waterfront from visiting our neighborhood.”

“I am deeply concerned with the Castro’s revival,” he said. “I don’t think it’s good for the Castro, given all the hardships. I live in this neighborhood. I know how businesses have struggled.”

Olea told the B.A.R. April 19 that the Market Street roadway is too nar-

Policing

member of the public he doesn’t have enough information to know if the City Council was right to promote Mata, a 25-year veteran of the department.

“It would have helped inspire public confidence if the council and city manager was more transparent with how that was handled,” said Lardinois. “It is why it is crucial to have representation on the council. If our community was represented on the council, I think that council member would have advocated for both the public at large and the LGBTQ community that we need to be really clear how we are handling this.”

As for police staffing issues and calls to defund the department, Lardinois believes the duties assigned to the police need to be reexamined at the same time that the number of officers is increased.

Due to a recent change in pension policy, as well as high housing costs, the San Jose Police Department has seen its ranks diminish.

“Newer officers have joined since then and there are a lot of officers approaching retirement. Going forward those retirements are going to hit us like a wave and the numbers will go down further,” he noted. “We need to be cognizant of that going forward.”

A board member of the District 1 Leadership Group, an organization founded by former councilman Pete Constant, Lardinois has already been promoting civic engagement and neighborhood leadership in the district. In officially announcing his candidacy April 12, he highlighted a range of neighborhood issues he

Asked about the controversy surrounding San Jose’s new police chief, Anthony Mata, who has faced questions about his support of the transgender community, Lardinois told the B.A.R. that as a

Courtesy B.A.R. Archive

“This is going to be devastating to the community.

As a mobile tourist attraction, the Castro depends on it to bring tourists from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Castro [the route of the F Line].”

50 in 50: Meet the candidates, 1973

T

his week we go back to 1973 for our 50 years in 50 weeks feature. The Bay Area Reporter in its early years gave robust coverage to the Imperial Court and its candidates for emperor and empress. On August 22, 1973, left, the paper presented the candidates for emperor: Michael Damon, Russ Higginbotham, and Richard Novak. The following issue, September 5, the ladies had their turn in the spotlight, with empress candidates

The Lady Frieda (Fred Hilliard), The Lady Mike (Mike Johnson), The Lady Fran (Chuck Schneider), and The Lady Fern (David Weber). The Imperial Court System, a drag fundraising organization, has long ties to the Bay Area, ever since its founding 56 years ago by the late José Julio Sarria, who was the first empress. To view the issues, go to https://archive.org/details/BAR_19730822 and https://archive.org/details/BAR_19730905

t

row for the streetcar to run where the work is to take place, which in the first phase begins at Fifth Street and ends at Eighth Street.

“It’s hard for us to work in the curb lane with cars running in the construction zone,” Olea said. “It’s a constricted roadway with little space for us to work in, and there’s a lot of work to be done.”

Te stated that “at a minimum, historic streetcars will run between Fisherman’s Wharf and the Ferry Building throughout the full duration of Better Market Street construction. But that doesn’t help businesses in the Castro.

“The F Market will run on historic streetcars up to the Powell Street area during the first phase of Better Market Street construction between Fifth and Eighth streets,” he stated.

“Subsequent construction phases for Market Street are in pre-design and duration estimates have not been set at this time.”

The initial phase is focused on transit elements that are “in dire need of repair and replacement,” Te stated.

“The first construction phase of the project will focus on critical underground infrastructure and surface-level state of good repair improvements, which will include new transit boarding islands, track, overhead lines and traction power replacement, BART grate replacement and curb-to-curb roadway paving on Market Street between Fifth and Eighth streets,” Te wrote. “It’s well documented that these elements are in dire need of repair and replacement or they risk failure.

“To conduct this work, the Muni overhead power lines need to be taken down for the duration of construction,” he continued. “That is the biggest challenge to running continuous trolley service on the full F Line route. However, the project team expects to be able to maintain F Line service from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Castro with a combination of historic trolley cars and a bus substitution along Market Street to bypass construction.”

A spokesperson for Jeffrey Tumlin, a gay man who is the city’s director of transportation, did not respond to a B.A.R. request to interview Tumlin regarding SFMTA’s role in the project.t would focus on, from potholes and illegal dumping to building more public open spaces in the park-deprived district, in addition to the citywide crises of homelessness, housing and assisting small business owners hampered by the COVID pandemic.

“District 1 residents expect their councilmember to be heavily engaged with the issues impacting individual neighborhoods. I’ll continue to do that work while bringing a fresh perspective to City Hall,” pledged Lardinois.

He is partners with Ali Sapirman, who is nonbinary and ran unsuccessfully last fall for a seat on the San Jose Evergreen Community College District. Sapirman and Jared Rodgers in February took over as cochairs of the Silicon Valley Stonewall Democrats.

The LGBTQ political club has yet to endorse in the race but is likely to back Lardinois. Former co-chair Michael Vargas noted to the B.A.R. that the club has a formal endorsement process it asks all candidates to follow.

But he acknowledged, “A major part of our mission is to support LGBTQ+ candidates though, so I expect we will support him once we see who all the candidates are (we learned last cycle that sometimes multiple LGBTQ+ candidates jump in and then we need to do a little more leg work).”

Personally, Vargas said he is “ecstatic” to see Lardinois seek the council seat and potentially give the local LGBTQ community a voice on the council again.

See page 10 >>

<< Community News

4 • Bay Area Reporter • April 22-28, 2021

7 new “Below Market Rate” homes for sale Lofton at Portola.

One (1) two-bedroom home priced at $472,506 with parking Six (6) two-bedroom homes priced at $532,720 with parking

by Heather Cassell

Applicants must be first-time homebuyers and cannot exceed the following income levels: 100% of Area Medium Income 2021 2 persons - $102,500; 3 persons - $115,300; 4 persons - $128,100 etc.

Applications must be received by 5PM on Monday, June 7, 2021. Apply online through DAHLIA, the SF Housing Portal at https://housing.sfgov.org.

Due to COVID-19, applicants will apply online as we are not accepting paper applications. Applicants must complete first-time homebuyer education and obtain a loan pre-approval from an approved participating lender. For more information or assistance with your application, contact HomeownershipSF at (415) 202-5464 or info@homeownershipsf.org.

For questions about the building and units, contact Tri Pointe Homes at (925) 804-2229 or carrie.newbery@tripointehomes.com.

Founder Stevens buys back Curve magazine C

urve magazine founder Frances “Franco” Stevens celebrated the popular lesbian magazine’s 30th anniversary with three big announcements last week. She bought back the publication, established a foundation to oversee it, and is releasing a documentary.

In 2010, lesbian publisher Stevens sold the magazine she conceived and grew for two decades to fellow lesbian publisher Silke Bader of Avalon Media in Sydney, Australia. Australian lesbian media expert Merryn Johns became editor-in-chief, leading the magazine in New York for the past decade.

That all changed this year. Stevens posted a video announcing the buyback of Curve and the launch of The Curve Foundation with the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Got A Feeling” playing in the background on her Facebook page Friday, April 16, the day the deal was finalized.

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“I felt pretty great. If you look at my smile in that Facebook or Instagram post you’ll see just how happy and excited I was,” said Stevens, who is co-founder of the foundation.

Stevens and her wife, Jen Rainin, reacquired and donated Curve to the foundation while filming “Ahead of the Curve,” a documentary about the magazine that premiered last June at Frameline, San Francisco’s LGBTQ film festival. The foundation will empower and amplify voices of the Curve community – lesbians, queer women, trans women, and nonbinary people of all races, ages, and abilities, a news release stated.

Rainin co-founded Frankly Speaking Films and co-produced and co-directed the documentary with Oakland-based, Emmy Award-winning lesbian filmmaker Rivkah Beth Medow. Lesbian-owned Wolfe Video will release it on digital platforms, DVD and STARZ on June 1 at the start of Pride Month.

“I’m so delighted,” Stevens, 53, said. “Making that announcement was just so freeing, so powerful. The response from the community is just so heart-warming.”

As of April 20, Stevens’ video received nearly 900 responses, was shared 388 times, and received 362 comments congratulating her.

“Outstanding!! I remember when you were Deneuve. I was a baby dyke back then and always craved the arrival of the next mag in my subscription!” Jodie B. Yaver commented with a heart and rainbow emoji, referring to the original name of the publication.

Community leaders who were both writers for and featured in the pages of Curve expressed their excitement for its next chapter.

“I’m really excited that Franco is back at the helm,” said lesbian novelist and playwright Jewelle Gomez.

“Franco is an inspired entrepreneur, and it has been our good fortune that she has been inspired by communication and visibility for lesbians socially and politically.”

An April 1994 profile of Gomez and her wife, Diane Sabin, is one of the first updated retrospective articles featured on Curve’s new website. (http://www.curvemag.com) “It’s important to have the particular type of magazine that Curve has been, it investigates and illuminates a real broad variety of lesbian and queer life,” said Gomez.

Kate Kendell, former executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, described Curve as taking the lesbian community from “monochrome to Kodachrome,” creating a true “sense of vitality and community for queer women.”

“Now we embark on the next chapter of how we continue to elevate and center the stories of queer women whose lives and stories need to be understood and told,” said Kendell, a lesbian who sits on the foundation’s advisory council.

The announcement came ahead of Lesbian Visibility Day, April 26.

Soft launch

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Jasmine Sudarkasa will serve as the foundation’s executive director and oversee the publication, which will be nonprofit. She will be joined by former Curve editor Johns, who will be a contributing editor.

Johns is also currently the editorin-chief of QueerForty.com, a Grey Jones Media digital media outlet, and group editor of Outvoices, a new queer digital media outlet produced

by Aequalitas Media.

The foundation will steward the magazine through the present and into its future as a channel to fulfill its mission, Stevens told the Bay Area Reporter. The foundation digitized

t

Courtesy Avalon Media

Frances “Franco” Stevens, left, and Silke Bader, Avalon Media CEO, when Curve was sold to the Australian lesbian media company in 2010.

30 years of issues of the publication.

The issues are available to the public for free, according to the foundation’s April 8 news release.

Stevens said the foundation’s operating budget was still being developed and Sudarkasa’s salary was currently undisclosed. The foundation is fiscally sponsored by SocialGood Fund as of January 2020, a representative of the organization confirmed to the B.A.R. In 2010, after 20 years publishing Curve, Stevens made the decision to sell the magazine to focus on her family and health.

“It almost felt like when I sold the magazine, my child was going off to be married,” Stevens said.

Stevens has been fighting a nerve disease and a work injury for more than a decade that has left her in daily pain and in a wheelchair. Her health challenges have not changed since she sold Curve, but neither has her love for the magazine she created and grew, or the diverse queer women’s community represented in its pages, she said.

“I won’t be physically running the magazine or the foundation,” Stevens said. “[The foundation team] can take my mission and vision.”

New York-based Go is one of the few existing glossy lesbian magazines, along with the United Kingdom’s Diva and Australia’s LOTL (formerly Lesbians on the Loose), also published by Avalon Media.

“This turn of events has given me a great opportunity to reconnect with the community and discover what we want and need now,” Stevens stated.

She’s excited about where Sudarkasa will take Curve in the future.

“She’s just a dynamo,” Stevens said.

Outspoken Enterprises Inc., Stevens’ company that published Curve for two decades, retained Curve’s lesbian dating site, http://www.CurvePersonals.com, at the time of the magazine’s sale. The digital dating site still operates today, but Stevens was unsure about its future, she told the B.A.R. Curve started as Deneuve magazine on maxed-out credit cards, a lucky run at the horse racing track, and Stevens’ wages at A Different Light Bookstore, the now-shuttered LGBTQ bookstore in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood. She had a vision for a mainstream-style glossy magazine for lesbians.

The magazine changed its name to Curve in 1996 when legendary French film star Catherine Deneuve, who portrayed bisexual and lesbian characters in movies, filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Stevens.

At the time, On Our Backs, the feminist-lesbian porn magazine, was the only glossy magazine for lesbians.

The next closest publication was Los Angeles’ Lesbian News, which had a glossy cover but newsprint pages.

See page 9 >>

Community News>>

t Leather projects in SF’s SOMA district advance

April 22-28, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

by Matthew S. Bajko

S

everal projects celebrating the leather and kink history of San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood are inching along, from the completion of a public parklet named after an iconic bar to the installation of sidewalk markers recognizing current and former LGBTQ businesses in the area.

A new crosswalk sporting the blue, white, and black colors of the leather flag now marks the start of the Eagle Plaza public parklet on 12th Street at Bernice. The $1.85 million project, begun in 2019, is turning a portion of the roadway Courtesy Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District into a community gathering space.

A new crosswalk sporting the blue, white, and black colors of the Nearly complete, it is named after leather flag now marks the start of the Eagle Plaza public parklet on the gay-owned Eagle bar that sits 12th Street at Bernice. on the corner of 12th and Harrison streets at the other terminus light and traffic light poles in the the sidewalk near where the variof the parklet. area, as well as the leather pride ous LGBTQ bars, shops and bathAccording to the Leather & flag painted on them, as has been houses operated or currently are LGBTQ Cultural District similar down with the city’s transgender located. At one time there were leather-themed crosswalks could district in the Tenderloin. more than 120 such establishone day greet pedestrians at vari“Construction might not start ments, but today the number is ous spots on Folsom Street. Once until 2022, but we will continue down to 12. known as “The Miracle Mile” due working to make sure our history Such storied establishments as to the scores of businesses catering and culture is respected and rethe Folsom Street Barracks, The to the LGBTQ and leather scenes flected,” states the leather district Arena, Ramrod, The Brig, and the located on or near it, Folsom on its website about the SFMTA Club Baths of San Francisco would Street is set for a coming makeover project. be memorialized with the historito increase pedestrian safety along In the meantime, the leather cal markers. Ones would also be one of the main arteries through district has been in close talks installed at the Eagle bar and The SOMA. with the city’s Public Works DeEnd Up nightclub at the corner of As part of the Folsom-Howard partment and the office of District Sixth and Harrison streets.

Streetscape Project, which will Supervisor Matt Haney, who ISO 12647-7 Digital Control6 Strip 2009 Another would be located at the also safety 70improvements 100bring 100 70 30 100 60 40 100 60 100 30 100 60 100 70 30 100 40 40 70 40 A represents SOMA, about incorpoformer home of40 100 the B.A.R at 395 to Howard Street, the leather disrating 14 of the sidewalk plaques Ninth Street.

The weekly LGBTQ trict is advocating that the San marking historic LGBTQ business newspaper, celebrating its 50th Francisco Municipal Transportalocations along Folsom Street as anniversary this year, called the lotion Agency include decorative part of a pedestrian safety imcation home from December 1988 100 100 60 100 100 70 70 30 30leather 100 100 60 100 100 70 70 30 30 100 100 60 100 100 70 70 30 30 100 40 100 40 40 100 10 40 40 crosswalks inspired by the provement project that city agency until October 2013. flag at the alleys that cross Folsom has underway.

Leather district leaders have from Seventh to 11th streets. It As the Bay Area Reporter first been working with local LGBTQ would also like to see signs for the reported in September, bronze historians Shayne Watson and leather district installed on street plaques one day will be found in Gayle Rubin, T:9.75" who specializes in 3%

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leather history, to finalize the list of locations. The Board of Supervisors endorsed the plaques April 6, while the San Francisco Arts Commission’s civic design review committee unanimously approved the sidewalk markers at its meeting April 19.

Lesbian artist Debra Walker, one of the committee’s five members, joked she had been to or visited nearly all of the 124 LGBTQ businesses currently identified by the leather district.

“It really is amazing to go through the South of Market area and realize how many places have closed,” said Walker. “A lot of us came to San Francisco because it is a welcoming place, and we had a place to socialize and create a family, so I think it is really important we note this like we do.

These sidewalk plaques are really effective; even if you are not looking for them, you see them as you are walking. I love the ones in the Castro, so looking forward to seeing these.”

Walker was referring to the bronze plaques found along upper Market Street and that are on or near the 400 and 500 blocks of Castro Street that honor historic LGBTQ individuals. Berkeleybased Artworks Foundry, which created the Rainbow Honor Walk plaques, would be hired to fabricate the leather district plaques, whose design created 70 40 40 40 70 40 40 70 40was 70 40 40 3 by Jon 10 Stoa.

The bulk of the plaques will be installed between Fifth and 12th streets in SOMA, noted Cal Calla20 70 70 70 40 leather 70 40 40 district’s 0000 3.1manager, 2.2 2.2 10.2 7.4 7.4 han,70 the during Monday’s design review hearing. Roughly 80 locations have already won approval from city leaders to receive plaques,

with the others identified by Watson and Rubin to be added to the official list in the future.

“They have gone back a number of years to make note of all the notable institutions, businesses, and other places of interest in the district,” Callahan told the arts commissioners.

The district will be seeking an estimated $120,000 to pay for at least 50 of the plaques from the community impact fees the developer L37 Partners will be required to pay for its 244-rental unit housing development in SOMA. The city’s planning commission recently approved the project to be built at Folsom and 11th streets adjacent to the gay nightclub Oasis, which should be receiving a plaque of its own someday.

Other items

In other news, the leather district is seeking the names of local, living LGBTQ community members for a photomural installation the SOMA West Community Benefit District is planning to display on a prominent Folsom Street building. Suggestions can be emailed to arts-chair@sflcd.org.

And in conjunction with Folsom Street Events, which puts on the city’s two fetish fairs each year, the leather district will be taking part in SOMA Second Saturdays.

It will be setting up a booth at Folsom and noon 25 50 Dore75 streets 90 from100 to 5 p.m. May 8 and June 12.

It is inviting a few kinky vendors and nonprofits to join it, while the gay bar Powerhouse located at that 25site 19 19 will 50 40 40 serving 100 100 100 80 70bever70 100 75 66 66 food be and ages outdoors. Participants will be asked to follow all COVID-related masking and distancing requirements in force on those days.t

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<< Open Forum

6 • Bay Area Reporter • April 22-28, 2021

Volume 51, Number 16 April 22-28, 2021 www.ebar.com

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t

LGBTQ media group stands against voter suppression

T

he National LGBT Media Association took a principled stand this month when it announced that it would not meet in Georgia due to the state having recently passed a hideous voter suppression law. The group is the nation’s largest queer media association, composed of 11 legacy publications, including the Bay Area Reporter. The group had planned to meet in the state later this year.

“We in the LGBT community built a movement fighting for equality, and we stand with those who fight this ‘Jim Crow, Part 2’ legislation in order to make their voice heard and their vote count,” the association stated in an April 9 news release. “Too many people in power wish to keep marginalized communities invisible and without proper representation in government, and we must be vigilant in fighting against their unjust and unfair discrimination.”

While much has been made of the law’s provision that offering food or water to people waiting in line to vote could result in misdemeanor charges, the law is far more chilling, according to an in-depth analysis by the New York Times.

Indeed, as Times reporters Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein make clear, “The Republican legislature and governor have made a breathtaking assertion of partisan power in elections, making absentee voting harder and creating restrictions and complications in the wake of narrow losses to Democrats.” They are referring, of course, to Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential race last November, and the two U.S. Senate runoffs in January in which Democrats Jon Ossoff and the Reverend Raphael Warnock prevailed over Republican incumbents, flipping the upper chamber to Democratic control with a 50-50 split (Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is the tie-breaker).

Among the drastic changes to voting in the Peach State, people will now have less time to request absentee ballots – from nearly six months before an election to less than three, the Times analysis found. The shorter window will also

limit opportunities for get-out-the-vote efforts, the reporters noted, “and could put greater strain on local election boards, which will have less time to process ballot requests.”

There are also strict new ID requirements for absentee voters that harken back to Jim Crow-era laws that used poll taxes, literacy tests, and other hurdles to disenfranchise Black voters. Under the new law, if voters fail to follow all the new steps – including printing their date of birth or a partial Social Security number – their ballots could be tossed out on pretext.

It is now illegal for the Georgia secretary of state to automatically mail out absentee voter applications to all registered voters. This was done last year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Times analysis noted, “The new law also forbids third-party groups to prefill applications for voters, which made applying for an absentee ballot easier for many voters.” Georgia Republicans deemed these new “safeguards” necessary correctives despite the fact that there were no reported cases of abuse or illegal activity related to absentee voting.

The number of drop boxes are severely limited under the new law and won’t have 24-hour access. “The boxes must be placed indoors at government buildings and early-voting sites and will thus be unavailable for voters to drop off their ballots during evenings and other nonbusiness hours,” the Times analysis stated. This, of course, will suppress turnout for those who may only have time to drop off their ballot after-hours or on weekends. Voters would have to resort to returning their ballots via the U.S. Postal Service, which itself has been hampered by delayed delivery times due to operational changes that were implemented by the disastrous Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. Under the law, early voting is expanded in many small counties, but not larger ones, according to the analysis. Again, this likely will affect working people, including minorities and LGBTQs, since the law prohibits early voting before 7 a.m. or after 7 p.m. Counties also have

the choice to opt for Sunday early voting, and those that decline to do so would be limiting ballot access for parishioners at Black churches, which have often organized their congregants to vote after worship services, according to the Times analysis.

When counting the ballots, the law gives power to the Republican-controlled Legislature at the expense of the duly elected secretary of state. You may recall that last year Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger refused to buckle under the hardball tactics of former President Donald Trump and his cronies to not certify the state’s votes for Joe Biden – he decided to follow the law instead. Well, now the law’s been changed and Raffensperger, a Republican, has been demoted under it, even as he recently defended it. NPR reported last week that he stands with Governor Brian Kemp in maintaining that the law safeguards elections. He is obviously worried about his own political future, as the Trump-lovers blamed him for giving the state’s electoral votes to Biden. But more significantly, the new law removes the secretary of state as chair of Georgia’s State Election Board, allowing a Republican-majority board to take over local election offices temporarily.

It’s for all these reasons and more that the National LGBT Media Association took the position it did. “With this law, it is now easier to get a gun in Georgia than to vote,” stated Leo Cusimano, co-chair of the organization, which will not travel to the state for any future meetings until it creates fair election laws that ensure all people have equal and fair access to vote.

The members of the national group include the Georgia Voice, as well as Bay Windows in Boston; Between the Lines in Detroit; Dallas Voice; Gay City News in New York City; Philadelphia Gay News; Los Angeles Blade; South Florida Gay News; Washington Blade; Watermark in Tampa, Florida; and the Windy City Times in Chicago.

These publications recognize the importance of voting – not just for queer people, but for all Americans. We’re proud to stand with our sister publications against Georgia’s discriminatory limits on voting access.t

with Florida moving to require genital checks of children who want to take part. I am sure that such exams will be used to humiliate both trans and nontrans students alike.

It should seem clear to anyone looking at this slew of bills – largely pushed through by hard-right groups still looking for a hook after their loss on marriage equality – that the goal of Christine Smith same is not just to criminalize transgender care and participation, but eliminate transgender people altogether. They are making it impossible to be trans in these states, either by forcing us out of those states, or forcing our hands to take our own lives. I would argue that they’d be happy with either outcome.

Of course, I am angry at the cruel bigots who seem to think that transgender children are fair game. I know their arguments about “protecting women and girls” are so much hot air, coming from the same people who are more than willing to stand with the likes of Republicans like Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, and even former President Donald Trump.

They simply see a target that they view as powerless, and one that they think they can score a cheap win against. Their actions are heartless and calculated.

Yet as repugnant as these awful people are, I find myself incandescent not for those who are once again lining up to harm transgender people – as they are acting through the savage, ingrained animus I expect from them – but for those who seem unwilling to speak out against them.

It was only a few years ago that we were in the fight for same-sex marriage. At that time, a lot of trans rights issues were put on the back burner, treated as something that the movement would come around to after the marriage battle. Even I, a trans woman in a same-sex marriage, was told by local activists that they did not want to bring up my marriage in the fight, as it would somehow “muddy the waters” and make the battle all that more difficult.

The victory for marriage was a big one, don’t get me wrong. Yet once it was won, those trans struggles that were waiting for help were ignored.

Some organizations disbanded rather than take on new issues, while others seemed to refocus elsewhere.

Trans organizations are underfunded. Heck, trans organizations barely exist, and do not have the strength, the money, or the people to effectively fight back against the well-oiled machine that is the religious right. We need the larger LGBTQ community to be standing with us, right now.

We need the organizations that helped get marriage on the front page to be working to do the same for trans issues right now. We need those organizations that swelled their coffers prior to Obergefell v. Hodges (the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court marriage decision) to get out of their posh offices and roll up their sleeves once again.

Right now, we are losing, in part, because the opposition controls the narrative. They are allowed to lie with impunity, crafting a false “trans ideology” from whole cloth, safe in the knowledge that nearly no one is pushing back.

I’ve said this before, and I am saying it again: we desperately need help. Without the larger LGBTQ movement speaking on our behalf, without more non-transgender people willing to both speak out on these anti-transgender bills and willing to elevate transgender voices, we will see trans rights eroded beyond repair.

Please, I beg of you. Help. Donate to our cause if you can. I’d recommend the American Civil Liberties Union, as its lawyers are some of the few on the ground right now fighting back. Speak out to anyone who will listen. Use your contacts, and reach out to show your support in real, tangible ways.

We need you, and we need you now. Do something.t

I’m angry

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

R

ight now, transgender people in America are under assault.

I mean that in the most literal sense. In the last four months, 14 transgender people – predominately trans women of color – have been killed in cases of suspected anti-trans violence. Many more have been attacked and harassed. We are very large targets right now.

Assault also applies in a more metaphorical way. Thus far, over 100 bills attacking the rights of transgender people have been introduced in 31 statehouses across the country. A number of these have already made it to governors’ desks, while others are quite likely to do so.

One of the worst of these is now the law in Arkansas after a simple majority in the Legislature overrode Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson’s veto of House Bill 1570. The bill, deceptively called the Arkansas Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, will block the ability of transgender youth to access medication to delay puberty. Yes, even with the assent of their parents, and with the OK of medical professionals – and even if they have already started such treatment, forcing transgender youth to go through an unwanted puberty.

The regimen is standard for those undergoing a so-called precocious puberty (starting too soon), but it somehow is considered too controversial for young transgender people to access.

The bill also allows for an exception for intersex youth, presumably to continue forcing them to undergo potentially unwanted hormonal treatments.

Arkansas is one of 20 states with other similar bills, including one introduced in Alabama that would make providing transgender care to a minor a felony. Others have attempted to classify gender-affirming treatment of transgender children as child abuse, such as Texas’ bill 1646. It would send the parents of trans children to prison for two to 10 years for offering care to their own children. It would also move their children into foster care.

The majority of the bills this year are about transgender kids participating in school sports,

Gwen Smith is deeply sorry for those suffering right now in Arkansas, Florida, Texas, and elsewhere. You can find her at www.gwensmith.com.

t Politics >>

April 22-28, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 7

California leaders among inaugural LGBTQ Hall of Fame honorees

by Matthew S. Bajko

HQ@1532 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

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number of Californians are among the inaugural class being inducted into the LGBTQ Hall of Fame May 2 by the LGBTQ Victory Institute.

A total of 20 LGBTQ elected officials, appointed officials, and candidates are being honored for their lasting impact on LGBTQ political history.

The list includes lesbian former San Francisco supervisor Roberta Achtenberg, 70, who went on to be the first openly LGBTQ presidential appointee to a Senate-confirmed position, and gay former state Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles), 51, the first openly LGBTQ leader in the state Legislature. San Franciscan James C. Hormel, 88, who became the first out LGBTQ U.S. ambassador in 1999 with his appointment to Luxembourg, will also be inducted.

Deceased gay icons José Julio Sarria, whose 1961 bid for a San Francisco Board of Supervisors seat marked the first time an out LGBTQ person ran for public office, and Harvey Milk, whose election as a San Francisco supervisor in 1977 marked the first time an out person was elected in the city and the Golden State, will both be posthumously inducted. Sarria died in 2013 at age 90, while Milk was assassinated in 1978 at age 48.

A number of groundbreaking politicians will be inducted, including lesbian former Ann Arbor city councilwoman Kathy Kozachenko, 67, whose election in 1974 marked the first time an LGBTQ person was ever elected in the U.S., and former lesbian Massachusetts state representative Elaine Noble, 77, whose victory a year later saw her become the first out LGBTQ person ever elected to a state legislature.

Current LGBTQ Victory Fund and LGBTQ Victory Institute President & CEO Annise Parker, 64, is also being inducted. The lesbian former Houston mayor in 2010 became the first out LGBTQ mayor of a top-10 American city.

Also on the list is gay former Tempe mayor Neil Giuliano, 64, whose election in 1994 made him the first out LGBTQ mayor of a U.S. city. He would go on become president of GLAAD, the LGBTQ media watchdog, and helm the San Francisco AIDS Foundation for five years during the late 2010s.

“The founding class of the LGBTQ Victory Hall of Fame represents the vanguard of a revolution in U.S. and global politics – the people who stood up to serve openly when it meant harassment, threats or worse,” stated Chris Abele, chair of the One Victory Board of Directors. “These courageous leaders were the first out leaders in their cities or agencies, the first to sit for grilling by the U.S. Senate and the first to lead state legislatures or countries.”

Reached at her home in San Francisco, Achtenberg told the Bay Area Reporter she was “elated” to learn she had been selected for the LGBTQ Hall of Fame’s first class. Between 2000 and 2016 she was a California State University Board of Trustees member and now focuses on her community development consultant work in cities across the country.

“I say the most important thing about the honor is that our history is being memorialized in this way,” said Achtenberg. “It is extremely important for the current generation and future generations of LGBTQ activists that we understand where so many of these things began, so I am just thrilled to be a part of it.”

Pérez, in the middle of a conference call Monday, told the B.A.R. in a brief interview that he is “incredibly appreciative and proud” to be part of the hall of fame inductee class. In a follow up interview, Pérez said he was especially delighted to see Sarria also made the

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Achtenberg and Perez: courtesy the subjects; Hormel: Ryland Hormel

Former San Francisco supervisor and Clinton administration official Roberta Achtenberg, left, former ambassador James Hormel, and former California Assembly speaker John A. Perez are among those in the inaugural class of the LGBTQ Victory Fund’s hall of fame.

list, as he had honored the fellow Latino leader when he and gay former San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano worked to revive the Pride events in the Statehouse that had been cancelled due to Republican opposition.

“I think it is important always to have a sense of how far we have come and how far we need to go,” said Pérez, who also has the distinction of being the first out person of color elected to the California Legislature. “I think it is really important at this moment in the Victory Fund’s history they do put together this sense of what our community’s collective history has been.”

Gay San Diego resident Nicole Murray Ramirez, who launched a campaign last year to honor Sarria with a U.S. postage stamp, praised the Victory Institute for including him in the inaugural hall of fame class. Known as the Queen Mother I of the Americas and Nicole the Great within the Imperial Court System, Murray Ramirez is now the titular head of the 56-year-old drag fundraising organization that Sarria started.

“All elected LGBTQ officials stand on the shoulders of World War II veteran EMPRESS 1 José Julio Sarria who in 1961 became the first openly LGBTQ candidate to run for public office in North America ... we thank the Victory Fund for a community, indeed a civil rights movement, that doesn’t really know where it’s going and whose shoulders it stands on,” Murray Ramirez told the B.A.R. During the Clinton administration Achtenberg served as an assistant secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 2011, then-President Barack Obama appointed her as a commissioner of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Today, she marvels at seeing President Joe Biden’s LGBTQ appointees be assessed largely on their resumes and not their sexual orientation or gender identity. Achtenberg said she was particularly pleased with Dr. Rachel Levine, a transgender woman who had been Pennsylvania’s top health official, being confirmed as Biden’s assistant secretary of health.

“I think with the appointment of Dr. Rachel Levine, I can’t think of anything more fitting than that the head of public health for the state of Pennsylvania could be appointed an assistant secretary at health and human services as the first openly trans woman,” said Achtenberg. “Somebody whose reputation is for fighting for the public health of all people. It couldn’t be more perfect or more poetic.”

She looks forward to seeing Levine one day join her in the hall of fame.

“This couldn’t be better when you think of the struggle and the fact that today people are being assessed on the merits,” said Achtenberg, recalling the anti-LGBTQ attacks she and Hormel faced during their confirmation battles “was crazy. When I look back on it, I ask, really, where we ever in that place? But indeed, we were.”

Other leaders being inducted into the hall of fame are former Georgia state representative Simone Bell, 51, the first out Black lesbian elected to a U.S. state legislature; gay former New York State senator Tom Duane, 66, the first out LGBTQ and first out HIV-positive member of the New York state Senate; gay former United States Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning, 52, the first out LGBTQ head of any service in the U.S. military; gay former Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank, 81, one of the first out members of Congress; Sherry Harris, 56, who became the first Black out lesbian elected in the U.S. with her 1992 win of a Seattle City Council seat; Kim Coco Iwamoto, 52, whose 2006 election to the Hawaii Board of Education marked the first time an out trans person won a statewide election; and gay former Albany Common Council Alderman Keith St. John, 63, who in 1990 became the first Black out LGBTQ person elected in the United States.

The lone living foreign leader being inducted is Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, 78, formerly prime minister of Iceland from 2009 to 2013. The openly gay politician was the first out LGBTQ person in the world elected to head a government.

Those also receiving the honor posthumously are gay judge Deborah Batts, the first out LGBTQ federal court jurist who in 1994 joined the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and died last year at the age of 72; bisexual city councillor of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Marielle Franco, one of her country’s first Black out LGBTQ elected officials who was assassinated in 2018 at age 38; and gay former Minnesota state senator Allan Spear, who in 1974 became first state legislator to come out while in office – a year after being elected – and was the first to serve as speaker of a state legislature. He died in 2008 at the age of 71.

The May 2 virtual hall of fame ceremony is part of the celebrations taking place this year to mark the Victory Fund’s 30th anniversary. Lesbian U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, 59, will be inducted as a Lifetime Achievement honoree. By winning her Wisconsin House seat in 1998, Baldwin became the nation’s first openly gay challenger sent to Congress; in 2012 she became the first out person elected to the U.S. Senate.

The ceremony, which runs from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. (Pacific Time), will include short interviews with many of the inductees. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) is expected to take part, as is singer Sara Bareilles.

“The launch of this Hall of Fame is an opportunity to ensure their contributions are forever remembered and to honor the future leaders who will advance representation for our community,” stated Abele.

To purchase tickets, visit https:// victoryfund.org/event/30years/.t

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<< Community News

8 • Bay Area Reporter • April 22-28, 2021

Jeffrey Thomas Antonson (Oden) October 22, 1969 to April 3, 2021

t

Twin sisters chosen as SF Pride grand marshals

by Cynthia Laird

Q

ueer twin sisters and community activists Melonie and Melorra Green have been named San Francisco Pride community grand marshals, the organization recently announced.

The women, 43, are co-executive This world has lost one of its most caring, vibrant and gentle directors of the African American Art and Culture Complex in the Western beings. Jeff was a beautiful man full of intellectually brilliant Addition. intensity. Jeff transitioned on April 3, 2021 in New York City.

The Green sisters were selected via Jeff was born and raised in Rancho Cucamonga, California. He public vote, along with the Oakland graduated from UC Davis in 1987, and spent most of his adult LGBTQ Community Center, which life in San Francisco. Jeff was active in the recovery commuwas named this year’s organizational nity and was a leader in service efforts where he was known grand marshal. The San Francisco for nurturing the minority opinion. He was deeply loved and LGBT Pride Celebration Committee respected with many friends and admirers. Jeff loved opera, stated that additional grand marshals in particular Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Yet his favorite singer was and other honorees would be anUtah Phillips whose song about “ticky, tacky little boxes on nounced soon. the hillside” he especially appreciated. He was a Carl Jung The Green sisters are curators, artenthusiast, quoting him at length. He loved Gabor Mate. His ists, and activists who have produced more than 80 exhibitions and over 100 deep concerns were global and all encompassing, as shown by public events, according to SF Pride. his favorite movie which was “Only Love Remains: Dancing “They continue to elevate their at the Edge of Extinction.” As a valuable contributor under the promise to inspire and empower Black auspices of Nature Bats Last, Jeff worked tirelessly in his efforts people to tell our stories and uphold to mitigate global warming. After retiring from his corporate our truths,” SF Pride stated in its writejob, Jeff traveled in France, and began to spend more time in up about the women. “Their pride in New York City. He loved theatre–especially Off-Broadway, and being Black + queer + women was attended Rick Wolff’s classes in Marxian Economics at The nurtured in the Bay Area and they are New School whenever possible. He loved farm-to-table restauproud to BE, represent, and acknowlrants and shopped often at Farmers Markets. He was a raw milk edge what they fought so hard to not fanatic and cherished long walks. Throughout his life, Jeff was be ashamed of.” a passionate advocate for the LGBTQIA community. He was an Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, the Greens have lived in San Franavid reader and lover of independent bookstores; he was a huge cisco for 20 years and call the Lower Kurt Vonnegut fan. Jeff was loving, outgoing, genuinely and Haight home. soulfully charming, lively and honest, with a playful demeanor Peter-Astrid Kane, SF Pride’s comthat made him appreciated by just about everyone with whom munications manager, stated that altohe came into contact. Jeff will be profoundly missed. Jeff is gether, some 1,334 people voted online survived by his mother, Annamarie Oden, his half-brother, Joel for the community grand marshals.

Anker; and his father, Dale Antonson, and his half brother, Scot The Green sisters did not respond to Antonson a request for comment by press time.

Joe Hawkins, executive director of the Oakland center, stated that the nonprofit was “deeply honored” for the recognition.

“Our selection affords us the opportunity to highlight some of the issues that our organization has worked to address since we opened our doors in September of 2017,” a statement from the center read. “The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a brighter light on the long-standing racial, social, and economic inequities that that has placed LGBTQ communities of color at greater risk for health and economic problems to include homelessness.”

As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, this year’s 51st San Francisco Pride celebration will have some limited, in-person events to celebrate in June. There will not be a traditional Pride parade or celebration in Civic When you plan your life celebration and lasting remembrance in Center Plaza. advance, you can design every detail of your own unique memorial The events announced so far by SF and provide your loved ones with true peace of mind. Planning ahead Pride will be a Black liberation event When you plan your life celebration and lasting protects your loved ones from unnecessary stress and financial burden, When you remembrance plan your celebration and lasting in scheduled to coincide with the eve of allowing themlife to focus what will matter at design that remembrance time—you. in on advance, youmost can every Juneteenth (tentatively June 18), two advance, you canofdesign every detail of your ownand unique memorial successive movie nights in Oracle Park, detail own memorial provide Contact usyour today about theunique beautiful ways to create a lasting legacy atyour theloved San Francisco Columbarium. and provide loved ones with true peace mind.

Planning aheadand a Pride Expo at Civic Center Plaza. your ones with true peace ofof mind.

Planning protects your loved onesProudly from unnecessary stressunnecessary and financial burden,The other community grand marahead protects yourserving loved onesCommunity. from the LGBT

PlanningAhead Ahead isisSimple Planning Simple The benefits are immense.

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allowing them focus on whatburden, will matter most them at thattotime—you. Obituaries >> stresstoand financial allowing Helen Wagner focus on what will matter most at that time—you.

Contact us today about the beautiful ways to create a lasting legacy September 25, 1925 – March 31, 2021 at the San Contact FranciscousColumbarium. today about the beautiful ways to create Helen Wagner a lasting legacy at the San Francisco Columbarium. died peacefully at One Loraine Ct. | San Francisco | 415-771-0717 Proudly serving our Community.

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home, surrounded by loved ones, on March 31, 2021. She was 95.

Helen was born between September 25 and 28, 1925 on the kitchen table of her Ingleside Terrace home in San Francisco. While her birth certificate said the 25th, her family always maintained the 28th as her birthday, so we’ll never know exactly.

Helen was preceded in death by her father, mother, and brother. Her father’s passing, when she was 8, particularly affected her. When she refused to eat, she was sent for the summer to a sheep farm in the Delta so that fresh air might con-

Sari Staver

Melonie Green, left, and her twin sister, Melorra Green, were selected by the public as this year’s San Francisco Pride community grand marshals.

shal nominees were Akira Jackson, who is the executive director of Transgender Advocates for Justice and Accountability Coalition; Angelique Mahan, who works in the Outreach and Community Engagement Division at the San Francisco Human Rights Commission; Clair Farley, executive director of the San Francisco Office of Transgender Initiatives and a mayoral adviser; Morey Riordan, the former executive director of the Sperm Bank of California and a board member of Openhouse; René Rivera, a meditation teacher and restorative justice facilitator; Nicole Santamaría, executive director of El/La Para TransLatinas; and George Smith III, whom former mayor Willie Brown appointed to lead his office on homelessness and currently works for the San Francisco Human Services Department.

The other organizational grand marshal nominees were Krewe de Kinque, a nonprofit social/charitable club that raises awareness and funds in the spirit of Mardi Gras with an emphasis on diversity, inclusion, and emergency needs; and the San Francisco Bay Area Queer Nightlife Fund, which provides resources and opportunities to promote and support queer nightlife workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

resolution requiring all special business districts – such as CBDs – to bring any new surveillance plans to the board before adopting new technologies. It is nonbinding, according to an article by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and will be up to city departments to determine whether and how to carry out such requests.

Others support the SafeCity Camera program, as it’s called, in part due to petty crime and an uptick in concern from Castro residents about public safety issues.

CBD Executive Director Andrea Aiello stated in an announcement about the meeting that an online survey to assess the neighborhood’s interest in the program has been completed.

Aiello said that next week’s town hall would be the only one on the topic. Registration is required and can be done by going to https://bit.ly/3tycn9 vpgtGtwquLb0aUBd9v_5JKJ7jbEm)

Meeting om SF redistricting

The Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District will hold a virtual town hall on its surveillance camera proposal Tuesday, April 27, from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Billed as a safety program, the project would see 125 cameras installed in the LGBTQ neighborhood. The cameras would be privately funded, according to the CBD. Not surprisingly, the cameras are opposed by some groups, including the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District and the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors in February passed a

The League of Women Voters will have an online forum Thursday, April 29, at 6 p.m. to help residents learn about the redistricting for San Francisco supervisor seats.

Redrawing the lines of the 11 supervisorial districts takes place every 10 years to create more fair, equitable representation in local government.

During the event, which is free, attendees will hear from Eric McDonnell, who was chair of San Francisco’s redistricting task force during the previous 2011 process. He’ll talk about why it’s important for people to get involved in redrawing the city’s map of the districts and what it’s like to be a member of the task force.

Helen Hutchison will also address the meeting. She’s the statewide lead for the League of Women Voters of California and serves on its board.

Hutchison will explain why redistricting matters and what people can expect in 2021.

To register, go to https://bit. ly/3aoxBPe. t

sole her. That time awakened her connection to the land that would shape her future as a rancher.

The labor shortage of World War II provided the opportunity for Helen to learn drafting, attend UC Berkeley, and then after the war’s end, leverage those skills into a career. She worked at Takahashi Engineering for many years, where she designed plumbing on large commercial projects, until retiring in her 70s. Helen invested her self-made wealth wisely when she bought the Full Moon Ranch in 1975.

Helen always loved animals, from the zebra finches she had as a child to the series of dogs, many Dobermans, who she devoted herself to over the years. She rode horses, mothered a slew of bummer lambs, and nursed hurt animals in her home. Later in life, she took to collecting the feathers that fell in her yard, both the worthy specimens and the littlest bits of fluff. She has promised to

come back in the next life as a bird, freely floating on the wind.

Helen was fiercely independent, living alone off-grid, on well water, stoking a wood oven until the end. She lived simply herself but was incredibly generous to others. Over the years the ranch served as a place of respite for many, including through the Hopland Women’s Music Festival, which ran there from 1990 to 2004. She also taught a generation of folks to work cattle, welcoming people twice a year for Round Up, sharing her skills and eventually supervising from the sidelines. In her later years, she loved Speyside scotch, Sudoku, puzzles, and movies.

She is survived by her children, Kellen Kaiser and Ethan Kaiser-Klimist; her life partner, Nina Kaiser; and many friends.

In lieu of flowers, feel free to donate to the Humane Society for Inland Mendocino County at https://mendohumanesociety.com/

Town hall to be held on Castro cameras

t <<

Community News >>

Curve

From page 4

All other publications catering to queer women were newspapers and zines.

“Ahead of the Curve,” which tells Stevens’ and Curve’s 30-year journey with the help of “celesbians” and community leaders. Lesbian Academy and Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge and Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black” star and lesbian comedian Lea DeLaria appear in the documentary, along with community leaders and entertainers Kim Katrin, Denice Frohman, Andrea Pino-Silva, Amber Hikes, and Gomez.

The magazine has survived major disruptions in the publishing world: the internet and three economic crises, one of which is the pandemic-induced recession the world is experiencing just as Stevens made the decision to launch the foundation in 2020 and reacquired Curve this month.

Other queer women’s magazines have fallen victim to tectonic shifts in the media and publishing industry during the last 30 years. Digital magazines, blogs, vlogs, social media networks, and influencers have cropped up bidding for audiences’ attention alongside traditional print magazines; lesbian publications are no exception.

Still, Curve has remained a staple, arriving in queer women’s mail and inboxes around the world and providing a platform for lesbian journalists covering queer women’s issues and lives, allowing readers to see themselves reflected in the magazine’s pages.

In the process, Stevens, who was in her 20s when she launched Curve, and the magazine helped define “lesbian chic” before anyone knew about lesbian style, or what “power lesbians” were. Stevens is a part of the Gen X wave of queer women who were unapologetic, desired connection, and wanted to see themselves and each

Courtesy The Curve Foundation

Jasmine Sudarkasa, founding executive director of The Curve Foundation

other reflected in media.

Gomez told the B.A.R. that in addition to the wide variety of stories about lesbian lives, Curve and Stevens also brought lesbian style out of its bad rap phase. The women featured on its covers wore everything except flannel.

“Lesbians have really great style, something that Franco and Curve bring to our community exploring and expressing lesbian style [because] lesbians know how to step out. We have a style, a flurry, a flourish that Curve has always appreciated,” Gomez said.

It was important seeing all of it in color on glossy pages inside Curve, which was something Stevens brought to the community and the magazine, Gomez said.

Around the Curve

The magazine was not impervious to the stresses of the rapid shifts and struggles faced by print publications.

Publisher Bader approached Stevens and Rainin, who was two-thirds of the way into filming the documentary, and informed them she was having trouble keeping the magazine alive, Stevens said.

April 22-28, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 9

“It’s amazing that Silke kept the magazine going for all 10 years,” Stevens said. “What a passion and what a gift, that took a lot of effort.”

Bader and Johns did not respond to the B.A.R.’s request for comment by press time.

In the process, the documentary focus morphed from a historical biopic into a journey to answer the question, “Is Curve’s mission still relevant today?”

The couple said yes, and reacquired Curve for an undisclosed sum.

“Visibility and representation are the most powerful tools to protect LGBTQ+ women, and my wife knew this 30 years ago,” Rainin said in the foundation’s release. “Her work moved the nation forward socially and politically by creating space, visibility, and empathy for anyone who identified as lesbian.”

The film changed from being a chronicle of Stevens’ journey from the 1990s to today to a journey about discovering Curve still has a purpose to fulfill just as it did 30 years ago.

“Curve magazine has come home and is now embedded in a foundation that will leverage the Curve brand and dedication to queer women and elevating stories to do so in an even deeper and more enduring way,” said Kendell.

Rainin and Stevens tapped Kendell, 61, about 14 months ago to explore the foundation’s viability and set it up. Kendell’s tenure as interim chief legal officer of the Southern Poverty Law Center ends April 30, she told the B.A.R. The documentary includes the launch of the foundation that will steward Curve’s mission supporting emerging queer women journalists in partnership with the NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists and providing a platform for visibility for cross-generational lesbian dialogue and stories.

“We want to fund the next journalists in our community,” Stevens

told the B.A.R. “We want to support the writers and the journalists in whatever format that takes place,” she said about the magazine and the foundation’s projects.

“We are starting to see some community buy-in after the announcement,” Stevens added.

Stevens and Rainin co-founded the foundation and sit on its advisory council, along with lesbian powerhouses Kendell and former founder of PlanetOut.com Jenni Olson.

They are joined by former Curve editor-in-chief and current Pride Media Inc. Chief Executive Officer and Editorial Director Diane Anderson-Minshall; MyUmbrella Founder CEO Angelic Williams, Full Circle CEO Deb Stallings, Masto Foundation Executive Director and Queer Leaders in Philanthropy Founder Sparks (who uses one name), and Cuban lesbian activist Pino-Silva, who is also in the documentary.

Pride Media Inc. publishes the Advocate, Out, and Out Traveler among other LGBTQ magazines.

Sudarkasa, who will lead the foundation, designed and led the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s $15 million anti-racist grantmaking effort in 2020. It was her most recent achievement in her nonprofit and foundation career, she said in the foundation’s April 9 release announcing her taking the helm of the foundation.

Stevens, Kendell, and Gomez expressed their excitement to see where Sudarkasa takes the foundation and Curve.

“Jasmine is a terrific first executive director for the foundation,” Kendell said. “Her connections, her depth, her life experience that she brings as a Black lesbian to this role is exactly what the foundation needs.”

Gomez, who is also a retired philanthropy professional, expressed her excitement about Sudarkasa being named to lead the foundation, calling it a “new era for the queer community.”

“Communications and visibility are so important. It is the key to opening the door to recognition of our full humanity. So, having a foundation that can step up and look at how to support women of color and lesbians is really going to be exciting,” said Gomez, noting the loss of Black lives to come to this “particular period in history [where] people are embracing an understanding of the way our culture has been cheated out of the full energy that people of color can bring to positions of power.”

Kendell echoed Gomez, recognizing queer women of color and queer transgender women’s stories “have not received the kind of audience and attention and depths of examination that these stories deserve, these lives deserve.

“I think that we are all enriched by seeing the breadth of who our community is,” she continued. “The Curve Foundation is committed to centering those experiences and stories, and in doing so elevating the joy and the depth of what it means to be a queer woman in this culture.”

As she stated in the foundation’s release, Sudarkasa welcomes the opportunity to expand the community’s stories beyond the “singular narratives of grief.”

“I look forward to the continued opportunity to highlight the ‘ordinary joy’ and extraordinary leadership of this community, and to creating new opportunities for the meaningful, cross-generational and cross-cultural conversations that began on the pages of the magazine,” she stated.t

“Ahead of the Curve” is now available for DVD pre-order at: https:// www.wolfevideo.com/products/ ahead-of-the-curve. Check out Curve’s new website at www. curvemag.com. Learn more about The Curve Foundation, at https:// thecurvefoundation.org.

<< Health News

10 • Bay Area Reporter • April 22-28, 2021

t

CDC: Trans women need more HIV services

by Liz Highleyman

T

ransgender women in the United States need better access to HIV prevention and treatment services, according to a new survey from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released ahead of National Transgender HIV Testing Day April 18.

According to the report, four out of 10 trans women surveyed in seven major U.S. cities, including San Francisco, are living with HIV. The prevalence rose to nearly twothirds for Black trans women.

“I am disheartened to see the findings, but none of this was news to the trans community,” San Francisco Health Commissioner Cecilia Chung of the Transgender Law Center told the Bay Area Reporter. “It took almost four decades to get a clear affirmation of our repeated message about the inequity trans women experience across all health services.”

As the B.A.R. reported online Wednesday, trans advocates and lawmakers in California are seeking $15 million in state funding over two years start-

Jan Brittenson

San Francisco Health Commissioner Cecilia Chung

ing in 2022 to meet the various health needs, including HIV services, of trans and nonbinary residents throughout the Golden State. In 2020 legislators established the Transgender Wellness and Equity Fund but did not allocate any money toward it.

For their report CDC researchers interviewed 1,608 transgender women during 2019 and early 2020 in Atlanta, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York City, Philadel-

phia, San Francisco, and Seattle.

The survey period preceded the COVID-19 pandemic, which has limited access to HIV testing, PrEP, and other health and social services.

Overall, 42% of those with valid test results were HIV-positive. But this hides substantial disparities: 62% of Black trans women had HIV, compared with 35% of Latina trans women and 17% of white trans women.

In addition, 42% of the women said they had experienced homelessness during the past year and almost two-thirds had an income at or below the poverty level.

The survey found that only 32% of HIV-negative respondents were using PrEP, which is recommended for people of any sexual or gender identity who are at risk of exposure to HIV via sex or shared drug injection equipment.

Previous research has found that low PrEP uptake among trans women may be attributable to a variety of factors including medical mistrust, lack of trans-inclusive outreach, and concerns about interactions between hormones and PrEP. However, studies have shown that PrEP does not substantially interfere with hormone therapy or vice versa.

These findings highlight the need for scaled-up HIV prevention and care for transgender women, the report concludes.

The researchers stressed the importance of culturally informed approaches that are responsive to community needs and include service delivery in non-traditional settings.

Toward that end, the CDC is “actively working to address disparities through strategic program funding and partnerships throughout the nation,” the agency indicated in a press statement. The CDC is providing nearly $11 million per year over five years for 30 community-based organizations to support HIV testing, linkage to care, and prevention services focused on trans people. What’s more, the federal Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative is supporting efforts to overcome barriers to HIV prevention and treatment in 57 hard-hit areas, including the seven cities where the survey was conducted.

“These data provide a clear and compelling picture of the severe toll of HIV among transgender women and the social and economic factors – including systemic racism and transphobia – that are contributing to this unacceptable burden,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a gay man who’s the new director of the CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. “Reducing HIV in these communities will require that public health and other providers of social and prevention services design innovative and comprehensive status-neutral solutions to overcome barriers to whole person prevention and care.”

The CDC aims to employ a “status-neutral” approach that encourages ongoing engagement in HIV prevention, care, and treatment regardless of a person’s HIV status, with HIV testing acting as a gateway to either prevention or treatment services, depending on the result.

While this survey focused on trans women, Chung, herself a trans woman living with HIV, also drew attention to the lack of services for transgender men.

“The invisibility of the prevention and treatment needs of trans men has become glaring,” she told the B.A.R. “We are seeing a rise in unmet needs for trans men, who have historically been viewed as ‘low-risk.’ I hope it will not take another four decades for our trans brothers to get the attention they deserve.” t

<<

San Jose

From page 2

“Justin and I have been good friends for a couple years now, since he started really jumping into Democratic politics, and I think he’s perfect for the job,” Vargas told the B.A.R. “He’s very progressive, and he hasn’t shied away from taking on the mayor and the NIMBYs when it comes to housing. But he’s also incredibly thoughtful when it comes to policy, which I appreciate. I think he’d do a great job in that role.”

Lardinois did reach out to Yeager to talk to him about running for the council seat. Yeager is waiting to see who else enters the race before making an endorsement, but he noted to the B.A.R. that Lardinois fits the profile for what most voters are looking for in a councilperson.

“One thing about running for city council, what voters care about is who is going to take care of their neighborhoods. It is well and good at the state and national level to be dealing with significant social policies, but at the local level they want to make sure the council member knows the area and is going to improve their quality of life,” said Yeager. “What I like about Justin is he was born in the district so he knows it and he has been an active neighborhood person so he knows the issues.”

To learn more about Lardinois’ campaign, visit https://justinforsj. com/en/.t

t

Community News>>

April 22-28, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 11

4 concepts presented for Milk plaza project

by John Ferrannini

A

s the Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza works to reboot its renovation project, new preliminary designs for the public parklet above the Castro Muni Station were rolled out April 15 and 17 during two virtual town halls that saw a memorial grove concept be received favorably by attendees.

A pedestal-type design scored lower.

The concepts are part of a plan to give a facelift to the plaza, which has been fiercely opposed by some in the community who have countered the goal of better honoring Milk can be achieved within the confines of the current design and at less cost than the estimated $10 million price tag for the fuller renovation proposal.

Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected in San Francisco when he won a supervisors’ seat in 1977 and represented the Castro at City Hall. Several years after he was assassinated 11 months into his first term, city officials named the aboveground entrance area into the LGBTQ neighborhood’s transit station after the pioneering politician.

There were two sets of non-exclusive general approaches to the design of the space, as explained

by Daniel Cunningham, a gay man who is a landscape architect with SWA Group, an international landscape, architecture, planning, and urban design firm that is working on the project. Cunningham said during the April 15 town hall that the inspiration behind the design concepts presented were “based on years of community feedback.”

Consolidated designs

The first set of approaches are consolidated ones, fitting within the confines of the existing plaza.

These include a pedestal concept featuring a platform for people to speak, which Cunningham said would provide “space for people to activate and engage the intersection;” a beacon concept, which Cunningham said can either be as “visibility,” showcasing images of community members, or “hope,” providing inspiration during challenging times; the memorial grove concept, which would fit with what Cunningham said was the more “garden” ambiance of the Castro neighborhood westward; and an activation con-

<<

SF Oscar party

From page 1

As of April 15 San Francisco officials began allowing indoor ticketed and seated events and performances to resume. But they can only do so at up to 35% capacity with an approved Health and Safety Plan to protect patrons, performers, and staff from contracting COVID-19.

Pandemic affected AOF model

Myers stated, “COVID has critically impacted our ability to carry out our model.”

“We tried for last year’s Pride to revamp that model with a Zoomtype celebration and it was not successful,” he explained. “Last year we were very lucky and our gala occurred just prior to the COVID pandemic and, as a result, we were able to donate $20,000 to LGBT Asylum Project.”

As the B.A.R. reported in January 2020, AOF announced a long term partnership with the LGBT Asylum Project whereby the nonprofit would receive the proceeds

Courtesy SWA Group

Courtesy SWA Group

A rendering of the memorial garden concept was received most favorably by attendees at two recent town halls about renovating Harvey Milk Plaza.

cept, which would be a potential spot for Milk birthday celebrations and other gatherings. (Milk’s May 22 birthday is a day of special significance in California.)

Cunningham said that the activation concept was inspired by events at Milk’s 1978 funeral, when people were exhorted to spread funereal flowers across the city.

“People can bring flowers to the site and allow this tradition to be started,” Cunningham said. “The idea is to activate the site.”

As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, the Friends group announced during the April 1 meeting of the Castro Merchants Association that it has launched an online survey seeking community feedback about the space, which is located at the southwest corner of the intersection at Market and Castro streets, at the underground Muni station.

Cunningham said over 360 people have responded to the online survey as of April 20, and it will remain open through May. Those attending both town halls were able to vote via Zoom’s poll function on the four concepts.

Brian Springfield, a gay man who is the interim executive director of the Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza, said that these results will inform SWA Group.

Separately, the plaza is already slated to undergo changes as part of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Castro Accessibility Project, including a four-stop elevator. SFMTA’s website states construction is slated to start this fall on the $14.5 million

project. It is scheduled to be completed in 2024.

There were 54 attendees at the April 15 town hall, and 20 at the April 17 event, according to Springfield. The poll had between 49 and 50 total responses for each question.

The beacon and memorial grove concepts received the highest number of “Love It” votes (at 21 each), followed by the pedestal concept (15) and the activation concept (12).

The pedestal concept received the highest number of “Dislike It” votes (10), followed by the activation and beacon concepts (6 each), and the memorial grove concept (3).

People could also vote “Like It” or “Neutral/OK.”

from the annual gala, which has distributed over $8.9 million to more than 74 HIV/AIDS service agencies in the Bay Area over the past 40 years. The organization provides legal services to immigrants who are fleeing persecution due to their sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or HIV status and seeking asylum in the U.S. Prior to that arrangement, AOF donated most of the proceeds to various HIV/AIDS organizations.

Each year it would select a handful of smaller nonprofits as the beneficiaries of the annual party.

The February 9, 2020 gala was held at the Commonwealth Club’s swanky waterfront headquarters, just about a month before the COVID-19 pandemic led to stay-athome orders.

Okan Sengun, a gay immigration attorney who founded and heads up the LGBT Asylum Project, first told the B.A.R. the news of this year’s AOF gala cancellation last week. Sengun confirmed that his organization received $20,000 last year.

“The LGBT Asylum Project feels that a virtual event is not the

The “stitch the divide” expansive concept, shown in a rendering, shows how Harvey Milk Plaza, top, could be engaged with Pink Triangle Park, the front of the old Pottery Barn store, and Jane Warner Plaza to activate the Castro-Market intersection.

The second set of non-exclusive approaches are dispersed or expansive ones, which mean they go beyond the confines of the current plaza.

The first of these is “stitch the divide,” which Cunningham said could engage Jane Warner Plaza, Pink Triangle Park, and space in front of the old Pottery Barn building, which would tie together the intersection at Castro and Market streets.

The second is the “welcome to the Castro” concept, which could use a ribbon of words or art to connect the plaza with the underground Muni station.

“The idea is to have a continuous art piece,” Cunningham ex-

plained. “It could be text, but the idea is to bring the culture of the Castro down into the station.

“Why can’t we have the vibrancy of the Castro in the station?” Cunningham asked. “When you get off the Muni, shouldn’t you know where you are?”

The third concept, “catalyst for change,” would be focused on Milk’s inspirational words.

“We’ve heard from some in the community that they want to hear Harvey Milk’s voice in the space,” Cunningham said. “Maybe we can take that literally.”

As part of this concept, audio recordings of Milk could be played, from time to time, “to inspire people as they pass through this space,” he said.

Finally, the “engage the city” concept could bring elements of the memorial to the location of Milk’s old camera shop at 575 Castro Street, his residence before his assassination on Henry Street, or even to his old City Hall office, “so we can walk through the city in the footsteps of Harvey,” Cunningham said.

Of these, stitch the divide received the highest number of “Love It” votes (37), followed by welcome to the Castro (30), and rounded out with catalyst for change and engage the city (14 each).

Engage the city received the highest number of “Dislike It” votes (7), followed by catalyst for change (6). Stitch the divide and welcome to the Castro received no dislike votes.

Cunningham, who said he has lived in the Castro since 2013, stressed that he understands the importance of the plaza.

“I use this site every day to get to work,” he said.

Cunningham and Springfield repeated much of what they told the merchants about how the project came to this point.

“Our mission is to reimagine Harvey Milk Plaza as a welcoming, vibrant space that honors Harvey’s life and legacy, celebrates his enduring importance to the LGBTQ+ community, and inspires by acting as a beacon of hope to marginalized communities worldwide,” Springfield said at the outset of the town hall.

Springfield said there are many considerations that come into play when considering and brainstorming sets of approaches and concepts, like if the memorial should be more “traditional” or “unconventional,” if it should be more “global” or “local,” and if it should be more focused on Milk personally, or the LGBTQ rights movement generally.

Participants got the opportunity to make their voices heard on these questions, too, through a Zoom feature that allowed people to plot their preferences on a chart. People leaned more toward unconventional, global, and the movement on the questions.

“We’re going to compile this with data from the next meeting and use this to inform how we move forward with the design process,” Springfield said. t

right fit for us though we surely look forward to having in-person fundraisers in the very near future,” he stated.

“In retrospect, maybe we should have issued a press statement about this situation but honestly, we don’t feel that this is news,” Sengun stated in a subsequent email. “The AOF has always been one of the most glamorous inperson events of the year and that simply is not possible during a pandemic.

“We have attempted other virtual fundraisers this past year and the demand simply isn’t there,” he continued. “As an organization whose goal it is to help some of the most vulnerable members of our society, we can’t risk putting on an event where we waste valuable time, money, and resources.

Once we are safely on the other side of this pandemic, we will revisit AOF.” Kile Ozier, a gay man, founded the event in 1980 as a private Oscars viewing party with some friends. It grew to become one of the largest Academy Award viewing party fundraisers in the world,

and tickets routinely cost $250 for individuals to attend decked out in tuxedos and designer dresses.

Before Sengun’s email to the B.A.R. stating the event would not take place, Ozier wrote, “I can’t imagine that the project isn’t mounting at least a virtual event, this year; I’ve received no notice of the death of my baby-that-grewto-gianthood!”

Subsequently, he wrote: “I had no idea that there would be no event, this year; after such an auspicious and promising, seemingly evolutionary joining of forces with the asylum project last year. Thus, with nary a whisper, seems a 41year legacy has come to a silent and unacknowledged end. Another casualty of COVID.” When asked if the event will continue in future years, however, Myers did not give an unequivocal answer. Any decision will be guided by the current state of the health crisis, he noted.

“The future is always bright; however, we’ll need to continue to assess the environment as the COVID situation unfolds,” he stated.

AOF faced some backlash 11

years ago, when it was revealed that none of the 2010 beneficiaries had yet received the full amounts that the nonprofit had pledged to them. It had promised to distribute grants totaling $220,000.

However, it had rebounded by 2012, after Ozier returned in a supportive capacity. Ozier stated that he is no longer “directly” involved with the event’s leadership, though he remains in touch with board members and chairs.

“I’m hoping that, having lain fallow through the pandemic, the organization will renew itself in some way and continue doing good work,” Ozier stated. “Either way, I never envisioned my little idea would grow so much and last so long; and that’s a testament to the scores of board members and hundreds (if not thousands) of volunteers who built it.”

The amount of money AOF has been able to raise has decreased significantly over the past decade. In 2014, for example, it netted $90,000 but only distributed $35,000 the next year.t

Beyond confines of the plaza

<< Legals

12 • Bay Area Reporter • April 22-28, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556211 In the matter of the application of KENYADIE Y. SHAW & JERRON PAUL FULLER, 2600 ARELIOUS WALKER DR #311, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioners KENYADIE Y. SHAW & JERRON PAUL FULLER are requesting that the name KAYDEN SHAW be changed to KAYDEN MAURICE FULLER. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 4th of MAY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556219 In the matter of the application of JONATHAN ARNOWITZ TAYLOR, 74 POND ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JONATHAN ARNOWITZ TAYLOR is requesting that the name JONATHAN ARNOWITZ TAYLOR be changed to JONATHAN SETH ARNOWITZ. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103, on the 11th of MAY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556207 In the matter of the application of KENNETH JIA YI CHEN & CLARA HUI HUANG CHEN, 1250 39TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner KENNETH JIA YI CHEN & CLARA HUI HUANG CHEN is requesting that the name TIFFANY CHEN be changed to TIFFANY LE YI CHEN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103 on the 6th of MAY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556208 In the matter of the application of JESSICA CHEN, 1250 39TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JESSICA CHEN is requesting that the name JESSICA CHEN be changed to JESSICA YING YI CHEN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103 on the 6th of MAY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039297900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as MAGGIE’S TAX SERVICE, 4392 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MAGDALENA M. ZEVALLOS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/00. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/18/21.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039298800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as HLORGANIC SKIN CARE, 36 CLEMENT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed HELEN LAM. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/03/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/19/21.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039290100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as SOUL CROWN CO., 191 SANTA MARINA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KELLY MEGAN WILSON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/01/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/11/21.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039296600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as JZA ARCHITECTURE, 152 LUNDYS LN, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOSEPH Z. ARMIN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/18/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/18/21.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039304500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as PARK & OLIVE, 70 OCEAN AVE #17, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KATHRYN MCBRIDE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/23/21.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039307500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as VK AUTOSPORT, 955 FOLSOM ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed VANDA DURU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/05/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/25/21.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039302800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as SF DOG TH CAST, 3580-A 18 ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KATHLEEN GERNATT. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/10/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/23/21.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039286400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as PROPAGATION, 895 POST ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed NGUMAN LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/05/21.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039296700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as ROCKWELL PROPERTIES MANAGEMENT, INC., 2489 MISSION ST #22, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed ROCKWELL PROPERTIES MANAGEMENT, INC. (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under

the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/04/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/18/21.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039303600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as AIGA SAN FRANCISCO, 595 PACIFIC AVE 4TH FL, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF GRAPHIC ARTS SAN FRANCISCO CHAPTER (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/84. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/23/21.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-039059500 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as ONTO, 483 46TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business was conducted by a corporation and signed by CORNER DESIGN STUDIO INC (DE). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/06/20.

APR 01, 08, 15, 22, 2021 STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA COUNTY OF CHARLESTON IN THE FAMILY COURT FOR THE NINTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT DOCKET NO. 2020-DR-10-3041 SOUTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES VERSUS JOSHUA GEORGE, KELLY PETERS, TARA GEORGE, WILLIAM GEORGE, AND NIKA GEORGE, DEFENDANTS. IN THE INTEREST OF: MINOR CHILD BORN 2013.

TO DEFENDANT: TARA GEORGE YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED and required to answer the Complaint in this action filed with the Clerk of Court for CHARLESTON County on DECEMBER 3, 2020. Upon proof of interest, a copy of the Complaint will be delivered to you upon request from the Charleston County Clerk of Court, and you must serve a copy of your Answer to the Complaint on the Plaintiff, the South Carolina Department of Social Services, at the office of its Attorney, Newton I. Howle, Jr., Legal Department of the Charleston County Department of Social Services, 3366 Rivers Avenue, North Charleston, S.C. 29405 within thirty (30) days of this publication, exclusive of the date of service. If you fail to answer within the time set forth above, the Plaintiff will proceed to seek relief from the Court.

Newton I. Howle, Jr., SC Bar # 2729, 3366 Rivers Avenue, North Charleston, SC 29405, Telephone # 843-339-8761.

APR 08, 15, 22, 2021 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF EDWARD FRANCIS JASINSKI IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-21-304368 To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of EDWARD FRANCIS JASINSKI, C/O NICOLE C. KELLY (SBN #320379),THE KELLY LAW FIRM, 345 FRANKLIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102.A Petition for Probate has been filed by MARY JASINSKI in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco.The Petition for Probate requests that MARY JASINSKI be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows:APRIL 27, 2021, 9:00 am, Rm. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing.Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the latter of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor.

You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250.A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.Attorney for petitioner: NICOLE C. KELLY (SBN #320379),THE KELLY LAW FIRM, 345 FRANKLIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102; Ph. (415) 552-0059.

APR 08, 15, 22, 2021 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF ELIAS GUTIERREZ MACIAS (AKA ELIAS M. GUTIERREZ, AKA ELIAS GUTIERREZ) IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-21-304369 To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of ELIAS GUTIERREZ MACIAS,AKA ELIAS M. GUTIERREZ,AKA ELIAS GUTIERREZ, C/O NICOLE C. KELLY (SBN #320379),THE KELLY LAW FIRM, 345 FRANKLIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102.A Petition for Probate has been filed by GUSTAVO GUTIERREZ in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco.The Petition for Probate requests that GUSTAVO GUTIERREZ be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate.The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court.The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows:APRIL 27, 2021, 9:00 am, Rm. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing.Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the latter of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor.

You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250.A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.Attorney for petitioner: NICOLE C. KELLY (SBN #320379),THE KELLY LAW FIRM, 345 FRANKLIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102; Ph. (415) 552-0059.

APR 08, 15, 22, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556235 In the matter of the application of ALVIN YANG, 2334 28TH

AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ALVIN YANG is requesting that the name ALVIN YANG be changed to ALVIN CHEN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 13th of MAY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 08, 15, 22, 29, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556223 In the matter of the application of JARELL MARSAE GREEN, AKA JARELL GREEN, 2500 ARELIOUS WALKER DR, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JARELL MARSAE GREEN, AKA JARELL GREEN is requesting that the name JARELL MARSAE GREEN, AKA JARELL GREEN be changed to JARELL MARSAE BOYD. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the11th of MAY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 08, 15, 22, 29, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE JD18-3146 In the matter of the application of SELENA RAIN HURSHMAN, C/O AHTOSSA FULLERTON (SBN #196939), WASACZ HILLEY & FULLERTON LLP, 459 FULTON ST #209, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner SELENA RAIN HURSHMAN is requesting that the name SELENA RAIN HURSHMAN be changed to SELENA RAIN ALTAMIRANO. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 425 on the 7th of MAY 2021 at 10:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 08, 15, 22, 29, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556238 In the matter of the application of JANE ELIZABETH PHILIPPS ROSS, 18 LOYOLA TERRACE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JANE ELIZABETH PHILIPPS ROSS is requesting that the name JANE ELIZABETH PHILIPPS ROSS be changed to JANE ELIZABETH PHILIPPS. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept.

103N, Rm. 103N on the 18th of MAY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 08, 15, 22, 29, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556243 In the matter of the application of GILLIAN GARRETT MACMANNIS, 301 MISSION ST #33F, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner GILLIAN GARRETT MACMANNIS is requesting that the names GILLIAN GARRETT MACMANNIS be changed to GILLIAN JAMES and AVERY JUNE MACMANNIS be changed to AVERY JUNES JAMES MACMANNIS. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N on the 18th of MAY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 08, 15, 22, 29, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039306900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as SOHAIR STUDIO, 1538 PACIFIC AVE #115, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SOHEA HYUN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/25/21.

APR 08, 15, 22, 29, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039307800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as DESIGNSPEAK, 333 GONZALEZ DR, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JULIA AYANA AIRAKIAN-MANCE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/30/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/26/21.

APR 08, 15, 22, 29, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039296100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as EDWARD LAU FILM, 1527 NORIEGA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed EDWARD C. LAU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/07. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/17/21.

APR 08, 15, 22, 29, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039308200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as LIMPIO PROFESSIONAL CLEANING, 1275 FAIRFAX AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed FABIO GARCIA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/31/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/29/21.

APR 08, 15, 22, 29, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039298700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as NATIONAL PETROLEUM – SAN FRANCISCO, 2831 CESAR CHAVEZ, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed ENGINEER’S ASSOCIATES, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/19/21.

APR 08, 15, 22, 29, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039305500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as BODY AND SOUL YOGA COLLECTIVE, 3271 16TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed LOTUSLAND INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/12/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/24/21.

APR 08, 15, 22, 29, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039298200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as OTTAVINO WINES; OTTAVINO, 495 BARNEVELD AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed OTTAVINO WINES LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/14/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/19/21.

APR 08, 15, 22, 29, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME

IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556248 In the matter of the application of SU JUNG HAN, 1924 GREAT HIGHWAY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner SU JUNG HAN is requesting that the name SU JUNG HAN be changed to CLAIRE SUJUNG HAN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Rm. 103 on the 20th of MAY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 15, 22, 29, MAY 06, 2021 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21556260 In the matter of the application of CARMINA PRICILLA GONZALEZ, 1188 MISSION ST #2013, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner CARMINA PRICILLA GONZALEZ is requesting that the name CARMINA PRICILLA GONZALEZ be changed to PRISCILLA CARMINA CORTEZ. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 20th of MAY 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 15, 22, 29, MAY 06, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039306100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as OTHER OPTIONS; MORGAN OAKES GALLERY, 1465 CUSTER AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed SHERIDAN OAKES & CAROLINE OAKES. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/87. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/25/21.

APR 15, 22, 29, MAY 06, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039288700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as LITTLE DOG WALKER, 100 FILBERT AVE #B, SAUSALITO, CA 94965. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed STACY PARLIN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/16/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/10/21.

APR 08, 15, 22, 29, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039315100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as SAN FRANCISCO GAY MEN’S CHORUS, 170 VALENCIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed GOLDEN GATE PERFORMING ARTS, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/78. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/09/21.

APR 15, 22, 29, MAY 06, 2021 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF RAYMOND C. YIN (AKA RAYMOND YIN, AKA RAYMOND CHING HSIANG YIN) IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-20-303725 To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of RAYMOND C. YIN (AKA RAYMOND YIN, AKA RAYMOND CHING HSIANG YIN), C/O MARISSA C. SMITH (SBN#275382), 4306 GEARY BLVD #301, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. A Petition for Probate has been filed by JACQUELINE L. YIN in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that JACQUELINE L. YIN be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent

t

administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: MAY 10, 2021, 9:00 am, Rm. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the latter of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: MARISSA C. SMITH, 4306 GEARY BLVD #301, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118; Ph. (415) 742-4522.

APR 22, 29, MAY 06, 2021 SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-21-556277 In the matter of the application of CASEMIRO TEIXEIRA CAMARA, 77 VAN NESS AVE #101-1181, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner CASEMIRO TEIXEIRA CAMARA is requesting that the name CASEMIRO TEIXEIRA CAMARA AKA CAS CAMARA be changed to CAS CAMARA. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 1st of JUNE 2021 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

APR 22, 29, MAY 06, 13, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039317400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as HYDE & PACIFIC LIQUOR, 1600 HYDE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CHRISTINA YOUNG SIN PARK. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/04/09. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/13/21.

APR 22, 29, MAY 06, 13, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039316000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as YAMEEN, 5758 GEARY BLVD #224, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YAMEEN FRIEDBERG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/12/21.

APR 22, 29, MAY 06, 13, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039316200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as SF BAYSHORE GROCERY OUTLET, 355 BAYSHORE BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BAYSHORE FAMILY MARKET (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/12/21.

APR 22, 29, MAY 06, 13, 2021 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-039313600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as DIM SUM CLUB, 2237 TARAVAL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed DIM SUM CLUB INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/11/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/07/21.

APR 22, 29, MAY 06, 13, 2021

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by Brian Bromberger

“W

hen I contracted AIDS, I contracted a diseased society as well,” is the opening quote from the new searing documentary Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker, playing at the Roxie Theater and to be released May 18 on DVD by Kino Lorber. This remark epitomizes Wojnarowicz as the quintessential outsider, a vantage point that allowed him to be a scathing iconoclast as artist, cultural critic, writer, musician, photographer, and filmmaker.

Often grouped together with his queer contemporaries Robert Mapplethorpe and Keith Haring, all AIDS casualties, Wojnarowicz was a unique interdisciplinary multi-media boundary-breaking activist for whom art and politics was inseparable. Wojnarowicz, the fiery, uncompromising, provocative individual was as much his artistic creation as any painting, essay, collage, image, or video he generated.

Directed by Chris McKim and produced by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s World of Wonder, by using an exhaustive archive of materials including artworks, diary entries, super 8 films, music recordings, photographs, letters, audio cassettes/tape journals, interviews, answering machine messages, and monologues, the film offers a patchwork foothold into Wojnarowicz’s mind, as if he’s narrating from beyond the grave. Through its ingenious use of animation and graphics brilliantly edited by Dave Stanke, it almost seems we are watching one of Wojnarowicz’s art exhibitions spring to life.

Wojnarowicz experienced a brutal childhood in New Jersey with an abusive alcoholic ex-Merchant Marine father who beat him with two-by-fours and chains. He escaped with his

Documenting David

Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker

emotionally unstable mother to Hell’s Kitchen and made ends meet by gay street hustling in Times Square.

He commenced his renegade art career by wearing a mask of the transgressive poet/idol Arthur Rimbaud, posing and having himself photographed throughout the decaying NYC. He made stencil drawings and collected bloody cow bones from the meatpacking district (which was a notorious junkie and gay cruising area) throwing them on the stairs at the Leo Castelli Gallery, divulging his rage at the moneyed pampered art establishment.

Lana Del Ray

Q-Music: Women still work it

by Gregg Shapiro

I

f you were an active and observant music consumer in the far-off early 1990s, then you may recall the major-label feeding frenzy that occurred launching the careers of several prominent women singer/songwriters including Alanis Morissette and Sarah McLachlan.

Atlantic Records became well-known for its female roster which included Jewel and queer singer/songwriter Jill Sobule (who kissed a girl years before Katy Perry). Juliana Hatfield, newly solo after her time in the Blake Babies, became part of the organization when the in-

note, “Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker,” which became the documenDavid Wojnarowicz tary’s subtitle, but which he integrated self-portrait into a sensual collage of two naked men kissing in the ocean, which he sold to curator Barry Blinderman.

He began to be noticed by the art world, exhibiting in galleries like Gracie Mansion and the Whitney Biennial, even securing some well-paid commissions. The most hilarious moment in the documentary occurs when he was asked by the rich patron former Goldman Sachs trader Robert Mnuchin (father to Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin) to install an art piece in his basement. Wojnarowicz prankishly used rotting street garbage to construct it, infesting his home with cockroaches.

Reflecting on Wojnarowicz’s legacy today, Blinderman says, “I think a lot of the reason David is important now is because people recognize an emergent queer sensibility in David: “I’m not gay as in ‘I love you,” I’m queer as in “fuck off.”

Most of his images such as ants crawling on a crucifix, Jesus with a hypodermic needle in his arm, or his bloodied mouth sewn shut, have political ramifications, questioning what constitutes art and the role of art as performance or dissent.

One of the few drawbacks of this otherwise riveting documentary is not focusing more on the artwork and assessing how well it stands up thirty years later. Also, the frenetic breakneck pacing makes it arduous to absorb all the contents, and this is one film that benefits from repeat viewing.

Many of the questions and issues He started performing with his punk rock raised by Wojnarowicz (i.e. universal healthcare) band 3 Teens Kill 4 (whose songs comprise the are as relevant today as they were three decades movie’s soundtrack) sampling street sounds ago. Wojnarowicz is a pulsating elegy of what as part of the music producing what one band might have been, but what remains is an incenmember recalls as a “film for your ears.” diary fearless heroic revolutionary, whose anger He instigated uninvited guerilla action instal(never cynicism) and passion were channeled lations at an abandoned rotting West Side pier into his work with the hope there would one day in the Hudson River by incorporating scavbe equality and justice for all LGBTQ people.t enged objects, debris, and trash into his work.

He summoned other artists to display their crewww.roxievirtualcinema.com ations in what morphed into a communal art space, eventually demolished by the city.

Read the full review on He found a discarded homophobic graffiti www.ebar.com

die Mammoth Records label scored a distribution deal with Atlantic. This resulted in her hit single, “My Sister.”

Almost 30 years have passed since then and Hatfield has continued to record, being especially prolific in the 21st century. The graphic cover illustration and album title, Mouthful of Blood (American Laundromat) offer hints at what’s contained, but don’t be deterred.

This is a bloody good record, alternating between blazing rockers (“The Shame of Love,” “Chunks”), potential dance classics (“Gorgon”), brilliant political statements (“Nightmary,” “Mouthful of Blood,” “Suck It Up”) and, well, gore (“Had A Dream”).

Singer/songwriter Mary Karlzen got swept up in the ’90s Atlantic wave with her 1995 album Yelling At Mary which was released by the label. Her output since that time has been somewhat limited, but she has returned with the radiant Shine (Y&T Music) album.

Karlzen, who has connections to Florida and the Midwest, wears the influences of these regions on her sleeve coming up with a pleasant folksy/twangy sound that works well for her, especially on the songs “You Still Belong To Me” (a duet with Radney Foster), “The Burgeoning Road,” “I’ll Be There,” and “Slowly Disappear,” as well as rockers including “Dumb Game,” “Something That I Missed” and “Say You’ll Never Go Away Again.”

Few artists have come into their own the way that Lana Del Rey did with her acclaimed 2019 album Norman Fucking Rockwell!

Following her 2012 debut album Born to Die and its inescapable hit single “Video Games,” Del Rey stumbled some but she more than made up for it with NFR! So how does one keep that kind of momentum going? On Chemtrails Over the Country Club (Polydor/Interscope), Del Rey continues to mine the WASPY persona that has been central to her musical identity. Setting aside emotional detachment, Del Rey delivers all the feels on “White Dress,” “Let Me Love You Like A Woman,” “Wild At Heart,” “Not All Who Wander Are Lost,” “Breaking Up Slowly,” and

“Dance Till We Die.” If you didn’t think Del Rey could surprise us any more than she has, she closes Chemtrails with a respectful and respectable cover of Joni Mitchell’s “For Free,” making it sound like a song she was born to sing.

Last, but far from least, the legendary Merry Clayton takes us to church, literally, on her fiery new gospel album Beautiful Scars (Motown Gospel/Ode). As an in-demand backing vocalist, Clayton (who was featured in the Oscar-winning 2013 doc 20 Feet From Stardom) is perhaps best-known for providing the roofraising vocals, alongside Mick Jagger, on the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.”

Produced by Ode Records founder (and nice Jewish boy) Lou Adler and featuring the title cut by (nice Jewish girl) Diane Warren, Beautiful Scars is Clayton’s first studio album in almost 30 years, and the first since a life-altering car accident in 2014. The material is a mix of the classic, including Sam Cooke’s “Touch The Hem of His Garment,” Leon Russell’s “A Song For You” (in which Clayton finds new meaning) and an “Ooh Child Medley” (including The Five Stairsteps’ anthem of hope as well as Jackie DeShannon’s “Put A Little Love In Your Heart”), and new songs, such as the one cowritten by Clayton, Adler, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, and Terry Young.t

Read the full interview on www.ebar.com

<< Theatre & TV

14 • Bay Area Reporter • April 22-28, 2021

Pining for Curtain Time

t

by Jim Gladstone

F

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eel the Spirit, the latest production from Berkeley’s everadventurous Shotgun Players is an agonizingly of-the-moment, tailored-for-teleconferencing commission by playwright Noelle Viñas, expressly written in the form of online video chats and gatherings. The three main chatters are the new young pastor, Gabrielle (Vero Maynez) and two senior board members (Jean Forman, Fred Pitts) of a small, long-established church which has moved its services to Zoom in light of the pandemic.

An overarching theme that the trio continually returns to—and one of the few they all agree on—is the inability of teleconferencing to replicate the meaningful nuances of in-person conversation, let alone mass congregation of the sort one finds in both church and theater.

To which I say “Amen!” And also “Ahem…” Thirteen months into our enforced-Zoom era, this is egregious preaching to the converted.

The converted are antsy, yawning and ready to kick their screens in.

Nobody’s hungry for more online theater. A Zoom play with Zoom among its subjects is perhaps the last thing audiences need subject themselves to just now.

Feel the Spirit suffers from too much as well as too soon. Among many other topics unsatisfyingly touched upon and squabbled over in the course of the play’s nearly two hour running time are homophobia, racism, public health and careerism.

And then there’s the Higher Power. The vast majority of Viñas’s script is realistic to a fault in its presentation of awkward, mundane Zoom calls, so its hard to figure what reaction she and director Elizabeth Carter hope to elicit when they intermittently bring on a three-faced deity (Akaina Ghosh, Linda Girón, ) enshrouded in trippy video effects and vocal filters who floridly urges

The cast of A Letter to Harvey Milk

Gabriella to, well, believe in herself and keep the faith (or some version of those sentiments that requires many paragraphs of oozy poetic palaver to express). Its hard not to laugh. Even more so when the theology takes a cue from Joan Osborne and the Supreme Being turns off its mic and camera, becoming just another little black box in the Zoom gallery, simply name-tagged GOD. Feel the Spirit, April 14-May 2. $8-$40. www.shotgunplayers.org One of the most effective online theater presentations I’ve seen during the pandemic is a streaming version of A Letter to Harvey Milk. This scrappy little musical is set in San Francisco but, as far as I can tell, has never been produced here (It should be). It’s available to view from April 22-25 with tickets benefitting the Actors Fund and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

This refreshed iteration of the 2018 Off-Broadway musical reunites the original cast of veteran Broadway performers. Their new, remotely videotaped dialogue and songs are interspersed with still photography from the full production. Viewers get a good sense of the set and staging in this honest hybrid format, which feels much more

comfortable to watch than many of the convoluted tech-centric and gimmicky Zoom productions that have proliferated over the past year.

No song-and-dance biography of the queer icon, Letter to Harvey Milk is a heartfelt, low-key exploration of his lasting impact on others. At its center is the surprising friendship that arises between Harry, a widowed Kosher butcher, played with brusque Yiddish-accented schtick

by Adam Heller, and Barbara, who teaches adult creative writing classes at the San Francisco JCC, played by Julia Knitel.

When Harry takes on Barbara’s assignment to write a letter to someone from his past, he chooses Milk (cuing much musical carping from his late but ever-present wife).

As Harry spins out the story of his past, we come to understand him emotional connection to Milk; its sometimes complex, sometimes a bit clichéd, and always quite touching.

Based on a short story by Leslea Newman, of Heather Has Two Mommies fame, the show’s music is by Laura I. Kramer with lyrics by Ellen M. Schwartz, both of whom collaborated on the book with Jerry James and Cheryl Stern. Evan Pappas directs.

A Letter to Harvey Milk, April 22 – 25. $10-$50. stellartickets.comt

Lavender Tube on crime shows Policing police The

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arious forms of police and detective procedurals are the top-ranked series on TV and streaming services. How does that align with what is happening out in the real world to Black and brown, LGBTQ and disabled people–the primary targets of nearly all police violence?

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

One series that is choosing to face the issues head-on is NBC’s Law &Order: Special Victims Unit.

L&O: SVU is the longest running scripted prime time series on TV, now in its 22nd season.

The April 15 episode addressed police violence and the culpability of individual officers, including management, like Captain Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay). The deep roots of racism and concomitant discrimination by police against Black and brown people were highlighted, including how when women and girls of color go missing, there is no mass mobilization to find them, as there is for white women and girls.

When the sister of a prominent Black activist goes missing, it’s revealed that the missing young woman, Sara Harper (Victoria Janicki) and her disabled white partner, Alicia Ford (Jessy Yates), were kidnapped by white supremacists. The men force them to have

and her work on the sex for the camera, and queer-ish Empire, bethen post the videocame the show runtape online. ner for Law & Order: Alicia and her Organized Crime in wheelchair are shoved December after a series out of the van while of controversial exits the men take Sara to a from the series while it hidden locale and aucwas in development. tion her online to the What a smart move highest bidder for rape and torture.

Danielle Moné Truitt by creator Dick Wolf, who has never had a Deeply disturbing in Law & Order: female show runner in on myriad levels, this Organized Crime the 32-year run of the episode is also hyperLaw & Order franchise, realistic: every day in which is one of the most successful America vulnerable women are TV series in history. abducted and sex trafficked. The Chaiken has kicked everything depravity and violence of up a notch in this atmospheric sewhite nationalists was illuries that pivots easily and often from mined starkly on January 6. sleek to gritty. The April 15 episode What happens in this epiopened with Sgt. Ayanna Bell (Dansode is thoroughly believielle Moné Truitt) in bed with her able. wife, Denise (Keren Dukes).

A highlight of this wellThe naturalness of their couacted, well-written and pling, from their pillow talk to fast-paced episode was the Ayanna kissing her pregnant wife’s inclusion of Jessy Yates, a disabled stomach and speaking to their unactor in a disabled role. Almost alborn child, was breathtakingly real. ways, shows cast non-disabled acBell is a powerful character. She’s tors in disabled roles. the squad supervisor of the OrgaLaw & Order: nized Crime division and is both Organized Crime boss to Elliot Stabler (Chris MeloCan a Black lesbian be a lead ni) and his partner. Truitt handles character on a mainstream drama the role with élan and the comseries in the longest-running franmand demanded of, as she notes, chise in TV history? Law & Order: someone who checks the boxes Organized Crime is betting she can. of “Black, female and gay” where For years we have said in this there is no room for error.t space that when we are behind the Read the full column, including camera our people are in front of Bachelor Colton Underwood the camera. Ilene Chaiken, known coming out, at www.ebar.com. for her iconic series The L Word

t

Books & Films>>

April 22-28, 2021 • Bay Area Reporter • 15

Mississippi mudpuppies

by Jim Piechota

B

orn in Harlem in 1942, awardwinning author Samuel Delany published his first novel at age 19 and his oeuvre to date contains more than 40 works which encompass a wide swath of diversified genres.

Among his most popular publications emerge a widely-known apocalyptic science fiction hit (Dhalgren), a collection of essays on the craft of writing, (About Writing) and another on the queer sex-positive history and gentrification of midcentury gay male culture populating the porn theaters of 42nd Street and 8th Avenue (Times Square Red, Times Square Blue). He has also penned a fourpart queer fantasy series (Return to Neveryon) and a revealingly heartfelt memoir (The Motion of Light in Water).

Vastly underrated and underappreciated, Delany’s latest creation is a racy, pungent illustrated novella of explicit gay erotica inspired by and dedicated to childhood friend Kenroy Thorsten “who started it all on the first night of summer camp in the boys’ bunk-five tent in 1952.”

The story follows young Elijah “Ligie” McIntyre, a barely legal vagabond drifting through his youth. He freefalls from Southern town to town until he wanders into a Mississippi porn theatre where he spies two older men fondling each other in the darkness. The scene becomes hardcore quickly and soon involves toes, urine, and a randy Spanish fellow named José.

Upon their post-coital introductions, the men will come to be known as Uncle Shad and Uncle Tommy, two men living in Lot-8, a trailer park in the bosky High Meadow area with a sleazy reputation for the kind of orgiastic debauchery more popularly found in the steamiest of bathhouses.

The park’s overlord is Big Joe, who, besides boasting about hav-

ing the biggest package in the entire camp, is the 21-year-old exhibitionist leader of all things concerning the living accommodations at the sex-drenched Lot-8, where “all the weird people, the interracial relationships, and the gay people” coexisted in harmony.

Ligie currently lives in Lot-3, but soon becomes well known in Big Joe’s camp of nearly naked horny men who eagerly take their turns using him as communal new meat, a urinal, and a passaround fuck toy.

The story is virtually plotless, but who cares when the pages are soaked in vivid descriptions of foreskin, redhot group sex scenes, Truvada pill-popping, non-politically correct pet-names, and unwashed jizz towels “so stiff you could use the things for surf boards.”

While intended to be hot, depraved, and deliciously raunchy, there are ribbons of humor running throughout the story, which can get so racy and nasty (the good kind, of course), it’s difficult not to fall into hysterical laughter over the sheer volume of vulgar smutty talk and nasty grinding which appears on nearly every page.

Color illustrations by Drake Carr and Sabrina Bockler are scattered throughout and provocatively enhance and decorate the deliciously filthy set pieces the author has so meticulously created.

Readers unfamiliar with Delany’s legacy and body of work will want to begin with his memoir and essay collections to get a more well-rounded sense of the writer and the man. Those books will ultimately lead to this enticing new raunch-fest of unrestrained carnal energy, desire, and genuflection at the altar of the male body, making pornographic devotees of us all.t Big Joe, by Samuel R. Delany, Inpatient Press, $20 www.inpatientpress.com

Filmfests offer a queer eye

by Jim Provenzano

F

our fabulous film festivals are rolling out their ticketing plans, with online screening schedules and even some fun drive-in shows.

Frameline45

The most attended and longest (18 days) festival in the venerable international LGBTQ fest’s history, 2021’s offerings will include a mix of in-person and virtual events, with the first week presenting outdoor and drive-in events, and the last 11 days focusing on virtual timed and on-demand screenings of their many included films. frameline.org

OUTshine

The 23rd annual Florida-based OUTshine Film Festival will take place April 23 to May 2, and will be mostly digital. More than 80 LGBTQ films from around the world will be viewable. outshinefilm.com

Livable Planet

Described as “environmental film festival that keeps alive the independent spirit that launched the green movement, plus our own IndieFest spin on things,” the Livable Planet Film Festival this year includes environmental films that also feature gay, drag and trans subjects. livableplanet2021.eventive.org

CAAMFest

CAAMFest’s opening feature, Try Harder

The Center for Asian American Media’s annual film festival is online this year, and they have many year-round screenings and events, including many Bay Area films, and LGBT-themed movies. CAAMFest 2021 Opens on May 13 with DriveIn Screenings of Debbie Lum’s Try Harder!, about the college application experiences of several students at San Francisco’s Lowell High School. caamfest.comt

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