August 31, 2017 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

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Castro gets an art walk

Fun in Mile High City

ARTS

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17

Fall Preview

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Kings are Wild

The

Since 1971, the newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ community

Vol. 47 • No. 35 • August 31 - September 6, 2017 Gooch

www.ebar.com

A sea of people marched down Market Street August 26 during a day of protesting hate.

San Francisco shuts down right-wing protesters

Gooch

by David-Elijah Nahmod

A

t first Marc Huestis, a longtime gay activist and entertainment promoter in San Francisco, wasn’t sure he could support the demonstrations against the white nationalists and Donald Trump supporters. Huestis, best known for his classic film screenings at the Castro Theatre, felt that the

LGBT community was giving the far-right advocates attention they do not deserve.

Originally, the Patriot Prayer group received a permit to hold a “free speech” rally at Crissy Field Saturday, August 26. But organizer Joey Gibson, who has held similar rallies in the Pacific Northwest, abruptly canceled the event last Friday, sending counterprotesters and police scrambling as he shifted his plans, saying

he would instead hold a “press conference” at Alamo Square Park.

In the end, thousands of LGBTQ people and allies flooded the streets of San Francisco in peaceful protest against Gibson, neo-Nazis, and other fringe white supremacist elements that sparked violence in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this month. Gibson eventually went to Crissy Field to briefly speak to

reporters after he held a media availability at a Pacifica apartment. But he never held the right-wing rally that sparked sustained criticism from city and community leaders.

“I have to admit I went to the march begrudgingly,” Huestis told the Bay Area Reporter as a huge crowd marched from the Castro down to Civic Center Plaza. “I think See page 14 >>

New school year, more anti-LGBT issues

by Seth Hemmelgarn

T David Brog

LGBT Jews plan protest of Christian speaker

by Heather Cassell

S

ome LGBT Jewish activists are opposed to an upcoming Christian speaker at a San Francisco synagogue, saying he has a close association with far-right pastors and opposes a Palestinian state.

David Brog, a proponent of evangelical Christian Zionism, is scheduled to speak at Congregation Emanu-El September 7.

Brog will deliver an address titled, “Christian Zionists – Why Evangelicals Support Israel,” at San Francisco’s historic Jewish temple in the Inner Richmond, which has a notably liberal congregation.

Senior Rabbi Jonathan Singer at Congregation See page 2 >>

he new school year is just underway, and already, several school districts across the state find themselves immersed in anti-LGBT controversies.

Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in the Central Valley, where turmoil continues to surround the Fresno Unified School District’s anti-LGBT board president. Among other developments, a gay Fresno pastor and several other clergymen are asking the school board to take action against Brooke Ashjian, who recently compared his critics to the murderers responsible for the Armenian genocide of 1915.

The strife started with an August Fresno Bee article that quoted Ashjian dismissively talking about LGBT curriculum.

“My biggest fear in teaching this – which we’re going to do it because it’s the law – but you have kids who are extremely moldable at this stage, and if you start telling them that LGBT is OK and that it’s a way of life, well maybe you just swayed the kid to go that way. ... It’s so important for parents to teach these Judeo-Christian philosophies,” he said, according to the paper.

Many have called on Ashjian to resign since he made the comments, which were an apparent reference to laws such as the California Healthy Students Act, an LGBT-inclusive sex education measure that Governor Jerry Brown signed into law in 2015.

Fresno school board President Brooke Ashjian

In a statement he read at the August 23 school board meeting, Ashjian said, “1.5 million Armenians were murdered because they dared to disagree with the powers [that] be. The intolerance shown by the Ottomans toward my people was insufferable. These leaders of the LGBT movement are much like them.”

{ FIRST OF THREE SECTIONS }

He added that his critics are guilty of “pure fascism,” and that he won’t resign.

“I will not be silenced by bullies ...,” said Ashjian, who hasn’t responded to the Bay Area Reporter’s interview requests.

In an August 28 letter, the Reverend Bill Knezovich, the gay pastor of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Fresno, and 12 other faith leaders called Ashjian’s genocide remarks “reprehensible” and asked the school board to remove or at least censure Ashjian at its September 13 meeting.

“It is clear from his remarks that he has nothing but contempt for the LGBTQ community – especially the most vulnerable, some who happen to be LGBTQ children,” said the clergymen, who added that some of their faith community members are LGBTQ Armenians.

“We as faith leaders demand that at the MINIMUM the board publicly censure Mr. Ashjian and PREFERABLY remove him from the presidency of the board. Your inactions or actions will either condone his comments, sending a chilling message to the students of the district that it is OK to hate or they will affirm the diversity and beauty of all our children regardless of their ancestry or sexual orientation,” stated Knezovich and the others.

Tonya Stokes, 45, has a 15-year-old transgender son who goes to a Fresno Unified school, and she said the Healthy Students Act “will help save lives.”

See page 14 >>

<< Community News

2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

Thousands celebrate South Bay Pride

by Heather Cassell

T

housands turned out for a weekend of festivities at Silicon Valley Pride and the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose’s Proud of My Family event.

It was hot in San Jose August 27, but that didn’t deter people who came out to enjoy the annual Silicon Valley Pride parade and celebration at Cesar Chavez Park in the heart of the city.

The Bay Area Reporter estimated 2,500 people celebrated Silicon Valley Pride.

Thaddeus Campbell, CEO and president of Silicon Valley Pride, didn’t respond to the B.A.R.’s request to confirm attendance figures.

Nearly 4,000 families – LGBT and straight – celebrated Pride at the Children’s Discovery Museum’s third annual Proud of My Family event throughout the weekend, according to Cecilia Clark, the museum’s public relations manager.

Jeanee Staton, a 24-year-old bisexual woman who was babysitting her friend’s son, discovered the museum’s Pride weekend activities while looking for something to do to entertain the boy. Staton didn’t disclose the boy’s name to protect his privacy.

“Oh my god! I appreciate it so much. I love it! I feel so much more

<<

LGBT Jews

From page 1

Emanu-El called the speech an “interfaith dialogue.”

“It’s a chance to have a dialogue with somebody who hasn’t been engaged in that kind of communal work and conversation,” said Singer, who said Brog was invited by the congregation’s subcommittee, the Israel Action Committee.

“The evangelical community

at home now,” Staton told the B.A.R. While kids enjoyed making rainbow-themed crafts at the Crochet Jam at the museum, there was a sense of resistance and delight in the diversity on display at this year’s Silicon Valley Pride by marchers and attendees.

Peaceful, cheerful, and colorful Pride goers decked out in rainbow colors responded to the current political environment and the White House’s attacks on LGBT people by filling the streets in celebration and carrying signs supporting diversity and encouraging people to stand up.

The response was particularly on people’s minds due to President Donald Trump on Friday signing his directive banning transgender people from serving in the military. [See story, page 8.]

Despite some concerns about potential violence with news of white supremacists and counterprotesters in Berkeley that day, the event was largely celebratory and peaceful with no reported incidents of violence.

Many attendees expressed excitement by the size of the parade and the turnout at Cesar Chavez Park.

“I enjoyed the parade. It was much larger than last year and it’s getting bigger every year,” said Mike Hoffinger, 50, a gay man who was hanging out with friends on the shaded grass

believes that there are misperceptions about who they are, what they think about Jews, and what they think about Israel,” he said.

Singer told the Bay Area Reporter that Brog wasn’t representing an organization, rather speaking as an individual. However, the invitation included his biography, mentioning his affiliations and books he’s authored about Christians supporting a Jewish state.

t

while enjoying the entertainment on the stage. “I love seeing all of the diversity and people showing up, young and old.”

Erica Waligore, 26, who organizes the women’s support group at the Billy De Frank LGBT Community Center in San Jose, called Silicon Valley Pride a “little gay haven.”

Waligore, a lesbian, and her partner, Rey Duprey, a 31-year-old queer woman, described the South Bay as

being “pretty sleepy, invisible and overlooked by San Francisco.”

“It’s great to be here and present with one another with all of the LGBT groups, people of color, seniors, disabled,” said Waligore. “It’s important to know that we are not alone and that other people know that we are here and relevant.”

Asia Robinson, a 23-year-old African-American lesbian who was attending her first Pride event, was

having fun “being around people like me. It’s cool to see so many people, especially people of color,” she said.

Duprey agreed, adding that she liked the festivities and browsing at the booths, too.

“It’s important that we welcome our neighbors,” said Bob Charves, 65, a gay man who is the president of the congregation at Christ the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, at the church’s Pride booth. “We are not here to preach, but to welcome everyone.”

The church recently celebrated 30 years as a Reconciled in Christ congregation supporting the South Bay’s LGBT community.

Jack Beck, a 33-year-old gay man who founded and is director of TurnOut, a new LGBT volunteer connection organization in the San Francisco Bay Area, added that the LGBT community has a history of supporting itself.

“We can’t rely on mainstream organizations and this is more important now than ever with the political climate,” said Beck, stating that the community can’t trust those who are in power and the government at the national level. “We can’t trust them to support our community.”

The organization currently has 700 LGBT volunteers donating time at more than 50 queer organizations throughout the Bay Area. t

Brog didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time through his organization, Christians United for Israel.

Singer did not know if Brog was being paid for his appearance.

“I don’t know the complexities of that,” he said.

John Hagee, the far-right founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church, and “others who are deeply anti-Semitic and anti-LGBT.” They are distrustful of his true intentions speaking to congregation members, said Penina Eilberg-Schwartz, a volunteer with IfNotNow, an American Jewish organization that opposes the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

IfNotNow disrupted Christians United for Israel events in Davis and

Stockton this summer.

“Those are not allies that we are looking for in this post-Charlottesville moment. That’s not the allies that we need,” said Binya Koatz, a 23-yearold bisexual transgender individual who is a volunteer organizer with IfNotNow, speaking with the B.A.R. through WhatsApp from Israel.

Organizers plan on demonstrating at Brog’s speech at Congregation See page 4 >>

Jo-Lynn Otto

Stand San Jose, a multicultural all-volunteer group organized for social change in the South Bay, marched in the Silicon Valley Pride parade Sunday, August 27.

Activists opposed

Activists who have been keeping tabs on Brog, who is Jewish, said that he has a close connection with

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<< Community News

4 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

SF’s Castro district joins the art walk trend

by Charlie Wagner

T

he creative buzz in the Castro will be louder the first Thursday of every month, thanks to the efforts of some Castro Merchants members and their friends in the neighborhood’s arts and literature community.

After a soft opening earlier this month, the next Castro Art Walk is scheduled for Thursday, September 7, with 10 participating merchants within four blocks of Castro and Market streets. All will be open from 6 to 9 p.m., many with free refreshments and live music.

“Our soft opening last month generated a lot of foot traffic,” said Alycia Piazza, manager at participating Art Attack Gallery. She noted the event was featured on http://www.sf.FunCheap.com and recommended by San Francisco hotel concierges.

Piazza and five other business representatives met with Castro Merchants and together they decided the Castro needed its own art walk.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Castro Merchants President Daniel Bergerac said. “I’m excited about it and hope the community supports it.”

Art Attack, at 2358 Market Street (http://www.artattacksf. com), represents about 25 local artists and opened in April. For the September art walk, Art Attack will host a free workshop by the staff of Artist & Craftsman Supply on block printing titled, “Design your own linoleum block prints.”

Local Take, at 3979 17th Street (www.localtakesf.com), has been open almost five years. Owner Jenn Meyer said they handle only Bay Area artists and currently present about 140 people. Media includes textile arts, jewelry, clothing, wood wall art, photo collages, and one-of-a-kind jackets and dresses made from repurposed T-shirts.

Meyer is participating because she hopes the art walk will “get the Castro more activated.”

Thomasina Demaio acts as curator, teacher, and paint wrangler for ArtSavesLives studio at 518 Castro Street (http://www.facebook.com/sfartslave). Her gallery has live model drawing sessions each week from 6 to 9 p.m. with women models on Wednesday and men on Thursday.

For the art walk event, the male models will be wearing jockstraps.

Demaio promised with a smile that there will be “no genitalia.”

There is a fee to participate in the drawing session but visitors will be welcome to check out the front of the gallery for free.

ArtSavesLives changes its show every month and typically includes 20 different artists. It also hosts dance, film, and performance art.

Joe Titi and John Giusti are the owner-operators of The Artist’s Gallery at 4406 18th Street, Suite A (http://www.theartistsgallerysf. com). Started in 2003, the gallery offers a mix of about 30 local and non-local artists, currently including three different painters based

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Manager Alycia Piazza stands in the Art Attack Gallery, which is participating in the Castro Art Walk.

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Works for sale are primarily original oils and prints, predominantly done in an abstract style.

“We try to keep most of the art affordable,” Titi said.

The Castro Country Club, at 4058 18th Street (http://www.castrocountryclub.org), is celebrating its 35th year as a gathering space for the LGBT recovery community. Unique among Castro Art Walk participants, the club mission was explained by cafe manager Brandon Stanton as, “helping people in recovery find community.”

For the event, the club will have art in multiple locations plus a pop-up gallery, a guitar player on the patio, and some refreshments.

Spark Arts is a gallery, event, and creative space at 4229 18th Street (http://www.sparkarts. com), owned by creative director Aviva Kanoff and gallery manager Angie Stitcher, who is on the Castro Merchants board. The gallery features mostly up and coming San Francisco-based artists.

Kanoff, herself an artist, chef,

and cookbook author, said the gallery will have wine, refreshments, and live music.

Swirl at 572 Castro Street (http://www.swirloncastro.com) is a retail wine and spirits merchant that has a wine tasting bar in back and art work on the walls.

Co-owner Casey Bowers said he changes the pieces on display monthly and for the art w2alk will show work represented by Spark Arts.

Ruby’s Clay Studio and Gallery at 552A Noe Street (www. rubysclaystudio.org) is the longest-established participant, having been at that location since 1967. The nonprofit arts center is supported by members and fees from classes.

On display will be mostly works in clay with some mixed media.

Most will have been made and fired in the studio.

For the art walk, Ruby’s will have two greeters to assist visitors in touring the two-level space.

People may be able to observe a class in progress. Ruby’s will

provide snacks and some works will be available for purchase.

Norden Living, described by owners Terje Arnesen and Christopher Sharpe as “Scandinavian design redefined,” is at 3618 17th Street (www.nordenliving.com).

Opened in April, the store imports Scandinavian furniture, lighting, and accessories, focusing on young designers and manufacturers.

On their walls will be works by Sonoma County acrylic and mixed media artist Britta Kathmeyer.

They will serve wine and snacks and have music.

Visitors interested in literature, as well as art, will find both in Dog Eared Books, 489 Castro Street ( h t t p : / / w w w. d o g e a re d b o o k s . com).

In addition to the usual selection of merchandise, the bookstore will show the work of five well-known San Francisco artists.

Owner Kate Rosenberger herself is a painter and printmaker and will have works on display.

The store will offer visitors wine and snacks as well as a new cocktail, tentatively called the 3 Hole Punch.

Every gallery owner who participated in the August soft opening said they saw more people than expected. They consistently expressed a high level of optimism and enthusiasm for the September Castro Art Walk.

Art Attack’s Piazza predicted the audience will build over time, based on her prior experience with the North Beach Art Walk.

“We hope people who like to visit the Castro will want to experience something different,” she said. t For the Castro Art Walk map and more information, visit http://www.facebook.com/castroartwalk.

LA softball sues over Vegas Shootout

by Roger Brigham

L Mike Ackerman & Oliver Burgelman LIC# 01388135 | 01232037 415.307.5850 ABZ@ZephyrSF.com BuildingTrust4Life.com

t

awsuits have been filed over who owns the rights to the largest and fastest growing annual LGBT sports festival in the world.

The Sin City Shootout was a 60team weekend softball tournament when it launched in 2007. Under tournament director Eric Ryan, it has added sports and grown in the decade since. But according to a Greater Los Angeles Softball Association lawsuit filed in federal district court in California, publicly available on the GLASA website, the trademark on the name lapsed last year and Ryan renewed it under his own name, not GLASA’s. GLASA is accusing Ryan of stealing the tournament assets for himself.

Ryan has filed a countersuit denying GLASA’s allegations and seeking recovery of legal costs.

There are now two separate websites seeking registrants for a multi-sports festival to be held January 11-14 in Las Vegas: Ryan’s Sin City Shootout (http://www. sincityshootout.com) and GLASA’s

<<

LGBT Jews

From page 2

Emanu-El next Thursday.

The activists believe that Brog, the founding executive director and current board member of Christians United for Israel and the current executive director of the Maccabee Task Force, has ulterior motives. The Maccabee Task Force is a pro-Israel group focused on American college campuses that was founded in 2015.

“David Brog is one of many people

Eric Ryan

renamed Sin City Classic (http:// www.sincityclassic.org). The Classic lists 24 sports; the Shootout has all of them plus basketball. The registration links on the Shootout sports menu appear to be active; those on the Classic site appear to be placeholders.

Organizers also apparently have turned the Sin City Shootout Facebook page into a Sin City Classic page. It still offers photos from previous years’ Shootouts.

Ryan’s countersuit asserts that GLASA lost its legal status for more in our community who has found it palatable to ally ourselves with people who don’t even have our best interest in heart,” said Koatz.

“That’s not something that makes our community safer. That’s not something that makes our community better. It’s a toxic influence that IfNotNow, and, to be honest, the vast majority of young American Jews, do not want,” Koatz said.

For more than a decade Brog has been a part of a movement organizing Christians to support Israel, but

than two years because of failure to comply with tax requirements and did not respond in a timely manner to a trademark renewal notice, thereby abandoning rights to the tournament name.

Ryan’s countersuit also asserts that GLASA “made false and defamatory statements on plaintiff ’s Facebook page, Las Vegas Softball League’s Facebook page, the Sin City Shootout (Classic) Facebook page, and others personal individuals’ Facebook page(s), which constitute defamation and defamation per se orally and in writing about Ryan to the public, which have been believed by others, all to the detriment of Ryan’s name, reputation, and business and thereafter deleting the published statements, which are evidence in this case of the plaintiff and cross-defendant’s wrongful, tortuous conduct in violation of their duty to preserve each and all such evidence.” He also accuses Classic organizers of offering bribes or kickbacks to get softball teams to break ties with the Shootout and head to the Classic. t beneath the surface the movement holds close ties to America’s ultraconservative leaders, activists said.

Christians United for Israel lobbies for Israel, but its executive board has staunchly anti-LGBT, racist, antifeminist, right-wing leaders, many of whom have connections to the White House, activists said. In addition to Brog, executive board members include the Reverend Jonathan Falwell, son of the late Jerry Falwell; Hagee; and others.

See page 8 >>

International News>>

t India’s Supreme Court makes key privacy ruling

by Heather Cassell

I

ndia’s Supreme Court, in a blow to the government, ruled August 24 that privacy is a fundamental right.

The nine-judge decision came in a case that challenged the government on the mandatory Aadhaar card, which uses a 12-digit unique identity number based on a biometric and demographic area of each Indian.

The judges agreed with the petitioners, emphasizing the protections provided by the constitution include free speech, rule of law, and “guarantees against authoritarian behavior,” Human Rights Watch officials wrote in a blog post announcing the decision.

The ruling, under Article 21 in India’s constitution, has far-reaching implications, especially for Section 377 of the country’s penal code, a British colonial-era law that outlaws “unnatural” sex acts and has been used against gays.

LGBT Indians have been waiting for a Supreme Court ruling on a new case brought against Section 377. That case will be reviewed by a larger bench of Supreme Court judges.

In 2009, the Delhi High Court ruled the 1860 law was unconstitutional under Articles 14, 15, and 21 of the Indian Constitution. But in 2013, the Supreme Court reinstated the law, stating that it only affected a “minuscule” community and that only Parliament could change the law.

Violators of the law could face up to 10 years imprisonment if caught. Only a few charges have been brought against some men since 377’s reinstatement.

The Indian Constitution’s Article 14 guarantees equality, privacy, and freedom of expression; Article 15 prohibits discrimination based on religion, race, caste, sex, or place of

birth, but it doesn’t include sexual orientation and gender identity; and Article 21 guarantees the right to life and personal liberty.

In 2014, months after the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold criminalizing same-sex relationships, the court legally recognized the “third sex,” hijras or transgender individuals.

The law granted transgender people government issued identification cards and mandates to set up social programs to integrate them into Indian society.

In their ruling last week, the judges scorned the 2013 Supreme Court decision, pointing out that the judges “erroneously relied upon international precedents,” calling the thinking “unsustainable.” They said that the law had a chilling effect on “the unhindered fulfillment of one’s sexual orientation, as an element of privacy and dignity,” reported HRW. At least three of the five separate, but concurring, judgments in the ruling explicitly tackled the implications of privacy as a fundamental right on Section 377 or the sexual orientation of a citizen, reported the Wire.

Focusing on LGBT Indians, the judges noted in the decision that within the past 150 years only 200 people have been prosecuted for committing offences under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.

They continued, writing that LGBT rights are not “so-called rights, but real rights founded on sound constitutional doctrine.”

“The rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender population cannot be construed to be ‘so-called rights,’” the judges wrote. “The expression ‘so-called’ seems to suggest the exercise of a liberty in the garb of a right, which is illusory. This is an inappropriate construction of the privacybased claims of the LGBT population.

August 31 - September 6, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 5

Courtesy CourtesyNDTV NDTV

Activists have challenged the India Supreme Court’s upholding of Section 377, which outlaws same-sex relationships in India’s penal code

Their rights are not ‘so-called’ but are real rights founded on sound constitutional doctrine. They inhere in the right to life. They dwell in privacy and dignity. They constitute the essence of liberty and freedom. Sexual orientation is an essential component of identity. Equal protection demands protection of the identity of every individual without discrimination.”

The judges further declared in the decision, “Sexual orientation is an essential attribute of privacy. Discrimination against an individual on the basis of sexual orientation is deeply offensive to the dignity and self-worth of the individual. Equality demands that the sexual orientation of each individual in society must be protected on an even platform.”

However, the judges stopped short of overturning the 2013 Supreme Court ruling.

“Since the challenge to Section 377 is pending consideration before a larger bench of this court, we would leave the constitutional validity to be decided in an appropriate proceeding,” the judges wrote.

Several bills introduced by

lawmakers since 2013 to overturn 377’s reinstatement haven’t passed.

LGBT South Asian and human rights activists who have been pushing for overturning 377’s reinstatement have been emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decision, reigniting calls to overturn it.

Australians rush to register for same-sex marriage vote

Record numbers of Australians rushed to register ahead of the postal vote for same-sex marriage, as thousands took to the streets of Melbourne in protest.

In total, 90,000 new voters were added, the Australian electoral commission reported August 24, the deadline.

Registration has been higher for people under the age of 40, Australia’s Electoral Commissioner Tim Rogers told the media.

Nearly 16 million people are now registered to vote in one of the few English-speaking countries not to have legalized same-sex marriage.

Multiple polls show more than 60 percent of Australians support

same-sex marriage.

Australia is one of the few democratic countries with mandatory voting in general elections, but this ballot is non-compulsory and the vote is nonbinding.

“This amazing result is a tribute to the thousands of people around the country that have made this happen,” Equality Campaign Executive Director Tiernan Brady told Gay Star News.

“It’s also a reflection of the amount of energy that will be required if our LGBTI friends and family members are to win the same dignity and status as other Australians,” he continued.

“We are not complacent about this at all. This may be one of the most successful enrolment campaigns, but if we are to achieve equality, supporters need to ensure they vote ‘yes’ and post their ballots back.”

Ballots will arrive in voters’ mailboxes starting September 12 and continue through the middle of the month.

The results will be published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics November 15.

Leading up to the voter registration deadline, anti-marriage equality campaign material began to appear on the streets with fliers and posters in Melbourne and Sydney.

The material signaled a potentially vitriolic campaign ahead for same-sex marriage in Australia.

An estimated 15,000 marriage equality demonstrators took to the streets in Melbourne for the annual rally in support of same-sex marriage over the weekend, according to Anthony Wallace, rally organizer of Equal Love.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who supports same-sex marriage, hasn’t fared as well in the polls, he and his party are at a six-month low among voters, according to media reports.

See page 14 >>

<< Open Forum

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

Volume 47, Number 35 August 31 - September 6, 2017 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Michael M. Yamashita Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013) Publisher (2003 – 2013) Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman BARTAB EDITOR & EVENTS LISTINGS EDITOR Jim Provenzano ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko • Seth Hemmelgarn CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ray Aguilera • Tavo Amador • Race Bannon Erin Blackwell • Roger Brigham Brian Bromberger • Victoria A. Brownworth Brent Calderwood • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Belo Cipriani Richard Dodds • Michael Flanagan Jim Gladstone • David Guarino Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell • John F. Karr Lisa Keen • Matthew Kennedy • Joshua Klipp David Lamble • Max Leger Michael McDonagh • David-Elijah Nahmod Michael Nugent • Paul Parish • Sean Piverger Lois Pearlman Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota Bob Roehr •Donna Sachet • Adam Sandel Khaled Sayed • Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Sari Staver • Jim Stewart Sean Timberlake • Andre Torrez • Ronn Vigh Charlie Wagner • Ed Walsh Cornelius Washington • Sura Wood ART DIRECTION Max Leger PRODUCTION/DESIGN Ernesto Sopprani PHOTOGRAPHERS Jane Philomen Cleland • FBFE Rick Gerharter • Gareth Gooch Jose Guzman-Colon • Rudy K. Lawidjaja Georg Lester • Dan Lloyd • Jo-Lynn Otto Rich Stadtmiller • Steven Underhil Dallis Willard • Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge • Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small Bogitini VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING Scott Wazlowski – 415.829.8937 NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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Bigots on the run

t

S

an Franciscans and those, city issued a permit, it could have who protested the white suimposed restrictions to help lower premacists and neo-Nazis who the temperature. Gibson showed up had planned to hold a rally at in Berkeley and had to be escorted by Crissy Field last Saturday depolice. Police arrested 13 people on a serve a round of applause. That variety of charges, including suspigoes for city leaders and police, cion of assault and battery. too. Joey Gibson, the leader of The leftist antifa protesters who Patriot Prayer who had secured appeared to instigate much of the a permit from the National Park mayhem in Berkeley need another Service for his “free speech” rally, tactic than violence to confront the abruptly canceled the day before, racists. Images of them fighting shortly after Mayor Ed Lee, faith with Trump supporters and holding leaders, and city supervisors put smoke bombs does nothing to help on an impressive display of unity the anti-violence message carried by on the steps of City Hall. Board the vast majority of counterprotestof Supervisors President London ers in both cities. They also play right Kelly Sullivan Breed was emphatic: the homointo white supremacists’ hands, who phobic, racist Patriot Prayer folks A man in red shorts is run out of Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. are only too willing to provide proaren’t welcome in San Francisco. Civic Center Park by antifa. paganda material to Breitbart News Speaker after speaker reinforced or Fox News where they find a symthat message as supporters filled pathetic audience. After yet another reminiscent of the Women’s Marches after PresiPolk Street, many holding signs reading “Unite violent skirmish in Berkeley, members of the leftdent Donald Trump was inaugurated. Police Against Hate.” ist activist community are starting to realize that reported that only one person was arrested SatExtraordinary security measures the antifa is hurting the larger cause for justice urday, for public drunkenness. devised by the Park Service did not and reinforcing Trump and others who enable “If people want to have a stage in San allow the Patriot Prayer attendees to white nationalism. They may be intimidating to Francisco, they’d better have a mescarry signs or bring anything that the neo-Nazis, but they’re also bullying their way sage that contributes to people’s lives could be used as a weapon – includinto the broader nonviolent movement, and that rather than find ways to hurt them,” ing the infamous tiki torches seen in will hurt progress in the long run, just as it did Lee said after Saturday’s rallies and Charlottesville, Virginia that mimicked during protests in Oakland against police killings marches, referring to Patriot Prayer. a Ku Klux Klan rally. When Gibson in recent years.

In Berkeley, however, Sunday’s suddenly announced that he would Berkeley police need to rethink their strategy anti-Marxist protest, which was also instead hold a “press conference” Satto control these rallies before several scheduled organized by Patriot Prayer, turned urday in city-owned Alamo Square right-wing speakers arrive at UC Berkeley next tense and violent at times, as blackPark, police scrambled and smartly month. We don’t want to see a repeat of Sunday’s clad anti-fascists overpowered some fenced off the park and closed it. Gibson and his violence or the even more brutal confrontations 400 law enforcement officers and Trump supband of followers never showed. earlier this year. It may take closing off public porters at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Counterdemonstrators did – by the thouspaces and enforcing a lengthy list of prohibited Park. A key difference was the city’s decision to sands. Organized rallies at Harvey Milk Plaza items. It’s terrible that it’s come to that, but it’s deny a permit to organizer Amber Cummings, and elsewhere descended on Civic Center Plaza clear that the Park Service and San Francisco aua right-wing trans woman. This decision comto join another planned rally, while hundreds of thorities turned what could have been a disaster promised control of the event because police others marched to Alamo Square Park. It was a into something that ended up running the bigots couldn’t enforce restrictions like the Park Service powerful demonstration of peaceful resistance, out of town. t did. We think it was the wrong move. Had the

A Pride like no other

by David Campos and Maribel Martínez

M

aribel Martínez looked at the people along the sidewalk with smiles and multicolored posters as we walked down Market Street toward Plaza de César Chávez during last weekend’s Silicon Valley Pride. She felt pride and a sense of safety that had been hard for her to remember in these last nine months, as she walked side by side with elected officials and law enforcement leaders in support of LGBTQ rights. In solidarity with marches against hate, the parade is resistance work and a reclaiming of our right to be queer, here, and proud.

This Silicon Valley Pride season has been like no other. In his short time in office, President Donald Trump has reversed a number of LGBTQ protections: Title IX guidelines addressing transgender student needs in public schools were rescinded and federal contracts now omit sexual orientation and gender identity/expression (SOGIE) questions from federal data collection surveys. Trump’s federal appointments include individuals with track records actively opposing LGBTQ rights. Most recently, in a Twitter post, Trump infamously informed us of his desire to ban transgender individuals from the military.

In the face of hateful anti-LGBTQ actions

by Trump and his administration, the work of local jurisdictions is of greater importance.

Santa Clara County has not been afraid to push for the rights of the LGBTQ community even before Trump. In 2015, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors was proud to become the first local jurisdiction in the nation to establish an Office of LGBTQ Affairs, whose charge is solely to undertake LGBTQ cultural competency efforts across the county. Within its first year, the staff has focused on meeting with all county departments, listening to LGBTQ leaders, reviewing national best practices, and drafting local policy. We have responded to the critical needs and identified the service gaps. In its planning, the office has focused on strategies to transform these systems and address the root causes.

As policymakers and practitioners, we often set the bar too low for outcomes for LGBTQ communities. We put out fires; we focus on the disparities, disproportionality, and negative outcomes. We unearth heartbreaking data points.

Jo-Lynn Otto

Marchers showed their displeasure with President Donald Trump at the August 27 Silicon Valley Pride Parade.

Many times, these stats are shared back with no clear plan in sight, which is retraumatizing for some. Our office in Santa Clara County is trying to change that. We know that behind every statistic is a person. We cannot be content with our community just staying alive or being safe; we want them to be happy and fulfilled.

Santa Clara County is thus committed to establishing a new vision, creating a transformative infrastructure of opportunity for the LGBTQ community.

Our goal is to launch a community-centered effort that will equip all residents with LGBTQ cultural competency that embeds an inclusive approach to put the most vulnerable populations at the center. Rather than focusing on avoiding negative outcomes, such as criminal justice and poverty, we are expanding our energy and resources to increase opportunity and success: permanency in family, community, and the educational system.

This expansion pushes beyond the LGBTQ individual and invites parents, teachers, community members, caseworkers, and other service providers to be part of combatting heterosexism, anti-gay, and anti-transgender bias. Our aim is to create a diverse and robust safety net

that will propel LGBTQ communities to thrive and to intentionally create spaces of belonging.

In this new future, parents will know that gender identity development takes place around age 3 and sexual orientation development during middle childhood (ages 6-12).

LGBTQ conversations would be accepted as age-appropriate using those starting points. All residents would be knowledgeable about how to best support and navigate LGBTQ residents toward a healthy future. Faith leaders’ messages of love and acceptance would permeate even in the thickest airs of hate. LGBTQ identity would not be a risk factor but one of many points of celebration for one’s identity.

Although this future may seem some time away, Santa Clara County is beginning the work today. The challenges are real: economic instability, stigma, discrimination, violence, and limited access to services. This is especially true for the transgender community, which is why, under the leadership of gay Supervisor Ken Yeager, the county created a position within the LGBT affairs office to focus on the needs of our transgender residents and their families.

In the age of Trump, more now than ever, our diverse LGBT community needs sound policy analysis, solid facts rooted in strong data, and strategic messaging that will help advocates and policymakers cut through the misinformation and make the important decisions that will impact lives. The world has changed – and for the LGBTQ population, not necessarily for the better. The current administration had emboldened the bullies. But, moments such as those experienced at pride celebrations provide respite for the long fight against hate. As we move forward, it is important to include LGBTQ rights and protections for those most vulnerable and remind ourselves that, “we all belong here, we will defend each other,” and “no pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.” t David Campos, a former San Francisco supervisor, is a deputy county executive for Santa Clara County. Maribel Martínez is the director of the Santa Clara County Office of LGBTQ Affairs.

t

Politics>>

August 31 - September 6, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

Councilman seeks to be first gay Santa Cruz County supervisor

by Matthew S. Bajko

G

ay Watsonville City Councilman Jimmy Dutra is aiming to become the first LGBT person to serve on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors. He recently announced his bid for the board’s District 4 seat on the June 2018 primary ballot.

According to LGBT leaders, Dutra is currently the only out elected city council member in the coastal county southwest of San Jose. He was the first openly gay city council member in Watsonville, having ousted an incumbent in November 2014, and was the first openly gay male in any position in the southern portion of the county.

(Gay Santa Cruz resident John Laird served on his hometown’s city council throughout the 1980s and represented the northern portion of the county in the state Assembly in the 2000s. He is currently the California Secretary for Natural Resources in Governor Jerry Brown’s administration.)

The South Bay’s LGBT political group known as BAYMEC, which stands for the Bay Area Municipal Elections Committee and covers Santa Cruz County, has invited Dutra to meet with its board members so they can get to know him and his platform ahead of deciding whether to endorse in the race.

“In Santa Clara County, we have seen what a difference it can make for our community – with respect to services and funding – by having an openly LGBTQ member on the board. We would hope that having an openly gay member of the Santa Cruz County board would produce similar results,” BAYMEC Vice President Paul A. Escobar told the Bay Area Reporter this week. “It’s exciting to see LGBTQ people running for office; we hope more will be jumping in races as we get closer to election time.”

Dutra, 42, who is planning to attend BAYMEC’s brunch gala October 1, first ran for the county supervisor seat in June 2014 but fell short in his bid. Although he was out to family and friends, Dutra didn’t run as an openly gay man in the race.

When he then pivoted and sought his District 4 city council seat that fall, Dutra decided to be more open about his sexual orientation. He ended up winning the seat by 12 percentage points.

“I was so happy the public really embraced me. This is who I am,” Dutra told the B.A.R. in a recent phone interview. “I wasn’t having to play dodge ball.

I was out there, being completely transparent and authentic. I have been leading my career this way ever since I was elected.”

In announcing his second supervisor campaign, Dutra from the start has noted the historic nature of his candidacy as well as the work he has done at the city level to advance LGBT issues. In one recent Facebook post, Dutra thanked “everyone who has worked side-byside with me to bring change and awareness to our LGBTQ community throughout the county.”

He added that he was “proud to have been an instrumental part this past year” in awarding the Diversity Center, the LGBT community center in Santa Cruz, its first grant from the city of Watsonville, $5,000 to launch an after-school program for local high school students.

“I look forward to what we can do

at the county level!” wrote Dutra.

Born and raised in Watsonville, where his family has farmed since 1933, Dutra graduated from Santa Clara University with a political science degree in 1997. He interned in the Clinton White House while in college and later worked on several electoral campaigns, including that of former California Governor Gray Davis.

He then left politics to work in the entertainment industry and landed a job with a talent agency in Los Angeles. Shortly thereafter Paramount hired him, and Dutra worked for the company in various capacities for six years.

Dutra then changed careers again and became a real estate agent. But by 2010 he decided it was time to return to his familial roots and lay the groundwork to run for political office in his hometown.

He launched his first supervisorial bid in September 2013.

“I always knew politics was what I wanted to do, but I also wanted to make sure I had business experience. As a regular citizen I was around career politicians who never had experience in business,” said the single Dutra, who is half Mexican and half Portuguese. “I knew I wanted to see that strength in my leaders, so I made sure I got that experience.”

While on the council, Dutra has focused on bringing more resources and services into his town, which has seen its farmlands turned into bedroom communities for Silicon Valley workers. He has teamed with local businesses as well as residents to overhaul a dilapidated public park in his district and build a community garden there.

“When government says no, I seek other ways to do it,” said Dutra, who each fall operates a local pumpkin patch. “A lot of politicians sit there and vote but they don’t want to get their hands dirty.

I think leadership entails it all.”

He has also tried to address the growing number of homeless individuals living alongside the sloughs in Watsonville. It is one of the issues he intends to focus on at the county level should he win the supervisor seat, in addition to advocating for more LGBT services.

“For me, transportation, infrastructure, homelessness, and health care all affect the LGBT community. We are all part of the community,” said Dutra.

The incumbent, Supervisor Greg Caput, is expected to seek a third four-year term, and several other Watsonville council members are reportedly eying the race. Should no candidate win 50 percent plus one of the vote next June, then the top two votegetters will advance to a November runoff.

Dutra, to date, is the first and only candidate to pull papers for the race. He is confident he has laid the groundwork over the last four years to win the seat this time out.

“This time I have the experience.

I have created really strong relationships with people in the community that I didn’t have before,” said Dutra, who is president of the board for Pajaro Valley Shelter Services. “People knew me before but didn’t know what I was capable of doing. I have become a proven leader.”

Piedmont mayor resigns honorary post Piedmont

City

Councilman

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Jimmy Dutra

Jeff Weiler on Sunday resigned his honorary post as mayor of the wealthy East Bay town following a public outcry over his posting racist and transphobic comments on social media. The council members rotate the mayoral position amongst themselves and had been set to hold a special meeting to discuss possibly ousting Weiler as mayor.

His inflammatory social media posts, which have now been deleted, reportedly included one that said, “Transgenders are mentally ill.”

Weiler had been elected to a twoyear term as mayor last December after having served in an interim basis since June 2016. In his resignation letter sent over the weekend, Weiler said he would remain on the council until his term expires next November.

This week the Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom condemned Weiler’s statements “as inappropriate, divisive, false, and particularly harmful when made by a public official.”

While the local LGBT bar association said it was “heartened that Weiler resigned as mayor in response to widespread community criticism, he remains a member of the Piedmont City Council. BALIF encourages its members and the community to continue to speak out when confronting bigotry, racism, sexism, and homo and transphobia. It cannot be tolerated.”

Out actor loses bid for union presidency

Actor and casting director Robert B. Martin Jr., who is bisexual, lost his bid to be the first LGBT person to lead the 160,000-member Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

He landed in fourth place with 1,207 votes in the August 24 election that drew five candidates.

The winner was current president Gabrielle Carteris, who starred on the hit television show “Beverly Hills, 90210.”

Carteris had assumed the position after the death of the previous president. She was elected to a full two-year term with 14,674 votes out of the 28,988 ballots cast.t

Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http:// www.ebar.com Monday mornings at noon for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion.

This week’s column reported on a trio of LGBT groups endorsing a bisexual Palm Springs City Council candidate.

Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes.

Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 8298836 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.

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<< National News

t Feinstein’s Trump comments elicit groans at SF talk 8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

by Sari Staver

S

enator Dianne Feinstein urged the nation to be patient with President Donald Trump, a suggestion that evoked groans and boos from the sold-out audience of 800 that had greeted her with a standing ovation at a Commonwealth Club appearance at the Herbst Theatre August 29.

Feinstein, 84, who has represented California for almost 25 years, in an onstage conversation with former East Bay Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, noted that the president still had time to become a “good” leader if he could “forget his feelings about himself long enough to have the kind of empathy and direction this country needs,” she said.

If he isn’t able to change, Feinstein conceded, “there are things that could happen that I cannot speak about here.”

But Feinstein also predicted that “this man will be president most likely for the rest of his term, and I hope he has the ability to learn and change and I hope he will be a good president,” another suggestion the audience greeted with more than a

few grumbles.

From the moment people arrived at the theatre, it was clear from the demonstration out front on Van Ness Avenue that the evening was not likely going to be a lovefest for the senator, who is a member of both Senate committees now investigating possible Russian interference with the 2016 election.

A dozen picketers from the protest group Indivisible SF objected to the format of the presentation, which enabled the speakers to prescreen questions. The protesters urged the audience to show their displeasure by protesting indoors, which did not happen.

Throughout her talk, Feinstein did criticize Trump, including the “terrible” remarks he made after the violent demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“I think the president tried to placate both sides,” she said, “but you cannot placate” Nazis, white supremacists, and the Ku Klux Klan.

In response to audience questions, Feinstein pointedly called Trump’s decision to pardon former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio “stupid,” saying that the pardon

Sari Staver

Demonstrators from Indivisible stand outside the Herbst Theatre, where Senator Dianne Feinstein spoke at a Commonwealth Club program.

“sent a message to police departments” around the world that racial profiling was acceptable.

Feinstein also predicted that funds that Trump had hoped would be used to build a wall on the Mexican border would instead be used for recovery efforts in Texas in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

And there was one topic where

Feinstein said she agreed with the president: that the North American Free Trade Agreement should be renegotiated. She pointed out that she had long opposed it and had voted against it.

While Feinstein was cautious in her overall evaluation of the president, Tauscher, a longtime friend and supporter of the senator,

stepped up the rhetoric.

Trump’s “tone was off today to say the least,” said Tauscher, referring to televised remarks from Texas where he spoke about federal recovery efforts but didn’t express concern for victims. “He’s so egocentric that when he saw a crowd of people, he reacted to the size of the crowd.”

Feinstein acknowledged that Trump has shown “some holes” in his makeup, and Tauscher agreed, adding, “things like heart and soul are missing” from him.

Tauscher acknowledged that she was able to be more critical of the president because she was no longer in elected office, noting that members of the House and Senate could be the judge and jury if an impeachment took place.

Feinstein declined to answer an audience question about when she believed more Republican leaders would turn against Trump.

And when Tauscher asked Feinstein about her plans for the next five to 10 years, an apparent reference to whether she would seek re-election next year, the senator responded, “Next question.”t

Trump releases trans military ban memo

by Lisa Keen

T

he White House on Friday evening released its memo to the secretary of defense on how the military should implement President Donald Trump’s declared ban on transgender people. The memo calls for banning any transgender people from entering the military and banning any medical treatment of gender dysphoria for existing transgender service members, with exceptions for those who have already started treatment.

The memo sets the ban to begin January 1 but states that the defense secretary may advise the president at any time if he believes the policy should be changed. Otherwise, noted the memo, the ban will stay in place “until such time as a sufficient basis exists upon which to conclude that terminating that policy and practice” would not have negative effects.

Several legal groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, and OutServe-SLDN filed lawsuits against the Trump administration this week. Other LGBT legal groups filed a lawsuit earlier this month.

Trump’s memo says the Obama administration “failed to identify a sufficient basis” to change the Department of Defense’s policy to allow transgender people to serve. The memo indicates Trump believes allowing transgender people to serve would “hinder military effectiveness and lethality, disrupt unit cohesion, or tax military resources ...” It orders the regulation adopted in June 2016 to explicitly allow transgender people to serve openly in the military be terminated beginning January 1. It also calls for “halt[ing] all use of DoD or [Coast Guard] resources to fund sex-reassignment surgical

procedures for military personnel, except to the extent necessary to protect the health of an individual who has already begun a course of treatment to reassign his or her sex.”

The August 25 memo conveys the intent of Trump’s July 26 Twitter postings, announcing his plan to ban transgender people from the military “in any capacity.”

Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said, “This is exactly what [President Trump] said he would do and what our lawsuit challenges – a new ban on military service by openly transgender people. We are full steam ahead.”

NCLR and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders filed a federal lawsuit August 9, seeking a preliminary injunction to stop Trump from implementing his proposed ban on transgender service members. The lawsuit also seeks a declaration from

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the court that the proposed ban is unconstitutional.

GLAD said the policy affects over 15,000 service members. A Rand Corporation study put the number at between 1,300 and 6,600. According to SPARTA (Service Members, Partners, Allies for Respect and Tolerance for All), a national organization for transgender people who currently or formerly served in the military, “Most of the care transgender service members require can be handled by a general practitioner.” Rand’s study estimated that only 29 to 129 service members seek “transition-related care that could disrupt their ability to deploy.” Rand also estimated that gender transition-related medical expenses would amount to between $2 million and $8 million per year, “representing a 0.04 to 0.13 percent increase in active-component health care expenditures.”

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LGBT Jews

From page 4

“This is an example of the failure of pro-Israel politics,” said EilbergSchwartz, 30, a queer woman who believes in having an open dialogue, but not with someone who has shown not to have the Jewish community’s – or any other minority community’s – best interest at heart. “It comes from a sense that we should be protecting Israel, but the truth is choosing allies like Brog and Hagee is allying ourselves with hatred.

“The fact that Temple Emanu-El represents a liberal position, to allow Brog to speak is really a moment for us to reconsider where we are heading as a Jewish community and review our values and our tradition, which is one of justice,” she continued.

Singer, who said he is an ally to the LGBT community and has two openly LGBT rabbis on staff, disagreed with activists, telling the B.A.R. that dialogue isn’t an endorsement.

“Our political correctness can’t get to a point where we can’t dialogue about anything. That’s not democracy,” he said. “I just don’t see how we can make any strides with communities that we disagree with [and] who have a different

President Donald Trump

with the secretary of homeland security, shall determine how to address transgender individuals currently serving in the United States military.”

It states, “no action may be taken against such individuals under the policy set forth” in the memo until that implementation plan has been determined. t

perspective if we don’t dialogue.”

He denounced hate speech and recent violent protests in Berkeley and Charlottesville, Virginia, he said.

“I’m not afraid to take a stance, but at the same time I’m going to want to talk to people about their ideas and engage them and maybe bring them to a different perspective,” he said.

Brog’s upcoming talk doesn’t stray from the congregation’s devotion to liberal ideas or commitment to community, Singer insisted.

“Emanu-El is a place that celebrates diversity, strongly supports LGBTQ rights, and is open to hearing other religious perspectives as part of an ongoing dialogue,” said Singer, noting that the congregation will welcome liberal perspectives on Israel in the coming weeks. t “Christian Zionists – Why Evangelicals Support Israel,” starts at 7 p.m., September 7, at Congregation Emanu-El, 2 Lake Street in San Francisco. Admission is free and open to the public. Reservations are required; to RSVP, visit http:// www.cufi.org/site/Calendar/181903 3743?view=Detail&id=129829.

For more information about IfNotNow’s planned demonstration, visit ifnotnowmovement.org.

t

Commentary>>

August 31 - September 6, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

The memo

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

L

ate last Friday, as Texas prepared for what may turn out to be one of the worst natural disasters in recent years, President Donald Trump dropped a memo. This was one of several actions taken before he headed out of the White House for yet another weekend away from the Resolute Desk. He also announced the pardoning of former sheriff Joe Arpaio, a move that pushed the anger toward his memo off to the side, even as the pardon was shoved aside for hurricane news.

The memo, of course, was the president’s ban of transgender service members.

Now it was no surprise that this was coming. Trump telegraphed it a month ago, in a series of tweets where he falsely claimed he spoke with his “Generals and military experts” about disallowing transgender service members. Still, the memorandum released August 25 made this far more real and much more dangerous.

The directive is but two scant pages, and much of it is spent on background, noting that transgender people were prohibited from the military until President Barack Obama’s administration worked to change this policy. It then goes on to state the following: “In my judgment, the previous administration failed to identify a sufficient basis to conclude that terminating the Departments’ longstanding policy and practice would not hinder military effectiveness and lethality, disrupt unit cohesion, or tax military resources, and there remain meaningful concerns that further study

is needed to ensure that continues implementation of last year’s policy change would not have those negative effects.”

The rest of the memo lays out the plan to roll back transgender military service through both the secretary of defense and the secretary of homeland security, which oversees the United States Coast Guard. It will continue to disallow transgender service and cut off any DoD or DHS resources to fund “sexreassignment surgical procedures” except as deemed necessary and for a service member who has already begun treatment.

All of this is set to begin January 1, with additional steps in February and March. Oh, and it can all be resolved if the DoD and DHS provide a recommendation that Trump deems “convincing.”

I’ve written before about these questions of “military effectiveness,” “unit cohesion,” and “military resources.” They are all red herrings.

First things first: there are already transgender service members, many of whom are on active duty. Depending on the source, there are anywhere from 6,000 to 15,000 transgender people in the military right now. Our military’s “unit cohesion” and “military effectiveness” seem to be just fine, thank you.

As to resources, it will cost upward of $960 million to enact this ban, according to a study by the Palm Center, an independent think tank. Compare this to the $8.4 million the Rand Corporation claimed it costs to take care of existing transgender troops. That $8.4 million, by the way, is a small part of the $824.6 billion the U.S. will spend on the military this year. It’s

Christine Smith

also dwarfed by the $84 million the military spends on erectile dysfunction medications in an average year, according to the Military Times.

No, this policy from the Trump administration isn’t about lofty obfuscations such as “military effectiveness and lethality,” but pure bigotry.

And, for that matter, it’s not even Trump’s own bigotry that is on display here, but that of Vice President Mike Pence and his cronies.

I mention this because many like

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to “doom say” about Pence, and how an impeachment of Trump would result in a Pence presidency. While that is factually correct, it makes it seem that Pence has been doing nothing for the last several months.

This memo should make it clear that this isn’t the case.

So-called Christian leaders, such as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, have been pushing for this very action for some time and with the same talking points in hand.

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Perkins was also lobbying heavily to cut medical costs for transgender care, including helping to push a measure introduced by Representative Vicky Hartzler (R-Missouri) that failed but would have done just that.

For months, Pence has been working on transgender military policies, with Perkins as a willing supporter.

That Trump’s memo sounds far more polished and prepared than his typical tweet – and is perfectly aligned with Perkins’ and Pence’s work against transgender service members, strongly suggests their involvement. Both are also Trump allies and hold plenty of sway over our easily persuadable president.

Likewise, this does not seem like a final step, but a first. By including the U.S. Coast Guard, the door is open to removing transgender people from employment elsewhere in our federal government and barring medical care for them. It’s a very real and likely example of a slippery slope.

Meanwhile, many in the military, including Defense Secretary James Mattis, seem less enthused about the trans ban – but it’s unlikely that they will be able to come up with a convincing argument. Trump is eager to shore up his base and provide a “win” for his friends.

I don’t have a lot to say that is positive on this, but I will leave you with one statement from Mattis, speaking last week to troops stationed in Jordan. “Hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it,” he said, according to a video.

This won’t be the last memo from this president. This won’t be our last fight. Just like our soldiers, it is up to us to hold the line against discrimination and fight once more for our rights. t Gwen Smith would rather be a lover, not a fighter. You’ll find her at www.gwensmith.com.

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<< Community News

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

t

Oakland LGBT center set to open

compiled by Cynthia Laird

T

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he LGBTQ Community Center in Oakland will formally open Thursday, September 7, just before the city’s Pride parade and festival.

As recently reported in the Bay Area Reporter, co-founders Joe Hawkins and Jeff Myers plan for the space to be used for community meetings and other activities.

Hawkins and Myers, who are both gay men, are also seeking interested people to help plan services for health, trans people, families, and youth.

According to its website, the center will be open MondayFriday from noon to 5 p.m. It will also be open Fridays from 6 to 9 p.m. and Saturdays from 2 to 9 p.m. for meetings.

The men have largely funded the center with their own money, though they have applied for various grants and Oakland City Councilman Abel Guillen, who identifies as two-spirit and represents the area where the center is located, donated $1,000 from his officeholder account.

“The local LGBTQ community needs a physical space in which to gather and share resources and to support one another,” Myers said in a news release.

“Our community is desperately underserved in Oakland.”

He added that it’s important for LGBTQ people of color, youth, seniors, and transgender people to be united.

“We believe that this new center is the missing link that will facilitate that,” Myers said.

The grand opening will take place from 6 to 9 p.m. and feature an art installation and guest speakers, including Mayor Libby Schaaf. The center is located at 3207 Lakeshore Avenue, but the entrance is around the corner on Rand Avenue. For more information, visit www.oaklandlgbtqcenter.org.

Duboce Park tag sale

It’s time for people to clean out their closets and garages – the 20th annual Friends of Duboce Park tag sale will take place Saturday, September 9 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the park, located on Duboce Avenue between Steiner and Scott streets.

Courtesy Oakland LGBTQ center

The Oakland LGBTQ Community Center is located on the second floor of the building housing a T-Mobile store near Lake Merritt.

Organizers said the event is a community get-together that neighbors look forward to for both shopping and socializing. Proceeds from the event will be used for new lighting in the alley on the north side of the Harvey Milk Center for the Arts.

The merchandise at the tag sale reflects changes in demographics in the Duboce Triangle neighborhood. For example, there was no children’s or toy department at the first tag sale in 1997, but now those categories are two of the biggest. The clothing section still has the largest selection of items, organizers said.

Donations will be accepted at the rental truck that will be parked near the photo center at the park from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, September 5 through Friday, September 8 and before the event the following day. A list of items that can and cannot be donated is at https://friendsofdubocepark.org/ events-activities/tag-sale/.

Horizons forum in Oakland

The Horizons Foundation will hold a panel discussion, “Inequality and Broken Dreams in the Bay Area” Wednesday, September 6 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the East Bay Community Foundation, 353 Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland.

Organizers noted that for decades, LGBTQ people have flocked to the

Bay Area to find community and pursue their dreams. But as income inequality continues to deepen, and as the cost of living skyrockets, the already shaky situation for many people is now threatened further by the prospect of massive cuts to the social safety net. Experts will talk about what queer youth, aging members of the Stonewall generation, and LGBTQ people without financial resources can do, and how others can help.

Scheduled panelists include James W. Head, president and CEO of the East Bay Community Foundation; Mary Howe, executive director of the Homeless Youth Alliance; and Karyn Skultety, Ph.D., executive director of Openhouse. The moderator will be Gwen Walden, senior managing director of Arabella Advisors.

There is no cost to attend. To register, visit https://goo.gl/jaHSEZ, or email to events@horizonsfoundation.org.

Beach Blanket Babylon to hold auditions

Producer Jo Schuman Silver has announced auditions for male and female performers and understudies for “Steve Silver’s Beach Blanket Babylon,” the world’s longest running musical revue. Auditions will be held Wednesday, September 13 from 1 to 5 p.m. at Club Fugazi, 678 Green Street (Beach Blanket Babylon Boulevard) in San Francisco’s North Beach district.

The company is seeking male and female singers who are versatile in stage choreography and movement, strong tenors/baritones with falsetto, and strong belters. Comic timing, acting skills, and the ability to impersonate pop culture icons are a plus.

Those auditioning must be at least 18 years old.

People should bring a current resume, photo, and sheet music in their own key and marked correctly.

They should be prepared to sign one up-tempo rock or pop song and one ballad that can show range. An accompanist will be provided. People should wear shoes and clothes that they can move in.

Beach Blanket Babylon offers a competitive salary and benefits package, according to a news release.

To schedule an appointment, email a resume and headshot to darrendoutt@beachblanketbabylon.com. t

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HIV panel shares woes on health dept.

by Seth Hemmelgarn

most integrally involved feedback from the council back to the with the council who agency and use it in discussions on ome members of the San they thought contribhow to move forward, and “there cerHybrid/City Francisco-based panel uted to this,” the report tainly has not been any instruction or Hybrid/City Kid’s that helps decide how money says, but the member any conversation about changing that.” for HIV prevention and care said “someone is supPacker noted that Health Director should be spent in parts of pressing them.”

Barbara Garcia chaired the city’s Safe the Bay Area feel that the Examples of where Injection Services Task Force, which is city’s health department isn’t this problem has come set to make recommendations to the Hybrid/City Kid’s open enough to discussion Road up include safe injecBoard of Supervisors on operating Jane Philomen Cleland on some issues, according to a tion sites. services where people could useOp drugs Now Tracey Packer recentHAPPY evaluation of the body.

“I love this health in a supervised environment under a Ever y Thurs The evaluation looks department – I think harm reduction model. take 20% OFF a Road Mountain at the HIV Community Planning it’s easily one of the best in the entire Garcia has not opposed safe injecCouncil, which was created from the world, but I also feel like we’ve sort of tion, but has previously expressed merger of the former HIV Prevenlost our edge, as an HIV community, concern about their legality and cost.

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Linda Walubengo, who co-chairs ship between the council and the “I was surprised to see that anyone the HIV council, was the only memhealth department,” but the relationthought that staff were suppressed ber to respond to the B.A.R.’s intership “is a complex one.”

1065 & 1077 Valencia (Btwn 21st & 22nd St.) • SF from speaking of things,” Packer told view requests.

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Mon.- Sat. 10-6, DAY Thu.MONDAY 10-7, Sun.SEPT. 11-5 4 tionship with the health department CLOSED LABOR director Dr. Mitch Katz left in 2010.

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<< Travel

t Denver, the other gold rush city, welcomes LGBTs 12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

by Ed Walsh

A

s soon as I entered Denver’s lesbian bar, Blush and Blu, I was made to feel very welcome. Although predominantly gay women, the bar is popular with the trans community and gay men who appreciate its welcoming vibe.

“I am from Houston, Texas. I love this place, they make you feel at home,” Sandra Leal said when I was there earlier this month, before the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey hit Leal’s hometown. Echoed my barmate on the left, Alexander Hugg,

“You become a regular very super early here.”

The bar’s reception was very much congruous with the welcome I felt throughout my visit to the Mile High City, which shares a lot of similarities with San Francisco. Denver’s population also boomed following its gold rush. Gold was first discovered along the city’s South Platte River and Cherry Creek in 1858, about a decade after the California Gold Rush transformed San Francisco.

Denver has long been a magnet for LGBTs in the west who want to

EXPLORE THE GAY WORLD

be in a welcoming big city but don’t want to stray too far from home.

The closest big city to Denver is Phoenix, but that is nearly 600 miles away. Like San Francisco, Denver is both a city and a county. It has a population of more than 680,000 in the city, with nearly 3 million in the Denver Metro area, or less than half the population of the Bay Area.

Denver also has a very noticeable homeless problem. But the city is a little less tolerant. You won’t see many tents or makeshift shacks like there are in San Francisco, but you will see a lot of homeless people camping out in the streets and parks throughout the city. They also tend to gravitate to the city’s transit system in the evening.

Denver attracts people who like to get outside. The city boasts more than 200 parks covering nearly 6,000 acres and over 850 miles of jogging, biking, and walking trails.

One of the best ways to get the lay of the land is through a walking tour of the city’s historical downtown, where the city began after the gold rush first brought people from all over the world. An excellent – and free – two and a half hour walking tour begins every day at 10 a.m. at the Veteran’s Memorial, across from the Colorado State Capitol (www. denverfreewalkingtours.com).

From November to April, the tour is only on Saturdays and Sundays.

While the walking tour curtails its schedule for the winter, the cooler weather stops few outdoor activities in the city. Most golf courses and outdoor cafes stay open yearround. Snow usually melts in a day or two after a storm, quickly clearing bike lanes and walking trails. By the way, it’s not as cold in Denver as you might think. The average high temperature in January is about 45 degrees. It is not uncommon for it to reach 60 degrees in the winter.

Ed Walsh

Capitol Hill Mansion Bed & Breakfast owner Carl Schmidt stands outside his establishment.

Ed Walsh

Bartender Sherrie Murray, left, joins bartender Candace Edington, and co-owner and Edington’s girlfriend, S.J. Paye at the Blush and Blu lesbian bar in Denver.

A sculpture of a horse on a chair greets visitors or passersby outside the Denver Public Library.

AARP also offers free walking tours. Check its website for details (http://states.aarp.org/122079-2sc-co-wp-health/). Through the Geotourist app, you can also take one of AARP’s city tours anytime.

That app offers a wonderful 10-stop audio walking tour that chronicles LGBT history in Denver. It will also direct you to a final stop at AARP’s offices, where you can pick up a little gift.

in the History Colorado Center (http://www.historycolorado. org/) as well as the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center (http://bawmhc.org/).

Denver is big on outdoor sculptures and that is most evident downtown in the expansive plaza in front of the city’s art museum. The aforementioned History Colorado Center is a great primer on the state’s pioneer past and its survival through the Dust Bowl and Great Depression era. Just across the plaza from the art museum is the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab, or CELL (http://www.thecell.org/). It is a sobering look at the challenges faced in the fight against terrorism and helps educate the public on the myths about terrorism and what everyone can do to be more alert for suspicious activity.

Denver’s most prominent landmark is the Colorado State Capitol Building (https://www.colorado. gov/capitol), with its signature gold-plated dome. The obligatory selfie is on the 15th step leading to the entrance to the building. The inscription “One Mile Above Sea Level” marks the spot, but in 2003, students from the Metropolitan State College of Denver discovered the mile-high point was actually on the 13th step and a brass marker was installed there. There is another brass marker on the 18th step after students in 1969 falsely measured that as the mile point. Just remember, the lowest marker is the correct one, but 15th step is the most photogenic.

The city’s largest museum, Denver Museum of Nature and Science (http://www.dmns.org/), is in its biggest park, City Park, 2.5 miles from the Capitol. The museum is on a slight hill overlooking the park and offers the best views of the city

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Ed Walsh

The LGBT audio tour starts near Cheesman Park, where gay men were known to frequent since the early 1900s. The park was the scene of a 1974 “Gay-In” and was the staging ground for the city’s first Pride parade in 1976. It hosted the first AIDS walk in the city in 1987 and has been a focal point for LGBT events ever since.

The first stop on the tour is Capitol Hill United Neighbors, which was founded in 1969, at first to focus on issues related to traffic through the neighborhood, but later helped organize to overturn a city law that banned unrelated people from living together.

The Capitol Hill neighborhood is one of the city’s most desirable now but was once run down and known for its cheap housing and oftenunsafe streets. The adjacent Uptown neighborhood has also become very gay-popular.

Denver has a rich African-American history that helped shape the city’s earliest days. Escaped slave Barney Ford quickly became one of Colorado’s most successful businessmen in the 1860s. He built the city’s largest hotel at the time and amassed a virtual real estate empire.

He was dubbed the “Black Baron of Colorado” and was instrumental in getting the laws of the state changed to allow blacks the right to vote in 1870. That history is not lost in present-day Denver. It’s chronicled

See page 15 >>

Sports>>

t Going cold turkey on football

August 31 - September 6, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 13

by Roger Brigham

lesbian offensive assistant coach Katie Sowers of the his year, I’m going cold San Francisco 49ers this year. turkey on football. Care They are a decade or two beto join me? hind other leagues in starting It’s not like I reached this to offer LGBT Pride games. decision out of the blue. I’ve They have spent years creating loved football since I was a merchandize to benefit breast grade schooler playing with cancer awareness and research. other kids, up to college age (Of course, the league in the back yard, washing my only turns over pennies on bloody mouth out with warm the dollar for actual research, saltwater after spending the but the important thing is evening running into players’ people feel good about supknees. porting a good cause and – I thought every American oh, look: there’s football!) kid did that. Soccer wasn’t But then crap happens like much of an option for kids every single freaking team deof my baby boomer generaciding that a quarterback who tion in the Midwest, nobody took his team to the Super had a basketball hoop in our Bowl and damn near won neighborhood, and running More and more fans are wearing T-shirts and the thing is unemployable was something you did to get carrying signs calling for a boycott of the NFL because as a proud Africanaway from authorities rather because of safety and political concerns.

American athlete he thought than something you did for it might be more important fun. for all of us to tackle violent more and more about how little we I covered a lot of football as institutionalized racism in know about the long term effects of an adult when I became a sportswritour midst rather than standing for innumerable and unavoidable head er. College games, NFL games, playa flag and an anthem, impatient for injuries – and how little we truly unoffs, and Super Bowls. Every Saturday another game to begin. Or a league dederstand them. and Sunday from preseason through cides it’s OK for a team to have a name A recent study published in the postseason I was out there spinning that is nothing more than a demeaning Journal of the American Medical Asstories for the reading pleasure of milracial slur. sociation showed that degenerative lions of fans who had already seen the I hear one fan or football advocate brain disease – so far undetectable in games but still wanted more. after another laud the sport for values living brains although the symptoms It seemed you could never get it teaches. That may be so, but there can be severe and life altering – were enough football. Fans wanted to is not one damn value it teaches that found in 110 out of 111 donated NFL know about practices and groin cannot be learned in other, often cadavers. Three of 14 former high sprains. They wanted to know all more egalitarian and less damaging, school players, who had never played about personnel negotiations and sports. And the values it purports to again, were found to suffer from contract signings. They wanted to teach are now obscured by the values chronic traumatic encephalopknow betting lines. Even then it has ignored, discarded, or killed. athy, or CTE. Same with 48 they couldn’t get enough, so Why are football rosters so huge of 53 players who stopped they started playing fantasy compared with other team sports, and after college. football and expected dewhy are the games so spread apart? It’s Those numbers are tailed analyses on the value because as presently constituted, the somewhat skewed because of real players on makesport not only anticipates the possibility the bodies were donated believe teams. of severe injuries, it virtually counts on by families already susBut the more I covered it and relies on creating dozens of more pecting brain disease. football, the more trouless severe injuries every single game.

So the actual percentages bled I became.

If a child were this out of control, you’d may dip a tad if we could I saw ex-players who give him a timeout. That’s what football get a more accurate tally, had trouble walking, were needs: a long, long, long timeout. but really: how far would the casualin constant pain, and whose thoughts If it cared about pro players, or the ties have to go to make them acceptseemed a tad scrambled at times. I players it is counting on to come out able – collateral loss to provide you saw active players suddenly balloon of college next year to join the maywith three hours of transient pleasure in size between college and the pros hem, the NFL would shut down for in your safe lives?

– over the next few years they’d una year. Hell, give us flag football for a In my view, football cheers, cajoles, dergo bizarre changes to their skeletal year or so while it figures out how to cons, and pays athletes into playing, structures and lose their hair as they play a version of football that does not promising them glory they will find surreptitiously took steroids to keep involve humans smashing into each rather than warning them of the up with the competition. other over and over and over again to tragedies they almost invariably will I saw one university after another determine a victor. A collision should suffer. It demands its minions endure play shell games with other sports, cutbe a rare accident – not an unavoidworking conditions that the Occuting back here and doing away comable tactic on every play. pational Safety and Health Adminispletely there, as they made one boneYou’re not paying to watch a beautration would have shut down years headed decision after another in at least tiful game when you sit down in a ago – if anybody really cared. It asks a pretense of meeting Title IX standards football stadium or plop your butt on its patrons to blind themselves to the while maintaining football rosters at the sofa for a smash mouth game of long-term effects of the carnage they sizes that dwarfed all other sports and Us vs. Them. are paying to see. choked athlete opportunities.

You’re paying for mayhem. You’re Along the way it occasionally offers It is a sport built on an excess of expaying to watch the creation of cripus sweet temptations, trying to humancesses, seemingly eclipsing all others pling head traumas that will haunt ize its image and retain or win back our in its path. players’ families a decade or so down affection or addiction. The NFL has Three decades ago I did research the road. shown us how lovable and inclusive it that showed that between half a dozen Me? I’m taking my time back. I’m can be in the past couple of years, getand two-dozen players were getting seeing friends, talking with family, ting its first two female assistant coaches killed or catastrophically crippled enjoying life, and helping others. Anyin its history: Buffalo Bills quality every year. Now we hear less and thing but football. control coach Kathryn Smith last year, less about those injuries and learn Trust me: it’s far more rewarding.t

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Obituaries >> Robert Elmer Scheid Jr. June 20, 1955 – August 12, 2017 Robert Elmer Scheid Jr. died August 12, 2017. He was 62.

He was born June 20, 1955, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He graduated valedictorian from Shaler Area High School in 1973. He graduated with honors from Carnegie Mellon University in 1977.

He earned his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1982. After working for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for several years he attended UCLA Law School and received his J.D. in 1994. He began his law career with the firm Pillsbury Winthrop in its D.C. offices.

Subsequent law firms included Morrison and Foerster, Duane Morris, and Schwegman, Lundberg & Woessner.

Rob was very active, frequently going to the gym or running. He often attended performances at the American Conservatory Theatre and the San Francisco Opera.

He enjoyed wine and food, checking out new restaurants, and relished attending food and wine events in San Francisco, Sonoma County, and Anderson Valley.

Rob had a sly side and always looked forward to his annual visit to Las Vegas where he put his nimble mind and prodigious math skills to practical use to the detriment of the “house.”

Rob was preceded in death by his parents, Robert Elmer and Helen Burkovic Scheid.

He is survived by his brother Ed Scheid of Pittsburgh; his partner of 15 years, Todd H. Charles of San Francisco; an aunt, Stella Scheid; several cousins; and many friends.

A Mass of Christian burial was held

August 26 at Old St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco. Memorials may be sent to the St. Anthony Foundation, 150 Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102.

Kenneth J. Morhart June 3, 1936 – July 14, 2017 Kenneth J. Morhart died at home July 14, 2017. The three greatest loves in Ken’s life were his late partner, Jim Gulino, New York City, and opera. A Requiem Mass will be held at Most Holy Redeemer, 100 Diamond Street, San Francisco, CA 94114 on Saturday, September 16 at 10 a.m.

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<< Community News

14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

<<

Right-wing protests

<<

New school year

From page 1

Despite living in such an LGBTfriendly household, the coming out process was so difficult for her son that he had to be hospitalized, she said.

Ashjian should “absolutely” resign or be removed from office, said Stokes, who added that the board president has also reportedly made derogatory comments about other minorities.

“I don’t think someone with so many prejudices that are openly stated and then again defended” is the “right person to have making choices for our children,” she said.

Fresno Unified School District Superintended Bob Nelson “is unable to comment further” on the controversy surrounding Ashjian, said district spokeswoman Jessica

<<

Out in the World

From page 5

The vote has been criticized for what many call unnecessary expense to taxpayers at $96 million when Parliament could avoid a vote by passing same-sex marriage legislation.

<<

marcher Elizabeth Houseman, 53, told the B.A.R., referring to Trump’s much-criticized response to Charlottesville, where he first said “many sides” and later said “both sides” contributed to the unrest there. “I can’t be silent while he does that.

I’m happy to see so many people here – it’s wonderful. I hope we’re sending a message.”

George Woyames, a 73-yearold gay man, was marching with the San Francisco Labor Council.

“Because it’s our lives, our rights,” he said. “If we let the hate and the Nazi flag fly again, then there go our rights. When I saw what happened in Charlottesville, that’s when I said no.”

Woyames noted the millions of people who died in World War II concentration camps at the hands of the Nazis. “Now we have a president who openly encourages every kind of racism and prejudice,” he said.

“We are all at risk.”

Kristian Martinez, 42, who is also gay, said he was “disappointed” with the Trump presidency.

“It’s one thing after another,” he said. “We’re unified against him – it makes me feel good to see this.”

For her part, Mahogany was thrilled by the turnout.

“There are many ways to protest and show solidarity,” she told the B.A.R. “We need all of them. I’m really excited to be hosting this event with Juanita that allows people the option of actively participating in a demonstration that does not engage the white supremacists and further their agenda.”

Others urged the community to continue speaking out.

“More than ever people need to stand up and speak out,” said Manny Sanchez, who works with More! “As a gay Latino man I know that silence equals death and consent. The louder our voices the more powerful we are.”

For her part, More! was pleased at how the rally turned out.

“I’m happy about all the protests,” More! said. “We’re all angry about the same things: hate and bigotry.

This event is my way of expressing love, power and diversity.”

The marchers reached Civic Center Plaza around 2:30 p.m., where they joined an already-in-progress rally that remained peaceful. According to a San Francisco Police Department news release, only one person was arrested Saturday for public intoxication.

Other marchers, including many LGBTQs, went to Alamo Square Park in anticipation of the Patriot Prayer group’s news conference, but Gibson and his supporters never showed up.

Police closed the park but those who came to protest did so.

Longtime queer activist Tommi Avicolli Mecca was one of those at the park and told the B.A.R. in an email that the “queer resistance had huge rainbow banners that made us very visible.”

An anti-Marxist rally Sunday in Berkeley turned violent at times, with anti-fascists clashing with Trump supporters and police. A peaceful counterdemonstration nearby seemed to go well, according to social media posts. t

Peres Baird, but after Ashjian’s initial comments to the Bee, Nelson stated, “Fresno Unified firmly believes that students and staff perform best in an environment where tolerance, diversity, and inclusiveness are practiced and valued.”

In a recent news conference, Nelson outlined several steps to ensuring LGBT students’ safety, including supporting gay-straight alliances in schools and cultural competency training, and exploring resurrecting a hotline people could call for help.

Since Ashjian is an elected official, it would take a recall to remove him if he doesn’t step down.

Fresno County Clerk Brandi Orth said in response to emailed questions that 10 registered voters in Ashjian’s electoral district would need to file a Notice of Intent to Recall, and Ashjian would have seven days to respond.

After that, a petition could be

started. Ashjian’s opponents would need to submit signatures from 20 percent of the approximately 35,700 registered voters in Ashjian’s district – or about 7,100 people – to be valid. If that threshold were met, “then the county elections official would certify the petition to the school board,” said Orth. “Typically the school board calls the election.”

The process usually takes about four to six months, she said, and “the school board is responsible to pay for all election costs related to this effort.”

Problems have been reported in other districts as well. In a recent email blast, the Stonewall Democrats of Greater Sacramento said that Natomas Unified School District board trustee Micah Grant was objecting “to teachers calling trans youth by their preferred pronouns”

and intended “to speak against the approval of the district’s non-discrimination policy for this reason.”

At the board’s August 23 meeting, Grant, who declined an interview request, proved the Stonewall club right.

He said that the policy was a “new area of law,” and, “We want to prevent harassment, but we want to prevent harassment of everyone,” including people who may object because of their religious beliefs.

Another board member responded, “The law is clear. ... We should recognize people as who they are.”

There was also controversy in Rocklin, which is near Sacramento.

According to the conservative California Family Council’s Greg Burt, a student in kindergarten “announced his new gender identity to his class in a way that confused and scared some of his classmates.”

Staff at the school – Rocklin

Academy Gateway – didn’t respond to a request for comment.

On Tuesday, Equality California, the statewide LGBT lobbying group, issued a statement applauding school officials for their support of the kindergarten student following the reading of a book geared toward that age group by trans teen and reality TV star Jazz Jennings.

“We commend the teacher in question, Rocklin Academy, and Rocklin Unified School District officials for working to make sure all students are safe, supported, and have a welcoming place to learn,” EQCA Executive Director Rick Zbur said in the news release. “It’s not just the right thing to do; it’s what state law requires.”

Zbur accused right-wing opponents of “manufacturing” a controversy and spreading “misinformation about the school and about transgender people in general.” t

Canada to issue ‘third gender’ passports

to self-identify an unspecified gender on government issued identification, including passports.

“By introducing an ‘X’ gender designation in our government-issued documents, we are taking an important step toward advancing equality for all Canadians regardless of gender identity or expression,” Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said in a

statement, reported CBC News.

The law requires a sex designation on travel documents under the International Civil Aviation Organization rules.

“X” is one of three sex markers allowed.

Gender variant Canadians said that they were excited to be able to change their sex marker on their IDs. “I’m thrilled, it’s a step forward for our society. It’s progress,” Laura Budd,

who plans to switch her gender marker to an ‘X’ soon, told CBC News.

The Canadian government warned that travelers with the “X” marker traveling to non-gender-conforming friendly countries should be aware of advisories and laws in the destination country.

Canada joins Australia, India, Nepal, New Zealand, and Pakistan issuing gender-neutral passports.t

doesn’t usually do.

However, she did say the council is needed to “make sure we are representing the needs of the people we are serving. We exist to establish priority for the services we

provide” and ensure “consumers are well-supported with the funding that is allocated. Every meeting that we have is quite productive because it’s an opportunity for us to put our heads together to

figure out how we can continue” meeting goals.

Packer said her division and the health department’s HIV Health Services unit paid for the evaluation. Facente Consulting prepared

the report, which is available at https://goo.gl/obtt5Q. t

From page 1

we have given way too much energy and power to a small fringe group of losers. Yes, there are small pockets of Nazis that exist. And they did show up in Virginia. But from the posts I’m reading people are projecting large groups of roving Nazis taking over San Francisco. They became a brain worm, creating a fear vortex.

That said, the march was fabulous.

And not a Nazi to be seen. Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the streets.”

People were indeed dancing joyfully as they marched, with classic tunes such as Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long,” Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walking” and Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” blaring over loudspeakers.

As the Castro marches made their way toward Civic Center, another contingent merged in from Dolores Street. Across the street from the LGBT Community Center, the It’s Tops coffee shop displayed two rainbow flags, one with the traditional six colors, the other with black and brown colors added to represent people of color.

The march followed a one-hour rally at Harvey Milk Plaza, where hundreds had gathered – the crowd spilled past the Castro Theatre. Organized by drag icon Juanita More!, the rally’s speaker’s included More!, Honey Mahogany, interim LGBT center Executive Director Roberto Ordeñana, and Rabbi Katie Mizrahi, among many others.

The speakers called for unity, for an end to the Trump presidency, and for community members to support the trans community – Trump had issued a directive late Friday spelling out his July tweet banning transgender people from military service.

[See story, page 8.]

“I’m here to reclaim prayer, which has been co-opted by the alt-right,” said Mizrahi, speaking from the podium.

There were also calls to support undocumented immigrants, an end to Islamaphobia, and to never back down in the fight for full LGBT equality.

“We stand against hate, violence, anti-immigrant and anti-black

HIV panel

From page 10

unless she could review the questions in advance, which the B.A.R.

t

Jane Philomen Cleland

Anti-hate demonstrators also held a march in Berkeley Sunday, in a counterprotest to the anti-Marxism rally.

Jane Philomen Cleland

Joey Gibson, center, the main organizer of the canceled Patriot Prayer rally in San Francisco, showed up Sunday in Berkeley, where he was escorted by police.

policies, and all forms of oppression,” said Ordeñana as the crowd cheered. “We are here to ensure that we are our most fabulous selves – we will not tolerate hate speech – we come together with love and perseverance.”

Those who attended the rally were critical of the president.

“It was an immensely horrible experience to see the president defend Nazis and white supremacists,”

Gender non-conforming Canadians will be able to choose to identify as “X” on their passports starting Thursday (August 31).

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada will introduce an interim measure that will allow people

Kelly Sullivan

In Berkeley, longtime resident John W Taylor, right, speaks with a Donald Trump supporter during a sometimes-tense anti-Marxism rally.

Other school controversies

t <<

Community News

Denver

From page 12

skyline. It includes an Imax theater, planetarium, and a space for special exhibitions. City Park is 314 acres, or about a third of the size of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The centerpiece of the park is a pond where you can rent paddleboats.

Bike paths and walking trails surround it.

The 16th Street Mall is a 1.25-mile pedestrian promenade in the heart of downtown. It is lined with outdoor cafes, restaurants, and shops. A free electric bus shuttle runs up and down the mall, so you can shop till you drop without killing your feet.

The Molly Brown House (https:// mollybrown.org/) is a good example of one of Capitol Hill’s classic mansions, where the elite of the 1800s called home. Margaret “Molly” Brown was immortalized in the 1964 Debbie Reynolds film, “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”, and more than three decades later

by Kathy Bates in 1997’s “Titanic.”

Besides being a Titanic survivor, Brown’s history of philanthropy and social activism is recounted in the public tours that are given of her home. The house was sold after Brown’s death in 1932, during the midst of the Depression. A group of citizens in the 1970s was able to save it from being torn down and eventually restored it to the way it looked in its heyday.

Nightlife

The country-western themed Charlie’s (http://www.charliesdenver.com/) is one of Denver’s oldest gay bars; it celebrated its 36th anniversary in June. Charlie’s is at 900 E. Colfax Avenue and among its more popular nights are Thursdays, with its drink specials from 7 p.m. on. Neon parties are held on Fridays. You can get halfpriced drinks if you go shirtless on Saturdays. Sundays packs ‘em in from 4 to 8 p.m. for three drinks for one. Just plan to take Uber or Lyft back to your hotel if you partake.

The X bar (http://www.xbardenver.com/) is five blocks from Charlie’s at 629 E Colfax and has a modern upscale feel. It includes an expansive outdoor patio that is very popular in the summer.

The aforementioned Blush and Blu (http://blushbludenver.com/) is six blocks east of Charlie’s, at 1526 E. Colfax. While other lesbian bars are struggling around the country, Blush and Blu is going strong.

It operated for over a decade as tHERe Coffee Bar and Lounge until it changed names and ownership in 2012. It includes a space for live performances, including a comedy night, and is a place for local talent to see and be seen.

Trade (https://m.facebook.com/ Tradedenver/) opened about a year ago at 425 Santa Fe Drive, near the city’s Santa Fe Arts District. It draws a diverse crowd but is popular with the leather and bear communities.

Thursday is underwear night. You can get the party started early there on Saturdays with bottomless $8 beers from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Wrangler (http://denverwrangler. com/), at 3090 Downing Street, is the city’s bear bar known for its legendary Sunday beer bust, frozen specialty drinks and Saturday night black light underwear party. Wrangler has been drawing a crowd for over 16 years. The attached Hungry Bear Kitchens is a perfect place for a late night snack.

The city’s biggest and oldest LGBT-focused nightclub is Tracks (http://www.tracksdenver.com/), open Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 3500 Walnut Street.

Thursday nights is 18 and older night. The first Friday of every month at Tracks boasts that it is the largest monthly women’s party, with over 1,500 lesbians who pack

the club’s three rooms. First Fridays has been going strong since 2003.

By the way, for lesbian-specific events, including First Fridays, check out the Babes Around Denver website: http://www.babesaroundenver.com/.

The city’s historic Daniels & Fisher Tower in the heart of the 16th Street Mall is host to the Clocktower Cabaret (http://www.clocktowercabaret.com/), acclaimed for its drag shows and live entertainment.

Denver has a stripper bar, Boyztown, at 117 Broadway Street, and a couple of gay bathhouses: Compound Basix at 145 N. Broadway and the Denver Swim Club at 6923 E. Colfax, known for its indoor and outdoor pools.

Accommodations

Denver has no exclusively gay hotels, but most of the hotels in the downtown and Capitol Hill areas are very gay-popular. If you are not renting a car, it’s a good idea to stay downtown or in Capitol Hill, where you can easily walk to a number of museums, historical buildings, and wide variety of restaurants. Denver is popular with visitors year-round, so you won’t see a wide swing in hotel prices. But post-Labor Day and the early fall is a good time to visit if you want to avoid the crowds.

Kids are back in school and it’s too early for ski season.

I had the pleasure of staying at the gay-owned Capitol Hill Mansion Bed and Breakfast (http://www.capitolhillmansion.com/). The historical mansion was built in 1891. Its current owner, Carl Schmidt, bought it 17 years ago and painstakingly converted the building to an eight-unit inn that deservedly has a reputation for being one of the state’s finest B&Bs. Schmidt lives on the property and gets up every day at 4:30 a.m. to cook a unique and ever-changing gourmet breakfast for his guests. His daughter, Bailey, assists him. She and her father go out of their way to make everyone feel like family.

Guest parking is free.

Denver’s tourism office’s official website lists a good variety of hotel choices in every budget range. It also has a section dedicated to LGBT visitors: https://www.denver. org/about-denver/lgbt/.

Getting there and around

Denver is a painless 2.5-hour flight from the Bay Area. The city’s airport is the nation’s largest, covering 53 square miles. You could fit all of the city of San Francisco in it and still have four square miles to spare. It is 26 miles from downtown, but for $9, you can take a train right from the terminal to Union Station, in the heart of downtown. You can use that same ticket for a free transfer to any of the city’s connecting bus or light rail streetcar lines.

It’s easy to get around to the city’s major sights without a car. By the way, most hotels in the downtown and Capitol Hill area charge to park, and you will have to pay to park at the downtown area venues anyway. Oneway transit fares are $2.60 but you can buy a day pass for $5.20.

Denver boasts an abundance of bike lanes. Like San Francisco, it has a bike-sharing system. It’s called BCycle (https://denver.bcycle.com/) and costs $9 for a 24-hour pass, but you have to return the bike to a station within 30 minutes. You can rent a bike for the whole day for $35. It has a built-in cable bike lock so you can leave it anywhere and take your time as you tour around. On my trip this month, I tried to return the bike to a station within 30 minutes but found it very challenging even with B-Cycle’s app. I still got stuck with $30 in overtime fees over two days of using them.

If I had to do it over again, I would have paid the $35 flat fee. That’s about how much it would cost to rent a car, but you will be spared the hassle of parking, and Denver’s dedicated bike lanes and the city’s flat terrain make cycling a pleasure in the city. t

August 31 - September 6, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 15

Legal Notices>> ------------------------------------------ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-553227

In the matter of the application of: RENALDO POULIN, 524 TARAVAL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner RENALDO POULIN, is requesting that the name RENALDO POULIN, be changed to RENALDO JOSEPH PAULIN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 12th of September 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037707800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: L AND O BAGEL, 325 MASON ST #10, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed L AND O BAGELS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/02/17.

AUGUST 10, 17, 24, 31, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037705700

AUGUST 10, 17, 24, 31, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037713700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HTL 587, 587 EDDY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed 587 EDDY ST. LLC. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/01/17.

AUGUST 10, 17, 24, 31, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037704100

AUGUST 10, 17, 24, 31, 2017 SUMMONS SAN FRANCISCO SUPERIOR COURT NOTICE TO DEFENDANT: PATRICIA RAMPE (AKA TRICIA RAMPE), AN INDIVIDUAL; MICHAEL BAKER, AN INDIVIDUAL; GETARTUP, INC., A DELAWARE CORPORATION; AND DOES 1 THROUGH 20, INCLUSIVE. YOU ARE BEING SUED BY PLAINTIFF: JENNIFER ODELL, AN INDIVIDUAL. CASE NO. CGC-15-546031

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ASIAN PACIFIC TRAVEL, 833 MARKET ST #307, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALFRED NATIVIDAD. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/23/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/07/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: YOGA MAYU, 4159 B. 24TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GIZELLA DONALD. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/05/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/31/17.

AUGUST 10, 17, 24, 31, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037702400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FUZION WORKSHOP, 751 WEBSTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RICARDO GONZALEZ RUIZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/20/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/28/17.

AUGUST 10, 17, 24, 31, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037709900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LEVEL UP BOOKS, 28 STEINER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JAMES DONALD LENZEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/03/17.

AUGUST 10, 17, 24, 31, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037709800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: 4TH LEVEL INDIE, LLC, 28 STEINER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed 4TH LEVEL INDIE LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/07/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/03/17.

AUGUST 10, 17, 24, 31, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037681700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NUESTRA ESPERANZA CLEANING SERVICE, 211 BRAZIL AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed ANA PATRICIA ALFARO NOLASCO & BEATRIZ GARDUNO FLORES. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/07/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/14/17.

AUGUST 10, 17, 24, 31, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037682900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HAN PEDIATRIC DENTISTRY, 1530 NORIEGA ST, FL 1, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed JAMES K. HAN, D.D.S. INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/01/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/17/17.

AUGUST 10, 17, 24, 31, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037694500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TABOR CLEANING SERVICES, 2945 THIRD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BCG CLEANING INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/21/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/21/17.

AUGUST 10, 17, 24, 31, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037704700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DASCO SECURITIES, 2945 THIRD ST, SUITE C, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed DASCO SECURITIES INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/31/17.

AUGUST 10, 17, 24, 31, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037702000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DENTAL IMPLANT AND ORAL SURGERY OF SAN FRANCISCO, 2001 UNION ST, SUITE 280, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SONG DENTAL PRACTICE, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/24/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/28/17.

AUGUST 10, 17, 24, 31, 2017

Notice: You have been sued. The court may decide against you without your being heard unless you respond within 30 days. Read the information below.

You have 30 CALENDAR DAYS after this summons and legal papers are served on you to file a written response at this court and have a copy served on the plaintiff. A letter or phone call will not protect you. Your written response must be in proper legal form if you want the court to hear your case. There may be a court form that you can use for your response. You can find these court forms and more information at the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp) your county law library, or the courthouse nearest you. If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the court clerk for a fee waiver form. If you do not file your response on time, you may lose the case by default, and your wages, money, and property may be taken without further warning from the court. There are other legal requirements. You may want to call an attorney right away. If you do not know an attorney, you may want to call an attorney referral service. If you cannot afford an attorney, you may be eligible for free legal services from a nonprofit legal services program. You can locate these nonprofit groups at the California Legal Services Web site (www.lawhelpcalifornia. org), the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp), or by contacting your local court or county bar association. NOTE: The court has a statutory lien for waived fees and costs on any settlement or arbitration award of $10,000 or more in a civil case. The court’s lien must be paid before the court will dismiss the case.

The name and address of the court is: San Francisco Superior Court, 400 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA 94102-4515.

The name, address, and telephone number of the plaintiff’s attorney, or plaintiff without an attorney, is:

ANDY I. CHEN, 2310 HOMESTEAD ROAD, SUITE C1 #429, LOS ALTOS, CA 94024-7302; (650) 735 -2436.

Date: May 28, 2015; Clerk, by DE LA VEGANAVARRO, ROSEALY, Deputy.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF JOHN B. GARDINER, IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-17-301116

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of JOHN B. GARDINER, A Petition for Probate has been filed

by CHARLES C. GARDINER in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that CHARLES C. GARDINER 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: September 06, 2017, 9:00 A.M., 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 later 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: Margaret M. Farley (113118), Farley Law Offices, 165 No. Redwood Drive, Ste 285, San Rafael, CA 94903; Ph. (415) 492-8690.

AUG 17, 24, 31, 2017 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR

CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-553225

In the matter of the application of: CHAYNE LOWELL LYNSKEY, 2306 MARKET ST #408, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner CHAYNE LOWELL LYNSKEY, is requesting that the name CHAYNE LOWELL LYNSKEY, be changed to PIPER ANGELIQUE LIND. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 26th of September 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037720700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SILENT JAMES, 1688 PINE ST, UNIT E101, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JAMES LAKE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/10/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/11/17.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037719900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DENISE BRADLEY CONSULTING, 355 1ST ST, SUITE S2702, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DENISE BRADLEY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/10/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/10/17.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037720300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CARPE VINO NAPA, 627 PERALTA AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOSE FELIX SANDOVAL JR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/11/17.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037707200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RDC ENTERPRISES; DINGO DUDS; ELITE LEGAL SUPPORT SERVICES, 1222 HARRISON ST, APT 2219, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RONALD HERMENAU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/01/17.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037710700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WELL BEINGS NUTRITION, 2400 GREENWICH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed HALEY K. MANNIX. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/15/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/04/17.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037713900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BRANDON PRUETT DESIGN, 265 S. VAN NESS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BRANDON TODD PRUETT. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/07/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/07/17.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037710200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: YLS.2P CLEANING SERVICE, 2895 SAN BRUNO AVE, #3A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YULISSA ASTRID PEREZ Y PEREZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/03/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/03/17.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037715800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PINK FACET, 501 41ST AVE #1, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BONNIE CHEUNG SARKISSIAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/08/17.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037718200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KEY AND QUILL, 3225 FOLSOM ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed EDI BERTON & JENNIFER KANOUSE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/10/17.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037720800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: 452 BARTLETT APTS, 452 BARTLETT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed RODNEY CHINN, KWM TRUST TRUSTEE & KONG WONG MING. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/68. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/11/17.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017

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FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037731300

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037728500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BAY AREA DENTAL CARE, 2460 MISSION ST #215, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed YANG DDS, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/19/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/21/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: REVANATE, 1029 GEARY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CHRISTOPHER MATOS DUARTE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/21/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/21/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DIAMOND HEIGHTS CONSULTING, 78 BERKELEY WAY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MORGAN HO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/17/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/17/17.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037718700

AUG 24, 31, SEPT 07, 14, 2017 AMENDED SUMMONS – SERVICE BY PUBLICATION [CCP § 751.05] - 20 ROMOLO I7, LP, A DELAWARE LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, PLAINTIFF, V. ALL PERSONS CLAIMING ANY LEGAL OF EQUITABLE RIGHT, TITLE, ESTATE, LIEN OR INTEREST IN THE PROPERTY COMMONLY KNOWN AS 20 ROMOLO PLACE, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, MORE PARTICULAR DESCRIBED IN THE COMPLAINT ADVERSE TO PLAINTIFF’S TITLE OR ANY CLOUD ON PLAINTIFF’S TITLE THERETO; AND DOES 1 THROUGH 20, DEFENDANTS. FILE CGC-17-560709

AUG 24, 31, SEPT 07, 14, 2017 ICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037723800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MISSION STREET SPORTS BAR SF; MISSION STREET SPORTS BAR; MISSION SPORTS BAR; MSB; MSSBSF: 2565 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed QUALIA ENTERTAINMENT, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/01/17.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/10/17.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037691700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK DENTAL, 1719 POWELL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SABA KHANDANI D.D.S. INCORPORATED (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/18/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/20/17.

AUG 17, 24, 31, SEPT 07, 2017 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-553272

In the matter of the application of: WILLIAM JIMMY PURCELL, 76 FRANCIS ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner WILLIAM JIMMY PURCELL, is requesting that the name WILLIAM JIMMY PURCELL, be changed to WILLIAM JAYMES JACKSON-WYATT. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept.

514, Room 514 on the 24th of October 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

AUG 24, 31, SEPT 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037726300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HANDS FREE MOBILE BAGGAGE HOLDING SERVICE, 314 PERKINS ST APT 305, OAKLAND, CA 94610. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARANATHA KEBEDE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/15/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/15/17.

AUG 24, 31, SEPT 07, 14, 2017

The people of the State of California, to all persons claiming any interest in, or lien upon, the real property herein described, or any part thereof, defendants, greeting: You are hereby required to appear and answer the complaint of 20 ROMOLO I7, L.P, A Delaware limited partnership, plaintiff, filed with the clerk of the above-entitled court and county, within three months after the first publication of this summons, and to set forth what interest or lien, if any, you have in or upon that certain real property or any part thereof, situated in the City and County of San Francisco, State of California, particularly described as follows: THE LAND REFERRED TO HEREIN BELOW IS SITUATED IN THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, STATE OF CALIFORNIA AND IS DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: COMMENCING AT THE POINT OF INTERSECTION OF THE SOUTHERLY LINE OF FRESNO STREET AND THE EASTERLY LINE OF ROMOLO PLACE, RUNNING THENCE EASTERLY AND ALONG SAID LINE OF FRESNO STREET 71 FEET 6 INCHES; THENCE AT A RIGHT ANGLE SOUTHERLY 57 FEET 6 INCHES; THENCE AT A RIGHT ANGLE WESTERLY 71 FEET 6 INCHES TO THE EASTERLY LINE OF ROMOLO PLACE; THENCE ATA RIGHT ANGLE NORTHERLY ALONG SAID LINE OF ROMOLO PLACE 57 FEET 6 INCHES TO THE POINT OF COMMENCEMENT. BEING PART OF 50 VARA BLOCK 86.

APN/Parcel ID(s): Lot 023, Block 0145 And you are hereby notified that, unless you so appear and answer, the plaintiff will apply to the court for the relief demanded in the complaint, to wit: quiet title to the Property consistent with the legal description above, against all adverse claims of all claimants, known and unknown, as of the date the Complaint in this case was filed.

Witness my hand and the seal of said court, Date: Aug 16, 2017, Clerk, by Anna L. Torres, Clerk Of The Court.

Lubin Olson & Niewiadomski LLP, 600 Montgomery St. 14th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94111; (415) 981-0550.

AUG 24, 31, SEPT 07, 14, 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2017

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MESSY LENS, 3545 24TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed HEATHER HORTER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/31/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/14/17.

AUG 24, 31, SEPT 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037728400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JOHN AAROE GROUP, 1699 VAN NESS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PACIFIC UNION INTERNATIONAL, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/17/17.

AUG 24, 31, SEPT 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037727700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CENTRAL CITY AUTO BODY & PAINT; DELTA DETAILING; GOLDEN STATE AUTO SALES, 3215 3RD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed FRED & BLANCA VALLE INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/01/99. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/16/17.

AUG 24, 31, SEPT 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037705500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: COGNIGENCIA, 2355 LEAVENWORTH ST #405, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed RYAN HANAU, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/05/17.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/01/17.

AUG 24, 31, SEPT 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037724900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ONE PARKER PEDIATRIC DENTISTRY, 1 PARKER AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed DORIS LIN-SONG DDS, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/15/17.

AUG 24, 31, SEPT 07, 14, 2017

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SONG ORAL SURGERY, 3109 GEARY BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SONG DENTAL GROUP, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/15/17.

AUG 24, 31, SEPT 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037721300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LEFT COAST THEATRE CO., 915 FRANKLIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed LEFT COAST THEATRE CO (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/11/17.

AUG 24, 31, SEPT 07, 14, 2017 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-553265 In the matter of the application of: RONALD SCOTT HERMENAU, 1222 HARRISON ST. APT 2219, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner RONALD SCOTT HERMENAU, is requesting that the name RONALD SCOTT HERMENAU, be changed to ROY LEDUC. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 19th of October 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

AUG 31, SEPT 07, 14, 21, 2017 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-553291

In the matter of the application of: JOSHUA RYAN WILKERSON, 76 FRANCIS ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JOSHUA RYAN WILKERSON, is requesting that the name JOSHUA RYAN WILKERSON, be changed to JOSHUA RYAN JACKSON-WYATT. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 24th of October 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

AUG 31, SEPT 07, 14, 21, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037736500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SALTWATER AND SAND THERAPY, 1254 45TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LISA JOHNSON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/26/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/24/17.

AUG 31, SEPT 07, 14, 21, 2017

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FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037734300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LOTUSFEATHER PRODUCTIONS, 1408 LYON ST APT B, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SUSAN F. IRWIN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/13/04. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/22/17.

AUG 31, SEPT 07, 14, 21, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037734800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: UNIQUE BROWS SALON, 2088 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SUJATA ARYAL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/23/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/23/17.

AUG 31, SEPT 07, 14, 21, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037734100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CAL LUMBER & SUPPLY, 1459 18TH ST #355, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed WOODFORD STUDIO INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/21/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/22/17.

AUG 31, SEPT 07, 14, 21, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037736600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GLADIOLUS VENDING, 575 NAPLES ST #B, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed GLADIOLUS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/15/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/24/17.

AUG 31, SEPT 07, 14, 21, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037731700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SIDE HUSTLE, 601 19TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed MORTAR & MASH ONE, LLC (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/21/17.

AUG 31, SEPT 07, 14, 21, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037733900

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Fall operas

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Fall films

Fall books

Reel life

Vol. 47 • No. 35 • August 31 - September 6, 2017

www.ebar.com/arts

Fall preview: Bay Area art museums Courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

by Sura Wood

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ariety, not quantity, is the watchword for the fall season at Bay Area art museums, and thankfully, there’s not a blockbuster in sight. Here are some pathways to cultural enrichment in the coming months.

See page 26 >>

Gustav Klimt, “The Virgin” (1913), oil on canvas.

National Gallery Prague.

Fall preview: Bay Area theater

by Richard Dodds

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ig-time Broadway musicals, world premieres set in gay and transgender communities, and that play where a ghost and a prince meet and everyone ends in mincemeat are queuing up for fall bows. Here is a look at some highlights of how the new theater season will unfold during the next few months.

See page 26 >>

Cheshire Isaacs

Berkeley Rep brings together the life, times, and music of the Temptations in the new musical “Ain’t Too Proud” to open its season.

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<< Out There

18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017 2pub-BBB_BAR_083117.pdf

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Paul Cwojdzinski, courtesy National Portrait Gallery

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“Marlene Dietrich on the SS Europa, 1933, Cherbourg, France,” by Paul Cwojdzinski, part of “Marlene Dietrich: Dressed for the Image” at the National Portrait Gallery.

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Marlene drains the swamp

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e swore we wouldn’t return.

To Washington, DC, we mean, while President Atrocious and his merry band of bigots, billionaire kleptocrats and military brass were still in charge. But a commitment to our straight family, who live nearby, and a place to stay near Dupont Circle thanks to a good friend, brought us back to the capital during sweltering late August.

We’re not sure about draining it, but DC really is a swamp in the summertime. We could only escape the heat and humidity by spending our days in air-conditioned bliss in the art museums. Here’s a brief survey of some of our visits.

“Marlene Dietrich: Dressed for the Image” at the National Portrait Gallery (through April 15, 2018) is a revealing look at the great beauty of the Silver Screen captured in photos. Dietrich had balls. You can see proof in her groundbreaking public images of androgyny and bisexuality, and in her brave moral

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compass, rejecting overtures from her native Germany to side instead with the Allies, in a big way.

When, back in the 30s, vogueing on the ocean liner Europa, Dietrich appeared on deck in a white pantsuit, the head of the Paris Police warned she’d be arrested if she wore trousers in his city. Upon arrival in Paris, she dared wear “her most mannish tweed suit, complete with her hair slicked back under a beret and sunglasses fashioned after the traditional lesbian signifier, the monocle,” says the NPG. The chief of police had to apologize, and sent her a bracelet. Take that, forces of traditionalist repression!

“American Visionary: John F. Kennedy’s Life and Times” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (through Sept. 17) follows JFK’s life in pictures from privileged upbringing through meteoric political career to horrific assassination. Kennedy was a figure of charm and grace. In these photos, especially poignant in light of the ignoramus now infesting the Oval Office, we see ample evidence of Jack and Jackie’s education, worldliness, and public support of the arts and culture as a hallmark of civil society. What a concept!

“Ai Weiwei: Trace at Hirshhorn” at the Hirshhorn Museum (through Jan. 1, 2018) brings his Lego portraits of political dissidents and prisoners of conscience to Washington, DC, a worthy venue, after their 2014 premiere in the barracks of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay. In a video, the artist gives a shout-out to San Francisco gallerist Cheryl Haines, whose stewardship of the For-Site Foundation initiated the West Coast edition.

The installation takes up the museum’s whole second-floor gallery.

Its 176 portraits of activists, prisoners and advocates of free speech, made of Lego plastic bricks, cover the floors.

An outer wall is enlivened by festive wallpaper featuring bouquets of surveillance equipment in decorative floral patterns. Ai Weiwei, China’s most famous contemporary artist, takes freedom of expression seriously, having once been placed under house arrest by the Chinese authorities. His passion and artistry are evident in this show. The way things are going on the federal level in these United States, are American prisoners of conscience really that far off?

The National Building Museum in the terrific 19th-century Pension Building, is currently showing exhibits on Frank Lloyd Wright, the architecture of Washington asylum St. Elizabeths Hospital (erstwhile home of John Hinckley), and paper models of famous buildings. Well worth the visit for fans of the built world.

We also spent happy hours at the National Postal Museum, the National Gallery of Art, including its recently renovated East Wing, and the Renwick Gallery of American craft and decorative arts, its exhibit of breakthrough works by potter Peter Voulkos just closed. We can easily spend days in the national museums.

On Out There’s last night in town, we took a long nighttime “monuments walk” from the shores of the Jefferson Memorial, so Pantheonesque, around the dark Tidal Basin onward to the Abraham Lincoln Memorial. You can walk up to and all around Old Abe, truly the greatest president, he freed a race.

The temple of his memorial is the American Parthenon.

But before you get there, you go through the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, surely the greatest 20th-century president, he saved America and the world from fascism, however briefly. It’s hanging by a thread 72 years after V-Day. The FDR Mem’l has depth, depicts several facets of his life. Eleanor deservedly gets her own statue and her own alcove.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is massive and monumental, and the fact that Abraham and Martin can see each other across the way is moving. On either side of Lincoln are the Korean War Veterans Memorial and Maya Lin’s eternally powerful Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We also visited the National World War II Memorial, and watched a video about its construction at the Nat’l Bldg. Museum. Artists sculpted bas-reliefs of combat troops using, as models, battlefield re-enactment enthusiasts, knowledgeable as they were about uniforms, weapons and gear.

We also visited the George Mason Memorial, the “littlest memorial.” And how could we forget the Washington Monument, hands down the greatest looming phallus in the federal sky? It’s how we know we’re really home.t

Images: © AMNH/C. Chesek © AMNH 2014

A new, prehistoric exhibit | Now Open It’s amazing what a fossil can reveal. With massive, life-size models, an interactive flight simulator, real pterosaur fossils, and more—this new exhibit will leave a lasting impression.

Fossilized forever, but only here for a limited time.

Get tickets at calacademy.org Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York (amnh.org)

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<< Music

20 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

Blazing ‘Ring’ cycle

by Tim Pfaff

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ext June’s revival of San Francisco Opera’s “Ring” is closer than you think. If you don’t believe me, call the box office.

Even “Ring” old hands bone up on Wagner’s giant tetralogy “Der Ring des Nibelungen” before new live “Rings.” This year it’s DG to the rescue, with a new re-release of Herbert von Karajan’s vintage studio “Ring” with the Berlin Philharmonic, on a single Blu-ray disc.

It originally appeared in the long, cold shadow of the Georg Solti “Ring,” the “first stereo ‘Ring,’” as Decca billed it. The legal controversies surrounding Decca’s aside, the Solti “Ring” became, and for many has remained, the “reference Ring.” It was re-released in newly mastered CDs, and a single Blu-ray disc, in a big box with a big book a few years ago.

With that go-around, I decided I had done my time with it.

Eschewing Solti’s brash conducting and Decca’s sometimes assaultive engineering, Karajan’s “Ring,” which the conductor himself effectively produced, was belittled as the “chamber-music Ring” on many sides. Still, we who took to it like a bath in balsam – and found it amply “big” and exciting, sonically vivid and thrillingly recorded – have lived with it contentedly since. Karajan trades in subtlety with no loss, and some would say a gain, of impact.

The compact new Blu-ray set is ideal for “Ring” prep. It has everything you want, which is to say complete librettos with plenty of track numbers for convenient reference. And the Blu-ray sound is amazing.

One of Karajan’s goals was maximum clarity in a score susceptible to overkill, and his achievement has been both respected and improved upon in this faithful

new re-mastering. Because the recordings were based on staged performances at the Salzburg Festival, there’s a dramatic acuity to them, too. But in the end, it’s the little things that make or break a “Ring,” and Karajan sets his table with a banquet of finely rendered details you can feast on for 14 hours without feeling remorsefully full.

Yes, there are two Wotans and two Bruennhildes, but both characters are younger in their first appearances than in the later operas. The transition from Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s insinuating, duplicitous Wotan in “Rheingold” to Thomas Stewart’s more disillusioned – but spellbinding, and textually acute – “Walkuere” Wotan and “Siegfried” Wanderer has its own compelling logic.

In the Karajan “Ring” you lose Regine Crespin’s voluptuous, singular Sieglinde for Solti, but you can hear that elsewhere (notably in Orfeo’s new 1961 live Bayreuth “Ring” under Rudolf Kempe). But you get the late-life lesbian’s unforced, deeply feminine, infinitely moving “Walkuere” Bruennhilde, which you won’t find elsewhere. As the awakened Bruennhilde, Helga Dernesch is no Birgit Nilsson, but that’s a plus. There’s plenty of voice, but stentorian singing isn’t the focus; Dernesch’s penetrating interpretive powers prevail.

She’s much better preparation for Evelyn Herlitzius’ forthcoming SF Bruennhilde, which also makes up in insightful intensity anything lacking in sheer vocal heft – not that Dernesch was, or Herlitzius is, less than a true dramatic soprano.

It’s a slightly different story with the two Siegfrieds. But Helge Brilioth’s hero in “Goetterdaemmerung” more than gets the job done, and Jess Thomas’ “Siegfried” Siegfried is the best on disc. The tenor from Marin County was among

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the greatest Heldentenors of his day, and this Siegfried is meltingly involving.

Jon Vickers’ Siegmund alone is reason to have this set, which is strangely enough his only commercial recording of a Wagner role, the one in which people who heard him (he sang it in SF) claim never to have heard his like. His Sieglinde, Gundula Janowitz, wields a leaner voice than we’ve come to expect in the role, but her high-strung heroine gets to the nerve and marrow of a sharply drawn character.

When she and Vickers and Crespin cross paths, fatefully, at the end of Act II, there’s magic-fire music of another, charged, transcendent sort.

Because Gerhard Stolze was one of the great character tenors, his strength and stamina are too often overlooked. But his wily “Rheingold” Loge and endlessly resourceful, tireless “Siegfried” Mime have never been surpassed and rarely matched.

The lower voices are a gold mine of their own. Martti Talvela is the most human of giants as Fasolt and the most sympathetic of Hundings, without any sacrifice of menace in the latter. The truly black-voiced Karl Ridderbusch moves from young rube to slumberous, short-tempered Fafner, and comes back as a Hagen of chilling malevolence.

More than any other complete cycle I know, Karajan’s gets the girls right. The Rhinemaidens, the Valkyries and the Norns are sharply characterized individuals and sing with both the clarity and line you want but all too seldom get.

Without once stepping into the follow spots the way Solti compulsively does, Karajan lights his “Ring” from within, and it glistens, glows and blazes. t

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August 31 - September 6, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 21

Fall preview: San Francisco Opera

by Philip Campbell

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ingle tickets for San Francisco Opera’s 2017 Fall Season have been on sale since the end of June, but there is still time to cherrypick some exciting shows. Lavish revivals, new productions and a highly anticipated world premiere open and continue in repertory starting Fri., Sept. 8.

Gala opening night features Puccini’s “Turandot” in the famous David Hockney production.

Nothing like an icy princess cutting off suitor’s heads to get the party started. The colorful designs make an attractive backdrop for the brutality, and the composer delivers one show-stopping aria after another. Appropriate for the occasion – spoiler alert – there’s a happy ending!

Pageantry onstage must compete with the high-fashion parade of first-nighters, but Austrian soprano Martina Serafin, who made her SFO debut in “Der Rosenkavalier” a decade ago, will govern imperiously in the title role, and only tenor Brian Jagde, as her lone successful lover, should distract her focus. Jagde (2009 Merola Opera Program and former SFO Adler Fellow) has grown an international career from praised appearances in San Francisco. He plays the daring young prince for the entire run through early December.

There are some amazing double castings in other lead roles. Swedish soprano Nina Stemme assumes the throne in November, when rich-voiced Leah Crocetto (former Adler Fellow and Merola Opera Program alumna) also takes the part of tragic slave girl Liù from Toni Marie Palmertree (secondyear Adler Fellow and 2015 Merola Opera Program break-out star).

To mark his final season as Music Director, Nicola Luisotti will open the Company’s 95th season with “Turandot” and “La Traviata,” in addition to conducting the annual San Francisco Opera in the Park Concert. He is followed in “Turandot” by American conductor Christopher Franklin, making his SFO debut.

Another bloody princess appears in a new production of Richard Strauss’ “Elektra” by English director Keith Warner, staged for SFO by director Anja Kühnhold in her Company debut. Soprano Christine Goerke has earned raves for previous enactments of the grueling title role, and American mezzo-soprano Michaela Martens is Klytemnestra.

Soprano Adrianne Pieczonka will sing Chrysothemis, and American bass-baritone Alfred Walker makes his SFO debut as Orest. Hungarian conductor Henrik Nánási will direct the Orchestra in his own Company debut.

“Elektra” may not be a walk in the park for listeners or performers, but it is also one of the most intense psychological experiences in opera. The music thrills, even as it screams bloody murder.

Director John Copley’s timehonored staging of Verdi’s “La

Traviata” brings tenor Atalla Ayan, making his SFO debut as Alfredo Germont into the arms of Romanian soprano Aurelia Florian, making her American and SFO debuts as doomed party girl Violetta Valéry. Also making his SFO debut, as Giorgio Germont, baritone Artur Rucinski should help fellow newbies bring fresh life to the sumptuously traditional production, first introduced in 1987.

Verdi’s heartbreaking music is in Maestro Luisotti’s DNA, so grab a hanky and get ready for an oldfashioned cry.

Speaking of fallen women, Jules Massenet’s “Manon” has got some relationship problems of her own.

Red-hot tenor Michael Fabiano made his SFO debut in “Lucrezia Borgia” in 2011, and he has since won international fame. His notable returns to the War Memorial stage, especially as Rodolfo in “La Bohème” in 2014, demonstrated his star-quality mixture of looks, acting talent and brilliant voice.

It won’t be difficult understanding an innocent country girl’s instant attraction to Fabiano in his role debut as Chevalier des Grieux. He will be steaming up the windows with American soprano Ellie Dehn as Manon, until her character embarks on a solo career of debauchery. Champion of the French repertoire, conductor Patrick Fournillier is on the podium for director, with costume designer Vincent Boussard’s new staging of the très français morality play. Manon may pay the piper in the end, but she has a lot of fun and sings some lovely music on her glamorous road to ruin.

The biggest opera premiere in years rounds off the season when legendary American composer John Adams joins again with lifelong collaborator librettist/director Peter Sellars for “Girls of the Golden West.” They changed modern opera with “Nixon in China” in 1987, directed by Sellars with a libretto by Alice Goodman. “The Death of Klinghoffer” followed in 1991 and received a San Francisco Opera staging in 1992. Adams maintains a crossover audience without succumbing to pop-culture pressure. His musical voice has integrity, heart, harmonic richness and a gift for astute orchestration. He has never shied from controversy, but his intelligence and humor usually calm detractors.

A quick synopsis of “Girls of the Golden West” sounds a bit like PC revisionism, but a new history of the Gold Rush and the 49ers was long overdue, and Adams and Sellars are too honest for glib polemics. Using period material including “The Shirley Letters,” about life at Rich Bar by “Dame Shirley”; speeches by Frederick Douglass; poetry of ethnically diverse miners; songs of the era; and the writings of Mark Twain; Sellars and Adams have crafted an operatic epic for today. t Info: sfopera.com.

s w e n r a b @e

Courtesy SF Opera

Tenor Brian Jagde will appear in Puccini’s “Turandot.”

Courtesy SF Opera

Austrian soprano Martina Serafin will sing the title role of Puccini’s “Turandot.”

<< Films

22 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

Fall preview: movies in wide release

by David Lamble

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his fall film season is shaping up to be something special, with an array of features and docs that are already generating major critic and fan buzz. (All opening dates subject to change.)

“Loving Vincent” The first feature film from Warsaw, Polandtrained visual artist Dorota Kobiela casts a unique perspective on the life, death and work of one the world’s most beloved painters, Vincent van Gogh. Kobiela put six years into this work, and collaborated with 125 visual artists to complete the painter’s life arc in 65,000 hand-painted frames. Much like Richard Linklater’s 2001 animated feature “Waking Life,” “Loving Vincent” began as a live-action work with human actors, then was painted over. The piece draws on van Gogh’s canvasses and over 800 letters and personal reflections.

(Oct. 6) “Breathe” This hetero romance from Andy Serkis promises to inspire a tear or two as it details the against-all-odds relationship between Robin and Diana Cavendish (Oscar-nominated Andrew Garfield, Golden Globe winner

Claire Foy), a brave couple who stay together despite a then-incurable disease. When Robin is diagnosed with polio at 28, he is stuck in a hospital bed and given only a few months to live. To the rescue come Diana’s twin brothers (Tom Hollander) and the revolutionary treatments of medical pioneer Teddy Hall (Hugh Bonneville).

The couple devote themselves to raising a family and assisting other polio victims. Written by two-time Oscar nominee William Nicholson, lensed by three-time Oscar winner Robert Richardson, “Breathe” celebrates love and human possibility.

“BPM” (“Beats Per Minute”) This Grande Prix Cannes Film Festival 2017 winner chronicles the efforts of ACT UP-Paris activists’ multiple actions to combat public apathy surrounding the AIDS epidemic. Nathan (Arnaud Valois), new to the group, is captivated by Sean (Argentina’s brilliant Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), a radical militant. Brought to the screen by Robin Campillo (“Eastern Boys”), “BPM” is a provocative and deeply emotional portrait of the ACT UPParis movement in the early 1990s, and of the brave young women and men who put their bodies on the

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Courtesy the filmmaker

Scene from visual artist/director Dorota Kobiela’s “Loving Vincent.”

line to make the AIDS epidemic visible to the wider public. (Opening date TBA.) “Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween” Madea, Bam and Hattie test their luck by venturing to a haunted campsite. These brave souls must run for their lives when monsters, goblins and the bogeyman show up. (Oct. 27) “Battle of the Sexes” In the wake of the sexual revolution and the rise of the women’s movement, the 1973 tennis match between women’s world champion Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and exmen’s-champ and serial hustler Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) was billed as the Battle of the Sexes. It became one of the most-watched televised sports events of all time, reaching 90 million viewers around the world. As the rivalry between King and Riggs kicked into high gear, each was fighting personal battles off-court. The fiercely private King was not only championing equality, but also struggling to come to terms with her own sexuality, as her friendship with Marilyn Barnett (Andrea Riseborough) developed. Riggs, one of the first self-made media-age celebrities, wrestled with his gambling demons at the expense of his family and wife Priscilla (Elisabeth Shue).

Together, Billie and Bobby served up a cultural spectacle that resonated far beyond the tennis court, sparking discussions in bedrooms and boardrooms. (Sept. 22) “Goodbye Christopher Robin” Domhnall Gleeson heads up a first-rate British cast in a drama about the origins of the Winnie the Pooh classic kids stories. The Simon Curtis-directed film offers a rare glimpse into the relationship between UK children’s author A.A. Milne (Gleeson) and his son Christopher Robin (Will Tilston), whose nursery stuffed-animal collection inspired the magical world of Pooh. Christopher Robin and his family have their lives up-ended by the huge worldwide success of the books; the enchanting stories bringing hope and comfort to post-WWI England. (Oct. 13) “Wildlife” Actor Paul Dano (“Little Miss Sunshine,” “L.I.E.”) makes his directing debut with a film adapted from a Richard Ford novel. A young child watches helplessly as his parents’ marriage collapses, Mom having found another man. With Jake Gyllenhaal, Carey Mulligan and Ed Oxenbould.

“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” A grieving mother (Frances McDormand) leases three billboards outside her small town aimed at provoking the police chief (Woody Harrelson) into finding the person who murdered her daughter. Things come to a boil when the

Sony Pictures Classics

Scene from director Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name.”

chief ’s deputy (Sam Rockwell), an immature mama’s boy, is drawn into the case. Directed by Oscar winner Martin McDonagh (“In Bruges”). (Nov. 10) “The Meyerowitz Stories” Writer-director Noah Baumbach presents the lives of an estranged New York family as they celebrate the artistic work of their father. With Adam Sandler, Grace Van Patten and Dustin Hoffman.

“Wonderstruck” Todd Haynes reunites with his favorite actress, Julianne Moore, to tell parallel stories of a young lad from the Midwest, and a New York girl 50 years ago. Both are searching for the same connection. Brian Selznick adapts his own novel; with Oakes Fegley and Michelle Williams.

“The Florida Project” Sean Baker’s (“Tangerine”) latest tale unfolds over a summer in the shadows of Disney World as a precocious 6-year-old Moonee seeks fun and adventure with an odd assortment of playmates while trying to relate to a rebellious but caring mother.

Co-written with Chris Bergoch, starring Willem Dafoe, Brooklyn Prince and Valeria Cotto.

“The Square” from writer-director Ruben Ostlund is a moving but satirical drama reflecting timely themes: moral courage and a welloff person’s need to assert himself in an increasingly uncertain world.

With Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss and Dominic West. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

“Mudbound” African American director Dee Rees follows the paths of two men returning to Mississippi from service in WWII. Rees directs Virgil Williams’ screenplay about the impact of postwar racism in an isolated rural community.

With Garrett Hedlund and Carey Mulligan.

“Call Me by Your Name” Luca Guadagnino’s film unfolds over a glorious Northern Italian summer in 1983. An Italian falls for an American student who arrives

to live and study with his family.

Together they share a summer of music, food, and romance. James Ivory and André Aciman adapt the latter’s novel. With Armie Hammer, Timothée Chalamet and Michael Stuhlbarg.

“Faces Places” This collaboration between French filmmaker Agnes Varda and the photographermuralist J.R. becomes a journey through rural France as the pair form an unlikely friendship. With Jean-Luc Godard, J.R. and Laurent Levesque.

“Lady Bird” Greta Gerwig’s comedy focuses on a young woman spending a year in Northern California. With Saoirse Ronan, Odeya Rush and Laurie Metcalf.

“Last Flag Flying” Richard Linklater offers a kind of sequel to Hal Ashby’s 1973 navy buddy/ coming-of-age saga “The Last Detail.” Thirty years after they served together in Vietnam, former Navy Corpsman Larry “Doc” Shepherd re-unites with his old buddies, former Marines Sal Nealon and Reverend Richard Mueller, to bury his son, a young Marine killed in the Iraq War. With Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne.

“Wonder Wheel” Woody Allen returns with a tale set in 1950s Coney Island. A lifeguard tells the story of a middle-aged carousel operator and his beleaguered wife.

With Debi Mazar, Kate Winslet, Juno Temple, Justin Timberlake, Mickey Rubin, and James Belushi.

The second collaboration between Allen and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (“Café Society”).

“Battle of the Sexes” The latest comedy-drama from the husband-wife team of Valerie Faris & Jonathan Dayton (“Little Miss Sunshine”), with an all-star cast including Emma Stone, Steve Carell, Sarah Silverman, Bill Pullman, Alan Cumming, Elisabeth Shue, and Fred Armisen. t

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Books>>

August 31 - September 6, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 23

America’s first great gay General

by Peter Garland

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rederick von Steuben biographer John Palmer states unequivocally, “The military services of two men only can be regarded as indispensable to the achievement of American independence. Washington, the commander; and Steuben, his chief of staff.” The patriotic Americans in revolt against England had not a clue about managing a modern army. Frederick von Steuben was expert in that department.

Born in Magdeburg, Prussia, in 1730, Frederick von Steuben was the first of his parents’ 10 children. His father was a lieutenant in the Royal Prussian Engineers, and Frederick William I, the Prussian king, father of Frederick the Great, was one of the infant boy’s godfathers.

Steuben, 14, took part in a siege of Prague, and at 17 joined the Prussian army. Young Steuben fought in the Seven Years War, suffering several wounds, decorated for bravery, and brought to the king’s attention. At the end of that war, Frederick the Great personally taught a hand-picked class of 13 warriors, including Steuben. Then the Prussian king disbanded his armies. Frederick found himself without a job. He found a position as lord chamberlain to the Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, successfully conducting the Prince’s government for 13 years.

In 1777, Steuben, now calling himself Baron von Steuben, having heard of Gen. George Washington’s Christmas victory at Trenton, met Benjamin Franklin in Paris and expressed an interest in joining the American team. The Colonials, however, fed up of demanding European officers, had instructed their ambassador not to sign up any more. Franklin told von Steuben he could come only as an unpaid volunteer. Steuben departed in disgust. Back in Prussia, however, he found himself accused of having enjoyed sexual relations with young men while in the employ of Hohenzollern-Hechingen. There

being no chance of a further military career in Europe, the Baron heeded a call to return to Paris.

Franklin, the Colonials’ ambassador to the French court, had learned from French Minister of War St. Germain that von Steuben was a military expert of exceptional ability, just the man needed by Washington. The French playwright Beaumarchais was smuggling weapons into America with the surreptitious support of his government, but many of the armaments were wasted due to American lack of organization, discipline and experience. American soldiers used their bayonets only for roasting meat.

Von Steuben had never risen beyond the rank of captain, but Franklin and Beaumarchais decided to costume him in the uniform of a Prussian general.

Franklin wrote a letter to Gen. Washington and Congress introducing von Steuben as a lieutenant general in the service of the King of Prussia. This little lie would help to win a continent.

Von Steuben played his role flawlessly, even writing an autobiography as the supposed aristocrat and fighting general.

Von Steuben chose PierreÉtienne du Ponceau as his military secretary. He was strongly attracted to the young nobleman (17, proficient in English) and used him from the first as his English interpreter. In his old age, du Ponceau wrote his memoirs, in which we find the details of the Baron’s pilgrimage from Paris to Valley Forge.

At Marseilles, von Steuben boarded L’Heureux, a frigate of 28 guns commanded by Captain Landais of the French Navy. The ship, masquerading as a merchantman heading for the West Indies, was really sailing to Portsmouth, NH, with a cargo of munitions for the American Army.

Von Steuben’s general’s uniform was carefully stowed away belowdecks.

Surviving two storms and a mutiny, von Steuben and company were welcomed to Portsmouth by several thousand Americans on

Dec. 1, 1777. They dined with an American general, Steuben writing home that “all the inhabitants of the place crowded together as if to look at a rhinoceros.”

The new arrivals heard the news of Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga, a victory that enabled France to come out openly in the Americans’ favor, and to declare war on England. Steuben and his staff then set out for Valley Forge.

En route they were welcomed at the German settlement of Lancaster, PA, with a supper and a ball. His biographer tells us, “Among the young officers who attended this ball was Capt.

William North. This is the Billy North who later becomes the baron’s aide-de-camp, closest friend and adopted son.”

North wrote, “[The Baron’s] reputation had preceded him, and those who yet remember his graceful entry, and carriage in a ballroom, can easily conceive the proud feelings of his countrymen and their fair wives and daughters.”

Pushing on to the revolutionaries’ camp, Steuben met Gen. Washington, who had come to meet him on the road. The Prussian discovered that half the men at Valley Forge were confined to huts due to lack of breeches and shoes. Washington had many opponents in Congress, who regularly held up money and supplies.

In 1777, he had lost the battles of Brandywine and Germantown due to the defective training of his troops.

Among the troops at Valley Forge was young Private Ashbel Greene, who years later as a bishop recalled, “Never before or since have I had such an impression of the ancient fabled God of War, Mars. The trappings of his horse, the enormous holsters of his pistols, his large size and his strikingly martial bearing – the comrade in arms of Frederick the Great – enhanced by his gracious manners, his unfailing good nature and sense of humor.”

Steuben immediately formed a model company to train. The members of this would in turn train others.

The Baron had a strong, musical voice, and the troops enjoyed his swearing in several languages.

In a moment of verbal confusion, a young man stepped forward and offered to act as interpreter. Steuben called him “an angel from heaven.” In fact, he was Capt.

Benjamin Walker of the New York Regiment, who became another aide-de-camp and devoted friend to the end of the Baron’s life, adopted, like North, by von Steuben.

The Prussian expert taught the American soldiers how to carry their muskets, how to load and fire, how to fix the bayonet, and how to charge with it in battle.

This took a great load off Gen. Washington.

In July 1779, when Americans were war-weary, their soldiers, in a real morale-booster, won the battle of Stony Point, using only bayonets in order to surprise the British garrison, all of whom were taken prisoner. Soon Gen. von Steuben had Washington’s entire army at drill.

There followed several years of tough warfare and politics, but 1781 brought what von Steuben called “the decisive moment.” With the help of a French fleet and troops, Washington’s troops, divided into three divisions under the command of the generals Nathaniel Greene, the Marquis de Lafayette and von Steuben, besieged the army of

Baron Frederick von Steuben’s reputation – gracious, aristocratic, gay – preceded him.

English Gen. Cornwallis at Yorktown, VA. Steuben stood before the English encampment and put a lifetime of experience to work.

Washington and his well-trained troops enjoyed superiority; soon Cornwallis and his army marched out and laid down their arms.

King George III proclaimed the cessation of hostilities.

Washington’s last official act as Commander-in-Chief was the writing of a letter to von Steuben in which he wrote, “I shall become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, where I shall be glad to embrace you.”

The newly independent Americans gave Steuben land. He leased a fine house on Manhattan, today the site of Cornell Medical College. This became a comfortable refuge for Walker, North and other young friends seeking jobs since their discharge from the army. Steuben had wondered “whether my old bones are to be interred on the shore of the Mohawk or that of the Rhine.” The fact that the bankrupt Americans kept him on financial short rations – giving him land but not the cash he wanted – ensured that he stayed, lived and would die in America.

Von Steuben was a good military manager but not a conservative manager of his own funds.

His adopted sons Walker and North agreed that they loved the Baron but found fault with the way he handled his personal finances, objecting specifically to a manservant whom the Baron allowed to dress in “silk stockings & waistcoats.” Steuben responded to North, “Scold me, Billy, as often as I deserve it, but do not love me less” The Baron occupied a place of honor in the Inaugural platform when Washington took his oath of office as president. They often dined and went horseback riding together, Washington seeking von Steuben’s advice as to the future national defense of the United States.

To Walker, Steuben wrote, “I am reduced to entertain myself with the heroes and rascals of antiquity. But all their great exploits are not worth the three days we enjoyed together in my woods.

God bless you for that charitable visit.”

Baron von Steuben moved to Oneida, NY, and passed away at 64 after a stroke on his estate, now occupied by the town of Steuben.

On a granite boulder near his tomb in the park dedicated to his memory, a bronze tablet reminds us that his services were “indispensable to the achievement of American Independence.” t

<< Film

24 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

Out of the closet, onto the screen

by Sari Staver

A

new cut of the documentary “Reel in the Closet” will be screened at the Roxie Theater on Thurs., Aug. 31, at 7 p.m., with proceeds benefitting the GLBT Historical Society, whose archives provided extensive footage for the film from rarely seen home movies dating back to the 1930s.

The film, directed by Stu Maddux and produced by his partner Joseph Applebaum, “reveals the real lives of LGBTQ people from the past through hundreds of never-before-seen home movies dating back to the 1930s,” according to the film’s website, closetreel. com. The film premiered as a work-in-progress at the 2015 Frameline film festival, and has since travelled to film festivals throughout the world. New footage was added after an outpouring of material was sent to the filmmakers after glowing press reports, including a feature article in The New Yorker last year.

The one-time screening at the Roxie will also feature a “sneak peek” of the new web series “Queer Ghost Hunters,” also directed and produced by Maddux and Applebaum, who will introduce the film and take questions afterwards.

In a telephone interview with the Bay Area Reporter, Maddux said he and Applebaum are now working on the next phase of “Reel in the Closet,” distributing it to schools, libraries and other organizations. “Getting the film in front of young people is really important to us,” he said. Even for those who saw the earlier version of the film screened at Frameline in 2015, the upcoming event at the Roxie “will give you a chance to see the latest hidden treasures” they have uncovered and added to

the film, said Maddux.

He got the idea for the film after he had two earlier LGBT films under his belt: “Bob and Jack’s 52Year Adventure,” about the lifelong love between an army sergeant who began and affair with his commanding officer in 1952; and the 2010 film “Gen Silent,” about LGBT seniors being so afraid of discrimination in longterm health care that they go back into the closet.

In 2014, while reading the GLBT Historical Society newsletter, Maddux read a story about a volunteer, John Raines, who was digitally transferring and preserving hundreds of reels of videotape at the archives. He contacted the historical society and learned that their archives were a “treasure trove of private home movies of nightlife, picnics, house parties, and everyday life,” he said. Some of the 8mm films went back to the 1930s. “I wanted to save them before they were lost forever.”

With proceeds from an earlier film and funds raised through a Kickstarter campaign, Maddux funded the project, which has been screened at more than a dozen film festivals. Among the stories told in the film are many about gay liberation, including the home movies by photographer Crawford Barton, who documented his migration from rural Georgia to San Francisco in the 1970s, with images that echo the experience of many LGBT people.

Many early, historic LGBT events are in the film, including the 1972 Gay Freedom Day Parade in New York City.

Maddux was also struck by the image of a woman holding a handmade sign that read, “Parents of Lesbians and Gays Unite,” who he later confirmed was Jeanne

Creating Memories for a Lifetime!

THE CLIFF HOUSE TERRACE ROOM A UNIQUE SAN FRANCISCO EXPERIENCE Ceremonies • Receptions • Family Celebrations • Parties

t

Crawford Barton, courtesy the filmmakers

Marsha P. Thompson at NYC Gay Freedom Day, 1974, shot by Crawford Barton, part of the film “Reel in the Closet.”

Manford, who founded Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG.) Barton captured the only known moving images of Manford marching for the first time.

As Maddux put together film and video from archives around the world, the filmmaker said he was struck by the need to find images “that were representative of our community. White gay men were the ones who could afford the film and the projectors, so those images dominated what we came across,” he said. “But what about all the other underrepresented groups who were rarely seen” in the footage?

The premiere at Frameline in 2015 at the Castro Theatre was a highlight for Maddux. “To walk out onto the street where some of the film had been made many years earlier was an amazing experience,” he said. “I remember someone coming up to me and saying, ‘Hey, I just saw myself in the film.’”

GLBT Historical Society executive director Terry Beswick said in an email, “Our video, film and photography collections are among our most valuable assets

for historians, and particularly for amazing documentarians like Stu and Joe. While this benefit is raising money to digitize and store these assets online, we’re also raising funds for our active video collections programs, including oral histories and events. If we don’t preserve our history and culture, it’s simply lost. “ JoAnna Black, the society’s managing archivist, said the society has digitized all known 8mm and 16mm films in its collections.

“Because this format is in danger of permanent degradation, the archives have made it a high priority to digitize any endangered AV formats held in our collections,” Black said in an email. She added that the archives are currently in the midst of digitizing the Bay Area Reporter, beginning in 2005 and working backward to 1971.

Searchable pdfs of each issue will be available online for free, beginning this fall.

The museum is also digitizing their oral-history tape recordings, as well as some VHS and open-reel audio recordings from various collections in the archives.

In addition, the society, in collaboration with the Archives and

Special Collections department of the University of California/ San Francisco Library and the San Francisco Public Library, is digitizing some 127,000 pages from 49 archival collections related to the early days of the AIDS epidemic, and will make them accessible to the public online. In the process, collections whose components had been placed in different archives for various reasons will be digitally reunited, facilitating access for researchers outside the Bay Area.

The 32-year-old GLBT Historical Society maintains one of the largest collections of LGBTQ historical material in the world, including approximately 1,000 hours of film and video, 1,000 hours of recorded sound, and more than 500 oral histories. The society also sponsors San Francisco’s GLBT History Museum. The Roxie event will support the society’s video and film assets, including its oral history and digitizing projects.t Tickets are $15, or $12.50 for Historical Society members, available at the Roxie box office, 3117 16th St., SF.

Courtesy the filmmakers

www.CliffHouse.com 1090 Point Lobos • San Francisco • 415-386-3330 Private Events Direct • 415-666-4027 • virginia@cliffhouse.com

Cocktail party in the early 1950s, from directors Stu Maddux and Joseph Applebaum’s “Reel in the Closet.”

t

Books>>

August 31 - September 6, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 25

Suggested reading, fall 2017

by Gregg Shapiro

F

iction finds: Pages for Her (Counterpoint Press) is the sequel to Sylvia Brownrigg’s 2002 novel Pages for You, in which readers were introduced to two women, Flannery and Anne, who had a “brief but passionate affair,” now reconnecting years later, after their lives took different directions.

In her third book, the haunting haunted house novel The Grip of It (FSG), writer and teacher Jac Jemc both reinvents and reveres the horror genre, leaving readers with an experience that’s difficult to shake.

Lewis DeSimone’s new novel Channeling Morgan (Beautiful Dreamer Press) is about what happens when ghostwriter Derick Sweetwater agrees to help produce “studly movie star” Clive Morgan’s autobiography, and his literary life goes on a collision course with “Hollywood, drag queens, and the occasional ghost.”

In Amatka (Vintage), Swedish scifi/fantasy writer Karin Tidbeck takes us to the “austere, wintry” title colony where information assistant Vanja, on assignment from the government, falls in love with her housemate Nina while stumbling on a potentially serious problem involving Amatka, as well as a cover-up that threatens everything in her world.

Gay literary publicist and Y/A novelist Martin Wilson is back with his second book We Now Return to Regular Life (Dial), described as “part literary thriller, part comingof-age-drama” telling the story of what happens when a boy who is kidnapped returns home after three years.

For her second novel The Lauras (Hogarth), Sara Taylor takes us on a cross-country journey as Ma and her non-binary offspring Alex leave a difficult situation at home, only to encoun-

ter a variety of ups and downs along the way.

Posing the question What is a family?, gay, awardwinning journalist Scot T. O’Hara turns his attention to fiction with his debut novel Tarantella (OhBoy Books). Main character Anthony seeks healing and understanding for himself and his family.

Drawn to it: Almost everything you need to know about Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York (Bloomsbury), by beloved New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast, can be found in the title. In nine illustrated chapters, Brooklyn native Chast celebrates Manhattan in all its glory.

According to artist Tom Neely, Henry & Glenn Forever + Ever (Microcosm Publishing/IWDY Comics) by Tom Neely & Friends, with a foreword by gay Judas Priest front-man Rob Halford, is the result of one of his Igloo Tornado “art fraternity” pals suggesting they create “something like Tom of Finland art, but with Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig.”

Enrique Garcia’s The Hernandez Brothers: Love, Rockets and Alternative Comics (University of Pittsburgh Press) takes a thorough look at the work of graphic novelist brothers Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, known for their Love and Rockets series, who have often included LGBTQ characters in their creations.

You can always draw your own conclusions on the blank pages of My Rad Life: A Journal (Ten Speed

Press), the latest collaboration by writer Kate Schatz and illustrator Miriam Klein Stahl (co-authors of Rad Women Worldwide and Rad American Women A-Z). With quotes from and drawings of almost 50 women, including queer icons Stacyann Chin, Jazz Jennings, Alice Walker, Margaret Cho, Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde, there is inspiration to be found in the event of a creativity block.

True words: Now available in paperback, Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality (William Morrow) by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Debbie Cenziper and Jim Obergefell, the “definitive account of the dramatic and previously unreported events” leading up to Obergefell v Hodges, the milestone case regarding the legalization of same-sex marriage, is scheduled to be made into a movie from Fox 2000.

Lesbian poet Eileen Myles is the author of Afterglow (a dog memoir) (Grove Press), described as part “screenplay, monologue, science fiction and lucid memory” detailing the 16 years Myles spent as the human companion to a dog named Rosie.

Music and cultural critic Ann Powers, who can be heard regularly on NPR, gives the LGBTQ community a lot of love in her new book Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black & White, Body and Soul in American Music (Dey Street), citing artists including Sylvester, Klaus Nomi, Cris Williamson, Laura Nyro, Nona Hendryx and Jobriath, and touching on queercore, lesbian visibility, Paradise Garage, bisexuality and the AIDS epidemic.

In Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies (Atria), TV personality Michael Ausiello’s “memoir of love, loss and other four-letter words,” the writer recounts the deeply personal story of his unconventional 13-year relation-

ship with his husband, the late Kit Cowan, who battled a rare form of cancer and passed away in 2015.

Poetic voices: Prolific, young, queer Native American poet Tommy Pico’s first poetry collection IRL was published in 2016. Nature Poem (Tin House), Pico’s second, book-length epic poem, merges poetic and texting language for an unforgettable read.

Half-Light: Collected Poems 19652016 (FSG) compiles the work of lauded gay poet Frank Bidart in one stunning setting, including the new collection Thirst, featuring outstanding poems “Ellen West,” “Herbert White,” “In Memory of Joe Brainerd,” “The Second Hour of the Night” and “For the AIDS Dead.” t Eileen Myles reads on Oct. 15 at Roxie Theater and on Oct. 16 at City Lights in SF. Sylvia Brownrigg reads on Oct. 27 at Kaleidescope Coffee in Richmond.

AWA K I N G B E A U T Y

Eyvind Earle M AY 18 — J A N 8

Immerse yourself in the lush landscapes and enchanting illustrations of the artist’s first-ever comprehensive museum retrospective, including works from Walt Disney’s classics Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Lady and the Tramp (1955).

Eyvind Earle, concept painting, c. 1950, Sleeping Beauty (1959); collection of the Walt Disney Family Foundation, © Disney | The Walt Disney Family Museum® Disney Enterprises, Inc. | © 2017 The Walt Disney Family Museum | The Walt Disney Family Museum is not affiliated with Disney Enterprises, Inc.

THE WALT DISNEY FAMILY MUSEUM 104 MONTGOMERY STREET IN THE PRESIDIO SAN FRANCISCO, CA WALTDISNEY.ORG

<< Fall preview

26 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

<<

Fall Museums

From page 17

BAMPFA “Martin Wong: Human Instamatic” charts the eclectic output of this Chinese-American artist’s prolific 30-year career, cut short by his death in 1999 from AIDS-related illnesses. Though inextricably linked with New York’s Lower East Side art scene of the 1980s, Wong grew up here in Chinatown and Eureka, where he started as a street artist, chronicling the aesthetics of the multi-ethnic neighborhoods he moved through.

The show includes psychedelic set designs for the Cockettes; calligraphic poems; and an impressive body of work produced after he relocated to New York in 1978, when he turned to painting and hung with the city’s queer and working-class, immigrant communities. (Sept. 20-Dec. 10) “Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument” gathers over 80 objects from the esteemed photographer’s archive – vintage silver prints, contact sheets and unpublished images – for an indepth exploration of his debut Life magazine photo-essay “Harlem Gang Leader” (1948). In addition to an onthe-ground depiction of Harlem, the materials lend insight into the gang’s complex 17-year-old head honcho; inner-city youth, poverty and race; the relationship between text and image; and an even trickier one between an African American photojournalist and white editors who selected what should be published. (Sept. 27-Dec. 17) bampfa.org.

Legion of Honor The highly anticipated “Klimt & Rodin: An Artistic Encounter” is the first survey of Gustav Klimt’s masterpieces to journey to the West Coast. Klimt, an Austrian symbolist painter and charter member of the Vienna Secession movement, is most famous for the splendid “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I” (1907) and “The Kiss” (1907-08), painted with gold leaf during a so-called

<<

Fall Theater

From page 17

September

The prince and the ghost referenced above (and in the song “That’s Entertainment”) are Hamlet and his father, whose death the prince seeks to avenge. Most of us know how it turns out (spoiler alert: mincemeat). In its first staging of any Shakespearean play in more than 20 years, ACT opens its season with “Hamlet,” with John Douglas Thompson, seen at ACT as Louis Armstrong in “Satchmo at the Waldorf,” as the to-be-or-not-to-be prince. Performances Sept. 20-Oct. 15. Tickets at act-sf.org.

It’s the Temptations’ time for a spin on the theatrical musical turntable.

The world premiere of “Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations” opens Berkeley Rep’s season with a bio musical about the Detroit R&B group’s ascension to stardom, and the rivalries fueled by ego, drugs, and alcohol that led to a steady stream of crises, even as the songs that comprise the musical’s score were climbing the charts. At the new musical’s helm are “Jersey Boys”

t

Golden Phase inspired by mosaics and Byzantine motifs. Though his works rarely travel, 33 of his sketches and paintings will soon be in dialogue with Rodin sculptures from the Fine Arts Museums’ permanent collection, in an exhibition that coincides with the 100th anniversary of both artists’ deaths. (Oct. 14-Jan. 28) FAMSF’s brilliant antiquities curator Renee Dreyfus, whose illuminating exhibitions are far too rare, brings a wealth of scholarship and insight to her latest outing, “Gods in Color: Polychromy in the Ancient World.” It examines an ancient practice, particularly prevalent in Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Aegean, Greece and Rome, which involved the painting of sculptures in dazzling colors that, when unearthed by archaeologists centuries later, had faded after millennia of exposure to the elements. Painted reproductions of classical statuary and objects suggest how they were intended to appear. (Oct. 28-Jan. 7) legionofhonor. famsf.org. de Young Museum “Maori Portraits: Gottfried Lindauer’s New Zealand” features portraits of major personages, as well as images of warriors, politicos and elders from the nation on the other side of the world during its tumultuous birth in the mid-19th century. (Sept. 9-May 6) “Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire” shows off the latest discoveries from the Sun, Moon and Feathered Serpent pyramids in Mexico. (Sept.

30-Feb. 11) deyoung.famsf.org.

Contemporary Jewish Museum In “Jewish Folktales Retold: Artist as Maggid,” 16 mostly local artists put a contemporary spin on traditional Jewish stories and characters. Relying on a combination of Old World cautionary tales, supernatural elements and the 2009 anthology “Leaves from the Garden of Eden: One Hundred Classic Jewish Tales,” a tome that encompasses 1,500 years of oral and written storytelling, the artists interpreted source material of their own

choosing, from the Golem to legends of giants and princesses.

(Sept. 28-Jan. 28) thecjm.org Asian Art Museum “Couture Korea” offers a whirlwind tour of Korean fashion. From recreations of the fancy duds, kings robes and 18th-century courtesan finery worn in the courts of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) to the Korean-influenced, haute Parisian chic of Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld and daring clothing by “master of deconstruction” Jin Syracuse University Art Collection Teok, the show focuses on the beauty, crafts- Martin Wong, “The Annunciation According to Mikey Piñero Cupcake and Paco” (1984) manship and historical context of garments Pop Art movement, utilized found that are also works of art. (Nov. 3-Feb. objects and images and other mate4) asianart.org. rials in innovative ways while workSFMOMA The preeminent 20thing across disciplines with a mix of century photographer Walker Evans rigor, abandon and wry wit. (Nov.18created his most iconic body of March 25) sfmoma.org. work during the Great Depression, Cantor Arts Center Marking but “Walker Evans,” a definitive new the centenary of the august sculpretrospective at SFMOMA, provides tor’s death, “Rodin: The Shock of a broader perspective of the artist’s the Modern Body” draws from the remarkable 50-year career, with an extensive holdings of the museum, emphasis on his interest in American which boasts the largest collection vernacular culture and his ability to of the forward-thinking artist’s fabutranscend mere documentation and lous bronzes outside of Paris. The elevate everyday life into the realm of three-gallery exhibition, which reart. The exhibition includes over 300 flects Rodin’s obsession with human vintage prints, Polaroids, magazine form, showcases 100 lifelike figuralayouts, the artist’s collection of posttive works, noteworthy for their cards, and several of his architectural intense humanity and muscular paintings. (Sept 30- Feb. 4) Incorenergy. (Opens Sept. 15.) “Curiousporating over 150 career-spanning er” assembles video, photography, artworks, “Robert Rauschenberg: sculpture and sound installations John Wilson White Erasing the Rules” pays homage to the from several slyly playful bodies of experimental, out-of-the-box spirit work by Brooklyn/Berlin-based art- Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor, of the painter, sculptor, printmaker, ist Nina Katchadourian, who gives installation view of “(This is Not a) photographer and graphic artist the mundane a big fat kiss of the Love Song” at Verge Center for the who liked to say he mined “the gap surreal. (Sept. 15-Jan. 7) museum. Arts (2016), from “Jewish Folktales Retold: Artist as Maggid” at CJM, SF. between art and life.” Rauschenberg, stanford.edu. t whose early ventures presaged the

director Des McAnuff and choreographer Sergio Trujillo, with a book

by Dominque Morriseau, who has frequently written about her native Detroit. Performances Aug. 31-Oct. 8.

Tickets at berkeleyrep.org.

It’s also a world premiere that opens New Conservatory Theatre Center’s season. Harrison David Rivers’ “This Bitter Earth,” commissioned by the theater, focuses on a bi-racial gay couple in which the white lover’s involvement in the Black Lives Matter movement is at odds with his black partner’s political apathy. Performances Sept. 22-Oct. 22. Tickets at nctcsf.org.

Yet another world premiere will launch Theatre Rhino’s season at the Gateway Theatre, the new name for the Eureka Theatre. “The Legend in Pink,” by Oakland author Kheven LaGrone, is set in West Oakland as the 20th century is coming to an end. The mission of a transgender woman named Pink is to spread beauty through the harsh environment, but her interest in an attractive young man leads to disapproval and violence. Performances Sept. 13-30.

Tickets at therhino.org.

Would you prefer indica or sativa in your macaroon? Once upon a time, pot was pot, and if you partook, terrible consequences were sure to follow. That was the premise of the 1930s instructional film “Reefer Madness,” which became a camp classic in recent decades. That it should become a musical was a no-brainer, and it fits snugly into the quirky ethos of Ray of Light Theatre, which is producing the 1998 musical at the Victoria Theatre.

Performances Sept. 15-Oct. 7. Tickets at rayoflightheatre.com.

“Taylor Mac: A 24-Hour Decade History of Popular Music” returns the gender-fluid performance artist to the Curran Theatre where he performed a three-hour segment of the show last year. Now he’s offering the whole shebang, broken up into four standalone chronological chapters as Mac shows how different eras’ songs reflect their times and also provide commentary on them. He does this with a changing phantasmagoria of costumes, unexpected props, an orchestra and chorus, and unpredictable audience involvement. Performances Sept. 1524. Tickets at sfcurran.com.

The 1951 movie “An American in Paris” brought a touch of class to the waning days of the big Hollywood musicals, and a 2015 Broadway adaptation was accorded similar respect.

The musical featuring an all-Gershwin score is now on tour, with the Orpheum Theatre an upcoming destination. Internationally renowned ballet choreographer Christopher Wheeldon directed the musical, and won a Tony Award for his choreography. Performances Sept. 12-Oct. 8.

Tickets at shnsf.com.

A touch of class of a different sort brings Varla Jean Merman to Oasis in her latest show. “Bad Heroine” pays tribute to real and fictional female trailblazers, with Varla Jean (aka Jeffery Roberson) costumed throughout the show as Wonder Woman. Performances Sept. 13-16. Tickets at sfoasis.com.

Teddy Wolff

of “Taylor Mac: A 24-Hour Decade History of Popular Music” at the Curran in September.

October

November

42nd Street Moon For its second prostarts its new season duction of the season, with “Ain’t MisbeTheatre Rhino will be havin’,” the Fats Waller back at the Gateway musical revue that Theatre with one of won the 1978 Tony the trailblazing plays Award as best musiabout AIDS. Larry cal, at the Gateway Kramer pulled from Theatre. Performancautobiog raphical es Oct. 11-29. Tickets events to write “The at 42ndstmoon.org.

Normal Heart,” first In Philip Dawkins’ staged in 1985, and “Le Switch,” NCTC’s the play excoriated second producthe mainstream press, tion of the season, a politicians, his activist 30something librarcolleagues, and, even ian has a harder time to an extent, himself, with the notion of for indifference, fear, Matthew Murphy same-sex marriage and infighting as Sara Esty and McGee than the older and the disease began to Maddox head the cast of younger gay men reveal itself in the gay the tour of the Broadway around him. He fears community. Performusical “An American the pressures of com- in Paris” headed to the mances Nov. 3-25. mitment – pressures Orpheum Theatre.

Bay Area Musicals that increase when ambitiously opens he meets a charming its third season at the young Quebecois without those issues.

Alcazar Theatre with “42nd Street,” Performances Oct. 27-Dec. 3. the song-and-dance extravaganza that A contretemps over the racial famously debuted in 1980 on the very makeup of a New York presentation day that its director-choreographer of “The Prince of Egypt” led to its Gower Champion died. Based on the cancellation, and the opportunity for 1933 movie about a chorine tapped TheatreWorks to present its world for the leading role in musical at the premiere. It’s the story of Moses, last minute, she is thrust onto the based on the 1998 animated feature stage with this admonition from her with songs by Stephen Schwartz director: ‘’You’re going out a young(“Wicked”). Scott Schwartz, the ster, but you’ve got to come back a songwriter’s son, is directing the star!’’ Performances Nov. 11-Dec. 9. production at Mountain View Center Tickets at bamsf.org. for Performing Arts, which will then Disney has had successes (“Beauty travel to Denmark. Performances Oct. and the Beast”) and failures (“Tar6-Nov. 5. Tickets at theatreworks.org. zan”) in translating its animated feaRay of Light Theatre is back at the tures into Broadway musicals, but you Victoria for its third annual produchave to count “Aladdin” in the big-hit tion of “The Rocky Horror Show.” department. Still running on BroadD’Arcy Drollinger, who can often be way to full houses after nearly 1,500 seen as Champagne White and other performances, there is now a second drag personas at Oasis, will be playing magic carpet on the road headed to Frank-n-Furter – who’s just a sweet Orpheum Theatre. Performances transvestite from Transsexual, TranNov. 1-Jan. 7.t sylvania. Performances Oct. 26-Nov. 4.

t

DVD>>

August 31 - September 6, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 27

Beach, please!

by Gregg Shapiro

T

he year 2017 got off to a dismal start in terms of good movies, with only a few decent ones at the multiplexes (Get Out, T2: Trainspotting, Baby Driver, Wonder Woman, Colossal). But the biggest dud of all has washed ashore in a Blu-ray-DVD-Digital HD combo pack for home-viewing.

Baywatch (Paramount), presented in skin-shaking Dolby, based on the insipid and jiggly NBC/ syndicated series that dominated the 1990s and made the wooden David Hasselhoff a household name, is a waterlogged mess with no means of resuscitation.

In Emerald Bay, Florida, lifeguard Mitch (an unfortunate Dwayne Johnson) is well aware that his job is more involved than just rescuing drowning surfers and children. He has the support of fellow Baywatchers CJ (Kelly Rohrbach, an actress so stilted she makes Pamela Anderson look like Meryl Streep) and Stephanie (Ilfenesh Hadera), but he needs to expand his crew.

Luckily, the time for lifeguard tryouts has arrived. Among those competing for the three coveted spots are squishy Ronnie (Jon Bass, a second-tier Josh Gad), who has failed to make the cut in the past; perky Summer (Alexandra Daddario); and disgraced Olympic Gold Medalist Matt (Zac Efron at his buffest), aka the Vomit Comet. Ronnie and Summer are eager to prove themselves on the course. Matt, who has the backing of corrupt police chief Thorpe

(Rob Huebel), must also pass the test because the Baywatch gig is part of his community service.

Suffice to say, Ronnie, Summer and Matt make the team. In addition to Mitch’s verbal sparring with Matt, he must also keep his beach safe from ruthless real estate magnate and insensitive flakkasupplying drug lord Victoria (Priyanka Chopra). As the body count mounts and Mitch has an increasingly hard time getting law enforcement officials to take him seriously, he and his law-abiding lifeguards hatch a plan of their own, which will ultimately include Victoria’s demise by Roman Candle.

If eye candy was the reason you watched the Baywatch TV series, then you will find Baywatch the movie just as sweet. Efron spends most of the movie shirtless, and owes a massive debt of gratitude to genetics and his personal trainer.

Johnson, who almost never removes his shirt, doesn’t need to; his clothing fits like a second skin. The sexual tension between Mitch and Matt is thick as steroidenhanced muscle. When Matt refers to Mitch as a “greasy hairless gorilla,” you just know he wants to feed him a banana.

The special features on the “fully extended” (get it?) combo-pack edition include both the theatrical and extended versions on Blu-ray, along with deleted and extended scenes and three featurettes. The second disc contains the theatrical version of the movie on DVD. Rating: D- t

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uthor - We From the a hicago cop eo of the C id v er cops e th w a all s s. All the oth way. The e m ti n e te e kid six uy blazed a shooting th detect ing as the g th o n g in icago police o h d C d a n u re ro tu a a n secon es fe stood owed up te Turner seri h l s u s a e P v ti y c m te de at incide books in o good-guy ermath of th over tw ft a y e m th if t 's a It h thought w h incident? g, that take e other suc investigatin m p o u s d E incident in R w O F o BE the video of ey d the real-life r th f e o rd We all saw the Chicago u th a m l rm a e tu ac ctives a ters, the aft then the the ial. My dete tr haractimes. c n l o a e n cop shooting kid sixteen b o ti to c fi e depar r soon As with my e in the polic er, h on trial, odoing , around m o le s b u to o t tr a All the th other cops stood in re th o er cops is as big a th n, a husband, and a fa par ut that away. a ht, b de g m nothing as the guy blazed ri e y o a lic d g o p a to r, is y tr Turne with h l , u it a e c P e . d lie d o n a d ngers ger a those wh through the tand e oals of dan h liv s e to y th tr te y a e gotimy Paul Turner nein The books series feature a g the right thing - s k, as th Fenwic k c in u o B d r, ly e p n book is part detective.em Chicago police I thought, . All for simwhat if villains. The envelope th eceit, and an array of 25 as a my two good-guytodetectives upaila ten idiocy, d showed ble August v a e c n ile S k. f o ing o such incident? seconds BEFORE someRother and an ebo paperback

From the author -

It’s the aftermath of that incident and then the actual murder they do wind up investigating, that take over the book. As with my fictional characters, the aftermath of the real-life incident continues; other cops in trouble, on trial, or soon to be on trial. My detectives are honest and try to do right, but that is as big a threat to some in the police department as those who lie.

Paul Turner, a gay man, a husband, and a father, has to negotiate the shoals of danger and deceit, with his police department partner, Buck Fenwick, as they try to live through the dangers that envelope them. All for simply doing the right thing - standing up to idiocy, deceit, and an array of villains.

The book is Ring of Silence available August 25 as a paperback and an eBook.

MaRK_ZUBRO.indd 1

t BE then As wit other c try to d those neg pa 8/7/17 3:24 PM

<< DVD

28 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

Channeling Emily Dickinson

by Brian Bromberger

D

irector-writer John Waters once said to director-writer Terrence Davies, “No one does misery and death like you do.” As if to bolster that “compliment,” Davies has found ideal subject matter in his latest film, “A Quiet Passion,” just released on DVD

by Music Box Films. It charts the life and familial connections of the great American poet Emily Dickinson.

The English Davies has found a kindred eccentric spirit in Dickinson.

The Emily depicted in “Quiet Passion” is no chirpy “Belle of Amherst,” Julie Harris’ one-woman filmed staged play. The film’s last half essays her cantankerousness and bitterness, wondering, Why has the world become so ugly? Davies is not afraid to present Dickinson as an independent thinker, a literary saint perhaps, but also as someone who occasionally could make the hair on your neck bristle with her harridan propensities.

Anyone expecting a standard biopic about Dickinson will be frustrated, as this is Terrence Davies, never very strong on plot. The movie emerges as a series of random, unrelated daguerreotype photographs of moments in Dickinson’s life, loosely chronological. Dickinson never

married, remained in the house she grew up in until death, and became a recluse in the last half of her life, greeting guests from the top of the stairway, hidden from view. There are few cinematic events as, like most writers’ lives, hers is an interior journey. In an opening scene, the camera lingers in the living room, panning slowly through every detail and object. That room will encompass her life. The expression on actress Cynthia Nixon’s face at film’s end is thunderstruck by that stark realization. Davies interprets the house as a source of her creativity, but also a kind of prison.

Unlike “The Belle of Amherst,” Davies expands his dissection of Dickinson (Nixon) through her family members: her optimistic, good-natured sister and best friend Lavinia (Jennifer Ehle), her stern but liberal-thinking father (Keith Carradine), her clinically depressed mother (Joanna Bacon), her lawyer brother Austin (Duncan Duff), and his wife Susan Gilbert (Jodhi May). But the real star here is Dickinson’s poetry, which is read throughout the film in a voiceover by Nixon, trying to match the emotions conveyed in a scene. Nixon recites the famous poem “I’m nobody, who are you” with glee as she holds her newborn nephew. As Dickinson’s funeral cortege proceeds

to the cemetery, you hear, “Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me.

The Carriage held just Ourselves, and Immortality.”

Davies’ Dickinson is constantly fighting against repression, whether it be religion (she’s branded a “no-hoper” by her teacher) or constraints placed on women. All of this was reflected in her poetry, the only place she could be revolutionary. In an interview in one of the superb extras, Nixon notes how Dickinson was a 20th-century modernist trapped in the 19th century. She’s a feminist by virtue of being a woman writing poems, not taken seriously (only about a dozen of her over 1,800 poems were published in her lifetime) by the literary establishment, and having to ask her father’s permission to write late at night. Still, by not marrying, she had the freedom to write, which few husbands would have allowed.

What of her relationships? She had

them with men, such as her flirtation with the local married clergyman who loved her poems but couldn’t leave his wife, and women, but we have no idea if any of them were physical.

In the film’s first half, Dickinson befriends Vryling Buffam (Catherine Bailey), who actually was a friend of Lavinia’s.

Davies reimagines her as a female theatrical Oscar Wilde. She talks in witty epigrams such as, “Going to church is like going to Boston, there is only joy when you’ve gotten home.” She encourages Emily to take risks and deepen her experience of life, even if only intellectual. Dickinson also had an intense bonding with her sister-inlaw, unhappily married to her philandering brother. Davies makes the case that her work was a form of resistance to her austere surroundings, which mirrors his own struggle to understand his homosexuality (“Being gay has ruined my life.”)

t

Nixon’s is a luminous performance both cerebral and physical, especially in the harrowing end scenes when, because of the untreatable Bright’s disease which killed her at 55, Dickinson is wracked by seizures. Since her “Sex and the City” days, Nixon has tackled difficult parts in movies and stage (Tony-winning performance in “The Little Foxes”) to emerge as one of our greatest actresses.

But this movie’s appeal will be limited. The melancholic auteur Davies’ framing and glacial pace are idiosyncratic. The formal dialogue comes across as mannered, as is his penchant for filtering lives through subjective memory, often leaving the viewer to make connections between scenes. He has been aided by towering cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister. The film looks as if filmed in the mid-1800s, and there is one stunning montage where the young actors sitting for a photograph through digital magic morph into the older actors playing their parts, showing the cruelty of aging. After seeing “Quiet Passion,” we understand why death, morbidity, grief, and time were important themes for Dickinson, a strong, complicated, sad, tormented woman, but unforgettable in this lyrical visual fete, a poem itself.t

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30

Arts Events

32

Kink curious?

35

Equality rally

Vol. 47 • No.35 • August 31 - September 6, 2017

www.ebar.com ✶ www.bartabsf.com

Oasis to host 22nd annual Drag King Contest

by David Elijah Nahmod

Ruby Rieke

F

or a long time drag kings didn’t get the respect that their queen counterparts took for granted, but Fudgie Frottage has done a lot of change that. Thanks to Frottage’s efforts, the Kings are now packing them in at clubs here in San Francisco and around the country. For the 22nd year Frottage brings San Francisco’s annual and now venerable Drag King Contest to local stages. This time the fun, laughs, and mayhem will be seen at Oasis on Thursday September 7 at 10pm.

See page 30 >> Left to Right: Madd Dogg 20/20, Max Manchester, and Drag King Contest creator Fudgie Frottage.

AUGUST 31 SEPTEMBER 6

F

all into the gap, that aut umn charming time when summer events win d up and autumn entertainments bloom. From classic rock to comic cabaret, camp and drag, you’re sure to find nightli fe to suit your taste.

Gooch

Fri 01

n page Listings begin o

Ror-Shok @ SF Eagle

{ THIRD OF THREE SECTIONS }

28 >>

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

30 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

<<

Kings are wild

From page 29

This year’s show has been dubbed Summer of Glove. Proceeds from the evening will benefit PAWS: Pets Are Wonderful Support, a nonprofit which provides food and medical care for the pets of people who live with HIV and other chronic illnesses.

“PAWS is a wonderful non-profit organization that started 25 years ago by helping people with HIV with their companion animals,” Frottage said as he explained why the organization was chosen as the contest’s beneficiary. “It has grown over the years to assist all people with disabling illnesses with things like vet bills, dog walking, pet food,

Landon Cider

etc. and has merged with Shanti as of last year, so the organization is now much larger.”

Frottage also explained how Summer of Glove ties in with the love-ins of fifty years ago.

“Our theme this year merges Folsom Street Fair,” he said. “Leather Daddies, with Summer of Love Hippie Dandies. The drag possibilities are endless! We will mix in some great throwback ‘60s music, psychedelic lighting and fetish flair, too. Glitz, glamour, sass, sexuality, style, you name it; the San Francisco Drag King Contest has it all!”

For those not in the know, Frottage explained the difference between a drag king and a drag queen.

“The original definition of drag was ‘dressed as girl,’ but the word ‘queen’ got added in at some point to describe men dressed as women,” he said. “So then the term ‘drag king’ evolved for women dressing as men. But at this point, especially in San Francisco, we are all genders and all genres and that goes for the performers and the audience.”

This year’s performers include Mr. Landon Cider, who might be considered a bit of a controversial figure in the drag world.

Cider was allegedly banned from RuPaul’s Drag Race.

“I was never officially ‘banned’ from the show,” Cider tells us.

“I think the promoters were just having a little fun with that! What they’re referring to, I think, is an Op-Ed I wrote for The Advocate RJ Johnson where I called out Ru when, during an inter-

Arts Events Aug.31-Sept.7

RJ Johnson

The Rebel Kings of Oakland in a 2016 performance.

view, she denied Kings as contestants with her explanation that we ‘don’t mix’.

“In the piece I was honest about the misogyny and under-representation of kings. Kings have a long history, having stood by, and sometimes fighting alongside, queens in many moments of our LGBTQ History. The piece was received with mixed reviews, but those that disagreed did so passionately! So it’s pretty safe to say that I burned the bridge to casting heaven!”

And yet, Cider retains a great deal of respect for RuPaul.

“Ru is still a heavy inspiration of mine and a well-deserved icon to our community,” Cider said. “She has a heavy influence on magnifying the industry, allowing me to be a full-time entertainer, and in no way would I deny that. She admits that we live in a male-dominated society, and celebrates our com-

La Cage Aux Folles @ SF Playhouse

Walls, the theatre ensemble’s latest play, is performed at various outdoor locales. Aug. 31 at Bayview Opera House, 7pm. Sept 2 at Peacock Meadow, Golden Gate Park, 2pm.

Sept 3 & 4 at Dolores Park, 2pm.

Sept 7 in Merced. Sept 89 & 10 in Santa Cruz. www.sfmt.org

The musical comedy revue celebrates its 43th year with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs; new numbers include a Summer of Love anniversary tribute. $25-$160. Beer/ wine served; cash only; 21+, except where noted. Wed-Fri 8pm. Sat 6pm & 9pm. Sun 2pm & 5pm. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd. (Green St.).

421-4222. beachblanketbabylon.com

New local production of Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s awardwinning musical based on the French play about a gay couple who run a nightclub, and the farce that takes place when their son’s conservative future in-laws visit. $30-$125. TueThu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm, Sun 2pm. Thru Sept 16. 450 Post St. www.sfplayhouse.org

Todd Grey @ Museum of the African Diaspora

E

xpressing ourselves through patronage, we show singers, painters, actors and others that we appreciate them, and thereby appreciate our own humanity. Get ready for new stuff, humans.

Thu 31 Ain’t Too Proud: The Temptations Musical @ Berkeley Rep New musical Dominique Morisseau based on the lives of the popular R&B vocal quintet. $28-$85. Tue, Thu-Sat 8pm. Wed & Sun 7pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Oct. 8. 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. www.berkeleyrep.org

Classic & New Films @ Castro Theatre Aug 31-Sept 4: Lawrence of Arabia new 70mm print (Thu & Fri 7pm, Sat-Mon 2pm & 7pm). $10-$16. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

The Klipptones @ Top of the Mark The local jazz band performs weekly at the swanky hotel lounge bar. 7pm11pm. thru August. 999 California St. www.klipptones.com

Reel in the Closet @ Roxie Cinema GLBT Historical Society’s screening of vintage home movies and rare historical documentary footage dating back to the 1930s, plus an episode of cohosts Stu Maddox and Joseph Applebaum’s web series Queer Ghost Hunters. $12-$15. 7pm.

3117 16th St. www.glbthistory.org www.roxie.com

“There are weekly King shows, Instagram contests...hashtags galore... the Annual SF Drag King Contest helped pioneer the way for drag kings everywhere. SFDK is an honored, incomparable tradition.

There is a magical energy every year at the contest. That is what keeps me going and what keeps the contest going.”

The Drag King Contest at Oasis, hosted by Fudgie Frottage and Sister Roma, includes special guest Landon Cider; performers Max Manchester, SF Drag King 2016, Madd Dogg 20/20, Momma’s Boyz, Klingon Vanna White, Rebel Kings of Oakland, Mason Dixon Jars, and more.

Judges include Leigh Crow, Arty Fishal, Kitten on the Keys, and Clammy Faye. $20-$35. Proceeds benefit PAWS (Pets Are Wonderful Support) Thursday, September 7. 10pm. 298 11th St. www.sfdragkingcontest.com www.sfoasis.com ▼

Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi

Zine and comic makers read from their works. 6pm-8pm. 100 Larkin St., lower level. www.sfpl.org

Oakland Pride Arts Fest @ Various Venues

munity’s ‘herstory,’ but continues to exclude her drag brothers, the very women she’s made her career of impersonating.”

Cider may not be appearing on Drag Race anytime soon, but he’s thrilled about his San Francisco appearance.

“What a phenomenal run the king contest has had,” he said. “I tried competing when I first started in 2010. But since I didn’t live in the Bay Area, I wasn’t allowed. I recognized even then, as a new king, the importance contests like this have in inspiring more kings to approach their drag with an element of theatricality and production value. I’m so excited to have been invited to perform and judge this year’s contest.”

“Drag kings have been gaining more and more attention over the years, not just in San Francisco, but all over the world,” adds Frottage.

SF Mime Troupe @ Various Venues

SF Zine Fest @ Koret Auditorium

Fri 1

▼

Todd Grey: My Life in the Bush With MJ & Iggy, an exhibit of art

by Michael Jackson’s personal photographer through the 1980s, and his experience living and documenting the Los Angeles music industry. Also, The Ease of Fiction and Love or Confusion: Jimi Hendrix in 1967. And, Sounds of Resistence, a Wednesday weekly music series thru Sept. 13. Free/$10. Each thru Aug. 27. 685 Mission St. www.moadsf.org

Zenith @ A.C.T. Costume Shop SF Playhouse’s production of Kirsten Greenidge’s new play about the consequences of a life-shattering crime. $20-$40. Thu 7pm, Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm, Sun 2pm. Thru Sept.

10. 1117 Market St. www.sfplayhouse.org

Fri 1 Art Murmur @ Oakland Galleries The monthly first Friday multiple art gallery tour includes outdoor food trucks and live music. 6pm-10pm. www.oaklandartmurmur.org

Beach Rats @ Landmark Cinemas Eliza Hittman’s acclaimed controversial film about a gay Brooklyn teenager’s cruising habits, and violent homophobia. In SF and Berkeley. Sept 8 at Alamo Drafthouse, SF. www.neonrated.com

Comic-Con @ Moscone Center West Booths, panels, comic artists, signed art on sale and lots more; celebrity appearances by Peter Capaldi ( Doctor Who ), Sean Astin ( Lord of the Rings) Nichelle Nichols ( Star Trek) and more. $30-$50. Fri 12pm-11pm.

Sat 10am-11pm. Sun 10am-5pm.

Thru Sept. 3. 800 Howard St. sanfrancomiccon.com/

Fri 1

Keith Moon: The Real Me @ Marin Theatre Company Mick Berry’s solo show as the iconic drummer for The Who. $20-$35. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Sept. 10. Lieberman Theatre, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. keithmoontherealme.com/

Oakland Pride Arts Fest @ Various Venues Celebration of LGBTQ theatre, film, music and events, Revolve social justice panels, queer & trans boat cruise, circus performers, a dance on Lake Merritt, literary night and open mic, Oakland Pride Center grand opening, 5K Fun Run, and more. Free-$40. Thru Sept. 10.

SpectrumQueerMedia.com

Beach Rats @ Landmark Cinemas

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

August 31 - September 6, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 31

Queer Tango @ Finnish Hall, Berkeley

Among the Bohemians @ GLBT History Museum

Same-sex partner tango dancing, including lessons for newbies, food and drinks. $5-$10. 3:30pm6:30pm. 1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley. www.finnishhall.org

Japanese poet Yone Noguchi, SF author Charles Warren Stoddard and their early 20th-century bohemian friendships are discussed with local scholars. $5. 7pm. Also, exhibits: Faces of the Past: Queer Lives in Northern California Before 1930, featuring vintage tintypes, mugshots and historic documents of LGBT lives, curated by Paula Lichtenberg and Bill Lipsky; Picturing Kinship: Portraits of Our Community, an exhibit of Lenore Chinn’s portraits in painting and photography (thru Sept 18); LavenderTinted Glasses, a queer Summer of Love look curated by Joey Cain. $5.

4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Mon 4 Fantasy Life @ SF City Hall

Sat 2

Jim Winters @ NIAD Art Center, Richmond

Tabitha Soren’s 15-year project photographing Oakland A’s players through their careers. Thru Dec. 15.

Ground Floor & North Light Court. www.sfartscommission.org

Unearthed @ California Academy of Sciences

Luna Gale @ Aurora Stage, Berkeley

Jim Winters @ NIAD Art Center, Richmond

Rebecca Gilman’s drama aboiut the dangers faced by foster children, and tough decisions for social workers. $33-$65. Tue, Wed, Sun 7pm. ThuSat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Oct. 1. 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. www.auroratheatre.org

Tears of a Clown, evocative clown paintings by the local gay artist.

Also, works by Micah Wood and Rachel Cohen. Opening reception Sept 9. Thru Sept. 29. Also, exhibits of art made by developmentally disabled people. Mon-Fri 10am-4pm.

551 23rd St. Richmond. (510) 6200290. www.niadart.org

Exhibits and planetarium shows with various live, interactive and installed exhibits about animals, plants and the earth; new exhibit, From Stone Age to Space Age, showcases minerals through time. Special events each week, with adult nightlife parties many Thursday nights. $20-$35. Mon-Sat 9:30am-5pm. Sun 11am-5pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park.

379-8000. www.calacademy.org

Not a Genuine Black Man @ The Marsh

William Blake in Color @ William Blake Gallery

Older and Out @ North Berkeley Senior Center Weekly group discussion about problems for elders in the LGBT community. 3:15pm. 1901 Hearst Ave., Berkeley. pacificcenter.org

Roz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs @ Cont. Jewish Museum Exhibit of the wry cartoons by the award-winning artist and author; thru Sept. 3. Also, exhibits about Jewish culture and by Jewish artists. Lectures and gallery talks as well (Fridays 12:30pm). Free (members)-$12. Fri-Tue 11am-5pm, Thu 11am-8pm (closed Wed). 736 Mission St. 655-7800. thecjm.org

Something Rotten @ Orpheum Theatre Bay Area premiere of the wacky musical comedy about Medieval artists who anachronistically create a musical comedy. Thru Sept. 10. $45-$214. 1192 Market St. (888) 746-1799. shnsf.com

The Speakeasy @ Palace Theater The immersive theatrical Prohibitionera nightclub experience includes drinks, food, entertainment, 1920s costumes requested of patrons (rentals available in advance; $125 and up), and hours of bootleg fun. $95. Thu-Sat thru Sept. 9. Columbus at Broadway. thespeakeasysf.com

Sat 2 Arts Festival @ Yerba Buena Gardens The annual outdoor daytime array of music, dance and theatre performances; other shows various days (usually Thu, Fri & Sat) thru Oct. 29. www.ybgfestival.org/events

Flower Child @ Modern Eden Gallery Large group exhibit of contemporary works in many media that celebrate the floral Summer of Love 50th anniversary. 6pm-9pm. Thru Sept. 2. 801 Greenwich St. www.moderneden.com

Flower Power @ Asian Art Museum Exhibits include Flower Power: floral art and live plant installations celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, and show how Buddhist art was an inspiration.

Thru Oct. 1. Other Asian art exhibits as well. Reg. free-$25. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. 200 Larkin St. 581-3500. asianart.org

Love’s Labour’s Lost @ Forest Meadows Ampitheatre, San Rafael Marin Shakespeare Company’s new production of The Bard’s romantic word-play comedy. $10-$37. Fri-Sun 8pm. Sun 4pm. Thru Sept. 24. 890 Belle Ave., San Rafael. www.marinshakespeare.org

Brian Copeland’s acclaimed longrunning solo show, about growing up in the racist suburbs, returns. $20-$100. Saturdays 5pm. Thru Sept.

30. 1062 Valencia St. themarsh.org

Other Cinema @ ATA Gallery Weekly screenings of unusual, rare and strange short films and videos. $9. 8:30pm. 992 Valencia St. 6480654. www.othercinema.com

The Summer of Love @ de Young Museum New exhibit about San Francisco’s historic 1967 groovy era. Also, a beautiful Stuart Davis retrospective, and amazing modern and historic art. Free/$15. 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park. famsf.org

Wild SF Walking Tours @ Citywide Enjoy informed tours of various parts of San Francisco, from Chinatown to the Haight, and a ‘radical’ and political-themed LGBT-inclusive tour.

Various dates and times. $15-$25. www.wildsftours.com

Sun 3 David Mertens @ Castro Country Club Exhibit of the artist’s new collection of evocative urban landscape paintings. 4058 18th St. Thru Sept 10. www.dmartstudio10.com www.castrocountryclub.org

Degas, Impressionism and the Paris Millinery Trade @ Legion of Honor New exhibit of works by Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Édouard Manet, Mary Cassatt, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, paired with period hats from french designers. Thru Sept. 24. Free/$15.

Tue-Sun 9:30am-5:15pm. Lincoln Park, 100 34th Ave. 750-3600. www.famsf.org

Edvard Munch: Between the Clock and the Bed @ SF MoMA New exhibit of 44 works by the misunderstood painter, known most for “The Scream.” Also, exhibits of Pop, Abstract and classic Modern art at the renovated and visually amazing museum, with two extra floors, a new additional Howard Street entrance, cafe and outdoor gardens. Free-$25. 10am-8pm. 151 Third St. www.sfmoma.org

OutLook Video @ Channel 29 The weekly LGBT TV show, with updates on current events. 9:30pm. www.outlookvideo.org

Exhibit of classic plates in the new gallery of historic art by the 18th- and 19th-century poet and illustrator. Mon-Fri 10am-5pm.

Sat 11am-5pm. 49 Geary St. #205. www.williamblakegallery.com

Author Readings @ City Lights Sept. 6: John Nichols ( Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse ). Sept. 7: Ellen Ullman ( Life in Code ). Each 7pm. 261 Columbus Ave. www.citylights.com

Ten Percent @ Comcast David Perry’s online and cable interviews with notable local and visiting LGBT people, broadcast through the week. Wed 7pm, Thu-Tue 11:30am & 10:30pm. www.ComcastHometown.com

Various Exhibits @ The Beat Museum Enjoy exhibits, a bookstore and gift shop that celebrates the

era of ‘beatnik’ literature (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, etc.), with frequent readings, walking tours and other events in North Beach. $5-$8. Daily 10am-7pm. 540 Broadway www.kerouac.com

Thu 7 Concert & Cocktails for Mark Leno @ Russell Cassman Pianos, Berkeley Enjoy performances by SF Symphony pianist Robin Sutherland, Grammy nominee Barbara Higbie, and SF Conservatory’s Christopher Basso in a musical cocktail reception for the gay former Senator’s bid for SF Mayor. $100 and up. 6pm-8pm. 843 Gilman St., Berkeley. www.rkassman.com

Grand Opening @ Oakland LGBTQ Center Best Wedding Photographer

Celebrate the newest centerreaders for as voted

by BAR support services for East Bay communities. 6pm-9pm. 3207 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. www.oaklandlgbtqcenter.org

Motion After-Effect & Mesh @ CounterPulse Freya Olafson with Yagiz Mungan and Kinetech Arts perform a new multimedia performance project.

Sept 7-9, 14-16, all 8pm. 80 Turk St. counterpulse.org

Tue 5 Achy Obejas @ SF Public Library The Cuban-American author and translator discusses her new book, The Tower of the Antilles.

6pm. Lower level, 100 Larkin St. achyobejas.com www.sfpl.org

Grab ‘Em by the Songs @ Uptown Nightclub, Oakland Mya Byrne, Kim Lembo, Kress Cole and Lauren Hulbert perform live foilk, rolk and indie music, $ 7:30pm.

1928 Telegraph ave., Oakland. www.uptownnightclub.com

Ira Watkins @ Tenderloin Museum The “outsider” artist’s exhibit of endearing portraits and landscapes portraying Black Americans.

Thru Oct. 11. 398 Eddy St. tenderloinmuseum.org

NYC & T @ Art Thou Gallery, Berkeley Group exhibit of 50 artists’ works inspired by New York City. Thru closing reception Oct. 14, 7pm.

1533 Solano Ave., Berkeley. theartthougallery.com/

Summer of Love @ ArtHaus Commemorative group exhibition of works in various media. Tue-Fri 11am-6pm. Sat 12pm-5pm. Thru Sept. 30. 411 Brannan St. at 3rd. www.arthaus-sf.com

Wild Card @ Exploratorium New exhibit of cardboard model villages; thru Sept 4. Also, hands-on exhibits. $10-$30. Tue-Sun 10am5pm. Pier 15, Embarcadero at Green St. www.exploratoratorium.edu

Will Durst @ The Marsh The witty comic performs his new solo show, Durst Case Scenario, with plenty of barbs at Hair Furor, aka Trump. $20-$100. Tuesdays, 8pm. thru Sept. 19. 1062 Valencia St. www.themarsh.org

Wed 6 Queerest Library Ever @ SF Public Libraries Hormel at 20: Celebrating Our Past/ Creating Our Future, a dual exhibit of archival materials celebrating two decades of the LGBTQ collections.

100 Larkin St., 3rd floor, and at the Eureka Valley Branch, 1 Jose Sarria Court at 16th St. www.sfpl.org

WINNER Best Wedding Photographer

Steven Underhill

PHOTOGRAPHY

415 370 7152

WEDDINGS, HEADSHOTS, PORTRAITS

stevenunderhill.com · stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

32 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

So, you’re curious about kink

by Race Bannon

O

ne of the most common questions I get from people is, “How do I learn about kink?”

That’s a rather broad question with no definitive answer and I typically follow up with other questions.

What specifically do you mean by kink? Why do you want to learn about it? Do you want to engage in kinky sex yourself or do you just want to learn about it as a point of interest? If you want to explore, are you doing so solo or with a partner?

The answers to these and other follow up questions establish the framework from which a decent answer can be given to the original question.

Just as often I’m asked how to learn about a specific kink. Most of the same follow up questions apply.

With that said, since there are lots of ways to approach learning about kink, I’d like to offer a few starter suggestions to give a newcomer.

The topic of learning, and how we learn best, is one near and dear to my heart. It’s been part of my professional life for a long time and I even wrote a book titled The Art of Self-Education: How to Get a Quality Education for Personal and Professional Success Without Formal Schooling on the topic (e-book available on Amazon).

How we learn and the best approaches to learning are something I know quite a bit about. I say that not to sell books (although that’s always nice), but to position what I’m about to say as having some weight not just as a kinkster who has taught hundreds of educational sessions

Leather folk, including pups, held a rainbow flag along Market Street to Civic Center following the Harvey Milk Plaza rally organized by Juanita MORE!

over the past 30-plus years, but also as someone who stays abreast of research and practices on how we learn best.

As with all of life, one size does not fit all when it comes to learning styles. Some people like to read.

Some like to take classes. Some like to watch videos. Some like one-onone instruction. Some learn best through problem solving.

I don’t think there’s one way that’s superior to them all except for the way or ways that work best for you.

Yes, learning research suggests certain approaches often work bet-

ter than others. But when the rubber hits the road, it’s ultimately about what works, for you, no one else.

Only you can know how you learn best.

When it comes to kink, though, we need to parse out two distinct types of learning – knowledge and skills.

There are certain things one needs to know to navigate the world of kink. How do kink social mores function? Where does one go to find kindred kinky compatriots, online or in person, and how can one be sure they’re authentic and trustworthy? How does one discuss kink proclivities with an otherwise non-kinky partner? How do power dynamic relationships operate? And so on. This is the information side of kink.

Information is something one can generally read about or discuss with those experienced in the topic without necessarily having to dive into the actual doing of it. Such information gives one a good foundation upon which to build your adventurous kinky pursuits.

There’s an old saying in sexuality circles; where the mind goes, the body eventually follows.

Kink, indeed all sexuality, starts in the brain before it manifests as anything physical. So, giving yourself some solid, basic information as fodder from the start is vital.

For this type of information there are a plethora of resources. Enter relevant keywords into a search engine and you’ll see an abundance of books, websites, publications, clubs

BARtab

and organizations, classes, articles and blogs about all aspects of kinky sex such as BDSM, roleplay, fetishes, and a lot more.

In addition to learning resources you can access easily on your own, locally in the Bay Area we have an abundance of riches for procuring this information directly from experienced sources. Check out the learning offerings at Wicked Grounds, Society of Janus, The Exiles, and San Francisco Leathermen’s Discussion Group, among others. One can attend many of their presentations and discussions and come away with a vast array of information that will serve your kink explorations well.

Then comes the actual doing of the kink; the hands on, so to speak.

How do you tie someone up? How do you best wield a flogger to extract optimal pleasure? How do you best approach fisting someone? When it comes to such sexual skills, this is where I part company with many of my peers. I think attending most classes and discussions are only minimally effective in learning such things.

The nature of skills is that they typically require repeated practice to do them well, or in some cases safely at all. While one might walk away from a discussion on leather and kink scene cultural norms and practices with a decent understanding of that landscape, you’re not

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going to walk away from a class in which you simply watch someone do something like complex bondage or flogging and be anywhere near proficient at it.

Much of BDSM and other kink requires extensive practice, often guided by someone with a lot of experience in that area. The idea of a mentor permeates the kink scene and it’s a worthy concept. Find yourself mentors who can guide you in these more detailed practices so that you do them safely and pleasurably. Mentors can be anyone with experience who you trust, and with whom you have open communication channels.

I think it happens best during the time one plays. It’s during the act of engaging in kinky sex itself that one can best explore these areas of technical (and mental) play. It’s the bedroom or playroom where the real, in-depth kink technique learning takes places.

Find play partners with whom you resonate, who either have the experience you seek, or who are willing to collaborate with you on mutual explorations and learning.

Once more, though, I’m going to part with many of my kinky cohorts and suggest you not just grab anyone to explore and learn. I think having at least a modicum of erotic connection matters. If one’s going to investigate the sexual, I think it is best done with people with whom you connect with sexually, or at least erotically.

Yes, you can go through the motions of connecting chain A to shackle B with anyone, but is that really the point? Isn’t the entire reason we do this thing we do to foster and build connections? Should that not be the same when we explore our sexualities?

There may be times when more anonymous kink workshop pairings are necessary, but I believe those means of learning should always take a back seat to intimacy and connection.

Just know that ultimately you direct your learning and you should align your learning opportunities with how you learn best and ideally with people that you share some mutual erotic connection.

When you do, the learning just sort of happens in a beautiful way.

Race Bannon is a local author, blogger and activist. You can reach him through his website, www.bannon.com

Leather Events, September 1-9, 2017

Fri 1

Mon 4

Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club

Ride Mondays @ Eros

Officially a CMA meeting, but open to all Anonymous 12-step Fellowship members, 4058 18th St., 9:30pm. www.castrocountryclub.org

Gear Party @ 442 Natoma Gear play party (leather, rubber, harnesses, etc.) for gay men.

442 Natoma St., $15 (requires $5 membership), 10pm. 442parties.com

Sat 2 Woof! @ SF Eagle Romp, play and socialize at this monthly pups and Handler mosh event. They have mats out to pup out on and snacks to munch on. 398 12th St., 3-6pm. www.SFK9Unit.org

A motorcycle rider and leathermen night at Eros, bring your helmet, AMA card, MC club card or club colors and get $3 off entry or massage. 2051 Market St. www.erossf.com

Fri 8 Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club Officially a CMA meeting, but open to all Anonymous 12-step Fellowship members, 4058 18th St., 9:30pm. www.castrocountryclub.org

Gear Party @ 442 Natoma Gear play party (leather, rubber, harnesses, etc.) for gay men.

442 Natoma St., $15 (requires $5 membership), 10pm. www.442parties.com

Fri 8 – Sun 10 Mr. Bolt Leather 2018 Competition Weekend @ The Bolt, Sacramento Attend the meet and greet, contest and victory BBQ and beer bust over this contest weekend. 2560 Boxwood St., Sacramento www.sacbolt.com

Sat 9 Hell Hole SF @ SF Catalyst Fist party for men. 1060 Folsom St. Doors open 8pm-12am, party ends 2am. $30. Students and Military with ID, $10. Volunteers get in free. www.hellholesf.com To see more Leather Events, visit us online at ebar.com/bartab.

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

August 31 - September 6, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 33

On the Tab

The Latin dance night also includes drag acts hosted by Lola and Dorys, with half a dozen gogo studs. Aug. 18: Lucia Mendez live. $10-$20. 9pm-4am.

2111 Franklin St., Oakland. club21oakland.com Weekly drag shows at the last transgender-friendly bar in the Polk; with hosts Victoria Secret, Alexis Miranda and several performers. Also Saturdays. $10. 11pm. 1081 Polk St. divassf.com

Bitch Slap! @ Oasis World premiere of D'Arcy Drollinger's comic drag parody of telenovelas and nightime soap operas, with plenty of big hair and shoulderpads, with Matthew Martin, Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, Nancy French, Steven LeMay, Jef Valentine and other talents. $25-$35. Thu 8pm, Fri & Sat 7pm. Thru Sept. 9.

Aug. 31 includes a special postshow Cabaret with cast members. $10. 10pm. 298 11th St. sfoasis.com

Gayface @ El Rio Queer weekly night out at the popular Mission bar. 9pm-2am.

3158 Mission St. elriosf.com

Junk @ Powerhouse MrPam and Dulce de Leche cohost the weekly underwear strip night and contest, with sexy prizes. $5. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

(415) 692-5774

www.megamates.com 18+

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie's Lounge

The saucy women's burlesque show hosted by Dottie Lux will titillate and tantalize. $10-$20. 8pm-9:30pm. 399 9th St. redhotsburlesque.com

Disco guru DJ Bus Station John spins grooves at the intimate retro music night. $5. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. auntcharlieslounge.com

Ror-Shok @ SF Eagle

Fri 1

Stank @ Powerhouse

Ain't Mama's Drag @ Balancoire Weekly drag queen and drag king show hosted by Cruzin d'Loo. 8pm10pm. No cover. 2565 Mission St. balancoiresf.com

As If! @ Oasis Sexitude the aerobics dance squad, and Sherry Vine bring you a '90s variety show and dance night. $5.

10pm-2am. 298 11th St. sfoasis.com

Rock/electro night with Johnny Rockitt, Rita Dambook, Amaya Blac and more live acts. $7. 9pm-2am. 398 12th St. at Harrison. sf-eagle.com Odorific cruisy fun, with host Leon Fox, the Ripe Pit Contest, gogos, DJ Kelly Naughton, lube giveaways. $5. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

Tom Gun Live! @ DNA Lounge Tom Gun Live! A Maverick's Homage, a hilarious live interactive performance of the screenplay for the film Top Gun, from the crew that brought you Point Break Live. $25-$45. 8pm & 10pm. Also Oct. 20 and Nov. 3. www.tomgunlive.com www.dnalounge.com

Albert Sanchez

Gooch

Weekly beer bust and benefit for local charities. 9pm-11pm. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

San Francisco:

Red Hots Burlesque @ The Stud

Go Bang! @ The Stud

Beer Bust @ Lone Star Saloon

Always FREE to listen and reply to ads!

Midnight Show @ Divas

Sat. 02

Thu 31

Playmates or soul mates, you’ll find them on MegaMates

Latin Explosion/Club Papi @ Club 21, Oakland

The Klipptones @ Top of the Mark The local jazz band performs weekly at the swanky hotel lounge bar. 7pm-11pm, thru August. 999 California St. klipptones.com

Literary Speakeasy @ Martuni's James J. Siegel hosts the monthly author/poet, musician series at the intimate martini bar, with Thomas Barron, Fureigh, Kar Johnson, Sarah Kobrinsky, and Tomas Moni. 7pm. 4 Valencia St.

The Monster Show @ The Edge The weekly drag show with host Sue Casa, DJ MC2, themed nights and hilarious fun. $5. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. edgesf.com

Picante @ The Cafe Lulu and DJ Marco's Latin night with sexy gogo guys. 9pm-2am. 2369 Market St. cafesf.com

Rock Fag @ Hole in the Wall

Steven Underhill

Enjoy hard rock and punk music from DJ Don Baird at the wonderfully divey SoMa bar. Also Fridays. 7pm-2am. 1369 Folsom St. 431-4695. www.hitws.com

Sat 2

Jody Watley @ Yoshi’s Oakland

Bear Trap @ Lone Star Monthly night with DJ Jimmy Swear. $5. 9pm-1am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Desperate Living @ The Stud Queer rock & roll night, with Abominatrix, Spray Tan and guest DJ C'Este Jille, plus Rahni and Ja Der acts. $5-$10. 10pm-3am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Friday Nights at the Ho @ White Horse Bar, Oakland Dance it up at the historic (and still hip) East Bay bar. 9pm-2am. 6551 Telegraph Ave. whitehorsebar.com

DTF Fridays @ Port Bar, Oakland Various DJs play house music, and a few hotties gogo dance at the new gay bar's weekly event. 9pm-2am.

2023 Broadway. (510) 823-2099. portbaroakland.com

Hard Fridays @ Qbar DH Haute Toddy's weekly electropop night with hotty gogos. $3.

9pm-2am (happy hour 4pm-9pm).

456 Castro St. QbarSF.com

Hella Gay Comedy @ Club OMG

Thu. 7 Puff @ The Stud

Queer joke night, with host Nasty Ass Bitch. $15. 7pm. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

iCandy @ The Cafe Gus Presents' weekly dance night, with DJ Deft, cute gogos and $2 beer (before 10pm). 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Yes, Todd Rundgren @ Warfield Theatre The epic progressive rock band performs tracks from each of their first ten albums. Rundgren opens. $34-$80. 8:30pm. 982 Market St. www.yesworld.com www.thewarfieldtheatre.com

Sat 2

Nob Hill Theatre NAKED NIGHT TUEDAYS SEPTEMBER 5th, 12th, 19th & 26th AT 8PM

Club Rimshot @ Club BNB, Oakland Hip hop and Latin dance club. $5$15. 9pm to 4am. 2120 Broadway.

(510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Go Bang! @ The Stud The groovy retro and modern disco mix night celebrates Sylvester, with guests Jim Hopkins, Paul Goodyear, residents Steve Fabus, Prince Wolf and Sergio Fedasz, plus Effervesence Jackson performing live as Sylvester. $5. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Jody Watley @ Yoshi's Oakland The Grammy-winning multi-genre singer performs with the band SRL, plus a special George Michael tribute, at the elegant nightclubrestaurant. $39-$75. 7:30pm & 9:30pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. www.yoshis.com

Mother @ Oasis Heklina hosts the fun drag show with weekly themes. DJ MC2 spins dance grooves before and after the show. Sept. 2 is a Kylie Minogue tribute night. $15-$25. 10pm-3am (11:30pm show). 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

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<< On the Tab

34 • BAY AREA REPORTER • August 31 - September 6, 2017

Powerblouse @ Powerhouse

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Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni's

Juanita MORE and Glamamore's fab drag makeover night, where newbies get the full transformation; this month, rugby player and community fundraiser Leandro Gonzales! $5. 9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

Woof @ SF Eagle The human pup mosh welcomes pro pups and the canine-curious; all genders welcome. $5. 2pm-6pm.

398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Sun 3 Beer Bust @ Lone Star Saloon Beer, bears, beats at the weekly fundraiser. $15. 4pm-8pm. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

B.F.D. @ SF Eagle Post-beer bust dance party for big men and their admirers and pals.

398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Big Top @ Beaux Enjoy an extra weekend night at the fun Castro nightclub, plus hot local DJs and sexy gogo guys and gals. $8.

9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.Beauxsf.com

Dark Meat @ Powerhouse Drag, fun and queer ambiance, with gogos, Cyanide and Jim Collins. $5. 9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

Sundance Saloon @ Space 550 The Country-Western line-dancing two-stepping dance night. $5. lessons at 5:30pm, dancing til 10:30pm. Also Thursdays.

550 Barneveld Ave. www.sundancesaloon.org

Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht.

9pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market.

Spanglish @ Club OMG Spanish and English drag shows and dance music with DJ Carlitos. $5$10. 9pm-2am. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Tue 5 Cocktail Time @ Ginger's Trois Enjoy drinks at the intimate downstairs tribute to the original dive bar; Tue & Wed 5pm-12am. Thu-Sat 5pm-2am. 86 Hardie Place.

Hella Saucy @ Q Bar Queer dance party at the stylish intimate bar. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Hysteria Comedy @ Martuni's Open mic for women and queer comics, with host Irene Tu, Tess Barry, Dom Gelin and Wonder Dave.

6pm-8pm. 4 Valencia St.

Karaoke Cocktails @ Ginger's The new basement tribute to the old Ginger's Trois hosts a weekly singing fun. 8pm-12am. 86 Hardie Place. www.gingers.bar

Naked Night @ Nob Hill Theatre

Mahogany Mondays @ The Stud Honey Mahogany's R&B, soul, drag show and tasty cocktail early event.

5pm-8pm. 399 9th St. studsf.com

Musical Mondays @ The Edge Sing along at the popular musical theatre night; also Wednesdays.

7pm-2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Ariana Savalas @ Oasis

Underwear Night @ Club OMG Weekly underwear night includes free clothes check, and drink specials. $4. 10pm-2am. Preceded by Open Mic Comedy, 7pm, no cover.

43 6th St. clubomgsf.com

Wed 6 Ariana Savalas @ Oasis

Strip down with the strippers at the clothing-optional night. $20. 9pm.

729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

The cabaret sensation performs her new song and burlesque-style show, The Menage a Tour. $25-$35.

8pm. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com www.arianasavalas.com

Sex, Drags & Rock n Roll @ Midnight Sun

Broadway Bingo @ Feinstein's at the Nikko

Mutha Chucka's fun drag night, with Mocha Frappalatte, Kit Tapata, Donna Persona. 10:30pm show.

4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Sing Out @ Encore Karaoke Lounge

Mon 4

Wed 6

Home of drag shows, and hilaraoke karaoke. 9pm-1am. 1550 California St. #2. 775-0442.

Stag @ Powerhouse Cruisy night for singles, and couples looking for a third. $3 Jagermeister shots will get you in trouble: the fun kind. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Una Noche @ Club BnB, Oakland Vicky Jimenez' drag show and contest; Latin music all night.

9pm-2am. 2120 Broadway. (510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Katya Smirnoff-Skyy and Joe Wicht's monthly musical triva night. Enjoy a cocktail and name that musical.

7pm. $20 food/drink min.

Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Green Apple Jubilee @ Great American Music Hall 50th anniversary celebration of the historic SF bookstore, with Michael Krasny, Wendy McNaughton, Mary Roach, Andy Cabic and others. $25.

8pm. 859 O'Farrell St. www.slimspresents.com

Miss Kitty's Trivia Night @ Wild Side West The weekly fun night at the Bernal Heights bar includes prizes, hosted

by Kitty Tapata. No cover. 7pm10pm. 424 Cortland St. 647-3099. www.wildsidewest.com

Movie Night @ SF Eagle Enjoy drinks and a flick, with trivia games and prizes. 8pm-2am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Pan Dulce @ Beaux The hot weekly Latin dance night with sexy gogo guys, drag divas and more, returns to the Castro, with Club Papi's Frisco Robbie and Fabian Torres. $7. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Thu 7 Bey-Hive @ Port Bar, Oakland Amoura Teese hosts an Oakland Pride drag and dance night. 9pm2am. 2023 Broadway. (510) 8232099. www.portbaroakland.com

Concert & Cocktails for Mark Leno @ Russell Cassman Pianos, Berkeley Enjoy performances by SF Symphony pianist Robin Sutherland, Grammy nominee Barbara Higbie, and SF Conservatory's Christopher Basso in a musical cocktail reception for the gay former Senator's bid for SF Mayor. $100 and up. 6pm-8pm.

843 Gilman St., Berkeley. www.rkassman.com/

Drag King Contest @ Oasis The annual festive drag king contest, hosted by Fudgie Frottage and Sister Roma, with special guest Landon Cider. $20-$35. Proceeds benefit PAWS (Pets Are Wonderful Support) 10pm. 298 11th St. sfdragkingcontest.com

Kingdom of Sodom @ Nob Hill Theatre Interactive sex party with a cash bar, clothes check, and a live sex show onstage with Armond Rizzo at 10:30pm. $20. 8pm-1am. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Puff, Love @ The Stud The new monthly pot-friendly queer night, with Maria Konner and her band Not From Jersey, DJ Sergio Fedasz, and guest Tom Ammiano. $5-$10. 7pm-10pm, followed by the drag show Love (10:30pm-2am). 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Queer Karaoke @ Club OMG KJ Dana hosts the weekly singing night; unleash your inner American Idol; first Thursdays are Costume Karaoke; 3rd is Kinky Karaoke 8pm.

43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Throwback Thursdays @ Qbar Enjoy retro 80s soul, dance and pop classics with DJ Jorge Terez.

No cover. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Thump @ White Horse, Oakland Weekly electro music night with DJ Matthew Baker and guests. 9pm2am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 6523820. www.whitehorsebar.com Want your nightlife event listed?

Email events@ebar.com, at least two weeks before your event.

Event photos welcome.

The

“I am, of course, a gay man whose novels are swarming with gay characters.

But this is a commercial category, not an artistic one.

I write, like anybody else, about how it is to be human.”

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August 31 - September 6, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 35

Photos by Steven Underhill Rally & March for Equality @ Harvey Milk Plaza, Civic Center hen white supremacists and far rightwing neo-Nazis tried to hold a rally on August 26 in San Francisco, W Juanita MORE! organized a rally in the Castro to bring attention to diverse local nonprofits, and thousands showed up. Multiple activists’ speeches and artists’ posters at the rally energized and inspired the crowd. The subsequent march along Market Street then merged with the Peace, Love and Understanding rally, where other groups gathered in Civic Center to hear Michael Franti and other musicians. To donate to the various supported nonprofits, visit www.nohatesf.org.

More photo albums are on BARtab’s Facebook page, facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife. See more of Steven Underhill’s photos at www.StevenUnderhill.com.

Read more online at www.ebar.com

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For headshots, portraits or to arrange your wedding photos

call (415) 370-7152 or visit www.StevenUnderhill.com or email stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com

SHANTI â&#x20AC;&#x2122;S 43R D ANNIVERSARY DINNER

Thursday, September 28, 2017 TH E P AL A C E H OTE L , S A N F R A N C I S C O

6:00 pm

COCKTAIL RECEPTION & SILENT AUCTION

7:30 pm

FORMAL PROGRAM & DINNER EVENT CO-CHAIRS Monica & Adam Mosseri HONORARY CO-CHAIRS The Honorable James C. Hormel, U.S. Ambassador & Michael P. Nguyen

Honorees

The 2017 Nancy Pelosi Lifetime Achievement Award

MARK LENO

The 2017 Margot Murphy Inspiration Award

GERRY CROWLEY

The 2017 James C. Hormel Community Spirit Award

CHIP SUPANICH

TICKETS ON SALE AT SHANTI.ORG For tickets, sponsorship, and auction donation opportunities, contact 415-625-5218 or specialevents@shanti.org.

For volunteer opportunities, contact volunteerservices@shanti.org.

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