March 19, 2015 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter by Bay Area Reporter

Catholic students speak out

ARTS

Botticelli to Braque

Dinah's got it going on

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Doubtfire SF LGBT center to arson oversee Pink Saturday defendant: ‘I’m a good person’

Vol. 45 • No. 12 • March 19-25, 2015

by Seth Hemmelgarn

by Matthew S. Bajko

he San Francisco LGBT Community Center has agreed to oversee this year’s Pink Saturday party in the Castro over Pride weekend, the Bay Area Reporter has learned. The center is seeking to hire an event pro-

Castro Street is jampacked during Pink Saturday 2012.

ducer on a contract basis to help plan for the party, set to take place June 27. Gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, who lives near where the party is held, and LGBT center officials on Thursday will publicly announce the new community sponsor for the yearly event. See page 8 >>

SFPD probes Program sprouts friendships for LGBT seniors racist, antigay texts J

Rick Gerharter

he transgender woman accused of setting fire to the house made famous in the 1993 film Mrs. Doubtfire said in a jailhouse interview last weekend, “I’m a good person.” Courtesy Jeanette McSwain “I didn’t do any of that stuff,” Tyqwon Tyqwon Eugene Eugene Welch told the Welch Bay Area Reporter. But there’s enough evidence in the case to hold Welch, 26, for trial on most of the charges against her, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Brendan Conroy ruled Thursday, March 12 after a two-day preliminary hearing. See page 9 >>

by Matthew S. Bajko

by Seth Hemmelgarn

he San Francisco Police Department is investigating four officers for allegedly being involved in exchanges of racist and homophobic text messages. The texts, most of Rick Gerharter which are race-related, recently came to light Police Chief in documents filed Greg Suhr Friday, March 13 in the federal court case against former police Sergeant Ian Furminger, who was convicted in December of stealing and other crimes. The district attorney’s and public defender’s offices are reviewing cases in which the officers were involved. According to the court filing, in one October 2011 exchange, Furminger wrote to at least one other officer, “I was trying to be nice to you as everyone knows your gay,” and “I love calling you a fag! Good enough?” In a May 2012 message, he told at least one See page 18 >>

asmine Gee first began visiting Felicia Elizondo on a weekly basis nearly two years ago. Their Monday morning get-togethers can consist of simply watching trashy TV shows together or walking Elizondo’s two canine companions or going on excursions around town or once to a North Bay casino. “We are not high rollers,” joked Gee, 66, noting the women limited themselves to betting just $20. For Elizondo, 68, who lives in a one-bedroom apartment in the Lower Haight with her dogs Gypsy Rose Lee, a black Pomeranian mix, and Simon, a mixed breed cocker spaniel, the visits ensure at least once a week she has a social outlet. “Seniors get very lonely. I don’t drink no more. I don’t smoke. There is no reason for me to be at the bar scene, that is just not who I am now,” said Elizondo. “Jasmine has an attitude of live and let live. She is just a good listener and a person to communicate with. Sometimes I just need someone to be there to sit and watch TV. We don’t have to talk.” The pair teamed up through the Friendly Visitor program operated by Openhouse, the San Francisco-based agency that provides services to LGBT seniors. The transgender women of color initially had met through their activist work, so when Elizondo, who is MexicanAmerican, saw that Gee, who is of Chinese descent, had volunteered to be a visitor, she requested that they be matched. “I thought I could teach her a few tricks,”

Rick Gerharter

Jasmine Gee from Openhouse’s Friendly Visitor program, left, walks Gypsy Rose Lee along with her friend, Felicia Elizondo, who is walking Simon.

joked Elizondo. “We are two different nationalities and sometimes we butt heads together. But we always come out being friends.” Just as rewarding for Gee, who had been married to a woman and came out as transgender in 2000, is being able to discuss their shared experiences. “It’s very enjoyable because although I connect with a lot of different communities,

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straight as well as LGBT, I am with one of my own,” said Gee. “As seniors we mutually learn from each other and mutually help each other. It’s a dual role. I love to step back and hear her bits of wisdom.” To which Elizondo jokingly responded, “And I have a lot of it.” See page 17 >>

<< Community News

2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

Murder defendant describes brutal killing by Seth Hemmelgarn

he man accused of brutally murdering his older gay roommate in San Francisco four years ago testified recently that he’d been “really scared” after the victim raped him, and he wanted to escape. “It was a struggle,” said Waheed Kesmatyer, 28, who allegedly killed Jack Baker, 67, in February 2011. “I was trying to get away. ... I was just scared he might kill me.” Contrary to Kesmatyer’s claim that he killed Baker in self-defense, however, Assistant District Attorney Diana Garcia has disputed the rape story. She suggested that Kesmatyer, who’s straight, attacked Baker in a dispute over the rent, and that Baker was stabbed and beaten as he fought against the much younger, much taller defendant. The trial also featured the highly unusual scene of a witness on his knees in front of the defense attorney to demonstrate what an act of oral sex looked like. Kesmatyer, wearing a blue suit, took the stand Wednesday, March 11. He occasionally took deep breaths while on the stand, and at times he was barely audible. Superior Court Judge Kay Tsenin reminded Kesmatyer several times

during his testimony to speak up. He told Deputy Public Defender Hadi Razzaq that he’d paid Baker $300 a month in cash for renting a room at Baker’s Nob Hill apartment, at 1035 Bush Street, since the fall of 2010, and he’d liked living there. However, he said, there were some things that made him uncomfortable. “Many times,” Baker asked him to sleep in his bed. “I thought he was joking,” said Kesmatyer, but he’d also come home to find Baker masturbating to porn in the living room. Sometimes, Baker would hug him “and touch my butt,” Kesmatyer testified. The night he killed Baker, about a week before his body was found, Kesmatyer said, he smoked some pot and drank some wine with him, then went to bed. He woke up on his stomach with Baker on top of him, he said. “Jack was having anal sex with me,” said Kesmatyer. Baker was “breathing really hard on my neck,” and he felt pain in his butt. “I was kind of pinned down to my bed,” he said. Baker was holding one of his arms, and “I was in a lot of pain.” “I tried to scream, and I couldn’t

Defendant Waheed Kesmatyer

scream,” he said. Eventually, Baker finished, and Kesmatyer said he remained in bed before eventually coming out to the kitchen, where Baker was near the sink. “I told him I was going to go leave and tell somebody about what he did,” said Kesmatyer. Baker, who had what “looked like a knife,” in his hand, tried to stop him, he said. Kesmatyer demonstrated how he’d raised his hands up. Baker cut his finger, causing his hand to bleed.

He said he soon grabbed the knife and “started hitting him with it.” (Several times during his testimony, he seemed to use the word “hitting” in place of “stabbing.”) Their struggle moved to the dining room, where they both ended up on the floor. “I was really scared,” Kesmatyer told Razzaq, and he thought that Baker “was trying to kill me.” After the attack, he said, he went the wrong way while trying to get out of the apartment and wound up back in his bedroom, thinking Baker was still alive and would come after him. He eventually got out of the apartment and was arrested days later in San Rafael. Garcia asked Kesmatyer whether Baker had come to him two weeks before the attack and confronted him about not paying the rent, and told him “he wanted to raise the rent.” Kesmatyer said that wasn’t true, and he also denied Baker had come to him about the rent again the night he killed him. “You get angry with people when you don’t get what you want,” said Garcia. She brought up a June 2008 incident in which she said he’d threatened to cut his family’s throats.

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Kesmatyer said he didn’t remember that, although he’d acknowledged to Razzaq that he’d said some “mean” comments to his family. Garcia also asked Kesmatyer specifically about several of the injuries he’d inflicted on Baker, such as breaking off a paring knife in his head, busting his ribs, stabbing him in the back as he tried to get away, and strangling him with an electrical cord. Kesmatyer said he didn’t remember many of those details. Much of Kesmatyer’s blood was found in the kitchen, including on a ceramic utensil pot. Garcia asked him if that was because he’d gone back to get a second, larger knife. Kesmatyer said he wasn’t sure. He said he just remembered stabbing Baker “a lot of times. I was really scared” and “trying to get away.” Kesmatyer had testified he’d told his father about the rape, and Garcia tried to get him to say exactly when he’d told him. She asked several questions about how in the days after the incident, he hadn’t told anyone else about Baker assaulting him. “I wasn’t in a position of telling anybody what was going on,” said Kesmatyer. He “thought it would be better” to tell Fredi Bloom, his Marin County probation officer from a previous incident, since she “knew more about the law.” However, he’d been unable to reach Bloom immediately. He also hadn’t told a jail nurse of the rape. Finally, Garcia asked him, “You weren’t raped, were you?” “That’s not correct,” Kesmatyer responded. His testimony concluded Thursday, March 12. Father River Sims, a street preacher, testified Thursday that he’d twice seen Baker outdoors forcing young men to perform oral sex on him. At one point after Razzaq called him to the stand, Sims demonstrated what it had looked like when he saw Baker with one of the young men, named Jason. Sims got on his knees in front of Razzaq, facing the attorney’s crotch, while Razzaq wrapped his hands around the back of Sims’ neck. Garcia was in disbelief at the unusual demonstration. “Seriously?” she said. Sims, who soon got off his knees, said the act hadn’t appeared consensual and after he shouted, Baker had let go of the young man, who’d “obviously” been resisting. He said he also later saw Baker force another young man, named Skyler, to give him oral sex. Sims said he yelled for Baker to “leave him alone.” “If I had not gotten up there, he might have gotten violent,” said Sims. However, he said he didn’t call the police either time he saw Baker with the younger men. Garcia introduced comments that Sims, a gay man who’s worked for years with homeless youth on Polk and Haight streets, had made as part of the project “Polk Street: Lives in Transition.” “I’ve seen people murdered, I’ve seen people brutally raped,” Sims was quoted as saying. Before Sims testified, Garcia said she was bringing up the quote to show, “This is a man who’s given to hyperbole and exaggeration.” During his testimony, though, Sims denied that he’d said it. But an audio clip a sourse pointed the Bay Area Reporter to shows that Sims did make the comments. Asked in an interview if he’d intentionally lied on the stand, he said he hadn’t. “I don’t even remember the interview, frankly,” he said. Dr. George Woods, a physician who specializes in neuropsychiatry, See page 5 >>

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Community News>>

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 5

Catholic students speak out against archbiship’s morality clauses statement. We are a brotherhood who advocate for love and acceptance.” Over 80 percent of teachers at the four high schools rejected the archbishop’s controversial proposal by issuing their own statement March 3. “We are here as parents and students to express our opposition to the proposed contract and handbook changes,” said Peggy O’Grady, a proud mother of a gay student at Sacred Heart, in a news release that she gave to the Bay Area Reporter. “We believe these changes will hurt our children, our teachers, and our school communities. To remove thoughtful reflection, dialogue, and even dissent, to silence and restrict staff, is to make our schools unsafe.” When asked if the Catholic schools had a large LGBT representation, many students and teachers agreed that it’s “moving in the right direction.” Over a dozen teachers who identify as LGBT stood up during the forum. LGBT role models in the media; conversations of major LGBT issues like Proposition 8, California’s overturned same-sex marriage ban; and out LGBT faculty members have all factored in a

Jane Philomen Cleland

Sacred Heart freshman Kristin Faith Avenis spoke at a forum about teaching acceptance.

by Chris Huqueriza

bout 500 people gathered Monday at the University of San Francisco to discuss recent proposals that Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has unveiled that many say would alter education of students and make teachers adhere to Catholic teachings even in their private lives. Concerned parents, teachers, and students attended the forum. Drafted by Cordileone, the revised handbook contains a morality clause that would require all staff to follow Catholic doctrine and to “conduct their lives so as to not visibly contradict, undermine or deny these truths.” The new language would affect staff at Marin Catholic, Riordan, Junipero Serra, and Sacred Heart Cathedral high schools, which are overseen by the archdiocese. The clause specifically condemns homosexuality, marriage equality, contraception, ordination of female priests, and assisted reproductive technology such as in-vitro fertilization. Any faculty member could be fired if found in violation. Cordileone has also upset teachers at the four Catholic high schools with proposed changes to their contract. At the March 16 forum, students spoke out. “The church’s teaching means to show love and compassion. We should not judge each other based on their sexuality or ethnicity,” said Sacred Heart freshman Kristin Faith Avenis, who identifies as a lesbian and said that she was teased about being gay in middle school but didn’t believe being gay was a bad thing. “We should reserve the right to judge people for God. And that’s how it’s suppose to be.” Nine students, including Avenis, spoke about how the controversial proposal contradicts their beliefs. “It’s important, especially for me. These teachers are my role models,” said Sacred Heart senior Gus O’Sullivan, who is gay. “My role models are forced to live contrary to their beliefs. It’s also damaging to the students who are oppressed or who are still questioning. Anything the archbishop is putting out there is not respected

Defendant

From page 2

has examined Kesmatyer and said on top of being orphaned as a child in war-torn Afghanistan, the father of a friend had raped the defendant when he was 12. Woods said the defendant suffers from a complex form of post-traumatic stress disorder, along with “psychosis not otherwise specified.” Someone who’s been traumatized “may not react appropriately” to some situations, he said. The trial, which opened in late February, is expected to conclude by early April.t

by [the four Catholic schools].” While several students spoke against Cordileone’s proposals, many LGBT allies, including parents and teachers, also made remarks. “This is not the church of San Francisco that I know or grew up with,” said Serra High School history and English teacher Paul Hance, 53, who is straight. “It goes completely against Serra High School’s mission

movement of acceptance and love, speakers said. “I think love is an important value in this Catholic community,” said Sacred Heart senior Kalya Stanten, who joked that she’s straight

but also questioning. “Changing the language of the handbook doesn’t convey the same love that I found so meaningful. You can’t teach something negative.” See page 16 >>

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<< Open Forum

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

Volume 45, Number 12 March 19-25, 2015 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 Chuck Colbert • 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 Elliot Owen • Paul Parish • Sean Piverger Lois Pearlman • Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota Bob Roehr • Donna Sachet • Adam Sandel Khaled Sayed • Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Jim Stewart Sean Timberlake • Andre Torrez • Ronn Vigh Ed Walsh • Cornelius Washington Sura Wood ART DIRECTION Jay Cribas PRODUCTION/DESIGN Max Leger PHOTOGRAPHERS Jane Philomen Cleland • FBFE Rick Gerharter • Gareth Gooch Lydia Gonzales • Jose Guzman-Colon Rudy K. Lawidjaja • Georg Lester • Dan Lloyd Rich Stadtmiller • Steven Underhil Dallis Willard • Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge • Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING Scott Wazlowski – 415.861.5019 ADVERTISING ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Lance Roberts NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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News Editor • news@ebar.com Arts Editor • arts@ebar.com Out & About listings • jim@ebar.com Advertising • scott@ebar.com Letters • letters@ebar.com Published weekly. Bay Area Reporter reserves the right to edit or reject any advertisement which the publisher believes is in poor taste or which advertises illegal items which might result in legal action against Bay Area Reporter. Ads will not be rejected solely on the basis of politics, philosophy, religion, race, age, or sexual orientation. Advertising rates available upon request. Our list of subscribers and advertisers is conﬁdential and is not sold. The sexual orientation of advertisers, photographers, and writers published herein is neither inferred nor implied. We are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork.

Holding SFPD accountable

an Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr is in the spotlight after racist and homophobic text messages exchanged by four veteran police officers and a former sergeant were made public. The texts were found in court documents relating to the corruption case of yet another officer, who was recently convicted by a federal jury. Additionally, SFPD brass is reportedly considering investigating another 10 officers. It’s never good news when law enforcement members behave terribly or criminally. But given the nationwide attention to racial bias in police departments that has come to the fore after the shooting death of unarmed black teen Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri last summer and the subsequent scathing federal Department of Justice report on the Ferguson Police Department, it’s unfortunate that San Francisco residents have to confront their own bad cops. Clearly, SFPD has problems. The unseemly texts are not the first scandal to rock the department in recent years. In addition to the aforementioned corruption case, in which officers were stealing drugs and other property from singleroom occupancy hotel residents, there have been other incidents on Suhr’s watch. These include shooting deaths of unarmed men by officers and a video of officers seeming to tip over an African American man in a wheelchair. Most recently was the alleged embezzlement of about $16,000 from the Pride Alliance, an employee group for LGBT officers, that led to the sudden retirement of gay Lieutenant Chuck Limbert, the former head of the group, amid internal probes. No charges have been filed against the suspect in the case, gay Officer Mike Evans, who also recently left the force. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that two of the officers involved in the texting scandal had disciplinary issues. One, whom the paper identified as Michael Robison, is a gay man who was accused of using a racial epithet. Another, identified by the paper as Michael Celis, was charged with four counts of misconduct stemming from

an incident in which he was accused of flashing his badge and offering a $100 bribe to gain entry to his estranged wife’s Burlingame hotel room. Records indicate that he was suspended. Suhr quickly pledged an investigation of the texts and said that the officers have “disgraced the department.” District Attorney George Gascón, who had been the previous police chief, pledged Monday to review cases that might be affected. “There is no place for bigotry in San Francisco,” Gascón stated. “In order to ensure our criminal justice system is fair and equitable, my office is conducting an immediate assessment of every prosecution within the past 10 years where these officers were involved. I have also asked the SFPD for any records they may have that will ensure the assessment is conducted thoroughly. This is a shameful incident that the public deserves to have addressed in a meaningful and expeditious manner.” Public Defender Jeff Adachi also called for next steps in combating racial bias among San Francisco police officers and said as many as 1,000 cases may be tainted by “bigoted officers.” Adachi said he’d work with Gascón on reviewing criminal cases. His Racial Jus-

tice Committee also released its 10-point plan for reform, the highlights of which include increased training on implicit bias; an annual review for supervising officers that screens for racial bias, excessive force, unlawful search and seizure, and false reports; and an increased effort to assign positions in minority communities to officers who live in the neighborhoods. Even the Pride Alliance, whose finances are being investigated, was compelled to blast the racist and anti-gay texts. “The contents of these text messages are a betrayal to everything we believe and a slap in the face to our members, our fellow officers, our department, and this beautiful community of San Francisco that we are called to serve,” alliance board members said in a statement. They’re right, as are members of Officers for Justice, the group for African American police. The actions of four officers have sullied the department, even though the majority of officers are hard-working professionals. These SFPD and district attorney inquiries should be swift, fair, and thorough. Suhr has a reservoir of goodwill in the community that’s being tested now. But he has demonstrated that he’s committed to community policing, is responsive to neighborhood concerns (he’s held public forums following the officerinvolved shooting cases), and is working toward improving the department. Nationally, police departments across the country are being challenged by the public to be more transparent and responsive. Officers have a tough job, but, in this case, that doesn’t excuse racist and homophobic text messages, that while sent on personal devices, send the wrong message that they are indeed biased against certain communities. Law enforcement personnel are supposed to be above such behavior and impartial. They are supposed to protect people equally, not denigrate them by tossing around the n-word and other epithets.t

EQCA squanders ’16 prez endorsement

quality California is fighting for relevance and if you need proof of that, look no further than its irrelevant endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. Clinton has not even announced her candidacy. While she is widely expected to make a second run at the White House, EQCA’s early endorsement amounts to nothing more than clickbait. The statewide LGBT organization did not interview her and it did not send her a questionnaire to complete – two requirements for candidates who seek its backing. In fact, just last week, EQCA told us that it was holding off from endorsing a candidate for one of California’s Senate seats (for which there are declared candidates, including state Attorney General Kamala Harris, a solid community ally) because it is “just starting the process” and the candidates “have to answer our questionnaire.” Rick Zbur, EQCA’s executive director, told us Monday that the organization “did not request or obtain a candidate questionnaire” from Clinton. “Since Secretary Clinton has not yet announced her candidacy, it would not be appropriate for her to complete a candidate questionnaire at this time,” he added. OK, so why endorse someone who isn’t an official candidate yet? “In coming to our endorsement, we carefully reviewed Secretary Clinton’s very robust record on LGBT issues and compared her record to the other potential presidential candidates,” Zbur told us. “Given the importance of this race to the LGBT community, we decided to endorse early because the choice is clear, and because we want to mobilize our community to urge her to run, and we want to begin early preparations to help her win.” It would have been better if EQCA had first led a statewide campaign urging Clinton to run. And it could have followed up with its formal endorsement process once she entered the race.

Hillary Clinton

EQCA’s actions are similar to that of the Human Rights Campaign four years ago. In May 2011 HRC rendered itself irrelevant in the 2012 presidential race when it early-endorsed President Barack Obama. While it was never likely that HRC would endorse a Republican candidate, its decision to back Obama’s re-election so early gave up any leverage in its ability to press GOP candidates on LGBT issues. The president, too, had no motive to promote LGBT equality to earn HRC’s endorsement; although as it happened, he did come out in favor of marriage equality a year later – before the election – mostly thanks to Vice President Joe Biden’s comments on Meet the Press. California has some of the strongest workplace, education, and health care protections for LGBT people in the country, including marriage equality. When Zbur took the helm of the organization last fall, we asked him what work is left for EQCA now that marriage equality has been achieved here. EQCA is now largely focusing on legislation to clarify some existing laws and making a big push to get state agencies to collect data on LGBTs so that they have a clearer picture of services needed and the funding to support them. EQCA also launched a faith effort, mostly by merging with

California Faith for Equality. Those are good and necessary initiatives, but they’re not popular or strike an emotional chord like marriage equality and so they don’t draw donors like same-sex marriage can. Washington Post political reporter Chris Cillizza developed an astute endorsement hierarchy a few years ago that explains the importance of different types of political endorsements. At the top of the list is what he termed the symbolic endorsement, like when Colin Powell endorsed Obama or Jeb Bush endorsed Mitt Romney. EQCA’s backing of non-candidate Clinton might be described as a non-endorsement endorsement, which is low on the list. The endorsement harms EQCA more than it helps Clinton. It risks EQCA appearing to curry favor by obeisance; that it’s sufficiently groveling earlier than others to get some attention. In the long run it’s a weak strategy. Like HRC’s 2011 backing of Obama, EQCA has taken itself out of the game before the election has officially started. It’s given up what moral persuasion it might have had, to push Clinton to talk more about anti-trans violence, race relations, or any number of topics. Burning questions for Clinton include: would she appoint an LGBT person to the U.S. Supreme Court? Would she advocate repealing the ban on open trans military service? Will she continue advocating for global LGBT rights as she did when she was secretary of state? EQCA missed an opportunity as the premier statewide LGBT organization to influence presidential politics. California’s the most populous state in the country; it has the world’s eighth largest economy and the most Electoral College votes, at 55. California cannot be ignored and EQCA blew it.t

Politics>>

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

LGBT young adults move into SF Marina housing by Matthew S. Bajko

an Francisco native Dennis Jones found himself living on the streets at age 20 after he had a falling out with his mom. Jones, 22, who is gay, said it had nothing to do with his sexual orientation but “just differences” between them that he declined to specify. He sought out help from Larkin Street Youth Services, and in 2012, moved into the Perramont Hotel on Market Street in the city’s gay Castro district where the nonprofit rents close to two-dozen rooms specifically to house LGBT youth. But with no kitchen on-site and ongoing issues between the youth and the hotel management, Jones applied last year to move into a new housing project for transitional age youth (TAY), most 18 to 24, in the Marina known as the Edward II. He was accepted and moved in to his one-bedroom with bath in November. “In this housing I live with more of my peers and understanding staff, instead of being at the Perramont where there was difficulty with staff,” said Jones, who is looking for work and plans to enroll in college with an eye toward starting a career in the social work field. “My goal is not to stay here long.” The nonprofit Community Housing Partnership bought the former tourist hotel, located at 3155 Scott Street and Lombard, in 2010 for $3.45 million but faced vocal opposition from nearby residents who were against the project. After a deal was reached, the city signed off on the housing in 2011, and a group of neighbors are serving as advisers to the project. “They continue to make the project better for everybody,” said CHP Executive Director Gail Gilman. The project houses 24 TAY youth who have their own rooms but share a kitchen and recreational areas. Larkin Street is providing them with supportive services. While the goal is for them to eventually move into their own apartments, the Edward II tenants all have their own rental leases they signed and can’t be evicted merely for turning 25 years old. “The program is designed toward the youth moving out into longterm housing. None of us live where we did when we were 18,” noted David Schnur, CHP’s director of housing development. CHP officials declined to say how many of the residents are LGBT youth, citing privacy concerns. But the agency estimates as many as a third are likely LGBT due to the fact that a third of the homeless youth in San Francisco identify as LGBT. Although the first Edward II residents started moving into the building last fall, it wasn’t until last week that an official ribbon cutting was held with elected officials and project backers, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (DSan Francisco) and Mayor Ed Lee. Pelosi referred to the early neighborhood opposition to the project and thanked Marina residents for “channeling their concerns” in a constructive way and working with the agencies to ensure the youth would be welcomed. She noted it is important to house the youth “in a neighborhood they are not used to so they can see another part of the community is welcoming to them.” As a black youth who grew up in

Rick Gerharter

Dennis Jones, a resident at Edward II housing complex for transitional age youth, speaks at the grand opening of the facility.

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Glazer for state Senate campaign

Courtesy Bonilla for state Senate campaign

State Senate candidate Steve Glazer

State Senate candidate Susan Bonilla

the Bayview and never spent time in the Marina, Jones had his reservations about moving to the predominately white neighborhood. “The atmosphere here is definitely different,” he said. “Since I am a black man I am extra sensitive to those kinds of things. A lot of us are still getting used to the neighborhood; just now I feel like I am recognized as a resident. Hopefully we will represent our community well and break that stigma.” Were it not for the housing assistance he is receiving, Jones predicted he would have had to leave the city. “Living in the East Bay would be really sad. I grew up here and I really want to live in the city,” he said. “It shouldn’t be a privilege to live where you were born in America. But it is becoming a privilege.”

was a good night tonight.” In second place was Assemblywoman Susan Bonilla (D-Concord) with close to 25 percent of the vote, or a tally of 24,161 votes. Bonilla, 54, had faced criticism from some LGBT advocates for supporting an anti-gay Vallejo city council candidate in 2013 and voting in 2008 with a majority of the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, on which she served, not to join in a state lawsuit aimed at overturning Proposition 8, the voter approved ban against same-sex marriage. Yet during her first two terms in the Legislature, Bonilla earned perfect scores on Equality California’s legislative scorecard. And she won the endorsement of the East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club in the Senate race. Landing in third place was former Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo), 62, who had won EQCA’s endorsement in the race. She received nearly 23 percent of the vote, or a tally of 21,912 votes. Republican Michaela Hertle, whose name appeared on the ballot although she had dropped out of the race and endorsed Glazer, placed fourth with 17 percent or 16,462 votes. In fifth was Democrat Terry Kremin, 50, with close to 3 percent or 2,710 votes. Because no one earned 50 percent plus one of the vote in the March 17 election, Glazer and Bonilla will square off for the seat in a May 19 runoff.t

BART strike foe leads East Bay Senate race

Orinda Mayor Steve Glazer, a Democrat who wants to end BART workers’ ability to strike, survived an onslaught of union-backed efforts to defeat him in a special election Tuesday for the vacant state Senate District 7 seat. The district covers the Contra Costa County cities of Alamo, Danville, Lafayette, Livermore, Moraga, Orinda, Pleasanton, San Ramon, and Walnut Creek as well as Alameda County’s Tri Valley area consisting of Dublin, Livermore, and Pleasanton. The former occupant, Democrat Mark DeSaulnier, resigned after being elected to Congress in November. Among the five candidates on the ballot, Glazer, 57, emerged in first place with nearly 33 percent of the vote, or a tally of 31,859 votes, according to unofficial returns Wednesday morning compiled by the secretary of state’s office. Thanking his supporters via his Facebook account, Glazer wrote, “It

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 two LGBT groups’ endorsement in the special state Senate race. 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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Pink Saturday

From page 1

“I think it makes a lot of sense. The center is really at the hub of a lot of things happening at the heart of our community,” Wiener told the B.A.R. “It makes a lot of sense for the center to step into this new, very visible role,” added Wiener, who said the center was the only group the city approached. In a separate interview, center Executive Director Rebecca Rolfe noted that the center is “deeply, deeply committed to community” and its leaders want to see Pink Saturday be “a strong community event.” Pink Saturday’s future was thrown into doubt in February when the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence decided to end their oversight of the street party, which they had managed for nearly two decades, due to escalating violence at the event. A sister and his husband were

Christine Smith

from using gender-appropriate restrooms. One of the more disturbing facets of that bill is that it will award other students $2,500 every time they discover a transgender student in their school’s restrooms. That bill has now passed the Kentucky Senate. It has also been added as an amendment to House Bill 236, a bill requiring committees to screen new school superintendents that has been widely expected to pass. I’ve also written about a bill in Florida to criminalize transgender restroom use, which would jail transgender people for up to a year and fine them up to $1,000 for entering a public facility in line with their gender identity. This bill is also moving forward. Finally, I talked about Texas, which had a bill similar to Florida’s, but with higher penalties – including penalties for businesses who allow transgender people to use appropriate facilities. Texas now has additional bills along the same lines, including HB 2801 which will not only make schools liable for transgender students using appropriate facilities but – like the Kentucky bill – will include a $2,000 bounty for catching transgender people as well as whatever amount a judge might award for the “mental anguish” of having been in the restroom with a transgender person. The argument of these bills and attacks is that allowing transgender people to use appropriate facilities will “open the stall door” for predators. To date, this has not shown to be the case any place where these protections already exist. That basic fact, however, has not swayed the emotion-based thinking of those swayed by fears of these unseen sexual predators. One thing I think worth noting is that by equating transgender

rights with sexual predators, a false connection is made. It is the same argument that was used to blunt gay rights in the 1980s and 1990s, with the connection between gay rights battles and fears of organizations such as the North American Man-Boy Love Association assaulting straight youth. The more the “bathroom predator” concept is introduced into this battle, the more transgender people come closer to being painted as these predators. I never thought that the big battleground for transgender rights would be the toilet. I look at how many of us – particularly trans women of color – are murdered. I look at our suicide rate. I look at all the other ill treatment we face, and it bemuses me that it all boils down to bathrooms. I want to leave you with my greatest fear in all this. This is the “end game,” of all these bills, presuming they pass. These bills will give people like Benham the ammunition he so craves. This will allow for discrimination of transgender people on a grander scale, and will cause an at-risk community to be even further at-risk. This will not only affect transgender people, of course: imagine being a non-transgender person who gets netted in all this and has to prove – perhaps even the court of law – what your gender is. Think of that 17-year-old transgender girl, who had to face Benham when she used the restroom. She was obviously not there to assault anyone, but Benham treated her as the worst of criminals. Imagine for a moment if you were that girl, facing an angry man calling you names when you stepped out of the restroom. That person might gain a bounty of thousands of dollars for doing so – and you will end up in jail.t

attacked last year, while Stephen Powell, 19, died after being shot toward the end of the party in 2010. Despite the Sisters’ decision, city leaders were determined to see that the party continued in order to deal with the tens of thousands of people expected to stream into the Castro on the eve of the city’s Pride parade and celebration Sunday, June 28. Not only does the annual Dyke March, held early in the evening of Pink Saturday, lead up to 10,000 people into the Castro, but the Pride-sponsored celebration that day in the Civic Center also wraps up around 5 p.m. and many of the attendees then head for the city’s gayborhood. City officials are also bracing for a larger-than-normal turnout for Pride weekend this year due to the U.S. Supreme Court expected to rule sometime in June on whether to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. When the court issued

two favorable marriage equality rulings ahead of the 2013 Pride weekend, San Francisco saw a flood of people show up to celebrate the decisions. The LGBT center will work closely with San Francisco elected officials and the police on planning for this year’s event. The center has agreed to end the party earlier than in past years, likely at 8 p.m. as city officials have called for, as a way to mitigate the unruly behavior that tends to occur later at night. But it does not intend to follow another suggestion that music and entertainment be axed this year. Rather, center officials are looking at having more entertainment options, as well as increased food offerings, as a way to instill a celebratory mood in the crowd. “I think one of the goals is to really build on the Sisters’ legacy and continue to make this more of an See page 9 >>

Gwen Smith can’t hold it much longer. You’ll find her on Twitter at @gwenners.

Community News>>

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

Positive Resource Center head takes a break by Seth Hemmelgarn

Agency’s plans

he executive director of Positive Resource Center, the San Francisco nonprofit that provides comprehensive benefits counseling and employment services to people who are living with or at risk for HIV/ AIDS, is taking a three-month break but says he’ll be back. The announcement this week from Brett Andrews, 50, who’s starting a paid sabbatical April 1, follows the recent departure of two other San Francisco nonprofit heads who left their jobs after taking similar leaves. Transgender Law Center Executive Director Masen Davis left that nonprofit earlier this year. Last summer, Carolyn Laub quit the GayStraight Alliance Network. Both Davis and Laub have been replaced. Andrews, who’s gay, insists he’ll return to PRC, which he’s led for 12 years. “I am not thinking about leaving Positive Resource Center,” he said. “It truly is the intention that I take a break that the board and I both feel I well deserve, and I’m looking forward to coming back.” While Andrews is away, Joe Tuohy, PRC’s managing director of development, will have the “dayto-day decision making authority,” according to Andrews. The senior management team will support Tuohy. Andrews said during his sabbatical, which ends June 30, he will travel, rest, and write. There are no educational or professional development requirements, he said. He plans to “reflect on my life and my body of work,” he said. “That will have me prepared to come back and do more of it.” The break comes as the nonprofit has completed a strategic plan that includes giving staff opportunities for sabbaticals. It also includes discussion of the agency buying its own building and other topics. “We’re using it as a retention strategy,” said Andrews. “The board is pleased with my work” and feels that “rest and rejuvenation would

Pink Saturday

From page 8

event about community and a celebration about the LGBT community and culture. More entertainment and activities will be a part of that,” said Rolfe. “We are looking at how to engage other nonprofit organizations and community members to help with that. Certainly, there might be speeches. Our goal will be to expand the opportunities and options for the people participating.” City Hall has agreed to foot the bill for the outdoor gathering, but it remains unclear how much this year’s event will cost. The 2014 Pink Saturday party cost the Sis-

Doubtfire arson

From page 1

Conroy held Welch, who’s been in custody since shortly after two fires were set January 5 at the Mrs. Doubtfire house, at 2640 Steiner Street, to answer on charges of attempted murder, burning an inhabited dwelling, possession of an incendiary device, trespassing, and buying or receiving stolen property. Welch has pleaded not guilty to the charges. He dismissed counts of making criminal threats and annoying phone calls. Assistant District Attorney Andrew Clark had already dropped a burglary charge. Deputy Public Defender Elizabeth Hilton has said the evidence against Welch is “circumstantial.” No one

ESCAPE TO PALM SPRINGS

Courtesy Brett Andrews

Positive Resource Center Executive Director Brett Andrews

keep me here at the agency longer, and I agree.” His travel plans include Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; Palm Springs, California; and the East Coast. Board President Kent Roger said, “The board has been trying to get him to take [a sabbatical] for the past number of years but it was just never the right time.” Roger, who’s led the group’s board for five years, is stepping down next week. Gay attorney and San Francisco Police Commissioner Julius Turman is set to replace him. Turman didn’t respond to a request for comment. In an email, Tuohy said, “I think Brett’s sabbatical can have nothing but a positive impact on PRC. With a solid management team in place to steer the ship in his absence, the organization is poised to benefit from renewed energy and enthusiasm upon his return.” Tuohy, who’s 49 and gay, has been with the nonprofit for six months. The group’s 2013 tax filing lists Andrews’ “reportable compensation from the organization” as $144,268. “Estimated amount of other compensation” from the nonprofit “and related organizations” was $17,586. The agency’s budget is $3.2 million. There are 32 paid staff, and the nonprofit serves about 2,200 unduplicated clients a year. ters $80,000, though Rolfe said the center expects this year’s celebration will cost more to produce. Not only is the center paying for professional management, something the Sisters long resisted doing, it also is planning for increased security in order to maintain a peaceful atmosphere. Also unknown at this time is if the party will officially be called Pink Saturday. The Sisters control the name and have yet to grant its use by the center. “We have not yet talked to the Sisters about keeping the name,” said Rolfe. “I think we would love to if they were willing. People see it as Pink Saturday.”t witnessed Welch at the house around the time of the fires, and there’s no surveillance video showing her there, court testimony has indicated. Conroy said the standard for holding someone at the preliminary hearing stage is “reasonable and probable cause,” not “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” Among the accusations Welch specifically denied in a Saturday, March 14 interview with the B.A.R. were starting the fires, and threatening or attempting to kill anyone. The interview was held at the San Francisco County jail facility in San Bruno. Hilton, who had declined the B.A.R.’s request to facilitate the interview, was not present. The owner of the house, Dr. See page 14 >>

Like many nonprofits, PRC has faced rising rents. The strategic plan for 2015 to 2017, which was adopted at the board’s retreat in January, includes the desire to raise money and purchase a building to ensure the stability of PRC’s “occupancy and finances” by December 2016. The nonprofit’s current office is at 785 Market Street. Andrews wouldn’t say what PRC’s rent is, but the group’s tax filing for 2013 lists occupancy expenses as $376,537. In an email, Andrews said, “Our rent went up 25 percent, starting next month, and we were only offered a two-year lease.” The nonprofit “to date” has “been gifted with a seven-figure bequest” from a trust, he said. “These funds have allowed us to think more broadly about our occupancy, including having exploratory conversations about the purchase of a building,” said Andrews, who indicated he didn’t know how much buying a building would cost. “We are in the preliminary assessment phase of identifying our space needs,” he said. “We will know more about that, when/if we do a feasibility study, potentially as soon as mid-2015.” The strategic plan also says that by 2017, the agency will “explore opportunities to support populations in need” and “continue to expand services beyond HIV/AIDS.” Among other projects, PRC is involved in developing a pilot project “to increase the employment of workers with disabilities in California, including workers with mental health issues,” according to information Andrews provided.t

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A Paid Study for People Who Are HIV+ Smallpox Vaccine Study

What A study to develop a vaccine against smallpox for people who are HIV positive Who HIV positive adults, 18 to 45 years of age, with t-cells below 500 Pay Participants will receive 2-3 vaccinations and up to $1350 Details For more information, please call Erika at Quest Clinical Research – (415) 353-0800 or email erika@questclinical.com

www.questclinical.com

COMPLERA is a prescription medicine for adults who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before and who have no more than 100,000 copies/mL of virus in their blood. COMPLERA can also replace current HIV-1 medicines for some adults who have an undetectable viral load (less than 50 copies/mL) and whose healthcare provider determines that they meet certain other requirements. COMPLERA combines 3 medicines into 1 pill to be taken once a day with food. COMPLERA should not be used with other HIV-1 medicines.

Just the

one

for me

COMPLERA is a complete HIV-1 treatment in only 1 pill a day. Ask your healthcare provider if COMPLERA may be the one for you.

Pill shown is not actual size.

COMPLERA does not cure HIV-1 infection or AIDS. To control HIV-1 infection and decrease HIV-related illnesses you must keep taking COMPLERA. Ask your healthcare provider if you have questions about how to reduce the risk of passing HIV-1 to others. Always practice safer sex and use condoms to lower the chance of sexual contact with body fluids. Never reuse or share needles or other items that have body fluids on them. It is not known if COMPLERA is safe and effective in children under 18 years old.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION What is the most important information I should know about COMPLERA?

COMPLERA can cause serious side effects: Build-up of an acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious medical emergency. Symptoms of lactic acidosis include feeling very weak or tired, unusual (not normal) muscle pain, trouble breathing, stomach pain with nausea or vomiting, feeling cold especially in your arms and legs, feeling dizzy or lightheaded, and/or a fast or irregular heartbeat. Serious liver problems. The liver may become large (hepatomegaly) and fatty (steatosis). Symptoms of liver problems include your skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow (jaundice), dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored bowel movements (stools), loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, and/or stomach pain. You may be more likely to get lactic acidosis or serious liver problems if you are female, very overweight (obese), or have been taking COMPLERA for a long time. In some cases, these serious conditions have led to death. Call your healthcare provider right away if you have any symptoms of these conditions. Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. If you also have HBV and stop taking COMPLERA, your hepatitis may suddenly get worse. Do not stop taking COMPLERA without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to monitor your health. COMPLERA is not approved for the treatment of HBV. •

•

• •

The most common side effects of COMPLERA include trouble sleeping (insomnia), abnormal dreams, headache, dizziness, diarrhea, nausea, rash, tiredness, and depression. Other common side effects include vomiting, stomach pain or discomfort, skin discoloration (small spots or freckles), and pain. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effects that bother you or do not go away.

What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking COMPLERA? •

•

Who should not take COMPLERA?

Do not take COMPLERA if you: Take a medicine that contains: adefovir (Hepsera), lamivudine (Epivir-HBV), carbamazepine (Carbatrol, Equetro, Tegretol, Tegretol-XR, Teril, Epitol), oxcarbazepine (Trileptal), phenobarbital (Luminal), phenytoin (Dilantin, Dilantin-125, Phenytek), rifampin (Rifater, Rifamate, Rimactane, Rifadin), rifapentine (Priftin), dexlansoprazole (Dexilant), esomeprazole (Nexium, Vimovo), lansoprazole (Prevacid), omeprazole (Prilosec, Zegerid), pantoprazole sodium (Protonix), rabeprazole (Aciphex), more than 1 dose of the steroid medicine dexamethasone or dexamethasone sodium phosphate, or the herbal supplement St. John’s wort. Take any other medicines to treat HIV-1 infection, unless recommended by your healthcare provider.

•

What are the other possible side effects of COMPLERA?

Serious side effects of COMPLERA may also include: New or worse kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do blood tests to check your kidneys before starting treatment with COMPLERA. If you have had kidney problems, or take other medicines that may cause kidney problems, your healthcare provider may also check your kidneys during treatment with COMPLERA. Depression or mood changes. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any of the following symptoms: feeling sad or hopeless, feeling anxious or restless, have thoughts of hurting yourself (suicide) or have tried to hurt yourself. •

•

Changes in liver enzymes: People who have had hepatitis B or C, or who have had changes in their liver function tests in the past may have an increased risk for liver problems while taking COMPLERA. Some people without prior liver disease may also be at risk. Your healthcare provider may do tests to check your liver enzymes before and during treatment with COMPLERA. Bone problems, including bone pain or bones getting soft or thin, which may lead to fractures. Your healthcare provider may do tests to check your bones. Changes in body fat can happen in people taking HIV-1 medicines. Changes in your immune system. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking COMPLERA.

•

All your health problems. Be sure to tell your healthcare provider if you have or had any kidney, mental health, bone, or liver problems, including hepatitis virus infection. All the medicines you take, including prescription and nonprescription medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. COMPLERA may affect the way other medicines work, and other medicines may affect how COMPLERA works. Keep a list of all your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist. Do not start any new medicines while taking COMPLERA without first talking with your healthcare provider. If you take rifabutin (Mycobutin). Talk to your healthcare provider about the right amount of rilpivirine (Edurant) you should take. If you take antacids. Take antacids at least 2 hours before or at least 4 hours after you take COMPLERA. If you take stomach acid blockers. Take acid blockers at least 12 hours before or at least 4 hours after you take COMPLERA. Ask your healthcare provider if your acid blocker is okay to take, as some acid blockers should never be taken with COMPLERA. If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if COMPLERA can harm your unborn baby. Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking COMPLERA. If you are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk. Also, some medicines in COMPLERA can pass into breast milk, and it is not known if this can harm the baby.

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088. Please see Brief Summary of full Prescribing Information with important warnings on the following pages.

Brief Summary of full Prescribing Information COMPLERA® (kom-PLEH-rah) (emtricitabine 200 mg, rilpivirine 25 mg, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate 300 mg) tablets Brief summary of full Prescribing Information. For more information, please see the full Prescribing Information, including Patient Information. What is COMPLERA? • COMPLERA is a prescription medicine used as a complete HIV-1 treatment in one pill a day. COMPLERA is for adults who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before and who have no more than 100,000 copies/mL of virus in their blood (this is called ‘viral load’). Complera can also replace current HIV-1 medicines for some adults who have an undetectable viral load (less than 50 copies/mL) and whose healthcare provider determines that they meet certain other requirements. • COMPLERA is a complete regimen and should not be used with other HIV-1 medicines. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS. When used properly, COMPLERA may reduce the amount of HIV-1 virus in your blood and increase the amount of CD4 T-cells, which may help improve your immune system. This may reduce your risk of death or getting infections that can happen when your immune system is weak. • COMPLERA does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. You must stay on continuous HIV-1 therapy to control HIV-1 infection and decrease HIV-related illnesses. • Ask your healthcare provider about how to prevent passing HIV-1 to others. Do not share or reuse needles, injection equipment, or personal items that can have blood or body fluids on them. Do not have sex without protection. Always practice safer sex by using a latex or polyurethane condom to lower the chance of sexual contact with semen, vaginal secretions, or blood. What is the most important information I should know about COMPLERA? COMPLERA can cause serious side effects, including: • Build-up of an acid in your blood (lactic acidosis). Lactic acidosis can happen in some people who take COMPLERA or similar (nucleoside analogs) medicines. Lactic acidosis is a serious medical emergency that can lead to death. Lactic acidosis can be hard to identify early, because the symptoms could seem like symptoms of other health problems. Call your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the following symptoms which could be signs of lactic acidosis: –feel very weak or tired –have unusual (not normal) muscle pain –have trouble breathing –having stomach pain with nausea or vomiting –feel cold, especially in your arms and legs –feel dizzy or lightheaded –have a fast or irregular heartbeat • Severe liver problems. Severe liver problems can happen in people who take COMPLERA. In some cases, these liver problems can lead to death. Your liver may become large (hepatomegaly) and you may develop fat in your liver (steatosis). Call your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the following symptoms of liver problems: –your skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow (jaundice) –dark “tea-colored” urine –light-colored bowel movements (stools) –loss of appetite for several days or longer –nausea –stomach pain

BS Page 1

• You may be more likely to get lactic acidosis or severe liver problems if you are female, very overweight (obese), or have been taking COMPLERA for a long time. • Worsening of Hepatitis B infection. If you have hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and take COMPLERA, your HBV may get worse (flare-up) if you stop taking COMPLERA. A “flare-up” is when your HBV infection suddenly returns in a worse way than before. COMPLERA is not approved for the treatment of HBV, so you must discuss your HBV with your healthcare provider. –Do not run out of COMPLERA. Refill your prescription or talk to your healthcare provider before your COMPLERA is all gone. –Do not stop taking COMPLERA without first talking to your healthcare provider. –If you stop taking COMPLERA, your healthcare provider will need to check your health often and do blood tests regularly to check your HBV infection. Tell your healthcare provider about any new or unusual symptoms you may have after you stop taking COMPLERA. Who should not take COMPLERA? Do not take COMPLERA if you also take any of the following medicines: • Medicines used for seizures: carbamazepine (Carbatrol, Equetro, Tegretol, Tegretol-XR, Teril, Epitol); oxcarbazepine (Trileptal); phenobarbital (Luminal); phenytoin (Dilantin, Dilantin-125, Phenytek) • Medicines used for tuberculosis: rifampin (Rifater, Rifamate, Rimactane, Rifadin); rifapentine (Priftin) • Certain medicines used to block stomach acid called proton pump inhibitors (PPIs): dexlansoprazole (Dexilant); esomeprazole (Nexium, Vimovo); lansoprazole (Prevacid); omeprazole (Prilosec, Zegerid); pantoprazole sodium (Protonix); rabeprazole (Aciphex) • Certain steroid medicines: More than 1 dose of dexamethasone or dexamethasone sodium phosphate • Certain herbal supplements: St. John’s wort • Certain hepatitis medicines: adefovir (Hepsera), lamivudine (Epivir-HBV) Do not take COMPLERA if you also take any other HIV-1 medicines, including: • Other medicines that contain tenofovir (ATRIPLA, STRIBILD, TRUVADA, VIREAD) • Other medicines that contain emtricitabine or lamivudine (ATRIPLA, Combivir, EMTRIVA, Epivir, Epzicom, STRIBILD, Trizivir, TRUVADA) • rilpivirine (Edurant), unless you are taking rifabutin (Mycobutin) COMPLERA is not for use in people who are less than 18 years old. What are the possible side effects of COMPLERA? COMPLERA may cause the following serious side effects: • See “What is the most important information I should know about COMPLERA?” • New or worse kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do blood and urine tests to check your kidneys before you start and while you are taking COMPLERA. If you have had kidney problems in the past or need to take another medicine that can cause kidney problems, your healthcare provider may need to do blood tests to check your kidneys during your treatment with COMPLERA. • Depression or mood changes. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any of the following symptoms: –feeling sad or hopeless –feeling anxious or restless –have thoughts of hurting yourself (suicide) or have tried to hurt yourself • Change in liver enzymes. People with a history of hepatitis B or C

PALIO Date: 12.03.14 • Client: Gilead • Product: Complera • File Name: 24057_pgitvd_Master_J_Bay_Area_Reporter_fi.indd Trim: 9.75” x 16.0”

Bay Area Reporter

virus infection or who have certain liver enzyme changes may have an increased risk of developing new or worsening liver problems during treatment with COMPLERA. Liver problems can also happen during treatment with COMPLERA in people without a history of liver disease. Your healthcare provider may need to do tests to check your liver enzymes before and during treatment with COMPLERA. • Bone problems can happen in some people who take COMPLERA. Bone problems include bone pain, softening or thinning (which may lead to fractures). Your healthcare provider may need to do tests to check your bones. • Changes in body fat can happen in people taking HIV-1 medicine. These changes may include increased amount of fat in the upper back and neck (“buffalo hump”), breast, and around the main part of your body (trunk). Loss of fat from the legs, arms and face may also happen. The cause and long term health effect of these conditions are not known. • Changes in your immune system (Immune Reconstitution Syndrome) can happen when you start taking HIV-1 medicines. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections that have been hidden in your body for a long time. Tell your healthcare provider if you start having any new symptoms after starting your HIV-1 medicine. The most common side effects of COMPLERA include: • Trouble sleeping (insomnia), abnormal dreams, headache, dizziness, diarrhea, nausea, rash, tiredness, depression Additional common side effects include: • Vomiting, stomach pain or discomfort, skin discoloration (small spots or freckles), pain Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effect that bothers you or that does not go away. • These are not all the possible side effects of COMPLERA. For more information, ask your healthcare provider. • Call your healthcare provider for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.

may become resistant to COMPLERA or other HIV-1 medicines that are like it. • Be sure to tell your healthcare provider if you take any of the following medicines: –Rifabutin (Mycobutin), a medicine to treat some bacterial infections. Talk to your healthcare provider about the right amount of rilpivirine (Edurant) you should take. –Antacid medicines that contain aluminum, magnesium hydroxide, or calcium carbonate. Take antacids at least 2 hours before or at least 4 hours after you take COMPLERA. –Certain medicines to block the acid in your stomach, including cimetidine (Tagamet), famotidine (Pepcid), nizatidine (Axid), or ranitidine hydrochloride (Zantac). Take the acid blocker at least 12 hours before or at least 4 hours after you take COMPLERA. Some acid blocking medicines should never be taken with COMPLERA (see “Who should not take COMPLERA?” for a list of these medicines). –Medicines that can affect how your kidneys work, including acyclovir (Zovirax), cidofovir (Vistide), ganciclovir (Cytovene IV, Vitrasert), valacyclovir (Valtrex), and valganciclovir (Valcyte). –clarithromycin (Biaxin) –erythromycin (E-Mycin, Eryc, Ery-Tab, PCE, Pediazole, Ilosone) –fluconazole (Diflucan) –itraconazole (Sporanox) –ketoconazole (Nizoral) –methadone (Dolophine) –posaconazole (Noxafil) –telithromycin (Ketek) –voriconazole (Vfend) Know the medicines you take. Keep a list of all your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist when you get a new medicine. Do not start any new medicines while you are taking COMPLERA without first talking with your healthcare provider.

What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking COMPLERA?

• Stay under the care of your healthcare provider during treatment with COMPLERA. • Take COMPLERA exactly as your healthcare provider tells you to take it. • Always take COMPLERA with food. Taking COMPLERA with food is important to help get the right amount of medicine in your body. A protein drink is not a substitute for food. If your healthcare provider decides to stop COMPLERA and you are switched to new medicines to treat HIV-1 that includes rilpivirine tablets, the rilpivirine tablets should be taken only with a meal. Keep COMPLERA and all medicines out of reach of children. This Brief Summary summarizes the most important information about COMPLERA. If you would like more information, talk with your healthcare provider. You can also ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist for information about COMPLERA that is written for health professionals, or call 1-800-445-3235 or go to www.COMPLERA.com.

Tell your healthcare provider about all your medical conditions, including: • If you have or had any kidney, mental health, bone, or liver problems, including hepatitis B or C infection. • If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if COMPLERA can harm your unborn child. –There is a pregnancy registry for women who take antiviral medicines during pregnancy. The purpose of this registry is to collect information about the health of you and your baby. Talk to your healthcare provider about how you can take part in this registry. • If you are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed if you take COMPLERA. –You should not breastfeed if you have HIV-1 because of the risk of passing HIV-1 to your baby. –Two of the medicines in COMPLERA can pass to your baby in your breast milk. It is not known if this could harm your baby. –Talk to your healthcare provider about the best way to feed your baby. Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take, including prescription and nonprescription medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements: • COMPLERA may affect the way other medicines work, and other medicines may affect how COMPLERA works. • If you take certain medicines with COMPLERA, the amount of COMPLERA in your body may be too low and it may not work to help control your HIV-1 infection. The HIV-1 virus in your body

BS Page 2

How should I take COMPLERA?

Issued: September 2014

COMPLERA, the COMPLERA Logo, EMTRIVA, GILEAD, the GILEAD Logo, GSI, HEPSERA, STRIBILD, TRUVADA, VIREAD, and VISTIDE are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. ATRIPLA is a trademark of Bristol-Myers Squibb & Gilead Sciences, LLC. All other marks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners. ©2014 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. CPAC0137 10/14

PALIO Date: 12.03.14 • Client: Gilead • Product: Complera • File Name: 24057_pgitvd_Master_J_Bay_Area_Reporter_fi.indd Trim: 9.75” x 16.0”

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14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

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SF to bid for 2020 AIDS conference compiled by Cynthia Laird

an Francisco plans to bid to host the 2020 International AIDS Conference, after losing out on hosting the 2018 gathering. As the Bay Area Reporter noted in a story last fall, the city was one of two finalists to be the host city for the 22nd biennial conference. But in December the International AIDS Society, which organizes the global gatherings, announced it had instead selected Amsterdam. The decision had been expected due to the deaths in July of several Dutch AIDS researchers when the Malaysian Airlines flight they were taking to attend last year’s AIDS conference in Melbourne, Australia was shot down by Ukrainian rebels near the Russia-Ukraine border. Among the victims was top Dutch AIDS researcher Joep Lange, a leader at the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development and a former president of the 4:44:57 PM International AIDS Society. As Mayor Ed Lee acknowledged to the B.A.R. last fall, there was an “emotional attachment to Amsterdam,” which last hosted the conference in 1992, as a way to honor the victims of the plane crash. San Francisco is now preparing a new application to host the gathering in five years. According to a spokesperson for the AIDS society, the 2020 bid process will begin in January 2016. Bids are reviewed based on three main criteria, according to the society, the city’s impact on the AIDS epidemic, its conference infrastructure, and freedom of movement and travel for people living with HIV. It refuses to bring its conferences to nations that discriminate against HIV-positive travelers. Joe D’Alessandro, a gay man who is president and CEO of San Francisco Travel, the city’s conventions and visitors bureau, said there are numerous reasons why it makes sense for San Francisco to be chosen as the host city. “The International AIDS Conference is particularly meaningful to San Francisco because of the city’s great losses to the epidemic in the past and the tremendous amount of work that has been and is being done here to end this epidemic in the future,” stated D’Alessandro. San Francisco last hosted the AIDS conference in 1990. But the International AIDS Society thereafter refused to return to the U.S. because a travel ban had been imposed on people living with HIV and AIDS from entering the country. It wasn’t until 2012, two years after the U.S. lifted its travel ban, that the AIDS conference returned to an American city when Washington, D.C. was the host. The 21st International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2016) is set to take place July 17-22 in Durban, South Africa. AIDS 2018 will be held July 22-28 in Amsterdam.

Doubtfire arson

From page 9

Douglas Ousterhout, 79, testified earlier this month that he and Welch had a dispute over the facial feminization surgery he performed on her in June 2014. Welch, who paid about $45,000 for the procedure, eventually wanted a refund, he said. That refund was denied. At the preliminary hearing, Ousterhout testified that he’d been at his home at about 12:25 p.m. January 5 when he heard something at the mailbox. He went to his door and saw Welch “with most of my mail in her

Tenderloin Tessie seeks volunteers

Easter is coming up and the folks at Tenderloin Tessie are seeking volunteers to help with the group’s holiday dinner for those in need. The dinner takes place Sunday, April 5 from 1 to 4 p.m. at First Unitarian Church, 1187 Franklin Street (at Geary) in San Francisco. Tenderloin Tessie board president Michael Gagne sent out an advisory stating that helpers are needed for Saturday, April 4 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to pick up items from the group’s storage facility and pick up groceries (some heavy lifting required). Then on Easter, volunteers are needed for the following shifts: 9 a.m. to noon, set up and decorate; noon to 4 p.m., help at the dinner and the mandatory meeting around noon; 3 to 6 p.m., help with the last hour of the dinner and tear-down. People can sign up for multiple shifts and all volunteers will get a meal around 2. Finally, people are needed to take the decorations and other items back to the storage unit Tuesday, April 7 from 9 to 10 a.m. Interested people can sign up online at www.tenderlointessie.com under the “Contact Us” tab on the left side of the page. Then scroll down to the “Volunteer” section. People can also call (415) 779-6285.

Macy’s Flower Show in Union Square

To welcome spring, Macy’s will usher in its annual flower show at its Union Square store from Sunday, March 22 through Saturday, April 4. This year’s theme, “Art in Bloom,” will give spectators a chance to experience multi-dimensional artistic floral displays featuring thousands of varieties of flowers. The displays will be inspired by centuries of artistic genius. Special event highlights include: Impulse Fashion Show Thursday, March 26 at 6 p.m. hosted by costume designer Janie Bryant of Mad Men. Make a $50 purchase in the Impulse department and receive a copy of Bryant’s book, The Fashion File, which she will sign. Culinary Council event with chef Nancy Silverton Saturday, March 28 at 2 p.m. in the Cellar. Silverton will share recipes inspired by the flower

hands.” Ousterhout said he got the mail back from her, and started to reenter the house when Welch “pushed me in and closed the door behind her.” She asked for his checkbook but eventually left. (Ousterhout didn’t say he gave her the checkbook.) Ousterhout told the court that later that evening he was in his kitchen at about 8:15 p.m. when he smelled gasoline and saw “the front door was glowing.” He opened his front door to find the doormat on fire. He soon realized the door also was ablaze, but he eventually was able to extinguish the flames. His garage door was also burned during

show. People can enjoy samples and explore the latest in cookware. Spring wreath demonstration and workshop Sunday, March 29 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Cellar. Tickets are $50 and include a signed copy of The Wreath Recipe Book and all the supplies you’ll need to create a wreath to take home. The always popular flower show plant sale takes place Tuesday, April 7 beginning at 9 a.m. at Piers 3032. Select plants and flowers from the show will be available for purchase, with all proceeds benefitting Delancey Street Foundation. For more information about the flower show, visit www.macys.com/ flowershow.

Meetings on Twin Peaks Tunnel closure

In an effort to improve Muni service, the light rail tracks along the Twin Peaks Tunnel route will be replaced later this year, resulting in temporary station closures, and public meetings are being held to inform residents and Muni users of the project. A community meeting will be held Thursday, March 26 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Castro Community Meeting Room, 501 Castro Street. Another meeting is planned for Tuesday, March 31 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Gerald Simon Auditorium, 375 Laguna Honda Boulevard. According to a project timeline, construction is expected to begin sometime in August. At a recent Castro Merchants meeting, officials said that during construction, Muni will need to stop trains at the Church Street and West Portal stations; a bus shuttle will be provided to bridge the affected stations. For more information, visit the project website at www.sfmta.com/ twinpeaks.

Medi-Cal members: Free nicotine patches to help kick the habit

In order to help more Californians quit smoking, the Medi-Cal Incentives to Quit Smoking program is specifically including LGBT Medi-Cal members in its outreach efforts. Qualifying Medi-Cal members can call the California Smokers Helpline (1-800-662-8887) to participate in free telephone counseling sessions to quit smoking and can receive free nicotine patches. Callers who mention “Promo Code 88” can also ask for and receive a free $20 gift card after completing their first counseling session. The nicotine patches and gift cards are available while supplies last. Counselors are available weekdays from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and weekends from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. According to research, LGBT people smoke at significantly higher levels than those in the general community, and nearly 70 percent of people who currently smoke would like to become a nonsmoker. For more information about Medi-Cal Incentives to Quit, visit www. nobutts.org/miqs.t Matthew S. Bajko contributed to this report.

the incident. Ousterhout, who was home alone at the time of the fire, wasn’t injured. Welch said Saturday that she feels pre-judged because of her gender identity. She said when it comes to a doctor and an “ethnic” transgender person, “who are they going to believe?” “They all worked together, so whatever they came up with between each other, that’s what they spoke upon,” said Welch of Ousterhout, who retired last year, and others associated with his former practice. See page 15 >>

Commentary>>

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 15

Why disability is not a sign of bad luck by Belo Cipriani

fter losing my sight, I noticed I was engaging in conversation with random strangers a lot more often than when I could see. Most of the time, the men and women who stop me on the street with the polite, “Excuse me, sir” are curious about my guide dog, Oslo. But once in a while, I do get the occasional person who wants to explain to me why I am blind. The folks with the unsolicited advice frequently reference lack of faith, lack of hope, and lack of prayer. But most memorably, they reference bad luck as a result of a wrong I must have done. With time, I have learned not to listen. Still, sometimes, their words get under my skin and it’s in these moments that I reach out to other disabled people for words of encouragement. Lisa Larges is 51 years old, a native of Minnesota, and holds a master’s in divinity from San Francisco Theological Seminary. Larges, who was born blind, identifies as queer and is a longtime member of Noe Valley Ministry. Larges came out to friends at 19 and around 24 to her family. She admits that, like many conservative families in the mid-1980s, her parents had a hard time with the news. “I am certain,” she said, “that part of their anxiety was worrying about my carrying the double stigma of being lesbian and being blind. My

family followed that not altogether uncommon journey of growing into greater acceptance.” Additionally, Larges gives her family a lot of credit for hanging in and supporting her goal of being ordained in the Presbyterian Church. When asked about the connection between bad luck and disability, Larges said, “Stuff happens – and that happening makes us who we are. I’m happy about who I am. I’m crazy lucky to be blind. A little less lucky to be blind at a time when we haven’t yet gotten to the place where valuing everyone’s worth, and the inherent commitment to full access and universal design, is a given.” Larges believes that growing up queer and blind was a recipe for creating rich internal worlds. “Rich internal worlds,” she added, “are good for a certain kind of personal religion. That internal world – that place of connection with God – gave me a space to be fully who I was, and lessened my sense of aloneness, or alienation, or otherness. “That faith,” Larges continued, “didn’t necessarily hold up well as

Lisa Larges, who was born blind, reads Braille.

Larges does not believe in good luck charms and would rather get lucky without them. However, she does believe that we are all a bit more lucky than we think. “Every living thing is, from the cosmic perspective, incredibly lucky simply to be alive,” she said. “Most, 90 percent or more, of all the organisms that have ever lived have died without viable offspring, but not a single one of your ancestors, going back to the dawn of life on Earth,

suffered that normal misfortune. You spring from an unbroken line of winners going back millions of generations, and those winners were, in every generation, the luckiest of the lucky, one out of a thousand or even a million.” Although technology has made disability a lot easier to manage, dealing with a life-changing health problem is tough – no matter what options are possible. For anyone who identifies as LGBT and has been recently diagnosed with a disability, Larges offers the following words, “It can suck, and it can be fabulous – the trick is to try and lean a little bit more toward the side of fabulous.” The queer community isn’t without its prejudices against disabled people. But, the queer community has always made space for people to be outrageously different – so, work it!t Belo Cipriani is a freelance journalist, the award-winning author of Blind: A Memoir and Midday Dreams, a spokesman for Guide Dogs for the Blind, and the career expert for the Ed Baxter Show on Talk Radio San Francisco 910AM. Learn more at BeloCipriani.com.

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Doubtfire arson

From page 14

Welch said she’d had the surgery because there were “a couple things I wanted to change,” although “I feel I already was beautiful.” “Dr. O. said he was the best doctor and convinced me to get further” surgical procedures than what she’d originally gone to him for, she said. However, she said, “Nothing we discussed came out right.” Welch pointed out numerous places on her face with which she was dissatisfied. She said before the surgery, she already had a rounded, feminine hairline, but Ousterhout said her hairline needed to be lowered. He ended up making it “more square” and “masculine,” said Welch. Additionally, her hairline looks a little slanted. Among her other complaints, Welch also pointed to problems with her lower face. She had a reporter feel a gap in her jawline, where bone is missing from what she said were Ousterhout’s actions. During the jail visit, she read from a letter she’d tried to give to Conroy. Her request was denied. Written on yellow legal paper, the message says, “I feel everyone deserves a life and to be happy,” and jail isn’t the place for her. Jeanette McSwain, 44, Welch’s mother, said in a phone interview that her daughter is “a very compassionate, loving, caring, and unique individual.” McSwain, who lives in Moreno Valley, California and attended the preliminary hearing, said, “I always told her she was beautiful,” and “she didn’t need” the June surgery. She said she’s “shocked” by the charges against her daughter, and “I can’t believe she would do something like that.” “That doesn’t describe my child at all,” said McSwain of the accusations. Welch’s bail is $750,000. Her next court date is March 19 for a hearing on electronic monitoring eligibility.t

I went crashing into early adulthood and love, and rejection, and grief, and experience, and life. But, in time, I found my way back into faith.” As someone who writes a lot on disability, I was curious to know what Larges’ thoughts were on religious philosophies around pain and suffering. And while she doesn’t agree with many of them, she does believe in healing. “God won’t give you more than you can bear,” said Larges. To that, I say, “BLECCCHHH!!!!” Every day, people experience grief and affliction and loss that is simply unbearable. We want some way to soften our dread of suffering, but suffering is pretty much just dreadful. And, still, regularly enough, people tell me that I can be healed if I pray hard enough. People say it to disabled people and to queers. And for a lot of queers of my generation, plenty of us wanted to get out from under the weight of the shame and the stigma of being queer. We got our healing when we found our pride and when we started organizing. “That kind of healing I’m in for,” said Larges.

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<< Sports

16 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

Site seeks to fill void among women coaches by Roger Brigham

ithin the past year, a longtime head basketball coach abruptly and unexpectedly left San Diego State, an ice hockey coach at Minnesota-Duluth was let go because of a salary higher than the university wished to budget, and in Iowa a field hockey coach was fired for, apparently, yelling at players. All three are women, all three are lesbians, and all three allege their universities created hostile work environments that treat women’s sports unfairly and set double standards for men and women coaches. Such are the symptoms of the state of women’s collegiate athletics, and such are the reasons why a new resource to help coaches communicate directly with each other was launched this month. Coaches Corner (http://mycoachescorner.org) was created by Brache the Silence in coordination with numerous other organizations and individuals in the LGBT Sports Coalition to provide a confidential online resource and discussion forum for coaches involved in girls and women’s sports. Nevin Caple, co-founder of Brache the Silence, said, “In response to the steady decline of women coaches, and limited accessibility to LGBTQ resources that address topics such as intra-team dating, finding common ground in religion and working with parents of athletes, strategic partner-

ships between coaches and sports advocacy thought leaders will help Coaches Corner deliver an inclusive platform, creating safer, supportive environments for women coaches.” Before Title IX was passed in 1972, bringing money into women’s sports programs that had been starving for cash, 90 percent of women’s teams were coached by women. Today? About 40 percent. And the number of men’s teams coached by women? Well, let’s see: can you name one woman head coach in men’s basketball or (gasp!) football? “Coaches Corner will provide an interactive, action oriented way for women coaches to discuss obstacles that often prevent women from having long, successful careers,” said Helen Carroll, sports project director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights Sports. “The diminishing number of women coaches has been a concern for too long. Having this opportunity with Coaches Corner to develop strategies and actual peer support in reversing what has often been a hostile environment for women coaches will strengthen women’s leadership in sport and that will be advantageous for the athletes that women coach.” The Coaches Corner website has a forum area for discussions; a resource section with articles on topics from negative recruiting tactics and Title IX issues to advice on managing intra-team dating and deciding to come out of the closet; and a news and events section to

Brache the Silence founder Nevin Caple

keep members up to date regarding ongoing developments. I logged on to Coaches Corner over the weekend (I coach girls on the wrestling team at Mission High School) and spent a few hours perusing the news articles. I found them fascinating, compelling, depressing, and invigorating all at once. The developments in Minnesota and Iowa are of particular interest, because they deal with how both sexist and homophobic perceptions shape actions and opportunities. Several Iowa field hockey players have filed a Title IX complaint against the university because they feel that coach Tracey Griesbaum was fired for behaving the same way men coaches behave, and that her firing deprived the students of an equal competition opportunity. The students say in their complaint that they “have asked the University of Iowa on no less than

three separate occasions from August 2014 to November 2014, to investigate what happened to Coach Griesbaum, to determine if gender was a factor in her removal and to inquire about their rights under Title IX. The university has not only refused to investigate, it has responded in what can only be described as a patronizing manner. The athletic director has used emotional arguments such as ‘your coach will be fine,’ and have tried to influence the players by providing them iPads. The four complainants are asking the Office for Civil Rights to intervene and investigate the patterns of gender discrimination that resulted in the removal of not only Tracey Griesbaum, but a series of strong female coaches.” The song and dance in Duluth is just as captivating. There, the university decided not to renew the contract of five-time national champion Shannon Miller, originally saying because they did not want to pay her $207,000 salary, even though that’s a fraction of what it pays its men’s hockey coach. After there was a public outcry over that, the university switched course, saying it was because the program was in decline and hadn’t won the national title since 2010. Apparently in Duluth you have to have an every-other-year record like the San Francisco Giants or you’re toast. Administrative noses grew longer when they announced their search for a replacement head coach by saying they would work with, among other groups, the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and

LGBTs take part in Cuban trip by Heather Cassell

GBT delegates to Cuba expressed their hope that with President Barack Obama’s proposal to lift the harsh 55-year embargo against the Caribbean country that LGBT Cubans’ lives will be improved. That’s what Vicki Gray, a transgender woman, and Leslie Hassberg, a lesbian, told more than 40 people who attended a report-back about their experience in Cuba at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists March 17. Gray, who formerly served 26 years in the U.S. State Department, and Hassberg, an activist and singer, were a part of a 150-member Code Pink delegation to Cuba that visited the country last month. The delegation was the first since Obama asked Congress to lift the embargo in December. In February, a coalition of Democratic and Republican senators introduced the Freedom to Export to Cuba Act of 2015 (S.491) that would effectively end the U.S. embargo against Cuba. The delegates talked about what they learned about art and culture, community, freedom of expression, health care, politics, racism, religion, and LGBT and women’s rights in Cuba in a two and a half hour conversation filled with photos from their trip and a social justice sing-a-long.

Catholic students

From page 5

Titled “Hear Our Voices: Teach Acceptance,” the forum included speakers from several entities, including University of Las Vegas Professor of constitutional law Leslie C. Griffin; retired religious studies

Not free yet

Cuba’s LGBT movement has a long journey ahead, said Gray and Hassberg, who met with LGBT activists and Mariela Castro, an ally. Castro is the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro and a member of Cuba’s parliament. She’s also the executive director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education in Havana. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Cuba in 1979, but attitudes in the mostly Roman Catholic island nation have remained largely homophobic. “Now that being gay is no longer illegal it’s still a difficult life for a lot of people there, even though there is government support,” said Hassberg. Currently, members of the LGBT community still aren’t able to organize to advocate for their own rights due to loopholes in the laws that make them targets for police harassment. Police tend to keep an eye on known LGBT individuals and if two men are seen together in public they are arrested for prostitution, said Hassberg. “The biggest problem that they have is the police harassment,” she said. “For instance, if two gay men meet on the street they are considered to be prostitutes and to be arrested. So, it’s very difficult to organize as a group of LGBT people.” Evidence that Cuba’s LGBT comteacher Jim McGarry; and former Catholic Charities of San Francisco Executive Director Brian Cahill. “Don’t let Cordileone drive you away from the church,” said Cahill, father to a gay son. “It is not consistent with the church. Cordileone is driving Catholics away.” Representatives of the archdio-

Women in Sport and the Alliance of Women Coaches. Hold on – not so pucking fast. The university had barely announced its search when the head of the Tucker Center said that it was strictly a research institute and would not be helping in the search; and the Alliance for Women Coaches said it would stand with Miller – not the university. “The role that the Alliance for Women Coaches will play will be to support Shannon in securing her next great coaching job,” Marlene Bjornsrud, executive director for the group, told the Duluth News Tribune. “We will walk closely with Shannon through this process, but it would certainly be a conflict of interest for us to participate in the search when our community of women coaches have really chosen to stand with Shannon.” Miller’s dismissal also led Campus Pride to dismiss the university from consideration for its Campus Pride Index, which ranks the LGBT friendliness of college campuses. Duluth had scored highly in previous indexes. “The climate, particularly in athletics, has taken a turn for the worse and has tarnished UMD’s hardearned reputation,” said Angela Nichols, founder of the campus’ GLBT Service Office. “Our campuswide commission met with Athletic Director Josh Berlo the week before he announced the non-renewal of the entire women’s hockey coaching staff, all of whom are gay or bisexual. It’s difficult to say we’re a top-rated LGBTQ institution and behave this way.”t

country, the delegates noted. Currently, Cuba’s LGBT community is working to educate the police and the public about gay issues and rights. Their goal is to halt police harassment so they can begin organizing to create their own social organizations to deal with issues the community faces, such as LGBT youth being kicked out of their homes because they are gay. In Santa Clara, the delegates visited El Mejunge, roughly translated to “wild diversity,” a center where artists, musicians, LGBT people, young and old people, and families congregate and have a “good time,” said Gray. “I found it a very inspiring place,” said Gray. “Actually, it was a great breath of fresh air compared to the self-ghettoization of say the Castro [in San Francisco].” Other ways Cuba’s LGBT activists are fighting back is that they have set up a hotline to document police abuse of LGBT individuals and to serve as a social service for queer Cubans needing advice or help. Activists are also producing a monthly magazine with their own funding. Code Pink has two more delegation trips to Cuba planned. The next one is April 26-May 3 and there will be one in November.t

munity is still being harassed by police happened during the delegation’s trip, said Hassberg. She told the audience about one of the gay activists who didn’t show up to the second meeting. “He had been driven by the cops outside the city so that he could not get to our meeting in time,” said Hassberg. “So, Jane Philomen Cleland they are still being watched Leslie Hassberg, left, and Vicki Gray talked constantly, being harassed. It’s about their recent trip to Cuba. definitely not clear sailing.”

A long journey

In spite of challenges the LGBT community faces, they have a strong ally in Castro. She’s been a vocal advocate for LGBT rights and fought to have sex reassignment surgery covered by Cuba’s national health care. However, some LGBT individuals in Cuba are critical of Castro, Gray and Hassberg found out. LGBT Cubans are skeptical of Castro not only because she’s the daughter of the current president and the niece of the former president, who persecuted LGBT individuals during the revolution, but because she isn’t queer and doesn’t “live the issues” herself, said Hassberg. “There is resentment that she is the figurehead here and yet she doesn’t live the issues herself. And there is no organization of LGBT people that is official that can advise CENESEX about what is most important to them,” Hassberg said, referring to Castro’s center. Fidel Castro apologized in 2010

to Cuba’s LGBT community for his homophobic actions in the 1960s and 1970s. Cuba isn’t only to blame for its lack of progress on LGBT rights. The U.S.’s embargo on Cuba cut off the ability for LGBT Cubans and others infected with HIV/AIDS to obtain medicine, Hassberg said. In spite of criticism, Castro is an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights in Cuba. She marches in the streets for LGBT rights and brought an International LGBT Rights Convention to Cuba in 2014. “She spoke forthrightly particularly about the changes that they are trying to bring about to make LGBT people more accepted in society both very rooted in Catholicism and also in machismo,” said Hassberg, who said Castro’s goal is to change the hearts and minds of Cubans about the LGBT community. With her help, some advancement in LGBT rights has been made in Cuba, but there is a long journey ahead for the LGBT movement in the

cese did not return an email seeking comment. Concerned parents and students have organized support on social media at https://facebook.com/ SupportSFteachers and https://twitter.com/4ourteachers. Also showing their pride, many student have worn black T-shirts with the hashtag

#teachacceptance. Called Concerned Parents and Students: Teach Acceptance, the group said its main objective is to oppose the proposed changes and promote the Catholic values of love, acceptance, and justice. The group has also asked its members and allies to participate

Got international LGBT news tips? Call or send them to Heather Cassell at 00+1-415-2213541, Skype: heather.cassell, oroitwnews@gmail.com.

in peaceful actions. The main objectives are to pray, walk in solidarity, and sign a petition. The next planned event will be a procession and vigil Monday, March 30 where students, teachers, and parents will meet at 6 p.m. at Mission Dolores Church, 16th and Mission streets and head to St. Mary’s Cathedral.t

t <<

Community News>>

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 17

LGBT seniors

From page 1

Openhouse assumed oversight of the visitor program five years ago after the collapse of the LGBT mental health agency New Leaf: Services for Our Community. The goal is to foster personal connections between LGBT seniors, many of whom live alone, with other members of the LGBT community. While some older adults may mistakenly view it as a babysitting service for seniors – or someone to run errands for them – in actuality it operates more like a pen pal program come to life. “Often, as we age, folks tend to isolate themselves or it just gets more challenging to get out. The benefit here is a volunteer visitor goes to their home and gets them out of their home,” said Michelle Alcedo, Openhouse’s director of programs. “For us, we are shifting how we talk about the program to emphasis it is more of an empowerment model. It is much more egalitarian in terms of both parties have something to contribute.” As a sub-grantor of the Family Caregiver Alliance, Openhouse receives $20,100 in Department of Adult and Aging Services funding to help cover the costs of the visitor program. Additional funding is allocated through a DAAS community services contract Openhouse was awarded. Thirty seniors are currently matched with visitors, whose ages range from their mid-20s to early 70s. Two participants have been matched with same-sex couples, while 10 volunteers are waiting to be teamed up with a senior.

Looking for seniors

Openhouse, which is looking to hire someone to oversee the program due to a staff departure, would like to double the capacity by the end of the year so that up to 70 seniors are matched with friendly visitors. “We are always looking for more seniors to be visited,” said Alcedo. Any San Francisco LGBT adult age 60 and older is eligible to sign up for

LGBT PROGRESSIVE CATHOLICS † OUR FAMILIES & FRIENDS

Celebrating our Sexuality and Love as Gifts of God

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Paul Towne, left, from Openhouse’s Friendly Visitor program, chats with Marc Tosca over a coffee at Cafe Flore.

the program. An Openhouse staff person will then conduct an assessment at their home, which can take between 90 minutes to two hours, to determine their interests and preferences in terms of a visitor. Visitors are required to attend a four and half hour training, held at least once quarterly, that covers myriad circumstances they may encounter. “We want to ensure we try our best to gather as much information about the senior and volunteer to be able to make a thoughtful match,” said Alcedo. Once matched with a senior, volunteers are asked to visit them at least twice a month, though many meet on a weekly basis. Those who become friendly visitors also are asked to attend monthly support group meetings. “They brainstorm strategies for how to increase connection or how to support a senior who perhaps is experiencing grief. Or they discuss how they themselves are experiencing grief due to the declining health of the community member they see,” explained Alcedo. “We are now seeing folks who were matched with people for a number of years going through the grieving process because they are loosing essentially a friend and someone very meaningful to them.” Marc Tosca, 73, signed up for the program last year in order to force

himself out of his home. Tosca, who moved to San Francisco in 1970, Tosca lost many of his gay friends to AIDS in the 1980s, and those who survived the epidemic are now dying from ailments that come with old age. “I am rather reclusive,” admitted Tosca. “I no longer participate in activities.” Since last summer he has been getting together on a regular basis with Dan Kreiter, 36, and Paul Towne, 39, a married couple who moved to San Francisco three years ago. They will grab a cup of coffee together or take in a theater show. “We wanted to do something where we developed a relationship with someone in the community,” said Towne. Hearing Tosca talk about his experiences during the early decades of the LGBT rights movement, Towne said he and his husband “feel a part of the city and the history.” The other benefit from going on outings with Tosca, added Towne, “is that in some ways we are exploring the city together.” Tosca sees his being matched with a younger couple as honoring the older gay men he befriended in his youth. “For me it is coming full circle. When I was young I hung out with older people who were not my peers. Now it is reversed,” he said. Anyone interested in the program, whether seniors or visitors, can call Alcedo at (415) 728-0195 for more information or email info@openhouse-sf.org.t

in Palm Springs, California. She was 79. Twin Peaks was purchased by Ms. Cunha and Margaret Forster in 1972 and began its life in the middle of the Castro and the LGBT community. In 2013 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors designated Twin Peaks a historic landmark as it’s the first known gay bar to feature full length plate glass windows, becoming a visible symbol of the LGBT movement. Ms. Forster died in 2008. George Roehm, a gay man who worked for Ms. Cunha at Twin Peaks for over 20 years, later bought the establishment from her. His business partner is Jeffrey Green, also a gay man who worked at the bar for many years. “Her contribution was when she opened the bar it had the floor to ceiling windows,” Roehm told the Bay Area Reporter in a brief phone interview. “It was 1972 and gay bars weren’t visible. It was a grand gesture.” Roehm added that at the time, people could still be fired for being gay and that Ms. Cunha wasn’t sure Twin Peaks Tavern would be successful. “But it was packed from the day it opened,” Roehm said. Ms. Cunha was a successful businesswoman and owned other enterprises and properties in San Francisco and Palm Springs, according to an obituary published in the Merced Sun Star. Born on February 19, 1935 in Los Banos, California, Ms. Cunha graduated from Los Banos High School. She then moved to San Francisco. According to the obituary, Ms. Cunha loved to travel with her friends. She was an enthusiastic fan of all college and pro sports; one of her favorite times of year was March Madness, college basketball’s playoffs. Ms. Cunha was preceded in death by

her parents, Fred and Katherine Cunha; brother, Fred Cunha; and sisters, Vera Streeter, Rosie Tipton, and Betty McClendon. She is survived by three sisters, Kathy Graper, Shirley Daguerre, and Helen Huckobey (Ray), along with many nieces and nephews. Services for Ms. Cunha were held last month in Los Banos.

Obituaries >> Brad Alan Anderson December 17, 1954 – January 3, 2015 Brad Alan Anderson died in San Francisco a few weeks after his 60th birthday. He is survived by his partner, Bob Friedland; his sister, Lonnie; his brother, Steve; and friends in San Francisco and San Diego. Brad was born in Cherokee, Iowa in 1954 and attended high school nearby. At the age of 20, he joined the U.S. Navy and served for three years. He later had a 20-year career at UC San Diego as a college adviser. In 2005, he moved to San Francisco to attend San Francisco State University and completed a degree in art history and ceramics. He worked for SFSU for seven years until his health caused him to retire. Brad enjoyed swimming, exercise, the beach, reading, dancing, art, and food. He was gifted at creating beautiful ceramic sculptures. He was known for his wit and dry sense of humor. One of the highlights of his life was visiting Europe for the first time with Bob and having the opportunity to see many of the artworks that he had studied in college. Brad is sadly missed by his partner, Bob, his family, and his friends who knew him. Private services will be held in San Francisco May 16.

Mary Ellen Cunha February 19, 1935 – January 29, 2015 Mary Ellen Cunha, a lesbian who with her business partner purchased the Twin Peaks Tavern in the Castro district back in the 1970s, died January 29

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In Memoriam Marcus Hernandez March 22, 1932 – October 8, 2009

Memorial set for Michael Baxter

A memorial will be held Wednesday, March 25 for Michael Baxter, a longtime San Francisco Department of Public Health employee who died February 4. He was 60. The service will take place from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the South Light Court at San Francisco City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place. Speakers will include Health Director Barbara Garcia; Sherilyn Adams, executive director of Larkin Street Youth Services; Mr. Baxter’s husband, Alex Martinez; their son, Steven Cooper; and other DPH officials. Mr. Baxter was the director of the health department’s Primary Care Youth Programs and Family Planning and oversaw and directed the operation of eight youth clinics located throughout the city, with a particular eye to enriching programs for low-income, homeless, incarcerated, and LGBTQ youth, and youth of color. He was also chair for the Dimensions Clinic Collaborative. In lieu of flowers, people can send a donation to Dimensions Health Collaborative, Attn: Owen Morse, 30 Van Ness Avenue, Suite 260B, San Francisco, CA 94102. To read the previously published obituary on Mr. Baxter, visit http://ebar.com/ obituaries/index.php?id=923.

Longtime Bay Area Reporter leather columnist We’ll always remember your humor, wit and love of everything leather. (Mr. Marcus, serving as honorary, co-chair, speaking at the AIDS Emergency Fund dinner at the Warehouse, February 16, 1987. Photo: Scott Martin)

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18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

SFPD

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other officer, “Busted up but that’s what happens to fags!” according to the document, which was first reported by KQED. The next month, in June 2012, Furminger wrote, “Your sister lies more than any [n-word] I have ever met in my life!” That message is the last one included in the filing. Another officer wrote in a February 2012 exchange, “All [n-word] must fucking hang.” Citing “multiple sources with knowledge of the matter,” the San Francisco Chronicle identified the four officers as Michael Celis, Rain Daugherty, Michael Robison, and Noel Schwab. Neither they nor Furminger could be reached directly for comment. However, Brian Getz, Furminger’s attorney, said, “The texts have been taken completely out of context and don’t do anything to reflect his feelings about his fellow man.” Getz said the texts represent “banter amongst law enforcement officers out on the street” who were working in some of the “roughest” parts of the city. The messages “express the opposite feeling” of what Furminger “felt, and therein lies the humor as he saw it in sending those messages.” He said the racist, homophobic sentiments expressed in the texts are also contrary to the other officers’ true feelings. At least one of the officers is gay, said Getz, but he wouldn’t say which one. Late Tuesday, it was reported that Robison is gay and was once featured on the cover of the Advocate, a gay newsmagazine, in a story about gay police officers. Everybody who knows Furminger, who once worked in the Castro, knows he’s “not racist” and “not a homophobe,” said Getz. “As a general rule,” he said, it’s true these are things people should never say, “but I think it’s one thing to say something in public ... and another to send a private text to your brother officer to alleviate tension and to bond together on the street.” Officers wake up every day knowing they could “die that day,” said Getz, and the texts were “making fun of people who are not tolerant,” he said. Federal attorneys’ inclusion of the texts, which Getz said didn’t make it into the trial record, amount to “bullying” Furminger. Alison Berry Wilkinson, who’s representing Daugherty, said in an email that Daugherty “has served the SFPD with distinction for many years, and has dedicated his life to serving this diverse community in a fair and professional way.” Her client “is appropriately ashamed by his impulsive and insensitive banter, and accepts full responsibility for the content of those text messages that he sent, which are by no means a reflection of his true character or his style of policing,” said Wilkinson, who declined to state Daugherty’s sexual orientation. Attorneys for Celis, Robison, and Schwab didn’t respond to requests for comment Tuesday. In response to emailed questions, Officer Albie Esparza, a police spokesman, said, “We will not be confirming names as this is a personnel matter/investigation. None have been fired or resigned from the department.” Asked about a Chronicle report that indicated more officers are also being examined, Esparza said, “There are only four that are currently being investigated.” In the Chronicle story, though, Chief Greg Suhr suggested more officers may be caught up in the probe. In December, a jury found Furminger, 48, guilty of two counts of honest services fraud, one count of civil rights conspiracy, and one count of conspiracy to commit theft

from a federally funded program, according to the document, which serves as federal attorneys’ opposition to Furminger’s motion for bail pending appeal. In February, he was sentenced to 41 months in prison and ordered to surrender to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence April 3. According to a December news release from U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag’s office, Furminger and former Officer Edmond Robles, who was also convicted in the case, used “their official positions to enrich themselves by stealing money and other valuable items, such as computers, electronic devices, and gift cards that were seized on behalf of ” the city “to deprive suspects of due process of law by taking these items without booking them into evidence or including them in their police reports.”

Reactions

City officials reacted swiftly to the text scandal and pledged quick action. “There is no place for bigotry in San Francisco. In order to ensure our criminal justice system is fair and equitable, my office is conducting an immediate assessment of every prosecution within the past ten years where these officers were involved,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement issued Monday, March 16. “I have also asked the SFPD for any records they may have that will ensure the assessment is conducted thoroughly.” Public Defender Jeff Adachi said in a news release Tuesday, March 17, that he’d work with Gascón on the review. Adachi, who noted the officers’ texts also denigrated Filipinos and Mexicans, stated, “The messages make clear the utter contempt these officers had for the people they were sworn to protect.” Adachi released a 10-point plan designed for more police transparency and protect citizens against bias. Tamara Barak Aparton, a spokeswoman for Adachi, said in an email, “We’re recommending that officers must have a minimum of 24 hours of training in implicit bias and its effects – this would include bias against the LGBT community. Implicit bias is subtle, but it strongly affects who gets pulled over, searched, or arrested, or which witnesses or crime victims are believed. We’re also calling for periodic cultural competency training and education throughout officers’ careers, which would include training on serving the LGBT community.” San Francisco’s Pride Alliance for LGBT officers released a statement Tuesday that says, “The contents of these text messages are a betrayal of everything we believe and a slap in the face to our members, our fellow officers, our department, and this beautiful community of San Francisco that we are called to serve. These messages are sickening and horrifying and leave us disgusted with the people who hid their evil thoughts in our midst. Homophobic, racist, and sexist mindsets are completely out of line with the compassionate heart needed to be a Police Officer. There is no explanation or excuse that the members of Pride Alliance will accept for this conduct.” The city’s police officers association issued a news release Monday that says, “While we believe wholeheartedly in due process and affording our members all protection under the law, and we understand that we are all prone to indiscretions in text messages, all these racist and homophobic text messages, if true, are disgraceful and humiliating to the community we serve.” The group said it “fully” understands Suhr’s “decision to reassign these officers and ensure that there is no interaction with the public during this full-scale investigation.”t

Legal Notices>> SUMMONS (FAMILY LAW) SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO NOTICE TO RESPONDENT: ALAN DAVID JOHNSON, YOU ARE BEING SUED. PETITIONER’S NAME IS ENNY TERESA SILVA GOMEZ CASE NO. FDI-14-782765 ORDER FOR FIRST AMENDED APPLICATION

You have 30 CALENDAR DAYS after this Summons and Petition are served on you to file a Response (form FL-120 or FL-123) at the court and have a copy served on the petitioner. A letter or phone call will not protect you. If you do not file your Response on time, the court may make orders affecting your marriage or domestic partnerships, your property, and custody of your children. You may be ordered to pay support and attorney fees and costs. If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the clerk for a fee waiver form. If you want legal advice, contact a lawyer immediately. You can get information about finding lawyers at the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courtinfo.ca.gov/ selfhelp), at the California Legal Services Web site (www.lawhelpcalifornia.org), or by contacting your local county bar association. NOTICE: The restraining orders following are effective against both spouses or domestic partners until the petition is dismissed, a judgment entered, or the court makes further orders. These orders are enforceable anywhere in California by any law enforcement officer who has received or seen a copy of them. NOTE: If a judgment or support order is entered, the court may order you to pay all or part of the fees and costs that the court waived for yourself or the other party. If this happens, the party ordered to pay fees shall be given notice and an opportunity to request a hearing to set aside the order to pay waived court fees. SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, 400 MCALLISTER ST, CA 94102; PREPARED BY SUSANNA TUAN, SBN 293754, 3871 PIEDMONT AVE, #4, OAKLAND, CA 94611 FEB 25, 2015 Clerk of the Superior Court by ANNE- CHRISTINE MASSULLO, Judicial Officer. NOTICE TO THE PERSON SERVED: You are served as an individual. WARNING: California law provides that, for the purposes of division of property upon dissolution of a marriage or domestic partnership or upon legal separation, property acquired by the parties during marriage or domestic partnership in joint form is presumed to be community property. If either party to this action should die before the jointly held community property is divided, the language in the deed that characterizes how title is held (i.e., joint tenancy, tenants in common, or community property) will be controlling, and not the community property presumption. You should consult your attorney if you want the community property presumption to be written into the recorded title to the property. STANDARD FAMILY LAW RESTRAINING ORDERS: Starting immediately, you and your spouse or domestic partner are restrained from: 1. Removing the minor child or children of the parties, if any, from the state without the prior written consent of the other party or an order of the court; 2. Cashing borrowing against, canceling, transferring, disposing of, or changing the beneficiaries of any insurance or other coverage, including life, health, automobile, and disability, held for the benefit of the parties and their minor child or children; 3. Transferring, encumbering, hypothecating, concealing, or in any way disposing of any property, real or personal, whether community, quasi-community, or separate, without the written consent of the other party or an order of the court, except in the usual course of business or for the necessities of life; and 4. Creating a nonprobate transfer or modifying a nonprobate transfer in the manner that affects the disposition of property subject to the transfer, without the written consent of the other party or an order of the court. Before revocation of a nonprobate transfer can take effect or a right of survivorship to property can be eliminated, notice of the change must be filed and served on the other party. You must notify each other of any proposed extraordinary expenditures at least five business days prior to incurring these extraordinary expenditures and account to the court for all extraordinary expenditures made after these restraining orders are effective. However, you may use community property, quasi-community property, or your own separate property to pay an attorney to help you or to pay court costs.

MAR 05, 12, 19, 26, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036321100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PRETTY OCCASIONS, 2256 UNION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SOLMAZ NAJI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/23/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/23/15.

FEB 26, MAR 05, 12, 19, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036316700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SILVER SHELL STORE, 2380 SAN BRUNO AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed EBRAHIM PAKZAD. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/19/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/19/15.

FEB 26, MAR 05, 12, 19, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036319700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: INNER CITY HAULING & JANITORIAL, 260 MCALLISTER #403, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KAREN CERVERA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/20/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/20/15.

FEB 26, MAR 05, 12, 19, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036296900

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036315600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MESCOLANZA RESTAURANT, 3750-3754 GEARY BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed MESCOLANZA INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/18/15.

FEB 26, MAR 05, 12, 19, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036279800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: OZMA, 874 S. VAN NESS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a general partnership and is signed MARIAH GARDNER & HEIDI BAKER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/30/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/30/15.

FEB 26, MAR 05, 12, 19, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036317800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JESSIE BLACK, 3252 SACRAMENTO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed THE HOUSE OF MONTE CARLO (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/14/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/19/15.

FEB 26, MAR 05, 12, 19, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036286400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ENGEL & VOELKERS SAN FRANCISCO, 582 CASTRO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SAN FRANCISCO REAL ESTATE HOLDINGS, INC (UT). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/12/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/03/15.

FEB 26, MAR 05, 12, 19, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036325600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CITY CYCLE, 3001 STEINER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed C. FISCHER AND SONS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/18/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/24/15.

FEB 26, MAR 05,12,19, 2015 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-035778500

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: VLOVEPLASTIC, 2639 BALBOA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by JITRUTHAI RATTANASONGCHAI. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/10/14.

FEB 26, MAR 05, 12, 19, 2015 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF BERNARD CLELAND IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-15-298545

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of BERNARD CLELAND. A Petition for Probate has been filed by BERNARD RYAN in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that BERNARD RYAN be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: March 25, 2015, 9:00am, Rm. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the latter of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: Julia P. Wald, #078476, Law Offices of Julia P. Wald, 1108 Fifth Ave #202, San Rafael, CA 94901; Ph. (415) 482-7555.

MAR 05, 12, 19, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036323900

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036325000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NUCMEDCOR, 3533 SCOTT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed ISOFLEX USA (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/15/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/24/15.

MAR 05, 12, 19, 26, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036334400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DECISIVE HEALTH, 420 MISSION BAY BLVD #411, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94158. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed DECISIVE HEALTH SYSTEMS (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 02/27/15.

MAR 05, 12, 19, 26, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036320300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: IMPAVID CONSULTING INC., 50 CRESTLINE DR #9, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed IMPAVID CONSULTING INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/20/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/20/15.

MAR 05, 12, 19, 26, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036329200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RAFA’S CLEANING SERVICE, 172 CAINE AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed CARLOS E. GUTIERREZ CAMPOS & ERIKA MARIA VEGA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/26/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/26/15.

MAR 05, 12, 19, 26, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036337800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: YOCA REPAIR, 1697 19TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed YURIY ABRAMOV & OLGA ABRAMOVA. 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 03/02/15.

MAR 05, 12, 19, 26, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036339000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FUNCRUNCH PHOTO, 1110 JACKSON ST #4, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed PAX AHIMSA GETHEN & ZACH TOMCICH. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/10. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/02/15.

MAR 05, 12, 19, 26, 2015 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-15-550924

In the matter of the application of: JOSHUA RYAN DEVORE, 530 GROVE #5, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JOSHUA RYAN DEVORE, is requesting that the name JOSHUA RYAN DEVORE, be changed to RYAN JOSHUA TOBER BRANDT DEVORE VON GLÜCKEN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 12th of May 2015 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 12, 19, 26, APRIL 02, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036356200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MELISSA CONGDON HAIRSTYLIST, 166 GEARY ST #400, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MELISSA ANN CONGDON. 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 03/09/15.

MAR 12, 19, 26, APRIL 02, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036312500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WALLFLOWER DESIGN, 607 ANDOVER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ELEANOR ALEX GERBER-SIFF. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/17/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/17/15.

MAR 12, 19, 26 APRIL 02, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036354500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE ELECTRIC NOODLE, 2139 TURK BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DUSTAN BARTLETT. 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 03/09/15.

MAR 12, 19, 26, APRIL 02, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036350300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ROBINSON@GROVE, 1574 GROVE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DAVID E. ROBINSON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/01/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/09/15.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THOMAS GALLAGHER CONSTRUCTION, 133 SHIELD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed THOMAS GALLAGHER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/24/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/24/15.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BUNGALOW624, 624 EUCLID AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NANETTE GORDON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/05/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/06/15.

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Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036329500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: A-1 PLUMBING SUPPLY, 224 12TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed TALENT INTERNATIONAL TRADING, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/09/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/26/15.

MAR 12, 19, 26, APRIL 02, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036342600

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036374000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: B & G TRANSPORTATION, 1555 YOSEMITE AVE #39, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JUAN ELIAS GUTIERREZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/17/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/17/15.

MAR 19, 26, APR 02, 09, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036371100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DIANNE’S ESTATE JEWELLERY, 2181-A UNION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed LUCRETIA ALEXANDER INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/03/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/03/15.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MODERN POTIONS, 855 FOLSOM ST #313, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JANE MANGAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/13/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/13/15.

MAR 12, 19, 26, APRIL 02, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036341400

MAR 19, 26, APR 02, 09, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036358400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TOKYO EXPRESS, 160 SPEAR ST #LOBBY 1D, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed TOKYO EXPRESS RESTAURANT INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/03/15.

MAR 12, 19, 26, APRIL 02, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036345200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HR BAY AREA, 1557 POWELL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed HR BAY AREA LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/02/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/15.

MAR 12, 19, 26, APRIL 02, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036355900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BELGA, 2000 UNION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed 2000 BLG, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/09/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/09/15.

MAR 12, 19, 26, APRIL 02, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036322900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SOVAN’S EYEBROWS THREADING, 520 MONTGOMERY #107, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RASHILA LAMSAL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/02/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/23/15.

MAR 19, 26, APR 02, 09, 2015 SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT NOTICE TO PROPOSERS GENERAL INFORMATION The SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, California, is advertising for proposals for Independent Audit Services on or about March 6, 2015, with proposals due by 2:00 P.M. local time, Tuesday, April 21, 2015 DESCRIPTION OF WORK TO BE PERFORMED The District is soliciting the services of a Consulting Firm to provide Independent Audit Services and enter into a five (5)year Agreement with the firm selected, more particularly described in the Scope of Services, Exhibit 1 Sample Form of Agreement, Attachment A of the RFP. A Pre-Proposal Meeting will be held on Friday March 27, 2015. The Pre-Proposal Meeting will convene at 10:00 A.M. in District offices, 17th Floor Main Conference Room 1700, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, California 94612. At the Pre-Proposal Meeting the District’s Non-Discrimination Program for Subcontracting and Small Business Preference will be explained. All questions regarding MBE/WBE participation should be directed to Ms. Muriel Owens, Office of Civil Rights at (510) 464-7326 – FAX (510) 464-7587. Prospective proposers are requested to make every effort to attend this only scheduled Pre-Proposal Meeting and to confirm their attendance by contacting the District’s Contract Administrator, Steve Alva, via E-Mail salva@bart.gov, prior to the date of the Pre-Proposal Meeting. WHERE TO OBTAIN OR SEE RFP DOCUMENTS (Available on or after March 20, 2015) Copies of the RFP may be obtained: By E-mail request to the District’s Contract Administrator, Steve Alva, at salva@bart.gov. Please be advised that your firm will be placed on the Interested Parties List to keep you informed of all stages of this RFP, be it questions/ answers, clarifications and/or addenda issued. It is the responsibility of the Proposer to check with the Contract Administrator before submitting proposals to ensure any addenda has been acknowledged. Failure to do so may warrant Proposals non-responsive. Dated at Oakland, California this 6th day of March, 2015. /s/ Kenneth A. Duron Kenneth A. Duron, District Secretary San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District 3/19/15 CNS-2726258# BAY AREA REPORTER

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 19

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: QUARTER MILE MUSCLE, 660 4TH ST #533, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed STEFAN BURGESS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/10/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/10/15.

CLEANING PROFESSIONAL –

26 Years Exp. (415) 794-4411 Roger Miller

MAR 19, 26, APR 02, 09, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036360500

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MAR 19, 26, APR 02, 09, 2015

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Out &About

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O&A

Vol. 45 • No. 12 • March 19-25, 2015

www.ebar.com/arts

Botticelliisjust the beginning by Sura Wood

cotland, the country that gave us tartans, bagpipes, warring clans, and actor James McAvoy’s blue-green-eyed beauty, has another side, a high-culture heritage that’s on bonny display in Botticelli to Braque: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland, a new exhibition at the de Young Museum that’s in town briefly and shouldn’t be missed. Yes, it’s a little bit of this, a little bit of that kind of affair, where the carefully chosen 55 paintings on view aren’t connected by discernible themes, but in so many instances, FAMSF director Colin Bailey has plucked the juiciest peaches from collections held by the trio of institutions that comprise the National Galleries of Scotland: the Scottish National Gallery, founded in 1850; the Scottish National Portrait Gallery; and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

Esther Bell, Curator of European Art at the Fine Arts Museums, discusses the delicate brushwork of the baby Jesus’ hands in Sandro Botticelli’s “The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child” (ca. 1485), part of Botticelli to Braque: Masterpieces from the Scottish National Galleries at the de Young Museum.

See page 22 >> Rick Gerharter

Something wicked this way comes by David-Elijah Nahmod

repare to get witch-slapped as three witchy queens and one horny devil converge on the Castro Theatre on Sat., March 21. It’s a mid-year Halloween treat courtesy of drag superstar Peaches Christ. The evening will pay tribute to the classic comedy chiller The Witches of Eastwick (1987) with The Witches of East Bay, a pre-show in Peaches’ inimitable, incomparable, outrageous style. Of course, the original film will also be screened. See page 30 >>

Cast of The Witches of East Bay, which Peaches Christ is bringing to the Castro Theatre along with the film The Witches of Eastwick. Courtesy Peaches Christ

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<< Out There

22 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

Monte Carlo mon amour by Roberto Friedman

onaco, that magical and mythical principality on the Mediterranean coast, has long been the glamorous playground for millionaires and playboys, royals and rogues, film stars and philanderers. But even if the closest you’ll ever come to playing baccarat at a posh casino in Monte-Carlo is a scene from a James Bond movie, you can visit the famed resort vicariously this month as the Alliance Francaise in San Francisco hosts the photography exhibition MonteCarlo Legends, free and open to the public through April 4 (1345 Bush St., SF). The exhibit of vintage blackand-white photos, presented by the Embassy of Monaco in Washington, DC, and the Consulates of Monaco in New York and SF, showcases stars of stage, screen, and sporting events. The cast of characters portrayed in these photos is crowned with Monaco’s famous beauty, Princess Grace Kelly. Paparazzi have also captured for posterity illustrious visitors such as Maria Callas, Charlie Chaplin, Jean Cocteau, Alfred Hitchcock, Rudolf Nureyev and Edith Piaf. Reached for comment, Honorary Consul of Monaco in San Francisco Thomas Horn (also B.A.R. Publisher Emeritus) said, “We are delighted to bring these iconic photos of the Grace Kelly period to San Francisco. Whether it is glamour, movie stars, sports heroes or private family photos you are interested in, they are all in this exhibition. This is the first time they have been seen outside of New York. This exhibition is not to be missed.”

Scotland

From page 21

Not to be outdone by their heavyweight rivals in London, the Scots have amassed impressive holdings spanning 400 years of artistic achievement. A walking tour through art history that opens with an exquisite late-career work done in the hand of 15thcentury Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli is certainly worth taking. You’ll want to allot time to leisurely BAR 3.75x5 online appointment ad v3.indd 1

Princess Grace of Monaco with her Hollywood friend Mr. David Niven, at the Monaco Red Cross Gala in 1964.

In conjunction with the exhibit, there will be a special screening of the docu-drama Monte-Carlo, naissance d’un mythe (Monte-Carlo, Birth of a Legend) by director Francois Freynet (2007, French with English subtitles) on Tues., March 31, 7 p.m., at the Alliance Francaise, free and open to the public (until seating is full). Also, author Pamela Fiori will give a lecture and signing of her book In the Spirit of Monte Carlo on Fri., April 3, 7 p.m., at the Alliance Francaise. Tickets ($20) are online at af-montecarlo. eventbrite.com. More info on all of these events: (415) 775-7755, or afsf.com.

Movie music

amble through the show, and for the sake of discussion, consider it an exceptional highlight reel, starting with that major coup, Botticelli’s “The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child” (ca. 1485), a tempera, oil and gold devotional painting that depicts the Virgin Mary, whose golden halo hovers above her head as she tenderly regards the Christ child. This is the first time it’s being exhibited on these shores. Perhaps once a part of an altarpiece, it now hangs on the wall alone, occupying center stage at the entrance to the

show. Unusual for being painted on canvas as opposed to panel, it’s extraordinarily well-preserved, which accounts for the vibrancy of the blue of Mary’s cape; though the intensity of the lapis hue in pigment usually falls victim to age and fades over time, thankfully, it hasn’t done so here. The structure of this loving maternal garden scene, thought to foreshadow Christ’s death, is framed by pink roses, symbols of the Virgin’s purity.

The Oakland-East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus (OEBGMC) will present its Spring concert series From Stage and Screen under the direction of music director Carl Pantle, with guest artist Misa Malone, a performer with Beach Blanket Babylon. The concerts will take place Sat., April 18, at 7 p.m., and Sun., April 19, at 4 p.m. at the Odell Johnson Theater in Oakland. The concerts will feature music from movies and musicals including Wicked, Kinky Boots, Chicago, and The Lion King. The audience will be treated to a red-carpet welcome complete with flashing bulbs from paparazzi. That’s show-biz! OEBGMC will donate a portion of its ticket sales to Alameda Meals on Wheels (alamedamealsonwheels.org). Purchase tickets at oebgmc.org/tickets, or call 1 (800) 7062389. More info: oebgmc.org.t

See page 30 >>

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Frans Hals’ “Portrait of Pieter Verdonck” (ca. 1627) is part of Botticelli to Braque: Masterpieces from the Scottish National Galleries at the de Young.

Theatre>>

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 23

Palm Springs Republican family values by Richard Dodds

hey’re like a second-tier Ron and Nancy, living off the fumes of patrician GOP customs as they desiccate in Palm Springs. And like the Reagans, in whose social circle they once bloomed, Polly and Lyman Wyeth have children who have not distinguished themselves according to script. Their sybaritic youngest son produces cheesy reality TV while their daughter is divorced, depressed, and living as much as a bohemian as one can in Sag Harbor. And then there is Henry, the oldest offspring, but we don’t talk about Henry. In Jon Robin Baitz’s 2011 play Other Desert Cities, now at New Conservatory Theatre Center in an attractive production, it’s Christmastime, when you can count on various hurts, grudges, and disappointments to be opened along with the presents. But amongst the gifts that the children come bearing is a time bomb in the form of a manuscript. After six years of writer’s block and crippling depression, daughter Brooke has finally written a second novel that she wants the family to read before it is published. Her mother is so happy, in a passive-aggressive way. “You’ll no longer be known as the girl who only had one book in her,” says Polly Wyeth as tennis, shopping, cocktails, and judgments fill out the family’s Christmas Eve. Epigrammatic digs, many quite funny in a conversationally unlikely way, are tossed about, and the characters occasionally expound on subjects both personal and political. It is 2004, but the stillnew Iraq war isn’t much of an issue. Colin Powell has endorsed it, and as Polly says, “Colin Powell is the most

Lois Tema

As family matriarch, Michaela Greeley holds court while other family members (from left, Cheryl Smith, Melissa Keith, and Paul Collins) read a revealing memoir about themselves in Other Desert Cities at NCTC.

trusted man in America.” But the jagged bonhomie comes to a screeching halt when Brooke reveals that her manuscript is not a novel but rather a memoir about her family. That she writes that her parents are “WASP-ified GOP zombies” is small insult compared to the book’s excoriation of how they treated her brother Henry, the sibling whose name is rarely mentioned, and who was implicated in a Weathermen-style bombing of an Army recruitment center several

decades before. Their frigid parenting style drove him to radicalism, she writes, and their reaction after he sought help at home would then drive him to suicide. The play is at its most intriguing amid the intra-family debates about whether Brooke should let her book be published. Her brother is generally supportive for proceeding, though he tells her, “You have to accept the consequences of art over life,” knowing that their parents will be publically crushed a

Tragic figures & top girls

second time. Brooke also has the support of Polly’s acerbically wise alcoholic sister, who is camping out with the Wyeths after a stint in rehab. As for Polly and Lyman, they realize the best they can hope for is that Brooke will wait until they’re dead before going public. But the issues of the hurt that an artist can cause, even in the quest for truthfulness, are largely swept away in a last-minute reveal both emotionally wrought and a bit of a convenient contrivance.

Director Arturo Catricala’s production comfortably follows the flows of Baitz’s script, and is right at home on Kuo-Hao Lo’s set of midcentury chic conformity. Keri Fitch’s costumes capture the characters’ spirits, as do the performers with only occasional variances of skillfulness. Michaela Greeley is wonderful as mother Polly as she shoots off zingers while frantically clutching at the refuge of appearances. Geoffrey Colton plays husband Lyman with a temperance befitting a former ambassador but missing perhaps some of the flair of the movie star that preceded statesmanship. As daughter Brooke, Melissa Keith exemplifies conflicted fragility in what becomes the centerpiece role. Cheryl Smith crisply captures the sardonic Silda, Polly’s currently betweendrinks sister, and Paul Collins is a welcome presence as youngest son Trip, who comes closest to family peacemaker. In a program note, NCTC Artistic Director Ed Decker unapologetically addresses the eyebrows raised by his inclusion of a nongay-themed play in the LGBT theater’s season, albeit one written by a gay playwright. Where my eyebrow became raised is that the Wyeths make no acknowledgment that they are living (even in 2004) in one of the gayest cities in the world. Polly and Lyman may embrace denial, but even a few disparaging remarks about the queer townsfolk would offer welcome verisimilitude.t Other Desert Cities will run through April 5 at New Conservatory Theatre Center. Tickets are $25-$45. Call (415) 861-8972 or go to nctcsf.org.

by Richard Dodds

or Shotgun Players, it is the year of the woman. Or women. Twelve women, to be exact. All productions in its 2015 season – six full productions and six staged readings – come from female playwrights. “This all began when we heard that a major American theatre company had announced a season without including a single female voice,” the Berkeley company said in announcing its 24th season. “The challenge was not if we could find six exciting plays to produce, but which plays they would be.” The season ranges from a new adaptation of an ancient story to a murder mystery considered to be the longest-running play in history. It will be the adaptation that launches the season on March 19 at the Ashby Stage, and while the original source material long ago achieved classic stage status, Anne Carson’s translation of Antigone hardly seemed the stuff of live theater. The celebrated Canadian poet and translator created a highly irreverent adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy that she titled Antagonick. The words in the 2012 book are printed in Carson’s own handwriting and are accompanied by Bianca Stone’s surreal illustrations. Theater director Mark Jackson and choreographer Hope Mohr said their collaboration aims to bring the multi-layered spirit of the printed publication to the stage. Says Mohr, “Antigonick is a mix of theater, poetry, criticism, and, in the case of our production, dance. It sources both high and low culture, past and present. It refreshingly distills language down to the bone.” The design of the production takes inspiration from Stone’s illustrations and even Carson’s penmanship. Antagonick will run through April 25. Greek mythology also informs the

Beowulf Sheehan

Anne Carson’s Antigonick, an unconventional adaptation of Greek tragedy, opens Shotgun Players’ season dedicated to women playwrights.

second play of Shotgun’s season. San Francisco playwright Marisela Orta’s Heart Shaped Nebula, opening in May, moves from Orta’s former Texas hometown to the star-gazing mecca of Tonopah, Nevada, where the character Miqueo has traveled on the anniversary of a tragic accident in a ritual release of grief. But his efforts are sidetracked with the arrival of a rebellious teenage girl who, in the play’s aura of magical realism, is more than she appears to be. This will be the play’s official premiere. The widely produced Top Girls continues the season in July as English playwright Caryl Churchill explores what it means to be an empowered woman. The 1982 play uses a non-linear and alternately surreal and realistic approach as it follows the upward trajectory of

San Francisco playwright Marisela Orta’s Heart Shaped Nebula uses magic realism to explore the healing of one man’s tragic memories.

a career-driven woman whose interactions include office politics, fractured family matters, and a dreamlike luncheon populated with historical figures. It is back to Greek mythology in August with Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice, her unconventional take on the story of the title character’s travels to Hades to reclaim husband Orpheus. Ruhl’s plays have been popular with Bay Area theaters, and productions have included In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and Berkeley Rep’s 2004 production of Eurydice. Left unpaid for her work as a spy for King Charles II, Aphra Behn became one of the first English women to earn a living by writing. October will bring Behn’s 1677 play The Rovers to the Ashby Stage. Set in Naples

Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, still running in London after 27,000 performances, will close out Shotgun’s season with a classic whodunit.

at Carnival time, the comedy follows several romantic adventures as three women fight against their traditional possibilities: wife, nun, or prostitute. Ironically, Charles II was such a fan of the play that he received a private showing. Shotgun’s season concludes in December with Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, which has been running continuously in London’s West End since 1952. It’s a murder mystery set in a country inn where a detective tries to determine which of the guests may be guilty of homicide. It ends with a twist unusual for a traditional whodunit, and at the end of each London performance, audiences are asked not to reveal the identity of the killer to anyone outside the theater. As an adjunct to its main season, Shotgun is offering the Champagne Staged Reading Series of plays by women. They include The Ohio State Murders by noted African-American

playwright Adrienne Kennedy, about a writer returning to her alma mater where her life had been torn apart decades before; Madeleine George’s The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence, a whimsical play that spans 1876 to 2011 and has techno-nerds at its heart; Laura Marks’ Bethany, which focuses on a single, unemployed mother trying to get her child out of foster care; Irene Maria Fornes’ Letters from Cuba, a musical play about separate lives in spiritual connection; and The Children’s Hour, Lillian Hellman’s 1934 drama about lives destroyed by rumors of lesbianism. One play is still to be announced in the staged-reading series. Individual tickets to Shotgun’s full productions are $5-$30 from opening night on, with pay-what-you-can tickets available during previews. Subscription tickets for the six-play series start at $130. Go to shotgunplayers.org for more information.t

<< Books

24 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

Behind the scenes at ACT by John F. Karr

CT and I go way back. As a volunteer usher at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre in 1963, I saw every night for a month Bill Ball’s prototype production of the Tartuffe that became his calling card when he founded ACT in San Francisco. When I moved here not too long after Ball did, I once again became a volunteer ACT usher. Upon joining the B.A.R. staff, I became for some years a reviewer of ACT productions. Finally, I ascended to ACT’s backstage crew for nearly 10 seasons, eight of them (ending in 2012) as Wardrobe Supervisor. And here I am now, clocking in to ACT again, to report on what I’m pleased to call a rollicking and righteous, deeply personal new memoir by ACT Artistic Director Carey Perloff, Beautiful Chaos (City Lights, $17.95). The book’s publication marks Perloff ’s 20th anniversary as ACT’s Artistic Director. It grew – it tumbled generously – from a single article Perloff wrote for American Theatre magazine. She realized that the things she most valued in American non-profit theatre were at risk. They were, she writes, “worth articulating, fighting for, and reimagining.” So as well as a memoir, Beautiful Chaos is also a manifesto, a polemic, and a plea. “We have an urgent need,” she writes, “to rescue our visions and dreams before they become diluted and small.” Perloff ’s stories and stratagems speed you breathlessly though the book. There’s a smidgen of gossip, but she’s largely circumspect. In a recent interview, she related how

she edited out of the book juicy personal stuff about David Mamet, because she worried she’d never again get rights to his plays. In the book, however, she does give the name of a fine local critic who offered a minor criticism (and one I believe Perloff has misread), but does not print the name of a reviewer she identifies only as “our local critic.” In this one-horse newspaper town, it’s not hard to divine who that might be – the one person Perloff can’t afford to offend. It’s fascinating when Perloff takes us into the rehearsal room with Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett, and Tom Stoppard, and illuminating when she discourses on their work. There are laughs and disappointments in her exasperating excursions into “Twitter-land.” And if you want to know how real life intersects with the life of the theatre, Perloff ’s got the goods. I found especially endearing and eye-opening her experiences in combining motherhood and theatre-managing. Amidst my enthusiasm for Beautiful Chaos, I found Perloff contradicting herself several times, seemingly unaware of the disjunct in what she says and does. Here’s a lesser example. She writes of her admiration for Pinter’s freedom from explicating the text, “Pinter’s notes to actors were always supremely precise, a lesson I absorbed again and again.” The dude in one word,

Carey? “Terse.” Yet despite absorbed lessons, Perloff is – how do we say it politely? – voluble. Here’s something more complex. The book heralds ACT’s acquisition of the Strand Theater. It’s been posited as a second stage for MFA productions and new script development. That’s swell. But I’d like to know why it’s being used as a first stage, taking subscription shows out of the Geary. Could it be the money, honey? At one point, Perloff mounts a stirring salute to the Geary Theater, which is uniquely suited to ACT’s large-scale repertory and production capability. Yet two plays in the next season will be outsourced to the non-union Strand, putting the Geary’s union stagehands and

Courtesy ACT

ACT Artistic Director Carey Perloff: a loving intimacy.

wardrobe crew out of work. And the scene shop is being closed down, putting the set-builders out of work. Folks in the background allege this had been in the plans for some time before the building’s owner sold the shop out from under them. Is ACT becoming, or is it already “diluted and small,” a diminished theatre? Or is this a “re-imagining?” Perloff detractors need to read

Beautiful Chaos to inform and perhaps dissolve their concerns, while fans will find a wonderful expansion of their theatre world, and share a loving intimacy with an organization they love. Either way, Beautiful Chaos is a must-read. Finally, here’s Lesson #1 for a Perloff admittedly unfamiliar with Broadway musicals. They have Original Cast Albums, not soundtracks.t

Notes from rock bottom by Brian Bromberger

I Left It on the Mountain: A Memoir by Kevin Sessums; St. Martin’s Press, $25.99 evin Sessums’ autobiography Mississippi Sissy, about a young gay boy growing up in the segregated South who was orphaned by 9, molested at 13, and became obsessed by Hollywood as a way of coping with his loneliness and homosexuality, deservedly became a 2007 New York Times bestseller. Readers enchanted by that book are going to be disappointed with his new memoir. I Left It on the Mountain has the misfortune of dealing with the harrowing

story of Kevin’s unraveling after his success, discovering he is HIV+ as well as a sex and drug addict. The problem with his new book is not the content of his life, but the way his journey is told. Much of the memoir is based on reporting and scenes already covered for magazines like Parade, Los Angeles Confidential, and The Daily Beast, so the book is a loosely related compendium stitched together disjointedly to form the skeleton of a memoir. The end result is not greater than the sum of its parts. Regrettably, it lacks the coherent literary narrative structure and emotional panache of its predecessor.

Besties

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298 11th STREET AT FOLSOM Enjoy hosted beer and specialty cocktails and light refreshments from 6-7pm as we toast this year’s Besties Winners, followed with performances by Marga Gomez, Veronica Klaus and the Whoa Nellies. Emcee Queer Cougar.

Sessums continues his obsession with celebrities, to his detriment. He has been praised for his incisive portraits of the famous under Andy Warhol’s guidance at Interview and Tina Brown’s and Graydon Carter’s instruction at Vanity Fair. He is a canny interviewer able to get stars to spill truths about themselves. Many of these big names are profiled here, such as Madonna, Courtney Love, Hugh Jackman, Daniel Radcliffe, Jessica Lange, Barbara Streisand, Michael J. Fox, Michelle Williams among others, some acting as insipid spiritual advisors (Diane Sawyer: Be better) while Sessums is either high or hung over. Still, much of this gossipy chatter seems like filler. Also frustrating is the repetition of material already covered in his previous memoir, about his growing up in Mississippi. The bulk of the memoir details Sessums’ bleak descent into cocaine and methamphetamine addiction, as well as two episodes focusing on recovery episodes. One is climbing to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, and the other is walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostelo pilgrimage trail in Spain. The former is undertaken as a coping mechanism to deal with his HIV+ diagnosis at 50. The latter is sketched out in journal notes he kept while trekking. Unfortunately, despite both pieces being confessional, they are awash in platitudes and New Age babble, such as leaving the Chaga or Forgiveness Plant on the Kilimanjaro mountain (hence

the title of the book), signifying Sessums has forgiven himself. Whatever spiritual lessons were gleaned are obtuse, at least to this reader. Sessums portrays his inner and outer demons (hallucinations about Lucifer) in exquisite narcissistic detail. His detached observer writing style works to his advantage here, as aloofness and indifference are important personal themes in his decline. Sessums is forthright about how he hits rock bottom, becoming both financially and spiritually broke, reduced to $5 cash and $1.23 in the bank at his lowest point. The author’s candor and humor serve him well as he guides us through his own Inferno. I admire his willingness to reveal how unlikable he has become because of his crystal meth

use, and how he exploits and betrays his friends, burning every bridge. It will take the unexpected death from a drug overdose of his best friend, a Hollywood producer and novelist, to lead him to seek the professional help he needs. No detail of his downfall is left out, including homelessness and dark depression as he engages intravenous drug dealers and pays male prostitutes for sex. In all his overwrought adventures he always has an eye for beautiful young men, occasionally in a creepy, predatory manner. His graphic descriptions ((i.e., shoving coke up an orifice where the sun doesn’t shine) are not for the squeamish, and while some will applaud his honesty, others will fall into the too-much-informationprovided camp. But it’s telling that the most emotionally authentic portions of the book are not with other people, but with his two dogs Archie and Ted, especially when he must temporarily surrender them in order to achieve sobriety. Prior to the publication date of the book, Sessums had been clean for eight months. The reader can only hope that he has turned the corner on his Via Dolorosa. It’s my hope that having embraced recovery, Sessums will rediscover the charm, joviality, and astuteness of his first book in his next work, all of which are sadly lacking in I Left It on the Mountain.t Sessums will read from the book on March 24, 7:30 p.m., at Books, Inc., 2275 Market St., SF.

Books>>

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 25

Stage to the page by Jim Piechota

Showgirls: The Movie in Sestinas by Jeffery Conway; BlazeVOX Books, $16 n his hyper-creative reanimation of the 1995 trashy melodrama Showgirls starring Elizabeth Berkley and Gina Gershon, poet Jeffery Conway breathes new life into this surreal camp classic with a collection of 42 brilliantly conceived sestinas. The verse style of Showgirls: The Movie in Sestinas stays true to the typical sestina form: six stanzas of six lines each, closing with a three-line commentary envoi. Conway’s lines perform a full, drama-queen reinterpretation of Joe Eszterhas and Paul Verhoeven’s box-office bomb as 42 scenes from the movie are given the full poetic treatment. Fans of the movie will readily recognize Nomi Malone’s switchbladein-the-truck moment that opens the collection, as “Elizabeth Berkley can hardly believe she’s Nomi – the role of a lifetime! She’d mused, ‘It’s like, No Me’ – the brilliant bit of onomastic play not lost on her, on a highway out West, with snowcapped mountains between Las Vegas and this promising start of her movie career.” This flair for the dramatic is everywhere, permeating each line of Conway’s prose opera from the first glimpse of Nomi dancing “at the center of the throng, revealed to be a monster, a lunatic in motion”; to her “botched” audition, which the poet carefully splices into two sections; to the bewilderment of those who hear the dancer hilariously gloss over her mispronunciation of design king Versace (“Ver-sayce”). Gershon’s character Cristal Connors is given equal time, with sestinas applauding (and gracefully parodying) the “pyrotechnic ex-

Steven Underhill

PHOTOGRAPHY

415 370 7152

WEDDINGS, HEADSHOTS, PORTRAITS

stevenunderhill.com · stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com travaganza” of the volcano number where she “rises in a puff of smoke, touches her erect nipples, writhes slowly, extends her arms.” Found all throughout these lusciously accessorized stanzas are gays who screech, “Oh my goddess, did you just see that girl throw rhinestones, or glass beads, onto the floor?” and vicious catfights that end badly, and the ultimate compilation of scheming, bitchy powder-room sequences where girls appear in metallic, one-piece halter-pantsuits and slink around “like a cat to sniff out the fishiness” hidden behind the poker faces of their “uncoiffed” competition. But what Conway ultimately achieves here is to punctuate the film’s over-the-top excesses with his

own gilded poetic talents. In a mere 71 pages, he manages to delight with descriptive splendor, as in this gem about the Showgirl star at the height of her glory: “Nomi’s hair is dripping with multicolored beads and stones; her gold G is slightly ripped at the edges – signifying the male dancers’ lust as they paw at her, trip themselves grasping at her bare, golddusted body like crazed striplings.” With this original and innovative take on what the author calls “the lodestar for lovers of bad movies the world over,” fans of the film or poetry readers eager for a detour from the norm will get a kick out of Conway’s knack for wordplay woven around one of the most delicious indulgences within the so-bad-it’sso-good movie genre.t

<< Out&About

26 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

Out &About

O&A

Sat 21 Rainbow Girls

Other Desert Cities @ New Conservatory Theatre Center This local production of Jon Robin Baitz’ Pulitzer Prize finalist drama concerns a family distrupted by divisive political differences. $20-$35. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru April 5. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. 8618972. www.nctcsf.org

Pilobolus @ Marin Center, San Rafael

Fashion forward by Jim Provenzano

o many bizarrely anti-gay jackasses are coming out of the woodwork; we shouldn’t be surprised when a pair of deluded gay fashion designers pile on about marriage equality, right alongside the most deranged far-right pastor. Because stupidity is an equal opportunity destroyer. Now, make plans to enjoy equal opportunities for some of these amazing artists who don’t wear Dolce or Gabbana.

Thu 19 Breaking the Code @ Eureka Theatre Hugh Whitmore’s stage play about gay British WWII code-breaker Alan Turing, his genius and tortured life, gets a local production by Theatre Rhinoceros. Limited run: thru March 21. $10-$30. Wed-Sat 8pm Sat 3pm. 215 Jackson St. (800) 838-3006. www.TheRhino.org

Comedy Returns @ El Rio Paco Romane, Emily Epstein White, Kevin O’Shea, Jesús U. BettaWork, and host Lisa Geduldig share comic insights at the monthly (3rd Thu) event. $7-$20. 8pm. 3158 Mission St. (800) 838-3006. www.elriosf.com

Cracked Actor: David Bowie on Screen @ YBCA Comprehensive film series of the pop superstar’s cinematic career. Thru March. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts screening room, 701 Mission St. www.ybca.org/david-bowie

Drag Me to Bingo @ Jack London Square, Oakland The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s fun game night with drag and other acts. $10. 7pm. 55 Harrison St., Oakland. www.thesisters.org

Full Frontal Comedy @ Lookout Scott Capurro, Yuri Kagan, Valeria Branch and Ashton Tate perform at the new monthly (3rd Thu) comedy night. $5. 8pm. 3600 16th St. lookoutsf.com

Jewels of Paris @ Hypnodrome Thrillpeddlers’ new production is a “revolutionary” Parisian-themed musical revue, with original music and lyrics by original Cockette Scrumbly Koldewyn, including characters based on Picasso, Cocteau, Josephine Baker and even Marie Antoinette. $30-$35. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru May 2. 575 10th St. www.hypnodrome.org

Jewish Music Festival @ Various Venues 30th anniversary of the music festival, featuring choral works, jazz, traditional, even dancing and orchestral works, performed in SF, Berkeley and Oakland. Thru March 22. www.jewishmusicfestival.org

Hilarity @ Exit Studio Allison Page’s new play about a comic on the edge of destruction. $10-$25. 156 Eddy St. Thru Mar. 28. www.brownpapertickets.com

The Office, Dolly @ Z Below Word for Word’s stage adaptation of two short stories by Nobel Prizewinning author Alice Munro. $20, $35-55. Wed & Thu 7pm. Fri-Sat 8pm. Sun 3pm. Thru April 12. 470 Florida St. (866) 811-4111. www.zspace.org

ODC Dance @ YBCA The modern dance company’s annual downtown concert series includes Brenda Way and KT Nelson’s The Invention of Wings (which includes video from Wei Wei’s installation at Alcatroz Island), Dead Reckoning with music from Kronos Quartet cellist Joan Jean Renaud, plus the multimedia boulders and bones. $25-$120 (gala and/or full series). Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 4pm. Thru Mar. 22. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard St. 978-2787. www.odcdance.org www.ybca.org

Paula West @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The talented jazz vocalist performs a six-week engagement at the upscale intimate nightclub/cabaret, performing an eclectic array of songs, from Bob Dylan, Talking Heads and Harry Nilsson to jazz classics. $35$50. Thu & Fri 8pm. Sat 7pm & 10pm. Sun 7pm. Thru March 22. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.ticketweb.com

Fri 20 Ani DiFranco @ The Fillmore The veteran folk-rock singersongwriter performs with Pearl and the Beard. $33.50. 9pm. 1805 Geary Blvd. 346-6000. www.thefillmore.com

Antigone @ Exit on Taylor Cutting Ball Theater’s production of Daniel Sullivan’s new translation of Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy, with music and movement. $10-$50. Thu 7:30pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 2pm, Sun 5pm. Thru Mar. 29. 277 Taylor St. 5251205. www.cuttingball.com

Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them @ Thick House Crowded Fire Theater’s always interesting company performs A. Rey Pamatmat’s drama about three abandoned kids on a remote farm. $15-$35. Wed-Sat 8pm. Thru March 21. 1695 18th St. www.crowdedfire.org

The innovative dance company performs new and repertory works. $20-$75. 8pm. 10 Ave. of the Flags, San Rafael. www.MarinCenter.org

Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra @ Hertz Hall, Berkeley The music ensemble performs works by (and with) celebrated composer John Adams, and works by Stravinsky, Mozart and Mahler, with the Chamber Orchestra, and soloists Martin Frost (clarinet) and Ying Fang (soprano). Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 3pm. UC Berkeley campus, Bancroft Way at College Ave., Berkeley. www.CalPerformances.org

Sat 21 Antigonick @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowship-winning playwright Anne Carson’s take on Sophocles’ Antigone is produced by the innovative Shotgun Players. $20-$35. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 5pm. Wed 7pm. Thru April 25. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. (510) 841-6500. www.ShotgunPlayers.org

Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi The musical comedy revue celebrates its 40th year with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs. Reg: $25$160. Beer/wine served; cash only; 21+, except where noted. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St.). 4214222. beachblanketbabylon.com

Equilux @ Southern Exposure The experimental art gallery’s annual fundraiser and art auction includes works by 120 artists, delicious food and drinks, and a smart crowd. $40$150. 6pm (VIPs), 7:30-11pm. 3030 20th St. 863-2141. soexauction2015.eventbrite.com

Feisty Old Jew @ The Marsh Berkeley Charlie Varon’s hit solo show, about a fictional elder man who’s not adapting well to the 21st century, returns. $25-$100. Sat 8:30pm, Sun 5pm. Thru Mar. 22. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Fool La La! @ The Marsh Unique Derique’s holiday clowning show’s fun for kids and adults alike. $15-$35. Sundays 2pm. Extended thru April 12. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Sex & the City Live @ Oasis The drag parody of the Manhattan gal pal TV show returns. $25-$30 and up. 7pm. Thu-Sat. Thru Mar. 28. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

The Soiled Dove @ Innermission An immersive, circus-infused culinary extravaganza set in San Francisco’s notorious Barbary Coast red light district, with aerial performances, live music and a four-course dinner. 21+. $120. Fri & Sat 8pm. Thru April 4. 633 Florida St. 310-9238. www.TheSoiledDove.com

Ste McCabe @ El Rio Liverpool-based queer singersongwriter pops over the pond to the Mission club as part of his U.S. tour. $5. 9:30pm. 3158 Mission St. 282-3325. www.ste-mccabe.co.uk www.elriosf.com

Stereotypo @ The Marsh Don Reed’s new solo show, subtitled Rants and Rumblings at the DMV showcases the banal automotive office as a showcase of diverse characters. $20-$100. Fri 8pm, Sat 8:30pm. Thru Mar. 28. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Tartuffe @ Berkeley Repertory Dominique Serrand directs the awardwinning East Bay theatre company’s modern production of Moliere’s classic satire of religious hypocrisy. $29-$79. Tue, Thu-Sat 8pm. Wed & Sun 7pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru April 12. Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

Word Week @ Noe Valley Venues The annual Noe Valley literary festival includes readings and panels at various locales; including “Queer Words” (with authors Gr. Keer, Vincent Meis, Courtney Moreno, Monia Nolan and Rob Rosen), with wine, appetizers and desserts. Mar. 20, 7pm at Noe Valley Ministry, 1021 Sanchez St. Thru March 21. www.friendsofnoevalley.com

From White Plains @ New Conservatory Theatre Center

Kiss Us, We’re Irish!

EDGE is Your Daily Parade of News, Entertainment, and Photos.

edgemedianetw Bay Area Young Positives Benefit @ Eric Quezada Center The benefit for the nonprofit support service for HIV-positive youth is hosted by Honey Mahogany and features donated wines, live music and performances. 518 Valencia St. 4871616. BayPositives.org

Botticelli to Braque @ de Young Museum

Michael Perlamn’s suspenseful drama involves a film director who outs a high school bully in his Oscar speech, leading to a confrontative reunion. $30-$40. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru April 26. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. 861-8972. www.nctcsf.org

Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland, an expansive exhibit of classic paintings. Also, an exhibit of Oscar de la Renta high couture gowns (thru May 30). Free/$25. Thru May 31. 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. www.famsf.org

Josh Kornbluth @ The Marsh Berkeley

Enemies: Foreign and Domestic @ Berkeley City Club

Haiku Tunnel, the solo performer’s popular comic show about the foibles of office temping, re-opens at the East Bay venue. $20-$100. Fri 8pm. Sat 5pm. Thru Mar. 28. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Fri 20 Tartuffe Debora Robinson/South Coast Repertory

Central Works’ theatre company’s 25th season opens with Patricia Milton’s political comedy set around a family gathering. $15-$28. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 5pm. Thru March 29. 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. (510) 558-1381. www.centralworks.org

Hostel Comedy @ Piano Fight Andrew Roberts’ weekly comedy show with visiting comics and backpacking tourists telling funny stories. Free. 7pm. Thru April 25. 144 Taylor St. www.pianofight.com

Jodie Watley, Shalamar @ Yoshi’s Oakland The pop-R&B singer performs with the classic R&B band at the stylish jazz club and restaurant. $36-$69 7:30pm & 9:30pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. www.yoshis.com

Leilani Bustamante @ Modern Eden Gallery Exhibit of works by the Santa Rosa painter of unusual haunting scenes. Thru April 18. 801 Greenwich Ave. www.moderneden.com

Rainbow Girls @ St. Cyprians Church Multi-talented, multi-genre, multiinstrument-playing women’s band performs; Dgiin opens. $17-$20. 8pm. 2097 Turk St. www.rainbowgirlsmusic. com www.NoeValleyMusicSeries.com

Out&About>>

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 27

Massive Contributors @ Books Inc.

Wilde Chats @ Sweet Inspirations

Open ASL Stage @ Sweet Inspiration

Illustrator Jiraiya and author/editors Anne Ishii and Graham Kolbeins discuss the beautiful erotic graphic book of sexy Asian male manga. 7pm. 2275 Market St. 864-6777. booksinc.net Also, Jiraiya will sign books at the Cartoon Art Museum, Mar. 21, 2pm, 655, Mission St. www.cartoonart.org

Community Initiative’s weekly informal discussion group at the dessert shop. 10:30am-12pm. 2239 Market St. 621-8664. www.sweetinspirationbakery.com

The monthly (4th Sundays) deaf open stage night of poems, stories, comedy and readings. 6:30pm chat. 7pm show. 2239 Market St. 621-8664. www.sweetinspirationbakery.com

The Witches of Eastwick @ Castro Theatre

Rirkrit Tiravanija: The Way Things Go @ YBCA

Screening of the witchcraft comedy, with The Witches of East Bay, a drag parody pre-screening show with Peaches Christ, Coco Peru, Chad Michaels, Thomas Dekker and Peggy L’Eggs. $15-$30. 3pm & 8pm. 429 Castro St. www.peacheschrist.com www.castrotheatre.com

A Special Curatorial Project … uncovers narratives, reveals personal stories, and shares vignettes that lead to a larger understanding of the migration of people in the production of material culture. Free/$12-$15. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. Thru June 21. 978-2787. www.ybca.org

Richard III @ La Val’s Subterranean, Berkeley Shakespeare’s classic drama about an evil king gets a new treatment from the innovative East Bay theatre company. $10-$25. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 7pm. Thru April 5. 1834 Euclid Ave., Berkeley. (510) 224-5744. www.impacttheatre.com

Seduction: Japan’s Floating World @ Asian Art Museum New exhibit of ancient art from the John C. Weber Collection. Thru May 10. Also, The Printer’s Eye: Ukiyo-e, from the Grabhorn Collection. Other fascinating exhibits as well. Free (members, kids 12 and under)-$15. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. 200 Larkin St. www.asianart.org

Mon 23 Terry Furry @ Magnet Martyrs and Myth, an exhibit of paintings and sculptural works by the Oakland gay artist. Thru March. 4122 18th St. www.terryfurry.com www.magnetsf.org

Various Artists @ NIAD Art Center, Richmond Exhibits of art made by developmentally disabled people. Also, exhibits of works by Amelia Oie, Shantee Robinson and others. Mon-Fri 10am-4pm. 551 23rd St. Richmond. (510) 620-0290. www.niadart.org

Various Exhibits @ California Academy of Sciences Exhibits and planetarium shows with various live, interactive and installed exhibits about animals, plants and the earth; special events each week, with adult nightlife parties most Thursday nights. $20-$35. Mon-Sat 9:30am5pm. Sun 11am-5pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

work.com Join GLBT hikers for a 6-mile afternoon hike in the Marin Headlands. From the crest of the Headlands, hike the Bobcat Trail and the Miwok Trail toward Rodeo Beach, to watch a beautiful sunset over the ocean if the weather cooperates. Bring water, snacks, hat, layers, sunscreen, good hiking shoes. Carpool meets at 2:00 pm at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. 987- 0327. www.sfhiking.com

Stupid F#cking Bird @ SF Playhouse Aaron Posner’s satirical Hollywood update on Chekhov’s The Seagulls. $20-$120. Tue-Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm. Sun 2pm. Thru 450 Post St. 677-9596. sfplayhouse.org

The Waiting Period @ The Marsh Brian Copeland returns with his popular solo show, about the tensions of considering suicide, and waiting for approval to buy a gun. $30-$100. Saturdays 5pm, Sundays 5:30pm. Extended thru April 19. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Jewels of Paris

SF Gay Men’s Chorus @ Various Venues The chorus performs premieres of Jake Heggie’s “For a Look or a Touch” Mar. 22, 5pm, at City Winery, 10130 Main St., Napa. Mar. 24 at Grace Cathedral’s Gresham Room, 7:30pm (free), 1100 California St. Mar. 29 at Contemporary Jewish Museum (free) 3pm. 736 Mission St. April 1 & 2, Passion, a full concert, 8pm, Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave. 865-2787. www.sfgmc.org

SF Hiking Club @ Marin Headlands

Thu 19

Tue 24 Sun 22 Abrazo, Queer Tango @ Finnish Brotherhood Hall, Berkeley Enjoy weekly same-sex tango dancing and a potluck, with lessons early in the day. $7-$15. 3:30-6:30pm. 1970 Chestnut St., Berkeley. (510) 8455352. www.finnishhall.com

Fertile Ground @ Oakland Museum Fertile Ground: Art and Community in California (thru April 12). Also, photographer Marion Gray: Within the Light thru June 21; Bees: Tiny Insect, Big Impact thru Sept 20. Free/$15. Reg. hours Wed-Sat 11am-5pm (Fri til 9pm). 1000 Oak St., Oakland. (510) 318-8400. www.museumca.org

Flower Show @ Macy’s Art in Bloom is the new theme of the 41st annual store-wide floral festival of displays, fashion, cooking and DIY demos welcomes springtime retail, with different art movements represented on each floor. Thru April 4. Union Square. www.Macys.com/FlowerShow

The Griots of Oakland @ CIIS Multimedia exhibit of visuals and storytelling by young African American men of the East Bay. Thru June 20. 1453 Mission St. ciis.edu

Jacqui Naylor @ Yoshi’s Oakland The fantastic jazz vocalist performs with her three-piece band. $23. 8pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. www.yoshis.com

Kevin Sessums @ Books Inc. The gay editor and bestselling author reads from I Left It on the Mountain, his follow-up memoir to Mississippi Sissy. 7pm. 2275 Market St. 864-6777. www.booksinc.net

David Wilson

Ralph Eugene Meatyard @ Robert Tat Gallery Exhibit of black and white prints by the creator of creepy yet beautiful imagery. Tue-Sat 11am-5:30pm (1st Thu til 7:30pm). Thru May 30. 49 Geary St. 781-1122. www.roberttat.com

Sister Play @ Magic Theatre John Kolvenbach’s play about family conflicts and relationships. $20-$60. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2:30pm. Tue 7pm. Thru April 19. Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, 3rd floor, 2 Marina Blvd. at Buchanan sts. 441-8822. www.magictheatre.org

Wed 25 At Large: Ai Weiwei @ Alcatraz Island The internationally acclaimed Chinese sculptor’s exhibit of seven site-specific multimedia installations; the largest art exhibit ever hosted by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. $18-$30. Daily thru April 26. Ferries to and from Pier 33 at Embarcadero. www.AiWeiWeiAlcatraz.org www.alcatrazcruises.com/website/ ai-weiwei.aspx

Ben Harper @ The Fillmore The popular singer-songwriter performs with The Innocent Criminals. $50. 8pm. Also March 26, 27, 28. 1805 Geary Blvd. 346-6000. www.thefillmore.com

Framed Targets @ CIIS Gallery New exhibit of abstract sculptural wall art by Truong Tran, a local gay visual artist. Thru April 11. 1453 Mission St. 575-6100. www.ciis.edu

Lava Thomas @ Museum of the African Diaspora Exhibit of contemporary works. Also, The Art of Elizabeth Catlett, and historic exhibits of African cultures. Free/$10. 685 Mission St. www.moadsf.org

Lea DeLaria @ Nourse Theater The lesbian comic-actress-singer discusses Why Butch Matters: Identity, Gender and the Media ; presented by the California Institute of Integral Studies. $27-$75 (VIP reception). 7pm. 275 Hayes St. www.ciis.edu

Opie Bellas @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The accomplished jazz singer (and host of NPR’s Concert Matinee ) performs jazz classics and oirignals. $20. ($20 food/beverage minimum) 7pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. at Powell. (866) 663-1063. www.ticketweb.com

Wed 25 Lea DeLaria

Thu 26 Dis/Play @ SOMArts Cultural Center Opening reception for an expansive exhibit of works in several media by more than 30 Bay Area artists and groups (Artful Steps, NIAD Art Center, Sins Invalid) who expand the depiction of disability; includes special performances thru the run by AXIS Dance Company (April 8, 6pm-9pm), and other groups. Mar. 26 reception (6pm-9pm) includes Comedians With Disabilities at 7pm. ASL interpreted, and wheelchair accessible. Reg. hours Tue-Fri 12pm-7pm. Sat 12pm-5pm. Thru April 23. 934 Brannan St. 8631414. www.somarts.org

Fotanicals @ SF Botanical Gardens Fotanicals: the Secret Language of Flowers, an exhibition of photographs by artist joSon. Also, see blooming floral displays, including new Magnolia blossoms (51 species and 33 cultivars!), plus trees and exhibits. Also, daily walking tours and more, at outdoor exhibits of hundreds of species of native wildflowers in a century-old grove of towering Coast Redwoods. Free-$15. Daily. Golden Gate Park. 661-1316. www.SFBotanicalGarden.org

Leslie Jordan @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The diminuitive gay actor with a big talent returns with his new one-man show, Say Cheese! My Life in Front of the Camera. $35-$50. ($20 food/ beverage minimum) 8pm. Mar. 27 at 8pm. Mar. 28 at 7pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. at Powell. (866) 6631063. www.ticketweb.com

Letters to Afar, Poland and Palestine: Two Lands and Two Skies @ Contemporary Jewish Museum Dual exhibit of new Jewish cultural documentation (thru May 24); also, Havruta in Contemporary Art (thru April 14). Mar. 26, opening of Bound To Be Held: A Book Show (5pm-8pm). Other exhibits, lectures and gallery talks as well. Free (members)-$12. Fri-Tue 11am5pm, Thu 11am-8pm (closed Wed). 736 Mission St. 655-7800. www.thecjm.org

Queer Past Becomes Present @ GLBT History Museum New and mini-exhibits about Bay Area LGBTQ people and communities. Free (members)-$5. Reg hours: Mon, Wed-Sat 11am-7pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. 621-1107. www.glbthistory.org

Out & Equal Gala @ Hotel Nikko The LGBT workplace leadership organization’s annual gala dinner party, with auctions, entertainment, food and drinks. $175 and up. 25th floor, 222 Mason St. at Powell. 6946508. www.outandequal.org To submit event listings, email jim@ebar.com. Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication. For more bar and nightlife events, go to On the Tab in our BARtab section, online at www.ebar.com/bartab

<< Film

28 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

A FILM BY KARIM

Change is the only certainty

AÏNOUZ

FROM THE DIRECTOR OF

MADAME SATÃ

“SENSUAL! INTENSELY ATMOSPHERIC!” Stephen Holden, THE NEW YORK TIMES

“TRULY EROTIC!” Steve Erickson, THE VILLAGE VOICE

strandreleasing.com

NOW PLAYING 1.8" X 4" THUR 3/19 SF BAY AREA REPORTER DUE MON 5PM

/lgbtsf

Courtesy Strand Releasing

Scene from writer/director Karim Ainouz’s Futuro Beach: hot sex, slim bodies and fast motorcycles.

Artist: ther

AE: (circle one:) Angela Maria Josh

(circle one:)

Steve

Staci

Tim

Ronnie

Jane Deadline:

ART APPROVED AE APPROVED CLIENT APPROVED

by David Lamble

SAN FRANCISCO GAY MEN'S CHORUS DR. TIMOTHY SEELIG, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Featuring the San Francisco premiere of

Jake Heggie’s opera For a Look or a Touch in collaboration with San Francisco Opera, American Conservatory Theater, and Contemporary Jewish Museum

APRIL 1 + 2 » 8 P.M. DAVIES SYMPHONY HALL

ig changes, human tidal waves, are often ignited by horrible deeds inflicted on famous people: the John Kennedy assassination, the Malcolm X assassination, the Martin Luther King assassination, kids battling with the cops in the streets of Chicago, the Robert Kennedy assassination. Lasting change, however, tends to sneak by in the dark, as previously anonymous citizens begin to claim rights and freedoms they hadn’t known they needed. In Spanish director David Trueba’s sweetwise road comedy Living is Easy with Eyes Closed, three normal souls – a bald, chubby English teacher, Antonio (I’m So Excited’s Javier Camara); a spirited young girl, Belen (Natalia de Molina); and a shaggy-haired boy running away from a tight-assed dad, Juanjo (rising Spanish star Francesc Colomer) – discover the change they need by madly pursuing a disgruntled poet/ singer, the “more famous than Jesus,” soon-to-be ex-Beatle John Lennon. Trueba gives us this charming trio, looking to shed their bland old identities by tuning into the lyrics of the restless superstar Lennon. Bored to death while appearing in a much-ballyhooed but tiny cameo in Richard Lester’s How I Won the War, Lennon was already plotting his escape, starting with what would become his trademark granny glasses and leading to his big, Yoko Onoaccompanied “Give Peace a Chance” song and political manifesto. Director Trueba makes the classic low-budget film gamble: embed us with appealing anybodies, and we’ll gradually forget the famous somebody whom we never get to see. A

hint that Trueba will win his bet is buried in the second stanza of Lennon’s (composed in Spain) lyrics for “Strawberry Fields Forever,” where he jumpcuts into a hopeful future by drawing on an image from his Liverpool childhood: “Living is easy with eyes closed,/Misunderstanding all you see. It’s getting hard to be someone, but it all works out,/ It doesn’t matter much to me./Let me take you down, cos I’m going to Strawberry Fields./Nothing is real, and nothing to get hung about./ Strawberry Fields forever.” A half-century later, the simple, revolutionary brilliance of Lennon’s vision is sometimes lost in stale debates over free love and drug laws. Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed slams us back into the moment when it was all fresh, terribly urgent and lifesaving. It’s a movie that may give you a hint at what “the 60s” were all about before cops and blood in the streets caused the timid to pull back before a life-affirming leap of faith. (Opens Friday.) Futuro Beach Brazilian writer/ director Karim Ainouz opens his slow-paced philosophical inquiry in the turbulent waters of Fortaleza, his own hometown. A lifeguard, the slim, muscular Donato (Wagner Moura), tries and fails to save the life of a German tourist, whose lover will come to dominate his future, in a chilly Berlin where one can metaphorically drown miles from any ocean breeze. Ainouz, appreciated by queer audiences for the riveting crossdressing slice of history Madame Sata, here takes even bolder liberties, paradoxically by slowing the action down so completely that some may wonder if their local theater is unspooling this one at the wrong speed. Using non-stop sex with the gay widower Konrad (Clemens Schick) almost as a means to cleanse the palate between jarring, irrevocable life changes, Donato gradually adjusts to being a Berliner. The sharp change in landscape between golden-beach Brazil and landlocked Berlin is greatly enhanced by cinematographer Ali Olcay Gozkaya. Futuro Beach is for all of us who have left important people behind in our rush towards liberation, changes needed to create the adult we feel we need to be. Here the sudden reappearance of a younger brother (Jesuita Barbosa) forces Donato to re-examine everything. The kid notes that loved ones (especially family) are not merely emotional baggage to be dropped on the way to one’s own personal nirvana. But this movie will appeal to queer filmgoers who crave hot sex, slim bodies and fast motorcycles, served up in an emotionally adult setting. (Now playing.)t

with guest artists Morgan Smith + Kip Niven and the world premiere of

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Scene from director David Trueba’s sweetwise road comedy Living is Easy with Eyes Closed.

Film>>

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 29

Around the world in 15 noirs by Erin Blackwell

an Franciscans are spoiled when it comes to film noir festivals. In January, we swilled showman Eddie Muller’s free booze during his wildly popular Noir City at the Wurlitzerized Castro Theatre in the city’s gay heart. Now we’ll be guzzling from hip flasks at Elliot Lavine’s putatively sober, scrappy, seedy foray into psycho-melodrama at the venerable Roxie Theatre, a neighborhood hold-out flanking the dread Valencia corridor. Attention, wannabe screenwriters, the death of the Mission is the perfect setting for a neo-Noir. Meanwhile, Lavine in tandem with Noir City refugee Don Malcolm presents seven programs of subtitled second-wave (1956-74) noirs, starting tonight, March 19, at 7 p.m. (through March 23). Retour de Manivelle (1957), directed by Denys de la Patellière, tonight at 9 p.m., is a great place to start. On the glamorous French Riviera, high-class blonde beauty Michelle Morgan seduces darkpompadoured everyman Daniel Gélin, who’s been hired as her tall, blond, alcoholic husband Peter van Eyck’s chauffeur. Something’s very wrong with this couple. The hired man watches their silhouettes enact a nightly ritual of “Don’t touch me, have another drink, now pass out and leave me alone.” Is it his fault she’s frigid? Is it her fault he’s drunk? Is it their fault they’re gorgeous creatures trapped inside a beautiful villa on the Mediterranean Sea, speaking the world’s sleekest language? Well, when you can’t pay your bills, the bourgeois ideals of real estate and social status, of which marriage is merely the most debased iteration, can kill you. Fortunately, the husband’s paid up on his life insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London. Where there’s a will, there’s a way out. Which is exactly what La Morgan has in mind. She is, after all, a femme fatale, or woman-as-death, the stock feature of all noirs worthy of the name, starting with Bette Davis in The Letter (1940). That’s a year before Classic Noir is said to have begun, a year

before the U.S. entry into World War II launched a geopolitical guilt complex craving expression onscreen. Davis plays a cold-blooded hypocrite whose crime of passion reveals the drawbacks to the colonial marriage business under British rule in Malaysia. The more beautiful Morgan, both more logical and more greedy, delivers trenchant lines in a disabused deadpan that explodes into real emotion when she denounces the system that monetizes female beauty. Noir is the perfect vehicle for systemic critique, and there’s no more infectious paean to anarchy than one of two Greek films on the menu, Nikos Koundouros’ O Drakos, or The Ogre of Athens (1956) (3/22, 4 p.m.). I think I missed the whole point of this movie, watching it on DVD on my laptop. What I see in films isn’t always what I read in other people’s summaries. Oh, well. Even if you misread the intrigue, you’ll see the dancing. This dancing is so tragic, so life-affirming, so muscular, true, emotional, therapeutic, you’ll wish there were a club on Valencia Street you could run out and authentically grapevine in. But you can’t. The Greek people! The greatest, the founding culture of the Western world, currently battling the Teutons for control of their own economy, are here represented in a quirky, inventive, epic hunt for a modern Robin Hood financial genius who might or might not be the film’s protagonist. A meek bank clerk, like a James Joyce alter ego or a Kafka stand-in, in horn-rims and balding, finds notoriety and love as the mastermind of a heist of Ancient Greek ruins. Instead of being cutesy, the set-up is both Existential and radically political. That is, after all, the Greek genius: to recognize that existence is political. On a double bill with The Rehearsal (1974), directed by Jules Dassin, at which actor Stathis Giallelis makes a personal appearance (1:30 p.m.).t

Courtesy I Wake Up Screaming/Mid-Century Productions

A young man’s fancy turns from making suicide look like murder to lust when he becomes overly enamored with the icy but well-rounded widow in Retour de Manivelle.

Courtesy I Wake Up Screaming/Mid-Century Productions

Through March 23, Roxie Theatre. Info: midcenturyproductions.com, roxie.com.

Power, notoriety and the charms of a beautiful young woman lead a meek bank teller into the frenzy of the underworld in O Drakos, or The Ogre of Athens.

Same time, next queer by David Lamble

ark Bessenger’s witty and intimate new film The Last Straight Man (TLA) opens on what appears to be a fairly typical hetero bachelor party. In the first act, we observe a gaggle of hunky guys celebrating their pal Cooper’s (Scott Sell) pending marriage with the help of a prostitute (Victoria De Mare). As the party winds down, a gay friend of Cooper’s, Lewis (Mark Cirillo), emboldened by high spirits and multiple shots of whiskey, embarks on a friendly seduction of his buddy that will become an annual ritual between the two men for the next 12 years. Cooper’s only restriction is that the guys can fuck but not kiss: that would be far too intimate. Veteran theatre buffs may recognize the premise as a deft change on Robert Mulligan’s 1978 film Same Time, Next Year, in which a straight couple (Ellen Burstyn and Alan Alda), beginning in the prim-and-proper 1950s, embark on a 26-year streak of adulterous weekends together. Based on Bernard Slade’s two-character Broadway play, Same Time, Next Year was a kind of “swingers’ manifesto” in which heteros could cheat on their legal mates, perhaps finding their own tamer version of the party-down hijinks so associated

with post-Stonewall/pre-AIDS gay men. This slapdash, sexy switcheroo becomes an entertaining way both to poke fun at the straight people, as gays have done for eons, and perhaps subtly acknowledge that in the new era of same-sex nuptials, the LGBT community is becoming its own odd wing of the married-folks establishment. Also, Bessenger’s frisky but non-pornographic production demonstrates that gay men (played by straightidentified actors) can now mimic or parody heterosexual adultery along with gay-guy-seducing-hisstraight-best-friend fantasies. We have clearly crossed a line where the sexual revolution has been domesticated and made respectable enough for anyone of any persuasion to play along. Or maybe we’ve merely reverted to pre-Civil War, early-19th-century frontier behavior, where men reportedly often shared a bed for whatever non-recorded reasons may have occurred to them – the old Joshua Speed/Abe Lincoln deal, the one hetero historians have been quick to purge of any homo implications. In the end, The Last Straight Man is good clean fun, a gentle poke or two at many sides of the sex/gender wars without frightening the horses or burning down

the barn. One does wonder why actual homosexual-identified actors can’t be invited to play, but that, of course, is a horse of a different color. One also wonders if someone will get the bright idea to put this idea back on the stage – perhaps at New Conservatory Theatre Center or at the wandering Theatre Rhino – and see if it’s even better before a live and possibly mixed audience. The TLA DVD features great cover art: a cowboy hat-wearing, bare-chested Scott Sell, munching down on a long cigar with the tag line, “It was a one-night stand – that lasted 12 years.” Bonus features include interviews, deleted scenes, and an audio commentary. The best of the bonus tracks are the actor chats, in which Mark Cirillo and Scott Sell explain their creative process. Footnotes: fans of this play on film may also appreciate the prickly legacy of pioneering San Francisco gay novelist Daniel Curzon, particularly his volume Curzon in Love. Other plays that might benefit from modern screen adaptations include the late C.D. Arnold’s A Night in the Blue Moon, a very sexy New Jersey-set gay/straight reunion; and some of the Lesley Gore “Its My Party”inspired scenes from Theatre Rhino’s long-running AIDS Show.t

<< Music

30 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

All grown up by Gregg Shapiro

osh, the kids sure do grow up quickly these days, don’t they? Take Ariana Grande, for example. Her transformation from Nickelodeon child star to the latest Universal Music human-trafficking product is quite remarkable. Grande’s 2013 debut disc Yours Truly was a sincerely promising first album, including “Popular Song with Mika,” a wonderful duet featuring gay singer/ songwriter Mika. Grande’s choice of collaborators on her second album My Everything (Republic) is one of the first indications that she (or someone on her team) wants to move in a very different direction. Mimicking a post-boob job Mariah Carey on the “Intro” and the title cut, Grande works hard to renovate her image via the hit singles “Problem” (featuring Iggy Azalea) and “Bang Bang” (featuring Nicki Minaj and Jessie J). Working in her favor is the fact that her voice, an instrument to be reckoned with, trumps the production circus, especially on “One Last Time,” “Why Try,” “Best Mistake” and “Just a Little Bit of Your Heart.” Of course, it could be worse. Grande could be as dreary as teen soprano Jackie Evancho on her new disc Awakening (Portrait). A predictable set of classical cross-

over tunes including “Ave Maria,” Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Think of Me” and Rachmaninoff ’s “Vocalise,” Awakening does succeed in showing off Evancho’s impressive range. But it’s hard not to wish that she would take more chances such as the one where she performs a rendition of U2’s “With or Without You.” Ultimately, Evancho may be destined to sing songs such as “The Rain of Castamere” from Game of Thrones, a career move destined to earn her a devoted following among fanboys. For a minute, there was talk of

25-year-old singer/songwriter Taylor Swift playing Joni Mitchell in the film version of Sheila Weller’s oft-derided book Girls Like Us. Let’s be honest, that’s a terrible idea. Swift’s autotuned voice is no match for Mitchell’s pure instrument. Swift is actually closer in spirit to Alanis Morissette, especially on 1989 (Big Machine), her most straightforward pop effort to date. Swift deserves credit for acknowledging her queer fans (the “boys and boys and/girls and girls” in “Welcome to New York”), and collaborations with Jack Antonoff (“Out

Scotland

From page 22

The first gallery of old masters is a show-stopper; one could go no further than this splendid room, encounter Johannes Vermeer’s “Christ in the House of Martha and Mary” (ca.1654-55), and be content. The largest and earliest of the 36 known surviving Vermeers, it’s the only one based on a Biblical theme, in this case the story of Luke. The canvas, made at the time of his marriage and conversion to Catholicism, has a distinctive triangular composition capturing an exchange between Jesus, Mary and Martha, and a tranquil atmosphere that envelops the three figures. But the defining feature, as always with Vermeer, is the ecstatic, luminous light that could persuade the most secular among us of the possibility of divinity. The subject of Rembrandt’s lustrous “A Woman in Bed” (1647), thought to represent several pivotal female figures in the Dutch master’s life, peers out from behind heavy red bed-curtains, expectantly awaiting the return of her husband, who has left their conjugal bed to chase away the devil on their wedding night. According to the Biblical story of Sarah, her seven previous husbands were killed by the devil, and she worried about the disappearance of yet an-

Witches

From page 21

Witchy Alexandra Medford, played by the bewitching Cher in the film, will be essayed on stage by Cher impersonator extraordinaire Chad Michaels. “I’ve been impersonating Cher since the beginning of my career,” Michaels told the B.A.R. “It’s been a blast, and I enjoy what I do. Cher is a bad-ass and worthy of the adoration.” It turns out to be a mutual admiration society. “Cher is well aware of me, and has always been gracious, funny and real whenever I have encountered her,” Michaels said. Sukie Ridgemont, played by Michelle Pfeiffer in the movie, will be parodied by Peaches Christ. “But as is the case in most of our shows, it’s a characterization of her performance through the character of Peaches Christ,” Peaches explained. “So I’m really playing myself. Simi-

of the Woods,” “I Wish You Would”) and Imogen Heap (“Clean”) are decent. But on the whole, 1989 misfires more often than not, and that can easily be pinned on the ubiquitous Max Martin. “Try,” a track from Gyspy Heart (Republic), is the most mature tune Colbie Caillat has ever (co-)written and recorded, and it’s the kind of number that deserves to be a hit and heard by everyone. The timeless song’s message of empowerment and self-esteem is one that resonates. The fact that the song

is buried in the midst of Caillat’s usually sunny pop songs, including “Live It Up,” “Blaze,” “Never Gonna Let You Down,” “Nice Guys” and “Floodgates,” means that it could be overlooked. That would be a shame. One-third of the teeny-bop boy band the Jonas Brothers, and the second best-looking of the three, Nick Jonas resumes his sidetracked solo career with a new self-titled album on Island. Jonas, who has made a name for himself as a songwriter, kicks off the disc with the inferior “Chains,” a song he didn’t write. Of the original tunes co-written by Jonas, the most memorable are “Numb” (featuring queer rapper Angel Haze) and “Push.” As for his skills as an interpreter of other people’s music, he’s not half-bad on “Teacher” and “Wilderness.” Brit TV talent-show finalists, boyband One Direction has released four albums in four years. They’ve toured extensively and even made movie versions of their concerts. Where they find the time to write and record songs, shag girls, get tatted, grow facial hair, meet with overpaid stylists and pose for kooky pix is anyone’s guess. Four (SYCO/ Columbia) is basically more of the same anonymous pop that the boys have been manufacturing since being groomed for stardom by Simon Cowell.t

other. Bare-shouldered, a breast exposed, light dances off the gold detail of her hair ornament, proving once again that a day with a Rembrandt is better than a day without. No offense to the mighty mights of Scottish history, but the least interesting paintings, despite their artistic pedigree, are the grandiose portraits of Scottish notables in their kilts and tartans leaning on a staff or a shotgun depending on the circumstances. That said, mention must be made of Sir Henry Raeburn’s “Reverend Robert Walker, Skating on Duddingston Loch” (1795), an iconic image that permeates Scottish consciousness and postage stamps. When not delivering sermons, Walker was a charter member of the Edinburgh Skating Society. Immortalized in dashing black attire and matching hat, he cuts quite an elegant figure as he glides across the ice. One can almost hear the hush of a snowy evening and the slice of his skate blades whose grooves are cut into the canvas with the heel of the artist’s paintbrush. The work marked a departure for Raeburn, considered the preeminent Scottish portraitist of the Enlightenment. Moving right along to the 20th century, Gauguin’s “Three Tahitians” (1899), a beguiling paradise in living tropical color, possibly al-

ludes to Hercules’ choice between Vice and Virtue, the former embodied by a woman in a one-shouldered red dress tantalizing the man in the middle of this triad with a ripe mango, and the latter by a demure virginal figure holding a modest bouquet – not too subtle. A group of paintings by Monet, Bonnard and friends, while lovely, is unexceptional; we’ve seen stronger examples of Impressionism in previous shows at this museum and elsewhere. The same can’t be said of “The Painting Session” (1919), a transfixing meditation on art and beauty. Painted by Henri Matisse in his hotel room on the Cote d’Azur, the subject is familiar, but the color palette is somewhat muted and remarkably modern. A charming young French schoolgirl, one of the artist’s favorite teenage models, pores earnestly over a book at a table covered by a winter-white cloth, accented by two random, improbably yellow lemons and a spray of springtime flowers in a glass vase. The view of the Mediterranean outside is reflected in a graceful gilded mirror sitting on the table, as an artist, presumably Matisse, seen from the back, toils at his maize-colored easel; an earthybrown background anchors the sweet scene. It’s sublime.t

larities will include a shared fear of pain and the fact that we both have a brood of children that look like they’re from Village of the Damned!” As always, the show is centered on a film that’s near and dear to Peaches’ heart. “Witches of Eastwick is definitely a favorite film of mine,” she said. “When I was a kid and first saw it, I loved it, especially the vomit scene and all the spectacle of the third act! Watching it now, I can’t believe how adult it all is – we’re talking devil orgies!” Coco Peru will be seen on the great Castro stage as Jane Spofford, the Susan Sarandon role, while the devilishly sexy Thomas Dekker plays the satanically horny Daryl Van Horne, memorably played by Jack Nicholson in the original. “I really want it to be a showcase for the extraordinary talents of Chad, Coco, Thomas and Peggy L’eggs,” Peaches said. “I wrote the show for them. Poor Thomas always gets cast

in the meek and understated roles in our shows, but now he gets to camp it up as the Devil himself! And Peggy as the cherry-vomiting religious nut is truly the role Peggy was born to play!” Of course, with Michaels sharing the stage, Cher fans will experience the next best thing to the real deal. “There will definitely be a good dose of Cher in my performance,” he said. “Peaches has written a very clever script that lends itself to some very funny situations. I’m hoping to put my own twist on a role that Cher has made legendary!” “As always, we hope to make audiences laugh,” said Peaches. “We also hope to surprise them. It’s my goal with our shows to create unique entertainment. It’s an experience!”t

Through May 31.

The Witches of Eastwick, with pre-show The Witches of East Bay, Sat., March 21, 3 & 8 p.m., Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., SF. Tickets ($32-$110): peacheschrist.com.

Besties

20 15

THE LGBT BEST OF THE BAY

OUR LARGEST SPRING EDITION IS COMING APRIL 2! CELEBRATE WITH US. Join us on Thursday, April 2 from 6-8:30pm as we celebrate the winners of our 5th annual readers’ choice awards. We’ll take over Oasis SF (298 11th Street at Folsom, San Francisco) for a special evening celebrating the LGBT Best of the Bay as voted by you, our loyal readers. Enjoy hosted beer and specialty cocktails and light refreshments from 6-7pm as we toast this year’s Besties Winners, followed with performances by Marga Gomez, Veronica Klaus and the Whoa Nellies. Emcee Queer Cougar. BUSINESS OWNERS/MARKETING PROFESSIONALS: Welcome our readers, and place your brand among the best! Call 415 861 5019 or email advertising@ebar.com to reserve space to appear in our April 2 edition and reach the largest audited audience of Bay Area LGBT consumers. BESTIES 2015 SPONSORS:

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Vol. 45 • No. 12 • March 19-25, 2015

Dinah’s got it going on

Big splash for 25th anniversary women’s weekend

he biggest lesbian party on the planet, The Dinah, just keeps getting bigger and better year after year. At 25, there is no stopping it, with hit-makers Meghan Trainor and Christina Perri headlining the party. See page 34

Guests hanging out in the pool at one of the famous pool parties at The Dinah 2013.

Rich Stadtmiller

courtesy The Dinah

by Heather Cassell

Leather Awards, parties, and honors Alliance Y Weekend by Race Bannon

et again the fine folks at the San Francisco Bay Area Leather Alliance, along with a small army of dedicated volunteers and supportive sponsors, produced their Leather Alliance Weekend on March 5-8. The Leather Alliance is a nonprofit organization with a Board that reflects the clubs, groups and individuals within the local leather, fetish, kink, gear and motorcycling communities. See page 35 >>

{ THIRD OF THREE SECTIONS }

All of the Mr. SF Leather contest contestants pose with the winner, Trevor Black (wearing the sash), after Trevor’s win.

JOINSEE PAGE US31 OFON APRIL 2! THIS ISSUE FOR DETAILS. BESTIES 2015 SPONSORS:

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

34 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

Attendees sporting Dinah glasses at The Dinah 2014.

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Dinah

From page 33

At the prime of the “lesbian spring break’s” youth, The Dinah continues tp attract the hottest female entertainers, DJs, go-go dancers and of course upward of more than 15,000 bikini-clad beautiful women from around the world to sunny Palm Springs, California. This year won’t be any different come April 1 through 5. It’s just bigger and better with headliners Trainor (“All About that Bass”) taking the stage at Saturday night’s Black Party and Perri (“A Thousand Years”) getting the crowds going onstage at Friday night’s White Party. The big celebration of The Dinah’s silver anniversary features two female headliners who are ratcheting up the pop charts for the first time, said Mariah Hanson, producer of the Club Skirt’s The Dinah. “I cannot tell you how exciting it is to bring this caliber of entertainment to our community,” said Hanson. “It’s legacy-creating. If The Dinah can stand out as this really hip lesbian event that has some of the most top notch entertainers in the nation, I think that’s a pretty cool gift to the community.” The party also features emerging female performers Bebe Rexha and Ivy Levan, along with E11even, Holychild, and Olivia Somerlyn and chart-topping favorites Crystal Waters (“Gypsy Woman”) and Rose Royce (“Car Wash”). The Dinah wouldn’t be The Dinah without its lesbian comedians. Mainstay Suzanne Westenhoefer is a part of the comedy lineup that also includes Gloria Bigelow, Dana Goldberg, and Dinah Leffert. The Dinah isn’t all about the party. It’s also making a statement about the community and doing some good from Hanson’s perspective. She argues that attracting the best and brightest talent to The Dinah year after year can be a “political statement.” “After 25 years of producing events in this community comes a responsibility to create meaning in what you do and so I live that every day,” said Hanson. Such a focus is developed by Hanson’s four-member team that grows to 50 during the weeklong event. Every year the team includes a benefit event to raise money for an LGBT organization. The celebrity poker tournament benefiting the Human Rights Campaign has been a permanent fixture at The Dinah, and raises thousands of dollars for LGBT rights. The poker tournament along with the film festival won’t happen this year, said Hanson, due to the additional headliner, but the events will be back next year. This year, a celebrity beer pong tournament will raise money for HRC and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “It’s the responsibility of LGBT Americans to give back to our community, and that doesn’t necessarily mean money we can give back in our time,” said Hanson, pointing out that the LGBT rights movement isn’t done yet. “Even when we have full marriage equality, for instance, that doesn’t mean that we have full acceptance in this country to live our lives out loud and proud and with equality and respect,” continued Hanson. “Until that day, we all have a responsibility to our community to stick with our civil rights movement.”

Diamond in the rough

This year’s party doesn’t look anything like how it all began back in 1972, nearly 20 years before Hanson, who is from Sonoma County, and Los Angeles’ the Girl Bar promoters, Robin Gans and Sandy Sachs, saw an opportunity in the early 1990s.

Top/Bottom: Peter Szabadi Middle: courtesy The Dinah

Top: A sea of fans crowd the stage to see one of the legendary performers at The Dinah 2014. Middle: Club Skirts The Dinah promoter Mariah Hanson, left, with Ke$ha, right, at The Dinah 2010. Bottom: Partiers around the pool at The Dinah 2014.

Palm Springs was long a retreat for Hollywood A-listers and celebrities and LGBT vacationers. It was also the spot for the Colgate Dinah Shore Golf Championship, now known as the Ladies Professional Golf Association’s Kraft Nabisco Championship. The golf tournament was started by popular Big Band era entertainer and 1970s TV personality Dinah Shore, who was born Frances Rose Shore on February 19, 1916. But Shore wasn’t exactly a feminist. She was famously quoted, “I owe everything –my success and happiness– to men,” a sentiment reflected in one of her hit songs, “It’s So Nice to Have a Man Around the House.” However, she was an avid golfer and supporter of women’s professional golf, which she lent her star power to boost the then-underfunded LPGA and women golfers. Today, it is one of the four major golf tournaments on the LPGA tour. Last year, Kraft Nabisco didn’t renew its contract to sponsor the tournament. In November, the Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau announced that Ana Inspiration, formerly All Nippon Airways, took over sponsorship of the LPGA championship. Ana Inspiration is Japan’s leading airline. Lesbians have a thing for women athletes –golf produced its own professional lesbian golfers– so naturally a lesbian following grew. Shore also wasn’t known for being a supporter of LGBT rights, but she never publicly commented about her tournament and name being hi-

jacked by lesbians. The producers of the golf championship have repeatedly stated it had no problem with the lesbian parties being loosely associated with the golf tournament. However, lesbian golf and Dinah fans disagreed and in 1994, after Shore’s death, her name was quickly removed from the golf championship. Dinah Shore’s name lives on through the parties. A sculpture of Shore also demarks the plaques of the tournament winners –some lesbian– along the green at Mission Hills Country Club golf course, where the tournament is hosted. In the early 1990s, Dinah Shore Weekend was a readymade lesbian event in a resort town already popular with the LGBT community, a women’s golf event, celebrities, sunshine, and more it was ripe for a new generation of party promoters. The California lesbian promoters who lived out loud and proud and were known for throwing parties with sexy go-go dancers and the hottest DJs spinning the latest dance hits teamed up and upped the ante. They took the lesbian parties surrounding the golf championship out of airline hangers, dodgy bars, and house parties and brought them into Palm Spring’s best venues as a new generation of lesbian partiers came of age. Hanson, Gans and Sachs partnership split up in 2006. Since then Hanson took Palm Springs and Gans and Sachs took their Dinah party to Las Vegas. See page 35 >>

Read more online at www.ebar.com

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 35

Rich Stadtmiller

All of the Mr. SF Leather contestants and judges pose with the winner, Trevor Black (with sash), after Trevor’s win.

Leather Alliance

From page 33

The weekend’s events provide kinky locals, and those visiting our wonderful city, a range of education, entertainment and socializing opportunities. Each year they seem to top their previous year efforts and this year was no exception. We’re so lucky to have such an organization in the Bay Area. Ava Schmidt served as the Chair for the weekend with Erik Will, Dahn van Laarz, Angel Garfold, Jessie Vanciel, Ray Tilton, Jim Remer, Rachele Sullivan, Mark Ingham and Beth Downey also serving in various capacities on the weekend’s 2015 organizing committee. They were assisted by an army of dedicated volunteers who together pulled off this marvelous weekend. I asked Ava why she thought the Leather Alliance Weekend is an important part of the San Francisco leather and kink scene. “The Leather Alliance Weekend is a great way to bring together a large amount of our diverse local community, supporting each other and our businesses,” she said. “Not only do we get to watch great (need I say hot!) men compete for Mr SF Leather, it gives us the chance to honor and recognize individuals and groups in our community that have given so much over the year(s).” The weekend started on Thursday with a PrEP Panel at Mr. S Leather. On hand to answer the audience’s questions about PrEP were Eric Paul Leue, Mr. LA Leather 2014 and renowned PrEP activist, Charles Fann of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, Dr. Robert Grant of the SF AIDS Foundation, and Scott Wiener, SF District 8 City Supervisor. It’s great that the Leather Alliance chose to offer this informational session on this very important and timely topic. One of the main highlights of the weekend is the Mr. San Francisco Leather Content. As has become customary, Mr. S Leather generously hosted the contestant meet

Dinah

From page 34

Dinah today

A quarter century later, The Dinah has grown from “lesbian spring break” into the largest women’s music festival. Record executives vie to have their top female performers at The Dinah, but the party hasn’t lost its lesbian fans. It’s a feat that Hanson is proud of. “I think that I produce an incredible event,” said Hanson, who focuses on bringing top-notch entertainment and throwing the best parties to keep women coming back year after year. “Between those two elements we are giving people a reason to continue to keep coming to the event.”

and greet, a casual social mixer that also serves as the first public introduction of some of the event staff as well as the contest MCs, judges and contestants. The meet and greet has become one of my favorite events during the Alliance Weekend because it’s such a relaxed social environment. This year’s contest MCs were introduced and both were new to the contest MC duties. They were Don Mike, well-known Los Angeles leather community personality, and Pollo Del Mar, who was dubbed the “Drag Queen of All Media” by Huffington Post. Judges for the contest were Scott “Big Red” Farrell, Mr. SF Leather 2014, Matthew Bunch, Mr. Sacramento Bolt Leather 2014, Marlena (Garry McLain), Judge Emeritus, Little Bad Daddy, Ms. SF Leather 2015, Don Ho, longtime community leader, Erik Will, Chairman of the San Francisco Leathermen’s Discussion Group, and Eric Paul Leue, Mr. LA Leather 2014. Then the true stars of the contest, the contestants, were introduced and they were an impressive lineup of great men this year. There were Trevor Black, Mr. Daddy’s Barbershop Leather 2015, Daniel DeLage, Mr. Powerhouse Leather 2015, Stephen Shute, Mr. Sober Leather 2015, Gerald Borjas, Mr. Edge Leather 2015, Christopher Humphreys, Mr. SF Eagle Leather 2015, and Steve Jirgl, Mr. Friendly SF 2015. After the meet and greet the contestants and anyone who cared to join them embarked on a bar crawl that had them visiting the Edge in the Castro and then the Powerhouse and SF Eagle in SoMa. Saturday during the day the Alliance presented two workshops. Stefanos and Shay presented “Skin Deep” that offered attendees some insights into the erotic practice of surface cuttings. Jak Hammer presented “BDSM from Top to Bottom” that offered newcomers some basic advice about attending a play party. In terms of community attendance, the Mr. SF Contest on Saturday night is the certainly the main

event of the weekend. I’ve attended Mr. SF Leather contests for many years and this appeared to perhaps be the most attended contest I’ve seen. The room was certainly packed with an array of leatherfolk and kinksters clad in their finest fetish gear. Contests of the size of the Mr. SF Leather contest don’t happen easily. There’s a huge army of people behind the scenes making it happen. While this list doesn’t include all of the many volunteers working the contest, here were some of the key contributors. Those intimately involved with the contest were Ray Tilton, Contest Producer/Director, Desmond Perrotto, Assistant Contest Producer/ Director, Nile Eckhoff, Contest Producer/Director Mentee, Erick Lopez, Den Daddy, Nate Cotton, Den boy, David Hegarty, Tallymaster, Barry Miles, Tallymaster Mentee, Jason Husted, Judges Coordinator, Tyler Fong, Judges’ boy, Beth Downey, Stage Manager, Kevin Quintero, Technical Assistant, Rov-

The Dinah’s stages have seen Iggy Azalea, Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Lady Gaga, the Pussy Cat Dolls, Tegan and Sara, and more. The Dinah has graced the small screen on Show Time’s The L Word and rolled out the red carpet for celesbians and even produced a small film festival during the weeklong festivities during recent years. Say Hollywood, a regular guest at The Dinah, keeps coming back because of the entertainment, pool parties, beautiful women from all over the world and the friendships she’s made. “I will never go to any other circuit ever again besides going to Mariah’s The Dinah,” said Hollywood, a 40-something lesbian partygoer who has gone to many les-

bian circuit parties across the U.S. “I think that it’s phenomenal.” She will be at The Dinah this year with her friends, enjoying the entertainment and the pool parties. She said she’s looking forward to seeing Trainor perform as well as Royce and Waters. “I really love my community,” said Hanson. “I understand the importance of the Dinah Shore Weekend in our community. I understand that it’s a bucket list, a rite of passage. It’s a celebration and I’m committed to continuing that because that’s my gift back.” She hopes that Dinah guests feel special long after they leave the event. “What we want them to take with them when they leave is that they are

er Spotts, Technical Director, and Travis Leyva and Xavier Caylor as ASL Interpreters. The MCs, Pollo Del Mar and Don Mike, were both extremely entertaining while keeping the proceedings moving along. I particularly liked when Pollo left the stage during a break to emerge as his handsome male self later out of drag, donning a stylish leather outfit created by Troy Anicete. Kippy Marks opened the contest with fantastic violin renditions of the U.S. and Canadian national anthems. Another crowd-pleaser was Peter Feliciano, a singer and songwriter extraordinaire, who brought the crowd to its feet with a great performance mid-way through the contest’s proceedings. This year’s contest was impressive not only for the huge audience attendance, which says to me that we continue to have one of the most vibrant leather and kink communities of any city in the country, but also the quality of the men running for the title. Every contestant did themselves and their respective sponsors proud. At the end of the night, Trevor Black, Mr. Daddy’s Barbershop Leather, emerged victorious as the new Mr. San Francisco Leather with Daniel DeLage in second place and Christopher Humphreys in third. The contestants chose Gerald Borjas to receive the Brotherhood Award. Trevor not only won the Mr. SF Leather title this year, but he broke a record as the youngest winner, a record previously held by Ray Tilton. At age 22, Trevor is now the youngest man to win the title. It certainly takes a tremendous amount of poise and confidence to win the title at such a young age and he displayed both during the competition. I asked Trevor why he ran for the Mr. SF Leather title. “Before I moved to San Francisco from my hometown of Petaluma, I was, at the very least, curious about the BDSM and kink community,” he

said. “When I finally moved here, I was able to discover various aspects of my life. From aesthetic, to sex, to kink. I was only 18 and still I knew I wasn’t only gay, but I was still ‘weird’ compared to the gays I knew at the time. “Time has passed since, and my experience and confidence has grown. I knew I was capable of being a voice for those who are like me. In an effort to step forward for our community, I ran for Mr. Daddy’s Barbershop Leather, and ultimately I attained the title of Mr. San Francisco Leather. I’m honored to represent our city!” As for what unique things about himself that Trevor brings to the title, he offered this. “Being a gay man is one thing. Being gay and weird is another. If being me stirs the pot of conversation, then I’ve done my job. I fight for what’s right in the world, and I’m not afraid to be myself. My mission is to spread acceptance and support. Always be yourself, and know that you can speak to me with the utmost confidence. “From my age, to my drag [Black is also known as drag performer Jem Jehova], to my kinks, I’ve always pushed the boundaries of what’s expected from society, and I have ceased to apologize for it. I’m happy to represent for everyone.” During the contest, Ray Tilton announced that this would be the last year he would produce and direct the contest. Next year the contest will be overseen by Nile Eckhoff. I asked Ray what he found to be the most rewarding aspects of his time working on the contest. “Without a doubt, the two most rewarding things have been working with so many amazing contestants over the years that have,” he said. “They continue to represent, every aspect of our leather scene and community, and how the mentorship program has worked to include See page 42 >>

Rich Stadtmiller

Left: Singer and songwriter Peter Feliciano received a standing ovation as he entertained the Mr. SF Leather contest audience. Right: Ray Tilton, the outgoing Producer/Director of the Mr. SF Leather contest and this year’s winner of the prestigious Philip M. Turner Lifetime Achievement Award.

worth it, that living out loud is the best way to live.”t The Dinah is April 1-5. Passes are still available. Individual events $10 - $100; Weekend Passes: General $269 / VIP $600. www.thedinah.com

Heather Cassell is a travel and entertainment writer for the Bay Area Reporter and other publications. To read about queer women’s travel and entertainment, visit www.GirlsThatRoam.com.

<< On the Tab

36 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

Sex & the City Live @ Oasis

eON THE –TAB f March 19 26

★

Thu 26

The Chew Toys @ SF Eagle

The drag parody of the Manhattan gal pal TV show returns. $25-$30 and up. 7pm. Thu-Sat. Thru Mar. 28. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

Sexitude @ Oasis D'Arcy Drollinger's aerobic class, show and cocktail fun; bring your Spandex and leg warners! 9pm class, 10pm show. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sexitude.com www.sfoasis.com

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie's Lounge Disco guru DJ Bus Station John spins grooves at the intimate retro music night. $4. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com

VIP @ Club 21, Oakland Hip Hop, Top 40, and sexy Latin music; gogo dancers, appetizers, and special guest DJs. No cover before 11pm and just $5 after all night. Dancing 9pm-3am. Happy hour 4pm8:30pm 2111 Franklin St. (510) 2689425. www.club21oakland.com

an you name your favorite musician off the top of your head? Perhaps not. Perhaps you might divide them into categories, like Best Music Video in Quite a While (OK Go), Best Female Folky Rocky Vocalist (Ani DiFranco), Classiest R&B Singer (Jodi Watley) or Best Beary Cute Punk Band (The Chew Toys). See how hard it is? And they’re all playing this week, so plan ahead!

Thu 19 Bulge @ Powerhouse Grace Towers hosts the weekly gogotastic night of sexy dudes shakin' their bulges and getting wet in their undies for $100 prize (contest at midnight), and dance beats spun by DJ DAMnation. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

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

Full Frontal Comedy @ Lookout Scott Capurro, Yuri Kagan, Valeria Branch and Ashton Tate perform at the new monthly (3rd Thu) comedy night. $5. 8pm. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Funny Fun @ Club 21, Oakland LGBT comedy night hosted by Dan Mires. $10. 8pm. 2111 Franklin St. Oakland. (510) 268-9425. www.club21oakland.com

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

Kittens @ Oasis The weekly night for queer guys and their frisky pals, with DJ Sergio Fedasz. $5. 10pm-2am. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

Mary Go Round @ Lookout Suppositori Spelling, Mercedez Munro and Holotta Tymes host the weekly night with DJ Philip Grasso, gogo guys, drink specials, and drag acts. 10pm-2am. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

The Monster Show @ The Edge The dearly missed Cookie Dough's weekly drag show continues, with gogo guys and hilarious fun. $5. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

My So-Called Night @ Beaux Carnie Asada hosts a new weekly '90s-themed video, dancin', drinkin' night, with VJs Jorge Terez. Get down with your funky bunch, and enjoy 90cent drinks. '90s-themed attire and costume contest. No cover. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Nap's Karaoke @ Virgil's Sea Room Sing out loud at the weekly least judgmental karaoke in town, hosted by the former owner of the bar. No cover. 9pm. 3152 Mission St. 8292233. www.virgilssf.com

Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences Themed event nights at the fascinating nature museum, with DJed dancing, cocktails, fish, frogs, food and fun. March 19: Time Capsule Nightlife, with DJ Tanoa, antique clock demos, 3D models, astronomy and more. March 26: Robot Nightlife, with Beach Fossils performing, DJ Avalon Emerson, 3D printing samples, an R2D2 replica and more robot fun. $10$12. 6pm-10pm, 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

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

Paula West @ Feinstein's at the Nikko The talented jazz vocalist performs a six-week engagement at the upscale intimate nightclub/cabaret, performing an eclectic array of songs, from Bob Dylan, Talking Heads and Harry Nilsson to jazz classics. $35$50. Thu & Fri 8pm. Sat 7pm & 10pm. Sun 7pm. Thru March 22. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.ticketweb.com

Fri 20 Ani DiFranco @ The Fillmore The veteran folk-rock singer-songwriter performs with Pearl and the Beard. $33.50. 9pm. 1805 Geary Blvd. 3466000. www.thefillmore.com

The Soiled Dove @ Innermission

Jodie Watley, Shalamar @ Yoshi's Oakland

An immersive, circus-infused culinary extravaganza set in San Francisco's notorious Barbary Coast red light district, with aerial performances, live music and a four-course dinner. 21+. $120. Fri & Sat 8pm. Thru April 4. 633 Florida St. 310-9238. www.TheSoiledDove.com

The pop-R&B singer performs with the classic R&B band at the stylish jazz club and restaurant. $36-$69. 7:30pm & 9:30pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. www.yoshis.com

Mother @ Oasis

Mica Sigourney and pals' weekly offbeat drag performance night. March 13 is a special Bette Midler tribute night. 10pm-2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Heklina's weekly drag show night at the fabulous renovated SoMa nightclub; plus DJ Guy Ruben. Mar. 21: Coven, with witchy drag acts, and the after-party for The Witches of Eastwick event at the Castro Theatre. $10-$15. 10pm-2am. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

Ste McCabe @ El Rio

OK Go @ The Warfield

Some Thing @ The Stud

Liverpool-based queer singersongwriter pops over the pond to the Mission club as part of his U.S. tour. $5. 9:30pm. 3158 Mission St. 282-3325. www.ste-mccabe.co.uk www.elriosf.com

The fun pop band (whose aerial-shot umbrella-dancing music video for "I Won't Let You Down" went super viral with nearly 20 million views) performs at the mid-Market theatre. White Arrows opens. $25-$35. 9pm. 982 Market St. www.thewarfieldtheatre.com

Sat 21

The Witches of Eastwick @ Castro Theatre

Anthony Jeselnik @ The Fillmore The young comedian performs at a taping for a filmed special. $35. 7pm. 1805 Geary Blvd. 346-6000. www.thefillmore.com

Be Calm Honcho @ Rickshaw Stop

Screening of the witchcraft comedy, with The Witches of East Bay, a drag parody pre-screening show with Peaches Christ, Coco Peru, Chad Michaels, Thomas dekker and Peggy L'Eggs. $15-$30. 3pm & 8pm. 429 Castro St. www.peacheschrist.com www.castrotheatre.com

Fri 20

Fun art rock band performs. Also, Idea the Artist and Ghost Tiger. $10. 9pm. 155 Fell St. at Van Ness Ave. www.rickshawstop.com

Ani DiFranco @ The Fillmore

Boy Bar @ The Cafe Gus Presents' weekly dance night, with DJ Kid Sysko, hotty gogos and $2 beer (before 10pm). 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Dancing Ghosts @ Cat Club Goth, darkwave and punk dance eighth year anniversary party with DJs Ronny Moorings, Xander, Sage and Lori Lust, plus tarot readings, apparel vendors and more. $5-$8. 9:30pm2:30am. 1190 Folsom St. www.sfcatclub.com

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

Latin Explosion @ Club 21, Oakland The festive gogo-filled dance club, with host Lulu, features Latin pop dance hits with DJs Speedy Douglas Romero and Fabricio; no cover before 10pm. March 20: Valentin Carillo's birthday party, plus the opening of the club's new third dance floor. $6-$12. 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. (510) 2689425. www.club21oakland.com

Manimal @ Beaux Gogo-tastic dance night starts off your weekend. $5. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Midnight Show @ Divas 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. www.divassf.com

Fri 20 Club BnB/Club 21 opens its third dance floor.

Bay Area Young Positives Benefit @ Eric Quezada Center The benefit for the nonprofit support service for HIV-positive youth is hosted by Honey Mahogany and features donated wines, live music and performances. 518 Valencia St. 487-1616. www.BayPositives.org

Bearracuda @ Beatbox Enjoy a Solid Gold night with DJ Rotten Robbie spinning 1980s anthems, Solid Gold Dancers (aka D'Arcy Drollinger's Sexitude), and a fun dancing bear crowd. Gold/80s attire encouraged. $10. 10pm-3am. 314 11th St. www.Bearracuda.com

La Bota Loca @ Club 21, Oakland DJed tunes, gogo hotties, drag shows, drink specials, all at Oakland's premiere Latin nightclub and weekly cowboy night. $10-$15. Dancing 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St. (510) 268-9425. www.club21oakland.com

Club Rimshot @ Club BNB, Oakland Get groovin' at the weekly hip hop and R&B night at their new location. $8-$15. 9pm to 4am. 2120 Broadway. (510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Equilux @ Southern Exposure The experimental art gallery's annual fundraiser and art auction includes works by 120 artists, delicious food and drinks, and a smart crowd. $40-$150. 6pm (VIPs), 7:30-11pm. 3030 20th St. 863-2141. www.soexauction2015. eventbrite.com

Gameboi @ Rickshaw Stop Monthly dance night popular with gay Asian guys and their pals. $8-$15. 9:30pm-2am. 155 Fell St. at Van Ness Ave. www.rickshawstop.com

Sun 22 Afternoon Delight @ The New Parish Enjoy high energy dance music at this daytime event (4th Sundays) with DJs Myles Cooper, Robin Malone Simmons, Ruben Mancias and host/DJ Justime. $5-$15. 3pm-8pm. 1743 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. (510) 444-7474. www.thenewparish.com

At the Hop @ Midnight Sun Crafty Dough and Sugah Betes cohost the new oldies night ('40s-'60s, 4th Sundays), with music and drag acts. 8pm. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Beer Bust @ Lone Star Saloon The ursine crowd converges for beer and fun. 4pm-8pm. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Beer Bust @ SF Eagle The classic leather bar's most popular Sunday daytime event in town draws the menfolk. 3pm-6pm. Now also on Saturdays! 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Big Top @ Beaux Joshua J.'s homo disco circus night, with guest DJs and performers, hotty gogo guys and drink specials. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.BeauxSF.com

GlamaZone @ The Cafe Pollo del Mar's weekly drag shows takes on different themes with a comic edge. 8:30-11:30pm. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Jock @ The Lookout The weekly jock-ular fun continues, with special sports team fundraisers. 3pm-7pm. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

On the Tab>>

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 37

Looking @ Midnight Sun

Meow Mix @ The Stud

Pussy Party @ Beaux

Viewing parties for the second season of HBO's San Franciscoset gay dramedy series. 10pm. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

The weekly themed variety cabaret showcases new and unusual talents; MC Ferosha Titties. $3-$7. Show at 11pm. 9pm-2am. 399 9th St. at Harrison. www.studsf.com

Weekly women's happy hour, with allwomen music and live performances, 2 for 1 drinks, and no cover. 5pm-9am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

New Diva @ White Horse Bar

Naked Night @ Nob Hill Theatre

Ana Mae Coxxx hosts the monthly East Bay drag show (4th Sundays) at the historic gay bar, with special guest Las Vegas' Sasha Stephane; DJ Sir Ellis. $5. 9:30pm. 6551 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. www.whitehorsebar.com

Strip down with the strippers at the cruisy adult theatre and arcade; free beverages. $20. 8pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Sundance Saloon @ Space 550

Vicky Jimenez' drag show and contest; Latin music all night. 9pm-2am. 2120 Broadway. (510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Una Noche @ Club BnB, Oakland

Dance it up at the popular twice-weekly country-western dance night that includes line-dancing, two-stepping and lessons. $5. 5pm-10:30pm. Also Thursdays 6:30pm-10:30pm. 550 Barneveld Ave. at Industrial. www.sundancesaloon.org

Sat 21 Jodi Watley @ Yoshi’s Oakland

Sunday Brunch, Xtravaganza @ Balancoire

Mash Up Mondays @ Club BnB, Oakland

Weekly live music shows with host Galilea and various acts, along with brunch, mimosas, champagne and more, at the stylish nightclub and restaurant; shows at 12:30pm, 1:30pm and 2:45pm. After that, T-Dance drag shows at 7pm, 10pm and 11pm. 2565 Mission St. at 21st. 920-0577. www.balancoiresf.com

Sunday's a Drag @ Starlight Room Donna Sachet hosts the weekly fabulous brunch and drag show. $45. 11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square. 395-8595. www.starlightroomsf.com

Drag Mondays @ The Cafe Mahlae Balenciaga and DJ Kidd Sysko's weekly drag and dance night, 2014's last of the year. 9pm-1am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Monday Musicals @ The Edge

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

The casts of local and visiting musicals often pop in to perform at the popular Castro bar's musical theatre night; also Wednesdays. 7pm-2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Opulence @ Beaux New weekly dance night, with Jocques, DJs Tori, Twistmix and Andre. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht (aka Trauma Flintstone). 9pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market. www.dragatmartunis.com

Underwear Night @ 440 Strip down to your skivvies at the popular men's night. 9pm-2am. 440 Castro St. 621-8732. the440.com

Mondays and Tuesdays popular weekly sing-along night. No cover. 8:30pm1am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 6523820. www.whitehorsebar.com

Tue 24

Weekly dance lessons and live music at the pub-restaurant, hosted by John Slaymaker. $5. 7pm. 3101 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. www.thestarryplough.com

Cock Shot @ Beaux Shot specials and adult Bingo games, with DJs Chad Bays and Riley Patrick, at the new weekly night. No cover. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Funny Tuesdays @ Harvey's

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

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

Mahogany Mondays @ Midnight Sun

Jacqui Naylor @ Yoshi's Oakland

Karaoke @ The Lookout

Honey Mahogany's weekly drag and musical talent show starts around 10pm. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Switch @ Q Bar Weekly women's night at the stylish intimate bar. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Epic Karaoke @ White Horse, Oakland

Irish Dance Night @ Starry Plough, Berkeley

Jim Hopkins plays classic pop oldies, with vintage music videos. 9pm-2am. 44 Castro St. www.the440.com

Weekly Karaoke and open mic night; RuPaul's Drag Race screenings, too. 9pm-2am. 2120 Broadway. (510) 7597340. www.club-bnb.com

Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni's

Mon 23

Retro Night @ 440 Castro

The fantastic jazz vocalist performs with her three-piece band. $23. 8pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. www.yoshis.com

Rainbow Skate @ Redwood Roller Rink Weekly LGBT and friends skate night, with groovy disco music and themed events. $9. 8pm-10:30pm. 1303 Main Street, Redwood City. www.rainbowskate.net www.facebook.com/rainbowskating/

Red Hots Burlesque @ Oasis The saucy women's burlesque revue has moved to the new SoMa nightclub; different musical guests each week. $10-$20. Wednesdays at 8:30pm-11:30pm. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

So You Think You Can Gogo? @ Toad Hall The weekly dancing competition for gogo wannabes. 9pm. cash prizes, $2 well drinks (2 for 1 happy hour til 9pm). Show at 9pm. 4146 18th St. www.toadhallbar.com

Trivia Night @ Harvey's BeBe Sweetbriar hosts a weekly night of trivia quizzes and fun and prizes; no cover. 8pm-1pm. 500 Castro St. 4314278. www.harveyssf.com

Trivia Night @ Hi Tops

Wed 25

Thu 26 Leslie Jordan @ Feinstein’s

Ben Harper @ The Fillmore The popular singer-songwriter performs with The Innocent Criminals $50. 8pm. Also March 26, 27, 28. 1805 Geary Blvd. 346-6000. www.thefillmore.com

Dream Queens Revue @ Aunt Charlie's Lounge The classic drag show features Collette LeGrande, Ruby Slippers, Sophilya Leggz, Bobby Ashton, Sheena Rose, Kipper, and Joie de Vivre. No cover. 9:30pm. 133 Turk St. www.dreamqueensrevue.com

LA's premiere queercore band pops up for a stop along their West Coast tour. Also, the Birth defects and another band TBA. $5. 9pm. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Circle Jerk With a Porn Star @ Nob Hill Theatre Muscled porn stud Hans Berlin leads the interactive downstairs fun at the famed strip joint. (He's onstage Mar. 27 & 2). $15. 9pm. 729 Bush st. at Powell. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Karaoke Night @ Club BnB, Oakland Sing your heart out at the free lively night. 8pm-2am. 2120 Broadway. (510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Karaoke Night @ Club OMG Dana leads the weekly amateur singing night. 8pm. No cover. 43 6th St. 896-6473. www.clubomgsf.com

The diminuitive gay actor with a big talent returns with his new one-man show, Say Cheese! My Life in Front of the Camera. $35-$50. ($20 food/beverage minimum) 8pm. Mar. 27 at 8pm. Mar. 28 at 7pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. at Powell. (866) 663-1063. www.ticketweb.com

Pan Dulce @ The Cafe Enjoy amazingly hot Papi gogo guys, cheap drinks and fun DJed dance music. Free before 10pm. $5 til 2am. 2369 Market St. www.clubpapi.com www.cafesf.com

Thump @ White Horse, Oakland

Bottoms Up Bingo @ Hi Tops

Olga T and Shugga Shay's weekly queer women and men's R&B hip hop and soul night, at the club's new location. No cover. 8pm-2am. 2120 Broadway, Oakland. www.bench-and-bar.com

The Chew Toys @ SF Eagle

Drink specials, Top 40, gogo studs and no cover. 9pm-2am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Juanita More! and her weekly intimate dance party. $10-$15. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.qbarsf.com

B.P.M. @ Club BnB, Oakland

Grace Towers hosts the weekly gogotastic night of sexy dudes shakin' their bulges and getting wet in their undies for $100 prize (with a contest at midnight), and dance beats spun by DJ DAMnation. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Thirsty Thursdays @ The Café

Booty Call @ QBar

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

Bulge @ Powerhouse

Leslie Jordan @ Feinstein's at the Nikko

Underwear Night @ Club OMG Weekly underwear night includes free clothes check, and drink specials; different hosts each week. $3. 10pm-2am. Preceded by Open Mic Comedy, 7pm, no cover. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Thu 26

Weekly electro music night with DJ Matthew Baker and guests. 9pm-2am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com

Way Back @ Midnight Sun Weekly screenings of vintage music videos and retro drink prices. Check out the new expanded front window lounge. 9pm-2am. 4067 18th St. 8614186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Wooden Nickel Wednesday @ 440 Buy a drink and get a wooden nickle good for another. 12pm-2am. 440 Castro St. 621-8732. www.the440.com

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie's Lounge Enjoy retro disco tunes and a fun diverse crowd, each Thursday, with DJ Bus Station John. $4. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com Want your nightlife event listed? Email events@ebar.com, at least two weeks before your event. Event photos welcome.

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. 7pm-10pm. 424 Cortland St. 647-3099. www.wildsidewest.com

Opie Bellas @ Feinstein's at the Nikko

Sat 21 OK Go @ The Warfield

The accomplished jazz singer (and host of NPR's Concert Matinee) performs jazz classics and oirignals. $20. ($20 food/beverage minimum) 7pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. at Powell. (866) 663-1063. www.ticketweb.com

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Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

40 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

The Real Ste McCabe

by Joshua Klipp

te McCabe is a one-man band, aka “Liverpool’s pop-punk hero.” Relentlessly touring, he comes through San Francisco this Friday March 20. The brilliant, angry, political Englander sat down for an online cross-continental interview.

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What’s your musical background? I grew up in working class Liverpool, England, which meant only one thing; Beatles records on rotation by my dad! My first musical obsession was Madonna. I used to skip through dirty streets singing her songs, oblivious to what a sight of campery I was. Years of bullying threw me into the arms of Britpop, Grunge, and later riot grrrl. There was something about angry women screaming about sexism that resonated with me. I wanted to be a working class gay boy version of those inspiring women, and I worked my arse off to make sure I’d do that with my life, no matter what. Who are your music heroes? I’m 35 with a beer belly, and I find it really difficult to relate anyone. My heroes are the people who make music because they need to express themselves, who make no money from it, unknowns, those working class and queer musicians who compromise nothing to be who they are and spend year after year playing underground venues away from the mainstream.

Ste McCabe, working class queer punk.

culture in the UK has shifted dramatically. Whereas I used to feel like scum for being gay, the political message in the UK now is that working class people are scum. These days I find myself relating to working class straight people as much (or sometimes more than) I relate to middle class queers – at least in the UK. So, identifying as a working class queer impacts on me as an artist, rather than just being queer.

What’s your process for creating music? Lyrics used to come first; it was the only reason I made music, but now I find the music comes first and lyrics follow. I have a mental checklist of all of the people I want to verbally destroy, and once I get a tune, the bile just comes pouring out! That’s essentially how I work. I could tell you about what instruments etc. I use to make music, but I find that boring. Whatever I get my hands on and is easy and fun, really. Describe the first time you performed your own music. My first gig was in 1999 at a music venue in Manchester called Night and Day café. I could barely play guitar and I had never sang in front of anyone, but I had some very angry songs about homophobia, a £30 acoustic guitar and I was desperate to showcase them in Manchester’s verydull straight-boy-acousticmusic-scene. I think most Pink Bomb and Murder Music Music, of the audience were laugh- two of Ste McCabe’s albums. ing at me, but I was laughing at them too. Nowadays, I look for squats, social centres or punk houses. I play regular music venues sometimes, but only if it’s a specific queer or political event. I have neither the desire nor a hope in hell of achieving fame, and as such I steer clear of any venue that promotes “next big thing” culture. How does being queer impact you as an artist? Being queer underpins everything in my music. If I hadn’t have picked up a mic and starting singing when I was 17, I would have went under. It was my way of saying “fuck you” to years of being spat at, punched, and told to kill myself by strangers. That’s really how the north of England was for queers in the 1990s. Nowadays, though, I’m as much about class as being queer, because the political

Ste McCabe onstage.

Who usually comes to your shows? Punks, dykes and anarchists can be found at my shows. I hope that I come across as an everyday person. I want people see that I’m just a fag who comes from nothing, and who frankly is still nothing. I’m 100% proud of being a nothing. I have not one ounce of star quality about me, and I think that’s great. I’m the small guy. But I’m the small guy with a vicious tongue. What are you most afraid of/ most excited about when you perform? I’ve been playing for 16 years, and I’ve played hundreds of gigs. I don’t get nervous until five minutes before I play, when I have a little panic. The gigs which excite me or scare me (they both tend to happen at exactly the same time) tend to be the gigs that are unlike any others, when the audience or setting is not within my previous experience. As I like to play pretty much anywhere other than typical music venues, it does happen fairly often! I played at a queer festival in the south of France once, which essentially turned into a bona fide lesbian riot. It was insane, all these amazing dykes screaming in French and punching each other! Yes I was a bit nervous that time.t Ste McCabe will perform at El Rio on Friday March 20, 10pm. 3158 Mission St. 282-3325. www.ElRioSF.com Also visit: www.ste-mccabe.co.uk www.stemccabe.bandcamp.com facebook.com/SteMcCabe.Music Josh Klipp is a writer, choreographer and band leader for local swing band, the Klipptones. www.Klipptones.com

Read more online at www.ebar.com

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 41

Bed head

RayDragonMedia

Left: Tony Orion and Rocco Steele in the repose before fury, in Sex in Bed. Right: It may look like it, but there’s no breeding for Tony Orion and Rocco Steele in Sex in Bed.

by John F. Karr

ike many pornophiles, you’ve probably been lusting after sudden superstar Rocco Steele, the prototypical daddy whose cock is not only redwood gigantic (and creamily-complected), but hard as a 20-year-old’s. It’s been alleged on vitriolic gossip blogs that he uses an artificial hardening agent, but if you don’t already know the prevalence of such hammer helper in porn, Wake Up. The trouble with Rocco is that the majority of his scenes (and there have been many) have been for bareback companies. He’s only slowly making himself known in mainstream circles. A good way to skip the breeding and avail yourselves of his impressively Brobdingnagian qualities, then, would be the scene he made for DragonMedia’s Sex in Bed. Well, yeah, most all porn takes place on a bed. That’s nothing new. But director Ray Dragon’s approach is light years away from either mainstream porn or that online streaming stuff that looks like its sterile bedroom or living room furniture was rented for the day. Dragon’s going for a relaxed sort of Real, and he’s attained it with casual artlessness. His guys have freeform sex, doing what they wanna as they go, and availing themselves

of the comforts that most editors delete; goofing off, laughing, soothing out a muscle cramp, letting a distended throat or bumhole relax to its pre-assault condition, or just catching their breath. I do feel that some of those interruptions should have been edited out. It’s one thing for Dragon to give low-key introductions, sometimes kibbutz from the sidelines, quietly request his performers to assume a new position (the better to record the sights we’re subsequently grateful to see), or call for occasional breaks. It’s another to leave all of it in the final feature, when a choice few of these Realities would convey the movie’s rather novel atmosphere without breaking its continuity quite as much. I’m also a bit entertained by the splotchy, frayed-sleeved T-shirt Dragon wears in every scene. Since I doubt all three scenes of the 130-minute movie were filmed on the same day, it seems he may not own any other clothes. Still, the funkiness of this wardrobe nonchalance does convey the movie’s informal attitude. Without rug, blanket, or drapery, indeed, nothing but a mattress, a couple pillows, and a full-length

RayDragonMedia

Top: Lips locked is how Brock Rustin and JD Ryder like it in Sex in Bed. Bottom: It’s JD Ryder, just offscreen, who’s making Brock Rustin so happy, in Sex in Bed.

mirror propped in a corner (in which we catch occasional –and perhaps intentional– glimpses of Dragon wielding his camera), the room is acoustically over-bright. But its bright lighting is evenly spread and natural-looking, and Dragon records his image with upfront clarity. The movie’s salient quality is that the pressure is off its stars. And stars there are, in each of the movie’s scenes. There’s Rocco, with Tony Orion, and then a ginger power bottom I’ve got the hots for, 5’6” Brock Rustin with 6’2” newcomer JD Ryder (Lucas Entertainment says they got him first, but they’re wrong), and, finally, an infrequent appearance of Bryan Slater with another newbie, Tony Dazzle. Rocco’s first. His Rentboy ad claims he’s 45. The Cocksure Men site says he’s 50. Maybe these numbers are inches of cock, and Rocco was just being modest. In this scene with accommodating Tony Orion, he’s in a slow and attentive mode, romancing all parts of his partner— up until the moment when he starts pulverizing the guy’s ass. They share a tight relationship. Rustin and Ryder relate well, but their scene is more of a sport fuck. Swarthy Ryder’s cock is the color of English toffee, and probably as sweet. It’s long. Even as practiced a bottom as Rustin has to beg off it once or twice. But his pink and devouring hole holds so tight to Ryder’s cock that we can watch it get pulled back and forth. I think it’s a rhetorical question, when he asks Ryder, “You like me squeezin’ that dick?” I wish I could say that rollicking pup Brock Rustin was all mine. He’s cute, he’s butch, he’s fun, and Sex in Bed lets you sidle up to his delightful affability, and rather ferocious bottoming. The last scene features Bryan Slater’s preeminently upstanding cock. It’s always wowed me. He’s basically handsome, but more like that guy in your office than the guy you saw in a movie. He lets us cozy up to his eyepoppin’ prick during his personal, unrushed approach to Tony Dazzle. He fucks with long strokes that Dragon doesn’t need to request, and then surprises us by flipping so that Dazzle can drill him. Dazzle’s an assplunger and a grinder, moving into high grind as Slater begins to cum. I had to be a little tolerant of the movie’s approach, but then, it let me slide into the embrace of some swell guys, and practically feel them slide it into me.t www.RayDragonVideo.com

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

42 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 19-25, 2015

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On Sunday, the Community Awards Brunch was held at Beatbox. Local people, clubs, organizations and events were honored with varithe same, watching them grow and ous awards to single out their valued become a part of the present and contributions to the local leather future of our diverse definitions of community. Winners were Leatherwhat leather is.” men’s Discussion Group: History of This year’s Lenny Broberg Award, the Folsom Street Fair (Best Commugiven annually to someone who has nity Educational Event), The Society consistently dedicated time and efof Janus 40th Anniversary Dinner, fort to helping with the contest, went Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony to Erick Lopez, a popular bartender and Play Party (Best Organization at The Edge bar and a truly dedicated Anniversary Event), Ms. SF Leather leather community member. (Best Bay Area Leather Contest), Leathermen’s Discussion Group Fetish Fair (Best Community Leather/Fetish/ Motorcycle Event), Dark Odyssey: Surrender (Best Community Weekend Event), Leathermen’s Discussion Group (Most Visible Organization in the Bay Area Leather/Fetish/Motorcycle Community), Golden Gate Guards (Best Overnight Run Award), GearUp Weekend (Best Traditional Run Award), David Tejeda (Alden E. Spafford Most Participative Biker), SF Eagle (Outstanding Community Business), The Alternative Sexualities Health Research Alliance (Outstanding Community Non-Profit Organization), Queer Sphere (Best New Organization), Kester Rambles (Next Generation Award), Rover Spotts (Frank Benoit Award), Rich Stadtmiller Dahn van Laarz and I had to give Ava Schmidt, the Chair of the Race Bannon (tie for Leather Alliance weekend, a big hug because 2014 Man of the Year), she did such a wonderful job. Angel Garfold (2014 From page 35

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Woman of the Year), and Ray Tilton (The Philip M. Turner Lifetime Achievement Award). The weekend closed out with a dance called Compound, with Demetri Moshoyannis as the DJ, at the new club, Oasis. Years ago the Oasis site was the home to the Compound, a well-known dungeon play space, and I remember it fond-

Personals

To place your Personals ad, Call 415-861-5019 for more info & rates ly. I must say that the owners and staff of Oasis have done an amazing job with the space and it was great of them to provide a dance venue for leatherfolk wanting to end the weekend that way. Again, bravo to the people at the Leather Alliance for providing us with such a great weekend.t

www.leatheralliance.org For more of rich Stadtmiller’s leather event photos, visit www.RichTrove.com Race Bannon is a local author, blogger and activist. Reach him through his website, www.bannon.com.

Leather Events, March 20 – April 5, 2015 Fri 20, 27, 3

Wed 25

Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club

Leather/Gear Buddies @ Blow Buddies

Officially a CMA meeting, but open to all Anonymous 12-step Fellowship members, 4058 18th St., 9:30pm. www.castrocountryclub.org

Erotic fun for leather and gear guys, $15, 933 Harrison St., 8pm. www.blowbuddies.com

Gear Party @ 442 Natoma

Sat 28

Gear play party (leather, rubber, harnesses, etc.) for gay men. 442 Natoma St., $15 (requires $5 membership), 10pm. www.442parties.com

The 15 Association Men’s Play Party @ SF Citadel A men’s BDSM play party. 181 Eddy St., 8pm. www.the15sf.org

Mon 23, 30

Fri 3

Ride Mondays @ Eros

SCCLA Bar Schmooz @ Renegades Bar

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

Tue 24 GameGear @ Wicked Grounds Game night hosted by Rubber Men of San Francisco. 289 8th St., 7:30pm. www.rmsf.org

Informal social where friends, prospective members and anyone else who wants to relax, laugh, talk and hang out with like minded people, 501 W. Taylor St., San Jose, 9pm. www.renegadesbar.com

Boots Leather Cigars @ SF Eagle Social gathering for men into boots, leather, uniforms and cigars. 398 12th St., 9pm-midnight. www.sf-eagle.com

Fri 3 – Sun 5 Woof Camp Weekend An event for Pups & Handlers, hosted by the SF K9 Unit. $49 for a weekend package. See website for details. www.sfk9unit.org

Sat 4 Wagz Pack Presents: Piggy Pup Beer Bust @ SF Eagle Come get your pork on with the piggy pups of Wagz Pack for a beer bust and BBQ pulled pork sandwich. 398 12th St., 5pm. $15 donation.

Frolic Menagerie @ F8 Bar Kink and gear dance party, a night of dancing puppies, Handlers and furry fun. 1192 Folsom St., 8pm. $10 cover, only $5 if you wear a costume or gear. www.frolicparty.com/ menagerie

Sun 5 “Frisky” Puppy Play Party @ EROS A 18+ male-energy sex party with a puppy and Handler theme. Open to the public. Membership required. 2051 Market St., 4pm. $14 entry fee 4-7pm. www.erossf.com

Read more online at www.ebar.com

shooting stars

March 19-25, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 43

photos by steven underhill Green Party

us Presents and Industry’s 4th annual St. Patrick’s Day-themed Green Party, held Saturday, March 14 at Club 6, attracted dance fans, most clad in the thematic color, or very little clothes at all. They danced to grooves spun by the O’Halley Brothers, and Jolly Green gogos offered some super-green beefcake. www.industrysf.com More event photo albums are on BARtab’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife. See more of Steven Underhill’s photos at www.StevenUnderhill.com.

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