September 24, 2015 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

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Discharge change lifts burdens for gay vet

Courtesy Gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa

Gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa, left, and Heather Cox

by Matthew S. Bajko

Bias complaint filed against Miami strip club

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he four-page letter arrived shortly before Christmas last year, eight months after Robert “Bob” Fry had learned that his application to have his other than honorable discharge upgraded Emilio Gonzalez to honorable was Robert “Bob” Fry under review. It had been 55 years since he had been tossed out of the Navy due to his confession that he had engaged in gay sex.

The Department of the Navy’s Board for Correction of Naval Records, after reviewing Fry’s application, had granted the gay Santa Rosa resident’s request. For Fry, 85, the decision resulted in his accessing myriad benefits provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

“This was quite a relief for me,” Fry told the Bay Area Reporter. “People don’t realize what the military does to you when they throw you out under those circumstances. It just shatters you.”

The news boosted Fry’s self-worth after decades of feeling ashamed at being drummed out of the armed services for homosexual conduct, which Fry said did not occur during his enlistment. Due to his treatment by the military, Fry suffered bouts of severe depression throughout the years and turned to alcohol to ease his pain.

“When you get a less than honorable discharge, your world ends,” said Fry. “You just go day-to-day; I turned to alcohol.”

Emilio Gonzalez, 77, a gay man who received an honorable discharge from the Navy in 1964, befriended Fry earlier this year when he heard him speak at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

“At the time we were in the Navy, there were a lot of witch hunts for gay people,” recalled Gonzalez, who has been assisting Fry in putting together his personal archives to submit to the Library of Congress’s Veterans History Project, which features stories from LGBT vets under the title “Serving in Silence.” “You didn’t have to be caught doing anything.

Someone could just accuse you and then you were interrogated until you confessed.”

Those LGBT veterans not given honorable discharges, noted Gonzalez, were barred from receiving VA benefits and could not apply for civilian jobs with the government.

Recently, he met a lesbian who was denied a loan because she had a less than honorable discharge from the Army.

“That is the kind of thing we need to erase and needs to be changed,” he said.

Fry, who grew up in Hayward, had served in the Navy with distinction during the See page 17 >>

Vol. 45 • No. 39 • September 24-30, 2015

by David-Elijah Nahmod

Ushering in Leather Week

Jane Philomen Cleland

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he annual LeatherWalk, held Sunday, September 20 to kick off Leather Week, was infused with new energy this year, as Folsom Street Events marked its first time producing the event. Trevor Black, Mr. SF Leather 2015, left, and Little Bad Daddy, Ms. SF Leather 2015, helped lead the contingent as it left the Castro and headed to several South of Market bars.

Demetri Moshoyannis, executive director of Folsom Street Events, told the Bay Area Reporter that the walk

was “quite positive and upbeat.” He said that Sister Roma, Grace Towers, Roxy-Cotten Candy, Raquela Singer, and Mark Paladini “did a fantastic job keeping everyone entertained.” This year 191 people registered for the walk, raising a total of $16,806, he added. After expenses, 25 percent of the funds will be given to the AIDS and Breast Cancer Emergency Funds. For more on Leather Week and Sunday’s Folsom Street Fair, see BARtab, which starts on page 33.

A

San Francisco lesbian couple has filed a complaint against a Miami strip club after they said they were denied entrance because they were not accompanied by a man.

Heather Cox and Gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa, both 39, were vacationing in Florida when, on August 5, they decided to visit Dean’s Gold for happy hour. Described as “the ultimate gentleman’s club,” Dean’s Gold features female strippers.

The couple, who’ve been together since 2002 and married three years ago, said they were shocked and degraded when they were denied entry.

See page 17 >>

Lecture renews interest in SF bathhouse closure debate

by Matthew S. Bajko

By the spring of 1983, two years after the first cases of what became standing-room-only known as AIDS were reported crowd had piled into the among gay men, community leadGLBT History Museum in ers in San Francisco were publicly the Castro to hear a lecture, equal urging gay men to stop going to parts history lesson and nostalgic the bathhouses and to reduce remembrance, of what led to the their number of sexual partners. death of San Francisco’s famed Their pleas were a counterpoint gay bathhouse culture. to those gay men who questioned Once a thriving segment of the the veracity of health officials’ decity’s gay community, with more termination that AIDS was spread than a dozen bathhouses and sex sexually. clubs operating in the 1970s and “We three gay men are conearly 1980s, the providers of sexual vinced that the AIDS epidemic play spaces became ground zero means that we men must – temin the fight over how to stop the porarily, we hope – change our Rick Gerharter spread of AIDS more than three desexual lifestyles in order to save cades ago. Places with names such Reid Condit, right, asks a question during Buzz Bense’s, seated our lives,” wrote a trio of political as The Bulldog Baths, Ritch Street in rear, presentation “Sex Panic: The History of the San Francisco leaders, Cleve Jones, Ron HuberBathhouse Closures” at the GLBT History Museum.

Health Club, and The Caldron. man, and the late Bill Kraus, in “How amazing and wonderan open letter to the community talk titled “Sex Panic: The History of the San ful we have a room packed with published in the May 26, 1983 people who want to know about our history Francisco Bathhouse Closures.” issue of the Bay Area Reporter.

“It is a complicated story turned sleek like a and the impact AIDS had on our past lives,” Many men heeded their advice, and at some jaguar so we can navigate it,” said Bense, who said Buzz Bense, a former co-owner of sex club establishments, attendance declined by half, Eros, which continues to operate under new zeroed in on the events that occurred between noted Bense.

March and December of 1984. “All these changownership in an upper Market Street building.

“By mid-1983 the bathhouse business was es and all the politics happened very quickly in More than 50 people, mainly gay men of See page 10 >> this period of time.” various ages, had come to Bense’s August 13

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2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

SF spent almost $200K on Pink Party

by Seth Hemmelgarn

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he city of San Francisco spent almost $200,000 on the Pink Party in the Castro neighborhood last June, according to data recently made available.

The amount spent for the June 27 festival is more than twice what the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence spent on Pink Saturday last year.

Citing concerns over violent incidents in recent years, the Sisters

announced in February that they wouldn’t produce their event this year, leaving the city to put on the Pink Party in its place.

After the Sisters, who had spent about $80,000 in 2014, announced their withdrawal, gay Supervisor Scott Wiener, whose District 8 includes the Castro, asked the LGBT Community Center to help produce the party. Many felt that revelers would swarm the Castro on the night before the city’s Pride parade

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regardless of whether there was an official event.

The center recently analyzed the Pink Party figures and provided them to the Bay Area Reporter.

Asked about the city’s $188,143 in Pink Party expenses, Wiener said, “Managing a street fair with hundreds of thousands of people and doing it in a way to keep it safe is not cheap, and the Sisters, even with all the volunteer support that they had, still had to spend quite a bit of money to run the event. ... We made a decision when we asked the center to step in and manage” the party that “we were going to provide strong support, particularly around increased security.”

One of the Sisters has said that city officials had declined her request for financial support for security. Wiener has said that the city doesn’t typically directly fund events such as Pink Saturday.

According to the data the center provided, “Public safety/Logistics” which was comprised of money for

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Pete Thoshinsky

Aaron Endre dressed to impress at this year’s Pink Party in the Castro.

police, security, medical responders, and similar expenses were the biggest single cost at $45,827.

Last year, the Sisters spent about $18,000 on “paid security,” a budget document from the group says.

No major violent incidents were reported this year. That may have been related as much to earlier hours than it was to any boost in security. The June party started at 3 p.m. and ended at 8, hours earlier than previous years.

Planners succeeded in putting on “a safe event, a fun event, and I think it creates a good foundation for the future,” Wiener said.

After security, the next biggest expense this year was for the event producer. For decades, the Sisters had produced the event for free, but the city paid E. Cee Productions about $38,000 for its work. E. Cee’s Eliote Durham, Pink Party’s executive producer, declined to comment for this story.

Rebecca Rolfe, the center’s executive director, said one factor behind the increased expenses was a lack of volunteers.

“The organizing period was short this year since we came into the process so late,” Rolfe said. Many people had already committed to other events Pride weekend and “we definitely had a difficult time finding volunteers.”

According to the data Rolfe provided, the center provided 47 of the

100 volunteers who helped the day of the event. Community partner organizations provided the other 53.

More than 60,000 people attended the party, the center’s data says, and Rolfe estimated gate donations were $60,000.

Festival organizers distributed $14,581.25 to the 13 beneficiaries this year.

There were also costs for the Pink Party that the city didn’t cover. Rolfe said in an email that she didn’t have immediate access to those figures, “but they are not huge.”

Event’s future

Plans for the 2016 party are unclear.

Wiener said, “The city will still be very involved,” and he will work with the center and city departments “to see what the next steps will be.”

The hope is for Pink Party to eventually be “financially self-sustaining,” Wiener said.

Rolfe said, “We haven’t made a final decision” whether to be involved in 2016.

The Sisters are considering doing multiple Pride weekend events in the Bay Area but outside San Francisco next year, said Sister Selma Soul, chair of the drag nun group’s board.

The Sisters are “considering some scaled back things,” said Soul, who’s also known as James Bazydola.t

Report released on suspect in trans woman’s killing

by Seth Hemmelgarn

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hat’s likely one of the final notes in a San Francisco transgender woman’s February killing came last week as the medical examiner’s office released its report on the suicide of the suspect in the case.

Taja Gabrielle de Jesus, 36, died February 1 after being stabbed at her Bayview district home.

The next day, February 2, James Hayes was found hanging in a storage unit at 4040 Third Street, a few blocks away from de Jesus’s apartment in the 1400 block of McKinnon.

Police have declined to say explicitly to the Bay Area Reporter that they think Hayes killed de Jesus, but his status as a suspect is confirmed in his medical examiner’s report, which was released Friday, September 18, the day he would have turned 50.

According to the medical examiner’s office, workers who had gone to the Third Street site at 6:30 a.m. to get a propane tank noticed Hayes suspended by what’s described in the report as a “grease-stained, beige, heavy-duty rigging strap.” He was pronounced dead at 7:15 a.m.

A police homicide sergeant at the

Taja Gabrielle de Jesus was killed in February.

scene told a medical examiner’s investigator that Hayes was a suspect in de Jesus’s homicide, the report says.

Hayes’ body came to the medical examiner’s office clad in “bloodstained” shorts, a hoodie jacket, a sleeveless shirt, and high-top sneakers.

The agency, which detailed the “ligature impression” on Hayes’ See page 18 >>

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Community News>>

Castro event to help 3rd grader with cancer

by Seth Hemmelgarn

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n 8-year-old student at San Francisco’s Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy who has brain cancer will get some support Saturday, September 26 with a music fundraiser and block party near the Castro neighborhood school.

Third grader Zamora Moon Montse Claude Martinez Lusinchi was diagnosed in July with diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas, or DIPG, “a type of childhood brain cancer,” her mother, Marisa Martinez, 46, said. Zamora was given nine months to live.

Saturday’s event will help Zamora’s family pay for treatment and other costs, including a medical trial in England. The fundraiser will go from 1 to 7:30 p.m. on 19th Street between Collingwood and Diamond streets.

There’s a gofundme.com page (https://www.gofundme.com/ zkx7fb39s) that has a goal of $150,000. As of Monday, $130,597 had been raised.

“I’m beside myself,” Martinez, who teaches kindergarten at Harvey Milk, said, “but I have to say these people have come around in this community in the Castro and also the families I work with. I’ve dedicated my life to helping kids, and now, I’m on the other side of receiving help, and people are lifting me up.”

Zamora just finished radiation treatments, Martinez said, and last week returned to school after some time away.

For a time, Zamora’s tumor had gotten “too big,” and she sometimes wasn’t able to walk or talk, but those abilities have come back, and “she’s gotten back her spunk,” Martinez said.

Martinez hopes more people will pay attention to the “horrific” disease, which has “a zero percent survival rate.”

Courtesy GoFundMe page

Zamora Moon Montse Claude Martinez Lusinchi, who has brain cancer, recently traveled to Hawaii through the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Kelly Clark, 48, teaches fifth grade at Harvey Milk, Asked what the other students know about Zamora’s illness, Clark said, “Not a lot. They don’t know a lot about what’s happening, because at this age it’s not appropriate. We don’t want to frighten them.”

Students are encouraged to remember “the five B’s: being respectful, being a listener, being safe, being responsible, and being a learner,” she said.

“If we follow our five Bs, we are taking care of Zamora’s health challenge,” said Clark, who praised Zamora’s mother.

“She has been a champion for students everywhere in this district.

Now that she needs us, we want to be sure we give back and are supportive, she said” For Saturday, Clark, who’s a lesbian, said, “The hope and goal is that we’re going to lift their spirits in a way” that the family “can feel it, that they can really feel it.”t

Supe calls for hearing on trans kids

by Seth Hemmelgarn

the country to evaluate the long-term outcomes an Francisco Supervisor of medical treatment for Scott Wiener has called trans youth. for a hearing on transgenRosenthal, who’s gay, der children. said the center’s parWiener was influenced ticipants deal with isby the Child and Adosues including bullying, lescent Gender Center at marginalization, suicide, UCSF Benioff Children’s insurance problems, Hospital. He recently met UCSF Dr. Stephen and puberty. The latter with Dr. Stephen Rosen- Rosenthal is challenging for many thal, the center’s director. adolescents but can be “I was really blown away especially difficult for with the really cutting edge nature gender non-conforming youth. of their work,” Wiener, who called “The biggest challenge is really for the hearing at the Tuesday, Septo help address gender dysphoria,” tember 22 Board of Supervisors Rosenthal said. meeting, said in an interview. The “If you are truly transgender, and supervisor, a gay man, said he wants it is apparent in your adolescence, to make sure the youth and families going through the puberty that working with the center, which prodoesn’t match who you are can be vides medical, mental health, educadevastating as your body starts to tion, advocacy, and legal help, “have change in a direction that is not what all the support they need.” your gender identity is,” he said.

“There are still a lot of people CAGC, which is in its fourth year who view gender non-conforming as an official program and includes children or adolescents as just going collaboration with the National through a phase or just trying to Center for Lesbian Rights and other figure things out, when we know groups, has more than 250 participeople often know at a very young pants. Most of them are from northage that their biological gender is ern California, but some come from not their actual gender,” he said. places like Florida and Utah, and Wiener said it’s important to even Alaska and Egypt. ensure health care professionals, Rosenthal said there’s more interschools, and others are educated. est than he’d anticipated.

“We’re calling for the hearing to “We’re getting 10 to 12 new referhighlight the work that’s happening rals every month,” he said. right here in San Francisco around Wiener said he expects the transgender adolescents and chilhearing to be held in October or dren and to discuss how we as a city November. can support this work,” he said.

For more information about The National Institutes of Health the adolescent gender center, visit recently awarded $5.7 million to https://www.ucsfbenioffchildrens.

CAGC and three other sites for a fiveorg/clinics/child_and_adolescent_ year study. It will be the first study in gender_center/.t

S

September 24-30, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 3

<< Community News

4 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

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Acting ED leaves historical society job

by Seth Hemmelgarn

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he acting executive director of San Francisco’s GLBT Historical Society, which collects archival materials and operates the gay history museum in the Castro, has quit

polyspiritual and transdenominational · leatherwomen teaching spiritual discipline · atheist testimonials · seeing higher power in each other · coming out about our differences

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the job, about four months after taking the position.

Daryl Carr had stepped down from the society’s board to take the position when Paul Boneberg, the nonprofit’s longtime executive director, announced his departure in April amidst calls for his resignation.

Carr, who didn’t respond to several interview requests for this story, is back on the society’s board, according to the nonprofit’s website.

His LinkedIn profile says he started work as director of marketing and communications for the San Francisco Art Institute in September. The profile says he served as the society’s acting ED from April to August.

On background, a source indicated that Carr, 51, was only meant to hold the job for a short time anyway.

In a Friday, September 18 response to an emailed interview request from the Bay Area Reporter, board chair Brian Turner said, “I am working with the GLBTHS staff to manage day-to-day operations of the organization, in addition to my board duties.”

Turner gave a reporter the option of emailing questions, which the paper doesn’t usually do. Despite a follow-up request this week, he didn’t make anyone available by phone.

Deputy director Daniel Bao didn’t respond to interview requests.

The board had appointed Carr, who’s gay, to lead the organization as it works to find a replacement for Boneberg. Carr said in April that the

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Rick Gerharter

Daryl Carr

nonprofit would hire an interim executive director, and it would then search for someone to fill the post permanently.

Society officials have been working to find a new location for the institution’s archives. The lease for the space it uses in an office building on Mission Street near Third expires March 30. The nonprofit has hoped to combine the museum, at 4127 18th Street, and its archives into one building.

The organization, which is marking its 30th anniversary this year, usually holds its Unmasked gala in the fall, but there’s been no word on the party this year.

Prior to his resignation, Boneberg had been criticized for his leadership and donor relations.t

Lambda Literary gets $1M gift from SF author

Courtesy Lambda Literary

Chuck Forester, left, talks with Lambda Literary Executive Director Tony Valenzuela during Sunday’s reception where Forester made a $1 million gift to the literary group.

compiled by Cynthia Laird

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ambda Literary, a nonprofit that celebrates and preserves LGBTQ literature, has received a $1 million gift from San Francisco author and philanthropist Chuck Forester.

The donation was announced at a cocktail reception at Forester’s home Sunday, September 20, said Tony Valenzuela, executive director of Lambda Literary, which is based in Los Angeles.

“This transformational gift is an endowment in the long-term future of Lambda Literary’s industry-leading programs that serve LGBTQ readers, writers, and publishers,” Valenzuela said in a statement.

The money will establish the Forester Fellowship, and there will be an annual cash prize offered to LGBTQ writers. The program will follow a series of other cash prizes that Lambda Literary already offers, the

organization noted.

Forester said his gift was a way of thanking the community.

“I grew up in the 1950s and homosexuality was so heinous a crime people were afraid to say the word, and it filled me with misconceptions about LGBT people and fears of being discovered as an adult,” Forester said in a statement.

Forester, 71, noted that a John Rechy novel about a drag queen and Los Angeles hustlers told him that “gay men were real people, and for the first time they were people like me with whom I could relate.”

“I’d found a home – in literature,” he added.

Forester was born in Wisconsin and went to college at Dartmouth and graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, followed by two years in the Peace Corps in Chile.

See page 8 >>

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6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

Volume 45, Number 39 September 24-30, 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 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 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 Jo-Lynn Otto • Rich Stadtmiller Steven Underhil • Dallis Willard • Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge • Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING Scott Wazlowski – 415.829.8937 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.

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Pope’s change in tone not enough

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ope Francis, who arrived in the U.S. this week, will undoubtedly show the world his humble side as he leads Mass, greets fellow Catholics, and speaks before Congress and the United Nations. But let’s just have a reality check on the status of Catholicism – since Francis became head of the church in March 2013, no Catholic doctrine has been changed. Women are still not allowed to become ordained priests, and same-sex marriage is still not recognized, even as it has become legal in Ireland, a very Catholic country, and the United States this year.

What has changed under Francis is the tone of the Vatican, thanks in large part to the pope himself. No longer as much fire and brimstone, Francis, a Jesuit, has brought a kinder, more compassionate atmosphere to the church, and he embodies that very well. Who can forget his “Who am I to judge?” comment about gay priests. But as the New York Times noted in its July 2013 coverage of the remark, “Never veering from church doctrine opposing homosexuality, Francis did strike a more compassionate tone than that of his predecessors, some of whom had largely avoided even saying the more colloquial ‘gay.’”

And yet, even as the Vatican tries to project a gentler attitude, it seems to take one step forward and two steps back. So, just as we’re about to marvel at something enlightening, something else happens that smacks us back to reality.

In early September, for example, Francis made headlines when he announced that all Roman Catholic priests would be empowered to offer absolution for the “sin of abortion” during the church’s Holy Year of Mercy, which begins in December. For many Catholics, this was welcome news. “I have met so many women who bear in their heart the scar of this agonizing and painful decision,” Francis said in a statement issued by the Vatican. “What has happened is profoundly unjust; yet only understanding the truth of it can enable one not to lose hope.”

The Times noted that Pope John Paul II offered the same absolution during the last Holy

Bill Wilson

Pope Francis, shown in Rome in 2013.

Year, in 2000, but the paper noted that Francis’ decision “shows his broader push to make Catholicism more merciful and welcoming.”

Just four days later, however, the Vatican lashed out at the transgender community, when it said trans people are unfit to be godparents. According to media reports, a bishop in Spain had asked for clarification and was promptly informed that transgender people do not meet the moral requirement to be godparents. This is ridiculous, a person’s gender identity – and their decision to live authentically – should have no bearing on becoming a godparent.

Dignity USA, an organization that works for full equality of LGBT Catholics in the church and society, was quick to react, saying it was “deeply disappointed” in the Vatican’s determination. “This decision is a tragic demonstration of the Vatican’s inability to see as God sees, and sends yet another message of exclusion to transgender Catholics and those who love them,” DignityUSA Executive Director Marianne Duddy-Burke said in a statement. “If a child’s parents want to lift up a transgender person’s faith as a model for that child, it is wrong for church officials to interfere.”

We agree with Duddy-Burke that Vatican officials are “demonstrating a sadly limited, one-dimensional view” of trans people. “A person’s whole life must be considered,” she

added. “The reality is that many transgender people are deeply spiritual, and give witness to God’s incredible creativity.”

And while the transgender godparent condemnation didn’t come directly from Francis, we’re confident that he, as leader of the Holy See, is well aware of statements issued from the Vatican. It may have a cumbersome bureaucracy, but when it comes to God and LGBTs, you can be sure the pope knows what’s going on.

Just ahead of the pope’s visit to the U.S., Vatican officials – unnamed, of course – said they were unhappy that President Barack Obama had invited LGBTs to the White House welcoming ceremony. Apparently, officials worried that any photos of Francis with these guests might be interpreted as an endorsement of their activities or beliefs. Those on the guest list included retired Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson and Mateo Williamson, a trans man, who used to be a co-chair of Dignity’s transgender caucus. He told the Wall Street Journal that his presence at the ceremony “speaks to the necessity for continued dialogue” between transgender Catholics and church hierarchy.

Williamson was to attend the ceremony with Vivian Taylor, a transgender woman who was invited by the White House and who formerly served as executive director of Integrity USA, an LGBT advocacy group in the Episcopal Church.

Next month, the Vatican is expected to hold a meeting on whether the church will soften its approach on gay rights and whether Catholics who have divorced and remarried without an annulment may receive the sacraments, the Times reported. We hope that the Vatican will adopt a more forward-thinking stance on LGBTs. Francis is a smart man, and he surely sees that the world is changing – in the U.S. even many Catholic laypeople support marriage equality and many religious denominations have embraced same-sex marriage. If the church wants to remain relevant, he should indeed lead the Catholic Church to change. We don’t expect him to embrace same-sex marriage, but more than a shift in tone is needed.

Francis has been pope for more than two years, it’s time he issued a substantive positive declaration about LGBT people.t

Sex ed is failing LGBTQ students – but it doesn’t have to

by Lynn Barclay

There has been some improvement on this front, however. Here he state of sex education in California, the Legislature has is dismal in many parts of passed AB 827 Safe Schools: the country, from misinformaSafe Place to Learn Act: lesbian, tion about contraception to a gay, bisexual, transgender, and lack of attention to consent and questioning pupil resources. AB pleasure. There is an additional 827 would help foster more supconcern for LGBTQ students, portive school environments for whose sexual health needs are LGBTQ students, making schools Courtesy ASHA largely ignored by the majority a true resource for students. of curricula, leaving their overall Lynn Barclay Although the bill is not fohealth at risk. cused solely on sex education, it This is a real problem, but by broadening carves a path to make sex education effective sex education to include relevant information for all students. Schools should be safe havens, for LGBTQ students, schools will give more especially for LGBTQ teenagers who may students the tools they need to make better lack support in other parts of their sexual health decisions. Given the link between lives. By developing a sex-positive general health and sexual health, instituting curriculum that is inclusive of inclusive and comprehensive sex education LGBTQ students, schools will not would contribute to improved overall health only provide a good education and well-being. The Centers for Disease Conto LGBTQ students; they will trol and Prevention, for example, specifically also normalize a wide variety of produced a guide for gay and bisexual men’s sexually healthy behavior, give health, in which it notes that men who have students a broad knowledge of sex with men often experience increased rates sexual health, and promote tolof health issues such as depression, tobacco erance and individuality. and drug use, and sexually transmitted infecThis mindset is supported by a new Viewtions (STIs). Similarly, lesbian and bisexual point in the Journal of the American Medical women are at increased risk for obesity, smokAssociation (JAMA) by a former U.S. surgeon ing, and stress. general and a current and a former board LGBTQ individuals are already incredmember of the American Sexual Health Asibly disadvantaged when it comes to receiving sociation, who advocate for a comprehensive proper health and wellness advice; medical sex-positive framework. They say this will not professionals are more effective in advising only improve the sexual health of Americans people whose sexual orientation matches their but the overall health as well. They argue that own, which creates a disparity in health care a sex-positive health framework and an incluamong LGBTQ patients. Just as doctors should sive, non-judgmental approach can improve be trained to treat all of their patients to prothe delivery of overall health care, reduce vide quality care that’s tailored to individual stigma, and aid in efforts to prevent STIs, teen needs, sex education needs to be comprehenpregnancy, and sexual assaults. sive and inclusive in order to be relevant for By implementing a comprehensive sex-posall students. itive sex education program, the United States

T

will be taking an important step in catching up with other developed countries that experience lower rates of teen pregnancy and STI transmission. Instead, our government continues to fund schools that provide narrow, abstinence-only education, which we know to be ineffective, even harmful. This does a great disservice to young people coming to understand and reckon with their sexuality, and it puts them in a vulnerable position of being sexually active without the appropriate information and resources to protect their health.

The abstinence-only focus is a misguided attempt to deny the reality that most teens are sexually active or soon will be. The lack of attention to the needs of LGBTQ students is part of this denial: the same people who want to pretend teens will remain abstinent also want to believe that homosexuality is a choice, or that LGBTQ youth aren’t worthy of our support or concern.

Schools need to be a place where all students – regardless of sexual orientation – can get the resources and information they need to make sexually healthy decisions. We must face reality. We need to face the reality that our current sex education system is failing LGBTQ youth and all of our young people.

Bills like AB 827 are a great start and signify the growing recognition that comprehensive, sex-positive sex education is important. I hope Governor Jerry Brown signs it swiftly so that a foundation can be built to ensure all students are given the information they need to make our nation – and all communities within it – healthier and happier.t Lynn Barclay is the president and CEO of the American Sexual Health Association, or ASHA.

t

Politics>>

September 24-30, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

SF leather-themed public plaza proposal inches closer to fruition

Barry Schneider Attorney at Law

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A preliminary design shows what the proposed Eagle Plaza could look like; this version has the traffic lane closed off by removable planters.

by Matthew S. Bajko

A

leather-themed public plaza set to be built on the roadway outside the Eagle bar in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood inched closer to fruition this week after a neighborhood advisory group endorsed the proposal.

The Eastern Neighborhoods Citizen’s Advisory Committee gave its approval to the plaza plan at its meeting Monday, September 21. With 10 members present, the bare minimum needed for the panel to hold a vote, the decision was unanimous.

“This is a really important project to support.

Rarely do we have this much public engagement and support done upfront with a beautiful design,” said committee member Maureen Sedonaen, a lesbian who is the CEO and president of Goodwill San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin. “I move we get behind it and unanimously support it.”

The Bay Area Reporter in February broke the news about the Eagle Plaza plan, which would turn a block of 12th Street, between Harrison and Bernice, fronting the gayowned Eagle bar into a parklet with design elements celebrating SOMA’s ties to both the LGBT and leather communities.

Since the 1950s the neighborhood has been home to a number of gay bars and nightclubs, many catering to the leather scene. Today, most of the remaining LGBT nightlife establishments are centered on or near 11th Street between Folsom and Harrison streets, with the Eagle a block away.

The city has designated that section of western SOMA as part of an LGBTQ cultural heritage district.

Backers of the Eagle Plaza contend it could serve as a focal point and main gathering spot for the LGBTQ district.

“We are very proud of this project,” said Eagle bar co-owner Lex Montiel, who is a major backer of the plaza plan and urged the committee to support it. “Allow this project to change the history of San Francisco and the world by having the first leather plaza. It is a really important space we really need. The developers have gone above and beyond to propose something that makes sense.”

Local development firm Build

On the web Online content this week includes the Bay Area Reporter’s online columns, Political Notes and Sampler; and the Jock Talk and Out in the World columns. www.ebar.com.

Inc. has proposed paying for construction of the plaza as part of a $1.5 million in-kind agreement with the city related to the construction of a mixed-use development it plans to build across the street from the Eagle on what is now a surface parking lot at 1532 Harrison Street.

That project, which will be taken up by the planning commission in early October, consists of a seven‐ story, 65‐foot tall, mixed‐use building with 136 dwelling units, 1,463 square feet of ground floor commercial space, and 85 off‐street parking spaces. Build plans to enact a special tax on the rental property to provide for a dedicated maintenance budget for Eagle Plaza that would be in place for at least 50 years.

The total cost to construct the plaza is estimated at more than $2 million. Build plans to seek $300,000 in grants and launch a public fundraising campaign to raise $100,000. Another $122,055 would be contributed by the housing development project.

The parklet design, being overseen by UP Urban Inc. doing business as Build Public, would incorporate the colors of the leather flag, which are blue, black, white, and red, for decorative elements such as pavers and a mini-deck area near the bar’s entrance on 12th Street. The preliminary plans call for installation of a movie screen, workout equipment, and shade structures to help activate the space throughout the day.

The plans also call for relocating onto the plaza the large flag pole the Eagle owners erected in the bar’s outdoor area during Leather Week in 2013 in order to fly the leather flag after Castro business leaders that year ended the annual tradition of raising the flag at Harvey Milk Plaza.

As of now a traffic lane would be maintained in the middle of the plaza to allow vehicles to continue on 12th Street and turn right onto Harrison. Modular units like benches and tree planters could be used to close off the lane on weekends or during community events in the plaza.

But based on community feedback, Build is looking at cutting off 12th Street at Bernice in order to add more green space to the parklet.

The area could become Eagle Meadow if adopted as part of the plan.

“There have been at least seven or eight city reports that have noted the huge gap in public open space.

There is a huge gap here in western SOMA,” said Michael Yarne, a principal with Build Inc. and the board chair of Build Public.

A new group, called Friends of Eagle Plaza, would be responsible for the upkeep of the parklet with

help from the San Francisco Parks Alliance.

“This area is starving for public engagement space. This would be fantastic; the community benefit is there,” said Barry Synoground, owner of the nearby DNA Lounge, who like Montiel is a member of the friends group for the plaza.

The planning commission is expected to vote on the plaza project in late October or early November.

If approved, it could be built in 2017.

For more information, visit http://www.eagleplaza.org.

Hearing held on Castro parklet

A decision is expected soon on brothers Chris and Thomas Newbury’s application to install a parklet in two parking spaces in front of their Reveille Coffee Co. at 4080 18th Street. After San Francisco Public Works staff held a hearing on the proposal Wednesday morning, it is now up to the department’s director to make a final determination.

The proposed public space in the heart of the Castro has been divisive among the gay districts’ merchants, who narrowly endorsed the plan at its meeting this month. Those opposed objected to the loss of parking and expressed concerns it would become a magnet for the homeless.

The Newbury siblings have promised to design the parklet in such a way that it would discourage people from sleeping there. They also noted that should issues arise with the parklet, it could easily be removed.

CA GOP softens anti-gay platform stance

At its fall convention last weekend in Anaheim, the California Republican Party excised from its platform some anti-gay language but maintained its opposition to same-sex marriage.

The platform, which will be reviewed again in 2019, now supports ending discrimination in employment and housing based on sexual orientation. The move comes after the party officially recognized, for the first time, the LGBT GOP group Log Cabin California at its last convention in March.

“We built a strong, broad-based conservative coalition to bring about this change which received nearly unanimous support of the delegates,” stated Log Cabin Republicans of California Chairman John Musella. “We’re helping to build a platform and a Republican Party where all Californians are welcome.”

The platform does not include banning discrimination based on gender identity. Inclusion of protections for transgender people in federal law has been controversial in the past, and fully inclusive LGBT legislation remains stuck in Congress.t

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California

If you lived in or were located in California and called Priority Club® Rewards or any of IHG’s hotel brands you could receive money from a Class Action Settlement A proposed $11,700,000 class action settlement has been reached in a lawsuit called McCabe, Simpson & Sarabia v. Six Continents Hotels, Inc., USDC ND CA Case No. 12-cv-04818-NC. The lawsuit claims that Six Continents Hotels, Inc. recorded and monitored telephone calls of persons calling toll-free reservations and customer-service lines while residing or located in California without telling callers that the calls may be recorded and monitored allegedly in violation of California law. Six Continents Hotels, Inc. has denied the claims. Nonetheless, Six Continents, Hotels, Inc. and the Class Representatives have agreed to settle the dispute to avoid the uncertainty and costs of litigation.

The $11,700,000 settlement fund will pay eligible claims, notice and administration costs, attorneys’ fees and expenses, and named plaintiffs’ service awards.

Who is a Class Member?

You are a Class Member if you called Priority Club® Rewards, Holiday Inn®, Holiday Inn Express®, Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts®, InterContinental Hotels and Resorts®, Staybridge Suites®, Candlewood Suites® and Hotel Indigo® on a toll-free number while residing or located in California and spoke to a representative between March 1, 2011 and July 18, 2012.

What are my legal rights?

To receive a settlement payment, eligible class members must submit a claim. It is expected that eligible class members who submit a timely and valid Claim Form will receive at least $100. The amount of each individual settlement payment will depend on the total number of claims filed. Regardless of the claims rate, the payment to any individual class member will not exceed $5,000.

Whether or not you submit a claim, if the Court approves the settlement, you will be bound by all of the Court’s orders. This means you will not be able to make any claims against Six Continents Hotels, Inc. or affiliated entities covered by the settlement.

If you wish to submit a claim, visit www.HotelCallRecordingSettlement.com or contact the Claims Administrator at 1-888-972-6585 to get a Claim Form. The deadline to submit claims is December 13, 2015.

If you do not wish to be a member of the settlement class, you must submit a letter to the Claims Administrator at the address below postmarked by December 13, 2015. You may request to opt-out or be excluded from the settlement. If you opt-out you cannot submit a claim form. Visit the settlement website for more information.

If you wish to object to the settlement, you must do so by submitting your objection to the Court in person or writing postmarked by December 13, 2015. Visit the settlement website for more information.

A final hearing will be held on February 3, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. in the San Francisco Courthouse, to determine the fairness, reasonableness and adequacy of the proposed settlement and to award attorneys’ fees and costs and plaintiffs’ service awards. The motion for attorneys’ fees and costs and plaintiffs’ service awards will be posted on the settlement website after they are filed. You may attend the hearing, but you do not have to.

This is only a summary. For detailed information including, the full text of the Settlement Agreement, the Class Notice and the Claim Form, visit www.HotelCallRecordingSettlement.com, call 1-888-972-6585, or write to the Settlement Administrator at: McCabe v.

International Hotels Group, c/o Heffler Claims Group, P.O. Box 1040, Philadelphia, PA 19105-1040.

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<< Community News

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

t

SFAF honors Speier at Tribute C

Georg Lester

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USC prof highlights marriage in SFSU speech

by Khaled Sayed

S

an Francisco State University marked Constitution Day with a conference that looked at various rights and topics, including marriage equality.

The two-day conference included workshops, film screenings, and speeches.

The school has a long and proud tradition of organizing Constitution Day lectures, conferences, and events, according to Marc Stein, an SFSU professor of history.

One of the highlights was the Thursday, September 17 keynote address by David Cruz, a law professor at the University of Southern California.

Cruz’s teaching and research focus is on constitutional law and sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation law. Before joining the USC law faculty he clerked for Edward R. Becker, circuit judge of the 3rd U.S. Court of Appeals, and served as a Bristow Fellow in the Office of the Solicitor General in the Department of Justice.

Cruz, a gay man, pointed out that many people were struck by the speed with which the country came to achieve marriage equality, although the movement has been going on for decades. Early protests began in the middle of the 20th century, and carried on through litigation in the 1970s through the present day over marriage, under the U.S. Constitution and state constitutions.

While public opinion barely rose to 50 percent in 2008, when California voters passed the same-sex marriage ban known as Proposition 8 (thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013), polls in the last two years have shown a dramatic increase in support.

That helped legal advocates pursue court cases aimed at overturning various state bans on same-sex marriage, which occurred regularly after the high court overturned a key provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, also in 2013.

The Supreme Court decided in June, in Obergefell v. Hodges, that all state laws that exclude samesex couples from marriage are unconstitutional.

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ongresswoman Jackie Speier (D-San Francisco/San Mateo) received the Cleve Jones Award from San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO Neil Giuliano at Tribute, the AIDS nonprofit’s annual gala fundraiser, Saturday, September 19.

The event, held at the Exploratorium, honored achievements in the fight against HIV/AIDS and was attended by more than 400 people. SFAF board members also presented Giuliano with a lovely floral arrangement as thanks for his five years leading the agency. Giuliano steps down soon and will relocate to Arizona, where he will head Greater Phoenix Leadership, a business think tank.

News Briefs

From page 4

He came out in San Francisco in 1972 and has been living with HIV since 1978. He has been active in the LGBT community for decades, and led a successful campaign that raised $3.2 million for the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library.

He has published a memoir, Do You

Khaled Sayed

San Francisco State University history Professor Marc Stein joined University of Southern California law Professor David Cruz at SFSU’s Constitution Day observance.

Cruz also discussed some of the resistance to Obergefell in the months following the court ruling.

“In most places, people are agreeing with the Supreme Court decision, but there are vocal critics of the decision,” Cruz said. “There are people like Rowan County, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis refusing to give anyone marriage licenses so she doesn’t have to give same-sex couples marriage licenses.”

Davis was briefly jailed for her refusal to issue marriage licenses, but a judge released her a few days later.

People in Rowan County are now able to obtain marriage licenses, although Davis herself isn’t issuing them.

Cruz said that there are people who are comparing the marriage decision to Dred Scott, the infamous 1857 Supreme Court decision that no person of African ancestry could claim citizenship in the United States, including some presidential candidates.

During his remarks, Cruz noted that there are many areas where the LGBT movement still needs to be pushing for social justice. One of the most important is LGBT youth, who Cruz said are dramatically overrepresented among homeless youth, not only in big cities but throughout the whole country.

“Many LGBT youth find themselves homeless,” Cruz said. “They are being cast away from their family homes and rejected because of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. This is something we should fight against, and there is so much we can do with social welfare programs and education. We need to raise public consciousness, and that is one of the urgent areas we need to work on.”

Cruz’s speech was commissioned for the SFSU conference.

“It was an honor to be giving this presentation here in San Francisco,” Cruz said. “As a home of early domestic partner legislation, and the spiritual capital of the LGBT movement in the U.S., giving this talk to a broad range of audience members at SFSU with its history of activism was a great honor.”

Congress passed a law establishing Constitution Day in 2004, and in 2005 the Department of Education issued regulations for implementing the new law. All colleges and universities that receive federal funds are required to commemorate the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution on September 17, 1787, with educational programming that focuses on the history of the U.S. Constitution.t

Live Around Here? and is currently working on a novel.

Oakland, was named a Playmaker for his work helping homeless youth through Covenant House California, which was also recognized.

Eric Lukoff, a board member of the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, was recognized for his work with the San Francisco Court Appointed Special Advocates program.

Gay men named Super Bowl ‘Playmakers’

Two Bay Area gay men have been named “50 Fund Playmakers,” the signature philanthropic initiative of Super Bowl 50, which recognizes 50 local residents and nonprofits that are making a difference in the community.

Sean Sullivan, a youth advocate in

See page 17 >>

t

Election 2016>>

September 24-30, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

Gay GOPers give second debate to Fiorina

by Lisa Keen

was “sworn to uphold the law” and asked Huckabee if Bush is “on the wrong side of the criminalization of Christianity?”

Huckabee said, “No,” and then launched into a heavily opinionated discourse about the Kentucky controversy. Among other things, he claimed the U.S. Supreme Court “legislated” a new pro-same-sex marriage law “out of thin air.” (In fact, the court determined that existing state laws banning same-sex couples from marriage violate the U.S. Constitution.) And he claimed the government “made accommodations” for religious beliefs in the treatment of Muslim male prisoners but not to Davis, who said she was asserting her Christian beliefs in denying marriage licenses to samesex couples. (In fact, neither Muslim prisoner got religious accommodation. See Slate and Military.)

“What else is it other than the criminalization of her faith and the exaltation of the faith of everyone else who might be a Fort Hood shooter or a detainee at Gitmo?” asked Huckabee.

P

eople posting on the Log Cabin Republicans’ Facebook page overwhelmingly agreed that business executive Carly Fiorina was the winner of last week’s GOP presidential debate.

Of the 117 responses to the open thread question, “Who won the debate?” last Wednesday night, 50 said Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard CEO, and 27 said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. The next closest tally – 11 – was for retired pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

The tally from the national LGBT Republican group mirrored the reactions of most observers. And by Monday, September 21, support for Fiorina had catapulted her into second place, behind real estate mogul Donald Trump. A CNN poll of 444 registered voters nationwide in the four days after the debate showed 24 percent support Trump, 15 percent Fiorina, 14 percent Carson, and 11 percent Rubio. All the other candidates, including Jeb Bush (9 points) were in the single digits.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker dropped out of the race Monday.

Most observers commended Fiorina for answering often-complex foreign policy questions with informed, detailed, and decisive answers. For instance, when asked how they would deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin sending military arms into Syria, Trump said he’d “talk” and “get along” with Putin. Fiorina said she’d rebuild the Sixth Fleet and the missile defense program in Poland, conduct military exercises in the Baltic states, and send a few thousand more troops into Germany.

Many also liked how she handled Trump’s remark to Rolling Stone magazine that he couldn’t believe anyone would “vote for that” – referring to Fiorina’s face.

CNN moderator Jake Tapper invited Fiorina to “feel free to respond what you think about his persona.”

Rather than take the bait to return the insult to Trump, Fiorina said, “I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said” – a line that drew a boisterous cheer from the debate audience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.

Not everyone was praising Fiorina after the debate. Stampp Corbin, publisher of San Diego LGBT Weekly, posted an op-ed in his paper, noting the “ridiculous hypocrisy” of Fiorina calling out Trump for making an unkind remark about her face. He was referring, not to her response at the debate, but to a campaign ad, “Look at this Face.” The ad shows the faces of many women with Fiorina saying in the background that these are the faces of leadership.

Corbin said he found Fiorina’s response hypocritical, given that she “mocked” U.S. Senate opponent Barbara Boxer’s hair as “so yesterday” during their race in 2010.

“Such a double standard,” wrote Corbin. “Fiorina can say nasty things about Boxer’s hair but her mug is off limits? Ridiculous.”

Corbin co-chaired an LGBT arm of the first Obama for President campaign.

Carly Fiorina has improved her standing in the polls.

refuse marriage licenses to samesex couples. The only real news that emerged from that was Bush’s step to the right to agree with Mike Huckabee.

Bush told reporters earlier this month that Davis “is sworn to uphold the law” but that there “ought to be big enough space for her to act on her conscience.” CNN’s Tapper noted that Huckabee had called the detention of Davis for contempt of court as tantamount to the “criminalization of Christianity.” He then noted that Bush had said Davis

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Bush leans more to the right

While Fiorina’s performance and her boost in the polls were the big news out of last week’s debate, there was considerable sparring over at least one LGBT-related issue during the five-hour-long, two-tier event.

The candidates took on the issue of whether Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis should be able to

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10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

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SF bathhouse closure

From page 1

not something you want to buy stock in,” he said.

Jones and Kraus had also joined with a number of other local LGBT leaders that month to ask bathhouse owners to alert patrons of their businesses that AIDS is a concern and what precautions they could take to limit their risk of becoming infected.

Yet others felt the only real solution was to close down the bathhouses and began urging the city’s health director at the time, Dr. Mervyn Silverman, to take action. Gay activist Larry Littlejohn, whose private appeals to Silverman to shutter the bathhouses were rebuffed, announced in March 1984 that he planned to put a ballot measure before voters that November which would ban sex from occurring at the bathhouses.

Those who supported closing the bathhouses were labeled traitors, and a B.A.R. editorial in the April 5, 1984 issue famously ran a list of 16 names of people it said were out to kill off the gay liberation movement, with Littlejohn labeled “traitor extraordinaire.”

“Things got ugly really quick,” said Bense, adding, “The rhetoric got more and more hysterical.”

At first Silverman saw the bathhouses as a way to reach men at high risk of contracting AIDS and therefore had sided with those against

closing them down. But he faced growing political and public pressure to take action against the bathhouses.

Then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein supported shutting down the bathhouses as a way to end the spread of AIDS. And on April 9, 1984, Silverman held a news conference to announce that the city would ban sex from occurring at all public facilities.

“People are making this so damn complex,” Silverman told the B.A.R. in an interview with the paper following his announcement. “I think that carrying it out might have some complexities as far as the legal system is concerned, but the concept is very simple.”

As the city attorney’s office drafted the new rules, several bathhouses and sex clubs closed their doors within weeks of the no sex policy’s announcement.

By June news broke that Feinstein had sent police officers into the bathhouses to report on what sort of sex the gay patrons were engaged in. A June 7 editorial in the B.A.R. warned, “Big Sister is Watching.”

The first move to close the baths came on October 9, when Silverman issued an order “to abate a public nuisance” to 14 bathhouses, sex clubs, and bookstores in the city. Yet within hours many had re-opened under advice from attorneys that the notices were unlawful.

The battle over the bathhouses then pivoted to the courts. And on October 15 a San Francisco Superior

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Court judge issued a temporary restraining order that shuttered nine gay bathhouses and sex clubs.

Forty-four days later another judge lifted the restraining order but imposed new rules on how the bathhouses and sex clubs could operate.

No longer could they rent private rooms, unless they secured a hotel license, and employees had to monitor the sexual behavior of patrons.

Bathhouse owners, however, refused to open their doors as the court heard challenges to the new rules.

The legal fight escalated when the city sought a subpoena to have the clubs turn over their clientele lists.

As the court fight lingered, Silverman announced his resignation on December 11, 1984. Later that month the judge hearing the court case toughened his order and banned any sex from occurring in the bathhouses.

“There was never legislation in City Hall. There was never regulation from the health department,” noted Bense. “These closures happened because a judge made a decision influenced by politics and the media.”

Although the judge’s ruling served as a death notice for the city’s bathhouses, over the ensuing years several sex clubs – i.e. places without private rooms – opened their doors. Several, like Eros and Blow Buddies, remain in business. By the 1990s the city’s health officials saw the sex clubs as avenues to reach gay men and educate them about safe sex practices.

“What happened way back in 1984 has informed our sex culture and given us what we have in San Francisco today,” said Bense. “It is important to know the history and where our sex culture is today.”

Although Eros a few years ago was required to seek a permit that designates it as a bathhouse, due to its having a steam room, it does not have private rooms. Despite calls over the years by some to have the prohibition against private rooms in bathhouses be lifted, it remains in place.

“I think that queer men across generations are really interested in a more expansive sexual culture. The closure of the bathhouses is an important part of that story,” said Don Romesburg, the program chair for the GLBT Historical Society, which runs the museum and sponsored the talk. “It is heartening to see this many people here.”t

<<

GOP debate

From page 9

“I’m not telling you that, governor,” said Tapper. “But Governor Bush is, because he disagrees. He thinks Kim Davis swore to uphold the law.”

“You’re not stating my views right,” said Bush. “I think there needs to be accommodation for someone acting on faith. Religious conscience is a first freedom. It’s a powerful part of our Bill of Rights. And, in a big, tolerant country, we should respect the rule of law, allow people in this country – I was opposed to the [Supreme Court] decision, but we – you can’t just say, ‘Well, they – gays can’t get married now.’ But this woman, there should be some accommodation for her conscience, just as there should be for people that are florists that don’t want to participate in weddings, or bakers. A great country like us should find a way to have accommodations for people so that we can solve the problem in the right way. This should be solved at the local level. And so, we do agree, Mike.”

Gregory Angelo, president of the national Log Cabin Republicans group, said he found that answer “confusing.”

“There are contortions that certain candidates are twisting themselves into unnecessarily with the Kim Davis issue,” said Angelo.

But overall, said Angelo, the candidates last Wednesday “merely reinforced statements made in the past.”

“I have noticed one thing that differentiates [this debate] from 2012,” he added. “It’s the willingness to talk about LGBT issues and a degree of sympathy and respect that was sorely missing from the 2012 cycle.”t

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<< Community News

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

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Book examines LGBTs at forefront of history

by Brian Bromberger

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s often happens, the spark of a creative idea was ignited through a conversation with a friend.

Adrian Brooks, a novelist, theater avant-garde performer, and nonfiction writer, was talking with the former editor of Cleis Press about Christopher Bram’s book, Eminent Outlaws, which argues that gay authors like James Baldwin and Tennessee Williams changed American values. Brooks, while admiring these writers, said that social change happens in the streets through activists like Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt. Thus, Brooks’ compiled an anthology, The Right Side of History: 100 Years of LGBTQI Activism, a powerful mixture of multi-cultural voices encompassing social history, journalism, and first person narratives.

In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter in his Castro home, Brooks, 68, outlined the thesis of his book: that LGBTQI people have throughout American history always been at the forefront of human rights, whether it be abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, the anarchist/free love campaign of the 1890s, civil rights, the 1960s anti-war movement, and now transgender rights. Instead of the moral degenerates the right wing has accused them of being, LGBTQI folk have been true to the equality values of the country and always been concerned with justice because, Brooks said, “if you are the lowest of the low, despised, abused, beaten up, intimidated, lost your job, blackmailed, humiliated, and killed, you have an impetus to identify with other people who are suffering.”

It is this background in street activism that has Brooks upset about the trailer for the new film Stonewall, opening September 25, directed by Roland Emmerich, a gay man, about the historic uprising that gave impetus to the contemporary LGBT rights movement. The controversy centers on the casting of a handsome white man as the chief protagonist who discovers his gay identity at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City.

The criticism is that the film (although not released yet) whitewashes history and ignores the contributions of drag queens, transgender protesters, and people of color who were there and helped ignite the rebellion. Brooks equates this revisionism with the founding of the National Organization for Women in 1966 by 21 people, one of whom was a man, Richard Graham.

“Imagine if someone made a film about the birth of NOW through the viewpoint of Richard Graham alone.

People would be up in arms,” he said.

Having worked in Hollywood during the 1960s, he is very familiar with how movie deals are packaged incorporating the ethos of anything goes as long as it makes money.

“This movie continues a long

Courtesy Cleis Press

Author and editor Adrian Brooks

Hollywood tradition of homogenizing an event that was seen as outrageous and revolutionary in its time, by making it more palatable and sellable to the American middleclass. I was talking last night with Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and told her my idea about renaming this movie ‘Pebble Path’ and she said, ‘You gotta call it something because it sure wasn’t Stonewall.’”

t

other places and institutions like the straight-laced Mattachine Society, already passe by 1969, leading the charge in the vanguard of LGBTQI activism. We cannot deny these discordant and, to some, upsetting roots of our legacy.

“There are gay and lesbian people today who want to take the ‘T’ out of LGBTQI and cross them out of inclusion, which is Stalinist and objectionable, as wrong as racism,” Brooks added. “If we homogenize we are passing on a warped version of history. I see this movie as a kind of Rocky Horror Picture Show for millennial kids, featuring very cute, androgynous, muscled men who were never there and would never have put their asses on the line.”

In Brooks’ book, a piece by Rita Mae Brown “discusses ... going past Stonewall, figuring it was the usual vice squad clean up, then a block away noticing the caged inmates at the Woman’s House of Detention, setting their mattresses on fire and screaming eight floors down, ‘We want to be free,’” he said.

“There are gay and lesbian people today who want to take the ‘T’ out of LGBTQI...”

–Adrian Brooks

Griffin-Gracy, a transgender woman of color, was a sex worker and dancer who led the charge against the police at Stonewall, but got knocked out and jailed. For the first time she writes about her experience in the “Ground Zero” chapter of Brooks’ book.

“The most amazing thing for me out of all this is that the movement had a meeting to decide whether they should put ‘T’ into this political thing of LGB ...,” Griffin-Gracy writes. “Why even vote on it? It should have been there from the beginning. I don’t understand why the ‘T’ shouldn’t have been the first letter because of the Stonewall riots, because we were the ones who were out front before they took it, stole it – like they do everything else in this country. But now we’re rising again, and we aren’t going anywhere, there are no closets to hide in. We burned the house down.”

Brooks realizes that of course, white hustlers and bar patrons also participated in the riot, but said that something important is being neglected in the film.

“Stonewall was a spontaneous revolt, a street uprising of people who had been marginalized and abused,” he said. “It was not the white middle-class people, but the damaged, brutalized people thrown out of

“It was gutsy people like Miss Major, Sylvia Rivera, and Marsha P. Johnson out there hustling, giving blow jobs to make money for transgender kids at risk, to get them off the streets into a safe place to sleep, that led the path to change,” Brooks said. “Yes, we will probably never know the full truth of Stonewall as most of the participants have died and there is no single version of the events that occurred. But the reason I feel so strongly about the Stonewall movie and the reason why I edited and wrote my book is that we are trying to save the lives of young teens today who are committing suicide at record numbers because their families have driven them away, they feel like outsiders and there is no safe space for them, so they despair.”

Brooks said the real origins of Stonewall are in the hard life many queers had.

“Yet, being alone on the streets, bullied, raped, victimized, are the real origins of Stonewall,” he said.

“It was not some sudsy, peace loving, gay bliss story. We have the right to demand more, to tell the truth about our past. We cannot accept a commodity foisted on us like ‘Pebble Path’ as the essence of our revolution.” t

prints of his photographs of queer activism are preserved in the archives of the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco.

As a freelancer, Maletic worked on projects including Strange de Jim’s 1980 book The Strange Experience and Marc Huestis’ 1993 documentary Sex Is. In the mid-1990s, he worked at Studio XII in South San Francisco, where he assisted on catalog shoots for Macy’s. He later held staff positions in customer service at the San Francisco Chronicle, Williams Sonoma, and Golden Gate National Park. For the past six years, he was a member of the visitor services staff at the de Young Museum.

Born in Parma, Ohio, Maletic graduated from Padua Franciscan High School in his hometown in 1971. After briefly studying at Ohio University, he moved to California, where he took courses at San Francisco City College. He attended Cal Poly San Louis Obispo from 1982 to 1985.

Beyond his passion for photography, Maletic was an avid roller coaster enthusiast

and an early member of the national organization American Coaster Enthusiasts. In addition, he was known for his love of animals, among them several cats and dogs who shared his homes over his four-plus decades in California.

Maletic is survived by his father, Stanley Maletic; his sister, Ann Marie Maletic; his brothers Tom, Mike and Paul Maletic; and many friends in San Francisco. He also is survived by Rolando Serrato, whom he mentored through the Big Brothers program and who became a chosen family member. He was preceded in death by his mother, Palmira Maletic (née Piastrelli), and his longtime partner and friend, David Escalante.

A memorial celebration is scheduled for September 29 at 11 a.m. at Modern Past, 677 Chenery Street, San Francisco. Memorial donations may be made to Coming Home Hospice, CPMC Foundation, P.O. Box 7999, San Francisco, CA 94120; www.cpmc.org/services/ chh/donate.html.

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December 2, 1953 – September 10, 2015 Stan Joseph Maletic died of cancer at the age of 61 on September 10, 2015, at the Coming Home Hospice in San Francisco. A resident of the city since the mid-1970s, Maletic was Dan Nicoletta recognized as a photographer and photographic technician whose career spanned fashion portfolios, film and club promotion, and urban art photography.

Maletic captured LGBT life in San Francisco notably as a photographer of the queer scene of the late 1980s and 1990s, including ACT UP and Club Uranus. His work during this period appeared in the San Francisco Weekly and other publications. A number of

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<< Travel

14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

Wine country’s gay hideaways

t

by Heather Cassell

L

et’s face it. California’s wine country is a perfect escape. It’s beautiful at nearly any time of the year. There is always something to do. You could be hopping from vineyard to vineyard wine tasting and enjoying the fresh food from the surf to turf. You could take in any one of the festivals celebrating the best things in life or treat yourself to a little rest and relaxation.

Harvest time is one of the best times of the year to visit wine country. The rolling hills are filled with vines with grapes ready to burst with flavor during crush season.

Then you have the gay wine country revolution. Gays are escaping the “gay mecca” of San Francisco, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge to live out and proud among the vines by buying second homes, reviving favorite destinations, and setting roots in new ones.

It’s a revolution with a queer eye that is combining metropolitan chic and authentic wine country aesthetics in a sophisticated way that is truly inspiring the best in Calistoga, the Anderson Valley in Mendocino County, and Guerneville, long a popular gay vacation spot.

It’s enough to make you pack your bags right now and head north.

Calistoga

“You don’t have to go to Palm Springs, come to Calistoga,” Kurt Stevens, owner of the Meadowlark Country House, said in his German accent, waving his hand with a European air.

Stevens was wrapped in a towel on a blazing hot day sitting by the clothing optional pool as we chatted about why he and his husband,

Geena Dabadghav

Heather Cassell

Downtown Calistoga offers visitors a small town atmosphere, with local shops and restaurants.

Brian Adkinson, left, and James “Jim” Roberts, owner of The Madrones in the Anderson Valley.

Richard Flynn, love Calistoga.

“In all of the years it never lost its earthy character. It’s real living here,” said Stevens, who would love it if Calistoga became the next gay resort town.

It is truly a different world. Separated by a long stretch of Highway 29 and covered by a canopy of trees, Calistoga is away from the opulence of the rest of the Napa Valley.

“It’s relaxing,” added Flynn, who after 20 years together married Stevens two years ago. “No one cares who you are.”

The two men talked about how gay-friendly – and friendly in general – Calistoga is, how the artists and hippies took over three decades ago and never left. There are more than enough outdoor activities from the wonderful bike and hiking trails to horseback riding to community festivals, the men said.

It is that overall friendliness of Calistoga that attracted Brent Riedberger and Chris Johansen, who

attitude and the natural beauty that inspired Caitlyn Jenner’s recent getaway to the area as part of her TV show, I Am Cait.

Jenner and her entourage rented a private home through Beautiful Places. The luxury vacation home management company offers more than 35 listed and unlisted properties along with a 24/7 concierge service, said Lisa Graves, who owns the company with her husband, during a tour of one of the properties. Beautiful Places’ staff arranges for private chefs, wine tours, nearly everything guests like Jenner and her friends enjoyed.

traded their Silicon Valley lives for Calistoga four years ago.

The day that my girlfriend and I stopped by Luxe Calistoga, the couple’s five-room boutique inn, during the wine and cheese hour on the veranda, every guest was casually huddled around one table laughing and telling stories as if they’d known each other for years.

In 2011, the couple who have been together for 17 years and married for 10, followed Riedberger’s dream to own a bed and breakfast and opened the inn at the entrance of downtown Calistoga. They haven’t looked back.

Riedberger and Johansen agreed with Flynn and Stevens that Calistoga is toned down from the rest of Napa. However, they didn’t believe that it would ever become a gay resort town, in spite of a number of the gay-owned inns and eateries, such as Brannan’s Restaurant. The town is more of a place to relax than a party destination and the residents and visitors embrace the entire community.

It was perhaps that embracing

Anderson Valley

LGBT vacationers looking for a way to disconnect will find it at any one of the gay-owned boutique inns in the Anderson Valley in Mendocino County. The area takes wine country back in time to an era before the late vineyard operator Robert Mondavi put Napa Valley on the map.

Anderson Valley could be called the “rainbow valley,” with its bevy of well-appointed gay-owned bed and

breakfasts and lesbian-owned and -run wineries and a creamery.

Who wouldn’t want to wake up to roses, like I did sleeping in the Garden View room as a guest of the gay-owned The Madrones. James “Jim” Roberts, a gay man, has grown the inn from its four rooms to nine.

The Italian agriturismo (loosely translated, “farm stays”) inspired inn is surrounded by wineries, including lesbian-owned Bink Wines, and Stone and Embers, a wood fire artisan pizza place. In the back Roberts created a beautiful rose garden, which I enjoyed strolling through. I didn’t need to leave The Madrones for anything if I didn’t want to.

It is a sanctuary perfectly situated for an easy drive to Booneville, where guests can have the best dinner in town at gay-owned Table 28 at the Booneville Hotel or take a tour of lesbian-owned Penny Royal Farms and Vineyards for a lesson in cheese-making. Travelers can also stop off at Handley Vineyards,

YOU’LL FALL head over HEALDSBURG

In the famed Sonoma County wine country.

Local hospitality meets San Francisco chic.

Bakeries, bistros, tasting rooms and 5-star restaurants.

Stylish boutiques, art galleries and antique shops.

Picnic baskets brimming with local farmers’ market delicacies. www.healdsburg.com

Taste the wine country the way Northern Californians do.

And like everyone who visits, you’ll fall head over Healdsburg.

See page 16 >>

<< Travel

16 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

<<

Wine country

From page 14

Navarro Vineyards, and other wineries before winding their way through the Redwoods to the Pacific Ocean in Mendocino, like I did.

It was in Mendocino, after a walk along the cliffs, that I dined at the famed Cafe Beaujolais. The restaurant is notorious for needing a reservation.

It was packed on a weekday night and with good reason. The CaliforniaFrench cuisine is rave-worthy.

Guerneville

The following night I was sampling mezcal at El Barrio in Guerneville in

Sonoma County. I was fascinated by the history of mezcal being told to me by bartender and photojournalist Brian Frank, who spent time in Mexico documenting the ancient practice creating the indigenous tequila. The year-old upscale cocktail bar is lesbian businesswoman Crista Luedtke’s latest creation in her entrepreneurial effort restoring Guerneville to its former glory.

It’s worked. Guerneville is happening, with diverse new restaurants and an influx of gays setting up shop, including Luedtke’s Boon Eat and Drink, where I enjoyed a casual dinner, and lunch at the Big Bottom Market, which Luedtke opened with partners in 2011.

The market got packed at lunchtime,

but I caught a seat at the bar looking out onto Main Street.

I was also tempted to pick up one of the unique locally hand-crafted gifts or Luedtke’s mother’s biscuit mix; the biscuits are served with French press coffee at the Boon Hotel and Spa for breakfast, where I was her guest for the night.

Luedtke started it all in 2007 with the hotel and spa. When I booked the room, I had the option of a traditional room or a tent, which are the hotel’s most recent incarnation of lodging options for an almost “glamping” experience.

Luedtke swore she’s done, she said while we chatted over coffee and biscuits. She hopes to coax her friends, like Nick Moore and Dan Poirier – who recently bought Johnson’s Beach, a camping resort with cabins and camper and tent areas, as well as a beach along the Russian River – to bring cool things to Guerneville.

Today, Luedtke is more interested in leveraging her influence at city council meetings to protect what she and others are building and her forthcoming appearances on Santa Rosa native Guy Fieri’s Food Network show, Guy’s Grocery Games, she said.

Heather Cassell

Crista Luedtke owns or co-owns several businesses in Guerneville, including Boon Hotel and Spa.

Whether she’s done or not, Guerneville is refreshed because her efforts and LGBT visitors are returning to vacation again.

One opportunity for folks to visit Sonoma County is this weekend, at the Heirloom Tomato Festival at Kendall Jackson Winery. Peter Greene, of Now Voyager Travel in the Castro, is offering something new to his boutique travel business – day PUB: Bay Area trips

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transportation aboard the “Bette Bus” and admission to the festival.

Greene said that future trips include a hike at Point Reyes National Seashore with a stop at an oyster bar on Tomales Bay, and kayaking on the wetlands of Elkhorn Slough, south of Santa Cruz. For more information about Bette Bus trips, visit www.nowvoyager.com.t For more things to do in Calistoga, the Anderson Valley, and Guerneville, see the reference guides online at ebar.com.

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Community News>>

Gay vet

From page 1

Korean War and received an honorable discharge in 1954. But finding civilian life hard to adapt to, he re-enlisted four years later and was assigned to the U.S. Naval Station in Kodiak, Alaska.

His military career came to an ignominious end, however, within a year when another sailor, himself caught having sex with a fellow sailor, accused Fry of being gay. Under questioning, Fry at first denied the charges but eventually relented and admitted he had had sex with a man in the past.

His superiors then shipped Fry off to the Treasure Island Naval Station in San Francisco. After being held at the base for a time, Fry was ousted from the military and given a less than honorable discharge on March 27, 1959.

“When I got back to civilian life my self-esteem was shattered. I ducked into the first bar I could find on Market Street and proceeded to get drunk,” recalled Fry in a short, unpublished biography he wrote.

“I thought seriously about killing myself, but instead went back to my family home and told them I’d had a nervous breakdown and had been discharged for medical reasons.”

He landed a job with a furniture store in the Mission district but his personal life continued to spiral downward. In 1968 he fled to Europe for an extended vacation.

Fry returned to the U.S. the following year, and at a homecoming dinner his friends hosted for him, he met and fell in love with Jim Foster, a conservative banker he would

<<

Miami strip club

From page 1

Dean’s Gold, which features scantily clad women in its ads, primarily caters to a straight male clientele. Cox and Otalvaro-Hormillosa said that the club’s official policy of denying entry to “single ladies” who are not in the company of a man is discriminatory. The women have filed a discrimination complaint against the club with the Miami-Dade Commission on Human Rights.

“Equal is equal,” Miami-based attorney Matthew Dietz told the Bay Area Reporter. Dietz is representing Cox and Otalvaro-Hormillosa. “The sex industry caters to anachronistic attitudes and people will pay to be ‘treated like a man’ in the Hugh Hefner mold. There is no valid reason why a man needs to accompany a woman to see a lesbian show.”

The women said they should not have to explain why they wanted to go to the club.

“For me it was like feeling second-class,” Otalvaro-Hormillosa, a doctoral student in theater and performance studies at Stanford, told the B.A.R.

<<

News Briefs

From page 8

The 50 nonprofits recognized as Playmakers will each receive a $10,000 grant. The grants will be awarded over 50 weeks, leading up to Super Bowl 50 in February.

Covenant House will use the funds to support a scholarship program for youth who take technical and vocational training workshops and classes to help them find a responsible job quickly in a field that interests them.

“I feel very honored to be named as a 50 Fund Playmaker,” Sullivan said in a news release, “but what’s really important is that the 50 Fund Playmaker grant fund will allow kids to get that much closer to getting a job.”

Covenant House serves the lives of at-risk homeless youth.

“We are extremely proud of Sean

September 24-30, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 17

spend the next 31 years with.

After Foster, who suffered from ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, died in 2001, Fry again turned to alcohol and contemplated suicide.

“I felt abandoned and alone and tried to drink myself to death. Grief and low self-esteem overwhelmed me,” he wrote in his bio.

He hit bottom when one night, while drunk in Golden Gate Park, he was mugged. A park employee discovered him passed out on the grass and drove him to a nearby bus stop.

His parting words to Fry – “You are in God’s hands, now” – struck a chord, and within three months, Fry went to his first 12-step recovery meeting. He sobered up, and in 2008, first turned to Swords to Plowshares, a nonprofit that assists veterans, to begin the process of upgrading his military records.

Yet nothing happened until a postcard arrived in March 2014 from the Navy alerting Fry that his case was under review. Two days before Christmas last year, he received the letter notifying him that his discharge upgrade had been granted.

“That was it, that’s the news I’ve been waiting more than half a century to hear,” wrote Fry, who has remained sober the past seven years. “I felt like a boulder had been lifted from my path and I could go on with the rest of my life without the shame of a military record tarnished not by an act of betrayal, but by simply being who God had made me to be.”

The repeal of the military’s antigay “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2011 made it easier for veterans kicked out for homosexuality to

apply to have their discharges upgraded. The Obama administration adopted a policy that such requests should be granted unless there were additional reasons given for why a discharge was not honorable.

According to a recent New York Times article, 80 percent of the nearly 500 requests submitted since 2011 to the Department of Defense received an upgrade. Nonetheless, veterans’ advocates say the numbers of LGBT service members asking for their discharges to be reviewed remains low, and the paperwork required can be cumbersome for many.

“That is pretty low compared to the number of people who were kicked out for being gay or accused of being gay, etc. I think a lot of it is people don’t know they can apply,” said Colleen Corliss, a spokeswoman for Swords to Plowshares in San Francisco. “I think the moral of the story is the military knows they have wronged a lot of people under the policy of DADT, and by and large, unless there was another misconduct issue, they’re really approving the military discharge upgrades.”

Becca von Behren, a senior staff attorney with the local Swords to Plowshares office, said it doesn’t know how many LGBT vets it has helped since it works with a network of 300 pro bono attorneys and doesn’t track the types of cases they handle.

“We haven’t noticed a ton,” she said. “It is not something people are aware of. There is a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation on who qualifies and who doesn’t qualify.”

Lesbian retired Naval Commander

Zoe Dunning, who lives in San Francisco and was a leader in the fight to overturn DADT, said out veterans often ask her how they can change their discharges.

“I still think it is not widely known that it is available to them.

There is no one organization that is leading the effort, period,” said Dunning.

She also noted that many “are fearful it is going to be a long bureaucratic process. For some, they may have felt shame about getting that discharge for other than honorable to begin with, so it is hard for them to talk about it.”

Attorney Daniel Devoy, director of Golden Gate University School of Law’s Veterans’ Legal Advocacy Clinic, said his center has worked with two veterans kicked out for homosexuality whose discharge upgrade requests are still pending.

“This law exists and it is possible

“Do we really have to explain why we want to go?” asked Cox. “It’s a free country. Sex and pleasure are essential to human nature. This is a civil rights issue.”

Cox, a real estate agent, also spoke of how humiliated the couple felt at the treatment accorded to them.

“I walked away with my head down,” she said.

The complaint filed against Dean’s Gold states, “I believe that I have been subjected to unlawful discrimination based on my sex (female) and sexual orientation (homosexual) in violation of Chapter 760 of the Florida Statutes, as amended, and chapter 11A of the Miami-Dade code, as amended.”

Chapter 760 states in part: “It is against the law to refuse accommodation or service to any person on the basis of race, color, creed, sex, national origin or physical disability.”

Chapter 760 also applies these standards to membership in private clubs.

“Civil rights mostly neglect sexual behavior,” Dietz pointed out. “To deny or belittle any human being for engaging in lawful sexual entertainment is demeaning. To make it

the exclusive province of a man is primitive.”

Cox and Otalvaro-Hormillosa are not yet sure if they’ll seek monetary damages against Dean’s Gold.

“We’re asking for an end to the discrimination,” Cox said. “From there we’ll decide if we want to sue

for damages.”

Otalvaro-Hormillosa, whose story was published in a recent Miami New Times article (http://tinyurl. com/o7fyf65), said that they’ve been hearing from other women who have had similar experiences.

“As queer people and women

being named as a 50 Fund Playmaker,” said Bill Bedrossian, executive director of Covenant House. “He is one of the reasons that our Bay Area facility exists today. He is a true advocate on behalf of homeless and exploited youth.”

Lukoff became a volunteer CASA in 2013. A news release from that agency noted that he quickly became a passionate advocate, and took on a leadership role training new court appointed special advocates. He is also a co-founder of One Degree, another 50 Fund Playmaker, a tech start-up seeking to streamline access to services for low-income people.

The SF CASA program will use its grant funds to expand recruitment of male CASA volunteers to better serve the many young men who need the services and who may not have other male adults in their lives.

See page 18 >>

This Fall,

Courtesy Robert “Bob” Fry

Robert “Bob” Fry in his Navy days.

to change it,” said Devoy. “They should seek help right away and get this done.”

Fry said he approached the B.A.R. to tell his story publicly in order to encourage other LGBT veterans ejected from the military on homosexuality grounds to apply with the Defense Department to have their records changed.

“I want this to help other people,” he said.

In Fry’s case, had he sought out help earlier, he likely would have been able to access VA services decades ago based on his original honorable discharge from his first enlistment.

But, “when I was drinking,” he said, “no way I could have done this.”

Despite how he was treated by the military and the lifetime of pain it caused him, Fry has never lost his love of the Navy.

“I knew I would be a sailor one day. I would have made a career of it if I had not been thrown out,” he said.t Swords to Plowshares is hosting an LGBTQ Veteran Free Legal Clinic in San Francisco from 1 to 3:30 p.m. Monday, November 16 at Glide Memorial Church’s Freedom Hall, 330 Ellis Street, to assist those wanting to access VA benefits and to request discharge upgrades.

The agency also hosts weekly drop-in hours Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 to 10 a.m. For more information, call 415-2524788.

To reach Golden Gate University’s clinic for veterans, call 415-442-6679.

we’ve been harassed on the street,” she said. “Throughout history in many cultures women have been abused because of being out on the street without a man.”

Management of Dean’s Gold did not respond to a phone call from the B.A.R. seeking comment.t

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18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

<<

Trans woman’s killer

From page 2

neck, ruled the cause of death was asphyxia due to hanging. The manner of death is listed as suicide.

Hayes had methamphetamine and cocaine in his system when he died, according to the medical examiner’s office, which found “apparent rock-type illicit drugs” in a bindle in his wallet.

It’s unclear what Hayes’ relationship with de Jesus was. The city’s report lists his marital status as “divorced.” He had numerous tattoos, including ones that said, “I love you Linda” and “Linda Hayes.”

The medical examiner’s office says he had “no confirmed address or city of residency,” indicating he was homeless.

Friends have said that de Jesus was a “beautiful,” deeply religious person. But while people who knew her have praised her outgoing nature, they have also said she had struggled with poverty and harassment, and some who knew her said she’d used drugs.

Jen Arens, 47, a social worker at the Salvation Army near where de Jesus was killed, knew de Jesus for almost three years.

Arens said Friday that de Jesus had been dating a man “that she was kind of secretive about. I don’t know if [Hayes] was the guy.”

In a previous interview, Arens said that before Christmas, de Jesus had had problems with her boyfriend,

<<

News Briefs

From page 17

LGBT elder conference Sat.

The fourth annual Howard Grayson LGBT Elder Life Conference will be held Saturday, September 26 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street.

This year’s theme is “Lifelong Learning Rocks” and will celebrate opportunities older LGBT folks have to stay connected to their minds through thoughtful engagement in education and connected to their community by learning more about their history and current status as equal citizens.

Speakers will include Rafael Mandelman, board president of City College of San Francisco; Ruth Mahaney, with the CCSF LGBT Department; Alex Walker, from Assemblyman Phil Ting’s (D-San Francisco) office; and Jenifer Worley, from the American Federation of Teachers Local 2121.

The conference is free and will feature a resource room and light refreshments. The event is postponed from June, and is held annually to commemorate the life and legacy of LGBT elder activist Howard Grayson.

For more information, see the “Howard Grayson LGBT Elder Life Conference” Facebook page.

TLC benefit to honor Monica Jones

The Transgender Law Center will honor a black transgender woman who was arrested for “walking while trans” in Phoenix, Arizona at its upcoming Spark fundraiser.

Jones, who will receive the Authentic Life Award, was arrested in May 2013 by Arizona authorities under a vague manifestation ordinance reportedly because she was talking to people. Jones, a student at Arizona State University at the time, believes she was profiled because she’s a transgender woman of color.

She was convicted but that was later overturned by an appellate court.

She continues to speak out and educate about laws that target trans women of color and sex workers.

Zoey Luna, a trans youth leader, and her mother, Ofelia Barba, will receive TLC’s inaugural Youth and Family Award for their work helping

but she hadn’t shared enough information “to give any indication one way or the other” about whether the relationship was violent.

Arens doesn’t think she knew Hayes, and she hasn’t found others in the neighborhood who knew him, either.

“I asked around, and almost everyone knows each other,” she said.

“He either kept to himself or was fairly new in the neighborhood ...

Nobody knew James.”

Asked to comment on Hayes’ report Friday, Arens said, “I’m just sad. I’m sad for him. I’m sad for her.

It’s just a tragedy all around.”

She added, “I realize the world is a little bit of a sadder place because she’s gone. She brought so much joy into our community.”

Officer Grace Gatpandan, a police spokeswoman, declined Friday to confirm that Hayes was the person police think killed de Jesus.

However, Gatpandan said, “The suspect is not a threat to public safety. We have identified the suspect, and at this point there are no outstanding suspects in that particular homicide investigation.”

She said she couldn’t confirm the investigation is closed, and she couldn’t discuss details of the case, including what Hayes’ relationship had been to de Jesus and the possible motive for her killing. De Jesus’ death hasn’t been investigated as a hate crime.

The medical examiner’s report on de Jesus’ death is expected to be released soon.t

educate the public about the rights of trans students to fully and safely participate in school programs and activities that align with their gender identity.

The Reverend Louis Mitchell will receive the Vanguard Award. He has worked for decades as an educator, trainer, public speaker, preacher, and black trans leader.

Attorney Herman Hoying, with Morgan, Lewis, and Bockius LLP, will receive the Community Partner Award. Hoying successfully fought for the rights of incarcerated transgender people to access medically necessary and lifesaving health care.

Finally, Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants will receive the Ally Award for creating a transgender-affirming workplace and providing fully-insured and inclusive employee health plans.

Serving as emcee for the evening’s program will be Ian Harvie, a comedian and co-star of the award-winning Amazon series Transparent.

Spark takes place Thursday, October 1 from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Sir Francis Drake, a Kimpton Hotel, 450 Powell Street in San Francisco.

Tickets are $150. For more information, visit www.transgenderlawcenter.org.

Gourd celebration to benefit food bank

Food for Thought, the North Baybased nonprofit that provides groceries and frozen meals for people severely affected by AIDS and other critical illnesses in Sonoma County, will have its 15th annual Calabash: A Celebration of Gourds, Art, and the Garden Sunday, October 4 from 1 to 5 p.m. at 6550 Railroad Avenue in Forestville.

The event features a silent auction of fine gourd art, along with tours of Food For Thought’s beautiful organic gardens, which will be at their peak. Guests at Calabash will enjoy an array of fine food and wine from Sonoma County’s bountiful harvest, and live music played on hand-made gourd instruments.

The event will also feature a sale of unique garden art and book art, and an exclusive selection from Food For Thought Antiques.

Tickets are $45 in advance or $50 at the door. For tickets and more information, visit www.fftfoodbank. org/events/calabash.t

t

Legal Notices>> SUMMONS (FAMILY LAW) SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN MATEO, 400 COUNTY CENTER, REDWOOD CITY, CA 94063 NOTICE TO RESPONDENT: YEVGENIYA TSERNOH, YOU HAVE BEEN SUED. PETITIONER’S NAME IS LEONID TSERNOH CASE NO. FAM0127822

You have 30 CALENDAR DAYS after this Summons and Petition are served on you to file a Response (form FL-120) at the court and have a copy served on the petitioner. A letter, phone call, or court appearance will not protect you. If you do not file your Response on time, the court may make orders affecting your marriage or domestic partnership, your property, and custody of your children. You may be ordered to pay support and attorney fees and costs.

For legal advice, contact a lawyer immediately.

Get help finding a lawyer at the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp), at the California Legal Services website (www.lawhelpca.org), or by contacting your local county bar association.

NOTICE: RESTRAINING ORDERS ARE ON PAGE 2: These restraining orders are effective against both spouses or domestic partners until the petition is dismissed, a judgment entered, or the court makes further orders. They are enforceable anywhere in California by any law enforcement officer who has received or seen a copy of them.

FEE WAIVER: If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the clerk for a fee waiver form. The court may order you to pay back all or part of the fees and costs that the court waived for you or the other party. The name and address of the court are SAN MATEO SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, 400 County Center, Redwood City, CA 94063 The name, address and telephone number of the petitioners attorney are: Constantine Zhukovsky, Esquire; SBN207181, The Law Offices of Constantine Zhukovsky, 450 Taraval Street, Unit 147, San Francisco, CA 94116 Telephone: 415-260-1045, facsimile: 415-7043383, E-mail crass50@yahoo.com January 16, 2015 Clerk of the San Mateo Superior Court, John C. Fitton, Deputy E. Melas.

STANDARD FAMILY LAW RESTRAINING ORDERS: Starting immediately, you and your spouse or domestic partner are restrained from: 1.

Removing the minor children of the parties, from the state or applying for a new or replacement passport for those minor children 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 a 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.

NOTICE – ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTH INSURANCE: Do you or someone in your household need affordable health insurance?

If so you should apply for Covered California.

Covered California can help reduce the cost you pay towards high quality affordable health care.

For more information, visit www.coveredca.com.

Or call Covered California at 1-800-300-1506.

WARNING – IMPORTANT INFORMATION California law provides that, for 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.

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-15-551488

In the matter of the application of: MARY L. LEIX, 1700 BROADWAY #506, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner MARY L. LEIX, is requesting that the name MARY L. LEIX, be changed to MARY LEIX NELSON. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept.

514 on the 24th of November 2015 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

SEPTEMBER 03, 10, 17, 24, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036648300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SWOOP COMMUNICATIONS, 269 BRADFORD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed PAULA A. MURPHY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/17/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/27/15.

SEPTEMBER 03, 10, 17, 24, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036648500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CRUZITO’S JEWELRY & REPAIR, 2521 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ANA K. SANCHEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/27/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/27/15.

SEPTEMBER 03, 10, 17, 24, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036651600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FEAST STUDIOS, 1366 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed HERRGOTT ENTERPRISES (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/28/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/28/15.

SEPTEMBER 03, 10, 17, 24, 2015 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-035949500

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: OASIS CONVENIENCE STORE, 4 EMBARCADERO LOBBY LEVEL, SAN FRANCISCO, CA, 94111. This business was conducted by a general partnership and signed by NAJEB M. DABIT & MICHAEL DABIT. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/18/2014.

SEPTEMBER 03, 10, 17, 24, 2015 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF THOMAS FENNER DALLMAN IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: SECOND AMENDED FILE PES-15-298529

In the matter of the application of: SUNG HEE HONG, 1650 OCTAVIA ST #310, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner SUNG HEE HONG, is requesting that the name SUNG HEE HONG, be changed to ARIANA HONG. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 19th of November 2015 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of THOMAS FENNER DALLMAN. A Petition for Probate has been filed by ANN DALLMAN in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that ANN DALLMAN be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: September 29, 2015, 9AM, Dept. 204, Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco, 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: Heather R. Stoneman, Esq. Jewel & Stoneman, LLP, 220 Montgomery Street, Suite 678, San Francisco, CA 94104 Ph. (415) 394-6800.

SEPTEMBER 03, 10, 17, 24, 2015

SEPTEMBER 10, 17, 24, 2015

SEPTEMBER 03, 10, 17, 24, 2015 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-15-551490

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036662500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SARAH JUAN, 2828 19TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARGARET AHN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/03/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/03/15.

SEPTEMBER 10, 17, 24, OCT 01, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036648100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: COOKIEKU, 8200 OCEANVIEW TERRACE #105, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NATALIA TAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/26/15.

SEPTEMBER 10, 17, 24, OCT 01, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0366608-00

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DAYS INN-SLOAT, 2600 SLOAT BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SBS HOSPITALITY INK, CA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/01/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/02/15.

SEPTEMBER 10, 17, 24, OCT 01, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0366527-00

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: B&A BODYWORKS/TOWING INC; APPLE TOWING INC; B&A TOWING; 1080 BRANNAN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed B&A BODYWORKS/TOWING INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/31/15.

SEPTEMBER 10, 17, 24, OCT 01, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036636100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ANGKOR BOREI RESTAURANT, 3471 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed ANGKOR BOREI CORPORATION (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/10. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/18/15.

SEPTEMBER 10, 17, 24, OCT 01, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036639200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GRAND FINISHES LLC, 500 QUINTARA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed GRAND FINISHES LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/20/15.

SEPTEMBER 10, 17, 24, OCT 01, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036661400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CREPE AROUND, 635 BRANNAN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed CREPE AROUND LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/02/15.

SEPTEMBER 10, 17, 24, OCT 01, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036673900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LATER DAZE, 631 O’FARRELL ST #1214, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DANA A. CHRISTY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/11/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/11/15.

SEPTEMBER 17, 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036679900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO IN FLOOR HEATING AND HYDRO SOLAR SYSTEMS, 518 24TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RICHARD D. SEAMAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/15/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/15/15.

SEPTEMBER 17, 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036671700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VISION GRAPHICS, 1207 PLYMOUTH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MANUEL AMILCAR SAAVEDRA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/10/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/10/15.

SEPTEMBER 17, 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 2015

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036672100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BARRISTER LAW GROUP; MONARCH MEDICAL GROUP; MONARCH REALTY GROUP; METRO MEDIA MARKETING; ENG DESIGN; ENG ENTERPRISES; SPYGLASS PROPERTIES. 2261 MARKET ST #198, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOHN J. ENG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/11/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/11/15.

SEPTEMBER 17, 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036670400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NINA RAABE, 1530 CALIFORNIA ST #2, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KIM EHLER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/01/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/09/15.

SEPTEMBER 17, 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036645000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ASIAN AMERICAN PACIFIC ISLANDERS LEADERS FORUM, 500 WASHINGTON ST #325, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed 21ST CENTURY ISSUES FORUM (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/25/15.

SEPTEMBER 17, 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036649700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HA-RA CLUB, 875 GEARY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed BROOKLYN ROSE, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/15/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/28/15.

SEPTEMBER 17, 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036673300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SILKROLL, 833 MARKET ST #312, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed MAKANA LLC, (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/01/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/11/15.

SEPTEMBER 17, 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036673500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO LUGGAGE COMPANY, 865 MARKET ST #327, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SHAPIRO TRAVELWARE LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/11/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/11/15.

SEPTEMBER 17, 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036676700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE CONSUMER HEART BUREAU, 286 LEXINGTON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed FRANCISCO JAVIER GUZMAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/15/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/15/15.

SEPTEMBER 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036682000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE MIDWIFE AND THE BAKER, 248 CHURCH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed THOMAS GIBSON MCCONNELL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/16/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/16/15.

SEPTEMBER 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036684200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CONNIE Y. CHAN ATTORNEY AT LAW; LAW OFFICES OF CONNIE Y. CHAN; AFFLUENT HOMES; 405 SANSOME ST. 2ND FLR, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CONNIE Y. CHAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/25/05. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/17/15.

SEPTEMBER 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 15, 2015

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036645800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO AUTO TOW & RECOVERY, 1 AVE OF THE PALMS SUITE 10B, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94130. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DENNIS M. FALLON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/25/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/25/15.

September 24-30, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 19

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SEPTEMBER 03, 10, 17, 24, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036676800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TYTY HANDYMAN, 443 GOETTINGEN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LONG CAM TIEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/15/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/15/15.

SEPTEMBER 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036681500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BOW JOY SERVICES, 835 CLAY ST #200, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YIYI LIU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/16/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/16/15.

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SEPTEMBER 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036690200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LET BLU, 56 A PATTON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed PATTI FAHEY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/21/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/21/15.

SEPTEMBER 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036690100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SPIRO CAFE, 826 VAN NESS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MUSTAFA BAHADURI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/21/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/21/15.

SEPTEMBER 24, OCTOBER 01, 08, 15, 2015 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-036650800

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Art-world rivalry

30

Filming 'Stonewall'

28

Out &About

ACT opening

23

O&A

23

s u o i r Gloore g

Vol. 45 • No. 39 • September 24-30, 2015

www.ebar.com/arts

by Philip Campbell

I Baritone Brian Mulligan in the title role of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.

Italian master honored at the Castro

f you are of a certain age and a musical theater fan – well, alright, a show or an opera queen – check all boxes that apply and attend the tale of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the second production in the San Francisco Opera’s fledgling fall season. Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece has finally hit the boards of the War Memorial Opera House, and despite some curious technical drawbacks, it remains a monster hit 36 years after the Broadway premiere.

See page 31 >>

Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in director Vittorio De Sica’s Marriage Italian Style.

by David Lamble

T

he Castro Theatre offers a quartet of films on Sat., Sept. 26, highlighting Vittorio De Sica’s (1902-74) range and panache as a commercial entertainer, culminating in one of the most moving cinematic statements on Italy’s participation in the horrors of the Holocaust.

Despite his claim to being the godfather of Italy’s post-WWII neorealism movement – filmmakers who dramatized the stories of Italian cities recovering from Allied bombing raids and the moral collapse of Fascism; realistic stories cast with a small army of non-professional actors – De Sica remains outside Italy’s modern-cinema pantheon of Antonioni, Bertolucci, Fellini, Rossellini, and Visconti. He’s a prolific cinema artist who got less respect than his body of work would seem to merit, his trio of masterpieces Shoeshine (1946), Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Umberto D (1952) (all from screenplays by Cesare Zavattini) seldom seen outside of film classes.

See page 22 >>

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS }

is proud to be the exclusive LGBT newspaper sponsor of the 2015 Folsom Street Fair.

Cinema Italia SF

<< Out There

22 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

Furries in action

MARIN CENTER PRESENTS

t

by Roberto Friedman

W

Joey Alexander

12-Year-Old Jazz Sensation

Friday, October 2, 8 pm

Soul Street Dance Breakin’ Backwards

e’re not really in charge of what comes across our desk.

The oddest books are sent to us, but perhaps there have been none so odd as A Guinea Pig Pride & Prejudice (Bloomsbury, publication date Oct. 13). Yes, it’s a retelling of the classic Jane Austen novel as reenacted by a cast of guinea pigs in photographic tableaus. The part of Elizabeth is played by the tan-andwhite rodent Molly, while the part of Mr. Darcy is essayed by the gray stud-pig Hollie. We have to say, all the furry animals fill the characters’ shoes and top-coats nicely.

You truly haven’t read Pride & Prejudice until you’ve seen the phrase “Mr. Bingley was good looking, but Mr. Darcy was much handsomer, a fine figure of a man” illustrated by two guinea pigs’ behinds as they enter a drawing-room; or, “What painter could do justice to those beautiful eyes?” captioning a photo focused on a rodent’s beady black eyes and intently sniffing nose.

Asked by The New York Times to review the book, author Salman Rushdie wrote, “This may be the definitive version of Pride & Prejudice. If they could get War and Peace down to this length, it would be a service to mankind.” Television adventure star Bear Grylls wrote, “As far as I’m concerned, it’s the perfect combo: I love old literature, and I have eaten a ton of rodents over the years. In fact, I’ve just had a desert mouse that I stewed in urine.” Yum, we guess.

or at cityboxoffice.com.

Finally, Little Bits columnist Pepi and Snout There columnist OT joined the good folks of Hornblower Cruises last Friday night for a media dinner cruise in the Captain’s Lounge aboard the California Hornblower yacht. The cruise left from Pier 3 in

SF, took us over to McCovey Cove during the excitement of an SF Giants game, under the Bay Bridge, alongside Alcatraz, and finally into the choppy waters under the Golden Gate Bridge. We enjoyed catching up with press friends, getting down to “Twist & Shout” on the dancefloor, and puffing ourselves up by gloating: “We’re on a boat!” Highly recommended. Info: hornblower. com.t

Hula hit parade

Sunday, October 4 3 pm MARIN CENTER • SAN RAFAEL MARINCENTER.ORG

In honor of its 30th anniversary, Kumu Hula Patrick Makuakāne and his award-winning dance troupe Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu return to the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre for four performances, Oct. 17-25, with Kanakolu – 30 Years of Hula, a retrospective that pays tribute to the company’s body of work. Featuring several of Na Lei Hulu’s greatest hits from the past 30 years, Kanakolu – 30 Years of Hula will also include several worldpremiere dance numbers. Tickets ($35-$40) are available through City Box Office at (415) 392-4400

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Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu returns to the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre celebrating Kanakolu – 30 Years of Hula.

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<<

Vittorio De Sica

From page 21

Two Women (1960) Sophia Loren received an Oscar for her portrayal of a mother who flees across war-torn Italy with her 13-year-old daughter. In the first act De Sica introduces us to Loren’s character, no typical heroine but rather a worldweary mother who confesses a past affection for Mussolini that’s faded as the bombs rained down on her small shop. The bitter realism if not outright cynicism of Loren’s mother is related in a conversation with a male acquaintance as the dust settles around them.

Mother: “If something had happened to [her daughter] Rosetta, I would have murdered someone.”

Giovanni: “Who would you have murdered?”

“I’m wasting your time, Giovanni.”

“I’d do anything for you.”

“I know, you were always a good friend to my husband.”

“Your husband was a stupid idiot!”

“Why then, you’re just as twofaced as all the others!”

“Come on, you were with him day and night. Did you love him?”

“I married him.”

“But you didn’t love him.”

She slaps his face. “I’d like to see you living like I did, in a shack with a chicken. I ate once a day, so I went with the first one who said, ‘I will bring you to Rome.’ I loved Rome, not him.”

“So how was it, with an old man?”

“Don’t make me think about it.

God rest his soul!”

The balance of the film reflects the chaos of an Italy no longer unSee page 23 >>

On the web This week, find Tim Pfaff ’s music column, “The Next Big Stick?” online at ebar.com.

t

Theatre>>

September 24-30, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 23

In residence on Riverside Drive

by Richard Dodds

Y

ou shouldn’t judge a play by its synopsis. Or at least not by the few words that might appear in a calendar listing. In the case of Between Riverside and Crazy, you could be un-enticed by something like this: “A bitter ex-cop fights to stay in his rent-controlled apartment while also dealing with a son recently released from prison.”

Quick, line up the babysitter. But as airless as that summary may sound, Stephen Adly Guirgis’ play is full of life, laughter, redemption, and more than its fair share of surprises.

Not that the quality of the play should be a surprise; it did win the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for drama. And previous Guirgis plays, including The Motherfucker with a Hat, have been popular with local audiences.

What may be a surprise is how Guirgis, born of an Egyptian father and an Irish American mother, so freely enters into worlds where African Americans are central characters.

But in the case of Between Riverside and Crazy, race is something of a MacGuffin, as Hitchcock would say, an issue that seems to be at the forefront but is a diversionary tactic as the story’s layers are peeled back.

ACT is offering the area premiere of Guirgis’ play, and it’s one of the

best productions seen at the Geary Theater in some time. Director Irene Lewis has a sure handle on the play’s rhythms and guides her cast to maximize the impact, humorous and otherwise, of the material. And it’s a first-rate cast, headed by Carl Lumbly, who is outstanding as Walter “Pops” Washington. He’s a retired policeman, recently widowed, who is suing the police department rather than taking a settlement after he was shot by a fellow officer eight years before. Pops is black, the other officer was white, and race may have played a hand. But matters are never black-and-white in this play.

Walter is the definition of a grumpy old man, a familiar enough type, but Guirgis provides the character with a wickedly sly humor that Lumbly delivers with precisely the right flavor. And Lumbly, as Pops, is dealing with all sorts of issues beyond the festering lawsuit. Most important is his effort to stay in his spacious rent-controlled apartment despite the landlord’s maneuverings to get him out. Also in residence on Riverside Drive are Junior, his aimless, just-out-of-prison son (Samuel Ray Gates); Lulu, Junior’s pregnant girlfriend, who probably was a hooker (Elia Monte-Brown); and Oswaldo, Junior’s ex-con buddy, who offers unwelcome tips on healthy eating

(Lakin Valdez). Coffee and whiskey are Walter’s preferred nutrients.

The play ambles awhile in sliceof-life fashion, always flavored by Walter’s sardonic edge, before what develops into the crucial narrative is introduced. It seems to be a social call from Walter’s former partner on the force (Stacy Ross) and her fiance (Gabriel Marin), an ambitious police lieutenant. Walter susses out their true agenda, and how he eventually outsmarts them is one of the play’s jaw-dropping twists. Another of those moments comes during a visit from the “church lady” (Catherine Castellanos) with a message of spiritual uplift that proves uplifting in unexpected ways.

Christopher Barreca’s set has just the right touch of a once-handsome apartment worn down by neglect, with Candice Donnelly’s costumes and Seth Reiser’s lighting adding to the fine-tuned look of this production. Between Riverside and Crazy takes us on a circuitous journey to a happy ending of sorts, if not for all the characters, at least where it counts most. Just don’t try to summarize it in 50 words or less.t Kevin Berne

Between Riverside and Crazy will run at the Geary Theater through Sept. 27. Tickets are $20-$100. Call (415) 749-2228 or go to act-sf.org.

Carl Lumbly plays a bitter ex-cop in Between Riverside and Crazy, and one of his encounters in ACT’s production is with a “church lady” (Catherine Castellanos) with unexpected talents.

Truth or consequences

by Richard Dodds

W

hy do people sing in musicals? The basic maxim says that characters sing when they can’t express themselves in any other way.

In Moments of Truth, a new musical at Royce Gallery, the characters express themselves in song at least 15 times in the 90-minute show. That’s a lot of expressing, and if in some cases the situations don’t necessarily demand a song, the songs still make enjoyable listening.

They happen in the service of a story that itself does not have “sing me” written all over it. But we also know that poor Russian milkmen, mass murderers, and Alexander Hamilton have successfully sung on stage, so why not the characters in Moments of Truth? The common denominator is that they all explore the vagaries of human behavior.

The world that songwriter Carolyn Altman and librettist Patricia Milton have conjured is an intimate one, approaching insularity, but still dealing with emotions that reach beyond the specific world in which the characters operate. That realm is a little corner of the art world, where commerce and creativity often collide with jealousies and rivalries. In this case, an established artist finds her work being shunted into the passe column. Not edgy enough, critics and collectors seem to agree, even as Nan’s art-dealer husband tries to prop up her career by exhibiting her

<<

Vittorio De Sica

From page 22

der Il Duce’s iron fist, but facing a postwar future poised between the excesses of American-style capitalism and the drab tyranny of Joseph Stalin’s failed utopia, Soviet communism. (11:30 a.m.)

The Gold of Naples (1954) Possibly the first-ever San Francisco screening of an anthology of stories

by Giuseppe Marotta, with Sophia Loren, Anna Magnani, Edoardo De Filippo, and the one-name comic Toto. The collection of short tales includes the travails of a Naples family with a local gangster as an unwanted house guest. In another, a pizza-maker goes temporarily berserk when his

Jim Norrena

Tyler McKenna plays an art dealer and Bekka Fink his artist wife as they face creative and personal crises in the new musical Moments of Truth, now playing at Royce Gallery.

paintings with another artist’s inane depiction of cows. The cows end up as the stars of the exhibition, with Nan’s self-confidence taking a hit.

Milton’s breezy dialogue finds both the humor and anxiety of the situations, which heat up with the arrival of an artist whose work is so edgy that she was arrested at the Lin-

coln Memorial, deported from England, and stripped of valuable commissions. Chloe arrives, suitcase in hand, looking for a place to stay and a chance to reboot her career. Nan and Chloe were college roommates, but definitely not BFFs, and Nan doesn’t even know yet about husband Gerald’s dalliance with Chloe

wife’s emerald wedding ring disappears into one of the pies they sold that day, but which one? The highlight is a comic gem where a boastful old card shark get his comeuppance at the hands of an eight-year-old poker prodigy. (2 p.m.)

Marriage Italian Style (1964) Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni were at the top of their romantic screen games when they appeared for De Sica in a comedy two-hander where Loren tries to coax her longtime boyfriend into martial bliss.

The showdown between Mastroianni’s patriarch and Loren’s longsuffering mistress turns increasingly hilarious as Loren’s whore cunningly ropes Mastroianni’s prideful pig into supporting her three nearly grown

sons, one of whom she insists is his, but she refuses to divulge which one.

(5 p.m.)

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970) The story of a wealthy Jewish family whose members ignore growing signs of encroaching Fascism garnered the Best Foreign Film Oscar and was a star vehicle for lead actress Dominique Sand.

Co-star Lino Capolicchio appears in person.

This domestic tragedy ironically debuted the same year and bears stylistic resemblances to De Sica’s fellow director Visconti’s haunting Death in Venice. De Sica was quoted that year as boasting, “I’m glad I made it. It brought me back to my old noble intentions.” (7:30 p.m.)t

just weeks before their wedding.

When he proposes a collaboration between Nan and Chloe, the impetus for emotional expressions through song begins to become clear.

Altman’s songs are consistently tuneful, and move around the musical spectrum – tango, hymn, ballad, pop – without becoming obvi-

ous pastiche. Her lyrics are smart and clever as well, and with musical director Scrumbly Koldewyn providing confident piano accompaniment, the cast is able to connect with both the words and the music.

Moments of Truth director Louis Parnell smoothly moves the action on Jeff Wincek’s handsome livingroom set through multiple scenes.

Moments of Truth is also the name of the artistic collaboration that the impetuous Chloe convinces the cautious Nan to join. It involves hooking up volunteers to a lie detector, putting them at their ease with softball questions, and then photographing their shocked expressions when caught in an embarrassing lie. Sooner or later, you know the temptation will arise among the romantic triangle to somehow use the machine on each other.

The 3Girls Theatre Company production is enhanced by the charismatic talents of its cast, with Bekka Fink as the artistically drifting Nan, Danielle Thys as the brash Chloe, Tyler McKenna as the art dealer trapped between the two artists, and Douglas Giorgis in a series of comically overplayed cameos. Moments of Truth is not what you’d call momentous, but it has an easygoing charm – and that’s no lie.t Moments of Truth will run through Oct. 18 at Royce Gallery.

Tickets are $30-$35, available at www.3girlstheatre.org.

Cinema Italia SF

Scene from director Vittorio De Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, part of a four-film series coming to the Castro Theatre.

24 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

Thursday’s children

by Victoria A. Brownworth

A

ny week when the presidential election is front-and-center on the tube is a good week for this political junkie. More on that later.

First we talk the new season.

More than possibly anything this fall season we are looking forward to the return of three of our fave shows, the TGIT (Thank God It’s Thursday) lineup on ABC: Grey’s Anatomy, How to Get Away with Murder and Scandal (best political drama on the tube, although CBS’ Madam Secretary and The Good Wife are both superb, and Netflix’s House of Cards stands alone). ABC knows just how much these shows have been missed because they have been running a huge promo just for TGIT. We’ve lauded Shonda Rhimes for like ever because she is the face of diverse programming on the TV landscape. She’s single-handedly made it “viable” to have people of color headlining a TV show. Because, as we know from last week’s embarrassing blacksplaining by Matt Damon to black filmmaker and producer Effie Brown, who is one of our people, for which he has since apologized, although really badly, “viability” is the issue in greenlighting of marginalized folks.

Kerry Washington and Viola Davis were film stars before Rhimes grabbed them up for the small screen for Scandal and HTGAWM. And it has been fabulous. HTGAWM is exec produced

by Rhimes, but is the baby of the show’s creator and out gay man Peter Nowalk. As we keep saying, we get in front of the camera when we are behind the camera, and no one proves that better than Rhimes, and now Nowalk. Last season’s cliffhangers were stunners, and we’ve been waiting since May for more. On Scandal, Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) ordered both Mellie (Bellamy Young) and Cyrus (Jeff Perry) out of the White House after Elizabeth (Portia de Rossi) revealed their roles in the execution of the grand jury, which was carried out by Huck (Guillermo Díaz), who may or may not have been shot by Quinn (Katie Lowes), because that last 15 minutes was a rollercoaster.

(Díaz starred in the 1995 Nigel Finch film Stonewall as La Miranda, a big-haired drag queen. He was fabulous.)

At first, when Elizabeth told Fitz about Mellie, we thought it was an accidental spill, because she’s insinuated herself so deftly into Mellie’s inner circle. But when Fitz threw Cyrus, who has been his protector since before he was president, out of the White House, and Elizabeth slithered into Cyrus’ Chief of Staff office with a cat-that-ate-the-canary glance at Cyrus and defiantly put her vase on his desk, we knew. Oh, how we knew. So what happens now? Cyrus is married to his sexworker husband but still mourning the death of his first husband, the journalist. His whole life was being the power behind the throne.

The throne that he said he couldn’t be on because he was a gay man.

While we know Cyrus is a monster, we love him. Considering Fitz murdered Supreme Court Justice Verna Thornton (Debra Mooney) in her hospital bed, we think it’s hypocritical for Fitz to be taking this tack with Mellie and Cyrus, who were just bystanders in Papa Pope’s (Joe Morton) plan. We await whatever La Rhimes has to offer us. Let the Scandal begin.

One of the cliffhangers on HTGAWM was between Annalise’s (Viola Davis) gay intern Connor (Jack Falahee) and his boyfriend, Oliver

<< TV

t

Mexicans isn’t enough for (Conrad Ricamora). When him. The mainstream media not covering up murder, Conwas oddly silent on this. Exnor was getting serious with cept for Anderson Cooper, Oliver. One fab element of who had a near meltdown on HTGAWM has been that the his 360 show on CNN with gay characters have sex as hot Trump surrogate Andy Dean. as the straight ones, or in the Cooper felt he had to apolocase of Connor, the hottest of gize. Live. We wish he hadn’t, all. But in the final minutes of but the Silver Fox is nothing the cliffhanger, Connor goes if not decent. Also, Cooper is to see Oliver, who is sobbing. moderating the first DemoThe two had just got tested, cratic debate in October, so because Connor has a lot of perhaps he felt it was needed. sex, and it’s all unprotected.

With the pundits and netSo we never expected Oliwork news, there has been no ver to be the one who tested challenging of the Republican positive. Neither did he or narrative. Jake Tapper, who Connor. HIV/AIDS is so not moderated for CNN, let so a storyline anywhere since many egregious comments Looking crashed and burned, slide, including Marco Rueven though the CDC says bio’s poor-taste joke about “more than 1.2 million people California’s drought. Tapper in the U.S. are living with HIV never asked a single question infection, and almost 1 in 8 Courtesy ABC-TV about Black Lives Matter or (12.8%) are unaware of their anything racial despite the infection. Gay, bisexual and Viola Davis in How to Get Away with Murder, part of the TGIT (Thank God It’s fact that racial profiling and other men who have sex with Thursday) lineup on ABC. killings of black men and men (MSM), particularly women by police continue young black/African Ameriexcellent. This is the third excellent cash soon due to their lackluster apace. Tapper also didn’t challenge can and Latino MSM, are most segrade for ABC Family and a first for showings, because that’s five hours Fiorina’s grisly Planned Parenthood riously affected by HIV.” So Nowalk Fox, which received a failing grade (five hours, people!) of our lives we scenario. making this a storyline with Oliver, in the inaugural NRI in 2006. Good: will never get back. We hope Mike Meanwhile, on the other side, a Latino man? Oh yes.

ABC, CW, FX, HBO, MTV, ShowHuckabee is the first among them.

Bernie Sanders continues to be on Meanwhile, we still have that time. Adequate: CBS, NBC, TLC, His slithery support for Kim Davis every talk show, coming in second murder thing going on, the show TNT, USA. Failing: A&E, History.” brought out our repressed violent only to Trump for TV airtime. He’s ending with Wes (Alfred Enoch) in We disagree with some of these ratstreak. Plus we take issue with peobeen on every network news show Annalise’s lap, Michaela (Aja Naomi ings and don’t even know why Hisple running for president who have and most of MSNBC’s shows, the King) outing her fiancé as tory is in there and PBS is not, but no idea how the U.S. Constitution ones that haven’t been purged in gay or bi to his mother, whatever. works. We hope Huckabee takes the MSNBC’s recent slash-and-burn. and the crazy Rebecca “The ninth edition of the NRI low-end guys Chris Christie, Bobby Sanders was on Rachel Maddow (Katie Findlay) on the marks the first time in the report’s Jindal, Rick Santorum and Lindsey Sept. 17, where he said he had loose. What’s next? history that a major broadcast netGraham with him. nearly a quarter-million volunteers, Grey’s Anatomy didn’t work – Fox – received an ‘ExcelHere’s the thing you aren’t seeing the same number the Obama for leave us with cliffhanglent’ as a grade,” said GLAAD CEO unless you watch the more obscure America campaign claimed in 2008. ers, but it is back for & President Sarah Kate Ellis. “This MSNBC pundits. Carly Fiorina Martin O’Malley was on Seth Meyseason 12, making it milestone highlights real change is more frightening than Donald ers on Sept. 16, but as usual, no one one of the longestacross the media landscape, espeTrump. She’s like the reincarnanoticed. Hillary Clinton did a somerunning series on TV. cially considering that the network tion of Margaret Thatcher with a what stilted turn with Ellen, which We feel like we have got received a ‘Failing’ grade in the big dollop of Dick Cheney thrown disappointed us, since we love Ellen older and wiser alongside Meredith NRI’s first two editions.” Here’s what in. While we agree Trump’s slamand she loves Hillary. But Clinton’s Grey (Ellen Pompeo). G’sA speaks this report doesn’t explain. Anyone ming of her face was egregious, appearance on The Tonight Show to Rhimes’ ability to craft and rethat doesn’t mean we have to like who walks on a TV show as LGBT is with Jimmy Fallon following the craft an ensemble to hold viewher. Her grisly description of Pres. counted as being LGBT representaGOP debate was superb. She and ers’ interest. This show has had the Obama and Hillary Clinton eviscertion. So a tertiary lesbian character Fallon did an opening skit where longest-running lesbian characters ating the beating hearts of aborted on Fox’s The Mindy Project counts he played Trump (he does a mean in prime time, consistent LGBT stobabies on the tables of Planned the same as a main gay character Trump), then had a 20-minute sitrylines, and front-and-center roles Parenthood is not an image we will on Brooklyn Nine-Nine or Empire. down where she answered tough for people of color. Pompeo isn’t soon forget. Speaking of Thatcher, Nearly every one of the lesbian and questions. For her part, Ellen asked, like any other actress on the tube, she’s the only woman Jeb Bush gay characters on Fox shows is also but because the show was held outand the role of Meredith has really could imagine putting on American a person of color. The networks use doors, we think a lot of what she held up. She’s a flawed yet engaging money, forgetting we’ve been free this two-for-one deal to give us a gay said got lost. As with Joe Biden’s character, easy to imagine as one’s from British rule for 239 years. Jeb or lesbian character who is also one interview on The Late Show with problematic bestie. We haven’t quite also forgot his brother George did of their only people of color. That’s Stephen Colbert, there was a little got over the death of the love of her not keep us safe, as he asserted in not diversity. When Fox’s new sittoo much fawning for our taste. We life, Derek (Patrick Dempsey). Nor the debate. Remember 9/11? com Grandfathered has one lesbian didn’t like seeing Colbert drool on have we got over Cristina (Sandra Speaking of the $10 bill, we character, Annalise (Kelly Jenrette), Biden, and much as we love the lesOh) leaving, because that was the watched the Miss America Pageant, who is also the show’s only black bian doyenne of daytime, we didn’t core relationship on the show, Crisand one of the finalists, Miss Colocharacter, it’s problematic. On FX’s like seeing Ellen do it with Hillary. tina and Meredith, but we trust in rado, was asked whom she would American Horror Story: Hotel, AnFallon went right to the email isRhimes, and we know she will bring put on the $10 bill. She said, “Ellen gela Bassett will be playing the sole sue with Clinton, and asked a lot of it this season.

DeGeneres. I think that woman is so lesbian (there are also two bisexual other serious questions. While he amazing. Not only is she kind, not women). On ABC’s Asian-focused GLAAD tidings clearly liked her and she was totally only is she intelligent, not only is sitcom Fresh Off the Boat, Sonya Fall is also that time of year when at ease, the questions came fast and her entire platform speaking tolerEddy plays Deb, a lesbian bartender.

GLAAD reports on LGBT TV, and furious and were pretty hard-hitance and equality for all, but she’s Yes, she is also black. GLAAD’s statewe wonder if they ever turn on the ting. One surprise for us was seeing able to be funny without insulting ment also notes, “GLAAD will shift TV. GLAAD is ending their anBill Maher defend Clinton on Hardsomeone.” Was this our first lesbian focus to its annual TV diversity and nual report because – well, we don’t ball with Chris Matthews. We were Miss America finalist, or was that transgender reports.” Good news know why exactly. They seem to pleased to see him take on Matthews just wishful thinking on our part? It for trans people, well-represented. think we are all caught up with TV over the amount of coverage the was a much better answer than any Bad news for lesbians and gay men, because a lot of shows have walkmedia has been giving Trump. (TV of the Republicans gave. Ben Carson wildly underrepresented. on lesbian, gay and bi characters, so Guide puts Trump at more than half chose not Harriet Tubman or Rosa We were outraged by an off-theit’s all good. (Shows or reality series of all air-time devoted to candidates, Parks, but his mother. cuff comment by the producer of with trans people have outstripped with Sanders in second place, Jeb Pundits gave Fiorina the win, with the CW’s long-time hit The Vampire LG&B characterizations. There isn’t in third, Carson and Fiorina next. homophobes Ben Carson and Ted Diaries. The show is adding a lesbione show on the entire TV landClinton comes in dead last, despite Cruz close seconds. No one cared an couple, Nora (Teressa Laine) and scape that centers on lesbians or her front-runner status.) When about the lies they told. The jingoist Mary Louise (Scarlett Byrne), when gay men, including shows by gay Matthews began slamming Clinton, Trump had a bad night, but made up it returns Oct. 8 for its seventh seashowrunners. When Looking was Maher said, “You’re just so mean to for it on Sept. 17 when, at an event son. Exec producer Caroline Dries cancelled, that was it. Trans is the Hillary Clinton. It’s like they get her in New Hampshire, he agreed with told AfterEllen’s Trish Bendix, “We new black, with more than a dozen for parking the mid-sized car in the one of his supporters who said that figured after maybe 130 episodes shows concerning trans people. compact spot. Who cares? This is Obama was a Muslim who wasn’t we should have a lesbian character.

There hasn’t been a lesbian TV show not Che Guevara in a pantsuit. For born in America. To which Trump Being a lesbian story or gay story since The L Word ended in 2009. But the Republicans it will always be said, “Right,” unlike John McCain on TV is not really groundbreaking GLAAD announced it will be focussomething. ‘Well, she says she’s not in 2008, who told a woman making now in 2015, so we wanted to lean ing on trans issues on TV. ) a witch, but it’s kind of suspicious a similar claim that what she was into that.” Not really groundbreakGLAAD’s Network Responsibilthat she won’t let us dunk her.’” We saying was untrue. Trump didn’t ing now in 2015. Hey GLAAD, listen ity Index (NRI) examined original laughed pretty hard at that last line. stop with that egregious moment, up. primetime programming on the So for all things political, the sexy though, televised live on CNN. He The blowback from the GOP defive broadcast networks and 10 hot queers of HTGAWM, and to told the card-carrying member bate on CNN continues, and all we cable networks from June 2014 to catch fleeting glimpses of that rare of the racist lunatic fringe that he can hope is that some of the more May 2015. Here’s their grades: “ABC sight, the lesbian TV character, you would be “looking into” rounding despicable (hard to quantify in this Family and Fox earned a grade of know you really must stay tuned.t up Muslims. Because rounding up group) candidates will be out of

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Books>>

September 24-30, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 25

Youthquake

KYLE DEAN MASSEY

MICHAEL FEINSTEIN

CHARLES BUSCH

October 2 - 3

October 7 - 11

October 23 - 24

by Jim Piechota Husky by Justin Sayre; Grosset & Dunlap, $16.99 George by Alex Gino; Scholastic Press, $16.99 s the summer months yield to another school year with kids of all orientations yearning for books to enjoy on their bus rides or their downtime, here are a few recent releases of LGBTQ interest for a younger readership, or for those simply curious to discover what’s out there for youth.

Actor and Two Broke Girls screenwriter Justin Sayre’s debut novel Husky is a winning novel for young adults that creatively and entertainingly plays with themes of social belonging, sexuality, body image, and acceptance.

The story is narrated by Davis, a young Brooklyn boy who lives by the belief that “before you get to high school you get boiled down to only one adjective.” He hopes his personal moniker doesn’t end up being “husky” (“the nice way for your mom’s friend or even your mom to call you fat”) even though he has packed on the pounds lately and his clothes have become snug.

His two BFFs are firmly ensconced in their own descriptors: Sophie is the pretty one, and Ellen is the scowling mean girl.

In-between retreating to the safety and wonder of opera music, trouble begins brewing after a basketball jock calls Davis a fag when he catches him staring at his armpits. The name-calling startles him and incites anger and a depressive attitude that Davis finds difficult to shake. It’s bad enough that the poor youngster is having a rough summer already. His mother is busy dating a new man, and now he discovers that he has not been extended an invitation to Sophie’s girls-only make-over party. For a tenderhearted youth like Davis, these things can be downright crushing.

Though the tale has a sluggish start, Sayre’s writing is consistently funny and clever, and the story becomes addictively entertaining. The conclusion is warm, endearing, and hopeful. Davis’ soul-searching and adorably astute social observations create a unique reading experience for anyone struggling with weight issues or the pressures of societal conformity at any age.

Middle-grade readers will find

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

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099712.01_HNSF_2015_Bay_Area_Reporter_9-24_MECH ROUND #: MECH Trim: 5.75in x 7.625in Bleed: none Live: 5.75in x 7.625in Color Space: CMYK Fonts: Futura Publication Bay Area Reporter OURSELF TO AN Name: XCITING PM: PM AS: RB AD: PA: JR Date: 09/3/15 Loaded Date: 09/3/15

George,, Alex Gino’s story of a boy who knows he’s a girl but is stymied as to how to reveal the news to everybody, an appealing and influential story. George’s challenge, to assist others in seeing her as she sees herself, is momentous for a fourthgrader, but she’s resourceful and is more than ready to stand up to the jeering, snickering boys in her class.

She tries out for the school production of Charlotte’s Web hoping to score the role of Charlotte (definitely not Wilbur, the “dirty pig!”) so her mother will finally realize with whom she most identifies.

On the stage, finally victorious and brimming with glee as the curtain rises, George reveals herself in her truest form, and although not everyone enjoys the gender clarity that she is experiencing, support envelopes her as she banishes the demons of fear and trepidation.

The book embodies an effective and quite progressive blend of humor, heart, and self-reflection; it incorporates themes of allying and childhood solidarity and is narrated from a winning third-person perspective. Gino, a San Franciscobased author who identifies as genderqueer (and prefers the pronoun “they”), believes their book helps fill a “hole in children’s literature,” a failure to address transgenderism in marginalized children and the struggle for identity and acceptance in the very young.

Both of these young-adult books will help crush the taboos surrounding issues of transgenderism, self-image, and personal worth, and should be considered must-have additions to school libraries and parents’ bookshelves everywhere.t

T REAT Y E C ULINARY ADVENTURE WITH M ICHELIN S TAR C HEF SRIJITH G OPINATHAN

Spice Pot — Chef’s interpretation of traditional Indian street food with vegetables, tamarind chutney, and chickpea crackers.

Journey along India’s Spice Route by way of California at five-time Michelin star winner Campton Place. Chef Srijith’s cuisine masterfully blends the finest local produce with the richness of the region’s seasonal bounty.

Enjoy a six-course Spice Route menu or indulge in our nine-course Degustation menu. For those with lighter appetites we offer a three-course Theatre Menu and Vegetarian Tasting menu.

Located in the Elegant Taj Campton Place Hotel in the Heart of Union Square camptonplacesf.com for reservations | 415.781.5555 | 340 Stockton St. San Francisco Open Every Night for Dinner | Lunch Wednesday – Sunday

26 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

<< Fine Art

t Fourfold delights at Stanford

by Sura Wood

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CATERING

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Summer at the Cliff House Cliff House and Beyond!

Guided Historical Walks Spend a memorable Saturday morning exploring Lands End. Start at the historic Cliff House with a continental breakfast then walk through Adolph Sutro’s magical ‘kingdom by the sea’ with historian guide John A. Martini.

Regarded as the ultimate authority on this part of the City’s fabled past, John’s final walk for 2015 will be offered on October 10.

For more information and to make reservations please visit www.cliffhouse.com/history/Johns_Walk.html

Join us for these Cliff House Weekly Favorites • Wine Lovers’ Tuesday – Half Priced Bottled Wines* • Bistro Wednesday Nights – $28 Three-Course Prix Fixe • Friday Night Jazz in the Balcony Lounge • Sunday Champagne Brunch Buffet Valet parking every night after 5:00 pm. * Some restrictions apply. Promotions are not valid on holidays.

1090 Point Lobos

415-386-3330

www.CliffHouse.com

CASTRO ST

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s part of its ongoing goal to become an arts destination and play a greater role in the off-campus cultural conversation, Stanford is currently 15TH ST the locus for | University Catering a triad of mini-shows at the Cantor Arts Center and another at the Anderson Collection. All of them 16TH ST opened on Sept. 9, beckoning visitors to make the pilgrimage and receive enough cultural uplift to occupy an entire afternoon.

17TH ST Constructing Interference, a small exhibition at the Anderson spotlighting work by two Stanford alums, Tauba Auerbach and Mark Fox, emphasizes process. One of the pitfalls of such an approach is that the back-story of the making of the work can be more compelling than the finished product, and in this case, those stories are pretty amazing. Auerbach, a math and science geek who once constructed a two-person organ and performed with it, thinks outside the box. In “Bent Onyx” (2012), she periodically scanned a block of onyx as it was sanded down to nothing, then bound the digitized images printed on Japanese tissue into an accordion-like, squeeze-box structure that retained the swirling striations of the original stone. Think python skin or the rings of an old Sequoia tree stump, creepy and wonderful. For her dazzling etching “Plate Distortion 1” (2011), whose ripple effect resembles blue solar flares, or the dappled sunlight at the bottom of a swimming pool, she crumpled the tin plate before spreading the ink and rolling it through the printer.

Fox, a devout Catholic whose background is in puppetry, constructs fanciful sculptures from narrow strips of paper that he forms into various shapes and creatures.

“Black Sawhorseman” (2007), a wavy, weirdly organic, hairy, stringy apparition composed of calligraphic texts painted on pieces of paper that he cut and reconfigured, refers to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, from the book of Revelation.

“KillR” (2010), a delicate pinwheel made out of lickamade pastel-hued strips, is like a party favor mounted on the wall. Anchored by armatures wrapped in paper covered with the artist’s doodles, “Deep Field Nancy” (2010) is an amalgam of painting, sculpture and drawing.

With its pebbled surface, its looks like a large oval rock or sea urchin, pummeled by the surf and washed ashore. For the latter piece, Fox, who must be the most painstaking man on the planet, used an eye-dropper to apply hundreds of ink stains that make the surface appear perforated.

Through March 21.

The Cantor draws heavily on its permanent collections and recent acquisitions for its featured exhibits.

The most substantial of the group, Artists at Work, divides 70 works into categories reflecting factors related to creativity such as Place, Process, Artist as Pioneer, Bodies in Repose, Bodies in Motion, etc. But one section, titled Inspiration, the impetus for all creativity, period, gets at the core problem with the show’s structure.

Both overly broad and contrived – the hand of the curator is too prominent for comfort – the premise provides a room-for-everyone rationale for displaying stunning works of art.

Speaking of hands, a section called The Hand includes four of Rodin’s fierce, muscular bronzes, and Rachel Owens’ “Pop’s,” a candy-colored chorus of willowy forearms with fists raised, modeled on the artist’s own, cast in wax and tinted. Essentially a short course in the history of Western art, the exhibition allows for a sculpture by Degas; Ansel Adams’ candid snapshot of Georgia O’Keeffe painting in the backseat of her sta-

The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation

Richard Diebenkorn, Untitled from Sketchbook #10, p. 13 (1943-93), gouache and watercolor on paper.

tion wagon (1937); Brassai’s cunning photograph “Matisse Drawing a Nude Model at the Villa d’Alsesia” (1939), in which the white-haired master, in doctor’s lab coat, captures his seductive subject, half-kneeling beside him, with clinical detachment; several Matisse lithographs of sensual nudes; Muybridge’s motion studies; “The Rainbow: Osterspai and Filsen” (1817), a jewel-like fantasia watercolor by J.M.W Turner; Manet’s etching “Olympia,” after his larger, more famous, once-controversial painting of a naked courtesan awaiting a client, and more. Through Jan. 18.

Richard Diebenkorn: The Sketchbooks Revealed offers a unique opportunity to get inside the head and mind’s eye of the California artist who toggled between Figuration and Abstract Expressionism with alacrity.

Last year, the artist’s wife Phyllis, his muse and favorite subject (a whole volume is devoted to her) gave the Cantor a cache of 29 workbooks containing over 1,045 drawings and studies in a range of media that represent a microcosm of Diebenkorn’s mastery of form and color. (He dubbed the sketchbook he always carried his “portable studio.”)

Given their fragility, it was possible to display only one page from each book, and a succession of these are laid out in glass cases where one finds a two-page spread of a silver birch jutting into view against a blackened backdrop; a nude, awash in red, holding a tree branch across her belly; landscapes from his travels to Greece, Malta, Sicily and Tunis, accented with colored ink and wash; sketches of the cartographic grids

that characterize some of his large paintings; and random jottings of his thoughts that show him to be a keen observer with a touch of the poet.

Visitors will have a chance to actually flip through the pages of Sketchbook #20, whose images, sealed in clear protective plastic, are hung portfolio-style. The experience is the high point of all the shows here. One can discern the subtle differentiations of a standing nude, the slight adjustments he made in her attitude and pose; sense the intimacy of couples cuddling or engaged in tender foreplay; and note the expressiveness of his portraits, for which he employed bold, decisive lines defining expression, facial planes and features. All the Diebenkorn sketchbook images are digitized and available online: diebenkornsketchbooks.stanford. edu. Through Feb. 8.

While undeniably exciting and a genuine coup for the museum, the Diebenkorn materials don’t really constitute a full-fledged exhibition; to that end it’s padded, as is Edward Hopper: New York Corner (Corner Saloon), which is primarily a showcase for the artist’s 1913 painting of the same name recently acquired by the Cantor. But a couple of his etchings, included in the mix, are simply terrific. Evocative of turn-of-thecentury New York City and painted in what would come to be identified as his signature style, this early work depicts black-coated figures milling around a grey, wintry street, where a regal gold awning on a red brick building crowns the dark entryway to a tavern promising bonhomie, refuge or oblivion. Through Feb. 8.t

Courtesy Cantor Arts Center

Edward Hopper, New York Corner (Corner Saloon) (1913), oil on canvas.

Gilead Sciences, Inc

<< Out&About

O&A

28 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

Understated

by Jim Provenzano

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remieres in the performing arts celebrate unusual and fascinating stories. Subtlety and grace are rare traits to be savored. For more unusual creatures, in-person, with much more theatrical flair –we’re talking leathery kinky Folsom Fair-y stuff– head on over to the On the Tab listings.

Mark I Chester’s photo exhibit @ Center for Sex & Culture

Thu 24 Amara Tabor-Smith @ ODC Theater Premiere of EarthBodyHOME, a multimedia ritual-based performance inspired by Cuban artist Ana Mendieta. $30-$45. Thu-Sat 8pm. 3153 17th St. 863-9834. www.odcdance.org

Avenue Q @ Julia Morgan Theatre, Berkeley

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Berkeley Playhouse’s production of the Tony-winning musical comedy with naughty puppets. $17-$60. ThuSun, various times thru Oct. 11. 2640 College Ave., Berkeley. (510) 8458542. www.berkeleyplayhouse.org

Barbary Coast Revue @ Balancoire The third season of the popular cabaret show returns, with Danny Kennedy as Mark Twain, a cast of diverse performers, and guest performer Connie Champagne.

Thursdays thru November. $14-$64.

8pm. 2565 Mission St. at 22nd. www.BarbaryCoastRevue.com

Between Riverside and Crazy @ Geary Theatre American Conservatory Theatre’s production of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Pulitzer Prize-winning dark comedy about an elderly man trying to hold on to his rent-controlled New York apartment. $20-$70. Wed-Sat 8pm.

Sat 2pm. Sun 7pm. Thru Sept. 27. 415 Geary St. www.act-sf.org

Black Virgins are Not for Hipsters @ The Marsh

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Echo Brown’s comic solo show follows a young women’s impending sexual encounter, and its political implications. $20-$35. Thu 8pm. Sat 8:30pm. Extended thru Oct. 29. 1062 Valencia St. at 22nd. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

DIFFA Designs @ NWBLK Cocktail and food fundraiser showcases designs for sale via silent auction, and Bay Area AIDS/ HIV nonprofits from the past three decades. $100 and up. 6pm-9pm.

1999 Bryant St. www.diffasf.org/2015event/

Eurydice @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley Sarah Ruhl’s update on the Orpheus myth, from the viewpoint of his love, who is lost in the Underworld. $20$30. Wed-Sun. Extended thru Oct. 4.

1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. (510) 8416500. www.shotgunplayers.org

Dogfight @ SF Playhouse Bay Area premiere of Peter Duchan, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s musical adaptation of the film about a young Marine in the Vietnam era who dares to ask an “ugly” girl on a date, only to find empathy and love. $20-$120.

Tue-Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm, Sun 2pm. Thru Nov. 7. Kensington Park Hotel, 2nd floor, 450 Post St. 677-9596. www.sfplayhouse.org

Joe Goode Performance Group @ Joe Goode Annex The innovative dance-theatre creator presents Poetics of Space, an interactive work inspired by French philosopher Gaston Bachelard. $30. Thu & Sun 7:30pm. Fri & Sat 7:30 & 9:30pm. Thru Oct. 11. 401 Alabama St. at 17th. (866) 811-4111. joegoode.org zspace.org

Fri 25

The Lion King @ San Jose Center for the Performing Arts The touring production of the Disney megahit Broadway musical, based on the animated film about African wildlife, with amazing puppetry, music, choreography and costumes. $33-$138. Tue-Thu 7:30pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 2pm, Sun 1pm & 6:30pm.

255 S. Almaden Blvd. Thru Oct. 4.

(800) 982-2787. www.lionking.com www.broadwaysanjose.com

Moments of Truth @ Royce Gallery World premiere of Caroline Altman and Patricia Milton’s musical comedy about two artists whose collaboration on a “truth detector” art project disprupts their lives. $20-$30. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Oct. 18. 2901 Mariposa St. at Alabama. 527-0301. www.3girlstheatre.org

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We Can Do It! @ Hurwich Library Opening reception for an exhibit of paintings, tapestries and other works

by Bay Area artists with disabilities.

4pm-7pm. Thru Oct. 22. 1 Beach St. www.niadart.org

Will & Anthony Nunziata @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko Twin brother singing duo performs classics, pop, Broadway and standards. $25-$40 ($20 food/drink min). 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. ticketweb.com

Fri 25 Amelie @ Berkeley Repertory Theatre World premiere of Craig Lucas and Daniel Messé’s new musical based on the popular French film about an enchanting young woman who creates magic and joy in Montmartre. $29-$97. Tue, Thu-Sat 8pm. Wed & Sun 7pm. Also Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Oct. 11. 2025 Addison St. (510) 6472949. www.berkeleyrep.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

Monstress @ Strand Theatre American Conservatory Theatre’s staging of Philip Kan Gotanda and Sean San José’s drama about FilipinoAmerican Bay Area life and struggles. $20-$100. Tue-Sat 7:30pm. Wed & Sat 2pm. Sun 2pm & 7pm. Thru Nov. 22.

1127 Market St. 749-2228. act-sf.org

New & Classic Films @ Castro Theatre Sept. 24: John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy (7pm) and The Falcon and the Snowman (9:05). Sept 25: Chinatown (7pm) and The Long Goodbye (9:25).

Sept. 26: Vittorio De Sica, Italian film day, including a restored print of The Garden of the Fintzi-Continis. (www. cinemaItaliaSF.com). Sept. 27: Frozen sing-along (12pm), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (2:30, 7pm) and Sorcerer (4:45, 9:15). Sept. 30: Reel Rock 10 (7pm). Oct. 1: Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (7pm) and High Anxiety (9pm). $10-$15. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

Smuin Ballet @ Mountain View Performing Arts Center, Palace of Fine Arts The San Francisco company performs Dance Series One, works by Amy Seiwert, Ben Needham-Wood, Ma Cong and Michael Smuin. $24-$204. (8pm & 2pm shows). Sept 24-27, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. Oct. 1-4 in SF, 3301 Lyon St. at Bay. www.smuinballet.org

Star Trek Live @ Oasis Enjoy another wacky parody performance of a TV script, this time the classic sci-fi show, with Leigh Crow, Honey Mahogany, Jordan L’Moore, Amber Sommerfield, Jef Valentine and others. $25 and up.

Thu-Sat at 7pm. Thru Oct 31. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Fri 25 Lizzie @ Victoria Theatre

Celebrity Soccer Panel @ Eureka Valley Rec. Center Helen Carroll, Jaiyah Saelua, Matt Hatzke, Roger Brigham and moderator Kimberly Hadley discuss LGBT inclusion, employment and rights within international soccer teams and communites. 5:30pm. 100 Collingwood St. at 18th. www.facebook.com/SFSpikes

FLACC Fest @ Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers features dance works by nine companies, plus panels and workshops. $15-$50. Fri & Sat 8pm.

Sun 6pm. 2868 Mission St. www.flaccdanza.org

For the Love of Comrades @ New Conservatory Theatre Center U.S. premiere of Micheál Kerrigan play about the 1980s British group of gay rights activists who joined striking mine workers in a rural town. $20$45. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Oct. 11. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. www.nctcsf.org

Jok Church @ Magnet Be My Porn Star Tonight, an exhibit of photo illustration collages on canvas by the local gay artist. 100% of art sales benefit Magnet. Thru Sept. 30 (reception Sept. 25, 8pm). 4122 18th St. www.makemagic.org www.magnetsf.org

Thu 24 Echo Brown’s Black Virgins are Not for Hipsters @ The Marsh

Lizz Roman & Dancers @ Civic Corps Job Training Center, Oakland The site-specific work, This Beautiful Space, is performed in multi-leveled areas of the industrial warehouse, with a live sound score by WaterSaw. Fri & Sat 8pm. Thru Sept. 26. 1425 5th St., Oakland. www.lizzromananddancers.com

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Out&About>>

Lizzie @ Victoria Theatre Ray of Light Theatre’s production of Steven Cheslik-DeMeyer, Alan Stevens Hewitt and Tim Maner’s daring rock musical adaptation of the story of 1890s (alleged!) axe-murderess Lizzie Borden. $15-$36. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Oct. 17. 2961 16th St. at Mission. rayoflighttheatre.com

Mark I. Chester @ Center for Sex & Culture The veteran local photographer’s collection of erotic, leather and kink images is paired with the publication of his new photo book, City of Wounded Boys & Sexual Warriors.

Thru Sept. 27. 1349 Mission St. www.markichester.com

Megan Hilty @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The Broadway and TV singing star performs songs from the show Smash, show classics and selections from her album It Happens All the Time. $70$85 ($20 food/drink min.). 8pm. Also Sept 26 & 27 7pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.meganhiltyonline.com www.ticketweb.com

Mud Blue Sky @ Aurora Theatre, Berkeley Bay Area premiere of Marisa Wegrzyn’s edgy comic play about the early days of air travel. $32-$60.

Tue & Sun 7pm. Wed-Sat 8pm. Also Sun 2pm. Extended thru Oct. 3. 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org

Tiara Sensation Pageant @ de Young Museum The Some Thing drag crew invades the museum with its fifth annual pageant. $15. 6:30pm. Wilsey Court, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park. www.deyoung.famsf.org

Jinho Ferreira returns with his autobiographical solo show about being a hip hop star, law enforcement officer and Oakland resident. $20$55. Saturdays, 5pm. Thru Sept. 26.

2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Curtain Up! @ Circus Center A new cabaret performance show and opening gala at the circus arts center, designed and directed by new Creative Director Steve Smith. $50 8pm. Also Sept. 27, 7pm. 755 Frederick St. circuscenter.org/cabaret

First Look @ Asian Art Museum

The new lavish touring production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony-winning hit musical based on Gaston Leroux’s 1910 book, about a mysterious man who haunts a Paris opera house and kidnaps a beautiful singer. $40-$225.

Tue-Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat 2pm. Sun 2pm & 7:30pm. Thru Oct. 4. 1192 Market St. (888) 746-1799. www.shnsf.com

The incomparable diva returns for a full-length concert; pull up to the bumber, baby. $55-$75. 8pm. 1807 Telegraph Ave. (510) 302-2250. www.thefoxoakland.com

Marin Shakespeare Company’s production of the Bard’s classic drama about an ambitious king. $10-$35. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 4pm. Thru Sept 27.

890 Belle Ave, Dominican University, San Rafael. 499-4488. www.marinshakespeare.org

Roger Erickson, RJ Muna @ SF Camerawork The two prolific local photographers discuss their visually striking work, with moderator Larissa Archer; in conjunction with OUTspoken exhibit at City Hall. 6pm. 1011 Market St. www.sfcamerawork.org

Sweeney Todd @ War Memorial Opera House Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Awardwinning dark musical about The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is performed by the San Francisco Opera. $26-$381. Sept 23, 26, 29 at 7:30pm. 301 Van Ness Ave. 864-3330. www.sfopera.com

Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical @ Center Rep, Walnut Creek Jukebox musical by Janet Yates and Mark Friedman follows the life of the popular singer, with songs that she made famous. $37-$63. Tue & Wed 7:30pm. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 3pm. Thru Oct. 10. 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. (925) 943-7469. www.centerrep.org

Marc Broussard @ Great American Music Hall The popular new Bayou-soul singer performs; Fairground Saints opens. $26-$30 (51 with dinner). 8pm. 859 O’Farrell St. 885-0750. www.marcbroussard.com www.slimspresents.com

Portraits and Other Likenesses @ Museum of the African Diaspora

Cops and Robbers @ The Marsh Berkeley

Grace Jones @ Fox Theatre, Oakland

Richard III @ Forest Meadows Ampitheatre, San Rafael

New all-male striptease revue with a storyline of San Francisco’s history, from the Gold Rush to the tech boom.

Extended thru December. $20. 9pm.

298 11th St. at Folsom. sfoasis.com

Jesus U. BettaWork’s wacky comedy night, with Griffin Daley, Kristee Ono, Joe Gorman, Sia Amma, Yuriy Mikhalevskiy, Chey Bell and Jessica Sele. Free. 8pm. 4122 18th St. www.magnetsf.org

The Phantom of the Opera @ Orpheum Theatre

Baruch Porras-Hernandez and Blythe Baldwin cohost the eclectic, energetic reading event. 7pm. 2919 24th St. 282-9246. www.mtbs.com

Man Francisco @ Oasis

Joe Goode Performance Group @ Joe Goode Annex

Chile Con Comedy @ Magnet

The innovative theatre ensemble presents Joe Estlack and Christopher White’s Blockbuster Season, a comic critique of Hollywood disaster movies. $25-$35. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru Oct. 18.

925 Mission St. 626-2787. www.mugwumpin.org

Queer Open Mic @ Modern Times Bookstore

Wed 30

Thu 24

Sat 26

First Look: Collecting Contemporary at the Asian, the museum’s first largescale exhibit of modern works by artists in Asia and the U.S.; thru Oct. 11. Exquisite Nature: 20 Masterpieces of Chinese Paintings, and Woven Luxuries: Indian, Persian and Turkish Textiles ; both thru Nov 1. Free (members, kids 12 and under)-$15.

Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. 200 Larkin St. www.asianart.org

Mugwumpin @ Intersection for the Arts

September 24-30, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 29

Inappropriate in All the Right Ways @ The Marsh Ann Randolph’s serio-comic solo show about family loss and death. $20-$100.

Saturdays, 5pm. Thru Oct. 17. 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. themarsh.org

Karen Ripley @ The Marsh Berkeley The veteran lesbian comic returns with her solo show, Oh No, There’s Men on the Land, her stories of self-discovery and life in 1970s Berkeley. $15-$100.

Saturdays, 5pm. Thru Oct. 3. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Neekon @ Koret Auditorium, Golden Gate Park Bandshell The one-day music, dance, visual arts and food festival takes place indoors and out, and offers a culturally diverse line-up of Iranian arts meant to inspire global peace and community kindness. Free (outdoor) $15-$47 (indoors). 11am-5pm. 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. www.neekon.org

Perverts Put Out @ Center for Sex & Culture The sexy reading series returns, with a special Folsom edition, including Charlie Jane Anders, Gina de Vries, Daphne Gottlieb, Princess Cream Pie, Steven Schwartz, Na’amen Tilahun, and Xan West, with hosts Dr. Carol Queen and Simon Sheppard. $10-$25. 8pm. 1349 Mission St. www.sexandculture.org

Radical Presence @ YBCA Subtitled Black Performance in Contemporary Art, this new exhibit explores identity in a variety of media; video, installations, sculpture and photography. Thru Oct. 11. Also, the multimedia installation Won Ju Lim: Raycraft is Dead, thru Dec. 6. Also, Earth Machines : Exploring the environmental impact of our high-tech world, thru Dec. 6. $5-$12.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. www.ybca.org

SF Hiking Club @ Sweeney Ridge Join GLBT hikers for a 12-mile hike atop Sweeney Ridge and down to the ocean at Mori Point. Hike to the top of the ridge where Europeans first saw SF Bay. Carpool meets at 8:30 at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. 7409888. www.sfhiking.com

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

Sun 27 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

ASL Epic @ Sweet Inspiration The monthly deaf, sign language and LGBT-friendly reading and performance open mic series returns to the popular bakery.

4pm-7pm. 2239 Market St. www.facebook.com/ASLEpic

Cabaret Showcase Showdown @ Martuni’s Season 6 continues with the Best Pop Singer competition (contestants bring sheet music for two songs). Guest judge Brendan Getzell, cohosts are pianist Joe Wicht and Katya SmirnoffSkyy. $9. 7pm. 4 Valencia St.

Mon 28 30 Years of Collecting Art That Tells Our Stories @ GLBT History Museum Exhibit of collected drawings, paintings and sculptures from three decades of queer donations, guestcurated by Elisabeth Cornu. Free (members)-$5. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Amy Winehouse @ Contemporary Jewish Museum A Family Portrait features images of and ephemera from the estate of the deceased soul singer; Thru Nov. 1. Also, Tzedakah Box, Bound to be Held: A Book Show, Lamp of the Covenant ; and Hidden in Plain Sight!

T-Shirts and the Curation of Identity (thru Nov. 1) Lectures and gallery talks as well. Free (members)-$12.

Fri-Tue 11am-5pm, Thu 11am-8pm (closed Wed). 736 Mission St. 6557800. www.thecjm.org

Color of Life @ California Academy of Sciences Exhibits and planetarium shows with various live, interactive and installed exhibits about animals, plants and the earth; new exhibit focuses on vibrantly colored species of octopus, snake fish and other live creatures.

Special events each week, with adult nightlife parties most Thursday nights. $20-$35. Mon-Sat 9:30am-5pm. Sun 11am-5pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

Fri 25

Folsom Street Fair @ Folsom Street, 8th to 13th Streets

Brian Copeland returns with his acclaimed solo show about gun rights, suicide attempts and his personal struggles. $30-$100. Sundays 5:30pm. Thru Oct. 25. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Wildflower Exhibits @ SF Botanical Gardens See blooming floral displays, trees and plants in various beautiful gardens specific to region, plus Fotanicals: the Secret Language of Flowers, an exhibition of photographs by artist joSon. Daily walking tours and more.

Free-$15. Daily. Golden Gate Park.

661-1316. www.sfbotanicalgarden.org

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/

Rose Armin-Hoiland @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The Bay Area vocalist performs The Lost American JazzBook, original songs written in the style of classic American music, with a six-piece orchestra. $25-$40 ($20 food/drink min.) 7pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. ticketweb.com

West Wave Dance Fest @ Z Space 24th season of new works, including choreographers Janey Madamba, Laura Elaine Ellis and Nina Haft, Sean Dorsey, SoulSkin Dance, Mary Carbonara and many others. $15-$20.

8pm. Thru Sept 27. 450 Florida St. Thru Sept 27. www.safehousearts.info/westwave24

Thu 1 10 Percent @ Comcast David Perry’s online interviews with notable local and visiting LGBT people, broadcast through the week. Check for times on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/10Percent/66629477326 www.ComcastHometown.com

Mariinsky Ballet & Orchstra @ Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley

RedHOT Party @ 111 Minna Gallery

Richard Diebenkorn @ de Young Museum

The Waiting Period @ The Marsh

Rainbow Skate @ Redwood Roller Rink

The Russian ballet company and orchestra performs a modern version of Cinderella (music: Prokofiev, choreography: Alexei Ratmansky). $45-$175. Oct. 1-3, 8pm. also Sat 2pm & Sun 3pm. UC Berkeley campus, Bancroft Way at Dana St., Brekeley. www.calperformances.org

This is the world’s largest leather and fetish event, attended by thousands.

Multiple bands (featuring The Limousines, Pansy Division, Black Sabbitch, The Club Meds, and more), booths, kink demos, and more. Gate donations. 11am-6pm. www.folsomstreetevents.org

Modern paintings, thru Oct. 4. Also, Portals of the Past: Photographs of Willard Worden (thru Feb. 14), Royal Hawaiian Featherwork (thru Feb. 28).

Other exhibits of modern art as well.

Free/$25. Thru Sept. 20 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. www.famsf.org

Exhibit of contemporary works and historic exhibits of African cultures, with a shared group of works from SF MOMA. Thru Oct. 11. Free/$10. 685 Mission St. www.moadsf.org

Mugwumpin @ Intersection for the Arts

Tue 29 OUTspoken @ City Hall Outspoken: Portraits of LGBTQ Luminaries, an exhibit of photographs

by Roger Erickson. Ground floor, North Light Court. Thru Sept. 11. 1 Carlton B. Goodlet Place. sfgov.org

Queer Ancestors Project @ LGBT Center Exhibition of prints of iconic LGBTQ people, made by queer artists aged 18 to 26 (Corey Brown, daveron, Roxana Dhada, Hanna Kelly, Holly McHugh, Onyinye Alheri, Roxy Schoenfeld, Sasha Solomonov, madhvi trivedipathak, Weyam) and artistic director Katie Gilmartin. Thru Sept. 23. 1800 Market St. www.katiegilmartin.com/ queer-ancestors www.sfcenter.org

Fundraiser party for La Casa, SF’s oldest and largest anti-domestic violence provider; auction items include Las Vegas vacations, food & wine packages, Warriors tickets, several Disney resort trips and other vacation packages. $65. 6pm-9pm.

111. Minna St. www.lacasa.org To submit event listings, email events@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

30 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 24-30, 2015

Like a Roland Stonewall

by Gregg Shapiro

didn’t. Most of the time it’s shocking for me that LGBT kids don’t know about it. In general, we had a smart cast.

R

oland Emmerich, known for action-packed blockbusters such as Independence Day, might not be the first name that comes to mind to direct a movie about the Stonewall riots, which marked the launch of the modern-day LGBT rights movement as we know it. But that didn’t prevent the openly gay filmmaker from trying his hand at making the film. Featuring a screenplay by gay playwright Jon Robin Baitz, Stonewall, opening Friday, tells the story of corn-fed Midwestern boy Danny (Jeremy Irvine) arriving in New York in June, 1969. Befriended by trans hustler Ray (Jonny Beauchamp), aka Ramona, Danny undergoes a personal transformation to become not only an openly gay man, but also one who takes part in the famous Stonewall uprising.

Gregg Shapiro: Do you remember when you first became aware of the Stonewall riots?

Roland Emmerich: It was when I was in Germany. Everybody talked about the Stonewall riots. I knew quite a lot about it because I was interested in history.

Is there a target audience for Stonewall?

I made this movie, like all of my movies, for the biggest possible audience. I don’t think there’s a target audience. It’s just for people who are interested.

Parts of Stonewall are set in small-town Indiana, where the lead character Danny is from.

With the recent anti-gay kerfuffle in Indiana, was it coincidental

Were there books or other resources that you recommended to them?

Yes, we gave everybody a reading list. We also found two or three Stonewall veterans and asked them to help us. Some talked to cast members by phone, some in person, to tell them about the times, what music they listened to, how they felt.

Just to get a little bit of a feel that you can’t get out of books.

Who were some of the veterans?

One was Martin Boyce. There were several.

Stonewall director Roland Emmerich: ‘We had a smart cast.’

that Danny was from there?

That’s coincidental. The lead character is actually based on a friend of a friend. He has seen the movie and likes it. Basically, what we did first was show it to one or two advisors that we had from the Stonewall veterans. When they approved of it, I was very happy. They said that what we show and how we showed it are very accurate.

Would you like to see Stonewall do for the advancement of LGBT

rights what Selma did to renew awareness of civil rights?

Absolutely, that’s why we did the movie. Because there are a lot of young people who have no idea that the Stonewall riots spawned all these gay marches.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who plays activist Trevor, has previously played gay onscreen, in Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine. What was it like to work with him?

I have always been a fan. It always starts like that. I loved him in Velvet Goldmine. When you cast a movie, you probe around. You have a list, and he was very high on the list. We were fortunate that he wanted to do it.

A number of the cast members were born long after the Stonewall riots. Did any of them have an awareness of the events of June 28, 1969?

Some of them had, and some

The characters in the film are a blend of real (Marsha P. Johnson, Bob Kohler and Frank Kameny) and fictional people.

That’s the peculiar thing about the Stonewall riots. A lot of people take credit, but it’s very murky. One thing is very clear – it was a lot of the homeless kids that did it. And they’re nameless. It’s all very vague.

That was one of the difficulties in getting the movie made. On top of

“The Man That Got Away” for his German-born lover Jörn Weisbrodt.

Wainwright, a 5 ft. 11 in. human tornado on stage, can be almost painfully shy backstage. You would never suspect that the clean cut, elegantly dressed, very boyish man is an internationally acclaimed cabaret/ operatic singer with a repertoire that begins with his own compositions and extends to the work of such LGBTQ cult faves as the immortal Judy Garland. To grasp where the talented and eclectic singer-songwriter is coming from, you only have to glance at his playlist. “Beauty Mark” is an homage to his late mother, folksinger Kate McGarrigle; “Dinner at Eight” is about an argument he and dad Loudon Wainwright III had once; “Matinee Idol” is a tribute to the movie star River Phoenix, dead at 23; “Memphis Sky Line” is dedicated to another tragic figure, folk-rock singer Jeff Buckley.

As theatrical as his 42 years have been, they could have been even more over-the-top if his parents had followed through with their initial plan to name him Oscar. Born July 22, 1973, in the small village of Rhinebeck, NY, Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright started performing at 15.

Since he’s a dual US/Canadian citizen who spent a great deal of his childhood living with his mom in Montreal after his parents split when he was three, he’s a citizen of the world. His music was featured in the soundtrack for the 1997 film The Myth of Fingerprints (1997); he got Rolling Stone magazine’s nod for 1999’s Best New Artist; and he earned Juno Awards for Best Alternative Album in 1999 and 2002. This DVD, with its 18 featured songs (most his own compositions) and five encore pieces, is not his only excursion to the movies. He played Jeremy in the 2005 indie feature Heights, which he concedes was drawn from his own life.

Milwaukee At Last! is filled with

saucy one-liners including an introductory monologue in which he claims to be glad to be headlining in the city that gave us serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Watching the DVD is like attending a small house-party where one of the guests keeps everybody in stitches by saying rude things. It ends with a moving rendition of his “Gay Messiah,” originally written as a political anthem to be sung at parties.

Wainwright is clearly an artist who is pushing the artistic envelope in every possible direction: in the works are operas, ballads, show tunes and possibly another stab or two at acting on the big stage.

In a DVD that features backstage

t

it, I didn’t want to make it a stardriven movie. I was set on telling the stories of these unsung heroes.

Naturally, we realized that we had to have some historical characters.

When you talk about Stonewall, you can’t not talk about Marsha P. Johnson or Bob Kohler, or Frank Kameny or Ed Murphy. We based some of our fictional characters on famous people such as Sylvia Rivera.

It was cool for us to mix historical facts with fictional ones.

You have a long history of directing special effects-laden films. Did you feel like you had to dial it back for Stonewall?

My big movies helped me to make this film. We realized that this movie is only possible if we build a big set.

Everybody was really surprised how real it all looked. The whole movie was shot indoors. At first we wanted to do it in New York, in the Village.

But there was too much red tape, it would have been too expensive, and it would have taken way too long.

Also, there’s not much left [of the original streetscape]. A lot of the housing is totally different. We went for what I know from my movies, where you say, “Let’s build it, and in a way that nobody will know [the difference].”

Gay films have a history of controversy. I’m thinking of The Boys in the Band and Cruising. Were you prepared for the controversy that arose around Stonewall?

Not really! The amount of controversy, based on a trailer when nobody had seen the film, was strange to me. But what can you do?t

The beauty part

by David Lamble

T

he Rufus Wainwright: Milwaukee At Last! DVD opens in the dressing room of a theater named after a famous beer, Milwaukee’s legendary Pabst Blue Ribbon, the brand that Dennis Hopper’s madman “Frank” endorses in David

Lynch’s cult drama Blue Velvet. It’s the evening of August 27, 2007, and the Pabst is playing host to a performer every bit as surreal in style and substance as any of Blue Velvet’s denizens. In this intimate music disc’s opening scene, Rufus Wainwright is holding his iPhone while playing his version of Judy Garland’s

/lgbtsf

dressing-room asides from his band members about their love of wearing broaches, perhaps the best way to sum up Wainwright’s personal philosophy is this quote in which he drops a hint as to just how big are his ambitions: “Frank Sinatra has passed on the torch to me. But little did he know that he’d be passing it on to a gay opera queen. Everything I do, I feel, is genius. Whether it is or it isn’t.

I like to make the mundane fabulous whenever I can. I may not lead the most dramatic life, but in my brain it’s War and Peace everyday. I’ve developed into quite a swan. I’m one of those people that will probably look better and better as I get older – until I drop dead of beauty.”t

t

Theatre>>

September 24-30, 2015 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 31

Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, from San Francisco Opera.

<<

Sweeney Todd

From page 21

There is nothing in director Lee Blakely’s staging from Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris, 2011), repeated at Houston Grand Opera last spring, that will much surprise connoisseurs of the legendary entertainment. The size of the production and the casting of classically trained voices in lead roles demonstrate instead the enduring worth of Sondheim’s score and the strength of Hugh Wheeler’s tightly constructed book. It should also silence critics who think Sweeney can’t support such grand treatment.

There have been many interpretations, done in many sizes over the years. From Hal Prince’s original Victorian-style extravaganza to Off-Broadway’s 1989 chamber staging (Teeny Todd) to minimalist multi-tasking director John Doyle’s surprisingly effective deployment of singers doubling as orchestra, and numerous symphony concerts, including a magnificent San Francisco Symphony rendition in 2001. Most all have proved Sondheim’s material is virtually indestructible. Heck, a Bunraku Puppet version would probably work .

First and foremost, there must be an appreciation of the exquisite sophistication of the lyrics. If you want to stage Sweeney as opera or operetta, singspiel, vaudeville or big, brash Broadway show, it’s all good, as long as we get the words. Surprisingly, the SFO production sometimes comes perilously close to the edge.

Amplification and sound design are not new to the Opera House.

Actors and singers from the popular stage must project alongside voices trained for big auditoriums, and some electronic boosting is required. All principals for the current production have been fitted with body microphones, “primarily to assist with clarity of dialogue.” After the subtle microphoning done for the recent Show Boat, the sound design in Sweeney proves more intermittently effective. Voices are sometimes disconcertingly close or

disembodied, and hard to match with the speakers’ positions. Projection of the dialogue is accomplished, but dramatic nuance (or humor) is occasionally lost. It doesn’t sink the show, but it is distracting and should be fixed.

If you want to concentrate on the wit of the wordplay easily, the two most important characters in Blakely’s staging are, thankfully, delivering performances of outsized excellence utilizing personal acoustical power.

American baritone Brian Mulligan may seem a little one-note in his angrily seething representation of the revenge-crazed title character, but his ticking time-bomb interior is superbly clarified by his rich and communicative voice. His range is remarkable, especially fine at the bottom, and his somewhat restrained depiction of Sweeney’s unbearable angst builds to a substantial portrait of a man possessed.

Also relying on voice (oh mama, what a voice!), but also some impeccable comic timing, American mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe boldly tears down the house as the barber’s partner-in-crime Mrs. Lovett.

Darker and maybe a little meaner than others before her in the role of London’s cannibalistic pie-maker, Blythe is still a welcome comic foil to Mulligan. Her utter amorality is perversely funny and even a little sympathetic.

Making his SFO debut as the ardent young sailor Anthony, baritone Elliot Madore displays an unusual tone that gives his character depth. He sings the gorgeous song “Johanna” with an impact that is also dramatically convincing. He is amplified in dialogue, but I wonder (as with Mulligan and Blythe) if it is really necessary.

Soprano Heidi Stober is less successful as the imperiled and humorously ditzy object of his affection. Her bright tone is appropriate, and her physical presence is appealing. Without the supertitles (and our familiarity with the lyrics), though, much of her performance is hard to understand.

Bass-baritone Wayne Tigges

(well-remembered from the SFO world premiere of Dolores Claiborne) adds the role of the wicked Judge Turpin to his repertoire of operatic baddies with characterful assurance.

A little bland in the acting department but thoroughly believable in their vocalism, tenor Al Glueckert (former SFO Adler Fellow) and soprano Elizabeth Futral (looking a bit too fresh) help the plot speed along as they portray the slimy Beadle Bamford and the mad Beggar Woman. We won’t spoil the crazy lady’s big “reveal” if you haven’t seen the show, but it’s a knockout.

Tenor Matthew Grills, a winner of the 2012 Metropolitan Opera National Auditions, sings the role of Tobias Ragg and his part in the duet “Nothing’s Gonna Harm You” with heart-stopping expressiveness. His deft combination of operatic and Broadway lyricism earned him one of the heartiest audience ovations of the night.

Ian Robertson’s SFO Chorus, assuming many characters with customary skill, raises genuine goosebumps as the Ensemble of Londoners, stevedores, industrialists and policemen.

The production design of Tanya McCallin (SFO debut) is mammoth and claustrophobic, not unlike the famous original Broadway design

by Eugene Lee, but with dark-hued costuming and monochromatic lighting by Rick Fisher, the stage picture is even more menacing.

Jonathan Tunick’s marvelous orchestrations (as recognizable in so many Sondheim scores as the legendary collaboration of Robert Russell Bennett and Richard Rodgers) secure a rightful place for Sweeney Todd in the canon of great popular American operas.

The orchestra, even with reduced strings (25), under conductor Patrick Summers (James Lowe will make his SFO debut in the closing performance on Sept. 29) helps convey a symphonic sweep, and the participation of organist Simon Berry (SFO debut) adds to the sense of restless musical foreboding.

Sondheim has never pronounced a personal favorite among his works, but judging from the recent audience response, his enthralling tale of Sweeney Todd will likely become his greatest legacy.t In repertory through Tues., Sept. 29.

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Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Soprano Heidi Stober as Johanna and baritone Elliot Madore as Anthony in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.

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36

36

Opera and Openings

NIGHTLIFE

DINING

Cured?

SPIRITS

Billy Santoro

SOCIETY

ROMANCE

LEATHER

PERSONALS Vol. 45 • No. 39 • September 24-30, 2015

www.ebar.com V www.bartabsf.com Rich Stadtmiller

42

A Fair for the Kinky

by Race Bannon

W

hat San Francisco event fits this profile?

•Attended by more than 200,000 people.

•Draws 71% of its attendees from outside the city of San Francisco (and 42% from outside the Bay Area).

•Among those out of town visitors, 89% state the event is their primary reason for visiting San Francisco.

•Has a huge positive economic impact on the city of $180 million.

•Is the premiere leather and kink event in the world.

If you answered Folsom Street Fair, you’re correct!

See page 38 >>

A smooch between leather daddies at the 2014 Folsom Street Fair.

The Folsom Street Fire: Anatomy of a Sex Panic How authorities and the mainstream press injected hysteria and stigma into a disaster

by Michael Flanagan

O

n the evening of July 10, 1981 a worker from Millbrae who had working on the conversion of the former Folsom Street Barracks into a hotel became convinced his tools had been stolen and in a fit of pique set the building on fire.

See page 35 >>

“Remains of the July 10 Five-Alarm Fire, Hallam Street,” by Janet Delaney.

{ THIRD OF THREE SECTIONS }

is proud to be the exclusive LGBT newspaper sponsor of the 2015 Folsom Street Fair.

t <<

Read more online at www.ebar.com

September 24-30, 2015 • Bay Area Reporter • 35

Folsom Street Fire

From page 33

I

n the ensuing conflagration (at the time the biggest since the 1906 fire that followed the earthquake), 27 buildings were consumed and many people were displaced.

Though the fire had nothing to do with the leather or gay communities, the response of the authorities and the hysteria of the press did their best to stigmatize both.

Coverage in the San Francisco Examiner included statements like: “At the height of the fire, several gays alarmed fire officials by reporting that people might be chained to beds and trapped in sado-machistic (sic) playlands.”

The article reported that “Chief Casper, who had ordered a temporary morgue set up in an alley after firefighters said they smelled “burning meat,” admitted, “I think it got a little exaggerated initially.”

The description of the building that started the fire emphasized its former use: “The fire is believed to have started on the ground floor of a former gay bathhouse known as the Folsom Street Barracks.”

The Chronicle was even more lurid, saying “the fire started in an abandoned gay bathhouse” and included a photo with the caption, “Whips and chains and leather harnesses filled one corner of a burnedout apartment.”

It was also reported (and subsequently disproved) that the amyl nitrate product Rush had fueled the flames, with an article that identified the manufacturer in the title as a “Sex Enhancer Firm.” And the drumbeat of casualties continued with articles two days later entitled “Officials fear bodies may be found in fire ruins” and on July 14 “’Rumors That 3 Are Missing In Big S.F. Fire.”

The gay press took on the straight press’ sensationalism. In a cover story, “The Fallout From a Blaze.” The Bay Area Reporter’s Allen White pointed out the preoccupation of Channel 4’s Dave Fowler with reporting the fire had taken place in the “gay ghetto” and sensational on-air references to “slave headquarters,” “sado-masochistic rituals” and the obsession with the former “gay bath house.”

White pointed out that the fire was hardly a “gay fire” and that of the 116 people displaced by the fire, 27 were children.

Fire Chief Andrew Casper was taken to task for saying “people may be chained to beds.” White reported gay men were receiving calls from relatives asking if they were “sinning in slings” and reported that Supervisor Harry Britt received over 100 calls on the fire before noon of the following day.

An editorial in the B.A.R. said that the fire chief ’s sensationalistic comments had been “carried nationwide on network TV and radio – unleashing an orgy of media titillation.”

In reference to the firemen’s comments that they smelled “burning meat” the B.A.R.’s political columnist Wayne Friday asked, “What were they smoking?” and suggested SFFD Chief Andy Caspar deserved a “boot in the ass” for his comments to the press.

In the midst of all this, the paper reported that SFFD’s Deputy Chief Ray Landi told the S.F. Progress, “Gays are more prone to have lover’s quarrels and are more prone for actually setting an entire building on fire because of revenge.”

One person at the center of the

Dennis Brumm

Michael Flanagan

Left: Wreckage of the July 1981 Folsom fire. Right: Brush Street today.

Left: A Flyer for ‘Fire in the Fast Lane,’ an exhibit of Mark I. Chester photos in 1981.

Right: “Bound in Uniform” by Mark I. Chester

hysteria was the photographer Mark I. Chester. His apartment, at 19 Brush Street, had survived the fire.

But it was his bed in the “whips and chains” photo and his home that was described in the S.F. Chronicle as having “a torture chamber used by sado-masochists complete with hooks, chains and manacles attached to the bed.” The gay press didn’t help, with the B.A.R.’s editorial referring to “bizarre homosexual sex practices.”

In his new photography book City of Wounded Boys & Sexual Warriors, Chester recounts, “When I was escorted back into my place after the fire I was shocked to discover that many of my personal belongings, including boxes of my photographs and my sex gear, had either been ransacked or stolen.”

I asked Chester if, as an artist, the fire stimulated his work or if he was paralyzed by the trauma.

“Both,” he replied. “I was told, even by other leathermen, that I deserved what happened to me for being so public. As I say in my book, the fire kicked me artistically into a whole new photographic universe, both in terms of subject matter and technique.”

One of the few places that gave Chester with support at the time was Peter Hartman’s 544 Natoma gallery, which held both a benefit and an exhibition of his work. His latest exhibit (in conjunction with his book release) is on display at the Center for Sex and Culture (1349 Mission St.). www.markichester.com The hysteria related to the event

acted as a spur for many artists, including author and former Drummer editor-in-chief Jack Fritscher.

“I’ve written quite a lot about it, including one scene inside an apartment on fire in [the novel] Some Dance To Remember,” said Fritscher, who also wrote about the fire in Drummer and continues to be inspired (it will be featured in a forthcoming book as well).

Photographer Janet Delaney also documented the fire, and the resulting work can be seen in her book South Of Market, which was also the title of her exhibition at the de Young Museum earlier this year.

The 1981 Folsom Street Fire is a bridge between the days of conflict between the authorities and the LGBT community typified by the Milk/Moscone murders and later events such as the AIDS epidemic and the gentrification of SoMa. Mark Chester told me that firemen and police at the site of the fire were still wearing “Free Dan White” T-shirts. He also told me this was part and parcel of the stigmatization of S&M in the press.

In response to Coroner Boyd Stephens’ workshops on S&M safety in March, 1981, Mayor Diane Feinstein told the press, “It is my belief that S&M is dangerous to society and I’m not eager to have it attracted to San Francisco.”

Author Gayle Rubin sites the fire as one of the early steps to remove leather from South of Market in her thesis The Valley of the Kings: Leathermen in San Francisco, 1960-1990.

It’s a small step from seeing the leather community perceived as a

place where people are left chained to beds in a fire to seeing them as so unconcerned with life as to be freely spreading AIDS. In an essay in Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture, Rubin points out the notion that HIV was more prevalent for leathermen is unsupported.

Sex panics, however, are viral and freely transmit their hysteria and stigma for years after they are gone.

It’s worth remembering that such hysteria is not always in rural states, and did not stop in the 1950s. They are a part of San Francisco history and colored perceptions of sexuality in the not too distant past.t

Mark I. Chester’s ‘City of Wounded Boys & Sexual Warriors,’ the veteran local photographer’s collection of erotic, leather and kink images, is paired with the publication of his new photo book.

Thru Sept. 27. Center for Sex & Culture 1349 Mission St. www.markichester.com Janet Delany’s New York City photos are currently on exhibit through Sept 25 at Jules Maeght Gallery, 149 Gough Street. www.julesmaeghtgallery.com www.janetdelaney.com

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

36 • Bay Area Reporter • September 24-30, 2015

Opera & openings

t

by Donna Sachet

C

ongratulations to the Richmond/Ermet Aid Foundation, recently renamed in order to reflect their commitment to assisting organizations beyond their original AIDS focus, such as hunger and homelessness. At a party at E&O Kitchen & Bar, they announced proceeds of $80,000 from their annual Help is on the Way event to be split between Meals on Wheels and the SF AIDS Foundation. Enthusiastic supporters in attendance included Sophie Azouaou, Doug Waggener, Paula West, Marc Sternberger, John Zowine, Bob Dockendorff, Andy & Bong Leas, Skye Paterson, and Michael Loftis.

Opening Night of the San Francisco Opera on Friday, September 12, certainly lived up to its reputation for glorious opera, sumptuous gowns, and social frivolity! Our timing couldn’t have been better, as we eased into valet parking on Van Ness with our ever-handsome escort Richard Sablatura and were greeted by the gracious Jon Finck, SF Opera Director of Communications and Public Affairs.

Within minutes, Carolyne Zinko, Catherine Bigelow, and Tony Bravo of the SF Chronicle and Shara Hall of the Nob Hill Gazette peppered us with questions amid the swirl of

both photos: Steven Underhill

Left: Jon Finck, Richard Sablatura and Donna Sachet at the SF Opera opening night. Right: Glam gowns at the SF Opera opening night.

other arriving guests. Safely inside the gleaming glass doors of the Opera House, we chatted amiably with Mayor Willie Brown & Sonya Molodetskaya, Lewis Sykes & Jim Connor, David Laudon & Randy Laroche, John Rosin, Daru Kawalkowski, Mark Rhoades, and others.

As a devotee of fashion, we were particularly taken by the stunning

gowns of Charlot Malin, Deepa Pakianathan, Yuka Uehara, Karen Caldwell, Marilyn Cabak, and Dede Wilsey. In the upstairs al fresco loggia, we welcomed a cool breeze and sensational views with members of Bravo! Club, the Opera’s younger support group, where we mingled with colleagues from this publication, Marybeth La Motte of Red Carpet Bay Area,

Steven Underhill

Richmond/Ermet Aid Foundation check presentation party at E&O Kitchen & Bar.

Ludmila Eggleton, Lauren Groff, Laurie Diab, Shannon Eliot, and Christopher Wiseman.

As we entered for the performance, we were once again overwhelmed by the opulent setting we have in San Francisco for Grand Opera and many other appropriate events. In addition to the beautifully detailed architectural elements and rich gold curtain, red and pink roses

Steven Underhill

D’Lady Ito’s hilarious puppet routine at GAPA’s Runway 27.

draped the exclusive boxes which sweep overhead.

Immediately before the performance, outgoing and much beloved General Director David Gockley received a warm standing ovation.

We’ll leave the artistic criticism to others far more qualified, but Giuseppe Verdi’s seldom produced Luisa Miller was a wonderful start to the season, containing all the classic elements of bel canto, including luscious musical performances, a tragic love story, and dazzling Italian vocal pyrotechnics.

During the intermission, we beelined for the press room to catch up with Communications Associate Teresa Concepcion and our vivacious friend and Head Usher Billy Repp. Back in the lobby, we caught up with AT&T’s Ken McNeely, Joel Goodrich, James Krohn, Charlotte Shultz, Roselyn Swig, and Madeline Erhlich.

The opera ended with a well-deserved standing ovation and the San Francisco Opera Medal presented on stage to Francesca Zambello.

Then it was off to the elaborately decorated tent on Grove Street for the after party, where we were deSee page 37 >>

Cured? One man’s on-again, off-again relationship with HIV

by Max Leger

E

from his multiple collaborative photoshoots with Dot. “It certainly is a lot to think about,” remarked Corbin Jensen, who happened to be in town after going to Burning Man. “HIV is something that is always on my mind, particularly while negotiating safer sex with my partners. It gives me hope to see that Strobe is contributing to medical research towards finding a cure.”

Following the book launch, Strobe co-hosted Meow Mix, along with regular host Ferosha Titties and fellow performer Corpus Hideous. Due to the subject matter covered in Cured?, most of the performances of the evening were on the darker side.

Strobe’s second number featured two ghostly back-up dancers, a headpiece with dozens of syringes, and several quarts of (stage) blood; a visceral representation of the intense medical testing he has endured.

“Having Meow Mix as an outlet has been incredibly helpful to me,” said Strobe. “It has allowed me to process the ambiguity of my situation in a way that words just cannot touch.”t

ver since HIV wreaked havoc upon the world, everyone who is sexually active has had to contend with it. With the introduction of anti-retroviral drugs, and with their recent application as a preventative measure, HIV is now a more manageable, if still serious, medical condition.

Luis Paul Canales, known throughout the San Francisco PhotobyDot drag community by the name Strobe, has a relationship with Photographer Dot (right), with Strobe HIV so unique that at one point performing. Dot then suggested doctors at UCSF sent a quart they colloborate together on phoof his white blood cells to Johns toshoots representing what Strobe Hopkins Medical Center, where was going through. they were injected into 50 lab rats The end result is Cured?, a photo to determine if Strobe had sucbook comprised of editorial photos, cessfully cured himself of HIV. stills from various performances, The results showed there were Facebook conversations and text that still some lingering traces, but so illustrate this fascinating journey. minor as to suggest there may be On September 15, Strobe and something in Strobe’s physiology Dot hosted a book launch party that enabled it to block HIV from for Cured? at The Stud, prior to the replicating itself. weekly variety show Meow Mix, Needless to say, it has been a rewhich Strobe has been an integral markable journey for this young part of for the last two years. As the man. After meeting Strobe at a evening progressed, people curiparty in 2013 shortly after he was ous about Strobe’s story checked originally diagnosed, photogout copies of the book, as well as rapher Tom Schmidt (aka Dot) For more information about several dozen photos of Strobe started taking pictures of Strobe Cured?, visit photosbydot.com

PhotoByDot

Strobe, transforming his experiences into performance.

t <<

Read more online at www.ebar.com

September 24-30, 2015 • Bay Area Reporter • 37

Opera and openings

From page 36

lighted to exchange greetings with Paul & Nancy Pelosi, admittedly sharing in our fading energy, having only arrived from the East Coast that afternoon.

After a few more conversations with the likes of Robert Beadle, Maria Pitcairn, Milton Mosk, Thomas Foutch, and Saks Fifth Avenue’s Robert Arnold-Kraft, we called it a night, reveling in another “only in San Francisco” experience, blending the best of artistic expression, event production, and social interaction.

The very next day, we arose bright and early for the annual Pride membership meeting when new board members are elected and a Parade theme is selected. After all the talk on the street of a swollen membership roster, the attendance was good, but certainly not groundbreaking.

We suppose that those most concerned chose to be most engaged. It was a vigorous process, but all went smoothly and new board members have been announced elsewhere in this publication. Once again, we must congratulate the transitioning board on its many accomplishments, putting our internationally recognized Pride events back on firm footing and with transparent administration.

We than had to fly to attend the Castro Theatre mid-afternoon screening of My Brother’s Shoes, Adam Reeves’ first film, produced entirely in the Bay Area and part of the California Independent Film Festival. Watch for additional screenings and wider distribution of this charming modern fairy tale about the strength of family and the full impact of wishes come true. A short Q&A followed the screening and then photographs on the red carpet with cast and crew, including Gretta Sosine, Jacob Ellis, Blake Fiegert, Robert Vann, and yes, this intrepid columnist, who has a minor role in the film.

Afterwards, we all adjourned to Beaux where the Imperial Court’s Special K afternoon fundraiser was in full swing, led by Empress Misty Blue.

We ended the night with Michael Loftis and CoCo Butter at Fort Mason’s Cowell Theatre for GAPA’s Runway XXVII, Under the Sea, hosted by Mister GAPA 2013 Sir Whitney Queers and Miss GAPA 2012 Jezebel Patel. This is always an enjoyable and competitive event, consisting of categories of fantasy presentation, evening wear and interview, and final question with a stellar judging panel this year of City Supervisor Jane Kim, Lily Rose, China Silk, Lydia Neff, Brenda & Libby, Mario Diaz, and Tamiko Wong.

Six vied for Miss GAPA and three for Mr. GAPA, each bringing a bevy of supporters and their best face forward. Additional entertainment was provided by Squirrel Friends. Because of their long and close relationship with GAPA, the Imperial Court was well represented throughout and given special recognition from the stage. The room hung with anticipation as the competition came to a close and the winners were announced: Mr. GAPA 2015 is Dez and Miss GAPA 2015 is D’Lady Ito! We wish them a fun and productive year.

Believe it or not, there is much more ahead, especially this weekend as Ducal Coronation (Saturday, September 26, Hotel Whitcomb), Folsom Street Fair (Sunday, September 27), and all the related activities collide. We hope to see you all around town, always dressed appropriately, whatever that means these days, and especially smiling ear to ear.

Say what you will, we live at an incredible time. Don’t sit idly on the sidelines; join the parade!t

Steven Underhill

PHOTOGRAPHY 479 Castro Street , San Francisco • (415) 431-5365 • www.cliffsvariety.com

bawsca.org/DROUGHT

415 370 7152

WEDDINGS, HEADSHOTS, PORTRAITS

stevenunderhill.com · stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com

sfwater.org/DROUGHT

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

38 • Bay Area Reporter • September 24-30, 2015

Rich Stadtmiller

Beary gathering at the 2014 Folsom Street Fair.

<<

A Fair for the Kinky

From page 33

It’s that time of year again when the entire city comes alive with everything leather and kink, all of it leading up to the highlight event, Folsom Street Fair, produced by the nonprofit organization, Folsom Street Events (www.folsomstreetevents.org). The Fair will be on Sunday, September 27, 2015, from 11am to 6pm, on Folsom Street from 8th to 13th streets and expanding into many of the adjoining side streets.

While Folsom Street Events produces a number of events such as the Up Your Alley street fair, the recently completed LeatherWalk, and the dance events that accompany their street fairs (Bay of Pigs, Magnitude and Deviants), there is no doubt that Folsom Street Fair is the Grand Poobah of their events.

Also, unlike their other events, Folsom Street Fair overtly welcomes a broad range of men and women of all orientations and kinky persuasions. No matter what your kinky proclivity, the fair is a destination you must experience, if you have not already. There is truly nothing else like it anywhere.

Folsom Street Events’ mission is to unite the adult alternative lifestyle communities with safe spaces for self-expression and exciting entertainment. They most certainly do that, with Folsom Street Fair being a primary example. They also raise funds to help sustain San Franciscobased and national charities.

So remember, all of the net proceeds from Folsom Street Fair, and all of the other events produced by

Folsom Street Events, is distributed to a wide range of worthy nonprofit organizations. So when you drop your donation into the bucket as you enter the fair, you’re helping to do some good for others and yourself.

When you’re not people-watching at the Fair as you stroll down the blocks of leather-clad and fetishwearing people –and their admirers– one of the enjoyable ways to engage with the local and national kink scene is to visit the many booths that populate the entire fairgrounds.

Not sure what booths to visit?

At the fair is a merchandise booth that doubles as a fair information resource. There you can pick up copies of the program guide, maps, and more. Especially if you’re new to attending, do yourself a favor and get this information when you arrive to make the most of your fair experience.

There’s so much happening at the fair that it’s easy to get lost amid the masses.

Among the many booths that stretch for blocks are leather and kink gear retailers, various nonprofit organizations, event producers, porn companies, lube and sex toy companies, representatives of many clubs and groups, and much more.

A lot of the booths will be familiar to long-time fair attendees. Certain companies, groups and organizations have participated for many years. However, the nice thing about the leather and kink scene is that it’s always growing and morphing into ever-expanding areas of interest. So naturally, new types of booths are

t

Race Bannon

Members of the SF K9 Unit at this year’s Pride parade lineup.

added each year.

One relatively new group that will have a booth at the Folsom Street Fair for a second year is Tykables (formerly called Snuggies - www. snuggiesdiapers.com), a company that focuses on the ABDL (Adult Baby Diaper Lovers) lifestyle. The company sells adult-sized diapers to those who enjoy the lifestyle.

The ABDL lifestyle and fetish, also often referred to as infantilism, is a much misunderstood interest (and no, it has nothing to do with any underage participants). While the Tykables booth will sell their products, the booth will also serve as a place where people can stop by and ask questions should they be curious about this particular erotic interest. They’ll even offer the chance to take a fun photo with some of the oversized adult baby props they’ll have on hand.

Another relatively new booth offering is the San Francisco K9 Unit (www. sfk9unit.org). The SF K9 Unit is a social organization for people who enjoy puppy play, a style of erotic play that’s become incredibly popular over the last few years. The group participates in the fair to inform attendees that the puppy/Handler scene is socially fun, playful and accepting no matter who you are, what you look like or what you wear.

The SF K9Unit space will have a multi-booth area for puppy playing, socializing and lots of great interaction throughout the day with each other, visiting pups and Handlers, and the crowd. They’ll have booth spaces with gymnastic-quality mats

BARtab

Popular dancer Paul William atop a gogo platform at the 2013 Folsom Street Fair.

in them (for comfortable puppy “romping”). There’s even a “group howl” at noon.

Yet another relatively new group that will have a booth at the fair is the Rubber Men of San Francisco (www.rmsf.org), a San Franciscobased social organization dedicated to developing their membership through community outreach and support as well as providing social experiences and fetish events for rubber enthusiasts.

The three booths I just described are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg in terms of the wide array of booths you’ll find at the fair, not to mention the beverage and food vendors, amazing selection of top name entertainment, dance areas, and more.

Folsom Street Fair is truly a time and place where it is safe for you to express yourself erotically (within

legal limits, of course) while newcomers and old-timers alike can continue to learn and explore more of themselves.

The Folsom Street Fair is the ultimate expression of a diverse community coming together, uniting for a day of BDSM and kink exploration, fun and flirtation, and all while raising a lot of money for some worthwhile charitable organizations.

It’s no understatement that there really is nothing else in the world quite like the Folsom Street Fair.

Enjoy.t Race Bannon is a local author, blogger and activist. You can reach him through the contact page on his website, www.bannon.com.

For Folsom Street Fair-related events, see page 42.

both Photos: Rich Stadtmiller

Left: Women combine glam and kink fashion at the 2014 Folsom Street Fair.

Right: Men wear lots of leather -or very little- at the 2014 Folsom Street Fair.

<< On the Tab

40 • Bay Area Reporter • September 24-30, 2015

t

Sat 26

I am the future of the LGBT community.

Grace Jones @ Fox Theatre, Oakland

I’m gay.

I’m 22 years old and I’m an exchange student from Spain. Going to college here means a fun time, lots of hard work and getting to see new things.

It also means a chance to really be myself. My parents are supportive of my sexuality, and my host family here is a couple with two teenage boys. Nobody cares if they’re gay or straight. I’m excited to be part of a world where that can be true.

I am the future of the LGBT community. And I read about that future every day on my Android tablet. Because that’s where I want it to be.

On the Tab

Sept. 24Oct. 1, 2015

W

e all know what the biggest event is this weekend. You’ve probably already dragged your chaps out of the closet to get the wrinkles out.

We see you, leather novices! Enjoy Folsom Street Fair, and hopefully, some of the other sexy, kinky (or not so kinky) events this week.

Thu 24

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

Chris Cornell @ Paramount Theatre, Oakland The person depicted here is a model. Their image is being used for illustrative purposes only.

Thursday Night Live @ SF Eagle Music with local and touring bands.

398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.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

The lead singer-composer for Soundgarden performs an extended acoustic set as part of his solo tour. $40-$70. 7:30pm. Broadway, Oakland. (510) 465-6400. www.chriscornell.com www.paramounttheatre.com

Will & Anthony Nunziata @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko

Circle Jerk @ Nob Hill Theatre

Fri 25

Porn stud Billy Santoro leads the very interactive event (before his stage act Sept. 25 & 26)at the famed strip club. $10. 9pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 3976758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

DIFFA Designs @ NWBLK Cocktail and food fundraiser showcases designs for sale via silent auction, and Bay Area AIDS/HIV nonprofits from the past three decades. $100 and up. 6pm9pm. 1999 Bryant St. www.diffasf.org/2015event/

Homo Thursdays @ Qbar Franko DJs the weekly mash-up/ pop music night. No cover. 2 for 1 well drinks, 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.qbarsf.com

Ladies of San Francisco @ Club OMG Miss Galilea Avila hosts the new weekly “old school drag show” with guest performers. Shows at 10:15 and 11:30pm. 43 6th St. www.clubOMGsf.com

Mary Go Round @ Lookout Mercedez Munro and Holotta Tymes weekly drag show. $5. 10:30pm show.

3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Men at Work @ Oasis Jon Shield hosts a night of porn dudes Tyler Rush, Rob Skelton and Cass Bolton doing pre-Folsom fetish demos. $10. 298 11th St. at Folsom.

795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

The Monster Show @ The Edge The weekly drag show continues, with gogo guys and hilarious fun. $5. 9pm2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Star Trek Live @ Oasis Enjoy another wacky parody of a TV script, this time the classic sci-fi show, with Leigh Crow, Honey Mahogany, Jordan L’Moore, Amber Sommerfield, Jef Valentine and others. $25 and up.

Thu-Sat at 7pm. Thru Oct 31. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Twin brother singing duo performs classics, pop, Broadway and standards. $25-$40 ($20 food/drink min). 8pm.

Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 6631063. www.ticketweb.com

Bearracuda @ Public Works Tony Moran, Matt Effect, Freddy Kop and Media DJ the various areas at the expansive nightclub, for the annual beartastic Folsom edition dance party. $20-$30. 9pm-4am. 161 Erie St. www.bearracuda.com

Brüt @ Beatbox The New York kink-leather dance party returns. $15-$20. 10pm-3am.

314 11th St. www.beatboxsf.com

Club Papi @ Oasis The hot Latin dance night gets kinky for a pre-Folsom weekend event, with DJs Frisco Robbie Juna, and Sebastian de la Madrid. $ 10pm-3am. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Hard Fridays @ Qbar DH Haute Toddy’s weekly electro-pop night with hotty gogos. $3. 9pm-2am (happy hour 4pm-9pm). 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Latin Explosion @ Club 21, Oakland Lulu, Jacki, and Vicki cohost the festive gogo-filled dance club that features Latin pop dance hits with DJs Speedy Douglas Romero and Fabricio. $6-$12. 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. (510) 268-9425. www.club21oakland.com

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

Megan Hilty @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The Broadway and TV singing star performs songs from the show Smash, show classics and selections from her album It Happens All the Time. $70$85 ($20 food/drink min.). 8pm. Also Sept 26 & 27 7pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.meganhiltyonline.com www.ticketweb.com

t

On the Tab>>

September 24-30, 2015 • Bay Area Reporter • 41

El Mundo @ Empire Ballroom

ShangriLa @ The EndUp

Monday Musicals @ The Edge

The new weekly Latin night at the Civic Center renovated nightclub features drag shows, gogo guys and gals, and DJed grooves. 9pm-3am.

555 Golden Gate. www.theempireroomsf.com

The new Asian Men 2016 Calendar launch and underwear fashion show highlights the popular dance night. $10-$20. 10pm-6am. 401 6th St. www.shangrilasf.net

Sing along at the popular musical theatre night; also Wednesdays. 7pm2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing.

4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Sun 27

Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni’s

Seth Santoro, Billy Santoro @ Nob Hill Theatre Enjoy hot duo sex shows with the two porn studs, who are married! $25.

8pm & 10pm. Also Sept. 26. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Some Thing @ The Stud Mica Sigourney and pals’ weekly offbeat drag performance night. 10pm2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Tiara Sensation Pageant @ de Young Museum The Some Thing drag crew invades the museum with its fifth annual pageant. $15. 6:30pm. Wilsey Court, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park. www.deyoung.famsf.org

Sat 26

Beer Bust @ Hole in the Wall Saloon Beer only $8 until you bust.

4pm-8pm. 1369 Folsom St. 431-4695. www.hitws.com

Big Deck @ SF Eagle Daytime dancing at the famed leather bar (3rd Saturdays), with DJs Collin Bass, Mark O’Brien and M*J*R. 2pm8pm. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.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

Aftershock @ City Nights Popular post-Folsom afterhours dance party. $30-$40. 10pm-4am.

715 Harrison St. www.aftershocksf. eventbrite.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

Cabaret Showcase Showdown @ Martuni’s Season 6 continues with the Best Pop Singer competition (contestants bring sheet music for two songs). Guest judge Brendan Getzell, cohosts are pianist Joe Wicht and Katya SmirnoffSkyy. $9. 7pm. 4 Valencia St.

Cubhouse @ The Stud Post-Folsom dance for bears, big men, and their pals, with DJs Mike Biggz and BigMike. 6pm-12am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Deviants @ Mezzanine The official closing party of Folsom Street Fair, with a diverse group of queer kinky folk, DJs Harvey, Honey Sounsystem. $30-$75. 6pm-2am. 444 Jessie St. www.folsomstreetevents.org

Domingo De Escandal @ Club OMG Weekly Latin night with drag shows hosted by Vicky Jimenez and DJ Tejeda. 7pm-2am. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Folsom Street Fair @ Folsom Street, 8th to 13th Streets

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. www.the440.com

Tue 29 13 Licks @ Qbar

The “lezzie queer dance party” brings out the femmes and butches. 9pm2am. 456 Castro St. 864-2877. www.qbarsf.com

Funny Tuesdays @ Harvey’s 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

Meow Mix @ The Stud 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

Naked Night @ Nob Hill Theatre Strip down at the famous strip club for dancer shows and refreshments. $20.

9pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 3976758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

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

Underwear Night @ Club OMG

Jesus U. BettaWork’s wacky comedy night, with Griffin Daley, Kristee Ono, Joe Gorman, Sia Amma, Yuriy Mikhalevskiy, Chey Bell and Jessica Sele. Free. 8pm. 4122 18th St. www.magnetsf.org

This is the world’s largest leather and fetish event, attended by thousands.

Multiple bands (featuring The Limousines, Pansy Division, Black Sabbitch, The Club Meds, and more), booths, kink demos, and more. Gate donations. 11am-6pm. www.folsomstreetevents.org

Code @ The Edge

Morning After BBQ @ Oasis

The montly leather night at the neighborhood bar. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

The weekly barbeque brunch on the newly opened rooftop deck, with Mimosas and Bloody Mary cocktails.

11am-3pm. $10. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

Wed 30

Chile Con Comedy @ Magnet

Dark Room @ The Stud The pre-Folsom party encourages leather, and lace, with a special Grace Jones tribute, and post-punk industrial music, with shows at 12am and 1:30am. 10pm-3am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Ducal Coronation @ Hotel Whitcomb SF Ducal Court holds its annual coronation gala, with MCs Grand Duke TJ Wilkinson and Grand Duchess Roxy-Cotton Candy; related events throughout the weekend. $40. 6pm.

1231 Market St. www.sfducal.org

Grace Jones @ Fox Theatre, Oakland The incomparable diva returns for a full-length concert; pull up to the bumber, baby. $55-$75. 8pm. 1807 Telegraph Ave. (510) 302-2250. www.thefoxoakland.com

Industry @ Beatbox Nina Flowers and Paul Goodyear DJ the big Folsom circuit party known to attract hunks galore. $33-$50. 10pmlate. 314 11th St. at Folsom. www.beatboxsf.com

Magnitude @ Midway The official Saturday night dance event of Folsom Street Fair, with DJs Danny Verde and Pagano, sexy play tent and kink gear encouraged; coat/clothes check. $100. 9pm-4am. 900 Marin St. www.folsomstreetevents.org

Mother @ Oasis Heklina’s weekly drag show night with different themes, always outrageously hilarious. $10-$25. 10pm-2am. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

Femme, Xtravaganza @ Balancoire Weekly live music shows with 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

Real Bad XXVII @ 1015 Folsom The 27th annual fundraiser dance party following Folsom Street Fair. 7pm-2am.

1015 Folsom St. www.realbad.org

Top of the Hole @ DNA Lounge Ten-year anniversary of the annual Folsom weekend party, with DJs Prince Wolf, Paul Goodyear, Sergio Fedasz, Juanita More! and others.

1pm-10pm. 375 11th St. www.dnalounge.com

Mon 28

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

Hysteria @ Oasis Irene Tu and Jessica Sele cohost the comedy open mic night for women and queers. No cover. 6pm. 298 11th St. at Folsom. www.sfoasis.com

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

Weekly underwear night includes free clothes check, and drink specials; different hosts each week. $4. 10pm2am. Preceded by Open Mic Comedy, 7pm, no cover. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

B.P.M. @ Club BnB, Oakland 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

Follies @ Oasis Holotta Tymes hosts the new weekly variety show with female impersonation acts, and barbeque in the front Fez Room. Also, Yuri Kagan’s comedy set. $20. 7pm. 298 11th St. at Folsom. www.sfoasis.com

Latin Drag Night @ Club OMG Weekly Latin night with drag shows hosted by Vicky Jimenez. 9pm-2am.

43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Literary Speakeasy @ Martuni’s The new monthly reading series at the intimate martini bar, with host James J. Siegel, features poets Tracey Knapp, Maisha Z. Johnson, Paul Corman Roberts and RJ Ingram. No cover.

7pm. 4 Valencia St. www.facebook. com/LiterarySpeakeasy/

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

Man Francisco @ Oasis The weekly all-male striptease revue with a storyline of San Francisco’s history, from the Gold Rush to the tech boom, performed by sexy local hunks. $20 (plus optional $30 lap dances!). 9:30pm. Extended thru December. 298 11th St. at Folsom. www.sfoasis.com

Open Mic/Comedy @ SF Eagle Kollin Holts hosts the weekly comedy and open mic talent night. 6pm-8pm.

398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Pussy Party @ Beaux Weekly women’s happy hour, with allwomen music and live performances, 2 for 1 drinks, and no cover. 5pm9am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Rose Armin-Hoiland @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The Bay Area vocalist performs The Lost American JazzBook, original songs written in the style of classic American music, with a six-piece orchestra. $25$40 ($20 food/drink min.) 7pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.ticketweb.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

Thu 1

Gym Class @ Hi Tops Enjoy whiskey shots from jockstrapped hotties and sexy sports videos at the popular new sports bar.

10pm-2am. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Queer Karaoke @ Club OMG Dana hosts the weekly singing night; unleash your inner American Idol.

8pm. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Thump @ White Horse, Oakland Weekly electro music night with DJ Matthew Baker and guests. 9pm-2am.

6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com Want your nightlife event listed? Email events@ebar.com, at least two weeks before your event.

For complete listings, visit www.ebar.com/bartab

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

42 • Bay Area Reporter • September 24-30, 2015

Billy Santoro The smart & sexy stud performs with…his husband!

by Cornelius Washington

I

n less than three years, Billy Santoro has performed in almost 40 gay porn videos. From narrative features to quickie scenes, Santoro has also straddled the now-more intersecting realms of safe sex and bareback porn for several known studios. On top of that –and on the bottom, too– Santoro’s talents as a talented participant in Kink.com’s various bondage epics have shown him tied up, strapped down, laden with hot wax, and even gangbanged. At the same time, Santoro maintains a notable sense of humor about the sex business, and even performs with his husband Seth Santoro. The sexy –and sexually charged– couple will perform live at The Nob Hill Theatre this weekend, where they’ll take the term ‘wedded bliss’ to new heights.

Cornelius Washington: The Nob Hill Theater is the ultimate live leather/fetish sex performance space for the gay porn industry. What do you want the patrons to feel from your performance, and what do you want to feel from the experience?

Billy Santoro: The number one thing I go for in every live performance I do is ensuring the audience feels like they are part of the experience. My performance often times mixes sex and comedy. People love to laugh and want to be turned on. I have been very successful at combining the two genres. This time I am performing with my husband. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ties me up and makes me watch him and an audience member go at it!

Where do you think live leather/ fetish sex performances are going in the 21st century, particularly in the age of the Internet?

I think the shock value that has always been associated with the fetish industry is nonexistent in the internet age. I also feel that audiences are more educated in the art of fetish and there is a willingness to participate in demos, etc. Moving into the future will require performers to do two things. 1) Know your

What is your opinion of the new wave of sober leather/fetish/kink culture?

Being sober is better! Whenever you are not 100% present for this kind of sex, you are missing out on experiencing all it has to offer. I get it, I love my poppers etc, but don’t hit those poppers and take that flogging. See how you feel after. It’s intense.

shit. You can’t just dress up in leather and jerk off. 2) Include your audience.

Please describe your feelings when you discovered you were into leather/fetish/kink.

What was the ‘lightbulb’ moment?

I was actually filming my first Bound Gods with Kink.com. In the middle of the scene, I was getting flogged by Dirk Caber. After each flogging session, he was very gentle and nurturing. I loved the way that felt. In a way, being broken down a bit makes the nurturing that much more intense.

What was your first leather/fetish sexual experience? What was your first leather/fetish object that got you hot and hard?

My first experience was a Bound in Public scene for Kink. com. Talk about jumping in with both feet! It wasn’t an object that got me hard. I have never sexualized objects. I sexualize actions. I was bent over the bar in some tight underwear and Christian Wilde ripped them open and started fucking me. The ripping Billy Santoro of the underwear drove me crazy... the sound of do you think that kink sex should the rip and the feeling of go in the 21st century? his cock punishing me while I still It’s not dress-up for me. I am new had underwear restricting my pleato fetish and kink and I strongly sure in the front has stuck with me believe I am representative of what to this day. It’s totally in my mental those who are turned on by kink acspank bank. tion and not so much kink wear. Actions and knowing how to create The leather/fetish world is getthe feeling is why people are into ting bigger all the time. There is kink. As I said earlier, there is no more of an emphasis on how you more playing dress up and jerking look, and not your skill and/or off. You must know your shit. technique in the sexual act. Where

What are your professional and personal opinions on barebacking?

Professionally, I feel the bareback studios just do not pay what the condom studios pay. But I have also made the statement that the only way I will wear a condom is if I am being paid. I’ve been on PrEP for over a year now. PrEP is not why I have bareback sex. I started having sex in 1991 and have never worn a condom. I continue to be HIV-negative, but I have never discriminated against those who aren’t. If I am sexually attracted to you, we are fucking. Period.

What is your favorite sex act professionally?

Rimming. I could eat ass all day long.

What is your favorite sex act personally?

Watching my husband take loads. Okay, I’m not directly involved, but it drives me crazy. It gives me one of those hard-ons that feels like it will pop.

What are your sexual limits professionally? What are your sexual limits privately?

No fisting or scat/blood for me. Billy Santoro is very much ex-

t

actly who Bill Gray [my real name] is. I didn’t create a persona to do porn. My limits are the same whether recorded or not.

What have not done sexually professionally and what have you not done sexually privately that are lusting to do?

I want to get DP’d [double-penetrated]. We’ve tried it on a few sets, but it just was not working. Privately, I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do and more.

Complete the following sentence: When I go to Folsom Street Fair , I want to see a lot more....?

Big dicks! Just kidding... Okay, I’m not kidding. Also, I want to see younger people who are in touch with their fetishes.

Now that you are married to your partner Seth, what do you now know about married life that you didn’t before you got married?

When we argue it ends really fast when Seth will say, “Well, you married me, so shut up and get over it.” I say, “You’re right, Let’s go eat.” We don’t try to change each other or any of that... That’s what dating is for!

There will be thousands of leather/fetish/ kink folks at the Folsom Street Fair from all over the world. What is it that you would want to tell them about how to rock it this weekend?

Do it! Keep the shy reservation on the flight. Let yourself grow. It’s time.t (Read the full interview online at www.ebar.com/bartab) Billy Santoro and Seth Santoro will perform duo shows at the Nob Hill Theatre, Sept. 25 & 26. $25.

8pm & 10pm (Billy also joins Circle Jerk in the downstairs arcade Sept. 24, 8pm, $10). 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com Follow Billy and Seth Santoro at twitter.com/billysantoroxxx and twitter.com/SethSantoroXXX.

Leather Events, September 25 – 28 Fri 25 Kibbles & Bits @ SOMA StrEat Food Park SF K9 Unit’s informal pup and handler dinner social. Dutch treat; buy your own food/drink or just socialize. 428 11th St. (at Harrison), 6pm. www.sfk9unit.org

KuF (Plus) @ SF Citadel SF Kinksters under Forty (KuF) presents a sexy all-ages men’s play party in SF’s largest dungeon space.

181 Eddy St., 6pm. Tickets and info at www.SFKuF.org

Folsom Sunset Cruise @ Pier 40 Doing it in leather over one of the biggest weekends SF has to offer, Folsom Street Fair Weekend. Boarding begins at 6pm. folsomsunsetcruise.eventbrite.com

Leather Gear & Boots Banquet @ Stompers Boots Formal leather extravaganza for those in the Stompers Nation. 323 10th St., $95, 7pm. www.stompersboots.com

Jok Church @ Magnet Closing reception for Be My Porn Star Tonight; Church’s show illustrates the beauty of man in a kaleidoscope of body parts. The colorful show also features some familiar faces of the San Francisco porn industry. 4122 18th St., 8pm. www.makemagic.org/magnet

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

Beers, Steer & Queers @ SF Eagle SF Eagle and Jello Biafra’s Incredibly Strange Dance Party are proud to present Beers Steers and Queers the dance party. 398 12th St., 9pm. www.sf-eagle.com

Sober Kink Together @ Castro Country Club Officially a CMA meeting, but open to all Anonymous 12-step Fellowship members, 4058 18th St., 9:30pm. www.castrocountryclub.org

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

Brüt @ Beatbox A place to dance where you can be your kinky selves. 314 11th St., 10pm. www.brutparty.com

Sat 26 15 Association @ Alchemy A men’s BDSM play party. Advance tickets required. No tickets at the door. 1060 Folsom St., 6pm. www.the15sf.org

Rope Bondage Fair @ Wicked Grounds

Sun 27

Whether you are just beginning to get curious about bondage rope, or have been tying partners up for years, attend this very special preFolsom rope festival. 289 8th St., 1pm. www.wickedgrounds.com

Aftershock @ City Nights Bring your friends and join the sexiest men from around the world at San Francisco’s epic afterhours dance party. 715 Harrison St., 4am. www.aftershocksf.eventbrite.com.

Folsom Saturday Beer Bust @ SF Eagle

Folsom Street Fair @ Folsom St. between 8th to 13th Street

Join the Folsom Street Fair weekend crowd; see all the hot men and women in from all over the world.

398 12th St., 4pm. sf-eagle.com

Leather Cruise @ San Francisco Bay Golden Gate Guards and BLUF host a cruise with leather men and women; complimentary cap, pin, lei and photo, complimentary food service, cash bar. 4:30pm, $75.

Meet at Pier 40. www.ggguards.org

Radicals @ Books Inc. A Folsom Eve reading on the theories and fictions of BDSM. Radicals celebrates human sexuality on the eve of Folsom Fair 2015. 2275 Market St., 7pm. www.booksinc.net

Magnitude @ The Midway SF The official Saturday night dance event of Folsom Street Fair. 900 Marin St., 9pm. www.folsomstreetevents.org

This is the world’s largest leather and fetish event, attended by thousands. Multiple bands, booths, kink demos, and more. Gate donations. 11am-6pm. www.folsomstreetevents.org

Queer Oasis @ Folsom Fair The Queer Sphere’s Relaxation Station at Folsom Street Fair. Stop by for sun screen, a bit of shade, a sip of refreshing spa water, a bandaid for that nasty blister or to freshen up at the Pitz & Titz Spritz station.

9th St. next to Venus Playground between Howard and Folsom, 11am. www.queersphere.net

Victory Party Stage on 12th Street @ SF Eagle Featuring The Limousines, Pansy Division, Black Sabbitch, The Club Meds, and more; hosted by Violet Chachki, winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 7. 398 12th St., 11am. www.sf-eagle.com

Boot Party @ Stompers The annual traditional party held during Folsom Street Fair, this year with two kegs on the patio to quench everyone’s thirst. 323 10th St., Noon. www.stompersboots.com

Deviants @ Mezzanine The official closing party of Folsom Street Fair. 444 Jessie St., 6pm. www.folsomstreetevents.org

Real Bad XXVII @ 1015 Folsom Huge dance party following Folsom Street Fair. 1015 Folsom St., 7pm. www.realbad.org

Mon 28 Post-Folsom Decompression @ Wicked Grounds Whether you’re flying back home or just trying to muster the energy to get back to work, get that last taste of kinky San Francisco before you go. 289 8th St., 8am. www.wickedgrounds.com

Ride Mondays @ Eros 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 For more listings, visit www.ebar.com/bartab

t

Read more online at www.ebar.com

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September 24-30, 2015 • Bay Area Reporter • 43

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photos by Steven Underhill Out at A.C.T.

A

merican Conservatory Theatre’s ongoing OUT at A.C.T. series welcomed LGBT theatre fans to an after-show reception in the Geary Theatre’s downstairs lounge. Cast members from the acclaimed production Between Riverside and Crazy enjoyed meeting fans, as delicious cocktails were served. The play runs through September 27 at 415 Geary St. www.act-sf.org 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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For headshots, portraits or to arrange your wedding photos

call (415) 370-7152 or visit www.StevenUnderhill.com or email stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com