December 28, 2017 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter by Bay Area Reporter

Church likely can't save bricks

Fort Lauderdale is a bargain

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Theatre 2017

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

Vol. 47 • No. 52 • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

After Trump, LGBT groups forced to pivot by Charlie Wagner

See page 14 >>

State Senator Scott Wiener sits in his San Francisco district office.

by Matthew S. Bajko

aving built a reputation as a policy wonk during his time on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) entered his first year in the Legislature determined to pass significant bills on a host of hot button issues, from housing and

Wiener reflects on 1st year in Senate entertainment to criminal justice reform and LGBT rights. He pushed through legislation that expanded protections for LGBT residents of assisted living facilities, reduced the penalties HIV-positive individuals face for transmitting the virus, and tackled the state’s antiquated sex offender registry provisions. While all three legislative successes were

hailed by LGBT advocates, anti-gay groups targeted Wiener with months of scathing critiques and false accusations about the bills. “Scott has been amazing. He is one of the most gifted and effective legislators we work with,” said Rick Zbur, executive director

See page 2 >> Rick Gerharter

Jones’ win a rare spark in bleak year by Lisa Keen

progressive Democrat. Right-wing evangelicals, staunch Republican partisans, and Trump backed Moore; progressives, women, African-Americans, and LGBT organizations, such as the Human Rights Campaign, backed Jones. Jones won in an upset, and that vote in Alabama seemed to many people to signal a change in voters throughout the country. It gave hope to many LGBT leaders that control of Congress might also change in 2018. Here is a closer look at 10 stories that made 2017 such a tumultuous year for LGBT people.

017 was the year the 1960s tried to make a comeback. There was the resurgence in white nationalist activity, exposure of widespread sexual harassment, and renewed concern about the use of nuclear weapons. The new president, Donald Trump, fanned perilous fires. He also tried to make friends with Russian President Vladimir Putin while an unfolding investigation was showing the Trump campaign had met with Russian officials Courtesy ABC News as Russian operatives hacked into and leaked damaging in- Alabama U.S. Senator-elect Doug Jones Alabama Senate election formation from the campaign The special election in Alabama the pro-LGBT groups sought new ways to use of Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton. in December became a bellwether. In a surexisting laws to provide protection from such There was fierce resistance to the white naprise development, the heavily and historically discrimination. tionalist uprising. Crowds of counterprotesters Republican state chose Jones, a progressive By year’s end, the culture war, which in the met them on the streets of Charlottesville, VirDemocrat, over Moore, an ultra-conservative United States has frequently included a promiginia, and other towns around the country, inRepublican, to fill the Senate seat vacated by nent conflict over equal rights for LGBT people, cluding San Francisco and Berkeley. And large Sessions’ departure to the attorney general’s had intensified and seemed to reach a standoff. numbers of women (and some men) came seat. This was not a simply partisan or ideoMany political observers looked to a U.S. Senforward to point a finger at men in powerful logical race. Moore’s claim to being a staunch ate race in Alabama – one to fill the seat vacated places who had sexually assaulted or harassed Christian with reliably conservative, familywhen Senator Jeff Sessions became attorney them. Pro-LGBT legal groups doubled down to oriented values was shredded by persistent general – to break the tie. The two Senate candifight efforts by right-wing groups to find loopwidespread allegations that, in his 30s, he had dates were Roy Moore, a virulently anti-LGBT holes in the law that could open the floodgates sexual contact with two females under the age Republican who was accused of sexual conto discrimination against LGBT people. And tact with teen girls, and Doug Jones, a quietly See page 14 >>

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MORE!Stuff

Coming January 2018

PHOTO: Alan Purcell

mere two years after the June 2015 Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, LGBTQ organizations throughout the United States have been forced to make a profound shift in their priorities, according to think tank Movement Advancement Project, based Courtesy MAP in Boulder, Colorado. Instead of pursuing Molly Tafoya broad pro-LGBTQ legislation, these organizations were forced by the November 2016 election to pivot and fight back as equality fell under relentless attack. The MAP-authored 2017 National Movement Report, released December 19, documents and analyzes trends in revenue, expenses, financial health, fundraising, staff, and boards for 39 LGBTQ social justice organizations. MAP also produces a biennial report that surveys community centers and other policy papers. Founded in 2006 to provide “rigorous research, insight, and analysis [to] help speed equality for LGBT people,” MAP works primarily in three areas: policy/issue analysis, increasing LGBTQ movement capacity, and developing effective messaging. MAP selected the report’s participating organizations based on size, importance to the overall LGBTQ movement, and coverage of issues and constituencies, according to Molly Tafoya, director of community engagement. Several local LGBTQ organizations were among those surveyed: Genders and Sexualities Alliance Network, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, and the Transgender Law Center. One organization preferred not to be listed, according to the MAP website. Those 39 organizations combined had a 2016 revenue of $230.1 million. Nationwide, MAP estimates that more than 500 LGBTQ organizations spend about $530 million each year. “We cannot afford to lose ground,” asserted Ineke Mushovic, MAP executive director. “As the administration rolls back important nondiscrimination protections for transgender Americans, as states advance efforts to expand religious exemption laws, as the Supreme Count considers the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, LGBT organizations must battle on multiple fronts to protect hard-earned gains.” The Masterpiece case, which the justices heard oral arguments for earlier this month, looks at whether a person’s First Amendment right – to speech, religion, expression, or association – trumps laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations.

<< Community News

2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

Gay SF man to stand trial in murder case by Seth Hemmelgarn

medical examiner’s office. The report says that when an investigator from the office arrived, Sheahan was still “slightly warm to the touch.” When he was found, he was wearing one shoe, and when his body arrived at the medical examiner’s office, there was blood on the sole of the shoe. San Francisco police Officer Scott Dumont testified at last week’s hearing that Sheahan was “face down in the living room,” with “dried blood in his hair,” cuts on the insides of both wrists, and “a pool of blood at his feet.” Dumont said he hadn’t seen any signs of forced entry or outside tampering. Prosecutors and police say surveillance footage shows Phillips repeatedly coming and going from Sheahan’s building in the hours after he was last seen alive, at times carrying Sheahan’s belongings with him. Phillips also tried unsuccessfully to use Sheahan’s ATM card and forged numerous checks. A broken knife was found in Sheahan’s apartment. Assistant District Attorney Michael Swart acknowledged at last

gay San Francisco man accused of brutally killing an older man and stealing thousands of dollars from him has been ordered to stand trial. Michael John Phillips, 65, faces charges that include murder and robbery in the death of James Sheahan, 75, a gay man whose body was found August 14 in his Nob Hill apartment. The recently released report from the medical examiner’s office lists the manner of death as homicide, the method as “sharp injury,” and the cause of death as “multiple traumatic injuries.” Dr. Ellen Moffatt, the assistant medical examiner who performed Sheahan’s autopsy, testified at Phillips’ preliminary hearing December 20 that Sheahan had injuries on the back and left side of his head that included blunt force injuries, but she said she’d also wondered if some of them had come from a sharp object. The medical examiners’ report says that Sheahan had blunt force

Courtesy Facebook

Michael John Phillips

James Sheahan

injuries to his head and neck, including abrasions and cuts on his scalp, and at least one that exposed his skull. There was “early decomposition,” the report says. Moffatt said that Sheahan also had wounds on his right palm and on “the backs of his hands” that might have been defensive wounds. Sheahan had wounds on his wrists, but Moffatt testified that she didn’t know whether they had

been self-inflicted. She didn’t think they’d been fatal. Officials say Sheahan, who had Stage 4 lung cancer, was last seen alive by a hospice nurse August 11. Over the next two days, Sheahan’s brother tried to call him but got no response, and police went to the apartment August 14 for a well-being check. Sheahan was “beyond resuscitative efforts” and pronounced dead at the scene, according to the

week’s hearing that “this is a circumstantial evidence case,” but he said, “we have the motive,” since Phillips had been “desperate for money,” and he’d been asking Sheahan and others for financial assistance. Swart said that footage showed Phillips’ pants were clean when he first entered Sheahan’s building on August 12, but there was a bloodstain on them when he left. Prosecutors haven’t been able to find the pants. Deputy Public Defender Kwixuan Maloof said that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to show that Phillips had committed any of the crimes. He noted surveillance footage only shows him entering and leaving Sheahan’s building, and he said no blood has been found in Phillips’ home, car, or storage units. Maloof also noted there hadn’t been any testimony about Phillips’ pants being bloodstained. “There is a whole lot of speculation here,” he said. Phillips, who was arrested November 22 and remains in custody on $3 million bail, is next due to appear in court January 3. t

San Mateo LGBTQ panel seeks members compiled by Cynthia Laird

he San Mateo County LGBTQ Commission has three vacancies and is seeking applications from interested members of the public. The panel, which officials said is the first county or city commission focused on the needs of the LGBTQ community, helps cultivate the county as a welcoming and safe environment. The commission consists of 11

voting members appointed by the Board of Supervisors. Commissioners meet approximately 10 times a year and are developing a work plan for 2018. They provide recommendations to the Board of Supervisors at least once a year. Applicants must live in San Mateo County. Ideal candidates will possess several of the following attributes: an abiding interest in furthering equality for LGBTQs; demonstrate knowledge of

LGBTQ issues affecting underrepresented communities such as youth, people of color, and seniors; demonstrated ability to effectively provide outreach to underserved and at-risk LGBTQ populations; and a willingness to work collaboratively with other members of the commission. The deadline to apply is January 16. Applications can be obtained from Sherry Golestan, deputy clerk to the Board of Supervisors, 400 County Center, Redwood City, sgolestan@smcgov.org or by calling (650) 363-4609. Applications are also available online at http://bnc.smcgov.org/vacancies. For more information, contact Tanya Beat, interim director of the LGBTQ commission, at (650) 363-4467 or tbeat@smcgov.org.

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VAL VAL CYC CYC SPRING The San Mateo County LGBTQ Commission has three vacancies.

BART will run its standard Saturday service until 8 p.m. New Year’s Eve. Special service to and SF housing survey Free Muni and other NYE from San Francisco starts at 8 and The San Francisco Planning transit plans extends to 3 a.m. Trains will run Department is asking residents Several Bay Area transit agenevery 20 minutes after midnight, to complete its online Existing cies are extending hours for New with extra trains standing by in Housing Survey, which is deYear’s Eve, encouraging people downtown San Francisco after the signed to better understand how to take the bus, train, or BART fireworks show. well the current housing stock instead of driving, especially if BART officials said that durmeets the needs of those who live they’ve been partying. ing the late night service, trains here – at all income levels. In San Francisco, Muni will be will skip some stops into and out The survey is part of a broader offering free service for the 18th of San Francisco. For a list, visit research project by department consecutive year. The free service www.bart.gov. staff to better identify the runs from 8 p.m. Sunday, DeOn the Peninsula, Caltrain and current state of existKid’s Hybrid/City Hybrid/City Kid’s cember 31, to 5 a.m. Monday, SamTrans will offer free service ing housing and the January 1. Service on the hisfrom 8 p.m. Sunday, December 2016 WINNER trade-offs San Frantoric F-Line trollies will be 31, to 5 a.m. Monday, January ciscans make when provided by bus all day; 1. (Caltrain does not allow open choosing a place to live. service on the cable cars alcohol containers on trains after The department would is provided by bus after 9 p.m. following special events. like to know how long about 6 p.m. Sunday. Disruptive passengers will be people have lived in San There will be extra asked to detrain.) Francisco, whether they Muni Metro service Caltrain will provide extra own or rent, and what matRoad Mountain Mountain Road all night. capacity for northbound trains when they make housing deciNow Open Thursday to 7pm! to 7pm! ters Now Open Thursday Riders should not tag their headed to San Francisco during sions, among other information. Clipper cards or activate a Munithe early evening and will operNow Open Thursday to 7pm! Officials said in a news release Now Open Thursday to 7pm! Mobile ticket, officials said. ate additional southbound trains that the information collected Every Thursday April between 4 & between 7pm EveryinThursday in April 4 & 7pm will complement secondary data At midnight, there will be a cityafter the fireworks show. DeparEvery Thursday April between 4 & 7pm take 20% all parts, accessories & clothing.* EveryOFF Thursday in April between 4 &in 7pm sponsored fi reworks show off of the ture times will vary, depending take 20%Thursday OFF all parts, accessories & clothing.* sources in order to identify and Now Open 7pm! take accessories 20% OFF to all &parts, accessories & clothing.* take 20% OFF all parts, clothing.* Embarcadero, south of the Ferry on crowd size. Trains will depart assess the housing needs of differ*Sales limited to stock on hand. Building. People should anticipate when full, with the final train delimited toincomes stock on in hand. *Sales to stock on hand. ent the short, medium, *Sales limited to stock on*Sales hand. limited SPRING delays from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. parting San Francisco at 2 a.m. Every Thursday in April between 4 & 7pm and long term. For more information, visit For more information, visit cal- m The survey should take between got take 20% OFF all parts, accessories We’ve & clothing.* www.sfmta.com. train.com or samtrans.com. t eight and 10 minutes to complete. It can be found at http://sf-planning.org/housing.

We’ve more bikes stockin&SF! SPRING SALE ONinNOW! ready togot ride than any shop got more bikes in stock & ready-to-ride than any shop in&SF! We’ve got We’ve more bikes in stock We’ve got more bikes in stock & in SF! ready to any ride thanin any ready to MANY ride than shop SF!shop ON SALE! ready to ride than any shop in SF! Hybrid/City

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Wiener

getting all the bills through.” safe injection sites fail to pass out of There were also several stumbles, the Senate. with Wiener having to pull his bill Nonetheless, Wiener had a total that would have allowed cities to exof 11 bills signed into law this year 1065 & 1077 Valencia (Btwn 21st & 22nd St.) • SF of the statewide LGBT advocacy 1065 & 1077 Valencia (Btwn 21st & 22nd St.) • SF 1065 & 1077Valencia Valencia((Btwn 21st &&22nd St.)St. • )SF• SF 1065 &SALES 1077 Btwn 21st 22nd Hybrid/City tend alcohol sales at bars and nightby Governor Jerry Brown. organization Equality California. SALES 415-550-6600 • REPAIRS 415-550-6601 415-550-6600 • REPAIRS 415-550-6601 SALES 415-550-6600 • REPAIRS 415-550-6601 clubs – he will be pushing a revised “It was an eventful year. I am 1065 & 1077 Valencia (Btwn 21st & 22nd St.) • SF “He had some of the toughest bills SALES 415-550-6600 • REPAIRS 415-550-6601 Mon-Sat Sun 11-5 Mon.Sat. 10-6, Thu. 10-7, Sun. 11-5 Mon.- Sat. 10-6,10-6, Thu. 10-7, Sun. 11-5 bill smaller in scope in 2018 – and proud of what we were able to do,” of anyone in either house of the Mon.Sat. 10-6, Thu. 10-7, Sun. 11-5 4pm NY Eve and4PM all day Dayand all415-550-6601 415-550-6600 •NYREPAIRS NY Eve day NY DayLegislature and he showed dogged Mon-Sat 10-6, Closed SunSALES 11-5 • Closed watching legislation he co-authored See page 7 >> 1065 & 1077 Valencia (Btwn 21st & 22nd St.) • SF Mon.- Sat. 10-6, Thu. 10-7, Sun. 11-5 determination and effectiveness in that would have paved the way for

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Untitled-7 1

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29 Nov 2017 1:13 PM

12/5/17 8:55 AM

Community News>>

December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 5

MCC-SF’s brick memorial likely can’t be salvaged by Tony Taylor

f the “Miracle on Eureka Street,” a sidewalk brick memorial, is to be saved when the old Metropolitan Community Church-San Francisco building is demolished, it likely won’t be in the same form it is today. The San Francisco Historic Preservation Commission met December 20 to discuss plans to tear down the old MCC-SF building at 150 Eureka Street, while church officials told the Bay Area Reporter that the bricks likely cannot be salvaged. In another matter, the panel also unanimously adopted the Eureka Valley Historic Context Statement. Presented by planning department staff member Jenny Delumo, the draft environmental impact report for the 150 Eureka Street Project was presented to the commission for review and comment. The project site is currently developed with a two-story building, which most recently housed the LGBTQidentified Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco. In February 2015, MCC-SF sold 150 Eureka Street to developer David R. Papale for $2.325 million. The proposed project, located in a residential house-two-family district, would demolish the existing church building, split the existing lot into two lots, and construct two, four‐story buildings with a total of four residential units and eight off‐ street parking spaces. As reported in the B.A.R., the pending construction threatens the Miracle on Eureka Street, a sidewalk memorial installed by MCC-SF in 2011. The memorial is composed of yellow bricks engraved with names of LGBTQ activists, politicians, business leaders, military heroes, allies, community members, LGBTQ groups, and people who lost their lives to HIV/AIDS. Founding B.A.R. publisher Bob Ross, who died in 2003, is among those memorialized. “The [Miracle] brick sidewalk at 150 Eureka was evaluated by the contractor that installed the sidewalk

at the request of MCC-SF,” wrote MCC-SF’s Lynn Jordan in a statement to the B.A.R. “The contractor determined that it would not be cost effective or feasible to remove and relocate the sidewalk without seriously damaging the integrity of each of the individual bricks.” According to Jordan, MCC-SF has the “archival documentation and specifications required to replicate the bricks installed on the Miracle sidewalk that will require ongoing negotiations, lengthy approval processes, and requisite funding sources.” There have been some preliminary discussions of the brick memorial being recreated in another form by Openhouse, the LGBT senior housing agency. Karyn Skultety, executive director at Openhouse, told the B.A.R. earlier this month that Openhouse and MCC-SF are working on “identifying a way to re-create the bricks/memorial as part of our new building and construction at 75-95 Laguna.” MCC-SF purchased the building in 1979 and occupied the space for 36 years until February 2015, when the church moved in with the First Congregational Church at 1300 Polk Street. The Eureka Street building, constructed in 1909, has lost integrity, which made the second story unsafe and uninhabitable to

MCC-SF for many years. During commissioners’ comments, Vice President Aaron Hyland was undecided about how best to preserve the context of a building that once meant so much to the LGBTQ community. “While I’m torn because the events [at MCC-SF] are important and close to home for me – I participated in some of them and went to services – the building has no integrity left,” Hyland said. “The project sponsor [Papale] has been honest in evaluating this project and how best to make it work. They’ve always tried to show why the preservation alternative is so horrible and I commend [them] for that.” Commissioner Jonathan Pearlman agreed with the “thoughtful examination,” but noted the lack of historical significance post-reconstruction. “If new buildings are built, they would not be the historical buildings,” Pearlman said. “A sign would be a valid mitigation measure, otherwise, no one would know. On a walking tour, that [significance] could be noted.” Pearlman mentioned the inclusion of 150 Eureka Street in current tours like Detour, an app that guides 30-90-minute audio walking tours, including an audio walking tour narrated by gay longtime activist Cleve Jones.

“[Jones] has a stop in front of this building talking about its cultural history,” Pearlman said. “It’s already in the [tour] that the significance of this building is there. I believe the DEIR is adequate and talks about the issues. Architecturally, there is little significance.” Project sponsor Papale, the developer who purchased 150 Eureka Street, questioned how to “interpret the appropriate scope of a walking tour for a building.” “It’s open to interpretive plan,” said Delumo. “We thought of working with existing tour groups in the Castro because this particular site has so much importance. The Historic Context Statement provides a lot of background information. We don’t really get that specific at this stage [of the DEIR].” See page 15 >>

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Tony Taylor

Yellow sidewalk bricks in front of the old MCC-SF church likely can’t be salvaged when the building is demolished.

SF therapy clinic closes by Seth Hemmelgarn

mmune Enhancement Project, a San Francisco clinic that provided low-cost massage, acupuncture, and other services to clients that included people living with HIV and AIDS, has closed after being evicted from its space. In a Facebook exchange last week with the Bay Area Reporter, Debi Shargel, IEP’s former clinical director, said that the clinic “lost its lease in September, and didn’t have the capacity to fight or rally.” The clinic had run out of money, and “the board was mostly inactive,” said Shargel. “The board has not closed down the nonprofit status, and technically, they are considering reorganizing,” she said. Shargel, a licensed acupuncturist, added, “Without community support and folks stepping forward to be more active, a re-launch isn’t likely.” However, she said, “I have continued to work with my active clients at the subsidized price they were paying, and hope to resurrect the [weekly] donation-based dropin clinic as soon as I find inexpensive treatment space I can use.” Active clients were notified of IEP shutting down, said Shargel, but the clinic “didn’t have the staffing or the finances to notify the

Seth Hemmelgarn

The Immune Enhancement Project has closed.

thousands of former clients.” Just before the closure, she said, she was volunteering her time, and there was only a part-time receptionist. There’s nothing on IEP’s website to reﬂect its status, but an October post on its Facebook page said that it had “closed down clinical operations” at its 3450 16th Street location. Longtime local gay activist Michael Petrelis, who told the B.A.R. about IEP being shuttered, said the clinic, which was founded in 1993, “helped me and many other people with AIDS stay healthy and alive.”

Petrelis, 58, who went to IEP for acupuncture and Reiki therapy over the years, said, “It was natural stress reduction.” He last visited around November 2016. The only place Petrelis knows of that offers free or low-cost acupuncture is a school in Potrero Hill. IEP’s most recently available tax documents, from 2014, list expenses for that year at about $108,000. Approximately half of that went to program costs, and half went to “management and general expenses,” including almost $37,000 in employee compensation, the records say. t

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<< Open Forum

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

Volume 47, Number 52 December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

www.ebar.com

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

LEGAL COUNSEL Paul H. Melbostad, Esq.

Saving the internet

s we expected, the Federal Communications Commission voted this month to repeal the rules that established a free and open internet. This dismantling of network neutrality has enormous consequences for the nation, as internet service providers, or ISPs, can block sites or deliberately slow down their speed. It’s unclear how the major ISPs – AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon – will respond to this deregulation, but, to be clear, they’re gleeful that the FCC has scrapped net neutrality and it’s likely only a matter of time until we see changes. Comcast reportedly met with the FCC in November (before the vote) to talk about ways to prevent states from enacting their own net neutrality laws. But state action is warranted now, and California is poised to lead the charge. Even before the FCC vote, state Senator Scott Wiener (DSan Francisco) said he would explore legislation to adopt net neutrality in California. Just minutes after the FCC’s decision, Wiener issued a news release doubling down on that pledge. “Net neutrality is essential to our 21st century democracy, and we need to be sure that people can access websites and information freely and fairly,” he stated in the release. “If the FCC is going to destroy net neutrality and create a system that favors certain websites just because they can pay more money, California must step in and ensure open internet access.” In an interview last week, Wiener said he’s planning to introduce legislation next month, after the Legislature reconvenes. He also gave us a preview of his ideas. First, Wiener doesn’t agree that states can’t create their own net neutrality rules. “It’s more complicated than to have the federal government do it,” he said. “And though the FCC included a

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

onerous fees or slowing down sites. Tech companies should strongly consider Wiener’s proposal, as many of them have an interest in user numbers. Companies like Netflix depend on users streaming their content. Facebook and Google currently make up the majority of online ad sales but that could decrease if advertisers feel they aren’t getting a return on their investment (or people stop using the sites so much). Wiener also pointed out that brick and mortar stores have a stake in net neutrality; customers are shopping online more than ever, including websites for popular retailers. Third, Wiener, a gay man, pointed out how vital the internet is to the LGBTQ community. The internet is at the heart of 21st century culture, not only for the abovementioned commercial purposes, but also for information. “It’s a lifeline for LGBT youth and others who are isolated or who live in parts of the country or world where they don’t have community,” Wiener pointed out. The internet, he added, lets LGBTs know that “your community is out there.” The LGBTQ community benefits from net neutrality, as does everyone else, but is in danger over losing ground on hard fought rights. The queer community has come to depend on the internet for fundraising, organizing, lobbying, and increasing support. The trans community, in particular, would suffer devastating consequences: many trans people are underemployed or unemployed, meaning they don’t have the resources to pay additional fees for access to email and the web. Many of them also rely on the internet for medical and other information. We support Wiener’s effort to establish California as a net neutrality state and hope that his legislation becomes a model for other states. If successful – and Wiener is nothing if not persistent – the Golden State will send a strong message to ISPs: the internet must remain free and open to all.t

Engage in New Year’s Revolutions

by Jim Mitulski

bringing to our attention – our Senate confirmed Attorney General Jeff SesFor everything there is a season and sions, who has since proved himself a time for every matter under heaven. to be an opponent of civil rights. We A time to be born, and a time to die; have seen hard won victories for LGBT a time to plant, and a time to pluck rights – and transgender rights in parup what is planted; ticular – undone, and the personhood a time to kill, and a time to heal; and value of transgender people under a time to break down, and a time assault by people in power. We have to build up seen an unprecedented display of white Courtesy Jim Mitulski Ecclesiastes 3:1-3 supremacy in Charlottesville, Virginia, Jim Mitulski and continued disregard for the voices see that the San Francisco Planning of women, principally those who speak Commission is calling for public comment up – and out – against sexual harassment and vioabout the demolition of 150 Eureka Street, the lence. Health care is under attack, and specifically site of the Metropolitan Community Church. I the health care of vulnerable children is being sacworked there for 15 years – a fourth of my life – rificed. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and personally witnessed a lot of history that took program, or DACA, has been repealed and people place there. I presided over hundreds of same-sex are being deported daily and families are being sepweddings before they were legal – and that’s what arated. Immigration and Customs Enforcement rewe loved about them! I conducted hundreds of ceives widespread cooperation from local and state memorials for people at what one newspaper police authorities in most places, plans proceed to dubbed, “the pink and purple church in the build a wall, and – despite numerous judicial deCastro where all the AIDS funerals took place” feats – the Muslim travel ban is allowed to continue and they weren’t like ceremonies you would see while it is being contested. 2017 has seen an anywhere else. It was the community center beundeniable resurgence of scapegoating fore there was a community center. Seeing that of those who are different, in all-tooformer President Bill Clinton recently spoke at familiar categories. Some people are the National AIDS Memorial Grove, I recalled tired of hearing these words, just as that when he came to the city 20 years earlier we some are weary of living with these held a protest service at the church – covered by oppressions. the New York Times – where many couples made We have to push past our fatheir vows in protest because Clinton had signed tigue, and resolve to identify the the Defense of Marriage Act. Times change, and intersections of these oppressions. so do people. Of course, the building itself has to At the dawning of a new year let us come down. But the spirit of the building lives on make new habits, fresh starts, new commitments. in the activism we do today. I only hope they inIt is time to embrace new strategies, even as we stall a plaque to remember what took place there. continue to face age-old oppressions like hoIt’s too easy to blame it all on whomever is in the mophobia, racism, sexism, xenophobia, IslamoWhite House. phobia, and anti-immigrant bias. This is the end of 2017, the beginning of 2018. We have to hold firm on the separation of church It has been a tumultuous year politically, and that and state. I say this with particular emphasis and tumult has been felt in every part of our lives. Lookeven some pain, as a religious person. The Catholic ing back on this year we have seen unsettling and bishops recently published a particularly cruel and disturbing things. Despite clear warnings by no astonishingly ill-informed policy statement called less a person than Coretta Scott King cautioning “Created Male and Female: An Open Letter from us about his character through a letter written years Religious Leaders,” in which these bishops and earlier – which Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Masother religious leaders call for their beliefs to be sachusetts) would be shamed for her persistence in legislated as public policy. This is an ugly moment

BAY AREA REPORTER

pre-emption [for states to craft their own laws], we think the FCC is on shaky ground.” The way Wiener sees it California can use its leverage to force an open internet through “its massive contracting power,” particularly broadband contracts. The state also regulates cable franchises, creates broadband consumer protection, and allows telecom and cable companies to use the public right of way. He’s crafting legislation to address all of those areas as ways to ensure an open internet. For example, to get a state contract, a company must utilize net neutrality. If a telecom company wants to use the public right of way, it must allow open access to the internet. Second, we asked Wiener about potential support for such a bill. While he declined to mention specific people or organizations since the legislation has yet to be drafted, Wiener is confident he will have support from fellow lawmakers and others. “I’ve seen few issues that rile people up as much as net neutrality,” he said, adding that in the past Democrats have been “deeply passionate,” and now, even Republicans are concerned about the impending changes at the federal level. “This is not a partisan issue,” Wiener said. People like to decide what websites to go to and don’t want ISPs to dictate that by imposing

in our history that cannot pass unchallenged. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discourages the use of words like “transgender,” “science-based,” and “fetus,” along with four others, in a move that is eerily reminiscent of the early 1980s, when that agency was not allowed to use the word “homosexual” in describing the first appearances of AIDS in epidemiology reports. Though it has happened before, there is a fusion taking place between authoritarian religion and right-wing politics, and 2018 is the year in which we must collectively resolve to do something different in order to stop the rising tide of hate. I’m asking you to engage in some New Year’s Revolutions – not just resolutions. I currently work in Needham – an affluent, mostly liberal, mostly straight, mostly white suburb of Boston – where I’m also a pastor. I’m involved in the local chapter of a grassroots group called Progressive Massachusetts. I’m involved in immigration rights activism, and have also worked with groups like Define American and the Southern Poverty Law Center, and I work with wonderful people for social change. Frequently, not always, I am the only gay person around the table. Every day I bring what we know, what we learned, how we survived, every skill – and I learn from my new colleagues – as I bring the gift of “us.” That’s how the legacy of a place like 150 Eureka Street really lives. The plaque is important, but how we make 2018 a year of action is even more important. Everyone is different – do it in your own way – start by joining one of the Democratic clubs – even if you don’t think you are political. Because in 2018, everyone has to be political. Join me – even, especially – if you’re still living in San Francisco, or in Oakland, or wherever you are, in engaging in some 2018 New Year’s Revolutions.t Jim Mitulski is a pastor in the MCC Churches and United Church of Christ, living currently in West Roxbury, Massachusetts and working in Needham. He was pastor of MCC-San Francisco for 15 years when it was located at 150 Eureka Street in the Castro.

Politics>>

December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

Transgender nurse eyes CA governorship by Matthew S. Bajko

uoyed by the historic wins last month of transgender candidates across the country, Veronika Fimbres is aiming to become the first transgender governor of California. But first, the hospice nurse and Navy veteran has to get her name on the June primary ballot by the March 9 filing deadline. Running as a Green Party candidate, Fimbres in recent weeks has been collecting signatures and raising money to qualify for the race, where the top two votegetters regardless of party affiliation will advance to the November general election. “I hope to be governor. You see, right now the time is right,” Fimbres, who dropped her bid for a San Francisco supervisor seat in 2004 due to a lack of support, told the Bay Area Reporter during an interview earlier this month. Fimbres, 65, who lives in San Francisco’s Sunnyside neighborhood, is currently between jobs and has been focused on ramping up her gubernatorial campaign since pulling papers earlier this fall. She faces seemingly insurmountable odds of surviving the state’s jungle primary June 5. Recent polling shows Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom (D), the former mayor of San Francisco, continues to have a commanding lead in the governor’s race with both likely and registered voters, while former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) has a comfortable edge for second place ahead of the two Republicans – attorney John Cox and Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) – and two other Democrats in the race: state Treasurer John Chiang and former state superintendent of public instruction Delaine Eastin. As for Fimbres, her name doesn’t make the list of gubernatorial candidates voters are being asked about by polling firms. Nonetheless, she is undaunted about running for the political office. “Once my name is on the ballot, I will get the momentum I need,” said Fimbres, the first out trans person appointed to a city panel, when she served on the Veterans Affairs Commission under the Board of Supervisors and former Mayors Willie Brown Jr., Newsom, and Ed Lee. “Someone on my Facebook page said, “You don’t stand a chance.” I feel like the little Green that could, like the engine,” said Fimbres. “The climate is right for something different. Once I get my name on the

Wiener

From page 2

Wiener told the Bay Area Reporter during an interview in his office atop the State Building overlooking the city’s Civic Center. Looking back at his freshman year as a state lawmaker, Wiener said it exceeded his expectations. “I wasn’t sure what to expect or how hard or easy it would be to pass significant bills,” said Wiener. “I have been really thrilled with the whole experience so far. I am proud we were able to pass significant legislation.” Wiener, who spends three nights a week in Sacramento as a housemate of gay City Councilman Steve Hansen and his partner, eschews the Capitol’s social scene. He hits the

Rick Gerharter

Green Party gubernatorial candidate Veronika Fimbres

ballot, I think the resources will open up for me. Then things will change and people will realize I am for real. If I don’t get on the ballot then I will be an also-ran.” In order to qualify for the ballot, Fimbres would need to pay a filing fee of nearly $4,000. She could collect 7,000 signatures from registered voters by February 7 in lieu of the fee. Should she become an official candidate, Fimbres would make history as the first known transgender person to run for statewide office in California, as well as the first person living with HIV to do so. To date, only three gay men are known to have sought one of the state’s eight elected executive offices, with the latest being state Senator Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens). Expected to win his race for insurance commissioner next fall, Lara would make history as the first out statewide elected leader. So far Lara and Fimbres are the only LGBT candidates in the Golden State running for statewide office in 2018. “Friends of the LGBT community and LGBT people should be behind me,” said Fimbres. “I am not an also ran.” Fimbres, who transitioned in 1978, grew up in Detroit, the oldest of four siblings. Her father, who is deceased, was a musician and worked for the U.S. Postal Service, while her mother, who remarried and is now retired, was a nurse. Her two brothers are also deceased, while her sister still lives in Detroit. A Navy corpsman prior to her transition, Fimbres served at Coronado Amphibious Base and worked at Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego during the early 1970s. Fimbres, who is African-American, experienced both racism and sexual abuse during her service, as she

gym early, heads to work in the Senate, then returns home to hang out with his housemates. “I live a boring life,” said Wiener, 47, who spends most Fridays through Sundays in San Francisco.

Committed to fighting abuse

The revelations in recent months about sexual harassment several of his legislative colleagues are accused of came as a complete shock, said Wiener. “It was a very rude awakening to learn about some of the things going on,” he said. The mistreatment women have experienced is “unacceptable,” Wiener said, adding he and his colleagues are “committing ourselves to stamping out the abuse of women.” He supports passing legislation

recounted in an interview with the B.A.R. last year. “There was a great deal of sex that went on in the Navy and not all of it given willingly. I am still being treated for PTSD for sexual abuse while in the Navy,” she recalled, referring to post-traumatic stress disorder. After serving in the Navy for close to three years, Fimbres received an administrative discharge and left San Diego for New York City where her mother and stepfather where living at the time. Fimbres became a “high-price call girl,” she said, and started freebasing crack cocaine. Though she always used a condom with clients, she believes she contracted HIV due to one time when the condom broke. She ended up homeless and slept in a van on the bank of the Hudson River before moving to Evansville, Indiana where her mom and stepdad had relocated after he retired from his job with New York Life Insurance Company. Unhappy there, and arrested for writing bad checks, Fimbres decided to move to San Francisco in 1996. Once in town, she volunteered at several local AIDS agencies and later was named to the local council that oversaw the city’s federal HIV funds, on which she pushed for the inclusion of transgender as a choice for one’s gender in addition to male or female. The city’s Office of AIDS hired her as a contract compliance officer prior to her becoming a nurse. Fimbres, who identifies as a heterosexual woman, married in June 2013, the same year she served as a grand marshal in the city’s Pride parade, but her husband died the following year. Currently single, Fimbres said she is committed to running for governor and should be seen as a serious candidate. If given the opportunity, Fimbres believes her life story as a woman of color, veteran, long-term survivor of HIV, and a health care worker will resonate with the state’s voters. “Because I am easygoing and light, people don’t take me as having depth or knowledge,” said Fimbres. “They say, ‘Veronika, she is funny.’ But I am also very serious and determined.” To donate to Fimbres’ gubernatorial campaign online, visit https:// rally.org/f/aFxrakqFMat.t

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Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion, will return Monday, January 22.

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Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes. Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 8298836 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.

that would provide whistleblower protections to legislative employees who report abuse. The bill has repeatedly died in committee in the Senate, but Wiener believes it will pass next year. “We should not be exempting ourselves as the Legislature from rules applying to private employers,” said Wiener. “Employees should have retaliation protections in the Legislature, period.” He also backs having more transparency around settlements that are paid with taxpayer money but stressed the need for provisions to protect the privacy of the victims. Wiener would also like to see a hotline legislative employees could call to report abuse and seek counseling

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<< Travel

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

Fort Lauderdale welcomes LGBTs with low fares, warm beaches by Ed Walsh

ith 16 gay hotels, more than twice as many gay bars and nightclubs, pristine beaches, and warm winter weather, it is easy to see why Fort Lauderdale is a favorite LGBT getaway. Fort Lauderdale showcases the best of all worlds. It has big-city nightlife, culture, full-service hotels and museums, plus stunning white sandy beaches, expansive public parks, and some of the top gay resorts. This time of year, it features nearperfect weather, with daytime temperatures in the 70s and water temperature averaging about 78 degrees. Thanks to competition between Virgin America (soon to be Alaska Airlines), JetBlue, and United you can fly there nonstop for about $250 round trip from San Francisco International Airport. Flights in early December were running as low as $199. JetBlue is your best bet with free Wi-Fi, movies, snacks, and the airline gives you about two inches more legroom in economy. Several other airlines offer connecting flights to Fort Lauderdale from all three Bay Area international airports. Fort Lauderdale makes a good home base for exploring all of South Florida. Miami is less than 45 minutes away. In a few weeks, a new high-speed rail line will launch connecting downtown Fort Lauderdale with downtown Miami in less than 30 minutes. The railroad will eventually connect Miami with Orlando with stops in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, making it practical for Fort Lauderdale visitors to take day trips to Orlando. Most of Greater Fort Lauderdale’s resorts are close to the beach. Unlike Miami, Fort Lauderdale doesn’t allow hotels to be built directly on the beach. This results in great views along the city’s famed A1A highway that lines the edge of the beach. Sections of the beach are named for the street that intersects with it. The unofficial gay beach is Sebastian Beach, where Sebastian Street meets A1A. The 18th Street Beach is very popular with gay locals. It’s bigger and generally not as crowded as Sebastian Beach. Fort Lauderdale is known as the “Venice of America” because of the city’s huge network of canals, but

instead of gondoliers in modest wooden boats, you will see a seemingly endless display of luxury yachts. The mansions that line the canals are where the super rich spend the winter. You can get your best view of the homes through a number of tours of the canals, including the city’s iconic Jungle Queen Riverboat (http:// www.junglequeen.com/). Water taxis run regularly on the canals and the operators give riders a tour as they drop off at stops along the way. One of the best ways to get the lay of the land is by bicycle. Riverwalk Recreation (http://riverwalkrec.com) offers a number of tours that start in the revitalized Riverwalk district. Most tours include the city’s tony Las Olas Boulevard, known for its highend restaurants and shops.

Nightlife

The town of Wilton Manors (pop. 12,682) is just to the northwest of the Fort Lauderdale Beach area and is ranked second, just behind Provincetown, Massachusetts, as the country’s gayest town per capita. It is also where almost all of Greater Fort Lauderdale’s LGBT nightlife is located. Wilton Manors is bucking the trend of many other cities with a stable number of gay bars and nightclubs. When one closes, another seems to open. It may be helped by tourists who like to go out and enjoy the warm nights when they travel. Celebrating its 20th year in business, Georgie’s Alibi and Monkey Bar (http://www.alibiwiltonmanors. com/) is one of the oldest gay clubs in Wilton Manors and its momentum helped other LGBT businesses establish in the area. Georgie’s is part of a strip mall on Wilton Drive that is now made up of mostly gay businesses, including Hunters (http:// huntersftlauderdale.com), the Java Boys coffee shop, and a gay-oriented clothing store, Mix Menswear. Just across the street from the Georgie’s strip mall is where you will find a series of other gay bars, including the sports bar, Gym (http:// w w w. g y m s p o r t s b a r. com/), which was opened a little over two years ago by the man who owns the bars by the same name in New York and West Hollywood. The Manor Complex (http:// themanorcomplex.com/) is a popular weekend nightclub across the

Best Breakfast & Best Late-Night Restaurant Celebrating our 40th year!

Ed Walsh

A surfing snowman welcomes visitors to Fort Lauderdale for the holidays.

Ed Walsh

People visited Sebastian Beach, the gay section of Fort Lauderdale Beach, earlier this month.

street and just east of Georgie’s. Johnson’s (http://www.johnsonsfl. com/) is the newest gay bar on Wilton Drive. It celebrated its grand opening in August and is geared to gay men and showcases male strippers. With the closure of the New Moon a few years ago, there are no longer any lesbian bars in Wilton Manors, but Beach Betty’s bar in Dania Beach, about a half-hour away, has been going strong as a lesbian hangout for 27 years. The bar also attracts a lot of non-gays who appreciate the bar’s unpretentious divey character.

Dining, attractions

In addition to gay nightlife, Wilton Drive is where you find some of South Florida’s best restaurants. Marcy Miller and her wife, Bravo’s “Top Chef 2” finalist Josie Smith Malave, opened Bubbles and Pearls (http:// bubblesnpearls.com/) last year and it is going strong. Other LGBT favorites include Rosie’s Bar and Grill (http:// www.rosiesbng.com/), and Galanga Thai Kitchen and Sushi Bar (https:// www.galangarestaurant.com/). Georgie’s Alibi also features an excellent casual patio restaurant known for its burgers. Wilton Manors hosts a small, but worth seeing, storefront museum dedicated to LGBT history. The Stonewall National Museum and Archives (http://www.stonewallmuseum.org), located at 2157 and 2159 Wilton Drive, includes display cases with artifacts on LGBT history, including an exhibit dedicated to the victims of the Orlando Pulse nightclub mass shooting. The museum is part of the larger Stonewall Library and Archives in Fort Lauderdale (https://www.stonewall-museum.org/) that also contains exhibits as well as an LGBT-focused library. The archives contain more than 30,000 historical artifacts dating back to the early days of the gay rights

struggle, including boxes filled with more than three decades worth of the Bay Area Reporter. It includes magazines and gay papers from all around the U.S. For a $35 donation, you can borrow books and DVDs from the library’s extensive collection. The World AIDS Museum (http:// www.worldaidsmuseum.org) in Wilton Manors is the only museum in the world dedicated to HIV and AIDS. It includes a series of panels chronicling the progression of the disease from the “gay plague” of the 1980s to hope and treatments in the late 1990s. Fort Lauderdale has long courted the gay travel market from back when tourist boards shied away from actively promoting themselves in the LGBT market. And Fort Lauderdale has not forgotten the “T” in LGBT. Thanks in large part by efforts of Richard Gray, a former hotelier and now the LGBT managing director for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau, the destination has produced videos and print campaigns with transgender men and women showing off the city’s proud heritage of tolerance and acceptance.

Resorts

For the gay male market, one of Fort Lauderdale’s biggest draws is its wealth of gay resorts. The gay hotels draw visitors from all around the world who appreciate the camaraderie of staying in a hotel where you can assume everyone is gay, unless you hear otherwise, the opposite of the real world from where most visitors come. Most of the gay resorts are clothing-optional and include free breakfast and Wi-Fi. They range from properties that are very cruisy and open for day passes, to others that are more couple oriented. Fort Lauderdale’s largest gay resort, Worthington Resorts (www. theworthington.com) boasts that it is also the largest gay resort in the

Singers LeNora Jaye, left, and Antonio Edwards performed at Georgie’s Alibi/Monkey Bar’s Cabaret Room earlier this month.

world. It is three resorts combined into one with a total of 63 rooms, three swimming pools, two hot tubs, and a small, but well-equipped, fitness room. It is just two blocks from Fort Lauderdale Beach. The gay men’s resort is clothing-optional and is a perfect place to meet fellow gay travelers and is a good mix of couples and locals. The property includes free parking, so you don’t have to pay to park at the beach. A free continental breakfast is served up the main Worthington resort as well as the Villa Venice section. The upscale 33-room Grand Hotel and Spa (http://www.grandresort.net) is next door to the Worthington and includes one of the city’s best spas on the property that is open to guests and non-guests alike. Swimsuits are required for the pool in the front of the property, but the large hot tub and deck in the back are clothing-optional. A continental breakfast is included and the property features a very well-equipped fitness room. It is easy to see why the Grand draws a very loyal clientele. If your budget allows, the 26room Pineapple Point Resort (http:// www.pineapplepoint.com/) is Fort Lauderdale’s most luxurious resort and some consider it to be the best gay resort in the world. It is ranked #1 of 35 specialty hotels in Fort Lauderdale by http://www.TripAdvisor. com. The hotel employs a large staff ensuring that guests in every one of its 27 rooms and suites are very well taken care of. Free snacks and soft drinks are served by the pool, and the hotel hosts a free wine and cheese cocktail hour every evening. The expansive property includes a series of buildings surrounded by a lush tropical garden. t For more information, check out Fort Lauderdale’s official travel website at sunny.org/lgbt.

TR-0506_Standard_Qtr_Bay Area Reporter.indd 1

11/16/17 9:30 AM

<< Queer Reading

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

Book chronicles rise and fall of ACT UP/LA by Brian Bromberger

here has been a spurt of renewed interest in ACT UP this year, thanks to the 30th anniversary of the AIDS activist group. Riding this wave, Benita Roth, a professor of sociology, history, and women’s studies at Binghamton University in New York, has released a book, “The Life and Death of ACT UP/LA: Anti-AIDS Activism in Los Angeles from the 1980s to the 2000s” (Cambridge University Press) that reads like a gripping graduate school seminar, using archival research, participant observation, and interview-based sources to tell the group’s story. Roth, 56, corresponded with the Bay Area Reporter in an email interview. As a graduate student in sociology at UCLA, she lived in West Hollywood, where she had grown up. She saw flyers for the ACT UP/LA Women’s Caucus. A friend had disclosed his HIV-positive status to her, so she began thinking about the activism developing around AIDS. Intrigued by what she said was “the militancy of its members, by their analysis of the injustices of the health care system, by their critique of heterosexism, and by the theatricality of their actions,” she participated in ACT UP/LA for almost two years in the early 1990s. As she noted in the appendix of the book, Roth had some sexual experiences with women in the 1980s; today she identifies as “predominately hetero” in orientation, she wrote in an email follow-up. When asked what were the biggest successes in ACT UP/LA’s activism, Roth replied, “They managed to galvanize a significant portion of the LGBT community around questions of health provision and around fighting homophobia. Among the issues addressed were challenging the Immigration and Naturalization Services policy regarding the immigration of HIV-positive people to the U.S.; protesting the reluctance of Archbishop of Los Angeles Roger Cardinal Mahony to endorse safe-sex practices and education; and speaking out against the Food and Drug Administration’s slowness in approving life-saving AIDS drugs.” Roth noted the theatrical tactics that became a trademark of various ACT UP chapters that developed in cities around the country. In Los

Benita Roth

Angeles, like in other cities, the group chose iconic events to protest. “They used theatrical tactics like stopping the Rose Parade and invading the Academy Awards ceremony,” she wrote. “The biggest battles that the group fought, in my opinion, were getting a very recalcitrant LA county to cough up more money to treat PWAs, through eventually providing a dedicated AIDS ward in the County/ USC hospital, and in providing more resources to outpatient clinics.” She noted that these victories were the result of protracted, ongoing struggles. “ACT UP/LA members also raised awareness about the treatment of prisoners with HIV and women’s AIDS issues,” Roth wrote in the email. “Many projects were done in coalition with other groups and especially, other ACT UPs.” On a more general level, Roth credited ACT UP with countering heteronormativity and homophobia in local institutions. The loosely affiliated ACT UP “made it clear to local elites (like the entertainment industry) that a new way of dealing with HIV/AIDS and the LGBT community needed to happen,” she wrote. The founding ACT UP/New York chapter provided a model for how to structure a participatory, memberdriven organization. Roth felt the LA group was smaller and probably a bit more harmonious, with members oscillating between national actions and more local targets. Roth uses a feminist intersectionality (defined as a method of analysis looking at the coming together of different groups and the tensions

that can occur as inequalities reinforce each other, creating differences among people) to help understand the dynamics around inequalities in ACT UP/LA. “The biggest inequalities driving ACT UP/LA was the split between the straight world and the LGBT community, an inequality that still exists,” she wrote. “The lack of provision of health care to PWAs – the lack of government response to a public health crisis – reinforced that inequality and politicized it even further, and into a new realm of health politics. “To simplify a bit, HIV/AIDS in the 1980s was an illness that one couldn’t buy one’s way out of by being rich, white, or male – the LGBT community was providing services but the government at all levels, the pharmaceutical companies, and insurance companies were not responding to that relative privilege,” Roth added. “So LGBT solidarity and protest escalated. Once activist groups formed, inequalities had to be managed, such as gender tensions and racial/ ethnic tensions. Activists will still be affected by these tensions even as they struggle to correct inequalities or mend divisions. Despite shared ideology, solidarity is always under attack by structural inequalities and these inequalities need to be managed openly. We need to be conscious of how solidarity is created, meaning whose voices are included and those that are left out.”

ACT UP/LA’s legacy

Roth said that one of ACT UP/LA’s legacies was changing the queer community’s view of what medical science should be. “Like the women’s movement before it, it questioned the orthodoxy of medical science, the role of government in health care provision, the way that medical and pharmaceutical institutions mistreated those outside the mainstream,” she wrote in the email. “We are all much more proactive about health care in the wake of the ACT UPs. ACT UPs also helped us to understand that loud voices in defense of rights would be heard, and that playing nice had its uses, but so does acting up. “Anti-AIDS activists won hard battles against government neglect, medical establishment prejudices, pharmaceutical misbehavior, and society-wide heterosexism and homophobia,” Roth added. ACT UP/LA officially ended after 1997, when its three remaining members voted it out of existence. But issues began several years earlier,

O K E L L’ S

according to Roth’s book. “The intersectional crises that members faced – moments during which inequalities of gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality affected decisions that group members made about their politics, their projects, and the boundaries of their community – vitiated solidarity among ACT UP/LA members starting in 1991-1993,” she noted. Other factors that led to demobilization were the death of group leaders like Mark Kostopoulos, who against criticism promoted women organizing within ACT UP/LA, the lack of new successes in the battle with LA County and the public health department, and what might be called burnout on the part of some participants, Roth explained. “Social movement organizations, because they are pretty uninstitutionalized, tend to have short lives,” she wrote. As an example, clean needle exchange was hotly debated, not only about its cost, but others “were skeptical about whether or not ACT UP/LA could serve largely communities of color, where IV drug use was spreading the virus,” Roth explained. Needle exchange was not legal in LA County, complicating any decision since it would have meant practicing civil disobedience.

A model for resistance?

ACT UP/LA’s history could inspire people today who are actively trying to resist Trump administration policies. Roth is involved with two different grassroots organizations on the local level – one, Indivisible Binghamton, arose in response to Donald Trump’s electoral victory with the express purpose of fighting the Trump agenda. A second group, called Truth Pharm, a Binghamton-based organization, was founded to fight for greater awareness of the opioid epidemic and for the provision of greater resources to fight it in a harm reduction, non-war-on-drugs way. “There are some striking parallels between the current opioid epidemic and the AIDS crisis,” Roth wrote. “Truth Pharm makes use of the experiences of users and family members affected by substance use to challenge the medical community, the police, and the government to change policies; they use political theater to make their points as well. “So one lesson learned from the ACT UPs is that being disruptive and visually sophisticated really works when we challenge institutions, as does a reliance on the experiences of those most affected by the crisis,” she added.

In terms of Indivisible, Roth said people can learn the power of the brand name and decentralized coordination. “Indivisible’s website team is located in [Washington,] D.C., but its founders used social media (primarily Twitter) to spread the word about how to defeat the Trump agenda and let existing, as well as new, groups ‘register’ through a central database. Thus, there is not any real coordination coming from above, but there is a way for like-minded folks to find other like-minded folks on the progressive end of the spectrum. This is much like what the ACT UPs did, although more of the networking happened ‘in real life.’” One key to the ACT UPs early success was when LGBT folks from other communities saw ACT UP/NY at the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, Roth said. “They said, ‘hey, those guys are cool, they have the right idea about how to fight the epidemic,’” she wrote. Roth is adamant that young LGBTQ people should know their history. “If you want to know how to make a difference as an LGBT person, you might want to read about how other people before you made change,” she wrote. Roth said the public should be concerned that AIDS has become a disease of the poor and to the extent that race and ethnicity overlaps with class. “Ending AIDS rests not just on remedying access to, and the cost of, antiretrovirals, but on implementing testing regimes, ending poverty, stopping gender violence, rescinding punitive anti-gay laws, and on combating what the U.N. terms a ‘low political commitment’ to reducing new infections among people who inject drugs,” Roth wrote. She added, “The HIV/AIDS crisis is far from over either here or abroad and while we have learned in the U.S. to live with the disease, we haven’t eliminated the ability of AIDS to shorten and immiserate lives.” Much of Roth’s books details ACT UP/LA’s internal struggles, which ultimately tore the group apart, but its successes shouldn’t be downplayed. Roth credited anti-AIDS activists with “asking questions about political exclusion, about the realities of social inequalities and the potential for social rights, and about the meaning of democracy.” Ultimately Roth’s hope is that her book “contributes to keeping alive the history of how social change is made by people who desperately need change to survive.” t

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<< Commentary

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

Revolution is not a dinner party by Christina A. DiEdoardo “A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” – Mao Zedong

his is the last Resist column for 2017, so it’s an appropriate time to look back at our wins and losses as the regime’s first anniversary in power approaches and to make some educated guesses about the future. First, the good news. The fascists expected the street protests that began last November to burn out after the inauguration. Instead, here and across the country, those actions spread to airports (after the Muslim ban was announced) campuses (such as when Milo Yiannopoulos deluded himself into thinking he could attack trans women and the undocumented at UC Berkeley without consequences), and parks (see the failed attempts by the fascists to claim space at Civic Center Park in Berkeley and at Crissy Field in San Francisco). On a national level, the fascists have suffered an unprecedented culling of many of the administration’s

Christina DiEdoardo

SFPD officers separate pro- and anti-immigrant demonstrators December 16 in San Francisco’s Union Square.

top Cabinet picks and senior officials through firings and resignations. The trans military ban has been overturned by the courts (at least for the moment) and massive activism (and fascist incompetence) resulted in several efforts to directly repeal the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) ending in failure. On the debit side, despite occupations of airports across the country and repeated victories in lower federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately let the latest version of the Muslim ban go into effect. The massive tax bill approved by Congress repeals the ACA’s individual mandate

in 2019, which most observers on both sides of the aisle believe will kill the individual marketplaces on which the ACA depends. Although on December 21 a Washington, D.C. jury acquitted the first six #J20 protesters to be brought to trial on charges arising out of the anti-inaugural protests, the regime has already announced it intends to bring cases involving 188 other protesters to trial in 2018. Their calculation seems to be that, whether the government wins or loses, forcing the cases to proceed will deter a repeat of last January’s disruption. Finally, Bay Area police forces – and some politicians – have repeatedly shown they are more concerned with the “Freeze Peach” rights of the fascists than they are with the safety of those who are targeted by said fascists. For several reasons, the successful counterprotest to an anti-immigrant rally in Union Square on December 16 may serve as a preview of what we can expect in 2018.

No bans, no walls, sanctuary for all

Together We Stand and the Michael Chapman Foundation deserve much credit not only for organizing the community’s response that day to the nativists and fascists (most of whom appeared to have been bused in from outside the Bay Area, in sharp contrast

with those on the side of the immigrant supporters) but for centering the voices of marginalized communities in that effort. Beyond being a matter of basic justice, it was the best prophylactic possible to the recent fascist tactic of using members of marginalized communities to spout their party line. For example, as a trans woman it’s far easier (and far better optics) for me to shout down and engage with fascist trans women than it would be for a cisgender male or female comrade in the same situation. The fascists were also a lot more physically aggressive at an earlier stage of the demonstration than they have been historically. While this didn’t deter the community’s response – and the only reason the fascists could remain in the park as long as they did was because they were hiding behind two lines of SFPD officers – it does indicate that most fascists don’t believe they’re in any danger of any real consequences from the police for punching or spraying people. Given the way the SFPD responded at the December 16 action – from preventing anti-fascists from moving across loosely-defined “lines” while repeatedly letting fascists roam at will across those lines (an act that invariably lead to conflict) to ignoring fascist instigators while

2017: The year Outgames imploded

by Roger Brigham

lot happened in sports in 2017. Football became a battleground over player safety, civil rights demonstrations, and a staged vice presidential drop-by. Cultures of sexual abuse and predation in youth sports were exposed. The Yankees and Red

Sox accused each other of stealing signs while China accused three USC basketball players of stealing trinkets. Serena Williams won yet another Australian Open in tennis at the age of 35 while several weeks pregnant with her daughter, Alexis Jr. In the midst of it all, the Outgames fatally imploded. The death of the Outgames was

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paradoxically the greatest throwing balls, jumping, blessing LGBT sports had and running. in 2017. It is much more than The World Outgames that. It is thousands of were a nihilistic golem those athletes from across haunting LGBT particithe globe, after earlier patory sports since 2004. leading lives of isolation They were invented by a and desperation, each handful of jilted organizers thinking he or she was the in Montreal who, in 2003, “only one” in the world, had walked away from ne- Ivan Cano, CEO gathering and competing gotiations to host the 2006 of the Miami with countless peers of Gay Games, chafing at the Outgames similar circumstances and requirements demanded interests – often meeting of a Gay Games host, and deciding lovers and friends they would have for to create their own beast to usurp the the rest of their lives. It is thousands of Gay Games they had come to loathe. frustrated formerly non-athletes disThey sculpted their invention from covering there is a sports world ready the mud of their own disdain. They to accept and embrace them, ready created an event that would not be to provide an encouraging wealth of accountable to anyone – not to an opportunities in which they can comoverseeing licensing body, and cerpete, challenge themselves – and prove tainly not to participating athletes, themselves. It is thousands of virtuwho would pay and register for events ally anonymous individuals, through to be held under rules that could later discipline and sacrifice in months of be swapped out without prior notice training for a few precious moments for another set of rules. of competition, building the sense of This fabricated creature roamed confidence and self-worth to transthe globe naked for years, largely form and empower their lives. without being exposed by LGBT and The Gay Games also transform mainstream media for the self-servthe attitudes and policies of maining fraud that it was. Over and over stream sports administrators with again, the brand would be trumpeted whom they interact, easing the way in media outlets across the globe, for future generations of would-be praised for achievements it had athletes. They transform the atnever accomplished and titudes of the straight men never would. Fifteen thouand women in the countries sand athletes in town drawand cities in which they are ing in tens of thousands held – straight men and of more spectators and women who may never generating tens of millions have knowingly had posiin revenues? Yeah, right – tive, pleasant interactions and here is a bridge we’d with LGBT individuals. love to sell you. The tourism and ecoThe Gay Games were nomic impacts are nice created in 1982 to emthings that happen along power queer athletes – and encourthe way: they are not the objectives of age other queers to join them in the the Gay Games. sports that had seemed to be out of The Outgames turned all of that their reach. Outgames were designed on its head. The Gay and Lesbian Into fleece those same athletes and their ternational Sports Association, which supporters by selling promises the licensed the Outgames, never valued event simply did not deliver. sports as an important human rights Like so many others, I have recomponent, but rather merely as a peatedly referred to Gay Games as tourism gimmick to promote event “life-changing” without explaining registration. It routinely outsourced the level at which they change anysports decisions to mainstream orgabody’s life. To outsiders, it may seem nizations with minimal interaction. just to be a bunch of gay, lesbian, biAbove sports, it prized conferences, sexual, and transgender folks rolling parties, and ceremonies: elements around, entertaining themselves by more understandable and sellable to a

unsuccessfully encouraging anti-fascists to “be the bigger person” and leave the park – this is probably a safe assumption on their part. This, by the way, is part of the reason why the tradition of militant anti-fascism as practiced by antifa exists. Given that the police cannot be either trusted or relied upon to enforce the laws equally, then the only alternative to fascist aggression is community self-defense. Which brings us back to Mao’s quote, as what we are engaged in is neither embroidery nor a dinner party. Instead, we are challenging the most powerful and openly bigoted and white supremacist regime in American history on its own ground. The enemy we face has shown they’re willing to get physical. For that reason, if I had one wish for 2018, it would be the end of think pieces on the left that clutch pearls about those who choose to respond to a punch from a fascist with a punch of their own supposedly being “counterproductive.” In reality, those who are willing to hold the line are usually the first, last, and only line of defense when the fascists charge. t Got a tip? Email me at christina@ diedoardolaw.com.

broad LGBT audience raised on Pride celebrations and political demonstrations. Athlete fees in effect subsidized the conferences and parties the athletes themselves had little interest in and even less time for. Each World Outgames drew fewer participants than the one before, yet that decline generally went unreported in LGBT and mainstream news media. My predecessor, Jim Provenzano, wrote extensively about Montreal’s original attempt to co-opt the Gay Games and its subsequent spectacular multimillion-dollar bankruptcy that hurt so many small LGBT businesses, but I have seen damned little scrutiny of the Outgames by colleagues since then. Instead, every quadrennial since, media outlets have tripped all over themselves in their efforts to promote and hype the events as being the best sports thing to happen to LGBT athletes since sequined skating costumes. Simple web searches or intensive interviews would have revealed the hollowness of such marketing, but most outlets either never bothered with the research or just didn’t share it. The last hurrah came in late spring when Ivan Cano, CEO of World Outgames 4 in Miami, canceled the event at the last minute, with almost all of the registrants either en route from as far away as Australia and Europe or already on the ground, scrambling for something to fill the time. Travel costs, hotel fees, and vacation time were all hopelessly lost. For months organizers had lied and presented a rosy picture that nothing was amiss, but once and for all, there was no denying that the Outgames were a colossal bust full of promises and hype signifying nothing. There are now two major international multi-sport festivals – the Gay Games and the Sin City Classic – as well as several localized multi-sport events and numerous international single-sport championships to carry the inclusive participatory sports mission forward. As the wounds heal from the disastrous distraction that was the Outgames, no doubt the movement will emerge as strong and as empowering as ever. We will realize that sports events organized by athletes rather than special-event commissars are the most rewarding and satisfying of events we can have. t

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<< From the Cover

14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

LGBT groups

From page 1

The 2017 MAP Report called out four key findings.

Revenue, expenses are growing

The report notes an 11 percent aggregate revenue increase from 2015 to 2016, and a five-year 26 percent overall revenue increase. In the same time frames, MAP found a steady increase in expenses, from $198.6 million in 2015 to $217 million in 2016, considering 35 organizations only. For all 39 organizations, the 2016 expenses were $223.9 million. Eighty percent of expenses were spent on programs and services. Participating organizations estimated a 7 percent expense increase in 2017; final 2017 numbers were not available due to the timing of the report. In comparison to those totals, the Nonprofit Times calculated that 2016 revenue for the top 100 nonprofit organizations nationwide increased 2.6 percent and expenses increased by about 5 percent.

Donor bases

The report found more mediumand large-size donors, but fewer small donors. Individual donor contributions continue to make up the largest

Bleak year

From page 1

of consent in Alabama (16) and five who were between 16 and 18. LGBT people had plenty of reason to oppose Moore’s ascension to the Senate long before those revelations drew national attention to the state. Going back more than a decade, Moore was quick and comfortable with expressing his opposition to LGBT people. After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state bans on sexual relations between same-sex partners, Moore, then the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, said he thought such relations should be illegal. When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down bans on marriage for same-sex couples, Moore refused to comply. And during his contentious campaign this year for the Senate seat, he blamed his troubles on LGBT people trying to ruin his campaign and “change our culture.” Moore, in the Senate, would have been a reliable vote against LGBT people in any context. And Moore had the endorsement of Trump, who won 62 percent of the Alabama vote in 2016, despite his own problem with widespread allegations of sexual misconduct. But on December 12, by a narrow margin, voters in Alabama elected Jones, who pledged to “fight hate and discrimination in all forms.” Some commentators said that the result indicated voters are beginning to turn against Republicans and Trump. They predict next November’s congressional midterm races could change the majority in the Senate, maybe even the House, from Republican to Democrat. It’s the kind of change that could be as dramatically good for the rights of LGBT people as this past year has been bad.

YouTube

President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January.

Trump inaugurated

Trump was sworn in as president January 20. As a candidate, Trump made a few supportive comments

segment of revenue, about 35 percent, according to the report. Participating organizations experienced a 16 percent increase from 2015 to 2016. Between 2012 and 2016, contributions from small donors (under $1,000) decreased by 5 percent, but growth in large (over $25,000) and medium ($1,000 to $25,000) donors more than compensated for that drop. Since 2012, the number of large donors increased by more than 55 percent with a 10 percent increase in 2016. In a study of overall U.S. individual giving, Giving USA found that individual giving increased by 3.9 percent in 2016. This is much lower than the 16 percent MAP reported. “One possibility is that donors are increasing their contributions in the new political climate, but we lack the data to examine that,” Tafoya said. The report noted concern with the drop in small donors as they comprise 94 percent of total donors. According to previous MAP reports, this trend has been consistent since 2014.

Staff, board diversity

The report found that while staff diversity is improving among nonprofits, boards are less varied. MAP found about 40 percent of staff identify as Hispanic/Latino(a), African-American/Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Native American, multiracial or other, but that is true of only about the LGBT community during his campaign, but those remarks essentially disappeared after his inauguration. The only positive things he had to say about LGBT people in his first year were statements purporting to explain why he sought a ban on Muslims coming into this country (he said it would protect LGBT people from such attacks as the one on an Orlando nightclub in 2016). Many LGBT people felt more like they needed protection from Trump. He chose heads of departments with notorious anti-LGBT histories who rolled back many of the pro-LGBT policies established under President Barack Obama. He appointed federal judges who disagreed with landmark pro-equality Supreme Court decisions; he initiated and directed a ban on transgender people in the military; he repeatedly praised Putin, whose anti-LGBT policies have escalated in recent years; and he used the most high-profile bully pulpit in the world to give solace and encouragement to extreme right-wing protests that included anti-LGBT chants and signs.

31 percent of the boards of directors. The report also suggested why there is less diversity among board members when it documented that 42 percent of directors are required to donate or solicit contributions of $5,000 or above for their organizations. Only 13 percent of directors are on boards with no such requirement. Tafoya did point out, that “while the report doesn’t track board diversity over time, we have noticed that participating organizations are paying increased attention to diversity at all levels, from staffing to boards to programs.” Staff gender identity is 47 percent women, 45 percent men, and 11 percent transgender people. About 60 percent are between the ages of 30 and 54. Twenty-five organizations provided sexual orientation numbers for staff: 54 percent identified as gay or lesbian, 17 percent as straight, 8 percent as bisexual and 20 percent as other. Thirty nonprofits provided the same numbers for their boards: 72 percent gay or lesbian, 10 percent straight, 3 percent bisexual, and 16 percent other. Roger Doughty, president of Horizons Foundation, which makes grants to LGBTQ organizations and other groups, said his organization has been dedicated for years to ensuring its staff and board reflect the community it serves.

“Even as there is always room for improvement, the foundation has long been – and is today – proud to be guided by a diverse board and staff, including those at leadership positions,” he wrote in an email.

Muslims, Jews, African-Americans, and Latin Americans – many in very public places, like major league ballparks and public schools. A Southern Poverty Law Center study found that 37 percent of 1,094 hate crimes recorded during the first 34 days after Trump’s election “directly referenced either President-elect Trump, his campaign slogans, or his infamous remarks about sexual assault.”

Transgender military ban

Several hundred people gathered in the Castro in late July to protest President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was banning transgender people from serving in the military. YouTube

Resurgence of white nationalists

One of the loudest chants by white supremacists staging a violent protest in Charlottesville, Virginia in August was “Fuck you, faggots.” The driver of the car who plowed into a group of counterprotesters was associated with a right-wing group that called LGBT people “sexual deviants.” Trump offered words of support for the right-wing protesters who chanted and carried signs with messages that were hostile to African-Americans, immigrants, and LGBT people. “Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me,” said Trump. “Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.” He blamed counterprotesters for the violence. And soon, there seemed to be an uptick in incidents of hate against LGBT people, women,

In spite of consistent increases in revenue from individual contributions, MAP-analyzed data since 2010 indicates very few LGBTQ people contribute to the legal, advocacy, and public education organizations included in the report. In 2016, the report estimates only 2.8 percent of LGBTQ people donated to the 39 participating organizations, a slight drop from past years. Although studies suggest that approximately two-thirds of U.S. households make charitable contributions each year according to Tafoya, she said, “It is certain that a greater share of LGBT people donate to both LGBT and non-LGBT causes than reflected in this estimate, given that there are many organizations not tracked in this report, like community centers, state and local LGBT organizations, LGBT arts organizations and so forth.” Officials with some of the surveyed nonprofits said that their work has never been more important. “Support for LGBT organizing, and particularly for work led by and

In July, Trump announced on Twitter that the Department of Defense should ban transgender people in the military. A month later, he issued an official memorandum, directing the DOD to do so. But the American Civil Liberties Union and LGBT legal groups jumped into action, filing lawsuits and requesting injunctions to stop the order from taking effect. By year’s end, at least three federal judges issued preliminary injunctions to stop the Trump order from taking effect until the courts can decide whether the ban is unconstitutional. The Department of Justice is seeking stays of those injunctions.

Gay ambassador still pending

Steven Underhill

White nationalists carry torches on the grounds of the University of Virginia in August.

Few LGBTQs donate to LGBTQ orgs

Trump administration guts policies

Under Trump, the Department of Education, with the Department of Justice, withdrew an advice letter to schools that had suggested that transgender students were protected by Title IX. The Department of Health and Human Services announced it would no longer interpret the Affordable Care Act to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and it removed questions from at least two federal surveys that would have identified data specific to LGBT people. The Department of Housing and Urban Development canceled a survey to determine the prevalence of homelessness among LGBT people, and removed from its website a link that instructed emergency shelters on sensitivity to transgender people seeking help. The Census Bureau removed any mention of LGBT people among potential questions for the all-important upcoming surveys.

In one of the few pieces of good news involving Trump and the LGBT community this year, the president nominated a gay political operative, Ric Grenell, as ambassador to Germany. But at year’s end, the full Senate had yet to vote on Grenell’s nomination, and reports indicated Democrats were behind the stall.

Court fights over Title VII

Two federal appeals courts ruled this year that Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act should be interpreted to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. But in December, the U.S. Supreme Court refused an appeal brought by an employee in Georgia trying to establish the right to protection under that law. LGBT activists say the fight is not yet over and that other cases will likely come before the Supreme Court to test the issue in the future.

Trump guts executive orders

Trump issued an executive order in March that revoked one by Obama that had required companies winning contracts from the federal government to demonstrate they are in compliance with 14 federal laws, including those that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender stereotyping, and gender identity. Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund said Trump’s executive order would make it “extremely difficult” to force federal contractors to comply with nondiscrimination laws.

for transgender people of color, has never been more critical,” said Kris Hayashi, executive director of TLC in Oakland. “We are extraordinarily grateful that in this moment of intense attack, funders and individuals have invested in TLC’s work to keep transgender and gender-nonconforming people alive, thriving and fighting for liberation.” TLC recently opened an office in New York City. Hayashi said it’s because the organization is now national in focus. Three years ago it opened an office in Atlanta in partnership with Southerners on New Ground. “The opening of our new East Coast office builds on our work over the past several years, through programs like Positively Trans and our National Training Institute, to show up for our community and trust in the power of trans people on the ground,” Hayashi said. Doughty said Horizons has a “strong, loyal, and growing core of donors giving at leadership levels.” “So much giving happens in the last 10 days of the year that it’s hard for us to tell how 2017 will compare to 2016,” he wrote in an email.t The full 2017 report, as well as the previous seven MAP reports, are viewable at http://www. lgbtmap.org/2017-national-lgbtmovement-report.

Courtesy CNN

Attorney General Jeff Sessions

Sessions becomes attorney general

As Alabama’s U.S. senator, Sessions established a reputation of hostility toward LGBT people. So when Trump named him to head the Department of Justice, the LGBT community braced for trouble. In short order, Sessions withdrew the Obama administration’s efforts to defeat an anti-LGBT law in North Carolina, opposed in court the application of Title VII’s prohibition against sex discrimination in employment to protect LGBT employees, issued a memo stating that the administration’s policy would not recognize sexual orientation discrimination under Title VII, and issued a second memo suggesting that individuals and businesses could exercise their religious beliefs without limitations while doing business with government.

Supreme Court

After Congress refused to consider Obama’s nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016, the LGBT community braced itself for a Scalia-like replacement from Trump and the Republicandominated Senate. And the president’s nominee, Neil Gorsuch, filled that bill. But what LGBT legal activists did not anticipate was that one the champions of equal rights for LGBT people on the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy, would begin to falter. First, he voted with a majority in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer to say that church schools should receive state grants the same as non-church schools. Lambda Legal said the ruling amounted to state support for discrimination based on sexual orientation. Then, six months later, during oral arguments for Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado, Kennedy appeared to favor the idea that a business could simply claim a vague religious belief hostile to LGBT people to gain a right to refuse service to them. The decision in that case – and future prospects for Kennedy’s record on LGBT rights – will be revealed sometime next year. t

International News>>

December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 15

Dramatic wins and crushing setbacks dominated 2017 by Heather Cassell

he year saw dramatic victories and stinging defeats for LGBT people around the world. One of the biggest newsmakers was Leo Varadkar, a gay man who became prime minister of Ireland. But a year that started out hopefully with India and Pakistan initiating what appeared to be positive changes for transgender citizens took a new turn as LGBTs around the world prepared for a global backlash with the January inauguration of President Donald Trump. Little did LGBT advocates know that in Chechnya, alleged queer people, mostly men, were being rounded up and detained and tortured by authorities starting in December 2016. It was the beginning of a global antiLGBT backlash following eight years of global progress for LGBT rights. After the LGBT-friendly Obama administration, homophobic individuals were now in charge in the United States, the world’s superpower, giving permission to anti-gay countries to flex their muscles with their own anti-gay actions that dominated headlines. However, there was some hope toward the end of the year as seven countries ushered in same-sex marriage and a few new LGBT politicians were elected.

Hate rose up

Perhaps it’s a last rally cry for homophobic leaders or a new beginning for so-called religious freedom fighting against progress when it comes to

MCC-SF

From page 5

“I would be appreciative if the commission could provide direction in a letter about exactly what [we are] supposed to do,” said Papale. Hyland agreed the commission could be more specific, suggesting a sidewalk plaque or a plaque on the building. “Maybe the GLBT Historical Society [could act] as keeper of information for the tour, that might be able to satisfy the mitigation,” he said adding, “there are many aspects

Wiener

From page 7

services if they have been victimized. He said the Senate’s incoming leader, lesbian Senate Pro Temporeelect Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) “will be the perfect person to lead at the right time.” Formerly speaker of the Assembly, Atkins is the first woman and first LGBT Senate pro tem in California history. Wiener co-authored legislation with her this year that allows people to choose non-binary as their gender identity on their government IDs. “She is very respected in the Capitol. She is an understated person; people don’t fully appreciate how strong she is,” said Wiener, who has a photo on his side table in his office of himself and Atkins on the Senate floor. Wiener doesn’t expect Atkins to make many changes in the Senate’s leadership once she is elected speaker next month. Due to the Assembly and Senate seats on next year’s ballot, lawmakers are facing a short window to pass legislation before attention turns to the 2018 elections. In addition to reviving his bill on extending alcohol sales, this time limited to a handful of cities that

Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037848100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE FLOWER GARDEN SHOP, 2770 SAN BRUNO AVE #6, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DANIELLE QUILES. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/15/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/15/17.

acceptance and understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity. This year, anti-gay countries came out of the shadows and LGBT people took the brunt of the punches. Horrifying headlines of LGBT people being detained and tortured, and laws restricting freedom of expression, captured the realities as anti-gay leaders unleashed their hate on LGBTs in Chechnya, former Soviet states, Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, and other countries. Some homophobic leaders even gained some seats in the United Nations at the beginning of the year. Amnesty International explained Russian influence over its former states in a December 22 report, “Less Equal: LGBTI Human Rights Defenders in Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.” Headlines throughout 2017 captured a global culture war over LGBT rights and religious freedom with Russia leading the way against queers, supported by the United States’ new reluctance to uphold the country’s stance to protect LGBT rights. Under Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s leadership of LGBT rights took a backseat as religious rights moved to the front of the new administration’s agenda. In Chechnya, anti-gay leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his government detained an estimated 100 alleged LGBT Chechens in a northern region of Russia. News of the arrests and torture of LGBT Chechens broke in April after reporting by Russian independent

newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Three men reportedly died during detainment. Russian President Vladimir Putin denied what was happening in Chechnya. Kadyrov lashed out at the reports, claiming that there weren’t any LGBT people in Chechnya and condoned killing LGBT Chechens by their families in the Muslim-majority region. Another wave of detainments was reported in June, a month after Putin appeared to bow to international pressure to investigate the situation in Chechnya that was confirmed by a variety of international human rights organizations in May. The Russian LGBT Network acted quickly, setting up safe houses in Moscow and establishing escape routes to LGBT-friendly countries where victims were resettled. Canada became a beacon of refuge, working closely with a Russian LGBT

organization and the Rainbow Railroad, a Canadian-based LGBT group, by taking in a handful of LGBT Chechens in the fall. France reportedly took in one gay Chechen who escaped after being detained and tortured. That wasn’t the end of Russia’s assault on LGBTs. Through media outlets Russian propaganda in former Soviet states fueled anti-gay sentiment propagating discrimination and violence against LGBTs, according to the Amnesty International report. Governments in Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan also cracked down on LGBT citizens. Some of these countries implemented Chechen-style detainment and torture of alleged gay people while others instituted anti-gay laws restricting freedom of expression and assembly. t

to be fleshed out.” Terry Beswick, executive director of the GLBT Historical Society, said the organization is “concerned” about MCC-SF’s archives. It has a Historic Places Working Group that he said is monitoring the situation. “We are deeply concerned about the preservation of MCC’s archives and of all the stories associated with LGBTQ historic places throughout San Francisco,” Beswick wrote in an email. “Personally, I feel like I spent my youth in that building, and I grieve its loss like an old friend. We hope the developer

of 150 Eureka reaches out to us to ensure these stories are preserved and shared.” The planning commission will hold a public hearing to receive comments on the DEIR Thursday, January 18. Written comments on the DEIR will be accepted at the planning department until 5 p.m. Tuesday, January 23. In another matter, the Eureka Valley Historic Context Statement was presented to the commission for adoption and commissioners approved it 6-0. The statement includes information on historic and cultural resources, and information needed

to make informed planning decisions, prioritize preservation goals, evaluate potential historic resources, and provide a narrative of the community’s history. “I was seriously impressed with the study,” said Commissioner Richard S.E. Johns. “It’s very well done and I think it will be very useful.” The commission then closed on its last item of 2017. “We’re all here in honor of Mayor Ed Lee,” said President Andrew Wolfram, referring to Lee’s unexpected death December 12. “We honor and remember his service for years.” t

have expressed interest in doing so, Wiener is working on a bill that would increase state spending on services for homeless youth, many of whom are LGBT, but he has yet to determine a funding source. Last year California spent $10 million on homeless youth, up from $1 million several years ago. “It will focus the state administratively on youth homelessness. There is no focus on it now, the state lumps youth with adults, which is not the best way to go,” explained Wiener. He is also looking at introducing legislation focused on transgender youth and HIV policies but declined to provide specifics. One bill he is talking with EQCA about would address a discrepancy in how California treats same-sex couples under its statutory rape laws. A provision that exempts straight couples where the adult is within three years of the minor from having to register as a sex offender does not apply to gay or lesbian couples. “Those are the areas we are actively exploring,” Wiener said of his legislative focus for 2018. Having been elected last year to his 11th District Senate seat, which was previously held by fellow gay Democrat Mark Leno, Wiener will

be focused on helping his legislative colleagues facing tough electoral battles next year. He has pledged to assist fellow freshman state Senator Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) beat back a recall effort against him and re-elect lesbian freshman Assemblywoman Sabrina Cervantes (DCorona), whom Republicans have targeted for defeat in November. “I think she will be re-elected. Next year will be a good year for Democrats everywhere, but especially in California,” predicted Wiener. He will also be out campaigning against efforts to repeal the gas tax lawmakers passed earlier this year should opponents of the funding mechanism for transit and roads succeed in getting their initiative on the ballot. “Any time you put a tax on the ballot you have to make the case to the voters why it is important,” said Wiener, adding that he is confident Californians will support the tax. “I think voters will side with us. In the end voters will vote for better roads and transit.” And when he is displeased with the goings on at San Francisco’s City Hall, which he can see from his Senate office windows, Wiener plans to continue to speak out against his

former board colleagues, as he did in recent months over proposed rules for recreational marijuana sales he opposed. “I will take the Dianne Feinstein approach,” Wiener told the B.A.R., referring to how the former San Francisco mayor has continued to watch the city’s politics closely while serving in the U.S. Senate. “I don’t get involved in everything. I normally bite my tongue at times, as you have to be selective. When I see a slow moving train wreck, like around cannabis, at City Hall, I felt I needed to speak up.” Plus, joked Wiener, the supervisors and mayor “tell me what to do all the time, which is fine. I take heed when they ask me to vote in a certain way.” Representing the city in Sacramento and protecting it from the policies of President Donald Trump and his administration over the last year has been “a deep honor,” said Wiener. “In this moment in time with this maniac tyrant in Washington, to be part of California government where we are the counterbalance, said Wiener, “and to represent San Francisco in the Legislature at this point of time, is such an incredible honor and just very humbling.” t

DEC 07, 14, 21, 28, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037867000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HANNAH PIFER DESIGN, 100 HAIGHT ST #2, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed HANNAH PIFER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/28/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/28/17.

DEC 07, 14, 21, 28, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037848500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BEAUTY IN EVERY WIG, 1333 YOSEMITE CIRCLE, OAKLEY, CA 94561. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BRITANY GIRON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/15/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/15/17.

Courtesy the Independent

Leo Varadkar became Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister in 2017.

For the full article visit ebar.com.

DEC 07, 14, 21, 28, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037867900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PEDAL PUPS, 33 8TH ST #1940, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SCOTT LEE FRIESEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/22/27. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/28/17.

DEC 07, 14, 21, 28, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037865900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GO GO 7, 1300 OCEAN AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARILYN SERAN LEE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/27/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/27/17.

DEC 07, 14, 21, 28, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037876000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PAUL & DAVE’S MIXED DRINKS, 150 AVOCET WAY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed DAVID SPRINGER & PAUL FRANCEUS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 12/01/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/04/17.

DEC 07, 14, 21, 28, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037861700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CPM ENVIRONMENTAL, INC., 1821 UNION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CPM ENVIRONMENTAL, INC.(CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/04/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/22/17.

DEC 07, 14, 21, 28, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037875800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PIIR SOUL LLC, 1156 GOETTINGEN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed PIIR SOUL LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/15/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/01/17.

DEC 07, 14, 21, 28, 2017 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-553513

In the matter of the application of: GHANI BOUHADRA, 800 EMBARCADERO #237, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107, for change of name having been ﬁled in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner GHANI BOUHADRA, is requesting that the name GHANI BOUHADRA, be changed to DANIEL WILLIAMS BIRBAUM. 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 1st of Feb 2018 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037851200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: IBARRA CHIROPRACTIC, 550A CASTRO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RYNE IBARRA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/01/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/16/17.

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037866100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CHINATOWN MAGIC, 530 POINT LOBOS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CYNTHIA F. YEE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 03/14/08. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/27/17.

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037880700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CAMPOS CREATIVE, 1259 HAYES ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ANDREA CAMPOS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/05/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/05/17.

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037886700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BANKHEAD EQUIPMENT, 1801 JERROD AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JACK BANKHEAD. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/07/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/08/17.

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018

<< Classifieds

16 • BAY AREA REPORTER • December 28. 2017-January 3, 2018

Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037857700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ANGELA GRACE DESIGN, 2389 FILBERT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ANGELA GRACE SCALETTA. 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 11/21/17.

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037872700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ANCHOR MEDITATION, 748 B PORTOLA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94129. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KELLY MICHEL RYAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/30/17.

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037878800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CREED CORE FITNESS, 145 GARDENSIDE DR #17, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KA YAN CHIU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/30/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/05/17.

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037882300

Th e f o llowing pe rs on(s ) is /are d o i ng b usi ness a s: G O LDEN M EDI A M A RKE TING, 246 T H R I F T S T, S AN F RA N C I S C O, CA 94112. Thi s b u s in e s s is conducte d by an i ndi vi dua l , a n d i s sig ne d J ES S E S A ET EURN. The regi stra nt(s) c o m m e nce d to trans act bus iness u nder th e a b o ve lis te d fictitious bus iness n a m e or n a m e s on 1 2 /0 6 /1 7 . The s tatemen t wa s fi l ed w i t h the C ity and C ounty of Sa n Fra nci sco, C A on 1 2 /0 6 /1 7.

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037854400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CHEAPER CIGARETTES, 1709 NORIEGA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SHARIFI BROTHERS INVESTMENTS INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/17/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/17/17.

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037885600

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF PEARL N. MITSUGI IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-17-301456

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of PEARL N. MITSUGI, AKA PEARL NOBUKO MITSUGI, AKA PEARL MITSUGI. A Petition for Probate has been filed by JUNJI SUZUKI in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that JUNJI SUZUKI 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: Jan 10, 2018, 9:00am, Dept. 204, Rm. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the latter of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: ANDREW S. BARTLETT (SBN 305565), MARSHALL SUZUKI LAW GROUP, LLP, 150 SPEAR ST #725, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105; Ph. (415) 618-0090.

DEC 21, 28, JAN 4, 2018 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF FREDDIE PATRICK WILLIAMS, JR IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES17-301428

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SPICE OF AMERICA, 1655 MARKET ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed THE SPICE CLUB LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/05/17.

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of FREDDIE PATRICK WILLIAMS, JR. A Petition for Probate has been filed by RENARD WILLIAMS in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that RENARD WILLIAMS 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: Jan 10, 2018, 9:00am, Dept. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the latter of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: MR. LON D. LAZAR (SBN: 127434) POB 720065, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94172, (415) 742-2088

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RAAVI INDIAN NEPALESE, 1063 MARKET ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BHUWAN FOOD INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 12/07/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/07/17.

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037885800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SENSE8, 404 CLIPPER COVE WAY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94130. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed TREASURE8 LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/20/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/07/17.

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037879200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FLOR DE CAFE, 1020 VALENCIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed LOPEZ ALVAREZ & OLVERA LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/05/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/05/17.

DEC 14, 21, 28, JAN 04, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037879000

NOTICE

The Annual Report of the Burk Chung Foundation, 465 Clementina Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 is available at the Foundation’s ofﬁce for inspection during regular business hours. Copies of the Annual Report have been furnished to the Attorney General of the State of California. Burk Chung, Trustee. Fiscal year ended November 30, 2017.

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 11, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037893400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: IRISH EXPRESS MOVING; IRISH MOVING COMPANY; IRISH MOVERS; IRISH MOVING & STORAGE; IRISH EXPERT MOVERS; IRISH EXPRESS MOVING & STORAGE, 2095 JERROLD AVE #313, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOHN P. O’DONOGHUE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/26/94. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/11/17.

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 11, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037898700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: UNITED LOCKSMITH, 1190 PINE ST, #109, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YGAL MAGEN. 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 12/14/17.

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 11, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037900100

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SOCA, 2363 17TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed USA SOCA INTL TRADING LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/21/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/21/17.

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 11, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037890500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HI-WAY, 3853 24TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed ROADSIDE BBQ III (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 12/01/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/08/17.

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 11, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037896100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: POLLO CAMPERO, 2740 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed POLLO CAMPERO OF CALIFORNIA, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 10/30/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/13/17.

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 11, 2018 PUBLIC NOTICE

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FOR TOMORROW, 18A HENRY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LORA MENTER. 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 12/15/17.

Rooﬁng & Solar Construction Inc accepting Subcontractor Bids for: Shell & Core Improvements1235 Mission Street; Scope 3: Roofs 1&3, SFUSD. Bid date 1/4/18 3pm. LBE, WBE, MBE participated desired. Mail bids to Caryfabiani@ rooﬁngsolarinc.com

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 11, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037894600

DEC 28, JAN 04, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037914300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MARINA HAIR SALON, 3224 SCOTT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOHNNY DAO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 12/12/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/12/17.

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 11, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037871800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FLOWER CART, 2 MONTGOMERY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed VALERIE CHIENG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 12/26/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/26/17.

DEC 28, JAN 04, 11, 18, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037910600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: INTERNATIONAL ANTIVIRAL SOCIETY - USA, 425 CALIFORNIA ST #1450, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed INTERNATIONAL AIDS SOCIETY - USA (DC). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 02/22/11. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/30/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TOWNSHIP 31, 1629 JERROLD AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ARWYN MOONRISE KOLTUNIAK. 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 12/22/17.

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 11, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037889300

DEC 28, JAN 04, 11, 18, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037901200

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 11, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037875400

DEC 28, JAN 04, 11, 18, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037906600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: I AM WONDER WOMAN, 3956 20TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed I AM WONDERN WOMAN LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/20/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/08/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MS SF LEATHER; MS SAN FRANCISCO LEATHER, 270 BAYVIEW CIRCLE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SALEAL HOPKINS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/13/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/18/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: COFFEE BAR, 1890 BRYANT ST #100, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed COFFEE BAR 1, LLC CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 09/12/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/01/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JIKA RAMEN & GOLD CURRY SUSHI, 3925 IRVING ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JIALING WANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 12/20/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/20/17.

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 11, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037894900

DEC 28, JAN 04, 11, 18, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037896000

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 11, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037895000

DEC 28, JAN 04, 11, 18, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037900200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: COFFEE BAR, 101 MONTGOMERY ST #C, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by a limited liability company and is signed COFFEE BAR VENTURES, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 09/21/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/12/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: COFFEE BAR, 199 NEW MONTGOMERY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed 6 DEGREES CAFE 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 12/12/17.

DEC 21, 28, JAN 04, 11, 2018

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FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037904000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TENA PRO NAILS, 2717 SAN BRUNO AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed BICH NGOC THI NGUYEN & LAN THUY THANH LE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 12/19/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/19/17.

DEC 28, JAN 04, 11, 18, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037878700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HELLOSIGN; HELLOFAX, 301 HOWARD ST #200, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed JN PROJECTS INC. (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/01/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/05/17.

DEC 28, JAN 04, 11, 18, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037909600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SOTHA SAING, 291 PUTNAM ST #B, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SIMKEINASO, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 12/22/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/22/17.

DEC 28, JAN 04, 11, 18, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037874900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SHELTON CAPITOL MANAGEMENT, 455 MARKET ST #1600, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a limited partnership, and is signed RFS PARTNERS, LP (GP OF CCM PARTNERS). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 01/01/12. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/01/17.

DEC 28, JAN 04, 11, 18, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037905200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GLOSS NAIL BAR, 702 LARKIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed STRAND SF LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 12/19/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/19/17.

DEC 28, JAN 04, 11, 18, 2018 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-036982900

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: SPARC, 123 10TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business was conducted by a corporation and signed by NOPARC, INC (CA). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/09/16.

DEC 28, JAN 04, 11, 18, 2017

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CREATIVE MEDIA, 389 OAK ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ORIEL NAGEL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 12/08/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/12//17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MIND FU MEDIA, 29 GROVE ST #340, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JAMES BEACH. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 12/15/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/15/17.

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DEC 28, JAN 04, 11, 18, 2018

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THANK YOU ST. JUDE – May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be adored, gloriﬁed, loved and preserved throughout the world now and forever. Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us. St. Jude, worker of miracles, pray for us. St. Jude, helper of the hopeless, pray for us. Say prayer nine time a day for nine days. Thank you Jesus and St. Jude for prayers answered. Publication must be promised. B.K.

Music 2017

Pound notes

TV 2017

Film 2017

Vol. 47 • No. 52 • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

Kevin Berne

www.ebar.com/arts

2017 Bay Area theatre in review by Richard Dodds

M Georgia Engel played a B&B host whose guests (Stacey Yen and Joe Paulik) are at the start of a vacation they will never forget in “John” at ACT’s Strand Theater.

So long, 2017 Bay Area art-world! by Sura Wood

ith 2018 just around the corner, it’s time to pause and reflect on the year that was in art. During a period that, for many, has been a daily litany circus of public vulgarity, ugliness and deceit, art was, and remains, a refuge and a corrective. The Berkeley Art Center’s “Resistors: 50 Years of Social Movement Photography,” a visual record of Bay Area grass roots agitation and progressive politics, put viewers on the front lines, while the de Young’s “Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire” reached back to a once-flourishing Mexican metropolis established in the first century to lend a dimension of wonderment to our 21st-century existence. See page 26

Curator Tobias Natter discusses Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Ria Munk III,” part of the exhibit “Klimt & Rodin: An Artistic Encounter” at the Palace of the Legion of Honor.

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS }

Rick Gerharter

y goodness, but hasn’t this been a most interesting year? Bay Area theaters found ways both direct and oblique to reflect on the state of the union. And plays written before this most interesting year often resonate in new ways that can seem prescient. Here are 10 excellent productions seen in 2017 that provoke the stoutest memories, and are presented here in no particular order. See page 26 >>

<< Out There

18 • Bay Area Reporter • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

Best Wedding Photographer as voted by BAR readers

From the jaws of the Moz by Roberto Friedman

WINNER Best Wedding Photographer

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iner notes to the new Morrissey album “Low in High School” (Etienne) tell us it’s “dedicated to Dick Gregory (19322017).” The African-American comedian and civil rights activist seems a worthy dedicatee, though his connection to the Moz remains obscure. In an unkind remark, Magnetic Fields frontman Stephin Merritt once opined of Morrissey’s solo work something to the effect that (and we’re paraphrasing here), “His lyrics are so good, it’s a shame they’re set to music that’s such shite.” True, there’s usually nothing very inspired in the songs’ generic bar-band accompaniment. But there are always gems hidden in the lyric sheet, and in this new album they include: “Exit, exit, everybody’s heading for the exit.” – from “Jacky’s Only Happy When She’s Up on the Stage.” An interior monologue from the point of a soldier: “If you wonder what’s in my head,/ It’s just a hatred for all human life./ When I lose mine, my mother will say:/ ‘He died doing the job he loved.’/ But I died with a bullet to the forehead! That wasn’t the job I loved!” – from “I Bury the Living.” “All of my friends are in trouble,/ they’re sorry, they’re sick and they know/ All of my friends are in trouble,/ but there’s no need to go into that now.” And: “The American way/ displayed proudly/ is to show lots of teeth/and talk loudly.” – from “The Girl from Tel Aviv Who Wouldn’t Kneel.” Meantime the hills are no longer alive with celibate cries. The Moz finally seems to have embraced his erotic nature. “They tried to wipe us clean off the map/ and I just want

my face in your lap.” – from “In Your Lap.” “Everything I know deserts me now/ When you open your legs.” – from “When You Open Your Legs.” Still, the old, obstinate Morrissey hasn’t left us. The very first line in the album’s very first song is, “Teach your kids to recognize and despise all the propaganda/ filtered down by the dead echelons mainstream media.” – from “My Love, I’d Do Anything for You.” Really? Be skeptical of the media, sure. But despise? In favor of what, Breitbart? And what exactly are “dead echelons?” Again, he’s always happy to blame the media: “Stop watching the news!/ Because the news contrives to frighten you.” – from “Spent the Day in Bed.” So, do what? Exist in your own private bubble? Perhaps that works for the Moz, but the citizenship needs access to verifiable information on current affairs, presented with some sort of authority, aka “the news.” We’re so sick and tired of unenlightened people, including our

grotesque, atrocious president, blaming the media, blaming news organizations, blaming journalists for the bad news around us every day. We’ve heard people who work for mainstream Bay Area news organizations lament that there is so much “bad news” being reported. They want less negativity, more “happy news.” Okay, most of these precious flowers work in TV news, but still, our point prevails. “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” – Hannah Arendt, from “The Origins of Totalitarianism.” If we might quote a lyric from that great, late lamented rock band The Smiths, once fronted by Moz, “It’s so easy to laugh, it’s so easy to hate,/ It takes strength to be gentle and kind.” – from “I Know It’s Over” on The Queen Is Dead (1986). The new album’s players are Jesse Tobias (guitars), Gustavo Manzur (keyboards), Boz Boorer (guitars), Matthew Ira Walker (drums) and Mando Lopez (bass), “all of whom played many other instruments apart from the above.” There’s always something great on a Morrissey album, and in this case it’s Max Joaquin Lopez, the boy pictured on the cover and back, holding signs that read, “My Parents Are a Handful” and, “Axe the Monarchy.” Queen Moz isn’t dead yet.t

Special K by Jim Piechota

The Kardashians: An American Drama by Jerry Oppenheimer; St. Martin’s Press, $27.99

J EXPLORE THE GAY WORLD

erry Oppenheimer, the Hollywood king of the unauthorized celebrity biography, flashes his laser pointer across the throne of the Kardashian dynasty and lets the glitter fall where it may in “The Kardashians: An American Drama.” The opening prologue shuffles readers back to the October 1995 O.J. Simpson murder trial, where Robert George Kardashian held court as the longtime friend and legal “dream team” attorney defending the arrogant football star. As the Kardashian name was repeated across the airwaves, it also began to stick into the minds of onlookers and television viewers worldwide. It was a name that a pretty former junior flight attendant named Kristen Mary Houghton committed to memory well, and the kind of unlimited credit she was more than eager to hitch her wagon to. Described as a “mother of four and cougar extraordinaire,” Kris, now 62, embodies a reputation for being a street-smart fast-talker. The author notes that she harbors a fetish for relationships with “attention-getter” men like Kardashian and former husband Bruce Jenner. This may be the residual effect of growing up in the shadow of an overbearing mother and the heartbreak of having an alcoholic father who abandoned the family when Kris was seven and her sister Karen was four. Oppenheimer’s unauthorized tellall book swims with the sharks in the

best way possible. It leaks gossipy tidbits and the dirty details on all of the nastiest deeds within the context of a biography that, on the outside, appears like glittery publicity to jack up the ratings on a sagging 14-season E! television series that has certainly seen better days. Oppenheimer nips at the Jimmy Choo-heeled daughters’ “legacy” as a manufactured brand that pushed hard to get attention and notoriety. But he probes the deepest into Kris Houghton Kardashian Jenner’s past as a wanton woman who, from a young age, had her Sugar Daddy headlights focused on the wealthiest men she could seduce and marry. After a cavalcade of chapters justifiably preoccupied with Kris, the biography continues onto the family empire itself, branching out to include the lives of her daughters, particularly third-born Khloe, who receives the softest narrative touch of anyone in the book. This may be due to the “seriously questioned” nature of her parentage, or that the author needed a break from all the literary carnage that comes before her personal profiling, a la Kim and Kourtney. From “Superstar” Kim with her sex tape and rampant narcissism, to Kourtney with her three children out of wedlock and identifying as “the least scandalous” of the group, the contemporary stories of the Kardashians in the book’s final third will prove the most interesting to actual fans of the family or their shows. Caitlyn Jenner isn’t spared Oppenheimer’s Exacto knife either. In one of many scandalous scenes, Jenner is caught, prior to his transition,

by a family friend posing “in front of a mirror with his genitals tucked between his legs so that he was flat in the front.” Things just become even more untucked from there. None of the details receive the editing process. Every page free-flows like hot lava from the mouth of the Hollywood gossip volcano, including interview quotes from unnamed sources and extraneous Hollywood name-dropping. Anyone with even a tinge of interest in the Kardashians will find this book a big, breezy, brazen chunk of pungent tabloid cheese. It’s a cinder block of reality that Kris tried to stop from being published once her failed attempt at a show of her own, “Kris,” crashed and burned in 2013. Ridiculed, vilified, and despised as much as they are deified and idolized, the Kardashian clan gets flambeed in the red-hot flames of Oppenheimer’s journalistic bonfire. Marshmallows not included.t

To reunite with their families, emperor penguins migrate up to 30 miles across the ice. You just have to make it across the rink.

Open through January 7 Explore the science behind the season and learn how Antarctic penguins survive and thrive in frozen polar ecosystems at this annual holiday exhibit. This year, falling snow flurries, wintry surprises, and an all-new holiday ice rink await! Open every day this holiday season. Get tickets at calacademy.org

28530-CAS-TisSeason-Print-Penguin-Bay Area Reporter-9.75x16-11.30.17-FA.indd 1

11/30/17 4:20 PM

<< Music

20 • Bay Area Reporter • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

SF Symphony earns its hallelujahs by Philip Campbell

he mighty “Amens” in the final chorus of Handel’s “Messiah” still echo in memory, days after personally enjoying a last live concert of 2017 at Davies Symphony Hall with the San Francisco Symphony. The Yuletide tradition has become a heartwarming annual treat for regional music-lovers, regardless of religion or lack thereof. It creates an oasis of musical calm and reflection after a year of distressing world and local events. The SFS 2017-18 season has already offered some great escapes, promising displays of performer diversity and occasionally daring artistic and intellectual statements

during the first year of a hate-filled governmental regime. The San Francisco Opera has called it a wrap until the summer season, but the Symphony is hardly taking a breath before charging into 2018. Since opening night in September, an obvious trend (actually, years in the making) has been flourishing at DSH. Involvement with local and world ethnic groups and LGBT society has manifested in some joyous concerts and the introduction of many new listeners to the rewards of the Symphony. Davies Hall often feels like a big and inclusive community center. Visiting orchestras have also encouraged delighted new crowds to enter the welcoming doors on

Brandon Patoc

SF Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas led the orchestra in Ives’ Symphony No. 3 this fall.

Grove Street. SFS Great Performers presented the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra with Zubin Mehta in October. It was an opportunity to see the well-loved maestro on the podium at DSH for, possibly, the last time. He was graciously selfeffacing; we were all verklempt. China National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra, with Liu Ja conducting, appeared in November as part of a six-city US tour. Virtuoso Wu Man was soloist in gay American composer Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Pipa. When the fabulous instrumentalist announced her encore in both English and Chinese, the audience roared in unanimous approval. Smorgasbords of international guest conductors are leading the SFS in programs featuring music of their homelands throughout the 2017-18 season. Notable appearances by young leaders Krzysztof Urbanski and Jakub Hrusa have already placed them on the radar for future consideration. Osmo Vanska’s visit in October was a success, too. It is a long way to finding a replacement for MTT, but not too early to look at some possible contenders. Other thrilling moments in the season so far have resulted from Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas’ gift for creating an exciting musical celebration. The seasonlong Leonard Bernstein birth centennial has already brought some amazing performers and performances to DSH. An all-Bernstein concert featuring Ragnar Bohlin’s SFS Chorus in Chichester Psalms (thanks for that “Messiah,” too!), and lustrous mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard and exciting bass-baritone Ryan McKinny, making his SFS debut, in “Arias and Barcarolles” turned into a memorably rip-roaring show. The closing set

Courtesy SFS

A young Michael Tilson Thomas with his mentor, conductorcomposer Leonard Bernstein.

of Symphonic Dances from “West Side Story” had everyone, onstage and off, jumping to the great (also gay) composer’s beat. Leonard went on to a delightful all-Bernstein solo recital at the Herbst Theatre later in the month, and McKinny changed into Gold Rush gear for an important role at the SFO in the world premiere of John Adams’ “Girls of the Golden West.” MTT continues his to-do list without batting an eye. There will be more Bernstein in January when an enticing cast offers the Scottish Opera edition of his legendary operetta “Candide.” Meghan Picerno, soprano, is Cunegonde; Vanessa Becerra, soprano, is the saucy Paquette; Sheri Greenawald, soprano, portrays the hilarious Old Lady (what an unexpected and smart choice!); Andrew Stenson, tenor, is the innocently optimistic titular

hero; handsome and gifted Hadleigh Adams, baritone, sings two parts: Maximillian and Captain; and another barihunk, Michael Todd Simpson, enacts all the rest as Narrator, Voltaire, Pangloss, Martin and Cacambo. Members of Ragnar Bohlin’s SFS Chorus join in the fun Jan. 18-21. This should be a runaway hit, so getting online for tickets soon is a good idea. The Bernstein Fest also offers “West Side Story” on screen, with the SFS performing the instrumental soundtrack conducted by David Newman, on Feb. 1-3. Needless to say, this will not be a sing-along, but obsessive fans of Lenny’s (count me in) great score will certainly be mouthing the words. Onward and upward, Resistors; enjoying great art is a great way to carry on. We will preview more of the SFS season, which runs through June, early in the new year.t

The year’s best classical recordings by Tim Pfaff

he best recording of 2017, a year of living dangerously, was of Messiaen’s “Quatuor pour le Fin du Temps” (“The Quartet for the End of Time”). Composed and first performed when Messiaen was a prisoner in the German Stalag-VIII during WWII, the Quartet remains one of his most visionary works. Sony’s new CD, with exemplary soloists headed by the astonishing clarinetist Martin Frost, takes it to places it has never been before. It’s one of those literally “of moment” performances to put alongside Bernstein’s Beethoven Ninth when the Berlin Wall fell and the young Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s singing Schubert for the troops. This “Quatuor” is somewhat occasional, but better. In a year when everything seemed to become political, Jordi Savall’s penetrating view of the music of “The Routes of Slavery” (Alia Vox), an offshoot of UNESCO’s 2015 Year of the Slave, drew determined attention to one of the lasting plagues of mankind. It’s an early-music “Graceland,” and every bit as solemn, involving and uplifting. I generally give aria albums wide berth, but this year several genuinely moved me. A CD of Russian music from rising soprano Aida Garifullina (Decca), German soprano Christiane Karg’s French feast “Parfum” (BR-Klassik), Veronique Gens’ disc of Falcon-soprano arias “Visions” (Alpha), and French soprano Sabine

Devieilhe’s bewitching “Mirages” (Erato) all stood up to the repeat test, promising more spins. But soprano Barbara Hannigan’s “Crazy Girl Crazy” (Alpha) predictably broke the mold. Making her recording debut as both singer and conductor, the supersmart, multitalented enchantress with a sweet tooth for contemporary music produced the concept album to end all concept albums.

also sung the opera yields a startlingly new view of the piece, lithe and primordial. The complete “Lulu,” with Marlis Petersen in the title role in a live 2015 performance from the Bavarian State Opera under Kirill Petrenko (BelAir) in a literally revealing staging by Dmitri Tcherniakov, topped the year’s opera recordings. Otherwise, the opera year tilted toward the French.

Hannigan can turn anything into music you feel you’ve been waiting your whole life for, and here she sings a daring program of Luciano Berio (the wicked Sequenza III for solo voice), Berg’s “Lulu Suite” and a Gershwin “Girl Crazy” set that turns “But Not for Me” into fractured but soon recombinant medley. It all revolves around Lulu, the operatic character Hannigan says changed her, and this first performance of the “Suite” by a conductor who’s

The year’s “big” releases were Berlioz’s “Les Troyens” under John Nelson (Erato) and Debussy’s “Pelleas et Melisande” under Simon Rattle, with what is now “his” London Symphony Orchestra (on the house label). While both were drawn from live concert performances and are bracingly good, two cherished mezzos troubled the “night of ecstasy” for me. Joyce DiDonato brought her keen musicianship and dramatic

acuity to Berlioz’s Didon without, somehow, filling out the central role. Her voice was dwarfed by those of the cast’s other terrific singers (especially Marie-Nicole Lemieux’s truly oracular Cassandre), and the persistent flutter now invading her tone ultimately yielded a “Trojans” short on Carthaginians. Magdalena Kozena’s Melisande was almost eerily, similarly afflicted. Still, both sets make essential listening. Two French rarities – Saint-Saens’ “Proserpine” and Etienne-Nicolas Mehul’s “Uthal,” both on the indispensible Ediciones Singulares label – went down more lip-sm a cking l y. Gens’ portrayal of Saint-Saens’ title character (a Violetta-like courtesan, not her mythological namesake) was rightly ravishing, and the longforgotten “Uthal,” led by Christophe Rousset, seemed briefly important. Rousset’s Rameau “Pygmalion” (Aparte) was stomping good. He remains one of the most reliably vital musicians working today. Another is violinist Isabelle Faust, who brings authority and originality to everything she does, then and goes and makes you cry (in that good way). Her Harmonia Mundi recordings this year alone were of all the Mozart concertos, the Mendelssohn as it has never sounded before

(again, revelatory, not heretical), paired with the “Reformation” Symphony conducted by Pablo HerasCasado – and, for us the piece de resistance, the Franck Sonata and other French chamber works with pianist Alexander Melnikov. It was to have heard what Proust might have. A tsunami of good Tchaikovsky produced one alarming (Teodor Currentzis, for Sony) and one alarmingly good “Pathetique” Symphony (Semyon Bychkov, for Decca). But nothing else stuck to the ribs like the Heath Quartet’s String Quartets 1 & 3 (Harmonia Mundi), which did push the (heavy) competition off the shelf. I won’t be taking many sets of the Beethoven late quartets off the shelf, but the Quatuor Mosaiques gave me the recording (Naive) I’ve waited a life for. Florian Boesch’s icy, desperate, hair-raising Schubert “Winterreise” (Hyperion) gave us the cycle Ian Bostridge wrote about so insightfully. In this biz we avoid saying “words can’t describe,” but Ivan Fischer’s primordial Mahler Third with his Budapest Festival Orchestra (Channel Classics) was just shockingly good. But the recording that never went far from the player this year was, in a great Bruckner year, Furtwangler’s 1951 recording of the Fourth with the Vienna Philharmonic (Praga), Bruckner at its most alchemical. What could also be called the year of re-issued, re-mastered box sets peaked with Warner’s “Maria Callas – The Live Recordings,” which re-animated another woman who changed things.t

Theatre>>

December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018 • Bay Area Reporter • 21

Paula Poundstone does New Year’s Eve by Sari Staver

017 has been a great year for comic Paula Poundstone, whose new book repeatedly hit the Amazon bestseller list, and whose concerts have been often been selling out. But when the B.A.R. called Poundstone at her Santa Monica home to discuss her New Year’s Eve concert in San Francisco at the Nourse Theater, the 57-year-old comic spun a self-deprecating tale about all her recent successes. “Yes, I was on and off various” Amazon bestseller lists, said Poundstone, a straight ally. The book, “The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness,” published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, had particularly strong sales when it was first published. “But this book is not going to be another ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’” she quipped. Al Franken’s book, which was published on the same day, “has kicked our ass right and left.” When asked about the news reports that a number of her recent stand-up concerts sold out, Poundstone said, “Well, yeah, but [the venues] are not exactly stadiums.” The show, said Poundstone, is different in every city, in part because about one-third of it is a riff with the audience. “Of course I love coming

to San Francisco,” said a different get-happy Poundstone, admitting hypothesis in each that she won’t get to chapter.” see much of the city. Poundstone “When I’m done with a tried 13 approaches performance, I go right that she hypothback to the hotel and esized could make crash.” her happy, including But before she leaves getting in shape with the concert, Poundtaekwondo, driving a stone always spends Lamborghini, comtime at a meet-andMichael Schwartz muning with nature greet with the audience. Paula Poundstone’s while camping with Although she sells CDs new book takes on “that her daughter, comand other merchandise, most inalienable of mitting to getting “I always make sure the rights, the pursuit of her house organized, audience knows they happiness.” learning swing-dancare not required to buy ing, meditating, and anything to come up volunteering. The book concludes and say hello or take a picture.” with a simple suggestion for hapThe book took seven years to piness. “Get some exercise,” writes research and write, she said. “I don’t Poundstone. She also advises people write for a living,” she explained. But to “avoid letting stuff pile up,” conher previous book, “There’s Nothceding that her personal experience ing in This Book I Meant to Say,” organizing her home “turned out published in 2007, took nine years, to be incredibly painful.” It was, she “so maybe the next one will only said, “an oddly emotional experitake five.” ence. Going through my stuff was Her book takes on “that most grueling, especially the toys my inalienable of rights, the pursuit of [now-grown] kids are no longer happiness,” Poundstone wrote in playing with. There was something the book jacket. She offers herself about the process [of organizing] up as a human guinea pig, she exthat was just heinous.” plained, in a “series of thoroughly After she finished the book, unscientific experiments, trying out Poundstone continued with a few

of the activities she sampled for her research. She still volunteers twice a week at the nursing home, she said. “I know for sure that makes me happy. Besides, the idea that I’d volunteer for my research and then when I’m done, say, ‘OK, goodbye, I got what I needed’ would just feel so wrong.” Poundstone is happy about the book’s success because it is “one of the things” that enables her “to keep my career going. I am so grateful to have work that I love. This is going to sound really weird, but I consider the people in the audience to be my best friends.” The best part of the performance for her “is knowing that the crowds go away happy and I get to keep working.” Recently an audience member told Poundstone she’s seen her perform in four different states, then introduced her neighbor who saw Poundstone for the first time. “I loved that,” she said. This year’s show consists of allnew material, said Poundstone, much of it based on topics in the news. While she wouldn’t give any clues about what she’s likely to tackle in San Francisco, she brought up a few of the things on her mind, such as the onslaught of accusations about sexual harassment.

“I don’t really know what to make of ” all the charges, she said, noting that she herself has not been a victim, nor has she observed it during her career. When Senator Al Franken was pressured to resign, she said, “There was no due process. He was tried in the court of public opinion. That’s an unfairness I don’t support. “There’s a mob mentality that’s bothering me,” she said. “I recently heard someone suggest that we establish a commission to look into the problem [of harassment] in Hollywood. It’s not a Hollywood problem, it’s a problem in life.” Poundstone turned all of my questions into wisecracking responses, but she turned serious when asked about her three children. “My older daughter is living in LA in an apartment, is taking classes here and there, and she seems happy enough. My younger daughter is a devoted vegan and is interning at a farm, where she is enjoying the work very much. But my son is AWOL, and he is kicking the shit out of his mother’s life.”t Tickets for the Paula Poundstone New Year’s Eve concert at the Nourse Theatre ($49.50-$59.50) are available at www.axs.com/events/331845/ paula-poundstone-tickets.

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<< Film

22 • Bay Area Reporter • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

The year of too many movies by Erin Blackwell

’ve been reviewing movies for the local gay press for 25 years. Is that a boast or a confession? I started at The Sentinel under editor Chris Culwell, and with him moved to this hardy perennial. One of Nature’s critics, I have cast my gimlet eye on other media, but film has a special place in my psyche. The dream factory of Hollywood was an arbiter of taste and even a guarantor of fact, growing up in Southern California. I’ve been watching films critically ever since Mom kept me out of school to watch Greta Garbo’s “Camille” (1936) on TV, and wrote a lying note to the vice principal to excuse a half-day’s absence. She was afraid I wouldn’t like Garbo. Imagine! The movies we see in childhood affect us as deeply as our actual childhood, implanting themselves in our brains not as discrete objects but as visually structuring models of time and space we ever thereafter navigate by. Thus it was that the chance to review “The Ministry of Fear” (1945) for this venerable rag

plunged me deep into my hippocampus, or do I mean amygdala? There’s no reason to watch and rewatch the Criterion DVD in order to inform you, Reader, about the Noir fest at the Roxie. But since it was Fritz Lang improving on Graham Greene, featuring Ray Milland, Hillary Brooke, and Dan Duryea, the exercise reconfigured my synapses. Until very recently, I have believed without question that certain rooms exist, and with The immortal Greta Garbo in “Camille” (1936). them certain people in certain clothes. They were ality. As Somerset Maugham argues the idols of my childhood, so poignantly in “Theatre” (1930), and they were false. I have looked for they might be better than Reality, at them everywhere all through my life least for the artist. and sometimes found versions of Those of us cursed with this need them, which kept me going. Now I to adore images are at our wits’ end encounter them less and less, and am with the decline and fall of Holbeginning to think they never existed. lywood. The Harvey Weinstein deThey were merely images, wonderful bacle would never happen in a peak and terrible, projected to distract me production cycle. He can be blamed from Reality. I thought they were Re-

now, because independent cinema is as dead as the studio system. None of it works anymore, so let’s blame somebody! Which is not to say Harvey and his ilk don’t have it coming. As a woman who had a brief acting career, I can attest to systemic predation by needy men. If women are to save Hollywood, they must first upgrade the status of women from sex slave to artist, and achieve parity as writers and directors. Otherwise, it’s the samo samo. I’ve seen too many soulless films this year, made cynically without love, technically proficient, with a decent budget, sans oomph. As if all you had to do was turn on the camera, go through certain motions, whittle it down, and get a distributor. Digitization has killed film the way film killed vaudeville. Be that as it may, filmmaking yet demands passion, obsession, and delusion. Subjectivity must transcend mechanics. Take “The

Blob” (1958), please! This idiot cousin of “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955) is still fresh, lively, and out of control. Although nothing like my childhood nightmares of the monster, it still thrills! New films I reviewed in 2017 that pass the Blob test are the trickster “Banksy,” the French peacenik “Frantz,” the sexy Czech mermaid “Lure,” the Frenchwomen’s “Midwife,” the English fetal “Prevenge,” the Swedish aesthete’s “Square,” the existentially Russian “Zoology”. Plus the self-obsessed biopics of Czech mass-murdering butch-dyke trucker “I, Olga Hepnorova” and white-trash champion “I, Tonya.” Nearly all were shown at Landmark cinemas. Local curators served up anti-nuclear “Dark Circle” (1982), vintage French “Gibier de Potence” (1951), and Czechoslovak “Krakatit” (1948) at the Roxie; the silent “Lost World” (1925) and Italian “Monsters” (1963) at the Castro. Most were publicized by Bay Area independent film dowager Karen Larsen and svelte sidekick Vince. Thanks to editor Roberto Friedman for letting me think about film.t

10 more winners on 2017 screens

Scene from director Jakob M. Erwa’s “Center of My World.”

by David Lamble

he second half of our top films of 2017 begins and ends with young men in love (Germany’s “Center of My World,” Britain’s “God’s Own Country.”) The other entries range from Martin McDonagh’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” with its Oscarcontending leads, to a strikingly original African American horror tale (“Get Out”), a warm and wise coming-of-age comedy (“Lady Bird”), a sad-funny Vietnam-era postscript (“Last Flag Flying”), a revealing tale of transsexual life in Cuba (“Havana Transit”), and two docs and a narrative about policerelated urban violence (“The Force,”

“Whose Streets” and “Detroit.”) Among many positive trends, 2017 was a banner year for women, both behind and in front of the camera. “Center of My World” A bestselling German novel is the basis for a randy schoolboy’s misadventures. Phil (newcomer Louis Hoffman) returns home from French-language camp to discover that his spirited sister and eccentric mother have stopped speaking to each other. The boy’s life is enlivened by the appearance of dark-haired hottie Nicholas (Jannik Schumann) as a troublesome object of affection. Phil’s present troubles alternate with slo-mo flashbacks to a utopian childhood playing with his twin sister. The story is punctuated with snippets of

nudity from an attractive ensemble. In German with English subtitles. “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” In this darkly comic drama from the irreverent playwright-filmmaker Martin McDonagh, Mildred, a grieving mother (an incendiary performance from Frances McDormand), leases three billboards outside her small town aimed at provoking police chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) into finding the person who raped and killed her daughter. Things come to a boil when the chief ’s deputy (Sam Rockwell), an emotionally retarded bully egged on by his vengeful invalid mother, is drawn into the case. Warning for violence against fragile humans, a trademark of McDonagh’s work on stage and screen. “Three Billboards” features a ferocious battle of wills between two Oscar-worthy characters. McDormand and Harrelson have never been better. “Get Out” Former comic/firsttime African American director Jordan Peele draws comparisons to “The Stepford Wives” with a horror tale that finds a young black man (Daniel Kaluuya) invited to meet his white girlfriend’s parents. Peele has noted in press chats that he was prompted to create “Get Out” by the racist events he observed while Pres. Obama was in the White House. “Being an African American, I have never seen my perspective in a horror film. ‘Get Out’ has my worst fears realized as a black man in this country, from the evil white girl who’s been lying to you to the lacrosse stick. Those things are foreign to me.” “Lady Bird” This coming-of-age comedy tracks the bumpy adventures of a Catholic high school girl (Saoirse Ronan) as she struggles to escape her Sacramento life with a smidgen of dignity and the hope of landing on her feet in Manhattan. Lady Bird, who lies and cheats without hesitation, can be charming when it suits her, but it seldom does. On the plus side is a romantic fling with a fellow drama nerd that turns sweetly platonic when he abruptly stumbles out of the closet. Writer-director Greta Gerwig’s plan involves Ronan and Laurie Metcalf squaring off as a feisty daughter-mother combination. Kudos to “Call Me by Your Name” co-star Timothee Chalamet as a wickedly bad-boy prom date.

“Last Flag Flying” Richard Linklater offers a kind of poignant sequel to Hal Ashby’s 1973 Navybuddy saga “The Last Detail.” Thirty years after they served together in Vietnam, former Navy Corpsman Larry “Doc” Shepherd re-unites with his old buddies, former Marines Sal Nealon and Rev. Richard Mueller, to bury his son, a young Marine killed in the Iraq War. Director Linklater lets Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne provoke laughter and tears as they assume one of war’s most wrenching burdens. “Havana Transit” Daniel Abma’s engrossing doc begins with three adult transgender women in an elevator. The talk is candid and hilarious. The occasion is the annual visit of two plastic surgeons from Belgium and the Netherlands to perform sexual reassignment surgery on five lucky Cubans chosen by lottery. These women-in-the-making, and at least one new guy, discuss how the prospect of surgery and the elaborate bureaucracy of the stillSocialist Cuban government are both liberating and stressful. “Whose Streets” Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis demand we shed our emotional and mental baggage and assume the fears and risks of being a working-class African American trying to survive in racially polarized suburban St. Louis, MO that’s 80% black, but controlled by a white minority and police armed with tanks and counterinsurgency weapons. At the height of the protests that followed the police shooting of Michael Brown, we hear a SWAT team commander yelling at protestors from the safety of a tank, “Return to your homes!” only to produce the agonized reply from a community resident, “We are home!”

“The Force” Pete Nicks’ Sundance Award-winning doc covers a time (2014-16) when Oakland residents were debating the reliability of their police services, and whether a modern police department can ever fairly protect its minority citizens. Nicks’ 2012 doc “The Waiting Room” sensitively covered the care offered Oakland residents at Highland Hospital, the city’s public charity unit. Here he patiently tells his tale about reform at the Oakland Police Department as newly elected Mayor Libby Schaaf cleans house in the wake of officer-involved sexcapades. “Detroit” In 1967 the “Motor City” was the affluent center of the American economy. Then a series of traumatic events set the town on a downward spiral. Director Kathryn Bigelow recreates the racially tinged events at the notorious Algiers Motel, which a trio of brutal cops terrorized under the excuse of locating a sniper. Bigelow dials up the tension as the cops, led by a vicious psychopath, terrorize the place. “God’s Own Country” Francis Lee directs a British male farmyard romance. John, a hard-drinking Yorkshire lad, has his routines upset by the arrival of a Romanian day laborer. With a tough home-life sparked by a dad waylaid by a second stroke, John has been drowning his sorrows at the local pub. Leads Josh O’Connor and Alec Secareanu have a sizzling onscreen chemistry. (Correction: The film “Alabama Bound,” featured in the Top 10 column last week, has two co-directors, Carolyn Sherer and Lara Embry. When the film originally played at Frameline, Embry’s name was mistakenly left out of the festival catalog.)t

Scene from dierctor Francis Lee’s “God’s Own Country.”

Film>>

December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018 • Bay Area Reporter • 23

Kinky blonde: the career of Gloria Grahame

Gloria Grahame was the most fascinating and enigmatic of Hollywood blondes of the 1950s.

by Tavo Amador

ollywood blondes of the 1950s were varied. Cheerful, versatile Doris Day was the most popular; Marilyn Monroe, the most famous; Grace Kelly, the most classically beautiful and acclaimed; 40s holdover Lana Turner, the most glamorous; Kim Novak, the most underappreciated. But the most fascinating and enigmatic was Gloria Grahame (1923-81). Grahame is being portrayed by a well-cast Annette Bening in “Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool,” about her sad, final days. Grahame’s uniqueness stemmed from a combination of acting ability, sultry good looks, intelligence, humor, and a promise of unbridled sex. She was a supremely confident seductress. So often in her best films, men were intoxicated by her implicit promise to fulfill their deepest sexual desires. Born Gloria Hallward in Los Angeles, she studied under her mother, actress Jean Grahame, and was on Broadway when seen by MGM’s Louis B. Mayer, who signed her to a contract. She caused “Blonde Fever” (1944) by threatening a rocky marriage. After a bit in the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn comedy “Without Love,” (1945), Mayer decided she wasn’t star material and sold her contract to RKO. She scored as the flirtatious Violet in Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946), saved from prostitution by James Stewart. Back at MGM she was wasted in “It Happened in Brooklyn,” a Frank Sinatra musical. But RKO caught her in a “Crossfire” (1947), a fine psychological thriller about murderous antiSemitism in the military. She shone as a sympathetic tart, earning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, losing to Celeste Holm in “Gentlemen’s Agreement.” Despite that recognition, MGM again wasted her as a chanteuse in “Song of the Thin Man,” and opposite Red Skelton’s “Merton of the Movies” (1947). Better was “A Woman’s Secret,” in which she obsessively controlled Maureen O’Hara. Second husband Nicholas Ray directed. She rode “Roughshod” (1949), a Western, but then dazzled in Ray’s “In a Lonely Place” (1950), uneasily falling for Humphrey Bogart’s unstable, tormented screenwriter. She was sexy, wary, sympathetic, and conflicted as she realized how disturbed he is. It flopped, but today is considered a masterpiece. Grahame was entering her peak period. She replaced a pregnant Lucille Ball in Cecil B. DeMille’s hokey but popular “The Greatest Show on

Earth.” Sporting red hair, she played an unfaithful wife who torments her elephant-trainer husband. She visited Joseph Von Sternberg’s “Macao,” stealing the film from Jane Russell. Grahame gave Joan Crawford “Sudden Fear,” seducing her younger husband, Jack Palance, and enticing him to kill his wife – an extraordinary performance. At MGM she, Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, and Walter Pidgeon were “The Bad and the Beautiful” (1952), Vincente Minnelli’s entertaining melodrama about Hollywood. As Dick Powell’s vivacious southern-belle wife having an affair with handsome Latin lover Gilbert Roland, she made the most of a small, showy part, and won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award.

Robert Ryan while asking him what it felt like to murder a man. She had never liked her “thin” upper lip, and plastic surgery to correct the problem altered her face. Movie roles dried up, so she returned to the stage and worked steadily on television, making infrequent appearances on the big screen, usually in minor pictures: “Ride Beyond Revenge,” (1966); the lead in “Blood and Lace,” small roles in “Chandler” (1971) and “The Loners” (1972), top-billed in “Mama’s Dirty Girls” (1974), down on the cast list in “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” funny in a small part in “Chilly Scenes of Winter” (1979) and in a tiny role in “Melvin and Howard” (1980). Along with the surgery, her unconventional personal life hurt her professionally. Her marriage to Ray produced a child, but ended in 1952 when he claimed she seduced his 13-year-old son from a previous marriage, Tony. She had a child with her third husband, producer Cy Howard, divorcing him in 1957. She married former stepson Tony Ray In 1960. They had two children before divorcing in 1974. It’s no wonder that, as David Thomson writes, “Things happened when she was around.” Grahame’s legacy is potent, and guarantees a place in movie history, but one senses that only a portion of her rare talent was ever revealed.t

Helping immigrants

She had a bigger role as a factory worker helping illegal immigrant Vittorio Gassman get past “The Glass Wall.” In Elia Kazan’s “Man on a Tightrope,” she was one of Frederic March’s circus employees hoping to escape from behind the Iron Curtain. Neither was memorable, but Fritz Lang’s classic noir “The Big Heat” confirmed her brilliance. She torments her boyfriend, gangster Lee Marvin, who thinks she’s betrayed him with cop Glenn Ford. His punishment is horrific, but her cool revenge is unforgettable. Inexplicably, she followed this by becoming one of “The Prisoners of the Casbah” (1953). She livened up “The Good Die Young,” an otherwise forgettable English noir, then reunited with Lang and Ford to feel “Human Desire,” based on Emile Zola’s novel. In it, she betrays brutish husband Broderick Crawford. “Naked Alibi” (1954) was a minor noir. She got caught in Minnelli’s “The Cobweb,” a juicy melodrama about a psychiatric clinic where the patients don’t seem more troubled than the staff. Her husband, the head doctor (Richard Widmark), neglects her, so she finds solace with Charles Boyer and fascinates patient John Kerr. In “Not as a Stranger,” her wealthy society lady tempts doctor Robert Mitchum from his wife, nurse Olivia de Havilland. She was, however, badly miscast as Ado Annie in “Oklahoma!” (1955), recording songs one note at a time. Critics carped, and she reportedly was difficult during shooting. She supported Clifton Webb as “The Man Who Never Was” (1956), a WWII thriller, then had to “Ride Out for Revenge” (1957), but was amazing in a small part in Robert Wise’s “Odds Against Tomorrow” (1959), seducing convicted killer

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<< TV

24 • Bay Area Reporter • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

Best of the Lavender Tube 2017 by Victoria A. Brownworth

e don’t do Top 10 lists for myriad reasons, not the least of which is that TV shows aren’t all the same. Writing, directing, acting, presentation, content: it’s all different. One can’t compare sitcoms to dramas to miniseries. But within that realm of difference there are shows that deserve notice and attention, and really are must-see TV. Watching queer TV as well as TV that centers women and people of color isn’t just watching ourselves anymore. In the age of Trump it’s a revolutionary act, a statement of Resistance. In 2017, TV that centered women, POC, LGBT was TV that fought back against the very real, very dangerous oppression of this administration and all it has done to suppress the voices and rights of marginalized Americans. With that reality in mind, we order this list according to what is most subversive in that context: TV that impacted us because we saw ourselves and because others bore witness to our existence in a time when we are being erased, when even some of the words that describe our identities are being scrubbed from government websites and verbiage. The most powerful TV event for LGBT people in 2017 was the ABC miniseries “When We Rise.” The miniseries was eight hours of LGBT history and of the pivotal years of the AIDS crisis that some of us fought on the front lines. Seeing that history presented on network TV with the same level of import as other histories was groundbreaking. Written by a gay man, Dustin Lance Black, directed by him and gay director Gus Van Sant, black lesbian director Dee Rees and Thomas Schlamme, this was watershed TV, even for the jaded. Three award-winning directors, an Oscar-winning screenwriter, the story of our political coming-of-age through men and women some of us have known and seen on the Castro (we remember the first time we met Cleve Jones there 30 years ago), this was real and personal. Flawed but deeply moving, and so very stridently, volubly, in-your-face ours. In that same vein, the re-boot of “Will & Grace” feels comfortable and comforting in this current era. Watching Will (Eric McCormack) do selfies with a 23-yearold date who keeps confusing Stonewall and Stonehenge is both cringeworthy and utterly realistic. Jack (Sean Hayes) doing his best “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” make-up and compression garment and meet-your-younger-date-ina-dark-bar approach to dating is equally real. Grace (Debra Messing) and Karen (Megan Mullalley) show us what it’s like to be middle-aged women who prefer the company of gay men to straight ones, and who are most authentic when they are not forced into performative heterosexuality. “W&G” isn’t just about gay middle age, it’s about straight women (is Karen really bi? We just don’t know for sure) and how much women have to suck everything up to be in the world every day as second-class beings dependent on their looks as much as their intellect. “W&G” is one of those sitcoms that gets deeper as you peel back the layers and exfoliate what lies beneath. “One Mississippi” is such an underrated series, yet if there were honesty in the Top 10 lists floating around as the year draws to a thank-God-it’s-over end, this show would be on every one of them. We first heard lesbian comedian

Tig Notaro’s Taylor Dane sketch years ago on NPR, and there is no single comedy bit we’ve ever seen or heard that has had the same resonance for us as both humor and Zeitgeist. It’s a brilliant, exceptional piece, and you need to YouTube it, because it is that good and worthy. “One Miss” is smart, raw and funny. It’s a semiautobiographical semi-dramedy comedy filled with yearning and intensity, and attempts to make sense of the heartbreak in families that refuse to address their hidden secrets and internal drama. Notaro is terrific. If we were pairing half-hour comedies, we’d pair “One Mississippi” with Pamela Adlon’s “Better Things.” Adlon and Notaro are contemporaries, and they have disgraced comedian Louis C.K. in common. Notaro worked with him on the first seasons of “One Miss,” Adlon cocreated her series with him. Both women have been outspoken about the sexual abuse C.K. has perpetrated on women. Notaro devoted an episode of her series to what were then rumors, now confirmed, about his actions. It’s a shame that C.K.’s tainted either woman, because their work is so far superior to his, and they are both stellar storytellers. “Better Things” is one of the most relatable sitcoms on TV, and Adlon’s searching, sarcastic, deadpan-delivery angst as single mother Sam Fox is pure 2017, pure how-the-hell-did-we-gethere reality. Sam’s middle daughter Frankie (Hannah Alligood) is in gender-identity flux, which in many ways parallels Sam’s own questions about her middle-aged-divorcée femaleness. We love everything about this series, including the three or so minutes sans dialogue in each episode where we’re watching Sam sitting, alone, trying to figure out her life in real time. “Handmaid’s Tale” is on everyone’s best lists. It has to be because Elisabeth Moss’ Offred is a genius performance, and the Margaret Atwood story about forced breeding and erasure of female agency couldn’t be more pertinent in an era where the Speaker of the House said in a speech Dec. 14 that American women need to have more babies. Someone needs to put that video to background music of “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles.” We put “Handmaid’s Tale” on our list as a companion to another Atwood novel-cum-series, “Alias Grace.” While “Alias Grace” addresses themes of female agency and oppression, as does “Handmaid’s Tale,” it is also a novelization of the true story of murderess Grace Marks, who in 1843 killed her employer Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper-mistress Nancy Montgomery. The story is vivid, compelling, enraging. Sarah Gadon is luminously inscrutable as Grace, Anna Paquin is exceptional as Nancy Montgomery, one of the murder victims. Sarah Polley’s writing is so very good, as is Mary Harron’s directing. Our three favorite drama series of 2017 – “This Is Us,” “American Crime” and “The Sinner” – explicate what’s wrong with Top 10 lists. Each of these series was brilliant with award-winning acting and writing, beautiful cinematography, compelling characters and brutal, authentic realism. But each falls on a spectrum of emotion that makes two of these series almost unwatchable due to that hyperrealism. Yet these were the three series we looked

forward to each week. The storylines were immersive, the characters felt like people we knew or wanted to know or help. Each in its own way was mesmerizing. We have loved “This Is Us” since its first episode, and we are not alone. The series is so popular that Twitter has awarded the show its own emoji with the weekly hashtag #ThisIsUs: a tiny box of tissues. That emoji is telling, because this series has one sobbing every week. On one of the few truly intersectional, interracial series on TV, each character has depth, the stories never go where we expect, the main issues – race, gender, sexuality, class – are fully developed. The acting is extraordinary, the characters believable, and the sobbing each week feels cathartic as we follow the three main characters, 37-year-old triplets, through the complexities of their familial lives, past and present. This show is everything “Parenthood” never was for us. “American Crime” is one of the best series of the past decade, which may be why it was cancelled this year after its third season. Created by John Ridley, the first black screenwriter to win an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay (“12 Years a Slave”), the anthology series brought so many vital issues of the intersections of race, gender, sexuality and class to the screen to the tune of a haunting, atonal score. The award-winning series was often hard to watch because it was so visceral. This year’s third season, which addressed the opioid epidemic, illegal immigration and sex-trafficking, was powerful and painful. Redemption felt unattainable at season’s end, much like real life. The very things that made the series so formidable may also have been what killed it. The lines between Good and Evil are never as distinct as we would like them to be. In this season those lines were blurred in ways that left us squirming in our seats. Surely Ridley wasn’t talking about us in that scene, was he? Surely he isn’t saying we are responsible for trafficked teens of all genders being raped, or immigrant farm laborers burned alive in a trailer?

“The Sinner” falls somewhere between these two series: equally strong, acted with a muscular nuance, dark and gritty. Unlike “American Crime,” there is a quest for redemption, not just explication. But unlike “This Is Us,” the characters are much harder to access and far less likeable. Nevertheless, the interplay between the two main characters, a woman murderer (Jessica Biel) and the detective who needs to know why she did it (Bill Pullman), is riveting. “The Sinner” is also one of the most painterly series of the year. Every shot holds meaning in the often deceptive beauty. “Master of None” and “Claws” are two sitcoms with terrific butch lesbian characters, Denise (Lena Waithe) and Quiet Ann (Judy Reyes), who are also both women of color. Even if we didn’t love these series we would be down for that alone. But these two different series, which center Otherness and ride a wave between what’s truly hilarious and what’s maybe-I-shouldn’t-belaughing edgy, take us to places we need to see: immigrant America and female/women of color entrepreneurial survival America. Binge these series over the holidays. Your life will be better for it. We know “The Leftovers” will be on many Top 10 lists, and it is the best series of the year in many respects. We loved it. We were shaken by it. We ached for more of it. We were confused by it. That last is perhaps what kept us from placing it higher on our list. We didn’t trust a lot of what we saw in this series because of the blurred line between the surreal and the real. But it had so much power and joy, grief and suffering, and was such an archetypal quest for healing that we couldn’t stop watching it. The last of our baker’s dozen bests is “The Exorcist.” In a year that saw a relentless cavalcade of series featuring superheroes, “The Exorcist” presented two men, a priest and a former priest, who battle Evil in ordinary worlds, sans capes and tights, solely with the power of their inherent goodness. This series, loosely based on the iconic William Peter Blatty novel, revamped

for the second season, and was significantly stronger than the first. The homoeroticism that was hinted at in season one was fully realized in season two. The main storyline of a foster dad with a house full of misfit teens, including a lesbian abused by her evangelical family prior to foster care, was believable, provocative and timely. The keystone of this series is Ben Daniels as Marcus, the priest who traded his collar for rogue exorcism. Marcus is a deeply complex man whose passion for God and The Truth guides him in all things. But once relieved of his collar, he is also freed to explore his sexuality. In a scene that outraged many viewers, Marcus kissed another man who wanted a relationship. It was an extraordinary moment that revealed the ease with which Marcus traversed worlds, while also remaining true to his passion: ridding the world of the age-old pestilence of Evil. We put this show on our best list for many reasons, including that kiss, the extraordinary Daniels and Alfonso Herrera (Father Tomas), the realistic, harrowing scares, the painterly cinematography, the beauty in small things, and the way it drew us in each week. There are series that didn’t make the cut for our best list, but which were nevertheless entertaining, and which we watched each week. Ryan Murphy’s “Feud” and “American Horror Story: Cult” engaged us fully. “Feud” was beautifully crafted, and the two leads, Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford, were superb. The sets and clothes were glorious. Alfred Molina, Judy Davis and Jackie Hoffman were a great second tier. But the series fell apart at the end and never quite captured the essence of the early episodes. The same was true of “Cult,” which was fabulous for the majority of the 11 episodes, but lost its luster in the final episodes. The cast was very good, the gay sex was amazing, and the anti-Trump fervor was palpable. So those two almost made the list, but their final episodes didn’t provide the necessary closure for such powerful storylines. Shows that in a different year might have made our best list are “The Americans,” “Broad City,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Crazy ExGirlfriend,” “Damnation,” “Dear White People,” “Empire,” “How to Get Away with Murder,” “Queen Sugar,” “Scandal,” “Top of the Lake: China Girl” and “Transparent.” We can recommend each of them for provocative and queer content and strong characterizations. Finally, comedy had a stellar year, and in the non-scripted category, “SNL,” particularly Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton, Kellyanne Conway, Jeff Sessions, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Angela Merkel and others, was extraordinary. Her Sessions is a fully realized monster masquerading as a Keebler elf. Melissa McCarthy’s guest appearances as Trump’s former Press Secretary Sean Spicer were phenomenal. We also loved Beck Bennett’s perennially shirtless Putin and Cecily Strong’s Melania Trump. Samantha Bee’s “Full Frontal” was the best of the political comedy shows, with John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” a close second. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was the best political pundit of 2017. CNN’s Don Lemon (yes, Don Lemon) was runner-up. None of the straight pundit class came close. So should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind, should old acquaintance be forgot, stay tuned for auld lang syne. Happy New Year!t

Books>>

December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018 • Bay Area Reporter • 25

Anne-Christine d’Adesky gives vox to pox by Erin Blackwell

“I

feel a stab of frustration. I want to be writing a different book. Something more... fun. Who’s going to care about this wild-ass roadtrip-through-history story about a sexually fluid writer?” Thus the author, on page 180 of the 297 total in “The Pox Lover: An Activist’s Decade in New York and Paris,” pans back from a jet-setting chronicle blurring the boundaries of Paris, New York, Haiti, Amsterdam, and New Orleans, to question her own voice. Content aside, it is this consciousness at odds with itself that is the chief literary quality of journalist Anne-Christine d’Adesky’s manic, chatty, sprawling memoir, published this year by University of Wisconsin Press. I met d’Adesky in 1993 while researching the Lesbian Avengers, a short-lived but stellar model of radical feminist direct action in NYC. Thus it was I partook of the inaugural Dyke March. Like her, I was living the transatlantic life between Europe and the States. She wasn’t in love with France the way I was and am, being driven by different demons, but the overlap in our experiences made her stand out in

my mind. Reading “Pox” revived my own memories of ex-pat, ex-het displacement, living a double life that never neatly resolves into a unified field, let alone a coherent narrative. Not when chunks of your psyche play tug-o-war. I confess I’m fascinated by this rift in the mind, and by whence it comes. As a child, d’Adesky had an imaginary friend named Roy, named for her television hero Roy Rogers. Age five, wearing cowboy boots, spurs, and hat, she was annoyed when her mother pretended not to know Roy was in the room. This indulgent, mollifying mother set a place at table for Roy. Viviane of Grenoble, France, was then living with her Belgian-Haitian husband in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This childhood memory comforts the adult d’Adesky, who 30 years later in 1993, is unsettled by an “invasion of an inner voice, separate from me and yet not. It’s like I have a parallel soundtrack at all times.” This voice begins as a vision: “A face stares back at me, hard to capture. A level gaze. Not friendly, not hostile. She’s spitting on the ground, grinning. A mixed-blood creature with wide, high cheekbones and thick brows knitting together

over small eyes. I hear her voice, a sandpaper rasp inside my ear.” This universal grandmother, a spirit of the river Seine in Paris, names herself Sel, as in “sel de mer,” sea salt, a French homonym for “mother’s salt.” The venerable hag starts scurrying through the grittier bits of Paris as a personal guide to the dark spots of Paris. “She looks back at me like a mother observes a child.” This mirroring and mothering runs like a sewer through d’Adesky’s polyvalent musings. Sel comes and goes, a narrative device exploited for local color then abandoned, as the writer resists subjugation by a fictional entity, rejecting the constraints of traditional, intelligible storytelling. D’Adesky rationalizes the haphazard accumulation that is “Pox” with an anecdote. At a Paris bookshop in 1993, scanning “The Civilizing Seine” in a 1982 National Geographic, she is “tempted to write my comments in the margin for the next reader.” She extends this compulsion to us. “Don’t hesitate, reader. Take notes, add your own comments. Do your own research and feel free to correct my interpretation of historical events. I’ll be all the happier.” Generous

invitation, or call for unpaid factcheckers? The curse of the journalist is ever to comment, never create. “Pox” is a pile of intriguing comments spinning in a literary lettuce centrifuge, teasing the reader with splashes of detailed description, undeveloped potential scenarios, mash-ups of personal fumbles and political agendas. Do not expect formal rigor. Skim for topics of interest.

This slapdash compendium of what d’Adesky thinks, hallucinates, or remembers, from 1993-99, covers lesbian longings, friends living with AIDS, French fascism, ACT-UP, Lesbian Avengers, French imperialism, the wound that is Haiti, imperfect girlfriends, Paris landmarks, French tainted-blood, and so much else! Of course there’s no index, that would make too much sense. The only constant in this swirl of shiny diary objects is the multifaceted narrator, her several personae reflected in kaleidoscopic shards of prose, evading synthesis, avoiding commitment, splitting, dialoguing with self and reader, changing the subject ad infinitum. Blueblood bourgeois bohemian, intellectual and activist, the manly woman d’Adesky is the tormented creature of a torturous lineage. A first-generation American with the heavy karma of Belgian colonials in her veins, she wrestles with her DNA: an “inherited mix of European aristo-cum-Haitian ‘blans,’ excolonials with stripes of color in their blood, and a dubious family notion of noblesse oblige.” That is her pox, and activism is her protease inhibitor.t

The Piano Guys and Lindsey Stirling have newly released holiday albums. On “Angels from the Realms of Glory,” the opening number on The Piano Guys’ Christmas Together (Portrait) album, they are joined by fellow LDS members David Archuleta, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra, and Peter Hollens. Other guest artists include Placido

Domingo (“Silent Night, Holy Night”), The King’s Singers (“O Little One Sweet”) and Lexi Walker (“O Holy Night/Ave Maria”). Fiddler and Dancing With the Stars competitor Stirling bows with her first holiday album, Warmer in the Winter (Concord). More than half of the songs are instrumentals in which the plucky Stirling shows

off her string skill on Christmas standards i “Carol of the Bells,” “What Child Is This” and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas.” Stirling originals include “Christmas C’Mon” with vocals by Becky G, the title track featuring Trombone Shorty, and “Time To Fall in Love,” sung by Alex Gaskarth of All Time Low.t

Tinsel tunes 2017 by Gregg Shapiro

he 10th anniversary edition expanded reissue of Josh Groban’s Noel (Reprise), one of the biggestselling Christmas album of all time, now boasts six additional songs, including four newly recorded selections. The original 2007 album by the classical crossover superstar played it relatively safe with a few exceptions. A duet with Brian McKnight on “Angels We Have Heard on High” soars. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” is made more poignant because of the inclusion of holiday greetings from soldiers and their families. “Thankful,” co-written by Carole Bayer Sager, is the newest of the original disc’s compositions. Of the newly recorded songs, the duet with Tony Bennett on Vince Guaraldi’s “Christmastime Is Here” and John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” where Groban is joined by a children’s choir, are especially pleasing. A cappella outfit Pentatonix are the new reigning kings and queens of holiday music, topping the Christmas records list for the last three years. The quartet’s platinumselling 2016 album has been reissued with five new songs, r e t i t l e d A Pentatonix Christmas Deluxe (RCA). In addition to interesting renditions of “Up on the Housetop,” covers of Kanye West’s “Coldest Winter” and *Nsync’s “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” from the previous version, the expanded edition includes “Let It Snow!” and a duet with Jennifer Hudson on “How Great Thou Art.” Leave it to a nice Jewish bisexual girl such as Rachael Sage to come up with one of the most delightful holiday recordings of the year. Her five-song EP Joy! (MPress) opens

with a reading of “Joy to the World” that is pure Sage, right down to her distinctive phrasing and vocals. A radio mix of the songs closes the EP. In-between, it’s a festival of lights and light pop. The originals, including the lighthearted “Tchatchkes & Latkes” and the beautiful “Hanukkah in the Village,” are among Sage’s most appealing compositions. The disc’s centerpiece, which Sage sings in Yiddish, is the song “Umru Meine,” featuring lyrics by the modernist poet Moyshe-Leyb Halpern. As career transformations go, Gwen Stefani’s is one for the record books. Over the course of 25 years, Stefani successfully morphed from the belly-baring lead singer of OC ska act No Doubt to full-fledged diva and fashion icon. Stefani’s first Christmas album You Make It Feel Like Christmas (Interscope) combines her interpretation of holiday standards (“Silent Night,” “Santa Baby”) with half-adozen new tunes. Thanks to Stefani’s gay co-songwriter Justin Tranter, it’s the new tunes “My Gift Is You,” “When I Was a Little Girl” and “Under the Christmas Lights” that are the real gift here. The 2017 double-disc edition of Broadway’s Carols for a Cure: Vol. 19 (rock-itscience.com) serves a dual purpose. First, it’s a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (broadwaycares.org). Second, the 20 selections give listeners a chance to hear artists from some of Broadway’s hottest tickets – Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, Kinky Boots, War Paint, Groundhog Day, Anastasia, Waitress – perform traditional and new Christmas songs. This Christmas, the Latter Days Saints have a leg up, as well as a piano, a cello and a violin, on the competition. Mormon musical acts

FRANC D’AMBROSIO

WELLSTRUNG

LINDA EDER

Jan. 5 – 6

Jan. 18 – 20

Jan. 25 – 27

For tickets: feinsteinsatthenikko.com Feinstein’s | Hotel Nikko San Francisco 222 Mason Street | 855-322-2738

<< Theatre

26 • Bay Area Reporter • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

Theatre 2017

From page 17

“John” Theater can offer pleasures in the moment, but even better are those that continue to resonate after the curtain has come down. This was the case with Annie Baker’s “John,” presented by ACT at the Strand Theater in a threehour production of bewitching allure. Returning to the role she created in New York, Georgia Engel used her familiar breathy voice as something of an undercover provocateur who ever-so-innocently leads her B&B guests into explosive soul-searching. “The Four Immigrants” This TheatreWorks world premiere was a comic-strip musical, and assertively so. The musical’s primary source is a collection of cartoon panels by Henry Yoshita Kiyama, who was illustrating his own experiences as an aspiring artist from Japan just arrived in San Francisco a century ago. It’s the tale of four buddies whose dreams of easy assimilation are dashed, but their optimism remains. Min Kahng’s script uses stylized vignettes often musically illustrated by catchy songs, and it all came together in Leslie Martinson’s stylish staging. “Hand to God” Playwright Robert Askins provided shocks of increasing intensity in the story of a church kid who is unable to remove a satanically obsessed hand puppet from his limb. The heart and soul of director David Ivers’ excellent Berkeley Rep production came from Michael Doherty as alter egos good-boy Jason and his monstrous puppet Tyrone. Very profane and very fun.

Kevin Berne

Phil Wong, James Seol, Hansel Tan, and Sean Fenton played the title characters in the comic book-inspired world-premiere musical “The Four Immigrants” at TheatreWorks.

“Barbecue” Robert O’Hara’s play provoked a lot of post-show parsing, and if the details didn’t always make sense in the moment, there are vivid memories held from San Francisco Playhouse’s production. The playwright at first seems to be challenging us to compare reactions to a racial flip as a white family and then a black family of high dysfunctions each try to stage a drug intervention. But then a series of head-spinning twists was smartly wrought by director Margo Hall and the large cast of vivid characters. “Assassins” This musical is always going to have a queasy edge, being about folks who tried, and sometimes succeeded, in killing U.S. presidents. But director Daren A.C. Carollo and Bay Area Musicals

Robert Rauschenberg Foundation

Robert Rauschenberg, “Persimmon” (1964), oil and silkscreen ink on canvas. Collection of Jean Christophe Castelli.

Fine Art 2017

From page 17

Local institutions moved away from touring extravaganzas towards internally generated or partnered shows. The Fine Arts Museums’ elegant, radiantly competent director Max Hollein has fully assumed his role and been making his presence felt, helping to finally push those distracting and embarrassing headlines about Dede Wilsey off the pages of The New York Times. For “Klimt & Rodin,” he engineered something of a coup: the first California exhibition of the great Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, whose splendid artworks rarely travel.

Though the show was regrettably scant in the Klimt department and didn’t include “Adele” or the “golden” paintings for which the artist is most famous, what arrived was a joy to behold. This was the summer of Sophie Calle, when the French femme terrible brought her ruthlessness, wicked humor, and unique combo of fearlessness, voyeurism and penchant for violating boundaries to Fort Mason in her largest U.S. exhibition to date. The conceptual artist famously transformed romantic rejection into triumph when she took a blithe kiss-off letter from a former lover and invited 107 women from different professions

hit all the right notes in the Stephen Sondheim-John Weidman musical, and captured its moral ambiguities and unexpected humor in a handsome production. “Smut: An Unseemly Story” Word for Word is a company dedicated to creating stage works from short stories without changing the authors’ prose, and the presentation taken from Alan Bennett’s “Smut” collection was a sublime manifestation of its mission. Director Amy Kossow was assisted by a delightful cast as she brought Bennett’s wit to the stage in “The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson,” the tale of a recent widow who is definitely not going gently into that good night. “This Bitter Earth” Racial politics filtered through gentle humor

to watch, but you might have been and well-observed minutiae that able to see bits of yourself scattered encouraged warm involvement among these characters who are all in Harrison David Rivers’ play. just seeking a little bit more. Commissioned by New Conserva“Deal With the Dragon” The tory Theatre Center, it had its world devil is in the details of this riff premiere there in a keenly sensitive on Faustian bargains, with Kevin production. Director Ed Decker Rolston portraying multiple charconfidently took it through the layacters in his tantalizing solo play ers of a relationship between a poat New Conservatory Theatre litically apathetic African-American Center. Directed by and develplaywright and his Black Lives Matoped with M. Graham Smith, the ter-impassioned white boyfriend. play contains keen observances of “New Girl in Town” This 1957 various characters’ quirks in the Broadway musical was part of 42nd story of a promising artist and his Street Moon’s first season under new inflammably testy patron. Rolston management, and it certainly stepped astutely moved among the charup the production power for these acters, a process highlighted in a purveyors of small-scale productions of lesser-seen musicals. “New Girl,” monologue by a third character based on Eugene O’Neill’s “Anna that evolves into a confessional of Christie,” was a strained amalgam self-flagellation, and that becomes of Broadway talents twisting a grim something like an aria.t story of a worn-out prostitute into a musical comedy of modest success. In the smaller scale with which 42nd Street Moon operates, director Daren A.C. Carollo’s “New Girl” proved to be merry entertainment about a sketchy lot along the waterfront. “Small Mouth Sounds” The sounds of silence rang loudly in Bess Wohl’s provocatively taciturn play presented at ACT’s Strand Theatre. The attendees at a self-help retreat have been forbidden to speak, turning efforts at communication with strangers into an intriguing, Lois Tema confrontational, and humorous affair. Rachel Chavkin, H. Adam Harris and Michael who directed the original 2015 Hanna played lovers with an uneasy New York production, worked acceptance of each other’s political with a new cast here who wore views in the world premiere of “This the characters like second Bitter Earth” at New Conservatory skins. Their predicaments Theatre Center. were voyeuristically enjoyable

to perform, read aloud, comment (Through March 25.) In case there on, analyze and gleefully trash the was any doubt that SFMOMA had letter’s contents. The object of all its groove on, 2017’s all-star lineup this amusing derision penned a included “Matisse/Diebenkorn” and 1,800-word rejoinder, proving that “Edvard Munch: Between the Clock writing is the best revenge, unless and the Bed.” your correspondent is Sophie Calle. Rauschenberg wasn’t the only The gallery scene continued to gay artist showcased this year. Inreshuffle and decentralize. SFAI veterate New Yorker Cary Leibowitz launched a new venues at Ft Mason; aka Candyass had his first-ever solo Chronicle Books CEO and local museum show, which, despite its photography collector Nion McEpopularity, was a sugar high a trifle voy opened a 5,000-sq. ft. nonprofit too superficial for my taste. Hospace at Minnesota Street Project; moeroticism met social realism in BAMPFA’s “Martin Wong: Human and the shrewd, forward-thinking Instamatic,” an exhibition focusing Wendi Norris announced the upon the self-taught Chinese-Americoming closure of her relatively new can ceramicist-turned-painter who Jessie Street space, opting for a citygrew up in SF’s Chinatown, moved based headquarters and a flexible to New York’s Lower East Side, and model more attuned and responsive infused his landscapes of urban to the demands of a changing art blight with firemen fetishes and market. And a good word for the fantasies of buff prison inmates Chinese Cultural Center Gallery, beckoning behind bars. whose thoughtful, communityMost fun at a museum: CJM sensitive projects don’t get nearly walks away with this accolade the attention they deserve. courtesy of two undeniably enIt’s a given that San Francisco is joyable shows. “Jewish Folktales not New York, but no matter your Retold: The Artist Maggid” was a preferences, 2017 was an interesting real trip, but “Roz Chast Cartoon year to be a Bay Area art-lover. Memoirs,” a scream – well, maybe, Best museum show: “Revelamore like a hilarious whine in tions: Art from the African American South” at the de Young, a truly outstanding, long-overdue exhibition that addressed race, class, gender and religion from a vantage point absent from most museum collections, simultaneously filled a void in the annals of contemporary art, and reminded audiences of what they’ve been missing. It has been a long time since this many original, gutwrenching works have been gathered in one place. (Through April 1.) A close second is “Robert Rauschenberg: Erasing the Rules,” a home run that closed out SFMOMA’s winning streak this year with a bang. The late gay artist, who lost none of his verve or nerve over the course of a darCourtesy SFMOMA ing and prolific 60-year career, had affairs with Jasper Johns and Edvard Munch, “Self-Portrait. Between Cy Twombly, when not devour- the Clock and the Bed” (1940-43), oil on ing images that he translated canvas. into forms of his own devise.

the wilderness from the puckish, adorably kvetchy, long-time New Yorker magazine cartoonist – stole my heart. Unafraid to summon her inner crabby-appleton, Chast has an uncanny knack for being right on target, giving pithy voice to thoughts you’ve harbored but were too polite to express. Communing with Chast’s cartoons is like hanging with your best bud, the one who knows the worst, really gets you, and is a riot even when it hurts; an unqualified blast. Best gallery shows: “Tiny Bubbles” at SFAC, curated by Steven Wolf; “Rabble-Rousers: Jennie Ottinger + Megan Reed,” in which two delightful artists were double the pleasure together, at Johansson Projects. Best photography shows: “Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing” (OMCA); “Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument,” a provocative examination of race and the shaping of journalistic choices that engendered an even deeper appreciation of the triple-threat photo-essayist, filmmaker and musician (BAMPFA). “The Thrill is Gone” plaque goes to “The Summer of Love: Experience: Art, Fashion and Rock and Roll” at the de Young, a calculated concession that, despite having no other reason to be, attracted scads of visitors. The 1960s keep coming back, like the bad boyfriend you can’t give up. Most unjustly overlooked exhibition: YBCA’s “Civic Radar,” a more-timely-than-ever survey of work by Lynn Hershman Leeson, the Bay Area feminist, interactive media and performance artist, filmmaker, and photographer. Leeson’s critique of the invisibility of women and how they can inadvertently serve as canvases for projections of male fantasy is as stinging and resonant today as it was 40 years ago. Her thematic content has held up so well it’s difficult to know whether to be impressed or to weep. So much has changed for women, yet so much remains the same.t

Arts Events Vol. 47 • No. 52 • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

www.ebar.com V www.bartabsf.com

On the Tab

Gooch

December 28 - January 4

Sun 31 D’Arcy Drollinger welcomes you to New Year’s Eve @ Oasis

elebrate the end of the year, in all its awf glor y. Dance for a new indictful deli ul awesome ghtful 2018. Ever y bar and nightclub is hosting party, but we’ve selected the gayest and a New Year’s Eve tions, as well as fun times on other days funnest of celebra, too.

page 28 >> Listings start on

best of 2017

photos by steven underhill

nother year has passed. Here are a few highlights from the prolific array of photo series shot by Steven Underhill. Happy New Year.

35 >> Photos on page

January: Vivvyanne ForeverMORE and Honey Mahogany New Year’s Eve at The Stud.

MORE!Stuff

Coming January 2018

PHOTO: Alan Purcell

{ THIRD OF THREE SECTIONS }

<< On the Tab

Steven Underhill

Peter Liu

28 • Bay Area Reporter • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

Sun 31

New Year’s Eve @ The Speak

Fri 29

Kingdom’s Black & Gold New Year’s Ball @ Oasis

Thu 28 After Dark @ Exploratorium The cocktails and science night for adults, with installations throughout the hands-on exhibit museum. Dec. 28: Mixing Color, demos with full-spectrum colors. $20. 6pm-10pm. Pier 15 at Embarcadero. exploratorium.edu/

Buffy Sing-Along @ Lone Star Saloon Enjoy musical numbers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show, plus drag acts and trivia contest prizes. 8pm show. 1354 Harrison St. lonestarsf.com

Gayface @ El Rio Queer weekly night out at the popular Mission bar. 9pm-2am. 3158 Mission St. www.elriosf.com

Ginger Minj @ Oasis The RuPaul's Drag Race star brings her Crossdresser for Christmas show to the SoMa nightclub. $27.50-$40. 8pm. Also Dec 29 & 30, 7pm (and at Mother Dec 30). 298 11th St. sfoasis.com

Junk @ Powerhouse MrPam and Dulce de Leche cohost the weekly underwear strip night and contest. $5. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

Literary Speakeasy @ Martuni's Readings by local authors, with Gina Stella dell'Assunta, Lewis DeSimone, Diane Glazman, Tony Press, and David Welper, and host James J. Siegel. 7pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market.

The Monster Show @ The Edge The weekly drag show with host Sue Casa, DJ MC2, themed nights and hilarious fun. $5. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Picante @ The Cafe Lulu and DJ Marco's Latin night with sexy gogo guys. 9pm-2am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Queer Karaoke @ Club OMG KJ Dana hosts the weekly singing night; unleash your inner American Idol; first Thursdays are Costume Karaoke; 3rd is Kinky Karaoke 8pm. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Sundance Saloon @ Space 550 The Country-Western line-dancing two-stepping dance events celebrates 18 years. Free-$5. 5pm-10:30pm. Also Sundays. 550 Barneveld Ave. sundancesaloon.org

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie's Lounge Disco guru DJ Bus Station John spins grooves at the intimate retro music night. $5. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. auntcharlieslounge.com

Fri 29 Bear Happy Hour @ Midnight Sun Hairy men and their pals enjoy 2-for-1 drinks and no cover. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. midnightsunsf.com

Big Boy @ Lone Star Saloon DJ BoyShapedBox spins tunes at the big bear monthly party. $5. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. lonestarsf.com

Black & Gold New Year's Ball @ Oasis

DTF Fridays @ Port Bar, Oakland Various DJs play house music, and a few hotties gogo dance at the new gay bar's weekly event. 9pm-2am. 2023 Broadway. (510) 823-2099. portbaroakland.com

Flex @ Powerhouse DJ Guy Ruben, strong drinks and buff men. $5. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Friday Nights at the Ho @ White Horse Bar, Oakland Dance it up at the historic (and still hip) East Bay bar. 9pm-2am. 6551 Telegraph Ave. whitehorsebar.com

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

Hella Gay Comedy @ Club OMG Queer joke night, with host Nasty Ass Bitch. $15. 7pm. 43 6th St. clubomgsf.com

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

Midnight Show @ Divas Weekly drag shows at the last transgender-friendly bar in the Polk; with hosts Victoria Secret, Alexis Miranda and several performers. Also Saturdays. $10. 11pm. 1081 Polk St. www.divassf.com

POP NYE @ The Armory Three-night electronic music festival, culminating in a big New Year's Eve (mostly straight) dance. $50-$265. Dec 29 with Audien, Bingo Players, Dombresky and Showtek; 8pm-2am. Dec 30 with Andrew Bayer, Cosmic Gate, Ferry Corsten and more; 9pm4am. Dec 31: Get Real, Gorgon City, Solardo, Kill Frenzy and Dateless; 8pm-4am. 333 14th St. sfarmory.com

Red Hots Burlesque @ The Stud The saucy women's burlesque show hosted by Dottie Lux will titillate and tantalize. $10-$20. 8pm-9:30pm. 399 9th St. Also Sunday brunch shows at Piano Fight Theatre. 144 Taylor St. redhotsburlesque.com

Rich Stadtmiller

For full listings, visit www.ebar.com/bartab

Manimal @ Beaux

The Flamin' Groovies, The Rubinoos @ The New Parish, Oakland The veteran fun power pop bands perform classic hits; The Chuckleberries also perform. $25. 9pm. 1743 San Pablo Ave., at 18th, Oakland. www.thenewparish.com

Skate Night @ Church on 8 Wheels Groove on wheels at the former Sacred Heart Church-turned disco roller skate party space, hosted by John D. Miles, the "Godfather of Skate." 7pm-11pm. Sat afternoon sessions 1pm-2:30pm and 3pm5:30pm. $10. Kids 12 and under $5. Skate rentals $5. 554 Fillmore St. at Fell. churchof8wheels.com

Stereo Argento @ The Stud Drag stage show with Jillian Gnarling, Pseuda, Nicki Jizz and others. DJed grooves til 3am. $10. 10pm-3am. 399 9th St. studsf.com

Tenth Anniversay @ Club 21 Gia Farré performs at the popular Latin club's anniversary, with gogo guys, drink specials and table reservations available. $10-$20. 10pm-3am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. club21oakland.com

Vibe Fridays @ Club BnB, Oakland House music and cocktails, with DJs Shareef Raheim-Jihad and Ellis Lindsey. 9pm-2am. 2120 Broadway. (510) 759-7340. club-bnb.com

Kingdom, the powerhouse drag king hip hop ensemble, performs at and hosts a benefit for the Dyke March, with Alex U. Inn, Madd Dogg 20/20, DJ Taino Glo (Brooklyn), and a midnight king couture show. $10. 10pm-2am. 298 11th St. sfoasis.com

Sun 31

Nutz @ Powerhouse

Club Papi @ Club 21, Oakland

Underwear Night @ SF Eagle Strip down to your skivvies at the famed leather bar, with host Dulce de Leche and DJ Marcos Moreno. 398 12th St. at Harrison. sf-eagle.com

Hip Hop and Latin event, with 3 dance floors, gogo studs and drag acts. $10-$20. 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. club21oakland.com

See page 30 >>

La Bomba Latina @ Club OMG Drag show with dJ Jaffeth. $5. 9pm2am. 43 6th St. clubomgsf.com

Fri 29

The Rubinoos (with Flamin’ Groovies) @ The New Parish

Thu 28

Ginger Minj @ Oasis

<< On the Tab

Scott Iverson

30 • Bay Area Reporter • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

Sun 31

Bearracuda @ Folsom Foundry

On the Tab

From page 28

Sat 30 Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven @ Great American Music Hall

Soul Party @ Elbo Room

Beverage Benefit @ The Edge

DJs Lucky, Paul, and Phengren Osward spin 60s soul 45s. $5-$10 ($5 off in semi-formal attire). 10pm-2am. 647 Valencia St. 552-7788. elbo.com

Fundraiser and fun, with proceeds going to local nonprofits. $10. 4pm7pm. 4149 18th St. edgesf.com

Underwear Party @ Club OMG

Enjoy funky folk bands. Also Dec 31 with Johnny Hickman. $26-$51 with dinner, 9pm. Dec 31 $50-$75, 8pm. 859 O'Farrell St. slimspresents.com

Strip down to your skivvies, boxers, jock straps and get $1 well drinks. $8. 10pm-4am. 43 6th St. clubomgsf.com

Lips and Lashes Brunch @ Lookout

Throboy DJs, gogo hos and twinks, apparently. 9pm-1am. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Weekly show with soul, funk and Motown grooves hosted by Carnie Asada, with DJs Becky Knox and Pumpkin Spice. The yummy brunch menu starts at 12pm, with the show at 1:30pm. 3600 16th St. lookoutsf.com

Mother @ Oasis Heklina's popular drag show, with special guests and great music themes (No bachelorette parties admitted!) Dec 30 with special guest Ginger Minj. $15. 10pm-3am (11:30pm show). 298 11th St. sfoasis.com

Nutz @ Powerhouse Glamamore and Dulce de Leche cohost the hot gogo contest, with DJ Guy Ruben. $5. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

The Playground @ Club BNB, Oakland Revamped night at the popular hip hop and Latin dance club. $5-$15. 9pm to 4am. 2120 Broadway. (510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Shake It Up @ Port Bar, Oakland DJ Lady Char spins dance grooves; gogo studs, and drink specials, too. 9pm-2am. 2023 Broadway. (510) 8232099. www.portbaroakland.com

Sun 31

Cazwell @ Oasis

Wank @ SF Eagle

Sun 31 Bearracuda @ Folsom Foundry DJs Matt Consola and Paul Goodyear spin grooves for the 12th annual bears and cubs New Year's Eve party. $25-$50. 9pm-4am. 1425 Folsom St. bearracuda.com

Beats Antique @ The Midway Live and DJed music New Year's Eve party at the warehouse nightclub, with Wax Taylor, Mikey Lion, Sacha Robotti and others. $30-$100. 9pm4am. 900 Marin St. themidwaysf.com

Beer Bust @ Lone Star Saloon Beer, bears, beats at the weekly fundraiser for various local charities. $15. 4pm-8pm. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Beer Bust @ SF Eagle The popular weekly event packs in the fans, with proceeds going to local charities. $10. Beer bust 3pm-5pm. 398 12th St. at Harrison. sf-eagle.com

Big Gay Beer Bust @ The Cinch Benefits and plenty of beer at the historic neighborhood bar. 3pm-7pm. 1723 Polk St. www.cinchsf.com

Black & White Affair @ The Starlight Room The Klipptones jazz band and DJ Beatnick at the swankiest New Year's Eve party, with a panoramic view, hors d'eouvres and desserts, midnight toast and an open bar. $50, $225 and up. 8pm-2am. Sir Francis Drake Hotel, 21st floor, 450 Powell St. starlightroomsf.com

Blessed @ Port Bar, Oakland Carnie Asada's fun drag night with Carnie's Angels Mahlae Balenciaga and Au Jus, plus DJ Ion. 2023 Broadway. www.portbaroakland.com

Cazwell @ Oasis Celebrate the New Year with the whimsical sexy gay hip hop stud, plus drag acts Heklina, D'Arcy Drollinger, Valentine, Roxy Cotton Candy, Rock M. Sakura, Miss Rahni and more; VIP rooftop party with food, open bar and a Cazwell meet & greet. $35-$85. 7:30pm-2am. 298 11th St. sfoasis.com

Club Lonely NYE @ Club OMG Primo, Vin Sol, and guest-hosts celebrate New Year's Eve. $15-$20. 9pm-2am. 43 6th St. clubomgsf.com

Club Papi NYE @ Space 550 Dancing, balloon drop, 15 gogo guys, drag performers (Diamond Leblanc, Ms. Lola, Jessica Wild and Dorys). $20. 10pm-3am. 550 Barneveld Ave. www.clubpapi.com

DAD NYE @ Driftwood Dads And Disco, the monthly gay party, celebrates New Year's Eve, with DJs Mark O'Brien, Sergio Fedasz, and residents Michael Romano and Kelly Naughton. 9pm-1am. 1225 Folsom St. driftwoodbarsf.com

Sun 31

Alondra Garibay at Club Papi @ Space 550

Dirty Musical Sundays @ The Edge Sing along at the popular musical theatre night, with a bawdy edge; also Mondays and Wednesdays (but not dirty). 7pm-2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. edgesf.com

Domingo De Escandal @ Club OMG Weekly Latin night with drag shows hosted by Vicky Jimenez and DJ Carlitos. (Comedy Open Mic 5:30pm). 7pm-2am. 43 6th St. clubomgsf.com

Fleetwood Macramé @ The Ivy Room, Albany The Fleetwood Mac tribute band performs at a New Year's Eve night. $20.18. 9pm-1am. 860 San Pablo Ave, Albany. ivyroom.com

Game Heavan @ Brewcade Take a break from your burdens with a few rounds of video games and some specialty beers. No cover. 2200 Market St. brewcadesf.com

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

Jeff Goldblum @ Feinstein's at the Nikko The popular actor shows off his impressive piano skills with his jazz band, The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, in two New Year's Eve concerts. $85$125 ($20 food/drink min.) 7:30pm & 10:30pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason st. feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Kaskade @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium The globally popular DJ/mixer plays two night (also Dec. 30). $100. 9pm1am. 99 Grove St. www.kaskademusic.com/NYE2017/

New Gears Eve @ SF Eagle MonitStat and DJ Mike Simonetti lead the kink and leather gear New Year's Eve party. 8pm-2am. 398 12th St. at Harrison. sf-eagle.com

Sun 31

New Year's Eve @ Club 21 Violeta performs at the popular Latin club's NYE party. Gogo guys, balloon drop, 2-club entry, drink specials and table reservations available. $10-$20. 10pm-3am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. club21oakland.com

New Year's Eve @ The Speak Boxcar Theatre's hit Speakeasy immersive 1920s live music and dance show celebrates the new year with the premiere of their new bar, the Gaslamp Lounge. $195. $375/$475 VIP tix includes cocktails, nibblies and a rooftop view of NYE fireworks. 8:30pm-1am. thespeakeasysf.com

New Year Woof @ Powerhouse Pedal Pups, DJ Jason Godfrey, gogos, champagne, puppy pee shots and NYE revelry. $5-$10. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

NYE Party Night @ White Horse Bar, Oakland New Year's Eve party at the historic East Bay bar, with a champagne toast and balloon drop at midnight. 9pm-2am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. whitehorsebar.com

Pete Escovedo Orchestra @ Freight & Salvage, Berkeley Enjoy Latin live concerts at the music venue's NYE party, with Peter Michael and Flo the Funky Latin Orchestra also performing. $75-$80. 9pm-1am. 2020 Addison St. thefreight.org

Sundance Saloon NYE @ SOMArts Cultural center Enjoy two-stepping, line-dancing, a delicious buffet dinner (7:30pm-9pm) and dancing until 12:30am. $25-$45, Dinner $30. 934 Brannan St. at 9th. sundancesaloon.org

Sunday's a Drag @ Starlight Room The weekly brunch and drag show with a panoramic view. $45. 11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square. 395-8595. starlightroomsf.com

Fleetwood Macramé @ The Ivy Room, Albany

See page 34 >>

<< Arts Events

RJ Muna

32 • Bay Area Reporter • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

Arts Events December 28-January 4

y Area between le slow in the Ba hings can be a litt ng art museums ntage of it by visiti holidays. Take adva festive musical. a at ts enjoy choice sea or , iet qu ve ati rel in

For full listings, visit www.ebar.com/arts

Thu 28 Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi The musical comedy revue celebrates its 43th year with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs. Book now for holiday special shows. $25-$160. Beer/wine served; cash only; 21+, except where noted. Wed-Fri 8pm. Sat 6pm & 9pm. Sun 2pm & 5pm. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd. (Green St.). 421-4222. beachblanketbabylon.com

Black Rider @ Ashby Stage Shotgun Players’ production of the Williams S. Burroughs, Tom Waits and Robert Wilson adult fairytale musical about a lowly clerk who must prove himself to his fianceé’s father by riding through a mysterious forest. $25-$40. Thru Dec 31. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. www.shotgunplayers.org

A Christmas Story @ SF Playhouse Local production of Benj Pasek, Justin Paul & Joseph Robinette’s Tony-nominated musical adaptation of the classic movie about a young boy’s holiday hopes for a rifle. $20-$125. TueThu 7:30pm, Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Jan. 13. 450 Post St. www.sfplayhouse.org

The Kinsey Sicks @ Boxcar Theatre The dragapella quartet returns with Oy Vey in a Manger, their multiholiday comic music romp. $45-$65. 7:30pm. Wed & Sat also 2:30pm. Thru Dec. 30. 644 Broadway. thespeakeasysf.com/event-oy-vey/

Kwanzaa 2017 @ Various Venues The Village Project’s celebration of Nguzo Saba: The Seven Principles, with live music and dancers. Free. Dec. 26 – Jan. 1 7pm-10pm. www.kwanzaasanfrancisco.com

Mittens & Mistletoe @ Dance Mission Theatre Sweet Can Productions’ 8th annual fun family-friendly Winter Circus Cabaret, with acrobats, clowns and performers from Cal Shakes, Mixed Nutz, New Pickle Circus, Universoul, Cirque de Boheme, Ars Minerva, Teatro Zinzanni and more. $18-$60. 2pm, 4pm and some 8pm thru Dec. 28. 3316 24th St. sweetcanproductions.com

Nick Spangler @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The Bay Area native and Broadway star performs his new cabaret concert, Since I’ve Been Gone. $22.50-$50 ($20 food/drink min.). 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason st. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Dec 26-Jan 1: Sing-Along The Sound of Music hosted by Sara Moore and Laurie Bushman (1pm, 7pm). $11-$16. 429 Castro St. castrotheatre.com

The Second City’s comic sketch series focuses on seasonal satire and sacreligious songs. $40-$60 (includes one drink!). Tue, Thu-Sat 8pm. Wed & Sun 7pm, Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Dec. 31. 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. berkeleyrep.org

Forever Tango @ Palace of Fine Arts Luis Bravos’ acclaimed tango company performs their holiday dance and music concert, with guest dancer Anna Trebunskaya ( Dancing With the Stars). $50-$170. Various times thru Dec. 31 (New Year’s Eve concert and party). 3301 Lyon St. forevertangolive.com/tc-events/

Goapele @ Yoshi’s, Oakland The gorgeous singer with an amazing voice performs four nights at the elegant restaurant-nightclub, including two New Year’s Eve concerts with her band. $36, $69, $99. Thu & Fri 8pm & 10pm. Sat 7:30pm & 9:30pm. Dec 31, 8pm and 11pm. 520 Embarcadero West. goapele.com yoshias.com

The Kinsey Sicks @ Bo xcar Theatre

Fri 29 Avenue Q @ NCTC The puppets return! The Tonywinning musical about a New York neighborhood of puppets and people is restaged. $35-$60. WedSat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Extended thru Jan. 21. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. nctcsf.org

Disney’s Aladdin @ Orpheum Theatre Touring production of the colorful hit musical based on the Disney animated film. $55-$162. Tue-Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat & Sun 2pm. Sun 1pm. Thru Jan. 7. 1192 Market St. shnsf.com

The Flamin’ Groovies, The Rubinoos @ The New Parish, Oakland The veteran fun power pop bands perform classic hits; also, The Chuckleberries. $25. 9pm. 1743 San Pablo Ave., at 18th, Oakland. thenewparish.com

Mary Poppins @ Paramount Theatre, Oakland The classic Disney musical about a British nanny stars Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. $6. 8pm. 2025 Broadway, Oakland. paramounttheatre.com

Older and Out @ North Berkeley Senior Center Weekly group discussion about problems for elders in the LGBT community. 3:15pm. 1901 Hearst Ave., Berkeley. pacificcenter.org

Classic & New Films @ Castro Theatre

Dysfunctional Holiday Revue @ Berkeley Rep

Thu 28

Watch on the Rhine @ Berkeley Rep

Sun 31

Jeff Goldblum @ Feinstein’s

OUT/LOOK and the Birth of the Queer @ GLBT History Museum OUT/LOOK and the Birth of the Queer, an exhibit about the groundbreaking LGBT quarterly based in SF from 1988 to 1992; curated by E.G. Crichton; and Faces of the Past: Queer Lives in Northern California Before 1930, part of the Queer Past Becomes Present main exhibit. $5. 4127 18th St. glbthistory.org

The Secret Garden @ Gateway Theatre 42nd Street Moon’s production of Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon’s Tony-winning 1991 musical based on the novel about an orphaned young girl’s discovery of an enchanted garden. $15-$45. Various times, Wed-Sun Thru Dec 24. 215 Jackson St. at Battery. www.42ndStMoon.org

Local new production of Lillian Hellman’s Nazi/ anti-fascist-themed drama set in 1940. $30-$60. Tue, Thu-Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat & Sun 7pm, Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Jan. 14. 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. berkeleyrep.org

Sat 30 Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven @ Great American Music Hall Enjoy funky folk bands. Also Dec 31 with Johnny Hickman. $26-$51 with dinner, 9pm. Dec 31 $50-$75, 8pm. 859 O’Farrell St. slimspresents.com

Fantasy Life @ SF City Hall Tabitha Soren’s 15-year project photographing Oakland A’s players through their careers. Thru Dec. 15. Ground Floor & North Light Court. sfartscommission.org

Jaye Blakesberg @ Harvey Milk Photo Center Exhibit of prints by the prolific photographer of pop and rock musicians. Thru Jan. 6. 50 Scott St. blakesberg.com

Arts Events>>

December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018 • Bay Area Reporter • 33

Mission Murals @ JCCSF

NYE Spectacular @ Gateway Theatre

William Blake in Color @ William Blake Gallery

Queerest Library Ever @ SF Public Libraries

Art, Politics and Community Preservation, an exhibition of work of local mural artists. Thru Jan. 2018. 3200 California St. www.jccsf.org

Tom Ammiano, our favorite Italian-American gay comic and politician, MCs the New Year concert and party, with LGBT talents Justin Lucas, Bambi Lake, Birdie Bob Watt, Scott Gessford, Patricia Pittipan and the cast of Megabytes the Musical. $40. 8pm. 215 Jackson St. therhino.org

Exhibit of classic plates in the new gallery of historic art by the 18th- and 19th-century poet and illustrator. Mon-Fri 10am-5pm. Sat 11am-5pm. 49 Geary St. #205. williamblakegallery.com

Hormel at 20: Celebrating Our Past/ Creating Our Future, a dual exhibit of archival materials celebrating two decades of the LGBTQ collections. 100 Larkin St., 3rd floor, and at the Eureka Valley Branch, 1 Jose Sarria Court at 16th St. sfpl.org

Wed 3

There Is No Alas Where I Live @ Jenkins Johnson Gallery

Tender Life @ Tenderloin Museum Tender Life: Graphic and Ceramic Memories of Tenderloin Living, 19992004, a group exhibit of contemporary ceramic and other works by Holly Coley and others. 398 Eddy St. tenderloinmuseum.org

Unearthed @ Napa Valley Museum, Yountville

New Year’s Eve with Seth McFarlane @ Davies Symphony Hall

Sun 31 Tom Ammiano MCs NYE Spectacular @ Gateway Theatre

Group exhibit of local artists’ ceramics. Also, France is a Feast: the Photographic Journey of Paul and Julia Child (thru Feb. 18). Reg. hours Wed –Sun 11am-4pm. Thru Jan 7. 55 Presidents Circle, Yountville. napavalleymuseum.org

Various Exhibits @ NIAD Art Center, Richmond Exhibits of art by visiting professionals, and art made by developmentally disabled people. Mon-Fri 10am-4pm. 551 23rd St. Richmond. (510) 620-0290. niadart.org

Wild SF Walking Tours @ Citywide Enjoy weekly informed tours of various parts of San Francisco, from Chinatown to the Haight, and a ‘radical’ and political-themed LGBTinclusive tour. Various dates and times. $15-$25. wildsftours.com

World Tree of Hope @ City Hall See Rainbow World Fund’s 12th annual festive tree, where thousands of paper origami cranes send messages of hope. 8am-5pm. Thru December. 1 Dr Carlton B Goodlett Place. worldtreeofhope.org

Fleetwood Macramé @ The Ivy Room, Albany The Fleetwood Mac tribute band performs at a New Year’s Eve night. $20.18. 9pm-1am. 860 San Pablo Ave, Albany. ivyroom.com

Isaac Julien’s Playtime @ Fort Mason Trio of video installations by the award-winning British artist. Free. Wed-Sat, 12pm-8pm; Sunday, 11am-5pm. Thru Feb 11. Gallery 308, FMCAC Visitor Center, SFAI Gray Box Gallery. 1 Marina Blvd. fortmason.org/event/playtime

Jeff Goldblum @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The popular actor shows off his impressive piano skills with his jazz band, The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, in two New Year’s Eve concerts. $85$125 ($20 food/drink min.) 7:30pm & 10:30pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason st. feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Klimt & Rodin: An Artistic Encounter @ Legion of Honor

Sun 31

Dual exhibition of works by the painter and sculptor. Also, Gods in Color: Polychromy in the Ancient World, thru Jan. 7. Free/$30. Thru Jan. 28. Lincoln Park, 100 34th Ave. legionofhonor.famsf.org

The Art and Science of Pinball @ Chabot Space & Science Museum, Alameda

Metamorphosis & Migration: Days of the Dead @ Oakland Museum

New exhibit of 35 pinball machine, historic early versions, models, diagrams and demos. $5-$15. 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. chabotspace.org

Ecstatic Dance @ Sacred Heart Church Weekly group freeform dance with a spiritual flavor at the former church-turned event space. $15. 9am-12pm. Also Wed. and Fridays in Oakland and Fairfax. 554 Fillmore St. ecstaticdance.org

Sun 31

New Day of the Dead exhibit and installations, guest-curated by Evelyn Orante; Thru Jan. 14. Also, Question Bridge: Black Men, a video installation with 160 Black American men discussing important current themes of race and class; Nature’s Gift: Humans, Friends and the Unknown, a large-scale immersive installation, thru Jan, 21. Friday night events, too. $7-$16. Wed-Sun 11am-5pm (til 9pm Fridays). 1000 Oak St., Oakland. museumca.org

Legion of Honor, open New Year’s Eve day

The TV show creator ( Family Guy, The Orville ) shows off his musical chops with the SF Symphony. $95-$235. 8pm. 201 Van Ness Ave. sfsymphony.org

Robert Rauchenberg @ SF MOMA Erasing the Rules, a new expansive exhibit of work by the post-modern artist; thru March 25. Also, Walker Evans ; an exhibit of 300 prints by the acclaimed historic photographer of American culture from the 1930s, with 100 of his own collected artifacts. Also, exhibits of Pop, Abstract and classic Modern art at the renovated and visually amazing museum, with two extra floors, a new additional Howard Street entrance, cafe and outdoor gardens. Diane Arbus: In the Beginning, Japanese Photography from Post-War to Now, Double Header. Free/$25. Fri-Tue 10am-6pm. Thru Feb 4. 151 3rd St. sfmoma.org

Andrea Lawyor @ Dog Eared Books The author of the genre and gendertranscending novel Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl reads and signs copies. 7pm. 489 Castro St. www.dogearedbooks.com

Looking Through the Lens @ Diane Wilsey Center for Opera The Glory of San Francisco Opera, Past and Present, an exhibit of historic productions photos from the San Francisco Opera’s many productions. Free. Mon-Fri 9am6pm. Veteran’s Building, 401 Van Ness Ave. sfopera.com

Group exhibit of a dozen artists’ photographs, curated by Ann Jastrab. Thru Jan. 27. 464 Sutter St. jenkinsjohnsongallery.com

Thu 4 Physique Pictorial Film Night @ The Magazine The Bob Mizer Foundation screens early erotic physique films made by Mizer (free), with copies of the new Physique Pictorial #43 for sale ($25). 7pm-9pm. 920 Larkin St. BobMizer.org

Ten Percent @ Comcast David Perry’s online and cable interviews with notable local and visiting LGBT people, broadcast through the week. Wed 7pm, ThuTue 11:30am & 10:30pm. ComcastHometown.com

Various Exhibits @ The Beat Museum Enjoy exhibits, a bookstore and gift shop that celebrates the era of ‘beatnik’ literature (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, etc.), with frequent readings, walking tours and other events. $5-$8. Daily 10am7pm. 540 Broadway kerouac.com

Mon 1 Holiday Ice Rink @ Union Square Enjoy skating at the downtown holiday rink; special performances and events thru January. To skate: $13-$25, daily 9:30am-9pm. 333 Post St. unionsquareicerink.com

Tue 2 Fool La La! @ the Marsh Berkeley Unique Derique performs his wacky kid-friendly physical comedy clown show and holiday extravaganza. $15-$100. Jan 2-7. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. themarsh.org

The Rose That Grew From Concrete @ LGBT Center Exhibit of multimedia art by members of the Center’s Youth Program. 1800 Market St. sfcenter.org

Unearthed @ California Academy of Sciences Exhibits and planetarium shows with various live, interactive and installed exhibits about animals, plants and the earth; new exhibit, From Stone Age to Space Age, showcases minerals through time. Special events each week, with adult nightlife parties many Thursday nights. $20-$35. Mon-Sat 9:30am5pm. Sun 11am-5pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. calacademy.org

Various Events @ Oakland LGBTQ Center Social events and meetings at the new LGBTQ center include film screenings and workshops, including Bruthas Rising, trans men of color meetings, 4th Tuesdays, 6:30pm. Film screenings, 4th Saturdays, 7:30pm. Game nights, Fridays 7:30pm-11pm. Vogue sessions, first Saturdays. 3207 Lakeshore Ave. Oakland. oaklandlgbtqcenter.org

Voice of the Central City @ Tenderloin Museum New exhibit about the history of The Tenderloin Times. Thru Mar. 30. Reg hours Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. Free-$10. 398 Eddy St. tenderloinmuseum.org

Thu 4 Physique Pictorial Film Night @ The Magazine

To submit event listings, email events@ebar.com Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication.

<< On the Tab

34 • Bay Area Reporter • December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018

Sun 31

Kaskade @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium

Sun 31

The Klipptones at The Starlight Room’s New Year’s Eve party

Retro Night @ 440 Castro

Juicy @ Club OMG

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

Weekly women's event at the intimate Mid-market nightclub, with DJ Micah Tron. 9pm-2am. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Stag @ Powerhouse

On the Tab

Mon 1

From page 30

New Year's Eve Spectacular @ Gateway Theatre Tom Ammiano, our favorite ItalianAmerican gay comic and politician, MCs the New Year concert and party, with LGBT talents Justin Lucas, Bambi Lake, Birdie Bob Watt, Scott Gessford, Patricia Pittipan and the cast of Megabytes the Musical. $40. 8pm. 215 Jackson St. therhino.org

Twisted Bear @ Lone Star Saloon New Year's eve party for kinky bears, with UK DJs Paul Coals and Ross Jones; beefy gogos, too. $7. 8pm2am. 1354 Harrison St. lonestarsf.com

Breakfast of Champions @ Midway Space Cowboys' 18th annual New Year's Day party, with 3 stages, multiple cash bars, more than two dozen DJs. $20-$45. 6am-6pm. 900 Marin St. themidwaysf.com

New Day Block Party @ Great Northern New Year’s Day large electronic music event, with dozens of DJs: Justin Martin, Blondish, Honey Dijon, Dusty Rhino Art Car, Pink Mammoth and more; art installations, Burning Man art cars, aerial performances, food trucks, and more. $15-$35. 4am-7pm. 119 Utah St. thegreatnorthernsf.com

Playmates or soul mates, you’ll find them on MegaMates Always FREE to listen and reply to ads!

Single, or a couple looking for an extra? Cruise it up. $5. 5pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

No No Bingo @ Virgil's Sea Room Mica Sigourney and Tom Temprano cohost the wacky weekly game night at the cool Mission bar. 8pm. 3152 Mission St. www.virgilssf.com

Trivia Night @ Hi Tops

Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni's

Trivia Night @ Port Bar, Oakland

Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht. 9pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market.

Recovery Party @ Lone Star Saloon DJ Marcos Moreno spins the post-NYE event. No cover. 9am-3pm. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

www.megamates.com 18+

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Underwear Night @ Club OMG

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

Tue 2

Wed 3

Underwear Night @ 440

Hella Saucy @ Q Bar Queer dance party at the stylish intimate bar. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Weekly drag and variety show, with live acts and lip-synching divas, plus DJed grooves. $5. Shows at 10:30pm & 12am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. auntcharlieslounge.com

Bondage-a-Gogo @ The Cat Club The weekly gay/straight/whatever fetish-themed kinky dance night. $7$10. 9:30pm-2:30am. 1190 Folsom St. bondage-a-go-go.com

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

B.P.M. @ Club BnB, Oakland

Hysteria Comedy @ Martuni's Open mic for women and queer comics, with host Irene Tu. 6pm-8pm. 4 Valencia St.

Karaoke Night @ The Stud Sing Till It Hurts with hostess Sister Flora; 2 for 1 happy hour, no cover, plus raffle pirze drawings. 8pm-2am. 399 9th St. studsf.com

Naked Night @ Nob Hill Theatre Strip down with the strippers at the clothing-optional night. $20. 9pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

The weekly fun night at the Bernal Heights bar includes prizes, hosted by Kitty Tapata. No cover. 7pm10pm. 424 Cortland St. 647-3099. wildsidewest.com

Pan Dulce @ Beaux The hot weekly Latin dance night with sexy gogo guys, drag divas and more, with Club Papi's Frisco Robbie and Fabian Torres. $7. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Thu 4 Fuego @ The Watergarden, San Jose Weekly DJed sex party with Latin music/video, free salsa bar, half-price lockers, at the famed South Bay bath house. 4pm-12am. 1010 The Alameda, San Jose. thewatergarden.com

Kick It @ DNA Lounge Kandi Love, Northcore Collective and Plus Alliance's weekly EDM, flow arts dance night, with DJs; glow drag encouraged. $5-$10. 9pm-2am. 375 11th St. www.dnalounge.com

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

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

Rice Rockettes @ Lookout

Castro Karaoke @ Midnight Sun

Thump @ White Horse, Oakland

Sing out with host Bebe Sweetbriar; 2 for 1 well drinks. 8pm-2am. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. midnightsunsf.com

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

Comedy Showcase @ SF Eagle Kollin Holtz hosts the open mic comedy night. 5:30pm-8pm. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Local and visiting Asian drag queens' weekly show with DJ Philip Grasso. $5. 10:30pm show. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

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

Tim Wong

(415) 692-5774

Cranny hosts a big gay trivia night at the new East Bay bar; drinks specials and prizes. 7:30pm. 2023 Broadway. www.portbaroakland.com

Weekly underwear night includes free clothes check, and drink specials; Santa hats welcome. $4. 10pm-2am. Preceded by Open Mic Comedy, 7pm, no cover. 43 6th St. clubomgsf.com

High Fantasy @ Aunt Charlie's Lounge San Francisco:

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

Miss Kitty's Trivia Night @ Wild Side West

TO PLACE YOUR PERSONALS AD, CALL 415-861-5019 FOR MORE INFO & RATES

“It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.” — Marlene Dietrich

Sun 31

Sundance Saloon’s New Year’s Dance @ SOMArts Cultural Center

Shining Stars>>

December 28, 2017-January 3, 2018 • Bay Area Reporter • 35

best of 2017 1.

photos by steven underhill 1. February: Asheq belly dancer at Slate. 2. March: Academy of Friends annual Oscar gala at Midway. 3. April: Mark Leno and Heklina at the Bay Area Reporter’s Besties at Oasis. 4. May: The GayPocket cover guy contest at Beaux. 5. June: Broadway Bares with Steve Grand at DNA Lounge. 6. June: Balloon beauties at SF Pride. 7. July: Nancy French (center) starred in Debbie Does Dallas at Oasis. 8. August: GAPA Runway pageant at The Herbst Theatre. 9. August: Come Together: Juanita MORE!’s Rally & March for Equality. 10. September: Design for Divas at the SF Design Center 11. September: Folsom Street Fair. 12. October: Halloween on Castro Street. 13. November: ONYX Men at The Powerhouse. 14. December: Help is on the Way for the Holidays at Marines Memorial Theatre. 15. December: Drag Queens on Ice at Safeway Holiday Ice Rink.

See plenty more photos on BARtab’s Facebook page, facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife. See more of Steven Underhill’s photos at 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

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