February 21, 2013 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

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Bills tackle condoms, HIV disclosure

by Matthew S. Bajko

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n coming weeks state lawmakers will be debating the usage of condoms on porn sets and as evidence in prostitution cases.

Focus will also be paid to the taxation of extra pay some LGBT workers receive.

And attention will be turned to relaxing California’s HIV confidentiality and data sharing laws for a subset of people enrolled in the state AIDS Drug Assistance Program who will be transitioned Jane Philomen Cleland to Medi-Cal or Covered California, the Assemblyman health insurance ex- Tom Ammiano change created by the federal Affordable Care Act. Those are just a few of the legislative items lawmakers introduced over the last week as the deadline to submit bills for this legislative session approaches. Friday, February 22 is the last day for legislation to be introduced.

Two bills certain to receive widespread attention this year relate to condoms.

Assembly Bill 336, introduced by gay Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), would prohibit police and prosecutors from using possession of one or more condoms as a factor in arresting and prosecuting suspects alleged to be engaged in prostitution. Health officials and sex worker advocates have long complained that using prophylactics as evidence in prostitution cases results is bad public health policy and puts both sex workers and their clients at risk of contracting HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases.

“We have to encourage safe-sex practices, not frighten people into spreading disease,” stated Ammiano in a release about the bill.

Following coverage of the issue by the Bay Area Reporter last year, law enforcement professionals in San Francisco instituted a moratorium on using condom possession in prostitution cases. The policy is set to expire in April but could be made permanent after a review by the police, public defender and district attorney.

The second condom bill, AB 332, would require condom use in all adult films – both gay and straight – produced in California. Assemblyman Isadore Hall, III (D-Los Angeles) is the lead author of the bill, which is being backed by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

See page 12 >>

VOTE NOW!

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Vol. 43 • No. 08 • February 21- 27, 2013

SFAF plans to raise $7.9M

by Seth Hemmelgarn

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he San Francisco AIDS Foundation’s plan for a health and wellness center for gay and bisexual men located in the Castro is moving forward, but the agency must raise significant funds while, at the same time, it figures out how to recoup hundreds of thousands of dollars after it loses the AIDS Walk next year.

All told, SFAF expects to raise $7.9 million through a fundraising campaign, CEO Neil Giuliano recently told the Bay Area Reporter editorial board. That money would be used to renovate 10,000 square feet at 474 Castro Street that will integrate three of its programs – Stonewall Project, Magnet, and the Stop AIDS Project – as well as expand services.

Giuliano acknowledged that the fundraising campaign would be a challenge, but said consultants have indicated SFAF would ultimately be successful.

“It’ll probably be a little rough,” Giuliano said in a February 1 interview. “We’re going to need a lot of community support to get it done.”

The agency is currently in the “silent” phase of the fundraising campaign in which it hopes to raise $3 million to $3.5 million, Giuliano said. He said they are not calling

The San Francisco AIDS Foundation plans to essentially gut the space at 474 Castro Street that will become a health and wellness center for gay men later this year.

Rick Gerharter

it a capital campaign because the funds will be used for more than just construction costs. The funds are needed for build out of the site, which has housed a video rental store that is going out of business, as well as lease payments over the next decade. The larger storefront is costing SFAF upwards of $170,000 more a year in rent than the three

current sites that now house its programs in the Castro. Giuliano said the new center would be open by the end of October.

The larger space will allow for more counselors and more HIV testing services, he said, as well as bring together services under one See page 7 >>

Candidates clamor for Imperial Court titles

by Peter Hernandez

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leather-clad porn star, a transgender former empress of Nebraska, and a drag queen best known for her “Barbie Girl” routine sprawled down Castro Street with gyrating and raucous supporters seeking to sway undecided voters.

It was Saturday, February 16 and voting day for the top Imperial Court titles had arrived.

The three candidates – one for emperor and two for empress – made a splash in the gay neighborhood.

As the unopposed bicep-flexing candidate for emperor Drew Cutler and his supporters distributed promotional cards, drag queen Patty McGroin and trans woman Danielle Logan were engaged in a more combative race of charm and charisma for the title of the 48th empress of the historic San Francisco Imperial Council, which raises funds for other nonprofits.

“I voted for Patty because she’s cuter,” said a woman named L.J. while exiting the Castro Muni station, where votes were submitted by pen and pencil.

Last Saturday’s voting day resembled a cross between a lively Castro summer weekend and a battle of zeal and spirit. The candidates flexed their image and character more than their ideas or motivations, and couldn’t muster many particulars about fundraising or ability. Polling places were also in the Tenderloin and South of Market.

Jane Philomen Cleland

Imperial Court candidate Danielle Logan was all smiles on voting day last weekend.

“I want to repair the bridges that have been broken,” Logan, 51, said of her intent to forge connections for transgender people. She was transitioning during her 1988 campaign for Nebraska’s Imperial Council amid a disapproving social climate.

Such opposition to a trans candidate apparently persists today in San Francisco. Logan said that a former empress who now lives in Palm Springs called in his disapproval to the Imperial Council, suggesting that a drag queen

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Jane Philomen Cleland

Patty McGroin pulled out all the stops during voting for empress last weekend.

is entitled to the role of empress rather than a transgender woman, even though the Imperial Council mandates that it “represent all aspects of the LGBT and other minority communities.”

Empress XXV Marlena, who owns the eponymous bar on Hayes Street (although it will soon be turned over to new owners), and is royalty among the San Francisco Imperial Council set, said he is aware of the transphobic remark and added that another former See page 12 >>

<< Community News

2 • Bay Area Reporter • February 21- 27, 2013

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Stylist died from GHB, nitrates

by Seth Hemmelgarn

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gay hairstylist found bound and gagged in his Diamond Heights apartment last year died from GHB and nitrate intoxication, according to the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s office’s recently completed report.

A roommate found Steven “Eriq” Escalon, 28, dead in their home June 12, 2012. James Edward Rickleffs, 46, was arrested September 2 in the killing and has pleaded not guilty to murder and first-degree residential robbery.

The medical examiner’s report lists the cause of death as “complications of acute mixed drug (nitrates and Gamma-Hydroxybutyric Acid) intoxication with possible asphyxia.”

The report lists the method of death as drug-related asphyxia.

A twisted piece of cloth that “smelled strongly of apparent amyl nitrate” and that had reportedly been in Escalon’s mouth was near his head when a medical examiner’s investigator arrived at the home, the file says. Besides GHB and nitrate, the only other drugs that were in Escalon’s system were caffeine and nicotine, according to the documents.

Rickleffs allegedly met Escalon at the bar 440 Castro and took a cab with him back to Escalon’s home early on the morning he died.

Citing information from police, the medical examiner’s report says one of Escalon’s roommates left for work at approximately 8 a.m. When he got home at about 6 p.m., the

Gay stylist Steven “Eriq” Escalon was found dead in his apartment last summer.

door to the apartment was open a little, and the house had been “ransacked,” the file says.

Most of the rooms “appeared as if someone had been rooting through drawers, and searching for something,” according to the report.

Authorities have said items missing from the apartment included a laptop, jewelry, and financial documents.

The roommate found Escalon “unresponsive on his bed,” the medical examiner’s file says. His hands and feet had been bound, the cloth gag was in his mouth, and he’d been wrapped in a blanket. A responding police officer tried to resuscitate Escalon, but he was soon declared dead.

The report says a shirt had been tied around Escalon’s lower legs with “a complex knot,” and duct tape had been wrapped around the shirt and his legs. There was also tape around his torso, and zip ties that first responders appear to have cut were lying next to him.

Aside from marks on Escalon’s wrists from the zip ties, “no evidence of obvious external trauma” was noted at the scene, and further examination revealed “no acute fatal traumatic injuries,” according to the file. The medical examiner’s office determined the manner of death to be homicide.

People who knew Escalon have described him as outgoing and thoughtful.

The medical examiner’s report indicates he didn’t take the nitrate voluntarily, and in an email sent by a relative this week, Esmeralda Escalon, his mother, said he didn’t use GHB. “He drank and liked to have a good time socially and smoked cigarettes,” she said.

Skye Emerson, 28, a friend of Escalon’s, said in an email, “Seeing him out laughing and having a great time with a few cocktails was very normal,” but Escalon “never used drugs.”

A police source has said DNA was among the evidence linking Rickleffs to Escalon’s death, but it’s not clear what type of DNA evidence was found.

The next court hearing for Rickleffs, who remains in custody, is Monday, February 25.t

SFSU opens queer resource center

by Elliot Owen

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t may be surprising to hear that prior to this year, San Francisco State University did not offer a queer resource center to its student body of about 30,000. But, emphasized a group of five trailblazing young adults responsible for its opening, the point is that it’s finally here.

On February 7, the grand opening of the SFSU Queer Resource Center began on the campus’ quad to loud music and a warm reception by students both there for the celebration and also just passing through on their way to class. It ended with an informal meet-and-greet attended by around 30 students and staff curious about the university’s new program.

While other queer-centered organizations exist on campus, the QRC is set apart by its mission. In keeping with the university’s history of social justice and community engagement, the QRC seeks to offer LGBTQQIAspecific events, services, and resources to students.

Acting as an informational and educational database, it’s a place for students to learn about the queer community in historical and contemporary contexts through events, and also, by accessing the queer lending library (which is accepting donations) and a comprehensive list of queer services offered citywide.

“On top of that,” said QRC director Cassidy Barrington, “we’re aiming for the QRC to be a place to find community and support. It’s important that this center exists because even though we live in San Francisco, that doesn’t mean you can find community easily.”

Barrington, 23 and queer femmeidentified, is earning her master’s degree in human sexuality studies and was hired last October by Associated Students Inc. at SFSU, the university’s student government, to oversee the center’s launch.

Currently, the QRC exists as a

Elliot Owen

SFSU students Kayla Douglas, left, Cassidy Barrington, Alexandria Andrews, Abel Gomez, and Heather Russell, are responsible for overseeing the new Queer Resource Center.

project of EROS, the campus’ sexual health and education program, and shares their annual budget. Numbers were not available.

But, said ASI board member Abel Gomez, 23, the goal is for the QRC to eventually be fiscally independent.

Gomez, a queer-identified philosophy and religion undergraduate student, has been involved in conversations around the QRC’s creation since September 2011. For him, its opening is especially gratifying.

“One of the reasons I’ve been in support of a QRC is because I’m really interested in political work around queer identity and politics,” Gomez said. “Also, what is our history? That’s a really crucial one for the community. And the educational element – learning about other subsets of queer community.

I feel incredibly grateful to be part of this.”

The QRC has had two events this semester: an LGBTQ ally training for ASI students and staff, and the grand opening. Next, the center will be holding a three-part forum

on butch identities (the first session already took place, the others are scheduled for March 19 and April 16), a workshop called Queer Crossroads: Intersectionality (March 5), a second workshop titled Homonormativity 101 (April 9), and lastly, a lavender graduation ceremony for LGBTQ students (May 18).

Each of the eight ASI-funded programs is required to hold three events per semester. If the QRC’s total of six events are any indication of the new project’s ability to expand, it should be its own independent program by next year, Barrington said. Gomez is just as hopeful about growing the center.

“Other schools’ QRCs have really amazing resources for students like scholarships and internships,” he said. “Right now we’re making baby steps but that’s where we’ll be eventually.”t To donate books to the SFSU QRC library or for more information, contact Barrington at qrc@ asi.sfsu.edu.

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Community News >>

February 21- 27, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 3

Undoing DOMA a priority, Takano says

by Chris Carson

still many issues Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on that affect the LGBT community.

One of them is the extension of military benefits to partners or spouses of gay and lesbian service members. Last week, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta extended 20 benefits to same-sex military couples, among them education and visitation rights, but other benefits of health care and housing will remain limited to heterosexual couples, due to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. Takano, 52, who is a member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, said simply, “we will need to undo DOMA.” That may happen through the courts later this year. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a DOMA case next month; a decision determining the constitutionality of DOMA is expected by the end of June.

According to Takano, he and a number of members of Congress are planning on signing an amicus brief in support of Edith “Edie” Windsor, the plaintiff in the United States v. Windsor case that the high court will hear.

If the Supreme Court decides “in favor of Windsor, it’s a big deal. It

will extend federal recognition for same-sex marriages,” Takano said.

But are LGBT lawmakers confident that will happen?

“I spoke to Barney Frank about this and Barney seems awfully optimistic that the court will decide in favor of Windsor,” Takano said, referring to the recently retired congressman from Massachusetts.

“But in some ways, the failure of the court to rule in favor of Windsor would just mean that people like me are more needed than ever in Congress. We are going to be needed to champion the cause,” he said.

The issue of DOMA came up again when Takano was asked about the other hot button issue with implications for same-sex couples; comprehensive immigration reform. Right now, DOMA prevents the U.S. born partner from sponsoring his or her foreign born partner for a green card, among other issues.

Takano is the son and grandson of Japanese Americans sent to internment camps during World War II so the issue of immigrant rights is one he takes seriously. Because one of his three brothers is married to an Australian woman he is aware immigration laws can break up families.

Lara to receive EQCA award

Someone reported to an investigator from the office that he’d originally been

T

he Starbucks was closing. The staff was busily stacking chairs and mopping the floor, listening to the music of local rocker Ty Segall.

Meanwhile, Mark Takano sat at a corner table with a small coffee, reflecting on his recent election to the House of Representatives, which made him the first openly gay non-white member of Congress as well as the first out congressman from California.

“I do think this is a new day in American politics, and I can’t help but point out, as the first openly gay member of Congress from California, the interesting thing is I’m coming from Riverside County,” Takano, a Democrat, said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter Sunday, February 17.

“If Riverside can be on the right side of history, there is hope our nation can be, too,” he added, referring to the southern California region he represents that has historically been very conservative.

He paused. “That’s a great line,” he said with a laugh.

But since being elected to Congress in November, the former high school teacher and member of the Riverside Community College Board of Trust-

compiled by Cynthia Laird

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quality California will hold its San Francisco Equality Awards gala Saturday, February 23 at the Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason Street.

This year’s event, which will feature John O’Connor, the agency’s new executive director, will recognize openly gay state Senator Ricardo Lara (DLong Beach) with EQCA’s Leadership Award.

On Tuesday, February 19, Lara introduced the Youth Equality Act, which would remove a state tax exemption for any youth group, including the Boy Scouts of America, that discriminate against members or leaders on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The Boy Scouts confirmed earlier this month that they were considering lifting the ban on gay scouts or leaders, but later announced that a decision would not be made until spring.

EQCA is a sponsor of Lara’s legislation.

At its gala, EQCA will also honor filmmakers Madeliene Lim and brothers Benjamin and Peter Bratt.

Lim is the founder of the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project, where she serves as executive and artistic director. She will be receiving the State Farm Good Neighbor Award.

Peter Bratt wrote and directed, and Benjamin Bratt starred in La Mission, a 2009 film about the tension between traditional Latino identity and acceptance of LGBT people, as well as a paean to the eponymous San Francisco neighborhood. They will receive the Allies in Media Award.

Singer Frenchie Davis, who has appeared on American Idol and The Voice, will provide entertainment.

The evening begins with a reception at 6 p.m., followed by the dinner and program at 7 and an after-party starting at 9. Tickets are $350; for the after-party only, they are $75. For tickets or more information, visit www. eqca.org/sf.

White House announces egg roll lottery

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama announced

Jane Philomen Cleland

Congressman Mark Takano

ees will need to bring that same skill of creating tag lines to Washington, D.C. as a lawmaker. And it won’t be easy. Takano joins a record number of five out House members in Congress and one out senator in that body. All are Democrats.

The Republicans currently control the House of Representatives and though Takano thinks, “on both sides, new members of Congress are mindful of trying to find common ground behind the scenes,” there are

that the online lottery to determine participants for this year’s Easter Egg Roll opens today (Thursday, February 21) at 7 a.m. (Pacific). The egg roll, which will be held Monday, April 1, is open to children aged 13 years and younger and their families. If LGBT families are planning to be in the D.C. area over the holiday, this might be a fun event for the kids.

Tickets for the egg roll are free and will be distributed through the online lottery system, allowing guests from across the country to participate in a tradition that dates back to 1878. The lottery closes Monday, February 25 at 7 a.m. (Eastern). Ticketing details are available at www.whitehouse.gov/ eastereggroll.

The Easter Egg Roll will feature live music, sports courts, cooking stations, and, of course, Easter egg rolling. Tied in to the first lady’s Let’s Move initiative to combat childhood obesity, all of the activities will encourage children to lead healthy and active lives.

Man sentenced in pedestrian death

A man convicted in the 2011 death of a gay pedestrian in San Francisco was sentenced last week to six months of county jail, which he’ll serve through electronic monitoring, along with 500 hours of community service and other penalties.

Bill Cox, 59, died September 6, 2011, hours after Gregg Wilcox, 61, struck him with his Ford Explorer in a crosswalk at 14th and Noe streets.

Wilcox, a former Muni deputy director, had been driving with his left foot because he was wearing a medical boot on his right foot. In July, a jury convicted him of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter.

At the Friday, February 15 sentencing in San Francisco Superior Court, David Douma, a friend of Cox’s, described his friend’s interest in social justice and his artistic talents, among other traits, and said he was “the brother I never had.”

“Bill should still be alive today,” Douma said. Despite wearing the medical boot, “Mr. Wilcox deter-

mined it was his privilege to imperil the lives of others,” he said.

Before Superior Court Judge Susan Breall announced Wilcox’s punishment, she said she’d struggled to determine what a just sentence would be in the case.

“There has to be an element of social justice,” Breall said. “... You have to agree the victim would want that.”

As part of his community service, Wilcox, who had faced up to a year in jail, is supposed to talk to young people about negligent driving and the impact on other people’s lives.

Wilcox didn’t comment on Douma’s remarks in court, and he wasn’t available immediately after the hearing. Defense attorney Rafael Trujillo said in court that everyone felt “the loss of human life.” He also said attorneys were filing a notice of appeal in the case.

In addition to the six months of monitoring, in which he’s mostly restricted to home, Wilcox’s sentence also includes a three-year suspension of his driver’s license and other terms.

He also received three years of probation with a suspended sentence of six months in jail. Assistant District Attorney Mary Plomin prosecuted the case.

Wilcox’s next court date is February 25 for proof of electronic monitoring.

Medical examiner: Man died of natural causes

The San Francisco Medical Examiner’s office has determined that a man who was found dead in July in a section of Golden Gate Park known for gay cruising had heart disease and died of natural causes.

The death of San Francisco resident David Borowy, 55, whose body was found July 8 near John F. Kennedy Drive and Bernice Rogers Way, was initially considered a possible murder. But about a month after Borowy died, police Inspector Daniel Cunningham said the case was “not looking like it’s a homicide.”

In its report, made available this month, the medical examiner’s office lists the cause of death as hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

When medical examiner’s staff arrived at the scene, Borowy was lying in the dirt with his pants around his ankles.

See page 12 >>

But as a single gay man, Takano said, “I’ve experienced attractions to people from different nations. So I’m acutely aware that the range of what’s possible for me is currently limited by the law.”

The challenge, Takano said, is to ensure that rights for same-sex couples are put into any comprehensive reform and stay there, “not have it voted separately.”t Congressman Takano will be in San Francisco Friday, February 22 for a reception at the home of Bob Michitarian from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tickets start at $100 and can be purchased online at https:// secure.actblue.com/page/ takanosfreception.

<< Open Forum

4 • Bay Area Reporter • February 21- 27, 2013

Volume 43, Number 08 February 21-27, 2013 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Thomas E. Horn Bob Ross (Founder, 1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko Seth Hemmelgarn Jim Provenzano CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Dan Aiello • Tavo Amador • Erin Blackwell Roger Brigham • Scott Brogan Victoria A. Brownworth • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Chuck Colbert Richard Dodds • David Duran Raymond Flournoy • David Guarino Peter Hernandez • Liz Highleyman Brandon Judell • John F. Karr Matthew Kennedy • David Lamble Michael McDonagh • David-Elijah Nahmod Elliot Owen • Paul Parish • Lois Pearlman Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota • Bob Roehr Donna Sachet Adam Sandel Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Ed Walsh • Sura Wood

ART DIRECTION T. Scott King ONLINE PRODUCTION Jay Cribas PHOTOGRAPHERS Danny Buskirk Jane Philomen Cleland Marc Geller Rick Gerharter Lydia Gonzales Rudy K. Lawidjaja Steven Underhill Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge Christine Smith GENERAL MANAGER Michael M. Yamashita DISPLAY ADVERTISING Simma Baghbanbashi Colleen Small Scott Wazlowski NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

LEGAL COUNSEL Paul H. Melbostad

AP’s marriage blunder

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n the space of two months, management at the Associated Press has twice offended the LGBT community. The news organization’s latest brouhaha is dangerously close to determining what married same-sex couples should be called, even in states and countries where same-sex marriage is a legal right.

The AP Stylebook is used by numerous news organizations in the United States and around the world. It is a guide of standard style usage for terms and phrases that often appear in newspaper articles or in other forms of media. Its entry for “transgender,” for example, has been widely praised for many years for its inclusiveness and has undoubtedly assisted mainstream reporters who may have been uninformed and unaware of correct terminology in this area.

AP’s latest move, however, is an alarming precedent, and one that, whether intentional or not, feeds into the false narrative that our enemies bring up time and again about same-sex marriages not being “real.”

The trouble started last week, when a leaked AP memo surfaced. It read: “We were asked how to report about same-sex couples who call themselves ‘husband’ and ‘wife.’

Our view is that such terms may be used in AP stories with attribution. Generally AP uses couples or partners to describe people in civil unions or samesex marriages.”

After questioning by media watchdogs and others, AP issued an additional sentence that it said clarified the memo. That read: “Our view is that such terms may be used in AP content if those involved have regularly used those terms (‘Smith is survived by his husband, John Jones’) or in quotes attributed to them.”

AP spokesman Paul Colford told BuzzFeed that the update was no cause for alarm, but the change is troubling to us, and should concern readers since AP stories are among the most widely disseminated. AP reporters write numerous stories about marriage equality and how it affects same-sex couples that appear in hundreds of newspapers, especially those in mid-size or small towns. It means that when people read those stories, they can be influenced by the terminology that AP standards call for, and right now, AP is saying that same-sex married couples can and should be referred to as “partners.”

This policy creates a double standard because it is not applied to heterosexual couples. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the National Association of Lesbian and Gay Journalists have both criticized the change in large part for that reason. The terms “couples” and “partners”

are “absolutely not appropriate to describe same-sex couples who are married, and this sentence seems to be saying that AP actually prefers them,” GLAAD said in a statement.

NLGJA President Jen Christensen wrote an open letter to AP Stylebook editor David Minthorn that read, in part, “such guidance may be appropriate for referring to people in civil unions, for which there are no established terms and the language is still evolving, but it suggests a double standard for same-sex individuals in legally recognized marriages.

One has to assume that AP would never suggest that the default term should be ‘couples’ or ‘partners’ when describing people in opposite-sex marriages. We strongly encourage you to revise the style advisory to make it clear that writers should use the same terms for married individuals, whether they are in a same-sex or opposite-sex marriage.”

Continuation of AP’s policy blatantly disregards marriage laws in eight states, plus the District of Columbia. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, Iowa, and Washington state have all legalized same-sex marriages; such couples have legal spouses, whether it is husband and husband or wife and wife. In California, some 18,000

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same-sex couples were wed during the brief period in 2008 when it was legal to do so. The California Supreme Court upheld all of those marriages in 2009. Additionally, several foreign countries allow same-sex marriage, and AP has reporters around the world, covering various global issues, including LGBT rights.

AP’s new policy comes soon after the media organization announced it would no longer use the word “homophobia” in political or social contexts because it “seems inaccurate.” But as we wrote in this space a couple months ago, there’s nothing wrong with calling anti-gay discrimination what it is – homophobic.

We strongly urge AP to rescind its policy on what to call spouses. And, we encourage married same-sex couples, if they are interviewed by an AP reporter or anyone else, to make clear that the interviewer knows that they are legally wed and to refer to their spouse as such.

AP’s policy insinuates that same-sex marriages are not legitimate, which is not the case in the states and countries where it is legal. As marriage equality continues to make inroads – the Illinois Legislature is poised to pass a bill legalizing same-sex unions – AP would be better served if its reporters can accurately cover this issue, and that means referencing spouses as husband or wife, whether the couple is gay or straight.t

No time to wait

by Mark Farrell

Bay Area Reporter

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his term, the United States Supreme Court will hear cases challenging the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 (samesex marriage ban) and the federal Defense of Marriage Act. As a result, the federal definition of marriage as a union solely between a man and a woman may soon be changing, which would send a rippling effect of equality throughout the country.

However, we do not have a crystal ball, and don’t know how the Supreme Court will rule.

In the meantime, same-sex couples continue to be discriminated against in a variety of professional and social settings. They continue to be denied economic and tax benefits and rights that married couples are allowed to enjoy while the high court takes its time to deliberate, discuss, and ultimately rule on the cases being considered.

Core among these economic issues is the federal tax levied on same-sex partners who share a common health care plan. Especially over the past few years, maintaining health care insurance has been paramount as individuals and couples alike have struggled in a weakened economy, and the federal government has continued to

Courtesy Mark Farrell

Mark Farrell

tax same-sex partners on this coverage. This health care tax has cost same-sex couples thousands of dollars each year, and is a precise example of how a commonly perceived social issue can affect household incomes.

That’s why on November 20, 2012, I introduced an ordinance at the Board of Su-

pervisors that would reimburse the federal tax levied on same-sex couples who work for the City and County of San Francisco. Private employers, such as Google, and other municipalities, such as Cambridge, Massachusetts, have already implemented similar programs and laws to offset this discriminatory federal tax. San Francisco should follow suit.

In San Francisco, we have always been a city that has prided itself on being ahead of the curve and one that is willing to tackle difficult and unjust issues in the name of equality and the promise of a better tomorrow for everyone. As a city, we should not stand idle as contributing and equal members of our society continue to be discriminated against purely because of their sexual orientation.

With hope but uncertainty that the Supreme Court will find Prop 8 and DOMA unconstitutional, there is no time to wait while our city’s sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters are still being discriminated against.

This legislation is a small but symbolic step toward reversing this discrimination, and continuing to highlight San Francisco’s national leadership role fighting for LGBT rights.t Mark Farrell represents District 2 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

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Politics >>

February 21- 27, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

Campos hosts rally to push Milk airport idea

by Matthew S. Bajko

this,” said Campos.

The board’s rules committee, comprised of Breed, Cohen, and chair Norman Yee (D7), has yet to schedule a hearing on the proposal, which needs to occur first before the full Board of Supervisors takes up the matter.

Campos said this week that he is hopeful the hearing date will be scheduled soon, likely as early as March.

“The thing about it is we introduced it early enough so there is enough time for us to go through the process,” he said. “There is plenty of time to have a hearing or hearings if that is what rules decides.”

S

eeking to see that his Harvey Milk airport naming idea takes flight, District 9 Supervisor David Campos is hosting a rally Friday on the steps of City Hall to drum up support.

The gay lawmaker took much of the city by surprise last month when he unveiled his proposed charter amendment to rename SFO in honor of Milk, the city’s first out supervisor who was assassinated inside City Hall in 1978. Campos needs six supervisors to vote to put the proposal before voters in November, but so far, he is short one vote.

The renaming would mark the first time an airport was purposefully named to honor an LGBT person.

But the idea has garnered detractors, with both the San Francisco Chronicle and Bay Area Reporter editorializing against it.

A number of LGBT groups, however, are enthusiastically supporting the idea. And a change.org petition calling for SFO to be renamed “Harvey Milk San Francisco International Airport” had surpassed 19,580 signers as of Tuesday.

Backers launched the website http://www.

HarveyMilkSFO.com to draw attention to the effort and have hired Laura Hahn, formerly executive director of the California Music and Culture Association, as a spokeswoman and coordinator of the efforts to educate the public about Milk’s legacy.

Hahn said this week that a committee is being formed to begin raising funds to pay for the educational efforts over the coming weeks.

“We have been very overwhelmed at how successful it’s been,” said Hahn.

To further press their case, a number of LGBT leaders and straight allies will be joining Campos at noon Friday, February 22 on the Polk Street steps of City Hall for a rally to champion the charter amendment.

Those expected to attend include gay state Assemblyman Tom Ammi-

Rick Gerharter

Supervisor David Campos

ano (D-San Francisco); Stuart Milk, Milk’s gay nephew and a co-founder of the Harvey Milk Foundation; and the Reverend Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church.

“I think a number of people wanted to come together and sort of talk about why they support this idea. This provides an opportunity for those folks to do that,” Campos told the B.A.R. Behind the scenes local activists are targeting three supervisors – Malia Cohen (District 11), London Breed (D5), and board President David Chiu (D3) – in their effort to secure the sixth vote needed to place the matter before voters. Constituents are being asked to contact the trio, while Stuart Milk and several other rally speakers plan to lobby the supervisors directly Friday.

Those already on board as cosponsors of the charter amendment legislation are gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, John Avalos (D11), Eric Mar (D1), and Jane Kim (D6).

Campos remains “cautiously optimistic” of finding the sixth vote.

“There are a number volunteers trying to convince or work on every member of the board who has not taken a position to be supportive of

Activists plan marriage equality actions

Local activists will be meeting next weekend to plan a week’s worth of actions leading up to the Supreme Court hearings on two marriage equality lawsuits.

The justices will hear oral arguments in a case seeking to overturn California’s ban against same-sex marriage, known as Proposition 8, Tuesday, March 26. The next day the court will hear a New Yorkbased lawsuit against the federal ban known as the Defense of Marriage Act. Peaceful demonstrations are planned for both days outside the federal courthouse in San Francisco’s Civic Center, and a march is set for the evening of March 26.

Gay Castro resident Cleve Jones, a longtime LGBT activist, teamed up with gay political adviser David Mixner to call for actions to be held in cities throughout the country in the days leading up to the court proceedings.

Jones told the B.A.R. the goal is “to fill up the whole week before with teach-ins, vigils” and various other events.

The San Francisco planning meeting will be held from 2 to 4 p.m., Saturday, March 2 at Metropolitan Community Church-San Francisco, 150 Eureka Street, in the Castro.

For more information about the national call for action, visit http:// www.lighttojustice.org.t

Eatery helps with shelter fundraising

by Seth Hemmelgarn

T

he Castro eatery SliderBar will be offering a shrimp sandwich in March named after homeless policy adviser Bevan Dufty to benefit the creation of a shelter focused on LGBTs. A kick-off party for the “Bevan Dufty Pescatarian” is planned for Tuesday, February 26 – the day before Dufty, the gay director of the city’s Housing Opportunity, Partnerships and Engagement program – turns 58. SliderBar is located at 2295 Market Street.

Fifty percent of all February 26 sales from 6 p.m. to close will go toward the shelter. Then, $1 from all the March sales of the Pescatarian sandwich will go to the homeless facility.

Dolores Street Community Services, the nonprofit that already runs a shelter at 1050 South Van Ness Avenue, will operate the planned mixedgender, 24-bed shelter at the site.

“SliderBar loves San Francisco,” Casey Barks, a spokesman for the restaurant, said in an email. “... We are thrilled to be working with Bevan Dufty to raise funds for the Dolores Street Community Service’s LGBTfocused shelter.”

“We are excited and believe the community fundraising will meet any remaining financial need and provide a buffer in terms of furnishings and

Jane Philomen Cleland

Bevan Dufty

fixtures,” Dufty said in an email.

Work to establish the gay-friendly space began not long after a Board of Supervisors committee hearing that gay Supervisor David Campos led in March 2010 in which LGBTs testified about harassment in the city’s shelters.

Getting the necessary permits has been one of the factors in the delay.

Recent contributions for the space include a $30,000 grant from the Haas Jr. Fund. Campos has also secured a $5,000 donation from Horizons Foundation.

Swinerton Builders has agreed to become the pro bono construction management partner to complete the

renovations leading to opening the space. They have sent an estimator to work with a DCSC staffer.

Swinerton will be assigning a project manager and giving a financial contribution to close the funding gap.

Dolores Street Executive Director Wendy Phillips said in an email last week that she didn’t yet know what the remaining gap would be when the pro-bono construction is factored in, but “it sounds like they will be able to help substantially.”

In a December news release, Phillips said the city’s Human Services Agency would fund the ongoing costs of operating the shelter, but backers still needed to raise about $100,000 to cover rehabilitation costs.

In an interview at the time, she estimated HSA has added $150,000 a year for the operation of the LGBT shelter space “once it’s up and running” to Dolores Street’s existing shelter budget.

Progress toward establishing the shelter space appears to have picked up since Dufty became involved in recent months. In a text message, Campos said, “A great deal of credit” for the progress goes to Dufty, “who has worked hard to find folks to help with this effort.”

A fundraiser is being planned for 4 to 8 p.m., April 7 at the Lone Star Saloon, 1354 Harrison Street.t

<< Community News

6 • Bay Area Reporter • February 21- 27, 2013

Websites kick-start LGBT films, shows

by Matthew S. Bajko

S

hooting for the short film Hero Mars, loosely based on the life of its director Skyler Cooper, is set to begin the first week of March around the

Bay Area.

Writing on the movie’s Facebook page, the gender-queer actor explains that her script explores the “limitations of gender conformity and gender stereotypes from my ex-

perience as an androgynous person in the arts.”

Cooper, who splits her time between San Francisco and a studio she rents near Sequoia National Forest, estimated she would need anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000 to make the 15-minute film. To raise the money, Cooper decided to tap into the pocketbooks of her fans.

In early 2012 she created a fundraising campaign on the website Indiegogo seeking to reach $25,000. The online pitch included a short video of Cooper sitting on a motorcycle talking about the film, as well as inducements for giving such as a film credit, a walk-on role, or a day on the set.

Her first stab at using a crowdfunding site, Cooper fell far short of her goal. Her campaign netted $3,625.

“I didn’t know what it would get,” recalled Cooper during a recent interview. “I did learn from the experience. It raised enough money to do a trailer.”

She uploaded the trailer to the film’s website, where she continues to fundraise for the film. And she has used Facebook to further seek financial support to cover her production costs.

“When I did Indiegogo it was just me talking about my vision. I hoped it would be enough to energize my fan base. It really energized them more when they saw the trailer,” said Cooper, who netted $1,000 through a recent Facebook ask for donations. “I am still tapping into my same sources I did with Indiegogo.”

It is a time-honored tradition for struggling artists to seek out patrons for their work. Nowadays, though, their hat-in-hand ask has been updated for the digital age.

LGBT performers and filmmakers, in particular, are taking advantage of web-based fundraising tools to kickstart their projects.

Over the last year the B.A.R. has mentioned a number of such crowdfunding campaigns. The list of LGBT projects includes a production at San Francisco-based the New Conservatory Theatre Center, a documentary about the late gay poet and filmmaker James Broughton, and the indie film I Do about a binational same-sex couple that screened at Frameline.

The best-known platform used by creative types is Kickstarter, which boasts having distributed $414 million to more than 36,000 creative projects since going live April 28, 2009. A search of the campaigns on Kickstarter using the term “gay” found 291 that had either already been funded or are currently seeking support.

Unlike with Kickstarter, where projects are funded only if they raise their stated goal amounts, Indiegogo distributes whatever money is raised even if the campaign falls short. Its fee is reduced if a campaign is successful, taking 4 percent of the money raised versus a 9 percent cut if the goal is not met. Kickstarter’s cut is 5 percent of the funds raised for successful projects.

“It is very possible someone can meet their complete budget in Indiegogo or Kickstarter. It depends on what the budget is and how much work you put in to your campaign,” said Debra Wilson, program director of the Oakland International Black LGBT Film Festival.

Larry Kennar turned to Kickstarter in order to raise enough money to complete post-production work on his TV series DTLA, about a group of friends in Los Angeles that ran on Logo in the fall. He put together a trailer from the footage he had already shot to entice people to support the campaign.

“I have heard a lot of people tell me, ‘I’ll just go on Kickstarter and it will be easy.’ Kickstarter was no walk in the park,” said Kennar. “You have to really work it. It is something I don’t think I would ever do again.”

Jane Philomen Cleland

t

Jane Philomen Cleland

Director Skyler Cooper used Indiegogo to try and raise money to make her film.

Thao Nguyen, left, and Heidi Rhodes have postponed a series of live performances.

He was able to raise $33,525, more than his stated goal of $25,000, from 218 backers. But Kennar said most of the money came from family and friends of himself and the cast.

Having to pester people he knew to donate, though, he found to be “obnoxious.”

“I don’t think you can put it on Kickstarter and assume people will come,” he said. “You should not take Kickstarter for granted.”

The most pleasing aspect of the experience was seeing straight people support a gay show, said Kennar, who is in talks with Logo about producing a second season of the series.

“There are a lot of straight people out there who are so committed to seeing projects like this come to life because they have a gay brother, uncle, or father or lost someone to AIDS,” he said.

$50,000 but received $4,290.

“We thought it might be a nice change of pace to go a more independent way of raising the funds. We had heard good things about crowdsourcing from news reports and things like that,” said Bryant, who has donated to such projects himself.

Not having any footage of the film to show to the public hurt their efforts, said Bryant.

“I think we may have taken for granted that the LGBT community would jump on board with another film about LGBT themes and overlooked the need for emotional connection,” he said. “You can’t assume just because you are a member of a niche community in the film world and are appealing to a niche community that they will get behind it.”

Kit Williamson, the writer-director who also stars in the web series EastSiders, about a gay couple in Los Angeles, waited until after he had posted the first two episodes online to begin a crowdfunding pitch to complete the first season.

“As far as initial funds go, I think that crowdfunding is most effective when you can show somebody an actual example of the work,” said Williamson, 27, who is studying playwriting at UCLA. “It makes sense when I think of my own donating practices. I am much more inclined to give something to a feature already shot and raising funds for post-production or an ongoing project. I can see the work and see people’s commitment to it.”

He is set to star as a gay serial killer in the film Sam’s Story, for which his friend Mae Catt raised $20,904 through Kickstarter. The online sites are contributing to a “democratization of content,” said Williamson, as content creators can use inexpensive equipment to “make something beautiful and put it online for very little money.”

This new model, he added, allows filmmakers to “get their work out there to a larger audience and within your control. There are so few things that are in your control as a filmmaker, I am really encouraged by it.”

Base of support

For a crowdfunded campaign to be successful, it helps if there is already a base of support for the project or its creators. That fan base is needed not only for its monetary donations but also to help spread word about the fundraising effort.

“You can’t do crowdfunding if you don’t have a crowd,” said Cooper.

The sites have been especially popular with LGBT filmmakers and content creators who find few avenues in Hollywood to bringing their work to fruition.

“We are seeing lots of people running these successful Indiegogo and Kickstarter campaigns for their films.

I find it absolutely fabulous and wonderful,” said K.C. Price, executive director of Frameline, the nonprofit that produces the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, the country’s oldest and largest annual fete of queer cinema.

In turn it has meant an increased variety of submissions to Frameline, said Price.

“It is bringing us more options and is making more things possible,” he said. “There are more works possible and available to view in any variety of platforms. It is not just gay male stuff.”

Although easy to launch a campaign, it takes a lot of energy and work to see that is it successful, said filmmakers who have used the approach.

Not everyone is.

“It has been a bit of a rocky road, I won’t lie about that,” said Jack Bryant, 30, a gay man who teaches screenwriting at Ithaca College and wrote the film Camp Revelation.

Bryant wrote the screenplay several years ago and had tried to secure funding from more traditional sources.

“We tried going to film studios, producers and investors and things like that. We found that didn’t give us a whole lot of results,” recalled Bryant.

So he and his director, Kerstin Karlhuber, tried to raise funds to shoot the film, which is about anti-gay reparative therapy, through a Kickstarter campaign in the fall. They aimed for

Unexpected pitfalls

There also can be unexpected pitfalls to taking such a public approach to raising money.

Looking to bring a larger audience to queer and transgender people of color performers, Heidi Rhodes and Thao Nguyen decided to create a series of live performances to address the “paucity” of QTPOC-centered spaces.

It is built off of a blog they launched in late 2012 to promote and profile various artists. They had intended to host the first live performance in March centered on themes of colonization, with both Rhodes and Nguyen among the six people presenting works that night.

They turned to Indiegogo to try to raise, at minimum, $500 to cover rental fees for the venue and equipment.

See page 8 >>

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National News>>

February 21- 27, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 7

Briefs in marriage cases due this week his December 7 post at scotusblog, “the question would arise whether it might take on some of the other pending cases, so as to reach the more fundamental constitutional dispute. That, however, might come too late for a decision this term, with

U.S. Supreme Court justices will soon begin receiving briefs in the two same-sex marriage cases that will be argued next month.

by Lisa Keen

W

ith just about one month from the most historic and, perhaps, influential United States Supreme Court cases in LGBT history, a surprising number of facts are still unknown.

For instance, while New York attorney Roberta Kaplan will argue the merits of lesbian plaintiff Edith Windsor’s position that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and lesbian law professor Pamela Karlan will argue Windsor’s position on the legal standing issues in United States v. Windsor, it has not yet been decided exactly who will argue the merits and the legal standing issue for the couples opposing Proposition 8 in Hollingsworth v.

Perry. Theodore Olson, who along with David Boies is leading the legal team challenging Prop 8, California’s same-sex marriage ban, said that his team will decide who will argue the merits and who will argue the standing issue after seeing what the solicitor general decides to file – or not file – in their case.

There have been no signals from the Supreme Court that it will make the audio recordings of the two cases available to the public on the same day as the arguments, as it did with the landmark health reform cases. (Normally, such audio is not available until the end of the week, though a written transcript is often available on the same day as the argument.)

It has still not been announced by the Solicitor General’s office what argument – narrow or broad – the Obama administration will take in opposing DOMA. And there has been no indication of whether the Obama administration will even take a position in the Prop 8 case.

But a lot of these unknowns are about to be resolved ahead of oral arguments, which are scheduled for

<<

March 26-27. Critical briefs – particularly from the Solicitor General’s office – are due to be submitted to the Supreme Court this week.

Friday, February 22, is the solicitor general’s deadline for laying out the Obama administration’s view of how the court should resolve the DOMA dispute. And February 28 is its deadline to file a brief in the Prop 8 case, if it chooses to do so.

This much is known: The Obama administration considers DOMA unconstitutional and President Barack Obama has publicly made very clear that he believes same-sex couples should have the right to marry.

The question, according to two articles this month in the New Yorker magazine, is whether the Obama administration will take positions that promote a “bold” striking down of all anti-gay marriage laws, beyond DOMA, or a more “cautious” dismantling of them, state by state.

In the Prop 8 case, notes legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, “Obama could take the position, as the plaintiffs have, that the Constitution compels every state in the union to allow same-sex marriage.”

“If adopted,” he said, “this argument would turn the Hollingsworth case into the gay-rights equivalent of Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 landmark decision that said states could no longer ban interracial marriage.”

In the DOMA case, notes gay Democratic activist and attorney Richard Socarides, where the government is already on record, the bigger issue is “whether the federal government should just abide by state laws legalizing same-sex marriage, by overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, or, more powerfully, by saying that every American has that right.”

To reach that latter – bold – result, the Supreme Court would have to agree with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in U.S.

SFAF

From page 1

roof.

SFAF’s donor pyramid for the campaign envisions top donors at the $2.5 million and $1.5 million levels. Consultants have indicated that such a campaign could be completed in 36 months, which is what Giuliano prefers, but it may stretch to 48 months.

“I might be optimistic saying it’s a three-year campaign,” he said.

Giuliano hopes to raise half the money from individuals, corporations, and foundations, with the possibility of government funding.

Board members will make “significant” contributions, Giuliano said.

Courtesy Neil Giuliano

SFAF CEO Neil Giuliano

v. Windsor that courts should give a heightened level of scrutiny to laws treating people differently because of sexual orientation.

“If the Supreme Court adopted that reasoning to strike down DOMA (in Windsor) and Proposition 8 (in Perry),” wrote gay legal scholar William Eskridge, in a December 9 post at scotusblog.com, “every state marriage law excluding lesbian and gay couples would be in immediate jeopardy, because no state could muster a compelling or substantial public interest that would satisfy the 2nd Circuit’s approach.”

That’s how big the decisions in Windsor and Perry could get.

“Windsor and Perry are likely to be two of the most important constitutional decisions in our lifetimes,” wrote law professors Neal Devins and Tara Leigh Groves at scotusblog December 8. “If (as we suspect), the court reaches the merits of each case, we believe it will advance the cause of same-sex marriage by invalidating both DOMA and Proposition 8. But, in our view, the court’s jurisdictional rulings – on the power of a single chamber of Congress and private sponsors of ballot initiatives to defend federal and state measures – will also have important implications, informing the scope of the constitutional separation of powers at both the federal and state level.”

But “if the court reaches the merits of each case” is one of the looming uncertainties in both cases. The court may not rule on the merits of each case. It could make a ruling on standing that would preclude it reaching the merits of the disputes.

“If the court does not rule on the marriage rights issue itself in either of the granted cases, and that is all that is concludes on the issue this term,” wrote veteran Supreme Court reporter Lyle Denniston, in

Since Giuliano joined the foundation just over two years ago, the number of board members has gone from seven to 27, he said. Board members include people from corporations such as Gap Inc. and Wells Fargo. Each board member has had to commit to either giving or getting $10,000.

A campaign leadership committee has been reaching out to potential donors.

On top of the capital expenses, SFAF needs to raise money to support increased testing, staff, and other costs.

Giuliano said he’s hoping the public part of the fundraising campaign will begin by the end of the See page 9 >>

a likely recess in late June.”

Briefs from parties on both sides of both cases are due to the court on the issue of legal standing, as well as the Olson-Boies brief about the merits of the Prop 8 argument this week.t

<< Commentary

8 • Bay Area Reporter • February 21- 27, 2013

The Olympics’ WTF moment

by Roger Brigham

A

recommendation last week to drop wrestling from the Olympic Games was the stupidest and most incomprehensible thing I ever heard – until two days later when a Russian gold medalist said the ludicrous decision was part of a gay conspiracy.

Shockwaves reverberated through the sports world when the International Olympic Committee announced its executive board had recommended men’s and women’s wrestling be dropped from the 2020 Summer Olympics, which would make it the first time in both the modern and ancient Olympics that wrestling has not been on the program. In order to be reinstated, wrestling must compete in a September vote for just one sport, vying against baseball/softball, karate, roller skating, sport climbing, squash, wakeboarding, and wushu (Chinese martial arts).

With a nearly universal wave of condemnation issued from sports advocates across the globe over the elimination of wrestling, a bizarre theory about the decision to drop wrestling was offered

by Russian gold medal wrestler Vladimir Uruimagov, heavyweight champion in the 2004 Olympics in Athens and currently a coach.

“If they expel wrestling now,

that means that gays will soon run the whole world,” R-Sport quoted Uruimagov as saying. “It’s a blow to masculine origins. It turns out this committee is headed by representative of these (gay) minorities. It is necessary for millions around the world who understand that this is a man’s sport, and who understand the need to continue the human race, to go out and explain their position to the Olympic Committee. We should prove and explain that in any other case there is no future.”

The what-the-fuck moment to trump all other what-the-fuck moments.

Why in the world would Uruimagov think gay men would not like wrestling?

You have buffed muscle studs rolling around with almost no clothing on, with lots of sweat, heavy breathing, no talking, and a bit of grunting. What’s not to like?

Guess that kind of ignorance is what you can expect when your country outlaws programs to educate or celebrate homosexuality as Russia has done.

As to how the IOC came to such a wildly unpopular and unsupportable decision, it comes down simply to this: wrestling is everything the IOC is not. Wrestling represents everything noble and inspiring about the Olympic dream; the IOC represents the worst and most corrupt of the

Russian wrestling coach Vladimir Uruimagov blamed the IOC’s decision to drop wrestling on a gay conspiracy.

Olympic business reality.

The Olympics are designed to be a universal dream. Anyone from any country is supposed to have a chance to compete against anyone from anywhere else in the world, to strive to be the best, to be saluted by all in a world for the moment not divided by wars, borders, race, or religion.

No sport is more representative or more fulfilling of that dream than wrestling. It is popular and culturally important in villages across the globe in every demographic of society. It requires no special equipment so even the poorest of the poor can wrestle.

There have been deaf wrestlers, blind wrestlers, wrestlers without arms or legs, successfully competing with able-bodied opponents and no modification of the rules.

And no sport is more demanding of sacrifice or less caring of athletic abilities. Athletes who are dyslexic or autistic or slow or short or left-handed or unable to jump high or who have poor hand-eye coordination find other sports not designed for them, but find themselves highly desired and highly successful in wrestling if they are willing to put in the dedicated hours necessary to become proficient on the mat.

But the IOC, comprised largely of fat-cat bureaucrats, aristocrats, and politicos, has little to do with the sports world of sacrifice and competition, of person-in-thestreet dreams and the eternal quest for excellence. The IOC is the ultimate good ole boy network, bloated on its own selfstroking arrogance, addle-pated

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and muddle-minded. They’re the sort of blokes who have the wealth to own horses and shoot guns; no wonder they decided to keep modern pentathlon, which requires athletes who can ride and shoot, and drop wrestling. It certainly wasn’t based on diversity of athletes: of the 85 countries competing in the 2012 Olympics, 71 competed in wrestling and 29 earned medals; 26 competed in modern pentathlon and just six won medals.

Could religious or political prejudice be behind the decision?

Most of the powerhouses in wrestling were Communist until recent years or are Muslim.

Not ideal for the IOC, which when it’s chasing advertising and sponsorship dollars thinks everything goes better with Coca-Cola.

Am I prejudiced? Damned sure I am. I’m a huge football and baseball fan, have spent many a happy hour playing soccer, rugby, softball and basketball, but I’ve spent most of my sports moments for the past four decades coaching and competing in wrestling. I love watching swimming and diving and sprinting and gymnastics every Olympics – and I love seeing what underdogs overcome all odds to wrestle their way into Olympic glory.

If the IOC sticks with its disregard for Olympic tradition and egalitarian values, it will condemn itself in the long run to athletic irrelevance. It will become a five-ring circus, a television reality show, more fantasy than dreams. WTF.t

A transgender call to action

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

I

t was with some pride that I listened to the words of President Barack Obama as he addressed the nation from the steps of the U.S. Capitol during his inauguration. He laid out much of his agenda for the next four years, and called upon all of us to play an active part in shaping our country.

In one of the more notable moments for me personally, he spoke of equality being a star that guides us, “just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.” He deftly tied together the fight for LGBT rights with the women’s rights movement and the struggle for civil rights for people of color.

He then continued, saying, “Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law. If we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well.”

As someone who has been in a same-sex relationship for decades, this was a great moment. Yet as a transgender woman, this also is a call for action.

<<

LGBT films

From page 6

To induce donors to support their FCQ! project, Rhodes and Nguyen posted a videotaped personal plea for donations and offered a variety of tiered giving levels.

A $10 donation came with a mention in the program; $50 donors received a poster; while the top tier at

The Stonewall riots were indeed a flashpoint in the struggle for gay rights in America. That one assault by police on a bar in Greenwich Village – and the reaction to that harassment – ignited the movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At the same time it is vitally important to view the history of the Stonewall rebellion much more closely and not let that fight be reduced to simply the right of gay and lesbian Americans to get married.

It is important to note that during the era of the Stonewall riots, LGBT Americans were largely still very much in the closet. The Stonewall Inn was a sort of haven, a brick-fronted, darkwindowed bar that people could sneak away to and socialize within. Such was our community.

While much of its clientele were gay men and women who were forming relationships that should indeed be allowed to be called marriage, this was also the safe home of those who would today be called transgender.

When the police raided the Stonewall Inn, they claimed that they were closing down an illegal bar. To some in attendance, this was yet another shakedown of the bar’s

$200 provided a variety of gifts and either a photo with Rhodes or a handmade wallet by Nguyen.

“I think crowdfunding as a way to fundraise is a way to reach out to a community we know wants to support our community,” said Rhodes, 31, who lives in San Francisco. “I think also, given the economy we are in and how that has affected access to certain sorts of resources, if you have 2,000 people

clientele by the NYPD, based largely on then-existing laws against crossdressing. At the time it was illegal to wear the clothing of the opposite sex, and police could indeed bust you if you weren’t wearing at least three articles of “appropriately gendered” attire. This is what led to the riot, and at the forefront were two transgender women, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. Yet as the struggle for gay rights grew in the 1970s in the wake of the Stonewall riots, the transgender history of the event was marginalized.

I’m not fully upset that Obama only referenced the struggle for same-sex marriage a few beats after mentioning Stonewall. That is,

as they say, politics. I know his administration has done a lot, so far, for transgender people, and I appreciate our victories. Indeed, this is an administration that has done more for transgender people than any other before: Obama signed the transgender-inclusive Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, and his Department of State greatly improved the process for transgender people to get passports in their preferred gender. We’ve seen several departments within his administration reach out to transgender people and secure further rights for all of us.

Nevertheless, I’m going to take the inauguration speech as a call to action. We who are transgender, and our allies, need to secure our history and work toward our future.

We need to keep fighting and keep pressing Obama to sign an executive order banning workplace discrimination against transgender people and our lesbian, gay, and bisexual allies by contractors doing business with the federal government. We need Congress – such as it is – to pass a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Indeed, I wonder how those who stood tall at the Stonewall Inn, as well as those who fought back at Compton’s Cafeteria a few years before and everyone who fought

within the early gay rights movement around the nation, would feel about their struggles being reduced purely to the singular issue of marriage in a time when people can still be terminated from employment in many states for being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, and in an era when an alarming number of LGBT youth still opt to take their own lives rather than face what they perceive as insurmountable hardships simply for being themselves.

Our journey is not complete until we are all equal under the law – and not just in matters of marriage, but across the board. Not just “our gay brothers and sisters,” of course, but every last one of us.

Let us also not forget that the struggle of the late 1960s and 1970s was one of liberation – it’s a level beyond mere equality. We need to strive much higher.

Our community needs to fight on and do all we can to continue to move forward and make a better world for all transgender and gender-variant people. We need to hold on to the spirit of Stonewall and carry on the fight that Johnson and Rivera started. t

give $1 that is a good chunk of money.”

Friends and collaborators with Nguyen, 33, Rhodes said it was the first time she had used a crowdfunding site to raise money for a personal project.

In the end the campaign netted $290.

“Because it is a really new project, we felt this could be a fairly low labor intensive way to raise money quickly within a month or two,” said Rhodes.

“I also deal with chronic illness. My

energy for what I can do for fundraising or producing is limited.”

Two days after their Indiegogo campaign ended, Rhodes and Nguyen announced they were postponing the March event. In an email to the B.A.R. Rhodes said it had to do with “unforeseen circumstances.”

But a message posted to their blog suggests it had to do with criticisms the two received over the name of

their project, FCQ! (For Colored Queers). Several people objected to the use of the word colored.

“While other black people in the community have been very affirmative of the name and the project, we are truly, truly sorry for any hurt it has caused anybody, and are working on how to address this with as much care as possible,” stated the message.t

Christine Smith

Gwen Smith wishes she could be half the person Marsha P. Johnson was. You can find her online at www.gwensmith.com.

t

Community News>>

February 21- 27, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 9

Longtime LGBT allies pen memoir

by David-Elijah Nahmod

I

n a just published, jointly written memoir, the Reverend Cecil Williams and his wife, Janice Mirikitani, recall their groundbreaking work at Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco, including early fights for LGBT rights.

The couple’s new book, Beyond the Possible (HarperOne, $26.99), traces Williams’s arrival in San Francisco and the work the two did revitalizing Glide, transforming it into a well-known church active in social justice work.

For 50 years, Williams has presided over Glide. Located in the blighted, crime ridden Tenderloin district, Glide was, in 1963, a dying congregation.

Williams changed that. As an African American native of San Angelo, Texas, Williams knew the sting of bigotry all too well. In 1955, he was one of the first five black graduates of the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. Quite active in the civil rights movement, he became Glide’s pastor in 1963.

Williams didn’t need the Compton’s Cafeteria riot in San Francisco in 1966 or the more famous Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969 to spring into action. Though he’s heterosexual, he joined forces with Daughters of Bilitis co-founders Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon in 1964. Together they co-founded the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, which sought to lift the church’s veil of exclusion toward LGBT people. It also marked the

beginning of gay coalition-building that Harvey Milk would take up years later when he campaigned for supervisor and won in 1977.

That was the beginning of a long journey. Glide was a place where gender variant people could come for counseling and support before the word transgender had even come into popular usage. The doors at Glide were open to all. Hippies and bikers, people of all races, ages, genders, and orientations could come to Glide for spiritual guidance.

All were embraced. The homeless were fed. The rights of all were not

<<

friendly.” There would be naming opportunities as well, which would go toward the campaign revenue.

SFAF

From page 7

year, after the center opens.

Giuliano and James Loduca, vice president of public affairs, said that the center will have areas dedicated to community space and that the center would be welcoming.

Ideas that are proposed include a fireplace with a hearth and they plan to make the center “open, warm, and

Danny Buskirk

The Reverend Cecil Williams, and his wife, Janice Mirikitani, have just written a book about their experiences at Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco.

Recouping walk revenue

SFAF – the largest HIV/AIDS nonprofit in the city – was recently left looking to fill a funding gap after MZA Events owner Craig R. Miller asked Project Inform to be the lead agency for the 2014 AIDS Walk, rather than the AIDS

only respected, but fought for.

Through it all, Williams was harshly condemned and criticized by the conservative wing of the Methodist church. Undaunted, he stood his ground, fought for what he knew to be right, and responded to his critics with eloquence and love.

The book begins with an eyeopening forward by author Dave Eggers. “Too often,” Eggers writes, “what is left after everyone has argued about whether more Asian students should be allowed in this school or whether or not there are enough African Americans on that advisory committee is nothing. No results.

Lots of talk, nothing achieved. Lots of identity exploration, lots of oneupsmanship about who is most progressive or most radical, but in the end, no actual progress.”

“It’s a courageous statement,” Mirikitani said in an interview that she and Williams gave to the Bay Area Reporter. “It’s pretty daring.

It’s the truth. We’re not caught up in that argument. We try to gethhhhhhhhhto him from the conservatives.

They were particularly disturbed by the image of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) pointing in the president’s face while she admonished him on an airport tarmac. A photograph of that incident was widely circulated last year.

“It’s a strong metaphor for where race relations are in the USA,” observed Mirikitani. “President Obama has had a contentious presidency.”

“Governor Brewer was trying to

diminish President Obama,” said Williams. “She was telling him ‘you are not important, your positions are not important.’”

The couple said they worried about Obama’s re-election last year.

“This past election was a little too close for comfort,” Mirikitani said.

“There’s a lot of work to be done.”

Change, however, is slow.

“Schools have not improved, especially for the poor,” said Mirikitani. “I fight the comfort of complacency.”

“We have to shake the leaves from the tree so it can grow,” Williams said.

Over the years, Glide played a major role in helping the Bay Area LGBT community, and to lift up the less fortunate, more marginalized community members.

As a Japanese American, Mirikitani felt great empathy for the isolation that many LGBT people lived with. “The LGBT community humanized us,” she said. “My first job was with homeless youth, who taught me the power of authenticity.”

Glide was part of a citizen’s alert group that documented incidents of harassment against LGBT people when possible. They also sponsored LGBT balls, including one five years before Stonewall that was raided by San Francisco police and resulted in numerous arrests. (All charges were eventually dropped.)

“We are about unconditional love and unconditional acceptance,” said Williams.

foundation, which has long been the partnering agency. While the amount has varied depending on the success of the event, the walk has contributed roughly $650,000 to SFAF’s operating budget in recent years.

Giuliano has indicated that Miller’s decision isn’t hampering his agency’s plans in the Castro.

“We know it’s going to be hit of $600,000 to $700,000 that we are

going to have to make up,” he said, adding that he is looking at how to replace that revenue, possibly with another event like the walk or something different.

In terms of the Castro center, moving the three programs to one location is designed to help efforts to cut new HIV infections in San

Obituaries >> Kenneth T. Carrol Jr. October 1, 1961 – February 6, 2013

Kenneth T. Carrol Jr., a.k.a. Tim Carrol, passed away in San Francisco February 6, 2013.

He was 51.

Tim is predeceased by his mother, Marian K. Carrol, Rochester New York. He is survived by sisters, Cynthia Carrol, Kathleen (Scott) Borden; nephews, Eric and Gregory Borden; niece, Amy Borden.

The best years of his life were spent in San Francisco. Tim had many close friends. His partner Ray Apodaca was his best friend. Tim was fiercely passionate of all living things in this world. He was the happiest when outdoors exploring, be it hiking the backcountry or diving in the Pacific Ocean.

He will be greatly missed.

William Dell Davis July 17, 1944 – February 8, 2013

William Dell Davis, born July 17, 1944 in Antioch, California, died in San Francisco February 8, 2013 of pancreatic cancer.

Bill grew up in the Bay Area and Williamsburg, Virginia, graduating from Johns Hopkins University in 1968. A devoted violinist, he played with his string quartet for 25 years.

Bill performed with the La Jolla Symphony and helped found the Bay Area

Rainbow Symphony. He studied city planning at USC, becoming director of Local Agency Formation Commissions in San Diego, Santa Cruz, and San Mateo counties. He volunteered as a caregiver for AIDS patients through the Shanti Project.

Bill loved history, collected maps and train schedules, enjoyed running, hiking, camping, and traveling. He could recommend sites to visit, hotels, restaurants, and music. Understated and modest, Bill was an avid reader.

Bill is survived by his life partner, Dr. Frederick J. Fox; sister Jean Davis (Greg Young) of Forestville, California; brother Jerry Davis of Cary, North Carolina; niece Jody King (Ben Barros); and great-nephews Griffin and Brayden Barros-King of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

Bill will be missed by a wide circle of friends who admired his courage, integrity, humility, intelligence, natty attire, and thoughtfulness. A memorial will be held at noon, Sunday, March 17 at the Chapel at Park Hill, 351-355 Buena Vista Avenue East in San Francisco. Contributions in Bill’s memory may be made to BARS (http://www. bars-sf.org).

Charlotte Hoffman Ferguson June 9, 1926 – February 3, 2013

Charlotte Hoffman Ferguson died in her sleep at the age of 86 on February 3, 2013. After contracting pancreatic cancer, she fought courageously for her life, un-

dergoing demanding surgery, which was initially successful. However, her cancer returned, this time inoperable.

Throughout her illness, including her last days, she was surrounded by family, friends, and former students.

Charlotte was born in the Bronx to Russian Jewish immigrants, her father a union organizer. Raised during the Depression in poverty, she moved with her family to Los Angeles and then attended UC Berkeley. She met her husband, Charles Ferguson, shortly after graduating, and gave birth to her son Charles in 1955.

After divorcing in 1971, Charlotte created a remarkable life for herself.

With her friend David Charles, she bought, renovated, and sold real estate. Then she joined the McKesson Foundation, where for 25 years she administered grants to underprivileged students, her own background enabling her to understand their needs in a unique, powerful way. She changed many people’s lives, and will be remembered by us all for her intelligence, pointed humor, and generosity.

She is survived by her son and a granddaughter, Athena Sofia. Donations in her name may be sent to Planned Parenthood.

VOTE NOW!

f

There has been backlash. In the early 1970s, a group of conservative Methodist ministers protested Williams’s inclusion at an Atlanta conference. In the book, Williams recalls addressing that conference, and explaining his positions of love and inclusion for all.

“I wrote a paper on how we can bring these groups together,” he recalled. “It had quite an impact on theological position. We want to humanize people, to bring people on the fringes of society together.”

Williams and Mirikitani’s outreach has stretched beyond the LGBT sphere. Williams said that non-Methodist Christians, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Wicca have all worshiped at Glide.

“Many different creeds come to Glide,” Mirikitani said. “Regardless of sexual orientation, race, religion, we welcome you. We want you. We need you. We feel that diversity is the mirror of our humanity.”t Williams and Mirikitani will be appearing in the Bay Area to read from their book. On February 22 at 7:30 p.m. they will be at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way (http://www.fccb.org). Tickets are $10 in advance or $12 at the door, though no one will be turned away. On Tuesday, February 26 they will be at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California Street (http://www.jccsf.org). The event is free but advance reservations are required.

Francisco. SFAF is looking at the effectiveness it can get from having eight exam rooms rather than three, and increasing testing capacity by 50 percent, among other improvements. Giuliano said with the new space, the nonprofit aims to address HIV in older adults, See page 12 >>

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • February 21-27, 2013

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Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034851000

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034869900

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034881300

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034862800

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034888300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CHOU CHOU BAKERY BISTRO, 400 DEWEY BLVD., SF, CA 94116. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Sarah National Enterprises (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/05/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/24/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ACE LEGAL SUPPORT, 938 GEARY ST. #505, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Adam Clarke. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/30/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/31/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ACORN MEDICAL PRACTICE, MARJORIE A. SMITH, MD; 490 POST ST. #1536, SF, CA 94102.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Marjorie A. Smith. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/05/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DRIFTWOOD, 1225 FOLSOM ST., SF, CA 94103.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Magstead Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/29/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/29/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NESTING DAYS, 929 RHODE ISLAND ST., SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed New Planet LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/08/13.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/08/13.

JAN 31, FEB 07, 14, 21, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034817200

FEB 07, 14, 21, 28, 2013 NOTICE OF ApplICATION TO SEll AlCOhOlIC BEvErAgES

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034897200

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034910900

FEB 21, 28, MAr 07, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034898500

Dated 02/06/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: SAMI BETTAIBI. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 257 3RD ST., SF, CA 94103-3123. Type of license applied for

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: INTEGRITY IN MOTION, 3689 18TH ST., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Sonja Yount Seckinger.

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/10/08. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/12/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HARMONY SPA, 2540 TARAVAL ST., SF, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Yaling Zeng. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/19/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/19/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HUTONG, 2030 UNION ST., SF, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a limited partnership, and is signed Pejiu Wu Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/13/13.

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034830700

FEB 21, 28, MAr 07, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034892000

FEB 21, 28, MAr 7, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034867700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LEIS KAI BOOM PROFESSIONAL SERVICES, 21 COLUMBIA SQ. #205, SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Alicia Q. Salvador. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/16/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TYCHO; ISO50; 635 DOLORES ST., SF, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Scott Hansen. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/11/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BLUE KITE GROUP, 1586 46TH AVE., SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Yvonne Liang. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/15/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/30/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GOT GRAFFITI?, 696 AMADOR ST., SF, CA 94124.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed San Francisco Bay Distributors Inc. (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/09/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/10/13.

JAN 31, FEB 07, 14, 21, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034843900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PSOAS MASSAGE + BODYWORK, 333 3RD ST. #205, SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Psoas Massage + Bodywork LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/01/03. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/22/13.

JAN 31, FEB 07, 14, 21, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034823900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MEDINA TRUCKING, 1238 12TH AVE. #1, SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed Suad Felic & Mirzeta Kuduzovic. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/14/13.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/14/13.

JAN 31, FEB 07, 14, 21, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034846600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AHF PHARMACY, 4071 18TH ST., SF, CA 94114.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed AIDS Healthcare Foundation (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 01/23/13.

JAN 31, FEB 07, 14, 21, 2013 NOTICE OF ApplICATION TO SEll AlCOhOlIC BEvErAgES Dated 01/23/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: WALGREEN CO. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 2238 WESTBOROUGH BLVD., SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CA 940805405. Type of license applied for

20 - OFF-SAlE BEEr & WINE FEB 07, 14, 21, 2013 NOTICE OF ApplICATION TO SEll AlCOhOlIC BEvErAgES Dated 01/08/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: PMAB-5, LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 60 31ST AVE. #1000, SAN MATEO, CA 944033404. Type of license applied for

47 - ON-SAlE gENErAl EATINg plACE FEB 07, 14, 21, 2013 NOTICE OF ApplICATION TO SEll AlCOhOlIC BEvErAgES Dated 01/31/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: LORIS DINER INTERNATIONAL INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 449 POWELL ST. 3RD FL., SF, CA 94102-1503. Type of license applied for

47 - ON-SAlE gENErAl EATINg plACE FEB 07, 14, 21, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034861900

41 - ON-SAlE BEEr & WINE - EATINg plACE FEB 14, 21, 28, 2013 OrDEr TO ShOW CAUSE FOr ChANgE OF NAME IN SUpErIOr COUrT OF CAlIFOrNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FrANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549254 In the matter of the application of: ANDREW ALEXANDER TARCIN, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ANDREW ALEXANDER TARCIN, is requesting that the name ANDREW ALEXANDER TARCIN, be changed to ANDREW ALEXANDER GREEN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Rm. 514 on the 2nd of April 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 OrDEr TO ShOW CAUSE FOr ChANgE OF NAME IN SUpErIOr COUrT OF CAlIFOrNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FrANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549255 In the matter of the application of: JONNA GREEN GANE, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JONNA GREEN GANE, is requesting that the name JONNA GREEN GANE, be changed to JONNA ALEXANDER GREEN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Rm. 514 on the 2nd of April 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 OrDEr TO ShOW CAUSE FOr ChANgE OF NAME IN SUpErIOr COUrT OF CAlIFOrNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FrANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549277 In the matter of the application of: JEANNE CAUGHELL, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JEANNE CAUGHELL, is requesting that the name JEANNE CAUGHELL, be changed to JEANNE STEWART. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 9th of April 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 OrDEr TO ShOW CAUSE FOr ChANgE OF NAME IN SUpErIOr COUrT OF CAlIFOrNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FrANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549239 In the matter of the application of: KRISTIN LEE DOYLE, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner KRISTIN LEE DOYLE, is requesting that the name KRISTIN LEE DOYLE, be changed to KRISTIN DOYLE MCKENNA. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 28th of March 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 OrDEr TO ShOW CAUSE FOr ChANgE OF NAME IN SUpErIOr COUrT OF CAlIFOrNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FrANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549238

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE PERFECT STORM GROUP; PERFECT STORM PARTNERS; 1865 GOLDEN GATE AVE. #3, SF, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Robert F. Eisenbach. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/28/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/29/13.

In the matter of the application of: GLENN ROBERT MCELHOSE, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner GLENN ROBERT MCELHOSE, is requesting that the name GLENN ROBERT MCELHOSE, be changed to GLENN ROBERT MCKENNA. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept.

514 on the 28th of March 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FEB 07, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034870400

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034894500

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034895400

FEB 21, 28, MAr 07, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034860200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: UBER TAXI CAB, 999 PENNSYLVANIA, SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Waleed Alshuraidah. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/12/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/12/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NATHANIEL PACHTNER, 226 TWIN PEAKS BLVD., SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Nathaniel Pachtner. 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 01/28/13.

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034853700

FEB 21, 28, MAr 07, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034903600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CITY UNWIND, 447 SUTTER ST. #426, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Kristopher Cloud. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/25/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/25/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BACANO BAKERY, 3033 MACARTHUR, OAKLAND, CA 94602. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Bacano Life Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/14/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/14/13.

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034877800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MASON LIQUOR, 530 MASON ST., SF, CA 94102.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Anton Daher. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/04/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/04/13.

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034893000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HUA DU CHICKEN SHOP, 112 WAVERLY PLACE, SF, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Qui Thuy Mao. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/11/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/11/13.

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034860500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LILY MASSAGE THERAPY, 1473 PINE ST., SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed Li Chun Song & Guoan Zhao. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/28/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/28/13.

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013 OrDEr TO ShOW CAUSE FOr ChANgE OF NAME & gENDEr IN SUpErIOr COUrT OF CAlIFOrNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FrANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549275 In the matter of the application of: ROBERT BERNARD REISING III, for change of name & gender having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ROBERT BERNARD REISING III is requesting that the name ROBERT BERNARD REISING III be changed to OCTAVIA OZLEM REISING, and requesting a decree that the petitioner’s gender be changed from male to female. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 9th of April 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FEB 21, 28, MAr 7, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034872000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ARACELY RESTAURANT, 1201 8TH ST., SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Aracely Hospitality Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/31/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RKMT SERVICES, 680 MISSION ST., SF, CA 94105. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Sanjukta Mukherjee.

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/11/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/11/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PEOPLE POWER MEDIA, 366 10TH AVE., SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed People Power Media (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/01/13.

FEB 07, 14, 21, 28, 2013

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013

FEB 14, 21, 28, MAr 07, 2013

FEB 21, 28, MAr 07, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034905700

FEB 21, 28, MAr 07, 14, 2013 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SUPERB GARDEN GROCERY, 2433 NORIEGA ST., SF, CA 94122.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Yan Kam Fu Wong. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/13/13.

FEB 21, 28, MAr 07, 14, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FIlE A-032566300 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: SUPERB GARDEN GROCERY, 2433 NORIEGA ST., SF, CA 94122. This business was conducted by a general partnership and signed by Sau Yin Wong & Yan Kam Fu Wong. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/17/10.

FEB 21, 28, MAr 7, 14, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FIlE A-031165100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GALAXY STAR ENTERTAINMENT, 703 MARKET ST. #350, SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Thebroth Inc. (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/15/13.

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: YOGEN FRUZ, 3 EMBARCADERO CENTER, SF, CA 94111. This business was conducted by a corporation and signed by Two Towers Inc. (CA).

The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/13/08.

FEB 21, 28, MAr 07, 14, 2013

FEB 21, 28, MAr 7, 14, 2013

SUMMONS (FAMILY LAW) SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO NOTICE TO RESPONDENT: SANDRA jAMILET MARTINEz, YOU ARE BEING SUED. PETITIONER’S NAME IS RUBEN CABRAL CASE NO. FDI-12-776833 You have 30 CALENDAR DAYS after this Summons and Petition are served on you to file a Response (form FL-120 or FL-123) at the court and have a copy served on the petitioner. A letter or phone call will not protect you. If you do not file your Response on time, the court may make orders affecting your marriage or domestic partnerships, your property, and custody of your children. You may be ordered to pay support and attorney fees and costs. If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the clerk for a fee waiver form. If you want legal advice, contact a lawyer immediately. You can get information about finding lawyers at the the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp), at the California Legal Services Web site (www.lawhelpcalifornia.org), or by contacting your local county bar association.

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

NOTE: If a judgment or support order is entered, the court may order you to pay all or part of the fees and costs that the court waived for yourself or the other party. If this happens, the party ordered to pay fees shall be given notice and an opportunity to request a hearing to set aside the order to pay waived court fees.

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, 400 MCALISTER STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102; PREPARED BY ROSS MEYERS, LDA #2, SAN MATEO COUNTY, 520 SO. EL CAMINO REAL #650, SAN MATEO, CA 94402, 650-347-2500; the name, address, and telephone number of petitioner’s attorney, or the petitioner without an attorney, is: RUBEN CABRAL, 1352 HAMPSHIRE ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110; 415-509-0614; APR 09, 2012 WARNING: California law provides that, for the purposes of division of property upon dissolution of a marriage or domestic partnership or upon legal separation, property acquired by the parties during marriage or domestic partnership in joint form is presumed to be community property. If either party to this action should die before the jointly held community property is divided, the language in the deed that characterizes how title is held (i.e., joint tenancy, tenants in common, or community property) will be controlling, and not the community property presumption. You should consult your attorney if you want the community property presumption to be written into the recorded title to the property.

STANDARD FAMILY LAW RESTRAINING ORDERS: Starting immediately, you and your spouse or domestic partner are restrained from: 1. Removing the minor child or children of the parties, if any, from the state without the prior written consent of the other party or an order of the court; 2. Cashing borrowing against, canceling, transferring, disposing of, or changing the beneficiaries of any insurance or other coverage, including life, health, automobile, and disability, held for the benefit of the parties and their minor child or children; 3. Transferring, encumbering, hypothecating, concealing, or in any way disposing of any property, real or personal, whether community, quasi-community, or separate, without the written consent of the other party or an order of the court, except in the usual course of business or for the necessities of life; and 4. Creating a nonprobate transfer or modifying a nonprobate transfer in the manner that affects the disposition of property subject to the transfer, without the written consent of the other party or an order of the court. Before revocation of a nonprobate transfer can take effect or a right of survivorship to property can be eliminated, notice of the change must be filed and served on the other party.

You must notify each other of any proposed extraordinary expenditures at least five business days prior to incurring these extraordinary expenditures and account to the court for all extraordinary expenditures made after these restraining orders are effective. However, you may use community property, quasi-community property, or your own separate property to pay an attorney to help you or to pay court costs.

FEB 07, 14, 21, 28, 2013

<< Community News

12 • Bay Area Reporter • February 21- 27, 2013

<<

SFAF

From page 9

and also looks to do more work with young men of color, such as making sure they’re linked to care.

Possible leadership changes

The foundation has also put out a notice to hire an executive director of gay men’s health and wellness who would oversee the Castro center. It’s unclear what that will mean for the men who currently run the programs: Steve Gibson, director of Magnet; Kyriell Noon, director

<<

Condoms

From page 1

It would make statewide a policy Los Angeles County voters passed in November that requires the use of condoms in explicit adult films produced within L.A. county.

“When it comes down to it, adult film actors are employees, like any other employee for any other business in the state,” stated Hall. “We have an obligation to ensure that all workers, regardless of the type of work, are protected from workplace hazards and injury. AB 332 will give these actors a proven way to prevent the spread of disease while creating a safer workplace for actors throughout this growing industry.”

If adopted by state lawmakers, the bill likely would have little to no impact on the production of gay porn featuring condomless sex, known as barebacking, as most producers would simply relocate production out of state.

Writing about the bill last week, the website thesword.com noted that most gay porn companies making bareback videos have either opened satellite offices in or decamped to other states such as Florida “where bareback productions are on the rise.”

DP tax relief

Freshman lawmaker Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) is the lead author of legislation that would provide fiscal relief to same-sex couples who are hit with increased tax bills due to healthcare

<<

Imperial Court

From page 1

empress who lives in San Francisco posted a disapproving and controversial Facebook post.

“Let it rest, let it die,” Marlena, 74, said of the comments. He called for more positive energy and more political engagement among this year’s candidates.

San Francisco Imperial Council Chair Frank Fernandez said the Imperial Council has an anti-discrimination policy that it adheres to, in conjunction with its partner, the International Court Council.

“I, as the chairperson of the Imperial Council, have not received any formal written complaints nor was I witness to any of the referenced exchanges,” Fernandez said in an email response to questions.

“Any verified exchange that violated our anti-discrimination policy would be a serious situation requiring appropriate action.”

<<

News Briefs

From page 3

found kneeling and slumped forward, with his forehead on the ground and his right arm supported by the branch of a bush. There were abrasions on his throat, among other “minor” injuries, but the agency eventually found “no evidence of manual or ligature strangulation,” according to the file.

The position Borowy was found

of HIV prevention services at Stop AIDS; and Michael Siever, director of behavioral health services at Stonewall.

“The programmatic integration and staffing plan is under way, and it’s premature to speculate until the process is complete,” Loduca said in an email.

The ad, posted in the February 1 Gay Politics Report, said, “SFAF seeks an accomplished and visionary executive leader to help develop and then lead its new 10,000 square foot home for gay/bi men’s health and wellness which will house a

benefits.

When one partner adds the other to their employer provided health insurance plan, they incur a tax penalty because the Internal Revenue Service treats any employer contributions for a same-sex partner’s or spouses’ health insurance premiums as taxable income. Heterosexual couples do not face a similar tax hike, but LGBT couples do because under the Defense of Marriage Act the federal government is barred from recognizing their marriage or partnership.

In recent years a number of companies – such as Google, Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, and Facebook – have turned to what is known as “grossing up” the pay of their LGBT employees to offset their tax bill. San Francisco is set to become only the third city in the nation to provide similar relief to its public employees with same-sex partners covered on their health plans under legislation by Supervisor Mark Farrell.

Since California provides samesex couples in registered domestic partnerships or marriages the same rights as heterosexual married couples, the state does not impose a tax on the health benefits. It does, however, tax the “grossed up” pay employers provide to their LGBT workers.

Ting’s bill, AB 362, would end the state taxation of the reimbursement pay that employers are providing to their workers in same-sex relationships. It would apply to both private sector workers and employees of

He went on to say the Imperial Council of San Francisco “has a long tradition of honoring and abiding by the policy.”

“We are very proud this year that we have a transgender woman running for one of our highest titles,” Fernandez added.

Logan’s campaign was built on fostering diversity. She donated a transgender flag to the Imperial Council, the first it has received.

Wearing a purple gown to signify strength with silver sequins to symbolize glamor, Logan said she wants to restore the council’s regality.

Danielle Bicknell, 26, voted for Logan because of their shared names, but didn’t know any of Logan’s values or goals. Bicknell, who was walking with her 14-year-old sister, has lived in the Castro for a year and considers voting “a great civic duty.”

Another voter Mike Milazzo, 39, didn’t know much about candidates and also mistook Logan as poten-

in and his heart pathology were “consistent with sudden cardiac death,” the report says.

The document indicates bupropion, which is also known as Wellbutrin and can be used as an antidepressant and for quitting smoking; Gamma-Hydroxybutyric Acid (GHB); Delta 9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC); and “metabolites in non-lethal levels” were in Borowy’s system.

Justin Davisson, 43, of Mountain

sexual health clinic, counseling center and a variety of HIV/AIDS/STI prevention, treatment and community programs in the same location for the first time.”

The posting refers to the executive director supervising “three program team leaders.”

New facade

The current businesses at 474 Castro will be out by May 1, and the space will need to be gutted.

“We have to take out everything that’s there,” Giuliano said. “... down to the shell.”

Rick Gerharter

Assemblyman Phil Ting

public entities.

“At the heart of this issue is a question of fairness for same-sex couples,” stated Ting, formerly San Francisco’s assessor-recorder. “The federal policy to tax their benefits is discriminatory, and the last thing the state of California should do is make it harder to remedy the injustice by taxing the reimbursement of these costs.”

Equality California, the statewide LGBT advocacy group, is backing the bill.

“We can’t end DOMA from the Statehouse, but we can make sure that California is not part of the problem,” stated EQCA Executive Director John O’Connor.

HIV confidentiality change

Due to changes being imple-

Unopposed emperor candidate Drew Cutler

tially the first transgender empress, though she would be second if she wins. (Empress XXVIII Jackie Reynolds was transgender, Marlena said.) He admitted he needed to fur-

View, said Borowy, who was gay, had been “a good friend to myself and my family.”

Davisson described Borowy as “fun to be around” and in an email he said he “was one of those people who come into your life that is simply unforgettable.”

Last chance for aging/HIV survey

There is still time to sign up for the last survey for people age 50 and over

t

They also plan to rework the bland facade.

“The concept is very much to keep it open, warm, friendly, and inviting,” he said. That thinking has been critical to the success of Magnet, he said. That site, about a block away from the new center, features large windows that allow passersby to look directly inside.

Among the possibilities for the new site are an all-glass facade and a two-story fireplace hearth.

One key question the AIDS foundation is trying to answer is what to call the new home for its

programs. It is engaging various stakeholders, from staffers and board members to clients and community members, in order to come up with a name.

The gay men’s health center Magnet, the substance use reduction program Stonewall Project, and the HIV prevention agency Stop AIDS Project had all been stand alone agencies with their own brand names and identities prior to merging with SFAF.t

mented under the federal Affordable Care Act, gay state Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) is carrying a bill that will loosen the state’s HIV confidentiality law in order that those people living with AIDS and HIV who will be transitioned out of ADAP will continue to receive their medications on time.

Starting January 1, 2014, those ADAP members making more than 138 percent of the federal poverty level will be covered by the new health insurance exchange called Covered California. Those people earning less than the 138 percent of the federal poverty level will be covered by an expanded Medi-Cal. “The underlying concern here is a safe and effective transition for continuity of care and medication,” said Leno in a phone interview.

“The ADAP program needs to be communicating with Medi-Cal and Covered California in a way never done before.”

Enrollment in the programs will begin October 1. It is unclear how many of the 34,000 ADAP users, said Leno, will be transitioned to other programs starting in the fall.

Under current state laws governing HIV disclosure, the rules covering the transferring of medical records for those enrollees who will leave ADAP are quite restrictive. Leno’s bill is aimed at loosening the restrictions in order to facilitate an easy transition from ADAP into the other programs.

“Right now there is no way for those medical records to be

sent over,” said Leno. “We are not changing confidentiality laws at all. We do need to make them more flexible to ensure continuation of care is not sacrificed as these individuals transition into new programs.”

The bill also extends the confidentiality guidelines that now apply to HIV blood tests to all types of HIV tests, including urine and saliva tests, as well as methods yet to be identified.

Assemblyman Mark Stone (DSanta Cruz) is a co-author of the bill, and co-sponsors include the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, AIDS Legal Referral Panel, and the Conference of California Bar Associations.

“I don’t think there is any great risk for people with HIV with this exception,” said ALRP Executive Director Bill Hirsh.

AIDS Housing Alliance Executive Director Brian Basinger agreed that the bill should not be a cause for concern. When the state implemented the HIV confidentiality laws, it did not intend them to be a roadblock to care, he said.

“I am 100 percent supportive of us taking baby steps toward the normalization of HIV and AIDS,” said Basinger. “These tools were designed in a previous era to protect us. Their intentions were never to harm and prevent us from accessing resources and getting the care we need. Society has evolved, I have evolved, and our legislation has to evolve too.”t

ther research the candidates.

McGroin, 31, held a beer bust earlier this month at the Mix to promote her candidacy and to raise funds for St. Aiden’s Food Pantry, which would be a beneficiary if she’s elected empress. She wants to raise $78,000 to benefit Wildlife Rescue and St. Anthony Foundation through events and networking, but couldn’t specify from whom that money would be generated.

Rene Sedivy, 42, said McGroin is interested in recruiting more volunteers for Castro Community on Patrol, which has seen a decline in volunteers while robberies have been on the rise in the Castro. As has been reported, Sedivy was repeatedly pistol-whipped while being carjacked last year.

freelance performer. His Twitter page features him in a leather harness and his promotional cards show his pants unzipped. He has lived in San Francisco for two and a half years.

His porn career led him to understand the potent effect he has on others and spurred his campaign, which he says will help bridge the divide between drag queens, the leather community, and bears, among others in the LGBT community.

During an interview outside the Edge, an array of men commended his new title.

“I have a lot of powerful people in the circle that surrounds me,” Cutler said.

The Coronation will be held on Saturday, February 23, at 6 p.m. at the Galleria Design Center, where the empress winner will be announced and who, along with the emperor, will stage a performance. Tickets are $65. For more information, visit http://www.imperialcouncilsf.org.t

Alone at the top

The sole candidate for emperor, Cutler, 38, is a former regional manager of Sunglass Hut and a prolific leather porn star who now works as a

who are living with HIV in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties.

The survey is being conducted by Loren Meissner, a graduate student in the gerontology program at San Francisco State University, with support from the HIV Health Services Planning Council, which prioritizes federal funds under the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act for the three counties.

The survey will take place Tuesday, February 26 at 5:30 p.m. at the

Matthew S. Bajko contributed to this report.

San Francisco AIDS Foundation, 1035 Market Street, room 3D. Meissner said that it’s expected to take between 60 and 90 minutes to complete the survey. Those meeting eligibility requirements will receive a $20 Safeway gift card.

For more information and to RSVP, contact Ali Cone at (415) 674-4751 or acone@shanti.org.t Seth Hemmelgarn contributed to this report.

No charge

22

Leather set

Writing Oscar

18

Out &About

20

O&A

15

The

www.ebar.com/arts

Vol. 43 • No. 08 • February 21-27, 2013

‘Poshlust’ Nijinsky

by Paul Parish

Y

ou’ve touched his perfect body with your mind.” That’s the subtext of Nijinsky, the full-length ballet by John Neumeier that formed the whole of Hamburg Ballet’s program last week. They danced as guests of the San Francisco Ballet (as Program 2 of the SFB season) and had a triumphant reception: full houses, standing ovations. I found myself one of the few who were not standing and cheering, for though

I’d been impressed by the superb technique and style of the dancers and by Neumeier’s brilliant use of the illusionistic resources of the Opera House stage, I found the spectacle unmoving and phony, or to use Nabokov’s famous word, “poshlust”: “falsely important, falsely beautiful, falsely clever, falsely attractive.”

It’s tempting to make a ballet about NijinSee page 17 >>

Kalkidan Mashasha II (The World Stage: Israel) (2011), oil on canvas by Kehinde Wiley, part of Kehinde Wiley - The World Stage: Israel at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, SF. Courtesy Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, CA

Celebrating male beauty

by Sura Wood

I

n 2011, Kehinde Wiley, an African-American artist exploring diasporas, ethnic hybrids, identity and gender, trolled Israel’s discos, malls, bars and sporting events seeking black alpha males, 18-25 years of age, from diverse backgrounds – Ethiopian Jews, as well as Jewish and Arab Israelis – who were steeped in hip hop culture. They became the subjects of the 18 visually striking portraits now on display in Kehinde Wiley/The World Stage: Israel, a new exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum.

Wiley, who was born in South Central LA and bitten by the art bug there, attended San Francisco Art Institute before getting his MFA from Yale. A voracious global traveler, he’s familiar with the world stage, which is the name he gave to a series that germinated in Harlem, where he encountered guerrilla street-fashion and male bravado – think T-shirts with logos, and butt-crack-revealing baggy jeans. His journeys have since taken him far and wide to Brazil, India, China, Senegal, Nigeria and other countries he deigns part of the 21stcentury conversation. He has set up studios in Brooklyn and Beijing, and has plans for outSee page 14 >>

Emanuel Amuchástegui, Carsten Jung and Alexandre Riabko in John Neumeier’s Nijinsky.

Erik Tomasson

m Oscar picks 2013 m

by David Lamble

A

s the 85th Academy Awards ceremony rolls into view, the event that some of us consider our Super Bowl, critics are once again moaning about whether movies are still culturally relevant. Some of this year’s crop of Best Picture nods have

Best Actress contender Emmanuelle Riva in director Michael Haneke’s Amour.

inspired political controversy (Argo, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty), and there are fewer openly gay artists up for awards: playwright Tony Kushner for Best Adapted Screenplay (Lincoln), David France for his brilliant AIDS history doc How to Survive a Plague, and stop-action co-director Chris Butler for his animation feature ParaNorman (the first time such

Sony Pictures Classics

{ SECOND OF TWO SECTIONS }

a film has had a lead gay character).

For those with serious interest in the awards prospects for LGBT film artists, see my summation of the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards at the end of this article.

The Best Picture competition has once again swollen to nine films, and it’s an impressive field. Going alphaSee page 22 >>

<< Out There

14 • Bay Area Reporter • February 21-27, 2013

Arts-lover’s holiday

by Roberto Friedman

L

ast week found Out There spinning all around town like a rotisserie chicken. We were in the house last Wednesday night for the opening of the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s Kehinde Wiley/The World Stage: Israel show, the first major exhibition in San Francisco for the gay, African American artist who was a student at San Francisco Art Institute back in the 1990s.

The launch party featured a knock-out performance from Ethiopian-Israeli hiphop artist Kalkidan Mashasha, who is the subject of several of Wiley’s World Stage: Israel portraits. Performing for the first time in the Bay Area, Mashasha came to the CJM direct from Israel.

He was followed by Israeli Freestyle Champion DJ Alarm spinning international tunes in the main party room. In VIP quarters, we chatted with the artist and his identical twin brother.

The next night found OT deep in the homo ’hood at the Castro Theatre for an evening of grand spectacle as showmen Marc Huestis and Earl Dax presented famed cabaret artist Joey Arias singing his songs of love. Our date for the evening David Bonetti, who’d just arrived in town from blizzard-ravaged Boston, wondered if it dated us that we both recognized Cream’s “White Room,” which Arias offered up as an art-song, from its opening bars.

This was an all-star event that included a fashion show by couturier Mr. David, spectacu-

lar video by Leo Herrera, Arias’ lovelorn duet with Connie Champagne, and a special opening act performed by Bay Area diva Veronica Klaus. Klaus’ rendition of the Nina Simone song “Wild Is the Wind” sent shivers down our slippery spines. Arias has performed with Klaus Nomi, David Bowie and Grace Jones, and now he can add the Castro to his memory list.

Next night we were Opera Housebound as the San Francisco Ballet hosted members of the Hamburg Ballet in John Neumeier’s dancetheater epic Nijinsky, reviewed in this ish. The ballet was followed by the year’s first LGBT NiteOut reception up in Dress Circle bar. The swank party attracted dancers from the visiting ballet troupe. OT and our posse closed the place down, then repaired across the street to our bachelor pad.

Night after that, OT’s big brother was in town, so after mealtime at the

<<

Steven Underhill

Joel Leggett, Joey Arias and digital artist Alejandro Francheschi pose at the Castro Theatre last Thursday night.

meat palace Espetus Churrascaria, we legged it to Davies Symphony Hall to hear dynamic young conductor Pablo Heras-Casado offer

Kehinde Wiley

From page 13

posts in Senegal and the Caribbean.

A moment to digress: Wiley is versed in the art of market-speak, an aptitude displayed in a short video at the entry to the exhibit. At 35, his paintings are in the collections of over 40 museums, including the Metropolitan in New York, LACMA and the Hammer in L.A; this is no small feat and a tribute to his savvy.

But it would be wise not to conflate his explanations of what he’s trying to do in his art with what’s actually on the gallery walls. In the end, intention and promotion are irrelevant; at least one would hope so.

The slightly ponderous quotations from the artist scattered throughout the show, such as: “I wanted to mine where the world is right now,” don’t add to the experience of the work, which celebrates male beauty.

Wiley, who’s gay, gives forceful presence to handsome, urban black and brown men who get far less representation in paintings hanging in museums than their white counterparts. His models, who chose their own clothing, and in some instances struck poses selected from art-history texts, are set against eye-popping, multi-colored backgrounds with intricate patterns

t

Kwaku Alston, courtesy of Kehinde Wiley Studio

Artist Kehinde Wiley, 2010.

drawn from decorative tapestries and Judaic motifs one might find in Middle Eastern street bazaars. The paintings are placed in ornate handcarved wooden frames, topped by text and mini sculptures of the 10 Commandments, the Lions of Judah, and in some cases, Rodney King’s plaintive query: “Can’t we all get along?” The profusion of design elements is so busy that the paint-

Lindberg, Liszt (with pianist Stephen Hough) and, most spectacularly, the Prokofiev 5th. Find the concert reviewed in our next ish.t

ings, when taken collectively in the context of an exhibition, induce a sugar headache.

This particular body of work is based on traditional 18th- and 19th-century European portraiture of the landed gentry, but the artist gave the enterprise a significant twist and shout by adding the seasoning of contemporary youth and hip hop and an unmistakable homoerotic subtext to form a clash of culture, class, racial politics, emigration, religion, sex and art-historical references. All of this is pulled off with technical finesse, but to what end isn’t clear. One of the text panels asks, “Who are these men?” It’s a valid question because we learn next to nothing about them beyond their attractive surfaces and distinguishing physical characteristics.

Kalkidan Mashasha, a wellknown musician/rapper whom the artist befriended, and who’s the subject of four works here, has a complex history that’s not communicated by the portrait. An Ethiopian Jew whose family may have emigrated to Israel during Israeli-sponsored airSee page 17 >>

CJM-SF

Alios Itzhak (The World Stage: Israel) (2011), oil and gold enamel on canvas by Kehinde Wiley.

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Theatre >>

February 21-27, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 15

Free at last, free at last!

by Richard Dodds

I

f triple-digit theater prices are no longer shocking, they can still be budget-busters. There are current alternatives that involve only a single zero. As in $0. Production values may be bare, and the material out for a test drive, but by availing yourself of these freebies you may be helping to cultivate theatrical talent.

Free is the cost of admission to The Bandaged Place by Harrison David Rivers, a 2011 GLAAD Media Award winner. It’s the final offering in the 2013 edition of Aurora Theatre’s annual Global Age Project, and will receive a staged reading on Feb. 25. The play tells the story of a gay man who keeps at a distance those he loves, a mechanism that goes awry when he receives a call from a former lover. Rivers won a GLAAD Award for When Last We Flew, which follows the travails of a gay black student stuck in Kansas.

More info at auroratheatre.org.

The sense of isolation is much more severe for the characters in Waafrika, one of the 10 new plays to receive free public readings as part of the Magic Theatre’s residency at the ACT Costume Shop.

Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko’s play is the story of a forbidden love that develops between a white American Peace Corps volunteer and a Kenyan native who is biologically a woman but identifies as a man. The transgendered playwright himself was born in Tanzania, raised in Kenya, and transi-

Sulai Lopez

Courtesy Harrison David Rivers

Harrison David Rivers examines a gay man’s crumbling defense mechanism in The Bandaged Place, part of the Aurora Theatre’s free GAP staged readings.

tioned from female to male during his studies at Columbia University.

Waafrika begins the series of readings at 5 p.m. Feb. 22 at the Mid-Market performance space.

The program continues through March 3, and other playwrights represented include Octavio Solis, Naomi Wallace, Lauren Gunderson, Lauren Yee, and Tony Taccone and Geoff Hoyle. There are also several specialty evenings that range from a Multidimensional Musical Experience on Feb. 28 to a Drag Diva Extravaganza on March 1. Go to magictheatre.org for a full schedule.

The Marsh Berkeley’s Happy

Hour series of free Friday afterwork entertainments has a timely presentation for March 1. It’s the night before Leonard Cohen begins a two-night stand at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, and the Marsh offering is appropriately titled The Night Before Leonard. It features author Sylvie Simmons reading from I’m Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen, her praised biography of the musical icon.

More musical icons provide the underpinnings for Ca C’est L’Amour, a Marsh Happy Hour performance that begins a four-Friday run on March 8. This is a workshop of Kike Adedeji’s new cabaret show, with songs by Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and Brian Wilson helping tell the love stories of a Nigerian in London, a German in New York,

Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko is the author of Waafrika, a play about a transgendered relationship in Kenya, part of the Magic’s free play-reading series at The Costume Shop.

and a Mexican without papers in San Francisco. More info at themarsh.org.

Berkeley Rep is using its dark Mondays for a pair of free in-conversation events. On March 4, Pulitzer Prize-winner Lawrence Wright will not be talking about his upcoming play Fallaci, about investigative journalist Oriana Fallaci, but rather his own investigative bestseller Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief. Rita Moreno will return to the BRT stage on March 18 for an onstage interview with KQED’s Michael Krasny that coincides with the publication of Rita Moreno: A Memoir. Details at berkeleyrep.org.

Painted ladies Pageant the Musical, which has had scores of productions world-

lisakeatingphotography.com

Kike Adedji workshops a new cabaret show in the Marsh Berkeley’s free Happy Hour program.

wide since its 1991 off-Broadway debut, is rising anew at the Victoria Theatre for a two-week run beginning Feb. 28. The send-up of beauty contests features men in drag as the contestants in the Miss Glamouresse competition, who are put through variations on familiar pageant paces before the audience gets to vote for the winner.

Pageant marks the local directing and producing debut of Robb Huddleston, whose background has included cruise-ship performer, production work in television, and his current job as director of operations for Stern Grove Festival. His cast includes Aaron Brewer, Manny Caneri, Jon Deline, Tim Homlsey, Jim Roderick (aka DaftNee Gesuntheit), Maurice Andre San-Chez, and Eddie Bell (aka Cookie Dough). Tickets at brownpapertickets.com. t

Books >>

Slow death, Hollywood style

by Matthew Kennedy

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ot too many remember Mae Murray. Not one of her films is on Netflix, and she’s scarcely available at Amazon. But she was big, very big, in her day. She spawned fashion crazes and erotic fantasies, defining a 1920s ideal of film womanhood. Michael G. Ankerich’s revealing new biography Mae Murray: The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips covers all that and more with unflattering detail.

She began life as Marie Koenig in 1889. She was raised in New York City tenement squalor, her father died of alcoholism when she was 11, and her mother worked as a housekeeper. Pretty Marie dreamed of becoming a dancer. She was on Broadway by 17 as one of Vernon Castle’s bevy of chorus girls. From there she appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies, where she gained widespread attention for her buoyant, sexy charm. Then came a contract at Universal for her film debut in To Have and to Hold. Under director Robert Z. Leonard, she starred in eight films through their Tiffany Productions at MGM. With titles like Peacock Alley, Fascination, and Jazzmania, they featured Murray as actress-dancer exotically costumed in baroque ensembles of peacock feathers, beadings, and bull’s horns.

Alas, the Tiffany features are either forgotten or lost to time and neglect.

It’s a shame, for Leonard was as important to Murray as von Sternberg was to Dietrich. Her career pinnacle arrived in 1925 with the title role in The Merry Widow. Her spats with director Erich von Stroheim were legendary, but years later this was the one she fought to keep in the public eye.

Ankerich’s fastidious research

leaves the conclusion that Murray was petty, vain, delusional, and perhaps slow-witted. If there was a poor decision to be made, Mae made it.

She married for money very young, and dumped the guy when he didn’t deliver the goods. Her second marriage fell apart so fast reporters barely knew it happened. Her third marriage, to her Tiffany partner Robert Z. Leonard, lasted as long as their professional union was solid. Her fourth collapsed when she learned her husband was a fortune-hunter, not a Georgian prince as advertised.

She threw public tantrums and found some kind of solace from marital and professional injustices by repeat litigation. The talkies did her no favors, her florid style clashing with the microphone. In 1931’s Bachelor Apartment, she is an over-

emotive anachronism next to a lovely young Irene Dunne. On the advice of her “manager” and fourth husband, she walked out on Louis B. Mayer at MGM. That would kill anyone’s career, and in Murray’s case, it exiled her to vaudeville. It must have been a dispiriting spectacle to witness a former silent-film star trodding the boards when everyone knew both her and her stage genre had appointments with extinction.

A certain “she made this movie and Variety said that, then she made that movie and Variety said this” rhythm sets in to Ankerich’s prose, but with some irony, Murray’s story gains interest after her career hits the skids. In her decline we see a cavalcade of show-business neuroses. She had a fear of aging, yet in-

sisted on maintaining her image. Her many court appearances look like surrogate film performances, with opportunities to face the flashbulbs in moviestar glad rags. There was a custody battle between her and a husband, with their son adopted by a surgeon and his wife.

Murray by then had lost most of her money and scruples, becoming evermore moody and reclusive.

Ankerich recounts scenes in Murray’s later life that ache with pathos. Murray had once mentored Loretta Young. Broke in the 1950s, Murray paid a visit to her old protégé, then a lavishly successful

TV star. Murray needed money, and Young wrote a check. Living in the Motion Picture House in Woodland See page 17 >>

<< Film

16 • Bay Area Reporter • February 21-27, 2013

Israeli introspection

by David Lamble

T

here’s a joke both hilarious and helpful to understanding what Israeli doc-maker Dror Moreh is up to in The Gatekeepers, which features intense interrogations of six former heads of the Israeli security agency Shin Bet. As one of the guys tells it in conversational Hebrew, soon after the 1967 War, Shin Bet decided to conduct a census in the Palestinian refugee camps. They assigned the task to Army reservists, mostly young guys with an imperfect command of Arabic at best.

“But they made a mistake. Instead of saying ‘nehsiku’ with an unaccented h, they used an accented h.

‘Jinna nehsiku’ means ‘We come to count you.’ ‘Jinna nehsiku’ with an accent means ‘We come to castrate you.’”

The Gatekeepers features harrowing simulations of Shin Bet-targeted assassinations of the heads of Palestinian “terrorist” organizations, depictions of Shin Bet prison interrogations, plots by Orthodox Jewish settlers to destroy the Muslim Dome of the Rock at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin by a right-wing Jewish terrorist. I found the “count vs. castrate” joke to be a disturbing metaphor for the gradual deterioration of relations between occupying Israeli security forces and an increasingly restless Palestinian population. What makes The Gatekeepers unique is Moreh’s layered conversation among six different individuals,

both an engrossing history lesson and a cautionary political tale with huge lessons for a second Obama Administration.

Of all Moreh’s “explainers,” the one who really spoke to me was Yuval Diskin, the most recent exShin Bet chief (2005-11). A tousledhaired 11-year-old during the 1967 war, Diskin recalls “the feeling of fear because our situation was bad.

Most of all I remember a book, If Israel Lost the War. It described a very unpleasant scenario of us losing the war and the Arabs conquering Israel. I thought about it a lot as a boy.”

Diskin set up clandestine arrangements with Palestinian, Jordanian and Egyptian security forces. With their tacit cooperation he was able to launch attacks against Hamas (the Palestinian group in charge of Gaza), destroying the group’s ability to undermine the Oslo peace accords.

Diskin describes the effects on one’s conscience of holding a life-or-death power over leaders of enemy terrorist organizations and sometimes members of their families. Diskin muses – as perhaps President Obama does with US killer drone operations in Afghanistan – about the morality of launching even the most surgically precise attack.

“Sometimes it’s a super-clean operation. No one was hurt except the terrorists. Later, when you’re shaving you say, ‘Okay, I made a decision, and x number of people were killed. They were definitely about to launch a big attack. No one near them was hurt, it was as sterile as possible.’ Yet still you say, ‘There’s

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something unnatural about it.’

What’s unnatural is the power that you have to take three people, and take their lives in an instant.”

I sat down with Dror Moreh for a wide-ranging chat about his film and comparisons one could easily make with Kathryn Bigelow’s equally controversial Zero Dark Thirty.

Moreh was influenced by The Fog of War, the seminal doc by Errol Morris. Of all the tragic violence in his film, the segment that can still bring tears to his eyes is the assassination of Rabin, which he believes derailed the peace process. The film is divided into chapters with headings like “One Man’s Terrorist is Another Man’s Freedom Fighter.”

David Lamble: How did you persuade these six tough guys to be so candid on camera?

Dror Moreh: I approached them when they wanted to speak. I found very pragmatic persons who are worried about the future of the state of Israel because of the lack of leadership.

I could have mistaken them for part of the Israeli peace movement.

Only people who have experienced what it means to send people to die, who have used every trick in the book to maintain security, only they have the authority to say what they’ve said and make people listen to them. There’s not a single person who was the head of Shin Bet who’s alive, who’s not in this film.

Many of the issues that arise in The Gatekeepers also occur in Zero

Avner Shahaf (top); courtesy of Ami Ayalon (bottom); both Sony Pictures Classics

Ami Ayalon, a former head of the Israeli security agency Shin Bet.

Dark Thirty, but your subjects seem to possess more moral authority than Kathryn Bigelow’s fictional characters.

I understand her big issue is the torture? In Israel, Shin Bet is not allowed to torture people unless there’s “a ticking time bomb.”

It means you know definitely that unless you use those physical means, people will die soon. If I have a criticism of Kathryn Bigelow’s film it’s that it sticks to a very dry “journalistic” account of the process that led to Bin Laden.

There’s no upper-level discussion of moral issues.

him an international star.

In Minghella’s film, Matt Damon brings his potent boyishness to Tom, while the sexy Jude Law is Dickie.

The film opens with Mr. Greenleaf (James Rebborn) hiring Tom, whom he believes went to Princeton with Dickie, to bring his son home. In this version, Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow) is initially sympathetic to Tom’s unspoken crush on Dickie. Minghella’s screenplay adds two new characters: the American heiress Meredith Logue (Cate Blanchett) and the gay Peter Smith-Kinglsey (Jack Davenport). Philip Seymour Hoffman is Freddie.

Dickie doesn’t remember Tom, but they hit it off and a bromance develops. It’s clear Tom is sexually attracted to Dickie. Dickie takes him to a jazz club. Tom hauntingly sings a few bars of “My Funny Valentine.”

But Dickie is unnerved when he finds Tom trying on his clothes. Later, Tom visually devours Dickie as he emerges nude from a hot tub. Tom knows that Dickie has been cheating on Marge – he got a local girl pregnant. She commits suicide, which upsets Dickie.

Later, while the two youths are sailing, Dickie calls Tom a leach, says he doesn’t love him, and that he is going to marry Marge. Tom, hurt, enraged, kills Dickie and disposes of the body.

He assumes Dickie’s identity. As in the novel and the first movie version, when Freddie becomes suspicious, Tom murders him.

Damon touchingly conveys Tom’s longing to be Dickie and to have him as well. Although his appeal differs from Delon’s, Damon’s Tom is just as dangerously desirable. Law is superb. His Dickie is an arrogant, often charming narcissist. Paltrow is fine, especially in portraying Marge’s growing anger at Tom – she suspects he killed Dickie, but cannot prove it. Hoffman is terrific as the sloppy, snobbish Miles. Blanchett is also good – in lesser hands, her character would have been simply a plot convenience. Davenport is moving, engaging the audience’s sympathy as Tom carefully seduces him. Although the ending also differs from the novel, it’s closer to its spirit.

It’s rare when a movie matches the top-notch novel that inspired it. It’s rarer when two films do so.

Highsmith’s (1921-95) story remains hard to put down, despite having an amoral protagonist. Her vivid prose and the surprising plot twists keep the reader turning the pages. She brought her chameleon back in Ripley Under Ground (1970), Ripley’s Game (74), The Boy Who Loved Ripley (80) and Ripley Under Water (91).t

That’s why I prefer your film, because you get to the moral consequences.

In Abu Ghraib, soldiers were brought into a situation that they were not equipped morally, mentally or personally to deal with. They had absolute power over other human beings, and they abused that power. If you don’t go into that, why are you doing the movie? (Opens Friday.)t

DVD >>

Variations on a chameleon

by Tavo Amador

T

he recently re-issued DVD/Bluray of Rene Clement’s brilliant 1960 thriller Plein Soleil (Purple Noon), based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, invites comparison with Anthony Minghella’s 1999 version, which kept her title. The premise is straightforward: Dickie Greenleaf,

son of a wealthy American boat manufacturer, has been living in Mongibello, a small coastal village south of Naples, ostensibly painting.

He’s friendly with a young American woman, Marge, who’s in love with him. His father hires Tom Ripley, whom he believes to be a friend of Dickie’s, to persuade him to come home. Nothing turns out as anyone expects.

Neither film is faithful to the novel, yet each is exceptionally good. They differ in many ways, yet both are gripping. Clement and Paul Gegauff adapted the story. The incomparably beautiful Alain Delon is Tom. They changed Dickie’s name to Philippe (Maurice Ronet). The film opens in Rome with Tom, Philippe, and Freddie Miles (Bill Kearns), an old friend of Philippe’s, carousing. Freddie doesn’t like Tom because he has no visible means of support. Tom’s mission is to bring Philippe back to San Francisco.

Once Freddie leaves, the two young men continue partying. They enjoy spending Mr. Greenleaf’s money.

In Mongibello, Tom meets Philippe’s American girlfriend Marge (Marie LaForet), a writer.

She’s angry that he told her nothing about going off to Rome. Philippe makes love to her with Tom watching, until he’s sent away. Philippe discovers Tom modeling his clothes in front of a mirror, kissing his own reflection. It disturbs him. As in the novel, Marge dislikes Tom. Despite Marge’s objections, the three go sailing. Philippe plays a cruel prank on Tom. Later, when Tom and Philippe are alone on the boat, Tom realizes that his friend has tired of him – wants him to go away. Upset, unable to control himself, Tom kills him. Later, he assumes his identify.

When Freddie becomes suspicious about the missing Philippe, Tom is forced to kill him. He tells the police and Marge that Philippe is traveling.

He returns to Mongibello, pleased with his new life. The ironic ending is startling, although different from the book. Delon’s astonishing beauty makes Tom dangerously appealing, even sympathetic. Highsmith was among the many praising his great performance. It helped make

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Books >>

February 21-27, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 17

Pop symbolism

by Jim Piechota

I

t’s been awhile since Lady Gaga has had a new smash-hit release in the clubs or on the Internet radio airwaves, yet she still continues to make waves on a cultural level, writes USC ethnicity and gender studies professor J. Jack Halberstam in a book that challenges preconceived notions of gender, politics, and the feminist ideal.

Begun before the swirling Occupy protests began, and completed with this same protest movement used as “an inspiration and a source of hope,” Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal (Beacon Press) intelligently juxtaposes the media scrutiny of Lady Gaga and her onstage persona with the contemporary outlook

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tive of the “fragmentation of connection” in this cell-phone era, the validation of female-on-male vio-

Nijinsky

Kehinde Wiley

From page 14

lifts in the 1990s, he was given a Jewish name when he arrived, and had a tough time fitting into his adopted country, which he found repressive, or formulating an identity, until he was liberated by music. In one painting, he’s in military uniform and surrounded by a landscape incorporating the Mosque of Omar, a sacred Islamic site. The imagery is taken from a lithograph of the Holy Land made by the Scottish artist David Roberts in 1839.

Wiley’s approach bears some resemblance to that of Deborah Oropallo, whose 2007 series Guise superimposed digitally manipulated images of women in scanty costumes onto formal portraits of

lence, and how emerging forms of gender and sexuality have become the new cultural frontier.

The text pursues the controversial nature of male pregnancy, which, Halberstam opines, can be observed as “an indication that a new politics of reproduction has emerged, with all kinds of unforeseen consequences.”

The ethics of sexual fluidity, gay marriage, and modern families are all explored with an authoritative tone and command of the theme. The book culminates in what Halberstam dubs his “Gaga

From page 13

sky. What would it be like to be him, “the god of the dance?” Poets said he could stop in mid-air and just hang there. His brief, meteoric career flamed out into madness within a decade. His story is the best stuff the tabloids have ever had. Was he the boyfriend of the Archduke before he became the star dancer/lover of Serge Diaghilev and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes? Did the star-struck would-be dancer Romola, who bought her way into the back row of the Ballets Russes corps and persuaded Nijinsky to marry her, realize that Diaghilev would fire Nijinsky and deep-six his sensational choreography for The Rite of Spring (which had caused the audience to riot and created the most hotly discussed opening night of any ballet in the entire history of the art)? When Diaghilev said, “I cannot risk the future of our theater on your experiments,” was he just trying to cut him off, or did he mean that he’d never really believed Nijinsky was a good (much less great) choreographer? From 1919-46, Nijinsky was treated in mental institutions, and later died in England in 1950.

The materials are the hottest tabloid stuff. And they’re archetypal: every generation, it happens again. When Balanchine’s muse Suzanne Farrell

of feminists, their role in modern society, and the “unstable concept of woman” in feminist theory.

Halberstam’s love of popular culture is evident throughout, with references to HBO’s The Wire and Sex and the City, films like Finding Nemo (“a gay scenario disguised as a fish cartoon”) and Judd Apatow’s go-getter-girl-falls-for-slacker flick Knocked Up. Perhaps too much time is spent pondering the cultural significance of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” music video, co-starring Beyonce. The author ruminates on its “exciting and infectious model of Sapphic sisterhood” while examining what he feels are embedded messages representa-

Mae Murray

From page 15

Hills, a confused Mae boarded a Greyhound bus for New York. She got off in St. Louis believing she had arrived, and wandered the streets without an identity. The Salvation Army took her in and determined that the addled old woman with the corn-yellow hair once danced with Valentino and Gilbert. Right up to her death in 1965, she maintained a once-a-star, alwaysa-star attitude against an indifferent

Erik Tomasson

Hélène Bouchet, Alexandre Riabko and Carsten Jung in John Neumeier’s Nijinsky.

would not sleep with him but married a chorus boy, he fired her; she was out of a job until offered work by Maurice Bejart – who soon thereafter (1971) made a ballet about Nijinsky (Clown of God) starring her as the Girl in Pink. When Elizabeth Loscavio, who was Helgi Tomasson’s muse here at SF Ballet, suddenly left in 1998 to join Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet, within a couple of years Nijinsky (2000) appeared. Coincidences? The buzz guarantees that the audience will come and will be so ready to free-associate that if the spectacle is gorgeous and looks expensive, they’ll call it culture and (even if they slept through it, as my spy reports happened around Row T in the

prestigious 17th- and 19th-century men. Both artists are interested in desire, objectification, fantasy, and above all, power. But, while Oropallo’s focus is feminine constructs in a male-dominated society, Wiley’s preoccupation is the perception of black masculinity, most commonly defined by sports, antisocial behavior and hypersexuality, and how these men adapt to a hostile environment. “By and large, hip-hop is about survival,” Wiley states, but it’s also notoriously misogynist and homophobic, negative aspects of the phenomenon he doesn’t address.

He gives his figures gravitas they may not have in other areas of their lives, and preserves it for posterity; what he fails to deliver is dimension.

(Through May 27.)t

world.

Murray’s story fuels the idea that Hollywood is a place of monstrously large lives taking gruesome crash landing through bankruptcy, infidelity, addictions, and career failings. It’s not pretty, be it Murray, Judy Garland or Lindsay Lohan. In Murray’s case, she doesn’t appear to have ever been a warm or compassionate person, so while we may pity her, there’s no sense of great injustice. It’s a terrifying spectacle, really, all about a selfmade woman who lived and died by her own delusions.t

Opera House last Friday night) stand and cheer for 10 minutes, and feel tremendously edified and thrilled to have been a part of it.

Neumeier’s premise is this: “On Jan. 19, 1919, Nijinsky danced publicly for See page 21 >>

Manifesto.” He welcomes the reader to the “Gagapocalypse” as “the social rituals that formerly held communities together lose their meaning” and the search for new ways to break free of conventional identity begins.

A plainspoken and outspoken entry in Beacon Press’ Queer Action/Queer Idea book series edited

by Michael Bronski, Halberstam’s dissection of gender politics, love, sex, and everything Gaga-esque is thought-provoking, speculative, and satisfying food for thought.t

<< Out&About

18 • Bay Area Reporter • February 21-27, 2013

God Des and She

China’s Terracotta Warriors @ Asian art Museum

Magnificent Magnolias @ SF Botanical Garden

The First Emperor’s Legacy, an exhibit of ten of the famous life-size sculptures of guards of China’s first emperor, and 100plus other treasures from 2,000 years ago.

Opening evening party Feb 21 features turf war antics from party-makers Cheryl and several DJs. ($15-$18; 7pm-11pm). Reg Free-$22. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. Thru May 27. 200 Larkin St. 581-3500. www.terracotta-warriors.asianart.org

New seasonal exhibit of colorful floral displays, with special events, for evening adult events, lectures, classes, and kids events. Special event: Magnolias by Moonlight, Feb 23, 6pm-8pm ($15), a full-moon-lit guided tour. Thru March.

Also, beautiful floral drawing exhibit of watercolor works by Ernest Clayton. Thru April. $2-$15. 9am-7pm. 9th Avenue at Lincoln Way, Golden Gate Park. 661-1316. www.sfbotanicalgarden.org

Classical Recitals @ SF Conservatory of Music Instrumental and vocal concerts by students and faculty. Free-$20. Feb 21: 8pm, violin masterworks. Feb 22, 8pm: composition students. Feb 23, 7:30pm: violin master class. Feb 23, 8pm: musical theatre workshop performance of Sondheim’s Into the Woods. Feb 24, 8pm: brass faculty. Feb 25, 8pm: Works of Handel, Strauss, Rossini and Jake Heggie’s The Deepest Desire. Feb 26, 7:30pm: violin concerto competition finals. Feb 27, 8pm: voice department students. 50 Oak St. at Van Ness Ave. 5036275. www.sfcm.edu

Comedy Bodega @ Esta Nocha

Grrrrly shows

The weekly LGBT and indie comic stand-up night. 8pm-9:30pm. 3079 16th St. at Mission. www.comedybodega.com

by Jim Provenzano

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immin. Lesbians. Sapphic sisters. Yeah, they rock. Yeah, they tell the jokes men don’t have the balls to tell. But this week’s talent pool includes a bit of male and mixed musical talent, from opera queens turned twisted, to trans hip-hoppers gone jazzy. Enjoy unexpected shows of queer talent.

Thu 21: What’s the T? @ New People Cinema Cecilio Asuncion’s documentary about five transgender women: Cassandra Cass, Nya Ampon, Rakash Armani, Vi Le, and Mia Tu Mutch. $15-$40. 5:30pm & 9pm (VIP screening with after-party). 1746 Post St. brownpapertickets.com/ event/320632 Lois Tema

The gay theatre company performs Terrence McNally’s (newly revised) darkly comic play about obsessed gay opera fans and their entangled relationships. $22-$44. Wed-Sat 8pm.

Sun 2pm. Previews thru Mar. 2. Thru Mar. 24. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. 861-8972. www.nctcsf.org

Sat 23: Anniversary Party @ Lexington Club Fri 22: Josh Klipp & The Klipptones @ Pied Piper Local jazz group performs at the elegant downtown bar and grill (known for its large Maxfield Parrish painting). No cover. 8pm-11pm.

Palace Hotel, 2 New Montgomery St. www.joshuaklipp.com

Kronos Quartet @ Lam Research Theater Local music ensemble performs world premieres And the Movement of the Tongue by Pamela Z, String Quartet No. 3, The Mezzanine by Nathaniel Stookey, and the West Coast premiere of Carrying the Past by Dan Becker, and arrangements

by Stephen Prutsman. $20-$35. 8pm.

Pre-show talks 7pm. Thru Feb 22. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard St. 978-2787. www.ybca.org

Noisepop Nightlife @ Cal. Academy of Sciences

Fri 22: The Lisbon Traviata @ New Conservatory Theatre

DJs Jenna Riot and Andre spin tunes at the 16th birthday party for the women’s bar; dancers, prizes, cake and more lesborific fun. 9pm-2am.

3464 19th St. near Valencia. www.LexingtonClub.com

Sun 24: God Des and She @ El Rio Sapphic hiphop duo perform music from their new CD at the fun club; Mamaz also performs. $7-$10. 8pm.

3158 Mission St. 282-3325. www.god-desandshe.com www.elriosf.com

Samples, tastings, and talks on the botany behind the booze; guest lectures, special events, science art exhibits, plus food, cocktails and DJed dancing. $10-$12. 6pm10pm, 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

Pansy Division @ El Rio The fun pop-punk queer band, together again, temporarily, perform with Zbornak, and DJs Brown Mary and Carnita of Hard French spinning ‘60s soul and 45s. 8:30pm.

3158 Mission St. www.pansydivision.com www.elriosf.com

Way Behind the Music @ 1772 Market Litquake and Noise Pop cohost the third annual hilarious celebrity bio reading series, with local musicians and writers reading from (sometimes poorly ghost-written) books by David Cassidy, One Direction, LeAnn Rimes, Micky Dolenz, Flavor Flav, Cherry Vanilla, Pete Townshend, Peter Criss, Snoop Dogg, and more. $12-$15.

7pm. 1772 Market St. (formerly Rebel). www.litquake.org

Xavier Castellanos @ 456 Montgomery Plaza Painter of colorful works is in attendance at his exhibit, Mexican Landscapes.

2pm-3pm. Also Feb 28, 6:30-8:30pm.

Exhibit thru March. By Appintment. 456 Montgomery St. www.xavierart.com

Fri 22 Alfred Hitchcock Films @ Pacific Film Archive Screening of the major works of the master of cinematic suspense. This week, Shadow of a Doubt, 9pm. Thru April 24. $5.50$13.50. UC Berkeley Art Museum, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 642-1124. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Fri 22: Submerged Queer Spaces @ GLBT History Museum Jack Curtis Dubowsky’s hauntingly fascinating documentary about former gay bars and spaces in San Francisco, and what replaced them. $5. 7pm. Also, uncover the submerged queer spaces in a quired walking tour with Dubowski, Sat., Feb 23, 12pm-2pm. $5. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistorymuseum.org

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Thu 21 Cassandra Wilson @ Yoshi's Classy R&B singer-guitarist performs. $36-$45. 8pm & 10pm. Thru Feb 23. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Tue 26: Hella Gay Comedy @ Rebel How I Came Out, comedic and touching monologues with performers, comics and queens: Tammy Powers, Justin Alan, Carrie Avritt (photo), Yuri Kagen, Loren Kraut and Valeska Ville.

Charlie Ballard hosts (Also Feb 12 with a different line-up). $10. 21+. 8pm.

1760 Market St. 431-4202. www.charlieballard.com www.rebel-sf.com

Out in the Bay @ KALW 91.7 Radio program with interviews of Daughters of Bilitis founders and life partner Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin. 7pm. www.OutintheBay.org

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Dance and Diaspora @ ODC Theater The Foxglove Sweethearts and Aguas Dance Company perform in a double bill featuring belly dance and Afro-Brazilian dancing. $20. 8pm. 3153 17th St. 8639834. www.odcdance.org

Dear Harvey @ New Conservatory Theatre Patricia Loughrey’s play recounts the life of the groundbreaking gay activist and politician, based on dozens of interviews of friends and those inspired by Harvey Milk; with music by Thomas Hodges. (Special post-show discussion Feb 17 with Patricia Loughrey, Dan Nicoletta, Cleve Jones and Tom Ammiano). $18-$40. Wed-Sat 8pm.

Sun 2pm. Thru Feb 24. 25 Van Ness Ave at Market, lower level. www.nctcsf.org

Cassandra Wilson.

See Thu 21.

Foodies, the Musical @ Shelton Theater Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue of songs and sketches about food. $32-$34. Fri & Sat 8pm. Open run. 533 Sutter St. (800) 838-3006. www.foodiesthemusical.com

My Recollect Time @ South Berkeley Community Church Inferno Theatre’s productions of Jamie Greenblatt’s inspiring play of historical figure Mary Fields, a former slave, and the transformations she undergoes as she struggles to live a free and authentic life after Emancipation. Her life journey takes her from Tennessee to Montana via the Mississippi as a riverman (she passed as a man), and includes her close friendship with the charismatic Ursuline nun, Mother Amadeus. $12-$25. 9pm. Thu, Sat Sun 8pm.Thru Mar. 3, at 5pm. 1802 Fairview St., Berkeley. (510) 788-6415. www.sbccucc.org

Our Practical Heaven @ Aurora Theatre, Berkeley Anthony Clarvie’s drama about a family facing the decline of their beach home, and the changing nature of generations, family and gender roles. $35-$60. Tue 7pm. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm & 7pm. Thru Mar. 3. 20181 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org

Recent Arrivals @ John Pence Gallery Opening reception for a group exhibit of new portraits, still lifes, and locally-set landscapes. 6pm-8pm. Thru Mar. 16. MonFri 10am-6pm. Sat 10am-5pm. 750 Post St. 441-1138. www.johnpence.com

Sat 23 As You Like It @ La Val’s Subterranean, Berkeley Impact Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s crossdressing romantic comedy. $10-$25. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru Mar. 30. 1834 Euclid Ave., Berkeley. www.impacttheatre.com

Batman on Robin @ Mission Comics & Art Group exhibit of Batman and Robin artwork that outs them as a gay couple, with works by dozens of artists. Reg hours 12pm-8pm (6pm Sun). 3520 20th St. 695-1545. www.missioncomicsandart.com

Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi Musical comedy revue, now in its 35th year, with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs. Reg: $25-$130. Wed, Thu, Fri at 8pm. Sat 6:30, 9:30pm. Sun 2pm, 5pm.

(Beer/wine served; cash only). 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St.). 4214222. www.beachblanketbabylon.com

Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt @ Citywide Join thousands of clue-finding adventurerers around downtown and Chinatown, for a fact-finding outdoor party and competition. $12-$40. Team and individual sign-ups. 4:30pm-9pm. Sign-up 3:330pm at Justin Herman Plaza. Embarcadero at Market St. (925) 855-1986 www.SFTreasureHunts.com

The Kinsey Collection @ MOAD New exhibit of works: Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey, Where Art and History Intersect offers an inspirational journey through five centuries of African American history, culture and heritage, including a collection of rare books and manuscripts, paintings, prints, sculpture, and photographs, an early version of the Emancipation Proclamation, correspondence between Malcolm X and Alex Haley, slave shackles and artwork. Thru May 19.

Free-$10. Wed-Sat 11am-6pm. Sun 12pm5pm. Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission St. at 3rd. 358-7200. www.moadsf.org

Migration @ Visual Aid Estudio Nomada exchange show from Barcelona, Spain, featuring works by Iris Tonies, U.B. Morgan and Kirsten Campbell.

Thru Feb 28. 57 Post St. 777-8242. www.visualaid.org

The Motherf**ker With the Hat @ SF Playhouse Gabe Marin and Carl Lumbly costar in Stephen Adly Guirgis’ verbal cage match about love, fidelity and misplaced haberdashery. $30-$100. Tue-Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Also Sat 3pm. Thru Mar 16. 450 Post St., 2nd floor. 677-9596. www.sfplayhouse.org

Navigating Queer Pacific Waves @ Galeria de la Raza Group exhibit of new works in various media by Jean Melesaine, Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, Jorge Manuel Gonzales, Joy Enomoto, and collaborating artists who focus on their Pacific Islander roots and explore colonialism and LGBT oppression.

Exhibit thru March 2. Tue-Sat 12pm-6pm.

2857 24th St. at Bryant. 826-8009. www.galeriadelaraza.org

Royal Treasures from the Louvre @ Legion of Honor Exhibit of decorative arts, most never seen in the U.S., from the reigns of Louis XIV to Marie-Antoinette, from the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Free-$20. Tue-Sun 9:30am5:15pm. Thru March 17. Lincoln Park, 34th Ave and Clement St. www.legionofhonor.org

Sun 24 Academy of Friends Gala @ Terra The 33rd annual Oscar-watching fundraiser takes place in the downtown gallery, with a stylish retro "Boas, Bowties and Bubbly" theme. Enjoy a silent auction, food, wine, champagne, and celebrity-watching. Proceeds benefit local AIDS/HIV nonprofits. $250-$750. 5pm-11pm. 511 Harrison St. www.academyoffriends.org

Girl With a Pearl Earring @ de Young Museum Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis, a new touring exhibit of Dutch Masters paintings, drawing and etching; Thru June 2. Also, Eye Level in Iraq: Photographs by Kael Alford and Thorne Anderson, thru June 16. Also, Objects of Belief from the Vatican, thru Sept 8. $10-$25. Tue-Sun 9:30am-5:15pm. Thru Dec. 30. Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive.

750-3600. www.famsf.org

Jimmy Carter @ Herbst Theatre The Commonwealth Club welcomes the former U.S. President and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, who discusses “the challenges of a superpower.” $10-$70.

12:30pm. War Memorial Bldg., 401 Van Ness Ave. 392-4400. www.commonwealthclub.org

Let Saigons Be Bygones @ Martuni’s Eliza Leoni and Alex Rodrguez perform a duo parody of Miss Saigon at Ray of Light Theatre’s cabaret spotlight series. $15.

7pm. 4 Valencia St. www.rayoflighttheatre.com

Lo-an Lin @ Old First Church Brilliant young pianist performs a Chopin tribute, including featuring performances of the Polonaise-Fantasy and Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35. $14-$17. 4pm. Old First Church, 1751 Sacramento St. www.oldfirstconcerts.org

Oscar® Experience @ Smith Rafael Film Center Benefit for the California Film Institute, with food, Coppola wines, raffle and silent auction, and a screening of the Academy Awards, with official programs from the ceremony. $50-$1000. 3:30pm-11pm. 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. 454-1222. www.oscarexperience.eventbrite.com

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Out&About >>

February 21-27, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 19

The Used at the Take Action Tour.

See Tue 26.

Candlelight Flow Yoga @ LGBT Center David Clark leads various yoga poses and practices, plus meditation and breathing exercises. Bring your own mat and water bottle, etc. $10. 7pm-8:30pm. 1800 Market St. www.4dbliss.com

Legendary: African American GLBT Past Meets Present @ GLBT History Museum

Oscar® Night @ Rialto Cinema, Sebastopol Academy Awards viewing party, with proceeds benefitting Food For Thought.

Themed movie attire requested; food, drinks, costume contests, ballot prizes. $20-$40. 3:30-11pm. 6868 McKinley Ave., Sebastopol. (707) 887-1647. www.fftfoodbank.org

The Residents @ Bimbo’s Eccentric music group know for their eye-popping costumes (get it?) perform live. $35. 21+. 8pm. 1025 Columbus Ave. 474-0365. www.bimbos365club.com

Richard Kane @ Castro Country Club Exhibit of multimedia child-like portraits and mixed media sculptures. Thru March 31. 4058 18th St. castrocountryclub.org

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room Donna Sachet and Harry Denton host the weekly fabulous brunch and drag show. $45. 11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square.

395-8595. www.harrydenton.com

Up the Oscars @ Roxie Cinema Offbeat heckle-welcoming night of viewing the Academy Awards; BYO food and drinks, and high heels and a bad attitude. $12-$15. 3:45pm-11pm. 3117 16th St. 8631807. www.roxie.com

Mon 25 Monday Musicals @ The Edge The renovated bar now shows fun musicals each week, with Broadway touring performers stopping by to sing, too!. 7pm2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Women’s Cancer Resource Center Gala @ Yoshi’s Oakland Marga Gomez MCs the fundraiser for the women’s health center, with live music

by The Cottontails, with dining, drinks raffles (including luxury vacations) and celebrations. $150 and up. 6pm-9pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakland. (510) 238-9200. www.wcrc.org www.yoshis.com

Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni’s Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht (aka Trauma Flintstone). 9pm-1:30am. 4 Valencia St. at Market.

Ten Percent @ Comcast 104 David Perry’s talk show about LGBT people and issues. Mon-Fri 11:30am & 10:30pm.

Sat & Sun 10:30pm. www.comcasthometown.com

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Tue 26 The Drag Show @ Various Channels Stu Smith’s weekly LGBT variety show features local talents, and not just drag artistes. Channels 29 & 76 on Comcast; 99 on AT&T and 30 on Astound. www.thedragshow.org

Filip Dujardin @ Highlight Gallery (Dis)location, an exhibit of photomontages of altered urban and rural landscapes.

Tue-Sat 11am-6pm. Thru Mar. 29. 17 Kearny St. 986-4308. www.highlightgallery.com

Funny Tuesdays @ Harvey’s Ronn Vigh hosts the weekly LGBT and gayfriendly comedy night. One drink or menu item minimum. 9pm. 500 Castro St. at 18th. 431-HARV. www.harveyssf.com

Jill Tracy at Whispering in the Woods.See Wed 27.

Take Action Tour @ The Fillmore The Used, We Came As Romans, Crown the Empire, and Mindflow perform in this nationwide music tour that benefits the It Gets Better Project. $28-$40. 7pm. 1805 Geary Blvd. takeactiontour.com/2013

Without Reality There Is No Utopia @ YBCA Group exhibit/installation of politicallythemed art focusing on the clash of Capitalism/Communisim, propaganda/disinformation, financial lies and truths, and other global issues. Free-$10. Thru June 2.

701 Mission St. 979-2787. www.ybca.org

Amy Sueyoshi @ SF Public Library Author of Queer Compulsions: AsianAmerican Desire and Deceit in the 1890s, discusses her book, and Asian historical aspects of cross-dressing and same-sex marriage. 6pm. James Hormel Center, 35rd. floor. 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

Wed 27 Beth Yarnelle Edwards: Suburban Dreams @ Oakland Museum Photo exhibit of 22 large-scale evocative portrait/tableaux of California families.

Thru June 30. Other exhibits ongoing. 1000 Oak St. www.museumca.org

Black Power, Flower Power @ Harvey Milk Photo Center Dual exhibit of photos by Pirkle Jones and Ruth-Marian Baruch, documenting the 1960s dual social revolutions ( Black Panthers, 1968; Haight-Ashbury, 1967) that began in San Francisco. Thru Mar. 23.

50 Scott St. 554-9522. www.harveymilkphotocenter.org

Conversation 6 @ SF Arts Commission Gallery SF-based Jason Hanasik and Amsterdam artist Berndnaut Smilde’s dual installation about home, dislocation and impermanence. Thru April 27. Main gallery, 401 Van Ness, Veterans Bldg. Hours Wed-Sat 12pm5pm. www.sfartscommission.org

Kehinde Wiley @ Contemporary Jewish Museum

Academy of Friends.

See Sun 24.

Exhibit focusing on African American words, images and sounds that connect inspirational commentary by local queer community leaders with historic artifacts.

Thru April 2013. Another new exhibit, Migrating Archives: LGBT Delegates From Other Collections, features historical items from nearly a dozen countries and archives, each showcasing an archive of prominent LGBT person. $5. Reg hours Mon & WedSat 11am-7pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistorymuseum.org

New exhibit, The World Stage: Israel, with special events as well. Also, The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League, a group exhibition of fascinating photos from 1936-1951 taken by members of the progressive collective that documented the eras of postwar struggles, McCarthy blacklists, and urban life. Other exhibits ( California Dreaming and Black Sabbath ) ongoing. Reg hours Thu-Tue 11am-5pm (closed Wed). Exhibit thru May 27. 736 Mission St. 655-7800. www.thecjm.org

Whispering in the Wood @ Conservatory of Flowers Ghosts, Violins, and the Trees that Brought Them to Life ; singers Jill Tracy and Paul Mercer perform at a special nighttime event at the Victorian architectural wonder of arboretums. $13. Cash bar. 6pm-10pm.

100 JFK Drive, Golden Gate Park. 8312090. www.conservatoryofflowers.org

Thu 28 California Impressions @ ArtHaus Gallery Group exhibit of California landscape pantings and photosgraphs by Carolyn Meyer, Matthew Frederick, Brian Blood, Gioi Tran, Deborah Brown, Eric Engstrom, Franc D’Ambrosio, Michal Venera and Daniel Berman. Exhibit thru Mar. 30.

411 Brannan St. at 3rd. 977-0223. www.arthaus-sf.com

Carrie Rodriguez @ Freight & Salvage, Berkeley Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist performs as part of her tour, with songs from her new CD, Give Me All You Got. $20-$23. 8pm. 2020 Addison St., Berkeley.

(510) 644-2020. www.thefreight.org

Comedy Bodega @ Esta Nocha The weekly LGBT and indie comic stand-up night. 8pm-9:30pm. 3079 16th St. at Mission. www.comedybodega.com

Out of Africa Nightlife @ Cal. Academy of Sciences Sample African cuisines and hear talks related to the new hall, Human Odyssey ; guest lectures, special events, science art exhibits, plus food, cocktails and DJed dancing. $10-$12. 6pm-10pm, 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 3798000. www.calacademy.org

San Francisco Magic Parlor @ Chancellor Hotel Whimsical Belle Epoque-style sketch and magic show that also includes historical San Francisco stories; hosted by Walt Anthony; with optional pre-show light dinner and desserts. $40. Thu-Sat 8pm. 433 Powell St. www.SFMagicParlor.com

To submit event listings, email jim@ebar.com. Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication. For more bar and nightlife events, go to www.bartabsf.com

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UNCENSORED

<< Leather

20 • Bay Area Reporter • February 21-27, 2013

Old home week

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by Scott Brogan

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VOTE NOW!

n my last column I mentioned that it’s “contest season.” Nowhere was that more evident than at the Powerhouse and Edge bars two weeks ago when they held their contests to send contestants to Mr. SF Leather next month. It’s a welcome sign that the Edge has had their first contest in several years. For the past two years they have appointed a Mr. Edge Leather, but they haven’t had an actual contest.

On Feb. 6, thanks to the driving force of Erik Lopez, they gave us a fun contest to pick Mr. Edge Leather 2013.

Two men competed: Patrick Vargas and Cooper Lambandrake. Both were amazingly good, gave good speeches and looked great in their jocks. But only one person can get the title, and he was Vargas.

The Edge contest was special not only because they’ve rebooted the bar’s participation in the contest world, but because several Mr. Edge Leathers were on hand to give their support and encouragement to the bar that, for so many years, has been on the forefront of the Leather Scene.

Among those in attendance were Mr. Edge Leather 2012 Will Martin (also a judge); Drew Cutler (2011); Werner Tillinger (1999); Frank Vasconcellos (2003); and Scott Brogan (Yours Truly) (2002). What a fun time seeing our (dare I say it?) “older” and newer titleholders together at this event.

Not to be outdone, the Powerhouse had their contest the following Saturday (Feb. 9). Hanz Bustamante, Russ Webber, and Andy Cross (Mr. May on the 2012 Bare Chest Calendar) all competed admirably for the title. Cross won, with Webber coming in as first runner-up. Again it was “old home week.” On the judging panel and in the audience were several previous Mr. Powerhouse Leathers, as well as Mr. SF Leathers.

It was Troy Anicete’s 10-year anniversary as Mr. Powerhouse and Mr. SF Leather. Hard to believe it was 10 years ago! We also had Darren Bondy (2011); Lance Holman (2010); Ron Balos (2008); and Jesse Vanciel (Mr. SF Leather 2012). Talk about some hot fucking men. If I could only have an hour with all of them at the same time, I’d die a happy man.

Fantasies aside, it’s heartening to see a renewed interest in the contests.

Sure, some think that the contests are relics or unnecessary, but I don’t think they are. They can be boring, even predictable, but they’re also fun and still the best way to get the community together (both men and women) in one place to celebrate who we are.

What’s so bad about that?

As it stands right now, we have five contestants for Mr. SF Leather next month: Patrick Vargas (Mr. Edge 2013), Andy Cross (Mr. Powerhouse 2013), Tony Hunter (independent), Marcus (independent), and Scott Farrell (Legion of Sin Motorcycle Club).

As if that weren’t enough, last weekend we were treated to the Northern California Leather Sir/boy/Bootblack 2013 contest. This contest really personifies the unity of the men’s and women’s communities. Deborah Isadora Hoffman-Wade was the producer and driving force, working with the men’s and women’s communities to produce a really great contest. She was ably assisted by co-producers Shawn Kinnear, Richard Sprott, and Jesse Vanciel. For the second year in a row, the contest was held at the Beatbox on 11th St., a great contest venue (hint-hint to producers out there).

Emcees Lance Holman and Bubblinsugare kept the proceedings moving along, with Bubblinsugare in hysterically funny form making

Scott Brogan

Mr. Edge Leather 2013 producer Erik Lopez poses with the new Mr. Edge Patrick Vargas.

Keith Sattelmaier

Mr. Powerhouse 2013 Andy Cross flanked by former Mr. Powerhouse Leathers (l-r) Lance Holman, Troy Anicete, Ron Balos, Brent Ganetta and Darren Bondy.

Northern CA Bootblack “Scout,” Northern CA Leatherboy “Element Eclipse” and Northern CA Leathersir Brent Gannetta.

everyone laugh with her racy humor.

I knew it was going to be a fun night when Kinnear and judge Leland Carina opened the show with their spot-on impersonations of emcees Lenny Broberg and Donna Sachet.

Kinnear was in Donna drag while Carina was in Lenny drag (never thought I’d ever say that).

Hysterical!

The best fantasy of the night had to be that of Element Eclipse (contestant for the boy title). It was fun, featuring him getting

clothes-pinned while lip-synching a peppy song (don’t know the name of the song, sorry!). We also had some good speeches, with Scout’s (contestant for the bootblack title) being the shortest I’ve ever witnessed. I doubt it was even 30 seconds long. Brent Gannetta (contestant for the Sir title) spoke for many of us when he talked about the need for more people to step up to represent the community.

The big winners were Brent Gannetta, as Northern California Leather Sir 2013; Scout, Community Bootblack 2013; Element Eclipse, Northern California Leatherboy 2013; See page 21 >>

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Music >>

February 21-27, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 21

Inexhaustible Wagner

by Tim Pfaff

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he last thing I expected from the Wagner Year now upon us was a new recording of Die Walkuere that would actually muscle its way into the competition, but right out of the gate, here it is. The new Valery Gergiev-conducted, (mostly) live Die Walkuere, on the Mariinsky Theatre’s house label, is essential listening no matter how many other Valkyries ride over your CD shelves (I count 25). At the front of the best cast that could be assembled today is Nina Stemme, the glory of SF Opera’s recent Ring, as a commanding Bruennhilde. (She’s also the Isolde on Pentatone’s much-praised new live recording of Tristan.) Even better, it’s not a one-off. Over the next year the label will release the full cycle (edited from performances that have already taken place), with Stemme as Bruennhilde throughout.

Recently, Amazon has trotted out that tired old The Ring Without Words set, making it all the more tempting to call this the Walkuere with words. It’s hardly that the great Wagnerians of the past couldn’t just pulverize you with Wagner’s poems, but one of the consistent amazements of this new Walkuere is the way the cast savors the words.

You’d expect as much from the native Germans – Jonas Kaufmann as Siegmund, and Anja Kampe as Sieglinde – but the whole cast sings the words so acutely that you could almost excuse the label’s not including a libretto. Rene Pape’s Wotan renders consonants as if they were, in the words of the late Leonie Rysanek, “wowels,” making his secondact monologue particularly chilling.

Alert to both the music’s long line and the urgency of the moment, Gergiev partners as well as leads the

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(Decca), opens with the same scene capped by a window-rattling “Waelse, Waelse” more than twice as “big” as the live one – and, at 10 seconds per “Waelse,” surely one of the largest in captivity on disc – which, impressive as it is, may be this extraordinary disc’s single lapse in taste.

If live performances didn’t prove that Kaufmann is exactly this good, you’d be right to question whether this overwhelmingly beautiful recording were just the product of great engineering. Instead, the greatest operatic voice of our century has been ideally recorded in repertoire he was born to sing. As if he didn’t already own the role of Lohengrin, here he offers the original, twostanza version of “In fernem Land” (his “Nessun dorma”), which you’ll never hear elsewhere, let alone sung with such ardor. And in the music he hasn’t already taken onstage, supporting him masterfully is the Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin under Donald Runnicles, who has. To hear the magic they work together, try the repeated notes in the Tannhaeuser “Rome Narration,” not one of which is alike, not one of which doesn’t metamorphose while it’s being sung, and not one of which breaks the sustained musical line.

Still, the marvel is the Tristandrenched Wesendonck Lieder in a rare outing for tenor. What’s clear is that all the ingredients are in place for the Tristan of our lifetimes. As we wait, there’s the new Met Parsifal with Kaufmann in live HD telecast on Sat., March 2.t

Nijinsky

From page 17

the last time at Hotel Suvretta-House, St. Moritz, in a mad ‘Dance with God.’” (Company notes.) The ballet is grounded in this scene (it was what we’d call a fundraiser) even as his mind breaks down and images of characters he’s portrayed, and of women and men he’s danced with, begin to people the stage and crowd out the aristocratic audience – who despise the new work, but begin to be seduced into staying when he desperately troops out some products from his Pretty Line.

For two acts we revisit his famous dances – Afternoon of a Faun, Spectre of the Rose, Petrouschka, and Rite of Spring – with many-layered, weirdly distorted famous images, famous steps, famous costumes, danced to the wrong music. Then we’re delivered back into agonized dances illustrating his bipolar dependence on a) his wife, and b) his art, his career, Diaghilev.

All this is done with superb technique and stunning clarity by a company of thrilling dancers who are devoted to their director and are killing themselves to put this ballet across.

Clearly, many in the audience found this an acceptable mash-up – especially since a) it was rich in gaudy steps, virtuosity that approached Nijinsky’s own, b) Neumeier’s costumes and sets, which he designs himself,

performance. Just when he seems to be passing over a detail of the score you love, he brings a handful more to the fore in fresh perspective. He merely makes you mindful of how inexhaustible this score is.

It’s strange that he could not turn up one of those legendary Russian “black basses” for Hunding, but Mikhail Petrenko is fine, and the other Russian principal, Ekaterina Gubanova, nails Fricka in a rich characterization that puts her among the greats in one of the trickiest roles in the Ring. She exudes such authority that you bend to her judgment before Wotan does.

Stemme’s Bruennhilde is an individual creation from her first Hoyotohos, sliced out of the air with a sculptor’s precision, and keeps growing in stature and sympathy throughout the opera. Her solid low range anchors her interpretation, but what’s more important is that the singing is so good you stop paying attention to it and follow Bruennhilde right into the fire.

Kampe’s febrile, multifaceted Sieglinde is the first to put me entirely out of mind of Rysanek, and Kaufmann’s Siegmund leaves no doubt that the character is the Ring’s true hero. The Met’s vile Ring, newly out on DVD (DG), which showed everyone but the indomitable Waltraut Meier to less than their best advantage, made some wonder whether Siegmund was even the right role for Kaufmann. His incandescent performance in St. Petersburg, which predates the Met’s, quells any such doubt.

Siegmund’s outcry to his clanfather, “Waelse, Waelse,” is one of those Ring moments audiences wait for and tenors dread. In the Mariinsky performance, Kaufmann’s is primal and perfectly proportioned. His new solo CD, Kaufmann Wagner

Leather

From page 20

and Paul Garrison, First Runner-up Northern California Leatherboy 2013.

Event updates: There will be no onsite sales of weekend packages for the International Ms. Leather contest in April. You must purchase the passes online. Only day-passes and contest-

Erik Tomasson

Alexandre Riabko and Carsten Jung in John Neumeier’s Nijinsky.

are stunningly pictorial, and c) many of the lighting effects made Nijinsky’s alienation so striking. Toward the end of the first act, everyone onstage suddenly faded into a sepia-toned wash as Nijinsky remained in “normal” light. That’s to cite one instance of many in which the effect was perfect.

All the dancers performed with precision, attack, style, as did pianist Richard Hoynes and the Hamburg Ballet’s own orchestra (conductor Simon Hewett), who came with them, playing Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade and two works by Shostakovich. I cannot fault their performances – except that when it came time for everyone to laugh at Nijinsky, their scorn was way overacted.

The role of Nijinsky was divided up among many dancers: Alexandre Riabko, Alexandr Trusch, Kiran West, Thiago Bordin, Edvin Revazov, Lloyd Riggins. Karzsavina was danced by Silvia Azzoni, Bronislava Nijinsky by Patricia Tichy, Diaghilev by Carsten Jung. A fantastically hunky, athletic male dancer in white hot pants danced a version of the Chosen Maiden from Rite of Spring to tremendous effect. I could not identify him from the program notes.

A propos the Rite of Spring: this is the 100th anniversary of its first presentation. There will be at least two new versions of the ballet performed later this year, Yuri Possokhov’s for SFB, and Mark Morris’ at Cal Performances.t

only tickets will be available at the venue. If you want a weekend pass, go to: www.imsl.org.

Also of note are some changes for the Leather Contingent in the upcoming SF Pride Parade. There will be no charges for any vehicles to ride in the parade unless the vehicles are not registered by March 13, 2013. In 2014, charges will apply to all vehicles.

There are some charges for vehicles

(trucks) longer than 20 feet. For clarification and information on registering your vehicle, contact Jay Hemphill at: cuirhomme@hotmail.com.

Finally, The 15 Association’s Anniversary Weekend starts tomorrow night (Feb. 22) with the annual meeting and dinner at the Italian American Social Club on 25 Russia St. here in SF. For details about the weekend’s events, go to: www.15sf.org.t

<<Film

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

22 • BAY ayAREA rea REPORTER eporter • February February 21-27, 21-27,2013 2013

Word up! Oscars & writing

by Tavo Amador

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ennessee Williams told biographer Lyle Leverich that if writers had the same control in movies that they did on the stage, he would have written for films. Although widely regarded as a director’s medium, from their beginning motion pictures needed a script. Important writers were paid huge sums to work in Hollywood. Among those who succumbed during the classic studio era were F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, William Faulkner, Sidney Howard, Raymond Chandler, Lillian Hellman, William Inge, and a pre-Glass Menagerie (1945) Williams.

From their inception, Oscars were awarded for writing. Initially, honors were given for Best Original Story and Best Screenplay. For many years, three categories were recognized: story, original screenplay, and adapted screenplay. Eventually, the last two became standard. Despite the importance of the script, however, the correlation between Best Picture Academy Award winners and writing victors is inconsistent. Woody Allen, with 15 nominations and three wins, is the most lauded writer in Academy Awards history. Billy Wilder also won three times, and had an additional nine nominations. Allen, Wilder, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and Bernardo

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Oscar picks 2013

From page 13

betically: Amour Veteran Austrian auteur Michael Haneke eschews his trademark polarizing story tropes to produce a moving and complex portrait of the final months of a marriage between two retired Parisian musicteachers.

Argo Who would have thought that anyone could have pulled off an audience-friendly comedy/drama on the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis?

I still recall SF critics walking out before a screening of Argo director/star Ben Affleck’s career nadir, 2003’s Jennifer Lopez vehicle Gigli.

Ben, all is forgiven!

Beasts of the Southern Wild In Benh Zeitlin’s audacious post-Katrina, African American folk story, a female Huck Finn fights to survive the storm with a grouchy, drunken, difficult daddy.

Django Unchained Quentin Tarantino’s brilliant bad-ass black/ white buddy caper, a fitting response to D.W. Griffith’s rancid brilliance in Birth of a Nation, is a loose-cannon Best Picture pick.

Les Miserables Tom Hooper’s translation of Victor Hugo’s romantic locomotive of a novel, with its realistic depiction of 19th-century poverty and rebellion, kicks in as Hugh Jackman’s Valjean carries Eddie Redmayne’s wounded rebel through the Parisian sewers, invoking all manner of queer fantasies.

Life of Pi Among its many virtues, this beautiful fable of a teen boy holding a grown tiger at bay for 277 days at sea makes a strong case for the superiority of live-action drama over animation, notwithstanding Pi’s clear debt to some world-class digital cinema tricks.

Lincoln In a truly epic first act, the equal of anything in the David Lean canon, Steven Spielberg and his screenwriting collaborator, playwright Tony Kushner, frame the awful dilemma Lincoln faced in what would prove to be the last four months of his life.

Silver Linings Playbook David O. Russell’s eccentric Philly-cheesesteak screwball comedy leaves me cold, but may prove to be his big crossover hit.

Zero Dark Thirty Kathryn Bi-

Bertolucci are among those who have won writing and directing Oscars for the same movie.

The first to win picture and writing prizes was Cimarron (1931), adapted from Edna Ferber’s novel.

In 1934, Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night won for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert Riskin), a record unmatched until 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, scripted by Laurence Hauben and Bo Goldman. It would happen one other time, with 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, penned by Ted Tally. On the other hand, Titanic (1997), which tied Ben-Hur (1959) for the most Oscar wins (11), wasn’t nominated in either writing category.

Williams was right about lack of control, which may explain why many writers eventually became directors. Capra, for example, wrote 25 screenplays between 1924-26, before becoming a director. Wilder also started as a writer before regularly combining that skill with directing.

Mankiewicz was a writer, became a producer, then a director. He won consecutive Oscars for both directing and writing for 1949’s A Letter to Three Wives and 1950’s All About Eve. Not all writers were thrilled to win. After receiving an Oscar for Pygmalion (1938), George Bernard

Shaw said, “It’s an insult for them to offer me any honor, as if they have never heard of me before – and it’s very likely they never have.” Nonetheless, Mary Pickford, who visited him in London, saw the statuette on his mantel.

Some directors, including Allen and Robert Altman, are famous for letting actors improvise dialogue.

Others, like George Cukor, insisted on adhering to the script, especially if it was an adaptation of a well-regarded literary work.

Charlie Chaplin was among the first actors to pen scripts and direct himself. At Paramount in the 1930s, Mae West wrote most of her successful movies, and rejected offers from MGM to author scripts for Jean Harlow. Ruth Gordon earned three Oscar nominations for writing before winning for Best Supporting Actress. Warren Beatty authored the screenplay for Reds (1981), for which he won Best Director. Four years after winning the Best Actress Oscar for Howard’s End (1992), Emma Thompson won for her adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.

Although directors – and, during the studio era, producers – were in control, writers were critical, but were expected to be flexible. Howard was officially credited with the screenplay for Gone With the Wind (1939), and collected an Oscar for

gelow is as ruthlessly efficient in relating the story of America shedding its last iota of innocence as the Navy Seals were in bagging Osama Bin Laden.

And the envelope, please: My heart lies with Django, but the Best Pic winner will be Argo.

Best Director: Steven Spielberg, Lincoln, is the likely winner. Too bad Tarantino wasn’t nominated.

Ang Lee, Life of Pi: Arguably he pulled off the toughest job, translating an “unfilmable” book and mentoring a succulent debut performance from the kid on the raft.

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook: Comedy seldom scores at Oscar time.

Benh Zietland, Beasts of the Southern Wild: He’s happy just to be included in this crowd.

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln. I can’t imagine the Academy not bowing to Mr. Lincoln.

Best Actress: Emmanuelle Riva, Amour. She broke my heart at 15 in Hiroshima, Mon Amour, and I think she’s got the inside track for this career-topping performance.

Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln. Tommy Lee’s passionate abolitionist may steal the prize in a category that’s too close to call.

Best Supporting Actress: Sally Field, Lincoln. Sally beats my choice of the brilliant newcomer Amy Adams (The Master).

Original Screenplay: Django Unchained. Quentin Tarantino gets his consolation-prize Oscar for an incendiary re-imagining of America’s most dastardly chapter.

Adapted Screenplay: Lincoln.

Tony Kushner wins the day with his mainstream take on the abolition of slavery.

Documentary Feature: How to Survive a Plague. David France deserves the nod for this deft, emotional account of ACT-UP New York – but don’t be surprised if Searching for Sugarman wins by a nose.

Animation Feature: ParaNorman, Sam Fell and Chris Butler.

This would be an awesome win, but you have to reckon with the boxoffice champ Wreck-it Ralph.

Live Action Short Subject: Buzkashi Boys. This moving coming-ofage tale should carry the day.

Animation Short Subject: Pa-

perman is my pick, but never underestimate the Simpsons (Maggie Simpson in the Longest Daycare).

Foreign Language: Amour (Austria). This has Michael Haneke’s name all over it.

This Saturday on the IFC cable channel, the Independent Spirit Awards (the Bohemian Oscars) will hand out some coveted prizes with several queer-themed films in con-

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Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman played old flames in screenwriters Jules J. and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch’s Casablanca: the script wasn’t final when filming began.

it. But four other writers, including John von Druten and Hecht, along with producer David Selznick, worked on the script. Hecht reportedly re-wrote it despite refusing to read the novel. Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion (1941) won Joan Fontaine a Best Actress Academy Award for playing a wife who believes her husband (Cary Grant) is trying to kill her. The original screenplay adhered to the novel. Nonetheless, preview audiences didn’t like the conclusion, so it was changed. Casablanca (1942), which won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay for Jules J. and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, didn’t have a final

script when filming began. Dialogue was written shortly before scenes were shot. Ingrid Bergman asked if her character would remain loyal to husband Paul Henried or leave him for old flame Humphrey Bogart.

She was told to play it ambiguously, because no one knew how it would turn out. Two endings were filmed, and the one used was what preview audiences preferred.

Movies are a collaborative art form. Filming may be messy, but good pictures tell a compelling story.

That can’t happen without a script.

Writers, therefore, will always be in demand, regardless of who controls the ultimate result.t

tention: Best Feature: Richard Linklater’s East Texas comedy Bernie, about the misadventures of a flaming smalltown undertaker, dukes it out with Ira Sachs’ incendiary queer love story Keep the Lights On. Sachs is also up for Best Director.

Best Actor: Bernie’s Jack Black squares off against Keep the Lights On’s Thure Lindhardt. Sachs is also

nominated for Best Screenplay.

The queer-themed young-adult hit The Perks of Being a Wallflower is nominated for Best First Feature.

Jonathan Lisecki is nominated for Best First Screenplay for Gayby.

David France’s How to Survive a Plague is matched against the Highland Hospital doc The Waiting Room, which is also up for the Truer Than Fiction prize.t

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