February 24, 2011 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

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BAYAREAREPORTER

Vol. 41

. No. 8 . 24 February 2011

Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971

DOJ will no longer defend DOMA

Mayor Ed Lee waves to onlookers during Saturday’s Chinese New Year Parade.

by Lisa Keen he Obama administration made a blockbuster announcement Wednesday, saying it has concluded that one part of the Defense of Marriage Act will not be able to pass constitutional muster in the 2nd Attorney General Circuit and that it, Eric Holder therefore, will not

Rick Gerharter

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SF politics draw few LGBT Asians

by Matthew S. Bajko

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he swearing-in of Mayor Ed Lee as the city’s first Asian American mayor in January has been heralded as a sea change in San Francisco’s political landscape, with Asian Americans becoming dominant players at City Hall and in the voting booth.

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fter 17 years, the Bears of San Francisco’s International Bear Rendezvous held its last yearly weekend event over the Presidents Day holiday. The final winners of the Mr. Bear contest pose one last time for their fans. From left to right: Mr. International Bear Paul Hensley from Seattle; Mr. International Grizzly Curtis Stanton from Los Angeles; Mr. International Daddy Craig Gunderson from Green Bay, Wisconsin; and Mr. International Cub Erik Green from Santa Cruz. Thirteen contestants were entered, including John Caldera, who won the first competition at the 1992 Bear Expo, forerunner to the International Bear Rendezvous.

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Jane Philomen Cleland

Director David Weissman on SF-based doc ‘We Were Here.’

m co

Canadian city known for its architecture and markets welcomes LGBT tourists.

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AR eB

Long shadow of AIDS

– ut e s. in al ko n l on ec r o ers Ch rte p po nd Re , a a s re fied y A ssi Ba cla he ts, s t ar It’ s, w ne

Take a trip to Toronto

Police ID Dyke March organizers sound suspect cancellation alarm, seek funding in murder O case

by Heather Cassell

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Jane Philomen Cleland

an Francisco police have identified a suspect in the killing of a gay Nob Hill man whose body was found in his apartment February 11.

Police have issued an arrest warrant for Waheed Kesmatyer, 24, based on evidence Waheed Kesmatyer obtained at the 1035 Bush Street apartment of Jack Baker, 67.

Lieutenant Lea Militello, head of the homicide unit, told reporters when announcing the news on Friday, February 18 that Baker had been “brutally stabbed, strangled, and beaten.” She said he’d last been seen alive about a week before his body was discovered. Kesmatyer had been Baker’s roommate since October, she said.

On Friday, Kesmatyer was in custody in Marin County on an unrelated charge and was awaiting extradition to San Francisco.

SFPD spokesman Officer Eric Chiang said Tuesday, February 22 that he didn’t know of Kesmatyer being extradited yet. A San Rafael police spokesman didn’t respond to an interview request.

Militello, who said that Baker was gay, said she didn’t know the motive for the killing and wouldn’t discuss circumstances

At its heart, the Dyke March has chosen to remain at a grassroots level, in spite of being approached in the past by big sponsors, said Hyder.

Sponsorship remains limited to $200 for logo stickers on portable toilets and $50 for booths at the event, she said. That decision, along with remaining an all-volunteer operation as a fiscally sponsored organization of Community Initiatives, rather than become more formally organized with a board and executive director, has stunted the organization. At the same time it has grown into the largest Dyke March in the country since it began in 1993.

Dyke spirit “The Dyke March has never lost its original spirit. It’s a celebration of being visible in the world in all of our diversity,” said Hyder.

“It’s always been a struggle and as the budget

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goes up it gets harder,” added Hyder, who has been on the committee for four years. She also mentioned the thousands of artistic submissions and suggestions that the committee reviews. In addition, the Dyke March responds to hundreds of e-mails a year supporting production of Dyke Marches around the world.

“I think part of the reason is that people don’t realize how much it costs to do this in time and money,” she said.

In light of the challenges, the Dyke March’s core committee of five decided to either cancel the event or somehow come up with the seed money needed to get a portion of the production off the ground, said Hyder.

Initial production costs are estimated up to $15,000, normally covered by surplus donations from the previous year, according to Hyder. Un-

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by Seth Hemmelgarn

rganizers of the San Francisco Dyke March sounded the alarm last week that the annual event where queer women take over neighborhood streets in the Castro and Mission might not happen this year.

The Dyke March is in need of up to $15,000 by the end of March in order to produce the annual event or it might not happen at all, Happy/L.A. Hyder, a core committee member of the group, told the Bay Area Reporter.

The nearly 20-year tradition of dykes taking to the streets of San Francisco attracts an estimated 50,000 participants and supporters every year on Pink Saturday during Pride weekend in June, according to march organizers.

“Thousands and thousands of people will be disappointed,” said Hyder. “We have dykes come from around the world” who plan their vacations around the Dyke March. “This is a major event for people around visibility and just getting sense of your own power within this community.”

The news comes at a time when several LGBT agencies have shut their doors or are teetering on the brink of existence. Dyke March organizers stated in a February 15 news release that funding needed to produce the $30,000 annual march wasn’t available. The money woes are due to decreased donations and growing safety costs, mostly related to “excessive alcohol consumption during the event.”

But in an interview with the B.A.R., it became apparent that the problems weren’t simply a lack of funding. Hyder revealed that the cost to produce the event has risen, the annual grant and insurance covered by the city was lost due to budget cuts, which represented the biggest production cost increase; and there are a lack of volunteers to assist with ensuring a smooth and safe Dyke March.

The problems are apparently not related to Dolores Park construction, which the city decided to start later or to work on a section that wouldn’t affect the Dyke March, Hyder said.

Sistah Boom plays to seniors sitting in the stands at 16th and Dolores streets during last year’s Dyke March.

BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 24 February 2011

COMMUNITY

NEWS

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Jane Philomen Cleland

Dignity/SF honors leaders

ignity/San Francisco, the local chapter of the national organization for LGBT Catholics, honored three people at its annual “Pax et Bonum” awards dinner February 19. Dignity/SF Co-Chairs Veronica Abrickis, left, and Paul Riofski, right, congratulate awardees Nicole Sotelo, author; Lieutenant Dan Choi, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal activist; and Deacon T. Vincent Fang of the Episcopal Diocese of San Francisco.

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Pride debt has barely budged he San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee remains almost $200,000 in debt just four months before the June parade, but board President Nikki Calma claims things will be fine.

Meanwhile, Lindsey Jones, a former executive director, has been brought on board once again to help with corporate sponsors for the event.

Asked in an e-mail about the possible impact Pride’s debt would have on the celebration, or whether changes would be made, Calma responded, “The event will be the same.”

She said help from the local Dorian Fund “has assisted with our financial stability. Board members, contractors, staff, community leaders, and interns are all working hard to ensure we have a successful Pride.”

However, Calma said, Pride is $193,075 in debt, with $23,500 in the bank.

That’s a small improvement from December, when the city controller’s

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Former Executive Director Lindsey Jones has a new job at Pride.

office reported that Pride had a debt of $225,000 and “inadequate” operating reserves.

Asked in an e-mail about confirmed corporate sponsors and how much they’ve agreed to contribute, Calma responded, “It looks like 99 [percent] of Pride sponsors will return and return at the same level or

higher. We are also talking with some new businesses and organizations that will likely become new partners. We are on target for approximately $500,000 in cash sponsorships and $1.3 million in media, travel, and inkind goods and services.”

Pride said in a press release last week that Zipcar, Genentech, AAA, and Diageo Spirits have officially signed on as 2011 sponsors.

Colleen Wilson, a Genentech spokeswoman, said in an e-mail, “Our LGBT employee association is currently in the process of planning their 2011 events and will be discussing the 2011 parade with SF Pride organizers in the coming weeks.”

Matt Skryja, an AAA spokesman, said in an e-mail that AAA Northern California, Nevada, and Utah is a Pride sponsor.

Colleen McCormick, a Zipcar spokeswoman, confirmed that the company is a Pride sponsor this year.

Diageo declined to comment for this story.

While Pride looks for more rev-

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by Seth Hemmelgarn

Rick Gerharter

Video project matches teens with out elders

by Matthew S. Bajko scar Trinh came out in stages starting at the age of 15 four years ago and has struggled to connect with other LGBT Asians in the South Bay. “My initial experience is I live in San Jose and there are relatively few gay Asian men. It is hard to find young guys out there to get involved in the community,” said Trinh, 19, now a student at Evergreen Valley College. “It was definitely difficult finding other queer people of color. Even then being the sole Asian guy at times, I did feel culturally separate, even though I didn’t advertise my Asianness that much but it is the first thing people saw.”

Nor did he learn much about the LGBT community at school.

“I have always wanted to get a sense of gay history because I feel like a lot of youth, especially gay youth, don’t have a sense of where we came from in terms of gay culture,” said Trinh.

So when he heard about a casting call looking for teenagers to interview LGBT seniors, Trinh jumped at the

Courtesy Pye/Harris Project

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Teen reporter Jason Galisatus interviews lesbian pioneer Phyllis Lyon.

chance. He made the cut and ended up being matched with Ron Rebholz, a professor emeritus of English at Stanford University who is a noted Shakespeare scholar.

In the resulting video, Coming Out in the 1950s: Stories of Our Lives, Rebholz discusses with Trinh the fear he felt hiding his sexuality during the McCarthy era when the government conducted witch hunts to ferret out homosexuals and communists.

Trinh said he was especially struck by “how lonely and depressing his life was when he had to stay in the closet.”

Despite their age differences, Trinh said he could relate to Rebholz’s personal story.

“Yeah, I definitely felt the same loneliness,” in high school, said Trinh.

The 14-minute video was created under the auspices of the newly formed Pye/Harris Project. Founded

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24 February 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

COMMUNITY

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NEWS

Outsider status ends for Castro church

by Matthew S. Bajko ishop Mark Holmerud of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Sierra Pacific Synod will knock on the doors to St. Francis Lutheran Church sometime after 3 p.m. this Sunday, February 27.

Answering the spiritual leader with be the Castro congregation’s current president, Rob Byrne, and former congregational president Mari Irvin. Once they welcome the bishop into the church, it will mark the official end of St. Francis’ expulsion from the national Lutheran Church.

The occasion, said Irvin, will bring to a close a “very long period of separation.”

“What I think about mostly with this is it took, oh my goodness, 20 years for things to change and, although it was sad it took that long, it was incredible it happened in my lifetime,” said Irvin, 77, who now lives with her wife, Jeannine Janson, in Yachats, Oregon.“As you know, institutional churches or institutions do not change quickly. This took a tremendous amount of grassroots work.”

Twenty-one years ago the congregants at St. Francis, along with those at the city’s First United Lutheran Church, bucked their faith’s national policy by ordaining non-celibate gay and lesbian pastors. St. Francis called the Reverend Ruth Frost and the Reverend Phyllis Zillhart as its pastors, while First United called a gay man, the Reverend Jeff Johnson, as its pastor.

The ECLA put the two churches on trial for their actions, and after determining they were in violation of the rules, suspended them. After a five-year grace period, both were removed from the ELCA on December 31, 1995.

“I think we felt really saddened

Lydia Gonzales

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Pastor Robert Goldstein leads the St. Francis Lutheran Church congregation in services Sunday, February 20.

more than anything else. We did not consider ourselves outcasts,” recalled Irvin, who was asked to greet Holmerud this weekend since she was the congregation’s president at the time St. Francis was expelled.“We saw us as witnesses speaking the truth and the church at that time not speaking the truth.”

Rather than being in exile, the two churches were on the sidelines continuing to exert pressure on the national church to rethink its rules for out pastors. The parishes helped create a way for ordaining other LGBT pastors, many of whom have since been welcomed onto the ELCA’s roster of approved clergy.

“I think our persistence and patience paid off,” said Tom Tragardh, 65, a gay man who has been a mem-

Oscar party to benefit Lyon-Martin compiled by Cynthia Laird he second annual Academy Awards at Trigger party is coming this weekend.

The party, presented by Betty Sullivan of Betty’s List, and Greg Bronstein, Trigger’s owner, will benefit Lyon-Martin Health Services. The event runs from 3 to 10 p.m., Sunday, February 27, at Trigger, 2344 Market Street, San Francisco.

Lyon-Martin, a San Franciscobased clinic that provides services to women and transgender people regardless of ability to pay, is trying to pay off more than $500,000 in debt and struggling to stay open.

“We want to raise huge amounts,” said Sullivan.

“Thousands.”

Standing room only tickets are $10, reserved seating on the main floor is $25, a N EWS private booth for up to six people is $300, and a grand booth (chandelier area or mezzanine level) for up to 14 people is $800.

Sullivan said it’s a “dress-up occasion,” but organizers “are not going to turn away anybody who isn’t wearing a tux.”

Guests will be able to view the Oscar show live on a giant projection screen and two jumbo LCD screens.

Out mayoral candidate Bevan Dufty is hosting the party, and Olivia Travel is the sponsor. Bay Area Reporter society columnist Donna Sachet, and Lyon-Martin interim Executive Director Dr. Dawn Harbatkin and board Chair Lauren Winter are

Still time to vote in B.A.R. readers’ poll Time is running out to vote in the Bay Area Reporter’s first-ever readers’ poll, “The Best of the Gays.” More prizes have been announced; the deadline to cast a ballot is Wednesday, March 2.

Readers can vote online with their write-in favorites (one vote per email) in a variety of categories, including Food, Arts, and Nightlife, OutB RIEFS doors and Sports, Shopping, City Living, and of course, Sex and Romance. The grand prize is a trip for two to Boston for that city’s LGBT pride weekend, June 9-13, courtesy of Southwest Airlines and Kimpton Hotels. Other prizes include Club Level Giants tickets and excursions on Amtrak: a trip for two from San Francisco to Los Angeles and a trip for two from San Francisco to Seattle.

The readers’ poll is being done in conjunction with the B.A.R.’s 40th anniversary. Results will be published in a special edition of the paper on April 7. To vote, visit www.

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expected to attend.

Anyone who would like to join the host committee, donate items for a live auction or raffle, volunteer, make contributions, or provide other help may contact Sullivan at (415) 503-1375 or BettyS@bettyslist.com.

The website for the event is www.oscars2011.eventsbot.com.

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ber of St. Francis since 1981. “We never felt we were alone; we never felt we were in exile. At annual meetings of the local synod, although we couldn’t vote, we attended.”

It wasn’t until 2009, during the annual Churchwide Assembly, that the national church repealed its discriminatory policy toward gay and lesbian clergy. The vote opened the doors for welcoming the two San Francisco churches back into the national fold.

“It will be very exciting. It will be good to feel we are all one. You know in unity is strength,” said Kirsten Havrehed, 83, a straight woman who has been a member of St. Francis since 1948. “It doesn’t mean we don’t need to stop fighting. I am sure many churches will not like us but we will

be in now.”

Unlike some of her friends who left St. Francis following its expulsion, Havrehed not once thought about leaving her longtime spiritual home.

“My life in the church dates back all these years. I was so involved in the church, I was not about to give up on my church,” said Havrehed, who immigrated from Denmark as a young woman and sought out St. Francis since it was originally built by Danes in 1905. “It was not easy but I never thought of going to another church.”

While First United is still determining if it will accept the invitation to rejoin the ELCA, St. Francis began taking the necessary steps to do so last year. At its annual meeting Sun-

day, February 20, the 141-member congregation ratified its approval of a new constitution, formalizing its decision last July to reunite with the national church.

“We will be inside the tent instead of being outside banging on the doors, so to speak, to get in,” said St. Francis’ presiding minister, pastor Robert Goldstein. “Now, we will be inside and continue our work.”

For Goldstein, 66, who will retire May 31, it will be the capstone to his 36 years as a Lutheran pastor. Ordained in 1975, he was removed from his clergy work in 1987 when he came out of the closet.

After three years of what Goldstein calls his “wilderness exile,” the bishop in Chicago, Sherman Hicks, a former colleague in New Jersey, hired him to continue his pastoral work.

He has spent the last five and half years at St. Francis.

“What a wonderful way to wrap up a wonderful career,” said Goldstein. “To be a closeted gay and terrified when I started in 1975 and now to be finishing my ministry at a congregation that had the courage to stand on this principle and paid for it. But it had a major role in changing a 4.7 million-member denomination.”

As St. Francis begins its search for a new pastor, it will now have a wide field of candidates to choose from, predicted Tragardh, because whoever is hired to succeed Goldstein will be overseeing an ELCA member church.

“We had difficulties just in getting people to apply. We are a very attractive church to go to because it had a high profile for a very dynamic pastor,” said Tragardh. “But in terms of their career, it was a real sacrifice and now it is not.”

The special rites of reconciliation and reception will begin at 3 p.m.

Sunday, February 27 at St. Francis, 152 Church Street. ▼

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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 24 February 2011

OPEN

BAYAREAREPORTER Volume 41, Number 8 24 February 2011 eBAR.com PUBLISHER Thomas E. Horn Bob Ross (Founder, 1971 – 2003) N E W S E D I TO R Cynthia Laird A R T S E D I TO R Roberto Friedman ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko Seth Hemmelgarn Jim Provenzano CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Dan Aiello • Tavo Amador • Matt Baume • Erin Blackwell Roger Brigham • Scott Brogan • Victoria A. Brownworth Philip Campbell • Chuck Colbert • Richard Dodds Raymond Flournoy • Brian Gougherty David Guarino • Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell Robert Julian • John F. Karr • Lisa Keen Matthew Kennedy • David Lamble • Michael McDonagh Paul Parish • Lois Pearlman • Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota Bob Roehr • Donna Sachet • Adam Sandel Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro • Gwendolyn Smith Robert Sokol • Ed Walsh • Sura Wood

A R T D I R E C TO R Kurt Thomas DESIGNER Scott King P H OTO G R A P H E R S Jane Philomen Cleland Marc Geller Rick Gerharter Lydia Gonzales Rudy K. Lawidjaja Steven Underhill Bill Wilson I L L U S T R ATO R S & C A R TO O N I S T S Paul Berge Christine Smith G E N E R A L M A N AG E R Michael M. Yamashita D I S P L AY A DV E R T I S I N G Colleen Small Scott Wazlowski C L A S S I F I E D A DV E R T I S I N G David McBrayer N AT I O N A L A DV E R T I S I N G R E P R E S E N TAT I V E Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863 LEGAL COUNSEL Paul H. Melbostad

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Reintroduce inclusive ENDA One of the problems, however, is that most state ow that the Republicans have taken programs don’t have adequate job re-training over the House of Representatives, the services for people who have been laid off. With conventional wisdom is that LGBTthe scarcity of new jobs, thousands of applicants friendly bills won’t stand a chance of passage. have lined up when a company announces a few But that is no reason not to reintroduce a hundred job openings. bill prohibiting workplace discriminaIt is in this new economic reality that tion based on, among other things, ENDA can find new life. Proponents of sexual orientation and gender idenworkplaces free from discrimination eastity. Two pieces in this week’s paper ily outnumber those on the side of prejutake a look at what happened last dice. Most fair-minded people would tell year with the Employment Non-Disyou that employees should not be fired crimination Act – both, based on a consimply because of who they are. But ference call, state that there were the votes our lobbyists at national LGBT orin the House last year to pass the bill. ganizations have, for whatever reaThen-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), several times E DITORIAL son, shied away from this position.

What they should be doing is talkduring the year indicated that a vote ing to members of Congress about would be taken. In the end, as we why an ENDA bill would save jobs. They should know, that vote did not happen. go one step further and point out an estimation Regardless of the House’s inability to take a of how many jobs would be saved in a member’s vote, ENDA’s chances for passage in the Senate district. Representatives need to hear from their were always murky. The Senate twice failed to reconstituents, too, about why a bill such as ENDA peal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before that legislation was finally approved during the waning days of the 111th Congress. Some transgender advocates say that Congress simply ran out of time last year, and that does have some merit.

But the big sticking point in ENDA has always revolved around transgender women using women’ restrooms, and opponents of the bill apparently were able to scare away potential votes by painting a sordid picture of restroom use that had no basis in reality. Trans women were not going to come on to women in the bathroom.

ENDA – in some version or another – has been around for decades. Perhaps that is part of the problem. We have editorialized about the importance of ENDA as a jobs bill in recent years, yet that message was not effectively delivered to lawmakers even as the country is experiencing one of the worst economic downturns in its history. The United States is no longer in a recession, technically, but try telling that to the thousands who have lost their jobs and have struggled to find work, some for more than a year. The economy is changing and growth industries are no longer found in fields such as manufacturing.

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is important.

Just as crucial is the role of business, and more and more companies are embracing inclusive non-discrimination policies. That number will only increase. Company CEOs and human resources administrators would make powerful advocates for a non-discrimination bill, and they should be called on to testify on the bill’s merits.

Finally, it is time that ENDA itself gets a makeover. A new title that people can relate to would be helpful. The Republicans use “Obamacare” to deride health care reform, or talk about the “job-killing” health care law. It’s time that LGBT advocates go on offense. Something like the “Fair Workplace Act” conveys the bill’s goals in an easy to understand title.

Congressional Democrats must re-introduce an inclusive employment non-discrimination bill soon. It is, as one transgender leader put it, easier to lobby for legislation when there’s a corresponding, active bill to talk about. Let’s get this done this year so that as the economy picks up, LGBT Americans won’t be left behind.▼

How DOMA undermines our national security and hurts military families

by Ian Moss ast year’s congressional repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is reason to celebrate. It is a tremendous accomplishment for our society and for all those working tirelessly in pursuit of an America ever more reflective of the values upon which this nation was founded. As a result of the discriminatory law’s repeal, patriotic gay and lesbian Americans will soon be able to serve openly in the U.S. military without the looming threat of being kicked out solely on account of their sexual orientation. Unfortunately, and contrary to what may be a common misperception, DADT’s repeal does not ensure full equality for gays and lesbians serving honorably in defense of our nation.

The Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 federal law that prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages, consequently prohibits the extension of benefits to the partners of federal employees in lawfully performed same-sex marriages and civil unions. Section 3 of the law, for the purposes of all things federal, defines marriage as between one man and one woman. What this means for gay and lesbian service members in same-sex marriages and civil unions is that notwithstanding the fact that they can now serve openly, they’ll nonetheless be treated differently than their heterosexual counterparts. Their families will be ineligible to receive many of the most important benefits guaranteed to the families of heterosexual service members; benefits like medical and dental care, housing, and even travel and pay allowances for dependents will be unavailable to the families of gay and lesbian service members.

These benefits are critical to sustaining military families. They provide security and peace of mind in the face of the tremendous sacrifices military families are asked to make. These benefits are also indispensable to the ability of our military professionals to execute their mission at the high level expected of them and absolutely necessary if they are to ensure both our security here at home and their safety on the battlefield.

The general welfare of our families and the knowledge that their basic needs are being met – that they have housing, medical care, and sup-

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port networks in our absence – are of paramount importance. Worrying about these things can create great distraction in our professional lives and prevent us from being the best that we can be. While this is true for anyone, it is of special concern for our men and women in uniform, for whom the stakes are exceptionally high. On a daily basis, service members are engaged in activities that have life and death consequences.

The Pentagon Working Group, which provided recommendations to Defense Secretary Robert Gates during the review of DADT, acknowledged that the support provided to military families is vital to mission accomplishment, “particularly during times of deployment stress.”

However, despite that finding the working group recommended that for the purposes of benefits that the military continue to treat all service members not in federally recognized marriages as “single service members.” The working group said that the issue of benefits was quite complex and is “part of the ongoing national political and legal debate concerning same-sex relationships and gay marriage.” Late last month, Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Clifford Stanley issued a memorandum to the service G UEST secretaries in which he provided policy guidance for the implementation of DADT’s repeal. He expressly stated, “There will be no changes at this time to eligibility standards for military benefits, including applicable definitions.” Stanley specifically cited DOMA as the barrier to extending benefits to same-sex couples.

DOMA’s fate may ultimately be determined by the Supreme Court. Several cases challenging the constitutionality of the law are making their way up through the lower courts. Most notably, a decision last June by a federal district court in Massachusetts holding DOMA unconstitutional is now on appeal to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It is worth noting, at issue in that case is the denial of access to federal benefits. While it appears that DOMA’s days are numbered, the obstacle which it now creates for gay and lesbian service members means that DADT’s repeal will be only a partial step in the process of achieving

full equality in the military’s ranks. Ironically, in January, Gates stressed that the proper and effective implementation of DADT’s repeal should not be done “incrementally.”

President Barack Obama should take the necessary steps to avoid an incremental approach to ensuring equality for gay and lesbian service members. There is time. DADT’s repeal will only take effect 60 days after the president, secretary of defense, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all certify to Congress that the military services are prepared. As of yet, there is no set date for actual repeal.

Obama, as commander in chief citing DOMA as an impediment to his ability to effectively manage the military, has an opportunity to avoid the adverse effect on national security created by the prevention of benefits to same-sex military families. Obama can and should choose to interpret DOMA as not applicable to the military. Recognizing that any inequity in the provision of benefits to military families undermines his ability to ensure the safety of the nation, he should instruct the services, for the purposes of benefits, to treat samesex marriages and civil unions the same as heterosexual marriages.

This order would apply only to O PINION the military and not to any other federal agency, as the president’s constitutional authority to issue such an order is strongest when dealing explicitly with the military. It is unlikely that the courts would entertain a challenge to his authority to issue this order.

Providing benefits for same-sex couples is not only warranted based on military readiness and national security grounds, but also because of general principles of fairness and equity. Moreover, such an order would also clearly demonstrate the positive trajectory of Obama’s “constantly evolving” feelings with respect to the issue of same-sex marriage.▼

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Ian Moss is a J.D. candidate at the George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. He is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps and attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. He writes at the Huffington Post.

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24 February 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

LETTERS

Understanding the Rainbow Honor Walk

The Israeli government is specifically targeting the LGBTQI community in a campaign to “rebrand” Israel as I would like to take issue with Ron Williams’s misa progressive, queer-friendly democracy. We call this a characterization of a neighborhood project that has my “pinkwashing” of the brutal realities that Palestinian face full support [Mailstrom, February 10]. There will be no under an illegal military occupation. walk of “fame.” Fame belongs in Hollywood. The RainWe ask filmmakers, whether or not they are submitbow Honor Walk belongs in the San Francisco Castro ting to this year’s festival, to support the struggle for peace District [“Castro history project selects first 20 honorees,” and justice by letting Frameline’s directors know they canFebruary 3]. I have been a longtime resident in this disnot allow their films to be shown at an event with Israeli trict, as has Mr. Williams. I have resided here since 1932. sponsorship.

My wife has lived in this district since 1938. We We also urge organizations that are invitboth became friends with Harvey Milk and his ed to co-present films at the festival to ask partner, Scott Smith, when they opened their Frameline whether they are accepting Israeli camera shop in 1973. I was a young Teamsponsorship before agreeing to participate. ster representative then, working to settle a (Note that we are not trying to tell Framemajor beer strike in the city. After the strike line what films to show and are not yet callwas won in favor of the workers, I was asing for a boycott of the festival.) In joining signed the task of directing the boycott of the cultural boycott, you will stand with a Coors beer that soon followed. Harvey and M AILSTROM growing number of queer filmmakers for I worked together along with the gay comhuman rights, including Elle Flanders, John munity to make this boycott a successful Greyson, Maher Sabry and Sonia deVries, and writers one. I have always been proud that the Teamster union such as Adrienne Rich and Sarah Schulman. membership supported Harvey Milk as I did when he ran Queer rights are human rights, and human rights for supervisor and was finally elected to that office. are queer rights. For more information go to www.quitThe rainbow walk will honor LGBT women and men palestine.org. in a new and unusual way, as well as honoring members of the straight community who have been supportive of Sonia deVries, director, Gay Cuba ; their civil rights struggle. People from all over America and the rest of the world will look at the plaques on the John Greyson, director, Fig Trees and Lilies; Rainbow Honor Walk, learn from seeing them, and come Elle Flanders, director, Zero Degrees of Separation; away with a deeper understanding of the strength and diErica Marcus, director, My Home, My Prison; versity of LGBT people.

Eric Stanley, co-director, Criminal Queers and Homotopia ; The two co-chairs, Isak Lindenauer and David Perry, Matthilda Bernstein Sycamore, co-director, have been working on this history-making project for a number of years now, and they have gathered around All That Sheltering Emptiness; them a passionate and diverse steering committee whose Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism; members are helping them with the work at hand. They South West Asian and North African Bay Area Queers; should be applauded for their having volunteered their ASWAT – Palestinian Gay Women; services to get this important work accomplished for the Israeli Queers for Palestine; community.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (Toronto); Harvey Milk’s dream was that all LGBT women and men and all straight people would support one another QTEAM (Montreal); and Birthright Unplugged and make the Castro District and the world in which we live a better place of which we could all be proud. His First impression wasn’t good dream is coming true. I hope all of you will give your First impressions are frequently reliable and I doubt whole-hearted support to his landmark project. that Paul Parish’s opinion on Possokhov’s new effort will change with a second viewing [“Samurai soap opera,” Allen Baird February 10]. Even Yuan Yuan Tan’s brilliance could not San Francisco lure me back. The music was an odd juxtaposition of orWhat’s the problem with Trader Joe’s? chestral film score overlaid at intervals by harsh percussion, as though we needed reminding that this was about What’s the problem with having a Trader Joe’s in the brutal Samurai warriors. Unfortunately, body movement neighborhood [“Tensions flare over Trader Joe’s parking,” was often obscured by cumbersome costumes.

February 17]? Many who live in the Castro aren’t even car Another problem was that dance was overshadowed owners. I think it would bring much needed business to by theatricality, although some of it was effectively done. the area. Many stores have closed their doors. I save so Added to last season’s unveiling of Mermaid, which was much money shopping at Trader Joe’s, and most emeven less successful as dance, I fear we may be seeing ployees are free of attitude, unlike local health food stores ghosts of Michael Smuin. in the area. Interestingly enough, I know much more Like Parish, I had a problem with the spelling of the about holistic health than most arrogant clerks in certain title, RAkU – is it double entendre to be read as “Rock “green” stores. Oh, delicious irony.

You?” Like him, I’m left puzzled, disturbed, and unsastiDenise Jameson fied. My dictionary defines the word “kitsch” as “pretenSan Francisco tious trash,” which is worse than soap opera.

Meeting was civil While Matt Baume’s article provided a good account of the meeting, the headline was entirely misleading – no tensions were “flaring.” To the contrary, the meeting was cordial and informative. Although there was disagreement over the proposed Trader Joe’s, everyone had the opportunity to speak and was respectful of differing opinions.

Since the community is split on this issue, let’s all work to maintain this kind of civil discourse while the proposal is vetted, discussed, and subject to public hearings.

Curt Holzinger San Francisco

Questioning Frameline on Israeli support As queers for human rights and justice, we are writing to make our community aware that last year, for the first time since 2006, Frameline accepted monetary support for its festival from the Israeli Consulate. At the very same time, attacks on Palestinian civilians and international human rights activists in Gaza were intensifying and the building of settlements, against international law, was continuing.

LGBT Palestinians have asked international queers to respect the cultural and academic boycott of Israel called

by Palestinian civil society in 2005. Please read their statement at www.pqbds.wordpress.com. The call of Palestinian civil society makes it clear that any institution that is sponsored by or partnering with any agency of the Israeli government is a target of boycott by people who support a just peace in the region.

Mainstream media would have us believe that Israel is the only true democratic state in the Middle East, offering freedom to LGBTQI people and women. But Palestinian and Israeli queers themselves have refuted this mythologized image.

We recognize that the struggle for LGBTQI rights must occur in the context of the liberation of all people, including Palestinians. We are, therefore, asking you as a filmmaker to support the call that Frameline, the San Francisco LGBT Film Festival, not accept financial sponsorship by the Israeli Consulate. We cannot say that we are for the liberation of all queers, if we do not respect the call of Palestinian queers to act in solidarity with their struggle for liberation.

Selwyn Jones San Francisco

A lack of logic Upon reading the letters page in the February 10 issue of the Bay Area Reporter, I especially took note of a letter

by Arthur Evans. In it, he took aim at Supervisor Jane Kim, who has declared that she won’t say the Pledge of Allegiance at board meetings until the words “Liberty and Justice for all” include everyone, including the LGBT community.

Curiously, Mr. Evans didn’t say he disagreed with her per se, but instead questioned her motives, posturing.

The only reason that he gave for arriving at this conclusion is the fact that he didn’t see her at any of the civil disobedience protests for gay rights that he’d been going to, starting back in the early 1970s. It seems that I recall reading that Jane Kim is in her early 30s. This means that 25 years after Evans first protest she was still in high school.

On top of that how could Evans have known whether Jane Kim was at any of these protests anyway? Did he personally walk up to each of the women at the protest(s) and ask them their names? And why would he have done that? The last time that a stranger asked me my name at any kind of protest, my first thought was that he was working for the other side.

The only thing notable about Evans’s letter was its extraordinary lack of logic and common sense.

Rosa Martinez San Francisco

Send letters to the Bay Area Reporter, 395 Ninth Street, San Francisco, CA 94103. Letters must be signed, and include an address and daytime phone number for verification purposes only. Unsigned letters will not be published. E-mail letters are accepted at c.laird@ebar.com. Please put “letter to the editor” in the subject line, and also include an address and phone number. Letters may be edited for space.

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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 24 February 2011

COMMENTARY

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ENDA: Out in the cold, again T

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DOMA ▼

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defend that part of the law in two pending cases.

It was a dramatic, unexpected, and significant move by the Obama administration.

In related news California Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) announced Wednesday that she intends to introduce legislation to repeal DOMA. Feinstein, a former mayor of San Francisco, opposed DOMA in 1996.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced February 23 that the Department of Justice would not defend the constitutionality of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act – or DOMA – in two of the four cases

Christine Smith

here are some things you can count on. The sun will rise in the morning, and set in the evening.

Likewise, spring and summer will follow – and precede – fall and winter.

Presuming no other anomalies, a baby will grow into a child, a teen, then an adult. You can always count, too, on death and taxes.

Then there’s the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. I’ve been in transgender activism since the early 1990s. Some of the first work I got involved with – back in the days when Garth Brooks and Nirvana climbed the music charts – was surrounding ENDA. Specifically efforts to get transgender-friendly language added to the bill. Opposed to this was a then-fledgling gay and lesbian rights organization called the Human Rights Champagne, er, Campaign Fund.

HRCF argued that adding transgen-

The last time ENDA was introder protections just wasn’t going to duced was in 2009, as HR 3017, HR happen, but that the passage of ENDA 2981, and S 1584. In each, it was rewould, perhaps, open the door for ferred to committee. In 2010, it was some later bill aimed at transgender not introduced. protections.

So what happened in 2010? This is ENDA went nowhere in Congress where it gets somewhat interesting. and then died in committee in 1994. It Prior to the installation of the failed in 1995, then again in 1997, current Congress, we saw a then 1999. number of bills hurriedly get Every time, transgender acpassed, including the repeal tivists would argue for incluof “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” sion, and every year they’d be during last year’s lame-duck told it was simply too soon. session. Yet ENDA never They’d never be able to secame up. In the wake of cure the votes if they inDADT repeal, we’ve cluded gender also not seen much identity and exT RANSMISSIONS more on ENDA. pression. Besides, According to we were told, peoDiego Sanchez, a legislative aide to ple just wouldn’t want to think of Congressman Barney Frank (Dtranswomen with penises in the Massachusetts), ENDA had – for perladies’ washroom. haps the first time ever – enough votes In 1999, the National Gay and Lesto pass. More than this, there were bian Task Force stopped work on enough votes to defeat a motion to ENDA over the lack of transgender recommit. This would have been inclusion, but the bill marched on. when transgender protections could ENDA died in 2001 and 2003. potentially have been stripped from In 2004, the Human Rights Camthe bill. paign – having long since shed the So why didn’t it go before Con“fund” from its name – stated it gress? would only support ENDA if it in“We just ran out of time,” Sanchez cluded gender identity. In 2007, when said on a conference call with LGBT that same language was stripped from leaders last month. the bill, HRC decided that it had Meanwhile, transgender activist crossed its fingers behind its back, and Dana Beyer puts the blame on “nawent on to support the non-inclusive tional GLBT leadership.” In a piece in ENDA. ENDA passed in the House of Metro Weekly, she, too, echoed Representatives in 2007, only to die in Sanchez, claiming that a conversation the Senate. she had with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) indicated more overall support for ENDA than DADT. Beyer claims, perhaps rightly, that it may have been LGBT lobbyists who pushed for DADT over ENDA in large part to sidestep any issues with transgender inclusion muddying the waters.

Like I said, I think Beyer is some-

what correct here. That said, I see it more like this.

Repeal of DADT had built some visible momentum in the last few months leading up to the vote, which meant it was simply, seductively easy to go forward with it. Even given the support of ENDA over DADT, I suspect it was viewed as the easier “sell” both in and outside the Beltway.

Then, after its passage, it gets so much easier to slap pictures of servicemen all over the nice, little fundraising letters that end up in my trash can.

Meanwhile – and this will be no surprise to anyone – DADT does not prevent the discharge of transgender servicemen or women. Gender identity or expression doesn’t enter into it.

While I am sure that some still-closeted transgender people will benefit from the repeal, it doesn’t do anything to help those who may be out about their status.

So the net gain for transgender people? Effectively nothing.

Meanwhile, we still don’t have the employment protections of ENDA. Protections that, given the current economy and obvious dearth of jobs, would have served a great deal more

people than the repeal of DADT. And now, in the wake of the passage of the DADT repeal, we’re still not hearing a lot about the possibility of ENDA in 2011. Rather, the push is on for a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. While DOMA repeal will affect myself and other married transgender couples, it still leaves me feeling like it’s a misplaced priority. It’s important, sure – but let’s try to protect peoples’ jobs before we worry as much about the federal status of marriages, please?

So here we are again. ENDA may not have had a chance to die in committee, make it off the floor, or even pass this time before someone decided it needed to go away in favor of supposedly “safe” victories. Once again transgender people are left out in the cold.

ENDA has gone through three presidents and 17 years. Isn’t it about time yet to get this over and done with?▼

where that section of the law is currently under challenge.

Even more striking, Holder’s announcement made clear that President Barack Obama himself – a former constitutional law professor – concluded that the section of DOMA which prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages could not pass strict constitutional review and that such review was likely in two cases now pending in federal district courts in the 2nd Circuit.

Four cases – two in the 1st Circuit and two in the 2nd – challenge this section, known as Section 3. Section 2 of the law, which enables states to ignore valid marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples from other states, has not yet been challenged in court and Holder made no reference to it.

And it appears the Justice Department will continue to defend DOMA in the two Section 3 cases in the 1st Circuit. That’s because, as Holder explained, the 1st Circuit has ruled that laws singling out gay people for disparate treatment need meet only a very easy – rational – review. (That assessment is likely to be disputed by lawyers challenging DOMA at Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders and for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.)

But Holder did say that DOJ attorneys would be instructed that the law should meet a strict scrutiny test – one that, if accepted by the courts, would almost certainly spell doom for the federal law that has banned recognition of same-sex relationships since 1996.▼

Gwen Smith won’t know what to do with herself when a trans-inclusive ENDA actually passes. You can find her online at www.gwensmith.com.

Prepping for Soiree 9

Rick Gerharter

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

erit Branch, center, collects clipboards with volunteer sign-ups for the LGBT Community Center’s ninth anniversary event, Soiree 9, that will take place March 26. Branch is joined by silent auction co-chair Lianne Hope and center supporter Jimmer Cassiol at a kickoff for donors and volunteers that was held February 17 at the Archibald-Ehrenberg Rehabilitation Terrain Park at the Davies Campus of California Pacific Medical Center.

CPMC is a sponsor of next month’s gala. To purchase tickets, visit www.soiree9.wordpress.com.

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24 February 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

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POLITIC S

Obama adviser visits local, state leaders coholic, he died alone in a Tenderloin apartment on February 2, 1989.

The day named in his honor will be the first time the city has officially recognized Sipple’s heroism.

by Matthew S. Bajko ancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, has the distinction of being the highest-ranking lesbian official in President Barack Obama’s administration. She may also be the shortest out nominee in Washington.

Whereas the president is 6 feet 1 inch tall, Sutley stands about 5 feet.

The height difference has led to some ribbing from her boss.

“He does occasionally make fun of my height,” admitted Sutley during a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter outside San Francisco City Hall.

“He did when we had the June Pride reception at the White House and he was recognizing a few of the openly gay appointees in the room. He was looking for me and he said, ‘She is here somewhere. She is vertically challenged.’”

Nonetheless, Sutley, 48, does have the president’s ear when it comes to environmental policy.

“My job is to be the principal environmental policy adviser to the president, so on anything environmental that comes up,” said Sutley, whose offices are housed in a row of townhouses across the street from the White House. “I have one of the best jobs in Washington.”

It is also likely to become more stressful with House Republicans targeting environmental initiatives for spending cuts, from slashing the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency to an effort to defund the Presidio Trust, which oversees the Presidio of San Francisco National Park.

“The president has spoken out very forcefully about the need to protect our air and water.

These are important protections Americans rely on for their health,” said Sutley when P OLITICAL asked about the funding fight in Congress.

Although she is not directly in charge of LGBT issues, Sutley defended the administration’s advancement of federal rights and protections for LGBT people. While efforts to enact the Employment Non-Discrimination Act stalled and Obama’s calling for repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act has gone nowhere, Sutley pointed to the president’s signing a bill to end the military’s anti-gay “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and numerous agency level pro-gay rules that have been adopted.

“The president has been clear about supporting ENDA, about supporting getting rid of DOMA. He worked hard to get DADT repeal passed,” she said. “We see things like the rule on hospital visitations. It is a pretty simple thing but incredibly profound thing.“ Sutley attended the DADT repeal signing ceremony late last year. She said it marked the first time in her lifetime that Congress had restored rights to Americans and not taken them away.

“Progress is never as fast as people want. I think we have made significant progress,” said Sutley, who joined with other out White House staffers to record a video for the “It Gets Better” project aimed at educating LGBT teens they are not alone.

“We know how important it is for teens to know there is support out there. It is getting to be cliche but it does get better,” said Sutley. “You can have a rich, rewarding life and have an impact on public policy, just hang in there.”

The fact that she is out and not working specifically on LGBT rights is a signal that coming out of the closet professionally does not pigeonhole a person to working on certain issues, said Sutley.

“There isn’t gay environmental

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Jane Philomen Cleland

Board set to name out Port commissioner

Nancy Sutley is the highest-ranking lesbian in the Obama administration.

policy,” said Sutley. “It just shows Americans of all walks of life bring their talents and hard work to public service.”

Prior to joining Obama’s staff, Sutley was the deputy mayor for energy and environment in Los Angeles for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Much of her time was spent dealing with water issues.

She represented Los Angeles on the board of directors for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and served on the California State Water Resources Control Board from 2003 through 2005.

Sutley also served as former California Governor Gray Davis’s energy adviser. Her duties included managing state N OTEBOOK and federal regulations, legislative affairs, finances and press relations.

She also served as deputy secretary for policy and intergovernmental relations in the California EPA from 1999 until 2003.

Nor is this the first time she has worked in a presidential administration. During President Bill Clinton’s time in the White House, Sutley worked for the EPA as a senior policy adviser to the regional administrator in San Francisco and special assistant to the administrator in Washington, D.C. As such Sutley lived in the Bay Area between 1995 and 2005, the first half of which was in San Francisco. She handled policy issues ranging from air and water pollution to the safety of gasoline additives.

“Working in California, even for the federal EPA, was a lot of fun. California is a great place to do environmental work,” said Sutley.

While in the Golden State this month Sutley made the rounds in Sacramento, where she met with John Laird, an out gay man and former lawmaker who was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown as secretary of the state’s Natural Resources Agency.

As it happens Laird and Sutley both traveled together on an official state trip in 2006 to several South American countries billed as a factfinding mission but which raised eyebrows among good government groups because the tab was picked up by a foundation financed by industry, environmental, and labor groups.

Apart from getting to know one another on the trip, Laird said that Sutley worked with him closely on several pieces of legislation dealing with water conservation and other water policy matters.

“She is a bright light in Washington,” said Laird, who noted that “I think I talked to her my first full day as resources secretary or it was the second.”

Sutley called Brown’s decision to hire Laird a “terrific appointment,” as “he is very dedicated to preserving California’s natural environment.”

Laird said the state and federal government coordinate efforts on a number of environmental issues, from water projects and habitat preservation to alternative energy and oceans protection.

“So it is great to have a partner like her in Washington,” said Laird.

During her visit to San Francisco February 10 Sutley joined with Mayor Ed Lee, local air quality managers, and business leaders to announce the expansion of electric vehicle charging stations throughout the Bay Area.

Local officials from all nine Bay Area counties have been meeting to map out locations for the “refueling” devices in order to create the country’s first natural vehicle corridor.

“In a short couple of years you will start to see these charging stations roll out,” said Lee during a press conference that day. “We are going to start the experiment with the taxi fleet so taxis will be able to go from San Francisco to San Jose totally battery operated.”

Not only will San Francisco International Airport be installing 20 of the electric vehicle charging stations, it is also going to be home to a battery swap station where taxis will be able to change their batteries on trips between the city and the airport.

Asked about the LGBT community’s penchant to be first adopters of new technologies, Sutley demurred, somewhat, when asked if she expected the electric vehicles to be attractive to LGBT drivers.

“I think they are excellent fashion accessories,” she joked.

SF supervisors honor gay man At its February 15 meeting the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution naming September 22, 2011 Oliver W. Sipple Day. Introduced by out Supervisor David Campos and co-sponsored by out Supervisor Scott Wiener, the honor will recognize the heroic actions taken by Sipple, a gay disabled vet, on September 22, 1975 when he is credited with saving the life of President Gerald Ford during a visit to San Francisco.

Known among the city’s gay circles, Sipple happened to be standing nearby Sara Jane Moore outside the Westin St. Francis in Union Square that day when she took aim at Ford with a gun.

Sipple thwarted her assassination attempt.

His quick thinking brought him national attention. His sexual orientation was subsequently disclosed in the news media, and Sipple never fully recovered from the public outing. An al-

At its March 1 meeting the board is expected to approve Leslie Katz’s nomination to the city’s Port Commission. The three-member Rules Committee unanimously voted last Thursday, February 17 to send her appointment on to the full board, which did not meet this week.

As one of his last duties as mayor, Gavin Newsom nominated Katz, an out lesbian and former supervisor, to the oversight body. She would be its first known out member.

On her Facebook page following the hearing, Katz thanked Supervisors Sean Elsbernd, Jane Kim, and Mark Farrell for their support. She also

thanked her “friends who showed up for support and who spoke on my behalf.”

Along with having a say on the management of the city’s waterfront, the Port Commissioners will be tasked with overseeing plans for the America’s Cup boating race set to sail here July 13 to September 22, 2013.▼ Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check www.ebar.com Monday mornings around 10 a.m. for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion.

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

Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 861-5019 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.

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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 24 February 2011

TRAVEL

Toronto mixes European charm with modern amenities

by Matthew S. Bajko

Toronto has a vibrant Pride Parade; this year’s event is set for July 3. thoroughfare intersects with Alexander Street (there is also a Wood Street one block over). He is now a revered figure within Toronto’s LGBT community.

“It is more than coincidence this became the Gay Village,” said Liz Devine, a lesbian who owns her own travel company in Toronto.

The story makes for a great tale, even if the veracity behind the claims that Wood was a homosexual is questionable.

It also encapsulates the spirit of the city itself, which is known for its reinvention and sugarcoating of its past.

Situated on the shores of Lake Ontario, Toronto earned the nickname “Paris on the Lake” for its stunning architecture. It also had another, less flattering slogan.

“Toronto was known for its hogs so its nickname was Hogtown. All the pork processing came through here,” said Bruce Bell, who leads tours of Toronto’s bustling St. Lawrence Market and downtown financial district.

The city is famous for its back bacon (or pea meal) sandwiches.

People line up at the Carousel Bakery inside the marketplace (91 Front Street East) for the quick treat, which is made of cured ham slices on a roll.

Opened in 1901, the market is a larger, less upscale version of San Francisco’s Ferry Building Marketplace. The two-level structure houses numerous butchers, fishmongers, fruit sellers, and cheese stands.

In the back of the market is a small eatery called Buster’s Sea Cove, which is known throughout the Toronto region for its seafood. Another local delicacy is pierogies, Polish pasta pockets stuffed with potato, cheese, bacon or fruits. European Delight in the market’s lower level offers numerous homemade varieties for sale.

Nearby St. Lawrence Market is the Distillery Historic District (the corner of Trinity and Mill streets), a series of old brick buildings that have been transformed into a unique shopping, dining, and arts destination. Built in 1832 as the Gooderham and Worts Distillery, it played a role in keeping Canadians and Americans well stocked with alcohol during Prohibition.

A fun way to delve into the distillery district’s vibrant past is to see it via a Segway. Tour guides with Segway of Ontario (37 Mill Street,

For more information visit >> ourism Toronto has an extensive website for LGBT visitors to the city. It lists everything from hotels and dining to nightlife and local attractions.

Go to www.seetorontonow .com/Visitor /Gay-Community .aspx For help booking a trip to Toronto, including theater and hotel packages, visit www. conxity.com.

To book a walking tour of the St. Lawrence Market, contact tour guide and local historian Bruce Bell through his website at www.brucebelltours.ca.

For information about the surrounding areas outside Toronto, go to www.gaytourismniagara.com.

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Courtesy Tourism Toronto

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Building 37, Unit 106) offer hourlong introductions to what went on behind the national historic site’s Victorian industrial buildings.

A great spot to grab a latte and people watch at the distillery is Balzac’s Coffee. The Mill Street Brewery and Pub, which offers free samples of its ales and lagers, serves up burgers and sandwiches while Archeo Trattoria, housed in a former brick carpentry shop, is a reasonably priced contemporary pizza and pasta house.

Another famous Toronto landmark is the CN Tower (301 Front St. West). At 1,815 feet, 5 inches it is the world’s tallest tower and offers spectacular views from its observation deck.

For a different bird’s-eye view of the city, visitors can dine at Canoe Restaurant on the 54th floor of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower (66 Wellington St. W). Rated one of the country’s best restaurants, Canoe provides a wonderful, though pricey, introduction to regional Canadian cuisine.

During my visit in October, the menu included maple cured British Columbia Salmon ($22 Canadian) or a lamb lion entree ($42 Canadian). A tasting menu ($150 Canadian per person with local wine pairing) that night had courses all featuring cranberries as part of the dishes.

The city is also home to many world-class museums, from the Art Gallery of Ontario (317 Dundas Street West) to the sprawling Royal Ontario Museum (100 Queens Park) with its mixture of natural history exhibits to galleries dedicated to furniture, pottery and artworks.

The Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (34 Isabella Street) provides a more intimate connection to the city’s and country’s LGBT history. Housed in a former residence, its collection is said to be the second largest LGBT archive in the world.

This year it began hosting special exhibitions in its gallery space.

Toronto is also known for its surrounding wine region and is about an hour’s drive from Niagara Falls.

The city’s gay nightlife is centered in the Gay Village, with its epicenter being the intersection of Church and Wellesley streets. A popular shopping and dining destination, it is home to various bars and restaurants that turn into nightclubs after dinner.

The most popular gay hangouts are Woody’s and Sailor’s (467 and 465 Church Street), side-by-side bars popular for their happy hour specials. Nearby is Byzantium (499 Church Street) an eatery that turns into a martini bar in the late evenings and hosts dance parties on the weekends.

For the dance party scene, head to Fly Nightclub (8 Gloucester Street), while the piano bar set can be found at Statler’s Lounge (487 Church Street).

Several venues present drag shows, including Zelda’s (542 Church Street) and Crews and Tango (508 Church Street).

A popular lesbian hangout is Voglie (582 Church Street). The bar and kitchen offer up drinks and food fireside during the cold winter months, while the outdoor patio is a major draw the rest of the year.

In the summer months, the city’s gay denizens head to Toronto Island Park in Lake Ontario, a short ferry ride from the mainland. There are bike paths, a small amusement park and a clothing optional gay beach at Hanlan’s Point.

The Gay Village is also host to a world-renowned, weeklong Halloween bash. Every year during the week leading up to Halloween, the business association throws special events, from a drag swap and pumpkin-carving contest to an outdoor dance party.

Lodging, transportation The centrally located Sutton Place Hotel (955 Bay Street) is a 10minute walk to the heart of the Gay Village. Made famous two decades ago when Liza Minnelli got stuck in one of its elevators, the hotel nowadays is often used by Hollywood stars in town shooting films.

Victoria’s Mansion Inn and Guesthouse (68 Gloucester Street) offers more bed and breakfast type accommodations also close to the city’s gayborhood.

Air Canada offers several daily direct flights leaving San Francisco International Airport for Toronto’s Pearson International. Visit aircanada.com for flight times and fares.

If you are planning to remain in Toronto during your stay, there is no need to rent a car. The city is flat and easily walkable. The central core has an easy to use transit system that includes buses, streetcars, and an underground subway system. Fares cost $3 Canadian for adults, while an unlimited weekly pass costs $36 Canadian for adults.

The U.S. dollar currently is worth slightly less than the Canadian dollar, with an exchange rate of $1 US equals 0.989409 CAD.▼

The St. Lawrence Market in Toronto’s financial district offers numerous businesses that sell sandwiches, fish, fruits, and cheeses.

Courtesy Tourism Toronto

atching over Toronto’s Gay Village is a statue of Alexander Wood, a merchant and city magistrate considered to be Canada’s gay pioneer.

In 1810, back when the city was known as York, he was investigating the case of a woman who said she had been raped. While she told Wood that she did not know who her assailant was, she did mention to him that she had scratched the man’s penis during the assault.

Using unusual investigatory methods, Wood proceeded to inspect the genitals of a series of suspects he rounded up. Derided by his fellow townsfolk as “Molly Wood,” the term Molly was a euphemism back then for a gay man, Wood avoided being tried on sodomy charges by agreeing to leave Canada for his homeland of Scotland.

Two years later he returned to Canada, fought in the War of 1812, and settled once again in York. For years he lived without incident but then found himself embroiled in a new controversy stemming from his handling of the rape case.

The lifelong bachelor survived the scandal and won plaudits as a civic leader. He used his wealth to purchase a 50-acre parcel of land that was nicknamed “Molly’s Wood Bush.”

The area is now the heart of Toronto’s gayborhood, which runs along Church Street. Wood’s statue sits at the corner where the main

Gay Toronto

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24 February 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

NATIONAL

NEWS

Dems may have had votes for ENDA id Democrats squander an opportunity to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act last year? Should they even bother to re-introduce the bill this year? And does a bill like ENDA, focused only on workplace discrimination, still make sense?

The answers to those three questions are “not if you’re assessing the real-world prospects,” “yes,” and “maybe.”

A closer study finds the political reality for ENDA in the 111th Congress, which ended in early January, was one with sharp edges, blurs of movement, and obscured details. Yes, the votes were probably there in the House, but the votes in the Senate – as demonstrated by two failed attempts to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – were unpredictable. The Democratic majority in both chambers was losing power, and nobody knew for sure what hostile language Republicans might push in a last-ditch attempt to kill ENDA. They just knew they would try something.

Still, it troubled some people recently when Diego Sanchez, an out trans legislative aide to Representative Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts), told a virtual forum sponsored by eQuality Giving that the votes were there in the House to pass ENDA and to defeat any Republican attempt to kill the measure with some heinous “motion to recommit.”

Sanchez made his remarks in response to a question from a listener who asked for the “true reasons” why ENDA was not put up for a vote last year.

“The thing that breaks my heart the most,” responded Sanchez, “is that we did have the votes this time.”

Actually, ENDA has had the votes to pass before. In 1996, it came one vote shy of passing the Senate. In 2007, it passed the House on a vote of 235-184. But both of those bills prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation only. And in between those two votes, the LGBT community grew to need more. It came to need both sexual orientation and gender identity to protect transgender people and to protect people who simply did not conform their outward appearance to that of the gender people perceived them to be.

So, in 2009, Frank introduced what is commonly referred to as a “fully inclusive ENDA” – a bill that seeks to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Both the House and Senate held committee hearings on the fully inclusive ENDA, but neither committee voted on the measure. And neither the House nor the Senate voted on the measure.

“ENDA didn’t come up because of two things, primarily,” said Sanchez.

Those two things, he said, were health care reform and the DADT repeal legislation. In other words, a two-year session of Congress lasts only two years and the hourglass ran out of sand before a very busy, ambitious, and contentious 111th Congress could get to everything on its to-do list.

Yes, Congress does tend to put off its more difficult battles until the end.

To some extent, that’s human nature, and to some extent that’s because there’s always the hope – however remote – of trying to work something out between opposing sides.

But this wasn’t just another “thing” on the LGBT movement’s to-do list.

Passage of ENDA has been the top legislative priority for the LGBT community for many years.

D

ENDA history When first introduced, in 1974 by Representative Bella Abzug (D-New York), it was a bill to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in

NCTE’s Mara Keisling

employment, housing, and public accommodations. By the mid-1990s, supporters decided to narrow the proposal to cover just employment discrimination. And 10 years later, a movement had begun to add protection against discrimination based on gender identity.

With Democrats controlling a majority of both the House and the Senate, as well as the White House, the 111th Congress seemed to present

ENDA with its best prospects ever for passage. In late 2009, the fully inclusive ENDA appeared to have the attention of Democratic leaders in the House. Health care reform took until March 2010 but, even as late as May 2010, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) was reassuring LGBT leaders that ENDA would get a vote in 2010.

Of course, the difference between a political promise and reality is political. Republicans waged an openly obstructionist campaign in the Senate on virtually all legislation, and they escalated that effort in both chambers after the GOP made strong gains in the 2010 midterm elections. Suddenly, the hourglass on the 2009-10 congressional session was nearly spent and, for the LGBT community, only repeal of DADT got through before there came a new Congress and a new reality – Republicans took over control of the House.

Frank said through a spokesman that he was not “as confident as Diego [Sanchez] about whether we had the

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analysis by Lisa Keen

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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 24 February 2011

THE

SPORTS

Wrestling with sexism P

High school wrestler Joel Northrup forfeited his match in the Iowa state championships because he would not wrestle a girl.

sex. He knows that girls are legally entitled to full and equal access to the sports program. So it was a hypocritical choice for him to enter the program. It was unfortunate that he placed himself in that situation.

California is one of five states (Hawaii, Washington, Texas, and Tennessee are the others) to have separate state tournaments for girls, but during the regular season girls and boys train and compete together. Five girls from San Francisco public schools will compete in the girls state tournament this weekend

Warriors LGBT Night

S

Those in attendance at the second Golden State Warriors LGBT Night last week were treated to a rousing halftime exhibition by Cheer SF and an even more rousing second-half charge that led the Warriors to a J OCK 102-89 victory over the New Orleans Hornets.

When the Warriors won on the road the next night in Utah, 107-100, it moved their record for the season to 26-29 heading into the All-Star break

as they attempt to escape mediocrity and reach the playoffs.

Roughly 20 recreational players from San Francisco Gay Basketball League got a chance to play on the Oracle Arena floor bethe game. It was TALK fore the second LGBT Night held by the Warriors. San Jose Pride, Cheer SF and the San Francisco Rockdogs were among the groups recognized on the scoreboard at halftime.▼

Waddell Cup ‘homecoming’

Courtesy Federation of Gay Games

erhaps the two most remarkable things about a boy’s refusal last week to wrestle a female opponent in the Iowa state high school championships were that a) anyone had to ask if it was an act of sexism; and b) that the talkshow hosts at KNBR pulled themselves away from musing on Pablo Sandoval’s diet and Carmelo Anthony trade talk and actually found themselves talking about wrestling.

The hubbub began when homeschooled Joel Northrup, who wrestles at 112 pounds for a high school varsity team in Iowa, forfeited his first match in the state tournament.

Wrestling being what it is in Iowa, Joel and his father Jamie Northup felt a press statement was necessary.

“Wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times,” Joel Northup told the local media. “As a matter of conscience and my faith, I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most other high-school sports in Iowa.”

Such nobility. Such sacrifice. Such crap.

Where to begin? Joel Northup does not attend the local public high school. He asked to be allowed to wrestle for the school, knowing full damned well that Iowa high school teams do not separate athletes by

in Lemoore, while the boys have their qualifying tournament in San Francisco for next week’s state championship in Bakersfield. The girls who wrestle for me at Mission High School fairly routinely beat and pin boys.

The assumption that wrestling a boy is inherently dangerous for a girl is bunk. Not too many decades ago, NFL owners and coaches used common bigotry to posit that blacks lacked the intelligence to play quarterback. Suppose Joel Northup had been paired against an African American or Asian American opponent and refused to wrestle because he had been taught to believe races shouldn’t mingle? Or if he had been paired against a gay opponent and said he didn’t want to fight a fairy?

Would we have hesitated to say those actions were racist or homophobic?

Northup’s father, a youth pastor, defended his son’s decision by saying his son is “a Christian kid and believes that girls should be treated with respect, not beaten into submission.”

Wow – what the hell is he teaching these kids? All of the coaches I know teach their wrestlers to respect the sport and the opponent. And this isn’t submission wrestling: you turn your opponent to his or her back and end with a handshake.

That said, the incident highlights the sexism inherent in the system that should be eliminated. All of the states should offer separate tournaments for girls to give them an equal chance to excel, and all should follow Hawaii’s example of recognizing girls wrestling as its own sport. Collegiate women’s wrestling uses Olympic freestyle rules rather than scholastic folkstyle rules, so we might as well let them prepare for the style they will have the opportunity to compete in later.

“homecoming party” was held for the Waddell Cup Friday, February 18, at the opening of the Golden Gate Classic Bowling Tournament at Serra Bowl in Daly City. Doug Litwin, marketing officer for the Federation of Gay Games, and 2006 Waddell Award recipient Derek Liecty formally presented the Cup, which was shipped from Cologne, Germany, site of the 2010 Gay Games, to Sara Waddell Lewinstein, who proudly posed with it.

A

Budapest Pride ban overturned

by Rex Wockner ungary’s Budapest Metropolitan Court on February 18 overturned city officials’ refusal to grant permission for this year’s gay Pride Parade.

The city’s ban came after organizers sought to extend the route of the June 18 march to an endpoint in Parliament Square. Officials claimed the new route would disrupt traffic and disturb an ongoing photo exhibit outside the Parliament Building.

A coalition of local organizations along with pan-European LGBT groups and Amnesty International had harshly criticized the ban, and Pride organizers went to court to block it.

“Hungary currently holds the presidency of the European Union and surely is sending the wrong signal about the union’s respect of human rights of all,” said Evelyne Paradis, executive director of the Euing of marriage to same-sex couples. ropean Region of the International Additionally, the current Hungarian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and InEU presidency program has no reftersex Association. “Indeed, such a erence to the rights of LGBTI people blatant denial of the right to free and even in events that deal with equalipeaceful assembly goes against the ty.

EU fundamental principles of “Moreover, a draft media law is democracy and respect of diversity.” currently being revised after Other problems have heavy criticism from the cropped up recently in HunEU [that is] aimed to gary, as well, Paradis said. prevent among other “The ban on the Pride things same-sex affecmarch adds to our contions in the media. We cerns with the deteriobelieve that represents rating situation for a dangerous signal not LGBTI in Hungary,” she only to LGBTI people said. “Currently there is a in Hungary, but also proposal to amend the W OCKNER’ S across the EU,” Paradis country’s constitution to added. “We call upon W ORLD limit the scope of marEU institutions and riage to one man and member states to reone woman with the effect of banmind Hungary of its duties and ning the possibility of a future openabout the EU fundamental princi-

H

Hungary’s Budapest Metropolitan Court last week overturned city officials’ refusal to grant permission for this year’s gay Pride Parade.

Above, participants took part in a 2009 march.

Andy Harley, UK Gay News

by Roger Brigham

PAGE

ples of equality, nondiscrimination and respect for human rights for all.”

The vice president of the European Parliament’s LGBT Intergroup, Sophie in ‘t Veld, agreed that the Pride ban was “potentially indicative of what the new Hungarian constitution and media law may have in stock for LGBT people.”

“Enshrining inequality in law and in the constitution would be an immense step backwards, putting Hungary at odds with the values it signed up to when joining the European Union,” she said. “We cannot accept the EU being led by a presidency that disrespects equality and freedom of assembly.”

UN shuns ILGA again The Non-Governmental Organizations Committee of the United

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24 February 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

11

OBITUARIES

by Cynthia Laird arolene Marks, the widow of state Senator Milton Marks who was an ally to the LGBT community, died February 14 after suffering from several illnesses. She was 89.

Mrs. Marks focused much of her work on health issues. Her son Milton Marks III, a City College trustee, noted that when his father was quite ill, Mrs. Marks sat with him in his hospital room planning her first conference at UCSF. “It was quite a success, leading her to a new focus on health-related issues particularly for underserved people,” Marks said in an e-mail. “She branched out from breast cancer to prostate cancer to ... transgender health where women transitioning to men are not screened for cervical cancer.”

C

Richard Drayton MacFarland February 7, 1927 – February 4, 2011

Our beloved Richard died peacefully and quickly while waiting for dinner, in his chair, at his long time residence in Emeryville.

He was a very happy and sensitive man.

Even in declining health and sight, he was always ready to face the many challenges that came his way. He was preceded in death by his partner of forty years, Raymond Grant, who passed

She worked on lesbian health issues and started BAD-CO, an organization in the Bayview to focus on African American health issues.

Mrs. Marks also served on the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women, where she was appointed to fill the seat held by her late husband, who died in 1998.

“Senator Marks was instrumental in the creation of the state’s Commission on the Status of Women, and it was befitting to honor him in his later years with an appointment to the local commission,” noted Andrea Shorter, a lesbian who served on the commission with Mrs. Marks and continues on the panel as its ranking member. Senator Marks was the only man to serve on the local body, she noted.

“Carolene was often referred to as the ‘woman behind the man,’ in the case of her husband’s legendary ca-

reer in politics,” Shorter said. “However, one was wise to never underestimate Carolene’s own special force of presence in her own right. Among other matters, she was a particularly dedicated champion of women’s health issues, and a tenacious, passionate voice on the commission for the issues of breast cancer and asthma in the Bayview Hunter’s Point.”

Openly gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener also praised Mrs. Marks.

“Carolene Marks was one of the hardest working and most focused people I knew in San Francisco politics. Many of us will miss her,” he said.

Marks said that his mother was the one responsible for clipping notices in the papers and sending congratulatory letters on his father’s behalf. That sort of retail politics made Senator Marks well-known in the city, where he served in the Assembly

before being elected to the state Senate. He served in public office as both a Republican and a Democrat.

“Her one foray into legislation was the environmental license plate bill, and then she stepped away,” Marks said.

Mrs. Marks was born Carolene Wachenheimer in Providence, Rhode Island. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1943. She then went to Eleanor Lansing Dulles (sister of John Foster Dulles), who offered her a job as an economist at the State Department.

“My mom came to San Francisco when she lost her job to the men returning home from the war (as unfair as that was!), but started with the United Nations at its initiation,” Marks said.

Mrs. Marks met her husband in the mid-1950s.

In addition to her son Milton,

away in 2000.

He loved his family and his friends from California to Texas, from Vancouver to Toronto and beyond, and his devoted caregivers (Mimi was with him for six years) who gave him the love and the strength to go on every day. He was a proud veteran of the United States Navy. When computers were in their infancy, he worked for Cal Ink Tenneco as a Systems Analyst until his retirement.

Among many other things, Richard enjoyed art, travel, conversation into the wee hours, good food and drink.

Richard was humorous, generous, appreciative, caring and kind. He never

hesitated to offer a hand if needed. He will be missed.

Please make a Toast to Richard and have a Rob Roy, up, with a cherry. May he rest in peace.

himself as an LVN and cosmetologist, he earned his RN license at City College which spawned a lifelong medical career.

Charles worked at many Bay Area hospitals. As the 1980s and AIDS consumed gay communities, Charles entwined his medical skills with activism, attending conferences and promoting the latest AIDS research.

He was a champion in the medical AIDS community.

A licensed realtor, Charles worked with BJ Droubi Realty in 1987.

Charles was proficient in sculpture, photography, upholstery, carpentry, landscaping and interior design.

Charles Lindsey Vaughn November 13, 1953 – February 3, 2011

Charles burned an indelible course through lives of those fortunate to be caught in his way. Charles came to San Francisco in 1972. Supporting

Rick Gerharter

LGBT ally Carolene Marks dies

Carolene Marks

Mrs. Marks is survived by another son, David Marks, of Mountain View; a daughter, Caro Marks of Sacramento; and seven grandchildren.

A funeral service was held February 16.▼

The ultimate party host, he loved to show people a great time. In 1995, Charles and his life partner Michael Behney moved to Arcata, California.

In 1996, they opened the Pottery Farm on the Arcata square. Charles continued nursing with Open Door Clinics and Michael became Arcata’s ‘Mr. Main Street,’ all the while converting their country acreage into epic beauty.

For those wishing to honor Charles’ memory, donations may be made in his name to Open Door Community Health Centers, 670 Ninth Street, Suite 203 Arcata, CA 95521.

program in Mexico this summer will give students a chance to work on their Spanish and learn about LGBT culture in the area.

Centro Tlahuica de Lenguas e Intercambio Cultural (the Tlahuica Center for Language and Cultural Exchange, or CETLALIC), based in Cuarnevaca, Mexico, will have its summer LGBT program June 18 through July 8.

Dr. Bill Owen, who’s gay and lives in San Francisco, said he attended in 2006, primarily to improve his Spanish. He’d been through programs in Guatemala, Costa Rica, and other places before, but this one was “very unique,” he said.

“It was kind of a really cool experience to be able to improve on our Spanish, but also to be able to see how the gay community in another coun-

A

World News ▼

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Nations’ Economic and Social Council on February 4 again rejected a request for consultative status from the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, a.k.a. ILGA. The committee voted to take no action on the request and to reconsider it in May. Seven nations supported moving to an actual vote on granting ILGA the status to access U.N. meetings, deliver oral and written reports, contact country representatives, and organize events at the U.N. They were Belgium, Bulgaria, India, Israel, Turkey, Peru and the United States.

Opposed were Burundi, China, Morocco, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Senegal, Sudan, and Venezuela. Kyrgyzstan abstained and Cuba and Mozambique were not present.

The NGO Committee only rarely has approved consultative status for LGBT organizations, although its refusals have several times been over-

try lives and works,” said Owen, 61.

One of the opportunities Owen took advantage of was to volunteer with a local church, helping to deliver meals to people with HIV/AIDS in the hospital.

CETLALIC was founded in 1987, and its students have helped the center evolve.

Director Jorge Torres, who’s 50 and straight, said traditional class exercises involved relationships between men and women. For example, he said, “If we teach the verb ‘to love,’ which in Spanish is amar, we always use man loves women, woman loves men.”

However, said Torres, who’s from Cuernavaca, “Sometimes we have people from the LGBT community, and they teach us about that issue.”

Students would say, “Sometimes it’s possible a man loves a man,” and so on, he said. “Little by little, we [were] getting conscious of that sit-

ridden by the full ECOSOC. Groups that have finally achieved consultative status include International Wages Due Lesbians, Australia’s Coalition of Activist Lesbians, ILGA-Europe (an autonomous division of ILGA), Landsforeningen for Bøsser og Lesbiske (Denmark’s National Association for Gays and Lesbians), Lesben- und Schwulenverband in Deutschland (Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany), the Swedish national LGBT group RFSL (whose former initials now are its full name), Coalition Gaie et Lesbienne du Québec (Quebec Gay and Lesbian Coalition), COC Netherlands (a national LGBT group whose former initials are now its full name), Associação Brasileira de Gays, Lésbicas e Transgêneros (Brazilian Association of Gays, Lesbians and Transgenders), and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.

ILGA had ECOSOC status from 1993 to 1994 but was stripped of it following a scandal, orchestrated by the U.S. right wing, in which a small number of ILGA’s hundreds of

Jorge Torres was in the Bay Area earlier this month to talk about a Spanish-language program he teaches in Mexico that is inclusive of LGBTs.

member organizations were accused of not taking a strong enough position on age of consent.

Around 3,000 non-governmental organizations have U.N. consultative status.

Spanish cities honor gay communities Three Spanish cities are recognizing LGBT people via public works.

In March, the Barcelona city government will place a large marble pink triangle in Ciudadela Park, where the Catalonian Parliament is located.

“This is a necessary monument to remember the discrimination, repression, humiliation, persecution, attacks and assassinations that the LGTB community suffered for centuries and very especially during the Franco dictatorship,” said Antonio Guirado, secretary general of the Catalonian LGBT umbrella group Gay Lesbian Coordinator. “It is an act of justice and reparation but also will become a permanent symbol of the commitment of the city of Barcelona in the fight against homophobia.”

uation,” he said.

The program’s students learn about the history of the LGBT movement in Mexico and Latin America. Roundtable discussions, field trips, and meetings with local community groups are among the activities included. Participants stay with local families.

The school offers classes at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels. There can be five students in each class. LGBT program participants are mixed in with those classes.

Every morning, there’s intensive language instruction from 9 to noon, followed by a “práctica“ session until 2 p.m.

Torres said the average age of students is 25 to 35, with some students as young as 18 and some as old as 80.

Safety

concern travelers, but Torres said that Cuernavaca – known as the “City of Eternal Spring” – is in the center of Mexico, and the main problems are in the border areas.

“It is very safe,” he said. “We have been doing this for 12 years and we never have had any problem.”

Torres offered typical travel advisories, such as being careful about the safety of food and water. He also warned, “Sometimes [students] go to a disco, accept invitations, and they don’t know the people.”

The cost for the program is $1,940 and includes full room and board, three weeks of instruction, and cultural activities. Cost does not include roundtrip airfare to Mexico City or transportation to and from Cuernavaca.▼

Recent news about people being killed in Mexico’s drug wars might

For more information, visit www.cetlalic.org.mx.

The city of Gijón is creating a park called “June 28, Gay Pride Day” alongside the Montevil soccer field.

And La Coruña is renaming a street after the late gay activist Tomás Fábregas, who emigrated to the U.S. at age 21 and was active in the fight against the U.S. ban on HIV-positive foreign visitors and immigrants, which was repealed in 2009.

At the 1992 International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam, which he attended as a board member of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Fábregas publicly dared the Bush administration to block his re-entry into the U.S. It did not do so. Fábregas died in 1994.

Plascencia expressed strong support for COCUT’s upcoming five-day Tijuana Cultural Congress Against Homophobia.

Artistic, literary, cultural and educational events will take place from May 17-21 in the city’s historic downtown, on Avenida Revolución and in Plaza Santa Cecilia.

Tijuana LGBTI group recognized by city, plans congress The group Tijuana LGBTI Cultural Community, or COCUT, was formally inaugurated this month at a ceremony at the offices of the Tijuana Tourism and Conventions Committee.

Committee head Alan Bautista

Belarusian gays allowed to stage public protest Gays in Belarus staged the nation’s first-ever authorized public gay event February 14 in Minsk, reported GayRussia.ru.

The LGBT group IDAHO Belarus held a rally against homophobia in a park near the Justice Ministry, with approval from the city’s executive committee and police department.

The small group carried banners reading, “Love who you want” and “Homophobia = fascism.”

About two-dozen journalists covered the rally, outnumbering the protesters.

“For the first time the only thing that we feared was neither the police

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by Seth Hemmelgarn

Jane Philomen Cleland

Spanish program in Mexico is a fit for LGBTs

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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 24 February 2011

COMMUNITY

Dyke March ▼

page 1

like other organizations, the Dyke March has always operated in the black without a line of credit to fall back on, breaking even producing the event with the donations it received, according to Hyder.

Committee members believe that $2 donations from individuals who attend the rally and march would cover the production costs and the march would go on as normal, said Hyder.

The Dyke March is a little more than $500 on its way to making its goal thanks to an August 2010 Mango benefit and recent donations that have come in, said Hyder.

Rather than cancel the event, committee members are looking at alternatives to produce a scaled down version this year, such as: having only a march this year, with no show and rally; marching and holding an after-march smaller scale indoor event; requiring an entrance fee into the pre-march rally in

ENDA ▼

page 9

votes to pass a fully-inclusive ENDA.” For one thing, Democrats could not know for sure what sort of issue Republicans would raise in order to seek a motion to recommit the bill back to committee – a sort of back-handed way of killing a bill. Some Republicans had already started making noises about the bill enabling men to use women’s restrooms and potentially causing gender confusion issues for first-graders.

Such scare tactics tend to work on non-LGBT people who are not paying attention, but they are inane. Ask any heterosexual man interested in keeping his job whether he would like to wear a dress to work in order to use the women’s bathroom, and the response will likely be an incredulous guffaw. Employees who are upset that a transgender person is using the same restroom can often be accommodated through simple common sense adjustments, such as the timing of bathroom breaks.

There have been the rare occasions when a school employee has transitioned from one gender to another while retaining employment at the school. Such was the case at an elementary school in a small town in Massachusetts in 2008. The school superintendent and principal sent a letter to parents at the beginning of the

LGBT Asians ▼

page 1

In addition to Lee’s taking over Room 200, politicians of Asian descent are serving as the city’s public defender, assessor-recorder and hold four seats on the Board of Supervisors, including the board presidency.

Two of the city’s four-person legislative delegation – a state Senator and Assembly member – are Asian Americans. And Asian Americans now account for a third of the city’s residents.

Largely missing from this newfound political presence are LGBT Asian Americans. Only one out politician, Community College Board member Lawrence Wong, is currently in elected office. He has held the post since 1994, when he became the first openly gay Asian man to be elected to public office in the United States.

The only other Asian American from the LGBT community to win an elective office in San Francisco was Angie Fa, who in 1992 became the first out lesbian to win a seat on the city’s public school board.

So far, among the crop of people expected to seek the mayor’s office and district attorney in the fall, none are out Asian candidates. Among the dozens of candidates who sought supervisor seats last year, none were LGBT Asian Americans.

In 2008 transgender advocate and HIV activist Cecilia Chung had

NEWS

▼

But news that the Dyke March might not happen this year has shocked community leaders.

“When I first heard about it, all I could think is that they are canceling Christmas,” said Lila Thirkield, owner of the Lexington Club, where many queer women gather after the Dyke March.

Bisexual activist Lindasusan Ulrich was taken aback as well.

“I was shocked,” said Ulrich. “It’s unsettling. It definitely makes me feel like we have grown complacent about what our community has built over the last several decades.”

If any part of the Dyke March happens, Ulrich said, the “most important part” is marching in the streets.

The Dyke March might go on in the streets anyway, whether official organizers produce the event or not.

“We keep saying whether we do it or not people will show up, but there won’t be entertainment, it won’t be the same,” said Hyder.

“I think it may happen anyway, if the organizers don’t do something the women will still congregate there. They will probably do it without a permit,” said Rachel Herbert, owner of Duboce and Dolores Park Cafes, one of the many businesses along 18th Street that benefit from the annual event.

Hyder pointed out that the park and facilities would be burdened supporting a spontaneous march as well as other problems that could arise if that would happen, in spite of the historic peacefulness of the political celebration.

“That can be scary,” Thirkield agreed.

Rather than have a spontaneous march, Thirkield asked, “What can I do to make it happen? Because it has to happen ... I would love to help out in any way I can. It’s so important to our community.”

Herbert agreed with Thirkield,

“The Dyke March is an important historical event and I would hate to see it go away,” she said, more saddened than surprised by the news of the potential cancellation.

The Dyke March started, “because women didn’t have a voice at gay Pride” and their importance to the community, Herbert recalled.

“I would like the Dyke March to continue. It’s important for the community and it’s a great event,” said Herbert, who donates to the event annually, and even considered joining the committee at one point, but was disenchanted and critical of the organization.

“I felt that it needed to be more diverse and younger,” she said. It has to “march into this century and let people come in. They’ve got to pass the torch to somebody.”

In light of the organization’s troubles, it is restructuring and recruiting to address the lack of “dyke power,” for the Dyke March, Hyder told the B.A.R. The committee is forming a strategic plan, because “We can’t do it this

way anymore, wondering if we are going to break even,” Hyder said.

The committee is looking for new team leaders to lead a variety of key components to produce the march, from fundraising to volunteer recruitment to safety and has received positive responses from the community, she said.

Hyder added that the committee has reached out to youth to join the teams in order to diversify the age range on the committee, mentor, and bring in fresh ideas.

“We have fun doing it. It’s an exciting thing to do. To put on the Dyke March, a party for 50,000 people, that is a celebration that has a political [edge] to it, that has people dancing in the streets. It’s a fun thing to do,” said Hyder.▼

school year advising them that the school’s night custodian was changing his gender and would “begin living and working as a woman.”

“The custodial uniform is the same for men and women,” noted the August 2008 letter. “However, our students may notice and ask about the differences. ... If they ask at school, they will be given a simple and straightforward answer. The best thing to tell them is that our custodian used to be a man. She has changed her gender role and is now a woman.”

“Whether or not one agrees with or supports the decision of our custodian,” concluded the letter, “it is important to note that the [school district] does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national original, sexual orientation, or disability. We expect our custodian to be treated with the same respect as every other employee. We teach respect by demonstrating respectful behavior.”

The Massachusetts state law did not spell out “gender identity” in 2008, but in the above case, the school believed it had an obligation under existing law to treat the employee with respect. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick this month signed an executive order to prohibit discrimination against transgender people in state employment, and a bill to prohibit it more widely is under consideration in the state legislature.

That’s what ENDA seeks to en-

courage: that employers treat employees with respect. At its maximum strength, it would prohibit employers from taking adverse actions against an employee simply because the employer doesn’t like the employee’s sexual orientation (homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual) or how the employee does or does not conform to common expressions of his or her gender.

Frank, along with Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida), introduced ENDA in the 111th Congress. Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) introduced the bill in that chamber. And Frank spokesman Harry Gural said Frank “did think it was worth the risk to put the bill to a vote” last year. They have not yet introduced it to the 112th Congress.

Should they bother introducing it again, now that the House is dominated by Republicans?

Yes, says Mara Keisling, head of the National Center for Transgender Equality. That’s because lobbyists and constituents trying to persuade legislators to support the measure are helped by having a specific, active bill to talk about.

“But it needs to be the right bill,” said Keisling.

For Keisling, the right bill needs to be one that does not include the broad exemptions for religious institutions that the last ENDA did. And it would not include restrictions on bathroom usage by transgender people.

NCTE board member Stephen Glassman goes further. He told the January 30 eQuality Giving call that he thinks it’s time to go back to the scope of the original gay civil rights bill – one that covered not only employment, but also housing and public accommodations.

“For a long time, I have thought that ENDA was not a sufficient bill,” said Glassman, who is chairman of Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. “In fact, particularly when you’re talking about trans people, it is critically important to have housing protections and public accommodations protections as well.”

Support for that idea came just days later, February 4, when the NCTE and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force released the results of a comprehensive survey of more than 6,450 people who are either transgender or gender non-conforming.

The survey found that employment discrimination is pervasive against transgender and gender nonconforming people. Forty-seven percent had experienced some adverse action by their employer because of their gender identity or expression. But it also found high rates of discrimination in other arenas, such as public accommodations and housing. For instance, 53 percent of the survey group reported being verbally harassed or disrespected in a place of public accommodation, such as a hotel, restaurant, or airport. Nineteen percent said

they were refused medical care. And 19 percent had been refused housing.

A 2009 report by Lee Badgett for the Williams Institute at UCLA found that 15 studies conducted since the mid-1990s showed between 15 percent and 43 percent of lesbian, gay, or bisexual respondents had experienced discrimination in the workplace due to their sexual orientation. Six studies between 1996 and 2006 found 20 percent to 57 percent of transgender people experienced discrimination at work.

Keisling agrees it’s important to seek protection in all three arenas, but she said, “That doesn’t mean [one bill] is the way to do it.”

Keisling noted that there were three bills introduced in the last Congress that sought to prohibit sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in housing.

“But it is worth having a community conservation about,” said Keisling.

“It’s worth having a conversation within the community and with our congressional allies. We should be having that conversation.”

Keisling said she would also expect there would be people who would say, ‘We couldn’t pass ENDA with just employment, why should we be adding even more weights to it?’”

“But we’re not trying to pass only what we can pass this year,” said Keisling. “We need to be thinking about what we need to pass, what we can pass in two years, or four or six or eight years.”▼

been expected to seek the District 11 supervisor seat but decided not to due to health concerns. No other out Asian candidates emerged that year.

In fact, there has never been an out Asian American supervisor in San Francisco.

“I would have been the first gay Asian on the Board of Supervisors if I was elected. That is fine I was not; I continued my work on the college board,” said Wong, who lost to Aaron Peskin in 2000 for the District 3 seat now held by Board President David Chiu. “There has not been an out Asian American elected for a higher office and not an out Asian running since. I don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that there is obstacles. Up until very recently, politics was not considered an aspiration or an aspiration encouraged in the Asian culture.”

Rather, Asian parents pushed their children into other professions, said Wong.

“One was encouraged to be a lawyer or doctor or engineer,” he said. “For those of us who have been in politics, we are clearly pioneers.”

Benjamin Leong, co-chair of the Gay Asian Political Alliance in San Francisco, said having an out Asian member of the city’s board of supervisors would have a powerful impact.

“Yes, I would love to see a gay Asian on the Board of Supervisors.

It would go a long way of fighting the cultural norms,” said Leong, who is also involved with the National

Queer API Alliance, a coalition for local LGBT Asian and Pacific Islander groups that is set to launch a visibility campaign to encourage more APIs to come out. “A lot of gay Asians are afraid of coming out. Unless you are in San Francisco, you are not going to see a lot of proud and out gay Asians.”

Whether Lee’s time as interim mayor will convince LGBT Asians to seek public office remains to be seen.

Their absence from City Hall isn’t for a lack of credible candidates, said Wong.

“Of course we have many, many LGBT Asians who are activists and in my mind courageous leaders in San Francisco. There is no doubt; I could name a few people who would be good candidates,” said Wong, who first met the mayor when he served as a human rights commissioner and Lee was named executive director of the city agency.

Yet, Wong said, for whatever reasons, “They are not willing to take that next step. There is also the recognition that sometimes many of us feel we can accomplish more and contribute more as community activists outside of politics.”

While he believes the growing number of Asian elected officials will encourage more Asian Americans to seek public office, Wong said he is unsure if it will convince more out Asians to do so.

“Clearly, there is no doubt it is going to create an environment in

which Asian Americans in general will feel the possibility of being elected and being a supervisor or being a mayor of a great city like San Francisco. Now that is different from whether or not these examples are going to send the same message to a gay Asian,” said Wong, who now lives in the city’s District 1 and has no plans to again run for supervisor.

Leong, for one, said he has no desire to seek public office.

“I don’t see myself as a politician, per se. I am more of a background worker and fighting for rights,” he said.

Asian American politicians say they face unique hurdles convincing non-Asian voters to elect them. And for out candidates, it can be a challenge within the Asian American community to attract support.

“When I ran, I ran as an openly gay man. Members of the Chinese community would snub me, ignore me, walk away from me when I made public appearances at that time. It was a difficult time,” recalled Wong of his first race. “The LGBT community always has been very supportive, and I am very proud to say that. Now the Asian community is always supportive.”

During his campaign 17 years ago he had to cancel a fundraiser he had planned at a Chinatown restaurant after community members pressured the owner. While he no longer faces such problems, Wong said it is still difficult for Asian Americans to be openly LGBT.

As was seen last winter during the federal trial against Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban California voters adopted in 2008, a larger portion of support for the anti-gay measure came from Asian evangelical Christian voters in the Bay Area.

“The Asian community is not as progressive in terms of sexuality in terms of where the non-Asian community is at this point. Still difficult for Asian man or woman to come out,” said Wong. “The culture is more conservative than the general American culture.”

Electing San Francisco’s first out Asian supervisor would have a transformative effect, said Leong.

“Having an out gay Asian supervisor would be huge. They would be a role model,” said Leong. “As soon as people realize that gays are not any different from anybody else, we are just regular people, the more accepting they are.”

When that milestone will be reached is anybody’s guess.

“I really don’t know when it could happen. I know people in the community have aspirations of doing it,” said Leong. “Maybe in the next four years, hopefully, we will be successful in getting a gay Asian elected.”

GAPA will host its annual banquet from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, February 26 at the Empress of China, 838 Grant Avenue, in San Francisco. For more information, visit www.gapa.org/banquet.▼

a gated portion of the park; or designating a clean and sober area.

Committee members are seeking community support.

Dyke shock

A volunteer Dyke March meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 28 at 6 p.m. Individuals interested in attending can contact Hyder at info@thedykemarch.org for the meeting site.

▼

24 February 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

COMMUNITY

News Briefs ▼

page 3

ebar.com/bestofthegays-2011.

Hormel Center hosts book party celebrating Radical Faeries; unveils new Whitman exhibit The James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library will present a reading to celebrate the publication of The Fire in Moonlight: Stories From the Radical Faeries. Edited by Mark Thompson, the book is the first of its kind to explore the Radical Faerie movement and brings together 50 contributors to paint a kaleidoscopic picture of this gay men’s political and spiritual community. The reading takes place Wednesday, March 2 from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Koret Auditorium at the main library, 100 Larkin Street.

Contributors who will be reading include Thompson, Will Roscoe, Jerry (the Fairie) Berbiar, Joey Cain, William Stewart, and Joe Balestreri.

The reading comes as the Hormel Center unveils a new exhibit, In Paths Untrodden: Walt Whitman’s Calamus Poems and the Radical Faeries, which runs from March 1 through May 19. Last year was the 150th anniversary of the first publi-

World News ▼

page 11

nor the homophobe hooligans but the cold,” organizer Sergey Praded told GayRussia. “This is a very good first step.”

Last year, the city’s executive committee banned the gay Pride march.

When activists ignored the ban, several were aggressively arrested for taking part in an unsanctioned public action.

Moscow Pride founder Nikolai Alekseev, who joined that march, said police were “brutal and violent.”

Suspect ▼

page 1

around Baker’s death.

In a phone interview, Mason Bowling, the resident manager at Baker’s building, described Kesmatyer as “very quiet” but “friendly enough.” He said that Baker and Kesmatyer had met when they both were employed at a Macy’s in San Rafael, where Baker worked on displays. He said the younger man had been fired, but he wasn’t sure.

Reached by phone, an employee at the department store declined to comment.

Bowling said that Baker had probably just offered Kesmatyer a place to stay until he could get another job and another place to live.

“Jack was just this way,” said Bowling. “He was a very, very kind person and never had a bad thing to say.” He said Baker didn’t drink or do

13

NEWS

cation of Whitman’s homo-affectional poem cluster, Calamus. The exhibit, located on the third floor in the Hormel Center, explores the influence Whitman and the Calamus poems had on the earliest LGBT freedom pioneers. The exhibit is curated by Cain, a radical faerie and longtime community activist.

Celebration of black history concert San Francisco’s award-winning AfroSolo Theatre Company will present “Harmony and Melody: A Celebration of Black History” Friday, February 25 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, February 26 at 3 p.m. at the African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton Street.

The concerts will feature bass baritone vocalist Lawrence Beamen, of America’s Got Talent fame, performing Negro spirituals and traditional African American music in collaboration with the Gold Coast Chamber Players. In addition, the Gold Coast Chamber Players will also perform “Panamanian Dances for String Quartet (1953) by William Grant Still, one of the most important African American composers of the 20th century, and the “American” quartet by Czech composer Antonin Dvorak.

Tickets are $30; for more information, visit www.afrosolo.org or

“I’ve never run so fast in my life,” he said.

He and activist Ira Fet evaded arrest by running into a building and hiding in a trash room for 20 minutes.

New Zealand prime minister attends gay event New Zealand Prime Minister John Key attended the Big Gay Out festival in Auckland’s Coyle Park for two hours February 13.

During an on-site radio interview, Key was asked if he now supports the gay civil-union law, which he had voted against as a member of

drugs.

He said that Baker liked to do artwork in his apartment and watch old movies. He loved to decorate, and would go “way over the top,” said Bowling.

For three or four days before Baker’s body was discovered, Bowling’s dog, Lola, would go down to Baker’s door and stare, he said.

Bowling said he finally called the police, who had to enter through a window when they arrived because the apartment’s deadbolt was locked.

He said that the apartment “was a mess” and explained that Baker had collected props, such as a 6-foot papier-mâché soldier, antiques, and other items.

He left immediately after he saw Baker’s foot, he said.

Edward Wright, 71, who lives in the unit across the hall from Baker’s apartment, said that Baker was “a very friendly person” who used to invite him over for coffee. Wright

call (415) 771-2376. Discounts for groups and individuals with the promo code VIP are being offered through Brown Paper Tickets at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/ 143247.

New campaign for coming out at work Dot429, a group that connects LGBT professionals and their allies through networking online and various events, announced this week its new WorkOpen web campaign created in conjunction with Saks Fifth Avenue. WorkOpen is designed to celebrate members of the LGBT social network who are out in the workplace.

The campaign will feature videos

by LGBT professionals sharing their inspirational stories, similar to the “It Gets Better” campaign.

To kick off the WorkOpen campaign, retired Naval Commander Zoe Dunning and others will share their stories. Interested people are invited to share their stories Saturday, February 26 from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Saks Fifth Avenue Men’s Store (fifth floor), 220 Post Street in San Francisco.▼ For more information and to view Dunning’s video, go to www.dot429.com.

Parliament.

Key refused to answer, saying, “I’m leaving it until my book.”

200 arrested at ‘gay’ party in Bahrain At least 200 people were arrested February 3 at the Hidd Sports Club in Al Muharraq, Bahrain, for engaging in what local media called “immoral behavior” at a “gay party,” according to Amnesty International. Reports said the individuals were drinking alcohol and wearing women’s clothes.▼ Bill Kelley contributed to this report.

said that after he made a couple “negative” comments about Baker’s visitors – one had asked him for money, he said – Baker had become “rather distant.”

Wright said he hadn’t heard anything indicating there were problems in Baker’s apartment.

Bowling said young men visited Baker often, “but it wasn’t for that reason that most people think.” He explained, “He would just meet people,” and most of the visitors were co-workers.▼

Web content Online content this week includes an article about administrative charges being filed against a San Francisco Patrol Special Police officer. www.ebar.com

LEGAL NOTICES NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE LICENSE To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: UNHAPPY THE HEDGEHOG INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 71 Stevenson Street,Suite 1500, San Francisco, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at: 2323 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94110-1813. Type of license applied for:

47 ON-SALE GENERAL EATING PLACE FEB 24,2011

NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE LICENSE To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: CHSP TRS SAN FRANCISCO LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 71 Stevenson Street,Suite 1500, San Francisco, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at: 333 Battery St., San Francisco, CA 94111-3230. Type of license applied for:

47 ON-SALE GENERAL EATING PLACE FEB 24,2011

NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE LICENSE To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: NATALIE ESPERANZA. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 71 Stevenson Street,Suite 1500, San Francisco, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at: 2425 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94110-2414. Type of license applied for:

41- ON-SALE BEER AND WINE EATING PLACE FEB 24,2011

NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES

To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: FRESH & EASY NEIGHBORHOOD MARKET INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 71 Stevenson Street,Suite 1500, San Francisco, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at:SWC 3rd St. & Carroll Ave., San Francisco, CA 94124. Type of license applied for:

21 OFF-SALE GENERAL FEB 10,17,24,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033300800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as J.SABATINI & CO.,239 Bright St., San Francisco, CA 94132. This business is conducted by an individual, signed Erica Giacchetti. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/27/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/27/11.

FEB 3,10,17,24, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033290500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as DENTAL CONCEPTS,244 9th St., San Francisco, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, signed Baljit Johal. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/27/06. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/24/11.

FEB 3,10,17,24, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033308200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as GEORGE SLACK CABINETMAKERS, 757 Pennsylvania Ave., San Francisco, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, signed George Slack. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/01/10. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/31/11.

FEB 3,10,17,24, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033305200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MOLLIE STONE’S CASTRO MARKET, 4201 18th St., San Francisco, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a corporation, signed David M. Bennett. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/28/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/28/11.

FEB 3,10,17,24, 2011

STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE# CNC-11-547466 In the matter of the application of DELVON DEOAUNTA FIELDS for change of name. The application of DELVON DEOAUNTA FIELDS for change of name having been filed in Court, and it appearing from said application that DELVON DEOAUNTA FIELDS filed an application proposing that his/her name be changed to KAI MALIK PINA. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Room 218 on the 7th of April, 2011 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FEB 10,17,24,MAR 3, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033252400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as NOE VALLEY SMILES AND BRACES. DENTAL PRACTICE OF SHAHRAM NABIPOUR DDS, MSD, INC., 3932 24th St., San Francisco, CA 94114.

This business is conducted by a corporation, signed Shahram Nabipour.

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 01/07/11.

FEB 3,10,17,24, 2011B

NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES

To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: KRAVE CAFE LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 71 Stevenson Street,Suite 1500, San Francisco, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at: 422 Larkin St., San Francisco, CA 94102-3607. Type of license applied for:

41 ON-SALE BEER AND WINE EATING PLACE FEB 17,24,MAR 3, 2011

NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES

To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: ANUAR ISMAIL ABUARAFEH. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 71 Stevenson Street,Suite 1500, San Francisco, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at:803-805 Howard St., San Francisco, CA 94103-3009. Type of license applied for:

21 OFF-SALE GENERAL FEB 17,24,MAR 3, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033323100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as J L ELECTRIC, 37 Tioga Ave., San Francisco, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, signed Juchi Li. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/04/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/04/11.

FEB 10,17,24,MAR 3, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033308300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as XS ENTERPRISES, 101 9th St., San Francisco, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, signed Keland Wells. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/31/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/31/11.

FEB 10,17,24,MAR 3, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033320300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as 1010 KEYS, 3 Byron Court, San Francisco, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, signed Gregory E. Harris. 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 02/03/11.

FEB 10,17,24,MAR 3, 2011

NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES

To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are:GARFIELD BEACH CVS LLC, LONGS DRUG STORES CALIFORNIA LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 71 Stevenson Street,Suite 1500, San Francisco, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at:NWC 32nd Ave. & Clement St., San Francisco, CA 94121.

Type of license applied for:

20 OFF-SALE BEER AND WINEFEB 24,MAR 3,10, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033339300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as APOTHECARIUM, 2095 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94114.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, signed Ryan Hudson.

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/10/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/10/11.

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033293300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SWELL CONTENT, 925 Pierce St.,#2, San Francisco, CA 94115.

This business is conducted by an individual, signed Nicole Jones. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/21/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/25/11.

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033311500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as LANDSCAPE XL, 3529 24th St., San Francisco, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, signed Cleuton De Araujo. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/31/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/31/11.

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011

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CLASSIFIEDS LEGAL NOTICES STATEMENT FILE A-033335400

STATEMENT FILE A-033323500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as CASTLE GENERAL CONTRACTORS, 2443 Fillmore St.,#215, San Francisco, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a corporation, signed Ken Page. 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 02/09/11.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as DREAM WORLD MEDIA,470 Third St.,#210, San Francisco, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, signed Carolyn Quan. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/22/10. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/04/11.

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033335500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as EAG STUDIO,2443 Fillmore St.,#215, San Francisco, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a limited libility company, signed Ken Page. 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 02/09/11.

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033335000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as NUTE’S, 149 Vicksburg St., San Francisco, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, signed Surangrat Chulasuwan. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/09/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/09/11.

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033340600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as MISSION OASIS GALLERY, 3118 22nd St., San Francisco, CA 94111.

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

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033347200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as 1.SERAPHIM ENERGIES, 2.SERAPHIM INITIATIONS, 3.SERAPHIM BLUEPRINT,4.JUPITER EXPRESS,5.OXUXO,6.AITOTIA, 7.GUARDIANS OF GAIA, 45 Brosnan St., San Francisco, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, signed Alex O.J. Brandin. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/01/10.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/14/11.

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033283600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as TOWER CAFE,100 First St.,8th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105.

This business is conducted by an individual, signed Ann Song-Rim Kim. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/20/11.

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033318100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as LEGER LINES PRODUCTIONS, 755 Tennessee St., #11,San Francisco, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a individual, signed Janice A. Leger. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/17/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/02/11.

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033353600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as U- SAVE MARKET,399 Crescent Ave., San Francisco, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by an individual, signed Dipak B. Gandhi. 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 02/16/11.

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as DEVISE,10 Tapia Drive, San Francisco, CA 94132. This business is conducted by an individual, signed Reza Hashemzadeh. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/14/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/16/11.

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011

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FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033350800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as GIVE SQUARED,42 Steiner St., San Francisco, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, signed Elliot Peterson. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/15/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/15/11.

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033335900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as DOANEW,548 Market St.,#13562, San Francisco, CA 94104.

This business is conducted by an individual, signed Mark Leppa. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/02/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/09/11.

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTICIOUS BUSINESS NAME: #A-033239200 The following persons have abandoned the use of the ficticious business name known as OZIMO,3150 18th St.,STE. 429,San Francisco, CA 94110. This business was conducted by a general partnership, signed Richard Freitas. The ficticious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/03/11.

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033353900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as OZIMO,3150 18th St.,STE. 429 Box 313, San Francisco, CA 94110.

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FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011 The following person(s) is/are doing business as CLOUDCRANK.COM,4409 20th St., San Francisco, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual,signed Eric Wilcox. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/18/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/18/11.

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FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033305100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as SOCMED MOJO, 2025 Pine St., #9, San Francisco, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual,signed Melissa O’Neil. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/01/10. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/28/11.

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033359700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as 860 KANSAS STREET HOA, 860 Kansas St.,San Francisco, CA 94107.

This business is conducted by an unincorporated association other than a partnership,signed Kimberly Baggett. 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 02/18/11.

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COMMUNITY

Video project ▼

page 2

by 94-year-old Edgar Pye, whose 60year life partner Robert Harris died in 2006, the project is aimed at educating LGBT youth that they are part of a larger community whose members have struggled with many of the same issues they are now experiencing.

The concept was hatched by San Francisco public relations professional Phil Siegel, 52, during the National Equality March on Washington in 2009, for which Siegel served as cocommunications chair. At the time the movie Milk, a biopic about the late gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, represented the first time many LGBT youth saw a part of queer history dramatized on the big screen.

“I met so many enthusiastic, excited young people who only knew about Harvey Milk. They don’t know a lot about our history, as well they shouldn’t. They aren’t taught about it in schools,” said Siegel. “There is no available information for these kids.”

Initially, Siegel envisioned creating a 10-part video series on LGBT

history. He enlisted the help of Pye, who lives in Oakland and contributed $20,000 to underwrite the first video.

But when he pitched his idea to a group of out youth, Siegel said it flopped.

“The project idea was to have a historian do the talking head kind of thing. We would do it in 10 parts, with the first one starting with the 1890s and then different decades from there,” said Siegel. “I did a focus group with a bunch of kids and they said that is like school for them. We did more focus groups and we realized we needed to have kids talk directly to the elders. It couldn’t be any historian; it had to be people who lived it.”

Jason Galisatus, 17, who is gay and lives in Redwood City, was picked to interview lesbian pioneer Phyllis Lyon. President of the Aragon High School Gay Straight Alliance, Galisatus said he felt some trepidation at first with having to

was. It was the most amazing thing hearing how her story is so similar to everyone else’s. But she was in a position to make change and she took that opportunity.”

In the interview, Lyon talks about how she knew nothing about the lesbian community until she met Martin. At a time when being gay was not openly discussed and – Jason Galisatus there was no Internet to help connect people, how LGBT people met one question a person he considers to be another was something Galisatus “an absolute legend.” said he was interested in learning “She was intimidating because she about. is one of the mothers of the gay move“My biggest question was how do ment. It was a little unsettling but at you know you are gay when you the same time inspirational,” said Galdon’t know what gay is. She learned isatus, who said he knew about Lyon all about the lesbian community from news coverage of her marrying through Del,” he said. “That was a her late partner, Del Martin, back in very romantic love story. At the same 2004 and again in 2008. time, it is a poignant example of the “I saw them all over the news, so isolation people experienced at that when Phil told me I would be intertime in the 1950s.” viewing her I was a little star struck,” The project also interested Linhe said. “What surprised me was nea Weld, 16, an Oakland resident how down to earth and normal she who is straight and volunteered on the unsuccessful campaign in 2008 to block passage of Proposition 8, the ban against same-sex marriage voters passed that November.

“As a human being I see it as my job or everyone’s job to seek equality. Prop 8 just struck me as wrong,” said Weld.

For teens, gay and straight alike, who lived through the Prop 8 fight, it is important for them to know that the LGBT community’s struggle for acceptance is decades old, said Weld.

“My friends who are thinking about gays and the LGBT community are not really thinking about the McCarthy era. The current LGBT issues like Prop 8 is what comes to mind. It is important to remember this history of issues with LGBT rights,” said Weld, who interviewed Hadley Hall, an ROTC member who was outed and summarily discharged.

To date, close to 7,000 people have watched the video online, which can be found at www.youtube.com/ watch?v=FGOnoPnmeH4. And reaction has been overwhelmingly positive.

The older LGBT audience really has been inspired by it. The reason for that is it is coming from the point of view of youth.

Pride debt ▼

page 2

enue from sponsors, some community partners are waiting for their money from Pride.

As the result of what Pride officials have called a “miscommunication,” several of Pride’s 2010 beverage partners received payments that were thousands of dollars less than they had expected. Pride has pledged to make up those payments, but Calma said this week that the amount owed to community partners remains at about $47,000.

As far as board fundraising, which was identified in the city controller’s report as something Pride should initiate, Calma said each board member is responsible for contributing $500 per fiscal year. She also said the development committee has identified a few fundraisers the board will host in the coming months.

The organization’s also been grappling with leadership and staff issues.

There is still no executive director following the resignation of Amy Andre last fall.

Calma said there have been a “substantial” number of applicants for interim executive director. The deadline for applying has been extended to February 25. She indicated the target start date for the person is April 1.

Contractors returning to Pride Jones, who was once Pride’s executive director before preceding Eddie Valtierra as sponsorship director, is coming back on a short-term contract to work as the sponsorship relations point person, Pride announced last week. Jones declined to comment, re-

NEWS

▼

In the comments, one person wrote, “God bless the children for remembering and emphasising that THERE WERE people like us yeeeears before and they still lived to talk about it !!!!!”

Another wrote, “This was very touching. As an older gay man i mostly feel invisible in the gay community. It was nice that you listened and said kind things ... rather than just snubbing these people.”

The response has been a surprise for the teen journalists.

“I had no idea this amount of people would be seeing it. The older LGBT audience really has been inspired by it,” said Galisatus. “The reason for that is it is coming from the point of view of youth. I think the older generation of gays have this perception the youth don’t know or don’t care about our community’s history. For me doing this project is a way to prove everybody wrong.”

If he can come up with more funding, Siegel said he would like to do more videos focused on the coming out experience during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

“We would like to show how the coming out experience has changed since 1950 but in many ways the issues are the same. That is going to be fascinating for the kids,” said Siegel.

“Also we would like to talk about coming out in the age of AIDS. Teens today were born long after AIDS became part of the national dialogue.

They don’t realize the fears.”

For now he is entering the video into LGBT film festivals and hopes to have its big screen debut at this year’s Frameline if it is selected. He has also sent it to festivals in Los Angeles, Boston, and New York.

And he is hoping the project goes viral like the “It Gets Better” videos aimed at preventing LGBT teen suicides. As with that project, where individuals from celebrities to political figures have taken it upon themselves to tape their own messages, Siegel would like to see teens across the country interview out elders in their community and upload the videos to YouTube.

“I know we are all hoping there will be more videos,” said Weld.

For additional information, or to obtain DVD copies of the video for groups of gay youth, visit www.pyeharrisproject.org.▼

ferring questions to Calma.

Valtierra, who was furloughed just a few months after joining Pride, resigned in January. He previously declined interview requests.

Pride also announced that longtime main stage producer Audrey Joseph and beverage manager Andy Copperhall are returning for this year.

Joseph, who had resigned as the festival’s main stage producer after the 2009 event, then returned last year, had previously said in an e-mail to B.A.R. she did “not really” want to return for 2011. However, she had said at the time, “[T]his is my Pride and I want to see it healthy and vibrant.”

In an e-mail last week, Joseph said she had signed a contract and returned it to Pride officials and was awaiting their signatures.

Copperhall, who had angrily resigned from the organization last year, said in an e-mail last week, “I have signed a contract and returned it to SF Pride with conditions. I do not have a fully signed executed copy back yet.”

He didn’t say what the conditions are.

Aside from returning contractors, Calma said Pride officials are confirming the availability of potential grand marshal nominees selected by the board and membership. She indicated they’re planning to make more details available within the first two weeks of March.

The Trevor Project, a national organization that runs a hotline for LGBT and questioning youth, has previously been confirmed as a 2011 organizational grand marshal and as part of the lead parade contingent.

The theme for this year’s Pride events, June 25-26, is “In Pride We Trust.” For more information, visit www.sfpride.org.▼

Living longer than anticipated

Oscar musings

Charming Hades

‘Aging with HIV: A Gay Man’s Guide’ by Dr. James Masten, on living long with the virus.

Picks of this year’s pack, plus the history of Oscar musicals.

Ensemble Parallele offers Philip Glass’ Cocteau opera ‘Orphee.’

page 28

pages 19, 20

page 23

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

BAYAREAREPORTER

Vol. 41 . No. 8 . 24 February 2011

▼

Dispatches from the frontlines ‘We Were Here’ revisits the AIDS years in San Francisco • by David Lamble

n We Were Here (Feb. 25-March 3 at the Castro Theatre), producer/director David Weissman and editor/co-director Bill Weber recreate the era when the San Francisco LGBT community, fresh off the triumph of defeating the antigay-schoolteacher Briggs ballot measure, was hit by an unimaginable tsunami of deadly setbacks: the Jonestown massacre, the City Hall assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, and the inexplicable news of a mysterious “gay cancer” that was acquiring a body count, and worse yet, creating a palpable sense of fear that the community’s human enemies had never inspired.

The documentary offers a direct-address style of intimate storytelling. Five people, who by film’s end feel like personal friends, describe how the AIDS epidemic challenged everything they knew about themselves and their adopted hometown. Illustrated by heartbreaking video/photo albums of men who perished in the earliest days of the plague, sometimes after undergoing excruciating drug trials, the film’s slow drip of shocking, sad anecdotes provides the human dimension to the fabled “San Francisco model” for AIDS treatment, which held a community together until life-saving drug cocktails arrived.

Weissman and I smile to each other at the irony of our chat’s setting: his publicist’s offices are a few doors down in the same building as the old Ritch Street Baths, one of a number of bathhouses closed by the SF Dept. of Health in 1984, at the peak of the epidemic, in a desperate attempt to break the sexual transmission of the disease.

I

David Lamble: How did you choose your five storytellers?

page 28

Filmmaker David Weissman

▼

David Weissman: Everyone is going to come to a film like this with a degree

photo: Peter Berlin

We like to watch

T

Huckleberry Youth Programs, Maitri, Project Inform, Positive Resource Center, Shanti, Tenderloin Health and the Women’s HIV Program at UCSF. Sixty restaurants, wineries and food and beverage vendors will provide the complimentary savories and libations to keep the Oscar- and people-watching crowd well-fed and socially lubricated.

If you’re a hard-core Oscar fan, my best advice is to set your DVR before heading off to the party. There’s simply too much to do and see at the Academy of Friends Gala – and you don’t want to miss that acceptance speech blunder or fashion faux pas that everyone will be talking and tweeting about on Monday.

In his fourth year as Gala Chair, David Miranda is especially excited about the fresh new look and venue for this year’s event.

“The SF Galleria Design Center is perfect for our Voyeur theme,”

• • • SECOND

▼

he Academy of Friends Gala has always been about watching: watching the glamorous stars on the Oscar telecast; watching to see who else is bidding on that silent auction item you’ve got your eye on; watching the hundreds of black-tie guests to see who’s with whom, and wondering if they’re just friends or, well, you know.

The theme for this Sunday night’s gala is Voyeur, which perfectly captures the mood of this elegant, festive and flirty affair.

After many years at the Fort Mason Center, the Gala has moved to the SF Galleria Design Center, which will offer guests an even better opportunity to take in the myriad visual delights of the annual event.

Having raised more than $8 million for local HIV/AIDS organizations in its 31-year history, this year the Academy of Friends Gala will benefit the AIDS Legal Referral Panel, Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center, Face to Face Sonoma County,

page 28

OF

TWO

“Wet Torso in Gold,” handcolored by photographer Cornelius Washington.

SECTIONS• • •

Cornelius Washington

Academy of Friends goes ‘Voyeur’ for annual Oscar night Gala • by Adam Sandel

18

BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 24 February 2011

OUT

THERE

▼

O

Golden girls (& boys) Like every other culture vulture in town, OT will be tuning into the ritual inanity of the Oscars this Sun-

day night. And, like everyone else, we already know who’s going to get all of the major awards. So while we play along with the home game, we like to fantasize about giving out a few sparkly trophies of our own, to great film performances that were inexcusably overlooked. For example, as deserving of recognition as Annette Bening is for her turn as a lesbian control-top in Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right, we can’t imagine the film without Julianne Moore’s brilliant turn as a sort of 2010s lesbian Diane Keaton, or without Mark Ruffalo as the seminal inseminator – or, for that matter, without Mia Waskikowska and Josh Hutcherson as the all-right kids. So to the entire cast: Here’s your gold nude guys, peeps!

Next we would award a lot of the golden hardware to the principals of director Mike Leigh’s latest film, Another Year, still showing in its first run in Stateside theaters. It’s no surprise that the British naturalist and his cast were overlooked for the shiny prizes: their portrayal of domestic life feels real and true to human nature, in other words as far from Hollywood values as possible. Slow and stately, the film unspools a year in the life of middle-aged married couple Gerri (Ruth Sheen) and Tom (Jim Broadbent), their family and friends.

Tom and Gerri are happy with their lot in life, but others here are not.

The acting is uniformly excellent, but one performance really stands out.

Lesley Manville, as Gerri’s work colleague Mary, finds all sides, from sympathetic to horrific, in her portrait of loneliness unconvincingly concealed by cheer. Our imaginary Oscar goes to her.

Cabaret artiste Justin Vivian Bond is returning to the Castro Theatre.

Sony Classics Pictures

ut There was brimming with pride recently when we opened up the pages of our weekly New Yorker to see a two-page spread (avec cartoon) by critic Hilton Als exposing the glory that is Justin Bond. Als crowned JB “the greatest cabaret artist of his generation, an artful truthtelling illusionist,” but we remember our Mx. Bond just hanging out at the Cafe Flore and pushing books at A Different Light in the heady days O UT of Queer Nation. Now she’s the queen of the NYC underground. Hot! So we are absolutely delighted to report that producer Marc Huestis has snagged oh-so-famous Bond, now billed as Justin Vivian Bond (or more simply V), for a full-fledged concert event, Sat., April 9, at the Castro Theatre. The gay-la event celebrates the release of V’s first solo full-length CD, Dendrophile. The

title, btw, refers to a person who derives an erotic charge from nature, and according to the press release, many of the original compositions were written while “straddling a moss-covered log” in Tennessee. OT hopes it was real big, hard and sticky wet!

We’re told that V will croon cuts from the groovy new disc, and spin a magical web of spellbinding stories.

Those who were lucky enough to attend Bond’s conT HERE Carpenters cert last year at the old ’Stro will tell you a Bond concert is not to be missed. Call (415) 863-0611, ask for Hostess Hue, and get a dendro-phallic discount. We’re heard that before.

Jim Broadbent, Lesley Manville and Oliver Maltman in Another Year.

Unsolicited limelight Theatre improv enthusiast Pepi lured OT along to the StageWerx underground theatre in SF last weekend to experience Your Feelings Are the Most Special Feelings, a new entertainment from improv comedy maestros Gerri Lawlor, Christopher Gray and David Norfleet. OT was wary.

“But you know how OT feels about compulsory audience participation.”

“We’ll sit in the back, it’ll be fine!” assured the imp P. “Well OK, but remember: OT’s not a performing seal!”

Sure enough, promptly at “Any volunteers from the audience?” our theatergoing pal Jonathan Goldman raised our paw high in the air for us, with Pepi cheering us on. Then sure enough, we were put in the spotlight onstage, prevailed upon to bounce up and down on an inflatable ball while acting “silly.” They might as well have given us a squeeze-ball horn and beachball for balancing on our snout while clapping flippers.

But the show was hilarious, Lawlor and Gray spontaneously combusting with invention while Norfleet made musical choices. It

▼

by Roberto Friedman

Amos Mac

Justin Bonding

page 19

▼

24 February 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

FILM

Endangered species Oscars & film musicals: a brief history

by Tavo Amador

and A Place in the Sun to win the little man. In 1958, Gigi took the top prize.

The 1960s were the most honored decade for musicals, with West Side Story (61), My Fair Lady (64) and The Sound of Music (65) joining Oliver! as Best Picture. Many other musicals of the 1950s and 60s had critical and box success, including Singin’ in the Rain (52), A Star Is Born, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (54), The King and I, High Society (56), Funny Face (57), Mary Poppins (64) and Funny Girl (68). The Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night (64) and Help! (65) put their own spin on the form. Presley continued to have hits, but the decade ended with a series of critical and commercial disappointments: Camelot, Star!, Dr. Doolittle and Darling Lily.

hen Rob Marshall’s Chicago (2002) won the Best Picture Academy Award, fans of Hollywood musicals celebrated the end of an unprecedented 34-year drought since Oliver! (1968) had taken the top prize. Many hoped it heralded a return to a genre that had been a box office mainstay for over four decades. Alas, those hopes seem to have been misplaced. Dreamgirls (2006) was a hit, but didn’t get a Best Picture nomination. Marshall’s Nine (2009) wasn’t a success, although it earned a few nods. The terrific Burlesque (2010) got mixed reviews, drew few patrons, and earned no nominations. It wasn’t always like this.

The definition of a musical is imprecise, but one generally features popular songs from Broadway or written directly for the screen, country/western tunes, operettas, and often, dancing. It can be lighthearted or serious. As a rule, films like Amadeus (1984) don’t fit the bill.

The first musical to win the top award was MGM’s The Broadway Melody (1929). It resembled a filmed stage show, but studios soon began creating singing and dancing extravaganzas suited for the screen. Each had a different style. Warners preferred backstage stories choreographed by Busby Berkeley. RKO opted for the Art Deco elegance of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Paramount favored risqué vehicles for Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier. Twentieth Century Fox had great success with stories starring Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, and Betty Grable. MGM produced wholesome Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney features, operettas for McDonald when she joined the studio, and lavish epics like 1936’s The Great Ziegfeld, which won Best Picture, and The Wizard of Oz (39).

In the 1940s and 50s, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Doris Day and Bing Crosby were box-office favorites. Elvis Presley’s musicals drew rock n rollloving teenagers, but weren’t much admired by conservative Academy voters.

Going My Way (1944) featured seven songs, most sung by Crosby, and captured the Best Picture Oscar.

Seven years later, An American in Paris upset A Streetcar Named Desire

The genre regained its luster in 1972 with the dazzling Cabaret, which was nudged out by The Godfather as the year’s top picture. That same decade saw nominations for Nashville (75) and All That Jazz (79). John Travolta had two smashes, earning a Best Actor nod for Saturday Night Fever (77), which included sensational disco dancing, and wooing Olivia Newton John in Grease (78).

Nonetheless, the decline was setting in. Coal Miner’s Daughter (81) lost to Ordinary People, and Tender Mercies was an also-ran to Terms of Endearment (83). No musical received a nomination until the animated Beauty and the Beast (91) made the final five, but didn’t take home Oscar.

A decade went by until 2001, when Moulin Rouge! lost to A Beautiful Mind, unless the definition is stretched to include The Full Monty (98), which was a losing nominee.

The first performer to win an Oscar for a musical was Luise Ranier, who played Anna Held in The Great Ziegfeld. Others honored include James Cagney as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (42), Crosby for Going My Way, Yul Brynner for The King and I, Rita Moreno and George Chakiris in West Side Story, Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins, Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey for Cabaret, Sissy Spacek as a Coal Miner’s Daughter, Robert Duvall for showing Tender Mercies, Catherine Zeta-Jones for Chicago, and Jennifer Hudson as one of the Dreamgirls. Marion Cotillard deservedly captured the Best Actress

Out There

My favorite historical figure, Catherine de Medici.

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happens again Feb. 25-26, info at www.stagewerx.org.

His story Recently at BookShop West Portal, historical fiction writer C.W. Gortner gave a brilliant lecture about the Tudor era at the release party of his new book The Tudor Secret (St. Martin’s Press). Photojournalist Cornelius Washington was there to get the facts behind the fiction.

Cornelius Washington: Congratulations on an excellent book, from the front-cover image on through.

C.W. Gortner: Thanks, that’s very sweet. The cover illustration is by Larry Rostant, one of the best and most expensive in the business.

Within the book, I wanted to show the grittiness of the time, too: no hot and cold running water, no toilets, no dental plan or dry cleaning, and everyone’s in heavy velvet!

The story’s intrigues and suspense are great. You don’t know who to trust, and nobody’s head is safe!

Hollywood is eventually going to come calling, because they love big, lavish costume, period dramas. If they were to pay you to write a screenplay, who would it be about?

So 70s

Who would play her?

The only person who could do her justice would be Minnie Driver.

Who would direct?

Joel Schumacher, and I’d let him do whatever. I wouldn’t care!▼

prize as Edith Piaf in the riveting La Vie en Rose (2007). Jeff Brides’ singing was a key component of his win for Crazy Heart (09).

Despite these recent individual triumphs, it’s unlikely that traditional musicals will regain the popularity and prestige they once enjoyed. MTV changed the way audiences view singing and dancing. Alan Parker’s Evita (1996) is an example of that change. His style prevented viewers from engaging emotionally with Madonna in the title role. Burlesque’s failure, despite expert performances

by Cher and Christina Aguilera, splendid music, and dynamic dancing, isn’t an encouraging sign. Still, another Chicago may come along to resurrect the form.▼

Richard Gere in Rob Marshall’s film of the muical Chicago (2002).

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FILM

‘True Grit’ & other Oscar picks

by David Lamble est Supporting Actress: In 1969, an overweight John Wayne, running out of gas, notched the Oscar he had been denied for his truly great work (Stagecoach, Red River, The Searchers) doing a comic, almost campy turn as a drunken, one-eyed US marshal who uses any foul trick to get his man. Four decades later, Joel and Ethan Coen extract the camp and turn their remake of Charles Portis’ True Grit into an ironic, frequently hilarious rebooting of how the West was really won. Their trick: the simple device of telling their brutish tale through the eyes of prim, Bible-spouting, 14-year-old Arkansas farmgirl Mattie Ross (an audacious, Oscar-worthy performance from Hailee Steinfeld, just turned 14). Making a teenage girl the real man of the story without overtly sexualizing her, and leaving ambiguous where exactly she belongs on the tomboy vs. aspiring spinster scale is a card that perhaps only the Coen Brothers could play.

In her American Gothic outfit – long coat, Western hat and her dead daddy’s revolver – Steinfeld is able to dress down her adult companions with a withering brand of old-fashioned English while we experience the pure terror of frontier justice, circa 1873. Mattie, the inebriated Rooster Cogburn (raspy-voiced, swaggeringly funny Jeff Bridges) and a prissy Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf (versatile Matt Damon) pick their way through the Indian territories, oddly free of Indians. It’s a landscape strewn with dead bodies and freshly amputated body parts. Despite her growing horror at the price of justice for her bushwhacked father, Mattie is perhaps even more stalwart than the men in seeing her mission through to the bitter end.

Steinfeld is a likely Best Supporting Actress winner and a talent to watch, especially if the Coens persist in their gender-expanding view of the old frontier. Is there a lesbian marshal in their future?

Best Picture: The Oscar belongs to The King’s Speech, but my heart belongs to the privacy-bashing Harvard geeks of The Social Network.

Best Actor: Colin Firth has earned this one, with a showy turn as a battered royal son who finds his voice with the help of his first adult friend.

Runner-up Jesse Eisenberg will con-

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Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn in the Coen Brothers’ True Grit.

tinue to amaze with Woody Allenworthy comic chops and heart-stealing panache.

Best Actress: Without the sharp elbows of Hilary Swank to contend with, Annette Bening gets the statue for a ballsy take on a very adult, red wine-imbibing lesbian who skirts the dark side and keeps her new-school family unit intact in The Kids Are All Right.

Best Supporting Actor: Stealing the buzz from The Fighter’s titular lead, Christian Bale is finally not too weird for prime time as Mickey Ward’s crack-addicted trainer bro.

Original Screenplay: Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg’s saucy reconfiguring of the sperm donor wars as a screwball comedy in Kids/All Right is a lock for this traditional consolation prize.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Likewise, Aaron Sorkin earns gold for Social Network’s biting take on the inevitable rise of a nerdy billionaire misanthrope.

Foreign Language Film: Mexico’s Biutiful is hands-down the best artistic effort.

Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3.

Documentary Feature: Should be a shootout between the financial meltdown exposé Inside Job and the insider’s take on America’s endless war in Afghanistan, the man-admiring Restrepo.

Film Editing: An early-evening predictor for Best Picture, this one is probably a lock for King’s Speech.

Now in theatres How I Ended this Summer In Alexei Popogrebsky’s psychological

thriller, a pair of Russian scientists reverts to a primordial state of homicidal aggression on a lonely weather station in a beautiful, desolate slice of the Russian Arctic.

The film opens on the spectacular beauty of young Pasha’s face. With piercing blue eyes, symmetrical features covered with a light beard, Pasha is a bored college grad who’s goofing off his first summer out of school and getting on the nerves of veteran meteorologist Sergei, who appreciates his solitude and hates the boy’s videogame/iPod-distracted work.

Things spin madly out of control when Pasha flubs the readings and fails to give Sergei a crucial message about an accident involving his family. Soon the two are hunting each other down across a frozen landscape.

The cat-and-mouse game plays out across a perilous slab of rocks. Their isolation is heightened by a Midnight Sun lighting scheme that provides spine-tingling visual tricks: at one hair-raising moment, Pasha appears to vanish into a swirling velvet fog like an apparition. Popogrebsky ups the ante by strategically withholding crucial information at the hair-raising entrance of a freelance polar bear.

Sergei Puskepalis has a master’s timing, giving his character’s grumpy façade a delicious hint of menace; Grigory Dobrygin steals all his closeups, with an array of moods from pouty to stark terror. For queer viewers, a sauna scene where the older man playfully whips the younger across the butt is heaven. How I Ended this Summer plays on the San Francisco Film Society’s screen at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas. ▼

Divas & divos on DVD

by Gregg Shapiro ylie: Rare and Unseen (MVD Visual), the Kylie Minogue installment from the Rare and Unseen Collection, features nonstop interviews with the “21st-century Aphrodite,” as well as rare footage such as British TV interviews from the 1980s, 90s and 00s, her first-ever TV appearance, and much more. In the unseen category, the DVD contains an Australian interview with Kylie at 21, the newly restored Ghost Train children’s show, and press interviews, among other thrilling bits.

Michael Feinstein’s American Songbook (PBS), the three-part series that originally aired on PBS, is now available in a double-DVD set.

Out performer, musical historian and archivist Feinstein guides viewers through a celebration and exploration of 20th-century popular music. The three hour-long episodes on the first disc span the 1920s through the 60s, while the second disc of bonus material includes Feinstein performance footage and archival material with Judy Garland, Duke Ellington, and others. What is especially noteworthy about the series is the way it balances historical information and footage with the more personal aspect of Feinstein’s

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own story (including his relationship with husband Terrence Flannery) and concert performances.

Michael Jackson’s Vision (Epic/Legacy) Over the course of 40 music videos, including a handful of short films, spread out across three DVDs, Michael Jackson’s legion of fans can watch his development and domination as the unparalleled King of Pop videos (as well as the change in his appearance). From simple, early productions such as “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” and “She’s Out of My Life” to storyboarded groundbreakers including “Billie Jean” and “Beat It” to mini-epics such as “Thriller” (directed by John Landis) and “Bad” (directed by Martin Scorcese and featuring Wesley Snipes) to special-effects breakthroughs “Black and White,” “Scream” and “Ghosts,” choreography spectaculars “Smooth Criminal,” “The Way You Make Me Feel” and “Remember the Time,” and the Ryan White tribute “Gone Too

Soon,” Jackson’s vision comes through. A third bonus-disc features three Jacksons videos, the Paul McCartney duet “Say Say Say,” the previously unreleased “One More Chance,” and more.

The Judy Garland Show (Classic World/Infinity) Volume 4 of The Judy Garland Show, Garland’s shortlived, acclaimed, early-1960s variety

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THEATRE

Spring (& fall & winter) awakenings Looking ahead to Bay Area theatrical offerings 2011-12 Teen sexual angst is on display in Spring Awakening, which will get a fresh interpretation when San Jose Rep’s season opens in September.

Joan Marcus

Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern abandoned their musical Three Sisters after a failed 1934 London premiere. 42nd Street Moon will finally offer its American debut in its new season.

by Richard Dodds he season of seasons is at hand.

The first local production of Spring Awakening, the American premiere of a 1934 Jerome KernOscar Hammerstein musical, the revival of an SF-born lesbian classic, and a new musical set during a Big Apple blackout represent a sampling from each of the four Bay Area theater companies that have recently announced their 2011-12 seasons.

San Jose Rep, which had been tottering artistically and financially, seems to have righted itself in the current season, and will be rocking into its 30th in September. Artistic Director Rick Lombardo promises an “entirely new staging” for Spring Awakening, the 2007 Tony winner that added modern musical stylings to the story of 19th-century teenage sexual angst.

The seven-play season also includes the Bay Area premiere of Yasmina Reza’s harsh family drama God of Carnage, a world-premiere adaptation of James Cain’s novel Double Indemnity, and the area premiere of the AA bio-drama Bill W. and Dr. Bob, as well as Joe DiPietro’s senior-citizen love story The Last Romance, Lombardo’s new version of A Christmas Carol,

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Herman in January. More info at and local playwright favorite Therese Rebeck’s The Understudy. More info at www.42ndstmoon.org. www.sjrep.com.

TheatreWorks gets an early start on With a $25,000 helping hand from the 2011-12 season with the July openthe National Endowment for the Arts, ing of the world premiere of Fly by 42nd Street Moon will present its Night, a new musical by Will Connolrestoration of the Kern-Hammerstein ly, Michael Mitnick, and Kim Rosenmusical Three Sisters as part of its stock about a hapless sandwich maker 2011-12 season. With no who finds himself during relationship to the similarNew York’s blackout of ly titled Chekhov play, the 1965. It was developed musical about a photograduring TheatreWorks’ pher and his daughters’ 2010 New Works Festival, worldwide adventures was and its full staging will abandoned after the failure launch the 2011 New of its 1934 London debut.

Works festival of workMoon Artistic Director shop productions.

Greg MacKellan and MuAnother Theatresical Director Dave DoWorks world premiere brusky have reassembled in post-Katrina B ACKSTAGE isNewsetOrleans, a script and score from as an onvarious sources for the stage jazz band adds December production. mood to the family drama of Dan The Moon season at the Eureka Dietz’s Clementine in the Lower 9 for Theatre also includes Cole Porter’s the October run. Still another world Nymph Errant (1933), George and Ira premiere will conclude the season in Gershwin’s Oh, Kay! (1926), Jule Styne June 2012, as the pop-rock trio and Bob Merrill’s Sugar (1972) and GrooveLily (Striking 12) returns to Kander and Ebb’s Zorba (1968). The TheatreWorks with Wheelhouse, troupe devoted to seldom-seen musiwhich tells the funny-awful adventures cals also continues its salon series at of a band on the road. the Alcazar Theatre, with a tribute to More upcoming TheatreWorks Cole Porter in September and Jerry productions, split between the Lucie

Chronicles of Perry Moore

Hero won the Lambda Literary Award for best LGBT Children’s/Young Adult novel of the previous year.

At the time of his death, Moore was close to securing a deal to bring Hero to television. He also had financing to produce a fourth Narnia film. The first three films in the series have grossed $1.5 billion worldwide. He’d hoped to eventually bring all seven Narnia books to the big screen.

Moore had recently entered the world of low-budget independent cinema. He and partner Hunter Hill cowrote and co-directed the well-received drama Lake City, with Sissy Spacek, Troy Gerrity and Keith Carradine. The film touched a theme that appeared in Hero, the healing of a parent/child relationship.

Moore had suffered from knee and back problems which required corrective surgery and pain medication. On the morning of Feb. 17, Hill found Moore’s lifeless body in their Greenwich Village home in New York City. Police reports indicate no evidence of foul play. Moore evidently died from an accidental overdose of his medication.

His father, Bill Moore, told MTV that he and his son had spoken the night before he died. Perry was excited about the fourth Narnia film. He had begun work on a sequel to Hero, while he and Hill were in talks with Julianne Moore about a film project separate from Narnia. RIP Perry Moore, 1971-2011.▼

comic Louis Nye. The two episodes on Volume 5 include performances by the legendary Steve Allen, the “Velvet Fog” himself Mel Tormé, Jayne Meadows and the dynamic Diahann Carroll.

Masters of American Music: Sarah Vaughan – The Divine One (EuroArts) Part of the award-win-

ning Masters of American Music Series, Sarah Vaughan – The Divine One features Billy Eckstine and Marty Paich as well as Vaughan’s daughter Paris and her mother Ada, and includes her performances of “Someone To Watch Over Me,” “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” “Misty,” “Send in the Clowns,” and more.▼

by David Elijah Nahmod t first glance, the announcement of Hollywood A-lister Perry Moore’s death at 39 might elicit an “oh, that’s too bad.”

Look closer. The openly gay Moore, who produced the three films in the Chronicles of Narnia franchise, was also an advocate for gay youth, touching many with his talent for prose.

“I loved the book Hero,” wrote reader Shane Newman at Amazon.com. “It was a gift from my father.

I had come out as a lesbian the previous year.”

Published in 2007, Moore’s novel Hero told the tale of Thom Creed, a high school basketball star who was dealing with his emerging superpowers and his homosexuality. When he appeared at San Diego’s Comic Con, Moore talked about his experiences growing up in the South, which pushed him into creating gay characters. “I don’t want kids to believe they will burn in hell,” he said. In 2008,

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Divas on DVD ▼

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series, features two complete episodes, with guest stars grand dame Ethel Merman, comedian Shelley Berman, crooner Vic Damone, triple-threat Chita Rivera and

Hero author Perry Moore.

Stern Theatre in Palo Alto and the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, include a new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, the Broadway musical based on The Secret Garden, the recent Broadway play about unlikely art celebrities in Lee Hall’s The Pitmen Painters, Carly Mensch’s contemporary comedy about historical re-enactors Now Circa Then, and a stage adaptation by John Steinbeck of his own novella Of Mice and Men. More info at www.theatreworks.org.

The Magic Theatre, with an improving financial situation, is returning to a five-play schedule for the 2011-12 season. Three of those titles have been announced, including Claire Chafee’s Why We Have a Body.

First seen at the Magic in 1993, it has gone on to become a classic comedy of modern lesbian life. The other two titles thus far announced for the upcoming season are both world premieres: In Bruja, Luis Alfaro (Oedipus el Rey) finds redemption for a scorned sorceress, and in Jesus in India, Lloyd Suh (American Hwangap) offers a contemporary parable imagining Jesus’ lost teen years. More info at www.magictheatre.org.

Virgin territory While the Magic Theatre is plan-

Playwright Claire Chafee’s Why We Have a Body will return to the Magic Theatre for the first time since its 1993 debut there.

ning on a full production of Lloyd Suh’s Jesus in India for its new season, you can hear the playwright himself read his script and join in a post-reading discussion. Suh will read Jesus in India on March 7 at SF’s Jewish Community Center. It’s the first of four Monday night readings by playwrights of new works in the Virgin Play Reading Series co-sponsored by the JCC’s Friend Center for the Arts and the Magic Theatre.

Other offerings in the series are Jackie Sibblies Drury’s We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South-West Africa, from the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 18841915 (March 14), which examines colonial and post-colonial racism; Linda McLean’s Any Given Day (March 21), a bifurcated family drama about an aunt and uncle waiting for their niece’s visit, and the counterpoint story of her alternate plans; and A. Rey Pamatmat’s Edith Can Shoot Straight and Hit Things (March 28), about an abandoned teen and her young sibling trying to cope on their own on a remote farm.

All readings take place at 7 p.m. in Gallanter Hall. Call 292-1233 or go to www.jccsf.org/arts. ▼ Richard Dodds can be reached at BARstage@comcast.net.

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MUSIC

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Rise & fall of a dictator

by Tim Pfaff arely performed operas have an eerie way of resurfacing at times when they once again have something to say. The Deutsche Oper Berlin production of Wagner’s Rienzi, recently re-released in a two-DVD set preserving a live performance almost exactly one year ago (Arthaus Musik/Unitel Classica), chillingly mirrors today’s news, in which a succession of longstanding Middle East dictatorships – Egypt most conspicuously, others in the region, too – are falling, their leaders being called out.

Coming when it did in Germany’s ongoing, long-term rapprochement with its sinister past, the Berlin production of Rienzi re-set its story – of a populist “hero” who sought to unite the people of 14th-century Italy, be-

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came their leader, and was overthrown and killed for having gone too far (but done too little) – in an indefinite mid-20th-century, which no one could fail to see as Hitler’s Third Reich. Philipp Stoelzel’s high-impact, hugely watchable, masterfully musical production makes the best possible case for the opera.

Rienzi has had a tough time of it since WWII, but the opera the 26year-old Wagner composed in 1840, which had its premiere in Dresden two years later, held the boards regularly enough that it could consume the imagination of Adolph Hitler when he saw it in Linz in 1907. As Katharina John points out in her sage notes, “Both the plot and the musical form became a sort of hagiographic template for Hitler.” The “Heil, Rienzi” from Wagner’s libretto, for example, was the source for “Heil,

Hitler,” and the loss of Wagner’s original score is due to the fact that it was in Hitler’s personal possession.

Wagner, who for all his sins cannot be held accountable for Hitler’s tastes, himself turned his back on the work, in the five-act French grand opera style, in favor of the vastly more original The Flying Dutchman, which he composed at the same time. But as the ace musical performance by the Berliners under conductor Sebastian Lang-Lessing makes clear, Rienzi is far from bad music (we hear much worse in the opera house on an alarmingly regular basis) and warrants an outing when a production with as much to say as the Deutsche Oper’s comes along.

The production team’s single strongest stroke of advocacy could go unnoticed. It cut and spliced Wagner’s five one-hour acts into two parts (Rise and Fall, basically) with a total running time of two and a half hours. At that, you hear music that could as easily fallen on the cuttingroom floor, but I watched it, completely riveted, on a single night with only the one prescribed break (at the DVD change) – twice.

The visuals are transfixing. The highly flexible, visually fluid sets are in a startling array of styles – more than should be able to mesh, though they do brilliantly. Painted flats forcefully suggest a modern metropolis, its brutalist architecture rendered in cartoon strokes, primary colors, and dizzying, M.C. Escher-ish designs. But far more imposing are

the film segments, brilliantly doctored to look “historical,” that present the Rienzi story as it might have been imagined by Leni Riefenstahl. At the story’s critical junctures, they dominate the stage picture in a crushingly propagandistic way.

Visually, the production is a Gesamtkunstwerk, from the lighting to the astonishing array of costumes.

The very large and musically stupendous Deutsche Oper chorus is onstage throughout the performance, and each chorister is vividly costumed, first in a riotous range of styles and then, as they fall deeper into the thrall of their leader, militarist uniformity. The masks alone in this production could eat up a smaller company’s entire budget.

But as happens in only the greatest of opera productions, the direction is so detailed and penetrating that you don’t see a single person on the densely populated stage who doesn’t know precisely who she or he is. Even though you can never take in all the detail, the dramaturgical center holds thanks to the searing, enveloping consistency of Stoelzl’s vision.

Tenor Torsten Kerl and soprano Camilla Nylund give magisterial performances of the huge, demanding, and largely thankless roles of Rienzi and his sister Irene. (Gay Helden-

tenor Maz Lorenz made a WWII-era recording of the opera’s one famous aria, Rienzi’s “Allmaecht’ge Vater,” so great it’s become like Pavarotti’s “Nessun Dorma,” a curse on every tenor who’s sung it since.) As actors, they bravely and successfully insinuate an incestuous, Siegmund-Sieglinde-like love between their characters.

Wagner only adds to the many ambiguities in the Bulwer-Lytton novel on which he based his libretto.

A particularly fascinating innovation was writing the young aristocrat Adriano as a mezzo-soprano trouser role. That adds a frisson to the character’s passion for Irene that the Berlin production is clearly happy to underscore, and the brilliant American mezzo Kate Alrich, a SF Opera Carmen in 2006, makes it sizzle.▼

Dancing, queens!

by Gregg Shapiro bba, the only Swedish import more popular with the LGBT community than Ikea or Volvo, hasn’t released a studio album of new material for 30 years, but that hasn’t stopped the vaultraiders from constantly and shamelessly repackaging the existing material. The latest edition, Abba Gold: Greatest Hits-CD/DVD Special Edition (Polar/UMe), doesn’t come close to surpassing the truly definitive 2001 double-disc (37-track) Definitive Collection. But most of the essentials are here, including “Dancing Queen,” “Mamma Mia,” “Lay All Your Love on Me,”

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“The Winner Takes It All” and “Fernando.” Where it really succeeds is with the visuals on the DVD. While it excludes the Abba-The History doc from the 2003 version of the Gold: Greatest Hits DVD, it does include six more videos, featuring the cartoon version of “Money, Money, Money.”

Abba never had a parental advisory label on any of their CDs, but South African hip-hop/performance art duo Die Antwoord certainly earned one for their debut disc $O$ (Cherry Tree/Interscope/Zef). Sexually graphic and ultra-violent, these 10 songs, sung in English and South African street jargon, alternate between hip-shaking hip-hop posturing (“In Your Face,” the Bronski Beatreferred “Beat Boy,”) and electro-rave wiring (“Wat Kyk Jy?,” “Evil Boy” and the spooky hidden track that surfaces well after “Doos Dronk” ends.)

DJ/producer collective Swedish House Mafia wraps itself in the musical patchwork quilt that is Until One (Astralwerks). The disc, bookended by SHM originals “Miami2Ibiza” and “One (Your Name)” (featuring Pharrell), also features appearances or samples by an array of disco divas, including Candi Staton (The Source’s “You Got the Love”), Deborah Cox (Axwell and

company’s “Leave This World Behind”) and Robin S. (Steve Angello & Laidback Luke’s “Show Me Love”).

Said to be (and partially dismissed as) The Concretes’ dance album, WYWH (Friendly Fire) isn’t half-bad.

“Good Evening” briefly loses focus in a way that’s not recommended for a disco track before it comes swooping back to tickle your feet. “My Ways” also has a good beat (and sweet handclaps), and you can dance to it. The same can be said for the retro disco cuts “All Day” and “What We’ve Become.”

Madison’s four-track EP The Noise Some People Make (G) opens and closes with the rock vibe of “#1.”

But don’t be misled, Madison’s dance-diva self makes its grand appearance on “Lights Low,” “Superwoman” and the edgy “Hot Hot Love.” Makes you wonder what she’s capable of on a full-length album.

Recent personnel change aside (one of the twins parted ways with the band), School of Seven Bells’ decent sophomore album Disconnect from Desire (Vagrant) opens with “Windstorm,” which sounds like an intelligible Cocteau Twins tune. But the real fun lesson rings in with dance-oriented tracks “Heart Is Strange,” “Dust Devil” and “Camarilla.”

Deadmau5, the only mouse you want in your house (music), proudly parades his own brand of divas of choice – Sofia Toufa and Greta Svabo Bech – before our ears on his new artists disc 4X4=12 (Mau5trap/Ultra).

They can be heard luring listeners to the dance floor like the disco sirens that they are, on “Sofi Needs a Ladder,” the dub-stepped “One Trick Pony” and the dramatic “Raise Your Weapon,” while the moogy and bumpy “Right This Second” is in a league of its own.▼

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MUSIC

If looks could kill ‘Orphee’ comes to the Herbst Theatre

by Michael McDonagh rpheus spent a lot of time in the dark. So it’s fitting that Ensemble Parallele publicist Anne Suda and I arrive for a rehearsal of their production of Philip Glass’ first Cocteau opera Orphee at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Osher Salon, which, if not exactly in the underworld, is at least downstairs.

To our left sits a man, score in hand, singing his part alone, marking time with a nod of his head. A few minutes later Orphee’s conductor, pretty and pert Canadian Nicole Paiement, comes down the stairs, and she’s immediately charming and ready to talk.

Why Orphee? “After we did Wozzeck, I wanted to go somewhere completely different, I wanted something contemporary, something American.” Paiement admits that at first she didn’t find much in minimalism in general, and Glass in particular, but now she sings his praises vis-à-vis Orphee. “It’s very French in its lyricism, the vocal writing is syllabic – there are no melismas – it’s simple, transparent, clear, and there are lots of melodies.”

Orphee is about how music enchants us, or as Cocteau put it in his famed 1925 play to 1950 film of the legend, which starred his lover Jean Marais, “He [Orpheus] charmed even the wild beasts. He went down to Hades and charmed its forces.” But making something come alive on the stage requires more than charm. It’s hard in-the-trenches work, and Paiement’s forces are more than up to the challenge.

The atmosphere as they tackle the complexities of Act II, Scene 6, is collegial but focused. Paiement stands, her pianist Paul Harris to her left at a Yamaha grand, director Brian Staufenbiel at a table to her right. Her singing actors – baritone Austin Kness, who’s covering for out-of-town Orphee Eugene Brancoveanu (Kness will be doubling a policeman and Le Commissaire) – marked score in hand, soprano Susannah Biller, as Orphee’s wife Eurydice, scoreless, in a chair in the middle. “Can we agree to stop and go as needed?” asks the man who’d been singing as we came in, tenor and newmusic star John Duykers, who’s essaying the pivotal role of The Princess’ chauffeur Heurtebise. He’s keen on motivation and blocking, which Staufenbiel demonstrates physically, Kness attentive but serious, Biller almost off-handedly relaxed.

Upstairs, in Room 512, Kness and Duykers go through the extraordinar-

O

Ensemble Parallele in Philip Glass’ Orphee.

Ensemble Parallele will perform Philip Glass’ opera Orphee.

ily imaginative Act II, Scene 1, “Journey into the Underworld” – “they appear to be walking against a strong wind, which they battle step by step” – which Staufenbiel says will be accompanied by “a wild circus show” cum video, and includes acrobat David Poznanter, who’s there getting his cues, and also plays the Glazier here.

The orchestra-alone rehearsal at the Osher Salon a few days later is equally intense, Paiement thoroughly prepared, her 14-piece band all eyes and ears. They do a complete runthrough of the very mysterious Act I, Scene 3, “The Chalet,” and when Paiement specifies changes, they mark their scores and produce what she wants immediately, the winds – Calisa Hildebrand, flute; Paul Miller, clarinet; and Erin Irvine, bassoon – being especially responsive. Paiement focuses on getting the rhythm right (“5/4 is always 3 + 2”), mastering Glass’ complex network of repeats – sometimes da capo (from the beginning), but more often partial repeats in different parts, plus articulation – pizzicato for contrabassist Stan Poplin – and volume (“the singers are pretty powerful, so we’ll have to be louder with the strings.”) But they rise to the challenges of Act II, Scene 8, “Underworld: Orphee’s Return,” where the love of the Princess (soprano Marnie Breckenridge) for Orphee brings them from darkness to light.

“Cocteau was always involved with big issues,” Glass said in his NEA

award interview, “but he did it with a person like Orphee, or Paul in Les Enfants Terribles – he used the individual as a prism.” Music is complete – certainly Glass’ thoroughly imagined music here is – yet it’s personal, which is why it survives on its own terms.

The choice between the Princess (Death) and Love (Orphee) is always up for grabs, and Glass’ concluding harmonic gesture, C-sharp over C natural, says Orphee’s journey away from and to his Eurydice has only, like all journeys, just begun.▼ Ensemble Parallele performs Orphee, Sat.-Sun., Feb. 26-27, at the Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Av., SF. Tickets & times: (415) 392-4400. www.cityboxoffice.com.

www.ebar.com

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Tiffany Pollard at The Café, Saturday

Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance at the Asian Art.

OUT&ABOUT Fri 25>>

40 Pounds in 12 Weeks: A Love Story @ The Marsh

In Paths Untrodden: Walt Whitman’s Calamus Poems and the Radical Faeries at the SF Public Library

s e i r e a F & s m l i o F Jim Pr venzano by

Pidge Meade takes audiences on a heartpounding, hair-raising, society-skewering, weight-loss rollercoaster ride, spinning between ten different characters in her new solo show. $15-$35. Fri 8pm. Sat 8:30pm. Thru Mar. 26. 1074 Valencia St. (800) 838-3006. www.themarsh.org

Adam Killian @ Nob Hill Theatre The historic burlesque joint presents hot tattooed porn star Adam Killian. $30. 8pm & 10pm. Also Feb. 26. Reg. hours, Sun-Thu 11:30am-12am. Fri & Sat 11:30am1:30am. 729 Bush St. at Powell. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Animated & Puppet Films @ Red Vic Movie House Enjoy a week of acclaimed cartoon and puppet features. Meet the Feebles, Gumby and The Adventures of Mark Twain (Feb 25 & 26); The Muppet Movie (Feb. 27 & 28); Megamind (Mar. 1-3). $7-$9. 1727 Haight St. 668-3994. www.redvicmoviehouse.com

Apparatus @ ODC Theater istorically and literarily speaking, many believe Walt Whitman to be the greatest gay American writer, whose work inspired the Radical Faerie movement. Spread your wings at the book release party for Fire in the Moonlight: Stories From the Radical Faeries, with editor Mark Thompson, contributors Will Roscoe, Jerry Berbiar, Joey Cain, William Stewart, Joe Balestreri and others. Free. Wednesday, March 2, 6pm-8pm. San Francisco Public Library, Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin St. The event is tied in with the new exhibit, In Paths Untrodden: Walt Whitman’s Calamus Poems and the Radical Faeries, curated by Joey Cain; opening March 1. Thru May 19. James C. Hormel Gay & Lesbian Center, third floor. 110 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org While dreams may come true this week for fans of the cinema at various Oscar parties (see Sunday, and page 17), our film pick this week is Sinderella at Oddball Films, a rare screening of a 1968 all-drag parody of the Brothers Grimm tale Cinderella , performed by a cast of San Francisco drag queens, with awesome wigs and bitchslapping galore.

Drag-related short films, too. $10. Saturday, February 26. 8pm. 275 Capp St. Dennis O’Hare at Wishes, 558-8117. www.oddballfilm.com Dreams and Insults Fairy blood drives vampires crazy, and ruined the ambitions of vampire king Russell Edgington, played with comically terrifying panache by out gay actor Dennis O’Hare, who will be a part of Wishes, Dreams and Insults: The World of Yiddish Speakers at the Jewish Community Center. The reading of classic short stories, hosted by Isaiah Sheffer, features O’Hare (who was also fabulous in Take Me Out) and Kristen Vangness (Criminal Minds). The post-show cocktail hour includes live music. $10-$35. Monday, February 28. 7pm. 3200 California St. at Presidio. www.jccsf.org/arts The magical myth-inspired performing and visual arts of the Far East are on display in Bali: Art, Ritual, Performance at the Asian Art Museum.

Opening Friday, February 25, the expansive exhibit of more than 100 historic art works showcases the practicality of the performing and visual arts in this beautiful culture; special performances and interactive workshops throughout exhibit run. $7-$17. Tue-Sun 10am5pm. Thu til 9pm. Thru Sept.

11.

200 Larkin St. www.asianart.org Can you photograph a myth? No, but horses and naked guys are pretty fascinating. Also opening this week, (February 26), Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, is the first-ever retroSinderella at Oddball Films spective examining all aspects of artist Eadweard Muybridge’s pioneering photography; more than 300 objects created between 1857 and 1893, including Muybridge’s only surviving zoopraxiscope—an apparatus he designed to project motion pictures; plus vintage photographs, albums, stereographs, lantern slides, glass negatives and positives, patent models, zoopraxiscope discs, proof prints, notes, books, and other ephemera. $9-$18. Daily 11am-5:45pm (closed Wed.).

151 Third St. 357-4000. www.sfmoma.org▼

H

Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change at SF MoMA

Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts’ witty interactive dance theatre work takes on the subject of public on-and off-camera behavior while enacting a live film shoot. $15-$18.

8pm. Thru Feb 27. 3153 17th St. at Shotwell. 863-9834. www.odctheater.org

Avenue Q @ Orpheum Theatre The Tony Award-winning musical comedy for adults about urban hand puppets returns. $30-$99. Tue-Sat 8pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Sun 7pm. Thru Feb. 27. 1192 Market St. (888) 746-1799. www.shnsf.com

Collapse @ Aurora Theatre, Berkeley Aurora Theatre Company’s production of Allison Moore’s family comedy, set in Minneapolis and inspired by the 2007 Mississippi River Bridge collapse. $10-$55. Tue 7pm. WedSat 8pm. Sun 2pm & 7pm. Thru Mar. 6.

2081 Addison St. (510) 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org

Farragut North @ Theatre of Yugen Company Open Tab performs the play loosely based on author Beau Willimon’s exploits during the 2004 implosion of the Howard Dean campaign. $25. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru Mar. 5.

2840 Mariposa St. at Florida. www.opentabproductions.com

Holly Hughes @ The Marsh Ascerbic solo performer (and famous lesbian) performs her new show Dog and Pony, a blend of autobiography, animal behavior and pure lies. $15-$50. Thu 8pm, Sat 8:30pm, Sun 7pm. thru Feb. 27. 1062 Valencia St. (800) 838-3006. www.themarsh.org

Kaboom @ Lumiere Theatre Gregg Araki’s new film parodizes college drug movies with his odd style and amibisexual characters. 1572 California St. at Polk. www.landmarktheatres.com

Loveland @ The Marsh Ann Randolph’s solo show about a sexually frustrated woman who flies home and faces the greatest love of her life. Fri 8pm. Sat 5pm. $20-$50. Thru Mar. 26. 1062 Valencia St. at 21st. (800) 838-3006. www.themarsh.org

Meeting Men @ AIDS Health Project Workshop for gay and bisexual men (regardless of HIV status) to learn skills in developing healthy connections and relationships. Free.

6:30pm-9:30pm. Register: 476-6448, ext. 1.

1930 Market St. www.ucsf-ahp.org

Monster Drawing Rally @ Verdi Club Festive annual event where dozens of local artists make drawing on the fly as a fundraiser for Southern Exposure art gallery. Drinks served, too. $10 and up. 6pm-11pm. 2424 Mariposa St. at Potrero & 18th. www.soex.org

Next to Normal @ Curran Theatre Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning musical about a family torn apart and trying to put itself together. $30-$99. (limited $30 rush tix available). Tue-Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat, Sun at 2pm. 445 Geary St. (888) 746-1799. www.shnsf.com

Pearls Over Shanghai @ The Hypnodrome Thrillpeddlers’ revival of the comic mock op-

eretta by Link Martin and Scrumbly Koldewyn, performed by the gender-bending Cockettes decades ago, and loosely based on the 1926 play The Shanghai Gesture; with an allstar local cast. $30-$35. 18 and over only!

Fri & Sat 8pm. Extended again thru April 9.

575 10th St. at Division. (800) 838-3006. www.thrillpeddlers.com

Regrets Only @ New Conservatory Theatre Gay playwright Paul Rudnick’s latest comedy, set in a Manhattan penthouse with various uptown characters about to celebrate a wedding. $15-$36. Previews thru Mar. 4. Runs thru April 3. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. 8618972. www.nctcsf.org

Ruined @ Berkeley Rep Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about the harrowing lives of women in Africa. $14.50-$73. Tue-Sat 8pm, (Wed 7pm). Thu, Sat, Sun 2pm. Sun eve 7pm. Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St. at Shattuck. (510) 6472949. www.berkeleyrep.org

Spaulding Gray: Stories Left to Tell @ Gough St. Playhouse Five actors take on parts of the late performer’s life story. $20-$25. Thu-Sat 8pm.

Sun 7pm. Thru Feb 26. 1620 Gough St. at Bush. www.custommade.org

Speed Dating @ Mom’s Pharmacy Cookie hosts a fast-track mini-date event.

Proceeds benefit the Ducal Council monarch Fund. $25. 7:30pm. 4071 18th St. RSVP: info@cgmsf.com www.ConfidentialGayMatchmaking.com

Treefall @ New Conservatory Theatre Henry Murray’s post-apocalyptic drama set in the Pacific Northwest. Four characters form a makeshift family, and gender and desire shifts in a desperate and strange setting. $15-$36.

Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Feb. 27. 25 Van Ness Ave, lower level. 861-8972. www.nctcsf.org

We Were Here @ Castro Theater David Weissman’s acclaimed documentary film about the early years of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco, and how people responded. Feb 25 is a benefit for Shanti, with a performance by gay singer Rufus Wainwright. $25-$100. 6pm VIP reception (sold out), 7:30pm screening and post-show Q&A. $7.50-$10. Daily at 2:30pm, 4:45, 7pm, 9:15 (early shows only Sun & Wed). Thru Mar. 3. 429 Castro St. www.shanti.org www.castrotheatre.com

What We’re Up Against @ Magic Theatre World premiere of author, playwright and TV writer Theresa Rebeck’s comedy about sex and sexism in the workplace, confused mall architects, and ducts. 8pm. Tue 7pm; WedSat 8pm. Also Sat & Sun at 2:30pm. Thru Mar. 6. Fort Mason Center, Bldg. D. Marina Blvd at Buchanan. 441-8822. www.magictheatre.org

William Blake Sings the Blues @ Actors Theatre of SF World premiere of Keith Phillips’ new play about a professor’s brutal destiny and some fateful events. $26-$38. Wed-Sat 8pm. Thru Mar. 5. 855 Bush St. at Taylor. 345-1287. www.actorstheatresf.org

Xanadu @ Retrodome, San Jose Touring production of the mirthful muse-filled musical comedy based on the strangely lovable film, complete with roller-skating disco numbers set to the original music, but a script that takes a satirical edge. $24-$44. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Previews thru Mar. 4. Opens Mar. 5. 1694 Saratoga Ave. (408) 4047711. www.TheRetroDome.com

Sat 26>>

African American GIs and Germany @ African American Arts Complex

Exhibit about the role of African American soldiers in World War II by researchers Maria Hohn and Martin Klimke. Thru April 22. 762 Fulton St. at Webster. www.aacvr-germany.org

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. $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.). 421-4222. www.beachblanketbabylon.com

David Friedman @ Unity Center Platinum-selling songwriter (“Help is on the Way,” the score for Disney’s Aladdin, plus songs performed by Diana Ross, Barry Manilow and others) sings and plays his music with other performers at the LGBT-inclusive place of worship. $27-$30. 2pm. (Also, Feb 26, Friedman leads a singing workshop; 1pm. $30). 2222 Bush St. 431-1913. www.unitysf.com

Gay & Lesbian Sierrans @ Tomales Point, Point Reyes Join LGBT hikers on a scenic 9-mile hike.

Bring water, snacks, sturdy hiking shoes. Rain cancels. Carpool meets at the Safeway Starbucks at Market St. at Dolores. 8am. www.glshikes.org

Jonathan Poretz @ The Rrazz Room Jazz and swing classics are performed by the Vegas-influenced singer. $25. 10:20pm. 2drink minimum. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. at Ellis. (800) 380-3095. www.therrazzroom.com

Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company @ Kanbar Hall Prominent Israeli dance company performs the West Coast premiere of Ekodoom – It’s Not Time, It’s Us. $20-$36. 8pm. Jewish Community Center, 3200 California St. 2921233. www.jccsf.org/arts

Mike Daisey @ Berkeley Rep Master storyteller tells tall tales The Last Cargo Cult (natives who worship shipments from overseas) and The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (computer guru’s precarious trip to China). Thu-Sat 8pm. Wed & Sun 7pm. Thu, Sat, Sun 2pm. $15-$73. Thru Feb. 27. 2025 Addison St. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

Out at Work @ Saks Fifth Avenue Dot429 and workOPEN cohost an event where LGBT professionals can participate in the making of a video for the “It Gets Better” campaign, aimed at providing supportive messages to LGBT teens and others who are bullied. 3pm-6pm. 5th floor, Men’s Store, 220 Post St. 986-4300. www.dot429.com www.saksfifthavenue.com

Paula West @ The Rrazz Room Popular local singer performs with The George Mesterhazy quartet on various nights for eight weeks thru Mar. 13. $35-$45. Mostly at 8pm.

Check online schedule. 2-drink minimum.

Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. at Ellis. (800) 380-3095. www.therrazzroom.com

Pulp Fashion: The Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave @ Legion of Honor Exhibit of amazing paper costumes by the acclaimed Belgian artist based on classic historical royal garb including Elizabeth I and Marie Antoinette. Free-$10. Tue-Sun 9:30am5:15pm. Thru June 5. 100 34th Ave. at Clement St. 750-3600. www.legionofhonor.famsf.org

Romeo and Juliet @ Val’s Subterranean, Berkeley Impact Theatre’s production of the Shakepeare romantic tragedy reset between contemporary Russian mafia gangs. Pizza, beer and other food & drinks available. $10-$20. ThuSat 8pm. Thru Mar. 27. 1834 Euclid Ave. www.impacttheatre.com

Sacred & Profane @ St. Francis Lutheran Church Chamber chorus performs Italian and English music of the Renaissance. $15-$22. 8pm.

152 Church St. at Duboce. Also Feb. 27, 4pm at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 524-3611.

Song Dong @ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Opening night party for Dad and Mom, Don’t Worry About Us, We Are All Well, the Chinese artist’s installations and photography about Bejing’s rapid development and social changes. Party 8pm-12am. $5-$7. Ongoing related programs thru exhibit run (thru June 12). Reg hours, Thu-Sat 12pm-8pm. Sun 12pm-6pm. 701 Mission St. 978-ARTS. www.ybca.org

24 February 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Zellerbach Hall, Thursday

Tue 1 >> Brushes With Fame @ Roxie Cinema

Porchlight Storytelling presents a night of tawdry tales told by those who’ve met or collided with famous people. Arlene Klatte and Beth Lisick cohost. $10. 7:30pm. 3117 16th St. at Valencia. 863-1087. www.roxie.com

Martin Freeman @ Visual Aid Exhibit of works by the local creator of funky collage sculptures. Thru Feb. Tue-Fri, 2pm-6pm. 57 Post St. #905. www.visualaid.org

Textural Rhythms @ Museum of the African Diaspora

Sony Holland @ The Rrazz Room

Constructing the Jazz Tradition, Contemporary African American Quilts, a new exhibit of quilts by the Women of Color Quilters Network that visualize jazz artists. $5-$10. WedSat 11am-6pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 685 Mission St. at 3rd. 358-7200. www.moadsf.org

Classy jazz singer premieres music from her new CD Sanssouci. $25. 3pm. 2-drink minimum. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. at Ellis.

(800) 380-3095. www.therrazzroom.com

Tiffany Pollard @ The Café Singer hosts a night of Queens in the Castro. $7. 9:30pm. 2369 Market St. at Castro. www.cafesf.com

Wiki-Rebels, Ellsberg @ ATA Gallery Screening of two documentaries about media rebels who expose government corruption now (Julian Assange) and then (Vietnam-era Daniel Ellsberg). $6-$10. 8:30pm. 992 Valencia St. www.othercinema.com

Sun 27>> Academy Awards Party @ Trigger

Betty’s List and Supervisor Bevan Dufty cohost a benefit for Lyon-Martin Health Center, with big-screen TVs showing the broadcast, champagne, cocktails, appetizers, raffle prizes, auctions and fun. $10, $25, $300, $800. 3pm-10pm. 2344 Market St. 551CLUB. www.bettyslist.com www.clubtrigger.com www.oscars2011.eventsbot.com

Academy of Friends Gala @ SF Design Center 31st annual gala fundraiser for local AIDS/HIV nonprofits. Enjoy watching the Academy Awards show while sipping fine wines, champagne, and enjoying a variety of nibbly treats. Raffles galore. $250 and up.

5pm-11pm. 101 Henry Adams Street near 8th & Townsend. www.academyoffriends.org

Coming Out of the Woods @ Lone Star Saloon Beer bust and art show of works by Artists From the Arc (people with disabilities). $9.

4pm-8pm. 1354 Harrison St. at 10th. 8639999. www.thearcsf.org

Felix d’Eon @ Magnet Exhibit of beautiful homoerotic paintings inspired by Greek, Roman, Aztec and Mexican mythological characters. Exhibit thru Feb. 4122 18th St. Castro. www.felixdeon.com www.magnetsf.org

Happy Hour @ Energy Talk Radio Interview show with gay writer Adam Sandel as host. 8pm. www.EnergyTalkRadio.com

SF Hiking Club @ Muir Woods, Mt. Tam Join GLBT hikers for a 9-mile hike in Marin County. This loop will start opposite the Mountain Home Inn on Panoramic Highway on Mount Tam. Bring sturdy boots, layers, hat, sunscreen, lunch, water. Carpool meets 9:15am at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores.

378-5612. www.sfhiking.com

Shana Morrison @ The Rrazz Room Vocalist with a wide range of styles performs music from her new CD, Joyride. $20-$25.

7pm. 2-drink minimum. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. at Ellis. (800) 380-3095. www.therrazzroom.com

Xanadu at the Retrodome, San Jose, Friday

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room Donna Sachet and Harry Denton host the fabulous weekly 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

Teatro Zinzanni @ Pier 29 License to Kiss II is the show at the theatretent-dinner extravaganza with Kevin Kent, twin acrobats Ming and Rui, Vertical Tango rope dance, plus magic, comedy, a five-course dinner, and a lot of fun. $117-$145. Saturday 11:30am “Breve” show $63—$78.

Wed-Sat 6pm (Sun 5pm). Pier 29 at Embarcadero Ave. 438-2668. www.teatrozinzanni.com

Up the Oscars @ Roxie Cinema 19th annual Academy Award screening for fans who love to hate Hollywood. Hors d’eouvres served, but BYO food and drink welcome. Doors 3:45pm, just before the red carpet broadcast starts. $12-$15. 3117 16th St. at Valencia. 863-1087. www.roxie.com

Mon 28>> Dyke March Meeting @ Locale TBA

Meeting for women and transpersons interested in working on the 2011 Pride weekend Dyke March. 6pm. Email for more info. info@thedykemarch.org

Marga’s Funny Mondays @ The Marsh, Berkeley Marga Gomez, “the lesbian Lenny Bruce” (Robin Williams), brings her comic talents, and special guests, to a weekly cabaret show. $10. 8pm. 2120 Allston Way. (800) 838-3006. www.margagomez.com www.themarsh.org

Popcorn, Blood and Glitter @ Glama-Rama Salon Group exhibit of art celebrating the mad world of Peaches Christ and Midnight Mass.

304 Valencia St. 861-4526. Tue-Sun 10am-7pm. www.glamarama.com

Size Matters @ John Pence Gallery Group exhibit of amazing photorealist paintings; landscapes, still lifes and sensual nudes, ranging from enormous to tiny in size. Mon-Fri 10am- 6pm. Sat 10am-5pm.

750 Post. St. 441-1138. www.johnpence.com

Ten Percent @ Comcast 104 David Perry’s new talk show about LGBT local issues. Mon-Fri 11:30am & 10:30pm, Sat & Sun 10:30pm. www.davidperry.com

Unmentionables @ City Art Group exhibit of work themed around undergarments. 7pm. Wed-Sun, 12pm-9pm. Thru Feb. 27. 828 Valencia St. 970-9900. www.cityartgallery.org

Our Vast Queer Past @ GLBT History Museum New exhibit from the GLBT Historical Society, with a wide array of rare historic items on display. Free for members-$5. Wed-Sat 11am-7pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Particular Voices @ Jewish Community Center Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Jewish Writers, selected portraits from Robert Giard’s two-decade-long projects photographing over 600 gay and lesbian writers. Thru Feb. 27. 3200 California St. 292-1200. www.jccsf.org

Wed 2 >>

Angels in America at 20 @ Museum of Performance & Design

Exhibit documenting the award-winning Tony Kushner drama, with an array of original costumes, props, manuscripts, video clips, photos, designs and audio interviews.

Wed-Sat 12pm-5pm. Thru Mar. 26. 401 Van Ness Ave. 255-4800. www.mpdsf.org

Eve Ensler @ Jewish Community Center Author and playwright (The Vagina Monologues) discusses her work for global women’s rights, and her newest work, I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World. $10-$20. 7pm.

3200 California St. 292-1200. www.jccsf.org

Inside Job @ Commonwealth Club Academy Award nominee, director and San Franciscan Charles Ferguson speaks at a screening of his film about the preventable economic crisis. $7-$20. 5:30pm.

595 Market St. 597-6705. www.commonwealthclub.org

The Touching of Hands @ ATA Gallery Screening of various art films and videos by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Scott Treleaven and Terence Hannum. 8pm. 992 Valencia St. www.mylittlefloaters.blogspot.com

Thu 3>>

Devil-Fish @ Brava Theater Cirque Noveau’s aerial acrobatic circus show loosely based on the Faust legend. $26. 7pm. Also Mar. 4, 5 at 7pm; Mar 6, 6pm. 2781 24th St. www.cirquenoveau.com

The Homecoming @ American Conservatory Theatre Harold Pinter’s classic family drama is performed; directed by ACT Artistic Director Carey Perloff; special programs thru the run. $10-$85. Tue-Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Mar. 27. 415 Geary St. 749-2228. www.act-sf.org

Merce Cunningham Dance Company @ Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley Cal Performances presents the final West Coast tour of the acclaimed modern dance company before it disbands; with music by John Cage, Brian Eno and others; set pieces

by Robert Rauchenberg. $15-$56. Program A: (Pond Way, Antic Meet and Sounddance) Thursday & Friday, March 3 & 4 at 8:00 p.m. and Program B (Roaratorio) Saturday, March 5 at 8:00 p.m. Thru Mar. 5. Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave. (510) 6429988. www.calperformances.org

To submit event listings, email jim@ebar.com.

Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication.

For more bar and nightlife events, go to www.bartabsf.com

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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 24 February 2011

LEATHER

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Darren Bondy is Mr. Powerhouse Leather 2011

by Scott Brogan he race for Mr. San Francisco Leather 2011 continued on Fri., Feb. 18 at the Powerhouse in SoMa when Hanz Bustamante and Darren Bondy competed for the title of Mr. Powerhouse Leather 2011.

The contest was emceed by Mr. SF Leather 2007 Travis Creston, with judging duties provided by former Mr. Powerhouses Troy Anicete (2003), Brandon Clark (2009), Ron Balos (2008), Matt Johnson (2007) and outgoing Mr. Powerhouse 2010 Lance Holman.

After enduring the pre-show interviews, Bustamante and Bondy fielded some funny and creative on-the-spot questions from the judges and Creston. The brevity of the questions helps bring out the contestants’ personalities while keeping the crowd engaged (as much as a bar crowd on a Friday night can be engaged). We were treated to the ever-popular “physique” (a.k.a. “jock”) category before proceeding to the tough “leather image” (a.k.a. “speech”) category. Creston did Mr. Powerhouse 2010 Lance Holman congratulates Darren Bondy for a good job of getting the rowdy crowd winning Mr. Powerhouse 2011, presenting him with the leather patch to quiet down for the speeches, donated by Anicete Designs. thoughtfully delivered by Bustamante and Bondy. Mr. Powerhouse 2010 Also in the running for Mr. SF Leather though I favor keeping certain things Lance Holman (Mr. SF Leather 2010 2011 are Mr. Hayes Valley Leather separate, as I feel it’s healthy for us to & 1st Runner-up International Mr. 2011 J.B. “Pup Rogue“ Kern, Mr. have time with just our own genders, Leather 2011) gave a classy step-down the blending of all of our subcommuCitadel Leather 2011 Jesse Vanciel, and speech individually thanking each nities at these public events is welcome Mr. Edge Leather 2011 Drew Cutler. member of the staff of the Powerand needed. It’s no secret how much Good luck to you all, you know we’ll house. Bar staffs are the unsung heroes we’re under attack from all corners be there for support! behind-the-scenes. It’s refreshing to these days. The fact that we can come see them get the recognition they All about diversity together in social settings indicates deserve. In the end, Bustamante we’ll be able to stand together, strong Diversity has been the name of was the runner-up, with Bondy and proud, when the need arises. the game recently, as eviwinning the title. Anicete Another example is that the SF denced at the Mr. PowerDesigns donated the patch Citadel is, for a second year now, prohouse contest. Being Interand vest. Bondy is currently viding a worthy contender (Jessie Vannational Bear Rendezvous Mr. September on the 2011 ciel) for the Mr. SF Leather Contest. weekend, a lot of bears were Bare Chest Calendar Their involvement brings a fun, excitin attendance. Also present (www.barechest.org) and ing dynamic that we’ve previously were the two candidates joins a long line of calendar lacked. I hope they continue. for Emperor of San Franmen who have gone on to A few weeks ago I shared my disL EATHER cisco, Ray MacKenzie fame and fortune. Well, at tain that the Tom of Finland Foundaand Frankie Hernandez, least local leather titles and tion was inexplicably discriminated their entourages, plus beyond. Congratulations! against by the Arts & Cultural Heritage some of the SF Citadel crowd. So we Next stop: The Mr. SF Leather 2011 Commission of the City of West Holhad bears, leather/kink folk, drag Contest, centerpiece of the Leather Allywood. Luckily the West Hollywood queens, straights & bisexuals, and even liance Weekend beginning on March 4 (shudder) some “regular” people. Al(www.SFBayAreaLeatherAlliance.org)

Scott Brogan

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Coming up in leather & kink >> Thu., Feb. 24: 2012 Bare Chest Calendar Semi-Final #5 at the Powerhouse (1347 Folsom). 9:30 p.m. Go to: www.barechest.org or www.powerhouse-sf.com for details.

Sun., Feb. 27: Forget Me Knot, ACLC Post Valentine’s Day Event with Beverage Bust at the White Horse Tavern (6551 Telegraph Ave., Oakland). 1-7 p.m. $10-$15. Go to: www.acleather.org.

Thu., Feb. 24: Intermediate Rope Bondage with Rain Degrey at the SF Citadel (1277 Mission). 8-10 p.m. $20.

Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Mon., Feb. 28: Grand Opening of the new bar Rebel at 1760 Market. 9 p.m.-4 a.m. Join in the festivities and enjoy food provided by Sneaky’s BBQ (www.sneakysbbq.blogspot.com).

Go to: www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179823085393094.

Thu., Feb. 24: Locker Room at Chaps Bar (1225 Folsom). 9 p.m.-close. Wear your jockstraps, sports gear, anything that goes in the locker room, for drink specials.

Go to: www.chapsbarsanfrancisco.com.

Fri., Feb. 25: Truck Wash at Truck (1900 Folsom). 10 p.m.-close. Enjoy the live shower boys and drink specials.

Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Fri., Feb. 25: Steam at the Powerhouse. Steam tunnel, dudes in towels and jocks, buck-a-minute massages, shower shows, drink specials and more. 10 p.m.-close.

Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Fri., Feb. 25: Taboo-Not Your Mother’s BDSM party at the SF Citadel. 8-10 p.m. $25 plus Citadel membership. Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Mon., Feb. 28: Trivia Night with host Casey Ley at Truck. 8-10 p.m. Amazing prizes and ridiculous questions. Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Mon., Feb. 28: Whipworks: A monthly Singletail peer group facilitated by Daddy Darin at the SF Citadel. 8-10 p.m. $10. Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Tue., Mar. 1: 12-Step Kink Recovery Group at the SF Citadel. 6:30-8 p.m. Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Tue., Mar. 1: Busted at Truck. 9 p.m.-close. $5 beer bust, 9-11 p.m. Great music, and the notorious Truck boys. Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Tue., Mar. 1: Ink & Metal followed by Nasty at The Powerhouse. 9 p.m. Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Sat., Feb. 26: Castrobear presents 100% SOMA Beef & Co. All Beef Saturday Nights at the Lone Star Saloon (1354 Harrison St.). Go to: www.castrobear.com.

Tue., Mar. 1: Skins n Punks at Chaps Bar. Drink specials. Go to: www.chapsbarsanfrancisco.com.

Sat., Feb. 26: 15 Association Men’s Dungeon Party at the SF Citadel. 8 p.m.-2 a.m. Go to: www.the15association.org.

Wed., Mar. 2: Naked Buddies at Blow Buddies. Doors open 8 p.m.-12 a.m. Play til late. Go to: www.blowbuddies.com.

Sat., Feb 26: 30th Anniversary Party at the SF Eagle (398 12th St.). Back to the Music, Back to the Leather, Back to the Cruising. Starts at 8 p.m. Go to: www.sfeagle.com.

Wed., Mar. 2: Nipple Play at the Powerhouse (Dore & Folsom) 10 p.m. Go to www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Sat., Feb. 26: Boot Lickin’ at The Powerhouse, 10 p.m.

Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Sun., Feb. 27: Castrobear presents Sunday Furry Sunday at 440 Castro. 4-10 p.m. Go to: www.castrobear.com.

Wed., Mar. 2: Wolf! For Furry Men on the Prowl at the Watergarden (1010 Alameda, San Jose). 4 p.m.-Midnight. Featuring adult videos of hairy guys, plus a new red zone and club music. Lockers are half off. Go to: www.thewatergarden.com.

Send listings to: leather@ebar.com.

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24 February 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

27

KARRNAL

Et tu, Brute?

by John F. Karr t’s true – you have to be in a pretty feisty mood to watch Brutal, the Raging Stallion two-parter that’s been masterfully conceived and directed by Tony Dimarco. It ain’t no romance, although one of its successes is to color the brute force and aggression of its sexual encounters with shades of emotion.

Brutal, which is set in the world of boxers and wrestlers, may be the quintessential RS movie. The guys are getting psyched up for the upcoming Regionals. This means rivalry and betrayal for the competitors and their trainers, with bouts in the ring and on the mat spelled by bouts of war-like sex. The milieu provides a natural framework for the sexual scenes, which are more effective for being believably character-driven, and the plotting is so strong that as the first half peaked, I actually wanted to see what would happen next.

Best of all, it’s not stupid; it never begs credibility. Especially in its performers, who have been uniformly well-chosen. They have a machismo that isn’t porn-movie play-acting, with urban cred, believable grit, and helter-skelter tattoos that specifically aren’t those ubiquitous, conformist Celtic scythes.

The editing is swell. Watch especially how Dimarco segues adroitly Porn performer Brenn Wyson in Brutal. both in and out of two fantasy sequences. He’s so suave I backed up a couple times just to savor the edit. I ly stretched hole until Defendi don’t think I’ve ever done that bescreams down the house as he sprays fore. The videography, color and his jizz all across the ravaged bottom. image are so impressive I’m sorry Then the movie’s thriller finale there isn’t a Blu-ray edition. The brings together enemies Ricky Sinz music is also excellent, mainand Brenn Wyson, who taining a quietly throbbing begin their flip-fuck undercurrent that hypnowith animalistic savtizes, blooming rhapsodiagery and end in cally with the build-up of ruggedly sated lovesexual heat, and explodlust. My eyes (and my ing in collusion with clicock) bugged out max. Credit goes to The when Sinz straddles Minor 9, mostly, and RS Wyson and repeatedly stalwart JD Slater. slams his ass down. I And Brutal is wellcouldn’t ask for a better K ARRNAL paced. For one thing, exhibition of Wyson’s K NOWLEDGE wondercock. Here’s the Dimarco never lets up; there aren’t any fripsight: Wyson’s fat tool peries, such as foreplay. splitting Sinz’ ass, with Unless you consider brawling and each powerful thrust making Sinz’ bruising foreplay. The movie’s first cock beat hard against Wyson’s belly, half is boisterous and brazen, rising while the two of them whisper to to a physically and emotionally each other words of muscle love and thrilling climax. The second half lets fuck fever. Whew. its scrappiness slightly mellow at the Wyson’s a grown-up Bowery Boy start, before surging into the pair of – he’s got the accent and the attitude, powerful scenes that end the saga. confirmed by the pit bull’s muzzle The first is a hot and heady swirl, tattooed on his arm. He’s a pugnawith a rougher-than-usual-looking cious pug, alright, with a thick plug Rusty Stevens giving Tommy Defeno’ penis. He’s had pro experience, and di’s huge dick a definitive work-out. staged the fight scenes in collaboraPiggy fucker Rusty gets flipped, and tion with Mike Fox. He’s been showDefendi deeply churns Rusty’s crueling up in movies all over the place;

Raging Stallion Studios

I

this one gives him his best and perhaps classic showcase. I was wowed by the homo overtones of his wrasslin’ with Marconi, and I surely got off on the flip-fucks in both his scenes. When Brenn’s around, there’s no hole left unboned.

Brutal should give greater recognition to the low-key intensity of beefy Angelo Marconi. His confident, understated acting is key to the plot, and he sizzles in his grand fuck with Wyson. Park Wiley, nearly a decade into a long-lasting sexo career, shows in his pairing with Race Cooper why we haven’t yet tired of him. Then Alexsander Freitas overwhelms Draven Torres with a frightening, angry fuck.

And even folks who skip solo scenes will stick around when Gavin Sovet gives his monster cock a sloppy jacking. There‘s one misstep, a rape scene that’s just not believable, breaking for a while the movie’s forward drive.

All told, Brutal sure is a knockout, landing its sex-hits in every round. Last, the discs have generous and revealing bonus features, with six solos, a revealing look Behind the Scenes, and long interviews with Sinz and Wyson that give us a good feel of their feisty personalities.▼ www.RagingStallion.com

Leather + City Council voted against the Commission’s archaic decision. Both Mayor John Heilman and City Manager Paul Arevalo announced in the meeting on Feb. 7 that the 16th Annual Los Angeles Erotic Art Fair Weekend would proceed as planned with the Foundation’s exhibit (March 25-27 in West Hollywood Park). If you contacted the City Council in support of the Foundation, I urge you to send them a quick “thank you.” It’s our duty to raise our voices against discrimination, but it’s also our responsibility to follow up. The Council’s e-mail is: ccouncil@weho.org.

Their address is: City Council, 8300 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069. Be sure to visit the Tom of Finland Foundation’s website at www.tomoffinlandfoundation.org.

Sadly, IBR (International Bear Rendezvous) 2011 (held Feb. 17-20) was the last. I suppose it’s a sign of the times that no one is able to step up and carry on the tradition. I don’t know the specifics (aside from the usual

Scott Brogan

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Three for the upcoming Mr. SF Leather contest: Jessie Vanciel (Mr. Citadel Leather 2011), JB “Pup Rogue” Kern (Mr. Hayes Valley Leather 2011) and Darren Bondy (Mr. Powerhouse Leather 2011).

things like low attendance and/or a lack of interest), but I’m sorry to see it go. It’s the first event my husband and I attended together in SF prior to moving here. Hard to believe that was 11 years ago, or that anyone would put up with me for that long! I was unable

to attend the International Bear contest last Sunday night so I’m not sure who is the (I’m assuming) last International Mr. Bear. If it was anything like last year, I missed out on a great event. Congrats to the winner, whoever you are!▼

www.ebar.com

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▼

BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 24 February 2011

BOOKS

Living proof Aging with HIV: A Gay Man’s Guide

by James Masten, Ph.D.; Oxford University Press, $17.95

ecent reports in the gay press have begun to analyze not only the effects of contracting and, in turn, suppressing the HIV virus, but of the quality of life once the infection has become successfully controlled.

As the former death sentence delivered by doctors is rescinded, HIVpositive men and women are living longer, fuller lives with a disease that is both manageable and becoming increasingly more understood by the medical community. But what are the physical, mental, and psychosocial ramifications of living with HIV over the long term?

On the staff of the New York University School of Social Work, Dr. James Masten repeatedly pondered this question, and came away with an approach to examine 15 middle-aged gay men during 2004 and 06, through a series of intensive interviews and

R

AOF Gala ▼

page 17

he says. “The event will be spread out over four floors, and with the multi-level layout, you can see what’s going on at the whole party from any location. It’ll be great for peoplewatching.”

Telescopes and binoculars will also be available, allowing guests to go Rear Window on each other throughout the evening. The voyeuristic movie theme will also be reflected in nods to the Top 10 voyeur movies, including Eyes Wide Shut, American Beauty, Body Double, The Truman Show and Sex, Lies and Videotape.

“Eyes Wide Shut really inspired the look of the event,” says Miranda.

lifestyle analysis. The result of that study forms the framework of his groundbreaking new book Aging with HIV, which takes the confusion and guesswork out of getting older with HIV, essentially “how you can age successfully while living with the virus.”

Masten’s comprehensive examination is easy to read and filled with the health and life experiences of its research subjects. Common issues discussed are the recognition of the financial limitations of middle age while managing HIV, seriously coming to terms with increased longevity, survivors’ guilt, and what being a middleaged, HIV-positive gay man means in terms of social interaction, community perception, and personal image.

The author’s research targets the specific demographic of gay men (50+) who: question whether “changes in your body are due to AIDS or age,” have lived with HIV longer than they’d anticipated, or feel their perspectives incrementally shifting in areas of work, family, sex, dating, and health maintenance. He draws on over 20 years of clinical ex-

“We’ll have a lot of fuchsia, black and white, and different design looks ranging from boudoir to leather and lace.” Pink eye-masks will also be on hand for guests who prefer to remain flirtatiously anonymous while checking out the scene – and each other.

“The experience this year will be elevated in a lot of ways,” he says. “As much as I love Fort Mason, it’s a lot of work to get a warehouse to look elegant. And the new venue [on Henry Adams Street, near 8th and Townsend] is much more accessible to public transportation, street parking and cabs.”

Despite my attempts to dig for more details of what’s planned for the gala, Miranda remains coy about certain surprises in store, including the transition act following the

perience in this area, and presents beneficial, critical information that begins from the opening preface right to the final chapters on spirituality and the tools needed to form a support group that will continue to assist others on the same path.

The serious, introspective, poignant, and often knowingly humorous opinions of the 15 men canvassed for the study are quoted liberally throughout the book. “Joe” reflects that after sero-converting, he had to talk himself into “acquiring a whole new approach to life.” “Luis” admits to having “senior moments.”

“George” laments on the changing dynamics of his formerly gay-dominated West Village neighborhood, having “been spoiled all my life living in a ghetto and enjoying feeling normal, and now I don’t feel quite so normal.”

Perhaps the most useful advice found in Masten’s thorough research

is the reiteration of the “adaptation vs. stagnation” adage, where the author appeals to gay men to live in the present and not the past, to break free from stale routines, to become in-tune with bodily changes, and to live within their “limitations” while never being bound by them. His “10

Steps to Optimal Aging with HIV” are crucial commandments touching on virtually all aspects of life with respect to co-existing in society in the most productive, positive, and lifeaffirming manner possible.

Masten cites statistics about AIDS throughout, which help form a better understanding (and necessary reminder) of the heft of the epidemic.

The “Assignment” and “Reflection” exercises offer readers a chance to internally examine their own experiences and apply the writer’s expertise to them. In honestly reviewing one’s sexual and relationship history, creating and analyzing a family “genogram,” and recognizing the advantages that can emerge at 50, the possibilities for emotional and social growth seem limitless.

Longevity with HIV is just one of the many valuable components Masten offers in his supportive examination of gay men who continue to positively thrive with HIV, not in spite of it. This is essential reading for any HIV-positive gay man who has ever asked, at midlife, “What now?”▼

Oscar telecast that leads into the dance party that follows, promising that “it will be very cute and current.”

He’s personally rooting for Oscar wins for The King’s Speech and Black Swan. “I loved Black Swan. I found it incredibly intense. I went with a friend, and after it was over, we got up and said ‘Whoa!’” That will likely be the response of guests who attend this year’s Academy of Friends Gala.▼

Courtesy AOF

by Jim Piechota

Academy of Friends board member Jon Finck handles the press at a previous Academy of Friends Gala.

Academy of Friends Gala, Sun., Feb. 27, SF Design Center Galleria, 101 Henry Adams St., SF. 5 p.m., Reception, silent auction and Oscar telecast; 7 p.m., VIP lounge opens; 11 p.m., Gala concludes. Tickets ($250): www.academyoffriends.org, or call (415) 995-9890

We Were Here ▼

page 17

of trepidation: how emotional is it going to be, how painful, do I really want to see this? I wanted to invite the audience in, in a completely unambiguous way. Step one of the casting is people who would be warm, open, who would say to the audience, “It’s safe to come on this journey with me.” We only did nine interviews total for the five in the film, which, to tell a story like 20 years of AIDS in San Francisco, is pretty unusual.

That’s why he’s in the film: he’s in the middle of everything.

Robert Pruzan

I’ve never spoken with Guy Clark, the Noe St. flower person, but I’ve passed him a million times.

Gay San Francisco in We Were Here.

Your film marks the moment when this newspaper became a paper of record for the SF queer community.

I don’t think there’s any city in the world that did what the B.A.R. did with the obituaries. Every single gay person in San Francisco picked up the B.A.R. every Thursday for the obituaries. There was never a sense of connection between a community and newspaper like with the B.A.R. during the epidemic. It came up in every single person’s interview: the B.A.R. this, the B.A.R. that. It’s a remarkable testament to the role the paper has played in our community.

It’s like when the NYT ran the tribute stories to the victims of 9/11.

Or when Life magazine ran the Vietnam War dead for a year.

Remember the B.A.R. issue that had the pictures of all who had died up to that point?

That’s in the film. Also Tom Burtch digitalizing all of those obits online – it was an incredible resource for us.

Eileen Glutzer recalls, after the death of a patient, placing his eyes in a tiny container so a lab could study what was causing many AIDS patients to lose their sight. What an unimaginably painful task!

The eyes are completely a motif of our film. The whole way we tell the story of San Francisco in the 70s is almost exclusively through still photographs where people are looking directly at the lens. In the nude photographs of John Davis, the selfportraits, it ends with him looking directly into the lens. The eyes were very much what Bill Weber and I utilized as a way of establishing intimacy between the film’s subjects and the viewer.

The film alludes to that dark time before the current drug cocktails when AIDS patients put their hopes

in untested, even eccentric treatments. I saw an old friend of mine – Robert Pitman, who died 20 years ago – who I remember was pinning his hopes for survival on a combination of egg lipids and Chinese cucumbers.

There was a tremendous sense of desperation, but people were dying at a 100% fatality rate then. There was an animosity towards the medical system, towards the government, that made people untrusting that the process [the FDA drug-testing program] would actually serve them.

Daniel Goldstein discusses the horrible misfired drug trial that killed everybody except the people who got off it.

Early in the epidemic, there were these underground drug-trafficking operations where people were going to Mexico – this is how Project Inform got started. There were antiviral drugs available in other countries, but not here. Drugs were being

AIDS activist & hero Bobbi Campbell.

smuggled through back channels in the hopes that some would work, and none of them did work. In retrospect you can say this is why we do have an FDA. Reagan was president, this was not a government that cared whether we lived or died.

Like Guy says in the film, “My friends were guinea pigs,” yet many people were willing guinea pigs, because the only alternative was death.

Yet life went on: people were partying, going to the Café Flore, the Gay Day parades, it was a very paradoxical reality in which to live. It was akin to wartime. People often say they had the most fun during times of war because the stakes were so high.

Lots of people tell how much it has triggered memories they had

completely forgotten. Like you would go to the Castro Theatre or the symphony, and you would hear people’s pill-timers going off, because everyone was on very rigid schedules with their AZT. I got a call on a radio show last week from a straight physician who apologized for his hypercaution: wearing double layers of plastic gloves, etc. But he said he was scared to death that his infant daughter might catch AIDS. I hope that the film allows compassion all around – I mean, not to Jerry Falwell and not to Ronald Reagan, people who were actively our enemies, but to people who did rise to the occasion, to people who couldn’t

▼

When you get a story that amazing in an interview you go, “Jackpot!”

Marie Ueda

The story Guy tells about the bicyclist who recovers is amazing.

page 29

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24 February 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

EROTICA

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Erotica performer Tristan Hamilton is in Curious.

Aussie curiosity

by Ernie Alderete urious (Ariztical) is an oddball Down Under import directed

by Jamie Hendrix about a young man about to wed his high school sweetheart. He acts out on his curiosity about his same-sex gay male urges before tying the knot.

Like other Aussie and Kiwi imports, the pace is much slower than Stateside-produced erotica. But the best feature about Curious is the leading man: dark-haired, browneyed, square-jawed, muscular, hairy, tan-skinned, 30-year-old Tristan Hamilton, an infinitely more exotic version of Ryan Seacrest. Tristan and Ryan both sport magnificent profiles, dazzling smiles, well-formed lips, ears, and just about everything else. I can find no fault with either hunk from opposite sides of the vast Pacific Ocean.

Curious’ tepid vanilla cover art does get the point across. Tristan Hamilton is seated with his female fiancé on a park bench, looking up at his own supersized naked image with another man, a go-go dancer who is nowhere near his match physically. If

C

the cover art had featured just pinups of Tristan, Curious would have been much more successful.

I was recently in the cavernous, jail-themed sex clubs and state-ofthe-art gay baths in Melbourne, and recognize the locations where this movie was shot.

Unfortunately, the supporting male cast does precious little to nothing to aid Tristan in his one-man Herculean effort to bring the bacon home. The sex, as such, is dominated by frottage, licking nipples, caressing behinds, body-hugging, and other low-impact, skin-on-skin activities.

I did like the way Curious portrayed Tristan’s reaction to his (apparently) first sniff of poppers! It’s less than a minute, but worthy of Alfred Hitchcock at his best, in Vertigo or Pyscho. But Curious is sluggish and downright boring. On a scale of from one to 10, I would rate Curious a big fat zero. Even Tristan, who began his career as an underwear model at the tender age of 18 in his native state of Queensland, can’t redeem it. But I would gladly deport Mel Gibson and Olivia Newton John back to Australia in exchange for him!▼

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cope with it, to people who left the city because it was just too painful.

I knew Rodney Price, co-founder of the Angels of Light theatrical troupe. A short film you directed about him years back was a precursor to We Were Here.

In some ways, all of my films have been about the epidemic. The first film I made was with the Four Beauties, who were offshoots of the An-

gels of Light, in 1985, and I was making it because that world was disappearing. I wanted to capture something that had really inspired me, and because of economics and AIDS, that wild world of San Francisco around gay theatre was disappearing. Song for an Angel was Rodney when he was dying. He does this song and tap-dance called “I’ve Got Less Time than You.” It was two weeks before he died, and I still can’t watch that movie without crying.

Also, being in absolute awe of Rodney’s devotion to his art.▼

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