January 24, 2018 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

New gig for Open Hand CEO

08

Aardvark Books bids farewell

ARTS

02

15

23

SF Opera 2019

Nightlife Events

The

www.ebar.com

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

Vol. 49 • No. 4 • January 24-30, 2019

Women’sWave hits Oakland Rick Gerharter

Senator Kamala Harris spoke at the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club’s Pride breakfast last June.

President Donald Trump

Court grants Trump request on trans ban

Harris to hold Oakland rally for prez race

by Lisa Keen

by Cynthia Laird

T

S

upporters will join Senator Kamala Harris in Oakland this weekend to kick off her 2020 presidential campaign to defeat President Donald Trump.

Harris (D-California) announced she was running for president on Martin Luther King Jr. Day during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“I’m running for president of the United States,” she told interviewers Robin Roberts, a lesbian, and George Stephanopoulos.

“I’m very excited about it,” she added.

See page 12

Twitter

>>

Besties coming soon

by Cynthia Laird

Jane Philomen Cleland

A

crowd of more than 15,000 people took to the streets in Oakland Saturday, January 19, for the third annual Women’s March. This year, people, including, from left, Terea Macomber, Molly Tafoya, and Sarah Fischbach celebrated the Women’s Wave that saw record numbers of women elected to office during last year’s midterm elections.

Women’s March organizers said in a statement that this year they plan to partner with local organiza-

tions to engage and register voters from underrepresented communities, participate in the Alameda County 2020 Census Subcommittee to help maximize the count of underrepresented groups, and host an activist conference. For more information, visit www.womensmarchoakland.org. Women’s Marches were also held in San Francisco, San Jose, and hundreds of other cities.

SF implements LGBT aging policy plan

by Matthew S. Bajko

B

alloting for the Bay Area Reporter’s ninth readers’ poll, the Besties, begins next week (Thursday, January 31).

The popular contest allows readers to share their favorErnesto Sopprani ite LGBTQ-owned and LGBTQ-allied people, places, and things in the Bay Area. Categories run the gamut from drag favorites to nightlife to community groups. There are also arts and culture nominees and more.

Some repeat winners will be retired this year to give others a chance to win. For example, San Francisco Pride has long been readers’ best LGBT event. As in the past, readers are free to write in their own nominations in each category over those listed.

Readers who complete at least 75 percent of the ballot will automatically be eligible for prizes. The top prize is three nights at Nantucket Whale Inn in Half Moon Bay. See page 12 >>

W

hen San Francisco officials adopted a groundbreaking LGBT aging policy plan five years ago, local advocates worried it would be shelved somewhere inside City Hall like so many reports of the past.

A similar report issued in 2003 suffered just such a fate.

Yet, within a year of the issuance of the 2014 report, a number of its recommendations had already either been put into place or received pledges from city leaders that they would work to implement them, as the Bay Area Reporter noted in a June 2015 article. The LGBT aging issues highlighted in the report ran the gamut from social support and health services to legal assistance and access to affordable housing.

Four years later, even more strides have been made toward ensuring LGBT seniors can age comfortably in the City by the Bay. In fact, according to the city’s Department of Aging and Adult Services, it has made considerable progress toward addressing 11 of the 13 areas of concern listed in the 120-page document, titled “LGBT Aging at the Golden Gate: San Francisco Policy Issues and Recommendations.”

The city has implemented many of the 40 specific steps the report suggested be taken to benefit its LGBT senior population, estimated

Jane Philomen Cleland

Shireen McSpadden, left, executive director of the San Francisco Department of Aging and Adult Services, stands with Tom Nolan, a manager of special projects of DAAS.

to now number nearly 25,000 residents age 60 or older. The areas of focus have included helping connect LGBT seniors to such things as benefits counseling and health insurance, Alzheimer’s and dementia care, financial literacy programs, and eviction protections.

“I feel really proud of the fact we’ve done that with 11 of the 13 policy areas,” said Shireen

{ FIRST OF THREE SECTIONS }

See page 2 >>

he U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily vacate two national injunctions that have prevented a ban on transgender people in the military from going into effect.

But the order denied the administration’s request that the Supreme Court immediately take up the matter of whether President Donald Trump’s proposed ban is constitutional, and some LGBT legal activists say an injunction in another case keeps the ban intact.

“As a practical matter, this is bad for transgender people currently in service,” said Jennifer Levi, director of the Transgender Rights Project for GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders. She said it “strengthens the government’s position that it may be permitted to exclude people from serving,” but she said the order is “very limited” and declined the Trump administration’s request to have the high court hear arguments on the constitutionality of the ban itself before the litigation winds through the normal court process.

“This is a very narrow, limited ruling from the Supreme Court that allows the cases to proceed on the merits in the lower courts,” said Levi. “We will keep fighting this ban in the courts below and believe that it ultimately will not be allowed to stand.”

According to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, there are an estimated 15,000 trans service members serving in the military, including 8,800 on active duty and 6,700 in the National Guard or Reserves. In addition, there are over 130,000 transgender veterans.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) criticized the court’s action.

“The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a lower court injunction and allow President Trump’s transgender ban to temporarily take effect, before hearing the case, is deeply disappointing,” she said in a statement Tuesday. “This decision creates unnecessary confusion for transgender individuals serving in the military.

“The ban would essentially restore ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ for transgender service members, only allowing them to serve if they hide their true identity,” Feinstein added. “That previous policy directed toward LGBT service See page 12 >>

<< Community News

t Open Hand CEO leaves for St. Francis Foundation 2 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2019

by Alex Madison

T

he gay CEO of Project Open Hand will soon have a new job as president of the Saint Francis Foundation.

Mark Ryle is set to lead the foundation, which raises funds for Dignity Health Saint Francis Memorial Hospital. He starts March 1. Ryle will replace interim president Ann Lazarus, who has held the position since May 2017 and was the former executive director of Mount Zion Health Fund for 13 years.

“What excites me is the foundation’s commitment to be the bridge between the complex struggles of the Tenderloin population and its families and serving their entire needs and the population of Nob Hill,” Ryle, 55, told the Bay Area Reporter. “To continue what has been done and to help fund those communities and the hospital is a real honor.”

The foundation, created in 1979, is responsible for acquiring grants and fundraising for the Saint Francis Memorial Hospital and the communities

<<

Courtesy St. Francis Foundation

Mark Ryle

it serves. The not-for-profit community hospital has been operating since 1905 in the Nob Hill area of the city. It is known for serving and advocating for poor and disenfranchised people.

As CEO of Project Open Hand, an agency that offers meals and groceries to people with HIV and other illnesses, for six years, Ryle worked closely with Saint Francis as a community partner to help improve health outcomes

LGBT aging

From page 1

McSpadden, 54, who is bisexual and executive director of the city’s aging department. “Having the recommendations at our fingertips is very helpful, so we don’t have to start from scratch. These recommendations came from San Francisco residents living with these issues.”

When gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) served as the District 8 supervisor, he worked with gay former District 9 Supervisor David Campos and bisexual former District 5 Supervisor Christina Olague to push for the creation of the LGBT Aging Policy Task Force in 2012. In a recent editorial board meeting with the B.A.R., Wiener said he was “pleased” with the progress that has been made in seeing that its policy prescriptions became reality.

“My sense is the agencies took the report and legislation from the board very seriously and are committed to doing better for LGBT seniors,” said Wiener, whose push for an LGBT seniors’ bill of rights at both the local and state level came out of the aging report.

The ultimate goal, recalled Wiener, was to bring to the forefront the unique needs of LGBT seniors so that the city could no longer overlook them.

“There is more work to do, but I am

Kelly Sullivan

Openhouse Executive Director Karyn Skultety, Ph.D.

happy with the progress,” said Wiener.

Gustavo Serina, a gay man who is president of the San Francisco Aging and Adult Services Commission, noted that, due to the passage of the city’s Dignity Fund by voters in 2016, there is $50 million in funding in the 2019-2020 fiscal year for myriad senior services. By 2026, the pool of dedicated funding for senior services in the city is set to increase to $71 million. DAAS estimates that nearly $6.8 million of the Dignity Fund allocation is earmarked for services directed at, or inclusive of, LGBT seniors.

“I think the needs are being identified and programs are being devel-

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in the Tenderloin. He said leaving Project Open Hand had never crossed his mind before talking with folks from the foundation.

“It feels like I am going to something, not leaving something,” he said, adding that creating change for various communities including in the Tenderloin, which houses some of the cities most vulnerable populations, is something he looks forward to and will also be a challenge.

“I like challenges,” he said.

The leadership team and board of directors will jointly lead Project Open Hand until a new CEO is selected, according to Leah Weatherspoon, director of marketing and communications for the nonprofit.

Although Ryle explained that his priorities and goals for the foundation will begin to form after he more deeply understands the needs of the communities it serves, he plans to put effort into explaining the foundation’s work.

“The foundation can do a better job of talking about the stories of the work we do and telling it through the people

we serve,” he said. “We will begin to talk about the powerful work being done and the beautiful stories as well as provide the hard numbers for how we help the city.”

He said as a gay man he is committed to seeing the foundation’s partnerships in the LGBT community grow and help expand services to LGBTs. He mentioned that in the spring, the foundation will introduce an initiative that addresses the needs of the LGBT population, though he was unable to give details.

More broadly, he will focus on “strengthening existing partnerships,” and “developing new ones to continue meeting San Francisco’s emerging health care needs in transformative, compassionate ways,” he said in a news release.

In the release, Michael Soza, the foundation’s board chair, said, “We are extremely fortunate to have Mark Ryle join the Saint Francis Foundation as our new president. Mark’s unique experience and background are perfectly suited to furthering the mission of our organization as we strive to provide critical funding support for Saint Fran-

cis Memorial Hospital.”

Prior to his role with Project Open Hand, Ryle served as the health services director of Huckleberry Youth Programs in San Francisco. He also founded and served as director of Fundacion Huesped/Proyecto La Calle, a Buenos Aires organization providing food and housing for street-engaged adolescents. He holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Chicago and is a licensed clinical social worker. He has completed graduate certificate programs at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Harvard University Kennedy School of Public Policy.

“We are a little hospital doing incredible things,” Ryle said.

Ryle did not provide his salary at his new position in time for this article to go to print. A spokeswoman said the foundation’s operating budget is about $2 million. The Saint Francis Foundation had almost $80 million in assets, according to the 2016 Form 990; the former president earned just over $300,000 in salary and benefits.t

oped and implemented to address those concerns and needs,” said Serina, who has served on the oversight body since 2004.

“I think it is a huge need, but it is being addressed and being met little by little.”

Having the LGBT aging policy report has been crucial in being able to seek funding from mayoral administrations and the Board of Supervisors, noted McSpadden, who took over leading DAAS in 2016.

“We could follow the script in saying, ‘As long as we have funding for X, Y, and Z, we can do it.’ It is easy to go to the mayor for funding and the board because it was all here,” she said.

coming to LGBT older adults.

“We have talked with the CEOs of the shelters. They seem very interested in having a senior shelter but not necessarily carving one out for LGBT seniors,” she said.

Michael G. Pappas, a gay man who serves on the city’s aging commission, told the B.A.R. he has been impressed with city staff’s “diligence and really trying to see the implementation of the measures” included in the report.

Executive director of the San Francisco Interfaith Council, Pappas had chaired the LGBT advisory committee at the San Francisco Human Rights Commission in 2012 when it called on the city to form the special task force to look into the aging needs of the LGBT community.

“It has been kind of fun to watch it incubate and be on the DAAS side of it to see the implementation,” said Pappas, who was appointed to the agency’s oversight body in December 2017 by the late mayor Ed Lee. Despite the progress DAAS and the service providers it contracts with have made toward providing services to LGBTQ seniors in recent years, getting those older adults through the doors of agencies and senior community centers remains a challenge.

As DAAS noted in a report last year on how it has worked to meet the requirement that it collect sexual orientation and gender identity demographic data of its clients, another recommendation made by the LGBT aging policy panel adopted by the city, LGBT seniors underutilize the services that are available to them compared to their heterosexual counterparts.

“We still want to work on that, making sure all of our organizations are affirming and inviting of LGBTQ people,” said McSpadden.

One consequence for LGBT seniors living alone in the city and not connected to services is they are more prone to becoming isolated, as the B.A.R. noted in a recent series on the end-of-life issues LGBT seniors confront. And that can lead to issues with loneliness, depression, and an inability to remain living in their homes when they experience a health care crisis due to their lacking social and familial support.

“The next big step is to get the word out to LGBT seniors that they could apply for various services.

That is our next task,” said Martha Knutzen, 62, a lesbian who joined the aging commission last fall. “People don’t realize how much they could get, and I want to make sure we get the word out to our community.”

Remaining issues

The remaining two policy areas in the report still to be addressed, improving the living conditions of the city’s single-room-occupancy hotels, which many LGBT seniors call home, and ensuring the city’s shelters are LGBT-friendly, are priorities for Mayor London Breed, as the B.A.R. reported last month. Talks are underway with the city’s Department of Building Inspection on how best to inspect the SROs, while a shelter set aside for seniors is being looked at, said McSpadden, that would be wel-

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<< Open Forum

4 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2019

Volume 49, Number 4 January 24-30, 2019 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Michael M. Yamashita Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013) Publisher (2003 – 2013) Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman BARTAB EDITOR & EVENTS LISTINGS EDITOR Jim Provenzano ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko • Alex Madison CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ray Aguilera • Tavo Amador • Race Bannon Erin Blackwell • Roger Brigham Brian Bromberger • Victoria A. Brownworth Brent Calderwood • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Belo Cipriani • Dan Renzi Christina DiEdoardo • Richard Dodds Michael Flanagan • Jim Gladstone David Guarino • Liz Highleyman Brandon Judell • John F. Karr • Lisa Keen Matthew Kennedy • Joshua Klipp David Lamble • Max Leger Michael McDonagh • Juanita MORE! David-Elijah Nahmod • Paul Parish Sean Piverger • Lois Pearlman Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota • Bob Roehr Adam Sandel • Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Tony Taylor • Sari Staver Jim Stewart • Sean Timberlake • Andre Torrez Ronn Vigh • Charlie Wagner • Ed Walsh Cornelius Washington • Sura Wood ART DIRECTION Max Leger PRODUCTION/DESIGN Ernesto Sopprani PHOTOGRAPHERS Jane Philomen Cleland • FBFE Rick Gerharter • Gareth Gooch Jose Guzman-Colon • Rudy K. Lawidjaja Georg Lester • Dan Lloyd • Jo-Lynn Otto Rich Stadtmiller • Kelly Sullivan • Fred Rowe Steven Underhil • Dallis Willard • Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge • Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small Bogitini VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING Scott Wazlowski – 415.829.8937 NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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t

Gov can set notable mark with judge pick T

he Trump administration’s attack on transgender people was brought into sharp focus Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court – now with a conservative majority thanks to the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – granted the administration’s request to temporarily vacate two national injunctions that had prevented the president’s ban on trans people serving in the military from going into effect. This is a huge legal setback as many legal observers believe the ban will now be enforced. An injunction in a similar lawsuit against the ban remains in effect, but it is likely only a matter of time before it, too, is lifted. “As a practical matter, this is bad for the transgender community,” said Jennifer Levi, director of the Transgender Rights Project for GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, which is representing some of the plaintiffs involved in the four lawsuits.

The court’s action clearly shows that the majority of justices are signaling that they are generally inclined to support the trans military ban.

The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law estimated there are 15,000 trans service members in the military, and over 130,000 trans veterans.

Military service is just one area in which the administration has proved itself hostile to trans people. Various federal departments have systematically undone just about all of the policies established by the Obama administration to protect trans people, and a Republican-controlled Senate guarantees little progress can be made despite Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives. When it comes to federal judicial nominees, the LGBT community can expect only nominees who share the president’s view.

Thankfully, the situation is better at the state level, especially in California. With the swearing in of Governor Gavin Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor who made his mark in 2004 when he ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, the Golden State is poised to usher in a new era in the pursuit of equality. And to us, that

Jane Philomen Cleland

Governor Gavin Newsom

cause of their gender identity,” the BALIF board said in a statement.

It’s important that California’s judges reflect the communities they serve. That’s why Brown appointed a number of diverse people to Superior Court vacancies over the years, men and women of various ethnic backgrounds who bring their life experiences to the bench. The same is true for LGBT people, and Brown named many of them to the lower court. Brown also appointed two lesbians and two gay men to the appellate court. But there has never been an out bi or trans appellate justice.

Newsom can change that. He should seize the opportunity.

Good school board pick

means appointing qualified LGBT people to the state’s courts – at all levels.

Newsom’s decision earlier this month to name state Appeal Court Justice Martin Jenkins as his judicial appointments secretary creates an unexpected opening on the San Francisco-based bench that he likely will soon fill. He could make history by naming a qualified out bi or trans person to the seat.

In an editorial last year, we urged former Governor Jerry Brown to pick an out LGBT person for the long-vacant state Supreme Court vacancy. While he did not do that, our Political Notebook reports this week that there is already an extremely qualified trans Superior Court judge who applied for the appeal court last year and should be considered by Newsom and his team.

She has the backing of Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom, whose co-chair told us the LGBT legal group “believes it is essential to have someone with the transgender perspective behind the bench.”

BALIF also came out swinging against the Supreme Court’s action in the trans military cases, saying it was outraged.

“The Supreme Court is acting as an enabler of the Trump administration, supporting the president’s cruel and outrageous preoccupation with clearing the military of brave, honorable, patriotic and hard-working service members simply be-

While we’re disappointed that Mayor London Breed did not choose a transgender or LGBT person for the vacant seat on the San Francisco school board, we applaud her appointment Tuesday of Jenny Lam. The board was lacking an Asian-American commissioner. Lam is a parent of two children attending San Francisco public schools and that voice is important as well.

A straight ally, Lam is currently the education adviser for the mayor’s office. She replaces Matt Haney, who resigned the seat earlier this month when he became the District 6 supervisor.

Lam said in a statement that she’s excited to serve on the school board. She has seen the challenges facing public education, as well as the “immense positive impact educational opportunity can have on the lives of our children and our families.”

Lam will be required to run in a special election in November to serve the remainder of Haney’s term. The winner of that election will need to run again in November 2020, which is the normal election cycle for the four-year seat.

We’ll be watching Lam as she starts her board service and seeks voter approval. There are serious issues facing the district, including bullying, lack of affordable housing for teachers, and the school assignment policy, to name a few.

As with every election, it’s not too late for qualified LGBT candidates to consider running so that there can be a vigorous debate on the district’s future.t

Here’s how to mitigate trans rights rollback

by Elizabeth L. Hillman & Chicora Martin

W

e believe that the denial of rights to transgender people, due to changes in federal law, can be mitigated. Here’s how: For as many times as we may have asked lately, “But, what can I do?” the 2018 midterm elections remind us how much local engagement and influence matters. It’s time to act. As the U.S. Departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services reconsider federal civil rights laws that protect transgender people, and as the courts continue to block the implementation of President Donald Trump’s proposed ban on transgender military service, state and local laws, and the policies of institutions, deserve our attention. Changes in federal policy are only part of the civil rights equation. Working toward better federal laws and more inclusivity at the national level is essential, but it’s neither enough nor our only option. Even when federal laws mandate equity, experiences on the ground vary at different institutions, and in different geographic locations. Institutional policies, local ordinances, and state laws can also promote inclusive workplaces and educational environments. Policies don’t just happen, they are created by leaders.

Action to revise and implement protections beyond the federal government is available to all of us within our own communities, institutions, and states.

Federal legislation is important to the progress toward civil rights for transgender and gender-nonbinary groups, but it’s not the only opportunity to address inequities. States, after all, have more power to act than the federal government, which has only limited authority and impact.

There is a long history of states being the first to act to address those inequities. The state of Wyoming affording the right of women to vote in 1890, 29 years before that passage of the 19th Amendment. Today, this effort of states to lead

Courtesy Mills College

Chicora Martin, left, and Elizabeth L. Hillman

the way continues. A California law, signed by Governor Jerry Brown, specifies that high school students can join sports teams and use bathrooms based on their gender identity. In 2017, the Oakland City Council, led by out Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan, approved expanded public access to gender-neutral bathrooms, a critical public health and safety issue for our communities. And as of January 1, the state of California legally recognizes nonbinary as another gender on official state identification documents. Brown also signed the Gender Recognition Act that allows greater choice for intersex, nonbinary, and transgender Californians who apply for driver’s licenses and state identification cards. Other states – and other countries – have already adopted, or are considering, similar legislation. Leadership at the state and local level can cause a ripple effect of change that directly impacts people’s lives.

The leaders of higher education institutions must also stand up to this challenge. At Mills College, our institutional commitment to inclusivity, including for transgender people, is a core value

regardless of federal mandates. In 2014, Mills was the first women’s college in the U.S. to adopt a transgender-inclusive undergraduate admissions policy, setting a new standard that has been followed by nearly every U.S. women’s college, and most recently, by Ochanomizu University in Japan. Yet, we have work to do to create and maintain an inclusive academic community at Mills, an aspiration that requires constant vigilance.

As new federal policies restrict protections for transgender people, we can act locally to influence our communities. As leaders, we must listen to those most affected by discrimination and make our own positions and voices clearly heard.

Educating ourselves about the legal protections currently available in our institutions, cities, and states is the first step.

Here’s how to get started: • Visit the Transgender Law Center online (http://www.transgenderlawcenter.org) or in Oakland, California. It’s the largest trans-led civil rights organization in the U.S. and a good place to start.

• Visit your city and state websites and call your elected local officials and ask them to support trans-inclusive policies and legislation.

• Most cities and states have LGBTQ organizations that provide advocacy and work on policy changes. Ask how you can join in and volunteer to help.

• Many youth organizations and faith-based organizations offer opportunities to support gender-nonbinary youth. Ask how you can get involved.

• Recognizing that individual action is as powerful as institutional transformation, respect each person’s dignity and autonomy regardless of gender in your own interactions with people in your communities.

Transforming local law and policy may be the best way to advance equity and seek justice.t Elizabeth L. Hillman, Ph.D., a lesbian, is the 14th president of Mills College in Oakland, California. Chicora Martin, Ed.D., who uses gender-neutral pronouns, serves as the vice president of student life and dean of students for Mills College.

Politics >>

t CA appeal court vacancy offers Newsom historic LGBT pick

by Matthew S. Bajko

B

y choosing Martin Jenkins to be his judicial appointments secretary, Governor Gavin Newsom has provided himself with a historic opportunity to make a judicial pick.

Prior to joining Newsom’s gubernatorial administration earlier this month, Jenkins had been serving as an associate justice on the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, based in San Francisco. It will now be up to Newsom, with advice from Jenkins, to fill the vacancy on the appellate bench.

Former Governor Jerry Brown named the state’s first out gay and lesbian appellate court justices, including two to the First Appellate District, during his recent terms in office. In total, Brown named two lesbians and two gay men to appellate court seats.

Now, Newsom could name either the first known bisexual or transgender person to the state’s appellate bench.

One possible pick is Alameda County Superior Court Judge Victoria Kolakowski, who last year applied with Brown’s legal affairs office to be considered for an appeal court seat.

In 2010 Kolakowski, the wife of Bay Area Reporter news editor Cynthia Laird, became the country’s first elected transgender trial court judge. She is one of only three known transgender judges in the country, with the others serving on the bench in Arizona and Texas.

Should Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco, decide to name Kolakowski to the seat, he would become the first U.S. governor to appoint a transgender person to a judicial seat.

His doing so would come 40 years after Brown named Stephen Lachs as the first openly gay judge to serve in California and the first out appointed jurist in the country.

A spokesman for Newsom did not respond to the B.A.R.’s request for comment about his judicial appointments process.

Attorney Annick M. Persinger, co-chair of Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom, told the B.A.R. that the LGBT legal group “believes it is essential to have someone with the transgender perspective behind the bench.”

It will be sending a letter of endorsement on behalf of Kolakowski to Newsom’s administration. As it wrote in a letter sent to Brown last year endorsing Kolakowski for the appellate bench, BALIF called her “extremely qualified for the position.”

It noted that she had “over 28 years practicing as an attorney, five years as an administrative law judge, and almost eight years on the bench at the Superior Court.”

It also noted that Kolakowski often “counsels her colleagues behind the bench when they have questions about transgender litigants or other transgender issues. She emphasizes that it is important to add transgender people to the discourse because transgender issues are being talked about, but often there is no one in the room or behind the bench that actually knows anything about these important issues.”

In a statement to the B.A.R. Kolakowski said she hopes her application will be reviewed by Newsom’s legal affairs office on its merits, regardless of the historic nature of her being appointed.

“First, just like when I ran for the Superior Court seat, I want to be evaluated as a candidate based upon my clear qualifications and experience,” she stated. “From personal experience, I know that I will be watched by a lot of people, and I wouldn’t apply if I thought that I wouldn’t be a good role model.”

She reiterated that her desire to serve on the bench comes from wanting to be a “judge for all of us.” And she noted that, having been on the Supe-

Victoria Friend/PortraitPros

Judge Victoria Kolakowski

rior Court, she has seen firsthand how diversion programs benefit many defendants and how the criminal justice system has become a default provider of services for people with chronic mental illness and substance abuse problems.

“It isn’t just that I know these things in my head – I feel them in my heart,” stated Kolakowski. “I have dedicated my time on the bench to addressing these issues, on both an institutional level and on direct basis. I believe that I would be able to do so better as an appellate justice.”

Out judge joins Alameda bench

Among the last dozen Superior Court picks Brown made January 2 shortly before leaving office was an out appointment to the Alameda County Superior Court. He named Karin S. Schwartz, 54, to fill the vacancy created by the elevation of Judge Ioana Petrou to the Court of Appeal.

Schwartz, a Democrat, had been living in Sacramento since 2013 when she was named deputy director and chief counsel at the California Department of Public Health. There she argued on behalf of the agency before the U.S. Supreme Court as well as represented it in various other legal proceedings in the state courts.

Prior to that she had been living in Alameda and working in San Francisco as a supervising deputy attorney general and acting senior assistant attorney general for the California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General. In 2007, Schwartz was a Supreme Court fellow at the National Association of Attorneys General.

Before joining the public sector, she was an associate at Munger, Tolles, and Olson LLP from 2000 to 2003 and at Debevoise and Plimpton LLP from 1995 to 2000. Schwartz served as a law clerk for the Honorable Jack B. Weinstein at the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York in 1994.

The Bryn Mawr College alumna earned a Juris Doctor degree from

Courtesy Governor’s Office

Judge Karin S. Schwartz

January 24-30, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

Stanford Law School. In the 1980s and early 1990s Schwartz worked in the New York office of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

She served as its director of public affairs and, for a time, was the LGBT group’s acting executive director. A 1991 story in the B.A.R. reported on her tussling with comic Roseanne Barr due to the actress’ use of a gay slur to describe a film competing against one she had starred in.

“That really takes me back,” said Schwartz, who identifies as LGBT, in a phone interview with the B.A.R. “I also had some interactions with Bob Hope and George Carlin.”

She had applied to be a judge two and half years ago and got the word late last year. She had to rush back to Alameda in order to take her oath of office Friday, January 4, the last day Brown’s appointees could be sworn in.

Asked how it has felt being on the other side of the bench as a judge compared to being a lawyer, Schwartz said she considers herself not to be on one judicial side versus another but rather on a “third side” representing the public in addition to ensuring both plaintiffs and defendants are given a fair trial.

“It has been very steady how they have introduced us to the art of judging,” she said. “It has been a tremendous experience.”

She has been assigned to the Hayward courthouse handling general civil cases for the time being. In her short time on the bench she has handled legal disputes involving the regional transit agency BART, airplanes, and a fight over the placement of a cake at a quinceañera party.

“We have an opportunity to cut our teeth on smaller cases that are nonetheless very important to the litigants, such as small claims cases and civil harassment cases,” said Schwartz. “The breadth of the types of cases that appear in small claims really surprised me, but in a positive way. It is very clear people turn to the courts to solve a variety of disputes.”

Her appointment followed that of two gay men named by Brown in late November to Superior Court seats. He appointed his deputy legal affairs secretary, Daniel J. Calabretta, 40, to the Sacramento County Superior Court. Similar to Schwartz, Calabretta also worked as a deputy attorney general and at Munger, Tolles and Olson LLP. Brown also appointed Jeffrey S. Cohen-Laurie, 43, of West Hollywood, to the Los Angeles County Superior Court. He had worked as a deputy alternate public defender and senior attorney at the Los Angeles County Alternate Public Defender’s Office.

According to judicial data that Brown released earlier this month, he appointed 38 of 113 LGBT judicial applicants between 2011 and 2018. The out jurists accounted for 5.9 percent of the total judges Brown named.

As of 2017, the number of sitting judges and justices in the state that were LGBT stood at 3.2 percent, according to the data. With various appointments since then, the number of LGBT jurists serving on the state’s appellate and trial courts is at least 62. t Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion, will return Monday, January 28.

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

Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 829-8836 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.

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<< Community News

6 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2019

Phillips gets life for SF friend’s murder

by Alex Madison

C

onvicted murderer Michael Phillips was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the killing of his elderly gay friend.

The January 18 sentencing followed Phillips’ conviction of firstdegree murder last fall by a San Francisco Superior Court jury for killing his friend, James Sheahan, 75.

Phillips was also convicted of numerous other charges and sentenced on those as well.

In August 2017, Sheahan’s body was found in his bloodstained Nob Hill apartment. Phillips was arrested that November in connection with the death. Phillips,

65, pleaded not guilty in April 2017 to murder, robbery, and other charges related to the death of Sheahan.

During the trial, the jury was convinced by evidence presented

by Assistant District Attorney O’Bryan Kenney that Phillips brutally killed Sheahan with a cordless phone then cut his wrist to make it look like a suicide before stealing thousands of dollars from him, including paintings, forged checks, and attempted cash withdrawals with Sheahan’s ATM card. Kenney told the jury that the motive for the killing was Phillips’ desperate love for a Filipino man, Archie Arcaya Fuscablo, and Phillips’ need to funnel money to Fuscablo to get him to the United States. (Phillips

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and Fuscablo were married at San Francisco City Hall October 30, 2017, just weeks after Fuscablo arrived in the U.S.) In the months leading up to his death, Sheahan was suffering from Stage 4 lung cancer. Witnesses testified during the trial that Sheahan died from multiple traumatic injuries to the head caused by blunt force trauma.

A former friend of Phillips’, John Dawson, 52, of San Francisco, was the only person associated with Phillips who attended the sentencing. Dawson had also attended several days of the trial.

Phillips and Dawson met at a gay men’s pen pal group in 2000. At the time they were friends, Dawson said Phillips’ life was “in a downward spiral.”

“He was asking all of his friends for money,” he said, adding that Phillips had asked him for money multiple times.

When asked what Dawson thought about the sentencing, Dawson told the Bay Area Reporter “Anyone who saw all the evidence could not have found him not guilty.”

He also said when he was first told of Phillips’ arrest he was not shocked that he was in trouble, but stunned that it was murder.

“I am not surprised, he was totally in denial of his own life,” Dawson said. “He had no selfawareness.”

Prior to issuing the sentence, Superior Court Judge Loretta Giorgi gave the reasoning for her decision. “[James Sheahan] was facing death of an already terrible thing, terminal lung cancer. Being very sick, he was relying on the kindness of others to help him through, day-to-day,” she said. “To have him struck down in this manner is particularly horrifying and it’s particularly horrifying when it is done by someone who is in a position of trust to him.”

She then looked at Phillips and

Convicted murderer Michael Phillips

Murder victim James Sheahan

said, “To that end I find it also very poignant that you continually look only to what has happened to you and not to your friend, who died in a horrible tortured manner over frankly, his wealth, which was modest, and for what?”

Dawson said the judge’s comments summarized the case.

“The judge was clearly personally horrified,” said Dawson after the sentencing.

Prior to her decision, Phillips had made his own statement in court that began with him saying what a difficult time this was for him.

Assistant District Attorney J. Michael Swart stood in for Kenney, who was not present at the sentencing. He also gave his reasoning as to why Phillips deserved a life behind bars. “[Phillips] doesn’t understand what he did and he still thinks he didn’t do it, which is just shocking to me, given all the evidence,” Swart said. “To take advantage of a 75-year-old man and to have to die the way he did suffering from terminal lung cancer from the one person in his life who was relying on him is just a despicable act.”

Swart said the murder was done entirely for Phillips’ “own selfish benefit,” and said the “evil he committed is just breathtaking.”

Phillips remained emotionless throughout the hearing. His state-

ment, which was read after Swart spoke, said, “I have listened to the prosecution’s theories of who I am and listened to Mr. Swart today talk about who I am and everything they said is pretty much 180 degrees away from who I am. I spent my entire life trying to help people. I don’t prey on people, I’ve never preyed on anyone and having my personality and my life fictionalized by other people to make me sound like a horrible person when I am not.”

Deputy Public Defender Kwixuan Maloof disagreed with Swart’s comments about his client. He said Phillips had maintained his innocence and that, “Just because the jury comes back with a guilty verdict doesn’t mean the allegations were true.”

In addition to the life sentence, Phillips was sentenced to seven years for covering up the murder, including slitting Sheahan’s wrist.

He was sentenced to nine years for the infliction of injury on an elder.

Additionally, for the robbery, he was given 11 years; for first-degree burglary, residential, 11 years; for theft of an elder, four years; and for the theft of a bank access card, six months.

During the hearing, the defense’s motion for a new trial was denied. None of Sheahan’s family members were present. t

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gay married couple continues to have issues with Facebook and could not boost its Christmas episode of G News in time for the holidays.

G News is a gay news and entertainment series that Chris Knight and Celso Dulay produce under the umbrella of Glitter Bomb TV, a company they co-own.

It was a year ago that G News had similar issues with Googleowned YouTube when the couple were stopped from boosting episodes on the video-sharing site. At the time they were told that the show was barred from boosting due to its “shocking content,” though the YouTube issue was eventually resolved in G News’ favor. Ironically, it was also a Christmas episode that YouTube took issue with.

“On G News we cover a variety of topics of interest to the global LGBTQ+ community,” Knight told the Bay Area Reporter. “From Hollywood, the music charts, pop culture, celebrities, politics, news of top interest to our community, local and international events, and more. Of course, with the current divisive political environment and the attacks on our LGBTQ+ rights, politics is a more frequent topic we cover these days.”

Knight explained the issues G News was having with Facebook.

“During the last three months we’ve been denied the ability to boost views of G News via

Courtesy Facebook

G News’ Celso Dulay

Facebook because we’ve been told ‘your ad was not approved because your page has not been authorized to run ads related to politics and issues of national importance,’ he said. “The two previous times we appealed that decision via Facebook’s online interface several times, and our ads were eventually approved.”

Dulay said they think Facebook is targeting LGBT content.

“We do, in fact, believe that our LGBTQ+ news content is being singled out by Facebook’s algorithms, or potentially from its human workforce that the social media giant has beefed up due to the Russian interference scandal that’s been highly covered and criticized around the globe,” said Dulay. “Because LGBTQ+ topics are highly politicized and are a hot-button issue for Russian bots to divide the country, our theory is that Facebook and other

social media companies are treating it differently, and this has amounted to censorship because we can’t promote the programming, and hence that limits the show’s views.”

G News’ 123rd episode was denied the ability to boost even on appeal. Knight said that they uploaded a passport and provided a physical address to Facebook, which is part of the registration process for boosting political posts. Facebook responded by saying that G News could not be approved to boost posts with the documentation provided. Eventually the men received a passcode to enter into Facebook’s ad center for Glitter Bomb TV. Even after entering the passcode there was a 10-day delay for the ad block to be lifted. By the time G News’ “HoliGays” episode was boosted, Christmas had passed.

“The weird part in all that is that we purposely avoided any political stories for that episode, but we were still unable to promote the show,” said Dulay. “We’re a weekly news program, so the news stories become dated after awhile.”

Knight noted that the GLBT Historical Society has had similar issues with Facebook.

As the B.A.R. reported last August, the historical society, which operates the GLBT Historical Society Museum in the Castro, was banned from boosting a post on Facebook. It was the second time in less than a year that the nonprofit See page 13 >>

t

Community News>>

January 24-30, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 7

EARLY SPACE RESERVATIONS NOW BEING ACCEPTED

Rick Gerharter

Dancers wait to enter the arena at last year’s seventh annual Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits powwow.

BAAITS readies for new exhibit, powwow event compiled by Cynthia Laird

B

ay Area American Indian TwoSpirits is involved with two upcoming events: a new exhibit at the GLBT Historical Society Museum and its annual powwow.

(The historical society officially changed the name of the museum January 1, a spokesman said. Previously, it had been the GLBT History Museum.)

The historical society exhibit, “Two-Spirit Voices: Returning to the Circle,” focuses on four main themes: LGBTQ and two-spirit Pride, the annual two-spirit powwow, indigenous medicine and responses to HIV/ AIDS, and two-spirit meaning within indigenous communities.

BAAITS members Roger Kuhn, Amelia Vigil, and Ruth Villaseñor have curated the show in collaboration with the historical society.

“This exhibition emphasizes positive approaches to resistance to the current political climate in the United States, reminding visitors that two-spirit people are still here and still queer,” Kuhn said in a news release. “In particular, the displays honor the work two-spirit people do for Native and non-Native communities, including standing strong for environmental and social justice.”

Drawing on materials such as regalia and textiles, medicines and herbs, and photography and video on loan from community members, as well as materials recently donated to the historical society, the exhibition highlights the resiliency of twospirit people in northern California.

There will be an opening night party Thursday, January 31, with a public reception from 7 to 9 p.m. at the museum, 4127 18th Street in the Castro. The curators will offer introductory remarks and light refreshments will be served. Admission is free for members and $5 for non-members. For tickets, visit https://bit. ly/2C3kRfW. The exhibit is up until May 27.

On Saturday, February 2, BAAITS will hold its eighth annual two-spirit Powwow from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Fort Masson’s Festival Pavilion, 2 Marina Boulevard in San Francisco.

Grand entry will be at noon.

A powwow is a traditional Native American event that gathers all tribes as well as non-Native guests to learn about Native cultures. Last year, the event welcomed more than 5,000 people and a larger crowd is expected this year, which is BAAITS’ 20th anniversary, officials said.

“This is a space for all of us to gather and respectfully celebrate Native traditions,” said Vigil, who is the

BAAITS board chair. “Whether you are African-American, Native American, white, gay, straight, transgender, whoever you are and wherever your roots originated, come with curiosity and kindness.”

The powwow will feature an opening prayer by Carla Munoz and Dessiree Munoz, head dancers Clyde Hall and Sage Runsabove, and head gourd dancer Matthew Reed. The northern drum will be performed

by Blue Medicine Well; the southern drum will be performed by Southern Pride. L. Frank Manriquez and Coy McLemore will serve as co-emcees.

The powwow features several hours of ceremonial honor dances, contest dances, and a drum contest.

The event is open to the public and free, though donations are welcome at the door.

Organizers noted that the powwow is a clean and sober event. Street attire is encouraged for non-Natives.

People should leave costumes at home.

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

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Two from SF join CenterLink board

A gay man and a lesbian from San Francisco have been named to the board of CenterLink, a national organization that supports strong, sustainable LGBT community centers and connects LGBTs with centers in nearly every state.

Lance Toma, LCSW, chief executive officer of the San Francisco Community Health Center, and Selisse Berry, the founder and former CEO of Out and Equal Workplace Advocates, joined the CenterLink board, according to a January 16 news release.

Toma has run SFCHC, formerly known as the Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center, since 1999.

Berry started Out and Equal in 1996.

She stepped down as CEO in 2017 and moved to an advisory role with the organization, which advocates for achieving global LGBT workplace equality.

Two others newly named to the CenterLink board are Sarah Anderson, a consultant for Campbell and Company in Seattle, and Porter Gilberg, executive director of the LGBTQ Center Long Beach.

“CenterLink is honored and excited to welcome four new exceptional leaders to our national board of directors in 2019,” Lora L. Tucker, CenterLink CEO, said in the release.

“Sarah Anderson, Selisse Berry, Lance Toma, and Porter Gilberg See page 12 >>

Join the BID to WIN! PUBLIC NOTICE: ACCESS TO CALTRANS UPCOMING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECTURAL & ENGINEERING PROJECTS California Senate Bill 1 (SB1) will provide $54 billion over the next 10 years for state and local transportation

projects. This creates additional opportunities for all small businesses, including businesses owned by women, minorities, disabled veterans, LGBT, and other disadvantaged groups, to participate on public works projects with local and state transportation agencies.

Now is the time to get involved. Visit Caltrans’ SB1 web site, www.rebuildingca.ca.gov, and learn more about planned improvements. Review Caltrans’ online “look ahead” reports of upcoming construction and architectural and engineering contracts to identify potential opportunities for your business. Attend contract-specific outreach events, that include pre-bid meetings and pre-proposal conferences, and meet with prospective bidders/proposers. Learn about Caltrans contracting requirements at a free training or workshop.

Caltrans needs your help to repair and rebuild California’s transportation system. We are looking for qualified contractors, consultants, suppliers, truckers, and service providers to help fix our roads, freeways, and bridges.

Construction look-ahead report: http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/esc/oe/contractor_info/12_month_Advertising_Schedule.pdf Architectural and Engineering look-ahead report: http://www.dot.ca.gov/dpac/ae/doc/lookahead.pdf Caltrans Events Calendar: http://www.dot.ca.gov/obeo/calendar.html For more information, contact Caltrans’ Small Business Advocate at smallbusinessadvocate@dot.ca.gov.

<< Business News

8 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2019

Chapter’s ending at SF’s Aardvark Books

by Brian Bromberger

I

t’s the last chapter for Aardvark Books, a mainstay on Church Street for 40 years that will close Friday, January 25.

For John Hadreas, who bought the building at 227 Church Street in 1978 and opened the bookstore, it’s a bittersweet moment.

He sold the property, which once housed the Electric Theater Movie House, for $2.43 million and must vacate by the end of the month.

Hadreas, 75, in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter, said that back in the 1970s he was a bridge and poker player who wanted a more regular living, as he was married and had children. He knew a little about books and “had a vision of a local bookstore with friendly, knowledgeable staff, fair prices, and the ability for customers to sell books at any time.”

He didn’t want to settle on Castro Street, as there were already several bookstores there, but wanted a loca-

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tion in the Upper Market area.

Ready to retire permanently, he had first put the store up for sale in September 2017, asking for $2.8 million. Although he had no takers at that price, he was so touched by the outpouring of communal support, he pulled the listing a year ago.

However, in July he again listed the building for sale, having lowered the price to $2.45 million.

He has mixed feelings again about the sale but cannot back out because the buyer already has paid him in cash.

“If I could do it all over, I wouldn’t sell,” he said.

He observed that the store never made a big profit, but he could keep Aardvark open since he owned the building, when so many others closed because they couldn’t afford rising commercial rents. The store holds the distinction of being one of the first used bookstores (not gayaffiliated) in San Francisco to have a gay and lesbian section. A straight ally, Hadreas hired LGBTQ employees and supported the community.

Dan Lugen has worked at Aardvark for 38 years.

“We’ve known about the closing for awhile so we’ve had time to adjust,” he said. “It will be a loss for the neighborhood and city as there are not many bookstores left.”

Lugen, who declined to say how he identifies, noted that there aren’t as many stores open on the block, so fewer customers come into the area.

“I live and commute from the East Bay, so I won’t see the consequences of its closing here in San Francisco.

But people have expressed a sense of loss about the store’s leaving, both regular customers and others I haven’t seen before,” he said.

Lugen explained the origin of the bookstore’s name.

“It’s a catchy name, but the story

Brian Bromberger

t

JD Jenkins

Longtime Aardvark Books employee Dan Lugen said he will miss the store.

The plan is for Owen the cat to move to Antioch after Aardvark Books closes.

isn’t very exciting. In the old telephone books, aardvark would be the first listing, so people would catch the name right away. People from all over the world have told us how popular a name aardvark is for businesses, especially in England.”

Lugen said he would look for another job.

“We’ve been here for 40 years and we’ve made a great go of it,” he said.

Eric Lundstrom has been an employee since 1996.

“I have mixed feelings about the closure as I’ve been so accustomed to this job for so many years, it’s hard for me to imagine the transition,” he said. “I will find another job, but I’m waiting for the whole thing to be over to process my feelings about it. I’ve used all my denial up. We had a year’s reprieve but it passed so quickly.”

Lundstrom, who declined to say how he identifies, has been surprised by customers having a sentimental attachment to the store.

“Even people who aren’t regular customers, when they found out the store was closing, seemed to be at a loss. They see it as an integral part of the neighborhood, a hub. I understand that part because so much has changed on this block with stores closing but not replaced.”

Perhaps Owen the cat will be missed most of all. A permanent fixture at Aardvark, the orange tabby is often seen lounging in the sunny store window nestled among the newest books on display. According to employees, the plan is for Owen to move to Antioch, where he lived before arriving at Aardvark.

In recent weeks, the store has been packed with customers, some from as far away as Australia, looking for treasures at the deep 50 percent discount.

Numerous customers, who didn’t want to be identified, said Aardvark was their favorite used bookstore in San Francisco.

Aardvark also attracted many

younger customers who cherished its extensive graphic novel section.

“I’ve been here since I was 2 years old when my father would buy me books here,” said Sky Dow, 23. “I feel like it’s a part of my history that is now gone. I know it’s been here for a long time but it’s sad to see something pass that is so intimately connected to my own history. I was grateful for the quality care given by the owners in the way they selected books.

“Yes, I would find books on my list, but then I would find other books I had wanted but had slipped my mind,” Dow added. “I guess what I will miss most is this feeling of comfort you got when you walked in, a sense of lived-in-ness that you don’t find in other bookstores. Aardvark was unique and I’m glad it was an important part of my own personal growth and development.” t

Meet the Gay Games sports officers

by Roger Brigham

A

t the annual membership meeting of the Federation of Gay Games last year, two longtime inclusive sports activists – track athlete Reggie Snowden of San Francisco and veteran soccer official Kimberly Hadley of Edmonton, Alberta – were elected male and female sports officers. I recently asked both of them via email about the importance of volunteering in LGBT-inclusive sports and their thoughts about the future of the Gay Games.

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“As a long-serving member of the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association board, I understood the importance of volunteering my time. I have a great belief that organizing sports events for LGBTQ+ individuals provides a opportunity for creating a catalyst for positive change,” Hadley wrote. “I have been a professional soccer referee for 43 years and have served as the North American referee director for the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association since 2007. My first involvement with the Gay Games was as a referee

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during Gay Games VIII in Cologne, Germany in 2010. Since then, I was responsible for soccer referees during both Gay IX in 2014 and Gay Games X in 2018.”

Snowden said that he has been a strong supporter and participant of Gay Games since 1994.

“When I was 29, I was excited to attend the Gay Games in New York City competing in track and field,” he wrote. “I competed in the 110-m hurdles, 400-m hurdles, triple jump, long jump and 4x400 relay. As a hurdler, I have always enjoyed the mechanics of the event and was fortunate enough to have some top coaches help me out along the way. I was All American my senior year in high school.

“After competing in college, I stopped for a few years,” he added. “When I moved to San Francisco in 1992 and I heard about Gay Games in 1993, I was thrilled to train again. I have also participated in the Gay Games in Sydney, Cologne, and Cleveland, but ended up nursing a knee injury prior to Paris. After being a delegate for International Front Runners to the FGG, the next natural step was to bring my experience as an avid athlete to the federation.”

The two were asked about Gay Games’ greatest strengths.

“Participation, inclusion, and personal best – that says it all,” Hadley wrote.

Snowden wrote, “I think the greatest strength is having the ability to bring the community together globally every four years. It’s amazing how many friends I have made since 1994

due to attending Gay Games. Regardless of the levels that range from beginning runners to competitive runners, I have witnessed long-lasting relationships that have formed. Due to social media, a lot of us are able to keep connected. Also, I believe one of the strengths has been with communications from year to year in most sports.”

As for improvements, the two offered some ideas.

“The FGG is the leader in the LGBTQ+ sports and cultural global community,” wrote Hadley. “We are not a political organization – that isn’t our role. Being able to continue to provide opportunities in new areas of the world where we haven’t had a large visibility to date is vital to reaching those individuals who need our help. I have continued to encourage the FGG to create smaller versions of the event and hold them in underrepresented areas of the world where they may become an even greater impact than the current event itself. This hasn’t come to fruition yet but I have confidence that it will.”

Snowden said it would be great to see Gay Games in Africa or a Latin American country eventually.

“The impact would be amazing. It was great to participate in Amsterdam in 1998 and to see the excitement on European soil for the first time,” he wrote. “I met new athletes I would have not been able to have met before.

The same can be said for Sydney and even Cleveland. It was foreign soil for See page 10 >>

t

Business News>>

January 24-30, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 9

Retail changes coming to the Castro

by Tony Taylor

T

he Castro’s commercial real estate shuffle continues as new restaurants and fitness centers arrive, legacy businesses are nominated, and a legendary business shutters.

Construction near the southwest corner of Church and Market streets is expected to begin this week for Gramercy Park Brasserie & Wine Bar (216 Church Street) – the former home of Crepevine for 18 years – that will open in April. The 1,900 square foot eatery will also occupy neighboring address 212 Church Street, formerly Church Street Flowers, to operate a takeaway business, Gramercy Park To-Go, Hoodline reported.

Gramercy owner Mark White, a gay man, told the outlet he’s leased both spaces for a decade with the option for an additional five years.

According to a representative of Veritas Investments, a San Francisco real estate firm with multiple Castro properties including the aforementioned Gramercy Park, Il Casaro Pizzeria (235 Church Street) will begin serving pies in February.

Il Casaro’s North Beach location opened in 2014.

Though tight-lipped about details, a source confirmed via email that new owners just acquired 242 Church Street, formerly 24-hour diner Sparky’s, which closed in 2016.

“The impending openings of Gramercy and Il Casaro,” said Justine Shoemaker of Veritas Investments in a statement to the B.A.R., “are the latest validation of Veritas’ work with our brokers, retailers, Supervisor [Rafael] Mandelman, the

Tony Taylor

Il Casaro Pizzeria will open at 235 Church Street as soon as February, said a representative of Veritas Investments.

merchants group, and neighbors to reinvigorate commercial activity in the neighborhood despite the challenges of soft-story improvements, PG&E coordination, city approvals, and in finding strong retailers who make a great fit for the community.

“We know it’s an ongoing, combined effort and appreciate the cooperative approach of those seeking a thriving, energized Castro and Upper Market,” Shoemaker added.

As the Bay Area Reporter noted in a recent article, there are two new tenants on the ground floor of Maitri Compassionate Care AIDS hospice at Church and Duboce streets. The Veritas-managed retail space formerly housed Out of the Closet thrift store. The Castro Animal Hospital (100 Church Street) opened January 7 and CorePower Yoga opens January 31.

Another fitness center will have locals breaking a sweat soon. Barry’s

Bootcamp opens at 2280 Market Street Saturday, February 9, Barry’s managing partner Adam Shane confirmed.

With 42 gyms worldwide, the popular fitness studio acquired a conditional use permit last year allowing the formula retailer to reconstruct the former CVS pharmacy location.

Of the new location, Shane told the B.A.R., “Barry’s Castro will not only be one of the company’s largest studios in the world, but it will be one of our coolest spaces yet, with sleek and edgy design including contemporary furniture, stylish lighting, and more, resulting in a stunning social space where the whole community can hang out before and after their workouts.”

On January 30, the Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District will take over the former location of Snowbright Launderette (693 14th

Street at Market), which served the Castro for nearly 55 years before closing in January 2018.

CBD Executive Director Andrea Aiello told the B.A.R., “We are working with Supervisor Mandelman to try to address issues that often present multiple headaches for new businesses, particularly around rethinking some of the zoning controls on upper Market Street.”

Despite new additions to Castro’s business corridors, the eminent closure of legendary retailer Aardvark Books is a loss for the community.

After 41 years, the 3,125 square foot building – which sold last year for $2.43 million – will turn its final page Friday, January 25. [See story, page 8.]

Within a business corridor that’s equal parts active and abandoned, Mandelman, a gay man who represents District 8 on the board, is taking action to revitalize Castro’s commercial real estate climate.

“Even prior to my election last June, I had heard from many neighbors concerned with the increasing number of vacant storefronts in Upper Market,” Mandelman told the B.A.R. “Addressing these retail vacancies has been a major prior-

ity for my office and we have been working for the last several months with neighbors, businesses, and other stakeholders to develop zoning changes that will make it easier for restaurants, arts organizations and nonprofits to come into the neighborhood.”

Mandelman confirmed that in addition to co-sponsoring District 1 Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer’s legislation that closes a loophole property owners use to avoid paying vacancy fees, he’s also working to secure longstanding neighborhood businesses.

Recently, Mandelman’s office nominated floral arrangement boutique Ixia (2331 Market Street) and For Your Eyes Only Optometry (552 Castro Street) to the city’s Legacy Business registry, giving them access to city resources that will help them stay in their locations. Both businesses have operated in the neighborhood for nearly three decades.

“It feels wonderful to be part of this community,” Ixia owner Cheri Mims, who identifies as queer, told the B.A.R. “I first came to San Francisco in 1995, then moved to Castro in 2006. It’s an honor to be part of the community and continue to sustain what has been built.”t

SF GMC details plans for new LGBTQ arts center

by Cynthia Laird

W

hen the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus fully opens its National LGBTQ Center for the Arts in about a year and a half, it’s envisioned as a space for the entire community.

That was the message in an interview with the chorus’ executive director, Chris Verdugo, a day after the choral group announced that it has purchased the four-story Art Deco building at 170 Valencia Street and plans to turn it into an LGBTQ arts center.

As the Bay Area Reporter noted in an online article last week, the center, when renovation is completed, will allow the chorus to have specific programs dedicated to performances and will mark the first permanent home for the singing group.

The building was purchased for $9.6 million, according to a January 17 news release from the chorus.

Verdugo said the chorus currently rehearses there.

The LGBTQ arts center will fully open once renovations to the space are completed. The chorus will move its offices to the space in February, and then spend several months consulting with architects, designers, and audio-visual experts about what work is needed.

“We’re looking for a soft opening in the fall, when we launch our master class series and lectures,” Verdugo told the B.A.R. The chorus will launch its 42nd season in September, and by that time, other organizations will be invited in, he said.

The building will house a cuttingedge media center, provide a creative space for LGBTQ artists, serve as a

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Jeff Zaruba

The Valencia Street building purchased by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus features an auditorium.

meeting location for community groups, and host trainings and internship programs, according to the release.

Chorus artistic director Tim Seelig said in the release that the arts center “will be open to all.” Verdugo was asked about that since the chorus itself is made up of gay men.

“Absolutely,” Verdugo, a gay man, said in response to a question about whether women, for example, would be able to participate in “sing-ins,” which the chorus described as sessions where community members could sing with the choral group.

He also said that three women would soon be joining the chorus’ board of directors.

“We want to bring in the entire community,” Verdugo said. “A lesbian dance troupe, a trans theater group, whatever is out there. We are really going to be an arts center for the entire LGBTQ community.”

San Francisco Mayor London

Breed offered her support for the LGBTQ arts center.

“As the former director of a nonprofit arts and culture organization, I know how important it is that we offer inclusive, safe spaces for artists, performers, and collaborators to create works of art that empower our communities,” Breed said in a statement provided by the chorus. “I know the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus will continue to support and serve the members of our LGBTQ community here in San Francisco with this new LGBTQ center for the arts.”

Funding

Verdugo said the chorus plans to soon announce a fundraising campaign to cover the cost of the purchase, renovations, and a supporting endowment fund for the center.

Founding chorus member Terrence Chan has made a leadership gift of $5 See page 13 >>

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<< Commentary

10 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2019

Checking out the Manny’s boycott

by Christina A. DiEdoardo

When worlds collide

T

o its defenders, Manny’s – a cafe, bookstore, and selfdescribed “civic social gathering space” (whatever that means) – is the best thing to hit the Mission since Hillary Clinton. To its detractors, it’s a gentrifying business that hides behind a cloak of faux-progressive politics.

“We found out about Manny’s Zionist politics after he first came to our attention as a forthcoming gentrifier savant,” said a spokesperson for the Lucy Parsons Project, one of the groups maintaining the pickets every Wednesday in front of the cafe. “The particular nature of Manny’s vision for the space prior to opening seemed scandalous to us, even, and especially, compared to any other run-of-the mill boutique gentrification shop or cafe you might see on Valencia.

“In a city where access to public space and the sort of civic life that space offers is rapidly disappearing, to claim this privatized wine bar is the new frontier of in-person political discourse seemed particularly tone-deaf,” said the spokesperson, who asked to remain anonymous.

Named for one of the most significant anarchists of color of the 19th and early 20th century, the LPP is a radical black queer direct action group. Other groups supporting the picket include Gay Shame, Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, the Brown Berets, and Black and Brown for Justice, Peace, and Equality. They want the cafe to close and be replaced by a business they see as more appropriate for the area.

On the other side is cafe founder Manny Yekutiel, a gay Jewish man.

Yekutiel was asked for comment, and responded that he did not get the message in time. He was given more time but did not respond.

He enjoys the backing of gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who called him “a friend” in a recent tweet declaring Wiener’s support for the cafe.

Weiner isn’t the cafe’s only prominent supporter. Given Yekutiel’s involvement with President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-

Christina A. DiEdoardo

Protesters with the #BoycottMannys coalition braved a historic storm on January 16 to maintain a picket of Manny’s in the Mission.

election campaign and Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid, his closeness to area politicos is hardly surprising.

That’s helped Yekutiel draw a flurry of coverage from the San Francisco Chronicle (including an opinion piece on the cafe and the protests that ran on New Year’s Day) to the Times of Israel.

With a few exceptions, most of the writing about it has echoed the claims of Yekutiel and his defenders dismissing the protesters’ concerns about the gentrifying effect of the cafe and accusing them of anti-Semitism in the bargain.

According to Yekutiel’s op-ed, “As a liberal American Jew, I have complicated feelings about Israel.

I do not support everything that its government does (nor everything our American government does) ... [t]his complex issue is a perfect example of the need for high-quality discourse.”

He also wrote about the cafe: “The kitchen is staffed with formerly homeless individuals and run by the nonprofit Farming Hope. We’ve already given free or low-cost space to more than 25 nonprofits such as Mission Graduates, Indivisible, Citizen’s Climate Lobby, and the Instituto Familiar de la Raza, who need to spend their money on programs, not expensive rental fees. Our coffee is $1.75 and you can have a

healthy square meal for $6.”

He then went on to castigate the picketers as the “alt-left,” a term that’s seen as a slur by antifascist activists, particularly since it’s believed to have first been coined by World Net Daily, a website that promotes rightwing conspiracy theories, before being adopted by Fox News and other collaborators of the current regime in Washington.

At the January 16 picket I attended, two individuals came out of the cafe and kept trying to engage demonstrators in conversation about “why they were protesting.” Since none of these folks were interested in reading the handout explaining the protest that organizers tried to give them, their motivation to disrupt the picket seemed crystal clear.

Even so – and despite galeforce winds and the strongest storm to hit San Francisco in more than a decade, the picket was vocal and loud – so much so that toward the end, one Manny’s employee became so unglued that he came out and laid hands on a protester who was filming him, all the while screaming “It’s illegal to photograph me! This is a violation!” or words to that effect.

In truth, it isn’t. But grabbing somebody’s body or phone counts as a battery, which is illegal.

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From page 8

me because I had never been to that region of my own country. Hong Kong will be amazing in 2022 and I’m honored to be on board to face the challenges with organizing this event with all the knowledge gained from previous years.”

Hadley and Snowden were asked what led them to volunteer for the sports officer positions.

“This became a natural step for me to take with my extensive background with participation in various sports, as well as the organizing of single and multi-sports international events over the years,” Hadley wrote.

Snowden explained, “I have been organizing events since college as a resident adviser when I organized softball, volleyball, and basketball tournaments. After moving to San Francisco, I have always remained active with our community by volunteering for city officials and working with nonprofit organizations.”

He said that he’s organized two San Francisco Pride Runs.

“This has inspired me to give back to the community that has inspired me for many years,” Snowden added.

“The efforts of the federation to keep founder Dr. Tom Waddell’s dream alive through sport has encouraged me to bring my efforts to keeping Gay Games alive.”

The two were asked about their greatest Gay Games memory.

Beyond its local importance, the conflict at Manny’s is a microcosm for the wider struggle underway for the soul of the left both in San Francisco and elsewhere. Yekutiel’s stated raison d’être for the cafe was to create a space for public discourse on political issues. That’s a comfortable place for most centrists and indeed, many leftists, because it’s easy to conflate discourse with action. Furthermore, discourse allows people to paper over differences in the name of “agreeing to disagree,” especially if doing so allows the projection of “unity,” which many Democrats prize above all other objectives.

Anarchist groups that believe in direct action tend to have a different view. To them, the issue on the table needs to be dealt with promptly and they place a higher priority on action than discussion for its own sake. While they often work internally on a consensus model and in coalition with other groups, the avoidance of external conflict is seen as less important than obtaining results. That’s why antifa doesn’t lose sleep when centrists scream that we’re “worse than the Nazis” and why, I wager, the groups that are part of the #BoycottMannys picket feel similarly about the insults tossed their way.

The struggle is over two important issues.

Regarding gentrification, people of color are more likely to be economically marginalized by the continued transformation of former working-class neighborhoods like the Mission than white people or those with white passing privilege.

As to the second point, those who cannot understand why American blacks and people of color would express solidarity with Palestine need to remember that, through Urban Shield and other conferences, Israeli officials and contractors have contributed to the militarization of American police forces and encouraged them to see civilians as potential hostile targets, rather

“Seeing the expressions on the faces of new participants – especially those who had received a scholarship in order to attend,” Hadley wrote. “To speak with these individuals after they have experienced a life-changing opportunity and hear from them what it is that they will do to invigorate and share their experiences while keeping the momentum going once they return to their homelands.”

Snowden said it was closing ceremonies in New York.

“After all the athletes gathered outside of the stadium in New York City, it was the closing of an amazing week of competition and great relief by competing at the top in the 18-29 age group and to walk away with four gold medals and a silver,” he wrote. “As the SF Track and Field Club came around the corner, I had my training partner, Gwynn Villegas, on my shoulders. As we entered the stadium, almost every seat was filled as we heard a voice yell, ‘Hey, SF Track & Field! Look this way – SF Chronicle!’

The next day, the memory was in the San Francisco Chronicle for an unforgettable moment.”

As for World Outgames, Hadley said she wants people to know that FGG carefully considered the offer to have one event.

“My hope is that the LGBTQ+ sporting world understands that the FGG did its due diligence when it came down to the talks for the opportunity to create a ‘One World Event.’

In the end, it was the lack of transparency and the lack of proper documen-

t

than members of the public who pay their salaries. In the Bay Area and elsewhere, it’s usually people of color who have borne the brunt of the (often deadly) consequences of that shift in thinking.

Similarly, it’s not accidental that during the #Occupy period one of the better sources for countermeasures to tear gas and pepper spray were the members of the Palestinian resistance, since they had been dealing with these threats for years – and they made their knowledge known through Twitter and elsewhere.

More recently, there has been a concerted effort by those who support the Israeli government’s policies toward the Palestinians to claim that any criticism of Israel’s actions is, ipso facto, anti-Semitism. That leads to ugly situations like the one earlier this month, where Zionist activists forced the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute to withdraw an award it had promised to former Black Panther Angela Davis because of Davis’s support of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement, which encourages companies and individuals to boycott and divest from Israel as a means to pressuring the government to change its policies toward the Palestinians. While it’s gotten less attention than the Manny’s boycott, on January 9, a Times of Israel regular blogger publicly accused several Jews of color, some of whom were black, of engaging in “Jewface” as a “tactic,” primarily because they opposed Israeli policies.

Most of the patrons of Manny’s who sat inside, warm and toasty on that rainy Wednesday night, were probably ignorant of all this history. The protesters who staffed the picket line as the gale bore down on them certainly weren’t. That’s why they intend to keep the picket going for as long as it takes. t Got a tip? Email me at christina@diedoardolaw.com.

tation when it came down to financial disclosure that determined that the FGG needed to continue onward and upward as the global LGBTQ+ event,” she wrote.

“Going forward, I would hope to see that those in the community that were split between Outgames and the Gay Games will understand that we will be here for the long haul,” Hadley added. “We already have been an organization for 41 years now. We have shown complete transparency within our bid process, site selection, board member elections, etc. I feel that this portrays the professionalism that is within the organization. I hope that this will be recognized and acknowledged by those that may have been ‘loyal’ to Outgames and will open their eyes to the commitment of the FGG moving forward.”

Snowden said that the arguments over the competing organizations hurt the community “by casting doubt on LGBTQ events with participants who did not even realize there was a difference between the two organizations.

“I know some participants who lost faith and didn’t participate or even attend Gay Games in Paris,” he wrote.

“On the other hand, it has presented a challenge for the FGG to successfully communicate this to former and future participants. It will also serve as a reminder for folks to know the history.”

One of the biggest challenges facSee page 12 >>

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<< Community News

12 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2019

<<

Jock Talk

<<

Harris

From page 1

On Friday, the Baltimore Sun reported that Harris has settled on Baltimore for her campaign headquarters. The paper reported that Harris chose the city because of its diversity, proximity to Washington, D.C., and because it’s in the Eastern time zone.

According to her campaign website, Harris will be in Oakland for the rally Sunday, January 27 at Frank Ogawa Plaza, Broadway and 14th streets.

Brendalynn Goodall, former president of the East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club, told the Bay Area Reporter that she was thrilled Harris entered the race.

“Yes, I’m excited that she’s a candidate for president,” Goodall wrote in an email Tuesday. “I supported her for state attorney general and Senate.

She’s about truth, justice, and equality.”

Gay BART board President Bevan Dufty wrote on Facebook, “I’m there,” under a post promoting the rally.

Harris, 54, was born in Oakland.

She is a graduate of Howard University and earned her law degree from UC Hastings College of the Law. Following her announcement on

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News Briefs

From page 7

bring over 30 years of strong, compassionate leadership experience and dedication to the movement.”

CenterLink is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was founded in 1994 as a member-based coalition.

It helps LGBT centers improve their

<<

Besties

From page 1

Other prizes include a $500 shopping spree at Cliff ’s Variety, a

<<

that of lesbian and transgender establishments,” she added. “The Hong Kong host committee has already shown a very strong relationship with the women’s/lesbian community so

we hope that they can also share ideas of what has worked previous for them when organizing events. IGLFA has also seen limited participation at its women’s tournaments over the years

and I have started the IGLFA Women’s, Transgender & Nonbinary Task Force. This group of people will be asked to identify any issues that they have while providing positive feedback to make change and support more participation.”

Snowden said that he saw a lot of women participating in a handful of sporting events at the recent Sin City Classic in Las Vegas.

“The amount of gender parity was prevalent at the dodgeball event,” he wrote. “I met with the organizer about this and look forward to a few more conversations about this. Visibility must be present and not forced or required to keep it organic. On the track, they added co-ed relays. We will plan to use social media to effectively attract more involvement.”

Gay Games, unlike other major sports events such as the Olympics, are controlled by organizations run entirely by the athletes themselves.

Hadley and Snowden were asked

Monday, Harris went to Howard University in Washington, D.C. and made brief remarks.

She started out her career as an Alameda County assistant district attorney, where she specialized in prosecuting child sexual assault cases. In 1998, she joined the San Francisco District Attorney’s office, where she led the Career Criminal Unit. She also served as the head of the San Francisco City Attorney’s Division on Children and Families.

She ran for San Francisco district attorney in 2003, knocking off twoterm incumbent Terence Hallinan.

She was easily re-elected in 2007.

While she was DA, she convened one of the first conferences to tackle the so-called panic defense, in which defendants claim to have been driven to murder someone because they panic when they find out their victim is a transgender person.

Harris ran for California attorney general in 2010 and narrowly won.

She was re-elected four years later.

Harris is a longtime ally to the LGBT community. As state attorney general, she refused to defend Proposition 8, the state’s same-sex marriage ban, setting up years of litigation that ultimately decided the measure was

unconstitutional. Same-sex marriage became legal in California in June 2013, and Harris was in San Francisco City Hall on June 28 to marry the plaintiff couple in the federal lawsuit, Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier.

In that position, she also received national attention by fighting Wall Street banks and winning $20 billion for homeowners who were facing foreclosure during the Great Recession. She helped thousands of families stay in their homes and passed one of the nation’s strongest anti-foreclosure laws, her campaign website noted.

As AG, Harris did fight a federal judge’s order that the state provide gender confirmation surgery to a trans prisoner. At the time, Harris told the B.A.R. that she was representing her client, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in that case. Later, the state announced a historic settlement that should allow trans prisoners to access the care they need while incarcerated. Harris said she agreed with the case outcome.

However, media reports in recent years have said the state is struggling to comply with new rules for transgender inmates, including the prisons to which they are assigned.

In 2016, Harris ran for U.S. Senate,

after Senator Barbara Boxer (D) announced she would not seek another term. She easily won the race. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Harris has sharply questioned Trump judicial nominees, including Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

On Tuesday, after news that the U.S. Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily vacate two national injunctions that have prevented a ban on transgender people in the military from going into effect, Harris criticized the decision.

“Transgender military members have the courage to serve our country and deserve to do so,” Harris wrote on Twitter. “We have to fight back to reverse this.”

As senator, Harris introduced or co-sponsored legislation to provide sweeping tax cuts for the middle class, address the high cost of rent, raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, make higher education tuition-free for the vast majority of Americans, reform the cash bail system, protect the legal rights of refugees and immigrants, and expand access to affordable, quality health care with Medicare for All. Harris is married to Douglas Em-

hoff and stepmother to Ella and Cole Emhoff.

Observers have said Harris, who is African-American and Indian, is a formidable presidential candidate.

With her January 21 announcement, which was expected, she vaulted to the top tier of Democrats who want to defeat Trump.

Harris joins a crowded field of fellow Democrats that is expected to swell in the coming weeks. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren was the first major candidate to enter the race in late December. Others who have announced they are running or exploring a run include New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, former Maryland Congressman John Delaney, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), former West Virginia state senator Richard Ojeda, and former tech executive Andrew Yang. On Wednesday, Pete Buttigieg, the gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana, announced he was forming an exploratory committee for a presidential run.t

organizational and service delivery capacity, access public resources, and engage their regional communities in grassroots social justice work.

For more information, visit www. lgbtcenters.org.

With the passage last November

of Proposition E, the restoration of hotel taxes for arts and cultural purposes, the San Francisco Arts Commission and Grants for the Arts will receive funding for a new arts impact endowment to help support a variety of arts initiatives throughout the city.

Up to 1.5 percent of the money from the 8 percent base hotel tax that the city already collects will now be

dedicated to arts and cultural functions. The current hotel tax, which includes a 6 percent tax surcharge for hotel rooms that was not part of the ballot measure, is currently available for any public purpose.

The measure was not a tax increase but a reallocation of funds for various arts and cultural functions.

The arts commission encourages

interested people to attend a community town hall to provide feedback on the proposed cultural allocation plan. The meeting will be held Wednesday, February 6, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness Avenue.

For more information, visit https://www.sfartscommission.org/. t

pair of tickets to see Megan Mullally and Stephanie Hunt as Nancy and Beth at Feinstein’s at the Nikko May 4, and a pair of tickets to see Randy Rainbow at the Ma-

sonic April 20 (sponsored by Live Nation).

Early-bird voters (first week) will be entered into a special contest to win a pair of tickets to the

aforementioned Randy Rainbow show.

Bestie voting will close March 3 at 11:59 p.m.; the Besties issue will be published Thursday, April 4.

There will be more info and the ballot in next week’s B.A.R. t

those cases (Karnoski and Stockman) had injunctions in place against the ban. Both are pending argument before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Supreme Court order did not affect an injunction granted in another fourth lawsuit, Stone v.

Trump.

Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said, “The Stone injunction is still in place so the government cannot yet enforce the ban until it takes some further action to get out from under the Stone injunction.”

There is some confusion on that last point. Numerous media reports said Tuesday’s order sets the Trump administration free to implement its ban. Peter Renn, attorney for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is representing service members in Karnoski v. Trump, said the order allows the Trump administration “to begin kicking openly

transgender troops out of the armed services and to deny transgender people the opportunity to enlist.”

But Renn acknowledged the order is “perplexing to say the least.”

“On the one hand, [it is] denying the Trump administration’s premature request for review of lower court rulings before appellate courts have ruled and rebuffing the administration’s attempt to skirt established rules,” said Renn, “and yet, on the other, allowing the administration to begin to discriminate, at least for now, as the litigation plays out.”

Renn said that, while Tuesday’s order did not affect the Stone injunction, the U.S. Department of Justice will probably move very quickly to urge the district court in that case that it should stay its injunction now, too, given the Supreme Court’s order.

GLAD’s Levi said, “No one has a crystal ball to know what the district court will do in Stone.” But she ac-

knowledged that “it’s fair to predict that, whenever the question gets back up to the Supreme Court on whether the injunction will stay in place while the challenge proceeds below on the merits, that the Supreme Court is likely to grant a stay in Stone as it did in Karnoski and Stockman.”

NCLR and GLAD are representing numerous transgender service members in two of the cases involved Tuesday: Stockman v. Trump in Los Angeles, which is awaiting action by the 9th Circuit appeals court, and Jane Doe v. Trump in Washington, D.C., which is pending before the federal appeals court for D.C. The third lawsuit involved in the January 22 order is Karnoski v.

Trump, another 9th Circuit case, led

by Lambda Legal.

The Stone v. Trump case is being led by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of service members in Maryland and will eventu-

ally come before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The January 22 order from the Supreme Court indicated that the vote on the Karnoski and Stockman petitions had been 5-4, with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan saying they would have denied the petitions.

LGBT legal groups had argued against the Trump administration petitions to vacate the injunctions, saying that it was too soon for the Supreme Court to become involved in the litigation. They noted that no federal appeals court had yet to rule on the constitutionality of the proposed ban or on the injunction against the ban. Three federal appeals courts made preliminary rulings that the injunctions could stand until a full hearing on their merits and the ban could be played out. The fourth case, Stone, is still before a district court.t

From page 10

ing previous Gay Games has been gender parity, with a large majority of participants being men. Hadley and Snowden were asked about that.

“Steps are already being taken informally by organizing women-specific events,” Hadley wrote. “I think there’s great opportunity to partner with women’s sports organizations and trying to create unique experiences for women. I also feel that it’s important for conversation to be created with women to find out why they have had limited participation or haven’t been participating at all. Is it too cost prohibitive? Does it feel like there’s more attention at the events toward men’s social activities versus women’s?

“Marketing is a huge component of that. There seems to be more dollars made available through sponsorship from men’s bars and clubs then

Trump

From page 1

members harmed our military then, just as this one will now.”

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra was also critical.

“The Trump administration’s glaring efforts to deny protections to patriotic Americans seeking to serve our great nation in uniform are just plain wrong,” Becerra said in a statement. “We will continue to fight to protect the rights of all Americans despite this president’s disregard for equality and the rule of law. This is 2019, not 1920.”

Becerra has filed several friendof-the-court briefs supporting LGBTQ service members and veterans.

Tuesday’s order affected three of the four lawsuits challenging Trump’s proposed ban on transgender people in the military: Karnoski v. Trump, Stockman v. Trump, and Jane Doe v. Trump. Only two of

t

Gay Games Sports Officers Reggie Snowden, left, and Kimberly Hadley

Town hall for Prop E priorities

about the impact that has had on Gay Games.

“I think, for the most-part, having the athletes and artists themselves running the organization is a positive,” wrote Hadley. “They’re in closer contact with the overall ‘feel’ of the event.

However, they are often limited with the appropriate amount of time because they are volunteers. Organizing an event takes an immense amount of work, energy, expertise, and time. It would be helpful to be able to afford to have a paid staff without it costing the organization a fortune.”

Snowden wrote, “To me, Gay Games is a unique event on various levels. Gay Games has remained a success due to celebration and liberation from the inception in 1982. One of the biggest benefits would be nurturing the relations built through sport and culture, on and off the field during Gay Games and, as time has passed See page 13 >>

Sunday’s rally will start at noon.

To sign up, visit www.kamalaharris.org.

t <<

Community News>>

Jock Talk

From page 12

and communications evolved, we, as athletes, participants, supporters and organizers are able to pass information on in between the years of Gay Games to keep the event moving in the right direction – from standards books with vital information, to our positions on the board with the federation.”

The next Gay Games are scheduled for Hong Kong. Hadley and Snowden talked about challenges and opportunities.

<<

SF GMC

From page 9

million toward the cost of buying and renovating the space, the organization said. Additionally, the chorus’ board has pledged an additional $1 million.

Verdugo stated, “We are so grateful

<<

G News

From page 6

had issues with Facebook postings.

“We find that to be quite alarming,” Knight said. “That proves there could be a more widespread issue with LGBTQ+ content being censored by social media giants today. If that’s the case, it seems that there could be potential for a class action lawsuit.”

<<

LGBT aging

From page 2

Knutzen worked to highlight the needs of the city’s LGBT seniors as a member of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission in the late 1990s and early 2000s when its LGBT advisory committee, which she at one point co-chaired, issued the first city report on the needs of older LGBT adults.

What has been key, said Knutzen, is the inclusion of language in city contracts with providers of aging services that LGBT seniors be a priority population of theirs.

“That is a huge kind of accomplishment,” she said.

But a major misnomer among

Apparently, the International Tri-

athlon Union has trouble understanding how this whole movement to be more inclusive in sports works.

The ITU had announced that its policy for 2019 would tell athletes to “avoid displaying any kind of demonstration of political, religious, sexual orientation or racial propaganda” – and threatened disqualification for offenders.

At first blush, it would appear such a policy would curtail fascist, racist, and homophobic-themed posters and banners: i.e., the kind of crap we encounter too often in our lives and don’t want to have to deal with at sports events.

But athlete-activists noted the policy could be used to punish athletes who carry the rainbow flag and curtail the visibility of LGBT athletes, much as the antiLGBT “propaganda” laws enacted

by Russia leading up to the 2014 Olympics in Sochi did.

This week, the ITU said it was dropping the “sexual orientation” language.

Better suggestion: get rid of the rest of the language as well. Say, if you like, you are banning “displays supporting any kind of discrimination.” Period.t

to Terrence Chan and his life partner, Edward Sell, who will lead our campaign, and our board of directors for their most generous support of this remarkable venture. We look forward to working with, and alongside, other LGBTQ arts organizations while supporting them in their artistic and advocacy endeavors.”

In the release, Chan said he was excited about the vision for the national center.

“At this time in our nation’s history, it is vital that we in the LGBTQ community have a home for our art and artists,” he stated. “I am confident that great work will be created in our new home – work that will inspire, engage, and educate.”

Board chair Keith Pepper pointed to the significance of the chorus having its own building.

“In its 40-year history, the chorus has performed at the world’s most prestigious venues, but we have never had our own home,” he said in the release. “This new space will allow the organization to expand its performing

calendar to include master classes, an interview series with LGBTQ voices, and ‘sing-ins’ that welcome members of the community to perform with the chorus.” t

Moving forward, G News expects to now be able to post content “of a political nature or of national importance.”

“We’re taking a short break to build our Glitter Bomb TV website where we’ll be posting our new episodes, censorship free, beginning in February,” said Knight. “We’ll still make short promo clips of shows to be promoted on social media to drive traffic to the website, but we’ll no longer

be beholden to social media giants to control what we say or what we cover on the show.”

Facebook representative Devon Kearns provided the B.A.R. with a link to the page where content producers can apply to post political content. She noted that one of G News’ episodes was denied a boost “because the video advocates for a piece of legislation, the Equality Act, which would fall under our ads

related to politics or issues of national importance policy.”

Kearns did not comment further, though she did provide a link to Facebook’s Ad Help Center, which states the full policy language: https://www.facebook.com/business/ help/214754279118974.

“If we were able to speak to [CEO] Mark Zuckerberg, [COO] Sheryl Sandberg, or other powers that be at Facebook, we’d tell them they need

to step up to the plate to help save media and journalism, a vital pillar of our democracy, that they’ve been quite active in disenfranchising,” said Dulay. “I’d also tell them they should spend more money on providing appropriate infrastructure and customer support for creators on the platform spending money to promote the content on a regular basis. Like many Americans we’ve become less of a fan of Facebook.” t

LGBT seniors, noted Knutzen, is that the city’s senior programs are only for low-income older adults.

“Anyone over 60 qualifies for them. It is not based on income,” said Knutzen of the vast array of services DAAS offers and contracts with local nonprofits.

“It is a very expensive city and housing is a challenge,” acknowledged McSpadden.

The suggestions in the aging report run the gamut from building more affordable housing for LGBT seniors and increasing eviction protections for them to providing rental and homeowner assistance and legal services to help them maintain their housing.

The city helped fund the 24-bed LGBT adult homeless shelter Jazzie’s Place, something the LGBT aging panel supported in its report.

It also assisted with the financing of the affordable senior housing complex on Laguna Street near Market that is aimed primarily at LGBT older adults.

The residents of a new building con-

taining several dozen rental units are expected to move in this April.

“Housing is a key concern,” said Roberta “Bertie” Brouhard, 72, a transgender woman and former Openhouse board member. “If they were building 9,000 units it would be too few.”

In response to the aging policy report, DAAS several years ago designated Openhouse, a nonprofit provider of LGBT senior services, as an aging and disabilities resource center. It also beefed up its funding to assist LGBT seniors seeking affordable housing opportunities in the city, not just at the 110 units in the Laguna Street buildings.

The new building, at 95 Laguna, will include two floors of community space for Openhouse. It aims to host programs and events for both the residents of the Laguna Street complex and the larger community.

“We are not building Openhouse as a closet for LGBTQ seniors. If this is a place where only seniors come, then we have missed the fucking point,” said Openhouse Executive Director Karyn Skultety, Ph.D., who is bisexual. “We want people to come here to experience the vibrancy and energy from seniors.

We are excited to have a space where the entire LGBTQ community is coming to because, on balance, LGBTQ seniors should be a vital part of our world.”

Openhouse and DAAS have worked hard to provide cultural competency training to service providers and operators of senior housing about the needs of LGBT older adults, another recommendation of the aging policy report. But issues remain in ensuring that LGBT seniors feel welcome.

Brouhard recounted how, at one senior living center in the city that she toured when looking for a place to live following her divorce from her ex-wife,

the marketing manager not so subtlety told her to look elsewhere.

“She didn’t think it would be a good fit for me, and that is here in San Francisco,” said Brouhard. “Overall, the city has some wonderful services but it rewards rich people better than poor people. If I am 80 and have no money, I would leave San Francisco overnight and go to the Midwest. I think the poor queer old are at the bottom of the food chain.”

Nonetheless, most agree that San Francisco is an ideal place for LGBT seniors to live and has only gotten better so as city leaders have worked to address their needs over the past five years.

“I couldn’t imagine any place better to be an LGBT senior,” said Tom Nolan, 73, a gay man who is manager of special projects at DAAS and staffed the LGBT Aging Policy Task Force.

Bill Ambrunn, who chaired the task force, credited Nolan with helping to ensure the LGBT aging report remained a priority even after leadership changes at DAAS and three mayors over the last five years.

“He is very committed to our work not becoming a dusty report,” said Ambrunn, who now lives in San Mateo. “My impression, having kept in touch with Tom, is the city still has the issue of LGBTQ seniors on its list of things to address.”

DAAS will hold a town hall from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, March 9, in the Rainbow Room of the LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street, to discuss its accomplishments to date in implementing the LGBT aging policy plan and what next steps it intends to take.

To download a copy of the full report, visit https://sf-hrc.org/lgbtaging-policy-task-force-lgbtaptf.t

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038428800

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554524

“Every host city in every country has its challenges,” Hadley wrote.

“Hong Kong is definitely a new part of the world for the FGG to hold an event. Challenges foreseen may include actually being able to get the message out about the Gay Games coming to Hong Kong due to perceived censorship via the internet/social media channels. We hope that the reach is wide and far.”

Snowden cited communications and distance.

“Gay Games have successfully taken place in other countries. Concerns were expressed based on language

when we traveled to Amsterdam in 1998, Cologne in 2010, and even Paris last year, but we persevered,” he wrote.

“In regard to the actual sports, some sports such as volleyball, basketball, bowling, and swimming cannot be lost in translation. We will need to address practices or customs potentially in Hong Kong to make sure we aren’t losing the mission of why Gay Games started with a focus on ‘participation, inclusion and personal best.’”

Housing a major focus

One of the more pressing needs for the city’s LGBT seniors is housing assistance, whether it is support to age in place in their current homes or access to affordable housing units. In fact, the bulk of the LGBT Aging Policy Task Force’s recommendations are ideas for how the city can lessen the impact of skyrocketing housing costs for LGBT seniors.

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Legal Notices>> ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-18-554496

In the matter of the application of: SARA ANGELICA MATUTE, 850 RUTLAND ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner SARA ANGELICA MATUTE, is requesting that the names DIEGO SANCHEZ be changed to DIEGO SANCHEZ MATUTE and ESTEFANIA SANCHEZ be changed to ESTEFANIA SANCHEZ MATUTE. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 7th of February 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JAN 03, 10, 17, 24, 2019

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038444400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ALL AROUND BUILDER, 600 17TH AVE #2, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GRAHAM RIDDELL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/19/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/21/18.

JAN 03, 10, 17, 24, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038425100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CAFE DE OLLA.SF, 2301 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed EDUARDO ANTONIO LOPEZ & JOSE FRANCISCO GARCIA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/05/18.

JAN 03, 10, 17, 24, 2019

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038446700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PILLAR CAPITAL GROUP, 1725 CLAY ST #102, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PILLAR CAPITAL GROUP (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/27/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/26/18.

JAN 03, 10, 17, 24, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038446600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PILLAR CAPITAL REAL ESTATE, 1725 CLAY ST #102, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PILLAR CAPITAL REAL ESTATE (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/27/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/26/18.

JAN 03, 10, 17, 24, 2019

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RANDALL WHITEHEAD LIGHTING, 1212 18TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed RANDALL WHITEHEAD LIGHTING INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/15/01. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/10/18.

JAN 03, 10, 17, 24, 2019 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-038074700

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: SAN FRANCISCO PET HOSPITAL, 1371 FULTON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business was conducted by a corporation and signed by MORRIS-MICHAELIS ASSOCIATES, INC (CA).

The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/30/18.

JAN 03, 10, 17, 24, 2019

In the matter of the application of: MARIA MAY-LEE CHAI, 1890 CLAY ST #604, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner MARIA MAY-LEE CHAI, is requesting that the name MARIA MAY-LEE CHAI AKA MAY-LEE CHAI AKA MAYLEE CHAI, be changed to MAY-LEE CHAI. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 26th of February 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2019

<< Legals

14 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2019

Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038460600

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038458100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HAVEN REAL ESTATE PARTNERS, 2369 UNION ST #3, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SUSAN DOOLITTLE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/07/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/07/19.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ROTI INDIAN BISTRO, 53 WEST PORTAL AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed ROTI INDIAN BISTRO LLC (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/04/19.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2019

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2019 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-037618700

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038460000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AKT TRUCKING, 229 CUMBERLAND ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ARTHUR HARRIMAN. 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 01/07/19.

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: PETES LAUNDERETTE, 600 OCTAVIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business was conducted by a general partnership and signed by YAOGUANG TAN & WUT KHUN KYI. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/31/17.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038453000

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554538

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: IOBJX, 1587 11TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOHN B. GRAHAM. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/02/19.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038459900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PETES LAUNDERETTE, 600 OCTAVIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YAOGUANG TAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/04/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/07/19.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2019 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF DARLENE OAKLEY IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-18-302440

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of DARLENE OAKLEY. A Petition for Probate has been filed by JANICE OAKLEY, in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that JANICE OAKLEY be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: Feb 04, 2019, 9:00 am, Dept. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the latter of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.

You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorneys for petitioner: Stephanie Barber Hess (SBA 204321) & Christopher M. Haws (SBA 29924), 420 Aviation Blvd, Suite 201, Santa Rosa, CA 95403; Ph. (707) 543-4900.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038453500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PUFFIN, 828 TAYLOR ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BRIAN HICKEY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/02/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/02/19.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038441200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: STUDIO B CUBED ARCHITECTURE, 1788 19TH AVE, 2ND FL, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BRANDON QUAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/19/18.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038446800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ASAHIRU, 1325 9TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALEX TAO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/26/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/26/18.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038441700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TSIMSHASUI BEAUTY CENTER, 310 8TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SAO IENG FONG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/12/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/20/18.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038449000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ALLEY HOUSE, 3751 GEARY BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed GS RIVERSIDE GRILL (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/28/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/28/18.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038445000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CANNABIS INFUSED BEAUTY, 1049 MARKET ST #403, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PVSH HOLDINGS (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/21/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/21/18.

JAN 10, 17, 24, 31, 2019

In the matter of the application of: RICHARD PETER SOMDAHL, 1550 MASONIC ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner RICHARD PETER SOMDAHL, is requesting that the name RICHARD PETER SOMDAHL, be changed to RICARDO XAVIER SOMDAHL. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 5th of March 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554522

In the matter of the application of: THOMAS GIONET SCHMIDT C/O CHRISTINA H. LEE, (SB #230883), BECKER & LEE LLP, 1322 WEBSTER ST #300, OAKLAND, CA 94612, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner THOMAS GIONET SCHMIDT, is requesting that the name THOMAS GIONET SCHMIDT, be changed to THOMAS GIONET PETROVIC-SCHMIDT. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 12th of March 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554523

In the matter of the application of: VLADIMIR PETROVIC C/O CHRISTINA H. LEE, (SB #230883), BECKER & LEE LLP, 1322 WEBSTER ST #300, OAKLAND, CA 94612, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner VLADIMIR PETROVIC, is requesting that the name VLADIMIR PETROVIC, be changed to VLADIMIR PETROVIC-SCHMIDT. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 12th of March 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554530

In the matter of the application of: KATHY SHU KHIN KYI, 336 8TH AVE #2, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner KATHY SHU KHIN KYI, is requesting that the name KATHY SHU KHIN KYI AKA SHU KHIN KATHY KYI AKA SHU KHIN KYI AKA KATHY S KYI, be changed to KATHY SHUKHIN KYI. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 28th of February 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038470700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: 415 EYEWEAR, 3251 20TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MD RASHIDULL ALAM. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/10/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/10/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038447700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ROGUE SUPPLIES, 1882 33RD AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CARMEN IBARRA LLANOS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/25/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/27/18.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038472300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO MOBILE CHIROPRACTOR, 110 GOUGH ST #201A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KIM MAKOI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/11/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/11/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038440600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MASTERPIECE TATTOO, 614 WASHINGTON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BRAHIAN MARTINEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/19/18.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038471800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HART HABITATS, 1367 8TH AVE #4, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KRISTINA HAWLEY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/09/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/11/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038461000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LUCKY SPOT, 1917 IRVING ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LIYU KUANG. 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 01/07/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038465100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DAVID ROSE HAIR, 1538 PACIFIC AVE #104, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DAVID GARY YEPREMIAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/08/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/08/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038460800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BRO’S CAFE, 1184 1/2 GENEVA AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed FELICIANO H. YAMAT II. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/07/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/07/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038465900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FAR WEST SKINCARE, 1756 FILLMORE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SARAH CHERNESKY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/07/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/08/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038472200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MASHALLAH HALAL FOOD TRUCK INDIAN AND PAKISTANI, 1804 LIBERTY ST, EL CERRITO, CA 94530. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed RABIA WAQAR & MOHAMMAD WAQAR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/11/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/11/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038471700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: 07 STUDIOS; ZEROSEVEN STUDIOS, 1305 INDIANA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed SHELLEY FARRELL & DAVID BRENT HATCHER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/11/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038470400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TO BE DISCLOSED, 718 CLEMENTINA ST #B, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed DEREK BARROS JR. & DAVIN WENTWORTHTHRASHER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/10/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038444500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KAJI; SUSHI HUNTER, 1701 POWELL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed H & K INVESTMENT GROUP (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/01/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/21/18.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038465200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: REVIVAL FILM, 608 ELIZABETH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PENABRAND INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/08/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038473600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: COLOR ME BEAUTY SPA, 1507 GRANT AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133.

This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed NGUYEN CHAU & KIM NGUYEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/11/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/11/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038467500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE GATEWAY, 460 DAVIS COURT, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by a limited partnership, and is signed GOLDEN GATEWAY CENTER (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/05/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/09/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038444100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: YIELD, 2490 3RD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed MORENA WINE LLC (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/21/18.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038444200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PAUSE, 1666 MARKET ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed MORENA WINE LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/11/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/21/18.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038467300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE GATEWAY, 460 DAVIS COURT, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed GOLDEN GATEWAY CENTER SPE, LLC (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/05/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/09/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038452800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SUNSET SUDS, 1100 IRVING ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SFR415 LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/13/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/02/19.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-038078800

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: NAILS CARE FOR YOU, 1507 GRANT AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by LAN THANH TRAN. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/03/18.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019

STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-037381900

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: BRIAN TATTOOS, 614 WASHINGTON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by BRAHIAN MARTINEZ. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/12/16.

JAN 17, 24, 31, FEB 07, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554562 In the matter of the application of: ANNWEN CAROLINE HUGHES-WHITE, 4132 26TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ANNWEN CAROLINE HUGHES-WHITE, is requesting that the name ANNWEN CAROLINE HUGHES-WHITE, be changed to GWENDOLEN ANNWEN CAROLINE WHITE HUGHES. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 7th of March 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554540

In the matter of the application of: JULIE FARRIS, 1142 FILBERT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JULIE FARRIS, is requesting that the name JULIE FARRIS AKA JULIE HANNA, be changed to JULIE HANNA. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 5th of March 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554557

In the matter of the application of: BECKY DENISE WONG, 260 WAWONA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner BECKY DENISE WONG, is requesting that the name BECKY DENISE WONG, be changed to BECCA WONG. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 7th of March 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554556

In the matter of the application of: BRIAN DEREK WONG, 260 WAWONA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner BRIAN DEREK WONG, is requesting that the name BRIAN DEREK WONG, be changed to BRIAN TAK YAN WONG. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 7th of March 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 BURK CHUNG FOUNDATION

The Annual Report of the Burk Chung Foundation, 465 Clementina Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 is available at the Foundation’s office for inspection during regular business hours. Copies of the Annual Report have been furnished to the Attorney General of the State of California. Burk Chung, Trustee. Fiscal year ended November 30, 2018.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038485000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO COUNSELING & CONSULTING, 55 NEW MONTGOMERY ST #323, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SARAH COX. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/18/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/18/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038484300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ENLIVEN HEALTH AND WELLNESS, 582 MARKET ST #314, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BETHANY RICHARDSON. 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 01/18/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038483000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JM DISCOUNT LIQUORS, 3801 NORIEGA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed PAWANDEEP SINGH. 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 01/17/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038473800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PHO LIEN PHAT VIETNAMESE RESTAURANT, 2109 CLEMENT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed HOA TU LAM. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/14/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038449400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EDNA SPECIAL LIGHTING EFFECTS; EDNA SLE; EDNA, 2621 BRYANT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BRUCE JOHNSON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/01/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/28/18.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038468800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MISSION BLUE, 1384 11TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALEXIS NAHABEDIAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/15/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/09/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038478700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MFY TALENT, 355 1ST ST #S1505, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MICHAEL YAM. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/16/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019

t

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038474400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NOB HILL PSYCHOTHERAPY, 842 CALIFORNIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARC ANTHONY ROMAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/14/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/14/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038469500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VEGA PROJECT, 298 FAIR OAK ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JEFFREY M. CALDWELL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/10/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/10/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 04, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038451000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: OBLIQUE CITY, 1143 SHRADER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117.

This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed SHAUM MEHRA, DAN HOGMAN & SEPIDEH MAJIDI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/28/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/31/18.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038479500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GREAT ESCAPE FIRE ESCAPE SERVICE, 2277 MCKINNON AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed TRALOCH HOLDINGS (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/16/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038483500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DROPBAGTOUS, 900 FOLSOM ST #153, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed STARTUPMOZO, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/17/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/17/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038483200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JJ O’SULLIVAN ELECTRIC, 36 AGNON AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed DOWNEY ELECTRIC, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/16/06. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/17/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038478000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: 7 NAIL SPA, 4907 A MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed NEW 7 NAILS, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/15/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038483600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CIAO BELLA NAILS SALON, 2277 CHESTNUT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed PHONG THANH DOAN & TRANG KIEU DANG. 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 01/17/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038460300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE VALENCIA ROOM, 647 VALENCIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed 1750 CROCKETT LANE LLC (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/07/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038461900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BUSTER’S CHEESE STEAK, 366 COLUMBUS ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed PHILLIES LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/07/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038479200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ROY; ROY-A-HOSPITALITY DESIGN STUDIO, 3616 LAWTON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed HANNAH COLLINS DESIGNS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/19/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/16/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038467000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DOGWOOD BOTANICALS, 2442 GREAT HWY, #4, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed DIANA UNLIMITED LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/01/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/09/19.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 07, 14, 2019 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-036482700

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: HAPPY DONUTS, 299 ELLIS ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by RATHA VANN. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/14/15.

JAN 24, 31, FEB 04, 14, 2019

18

18

Noir life

20

20

‘Company’ town

‘Rent’ live

Indie film

Vol. 49 • No. 4 • January 24-30, 2019

www.ebar.com/arts

Next year’s model

San Francisco Opera announces 2019-20 season

by Philip Campbell

T

he San Francisco Opera announced season repertory and casting for 2019-20 this week, and positive first impressions were confirmed in a conversation with General Director Matthew Shilvock.

The Company’s 97th season marks the second to be fully programmed by his administration, and ratifies his quest to grow SFO’s relevance to the community.

Ken Howard/Santa Fe Opera

See page 22 >>

“The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs,” coming to San Francisco Opera in summer 2020.

Courtesy the artist

Beauford Delaney, “Portrait of a Young Musician” (1970), acrylic on canvas.

Michael Phillis as “Patty from HR.”

Black genius

Singular sensations

H

arlem’s temporary loss is a gain for San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora, the first stop for “Black Refractions,” the largest touring exhibition The Studio Museum in Harlem has ever undertaken. The Studio Museum, a space devoted exclusively to artists of African descent and work influenced and inspired by black culture, opened its doors in 1968 during a period of social upheaval and political unrest marked by assassinations and civil rights and anti-war demonstrations.

See page 22 >>

Marc Bernier, Estate of Beauford Delaney

by Sura Wood

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS }

by Jim Gladstone

W

hat comes to mind when you think of a one-person show? Maybe it’s Lily Tomlin or Whoopi Goldberg deftly switching from character to character in a series of mini-monologues. Perhaps it’s the late Spalding Gray, sharing the perfect moments and emotional disasters of his own life story.

See page 19 >>

<< Out There

16 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2019

t

Brandon Patoc/San Francisco Symphony

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the San Francisco Symphony for the first time since his appointment as Music Director Designate.

Designated (music) driver

by Roberto Friedman

s i w o h ...s ! ! !

G s! !!”

M u o “O l u b i nta k fanf rea

T

here was a certain electricity in Davies Symphony Hall last Friday night as Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted the San Francisco Symphony for the first time since his appointment as Music Director Designate was announced at the end of last year. Out There and music writer Philip Campbell were in the house, and we found ourselves caught up in the hearty Golden Gate welcome at concert’s end when the audience showed its love for our new leader in loud, long ovations.

The program began with the West Coast Premiere of Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s “METACOSMOS,” an imaginative sonic landscape, then luxuriated in Richard Strauss’ famous tone poem “Also sprach Zarathustra,” where Salonen showed what he can do with symphonic textures. But the real heart of the program came after intermission, with Jean Sibelius’ “Four Legends of the Kalevala,” Opus 22. This is Salonen’s fellow Finn composer Sibelius’ treatment in four movements of episodes from the “Kalevala,” a collection of ancient Finnish epic myths, so you might say EsaPekka has it in his very bones. The presentation and the music-making were masterful.

Salonen will return as Music Director Designate in the 2019-20 season to conduct at least two weeks of concerts before beginning as Music Director in September 2020.

sa S. – There

Anti-biography

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Mystery lies at the heart of the work of elegant, taciturn, enigmatic gay American artist Cy Twombly (1928-2011), as it does of the man himself, who was averse to publicity, interviews or explanations of his abstract, ground-breaking art.

Author Joshua Rivkin’s exploration “Chalk: The Art and Erasure of Cy Twombly” (Melville House) attempts to get at the riddle of his life and art, but largely falters.

“This, dear reader, is not a biography,” Rivkin admits early on. “This is something, I hope, stranger and more personal.”

Partly Rivkin is making the best of an impossible situation, as the Cy Twombly Foundation, with the artist’s male partner Nicola Del Roscio installed as its president, keeps close guard over all aspects of its subject, “offering or denying

access to images and information, attempting to manage which narratives are considered worth telling.”

So we get the biographer embroidering on what facts he does learn, and conjecturing. Did Twombly destroy some early canvases because of bruised feelings over his ex-lover, the artist Robert Rauschenberg?

“Perhaps it had something to do with the start of Rauschenberg’s romantic relationship with Jasper Johns. It’s hard to read Rauschenberg’s description of trading ideas with Johns and not imagine Twombly, excluded from their inside talk, jealous and apart.”

This curious approach to biography is perhaps well-suited to its subject, whose canvases can seem like mere scribbles, graffiti, or gnomic utterances from an addled psychology. But as one patron puts it, Twombly “managed to put down unconscious mind” in his art. Rivkin notes that the “pictures never seem far from their making.” The images are “dense accretions, a lattice of illegible calligraphy. Twombly’s work swerves from playful to meditative to literary, as if this range is proof of a brave and restless mind.” He sees the artist’s ambition as an attempt “to collapse the very definition between a drawing and a poem.”

Gay poet Frank O’Hara wrote of CT’s art: “A bird seems to have passed through the impasto with cream-colored screams and bitter claw-marks.” It’s hard to imagine the art-world’s acceptance of the genius of Keith Haring or JeanMichel Basquiat without Twombly’s first forays into this frontier.

It’s hard to imagine the sub-genre of word paintings, say those of Christopher Wool or Ed Ruscha, without Cy getting there first.

But “Chalk” promises an examination of the life, and there are huge lacunae in the telling. Rivkin sees Twombly “recovering [his Southern] aristocracy in Italy,” where he married and lived much of his life, but he can’t get close to his relationship with Del Roscio, to whom, after all, he entrusted his work and his reputation. Rauschen-

berg eventually owned up to a gay identity; CT always seemed more ambiguous. In the end Del Roscio denied Rivkin access to the artist’s archives, and it shows.

So the author resorts, chapter after chapter, to conjecture, peering from the outside in. This trope repeats, again and again, “like the endless loops in Twombly’s blackboard paintings.” Perhaps one day there will be a fuller account of the life; this is not it.

Oliver remembered

Arts correspondent Tim Pfaff writes, “A little more than a year ago, Ruth Franklin took to the pages of The New Yorker to come to the defense of lesbian poet and nature mystic Mary Oliver, who died in her home in Florida on Jan. 17 at the age of 83. The ‘book’ on critics’ attitudes toward Oliver was that her forthright work was marred by sentimentality and a vague spirituality. It was a life-long self-portrait minus the convex mirror. That hadn’t stopped The New Yorker itself from publishing the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet’s work over the decades.

“Countless legions, a large portion of them queer, didn’t even know there was a controversy and greeted every new Oliver poem and volume like a tablet brought down from the mountain. Unsurprisingly, the poem most quoted in tributes from her readers has been ‘Wild Geese,’ a kind of ode against shame.

‘You do not have to be good,’ it begins. The lines most quoted were her rejoinder: ‘You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.’”t

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<< Film

18 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2019

The Dark 50s: Noir films at the Castro

by Tavo Amador

T

he “Fabulous Fifties” weren’t great, except perhaps for right-wing straight WASP men. Independent women, out LGBTs, racial, ethnic, religious minorities didn’t thrive. “Red Scare” congressional witch-hunts alleging communist infiltration of American institutions dominated the decade’s politics. Homophobia and fear of the “other” were rampant.

Mere innuendo ruined lives.

Many actors were blacklisted.

The last flowering of Hollywood’s film noir genre reflected the era’s anxiety. Eddie Muller’s 2019 Noir City film festival includes pictures that show how national paranoia damaged society. It runs at the Castro Theatre Jan. 25-Feb. 3.

Counterfeiter Tris Stewart (Lloyd Bridges, father of Jeff and Beau) is “Trapped” (1949) despite being released from jail to help the Feds find the source of fake $20 bills printed from his old plates. But Tris plans to steal enough money to flee to Mexico with his blonde squeeze (Barbara Payton). It’s not that simple. No one’s trustworthy.

Betrayals are frequent and fast. Directed by Richard Fleischer, from a sharp screenplay by Earl Felton and George Zuckerman. Assistant DA Cleve Marshall (glassy-eyed Wendell Corey), unhappily married and drinking heavily, looks at “The File on Thelma Jordan” (1950) and is dazzled by Barbara Stanwyck.

Besotted, he misses her nefarious plans for a wealthy aunt. She’s also hot for dangerous Tony Laredo (Richard Rober). Nothing good will come of this. Superbly directed by Robert Siodmark, from a screenplay

by Ketti Frings based on a story by Mary Holland. (1/ 25) A racially mixed town poisons

“The Well” (1951) when a black girl disappears. A white transient with no alibi is arrested. Violent confrontations ensue. This prescient look at racism received Oscar nominations for Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene’s story and screenplay, and for Chester Schaeffer’s editing. Shot in Marysville and Yuba City, CA. With Maidie Norman. Directed by Leo Popkin and Rouse. William Wyler’s “Detective Story” (1951) takes place in a police station. Kirk Douglas (father of Michael) is an intense, moralistic cop. His angry paranoia is hurting his marriage to beautiful Eleanor Parker. With Lee Grant in her auspicious screen debut as a kleptomaniac, William Bendix and George Macready.

Oscar nominations for Wyler, Parker, and Grant, who would be blacklisted and barred from movies until 1955. Screenplay by Philip Yordan and Robert Wyler, based on Sidney Kingsley’s play. (Matinee, 1/26) Special Prosecutor Edmond O’Brien reaches “A Turning Point” (1951) when he investigates hometown corruption. His cop father (Ed

Begley) is reluctant to get involved.

Cynical reporter William Holden knows why. Gorgeous Alexis Smith is torn between O’Brien and the handsome Holden. The crackerjack finale answers the hard questions. Crisp direction by William Dieterele. Warren Duff adapted Horace McCoy’s story. Lovely, rich Jean Simmons’ “Angel Face” (1953) is deceptive, as Robert Mitchum learns. She has an Electra-like complex. Herbert Marshall is Daddy, and Barbara O’Neil her unlucky stepmother. Otto Preminger directed this deliciously over-the-top melodrama. Screenplay by Frank Nugent, Oscar Millard and an uncredited Ben Hecht, from Chester Erskine’s story. (1/26) Samuel Fuller’s “Pickup on South Street” (1953) turns the cold war hot. On a packed Manhattan subway car, Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) picks the purse of sexy Candy (Jean Peters), inadvertently stealing a microfilm belonging to her ex-boyfriend Joey (Richard Kiley), a secret communist agent.

Police informant Moe Williams (the

great Thelma Ritter) tells Candy what happened. Candy’s plans to recover it go awry when she falls for Skip. The weary Moe pays the ultimate price for getting involved.

Screenplay by Fuller from a story

by Dwight Taylor. Ritter got a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Chicago is “The City That Never Sleeps” (1953), and cop Johnny Kelly (Gig Young) has had it with his job and his marriage to Paula Raymond. California and beautiful Mala Powers beckon. Then Edward Arnold makes him an offer he wants to refuse. Will he? With William Talman, Marie Windsor, and Chill Wills. John Auer directed from a screenplay by Steve Fischer. (1/27) Will gorgeous moll Kim Novak make a “Pushover” (1954) of cop Fred MacMurray? She wants him to keep the loot he’s supposed to recover. Will he do the right thing? With Dorothy Malone and E.G. Marshall.

Roy Huggins wrote the tense script, adapted from novels by Bill Ballinger and Thomas Walsh. Directed

by Richard Quine. Chanteuse Ida Lupino faces a “Private Hell” (1954)

t

when she helps the cops recover some stolen money.

She falls for one of them (Steve Cochran). Lupino and ex-husband Collier Young wrote the screenplay.

With Howard Duff, Lupino’s then-husband. Don Siegel directed. (1/28) Ralph Meeker is P.I. Mike Hammer in “Kiss Me Deadly” (1955). He rescues a woman on the run who’s then killed in a car “accident.” Tough guy Hammer is released from the hospital and wants to investigate her death – but the cops prevent it. As if they could.

Screenplay by A.I. Bezzerides, from Mickey Spillane’s novel. Robert Aldrich directed. “Killer’s Kiss” (1955) is Stanley Kubrick’s second film, a Manhattan noir set in the world of boxing and crime. With Frank Silvera. Kubrick and Harold O. Sackler wrote the screenplay.

(1/29) “The Scarlet Hour” (1956) is when real-life gay actor Tom Tryon and Carol Ohmart plan a jewelry heist that will free her from her nasty husband (James Gregory).

With Elaine Stritch in her first film.

Directed by Oscar winner Michael Curtiz (“Casablanca,” “Mildred Pierce”) from a screenplay by Alfred Von Ronkel, Frank Tashlin, and John Meredyth Lucas. Gorgeous, social-climbing Robert Wagner gives heiress Virginia Leith “A Kiss Before Dying” (1956) when their plans to marry are dashed by her pregnancy, which will get her disinherited. So he successfully stages her suicide, which arouses her sister’s (Joanne Woodward) suspicions.

Will she fall for his kiss? With hunky Jeffrey Hunter and Mary Astor.

Directed by Gerd Oswald. Screenplay by Lawrence Roman from Ira Levin’s novel. (1/30)t

Declarations of independence

by David Lamble

T

he 2019 San Francisco Independent Film Festival (SF IndieFest) returns (Jan. 30-Feb. 14) with a bevy of challenging films that include two outstanding LGBTQ narratives, the French-boy love drama “Permanent Green Light” and the sunny romantic triangle “Daddy Issues.” IndieFest plays the Roxie and Victoria (where noted) Theaters in San Francisco.

“Permanent Green Light” In this riveting, funny and perplexing queer feature, the American underground novelist/poet Dennis Cooper (with Zac Farley) brings us French adolescent boys who question everything they know about life, death and sex. Like Cooper’s earlier work (“Frisk,” “Closer”), it takes us right up to the edge as teenagers have philosophical conversations well beyond their years.

A calm but desperate young man decides to blow himself up as his friends watch from a physically but possibly not emotionally safe distance. Recalls Robert Bresson’s 1977 morality play “The Devil Probably,” where Antoine Monnier drifts through politics, religion and psychoanalysis, rejecting them all once he realizes the depth of his disgust for society. Beautifully photographed, with partial male nudity in sylvan settings, “PGL” is an excellent introduction to Cooper’s work, with a sublime young cast. (2/3, 4) “Daddy Issues” Director Amara Cash offers a love-in-the-sun romantic triangle. Maya, a wannabe artist, has a crush on designer Jas-

Altered Innocence

Theo Cholbi in directors Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley’s “Permanent Green Light,” part of SF IndieFest.

mine, and discovers her secret income: playing sugar baby to a client with an age-play fetish. (2/9, 12) “Little Woods” Two women endure the meltdown of the American economic and health care system in Nia DaCosta’s taut, female-driven drama, a cross between “Frozen River” and “Winter’s Bone.” Starring Tessa Thompson and Lily James.

(Victoria, 2/8) “I Am Maris” Laura Vanzee Taylor’s film shows how one woman overcomes anxiety-based mental problems through yoga. Plays with the short “Introducing the Super Stoked Surf Mamas of Pleasure Point.” (2/8, 10) “Donovan Reid” In this Petaluma-based drama, a young man who appears to have been abducted from his birth family at age 10 returns on

the all-night coffee shop, the empty bar, and some dame’s apartment.

Terrific cast: guys with scary eyes, dames with loose habits. (2/10) “Banana Season” Sanghoon Lee’s odd-couple tale begins with a little person tumbling out of a tree as an old buddy, an Asian American mixed martial arts fighter, jogs by. Sharp dialogue, characters with scars and dead-end habits. (2/1, 3) “The Area” In today’s South Side Chicago, kids shoot baskets through milk cartons, chess is played outdoors, and the Norfolk Southern railroad company wants everybody to move on. David Schalliol’s feisty doc brings new meaning to the phrase “the wrong side of the tracks.” (2/10) “This Taco Truck Kills Fascists” Rodrigo Dorfman’s agit-prop film takes aim at Trump’s immigrant-

the cusp of adulthood a decade later.

Our view of what happened to Michael/Donovan (Weston Lee Ball) keeps shifting. A key clue might be the 1950 film noir classic “D.O.A.,” in which Edmund O’Brien tries to figure out why he was given a slowacting poison. This one possibly has too many tricks up its sleeve. Kudos to Ball, whose nervous, Montgomery Clift-like performance is the film’s main asset. (2/2, 7) “Cruel Hearts” Writer-director Paul Osbourne offers a darkly funny reboot of every paranoid beat in the noir playbook, refreshing old cliches about the cheating wife, the jealous husband and the lying creep who Under 1 Roof Productions knows how to exploit people’s weaknesses. Osbourne plays us like Taran- Madison Lawlor in director Amara tino circa “Pulp Fiction,” pulling off Cash’s “Daddy Issues.” surprises in timeless noir settings:

bashing mojo, using the growing network of taco-truck lunch wagons to mobilize his troops, kids and tacolovers. Plays with the short “Jesse Lott: Art and Activism.” (2/1, 2) “The Man Who Killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot” Veteran character Sam Elliot is the perfect guy for the assignment in Robert Krzykowski’s feature debut with a loony premise. (1/31) “Billboard” An all-star indiefilm cast heads up Zeke Zelker’s droll satire about a struggling AM radio station whose new owner is trying to stay on the air with a crazy contest in which devoted listeners perch on one of the station’s billboards. What’s at stake: the last rock signal on the AM band. With John Robinson, Eric Roberts and Heather Matarazzo. (2/9, 14) “Pet Names” In Carol Brandt’s relationship drama, a grad school drop-out divides her time between looking after her sick mom and going on a camping trip with her ex. (2/2, 5) “Guardian” O Canada! A salute to Canadian ecological safeguards in the Trump era.

Courtney Quirin’s doc traces the history of a program dating back to the early 1900s that assigns patrol persons to protect the nation’s coastal waterways. (2/2, 4) “Desolation Center” Stuart Swezey’s doc is a tribute to punk and industrial music fans who flocked to the Mojave Desert before Burning Man. Contains vintage footage of great bands: Sonic Youth, Minutemen and Meat Puppets.(2/8)t

t

Theatre>>

January 24-30, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 19

Zachary Fineberg

Julie Gieseke will present “Borderline Asshole.”

<<

Solo Performers

From page 15

PlayGround Solo Performance Festival, through Feb. 10 at Potrero Stage, 1695 18th St., SF. Single-night tickets from $31, all-festival passes from $93. (415) 992-6677, www. playground-sf.org/solofest.

STEPHEN SONDHEIM’S

a! ed str ag he St rc lly e O Fu Liv ith w

Maybe you’ve seen Anna Deveare Smith’s assemblages of verbatim interview excerpts. Or maybe you’re more familiar with the Hal-Holbrook-as-Mark-Twain approach, in which a performer embodies a single character over the course of an evening.

The versatility of solo theater as a form, and the diversity of the Bay Area artists who explore it, are being showcased between tonight and Feb. 10 in the second annual Solo Performance Festival produced by PlayGround, the Potrero Hill-based theater company, featuring 11 distinctive performers.

“We want to highlight the variety that’s out there,” explains Annie Stuart, PlayGround’s associate director and the festival’s co-curator.

“Each night is a double bill, so even if you come just once, we’ve curated it so you’ll see two very different approaches to solo performance.”

(Each evening’s program runs between two and two-and-a-half hours, with a break between performers.)

Among the festival’s eclectic selections are “Current,” a movement-intensive performance in which Nina Wise will incorporate improvisation inspired by events of the prior 48 hours; “The Latin Standards Hour,” a punchy, abridged version of Marga Gomez’s tribute to her musician father; and “Stop Having Zombie Sex,” a humorous grapple with intimacy issues by sometime stand-up comic Malcolm Grissom.

“One of our criteria in curating,” says Jim Kleinmann, “is that the performances could definitely not be stand-up comedy. Humor

tends to be a common element in a lot of solo work, but we wanted shows that explore individual perspectives with as much depth as possible. When you see Malcolm’s show, for instance, he makes you feel like you’re sitting alone with him and he’s speaking to you personally, not playing to a comedy audience.”

Not that such intimate engagement can’t have its own pitfalls.

“We’ve certainly looked at a lot of confessional, autobiographical work,” says Kleinmann. “But one of the big challenges for solo performers is understanding that just because it really happened to you doesn’t make something inherently interesting onstage. We seek out performers who are able to deliver stories compellingly and theatrically.”

Annie Stuart says that in addition to Gomez’s piece, there are several other shows with LGBTQ creators or themes that she’s particularly pleased to be presenting in this year’s festival.

Matthew Martin, a stalwart of San Francisco gay performance, well-known for playing classic Hollywood leading ladies, not to mention Blanche in the locally adored drag “Golden Girls” shows, goes back to his artistic origins with “Matt on Tap,” in which he examines a lifelong fascination with tap-dancing.

“Patty from HR Would Like a Word” is a new piece from Michael Phillis, the creative impresario behind Baloney, the all-male revue frequently featured at the Oasis nightclub. “Patty” is a major elaboration on an original character who has made cameo appearances in those variety shows. “She represents corporate culture, political correct-

ness and all the sort of things we’re trying to avoid when we go out to drag shows.”

Phillis says the character was inspired by two years he spent in corporate tech during the early 2000s.

“I was well-paid and completely miserable,” he recalls. “It felt like all my interactions were more like transactions. So this show is partly me working through that corporate trauma.”

Julie Gieseke is alchemizing laughs from even deeper trauma with “Borderline Asshole,” a harrowing and humorous account of her relationship with a girlfriend who, “as I was dealing with my mother dying, decided that I had borderline personality disorder and convinced me to go into six months of therapy for it.”

“Borderline Asshole” is the first full-length show for Gieseke, who never aspired be a performer and still works in the white-collar world. “About eight years ago,” she explains, “I thought I wanted to do some more work as a meeting facilitator, but I thought of myself as a very introverted person.”

To shore up her confidence, Gieseke enrolled in San Francisco’s Solo Performance Workshop, founded in 2005 by W. Kamau Bell (www. soloperformanceworkshop.org).

While Gieseke ultimately decided that meeting facilitation was not for her, she ended up loving the class, and took it a dozen times over the next eight years.

“I originally did it to get through fear,” says Gieseke. Now she’s won a spot in this significant local showcase, and has applied to present “Borderline Asshole” at the Dublin Gay Theater Festival.t

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, San Francisco February 2-3, 2019 tickets: 415-978-2787 Lesher Center, Walnut Creek February 9-10, 2019 tickets: 925-943-7469 Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts February 16-17, 2019 tickets: 650-903-6000

www.lamplighters.org

Featuring “Send in the Clowns,” A Little Night Music is

heady, civilized, sophisticated and enchanting.

Clive Barnes, New York Post

<< TV

20 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2019

New production of a classic musical

by David-Elijah Nahmod

F

ox will air a new, live production of the classic musical “Rent” on Sun., Jan. 27.

First performed on Broadway in 1996, “Rent” is based on the opera “La Boheme.” The show follows a group of impoverished young artists in NYC’s East Village as they struggle to express themselves and to survive during the AIDS epidemic. “Rent” was an instant hit with the public, winning Tony Awards, running for 12 years and clocking in over 5,000 performances.

It also garnered a cult following, “Rent-heads” who camped out at the Nederlander Theatre in New York for hours to get lastminute $20 tickets and see each show.

“Rent” is notable for including gay and lesbian characters at a time when LGBT people had not Fox-TV yet moved into the mainstream.

One such character is Angel, Valentina plays Angel, an HIV+ drag queen, an HIV+ drag queen. In “Rent in “Rent Live.”

Live,” Angel will be portrayed

by Valentina, a drag queen best-known as a ninth season contestant on “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Valentina has also appeared on “America’s Top Model.”

“Angel is the heart of the story,” Valentina tells the B.A.R., “a completely selfless person.”

Valentina noted that playing Angel is the biggest artistic challenge she has ever faced. “I hope ‘Rent’ will be a stepping stone, but only if I put in the work,” she said. “This is an iconic role for me to step into, and I’m very excited to be playing it. I definitely want to play more serious roles and to challenge myself. I’m very focused on the work I have to do, and I’m very blessed to have this dream job. Even when I’m tired I’m glad to be working at my dream job.”

She described how she saw the story of “Rent.” “It’s about a group of struggling

artists during the height of the HIV epidemic,” she said. “They’re trying to make the best of their lives when they’re all facing death sentences.

‘Rent’ is about community, it’s about love.”

“Visibility is a form of activism,” she said. “The show tells the story of what was going on at that time.

We must always promote how to care for each other and how to care for oneself. This is not just an LGBT story, it’s a story for everyone, it’s a story about self-care.”

Michael Greif, who directed the original Broadway company of “Rent,” feels that the story is as relevant today as ever.

“While the psychology of the characters, especially around the implications of a positive HIV diagnosis, has changed as more medications have become more effective in AIDS treatment, ‘Rent’ has always been about chosen family and our need to feel connected to a community in order to feel valued and loved,” he said. “The love we’re able to express to others directly relates to the love we receive. I hope this

t

generosity will always remain relevant.”

“I’m very proud that our original creative and producing team felt a commitment to depict these characters with the kind of diversity we’d actually find on the Lower East Side,” Greif said. “Over the years so many of our most talented composers, lyricists, and actors working in today’s musical theatre have told me how significant ‘Rent’ was to their development and inspiration. I am so thrilled that this broadcast will reach so many and inspire future theater-makers and policy-makers.

“I am certainly not saying that we were the first, but ‘Rent’ came along at a moment when it was important to remind everyone that musical theater could give voice to many whose voices weren’t often heard, delivered by a youthful, diverse, and unknown cast. It helps remind everyone that successful musicals can be about contemporary, challenging subject matter.”t “Rent Live” airs on KTVU Fox 2 on Sun., Jan. 27, at 8 p.m.

Dinner party politics

by Jim Gladstone

J

ordan Tannahill was 23 when he wrote “Late Company,” the emotionally explosive drama now in a regional premiere production at the New Conservatory Theatre Center.

It was 2011, and Tannahill, a native of Ottawa, the Canadian capital, recalls writing it in a fury.

Jamie Hubley, the 15-year-old son of an Ottawa city councilman, had committed suicide after years of homophobic bullying. “I hate being the only open gay guy in my school,” the boy had written in a Tumblr post. “I really want to end it, it’s not getting better if there’s 3 years of high school left.”

Shortly after Hubley’s death, a group of Parliament members from the ruling Conservative Party of Canada (with which Hubley’s father was affiliated) cobbled together a slapdash video, in which they dutifully faced the camera to offer their “It Gets Better” reassurance to other bullied teens.

“There weren’t even any LGBT people in it,” says Tannahill, recalling his anger at the time. “This is the party that had cut off funding that would have benefitted queer youth. I just thought it was so cynical and hypocritical. It made me think about dinner parties I’d been at where there was this tacit notion that everyone there supported certain gay issues, but I could also tell there was a lot going unsaid. It became like a splinter under my skin that I needed to work out.”

As it happens, Tannahill’s splinter worked out quite well. During the seven years since it was first performed, “Late Company,” which takes place over the course of a cathartic dinner party in the home of a politician whose gay son killed himself, has become the prolific writer’s most widely produced work, mounted across Canada, in several U.S. cities, and on the West End in London. During the play’s run at NCTC, another production will open in Singapore.

ogy to the body.” While far “It’s funny,” notes Tannaless overtly than in Tannahill’s hill, “this play has introduced virtual reality piece, technolme in so many cities. It resoogy has an important role in nates very deeply with audi“Late Company” as well. ences. I remain proud of it.

Prolific and a polymath, But I wrote it when I was 23, Tannahill also works as a and it’s a very different piece visual artist, choreographer, than I would write now.” filmmaker and, as of last Indeed. Tannahill, who year, a novelist; his book lives in England with his “Liminal” is among several British partner, is currently recent works across media working on “Draw Me Close” in which Tannahill grapples at London’s Young Vic. with mother-son relation“It’s a completely bespoke ships in the wake of his own performance,” he explains, mother’s death. “performed for a single audi“There are certain ideas,” ence member at a time. For he says, “that are better exthe first half of the show, pressed in each medium.” you put on a headset, enter But across them all, “I try a virtual environment, and to do work that I would like move through an immersive, as an audience member. I interactive world. There’s an Alejandro Santiago imagine my audiences as actress in a motion capture intelligent, informed and suit who is performing for “Late Company” playwright Jordan Tannahill. politically engaged.”t you and alongside you.” theater where things happen in real What the two shows have in time,” says Tannahill. “And I like to common is a sense of extreme intiLate Company plays NCTC explore the relationship of technolmacy. “I’m particularly interested in through Feb. 24. www.nctcsf.com

Sultry suppositions

by Tim Pfaff

T

he French novelist and polymath Mathias Enard turned heads west of the Channel when his 2015 novel “Compass” was shortlisted for the 2017 Booker International Prize; many of those heads promptly exploded. “Compass” is an erudite, 450-page opium dream from which not everyone awoke.

Still, if this sounds like your stuff, a shorter, somewhat easier point of entry to Enard has just been published in English, from his regular and indefatigable translator, Charlotte Mandell.

“Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants” (New Directions), written in French in 2010, is an intoxicant of a different kind, even if the named intoxicants in it are of manifold kinds.

Enard takes his title from snippets of a Rudyard Kipling poem, “Life’s Handicap,” which he includes as an epigraph. It’s as if he takes its opening line as an injunction: “Tell them of what thou alone hast seen.”

In the strict sense, the novel is a story only Enard himself has seen.

In a way similar to that used by

Ersi Sotiropoulos in “What’s Left of the Night” (which imagines a brief Paris idyll by Constantine Cavafy, of which there is no historical account), Enard imagines Michelangelo traveling to Constantinople in 1506 to design and build a bridge over the Golden Horn. After a design by Leonardo da Vinci was deemed unbuildable, the historical

Michelangelo did get such an invitation, but declined it. Oh, what he missed.

Enard’s short chapters, written from multiple points of view, are like 100 more tales of Scheherazade, not only in their exoticism but also in their function. Lest you miss the point, Enard supplies a character substitute for Scheherazade, an androgynous Andalusian singer-dancer slave who ensorcells Michelangelo, makes it to his bed, and tells him not who she is, but who he is.

This is no broken-hearted Dido; she sings to Michelangelo on their last night: “It’s not me you desire.

I am nothing but the reflection of your poet friend, the one who sacrifices himself for your happiness. I do not exist. Maybe you’re discovering that now. You will suffer from it later on, of course: you will forget; in vain you will have covered the walls with our faces, our features will vanish little by little.”

“Your poet friend” is Mesihi of Prishtina, the Maestro’s appointed guide in Constantinople. Mesihi’s own taste runs to “ephebes,” but in no time at all he’s besotted with

Michelangelo. Mesihi’s mounting passion goes unrequited. “Michelangelo,” Enard tells us, “is searching for love. Michelangelo is afraid of love just as he’s afraid of Hell. He looks away when he feels Mesihi’s gaze resting on him.”

Enard gives us a true-to-life Michelangelo, a rough, heavydrinking, ham-fisted galute who happens to have been kissed by God. Michelangelo bathes, or rather is bathed, only once during his months-long stay in the Ottoman court. Still, nothing could be clearer than that he is homosexual.

Bayezid II, the Ottoman Grand Vizier Ali Pasha who has invited the Maestro to compete for the commission, is bisexual, but at least he has the discipline to hold his single-purposed place in Michelangelo’s Bosporus sojourn: getting his bridge, not bedding the artist.

The tireless brilliance is in the way Enard weaves fact and fiction.

This historical Grand Vizier is little more than a stand-in for Pope Julius II of Rome, to whom the fiercely independent Michelangelo feels himself enslaved by commissions in which money is withheld, or meted

out in dribbles. The Grand Vizier offers him an entire Turkish village, which the Maestro regards as, at best, a booby prize.

It’s hard to imagine a movie more vividly delivering this Constantinople than Enard’s rich, incantatory prose. There are catalogues of food and drink, architectural interiors and exteriors, some splendid, others rude. There’s also a breath-catching moment when Michelangelo is being led through a slave market and is moved by the lines of humans of many races hoping only that their domination will be less than brutal.

He recognizes himself, an Italian Catholic, as an outsider and infidel.

Near the end of his time in Constantinople, Michelangelo’s ebony concubine reminds him, “You are a slave of princes, just as I am a slave of innkeepers and procurers. The truth is that there is nothing but suffering: we try to forget, in the arms of strangers, that we will soon vanish.”

But with whatever pain, the artist knows that he is more than a slave.

“It’s true,” he tells Arslan, a Constantinople confidant. “We all ape God in his Absence.”t

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<< DVD

22 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2019

Muddling through middle school

by Brian Bromberger

I

n his debut “Eighth Grade” (Lions Gate DVD), filmmaker Bo Burnham shows how early teens must cope with body changes, acne, awakening sexuality and social awkwardness, yet also reveals their personalities in embryonic form. Burnham mines this awkward transition for laughs, but also presents insights into how a new generation is handling this challenging life transition using social media.

Kayla Day (Elsie Fisher) is an eighth grader finishing her final week of school. The film opens with one of the motivational videos she posts on YouTube, with topics “Being Yourself ” or “Putting Yourself Out There,” despite having an audience of maybe two people. The reality is that she is painfully shy,

<<

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Robinson), who is kind to her and helps open her up, introducing Kayla to her friends. One of them, Riley, drives her home, but initiates a “Truth or Dare” scenario, trying to intimidate Kayla into taking off her shirt. She declines, and runs home to her father. She stops making videos since she can’t follow her own advice. Graduation is imminent.

Will the shaky Kayla make a good transition to high school?

What makes “Eighth Grade” so poignant, funny, yet uncompromising is that it observes the image-obsessed Generation Z world. It’s not patronizing. Burnham, best-known for his comedy YouTube videos that made him an Internet star at 16, accepts social media as a given, showing both its shadow side (merciless criticism) and benefits in connecting people.

Teenagers today are bent on presenting their perfect self, insisting

everything is fabulous even when it isn’t. The biggest danger is being ignored, and popularity is marked by how many followers you have on Instagram or Snapchat.

Although there is no LGBTQ material here, queer folk will identify with the film’s themes of being the social misfit, the inability to reveal one’s true self. Kayla challenges herself to be the best person she can be, who must first discover who she is.

Audiences will be rooting for her.

“Eighth Grade” has two miracles in it. First is the naturalistic, honest performance of Fisher (14 during filming). Second, details seem true to life, especially about how middle schoolers speak. Burnham deserves credit for hiring middle-school-age actors instead of the usual 20somethings playing teens, giving the film authenticity.t

California’s Gold Rush) “Ernani” by Giuseppe Verdi (June 7-July 2), as well as the revival of director Christopher Alden’s entertaining production of Handel’s “Partenope” (June 12-27). It is enough to concentrate on fall for now, with advice to visit the SFO website before “Steve Jobs” is sold out. Audiences still have this summer’s season to look forward to, but word to the wise: the Box Office is taking orders now, and the DYO option rolled out on Jan. 22.

Opening night at the Opera is fabulous, but opening week is fun, too. Free “Opera in the Park” is scheduled Sun., Sept. 8. Charles Gounod’s lyrical “Romeo and Juliet” (Sept. 6-Oct. 1) offers a suitably romantic theme for the

festivities. After an absence of 31 years, French-Canadian Yves Abel conducts Opera de Monte-Carlo Director Jean-Louis Grinda’s Italian Renaissance staging. Tenor Bryan Hymel and soprano Nadine Sierra portray the famous lovers.

Hymel won raves in 2015 in SFO’s “Les Troyens,” and Sierra adds Juliet to her SFO repertoire, which includes Mozart heroines and Donizetti’s Lucia. Her Musetta in “La Boheme” 2014 was luscious. Recipient of the 2017 Richard Tucker Award and the Metropolitan Opera’s Beverly Sills Award in 2018, the former SFO Adler Fellow is also an alumnus of SFO’s Merola Opera Program.

Another Merola alum, American baritone John Chest, is a leading artist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin who recently sang at Glyndebourne. He makes his Company debut in the title role of Benjamin Britten’s powerful “Billy Budd” (Sept. 7-22). American tenor William Burden, recent star of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” portrays agonized Captain Vere, and distinctive bass-baritone Christian Van Horn, winner of the 2018 Richard Tucker Award, completes the triangle of protagonists in an all-male cast as Claggart, one of the most complex baddies in modern opera.

Amazingly, Britten has not been heard in the War Memorial Opera House for 15 years, but Shilvock’s collective is making up for lost time.

Tony and Olivier Award-winning

director Michael Grandage’s acclaimed production was first seen at the 2010 Glyndebourne Festival, and later revived at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2014. The two-act edition unfolds in production designer Christopher Oram’s “breathtaking hulk of a set.” With the men of Ian Robertson’s SFO Chorus as the crew, and Lawrence Renes, who led the SFO premiere of John Adams’ “Nixon in China” in 2012, conducting, this will be a major season highlight.

A new production of Mozart and Da Ponte’s comic “The Marriage of Figaro” (Oct. 11-Nov. 1) begins a multi-season project combining the three Mozart-Da Ponte operas, which include “Così fan tutte” and “Don Giovanni,” into a trilogy. The fascinating idea was pitched to Canadian director Michael Cavanagh, whose SFO credits include striking productions of Carlisle Floyd’s “Susannah” and Adams’ “Nixon in China.” He was responsible for a misguided “Lucia di Lammermoor” in 2015, but if you can’t say something nice… Cavanagh joins an exciting creative team constructing a narrative arc that follows human relationships and society within a single house over three eras of American history. Is there a future summer festival on the horizon?

A season without Puccini would be unthinkable. “Manon Lescaut” (Nov. 8-26) brings SFO favorites

Armenian soprano Lianna Haroutounian and American tenor Brian Jagde (former Merola participant and Adler Fellow) to star as the doomed lovers. Former SFO music director Nicola Luisotti returns to add his expertise to one of the composer’s early successes.

The holidays arrive with Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” (Nov. 15-Dec. 7). I share Shilvock’s admiration of the score’s Wagnerian breadth and universal appeal. This is a fairy tale that doesn’t make grown-ups cringe. Presenting it in English is a good decision. Company favorites take the title parts; mezzosoprano Sasha Cooke (back in June to play Steve Jobs’ wife) is Hansel, and soprano Heidi Stober is Gretel.

Mezzo-soprano Michaela Martens and bass-baritone Alfred Walker are their parents. The wicked Witch is tenor Robert Brubaker (memorably creepy as Aegisth in SFO’s “Elektra”). Co-produced with London’s Royal Opera, Covent Garden, British director and production designer Antony McDonald’s spectacle will be conducted by San Francisco-born Christopher Franklin.

Matthew Shilvock says, “The operas of the 2019-20 season will bring us together in shared exploration of human relationships and the bonds that connect us.”

Check out the Rainbow Series for the LGBTQ community at sfopera. com/subscribe.t

of marquee names, this exhibition will be an introduction to talented creators whose acquaintance visitors will wish they had made years ago. Some, like Mickalene Thomas and Mark Bradford, have made a big splash. Bradford, who’s gay, grew up in South Central where his mom’s beauty salon was a gathering place and hub of activity. Appropriating its materials and part of the space for his studio, he began singeing semitransparent permanent-wave endpapers and layering them on canvases in a horizontal grid pattern before applying acrylic paint, as he has in “Enter and Exit the New Negro” (2000), an early work that’s on view.

Thomas’ dazzling “Panthera,” created during her 2002-03 residency, shimmers and sparkles with a backdrop of glittering citron rhinestones; a slinky deep-purple-and-ebony panther, all stealth and bared teeth, claims the foreground. Thomas, an explorer of gender and sexuality, sees the panther as a cat with prowess and a symbol of black beauty, strength and femininity. In “Can’t We Just Sit Down and Talk It Over?” (2006-7), one of her tableaux of black women lounging in colorful, cluttered 1970s interiors drawn directly from “The Practical Encyclopedia of Good Decorating and Home Improvement,” she brings a jazzy nonchalance and hip, distinctly 1970s vibe that will leave

visitors of a certain age nostalgic for their old disco LPs. Even more laid-back is the gentle scene depicted in “Nwantinti” (2012) from Nigerian-born artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby. Now based in L.A., she paints large-scale works of intimate moments extracted from everyday life like this languorous interlude between a couple resting on a bed on a sunny Sunday morning, perhaps after they’ve just made love, his head resting on her lap, she tenderly stroking his hair as he gazes up at her face. The room they occupy is a cacophony of pink and burgundy patterns, from the rumpled linens to the busy wallpaper, contrasting with the stillness and calm understanding between them.

“Portrait of a Young Musician” (1970) by Beauford Delaney, who started his career in the Harlem Renaissance, is the essence of selfassured male cockiness decked out in apple green. Hands clasped politely on his lap and wearing a snazzy, head-turning suit and Cheshire grin, the up-andcoming subject is accentuated by an aura of bright yellow, the artist’s signature hue.

Harlem Renaissance photographer James VanDerZee, whose portraits of cultivated African Americans in the 1920s are included in the exhibition, had a powerful

SFO 2019-20

From page 15

There is something for everyone in a variety of operatic styles. For the first time, at the beginning of the subscription period, the Company has a Design Your Own (DYO) option that lets ticket-buyers pick their own series (minimum of four) with subscriber savings and benefits.

Shilvock’s vision includes everyone from devotees to first-timers.

His enthusiasm was apparent as he described exciting productions and opening-week events. San Francisco is an opera town, and music-lovers are as involved as sports fans. The 2019-20 rosters should have everyone eagerly scoping the line-up.

The official press release leads with the final production of the 2020 summer season, the Bay Area premiere of “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs” (June 20-July 3) by composer Mason Bates and librettist Mark Campbell.

The co-commission among SFO, the Santa Fe Opera and Seattle Opera, with support from Cal Performances and co-produced with Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, explores the Bay Area visionary’s life, with Bates himself performing with the Orchestra as Michael Christie conducts.

We will preview the highly anticipated premiere later, and also take a closer look at the infrequently performed (but big hit during

exhibits no self-confidence, has no friends, and is voted “Most Silent” in the yearbook. She is being raised by her devoted, hovering single dad Mark (Josh Hamilton), who tries to initiate conversations with her while she remains glued to her phone. The most popular girl in school, Kennedy (Catherine Oliviere), is guilted by her mother into inviting Kayla to her birthday pool party. Kayla is urged by her father to attend, but only after undergoing a panic attack in the bathroom before going outside in her hideous lime-green bathing suit.

Kayla has a crush on Aiden, who asks her at the party if she has any nude photos or engages in oral sex, which she researches online afterwards to her dismay. Meanwhile, for one day she gets to shadow high school student Olivia (Emily

MoAD

From page 15

Since then, the community institution has amassed a permanent collection of more than 2,000 paintings, sculptures, drawings, watercolors, prints and mixed-media pieces, dating from the 19th century to the present, while offering a residency program that has produced 150 graduates. Now, as it awaits completion of a new expanded facility on the same site designed by David Adjaye, architect of the National Museum of African American History in Washington, D.C., Studio Museum has sent its precious artworks out into the world on a cross-country tour.

That turn of events has allowed MoAD to start off with a bang with one of the best shows of the New Year. Featuring 63 pieces and filled with bracing works from the 1920s onward, by an impressive roster of diverse artists, the exhibition never feels overstuffed; instead, the curators have taken care to give each object plenty of room to breathe.

In the Studio Museum’s early days, emerging black artists were largely shut out of the mainstream art-world. While fortunes have improved and profiles raised considerably for the majority of the 51 artists here, outside of aficionados of African American art and a handful

t

Andrey Stoycher

Baritone John Chest will sing the title role of Benjamin Britten’s “Billy Budd.”

Zalika Azim, Mickalene Thomas/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Mickalene Thomas, “Panthera” (2002), rhinestones on acrylic on birch panel.

impact on the artistic psyche of gay British filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien, whose impressionistic biopic “Looking for Langston” evoked the poetic ambience of that special time and place. Julien is represented by “Incognito” (2003), a life-like wax replica of pioneering blaxploitation director Melvin Van Peebles. Poised on a platform in mid-pontification, the natty figure seems so real it will trigger double takes among unsuspecting visitors.

The sculpture appeared alongside the flesh-and-blood Van Peebles in Julien’s 2003 film “Baltimore.”

But this writer’s greatest affection is reserved for the show’s most unassuming, least flashy work, Bill Traylor’s undated “Untitled (dog).”

Traylor toiled in the fields as a sharecropper for the better part of his life before moving to Alabama, where, at the age of 84, he blossomed into an artist, making small-scale pictures like this one of a panting, tailwagging canine, unceremoniously painted on the back of a Hershey’s chocolate box. Just goes to show it’s never too late to create.t Through April 14. moadsf.org

27

26

BARchive

Shining Stars

www.ebar.com

Vol. 49 • No. 4 • January 24-30, 2019

Nightlife Events

January 24-31

How are we doing?

Nightlife isn’t shut down, but it keeps on truckin.’

Sat 26

Wanda Sykes @ The Masonic

Listings on page 25 >

Kristine & Carson Just two divas horsing around

Arts Events January 24-31

Blossom with arts, comedic thoughts, truths told with music, visions on canvas.

by Jim Gladstone

A

s far as suburban mom Kristine Weitz knew, Carson Kressley was primarily a children’s author.

“One of my kids’ guncles bought them this book,” says Weitz, better known to gay admirers as dance music diva Kristine W, whose 17 number-one Billboard dance hits include “Stars,” “The Power of Music,” and “Save My Soul.”

That was back in 2006. Kristine, then a mother of two young children and already a staple of the circuit party scene, found much to appreciate in “You’re Different and That’s Super” Kressley’s unlikely Queer Eye-fame-enabled foray into kids’ lit.

Wed 30 Bambi Lake and Birdy Bob Watt in Tender is my Loin @ Pianofight

See page 27 >> Kristine W. and Carson Kressley

{ THIRD OF THREE SECTIONS }

Listings on page 24 >

<< Arts Events

24 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2019

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

Seascape @ Geary Theatre Edward Albee’s prize-winning satirical comedy about a retired couple’s beachside encounter with a pair of talking lizards. $15-$110. Thru Feb 17. 415 Geary St. www.act-sf.org

Thu 24 Jack Davis @ Center for Sex & Culture

Sun 27

Faggots, the artist’s collection of fabric pink triangles, stick bundles and other symbols of homosexuality.

Thru Jan 25 (closing party). 1349 Mission St. www.sexandculture.org

Choreographies of Disclosure @ Pro Arts Oakland

How I Learned What I Learned @ Marin Theatre Company August Wilson’s autobiographical solo play gets a local production, performed by Steven Anthony Jones. $10-$52. Wed-Sat 7:30pm, Sat & Sun 2pm, thru Feb 3. 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. www.marintheatre.org

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Rebecca Brown @ SF Public Library The two queer authors read from, discuss and sign copies of their new books Sketchtasy (Sycamore) and Not Heaven, Somewhere Else (Brown). 6pm-7:30pm. 3rd floor, 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

Metamorphosis @ Berkeley Rep Mary Zimmerman’s award-winning modern adaptation of Ovid’s iconic mythological story collection returns in a new co-production with The Guthrie Theatre. $28-$115. Thru Mar 10. 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. www.berkeleyrep.org

Thu 31 Two-Spirit Voices: Returning to the Circle @ GLBT History Museum

Paradise Square @ Berkeley Repertory

Stop AIDS Now or Else @ GLBT History Museum

New musical about the 1860s Black and Irish-populated Five Points district of New York (Book

by Marcus Gardley, Craig Lucas, and Larry Kirwan; Music by Jason Howland and Larry Kirwan, Lyrics by Nathan Tysen; based on the songs of Stephen Foster). $40-$115. Thru Feb 17.

2025 Addison St., Berkeley. www.berkeleyrep.org

Protest as Community Catalyst, a panel discussion of the 1989 SF AIDS activist protests. $5. 7pm9pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

The Secret Emchy Society, The Muddy Roses @ The Lost Church Two folk-Americana bands perform music from new albums, and favorites, at the intimate performance space. $10-$15. 8pm.

65 Capp St. www.emchy.com

Fri 25 Border People @ The Marsh Dan Hoyle’s new solo show embodies multiple characters based around the U.S./Mexico border wall controversies; thru Feb 23. $25$100. Thu & Fri 8pm, Sat 5pm. 1062 Valencia St. www.themarsh.org

Choreographies of Disclosure: What the Mind Forgets, an LGBT-artist group exhibit about sexual violence, thru Feb 15. 150 Frank H Ogowa Plaza, Oakland. https://proartsgallery.org

Gay Sunrise Contributors @ Dog Eared Books The Green Arcade and Ithuriel’s Spear present Gay Sunrise:Writing Gay Liberation in San Francisco 1968-1972 with editor James Mitchell and contributors Bruce Boone and Bob Glück. 5pm. 489 Castro St. dogearedbooks.com

Lew the Jew & His Circle @ Contemp. Jewish Museum Lew the Jew and His Circle: Origins of American Tattoo, an exhibit of the prolific tattoo artist’s work, tools and life; thru June 9. Also, In That Case: Havruta in Contemporary Art—Oxossi Ayofemi and Risa Wechsler, thru July. 736 Mission St. https://thecjm.org/

Kronos Quartet @ Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley

Weekly group discussion about problems for elders in the LGBT community. 3:15pm. 1901 Hearst Ave., Berkeley. pacificcenter.org

Queer Yoga @ Love Story Yoga All-level weekly classes in an LGBT space. $11. 6:30pm-7:30pm. 473 Valencia St. at 16th. http://www. lovestoryyoga.com/

Sweeney Todd @ Hillbarn Theatre, Foster City Stephen Sondheim’s award-winning gruesomely dramatic musical, based on the penny dreadfuls about the ‘demon barber of Fleet Street’ and his pie-making accomplice, gets an East Bay production. $20-$40; thru Feb 10. 1285 Hillsdale Blvd., Foster City. www.hillbarntheatre.org

Sat 26 Come From Away @ Golden Gate Theatre Touring production of Irene Sankoff & David Hein’s Tonywinning Broadway musical about stranded passengers who landed in Newfoundland. $56-$256. Tue-Thu 7:30pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat & Sun 2pm, thru Feb 3. 1 Taylor St at Market. www.shnsf.com

A History of World War II @ The Marsh Prolific playwright and director John Fisher’s new solo show’s subtitled The D-Day Invasion to the Fall of Berlin. $20-$100. Thu 8pm, Sat 8:30pm. Extended thru Feb 2. 1062 Valencia St. www.themarshsf.com

A Picture is a Word: The Posters of Rex Ray @ GLBT History Museum Exhibit of vibrant works by the late gay artist; thru Feb 3. The Briggs Initiative: A Scary Propostiion, thru Jan 20. $5. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Modern Art @ SF MOMA Wayne Thiebaud, Etel Adnan, Alexander Calder, Donald Judd, Louise Bourgeois and many classic Modern works. The Sea Ranch: Architecture, Envioronment and Idealism (thru April 28). Vija Celmins: To Fix the Image in Memory, thru March 31. Free/$25.

Fri-Tue 10am-6pm. 151 3rd St. www.sfmoma.org

Tue 29 East Meets West @ Legion of Honor Jewels of the Maharajas from the Al Thani Collection, thru Feb 24.

Also, Séraphin Soudbinine, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Framing the Body, Mummies and Medicine and other exhibits of classical and modern art. Free/$30.

Lincoln Park, 100 34th Ave. https://legionofhonor.famsf.org/

Tarot Erotique, the artist’s exhibit of Tarot card art; thru Jan. 470 Castro St. www.strutsf.org/

Wed 30 Black Refractions @ MOAD

Late Company @ NCTC

Older and Out @ North Berkeley Senior Center

Mon 28

Jessalyn Ragus-Glasgow @ Strut

The acclaimed Bay Area music ensemble performs Fifty for the Future, a program of new commissioned works by diverse international cohort of stellar composers. $24-$68. 8pm.

UC Berkeley campus. www.calperformances.org Jordan Tannahill’s gripping family drama about antigay bullies, redemption and anger, gets its West Coast-premiere in the gay theatre company’s new production. $20-$50. Wed-Sat 8pm Sun 2pm.

Thru Feb 24. 25 Van Ness Ave, lower level. www.nctcsf.org

t

Sun 27 Neil Patrick Harris @ Palace of Fine Arts

Neil Patrick Harris @ Palace of Fine Arts The accomplished gay actor-singer ( Hedwig, A Series of Unfortunate Events) and author in conversation onstage; part of SF Sketchfest. $45.

4pm. 3301 Lyon St. www.palaceoffinearts.org

Queer Tango @ Finnish Hall, Berkeley Same-sex partner tango dancing, including lessons for newbies, food and drinks. $5-$10. 3:30pm6:30pm. 1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley. www.finnishhall.org

San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus @ New Arts Center The Chorus performs a benefit for Paradise Wildfire victims, with songwriter Bobby Jo Valentine, Shawn Howell and special guests. $25 and up. 5pm. 170 Valencia St. www.sfgmc.org

SF Hiking Club @ Black Mountain Join GLBT hikers of the SF Hiking Club for a 6-mile hike at Black Mountain in the Monte Bello Open Space Preserve on the Peninsula.

Carpool meets at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores, 8:45am. 650740-9849 sfhiking.com

Sprightly @ SF Public Library Weekly hangout for LGBTQ youth, with crafts, snacks and activities.

Dec 16: Jessie Sisannah Karnatz, aka money Witch, leads a financial workshop. 12:30pm-2:30pm. James C. Hormel Center, 3rd floor, 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

Highlights from The Studio Museum in Harlem, a new traveling exhibition showcasing a century of artworks. Thru April 14.

Free/$10. Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission St. www.moadsf.org

Tender is my Loin @ Pianofight Punk nightlife chanteuase Bambi Lake performs with Scrumbly Koldwyn and his Cirque du Scrumbello in a musical revue and homage to The Tenderloin of San Francisco. $20. 8pm. 144 Taylor St. https://www.pianofight.com/

Thu 31 The Life and Times of Jo Mora @ Cartoon Art Museum New exhibit of drawing, maps, paintings and ephemera by the prolific illustrator of American culture (1876-1947). Thru April 28.

781 Beach St. www.cartoonart.org

Tosh Berman @ City Lights Bookstore The author of the fascinating memoir Tosh: Growing up in Wallace Berman’s World, about his assemblage-artist Beat-era father, in a talk with Natalia Mount and Roman Coppola. 7pm. 261 Columbus Ave. www.citylights.com Also Feb 1, 7pm at Moe’s Books, 2470 Teelgraph Ave, Berkeley. www.moesbooks.com

Two-Spirit Voices: Returning to the Circle @ GLBT History Museum Opening reception for the Native American queer exhibit of the Bay Area organization on its 20th anniversary, including the annual Two-Spirit Powwow organized by BAAITS, indigenous medicine and responses to HIV/AIDS, and TwoSpirit meaning within indigenous communities. $5. 7pm-9pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org t

t

Nightlife Events>>

January 24-30, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 25

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

Boob Tube @ SF Eagle

Kosmetik @ The Stud

Thu 24

Drag cosplay parody show of ‘Aquaman vs. Spongebob Squarepants,’ with Trangela Lansbury, Holly Graphic, and Punky Pebbles. $7. 9pm-2am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Russell E.L. Butler plays DJed new grooves. $5. 9pm-2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Junk @ Powerhouse

Houze Party @ Jolene’s

MrPam and Dulce de Leche cohost the weekly underwear strip night and contest, with sexy prizes. $5. 10pm2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Enjoy ‘90s grooves with DJs Jibbz and That Girl, at a fundraiser for a lucky winner. Buy $5-$7 tickets, where the raffle winner gets the cash.

8pm-2am. 2700 16th St. at Harrison. http://jolenessf.com/

Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences Parties at the fascinating spacious nature and science exhibits. Jan 24: Tropical Nightlife with DJ Raymond Fernandez, tiki bars Costa Rica history and more. $12-$15. 6pm-10pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden gate Park. www.calacademy.org

The Secret Emchy Society, The Muddy Roses @ The Lost Church Two folk-Americana bands perform music from new albums, and favorites, at the intimate performance space. $10-$15. 8pm. 65 Capp St. https://www.thelostchurch.com

Showstoppers @ Oasis An Evening with Garland and Minnelli, Logan Walker’s lipsynch drag show. $20-$30. 8pm. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Fri 25

Mads Tolling @ Yoshi’s Oakland

Mon 28 Philipe Belanger in Cabaret Cirque @ Great Northern

Sat 26 All Meat, No Tuck @ Lone Star Saloon DJs Prince Wolf and Sammich play grooves, with wig party at midnight, plus a beer bust ($15 all night, $5 cover without), all at the famous bear bar. $5. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Bearracuda @ SF Eagle

Comic actress performs her Melania Trump parody show, Let Them Eat Cake! Diary of a First Lady. $30-$40.

7pm. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Ursine underwear party entertainments with DJ Robert Jeffrey at the famed leather bar. Clothes check, drinks and patio, too. $10.

9pm-2am. 398 12th st. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Big Boy @ Lone Star

Brunch @ Jolene’s

DJ Boyshapedbox spins at the bear bar. $5. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Enjoy DJed grooves, chicken 7 waffles, veggie scrampables and more, with brunch cocktails, at the new queer bar. 11am-3pm. Also Sundays. 2700 16th St. www.jolenessf.com

Aurora Sexton @ Oasis

Big Fat Dick SF @ Oasis The L.A. sensation has grown a new BFD, with super-sexy porn gogos as the focus, plus dancing with DJs Kelly Naughton and Aaron Elvis. $10. 10pm2am. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Growlr @ SF Eagle

Dancing Queen @ Great Northern ABBA ‘70s glitter dance party with DJs2Nite and Damon. $15. 9pm-3am.

119 Utah St. thegreatnorthernsf.com

Mother @ Oasis

Beary cruisy ngiht at the famed leather bar, with DJ Byron Bonsall. $10. 9pm-2am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Latin Explosion @ Club 21 The popular Latin club with gogo guys galore and Latin music. $10-$20.

9pm-3am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. www.club21oakland.com

Octo Octa @ The Stud DJ dancing with Octo and Eris Drew. $5-$10. 10pm-4am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Pac-10 @ Atlas Jock strap gear cruisy gathering at the new SoMa warehouse space; bar, chill space, dancing, clothes check. $5$15. 10pm-3am. 415 10th St. pac10. eventbrite.com

Steam @ Powerhouse Faux bath house fun, with wet towelclad gogo studs, massages and sexy fun. $5. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Uhaul @ Jolene’s The popular roving women’s dance party returns at the new nightclub, now weekly. 10pm-2am. 2700 16th St. at Harrison. http://jolenessf.com/

Heklina’s popular weekly drag show, with special guests and great music themes; Jan 26 is the annual Star Search contest. $15. 10pm-3am (11:30pm show). 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Polyglamorous @ F8 Mark O’Brien and crew welcome Bridge club (Orographic, Hold My Hand, Pocket Rock-It) for a hot dance night with groovy guys and people. $7-$12. 10pm-4am. 1192 Folsom St. http://www.feightsf.com/

Swagger Like Us @ The Stud DJs Jasmine, Jibbz, Dreamcast and a queer dance party. $10. 10pm-3am.

399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Wanda Sykes @ The Masonic The brilliant lesbian comic tells it like it is on her ‘Oh, Well’ tour. $39-$55.

8pm. 1111 California St. http://sfmasonic.com

Sun 27 Blessed @ Port Bar, Oakland Carnie Asada’s fun drag night with Carnie’s Angels Mahlae Balenciaga and Au Jus, plus DJ Ion. 2023 Broadway. www.portbaroakland.com

The Grammy-winning jazz violinist is joined by vocalists Spencer Day and Tiffany Austin. $26-$60. 6pm & 8pm.

510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. www.yoshis.com

La Milonga Invierno @ Great Northern Tango dancing night, with lessons, DJ Felipe Martinez. $12-$15. 7:30pm12am. 119 Utah St. www.thegreatnorthernsf.com

Queer Tango @ Finnish Hall, Berkeley Same-sex partner tango dancing, including lessons for newbies, food and drinks. $5-$10. 3:30pm-6:30pm.

1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley. www.finnishhall.org

Tag Team @ Powerhouse Singlets, spandex, sporty fetish gear night. $5. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Mon 28 Cabaret Cirque @ Great Northern A Sext Circus Cabaret featuring gorgeous acrobats, artists from Kinky Boots on Broadway, Paramour, The Seven Fingers and various Cirque shows and alumni of L’Ecole Nationale Du Cirque and Decca, L’ecole.

Proceeds benefit the Richmond/ Ermet Aid Foundation. $30-$100.

7:30pm. 21+. 119 Utah St. https://ono-cirque.eventbrite.com

Come From Away Cast @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko Performers in the touring production of the hit musical perform a concert benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. $20-$40. 7pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Jason Brock @ Martuni’s The powerhouse crooner performs at the intimate martini bar, with accompanist Dee Spencer. $5. 6pm, Also Feb 4. 4 Valencia St. www.jasonbrockvocals.com

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

Tue 29 Cock Shot @ Beaux The weeknight party gets with DJ Chad Bays. No cover. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Vice Tuesdays @ Q Bar Queer femmes and friends dance party with hip hop, Top 40 and throwbacks at the stylish intimate bar, with DJs Val G and Iris Triska. 9pm2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Wed 30 B.P.M. @ Club BnB, Oakland Olga T and Shugga Shay’s weekly queer women and men’s R&B hip hop and soul night, at the club’s new location. 8pm-2am. 2120 Broadway, Oakland. www.bench-and-bar.com

Thu 31

Lena Hall @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko

Follies & Dollies @ White Horse Bar, Oakland Weekly drag show at the historic gay bar. 9:30pm-11:30pm. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com

NSA @ Club OMG Weekly underwear party at the intimate mid-Market nightclub. $1 well drinks for anyone in underwear from 9pm-10pm. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Pan Dulce @ Beaux Drag divas, gogo studs, DJed Latin grooves and drinks. 9pm-2am (free before 10:30pm). 2344 Market St. www.clubpapi.com

Literary Speakeasy @ Martuni’s James J. Siegel’s monthly author, poet, music night, this time with Keith Donnell, Laurie Ann Doyle, Elizabeth Gonzalez James, Miah Jeffra, and Emily Pinkerton. 7pm. 4 Valencia St.

Thump @ White Horse, Oakland Weekly electro music night with DJ Matthew Baker and guests. 9pm-2am.

6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com t

Queeraoke @ El Rio Midweek drag rave and vocal open mic, with Dulce de Leche, Rhani Nothingmore, Beth Bicoastal, Ginger Snap and guests. 10pm. 3158 Mission St. http://www.elriosf.com/

Since 1977

THU 31 Friends Live @ Oasis The popular ‘90s sitcom gets a double drag (king/queen) parody performance of a few episode scripts, with Nancy French, Sue Casa Steven LeMay and more. $27-$50. Thu 8pm, Fri & Sat 7pm.

Thru Mar. 2. 298 11th St. sfoasis.com

Girlfriend @ The Stud DJ Miss Universe, happy hour gals and pals fun. 5pm-9pm. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Lena Hall @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The Tony-winning Broadway and touring costar of Hedwig and the Angry Inch performs her new cabaret concert, Art of the Audition: From Falling Apart to Nailing the Part to Feinstein’s at the Nikko. $55-$85 ($20 food/drink min.) 8pm. Also Feb 1 & 2.

Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com

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<< BARchive

26 • Bay Area Reporter • January 24-30, 2019

Lenny Mollet The Godfather of Chez Mollet and other bars

Mary Anne Kramer, Courtesy San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library

(left-right) Jim Langlie, manager/cook, etc. with owner Lenny Mollet (right unknown)

by Michael Flanagan

L

enny Mollet was a Grand Duke of the Ducal Court, the president of the Tavern Guild during orange juice boycott and a candidate for supervisor, but he was much more than that. He was part of a generation of veterans who moved to San Francisco after World War II, one of a generation of gay men who fought for a place of their own in the city. He owned a gay bar in San Francisco a decade and a half before the Stonewall riots.

Mollet was born on Guernsey in the Channel Islands in 1919 and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1923. He enlisted in the Navy in 1945 and served until 1950, when he shipped out from Guam to arrive in San Francisco.

In 1954 he bought his first bar, Lennie’s 36 (36 Embarcadero) with a business partner Robert Bivens.

Lennie’s 36 got into trouble with the Alcoholic Beverage Control in June 1955, when it was caught with four other bars in what the Examiner called a “crackdown against bars catering to sexual deviates.”

This was part of the first crackdown against gay bars since the State supreme court had ruled in favor of the Black Cat in 1951, allowing alcohol to be served to homosexuals.

The A.B.C. argued the bars were not only serving homosexuals but

that “lewd acts of a sexual deviate nature were openly carried on in the premises in plain view of the proprietor, bartenders and the public.”

The State liquor administrator cited “a number of sordid instances where persons of the same sex embraced, kissed, petted and danced.”

Apparently the license was only temporarily suspended, however, because though the Armed Forces had imposed an off-limits ban on the bar, it was lifted in October, 1955. The bar’s liquor license was again suspended for a month in December 1955 on a disorderly premises charge and ultimately the bar was closed in October 1959 for “conditions of immorality.”

Mollet was down, but hardly out, however.

In 1961 he bought On The Levee (987 Embarcadero) from jazz trombonist Kid Ory. Ory was a well-known musician who played with Louis Armstrong and had performed at Peggy Tolk-Watkins Tin Angel. Ory bought the Tin Angel from Tolk-Watkins in 1958 and changed the name to On The Levee to reflect his New Orleans jazz heritage. When he took over the club from Ory in 1969 Mollet kept the name, and carried part of it with him to 527 Bryant when he opened Off The Levee (later called the 527 Club and Chez Mollet).

An ad for a Lenny Mollet for Supervisor meeting in Ripoff Rag, Sept. 1977.

Both photos: Mary Anne Kramer; Courtesy San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library

Both photos from 527 Club, Folsom/3rd Sts., beginning of ‘the Miracle Mile’ (Dec. 1973).

Levee little things

Neither On The Levee or Off The Levee every were closed by police. This may have been due to the changing attitudes in San Francisco in the 1960s. It may also have been due to the fact that though Lennie’s 36 was a bar, both of the later establishments included restaurants.

It’s also worth noting that Mollet did not advertise in the gay press till the early 1970s, so he may have been maintaining a lower profile. What is clear is that both clubs catered to LGBT clientele from the start.

In January 1962 LCE News noted in its Roving Report that Walter Hart (noted female impersonator of Finocchio’s fame) was appearing at On The Levee on weekends.

And by November 1966 ARC News (out of Sacramento) noted in an article entitled “Leather Circuit Expands” that for a tour of San Francisco’s leather scene, “you might want to start off at the Levee on the Embarcadero for Sunday brunch and cocktails.”

The Society for Individual Rights magazine Vector was also available at On the Levee. The bar remained in business until 1973.

Although On The Levee was known as a gay bar where both leather and drag were welcome, Lenny’s greater contribution to the community would come at Off The Levee (527 Bryant). He bought the bar in 1965 and for the six years of its existence there is little written about it. In November 1971 the Advocate ran a restaurant review that said: “Primarily straight for lunch, when it’s called the 527 Club (as the large sign out front says) in the evening it’s all ours and known as Off The Levee. It is somewhat, although not exclusively, bike oriented.”

By 1972 things were in full swing at the club, with a candidate from 527 Club winning the “Miss Cowgirl” contest (as covered in the Bay Area Reporter). Mollet advertised frequently in B.A.R. with early ads noting “We’re next to the state unemployment office” (perhaps you’d like a drink after filing?).

By 1972 Mollet was actively courting both members of the court system and the motorcycle clubs, with an Empress Night and a motorcycle club night. And as this was the era where out LGBT peo-

ple were not necessarily welcomed home at the holidays, there were holiday dinners as well.

In 1973 Mollet opened the Godfather Room in the 527 Club (he referred to himself as the Godfather). The club featured musical entertainment (“Scotty MacNeil at the organ”) and was always festive at Halloween, welcoming buses and giving prizes for best costumes.

Mollet won as Grand Duke II in the Grand Ducal Council for 197576. Having been a long-time member of the Tavern Guild, he became President on July 6, 1976. He was

t

central to the guild’s boycott of Florida Orange Juice because of Anita Bryant. In April 1977 he told the San Francisco Chronicle: “Every gay bar in town has agreed either to stop serving orange juice or to squeeze their own California oranges.”

Instead of serving screwdrivers, Mollet suggested a “Carmen Miranda” with vodka, pineapple juice and a spritz of soda garnished with a California orange slice.

With his success in the court system and the Tavern Guild, it made sense to Mollet to run for Supervisor for District 5 in 1977. Unfortunately, he chose a particularly competitive year, with Harvey Milk and Rick Stokes splitting the gay vote, and Terrence Hallinan running strong as well. In the election where Harvey Milk made it to the board, Mollet limped away with 74 votes.

Mollet’s electoral defeat did not dampen his fervor for the gay community, however. He continued to host court events at his club. Upon the end of Patrick Toner’s run as International Mr. Leather, he held a tribute dinner for him in 1986.

In a B.A.R. article about the 527 Club in 1989, he referred to himself as the “Last of the Mohicans,” and indeed he was among the longest running club owners in town. He sold the bar in 1994 and died of heart problems in 1996 at age 76.

Lenny Mollet was a force in San Francisco from the 1950s to the 1990s. He bridged the leather and drag communities and stood up to Anita Bryant as head of the Tavern Guild. As a member of the “Greatest Generation,” he was a gay man and a veteran who came to San Francisco and opened a gay bar more than a decade before Stonewall. He was not the type of man who waited for society to change.

He helped change society.t The author would like to thank the San Francisco History Center at the San Francisco Public Library.

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Cabaret>>

January 24-30, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 27

Kristine W. and Carson Kressley at Joe’s Pub in New York City.

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Kristine & Carson

From page 23

“It was about this horse who was different than other horses,” recalls Kristine. “It was meant to teach children to accept each other for whoever they are.” (Kressley’s hero, Trumpet, was in fact a unicorn. His pals, the ponies, were Tuckabuckaway and Wooligan).

“My kids grew up going to Prides. They’d already met families with two moms and two dads; plenty of drag queens; my long-

time makeup hair person is trans,” Kristine explains. But while she didn’t need the book as a way to introduce queer topics to her children, the book appealed to her on an entirely different level: “Carson and I are both horse freaks!”

Kressley, now 49, has been an equestrian since childhood, ultimately competing and winning championships as a member of the U.S. World Cup Saddle Seat Team.

Kristine, also a lifelong rider and former competitive jumper, raises horses on her ranch outside of Las Vegas.

Over the next few years, Kristine and Kressley occasionally crossed paths, trading horse tales when they were hired to appear at the same gay parties and cruises.

Gallop ahead to 2018.

“I had always wanted to do my own one-woman show,” chatters Kressley. “But I was a still a little intimidated by live performance.”

In fact, Kressley has played minimal-singing roles in Damn Yankees! and The Drowsy Chaperone at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine. But he had not been their

primary attraction.

“I’d been talking to my agent about doing a show that combined music and comedy,” says Kristine.

“I’d watched the Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett shows, and the little one-liners and banter they did reminded me of old TV variety shows, and the nightclub acts when I first came to Vegas.

“You know those old school acts like Eydie Gormé and Steve Lawrence. They did music and comedy together. Sometimes they’d do sketches, but a lot of the comedy was impromptu conversation.”

The pair began to collaborate in earnest over a breakfast meeting when Kressley was in Las Vegas to provide television commentary for the 2017 Miss Universe pageant.

“We talked about what elements would make a cabaret show like this work,” says Kristine. “And since then, as we’ve spent more time together thinking things through and rehearsing, it’s started to feel really natural. I’ve become more familiar with his energy. I know his timing and his rhythm. Carson is genuinely funny all the time, he’s funny driving in the car.”

But Kressley isn’t just the comic counterpoint to Kristine’s singing.

Having put in time training with her music director, he provides vocal accompaniment throughout their act and even has his own big solo number (“Pour Me A Man,” from the relatively obscure minimusical Miss Gulch Returns!)

“It’s all very campy and fun,”

Kressley says of the show, which has been performed only twice before, over a single weekend last year; first at Joe’s Pub in New York and then a nightclub in nearby New Hope, New Jersey.

“I hadn’t done anything that scary for a long while,” recalls Kristine. “This sort of two-person act is a lost art. You have to know when to be the funny one, and when to be the straight man. You can rehearse it a thousand times, but so much of it is just about whether you have the right chemistry.”

The show well-received and Kristine says that this weekend, “We’ll probably be videotaping so we can pitch the show to promoters and get more bookings.”

Meanwhile, Kristine continues to work on a new dance album for release later this year, and Kressley is teaming up with his old Queer Eye castmate Thom Filicia on the new Bravo interior design series Get a Room with Carson & Thom.

But this weekend, they’ll be riding high together again, sharing stories and songs and generally horsing around.

“It’s a little hard to describe,” Kristine says of the show.

“It’s us just being who we are,” says Kressley. “It’s a lot like Hamilton, but better, I think.”t Kristine W. and Carson Kressley at Feinstein’s at the Nikko, Jan. 25 & Jan. 26 at 8pm. $50-$90 ($20 food/ drink min.) 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Shining Stars Steven Underhill Photos by

Winter Onesie Party @ The Lookout

T

he Lookout’s annual Winter Onesie Party attracted another festive crowd of creative long-underwear-clad patrons in cute outfits, with DJ Matt Effect. Proceeds went to Michelle Obama’s Global Girls Alliance. 3600 16th St. at Market. www.lookoutsf.com See plenty more photos on BARtab’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife.

Steven Underhill’s photos at www.StevenUnderhill.com.

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For headshots, portraits or to arrange your wedding photos

call (415) 370-7152 or visit www.StevenUnderhill.com or email stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com

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