July 14, 2022 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

SF begs for monkeypox shots

SF gets new DA

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Vol. 52 • No. 28 • July 14-20, 2022

SFAF town hall addresses monkeypox questions

by Liz Highleyman

T

he nearly 600 participants of a July 12 virtual town hall sponsored by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation raised many questions about the city’s monkeypox outbreak, but the answers weren’t always satisfying as the speakers acknowledged testing limitations, a shortage of vaccines, and difficulty getting treatment.

“We have an imminent window to address monkeypox between our Pride events and the upcoming street festival season here in San Francisco, and that window is closing,” said SFAF CEO Tyler TerMeer, Ph.D., a gay man who is living with HIV. The next major community event, the Up Your Alley leather and fetish street fair, is just two weeks away on July 31.

On July 13, the San Francisco Department of Public Health updated the city’s monkeypox tally to 68 cases – up from 40 a week ago – and experts expect numbers to rise even faster as testing capacity increases.

Earlier on Tuesday, gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, health officials, and community advocates held a news conference on the steps of City Hall to call on the federal govern-

Courtesy Facebook

Debra Walker was confirmed for a seat on the San Francisco Police Commission.

In divided vote, supes OK Walker for police panel

by Matthew S. Bajko

I

n a divided vote Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved lesbian artist Debra Walker’s mayoral appointment to the city’s police commission. She returns LGBTQ representation to the powerful oversight body.

Mayor London Breed nominated Walker, 69, June 1 to replace Malia Cohen, a former supervisor and current elected member of the state Board of Equalization. Cohen stepped down earlier this year as she’s running for state controller on the November ballot.

The supervisors voted 8-3 to confirm Walker as a police commissioner. It has been more than a year since Petra DeJesus, a lesbian and attorney, resigned from the closely scrutinized panel on April 30, 2021.

The supervisors rules committee last month had sent Walker’s nomination on to the full board for a vote at its July 12 meeting without a recommendation. At its June 27 hearing, District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan, who sits on the committee, had said she couldn’t support Walker’s serving as a police commissioner due to desiring someone with more experience in police reform work.

She reiterated her objections to Walker’s appointment Tuesday. District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen and District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston agreed with Chan that Walker was not suited to serve on the police commission. All three stressed their vote was not due to personal issues but solely about their belief Walker lacked the qualifications they feel a member of the police commission should bring to the table.

“I also believe there should be queer representation on the police commission but it should be an individual who has a history or connection to policing and police reform issues,” said Ronen. “And I think Ms. Walker explained during the rules committee hearing herself she did not have that background but would do her best.”

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ment to do more to address the growing outbreak. (See related story, page 2.)

During the virtual forum, SFAF medical director Dr. Hyman Scott explained that monkeypox, which is related to smallpox but less severe, often starts with flu-like symptoms

(known as the prodrome) followed by a rash anywhere on the body. Monkeypox is thought to be infectious when symptoms start, but mild or non-specific early symptoms may be missed.

See page 10 >>

Long-awaited hearing nears on SF LGBTQ cultural strategy

by Matthew S. Bajko

S

ix years after it called for the creation of a plan to preserve San Francisco’s LGBTQ cultural heritage, the Board of Supervisors is set to hold its first hearing on the completed document. The groundbreaking LGBTQ+ Cultural Heritage Strategy was first released in draft form in 2018 and then published with revisions in the summer of 2020.

Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman for years has planned to call for a hearing on the strategy. But the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 upended his plans.

He had told the Bay Area Reporter that it would likely be held during the spring of 2021, only to again see city leaders continue to focus on responding to the ongoing health crisis. With the coronavirus outbreak currently in an endemic phase in the city, the hearing on the cultural strategy is now scheduled to take place this summer.

Mandelman’s office has asked that it be added to the July 25 agenda for the supervisors’ land use and transportation committee, which meets at 1:30 p.m. on Mondays. As of the B.A.R.’s press deadline Wednesday, July 13, it was still waiting for confirmation from the committee chair on if it would be heard that day.

“When these recommendations were re-

See page 10 >>

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Clockwise from top left, Russell Roybal, Jorge Roman, Dr. Susan Philip, and Dr. Hyman Scott answered questions during a July 12 virtual monkeypox forum.

Rick Gerharter

A Board of Supervisors committee is expected to soon hold a hearing on the city’s LGBTQ cultural strategy.

leased in August 2020, during the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic, they didn’t receive the attention that they deserved,” Mandelman told the B.A.R. “The pandemic identified weaknesses in our city’s response to vulnerable populations, and as we emerge from COVID, it’s critical that we examine whether we are successfully meeting the benchmarks laid out by the cultural heritage strategy.”

The 56-page document provides city leaders myriad ideas for preserving and strengthening San Francisco’s LGBTQ community.

Rather than collect dust on a shelf inside City Hall since its publication, the strategy has helped guide various efforts launched

and funded in recent years by Mayor London Breed and city departments, as well as steer budget allocations by the supervisors.

“What is exciting about this report is it had very concrete asks about what the city could do to create and encourage a strategy around LGBTQ sites. Given the report when it came out, we have been able to examine it and look at what possibilities are within it,” said Victor Ruiz-Cornejo, a gay man who advises Breed on LGBTQ issues. “Some things can be broad; something like ‘we house every homeless person who is queer’ is a big lift. But I See page 10 >>

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<< Community News

t SF leaders demand stronger monkeypox response 2 • Bay Area Reporter • July 14-20, 2022

by Liz Highleyman

G

ay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, health officials, and community advocates called on the federal government to do more to address the ongoing monkeypox outbreak at a July 12 news conference on the steps of City Hall.

On July 13, the San Francisco Department of Public Health updated its monkeypox case count to 68 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised its tally to 929, including 150 cases in California.

While anyone can get monkeypox through close personal contact, the vast majority of cases in the current outbreak have been men who have sex with men.

“Gay and bisexual men and trans folks in San Francisco and across the United States are once again being failed by our public health institutions,” Mandelman said. “Local officials, health care providers, and community activists like us are left to beg for an adequate response, and that begs the question, would monkeypox have received a stronger response if it were not primarily affecting queer folks?”

The monkeypox virus spreads through close personal contact, including skin-to-skin contact, kissing, and respiratory droplets at close range, but it is not transmitted through the air over longer distances like the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. It is not yet known whether monkeypox is transmitted in semen, but it does spread through contact with sores during sex.

Related to smallpox but less severe, monkeypox causes flu-like symptoms, swollen lymph nodes, and a rash. The sores, which may resemble common sexually transmitted infections such as herpes or syphilis, can appear anywhere on the body, in-

Rick Gerharter

San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO Tyler TerMeer, Ph.D., speaks about the inadequate federal and state response to the monkeypox virus during a July 12 news conference on the steps of City Hall as District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman stands at left.

cluding the throat, genitals, and anal area. Most people recover without treatment after a few weeks, but the sores can cause scars and some patients have reported severe pain. An antiviral drug called TPOXX (tecovirimat) is used to treat severe cases, but it is currently difficult to get.

Vaccines in short supply

Speakers at the news conference were particularly concerned about the shortage of monkeypox vaccines.

“We are literally begging our federal partners to provide more vaccine so we can get it into the arms of people who need it most,” said gay San Francisco Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax.

Smallpox vaccines prevent monkeypox too. Because the monkeypox virus has a long incubation period, vaccines can be used as both postexposure prophylaxis for several days after exposure and as pre-exposure prophylaxis for individuals at risk.

The newer Jynneos vaccine, which involves two injections given a month apart, is currently in short

supply, although the Biden administration has recently taken steps to provide more. The Department of Health and Human Services expects approximately 1.9 million Jynneos doses to be available this year, with an additional 2.2 million doses available during the first half of 2023, according to a July 7 statement. The federal government allocates the vaccine to states, which in turn distribute it to local jurisdictions. The U.S. holds a larger supply of an older smallpox vaccine called ACAM2000, but it can cause side effects and isn’t safe for everyone.

Colfax said San Francisco has received just under 2,900 Jynneos doses since the beginning of June, most of which just arrived in the past week. The city has requested an additional 35,000 doses from the state to meet the burgeoning demand.

“These small and inadequate allocations of vaccine make it nearly impossible to beat the curve of new infections,” said SF AIDS Foundation CEO Tyler TerMeer, Ph.D., a gay man who is living with HIV.

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On the evening of July 12, SFAF hosted a virtual town hall to discuss the city’s monkeypox outbreak.

Ahead of Tuesday’s briefing, Mandelman unveiled a resolution that calls on the CDC and DHHS to accelerate the purchase and distribution of vaccines and to streamline testing and treatment by eliminating bureaucratic barriers. It asks DHHS to provide enough doses to vaccinate everyone at high risk for contracting monkeypox, including all gay and bi men, trans people, and sex workers.

“Preventing monkeypox from becoming another endemic sexually transmitted infection should be a top public health priority,” Mandelman said in a statement. “The insufficient response thus far is reflective of an institutional callousness to issues that disproportionately affect gay and bisexual men and trans people.”

New District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who is gay and living with HIV, has signed on as a co-sponsor of the resolution. “Our queer, BIPOC, and HIV-positive residents know all too well the impacts of misguided, lax, or slow-moving public health responses,” he stated in Mandelman’s release, referring to Black, Indigenous, and people of color. “The CDC must expand access to our high-risk and vulnerable populations now, and the Health and Human Services Department must do all it can to speed up vaccine distribution.”

Dr. Monica Gandhi, director of

the Ward 86 HIV clinic at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, one of the first city sites to offer the vaccine, added, “We remain poised on the ground to administer the vaccine but need greater supply and attention to the outbreak.”

Representatives from SFAF, St. James Infirmary for sex workers, the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, the Transgender District, and the Harvey Milk and Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic clubs, also expressed support for the resolution.

Health officials urge anyone with a rash or other possible monkeypox symptoms to seek medical care and get tested. Those who don’t have a regular provider can contact City Clinic on 7th Street or SFAF’s Magnet sexual health clinic in the Castro. Refrain from sex and other close physical contact until the results are known. People who test positive should avoid close contact until their sores heal completely, which takes about three weeks.

For the latest updates on vaccine eligibility and locations, go to https://sf.gov/information/monkeypox. t To contact City Clinic, go to https://www.sfcityclinic.org/ or call its new phone number, 628-2176600. To contact SFAF’s Magnet clinic at Strut, go to https://www. sfaf.org/programs/magnet/ or call 415-581-1600.

SF supes seat nonbinary lawyer to appeals board

by Matthew S. Bajko

S

an Francisco supervisors have seated attorney Alex Lemberg, who is nonbinary, to the city’s powerful Board of Appeals. The oversight panel determines appeals of permits issued by a wide array of city departments and commissions, such as those granted by the planning commission.

District 10 Supervisor and board President Shamann Walton had nominated Lemberg to an unexpired term on the appeals board that runs through July 1, 2024. The supervisors’ rules committee had unanimously supported Lemberg serving on the quasi-judicial body at its June 27 meeting.

The full board voted 10-1 Tuesday, July 12, to confirm Lemberg’s nomination with District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani in dissent. The supervisors, who appoint two of the five appeals board members, did so without comment. (The three other members are mayoral appointees.)

“I’m very much looking forward to serving on the Board of Appeals,” Lemberg, 34, had told the Bay Area Reporter last month. “It has quite a bit of power and is pretty substantive.”

After graduating from UC Berkeley in 2011, Lemberg worked as a tourist bus guide in San Francisco and then as a limo driver, according to their LinkedIn profile. They earned a law degree in 2017 from the Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco. The top public-interest student in their class, Lemberg served as executive comments and outside articles editor for the Golden Gate University Law Review.

Lemberg went on to serve as an extern to U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler and a judicial extern for the California Supreme Court. They also trained with former San Francisco City Attorney Louise Renne as an associate at her Renne Public Law Group.

The nonprofit Open Door Legal, the first organization in the U.S. to provide universal civil legal repre-

Courtesy Alex Lemberg

Alex Lemberg poses with their dog, Pumpkin.

sentation to low-income people, then hired Lemberg in 2018 as a housing attorney. Last July, Lemberg went into private practice and is licensed to practice law in state court and in federal courts covering the state’s Central Coast and Central Valley regions north to the Oregon border, according to their bio on their eponymously named law firm website.

The Jewish and queer Bay Area native has lived in the city’s LGBTQ Castro district with their husband, Kevin Cureton, since 2013. Lemberg for several years has served as president of the Eureka Valley Neighborhood Association, while Cureton is its treasurer.

The couple years ago documented in photos their traversing the city’s numerous hidden stairways and presented talks on their outings. Two years ago they adopted a dog, Pumpkin, from the San Francisco SPCA that Lemberg considers their “legal assistant.”

As they recount on their law firm website, adopting Pumpkin, “was easily the best part about 2020. Although she appears to be a dog, she is actually a moose.”

This spring, Lemberg received a bit of national attention as a contestant on the television game show “Jeopardy!” Appearing on the April 21 episode, Lemberg lost to Mattea Roach, a lesbian who became the biggest winner on the show from Canada.t

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4 • Bay Area Reporter • July 14-20, 2022

Volume 52, Number 28 July 14-20, 2022 www.ebar.com

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About repealing CA Prop 8

N

ow that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion, LGBTQ political leaders here in California are ramping up in case marriage equality soon comes before the justices. They have good reason to be concerned. As has been widely reported, Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization specifically opens the door for the court to possibly overturn other precedents like same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges), same-sex sexual relations (Lawrence v. Texas), and the right for couples to use contraception without government restriction (Griswold v. Connecticut). The reason California leaders are so worried is because Proposition 8, the state’s same-sex marriage ban passed by voters as a constitutional amendment in 2008, is still technically on the books even though federal courts found it unconstitutional. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court let a federal appeals court ruling stand, which ushered in marriage equality in the Golden State, two years before Obergefell did the same thing nationwide. Prop 8 cannot be removed without voter approval. If the U.S. Supreme Court does indeed take up a same-sex marriage case and overturns Obergefell, it’s possible Prop 8 could become law again, according to some legal observers.

The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported on the effort of LGBTQ leaders to get rid of the so-called zombie Prop 8 via a state constitutional amendment that voters would decide, possibly in 2024. The article stated that advocates already have draft language drawn up but decided not to bring it before voters this fall.

Before Equality California and members of the state Legislative LGBTQ Caucus get too far in this, we’d like to pause briefly to outline some potential pitfalls. After all, we certainly do not want a repeat of the No on 8 campaign that made us feel like second-class citizens even as we were fighting for our own right to wed. Although it was 14 years ago and much has changed politically in California since voters decided – by a margin of 52.24% to 47.76% – to forbid same-sex marriage here, we’re concerned that there are still broad pockets of conservatives who despise marriage equality. They likely will use arguments similar to what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Catholic Church did in 2008: position same-sex marriage as bad for children and same-sex couples as groomers, the new boogeymen in today’s political discourse. The volatile issue of children and schools was a key centerpiece of the Yes on 8’s successful campaign and remains a hot-button topic today, especially with regard to trans kids and their families, which may or may not include same-sex parents but who are

by Salesh Prasad

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pictureRick Gerharter

A huge crowd on Market Street protested the passage of Proposition 8 on November 7, 2008.

still a part of the LGBTQ community.

Let’s not forget that Prop 8 even passed in Los Angeles County, if you can imagine that, as well as Riverside County – home to LGBTQ resort and retirement mecca Palm Springs – and the conservative counties throughout the state you would expect. This was despite polls showing Prop 8 would lose. It was a disaster. And it took place during a presidential election year, when younger, progressive voters are more likely to turn out in larger numbers. We all better hope that’s the case in 2024, also a presidential election year. The Chronicle looked at voter data in the last three elections in San Francisco – the September 2021 recall of Governor Gavin Newsom, the February recall of the school board (and special election for Assembly District 17), and the June 7 primary. Among the findings, the article showed that only in the Newsom recall did young people aged 18-29 turn out at more than 50%. They made up just 19% of voters in February and slightly better, at 28%, in June. And that was in true-blue San Francisco.

Expensive campaign, messaging

Then there’s the money. According to an NBC News report in 2009, the final tallies showed that, on the LGBTQ side, the opponents of Prop 8 raised $43.3 million in 2008 and had a little more than $730,000 left on hand at year’s end. The measure’s sponsors raised $39.9 million and had $983,000 left over.

So adjusted for inflation, it’s safe to say that the pro-marriage equality side would need to raise a lot more than $43.3 million for 2024, probably closer to between $75 and $100 million.

We cannot emphasize enough that any campaign to repeal Prop 8 needs to center LGBTQ people and same-sex couples – and that means all kinds of queers and couples, not just white ones.

That was a major misstep of the 2008 No on 8 campaign that simply must not be repeated. The need for allies to speak out in support is great – and necessary – but we need queer couples and families to be front and center in the TV ad blitz, which would be essential to victory. You can’t win a statewide initiative campaign in California without lots of TV ads, period. EQCA and whoever runs the campaign should take a cue from the Native American tribal governments that this year began running TV ads for their November ballot measure before voters went to the polls in June and before it even had a number assigned to it. That’s how far in advance the TV ad buys need to begin. So if EQCA and state politicos are eyeing November 2024, ads should start running a year in advance. That timeline will be needed to connect with voters and make the case for removing Prop 8 from the state constitution. Most people, knowing that same-sex marriage is already legal, probably don’t even understand the importance of removing Prop 8 from the books and why they should vote for that. It will need to be explained to them.

The draft ballot language presumably is straightforward, but it should be that a yes vote is for marriage equality, thus removing Prop 8.

That was one of the problems of Prop 8, the Yes on 8 side had the easier message to sell – prevent marriage equality – and that’s what it successfully did. The LGBTQ side had the difficult task of convincing voters that a No vote was actually a vote FOR marriage equality.

There’s new leadership at EQCA and in the state LGBTQ caucus – and many other organizations – since those awful days of 2008 when state voters took away our right to marry. (Samesex marriage had been legal between June 2008, when a state Supreme Court decision took effect, and that November after Prop 8’s passage.) Let’s hope they learn from the mistakes of 14 years ago. If there’s a ballot measure to repeal Prop 8, it cannot be defeated. t

Let’s not forget about LGBTQ immigrants in ICE detention

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t

here’s a suffocating bleakness to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention. We are locked inside 20 hours a day.

It’s a loud and open space, and there’s no privacy where we sleep or in the bathrooms.

I’m currently facing deportation to Fiji – a country I left 44 years ago and can barely remember. I’m afraid that I won’t survive the homophobia there. I’m sharing my story with the public in hopes it will inspire change – not just for me, but for other detained people, and so other people who won’t suffer the same injustices as I have suffered.

My story starts with my family, which is Indo-Fijian. My parents left Fiji because they wanted a better life for their children. I arrived in Modesto, California as a lawful permanent resident at just 6 years old.

As a child in the United States, I survived both sexual abuse and domestic violence.

I felt like I was crying out for help but no one was listening. I felt numb, like my world was drained of any vibrancy and color. In my desperation to feel safe, I self-medicated with drugs and alcohol and joined a gang that I hoped would protect me from more abuse. At 22, I made a horrible mistake in the heat of an argument and unfortunately took another person’s life.

Courtesy Sal Prasad

Salesh Prasad

I spent the next 27 years of my life in prison grappling with incredible remorse. I knew I could never undo the pain that I caused, but I wanted to be a better person. In those nearly three decades, I focused on understanding and healing from my trauma. I found treatment for my alcohol and drug addiction in prison through Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. I started therapy, where I learned to name and cope with post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and my anxiety attacks. I started the work of helping rather than hurting others, which is my goal in life.

I have stood up for my fellow detainees by speaking out about work conditions and safety with Cal-OSHA, the state’s occupational health and safety agency. I have fought to protect the rights of people detained by ICE during the COVID-19 pandemic, by advocating for vaccinations for people who are detained by ICE and fighting for an end to transfers of people who served their time in California prisons, to ICE detention. I have also advocated for legislation at both the federal and state level by speaking in support of the VISION Act, a bill in the California Legislature that would protect community members who have already been deemed eligible for release from being transferred by local jails and our state prison system to immigration detention. I have also advocated for the California Mandela Act on Solitary Confinement, and the New Way Forward Act, a federal bill that would reform the process for enforcing the immigration laws of the United States.

I proved to the state Parole Board in 2021 that I am a rehabilitated person and that I was ready to be released to the community and make amends to that community. The board saw my transformation and granted me parole. Governor Gavin Newsom also signed off on my release. But the day that I was supposed to leave prison, I was transferred immediately to ICE detention. I didn’t get a day of freedom See page 10 >>

Politics >>

t Gay CA insurance czar Lara faces easy path to 2nd term

by Matthew S. Bajko

D

espite the millions spent in negative ads against him, various ethical scandals, and an intraparty challenge in the June primary, gay California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara appears to now have an easy path to being elected to a second term this fall. As such, he should remain the lone LGBTQ statewide elected leader in the Golden State.

With all ballots now counted, and Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber set to certify the results Friday, July 15, Lara will be competing against Republican Robert Howell on the November 8 general election ballot. Due to Democrats’ overwhelming electoral advantage in the state, the cybersecurity equipment manufacturer is seen as having no chance of being elected California’s insurance czar.

The electoral battleground for Lara could have looked completely different had Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-Greenbrae) survived the primary. As additional ballots were counted over the past month, Levine had moved into second place.

But his lead over Howell eventually evaporated. According to the unofficial tally July 11, Howell had secured a second-place finish with 18.1% of the vote for a total of 1,212,273 votes.

That was 6,760 votes more than Levine received, leaving him in third place with 18% of the votes. Lara took first place in the primary with 2,408,986 votes, accounting for 35.9% of the total votes cast.

Levine conceded the race July 6 and congratulated Lara and Howell on their advancing to the general election. In a statement, Levine noted his belief that any candidate or campaign that loses their race should “publicly accept the outcome of the election” and “voice our confidence in the system.”

It was a pointed dig at the various Republican candidates across the country who have lost their own races this year but have refused to concede. And it also served as a swipe at former President Donald Trump, who continues to push the baseless lie that he should have been declared the winner of the 2020 presidential race.

“Taking on an incumbent in a statewide race was always going to be an uphill battle. Many political observers assumed we had no chance, but we ran a spirited race, and elevated issues too many Californians find daunting into the debate,” stated Levine, who added that his “holding insurance companies accountable” rallying cry, “by the end of the race, the incumbent was making it a central part of his message, too.”

In his own statement issued July 8, Lara didn’t mention Levine by name. Instead, he referred to him as “the opponent who spent $1.5 million on mud-slinging and political attacks.”

Lara did thank the “nurses, teachers, firefighters, and farmworkers” who helped propel him to his “2:1 victory in the primary election against Republican Robert Howell.”

Noting his being “the first LGBTQ+ Insurance Commissioner and statewide elected official,” Lara also noted his backing “from diverse constituencies” in last month’s election.

“I look forward to talking to California voters about our long track record of success in fighting for consumers and giving them a clear contrast between myself and my Republican opponent,” stated Lara.

“I look forward to meeting with

Courtesy Lara campaign

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara

more Californians from across the state to talk about what we’re doing to help wildfire survivors and make insurance accessible to all, no matter what ZIP code you’re from. I’m here to finish the work I started and look forward to earning your vote again in November.”

Some work to do

With 52.3% of primary voters casting ballots for Howell, Levine, or fourth-place finisher GOPer Greg Conlon, and 11.8% supporting the five other candidates in the race, Lara has some work to do to win back the trust of those Californians who felt he doesn’t deserve another four years.

Most of the state’s daily newspapers endorsed Levine, as did the Bay Area Reporter, in the primary. Of the seven incumbent statewide executive officeholders seeking reelection this year, Lara received the least amount of votes in the primary.

In conceding the race, Levine did not endorse Lara in the general election. Instead, he pledged to “continue to play a role” in the issues he had raised on the campaign trail as he now finishes his fifth term in the Assembly. Due to his not seeking reelection to his North Bay Assembly District seat, Levine will be leaving the Legislature later this year.

“By Election Day, California’s insurance crisis and the need for reforms to ensure fairness, transparency, accountability, and accessibility were on many more minds in our state–from voters to editorial boards–than when we began the campaign,” stated Levine. “The ideas we championed together are still important and, thanks to you, will carry forward in California in the months ahead as we continue to grapple with rising rates, insurance companies that evade accountability, and increasingly devastating wildfires.”

Lara’s election four years ago marked the first time an LGBTQ person had been elected to statewide office in the Golden State. While out candidates had vied in this year’s primary races for governor, attorney general, state controller, and secretary of state, as well as a trans woman in the insurance commissioner’s race, none advanced to the fall contests. Thus, Lara is the only statewide candidate on the November ballot from the LGBTQ community.

With Lara facing off against Howell, this year marks the first time since 2014 that all of the partisan statewide general election races in California will feature a Republican versus a Democrat, as noted in a tweet by Rob Pyers, research director for the non-partisan California Target Book. Democrats currently hold all nine of the statewide seats up for grabs this year.

(The state Superintendent of Public Instruction race is nonpartisan, nonetheless, Democratic incumbent Tony K. Thurmond is expected to easily win reelection against Lance Ray Christensen.)

Governor Gavin Newsom is running against state Senator Brian Dahle (R-Bieber). Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis is being opposed by Angela E. Underwood Jacobs.

Weber is fending off Rob Bernosky in her bid for a full term as secretary of state, while Treasurer Fiona Ma is competing against Jack M. Guerrero. U.S. Senator Alex Padilla is running for a full six-year term against Mark P. Meuser.

In the open race for state controller, Republican Lanhee Chen picked up the endorsement last week of lesbian Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert.

The only GOP candidate to place first in their primary race was Chen, who received 37.2% of the vote and is facing off against Malia Cohen.

A former San Francisco supervisor who is an elected member of the state’s tax board, Cohen took second place with 22.7% of the vote.

Schubert, a former Republican turned independent, lost her primary bid for California attorney general.

GOPer Nathan Hochman took second place to compete against Attorney General Rob Bonta and received Schubert’s endorsement July 12.

July 14-20, 2022 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

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HRC backs out West Coast House candidates post spring primaries

Following their primary victoReach the largest ries this spring, a trio of out House audience of local candidates on the West Coast has earned the support of the political LGBTQ consumers! action committee for national LGBTQ advocacy organization the Human Rights Campaign. They were among the 14 House candidates the Call 415.829.8937 HRC PAC endorsed July 6. advertising@ebar.com Two gay men running for Southern California House seats made the list, Will Rollins and Robert Garcia, as did Jamie McLeod-Skinner, a lesbian vying for an Oregon House seat. A former Santa Clara city councilmember, McLeod-Skinner defeated moderate Congressman Kurt Schrader (D-Canby) in their party primary and is now facing Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer in November for the Beaver State’s newly drawn 5th Congressional District.

Garcia, the mayor of Long Beach, is seeking the new, open 42nd Congressional District along the coast of Los Angeles County. He is the favored winner of his fall race against GOPer John Briscoe.

Rollins, a former federal prosecutor who lives with his partner in Canyon Lake, is aiming to oust from office conservative Congressmember Ken Calvert (R-Corona).

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<< Community News

t Breed names recall proponent Jenkins as SF DA 6 • Bay Area Reporter • July 14-20, 2022

by Eric Burkett

B

rooke Jenkins, the former prosecutor who jumped ship from then-District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s team in 2021 and went on to campaign for his successful recall from office, was appointed by Mayor London Breed July 7 to succeed him as interim DA. San Francisco Superior Court Presiding Judge Samuel Feng swore in Jenkins July 8 at City Hall.

Calling her a voice of compassion at a brief, late afternoon press conference in City Hall, Breed said Jenkins “had sacrificed her career” to fight for the people of San Francisco, and for the victims in need of a voice.

“There’s a lot of work to be done in this city,” she said. Too many times, she said, San Franciscans had seen “someone arrested and let go, and arrested and let go” only to kill people on the streets in cases that could have been avoided.

That said, Breed said Jenkins would strike a balance between criminal justice reform and public safety.

“Brooke comes from a place of fairness,” said the mayor. ”This is not just about locking people up and throwing away the key; this is not what we’re about as a city.”

Jenkins said she was “honored” to serve.

“As the district attorney in San Francisco, I am humbled and honored to serve,” she said at her swearing in. “I have seen firsthand the imbalances and disproportionate impacts of our criminal justice system. As district attorney, I will do everything in my power to restore accountability and consequences to San Francisco’s criminal justice system while also moving forward with implementing progressive reforms.”

Boudin was recalled in the June 7 election; the Board of Supervisors certified the results June 28, clearing the way for Breed to appoint his successor, who will need to run in November to complete his term that ends in early January 2024 and for a full four-year term in 2023.

Boudin issued a statement July 8, just before Jenkins was sworn in.

“It has been my honor to serve as San Francisco’s district attorney as we worked for a safer and more just city,” he stated. “I am proud of the work we did to serve victims and to bring much-needed reforms and

Rick Gerharter

San Francisco Superior Court Presiding Judge Samuel Feng administers the oath of office to San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins July 8 at City Hall.

accountability to our justice system.

This is work I will continue in the months and years ahead.

“I have reached out to Brooke Jenkins to offer any assistance I can provide in ensuring a smooth transition,” Boudin continued. “I am tremendously humbled by the strong, talented team my administration has built, which will continue to serve San Franciscans. I am proud of the new programs my administration has launched to promote safety and justice in our city despite unprecedented challenges.”

I am deeply grateful for the dedicated staff at the District Attorney’s Office who work tirelessly every single day to promote justice for the people of San Francisco. Our work continues.”

Early on, Jenkins – who identifies as a Black Latina and is an ally – was seen as one of several possibilities to replace Boudin, who was elected to office in 2019 on a progressive campaign of criminal justice reform, although she told people assembled for the announcement she had only learned of her appointment a little earlier that day.

Among others considered for the interim post were District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani; San Francisco Superior Court Judge Eric Fleming; former police officer and San Francisco police commissioner Joe Alioto Veronese; civil rights attorney and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Department of Justice Joseph M. Alioto Jr.; and Alameda County prosecutor Nancy Tung – who captured only 19% percent of the vote in her race against Boudin for DA in 2019.

Reaction from LGBTQ political leaders was muted when the news was announced. The San Francisco Chronicle was the first to report Jenkins’ appointment.

Despite her visibility during the recall effort, Jenkins is not as well known as her predecessor. Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, when asked for a comment about her appointment, replied that while he wasn’t surprised she had been chosen, he didn’t know her very well. “Her name had certainly been in the mix,” he told the Bay Area Reporter.

“I look forward to getting to know her better and wish her well in a very difficult job,” Mandelman said.

In a tweet, Mandelman wrote that he looked forward to working with Jenkins “to get San Francisco back on track to safer streets, advance shared criminal justice reform goals, and chart a more sensible and sustainable approach for those who have repeatedly cycled through our broken justice system.”

Other community leaders did not respond to requests for comment.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California in its own tweet pledged to “hold Jenkins accountable & push her to uphold public safety policies consistent with the values of civil liberties & civil rights; and adopt solutions focused on rehabilitation & treatment.”

Top spokesperson for recall campaign

Jenkins, 40, captured attention when she resigned from her position as assistant district attorney in the DA’s office in October 2019, as the B.A.R. noted at the time.

“My decision to resign was the result of a growing belief that Chesa Boudin lacks the desire and willingness to prosecute crime effectively in San Francisco,” Jenkins said in an October 25 virtual news conference.

“He has proven his policies and his

approach is anything but progressive. We have seen crime increase, justice wane, and lives being lost.”

After leaving office, she went on to become a key spokesperson at Safer SF Without Boudin, the successful recall effort. (Another recall effort, launched by failed mayoral candidate Richie Greenberg, fizzled when it fell short of the necessary number of signatures needed to make it onto the ballot). Jenkins made the rounds, speaking out about Boudin in interviews with numerous news outlets, including the B.A.R. During an editorial board meeting with the B.A.R. in April, Jenkins was one of the representatives of the Safer SF campaign. She insisted she shares many of Boudin’s progressive values but disagreed strongly with how he carried them out. (The paper’s editorial board went on to oppose the recall.)

“I 100% agree we need to find and focus on alternatives to locking people up,” Jenkins said during the Zoom call. “That’s not the solution in every case. That’s what I want to see be a focus for us. That’s something that Chesa has not done. He has not created any sort of new creative program or worked with the public defender’s office in the courts to create a new collaborative court to address more issues that people are dealing with.”

For his part, Boudin told the B.A.R. during a June 28 interview that he hoped his successor would continue some of his progressive policies, like no-cash bail and not prosecuting juveniles as adults. It is unclear where Jenkins stands on those issues.

Jenkins was clear on matters such as violent crime, property crimes, and open-air drug sales, however.

“But I want to make clear, holding offenders accountable does not preclude us from criminal justice reform,” Jenkins told the crowd assembled for the mayor’s announcement.

Jenkins vowed to be compassionate but swore to clamp down on open-air drug sales, and property crimes, as well as hate crimes, which have increased dramatically in California, as well as San Francisco. Hate crimes, she said, “will no longer be tolerated. Our Asian community will no longer live in fear.”

“It is the district attorney’s responsibility to hold those responsible for hate accountable,” she said.

Jenkins also promised to work

with the San Francisco Police Department and to work with SFPD Police Chief William Scott to restore the relationship between the DA’s office and the police. She will pursue police abuse, she added, but “I will make it clear that we are committed to making San Francisco safer.”

Responding to a question from a San Francisco Standard reporter about incidents in which she might have coached witnesses or had inappropriate access to information concerning the murder of her cousin after she left the DA’s office, as mentioned earlier, she stated she has always been ethical in her work.

“I have never been found to do otherwise,” she said.

Boudin could run again

Boudin could run in the fall to again be elected as DA. As the B.A.R. and other news outlets reported last week, he has not ruled out doing so and is considering entering the race.

Both Jenkins and Boudin have experienced the fallout from criminal violence in their own lives. Boudin, whose parents were members of the 1970s revolutionary terrorist group, the Weather Underground, grew up without them after they were incarcerated following their part in the murder of a Brinks security guard in a botched bank robbery in 1981.

Jenkins lost a cousin in July 2020 to a gang shooting in Bayview. That incident was key in her decision to leave her job with Boudin’s office, she said.

Jenkins claimed that there were two shooters among a possible four individuals who were involved in a gang.

“As a result, it’s very difficult to prosecute under a simple murder charge,” Jenkins explained. “What we know is that, therefore, the DA’s office should have charged for gang conspiracy. ... Instead, Chesa and his staff declined to charge the case outright initially.”

After Boudin was persuaded to file charges, the gang-related charges were “dismissed without explanation less than 30 days later,” Jenkins claimed.

“Chesa touted his position on not using gang charges or enhancements was to help the Black and Brown community in San Francisco,” Jenkins said. “In reality, it has had the opposite effect. ... Blacks and Latinos in San Francisco deserve the same protection as everyone else.”t

Breed names gay man head of SF Moscone Center

by Cynthia Laird

S

an Francisco Mayor London Breed and City Administrator Carmen Chu announced July 13

the appointment of Kenneth Bukowski to serve as the next director of the Convention Facilities Department, overseeing operations and development at the city-

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owned Moscone Center.

Bukowski, a gay man, has served as deputy director at the city administrator’s office since 2012, where he has worked closely with city officials, industry partners, and community leaders on every major transition at the Moscone Center in the past decade. They include the completion of the Moscone expansion project; the immediate transformation of Moscone’s facilities into the city’s COVID Command Center and mass vaccination site during the pandemic; and the creation of the Moscone Recovery Fund to help bring back conventions to San Francisco, according to a news release from the mayor’s office.

Bukowski has served as the acting director of the convention facilities department since the retirement of former director John Noguchi in January, according to the mayor’s office.

“I am proud to appoint Kenneth Bukowski to serve as the new director of San Francisco’s Convention Facilities Department,” Breed stated. “As we continue to recover from the pandemic, we need to

Courtesy Mayor’s Office

New Moscone center director Ken Bukowski

ensure that we are doing all that we can to bring back conventions and getting our economy back on track. Ken understands the work that needs to be done, and I am confident that he is the right person to lead this department.”

Last year, Bukowski worked closely with the mayor’s office to create the $4.6 million Moscone Recovery Fund, which reduces the costs of renting space at Moscone Center to welcome and support the return of conventions, conferences, and trade shows in

San Francisco. To date this year, Moscone Center has hosted 18 conventions, including the restart of major annual conferences such as the Game Developers Conference and RSA Conference.

Moscone currently has 18 more conventions and events planned through the remainder of the year, with the largest being Dreamforce in September.

“Ken is a phenomenal city leader and trusted fiscal steward of our city’s valuable resources.

I’m thrilled that he will continue to serve our city as our permanent convention facilities director,” said Chu, who oversees the convention facilities department. “Ken understands how important the Moscone Center is for our city’s $10 billion travel and tourism industry. As we enter into this critical stage of recovery, I know Ken has the tenacity and focus we need to elevate the visitor experience.

Competition for convention business is fierce, and Ken and I look forward to expanding the visitors we welcome to our city.”

See page 11 >>

Smith

Christine

t

Commentary>>

July 14-20, 2022 • Bay Area Reporter • 7

What is a woman?

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

C

onservative commentator and provocateur Matt Walsh recently released a movie titled, “What Is A Woman?” Many within the transgender community have come out in the wake of the documentary’s release, alleging that they were invited to be a part of the film under false pretenses.

The question, of what makes a woman, is used as a sort of ambush throughout the film or, as Walsh himself put it, “most of the people we talked to either didn’t want to talk about it or they appeared to be confused about something as simple as what a woman is.”

The point of the film, of course, is to paint transgender people and those who support us as deluded, foolish, or both.

The idea was not new to Walsh.

A particular sort of bigot known as a transgender-exclusionary radical feminist, or TERF, has been focusing heavily on defining woman in as restrictive a fashion as possible, to exclude trans women and others from the word.

As an aside, I personally do not prefer to use the term TERF. Not because those same people have declared it a slur, but because I don’t consider them radical or feminists, and they seem to want something more than mere exclusion of transgender people. Also, well, the word bigot is already in existence.

You will also note that you typically only hear the question asked as what is a woman, rather than what is a man? The notion is, I assume, that trans women are far easier to frame a controversy around, while otherwise erasing trans men from the discussion entirely – but I digress.

This question of how to define a woman is treated as little more than reciting a simplified definition from the Merriam-Webster Children’s Dictionary. What makes such a definition so difficult, however, isn’t in what a woman is, but in realizing what one is not. That is, any time you try to declare a definite, specific example of what a woman is, it can quickly break down on examination.

Consider the most obvious and simplistic example, now all the more painfully relevant in a post-Roe v.

Wade world: A woman bears young.

It seems cut and dried, but very quickly falls apart. When someone goes through menopause, are they suddenly not a woman anymore?

How about a woman who simply cannot bear children, or has taken other measures to avoid childbirth?

You could try to pin it down to anatomy, but then not everyone who may have been assigned female at birth may have the same anatomy, and that anatomy can and does change throughout our lives.

It is probably worth noting that a fetus initially has proto-genitals that are not sexually dimorphic, and will need the presence of androgens to differentiate into what is typically considered male genitalia.

Of course, the one most often pointed to is one’s chromosomes, usually simplified to XX for female and XY for male. Yet even this fails even the slightest scrutiny: with some carrying XX or XY chromosomes, yet otherwise having the physical appearance of a different gender, or those with chromosomal pairs that do not fit the XX and XY dichotomy.

In none of the above was I specifically referring to transgender people, either. There is enough variation beyond transgender identities to render a simple definition as nothing but a quaint rule of thumb, at best, with

dozens of natural variations.

So let’s talk about transgender people specifically. Those who take hormones alter their bodies in large and small ways, triggering puberty effects in line with their true selves.

These changes can be as powerful as they are for any other person.

Even though such treatments will affect one’s genitals, too, they won’t wholly transform the average vagina into a penis, even with the aforementioned analogous pre-birth parts. Ergo, many will undergo surgical interventions to clear up their own dysphoria with their primary or secondary sexual characteristics. These changes, by and large, will produce genitalia – and chest topography, in many cases – that work largely like their non-surgical counterparts.

On top of the more medical changes one can experience, a transgender person will also adopt a different physical appearance through clothing, hair styles, identity documents, and so on. Each of these may make their gender clear.

Christine Smith

In the end, I find the only good, solid way of determining if someone is a woman – or, frankly, any

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gender – is to simply ask a person.

You may wish to reject that, claiming that explaining identity as

nothing more than “the feels” isn’t enough to declare someone a woman. You’ll see people mocking the notion, claiming that they identify as “attack helicopters” or whatnot.

But how many of these “attack helicopters” have considered having a rotor attached, have taken to daily injections of Jet-A aviation turbine fuel. They’re not living on an Air Force base, and their driver’s license – as if an attack helicopter would need one – doesn’t picture a Sikorsky UH-60.

I suspect that most who wish to claim that the definition of a woman is so utterly simple have never considered how they would define it for themselves. They might just say that they are a woman because, well, they just are. They may feel no need for any deeper introspection than that.

Those of us who may be trans women have as deep an identity with our gender. It is truly a core part of our identity.

Perhaps more: we have had to fight for that identity in a world where people like Walsh want to paint us as monsters rather than people.t Gwen Smith is a woman. You’ll find her at www.gwensmith.com.

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<< Business News

8 • Bay Area Reporter • July 14-20, 2022

Local biz Barb aims to restyle hair care sector

by Matthew S. Bajko

F

or women and gender-nonconforming individuals with short haircuts, finding hair care products made specifically for them can be a challenge. Most pomade and hair gels are made for, and marketed to, men.

Take for instance American Crew, which stakes claim to being the top U.S. styling brand. It even trademarked its tagline “Official Supplier to Men.” Alameda resident Megan Andrews, who identifies as nonbinary, gender-fluid and queer, had used the company’s products to style their own buzzed cut hair for years before noticing American Crew’s male-centric focus. When Andrews, who has a background in marketing, saw the tagline one day it came as a bit of a shock, they told the Bay Area Reporter in a recent video interview.

“I hadn’t noticed it, but all these products I was using all these years aren’t designed for us. They are made for men and marketed for men,” said Andrews, 37, who lives with their journalist girlfriend and their two dogs, 8-year-old Formosan mountain Coda and 2-year-old Papillon Chihuahua mix Piper. “It may functionally work, but I don’t identify with it. It is not my values.”

A few years back a mutual friend introduced Andrews to Sheena Lister, a lesbian who also sports a short haircut. The two bonded over beers and their shared love of athletics.

“Somehow Megan fell for my jokes, and now we are here,” recalled Lister, 37, who lives in San Francisco with her wife, Amelia Mostovoy, who is a podiatrist, their daughter Florence, 2, and their two dogs, 3-year-old Boxer Staffordshire Terrier Oakley and 16-year-old Chihuahua Terrier mix Fenix.

Lister and Andrews fast became friends and went into business together to launch Barb, aimed at transforming the hair care industry so it is more welcoming of women, transgender, and nonbinary individuals with short haircuts. Their first product was a soft clay pomade ($30 for 20 oz.) called Barb made in the U.S. that has a eucalyptus lavender aroma to it.

“It doesn’t smell hyper-feminine or too masculine. It smells fresh and natu-

Jane Philomen Cleland

Sheena Lister, left, and Megan Andrews, co-founders of Barb, celebrate the company’s first anniversary in June at a brewery in Oakland.

Jane Philomen Cleland

A crowd gathers at a brewery in Oakland last month to mark the 1-year anniversary of Barb.

ral,” explained Lister.

It was created specifically for a non-cisgender-male clientele, though men are among their growing customer base.

“We are centering women, nonbinary, and trans people not because we want to be exclusionary. We love men and have a lot of men customers who buy our product,” noted Lister. “Mostly

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women, nonbinary, and trans people have been underrepresented in the hair care space, period. We are focusing on building community around this and selling products of course.”

In June, they celebrated their first anniversary with an event at a brewery in Oakland and invited their local customers, whom they refer to as Barbs, to join them. The name of their company is not only short for barbershop but also for the woman’s name Barbara.

“There is no one named Barb,” explained Andrews, who inspired the name. “We have a whole dictionary around the words we are using. We call ourselves Barbs – a person with a short haircut. My haircut is my barb.

So you are looking at a Barb with a barb with Barb in it.”

When someone goes from having a long to a short hairstyle, they refer to it as “going Barb.” After settling on the name Barb, they later learned that fans of the singer Nicki Minaj called themselves Barbz.

“So they are welcome to join us,” enthused Andrews.

Their company name also works for those in the hair care industry, so they refer to hairstylists as barbtenders – a play off of barbers and

bartenders – while those salons that carry their product are dubbed barbtailers.

Salons around the Bay Area now carry Barb pomade, such as Tempest in San Rafael and Spunk Salon in San Francisco. A full list of salons carrying Barb’s products, both locally and across the U.S., can be found at https://thebarbshop.com/pages/ store-locator “From San Francisco to Ohio down to Florida, there are people who are really hungry for this kind of space and community,” said Andrews.

The company recently launched what is has dubbed its BarbnD program to create and test additional hair care products. It is partnering with 16 stylists with an aim of developing four additional products to sell in 2023, with one made specifically for Black individuals with short curly natural hairstyles.

“It will be designed for all curly hair types, but we are really focusing on and including the Black textured hair community to help us develop these products,” said Lister.

Their Barb website also doubles as a way to connect women and gender-nonconforming individuals with short haircuts from across the coun-

t

try with each other and with salon owners in their local communities who cater to them. Like most styling products for short hair, most barbershops are designed for, and cater to, cisgender men.

“I can’t even count the number of times someone has said, ‘I am intimidated cutting your hair,’” said Lister.

Opening their own Barb-branded barbershop is “a long term dream” for Lister and Andrews, who hope to realize it in the not-too-distant future, they told the B.A.R. “It has been embedded in our overall business plan from day one to open a Barb barbershop,” said Lister, noting that as consumers they either “feel left out” or don’t know where “we fit in the hair salon space. Do we go to a barbershop or a hair salon? We have both felt uneasy in both settings.”

Lister said she often doesn’t feel welcomed when she walks into a “hyper-masculine barbershop” as a queer lesbian woman.

“It depends on who is welcoming you to the barbershop or cutting hair there. Ninety percent of the time, I have had to force myself to feel comfortable,” she said. “So the only other option I have, or the option I am choosing to take, is to go to a hyper-feminine shop that is costing me $200 for a short cut.”

Just one example Lister gave for how salon and barbershop owners could make their spaces more welcoming is by asking their clients what pronouns they use. No one has ever asked her that in any place in San Francisco, said Lister.

“For folks like us, we have been forced to become confident on our own,” she said. “We have had to become OK with a lot of these strictures and institutions that have been set up for us. Even living in San Francisco we have been forced to accept, or acclimatized to, this situation.”

With women also conditioned to see longer hairstyles as the more beautiful – i.e. feminine – choice, Barb also exists to alter that thinking.

As part of its introducing barbershop and salon owners to its product, the company holds “Go Barb” events where it partners with a Barbtender and one of their customers who wants to cut off their long hair for a “short transformational haircut” in Barb’s parlance.

“What we want to do as a brand is allow people to detach themselves from that expectation and appreciate who they are and how they want to show up in the world without worrying how other people are seeing them,” said Andrews.

Barb is creating a space that allows women with short haircuts to exult in the beauty of such a style.

“What we are trying to create is safe spaces to celebrate people and make them feel beautiful or handsome or whatever that word is for them,” said Andrews. “One step at a step. A Barbershop location in the future, for now a website to bring them in.” t Got a tip on LGBTQ business news? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 829-8836 or e-mail m.bajko@ ebar.com

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Community News>>

July 14-20, 2022 • Bay Area Reporter • 9

AIDS Walk San Francisco returns in-person compiled by Cynthia Laird

A

fter two years of holding the event online due to the COVID pandemic, AIDS Walk San Francisco will return in-person Sunday, July 17, at 10 a.m. in Golden Gate Park.

The AIDS Walk follows a 6.25mile trek through the park and raises funds for nonprofit organizations.

According to its website, AIDS Walk San Francisco makes available the successful infrastructure used by its teams department to organize corporate and community involvement in the event. These organizations participate as fundraising teams in AIDS Walk San Francisco at no cost to themselves, and they keep a majority of the funds they raise.

This year, the co-beneficiaries are National AIDS Memorial Grove, UCSF 360 Wellness Center, AIDS Legal Referral Panel, the Spahr Center in Marin County, Huckleberry Youth Programs, Face 2 Face in Sonoma County, Health Trust, the LGBT Asylum Project, Rainbow Community Center in Contra Costa County, La Clínica, Quan Yin Healing Arts Center, and the Ward 86 Pop-Up at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center.

The AIDS Walk also has a community grants program.

People can participate on their own or as part of a team. They can donate in general to AIDS Walk San Francisco or to a team. There is no fee to register.

According to a tracker on its website, the AIDS Walk has raised $552,684 as of July 8.

To sign up, go to https:// sf.aidswalk.net/.

Precita Eyes to hold youth arts festival

Precita Eyes Muralists will hold its 26th annual urban youth arts festival Saturday, July 16, from 1 to 5 p.m. in Precita Park, 348 Precita Avenue, between Folsom and Treat streets in San Francisco.

This year’s theme is “Hella Future,” and the event will include collective spray painting, live entertainment, and a creative community celebrating youth-driven art, a news release stated.

The program features DJ JenSet; musicians Lil Beast, SFG, Ceez the Move, Frisco Baby, Lurks!, Bugseed, and dance group Feline Finesse.

Five youth groups – United Playaz, 5 Elements SF, U Legacy, La Cultura Cura, and Precita’s own graffiti class – will have their own walls for a competition ranked on lettering and characters, the release stated. There will also be community painting, crafts for younger kids, and information booths on education.

The event is free. Precita Eyes Muralists is sponsored in part by a grant from San Francisco Grants for the Arts.

SFMOMA presents community day

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will welcome summer visitors with a free community day Sunday, July 17, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 151 Third Street.

People can celebrate the opening of “Diego Rivera’s America,” a news release stated. They can also experience the vibrant creativity of the city’s Mission district all day long with a low-rider display on Third Street; a mercado featuring crafts by local artisans; a digital mural installation by Lauren Rose D’Amato and Derek Holguin activated with a performance by musician La Doña; as well as music, comedy, and dance performances.

Admission for “Diego Rivera’s America” requires timed tickets and has limited capacity. If the tickets sell

Rick Gerharter

Walkers start the 6.2-mile route of the San Francisco AIDS Walk in Golden Gate Park on July 14, 2019.

out online, a limited number may be available day-of on a first-come, first-served basis, the release stated.

For more information about the free community day of “Diego Rivera’s America,” go to https://bit. ly/3nMkOwf. In other SFMOMA news, starting this month, the museum has expanded its public hours by opening on Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Beginning in August, it will offer extended First Thursday hours. This program welcomes visitors from the nine Bay Area counties to enjoy the museum for free the first Thursday of the month, from 1 to 8 p.m. (Children 18 and younger can always enjoy SFMOMA for free, the release stated.)

Reserving tickets online for SFMOMA is highly encouraged. For more information, go to https://www.sfmoma.org/visit/. For information on current exhibits, go to https://www. sfmoma.org/exhibitions/.

Newsom allocates funds to combat hate crimes

In the wake of escalating violence, California has awarded $30.3 million to 12 organizations to aggressively address hate crimes by providing services to survivors and facilitating anti-hate prevention measures, according to Governor Gavin Newsom’s office.

A recent report by the California Attorney General’s office shows that hate crimes increased by 89% over the past decade. In particular, the report noted that anti-Asian hate crimes increased by 177% in 2021.

The same report showed anti-gay hate crimes saw a dramatic increase last year, as the Bay Area Reporter previously reported.

“It comes as no surprise that as the flames of hatred and bigotry have been stoked in our society, acts of cowardice and violence have increased at an alarming rate,” Newsom stated in the news release. “In California, we are investing millions to prevent this hate from taking hold in our communities. We simply will not tolerate intolerance.”

One of the organizations works specifically with the transgender community. The Translatin@ Coalition based in Los Angeles is getting $3,210,144.

The July 7 announcement doubles down on the $14.3 million in grants to 80 organizations for prevention and intervention services to groups at risk of experiencing bias and hate crimes announced this past March, the release stated.

The funds will be used for direct services, including mental health, legal assistance, and case management; prevention services such as youth development, senior safety, and ambassador programs; and intervention such as outreach, training, and services for survivors.

The grant funding has been made available over the next three years, from August 1, 2022, through July

31, 2025, to continue to support anti-hate efforts, the release stated.

Historian looking for info on SF LGBTQ role in Mariel boatlift

In the summer of 1980, San Francisco’s LGBTQ community helped resettle gay and lesbian Cubans who came to the United States during the Mariel boatlift.

Historian Lynne Gerber is researching this period and looking for people to interview. In an email

to the B.A.R., she wrote that the effort was based at Metropolitan Community Church-San Francisco, which at the time was located in the LGBTQ Castro neighborhood. The Gay and Lesbian Cuban Refugee Program helped gay and lesbian Marielitos find immigration sponsors in San Francisco, provided basic social services, and tried to connect them to the community, Gerber noted.

Gerber, an ally, is a historian of American religion with a focus on

Protestantism and sexuality. Her first book, “Seeking the Straight and Narrow: Weight Loss and Sexual Reorientation in Evangelical America,” (2011) was on the ex-gay movement. Her current work is on the history of MCC-San Francisco and AIDS – and religious responses to AIDS in the city more generally.

She wrote that she learned about Cuban refugee resettlement in researching MCC-SF’s history. Last year she wrote an article about the Reverend Jim Mitulski, a gay man who was the former senior pastor at MCC-SF. Gerber recently did a podcast episode with the director of the Netflix documentary “Pray Away” and reviewed the film for Religion and Politics .

Gerber is looking to talk to Marielitos, sponsors, volunteers, members of organizations that supported the program, or of one group that opposed it. She can be reached at l.gerber999@gmail.com. For more information on Gerber, visit her website at https://www.lynnegerber. com/.t

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<< Community News

10 • Bay Area Reporter • July 14-20, 2022

<<

Monkeypox

SFAF responds

SFAF’s dedicated monkeypox hotline has gotten up to 500 calls per day, and the Magnet sexual health clinic at its Strut facility in the Castro is seeing two to three suspected cases per day on average, according to Jorge Roman, Magnet’s clinical director. “We’ve responded as quickly and agilely as we could, trying to respond to the demand from the community,” he said.

Much of that demand is for monkeypox vaccines, but the new Jynneos

<<

Walker

From page 1

Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who also sits on the rules committee, had voiced his support for Walker being seated on the police commission since he felt she had “done the work” to qualify for the position. He pointed to Walker being a former president of the progressive Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, which he had also led.

<<

Cultural strategy

From page 1

think taking slices and inspiration from it, like the arts component and the housing component, Mayor Breed’s administration has been able to advocate for some of those suggestions.”

For instance, Breed budgeted $12 million in the city’s fiscal year 2021-2022 budget toward the purchase of a site to build what is billed as the first large-scale, freestanding LGBTQ history museum in the country. The project spearheaded by the GLBT Historical Society was one of the top priorities included in the cultural strategy.

“We are very proud to be able to get funds for the LGBTQ museum,” said Ruiz-Cornejo, noting that gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) had initially called for the LGBTQ cultural strategy when he was the District 8 supervisor and this year secured $5.5 million for the museum project. “We see that as becoming a reality. It was a big, central focus of the report.”

Drag laureate post

Another idea first proposed in the document was the creation of a drag laureate position to help promote the city’s LGBTQ nightlife venues, entertainment options, and

<<

immunity that protects them against getting the virus again. People over age 50 or so who received a smallpox vaccine as a child may still have some immunity, but Magnet has seen cases in older individuals so this protection “might not be lifelong,” said Hyman.

Magnet is one of only a few sites that has been offering monkeypox testing and vaccines in SF, along with City Clinic and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma center, but DPH plans to add more locations as the supply increases, Philip said.

However, the day after the forum, the health department announced that it is running out of vaccines.

The clinic at SFGH was down to 50 doses and will close until it is resupplied; other sites are also running low. The city is awaiting more doses from the federal government.

With more than 2,000 people on its vaccine wait list, Magnet had received only 290 doses as of July 6, but expects to have another 500 for a vaccine clinic on July 17. Some 6,000 doses are needed just to cover current Magnet clients who are at risk, with thousands more needed for the broader community.

Because the monkeypox virus has a long incubation period, vaccines can be used as both post-exposure prophylaxis for people who were exposed during the past several days and as pre-exposure prophylaxis for individuals at risk for future expo-

sure. DPH is currently prioritizing the first group. Eligible individuals include asymptomatic people who are close contacts of a confirmed or suspected case and those who received a notification from an event or venue about a potential exposure.

As the B.A.R. first reported online July 5, organizers of two large prePride dance parties recently alerted attendees that people known or suspected to have monkeypox were present at the events. Steamworks bathhouse in Berkeley also warned patrons about potential exposure.

“Vaccines are the best way we have to protect people and stop the virus from spreading,” said Philip.

“Because we have such limited vaccine supply, we are temporarily asking everyone to prioritize those who have had a direct exposure. We really thank all the San Franciscans who have been taking care of each other and allowing people who have been exposed to go first until we have more vaccines available.”

Anyone potentially exposed to monkeypox should try to get vaccinated, self-monitor for symptoms, inform partners, and limit close contact, Roman advised. People with a rash or other symptoms should seek medical care. Those who don’t have a regular provider can contact City Clinic or Magnet.

Currently, testing is done by swabbing lesions, so it’s not available for people who have been exposed

but do not yet have sores. Testing has been limited by the capacity of state public health labs, but DPH’s in-house lab and commercial labs started doing tests this week.

People who test positive are advised to refrain from sex and other close physical contact until their sores heal completely, which takes about three weeks. Treatment with the antiviral drug TPOXX (tecovirimat) is limited to a few providers and requires extensive paperwork, so it’s only used for serious cases.

“It’s extremely infuriating that our federal government has once again failed in their response, especially after a two-year public health crisis like COVID-19,” said SFAF community mobilization manager Ande Stone. Access to testing, vaccines, and treatment “must be expanded and streamlined at all levels” to ensure that they’re available to all people who may be at risk, including gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, sex workers, and trans and nonbinary folks.

For the latest updates on vaccine eligibility and locations, go to https://sf.gov/information/monkeypox. t

He again spoke in favor of seating Walker before the full board, saying Walker has been involved in police reform issues for decades.

“I think she should be confirmed,” said Mandelman.

Walker currently serves on the city’s arts commission. She was a strong supporter of Breed’s 2018 mayoral campaign and co-chaired the arts and tourism committee that advised her on policy matters during her transition that summer.

During last month’s committee meeting, Walker said that she was “interested and excited to engage in dialogue” and work to reform the police department. She also said she wanted to see if the many programs around public safety could be more connected.

One of the police commission’s tasks is to conduct disciplinary hearings on charges of police misconduct.

In an interview with the B.A.R. when she was nominated, Walker said she

would thoroughly review each case brought before the seven-member body and be as transparent with the public as she could be. She would strive to do the same whenever there is a police officer-involved shooting.

“If I am seated and approved by the board, I will be making sure we get all the information and the public knows what happens,” she said. “It is upsetting whenever there is a shooting of any kind.”

Prior to serving on the arts com-

mission, Walker served as a tenant representative on the city’s Building Inspections Commission between 1999-2019. She lost her bid for the District 6 supervisor seat in 2010.

Originally from Nebraska, Walker moved to California in the early 1970s to attend college in Riverside. She worked for the Los Angeles Times as an assistant art director for several years and first moved to San Francisco in 1981. She lives in one of the city’s oldest artist cooperatives. t

local drag performers. Breed’s fiscal year 2022-2022 budget includes $35,000 toward the establishment of the post likely by mid-October with West Hollywood leaders also set to name a drag laureate after learning about the idea from the B.A.R.’s coverage on it over the years.

It is among the more than $17 million for various LGBTQ needs, from funding services and housing assistance for transgender individuals and people living with HIV to monetary support for the city’s Pride committee and queer arts organizations, included in the two-year fiscal budget set to be approved by the Board of Supervisors this month and signed by Breed as of August 1. Much of the funding ties into the 50 proposals contained in the cultural strategy.

The initiatives run the gamut from supporting the city’s trio of LGBTQ cultural districts and offering financial support to queerowned businesses and arts institutions to addressing the lack of affordable housing for LGBTQ artists, seniors, and youth. The cost to implement the cultural strategy’s multitude of ideas is pegged at between $10.2 and $15.7 million.

The price tag to pay for the top 10 prioritized steps called for in the document is estimated to cost

anywhere from $1.3 to $2 million.

At the time of its release, 23 of the initiatives listed in it had already received some form of funding or support to get underway.

A top concern in the document is support for San Francisco’s LGBTQ cultural districts in the Castro neighborhood, the transgenderfocused one in the Tenderloin, and the one South of Market aimed toward the leather and kink scene.

It was concerns about the loss of LGBTQ bars, businesses, and entertainment venues throughout the city that prompted the initial calls

by Wiener and others for the creation of an overall plan to address the decline of the LGBTQ community in San Francisco.

A working group tasked with figuring out how to preserve the city’s LGBTQ cultural heritage first met in 2017 to devise a plan for achieving that goal. It divided the document into three focus areas: wellbeing, culture, and opportunity.

The culture category centered on the trio of LGBTQ cultural districts and the effort to construct the LGBTQ museum. It had also recommended that an LGBTQ+ Historic Preservation Advisory Group be formed to advise the planning department on various initiatives that

fall under its purview.

Under the strategy’s well-being category, one suggestion called for the city’s LGBT Community Center to create a navigation tool for available LGBTQ services, sort of a one-stop-shop database that residents could utilize. It also recommended there be LGBTQ cultural competency training for public and private organizations.

In terms of opportunity, the draft plan called for expanding job training and recruitment programs for LGBTQ people and increased support for LGBTQ-owned businesses. It also called for the building of affordable housing for LGBTQ people.

Another key recommendation in the draft proposal was to expand the Mayor’s Office of Transgender Initiatives into more of an LGBTQ affairs office. Santa Clara County in 2015 was the first in the Golden State to establish such an office, and San Francisco, which is both a city and county, would be the second county in the state to do so.

While the office hasn’t changed its name and has maintained its primary focus on supporting trans and gender-nonconforming city residents, it does work on numerous LGBTQ-specific initiatives. Its staff also now works closely with the reconstituted LGBTQ advisory

committee for the city’s Human Rights Commission.

The draft plan also called on the mayoral trans office to host a summit to promote and track the progress of the LGBTQ cultural strategy.

The upcoming hearing before the supervisors’ committee will be the first such public airing of the document since it was initially presented to the city’s Historic Preservation Commission in September 2018.

In addition to a presentation about the cultural strategy by the trans initiatives office, mayoral offices on housing, homelessness, and workforce development are also expected to report to the supervisors about how they have worked to implement the document. Staff from the city departments that oversee planning, human resources, public health, and children and family programs have also been asked to update the board on how they have been helping to preserve the local LGBTQ community.

Also expected to give presentations at the upcoming hearing are the city’s public library and school district, as well as its arts commission.

To learn more about the city’s LGBTQ cultural strategy, and download a copy of the document, visit its website at https://sfplanning.org/project/lgbtq-culturalheritage-strategy t

and even longer to feel safe enough to share it with the world. But I found the strength to come out through the new friends and allies I have met in the LGBTQ community. I show my care for others by creating custom greeting cards and sharing my love of art with them. There’s so much pain in detention; my art is my sanctuary.

If I am deported to Fiji, I will never get the chance to be with my family again. My siblings, cousins,

and nieces and nephews all live in California. I will be thousands of miles away from the organizations that supported my coming out, like the Queer Detainee Empowerment Project, Rainbow Beginnings, and the Asian Prisoner Support Committee.

Worst of all, returning to Fiji would mean hiding who I am once again, or facing discrimination and hate crimes. Deportation would

force me into a conservative society where queerness is not accepted and LGBTQ+ people are persecuted and harmed, and to a country where the police have been known to torture civilians. Here in the Bay Area, I have the support of family and friends. My life in California represents so much potential for me to succeed as a person, where I am supported and I can support others and give back to my community.

I am asking you to sign my petition (https://www.change.org/p/tellgovernor-newsom-pardon-sal-andbring-him-home) asking Newsom to pardon me so that I can reunite with my family here in California and be free to openly be who I am – a queer man and a changed person.t

From page 1

The illness usually resolves on its own without treatment, but several people in San Francisco have been treated for more severe cases, he said.

Although anyone can get monkeypox, most cases in the current outbreak have been gay and bisexual men.

The virus spreads primarily through skin-to-skin contact and bodily fluids. Transmission through respiratory droplets or contact with contaminated bedding, towels, or surfaces is “much less common,” according to Scott. It is not yet known whether monkeypox is transmitted in semen, but it does spread through contact with sores during sex, and many men in the current outbreak have developed lesions on the genitals or in the anal area.

“This is not a new virus, but it’s behaving in [new] ways that we’re identifying in this outbreak,” Scott said.

Guest Opinion

From page 4

and I didn’t get to see my family. Just a month later, my mother passed away from COVID-19. ICE denied me release to say goodbye or to attend her funeral.

After decades of painful and slow growth, I came out as queer in ICE detention. It took me years to untangle my identity from the abuse,

t

Courtesy CDC

This image of lesions on hands is more representative of what the current monkeypox outbreak looks like, according to health officials.

vaccine remains in short supply. San Francisco Health Officer Dr. Susan Philip said the city has received 2,888 doses, mostly during the past week.

Almost all have been sent out to clinics and community organizations, and the city has requested another 35,000 doses from the state. So far, more than 1,700 San Franciscans have received their first dose.

The Jynneos regimen consists of two doses administered a month apart.

“You get quite a robust immune response” two weeks after the first shot, but “I wouldn’t say you’re completely protected if you get the vaccine the day before Dore Alley,” Roman said.

Hyman added that people with monkeypox appear to develop lasting

Three areas

To contact City Clinic, go to https://www.sfcityclinic.org/ or call its new phone number, 628-2176600. To contact SFAF’s Magnet clinic at Strut, go to https://www. sfaf.org/programs/magnet/ or call 415-581-1600.

Salesh Prasad is an LGBTQ immigrant currently facing deportation to Fiji. His case was recently profiled in the Guardian

t <<

Community News >>

July 14-20, 2022 • Bay Area Reporter • 11

Moscone Center

From page 6

Three buildings

In his new role, Bukowski will oversee operations and management of Moscone Center, which consists of three buildings (North, South, and West) with over 500,000 square feet of exhibit space, 120 meeting rooms, 50,000 square feet of ballroom space, and more than 25,000 square feet of outdoor terraces ideal for receptions. The state-of-the-art convention center is a key economic driver in San Francisco, drawing over 1 million visitors per year to San Francisco pre-pandemic and fueling San Francisco’s travel and tourism industry, the release stated.

Bukowski, who was not available for an interview, stated in the release that he looks forward to his new position.

“I am deeply honored to step into this role to continue to revitalize our convention industry and support our downtown recovery.

The Moscone Center represents the best that San Francisco has to offer,” he stated. “Its spacious facilities, surrounded by gardens, restaurants, and downtown shops, are the ideal setting for innovation, intellectual exchange, arts and culture, and commerce. I am excited to continue working with industry and community partners to shepherd the Moscone Center through this critical recovery period.”

Bukowski has served on the San Francisco Tourism Improvement District Management Corporation Board since 2017 and was influential in securing funding for the $551 million Moscone expansion project, a partnership be-

Legals>>

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557213

Courtesy ABC7 San Francisco

Moscone Center South was the site of the city’s COVID vaccination center in 2021.

tween the City and County of San Francisco and the San Francisco Tourism Improvement District.

Completed in 2019, the expansion added over 150,000 square feet of new usable space for conferences and created over 500,000 square feet of contiguous exhibit space, opening up more flexibility for conference organizers.

Tourism officials also praised the decision.

“Ken has been instrumental in supporting the return of conventions to San Francisco, and his appointment will further bolster recovery,” stated Joe D’Alessandro, a gay man who is president and CEO of San Francisco Travel. “He has been a champion for San Francisco’s meetings industry, with his efforts critical to the success of the Moscone Center expansion and the creation of the Moscone Recovery Fund, which will ensure San Francisco remains competitive in the market in the years ahead. We are thrilled with his ap-

pointment and excited to continue working closely with him to help drive the city’s economic recovery.”

The Convention Facilities Department works closely with SF Travel to promote San Francisco as the premier destination for conventions, meetings, and tradeshows.

Officials with the Union Square Alliance also spoke favorably of the decision.

“The Moscone Center is an integral part of our city, specifically our downtown community – conventions and trade shows showcase all that our beautiful city has to offer, bringing visitors and unique activities to our worldclass cultural institutions, restaurants, retail stores and more,” stated Marisa Rodriguez, executive director of the alliance. “We are thrilled to learn that Ken Bukowski has assumed this important leadership position. He will continue to work with the Union

Square Alliance to make sure that Union Square and our downtown neighborhoods remain a thriving center of economic vibrancy, entrepreneurship, and diversity.”

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

is signed FORTIFIED FORMATION LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/13/22.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397395

the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: KEITH C. PEPPER (SBN 146565), 1835 MOSCATO PL, BRENTWOOD, CA 94513; Ph. (707) 334-5078.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557221

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397397

In the matter of the application of CHARLOTTE E TAYLOR, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner CHARLOTTE E TAYLOR is requesting that the name CHARLOTTE E TAYLOR be changed to CHARLOTTE E ELFALAN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 28th of JULY 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as KAQCHIKEL TRANSLATIONS, 1000 WISCONSIN ST #2, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GONZALO GUORON TZIAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/16/22.

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557170

The following person(s) is/are doing business as RUTA, 690 LONG BRIDGE ST #116, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94158. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed PIERROT RUTAGARAMA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/09/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/09/22.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

In the matter of the application of EVELYNE THEOPHILIA VANIE, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner EVELYNE THEOPHILIA VANIE is requesting that the name EVELYNE THEOPHILIA VANIE be changed to SOLOMON ELIEDIVINE JOSHUA. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 26th of JULY 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557215

In the matter of the application of HAU TRUNG NGUYEN & THI HONG HUONG DUONG, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioners X HAU TRUNG NGUYEN & THI HONG HUONG DUONG are requesting that the name DUONG GIA HAN NGUYEN be changed to HANA HAN NGUYEN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 18th of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557219

In the matter of the application of ANGELINA YEGYAZARYAN, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner ANGELINA YEGYAZARYAN is requesting that the name SYDNEY MONROE AGBOR AKA SYDNEY AGBOR-YEGYAZARYAN be changed to SYDNEY MONROE YEGYAZARYANAGBOR. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 30th of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397337

The following person(s) is/are doing business as BO & BEURRE, 606 EDDY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DANNY NGO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/09/22.

and recovery accreditation for facilities, making San Francisco one of the safest cities for in-person conventions to return.

Bukowski has over 25 years of executive leadership experience in both government and community-based nonprofits, the release stated. Prior to joining the city administrator’s office as deputy city administrator, Bukowski served as chief financial officer/director of finance and administration for several city departments – the Department of Technology; the Police Department; and the Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families.

He has also served as the executive director of San Francisco nonprofits PRC and LYRIC. The Bay Area Reporter noted in a December 2001 article that Bukowski announced that fall that he would resign at the end of 2001. At the time, PRC was informed that it would not receive a renewal of a competitive $750,000 government contract. With the agency also suffering from a drop in private fundraising, it subsequently laid off five staff members.

The executive director position remained open for more than 14 months, until current CEO Brett Andrews was hired in 2003. Andrews was in the news recently when he went to the Board of Supervisors for emergency funding.

The supervisors voted to give PRC $1.25 million, though that was lower than the amount Andrews requested, as the Bay Area Reporter recently reported. Bukowski earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Nebraska Lincoln College of Law and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. t

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397339

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397294

The following person(s) is/are doing business as THE VERY HUMAN, 548 BRANNAN ST #303, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MICHAEL ANSA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/06/22.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397429

The following person(s) is/are doing business as PROTOCOL FORCE NETWORK, 88 HOWARD ST #1509, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RASOUL SADEGHI HARDANGI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/21/22.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397404

The following person(s) is/are doing business as ARTISTIC NAILS & SPA, 1826 DIVISADERO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed ARTISTIC NAIL & SPA (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/17/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/17/22.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397360

The following person(s) is/are doing business as WUCHER & ASSOCIATES, 56 SANTA FE AVE. SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BWCO (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/10/22.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397365

The following person(s) is/are doing business as FORTIFIED FORMATION, LLC, 50 SANTA CLARA AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397390

The following person(s) is/are doing business as NUCHA, 103 HORNE AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed GAUCHO’S TABLE LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/15/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/16/22.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397409

The following person(s) is/are doing business as CHARLIES MARKET, 3400 JUDAH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed CAMINO CORNER STORE LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/17/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/17/22.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397405

The following person(s) is/are doing business as NAIL LAB LLC, 3036 FILLMORE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed NAIL LAB LLC (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/17/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/17/22.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397399

The following person(s) is/are doing business as VM ESTATES, 1700 VAN NESS AVE #1151, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed VM ESTATES LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/16/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/16/22.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397230

The following person(s) is/are doing business as ORACLE UTOPIA,1320 5TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed ORACLE INNOVATIONS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/02/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/25/22.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397413

The following person(s) is/are doing business as PLA RA, 2380 LOMBARD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed MAVEL LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/17/22.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

COVID command center

When the pandemic hit, Moscone Center paused conventions and transformed into the site of the city’s COVID Command Center, where city workers centralized COVID response planning and efforts under one roof. It was also turned into one of the state’s largest vaccination sites, where over 330,000 vaccinations were administered from February through July 2021.

The COVID Command Center closed by the end of June 2021.

That same year, Moscone Center earned the highly coveted and universally recognized Global Biorisk Advisory Council Star Accreditation, the cleaning industry’s only outbreak prevention, response,

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MONEY MONEY JUICE, 31 BEATRICE LN #2, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed POINT PUSHAS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/16/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/16/22.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397272

The following person(s) is/are doing business as LOTUSLAND YOGA SF, 1360 VALENCIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed LOTUSLAND INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/02/22.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-0396646

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as ARTISTIC NAIL & SPA, 1826 DIVISADERO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by THUY THI BUI. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/18/22.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF WILLIAM ROY SIKES, JR. IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-22-305445

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of WILLIAM ROY SIKES, JR. A Petition for Probate has been filed

by JOHN TEASE III in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that KEITH C. PEPPER be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. 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: JULY 20, 2022, 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

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 2022

In the matter of the application of WEIWEN YU & MANYING ZHAO, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner WEIWEN YU & MANYING ZHAO is requesting that the name YUYING YU be changed to AMY YUYING YU. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 30th of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557229

In the matter of the application of CHUN HOI LO, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner CHUN HOI LO is requesting that the name CHUN HOI LO be changed to KEVIN CHUN HOI LO. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 4th of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557231

In the matter of the application of CANDY WONG, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner CANDY WONG is requesting that the name CANDY WONG be changed to SHAO JUAN HE. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 4th of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557236

In the matter of the application of LEJIA ANNA SU, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner LEJIA ANNA SU is requesting that the name LEJIA ANNA SU be changed to ANNA LEJIA SU. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 9th of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

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12 • Bay Area Reporter • July 14-20, 2022 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397497

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MOLLIE NE, 1345 FILLMORE ST #408, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NAM M. LEE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/23/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/23/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397461

The following person(s) is/are doing business as LEV’S PLUMBING CO, 74 MIRALOMA DR, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LEV SHEVKHOD. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/30/83. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/22/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397435

The following person(s) is/are doing business as VTL, 1325 LINCOLN WAY #6, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed OMER BICEROGLU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/21/22.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/21/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397536

The following person(s) is/are doing business as EYETHRIFT, 1264 VALENCIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARIA GARCIA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/16/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397545

The following person(s) is/are doing business as BERNAL HILL PLAYERS, 183 ELLSWORTH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JENNIFER PERINGER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/27/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397474

The following person(s) is/are doing business as COLOR BLOCK SALON, 1255 9TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed COLOR BLOCK SALON (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/23/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/23/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397303

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MILKTOPIA, 1139 TARAVAL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed FUNFA INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/05/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397448

The following person(s) is/are doing business as PRECIOUSDESIGNSBYME, 84 WESTBROOK CT, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed KNIGHTEN-JONES L.L.C. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/06/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/21/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397456

The following person(s) is/are doing business as RANDY & SON’S AUTO REPAIR, 112 SAGAMORE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, C A 94112. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed MENDOZA & CORTES LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/22/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397386

The following person(s) is/are doing business as UD ENTERPRISES, 734 INNES AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SIERRA’S SECRET LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/15/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/15/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397454

The following person(s) is/are doing business as RAD RADISH, 301 HAYES ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed 301 HAYES STREET, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/22/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/22/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397516

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SUPER DUPER, 346 KEARNY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed KBURGER, LLC (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/04/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397517

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SUPER DUPER, 2201 CHESTNUT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed EBURGER, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/08/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397518

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SUPER DUPER, 721 MARKET ST, SAN FRANCISCO,

CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed JBURGER, LLC (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/25/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397512

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SUPER DUPER, 783 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed METBURGER, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/05/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397514

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SUPER DUPER, 3401 CALIFORNIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed 3401 CALIFORNIA STREET, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/28/20. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397515

The following person(s) is/are doing business as UNO DOS TACO, 595 MARKET ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed APMEX, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/10/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/22.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557069

In the matter of the application of RAYNALDO AGAPE VALDEZ AKA RAYNALDO AGAPE VALDEZ V, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner RAYNALDO AGAPE VALDEZ AKA RAYNALDO AGAPE VALDEZ V is requesting that the name RAYNALDO AGAPE VALDEZ AKA RAYNALDO AGAPE VALDEZ V be changed to RAYNALDO AGAPE VALDEZ V. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 6th of SEPTEMBER 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557245

In the matter of the application of KENNY MOY, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner KENNY MOY is requesting that the name KENNY MOY be changed to KENNETH K. MOY. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 16th of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557250

In the matter of the application of OLGA LUCIA MUNOZ, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner OLGA LUCIA MUNOZ is requesting that the names OLGA LUCIA MUNOZ AKA OLGA MUNOZ AKA OLGA L. MUNOZ AKA OLGA LUCIA MUNOZ-STRAUB be changed to OLGA LUCIA MUNOZ. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 16th of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557249

In the matter of the application of YINJIE XIA, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner YINJIE XIA is requesting that the name YINJIE XIA be changed to JAMES YINJIE XIA DEA. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 16th of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397546

The following person(s) is/are doing business as UNITED LIQUOR MARKET, 5298 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NADER MASSIS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/12/05. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/28/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397558

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SAFE LIMO, 1388 CALIFORNIA ST #403A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BRAHIM J. ALAOUI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/99. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/28/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397564

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397559

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SIGMA ENGINEERING LABORATORIES, 1180 4TH ST #590, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94158. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BELKACEM SAOUD. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/28/22.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as CANNABIS 21+, 1095 COLUMBUS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed ORANGE PEN, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/23/22.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397629

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397476

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

The following person(s) is/are doing business as CANNABIS 21+, 1057 HOWARD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed BLUE PEN, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/23/22.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397609

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397523

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MY-LINH MAKES, 548 MARKET ST #57106, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MY-LINH LE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/29/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/30/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397640

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

The following person(s) is/are doing business as THE DAISY REFILLERY, 601 VISITACION AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed THE DAISY REFILLERY, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397560

The following person(s) is/are doing business as ONEPLUS1; OP1 SOLUTIONS; OP1 RIDESHARE LTD; OP1 KENOBI RENTALS; 548 MARKET ST #80401, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARC HUNTE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/01/22.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as CANNABIS CULTURES, 2715 JUDAH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed BCC SF LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/28/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/28/22.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397581

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397580

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SHINE LITTLE DIAMOND, 3216 24TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed EDWIN JESUS AYALA GARCIA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/29/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397637

The following person(s) is/are doing business as INDIJEANE, 137 PRECITA AVE #B, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SASHA ALEXANDER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/28/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/01/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397642

The following person(s) is/are doing business as DONAIRO’S PIZZA, 6905 GEARY BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MOHAMAD ELKADRI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/05/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/05/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397613

The following person(s) is/are doing business as I.E., 901 STANYAN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed EDMOND LAWRENCE BOWEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/01/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397298

The following person(s) is/are doing business as GOLD MINE GROUP; CHARDONNAY ESCROW A NON-INDEPENDENT BROKER ESCROW; 2292 MARKET ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed EXCLUSIVE LIFESTYLES, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397449

The following person(s) is/are doing business as KMOSAIC; ALENAH BRUNSWICK; 328 SCHWERIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed BLEATH LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/21/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/21/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397534

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MISSION FUEL AND FOOD, 4298 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed GAWFCO ENTERPRISES INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/23/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397634

The following person(s) is/are doing business as A&E ELECTRIC, 139 LEE AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed AMORSOLO ASUNCION. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/05/87. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/28/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397607

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397650

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SUPERNOVA COFFEEBEAN INFUSED SKINCARE, 834 CENTRAL AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ANTRINA CRAWFORD. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/01/22.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as IGNITE YOUR LIFE PATH, 418 FAIR OAKS ST #A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed 418 FAIR OAKS ST #A (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/08/21. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/01/22.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as FORD’S AFFORDABLE JANITORIAL; FAJ; 1434 HALIBUT CT #C, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94130. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed THADDEUS FORD. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/16/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/30/22.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397468

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SONYA BRUNSWICK, 328 SCHWERIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed SONYA BRUNSWICK & ARNOLD BRUNSWICK. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/06/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/06/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MOXIE BAKEHOUSE, 298 4TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed BAGEL BABY, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/29/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397506

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MILAN SF NAILS, LLC, 5427 GEARY BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed MILAN SF NAILS, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-0396210

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as TURKEY & REUBEN, 1208 FUNSTON AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business was conducted by a general partnership and signed by MARA EZEKIEL & NOA SHNEORSON. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/03/22.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-0388422

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as DONAIRO’S PIZZA, 6905 GEARY BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business was conducted by a limited liability company and signed by DONAIRO’S PIZZA LLC (CA). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/28/19.

JULY 07, 14, 21, 28, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557255

In the matter of the application of YOSHIKO MAEKAWA, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner YOSHIKO MAEKAWA is requesting that the name YOSHIKO MAEKAWA BURROW be changed to YOSHIKO MAEKAWA. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 18th of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUG 04, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557256

In the matter of the application of NATASHA BAHRI, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner NATASHA BAHRI, is requesting that the name NATASHA BAHRI, be changed to NATASHA SETIA BAHRI,. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 18th of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUG 04, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557265

In the matter of the application of TAMMY HSUEH, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner TAMMY HSUEH is requesting that the name TAMMY HSUEH be changed to TAMERAH HSUEH. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 23rd of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUG 04, 2022

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557261

In the matter of the application of JOHN ALLEN NALLS, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner JOHN ALLEN NALLS is requesting that the name JOHN ALLEN NALLS be changed to JOHN TYRELL NALLS. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 23rd of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name

t

should not be granted.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUG 04, 2022 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-22-557262

In the matter of the application of DAVID GUSTAFSON, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner DAVID GUSTAFSON is requesting that the name MANUEL DAVID NEGRETTE III AKA DAVID GUSTAFSON be changed to DAVID GUSTAFSON. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 23rd of AUGUST 2022 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUG 04, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397659

The following person(s) is/are doing business as DUKE HONOR, 1170 MCALLISTER ST #402, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ILIA KUZNETCOV. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/07/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/06/22.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUG 04, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397639

The following person(s) is/are doing business as GORPHIN, 390 28TH AVE #1, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GORDAN DENG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/01/22.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUG 04, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397669

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MCCAULEY REAL ESTATE GROUP, 1320 GREEN ST #100, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RYAN ALLEN MCCAULEY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/07/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/07/22.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUG 04, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397526

The following person(s) is/are doing business as CRYSTAL WAY, 2335 MARKET ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CRYSTAL WAY, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/03/03. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/22.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUG 04, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0394592

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MARK ADAM & CO., 3024 PIERCE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a married couple, MONICA K. ZIMMERMAN & ALAN P. ZIMMERMAN, and was signed ALAN P. ZIMMERMAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/73. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/13/21.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUG 04, 2022

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0397552

The following person(s) is/are doing business as INSPIRING ACCOUNTABILITY, 2250 BAY ST #321, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed ELAINA NOEL LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/20/22. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/28/22.

JULY 14, 21, 28, AUG 04, 2022

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by Victoria A. Brownworth

T

The Lake

We need comedy/dramedy to offset the real world drama of GOP fascism, mass shootings and the January 6th Committee hearings which keep making us hope some of these quislings will actually go to prison. All of that can be quite despair-inducing. So we need uplift, like Amazon Prime’s new Canadian series, “The Lake,” which is described by the service as a biting comedy. It’s that, plus gay! And so, so binge-worthy.

Madison Shamoun, Jordan Gavaris and Julia Stiles in ‘The Lake’

Kiss off

The Lavender Tube on summer shows After returning from abroad following a break-up with his long-term partner, Justin (Jordan Gavaris ) makes elaborate plans to reconnect with his biracial teenage daughter, Billie (Madison Shamoun), who he gave up for adoption years earlier.

But those plans to make new memories at the lake with his daughter at the family cottage go wildly off course when it turns out that Justin’s parents left the cottage to his step-sister, Maisy-May (Julia Stiles), who has big plans for the place, none of which include Justin or Billie. Justin is super gay and trying hard to be the cool dad, with very limited success because Billie is the coolest kid and so resistant.

“The Lake” is really pitch-perfect in tone and plotting with terrific writing, a gorgeous setting and superb acting. Gavaris is delightful and thoroughly engaging. Shamoun is very good as the non-angsty, sarcastic, self-contained

Billie. Stiles is cast beautifully as the manipulative older step-sister who reminds Justin of how complicated it was being a gay teen with an older sister who never had a misstep.

Uncoupled

The latest Netflix series from producer Darren Star, whose “Emily in Paris” was a huge hit last year, “Uncoupled” stars Neil Patrick Harris. Star told People magazine that unlike “Emily in Paris” and his shows “Sex and the City” and “Younger,” “Uncoupled” is a “much more mature show” and as such, “relatable.”

Star said, “I think we’ve all had breakups, and it’s about a breakup.

It’s about a gay man who’s [in his] late 40s, who’s single in New York, and it’s an experience that I can relate to and know a lot of people that have gone through it.”

See page 14 >>

deicide of all gods at the hands of Gore the God Butcher (Christian Bale, who does what he can with what he’s given). Gore kidnaps Asgardian children and brings them to the Shadow Realm to lure Thor, whose portal-opening weapon he requires to fulfill deicide.

In the Shadow Realm, where Gore’s at his strongest and possesses the ability to summon shadow monsters, the creative crew flexes more visual vigor than the recent MCU slate of “Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” Presented in a heavily contrasted black and white, the only color in the realm radiates from the Asgardian hammer and Zeus’s stolen “thunderbolt.”

It’s not revolutionary, nevertheless, it’s a fresh welcome to the comic-book context. Combined with snap-zooms and a faster kinetic editing style, the scene marks new terrain against the parkinglot style aesthetic that has defined this cinematic universe so far. Brilliantly, the monsters were designed by Hemsworth and Waititi’s actual children, fostering room for less derivative creature designs and more for the stuff of childhood nightmares.

The relative originality of “Love and Thunder” is already apparent from the movies it references.

Paul W.S. Anderson’s “Event Horizon” receives not only a shout-out from Might Thor, but also visual and narrative callbacks through the dark, isolated, and slimy production design in the Shadow Realm and the theological motifs related to approaching the divine.

Gore’s main project is to make his way to Eternity, a cosmological place/being that will grant a wish to the first-ever arrival. His intended

Liam Hemsworth as Thor stripped by Zeus in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’

‘Thor: Love and Thunder’s near-queer marvel

by Josh Polanski

W

ith a few daring visuals and innovative artistic references, writerdirector Taika Waititi’s “Thor: Love and Thunder” merits more superlatives than any of its peer Marvel Studios blockbusters

following 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War.” While satisfying viewing experiences are subjective and dependent on the individual watching, the stylistic risks and occasionally relatively daring tonal departures should be a welcome guest for all viewers.

Thor Odinson (the occasionally pants-less Chris Hemsworth) is no longer the only Thor.

The power of Thor transfers to whoever is worthy of Mjölnir, the iconic hammer, and Jane Foster (the return of Natalie Portman) has been deemed “worthy” and carries the mantle “The Mighty Thor.”

The two Thors, together with the genderrole bending King Valkyrie (the ineffable Tessa Thompson), are determined to prevent the

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See page 18 >>

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Cara Delevingne and Selena Gomez in ‘Only Murders in the Building’

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he only thing that what missing from Hulu’s charming and fun mystery series “Only Murders in the Building” was queer people. Doesn’t everyone like to see two gorgeous women kissing? The hit series asked that question and answered, “Yes!” So we got to see Cara Delevingne (Alice Banks) and Selena Gomez (Mabel Mora) lip-to-luscious-lip in season two just as Pride was drawing to a close in the June 28 premiere.

If you haven’t watched this fab series starring Gomez, Steve Martin and Martin Short, Hulu describes it thus: “Three strangers share an obsession with true crime and suddenly find themselves wrapped up in one. When a grisly death occurs inside their exclusive Upper West Side apartment building, the trio suspects murder and employs their precise knowledge of true crime to investigate the truth.”

It’s so funny, it’s so clever, it’s so well cast and well-acted. The synergy among the three principals is chef ’s kiss good.

Martin plays a retired actor who played a detective on a popular TV series, Short plays a struggling Broadway director and true-crime podcaster and Gomez is renovating her aunt’s apartment and was friends with the first murder victim.

The show was created by Martin and John Hoffman and also stars Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Jackie Hoffman, among others.

“Only Murders in the Building” is so good, it was good even before the lesbians. (Randolph plays a lesbian detective with a wife, so it’s lots of lesbians!)

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istrict 6 Supe clared victo rvisor Matt Haney dery Tuesday runo in the speci al vacant 17th ff election for San Francisco’s on the initia Assembly District seat based l was David vote count. Trailing he Sisters Campos, a in of Perpetual gay man who second chair of the Indulgence their Easter California brought party back e PrideHaney took to Mission Park Sunda Democrat is a vice Dolor y, April ic Party.

Celebrat tflixvotethe outbre first place ak of the COVI 17, for the first time es with 64% ail ballots was thrille since With Ne partmby-m d. This year’s D pandemic and the that the electi of the ent receiv Woman is crowd Hunky Jesus 25 e ons ed God” (Britta depag and proce Election Day, at far left, ny Henry) was “Black ssed was “Tran sgender Maria and the Foxy Mary, With 3,306 while Campos receiv before votes receiv de Guadalupe” ed es where peop ed from pollin 36%. le cast their g placTuesd for ballo ay sic added ts in perso n stood at 38,91 in, Haney’s total Queer Mu vote coun t 22,567 votes 6 votes and Camp Pride os’ was at .

Because most page 26 ballots were be mailed expec in thanked voterahead of Election Day, ted to Haney sembly seat s for electing him to neighborho representing the city’s the Asods as soon eastern

by Cynthia er results were as the first posted.

Laird election TransgendDouble-“First result ary points. We s are out: We’re up ayor London Documentader by over 27 won,” tweet Breed has made you so much He ed and appoi nted Pau Crego it official to San Franc Haney. “Thank all of our mane isco voter 35 e staff, s, & to Francisco Office nt executive direct as the perpag ers, & every volunteers, dono or of rs, one Crego, a trans of Transgender Initia the San the last 6 mont who worked so endorstives. and nonbinary hard over hs.” grant, had Campos told Spani been tor since Clair serving as acting execu sh imminumbers came his supporters tive direcas the departmenFarley, a trans woma we are going in that “it doesn’t the first n who heade t since 20 seem to b d Se

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alifornia legisl ing forward ators are once again pushon at improving a number of bills aimed transgende the lives of r and nonb inary reside the state’s to the legisl nts. ative attack several other s on trans And due children are also focus states, lawmakers in Sacramentin their paren ed on assisting those o ts who are youth and affirming health care. trying to access gende r-

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7 >>

<< Films

14 • Bay Area Repor ter • July 14-20, 2022

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

by Gregg Shapiro

J

enny Slate’s career breakthrough moment may have gotten off to a bad start when she inadvertently said “fucking” during a 2009 ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketch which led to her being fired. But since that time, she has more than made up for that slip-up.

She starred in Gillian Robespierre’s brilliant 2014 pro-choice movie “Obvious Child” (alongside her longtime comedy partner, gay performer Gabe Liedman), as well as voiced the character of biracial Missy on Netflix’s adult cartoon series “Big Mouth.” Always a professional, Slate bowed out from “Big Mouth” because “Black characters on an animated show should be played by Black people.”

With her newest project, “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” (A24), Slate has the potential for Oscar glory. A film project that is so utterly original and unusual, it deserves to be seen by everyone, the original short film has been seen by 32 million people since 2010.

The movie, a seamless and inventive blend of stop-motion animation and live-action, is presented documen-

<<

Lavender Tube

From page 13

Not wanting to lose his “Emily in Paris” fans, Star also added that “Uncoupled” “is not about being gay or straight. It’s about anyone who’s having to start over again.”

As Neil Patrick Harris ages, the roles he has taken on have deepened. He was extraordinary as an older gay man in the immersive and heartbreaking British queer period AIDS drama “It’s a Sin.” Now he’s playing his age again in “Uncoupled,” and he’s just so good.

“Uncoupled” follows Michael (Har-

Scene from ‘Marcel the Shell with Shoes On’

Jenny Slate

tary style. Filmmaker Dean (director and co-screenwriter Dean FleischerCamp) takes up temporary residence in an Airbnb following a relationship breakup.

While there, he encounters Marcel (voiced by co-screenwriter Jenny Slate, who also co-created the short on which the movie is based), the titular one-eyed, shoe-wearing shell. Marcel lives with his grandmother Nana Connie (voiced by Isabella Rossellini, who also provided the voice of talking

hamster Buffy in the 2015 gay movie “Closet Monster”).

Marcel, Connie, and the rest of the shells in their close-knit “community” led a peaceful existence until Larissa and Mark, the couple in whose home they were collected, split up and turned the house into an Airbnb. When the couple packed up their things and went their separate ways, Marcel thinks Mark dumped the other shells into his suitcase in his haste to leave. The shells had been

hiding in Mark’s sock drawer during the human couple’s heated arguments. Marcel and Connie were the only two left behind.

The resourceful Marcel has devised an ingenious method of transportation around the house – rolling across the floor inside a tennis ball. He steps in honey to make the soles of his shoes sticky enough to allow him to climb walls. He skates on a dusty table for enjoyment and fitness.

Marcel is also compassionate and

ris), a New York City real estate broker, “who thought his life was perfect until his husband blindsides him by walking out the door after 17 years. Overnight, Michael has to confront two nightmares; losing what he thought was his soulmate and suddenly finding himself a single gay man in his mid-forties in New York City.”

The prospect of starting over –and dating again– is daunting and Harris brings all the nuance to that rollercoaster experience as Michael tries to find his way as a single older gay man in a town that feels made for youth.

Co-producer Jeffrey Richman said of “Uncoupled” that it’s “a romantic

comedy with a gay leading man. It is a passion project for us that feels both personal and universal.”

Costars include Emerson Brooks, Tuc Watkins, Marcia Gay Harden, and Tisha Campbell.

t

philosophical. He misses his parents, relatives, and friends, whom he pines after. His life revolves around looking after Nana Connie, and their relationship, while thoroughly animated, feels as authentic as if they were human. Marcel doesn’t hesitate to share his wisdom and worldview with Dean, often making profound, as well as humorous, comments.

Marcel and Connie also share a deep-seated affection and admiration for “60 Minutes” and its longtime correspondent Lesley Stahl. So, when a “60 Minutes” producer calls, having seen Dean’s YouTube videos about Marcel, the opportunity arises for others to join Marcel and Connie to meet their idol. Additionally, others now have the opportunity to join Marcel in his search for his lost community.

Everything about “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” is fresh, funny, and full of warm feeling. The writing and the performances, especially by Slate and Rossellini, feel groundbreaking. It’s safe to say you’ve never seen anything like “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” before, but you’ll be glad you did.

Rating: A

The Summer I Turned Pretty

Everyone is talking about Jenny Han’s Amazon Prime series “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” so we’ll just add that the hype is real, there’s a sexually fluid lead character, the queer love triangle from the book is intact and it’s compelling visual and emo candy.

Han told TVLine, “My approach to this adaptation was: How would I tell the story in 2022? What would that look like? And how would that change things?”

Han said, “I think perhaps if I was writing the novel today, I may have made that choice because I think that [Jeremiah has] always been a character, to me, that is really at ease with himself, really comfortable in his own skin, and open-minded and open to exploration. I do think that’s more reflective of today and young people today and the way they view sexuality being much more of a spectrum.”

The cast features Gavin Casalegno as Jeremiah, Christopher Briney as Conrad and Lola Tung as Isabel “Belly” Conklin. Han said of Jeremiah, “I would say [he’s] sexually fluid. He is a young person who’s figuring out where he falls in all that and hasn’t experienced a lot of love yet. It’s still kind of early on in that journey.”

Mea Culpa, sorta

As we exit a month-long jag of ultra-queer everything, we realize that Pride isn’t real life, alas. And so the folks who never learned about “inside-your-head-voice” or that other people’s identities are none of your [insert expletive of choice here] business are all in their feelings about trans and queer people daring to live their authentic lives.

If you built your career performing in [insert expletive again] gay bathhouses, maybe you should have more consciousness than to be claiming women are being erased by trans/ nonbinary-inclusive language.

And if you look at one sit-com’s creator doing a mea culpa for how she portrayed a trans character and your response is to double down on your own bad portrayal, that’s another big no.

Look, some folks were born conscious. Others of us, ourselves included, had to figure it out and apologize along the way. As Dr. Maya Angelou said, when you know better, you do better. But if you are told to do

Left: Neil Patrick Harris in ‘Uncoupled’ Right: Gavin Casalegno and Lola Tung in ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’

better and you still don’t?

So, it’s good that “Friends” creator Marta Kauffman apologized for how the show handled trans representation.

On the BBC World Service show “The Conversation” Kauffman said she was sorry for misgendering the character of Chandler’s trans parent, Helena (Kathleen Turner).

It’s bad that “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane told The Hollywood Reporter that he doesn’t have any regrets about how the long-running sit-com portrayed trans character Ida Davis.

To our Bette (Midler) noir, trans/ nonbinary folks didn’t take anyone’s repro rights away. That was the GOP. And if Macy Gray is “traumatized” for being called out for transphobia, as she told ‘Today’ host Hoda Kotb, imagine being trans in America and having celebs questioning your existence.

on July 5 to “Today,” “If it was LeBron, he’d be home, right?”

Griner says she spends her time in prison writing letters and reading Dostoevsky.

We spoke about Griner to Canadian Broadcasting’s Day 6 radio program and about our concern for her well-being.

When lesbian soccer star, Olympian and activist Megan Rapinoe received the Medal of Freedom from President Biden last week, she called for Griner’s release. Maybe we should all be demanding Griner’s release.

So for the outrageous, the egregious, the flirtatious and the bodacious, you really must stay tuned.t

Justice Delayed

Finally, Olympic gold medalist, WNBA all-star and lesbian activist Brittney Griner has been in “wrongful detention” in Russia since February 17. We’ve been reporting on her case since March 5 when her arrest was revealed. Now she is in the midst of a show trial and the U.S. has taken a very long time to get involved. As her WNBA coach Vanessa Nygaard said

Above: Brittney Griner Below: Bette Midler and Macy Gray

t

Theater>>

July 14-20, 2022 • Bay Area Repor ter • 15

“References to Salvador Dali…”, maybe not

Both Photos: Jay Yamada

Left: Caleb Cabrera (Benito) and Carla Gallardo (Gabriela) and Right: Alejandra Wahl (Cat) and Carla Gallardo (Gabriela) in ‘References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot’

by Jim Gladstone

M

agical realist frosting is slathered thick on the humble crumbs at the heart of “References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot,” now playing in a Custom Made Theatre production. Frankly, with its anthropomorphized animals and moonlit mysticism, playwright José Rivera’s drama tastes as if drawn from the larder of Gabriel Garcia Marquez rather than Dali.

Regardless, the show is overdecorated and underbaked.

The core of the play, set amidst U.S. military housing in Barstow, California during the Persian Gulf war, is the strained marriage of Benito (Caleb Cabrera), an enlisted soldier who returns home only once every few months, and Gabriela (Carla Gallardo), an intellectually ambitious young woman who feels trapped in the role of Army wife.

Gallardo, whose delivery is as crisp and sharp as her facial features, and Cabrera, who plays an alluringly non-chalant Moon in addition to the passionate but inarticulate G.I., are both superb beyond the script they’re adrift in.

Altogether believable as a working class couple in both squabbles and sex scenes, they generate a fractious chemistry that transcends strained dialogue in which guns are likened to genitals and all-too-familiar debates about marital roles are revisited. I haven’t encountered these performers before, but am eager to see them in future work.

Well-played as it is here, the military kitchen-sink school of drama hasn’t felt fresh since its heyday in post-Vietnam cinema like “Coming Home” and “The Deer Hunter.” Updating it to take place during Desert Storm doesn’t make it significantly less familiar (Rivera does offer a sharp insight about the upgraded soullessness of directing weapons deployment from desktop computers).

Still, I’d much prefer the solid, simple poundcake of domestic realism to the gaudy marzipan carapace in which Rivera has trapped his protagonists. Even before Gabriela and Benito arrive on stage, we meet Gabriela’s pet Cat (Alejandra Wahl) and a lurking local Coyote (Gabriel Ross) who turn out to be unnecessary avatars for their human counterparts: Coyote is the untamed male hunter, roaming free and living dangerously; Cat is a creature in search of sophisticated domesticity.

We get it. But Rivera doesn’t know where to go with it. The hairy dopplegangers show up in a preamble even before Custom Made’s curtain speech, then stick around for the show’s whole 90 minutes adding little but dubious whimsy. There’s a subplot about a peeping Tom teenage neighbor smitten with Gabriella that

also feels tacked on for little purpose.

Sarah Pykitt’s single-set stage design is yet another veil of fondant working to sweeten things up. An abstract arrangement of bright green refrigerator, stacked orange drawers and blue fence pickets is finished off

with a tall female silhouette, visually sampled from the Dali painting “Burning Giraffe Woman with Drawers.” Sometimes Dali is just silly.

Director Katja Rivera (no relation to the playwright) deserves credit for keeping her cast, particularly Cabrera

and Gallardo, emotionally grounded amidst the frippery. But the script fights against itself even harder than Gabriela battles Benito.

Playwright Rivera may have been trying to leaven a painful, oft-told story here but his proportions are all wrong.

An excess of icing collapses the cake.t ‘References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot’ through July 24.

Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason St., 6th Floor. $36-$40. (415) 798-2682. www.custommade.org

<< Books

16 • Bay Area Repor ter • July 14-20, 2022

Wanted alive

Zain Khalid’s novel “Brother Alive” is bracing magical realism

by Tim Pfaff

supports and undercuts Youssef but whose essentially magical if not simply hallucinatory, qualities that undercut his potential humanity.

He’s undeniably lively, but we wait in vain to learn what makes him “alive.”

“U

ncategorizable” is the flavor of the month in gay literary fiction. Even in as genre-free a landscape as that, Zain Khalid’s much-anticipated first novel, “Brother Alive” (Grove Press), stakes out new territory. It’s brilliantly, breathlessly, but disappointingly baffling.

Several layers deep in it is a letter from a Mohammed Ali (not the boxer). Deep within that is a line that could stand as a motto for the book: “We lied about what we knew and told them the truth about what we didn’t.”

The reference is to a sinister Saudi Arabian enterprise that spawns and then re-assembles the book’s main characters, a trio of adoptees. But it locates the story in that marginal zone between utopian dream and what the book’s human characters might identify as grim, everyday reality.

In terms of earthly real estate, the two poles are the Occident Street Mosque in Staten Island, New York, and the futuristic, “linear” city of HADITH (its name appears only in capitals) in Saudi. Khalid, 32, was born and raised in Staten Island, which surely accounts for the vividness and believability of that setting.

The Saudi past and present –the old city of Markab, essentially paved over for the creation of HADITH– are more spectral, fitting for the gruesome human experiments begun in Markab and continued and elaborated in HADITH. The first group of people experimented upon are called the “Unsettled,” suggesting in a stroke of Orwellian nomenclature that they were the homeless among the infidels.

Gay secrets

Author Zain Khalid

Plot galore

A legitimate charge brought against much present-day literary fiction is its tendency to be theme-driven at the expense of plot. There’s no particular reason to think that Khalid is weighing in on the matter with his rococo elaborations of plot, but it warrants saying that, in “Brother Alive,” plot is nearly everything.

The writing is monstrously accomplished. It’s magical realism at an advanced level. Khalid’s capacity to spin a yarn is so great, his imagination so fecund, that most of the time it feels like each sentence in the novel carries the plot forward significantly.

There’s no particular reason for this to stand in the way of characterization, but it does. The harried reader is kept

so busy keeping up with plot dilations and twists, and changes in point of view across the book’s four sections despite the fact that the narration is always in the first person, that it often feels like keeping track of the characters is as important as engaging with their respective interiorities.

The picaresque nature of the story, compounded by the density of its details, becomes numbing. It turns out that 340 pages is a long time to hang on with only hints, constant and numerous as they are, at what’s going on. It’s a hard climb for little payoff.

The cast

The reader is dealt a manageable cast of characters, but all of them first have to overcome a certain

Cultural exchange

by Jim Piechota

M

anhattan novelist S.W. Leicher’s second novel, “Acts of Atonement,” picks up where her debut, 2018’s “Acts of Assumption,” left off, featuring Serach Gottesman and Paloma Rodriguez, two women from disparate cultural backgrounds who embark upon a loving lesbian relationship against all odds.

Readers familiar with Leicher’s first novel will recall both women finding love despite their cultural differences: Serach is a Jewish accountant, raised strictly Orthodox, but estranged from her family as the eldest daughter after coming out, while Paloma, a Latina nurse, is Colombian American from the South Bronx.

Their serene unmarried life together extends across many years while living in a large home in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park that Paloma inherited from an opera diva. The pair live with their gay concert pianist housemate, Frank, who is colorful and gregarious in ways the women are not.

Now, in 2018, what remains unresolved is the simmering

Personals

t

implausibility. Chief contender for main character is the Staten Island mosque’s eccentric imam, Salim. When we meet him he is the adoptive father of three boys of different national backgrounds, Nigerian Dayo, Korean Iseul, and the generically Semitic (as he would have it) Youssef. The sections Youssef narrates are addressed to a particular “you,” who turns out to be Ruhi, Iseul’s daughter, for reasons that are less than clear.

Youssef ’s circumstances most directly correlate to Khalid’s, yielding in him the most complex character cluster. Predominantly, there’s the Brother of the novel’s title, who is a shape-shifting, species-changing character double who alternately

The mysteries of Salim’s Staten Island life coalesce around the fact that he regularly sees another man, Adam, for alfresco sex after dark. Youssef, too, is gay, although his character is less constellated around that fact.

Still, the gay characters ring true in a way their counterparts do not, or do not reliably. It seems likely that if Khalid, who is gay, had done more with these gay characters than outline their outsider status in their Muslim communities and make patent the risks they take in acting on their homosexual desires, the resulting story might be richer yet.

All the characters of consequence are Muslim. For Khalid this is such a matter of fact that everything from foodstuffs to religious rites are given their Arabic names without further elaboration.

The problem with writing as hallucinatory as “Brother Alive” at its most characteristic is that, after time, even hallucinations become tedious. Similarly, its polemical deconstruction of evil capitalism and its discontents seems formulaic and hollow.

As dazzling as this writing is, it creates a hunger for something more stick-to-the-ribs. What Khalid has demonstrated beyond question is that there is more, perhaps even much more, where this came from.t ‘Brother Alive’ by Zain Khalid; Grove Press, 338 pages, $26 www.groveatlantic.com

S.W. Leicher’s ‘Acts of Atonement’

animosity felt by both women toward their families. Paloma’s mother is overbearing and disapproving, but her brother Manny and his family visit regularly and with much fanfare, until a secret upends their relationship.

Serach is troubled as well. She has essentially been disowned by her family for being lesbian, which clashes with her Jewish Orthodox roots. She now finds herself ghosted by her brother, Shmuely, who had previously been friendly with her.

The death of Serach’s mother reunites the family, but with disastrous results as Serach sinks into a deep depressive state of grief while Paloma tries to sooth her partner’s broken heart.

Charatcer confrontations

There is a lot going on in these pages and these intimate conditions set the story up for intense character confrontations and dives deep into intensely personal dilemmas. The narrative looks at each issue from a variety of angles and perspectives, which readers will welcome and appreciate.

A notable peripheral character is

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Author S.W. Leicher

Frayda Goldblatt, who was Serach’s good friend in the past and whom she has decided to reunite with.

Their newfound friendship becomes complex as well but is an engrossing relationship to observe.

Leicher’s narrative also delves into the issue of cultural machismo and how that kind of overbearing masculine behavior causes riffs within both of the women’s lives. Paloma, for example, bears the weight of her auto body shop owner brother Manny’s insistence to teach his mildly disabled son how to shoot a gun in order to defend himself against bullies who consider him a “walking target.”

Leicher draws from her own bicultural Bronx upbringing in a Lati-

na and Jewish household to lend the novel authenticity and great cultural awareness. Despite a melting pot of themes including mental illness, cultural reclamation, familial strife, and the defense of equality, the author deftly manages to keep all these plates spinning in tandem while retaining the story’s momentum and its uncanny sense of urgency.

Leicher, a married woman, believes “we are all somewhat genderand sexually-fluid,” and impressively strikes a fine balance between the interpersonal melodrama of daily life and the ebb and flow of a contemporary lesbian coupling strained by relationship dynamics and bruised by family discord and cultural unrest.

Employing emotion and a bevy of unique and outspoken characters, this novel is best suited to readers who enjoy their fiction interwoven with aspects of religious credence, social justice, and cultural relevance, all secured with a fitting bittersweet ending, of course.t ‘Acts of Atonement’ by S.W. Leicher $19.95 Twisted Road Publications www.twistedroadpublications.com S.W. Leicher will sign copies and discuss “Acts of Atonement” at Books Inc. in Laurel Village, 3515 California Street, San Francisco on Thursday, July 21 at 7:00 p.m. www.booksinc.net/SFLaurel

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<< Music

18 • Bay Area Repor ter • July 14-20, 2022

Q-Music: Taking cover

by Gregg Shapiro

O

ne of the great delights of listening to music is hearing the way a singer interprets a song written by someone else. How close they stick to the original version or how far they deviate is always a joy to behold. When a singer/songwriter performs a rendition of another songwriter’s creation, that takes the listening experience to a new level.

Depending on how long you’ve been listening to music, Colin Hay may be better known to you as a solo performer than as the former frontman of the short-lived and Grammy Award-winning (the cursed Best New Artist award) Aussie band Men At Work (“Who Can It Be Now?” and, fittingly, “Down Under”).

Men At Work had four full-length albums to its name. Hay, on the other hand, can boast more than a dozen albums, including his latest, “I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself ” (Compass). If you couldn’t guess from the title, a song

made popular by the late lesbian diva Dusty Springfield, Hay’s record consists of cover tunes.

In its acoustic setting, his cover of the title tune easily captures the dramatic impact of the original. His readings of The Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset” and Glen Campbell’s Jimmy Webb-penned hit “Wichita Lineman” are equally respectful.

As you can tell from these song titles, the main focus of the album is 1960s pop, including a pair of Beatles numbers, as well as Gerry and the Pacemakers’ “Don’t Let The Sun (Catch You Crying)” and Jimmy Cliff ’s “Many Rivers to Cross.” One exception is the underrated Del Amitri’s “Driving With The Brakes On,” which is a welcome addition to the line-up.

Like Colin Hay, Jennifer Nettles is perhaps best known as a member of a band; she’s the lead vocalist of contemporary country act Sugarland. Since 2014, Nettles has been releasing solo albums of mostly original compositions and songs she co-wrote.

The utterly unexpected “Always Like New” (Concord) finds her moving in an entirely new direction; the 10 songs are Nettles’ interpretations of Broadway show tunes. A first-rate belter, Nettles is

more than up to the task, and the album is a pleasant surprise.

With arrangements by Grammy and Tony Award-winner Alex Lacamoire, Nettles digs deep into the stage musical songbook performing endearing renderings of “Anyone Can Whistle,” “Almost Like Being in Love,” “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” and “Tomorrow.”

Wisely, Nettles includes songs from modern musicals including “It All Fades Away” (from “The Bridges of Madison County”), presented as a stunning duet with Grammywinning queer singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile, and “You Will Be Found” (from “Dear Evan Hansen”).

Even though Grammy-winning band Los Lobos has been releasing acclaimed albums of original songs for more than 40 years, it’s probably going to be forever known for its cover of “La Bamba,” from the Richie Valens biopic of the same name.

More than 20 albums into its lengthy career, Los Lobos returns with “Native Sons” (New West), an

t

album of –you guessed it– cover songs. The band does a fantastic job of leaving its distinctive mark on the 13 tracks included here.

Standouts include the Stephen Stills/Buffalo Springfield medley “Bluebird/For What It’s Worth,” the brassy Percy Mayfield number “Never No More,” Jackson Browne’s “Jamaica Say You Will,” War’s “The World Is A Ghetto,” and the Beach Boys’ “Sail On, Sailor.”

Rebecca Angel may not be as well-known as Los Lobos, Jennifer Nettles or Colin Hay, but she demonstrates her good musical taste by, like Los Lobos, covering Stephen Stills’ timely “For What It’s Worth” on her album “Love Life Choices” (Timeless Grooves).

For “Till Now,” Angel supplied her own lyrics for her take on Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédie No. 1.” She shows off her bossa nova skills with covers of “Corcovado” and “Waters of March,” and you can feel the island breeze blowing through her reading of Bob Marley’s “Waiting In Vain.”t

“Spin the bottle, ride the Rolodex,

and fasten your seatbelt a sweet roller coaster ride.”

– Marc

for

Huestis, film director, author Liam Hemsworth as Thor and Natalie Portman as Jane Foster in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’

<<

Love and Thunder

From page 13

wish, of course, is instant deicide.

The quest recalls Sybok’s quest to reach God in “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” (1989), a bold if ungratifying film. The monsters, though originally designed, are undoubtedly evocative of Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion creatures in their movement, as well as the framing of their movement, largely in part rather than whole, with one leg or one arm coming into the frame but rarely entire bodies.

eruption from Waititi, co-star Tessa Thompson, and the premiere audience.

She’s mostly wrong.

Sure, it’s probably the hardest to reedit for countries like Saudia Arabia that do not permit LGBTQ depictions on screen, but they could still rather easily prepare a queer-free version of the film if they so desired. The

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Speaking of bodies, many fans and some critics seem to think Waititi normalizes queer bodies. For them, his filmmaking decisions and stylistic choices, as well as his personal demeanor, scream “Queer!”

In a press event preceding the theatrical release of “Thor: Love and Thunder,” the now famously muscular Natalie Portman was asked how gay the movie is. “So gay,” she responded after a smiling pause, causing an

Christian Bale as Gore the God Butcher in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’

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Shopping>>

July 14-20, 2022 • Bay Area Repor ter • 19

Arts & Crafts Fair @ Oasis photos by Steven Underhill

P

ottery, woodwork and glamorous couture were among the items showcased and for sale at the Arts & Crafts Fair, held July 10 at SF Oasis (298 11th St.). Along with drinks and entertainment, we spotted nightlife performers Leigh Crow and Ruby Vixen, cohosts of Dandy cabaret show. www.sfoasis.com Enjoy more nightlife albums at facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife And see more of Steven’s work at www.stevenunderhill.com

a playful Hemsworth butt shot, and a distasteful dead-naming scene all fit into queer-adjacent camp at the least.

But, as noted, Portman was mostly wrong. The nods are just nods.

Gays, gods, villains

Tessa Thompson as King Valkyrie in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’

screenplay, written in part by HBO’s “Unpregnant” creator Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, nudges queer culture more than any other mainstream Disney property. But Waititi and cinematographer Barry Baz Idoine’s camera don’t back up the story.

Thompson’s Valkyrie, with her sculpted biceps and series of outfits bound to drive Marvel’s WLW fans crazy, is bisexual like the actor that plays her. She teases Hemsworth’s Thor that they are both on “Team Jane,” and at one point she even flirtatiously kisses the hand of one of Zeus’s (Russell Crowe) court maidens, a gesture perfectly aligned with the queer history of pirates on film, including the space swashbucklers.

Other characters and story developments also nod in a similar direction. Korg (the rock creature voiced by Waititi) reveals in his loud whisper of a voice that his species, the Kronans, reproduce via a same-sex couple holding hands over lava, which in turn makes pebble babies. The magical transporting rainbow bridge,

Thor accidentally puts a spell (or curse, depending on perspective) on the war hammer to protect her if something happens to him. And as such, dying of stage-four cancer, Foster is saved through the mythical power of a heterosexual love with Thor via an enchanted Mjolnir.

The camera also uses classical film techniques and seemingly avoids queer ones. “Love and Thunder” opens with a ghastly pale Gore the God Butcher praying to a god to deliver his dying daughter from the desert heat of his planet. They don’t answer, she dies, but Gore stumbles into a heavenly oasis littered with gods where a magical god-killing sword happens to be laying on the ground at the feet of its last wielder.

These unsympathetic and cruel

gods slew by Gore, like the pathetic Zeus, are coded as queer through a camp tone. Bright colors, loud theatrically styled acting, and conventionally feminine mannerisms mark them –the villains of the film– as queer. There may even be an argument that the make-up laden Gore –in his sickly fragility, light-sensitive skin, and wife-less romantic situation– unintentionally alludes to people with AIDS. A small caveat here, though, is Waititi’s self-referential style. The New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s used techniques that reminded viewers of the artifice of the screen before them to make evident the potential (straight) messaging at play.

But “Love and Thunder” seems more interested in the humorous effect of self-referential styles than anything thematically more contemplative.

Queer or not, the newest “Thor” packs some pleasantly surprising visuals and creative choices, and not all of which are dependent on the naturally libidinous cast.t

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Liam Hemsworth as Thor and Taika Waititi as Korg in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’

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