June 27, 2019 edition of the Bay Area Reporter, America's highest circulation LGBTQ weekly

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

Vol. 49 • No. 26 • June 27-July 3, 2019

Photo: Rick Gerharter / Illustration: Ernesto Sopprani

J

Five decades 0f queer rebellion

une 28 marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion, when LGBT patrons at the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s Greenwich Village finally had had enough of police harassment and fought back against another raid on the bar. While there were prior riots and demonstrations, that 1969 multi-day uprising sparked the birth of the modern gay rights movement. Standing up to police bullies inspired those protesters to continue to speak out against stigmatization and discrimination, promote selfpride and demand equal rights.

Public marches held on the anniversary of the riots were the world’s first LGBT Pride parades.

Gilbert Baker stands in the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda in front of a rainbow flag he created during the 2015 Pride VIP party.

Steven Underhill

Despite all of the challenges we’ve faced since then, the LGBT community is still here, larger and stronger than ever.

We’ve made incredible progress in a short period, but the fight for equality continues – sometimes it’s as simple as living our lives honestly and with integrity. Some of these stories are featured in our Pride section, including an excerpt from the late Gilbert Baker’s memoir. Baker, who cocreated the iconic rainbow flag, was a key figure in San Francisco Pride events for many years.

Although our marches have evolved into corporate-sponsored parades (a blessing and a curse), we should not – and do not – forget that our celebrations in the present are rooted in the protests of the past. t

<< Pride 2019

2 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

t

‘Beach Blanket’ prepares to hang up its hats

by Jim Gladstone Happy trails to you, until we meet again ...

T

hose upbeat lyrics, sung during the grand finale of “Beach Blanket Babylon,” have long rung true for the revue’s loyal audience members. Over the unprecedented 45-year run of San Francisco’s sui generis musical spoof, hardcore fans have returned to the show again and again, delighting in the continually changing array of pop cultural targets caught in the irreverent revue’s Nerf gun crosshairs.

But “until we meet again” is no longer an open-ended proposition between the landmark show’s fans and performers. At 4 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, producer and writer Jo Schuman Silver gathered the show’s company in the basement wig and costume workshop that doubles as its green room and announced that “Beach Blanket Babylon’s” own long and storied trail was coming to its end.

After over four decades and 17,000 performances for over 6.5 million audience members, the eccentric, world-renowned San Francisco institution will take its final bows on New Year’s Eve. “There was shock and disbelief and sadness and confusion,” recalled longtime cast member Curt Branom, 57, a gay man who did two stints in the show during the 1990s and has been a full-time cast member for the past 17 years, regularly playing the fabulously fey pinkhaired King Louie, one of the iconic staple characters. “It was hard to go on that night.”

“It was a complete surprise,” said Tim Santry, a gay man who has designed thousands of wigs since joining the company in 2006. (Among his favorite creations, he counts a

Courtesy Beach Blanket Babylon

“Beach Blanket Babylon” spoofs Russian President Vladimir Putin, center.

massive Sia wig accented with a tiny puppy dog head and a Princess Leia ‘do, heavy on the cinnamon rolls.)

“But that’s the nature of the theater business,” Santry, 60, said in an interview. “You hope it will run forever. I was hoping to retire from this job. But anything can close at any time.”

Schuman Silver, who’s in her 60s, said she has long contemplated the show’s end.

“I started thinking about this three years ago,” explained Schuman Silver – widow of “Beach Blanket Babylon” creator Steve Silver – in a phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter, emphasizing that the closure is not motivated by a dip in ticket sales (unsurprisingly, the box office has recently been swamped by orders for the final few months of performances).

“Steve always told me I’d know when it was time,” she said. “I wanted the show to go out strong. And I didn’t want to hand it off to be run by anyone else, because I couldn’t be sure it would stay true to Steve’s vision.”

Early beginnings

That vision stems from Silver’s time as a graduate student in the fine arts department at San Jose State University, when he started to develop the kitschy carnival aesthetic that informs “Beach Blanket Babylon’s” enormous hats and wigs, cornpone puns, and playful, never mean-spirited embrace of the news of the day.

An impresario of guerilla street theater long before the term “flash mob” was coined, Silver would lead fellow students on field trips to welltouristed areas of San Francisco where they would sing and dance for donations, dressed in outlandish costumes including the anthropomorphic Christmas trees that ultimately became a show fixture. These routines evolved into a post-graduate business called Rent-A-Freak, which provided oddball costumed characters to add a bit of weirdo San Francisco flair to society functions.

A post-graduate Silver also worked as an assistant art director on the locally filmed “Harold and Maude”

Courtesy Beach Blanket Babylon

Curt Branom portrays King Louie in “Beach Blanket Babylon.”

and became an in-house event producer at the American Conservatory Theater.

In 1974, Silver booked Beach Blanket Babylon – an expanded indoor version of his earlier street performances – into North Beach’s now defunct Savoy Tivoli cafe for what was originally scheduled to be two weekends of late night performances. A word-of-mouth success from the get-go, the show moved to another nearby venue, Club Olympus, before settling into Club Fugazi where it’s run and grown since 1975, with spin-off productions and special events mounted in Las Vegas, London, and Davies Symphony Hall along the way.

(The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra’s Michael Tilson Thomas, a gay man, has said he tries to see “Beach Blanket Babylon” at least once a year, often with out-of-town guests in tow).

“Thank God for the gay community,” said Schuman Silver. “I wasn’t there at the very beginning, but from everything I’ve heard, that’s who spread the word about those first midnight shows. It’s the best audiences in the world. We’ve been intertwined, going through stuff together from the very beginning.”

Schuman Silver has pursued Silver’s creative vision with loyal, joyful dedication since her husband died of AIDS at age 51, 24 years ago this month. Kindred spirits, the pair became fast friends upon meeting in 1982, not long after Schuman, a New York socialite recently transplanted to San Francisco, first saw “Beach Blanket Babylon.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” she recalled.

“The humor, the costumes. I felt like it was made for me. I wrote Steve a gushing four-page fan letter, but I See page 14 >>

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<< Pride 2019

t Confab shows growing interest in queer history 4 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

by Heather Cassell

“It’s not surprising to me; it almost feels like it is time,” she said of the conference’s diversity. “I do feel like there is not a lot of people doing it and I wish that there was more.

“We’ve always been making queer history,” she added, noting ways that people of color have recorded and passed down their stories through song and art. “There’s always been stories being told.”

H

alf a century after the Stonewall riots ignited a community that had long lived in the shadows, LGBT historians from around the world gathered in San Francisco for the Queer History Conference last week.

Up to 300 historians representing academics, archivists, the National Park Service, and individuals interested in queer history met at San Francisco State University and at select venues throughout the city for the Committee on LGBT History’s first national conference June 16-18. The committee is an affiliate society of the American Historical Association.

The attendance exceeded expectations of co-chairs and academics Amy Sueyoshi, Ph.D., and Nick Syrett, Ph.D. It highlighted the number of people now working in the field and on projects, and for the need for gatherings of this type.

Sueyoshi, 48, is dean of the College of Ethnic Studies at SFSU and uses they/them pronouns. Sueyoshi were particularly excited because, until recently at least, “queer history is deemed marginal” in the field and as a profession, they said.

“I’m actually quite relieved and grateful that people think that history is so compelling,” said Sueyoshi, who identifies as queer. “I think in the past, as a discipline, history has been seen as something as boring and dull. The fact that we’ve been able to attract international attention is quite moving.”

Syrett, a 44-year-old gay man who is a professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Kansas, added, “It demonstrates the real growth of the field and that there is a really growing interest in queer history.”

Others pointed out that more and more communities are beginning to appreciate their history.

International aspect

The international aspect was “perhaps unique about this conference,” added Syrett.

“We have people giving papers and presentations representing all continents, with the exception of Antarctica,” he said.

The conference featured 45 panel discussions with 175 panelists covering more than 500 years of queer history.

“We should be exposed to the reality of the diverse society that we live in,” said Sueyoshi, adding that it’s “not just diversity for diversity’s sake.”

“Think about history in terms of social justice movements and ways to empower oneself as well as histories of inequality,” they said. “It’s another lens which we can think about how to form a better America.”

Panel discussions covered a wide variety of subjects such as pornography, relationships between older and younger men, HIV/AIDS, colonialism, activism, LGBT people of color, religion, youth, and more.

The GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco co-hosted the conference and sponsored the opening ceremony and an inside look at the society.

The James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center at the San Francisco Public Library hosted the conference’s closing ceremony.

Rick Gerharter

Panelists GVGK Tang and Andrew Jolivétte, left, joined moderator Sylvea Hollis and panelist Susy Zepeda on the “Reclamation & Resistance: The Making of Grassroots QTPOC Histories” panel at the 2019 Queer History Conference.

“We know that people are craving this information. There are so many grassroots archives that have started and popped up around the country,” Jennifer C. Gregg, the 40-something lesbian who is the executive director of the ONE Archives Foundation in Los Angeles, pointed out.

“Helping to provide them with support and then learning how we can push our history out to a broader audience is, I think, really vital,” she added.

Sueyoshi was pleased by the presence of people of color at the conference while Syrett was excited about the international panel discussions.

They were both thrilled about the sessions for educators.

“We have a really vibrant K-12 teacher track at the conference where social studies and history teachers in high school and middle school are learning queer history,” said Syrett.

In California, education officials in 2017 approved for use a number of textbooks that included lessons on

LGBT history. But, as the Bay Area Reporter noted in an article last year, the rollout of the textbooks has been slow, with few districts purchasing them. Nevertheless, LGBT history is being taught to schoolchildren throughout the state as school districts use other materials to incorporate the lessons into their curriculums. Other states are now following suit, such as New Jersey.

Sueyoshi was delighted to see the turnout of people of color, both as panelists and attendees, particularly because the university’s ethnic studies department was hosting the conference.

“I would like to see more to be very frank,” said Sueyoshi. “I hope that more histories of queers of color would come out [and] more scholars of color would come out to this.”

Susy Zepeda, a 42-year-old queer Chicana lesbian, spoke on the “Reclamation & Resistance: The Making of Grassroots QTPOC Histories” panel at the conference.

Historical gathering

LGBT historians expressed the importance of the conference providing a space for them to be able to come together to discuss queer history, share their ideas, see friends, and make new friends and potential project collaborators.

“It’s really important for us to forge a network and create a community where we can all feel supported and valued and have an exchange of ideas,” said Sueyoshi, pointing out that many queer historians don’t feel recognized or valued at their universities for their work. “That’s super important to me.”

Andrew Jolivétte, Ph.D., a 44-yearold gay author and professor at SFSU, was also a panelist for the “Reclamation & Resistance” discussion. For him, the conference was about seeing friends and meeting new colleagues in the field and to “really learn more about people’s work and what they are doing and eventually collaborating with people.”

“I think that [if] we have more spaces like this to come together, it helps with networking, advice, tips, strategies, [and] building communities to do more of this type of work,” he said.

Sueyoshi hoped that the conference, which cost about $8,000 to produce, fulfilled its mission to “build both community as well as stimulate inquiry.”

Syrett anticipated that there will be more queer history conferences, either organized by the committee or other organizations. He and Sueyoshi said that the committee was already discussing plans for the next gathering.

“There is more and more demand for queer history in middle and high schools, but also at colleges and universities,” Syrett said, noting that more graduate students’ dissertations are focused on queer history. “As the field grows there’s just going to be more and more people interested in attending conferences like this one.” t

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<< Pride 2019

t Russian River Sisters bring their joy to North Bay 6 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

by Charlie Wagner

out for a good time, and we’d soon get bored and stop ‘goofing off,’” she said.

But when Sisters started working with local schools and seniors, those doubts began to fade.

T

he Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have been a steady force in Guerneville, sparking joy, as is their mission, while gaining acceptance for both themselves and the greater LGBT community in a rural area that’s about an hour and a half north of San Francisco.

It wasn’t always easy, but in nearly 20 years, the official Russian River Sisters group continues to reach out and help out in Sonoma County, all while maintaining their sense of humor.

A nonprofit, the Sisters are “educators, friends, and advocates for those in need, and comforters for those in distress,” as their website states. Some are gay men, some are “big old lesbians” and at least one identifies as a bisexual woman pirate. All vow to “promulgate universal joy and expiate stigmatic guilt,” as is the creed of the organization that started in San Francisco 40 years ago and now has chapters, or orders, around the world.

The North Bay order of 26 Sisters started in 2001, according to founding member Sister Sparkle Plenty, also known as Jim Longacre, the Saints Chairnun.

Plenty revealed how this order of “secular nuns” has been so successful (and had so much fun) in raising Sonoma County’s community spirit.

Her tales often overlapped with those of three other Russian River Sisters who spoke in person with the Bay Area Reporter. (All wanted to use she/ her pronouns since they were talking in their Sister personas.)

Over the years, the Sisters have helped seniors, schools, and raise HIV/AIDS awareness with smiles, wigs, and fabulous habits.

“Someone came to us and said the Guerneville school needed fundraising help, so we organized an event at a local bar and asked for help,” Plenty,

Attitudes start to change

Charlie Wagner

Members of the Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence appeared on stage just before the start of the June 8 Let’s Play Doctor bingo in Guerneville. In back, from left, Sister Frances A. Sissy, Sister Scarlet Billows, Sister Sparkle Plenty, and Aspirant Sharon da Goods. In middle row, from left, Sister Sorenda ‘da Booty and Sister Bette Sheezahee. In front, from left, Novice Eliza Mench, a visiting Buddhist nun who declined to provide their name, and Guard Ian Avirtue.

67, said. After that successful effort, they heard the Russian River Senior Center in Guerneville was losing a large grant from United Way. “Their executive director worried the center would have to close,” Plenty said. The Sisters worked with the center and the United Way, and ultimately their combined efforts replaced all the lost funding.

Tim Miller, executive director of West County Community Services, which runs the senior center, wrote in an email that the center has received funds multiple times from the Sisters over the years.

“One of the most effective, and inarguably the most colorful, community fundraising forces in the

lower Russian River is our local Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” he wrote. “Schools, health care, housing, environmental, and social justice organizations have all benefited from their energy and fundraising prowess.”

Others in the group include Sister Domestica Fairs, 44, a gay man also known as Joseph Bullock. She’s the board president and mistress of ceremonies. Fairs professed as a Sister in 1999 while living in Iowa, and joined the Russian River order in 2002.

Sister Sara Femme Fatale, 52, also known as Angelique Rivera, is the self-described “big old lesbian.” She’s the board vice president as well as the grants chair and the mistress of nov-

ices, archives, and habits. She joined in 2010, and was a Sister in San Francisco before moving to the Russian River.

Sister Sorenda ‘da Booty, 44, the Pirate Nun and a bisexual woman, also joined in 2010. Also known as Melissa Black, she is bingo chairnun and web mistress.

“There were six of us,” Plenty recalled. “We started a ‘condom ministry’ and provided free condoms to local bars. At first we thought, ‘That’s going to be our primary focus.’ But after [George W.] Bush was elected and cut social programs, we realized our community was suffering.”

Plenty remembered some skepticism when the Sisters first showed up.

“They thought the Sisters were just

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“People started looking at us as a group interested in improving everyone’s lives,” Plenty said. As their website states, the order aspires to “make the best interest of the entire community the decisive factor in addressing issues and challenges.”

The San Francisco Sisters had already organized bingo with a “gay twist,” and the Russian River Sisters decided to borrow that idea. In August 2003, Sister Nova organized bingo during Lazy Bear Weekend. It was successful. They held another in September and that went well too.

And so began a monthly tradition that continues today.

In an email, Nova, who’s 65 and also known as Mike Bernard, confirmed that history.

Miller, of West County Community Services, said that Nova serves on the agency’s board.

The Sisters’ bingo games were unusual from the start: Plenty described them as a cross between “’The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ and a church hall bingo.”

Each game attracted more people, but the Sisters noticed something they did not like.

“We had old ladies sitting together, gay people sitting together, and each group in their own section of the room,” Plenty said.

That started to shift as the crowds grew. Plenty observed, “Eventually, they sat next to each other, and started talking, and started sharing baby pictures and recipes. You could see the social barriers dropping.”

See page 17 >>

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<< Pride 2019

t SF drag kings seek their heritage at Stonewall 50 8 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

by Meg Elison

W

hile the eyes of the nation often turn to San Francisco in June for the definitive Pride celebration, some of the people who define Pride for the city are celebrating on the East Coast this year.

2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in 1969; the turning point in queer American history when patrons of the historic bar in Greenwich Village fought back against ongoing homophobic and transphobic police harassment, searches, and raids.

A local drag king group is thrilled to be one of the contingents heading east, both to commemorate the anniversary and to connect with their antecedents.

“I want to be at Stonewall because I want to stand there and breathe it in,” Kaylah Marin said in a recent phone interview. The Bay Area Reporter reached out to Marin, a queer woman and part of Momma’s Boyz, a performance and musical group of drag kings of color, to ask about their plans to appear at New York Pride and celebrate the historic anniversary this year.

Marin, who has been performing with Momma’s Boyz for 10 years, expressed a deep personal and cultural connection to the iconic events at Stonewall.

“I want to be there to be part of history, and to be one of many. People are using history to empower their present. I’m seeing this movement among the youth. I don’t want to bog them down with all the struggle that we had,” said Marin, who declined to share her age.

That tension between moving forward and honoring the past is also of particular interest to Alex U. Inn, the founder and creator of Momma’s Boyz, and a queer nonbinary woman who uses they/them pronouns.

Inn expressed similar feelings

Courtesy Momma’s Boyz

Momma’s Boyz frontman Alex U. Inn, left, and Kaylah Marin look forward to taking part in Stonewall 50 activities in New York City.

about taking the group to New York to participate in the Stonewall 50th commemoration rally, as well as at Stonewall 50/World Pride. The march takes place Sunday, June 30, and will pass in front of the Stonewall Inn, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2000. In 2016, then-President Barack Obama announced the establishment of the Stonewall National Monument site, which is administered by the National Park Service.

“I represent a lot of different things on the president’s hate spectrum,” Inn said in a phone interview, referring to current President Donald Trump.

“I’m queer, I’m a woman, I’m over 40, I have a disability, my skin is dark, and my hair is curly.

“I’m not allowed to feel safe in my own country, my own city,” they added. “I’ve been called a [N-word] to my

face four times in San Francisco since he took office. It’s like he handed these people a blank check. He’s brought them all out of hiding. So I understand why the violence of Stonewall had to exist.”

Inn talked about why the Stonewall story is crucial to queer history.

“One story that many people don’t know helps to explain why it’s so important that people like us continue to be there. One of the first arrests at Stonewall was a drag king, and she asked the crowd ‘Why aren’t you doing something?’ It was a rallying cry, and that’s when things started to fly.

It was Stormé DeLarverie, who was arrested that day. And we take our heritage from her. We’re representing a rich heritage of being of African descent, butch, masculine-of-center folks. Drag kings,” Inn said.

DeLarverie died in 2014 at age 93.

Heritage

That heritage was also the driving force behind the creation of Momma’s Boyz, which Inn started back in 2004.

“At the time that we came to be, there were these other boy-bandish groups,” said Inn, recalling the early-aughts drag culture in San Francisco. “I had noticed that although you could see drag queens anytime, you hardly ever saw drag kings on stage. And the ones you did see were white. There was a bunch of us that were performing individually, so we decided to form a group to get more stage time for drag kings of color.

“Back then, I could count the number of us on one hand. We worked on creating a presence, and having a group helps you make a name and associate it with performances of quality. We held fund-

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raisers and different shows to get noticed. We did a king switch: drag queens came in male drag, we went in femme drag and sang duets. We started doing that every year, going forward,” said Inn, describing the early days of the group.

Momma’s Boyz evolved out of that beginning to produce something more rare: live original music performances.

“Then we asked ourselves why we were lip-synching when we could perform live,” Inn said.

“That brought a whole new vibe to the drag king world. We got invited to the Chicago International Drag King Extravaganza in 2004.

At that time, we had five members.

Right now, we have three Momma’s Boyz, and up to four dancers for our shows.”

Momma’s Boyz has performed at the B.A.R.’s Besties readers’ poll parties, where it was also recognized for best drag king group.

Sister Roma, a 56-year-old genderqueer drag queen and 20-year member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, spoke with the B.A.R about Momma’s Boyz via Twitter direct message.

“I believe the first time I saw Momma’s Boyz was when I was hosting the San Francisco drag king contest [2017] with my good friend and drag king Fudgie Frottage,” Roma wrote. “I’d never seen a group of kings of color perform classic hip-hop hits that I’ve loved for years. I couldn’t stop dancing and I was blown away by their talent.”

Roma said that she and Inn have worked together supporting various causes.

“I know they will put on one hell of a show and represent San Francisco beautifully at World Pride,” Roma added.

See page 18 >>

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<< Pride 2019

t ‘Queer California’ exhibit shows off state’s history 10 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

by Cynthia Laird

A

rriving at the “Queer California: Untold Stories” exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California one recent weekday afternoon, the faint, familiar sound of Sylvester’s “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” could be heard coming from MOTHA, a minimuseum set up inside the larger exhibit. The Museum of Trans Hirstory and Art, as it’s formally known, is a tribute to trans people and others who have challenged gender norms like Lou Sullivan, Jose Julio Sarria, Miss Major, and the aforementioned disco star.

Chris Vargas, 41, executive director of MOTHA and a trans man, was a collaborator on the “Queer California” exhibit and said at the media preview in April that he developed the online museum as a way to “create an inclusive canon” of trans and genderqueer history.

In the physical MOTHA, he said that he used wallpaper in an attempt to bring in more stories.

On the wallpaper are the names of bars like Aunt Charlie’s Lounge and the now-shuttered Esta Noche in San Francisco, the Trans March, and organizations like St. James Infirmary, which provides services to sex workers.

There is a pair of stilettos worn

by Miss Major, a longtime trans activist and former Bay Area resident.

He said there’s a lot for visitors to take away from MOTHA. “So many converging and diverging histories,” he said. “There’s lots of disagreement.”

The pop-up museum is just one part of “Queer California,” which runs through August 11. And while there are some stories that are not as familiar to most LG-

BTs, others are, such as the rainbow flag that welcomes visitors to the Great Hall that is home to the exhibit. While it’s a universal symbol of Pride, not everyone knows about its complicated history.

The museum does a service by acknowledging in the wall text that the late Gilbert Baker co-created it with his friends Lynn Segerblom (then known as Faerie Argyle Rainbow) and James McNamara back in 1978. Baker died in 2017; McNamara died of AIDS in 1999.

Segerblom, a straight woman, lives in southern California and for the past year and a half has tried to publicize her involvement with creating the first rainbow flags that flew in San Francisco during the 1978 Pride parade. (Those flags were different than the recognizable six-striped one that is on display at the museum, and with which most people are familiar.)

Opposite the rainbow flag is one that echoes the trans flag, except that the usual white stripe is gray.

It was created by Amanda Curreri, 41, a queer artist and educator living in Cincinnati, Ohio. She told the Bay Area Reporter that she made it in 2013.

“It’s different but shares with the trans flag,” she said in an interview. “I often work with flags and symbols.”

Curreri, who used to live in San Francisco, said she was especially proud to be in the exhibition and likes her flag’s placement in proximity to the more famous one.

“It’s a dream to be in conversation with the Pride flag. It complicates it, maybe,” she said. “I want to engage tension, not antagonism.”

Her flag, she explained, was hand-dyed (like many rainbow flags Baker and his friends made,

Rick Gerharter

A timeline showing significant events in queer history is part of the Oakland Museum of California’s exhibit “Queer California: Untold Stories.”

and which Baker continued to make for special occasions until his passing).

“It’s meant to be a little rough,” Curreri said.

Long time coming

Lori Fogarty, OMCA director and CEO, told reporters at the preview that this year “seemed like the moment” to mount the exhibition.

“We’ve talked about doing an exhibit of LGBTs for a long time,” she said. “We’re lifting up these stories and celebrating these stories that are often untold: communities of color, women, and the trans community.”

And, she said, all visitors will gain something from it.

“No matter their sexual orientation or gender identity, everyone can feel a sense of safety and belonging,” Fogarty explained.

And learning. For example, there’s a display of old articles

Rick Gerharter

Artist Amanda Curreri talks about her flag creation during a media preview of “Queer California: Untold Stories” at the Oakland Museum of California.

about a California Gay Liberation Front chapter that wanted to start a community in tiny Alpine County in northern California about a year after Stonewall. The group

was not able to win much support, and, after realizing the harsh winters in the area, abandoned the project after about a year.

See page 18 >>

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Pride 2019>>

June 27-July 3, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 11

Making a rainbow out of cloth

by Gilbert Baker The morning of June 25, 1978, the San Francisco Gay parade. gay attorney named Walter Caplan owned a small wedge of a building that faced directly onto United Nations Plaza. He was Harvey Milk’s lawyer and had some other city connections, and I had asked him to help me get access to the flagpoles.

The ropes were on the inside of the pole so vandals wouldn’t be able to cut them. Walter was waiting for us when I arrived with Cleve [Jones] and a few friends. He held a little crank handle in his hands, mysteriously delivered to him by the Parks and Recreation Department.

Each flag was raised by means of a small wind-up spool that was behind a small locked door set into the base of the flagpole. Walter cranked the tiny ratchet as everyone held the first flag close to the pole. It was starting to blow open and you could see Faerie’s [Rainbow] field of tie-dyed stars, exploding overhead. Walter kept cranking.

It went up higher and higher and got more impossible to hold onto. When the first breeze came up, it sailed out of our hands and rippled open.

Though fifty feet up the flagpole, the rainbow banner was still touching the ground, slashing back and forth across the brick pavement. We let it go so we could help Walter crank it up to the top. It took the combined strength of all of us; there was a blur of hands in a wild rowing motion as the flag began its ascent. The ratchet gizmo burned our hands.

The Rainbow Flag began snapping loudly in the wind. I never imagined a flag could make such a sound. ...

People looked skyward to see the Rainbow Flags, their hands reaching up and their mouths open in astonishment. The winds blasted the banners so they strained against the cables. I expected them at any moment to blow away and go sailing up Market Street through a canyon of skyscrapers.

Our feet were dancing on air as we swirled our way up Market Street to where the parade was about to start.

Church bells rang out at eleven o’clock as a roar of motorcycles erupted from the Dykes on Bikes contingent, scheduled to lead the parade to city hall. We were so stoned, we could feel the sound waves hitting us. There were hundreds of lesbian bikers, including Glenne McElhinney – wild women having a good time on the ultimate symbol of machine sexuality, the motorcycle.

Some of them were topless. The butch factor had hit a new zenith, offset by a few Cinderellas and lipstick goddesses.

As we sashayed through the middle of them, the Dykes on Bikes whistled their appreciation for our sartorial splendor. Then they revved their engines into a crescendo and roared off.

We just screamed our lungs out.

Suddenly, we were swept up in a tide

A

Rick Gerharter

Gilbert Baker holds an eightcolored rainbow flag during a panel discussion in San Francisco in 2012.

of flesh. Celeste Newbrough and the parade committee came pushing up from behind. Cleve Jones and sex worker rights advocate Priscilla Alexander were both dressed in white, like suffragettes.

They were carrying a large banner I’d created with Cleve that read, “A Simple Matter of Justice.” Behind them was a contingent of marching fists thrusting up to a chant of “The people united will never be defeated,” loud enough that the windows vibrated on the buildings. Off in the distance, we could see City Supervisor Harvey Milk sitting on top of a convertible, draped with garlands and Hawaiian leis.

We opened up the piece of flag that had been cut away when we patched in Faerie’s field of stars. As we carried it down the street, the crowd began tossing money at us and making wishes. A bizarre barrage of glittering coins flew all around us, some splashing onto the street. Drag queens approached and spread flowers in front of our footsteps. All these people understood what we had worked so hard to create and what it was all about.

We laughed until we cried.

We made our way slowly through the throngs and got to United Nations Plaza, where we looked up to see the Rainbow Flags flicking and flying out over Market Street, like giant tongues of color licking the crowd. We listened to them crackle and pop. The Chinese muslin was thin enough to be slightly transparent in the sun. We had made a rainbow out of cloth. ...

Around three o’clock, we joined Cleve as Harvey got up to speak on a flower-lined stage set up in front of city hall. He talked about a kid from Altoona [Pennsylvania] who had called his office, desperate for support.

Harvey reminded us how too many young people were trapped in desperate lives that ended in suicide. Harvey said we have to live our lives openly to inspire those suffering under oppression. “You’ve got to give them hope and hope and hope,” he cried out. We believed him.

Cleve and I climbed on top of a big

Rick Gerharter

Gilbert Baker greeted paradegoers along the San Francisco Pride parade route in June 2015.

white truck and smoked a joint just as Sylvester took the stage. Sylvester was a big black drag queen who had a voice to rival Aretha Franklin. He had begun singing Billie Holiday songs as

one of the Cockettes but then went disco. As he began singing his national hit, “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real),” Cleve and I danced along.

“You know this is really fucking

great, Gilbert,” Cleve said, suddenly getting serious.

“Yeah, well, it is pretty fabulous. All these people, Harvey, and everything.”

“No, I mean what you’ve done is beautiful. It’s history. A gay flag. Harvey’s really proud of you.”

“I’m proud of you, Cleve. It would never have happened without you and all the others.” I hugged him and Cleve hugged back. “Brothers, then?”

“Brothers in arms!” Cleve shouted skyward toward the Rainbow Flags flying in the distance. He lit up another joint with great flourish and handed it to me, pledging, “Comrades! The people united will never be defeated.” ... t Editor’s note: This is a condensed excerpt – Chapter 5: Stitching a Rainbow – from Gilbert Baker’s posthumous memoir, “Rainbow Warrior: My Life in Color,” published this month by Chicago Review Press. Used with permission.

To purchase the book, visit https:// bit.ly/2Wdf13w

Bay Area Reporter WE SALUTE YOU AND CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE STONEWALL UPRISING, AS WELL AS SERVING AS AMERICA’S LONGEST CONTINUOUSLY-PUBLISHED AND HIGHEST CIRCULATION

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Gilbert Baker was a lifetime achievement honoree at the 2011 Palm Springs Pride parade.

<< Pride 2019

t Black recalls mom in his new memoir

12 â&#x20AC;˘ Bay Area Reporter â&#x20AC;˘ June 27-July 3, 2019

by David-Elijah Nahmod

Assemblymember Phil Ting

A

asmdc.org/ting

Assemblymember David Chiu asmdc.org/chiu

Senator Scott Wiener Chair, California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus senate.ca.gov/ wiener

Your San Francisco legislative delegation wishes you a happy LGBTQ Pride Month, formally proclaimed by the California State Legislature in Senate Resolution 44 and House Resolution 41.

It is an honor to represent you in Sacramento.

ASSEMBLY MEMBER

Phil Ting DISTRICT 19

ASSEMBLYMEMBER

David Chiu DISTRICT 17

Our hard fought progress wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be stopped. Like the generations before us, we must continue the ght for equality.

Wishing everyone a wonderful 2019 LGBT Pride Celebration!

DENNIS J. HERRERA San Francisco City Attorney Paid for by Dennis Herrera for City Attorney, 2015.

Financial disclosures available at sfethics.org

cademy Award-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black is famous now, but growing up poor, gay, and Mormon taught him a lot, especially about his relationship with his disabled mother.

Black was at the Marines Memorial Theater in San Francisco recently to promote his new memoir, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Boy: A Story from Our Americasâ&#x20AC;? (Knopf).

Black, 44, is a well-known writer and activist. His 2008 Oscar was awarded to him for penning the screenplay to â&#x20AC;&#x153;Milk,â&#x20AC;? the acclaimed biopic of slain gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk.

Black also wrote â&#x20AC;&#x153;Pedro,â&#x20AC;? a 2008 biopic about Pedro Zamora, the gay star of MTVâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reality series â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Real World.â&#x20AC;?

Zamora died of AIDS-related complications in 1994.

In 2017 Black wrote, co-produced, and co-directed â&#x20AC;&#x153;When We Rise,â&#x20AC;? an eight-hour miniseries for ABC-TV that chronicled the early days of the LGBT equality movement in San Francisco that was partly inspired by the Cleve Jones memoir of the same name. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This feels like coming home,â&#x20AC;? Black said during the late April event. â&#x20AC;&#x153;To see so many familiar faces and people that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve marched with and fought with, it really makes my soul light up tonight.

Thank you all for coming.â&#x20AC;?

Black was interviewed by KQEDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mina Kim, who asked him if he had planned to write about his mom, or if writing about her grew out of the writing process. Black recalled that publishers had asked him if he wanted to write a book, first when he won his Oscar, and a second time after the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This came from conversations with my mom,â&#x20AC;? Black said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As the book says, my mom was paralyzed from polio from age 2.â&#x20AC;?

His father, who was Mormon, â&#x20AC;&#x153;had vanished, probably to inch closer and closer to a fundamentalist style of Mormonism,â&#x20AC;? Black said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My little brother was 2, I was 6, my big brother was 10, and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re raising my mother as much as she was raising us. But my mom was also incredibly conservative, the deck was stacked at the age of 6 when I discovered that I had a big crush on the boy down the street and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not going away.â&#x20AC;?

Black added that he was a supporting player in the book, that it was his motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s story. He referred to her as someone who was curious enough to have the courage to reach out to people across the political divide, including to her own son.

Kim pointed out that Black describes himself in the book as a painfully shy kid with no friends. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In my case, I was well aware that I was being compared to a murderer in church on Sundays,â&#x20AC;? he said, referring to his gayness. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They were believing in a Mormon prophet that compared homosexuality to murder.

I knew what happened to murderers in the afterlife. I knew that gay people did not belong in the military that my mom was so proud of. People like us were criminals. There was not a hopeful future for gay kids.â&#x20AC;?

It was revealed that Black had considered suicide when he was 12. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to come out to her,â&#x20AC;? he said of his mom. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was so terrified.â&#x20AC;?

He grew teary-eyed as he recalled coming out to his mom. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Why did you choose this?â&#x20AC;? she asked him. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Why did you choose those?â&#x20AC;? he asked of the braces she wore due to her polio.

Jane Philomen Cleland

Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black talked about his new memoir during an appearance this spring in San Francisco.

Black shared the story of how he and his mom came to terms with each other, and how she came to accept him. This came about when she met some of his gay friends, who shared their own personal stories with her. â&#x20AC;&#x153;She wrapped her arms around me so incredibly tight that night that I knew not only that my mom loved me, but that she loved every piece of me,â&#x20AC;? he recalled. â&#x20AC;&#x153;One night of personal storytelling erased generations of homophobia in my momâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heart.

And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s one of the main reasons I wanted to write this book.â&#x20AC;?

Black spoke eloquently about the need for people from different communities, and people from different ideologies, to talk to each other and hear each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stories. The final portion of his book, he said, was his personal journey back to family in Texarkana, Texas, to share stories and build bridges. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Go back to your hometowns and have some conversations,â&#x20AC;? he told the audience. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Go back and utilize that most powerful stage that there is in the world, and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the dining room table. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time to go back to some of our hometowns and to have those conversations.

Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re tough, they hurt. But it was hard for my mom too, and she did it.â&#x20AC;?

When asked for a comment by the Bay Area Reporter, Black said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wonderful to be home.â&#x20AC;?

Those who attended the event came away impressed with Black. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was great,â&#x20AC;? said Steve Nordberg, 33, a gay man. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a huge fan of the film â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Milkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; so it was awesome seeing him. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so insightful, authentic, and inspiring.â&#x20AC;?

Others saw parts of themselves in Blackâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s story. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Every story that Lance told tonight took me on a journey where I thought I knew I was going,â&#x20AC;? said Sister Roma of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I ended up in a completely different and surprisingly beautiful place. I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t wait to read the book.â&#x20AC;?

Still others came away impressed. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve heard him before but not as extensively as this,â&#x20AC;? said 75-year-old Linda Lee, who said that she is gay. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The reason I enjoy it so much is because I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know very much about his childhood. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know his mom had polio and I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know about the Mormon connection. I just didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know about his family. I enjoyed it because of all this personal stuff.â&#x20AC;?

Ankur Ahuja, a 26-year-old gay man, thought that Black was downto-earth. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He did a fantastic job at relating a lot of the problems and struggles of the queer community,â&#x20AC;? Ahuja said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was powerful to hear him break through to his family and build a family of his own, despite such different beliefs between him and his mother. Overall, I think heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a very commanding storyteller and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m absolutely thrilled to read and learn from his book.â&#x20AC;?t

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<< Pride 2019

14 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

Your health.

Your voice.

Your community.

Jim Gladstone

Tim Santry has designed thousands of wigs since joining “Beach Blanket Babylon” in 2006.

<<

Connect to health services, find community, and speak out against injustice.

SFAF.ORG

‘Beach Blanket’

From page 2

sent it to the wrong address and it came back in the mail. A few months later, I met him at a dinner party and we just hit it off immediately. Right away, he could see we shared a sensibility, and he started calling me with ideas. ‘What if we put E.T. in the show? What if we try this?’”

The couple formed an emotional bond and a brain trust, working together to burnish the show’s reputation and leveraging its success to support a wide range of charities, including AIDS organizations and arts scholarships. They were married less than a year before Silver died, helping ensure that his life’s work was left in her capable hands.

Over the last 24 years, Schuman Silver has made sure that every outlandish hat, colorful costume and slightly off-color gag that’s made its way into the constantly evolving show has hewed closely to Silver’s visual aesthetic and pun-loving sense of humor. Hundreds of old sketchbook pages filled with his distinctive character concept drawings are constantly used as a reference.

“We always ask,” Schuman Silver said of the show’s creative team, “what would Steve do? How would Steve do this?”

She devours cultural and political news in print, online, and on television every day, generating ideas that are folded into the show with remarkable frequency. New ideas become new lines, new lyrics, new wigs, and new outfits with astonishing speed. Schuman Silver oversees and fine-tunes it all in a never-ending quality control process.

“When Steve passed away, we wondered if it was all over,” Branom said in a phone interview. “Steve was brilliant, not just creatively, but in his attention to detail. And with Jo, he’d put the right person in place and laid the groundwork for his vision to be carried on.”

While cast and crew often suggest ideas for lines or characters, said Branom, they accept Schuman Silver’s final judgment on everything.

“Jo always reminds us that it’s not a democracy,” Branom quipped.

Under Schuman Silver’s stew-

Courtesy Beach Blanket Babylon

Jo Schuman Silver and Steve Silver Untitled-3 1

t

6/11/19 9:22 AM

ardship – along with the essential involvement of longtime colleagues including director Kenny Mazlow (29 years) and musical director Bill Keck (26 years) – “Beach Blanket Babylon” has continued to thrive.

While even today Schuman Silver reflexively deflects kudos for the show’s continued success back to her late husband, she’s now been at the helm for longer than he was.

The future

Schuman Silver has hired a consultant for advice as longtime company members transition back into the working world, but Branom suspects that many will need to move or change careers.

“I’m lucky to have quite a few irons in the fire,” he said. “I’ve been running a nonprofit after school arts program, which will be able to grow now, and I have offers to direct and to teach. But ‘Beach Blanket’ offered some of the only full-time theater jobs in the Bay Area. I don’t see tremendous opportunity here given the economics. So many performers need to work three or four jobs just to cover the cost of living here.”

Silver Schuman was pragmatic.

“Everything evolves,” she said. “‘Beach Blanket Babylon’ was wonderful for the city, and the city was wonderful for us. But there will be some other wonderful thing. How do you think people felt when the Beat Generation faded, or the hippies? Nobody knew we’d have a tech revolution. There is always great stuff ahead.”

For her, in addition to assuring that ‘Beach Blanket’s’ warehousefilling historic archive of costumes, documents, and photography finds proper homes in library or museum collections, Schuman Silver said that she’s pondering a possible radio gig as an outlet for her news-junkiedom but declined to share any specific plans. She doesn’t want to get ahead of herself: From now until the end of the year, there are jokes to write, costumes to conceive, and shows to put on seven times a week (Maybe more. High ticket demand, she said, will likely lead to additional shows around the holidays).

Even as they plan to move on, Santry hopes there will be new wigs to be created up to the final week – “I don’t come here to work,” he said.

“I come to play with glue guns and hair!” – and Branom said there’s a new jolt of electricity on stage.

“Knowing that we’re nearing the end, the audiences are brimming with excitement,” he said. “Just eating the show up. And we’re feeding off of that energy. Its 90 minutes of complete joy.”

Branom said he hopes new political scandals and celebrity brouhahas will generate new characters and gags up to the very end of the run.

“I love a challenge,” he said. “If something is new and funny, we should put it in. Steve wouldn’t want us resting on our laurels.” t “Beach Blanket Babylon” ends its storied run December 31. For tickets, visit https://www.beachblanketbabylon.com/.

t

Pride 2019>>

June 27-July 3, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 15

Book sheds light on gay closeted Eisenhower aide

by Veronica Dolginko

T

he years during and surrounding Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency were some of the most socially conservative this country has ever seen.

It was the time of McCarthyism, segregation, and what came to be known as the Lavender Scare, the concern that the gay population was attempting to warp American values. It’s hard to imagine that anyone who didn’t fit a very narrow prescribed mold would find themself in a position of power.

Yet Robert Cutler, a closeted gay man and the subject of the 2018 book “Ike’s Mystery Man” by Peter Shinkle, worked for years as Eisenhower’s national security adviser and his “right hand man” in foreign policy.

Cutler, known as Bobby to friends and family, is not just some fascination for Shinkle; he’s Shinkle’s great uncle.

“The topic came up once, and my aunt told me he was gay,” Shinkle, an investigative journalist, said during a recent appearance at the Commonwealth Club. “This launched me into a 12-year effort that is this book.”

He said that he was provided with a “treasure trove of documents” by Steven Benedict, a man who once worked alongside Cutler.

“Key in those documents were diaries,” Cutler said, adding that they confirmed what he had been told.

At a taping of the “Michelle Meow Show” at the Commonwealth Club last month, Shinkle discussed Cutler, the time period in which he operated, and the issue of exposing someone else’s secrets.

“The concern was privacy: was I outing him?” Shinkle said. “All my family members said please publish this. No one opposed it.”

Still, Shinkle, 58, understood the gravity of what he was uncovering. As a straight man, his sexuality was never weaponized against him, and he never had to hide in plain sight. When asked how he thinks Cutler would feel about this book being published, Shinkle was thoughtful in his answer.

“Given the enlightened view of the present day, I think he would want this story told,” he said.

Cutler was from a wealthy and prominent Bostonian family. He was the youngest of five boys, all well-educated and connected. He was someone who was born into a position of privilege (a fact that Shinkle does not gloss over) who occasionally made political moves that were detrimental to the gay community at the time, like his effort to push through Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10450, which banned gay people from working for the government in any capacity. The irony of someone unable to live openly while also supporting such a drastic measure is staggering.

Cutler died in 1974 at the age of 78.

“It would have a terrible effect on gay Americans,” Shinkle said of the order. “It gave McCarthy his power.”

Prominent firing

One of those who was fired under the executive order was gay rights pioneer Frank Kameny. In a 1999 interview with Eric Marcus for his “Making Gay History” podcast, Kameny recalled his shock when government officials told him they believed he was a homosexual. Kameny sued but lost, and became “radicalized,” as he told Marcus.

In the 1960s, Kameny and others led some of the earliest public protests by gays and lesbians, working with the Mattachine Society of the East Coast and the Daughters of Bilitis. He staged a picket in front of the White House in April 1965.

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Robert Cutler, on screen in glasses, was a closeted gay man who served as national security adviser for President Dwight D. Eisenhower. His great-nephew, Peter Shinkle, right, recently wrote a book about Cutler.

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Veronica Dolginko

Peter Shinkle, right, discusses his book, “Ike’s Mystery Man,” with Michelle Meow during a taping of the “Michelle Meow Show” at the Commonwealth Club.

The picketing expanded to Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where it was known as the Annual Reminder for gay rights, according to his Wikipedia entry.

In later years, Kameny remained active; he coined the phrase “Gay is Good.”

In 2010, he was invited to the White House when then-President Barack Obama signed the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” ending the military’s anti-gay policy and allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly.

Kameny was found dead in his Washington, D.C. home on October 11, 2011. He was 86 and died of natural causes.

“Jim Provenzano has again created characters that a reader can’t help but fall in love with. This is an epic story, a tale as captivating as a favorite piece of music.”

– author Mark Abramson

Cutler’s mindset

During the Commonwealth Club talk, Meow, a lesbian, expanded on Cutler’s possible mindset during his effort to get the executive order signed.

“It truly became a conversation of national security when they were talking about homosexuals,” said Meow. “But the culture of gay was already there.”

At the time, the construct of sexuality was becoming a hot-button issue with gay writers such as Gore Vidal publishing works like “The City and the Pillar,” not to mention scientific pursuits like Alfred Kinsey’s studies on the gray area that exists in human attraction. It was an era that oscillated between the cusp of enlightenment and the strictest of expectations, much like Cutler himself.

Eisenhower’s legacy is also one of contradictions, like his silence of, and then open opposition to, McCarthyism. According to Shinkle, Eisenhower was someone who had no real concern about how anyone else lived their life.

“There were signposts in Eisenhower’s life that he was incredibly tolerant,” Shinkle said. “There’s no documented knowledge that he knew (that Cutler was gay) but it seems virtually impossible that he didn’t.”

In all the years they worked together, it was never an issue that was of-

ficially raised or mentioned, he noted, adding that Cutler being competent at his job was more important than his sexuality to Eisenhower.

Shinkle insisted that Cutler, a complicated man, did a lot of good with his time in Washington.

“The Republicanism that Bobby came out of was a progressive Republicanism,” he said.

He mentioned Cutler’s involvement with FDR’s War Department and his work with liberal Massachusetts governor Maurice Tobin.

“He was someone who was always trying to reach across the aisle, as they say,” said Cutler.

When the question of how today’s political climate compares with the era of Eisenhower, Shinkle pointed out a similarity.

“Political leaders will find a vulnerable minority and exploit that,” he said after a moment of reflection.

Shinkle finds today’s social culture much more open, which is its own form of protection; people who are being unfairly targeted have more support from the masses than they did in other times in history.

“I think today’s America would find it hard to understand,” he said in reference to Executive Order 10450, McCarthyism, and the fact that Cutler’s life was lived in secret. “So far have we come in many ways.”t

Now I’m Here

The sixth novel by Lambda Literary Award-winning author

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6/24/19 1:33 PM

<< Pride 2019

16 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

t

Book offers many layers to the Stonewall story

by Brian Bromberger

A

s the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion approaches, long considered the birth of the modern gay rights movement, people may think that they know what transpired and why it was so important.

However, Marc Stein, professor of history at San Francisco State University, is convinced there is not one paradigm, but many conflicting experiences with multiple interpretations that color our understanding of this LGBTQ origin story. Attempting to reclaim the Stonewall story for queer people on their own terms, Stein, a gay man, has collected 200 documents (many not easy to access) drawing from both primary and secondary sources that include mainstream, alternative, and LGBTQ media, covering the period 1965 to 1973, in his new book, “The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History” (NYU Press).

Stein asks readers to view these sources critically and come to their own conclusions about what and what didn’t occur at Stonewall. Stein, 55, answered questions from the Bay Area Reporter via email.

Stein said there were several reasons he timed his book with Stonewall’s golden anniversary year.

“There were multiple inspirations.

I continue to be inspired by LGBT activism in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the decades before I came out and became an activist myself in the 1980s,” he wrote. “I wanted to encourage others to be similarly inspired, without losing sight of the importance of constructive criticism. I also knew that the 50th anniversary celebrations would create teachable moments – opportunities to revisit the Stonewall era and reconsider the developments that preceded and followed the riots.”

He said that he also wanted a new resource that students and others would find useful for learning more about LGBT history in general and Stonewall in particular.

“By introducing and reprinting 200 documents from 1965 to 1973, I hope my book will encourage new interpretations and new appreciation for the complexities of history,” he wrote.

Stein had at his disposal more than 1,000 documents. Because mainstream media stories are prohibitively expensive to reprint, he relied more on less commonly accessed LGBT materials, focusing on the four years preceding and following the rebellion, concentrating on the largest metropolitan regions that had distinct importance for LGBT history (New

Brian Bromberger

Author Marc Stein holds a copy of his new book, “The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History.”

York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.). He excluded fiction works and post-1973 autobiographies, memoirs, and oral histories, which are filtered through the lens of subsequent developments, making them problematic as primary sources, he said.

“I began by prioritizing materials directly related to the Stonewall Inn and Stonewall riots – my fourth and fifth chapters reprint approximately 40 competing and complementary documents, including mainstream, alternative, and LGBT media accounts, gay bar guide listings, and descriptions of the Stonewall Inn from the pre-riots era,” he wrote. “For the other six chapters, I looked for a diverse set of documents that would highlight bars and policing, activist agendas and visions, direct action protests, and pride marches and parades.”

He added that he “prioritized documents that highlighted lesbians, bisexuals, trans people, and people of color.”

Yet, for Stein, knowing exactly what happened at Stonewall is impossible to answer.

“Nothing about the past is objectively knowable,” he wrote. “For Stonewall, participants and observers at the time would have disagreed about what happened. As I say in my introduction, perspective and viewpoint would have been influenced by factors like race, class, sexual orientation; they would have been affected by abilities and disabilities; and they would have been shaped by social roles (as police officer, bartender, patron, etc.).”

He explained that primary sources

from the time are inconsistent and incomplete, as are later oral histories.

“For me, what’s fascinating about history is dealing with the multiplicity of views and viewpoints,” he wrote. “If we’re responsible historians, we don’t just make things up, but interpretation and analysis involve much more than just ‘sticking to the facts.’”

Explaining Stonewall

One of the most popular interpretations is that the gay movement began at Stonewall, viewing the rebellion as unprecedented, some even claiming that the riots were the first time that LGBT people fought back against oppression, which most historians, including Stein, reject.

“I think LGBT historians collectively find it frustrating and irritating every time we hear that the movement began with Stonewall. Decades of outstanding work by academic and public historians have established that the movement began two decades earlier,” he wrote.

His book addresses LGBT activism in the second half of the 1960s – Stonewall occurred in June 1969 – focusing in particular on dozens of direct action protests that occurred in the country’s largest cities.

“Homophile organizations, such as the Mattachine Society and ONE Incorporated, lobbied and litigated for reform, supported research and education and achieved important successes in the pre-Stonewall era, including a 1958 U.S. Supreme Court victory that established the constitutional rights of these groups to publish their periodi-

cals,” Stein wrote.

He explained that the radicalizing local LGBT groups of 1965-69, which were more assertive about LGBT rights and freedoms, more oriented to direct action and sexual liberation, and more supportive of “gay power” and the “gay revolution,” were responsible for a wave of more than 30 pre-Stonewall demonstrations, sit-ins, and riots, such as the one at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco in August 1966.

“However, critics of this framework note that these actions were composed of older, whiter, more middle class, less politically radical, less countercultural, and less gender-transgressive than Stonewall and after,” Stein wrote.

Besides the two decades of political organizing by the homophile movement, Stein stated that historians have generally used two other frameworks as explanations as to why Stonewall occurred.

“A second framework highlights the long tradition of bar-based resistance, identifying the Stonewall riots as growing out of that tradition,” he wrote. “The very act of going to a bar was a form of resistance, as was escaping, running, and hiding during raids, defending themselves and criticizing the police, coming together to provide mutual assistance and support, challenging the charges they faced in court, and fighting back with words and other weapons.”

Also, one could include the famous 1966 Sip-In civil disobedience action that occurred at the Julius Bar in Greenwich Village, where two Mattachine Society members, Dick Leitsch and Randy Wicker, taking inspiration from the civil rights sit-ins that integrated so many lunch counters in restaurants, declared they were gay, ordered a drink, waited to be served or turned away, and then sued.

A third framework points to the impact of other radicalizing social movements – including black power, the anti-war movement, and countercultural activism – on LGBT communities. The significance is perhaps most obvious in the case of black power – the influence was ideological and strategic, but also embodied in the people of color who played important roles in Stonewall.

“All these explanations are powerful and persuasive, but I put forward a fourth theory, one that was first introduced by gay journalist Don Jackson several months after the riots occurred,” Stein wrote. “Invoking the work of sociologist James Davies,

who had argued that revolutions are most likely to occur when a long period of improving conditions is followed by quick reversals, Jackson wrote that this exactly described the situation in New York City at the time of Stonewall.”

Stein concisely sums up in his book how all these frameworks help people understand why the Stonewall riots occurred when and where they did.

“The homophile movement of the 1950s and 1960s and its radicalization in the second half of the 1960s created the preconditions for revolt. The long history of bar-based resistance practices created a repertoire of rebellious responses,” Stein wrote. “Other social movements provided revolutionary inspiration and influence. And the combination of heightened expectations and dashed hopes that many felt as the country transitioned from a period of liberal reform to one of conservative backlash – and that LGBT people experienced in the context of a new wave of police raids, violent killings, and local vigilantism – created an explosive situation that erupted on June 28.”

Stein added that it was not the riots themselves that led to major social change; it was the political mobilization and cultural transformations that occurred after the rebellion.

“For complicated reasons, the scale of political organizing grew tremendously after Stonewall and the character of political activism changed,” he wrote.

Major reforms of the post-Stonewall era include declassifying homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder, lesbian and gay inclusion in the military, decriminalization of sodomy, and the legalization of same-sex marriage.

“However, critics respond that progress has not been linear; reforms have been partial, limited, qualified, and incomplete; the changes that have occurred shouldn’t necessarily be characterized as progress; and the goals that have been achieved are not universally celebrated,” Stein wrote.

In fact, he added, radicals see decline rather than progress.

Documentary evidence

Another set of discussions about the riots concerns who frequented the Stonewall Inn, started the rebellion, participated in the uprising, mobilized afterward, and commemorated the uprising in Pride parades and protests. These questions began in the rebellion’s immediate aftermath, emphasizing the participation of gay men, roles played by trans resisters and genderqueers, whether lesbians See page 17 >>

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June 27-July 3, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 17

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Then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, center, appeared at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, the site of the 1969 riots that helped launch the modern gay rights movement, in 2014 to announce a National Park Service Theme Study to interpret and commemorate sites related to LGBT history.

<<

Stonewall

From page 16

were among the first to fight back, as well as intense debates about the presence, participation, and prominence of two trans individuals: Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and butch lesbian Stormé DeLarverie.

“One of the reasons I think it’s helpful to revisit the documentary evidence of the Stonewall era is that it can cast new light on the questions that people are asking about who patronized the Stonewall, who was there on the night of the police raid, and who participated in the riots, which should be treated as distinct questions,” Stein wrote.

“I hope we don’t replace problematic narratives that privilege the roles of white and cisgender gay men with problematic narratives that ignore the messiness of the historical evidence.

For example, we should acknowledge, and then question, why the mainstream newspapers generally referred to “homosexuals” and did not mention trans people, people of color, or white people in their coverage. We should take note of the ways in which the newsletter of the Mattachine Society of New York highlighted the courage and leadership of trans people during the riots as well as the fact that some of the leading trans periodicals of 1969 did not cover the riots.

“We should think about why some alternative newspapers mentioned Puerto Ricans but not African Americans and why some referenced lesbians but most did not,” Stein added.

“We should think carefully about why several key participants in the riots referred to themselves as “gay transvestites” without feeling the need to choose between those identities. We should wrestle with the fact that some of the key individuals associated with the riots offered inconsistent accounts that changed over time. We should also look carefully at Stonewall photographs and compare those to media sources, oral histories, and police records.”

<<

Russian River

From page 6

Then, something unexpected happened.

The mother of a fire department official started baking cookies for the bingo games. Because of her, “We found out the fire department needed heat-sensing equipment to find people in burning, smoky buildings,” Plenty said. “We decided we were going to raise money for that.”

Each bingo usually has one or two designated beneficiaries that are required to provide volunteers, but the Sisters found out that some firefighters were terrified of gay people.

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Stein wrote that his sense of the event is that trans people, people of color, and street people played important roles in the riots.

“But this doesn’t mean that they were a majority of the patrons or a majority of the rioters,” he added.

“In general, our debates today about representation in Stonewall narratives may say much more about us than they say about the riots themselves.”

In his book Stein makes a joke that “if every person who claims to have participated in the riots was actually there, Manhattan would have sunk,” which seems to speak to the mythology surrounding Stonewall that anybody around at that time wants to be associated with the power of that myth.

Stein wrote that while he believes in the importance of oral histories, he didn’t use any for this book.

“I meant my joke to serve as a reminder that oral histories are valuable but problematic,” he wrote. “Documentary sources are problematic as well, but I think readers are more prepared to challenge documentary sources than they are to challenge oral histories. After all, if a living person tells you that something happened in a particular way, what does it mean to challenge their account? At the same time, if we look at all of the oral histories that have been done about Stonewall, many of the accounts are incomplete and inconsistent. Sometimes the same person will say one thing in one oral history interview and something quite different in another.”

Stein doesn’t think the riots themselves changed the world.

“People are sometimes surprised to find that they weren’t even considered front page news in New York and they barely were covered in the mainstream media in other cities,” Stein wrote. “National magazines like Time, Newsweek, and Esquire didn’t cover the riots for months. In many respects, it was the mobilizing and organizing that occurred afterward that turned Stonewall into ‘Stonewall.’”

He noted that the decision to mark the anniversary the following

year with Pride parades and protests helped ensure the centrality of Stonewall for future generations.

“As for radical revolutionaries today, I think many are still inspired bySteven-LinkedIn_17160.indd 1 Stonewall, but some justifiably question whether more mainstream parts of the LGBT movement today are living up to the legacy of Stonewall,” Stein wrote. “For me, the riots are usefully remembered as a direct action protest that challenged state policing, capitalist exploitation, and the politics of racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. And some of the instigators and leaders of the riot were those who too often have been marginalized by our community and by society more generally – people of color, trans people, poor people, and others.”

Former President Barack Obama referenced Stonewall in his second inaugural address (2013) and announced the establishment of the Stonewall National Monument in front of the bar in 2016.

“I see the Stonewall riots as an important moment in LGBT history, U.S. history, and world history,” Stein wrote. “On the one hand, I think it’s great that Stonewall is increasingly recognized as important for more than just LGBT people to know, and Obama, in particular, treated it as an AMBER important moment in larger struggles STITT for equal rights and social justice.

“On the other hand, if this is done Founder & Owner only to incorporate LGBT people into mainstream society or mainstream history, without fundamentally challenging that society or that history, Jewell-Construction_Eighth_061719.indd 1 then I’m less enthusiastic,” he added.

“If mainstream society does this as a way to congratulate itself for its tolerance and acceptance, without asking hard questions about ongoing evidence of oppression, exploitation, inequality, and injustice, then I’m less optimistic. If Stonewall’s history is appropriated to serve the interests of U.S. nationalism and global capitalism, then it might be time for new riots.” t

So the head of the Russian River Fire Protection District in Guerneville assured his crew, “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’ll have a good time,” recalled Plenty.

Rob Cassady, captain of the fire department, didn’t remember all the details from that time, but praised the Sisters.

“They raised funds to make the purchase of our thermal imaging camera possible,” he said. “A thermal imaging camera is useful not only in fires to find people and hot spots, but also in car accidents when a body might have been ejected from a car into the bushes, and even to assist the sheriff to locate bodies.”

Plenty characterized attitudes after that evening: for the Sisters, “I happen to be gay and you’re straight;” for the firefighters, “You’re actually pretty cool.”

As Femme Fatale observed, ”The firemen learned a lot about us.”

“Our bingo was a lot of hard work,” Plenty acknowledged, “but it was also a huge stroke of luck.”

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<< Pride 2019

18 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

<<

Russian River

<<

SF drag kings

From page 8

Momma’s Boyz may sound like a small drag group by the standards of those enjoyed by big city drag queens, but the disparity in both income and notoriety between drag performers along gender lines is extreme enough to explain these numbers. When the B.A.R asked Inn about the state of drag kings in a time when “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has brought the art and performance of a once-hidden subculture into America’s living rooms, Inn pulled no punches.

“RuPaul decided that drag kings are worthless, and that tainted whether we

<<

“The community loves the ability to see how the money is used, things like ‘buy a microscope for a science class,’” Plenty said. “Now, we deal with over 100 local organizations, and every penny we raise stays here in the West County.”

“This year we gave out almost $31,000 to a total of 28 awardees, including elementary school groups, senior centers, the homeless, animal rescue groups, and West County Health Services,” Plenty said, with pride in her voice.

“We always approve Friends Outside, a program which works with inmates who have children,” ‘da Booty added.

The Novice Project that has attained the most visibility is the monthly bingo held at the Guerneville Veterans Memorial Hall. The event’s poster says it best: “Food! Fun! Free sh*t!” It’s held on the second Saturday of every month, with a different theme each time; the venue holds about 230 players.

On June 8, the theme was “Let’s Play Doctor! Bingo,” which included an “I’m the Doctor” costume contest, and was a benefit for the Russian River

Health and Wellness Center for low-income and underserved communities.

Jennifer Neeley, the center’s associate director of development, said proceeds from this month’s bingo benefitted its patient hardship fund, which supports immediate patient needs such as prescription and specialty copays.

“The Russian River Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have been longtime supporters of West County Health Centers and, over the years since 2007, have contributed over $35,000 to WCHC programs,” Neeley wrote in an email.

That includes $14,000 for its dental services; $7,000 to health care for the homeless; $3,000 to the Forestville Teen Clinic, which includes peer sex education programs; and $10,000 for uninsured patient care for medical and

behavioral health services at the WCHC health centers in Guerneville, Sebastopol, and Occidental, Neeley wrote.

She added that the health center’s board, patients, staff, and volunteers are “grateful and appreciative” of the Sisters.

The Sisters have planned their next bingo, set for July 13.

“Our ... theme will be ‘Heroes and Villains’ and will benefit Face to Face, a provider of HIV prevention and education services for Sonoma County,” ‘da Booty said. “And we’ll have a pirate-themed bingo in August.”

Femme Fatale described two ongoing activities. The Pencil and Paper Project collects donations for teachers to buy school supplies such as paper, binders, and pens.

For the Cold Hands, Warm Heart Project, Sisters assemble packets of socks, hats, gloves, ponchos and flashlights for the homeless. It started as a project of a Sister who had been homeless.

Upcoming events include an ice cream social scheduled for July 6 at the Sonoma Nesting Company in Guerneville, and a Barbie Blowout to sell “collector Barbie dolls” in August.

After people asked for child-friendly events, the Sisters recently started miniature golf parties at Pee Wee Golf.

Femme Fatale said they’ve raised about $1.5 million from bingo alone since they started. The money is disbursed “pretty much right away,” she said.

But the Sisters also raise money at other events and community grants are distributed once a year at their Good Friday Anniversary Party. At the party, recipients walk on stage and describe how they would spend the money.

get on stages. There have been attempts by drag kings to run something like ‘Drag Race.’ But it isn’t easy. You have to play the game; you can’t pretend it’s not political. You have got to have your allies all lined up,” Inn said.

They also talked about the privilege that is prevalent in the entertainment industry.

“Queens and Sisters as advocates are your strength. Even in drag, you need a man,” Inn added, referring to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. “You’re dealing with men, usually white men, who always have the privilege of making the call. You need the same type of allies you need anywhere else. The ones who come off RuPaul’s stage and go on

to stardom, they get invited to Pride events, they start their own businesses and series, because they have that kind of privilege, power, and the limelight.

We’re still fighting for it.”

RuPaul did not respond to a request for comment through his production company or the company that manages his events.

Inn’s performance partner Marin agreed on this point, but expressed her frustration differently.

“Growing up, I was always more familiar with queens than kings.

Queens have such a large presence, and such a sense of fun. Drag kings have a really large spectrum: some are fun while some are really politi-

cal. Some have a statement that has to be made in this political climate. It’s layered. It may take an audience that’s willing to engage on those levels.”

Marin performs in drag as Mailman, because she says she “always delivers.”

After this trip to Stonewall, Inn hopes the future holds more acceptance for Momma’s Boyz, and for all drag kings of color, who have been part of the movement since DeLarverie stirred up the crowd at Stonewall and before.

“I hope we continue for another 15 years, and that people outside the queer scene embrace us,” said Inn. “But even if they don’t, we are just like our new song, ‘Front Line’ says.

In war, that front line is held by the bravest. They get taken out, and the second one takes over. What we’re saying is that no matter who gets taken down, there’s always someone coming up behind. This community always comes back.”

Fifty years after Stonewall, drag kings are still rising up and coming back.

Momma’s Boyz is raising funds to cover expenses to participate in Stonewall 50 events. To donate, visit https://bit.ly/2HYiSwC. For more information about Momma’s Boyz, visit https://www.facebook.com/ Mommas.Boyz/. t

artifacts, archival documents, photographs, films and videos, costumes, and ephemera such as zines, stickers, buttons, and flyers.

The back wall of the exhibit is a timeline. It includes various historic markers from the 1960s and 1970s: the Compton’s Cafeteria riots in San Francisco, the Black Cat riot in L.A., the Stonewall riots in New York City, the first Gay-in in San Francisco and the first Pride parade in L.A., and the first gay rally in San Jose. In short, it’s clear that the Bay Area has a rich queer history.

“With transgender and LGBTQ+ rights increasingly in the news, the exhibition will be a timely opportunity to shine light on the history of California as a major site of LGBTQ+ community, culture, and politics,” a news release stated.

Visitors who spoke with the B.A.R. last week said they enjoyed the exhibit.

“It’s super incredible to have such a collective of really rich history,” said Anna Frontero, 32, who identifies as queer and was visit-

ing from Massachusetts. She was checking out one of the interactive features, which she enjoyed.

Jeff Boverman, 72, was visiting with his wife. The couple, who live in Long Beach, came up to see “Queer California” and another exhibit at the museum.

He said that his community is very LGBT-friendly and he knows much of the queer community’s history.

“This is people being people,” he said. “It’s quite an interesting exhibit.” t

From page 17

parade is beloved by locals and hundreds cheer as it goes up Main Street.

But ‘da Booty recalled, “In our early days, we were not always invited.”

As the Sisters’ visibility and reputation increased, however, the welcome from the parade organizers changed radically.

“We’ve even been parade grand marshals a few times,” Plenty said.

The order itself has a unique tradition: its degree of gender diversity.

“We have the most female Sisters in the world,”‘da Booty said. “And I think more women join our order because of the women already in the order.”

“We have also had transgender members,” she pointed out, and expressed pride in the visibility of transgender people “who come to our bingo and have fun.”

There are four steps to become a Sister: Aspirant, Postulant, Novice Sister, and Fully Professed or Black Veil.

Femme Fatale called these steps “a filtering period.”

The Sisters also have members with other titles such as guards, fathers, and brothers. For example, “Guards manifest in male personae and watch over Sisters,” Femme Fatale said, “But they are not purse holders!” Every Novice gains the right to wear whiteface and the white veil, “But not all members wear veils,” she noted.

“To become a Sister, you have to have a project, which we call the Novice Project,” Fairs explained. For Femme Fatale, it was a cabaret show oriented to women.

“We called it the ‘Benefit for Boobs,’ a fundraiser for breast cancer chari-

Dale Godfrey

Sister Sara Femme Fatale, left, of the Russian Rivers Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, presented a check to Mary Hotaling, development manager of Community Matters in Forestville, at the Sisters’ 18th anniversary celebration held April 19 in Guerneville.

ties,” she said.

For ‘da Booty, it was making an elaborate scrapbook of the order, complete with a “family tree.”

Plenty portrayed the completion of the four steps as “a learning and growth process.”

Bingo and community grants

Queer exhibit

From page 10

Other gems are two photos of patrons at the Plush Pony, which was a working-class lesbian bar in Eastside Los Angeles (mid-1960s-2008). The bar was a gathering place for Mexican and Chicana women. The late photographer Laura Aguilar took beautiful portraits of some of the bar’s patrons.

The exhibit includes southern California sites, like Balboa Park.

A great film, “Wildness,” is about the untold story of the Silver Platter bar in Los Angeles. Owned by straight men, they see it evolve into a trans Latina gathering space. (There are several films that screen on a rotating basis in a theater adjacent to the main exhibit.)

Curator Christina Linden, a lesbian, acknowledged that the exhibition is not a complete history of the LGBT community.

“This is a long time in the making,” she told reporters at the preview. “We’ve chosen to focus on a constellation of stories that re-

Cynthia Laird

A pair of Miss Major’s stilettos are part of the “Queer California: Untold Stories” exhibit at the Oakland Museum of California.

frame the focus – that the future is queer.”

She added that LGBT people “have had to create their own kinship.”

And she talked about how a lot of queer history, especially around sexuality, is censored. Sexually explicit material in the exhibition is marked with a symbol.

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There are over 70 collaborators who made up “Queer California.”

There are interactive elements and audio-visual features that make moments from the past come alive.

The exhibit explores a range of stories through examples of social activism, contemporary artwork, historical materials, rarely-seen

6,000 and counting

”We have Sisters on every continent except Africa and Antarctica,” ‘da Booty said. “Over 6,000. We’re absolutely characteristic nuns. We are not mocking nuns, we are nuns.

But we have more fun.”

Plenty illustrated how attitudes have changed since the early 2000s.

“Guys in trucks would drive by the Sisters on the street and yell ‘Hey, faggot.’ Now, they yell ‘Hey, Sisters.’ What really separates the Russian River Sisters from other orders is that Guerneville is a small community, not a large ‘gay ghetto,’” Plenty said.

‘Da Booty articulated what her Russian River Sisters feel has been key to their success: “We serve our entire community and the entire community knows us up here.” t For more information, visit www. rrsisters.org.

“Queer California: Untold Stories” runs through August 11 at the Oakland Museum of California, which is located at 1000 Oak Street, at 10th Street.

Hours are Wednesday-Thursday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is $16 general; $11 seniors and students (with valid ID); and $7 for youth ages 9 to 17. It is free for members and children 8 and under. For more information, visit museumca.org.

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Vol. 49 • No. 26 • June 27-July 3, 2019

SF Pride nods to Stonewall 50

Bill Wilson

The temporary exhibit on Harvey Milk at San Francisco International Airport will open to the public next month.

SFO reveals mammoth Milk installation

by Matthew S. Bajko

The Apple contingent sported rainbow-colored balloons in last year’s San Francisco Pride parade.

F

or months city officials and LGBT advocates fought with San Francisco International Airport staff over the font sizes and the order of the wording for the signage at the new Harvey Milk Terminal 1.

This spring, timed to the annual Harvey Milk Day observance on his birthdate of May 22, SFO staff released images of the proposed exterior sign for the building that finally met with approval from those pushing to see a proper honor for Milk.

It is the first airport facility in the world named after an LGBT leader, as Milk was the first gay person to win a political office in San Francisco and California with his 1977 election to a seat on the Board of Supervisors. Tragically, disgruntled former supervisor Dan White killed Milk and then-mayor George Moscone inside City Hall the morning of November 27, 1978.

A permanent exhibit detailing Milk’s life and his place in history will be incorporated into the under construction terminal in an area the SFO Museum is calling the Central Inglenook.

Some of the 40 images it will include have been incorporated into a temporary installation about Milk opening to the public on July 23 when the first nine-gate section of the new Harvey Milk Terminal 1 becomes operational for Southwest and JetBlue flights.

It is mounted on a wall that runs the length of the terminal constructed to block off the rest of the facility still being remodeled. It measures 380 feet long by 30 feet tall and will come down sometime in 2021.

The exhibit features oversized images of Milk, his campaign ephemera, newspaper clippings, letters, and news releases. Two of the more famous photos chosen show Milk walking with his partner, Scott Smith, and supporters to be sworn into office January 8, 1978 and the couple sharing an embrace in Milk’s Castro Camera Shop.

The sheer scale of the exhibit shocked and overwhelmed political leaders and LGBT community members invited to a private, sneak peek of it Friday, June 21. The Bay Area Reporter was the only media organization granted special access to the event.

See page 28 >>

by Meg Elison

T

his weekend’s San Francisco Pride parade and celebration has the theme “Generations of Resistance,” to honor both the rioters at New York’s Stonewall Inn in 1969, as well as the generations who have come since that historic moment.

The celebration takes place Saturday, June 29, and Sunday, June 30. The world-class parade steps off at the foot of Market Street Sunday at 10:30 a.m.

But SF Pride is not without its controversies. As the origin of Pride was a riot against oppressive policing 50 years ago, some activists question whether police belong in Pride at all.

Gay Shame, a Bay Area organization whose Twitter tagline reads “is a virus in the system,” is “opposed to capitalist and law enforcement involvement in Pride celebrations,” and has claimed responsibility for graffiti reading “Police Out of Pride” that has popped up in the Castro.

See page 36 >>

Shows mix politics & art

Jane Philomen Cleland

by Matthew S. Bajko

T

o celebrate Pride in 2017 gay Democratic state Senator Scott Wiener decided to display the artwork of Joseph Abbati in his San Francisco office. His 14th floor suite in the State Building on Golden Gate Avenue overlooks the city’s Civic Center area where the annual LGBT festival takes place the last weekend of June.

Abbati, 62, who is queer and lives with his partner, Andres Maiorama, in San Francisco, installed his tapestries featuring local drag queens. Wiener spokesman Victor RuizCornejo had seen them exhibited for a show at Strut, the men’s health center in the Castro operated by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and recommended them to his boss.

Following the Pride parade that year, Wiener hosted an opening party with Abbati. Impressed by the experience of working with the lawmaker and his staff, Abbati suggested to Wiener “why not bring more artists in, as you have this great space.”

That sparked a collaboration between the artist and the lawmaker, who has given Abbati curatorial oversight of his district office to mount seven art shows and counting.

“It is a huge office so there is a lot of wall space. I thought it was a great idea,” said Wiener, who also hosted art shows in his City Hall office when he served on the Board of Supervi-

Matthew S. Bajko

Joseph Abbati stands next to his artwork in state Senator Scott Wiener’s San Francisco office, where he curates the legislator’s art shows.

sors. “Joseph has been great. He creates a theme and selects local artists and their artwork based on that theme.”

The themes regularly tie into Wiener’s legislative work and have centered on such issues as housing, the environment, and nightlife. There is no budget set aside to mount the shows, other than funds to pay for refreshments at the opening events, and Abbati volunteers his time.

The artwork is not listed for sale at the shows, though attendees are given information for the artists so they can contact them directly.

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“They don’t get an opportunity to show their work with people who are like-minded,” Abbati said of many of the artists selected for the shows, particularly those featured in the Pride Month exhibits. “It is great to show our work in the queer community and to show our work at Pride.”

In addition to giving a platform to local artists, Wiener sees the shows as a way to connect with his constituents.

“What I like about having it in a government See page 30 >>

Twelve Days of Pianos in the Garden

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These are not all the possible side effects of BIKTARVY. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new symptoms while taking BIKTARVY. You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.FDA.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with BIKTARVY.

BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including: } Worsening of Hepatitis B (HBV) infection.

If you have both HIV-1 and HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking BIKTARVY. Do not stop taking BIKTARVY without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months.

ABOUT BIKTARVY BIKTARVY is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults. It can either be used in people who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before, or people who are replacing their current HIV-1 medicines and whose healthcare provider determines they meet certain requirements.

BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS. Do NOT take BIKTARVY if you also take a medicine that contains: } dofetilide } rifampin } any other medicines to treat HIV-1

BEFORE TAKING BIKTARVY Tell your healthcare provider if you: } Have or have had any kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis infection. } Have any other health problems. } Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant.

It is not known if BIKTARVY can harm your unborn baby. Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking BIKTARVY. } Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take: } Keep a list that includes all prescription and over-the-counter medicines, antacids, laxatives, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist. } BIKTARVY and other medicines may affect each other. Ask your healthcare provider and pharmacist about medicines that interact with BIKTARVY, and ask if it is safe to take BIKTARVY with all your other medicines.

Get HIV support by downloading a free app at

MyDailyCharge.com

(bik-TAR-vee)

HOW TO TAKE BIKTARVY Take BIKTARVY 1 time each day with or without food.

GET MORE INFORMATION } This is only a brief summary of important information about BIKTARVY. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist to learn more. } Go to BIKTARVY.com or call 1-800-GILEAD-5. } If you need help paying for your medicine, visit BIKTARVY.com for program information.

BIKTARVY, the BIKTARVY Logo, DAILY CHARGE, the DAILY CHARGE Logo, KEEP SHINING, LOVE WHAT’S INSIDE, GILEAD, and the GILEAD Logo are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies.

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KEEP SHINING. Because HIV doesn’t change who you are.

BIKTARVY® is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in certain adults. BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS.

Ask your healthcare provider if BIKTARVY is right for you.

To learn more, visit BIKTARVY.com.

Please see Important Facts about BIKTARVY, including important warnings, on the previous page and visit BIKTARVY.com.

<< Community News

22 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

t

SF to make Castro an LGBTQ Cultural district

by Matthew S. Bajko

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an Francisco’s famed Castro neighborhood will soon be declared the city’s third LGBTQ cultural district.

The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the designation for the gayborhood at its June 25 meeting. Mayor London Breed is expected to sign it into law when it reaches her desk in July after the board votes a second time.

“The Castro has been recognized worldwide for half a century as a symbol of LGBTQ liberation and as an enclave for LGBTQ people to find safety, acceptance, and chosen family,” stated gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents the Castro at City Hall. “The Castro LGBTQ Cultural District will be an important tool to ensure that the Castro remains a vibrant LGBTQ neighborhood well into the future.”

The other LGBTQ districts are in the Tenderloin, focused primarily on the transgender community, and South of Market, created to preserve the area’s leather culture. Signage went up over the weekend to demarcate the boundaries of the Compton’s Transgender Cultural District, while construction began this month on the Eagle Plaza on 12th Street, set to become a focal point for the leather district when it opens later this year.

The Castro LGBTQ district has been talked about for years, with efforts to establish it formally launched in February last year. In a statement to the Bay Area Reporter, as he was traveling this week, GLBT Historical Society Executive Director Terry Beswick hailed the board’s vote in support of its creation.

Rick Gerharter

Pedestrians walk on Market Street at Noe, which will be part of the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District.

“For many people around the world, San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood is known as the center of the queer universe and has played a pivotal role in the advancement of LGBTQ culture and political power.

It has also been a place of sanctuary and fellowship for LGBTQ residents, businesses and visitors,” stated Beswick, whose nonprofit operates the GLBT Historical Society Museum in the heart of the Castro on 18th Street. “But the historic neighborhood is experiencing many of the same challenges and stresses as the rest of the city and urban centers around the country: gentrification and displacement, homelessness and income inequality, and loss of cultural and racial diversity.”

The boundaries for the district will be Market Street to the north

and west, Grand View Avenue to the west; 22nd Street to the south between Grand View Avenue and Noe Street; Noe Street to the east between 22nd Street and 19th Street; 19th Street to the south between Noe Street and Sanchez Street; and Sanchez Street to the east between 19th Street and Market. It will also stretch down Market Street to Octavia and include the blocks of Laguna Street where the LGBT senior services agency Openhouse has its offices and housing development, as well as the stretch of Valencia Street where the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus recently purchased a permanent home.

The Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, with assistance from the community and city departments, will prepare a Cultural, History, Housing, and Economic Sustainability Strategy for the Castro district. That report is expected to be complete by June 30, 2021, while starting this year the Castro district proponents will be able to apply for a portion of the $3 million in dedicated funding for cultural districts created by the voter-approved Proposition E. Beswick noted he mistakenly thought the district would be easily approved within a few months last year.

“Instead, I had the honor of facilitating numerous community meetings and committee meetings over the last 15 months, drafting legislation and setting priorities,” he stated.

“Ironically, now the real hard work begins, and I am hopeful that everyone will work together in a way that will make a real difference in creating the kind of thriving queer neighborhood we all want to see.”t

Castro’s ‘Laughing Gorilla’ mural restored

by Veronica Dolginko

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he “Laughing Gorilla” mural isn’t the best-known piece of public artwork in the city. Located on 19th Street at Castro, the tail end of the rainbow-bedecked heart of the neighborhood, it’s a bright colored work that came out of two dark events in San Francisco: the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and the AIDS epidemic.

Thirty years later, the mural remains as a testament to both, and one that gay artists Donald Harvey and Michael Ritter are working to restore.

“It’s held up pretty well,” said Harvey. “Not bad for 30 years.”

Originally painted by David Seibold, the “Laughing Gorilla” mural was commissioned by the building’s owner, Jean Seto, following the 1989 earthquake. Damage was done to the building’s faux brick facade, and the specific covering was no longer available. Rather than spend countless hours looking for a replacement for the facade, Seto asked Seibold to paint a mural.

“He made this beautiful piece,” Seto, a straight ally, said in a phone interview. “I’m very proud of this.”

The mural, which features a gorilla raucously laughing as he breaks through the side of a building, is fading, and the original artists’ names have worn off completely.

“The two artists (Seibold and his partner, Luis da Rosa) made it possible and have since passed,” said Seto. “The idea is to honor the original artists.”

Seibold and da Rosa opened the queer art space Art Lick at 4147 19th Street in 1989. They ran it together for three years during a very tumul-

Veronica Dolginko

Muralists Donald Harvey, left, and Michael Ritter, behind ladder, are restoring the “Laughing Gorilla” mural in the Castro.

tuous time for the gay community in San Francisco.

“It really was the height of the AIDS epidemic here,” said Ritter. “With the mural, I think he wanted to do something lighter. Something funny.”

Because the mural was on the side of a health food store, currently Buffalo Whole Food and Grain Co., Seibold included fresh produce as part of the motif. The piece is reflective of its surroundings while also being surreal and irreverent.

The restoration started June 12 and should be completed this week. Lead muralist Harvey is optimistic that they will reach their goal.

“We’re cleaning it, then sealing it all up, then restoring all the colors and varnishing,” he said, when asked about the steps in the restoration. “A lot of what we do is dependent on the weather, so, hopefully, that will be on our side.”

Environmental factors like wind and moisture can affect whether the muralists can work. In San Francisco, this can prove to be a challenge for any outdoor art project, as well as the factors that cause murals to fade, but Harvey is surprised at the condition of the piece. The worst part of the See page 35 >>

Correction

The June 20 article, “Planning panel OKs two cannabis retail stores,” contained the name of former planning commissioner Rodney Fong.

It should have stated that current commissioner Frank Fung was an opposing vote on the two projects. The online version has been corrected.

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<< Open Forum

24 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

Volume 49, Number 26 June 27-July 3, 2019 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Michael M. Yamashita Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013) Publisher (2003 – 2013) Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman BARTAB EDITOR & EVENTS LISTINGS EDITOR Jim Provenzano ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko • Meg Elison CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ray Aguilera • Tavo Amador • Race Bannon Erin Blackwell • Roger Brigham Brian Bromberger • Victoria A. Brownworth Brent Calderwood • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Belo Cipriani • Dan Renzi Christina DiEdoardo • Richard Dodds Michael Flanagan • Jim Gladstone David Guarino • Liz Highleyman Brandon Judell • John F. Karr • Lisa Keen Matthew Kennedy • Joshua Klipp David Lamble • Max Leger Michael McDonagh • David-Elijah Nahmod Paul Parish • Sean Piverger • Lois Pearlman Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota • Dan Renzi Bob Roehr • Adam Sandel • Jason Serinus Gregg Shapiro • Gwendolyn Smith • Tony Taylor Sari Staver • Jim Stewart • Sean Timberlake Andre Torrez • Ronn Vigh • Charlie Wagner Ed Walsh • Cornelius Washington • Sura Wood ART DIRECTION Max Leger PRODUCTION/DESIGN Ernesto Sopprani

Cities fly their Pride

T

his June numerous cities around the Bay Area displayed their Pride. At first, it wasn’t clear this would be the case. The Dublin City Council initially voted not to fly the rainbow flag, resulting in national news coverage and outrage. It quickly reversed itself; and from that moment on, whether intended or not, it touched off a domino effect of Pride proclamations and flag raisings. Cities in Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Mateo counties voted to fly the flag. The Alameda County building raised a flag. Contra Costa County issued a Pride proclamation. Every single city in Napa County is flying the rainbow flag this month. Rainbow crosswalks were painted in San Leandro. A flag was raised in Tracy, in the Central Valley. San Francisco, of course, has been raising the rainbow flag above City Hall for years. Oakland did it in June and will do so again in September for its Pride parade.

County fairs in San Mateo and Alameda held Pride days for the first time. Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose moved its Family Day from August to Pride Month.

Governor Gavin Newsom had the Pride flag raised at the State Capitol. And while it wasn’t the first time, as the Bay Area Reporter noted, it will fly a lot longer than the few hours it did the last time in 1990.

The Pride flag – and all those rainbows – are powerful visual symbols that Bay Area and California cities are committed to LGBTQ equality, especially welcome given the hostility of the federal government.

As gay former Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager notes in this week’s Guest Opinion, local government has often been slow to respond to the needs of the LGBT community.

Outside of San Francisco, which has led the way on HIV/AIDS policy, LGBT non-discrimination

t

This includes resources for social services, immigrants, housing opportunities, and specific programs for LGBTQs. Transgender people, for instance, face added barriers to employment and housing, which is multiplied for those living outside of urban centers.

Let’s not forget that after Pride Month is over, we’ll still be here. We need to continue prodding our cities and counties to provide adequate services, address discrimination, and expand access to health care. While politicians around the Bay Area are to be commended for highlighting Pride Month, the real work must not end when the rainbow flags come down.

Courtesy Facebook

Nancy Hinds, left, and her spouse, Brendalynn Goodall, stand in a rainbow crosswalk that was dedicated last week in San Leandro.

laws, and marriage equality, city and county governments in the region have varying levels of services. All can improve.

Getting community support is critical, especially from our straight allies. And that’s why the symbolism is important: by promoting and publicizing LGBT Pride Month, elected leaders are telling their constituents that everyone matters in society, including queer people. These flag raising ceremonies and government proclamations have been widely covered in the media, leading to more awareness by area residents, which allows our issues to be heard, and, ultimately, concrete action taken at the local level.

When a community is welcoming of all its residents, it is more likely to support them.

SFO does Milk proud

After all our haranguing of San Francisco International Airport officials over the past several months, we must commend them for the mammoth temporary exhibit on Harvey Milk that will open to the public next month.

At a sneak peek last Friday, we were struck by the scale, which, in light of the fighting between Supervisor Hillary Ronen and SFO leaders, exceeded our expectations. People passing through Harvey Milk Terminal 1 will learn a lot about Milk, the first openly gay man to win elected office in San Francisco and California, and whose life was cut short by an assassin’s bullet. The exhibit features oversized images of Milk, his campaign ephemera, newspaper clippings, letters, and news releases.

Ronen, who led the fight for larger signage honoring Milk at the still under construction terminal, was impressed. Gay former supervisor David Campos, who reached a compromise with the late mayor Ed Lee that resulted in Terminal 1 being named after Milk, was also pleased.

Kudos too, to SFO Museum staff for their work curating the exhibit, which memorializes a pioneer of the city’s LGBT community. Travelers will come away dazzled. t

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by Ken Yeager

t was in early 1984 when I picked up the Sunday San Jose Mercury News and read an opinion piece by a local state Assembly member stating that homosexuals should have no legal, social, or political standing in society.

It was a remarkable statement. The Assemblyman, Alister McAlister, was urging then-Governor George Deukmejian (R) to veto Assembly Bill 1, the law passed by the Legislature that would make it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation. If such laws were passed, he argued, LGBTQ people would become a legitimate class deserving of legal protection. (Deukmejian did, in fact, veto the bill.)

I was a 31-year-old gay man, out to my friends but not to others. I was well aware of the hatred and persecution that gay people faced but this was the first time I had seen someone phrase it so bluntly: You are undeserving of the benefits provided by society.

I had come to San Jose when I was 18 to start a new life away from the conservative hometown where I grew up, where I knew I couldn’t be gay.

I graduated from San Jose State University with a degree in political science and held numerous jobs working on public policies to improve my adopted city.

Outraged by the time I finished reading McAlister’s op-ed, I felt my contributions, along with those of my LGBTQ friends, were not just devalued but unwanted.

Putting the paper down, I said to myself: “Ken, if you don’t fight for your rights to be a part of this community then no one else will.” I came out publicly a week later in a Mercury News opinion piece denouncing McAlister and arguing for acceptance of gays and lesbians (the term that was used then) as full participants in society.

Coming out allowed me to co-found a South Bay political organization BAYMEC – the Bay Area Municipal Elections Committee – which still is in existence today. The skills I learned and the people I met through that political work allowed me to run for office in 1992 and become the first openly gay elected official in Santa Clara County.

Much has changed since 1984 but much still hasn’t. For starters, we have a vice president who feels the same way about LGBTQ people as McAlister. He’d allow discrimination against gay people based on religious convictions in a second.

In California and in other blue states there

Courtesy Ken Yeager

Ken Yeager marches in a Pride parade.

are now laws that provide protections in housing and employment. Shamefully, 26 states still do not, and Congress has been unsuccessful in passing federal legislation.

Trans people – who have been invisible for so long – are gaining their rights but the religious conservatives, encouraged

by President Donald Trump, are pushing back. Their path to full equality is constantly being blocked, from tactics such as opposing gender-neutral bathrooms and not allowing trans people to serve in the military.

Part of the ways that society can recognize the existence of LGBTQ people is to provide services to them and include them in everyday affairs. One symbolic way to do this is to provide proclamations during LGBTQ Pride Month and to raise the rainbow and transgender flags.

When I served on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors from 2007 to 2018, I was able to have the rainbow and trans flags fly every workday throughout the year. I wish more government entities would do the same to show their constant support for all LGBTQ employees and residents.

Clearly flags aren’t enough though. City and county governments do a poor job serving the needs of the LGBTQ community. Whether it’s dealing with LGBTQ foster youth, meeting the needs of LGBTQ inmates, or conducting STD tests, many workers are not culturally sensitive.

That is one reason why I felt it was necessary to create the Office of LGBTQ Affairs, the first such

county office in the nation. With a staff of 10, the office has taken on a wide spectrum of issues to improve services to the LGBTQ community.

Santa Clara County was slow to respond to the unique medical and health needs of our trans population. Too often, trans people had to leave the county for services but at my initiative that now has changed. We have a fully staffed transgender health clinic serving trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming individuals.

I remember all too vividly the awful days of the AIDS epidemic. I have always felt an obligation to do all I could to help stop the spread of the disease and to provide services to those who are HIVpositive. Several years ago, I was able to have the county provide $6 million over four years to fund a Getting to Zero campaign – zero deaths, zero infections, zero stigma.

After being an elected official for 26 years, I am now turning my attention to the work of the nonprofit BAYMEC Community Foundation.

The foundation has three main objectives.

The first is to educate high school and college students on LGBTQ issues and history.

Although our community has made impressive gains since the Stonewall riots 50 years ago, often younger people are not given the opportunity to learn about our history. The second is to ensure funding and support for LGBTQ programs and services, especially now that there is no openly LGBT county supervisor. The third is to conduct seminars to nurture the next generation of LGBTQ leaders. It is incumbent on the older generation to make sure the next generation has the knowledge and tools to carry on the fight when inevitable backlashes come.

The right to be a full participant in society has been part of my mission since that Sunday morning in 1984. Looking back, it has become clearer to me how important the role of government is in helping LGBTQ people be part of our national discourse. Society is all the better because of its LGBTQ citizens, and our government must continue to recognize us in every legal, social, and political way. t Ken Yeager, a former Santa Clara County supervisor and San Jose City Councilman, is currently the executive director of the BAYMEC Community Foundation. For more information, visit baymecfoundation.org.

t

Community News>>

June 27-July 3, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 25

Pride on the Peninsula

S

an Carlos city officials celebrated Pride Month Friday, June 21, with a rainbow flag raising ceremony and community event. Approximately 150 people attended and enjoyed a splashy rainbow-themed chalk art display gracing the steps of City Hall. On hand were, from left, City Council members Sara McDowell, Adam Rak, Vice Mayor Ron Collins, out Councilwoman Laura Parmer-

Jo-Lynn Otto

Lohan, San Mateo County Pride Center director Lisa Putkey, former Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager, Mayor Mark Olbert, and San Mateo County Supervisor Dave Pine. The council issued three proclamations: one to Yeager for his long-standing commitment to inclusion; and one each to Putkey and Pine for getting the Pride center up and running two years ago.

Barry Schneider Attorney at Law

family law specialist* • Divorce w/emphasis on Real Estate & Business Divisions • Domestic Partnerships, Support & Custody • Probate and Wills

Last chance to help with pink triangle installation

compiled by Cynthia Laird

I

f you’re undecided on whether to help create the giant pink triangle atop Twin Peaks over Pride weekend, it’s not too late to sign up to volunteer.

As project co-founder Patrick Carney said in a recent news release, this year’s 24th installation will be significant, coming on the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion in New York City. The 1969 riots between police and patrons of the historic Stonewall Inn are viewed by many as the start of the modern gay rights movement and will be honored throughout Pride weekend.

People looking for a hands-on Pride experience can sign up now to help create the triangle (or take it down at the end of Pride weekend).

Carney said in the release that it takes at least 125 people to install the tarps that make up the giant public art display, and about 50 to take it down. The pink triangle can be seen for miles if the weather is clear.

The main installation takes place Saturday, June 29, from 7 to 9 a.m. A

Patrick Carney

The pink triangle can be seen on Twin Peaks as a contingent marches in the San Francisco Pride parade.

ceremony follows at 10:30.

Carney said that confirmed speakers include Mayor London Breed; gay diplomats Hans-Ulrich Suedbeck, consul general of Germany, and Emmanuel Lebrun-Damiens, consul general of France; gay politicos state Senator

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Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman; fellow San Francisco lawmakers Assemblymen Phil Ting and David Chiu; some of the San Francisco Pride grand marshals and honorees; the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band (the city’s official band); and musical theater star Leanne Borghesi.

The most difficult challenge is getting volunteers to help dismantle the pink triangle Sunday, June 30, from 4:30 to 8 p.m. after the Pride parade. Carney promised a free dinner at a Thai restaurant for those who help with the take-down.

All volunteers will receive pink triangle T-shirts, the funding of which was donated by the Bob Ross Foundation.

The reason Carney and others started the pink triangle installation was to remind people of the time when it was used by the Nazis in concentration camps to identify and stigmatize homosexual prisoners.

See page 34 >>

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Letters >> Response from Oakland LGBTQ center

The June 20 editorial published in the Bay Area Reporter [“Communication breakdown harms community”] omitted the fact that in my open letter to the press, I stated that our board members, staff, and volunteers from the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center, initially went to the Oakland City Council meeting to show support for Our Family Coalition. OFC created a Facebook invite to the community, requesting that people show up to support them after its agency was defunded.

We attended this meeting to show support for OFC and to advocate for funding for LGBTQ family services in Oakland.

This is not simply a matter of “he said, she said” and community leaders who are people of color “squabbling” over who provides the most services as your editorial stated. We do not need to debate what was said because these comments were captured on Oakland’s KTOP community video and are available for public viewing on the city’s website and on our website at the link below. Even comments restated in the B.A.R.’s open forum editorial are inaccurate when compared with the video (https://www.oaklandlgbtqcenter.org/copy-ofpress).

We were shocked to hear an OFC employee emphatically state to the Oakland City Council and our community at large, that “Only Our Family Coalition (provides services to LGBTQ families), not LGBTQ Oakland Center.” This is a false statement and injurious to our two organizations working collaboratively.

The Oakland LGBTQ Community Center is an Oaklandbased nonprofit dedicated to enhancing and sustaining the well-being of LGBTQ individuals, our families, and allies, by providing educational, social, health and wellness related

activities, programs and services. OFC does needed work in our community and is based in San Francisco.

As a long time community organizer who is the cofounder of both Oakland Pride and the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center, if I remained silent about these false statements, I would be doing a disservice to the many volunteers, activist, and community organizers here in Oakland who helped pave the way for LGBTQ services in our city without any type of city funding.

As a resident of Oakland for over 30 years, a gay dad who knows firsthand the challenges of being a single parent and out black gay man, I am keenly aware of the need for culturally competent LGBTQ family support services in our city. The Oakland LGBTQ Community Center currently partners with many other service organizations in Oakland, as we work to help LGBTQ youth and families and we look forward to working with OFC in the future.

The Oakland LGBTQ Community Center was recently recommended for funding by the Oakland Fund for Children and Youth Planning and Oversight Committee. This was a highly competitive grant application process and on June 18, 2019, our organization was approved by the City Council for a grant to serve LGBTQ youth. We are looking forward to launching our first-ever city-funded LGBTQ program. Our goal is to expand our youth and family services programming at the center and we are grateful to the Oakland Fund for Children and Youth and the voters of Measure K for this opportunity.

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<< Politics

26 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

t

With time, ire over Pelosi’s ENDA stance fades

by Matthew S. Bajko

T

welve years ago House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) infuriated the LGBT community by supporting the strategy to strip transgender protections out of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act so that the federal legislation only covered sexual orientation.

Since the votes in the House were lacking if ENDA included gender identity, Pelosi sided with gay former Congressman Barney Frank and others calling for a pared-down bill and arguing it could be amended later to cover transgender people. The House passed it November 7, 2007, but it went nowhere in the Senate.

The decision would haunt Pelosi in the intervening years, as attempts to send a fully inclusive ENDA to the desk of the president would die in one or both legislative chambers. In 2010, Pelosi further angered LGBT advocates when she decided to prioritize repealing the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military over holding a vote on a fully inclusive ENDA. Locally, the dithering on ENDA cost Pelosi support among her more progressive LGBT constituents. It became a line of attack in her re-election bids by her detractors, though in liberal San Francisco her electoral success was never in doubt.

With time, ire over Pelosi’s ENDA stance began to fade away, especially as she racked up legislative wins during the Obama era with the passage of the Affordable Care Act and the repeal of the military’s homophobic “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. And after orchestrating the Democrats’ retaking of the House last year, Pelosi made it a top priority to pass the Equality Act, an even more expansive set of federal protections for LGBT people than ENDA would have provided.

Rick Gerharter

Then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, left, rode with former ambassador James Hormel in the 2013 San Francisco LGBT Pride parade.

The House passed the Equality Act last month, even though it has little chance of being voted on by the Republican-controlled Senate this year or next. Nonetheless, for many LGBT advocates it marked Pelosi’s coming full circle since the fight over ENDA. Gabriel Haaland, a transgender man and labor leader in the Bay Area, remarked how similar the political landscape was for both House votes on ENDA and the Equality Act, with Republicans in the Senate and White House clearly opposed to the bills.

“The situation now is not that different, seriously, from back then,” he said. “But I think, I would like to believe and it is probably true, Pelosi has grown in terms of her understanding of transgender issues. The world itself has also grown a better understanding of transgender issues.”

Over the years Haaland joined in pickets outside of Pelosi’s office and was arrested at street demonstrations over the ENDA issue.

“People make mistakes and they

grow and you have to give them room to grow,” he noted. “That doesn’t mean you don’t hold them accountable, right?”

He pointed to Pelosi’s and other Democrats vocal opposition this year to President Donald Trump’s move to ban transgender people from serving in the military and a number of congressional members, some from more conservative states, displaying the transgender flag outside their Capitol Hill offices.

“The more Trump bears down on it, the more understanding people have on transgender people’s issues. Look at the backlash happening around Trump over transgender rights. He has declared war on the trans community,” said Haaland. “I definitely think (Pelosi) has changed and, as she changes, support for her grows.”

Like Haaland, gay former San Francisco supervisor Bevan Dufty told the B.A.R. that he never felt Pelosi was leading the charge for an ex-

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clusionary ENDA, rather it was Frank and former leaders of the Human Rights Campaign, as the national LGBT rights group backed putting the non-trans version of the bill up for a vote in the House.

In addition to Pelosi championing the Equality Act this year, Dufty believes she built up a reservoir of good will by working with local Democrats last year to fund, for the first time, a San Francisco office aimed at electing the party’s House candidates in districts around the country.

“I think it opened up a strong relationship between her and some of the progressive leaders in San Francisco,” said Dufty, now president of the elected regional BART transit agency board.

Not everyone is ready to completely move beyond Pelosi’s handling of ENDA. Gwendolyn Ann Smith, a longtime transgender columnist for the B.A.R., believes the issue still lingers.

“I understand that Pelosi, even though she talks a good game, is really a pragmatist to a fault. She’d rather be wrong and win than be right and lose.

Unfortunately, it is people like me who get to bear the brunt of that attitude,” wrote Smith in an emailed reply. “One of the most frustrating things about Pelosi is that, even when she does good, solid, progressive things, she is still willing to pull back to less risky waters. We saw that with her support over ENDA and we’re seeing that today.

Her going to bat on the Equality Act is easy, because she knows it is going nowhere in the Senate. I think we’d see her true colors if something was actually on the line.”

Asked about this year’s vote making amends for her past actions on ENDA, longtime Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill told the B.A.R. that she takes pride in the fact that every member of the House Democratic Caucus voted for the fully inclusive Equality Act. “During the last majority, Democrats made remarkable progress for LGBTQ Americans, passing the historic, fully-inclusive hate crimes protections and sending the hateful ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy to the dustbin of history,” stated Hammill, one of a number of gay Pelosi staffers.

“Since the failure of a fully-inclusive ENDA to advance through committee in 2007, LGBTQ and allied communities have been critical partners in our success overturning the bigoted Defense of Marriage Act and ensuring marriage equality for all Americans.”

In May, added Hammill, “House Democrats were proud to pass the landmark Equality Act, leap-frogging over the incrementalism of ENDA, to finally, fully end discrimination against LGBTQ Americans, not just in the workplace, but in everyplace.”

Today, it is Pelosi’s reluctance to start impeachment proceedings against Trump or her support for centrist Democrats in certain districts that is far more likely to vex local progressives. As for ENDA, it is rarely mentioned, said several members of the progressive Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club.

Milk club board member Jackie Thornhill, 22, told the B.A.R. she was unaware of Pelosi’s role in the ENDA debate until last year when she was doing research on her legislative record while working on the campaign of one of her opponents in the June 2018 primary. It came as a surprise, said Thornhill, who is a transgender woman.

“I believe that Speaker Pelosi has done a really great job of branding herself as an ally for the LGBTQ community,” she said. “It is not for

me to say if the community as a whole has forgiven her; I can only speak for myself.”

Thornhill said she was happy to see the Equality Act passed, which she doubts would have happened if Pelosi hadn’t become speaker again.

Her main concern now is seeing that Trump is not re-elected.

“The thing for me is, as along as a Republican sits in the Oval Office and Republicans control the Senate, the Equality Act is just messaging,” said Thornhill. “I support it and want to see it become law, and that will require removing Donald Trump from office.”

Pelosi to march in Pride

Pelosi is likely to receive thunderous applause when she marches in this year’s Pride parade taking place Sunday, June 30. It will mark her 14th appearance in the LGBT celebration since she was elected to the House in 1987.

“Speaker Pelosi is looking forward to participating in this year’s Pride Parade as she does every year that she can,” stated Hammill. “In terms of recent years, the speaker has participated in the parade all but one year since 2013.”

She will also be the keynote speaker that morning at the annual Pride Breakfast held by the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club. The club is “beyond honored,” said co-chair Gina Simi, that Pelosi accepted its invite.

“Quite frankly, she is speaker of the House so why wouldn’t we want her? I cannot think of anyone better to speak to us than Nancy Pelosi,” said Simi when asked why Alice leaders sought to have her speak this year.

“She has been a fighter for us long before it became cool and there were rainbows all over the city. She is our biggest champion and our strongest ally.”

The club also secured U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris (D-California), who also will be marching in the Pride parade, as an honored guest at this year’s sold out breakfast along with Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis.

Newsom to make history at SF Pride

California Governor Gavin Newsom is set to make history as the first sitting governor to march in the San Francisco Pride parade. As the B.A.R. reported online June 19, Pride organizers confirmed that none of the state’s governors over the last five decades had participated in the LGBT celebration.

According to a number of LGBT officials, they believe Newsom’s appearance in the parade will be the first time the state’s governor has marched in any of the Pride parades held in the Golden State.

As a former mayor of San Francisco and onetime member of its Board of Supervisors, Newsom has been a regular participant in the parade, which is marking its 49th anniversary this month. He also regularly had a Pride contingent while serving as the state’s lieutenant governor. t Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion, will return Monday, July 15.

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

Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 8298836 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.

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<< Community News

28 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

Supervised injection bill dead for year

by Liz Highleyman

More cities interested

S

tate legislation to allow a pilot supervised injection facility in San Francisco will not be debated in the Senate this year, the bill’s cosponsors have announced.

The state Assembly passed the bill, known as Assembly Bill 362, in late May, but Senate leaders referred the bill to three committees – more than the usual number – setting up additional hurdles for the legislation.

“The bill is still alive – and we are committed to passing it – but it will now be a two-year bill that we will advance next year,” lesbian Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) and gay Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said in a June 18 joint statement.

Mayor London Breed, who has been a strong proponent of safe consumption services for people who inject drugs – who number around 24,500 in San Francisco, according to a recent Department of Public Health estimate – expressed disappointment about the decision.

“While it’s unfortunate the bill has been delayed until next year, I am still supportive of bringing a safe injection site to San Fran-

Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman vowed to pursue a safe injection pilot program bill next year.

cisco,” Breed told the Bay Area Reporter. “We need to get people indoors to a place where they can be connected to services so that when they are ready to seek help, there is someone there to help them. This may set us back in implementing one of these sites, but we will still continue to pursue our other public health efforts for those on our streets.”

Supervised injection facilities allow people to use drugs under the watch of trained staff, reducing the risk of overdose deaths. They provide sterile syringes to prevent transmission of HIV and hepatitis B and C, and offer clients an entry point for seeking medical care and addiction treatment. Indoor sites also reduce street-based drug use and improper needle disposal, a growing problem in the city.

A supervised injection bill that applied to several California counties narrowly failed to pass the Senate in 2017. Eggman and Wiener tried again in 2018 with a narrower bill that included only San Francisco. That legislation passed the Assembly and Senate, but was vetoed at the last minute by outgoing Governor Jerry Brown. Eggman and Wiener reintroduced that bill in February; Governor Gavin Newsom has indicated he is open to the concept of a pilot program.

But now, some cities that were left out of the current bill have expressed interest in being included.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and City Councilwoman Nikki Fortunato Bas have expressed their support for AB 362 and requested that

the bill be amended to add Oakland.

“Given the bill’s triple referral to three Senate policy committees and the ongoing discussions with cities that may want to be added to the pilot program, we believe it best to allow more time in the process so we can include communities that want to be included and so that we make this the strongest possible pilot,” Eggman and Wiener said in their statement. “We are confident in this policy and the progress we have made, but we want to ensure we’re not leaving out any city or county that wants the opportunity to save lives in its community.”

Advocates express support

The San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which operates the city’s syringe distribution program and collaborates on several local harm reduction initiatives, expressed “deep disappointment” that AB 362 would not proceed this legislative cycle.

“Delaying the implementation of an evidence-based program will result in more people unnecessarily dying due to the shame and stigma related to substance use,” SFAF CEO Joe Hollendoner said in a statement. “Overdose is a leading cause of death for people living with HIV

t

and injection drug users make up 25 percent of all new HIV diagnoses in San Francisco. We remain committed to working with our partners in City Hall and Sacramento to legalize these services, which will save countless lives.”

In the same statement, SFAF announced that the agency will bring on board Laura Thomas, formerly with the Drug Policy Alliance, as its new director of harm reduction policy starting July 1. Thomas was previously a member of SFAF’s policy staff in the 1990s.

“The delay in opening supervised consumption services in San Francisco is measured in lives lost,” Thomas told the B.A.R. “We see the need for these services all around us every day.

I’m optimistic that we will figure out how to take action and save lives here while this bill moves forward.

“I’m excited to be joining the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and bringing my harm reduction and drug policy expertise back to my HIV advocacy roots,” she added.

“Under Joe’s leadership SFAF has increased its commitment to harm reduction and understands that we can’t get to zero new HIV infections here without fully engaging people who use drugs.” t

<<

Milk SFO

From page 19

“When I first walked in my initial reaction was is it supposed to be this big? It is extraordinary. It takes your breath away,” said District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who led the legislative fight to force the airport to prominently feature Milk’s name in the signs for the terminal. “I was tearing up. I have enormous pride right now. San Francisco is a very special city because of people like Harvey Milk.”

Her predecessor, David Campos, a gay man who is now chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, first proposed in 2013 naming all of SFO after Milk. When that proposal didn’t fly with much of the public, Campos and the late mayor Ed Lee compromised on naming one of SFO’s four terminals after the beloved gay leader.

Ronen, who had worked for Campos as a City Hall aide, pushed to ensure that happened after joining the board in 2017. Seeing their work come to fruition for the first time Friday night was also emotional for Campos.

“It is really amazing to see the scale of it. It is hard not to be emotional about it,” Campos told the B.A.R. “It’s like Harvey has come to life. The scale and magnitude of the installation is key to that.”

Noting that securing the aviation honor for one of his heroes has “been a struggle” from the get-go, Campos said, “It is difficult to process. I was struck by the great job they did.”

Helping to curate the exhibit was Tim O’Brien, assistant director and curator of exhibitions for the SFO Museum. In addition to sorting through the submissions sent in by the public for the installation, O’Brien and the other curators, in particular Kai Caemmerer, delved into the archives of the GLBT Historical Society and the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center at the San Francisco Public Library.

They also combed through the collections of photographers who were contemporaries of Milk, like Daniel Nicoletta and the late Crawford Barton, who documented that era in the city’s history through the lens of their cameras.

“It was extremely difficult,” said See page 38 >>

t

Community News>>

June 27-July 3, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 29

GNews producers launch new website

by David-Elijah Nahmod

F

or the past two years the producers of the LGBT news show GNews have faced censorship issues with YouTube, the original online home of their show, and now they’ve launched a new website.

Called Glitter Bomb TV, the site will serve as the online home not only for GNews, but also for the other programs the producers had been making for YouTube, which is owned by Google.

According to Chris Knight, 52, and Celso Dulay, 49, the gay married couple who produce GNews, YouTube has repeatedly flagged their show for having “shocking content,” “adult content,” or “inappropriate content.”

Knight told the Bay Area Reporter that once the show is flagged, the ability to advertise the show is blocked, making it nearly impossible to reach their target LGBT audience.

“Which is basically censorship, based on us being members of the LGBTQ+ community,” Knight said in an interview.

A Google spokeswoman wrote in an email, “We have long-standing policies that govern the kinds of ads we allow on our platform, and we review ads from our LGBTQ+ advertisers against the same standards as all other advertisers. We always encourage advertisers to appeal if they feel an ad was disapproved by mistake.”

Knight and Dulay began streaming GNews on Facebook as an alternative to YouTube. This went well for about six months, until Facebook began blocking them from promoting content that was deemed “political or of national importance.”

“We went through an exhaustive and detailed process with Facebook in order to run ads for content they deem political (the Equality Act) or of national importance (the Colorado baker who refuses to sell wedding cakes to same-sex couples),” said Dulay.

They are now officially approved to run ads since completing that process. However, they became aware of another organization, the GLBT Historical Society, which operates the GLBT Historical Society Museum in the Castro, that experienced similar issues and could not purchase ads to boost Facebook content.

“In terms of Facebook, there is not an easy way to speak to a live human being,” said Dulay. “It’s all automated online and advertisers interact with Facebook’s Ads team via digital channels only. On a related matter, Facebook-owned Instagram recently deleted our Instagram account, and we’ve been unsuccessful in getting a good explanation for that. We recently simply gave up on trying to get that account reactivated.”

Knight added that this turn of events “pissed them off.” They said that in the current political environment, with President Donald Trump trying to chip away at LGBT rights, the anger they felt has given them the courage to stand up and fight.

Terry Beswick, executive director of the historical society, said it rarely advertises events on Facebook anymore.

“But we are still reliant on their platform to engage with our audiences,” he wrote in an email to the B.A.R. “We have boosted events a few times this year with a limited budget. These events were fairly innocuous, certainly not sexual or in any way political, but they were queer, of course. The fact that they were approved may have to do with our own selection of events that would be more likely to be approved, but last year they would have been rejected out of hand.”

Beswick said the historical society decided not to register with Facebook as a “political organization” since it’s mainly an educational and cultural organization.

“We still have problems with the structure of the platform and the way it is administered, but due to its mo-

Juanita MORE!

Celso Dulay, left, and Chris Knight attended Juanita MORE!’s Powerblouse event.

nopoly status and our community’s investment in it, it will be difficult for us to separate until something else comes along,” Beswick added.

GNews, hosted by Dulay and costarring a revolving lineup of cohosts, will continue to feature a variety of topics of interest to the global LGBTQ+ community, including Hollywood, pop culture, music, celebrities, politics, news, plus local and international events.

Other shows

Another show, GBomb, will see Dulay conducting long-form interviews with community leaders such

as Tim Seelig, artistic director of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, and drag hostess Juanita MORE! Coming soon to the Glitter Bomb TV lineup will be GSpot, a show that will focus on hot spots for the LGBTQ community in the Bay Area and beyond. And finally, Glitter Bomb TV offers GPost, a page that offers Knight’s written opinion pieces on a variety of LGBTQ-related topics.

The site also includes a community resource page.

“The big bonus of doing this is that we are now raw, uncut, and uncensored,” said Dulay. “We can say whatever we like and not be at the mercy

of the vague, unfair policies of tech giants on their ‘free speech’ platforms.”

Knight and Dulay report that they’ve been getting some decent traffic on the new site. They’ve been promoting it through organic and paid social media, word of mouth, and Knight’s GPost columns.

This summer they plan to sponsor and co-host a series of events to help spread the word. They’ll be boosting the website through paid online ad campaigns, and choosing marketing partners to significantly increase the site’s traffic. They also hope to explore distribution of their content by other LGBTQ+ news channels and websites.

“So far, the budget for Glitter Bomb TV has been out of our own pockets,” said Knight. “It’s been a labor of love. We’ve spent more than $25,000 in paid advertising over the last four years via Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube to increase views and to build an audience. We plan to at least triple our annual marketing budget during the next six months, and plan to be profitable by 2020.”

Knight and Dulay feel that it’s important to be out and proud in light of the Trump administration’s attempts to reverse LGBT rights.

“We’re losing ground and those basic rights could be rolled back during our lifetimes,” said Knight. “It’s

incredibly important for all of us to be woke, active, vocal, and never take what we have for granted. Hope will never be silent, and we must all ‘get out of the bars and into the streets’ as the old rally cry goes. And also get out there to support Democrats in 2020.”

Knight added that this is particularly important as LGBTQ people recall the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. He pointed to a piece he wrote for GPost.

“The Stonewall riots were a pivotal moment,” Knight wrote. “They served as a primary catalyst for the gay rights movement in the USA and around the world. It also sparked our annual worldwide tradition of celebrating our Pride through marches, parades, festivals, and events. Many of the major ones taking place in June to commemorate and celebrate the bravery of our brothers and sisters who stood up against the man to take back our longtime refuge, our bars, where our LGBTQ+ community can be surrounded by like minded fellowship, dance, drink, and be ‘Mary,’ and most importantly, feel safe and be safer.

We’ve got each other’s backs.” t To watch GNews or other shows produced by Glitter Bomb TV, visit http://glitterbombtv.com/.

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<< Community News

30 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

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Stonewall Pride exhibit opens

Jane Philomen Cleland

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he 2019 Art and Pride exhibit, titled “Stonewall 50 Years,” opened Saturday, June 22, at the Harvey Milk Photo Center, 50 Scott Street in San Francisco.

David Faulk, aka Ms. Vera, left, a Pride parade community grand marshal, congratulated Milk photo

OFC names interim executive director

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TAKE PRIDE IN YOUR BRAIN

ur Family Coalition’s board of directors has selected Sam Ames as its new interim executive director.

Ames will replace Renata Moreira, who announced earlier this year that she was stepping down at the end of June.

Ames most recently served as interim executive director at Trans Lifeline, a peer-supported nonprofit hotline run by transgender people and based in Oakland. Ames has also worked as a staff attorney and policy fellow for the National Center for Lesbian 12:30 PM Rights from 2011 to 2016, and founded and coordinated its #BornPerfect campaign to protect LGBTQ children and youth by working to change state laws that allow conversion therapy, which is still legal in 32 states.

Ames, who Moreira referred to using they/them pronouns in an email announcing their hire, starts the position July 8. Ames did not respond to requests for comment from the Bay Area Reporter.

“We couldn’t be more pleased that Sam was as eager to work with OFC as we were eager to work with him,” said Moreira. “Sam has had many years of experience working in the LGBTQ

<<

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Levi Doyle, husband and care partner to Tom Tom Doyle, living with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

center director David Christensen on the exhibit at the reception. The show, which showcases contemporary artwork, runs through July 21. For gallery hours and more information, visit harveymilkphotocenter.org/.

LEARN MORE AT ALZ.ORG/ABAM

Courtesy OFC

Sam Ames

movement and is very familiar with OFC’s work. I am thrilled to be passing the baton to someone so skilled and passionate, to co-lead our next chapters with our brilliant board and team.”

Moreira announced her departure in May, citing a desire to spend more time with her family and following an announcement on the death of her sister, 43-year-old Isabel de Lima Garcez Moreira in Brazil.

In an email to the B.A.R., Moreira discussed the daunting duties ahead for Ames, expressing both concern and confidence.

“This is an exceptional time for our community: we’re facing unprecedented challenges immediately following historic wins. Some of us are

Shows

From page 19

office, particularly in the State Building, is most people have never been in their state senator’s office,” said Wiener. “The fact we have several hundred people come in every few months for an art show is a wonderful way to connect people in the community to their representative.”

The title for this month’s Pride exhibit, “Queer Eyes,” was inspired by the Netflix show where a quintet of out advisers provide makeovers to style-challenged men and women.

“It is something very current,” said Abbati, and refers to “the different way our community is involved in the arts. We have a wide range of experience in art.”

It is also the biggest Pride show yet. It features 70 works by 32 artists as well as a live performance at the June 30 opening party by the Hayward-born dancer SNJV (pronounced SUN-JEEV), 32, who has a video installation in the show.

His work is derived from being a gay man of color in drag, born to immigrant parents of Indian and Fijian descent who met in the Bay Area. The title of his piece, “Phool,” is a play on

Matthew S. Bajko

A tarot card created by Jessalyn Ragus is on display in state Senator Scott Wiener’s San Francisco office.

the English word fool but also a direct reference to the Hindi word for flower and the floral garlands worn

by Indian brides and grooms.

“I play the fool, not only a silly individual but a flower blossomed and withered away, nourished to grow again,” he said. “It is a story about how life is beautiful so enjoy it while it lasts.”

Oakland resident Cassie Castrejon, 28, who identifies as trans nonbinary, has three paintings in the exhibit that speak to the self-hate and gender dysphoria they experienced growing up. It is the first time

well-protected, others more exposed and at-risk than ever before,” she wrote. “And the funding landscape for nonprofits is equally paradoxical and rapidly changing.”

She added that Ames will need to draw on a combination of political savvy, organizational know-how, and emotional intelligence.

“I’m delighted to say that Sam Ames brings an optimum combination of all three,” Moreira wrote. “I’m excited to see what emerges. Whatever it is, I know it will be just what OFC needs to do in and with community to continue delivering on our core mission: ensuring that the most vulnerable LGBTQ+ families among us receive the advocacy and support that will benefit them the most.”

According to Moreira’s email, Ames has also served as chaplain at UCSF’s Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute. Ames received a master’s degree in divinity from Harvard, a law degree at George Washington University School of Law, and their undergraduate degree from UC Santa Cruz.

OFC’s budget is about $1.2 million, according to its 2015 annual report, the most recent on its website. t

Castrejon has shown their art in the Bay Area since moving from Seattle three years ago.

“I hope it is a starting point for getting involved in other ways in the art community in the city directly or indirectly,” said Castrejon. “I haven’t been involved in an art show since I moved here. I didn’t find an in here because it is such a big art community.”

Illustrator and kids art teacher Jessalyn Ragus, 25, a queer womxn who lives in the Haight, has three of her tarot cards featuring queer erotic imagery in the show. They are part of a complete 78 tarot card deck that she created and has for sale on her Etsy page.

“The pieces I entered for the show are very PG compared to the rest of the deck, I would say,” said Ragus.

“Because of the content of my work, I try to be the most sex positive as I can. I think that is really important.”

While attending the Academy of Art in San Francisco, she turned to tarot to help her work out some personal issues. When she posted her first tarot cards she made on social media, the positive response led her to devote three years toward creating the full deck.

See page 35 >>

International News>>

t Paris marks Pride Month with honors for US gays

by Heather Cassell

P

aris inaugurated Harvey Milk Place, Stonewall Place, and unveiled a plaque honoring Gilbert Baker during a Pride Month ceremony recognizing American and French LGBT rights leaders.

Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Fourth arrondissement Mayor Ariel Weil, Harvey Milk’s gay nephew, Stuart Milk, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Victoria Kolakowski, and other French officials attended the June 19 ceremony.

Milk’s square “will be a permanent inspiration for LGBT rights activists and everyday heroes alike who are visible in their lives,” Miriam Richter, director of the Harvey Milk Foundation, said in a statement to the Bay Area Reporter.

The foundation continues to work toward social justice in the face of “rising ultra-nationalistic movements,” she continued, adding that Stuart Milk has worked in France on LGBT initiatives and events for six years and collaborated with Hidalgo for the past three years.

“Harvey’s story and courage are our prime ingredient in providing hope and inspiration to all who cherish freedom and equality,” she said.

Stuart Milk was unavailable for comment due to accepting an award in Oslo, Norway. In an email to the B.A.R., Kolakowski, who was in Paris as part of a U.S. State Department-sponsored trip, wrote that it was a moving tribute.

“Stuart Milk gave an excellent speech about the importance of Harvey Milk’s legacy,” wrote Kolakowski, who also appreciated Hidalgo recognizing “several Sisters (of Perpetual Indulgence).”

The B.A.R. also made multiple attempts for comment by Weil but was unable to receive a response by press time.

Paris is a sister city of San Francisco. Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man elected to office in the city and California when he won a seat in 1977 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Tragically, disgruntled ex-supervisor Dan White assassinated him and thenmayor George Moscone in 1978.

In addition to the public square named after Milk, Paris leaders dedicated a square honoring the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York, which is called Stonewall Place. A plaque was dedicated to rainbow flag cocreator Gilbert Baker. Streets were named after the late French transgender communist activist and poet Ovida Delect and gay Holocaust survivor Pierre Seel.

French Socialist Party politician Jean-Luc Romero, 12th arrondissement, proposed the renaming of the squares and streets in honor of LGBT leaders. The Paris City Council passed it unanimously.

“You always have to remember where you come from,” Romero told Têtu, France’s LGBT magazine. “For my part, I know what it is to have started my life in a country where homosexuality was criminalized, and the majority of the opinion was homophobic.”

The ceremony was held several days before the Pride Fortnight Fest, leading up to Paris Pride, June 29, and ahead of Stonewall 50 World Pride this weekend in New York City.

Rainbow history in Paris streets

More tributes are planned for Paris streets in the neighborhood to commemorate Yves Saint-Laurent, Bernard-Marie Koltès, Marielle Franco, Cleews Vellay, Edith Thomas, Madeleine Pelletier, Alan Turing, Marguerite Huré, Thérèse Pierre, and James Baldwin.

“Paris’ elected officials view Paris as having a major role in being a leader in promoting diversity and LGBT recognition,” wrote Kolakowski. “Mayor Hidalgo spoke about Paris being a sanctuary and a center for LGBT people.

“This hasn’t always been the case,” she added.

Since 2014, more than 40 places have been renamed in districts throughout the City of Lights to honor LGBT historical figures, starting with gay French men Bruno Lenoir and Jean Diot, the last two men known to have been sentenced to death due to homosexuality, reported Paris.fr.

“Commemorative street naming has recognized numerous heroes for a long time but choosing LGBTQI figures was a recent reflex that both Paris and San Francisco had at the very same moment,” noted Emmanuel LebrunDamiens, the gay consul-general of the French Consulate of the Northwest in San Francisco, in a statement to the B.A.R. “It is another evidence that the two sister cities share the same values and walk hand in hand ahead of their time. The greatest LGBTQI advocates are now recognized as true heroes alongside other historical and recognized figures. It’s a great achievement!”

In light of Paris honoring Milk and Baker, some have suggested San Francisco return the favor by naming a street or creating a plaque to commemorate gay French philosopher Michel Foucault.

Foucault was well-known in San Francisco, having spent time in the city where, among other things, he frequented South of Market’s leather bars.

Foucault died of AIDS in 1984 at the age of 57.

Lebrun-Damiens thought the idea of a plaque honoring Foucault would strengthen the Paris-San Francisco connection.

June 27-July 3, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 31

“Michel Foucault traveled frequently to San Francisco, a city that marked his personality and where many intellectuals built on his philosophy,” Lebrun-Damiens said in a statement to the B.A.R. “A plaque would make people aware of this other great connection between Paris and San Francisco.”

Trans judge’s French visit

Kolakowski’s stop in Paris was one of three cities she toured this month on the State Department-

sponsored trip to speak to groups about LGBT rights.

The June 16-19 visit, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, started in Bordeaux, where Kolakowski attended the city’s Pride event and spoke about her experiences as a transgender woman personally and professionally, and about United States’ LGBT history as a guest of the U.S. Embassy in France.

She met with a judicial group in Bordeaux as part of a cultural ex-

change visit.

In Toulouse, she visited at Espace des Diversites, a diversity center, where she met with Nicole Miquel Belaud, the mayor’s deputy in charge of diversity. She also spoke at a regional governmental center, the Conseil Départemental de la HauteGaronne, and gave a newspaper interview.

In addition to the aforementioned plaza ceremony in Paris.

See page 34 >>

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<< Election 2020

t Buttigieg faces critical test over police shooting 32 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

analysis by Lisa Keen

G

ay South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s meteoric campaign to become a top-tier contender for the Democratic presidential nomination has been shaken by a metaphorical earthquake that will test his fitness to address one of the nation’s most divisive powder kegs: racism.

A South Bend police officer shot and killed Eric Logan, a black man, June 16.

The officer, who is white, did not have his body camera turned on but claimed the man lunged at him with a knife.

The community outrage over the killing compelled Buttigieg to abandon some of his presidential campaign schedule and return home to address a long-standing concern that some white police officers in South Bend not only harbor racist feelings, but act upon them. The outrage also brought the glare of national media attention to the issue throughout the country of white police officers shooting black people.

How Buttigieg, 37, handles this crisis in his city – along with a tornado strike and bar shooting that killed one and injured 10 the following Sunday – could propel his presidential aspirations to even greater heights or drop his campaign to the remote depths in

Screenshot

Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend and a leading Democratic presidential candidate, speaks at a tense town hall in his hometown Sunday.

a very crowded Democratic field.

National media coverage this week has been abounding in video of outraged South Bend residents shouting angrily at Buttigieg – at spontaneous rallies and at a June 23 town hall organized by the local NAACP chapter.

The videos have shown Buttigieg to be a careful listener and thoughtful responder to most questions hurled

REIMAGINED ROOMS & S P E C TA C U L A R CITY VIEWS

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his way. In other moments, his voice, eyes, and words have seemed to reveal churning emotions – frustration at someone questioning his commitment to black lives, hurt at the expressions of distrust, and sorrow over the lives lost and damaged.

Just weeks before the shooting in South Bend, the national political media had been quizzing Buttigieg about how he planned to win over the black vote in the 2020 Democratic primaries. It was discussed against a backdrop of polling that seemed to indicate former vice president Joe Biden has a hold on the lion’s share of black support, including 52% in the critical early primary state of South Carolina.

(Biden has since been struggling to explain his brag at a private fundraiser June 18 that two segregationists in the U.S. Senate when Biden was there “never called me ‘boy.’”)

Days before the South Bend black community exploded in anger over the shooting, gay journalist Jonathan Capehart published an essay in the Washington Post noting that Buttigieg had jumped from “zero percent of black support” in South Carolina to 6%. The leap put him between the two African American candidates for the Democratic nomination: Senators Kamala Harris of California (with

DINNER & DRINKS AT S E V E N S T I L L S NOB HILL

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11%) and Cory Booker of New Jersey (3%). Capehart credited Buttigieg’s quiet outreach to the black community and his clear grasp of issues of priority to the community.

First big test

Others said this latest incident is a challenge for Buttigieg.

“You learn a lot about candidates from how they deal with trying circumstances,” Keith Boykin, a gay man who’s a regular commentator for CNN and co-founder of the National Black Justice Coalition, wrote in an email.

“Bill Clinton had Gennifer Flowers in 1992. Barack Obama had Jeremiah Wright in 2008. Hillary Clinton had emails in 2016,” Boykin, a former aide to then-President Clinton, added.

“The police shooting of Eric Logan is the first big public test for Pete Buttigieg. It’s important to watch how candidates perform during these tests, especially for previously unknown candidates. Remember, most people had never heard of Pete Buttigieg, or even knew how to pronounce his name, a few months ago.”

Buttigieg skipped a big event in South Carolina, a fish fry hosted by prominent black Democratic Congressman James Clyburn, to return to South Bend and meet with furious

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constituents. At a widely-covered antigun violence rally on Friday, one female protester calmly asked Buttigieg, “Can you say to us today, in front of all these cameras, that black lives matter?”

Buttigieg, holding a portable public address system, spoke into the microphone and responded, “Did you just ask me whether black lives matter?”

His voice sounded incredulous.

“Just say it!” yelled a different woman, as other voices chimed in.

“Of course, black lives matter!” said Buttigieg.

“Then fire your cop!” yelled a man in the crowd, setting off a cacophony of exasperated voices from the crowd.

Buttigieg stood stiffly silent, taking in a barrage that seemed to crescendo with a woman yelling, “What matters about a black life to you, Mayor Pete? What matters about a black life to you?”

“The same thing that matters to me about my own,” said Buttigieg.

A second piece of CNN video from the same rally showed Buttigieg reading from a piece of paper and saying, “I do not have evidence that there has been discipline for racist behavior in the case. ...” The people at the rally interrupted with expressions of unhappiness with the statement. As the crowd expressed its anguish, Buttigieg stood silently, looking at the piece of paper in his hand.

According to the South Bend Tribune, Buttigieg stayed at the two-hour gathering and spoke with Logan’s mother. Photos from the gathering show Buttigieg’s spouse, Chasten, also attended.

Two days later, Buttigieg and the city’s white police chief appeared before the large and emotional crowd at the town hall. In prepared remarks, Buttigieg said he heard from the community that many people would like an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. He said “the city agrees” and that he would send a letter to DOJ’s Office of Civil Rights to request such an investigation. He also addressed concerns expressed by community members who indicated they did not have confidence in the county metro homicide unit to adequately investigate the incident and who asked that an independent investigator be tasked to that investigation.

Buttigieg said he agreed with that idea, too. The audience applauded.

On Monday it was reported that a special prosecutor had been requested.

Buttigieg told the audience about various programs that have been underway for some time, the removal of some officers for misconduct, recruiting a more diverse force, and to have police use body cameras. He bluntly acknowledged that the efforts to recruit a more diverse police force and to have police use body cameras “have not succeeded.”

“And I accept responsibility for that,” said Buttigieg. He asked for help in the recruitment of a more diverse force and he promised “action” on the implementation of body cameras.

But emotion in the town hall audience was boiling over. South Bend NAACP President Michael Patton tried hard to keep the discourse civil, but several audience members repeatedly shouted comments and questions, the interruptions turned into a raucous free-for-all during a question-and-answer session, with audience members shouting over each other and spontaneously expressing outrage. Among the complaints that could be heard were ones to “get the racists off the streets.”

Buttigieg thanked the audience member for her comment and said, “If anyone who is on patrol is shown to be racist ... that is their last day on the street.”

At an impromptu news conference following the town meeting, Buttigieg said, “This problem has to get solved in my lifetime. I don’t know of a person or a city that has solved See page 35 >>

t

Travel >>

June 27-July 3, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 33

Boston is rich in LGBT history

by Ed Walsh

W

hile San Francisco celebrates Pride this weekend, Boston’s celebration was Saturday, June 8, with a parade starting in Copley Square, through the gay-popular South End, before ending up at Boston City Hall.

The early celebration of Pride was congruent with the city’s history of firsts in LGBT history, most notably as host to the nation’s first same-sex marriages in 2004 when Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex nuptials.

But Boston’s gay tolerance can be traced back before it was even a city.

The Shawmut Indians, who called the area home centuries before the Europeans arrived, respected and honored the difference that LGBTs brought to their community structure. One of the most prominent entertainers in 19th century Boston was lesbian actor Charlotte Cushman, who used her wealth to commission a sculpture of education pioneer Horace Mann.

Her girlfriend, Emma Stebbins, did the sculpture. The statue can be seen in front of the front lawn of the Massachusetts Statehouse.

By the early 1900s, the term “Boston Marriages” was coined as an expression used all over the country to describe a cohabitating lesbian couple. One of the more prominent women in a Boston Marriage at that time was Eleanora Sears, who was the great-great-granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson and a professional tennis player. She also became the first woman in Massachusetts to get a driver’s license.

A wider gay visibility began in Boston long before same-sex marriages were legal. The city elected out lesbian Elaine Noble in 1975 as a state representative, making her the first openly gay person elected to any state legislature. She was a former speech

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Ed Walsh

The Boston skyline glistens as seen from the Prudential Skywalk Observatory.

instructor at Emerson College who had participated in a televised debate in support of gay marriage in 1974, 30 years before she would see that dream become a reality in Massachusetts.

Boston’s first gay Pride parade was held in 1971 and was attended by about 300 people. According to local media, 750,000 turned out this year and the city got into the spirit early with rainbow flags displayed prominently throughout the city including a huge rainbow flag draped over the upper floors of the landmark John Hancock Building.

The sights

This time of year, many visitors to Boston also check out Provincetown, the town on the tip of Cape Cod ranked as one of the gayest towns per capita in the world. The Pilgrims landed there before Plymouth Rock

and Ptown is gearing up to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ visit next year. You can easily make a day trip to Provincetown from Boston on the Bay State Cruise Company’s Fast Ferry (https://baystatecruisecompany.com/) that takes only 90 minutes each way from downtown Boston. If you are going by car, it’s about a twohour drive in good traffic.

Boston has been called the “Cradle of Liberty” and on just about every downtown street, you can find landmarks commemorating early U.S. history. One of its most visited historical sites is directly in front of the old Massachusetts Statehouse (https:// www.bostonhistory.org/). A circle marks the spot of the 1770 Boston Massacre but, as historians are quick to point out, the incident may have been an early example of fake news.

The story of the five colonists shot

dead by British soldiers was spun to rally support against the British. But many, including the soldiers’ defense lawyer, Founding Father John Adams, believed the soldiers acted in self-defense.

The first shots in the Revolutionary War were fired in the Boston suburb of Lexington in 1775. Support for independence was first bolstered by the propaganda surrounding the Boston Massacre combined with the backlash against the crown following King George’s crackdown on the colonists after the 1773 Boston Tea Party.

One of the best ways to explore Boston without getting lost is on a guided tour. One of the best is the Old Town Trolley Tour (https://www.trolleytours.com/boston), which includes

live narration and allows riders to get on and off at attractions. Buses run about every 15 minutes and the ride includes free admission to the city’s wax museum as well as the Old State House; the latter attraction is absolutely not to be missed.

Boston by Foot (https://www.bostonbyfoot.org/) is a great company that uses volunteers with a passion for the city to lead walking tours past the city’s most significant historical sights. The company also offers an excellent LGBT-focused tour during Pride week and groups can request the tour year-round. Tours by Foot (https://freetoursbyfoot.com/) offers excellent free tours by enthusiastic guides who work on tips. Most of the walking tours include part of the Freedom Trail (https://www.thefreedomtrail.org/), a 2.4-mile walk marked by red bricks. You can follow the trail on your own, but bring a guidebook with you that explains what to look for along the way. You can also download a free app from the National Park Service that includes stops on the Freedom Trail as well as important landmarks of the city’s rich African American history (https://www.nps. gov/bost/planyourvisit/app.htm).

Boston is home to some of the country’s best museums including the Boston Fine Arts Museum, the Boston Museum of Science, and the New England Aquarium. The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is outside of downtown Boston but an easy subway ride on the red line. The museum is another not-to-be-missed attraction that features some of the best skyline views of Boston.

See page 38 >>

6/24/19 9:33 AM

<< Community News

34 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

New ED starts at trans Latina agency

by Meg Elison

A

n agency that serves trans Latina women has hired a new executive director.

Nicole Santamaría started June 10 at El/La Para TransLatinas, which is based in San Francisco’s Mission district.

Santamaría, a 39-year-old intersex trans woman, comes to El/La from a background in organizing for LGBTQI individuals and causes in El Salvador. As executive director, Santamaría, will assume responsibility for overall administration, direction, management, and funding development, as well as the organization’s goals and objectives to protect and fight for the rights of transgender Latinas in San Francisco.

Santamaría spoke with the Bay Area Reporter via email, offering a sober view of the future.

“I have been doing this work for over a decade now, with a broader perspective of intersections that impact LGBTQI+ communities, in particular women, and trans/gender-nonconforming people of color and immigrants,” she wrote.

She added that her goals include continuing the creation and imple-

<<

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Nicole Santamaría

mentation of programs where participants can start or continue their healing journey and where they can thrive and live fulfilling lives.

“Where diversity can be embraced and celebrated as the richness present in our cultures and build societies free of violence that benefits not only LGBTQI+ community, but the broader community, so trans women can live over 35 years and die of natural causes, and

Out in the World

From page 31

Kolakowski also met with staff and youth at Le Refuge Paris, an organization that arranges independent housing for young people who’ve been thrown out of their homes, some of whom are refugees.

In an email interview with the B.A.R., Kolakowski, 57, wrote that she talked about how, in many nations, including the U.S., acceptance of LGBT people and rights varies throughout the country and that there were many similarities between LGBT French people and American queer people.

“Many local governments supported the work of eliminating discrimination of many types, and there are pockets of resistance,” Kolakowski wrote.

“My biggest takeaway is that LGBTQ+ people in France are a lot like

Courtesy El/La Para TransLatinas

not as a consequence of violence caused by hatred, marginalization, and exclusion,” Santamaría wrote.

El/La has its offices in the historic Redstone Labor Temple at 2926 16th Street, which became the subject of buyout turmoil earlier this year. The Mission Economic Development Agency, a nonprofit housing developer, made a bid to the building’s longtime landlord for $15 million to buy it and secure the tenancy of the organizations based there.

Christopher Gil, MEDA’s associate director of marketing and communications, spoke with the B.A.R. by phone, explaining that while the purchase price is lower than the asking price, recent inspections indicate that the building needs extensive work.

“We need help with another $7 million from the city for rehab, seismic retrofitting in particular, and to keep the current nonprofits in place.

It’s going to take a whole community to pull this off. I know El/La wants to stay, everybody wants to stay,” Gil said.

The offer went up against a cash bid of $21 million from WeWork, forcing MEDA and the Redstone Tenants Association to scramble to

News Briefs

From page 25

The LGBTQ community has since embraced it as a symbol of Pride.

“Various speakers will point out

Courtesy Victoria Kolakowski

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Victoria Kolakowski, third from right, met with officials in Toulouse, France as part of a cultural visit.

they are in the U.S., and in other places that I have visited – Canada, Ireland, and the U.K,” she added.

Kolakowski is the wife of Bay Area Reporter news editor Cynthia Laird.

that the kind of hatred that existed in the 1930s and 1940s still exists today – as in Chechnya, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Brunei, Jamaica, Saudi Arabia, and so many other places,” Carney said in the release. “There is

much to be done and education is the key. That’s why the pink triangle is still being installed after all of these decades – it is a giant one-acre learning tool.”

Volunteers should bring a hammer and gloves, wear closed-toe shoes, and wear sunscreen.

To sign up, for directions, or more information, visit www.thepinktriangle.com.

LaborFest coming up

The 26th annual LaborFest will be held in San Francisco next month, with lots of free or low-cost programs open to the public.

This year’s theme is “Labor on the Edge: Dystopia or A Future for Workers.”

According to organizers, the program schedule includes both international and local films and videos, labor history walks, a labor history bike ride, and more.

LaborFest will commemorate the 85th anniversary of the San Francisco General Strike of 1934. The impact of private ride-share services and the current gridlock, the role of technology on workers in the socalled gig economy, as well as local and global privatization on labor struggles will be featured in public forums, according to a news release.

Specific events include a forum at the California Historical Society on the 150th anniversary of the building of the Union Pacific Railroad and the contribution of Chinese

t

beat the New York-based co-working startup. Representatives for the Redstone Tenants Association did not respond to a request for comment.

Redstone tenants delivered a petition bearing 7,000 signatures to District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen’s office after a City Hall rally June 20, demanding that the city help preserve the below-market rents in the building for its current tenants, according to reporting by Mission Local.

Tania Jimenez, program coordinator for El/La, was present at the rally and told the crowd that the building was an irreplaceable resource for organizations like hers in an increasingly unaffordable city.

When asked about the Redstone, Santamaría agreed with Gil that preservation is a matter of community.

“We still have a lot of challenges to solve about our location stability, and the only way I can think this work will be possible is for the community to come together and keep ourselves protected from the gentrification that our communities are facing on a daily basis in San Francisco,” she wrote.

On Tuesday, the San Francisco

Board of Supervisors passed a resolution in support of preserving the Redstone building.

The future is uncertain for organizations like El/La; not only because of the concern over local real estate, but also because the federal government continues to roll back protections for transgender Americans and to persecute trans asylum seekers at the border.

When asked about these challenges, Santamaría was adamant.

“At this point, we have been following the high levels of violence t r ans/gender-nonconfor ming people of color are facing, that are impacting their lives in different grounds,” she wrote. “We are seeing every day more murders of trans black women, and also death inside of ICE detention centers, affecting the most vulnerable, and taking valuable members from their communities.”

Santamaría declined to provide her salary. El/La does not publish its funding or salary information. The B.A.R. was unable to ascertain the salary for this role, or the organization’s current budget. t

Elton John receives France’s highest honor

AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

He told the crowd that 27 million people have been treated and saved due to the fund. In 2016, the fund raised nearly $15 billion.

John supported Macron’s call to action.

His foundation, which has raised nearly $400 million for HIV prevention, education, and support, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2018, reported Gay Star News.

John has been circling the globe on his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour after more than 50 years creating music and performing. t

French President Emmanuel Macron awarded British rock star Sir Elton John France’s highest civilian honor.

John, 72, received the Legion of Honor June 21 for his work at the Elton John AIDS Foundation during a private ceremony with Macron at the presidential Élysée Palace a day after his Paris concert.

John’s husband, David Furnish, and their two children joined him at the ceremony.

The day marked France’s Fete de la Musique, when amateur musicians are invited to the palace courtyard and the streets of Paris to play music to celebrate midsummer.

According to the Washington Post, Macron used the event to mobilize youth and world leaders to fund the Global Fund to Fight

workers; a screening of “Sorry to Bother You,” a 2018 film by Boots Riley; and panel discussions on press freedom, whistleblowers (including the cases of Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Bryan Carmody), and the corporatization of community colleges.

Events start Tuesday, July 2, and continue through July 31. For a schedule, visit the Facebook page at https://bit.ly/2Fq4iwh.

SF Maritime to hold labor programs

In other labor history news, the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park will highlight the 1901 and 1934 waterfront strikes with programs next month.

A program on the 1934 strike will be held Friday, July 5, from 3 to 4 p.m. in the visitor center at 499 Jefferson Street (at Hyde). This year marks the 85th anniversary of the time three waterfront workers on strike were shot, with two of them killed, on July 5, 1934. Riots had broken out when city officials tried to open the San Francisco Port by force. Park ranger Peter Kasin will give a talk on what was the largest strike in West Coast history, and on its famed leader, Harry Bridges.

The 1901 strike will see a living history re-enactment Saturday, July 13, at noon (repeated at 2 p.m.) on the Hyde Street Pier. Representatives from labor and management will argue for and against the strike,

Got international LGBT news tips? Call or send them to Heather Cassell at WhatsApp: 415-5177239, or Skype: heather.cassell or oitwnews@gmail.com.

followed by a march along Hyde Street Pier with picket signs. People can hear impassioned speeches and voice their own opinion.

Both events are free and wheelchair accessible.

For more information, contact peter_kasin@nps.gov or (415) 4475000. For more information on the maritime park, visit http://www. nps.gov/safr.

Butch Voices returns to Oakland

Butch Voices, which enhances and sustains the well-being of all individuals who are masculine-ofcenter, will hold its 10-year anniversary conference August 15-18 in Oakland.

Organizers said that this year’s theme is “The Legacy of Butch Voices.” The group will also be commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

The conference will feature workshops, performances, films, spoken word, and networking opportunities.

The conference will be held at Oakstop, 1721 Broadway, Suite 201.

Registration is $200 for a four-day pass, or $100 for Friday or Saturday day passes. Organizers said financial assistance is available for those who qualify.

For more information, look for street team members at San Francisco Pride or visit https://bit. ly/2x9VCFK.t

t <<

Community News>>

‘Laughing Gorilla’

From page 22

damage, and what he considers the most important to the restoration, is the artists’ signatures.

“They’re completely gone,” he said, pointing to the wood border that surrounds the mural.

Ritter and his colleague, Meredith Clark, spearheaded the fundraising, and were able to raise about half the money they needed via a GoFundMe campaign. With the help of Harvey, who was one of Seibold’s closest friends, and a crew of volunteers, the project got underway.

“We had started talking about it before winter,” Ritter said, “but we didn’t think we could finish it in time.” With the heavy rains this season, it was lucky they held off until June.

<<

Buttigieg

From page 32

it, but I know if we do not solve it in my lifetime, it will sink America. And if nothing else, I hope people know I am motivated – not out of some theoretical concern or some political imperative but as somebody whose city is hurting – seeing people who I’ve known for years anguished, frustrated, upset, angry – angry at the city, angry at me – and I’m angry too ...

“As somebody who loves this city, whose job it is to cheerlead everything good that happens in this city, who is proud of this city,” said Buttigieg, “to also be here when that kind of hurt is being poured out, to know that part of my job is to be there for them, to listen, to have that poured on me, to have even people with whom I agree with hurl all of their anguish and frustration at me because I represent the city and the city has not solved this problem.”

Police problems

As noted by the Tribune, Buttigieg frustrated some in the black community years ago, during the first months of his first term, when he refused to publicly release audiotapes that purportedly recorded four white police officers using racist slurs. Buttigieg contended then, and now, that the Federal Wiretap Act prevents him from making the illegally produced tapes public.

Later that same year, three white police officers arrested – and used a stun gun on – a 17-year-old black

<<

Shows

From page 30

“I am really proud of it; it is my baby,” said Ragus, who hails from the small Central Valley farm town Le Grand near Merced.

Because some of the cards feature nude photomontages, Ragus has found it difficult to find a printing company willing to reproduce them. Five she approached turned her down, including one in Oakland, though she believes she has now found one willing to work with her.

“I want to make it OK if you are not a certain way to have different likes,” she said. “And being sex-positive, a lot of humans have trouble with facing that.”

Because the art is being shown in a government building, the Pride exhibit comes with a warning that it contains sexually explicit works.

Abbati purposefully grouped the more X-rated pieces together in smaller conference rooms within Wiener’s suite so the doors can easily be closed if needed.

According to Wiener and his staff, no one has ever complained about any of the artwork shown over the years. Just one of the risqué pieces in this year’s Pride exhibit was taken down earlier this month when a meeting was held in the room where it was installed.

Castrejon said they were unsure if one of their paintings would be accepted since it depicts a nude body

June 27-July 3, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 35

Regardless of when the restoration is complete, there’s going to be an unveiling ceremony, and both the team of muralists and the building owner are excited to show the neighborhood what they’ve done.

“Jean was just thrilled when we contacted her and said we want to restore it,” Ritter said of Seto. “She’s always loved the mural.”

Harvey, who now lives in Portland, Oregon, hopes to be here for the event. His admiration of the piece was obvious during a visit to the site, and he smiled and laughed while discussing it.

“If it needs a touch up, I’ll always come back and touch it up,” he said, “for the rest of my life.”

In a time when there’s a lot of talk about the loss of the art culture in San Francisco, this restoration project

became a poignant task. Its history is rooted in the Castro and the turbulence that the gay culture survived through the years there but it is itself comical and lighthearted.

“I think he (Seibold) didn’t want to do something political,” Ritter speculated. “He wanted something jovial.”

For building owner Seto, the mural is a small part of a larger narrative even if the artist didn’t create it from a political standpoint.

“It’s time to appreciate what happened in this neighborhood,” she said in reference to everything from the AIDS crisis to displacement. “Very happy the neighborhood supported this restoration.”t

teen who had been misidentified as the subject of an arrest warrant, and the same officers harassed a 7-Eleven clerk who tried to report a drunk driver. The following year, a white police chief appointed by Buttigieg (to replace the black police chief who had been accused of making the illegal recordings) allegedly ignored a call for back up from a black police officer outside a building where the new chief was attending a gathering. Buttigieg refused to release a report on the investigation into that incident.

“I think it’s good that Mayor Pete is meeting with his constituents in South Bend about the police shooting,” Boykin wrote. “Police misconduct is a long-standing problem in America that predates Pete Buttigieg.

Even Stonewall was a rebellion against police brutality. But the black community members who are angry in South Bend appear to be expressing frustration that started before the police shooting.

“The mayor refused to accept calls for a citizen review board to be established. The mayor pushed out the black police chief after he made allegations of racism in the police force. And the number of black police officers was cut in half in the past five years,” he added. “To have all that history, and then to have a white police officer shoot a black civilian, only compounds the problems that existed before.”

The Reverend Al Sharpton told “Meet the Press” that he thinks Buttigieg has “an uphill battle” in trying to win African American votes, “but I

think he could, if anyone could at this point, climb that uphill battle.” Sharpton said Buttigieg was “well received ... almost mobbed” during his visit to a popular Harlem restaurant with Sharpton earlier this year.

“Went to every table, no negatives, because he seems comfortable in his own skin, he seems wellinformed and he started reminding people that ‘I know how it feels to be the outsider,’” Sharpton said. t

with a blue dildo strapped on. Not only did Abbati select it, the building’s security guards were nonplussed when Castrejon brought it to the office.

“I had it hidden, tucked under my shoulder like a surfboard. They didn’t ask me about any of the pieces,” said Castrejon. “The security guards were super chill about it. They were only demanding that I take my shoes off because they were setting off the sensors.”

The paradox of having a nude portrait hanging in the office of a lawmaker whose last name is a slang term for male genitalia is rather amusing, admitted Castrejon.

“I have a big wiener piece in Scott Wiener’s office in a government building. That is really funny to me,” said Castrejon.

Ragus said she was also surprised to be invited to take part in the exhibit due to the nature of her art and the location of the show. She appreciates the opportunity to have her artwork be seen by people who otherwise may never encounter it.

“It is cool to kind of get to meet all these other artists who might be feeling the same way, I guess,” she said. “We are all getting showcased in a world we don’t always get seen in.”

The exhibit opening takes place from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday, June 30, in Suite #14800, 455 Golden Gate Avenue. Those interested in attending must register online at https://bit.ly/2Yoe21e. t

To donate to the GoFundMe campaign, visit https://bit.ly/2L7OAJV.

6 New “Below Market Rate” Ownership Homes at 719 Larkin One-bedroom homes priced from $327,745 – $332,218 without parking.

Applicants must be first-time homebuyers and cannot exceed the following income levels: 100% of Area Median Income 2019 One person - $86,200; 2 persons - $98,500; 3 persons - $110,850; 4 persons - $123,150 etc.

Applications must be received by 5PM on Monday, August 12, 2019. Apply online through DAHLIA, the SF Housing Portal at https://housing.sfgov.org or mail in a paper application with a self-addressed stamped envelope to BMR 719 Larkin, P.O. Box 420847, San Francisco, CA 94142. Postmarks will not be considered. Paper applications can be downloaded from https:// housing.sfgov.org or picked up from one of the 5 approved housing counseling agencies listed at https://sfmohcd.org/homebuyer-counseling-agencies.

For more information or assistance with your application, please contact HomeownershipSF at (415) 202-5464 or info@homeownershipsf.org.

Units available through the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development and are subject to monitoring and other restrictions. Visit www.sfmohcd.org for program information.

1 6/21/19 9:46 AM IN JS-Sullivan_719LarkinBMR_062719-071119.indd THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO CALIFORNIA BARREL COMPANY LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, Plaintiff, v. All Persons Claiming Any Interest in, or Lien Upon, the Real Property Herein Described or, Any Part thereof, Defendants.

Case No. CGC-19-574377 SUMMONS ON SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT [CCP § 751.05] The people of the State of California, to All Persons Claiming Any Interest in, or Lien Upon, the Real Property Herein Described or, Any Part thereof, defendants, greeting (See Memorandum Disclosing Adverse Interest [CCP § 751.07] attached.): You are hereby required to appear and answer the complaint of CALIFORNIA BARREL COMPANY LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, plaintiff, filed with the clerk of the above-entitled court and county, within three months after the first publication of this summons, and to set forth what interest or lien, if any, you have in or upon that certain real property or any part thereof, situated in the City and County of San Francisco, State of California, particularly described as follows: REAL PROPERTY, SITUATE IN THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, COMPRISED OF SIX (6) PARCELS, DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEING A PORTION OF PARCEL A, AS SAID PARCEL A IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN GRANT DEED RECORDED SEPTEMBER 26, 2016 AS DOCUMENT NUMBER 2016-K334613 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, IN THE OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: PARCEL ONE BEING ALL OF MARYLAND STREET, AS SAID STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, LYING WITHIN SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEGINNING AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID MARYLAND STREET; THENCE, FROM SAID POINT OF BEGINNING, ALONG SAID NORTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), EASTERLY 80 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID NORTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH THE EASTERN LINE OF SAID MARYLAND STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID EASTERN LINE OF MARYLAND STREET, SOUTHERLY 279 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID EASTERN LINE OF MARYLAND STREET WITH THE SOUTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613); THENCE, ALONG SAID SOUTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016K334613), WESTERLY 80 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID SOUTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH SAID WESTERN LINE OF MARYLAND STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF MARYLAND STREET, NORTHERLY 279 FEET TO SAID POINT OF BEGINNING. PARCEL TWO BEING ALL OF LOUISIANA STREET, AS SAID STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, LYING WITHIN SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEGINNING AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID LOUISIANA STREET; THENCE, FROM SAID POINT OF BEGINNING, ALONG SAID NORTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), EASTERLY 80 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID NORTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH THE EASTERN LINE OF SAID LOUISIANA STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID EASTERN LINE OF LOUISIANA STREET, SOUTHERLY 279 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID EASTERN LINE OF LOUISIANA STREET WITH THE SOUTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613); THENCE, ALONG SAID SOUTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), WESTERLY 80 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID SOUTHERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH SAID WESTERN LINE OF LOUISIANA STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF LOUISIANA STREET, NORTHERLY 279 FEET TO SAID POINT OF BEGINNING. PARCEL THREE BEING A PORTION OF GEORGIA STREET, AS SAID STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, LYING WITHIN SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEGINNING AT A POINT ON THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID GEORGIA STREET, SAID POINT BEING THE SOUTHWESTERN CORNER OF PARCEL 1, AS SAID PARCEL 1 IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN JUDGMENT RECORDED FEBRUARY 1, 2001, AS DOCUMENT NUMBER 2001-G897578 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, IN SAID OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO; THENCE, FROM SAID POINT OF BEGINNING, ALONG THE SOUTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 1 (DN 2001-G897578), EASTERLY 80 FEET TO A POINT IN THE EASTERN LINE OF SAID GEORGIA STREET, SAID POINT BEING THE SOUTHEASTERN CORNER OF SAID PARCEL 1 (DN 2001-G897578); THENCE, ALONG SAID EASTERN LINE OF GEORGIA STREET, SOUTHERLY 406.42 FEET TO THE NORTHEASTERN CORNER OF PARCEL 3, AS SAID PARCEL 3 IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN JUDGMENT QUIETING TITLE RECORDED MAY 26, 1960 IN BOOK A127 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, AT PAGE 596, IN SAID OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO; THENCE, ALONG THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 3 (A127 OR 596), NORTHWESTERLY 18.79 FEET TO A POINT ON THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613); THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), THE FOLLOWING TWO (2) COURSES: 1) NORTH 03°10’16” WEST 125.39 FEET, AND 2) SOUTH 86°49’44” WEST 63.85 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2001-K334613) AND SAID WESTERN LINE OF GEORGIA STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF GEORGIA STREET, NORTHERLY 271.42 FEET, MORE OR LESS, TO SAID POINT OF BEGINNING. PARCEL FOUR BEING A PORTION OF MICHIGAN STREET, AS SAID STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, LYING WITHIN SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEGINNING AT A POINT ON THE EASTERN LINE OF SAID MICHIGAN STREET, SAID POINT BEING THE SOUTHEASTERN CORNER OF PARCEL 2, AS SAID PARCEL 2 IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN JUDGMENT RECORDED FEBRUARY 1, 2001, AS DOCUMENT NUMBER 2001-G897578 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, IN SAID OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO; THENCE, FROM SAID POINT OF BEGINNING, ALONG SAID EASTERN LINE OF MICHIGAN STREET, SOUTHERLY 157.42 FEET, MORE OR LESS, TO THE NORTHEASTERN CORNER OF PARCEL 4, AS SAID PARCEL 4 IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN JUDGMENT QUIETING TITLE RECORDED MAY 26, 1960 IN BOOK A127 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, AT PAGE 596, IN SAID OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO; THENCE, ALONG THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 4 (A127 OR 596), NORTHWESTERLY 2 FEET, MORE OR LESS, TO A POINT ON THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613); THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), THE FOLLOWING TWO (2) COURSES: 1) NORTH 03°10’16” WEST 9.01 FEET, AND 2) SOUTH 86°49’44” WEST 11.12 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2001-K334613) AND SAID NORTHERN LINE OF PARCEL 4 (A127 OR 596); THENCE, ALONG SAID NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 4 (A127 OR 596), NORTHWESTERLY 6 FEET, MORE OR LESS, TO A POINT ON SAID WESTERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613); THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), NORTH 03°41’19” WEST 143.4 FEET, MORE OR LESS, TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613) WITH THE SOUTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 2 (DN 2001-G897578); THENCE, ALONG SAID SOUTHERN LINE OF PARCEL 2 (DN 2001-G897578), EASTERLY 18.62 FEET TO SAID POINT OF BEGINNING. PARCEL FIVE BEING A PORTION OF HUMBOLDT STREET, AS SAID STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, LYING WITHIN SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEGINNING AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE SOUTHERN LINE OF SAID HUMBOLDT STREET (33 FEET WIDE) WITH THE EASTERN LINE OF MICHIGAN STREET, AS SAID MICHIGAN STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, SAID POINT BEING THE NORTHEASTERN CORNER OF PARCEL 2, AS SAID PARCEL 2 IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN JUDGMENT RECORDED FEBRUARY 1, 2001, AS DOCUMENT NUMBER 2001-G897578 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, IN SAID OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO; THENCE, FROM SAID POINT OF BEGINNING, ALONG THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 2 (DN 2001-G897578), WESTERLY 18.62 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID NORTHERN LINE OF PARCEL 2 (2001-G897578) AND THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613); THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), THE FOLLOWING TWO (2) COURSES: 1) NORTH 03°41’19” WEST 1.31 FEET, AND 2) NORTH 87°24’17” EAST 18.63 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID WESTERN LINE OF PARCEL A (DN 2001-K334613) AND SAID EASTERN LINE OF MICHIGAN STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID EASTERN LINE OF MICHIGAN STREET, SOUTHERLY 1.12 FEET TO SAID POINT OF BEGINNING. PARCEL SIX BEING A PORTION OF HUMBOLDT STREET, AS SAID STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, LYING WITHIN SAID PARCEL A (DN 2016-K334613), MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS: BEGINNING AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE SOUTHERN LINE OF SAID HUMBOLDT STREET (33 FEET WIDE) WITH THE EASTERN LINE OF GEORGIA STREET, AS SAID GEORGIA STREET EXISTED PRIOR TO THE VACATION THEREOF, SAID POINT BEING THE NORTHEASTERN CORNER OF PARCEL 1, AS SAID PARCEL 1 IS DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN JUDGMENT RECORDED FEBRUARY 1, 2001, AS DOCUMENT NUMBER 2001-G897578 OF OFFICIAL RECORDS, IN SAID OFFICE OF THE RECORDER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO; THENCE, FROM SAID POINT OF BEGINNING, ALONG THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID PARCEL 1 (DN 2001-G897578), WESTERLY 80 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF SAID PARCEL 1 (2001-G897578) AND THE WESTERN LINE OF SAID GEORGIA STREET, SAID POINT BEING THE NORTHEASTERN CORNER OF SAID PARCEL 1 (DN 2001-G897578); THENCE, ALONG SAID WESTERN LINE GEORGIA STREET, NORTHERLY 33 FEET TO THE NORTHERN LINE OF SAID HUMBOLDT STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID NORTHERN LINE OF HUMBOLDT STREET, EASTERLY 80 FEET TO A POINT ON THE EASTERN LINE OF SAID GEORGIA STREET; THENCE, ALONG SAID EASTERN LINE OF GEORGIA STREET, SOUTHERLY 33 FEET TO SAID POINT OF BEGINNING. PARCELS ONE THROUGH SIX BEING PORTIONS OF APN 4175-017.

ATTACHED HERETO IS AN ILLUSTRATIVE INDEX MAP, AND BY THIS REFERENCE, MADE A PART HEREOF. And you are hereby notified that, unless you so appear and answer, the plaintiff will apply to the court for the relief demanded in the complaint, to wit: quiet title to the Property consistent with the legal description above, against all adverse claims of all claimants, known and unknown, as of the date the Complaint in this case was filed.

Witness my hand and the seal of said court, DATE: MAY 24 2019, by Clerk of the Court, CAROLYN BALISTRERI Memorandum Disclosing Adverse Interest [CCP § 751.07] The following persons are said to claim an interest in, or lien upon, said property adverse to Plaintiff: 1. PG&E, 245 Market Street, N10A, Room 1015, P.O. Box 770000, San Francisco, CA 94177; 2. City and County of San Francisco, Office of the City Attorney, Room 234, City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, San Francisco, CA 94102; 3. Trans Bay Cable LLC, One Letterman Drive, C5-100, San Francisco, CA 94129; 4. San Francisco Port Authority, Pier 1, The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94111; 5. California Regional Water Quality Control Board for the San Francisco Bay Region, 1515 Clay Street, Suite 1400, Oakland, CA 94612; 6. NRG Potrero LLC, c/o GenOn, 1360 Post Oak Boulevard, Suite 2000, Houston TX 77056 Lubin-Olson_062719_3x10.25.indd 1

6/20/19 1:55 PM

<< Pride 2019

36 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

<<

SF Pride

From page 19

It is recommending a full boycott of the San Francisco event, including participation, sharing Pride-related media, and wearing corporate Pride gear.

Anonymous representatives from Gay Shame communicated with the Bay Area Reporter via email with a take-no-prisoners turn on how they view the yearly celebration.

“Our immediate goal is for SF Pride to finally stand with trans/queer people of color that have been, and continue to be, terrorized and murdered by SFPD, by officially banning all cops from Pride. We know that cops in Pride makes most of us less safe,” Gay Shame wrote in an email.

“As SF Pride is now almost exclusively a day of celebration for every murderous, racist, and transphobic multinational company, from Chevron to Facebook and more, we know that there is nothing to ‘reclaim’ and that Pride as we now know it must be destroyed,” the email stated.

For its part, the San Francisco Police Department will have a contingent in the parade, including a Pride decal-decorated police cruiser.

Officer Michael Andraychak, with the department’s media relations unit, wrote in an email to the B.A.R. that SFPD officers will march in the Pride parade wearing rainbow-bordered patches on their uniforms.

“The San Francisco Police Officers’ Pride Alliance coordinates SFPD participation in the Pride parade. SFPO Pride members, friends, family, supporters, and SFPD command staff will be walking in this year’s parade,” he wrote. “I would anticipate that SFPO Pride Alliance will provide stickers and beads to be handed out to the public as they have done in years past.”

There will be uniform and plainclothes officers along the parade route and at the celebration, as has been the practice in the past.

SFPD also reminded people that there is no organized event in the Castro Saturday night and there will be no street closures.

Another sore spot for some is the corporatization of the parade and concerns about tech companies and how they address anti-LGBT content.

Bloomberg reported Wednesday

Jane Philomen Cleland

This year’s Dyke March takes place Saturday, June 29.

morning that over 100 Google employees created and signed a petition again urging the SF Pride board to suspend the corporation from the parade and event. Google employees cited their dissatisfaction with how the controversy has been communicated and handled internally as well as externally. The letter will be posted online and will bear the full names of the employees who signed. Legal experts have commented on the developing situation, pointing out that federal laws that protect workplace activism will likely be of particular importance if Google seeks to terminate employees who protest policies or take advantage of this event to make their voices heard.

Bloomberg obtained a portion of the petition addressing this exact vulnerability. It reads: “We have considered the possibility that our employer will punish us for signing this letter, or that supporters of these very hatemongers will attack us personally, online or otherwise, simply for speaking out against them. Despite these risks we are compelled to speak.”

SF Pride officials did not return a call Wednesday seeking comment.

Activists last month asked the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee board to ban Google from the parade and from the list of event sponsors over the tech giant’s handling of homophobic com-

Classifieds

ments on popular YouTube channels (Google owns YouTube.) SF Pride indicated that it was “monitoring the story,” but ultimately took no action in the matter. Google will have a presence in the parade. It partnered with the LGBT Community Center of New York City to extend a digital landmark for the Stonewall Inn to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the riots that began the Pride movement.

The Verge, citing a leaked company memo, reported this week that employees are welcome to protest Google or YouTube during the Pride parade, as long as they are not marching with Google in an official capacity.

ED’s last parade

This will be the final parade for outgoing SF Pride Executive Director George F. Ridgely Jr., who has declined to comment on the controversies around this year’s event, focusing instead on legacy concerns. Writing in the official Inside Pride guide about his departure, Ridgely said, “It has been the singular privilege of my life to lead this iconic organization along its path to its fiftieth year. I am grateful for the support I have received, and humbled by the lessons I have learned.”

Ridgely did not respond to the B.A.R.’s requests for comment.

The central celebration runs from noon to 6 p.m., Saturday, June 29, and from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, June

30. The event is located in Civic Center Plaza and the surrounding area.

Multiple stages will offer programming, in addition to vendor and resource booths.

The suggested donation for entry is $1-$5. Pride is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, and most of the event is paid for through corporate sponsorship. SF Pride’s community partner program provides grants to participating nonprofits.

Parade

The parade steps off at Market and Beale streets Sunday morning. It continues to Eighth Street and paradegoers can take it all in along the route.

There are grandstands located at United Nations Plaza from which to view the parade, and tickets for those seats are available online before the event for $42.50, or $45 at the door on the day of the celebration. Tickets are also available on a sliding scale basis for those with financial hardship, and accessibility seating for deaf, hard-ofhearing, and disabled attendees is also available for purchase.

This year’s celebrity grand marshals include Kristen Beck, a transgender former Navy SEAL, as well as creators and cast members of the STARZ television series “Vida,” and cast from the Netflix limited series “Tales of the City,” based on the seminal, queer San Francisco-based serial novels of the same name by 75-year-old gay author

t

Armistead Maupin.

Community grand marshals include Vince Crisostomo, program manager for the Elizabeth Taylor 50-Plus Network at the Castro men’s health center, Strut (part of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation), as well as trans woman Donna Personna (lifetime achievement grand marshal) and drag queen Ms. Vera of Verasphere. Ms. Billie Cooper, a transgender woman, and API Equality-Northern California round out this year’s list.

Main stage acts are scheduled to feature performances from nonprofit theater company Bay Area Musicals’ “Hairspray,” DJ Siobhan Aluvalot, 48th elected Absolute Empress of San Francisco Patty McGroin, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, cumbia band Candelaria, Cheer SF, the official cheerleading team of the City and County of San Francisco, and many other acts.

Officials said that people planning to attend the festival should note: SF Pride bans glass bottles, coolers, and outside alcohol. Screening this year will include metal detectors and will refuse entry to anyone carrying guns, knives, or other weapons. The rules also exclude any bag or container larger than 18 inches square, as well as drones, stun guns, speakers, and walkie-talkies.

Child care and accessibility services are available to those who inquire at the information booth. The main stage and some others will feature ASL interpretation.

Trans, Dyke marches

Pride weekend starts with the 16th annual Trans March Friday, June 28, beginning at 6 p.m. at Mission Dolores Park.

Organizers did not respond to a request for comment, but according to the website, the march is “one of the largest trans events in the entire country, the entire world and the entire universe.” The official description of the route states that it moves “up Dolores from the park; make a right on Market; left on Viki Mar Lane (also known as Taylor Street) into the Compton’s Transgender Cultural District.”

The Trans March rents a classic street trolley for accessibility for people who may not be able to walk See page 38 >>

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Legal Notices>> The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LACUNA ERGONOMIC, 1881 GREENWICH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KELLY WHITTLESEY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/30/19.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038673300

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038670000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BOTTOMFEEDER RECORDS; WACKOWORLD MUSIC, 225 ANDOVER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ERIK IAN WALKER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/21/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/28/19.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038670600

JUNE 06, 13, 20, 27, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038672800

JUNE 06, 13, 20, 27, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038673200

JUNE 06, 13, 20, 27, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038667100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HOOLOO TRAVEL, 1015 FILLMORE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ZERYIHUN LEMMA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/28/19.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038670100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE THONGLOR, 420 GEARY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SRI-SUK, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/10/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/28/19.

JUNE 06, 13, 20, 27, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038660100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KOSA BELLA, 3133 22ND ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed REINA O. PORTILLO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/30/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/29/19.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LITTLE HANDS DAYCARE, 330 HOWTH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ASHLEY BERKLEY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/24/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/30/19.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ERBOSE, 190 22ND AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed AUDREY DOMBROSKI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/31/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/24/19.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: STEPHANIE KIM WONG, D.O., INC., 341 CHESTNUT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed STEPHANIE KIM WONG, D.O., INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/19/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/20/19.

JUNE 06, 13, 20, 27, 2019

JUNE 06, 13, 20, 27, 2019

JUNE 06, 13, 20, 27, 2019

JUNE 06, 13, 20, 27, 2019

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038645900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: 1327 ENTERPRISES, 1327 COLUMBUS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed CALVIN CHOW & DIANA MARIE CHOW. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/08/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/08/19.

JUNE 06, 13, 20, 27, 2019 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-035940300

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: WALKING TOGETHER, 341 CHESTNUT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business was conducted by a corporation and signed by WALKING TOGETHER (CA). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/05/14.

JUNE 06, 13, 20, 27, 2019

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June 27-July 3, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 37

Legal Notices>> ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554901 In the matter of the application of: THOMAS ROBERT VENEGONI, 1250 BRODERICK ST #6, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner THOMAS ROBERT VENEGONI, is requesting that the name THOMAS ROBERT VENEGONI, be changed to THOM FOWLER. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 18th of July 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 06, 13, 20, 27, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554896 In the matter of the application of: JULIA AYANA BALTRIP, 333 GONZALEZ DR, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JULIA AYANA BALTRIP, is requesting that the name JULIA AYANA BALTRIP AKA JULIA ALYS BALTRIP AKA JULIA ALYS AYANA BALTRIP AKA JULIA ALYS AYANA BALTRIP BALAGAS AKA JULIA BALTRIP AKA JULIA A. BALTRIP AKA AYANA BALTRIP AKA AYANA BALTRIP BALAGAS, be changed to JULIA AYANA AÏRAKAN-MANCE. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 16th of July 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 06, 13, 20, 27, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554846 In the matter of the application of: BOBBY DULAI SINGH, 3352 18TH ST #3, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner BOBBY DULAI SINGH, is requesting that the name BOBBY DULAI SINGH, be changed to BOBBY DULAI. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 27th of June 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 06, 13, 20, 27, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038672300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SIENNA CATERING, 1499 32ND AVE. SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YINGPING LILY MOK. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/29/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/29/19.

JUNE 13, 20, 27, JULY 04, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038680500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EA CAFE, 735 3RD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed ASHEDH INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/05/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/05/19.

JUNE 13, 20, 27, JULY 04, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038680400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SENTINEL FILM PROTECTION, 190 NAPOLEON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed DECO TOWING LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/21/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/05/19.

JUNE 13, 20, 27, JULY 04, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038681800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PINE HEADZ LLC, 1026 SAN LUIS CIRCLE #609, DALY CITY, CA 94014. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed PINE HEADZ LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/06/19.

JUNE 13, 20, 27, JULY 04, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038676100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BITE ME SANDWICHES, 701 COLE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed BAR VERO (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/31/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/31/19.

JUNE 13, 20, 27, JULY 04, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038675500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RAPTOR COMMUNICATIONS, 428 CORBETT AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed RAPTOR LLC (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/31/19.

JUNE 13, 20, 27, JULY 04, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038682700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SQUARE PIE GUYS, 1077 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed ADAM MADISON LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/27/19.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/19.

JUNE 13, 20, 27, JULY 04, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554926

In the matter of the application of: CORA ROSE MUIR THOMAS, 808 ALVARADO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner CORA ROSE MUIR THOMAS, is requesting that the name CORA ROSE MUIR THOMAS, be changed to KORA ROSE MUIR THOMAS. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, on the 25th of July 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554931 In the matter of the application of: CHUN KOW LAU, 133 MONETA WAY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner CHUN KOW LAU, is requesting that the name CHUN KOW LAU AKA HENRY CHUN, be changed to HENRY CHUN KOW LAU. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 30th of July 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019 SUMMONS (DIVORCE) CALIFORNIA SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, 300 EAST WALNUT ST, PASADENA, CA 91101 NOTICE TO RESPONDENT: QI TENG LU, YOU ARE BEING SUED BY PETITIONER: NINGNING ZHANG CASE NO. 18PDFL02353 You have been sued. Read the information below and on the next page. You have 30 calendar days after this Summons and Petition are served on you to file a Response (form FL120) at the court and have a copy served on the petitioner.

A letter, phone call, or court appearance will not protect you.

If you do not file your Response on time, the court may make orders affecting your marriage or domestic partnership, your property, and custody of your children. You may be ordered to pay support and attorney fees and costs. For legal advice, contact a lawyer immediately. Get help finding a lawyer at the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courts. ca.gov/selfhelp), at the California Legal Services website (www.lawhelpca.org) or by contacting your local county bar association.

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

FEE WAIVER: If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the clerk for a fee waiver form. The court may order you to pay back all or part of the fees and costs that the court waived for you or the other party.

The name and address of the court are: California Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, 300 East Walnut St, Pasadena, CA 91101 Pasadena Courthouse.

The name, address and telephone number of petitioner’s attorney, or petitioner without an attorney is: Elaine Yang, Esq.; Yang and Chen LLP, 17890 Castleton St #101, City of Industry, CA 91748 (626) 965-8789 Date: Dec 24, 2018 Clerk of The Court, Jorge Serrano, Deputy.

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

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

NOTICE – ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTH INSURANCE: Do you or someone in your household need affordable health insurance? If so, you should apply for Covered California. Covered California can help reduce the costs you pay towards high quality affordable health care. For more information, visit www.coveredca.com. Or call Covered California at 1-800-300-1506.

WARNING – IMPORTANT INFORMATION California law provides that, for purposes of division of property upon dissolution of a marriage or domestic partnership or upon legal separation, property acquired by the parties during marriage or domestic partnership in joint form is presumed to be community property. If either party to this action should die before the jointly held community property is divided, the language in the deed that characterizes how title is held (i.e. joint tenancy, tenants in common, or community property) will be controlling, and not the community property presumption. You should consult your attorney if you want the community property presumption to be written into the recorded title to the property.

JUNE 13, 20, 27, JULY 04, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038683400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MAGNET FLOOR ESTIMATOR, 603 9TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SORONZONBOLD ULZIIKHUTAG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/10/19.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038686400

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038682400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ADDIS AMERICA TOURS, 160 PORTOLA DR #106, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BERHANESELASE ASSEFA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/07/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/19.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038677300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SMILING SALON, 738 CLEMENT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed XIAOZHEN WEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/03/19.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038687100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TOWN LAND CONSTRUCTION, 1962 42ND AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DAVID FRANCIS FLYNN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/13/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/13/19.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038672200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VEIL CLOTHING, 2427 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NICK VAN WAGONER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/29/19.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038682800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SHAH’S HALAL FOOD, 532 MARKET ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed MOHAMMAD NADER & SHOAIB RAHMAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/06/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/19.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038678800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FINANCIAL DISTRICT DENTISTRY, 220 MONTGOMERY ST #120, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed EVANGELINE AMORES DDS, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/01/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/04/19.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038675900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: OLIVER SPACE, 430 9TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PETRA LIVING, INC. (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/31/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/31/19.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038671400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SWERV STUDIOS, 410 BRANNAN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed J BODYWORKS INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/15/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/29/19.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038691400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CITY BUILDING MAINTENANCE, 138 HYDE ST #19, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed GAMAL ALGAHIM & RAFIK ALGAHIM. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/18/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/18/19.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038694100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THREE STAR RESTAURANT, 2515 NORIEGA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SHARON HC INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/11/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/20/19.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038693800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GKP MARKET, 995 ELLIS ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed AMRIT SINGH, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/19/19.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038694900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ARE YOU EXPERIENCED S.F. CITY TOURS, 537 JONES ST #3439, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed PAUL Y. ROBERTSON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/06/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/12/19.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HONEYCOMB THERAPY, 815 HYDE ST #317, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed HONEYCOMB THERAPY A MARRIAGE & FAMILY THERAPY CORPORATION (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/20/19.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038683300

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038684500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: J.M.F. CLEANING SERVICES, 545 O’FARRELL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GENY G. CAUICH VILLARREAL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/10/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/10/19.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BURRITO PROJECT SF; BURRITO PROJECT SAN FRANCISCO; SAN FRANCISCO BURRITO PROJECT, 225 POTRERO AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed MDP FOUNDATION (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/11/19.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038685100

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038693600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ATHINA VALENTINA, 1471 WASHINGTON ST #201, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MICHELLE DEMETRIADES. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/11/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/11/19.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: STRADA PIZZA, 1115 TARAVAL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KOUROSH RAZINEJAD. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/09/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/19/19.

JUNE 20, 27, JULY 04, 11, 2019

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019

SUMMONS (FAMILY LAW) SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO NOTICE TO RESPONDENT: KAM FUNG WONG YOU HAVE BEEN SUED. PETITIONER’S NAME IS WEINAN XU, CASE NO. FDI-19-791743

You have 30 CALENDAR DAYS after this Summons and Petition are served on you to file a Response (form FL-120) at the court and have a copy served on the petitioner.

A letter or phone call will not protect you. If you do not file your Response on time, the court may make orders affecting your marriage or domestic partnerships, your property, and custody of your children. You may be ordered to pay support and attorney fees and costs.

For legal advice, contact a lawyer immediately. Get help finding a lawyer at the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp), at the California Legal Services Web site (www.lawhelpcalifornia.org), or by contacting your local county bar association.

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

FEE WAIVER: If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the clerk for a fee waiver form. The court may order you to pay back all or part of the fees and costs that the court waived for you or the other party.

The name and address of the court are: SAN FRANCISCO SUPERIOR COURT, 400 MCALLISTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102; The name, address, and telephone number of petitioner’s attorney, or the petitioner without an attorney, are: WEINAN XU, 1755 39TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122 June 4, 2019 Clerk, by Dennis Toyama, Deputy.

RESTRAINING ORDERS: Starting immediately, you and your spouse or domestic partner are restrained from: 1. Removing the minor child or children of the parties, if any, from the state without the prior written consent of the other party or an order of the court; 2. Cashing borrowing against, canceling, transferring, disposing of, or changing the beneficiaries of any insurance or other coverage, including life, health, automobile, and disability, held for the benefit of the parties and their minor child or children; 3. Transferring, encumbering, hypothecating, concealing, or in any way disposing of any property, real or personal, whether community, quasi-community, or separate, without the written consent of the other party or an order of the court, except in the usual course of business or for the necessities of life; and 4.

Creating a nonprobate transfer or modifying a nonprobate transfer in the manner that affects the disposition of property subject to the transfer, without the written consent of the other party or an order of the court. Before revocation of a nonprobate transfer can take effect or a right of survivorship to property can be eliminated, notice of the change must be filed and served on the other party.

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

NOTICE-ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTH INSURANCE: Do you or someone in your household need affordable health insurance?

If so, you should apply for Covered California. Covered California can help reduce the cost you pay towards high quality affordable health care. For more information, visit www.coveredca.com. Or call Covered California at 1-800-300-1506.

WARNING: IMPORTANT INFORMATION California law provides that, for the purposes of division of property upon dissolution of a marriage or domestic partnership or upon legal separation, property acquired by the parties during marriage or domestic partnership in joint form is presumed to be community property.

If either party to this action should die before the jointly held community property is divided, the language in the deed that characterizes how title is held (i.e., joint tenancy, tenants in common, or community property) will be controlling, and not the community property presumption. You should consult your attorney if you want the community property presumption to be written into the recorded title to the property.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554836

In the matter of the application of: AMBER ROSE ORANTES, 1238 SHAFTER AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner AMBER ROSE ORANTES is requesting that the name AMBER ROSE ORANTES AKA AMBER R. ORANTES AKA AMBER ORANTES be changed to IYANA MARLI DEPALMA, and EVAN CHARLES ORANTESCROWDER be changed to EVAN ANTOINE DEPALMA. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 25th of June 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038685900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CARE 24/365, 1160 MISSION ST #1709, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RICHARD S. FORHEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/07/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/12/19.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038673600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PACIFIC MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION, 3450 GEARY BLVD #212, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DOLORES PEREZ HEILBRON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/30/19.

SUMMONS (FAMILY LAW) SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO NOTICE TO RESPONDENT: TIAN TIAN WU YOU HAVE BEEN SUED. PETITIONER’S NAME IS: WEI OUYANG CASE NO. FDI-19-791794

You have 30 CALENDAR DAYS after this Summons and Petition are served on you to file a Response (form FL-120) at the court and have a copy served on the petitioner.

A letter or phone call will not protect you. If you do not file your Response on time, the court may make orders affecting your marriage or domestic partnerships, your property, and custody of your children. You may be ordered to pay support and attorney fees and costs.

For legal advice, contact a lawyer immediately. Get help finding a lawyer at the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www. courts.ca.gov/selfhelp), at the California Legal Services website (www.lawhelpca.org), or by contacting your local county bar association.

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

FEE WAIVER: If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the clerk for a fee waiver form.

The court may order you to pay back all or part of the fees and costs that the court waived for you or the other party.

The name and address SAN FRANCISCO SUPERIOR COURT, 400 MCALLISTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102; The name, address, and telephone number of petitioner’s attorney, or the petitioner without an attorney, is: WEI OUYANG, 1113D KEEPLER CT, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94130 June 12, 2019 Clerk, by DENNIS TOYAMA, Deputy.

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

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

NOTICE-ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE HEALTH INSURANCE: Do you or someone in your household need affordable health insurance?

If so, you should apply for Covered California. Covered California can help reduce the cost you pay towards high quality affordable health care. For more information, visit www.coveredca.com. Or call Covered California at 1-800-300-1506.

WARNING: IMPORTANT INFORMATION California law provides that, for the purposes of division of property upon dissolution of a marriage or domestic partnership or upon legal separation, property acquired by the parties during marriage or domestic partnership in joint form is presumed to be community property.

If either party to this action should die before the jointly held community property is divided, the language in the deed that characterizes how title is held (i.e., joint tenancy, tenants in common, or community property) will be controlling, and not the community property presumption. You should consult your attorney if you want the community property presumption to be written into the recorded title to the property.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-554941 In the matter of the application of: HAMZA BOUCHAFRA, 425 1ST ST #2306, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner HAMZA BOUCHAFRA, is requesting that the name HAMZA BOUCHAFRA AKA HAMZA BEN BADOUR, be changed to HAMZA BEN BADOUR. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 1st of August 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038692900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAYDE MARK DESIGNS, 1112 DE HARO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed HEATHER A. FORBES. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/07/14. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/19/19.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038674900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SALON ONE THIRTEEN, 1538 PACIFIC AVE #113, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SELINA LEE FOWLER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/30/19.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038693300

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038691500

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038693200

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-036665000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MARYANNE HAIRSTYLING, 1327 9TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed THI NGOC ANH CAO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/19/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/19/19.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GLADSTONE & ASSOCIATES, 46 DIVISADERO ST #A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BRETT M. GLADSTONE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/19/19.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038692500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: IPHONE ANDROID REPAIR SF, 552 COLUMBUS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MUHAMMAD IMTIAZ AHMAD KHAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/19/19.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NELS BEAUTY CLUB, 960 FOLSOM ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed NAC MERMAID LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/18/19.

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: YUKOL PLACE THAI CUISINE, 2380 LOMBARD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123.

This business was conducted by an individual and signed

by YUKOL NIELTAWEEPHONG. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/04/15.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-033213100

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: GIANT GNOME DESIGN, 43 MIRAMAR AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112.

This business was conducted by an individual and signed

by STEVEN CLARK LOSCUTOFF. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 12/17/10.

JUNE 27, JULY 04, 11, 18, 2019

<< Pride 2019

38 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

SFO screens LGBT shorts for Pride

by Matthew S. Bajko

topics is shown each year. Their addition to the lineup of films is staggered throughout the month and they screen into July.

The first film added this year was Yuchao Feng’s 2018 “Red” about an introverted young man who dresses in women’s clothing and encounters

his father on the street one day. It debuted at the airport June 6 and runs through July 3.

Ben Joyner and Dumaine Babcock’s 2017 film “I Have Something To Tell You” started screening June 13 and runs through July 10. It is a profile of Adrain Chesser, who photographs loved ones at the moment he reveals his AIDS diagnosis.

The third film, AJ Baldwin’s 2018 short “Fifteen,” was added last Thursday, June 20, and runs until July 17. It is a first-person coming-of-age story.

Debuting Thursday, June 27, and running through July 24 is the fourth film, Alex Boh’s 2018 short “Hope.” It commemorates San Francisco’s 2018 Pride parade through the words of the late gay Supervisor Harvey Milk.

“We are hoping to reach some of those flying in to enjoy Pride weekend,” O’Brien told the B.A.R. “’Hope’ present’s beautiful footage of last year’s Pride festivities that really shows the range of

person and not as a politician,” said O’Brien.

One thing that struck O’Brien from the research he did into Milk’s life was realizing how much of an impression working in the theater world of New York City left on Milk.

The Woodmere, New York native served as a production associate for Broadway musicals such as “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Hair.”

“It impacted Harvey’s politics and his success in politics. He learned about stagecraft and he employed that to great effect here in San Francisco when he ran for office,” said O’Brien.

Former District 8 Supervisor Bevan Dufty, a gay man who served in what is considered to be Milk’s seat on the board, pointed to a gigantic version of a campaign poster Milk used during his unsuccessful bid for a state Assembly seat in 1976 as one of his favorite images in the exhibit.

On a blue background white letter-

ing declares “Harvey Milk vs. The Machine” and urges people to vote for him in the June 8 primary.

“It surpasses what any of us expected,” said Dufty, now president of the elected board for the regional BART transit agency that has a station at SFO. “It is a spectacular assemblage of Harvey Milk’s life and career.”

Milk contemporary Tom Ammiano, a gay teacher who came out of the closet to assist with the campaign Milk and others waged to defeat a 1978 ballot measure that would ban LGBT people from working in public schools, is featured in the exhibit.

He joked that Milk, “a size queen, always, sorry Harvey,” would be both “amused” and “totally humbled” by the installation.

“What a tribute this is,” said Ammiano, who would become the first gay person elected to the city’s school board in 1990 and go on to serve on the Board of Supervisors

and in the state Assembly. “He was murdered. It is a hard thing to cope with but it is important to remember. It is why we are here. This helps sustain his legacy.”

Ammiano told the B.A.R. one of the images he liked the best in the exhibit was of burning police cars taken during the White Night riots. Gays and others upset by a San Francisco Superior Court jury’s convicting White on the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter erupted in anger the night of May 21, 1979, and clashed with police in front of City Hall.

“I got a little stiffy,” Ammiano, a comedian, joked about seeing the photo. Taking a more serious turn, he pointed to the photo of Milk being accompanied to his swearing-in ceremony and noted, “So many of the men seen there are all gone. I don’t remember all their names, but their faces I recognize.”

Along with the permanent exhib-

it and signage for the Milk terminal, there will also be several art pieces inspired by his life included in the $2.4 billion remodel of the facility set to be complete by 2023. O’Brien told the B.A.R. that by March 2020 anyone arriving at the airport will be able to see the portion of the Central Inglenook Milk exhibit outside of the secured area of the terminal.

Alex Walker, a gay man who served on the advisory committee that selected Terminal 1 to be named after Milk, told the B.A.R. that the SFO Museum’s temporary exhibit surpassed anything he had imagined would be installed.

“I can’t wait to come through here as a passenger. It makes me so happy,” said Walker. “And I can’t wait for the public to see it.” t

Back Bay and is a restaurant, bar, and nightclub rolled into one. It has been going strong for over three decades and always draws a crowd. Look for the stained glass window with the big letter “N” on it. It is from the long-closed legendary Napoleon Club, where notable celebrities, including Judy Garland, performed.

Speaking of legendary bars, the oldest gay bar in Boston is Jacques Cabaret (www.jacques-cabaret.com) The bar opened in 1938 and is well known for its drag shows. The bar sits a block away from a very sad chapter in Boston history, the site of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire that killed 492 people in 1942. A marker on a wall and sidewalk memorializes the victims on Piedmont Street and Cocoanut Grove Lane.

There are no full-time lesbian bars in Boston but for a good list of women-focused events, check out http:// www.kristenporterpresents.com/.

The sports bar Trophy Room (https://trophyroomboston.com/) is a popular bar and restaurant in the South End, just a short walk from Club Cafe.

The nearby Boston Eagle is another South End institution, popular with the leather and bear crowd. You will know it by the giant iron eagle over the door.

In the Fenway district, the long-running Machine nightclub (machineboston.club) features upstairs and downstairs spaces that have various themes on different days of the week.

holes for dessert.

One of Boston’s most historic restaurants and bars is Carrie Nation (http://www.carrienationcocktailclub.com/). It is ironically named for a hatchet-wielding woman who was arrested a number of times in the early 1900s for smashing saloons as a protest against what she saw were the evils of drinking. Check out the backroom bar that used to be a clandestine speakeasy during Prohibition in the 1920s. And don’t miss the 2 p.m. Sunday brunch with drag performers.

get, check into renting a room from the gay-focused short-term rental site, Misterb&b (https://www.misterbandb.com/). You can find the best deals outside of downtown, Back Bay, or South End but still an easy subway ride into town.

formers and special guests, including drag king goth boy band Nine Inch Males, from 3 to 6, breaking in time for the march itself.

There is an official Transfabulous! sober 18 and over after party at Wicked Grounds at 289 Eighth Street from 7 to 9:30 p.m. There is a 21 and over after party called Bustin’ Out! at El Rio, 3158 Mission Street, during the same time. For more information, check https://www.transmarch.org/.

The 27th San Francisco Dyke

March will take place Saturday, June 29, from 5 to 6:30 p.m., beginning at 18th and Dolores streets, looping from Valencia to 16th Street, through the Castro, and back to Dolores Park.

The Dyke March will host a rally and events at the park before the march from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Information from https://www. thedykemarch.org/ indicates that its concept of dyke identity is a broad construct, including people who identify as “transdyke, MTF, trans-

P

assengers traveling through San Francisco International Airport for Pride with time on their hands can watch four LGBT short films.

The quartet can be viewed for free in the SFO Museum’s Video Arts room between 5 a.m. and midnight. It is located in the pre-security area of the departures level in the International Terminal.

The screening room can be found in the center rear of the building behind the check-in areas. Look for signage that reads “Fly & Explore Visual Arts.”

The film program at the airport, which this week joined the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association, debuted in September 2017. Tim O’Brien, assistant director and curator of exhibitions for the SFO Museum, told the Bay Area Reporter that LGBT films are shown throughout the year.

But in June, for Pride Month, a collection of four films with LGBT

<<

Milk SFO

From page 28

O’Brien, who is a straight ally, to cull through the material and choose the 97 different images and archival pieces to include in the temporary installation. “We are hoping with this installation that the people who know this history and lived this history ... we want for them to celebrate it. We also want to educate those who may not know their story.”

A favorite part of the installation for O’Brien is the intimate portrait of Milk hugging Smith early in the morning. Titled “Two Lovers,” it was captured by their friend Marc Cohen, who was visiting from New York in 1974. According to the wall text for the image, Cohen befriended the pair in the mid-1960s working together in experimental OffBroadway Theater.

“To me, it is one of the iconic photos of Harvey. It shows him as a

<<

Boston

From page 33

Another popular attraction is the Skywalk at the Prudential Center (https://www.prudentialcenter.com).

When it opened in 1964, the 52-story building was the tallest in New England and one of the tallest buildings outside New York. It was bested by the mirrored-glass, 60-story John Hancock Tower (now called 300 Clarendon Street) in 1976. Admission to the skywalk includes an audio headset that gives listeners a 360-degree tour of the city. A small theater shows various short films with a good introduction to Boston. An exhibit on immigration to the city features a video argument between Irish and Italian immigrants over who had a tougher time making it in the city.

Nightlife

Most of Boston’s gay nightlife is centered in the Back Bay and South End neighborhoods, which are adjacent to each other. Boston’s iconic 300 Clarendon Street building is in Back Bay and the South End is just west of that.

The most popular gay bar in Boston is among the oldest and largest in the city. Club Cafe (clubcafe.com/) is in

<<

SF Pride

From page 36

the route (the trolley is not wheelchair accessible). The trolley ride will stop at Eddy Street, where marchers are expected to fill the street in anticipation of a short program of speakers.

Programming for the Trans March also includes a youth and elder brunch at Dolores Park from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., a resource fair from 2 to 6, and a community stage with per-

t

Courtesy SFO Museum

A still from the short film “Red,” which visitors can watch at San Francisco International Airport.

Eating out

Similar to San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood, Boston’s North Station, near the TD Garden Arena, is home to new modern apartment and condominium buildings with some of the trendiest restaurants in the city.

Among the best is Alcove (https:// alcoveboston.com/), which serves up delicious surf and turf dishes with a beautiful view of the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, Boston’s newest landmark that opened in 2002.

Lola 42 (https://www.lola42.com/) is another modern, trendy restaurant known for its many deciduous seafood dishes and salads. It’s on the waterfront just a couple of blocks from where the high-speed ferry takes off for Provincetown.

In the heart of downtown, Bostonia Public House (https://bostoniapublichouse.com/) is deservedly very popular with the lunchtime and afterwork crowd. It is known for ultracreamy chowder, seafood, and shellfish. Be sure to order the iced donut

Accommodations

Some of the best boutique hotels are in the gay-popular South End and Back Bay neighborhoods.

The gay-owned Oasis Guesthouse and neighboring sister property, Adams Bed and Breakfast (https://www. oasisguesthouse.com/), are great options in tony Back Bay. It is also one of the more affordable options in the city, with rates as low as $99 in the slower winter months.

Another gay-owned hotel in Bay Back is luxury Clarendon Square Bed and Breakfast (https://www.clarendonsquare.com/), situated in a historic building that dates back to 1867.

If you are on a very limited bud-

feminine, transmasculine, genderqueer, and gender fluid dykes,” and welcoming women who want to support dykes in the space and the march. It asks men who want to support dyke identity to do so from the sidelines. Representatives of the Dyke March did not respond to requests for comment.

There are over 200 booths throughout SF Pride’s rainbow-bright celebration of queerness, offering work from artists, local and national busi-

the community against a haunting edit of Harvey Milk’s audio will recorded shortly before his assassination.”

The city renamed Terminal 1 at the airport after Milk, who was assassinated along with then-mayor George Moscone in 1978. A temporary installation about his life opens to passengers of the rebuilt terminal July 23, with a permanent exhibit set to debut next March. [See related story.]

O’Brien would like to work collaboratively with Frameline next June, as he said the museum staff “are great fans” of the LGBT film festival.

Those not flying out of SFO over the next four weeks can view the four shorts online at http://www.sfomuseum.org/programs/video-arts.

And filmmakers wishing to see the airport screen their works can submit them for review by museum officials via the online form found at https://flysfo.wufoo.com/forms/ sk27id61er0rpt/.t

For more information about the project, visit https://www.flysfo. com/about-sfo/airport-development/t1.

Getting there and getting around

If you’re visiting Boston, don’t even think of renting a car. Street parking is tough to find and garage parking is expensive. Downtown and the major attractions of the city are easily accessible by the subway system, which, by the way, is the oldest in the nation. Free shuttles from Boston Logan International Airport connect to the blue line subway stop. You can also take a free ride on the city’s silver bus line to South Station, Boston’s main railway station in the heart of downtown.

Boston offers a CityPass and a GoBoston pass that can be purchased ahead of time through the city’s official tourism website. For a fixed fee, the passes offer free admission or discounts to a number of attractions.

More information on the passes and just about everything else you need to know about visiting Boston can be found on the site, bostonusa.com.t nesses, nonprofit organizations, food and drink vendors, and other services.

In addition, many local businesses will be open and flying rainbow flags to welcome revelers and visitors for the weekend. t Find more information at www. sfpride.org.

Please join us for an informative panel discussion: The San Francisco LGBT Center Saturday, August 17th, 2019 | 10:30am-1:00pm Those with Ovaries The LGBTQ Perinatal Wellness Center - Oakland Saturday, November 9th, 2019 | 10:30am-1:00pm Those with Testes

To RSVP, please visit the RSC website, or the Eventbrite page: rscbayarea.eventbrite.com

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44

Rusalka triumphs

46

Ramadan tale

52

48

Judy lives

Cat call

Vol. 49 • No. 26 • June 27-July 3, 2019

Courtesy Frameline

www.ebar.com/arts

Frameline 43 wraps with heart & soul

by David Lamble

F

rameline 43’s final four days feature some truly amazing material, much of which is certain not to appear on Public TV. Screenings will be at the Castro, Roxie and Victoria Theatres in San Francisco, the Shattuck in Berkeley, and the Piedmont in Oakland.

See page 56 >>

Scene from director David Charles Rodrigues’ documentary “Gay Chorus Deep South.”

Courtesy BAMPFA

Say it isn’t so: Jean-Pierre Leaud at 75

by Sura Wood

I

n the wrenching final freeze-frame of Francois Truffaut’s 1959 masterpiece “The 400 Blows,” a 14-year-old Jean-Pierre Leaud turned toward the camera and became the face of youthful alienation and the French New Wave. It was the first but not the last time Leaud would embody Truffaut’s alter ego Antoine Doinel, a lost “eternal boy” unwanted by his parents, seen at the end of the semi-autobiographical film darting back and forth on a cloudy beach on the verge of an uncertain future, incarceration or worse.

See page 56 >>

Jean-Pierre Leaud in writerdirector Albert Serra’s “The Death of Louis XIV” (2016).

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS }

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6/24/19 9:48 AM

<< Out There

42 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

t

LGBTQ Pride whirlwind

by Roberto Friedman

!

1 3 . c e D g i n s Cloat seats available!

T

here’s an old comic movie about a European charter tour called “If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium.” Likewise, you could call the movie of our whirlwind last week “If It’s Thursday, It Must Be Frameline.”

Frameline 43, the 2019 San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, opened last Thursday night at ye olde Castro Theatre with director Chanya Button’s “Vita & Virginia,” the juicy story of the lesbian love affair between authors Virginia Woolf (Elizabeth Debicki) and Vita Sackville-West (Gemma Arterton). The house was packed for a period lesbian biopic, that itself was an achievement.

Plus, the film was really good, with Debicki especially giving a layered, riveting performance as Woolf.

Isabella Rossellini, as Vita’s disapproving mother, stole each short scene she was in. The afterparty at Terra Gallery was festive and fun.

Out There’s very full week began with a night at the opera, George Frideric Handel’s “Orlando” at San Francisco Opera, with our old pal Marc Huestis. We were celebrating the publication date for his new memoir “Impresario of Castro Street” with some good old-fashioned operatic spectacle, followed by voluminous martinis at Martuni’s. Congrats, marvy Marc!

G rea

Courtesy Frameline

Virginia Woolf (Elizabeth Debicki) and Vita Sackville-West (Gemma Arterton) head for lesbian romance in Frameline 43’s opening film, “Vita & Virginia.”

The next night found OT back in the Opera House – we just can’t quit you, press concierge Bill Repp!

– this time for a knockout performance of SF Opera’s take on Antonin Dvorak’s “Rusalka.” The production is a huge success with critics and audiences, and the ovations at opera’s end were thunderous. It also happened to be SF Opera’s “Pride Night,” with DJ music and drinks in the loggia, and rainbow flags waving from the stage at curtain call.

Friday night we escaped from our responsibilities for this year’s Pride issue by escorting the gentile gentleman Pepi to this year’s Mark Rhoades-produced Pride Party, al-

ways one of the most festive affairs of faerie week, this time transpiring at the AT&T superstore on Hallidie Plaza, high faggotry right in the belly of the capitalist beast. Many handsome revelers and powerperked politicos were in attendance, Rhoades was in his element, and dragster Jinkx Monsoon provided bent-ertainment.

Saturday night we were in the house for the opening of the 2019 Art + Pride Exhibit at Harvey Milk Photo Center, the work of many local queer photographers, including John Higgins, Jim James and Rink Foto. Sunday night we were pooped, and we still had another week to go until Big Gay Pride Christmas-&-Chanukah Day! Next week we’ll tell you how that all worked out. Meantime, glitter and be gay!t

French AIDS drama

by David-Elijah Nahmod

A

t 132 minutes, Christophe Honore’s new film “Sorry Angel” is a bit long. The slow-moving drama, well-acted and beautifully filmed, would play a lot better if it were a bit shorter. Some of the scenes ramble on.

Set in 1993, “Sorry Angel” is effective at capturing a pivotal moment in gay history: the peak years of the AIDS crisis, that horrible time from the early 1980s until the mid90s when an HIV diagnosis meant

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certain death. As the story begins, 39-year-old Jacques (Pierre Deladonchamps) is slowly coming to terms with his declining health and possible impending death. He lives in Paris, where he has enjoyed some success as an author. He’s close friends with Matthieu (Denis Podalydes), a newspaper editor and a very patient man who puts up with Jacques’ many self-indulgent episodes.

When Jacques travels to Brittany for work, he meets 22-year-old Arthur (Vincent Lacoste), an aspiring filmmaker and camp counselor. The two are instantly drawn to each other, but Jacques is hesitant to enter into a relationship, in part due to his AIDS diagnosis. Still, the two sleep together a few times.

After Jacques returns to Paris, the pair remains in contact.

Arthur is a complicated character. He seems to have a girlfriend, but is exploring his homosexuality, sleeping with a hitchhiker he picks up. Jacques, meanwhile, is dealing with the AIDS death of his ex-lover Marco, and he’s also facing the realities of his own worsening health.

Arthur is unfazed by Jacques’ AIDS diagnosis and announces that he’s moving to Paris to be with him. But Arthur is unaware of the fact that Jacques has come to a difficult decision. Because of his escalating AIDS symptoms, he has decided to take his own life.

The film effectively captures what so many gay men of that era went through. Deladonchamps gives a good performance as Jacques, capturing viewers’ sympathies even as he gives in to his every whim. He takes advantage of Matthieu’s good nature, and he’s also an inattentive father to his young son, who lives with him part-time. This detracts from his likability. But Jacques is not without heart. He’s deeply

affected by the death of Marco, though he lets no one see this. Deladonchamps, a skilled actor, beautifully displays the many layers of this complex role, and the terror that so many gay men faced.

Lacoste is good as young Arthur, for whom being gay is a newly discovered realization. Arthur’s joy when he first meets Jacques is giddy and infectious. Many viewers will see Arthur and recall their own youth and the excitement of exploring their desires for the first time.

“Sorry Angel” has interesting characters and tells a good story, but it’s just too long. About 100 minutes into the film some viewers might start to squirm and wish it would end, but it continues for another 30+ minutes. More’s the pity. So many younger gay men have no idea what happened to the generation that preceded them during the AIDS crisis. “Sorry Angel” is a reminder of those years. These are stories that need to be told. But films such as these need to be accessible to a wider audience. This film will just preach to the converted.

Out on DVD, in French, with easyto-read subtitles.t

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<< Music

44 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

No happy ending, but a glorious opera

by Philip Campbell

G

ood, better, best – the third and final entry in San Francisco Opera’s summer season opened on Father’s Day with stage director Leah Hausman’s entertaining revival of David McVicar’s Lyric Opera of Chicago production of Dvorak’s dark and dreamlike “Rusalka.”

The tragic libretto by Jaroslav Kvapil, based officially on fairy tales by Czech folklorists Karel Jaromir Erben and Bozena Nemcova, includes hints of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” and Friedrich de la Motte Fouque’s “Undine.” Dvorak illuminated the multi-sourced legend with a rush of typically beautiful tunes, and McVicar punctuates the action with flashes of rustically crude but effective humor. It may be surprising to find oneself chuckling while watching the title character move to an inevitably sad fate, but Rusalka is no Disney princess, and we need some comic relief.

Choreographer Andrew George has added his own amusing touches, especially with his undainty water nymphs looking like a band of rowdy runaways from Gilbert & Sullivan, even referencing some

dance moves from “Swan Lake.”

Sumptuous costumes by Moritz Junge range from the elegance of the human aristocrats in the local castle to some rough get-ups for denizens of the surrounding forest.

Moody lighting by David Finn adds to the ominous atmosphere, and John Macfarlane’s artistic sets look like a disturbing fairy tale that will definitely not have a happy ending.

There is no real moral to the story; perhaps it’s that inter-species dating is not such a good idea, or that love does not conquer all, but loyalty never dies. Whatever the preposterous meaning, SFO is simply going for a summertime diversion that will capture our imagination and employ the best resources of the War Memorial Opera House. Style, intelligence and musical excellence win big over mythic vagueness.

South Korean conductor and Houston Grand Opera Principal Guest Conductor Eun Sun Kim made her SFO debut with a detailed and beautifully paced interpretation of the lovely score.

Dvorak must have been thinking of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” for his passionate final duet between the Prince and Rusalka, and

Both photos: Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Left: Soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen in the title role of Dvořák’s “Rusalka.”

Right: Tenor Brandon Jovanovich as the Prince in Dvořák’s “Rusalka.”

he was probably aiming for some Verdian flavor with scenes between the water nymph and her Water Goblin dad (think “Rigoletto”) and

appearances by the hideous witch Jezibaba (“Il Trovatore”). Regardless of theatrical influences, Eun Sun Kim underscored the beloved

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Czech composer’s unmistakable musical sound with sympathetic support from the orchestra.

Reuniting SFO favorite Brandon Jovanovich with glowing soprano Rachel Willis-Sorensen, his leading lady from another SFO McVicar production, Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg,” proved successful, too. Looking trimmed to fighting weight and suitably dashing as the troubled Prince, the strong-voiced tenor handled his shifting moods and difficult tessitura with conviction. The character may have been unsure, but Jovanovich made him believable.

American soprano Rachel Willis-Sorensen looked and sounded perfect in the title role. Her range is remarkably even, recalling the sound of an earlier SFO Rusalka, Renee Fleming. She brought heartache to her plight, and sang the score’s big hit, “Song to the Moon” in Act I, flawlessly.

As fairy tale (or comic book) witch Jezibaba, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton added another strong portrait to her growing repertoire at SFO. She cannot disguise her rich voice, even under a disfiguring costume. She added many witty touches of her own. Watching her stuff a kitty cat into a cauldron as she prepared a potion to give Rusalka human form was laughout-loud funny.

As the title character’s father Vodnik, bass Kristinn Sigmundsson made a grotesque figure subtly compassionate. Rusalka should have heeded his advice and never left the swamp in the first place.

Former Adler Fellow Canadian soprano Sarah Cambidge returned to SFO for a strong portrayal of the Foreign Princess, the approved but ambiguous choice for bride to the Prince.

Bass-baritone Philip Horst was convincing as the blustery Gamekeeper. He will return to SFO next September in Britten’s “Billy Budd.”

Another former Adler Fellow, baritone Andrew Manea, was impressive as a Hunter. We remember him from his successful SFO appearance as the Duke of Nottingham in “Roberto Devereux” while still participating in the program.

Adding earthy comedy every time they appeared, current Adler Fellows Natalie Image, Simone McIntosh (SFO debut) and Ashley Dixon made an unruly trio of Wood Nymphs. Things may not go well for the title heroine, but the show is genuinely pleasurable anyway.t “Rusalka” continues in repertory through June 28. sfopera.com

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<< Books

46 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

Debut story of a different man

by Tim Pfaff

“E

very stage of my life feels like a story of a different man,” the protagonist in Ahmal Danny Ramadan’s “The Clothesline Swing” (Indigo Press) remarks, “each one a man I don’t know well.”

It’s something legions of introspective people might say, but the brilliant accomplishment of Ramadan’s debut novel in English (he’s published two volumes of short stories in Arabic, and a considerable amount of journalism in English) in its first publication in the U.S. is that he puts his storyteller, Hakawati, through a particle accelerator that both distinguishes its component atomic particles and shows how they fit together, in a whirl.

There have been other fictional windows on the particular trials and specific horrors of being gay in the Middle East, say nothing of coming out there. What makes Ramadan’s stand out is that he puts a string of telling details in front of us without special pleading, while giving us an account of a gay relationship in a range of cultures that shuns easy universalism while digging deep into the commonalities of gay life that cut across boundaries and borders.

Himself a Syrian refugee now resident in Vancouver, Ramadan writes with authority beyond the bully pulpit or the pity pot. To a remarkable degree, he makes the people of the Middle East, and Syrian refugees in particular, individual, thoroughly modern, sophisticated (for good and for ill) and diverse inhabitants of the 21st century. It

would be achievement enough that he tears down the chain link wall that makes the refugees behind it look – to use the most loathsome of the platitudes – like losers. Having done that, he also crafts a “wherever you go, there you are” story similarly shorn of numbing generalities.

He lays out his terms right from the start: lives of horror are equalopportunity experiences, as are love, compassion, and yes, tenderness. “I felt weak in the knees, as if I were still a young boy, crying for your attention, dying for your approval, hiding behind dumpsters.” Not even the dumpsters are Syria-specific; the West, too, has its West Side stories.

“The sweetest kisses are the ones we share in forbidden places,” Ramadan’s brave, vulnerable novel begins.

“For us, most places were forbidden.

We met in war-torn Damascus and

Mark Carter

Author Ahmal Danny Ramadan.

moved in together in sectarian Beirut before we finally arrived in Canada.

For us, foreplay wasn’t sweet touches and soft kisses; it was finding a place where no police officers, angry parents or nosy neighbours would find us.” As our best American scribes have shown, this could also be Texas or Tennessee.

The realism is striking, to use an all-too-apt word for it, but Ramadan goes for the visionary, not out of authorial exhibitionism but because it’s his worldview. The fractured, refracted nature of “each a man I don’t know well” is the air he breathes.

Death with a capital-D is a character with character, and characteristics. He’s no Keatsian abstraction (though Keats gets a nod) but a presence who’s as much a mess as a menace, a kind of dead ringer (pardon the cliche) for Schigolch in Berg’s “Lulu,” a schlump who also has truths to tell and has a habit of turning up when things are getting most real.

It’s Death who tells Hakawati, “You will be sitting by the death bed of your loved one as he dies, and slowly, you will tell him stories, trying to keep him away from my final touch.” So the voice we’re hearing

t

from is a Scheherazade (Ramadan is explicit about this) staving off anything from AIDS (not named) to the ordinary, fatal transgressions of coupledom.

“The fact that I was your first lover remains a sign of danger that glows red in the corner of my mind – even now, after a million years together.

I worry that I’m imprinting on you.

I worry that I’m stealing your from your destiny to meet someone else.”

Beat that for courage.

Hakawati leaves Damascus – where Ramadan makes you feel the Syrian civil war closing in on a city that also has its Castro – for Egypt, to escape family censure – there only to encounter life-changing assaults of anonymous gang violence.

Frying pan/fire. Before arriving in Vancouver there are other hops around Beirut and Istanbul before a formative return to Damascus, to say goodbye. In “free” Vancouver Hakawati’s “you” leaves him to test the drug-fueled waters of sexual frenzy before the inevitable, nearly literal crawling back.

Along the way is a cast of unforgettable secondary characters, brought to life with an engraver’s skill, every line a tell. A lesbian couple both of whom are named Maryam, a man named Samer you’ll be thrilled to meet despite already knowing him, and an extended family of tyrants and larks stand out without distracting.

Hakawati reaches peak resonance in commenting, “Our attempts to build friendships were lost in translation.”

As for the “stories,” they’re as lyrical and terrifying as dreams.

They also provide a framework for Ramadan to narrate his own exhilarating, encompassing story in a linear-time-defying cyclotron of cauterizing emotional substance.t

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<< Theatre

48 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

Paws and reflect: MTC’s ‘Wink’

by Jim Gladstone

T

he fog comes in on little cat feet in “Wink,” playwright Jen Silverman’s absurd dark comedy now making a promising world premiere at the Marin Theater Company. The eponymous character is a domestic feline; the play’s meanings are elusive.

I have mixed feelings about fog.

There’s seductiveness to its shapeshifting and eerie chill, but I always anticipate the warmth and illumination that come with its clearing.

In tracking the disintegration of a stereotypical suburban marriage, “Wink” shifts fantastically between laugh-aloud humor and existential horror, putting its hapless characters through a gauntlet of humiliations. But while it’s often fun to observe Silverman noodling with Big Ideas – the permeability of boundaries, the repression of desire, the artifice of conventionality – she doesn’t quite advance through her

musing to a clear point of view.

That said, the juxtaposition of director Mike Donahue’s rambunctious, highly physical production with the script’s philosophical underpinnings makes for a wild 75-minute ride. Every time you start to scratch your head, frustrated at the undecodable scenario, you get jolted into laughter as a living room is bombarded with kitty litter, walls are violently demolished, and characters take to the rooftops or slip into fur underpants.

The play begins with middleclass couple Gregor (Seann Gallagher) and Sofie (Liz Sklar) reacting quite differently to the several-day absence of Wink, whom Gregor, nonplussed, pointedly refers to as “your cat.” Sofie, on the other hand, is in a grief-wracked frenzy. Their living room, a cautious morass of putty grey and oatmeal beige, contains a miniature cityscape of cat-climbing toys and hideaway huts, now as empty as their mar-

t

flesh body makeup and riage appears to be. Dane a posing strap, delivers a Laffrey’s scenic design is sublime performance as beautifully integrated with Wink. Elegantly conveythe storytelling. ing catness with a pivot During individual sesof the ankle here, a roll sions with their jovial of the neck there, he feels and superficial therapist appropriately alien and Dr. Frans (Kevin R. Free), self-possessed in this world Gregor admits to skinof airlocked human needs, ning the cat alive in a fit of canned until they explode. jealousy and marital frusSilverman is extravatration; and the doctor adgantly creative in her vises Sofie to consider the portrayal of that explocat dead and manage her sion. Unhappy marriages, grief through housework. suburban malaise and “Slam it down! Slam it repressed savage passions down! Slam it down!” is his have long been catnip for advice to each of them on playwrights, but Silverdealing with difficult emoman’s absurd, kinetic tions. Free is a comic gem, Kevin Berne approach to them offers perfectly conveying Frans’ a welcome freshness. Yet unempathetic expediency Gregor (Seann Gallagher) in “Wink” at Marin throughout the play, there’s with brisk gestures and Theatre Company. a nagging, exciting sense cheerfully condescending that Silverman is aiming vocal nuances. (“Frans” along with some fleeting Albee refnot just for novel style, but and “Gregor” are Silvererences, are more honorific Easter novel substance. There’s something man’s clever nods to Kafka, which, eggs than keys to unlocking this about the cat being not a wild aniscript.) mal, but a domestic one. There are Soon enough, skinless Wink nuances in the choice to have Sofie (John William Watkins) confronts fantasize about a terrorist. There’s Frans, announcing his planned an impetus to the near-parodic revenge against Gregor, dispensing portrayal of psychotherapy. Audihis own breed of pop-psych advice, ences needn’t be spoonfed, but a and purring his way into the docbit more articulation would help. tor’s boudoir. As the action zips While “Wink” shows great potenby with never a dull moment, the tial in this world premiere, it seems three human characters continue like some of Silverman’s peak to unravel while Wink solipsistithinking is still emerging from the cally grooms himself, strikes poses fog of process.t and offers the animalistic mission statement and general counsel, Wink, Marin Theatre Company, “If it doesn’t make me feel good, I 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. wouldn’t do it.”

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Out at the Fair!

Be proud and join the crowd for Out at the Fair on July 4th! Find us on the fairgrounds and receive a rainbow flag, sport your pride colors all day at the Fair, join the Marin County Free Library for Drag Storytime, ride the rides, participate in a group photo at 5pm the Giant Ferris Wheel, and become a Dancing Queen with Abba the Concert at 7:30pm on the Island Pavilion.

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Pride books for the young

by Gregg Shapiro

C

elebrations of families with same-gender parents, “My Two Dads and Me” and “My Two Moms and Me” (both Doubleday), by Michael Joosten and Izak Zenou, feature kids having breakfast, going to the park, having lunch, enjoying playdates, going to the pool, eating dinner and reading bedtime stories, all under the watchful eyes of two dads and two moms.

Lesbian poet-novelist Lesléa Newman, author of “Heather Has Two Mommies,” returns with her latest children’s book, “Gittel’s Journey: An Ellis Island Story” (Abrams). Gittel must make the voyage alone from her old country shtetl to America. Stunning illustrations are by Amy June Bates.

The debut Y/A novel by gay poet, novelist and playwright R. Zamora Linmark, “The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart” (Delacorte Press) finds Ken Z seeking guidance from the late “Oscar Wilde, Patron Saint of Rebels and Bookworms” about his blossoming love for “beautiful, mysterious Ran.”

Award-winning gay Y/A author Bill Konigsberg’s “The Music of What Happens” (Arthur A. Levine Books) is narrated by “comfortably gay” Max and “never been kissed” Jordan in alternating chapters, as their romance buds and they struggle with their secrets.

“How It Feels to Float” (Dial), the debut Y/A novel by Australiabased Helena Fox, shares the story of Biz, who “knows how to float, right there on the surface” while those around her have no idea about her “dark, runaway thoughts,” which include kissing Grace and her desire to bring back her father, who died when she was seven.t

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<< Theatre

50 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

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rominent stage, movie, and television actor. Dramatist.

Novelist. Lyricist. Composer. Singer.

Cabaret star. Theatre and film director. Celebrated raconteur. Insightful diarist. Noel Coward (1899-1973) was all those things. His versatility and success in so many fields were unmatched during his lifetime and have been unequaled since. Although he never came out publicly, privately Coward was open about his homosexuality. For nearly 30 years, he lived with actor Graham Payn, who appeared in many of his plays, and who, with Sheridan Morley, edited his diaries.

He maintained a close relationship with Prince George, Duke of Kent (1902-42), younger brother of King Edward VIII and King George VI, which he claimed was platonic, although he did tell one historian that they once had a “dalliance.”

10:44 AM Born in a London suburb to a mother who ran a dance academy, he was pushed into performing as a child. At 11, he was acting on stage. By age 20, he’d appeared in several West End productions. Stardom came with his 1924 play “The Vortex,” in which he portrayed the cocaine-addicted son of a “nymphomaniac” woman. The sensationalist depiction of shocking behavior among the upper classes assured its success in London and New York.

He became a matinee idol. In 1925, his “Fallen Angels,” “Hay Fever,” and “On with the Dance” joined “The Vortex” on West End stages. “Hay Fever,” about a self-centered upperclass family and their weekend houseguests, is considered one of Coward’s masterpieces, is frequently revived, and has been favorably compared with Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Ernest” for its dazzling, character-based comedy.

He cranked out hit after hit, although in 1927 he had a failure with “Sirocco,” a musical starring gay singer Ivor Novello. Still, by 1929 he was among the word’s highestpaid writers. That year, his operetta “Bitter Sweet” was a triumph. Even more successful was 1930’s “Private Lives,” about former spouses now

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remarried, another of his comic masterpieces. The 1931 movie was a smash. Despite its misogyny, it’s frequently revived. He starred in the London and New York productions, with Laurence Olivier appearing as the second lead. Equally successful was “Cavalcade” (1931), which looked at several generations of two English families. The 1933 film version won the Best Picture Oscar.

“Design for Living” (1932) is a dazzling, witty, and daring look at a menage a trois, and strongly suggests both leading men are bisexual. Coward, Alfred Lunt, and Lynne Fontanne starred in the New York production; it was too risque for London. Ben Hecht adapted it for the movies, reportedly leaving only one word from the original script. Still, the sexual dynamics are hinted at. “Present Laughter,” written in 1939 but not performed until 1942, is a superb comedy about a self-centered actor. It, too, is frequently revived. In 1941 he wrote and starred in what may be his finest comedy, “Blithe Spirit,” about a widower who remarries and holds a seance that evokes the ghost of his first wife. Dark complications follow. It has often been revived.

“In Which We Serve” (1942) was a film about the crew of a WWII British destroyer. Coward wrote the screenplay, co-directed the movie with David Lean, played the courageous captain, and composed the score. It was nominated for Best Picture and Best Screenplay Oscars, and Coward received an honorary award at the 1943 ceremony.

During WWII, he worked for British Intelligence and entertained the troops. “Brief Encounter” (1945), a film about would-be lovers who cannot abandon their spouses, made audiences weep. His postwar plays were not as popular, although a 1948 revival of “Private Lives” starring Tallulah Bankhead was a critical and commercial triumph. In 1955 he starred in and directed an acclaimed live-TV version of “Blithe Spirit” with Claudette Colbert and Lauren Bacall.

During the 1950s, his cabaret act earned him accolades in London’s Café de Paris and in Las Vegas. He

performed many of his own songs, including “If Love Were All,” “I’ve Been to a Marvelous Party” and “Mad Dogs and Englishmen.” His “Mad About the Boy” has been recorded by many singers. He appeared frequently on television, a sought-after guest on talk shows.

Despite his middle-class origins, he had become the embodiment of an English aristocrat: polished, witty, slightly effete, cultured, perhaps discreetly gay.

Coward was producer David O. Selznick’s first choice to play the mysterious Harry Lime in Carol Reed’s “The Third Man” (1949), but the part went to Orson Welles. He acted in “Around the World in 80 Days” (1956), “Our Man in Havana” (1959), “Surprise Package” (1960), “Bunny Lake Is Missing” (1965), played the Witch of Capri (a part originated by an actress onstage) opposite Elizabeth Taylor in Tennessee Williams’ “Boom” (1968), and appeared in “The Italian Job” (1969), his final movie.

Film historian David Thomson convincingly demonstrates how Coward’s acting style – underplaying emotions and ambiguous about his sexual orientation – influenced a generation of English actors, including Cary Grant, James Mason, Olivier, Dirk Bogarde, and Rex Harrison.

In his best plays, serious issues peek through funny dialogue and clever plots. Underneath the remarkable wit, behind the elegant pose, was a hardworking professional, a man known for his generosity to colleagues who were having difficult times. His diaries reveal a clear-eyed assessment of the “glamorous” world in which he thrived.

He was close friends with a wide range of people, among them frequent co-star Gertrude Lawrence; Olivier; John Gielgud; Marlene Dietrich, although he deplored her emotional hysteria; Joan Crawford; Taylor; Vivien Leigh, whom he scolded about smoking. Her 1967 death at 54 from tuberculosis upset him so much that he could not attend her memorial service. He left an unsurpassed professional and personal legacy.t

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<< Film

52 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

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Judy Garland archives

For Judy Garland, acting and singing became one.

Why Judy Garland matters

by Brian Bromberger

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W

hile she was not the greatest singer of the 20th century, Judy Garland was possibly the greatest entertainer of the modern age. June 22 was the 50th anniversary of her untimely death at age 47 from an accidental overdose of barbiturates. She was the consummate musical star of Hollywood’s Golden Age, forever linked with the movies “The Wizard of Oz,” “Meet Me in St. Louis” and “A Star Is Born.” Her luminosity remains unsurpassed. “Judy,” about the last year of her life starring Renee Zellweger, debuts in September, while Frameline 43 offered “Sid & Judy,” a biography filtered through the memories of her third husband and producer, Sid Luft.

Garland was among the first movie stars to have her dirty laundry aired in public (alcoholism, drug addiction, weight battles, suicide attempts, nervous breakdowns, medical ailments, financial struggles, five marriages, four divorces, performance slumps) such that her rock-bottom travails were well-known and sometimes eclipsed her career highs. She became the archetype of the triumphant/tragic diva, paving the way for the stormy trajectories of superstars Elizabeth Taylor, Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, and Lindsay Lohan. What we can appreciate in 2019, more than people could absorb in 1969, is her enormous artistry in spite of her pain, brilliant in all the media of her time: radio, movies, stage/concert, and TV (her underappreciated variety show). Her own Hollywood contemporaries were in awe of her virtuosity. She was the brightest star in the Tinseltown galaxy.

The gay adoration of Garland, particularly from older gay men, has become a cliché. Many now see Garland’s iconic portrayal of Dorothy Gale in the 1939 classic “Oz” as a queer journey, an escape from the puritanical, morally rigid, black-and-white small-town life to Technicolor city existence with fabulous friends. The slang term “Friend of Dorothy” became secret code gay men used to identity each other. They were Garland’s biggest fans, a fact she appreciated (two of her husbands were gay, and she dabbled in lesbian trysts). There is also the myth that grief over her death was the inspiration for the

Stonewall Riots. Historians have rejected any causal connection.

Still, in the 1960s, even mainstream media acknowledged the high proportion of gay men among her fans. Time magazine cited one psychiatrist’s assessment that “Judy was beaten up by life, and had to become more masculine. She has the power that homosexuals would like to have, and they attempt to attain it by idolizing her.” One could mistake the front rows in audiences of her live concerts for a meeting of the Mattachine Society. A Garland event was a pre-Stonewall means of encountering other gay men.

Her best biographer, Gerald Clarke (“Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland”), drawing from scores of interviews with devoted friends and family as well as her own unfinished, unpublished autobiography, concludes Garland was probably bipolar, explaining her many suicide attempts and use of alcohol and pills to self-medicate.

In spite of these problems, she didn’t let her despair stop her from performing. Her perseverance, despite the chaos, explains her enduring popularity among LGBTQ fans.

Garland’s legendary 1961 Carnegie Hall performance has been called the greatest night in show business history, and her double record won her the Grammy Album of the Year, the first woman to win that award. In Garland, acting and singing became one. For her, songs were stories, and every word had meaning. Consider her definitive rendition of unrequited love in “The Man That Got Away,” or her signature song “Over the Rainbow,” about her hope to overcome despair. Garland had huge self-doubts about her capabilities, suffered crippling stage fright, yet she was at her happiest when performing. While singing she “came out,” expressing through her skills the real person she was meant to be. LGBTQ people picked up on this quality, admiring her courage and resilience, adopting it as their own.

No one has emerged with the breadth and depth of Garland’s colossal prowess as a singer, dancer, and actress. No singer was a greater actor, and no actor was a greater singer. In this double accomplishment she was unique. Ultimately it is her singular talent that continues to awe us and inspire gratitude 50 years later.t

LOVE IS THE ANSWER. FOREVER PROUD OF OUR COMMUNITY.

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6/17/16 3:03 PM

<< Books

54 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

Privacy, please!

by Jim Piechota

The Closet and the Cul-de-Sac by Clayton Howard; University of Pennsylvania Press, $45

A

ebar.com You Asked – We Listened!

mong the many inalienable rights we are afforded as Americans (for now, at least) is the right to privacy, but in author and Ohio State University professor Clayton Howard’s lucid, thought-provoking examination “The Closet and the Cul-deSac,” privacy was once a luxury item. It’s now continually stretched to its tightest limits, particularly when associated with LGBTQ communities.

Using the San Francisco Bay Area as an example, Howard’s insightful narrative charts the outbreak of culture wars in the 1970s highlighted by the Briggs Initiative in 1978, which threatened to roll back protections for LGBT people in education workplaces. Though it failed in the polls, Howard argues it opened up the floodgates for more contentious rhetoric and equal rights clashes between the gay and lesbian community and conservative religious groups with regard to issues such as sex education, public decency, and sexual freedom and privacies.

The author’s research on the progressive Bay Area as an “excep-

tionally liberated place” is impressive. He integrates that knowledge into opinions on how sexual privacy has evolved through decades of oppression, from the “sexual crisis” of the 1940s to the restrictive homophobic legislation appearing on voter ballots in the 1970s.

More importantly, his narrative extends beyond San Francisco city limits to embrace Bay Area suburbs that were also experiencing rebirth and liberal growth.

Howard includes the legacy of

by Jim Piechota

D

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Harvey Milk in his discussion, noting Milk’s political prowess reached far beyond the Bay Area’s borders and ushered in a new era of gay visibility and sexual freedom as the Religious Right and same-sex liberation efforts would lock horns for decades to come.

Howard dutifully analyzes the crossroads reached when the “right to privacy” became a “bipartisan discourse designed to limit both the egalitarian agenda of gay liberation and the rightist vision of figures like John Briggs.”

Dense and factheavy yet enlightening, the author’s scholarly dissertation does meander a bit, extending outward into unexpected discussions, valid arguments, and relevant if curious local Northern California histories. To its credit, the book also includes rarely seen photographs of events like Tenderloin street gatherings in the late 1960s, and a youthful political candidate named Dianne Feinstein meeting members of the Society for Individual Rights in 1971. These diversions make for a lengthy read, but a history lesson in privacy laws that’s worth the investment.t

Long, dark trip The Light Years by Chris Rush; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $27

We are pleased to announce the introduction of what will become a treasured Cliff House tradition.

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eep, moving, and intensely personal, award-winning artist and designer Chris Rush’s debut memoir “The Light Years” details a life navigating his drug-saturated years in the 1970s and beyond.

Growing up Roman Catholic in New Jersey in the mid-1960s was no picnic for Rush, who describes himself at age 11 as “thin as a matchstick, with a big dollop of blond hair across my brow.”

Quirky, frustrated, frequently melodramatic, and usually busy teaching himself how to faint, he had parents who were dismissive and inattentive, obsessed with hosting lavish cocktail parties where they would drink with wild abandon while expressing disinterest in their children.

The most memorable sibling support he received was from his sister Donna, a self-avowed hippie (“Just don’t tell Mom”) whose friendly, patient presence guided him into the wilds of New York City by bus, but also introduced him to an inaugural experimentation with “Orange Sunshine” LSD on his tongue. The drug would prove to be instrumental and for-

mative from his early unmoored teenage years, when Rush set out on a journey of self-discovery across America to the Southwest.

His adventures, fueled by psychedelic drugs and constant wanderlust, colorfully propel the memoir along as Rush chronicles his time dependent on drugs, admitting, “I completely believed in the power of dope.” Donna was his guiding force for a new life in Arizona, but once she’d departed, he’s left scrambling for housing and ends up developing a samesex sexual attraction while with

a friend’s family, an affair that he attempts to bury after moving back to New Jersey.

Rush begins a dark descent into a soulless, LSD-addled wasteland where freak accidents and overdoses nearly take his life. With substance abuse at full tilt, Rush also began seriously questioning his sexuality, which continued manifesting through fantasies of men in passing or “a beautiful blond boy I’d seen at Point Reyes.” Later, in more realized intimate moments with men, he would greedily covet sex and thirstily lap up the sensuality, “saving it up like medicine for when I go back to the sickness of New Jersey.”

Lyrical moments abound. “Fate is a crazy bird, swooping down from heaven,” he writes. His fate eventually leads him toward some semblance of normalcy, but it’s hard-won, and still a work-in-progress today.

From free-flowing prose that can be humorous, sad, harrowing, beautiful, and revelatory, often simultaneously, readers will get a complete sense of the author, his troubles, desires, hopes, dreams, and eventually his triumph at defeating drug addiction and achieving a sense of internal peace.t

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<< Film

56 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

Courtesy Frameline

In “You Don’t Nomi,” director Jeffrey McHale rekindles “Showgirls”’ queer spirit with the help of Peaches Christ.

<<

Frameline wraps

From page 41

“Gay Chorus Deep South” David Charles Rodrigues’ film, inspired by a wave of anti-LGBTQ laws and hate crimes, tells the story of a Southern U.S. tour by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. Fueled by fantastic choral music, this dynamic documentary captures the heart and soul of a contemporary civil rights movement. (Castro, Closing Night, 6/30) “You Don’t Nomi” To fully grasp this program, it helps to have seen Paul Verhoeven’s “misunderstood” classic satire-mashup of overthe-top exploitation flicks, 1995’s “Showgirls.” Dismissed by stuffy middle-brow critics like Leonard Maltin, “Showgirls” flowed from the X-rated imagination of popular Dutch screen artist Paul Verhoeven.

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Verhoeven had won an American art-house following with a couple of punkish, low-budget, gay-friendly flicks like the 1980 Dutch-teenson-motorbikes action melodrama “Spetters” and 1983’s “The Fourth Man,” where a sexy blonde, Renee Soutendijk, ensnares a gay writer, Jerome Ktabbe, in her plot to bump off inconvenient husbands.

“You Don’t Nomi” is director Jeffrey McHale’s attempt to rekindle “Showgirls”’ queer spirit with the help of local icon Peaches Christ.

McHale gets a collection of critics, writers, and fans to give the film an enlightening and entertaining reassessment. Is it a misunderstood masterwork, misogynist trash, unintentional camp, or a combination of all three? (Castro, 6/27) “Clementine” Lara Jean Gallagher’s lesbian love melodrama finds a blonde and brunette doing

each other’s hair in the rural lakeside cabin of an ex-lover. A gun in the drawer plus a constantly ringing phone rack up the tension in this film fresh from NY’s Tribeca Film Festival. (Castro, 6/28) “This Close: Season Two” Directors Stephen Cone & Jordan Firstman explore the world of deaf queer people. The program includes episodes 1-3 of the Sundance Channel series’ Second Season. (Victoria, 6/29) “A Luv Tale: The Series” Director Kay Oyegun, with writer Sidra Smith, provides a modern remake of the classic 1990s film “Love Jones.” This Harlem-set story follows four beautiful queer women of color as they navigate their friendships, love lives, and artistic careers.

(Castro, 6/27) “Thanks to Hank” Like Harvey Milk, the late Hank Wilson can best

Jean-Pierre Leaud

From page 41

Similarly troubled childhoods forged a bond between actor and director and an alchemy that’s reflected onscreen. “Francois was like a father to me,” Leaud said in a 2014 interview. “I was a bad boy. I had been expelled from 12 schools in a row. It was absolutely Providence I got to do the film and find myself at the Cannes Festival.”

Things didn’t work out too badly for the aimless juvenile delinquent portrayed in the movie, either; after all, he grew up to become a revered French film critic and filmmaker.

But for those who only remember that last shot of Leaud frozen in time – one of the most indelible images in cinema – it may come as a surprise that the actor and legend of the Nouvelle Vague is now 75, a senior citizen with a list of impressive credits accrued over the ensuing decades.

By turns petulant, self-important, callow, impetuously romantic, and idealistic in his movie roles, he was one lucky dog in real life. “I had no technique, and have none now,” Leaud once conceded. “The only thing that counts for me is the camera.” Utterly relaxed onscreen as only a true creature of the cinema could be, he was sought after by a roster of leading auteurs that includes Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Olivier Assayas, Jean Eustache, Catherine Breillat, Bernardo Bertolucci, and of course, Truffaut,

Courtesy BAMPFA

Jean-Pierre Leaud in director Jean-Luc Godard’s “La Chinoise.”

the director with whom he’s most closely identified. “We operated in a kind of complicity,” Leaud recalled after Truffaut’s death in 1984.

Some of those collaborations are showcased in “Jean-Pierre Leaud at 75,” a retrospective series at BAMPFA, which opens July 4 and runs through the end of August. It sketches Leaud’s trajectory, ending

with his relatively recent appearance in Spanish writer-director Albert Serra’s “The Death of Louis XIV” (2016). Nearly overtaken by a voluminous, double-wide wig, he plays the ailing Sun King in his waning days, spending the bulk of the movie on his death bed in a dimly lit chamber.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. After his auspicious breakthrough in “The 400 Blows,” Leaud reprised the role of Doinel in various stages of maturity or lack thereof in several subsequent films made by Truffaut between 1962-79: “Antoine and Colette,” an anthology segment about the anguish of unrequited first love; “Stolen Kisses,” which finds Doinel wandering the streets of Paris looking for love and a job, not necessarily in that order; “Bed and Board,” where he’s an in-

be described as a man who made today’s contemporary LGBTQ scene politically possible. A one-time San Francisco public school teacher, Wilson was involved in the teacher’s union movement. Bob Ostertag’s bio-doc focuses on Wilson’s drive to aid homeless queer youth by buying and renovating Tenderloin hotels. These facilities became the backbone for the early-80s drive to protect queer kids from the ravages of AIDS and life on the street. An emotional knockout. (Castro, 6/27) “Worldly Affairs” The annual survey of the best in international short queer cinema this year features entries from Sweden (Isabella Carbonell’s “Brother”), Brazil (Fabio Leal’s “Renovation”), Hong Kong (Hugo Kenzo Hirosawa’s “Delivery Boy”), Britain (Tim Courtney’s “My Loneliness Is Killing Me,” Christopher Manning’s “Isha”) and Greece (Thanasis Neofotistos’ “Sparkling Candles”). (Castro, 6/28) “State of Pride” Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman, Oscar winners for their 1984 bio-doc “The Times of Harvey Milk,” return with a contemporary assessment of how the Gay Pride movement has evolved

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in such diverse places as Alabama, Utah & San Francisco. This 71-minute doc is on the same program as Ro Haber’s 21-minute short doc “Stonewall Forever.” (Castro, 6/28) “Marlon Riggs: No Regrets” This 80-minute tribute to the brilliant African American filmmaker whose auto-bio masterpiece “Tongues Untied” virtually invented the candid-language, unsparing view of American racism, includes the rarely seen “Anthem,” “Affirmations,” “The Creative Mind” & the 38-minute title-piece, “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” (“No Regret”). (Castro, 6/27) “To the Stars” Martha Stephens provides an adolescent girl’s view of small-town 60s Oklahoma, where same-sex relations were beyond taboo. (Castro, 6/29) “Guest Artist” Jeff Daniels is the whole show in this tour de force portrait of an alcoholic, misanthropic gay playwright. Daniels, known to the world for such big-screen projects as playing a cranky novelist in 2006’s “The Squid & the Whale,” allows Timothy Busfield to direct him through this piece originally written for his Michigan stage theater. (Castro, 6/29)t

Courtesy Frameline

Scene from director Lara Jean Gallagher’s lesbian love melodrama “Clementine.”

constant married man of the petitbourgeoisie, juggling an affair; and “Love on the Run,” the bittersweet final chapter in the saga, in which a 30-ish Doinel remains in a permanent state of arrested development.

“There’s a lot of childhood left in all men,” observed Truffaut. “But in him, it’s more so.”

Godard, who saw Leaud as an emblem of late 1960s youth rebellion and malaise, cast him in eight movies. “Masculine Feminine,” which has been described as a film about “the children of Marx and Coca Cola by the child of Brecht and Hollywood,” and “La Chinoise,” meditating on the European Left and a group of “petit Maoists” playing at revolution who may become the terrorists of tomorrow, are among three shown here.

Olivier Assasyas featured a frazzled, middle-aged Leaud in one of this writer’s favorites, “Irma Vep.” In this zesty 1996 film Assayas merged his fondness for Hong Kong action flicks with a film-within-a-film conceit that involves the “remake” of “Les vampires,” Louis Feuillade’s classic silent French serial. The magnificent Maggie Cheung, a kinetic, sexually magnetic presence slinking around in a black latex catsuit, plays both herself and the heroine of the

disaster-plagued production. She wreaks havoc on the crew and the neurotic, has-been director, personified by a beleaguered, perpetually cranky Leaud.

Leaud was born to play Alexandre, the narcissistic refugee from the 1960s sexual revolution who whiles away hours in Parisian cafes when not enmeshed in a ménage a trois or flitting between amorous assignations in Jean Eustache’s first feature, “The Mother and the Whore.” The three-and-a-half-hour opus, a raw, verbose, take-no-prisoners exploration of love and sex, scandalized the 1973 Cannes Film Festival where it was awarded the Grand Prix and divided the critics. One declared it “an insult to the nation”; another called it “a Himalaya of pretention”; Truffaut and members of the French New Wave sang its praises.

“Just every now and then, a film rises up as abrupt, elemental, and wounding as rocks,” writes film historian David Thomson. “‘The Mother and the Whore’ relies on naked performances and is more shocking than ‘Last Tango’ or nearly any ‘sexy’ film you can think of. It is a dark, vaguely perceived beast on the edge of polite society. Beware.”t July 4-Aug. 30. bampfa.org

Courtesy BAMPFA

Jean-Pierre Leaud in director Jean Eustache’s “The Mother and the Whore.”

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Nightlife Events

Arts Events

www.ebar.com

66

Shining Stars Vol. 49 • No. 26 • June 27-July 3, 2019

Pride-alicious!

Mainstage acts offer diverse entertainment lineup

by David-Elijah Nahmod

P

ride is upon us, and in addition to the parade, SF Pride promises a plethora of exciting live entertainment on the mainstage on Sunday June 30.

From drag queens to singers, to political leaders like Mayor London Breed, State Senator Scott Wiener and District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the mainstage offers a wide variety of sights and sounds. Honey Mahogany and Sister Roma will co-host Sunday’s events.

See page 58 >>

Sister Roma and Honey Mahogany cohosted 2018’s Pride mainstage events.

From Stonewall to the White Horse The Bay Area’s part in uprisings that changed the world

by Michael Flanagan

Courtesy of the GLBT Historical Society

Flyer for Gay Liberation Front protest at the Examiner Building October 31, 1969

{ THIRD OF THREE SECTIONS }

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“San Francisco is a refugee camp for homosexuals. We have fled here from every part of the nation, and like refugees elsewhere, we came not because it is so great here, but because it was so bad there. By the tens of thousands, we fled small towns where to be ourselves would endanger our jobs and any hope of a decent life….”

Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto – Carl Wittman, December, 1969

B

y the time of the first night of protests at New York City’s Stonewall Inn, San Francisco had experienced months of demonstrations related to gay rights that would continue for the next few years.

Unlike Stonewall, the disturbances in San Francisco started over job rights, and a bar was not involved.

See page 60 >>

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<< Pride Entertainment

58 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

<<

t

Pride-alicious

From page 57

“It’s a huge honor to co-host San Francisco Pride,” Sister Roma said.

“There really isn’t a better audience than the crowd at Pride. Everyone is all about love, laughter and joy, but it’s San Francisco so it’s also about social justice and empowering our community. It’s the perfect mixture of rainbows and radical politics.”

Sunday’s stage will include a performance by Cheer SF, a cheerleading squad that raises money for HIV service organizations and other life threatening illnesses by executing extreme stunts and powerful dance routines as a means to entertain and inspire audiences. Cheer SF will be seen at 2:15 PM.

Pansy Craze

Another group performing on Sunday is Pansy Division, a queer rock group formed in San Francisco in 1991 by singer/songwriter Jon Ginoli and bassist Chris Freeman.

Since its beginnings, the band has been noted for featuring primarily gay members, performing a mixture of pop punk and power pop. Pansy Division became the most successful band of the Queercore movement that began in the 1980s.

Ginoli, who is openly gay and still lives in San Francisco, spoke to Bay Area Reporter about the Queercore

Martin Meyers

Pansy Division

Big Dipper

movement.

“Queercore is the term that sprung up in the early 1990s and applied to bands that were openly gay, playing rock and roll and punk rock,” Ginoli said. “At that time, many famous musicians who were presumed to be gay were not out, but the Queercore bands, of which Pansy Division was one of the first, were boldly open and unapologetic. The openness of

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the unknown bands helped open the door for more established musicians to come out.”

Ginoli described Pansy Division’s sound as melodic guitar-oriented rock that could be classified as indie rock or punk rock.

“Our songs tend to be loud, short, brash, romantic and sometimes humorous,” he said. “We wanted to push the boundaries of what you’re

&

allowed to sing about, to be as open, explicit and honest as we could about our sexuality and desires as well as the struggles and triumphs of being gay.”

This particular Pride commemorates an important milestone, the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, which Ginoli calls an important landmark.

“There was a gay community that developed from it, of being pub-

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lic and fighting for our rights, that helped in coming out, and knowing that I was not alone,” he said. “When I started to meet other gay people, Stonewall came up pretty quickly.”

Pansy Division will perform a thirty-minute set at 3:45 PM.

Dipper, he-do

Stonewall is also important to Big Dipper, another performer who will be seen at Pride on Sunday.

“I’m lucky enough to know a world that has always included Pride,” he said. “It’s wild to think that Stonewall happened fifty years ago because it seems we’ve made incredible leaps and bounds. Yet as a queer community we are still held back by ignorant bigots in power. It’s so important to be out, loud and proud when you have a voice that’s amplified, and we all have impact on the future of queer people everywhere.

The legacy of Stonewall and the amazing queer leaders and activists is very important to keep alive.”

Big Dipper is not your average musical performer. In his music videos he reveals himself to be a bear, a plus size guy with lots of body hair.

He flaunts his body, and his sensuality, shamelessly and joyfully.

“I just want to perform like a pop star and emulate so many awesome performance and fashion moments that I loved from my favorite music artists growing up,” he said. “I feel powerful and untouchable on stage and I want my costumes and energy to reflect that.”

Big Dipper noted that once he started flaunting his body people put a political message on top of it.

“I celebrate my body and I love bigger bodies, but the goal was never specifically body positivity,” he said.

“That feels like a buzzword to me.

The goal was just to do me and make art and music and performance. The body positivity, love, acceptance and joyful feeling are all just by products of me being authentic to myself. I love that people feel empowered by what I do and that I can represent big bodied folks, but my intent was always just to dance like Britney Spears or the VMAs.” Big Dipper describes his show as “high energy, fun, uplifting, raunchy and full of lots of surprises.” He’ll be on the stage on Sunday at 4:05 PM. There’s a good chance that Big Dipper will be introduced to the audience by noted drag performer and community activist Honey Mahogany, who shares the mainstage hosting duties with Sister Roma.

“Hosting the mainstage on Pride Sunday with my dear friend Sister Roma is one of the highlights of my year,” Mahogany tells B.A.R. “As someone who was born and raised in San Francisco, this is such a tremendous honor. There is nothing like a Pride celebration. The joy and happiness that exudes out of everyone, the love and the freedom, it is incomparable, and I am happy that I get to play a role in it.”t

<< BARchive

60 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

t

Above: Cover of Gay Sunshine, October 1970 Right: “Homo Revolt, Don’t Hide It,” Berkeley Barb, March 28, 1969

<<

Stonewall/White Horse

From page 57

But because the disturbances spread and issues multiplied, they would eventually include at least three bars, including Oakland’s White Horse.

The people who lit the fuse were recent arrivals. Gale Chester Whittington came from Denver in 1968 and Leo Laurence from Indianapolis in 1966. Whittington got a job as an accounting clerk at the States Steamship Company (320 California).

Laurence was a journalist for the underground newspaper Berkeley Barb and the editor of the Society for Individual Rights magazine Vector. They met when Whittington volunteered to write for Vector.

A Vector photographer shared a photo from a shoot of Laurence and Whittington with The Barb. It was paired with an article from March 23, 1969, titled “Homo Revolt: Don’t Hide it.”

The article covered Laurence’s editorial call for gay revolution in Vector. Since the Barb had sex ads, it was read by several of Whittington’s straight colleagues at the shipping company. The day it was published, Whittington was fired. Because of the editorial Laurence was removed as editor of Vector.

Whittington and Laurence then formed the Committee for Homosexual Freedom. Max Scheer, editor of the Barb, promised to cover their actions. On April 9, 1969 the picketing of the steamship company began with signs saying, “Let Gays Live,” “Free The Queers” and “Freedom for Homos Now.” The protests continued for months. In May the Advocate picked up coverage of the protests and by June the Rev. Troy Perry had begun a sympathy strike at the company’s Los Angeles offices.

Ultimately the protests didn’t succeed in getting Whittington’s

job back, but because the Chronicle, the Advocate and the Barb covered the protest (on an almost weekly basis) it spread the word nationally and CHF grew.

In Whittington’s autobiographical work, Beyond Normal: The Birth of Gay Pride, he mentions that Hibiscus and Lendon Sadler (of the Cockettes) and Carl Wittman (author of Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto) all took part in early CHF protests. Wittman read early drafts of his manifesto to the group.

By May protests spread to a second site: Tower Records. Employee Frank Denaro was fired after a security guard reported to management that he had returned the wink of a male customer. Unlike the steamship company, however, the record store was swayed by public opinion and by June the management offered Denaro his job back.

T A T S IR H T R U O Y H C N E QU

!

E D I PR WATER

Purple rain

News about what was happening in San Francisco continued to spread. Berkeley Tribe printed a letter saying Laurence’s articles, reprinted in a Minneapolis campus newspaper, had inspired a class in Homosexual Revolution from their Free University. In Beyond Normal, Whittington relates he received a telegram from New Yorkers who were at Stonewall and had been inspired by articles in the Barb. In October, both Laurence and Whittington were interviewed in the L.A. magazine Tangents.

By October 1969, Gay Liberation Front chapters opened in Berkeley and San Francisco. Two protests on Halloween show both coordination and fragmentation between new and old organizations.

At the first, called “Friday of the Purple Hand,” the Society for Individual Rights worked with CHF and both GLF groups to protest the editorial policies of the San Francisco Examiner. Earlier that week, Robert Patterson of the Examiner had written “The Dreary Revels of S.F. ‘Gay’ Clubs” which referred to gays as “semi-males” and lesbians as “women who aren’t exactly women” as well as referring to both as deviates.

Around 100 protesters picketed the Examiner building, and then had printers ink dumped on them from an upper floor by Examiner employees. Protesters used the ink to make purple handprints all over the building (which gave the protest its name). The protesters were then attacked by the police Tactical Squad. Twelve people were injured and fifteen were arrested.

The second event that day was a protest of the Beaux Arts Ball in the Merchandise Mart by Gay Guerrilla Theater and the Gay Liberation Coalition. Laurence reported in the Berkeley Tribe that the protest was focused on the acceptance of laws that only allowed drag on Halloween and New Year’s. He reported: “I don’t dig drag myself (can’t imagine being a bearded lady)…but

by God, I do feel the drags should have the right to do their thing; not just twice a year, but every day; not just at a drag ball, but at work, school, church and on the streets.”

This was among the first confrontations between older gay organizations and newer, more radical groups. Others included a protest of a S.I.R. dinner in February 1972 where Willie Brown was speaking on reforming sex laws (protested

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BARchive>>

June 27-July 3, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 61

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Friday of the Purple Hand coverage, San Francisco Free Press

because of the cover charge of $12) and a takeover of the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO) by the Gay Liberation Front in August 1970.

GLF demanded that NACHO affirm its support of the Black Panther Party and Women’s Liberation and organize a national gay strike.

Clearly there was a generational difference between members of homophile organizations and the gay liberationists. Many of the younger generation had ties to the New Left and anti-war movements. Laurence had been in Chicago for the ’68 Democratic convention and Wittman had written for the SDS before, for example. GLF members formed a gay contingent for the Nov. 15, 1969 Moratorium March Against the War. And by and large they read the underground press, not the gay press.

Horse sense

The most dramatic confrontation between gay liberationists and gay bars came at the White Horse Bar in Oakland. Konstantin Berlandt, a long-time gay activist in Berkeley, was thrown out of the bar for selling Gay Sunshine by the owner Joe Johansen. The Gay Sunshine collective worked with the Berkeley GLF and picketed the bar. A list of demands included one that patrons be allowed to touch one another and slow dance.

Within a week the bar capitulated to the protesters.

The White Horse wasn’t the only bar to raise the ire of liberationists.

Leonarda’s also refused to sell Gay Sunshine and a boycott was suggested (it’s hard to know how serious to take this, as the underground press kept reporting the bar’s name

as “Leonardo’s”). The Stud also upset writers at the Berkeley Tribe by checking IDs at the door. They may, however, have just been opposed to bars as institutions. The article in the Tribe suggested: “The bars can’t be liberated, they must be destroyed. They rip off our money, keep us in ghettos playing the same old weary games thinking that we are satisfied, and maintain all the divisions in Amerika – women and men, gay women and gay men, black and white, young and old. The Stud mentality in our heads has to be rooted out and killed too.”

Ultimately it was not the bars but the gay liberationists that disappeared as the 1970s progressed.

I asked Gary Alinder, who was a member of Berkeley’s GLF, about burnout and the disappearance of Gay Lib in the ‘70s.

“It evolved,” he said. “Gay liberation was a sudden uprising. Most of us were anti-organization. It was not meant to stay around for a long time. It was a burst of energy – an explosion. A second generation would come along that was more organized. But the message – to make people happy in themselves and come out – was valid.”

That burst of energy had a massive effect – it spread through LGBT organizations with programs like gay rap sessions to campuses across the country and created an explosion of new publications. Those publications and organizations did reach people. As a teen who picked up the Detroit Gay Liberator in the early ‘70s, and who attended a gay rap meeting on my college campus, I can testify that those of us who followed were grateful for the work of the Stonewall generation.t

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<< Nightlife Events

62 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

Nightlife Events June 27-July 4, 2019 From Pride devotion to Americana explosions, this dual holiday week is packed with sparkly fun. Bars and nightclubs will be crowded, so get your tickets early wherever possible.

Piano Bar @ Martuni’s

Hot Pants @ The Stud

Musician extraordinaire Joe Wicht leads tasteful sing-along selections.

5:30-8:30pm. 4 Valencia St.

Womens dance night with DJs Chelsea Starr, Campbell, China G, and Miss Pop. $10-$20. 9pm-2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Pound Puppy @ The Stud Doc Sleep DJs the dance night. 9pm2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Lips and Lashes Brunch @ Lookout

Queer Singles Night @ Manny’s

Weekly show hosted by Carnie Asada, with DJs Becky Knox and Pumpkin Spice. The yummy brunch menu starts at 12pm, with the show at 1:30pm.

3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Enjoy drinks and meet-ups at the politically-charged mixed bar/café.

Free/RSVP. 6pm-8pm. 3092 16th St. www.welcometomannys.com

Skate Night @ Church on 8 Wheels

Sat 29

Pink Block @ Great Northern

Groove on wheels at the former Sacred Heart Church-turned disco roller skate party space, hosted by John D. Miles, the “Godfather of Skate.” 7pm-11pm. Sat afternoon sessions 1pm-2:30pm and 3pm5:30pm. $10. Kids 12 and under $5.

Skate rentals $5. 554 Fillmore St. at Fell. www.churchof8wheels.com

Steam @ Powerhouse

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

Thu 27 High Tide Pride Boat Party @ SF Bay Do the Bay and Hornblower’s nautical party cruises around the bay, with DJed grooves, drag acts, cocktails and nibblies. $30-$45. 5:30pm-9pm. Pier 3. http://gay.dothebay.com/hightide-pride-boat-party-san-francisco

Liberace and Liza @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko David Safferrt and Jillian Snow Harris return with their witty wacky nostalgic cabaret tribute to the glam costume pianist and Liza Minnelli. $30-$60 ($20 food/drink min.). 8pm.

Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinssf.com

Love Is Gay Tour @ Ivy Room, Honey Hive Gallery Lucy & La Mer, Wasi and Polartropica perform queer fun songs! June 27, 8pm, $10. 860 San Pablo Ave., Albany www.ivyroom.com June 28, 6:30pm, 4117 Judah St. June 29, 5pm, Knockout Bar, 3223 Mission St. www. isawwasi.com

Mr. S 40th Anniversary @ SF Oasis Slip into Pride Weekend with the Mr. S Leather Crew. Help celebrate 40 years in San Francisco. One lucky guest will win a $1500 shopping spree to the shop plus a bunch of other fun prizes.

No cover. 21+ with ID. 298 11th St., 9pm-2am. www.mr-s-leather.com

Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences Parties at the fascinating spacious nature and science exhibits; June 27, Heklina hosts the annual Pride party. $12-$15. 6pm-10pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. www.calacademy.org

Pelvic Thrust @ Lone Star Metalbob and Bulldog Mike DJ metal rock. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Polka Dot Prom @ The Stud DJs Junkyard, Marke B, Bobby, Siobhan Aluvalot and John Fucking Cartwright DJ the revival of a historic theme night; polka dot attire! $5-$10.

8pm-2am. 399 9th St. studsf.com

Queer Karaoke @ Club OMG KJ Dana hosts the weekly singing night; unleash your inner American Idol ; first Thursdays are Costume Karaoke; third is Kinky Karaoke 8pm.

43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Sex and the City Live @ Oasis

Fri 28 Bearracuda @ Folsom Foundry

Taboo @ Oasis Pride edition of the dance party, with a neon theme, DJ Chad Bays, hosts and hostesses Carnie Asada, Liam Ocean, Suliman Nawid and others. $10-$15. 10pm-3am. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Big Boy @ Lone Star Saloon

Uhaul @ Jolene’s

La Bomba Latina @ Club OMG

The popular women’s dance party returns at the new nightclub, now weekly. 10pm-2am. 2700 16th St. at Harrison. www.jolenessf.com

Mother @ Oasis Heklina’s popular weekly drag show, with special guests and great music themes. June 29 with guest Silky Nutmeg Ganache, plus Elsa Touche, Miss Shugana, Madd Dogg 20/20, Sassi Fran and Tito. $20-$30. 10pm3am (11:30pm show). 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Napa, Sonoma Pride @ Various Venues Enjoy dances, cookouts, park parties, drag shows, youth dances, art shows and more; most Saturdays, Sundays thru June 28. NapaSonomaPride.org

Nuttin’ Butt Pride @ Club Six Sex and dance event with porn actors, drag queens, stand-up comics, and more than a dozen DJs playing in three rooms, with performance by Armond Rizzo and Julius Caeser; blacklight room, BYO toys, lube, glitter, whatever, clothes check available. $25-$40. 9pm-3am. 60 6th St. www.nuttinbuttfunn.com

Onyx @ Powerhouse Leather men of color and friends happy hour. 5pm-9pm. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Drag show with DJ Jaffeth. $5. 9pm2am. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Branden & James @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The vocal and cello duo, who happen to be married, perform classical-styled pop favorites. $40-$70 ($20 food/ drink min.). 8pm. Also June 29. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinssf.com

The comic drag parody performances of scripts from the hit HBO show about four Manhattan women, adapted by and starring D’Arcy Drollinger. $27-$50. Thu-Sat 7pm thru July 13. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Burlesque Cabaret @ Pause Wine Bar

Sundance Saloon @ Space 550

Coming Out Party @ Hotel Zetta

The popular two-stepping linedancing, not-just-country music night, with free lessons. $5. 6:30pm10:30pm. special Pride weekend night (see June 29) Also Sundays 5pm10:30pm. 550 Barneveld Ave. www.sundancesaloon.org

Near-bathouse fun with towel-clad gogos, Steamworks goodies and sexy DJed grooves by Bezier. $5. 9pm-2am.

1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

The big guys’ Pride party and underwear dance night, with DJs Steve Sherwood and Ryan Jones. $20-$60. 9pm-3am. 1425 Folsom St. www.bearracuda.com DJ Boyshapedbox spins at the bear bar party. $5. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

t

Women burlesque performers at the wine bar. $15-$50. 7:30pm. 1666 Market St. redhotsburlesque.com

DoTheBay’s gay event with DJs Holographic and Adam Kraft, drag acts, Gay Beach beer. 6pm-9pm. 55 5th St. www.dothebay.com

Drag Alive @ The Stud Variety show with drag, burlesque and more. 6pm-8pm. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

GAMeBoi SF @ Rickshaw Stop Pride edition of the gay Asian K-pop hiphop dance party. $8-$25. 9:30pm2am. 155 Fell St. rickshawstop.com

Gogo Fridays @ Toad Hall Hot dancers grind it at the Castro bar with a dance floor and patio. 4146 18th St. www.toadhallbar.com

Growlr Pride @ SF Eagle Bears and cubs and otters, oh my! with DJ Matt Consola. $8. 9pm-2am, free before 10pm in full gear. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Heat Pride @ Great Northern Tony Moran and Dani Toro DJ the Pride circuit dance party. $15-$90.

10pm-4am. 119 Utah St. www.thegreatnorthernsf.com

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

The Maze @ Atlas Sexy cruisy low-light party; No rainbows, no dance floor, no screaming, no Jello shots. $12-$25.

10pm-3am. 415 10th St. atlas-sf.com

Sat 29

Sundance Saloon @ Women’s Bldg.

Sat 29 Afterglow @ Space 550 Comfort & Joy’s annual colorful dance party; blacklight glowy dance floor fun with multiple DJs (Stanley Frank, Tedd Patterson, Ruben Mancias, Steve Fabus and more); live show with Jesse Escalante (1am), playspace, too!

Limited $80 tix at door. 10pm-6am.

550 Barneveld St. www.playajoy.org

AsQew @ Driftwood Pride weekend party at the SoMa stray bar, with DJ DavO. 8pm-2am.

1225 Folsom St. driftwoodbarsf.com

Bear Pride @ Lone Star Saloon Marco Morena spins grooves at the bear bar. $5. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Gayer Things @ Rickshaw Stop Stranger Things-themed party for the gays; synth, house, retro ‘80s mix with DJs Todo Mio and Honeycutts; costumes encouraged. $10-$30.

9:30pm-2am. 155 Fell St. www.rickshawstop.com

The Grateful Dad @ Lone Star Saloon

Papi Pride @ Roccapulco Club Papi’s Pride dance party includes hot gogos, hosts Ms. Lola & Kimora Blac, a performance by Ninel Conde. $20. 9:30pm-3am. 3140 Mission St. www.clubpapi.com

Pink Block @ Great Northern Daytime outdoor party with DJs Hercules & Love Affair, Poolside, Juanita MORE!, Carlos Souffront, Analog Soul, Trax Only, Brian Urmanita and many more. $20-$50.

12pm-9pm. 119 Utah St. www.thegreatnorthernsf.com

Pink Mammoth @ Mezzanine 7th annual outdoor block party (12pm-10pm) and evening dance (9pm-3am) with DJs David Harness Distrikt, Dusty Rhino and more. $20$50. 444 Jessie St. mezzaninesf.com

Pitchers & Catchers @ Pilsner Inn Pride T-dance with drag acts Ferosha Titties, Llano River Blue, Franzia Kafka, Maria Konner and more, with DJs Dank. No cover. 6pm-10pm. 225 Church St. www.pilsnerinn.com

Pride Brunch @ Curio Bar

DJs Brd, Ben Stefonix and Bryan Hughes spin. $7. 2pm-9pm. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Dine and drink as divas and drags perform, including Trixxie Carr, Adam Kraft, Suppositori Spelling and Masha.

10am-3pm. Valencia St. curiobarsf.com

Honeys & Hotsauce @ Jolene’s

Qtease @ The Stud

Two-year anniversary of the sizzling womens’ night. 10pm-2am. 2700 16th St. at Harrison. http://jolenessf.com/

Nudie Nubies SF and The Black Manifest’s male strip, burlesque and amateur night. 6pm-8pm. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

t

Nightlife Events>>

June 27-July 3, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 63

Thu 4

Chrysta Bell @ The Chapel

Beer Bust @ SF Eagle

The New Wave-influenced pop singer-performer and actor ( Twin Peaks) brings her dazzling multimedia concert to the mission venue; Amy Shiels opens. $15-$18. 8pm. 777 Valencia St. www.chrystabell.com

Celebrate July 4 with beers and a bang. $15 include all you cand rink, plsu food. 3pm-6pm. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

International Mondays @ Qbar Enjoy world grooves all night. 9pm2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

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

Mon 1

Chrysta Bell @ The Chapel

Rogue @ SF Eagle

Hot Tea @ City Nights

Fetish pride night. 9pm-2am, free before 10pm in full gear. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

DJs Dan Slater, Kitty Glitter and Eli Seda play at Cecil Russell’s third annual Pride T-dance. $15-$90. 6pm12am. 715 Harrison St. www.glosspresents.com

Sex Work is Gay @ Café Du Nord Bands Copyslut, El Primo Inocente, Kooleidescope, Salami Rose, Joe Louis and DJ Freddie Fiers, plus comic Reiko Rasch perform at a benefit for Homeless Youth Alliance. $13-$20.

8pm. 2174 Market St. www.swedishamericanhall.com

Sundance Saloon @ Women’s Bldg Pre-Pride Country-Western dance night with line-dancing and twostepping fun. $10. 7:30pm-11pm.

3543 18th St. Also June 30 during Civic Center celebrations, Golden Gate near Larkin. 1pm-5pm. www.sundancesaloon.org

Juanita MORE! Pride @ Jones The popular celebrated Pride event; cash-only at the door or at participating retail venues; proceeds benefit the GLBT Historical Society. $50. 12pm-7pm. 620 Jones St. www.juanitamore.com

Mighty Real @ Great Northern Huge Pride after-party with DJs Kerri Chandler, David Harness, Homero Espinosa, and Go Bang!’s Steve Fabus and Sergio Fedasz. $10-$40. 6pm12am. 119 Utah St. www.thegreatnorthernsf.com

Underwear Party @ Atlas

Pride Party @ Oasis

Strip down with pride at the cruisy semi-private club, with groovy tunes, gogos and a runway show. $14-$25.

10pm-2am. 415 10th St. atlas-sf.com

Rooftop bar, kiddy pool and escape from Pride overload. 1pm-6pm. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Walt Whitman Celebration @ Dada Bar

Ten parties in 12 hours, with multiple DJs and performers. 2pm-2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Music and readings to honor the gay poet, with Conspiracy of Beards, actors Greg Meyer, Dixon Phillips, Danielle Thys, Steven Winn and many others. 6pm-9pm. Mechanics’ Building, 65 Post St. www.dadasf.com

Wild Things @ Public Works Dyke March after-party for dykes, women and their cool pals, with DJs Lezlee, Lady Tragik, Namaste Shawty. $20-$35. 7pm-2am. 161 Erie St. https://publicsf.com/

Sun 30 Dirty Musical Sundays @ The Edge Sing along at the popular musical theatre night with a bawdy edge; also Mondays and Wednesdays (but not as dirty). 7pm-2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Disco Daddy @ SF Eagle DJ Bus Station John’s discolicious Pride T-dance. $7-$10. 7pm-2am. 398 12th St. at Harrison. sf-eagle.com

Domingo De Escandal @ Club OMG Weekly Latin night with drag shows hosted by Vicky Jimenez and DJ Carlitos. (Comedy Open Mic 5:30pm).

7pm-2am. 43 6th St. clubomgsf.com

Gigante @ Qbar Frisco Robbie spins Latin and Hip-Hop grooves. $5. 9pm-2am (weekly beer bust 2pm-9pm). 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Hard French @ Mezzanine Annual Pride dance party with Book of Love performing, plus DJs Josh Cheon, Brown Amy, Carnita, B-Side Boogie. $25-$35. 3pm-11pm. 444 Jessie St. www.mezzaninesf.com

Pride Sunday @ The Stud

Pride Tea Dance @ Pilsner Inn Dance it up at the neighbhoorhood sports bar, with DJs Dank and Dingbat. No cover. 3pm-7pm. 225 Church St. www.pilsnerinn.com

Pride Viewing Party @ Equinox SF Academy of Friends hosts its annual festive cocktail party with a birds’ eye view of the parade, open bar, food and treats, DJ St. John and gift bags. $100-$1,200. 10am-4:30pm. 747 Market St. academyoffriends.org

Queer Tango @ Finnish Hall, Berkeley Same-sex partner tango dancing, including lessons for newbies, food and drinks. $5-$10. 3:30pm-6:30pm.

1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley. www.finnishhall.org

Renegade @ Atlas The weekly cruisy semi-private party. 6pm-10pm. $5-$10. Now also Thursdays, 9pm-2am. 415 10th St. www.atlas-sf.com

The Monster Show @ The Edge

MON 1

Vamp @ Beaux Women’s night with a sultry vampire theme; goth, red & black, lingerie attire welcome but not required; bondage and BDSM demos, too. DJs Olga T and Jayne Grey. $5-$15. 8pm2am. 2344 Market St. beauxsf.com

Independence Day Sail @ Port of Oakland Enjoy an afternoon cocktail party aboard FDR’s presidential vessel, the USS Potomac, with The Speakeasy cast and Dixieland musicians, open bar and food. $150. 12:30pm-4pm.

540 Water St, Jack London Square, Oakland. www.thespeakeasysf.com

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

Tue 2

Gaymer Night @ Midnight Sun Weekly fun night of games (video, board and other) and cocktails.

8pm-12am. 4067 18th St. www. midnightsunsf.com

Thursday Night Live @ SF Eagle Rock bands play at the famed leather bar. July 4: Three Day Stubble, Glands of External Secretion and Robert Dayton as The Canadian Romantic. $8. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

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

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Drag Bingo @ Club 1220, Walnut Creek Holotta Tymes and Saki Samora cohost the East Bay game night. 7pm.

1220 Pine St., Walnut Creek. www.club1220.com

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

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TnT with the Meme Boys @ Powerhouse Travis, Traci and Tyler cohost the game night. 9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Vice Tuesdays @ Q Bar Queer femmes and friends dance party with hip hop, Top 40 and throwbacks at the stylish intimate bar, with DJs Val G and Iris Triska. 9pm2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Wed 3 Karaoke Night @ Club 1220, Walnut Creek Sing along at the East Bar gay bar; dance nights on weekends, and drag shows, too. 9pm-1am. 1220 Pine St., Walnut Creek. www.club1220.com

Miss Kitty’s Trivia Night @ Wild Side West The weekly fun night at the Bernal Heights bar includes prizes, hosted by Kitty Tapata. No cover. 7pm-10pm.

424 Cortland St. 647-3099. www.wildsidewest.com

Pan Dulce @ Beaux Drag divas, gogo studs, DJed Latin grooves and drinks at the Hump Day fiesta 9pm-2am (free before 10:30pm). 2344 Market St. www.clubpapi.com

Queeraoke @ El Rio Midweek drag rave and vocal open mic, with Rahni Nothingmore, Beth Bicoastal, Ginger Snap and guests.

10pm. 3158 Mission St. elriosf.com

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San Francisco Pride @ Civic Center, Market Street The annual march and celebration includes 100s of contingents in the parade (grandstand seating $40, also ASL interpretation and accessible sections at UN Plaza), multiple DJed dance areas around Civic Center, business and nonprofit booths, food, drinks and on the mainstage, Amara La Negra, Pansy Division, Big Dipper, Cheer SF, and many more; hosts Sister Roma and Honey Mahogany. Also, June 30 VIP party inside City Hall rotunda features food, drinks, and entertainers on the scenic staircase ($65-$85). Saturday mainstage Pride as well, with cohosts Persia and Yves Saint Croissant. Gate donations. Both days 11am-6pm. www.sfpride.org

Saturday, June 29th 1PM-6PM The Power Exchange 220 Jones St., SF This is a Male only event, Open to Gay, Bi or Straight men, 18 years or older with a valid photo ID. Entrance fee is $25 “Cash only” ($10 off discount if you have a Student/Military ID) This is not a S&M Leather group. More for guys into Spanking & Spanking Fantasies like the traditional Old Fashion Spanking over Daddy’s Knee or a Fraternity style Pledge Initiation Paddling. This is a safe place for beginner looking to explore or just meet and talk to other guys into Spanking.

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<< Arts Events

64 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

Arts Events

Border People @ The Marsh Dan Hoyle’s new solo show embodies multiple characters based around the U.S./Mexico border wall controversies; extended thru Aug. 30. $25-$100. Wed-Fri 8pm, Sat 5pm. 1062 Valencia St. themarsh.org

June 27-July 4, 2019

The Crooked Room @ African-American Art & Culture Complex Delicious, rainbow-licious superqueer-ificious week to you and yours.

Jerrie Johnson’s solo show about being a Black queer woman in America. $15-$50. 8pm. Also June 29. 762 Fulton St. www.sfbatco.org

The Fit @ Strand Theater Carey Perloff’s new play involves an Indian-American woman’s trevails to retain her identity in Silicon Valley’s tech world. $30-$35. Wed, Thu 7pm.

Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm thru June 29.

1127 Market St. sfplayhouse.org

Sat 29

Once @ Gateway Theatre

Copyslut at Sex Work is Gay @ Café Du Nord

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

Thu 27 Above Ground Theater Festival @ Mojo Theatre Four-week festival of new solo and ensemble theatre/dance works. $15-$30. Thu-Sun thru June 29.

2940 16th St. www.ftloose.com

Action Hero @ Phoenix Theatre Theatre Rhinoceros’ production of John Fisher’s play about an actor with Hollywood dreams. $20-$40. Thru July 6. 414 Mason St. TheRhino.org

Aunt Charlie’s @ Tenderloin Museum Multimedia exhibit about the historic Tenderloin drag bar; thru Dec 1. 398 Eddy St. www.tenderloinmuseum.org

Untitled-19 1

Cabaret @ SF Playhouse New local production of Kander & Ebb and Masteroff’s classic musical. $35-$125. Tue-Thu & Sun 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Also Sat 3pm, Sun 2pm.

Thru Sept. 14. 450 Post St. www.sfplayhouse.org

Classic and New Films @ Castro Theatre Frameline Film Festival thru June 30. www.frameline.org July 1: Do the Right Thing (7pm) and Boyz in the Hood (9:15). July 3: Grease singalong (7:30)cohosted by Sara Moore and Laurie Bushman. $8-$15. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

Love Is Gay Tour @ Ivy Room, Honey Hive Gallery Lucy & La Mer, Wasi and Polartropica perform queer fun songs! June 27, 8pm, $10. 860 San Pablo Ave., Albany www.ivyroom.com June 28, 6:30pm, 4117 Judah St. June 29, 5pm, Knockout Bar, 3223 Mission St. www.isawwasi.com

Orlando @ War Memorial Opera House Handel’s 1733 opera (the first of three operas using plots drawn from Ludovico Ariosto’s Renaissance epic Orlando Furioso ) is performed. $26$256. 7:30pm. 301 Van Ness Ave. www.sfopera.com

Fri 28 Adam Tendler @ Grace Cathedral The pianist-author, special guests Prism Percussion and violinist Helen Kim, perform works of protest and meditation by John Cage, Joan La Barbara, Arvo Pärt, James MacMillan, and featuring Frederic Rzewski’s epic solo for speaking pianist, De Profundis, based on Oscar Wilde’s letter from prison; part of the Unearthed arts series at the Cathedral. Free/RSVP. 7:30pm. 1100 California St. gracecathedral.org

42nd Street Moon’s new production of the multi-Tony-winning musical, a straight romance about an Irish musician who falls for a Czech immigrant. $28-$75. Thru June 30.

215 Jackson St. 42ndstmoon.org

Queer California: Untold Stories @ Oakland Museum Multimedia exhibition documenting California LGBT lives, with contemporary artwork, rare historical materials, film, photography, sculpture; thru Aug. 11. Friday 5pm LGBT film screenings. Free/$15. 1000 Oak St. museumca.org/

Queer Yoga @ Love Story Yoga All-level classes in an LGBT space. $11. 6:30pm-7:30pm. 473 Valencia St. at 16th. lovestoryyoga.com

Rusalka @ War Memorial Opera House Antonin Dvorák’s opera, based on the same story that inspired The Little Mermaid, is performed. $89$326. 7:30pm. Van Ness Ave. www. sfopera.com

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Shortlived VIII @ PianoFight PianoFight and A.C.T. present the nation’s largest audience-judged theater competition, with multiple short plays performed over several weeks. $20; thru Aug. 10 (Finals at the Strand Theater Sept 7 & 8). 144 Taylor St. www.PianoFight.com

Trans March @ Dolores Park Annual march for transgender people includes a brunch, rally, resource fair, and performances at Dolores Park, 11am-6pm, at 18th at Dolores St. Street march 6pm7:30pm. www.transmarch.org

Sat 29 Carmen @ War Memorial Opera House Bizet’s classic opera of passion and tragedy is performed. $26-$256.

7:30pm. 301 Van Ness Ave. www.sfopera.com

Comic Exhibits @ Cartoon Art Museum Mais Kobabe’s Gender Queer, thru July 1; among other exhibits.

11am-5pm. 781 Beach St. www.cartoonart.org

Dyke March @ Dolores Park Annual march by/for lesbians, dykes, daggers, etc. Rally & performances 11am-4:30pm.

March 5pm-6:30pm from Dolores Park through the Castro and back. www.thedykemarch.org

Kiss My Aztec! @ Berkeley Rep John Leguizamo and Tony Taccone’s hilarious multi-genre musical comedy about woke Aztecs taking on Spanish invaders. $35-$115. Thru July 14. 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. www.berkeleyrep.org

6/24/19 12:58 PM

t

Arts Events>>

June 27-July 3, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 65

10 contemporary artists.

Free/$10. Wed-Sat 11am6pm. Sun 12pm-5pm.

Thru Aug 11. 685 Mission St. www.moadsf.org

LGBTQ Histories from the WWII Home Front @ Rosie the Riveter Visitor Education Center, Richmond

Exclusion @ Presidio Officers Club

Park indoor exhibit that showcases the lives of historic LGBT people. Open daily 10am-5pm. 1414 Harbour Way South, Suite 3000, Richmond. www.nps. gov/rori/index.htm

Exhibit documenting the Presidio’s JapaneseAmerican incarceration during World War II; other exhibits show the history of the former military base and the SF peninsula. Free, Tue-Sun 10am-5pm; extended thru June 2020. 50 Maraga Ave. www. presidio.gov/officersclub/exhibitions/

Mamma Mia! @ San Jose Stage Company South Bay production of the hit ABBA jukebox musical about romance and paternity queries on a Greek island. $32-$60.

8pm. Thru July 7. 490 South First St., San Jose. www.thestage.org

Fri 28

Sadie Barnette: The New Eagle Creek Saloon @ The Lab The Oakland artist’s installation recreates and honors her father’s history as owner of SF’s first Black-owned gay bar, with archival materials and ‘hosted’ events; thru June 30.

2948 16th St. thelab.org

Sex Work is Gay @ Café Du Nord Bands Copyslut, El Primo Inocente, Kooleidescope, Salami Rose, Joe Louis and DJ Freddie Fiers, plus comic Reiko Rasch perform at a benefit for Homeless Youth Alliance. $13-$20. 8pm. 2174 Market St. www.swedishamericanhall.com

Stonewall: 50 Years @ Harvey Milk Photo Center Group exhibit of LGBT photography focusing on Pride events. Thru July 21. Reg. hours Tue-Thu 3pm9:30pm. Sat 10am-5:300pm, Sun 11am-5:30pm. 50 Scott St. www.harveymilkphotocenter.org

Wild SF Walking Tours @ Citywide

Jerrie Johnson’s The Crooked Room @ African-American Art & Culture Complex

Odd Mondays @ Folio Books Poets Natasha Dennerstein, David Hathwell and James Cagney read.

7pm. 3957 24th St. www.foliosf.com

Queer as German Folk @ SF Public Library Exhibit of ephemera and memorabilia about Stonewall rebellion commemorations in Germany and worldwide; thru Sept 26. 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

Show Me as I Want to Be Seen @ Contemporary Jewish Museum Show Me as I Want to Be Seen, the work of groundbreaking French Jewish artist, Surrealist, and activist Claude Cahun (1894–1954) and her lifelong lover and collaborator Marcel Moore (1892–1972), thru July 7. Free/$17. 736 Mission St. https://thecjm.org/

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

Get naked and take turns modeling at the sex club’s popular weekly event. Donations/no entrance fee. 7pm-9pm.

2051 Market St. www.erossf.com

Then They Came For Me @ Futures Without Violence Incarceration of Japanese Americans During WWII and the Demise of Civil Liberties, a touring multimedia exhibit documenting the terrifying period in U.S. history when the government scapegoated and imprisoned thousands of people of Japanese ancestry. Extended thru Sept 1. 100 Montgomery St. https://thentheycame.org/

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

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Thu 4 Early Rubens @ Legion of Honor Exhibit of epic massive paintings of biblical and mythical subjects by Peter Paul Rubens; Thru Sept 8. Also, Small Inventions: Artist’s Books by Charles Hobson (thru July 14) and other exhibits of classical and modern art. Open July 4.

Free/$30. Lincoln Park, 100 34th Ave. legionofhonor.famsf.org

Sun 30 Expedition Reef @ California Academy of Sciences Exhibits and planetarium shows with various live, interactive and installed exhibits about animals, plants and the earth; Deep Reefs, Giants of Land and Sea, Gems and Minerals, and more. $20-$35.

Mon-Sat 9:30am-5pm.

Sun 11am-5pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

Naked Men’s Sketch @ Eros

Fri 28

Adam Tendler @ Grace Cathedral

The Oldest Living Cater Waiter @ Gateway Theatre Michael Patrick Gaffney’s “Best of Fringe Festival” comedic solo show serves up a witty take on food service, fame and self-discovery. $20-$45. Sun-Tue, 7pm thru July 9.

215 Jackson St. 42ndstmoon.org

Mon 1 Chosen Familias @ GLBT History Museum Chosen Familias: Bay Area LGBTQ Latinx Stories. Also, The Mayor of Folsom Street: Alan Selby’s Legacy, an exhibit of the leather culture pioneer. $5. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Tue 2 Smoke & Mirrors: The War on Drugs @ AAACC Exhibit of works by six muralists and 20 artists focusing on pot use, hemp, and historical elements of cannabis in communities of color.

Tue-Fri 12pm-6pm. Sat til 5pm.

Thru Aug 31. 762 Fulton St. www.aaacc.org

Wed 3 Coffee, Rhum, Sugar and Gold: A Post-Colonial Paradox @ MOAD Exhibit of works that explore the legacy of European colonialism in the Caribbean through the work of

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Floral Exhibits @ SF Botanical Garden Visit the lush gardens with displays of trees, flowers and shrubs from around the world, including the annual Magnolia bloom. Monthly plant sales, plus art exhibits and gift shop; free entry with SF proof of residency. $5-$10 for others.

7:30am-closing. 9th Ave at Lincoln Way. www.sfbotanicalgarden.org

San Francisco Mime Troupe @ Dolores Park The company celebrates its 60th anniversary and performs Treasure Island, an update on the classic Untitled-20 tale, with a development/greed scandal as the story. Free/$20 donations. 2pm. 19th St. at Dolores. At Bay Area locales thru Sept 8. www.sfmt.orgt

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<< Shining Stars

66 • Bay Area Reporter • June 27-July 3, 2019

t

Shining Stars Steven Underhill Photos by

Frameline Opening Night @ Terra Gallery O

pening night of the 43rd annual Frameline San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival included a screening of Vita and Virginia at the Castro Theatre, followed by a party at Terra Gallery. Cinematic luminaries enjoyed drinks, food and music.

The festival continues through June 30. www.frameline.org See plenty more photos on BARtab’s Facebook page, facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife. See more of Steven Underhill’s photos at StevenUnderhill.com.

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For headshots, portraits or to arrange your wedding photos

call (415) 370-7152 or visit www.StevenUnderhill.com or email stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com