June 30 2016 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

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Vol. 46 • No. 26 • June 30-July 6, 2016

Parade offers Orlando tribute

Solutions exist to end HIV homelessness

Marchers carried placards at Sunday’s Pride parade for each of the 49 people killed in the recent Orlando massacre.

by Matthew S. Bajko

A

t first Paul Ernest Pingol-Eulalia adjusted well to his moving from the Philippines to Los Angeles in 2003. But the graphic designer’s life began to spiral out of control after he began abusing drugs and alcohol.

He soon found himself living out of cheap motels and turning to prostitution to ensure he would have a roof over his head for the night. In March 2008 Pingol-Eulalia, who is gay, learned he had contracted HIV. See page 12 >>

Rick Gerharter

by Sari Staver

A

fter the quintessential roar and cheering that always accompanies the Dykes on Bikes leading the LGBT Pride parade Sunday, June 26, the 46th annual event turned somber due to the hastily formed contingent “We Are Orlando,” which featured people carrying 49 large placards with pictures of those who died at the recent massacre at a gay nightclub.

The contingent was organized by Florida transplant Richard Sizemore, 29, who identifies as queer and has many fond memories of time spent at Pulse, the bar where the June 12 shootings took place.

“That’s where I met my friends when I was coming out at age 18,” he said, “It’s literally the place where I became the person I am. I learned the lingo and how to be gay.”

Devastated by the news of the massacre at

Pulse, Sizemore said, “I had to do something but I didn’t know what.”

Sizemore reached out to several existing contingents with his idea about an Orlando theme after Pride officials told him the deadline had passed for new contingents.

With just two weeks until the Pride parade, Sizemore wondered if he had the time and resources to do something on his own.

See page 13 >>

Homeless issues at Castro library addressed

by Seth Hemmelgarn

situation will get better.”

Michelle Jeffers, a San Francisco an Francisco officials and others Public Library spokeswoman, said are working to address homeless the library’s now sending health and encampments and other issues safety associates, many of whom are that have persisted for years around the formerly homeless, to the Eureka Castro district’s Eureka Valley/Harvey Valley branch. The associates help Milk Memorial Branch Library. guide people to where they can get Gay Supervisor Scott Wiener, services. whose District 8 includes the Castro, Jeffers said there have been consaid problems in the area around the cerns about people using the area library, which is at 1 Jose Sarria Court, outside “in less than desirable ways include auto break-ins, drug use, “a when the library’s closed.” highly unsanitary encampment” at Those have included people climbthe library, and an “open air bike chop ing onto the building’s roof and sleepRick Gerharter shop,” where stolen bicycles are taken ing there, probably because it seemed A worker from San Francisco Public Works does an early apart so their parts can be sold. safer than sleeping on the street, JefWiener, who’s been criticized for his morning cleaning Sunday of the exterior grounds of the fers said. The library worried about liefforts to get tent encampments off the Eureka Valley/Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library. ability, though, and access to the roof city’s sidewalks, said, “It’s ridiculous. has been closed off.

We just cannot allow that kind of situJeffers said, “We’re working on proactive there, which they have been.” ation to continue.” the lighting out there. Because of the way that He’s also “requested that the Department “It’s neither progressive, nor humane, nor block is, it felt very dark and felt very not safe of Public Works make this the first stop of the safe, nor healthy to allow people to live and, morning for the cleaning crew.” Homeless outto neighbors.” ultimately, to deteriorate and die in these tent reach workers are also coming out to the site, There’s also a syringe disposal container at encampments,” Wiener said. “We need to get the site. he said. people help.” The solution, he said, is “to get Additionally, off-duty police are patrolling “I think it is better than it was before, but it is people off the streets and into shelter,” and into still not perfect,” Wiener said. the neighborhood and are including the library housing that addresses substance abuse and after hours in their watch.

He added, “If the library brings in security, if mental health issues.

“I hesitate to say that we have a solution, but we continue to have consistency by the Depart“It’s a fallacy that there’s no place for people we certainly don’t want to change the way we ment of Public Works and by the police, and if to go,” he said. provide library services,” Jeffers said. the library makes the physical changes” needed Wiener said among other things, “I’ve been to dissuade homeless people, “I’m not saying See page 10 >> working with police to be more consistent and the problem is going to go away entirely, but the

S Rick Gerharter

Rainbow Honor Walk inductee Jose Sarria

2nd class picked for honor walk

by Matthew S. Bajko

T

he second set of honorees has been picked for the Rainbow Honor Walk, a project in San Francisco’s gay Castro district that honors deceased LGBT luminaries.

In September 2014 the first group of 20 LGBT individuals who left a lasting mark on society was honored with bronze plaques See page 12 >>

{ FIRST OF THREE SECTIONS }

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<< Community News

2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30-July 6, 2016

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Campos, Kim accused of fighting against HIV funds

by Seth Hemmelgarn

t

initiative is working to address

issues like food insecurity and ONstock NOW! We’ve SPRING got more SALE bikes in & ready V an Francisco Supervisors DavidAL homelessness.

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Saccused Campos and Jane Kim are being “It’s ironic that most of what CYC of fighting efforts to add we’re proposing ... is likely to be

$2.5 million to the city’s budget for spent in Jane Kim’s district,” he said.

SPRING its Getting to Zero initiative.

“I don’t think she even realizes that.”

We’ve got m As the Bay Area Reporter noted Kim’s district includes the Tenready to ride on its blog last week, gay District 8 derloin, one of San Francisco’s Supervisor Scott Wiener announced poorest neighborhoods. last week that he’d secured another The supervisor’s shown “a lack of $2.5 million for the initiative, which awareness of the work” that HIV/ aims to eliminate new HIV infecAIDS-based nonprofits in her distions in the city.

Hybrid/City trict do “and the clients they serve,” Hybrid/City Kid’s Advocates had asked Mayor Ed Sheehy said.

Jane Philomen Cleland Lee for $3.1 million to support the “I wonder how well she’ll be able Supervisor Jane Kim initiative, but Lee had included only to represent people with HIV” if $600,000 in the budget he proposed elected to serve in Sacramento. “I in June. The city’s fiscal year starts worry for our community.” opportunity in San Francisco in Road July 1.

In response to an email about terms of Getting to Zero, and I fully But the full funding was included Sheehy’s comments, Kim wrote, believe within our city’s intertwined Now Op after HAPPY Campos and Kim tried to cut “Our entire progressive team at fabric with our LGBT community, y the amount for Getting to Zero, the board Thurs fought to protect safety this is a Ever priority every single San 20% OFF a Road Mountain according to a sourcetake with extennet programs and services for the Franciscan should support. I cersive knowledge of the negotiations. most vulnerable San Franciscans, tainly wanted to see this through to Kim’s offi ce in particular argued including HIV funding requests Thanks to our customers the end of our budget process.”

Now Open Thursday to 7pm! that the money was part of the city’s such as the one from Getting to broader social services and that they Zero. None of us believe that HIV ‘Significant dynamics at play’ Every Thursday in April between 4 & 7pm had jurisdiction over it. funding should be politicized and Others who talked about the 2016 Project Open Hand take 20% OFF all parts, accessories & clothing.* Asked about fighting against full & we worked together to ensure that 1065 Vale negotiations 1077 indicated they were Benefit Donation!

SALES 415-550Getting to Zero funding, Campos, a this critical and life-saving funding pleased with the outcome even as SPRING *Sales limited to stock on hand.

Mon.Sat. 1 gay man who represents District 9, would be part of our final budget. they strove to be diplomatic about We’ve got m valenci said, “That’s not true. That’s a lie.”

We worked very closely with the what it took to get there. ready to ride He asked who’d made the claim Budget Justice Coalition to craft a “San Francisco is passionate about and said, “They can say that to my budget which includes strong intheir politics and San Francisco is face.” vestments in programs and services also passionate about their commu“What we have said with respect that make the quality of life better, nity services,” said Brett Andrews, exto this” is that the “Getting to Zero safer, and healthier for all of us and ecutive director of Positive Resource funding should be protected as part especially the most vulnerable. Our Center, a nonprofit that provides of Hybrid/City the larger Budget Justice Coalibudget is a statement of our values 1065 & 1077 Valencia (Btwn 21st & 22nd St.) • SF benefits counseling and other serviction ask, which includes Getting and I am proud of the one we passed es to people living with HIV/AIDS. SALES 415-550-6600 • REPAIRS 415-550-6601 to Zero,” Campos said. “It wasn’t at budget committee last week.” “...

It’s no surprise there were signifi Mon.–Sat. 10-6, 10-7, Sun.Thu. 11-5.10-7, CLOSED Mon.-Thu. Sat. 10-6, Sun.MON. 11-5 JULY 4TH enough to focus on Getting to Zero.” cant dynamics at play this year.”

Campos pointed to several other Support for Kim Dana Van Gorder, executive services that he and others were Others contacted the Bay Area director of Project Inform, said, supporting. Those include food seReporter to support Kim. “We’re naturally happy with the curity, which was cut from $13 mil- Road Austin Padilla, who’s living with result.” lion to $1.9 million. He noted that HIV, is co-chair of the Getting to O He indicated getting to that result Now LGBTs are among the people the Zero initiative’s Ending Stigma was bumpy, though.

HAPPY programs help.

Committee and just completed an “The board’sEver budget process is y Thur take OFF “All those asks are connected and internship in Kim’s office. tough. They always20% have a lot of had to be protected,” Campos said.

“I have worked closely with Jane groups that are asking for a consider“Look at it comprehensively,” for the past year, particularly on the able sum of money, and they have to he said. “If all you do is talk about ending stigma initiative, but I am do a lot of juggling,” Van Gorder said.

Getting to Zero but you don’t talk also confident in her understanding “I understand people were thinkabout food security, you’re actually of retention and re-engagement in ing of different numbers for Getting hurting the people you’re trying to care, especially for younger patients to Zero during that process,” he said, help. ...

I wasn’t just fi ghting for such as myself and forVale seniors living but “We were very happy Scott and 1065 & 1077 Getting toSALES Zero, I was fighting for with AIDS Survivor Syndrome,” PaMark stuck with the larger 415-550 number.” everything else.” dilla said in an email.

“By empowerMon.Sat. Lance Toma is the executive Kim, who represents District 6 ing people living with HIV, Jane has director of the Asian and Pacifi c valenc and is running against Wiener for proven to me that she will represent Islander Wellness Center, which the state Senate seat about to be our community with humility, inprovides HIV treatment and care, vacated by termed out gay Senator tegrity, and respect to the history of among other services.

Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), said HIV/AIDS.” “During the entire budget process, it’s “not true at all” she fought against He added, “I am 110 percent we got support from all the supervifull funding for Getting to Zero and comfortable with her representing sors for HIV services and for Getting called it “a crazy accusation.” me in Sacramento as a person living to Zero, and during the most recent “We wanted to fully fund the with HIV and a founder of Getting process, I know that they all were entire Getting to Zero ask, as well to Zero.” weighing and balancing so many as all the Budget Justice Coalition Brian Basinger, who’s living with other priorities around safety net requests, as we do every year,” she HIV, is co-founder of San Francisservices,” including help for transsaid. The other requests included co’s Q Foundation, which provides gender people, seniors, and others, funding aimed at homelessness, housing and other services to many Toma said. “These are all intersecshort-term rental subsidies, and people living with HIV. tional issues with respect to HIV, other needs.

“I’ve heard Jeff Sheehy has proand it’s critical that this network of Wiener, who announced the full vided a comment, even though he services is preserved. Ultimately, all funding last week, said Tuesday that wasn’t present for any of the discusthe supervisors in the end backed he was “thrilled” about getting the sions,” he said. “I can say without Getting to Zero’s full request.” $2.5 million added for Getting to equivocation that every supervisor One advocate was critical of Kim, Zero. was exceptionally supportive of the however.

“We created this wonderful plan Budget Justice request that included Jeff Sheehy, who once served as to end HIV infections and HIVGetting To Zero. To state or imply former Mayor Gavin Newsom’s related deaths in San Francisco. anything to the contrary is simply AIDS czar, said Kim “doesn’t seem Without funding, we can’t execute not supportable.” to understand what’s going on with on that plan,” he said.

He also said, “The truth of the people who have HIV and AIDS.” He added, “I’m very grateful to matter is that we all won big. In a sinSheehy, who is one of the more District 2 Supervisor Mark Farrell, gle budget season, Q Foundation got than 100 members of the Getting to who was steadfast” as chair of the funding to make up for many of the Zero consortium, emphasized that board’s Budget and Finance Comhundreds of lost rental subsidies that he was speaking as an individual, mittee “in defending this funding. the HIV community has suffered not on behalf of the group.

We did have pushback at the board over the years, and Getting To Zero The Getting to Zero efforts aren’t in terms of efforts to cut the Getting got millions of dollars to fund it’s geared specifically toward gay white to Zero funding, but we were able to new program. Could we have gotten men in the Castro, Sheehy said. overcome that resistance and get the more housing for people with HIV/ “It’s not even about gay white funding through 100 percent.”

AIDS if Getting To Zero was not askmen in the Castro,” he said 1936–2016 Wiener declined to comment ing for so much money? Yes. Am I However, he said, “I think that’s on Campos or Kim’s roles in the complaining? No. Because that’s how what people think it’s about. That’s process.

Budget Justice works. We all give a all I can guess. But it’s not.”

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Pride 2016>>

June 30-July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 3

Officials shouted down at Trans March

by Seth Hemmelgarn

W

hile this year’s Trans March ended in celebration with a street renaming after a historic riot, the afternoon got off to a raucous start after several invited elected officials were booed off the stage at Dolores Park.

In a video of the Friday, June 24 event, gay state Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), said, “Should I get off the stage? Am I a piece of shit?” apparently in reference to something someone in the crowd had shouted.

Leno, who’s advocated for years on transgender issues, including getting gender identity added to the state Fair Employment and Housing Act, soon left the stage.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and gay Supervisor Scott Wiener also reportedly left the stage after being loudly criticized by the crowd in Dolores Park.

Leno didn’t provide comment for this story, and Lee’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Wiener told the Bay Area Reporter he understands why the trans community is “angry and frustrated.”

“The trans community is under enormous pressure and is disproportionately impacted by housing, homelessness, and violence,” he said.

But, “to attack elected officials who have worked many years to help the trans community is unwarranted.

“I don’t care if I get booed, but I was deeply offended that they booed Mark Leno. No elected official on the planet has done more for trans people than Mark.”

In a text message, Wiener noted that he has also long worked with the trans community. Most significantly, he got the city’s Department of Public Health “to remove the trans health care exclusion” in the Healthy San Francisco universal insurance program “so that trans health care is fully covered. Advocates had tried unsuccessfully for years to do this. I got it done.”

He also secured funding for an additional surgeon at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital to increase capacity after the trans exclusion was removed.

He added, “I’ve been attending the Trans March since it started.

Long before I was in office or anyone knew who I was. I don’t go to the Trans March to score political points. I go because I care deeply about this community. ...

Every year – including this year – my office works closely with the Trans March and Dyke March for months and helps them with permits, funding, and departmental coordination.”

In a phone interview, Erica Douglas, a spokeswoman for march organizers, said they don’t have “an official reaction” to what happened Friday.

“We have not met yet as a group,” Douglas said.

“We don’t know who booed them,” she said. “We don’t know anything like that at all. ... We want to get together and talk about what happened.” One question is, “Was it staged?” she said.

But one Trans March participant said in an email to the Bay Area Reporter that the three were heckled because of the ongoing housing crisis and concerns about gentrification.

“The Trans March on Friday was an event to celebrate us as transgender people,” said Jordan Gwendolyn Davis in an email Tuesday. “However, the event went sour as once again, Scott Wiener and Ed Lee, as well as other moderate politicians in this city, decided to come onto the Trans March stage and speak, eliciting heckling, booing, and even mooning.”

Davis said she was one of the leaders of the heckling.

“Transgender people are disproportionately affected by gentrification, and Lee and Wiener’s opposition to Prop I in 2015 was hurtful to many of the LGBT and/or Latinx that call the Mission home,” Davis said, referring to the failed ballot measure that would have imposed a moratorium on market rate development in the Mission district.

“Furthermore, their continued support of criminalizing the homeless, especially a bill Wiener introduced to drive homeless people out of parks, disproportionately affected trans/queer folk, and emotions were already running high over a new anti-homeless proposition as well as police in Pride.”

Davis said Leno was targeted because he supports Wiener in the state Senate race to succeed him.

“To be fair, Mark Leno, who was speaking as we disrupted, was not the worst offender in that group,” Davis said. “However, he aligns with the moderates, and our boos and heckles drove all them off the stage and prevented Lee and Wiener from speaking.”

She said future marches should “ban all pro-gentrification, pro-po-

lice, and anti-homeless politicians.”

Douglas confirmed that the politicians had been invited to Friday’s march.

“They always are,” said Douglas, who self-identifies as a pre-op transgender woman.

Asked whether anyone had tried to intervene in what happened, she said, “I would like to end the conversation. I think you’re putting words in my mouth. ... I don’t like the way you’re going” with the questions.

The march ended on a more celebratory note, as a portion of Taylor Street in the Tenderloin was renamed in honor of Compton’s Cafeteria, a defunct restaurant that was a favorite gathering place for trans and queer people in the 1960s.

It was also the sight of a riot in August 1966, when trans and queer patrons of the eatery stood up to police, fed up at being repeatedly arrested on sex work charges and routinely harassed in general.

The street renaming, which is honorary, meaning businesses don’t need to change their addresses, was introduced at the Board of Supervisors earlier this year by Supervisor Jane Kim, who represents the area and is running against Wiener for Leno’s Senate seat.t

Rick Gerharter

Felicia Elizondo cheers as a new street sign commemorating the location of Compton’s Cafeteria and the 50th anniversary of the Compton’s Cafeteria riots is unveiled at the conclusion of the Trans March June 24.

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<< Open Forum

4 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30-July 6, 2016

Volume 46, Number 26 June 30-July 6, 2016 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 • Seth Hemmelgarn 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 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 • Bob Roehr Donna Sachet • Adam Sandel • Khaled Sayed Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Sari Staver • Jim Stewart Sean Timberlake • Andre Torrez • Ronn Vigh Ed Walsh • Cornelius Washington Sura Wood ART DIRECTION Jay Cribas PRODUCTION/DESIGN Max Leger PHOTOGRAPHERS Jane Philomen Cleland • FBFE Rick Gerharter • Gareth Gooch Lydia Gonzales • Jose Guzman-Colon Rudy K. Lawidjaja • Georg Lester • Dan Lloyd Jo-Lynn Otto • Rich Stadtmiller Steven Underhil • Dallis Willard • Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge • Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING Scott Wazlowski – 415.829.8937 NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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t

Time for a reboot on homelessness T

his week the San Francisco Chronicle introduced the SF Homeless Project, a coalition of more than 70 other news organizations that agree to devote coverage to various homeless issues and potential solutions. The Bay Area Reporter is proud to be part of this project, as we have reported on homelessness from an LGBT perspective for many years. LGBTQ people make up 29 percent of the city’s homeless population, according to last year’s Point-InTime Count. That figure was the same in 2013, so the population has remained constant, or more likely, has increased. The actual number of homeless people in San Francisco is difficult to ascertain – figures range from 6,686 to 10,000 to a startling 29,400 mentioned in a 2014 report on the city’s HIV/AIDS housing five-year plan. Homelessness is a serious issue for all of us, not the least, of course, for those living on the streets or in shelters.

Homelessness in San Francisco has vexed political leaders and nonprofit officials for decades and the city spends $241 million a year on homeless programs. Mayor Ed Lee recently announced a new Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, the goal of which is to streamline city services for street people into a more direct focus on housing and counseling.

Lee needs to think outside the box, like he did a year ago with the development of Navigation Centers, which have proved successful because they let homeless people from an encampment stay together and, more importantly, they are allowed to bring their possessions and pets with them. That has made a huge difference, but there aren’t enough of them. Just this week, Lee opened the second Navigation Center at the Civic Center Hotel, at Market and 12th streets. It has 93 beds.

The city’s first center, in the Mission, has served 550 clients, with over 80 percent of them exiting to stable supportive housing or have reunited with friends and family, according to the mayor’s office.

But more needs to be done as homelessness is at peak levels. There is a segment of homeless people who need the help and the programs are useful to them. There are others who resist city social workers’ efforts to get them into a shelter or supportive housing.

Unless people are determined to be a danger to themselves or others, the mentally ill or addicted can’t be forced into care. Some don’t think they need help; others don’t want it. One potential program that’s been discussed at City Hall is wet houses – places where alcoholics can live and drink on the premises. It’s been tried successfully elsewhere – San Francisco officials have visited them – and city leaders should establish a pilot program so that we can see if it makes a difference here.

We’d also like to see more collaboration among the more than 70 private and nonprofit agencies that work with people living on the street. The LGBT community was a leader in HIV/AIDS nonprofit organizations in the early days of the epidemic. They offered everything from emergency cash to food to benefits counseling to access to medication. Now, 35 years into AIDS, it’s become a chronic disease for most people and demand for services has shifted, leading some of these organizations to merge in an effort to save on administration

and other costs. The Department of Public Health has allowed these mergers, and Health Director Barbara Garcia recently told us that she’s “always looking at” opportunities for more efficient operations. Similar consolidation should be explored for the homeless nonprofits, and we’d encourage the new Department of Homeless director, Jeff Kositsky, to, as he told the Chronicle, “be more creative.”

Money that could be saved could be used for additional direct client services, which in our mind is always preferable to executive salaries.

The SF Homeless Project is attempting to shine a light on the problems of homelessness so that Bay Area residents will learn about the history, failed efforts, and new emerging strategies. It’s an issue that we must address urgently. Speaking at the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club Pride breakfast last Sunday, Clarence B. Jones, who was the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s personal attorney, told the more than 800 people in attendance – including political leaders, law enforcement, activists, and others – that it’s time to “reset and reboot our moral compass.” Johnson, who lives on the Peninsula, said he sees homelessness “in the richest country in the world” even as he sees construction cranes in the city and in the South Bay building expensive housing towers and office space.

“I see homeless people in San Francisco and Oakland. I ask myself, we have the Uber app, the OpenTable app, the Airbnb app. Elon Musk fired a rocket three times into space.

I know we have Fitbit, Apple Watch, and I ask myself, we have all these people who write code but we are unable to pinpoint where the homeless are and where they can live,” Johnson said. “Until we add this issue of homelessness those cranes and buildings are monuments of our moral obscenity. It’s time for us to stop waiting.”

In the next several months, City Hall needs to reboot, examine, and implement fresh ideas. Anything is worth attempting to reduce the number of people sleeping on the street. In a city as wealthy as San Francisco, it’s time for the politicians and advocates to stop bickering and come together.t

Discrimination is not an option

by Barbara Lee

amendment from being added to the Military Construction and Veterans Afach year, the celebration of LGBT fairs spending bill. Despite our state’s Pride Month reflects on how far long history of supporting LGBT Caliwe’ve come as a nation to end discrimifornians, four California Republicans nation in all its forms. It is a powerful changed their votes to allow federal commemoration of life, love, and becontractors, who are paid with your tax longing, especially for a community who dollars, to discriminate against the are consistently criminalized and hated LGBT employees. because of who they are and who they This is simply wrong. Our tax dollars love. shouldn’t go to companies that discrimiWhile this month is about celebration, nate against people because of who they it is also about standing in solidarity. It is love or who they are. about remembering our dark past and However, this fight isn’t just happenworking for a brighter tomorrow. ing in Congress. Decades of ignorance The recent tragedy in Orlando targeted and stigma have created a host of govcourtesy Congresswoman Lee’s office the LGBT community and claimed 49 inernment policies that discriminate nocent lives and wounded 53 others. The Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), married against LGBT Americans and families. horrific scenes from that night remind us Cora Lee Garcia, left, and Chantel Cain in 2013 after Following the tragic events in Orthat our work, as a community and as a Proposition 8 was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. lando, thousands rushed to blood banks nation, is far from over. to give their support to the victims. This We must recommit ourselves to ending opinion occurs when policy makers have an opselfless act became a renewed front of violence, hate, and discrimination against the portunity to meet their trans constituents and discrimination as gay and bisexual men were LGBT community. And that starts by proudly better understand their life and challenges. turned away because of a decades-old policy standing together – as one community – against However, there are still those who simply restigmatizing them as high-risk for HIV. those that would turn back the clock. fuse to engage with the LGBT community. In Let me be clear: this policy has no scienAs vice chair and a founding member of the fact, they pursue dangerous and discriminatory tific basis. In fact, gay and bisexual male blood LGBT Equality Caucus, I am proud to bring policies simply out of ignorance and hate. donors have a lower HIV prevalence than the the East Bay’s values of love and acceptance Most recently, this fight has come to our general public. to Washington, D.C. Sadly, these valnation’s annual spending bills.

I have been working to end this policy for ues are rare in Congress.

Earlier this month, Republiyears, and we are making new headway in this But, we cannot be deterred cans killed the Energy and Water fight because people are realizing that blood and we will not stand silent. We spending bill because it included is blood and this outdated policy is based on must use every megaphone availemployee protections for LGBT stereotypes, not science. able to uplift and empower this Americans that work for federal While our fight for equality is not over, we community, especially the most contractors. put more wins on the board every day. vulnerable.

But this wasn’t the first time I’m so proud to celebrate Pride with you this This year, I’ve been proud that discrimination has impactmonth and to stand with you in this fight. We of Congressman Mike Honda’s ed our nation’s ability to pass are going to win because love is love.t (D-San Jose) efforts to highlight budgetary measures. the disparities that negatively impact the trans On May 19, Republicans broke centuries Congresswoman Barbara Lee represents community. One of our most successful efforts of House protocol and held open a vote past California’s 13th District, which includes the cities of Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, has been the simplest: just getting members the expired time. They used that extra time Emeryville, Oakland, Piedmont, and San of Congress to meet and speak with members to twist the arms of their members to prevent Leandro. of the trans community. An amazing shift of a similar employment non-discrimination

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Letters >>

There’s no LGBT community

June 30-July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 5

There is no LGBT community. It’s dead, strangled by fascist social justice warriors who are just as anti-intellectual as Donald Trump’s populist supporters. I was at the vigil the Sunday night after the Orlando massacre. I was disgusted by the behavior of the people who booed Mayor Ed Lee off the stage even though he was there in support of our community”, in a time of pain and grief, and is more often a champion than a foe for LGBT constituents.

I was even more disgusted (but not surprised) when Lee, state Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), and Supervisor Scott Wiener were booed off the stage at the Trans March even though they have all done remarkable work on our behalf. It seems they haven’t eradicated homelessness so they were not good enough for selfappointed “leaders” who complained those in the crowd were being used by politicians as props. What are those self-appointed leaders doing if not using those same people as props? Leno got gender identity added to the state Fair Employment and Housing Act. What have any of these screamers in the crowd ever done for trans people except censor others in their name?

I’m tired of self-righteous queers who are no better than Trump in that they only want to divide and never unify. The San Francisco left are just as intolerant as the Mississippi right, and their list of “enemies” gets longer every year. Israel is always wrong, even though it is the only country in the Middle East that supports LGBT rights and offers asylum to gay Palestinians threatened with death and violence. The police are always wrong. Landlords are always wrong. New housing is always wrong. The politics of ACT UP used so effectively against our true enemies are now being used against supporters who don’t meet the impossible standards of perfection demanded by these haters. I’m 56 and was around to see the murder of Harvey Milk, the beginning of the AIDS crisis, the brutal murders of Matthew Shepard and Brandon Teena. I felt a sense of unity through those events, but it is gone now. All I see is a separation into smaller and smaller self-involved groups who judge and berate and see enemies everywhere. Even the horrific massacre in Orlando was not enough to bring us together for even one night.

Community is a joke when elected LGBT leaders and straight supporters are the enemy. Don’t let the loudest

and most strident people speak for the rest of us. If you see something, say something to counter this rising tide of intolerance. If we do, then maybe we can bring the LGBT community back from the dead.

Joe Barrett San Francisco

Barry Schneider Attorney at Law

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

Social change doesn’t come easy

Most social change has begun with the act of a single person like Rosa Parks’ refusal to sit in the back of the bus. From that act a movement develops, and movements are usually led by a man, or men, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. The experience in our community is different. Our drive to secure basic civil rights started at the grassroots but not at a single moment. It started in San Francisco when transvestites stood up the to cops at Compton’s Cafeteria. It started in Los Angeles when John Rechy published City of Night. It started in New York when drag queens took on the cops at the Stonewall Inn. We saw it again during the AIDS crisis as individual efforts to provide support and funds for care and treatment for our dying friends and partners popped up overnight across the country. Perhaps because we, as a community, have never given much credence to leadership by the few we have relied on our creative talents and common sense to do what had to be done simply because it had to be done wherever it was needed.

As I watched members of the House at their sit-in at the Capitol last Wednesday, I had two thoughts. First, it took the murder of 49 people at a gay nightclub to spur a stronger reaction than other mass murders. (Not something we should pat our backs over but I suspect because we are still fresh in the minds of the public because of the rapidity of our drive to achieve equal rights it made it more real when we were murdered senselessly.) Second, I thought if this had been strictly an LGBT issue that caused the sit-in at the Capitol members of our community across the country would spontaneously organize sit-ins in the offices of members of the House who had voted against gun regulation. Who knows? That still might happen.

www.SchneiderLawSF.com

415-781-6500 *Certified by the California State Bar 400 Montgomery Street, Ste. 505, San Francisco, CA

Chuck Forester San Francisco

Ideas differ on maintaining SF’s LGBT population

by Matthew S. Bajko

A

n aging LGBT population combined with rising housing costs making San Francisco increasingly unaffordable has led many to question the future of the city’s LGBT community.

In recent years there has been a steady exodus of LGBT residents looking for cheaper housing options in the East Bay, southern California, or out of state. Talk has been raised anew about how long the Castro district, one of the more pricey and desirable neighborhoods in San Francisco, will remain an LGBT neighborhood.

With these concerns in mind, earlier this spring the Bay Area Reporter asked the candidates running for seats on the Democratic County Central Committee, which controls the local Democratic Party, what steps they felt the city could take to ensure that it maintains a sizable and vibrant LGBT community.

Seventeen of the winners of the June primary race for the committee’s 24 elected seats turned in the B.A.R.’s questionnaire.

Their answers ran the gamut from making it easier for developers to build all manner of housing to providing financial assistance to keep people housed in their homes.

“Restore some affordability and continue to anchor LGBT culture and history. I worked hard on this and it’s troubling to have so many people come up and say they are fearful for us losing queer identity here,” wrote gay former District 8 Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who most

Rick Gerharter

DCCC member Bevan Dufty

recently served as an adviser on homeless issues to Mayor Ed Lee. Rafael Mandelman, a gay man who is president of the community college board, said the city should look at raising the real estate transfer tax and other mechanisms to generate revenue for funding affordable housing developments. Other steps the city should take, added Mandelman, include extending rent control to new buildings that receive city entitlements and further restricting the conversion of rentcontrolled apartments to short-term rentals or condominiums.

“The biggest challenge to the survival of San Francisco’s LGBT community, as to so much of San Francisco’s diversity, is the lack of affordable housing,” wrote Mandelman. “The city needs to significantly increase its investment in the acquisition, preservation and development of affordable housing. We simply do not currently have public

resources adequate to meet the rising demand.”

Mary Jung, a straight woman who is the current chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, cited offering protection to LGBT asylum seekers as one step the city could take under its Sanctuary City Policy.

She also suggested that the hotel sales tax windfall San Francisco saw from hosting the Super Bowl go toward maintaining the “vibrancy in the neighborhoods where LGBT people live and work and where artists and activists are inspired and empowered.”

In addition to “drastically” accelerating the building of affordable housing, Keith Baraka, a gay firefighter, said the city should also look at imposing an eviction moratorium.

“I think we need to create options for retaining nonprofit HIV/AIDS, cultural, artistic, and other community nonprofits from the LGBT and all the diverse communities of SF,” wrote Baraka. “These organizations face the squeeze of higher rents and other costs and struggle to stay afloat and serve our city. They are the backbone of all communities and are crucial to maintaining the flavor and nuance of San Francisco.”

Kaiser OB-GYN Dr. Pratima Gupta, who identifies as queer and is the volunteer medical director of the St. James Infirmary, a clinic for sex workers and transgender individuals, pledged to fight for the needs of the city’s transgender community as a member of the DCCC. “Throughout my career as a physician and community advocate, I have worked tirelessly to ensure that all patients have access to the same high standards of care, regardless See page 10 >>

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6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30-July 6, 2016

AIDS Walk forms own foundation

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he 30th annual AIDS Walk San Francisco takes place Sunday, July 17, and this year there’s a new structure that organizers hope will result in more funds going to HIV/ AIDS nonprofits.

For the last couple of years, Project Inform was the lead agency, after taking it over from the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. But this year, the AIDS Walk San Francisco Foundation is the governing organization.

“The foundation’s board oversees the event’s organizing, is responsible for the funding of the campaign, and determines how its net proceeds are distributed,” Robert Mansfield, the foundation’s treasurer, said in a news release.

The change was formally announced last World AIDS Day. According to Project Inform Executive Director Dana Van Gorder, AIDS Walk founder Craig Miller felt that the new foundation was the best decision.

“Revenue and profit has been good for the last few years, but not heading upward,” Van Gorder said in an email. “So he felt it made sense to have the walk be a stand-alone agency.

And it makes sense.

The amount SFAF or Project Inform were earning from the event ($240,000 in 2014 and $340,000 in 2015) can now be shared with more [AIDS service organizations] Bay Area-wide – and that’s a good thing.”

Van Gorder said that his agency is pledged a grant of $100,000 from this year’s event, which he said, “is very helpful.”

In a phone interview this week, Mansfield said that as more HIV/ AIDS organizations “become hyperfocused,” it was important for the AIDS Walk to concentrate on more quality of life issues that smaller agencies often work on.

Mansfield, a gay man who works at UCSF and is a participant on its AIDS Walk team, said the event will still provide grants to numerous Bay Area groups.

“We’re trying to give something to everyone” who applies, Mansfield said, adding that smaller groups often use AIDS Walk publicity to draw in participants and much11:43 AM funds. needed Under the new structure, three groups are designated as primary beneficiaries. This year those are Project Inform, Project Open Hand, and Ward 86 at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.

Ward 86 plans to use its grant as a seed fund for a new program called Golden Compass, aimed at longterm HIV survivors who are over 50, Mansfield said.

For the 30th anniversary, the AIDS Walk foundation has asked Dr. Paul Volberding to serve as honorary chair. Volberding was one of the founders of Ward 86 and is now director of the amfAR-funded Institute for the Cure. Mansfield said that while Volberding will be at the International AIDS Conference in South Africa, he will send a message to cheer on the walkers that will be shown at the event.

There is no fee to register for the AIDS Walk, and as in previous years, people can walk alone or team up. Numerous companies, ASOs, churches, and others have teams of walkers who participate.

“Star walkers” are those who raise $1,000 or more, and last year they made up nearly half of the money

Rick Gerharter

People took part in last year’s AIDS Walk San Francisco in Golden Gate Park.

raised. There is also a virtual walker category for those who are unable to attend but still want to fundraise.

The 10k (6.2 mile) AIDS Walk begins and ends at Sharon meadow in Golden Gate Park. The day starts with sign-in at 9 a.m., followed by opening ceremonies. The walk itself starts at 10:30 a.m. and ends at about 12:30 with a post-walk concert.

For more information, visit http://www. sf.aidswalk.net.

Berkeley Marina to hold July 4 event

The Berkeley Marina will hold a July 4 party that offers lots of fun for the whole family. The free event takes place from noon to 10 p.m.

An Adventure Playground is open until 8 and is where children can use hammers, nails, saws, and paint with parental supervision.

Kids can get their faces painted, try the giant slide, or splash in the water.

Live entertainment will be available until 9:30 and includes Tito y su son de Cuba, The Queue, and The Rusty String Express. A special performance for the holiday will be provided by the U.S. Air Force Band of the Golden West. Tucked around the marina will be an Afro Cuban Drumming Circle, a one-man band, steel drummers, and balloon twisters. In Shorebird Park, people can spend the afternoon with magicians and clowns on the Buddy Club Stage.

Food and other vendors will have items for sale, and there will be free dragon boat rowing from noon to 5, live pony rides, a petting zoo, and much more.

The day culminates in grand fireworks over the water near the end of the pier at 9:35.

Vehicle parking in the marina is $15 for the day, or people can ride their bikes over the bicycle overpass and use the free valet parking near Adventure Playground. People can also take AC Transit line 51B from the Downtown Berkeley BART station and into the marina until 6.

The alcohol-free event is sponsored by the city of Berkeley. For more information, visit http:// www.anotherbullwinkleshow.com.

Casino helps Sonoma Pride

Graton Resort and Casino announced it has donated $10,000 to Sonoma County Pride to promote equality for all in the local community and in remembrance of the 49 people who died in the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Graton will also donate a portion of its proceeds to Sonoma County pride from its Starbucks and Scoops venues inside Marketplace over the Fourth of July weekend, beginning Friday, July 1 through Monday, July 4.

“We are thankful for those who

advocate for human rights and dignity for all,” the casino said in a news release. “We offer our heartfelt thoughts and well wishes for recovery to those in the Orlando community as they heal from recent tragedy.”

Graton officials said they were “proud to partner with Sonoma County Pride as it’s an all-volunteer nonprofit dedicated to promoting equality for the LGBT community and enhancing the lives and wellbeing of the LGBT community throughout Sonoma County.”

Sonoma County Pride officials did not return a request for comment by press time. The casino is located off Highway 101 in Rohnert Park.

Human rights panel seeks Hero Award nominees

Time is running out to nominate someone for the San Francisco Human Rights Commission’s Hero Award. Last year the commission honored several people who demonstrated the resilience and dignity of the voting rights movement. This year HRC will honor communities organizing for justice.

Students, organizations, and individuals can be nominated for the award.

The deadline is Friday, July 1 at 5 p.m.

To nominate someone, or for more information, visit http://sfhrc.org/2016-hero-awards-nominations-now-being-accepted.

East Bay church awarded grant

An Episcopal church in San Leandro recently was awarded a grant from a global offering.

All Saints Episcopal Church will receive $56,000 from the Episcopal Church’s United Thank Offering, which is a ministry to promote thankfulness and mission in the church. A total of just over $1.1 million was awarded through the offering, according to a June 14 news release.

Known worldwide as UTO, the grants are awarded for projects that address human needs, both domestically and internationally, in the church. This year’s theme was “Safeguarding God’s Creation and Renewing the Face of the Earth.”

All Saints received the funds for its project entitled “Greening All Saints.” The Reverend Justin R. Cannon, a gay man who’s rector there, is a longtime advocate for environmental causes.

In a news release, Cannon said that the grant will involve a comprehensive initiative to “green the church,” including the installation of solar panels that will supply 100 percent of the church’s energy.

All Saints is an inclusive, welcoming, and progressive congregation nestled in the heart of the Broadmoor district in San Leandro. Sunday services are held at 8 and 10:15 a.m. For more information, visit http://www.saintsalive.net.t

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Pride 2016>>

June 30-July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

For many, shuttered SF lesbian bar Maud’s was home

by Matthew S. Bajko

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iving in Pacifica in the 1980s, Kris Justesen would regularly come to San Francisco for work, school, or to coach and play softball. And when she did, she would often end up at Maud’s Study, a now shuttered lesbian bar that opened in Cole Valley five decades ago.

“This was my home away from home,” recalled Justesen, 59, who now lives in Salt Lake City, where she practices acupuncture. “If I wasn’t at school or work or playing softball in San Francisco, I was hanging out at Maud’s with my buds ... It was family.”

She decamped from the Bay Area in 1989 and has returned a few times over the years. Last weekend Justesen was back in town, reminiscing about the good old days at Maud’s, which closed in 1989. The bar, at 937 Cole Street, is now known as Finnegan’s Wake, and for the past seven years, it has hosted a reunion for Maud’s patrons the Saturday of Pride weekend.

Maud’s, which opened May 21, 1966, had been “the longest, continuously operating lesbian bar in the world,” said Susan Fahey, 64, who started as a bartender in 1976 and worked her way up to manager.

Justesen said the patrons saw Fahey as the “bar boss,” adding, “I think everyone had a crush on her.”

“I was always your older woman,” joked Fahey, who with Mandy Carter, another former Maud’s bar-

Rick Gerharter

Past customers of Maud’s Study in Cole Valley gathered June 25 at Finnegan’s Wake to celebrate 50 years since the iconic lesbian bar opened.

tender who was first hired to work the door, has helped organize the reunion events.

“She was. Still is,” replied Justesen.

For three years Carter would sit on a stoop across the street from Maud’s watching its patrons come and go, waiting for the day when she turned 21 and could walk through its doors herself. This past Saturday she pointed to the second bar stool from the left near the front entrance where she first sat down to order a drink.

“The bartender said, ‘Can I see your ID?’ They then gave me a free drink and said, ‘Happy Birthday!’

That literally was a defining moment where I felt valued,” said Carter. “For literally a year I didn’t move from that spot.”

This year’s event, which the organizers have said will be their last,

took on special importance due to the shooting rampage earlier this month at Orlando’s gay nightclub Pulse, which left 49 people dead, many young Puerto Ricans. Attendees to the Maud’s anniversary were each given a red plastic bracelet that said “SF Pride – Maud’s 50th Stands With Orlando.”

A number of the women said the tragedy in Florida prompted them to attend this year’s Maud’s reunion.

“It inspired me to get my act together, get a plane ticket, and come see my friends,” said Justesen. “I needed something to nudge me over to come and that was it.”

Cubby Cherlin, 67, who now lives in Sonoma, said she too wanted to attend following the Orlando tragedy. She used to bartend at another now closed San Francisco lesbian bar called Amelia’s that was

owned by Maud’s owner, the late Rikki Streicher.

“I came because of Orlando. I want to show solidarity for our community, even more so because a gay bar was attacked,” said Cherlin.

Another co-coordinator of the event, Jorja Ghera, a former barback at Maud’s who first walked into the bar when she turned 21 in 1977, said the women were “more determined” after Orlando to remember Maud’s one last time.

“It was a special bar, a special place. It will never be repeated,” said Ghera, who in 1997 moved to Georgia north of Atlanta to care for her mother. “This will always be a priceless part of my life.”

Former patron Susan Hester, 65, who now lives in Sonoma County, first came to Maud’s in 1973 for a birthday party she had invited herself to. At that time, going to a lesbian bar “was an act of courage,” she recalled. “It was a different dichotomy. Now we are full circle were going to gay bars has become an act of courage again.”

Maud’s operated during a very different time, opening when many LGBT people were not out of the closet and women were forbidden to work as bartenders. According to Carter, most of the early staff was gay men.

When the rules changed and she started working the bar, Fahey would use a switch to flick on a red light in Maud’s darkened dance area to signal for the women to decouple should the police or inspectors with the state alcohol and beverage control show up.

“The ABC was very strict. Maud’s was closed one time because an undercover agent was in the bar and saw a woman touching another woman’s neck,” said Fahey. “We were extremely conscious of that happening.”

Justesen credited the bartenders for always ensuring Maud’s was a “safe, welcoming place.”

The bar never closed for holidays, remaining open on Thanksgiving and Christmas so those without family had a place to go.

“That was another thing important to Rikki,” said Fahey. “We would be here cooking all night and have an enormous spread.”

Streicher, who died in 1994 at the age of 68, wanted anyone who walked into Maud’s to feel welcomed there, said Fahey.

“You could be the strangest person or the most popular girl, everyone was important to Rikki,” said Fahey. “Rikki always said the greatest asset of Maud’s was its customers.”t

Report: Actor-singer died of meth overdose

by Seth Hemmelgarn

T

he February death of Aaron Wimmer, a gay San Francisco man who was well-known as a performer on Bay Area and New York stages, was from an accidental methamphetamine overdose, according to a report released this week.

Wimmer, 37, who’d joined the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus not long before his death, was known by many for his talent, kindness, and good looks.

According to the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s office, which made its report available Wednesday, June 29, a bystander saw Wimmer, who was having “seizure-like activity,” collapse on the corner of Second and Howard streets at about 10 a.m. February 2.

The person who witnessed the collapse started CPR, and Wimmer was rushed to the emergency department at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, but he died at about 11.

According to the medical examiner’s report, which cites hospital staff and other sources, a friend had last seen Wimmer alive at about 7 p.m. February 1.

At the time, the report says, Wimmer “did not voice any specific complaints,” but the friend said Wimmer had “recently relapsed on crystal methamphetamine.”

Wimmer had a history of acute renal failure, bipolar disorder, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, and other problems, the medical examiner’s office says. There were

Referring to the cause of Wimmer’s death, Jones said, “To lose him this way is really kind of maddening, and I hope that some people at last will be motivated to restart our conversation about what meth is doing to us. We had yet another dreadful “multiple prescriptions” among his example of losing one of our best to belongings when he died, but the this drug.” agency’s report says, “Based on the In a Facebook exchange Wednesprescription dates and pill quantiday, Oakland resident Jasamyn Wimties, abuse of the prescriptions is mer, Wimmer’s younger sister, called not likely.” him “the most amazing Tests showed methperson I have ever known.” amphetamine and am“In receiving the outphetamine in Wimmer’s come of my brother’s blood, according to the investigation I want to adtoxicology report, but no dress the fact that Aaron other drugs were listed. struggled with addiction The cause of death was for a very long time, and “acute methamphetamine despite this outcome it is intoxication,” and findimportant to know that ings included heart trouhe never gave up,” she said. ble and other problems.

Aaron Wimmer’s “His death was a tragic Wimmer had in 2013 Facebook page accident. I hope that with portrayed longtime ac- Aaron Wimmer this news we can focus on tivist Cleve Jones in a Aaron’s love and beautiful production of the play spirit as we continue to Dear Harvey. The play involves deal with this great loss.”

Jones’ friend Harvey Milk, the gay In a text message, John Bowman, civil rights icon and city superviWimmer’s partner, said, “Aaron sor who was assassinated in San had been sober for many years. We Francisco in 1978. worked hard to get him the right Jones told the Bay Area Reporter help for certain health issues that he in February that at first he wasn’t had. I could not be more proud of sure that Wimmer was the right the dedication he had and the work actor to portray him. he did on himself, and the richness “I thought he was too tall and that it added to our relationship, to too handsome,” Jones said. But he his family, to our life together, and admitted that Wimmer’s sensitivity to my own journey. It is heartbreakturned out to be exactly right for ing that by and large, treatment and Dear Harvey. care for substance use or mental “I used to see him around the health hasn’t caught up to current neighborhood,” Jones added. “He research and modern standards for was always so sweet, kind, smart, evidence-based practices. Aaron’s and lovely. I’m terribly sorry for his life was, and continues to be, defriends and family.” fined by creativity, and an incredJones made similar comments ibly warm and generous spirit that Wednesday, calling him “very chartouched many.”t ismatic” and “a delight.”

Correction In the June 23 article, “Latinos march for Orlando,” a quote was misattributed. Ani Rivera, executive director of Galeria de la Raza, said “We are devastated over the loss of 49 queer and trans Latinos and Afro Americans. We are here today in solidarity. Our communities often have to make separate nightclubs – even in LGBT communities our spaces like Este Noche are routinely shut down because of escalating gentrification.” Rivera’s comment was mistakenly attributed to San Francisco Latino Democratic Club President Lito Sandoval.

The “Oakland gay bar set to open” article should have stated that the Port bar is Uptown Oakland’s first sevendays-a-week bar. The White Horse bar, on the Oakland-Berkeley border, is also open daily.

The online versions have been corrected.

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<< Community News

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30-July 6, 2016

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Obergefell reflects on 1-year anniversary of marriage case

by Brian Bromberger

F

or Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court case that established marriage equality in all 50 states, it all came down to love.

“Everyone connected with Obergefell v. Hodges started from a place of love,” Obergefell, who was in San Francisco last week promoting his new book, told the Bay Area Reporter in an interview.

“I loved John and wanted to live up to my promises to him,” he said, referring to his late husband, John Arthur. “When you are fighting for love, I don’t think there is any limit for what you can accomplish.”

Obergefell, 50, took part in a discussion about marriage equality at the GLBT History Museum, with Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality, by Obergefell and co-author Debbie Cenziper was recently published by William Morrow.

In 1992 on their third date, Obergefell fell in love with Arthur in Cincinnati. The couple were together for two decades.

After the U.S. Supreme Court, in the 2013 Windsor case, ruled that the federal government must provide married same-sex couples all the benefits offered to straight couples, he proposed to Arthur, who was dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Chartering a $14,000 medical ambulance jet (funded by supportive friends and family) to Baltimore, they were married on the airport tarmac. Arthur died three months later.

“The greatest privilege of my life was to take care of the man I love,” Obergefell said.

But when they returned home, not only wouldn’t Ohio recognize their marriage, but as civil rights attorney Al Gerhardstein showed them on Arthur’s death certificate, Obergefell would not be listed as the surviving spouse, a heartbreaking example of Ohio not sanctioning their marriage.

“They were saying that the most important relationship of our lives

shooting at a gay Orlando didn’t exist, that our marnightclub, Obergefell obriage didn’t matter. They served, “We all expected wanted John to die with his there to be a backlash after last official public record marriage equality, though being wrong. That broke I never expected it to be as our hearts and pissed us off. vicious as it has been, espeAnd Al gave us the chance cially toward our transgento do something about it,” der siblings. While there is he said. no specific direct link to that “Without John dying, it’s horrific shooting, Orlando hard to imagine we would wouldn’t have happened have wound up in anything without the environment of like this, but he said yes as hatred directed toward the a way of thanking me for LGBT community by leaders taking care of him and ‘ruof all sorts – political, govining my life,’ even though ernmental, religious – who, he knew the burden of this because of their words and case would be entirely on actions, not only condone, me,” Obergefell continued. but encourage, violence “I could have taken John against us. six blocks to get a marriage “Having lost marriage license, something that equality they stoked a lot countless couples do every of anger in the opponents day and take for granted of equality, so it has added in Ohio. Instead we were to the vocal backlash and forced, when John was on Brian Bromberger continued hatred directed his deathbed, to travel to antoward us. From this perother state to marry. It was Jim Obergefell was in San Francisco last week spective, unfortunately, I demeaning as human be- promoting his new book, Love Wins. would say yes, it contributed ings and as U.S. citizens. We to Orlando,” he said. wanted respect, dignity, and at an empty condo and constantly Reacting to marriage the rights our Constitution reliving memories of John. Speakequality critics like Kentucky clerk awards us. We wanted to make our ing about him everyday, what our Kim Davis, who refused to issue promises and commitments public marriage meant, and why we demarriage licenses to same-sex and legal.” cided to fight, has kept him alive for couples, and religious liberty prome, enabling me to concentrate on A changed life ponents, Obergefell questioned, the good things we had, rather than Obergefell said his life has “com“Where does discrimination end? wallow in my sorrow.” pletely” changed since the court’s I don’t understand why they don’t After hearing Justice Anthony ruling just over a year ago. He has look in their history books and see Kennedy’s majority opinion on desince left his IT job and got a real that the same excuses and argucision day, Obergefell has reread it a estate license. But since the oral arments were used previously and few times. guments last spring, Obergefell has unsuccessfully toward interracial “The biggest impact on me is the been working as a speaker, activist, marriages.” last page where he talks about how and advocate.

“Once you start down the path in marriage two people become “I called myself, at the beginning that my private religious beliefs pregreater than they once were indiof this case, an accidental activist, vent me from performing my sworn vidually,” Obergefell said. “He noted since I had never been one before, duties as an officer of the court or as that we weren’t asking to diminish just signing checks for causes we a public official, even though you are marriage, but wanting it so badly, cared about,” he said. there to serve every citizen equally, we were simply asking to participate On a personal and emotional it becomes a dangerous slope and in it and commit to the person we level, his life has changed dramatiis antithetical to what America is all love. We asked for equal dignity in cally in the last year in that every about,” Obergefell said. the eyes of the law and the Constitime Obergefell talks about Arthur Obergefell is disappointed in tution now gives us that right. I will or tells their story, it helps him proOhio and Cincinnati, although read this page at a wedding I will be cess his grief. the city has made a seismic shift in officiating this weekend. After that “Today, I’m a much happier mindset. In 2004 it repealed the draruling, for the first time in my adult person than I would have been if I conian Issue 3 charter amendment, gay life, I felt like a real American.” hadn’t had this activism opportuwhich said no law could be passed When challenged to consider if nity to deal with this loss,” he said. to protect the LGBT community. there was any connection between “This work gave me something else Voters there have also elected their his case and this month’s mass to focus on, so I wasn’t home staring first openly gay city council mem-

ber, and last year it became the first city in the country outside of Washington, D.C. to ban conversion therapy.

“The urban areas, like most of the country, are more gay-friendly than the rural and suburban parts, but it is all a process,” Obergefell said.

“It’s like when you come out to your family, you hope they will be supportive and loving, but if not, you hope over time they will change.

That is my attitude about Ohio.”

In the fall, Obergefell will serve as a consultant for the Fox 2000 movie being made of Love Wins.

“We sold the movie rights of the book before we had even written or sold the book,” he said. “I am working with the screenwriter, answering questions and providing background information. I took him and the associate producer around Cincinnati to show them some key places that are part of the story.

They all seem committed to doing the best job possible.”

When speculating who might play him, Obergefell suggested Brad Pitt or Matt Bomer.

Obergefell hopes that future generations will learn from his struggle.

“Al and the other attorneys kept all us plaintiffs front and center to remind everyone this was not an abstract case, but about real people suffering real harm,” he said. “Every civil rights case starts with a story.

Our stories helped change minds and hearts. As President Barack Obama said in his congratulatory phone call to me, ‘Your case has brought the country to a better place.’”

He said that one moment stands out from the oral arguments.

“A guy sitting next to me told me that my lawsuit had deeply touched two people he knew,” said Obergefell. “The first was his twin brother, who is a Roman Catholic priest.

Who was the second, I asked? ‘Me,’ he answered. ‘I’m an evangelical Republican and now I support marriage equality.’ We are taught as kids that one or two people can change the world. I never seriously believed that, but this experience helped me understand this is possible. All it takes is for people to fight for something that matters and they believe in.”t

Gay SF man fights deportation

by Seth Hemmelgarn

A

gay San Francisco man originally from Mexico City is fighting to stay in the city he’s called home for 13 years.

Immigration officials have been trying to deport Heriberto “Beto” Martinez Nolasco, 34, whom a jury convicted last year of drunk driving.

Immigration authorities detained Martinez Nolasco for two weeks earlier this month after he was arrested at the Bernal Heights home he shares with Eric Bernacki, his partner of 11 years.

Deputy Public Defender Francisco Ugarte said Martinez Nolasco “was really viciously attacked in Mexico when he was growing up because he’s gay,” and he’s afraid of what could happen if he returns.

On June 15, it was determined that Martinez Nolasco has a “reasonable, legitimate fear of returning” to his home country, and authorities released him from custody, Urgarte said. He still has to fight to stay in the U.S. His next hearing is set for January 2018.

When people like Martinez Nolasco are in custody, Ugarte said, they face “pressure to abandon their case just to get out.”

“We wanted him to get out so he

didn’t have that pressure, so he could live his life,” he said. “It’s Pride Month. He should be with his partner.”

Martinez Nolasco moved to San Francisco in 2003. He’s worked as a bartender and he’s been pursuing a college education.

“I created a life here which I love, and I don’t see myself anywhere else but here,” he said.

In comments provided to supporters, Bernacki has said, “Beto wants to continue his life here loving who he wants, continuing his education, and living his life to the fullest. Beto is an ideal American.”

In 2008, Martinez Nolasco took Bernacki to meet his parents in Mexico. When he tried to reencourtesy SF Public Defender’s Office ter the U.S., he was sent back to Mexico. He finally made it back Eric Bernacki, left, stands with his in, but because he’d gotten an partner, Heriberto “Beto” Martinez expedited removal order, he was Nolasco, and their pug, Ricky. disqualified from applying for investigating or prosecuting crimes. asylum.

It’s a temporary visa that provides Then, in 2015, three men robbed an opportunity to become a lawful Martinez Nolasco, and he became citizen. eligible for a U nonimmigrant staBut Martinez Nolasco saw more tus visa, or U visa, which is granted trouble in 2015 when he was arto victims of some crimes who’ve rested for driving under the influsuffered mental or physical abuse ence. According to the police report, and who help law enforcement in

officers responded to the 200 block of Masonic Avenue at 2:35 a.m. September 4 and found him “passed out” with a friend in his car. The vehicle was parked but it was blocking a driveway and the engine was still running. Martinez-Nolasco told police he’d “been working too much” and he’d had three beers.

Jurors eventually convicted him of misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence of alcohol and driving while having a blood alcohol content of .08 percent or higher. (A breath test indicated two results, .180 and .189 percent BAC, according to court documents.) Jurors hung on a misdemeanor charge of providing false information to a police officer.

His sentence ordered in December included three years of probation, among other terms.

Martinez Nolasco said although he’d parked his car, “I should have known better” than to drive that night.

“I’m really sorry about it, and not a day goes by that I don’t regret it,” he said. “I would do anything to fix that problem.”

Ugarte said the DUI “triggered an investigation into his status,” and on

June 1, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Martinez Nolasco at his home, without a warrant, Ugarte said.

“That’s quite common for immigration authorities, unfortunately,” he said.

Martinez Nolasco has to go to court to litigate his claim for withholding of removal, which Ugarte said is “a narrow version of asylum.”

He’s ineligible for asylum because of his old deportation order.

He said Martinez Nolasco hadn’t applied earlier for asylum because he’d been “struggling” with issues related to his sexuality and “rehashing everything he’d gone through as a kid.”

“This case underscores problems with our immigration laws and the fact that this administration prioritizes people with a single DUI conviction for arrest and deportation,” Ugarte said.

“On any given day, there are 30,000 people in immigration detention struggling to get out, even those with meritorious claims,” he said. In many cases, Ugarte said, people don’t have attorneys, and there are “due process violations galore.”

ICE officials didn’t respond to a request for comment on this story.t

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International News>>

June 30-July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

Gay man takes reins of Jewish group

by Heather Cassell

I

t will be a new era for the American Jewish World Service when Robert Bank, a gay man, takes over at the global Jewish organization starting July 1.

Bank, 56, succeeds Ruth Messenger as president and CEO of the progressive organization and he plans to continue Messenger’s legacy as well as make his own imprint to secure the organization’s future and continue to strengthen its mission. He previously served as executive vice president at the organization.

Messenger announced her retirement from AJWS at Keshet’s Glimmer gala in San Francisco in December 2015. Bank has worked alongside Messenger for the past seven years.

“We are very aligned leaders and we work[ed] together on a strategy for AJWS going forward that allows the organization to have both continuity and exciting cutting edge vision for the future,” said Bank.

“I’m extremely proud to be a gay man running an international American Jewish organization that is working on advancing the human rights of some of the most oppressed and some of the most courageous human rights activists in the world,” he added. “It’s an enormous privilege and I’m looking forward to learning over the years together with my team in how to make the biggest impact in the areas in which we work.”

The organization, which has offices in New York and San Francisco, supports and empowers LGBT people and women and girls, especially combating violence; climate justice; and civil and political rights in 19 developing countries in Africa, Asia, and South America. In 14 of the countries AJWS is working with local LGBT rights activists and groups, said Bank.

The Bay Area Reporter met with Bank at AJWS’s San Francisco office in March to discuss what it means that a gay man will head the organization, particularly for its LGBT rights work, and his vision for the future of AJWS.

A lifetime of social justice

To understand Bank’s vision of social justice it is best to know his personal history.

Bank grew up in apartheid South Africa until his family immigrated to the United States when he was 17 in 1977. It was a political move, given that his progressive Jewish family stood against apartheid and didn’t want their son to be forced to serve in the military, as much as he didn’t want to fight for a country whose values they didn’t share, he said.

“Morally, I felt that I would not serve in fighting a war that I didn’t believe in, a war of racism,” said Bank about the required two-year service military conscription for white males.

However, the 1960s and 1970s were turbulent, with violent clashes between the South African government and the people, even after many of the movement’s leaders were sentenced to long prison terms in the early 1960s. Later, the emerging gay liberation movement around the world provided the framework for how Bank was going to spend his life.

“I observed serious violence by police officers against black people so I grew up in the context of seeing discrimination,” said Bank, whose grandparents fled the pogroms that violently attacked the Jewish community in Lithuania following World War I. Bank acknowledged his privilege as a white Jewish man, but he pointed out that discrimination touched him, too, as a young gay boy grow-

ing up during a time A good fit when homosexualPrior to working at ity was criminalized.

AJWS, Bank worked He felt the prejudice in local government against him because before spending 14 he was gay. years working at Gay “When one is oneMen’s Health Crisis self a person who is a in New York, he said. minority in a sense, Working at GMHC in our case a sexual helped him learn to minority, I think it listen to the most vulJane Philomen Cleland gives one a certain nerable people living compassion and em- Robert Bank takes over with multiple chalpathy toward others, as president of American lenges: HIV/AIDS, period,” said Bank, Jewish World Service poverty, and undocuwho was also influ- Friday. mented immigrants, enced by his cousin, and understanding Denise Goldberg, their needs and and politician Helen speaking up to have those needs met.

Suzman, who were fighting against “I learned so much from people apartheid. who had so much less than I do about “They really taught me, together their courage, their ability to speak with my parents and others, what truth to power, [and] their ability to it meant to stand up to power and fight for their rights,” said Bank. what it would mean to stand for He’s carried those lessons to equality, dignity, and justice very AJWS. Working for AJWS provided early on,” he said.

Bank the perfect opportunity to It is the blend of these experiwed his passion for social justice ences that shaped his life’s work. and LGBT rights with his Jewish “It was what shaped me and alvalues, he said. lowed me to understand and carry Bank’s two main goals as head of with me the desire to always work AJWS are to promote the organizafor the rights of those who are retion and help people know about pressed and vulnerable,” said Bank. the work it is doing and to increase

the impact local communities can make with the organization’s support, both financially and through advocacy.

To help fulfill his goals, Bank plans to continue to build the organization’s relationship with the U.S. State Department at the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. He also hopes to work with Randy Berry, the State Department’s special envoy for the human rights of LGBTI persons, on ways to work together to support LGBT movements around the world, he said.

“We are a country that cares about human rights internationally all around the globe for LGBT persons,” said Bank, who has met Berry on several occasions and feels he has the same goals. He hopes the next administration will continue the work that has begun.

It is that commitment to the vision of social change that has allowed AJWS to stand by Ugandan LGBT activists during the long battle against the anti-homosexuality bill and other assaults on the queer community.

“We feel particularly proud about our work in Uganda for instance, which is a long battle against this

reprehensible Anti-Homosexuality Act,” he said.

However, Uganda is just one example out of the many countries where AJWS works with local LGBT groups. Others include El Salvador, one of the most violent countries in the Western Hemisphere. There, a small group of transgender activists is standing up “in the face of enormous opposition,” he said, to build a community.

“We have activists that we work with in the countries that are fighting against enormous discrimination based on being LGBT,” Bank said. “The most important thing is to really listen to the people on the ground as to what makes sense.”

That’s what Bank plans to do, work with the activists as they continue the long battle to affect change in their own countries.

“We work with the most vulnerable and the most discriminated against because we believe that is also a deeply held Jewish value,” said Bank.t Got international LGBT news tips? Call or send them to Heather Cassell at 00+1-415-2213541, Skype: heather.cassell, or oitwnews@gmail.com.

<< Pride 2016

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30-July 6, 2016

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Orlando takes center stage at Alice breakfast

by Cynthia Laird

T

he Orlando massacre that left 49 mostly gay Latino men dead earlier this month was front and center at the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club’s annual Pride breakfast June 26 at the Hyatt Embarcadero, where House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), several members of Congress, and a slew of state and local elected leaders addressed more than 800 people.

Political leaders also talked about the federal Equality Act legislation, which is stalled in the Republicancontrolled Congress.

Clarence B. Jones, 85, a visiting professor at Stanford and the University of San Francisco who served as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s personal attorney, brought the house down when he urged attendees to “put our foot up the asses of those trying to destroy us,” referring to the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub and the inability of the Republican-controlled Congress to pass gun control legislation.

“Orlando is just another example of the political climate of violence,” he said. “We have to proclaim as publicly as we can our commitment to non-violence.”

“No, no, no, we will not stand by silently while you weaponize your hate and kill us,” Jones said, adding that while he followed King’s commitment to non-violence, “we won’t stand by.”

He extolled slain gay supervisor Harvey Milk’s call for LGBTs to come out and build coalitions.

And while he praised House

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Political Notebook

From page 5

of sexual orientation or other selfidentifying factors,” wrote Gupta.

“I will use this same passion to advocate for other aspects of equality within the transgender community,

Rick Gerharter

Congressman David Cicilline listened to speakers at the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club Pride breakfast.

Democrats who staged a sit-in last week in an unsuccessful effort to get a vote on gun control, he said more Americans should go to Capitol Hill and join them when Congress reconvenes next month. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) adjourned Congress until July 5 after Democrats staged a 25-hour sit-in that was streamed online via members’ cellphones and Periscope after Ryan cut CSPAN cameras.

“I very seldom say what King

including discrimination within employment, anti-violence laws, privacy and identity issues, and concerns specifically facing our transgender youth.”

District 2 Supervisor Mark Farrell, who is straight and widely seen as a likely mayoral candidate

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Bay Area Reporter

Cicilline was at Sunday’s breakfast and held a forum on the Equality Act Monday. He told the B.A.R. that he decided to come to San Francisco a day early to see the Pride parade.

Pelosi said that the Equality Act has received the support of the Congressional Black Caucus, which initially was hesitant to alter the Civil Rights Act. During Monday’s forum, which was held in the Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library but was sparsely attended, Cicilline said that the Equality Act has 177 co-sponsors in the House, including one Republican, making it officially bipartisan. It has also been introduced in the Senate, where it has a number of Democrats and one GOP supporter. But getting the legislation to a vote on the House floor will be difficult, given the current Republican leadership, Cicilline said.

One challenge, Cicilline said, is that LGBT people in conservative areas of the country who support such legislation may be afraid to speak out publicly because they live in states with zero protections and could put their jobs or housing at risk.

He said he’s looking to increase support by building coalitions with women’s groups, and the African-American and Hispanic communities.

“We’ve got to be good partners,” he said at the forum, adding that securing the support of the business and religious communities could send a signal to House Republicans.t

would say,” Jones said. “He would look at the conditions we see today.

He’d look at Orlando, at voter laws, and say, ‘why not put 1-2 million people sitting around the Capitol,’ and no business done until they pass gun laws.”

Gay Congressman David Cicilline (D-Rhode Island) was one of those who helped organize the sit-in, with veteran Congressman John Lewis (D-Georgia) and others. In a brief interview, he told the Bay Area Reporter that he was pleased with how strong Democrats were during the sit-in.

“While Americans were sleeping, the Republicans adjourned Congress,” he said, referring to Ryan’s move.

Cicilline said that constituents want members to act on gun control legislation.

“We devoted one moment of silence,” he said, referring to the Orlando tragedy. “We need moments of sustained action to reduce gun violence.”

Gay San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener, who’s in a tight race for a state Senate seat, said ending anti-LGBT violence is a priority.

“We need to send Hillary Clinton to the White House, we need to send Kamala Harris to the U.S. Senate, and we need to put Nancy Pelosi back in her rightful place in the speaker’s office,” Wiener said to applause.

The keynote address by Rick Welts, president of the Golden State Warriors, drew laughs from those in the room when he said he’s recognizable because “I’m the one not running for office.”

The proposed Equality Act was also a focal point. Pelosi said it was “very important” to pass the federal legislation that was introduced by Cicilline. It basically amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in public accommodations, public education, federal funding, employment, housing, jury selection, and other areas.

in 2019, said the fortunes of the city’s LGBT community are tied to the local housing stock and economic picture.

“I believe San Francisco needs to aggressively build more housing at all income levels and work to maintain our local robust economy to maintain a sizeable and vibrant LGBT community,” re- DCCC member sponded Farrell, Malia Cohen noting that as chair of the Board of Supervisors budget committee he has fought to build up the city’s budget reserves to “record levels” in order to weather the next economic downturn. “If the costof-living and housing affordability continues to skyrocket then we risk losing our vibrant LGBT communities and other communities that have all contributed to making San Francisco the world-class city it is today.”

District 7 Supervisor Norman Yee, who is straight, has seen more LGBT people move into the neighborhoods he represents west of Twin Peaks.

He pointed to the city’s creation of a LGBTQ cultural district in the city’s South of Market area, which is still being formulized by city planners, and Rick Gerharter the school district, on whose board he once served, including as president, providing social services to LGBT youth as two examples of steps already taken by local leaders aimed at maintaining a vibrant LGBT community.

“I think it is important that we continue to help keep current residents in their housing and because of that I have supported increasing rental subsidies for our families, single adults, people with disabilities and people living with AIDS,” wrote Yee.

District 11 Supervisor Malia Cohen, who is straight and represents the city’s eastern neighborhoods, where cheaper housing stock in the Bayview and Hunters Point has attracted LGBT homebuyers in recent years, pointed out that any efforts the city takes should not focus solely on the Castro district.

“While we see many LGBTQ community events in certain parts of San Francisco, it’s important that we celebrate and create this diversity in all of San Francisco’s neighborhoods,” wrote Cohen, adding that it is also important for both the mayor and the board to appoint LGBT people to city boards and commissions “where they are given a stronger voice to bring about change.”t

Valley Neighborhood Association, said, “We need to get a lot more serious about constructing housing.”

“The city really is not doing very much to build more housing,” Hollings said. “... Every time we come up with a way to increase density in the city, there’s a lot of pushback on that.”

Kimberly Reeves, 20, who said she’s been homeless for 10 years and has been on her own after parting with her abusive mother, was sitting at the library recently with several other people. She didn’t talk about more housing.

She said she first came to the spot at the library about a month and a half ago and returns to it because people know they can find her there.

“Lately, I’ve been sleeping here, but the cops have been getting on people’s asses and waking people up at 5 in the morning,” Reeves, who

identifies as pansexual, said.

Asked what it would take to end homelessness for her, Reeves said, “I don’t really know,” but she’s waiting for her chance “to make something out of my life.”

She’s a singer, and she said someone recently offered to give her time in a recording studio.

“I’m hoping that works out,” Reeves, who has blue and pinkishpurple hair, said.

In terms of looking for other work, she said, “It would have to be work that I don’t hate doing and accepts me for how I look. I’m not going to change how I look to be society’s idea of having your life together.”

Police Captain Dan Perea, who heads the Mission police station, which includes the Castro, didn’t respond to requests for comment for this story.t

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Castro library

From page 1

“We feel we are a welcoming environment for everybody, regardless of their socioeconomic status, and whether they’re experiencing homelessness,” she said.

Jeffers worked to make it clear how seriously she and others take the issue.

“We feel really passionate about making sure that people have dignity and that they have access to services that can change their lives, which libraries can do for people,” she said, weeping as she spoke.

“I get really emotional” about the issue, she said.

When asked about what needs to be done to solve homelessness, Crispin Hollings, a gay man who’s board president of the Castro/Eureka

Although Welts’ invitation was made before the Warriors lost the NBA Finals earlier this month, he said the team is made up of “a very special group of athletes” who are involved in the local community Welts, a gay man who came out on the front page of the New York Times five years ago, recounted coming out to his parents, which he had done years before. “My mom told me, ‘perhaps you have trouble relating to women,’” Welts said. “She said, ‘Your Uncle Bob is gay.’ That would have been useful information. I didn’t know he was gay until I was 26 years old.”

Welts also decried the violence against gays and discrimination.

“Any threat of discrimination is a threat to any of us,” he said. “My story got lots of attention – I guess because my profession lags a little.”

He said he grew up “not wanting to be gay” and kept his sexual orientation a secret in his professional life.

“I lost a 17-year partner to AIDS in New York City and I had to go to work the next day,” he said, because he wasn’t out.

Equality Act

The Political Notes online column is on hiatus until Monday, July 11.

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

t

Sports>>

June 30-July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 11

SF Gay Games bid takes shape

by Roger Brigham

A

s San Francisco celebrated Pride Month, including the 14th annual LGBT Pride Night at AT&T Park last Friday, where the Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies 5-4, local sports activists are trying to bring the Gay Games back to San Francisco for their 40th anniversary in 2022.

They cleared the first requirement two weeks ahead of schedule.

Gay Games XI-2022 San Francisco/Bay Area, one of 17 potential bidders from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Central and North America to have expressed initial interest in hosting Gay Games XI, submitted $2,500 and a letter of intent June 15 to the Federation of Gay Games as the next step in producing a formal bid.

The bid effort, organized through the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee, is being presided over by local gay martial artist Ken Craig and Olympic swimmer Anne Cribbs, the head of BASOC. Longtime Gay Games leaders Sara Waddell-Lewinstein, widow of Gay Games founder Dr. Tom Waddell, and Derek Liecty are serving as advisers. Local band member and bowler Doug Litwin, who was helping with the bid the past two years and is the marketing officer for the FGG, dropped out of the bid because of conflicts of interest.

Currently the local bidders are raising money to get through the next stages of the process, putting together committees of local LGBT sports and culture leaders to work on competition and venue issues in the bid, and gathering sponsors and community support.

The initial $2,500 fee was donated by the San Francisco Travel Association, but there will still be $42,500

sjearthquakes.com using the promore in fees to be paid for ing, cycling, soccer, golf, motional code “pride16” will have by whatever city is finally rugby, squash, table tennis $1 of their purchase go to http:// selected. At the end of July, and volleyball,” Craig told www.OneOrlando.org, Project prospective bidders must the Bay Area Reporter. “AnyMore, You Can Play, and other local each pay $5,000 for access to one interested can contact LGBT nonprofits. They will also past Gay Games data to help us through our new webreceive a special event Earthquake with their bid preparations. site.” The sports and cultural Pride scarf.

At the end of November, directors will meet with the Expect a special focus on fan deroughly a year before the executive officer Tuesday, corum. During a 1-1 draw against host will be selected, bidders July 19. the Los Angeles Galaxy at Stanford must submit their bid books Rugby is listed as one Stadium June 25, a significant numand another $7,500. of the 35 sports offerings.

Khaled Sayed ber of Earthquake fans shouted the In February 2017, the Gay Games hosts have not homophobic slur “puto” at keeper FGG is scheduled to cut The Lesbian and Gay Chorus of San Francisco been very successful lurBrian Rowe. The slur was heard the list of bidders down to sang the national anthem at the San Francisco ing rugby teams to the Gay throughout the game broadcast. three finalists, each of Giants’ 14th annual LGBT Night June 24.

Games since the Sydney Gay “We are extremely disappointed whom must pay Games in 2002 because of and shocked at the behavior of a another $15,000 the successful creation of The original organizers, San Franportion of our fan base during our to move forward. Those the Bingham Cup, which is in direct cisco Arts and Athletics, awarded match tonight at Stanford Stadium,” funds are used to pay competition with the Gay Games the third Gay Games to Vancouver the Earthquakes said in a published for a committee of FGG as it is played in even years, but a and then reorganized into the FGG, statement. “As an organization, we representatives to visit successful San Francisco bid would which first used the bid process to do not tolerate or condone this type each of the three finaloffer a unifying prospect. select New York City for Gay Games of speech at our matches. It violates ists, touring the proThe Bingham Cup was started IV in 1994. the Earthquakes and Major League posed venues, meeting in 2002 in honor of local 9/11 hero Local organizers are proposing to Soccer’s Fan Code of Conduct and community leaders, and gay rugby star Mark Bingham. hold Gay Games XI July 30-August any fan found in violation of this and attending a board When the Gay Games are celebrating 7, 2022. Their initial proposed bid code is subject to expulsion and meeting of each bid orits 40th anniversary, the Cup will be of 35 sports includes most of the further punishment. We pride ourganization. After exchanges of quescelebrating its 20th.

If San Francisco traditional Gay Games mainstays selves on creating an inclusive and tions and answers between bidders successfully bid for both events, it – swimming, softball, wrestling, family-friendly environment for and FGG members and final inwould be able to reunite the events in basketball – and some newer Gay all fans. We will take an immediate person presentations at the annual the place both were born.

Games offerings, such as sailing leadership role in combating this meeting in Paris around the end of and beach volleyball. Figure skating Soccer Pride and prejudice type of behavior for the rest of the 2017, the presumptive host will be would be back, but not ice hockey.

The San Jose Earthquakes will season and beyond.” selected and pay $15,000 toward the Organizers said they had already host their Pride Night Friday, July Calls to the Quakes to ask about licensing fee. obtained a letter of support from 8 with a 7:30 p.m. game against what specific steps they will take to That may sound like a lot of upMayor Ed Lee and offers of supFC Dallas at Avaya Stadium.

The avoid a repeat or what fans should front moolah. The payoff for the port from the City Club of San club reports that purchasers who do if they encounter such behavior winner is a significant boost to the Francisco for the next FGG fee and buy their tickets from http://www. were not immediately returned.t local economy – the last Gay Games future meeting venues. They have in Cleveland, which had a relatively launched a rudimentary website, small registration turnout, created http://www.2022sanfrancisco.org; a a reported local economic impact “2022SanFrancisco” Facebook page; of $72 million and launched a local and a 2022 SF Bay Area Bid for Gay legacy fund for LGBT causes – and Games page on http://www.gothe honor of organizing the most fundme.com to accept community amazing, life-changing, self-emdonations. powering sports experience for the Dave may be gone, but with so many Craig said organizers have been LGBT community. people thankful to have known him, he will getting enthusiastic responses from San Francisco hosted the first two not be forgotten. local sports and cultural groups as it Gay Games in 1982 and 1986, but puts together its sports and culture A celebration of Dave’s life is planned for this will be the first time the region committees.

Saturday, July 9 from noon to 3 p.m. at 440 has ever gone through a competi“We are still seeking representaCastro Street. tive bid process to host the event. tives for badminton, billiards, bowl-

Dave Wheeler 1959 – 2016

SF police arrest 1 in anti-LGBT attacks

by Seth Hemmelgarn

S

an Francisco police arrested a man Sunday after he allegedly threatened to kill a female couple and pushed one of them near the city’s LGBT Pride parade.

Police also announced that they are seeking the suspects from a separate anti-gay attack that occurred Sunday in the Mission district.

At 11:01 a.m. June 26, two women told police that they’d been walking west on Market Street near Fifth Street when an unidentified man approached them from behind and pushed one of them, “causing her to stumble into her girlfriend,” Officer Grace Gatpandan, a San Francisco Police Department spokeswoman, said in a news release.

When the women turned to face their attacker, his fists were “clenched,” and he “threatened to kill them because of their sexual orientation,” Gatpandan said.

The couple reported that a bystander and the second victim had stepped in between the suspect and the woman who had been pushed.

The suspect then walked away, heading east on Market Street.

The women, who are both 21 and from Thousand Oaks, California, reported the incident to Tenderloin Station officers who were patrolling the area of Fifth and Market streets, which is part of the parade route.

was allegedly shot At 11:38 a.m., with a pellet, Gatother Tenderloin pandan said. officers who were The incident on foot near Market started at about and Mason streets 12:05 a.m. Sunday saw the suspect and when the victim was recognized him walking on 22nd from the descripStreet near York tion the victims Street. had provided. The Unknown susofficers detained pects drove by in the man and the a gray four-door women, who were sedan, and a pascalled to the scene, senger in the right positively identified front end of the car him as the suspect. courtesy SFPD “yelled a homoEmmanuel phobic slur at the Morancy, 50, who Emmanuel Morancy victim,” Gatpandan police say has no said. “The victim known address, then heard a loud ‘bang’ coming was booked into jail Sunday at 4:18 from the passenger side of the car p.m., according to the sheriff ’s deand felt a sharp pain in his right partment’s website. He’s being held hand.” on $78,000 bail at Zuckerberg San The car sped away, heading south Francisco General Hospital. on York.

Citing privacy rules, Eileen Hirst, The victim, a 25-year-old San a sheriff ’s department spokeswomFrancisco man, “saw blood dripan, said she couldn’t comment on ping from his hand and believed why Morancy is being held at the he had been shot with some type hospital. of pellet or ‘BB,’” Gatpandan said.

A clerk with the public defender’s He described the car as being office said no court date had been occupied “by at least two male set as of Tuesday afternoon. suspects.”

Mission attack Anyone with information in the The SFPD’s Special Investigacase may contact the SFPD Anonytions Division is asking for the mous Tip Line at (415) 575-4444 or public’s help in solving a separate text a tip to TIP411 and begin the anti-gay attack in which the victim message with SFPD.t

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<< From the Cover

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30-July 6, 2016

<<

Homelessness

From page 1

“It is hard to deal with addiction if you are homeless,” said Pingol-Eulalia.

Then one day six years ago he mentioned to his case manager at the Los Angeles LGBT Center that he was thinking of moving to San Francisco to seek a fresh start. They suggested if he did that he should make his way to the AIDS Housing Alliance, which recently changed its name to the Q Foundation.

So Pingol-Eulalia, whose nickname is Paoi, bought himself a Greyhound bus ticket and arrived in time to make it to the agency’s Monday morning housing clinic.

“When I moved here I had a hunch whatever I was looking for was in San Francisco,” said PingolEulalia, 36, during an interview Monday with the Bay Area Reporter at the Castro Country Club, a sober meeting place and cafe in the city’s gay district.

He couch-surfed with a female friend his first two weeks in town, then moved into an apartment owned by a man who had hired him to do some graphic design work back in Los Angeles. But when the man discovered Pingol-Eulalia was using meth again, he kicked him out.

Pingol-Eulalia then turned to the Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center, which offered him emergency housing in a “skanky hotel” in the city’s Tenderloin for 28 days. There he tried to sober up and started attending meetings for people with alcohol and narcotics addictions, eventually moving to a live-in rehab facility for a month.

Once out, he cycled through several sober living situations before landing a room in the Sunset with three gay roommates. He has been there now for 30 months and has been clean and sober for four and a half years.

“It really boils down to having a safe space. A safe space to me is a place I can go to and have a key to turn the door open with,” said Pingol-Eulalia, who owns his own graphic design business called Pepe Creative Solutions. “It was hard for me to stay sober until I could figure out my housing situation.”

While he credits the various nonprofit agencies that have helped him over the years, Pingol-Eulalia nonetheless feels there aren’t enough services to help other people living with HIV or AIDS struggling to remain housed in San Francisco.

“We spent a lot of money on the Super Bowl, when we could have built more facilities for the homeless,” he said.

City and nonprofit leaders acknowledge San Francisco is not doing enough to house people living with HIV or AIDS. The city’s most recent HIV/AIDS Housing

<<

Honor walk

From page 1

embedded in the sidewalk on the 400 and 500 blocks of Castro Street and a portion of 19th Street. All of the men and women selected had lived openly as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender individuals.

The selection committee used the same criteria in picking the next set of 24 names to be added to the walk.

The honorees had to be deceased and self-identified as members of the LGBT community during their lifetimes.

Yet two of the women selected, astronaut Sally Ride and lawmaker Barbara Jordan, were posthumously outed to the public as lesbians, according to media accounts of their obituaries. They were nonetheless included, said David Perry, a gay man who co-founded the project, after “a great deal of discussion” by the selection committee.

t

“So we have to stop every single Five-Year Plan, which was released cent of the city’s homeless populaeviction that is within our powers to in December 2014, concedes on the tion comes from the LGBT comstop. That is first, otherwise the boat first page “that the level of housing munity. That is not just a statistical is going to sink.” need for PLWHA is far greater than anomaly; there is a reason why we To reduce the city’s HIV-positive the resources available to meet that have such great disparities in homehomeless count by 5 percent over need.” lessness,” Basinger said. “We need to the next five years, Hirsh estimated According to the report, which find out what is driving the homethe cost would be nearly $2.9 milused data from the city’s 2013 lessness, where are the supports lion per year, which would provide Homeless Point-in-Time Count lacking, where are people falling 160 people an ongoing monthly and Survey, as well as 2014 numthrough the cracks and ending on subsidy of $1,500. bers from the city’s Human Services the street. Also, the deeper questions The city has budgeted $3 milAgency, 6 percent of the estimated are why is our city, and why as a lion in the Fiscal Year 2016-2017 29,400 homeless individuals in San community, are we accepting that?” budget for housing subsidies Francisco were HIV-posifor seniors and people with tive, or 1,764 people. The disabilities, which includes report also estimated that people living with HIV or 14,320 HIV-positive, lowAIDS. income city residents were at “I don’t know how the risk of being homeless. money will be allocated and Homelessness is a conspent. But it was a good victributing factor to the tory,” said Hirsh. “There has continued transmission of been some progress made HIV in San Francisco, as since the plan’s release.” according to the HIV housThe HIV housing plan ing plan, between 9 and 14 also called for adding 50 new percent of the individuals affordable rental units desigdiagnosed as HIV positive nated for HIV-positive indiin 2006 through 2012 were viduals by 2019 and funding homeless. an additional 25 rental subCompounding the issue sidies through the HOPWA is the fact that HIV-positive program so it totaled 265. individuals are living lon“This is a problem we can ger, with the majority of the solve,” said Wiener. “We just city’s HIV-positive comhave to have the political will munity over the age of 50. to make the investment and The result is the need for we are doing that.” assistance to cover people’s Wiener secured $500,000 housing costs far outstrips in the budget for the next fisthe amount of subsidies the Rick Gerharter cal year to assist those HIVcity is providing. positive individuals in their Between 2002 and 2014, Paul Ernest Pingol-Eulalia sits in the Castro early 60s who are aging out the number of people re- Country Club. of their long-term private ceiving subsidies declined disability insurance that they roughly 16 percent, from got through their employer over 1,190 slots down to 998. AccordSupervisor Scott Wiener, a gay to Social Security. Doing so often ing to the HIV housing plan, in man who represents the city’s Dismeans a significant drop in their in2014 the city was providing “tartrict 8, which includes the gay Castro come, which is compounded by the geted housing assistance” – meandistrict, told the B.A.R. the city has fact many of the people didn’t plan ing housing or subsidy programs been making strides to keep HIVfor their retirement years as they limited to people living with HIV positive people housed. It is a main doubted they would live that long. or AIDS – “at any point in time to goal of the city’s Getting to Zero “It is not enough, but it is a good, 1,462 households impacted by HIV/ plan, noted Wiener, which not only very strong first step in terms of AIDS.” aims to reduce HIV infections by 90 showing our commitment as a city Bill Hirsh, the executive director percent come 2020 but also end HIV to support our long-term HIV surof the AIDS Legal Referral Panel deaths, as well as HIV stigma. After a vivors,” said Wiener. “I think the city and a co-chair of the HIV/AIDS fight over the program’s budget last has been doing more, but we need Provider Network, noted, “About week, the Board of Supervisors voted to do even more.”

76 percent of the people living with to allocate $3.1 million toward it in Earlier this month the superviHIV are at risk of homelessness the fiscal year that starts July 1. sors unanimously passed Wiener’s because they pay so much of their “Part of keeping HIV-positive legislation to extend rent control income to rent. That I think is the people healthy is keeping them to HIV-positive people living in scarier figure, even scarier than the housed,” said Wiener. “Housing is a HOPWA units. The legislation, conumber of people who are homekey part of Getting to Zero.” sponsored by gay District 9 Superviless. That is a lot of people.”

Goals sor David Campos and board PresiAdded Brian Basinger, Q FounThe HIV housing plan set out dent London Breed, who represents dation’s founder and executive five main goals, three of which were District 5, will benefit 240 HOPWA director, “In what crazy world are squarely focused on addressing the recipients. we living in where we are not runcity’s housing supply. The first called And the city over the last two ning to City Hall with pitchforks for maintaining the current supply years has backfilled $4,340,000 in and demanding that this situation is of housing and facilities dedicated federal cuts to its HOPWA program. addressed?” to people living with HIV or AIDS. “The city has done a great job He has proposed that local leadIt runs the gamut from residential of stepping up to fill those federal ers convene a group of stakeholders care facilities for chronically ill peocuts,” acknowledged Hirsh. “But the tasked with conducting “a very deple to the federal housing subsidy problem is there is actually a great liberate and evidence-based analyprogram known as HOPWA, which unmet need for many, many people sis” to determine what is driving stands for Housing Opportunities still in need of affordable housing.

LGBT homelessness and homelessfor Persons with AIDS. Simply backfilling and maintaining ness among people with HIV and “The first thing we have to do is what we have is not going to help us AIDS. stop the bleeding,” argued Basinger. move the needle.”

“It is not an accident that 30 per-

HIV senior housing

“After reviewing documentation of their lives, it was clear these two women lived openly in their communities as lesbian,” said Perry, who owns an eponymously named public relations firm.

Other lesbians being honored include American physician and political activist Marie Equi; radical feminist and political activist Audre Lorde; and Rikki Streicher, who owned several now-closed San Francisco lesbian bars and helped found the Gay Games Federation.

Among the transgender honorees are female-to-male pioneer Lou Sullivan; Sylvia Rivera, who cofounded the Gay Activist Alliance and was among those protesting at the Stonewall Inn riot; and We’wha, a Zuni Native American two-spirit/ mixed gender tribal leader.

The gay male honorees include Glenn Burke, the first out Major League Baseball player; Air Force veteran Leonard Matlovich; Kiyoshi

the expense, with some of the money coming from sales of select merchandise at the Human Rights Campaign store on Castro Street.

A public fundraising campaign will soon be launched to generate more donations.

The goal is to raise the needed funds in order to unveil the new plaques sometime between this year’s National Coming Out Day on October 11 and the 2017 Pride weekend at the end of June.

The project’s boosters aim to avoid the spelling errors and complaints about the terminology used in several of the first plaques that were discovered after the public unveiling.

“I wouldn’t say we would be looking for crowd editing, but we will have an independent proofreader this time,” said Perry.

For more information about the Rainbow Honor Walk, as well as longer bios about the honorees, visit www.rainbowhonorwalk.org.t

Kuromiya, a Japanese-American civil rights activist; American film historian Vito Russo; drag queen Jose Sarria, who founded the Imperial Court system; and Congressman Gerry Studds.

A number of gay authors were selected, including English poet W.H. Auden; English writer Quentin Crisp; Iranian poet Fereydoun Farrokhzad; and American illustrator and author Maurice Sendak.

Others selected due to their contributions to the arts include gay ballet dancer Alvin Ailey; bisexual American singer Josephine Baker; lesbian American pianist and singer Gladys Bentley; gay drag queen actor Divine; bisexual Queen frontman Freddie Mercury; and Chavela Vargas, a lesbian Costa Rican-born singer of Mexican music.

“LGBT history is world history,” stated Perry, who serves as president of the 16-member Rainbow Honor Walk board. “These 24 individuals

represent real battles fought during their lifetimes for equality and justice. They are symbols to hold up to future generations so that we may learn from them and continue their work.”

It is estimated that the board needs to raise at least $120,000 to pay for production of the 24 individual bronze plaques. Perry is scheduled to meet with the city’s public works department next week to discuss where to place them, as well as if the city can cover the estimated $1,000 per plaque installation cost.

It is likely some will go into the sidewalks along Market Street south of Castro Street and on 18th Street between Collingwood and Hartford streets.

“We will make that decision in consultation with DPW. But it will not be on Castro Street between 19th and Market,” said Perry.

The Rainbow Honor Walk board already has raised $25,000 to cover

This fall the city will open its first affordable housing development aimed at LGBT seniors that includes rooms dedicated to HIVpositive seniors at risk for homelessness. Known as the 55 Laguna project, and overseen by LGBT senior services provider Openhouse and affordable housing developer Mercy Housing, the first building to be completed will have eight rooms set aside for HIV-positive seniors. When the second building opens, sometime in 2018, there will be an additional 14 rooms for HIV-positive seniors.

Another step the city can take, which Wiener argues would benefit low-income HIV-positive people, is to give people who live or work in San Francisco preference for any new below-market-rate units built in the city. The board this summer is expected to adopt legislation Wiener has introduced that would make such a preference city policy.

“We are working so hard to build more affordable housing. We need to make sure our own residents have a fair shot to get into that housing,” he said.

HIV housing advocates, along with Wiener, are also eyeing the two city-owned parking lots in the Castro as potential sites where affordable housing could be built, with all or some of the units dedicated to people living with HIV or AIDS. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is currently studying the two sites’ development potential.

Yet Hirsh cautioned, “without a deep, ongoing operating subsidy, it will be very hard, if not impossible, to create new housing that is affordable to folks at the very lowest income levels.”

With federal funding on the decline, he predicted the city would have to fund the housing subsidies residents of the new buildings would require.

“So if those lots in the Castro are developed with all shiny, wonderful new construction, unless there is some manna falling from heaven in the form of Section 8 vouchers from the federal government, the city will have to come up with a subsidy to make them affordable for our folks who are on SSI,” said Hirsh.

To build support for funding housing assistance programs, Pingol-Eulalia believes the public needs to hear more stories about formerly homeless people who have “found redemption” once they were offered housing.

“I think people know the San Francisco homeless issue does exist.

But people turn their back thinking it is a moral failure to be homeless,” he said. “Homelessness is not a moral issue; addiction is not a moral issue. It is a disease that needs to be cured.”t

t

Pride 2016>>

June 30-July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 13

tilted more heavily toward corporate contingents, mainly those with large groups of LGBT employees. There has also been the steady presence of local nonprofit groups, such as the Shanti Project and Project Open Hand, as well as the usual gaggle of politicians, whose politics often are in sync with the LGBT community.

Pride officials pleased

Jane Philomen Cleland

A woman raised her umbrella during the Dyke March Saturday, June 25.

<<

Parade

From page 1

“I’d never been an activist or done anything like this,” he said.

But Sizemore got a positive response from two women friends to help with the design and printing of the 20” x 30” placards and from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to join him and convince Pride officials it was a good idea.

Then, said Sizemore, parade manager “Marsha Levine really went the distance for us,” placing the Orlando contingent just behind the cyclists and arranging for 30 seconds of silence when the group was in front of the parade grandstands.

“Walking the three quarters of a mile in the parade turned out to be the most moving moment of my life,” said Sizemore in a phone interview. “The response we got – the clapping and the crying – people really appreciated our efforts to memorialize” the victims.

In addition to several hundred marchers reached through social media, 16 members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence completed the contingent.

Sister Roma, a previous parade grand marshal, told the B.A.R. that this year’s parade “was very different” from the 11 previous ones she had attended.

“You could feel the sadness in the crowd,” Roma said.

Comments from those along the route echoed that sentiment.

Nicolas Carlson, 82, has been coming to the parade since 1978, when he was “on my way out.”

“The parade made me realize that the great preponderance of gays and lesbians” – those living outside the Bay Area – “had no such support in their lives,” Carlson, a gay man, said. And, he added, “I realized how wonderful it was going to be to have such great people having my back.”

But after moving to Vacaville recently Carlson had planned to skip the parade “since it’s now more difficult than the days I could just jump on Muni.”

He changed his mind when “the events in Orlando gave impetus to the notion of solidarity with our own. The least I can do is show my face to support my LBGTQA fami-

ly,” Carlson said. “The parade is a visual sign of pride in our ability to be ourselves and gratitude that we live where such an event is not only possible but supported by thousands, if not millions, of people.”

For 34-year-old Leonardo Herrera, a filmmaker who moved to Brooklyn several years ago, “coming back to San Francisco for Pride is the gay equivalent of the pilgrimage to Mecca,” Herrera, who produced and directed the Frameline film festival trailer in 2012, said, “There is nothing like it that can feed the queer soul mentally, sexually, and spiritually.”

When Black Lives Matter, the organization grand marshal, withdrew from the parade last week, Herrera said that the group’s stand protesting the increased police presence at Pride “reminded me of the honor and complexities of our community.”

“And of course,” he added, “because of my Mexican heritage, I identified with the communities of color” that were victims in the Orlando tragedy.

Another former San Franciscan, Joie King, 29, a straight woman from Grass Valley, California, brought her husband and three children – ages 4, 1, and 2 months – to the parade this year.

“I was born and raised in San Francisco and realize that early exposure to all sorts of people would be important,” she said. “I wanted to give my children the advantages I had learning about diversity from an early age.”

Changes in the makeup of the parade were mentioned by Russ Gowen, 74, a gay San Francisco man. Gowen, a retired high school teacher, said, “In the old days, the parade was mostly about gay groups, protests, and outrageous conduct. But of the groups we saw today, quite a few were businesses, such as Apple and Netflix.”

“At first I thought that the dilution of gay voices was a bad thing,” said Gowen. “But this showing of unity and acceptance from important segments of the ‘real world’ is very positive. Today’s video will look good if it’s shown on 60 Minutes or the network news.”

Over the years, the parade has

Rick Gerharter

A man danced atop a contingent during Sunday’s Pride parade.

Overall, officials with the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee were pleased with Sunday’s parade and festival. In reaction to the Orlando shooting, people attending this year’s festival in Civic Center were subject to bag checks and metal detectors.

George Ridgely, SF Pride executive director, said lines to get in were manageable.

“We really did not experience any significant lines on Saturday,” he told the B.A.R. in an email Tuesday, referring to the first day of the festival that is usually not as crowded.

“Lines on Sunday were consistent throughout the day; however, the feedback we received thus far is that wait times were typically 10 to 20 minutes.”

Ridgely said he had not heard of any major violent incidents and that no decision has been made as to whether the enhanced security would be in place next year.

“We are always planning for the future and for the next event, but right now we are still cleaning up, packing up, and debriefing with all of our partners, participants, and constituents,” he said.

Ridgely put the size of this year’s event at about 1.2 million people over Saturday and Sunday.

He also said that the Orlando shootings, while horrific, had an effect on San Francisco’s Pride parade and celebration.

“I felt a renewed sense of community throughout all of the Pride Week events, a greater sense of love and commitment, and most certainly a sense of resolve to show up for one another and look out for one another,” Ridgely said.

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Warm welcome

This year, all the contingents seemed to get a warm welcome from the crowd, even those groups with ongoing beefs with the community, such as Facebook, which clashed with transgender people last year after requiring members to use their real names.

Apparently, riders on one contingent felt they had received only a lukewarm reception. When a snazzy vintage car with Mayor Ed Lee drove by a large group, one member of his contingent, riding the side of the car, shouted out, “Hey, this isn’t a funeral. It’s a parade,” in a plea for a heartier welcome.

As reported on the B.A.R.’s blog last Friday, in addition to Black Lives Matter, grand marshal Janetta Johnson and honoree St. James Infirmary dropped out of the parade, citing the increased security. (See http://ebar. com/blogs/pride-honorees-withdraw-from-parade-festival/.)

In addition, about 100 women motorcyclists from the Dykes on Bikes contingent also chose to stay home this year. Although there was no formal announcement of their rationale, co-president Vick Germany, who identifies as a butch dyke, said, “presumably, many were responding to the aftermath of Orlando,” including the increased police presence.

“We support their decision,” she said.

Officer Carlos Manfredi, a spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department, said that the screening did not detect any potentially troublesome items. Several reports of suspicious items turned out to be false alarms, he said.

As a precaution, he said, the SFPD’s explosive ordinance disposal truck drove behind the parade.t

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<< Legal Notices

14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30-July 6, 2016

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-16-552153

In the matter of the application of: JIEYING WU, 5 SONOMA ST #1, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JIEYING WU, is requesting that the name JIEYING WU, be changed to JOSIE JIEYING WU. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 28th of July 2016 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-16-552093

In the matter of the application of: ISABELLA BORJIGIN SUN, 132 SANTA ANA ST, SAN PABLO, CA 94704, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ISABELLA BORJIGIN SUN, is requesting that the name ISABELLA BORJIGIN SUN, be changed to QIWEN BAO. 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 June 2016 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-16-552152

In the matter of the application of: LILLY WHITE, 1049 HOWARD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner LILLY WHITE, is requesting that the name LILLY WHITE, be changed to TONY LATRONE WHITE. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Rm. 514 on the 26th of JULY 2016 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037127500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MAGIC UNDERGROUND; MAGIC UNDERGROUND SAN FRANCISCO; MAGIC ON THE SQUARE; SEBASTIAN BOSWELL III; 684 20TH AVE #1, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual and is signed REED KIRK RAHLMANN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/03/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/03/16.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037129300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO MAGIC UNDERGROUND; SF MAGIC UNDERGROUND; MAGIC UNDERGROUND SF; 684 20TH AVE #1, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed REED KIRK RAHLMANN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/06/16.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/06/16.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037093300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DREAM HOLIDAY, 775 JACKSON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JIA HUANG JIANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/13/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/13/16.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037122600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: IRMA’S BARBER & BEAUTY SALON, 5465 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed IRMA ELIZABETH TRIGUEROS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/01/16.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037128500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EMPAWTHY, 3215 20TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALISHA JEAN ARDIANA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/11/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/06/16.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037126300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KAMBARA PLUS DANCERS, 3828 21ST ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YAYOI KAMBARA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious

business name or names on 06/03/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/03/16.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037127700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SORTIE, 1001 TENNESSEE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed SASKIA MAURO & RACHEL HOOPER. 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 06/03/16.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037018900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AUDREY 3 PLUS 1, 1034 VALENCIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation and is signed AUDREY ROSE CO INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/28/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/28/16.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037125600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CAREZONE INSURANCE SERVICES, 3175 17TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed CAREZONE FINANCIAL SERVICES LLC (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/27/15. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/02/16.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037122900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GENJI SUSHI PTH, 450 RHODE ISLAND ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed GENJI PACIFIC LLC (PA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/01/16.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037102300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HUMPHREY’S JOINER LAW GROUP, LLP, 584 CASTRO ST #720, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114.

This business is conducted by a limited liability partnership, and is signed JONATHAN JOINER & BENJAMIN HUMPHREYS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/11/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/19/16.

JUNE 09, 16, 23, 30, 2016 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINSTER ESTATE OF DAVID JOSEPH DYROFF IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-16-299887

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of DAVID JOSEPH DYROFF. A Petition for Probate has been filed by STEPHEN COWAN C/O JOSHUA C. PEACOCK, ESQ. SBN 257257, THE PEACOCK LAW GROUP, LLP, 291 JOAQUIN AVE, SAN LEANDRO, CA 94577, in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that STEPHEN COWAN be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: JULY 12, 2016, 9:00 am, Rm. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code.

Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: JOSHUA C. PEACOCK, ESQ. SBN 257257, THE PEACOCK LAW GROUP, LLP, 291 JOAQUIN AVE, SAN LEANDRO, CA 94577; Ph.

(510) 483-3400.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINSTER ESTATE OF STEPHEN WAN IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-16-299872

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of STEPHEN WAN. A Petition for Probate has been filed by CHI LING WONG AKA GILLIAN WAN c/o SONIA M. AGEE, ESQ. SBN # 164560, ROPERS MAJESKI KOHN & BENTLEY, 50 W. SAN FERNANDO ST #1400, SAN JOSE, CA 95113 in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that CHI LING WONG AKA GILLIAN WAN be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval.

Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: July 05, 2016, 9:00 am, Probate Department Rm. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.

If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code.

Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: SONIA M. AGEE, ESQ. SBN # 164560, ROPERS MAJESKI KOHN & BENTLEY, 50 W. SAN FERNANDO ST #1400, SAN JOSE, CA 95113; Ph. (408) 947-4889.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037141200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MV CONSTRUCTION; MCV PROPERTIES, 467 VALENCIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NICHOLAS VRIHEAS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/14/16.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037137000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: UPBEAT MUSIC CAMP, 518 1/2 LINDEN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOSEPH M. RODRIGUEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/08/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/10/16.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037137500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TUSCAN PROPERTY SOLUTIONS, 143 POPE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GINETTA LUCCHESI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/13/16.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/13/16.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037135500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE PEOPLE CHANGE GROUP, 15 RICO WAY #2, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LISA MARIE FELICE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/10/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/10/16.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037137100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LITTLE ONES, 315 MONTGOMERY ST 9TH FLR, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARIA DEL PILAR ALVARADO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/10/16.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037133400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CURIOUS CAT CLUB, 2955 CLAY ST #7, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LINDSAY SAITO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/09/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/09/16.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037135800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: STELLAR JEWELS; LUXURY LIVING, 855 LA PLAYA ST #363, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALISON WAHL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/10/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/10/16.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037117900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CKO+ MEDIA; CKO PLUS MEDIA, 219 DWIGHT ROAD, BURLINGAME, CA 94010. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed LOURDES ALCAZAREN-KEELEY, CAROLINE OCAMPO & ESTHER MISA CHAVEZ. 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 05/27/16.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037110900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FISHER WEISMAN COLLECTION, 1101 CLAY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed FISHER WEISMAN INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/20/16.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/24/16.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037132800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE UPS STORE #2255, 588 SUTTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed INJP, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/26/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/08/16.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037130400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TOPSY’S BARBER SHOP, 1348 9TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SUNSET GROOMERS, LLC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/07/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/07/16.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037138300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KAGAWA-YA UDON NOODLE COMPANY, 1455 MARKET ST #3A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed KAGAWAYA NOODLE COMPANY LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/06/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/13/16.

JUNE 16, 23, 30, JULY 07, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037117500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CALLAWAY LANDSCAPES, 101 27TH ST #10, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LEE BRITT CALLAWAY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/15/15.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/27/16.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037116900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MARINA GREEN MEDIA, 1490 JEFFERSON ST #202, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed COLIN McCRACKEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/15/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/27/16.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037125900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: INNER CIRCLE ACUPUNCTURE, 3150 18TH ST #442, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MICHELLE MEDINA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/15/16.

The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/03/16.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037143100

The following person(s) is/are doing business

t

as: NADI’S CHARMES AND EVENTS, 349 CHICAGO WAY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NADINE MANUELLE KPOKPA ZIHIRI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/15/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/15/16.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037123000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ADVENTURE INK, 1227 FOLSOM ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ZACHARY WINE. 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 06/01/16.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037145100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: OPERATION ACCESS, 1119 MARKET ST #400, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed AMBULATORY SURGERY ACCESS COALITION, (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/20/95. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/17/16.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037140100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HH MICRO, 5999 3RD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed AMERITECH COMPUTER SERVICES, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/14/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/14/16.

JUNE 23, 30, JULY 07, 14, 2016 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-16-552201

In the matter of the application of: HONG THU THI NGUYEN, 1433 SILLIMAN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner HONG THU THI NGUYEN, is requesting that the name HONG THU THI NGUYEN, be changed to MILEY NGUYEN. 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 August 2016 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037122400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ONE BOILING POT, 1155 TARAVAL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DIANE J. CHEUNG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/01/16.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037148300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO BAY COMPUTER SERVICES, 4736 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed EDUARDO SANCHEZ & MICHAEL POHLABLE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/22/16.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037143900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KINGDOM RICE, 1337 SUTTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SAN FRANCISCO LIGHTHOUSE (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/16. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/16/16.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037152800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PSYCHIC HORIZONS, 970 VALENCIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CHURCH OF NATURAL GRACE (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/18/81. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/27/16.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2016 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037146600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: UNLIMITED AUTO TITLE LOAN, 1315 23RD AVE. #212 SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed LINCOLN EASY CASH (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 06/21/16.

JUNE 30, JULY 07, 14, 21, 2016

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Tech world

26

Taylor made

Out &About

Cabaret casualty

19

O&A

19

22

Vol. 46 • No. 26 • June 30-July 6, 2016

www.ebar.com/arts

Alan Cumming gets sappy at the Castro

by David-Elijah Nahmod

S

Alan Cumming: “The message is to embrace yourself.”

FAMSF, presented to the City and County of San Francisco by Gordon Blanding

inger/actor Alan Cumming released a CD called I Bought a Blue Car Today in 2009. One selection on the disc stood head-and-shoulders above the rest: Cumming’s sultry, seductive cover of “Mein Herr,” one of Sally Bowles’ numbers from the classic musical Cabaret. Cumming performed the song as if he were playing to an audience in early 1930s Berlin. He undressed the audience with his voice. He sang a song long associated with female singers, about a woman’s love and desire for another man. Cumming sang “Mein Herr” as a man, treating the lyrics with the respect they deserved.

See page 21 >>

Way Out West!

by Sura Wood

T

he American West is mighty popular territory for curators this summer, judging from the number of exhibitions plumbing the terrain at area museums. Some will find the prospect of this much California/ West-centric artwork a cause to rejoice; others will feel compelled to catch the first flight to Manhattan. California and The West, at SFMOMA’s new Pritzker Center for Photography, See page 26 >>

Albert Bierstadt, “California Spring” (1875), oil on canvas.

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS }

@LGBTSF

SOCIAL-MEDIA-STRIP.indd 1

@eBARnews

6/28/16 2:45 PM

<< Out There

18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30-July 6, 2016

Love in all the wrong places?

by Roberto Friedman

A

nd it’s a wrap! Frameline 40, the San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival, wound up its 11-day run at the Castro Theatre on Sunday night with the world premiere of Looking, the last installment of the late lamented HBO series about gay men looking for love in San Francisco. Did they look under the sofa cushions?

In the film, Patrick Murray (Jonathan Groff) faces his relationship issues along with his best buddies Dom Basaluzzo (Murray Bartlett) and Agustin Lanuez (Frankie J. Alvarez). Agustin is getting married to Bear Community poster boy Eddie (Daniel Franzese). Who will catch the bacon bouquet?

The Looking chaps including the four Musketeers above, looker Russell Tovey, and director Andrew Haigh were among the festive crowd invited to Frameline 40’s closing-night party at the intimate

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Oasis nightclub in SoMa. Live performances from drag impresario Heklina and Alison Ewing from the cast of Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of Cabaret rounded out the night.

Helen of San Jose

While all the wheeling and movie dealing was happening on the yachts and screening rooms at the Cannes Film Festival this spring, producers of the film Winchester had good news. They announced Academy Award winner Helen Mirren in the role of Sarah Winchester, millionaire heiress to the Winchester Arms fortune in the Spierig Brothers’ new thriller.

Sarah was sure that she and her family were haunted by the souls killed at the barrel of the family rifle. Her real-life obsession led to the 24/7 construction of the enormous 600-room mansion designed to keep evil spirits at bay. Her home, the Winchester Mystery House, still standing today in San Jose, has been

Winchester House

The Winchester House, pre-1906, in a view from the South, will feature in a new film.

named one of the Most Haunted Places in the World by Time magazine. Top that.

Michael and Peter Spierig were announced as writer/directors for the film, based on a script first

penned by writer Tom Vaughan.

Mirren’s most recent screen appearance was in Eye in the Sky opposite Alan Rickman, where she played Colonel Katherine Powell, a UKbased military officer in command of a top-secret drone operation to capture terrorists in Kenya. She was also recently seen in Trumbo and Woman in Gold. We can’t wait to see her as Sarah Winchester.

Wining & dining

HBO

Cast of Looking, which played the Castro Theatre for Frameline 40’s closing night.

Last week found Out There back at one of our favorite haunts in the city, the Press Club, for the Taste Wine like a Pro! seminar offered by sommelier and PC wine director Mauro Cirilli. There we learned the rudiments of sensory analysis through a blind tasting of six wines. These turned out to be whites both old world (verdejo) and new (chardonnay), an Oregon pinot noir, a Spanish tempranillo, a fine champagne and a sweet dessert wine. Some of these wines were old

friends, but still OT learned a lot, and even the concierge sitting next to us, a pro sommelier in his own right, said the lessons were valuable.

The Press Club is offering the class to small groups.

Then, last Friday night, we were invited to the Lucky Rice SF Feast hosted by chef Kathy Fang and prepared by local superstar chefs at the opulent Bently Reserve. The Lucky Rice fest turned out to be quite a good insider’s take on contemporary Asian pop food culture. It was a walk-around-and-grab-bites type of affair. Yummy munchies came from Anzu, Asian Box, Azalina’s, Burmese Kitchen, Chaya, Dosa, Hakkasan, Hawker Fare, M.Y. China and other starry Asian eateries. Pepi was all patience waiting in a long line for his tataki from Ichi Sushi + Ni Bar: nori stuffed with Hawaiian Big Eye Tuna, avocado and microgreens. Our taste-buds: lucky indeed.t

From darkness into light

by Philip Campbell

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he San Francisco Symphony’s 2015-16 season ends this week with performances of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Resurrection. Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas leads the massive musical event with the orchestra, SFS Chorus, soprano Karina Gauvin, and

mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor making a joyful noise in Davies Symphony Hall. It is a fitting way to end both the season and Pride Month.

There is a special resonance to this week’s programming of the Resurrection. Once before, another of the composer’s works was planned long before world events made the

performances appear so for Piano and Orchestra appropriately well-timed.

(2014), co-commissioned Following the horror of Sepby the SFS, the Berliner tember 11, a searching and Philharmoniker and the ferocious rendition of the Toronto Symphony, with Sixth Symphony remains the support of the Phyllis C. etched in memory for the Wattis Fund for New Works depth of feeling and catharof Music. Soloist Yefim sis it allowed. The Second Bronfman was the perfect Symphony is a triumphant choice to convincingly journey from darkness into punctuate and develop light. It may be just what Widmann’s “large-scale, we need in these days after slow funeral march-moveOrlando. ment.” Strong Mahlerian MTT has also been on themes and even some perthe podium for the last two cussive hints of Stravinsky weeks at DSH. His characadd depth to the twisting teristic energy and musical score, but the overall sound sensitivity have produced is original and distinctive. some notable late-season The audience response was programs. Always exciting cautiously enthusiastic. with Stravinsky, Fearless Trauermarsch is a piece that Leader can also share some aggressively demands attenKristen Loken amazing (and amusing) tion, and deserves repeated San Francisco Symphony Music Director Michael anecdotes about the great hearings.

Tilson Thomas brings the season to a close. composer. He actually The concert opened knew him! A charming and with another highly spatial and responding to friends in San convincingly dance-worthy performance. Quirky and Francisco traumatized by AIDS, Scenes de ballet opened the bill two marvelous C.P.E. Bach got the plush the somber and exquisitely tender weeks ago that included a wildly treatment for his engaging Symwork packs a quiet and deeply emokaleidoscopic Petrushka and, for phony in D Major, Wq 183.1 (1776). tional punch. There wasn’t a dry a jolly encore, Circus Polka: For If you think Johann Sebastian’s son eye around as the intensely focused a Young Elephant, composed for should sound authentically leaner, soloist declaimed the final gutGeorge Balanchine and the Ringling MTT showed how much he can wrenching words, “Many a soldier’s Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Circus. benefit from the big sound of a kiss dwells on these bearded lips.”

Unsurprisingly, MTT had a good modern orchestra.

Adams himself was in attendance. story to introduce it.

The evening ended with a slightly We hope the warmth of the ovation The concert also brought bariaffected reading of the Brahms expressed our sincere gratitude and tone Thomas Hampson (the origiFirst Symphony that still managed awareness of his remarkable work. nal barihunk) onstage to sing John to build to a rich and satisfying Last week brought the first Adams’ setting of Walt Whitman’s finish. MTT has always shown a North American performances The Wound Dresser. Written at a fine understanding of Brahms. He of German composer Jörg Widtime when Adams was grieving the heroically worked himself hard, mann’s outstanding Trauermarsch loss of his father to Alzheimer’s alongside his committed players.t

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Theatre>>

June 30-July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 19

Hard to share in the illusions

by Richard Dodds

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n this peculiarly charged political season, what may have been innocuous platitudes can become unintended rallying calls. When the emcee in Cabaret tossed off the line “Live and let live,” a substantial segment of the audience thought it worthy of supportive cheers since recent events show the alternative has been gaining ground. Then comes the switcheroo. The song “If You Could See Her” is suddenly revealed to be a virulently antiSemitic burlesque, with the earlier suggested tolerance only a mockery of it. A small gasp arose, this time, rather than the cheers.

When Cabaret originally opened on Broadway in 1966, anxieties about the Vietnam War abroad and dope-smoking hippies at home were hovering. And when the more ragged and raunchier revival brought the musical back to Broadway in 1998, the relative peace and prosperity of the Clinton years found whatever needed anxiety in a stained blue dress. But by the time that revival returned to Broadway in 2014, all manner of shit had hit the fan, yet it’s still hard to imagine that “live and let live” would have been an applause line. The rhetorical aroma of the current presidential contest has wafted its way into Cabaret, which takes place at the rise of the nativist Nazis who want to rid themselves of unclean outsiders.

And we know similar sentiments not only arise here, but helped push “Brexit” over the top.

That’s a heady preface to a review of Cabaret, which once seemed to depict a history so horrible that no one could imagine it could repeat itself. But that is a weight that now tugs the story into our

with the boss, but that voice contemporary lives, even if must be good enough that the production carrying it is the actual audiences can more efficient than inspired. enjoy themselves. Andrea The reworked Cabaret first Goss with her Betty Boop passed through SF in 1999, eyes reasonably manages the and the recent recreation tightrope, and her delivery of of that revival has spun off the title song near the end is another tour now at the devastating in its rejection of Golden Gate Theatre. the song’s message.

It’s a reasonable manifesAs the emcee, Randy Hartation that dutifully delivers rison steps into a role so the goods that director Sam definitively play by Joel Grey Mendes and choreographer and Alan Cumming, and he Rob Marshall gathered for offers an amiable perforthe Roundabout Theatre mance in its own right. But Company revival. But what’s even 12 years after Queer as missing here are the kind Folk left the air, his persona of nuances that should be from the series – he was tellfurther winding up teningly nicknamed Sunshine sions. It’s a magical Berlin – is still part of who he is that sparkles in the eyes of on stage. Despite some rude a newly arrived American staged bits, he comes across novelist, and while his illuas an understudy not quite sions are gradually stripped ready for the role but happy away, we don’t get to go on to be there. There are decent the journey with him, for performances from Shannon we have no illusions after Cochran as a Mother Courthe first scene at the Kit Kat age-type landlady, Mark NelKlub. son as her timid, late-in-life The newly arrived Ameribeau, and Alison Ewing as can is told that the Kit Kat a tenant who always knows Klub is the place to be, but Joan Marcus when the fleet is in town. Lee when the emcee introduces Andrea Goss plays the featured singer in a tawdry nightclub in the touring revival of Aaron Rosen provides nice the cabaret girls, a desulCabaret now at the Golden Gate Theatre. shading to the role of Cliff, tory line of haggard, outwhose presence is often more of-shape women rousing burned. Sally Bowles, with an Engthe in-their-own-world cabaret as observer than participant. themselves one more time to lish accent of indeterminate provscenes with the more conventional The arrival of Cabaret at this go through the ragged dance steps, enance, owes her employment to storytelling outside the club. The point in news cycles has a gravitas we don’t even briefly get to share in a boss-with-benefits arrangement emcee has become something of a that ramps up its relevance, but that the American’s illusions. Clifford that goes south. While Sally has figure who floats through the scene is not enough when the vehicle carBradshaw’s impressions are based gleaned that Cliff ’s tipple is both changes and watches over the book rying that resonance looks in need on Christopher Isherwood’s own, as men and women, she moves in on scenes as an all-knowing presence. of a tuneup, as this one unforturecorded in The Berlin Stories and this easy mark when she finds herThe show’s original creators crenately does.t massaged into a musical libretto by self homeless. The illusion of happy ated a dilemma for themselves with Joe Masteroff. homemakers can only be sustained the cabaret scenes featuring Sally The Kit Kat Klub does have its Cabaret will run through July 17 for so long.

Bowles. It makes no sense for her wisp of class, a singer billed as the at the Golden Gate Theatre. Tickets One of Mendes’ smart moves was to be a singer of such talent that are $50-$212. Call (888) 746-1799 or “toast of Mayfair,” but she is a wombridging the awkward splits between the only way to get a job is to sleep go to shnsf.com. an whose crust has been frequently

Humans of the tech persuasion

by Richard Dodds

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n artist of my acquaintance is railing against gentrification by, among other things, stenciling rabble-rousing images on sidewalks.

If the techie-types in Stuart Bousel’s new play saw him at it, they’d whip out their cellphones and record for friends their good fortune to live in such a quirky city. Never mind that the barbed images are directed at them, they just wish there were more moments like this to authenticate their San Francisco experience.

A scene with direct parallels to the above – a crazed drag queen emerging from Muni hurling sexually laced invectives at the gawkers – provides the opening tableau in Adventures in Tech (With Pillow Talk on the Side) at PianoFight Theatre.

“That’s exactly why I moved here,” says one of the witnesses as iPhones around him flash to life. It’s almost

like spotting a quetzal in the wilds of Costa Rica.

Gentrification, startups, tech bubbles, shuttle buses, apps, texting, and all things Silicon Valley are ingredients that are still reflavoring San Francisco, but are topics that have become as well-marked as stenciled sidewalks. Bousel brings a fresh take to the subject, not reinventing the wheel necessarily, but spinning it in new ways that don’t so much make judgment as make sly observations about human behavior. In this case, even though most of those humans are of the tech persuasion, we are gradually given enough insight into their own workings that divides begin to be bridged.

Bousel has a gift for a comic style of dialogue in which over-eager characters manage to just miss each other’s meanings, bringing on corrective backtracking that often

Andy Strong

A coworker played by Derek Jones (center) is slow to latch onto office humor shared by colleagues (Cooper Carlson and Dan Kurtz) in Stuart Bousel’s new play Adventures in Tech.

makes matters worse. Or maybe it’s a comment meant in jest to another person who hasn’t realized their relationship has gotten to that point of jocularity. It’s all very fresh and very funny, and finally about making real-life connections in insular lives where Siri stands guard at the drawbridges.

Just a handful of employees make up the staff of a startup company of unknown purpose, and they are crammed into a rented office with a few tables serving as desks and lights that aren’t quite up to the task of shedding light. Conversations are painfully minimal at first, but gradually warm up. An icebreaker is when a heretofore-taciturn worker expresses sadness at the news David Bowie has just died. Yes, his coworker says, he did hear about it. “Did you find out from a friend?” asks the first worker. “No, online,” second worker replies. “Sorry,” says the first.

“But it was on a friend’s Facebook page,” says the second, somehow lessening the impersonality of how the bad news was received.

These are kinds of the contemporary social convolutions Bousel is so good at pursuing, giving and taking away power from an omnipotent social media. Several scenes take place away from the office, where unnamed coworkers regularly appear and disappear. There’s the Starbucks where office manager Stuart has a platonic crush on the affectionately hostile barista whose father worked in the coal mines. Or at least owned them, which is practically the same thing, she says. We also see Stuart at home with his childlike boyfriend, who stages musicals with stuffed animals to help save Broadway from jukebox musicals.

Dan Kurtz has an awkward charm

as the aspiring writer slumming in tech before he must confess to his job recruiter (a vaguely nutty character made more funny in Amanda Rosenberg’s no-joke characterization) that he’s beginning to like his work. Stuart’s colleagues each have specific idiosyncrasies, including Derek Jones as a frigidly unfriendly coworker, Cooper Carlson as a notquite-in-sync jokester, Kevin Glass who good-naturedly takes arbitrary abuse for being from Australia, and Emily Keyishian as the rare female engineer whose obsession with Star Wars can only socially integrate her so far with men. As the barista, Adrianna Delgadillo provides unexpected bursts of comic snark, while Casey Spiegel sweetly plays the

man-boy who is Stuart’s lover.

Allison Page has staged the fewfrills production with sharp attention to keeping the humor flowing between the many short scenes, so the lights up in the next scene often seem contiguous to the lights out of the prior one. The worlds of Facebook and its ilk shine like headlights in all our eyes, but Adventures in Tech merrily takes you unto some of the more skewed nooks and crannies of the digital world.t Adventures in Tech (with Pillow Talk on the Side) will run at PianoFight through July 16.

Tickets are $15-$40. Go to pianofight.com.

20 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30-July 6, 2016

Orlando is the new reality TV

by Victoria A. Brownworth

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riting about TV should be fluffy, light, informative, and above all, entertaining. We strive for all those things and think we achieve them most of the time. But sometimes we have to say more than just what you should watch and why.

There are some good shows you should be watching right now.

CBS’ BrainDead is spectacular. It’s dark political comedy set in real time. Scenes in the Beltway play out with TVs in the background endlessly looping MSNBC and CNN with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump speechifying. Without a doubt, especially if you love politics, it’s the best show of the summer. Danny Pino has never been better, nor has Tony Shaloub. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the exact balance of cynical and perky.

American Gothic was compelling from the first five minutes. Doesn’t everyone have a serial killer in their family? Did you watch OJ: Made in America, one of the best documentaries we’ve seen in recent years?

If not, it’s still streaming, and is brilliant and compelling and sunders all your presumptions while bolstering others. (He date-raped Nicole Brown on their first date.)

It’s the best documentary about race, other than Roots, you will see this summer, and even if football is not your thing, there is an insight into the game and its stars that explains a lot (like Ben Affleck’s drunken rant about Tom Brady and Deflategate).

What about AMC’s Feed the Beast? How did David Schwimmer go from being Ross on Friends to being the new Walter White and a stunningly good actor? The new crime series The Tunnel, from the makers of The Bridge, involves intrigue and mystery when a body is found in the Channel Tunnel (Chunnel) between England and France. The show premiered June 19, but you can catch up online by inputting your local PBS station. It feels quite timely given the harrowing Brexit vote. The BBC production Dancing on the Edge follows a black jazz band in 1930s London; it premiered June 26. DOTE has a phenomenal cast that includes Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Days a Slave), Matthew Goode (The Good Wife), the great gay fave Jacqueline Bisset, John Goodman and Anthony Head.

Matt Bomer is gorgeous in period clothes in Amazon Prime’s limited series based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon.

But right now there are things that must be said about what’s been happening on TV since our last column. Pride Month is supposed to be joyous. Celebratory. Full of vibrancy, camp and all things gay. The TV landscape is often barren for Pride.

Sometimes in an effort at tapping into our market, cable channels will pull out LGBT-themed movies or shows. More often there’s a dearth of anything LGBT on the tube in June. This year Netflix timed the new season (and what a season!) of Orange Is the New Black for Pride Month, and we are grateful. Several new series have LGBT characters, which cheers us. NBC’s America’s Got Talent and Fox’s Master Chef have given us some real-life LGBT people to identify with.

But then Orlando happened. A man walked into the biggest LGBT nightclub in Orlando with an AR-15 assault weapon and started killing people, beginning with the black lesbian bouncer Kimberly Morris, and moving through the club until

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49 people were dead and 53 people were wounded. The LGBT faces we have never seen on TV because we are still a hidden minority, we are still marginalized people, were suddenly everywhere because the Pulse was now the site of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

Within hours of the shooting, our TV was full of gay and lesbian faces.

We saw LGBT people carrying bleeding friends like a scene out of a Middle Eastern bombing. Suddenly we heard stories day after day after day of the wonderful gay men and fierce lesbians who were the majority of the victims.

We were told how they died, Courtesy CNN and it was almost unbearable. CNN’s Anderson Cooper began his June 14 show by reading the names of the Pulse victims.

Finally we were part of the TV landscape like never before, but in the cruelest of ironies in the Republicans, at least to the longer go. TV keeps us connected to tracking the sudden surge in gays the midst of Pride Month, it was beDemocrats. Civil rights icon Rep. the world past the hospital bed. We and lesbians buying weapons. “I cause of a confluence of America’s John Lewis (D-GA), whose first were always addicted to news, but think right now because of what dual love affairs with bigotry and arrest came after a sit-in 52 years now, more than ever. happened, people are looking for with guns. ago, led the sit-in on the House When you come close to death, answers,” he said. “You walk into In the 22 years we have been writfloor. Lewis mentioned the LGBT your empathy for those who have a gun shop and you expect to see ing this column there have been victims. He was wearing a rainbow been touched by death and for those people, frankly, who look like me. I some devastating events played out lapel pin. The 76-year-old Lewis who are suffering like you are is exthink we forget we’re a country of all over our TV sets. 9/11. Hurricane said no more killing and stayed ponentially more acute. You quite litpeople, not just people who fit that Katrina. A plethora of mass shootthere for 15 hours, on the floor, erally feel their pain. If you’ve been a predetermined mold.” ings, including Sandy Hook, where until the House was shut down on victim of a violent crime, as we have The images out of Orlando will 20 six-year-olds were slaughtered the orders of Speaker Paul Ryan. been, the connection becomes that stay with us forever. The funerals in their first-grade classroom two At one point Lewis led the floor in much deeper. When the number of have begun: so many to be buried. weeks before Christmas, and San singing “We Shall Overcome.” dead suddenly increased from 20 to The oldest victim, Brenda McCool, Bernardino last December, where C-SPAN, which broadcasts live 50, we gasped, bursting into a spate 50, mother of 11, was at the Pulse 14 people were killed and 20 insessions of the House daily, was heof uncontrollable tears. Fifty LGBT with her gay son, Isaiah Henderson, jured, among them gay men. Our roic, broadcasting cell phone feeds people. Of course it was a hate crime.

21. She died trying to protect him.

TVs have also borne witness to a of House members of the events.

He wanted all of us dead.

She was buried on June 22, and series of pivotal elections, including C-SPAN broadcasts are only allowed You don’t have to be staring her funeral was just gutting as her the one we are currently enmeshed when the House is formally in sesdown death to know that death son eulogized her and broke down in, which is as historic as the last. sion. Ryan put the House into recess hovers around every corner now sobbing.

There was last Pride’s historic Suand tried to silence the protests. It in America, and that it stalks LGBT Imram Yousef, a former Marine preme Court decision, granting us didn’t happen. Later on CNN, Ryan people with a ferocity even we didn’t and a bouncer at the Pulse who got marriage equality. And now there is called the sit-in a publicity stunt, but know was possible. Two days after more than 30 people out of the club Orlando. hundreds of people went to the CapOrlando, as news media attempted at the beginning of the assault, savIn those 22 years we have been itol just to stand outside in solidarity. to sort out the hate crime that was ing so many lives, told his story on writing this column we have often Lewis went out to speak with them. the attack on the Pulse nightclub ABC and CBS. He began to cry as searched for something LGBT to Now, as we go to press, we have

by Omar Mateen, ABC’s Nightline he said, “I wish I could have saved write about, and often, especially in Brexit. Trump has already apaddressed the violence with a spate more.” the 90s, found little. For years there plauded the regressive move, while of hate crimes facts about how ofThe heartbreak of attorney was a lot about Frasier, The X Files the punditocracy asserted on June ten LGBT people are attacked and Christine Leinonen as she searched, and ER, because implied gayness 24 that Hillary Clinton would be how violently. Sexual assault/rape sobbing, for her son (“He’s my was all we had. Then Ellen DeGedamaged by the so-called populist is often part of hate crimes attacks only child,” she keened on our TV neres came out, and even though movement for Britain to sever ties on LGBT people, particularly lesscreens) Drew and his partner Juan we had known she was a lesbian forwith the EU. bians and trans women. Nightline Guerrero was unbearable to witness ever, it was huge. It opened a closet These events, from the first reexplained, “According to FBI the as it played out in real time over door just a little. ports of the Pulse nightclub shootLGBT community is the most tarhours as dark became light became We saw Queer as Folk. The L ing to the Brexit vote, played out geted minority, making up a fifth of dusk. Both men died at the Pulse.

Word. Rosie came out. Neil Patrick over real time on TV. The immeall hate crimes, and more than half They were going to be married, and Harris came out. Nate Berkus came diacy was palpable. We felt as if we of LGBT murders are transgender will be buried together. The stories out. Oprah kept gay people frontwere there among the LGBT people women of color. That number could will resonate with us for a long time. and-center on her show. Shonda in the streets of Orlando, blood be higher as many of these crimes go The story of the shooter will compliRhimes and Ryan Murphy arrived, everywhere, doing what they could, unreported. The police oftentimes cate everything: Was he a closet gay? there was Grey’s Anatomy and Glee, Was he a jihadist? Why did he target saving lives where they could. don’t classify hate crimes properly. and the TV landscape got just a little the Pulse? So many unanswered So sometimes, discussion of Mississippi counted one hate crime. more welcoming. questions. So much suffering. dramas and sitcoms is not enough.

New Jersey counted hundreds.”

Every Big Gay Moment on the ABC did fantastic coverage the It is not enough now, as we mourn Nightline’s report explained that tube was marqueed across these day of the shooting, starting onso very many dead, as their mostly there weren’t more hate crimes in pages. A first here, another first air at 6 a.m. EST and staying on young, mostly brown, beautiful NJ than Mississippi, just that NJ there. We charted the failure of the nonstop for 12 hours, giving the faces are splashed across our TV does a better job of reporting hate mainstream media to report our tragedy the gravitas and attention it screens. For some of these families, crimes against LGBT people. But stories with a segment we titled deserved. they learned their son or daughter there is no co-ordinating effort be“News you’re not seeing.” And now There were moments: CNN’s Anwas gay at the same time they were tween local law enforcement and the there is Orlando. There have never derson Cooper, an out gay man who told of their deaths, reminding all of FBI. And the will to report LGBT been so many gay and lesbian, bihas seen his share of tragedy, began us that the closet is real, for many, hate crimes may be lacking. sexual and transgender faces on the his June 14 show by reading the necessary, and as it always has been, There was also a segment on tube for so many hours and days at names of each of the victims and sayultimately deadly. Will we ever guns, because nothing happens a time in our 22 years writing about ing something about them. It’s hard know for sure if it was the closet that in America without guns. Donald TV as there have been in the past to watch, and Cooper breaks down pushed Mateen to mass murder?

Trump told reporters after Orlando two weeks. White faces. Black faces. as he does it. But it honors our dead.

Details are still emerging. that if patrons had had guns, they So many brown faces.

Pres. Obama spoke to the nation.

But on June 23, ABC reported could have stopped the shooter. BeNot the faces of actors playing us, Hillary Clinton gave a statement. that Barbara Poma, owner of the cause shooting a gun in a loud, dark but our faces. No more news you’re GOP lawmakers did their standard Pulse nightclub, held a Latin night crowded nightclub after drinking not seeing where the LGBT story “our thoughts and prayers are with for the community at a nearby makes sense. was buried, but the headline for the the people of Orlando,” and eight venue, since the Pulse was just reNightline reported that the past two weeks. Why did so many days later vetoed four gun control leased as a crime scene on June 20.

LGBT gun group the Pink Pistols of people have to die for our lives bills in succession. Our LGBT dead Poma founded the club 12 years ago doubled their membership within to have meaning for straight media? re-opened the discourse on gun to honor her brother, who died of 48 hours of the Orlando shootings, For the past year we’ve been batcontrol, leading to a filibuster in AIDS, but told ABC that the club and featured a white lesbian who tling life-threatening illness. Televithe Senate on June 14 and a sit-in was “vital” to the community, and lives in the South who said she felt sion has taken on a special meaning at the House June 23, where a vote so would be reopened, as much for safer, post-Orlando, with the Glock for us in that time. We watch TV in on gun control legislation was the victims as for the community. she bought incredibly easily at a the hospital. We watch TV at home. demanded. These events meant And now back to your regular progun show. Nightline quoted Mike TV takes us to the places we can no LGBT people mattered, if not to gramming. Stay tuned.t Smith, a firearms instructor closely

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DVD>>

June 30-July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 21

Remembering Vito Russo

by David Lamble

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keep my copy of Vito, HBO’s comprehensive, moving biography of the late film historian/AIDS activist Vito Russo, tucked inside the jacket of The Celluloid Closet, the New Jersey-born scholar’s pioneering study of how the American film industry spent the better part of a century trying to convince the world that homosexuality didn’t exist – or if it did, it wasn’t a legitimate part of the vast human sexual continuum as plotted by such pioneering sexual behaviorists as Kinsey and Pomeroy.

This retrospective review of Vito comes five years after its 2011 broadcast and a quarter-century after Russo’s 1990 AIDS death.

Interspersed throughout are several public statements by Russo on the fear and loathing of homosexuality by American medical, scientific and conservative religious establishments.

“The root of heterosexual fear of male homosexuality is in the fact that anyone might be gay. Straight men aren’t threatened by a flamboyant faggot because they know they aren’t like that; they’re threatened

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Alan Cumming

From page 17

“When you camp it up, it’s a code that you don’t want people to know,” Cumming, who is openly bisexual, told the B.A.R., speaking by phone from the East Coast. “I don’t need to do that. I sing songs from the heart.

I don’t need to camp it up.”

On Thursday, June 30, at 8 p.m., Cumming brings his act to the stage of the Castro Theatre. He’ll be appearing to promote and sing songs from his new CD, Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs. The disc features a diverse array of tunes, everything from Billy Joel’s “Goodnight Saigon” to Miley Cyrus’ “The Climb.”

Openly gay songwriters such as Rufus Wainwright and Stephen Sondheim are also represented.

“These are songs I’ve wanted to sing for a long time,” Cumming said. “They’re songs I connect to in an emotional way. I hope I can bring something new to them.”

This is not the first time Cumming has been to the Castro. “It’s a beautiful theater,” he said. “It’s intimate and full of ghosts – the stage squeaks. I love the organ rising out of the pit at night.”

As a bisexual man, Cumming is well aware that people can be marginalized, even within the LGBT sphere. “I do feel that the B has been underrepresented,” he said. “Just as the T part has sometimes been thrown under the bus. My mind is a very active thing – I’ve always thought of myself as bisexual. A lot of people shut part of themselves

by a guy who’s just like they are who turns out to be queer.”

“No one ever asks what causes heterosexuality, because no one is interested in stopping it.”

“It is an old stereotype, that homosexuality has to do only with sex, while heterosexuality is multifaceted and embraces love.”

The 93-minute portrait of Russo is filled with perceptive and loving insights from an unusual array of family, friends and Vito’s second family, the growing network of ACT-UP-style activists. The young Russo, with youthful impetuosity, set off on a mission just after the Stonewall rebellion to watch every Western-produced film with queer content.

Like many early AIDS activists, Russo was infuriated by the glacial pace of AIDS treatments by the corporate drug industry. “If I’m dying from anything, it’s from indifference and red tape.”

“Any story dealing, however seriously, with homosexual love is taken to be a story about homosexuality, while stories dealing with heterosexual love are seen as stories about the individual people they portray. This is a problem for American filmmakers who cannot conceive of the presence of gay characters in a film unless the specific subject of the film is homosexuality. Lesbians and gay men are thereby classified as purely sexual creatures, defined solely by their sexual urges.”

One of the perplexing chapters in Russo’s activist career occurred in 1973, when NYC’s Stonewall march and rally was torn by decisions between newly emancipated gay men and the small army of transgender and lesbian activists angrily demanding their share of the spotlight. One’s heart goes out to Russo as he tries to referee the verbal fisticuffs between factions community. of the LGBTQ community.t

down – they shouldn’t. That’s very unhealthy.”

But he also noted the accepting nature of the younger generation, many of whom have stated their openness to the concept of sexual fluidity. “I’m very optimistic about the younger generation,” Cumming said.

He cautioned people not to be complacent if they want to keep the freedoms they’ve gained. “Donald Trump could become President and lunge this country into a dictatorship,” Cumming warned, noting that the dangers of a Trump Presidency play into the themes of Cabaret, a show he’s done twice. Set in Berlin in 1931, Cabaret follows a group of Berliners as the Weimar Era, a time of unprecedented sexual and artistic freedoms in Germany, was drawing to a close just as the horrors of the Third Reich were looming on the horizon.

“It’s an amazing part,” Cumming said of the Master of Ceremonies, his role in Cabaret. “There are very few really great musicals, and Cabaret is one of them. The message it gives is to embrace yourself and your friends, and to not be complacent about dangerous trends in society.”

When Cumming takes to the Castro stage, he’ll be joined by Lance Horne on piano, Eleanor Norton on cello, and Chris Jago on drums.t Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs, Thurs., June 30, 8 p.m.

Castro Theatre. Tickets ($35$150): brownpapertickets.com/ event/2538399

I am the future of the LGBT community.

I was married to a wonderful woman for 30 years. Now it’s time to be who I really am. Now I’m happy, authentic, and dating a wonderful man. I read EDGE on all my devices, because I have a whole future to look forward to - and that’s where I want it to be.

The person depicted here is a model.

Their image is being used for illustrative purposes only.

<< Out&About

Out &About

O&A

22 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30-July 6, 2016

For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday @ Berkeley Rep

SF Hiking Club @ Purisima Creek

Kathleen Chalfant stars in Sarah Ruhl’s drama about a family facing a father’s death and reconnecting to childhood dreams. $29-$61. Tue, ThuSat 8pm. Wed & Sun 7pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru July 3. 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

Join GLBT hikers for a 10-mile hike at Purisima Creek Redwoods. Carpool meets 9:00 at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. 845-4940. www.sfhiking.com

New & Classic Films @ Castro Theatre

Thu 30 Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition @ Contemporary Jewish Museum

Firewerk it

by Jim Provenzano

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elebrating our country’s history after a big queer history lesson/ celebration may be a bit exhausting, but give it a try. For more events, visit us online at www.ebar.com. For nightlife events, check out On the Tab in BARtab.

Thu 30 Alan Cumming @ Castro Theatre

The Tony-winning performer brings his Sappy Songs concert to the heart of the Castro. $35-$150. 8pm. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

Cabaret @ Golden Gate Theatre Randy Harrison stars in the Tonywinning revival touring production of Kander, Ebb and Masteroff’s classic musical set in a pre-Nazi Berlin nightclub, and based on Christopher Isherwood’s stories. $40 rush; $65$212. Tue-Sat 8pm. Wed, Fri & Sat 2pm. Thru July 17. www.shnsf.com

César L. Baquerizo @ Books Inc. Opera Plaza The gay author of A Safe Place for You, about South American antigay conversion camps, reads from and discusses his book. 7pm. 601 Van Ness Ave. www.cesarluisbaquerizo. wordpress.com www.booksinc.net

Colors of the Tenderloin @ Tenderloin Museum Opening reception for an exhibit of photography by Darwin Bell. 6:30pm9pm. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm, $6-$10 ($15 includes walking tour).

398 Eddy St. 351-1912. www.tenderloinmuseum.org

Kate Kendall, Jennifer Pizer @ Laurel Bookstore, Oakland The two marriage rights activists discuss the book, Love Unites Us: Winning the Freedom to Marry. 7pm.

1423 Broadway, Oakland. www.laurelbookstore.com

Lightning in the Brain @ The Marsh Corey Fischer (cofounder of the traveling Jewish Theatre) performs his new musictheater work full of tales from his long life of Hollywood, Paris and roaming through America. $20-$100. Thu 8pm, Sat 5pm. 1062 Valencia St. Thru July 9. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Literary Speakeasy @ Martuni’s One-year anniversary of the monthly reading and cocktails series, with host/poet James J Siegel, authors Peter Bullen, Ginger Murray, Anna Pulley and Jim Provenzano, and musician Jeff Desira.

No cover, raffle tickets for a prize. 7pm. 4 Valencia St. www.facebook.com/ events/1183245538355399/

Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition @ Contemporary Jewish Museum Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition, a new multimedia exhibit about the prolific filmmaker (thru Oct. 30). Other exhibits about Jewish culture include In That Case: Havruta in Contemporary Art—Jenny Odell and Philip Buscemi, thru Jul 5; Lamp of the Covenant: Dave Lane and Pour Crever by Trimpin, Hardly Strictly Warren Hellman, ongoing. Lectures and gallery talks as well. Free (members)-$12. Fri-Tue 11am-5pm, Thu 11am-8pm (closed Wed). 736 Mission St. 655-7800. www.thecjm.org

The Village Bike @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley Shotgun Players’ controversial new production of Penelope Skinner’s drama about intimacy and connections. $23-$35. Wed-Sun Thru July 3, then in repertory with Hamlet.

1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. www.shotgunplayers.org

Fri 1

Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi The musical comedy revue celebrates its 40th year with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs; now with new characters like Sia and Bernie Sanders. $25-$160. Beer/wine served; cash only; 21+, except where noted.

Wed-Fri 8pm. Sat 6pm & 9pm. Sun 2pm & 5pm. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd. (Green St.). 421-4222. www.beachblanketbabylon.com

Confessions of a Catholic Child @ Exit Theatre Elizabeth Appell’s comic play about a woman indulging in stories about her youth and life as a Catholic. $15-$30.

Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru July 9.

156 Eddy St. www.theexit.org

Thu 30 Cabaret @ Golden Gate Theatre

July 1 & 3: West Side Story sing-along.

July 6: When We Were Kings and The Greatest. July 7: The Third Man and a newly restored print of The Fallen Idol. $11-$16. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

Sat 2

Approaching American Abstraction @ SF Museum of Modern Art See the restaged installations and new exhibits of Pop, Abstract and classic Modern art at the renovated and visually amazing museum, with two extra floors, a new additional Howard Street entrance, café and outdoor gardens. Free-$25. 10am8pm. 151 Third St. www.sfmoma.org

Butch: Portraits by Meg Allen @ Glamarama Allen’s exhibit of photo portraits of masculine lesbians. 304 Valencia St. Thru July 3. www.megallenstudio.com www.glamarama.com

The Grace Jones Project, Dandy Lion @ MOAD Dual exhibitions of video, performance and artwork about the iconic singer and queer identity; and Dandy Lion: (Re)Articulating Black Masculine Identity. Free-$10. Both thru Sept. 18. Wed-Sat 11am-6pm.

Sun 12pm-5pm. 685 Mission St. at 3rd. www.moadsf.org

Strandbeest: The Dream Machines of Theo Jansen @ Exploratorium New exhibit of the amazing walking sculptures that resemble giant insectlike creatures. Thru Sept. 5. Free-$25.

Pier 15 at Embarcadero. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm (Thu night 6pm-10pm, 18+). 528-4893. www.exploratorium. edu/strandbeest

Sun 3

Arts Festival @ Yerba Buena Gardens Weekend outdoor concerts of music, dance, poetry and more, thru October. July 3, 1pm: San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band performs Independence Day classics and Broadway hits. Mission St. at 4th. www.ybgfestival.org

Live in the Castro @ Jane Warner Plaza The outdoor performance series returns, with varied acts each weekend. July 3: Man Dance Company, 1pm. Castro St. at Market. www.castrocbd.org

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with historian and author Marc Stein.

Also, Dancers We Lost: Honoring Performers Lost to HIV/AIDS, an exhibit of photos and ephemera, curated by Glenne McElhinney, about Bay Area dancers who died of AIDS. Thru Aug. 7. Also, Feminists to Feministas: Women of Color in Prints and Posters, a new exhibit of illustrations depicting LBT women of color from the 1970s to today. Thru July 4. $5. 4127 18th St. www.dancerswelost.org/exhibit/ www.glbthistory.org

Will Durst @ The Marsh The political comic’s updated solo show, Elect to Laugh: 2016, adds topical jokes about the bizarre election season. $15-$100. Tuesdays, 8pm. Extended thru July 26. 1062 Valencia St. www.themarsh.org

Wed 6

John Leguizamo: Latin History for Morons @ Berkeley Rep The award-winning comic, stage, TV and film actor performs his solo show about trying to teach his son about Latin history, with satirical takes on the Civil War, Aztec and Incan history. $35-$60. 8pm. Tue-Fri & Sun 8pm.

Sat 7pm & 10pm. Also Sun 2pm. Thru Aug. 14. 2025 Addison St., Berkeley. www.berkeleyrep.org

Low Hanging Fruit @ Z Below

Oakland Symphony @ Craneway Pavilion, Richmond Independence Day concerts of Sousa and other classics, with Richmond fireworks display over the nearby bay.

Free. 8pm. 1414 Harbour Way South. www.oaklandsymphony.org www.craneway.com

3Girls Theatre Company’s production of Robin Bradford’s drama about four homeless women military veterans struggling to survive in LA. $20-$35. Thu-Sart 8pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru July 30. 470 Florida St. www.3girlstheatre.org

Thu 7

LGBT Chronicled: 1933-2016 @ Harvey Milk Photo Center

Flower Piano @ SF Botanical Garden

Group exhibit of photos documenting Bay Area LGBT lives. Tue-Wed 4pm8pm. Thu 1pm-9pm. Sat & Sun 12pm5pm. Thru July 7. 50 Scott St. www.harveymilkphotocenter.org

Opera @ AT&T Ballpark Watch a live simulcast of the new sexy SF Opera production of Bizet’s Carmen at the baseball park. Free. 7:30pm.

Embarcadero at Willie Mays Drive. www.sfopera.com

Present Laughter @ Eureka Theatre Theatre Rhinoceros’ production of Noël Coward’s comedy of a man with a boyfriend and girlfriend vying for his attention. $10-$15. Wed-Sat 8pm.

Sat 3pm. Extended thru July 2. 215 Jackson St. at Battery. (800) 8383006. www.therhino.org

Schooled @ Various Venues San Francisco Mime Troupe’s new satirical political musical comedy takes on collapsing educational system and corporate intervention.

Free/donations. July 2 & 3 at Cedar Rose Park, Berkeley. July 4 at Dolores Park. 2pm shows. Bring picnics, blankets, etc. Thru Sept. 5 thorughout the Bay Area. www.sfmt.org

Mon 4

Color of Life @ California Academy of Sciences Exhibits and planetarium shows with various live, interactive and installed exhibits about animals, plants and the earth; new exhibit focuses on vibrantly colored species of octopus, snake fish and other live creatures. $20-$35. Mon-Sat 9:30am-5pm. Sun 11am-5pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

Queerest Library Ever @ SF Public Libraries Hormel at 20: Celebrating Our Past/ Creating Our Future, a dual exhibit of archival materials celebrating the two decades of the LGBTQ collections.

Thru Aug 7. 100 Larkin St., 3rd floor, and at the Eureka Valley Branch, 1 Jose Sarria Court at 16th St. www.sfpl.org

Tue 5

SPF9 @ ODC Theater SAFEhouse Arts 9th annual dance and performance festival features works by 17 solo and ensemble groups, including producer Joe Landini’s dancewalking tour of SoMa, Alma Esperanza Cunningham Movement, Alyce Finwall Dance Theater, Brannigan/Eisen, Joann Selisker, Amy Lewis, Joslynn Mathis Reed and several others. $10-$20.

Wed-Fri shows at 7pm, 8pm & 9pm.

Sat & Sun, 2pm to 9pm shows. Thru July 10. 3153 17th St. 863-9834. www.odcdance.org

Thu 7

Flower Piano @ SF Botanical Garden Enjoy dozens of impromptu outdoor piano-playing entertainments, from Classical, jazz and modern professionals to students and amateurs, in a 12-day installation at multiple areas of the beautiful garden; Saturday & Sundays have the most performers. Thru July 18. www.sunsetpiano.com/flowerpiano

Rhino in the Castro @ GLBT History Museum

Postscripts to Revolution @ Southern Exposure

The first new monthly staged reading

by Theatre Rhinoceros; Swollen Tongues by Kathleen Oliver. 7pm.

Also, July 7, 7pm: Philadelphia Freedom: Gay Patriots, Protesters & Profiteers at the Bicentennial, a talk

Works by Morehshin Allahyari, Jeffrey Skoller, Slinko, and Ehren Too explore the visual connection between war, revolution and radical change. Tue-Sat 12pm-6pm. Thru July 2. 3030 20th St. www.soex.org

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Music>>

June 30-July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 23

Solos & sides

by Gregg Shapiro

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efore she was Anohni, she was the androgynous Antony Hegarty of the celebrated chamber cabaret act Antony and the Johnsons. As if to make the transition complete, with the exception of Anohni’s unique vocal style, very little on her solo debut album Hopelessness (Secretly Canadian) bears any resemblance to what came before. The focus here is on electronics and experimentation, which in a way softens the blow of the some of the subject matter, in “4 Degrees” (climate change), “Drone Bomb Me” (warfare), “Watch Me” (sexual abuse), “Execution” (threats from abroad), “Obama” (political dissatisfaction), and so on. Not quite as visceral as Transgender Dysphoria Blues by Against Me! led by trans musician Laura Jane Grace, Hopelessness is nevertheless an inspiring new chapter in Anohni’s story.

Much occurred between the release of Gwen Stefani’s second solo album and her new one This Is What the Truth Feels Like (Interscope). Stefani ended one relationship and started another.

She regrouped with her No Doubt bandmates and released an album, and became a TV personality. The dozen songs on Truth, co-written with gay songwriter Justin Tranter and his songwriting partner Julia Michaels and others, sound like she’s trying to bring us up-to-date.

After everything she’s been through, it’s not surprising that the disc is something of a downer. Misery loves company, so anyone who’s experienced heartbreak will find something to relate to in “Truth” and “Used To Love You.” The bubbly “Make Me Like You” is the only song that sounds like the kind of hit we’re used to from Gwen.

Often mythologized as the “godfather of punk,” Iggy Pop has been making music for more than 50 years, as a member of psychedelic rock band The Stooges as well as being a solo artist. On Post Pop Depression (Loma Vista), his 17th solo album, Pop’s joined by what amounts to a band, led by Josh Homme and Dean Fertitia of Queens of the Stone Age and Matt Helders of Arctic Monkeys. More new wave than punk (like his late-70s albums with the recently departed David Bowie), “Gardenia,” “American Valhalla,” “Chocolate Drops” and “German Days” rank among Pop’s best, most memorable work.

You might recognize Kristin Kontrol (aka Kristin Welchez), who also goes by Dee Dee, as the lead singer of the Dum Dum Girls. Her solo debut X-Communicate (Sub Pop) is an accessible set of 80s new wave-inspired electro-pop. A few of the songs, including “Skin Shed,” are custom-made for club play. “XCommunicate” has Tea Dance diva written all over it. Others, such as “(Don’t) Wannabe,” “Going Thru the Motions” and “Drive the Night,” do a sensational job of inspiring nostalgia, whether you remember the 1980s or not.

Possessing too much talent and energy to be contained in Squirrel Nut Zippers or his band Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire, Andrew Bird has stuck to being his own man for most of the 21st century. Are You Serious (Loma Vista), Bird’s latest solo flight, has the string play we expect from him and his violin, as well as his trademark whistling. There is an increasing accessibility and commercial energy at work that comes through on “Puma” and “Roma Fade.” “Bellevue” is a deceptively simple love song, and Bird’s duet with Fiona Apple on “Left Handed Kisses” shouldn’t be missed.

Not surprisingly, Clairy Browne (of Clairy Browne and the Bangin’

Rackettes) has stepped out on her own in sky-high heels for her solo debut Pool (Vanguard). Browne, who sang a duet with RuPaul on his track “Born Naked,” sounds poised to cash in on the Adele and Andra Day followers who want something just a little sassier. She serves it up hot, fresh and wet on “Love Song

to the World,” “Califalling for You,” “Birthday Suit” and the dance track “With You.” Dive in, y’all!

Zayn (Malik) of One Direction didn’t do too badly for himself on Mind of Mine (RCA), his solo debut. The first single, “Pillowtalk,” was a certifiable hit. If Zayn wants to put the One Direction chapter of

his career behind him, he’s headed in the right direction. A more sophisticated album than one might expect from a former member of 1D, songs “Befour,” “Rear View” and “Lucozade” bode well for his future.

Love Letter for Fire (Sub Pop) is a lovely collaboration by Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop. A

folky affair that works to the benefit of both, with Beam and Hoop’s voices complementing each other.

Beam grounds Hoop on “Soft Place To Land,” “We Two Are the Moon” and “Bright Lights and Goodbyes.”

Hoop gets Beam to cut loose in “Chalk It Up to Chi” and “Midas Tongue.”t

Tickets are available at LiveNation.com and select Walmart locations. To charge by phone (800) 745-3000. Limit 8 tickets per person. All dates, acts and ticket prices are subject to change without notice. All tickets are subject to applicable service charges.

<< DVD

24 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30-July 6, 2016

Marginalized no more

by Brian Bromberger

who has cerebral palsy, was asked what gift she wanted for her 40th birthday, she replied sex. This comment inspired Bose to write Margarita and tackle the thorny issue of differently-abled people and sexuality. People view differently-abled people as sexless, but that’s not the case with Laila, who in the beginning scenes masturbates to online porn sites. Independent and fearless with a supportive family, Laila attends Delhi University and has a playful, kissy relationship with Dhruv, also in a wheelchair, though she dumps him as he scornfully rebukes her, “Being friends with normal people isn’t going to make you normal.” But her real love is the charismatic lead singer Nima in the rock band Tribes, for whom Laila writes lyrics. When they win a DJ music contest (because the judge wants to reward Laila’s disability), Laila reveals her true feelings to Nima, but he politely rejects her.

Crushed, Laila opts to study creative writing at NYU on a full scholarship, accompanied by her bossy but loving mother (Revathy) to help her settle in. She is assigned a handsome English boy, Jared (William Moseley), to be her study partner, and to whom she is attracted. But while attending a demonstration opposing racist cops, she meets Khanum (Sayani Gupta), a visually impaired, halfPakistani, half-Bangladeshi student.

They become friends and sightsee New York together. In an erotic incident at the Metropolitan Museum

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he epigraph concluding the film Margarita with a Straw, just released on DVD by Wolfe Video, is a quote from the 13thcentury Sufi poet Rumi: “The wound is the place where the light enters you.” But in a telling postscript the Indian writer/ director Shonali Bose adds: If you let it. Certainly no one can say Margarita is not without light emanating from its spunky central character seeking to find love and fulfillment like anyone else, despite being marginalized as “handicapped.”

This effervescent film deservedly won last year’s Frameline audience award for best feature, with its script capturing the Sundance Institute’s Screenwriters Lab prize. Regrettably, the film never found a major distributor, otherwise Bollywood star Kalki Koechlin would probably have netted an Oscar nomination as Laila, the 21-year-old cerebral palsy-affected, wheelchair-bound artist trying to discover her place in the world and not be defined by her physical limits. Viewers aren’t aware that Koechlin is an able-bodied actress until they see the featurettes that come with the DVD. Her performance is so naturalistic that because of her slurred speech her English dialogue requires subtitles.

When Bose’s cousin Malini,

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of Art, Khanum runs her fingers over Laila’s face and declares her beautiful. Khanum convinces Laila to order her first drink, a margarita with a straw. Laila becomes lovers with the feisty Khanum, and they move in together. Khanum wants Laila to come out to her mother, but she is resistant. In a further sign of independence, Laila sells her grandmother’s gold chain necklace and buys an iPad with a voice function. During a study session where Jared is helping Laila undress, they have sex together. Laila realizes she is bisexual but accepts her mother’s invitation for Khanum and her to return to India for the winter break.

Will Laila come out to her family and reveal her attraction to men to Khanum? How will a family health crisis affect Laila’s relationship with Khanum?

The theme of the movie is acceptance of your disability, sexuality, and yourself. The straw is a metaphor that Laila intends to participate fully in life, but on her terms.

She doesn’t need anyone’s pity because she is too busy taking control of her life. Bose is not afraid to show Laila’s flaws, such as when she cheats on Khanum. Laila is blunt in her assessment of others and can be rebellious, but she is fearless and refuses to live with secrets any longer. Laila never plays the victim card. We can thank both Bose and Koechlin for the opportunity to accompany them on this exhilarating adventure.t

Underground Thai cinema

by Tim Pfaff

Y

ou couldn’t see Cemetery of Splendor in Thailand, so good for Strand for releasing it on DVD for the rest of the world. The most recent full-length feature by out Thai independent filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Cemetery was made in the full knowledge that it would never be screened commercially, or even publically, in a country now run by an increasingly authoritarian military junta that staged a coup in 2014. The film has the subtle, coded political message you’d expect under the circumstances – and an unmistakable sadness, even weariness, the kind usually associated with a farewell.

Only the country stands to lose its single most important artist in any genre and, to the horror of the national film industry and the censors, the one with the highest stature internationally. The loudmouth new nationalism endlessly extolls the virtues of “Thainess,” while few other Thais show such a keen, personal love of the country as does Apichatpong.

His films have been visual odes to his native Isaan, Thailand’s agricultural if ever-less-rural Northeast, but none is quite so heartbreakingly so as Cemeteries, whose far less opaque Thai title translates to Love in Khon Kaen, the filmmaker’s hometown. You watch in vain for a love story in the usual sense in this hypnotic film; only afterwards do you feel the impact of the director’s fierce love for the place.

He’s never depicted the Tourist Authority’s Thailand – surely enough others have – but there has been, until Cemetery, a kind of crescendo of beauty in Apichatpong’s films, peaking in the visionary landscapes of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall his Past Lives, where external verities and internal ecstasies meld like the words and music of a gripping song. By contrast there’s flatness, literal and otherwise, in

the topography of Cemetery, where in the few occasions we see the land – cityscape, not countryside – it is, like so much of the present-day Land of Smiles, literally being bulldozed in the name of development.

Not for the first time for Apichatpong, there’s a film within the film in Cemetery, as the ambulatory characters in the story head out to see The Iron Coffin Killer. If you have not been to a movie in Thailand, any and every movie in Thailand, you would likely not know that, before each screening, the audience is asked to, and unfailingly does, rise for the King’s Song (not the National Anthem, as has been reported). Here the audience stands and the screen is blank and silent for the usual minute, the impact of which would be overwhelming for Thai audiences, who in any case won’t see it.

The central narrative, such as there is one, unfolds in an improvised hospital, in a converted school building, in which a dozen or so Thai soldiers lie in a long, deep, mysterious sleep, victims of a sickness from which bona fide representatives of the spirit world soon predict they will never recover. As though the image were not stark enough, it also comes out that the digging outside has revealed that the school was built on the site of former, perhaps ongoing, battles between old monarchies. “The spirits of the dead kings siphon the soldiers’ energy,” soothsaying apparitions explain.

The conceit is not hard to unpack.

The enormous tenderness of the nurses and villagers for the narcoleptic soldiers is palpable, and the snoozing warriors slowly come into focus as individuals, at least two of them – soldier Keng (Jarinpattra Ruengram), who awakens briefly to share a dream with Jenjira, and countryboy Teng (Apichatpong muse Sakda Kaewbuadee), the boys

from Tropical Malady – members of the Apichatpong family of recurring characters. In a moment of what foreigners call Thai “earthiness” but is something both deeper and sillier than that, the women caregivers giggle at the fact that one of the dozing soldiers, while being addressed by a pretty young fortune-teller, gets a tented, under-the-covers erection, which they poke affectionately.

At the center of the network of the film’s stories is Apichatpong regular Jenjira Pongpas, the film’s radiant softspoken, club-footed, deeply grounded if freefloating mater familias, the mother we all wish we had. She plays Jenjira Pongpas Widner, wife (the Thai word “fan” the same for either wife or girlfriend) of the American expat Richard, whom we see only in her fond, forgiving eyes and stories.

(The other girls alternately feel envious of and sorry for her.) Reflecting on her previous husband, a Navy man she feared, she quietly muses, “I see now that at the heart of the kingdom there is nothing.”

The women are everything in Cemetery, two of them appearing as “Lao princesses,” gentle but visible ghosts (not at all make-believe characters in Lao-Isaan culture) who give Jenjira a start and also clue her in on what’s happening in the past and is happening underground.

Another is a former nurse visiting the hospital staff to hawk the Thai dream, a product of her own creation and manufacture, a hand cream that turns out to be remarkably like cum, an embarrassment to all but the uniformed saleswoman.

There’s a classic Apichatpong outdoor walk-around, including stops at an open pavilion and a deserted “palace.” But the lasting image is of a pair of skeletons embracing on the limbs of a tree. As usual, there’s no music in the film other than some songs the characters also hear, and desolate nature sounds. Behind it all is a lament, a death rattle.t

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Film>>

June 30-July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 25

Zappa slings zingers

by David Lamble

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f I had my druthers, the power, and a small cinema needing a terrific film to justify its existence, I would book the new Frank Zappa bio-doc Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words into a 30-seater – say, one of the tiny theatres at Opera Plaza – and just leave it there, making sure that as many young people, gay, straight, and everywhere along the Kinsey Scale, got to see it. It opens Friday.

Who the hell was Frank Zappa, anyway? For college radioheads of my generation, playing Zappa (1940-92) on your late-night DJ slot was a sign of cool, a badge of hipness. Looked at 24 years later, Zappa’s untimely death at 52 from prostate cancer robbed the world of a comic/musical genius who’d have a field day with today’s political landscape. Credit German docmaker Thorsten Schutte and his editor Willibald Wonneberger with performing a minor miracle in boiling down 37 years of smart Zappa one-liners and rock riffs into an entertaining and pertinent film that many savvy doc-lovers will catch more than once.

A nifty moment unfolds during

an early Zappa guest turn on a 1950s edition of the Steve Allen-hosted Tonight show. A clean-shaven, shorthaired Zappa shows Steve a cute trick with an upside-down bicycle. From this cheeky blackand-white TV caper, the filmmakers go to prime-time Zappa, complete with his large mane and sideburns.

There follows a barrage of Zappa quips designed to display their author’s disdain for the dumbingdown proclivities of America’s pop culture.

“Art is making something out of nothing, and selling it.”

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”

“You can’t always write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.”

“Music is always a commentary on society.”

“A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.”

“All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.”

Sony Pictures Classics

Scene from filmmaker Thorsten Schutte’s Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words.

“I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird.”

“There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life” “The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced. You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an

airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.”

“Without deviation, progress is not possible.”

“People will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people’s minds.”

“Without music to decorate it,

time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.”

“Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.”

“It isn’t necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.”

“The computer can’t tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical sign, but what’s missing is the eyebrows.”

“Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.”

“There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something, we’d all love one another.”

“No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style. Rock is to dress up to.”

Finally, this quote is both pithy and biting, pun intended: “Most people wouldn’t know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.”t

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<< Books

26 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30-July 6, 2016

Nothing like a Dame

by Tavo Amador

H

ollywood never lacked beautiful women to illuminate movie screens. Good actresses, those with half-a-dozen or more memorable performances to their credit, however, are comparatively rare. Great movie stars are even rarer. Still more unusual are women who combine all three attributes. Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) was one who did.

From childhood, she was acclaimed for her beauty. That beauty blossomed as she became an adult and grew as an actress. She earned two Best Actress Oscars and won a myriad of other prizes over a career that spanned nearly 60 years.

Her personal life – the marriages, divorces, gifts of jewelry from husbands like producer Mike Todd and actor Richard Burton – was frontpage news for decades. Her death received almost unprecedented media attention. She was the last legendary superstar produced by MGM, the greatest and most important studio during Hollywood’s classic era. Consequently, she was among the most written about and photographed women in history.

So is another book about her needed? Perhaps, but only if it reveals something new, something fresh, something original. Happily, photographer Firooz Zahedi’s My Elizabeth (Glitterati, $75) easily vaults those hurdles. It adds many exceptional images to the vast number that chronicled Taylor’s life. This sumptuous book documents their

35-year friendship. They capture her extraordinary beauty, but more importantly, reveal much about her personal life. Several are with her four children, her grandchildren, her mother, and her Maltese dog, Sugar. A very poignant one is with her lifetime friend, gay actor Roddy McDowell, whom she met in 1943 while filming Lassie Come Home.

There are shots of her Bel Air home that complement those that were shown in Architectural Digest.

Her professional career isn’t ignored. She’s caught putting on lipstick before filming a scene for A Little Night Music (1976); rehearsing with Joseph Bottoms for television’s Return Engagement (1978); and making her Tony-nominated Broadway debut in a revival of Lillian Helman’s The Little Foxes (1981).

Many photos show her tireless activism on behalf of AIDS, which was galvanized by the death from that disease of her close friend, gay superstar Rock Hudson. She’s seen with President Bill Clinton, First Lady Hillary Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea; and with other stars, like Sophia Loren and Ian McKellen.

Despite health problems, she traveled all over the world to raise money for and to increase understanding of AIDS. The book has shots of her in Venice, Amsterdam, Cannes, where she passionately used her celebrity to demand that attention be paid to this horrific illness and its victims. She was determined to humanize and help those

with the disease. She succeeded in ways that are still felt. Her brave, unflagging commitment to battling AIDS, and the ignorance and bigotry that initially came with it, earned her a third Oscar: the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, which she displayed alongside those she won for her performances in Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

(1966).

Among the most memorable photographs are those of the trip she took with Zahedi to his native Iran in 1976. She appears relaxed, enjoying the relative anonymity amidst the splendors of Persepolis, Shiraz, Tehran, and Isfahan. Some pictures show her dressed like a local, including one in a dazzlingly colorful costume. Others show her looking more like a tourist, taking photographs, awed by the majesty and history of the country and enthralled by its people. They are lighthearted, yet reveal her native intelligence, intellectual curiosity, and sense of humor.

Shots of her after surgery to remove a brain tumor – her gray hair cropped, not wearing much make-up – reveal a woman who ferociously loved life, determined to overcome whatever physical ailments plagued her.

The book includes an interview Zahedi conducted with her in London, while she was shooting A Little Night Music. She discusses the

FAMSF, museum purchase, American Art Trust Fund

Robert Bechtle, “Four Palm Trees” (1969), oil on canvas.

<<

Wild West

From page 17

is one of four such shows. Featuring local luminaries such as Carleton Watkins, Edward Weston, Tina Modotti, Ansel Adams, Minor White and Dorothea Lange, among many others, it charts the evolution of the Golden State’s landscape, from 1856 to 2014, and the myriad ways photographers have documented it and transformed wilderness spectacle into art. California: The Art of Water, focusing on artists’ portrayals of the physical beauty and human harnessing of a precious natural resource, opens in mid-July at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford.

The latest entry, Wild West: Plains to the Pacific, at the Legion of Honor, explores themes of mining,

agriculture and other forms of land use from the mid-19th century onward, the morphing mythology of the American West, notions of manifest destiny and issues of cultural and national identity, with an emphasis on California, especially the north, and San Francisco. If the thesis sounds overly broad, that’s no accident; it’s a construct designed to mine the FAMSF’s extensive permanent collection and the 100,000 works on paper from the archive of the unjustly underappreciated Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts. Organized into categories examining cowboy stereotypes, the National Parks (note an early watercolor by a 22-year-old David Park), the wages of progress and other topics, the show’s true raison d’etre is the unearthing and display

of 175 paintings, photographs and prints that would otherwise remain in storage or out of the spotlight.

The best approach is to cherry pick. While this may not be the most consequential of exhibitions, there’s plenty to choose from, with an eclectic roster of artists, such as Albert Bierstadt, Maynard Dixon, Robert Adams, Richard Bechtle, David Hockney, Wayne Thiebaud, and Ed Ruscha, whose western imagery forms the backbone of Ed Ruscha and the Great American West, a complementary show coming up at the de Young next month.

Dating from the Gold Rush, the works in Wild West are sometimes juxtaposed, not particularly successfully, with contemporary ones.

But who can quibble with the idyllic-bordering-on-biblical portrait

process of making movies, which she often found “boring.” “But acting I think is fun. It’s not my whole life. It’s not my entire being.

It’s secondary to my life. My life is primary.” Hence, when good parts became scarce, she didn’t turn into Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond, deluding herself that a huge public eagerly awaited her return to the screen. She was a very self-aware woman, who somehow managed a very public/private life with humor and resiliency.

She discusses her relationship with gay designer Halston, praising his gifts. “But more important than clothes, more important than anything in any human being, is the man. He’s a rare man. And I value his friendship enormously.”

t

Despite a lifetime of winning awards, Taylor remained thrilled by honors. Zahedi recounts her telephoning him late in 1999, “I also want you to be the first to know that I’ve been made a ‘Dame’ by the Queen. A Dame! Isn’t that simply marvelous?” With characteristic humor, Taylor frequently referred to herself as a “broad,” so being a “dame” in the American sense seemed appropriate.

The book features a perceptive preface by gossip columnist Liz Smith, who knew Taylor well, and a foreword by writer Bob Colacello.

My Elizabeth opens with a letter from Taylor dated August 11, 2006, summarizing her pleasure at the publication of this volume, which took 10 years. She praises Zahedi. “Just to show you how really wonderful he is, all the monies he might make from this book will go directly to ETAF [the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation]. This means that all the money we make goes directly to the patient because I take care of all the overhead. No secretaries’ salaries, no empty pockets. It all goes to our beloved friends who need the help. For that I really love him and thank him.”

Her confidence in Zahedi was justified. He has honored their friendship and shown readers yet another facet of an exceptional woman. For that, a great many people will thank him.t

of a traditional subject and a subtle of a lush green Sacramento River yet powerful indictment of the Valley in the German-born painter disparity between the reality of Albert Bierstadt’s bucolic landNative American lives and white scape “California Spring” (1875), myth. Scholder was a descendant where billowing storm clouds part of the Luiseno tribe of Southern to allow rays of sunlight to shine California. down on majestic oaks and grazBut for my money, a day with a ing cows? An apparent advertisework by Wayne Thiebaud is better ment for settlement, painted in than a day without, and there are two the artist’s studio, it leaves out the here: “Ponds and Streams (2001), a blast furnace heat, the region’s procolorful acrylic in which he turns pensity for flooding and drought, a rural California agriculture grid or that it was once home to Nainto a vibrant abstract composition; tive Americans forced to scatter and an etching where he does his to the hinterlands. The painting magic with a precipitous “Freeway hangs next to Emmi Whitehorse’s Curve” (1975). One is slain by noscrayon color wash “Nature Makes talgia glimpsing the less congested a Leap V” (1993), an abstraction San Francisco of Arthur Tress’ black seen through a purplish-gray haze & white photographs of people on that meditates on the Navajo phihorseback, riding along the breakers losophy of nature and harmony. If at a deserted Ocean Beach in 1964; there’s a conversation or connecand in Joachim Ferdinand Richtion between this landscape and ardt’s romantic oil painting “Golden the Bierstadt, it’s a tenuous one.

Gate Moonlight” (1875), where On an adjacent wall, a quartet of moon glow reflects on a bay opentall, lonely transplants, abandoned ing to the Pacific before a splendid near a dusty freeway off-ramp in bridge came to define it.t Dixon, endure their ignominious fate, lining the front of a tacky strip mall in San Francisco photorealThrough Sept. 11. Info: ist painter Richard Bechtle’s “Four legionofhonor.famsf.org.

Palm Trees” (1969). In a different section, Bechtle’s emotive lithograph “Hoover Man (Man with Vacuum Cleaner)” (1966) depicts the seedy, downtrodden underside of Norman Rockwell’s America. The poignant image, inspired by the artist’s father, who fell on hard times during the Depression, shows a weary, shabby older cowboy in a doorway, peddling a modern convenience.

The ride-em cowboy of popculture fantasy was alive and well, though, in Frederic Remington’s “The Bronco Buster.”

The first cowboy equestrian sculpture, the 1895 bronze of a rider, one arm punching the air, thighs gripping the flanks of a horse rearing back on its hind legs, is positively kinetic.

FAMSF, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts Fritz Scholder’s portrait “Blind Medicine Man” (1974) is a Chiura Obata, “Setting Sun on stirring counterpoint. Worlds Sacramento Valley, California” (1930), away in tone and era, it’s both a color woodcut. contemporary deconstruction

32

33

Bye-bye, Beatbox

35

On the Tab

Shining Stars Vol. 46 • No. 26 • June 30 - July 6, 2016

www.ebar.com ✶ www.bartabsf.com

Diana Ross

The music icon returns S

Georg Lester

Diana Ross performing in 2015.

inger, actress and pop diva Diana Ross returns to the Bay Area for four concerts, including her return to the Orpheum Theatre on July 12.

See page 28 >>

Steve Jennings

by BARtab staff

Juanita More!, resplendent in a Monarch butterfly Mr. David gown, at her annual Pride party at Jones, where 49 live matching butterflies were released as a tribute to the Orlando shooting victims.

Pride Whirlwind

by Donna Sachet

O

ur Pride Week began quietly on Monday with a book-reading at Blush, the intimate wine bar in the Castro.

See page 30 >>

{ THIRD OF THREE SECTIONS }

@LGBTSF

SOCIAL-MEDIA-STRIP.indd 1

@eBARnews

6/28/16 2:45 PM

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

28 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30 - July 6, 2016

<<

Diana Ross

From page 27

A music sensation since her early days in the 1960s as the lead singer for The Supremes, Miss Ross continued to perform for decades with a series of chart-topping solo hits.

Ross’ publicist shared some previously published excerpts from rare recent interviews with the star.

Q: When you’re at home are you able to go out in public and do “regular people things” like taking your grandchildren to the park, or does going out in public generally involve drivers and bodyguards?

Diana Ross: I love being Mom and Grandma and doing all the grandma things. Yes, I go to the park and read books to my grandchildren. When I’m traveling and I actually love to text them or ‘FaceTime’ which keeps us very close as a family. I love my iPhone! Now that all my children have their own lives, careers and professions I look forward to the special family moments together including holidays and birthdays.

You have five adult children who all have successful careers take up a lot of time. Small children take up a lot of time. How do you all stay in touch? Do you schedule time for smart phone calls or video chats, or does it just happen?

DR: We are a very close family and that all seems to happen naturally. My son will call me when he’s got a good news and wants to talk about something or needs advice.

We just stay in touch. We really love each other.

Steve Jennings

Diana Ross performing in 2015.

When you were doing that mega-concert in Central Park in 1983, when that torrential rainstorm happened, were you ever concerned that you might be electrocuted?

t

I’ve had many incredible wonderful moments in my life and my career. Central Park was one of those very special memorable moments.

Do you think a lot of the young entertainers of the current twentysomething generation would benefit from the type of social skills lessons that Motown gave its artists in the 60s.

Maybe, but I’m not sure, it’s a different time and different energy is needed for performances today. I always say, just have fun with your performance and that happiness will always connect. I think it is important to practice. Focus is important. But always have fun with it.

What makes a song a “Diana Ross song” – that is, a song that catches your interest?

I like songs about love. I have a lot of love songs in my repertoire. I love songs with a nice catchy melody Steve Jennings that stays with you. The songs from the Motown Diana Ross performing in 2015. era were all written with an almost spiritual vibe.

They have very catchy lyrI am hoping that every one of my ics. I think that through music the performances feels like a celebraharmony and joy connects with the tion. The reason why touring is behearts of the listeners. cause, it’s exciting. Touring to me is like, each place, even though I might Can you mention the recent be returning, it feels brand new. And work of your talented children? it’s like a new adventure. I tour beMy son Evan Ross has a song that cause I enjoy it and I am having fun. is on iTunes titled, “How To live I love to sing. I love performing Alone.” My daughter Tracee is starbefore an audience and entertainring in an incredible television seing, it makes me feel good, and I ries, Blackish. My daughter Rhonda do hope that the audience shares in Ross is doing live jazz performances that feel good feeling. I have a wonall around the U.S., and she is also derful backing band, rhythm secon YouTube. My son Ross has opened tion, horns and singers and we just up an beautiful club/ lounge in Los have a good time on stage we really Angeles called, Warwick. My daughhave fun. ter Chudney has a children’s book My band and I have been tostore in Santa Monica, California gether for a very long time. We’re called Books and Cookies. They’re like family. We enjoy each others all pursuing their dreams and desires company and it really is like play, and we support each other 100%. we have fun! We have a joyful time performing.

You’ve performed with the greatest musicians of your I’m told you do a lot of work to generation, from Marvin Gaye to develop each concert program.

Michael Jackson. You’re one of the When I am performing, I wear few still going strong. Where have many different hats. What I mean you found the strength over the by that is, I am the producer, the years to avoid pitfalls? What perorganizer, I am also the parent or sonal qualities do you attribute mother on the road because I care your longevity to? about everyone. I want to make sure I really do love what I do. I love they are all well. I try to take care of music. I love the interaction with them. The mothering part of me the audience. I love the energy that becomes very much a part of the I feel on stage. actual touring.

I also have made really good Do you have a philosophy that friends that everyone that I travel guides your life? with. My keyboard player has been Love and Joy. with me the longest and my drummer and bass player are really the In an interview with Oprah backbone of the entire band. They Winfrey, you mentioned you are like the heartbeat, they keep us might retire only when you feel filled with love and enjoying the your voice isn’t holding up well. Is whole process. it fair to say you have no plans on I am involved in the selection of retiring any time soon? music, of course my costumes, the I’m sure I’ll know when it’s time lighting and setting and really the to taper off. But now is maybe even interaction between me and the aumore exciting than it ever was, bedience, my unit, my band and the cause I’m older and I appreciate evaudience. erything so very much.

I have always been interested in the precision of the work, the ‘harWhat are some words of mony’ of what we do, it has to all wisdom/advice for the younger work together. It’s like a piece of generations rising up right now music in a sense, it’s harmonious. in the music industry? Or is the We are all very professional. Everymusic scene these days just too one is always on time, always, doing much of a different animal? their best to present the best to the Write songs from your heart. Peraudience, which I feel we always do. form with joy. Appreciate your life and this gift. Stay true to yourself. Be Do you prefer the more intia good and generous person. Love mate settings, like your upcomyour Mom and Dad. ing Napa concert, or the bigger venues?

Your concerts get a lot of It doesn’t matter to me if I am in a advance excitement from fans. Do stadium with thousands of people or you still like touring? in a much smaller venue. My interac-

t

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June 30 - July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 29

Steve Jennings

Diana Ross performing in 2015.

tion is with the audience on a one to one. I always try to see their faces and their eyes! I perform and sing to them.

It’s that harmonious vibration, good energy, that flows back and forth between the audience and myself and the band and the music.

It’s a wonderful thing about music.

Music is like love. It feels good. It’s about sharing. It’s very special. Music is like the heartbeat of our world.

Every time I do music from the early days or now, it’s the song itself or the music itself has melody and it resonates with the all audiences. And when I am performing it, they become like a brand new song.

What inspires you to keep performing?

I do what I do, number one, because I love it. Ever since I was a girl I always loved to sing and perform.

To me fame is not a career. You do the work you do, by the way I can almost not call it work, you do what you do because you love it.

Most musicians are all the same as this, they are not doing what they do to become “famous.” Fame is not a career. Your career is to share your God-given gift. And that is the thing that makes you happy. We get a chance to perform our passion, to do the thing that we love.

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Do you have some favorite songs?

I like the song, “I Will Survive.” I like the song, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” I like songs that give positive images, that are positive totally in nature about the thoughts and thinking behind the song. That’s where I really like to stay for myself personally in my thoughts. Songs are positive thoughts. With these songs, the energy that happens between the audience and myself is just phenomenal. It’s very positive, it’s exciting, I like watching them enjoy what we are offering and it’s really very special.t Diana Ross Northern California concerts: July 8 at Wente Vineyards, $99$300. 8:15pm. 5050 Aroyo Road, Livermore.

July 9 at Thunder Valley Casino Resort, $45-$190. 8pm. 1200 Athens Ave., Lincoln.

July 10 at Mountain Winery, $162$354. 7:30pm. 14831 Pierce Road, Saratoga.

July 12, 8pm at The Orpheum Theatre, 1182 Market St., San Francisco. $148-$600. 1182 Market St. (888) 746-1799. www.ticketmaster.com

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30 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30 - July 6, 2016

Steven Underhill

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On the Town

From page 27

Erika Atkinson, a published writer and sweet friend for some time, revealed her most recent book, An Ode to the Castro, a collection of her own prose and poetry reciting casual encounters and remarkable meetings, many witnessed from the front window of that very bar, where so many significant happenings have occurred.

We entered to a room crowded with her admirers, including Billy Repp & Tom Taffel and familiar faces from Twin Peaks, Beaux, Q-Bar, and other neighborhood establishments. Nilani opened the evening with an original poem describing the author and her friend and then we said a few words and read our own foreword to her book. Erika proceeded to welcome the crowd and read some very personal passages. Needless to say, the room went wild; they swamped her with praise and swept in for autographed copies.

Having heard that Erika had never met one of her literary heroes and knowing that he happened to be across the street, we escorted her to the grand opening of Dog Eared Books to meet Armistead Maupin. Another crowd, a bit more raucous, but equally loving, including authors Mark Abramson and the B.A.R.’s own Jim Provenzano, was gathered there in the glare of film lighting, where several readings had just concluded. We quickly orchestrated the promised meeting and procured the photo above. What a pleasure to see such genuine smiles and hear such genuine laughter!

On Wednesday, we started at Oasis for the inaugural event of the LGBT Asylum Project, where Adam Sandel had gathered a supportive group of friends, including Kevin Shanahn & Michael Montoya, Zak Berlik, Justin Taylor, Donna Personna, Icarus Ferreira, Lynn Luckow, Kevin Levey, Leo Volobrynskyy, Devon Sandel, Matthew Scott, Jack Ryder, and Benjamin Nguyen. This organization will address the many complicated issues of immigrants to the United States, particularly as they apply to LGBT individuals and couples. Brief singing and dancing entertainment rounded out the night.

Then we headed to Juanita More!’s Floor 21 happy hour at The Starlight Room for an energypacked evening of socializing and anticipation for the busy weekend ahead. Juanita looked especially beautiful, surrounded by admirers.

Thursday led us to Twitter headquarters on Market Street for The Trevor Project’s Runway #ThisIsMe fundraising party, hosted by Brian Kent and Nya of AsiaSF, assisted

by Sister Roma, BeBe Sweetbriar, Honey Mahogany, and this humble columnist. The rooftop commissary of Twitter had been converted to a sprawling dance club with DJ Christopher B and stretches of orange carpet suitable for VIP arrivals, photography, and, of course, tweeting. We surveyed the area with our handsome escort, Richard Sablatura, hob-nobbing with Jonathan Foulk, John Brosnan & Chad McLaughlin, Joy Kessler, Locoya Hill, Larry Hashbarger, and the Reigning Empress Emma Peel along the way.

Food and drink was in plentiful supply and intermittent entertainment and a brief program with Executive Director Abbe Land highlighted the vital efforts of The Trevor Project to reduce suicide attempts and to connect callers to their hot line with a caring voice and pertinent services. A dedicated group then adjourned to Beatbox for a special performance by Frenchie Davis and dancing into the night.

Jim Provenzano

Authors Armistead Maupin and Erika Atkinson with Donna Sachet at Dog Eared Books.

Saturday morning, the 18th Annual Pride Brunch attracted its biggest crowd ever, packing the ballroom of Hotel Whitcomb and raising over $50,000 for Positive Resource Center. You’ve never seen a room more gaily decorated, thanks to Tommy Taylor and his rainbow flag collection, Sparky’s Fun & Joy balloons, and floral displays

by CoCo Butter.

The day started with Barefoot bubbly and Tito’s Handmade Vodka cocktails, followed by a gourmet brunch buffet and program introducing the Grand Marshals and Honorees of the Pride Parade present, co-emceed

by Gary Virginia and this writer.

Heartfelt remarks came from Nya of Celebrity Grand Marshal the cast of Transcendent, Community Grand Marshals Larry Yang, Fresh!

White, and Mia Satya, Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal Mike Shriver, Heritage of Pride Ten Years of Service Awardee Joanie Juster, Creativity Awardee Mercedez Munro, Audrey Joseph Entertainment Awardee Deana Dawn, and Stephany Joy Ashley, representing Pride Community Awardee St. James Infirmary.

Every year our audience is touched, challenged, and inspired

by these speeches and this year was no exception. This party would never be possible without great supporters and attendees like Wells Fargo, Sterling Bank & Trust, 440 Castro, Google, John Cunningham, Howard Edelman, Walter Leiss, Kent Roger, James Holloway & Greg Bjornstad, Mike Proctor & Eric Bernier, Kevin Shanahan & Michael Montoya, Dan Joraastad & Bob Hermann, Lu Conrad, and so many others. The bustling crowd departed to the music and lyrics of David Friedman: “We can be kind.

We can take care of each other. We can remember that deep down inside, we all need the same thing.”

After popping into a few private parties and joyous bars in the Castro, it was time to dance with DJ Paul Goodyear at Beatbox for their fifth anniversary. Although this popular venue was recently sold and will soon close for remodeling, that didn’t stop us from gathering once more under their spectacular lights and incredible sound system to dance and celebrate, finishing with a heart-pounding set from Pepper Mashay.

Sunday’s 46th Annual Pride Parade was an extraordinary display of color, music, creativity, and laughter, despite recent events in Orlando. After a beautiful and emotional moment with a special group commemorating the lives David Wong

<<

t

Top: (L-R) Adam Sandel, Brooke Ashley, Okan Sengun and Ozkan Boyar at the Asylum Project benefit at Oasis. Bottom: BeBe Sweetbriar, Donna Sachet, Sister Roma and Honey Mahogany at the Trevor Project gala at Twitter headquarters.

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Read more online at www.ebar.com

June 30 - July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 31

Both photos: Steven Underhill

Attendees at the festive Pride Brunch at the Hotel Whitcomb.

lost there in the nation’s worst incident of gun violence, participants seemed more determined than ever to celebrate our pride and proceeded to dazzle viewers with enormous, brightly decorated floats, enthusiastic, colorful walking contingents, and time-honored traditions.

We were again thrilled to co-anchor the filming of the Parade with the very talented Michelle Meow and incredible team from KOFYTV, along with BeBe Sweetbriar, Marga Gomez, Tiffany Woods, and Oscar Raymundo. No written description could adequately convey the spirit of our community that

day, but perhaps the video recording available from KOFY-TV and soon on the www.sfpride.org website will serve as a vibrant indication.

As soon as the Parade wound down, we dashed to City Hall for the VIP Party where hundreds of celebrants gathered under the magnificent Rotunda to eat, drink, dance, and dish on the day’s proceedings.

All manner of costumes and remnants of the same made for a colorful, though weary assembly.

Our final stop was Juanita More!’s pride party, an indescribable gala of enormous proportions with representatives of every stripe of our community taking one more op-

portunity to celebrate pride and each other. Who else could gather such a wonderful microcosm of the LGBTQ community in one place to party while raising money for Queer Lifespace? Thank you, Juanita, for a fitting close to one of the best Pride Weeks on record.

We hope your Pride Week was equally exciting, safe, and satisfying.

And never forget, we live in a place where our pride can be celebrated every day! Be who you truly are and genuinely embrace the totality of what our community has become and you will be a true San Franciscan. We hope to see you out and about very soon!t

Steven Underhill

Paul Henderson and Mercedez Munro at the festive Pride Party at City Hall.

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

32 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30 - July 6, 2016

t

The cool dance night ambiance at Beatbox.

Beatbox, bye-bye

Beatbox, 314 11th St. at Folsom. www.beatboxsf.com

Steven Underhill

Rich Stadtmiller

Shot in the City

Rich Stadtmiller

Photo by Dot

ne of the newest dance and event clubs in South of Market will say goodbye this weekend, as Beatbox closes after nearly five years.

With the closure this weekend, I asked about the co-owners’ memories, their thoughts on creating such a popular venue, and their plans for the future.

Co-owner Paul Saccone wrote, “Our goal was to not only build a great nightclub, but to also create a space we could share with the community, a place to call ‘home.’ We’ve hosted everything from weddings and memorials, to special fundraisers and parties for organizations like Folsom Street Events, Grass Roots Gay Rights Foundation, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, and many more. It’s been an incredible five years for us, and we couldn’t be

Kent estimated that the club has served more than half a million people in its half-decade. He added a hint about future plans as well.

“I learned so much being actively involved with the community on a regular basis, and he relationships that were built because if that. I’m excited about bringing new events, a new space for our community, which I will be announcing soon, and new partnerships though my production company, Brian Kent Productions.”

The last events at Beatbox include the final nights of the Blue Bear Band Workshop Showcase (through June 30), Red Hots Burlesque (July 1), and the closing party I Just Wanna F*ckin Dance (July 2), with DJs Billy Lace and Sean O’Grady.

Bye-bye, Beatbox. We will miss you.t

Rich Stadtmiller

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more proud to have played such an important role in the community.”

Brian Kent, who is also a performer and event producer, wrote, “It’s hard to narrow it down to ‘favorite’ events, since they each brought a unique facet of the community and were all a part of what made Beatbox the melting pot of the community. From its multiple dance events to special occasions, Beatbox was our community’s place to go and felt like home.”

The sheer number of benefits held at Beatbox have helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for local nonprofits.

“A nightclub creates a space for a community by opening its doors to it and participating in that community,” wrote Kent. “We have always strived to give back to the community that supports us and having that reciprocal relationship is what builds the strong bond.”

Rich Stadtmiller

by BARtab staff

SoMa nightclub ends a fun five-year reign

Top Left: Guys having fun at Anthem earlier this year. Top Right: Staff members at a 2014 Bearracuda night. Middle Left: The fab 2011 Project Nunway. Middle Right: A saucy Uhaul night.

Bottom Left: Nicolas Bettinger won the Stoli Guy competition, held in August 2013. Bottom Middle: Flagging daddy in 2011. Bottom Right: Tenacious Rubber fashion show in February 2014.

t

On the Tab>>

June 30 - July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 33

Hard Fridays @ Qbar DH Haute Toddy’s weekly electro-pop night with hotty gogos. $3. 9pm-2am (happy hour 4pm-9pm). 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Ladies of San Francisco @ Club OMG Galilea hosts the weekly “old school drag show” with guest performers and DJ Jack Rojo. $4. 9pm-2am. 43 6th St. www.clubOMGsf.com

Latin Explosion @ Club 21, Oakland

Y

es, you want to rest up after Pride.

But there’s more for those who celebrate July 4, and with ma ny folks having Monday off, a three-day we ekend awaits.

Tue 5

at Ronn Vigh’s Sampson McCormick Comedy Club e Lin nch Pu Gay Bash @

This week’s listings have been edited for space.

Visit www.ebar.com/bartab for full listings.

Thu 30

Literary Speakeasy @ Martuni’s

On the Tab

June 30July 7

Sex and the City Live @ Oasis D’Arcy Drollinger and crew perform new episodes of the HBO comedy about four women in Manhattan. $25 and up. 7pm and some 9:30pm extra shows. 2-drink min. Thu Sat Thru July 2 (some nights off). 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge

One-year anniversary of the monthly reading and cocktails series, with host/poet James J Siegel, authors Peter Bullen, Ginger Murray, Anna Pulley and Jim Provenzano, and musician Jeff Desira. No cover, raffle tickets for a prize. 7pm. 4 Valencia St. www.facebook.com/ events/1183245538355399/

Disco guru DJ Bus Station John spins grooves at the intimate retro music night. No cell phones on the dance floor, please! $5.

10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. auntcharlieslounge.com

Aussie Everett Wayne is the guest DJ at Mark O’Brien and crew’s groovetastic cruisy dance night. $7-$10. 9pm-3am.

298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Red Hots Burlesque @ Beatbox

Fri 1

The Monster Show @ The Edge

Ain’t Mama’s Drag @ Balancoire Weekly drag queen and drag king show hosted by Cruzin d’Loo. 8pm10pm. No cover. 2565 Mission St. www.balancoiresf.com

Mica Sigourney and pals’ weekly offbeat drag performance night. $7.

10pm-3am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Sat 2

La Bota Loca @ Club 21, Oakland Latin, hip hop and Electro music night. June 11, Banda Tierra Del Sol performs live. $5-$25. 9pm-4am.

2111 Franklin St., Oakland. www.club21oakland.com

Heklina’s weekly drag show night with different themes, always outrageously hilarious. July 2: Sia vs. Lana Del Rey. $15-$25. 10pm-2am. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

Nitty Gritty @ Beaux Weekly dance night with nearly naked gogo guys & gals; DJs Chad Bays, Ms. Jackson, Becky Know and Jorge T. $4. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. beauxsf.com

Powerblouse @ Powerhouse Mr. David and Juanita More’s monthly makeover of a butch gay man who’s never done drag. This week, Kris Thomas. DJ Rolo spins grooves. $5. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

Fri 1 Polyglamorous @ Oasis

Weekly live music shows with various acts, along with brunch buffet, bottomless Mimosas, champagne and more, at the stylish nightclub and restaurant. $15-$20. 11am-3pm. After that, Femme T-Dance drag shows at 7pm, 10pm and 11pm. 2565 Mission St. at 21st. 920-0577. www.balancoiresf.com

Big Top @ Beaux The fun Castro nightclub, with hot local DJs and sexy gogo guys and gals. $5. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.Beauxsf.com

GlamaZone @ The Cafe

Enjoy the roof deck and cocktails with DJs Ky Martinez and Mohammad Vahidy at the monthly T-dance. $7.

3pm-9pm. 298 11th St. at Folsom.

795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

Mother @ Oasis

Gareth Gooch

The weekly drag show with DJ MC2, themed nights, gogo guys and hilarious fun. $5. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

BeBe Sweetbriar’s Brunch Revue, Femme @ Balancoire

Some Thing @ The Stud

Celebrate five years of fun at the SoMa nightclub, before it closes; with DJs Billy Lace and Sean O’Grady, hosts Sister Roma and BeBe Sweetbriar, performance by Mercedez Munro. $10. 10pm4am. 314 11th St. www.beatboxsf.com

Dope Saint Jude at Swagger Like Us @ El Rio

It’s a ‘Barb-B-Queer!’ The daytime patio dance, performance, food and arts party welcomes “independent ladies” and their pals. $ 3pm-8pm.

1743 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. (510) 444-7474. www.thenewparish.com

Pollo del Mar’s weekly drag show takes on different themes with a comic edge. 8:30-11:30pm. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

I Just Wanna F*ckin Dance/Closing Party @ Beatbox

Sun 3

Afternoon Delight @ The New Parish, Oakland

The saucy women’s burlesque show hosted by Dottie Lux. May 20 is a Dolly Parton tribute night. $10.

7pm-10pm. 314 11th St. Also Sunday brunch shows. redhotsburlesque.com

The disco classic and groovy mix-filled dance night celebrates resident DJ (and veteran icon of disco) Steve Fabus, as well as Jason Williams and David Albert.

Sergio Fedasz and Jimmy DePre also spin. $10 (free before 10pm). 9pm-3am.

399 9th St. at Harrison. www.studsf.com

75th annual fair, with concerts (Foreigner, Shiela A., Kool & The Gang, Wallflowers, Orpheus), fireworks, food, drinks, animal exhibits, arts & crafts exhibits and workshops, culinary contests, floral displays, livestock shows, and carnival rides. $12-$20.

11am-11pm. Thru July 4. 10 Ave. of the Flags, San Rafael. marinfair.org/2016

Fundraiser for survivors of the fire that burned down the homes of 58 people on Mission and 29th last week. $10 and up. 8pm-11:30pm.

3158 Mission St. elriosf.com

Polyglamorous @ Oasis

Go Bang! @ The Stud

Marin County Fair @ San Rafael Fairgrounds

Mission Fire Survivors Fundraiser @ El Rio

Enjoy Latin, hip hop and electro, plus hot gogos galore, and a big dance floor. April 29: Violeta and Jacqueline La Gata. $10-$20. 9pm-3am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. www.club21oakland.com

Sun 3

Secret Studio @ Romper Room Warehouse dance event with Tyrel Williams & Bai-ee, Trevor Sigler and One A/Gehno Aviance, $10$20. 11pm-6am. 1430 East 12th st., Oakland. www.romperroom.club

Sensation Sundays @ Oasis

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room Donna Sachet hosts the weekly fabulous brunch and drag show, now celebrating its tenth anniversary. $45.

11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square.

395-8595. www.starlightroomsf.com

Swagger Like Us @ El Rio The swinging hip hop queer dance party takes it to the Mission club, with Rye Rye and Dope Saint Jude performing; DJs DavOmakesbeats, MoeDJ and Jamila Afrika. . $10-$12. 2pm-8pm.

3158 Mission St. www.elriosf.com

Mon 4

Drag Mondays @ The Cafe Mahlae Balenciaga and DJ Kidd Sysko’s weekly drag and dance night. 9pm1am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Karaoke Night @ SF Eagle Sing along, with guest host Nick Radford. 8pm-12am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Mahogany Mondays @ Midnight Sun Honey Mahogany’s weekly drag and musical talent show starts around 10pm. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Monday Musicals @ The Edge Sing along at the popular musical theatre night; also Wednesdays. 7pm2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing.

4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

No No Bingo @ Virgil’s Sea Room Mica Sigourney and Tom Temprano cohost the wacky weekly game night at the cool Mission bar. 8pm. 3152 Mission St. www.virgilssf.com

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

See page 34 >>

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

34 • BAY AREA REPORTER • June 30 - July 6, 2016

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On the Tab

From page 33

Underwear Night @ 440 Strip down to your skivvies at the popular men’s night. 9pm-2am. 440 Castro St. 621-8732. the440.com

Tue 5 Bandit @ Lone Star

New weekly queer event with resident DJ Justime; electro, soul, funk. house vibes. No cover. 9pm-1am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Gaymer Night @ Eagle Gay gaming fun on the bar’s big screen TVs. Have a nerdgasm and a beer with your pals. 8pm. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Hella Saucy @ Q Bar Queer dance party at the stylish intimate bar. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

High Fantasy @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge Weekly drag and variety show, with live acts and lip-synching divas $5. Shows at 10:30pm & 12am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. www.auntcharlieslounge.com

Oakland:

www.megamates.com 18+

Hysteria @ Martuni’s

Floor 21 @ Starlight Room

Irene Tu and Jessica Sele cohost the comedy open mic night for women and queers. 6pm-8:30pm. 4 Valencia

Juanita More! presents a new weekly scenic happy hour event, with host Rudy Valdez, and guest DJs. No cover, and a fantastic panoramic city view.

5pm-9pm. Sir Francis Drake Hotel, 450 Powell St. starlightroomsf.com

Meow Mix @ The Stud The weekly themed variety cabaret showcases new and unusual talents; MC Ferosha Titties. $3-$7. Show at 11pm. 9pm-2am. 399 9th St. at Harrison. www.studsf.com

Ron Vigh’s Gay Bash @ Punch Line Comedy Club Sampson McCormick, Anthony DeSamito. Maureen Langan, along with host Ronn Vigh, perform queer comedy sets at the monthly event (1st Tue). $16.50. 8pm. 444 Battery St. PunchLineComedyClub.com

Wed 6 Baloney @ Oasis

The sexy funny all-male (and a drag king or two) burlesque revue returns with a hot summertime series of acts. $20-$50. 7pm. Thru July 9. sfbaloney.com www.sfoasis.com

Bone @ Powerhouse Weekly punk-alternative music night hosted by Uel Renteria and Johnny Rockitt. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Wed 6 Baloney @ Oasis

San Jose:

(510) 343-1122 (408) 514-1111

Hello, Dolly! @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko Musicals in Concert, a new series, kicks off with Jerry Herman’s rousing musical about a matchmaker; directed by Allen Sawyer, with Wesla Whitfield, Mike Greensill, Alex Rodriguez, Darlene Popovic and others. $40-$60. Wed & Sat 7pm. Thu & Fri 8pm. Sun 3pm. Thru July 10. Also Mame, Aug. 10-14. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Man Francisco @ Oasis The sexy, funny weekly male burlesque show features handsome talents who strip it (almost) all off; choreographed by Christopher James Dunn; Mr Pam MCs. $20. 2 Twodrink min. 9:30pm. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 795-3180. www.sfoasis.com

Pussy Party @ Beaux Ladies night at the Castro dance club.

9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Shit Talk @ Oasis Yuri Kagan’s naughty weekly comedy night with special guests. 7pm.

298 11th St. at Folsom. sfoasis.com

Wooden Nickel Wednesday @ 440 Buy a drink and get a wooden nickle good for another. 12pm-2am. 440 Castro St. 621-8732. www.the440.com

Tall, Hung, Handsome, Mexican, Uncut. Call Jose 415-571-5747

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Thu 7 Sable Jones MCs Art Against Violence @ Dada Bar

Thu 7

Art Against Violence @ Dada Bar Sable Jones MCs a benefit for CUAV and Orlando shooting victims, with drag performances by Mutha Chucka, Sophilia Leggs, Mama Dora, Cruzin d’Loo, Strobe, Caitlin Crandall, Alabama Slamma and Rasa Vitalia. Hosted by Bernadette Bohan (Miss Royal Bunny); vegetarian sandwhiches, hors d’eouvres, drinks.

Donations. 6pm-2am. 86 2nd St. at Mission. www.dadasf.com

Bulge @ Powerhouse Grace Towers hosts the racy night with a $100 wet undies bulge contest at midnight. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Diana Ross @ Wente Vineyards The iconic singer performs her classic hits with an orchestra. $99-$300.

8:15pm. 5050 Aroyo Road, Livermore.

Also July 9 at Thunder Valley Casino Resort, July 10 at Mountain Winery, Saratoga, and July 12, 8pm at The Orpheum Theatre, SF. $100-$200.

1182 Market St. (888) 746-1799. ticketmaster.com

Gym Class @ Hi Tops Enjoy whiskey shots from jockstrapped hotties and sexy sports videos at the popular sports bar.

10pm-2am. 2247 Market St. 551-2500. www.HiTopsSF.com

Mazel Top @ Oasis The meet & greet for gay Jewish men and their admirers returns. $5-$10.

9pm. 298 11th St. at Folsom. 7953180. www.sfoasis.com

Picante @ The Cafe Lulu and DJ Marco’s Latin night with sexy gogo guys. 9pm-2am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Queer Karaoke @ Club OMG Dana hosts the weekly singing night; unleash your inner American Idol.

8pm. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Thump @ White Horse, Oakland Weekly electro music night with DJ Matthew Baker and guests. 9pm-2am.

6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com Want your nightlife event listed?

Email events@ebar.com, at least two weeks before your event.

Event photos welcome.

t

Read more online at www.ebar.com

Shining Stars

June 30 - July 6, 2016 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 35

photos by steven underhill SF Pride

S

an Francisco’s annual LGBTQ Pride Parade and Celebration, and the Pride Party held in City Hall, brought out people of all kinds as participants, enthusiastic crowds along the parade route, and at Civic Center, where festive rainbow colors were seen in abundance. www.sfpride.org More event photo albums are on BARtab’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife. See more of Steven Underhill’s photos at www.StevenUnderhill.com.

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For headshots, portraits or to arrange your wedding photos

call (415) 370-7152 or visit www.StevenUnderhill.com or email stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com