March 10, 2011 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter

29th SF International Asian American Film Festival highlights.

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Two local authors go the self-publishing route to write gay-themed books.

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Asian Americans onscreen

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

Filling a void in children’s books

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BAYAREAREPORTER

Vol. 41

. No. 10 . 10 March 2011

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

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ince news leaked last month that Britney Spears would perform live in the Castro to promote her new album on Good Morning America , San Francisco’s gayborhood has been abuzz about the publicity stunt.

As the Bay Area Reporter disclosed on its blog Thursday, March 3, Spears will tape a performance for the ABC morning show from noon to 1 p.m. Sunday, March 27. It will be shown on-air Tuesday, March 29 as part of a two-day bonanza of not only Spears coverage but segments showcasing San Francisco and its LGBT community.

According to the GMA producers, not only is the concert timed to the release date for Spears’s latest album Femme Fatale, it is also meant to be a travelogue about the Bay Area.

One of the GMA stars, likely either co-host Robin Roberts or out weatherman Sam Champion, will be in town that weekend to shoot segments showing

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Britney Spears will perform in the Castro later this month.

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embers of Congress are introducing a flurry of bills this week designed to address bullying and harassment of students, including LGBT students, and timed to coincide with a major Senator Bob Casey White House conference on bullying prevention today (Thursday, March 10).

And President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, in preparation for Thursday’s event, posted a video March 9 to the Stop Bullying Facebook page, (www.facebook.com/StopBullying.Gov)re affirming their commitment to addressing the issue. Bullying “affects every single young person in our country,” the president said. “Putting a stop to bullying is a responsibility we all share.”

Bills aimed at doing that died in committee last session, however. And one LGBT leader worries that the anti-bullying legislation does not go far enough to provide effective protections.

The Safe Schools Improvement Act introduced March 8 by Senators Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania) and Mark Kirk (R-Illinois) would require schools and districts receiving federal funds to implement and report on anti-bullying programs. The programs must specifically include bullying and harassment based on the actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity of students and those with whom they associate, among other attributes.

Bullying and harassment under the Casey-Kirk bill would include actions conducted through electronic communication, such as e-mail or instant messages.

The bill would also oblige states to report data on incidents of bullying and harassment to the U.S. Department of Education and make the data available to the public.

During a press call Tuesday, Casey noted that LGBT students, and those perceived to be, are among the most frequent targets of bullies. The recent media attention surrounding several cases of LGBTrelated bullying and subsequent suicides of young people, he said, has made bullying “much more of a national issue” and is one of the reasons people in Washington have paid more attention to bullying in general.

off San Francisco’s famous attractions.

“On our show we know our viewers like to travel but can’t always afford to do so. So we like to bring them places. In our mind, there is no more beautiful city than San Francisco and no more historic neighborhood than the Castro,” said Mark Robertson, a producer for GMA, who with a colleague met with Castro merchants and city officials last week to discuss their plans. “Britney said the Castro is a place she loves and she has a huge fan base in the Bay Area.”

It will bring a barrage of free national exposure not only for the LGBT district but the city itself. Local leaders have been overjoyed by the news.

“We are thrilled GMA is going to be here,” said District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, who learned about the Spears performance after the pop diva revealed it herself in a videotaped message to her fans last month. “It is an exciting thing

by Matthew S. Bajko

Struggling clinic looks to city for funds

by Seth Hemmelgarn he new director of Lyon-Martin Health Services, the San Francisco-based clinic that’s been on life support, is looking to the city for as much as $150,000 to help it survive.

Eric Fimbres, the clinic’s interim executive director, put out that amount at a Board of Supervisors budget and finance subcommittee hearing Wednesday, March 2.

Since late January, when the clinic’s board made the surprise announcement that it was more than $500,000 in debt and would have to close in days, about $326,000 has been raised in donations and pledges.

On February 28, the clinic announced that it needs another $500,000 by March 31 to stay open. That announcement followed the completion of consultants’ assessment of the agency.

The board’s lack of planning would have meant the abandonment of almost 2,500 patients. As it is, Lyon-Martin continues to see its patients but is not accepting new ones. The clinic provides services to transgender people and women regardless of their ability to pay.

While breaking down the clinic’s fundraising hopes for supervisors last week, Fimbres said that aside from money from the city, the clinic would also be looking for another $250,000 from the public and $100,000 to $150,000 from private foundations. He said his figures, including the city numbers, were “very preliminary.”

In an interview the day after the hearing, Su-

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Rick Gerharter

by Dana Rudolph

Castro abuzz over Spears concert

Lyon-Martin Health Services Board Chair Lauren Winter, interim Executive Director Eric Fimbres, and medical director Dr. Dawn Harbatkin, listen to the discussion at a Board of Supervisors’ budget and finance subcommittee hearing.

pervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who had called for the session and whose District 5 includes the clinic, said corrective action needs to be taken at LyonMartin, and the city’s $400 million deficit is “a major predicament.”

However, he said that it would be “inexcusable” to let Lyon-Martin fail “simply because of a $200,000 or $300,000 deficit” between the

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clinic’s half-million dollar goal and what actually comes in through fundraising. He noted the strong community support the clinic has received through fundraising and at the subcommittee hearing.

“The next 29 days is a really critical factor here,” Mirkarimi said when asked about

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Anti-bullying bills face uncertain path

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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 10 March 2011

COMMUNITY

NEWS

Russian gay activist visits SF despite some opposition

by Matt Baume ussian LGBT activist Nikolai Alekseev visited San Francisco this week on a speaking tour that faced protest from several local leaders over perceived anti-Semitic comments.

The controversy boiled over last week when Alekseev’s California sponsors canceled their support.

However, he still traveled to the state, the last leg of his U.S. visit. The sponsors’ abrupt pullout stemmed from a blog post written by Alekseev in January, in which he criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for supporting Egypt’s then-President Hosni Mubarak.

The post, which was originally written in Russian, translates as, “The Israeli Prime Minister urged Western leaders to support Egyptian dictator Mubarak ... And who after this are the Jews? In fact, I always knew who they were.”

In response, Equality California and Robin Tyler Productions, along with numerous other organizations, canceled their sponsorship of the tour. Both the LGBT Center and the Metropolitan Community Church canceled a scheduled public appearance by Alekseev.

Tour organizer Andy Thayer of Gay Liberation Network Chicago then rented a meeting space at Queen Malika Cafe, but as a precaution did not publicize the location.

Attendees were instructed to meet in front of the church, where they received verbal directions to the cafe.

Matt Baume

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Russian gay activist Nikolai Alekseev spoke to about 20 people at a Castro-area cafe Monday, after his appearance at the LGBT Community Center was canceled.

Russian government in the European Court of Human Rights for denying his freedom of assembly. In October 2010, the court ordered Russia to permit future Pride events.

The next parade is scheduled for May 28, and Alekseev intends to apply for a permit on May 1.

“We can see the Moscow Pride as an investment in the future,” he said.

“If we didn’t start Moscow Pride, we would be nowhere now.”

Alekseev also described the challenges of organizing in Moscow. A group of about 30 people organizes events solely by word-of-mouth to avoid communications being intercepted. Protesters swap cellphones

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At the event, Alekseev, 33, told the crowd of approximately 20 that he would address the controversy if asked, but preferred instead to discuss the struggle for LGBT equality in Russia. Last week he released a statement in which he acknowledged writing the blog post but said he is a “strong believer” in human rights for everyone, “irrespective of human characteristics, whether it is sexual orientation, race, gender, national of ethnic origin, religion, or any other basis.”

Starting in 2005, Alekseev has organized annual Moscow Pride marches, only to have permits denied and marchers assaulted and arrested.

In response, Alekseev, who is an attorney, brought a case against the

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WWII history project seeks LGBT seniors

by Matthew S. Bajko his time, Uncle Sam really does want LGBT people, specifically those who lived through World War II. A project connected to the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Homefront National Historic Park in Richmond, California is seeking LGBT people to interview about their home front experiences during the war.

The Regional Oral History Office at the Bancroft Library on the UC Berkeley campus is working in collaboration with the City of Richmond and the National Park Service on interviewing residents of the Bay Area about their wartime experiences between the years of 1941-1945.

The park service intends to use the interviews for a planned visitor center to be built this fall at the East Bay park. The project has been under way for the past three years, and 100 people have already shared their stories about working in the various defense industries and living through that time period.

But, to date, none have been LGBT. One transgender individual from the New York region has agreed to share his story but has yet to be interviewed.

“We don’t have out narrators in our collection so far,” said David Dunham, the project’s manager who is also the Regional Oral History Office’s web director and video editor.

“We realized that was a gap.”

Dunham is still working out the logistics of interviewing the New York resident, who was a woman and identified as lesbian during the war but has since transitioned to being a man and now works on a farm somewhere in the Empire State.

Due to the shortage of male workers during the war years, as men were

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Courtesy: WWII American Homefront Oral History Archives

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During World War II, women took on jobs that had traditionally been done by men.

shipped to the various fronts overseas, women found themselves employed in jobs they traditionally had been shunned from and challenging stereotypical gender roles. Cities like San Francisco, which served as major military bases and embarkation points for servicemen, also became home to burgeoning underground scenes for homosexuals.

Some of the key questions the project would like to ask LGBT people who lived through that time include what, if any, new ideas about sexuality took root, why, and where did they emerge?

Other topics explored during the interviews, as explained on the project’s website, include “how and why people from different backgrounds came to the Bay Area, what they did when they arrived, and what they learned from the fluidity and flux of wartime life that affected decisions they made after the war ended.”

With most people in that age group now in their 80s or 90s, Dunham said there is some urgency behind trying to speak with people be-

fore the WWII generation dies out.

And finding LGBT people to interview presents unique challenges, as most people from that era were not out and may remain closeted.

Nonetheless, Dunham said hearing from LGBT voices is needed in order to shed a full light on that period of American history.

“It is a significant story to tell for a variety of reasons. Because so many men were away, women were coming together in a variety of ways. They were working in traditional male roles and wearing male clothes,” said Dunham. “In terms of creating communities and coming together in [LGBTspecific] meeting places, it was a fertile time for that.”▼ Anyone interested in being interviewed should contact Dunham at (925) 937-2290 or e-mail rtr@lists.berkeley.edu.

For more information about the oral history project, visit bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO /projects/rosie/.

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10 March 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

COMMUNITY

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NEWS

by Matt Baume he San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus is set to take the stage in an unusual venue: a segment on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Correspondent and funnyman Jason Jones visited San Francisco with a crew last Thursday to tape a rehearsal and interview the chorus’ new artistic director and conductor, Timothy Seelig. The footage will appear in an upcoming segment that evaluates the relative gayness of various cities.

Seelig was skeptical of the show’s motives, and still harbors some suspicion that the comedians might not treat the chorus’ work with the utmost seriousness.

“I don’t trust them at all,” he said.

“People were e-mailing me and writing, ‘Are you crazy? They’re going to make you look so stupid.’”

But his conversations with pro-

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ducers reassured him that the show would adopt a sympathetic tone, and he decided to take a chance.

“It’s not one of those things that you can turn down,” he said. “Are you going to pass this off to someone else because you’re scared? I’m always up for a challenge.”

Jones and Seelig spent the morning together on March 3, first in an interview about the chorus and then on a quick tour of the Castro. Prior to the interview, Seelig, who arrived in San Francisco from Dallas, spent several hours in study at the GLBT Historical Society so that he could speak authoritatively about local history.

Later that day, about 130 members of the chorus convened at their rehearsal space at Mission High School to record a song for Daily Show cameras.

Seelig told the Bay Area Reporter that he’s glad for the opportunity to reach out to wider audiences, whether through the Daily Show ap-

Matt Baume

SF Gay Men’s Chorus readies for star turn

San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus conductor Timothy Seelig, left, and the Daily Show’s Jason Jones prepare for filming a chorus rehearsal.

pearance or by touring to towns “outside our comfort zone.”

“There’s no need to preach to the choir,” he said. “One of the things

Bayard Rustin Coalition to host celebration compiled by Cynthia Laird he Bayard Rustin Coalition will hold its fifth annual celebration of the life and legacy of its namesake on Thursday, March 17 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Sheba Piano Lounge, 1419 Fillmore Street in San Francisco.

Coalition members are getting a jump start on Rustin’s 100th birthday party in 2012; Rustin, who died in 1987, was an American civil rights activist best known for being the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. He was openly gay in 1940s America, and later in N EWS his life he became more outspoken on gay rights issues.

Next week’s reception will celebrate the recent progress in LGBT rights, including the signing of legislation to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and the announcement that the Obama administration will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in several federal court cases.

“We are honored to sponsor this annual celebration of Bayard Rustin’s life and legacy,” said Susan Belinda Christian, newly elected co-chair of BRC. “This is one of a few key, annual events sponsored by an LGBT people of color organization that brings such a diversity of people together from the African American, LGBT, labor, civil rights, and other communities to celebrate our appreciation of an openly gay black man who helped to effectively change the course of American history and world history.”

The evening will also serve as a fundraiser for the independent film

by Jamaican American Selena Blake, Taboo Yardies, which documents the often life-threatening hardships faced

by Jamaican LGBT people, the controversies of exporting reggae music promoting anti-gay messages, and what the future holds for LGBT Jamaicans.

The suggested donation for the event is $10-$20, a portion of which will go to Maynov Productions to help complete the film.

For more information, people can call (415) 690-8572.

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March 10) at 4:30 p.m. at San Francisco City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, room 416.

The first report, “Bisexual Invisibility: Impacts and Recommendations,” looks at the wide range of consequences, including health disparities, higher rates of suicidality, and fewer targeted services, when bisexuals are rendered invisible by both the heterosexual world and the LGT communities.

The second report, “Beyond Marriage: Unrecognized Family Relationships” was the outgrowth of a public forum organized by the commission’s LGBT Advisory Committee that discussed the ways B RIEFS that people form families beyond biological and spousal ties.

In other HRC news, the LGBT advisory committee recently added eight new members to its ranks. They are: Diane Alcala, marriage and family therapist; Bill Ambrunn, nonprofit and estate planning attorney; Erik Martinez, youth worker at the LGBT Community Center; Bonnie Miluso, attorney in private practice; Angela Perone, civil rights and employment attorney; Jose Romero, career placement specialist at One Stop Center; Cat Stevans, event coordinator at the LGBT Community Center; and Cynthia Yeung, Google strategic partnerships.

The committee holds public meetings on the second Tuesday of the month, beginning at 5:30 p.m. in the main conference room of the HRC, 25 Van Ness Avenue, room 800.

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SF HRC to unveil reports on bisexuals, family relationships The San Francisco Human Rights Commission will consider two groundbreaking reports when it meets this afternoon (Thursday,

Tenderloin Tessie seeks help for fundraiser Tenderloin Tessie, which provides holiday dinners for those in need, is seeking volunteers to help stuff plastic Easter eggs in advance of its “Egg Pull” fundraiser that will take place at several area bars. The Egg Pull is a fundraiser where customers pay $1 per plastic egg and open it to get candy or other prizes, including cash.

Michael Gagne, president of Tenderloin Tessie’s board, said the cash prizes are a new concept this year. If a customer gets one, they get the money from the bartender. Participating bars include the Cinch, Deco Lounge, Aunt Charlie’s, the Gangway, and Marlena’s.

But first, all those eggs, about 3,000, need to be stuffed, and the party for that will be held Wednesday, March 16 at 7 p.m. at Gagne’s home.

Those interested in helping out should contact him at tender-

lointessiedinners@yahoo.com (415) 584-3252.

or

Lottery for White House Easter Egg Roll tickets In other Easter egg news, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama announced last week that this year’s White House Easter Egg Roll will be held on Monday, April 25, with the theme of “Get Up and Go!” promoting health and wellness.

The event will feature live music, sports courts, cooking stations, storytelling and, of course, Easter egg rolling. The White House will open its South Lawn for children aged 12 years and younger and their families.

White House Easter Egg Roll tickets will be distributed through an online lottery system, allowing guests from across the United States to participate in a tradition that dates back to 1878.

The lottery will open for entries today (Thursday, March 10) at 12:01 a.m. and close on Sunday, March 13 at 11:59 p.m. (times are Eastern).

Tickets are free of charge and are nontransferable. To enter the lottery, visit rec.gov.

Berkeley disability group wants to hear from queers The Center for Independent Living in Berkeley will be conducting focus groups on queer community disability services needs and wants to hear from LGBTs to better serve the community.

Focus groups will be held Thursday, March 17 from 1 to 3 p.m. and 3 to 5 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis Street. Snacks will be provided. To RSVP or for more information, contact Lauren at lsteinberg@cilberkeley.org or (510) 8414776. For TTY, call (510) 848-3101.

‘Men Connecting’ workshop The third of UCSF AIDS Health Project’s “Men Connecting” workshop takes place Friday, March 18 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the AHP Services Center, 1930 Market Street in San Francisco.

In the workshop, titled, “All About Great Dating,” participants will look at what makes a good date and how to maintain your well-being in the process. The sessions are free and open to gay and bi men regardless of HIV status.

Space is limited. Pre-registration is required and can be done by calling (415) 476-6448, ext. 1. For more information about AHP, visit www.ucsf -ahp.org.▼

that I hope to bring to this is reaching much further than our normal circle, into communities ... that might not automatically listen to the Gay Men’s Chorus.”

The chorus has swelled in number since Seelig began, and currently boasts 280 members.

At the moment, the chorus is readying for a concert on April 21

entitled simply “Words.” The concert’s pieces were chosen on the basis of lyrical meaning, and include musical interpretations of passages written by author Eckhart Tolle, poet Siegfried Sassoon, abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier, and President Barack Obama.

“One of the things that’s really important to me is text, lyrics, poetry ... delivering important words through music.” Seelig said.

“Words” will also incorporate projected video, a chamber orchestra, the Mission High School choir, and Davies Symphony Hall’s Rufatti organ.

Tickets go on sale this Saturday, March 12, at SFGMC.org and from City Box Office at (415) 392-4400.

The Daily Show segment doesn’t have a firm airdate yet, but is expected to appear sometime in the next month. Until that happens, Seelig remains cautiously optimistic that the chorus will be treated kind.

As the crew completed its recording, Seelig thanked them for the opportunity to serve as representatives “for San Francisco, and for who we are and the thing that we love, and that is singing and being ourselves.”▼

BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 10 March 2011

OPEN

BAYAREAREPORTER Volume 41, Number 10 10 March 2011 eBAR.com PUBLISHER Thomas E. Horn Bob Ross (Founder, 1971 – 2003) N E W S E D I TO R Cynthia Laird A R T S E D I TO R Roberto Friedman ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko Seth Hemmelgarn Jim Provenzano CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Dan Aiello • Tavo Amador • Matt Baume • Erin Blackwell Roger Brigham • Scott Brogan • Victoria A. Brownworth Philip Campbell • Heather Cassell • Chuck Colbert Richard Dodds • Raymond Flournoy • David Guarino Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell • Robert Julian John F. Karr • Lisa Keen • Matthew Kennedy • David Lamble Michael McDonagh Paul Parish • Lois Pearlman Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota • Bob Roehr • Donna Sachet Adam Sandel • Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Ed Walsh • Sura Wood

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

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Standing with Frameline he Israeli Consulate’s past financial support of Frameline, the acclaimed and long-running LGBT film festival, touched off a dustup in the Bay Area Reporter’s letters to the editor. The calls by some LGBT filmmakers and other activists for a “cultural boycott” of this year’s festival is misguided because it holds Frameline responsible for the government of Israel. We stand with Frameline in its past decisions to accept the support of the Israeli Consulate and we urge readers to support Frameline as well. Frameline is currently in the process of selecting films for this summer’s festival and has not yet confirmed any from Israel.

We support an important San Francisco LGBT institution – Frameline – as it endeavors to present some of the most cutting edge and important LGBT films to its audiences. Frameline is an arts and culture organization, it does not take formal political positions on any country or culture. A boycott to force Frameline to refuse grants from the Israeli Consulate will not solve the differences between Israelis and Palestinians. Executive Director K.C. Price noted that the festival’s aim is promoting LGBT voices from around the world. Price also pointed out that Israeli films screened by Frameline often have highly critical points of view about their own country. Three years ago, Frameline screened (and now distributes) Citizen Nawi, a documentary about a tireless Israeli activist who champions Palestinians living in the South Hebron Hills.

Frameline’s mission is to strengthen and further the diverse LGBT world community by supporting and promoting a broad array of cultural representations and artistic expression in film, video, and other media arts. It usually receives financial support from one or more consulates each year. Over the past decade, Frameline received funds from the Israeli Consulate approximately four times, which was mostly used to pay for travel and related expenses to San Francisco for prominent LGBT Israeli filmmakers such as Eytan Fox (Yossi and Jaeger) and Tomer Heymann (Paper Dolls). Last year the festival screened two feature length films from

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settle long-standing disputes in the Middle Israel, a narrative (Eyes Wide Open) and a docEast. Life in Israel is undoubtedly not perfect umentary (Gay Days); and with a $1,500 grant for lesbians and gays – just as it’s not perfect for from the consulate, Frameline flew in Yair LGBTs in the U.S. – at least it is a democracy Qedar, the director of Gay Days. that struggles to support gay rights and is willSignificantly, Israel is the only couning to submit to self-criticism by its cititry in the Middle East that affords legal zens. If anything, Frameline, in its carights to gays and lesbians. It has alpacity as a film presenter, is able to foslowed open military service for ter open dialogue about the current poyears. It has no sodomy laws or litical situation in Israel. vague statutes like “offenses against By reaching out to Frameline in prereligion” or “immoral conduct.” In vious years, the Israeli Consulate has contrast, same-sex sexual activity is punshown a willingness to support out ishable in many Middle Eastern countries, filmmakers, even those who may where there is no recognition of our tell a story the government doesn’t relationships, no adoption, and no E DITORIAL like. While gay and lesbian issues anti-discrimination laws. Gays fleeusually go unaddressed or are coning persecution in Palestine usually demned in the Middle East, Israel’s go to Israel. support of Frameline is an example we’d like to A cultural boycott of Frameline will only see other countries emulate.▼ hurt the organization and not bring peace or

This way of life

by Eugene McMullan he sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church has opened up a can of worms. At the same time, church officials have undertaken an aggressive assault on LGBT families, causing laypeople and liberals, including those who still attend mass, to call in louder and ever more self-assured tones for the ordination of women, married priests, and a whole new Catholic attitude vis-à-vis LGBT people and our civil rights. The German theologians, for example, recently issued a “memorandum” entitled “The Church in 2011: A Necessary New Departure.”

Clearly the institutional policies and doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church on a variety of issues pertaining to sexuality and gender are outdated and inadequate. Although calls for reform have been issued since even before the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), conservative fears have set the agenda and slowed the pace of change.

G UEST Yet it may be that the dual crises of sex abuse and anti-gay politics will finally force the church qua institution to address not only issues of sexuality and gender, but the larger unfinished business of Vatican II. The general outrage and democratic possibilities highlighted by recent developments in North Africa raise the specter of a Jasmine Revolution in the Catholic Church, one in which the church as People of God would finally assert its ownership of the institution, and throw off the tyranny of unelected hierarchs.

The Catholic institution is, in many respects, part of the manifest religion that has “gone bad” to quote Mel White, but its deep roots are sound and its resources vast. Let this time of Lent be a season of radical faith, hope, and love, so that our religion may be known again as a way of life, and not the cult of death its spoilers have attempted to make of it.

It is quite common to hear an LGBT person say, “I was born this way,” but this is also true for Catholics. Even those of us who converted as adults received the faith as a theological gift so that it is in us now – like it or not – informing our choices and calling us back to our roots, our sound beginnings and boundless potential for flourishing. It is who we are, and how we can

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choose to be in the world. It precedes and supersedes institutions that claim to speak for us and to have infinite spiritual authority over us.

We have the faith in us, individually and collectively, and what we do with it – how we interpret it and apply it to our ethical choices including choices about whether and how to practice our religion – cannot be dictated from the balconies of ecclesiastical privilege.

Noam Chomsky said, “If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a better world.”

Things can get better, even in religion. Hope is in us because we are free, human. We are not unrealistic. We recognize oppression in society and the church, and fully acknowledge the breadth and depth of our collective suffering. The reasons for Catholic despair have been many, signs of hope few.

O PINION Yet hope we do, as human beings created in the image and likeness of God, with free will and a capacity to imagine change far beyond that which can be immediately and rationally conceived.

Enduring faith, hope and love make us who we are and supply deep wells of refreshment in our struggle for equality, but love is so important that without this particular gift, which excels all the others, our lives are as empty as clanging cymbals. It is so important, that we define God as love, and sum up the Law and Prophets as the command to love. When asked why we marry, the most common response is “for love.” That also explains why we remain Catholic, why we speak out as Catholics and why we are active not only in pro-LGBT Catholic groups such as Dignity, Fortunate Families, New Ways Ministry, Call to Action, Catholics for Equality, and Catholics for Marriage Equality, but also and especially in local parishes. The mission of Catholics for Marriage Equality in California is to advance marriage equality through prayer, presence, and education. We stay for ourselves, our neighbors, and the next generation. They need us. If not now, when? If not us, who?

The church has its share of bullies. Salvatore

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J. Cordileone, the bishop of Oakland (and “Father of Prop 8”), was recently appointed chair of the U.S. Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage. Taking a cue from Anita Bryant, he has consistently repeated the false and malicious allegation that marriage equality is a threat to children. It is beyond ironic that high-ranking church officials are making this argument at a time when the global exploits of pedophile priests and their lordly, aloof protectors in the hierarchy are regularly exposed in the press and so many abusers have already been carted off to jail.

Things have gotten so bad that a nonCatholic ally and gay father in Castro Valley, Billy Bradford, stands every Sunday morning outside of mass at the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland with Catholic activist Tim Stier and the Women of Magdala. The moral contrast could not be more dramatic. Inside, the bully in all his splendor; outside, the bully’s victims, unsupported and desolate.

This is our historical moment. We may not make a grand entrance, or stage a rebellion in St. Peter’s Square (though that wouldn’t be such a bad idea), but we must respond – in all of our ordinary and extraordinary ways – because that is what it is in us to do. For Lent then, let us rise and converge in a mystical communion in which our humanity finally transcends our “divine” self-loathing (and “Christian” timidity), and the God who is not dead after all reveals through us truly what it means to be fully, unrepentantly alive!

Here are 25 things you can do to make yours a safer parish.

Include LGBT concerns in the prayers of the people.

Involve LGBT people as Eucharistic ministers, lectors, ushers, parish council, etc.

Invite LGBT people to mass.

Invite LGBT people to brunch after mass.

Refer to LGBT people in a positive way in casual conversation with fellow parishioners.

Remember LGBT concerns in your private and/or family prayers.

Educate yourself about LGBT issues.

Join or find ways to support and connect with pro-LGBT Catholic groups such as Catholics for Marriage Equality, Catholics for

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10 March 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

LETTERS

Frameline and Israel

Frameline and the Israeli Consulate.

Israel is home to a vibrant and diverse LGBT communiWe write on behalf of our organizations to respond to ty that has given rise to much outstanding cultural expresthe call by LGBT individuals for a cultural boycott of Israel sion, including in film. And in recent years, Israel has proat the Frameline Festival – a call whose moral logic we find duced more progressive legislation and court decisions in deeply troubling and pernicious [Mailstrom, February 24]. the areas of sexual orientation and LGBT rights than many Not even the Palestinian Authority, let alone other Arab Western countries. Last June I marched with more than governments – revolutionary, autocratic, or monarchic – is 40,000 people in Tel Aviv’s annual gay Pride Parade. And in willing to support the showing of gay films as an expression August, thousands of LGBT people and allies marched of their national culture. Members of the LGBT community through Jerusalem to the Knesset, the Israeli parliaare suppressed and punished throughout the ment, demanding further advancements in Middle East, except in one country where gays are LGBT equality in Israel. Israel is a place where protected by law, serve openly in the military LGBT people have much freedom to live their and parliament, and are welcome in all facets lives, to criticize their government, and to join of life – and that is Israel. This isn’t a political the struggle for further human rights. In most interpretation or a PR spin, it is simply the plain other parts of the Middle East, LGBT people truth. Why then should Israel, of all nations, be dare not say who they are. It is not pinkwashboycotted at Frameline or anywhere? ing to tell the truth, nor to learn about and Israel, as France, Switzerland, and GerM AILSTROM support the LGBT communities of Israel. many, supports the sharing of its culture with There is much valid criticism that could be the people of the Bay Area, and brings Israeli made of the actions of the current leaders of the Israeli govfilms of all types, including films like Lebanon and Arab ernment, as well as of the actions of the current leaders of Labor, which are introspective and self-critical. Numerous the Palestinian people. Yet there are many ways to work for organizations have worked with the Israeli Consulate on change, there are many ways to move toward peace. There quality programming, including during last year’s Out in are numerous organizations doing remarkable work in adIsrael Festival, which provided a rare opportunity to bring vancing the cause of human rights throughout Israel, and in quality Israeli LGBT culture to the Bay Area. Films were working toward peace, without denying Israel’s right to exist shown depicting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in all its as a homeland for the Jewish people. People in the LGBT complexity and a panel was presented on LGBT perspeccommunity can join in the work for a just end to the probtives on Zionism, which broke new intellectual ground and lems in the Middle East without needing to follow this call was highly diverse. And yet posters for the event were refor anti-Zionism. The Boycott Israel (BDS) movement is peatedly ripped down or defaced. about nothing less than the destruction and de-legitimizaBranding Israel as an apartheid or terrorist state is an tion of Israel, which is why the vast majority of Americans, Orwellian use of language. You don’t have to agree with parLGBT people, and San Franciscans oppose it. Israel is a leticular governmental policies, but Israel is a victim of terror, gitimate member of the world community. And as Framenot a purveyor of it. And whatever its faults, there is nothline does with many countries, if those countries want to ing apartheid about Israel’s multiracial and multicultural support bringing the directors of their films to Frameline society. so that we can hear their voices, Frameline should be free to The Israel National Film Fund routinely supports the accept such support. production of Israeli film representing a wide array of culLast year Frameline featured the film Gay Days at the tural and political perspectives simply because they are high festival, a documentary by my friend Yair Qedar, about the quality expressions of Israeli culture. These are hallmarks history of the LGBT movement in Tel Aviv. Yair was able to of a society that is remarkably open and should be comcome to the festival due to the funding provided by the Ismunicated with, not boycotted – perhaps we will even learn raeli Consulate. His voice deserved to be heard, and we all something. benefited from hearing it.

We hope that Frameline – which is a very important inI hope that someday there are LGBT films coming out of stitution in San Francisco – will not give in to doctrinaire, many countries of the Middle East, along with Israel, and anti-Israel bullying parading as a social cause. that the governments of those countries will want to help support their LGBT artists. Until then, let us celebrate the Ruvim Braude, President LGBT film and culture that is thriving in the world, includRabbi Doug Kahn, Executive Director ing in Israel.

Jewish Community Relations Council Jennifer Gorovitz, Chief Executive Officer, Jewish Community Federation

Lights, camera, action!

I was astonished by the misguided and myopic letter from some rag-tag extremists and radical filmmakers in the Bay Area Reporter. Contrary to their anti-Semitic rant – a motley diatribe of mistruths and distortions – Israel is clearly the only country in the entire Middle East where our LGBT brothers and sisters live in safety and dignity with legally protected human rights.

In stark contrast, ask the vast majority of LGBT residents of Egypt, Gaza, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Libya about their oppression under dictators or Islamist tyrants. In a number of Arab countries and Iran, being gay is a capital offense punishable by death. In Gaza, Hamas thugs routinely torture and murder gay people. We can only hope that the recent and unfolding revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya will bring a new era with more representative government and human rights for all, including LGBTs, but that is not preordained. An alternative scenario could see extremist Islamists gain power – quashing hopes for LGBT liberation in the Arab/Iranian world.

Moreover, I just returned from Israel and can report our Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and other LGBT brothers and sisters enjoy an absolutely fabulous gay lifestyle in Tel Aviv that many here would envy – believe me! Or go discover for yourself and enjoy the Tel Aviv Gay Pride Celebration, June 5-12, 2011. Meanwhile, Frameline, please continue your cooperation with the Israeli Consulate and Israeli filmmakers. Lights, camera, action!

David J. Blumberg San Francisco

LGBTs must show solidarity with Palestine I completely agree with the writers of the letter, “Questioning Frameline on Israeli support” that it is inappropriate for Frameline to accept sponsorship from the Israeli government. Especially now – when Israel is laying siege to the people in Gaza, expanding its colonies in the West Bank, and ignoring condemnation of its awful and lethal raid on the Gaza aid flotilla – for Frameline to accept money from the Israeli government is reprehensible and our community needs to let them know that this is unacceptable.

The fact that gay and lesbian rights in the occupied Palestinian territories are less progressive than in Israel is not relevant here. Israel is a gross violator of human rights, and the LGBT community must show solidarity with the Palestinians as well as Tibetans and other oppressed peoples. Until all of us are free, none of us are free.

Arthur Slepian, Executive Director A Wider Bridge

[The author is also the chair of the Advisory Committee of the LGBT Alliance of the Jewish Community Federation.]

Thanks for Diana Ross shout out Thanks for acknowledging that the recent queerest moment on television was Diana Ross’s heart-tugging appearance on the Oprah show [“Politics, lies, and videotape,” Lavender Tube, March 3].

It was rather perplexing that columnist Victoria A. Brownworth stated that she never thought of Ross as a civil rights icon. Ross was signed to Motown at the height of the civil rights movement. Fans know that as far back as 1968 after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Ross was performing at a Command Performance for the Queen of England. While performing “Somewhere” from West Side Story, she included a spoken word interlude. In it she stated: “Yes, there’s a place for each of us. Where love is like a passion that burns like a fire. Let our efforts be like those of Dr. Martin Luther King, who had a dream that all God’s children; black men, white men, Jews, Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics can all join hands and sing ‘Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last.’”

This bold statement caused such a ruckus that she held a global press conference the next day to defend her statement. She also never performed in South Africa until Nelson Mandela was freed. She also marched in civil rights protests and attended King’s funeral. So while her detractors rarely give her credit, Ross has been at the forefront and a trailblazer. Beyond the wigs and lashes is a woman with a lot more heart and soul than she is rarely ever acknowledged for.

Kirk Bonin San Francisco

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

Jeff Pekrul San Francisco

Israel is a member of world community I am writing in reply to the letter that suggests that the LGBT community must oppose any connection between

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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 10 March 2011

BUSINES S

NEWS

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Mutts get ready to mingle B

q

Help Cliff’s celebrate 75 years in the Castro This June marks the 75th anniversary of Castro landmark Cliff ’s Variety (479 Castro Street), and the public is invited to submit designs for a commemorative T-shirt. Entries must fit into a 10-inch-square-

by drag performers, singers, and other local performance artists, and benefits San Francisco TransLatinas.

Founded last year on the Mission Campus of City College of San Francisco, SF TransLatinas has the dual goals of combating transphobia and encouraging education in the transgender immigrant community.

Hot and Healthy will run from 9 to 11 p.m. with no cover charge, although donations are encouraged.

Throughout the evening raffles and drink specials will raise funds for SF TransLatinas. Representatives from DPH will be available during the event to answer questions and share information about current HIV-related research.

For more information on SF TransLatinas, contact ccsftranslatinas@yahoo.com. To learn more about the HIV research section visit www.SFisReady.org.

Local and national corporations pitch in to fete LGBT center The San Francisco LGBT Community Center (1800 Market Street) invites you to live “La Dolce Vita” as it celebrates its ninth anniversary with a soiree of Roman proportions.

“Soiree 9: La Dolce Vita” will be held Saturday, March 26 from 7 to 11 p.m. at the San Francisco Design Center Galleria (101 Henry Adams Street). Themed to the Fellini movie of the same name, the evening will include live entertainment, dancing, silent auctions, and food and drink supplied by local restaurants.

Soiree 9 is sponsored by a long list of corporate sponsors, headed by lead sponsor California Pacific Medical Center. Other corporations contributing to the celebration include national mainstream companies such as Target, Wells Fargo, and Southwest Airlines, local names such as Medjool Restaurant and Lounge (2522 Mission Street) and Greenleaf Produce (www.greenleafsf.com), and gay-focused businesses, such as Curve magazine and the San Francisco-based GayCities travel website.

Other gay-owned or gay-focused sponsors include Horizons Foundation(www.horizonsfoundation.org), National Center for Lesbian Rights (www.nclrights.org), Swirl Radio (www.swirlradiosf.ning.com), and Sweet Resorts (www.discoversweet.com).

According to Stephanie Jaeger, the event’s marketing co-chair, “We are also excited to have as our honorary hosts the newest slate of freshmen supervisors: Scott Wiener along with Malia Cohen, Mark Farrell, and Jane Kim.” Because of the corporate underwriting, 100 percent of each $95 ticket will go to support the center.

To see a full list of the sponsoring businesses and to purchase tickets, visit soiree.sfcenter.org.

CBD honors Herth Real Estate The Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District has given its latest Community Partner Award to Herth Real Estate (555 Castro Street). At the March meeting of the

Guest Opinion ▼

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Equality, Fortunate Families, Call to Action, New Ways Ministries, Dignity USA, and the Catholic Association for Lesbian and Gay Ministry.

Start an unofficial LGBT-affirming network and/or social group.

Start an official LGBT-affirming ministry.

Share your concerns with your pastor.

Arrange to speak to the parish council.

Build alliances with members of religious orders.

Encourage the peace and justice

Steven Kasapi

space, utilize the Cliff ’s logo, and be family-friendly.

Deadline for entries is April 10. est in Show (545 Castro Then from April 18-24, the designs Street) invites you and your will be posted to Cliff ’s website, best four-footed competing for your votes. friend to Qbar (456 Castro The staff of Cliff’s will then Street) for “Mutt Mingle,” select the winner from the a beer bust benefiting top three vote-getters, and Wonder Dog Rescue the grand prize winner (www.wonderdogwill be unveiled on April rescue.org).

30. Creator of the The event takes winning design will place on Thursday, B USINESS B RIEFS take home a prize of March 24, from 5 to $300.

9 p.m. and “on-leash and well-beFor detailed instructions on how haved” dogs are welcome to attend. to enter, visit www.cliffsvariety.com.

No similar restrictions are listed for dog owners.

Cafe Flore gets hot for health Proceeds from the $10 beer bust On March 12, Cafe Flore (2298 tickets and $1 raffle tickets will go to Market Street) will host the first ansupport Wonder Dog’s work. Addiniversary celebration for “Hot and tionally, Best in Show is collecting Healthy,” a monthly variety show donations for Wonder Dog’s canine sponsored by the HIV research seccharges throughout the months of tion of the San Francisco DepartMarch and April. New and gently ment of Public Health. The anniverused items such as collars and leashsary show will be hosted by Peruvian es, as well as pet food and monetary drag artist Garza, the founder of Hot contributions can be dropped off at and Healthy.

Best in Show during business hours.

The show features performances

by Raymond Flournoy

Andy Farriester, sales manager at Best in Show, breaks the news to Fergal that the “Mutt Mingle” fundraiser at Qbar isn’t until March 24.

Merchants of Upper Market and Castro CBD President Dominic Campodonico and Executive Director Andrea Aiello presented the award to Herth, citing the company’s “exemplary leadership in helping the CBD with its mission of beautifying the Castro District.”

Accepting the award was Emery Bushong, a sales manager at Herth, who organizes a team of volunteer gardeners who tend the Harvey Milk Plaza during regular Friday morning work sessions.

Flowers for the Castro The CBD has announced a new campaign to bring hanging flower baskets to Castro district light poles.

The program aims to hang 14 baskets around the business district and raise sufficient funds to tend the baskets for at least two years.

At the March MUMC meeting, Aiello estimated that each basket would cost approximately $1,000 per year to maintain. Aiello stressed that the baskets would be created and cared for by local businesses.

According to the CBD, the original idea for the flower baskets was proposed by Castro resident Robert Miller, and initial support came from Petyr Kane, owner of Citizen (536 Castro Street) and Body (450 Castro Street). Donations so far include $1,000 from US Bank and $2,480 from the Castro CBD itself. Aiello said the CBD hopes to raise about $27,000 by Harvey Milk Day, May 22.

group to address LGBT issues.

Forward the Catholics for Marriage Equality newsletter to your friends and allies.

Sponsor or promote an LGBT and allied retreat.

Make Catholic-oriented “It Gets Better” videos.

Arrange a movie night around an LGBT-themed film (such as Prayers for Bobby).

Host a book discussion around an LGBT-themed book, or a novel with a significant LGBT character and/or relationship.

Display works by an LGBT artist.

Display images and make liturgical reference to saints such as Sebastian, Joan of Arc, Cosmas and

www.bartabsf.com

The CBD officially kicks off the fundraising drive in a ceremony at Harvey Milk Plaza on Saturday, March 12 at 2 p.m. Donations are tax deductible and may be made online at www.castrocbd.org.

Future foodie ups and downs This week Mollie Stone’s Market opened the doors of its newest store at 4201 18th Street, in the heart of the Castro District. The previous occupant, Delano’s IGA closed suddenly in early December. An opening ceremony was held Wednesday, March 9 for the company’s ninth Bay Area store.

Ike’s Place has finally received full permits for its new location, and March 15 will be the final day that Ike’s will be operating out of Lime (2247 Market Street). Owner Ike Shehadeh announced the news via the Ike’s Place Facebook page. In an e-mail to the B.A.R. Shehadeh confirmed that his goal is to open in his new location at 3489 16th Street on March 16.

The Castro Farmer’s Market will return to the intersection of Noe and Market streets on Wednesday, March 16.

Trader Joe’s has pulled the plug on its Castro store plans. The B.A.R. learned about the abrupt change Monday night. Read more online at ebar.com/blogs.▼ Contact Raymond Flournoy at castroshopper@yahoo.com.

Damien, Perpetua and Felicitas, etc.

Sit with your same-gender partner during mass, and express affection as openly as heterosexual couples.

Sit with an LGBT person or samegender couple during mass.

Fully include the children of LGBT parents.

Ask an LGBT person to be your child’s godparent.▼ Eugene McMullan is the founder of Catholics for Marriage Equality in California, and a member of the board of Dignity/San Francisco.

He is also the leader of the young adults group at Most Holy Redeemer parish.

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10 March 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

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POLITIC S

by Matthew S. Bajko aving broken through a lavender ceiling in the judicial system three decades ago, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Mary Morgan is ready to enjoy her wellearned retirement.

When Governor Jerry Brown, during his first term in Sacramento, tapped Morgan in 1981 for a vacancy on what was then called the San Francisco Municipal Court, she became the first out lesbian judge in the nation’s history.

Her swearing-in followed Brown’s appointments of two gay men to courts in Los Angeles, making Morgan the third known P OLITICAL LGBT judicial figure in the state at the time.

“It was a real privilege ... it has been an experience that has greatly enriched my life,” said Morgan. “As for the small part I was able to play in paving the way for greater visibility of LGBT people, that has been very gratifying.”

Her retirement last week follows that of Donna Hitchens, another pioneering lesbian member of the San Francisco court. In 1990 Hitchens became the first out person in the United States to be elected a judge. She left the bench last November but continues to hear cases on a part-time basis.

Morgan told the Bay Area Reporter this week that she had decided several years ago that once she turned 65 and reached retirement age, she would leave the bench. Her last day was Thursday, March 4.

So far, she said, not having to go to the courthouse weekday mornings has been an easy adjustment to make.

“I have loved my job; it has been fascinating and it has been a privilege.

Now, I have many other things I would like do,” said Morgan.

At the top of her list is competing in the Tiburon Sprint Triathlon, which includes a half-mile swim, this summer. She is working with a coach to prepare for her first attempt at swimming in the bay’s frigid waters.

“This is a new thing for me,” said Morgan, who earned her J.D. from the New York University School of Law. Later this year Morgan and her partner, Heather Furmidge, plan to spend November and December traveling through Southeast Asia. Practicing Buddhists – Morgan serves on the board of the San Francisco Zen Center – the couple has over the years traveled extensively throughout the region, visiting such countries as Bhutan and Laos and Thailand and China.

“I think, originally, we were drawn there due to the curiosity to see societies that were primarily Buddhist.

After that, the countries are so beauti-

H

ful and so different. The people are incredibly lovely and generous,” said Morgan.

During her tenure on the Municipal Court, Morgan served terms as the presiding judge and assistant presiding judge. She also served as dean and assistant dean of the California Judicial College; and was a faculty member at the California Judges Association, California Judicial College, California Continuing Judicial Education and the National Association of Women Judges.

Her joining the court caused quite a stir back then, recalled Morgan, who had applied in 1980 for a judicial seat.

“When I was appointed, for many, many people it was a scandal. I received mail from all kinds of peowhich ran the N OTEBOOK ple, gamut from hate mail to religious tracts with people praying for me that somehow I would see the light,” said Morgan. “In addition, there was much laudatory praise and people thankful for having a role model.”

In 1993 she stepped down from the court to move to Washington, D.C. where she was director of the domestic violence legal clinic at American University’s Washington College of Law. Her then-partner, former San Francisco Supervisor Roberta Achtenberg, had been appointed by President Bill Clinton to be assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The following year Morgan joined the Clinton administration as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Policy Development at the U.S. Department of Justice where she worked under thenAttorney General Janet Reno.

In 2003 then-Governor Gray Davis appointed Morgan to the reconstituted San Francisco Superior Court bench. A proponent of collaborative justice, Morgan earned accolades for her oversight of the Behavioral Health Court, which was launched in 2002 in order to better address the increasing numbers of mentally ill defendants cycling through the criminal justice system.

The BHC directs seriously mentally ill adult offenders to community mental health programs, where they receive continuous and consistent community mental health treatment.

The court’s work on decreasing recidivism among mentally ill offenders led it to being honored in 2008 with the Council on Mentally Ill Offenders Best Practices Award.

More recently, Morgan received a Heroes and Hearts Award from the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation for her achievements in advocating for the better treatment of people with mental illness and influencing statewide practices to improve California’s mental health system.

Rick Gerharter

Nation’s first out lesbian judge retires from bench

Judge Mary Morgan retired last week.

In announcing Morgan’s retirement last week, Presiding Judge Katherine Feinstein stated that Morgan leaves behind “a hole that will not be easily filled.”

“Not only will we all miss the tremendous energy she devoted to ensuring that the most needy of our society were served in a humane manner, while the community was safe from their criminal behaviors, she inspired all of us to think more deeply and creatively about the roles we play individually and collectively in the justice system,” stated Feinstein. “As both a judge and as a person, Mary was smart, tireless, creative and brave.”

It will be up to Brown, now in his third term as governor, to appoint someone to serve out the remainder of Morgan’s term, which was not set to expire until December 31, 2016. It is the only vacancy at the moment on the San Francisco court.

Whoever takes over the seat would not stand for election for a full-term on the court until June 2014. Asked if she wanted to see Brown select an LGBT nominee, Morgan said she didn’t believe it was important for him to do so.

“That is an interesting question. It does not feel like a pressing issue because there are approximately 10 lesbian or gay judges and commissioners currently on the court,” said Morgan.

Last year Morgan joined with the majority of her out colleagues on the bench to support the retention campaign of Judge Richard Ulmer, a straight man appointed to fill a vacancy by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. After placing second in the June primary, Ulmer went on to defeat Michael Nava, an openly gay lawyer, in the November runoff.

The race became highly contentious, a rarity for judicial retention campaigns. It also raised the question of whether the LGBT community should reject judges based solely on their sexual orientation or political affiliation. [Ulmer had been a Republican but switched to decline-to-state

Heilman third in WeHo vote

by Matthew S. Bajko fter a campaign marked by anguished debate over the direction and identity of West Hollywood, voters in southern California’s famous gay enclave sided with the familiar in Tuesday’s election and rejected entreaties from a number of challengers for wholesale change on their City Council.

Of the three incumbents on the ballot, the only one to be bounced off the council was Lindsey Horvath, who was appointed to fill a vacancy two years ago following the death of Councilman Sal Guarriello. According to unofficial returns Wednesday morning, she landed in fifth place with 1,902 votes.

Incumbent Councilwoman Abbe Land was the top vote getter in the race with 2,548 votes. Coming in second was city commissioner John

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West Hollywood Mayor John Heilman was re-elected to the City Council.

D’Amico with 2,471 votes.

But in a sign of the turmoil that had rocked the March 8 election, longtime Councilman John Heilman, a law professor who is currently serving as mayor, came in third

place with 2,359 votes.

Heilman, who has served on the council since the city was incorporated in the early 1980s, survived attacks from detractors that it was time for him to step aside. One of his harshest critics, former Councilman Steve Martin, ended up in fourth place with 2,026.

Among the other five challengers in the race, city commissioner Scott Schmidt led the pack with 1,226 votes.

He had hoped to become the first Republican to serve on the council.

There are still 930 provisional ballots to be reviewed, and if found to be valid, will be added to the count in the coming days. But the results are likely to remain unchanged and mirror polling that had been done in the race.

With the addition of D’Amico, West Hollywood will have four openly gay men on its City Council serving alongside Land, who is straight.▼

after moving to San Francisco following his court appointment.]

Morgan was a vocal defender of Ulmer’s ability as a judge. The same criteria she asked voters to judge Ulmer on she hopes Brown follows in selecting her successor.

“What I think is really important is the governor appoint someone to the bench who will pay attention to our issues; who thinks diversity is very important; and who will think outside the box in terms of providing leadership for the court in initiating innovative programs,” said Morgan.

Asked this week if he was interested in being named to Morgan’s seat on the bench, Nava told the B.A.R. he was not. His attention these days is focused on reviewing death penalty appeals for the state Supreme Court and finishing his latest crime novel.

Low set to announce Assembly bid Openly gay Campbell City Councilman Evan Low is expected to announce he is running for a South Bay Assembly seat tonight (Thursday, March 10) during an appearance before local business leaders.

Low will address the Campbell Chamber of Commerce at 5 p.m. where he has promised to “make a major announcement.” A press advisory released earlier in the week said four mayors of Silicon Valley cities as well as San Jose’s vice mayor would be joining Low at the appearance.

Low did not respond to the

B.A.R.‘s question if the announcement would be the start of his campaign for a state legislative seat.

Last month the Political Notebook reported that Low has made no secret of his desire to seek the Assembly seat now held by Jim Beall (D-San Jose), who will be termed out of office next year. As currently drawn, Beall’s 24th Assembly District includes sections of San Jose, the cities of Saratoga and Campbell, and portions of Santa Clara and Los Gatos.

Should Low jump into the race as expected, he will be running against openly gay Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager. The former San Jose councilman, who is a political mentor to Low, created his exploratory committee last month.

Also kicking off her bid for an Assembly seat tonight is longtime Los Angeles LGBT activist Torie Osborn.

The one-time mayoral aide is seeking the 41st Assembly District seat.

And out in Stockton, lesbian City Councilwoman Susan Talamantes Eggman is eyeing a run for the 17th Assembly District seat. The current officeholder, Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani (D-Livingston), will be termed out next year. Should Eggman win the seat, the Latina lawmaker would be the first out woman of color to serve in the state Legislature.▼ Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 861-5019 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.

BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 10 March 2011

COMMUNITY

NEWS

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Rick Gerharter

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Project archivist Marjorie Bryer and managing archivist Rebekah Kim sort through material in the GLBT Historical Society’s archive.

Historical society turns focus to archives

by Matthew S. Bajko reserved in the cardboard box is a jumble of unorganized newspaper clippings, internal memos, a role of stickers, and even a record by drag performer Dina Martinez. The mishmash of material is from the 1999 mayoral campaign of Tom Ammiano, now a state assemblyman.

Since 2001 the records have been stored in the archives of the GLBT Historical Society. No one has gone through the box to properly catalogue exactly what it contains, though, until now.

In January the preservationist group hired a second archivist to begin sorting through its collection of donated materials. It was able to do so after receiving a $130,000 two-year grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the funding arm of the National Archives.

Under the funding guidelines, the society is expected to process half of its backlog of donated paper materials by September 30, 2012. It estimates that the total backlog comes to about 1,100 linear feet of materials; so the goal is to cut that down to 550 linear feet of papers.

“Most archives face this issue. We are actually in pretty good shape, considering,” said Marjorie Bryer, who had spent the last three years as part of a team processing the backlog of donated material at the Bancroft Library on the UC Berkeley campus.

First the society needs to know what exactly is in its collection. So over the last two months Bryer has been prying open boxes stored at the GLBT Historical Society’s archives housed on 3rd Street near Yerba Buena Gardens.

She expects to spend up to six months seeing just what is in the various boxes and entering information on what she discovers into the society’s computer system.

“We have skeleton records of all of the collection. I am adding enough info so we can create a standard catalogue, similar to what a public library has,” said Bryer.

Already, she has found some “lost” gems that were not listed in the society’s catalogue. Among the collection for the Beige Room, a bar that hosted drag shows in the 1940s and 1950s, were black and white photos of the performers, including old negatives.

The material had been donated in 1999 but wasn’t properly listed in the society’s records.

“It is sexy to bring stuff in and acquisitions are really important, but people forget about the technical services side. We are not doing anyone a service if we don’t give people access to it,” said Bryer, a longtime historical society volunteer and former board member.

Some of the donated materials

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waiting to be organized include papers from both the Horizon’s Foundation and Community United Against Violence. There are 71 boxes containing the papers and records of AIDS activist Hank Wilson, who died in 2008, and another 120 boxes from the estate of gay historian Allan Berube, who died in 2007.

“He kept a lot of paper,” noted Rebekah Kim, the society’s managing archivist, who flew to New York after Berube’s death to box up his records and ship them back to San Francisco.

Members of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus have also been helping sort through 100 boxes of material the chorale group gave to the archives for posterity. The collection was donated two years ago but hadn’t really been looked at until recently.

Once Bryer has finished peering through the various boxes, she and Kim will then determine which of the individual collections are of the highest priority to be properly catalogued and if they meet the criteria for materials covered by the grant, which is aimed primarily at personal papers and organizational records.

The material from Ammiano’s unsuccessful mayoral bid will likely be given high priority to be properly archived.

“It was a really important event in the city’s history and has high research value,” explained Bryer. “Plus it is small and will be quick to do. As it is now, it is totally inaccessible.”

Glenne McElhinney, a historian and filmmaker who sits on the society’s women’s committee, said most of the community archives she uses throughout the state are dealing with the same issue as the San Francisco group.

“Community archives are pretty well known for having issues with lots of people giving, which is wonderful, and thinking of the archive for their history and for their long saved possessions. At the same time, because people have given so much, it does create a backlog,” said McElhinney. “It is wonderful that San Francisco was able to receive some funds and hire that second person. It really helps and really makes a difference in that backlog.”

Now that the local historical group has opened a stand-alone museum space in the Castro, it has turned its full attention toward dealing with its archives. It recently extended its lease for the space where the archives are housed for another three years.

At the same time it gave back about half of the space it had been renting in the South of Market building since it moved its exhibitions and speakers series to the Castro museum space, where it has a five-year lease. Paul Boneberg, the society’s executive director, said the group’s rent for both spaces is about $8,000 a month, down from the $10,000 a month it had been paying in rent.

As the museum continues to attract national media attention, Boneberg said the archives remain the society’s primary purpose. It is not a coincidence that the museum’s first major exhibit highlights key artifacts from the collection, he noted.

“The society hasn’t forgotten that the number one priority is the archive.

It is the core of our program and will remain the core of our program forever,” said Boneberg.“The archive program is expanding.”

In addition to sorting through its collection, the society’s staff is also culling items from the archives that can be stored off-site because they are of little value to researchers and serve more as items for future museum shows. By doing so, said Boneberg, it opens up space to house more materials of interest to academics and others who use the archives.

“It will allow us to grow. But our main priority is processing what we already have to make things accessible,” said Boneberg.

Waiting to be placed in storage is everything from paintings and murals to a giraffe figure that was a fixture at the long ago closed Giraffe bar. There are also a table, stools and metal ashtray from the now defunct Finocchio’s, a famous North Beach drag club that closed its doors in 1999.

“If this chair could talk, the stories it could tell,” said Boneberg.

The historical society is also trying to fill in gaps within its collection.

Since 2006 it has prioritized gathering materials from people of color, women, transgender individuals, and the poor and working class.

“We want to be more diverse and more targeted about what materials we want,” said Kim. The over abundance of material from white gay men is partly due to the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. They were one of the groups hardest hit by the deadly disease, and after they died, many of their relatives and friends dropped off their belongings to the historical society.

Michael Nava, a former board member, pointed to another reason for the discrepancy in the archival materials.

“If there are gaps in the collection, it is because I think, frankly, communities of color they haven’t been as free to be as open as white, middle-class gay men,” said Nava.

From a working class and poor background himself, Nava added that, “We don’t have much archives in my own family history, so I wouldn’t expect there would be much out there.”

Items the historical society is not interested in are old newspapers or LGBT books, which should instead be given to a library. What it does want are original materials, such as diaries, letters, personal writings, and photos.

“I don’t get a lot of offers of that but the most interesting things to us are the personal material,” said Kim.▼

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10 March 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

COMMUNITY

NEWS

Authors self-publish gay-themed books for kids

by Seth Hemmelgarn n a recent Saturday afternoon, men, women, and children packed a bookstore in San Francisco’s largely gay Castro District for story time.

Bryan Leffew read to the crowd from Eric Ross’s My Uncle’s Wedding, a children’s book Ross published himself. He’s just one local author who has recently written a book without going through a traditional publishing house.

Ross, who was at A Different Light Bookstore to sign copies of his book March 5, told the crowd after the reading that even though it features two men, “This isn’t a gay wedding or a same-sex wedding. It’s just a wedding.”

In the book, Andy talks about Uncle Mike and Steve’s wedding, how it affects him, and the things he gets to do in preparation for the ceremony.

“I didn’t like how the opponents of marriage equality would always use kids for political gain,” Ross, 31, said in a phone interview. He also said there aren’t very many resources for kids regarding LGBT issues.

During the months leading up to November 2008, when California voters passed the Proposition 8 same-sex marriage ban, the measure’s backers designed television ads meant to scare parents. One commercial showed a small girl carrying the book King and King and telling her horrified mother that she could marry a princess.

Ross, who lives in Emeryville but works for the San Francisco-based Out and Equal Workplace Advocates, said the book’s been getting “a lot of great feedback.” So far, most of his marketing efforts have been on Facebook and Twitter. He’s also been sending out review copies, and is trying to get a spot on Ellen DeGeneres’s television talk show. He sent the show an elaborate press kit in hopes of attracting attention from show bookers.

My Uncle’s Wedding is Ross’s first book. He started last September and the book was published in February.

He said the hardest part was finding an illustrator who could interpret the story the way that he was hoping for. He eventually found Tracy K. Greene.

He said that overall, the production costs were slightly above $1,200.

One reason Ross published it himself is “the publishing industry is not doing well anymore” and only authors who have proved themselves seem to be able to get their work published, he said.

Alyson Books, which was founded in 1980 and has published many LGBT titles, including the popular Heather Has Two Mommies, is now under the ownership of Here Media, a unit of Regent Entertainment, which is embroiled in several lawsuits over financial issues.

For his book, Ross used Amazon.com’s CreateSpace, which provided editing services, and marketing services are available at additional cost.

“They pretty much walk you through all the steps,” said Ross. “It’s pretty easy.”

The site offers many free tools and pay-for services to help writers publish and distribute their work. Royalty rates range from 40 percent to 80 percent depending on the distribution channel. My Uncle’s Wedding sells for $10.99.

Asked in an e-mail about how many people are writing LGBTthemed books for children, Amazon spokeswoman Sarah Gelman re-

Bill Wilson

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New author Eric Ross has enjoyed some early success with his children’s book, My Uncle’s Wedding.

sponded that the company doesn’t disclose the breakdown in categories of books published through CreateSpace.

Saturday, at A Different Light, which is known for its LGBT book selection, a bookcase carrying My Uncle’s Wedding and other children’s books looked a little lonely among the store’s other literature, but Oscar Raymundo, the store’s event coordinator, said the children’s section is one of the shop’s most popular spaces.

“When families in the Castro are looking for books, they come to us first,” he said.

Something to relate to Bill Delaney’s 4-year-old daughter, Mary, appears to be happy with Ross’s book. Delaney said in a phone interview that Ross sent an advance proof of his book to the family.

“She loved it,” said Delaney, 43, who married his husband, J.R. Parish, 46, in San Francisco in 2008. Mary immediately related the book to her own experience as a flower girl, he said.

Delaney said there’s “definitely a need” for books like Ross’s. It gives kids a chance to see their families reflected in books, and for children who aren’t from same sex-headed families, “sometimes the only way they’ll learn

James LaCroce just self-published Chimpy Discovers His Family.

is if they see it in fiction.”

He said he planned to recommend My Uncle’s Wedding to Mary’s preschool.

Kevin Gogin is program manager for the San Francisco Unified School District school health programs. The district offers several gau-inclusive books designed for children for teachers to discuss with classes.

Gogin said, “I wouldn’t say there’s a huge selection of gay-themed children’s literature out there,” but such books allow children to have a framework to discuss family diversity, including queer families, as well as issues like name calling.

Another local author who saw a need for gay-themed children’s books and published one himself is James LaCroce, 37.

LaCroce’s Chimpy Discovers His Family ($21.95) chronicles a chimpanzee’s struggles and eventual success at becoming adopted by a male couple.

“I would really like to be able to help normalize gay adoption ... especially to help kids and families feel like there’s a character out there for them,” said LaCroce, a psychologist who lives in San Francisco with his partner, Bay Area Reporter assistant editor Matthew S. Bajko. “There are not a lot of really good books for kids that have two dads or two moms.”

He said, “The response has been really positive” to the book, which is his first. He originally used Lulu.com to publish the book, but he switched to CreateSpace because he wanted people to be able to find Chimpy through Amazon. He’d like even more people to be able to access the book.

“I would still love it to be published by a traditional publisher,” said LaCroce.▼

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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 10 March 2011

INTERNATIONAL

NEWS

▼

Out gays elected to Irish Dáil its documents to the registry office in January 2008.

The registrar responded that the wo gay men made history by group’s existence “offends current being elected to Ireland’s lower morality,” and forwarded the forms to house of Parliament, Dáil Éirethe justice ministry for review. ann, on February 25.

In early 2009, Justice Minister BenDominic Hannigan will reprevinda Levi suggested a rewrite of sent Meath East, a parliamenone article of the group’s tary constituency in the statutes, which the group northeast of the nation, agreed to. for the Labour Party.

In early 2010, LambAnd John Lyons will da met with the deputy represent the constituenjustice minister. He said cy of Dublin North West, there was no legal imalso for Labour. pediment to registration Hannigan currently and suggested the group is a member of the W OCKNER’ S submit a recounting of Seanad Éireann, or SenW ORLD facts and law to the minate. Members of that istry, which it did. body are not directly Nothing has happened since then, elected, and its powers are weaker than which Lambda says amounts to a viothose of the Dáil. lation of its constitutional right to Hannigan will have to give up that freedom of association. seat, to which he was appointed in 2007 by fellow politicians.

Honduras special unit Ireland’s only other openly gay to investigate anti-LGBT member of Parliament – current or hate crimes past – also is a senator. Since 1987, Honduras is creating an investigaDavid Norris has represented voters tive unit and task force to tackle hate who are graduates of the University of crimes against LGBTI people, women, Dublin. youth, and journalists.

al of them were aggressively arrested for taking part in an unsanctioned public action.

This year, the organizers’ application expanded the scope of the proposed march to include several other minority groups in hopes of improving the odds of getting city approval and reducing hostility from anti-gay protesters.

The march, if approved, will wrap up four days of “Festival of Equality” events that include a film screening, a photo exhibition, and other activities.

by Rex Wockner

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Mozambique LGBT group still unregistered Mozambique’s only LGBT group, Lambda, said March 1 that it has been waiting three years for the government to complete its official registration.

The group, also known as the Mozambican Association for the Defense of Sexual Minorities, submitted

The government ministers of human rights and public security will be directly involved in the undertaking, which will utilize 150 researchers.

Officials estimate that Honduras has seen 200 anti-LGBTI killings in the past five years.

In January, the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa urged the Honduran government to “vigorously investigate” five murders of LGBT people

Dominic Hannigan has been elected to Ireland’s lower house of Parliament.

that took place since December 18.

The embassy expressed “great concern” about the killings and said, “the protection of Honduran law extends to all citizens regardless of sexual orientation.”

The government must “take all necessary steps to protect LGBT persons, who are among the most vulnerable to violence and abuse in Honduras,” the U.S. officials said.

Belarus LGBTs hope to march in May Gay activists in Minsk, Belarus, applied to the city government March 4 for permission to hold a “March of Equality” on May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

Last year, the city’s executive committee banned a gay Pride march and, when activists ignored the ban, sever-

Report: AIDS confab shortchanges at-risk populations A new report charges that the biennial International AIDS Conference, the premier gathering for people working in the HIV field, shortchanges groups most likely to become infected with HIV, including gay men, transgender people, sex workers, and drug users.

An audit of conference programming, conducted by the Global Forum on MSM and HIV, analyzed last year’s gathering in Vienna and found that the percentage of sessions exclusively focused on such groups was 2.6 percent for men who have sex with men (MSM), 1.1 percent for transgender people, 3 percent for sex workers and 4.5 percent for drug users.

“While the International AIDS Society turns a blind eye, HIV rates among these populations continue to climb around the world,” said the forum’s executive officer, George Ayala, PsyD. “The IAC is the world’s

most important opportunity for international exchange and collaboration on HIV and AIDS. Such abysmal representation of most-at-risk groups only serves to reinforce the invisibility, discrimination and disregard that drive the epidemic among these communities.”

The report recommends that conference organizers ensure a transparent process for reviewing abstracts and designing programming, increase their support of authors developing abstracts focused on key populations, and broaden representation on the committees that develop conference programming.

“It is incumbent upon the organizers to ensure that the IAC becomes a vehicle for change, shifting the global landscape so that funding, research and programs are directed to those who need them most. Right now it’s part of the problem,” Ayala said.

LGBT group forms in Montenegro An LGBT organization has formed and been officially registered in Podgorica, capital of the former Yugoslav republic of Montenegro. The group, LGBT Forum Progress, is pressing for a law granting gay couples the rights of marriage.

Cuban TV airs Glee Cuba’s Cubavisión channel is airing the übergay U.S. television series Glee, each Saturday at 5:45 p.m. State TV also recently aired Six Feet Under.▼ Bill Kelley contributed to this report.

The transgender rights bill that isn’t right We’re left, yet again, with the eternal struggle over what transgender people he Maryland House of Deledo in bathrooms. gates’ health and government A hint for those who operations committee is this might be curious: we’re week holding a hearing on the Gender doing what most people Identity Anti-Discrimination bill. do there – using the faGINDA, also known as HB 235, would cilities. prohibit discrimination on the basis of In all seriousness, gender identity and sexual orientation. how am I protected by While the bill was introduced at not allowing transgenthe end of January, it gained inder people like Trent or creased momentum after the murder I to be in the women’s of African American transwoman room? How are we safer Tyra Trent, whose body was discovbeing forced to use a ered in Baltimore on February 19. men’s room where we Some are even seeking to have the are simply going to be bill named after Trent. bigger targets of bigotry On the surface, this sounds great. and prejudice?

Perhaps as Maryland-based activist When we look back Sharon Brackett has said, this bill at the civil rights struggles of the would protect those like Trent, and 1960s, you may think of the Greenskeep them safe in the future. It’s all boro sit-in, where African Americans good and well, right? staged a sit-in at a “whites only” Yes and no.

Woolworth’s counter. Or perhaps While the bill does prohibit disyou’ll think of Rosa Parks not movcrimination in employment and ing to the back of the bus. You housing, the bill does not include may even think of the desegprovisions barring discriminaregation of schools, of tion in public accommoda“whites” and “colored” tions – for example, restaudrinking fountains, or the rants, hotels, and gyms. It Freedom Riders’ couradoes not provide any acgeous test of Boynton v. Vircommodations for genderginia , which outneutral restrooms, lawed racial segreganor does it allow in public transtransgender people T RANSMISSIONS tion portation. to use restrooms Each of these was that are appropriate a battle over public accommodafor their gender identity or exprestions. One could argue that the sion. struggle over public accommodaCuriously enough, a similar bill tions is the bigger issue here. Not that has gone through Maryland for four employment and housing are not an years, including public accommodaimportant needs, but public accomtion as well as housing and employmodations protections are the keyment. This year, however, the accomstone. modation language was stripped.

In the fights over disability rights For many in Maryland, this has of the 1980s, it wasn’t employment been a deal-breaker. Without protecand housing that got noticed: it was tions in public accommodations, the the need for handicap ramps, curb bill simply does not go far enough. cuts, and Braille signage. Again, it

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

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www.ebar.com

Christine Smith

was about public accommodations.

Over and over again, you see how important the issue of public accommodations is – and why it is the key battleground, the most important part of the whole. It’s not that employment protections and housing protections are not needed – it’s that you need to be able to use a restroom and use other public accommodations without fear that you will be discriminated against.

Over the course of time, people from both sides have sided against transgender people in regard to public accommodations. Representative Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts), has long made issue of transgender people in restrooms and locker rooms an issue over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, while it has become a common right-wing scare tactic to liken transgender public accommodation rights to allowing pedophilic males in public women’s restrooms with young, female children.

That truly is a straw man that needs to die. No transgender rights law is actually protecting pedophiles, or allowing them access to opposite

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10 March 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

11

OBITUARIES

James Gruber, last original Mattachine member, dies

by Jim Van Buskirk ames “John” Finley Gruber Jr., the last surviving original member of the Mattachine Society, one of the earliest homophile organizations in the United States, died peacefully in his home in Santa Clara on February 27.

He was 82.

Mr. Gruber lived quietly in suburban Santa Clara, for a number of years, his deteriorating health keeping him increasingly close to home.

His dear friend Nicholas Pisca was at his side when he died.

Mr. Gruber was born in Des Moines, Iowa on August 21, 1928. A boy scout at 13, Mr. Gruber described himself as a “typical teenager” who enjoyed relations with both men and women, and considered himself bisexual. His unpublished manuscript, “The Deviant: an Illustrated Autobiography,” chronicles his life across the 20th century year by year, including references to movies, books, songs, newspaper clippings, and images of current events, movie stars, and family photographs. His father was a vaudeville performer and music instructor who, in his search for work, moved the family to Los Angeles in 1936. Mr. Gruber frequently lamented the confining nature of the household dominated by his forceful mother and three significantly older sisters. Instantly enthralled with the glamour that Hollywood offered, the good-looking young man took acting, music, and dancing lessons.

In 1946, at the age of 18, Mr. Gruber enlisted in the U.S. Marines where, in close physical proximity to men for the first time, he, as he put it, “went bananas in the sex depart-

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ment.” He enjoyed the camaraderie of his fellow soldiers, even as he continued to have affairs with women, and was honorably discharged in 1949.

On the GI Bill, Gruber majored in English literature at Occidental College and in 1950 met Christopher Isherwood, who was to become a close friend and role model.

“Chris was the man I aspired to be,” Mr. Gruber once said.

Isherwood introduced Mr. Gruber to W.H. Auden, who was impressed that Mr. Gruber had read his work.

Isherwood also introduced Mr. Gruber to his landlady, Evelyn Hooker, a therapist and professor of psychiatry at UCLA. Hooker’s pioneering research on gay men contributed to a change in the attitudes of the psychological community towards homosexuality, leading to the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its handbook of disorders, and an increased acceptance by society at large.

Isherwood, working for various Hollywood studios, introduced Mr. Gruber into the heady world of Hollywood, for example inviting him to be his date on opening night of the play I am a Camera , based on his novel The Berlin Stories. He met Jayne Mansfield, who “made me tingle in the swimsuit area,” and remembered “watching Marilyn Monroe on a movie set one summer day reading War and Peace hidden behind a propped-up comic book.”

In April 1951, primarily as a social adventure, Mr. Gruber and his boyfriend Konrad “Steve” Stevens became the last new members of the Mattachine Society. Mr. Gruber later relived the atmosphere of the meetings, “All of us had known a whole lifetime of not talking, or repression.

James “John” Finley Gruber Jr. is shown in an undated photo.

Just the freedom to open up ... really, that’s what it was all about. We had found a sense of belonging, of camaraderie, of openness in an atmosphere of tension and distrust. ... Such a great deal of it was a social climate.

A family feeling came out of it, a nonsexual emphasis. ... It was a brand-new idea.”

Mr. Gruber embraced his “newly chosen family,” even if he did not fully endorse its communist underpinnings.

Mr. Gruber often recounted how the sole extant image of the Mattachine founding members came to be.

At a Christmas party Mr. Gruber, clandestinely holding a camera, nonchalantly walked across the room and midway surreptitiously snapped the photo. Harry Hay heard the click and became incensed, because the meetings were very covert and it was extremely dangerous to identify

members. Mr. Gruber reassured him that there was no film in the camera.

The famous photograph features Stevens, Dale Jenning, Hay, Rudi Gernreich, Bob Hull, Chuck Rowland, Stan Witt, and Paul Bernard.

Mr. Gruber worked at KECA radio, created a motorcycle club called the Satyrs, and dated both men and women. He eventually became disillusioned with his life. “I can’t talk to Harry Hay anymore,” Mr. Gruber told Isherwood. “Harry doesn’t have conversations. He delivers lectures while I sit and listen.”

Repeated trips to San Francisco in the late 1950s motivated Mr. Gruber to say goodbye to Los Angeles, and in 1960 he moved to Palo Alto, renaming himself John. “It was the most effective way I could find to escape Mom’s ceaseless calling for ‘Jimmy!’ inside my head.”

He continued to pursue his career as a teacher at Foothill College and San Francisco State University, teaching and/or tutoring at Cubberly High School, Milpitas High School, de Anza College and other schools, interrupted by a short stint at Memorex. “I loved teaching. I fell in love with every kid I ever met.”

He flew to LA frequently to see old friends, while simultaneously establishing a new life in the Bay Area.

In 1972 he sold a Victorian in San Francisco, to buy a fixer-upper in Palo Alto, eventually purchasing a suburban house with a former student. He enjoyed close friendships with a number of men, considering them his surrogate brothers or sons.

Identifying himself as “an unmarried alcoholic bisexual teacher,“ he met Beth Erickson, who became a lifelong friend, eventually encouraging him to attend his first Alcoholics

Anonymous meeting in 1976. Newly sober, he “set out to become a successful novelist like my mentor.”

On November 12, 1998, the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality in Los Angeles bestowed Mr. Gruber a Public Service Award as a “pioneer and barrier breaker” in organizing the gay and lesbian community. In 2000, Mr. Gruber participated in a panel discussion at the San Francisco Public Library “Harry Hay and the Founding of the Mattachine Society: a 50th Anniversary Celebration,“ and in 2006 donated his personal papers to the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center at the San Francisco Public Library.

“I will always remember John fondly, as the self-described gargoyle on the cathedral of the Mattachine, no pushover. He was a sweet and generous man,” said gay historian Stuart Timmons, who had interviewed Mr. Gruber for the seminal books The Trouble with Harry Hay and Gay LA. Mr. Gruber appears in the 2001 documentary Hope Along the Wind: the Life of Harry Hay directed by Eric Slade, who commented, “He was a wonderful man, I so enjoyed knowing him. I talked to him just a month or so ago. His famous Mattachine Society Christmas tree photo was just used in a book on gay liberation.

I sent him a copy of the book and we talked about it. I’d hoped to see him on my upcoming visit. Truly the end of an era.”

A memorial service will be held from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 26, at the Santa Clara American Legion, 2120 Walsh Avenue in Santa Clara. Following the service there will be a celebration of Mr. Gruber’s life and a potluck-style meal.▼

B.A.R. announces changes in obituary policy

Obituaries >> Jeffrey George Chambers November 24, 1971 – April 1, 2010

Jeff Chambers, beloved brother, grandson and friend, died suddenly from causes of a heart condition at his home.

His too-short life included a stint in the Peace

Corps in Cameroon, Africa; graduate school in the Middle East, studies at the University of Washington, a study abroad in Cairo, Egypt, and working as a tour guide in Australia.

Jeff moved to San Francisco in 2004 to attend culinary arts school by way of Colorado, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Jeff ’s wonderfully unique sense of humor will be the most missed. I hope you know you were loved, little brother. We miss you.

www.ebar.com

eginning Monday, March 21, the Bay Area Reporter will have a new deadline for submitting obituaries and some new guidelines. The reason for these changes is that obituaries will now be handled by the news staff; previously they were done through another department at the paper.

Obituaries that adhere to the following guidelines will be published at no charge.

The most significant change is that we require confirmation of death. This can be done by providing the name and contact information for the funeral home, crematory, or organ donation agency that handled

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final disposition of the body.

The new deadline for obituaries will change to Monday at 9 a.m.

Obituaries can be e-mailed to obituaries@ebar.com or sent to Bay Area Reporter, 395 9th Street, San Francisco, CA 94013.

Other guidelines are that obituaries must be no longer than 200 words. They should include a date of birth and date of death. Please follow normal rules of capitalization – and no poetry. We reserve the right to edit for style, clarity, grammar, and taste.

Please submit a photo of the decedent; a recent color jpg is preferred. If you want the hard photo returned,

write the person’s name on the back.

If you include a SASE for the photo’s return, write the person’s name on the inside of the envelope flap.

All obituaries must include a contact name and daytime phone number. Obituaries must be submitted within a year of the death.

Special display paid obituaries are due Friday at 3 p.m. For information on paid obituaries, call (415) 8615019.▼

– Cynthia Laird, news editor For archived obituaries, go to www.glbthistory.org/obituaries.

Boehner calls for House group to defend DOMA

by Lisa Keen ouse Speaker John Boehner announced March 4 that the House would take some action to defend the federal law that prohibits recognition of same-sex marriages. Meanwhile, at least three bills were introduced to either defend or expand the reach of the Defense of Marriage Act. Boehner’s (R-Ohio) statement did not specify what the House would do to defend DOMA. It said only that he would convene a meeting of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group “for the purpose of initiating action by the House to defend this law. ...”

“It is regrettable that the Obama administration has opened this divisive issue at a time when Americans want their leaders to focus on jobs and the challenges facing our economy,” said the statement. “The constitutionality of this law should be determined by the courts – not by the president unilaterally – and this ac-

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tion by the House will ensure the matter is addressed in a manner consistent with our Constitution.”

In fact, the Department of Justice made clear when it announced it would no longer defend DOMA in court that it was up to the courts to make the final determination of whether the law is constitutional.

The administration also made clear it intended to continue enforcing the law until the law is determined to be unconstitutional by the courts.

The bipartisan advisory group, noted the speaker’s press release, is a five-member panel consisting of Boehner, the majority and minority leaders, and the majority and minority whips.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), a member of the group, issued a statement critical of Boehner’s decision, saying it’s placing Republicans “squarely on the wrong side of history and progress.”

“In addition, this decision will burden the staff and monetary resources of the Office of the General

Speaker John Boehner is moving ahead with plans to have the House defend the Defense of Marriage Act.

Counsel, and given the complexity of these cases and the number of courts involved, it is likely this will cost the House hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars,” Pelosi added.

She also said Boehner’s decision is

“nothing more than a distraction from our most pressing challenges,” such as creating jobs, strengthening the middle class, and working to responsibly reduce the deficit.

But because the bipartisan group consists of three Republicans and two Democrats, Boehner has the votes for the House to proceed, as Pelosi conceded in a radio interview over the weekend.

While Boehner said last week he had a number of options on the table concerning DOMA, the announcement that he was calling a meeting of the advisory group suggests a somewhat measured response given the level of vitriol on the conservative right concerning the Justice Department’s decision.

One Republican congressman from Arizona, Trent Franks, said “absolutely” when a blogger from the liberal think tank Think Progress asked him whether he supported an idea from Newt Gingrich to impeach President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder over their

decision.

Representative Dan Burton (RIndiana) introduced a bill (HR 875) March 2 to prevent any federal court from deciding “any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution” of DOMA. The bill has 13 sponsors, including four members of the Texas delegation – Republican Representatives Joe Barton, Ralph Hall, Jeb Hensarling, and Ron Paul – and one member of the Florida delegation, Representative Dennis Ross (R).

Representative Paul Broun (RGeorgia) introduced a bill (HJ Res. 45) to amend the U.S. Constitution to prohibit the Constitution and the constitution of any state from recognizing marriages other than “a man and a woman.” The bill has 21 cosponsors.

And GOP Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas introduced a bill (HRes. 143) directing the speaker to take “any and all actions necessary” to defend DOMA. The bill has 26 cosponsors.▼

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gender restrooms. That’s right up there with same-sex marriage paving the way for humans to marry their pet box turtle.

Those in favor of the bill argue that the “political reality” in Maryland is that there’s no way one can get every-

thing, and that transgender people will simply have to be happy with two out of three – and we’ll pick up the third later, in some future bill down the line. They argue that incremental change is the only way to achieve full equality.

I can’t help but find this all too reminiscent of bills that have cut out gender identity- and expression-specific language in favor of sexual ori-

for the neighborhood. It will bring a lot of foot traffic that day. It is just a great promotion of San Francisco nationwide.”

Steve Adams, president of the Merchants of Upper Market and Castro, was informed by GMA staffers in early February about the planned performance but was sworn to secrecy. He believes it will drum up business in the neighborhood that day.

“A lot of people will be coming to this neighborhood to shop, eat, and drink on a Sunday, which is normally a slow day,” said Adams.

Spears, 29, has always had a strong fan base within the LGBT community and her songs have been turned into dance anthems since she first broke onto the international music scene in 1999 with her debut album …Baby One More Time. Even throughout her relationship troubles, divorces, child custody battles, and various tabloid scandals, Spears has always held the public’s fascination.

But her star has dimmed of late, overshadowed by other pop divas such as Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, who in particular has cultivated LGBT fans with her outlandish outfits and public appeals for LGBT rights. Nonetheless, Spears’s upcoming Castro concert is sure to attract throngs of spectators.

“Oh, this has been the talk of the town! My school has a lot of gay Britney fans, so this was sort of an

early (or late) Christmas present.

General consensus is: We’re really excited that she’s coming, because we all love her. Though to us, it seems a little obvious what she (her publicist) is doing,” wrote Jason Galisatus, president of the Aragon High School Gay Straight Alliance in San Mateo, in an e-mail. “It seems to us she’s trying to reclaim her gay fans that have jumped ship for Gaga after ‘Born This Way,’ which is, in my opinion, an incredibly wise thing for her to do. That being said, we’re glad she’s getting back in touch with her gays and are incredibly excited that she’s coming to our second home!”

Marc Huestis, who regularly brings classic cultural icons to the Castro Theatre, joked he “couldn’t even sing a Britney Spears song if you asked me to.” While he has no plans to see Spears perform, he said the Castro concert is a smart marketing move.

“I couldn’t believe how many queens were screaming ‘Britney is coming!’ And then they were asking me if I have free tickets. I have no power and no pull,” said Huestis.

At the same time, Huestis was critical of the trend among female pop stars, in particular, to align themselves with the LGBT community’s struggle for equal rights.

“I am really kind of getting tired of these pop divas who pander to gays.

God bless Lady Gaga and her political stuff, but come on, she knows who buys those records,” he said. “Since when did Britney Spears become a gay activist? She probably doesn’t

Clinic

needed before the department provided more money.

Spears ▼

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whether he was waiting to see if the health department would provide more money.

Mirkarimi also said, though, that he was prepared to “advance and negotiate” what an “appropriate supplemental appropriation may be.”

Tangerine Brigham, director of Healthy San Francisco, which assists uninsured residents, told supervisors the city’s public health department doesn’t have “new dollars” in its budget to allocate to Lyon-Martin. But she said a total of about $170,000 remains on subcontracts the clinic has with the department, and they could look at how much might be available to advance.

Lyon-Martin doesn’t have direct contracts with the health department but receives some funding from the department through the San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium.

Brigham said conditions would include other funders being “forthcoming” to help with the $500,000

Web content Online content this week includes articles about the reorganization of the San Francisco Circus Center and exploring other avenues for LGBT workplace protections. www.ebar.com

Payer mix The plans for Lyon-Martin include reducing the size of the clinic.

Brigham said the clinic “needs to serve fewer people to be financially viable.” Lyon-Martin has about 1,000 Healthy San Francisco patients. Officials have identified “special populations” including people with HIV/AIDS and transgender people, and have asked other clinics how many of those patients they can take, she said.

In the February e-mail announcing that more money is needed, Dr. Dawn Harbatkin, the clinic’s medical director and former interim executive director, said, “The clinic is committed to providing needed care regardless of ability to pay, but it is not – and cannot be run as – a free clinic.”

The e-mail said that patients not covered through Medi-Care, MediCal, or other means would be asked to pay at the time of treatment, and follow-up invoices would be sent to those who couldn’t do so.

At the hearing, in response to a question from Supervisor Jane Kim about whether the restructuring would change who’d be able to get services from Lyon-Martin, Fimbres said the clinic’s mission wouldn’t change.

“No one will be turned away,” he said.

Speaking in an interview about how the payer mix might change, Fimbres said Lyon-Martin gets “a

www.ebar.com

▼

entation protections, and just how well the argument over incremental change has worked with these – but enough about ENDA. Now maybe I’m wrong in this, but I see no reason to provide a bill that gives some rights over extending all rights. As trans activist Katrina Rose pointed out, no one in Maryland is feeling it’s okay not to push for samesex marriage, and opt instead for an

easier to achieve civil unions statute.

It might take a bit longer to get everything in one bill. I’m not going to argue that any bill is going to be an easy sell, and I’m sure that more protections will only make an uphill battle that’s that much tougher. Yet in the end, it will be a win we can all celebrate, knowing that we did not get a bill that did not go far enough, and required patching later on.

If one wants to honor the memory of Trent, then don’t put her name on a bill that wouldn’t have provided her a full slate of protections.

Really, it’s not only time to do this, but it’s time to do it right.▼

Good Morning America producer Mark Robertson

LYRIC,” said Robertson, a childhood friend of former District 8 Supervisor and mayoral candidate Bevan Dufty. “Tuesday we will show Robin Roberts or Sam Champion, who will be here to shoot what we call beauty shots of San Francisco. This is a twoday event for us on the air.”

But as of this week, the segment involving the youth agencies was still up in the air.

“We don’t have any confirmation at this point,” said Larkin spokeswoman Nicole Garroutte, who said she briefly spoke with Robertson last week. “I don’t think we know it is 100 percent a go. We don’t have any further details.”

Garroutte said the agency would “be happy to participate in whatever way is meaningful for young people.” She noted it would be the second time Larkin Street has worked with an ABC show; the channel’s 20/20 newsmagazine program recently included the agency in a piece it did on homeless youth.

Even if a visit by Spears to the agency can’t be worked out, Garroutte said she welcomes the singer coming to town.

“It is exciting for the city. And if she is able to bring national attention to LGBT youth issues, that is an incredible thing to do,” said Garroutte.

Spears is likely to be inundated with invitations for that weekend. As it is, that Saturday night is the LGBT Community Center’s annual fundraiser and the facility is trying to extend an invite to the pop star.

“We have reached out to her, but haven’t gotten a response – working a couple of different ways to contact her. Do you have contact info?” wrote the center’s executive director, Rebecca Rolfe, in an e-mail.

Matt Slusarenko, the community marketing director and San Francisco editor for gaycities.com, said he hopes Spears does do more than just perform a few of her songs that Sunday.

“Everyone is so excited because it is not often we get someone of Britney Spears’s caliber performing in the Castro. But what I find exciting is she wants to be doing stuff with community organizations,” said Slusarenko.

The television show is working with the city’s Film Commission on the final details for the live concert, such as how many people will be allowed to attend and what time entrance to the enclosed viewing areas on Castro Street will begin. Robertson said it would be on a first-come, first-served basis.

As of now, the plan is to shut down Castro Street between Market and 18th streets at midnight on March 27 so crews can begin setting up a stage in front of the Castro Theatre. By the morning the street closure will extend up the 500 block of Castro Street toward 19th Street.

The Castro Muni Station and sidewalks along the street will remain open, while several bus lines in the area, such as the 35-Euerka and 24-Divisadero, will be re-routed.

The area should be re-opened to vehicular traffic by 4 p.m. Sunday.▼

tion calls for the clinic to replace its current board of directors “within a reasonable time frame.”

At the hearing last week, LyonMartin board Chair Lauren Winter said board members should have known “the right questions to ask and the right people to ask” about what was going on at the clinic, but they didn’t.

Winter said given the current financial situation, finding new board members is “a challenge.” She predicted that people would step forward once the finances improve, and that “will allow the current board to step down.”

Board Treasurer Peter Balon has previously said that in addition to Lyon-Martin’s other debt, the clinic took out a $600,000 loan in 2009. He said that they’ve been paying that off, but a large amount remains.

this through and surviving this particular situation,” said Fimbres.

The flow of money coming in through the community appears to have slowed. As far as the prospect of raising another $250,000 from the public, Fimbres said he’s optimistic that “if we do our homework right and deliver a responsible business plan that’s realistic, that support will come forward.”

Fimbres said the business plan would be presented to the board of directors by March 12.

At least one potential donor is feeling more confident about LyonMartin.

National Center for Lesbian Rights Executive Director Kate Kendell said that neither she nor NCLR had made contributions to the clinic since late January. But in an interview Tuesday, March 8, she said that now that the assessment’s been completed, the organization would send an appeal to its donors in California within the next five days.

Kendell said there had been questions, including what the clinic’s leadership picture was going to be, and what the city’s commitment was.

“We wanted to be able to answer some of those basic questions,” she said. “I now feel satisfied that all the elements for Lyon-Martin to get back on its feet and turn around financially are in place, so our feeling at this point is ‘All systems go.’”

Kendell said she personally plans to contribute $500.

At the hearing last week, Fimbres said he would be “totally visible and transparent” as information becomes available.

However, he declined to immediately provide a copy of the full external assessment to the B.A.R. He said, “I don’t want to release information I’m not fully knowledgeable of ” and that he was concerned “You’ll ask me questions I may not be able to answer.”▼

Rick Gerharter

Transmissions

NEWS

know what the Castro Theatre is.”

Spears to visit youth agencies?

Spears is reportedly looking to combine her time in town with visiting two organizations that serve LGBT youth, Larkin Street Youth Services and LYRIC, the Castrobased Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center. Robertson said that the plan is to shoot segments with Spears meeting with LYRIC and Larkin Street participants Friday, March 25 that would then air the following Monday, March 28.

“Monday on air would be a piece about the Castro, its history and its relevance and the piece on Larkin and

higher reimbursement rate per visit than what a normal Medi-Cal provider would receive,” because it’s a federally qualified health center.

“We have to step up and really be getting people enrolled into programs that will help bring some revenue” into the clinic, said Fimbres.

He said besides contributions, money is also coming in from sources such as Medi-Cal, private insurance, and patients.

The clinic’s debt stems in part from money that had not been billed to Medi-Cal and Medicare for mental health services for two years. Fimbres said that Medi-Cal and Medicare are now being billed accurately.

Fimbres, a 62-year-old out gay man, was brought in recently to help turn the clinic around. He said his contract with the clinic is “indefinite” and he’s there “for the duration.”

He said that broken down hourly, he’s being paid “probably no more than $10 or $12 an hour.” He put the number of hours he’d be working each week at 60, but he indicated he might not bill for all of that.

Fimbres is credited with helping turn around two other California agencies in recent years – the Coastal Health Alliance in Point Reyes Station and Redwoods Rural Health Center in Redway.

Board of directors transition The Community Clinic Consortium has placed Lyon-Martin on probationary status, which among other things means that the clinic is ineligible to participate in new funding opportunities.

John Gressman, president and CEO of the consortium, said the prohibition refers to assistance such as federal funding that might become available. He called the condition “generic” and said no such funding is pending.

Among other items, the proba-

Fundraising chances In a February 25 letter to Winter, HFS Consultants – the firm that performed the recently completed assessment – said, “Preliminary fiscal year ended December 31, 2010 financial statements show a $500,000 deficit from operations. The 2011 budget shows a surplus from operations of $312,000, an $812,000 turnaround in a year. We believe that, while this goal may be achievable, it is an aggressive goal because [the clinic] has no cash reserves and therefore no flexibility in meeting its cash obligations.”

The letter, a copy of which was provided to the Bay Area Reporter, also says there are “significant risks in areas such as the ability to raise funds from foundations and individuals” at projected levels.

Asked by the B.A.R. how likely Lyon-Martin is to survive, on a scale of 1 to 10, Fimbres said 12.

“I personally am highly optimistic that with this kind of energy, [and] outpouring of support, we have a very good chance of seeing

Gwen Smith wishes she lived in a world where she did not need rights bills to urinate. You can find her online at www.gwensmith.com.

▼

10 March 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

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Russian activist ▼

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and take multiple forms of transportation to events in order to frustrate surveillance.

He also criticized large, wellfunded LGBT organizations, decrying the $40 million spent to fight Prop 8 and calling it a “disgrace” that the Human Rights Campaign has leased Harvey Milk’s old camera shop on Castro Street.

“Harvey Milk won the referendum without any money,” he said, apparently referring to the work Milk did to defeat the Briggs initiative in 1978. “People were not thinking about money, they were thinking about promoting equality.”

At the end of the night, Thayer asked for monetary donations to

Anti-bullying ▼

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Casey called the SSIA “a strong and bipartisan bill designed to ensure that no child is afraid to go to school for fear of being bullied.“ But, so far, Kirk is the only Republican among the 20 original sponsors of the SSIA. There is one independent, Senator Bernard Sanders (Vermont). When the bill died in committee last session, it had 18 sponsors, also all Democrats except for Kirk and Sanders.

A spokesperson for Representative Linda Sanchez (D-California) said she will soon introduce a House version of the bill, as she did last session.

And Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey) and Representative Rush Holt (D-New Jersey), plan to reintroduce on March 10 the Tyler Clementi Higher Education AntiHarassment Act, which establishes similar anti-bullying requirements for colleges and universities receiving federal student aid. The bill is named after a gay Rutgers University student who committed suicide in September 2010 after his roommate Dharun Ravi and a fellow hallmate, Molly Wei, videotaped him making out with another man and broadcast the videos online.

Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota) and out Representative Jared Polis (D-Colorado) will also introduce the Student Non-Discrimination Act March 10 in their respective chambers, according to spokespeople from their offices. SNDA states that elementary and secondary schools must not discriminate against students on the basis of real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity in any program or activity receiving federal funds, or they will risk losing those funds.

“Discrimination,” under SNDA, includes harassment, bullying, intimidation, and violence based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

A federal law could help students even though states have been passing their own anti-bullying laws, said Kara Suffredini, executive director of Mass Equality, the leading LGBT advocacy organization in Massachusetts. The SSIA, she said, goes further than most state laws in providing a specific enforcement mechanism – the withholding of funds. It also goes further than most states, including Massachusetts, in its reporting requirements and in prohibiting bullying based upon specific, enumerated

13

NEWS

help fund Alekseev’s tour.

No attendees asked about the blog controversy during the lengthy question and answer session, but when asked about it afterwards Alekseev explained that the term for “Jews” is more nuanced in Russian than in English, and that he used it to refer to Israeli leaders, not to all Jews. He provided a similar explanation last Tuesday at Columbia University, but by then the California sponsors had already withdrawn their support.

Alekseev added that his former sponsors had demanded an immediate response, which he found objectionable. “All the organizers in California had to do is wait one day to listen to what I said,” he told the Bay Area Reporter, “but I am the kind of person who doesn’t accept ultimatums.”▼ characteristics, such as sexual orientation and gender identity.

A 2007 survey of students by the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network found that, where school policies enumerated bullying based on sexual orientation, students were more likely to report problems to staff and staff were more likely to help.

And, in Romer v. Evans, a landmark 1996 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down Colorado’s anti-gay Amendment 2, the high court noted, “Enumeration is the essential device used to make the duty not to discriminate concrete and to provide guidance for those who must comply.”

But enumeration has been a stumbling block in passing anti-bullying legislation in several states. A Texas House committee recently removed enumerated categories from an anti-bullying bill in an effort to mollify those who say enumeration creates special rights for people in the listed groups. And competing bills – enumerated and not – were reintroduced into the Michigan legislature this year after legislators failed last session to resolve whether to include enumerated categories.

Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality, New Jersey’s leading LGBT advocacy group, cautioned that, while enumeration of sexual orientation and gender identity are absolutely necessary, it is not sufficient for truly effective anti-bullying protections. Goldstein helped lead the fight for New Jersey’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, the country’s most sweeping anti-bullying law, enacted in January.

He said that, while he supports the SSIA, it does not go far enough in “specifying what [state] policies should be,” such as “what the deadlines should be for reporting and resolving an incident of school bullying.” The New Jersey law, in contrast, requires bullying incidents to be reported by teachers, investigated, and resolved within specific timeframes.

The SSIA and SNDA’s likelihood of passage remains unclear. Casey said he is not sure yet whether the SSIA will progress as an independent piece of legislation or be attached to a larger bill, such as the reauthorization of Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the key federal statute governing primary and secondary education. And a spokesperson for Polis said last session that the congressman hoped SNDA would also become part of ESEA, but that he would push for it as a standalone bill if necessary.▼

BAYAREAREPORTER

CLASSIFIEDS

LEGAL NOTICES NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE LICENSE

41 ON-SALE BEER AND WINE EATING PLACE MAR 10,2011

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

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

NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES

STATEMENT FILE A-033283600

To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are : SENSORIA LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 71 Stevenson Street,Suite 1500, San Francisco, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at: 371 11th St., San Francisco, CA 94103-4313. Type of license applied for:

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

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

STATEMENT FILE A-033339300

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

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

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

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033293300

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

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

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033311500

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

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033335400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as CASTLE GENERAL CONTRACTORS, 2443 Fillmore St.,#215, San Francisco, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a corporation, signed Ken Page. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/09/11.

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033335500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as EAG STUDIO,2443 Fillmore St.,#215, San Francisco, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a limited libility company, signed Ken Page. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/09/11.

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033335000

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

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033340600

www.bartabsf.com

STATEMENT FILE A-033347200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MISSION OASIS GALLERY, 3118 22nd St., San Francisco, CA 94111.

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

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011

The following person(s) is/are doing business as TOWER CAFE,100 First St.,8th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105.

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

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033318100

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

FEB 17,24,MAR 3,10, 2011

NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES

To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: ANDALE MANAGEMENT GROUP INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 71 Stevenson Street,Suite 1500, San Francisco, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at:San Francisco International Airport Terminal 2 Boarding Area D, San Francisco, CA 94128.

Type of license applied for:

41 ON-SALE BEER AND WINE EATING PLACE MAR 3,10,17,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033353600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as U- SAVE MARKET,399 Crescent Ave., San Francisco, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by an individual, signed Dipak B. Gandhi. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/16/11.

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033354100

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

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033323500

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

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011

ebar.com STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE# CNC-11-547474

In the matter of the application of BERNADETTE CHRISTINA FAYE MEYERS-GUZMAN for change of name.

The application of BERNADETTE CHRISTINA FAYE MEYERS-GUZMAN for change of name having been filed in Court, and it appearing from said application that BERNADETTE CHRISTINA FAYE MEYERS-GUZMAN filed an application proposing that his/her name be changed to BERNADETTE FAYE GATSBY. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Room 218 on the 19th of April, 2011 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033350800

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

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033335900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as DOANEW,548 Market St.,#13562, San Francisco, CA 94104.

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

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011

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

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033353900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as OZIMO,3150 18th St.,STE. 429 Box 313, San Francisco, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, signed Richard Freitas.

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/16/11.

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033359900

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

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033305100

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

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033359700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as 860 KANSAS STREET HOA, 860 Kansas St.,San Francisco, CA 94107.

This business is conducted by an unincorporated association other than a partnership,signed Kimberly Baggett. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/18/11.

FEB 24,MAR 3,10,17,2011

STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE# CNC-11-547473

In the matter of the application of DANIEL ALAN SCRIVNER for change of name. The application of DANIEL ALAN SCRIVNER for change of name having been filed in Court, and it appearing from said application that DANIEL ALAN SCRIVNER filed an application proposing that his/her name be changed to DANIEL MARC GATSBY. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Room 218 on the 19th of April, 2011 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011

STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTICIOUS BUSINESS NAME: #A-0310278-00 The following persons have abandoned the use of the ficticious business name known as ALLSTAR CAFE,1500 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102. This business was conducted by an individual, signed Diana Wei. The ficticious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/21/08.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011

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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 10 March 2011

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LEGAL NOTICES STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTICIOUS BUSINESS NAME: #A-0316631-00 The following persons have abandoned the use of the ficticious business name known as ALLSTAR CAFE,98 9th St., San Francisco, CA 94103. This business was conducted by an individual,signed William Wei. The ficticious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/02/09.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033321500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as FRITTS FAMILY CHIROPRACTIC,557 Waller St.,San Francisco, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual,signed Garretson VanBuren Fritts. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 2/03/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/03/11.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033340500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as EPIDEMIC IQ, One Sutter St., Suite 600,San Francisco, CA 94104. This business is conducted by a corporation ,signed Jeremy Alberga. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/11/11.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033366700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as BAY BRIDGE INN, 966 Harrison St.,San Francisco, CA 94107.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company ,signed Divyesh Patel.

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 1/02/08. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/23/11.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033367200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as RODEWAY INN, 101 9th St.,San Francisco, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company ,signed Divyesh Patel. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 1/02/08. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/23/11.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033379200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as KOK BAR SAN FRANCISCO, 1225 Folsom St.,San Francisco, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company ,signed Steven Abramson. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/28/11.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033364400

STATEMENT FILE A-033339200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MULBERRY MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS LLC, 225 Bush St.,Suite 1608,San Francisco, CA 94104.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, signed Daniel Brown.

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 9/02/08. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/22/11.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as LOVEBIRD PHOTOGRAPHY, 1359 Hayes St., #7,San Francisco, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual signed Jen Siska. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/10/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/10/11.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033353000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as OLSEN & PARTNERS SF, 2352 Market St.,#B,San Francisco, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a corporation, signed Gina Waota. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 2/16/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/16/11.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011 STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE# CNC-11547563 In the matter of the application of JENNIFER KRISTY KERN for change of name and change of gender. The application of JENNIFER KRISTY KERN for change of name and change of gender having been filed in Court, and it appearing from said application that JENNIFER KRISTY KERN filed an application proposing that his/her name be changed to JONATHAN FLYNN KERN and his/her gender be changed from female to male. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Room 218 on the 5th of May, 2011 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 10,17,24, APR 7,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033400200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as YUMI BOUTIQUE, 1737 Post St.,#301,San Francisco, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, signed Mei Ng. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 3/08/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/11.

MAR 10,17,24, APR 7,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033396500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as AESTHETIC LASER CONCEPTS, 490 Post St.,#1701,San Francisco, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a corporation, signed Nui Laosaengthong. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 3/01/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/11.

MAR 10,17,24, APR 7,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033363400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as 1.FIAT LUX, 2.BELLAFLORA JEWELRY,218 Church St.,San Francisco, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual,signed Marie McCarthy. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/22/11.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033383700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as DESIGUAL, 101 Powell St.,San Francisco, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a limited liability company signed Thomas Meyer. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/30/10. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/02/11.

MAR 10,17,24, APR 7,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033369900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as EXCELLENT AUTOMOTIVE SERVICE & REPAIR,1298 Shotwell St., Unit B, San Francisco, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, signed Marvin John Octaviano. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 1/17/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/24/11.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033372700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as MIKE’S GARAGE SALES,343 Crestmont Drive,San Francisco, CA 94131. This business is conducted by an individual signed Michael Joseph Hutton. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 2/25/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/25/11.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033363900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as AMANA MEDICAL EQUIPMENT, 1298 Valencia St.,San Francisco, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a general partnership signed Francis Hamdi. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/22/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/22/11.

MAR 10,17,24, APR 7,2011

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STATEMENT FILE A-033380900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as CUMAICA COFFEE CO., 2800 California St., San Francisco, CA 94115.

This business is conducted by an individual signed Sergio Guerrero. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/01/11.

MAR 10,17,24, APR 7,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033387300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as DIESEL DELIVERY SF, 237 Kearny St., #289,San Francisco, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual signed William Hoag. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/02/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/02/11.

MAR 10,17,24, APR 7,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033381200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as THE CITY SMOKE SHOP AND GIFTS, 644 Polk St.,San Francisco,CA 94102. This business is conducted by a husband and wife, signed Teofilo Pena. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/01/11.

MAR 10,17,24, APR 7,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033343400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as THE LIVING ROOM, 1735 Polk St.,San Francisco,CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, signed Linda Nguyen. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/11/11.

Feel lost?

Feel like a Monster?

Call one of the counselors you see here!

MAR 10,17,24, APR 7,2011

or find one online at: ebar.com

STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTICIOUS BUSINESS NAME: #A-0320106-00 The following persons have abandoned the use of the ficticious business name known as DIBBS BBQ & GRILL,1109 Fillmore St., San Francisco, CA 94115. This business was conducted by an individual, signed Issa Dabai. The ficticious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/21/09.

MAR 10,17,24, APR 7,2011

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Rick 415.821.1792 Flood Building 870 Market St.

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MAR 10,17,24, APR 7,2011 STATEMENT FILE A-033392700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as 1.YOBOKRA PRESS, 2.YOBOKRA, 555 Clayton St., #30,San Francisco, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual signed Charles Schoellenbach. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/04/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/11.

MAR 10,17,24, APR 7,2011

STATEMENT FILE A-033368000

STATEMENT FILE A-033379000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MISSION: CATS LLC, 3150 18th St.,#103,San Francisco, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, signed Genna Darby.

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 2/23/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/23/11.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as QUIC PIC GROCERIES, 2146 Mission St.,San Francisco, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by an individual signed Gwen Ma. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/28/11.

MAR 3,10,17,24,2011

MAR 10,17,24, APR 7,2011

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10 March 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER 15

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Catching up on our reading

Begging for Merce

Down the bridal path

Kathleen Winter’s intersex ‘Annabel,’ poetry of the ‘Circuit,’ and ‘The Metropolis Case.’

Merce Cunningham Dance Co. presents their final tour.

‘Regrets Only’ takes on an anti-gay marriage amendment.

pages 23, 28

page 19

page 19

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

BAYAREAREPORTER

Vol. 41 . No. 10 . 10 March 2011

Gay gaze at the SF International Asian American Film Festival

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• by David Lamble

he 29th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, opening tonight (March 10) at the Castro Theatre with the premiere of British director Andy de Emmony’s coming-of-age story West Is West, runs through Sunday, March 20 at the Castro, the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas and the Viz in San Francisco, Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive (PFA) and the Camera Cinemas in San Jose. This year the festival, catering to both fractured attention spans and an explosion of digital filmmaking, offers more new media, an emphasis on South Asian filmmakers, expanded panels, cutting-edge Asian American pop music groups, and an array of short films for all persuasions.

Dog Sweat Hossein Keshavarz’s provocative and secretly filmed portrait of young hip Iranians flying under the Mullahs’ radar opens with buddies cracking wise about the execution of a notorious liquor dealer and simultaneous shortage of Johnny Walker Black Label. It’s quickly apparent that keeping up with the Facebook crowd while avoiding the religious Gestapo can drive the most devout to drink, or worse, humiliating social compromises.

Queer lovers Hooshang (Rahim Zamani) and Hooman (Bagher Forohar) seemingly have their very discreet affair in a Tehran comfort zone, until Hooman bows to his mom’s nagging about getting into an arranged marriage. There’s a poignant moment when the now-defunct male couple shamefully bump into each other in a public cruise park, and Hooshang screws up the courage to walk away from the relationship with at least his pride intact. (Kabuki, 3/12; Viz, 3/16) Tales of the Waria Kathy Huang’s intimate doc explores a vibrant Muslim society’s surprising tolerance for biological men who conduct their daily lives as women – including having de facto marriages with straight men – while expressing no desire to have surgery.

Suharni, an HIV-positive, former sex worker, has a solid relationship, but feels a need to leave the nest to make extra cash in the tourist haunts of Bali. The aging Mami Ria gets a nip-and-tuck in a desperate attempt to hold onto her status as #2 wife of a cop. The youthful Agus, who abandoned cross-dressing for a traditional marriage, has lately felt more of

T

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From Kathy Huang’s Tales of the Waria.

page 28

Going over to the dark side Amanda McBroom brings ‘Noir’ to the Rrazz Room ~ by Richard Dodds ~ manda McBroom needed a theme for her new cabaret act. “They always want a theme,” she said of cabaret impresarios. And a theme began to develop as she was listening to the Julie London song “Nice Girls Don’t Stay for Breakfast.” Speaking from her home in Ojai, she said, “I thought it was kind of cool and kind of noir-ish. And I thought, OK, let’s put together a show called Noir.”

Working with her longtime pianist and songwriting collaborator Michele Brourman, McBroom premiered her Noir show last fall in New York, and is bringing it here for her Rrazz Room debut March 18-20. “The title guided the song selection,” she said, adding that the concept is a very loose interpretation of dark-mood noir-ness. “It’s eclectic, it’s really sexy, and there are some very funny political things thrown in, because nothing is as noir as American politics right now.”

The songbook also includes “The Rose,” which is the op-

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posite of noir, but it is McBroom’s signature song. She wrote if before, and independent of, the 1979 movie of the same name, and it was Bette Midler’s own love of it that convinced reluctant producers to use it. “I’ve never gotten tired of singing it,” McBroom said, “and I think it’s because you look out into a sea of faces and you see that it resonates so deeply.”

The enormous success of the song, a “fluke” McBroom readily admits, changed her life and career. The daughter of a second-tier film actor, she first set out to be a dramatic actress. “If you told me when I was 21 that I would be a songwriter and people would want to listen to me, I would have laughed you out of the room.”

Her biggest inspiration as a songwriter was Jacques Brel, whom she discovered on a brief San Francisco sojourn while performing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland in

SECTIONS•••

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Singer-songwriter Amanda McBroom goes to the “noir” side for her new cabaret act coming to the Rrazz Room.

page 28

18

BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 10 March 2011

OUT

THERE

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Music to our thirsty ears who brought on the current economic collapse and got off scot-free. The chorus to the title tune goes: “They’re hat kinds of popular music running wild just like some childish is Out There listening to tantrum. Meanwhile we’re working these days? you ask. every day, paying off the National What? We can’t hear you, we have Ransom.” our ear-buds in. But here’s what we’re Brian Eno, Small Craft on a Milk hearing.

Sea (Warp). It’s another electronic, atAdele, 21 (Columbia). Two years mospheric, ambient album from Eno, after British singer-songwriter in the tradition of his classics Adele won the Grammy Another Green World and Award for Best New Artist Music for Airports. We for her debut record 19, thought Pepi would like she’s come of age with it, played it for him.

21. She’s the latest in the “It just sounds like wave of young, white aquarium music to me.”

British women who “What’s that mean?” sound like world-weary, “You know, aquarium black soul singers (Amy music: filters humming, Winehouse, Duffy). The aerators bubbling.”

New York Times called O UT T HERE Fun fact: the artist’s her voice “wide and full name is Brian Peter deep and barnacled.”

George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Elvis Costello, National Ransom Eno. (Concord). It’s another folk-rock-soul The Legendary Pink Dots, Seconds assortment from the living Elvis, and Late for the Brighton Line (Roir), espethis time it sounds like he’s got his cially the 20-minute-long “Hauptrighteous anger back. The targets of bahnhof.” his lyrical barbs are the Wall St. The band Susan Jane, a self-debankers and financial deregulators

by Roberto Friedman

scribed “trio of three lead singers,” consists of Priscilla Holbrook, Brit Till (both on guitar) and Peter Raucci (percussion). They offer vocal harmonies pitched atop well-crafted pop arrangements on their eponymous debut EP. They’ve been described as “The Partridge Family meets Roxy Music.” Wrap your funky head around that!

Holcombe Waller, Into the Dark Unknown (Napoleon). “For what it’s worth, it was the sky on his shoulders, not the Earth. But Atlas just shrugged, he’s going back on the drugs.” We can relate.

Dancing feet The second installment of the San Francisco Ballet’s Nite Out series for LGBT audiences this season transpired last Friday night at the Opera House, and OT was there. It was a mixed bill of Russian panache (Yuri Possokhov’s choreography set to Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony), German gestalt (Helgi Tomasson setting movement on Kurt Weill songs), and wild, avant-garde ballet moves from bad-boy choreographer William Forsythe. Among stand-out performances that night were dancers Isaac Hernandez (in the Possokhov), Sarah Van Patten (in Nanna’s Lied) and the star duet couples Yuan Yuan Tan & Damian Smith, and Lorena Feijoo & Pascal Molat (in Artifact Suite). The gay crowd at the afterparty in the Dress Circle Bar was abuzz with excitement at what we had just witnessed. Spotted on the aisle: ACT core acting company member Gregory Wallace. The third and final SFB Nite Out evening is com-

ing up Friday, April 8, with choreography from Renato Zanella, Michel Fokine, and, in a world premiere, Christopher Wheeldon. Check it out at www.sfballet.org/niteout.

Also on our cultural docket last week: opening night of Lynn Nottage’s powerful Ruined at Berkeley Rep, followed by an afterparty in which the actors mingled with the audience; and an Embarcadero Cinemas screening of The Last Lions, narrated by a stonedsounding Jeremy Irons.

Correction of the week, from The New York Times: “The Crib Sheet column last Thursday misidentified the character portrayed by Burgess Meredith in the Batman television series. He was The Penguin – not The Riddler, who was played by Frank Gorshin.” OK, as long as you get Catwoman right.

Adult booked The adult-entertainment Nob Hill Theatre is under new management, and on a recent evening they celebrated by unleashing the biggest gun in gay burlesque, erotic film star Adam Killian, for an appreciative audience. He, his partner (who asked that his name not be printed, shy guy) and the theater’s house dancers gave four porny performances at the Nob Hill, and photojournalist Cornelius Washington was front-row center for the blowby-blow.

Cornelius Washington: Baby, I love you, and so does the B.A.R. Our Karrnal Knowledge columnist John F. Karr voted you hands-down his “fave porn star” in his end-of-the-year column.

Adam Killian: I read John’s column, he’s so cool. I’ve been out of the country dancing, so I’ve been a bit out of touch, but thanks, John, I really ap-

Cornelius Washington

W

Erotic film star Adam Killian in San Francisco.

preciate it!

Who would you kill to work with in your next porn movie?

My boyfriend, but he won’t do porn, it was special that he performed with me tonight. That said, I’d like to work with Kyle King. We know each other well, and I know it would be a hot scene.

Maybe the three of you could do a live performance here at the Nob Hill Theatre! That would be like a muscle bomb.

In a few weeks, the B.A.R. turns 40.

Anything you want to say to the staff?

I want to say thank you for everything you guys do for the LGBT community, and congratulations. I appreciate everything you guys do, and that you do it for everybody – the politicians, the porn stars, the transgendered, all the different aspects that a lot of gay media forgets or refuses to cover. You guys are the best!▼

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10 March 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

19

THEATRE

by Richard Dodds ing-master general Paul Rudnick’s Regrets Only is, appropriately enough, like a cocktail hors d’oeuvre. Specifically, those prosciutto-wrapped-in-melon delectables with a meaty center cloaked in a sweet veneer. The play was written during the Bush II presidency, before the filthy rich had to feint at fiscal restraint, and when a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage could be seriously considered by the White House. And so Rudnick has created a send-up of drawing-room comedies populated with the Beautiful People whose la-di-dah lifestyle is shaken when their gay support system pulls off a day of absence.

New Conservatory Theatre Center has steadily been a happy Rudnick purveyor, with such previous plays as The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Valhalla, and The New Century. Patrick Michael Dukeman has been a memorable presence in each of these productions, and a Rudnick play at NCTC without Dukeman is close to unthinkable. Although he looks too young to be playing a mature Bill Blass-type fashion designer, Dukeman again can find both the heart and ham in Rudnick’s lines.

(Sadly, the program reports that Dukeman is soon moving to Ohio.)

While the anti-gay marriage amendment is the catalyst for the rift

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among the well-to-do, this is really the story of the politicization of a character heretofore gauzed in privilege. Fabulously successful fashion designer Hank Hadley (Dukeman) has led a discreetly gay life with a longtime companion while mingling with the straight swells who are accepting in a casual way. He returns to New York following his lover’s death, and wants only to party on with his closest friends, the McCulloughs, consisting of high-profile lawyer Jack, his socialite wife Tibby, their just-engaged lawyer-daughter Spencer, and Tibby’s dowager mother Marietta.

Spencer’s upcoming wedding, for which Hank has promised to design the bridal gown (while dissing reallife designers by name), becomes the ironic counterpoint to her father’s call-to-service by the president himself to draft the constitutional amendment. He’s eager to work on such a prestigious assignment, as is his daughter, and they both gush about their good fortune in front of their gay friend Hank without a thought that he might be just a little bit offended. The McCulloughs liked Hank’s partner just fine, but it wasn’t like a real marriage, was it?

This description may make Regrets Only seem less the screwball farce than it actually is. Rudnick is an unquestioned master of criminally funny dialogue. Gay men like ding dongs, suggests a character, while

Lois Tema Photography

Defense of (heterosexual) marriage

Patrick Michael Dukeman plays a famous fashion designer seen here dancing with a maid (Alison Sacha Ross) as his socialite friend (Sarah Shoshana David) looks on in Regrets Only at NCTC.

Hank dryly corrects, “Twinkies.” Earlier, as Tibby prepares for a night on the town, she wonders, “Is it chilly, or do I need more bracelets?” Daughter Spencer talks about mentoring inner-city youth so that when they go to McDonald’s they at least think about salads. Gilding the lily, perhaps, is Rudnick’s device of having the maid (Alison Sacha Ross) regularly pop into scenes for a wisecrack delivered with a different ethnic personality.

The comedy and drama don’t always easily mix in Rudnick’s script, though Andrew Nance’s direction smoothes out many of the lumps in his classy production. (High marks to Kuo-Hao Lo for his posh set.) In addition to Dukeman’s work as Hank, the finely-honed, comically high-tone characterizations are provided by Sarah Shoshana David as Tibby, Robin Schild as Jack, Annamarier MacLeod as Spencer, and Royanne Florence as Marietta.

With President Obama’s refutation of the Defense of Marriage Act, the key plot point in Regrets Only feels slightly dated. But it is a datedness that is welcome, and forever forth may Regrets Only be seen as a period piece.▼ Regrets Only will run at New Conservatory Theatre Center through April 3. Tickets are $24$40. Call 861-8972 or go to www.nctcsf.org.

Like the closing of a well-made box To this, Cunningham has created something that looks like a Dadaist Riverdance, an almost-recognizable Irish world that seems like a family – dances that children might do, others for old people, jigs and reels, or slow-partnered dances that evoke the idea of your grandparents dancing at their wedding. The footwork is of the highest virtuosity – it put me in mind of Irish lace and Waterford cutglass. Robert Swinston, who was Cunningham’s personal assistant and has been a dancer in the company since 1980, seemed the paterfamilias

by Paul Parish he Merce Cunningham Dance Company played Berkeley last weekend for the 26th – and last – time. It was great that the dancers looked so sharp, since it was an emotional occasion. The house was full of former dancers who’d come down from the mountains, from all across the country, to see these dances, maybe for the last time. It threatened to rain outdoors and in. Both shows were gloriously danced, by a company that’s never looked more at ease and idiomatic in the enormously difficult moves Cunningham devised.

Their first show here, in 1962, and their last both featured the hilarious Antic Meet, a vaudeville in 10 scenes set to some of John Cage’s Dadaist music. It’s still zany, the timing is so stinging, like a Nichols/May comedy sketch – you don’t have to know when he’s sending up Martha Graham, it’s riotous anyway. The first time they did Antic Meet in Wheeler Auditorium (Zellerbach Hall did not yet exist) could not have been much funnier than last Friday night’s whipsmart performance, even though the first cast included Cunningham himself and the elfin Remy Charlip.

Cunningham (b. 1919) and his partner Cage were at the very center of the cultural avant-garde in New York at mid-century. The preStonewall era is hard to imagine now, but clearly the “Homintern” (as Auden called it) was the cutting edge of the Dadaist cutting edge. Cunningham and Cage may have been more important to the intellectual life of New York than even Balanchine and New York City Ballet, though really, who’s counting? Certainly they were closer to Marcel Duchamp and the New York painters – without whose generosity Cunningham’s enterprise might never have survived long enough to get seen. It was Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and others who sold some of their paintings to get enough money together to keep the company afloat, and send it on tour to London, where the awestruck reviews in the press made New York critics take notice.

Cunningham took Martha Gra-

Tony Dougherty

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Merce Cunningham Dance Company brought its final tour to Berkeley.

ham’s movements and removed the psychological explanations for them, linked the moves as arbitrarily as possible (tossing coins to determine the order of steps), but kept a kind of harmony to the palate, then asked you to look at how beautiful it was.

Cunningham and Cage were like a binary star: they lived together (“John cooks, I do the dishes”), worked together, and their work is like that: Modern Dance and Modern Music under one roof, on the same stage, at the same time, independent but synchronous. So there’s typically too much going on for the mind to take it in, way too much for “the tired businessman” (which is how Matisse characterized his patron), who usually can be counted on to get up in the middle of a piece and walk out. In 20 years of my seeing them, numbers of people have always walked out in a huff. I’ve learned always to take a nap before going.

For example, Sounddance (which closed Friday night’s mixed bill) made me nearly bolt and leave the first time I saw it (in Zellerbach some 15 years ago). David Tudor’s music assaults you (it sounds like jackhammers, horrible buzzing noises, squeaks, pops, at colossal decibels), coming at you from loudspeakers staggered around the house, and the

dancers rush in through hidden folds in a tangled-draperied backdrop of a hideous mustard color. They’re wearing sky-blue leggings, which is a relief, since their tops are the same color as the drop and you can’t see them clearly, except for the legs, except to tell that it looks like warfare. The dancers make a beautiful web, moving violently fast, and then begin to disappear back into the tangle from which they came. The last person off was the first to come on, and it seems like he has conjured them all and then gone back into the maw. Friday night I could see the geometry clearly for the first time, and I found myself wanting them to turn up the sound. It ought to make us scream.

Both Sounddance and Roaratorio (which lasts an hour exactly, and formed the only piece on Saturday night’s show) are inspired by Finnegan’s Wake, the notoriously difficult novel by James Joyce. Hundreds of pages of glorious language that does not make sense in any obvious way but throws up phrases like “Haggis takes no prisoners” on every page. Cage made a score to this using found sounds (dogs barking, babies crying, church bells, railroad noises, rain, crowds roaring, gun-shots) and snatches from Irish folk-songs and dances that assault you at random.

to this group, leading off the slow dance with the gorgeous Jamie Scott, who at times reminds me of Rita Hayworth – her lines and her action are so voluptuous, it’s like the whole body is smiling – and gathering them all up for their exit. The piece ends with an almost audible click, like the closing of a well-made box.

Wonderful dancing from everyone, especially Daniel Madoff and Dylan Crossman in Antic Meet, Rashaun Mitchell, John Hinricks, Jennifer Goggins, Emma Desjardins, Silas Riener with his elfin feet.▼

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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 10 March 2011

FINE

ART

Visionary photographer gets his due ‘Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change’ showcases invention at SFMOMA

by Sura Wood ny doubt as to whether San Francisco could call the British-born photography innovator and visionary Eadweard Muybridge its own will be quickly dispelled

by SFMOMA’s latest exhibition, Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change. The show, which doubles as a primer on the history of photography and the history of late-19thcentury California, whose development trajectories paralleled each other, is the first comprehensive retrospective of the staggering invention and lesser-known creative output of a multidisciplinary pioneer who advanced both the art and technology of modern photography.

In on the ground floor of the burgeoning growth of San Francisco and the Pacific Coast, the construction of the railroads, and the transformation of the state and its untamed wilderness, Muybridge was a quintessential California photographer who more than deserves his own show. He also documented the Modoc War and Central America when he wasn’t busy pushing the boundaries of the medium or forging nascent adventures in cinema.

Though California photography has been the subject of previous shows at the museum, it’s rare to see so much of Muybridge’s exploratory work and early photographs assembled at one venue – the exhibition drew from 38 different collections – or the full range of his career examined in such an exhaustive way.

Equally enamored of science, architecture and visual art, Muybridge represented a triple threat. However, he’s most famous – and owed a great debt – for his locomotion studies with humans and animals, the sequences of still images that broke down elements of movement not readily visible to the human eye.

They demonstrated, among other

Wilson Centre for Photography

Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

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Boxing; open-hand. Plate 340, 1887; collotype by Eadweard Muybridge.

earnest when he landed in San Francisco in 1867, and began photographing the then truly wild, untouched landscape of the American West, and the city, which would become the epicenter of photography and a magnet for artistic talent. His breathtaking 360-degree “Panorama of San Francisco from California Street (Nob) Hill,” shot in 1877 and 1878 from the tower of Mark Hopkins’ mansion, stretches 17 feet and is one of his greatest feats. (Hopkins was one of the Big Four barons of the Central Pacific Railroad; fellow tycoon Leland Stanford lived next door, while Charles Crocker and Collis Huntington were just across the street.) Made with mammoth plates for an accordion-style album, its scale and detail document for posterity a city with open space and in the midst of being built before the 1906 earthquake changed San Francisco forever.

Like his more classically inclined rival Carleton Watkins, Muybridge dared to venture beyond the comforts of the studio, and bravely trooped into the High Sierra with a

Leland Stanford, Jr. on his pony “Gypsy” – Phases of a Stride by a Pony While Cantering, 1879; collodion positive on glass by Eadweard Muybridge.

pack of mules, intrepid assistants and an enormous camera. (The 17 x 22 plates were wet and had to be developed in the field, undercover, a process that’s a long way from digital.) There’s a certain synergy in that these astonishing images and the technology that produced them were as raw and unrefined as the landscape itself.

In contrast to the soothing order of Watkins’ grand landscapes, Muybridge’s expansive frontier, shot from precipitous heights and disorienting angles, is turbulent, dramatic and filled with the interplay of light, sky, water and primeval land mass. This is indeed prehistoric country where man should fear to tread. His painterly compositions have a surreal, otherworldly quality seen in his spectacular, sepia-tinged views of Yosemite Valley, crystal clear reflections of soaring mountain peaks in pristine lakes and waterfalls. Ansel Adams, who would work with improved technology he helped perfect,

is the obvious inheritor.

Beginning in 1884, Muybridge started photographing subjects from multiple angles simultaneously for increasingly complex motion studies.

Monkeys, dogs, elephants, horses and deer on the move, all came in for scrutiny. Muybridge also portrayed men, alone or in pairs – usually athletes, contortionists or laborers – engaged in fencing, boxing, wrestling and other physical pursuits. Ostensibly used to demonstrate speed, virility and violence, the subjects are often naked, and the pictures of them have a not-so-subtle homoerotic undercurrent. Take, for example, the naked blacksmiths hammering on an anvil.

Both men and women are objectified, but the images of naked women in particular betray an agenda that’s not purely in the interest of science.▼ Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change runs at SFMOMA through June 7. Info at www.sfmoma.org.

African violence fered rape and genital mutilation as a tactic to demoralize the civilization. It also demof ever a play defied a happy nizes the victims in the eyes of ending, Lynn Nottage’s Rutheir family and societies, ined is it. And yet, Nottage which is the case with the suggests, the age of miracles character Sophie (delicately hasn’t passed. It may only be an drawn by Carla Duren), who isolated heavenly ray piercing a seeks refuge with Mama dehellish world, but that it can spite the fact that she has been happen at all is a cause for cau“ruined” as far as intercourse tious celebration. is concerned.

Nottage has created a variSophie does chores and ation on Mother Courage set also sings with the live band in Africa’s Congo, where an that periodically plays for endless civil war is a fact of life Mama’s patrons. There is to be negotiated through more lovely work from Pasrather than despaired over. cale Armand and Zaina Jah The Mother Courage in this as two of the working girls, case is Mama Nadi, who tries and from Oberon K.A. Adjeto maintain her brothpong as a sweet-talking but el/tavern as a kind of rainfor- Tonye Patano plays an African variation on Mother booze-hungry traveling est Switzerland. Rebel soldiers Courage, who is courted in this scene by a traveling salesman who sets up for are embraced one day, loyal- salesman (Oberon K.A. Adjepong) in Lynn Nottage’s himself the seemingly imists on another. Mama thinks Ruined at Berkeley Rep. possible task of wooing of herself as a steely survivor, Mama. “Love is a poisonous and no one is immune from word,” Mama says, “and an Mama’s patchwork establishment to her sharp tongue. But even as she unnecessary burden.” a compelling ensemble of actors led puts desperate young women to Nottage is not interested in the by the fierce Tonye Patano as Mama. work pleasuring men, she is also their politics of the Congo conflict, and Director Liesl Tommy’s production protector from futures that are dethe warring sides seem interchangeis a joint effort with the Huntington scribed in agonizing detail by those able in both greed and brutality. It’s Theatre Company and La Jolla Playwho didn’t reach Mama soon the most vulnerable people caught in house, where it played before arrivenough. a crossfire more heinous than bullets ing in Berkeley.

Though characters do occasionalthat the playwright wants to highRuined won the Pulitzer Prize for ly indulge in heavy oration, Ruined is light. As Mama says in her key to drama in 2009, and finally gave high largely a mood piece of comings and emotional survival, “There must alrecognition to a playwright who has goings, slices of life, and the simple ways be a part of you that the war been working her way up the regionjoys that can be extracted from seemdoesn’t touch.”▼ al-theater circuit. Nottage went to the ingly mundane activities. The ramDemocratic Republic of the Congo to bling world that Nottage created has Ruined will run at Berkeley Rep interview resident-victims of the civil been beautifully evoked in Berkeley through April 10. Tickets are $34wars, and notably those women, Rep’s Roda Theatre, from Clint $73. Call (510)647-2949 or go to numbered at 200,000, who have sufRamo’s set that elaborately details

by Richard Dodds

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kevinberne.com

things, that all four hooves of a galloping horse were off the ground at the same time. (Railroad magnate Leland Stanford, a horse-racing enthusiast, commissioned the initial study, and his beloved thoroughbred served as the model.)

With its mix of mechanics and imagery, the show, which is divided into thematic sections related to the evolution of Muybridge’s career, feels like those wonderful Smithsonian Institution exhibitions of my childhood in Washington, D.C., rather than a platform for pure art. It consists of some 300 objects created between 1857 and 1893, and includes an aficionado’s afternoon delight of vintage photographs, albums, proofs, giant landscape prints, notes, books, glass negatives and positives, lantern slides, stereographs with special plastic glasses to fuse the double-images into one, and Muybridge’s only surviving zoopraxiscope, an ingenious contraption he designed in 1879 for the purpose of projecting motion pictures. “Pioneer” hardly begins to describe the man.

Muybridge began his career in

www.berkeleyrep.org.

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10 March 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

21

FILM

Drugstore literary outlaw

by David Lamble s Tea Party America celebrates Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday, the Roxie Theater gives us a week-long counter-inauguration bash, with director Yony Leyser’s captivating film hymn to a queer junkie high priest, William S. Burroughs: A Man Within (March 11-17). Less a biography than a collection of eulogies by Burroughs’ self-anointed grandkids, the film takes its title from one of the old reprobate’s favorite aphorisms.

“Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.”

Of the Beat Generation’s holy trinity – Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Burroughs – perhaps it’s old man Burroughs, the putative godfather of punk, who best speaks to our confused times. As the queer movement sits uneasily between the curse of impending respectability and our old, fevered outlaw status, the drunken, reactionary Kerouac too closely resembles a Fox-TV, hatespewing bully pundit. The saintly Ginsberg is a hippie Christ figure whose unique poetic gifts, Gandhilike passivism and legendary longterm cohabitation record make him a tough act to follow. Burroughs is a far less intimidating example of how no life is truly ruined, no matter how unpromisingly it commences.

Heir to a corporate empire – his granddad invented the Burroughs adding machine – young William leaves a fancy prep school designed to mold rich sissies into real men.

After a painfully unrequited crush on a classmate, he would later destroy his diary entries on the episode. Still later, he would amputate the joint of a finger to impress another unattainable male god. Graduating Harvard, where he made early pilgrimages to the Boston gay underground and junkie precincts, Burroughs rides the post-Pearl Harbor tsunami of patriotism by enlisting in the Army. Expecting an officer’s commission, he’s severely depressed by an infantry assignment, after which his parents bail him out. He gets a psych discharge, followed by a monthly allowance, maybe with the parents’ hope that their unrepentant bad seed would go live in some foreign bohemia.

Following Beat movement baptism in wartime New York, where he meets Kerouac and Ginsberg, he becomes addicted to morphine, and finally runs afoul of the law after a young friend murders a meddlesome acquaintance, Burroughs flees to the Southwest, acquires a common law wife, an adopted daughter and a young son, and tries to jumpstart his literary career in Mexico City.

Tragedy then strikes in a most bizarre fashion when a drunken Burroughs accidentally shoots his wife during a “William Tell” party moment.

Charged with murder, Burroughs is again bailed out by his family (brother this time), finally leaving the country for decades of peripatetic existence in unruly sections of Tangiers and Paris, before returning Stateside for the saintly madness of the 1960s.

How did a man whose early brilliant work – his third novel, Naked Lunch, was the last literary book to be cleared by the courts in a major freedom-of-speech trial – extolled drugs, pederasty and fetishes like sexual strangulation achieve such a following? Of all the artists, friends and camp-followers attempting to explain Burroughs’ appeal, John Waters offers the most succinct, witty and penetrating observation.

“Everybody was enamored by William because he was famous before anyone else. And he was also famous for all the wrong things: he was the first person who was famous for things you were supposed to hide. He was gay, he was a junkie, he didn’t

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look handsome, he shot his wife, he wrote poetry about assholes and heroin – he was not easy to like!” It’s left to Waters to explicate the bitter paradox that the price for Burroughs’ literary breakthrough (by his own admission) would be the destruction of his blood family. His son Billy died at 33 after futilely trying to ingratiate himself with Dad with his own druggie oeuvre, which Waters thinks of as brilliant.

The mostly old-guy Burroughs on display in A Man Within – seen lunching with Andy Warhol, touring as a post-punk literary rock star, brandishing a staggeringly large gun collection – feels the love from an array of hip celebrities: Iggy Pop, Patti Smith and Norman Mailer.

Only around the edges is it hinted that Burroughs never came to terms with the idea of loving flesh-andblood humans who were not paid to be with him. A touching moment finds a young bed-companion confessing how conflicted Burroughs seemed by genuine expressions of love and affection between the sheets.

There’s an odd mid-film digression into Burroughs’ fling as a “shot-

gun” painter. Several acquaintances give a rather belabored tour of a jerry-rigged painting machine where he used guns to splatter expensive paint on canvasses to be hawked to rich patrons. The sly old dog never gave rich suckers an even break.

Burroughs oddly resembles the bohemian slacker essayed by Jeff Bridges in the Coen brothers’ parody of hip, The Big Lebowski. Scenes of Burroughs mumbling through his readings and underground birthday bashes are also disturbingly similar to the slurred monologues of Bridges’ drunken marshal in True Grit.

Though the film is brilliant in its depiction of Burroughs’ underground icon status, it would have been nice if Leyser could have devoted more time to explaining his mixed rep among the literati. Mailer hailed him as one of the few genuine American geniuses, while others have dismissed him as a cult trickster. Much has been written about Burroughs’ pioneering “cut-and-paste” editing collage method. Was this a moment where writers become collaborative artists akin to filmmakers? Or an example of the Beat PR machine’s self-

Yony Leyser

William S. Burroughs is profiled in a new documentary

Beat author William S. Burroughs gets ready for his close-up.

inflating hype?

For another film view, see Gus Van Sant’s Drugstore Cowboy, where Burroughs has a smart cameo as an aging addict, or watch Van Sant’s first short, The Discipline of DE, where a young student and an old soldier il-

lustrate Burroughs’ Zen of living well by “doing easy.”

William S. Burroughs: A Man Within plays the Roxie Fri.-Thurs., Mar. 11-17, with a Q&A with director Yony Leyser after the 7 p.m. show on Tues., Mar. 15.▼

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DVD

Wrong turn

by Tavo Amador he Romantics were fascinated by the reckless abandon that all-consuming passion induced, in art if not in life. That heedlessness is captured superbly by openly gay Luchino Visconti in Senso (1954), fully restored and recently released by Criterion on DVD. It’s set in Venice in 1866, as the Italian Risorgimento (“Resurgence”) was driving the Austrians out of the Veneto, and eventually uniting the peninsula under Piedmont’s King Victor Emanuel.

The film opens with a performance of Verdi’s Il Trovatore in La Fenice. Manrico sings a stirring “A Quela Pira” before a packed house, with Austrian soldiers in the best seats. At intermission, “anarchists” toss hundreds of red, white, and green flyers filled with pro-unification writings. The audience cheers the performance and the political message. One of the agitators, the Marchese Roberto Ussoni (Massimo Giroti), is confronted by a young Austrian soldier, Franz Mahler (Farley Granger), and challenges him to a duel. Witnessing this from her box is Countess Livia Serpieri (Alida Valli).

Terrified Roberto will be hurt, she arranges to meet Franz, asking that he refuse the challenge. He promises that it will be settled with handcuffs – Roberto is arrested and exiled.

Count Serpieri (Heinz Moog) does nothing to help.

Livia leaves the theatre. Franz follows. “Think of me as your shadow.”

He arrogantly assumes Roberto is her lover. He’s her cousin and the man she most admires in the world.

Roberto’s politics and her own, however, conflict with those of her older husband, who ingratiates himself with the Austrians. Franz and Livia spend the night walking through the dark, silent, often scary city. They find the dead body of a young Austrian soldier. Franz shields Livia from the patrol that carries it away for burial. She’s grateful. He explains how hard life is for him – away from home, part of an army of occupation, hated by the locals.

For days afterwards, she hopes to see him again, rationalizing that she’s really trying to protect Roberto. Although Venice’s aristocratic women are enthralled by Franz, she’s determined not to be among his conquests. Still, she goes to his quarters.

He’s been waiting for her. Their passionate affair begins.

He rents a room in the old quarter, where they meet. She says she has no past, no tomorrow, only this moment. She cuts a lock of her hair, places it in an expensive broach, and gives it to him. When he doesn’t ar-

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rive for their usual assignation, she rushes to the barracks, but the other soldiers are unsure where he is – perhaps with one of his many girlfriends. She finds the lock of hair, no longer in the valuable broach.

The war intensifies. Her husband wants to flee to their country villa.

Livia pleads for delay, desperate for Franz. Her maid says a man visited and left an address. Hopeful, she leaves, her husband secretly following. As she arrives at the apartment, the Count confronts her. She blurts out that she has betrayed him. Her lover is hiding there. When they open the door, they find Roberto. The Count thinks Livia was shielding him. He has changed sides and supports the Italians. He praises her for protecting her cousin. Roberto gives Livia a large sum of money to keep until the rebels need it.

Livia and the Count depart for their villa in Aldeno. One night, she hears a commotion: dogs barking, servants checking the grounds. Suddenly, Franz is in her rooms. She hides him. Their passion resumes, more intense than ever. She fears for his safety, both at the villa and in combat. He manipulates her into giving him Roberto’s money to bribe a doctor to declare him unfit for military service. He departs, promising to write, but warns, “You shouldn’t love me. No one should.”

His letter finally comes. He’s been exempted from service and is in Verona. Don’t visit, he writes, travel is dangerous. The Austrians are in retreat. Battles are raging. Unafraid, she arrives in Verona. What she finds is unimaginable, shattering her fantasy

of who Franz is. She flees, hysterical, wandering the streets, dodging ribald, drunken soldiers, until at last she makes a fateful, unexpected decision.

Visconti, who had directed many of Maria Callas’ acclaimed La Scala performances, builds Senso to an operatic crescendo, gripping the viewer until the final, heart-stopping moments. He had wanted Ingrid Bergman and Marlon Brando for the leads. Valli, striking but solemn, is compelling, if lacking Bergman’s capacity for romantic rhapsody. It’s hard to imagine how Brando, then at his most dynamic and attractive, would have played Franz. The openly bisexual Granger is effective, however – narcissistic, charming, subtly foreshadowing his final confrontation with Livia, a scene he plays brilliantly.

Senso (Direction) is set in the same period as Visconti’s The Leopard (1963), and similarly portrays turbulent political events from personal perspectives. The latter is the greater film, more controlled, more focused on necessities. Senso is more intense, a wrenching melodrama.

Visconti helped adapt the novella

by Camilo Boito for the screen. The glorious color cinematography is by G.R. Aldo and Robert Krasker. Marcel Escoffier and Piero Tosi created the sumptuous costumes. In addition to Verdi, the score includes music by Anton Bruckner. Franco Zefferelli was among Visconti’s assistants. A badly censored English-language version, with some dialogue by Tennessee Williams, was released as The Wanton Countess. It’s included in the Criterion set.▼

www.bartabsf.com

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10 March 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

23

BOOKS

The beautiful & the dying

by Jim Piechota Circuit: Poems by Walter Holland; Chelsea Station Editions, $14

ew York City wordsmith Walter Holland’s two previous volumes of iridescent poetry addressed AIDS (A Journal of the Plague Years, 1992) and more random global issues and concerns, past and present (Transatlantic, 2001).

In Circuit, he narrows his scope further and highlights themes that are distinctly relevant to the contemporary gay community. Six sections run the gamut from the pomp and pageantry of the circuit party scene to the melancholy isolation of death and disease, to an unforgettable simmering summer frolicking on the “sunny sea” near a Fire Island share where camaraderie rules and “we accommodate to all that this house must hold, the good, the bad and ugly, the beautiful and the dying.”

The title section forms a miasma of fog-machined disco lights and sweaty bodies, where the crowded dance floor accepts all shapes and sizes, and plays host to “these matadors of music and mayhem” – boys who “fight the very temptation of sleep” and “long for a world spun on Ecstasy and song.”

“Grand Central” is another section written with great deliberation.

In “Swimming,” there’s the pitch-perfect angst of a gay boy stuck showering with other men “wholly unprepared to confront what I desired,” and “the damp give within a fold, the

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spilling moist” of two boys wrestling in “Boys at Play.”

For those who’ve not yet felt the heavy-handed, sledgehammer heft of the recent AIDS remorse revival, Holland’s “Examining Rooms” ushers in morose glimpses of “the dam-

www.ebar.com

Tristaniana

by Tim Pfaff ebut novelist Matthew Gallaway’s decision to erect his new novel, The Metropolis Case (Crown), on Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde comes off as a miscalculation rather than as overreaching hubris. Wagner’s great opera is the link that connects the novel’s four main characters and three main story strands, but all too often, and predictably, it shows how banal any derivative work would be in the shadow of that towering masterpiece.

At a time when most novels leave us starved for story, it’s refreshing to encounter a new work as intricately plotted as Gallaway’s.

And the writing, though uneven, takes off regularly enough, even achieving some memorable peak moments, to hold your attention.

But in the end it’s a literary Black Swan, piggy-backing on a masterpiece as beloved as it is great, yet unable to avoid grotesquerie every time the original work comes into view.

You end up grateful that Gallaway didn’t, as the title hints, add ingredients of Janacek’s The Makropulos Case to the brew and, if you’re me, wishing Gallaway had left me my Tristan untampered with.

It was the gratuitous cat story in the novel’s denouement that soured it all for me. (The author note tells us that the gay blogger lives in Washington Heights with his partner and three cats – which god knows I’ve done, happily, though in Ashbury Heights – though an editor with any detachment would have shown character kitties Dante and Beatrice the cat door.) Still, for a reader like me – who can finish an Agatha Christie novel still not knowing who done it – seeing how the many plot-lines were

aged lip, the blemish and the watch that glowed precise on its band around the bone-still wrist,” and the pain felt by survivors who continue to feel the “sharp point of horror.”

Less resonant is the section “Les Deux Magots,” named after a Paris café. Holland manages to harness the international flair of European sights and sounds, and while competently conceived, the chapter doesn’t feel connected with the themes of the remaining portions of the book, with the exception of the impressive piece “Provincetown.”

In this standout poem, the author both observes and correlates a visit to the festive Massachusetts seaside resort (“Memories of its queens and disco friends, witches of the new century, flame more bright than Puritan torches”) with New England folklore in a way that delivers a history lesson alongside some particularly illustrative poetry.

Holland has made a respected name for himself with a successful novel and many published short stories.

This ponderous and often sobering volume, rife with the smells, emotions, and feel of many aspects of the gay experience, should garner him further, much-deserved attention.▼

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about to converge before a “happy ending” even Handel wouldn’t have tolerated was the coup de grace.

It would be equal parts unfair and impossible to tell the story, so thumbnails of the main characters – in order of my affection for them – must suffice. There’s Anna Prus, the continental soprano who gets her break into international stardom in a Met Tristan in 1960, and her protégé Maria (yes, named after Callas) Shannon, born the same time Anna’s star was born, in nearby Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Then there’s Lucien Marchand, whom we first meet as a dizzy young singing student in mid-19th-century Paris, who goes on to sing the role of Tristan at the opera’s premiere and, under another name and in another incarnation, as a last-minute replacement for Maria’s role debut as Isolde at Bayreuth. Somewhere along the way, this mercurial character, not a multiple personality but a time-traveling, look-ma-no-Tarnhelm shapeshifter, acquires the moniker Leo Me-

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Chris Pierce at Share the Beat @ The Regency Center, Friday

OUT&ABOUT Bobby Viteritti (seen here at the Trocadero decades ago) DJs at SPKR.

Fri 11>>

40 Pounds in 12 Weeks: A Love Story @ The Marsh Pidge Meade takes audiences on a heartpounding, hair-raising, society-skewering, weight-loss rollercoaster ride, spinning between ten different characters in her new solo show. $15-$35. Fri 8pm. Sat 8:30pm. Thru Mar. 26. 1074 Valencia St. (800) 8383006. www.themarsh.org

Gaytastic

by Jim Provenzano

ecently, a certain reader complained that the selections for these pages were getting “a little too mainstream.” I was like, Huh? Shouldn’t arts events be considered for their quality first? Why should we flock in droves to something just because it’s gay, or tries to be? Art should be enjoyed, not endured.

Fortunately, this week’s most amusing events also happen to be gay. No, they’re gayer than gay. They’re gaytastic. You’ve got your retro disco classic night, your transgender comic, your bear comic books, and your drag parody of classic camp cinema.

So, go gaily into the week.

Recharge your Gay Card.

Shake your booty and share the sounds of our historic dance club era when SPKR turns the new club Public Works into a wonderland of yesteryear. Honey Soundsystem presents a benefit for the GLBT Historical Society, with veteran DJs Steve Fabus and Bobby Viteritti spinning classic disco music, and exhibits about the golden gay days of dance Natasha Muse clubs and groovy grooves. Saturday, March 12. $50 VIP catered reception, 8pm-10pm. $15 public gallery showing and dancing, 10pm-3am. 161 Erie St. at Mission. www.honeysoundsystem.com Natasha Muse happens to be transgender. She also happens to be funny, and she hosts A Funny Night for Comedy at Actors Theatre of SF, a comic faux-talk show comedy night, with sidekick Ryan Cronin, guests Mike Speigelman, Brian Fields, Tony Smith and DJ Real. Sunday, March 13. $10. 7pm. Improv show follows at 9pm. 855 Bush St. 345-1287. www.Natasha Muse.com www.actorstheatresf.org Seeing Baby Jane? at the CasBaby Jane? tro Theatre should not be your only viewing of the locally-made strangely hilarious comedic parody of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Directed by Billy Clift, starring Matthew Martin and Katya Smirnoff Sky, with Heklina, Ethel Merman and other local gay talents, theatrical screenings tend to be such raucous laughfests that you miss the subtlety, and a few of the lines. But it’s still well worth the experience. Several cast members will also perform in a live show before the screening, along with score composers Ejector. Tuesday, March 15. $30 special VIP party in the mezzanine, 6pm. $20 pre-show and film, 7:30pm. $10 film only, 10pm. 429 Castro St. www.babyjane2010.com www.castrotheatre.com Warm up for Wonder Con with gay bear comic art at Smack Dab at Magnet.

Larry-bob Roberts and guest Baruch Porras-Hernandez cohost the eclectic often queer reading series, this month featuring Ed Luce, creator of the popular gay bear comics Wuvable Oaf. Wuvable Oaf creator Ed Luce Wednesday, March 16. 8pm, open mic signup starts at 7:30. 4122 18th St. www.magnetsf.org Is that gay enough for ya?

How about flower arrangements in a museum?

Bouquets to Art at The de Young Museum, the annual floral festival of artistic creations made out of flowers, and inspired by great works of art, include luncheons, lectures, teas, and floral demos.

Exhibits are free-$10; special events: $30$50 and up. Tuesday, March 15-19. 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park. Reg hours Tue-Thu, Sat-Sun 9:30am-5:15pm. Fri til 8:45pm. 750-3600. www.deyoungmuseum.org▼

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Bouquets to Art at the de Young

7 Sins … One More Time! @ Exit Theatre Comedian James Judd returns with his acclaimed solo show about his misadventures in various odd jobs, and a 5th grade book report about Patty Hearst. $24-$40. Fri-Sun 8pm.

Thru April 10. 156 Eddy St. 206-1651. www.theexit.org

Atlacualo @ Novellus Theater Jose Navarette and Violeta Luna’s collaborative performance piece The Ceasing of Water, about precious resources. $20-$25. 8pm.

Thru Mar. 12. 978-2787. www.ybca.org

Branford Marsalis, Terence Blanchard @ Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley Cal Performances presents the jazz master saxophone and trumpet player, who each perform with their own bands in a dual concert. $28-$60. 8pm. Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave., UC Berkeley campus. (510) 642-9988. www.calperformances.org

Garbo the Spy @ Smith Rafael Film Center Documentary about Juan Pujol Garcia, one of the most successful double agents in history, who played a key role during WWII in thwarting the Nazis. $5.50-$10.25. 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. 454-1222. www.cafilm.org

The Homecoming @ ACT Harold Pinter’s classic family drama is performed; directed by American Conservatory Theatre Artistic Director Carey Perloff; special programs thru the run. $10-$85. TueSat 8pm. Wed, Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Mar. 27. 415 Geary St. 749-2228. www.act-sf.org

Lady Grey @ Exit Theatre Cutting Ball Theatre’s production of three short plays by Will Eno; a woman’s monologue about a painful childhood memory, a backstage theatre mini-drama, and a senior actor confronts his audience. $15-$50. 277 Taylor St. (800) 838-3006. www.cuttingball.com

Litter @ Zeum Theater American Conservatory Theatre students perform the world premiere of Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s dark comedy about the frenzy surrounding a family with multiple births, and what happens when their “cute factor” fades. $15. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Mar. 19.

221 4th St. at Howard. www.act-sf.org

ODC @ Novellus Theater Innovative dance company celebrates its 40th anniversary with a gala opening night and parties; new and repertory works by Brenda Way, KT Nelson and Kimi Okada; special concerts, events with food, drinks, “meet the artists” receptions, and more. $10 (student) to $250 (gala and post-show party). Mar. 11 gala, 7pm. Most shows 8pm (Mar 17, 6:30, Mar 27, 2pm). Thru March 27. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. 9782787. www.odcdance.org

Paula West @ The Rrazz Room Popular local singer performs with The George Mesterhazy quartet on various nights. $35-$45. Mostly at 8pm. Check online schedule. 2-drink minimum. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. at Ellis. (800) 380-3095. www.therrazzroom.com

Pearls Over Shanghai @ The Hypnodrome Thrillpeddlers’ revival of the comic mock operetta by Link Martin and Scrumbly Koldewyn, performed by the gender-bending Cockettes decades ago, and loosely based on the 1926 play The Shanghai Gesture; with an allstar local cast. $30-$35. 18 and over only!

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

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

Regrets Only @ New Conservatory Theatre Gay playwright Paul Rudnick’s latest comedy, set in a Manhattan penthouse with various uptown characters about to celebrate a wedding. $15-$36. Runs thru April 3. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. 861-8972. www.nctcsf.org

Rock of Ages @ Curran Theatre

American Idol finalist Constantine Maroulis stars in the 80s-set arena rock straight love story set to the music of Journey, REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar and more. $30$99. Tue-Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat, Sun 2pm. Thru April 9. 445 Geary St. (888) 746-1799. www.shnsf.com

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

SF Int. Asian American Film Festival @ Various Theatres Diverse array of narrative, documentary and short films from around the world; screenings at the Castro Theatre, Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, Viz Cinema, Clay Theatre, Pacific Film Archive and Camera 12 in San Jose. $10$12. Thru Mar. 20. www.caamedia.org

Share the Beat @ Regency Center

niversary. 9pm-11pm show with Farrokh, Dulce de Leche, Marco X Middlesex and more drag acts. Raffles, HIV info, and fun.

9pm-11pm. 2298 Market St. at Noe. www.cafeflore.com

Joan Rivers @ Castro Theatre The irascible comic, author, red carpet diva, talk-show host and reality show superstar does her no-holds-barred stand-up act. $35$76. 8pm. 429 Castro St. 392-4400. www.castrotheatre.com

The Laybelline Show @ Castro Country Club Hilarious drag show at the Castro sober space, and the kick-off for the Miss Castro Country Club contest. Free. 10:30pm. 4058 18th St. www.castrocountryclub.org

Mark Freden @ A Different Light

Greg Barnhill, Chris Pierce, Shasta Baca, Alex Band and others perform at a benefit for the American Society of Transplantation, hosted by James Redford, a liver transplant recipient, and son of actor Robert Redford. $55. 8pm. 1290 Sutter St. at Van Ness. www.sharethebeat.org

Gay TV personality discusses and reads from his memoir, Really?!?: A Memoir By A Man Who’s Not Quite Famous Enough. 4pm. 489 Castro St. 431-0891. www.adlbooks.blogspot.com

Singing at the Edge of the World @ The Marsh Cabaret, Berkeley

Two local favorite comics with fans nationwide perform at the scenic Marin performing space. $20-$25. 8pm. 5th St. at B St., Point Reyes Station. 663-1075. www.dancepalace.org

Randy Rutherford’s inspirational autobiographical solo show, with music, about his life as an Alaskan folksinger overcoming congenital hearing loss (captions for hearing impaired at first three Saturday shows). $15$50. Thu & Fri 8pm, Sat 5pm. Thru April 16. 2120 Allston Way, near Shattuck. (800) 838-3006. www.themarsh.org

Tom Schabarum @ Books Inc. Author of The Palisades discusses and reads from his novel about what happens when a loved one disappears. Free. 7:30pm. 2275 Market St. 864-6777. www.booksinc.net

Xanadu @ Retrodome, San Jose Touring production of the mirthful muse-filled musical comedy based on the strangely lovable film, complete with roller-skating disco numbers set to the original music, but a script that takes a satirical edge. $24-$44. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru April 3. 1694 Saratoga Ave. (408) 404-7711. www.TheRetroDome.com

Sat 12 >> African American GIs and Germany @ African American Arts Complex Exhibit about the role of African American soldiers in World War II by researchers Maria Hohn and Martin Klimke. Thru April 22. 762 Fulton St. at Webster. www.aacvr-germany.org

ARTery Project @ Market St. Venues Series of arts events, fairs, installations and performances taking place along Market St. from UN Plaza to 6th St. Opening of Bullet Train Mar. 12 at The Luggage Store. 6pm12am. 1007 Market St. (exhibit thru April 16). www.sfartscommission.org/artery

Cootie Shots @ New Conservatory Theatre Family matinee of the educational sketch play focusing on respecting differences in gender, religion, races and cultures. 2pm. Also March 19 & 26. 25 Van Ness Ave, lower level. 8618972. www.nctcsf.org

Dandelion Dance Theatre, Kegan Marling @ CounterPulse Showing of dance works-in-progress from two innovative local groups. Free. 1:30pm. 1310 Mission St. www.counterpulse.org

Eadweard Muybridge @ SF Museum of Modern Art Fascinating showcase the first-ever retrospective examining all aspects of artist Eadweard Muybridge’s pioneering photography; more than 300 objects created between 1857 and 1893. $9-$18. Daily 11am-5:45pm (closed Wed.). 151 Third St. 357-4000. www.sfmoma.org

Hot & Healthy @ Café Flore Garza hosts a benefit for SF TransLatinas, as the benefit night celebrates its one-year an-

Marga Gomez, Diane Amos @ Dance Palace, Point Reyes

Narnia @ Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, Berkeley Berkeley Playhouse ‘s production of the kidfriendly musical stage adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, featuring youth actors and adults. $15-$33. Thu-Sun various times thru April 3. 2640 College Ave. (510) 845-8542. www.berkeleyplayhouse.org

The Oldest Profession @ Brava Theatre Evren Odcikin directs Paula Vogel’s satiric comedy about senior women prostitutes in the Reagan 80s who decide to work themselves to death. $10-$25. Previews thru opening night Mar. 14. 8pm. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 3pm. Thru April 9. 2781 24th St. at York. 647-2822. www.brava.org

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

Romeo and Juliet @ Val’s Subterranean, Berkeley Impact Theatre’s production of the Shakepeare romantic tragedy reset between contemporary Russian mafia gangs. Pizza, beer and other food & drinks available. $10-$20.

Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru Mar. 27. 1834 Euclid Ave. www.impacttheatre.com

Sarah Bush Dance Project @ Cowell Theater One night multi-media concert excerpt showing of Rocked By Women, dances by the energetic local women’s dance company, set to classics of the Women’s Music movement, from Ferron to Pink. $15-$20. 8pm. Herbst Pavillion, Fort Mason Center. Marina Blvd. at Buchanan. 345-7575. www.sarahbushdance.com

SF Hiking Club @ Cascade Canyon Join GLBT hikers for a 10-mile hike in Marin County that will involve 2-3 miles of off-trail hiking; see waterfalls and ridge-top views, blossoming wildflowers. Carpool meets at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores, 9am.

(650)763-8537. www.sfhiking.com

Textural Rhythms @ Museum of the African Diaspora Constructing the Jazz Tradition, Contemporary African American Quilts, a new exhibit of quilts by the Women of Color Quilters Network that visualize jazz artists. $5-$10.

Wed-Sat 11am-6pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 685 Mission St. at 3rd. 358-7200. www.moadsf.org

10 March 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

Teatro Zinzanni @ Pier 29, Sunday 10:30pm, Sat & Sun 10:30pm. www.davidperry.com

William Salit @ Magnet Exhibit of photographic sketches of the Castro by the local artist. 8pm. Thru March.

4122 18th St. at Castro. www.magnetsf.org

Tue 15 >> Fiddler on the Roof @ San Jose Center for the Performing Arts

Sun 13 >> Bali: Art, Ritual,Performance @ Asian Art Museum Expansive exhibit of more than 100 historic art works in exhibits that showcase the practicality of the performing and visual arts in this beautiful culture. $7-$17. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. Thu til 9pm. Thru Sept. 11. 200 Larkin St. www.asianart.org

Bijou @ Martuni’s Rock duo Sex Industry (Virginia Suicide & Maria Konner), Erika Von Volkyrie and Megan Kelly perform at the intimate cabaret night. Joe Wicht accompanies and hosts. $5.

7pm. 4 Valencia St. 241-0205. www.dragatmartunis.com

Breathed … Unsaid @ SOMArts Gallery Group exhibit of diverse and unusual art works, from traditional to high-tech and interactive installations, including gay artist (and Sister of Perpetual Indulgence) Joel Tan (who reads poetry at the exhibit Mar. 24, 7pm). Related film screenings Mar. 13, 12pm-8pm. Free. Tue-Fri 12pm-7pm. Sat 12pm-5pm. Thru March 31. 934 Brannan St. 863-1414. www.somarts.org

The Capitol Steps @ Kanbar Hall Political satirists skewer Democrats and Republicans with comedic musical numbers. $46-$55. 2pm & 5pm. Jewish Community Center, 3200 California St. 292-1233. www.jccsf.org/arts

Les Percussions de Strasbourg @ Hertz Hall, Berkeley Fascinating percussion ensemble performs works for marimba and other instruments, composed by Varese, Manoury, Cendo and other composers. $42. 3pm. Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave. UC Berkeley campus. (510) 642-9988. www.calperformances.org

Song Dong @ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Dad and Mom, Don’t Worry About Us, We Are All Well, the Chinese artist’s installations and photography about Bejing’s rapid development and social changes. $5-$7. Ongoing related programs thru ehxibit run (thru June 12). Reg hours, Thu-Sat 12pm-8pm. Sun 12pm-6pm. 701 Mission St. 978-ARTS. www.ybca.org

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room

Linda Purl & Kevin Spirtas @ The Rrazz Room The two accomplished TV and film actors show off their impressive singing skills in Rhapsody in Two, a night of songs by Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, the Gershwins and more. $35-$40. 3pm. Also Mar. 14, 8pm.

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

Meshell Ndegeocello @ The Independent Fantastic singer covers songs by Prince. Martun Luther opens, covering Beatles songs. $25. 8pm. 628 Divisadero St. 771-1421. www.theindependentsf.com Also Mar. 12 at The New Parish, 579 18th St., Oakland. www.thenewparish.com

Collaborative group exhibit of diverse photography, including large-scale photo print tile works by GetBizi. Thru March. 111 Minna St. 974-1719. www.111minnagallery.com

New IRS Rules Workshop @ LGBT Center

Our Vast Queer Past @ GLBT History Museum

Same-sex and “straight-friendly” swing and jive dance night, Lessons 7pm, 8pm. Dancing with a live band 8:30pm. $5, $15, $40. 406 Clement St. at 5th Ave. www.QueerJitterburgs.com

New exhibit from the GLBT Historical Society, with a wide array of rare historic items on display. Free for members-$5. Wed-Sat 11am-7pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Teatro Zinzanni @ Pier 29

Plastic Camera Show @ RayKo Photo Center

Mon 14 >>

Cal Performances and SF Opera present a recital by the acclaimed tenor, performing music in German by Schuman and Strauss. $40-$100. 7pm. Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave. UC Berkeley campus. 864-3330. www.sfopera.com www.calperformances.org

Moment @ 111 Minna Gallery

Sunday Swing-out @ Rock-it Room

John Pizzarelli & Jessica Molasky @ The Venetian Room

Jonas Kaufmann @ Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley

Emily Bergl (Desperate Housewives) and pianist G. Scott Lacy perform an energetic cabaret show of songs ranging from Fats Waller and Cole Porter to Roy Orbinson and Madonna. $30. 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. at Ellis. (800) 380-3095. www.therrazzroom.com

Donna Sachet and Harry Denton host the fabulous weekly brunch and drag show. $45.

11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square.

395-8595. www.harrydenton.com

Interview show with gay writer Adam Sandel as host. 8pm. www.EnergyTalkRadio.com

Popular cabaret duo perform classics by Berlin, Gershwin, Ellington, Sondheim, even Joni Mitchell and Tom Waits. 7:30pm (5pm show sold out). $40-$45. Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason St. 927-4636. www.bayareacabaret.org

Kidding on the Square @ The Rrazz Room

Jordan, Miller and Associates host a meeting for LGBT married and domestically-partnered couples, with updated info on the convoluted tax filing reforms. Free/RSVP required: Email francisco.e.alfaro@ampf.com 623-2450. 6:30-8:30pm. Ceremonial Room, 1800 Market St. www.sfcenter.org

Caliente is the new show at the theatre-tent-dinner extravaganza, with twin acrobats Ming and Rui, Vertical Tango rope dance, plus magic, comedy, a five-course dinner, and a lot of fun. $117-$145. Saturday 11:30am “Breve” show $63-$78. Wed-Sat 6pm (Sun 5pm). Pier 29 at Embarcadero Ave. 438-2668. www.teatrozinzanni.com

Happy Hour @ Energy Talk Radio

Touring production of the classic musical about Jewish Russians facing the loss of their traditions, and their homes. John Preece stars in this Broadway production that includes original choreography and staging by Jerome Robbins. $20-$79. Thru Mar. 20.

255 Almaden Blvd. San Jose. (408) 7924111. www.sjtix.com

In Paths Untrodden @ SF Public Library Walt Whitman’s Calamus Poems and the Radical Faeries, curated by Joey Cain; an exhibit of the gay poet’s influence on contemporary queer culture. Thru May 19. James C. Hormel Gay & Lesbian Center, 100 Larkin St. third floor. www.sfpl.org

Marga’s Funny Mondays @ The Marsh, Berkeley Marga Gomez, “the lesbian Lenny Bruce” (Robin Williams), brings her comic talents, and special guests, to a weekly cabaret show. $10. 8pm. 2120 Allston Way. (800) 8383006. www.margagomez.com www.themarsh.org

Size Matters @ John Pence Gallery Group exhibit of amazing photorealist paintings; landscapes, still lifes and sensual nudes, ranging from enormous to tiny in size. MonFri 10am- 6pm. Sat 10am-5pm. 750 Post St. 441-1138. www.johnpence.com

The Smiths Indeed @ Café du Nord Smiths cover band perform hits by, well, The Smiths. $10. 21+. 8pm. 2170 Market St. 861-5016. www.cafedunord.com

Ten Percent @ Comcast 104 David Perry’s engaging talk show about LGBT local issues. Mon-Fri 11:30am &

Annual juried group exhibition of fascinating prints made from cheap cameras. Thru April 30. Tue-Thu 10am-10pm. Fri-Sun 10am8pm. 428 Third St. www.raykophoto.com

Wed 16 >> Paul Dresher Ensemble @ Z Space Local acclaimed experimental music ensemble performs with percussionist Steven Schick in Schick Machine. $10-$20. 8pm. Fri & Sat thru Mar. 26. 450 Florida St. at 17th. (800) 838-3006. www.dresherensemble.org

Whatcha Doin’ Wednesdays @ Castro Bars Monthly promotional events (each 3rd Wed.) at Castro bars, and live performances in Jane Warner Plaza. 7pm-11pm. www.lookoutsf.com

Thu 17 >> Anniversary Celebration @ The Rrazz Room The swellegant nightclub cabaret celebrates three years, with a special star-studded benefit for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; Sarah Dash, Joyce DeWitt, Sally Kellerman, Cece Peniston, Florence LaRue, Melba Moore, Martha Reeves, Paula West, Pia Zadora and others perform. $75-$175. 8pm. 2-drink minimum. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. at Ellis.

(800) 380-3095. www.therrazzroom.com

Human Rights Watch Film Fest @ YBCA Films from around the world focus on the struggles of people abused by militaries, governments and dictatorships. $6-$8. Thursdays, 7:30pm. Thru Mar. 31. 701 Mission St. www.ybca.org

Queer Disability Services Discussion @ South Berkeley Senior Center Focus groups for LGBT disabled people (10 max per session) to provide input on service improvements. 1pm-3pm and 3pm-5pm.

RSVP: lsteinberg@cilberkeley.org (510) 841-4776. (video phone (510) 356-2662.

2939 Ellis St. www.cilberkeley.org

To submit event listings, email jim@ebar.com.

RJ Muna

Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication.

ODC @ Novellus Theater, Friday.

For more bar and nightlife events, go to www.bartabsf.com

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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 10 March 2011

LEATHER+

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Darren Bondy wins Mr. SF Leather 2011

by Scott Brogan r. Powerhouse 2011 and Bare Chest Calendar Man (Mr. September 2011) Darren Bondy won the title of Mr. SF Leather 2011 last Saturday night at the Whitcomb Hotel in San Francisco. Bondy is the 33rd man to win the title, and carries on the run of winners from the Powerhouse and the Bare Chest Calendar. The contest was the centerpiece of the Leather Alliance Weekend, including the 45th Annual SF Leather Community Awards & Dinner held the previous night.

Bondy had his work cut out for him, having serious competition from: Mr. Edge Leather 2011 Drew Cutler, Mr. Hayes Valley Leather 2011 JB Kern and Mr. Citadel 2011 Jessie Vanciel. All four amazed us in the judged categories (Speech, Leather Image, Fantasy, Interview, Pop Question/Jock). Throughout the night, there was no clear front-runner. Any of these exemplary men would make a great Mr. SF Leather.

The highlights were the speech and fantasy categories. Jesse Vanciel gave the best speech, speaking eloquently about acceptance in all areas of life, whether fetish or not, and how his SF Citadel family (www.sfcitadel.org) has helped him become the man he is today. JB Kern was a close second, speaking passionately about mentoring, and how being a bottom doesn’t automatically make you a “sub” (ain’t that the truth!). The best fantasy was Kern’s. He demonstrated a temporary piercing scene on a young woman laden with piercings across her back. Very hot, especially when Kern flashed a wicked smile as the scene ended. Runner-up in the fantasy would be Drew Cutler. He and his partner Leo reenacted the puppy play of their first night together, accompanied by a delightful version of “How Much is that Doggie in the Window?”

Mr. SF Leather & International Mr. Leather 1992 Lenny Broberg and Absolute Leather Empress Donna Sachet emceed, keeping the night

Scott Brogan

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Mr. SF Leather 2011 Darren Bondy won the title last Saturday night before a packed house at the Whitcomb Hotel in SF.

going at a fast pace highlighted by their amusing banter and a few fun costume changes. Sachet was gorgeous in a red Cinderella-style dress, but Broberg gave everyone a woody by sporting a custom-made leather uniform (by Off-Ramp Leathers).

The difficult task of judging fell on Race Bannon, Demetri Moshoyannis, Gary Kenyon, George Schaeffer, Louie Pacheco, Leo Peralta and Lance Holman.

As outgoing Mr. SF Leather 2010, Holman ran a clever video before giving his step-down speech. In part he stated that he hoped he had “exemplified the nurturing and strength of our community.” You did, Lance, and so much more. We can’t thank you enough.

In the end, Vanciel was named First Runner-Up and won the Brotherhood Award (voted on by the con-

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Coming up in leather & kink >> Thu., Mar. 10: Underwear Night at The Powerhouse (1347 Folsom). Wear your sexy underwear for drink specials. Fun begins around 9 p.m. Bare Chest Calendar SemiFinals return next week. Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Thu., Mar. 10: Kinky Dating Class with Anglea & Iain at the SF Citadel (1277 Mission). Doors open at 7 p.m., program 7:30-10 p.m. $15-$25 sliding scale. Go to: www.sfcitadel.org or www.edukink.org.

Thu., Mar. 10: Locker Room at Chaps Bar (1225 Folsom). 9 p.m.-close. Wear your jockstraps, sports gear, anything that goes in the locker room, for drink specials. Go to: www.chapsbarsanfrancisco.com.

Fri., Mar. 11: Truck Wash at Truck (1900 Folsom). 10 p.m.-close. Enjoy the live shower boys and drink specials.

Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Fri., Mar. 11: Flash “Dungeons and Dragons,” a fantasy/medieval-inspired photographic play party at the SF Citadel. 8 p.m.-1 a.m. $25, volunteer for a shift to get in free. Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Fri., Mar. 11: Fuzz at Chaps Bar. 9 p.m.-close. For hairy men and the men who love them. Free clothes check. Featuring DJ Sam. Go to: www.chapsbarsanfrancisco.com.

Sat., Mar. 12: Back Bar Action at The Eagle Tavern (398 12th St.). Back patio and bar open to all gear/fetish/leather.

10 p.m. to close. Go to: www.sfeagle.com.

Sat., Mar. 12: Screwup Munch: BDSM for Trans & Queers at Wicked Grounds (289 8th St.). 7-9 p.m. Go to: www.screwup.info.

Sat., Mar. 12: Military at Chaps Bar. 9 p.m.-close. Men in uniform, dogtags & camos get serviced. DJ Jim mixing.

Go to: www.chapsbarsanfrancisco.com.

Sat.-Sun., Mar. 12-13: Cleo Dubois’ Erotic Dominance Weekend Intensive for Dominant Men & men who Switch. Your adventure starts at a private location in SoMa Friday evening. For details, go to: www.sm-arts.com or www.sfcitadel.org.

Sun., Mar. 13: Castrobear presents Sunday Furry Sunday at 440 Castro. 4-10 p.m. Go to: www.castrobear.com.

Sun., Mar. 13: Lucky in Leather presented by the Alameda County Leather Corps at The World Famous Turf Club (22519 Main St., San Jose). 3-7 p.m. Includes food, raffle prizes, and entertainment. Benefits the TriCity Health Center’s The Men Together Project. Go to: www.acleather.org.

Sun., Mar. 13: Anal Play with Rain DeGray at Looking Glass (Jack London Square area, Oakland). 2-4 p.m. $20, $35 for couples. For information and to RSVP, email: mail@lookingglassarts.com or visit: www.lookingglassarts.com.

Mon., Mar. 14: Trivia Night with host Casey Ley at Truck. 8-10 p.m. Amazing prizes and ridiculous questions.

Go to: www.trucksf.com.

Tue., Mar. 15: 12-Step Kink Recovery Group at the SF Citadel. 6:30-8 p.m. Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Tue., Mar. 15: Ink & Metal followed by Nasty at The Powerhouse. 9 p.m. Go to: www.powerhouse-sf.com.

Tue., Mar. 15: Skins n Punks at Chaps Bar. 9 p.m.close. Featuring drink specials. Go to: www.chapsbarsanfrancisco.com.

Wed., Mar. 16: Bare Bear, a night at the baths at The Water Garden (1010 Alameda, San Jose). 6-10 p.m. Go to: www.thewatergarden.com.

Wed., Mar. 16: Underwear Buddies at Blow Buddies (933 Harrison). Doors open 8 p.m.-12 a.m. Play til late.

Go to: www.blowbuddies.com.

Wed., Mar. 16: Naughty Knitters at the SF Citadel. 7-9 p.m. Admission is $5. Go to: www.sfcitadel.org.

Wed., Mar. 16: SoMa Men’s Club. Every Wednesday, the SoMa Clubs (Chaps, Powerhouse, Truck, Lone Star, Hole in the Wall, the Eagle) have specials for those who wear the Men’s Club dogtags.

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10 March 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

DVD

Zero body fat

by Ernie Alderete he porn feature Popping His Cherry boasts a nice cast of uniformly fresh-faced, blemish-free, handsome, well-hung, wholesome, white-bread – except for one apparent Eurasian (Joshua Lovett) – bone-skinny twinks. Not one of the well-scrubbed ensemble looks like he weighs over 110 firmlypacked pounds soaking wet.

But Popping His Cherry is guilty of the second cardinal sin of porn, smirking! I don’t have to tell you what the #1 cardinal sin of male-involved erotica, straight or gay, is. Fortunately, none of these 10 USDA-choice twinks has any problem keeping it up. No squishy, spongy, embarrassing, hamster-hung semi-boners here.

Despite the smirking, the strong cast performs memorable sex, and delivers cum-splattering climaxes (especially the grand finale) worthy of this gag-the-fag, body-fluidsquirting series from Xtreme

T

Metropolis ▼

page 23

Popping His Cherry: Fresh, Ripe, Juicy Twinks with Robbie Hart.

Xtreme Productions, 90 min., directed by Afton Nills. Retail price is $49.95, but it’s available for mailorder online for $24.95.

But it also allows for two tender subplots – Anna’s Juilliard affair with a black jazz musician, and Lucien’s with an older architect (ultimately of a new Vienna Opera House, at which point that story reels out of control) – that I found among the novel’s more fetching episodes.

Far more problematic are the reimaginings of history, particularly the rehearsals for the Munich premiere of Tristan, in which Wagner and the conductor Hans von Buelow come off as cartoonish. As Oliver Hilmes’ spectacular biography of Cosima Wagner, The Lady of Bayreuth, makes clear, the actual event was far more exotic and unbelievable than any fiction-writer could top.

Gallaway’s description of the rehearsal period says what you need to know about his writing: “Gradually [Lucien] came to attribute this lassi-

tude to an almost constant exposure to the opera. Like an airborne sickness, the music seemed to infect everyone – the singers, the crew, even the administrative staff – with a form of despair that drained them of any energy even before the day’s work began, as though they were hacking through a malaria-infested jungle.”

I read the novel as an e-book, never knowing how far off the end was. Twice the prose attained shades of lavender that I thought meant we had reached The Metropolis Case’s “Liebestod.” Too bad that just before it arrived – “The endless night had arrived; the performance of a lifetime was over, as Leo Metropolis, his children by his side, at last surrendered to the music of the universe” – the intricate set that is Gallaway’s ambitious first novel had already come crashing down on everyone’s heads.▼

Mr. SF Leather 2010 Lance Holman poses with his charming mother after the recent Mr. SF Leather 2011 contest at the Whitcomb Hotel in SF.

Leather + ▼

page 26

testants themselves), with Bondy winning the title. Congratulations!

Bondy and Kern will both compete for International Mr. Leather this May. Cutler and Vanciel, I hope you compete as well.

The Bay Area Leather Alliance (www.leatheralliance.org) sure came through, topping last year’s weekend by a long shot. I wish I had room to list everyone involved, but know that we appreciate your hard work. The Alliance, along with the SF Citadel, has infused the proceedings with a much-needed shot of diversity. A look around at the audience, the judging panel and contest staff was proof that our subcommunities are coming together to celebrate our similarities and differences – and having a great time! The inclusion of people

Rich Stadtmiller

Scott Brogan

tropolis, hence the book’s title.

Last and least is Martin, a 40-ish, HIV-positive lawyer, thrown out of the closet by his ex-wife, whose tastes run to ennui and heavy metal.

Wealthy enough to retire early to a Washington Heights mansion he buys from Leo Metropolis, he’s sufficiently shut down that the events of 9/11 – which loom large in this novel, and provide some of Gallaway’s best writing – push him to the extreme of adopting the above-mentioned cats.

These stories are told mostly separately (at least until they converge) in interleaved chapters, which has a way of breaking narrative and dramatic momentum, and over time, dulling our interest in the characters.

Prodyctions, raising Popping His Cherry to the stratosphere in this genre of ultra-lean, barely-legal twink porn. It’s better than the vanilla cover art might indicate.

My favorite part of Popping His Cherry is in the extras: Shower Talk, where two of the stars talk to the cameraman while showering. It’s a wonderful if fleeting glimpse into cinema verite. Inexplicably, the entire extras reel ran only one measly minute!

The scene selection isn’t very sophisticated, either. You are presented with a choice of scenes enumerated from one through five, without a thumbnail video sequence or even a still picture to inform you as what to expect, or to whet your appetite.

This is gay porn lite.▼

Fraternal members pose for photos at The 15 Association’s 31st Anniversary Party, Feb. 27 at the Italian-American Club in SF.

like Deviant 2010 George Schaeffer with the other SoMa bars and busiand Ms. SF Leather 2010 Leo Peralta nesses to bring “Miracle Mile” back on the judging panel reflects the into prominence. volvement of our diverse, younger My gratitude and thanks to kink crowd.

The 15 Association for inviting I stress the youth factor because me to help celebrate their 31st I know many in the kink-gear anniversary at the Italian-Amercrowd see “leather” and asican Club last Feb. 27. The sume it’s not for them. As catered dinner was excelcontest chairman Chris lent (you know if there’s a Raisback pointed out, the dinner, I’m there), fol“leather” in the Alliance’s lowed by play parties at title is a catch-all for all althe SF Citadel throughout ternative kinks and fetishes. the weekend. If you So it is for everything else. want kinky play of all L EATHER kinds, look these guys Let’s keep it going in that direction. up (www.15sf.org), you won’t be disappointed.

No rest for the wicked Good news: Stompers Boots is not closing! Ken Hedrick has joined The last few weeks have been jamthe store and will institute changes packed. A few highlights: The Eagle over the next several months. Please Tavern’s 30th Anniversary Party on support them, they’ve been supportFeb. 26 was a big success. Congratuing us for years, and are one of our lations to Ron Hennis for being apfew brick-and-mortar business left pointed Mr. SF Eagle Leather 2011. (www.stompersboots.com). ▼ He’s been instrumental in working

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BAY AREA REPORTER . eBAR.com . 10 March 2011

BOOKS

Gender blender

by Jim Piechota Annabel by Kathleen Winter; Black Cat Press, $14.95

ontreal-based author Kathleen Winter confesses to knowing nothing about intersex children before writing her smashingly successful debut novel Annabel, a finalist for all three of Canada’s major literary awards. In fact, the author was so “haunted” by the issue of gender ambiguity, she tirelessly researched the subject and ultimately adopted a comprehensive understanding of the subject’s physical and psychological aspects. That scope of academic knowledge wasn’t enough, however, and she turned inward for more answers. “I relied on my human ability to see into pro-

M

found questions,” Winter writes. “You can see this in the internalized nature of the character of Wayne. He is more internally written than the other characters are; he is less an external character and more of oneself.”

Set in the 1970s in the remote, subarctic Labrador region of Newfoundland (so beautifully evoked, the land becomes its own character), the novel centers around Wayne Blake, a child born a hermaphrodite but “assigned” male gender identification through years of hormonal therapy, oral medications, and behavioral guidance.

Wayne’s mother and father lock horns over how to raise their “son.”

Mother Jacinta secretly wishes she could nurture her son’s female side in order to fully bond with him; father Treadway, a trapper who is absent from the family home for long

tail Wayne’s sometimes sad, sometimes kaleidoscopic journey to adulthood; the loss of his female best friend to bullies; and his reluctance to continue the hormone therapy that kept him a male for so many years. In accepting the body as it is and as it was meant to be, Wayne is “reborn” as a human being rather than a boxed, forciblyassigned gender.

Reminiscent of Jeffrey Eugenides’ magnificent 2002 novel Middlesex, Winter’s treatment of such a delicate issue is amazing and incredibly engaging. Her novel is written with immense sensitivity and grace, not to be missed.▼

stretches of time, wants to keep Wayne male-identified in every sense of the word. Jacinta’s liberal, free-thinking midwife Thomasina affectionately calls Wayne “Annabel,” believing that nature should be allowed to follow its true path. This “natural selection” becomes glaringly (and graphically) apparent when Wayne’s body, more female than male regardless of the strong hormonal therapy, begins to cause him immense pain. It’s soon revealed that the source of the pain is trapped menstrual blood, and during an operation, an unborn fetus is discovered, which throws the narrative into a tailspin.

The remaining pages of this beautifully observed novel de-

From Centerpiece film Clash.

Asian American ▼

page 17

a need to hang with his old waria friends. Beauty pageant trainer Tiara considers her female ways to be part of god’s plan. It’s clear that while these “lady men” have avoided the deadly perils of a queer identity in a Muslim society, the aging process produces new challenges for which there are few comfortable answers. (Viz, 3/13; Kabuki, 3/15) The Taqwacores Eyad Zahra’s subversive youth comedy opens as a cleancut college kid, Yusef (ruggedly handsome Bobby Naden), enters what he expects to be a proper Muslim frat house. All bets are off as Yusef discovers that his new housemates are each following their own inner Koran: a burqa-wearing punk feminist who literally crosses out offending passages (like the one commanding a husband to physically punish a wife), a halfnaked punk who works at the local liquor bar, a Mohawked musician who considers Johnny Cash to be his ultimate higher authority, and a fem boy from San Francisco whose strict parents have sent him to this East Coast wasteland to extract him from a hypergay scene. Based on a popular novel that has inspired a fledgling Muslim punk scene, The Taqwacores climaxes in a punk-music bash where there just might be a fatwah in each house mem-

Backstage ▼

page 17

1969. Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris was running at Marines’ Memorial Theatre, and she saw it multiple times before being hired to replace a cast member. The cast also included singer-actor George Ball, a meeting that led to a 40-years-and-counting marriage.

Jacques Brel songs will, of course, be represented in the Noir show, some in her own translations. There will also be some originals by McBroom and Michele Brourman, though nothing is etched in stone.

“Because Michele and I know each other so well, at the drop of a hat, I can say, ‘One from column B, two from column C,’ depending on how the room feels. Michele is a my living Chinese menu.”

McBroom and Brourman recently wrote the score for Dangerous

From Hossein Keshavarz’s Dog Sweat.

ber’s future. (Clay, 3/12; PFA, 3/18) Tainted Love This erotically charged shorts program includes the San Francisco-born Bus Pass, Narissa Lee’s depiction of how girls meet on public transport. (Viz, 3/12; Kabuki, 3/17) Surrogate Valentine Dave Boyle’s slapdash road comedy (SF’s closingnight feature) has an Asian-American folk rocker struggling to adjust to having a white-bread soap opera actor riding shotgun to his gigs so that the actor can learn to impersonate him for a low-budget biopic. (Kabuki, 3/17; Camera, 3/20) Clash A slickly made, Vietnamesebased martial arts thriller with a male/female fighting team. (Centerpiece film, Castro, 3/13) One Voice A heartfelt examination of the lives of ethnically Hawaiian high school students who are preparing for an island-wide choral competition. A nice moment has young parents hoping their kid gets a chance to affirm their Hawaiian roots in a way that was denied them in their day. (Clay, 3/13; Kabuki, 3/16; Camera, 3/20) One Kine Day Chuck Mitsui shows us his downwardly mobile working-class slice of Hawaii through the eyes of a teen slacker boy, Ralsto (lanky, doe-eyed hottie Ryan Greer).

Beginning with what this sublimely un-ambitious punk hopes will be just another day at his favorite skate park, Mitsui sets up a low-key but pitiless series of pratfalls: his girlfriend’s preg-

Games, a new musical that opened at the Pasadena Playhouse last month.

Based on the real-life story of a Parisian courtesan, it opened to widely differing reviews. “It’s a show that people either really love or really hate, which I love because people are arguing about it.”

McBroom is still happy to take acting offers when they come along, but she reluctantly accepted a change in labels. People kept saying, ‘Oh, you’re a songwriter. Oh, you’re a cabaret singer.’ And I would say, no, no, I’m an actress. And my husband finally said, ‘Darling, what is paying the mortgage right now?’ And I realized that I am a good, serviceable actress, but evidently I’m a really good songwriter.”

And a really good interpreter of song. “I love to generate an energy that the audience takes and moves it around inside them, and then they hand it back to me. Singing for me is a team sport.”

nant, mom’s nagging him to work for the post office, his friends are parasite losers or worse. They put this most passive of protagonists to the test.

(Kabuki, 3/11; Viz, 3/14) The Festival’s double-header Spotlight on British auteur Gurinder Chadha kicks off with her 2002 soccer-girl classic Bend It Like Beckham. Combining a look at the cultural pressures a sports-loving, non-traditional daughter can place on the mores, wedding plans and sanity of a traditional, English-based Indian clan, with a scintillating look at how women athletes are changing the face of the world’s most popular team sport, Beckham provides breathtaking action, a witty script and perhaps the most sympathetic nice-guy role ever essayed by the ferociously beautiful Jonathan Rhys Meyers. (Clay, 3/13; PFA, 3/19) It’s a Wonderful Afterlife Chadra’s latest is an English-language murdermystery/comedy that finds residents of a once-calm suburb dropping dead at the hands of a cunning culinary killer. It features the talented Jimi Mistry. (Clay, 3/12; Camera, 3/20)

M/F Remix Jy-Ah Min reboots Goddard’s mid-60s classic MasculineFeminine, incorporating substantial gulps of Jean-Pierre Leaud and Chantal Goya debating the sexual rules of the road, circa 1966, mashed up against male and female roommates figuring out what has changed. The new segments have their charm but are sometimes labored, pointing out that it’s hard to improve on a masterpiece.

(Viz, 3/12; Kabuki, 3/15; PFA, 3/16) Resident Alien Ross Tuttle demonstrates the painful limbo experienced by hundreds of Cambodian young people who once enjoyed U.S. residency. Particularly moving is the story of the muscular, tattooed former gangbanger KK, who, deported from his Long Beach, California home (and separated from his elderly parents and young son), now finds himself teaching break-dancing to a houseful of Cambodian street orphans. (Kabuki, 3/12; Viz, 3/15) Anna May Wong: In Her Own Words Yunah Hong surveys the 58film career of this once-popular Chinese American actress and chanteuse.

The filmmaker dramatizes Wong’s let-

ters to demonstrate how her attempt to break through Hollywood’s color bar casts new light on a turbulent and shameful chapter of this country’s entertainment history. (Kabuki, 3/12, 16; PFA, 3/13) Made in India When an infertile Texas couple decide to take the plunge and seek a lower-cost Indian sexual surrogate to bear their desperately desired first child, they have no idea that their plan could run seriously amok and they might not be allowed to take their baby (or babies) home to San Antonio. Rebecca Haimowitz and Vaishali Sinha provide a blow-by-blow account of the long and winding road that takes Lisa and Brian Switzer to a Mumbai delivery room – with a detour for a shot on Oprah – exploring the uncharted legal and financial morass that can make both parents and surrogates subject to the greed of unscrupulous surrogacy middle-men, as well as the shifting debate on the morality and ethics of the surrogate process. (Kabuki, 3/13, 16; Camera, 3/19)▼

For ticket info on Amanda McBroom’s Rrazz Room run, go to www.therrazzroom.com.

Vogel said she considered it a “very sweet little play” that somehow riled up “horrible, antagonistic” responses.

“People go, ‘Oh, you’re sick,’ because I named every prostitute in the play after one of my great-aunts, and my grandma Vera. I incorporated everything I remembered about their personalities. I loved my great-aunts. I thought they were hoots.”

Evren Odcikin is directing the Brava production, being presented as part of its Women’s History Month celebrations. The Oldest Profession is a rare work that gives choice roles to older actresses. In the Brava production, they are Linda Ayres-Frederick, Lee Brady, Tamar Cohn, Cecele Levinson, and Patricia Silver. Pianist Angela Dwyer will provide live musical accompaniment.▼

Senior moments

Playwright Paula Vogel paints a portrait of prostitutes as golden girls in The Oldest Profession at Brava.

Paula Vogel’s breakthrough play came in 1997 with How I Learned to Drive, but she had been working as a playwright for years before that. One of the earlier efforts, The Oldest Profession, focuses on a band of prostitutes whose training goes back to New Orleans’ notorious Storyville district, and who are giving it a last go in New York just as Reagan is taking office. Brava Theatre Center is offering the SF debut of this seldom-seen 1981 play that begins performances on March 12.

Vogel based the characters on her grandmother and four great-aunts who lived in New Orleans. “They were never prostitutes,” Vogel said in a 1997 interview, “but they were married women at a time where the line was very thin. It was economic dependency.”

Info: www.caamedia.org

For ticket info, go to www.brava.org.

Richard Dodds can be reached at BARstage@comcast.net.

▼

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10 March 2011 . eBAR.com . BAY AREA REPORTER

MUSIC

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PERSONALS

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by Gregg Shapiro ne of the more ambitious politically conscious musical projects out there, Wake Up! (Columbia) brings the combined talents of John Legend and the Roots together for a soul-stirring plunge into the past of meaningful message music. Classic songs like Curtis Mayfield’s “Hard Times,” Marvin Gaye’s “Wholy Holy,” Bill Withers’ epic “I Can’t Write Left-Handed,” Nina Simone’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free,” and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’ “Wake Up Everybody” have their spirits refreshed, and in turn renew ours.

Elisabeth Withers, who originated the role of Shug Avery in The Color Purple on Broadway, began her career as a dance artist working under an alias. The thunderous “Rock and the Raincloud,” from her No Regrets (E One) disc, is one of the most underappreciated dance cuts of the year. Unfortunately, the rest of the tunes suffer from being uninspired, generic 21st-century R&B. Sheryl Crow exposes her most soulful side on 100 Miles from Memphis (A&M). More than just a road trip to Memphis, Crow makes stops in the Motor City (“Our Love Is Fading,” “Peaceful Feeling” and a cover of the J5s’ “I Want You Back”), Jamaica (“Eye to Eye”) and San Francisco (“Say What You Want,” echoing the revolutionary spirit of 2008’s political Detours). But Memphis is on Crow’s mind and her musical map, especially on the Hi Records retro cover of Terence Trent D’Arby’s “Sign Your Name.”

It’s small consolation, but we should be relieved that Phil Collins didn’t re-cover his 1982 hit single remake of “You Can’t Hurry Love” on Going Back (Atlantic), his awkward tribute to 1960s soul and Motown in particular. It’s a testament to his devotion to the material that his renditions are faithful to the originators. But if we wanted to hear those songs, wouldn’t we just listen to the originals? On what is a fairly predictable recording, there are some pleasant surprises, including “Some of Your Lovin’,” “Do I Love You?,” “Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone” (he unwisely chose not to mimic the catch in Miss Ross’ throat) and “Never Dreamed You’d Leave in Summer.”

In the spirit of brother and sisterhood, Fellowship (Verve Forecast) by Lizz Wright has the potential to make you believe that anything is possible.

The opening title track, by and featuring out musician Meshell Ndegeocello, gets things started on a heavenly note, and it’s followed by an imaginative reading of “(I’ve Got To Use My) Imagination.” “I Remember I Believe”

O

(by Bernice Johnson Reagan, mother of out musician Toshi Reagon) has the power to make the most ardent atheist bow their head. Wright’s readings of Jimi Hendrix’s “In from the Storm” and Joan As Police Woman’s “Feed the Light” also have the potential to get listeners testifying.

The Floacist (a.k.a. Natalie Stewart), one-half of hip-hop/soul duo Floetry, makes her solo debut with Floetic Soul (Shanachie). The Floacist rides the neo-soul wave over the course of a baker’s dozen tracks. The vibe is decidedly mellow, bordering on heavy-lidded. There simply isn’t enough variety as the first few songs seem to melt into each other like a box of crayons left out too long in the sun.

“What U Gonna Do?,” the rhythmic “Overtime” and the rapid rhymes of “Go Get It” are exceptions.

Blue-eyed soul is back in a big way.

Leading the charge is Fitz and the Tantrums, a sextet led by Michael Fitzpatrick, who sounds like he’s ingested a steady diet of Philly, Motor City and

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What does it say that the best moment on Back to Me (J/19), the third album by 2004 American Idol champ Fantasia, is her rendition of “I’m Here” from the stage musical version of The Color Purple (in which she portrayed Celie)? It probably says that the current generation of songwriters-bycommittee can’t hold a candle to the talents of old-timers such as Brenda Russell and Allee Willis. That’s not to say there aren’t other worthy moments on the disc, including the righteous retro of “Collard Greens & Cornbred,” “Who’s Been Lovin’ You?” (not the Jackson 5 song) and the booty-moving “Move on Me.”▼

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