March 14, 2013 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter by Bay Area Reporter

Fable comes to Castro

GMC plans Milk show

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SF DP tax break now law

Vol. 43 • No. 11 • March 14-20, 2013

High fives all around Patio could

reopen this summer by Matthew S. Bajko

by Matthew S. Bajko

ith the stroke of a pen, Mayor Ed Lee signed into law this week a health care tax break for city workers in same-sex unions. San Francisco is only the third municipality in the country to offer such financial assistance. Due to federal rules barring recognition of same-sex marriages, when a city employee adds their same-sex partner to their health plan they are penalized by the Internal Revenue Service. The employer contributions for the partner’s or spouse’s health Supervisor insurance premiums Mark Farrell is deemed taxable income, resulting in tax bills totaling several thousand dollars. To offset that cost, the city will now pay 20 percent of the portion of the employee’s health insurance premiums attributable to the same-sex spouse or partner. It is estimated it would cost the city slightly more than $500,000 to cover the tax bills incurred by the more than 350 same-sex spouses and/or same-sex domestic partners enrolled in the city’s Health Service System. Lee called the policy another “shining example” of how San Francisco continues to take a lead in fighting for full equality for the LGBT community. “While it does have us pay out, we are glad to do so as we are making sure our city is standing up for equality,” Lee told a small audience invited to his City Hall office Tuesday, March 12 for a private signing ceremony.“I’m very glad to see this happen.” District 2 Supervisor Mark Farrell, the author of the legislation, thanked the mayor for backing what amounts to a “grossing up” of the pay for those city employees impacted by the IRS’ antigay policy. “We are not going to stop here. We want to make sure San Francisco continues to take leadership on these issues and we will,” said Farrell, who is backing a state law that would prevent California from taxing the grossed up pay employers are now providing to address the antigay federal taxation. Among those at the ceremony were gay District 9 Supervisor David Campos; Earl Plante, the new CEO of the city’s Pride Committee; Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club co-chair Martha Knutzen and former co-chair Reese Aaron Isbell; and Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club board members Laura Thomas and Alex Walker. “It is really an issue whose time has come,” said Walker, who works for SF Beautiful. “It is time for the government to close these loopholes” that unfairly cost LGBT households.t

se Showcbausiness! your

Jane Philomen Cleland

here were plenty of high fives at the Gay Softball League’s opening day March 10, including this one by Vanessa Albright, left, and Raelyn Walsworth as the women soundly defeated the women of the San Francisco Police Department 27-5.

he long-shuttered Patio restaurant in the Castro could finally reopen this summer, more than a decade after it served its last customer. Owner Les Natali plans to submit paperwork with the city’s Planning Department Friday, March 15 to receive the necessary permits to open the eatery at 531 Castro Rick Gerharter Street. His land use attorney, Andrew Junius Les Natali of Reuben, Junius and Rose LLP, estimates it could take at least three months to navigate the approval process. “I am hopeful we will be open soon,” Natali told the Bay Area Reporter in an exclusive interview Monday, March 11. “I have been See page 2 >>

LGBTs, allies unite on immigration reform by Elliot Owen

hile the national conversation around comprehensive immigration reform continues, the undocumented LGBTQ community grows more visible as the link between immigration and LGBTQ rights continues to be emphasized by activist groups across the country. Last week, several Bay Area and national organizations teamed up with local immigrant leaders and elected officials for a news conference on the steps of San Francisco City Hall to underline how current immigration law explicitly discriminates against LGBTQ families. The rally’s speakers included representatives from Out4Immigration, Just Cause/Causa Justa, Asian Students Promoting Immigrant Rights through Education, San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos, and several individuals personally affected by immigration regulations. San Francisco resident Chris Barnett, 50, was one of them. Barnett has been in a binational (one native-born citizen and one noncitizen) samesex partnership for 20 years and, although legally married, is prohibited from sponsoring his husband for citizenship. The Defense of Marriage Act specifies that for purposes including immigration, marriage is between a

man and woman. “We’ve been challenged by this circumstance,” Barnett told the Bay Area Reporter. “I’ve had no way to legally sponsor my husband for residency and for many years this meant living in fear of his deportation.” As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments on two same-sex marriage cases at the end of this month, including one on DOMA, Congress is debating the Uniting American Families Act – a bill introduced last month that would allow sponsorship for noncitizen same-sex spouses in addition to permanent same-sex partners who aren’t married. There are an estimated 32,300 same-sex binational couples living in the U.S. according a UCLA Williams Institute study released last Friday. The same study said these couples are raising more than 11,000 children. “We need to acknowledge that the system needs fixing,” Avalos, a straight ally, said at the rally. “The only way we’re going to achieve that is by working together, forging alliances, building allies and making sure we have inclusive immigration reform that looks after same-sex couples who are seeking status.”

Dreamers

Another segment of the undocumented LGBTQ community has recently garnered at-

{ FIRST OF TWO SECTIONS }

Elliot Owen

San Francisco resident Chris Barnett speaks of being barred from sponsoring his same-sex spouse for U.S. citizenship during a rally last week calling for comprehensive immigration reform.

tention from immigration and LGBTQ organizations. Last June, President Barack Obama signed an executive order called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The initiative offers temporary deferment from deportation and work permits to undocumented people who were brought here under the age of 16. To qualify, one must currently be in high school, have earned a high school diploma or equivalent, or served in the military. These undocumented immigrants are comSee page 12 >>

2 • Bay Area Reporter • March 14-20, 2013

<< Communtiy News

t Archivists urge written orders by Seth Hemmelgarn

Marjorie Bryer, the historical society’s managing archivist, estimated she gets at least two to three inquiries a week from prospective donors. People often have things the historical society doesn’t take, such as unsorted newspaper clippings, or copies of Bay Area newspapers the nonprofit already has. Generally, Bryer said, “We want unique items,” such as correspondence, diaries, organizational records, and photographs “that have context, and where people are identified.” A photo that Gulliver took of Jackson on a trip to Guerneville in 1980, just before they became lovers for a short time, might be a good fit. The

image shows a shirtless, beaming Jackson, who was then 20 and had just moved to San Francisco, against a sunlit backdrop of trees and hills. His feathered hair and moustache reflect the style of the time. The historical society, which has archives in the Financial district and a museum in the Castro, has been known for displaying items such as the suit Milk wore when he was assassinated in 1978, as well as clothes belonging to the singing icon Sylvester. But Bryer said, “Everybody’s personal history is important. As well as having documents from people like Harvey Milk in the archives, we also want every man and every woman and every trans man and every trans woman to be represented. That’s the way you know the full historical narrative, is to include everybody.” She said the organization “would love to include more materials from time periods and groups that are underrepresented in the archives,” such as lesbians, people of color, and transgender people. Boneberg said people often say they kept materials such as Milk campaign posters but threw away pictures from their boating trips in the 1970s. Those seemingly unimportant items can turn out to be “the only evidence of events or places or ways of lives,” though, “and it all has value,” he said. Among items the historical society seeks are things that were meant to be discarded, such as tickets, fliers, and pamphlets. Even recent materials from the unsuccessful 2008 campaign to defeat California’s Proposition 8 same-sex marriage ban can be useful. “One of the aspects of archival material is that it should be unique,” Wilson said. He also encourages people to speak with library or historical society staff rather than assume their property isn’t important. “Once something is thrown away, it’s gone, and you don’t have the option of getting it back,” he said. If it turns out to be something of interest, then that’s “something that helps show the entire community, rather than potentially losing something that’s irrecoverable.” Jackson suspects Gulliver, his friend of more than 30 years, jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge. Authorities in Marin and San Francisco counties haven’t found any bodies matching his name. Those considering donations to the GLBT Historical Society should go to http://glbthistory.org/research/index.html. To discuss possible library donations, contact Hormel program manager Karen Sundheim at (415) 557-4566.t

body until I know when we can open,” he said. Tangerine co-owner Peter Goss said this week that there are currently no plans to reopen the eatery although he remains “hopeful” that a suitable new location can be found. Patrick Batt, a former president of the Merchants of Upper Market and Castro, doubts there will be opposition to the permit request as many in the city’s gayborhood have been clamoring to see the Patio return. “I think it would be an advantage to the neighborhood, frankly, because we could always use another place for people to eat and a reason to come to the Castro. And it would demonstrate to the community that Les Natali really does care about the Castro,” said Batt, adding that the Patio was one of the first places he ate in upon moving to San Francisco in the 1980s. “It was the place to see and be seen on Sundays for brunch.” Last May Natali expected to be celebrating the revival of the restau-

rant, a local favorite for its enclosed outdoor dining area with a retractable roof. He had lined up several charity events with local nonprofits, such as the Castro Country Club, and was working with a caterer on the opening celebrations. But he hit a snafu when he filed for a license to operate from the health department, which shares oversight of the permitting process for food establishments. As a matter of due course, health officials checked with planning staff on the status of the Patio’s building permits. That inquiry led planning staff to determine that a sidewalk-fronting addition to the restaurant, where a small retail space had been, had not been properly approved and that Natali needed to seek a conditional use permit. Negotiations had been ongoing to try to resolve the matter without seeking a vote at the Planning Commission. Those talks proved futile, said See page 13 >>

hen Joe Gulliver went missing last September, he left friends with a problem. Arturo Jackson, 52, said Gulliver, 60, also known as Joe Balducci, was a noted photographer, and he believes there are years’ worth of photos and negatives stored in Gulliver’s San Francisco garage. Another friend said Gulliver told him years ago that he wanted him to have his belongings, but it appears Gulliver didn’t write that down. Jackson said he’d like to see the photos go to the GLBT Historical Society. Gulliver’s friends haven’t reported bickering between them over the photos, but neither has been able to access them. Gulliver’s Twin Peaks apartment and possessions have been tied up in a lawsuit the landlord filed, and it’s uncertain whether the photos are even there. “I’ve pretty much given up on it,” Jackson said. People who manage local LGBT archives urge potential donors to leave their wishes in writing, among other steps that can preserve local gay history. Paul Boneberg, the historical society’s executive director, said people should make plans for their materials through a will or other clear directive. Wayne Friday, 70, a former Bay Area Reporter political editor and friend of slain gay Supervisor Harvey Milk, has photos and other mementoes from his own life, but he hasn’t included any of it in his will. “I haven’t thought about it, to be honest with you,” Friday said. Retired San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ellen Chaitin, 64, was close friends with the late gay political consultant Jim Rivaldo, who ran her judicial campaigns and named her executor of his will. Chaitin tried for years after Rivaldo’s death in 2007 to get gay political consultant Ray Sloan to hand over Rivaldo’s papers so they could be properly stored and catalogued. Sloan insisted Rivaldo bequeathed them to him with instructions to donate them to an institution where historians and researchers could access the archival material. In a recent interview, Chaitin said Sloan “still has everything.” “You should be as clear as possible” when designating who should get property, Chaitin recommends to others. “When you’re dying, people come out of the woodwork, and you do have to be careful,” she said. Sloan

Patio

From page 1

waiting a long time myself for us to get open.” He has the support of gay District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener, who has been working with him over the last year to secure the needed city approvals. “Getting the Patio reopened is a very high priority for me and the neighborhood,” said Wiener, who frequented the eatery upon moving to town in 1997. “It will be a very positive thing for the neighborhood.” It will continue to operate under the name of the Patio, though Natali is looking to find a restaurateur to run it. He acknowledged he has had conversations with the owners of Tangerine, a 16th Street restaurant that closed last August, but no deal has been inked. “I am looking for somebody to handle operating the whole thing. But I can’t make a deal with any-

Tessa Updike

Marjorie Bryer

didn’t respond to an interview request for this story. The historical society and other organizations try to ensure that donations such as personal papers or records of an organization come with a deed of gift. The document transfers legal title to the historical society and establishes conditions of access and use. It determines whether there are access restrictions, dictates the disposition of unwanted materials, and addresses copyright ownership. Even if it’s clear who should get the property, local archive staff encourage people to talk to them about what they have and what could be useful. “We do like to have a conversation with anyone who’s interested rather than simply have someone drop things off,” said Tim Wilson, who’s a librarian and processing archivist at the San Francisco Public Library, where he works with the James C. Hormel Gay and Lesbian Center and the library’s San Francisco History Center.

What’s needed

National News>>

March 14-20, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 3

Obama praised for briefs in marriage cases by Lisa Keen LGBT legal activists and their allies have nothing but praise for the Obama administration’s decision to submit briefs in both marriage equality cases before the U.S. Supreme Court this month. The administration was obliged to file only in U.S. v. Windsor, the case testing the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. That’s because the U.S. is a party to that case, defending the administration’s obligation to enforce DOMA. But the administration’s brief in the Windsor case made clear it wants DOMA ruled unconstitutional and – in a brief it did not have to submit – it also made clear that it thinks Proposition 8 should be declared unconstitutional. The Prop 8 brief came in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the case testing the constitutionality of California’s 2008 voter-approved ban on marriage licenses for same-sex couples. The U.S. is not a party to the lawsuit that challenged that law. The fact the administration chose to submit a brief anyway is being hailed by many as an important political gesture, backing up President Barack Obama’s commitment to equality for LGBT people with the power of his position. But did the briefs go as far as they could to support marriage equality? And, could the briefs have any real likelihood of influencing any justice on the court?

What the briefs said

As is custom, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli filed the administration’s briefs in both cases, and he did so with several of his staff, including Stuart Delery, the openly gay head of the DOJ’s Civil Division. In the DOMA case, the DOJ argued that Section 3 of DOMA violates the equal protection clause of the constitution. Section 3 prohibits the federal government from recognizing marriage licenses of same-sex couples for the purpose of any federal benefit. DOJ also argued, as the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in its decision in Windsor, that courts should subject laws that disadvantage citizens because of their sexual orientation to a “heightened scrutiny,” a much more stringent level of review than has ever been applied to such laws before. And it argued that DOMA fails to pass muster under heightened scrutiny, a point first raised by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s famous February 2011 letter advising House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that the administration would enforce but no longer defend DOMA as constitutional. The brief in the Prop 8 case takes essentially the same positions – Prop 8 violates equal protection, it should be subjected to heightened scrutiny, and it fails to pass heightened scrutiny. And much has been made of the fact that the brief also noted that seven other states have laws similar to that of California, making civil unions or domestic partnerships possible for same-sex couples, but not marriage. (Those states are Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, and Rhode Island.)

What the briefs didn’t say

DOJ did not argue for strict scrutiny – the toughest level of judicial review. And it did not argue that DOMA is unconstitutional if judged under the most basic level of scrutiny, rational basis. The level of scrutiny matters.

fails heightened scrutiny. The bottom line: “The most important outcome of the DOMA case for the future of gay rights law,” said Hunter, “is that the court is likely to declare itself on which standard should be applied to any law that discriminates based on sexual orientation.” The administration is arguing for a middle ground that could have huge consequences for LGBT people, making any laws aimed at disadvantaging them much harder to survive.

Expert and activist reactions Solicitor General Donald Verrilli

Generally speaking, there are three levels: rational, heightened, and strict. Until the 2nd Circuit decision in Windsor, most courts, including the Supreme Court, have examined laws that disfavor LGBT people against the easy rational basis standard. To pass rational basis, a law must simply be rationally related to achieving a legitimate governmental interest. The intermediate level of scrutiny – heightened scrutiny – requires that a law must be “substantially related” to achieving an “important” governmental interest. And strict scrutiny requires that a law be “narrowly tailored” to achieve a “compelling” governmental interest. Laws affecting people based on race and national origin are examined under strict scrutiny and have very rarely passed this test. (A notable exception being an executive order requiring internment of Japanese American citizens during World War II, with the compelling reason being identified as national security.) As the solicitor general’s briefs noted, the Supreme Court has yet to identify what level of scrutiny should apply to laws that disfavor citizens based on sexual orientation. In recent cases (overturning an antigay ballot initiative in Romer v. Evans and striking down sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas), he noted, the court applied rational basis and said the laws did not pass. The solicitor general’s brief in the DOMA case states explicitly, “The government does not challenge the constitutionality of DOMA Section 3 under deferential rational-basis review. ...” And it noted that the government has previously defended Section 3 under rational basis review. “The Justice Department argues in its brief that DOMA is unconstitutional if heightened scrutiny is applied, but valid if rational basis review is used,” explained longtime gay legal activist and scholar Nan Hunter in a March 4 blog post at thenation.com, “unless the court uses heightened rational basis, in which case DOMA is unconstitutional after all.” So, the solicitor general’s DOMA brief doesn’t concede on rational basis. It just tries to focus the court’s attention on the worthiness of applying a more stringent form of review. And it gives credit for the idea to a former U.S. Supreme Court justice, Reagan appointee Sandra Day O’Connor. In Lawrence, O’Connor, who concurred with the majority opinion, suggested the court consider a “more searching form” of rational basis review when a law is “directed toward gay persons as a class.” The solicitor general’s Windsor brief said DOMA, “would fail” such an analysis. And his Perry brief sticks with the mantra that Prop 8

Ted Boutrous, one of the lead attorneys for the same-sex couples challenging Prop 8, told reporters in a telephone conference call last month that he was “extremely pleased” with the Obama administration’s brief in that case. He said the brief is “powerful” and places the “full weight” of the government behind their arguments against the ban. The administration’s urging heightened scrutiny for laws treating people differently based on sexual orientation, he said, is a “clear path toward marriage equality across the United States,” even beyond the seven states similarly situated as California. Heightened scrutiny, said Boutrous, “is extremely important in other contexts where gay and lesbian Americans are discriminated against.” “And the United States government has said in its brief to the U.S. Supreme Court that this discrimiSee page 12 >>

<< Open Forum

4 • Bay Area Reporter • March 14-20, 2013

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The Scouts’ bait-and-switch

n late January, the Boy Scouts of America indicated that it was “actively considering” lifting its ban on gay scouts and troop leaders. Then, Scout executives said that no immediate action would be taken. Now comes word via reports in the gay press and elsewhere that BSA is conducting surveys of members, parents, and alumni. While there’s nothing wrong with surveying people to elicit information, the questions asked in the scout poll are biased toward keeping the ban and instilling stereotypical fears of predatory gay men that opponents have often used to discredit gays. Example: “Bob is 15 years old, and the only openly gay scout in a Boy Scout troop. Is it acceptable or unacceptable for the troop leader to allow Bob to tent with a heterosexual boy on an overnight camping trip?” The options are “totally acceptable,” “somewhat acceptable,” “neither acceptable nor unacceptable,” “somewhat unacceptable,” or “totally unacceptable.” Another question is equally troublesome: “A gay male troop leader, along with another leader, is taking a group of boys on a camping trip following the youth protection guidelines of two-deep leadership. Is it acceptable or unacceptable for the gay scout leader to take adolescent boys on an overnight camping trip?” We see where this is going. This is akin to asking members of a segregated country club whether they want to integrate. It’s like the irrational fear people express when the issue of public accommodations is discussed in order to provide equal access to restrooms for transgender people: “real” women are afraid they will be sexually assaulted by transgender women using the same facilities. Most of these scout leaders and parents will resoundingly object to the scenarios in BSA’s survey because of the unfounded fear that a gay scout or troop leader will “turn their kids gay.” This outdated and false argument has been used for decades to discredit LGBTs. Yet the BSA leadership can claim that, well, they surveyed their members and parents and –

guess what? – they are opposed to changing BSA’s policy. Then in May, when the issue will be discussed, BSA will announce that the policy won’t be changed. BSA already has a U.S. Supreme Court decision on its side: as a private organization, it can discriminate. So we’ll be back to where we are now, with no out gays allowed in the Boy Scouts, either as members or troop leaders. This survey is a bait-andswitch that gives cover to the national leadership under the guise of getting feedback. But the loaded questions just reinforce what has been debunked for years. Additionally, it’s not likely that former scouts, who have ceased contact with the organization because of its anti-gay policies, will be part of the survey sample, further skewing the results. There have always been plenty of gay youth in the scouts, they just weren’t out. It’s similar to what we see in elite team sports, where everyone knows there are gay professional athletes, yet none will come out of the closet

during their playing days. And why would they, when anti-gay athletes regularly spew homophobic bile on social media sites and in interviews? For the BSA to effect real change, its leadership must exhibit the will to lead. The policy excluding gay scouts and troop leaders should be jettisoned, so that all may participate in scouting, which offers a variety of great programs for youth. Thousands of same-sex couples are now raising families, and some of those kids may want to be involved in scouting. Yet the current BSA policy would prohibit those parents from participating in scouting activities. Back in January, after word of the BSA’s possible policy change was leaked, officials said that they might let individual troops decide for themselves whether to admit openly gay scouts or have gay leaders. This too is flawed because a troop in a conservative area would keep the ban, while those in more liberal areas would get rid of it. But what about all those communities in between? A uniform policy is called for, and that policy should be scouting for all.t

Parties adjust, luaus are forever by Fred Schein

ecent reports of the death of the Republican Party are greatly exaggerated; those of its introspection are not. You don’t have to remind us we lost many contests last November. No need to write to the editor of this fine newspaper about that. I’ve been a Republican my entire voting life and I can’t remember a better time to be in the party. We believe that markets are the best way to determine value. In politics, elections are the marketplace. We allowed our product to get a little out of touch. Many members came to rest on past laurels and dwell on old ideas and long-ago successes. Some ignored that many, a great many, LGBT people share the party’s principles. It cost us. However, I’m actually pleased about what the market has done for us. It’s exciting to be in our party right now – logjams are breaking; old doors are being removed from their hinges; we’re talking with neighbors we had barely met before. If you have anything reasonable to say, you’ll find plenty of Republican ears ready to listen. Serious students of political history point to cycles of success and the importance of shedding activities and ideas that no longer have market applicability. They also know that, if you want to ride a cycle upward, it’s best to get on board at its start and that’s where I believe we are. The pace of change is impressive. Lincoln said, “We must think anew and act anew.” We Republicans still hear his words. What is most validating to me is that none of this has anything to do with our core values and principles – they’re as sound as ever. The challenge for us is translating our ideas into modern language and to make sure that our party includes all conservative, patriotic Americans. LGBT Republicans? Of course there are. What may surprise you is that Log Cabin has

Courtesy Fred Schein

SF Log Cabin President Fred Schein

grown substantially in the last year in California – the San Francisco chapter by 25 percent. But as significant, our visibility and effectiveness in the party has followed. Here in the Bay Area, we have members on five county central committees, including a chair and several vice chairs. We also have two members on the party’s state board. Does Log Cabin’s position on same-sex marriage match our party’s? No, it doesn’t. Does Log Cabin expect that to change? Absolutely. More than half the party is ready now. We rarely miss an opportunity to open the discussion within our party. Strong forces are at work; all part of our “market adjustment.” The world is not a simple place and we recognize that insistence on rapid change of longstanding and firmly-held ideas is usually a counterproductive position that delays the change. Meanwhile, we agree to disagree on this because we’re grownups who agree on every

other important issue. We believe that limited government, fiscal sanity, a free and private market economy, and a strong national defense are fundamental to the prosperity and security of all Americans – LGBT people included. Ignoring these will ultimately be harmful to LGBT and non-LGBT Americans alike. A sinking ship takes everyone down with it. It strains me to think that people feel that our difference with our party somehow changes our conservatism or blurs our common sense. Log Cabiners are not afraid to get out of their comfort zone. At the recent state Republican convention, the 29 Log Cabin voting delegates got lots of attention, often from unexpected places. I found myself in chats with delegates from rural counties who likely never had a discussion about the party with an openly gay person. Those talks were win-win for both of us and, I deeply believe, for our state and nation. The degree to which my party has become “orientation blind” is far from the common stereotype. Tom Del Becarro, the outgoing California state party chairman, stopped by our meeting and gave Log Cabin a touching thank you in which he reminded us that, despite differences, we are all Republicans. That was very clear March 2 when virtually every member of our state leadership, including our new state chair and vice chairmen, visited Log Cabin’s popular luau – a prominent feature of California Republican conventions. They wouldn’t have missed it. In the midst of all this, we haven’t forgotten our LGBT roots. Make no mistake; Log Cabiners are very proud.t Fred Schein is the president of the Log Cabin Club of San Francisco. If you want to contact him, or if you just feel like venting (we ask that you try to be original), you can email him at sf@logcabin.org. He’s definitely reading his emails.

Letters >>

Feinstein should support UAFA

March 14-20, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

Recently the Uniting American Families Act (H.R. 519 and S. 296) was introduced in the new Congress. If passed and signed into law, UAFA would permit samesex couples in a permanent relationship to sponsor a partner for a green card. This legislation would end the current discriminatory policies of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and allow same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities as opposite-sex couples. The bill calls for simply amending existing U.S. immigration law by adding three words “or permanent partner” wherever the word “spouse” appears. As Congress undertakes wide ranging reform of current immigration policies, it is an opportunity to end this current discriminatory policy. The current policy has forced many LGBT citizens into exile to be with the person they love or to stay in the U.S. with an undocumented partner. Thousands of U.S. citizens have gone into exile to be with foreignborn partners, causing unnecessary hardship, separation from other family members and careers, and loss of valuable skills and resources for our country. Others have opted to hide the person they love here and make a go of it with an undocumented partner. This discrimination and limited legal options to keep same-sex relationships unified exacts an enormous emotional, financial, and mental toll, and has devastating and life-altering consequences for same-sex partners. Opposite-sex couples can sponsor a spouse and do not have to resort to such extreme measures to be with the person they love. This is not the first time legislation ending this discrimination has been introduced. But as in previous years, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) has not co-sponsored the bill. It is important to contact Feinstein now and ask her to change her position, to support and co-sponsor S. 296 as Senator Boxer (D-California) has done for years. To pass in the Senate UAFA will have to get through the Senate Judiciary Committee where Feinstein is a member. Her support for UAFA will be important. Immigration reform is under way and now is the time to make this policy change. If it does not happen now it is entirely possible it could be decades be-

fore Congress takes up changes to immigration policy again. Let Feinstein know same-sex couples deserve the same rights and responsibilities in immigration as opposite-sex couples. Call Feinstein’s office – (415) 393-0707 – or email her through her website – www. feinstein.senate.gov – and her for her to co-sponsor this important piece of legislation. Craig Scott San Francisco

UOR belongs in the Castro

Under One Roof was more than a retail store [“UOR switches retail plan,” February 28]. I’ve been a resident of San Francisco since 1979 and my late domestic partner, Robert Baldock, was dedicated to the cause of his employer, Under One Roof. In his memory I donated a large share of his estate and volunteered thousands of hours to UOR since 2001. As UOR moved toward a corporate sponsor approach I offered an alternative, volunteering to solicit donated goods. I also attempted to join the board of UOR but was told that I lacked corporate connections. Both offers were denied. In spite of these frustrations I continued to volunteer and support the organization hoping that someone enlightened might join the board. The supply of corporate sponsors willing to fund AIDS is dwindling and every dollar belongs directly to the AIDS service organizations. Upon the announcement that UOR was closing its retail space I sent a letter to the board offering several alternatives. It is a pity that the board decided to abandon us and in doing so it lost the community support it had established since its inception. It provided a heart and soul to the AIDS community. A place for grief and a place of joy in the Castro for those of us who’ve loved and lost, plus the thousands of dedicated volunteers who helped bring a face to the epidemic that remains a threat to our lives. UOR belongs in the Castro and, as unlikely as it seems, I hope for a speedy return. Paul Margolis San Francisco

‘Studio 11’ celebrates LGBT center compiled by Cynthia Laird

he San Francisco LGBT Community Center will invoke the spirit of New York City’s famed disco era Studio 54 – where all guests are VIPs – when it celebrates its anniversary with “Studio 11,” a glitzy gala Saturday, March 23, beginning at 7 p.m. at the San Francisco Design Center, 101 Henry Adams Street in the city’s South of Market neighborhood. The center’s annual soiree is its largest fundraising event and all proceeds will support services for those with the greatest need, as well as cultural programs for the entire community. “This is our moment to celebrate our accomplishments,” center Executive Director Rebecca Rolfe said in a statement. “We boldly look toward the future, continuing our mission of connecting people to opportunities so that together we can create a stronger, healthier, and more welcoming world.” Studio 11 invites guests to dust off their Liza lashes, fluff their Warhol wigs, and make their grand entrance amid the exclusive opulence of the Studio 54 era. All are welcome behind the velvet rope to enjoy a night of entertainment from drag stars Ambrosia Salad, Dia Dear, Alotta Boutte, Miss Rahni, and many more. Guests will also dance to the beats of DJs Bus Station John (Tubesteak Connection), Dr. Sleep (Dial Up), and Sergio Fedasz (Go Bang). Hostess for the evening will be Tita Aida, who by day is a leading activist for HIV/AIDS awareness and by night is a fierce and fabulous emcee. There will also be a hosted bar, silent auction, and much more. Individual tickets are $125 each and can be purchased at www.sfcenter.org/studio11.

Intakes tonight for LGBT grief group

Intake interviews will be held tonight (Thursday, March 14) for participants interested in a facilitated 10-week grief group for older LGBTs provided by Openhouse, an LGBT senior agency. Individuals age 60 or over will meet to discuss loss and change in a comfortable and safe circle with others in this small group. The facilitator will be Den Reno, Ph.D., and the sessions will include relaxation exercises, meditation, laughter, and building trust. The group’s goals are to work to create understanding and provide a healing experience. This will be a closed group (not drop-in). For more information, call Fairley Parson at (415) 296-8995. Intake interviews will be held from 5:30 to 7 p.m. The group begins Thursday, March 21 and runs through June 6. There is no cost to participate.

Tessie’s getting ready for Easter

Easter comes early this year and the folks at Tenderloin Tessie are calling for volunteers in advance of their March 31 dinner for those in need. Michael Gagne, board president of the charitable group, said that volunteers are needed for security and to help with the Easter dinner, which will be held at First Unitarian Church, 1187 Franklin Street (at Geary). Shifts include setting up and decorating beforehand, helping at the dinner (and a mandatory meeting around noon), and helping with the last hour of the dinner, clean-up, and tear down (until around 6 p.m.). Help is also needed on Saturday, March 30 helping load and unload

the truck and picking up groceries. Some heavy lifting is required, Gagne said. On Tuesday, April 2, volunteers are needed to return items to the storage unit. Volunteers can also donate gently-used coats and blankets. Those who are interested in volunteering should call Gagne at (415) 584-3252 with your full name, which days/shifts you want to work, and phone number.

Doggie Easter egg hunt benefit for shelter

A local pet hotel will have its fourth annual Easter egg hunt for dogs that benefits Friends of San Francisco Animal Care and Control. Wag Hotels will hold its event Saturday, March 23 from noon to 2 p.m. at Marx Meadow in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Tickets are $15 before March 21 or $20 at the event. The egg hunt is one of Wag’s largest fundraisers for local animal rescue organizations. At the event, attendees help their dogs search for more than 2,000 eggs filled with treats and prizes. Hidden among the eggs will be five special eggs containing the word “Winner,” which can be redeemed for prizes, including a five-day pass of all-day play at Wag. The Easter Bunny will be available for photo opportunities and a professional photographer will also be on site taking photos. Dog-friendly vendors will be displaying and selling merchandise. The event is fun for the whole family and helps SF Animal Care and Control, which cares for stray, injured, abandoned, neglected, and mistreated animals. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.waghotels. com.t

<< Business News

6 • Bay Area Reporter • March 14-20, 2013

A Fable for our time by Raymond Flournoy

on Hearnsberger, chef-owner of the newly opened Castro eatery Fable (558 Castro Street) can tell you first hand that dreams sometimes do come true. Back in 1993 when Hearnsberger first moved to San Francisco, he and his boyfriend had their first meal at Luna Piena, the restaurant that once occupied Fable’s location. He recalls sitting on the back patio and commenting to his boyfriend that this was his dream restaurant – the perfect size and location, with an open, inviting vibe. Twenty years later, Hearnsberger and business partner Erik Rhoades have turned that vision to reality with Fable, a restaurant featuring his take on modern American cuisine. Before the two could open Fable, the space required over $100,000 in renovations, including replacing floor joists, major plumbing work, and partial replacement of the foundation. Hearnsberger described the newly redone space as “a modern

hunting lodge, spun with a fairytale. I wanted my restaurant to be fun, comfortable, and whimsical. I am going to spend most of my life here, so I want it to be an enjoyable space.” The interior features warm browns with accents in bright orange. The walls are decorated with huge reproductions of illustrations from books of Aesop’s Fables dating back to the 1800s alongside a row of antler chandeliers painted vibrant orange. But in spite of the whimsy, Hearnsberger is taking the food seriously. “I’m shooting for a high quality, full service dining experience,” he said. He was most recently the executive chef of Woodhouse Fish Company (2073 Market Street), and was the original chef de cuisine of the now-closed Mecca back in the 1990s. In between, the culinary veteran spent six years across the street at Anchor Oyster Bar (579 Castro Street). In the next few months, Hearnsberger and Rhoades intend to add weekend brunches and daily happy hours to the current dinner offer-

Steven Kasapi

Chef-owner Jon Hearnsberger welcomes diners to the completely renovated Fable on the 500 block of Castro Street.

ings. Additionally, construction continues on the patio, with the goal of a late summer opening. Finally, watch for regular menu updates reflecting the calendar, including special dishes for Easter, Pride, and other holidays. Reservations are encouraged, but half of all seating is reserved for walk-ins. For more information, visit http://www.fablesf.com or call (415) 590-2402.

Help out another dream in the making

Oakland chef Charleen Caabay has turned to the community to help fund the next evolution of her restaurant Kainbigan. Caabay has created an Indiegogo campaign seeking donors to help cover the equipment, construction, and permitting costs of locating the restaurant into a permanent space. Caabay, who is a lesbian, founded

Kainbigan in 2007 with the goal of bringing traditional Filipino cuisine to the East Bay, and introducing Americans to Filipino dishes beyond the commonplace lumpia. The name “Kainbigan” is a portmanteau of the Tagalog words for “to eat” and “friend,” showing Caabay’s emphasis on the communal aspects of dining. Until recently, Kainbigan existed mostly as a catering service and an occasional pop-up restaurant. In January, Caabay announced that a new location had been found, with an opening date to be announced later. The Indiegogo campaign began in late February. The campaign goal is $50,000, and at press time just over $2,000 had been contributed. Donor perks vary by the contribution level, ranging from acknowledgements on the restaurant website to T-shirts, dinners, and cooking classes. To learn more about Kainbigan, visit kainbigan.weebly.com. To find out more about the opening campaign, visit www.indiegogo.com/ projects/help-fund-support-kainbigan-filipino-comfort-food. The campaign ends in a few weeks.

Marlena’s curtain call

On Saturday, March 2, Marlena’s (488 Hayes Street) staged its final drag show. The bar was packed with well-wishers bidding a raucous but emotional farewell to the Hayes Valley institution. The following day also saw large crowds at the popular watering hole’s last day. The bar has been bought by a trio of new owners, including Anthony Healy-London, co-owner of Churchill (198 Church Street). The liquor license transfer application identifies the other owners as Matthew Conway and Joshua McAdam. When contacted for comment on future plans for the Marlena’s space, Healy-London declined an interview, saying, “We don’t have much news to share at this time. Our plans are still taking shape.”

Nitey night

Last week, the Castro Theatre (429 Castro Street) hosted the inaugural Nitey Awards, a newly created award to recognize “excellence in creative content and patron experience in the San Francisco nightlife industry,” according to a press release. In the category of Best Gay Dance Club, the juried award went to Beat Box (314 11th Street). The Best Gay Bar, according to popular vote, was Lookout (3600 16th Street). In the category of Most Notable Drag Queen, Sister Roma of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence bested fellow nominees Heklina, Juanita More, Peaches Christ, and Bay Area Reporter society columnist Donna Sachet. The Nitey’s were organized by Site and Sound, a nonprofit supporting music and the arts. Organizers hope to make the Nitey’s an annual event.

Making contact

The Golden Gate Business Association will be hosting its next Make Contact networking event on April 2 at Design and Consignment Gallery (333 8th Street). The main event runs from 6 to 8 p.m., with a separate women’s event beginning at 5:15. Admission is free for GGBA members, and $20 for non-members. GGBA bills itself as “America’s first LGBT chamber of commerce” with the mission of supporting the growth and visibility of gay-owned businesses. For more information about the GGBA, visit http://www.ggba. com.t

Politics>>

March 14-20, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 7

Gay men’s chorus raises $140K for Milk show by Matthew S. Bajko

vated Nourse Auditorium on Hayes Street at Van Ness. Ticket information will be posted later in the spring on the chorus website at http://www. sfgmc.org. Those interested in donating should email Reynolds at eddiereyn@ gmail.com.t

he annual Pride Month concert presented by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus is shaping up to be one of the most lavish and talked about performances in the 35-year history of the acclaimed chorale group. The show, which focuses on the legacy of the late gay Supervisor Harvey Milk, has attracted top Broadway talent, national attention, and broken fundraising records, with more than $140,000 already raised, mainly from chorale members and longtime donors. Announced in 2011 as a way to celebrate the chorus’ jade anniversary, it also coincides with the 35th anniversary of Milk’s assassination November 27, 1978. The chorus first performed publicly that night on the steps of City Hall at a memorial for Milk and thenMayor George Moscone, who was also gunned down that morning by disgruntled former Supervisor Dan White. Last fall Tony- and Grammynominated Broadway composer Andrew Lippa, whose works include The Addams Family and the upcoming musical adaptation Big Fish, signed on to write a 12-movement oratorio, titled “I Am Harvey Milk,” inspired by Milk’s life and accomplishments. Six other gay American choruses, including in Atlanta and Dayton, Ohio, will stage the work as co-commissioners. “This piece will define the chorus in a new way and will rank with the national tour in 1981 that the chorus took across the country to birth baby gay choirs all over,” said Timothy Seelig, the chorus’ artistic director and conductor. “There will be a lot of people who probably come to this concert that don’t ordinarily come to hear the gay men’s chorus because of the subject matter.” The concert will also feature the debut of eight works submitted by artists in response to a global call for submissions the chorus launched in late 2011. The winning entries, culled from 50 works received, hail from the Bay Area and as far away as Israel. Three works, selected from the music, visual art, and performance art categories, were then chosen to win $1,000 prizes. “There is a lot of interest in this beyond this one concert. This has legs beyond the gay chorus community,” said Eddie Reynolds, chair of the committee raising money for the performance. “Andrew has a big, huge reputation. Already, there has been a lot of talk on the street, which is pretty exciting. New York people know more about it than people do here.” The all-things-Broadway website Playbill.com this week posted a blurb about the show. And Lippa held a private workshop of it in New York a few weeks ago to test it out before its world premiere in San Francisco. Seelig said it was well received and many in the audience were brought to tears. “A year and half ago when we started seriously looking at this, people would say you have to get Andrew Lippa for it,” said Seelig, who initially asked Lippa if he would write one song for the concert. “I was thinking we would get different composers and have him do the finale.” Within minutes of receiving Seelig’s email, Lippa told him to call him. He was interested in far more than composing a single song. “It was like a gift had walked into my life. I had long wanted to write about the gay experience or my gay experiences, but I didn’t know what it would be,” recalled Lippa, who at age 25 performed one season with the

Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http://

Rick Gerharter

The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus rehearsed this week for its “I Am Harvey Milk” and “Snow White and Her Merry Men” concerts.

New York Gay Men’s Chorus. He pitched Seelig on his writing the entire show and “they put their faith in me creatively,” Lippa said in a recent phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter. Born in England but raised in Michigan, Lippa now calls New York City home. He is a gay Jewish man, as was Milk, who grew up on Long Island and later in life worked on several Broadway shows. Lippa is now the same age Milk was when he died. “There are a lot of things I had in common with Milk. The being 48 was a big deal. It is so odd I would be exactly the same age as at the time he was assassinated,” said Lippa, who will be singing the role of Milk in the show. He is married to David Bloch, the senior vice president of marketing at Focus Features who worked on the campaign for the Oscarwinning docudrama Milk starring Sean Penn. One of the movie’s producers, Bruce Cohen, is also producing Lippa’s Big Fish musical and has agreed to serve in a similar capacity on the Milk concert. Lippa decided to focus the oratorio on the 11 months Milk spent in office as the city’s first gay elected leader. He visited the city and spoke to several of Milk’s campaign aides and friends as part of his research. But the show is not presented in chronological order, and there is a prologue sung by a young boy representing Milk in his youth. Another role is for a soprano portraying Milk’s mother. Neither has yet to be cast. “My aim is to bring as much emotional and new information to the emotional terrain as I can. What was that period like for him and for the gay community to have him involved? What was going on in the gay world of San Francisco at that time and how did it feel and what was the impact?” said Lippa, who plans to rehearse with the chorus and the 28-member orchestra in mid-May. One movement called “San Francisco,” which Lippa described as a love song to the city sung by the 300-member chorus, is shaping up as the centerpiece of the work,” he said. “Gay people flocked to San Francisco because they knew it was a haven and knew it would be safe for them,” he said. One of the selected works for the first segment of the concert is by gay Palo Alto high school senior Julian Hornik, 17, who will be studying at Yale in the fall. “It is a crazy honor; it is so cool, especially given the history and reputation of the gay men’s chorus too,” said Hornik, one of the prize winners. “They themselves are iconic. The idea that I am working with these people and emailing the director of the chorus nonchalantly is crazy. It is totally bizarre.” His father told him about the call for submissions, and he scoured the Internet researching Milk and his life. “I spent tons of hours watching

documentary clips and reading his speeches and the recordings he made,” said Hornik. “I didn’t know a lot going in but learned a lot coming out.” His resulting song “Altoona, Pennsylvania,” was inspired by a famous anecdote Milk told of receiving a call from a young gay man from the town who was struggling with his sexual orientation. It tied into the fundraising Hornik and his brother have done for the It Gets Better project against LGBT bullying. “His whole point was to give kids in the middle of nowhere feeling hopelessness hope,” said Hornik, who performed the song at a chorus show last summer. “It is an It Gets Better song in disguise.” The chorus is trying to raise another $50,000 to pay for such things as a cast recording at George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch and filming of the concert’s world premiere, estimated to cost $10,000. Donors can underwrite one of the 12 songs in the oratorio at $1,500 each. “It will give it a legacy of its own to record it,” said Reynolds, 62, who sings with the chorus as an upper second tenor. A Palo Alto resident, who is an organizational development consultant, Reynolds has long been involved with TheatreWorks, the Silicon Valley’s professional nonprofit theater company. When he served as president of its board in 2004, he worked with Lippa on the world premiere of his musical A Little Princess. He hopes the Milk concert will inspire audience members to take to heart Milk’s insistence that people get involved politically and come out about being LGBT. “I want people to do like Harvey did, to remember this man gave us a model to be involved, to make things happen in the community,” he said. “I want people to be inspired to come out if they haven’t already.” There are also plans to have the first night audience participate in a candle light march following the performance that ends at City Hall. The permitting cost is estimated at $5,000. In a bit of unplanned serendipity, the Milk show is landing amid a heated debate over the proposal to rename the city’s international airport after Milk. A Board of Supervisors committee will hold the first hearing on the Milk airport naming idea April 4. “The timing is amazing,” conceded Seelig about the citywide conversations taking place around Milk’s legacy ahead of the June concert. The chorus has signed on as an endorsing organization of the Milk airport naming proposal, which if supported by six supervisors will be placed on the November ballot for voters to decide its fate. To date only five board members have publicly voiced their support. “I can’t even tell you how thrilling the timing is on the Milk SFO airport idea,” said Lippa. “With the debate on the airport, I hope the piece can have a real influence on that process and help get that decision made to rename the airport.” The chorus’s Milk concert will be held June 27-28 at the newly reno-

www.ebar.com Monday mornings at noon for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion. This week’s column reports on the applicants for a vacancy on the city’s LGBT seniors task force. Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes.

<< National News

12 • Bay Area Reporter • March 14-20, 2013

Marriage cases

From page 3

nation cannot be tolerated,” said Boutrous. “It’s extremely important.” Boutrous acknowledged that the solicitor general’s brief did not, as the Prop 8 challengers’ brief does, argue that there is a “fundamental right” to marriage. Laws that infringe upon a fundamental right must also be reviewed using strict scrutiny. But he reiterated that he could say only positive things about the administration’s brief and added, “it can only make our case that much stronger.” Mary Bonauto, civil rights director for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, said LGBT legal activists have “all sought strict scrutiny, starting with Gill.” GLAD’s Gill v. Office of Personnel Management lawsuit, coupled with the Massachusetts v. Health and Human Services case by the commonwealth, were the first to take on DOMA; and the first to succeed all the way through the federal appeals court. GLAD also had Pedersen v. OPM in the 2nd Circuit and Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund had Golinski v. OPM in the 9th Circuit. “Golinski and Pedersen made headway on this,” noted Bonauto, “and the 2nd Circuit in Windsor became the first appellate court to find heightened scrutiny for sexual orientation classifications.” But Bonauto and others pushing for the end to DOMA and Prop 8

are not critical of the administration for seeking heightened scrutiny, rather than strict scrutiny. “They could, obviously, have been more ambitious and far-reaching, but that doesn’t mean they hedged,” said Laurence Tribe, the widely respected Harvard constitutional law expert. Tribe argued against sodomy laws in the 1986 Bowers v. Hardwick case and filed what many consider the most influential brief against sodomy laws in the Lawrence case. He called the Obama administration’s briefs “excellent” and said they “took reality into account, as I think they should have.” At least one former Supreme Court insider suggested it’s actually a good thing the administration took a middle road. Rather than facing the options in Prop 8, for instance, of “marriage for all” or “marriage for just California,” said the source, the administration brief in Prop 8 offers the court a third option – marriage for eight states. And Bonauto is quick to point out that the solicitor general’s brief on Prop 8 represented the first time DOJ officials have submitted a legal brief seeking “the right to marry.” In other cases, she noted, the DOJ has sought the right for equal treatment of same-sex couples who were already married. And its discussion in the Prop 8 brief, said Bonauto, “clearly” addresses the California ban “in ways that could affect the legal debate beyond California.”t A longer version is online at ebar. com.

Immigration

From page 1

monly known as Dreamers because most qualify for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act – a bill defeated in the Senate in 2010 that would have provided qualifying undocumented young people with more work and education opportunities. About 1.8 million Dreamers qualify now (or will in the future) for DACA. Among those organizations keeping up-to-date on immigration reform is the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, and the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, which banded together after DACA was signed to create the LGBT Dreamers Fund at the Liberty Hill Foundation. The fund provides scholarships to LGBTQ Dreamers who can’t pay the $465 required to apply for DACA. “We want to communicate to the larger immigrant rights movement that the LGBT community sees this as one of our own issues,” said Matt Foreman, program director at the Haas Jr. Fund. Luis Liang, 23, is one of the beneficiaries of the fund. At age 14, his mother brought him to the U.S. from Mexico under the guise of “vacation.” For the next year and a half, Liang and four immediate family members shared one room in a three-bedroom apartment with six other extended family members. “That was really hard,” said Liang, who identifies as a biracial gay man of color. “I was also frustrated because I didn’t know the language here. I felt like I was in preschool again – learning everything from the beginning.” In May 2012, Liang earned a business degree from UC Berkeley with the help of private scholarships. But there was nothing to do after that. He couldn’t get a job after graduation because his undocumented status prevented him from obtaining a Social Security number. “My status is like a window,” Liang said. “I can see everything outside it but I can’t get through it.” Then he heard about DACA and the LGBT Dreamers Fund. Liang is one of at least 200 Dreamers to access the fund, which stands at more

Elliot Owen

Luis Liang recently qualified for deferred action under an executive order signed last year by President Barack Obama.

than $100,000 thanks to the three co-founding groups and over 50 other donor organizations and individuals, according to NCLR. “When I saw someone was doing something for undocumented queer students, it felt good,” Liang said. “Sometimes you have to come out twice – in the queer community as undocumented, and in the undocumented community as queer. They were acknowledging that there are people who have a double challenge.” But there is still much to be done, NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell told the B.A.R. “We need comprehensive immigration reform and I really want to emphasize comprehensive,” said Kendell. “We need to inject some humanity, decency, and rationality into the immigration system. This is our future.” Liang qualified for deferred action and is hoping to hear back about a work permit within the next few weeks.t To view the Williams Institute reports, visit http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/ uploads/LGBTImmigrants-GatesMar-2013.pdf, and http://www. americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2013/03/08/55676/ infographic-the-lgbt-undocumented-by-the-numbers/.

t <<

March 14-20, 2013 • B a Community News>>r

Patio

From page 2

Natali, so he is now seeking a hearing before the commission in order to secure the permit and open the restaurant. “My attorney said the city makes mistakes and we just have to bite the bullet,” said Natali, who bought the Patio in 1989 and worked as a host there through 1999 when he bought the gay bar Badlands on 18th Street. “I liked the place. I was a customer there and I thought it would be a nice place to work at.” Scott Sanchez, the city’s zoning administrator, told the B.A.R. that the department had notified Natali last March that he would need to seek a conditional use permit. But Natali’s former attorney, Gladstone and Associates, spent last summer “disputing that” determination, added Sanchez. The problem, said Sanchez, was Natali’s permit request in 2005 wasn’t “entirely accurate.” In reviewing the application, Sanchez said it wasn’t clear that “the intention was to re-

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eporter

• 13

move a retail space and expand the restaurant. It wasn’t clear on the application or clear from their proposal what they were doing.” Sanchez admitted, however, that the city should not have signed off on the permit. “At the time we should have asked for more information before approving it,” he said. The Patio had operated in the space since the late 1960s. In 1992 Natali secured a permit to install the retractable roof, which stipulated a seating capacity of 160 people and required him to seek a new permit if he expanded. Between 1999 and 2002 the restaurant was closed for periods of time due to various construction reasons, and closed in 2002. An early bathroom upgrade was later deemed noncompliant and had to be re-done to meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. In 2005 Natali received the permits to remove the retail space, upgrade the bathrooms so they were wheelchair accessible, and expand the bar area.

Obituaries >> Peggy Joann Lynn August 26, 1932 – January 3, 2013

Peggy J. Lynn, who was born August 26, 1932, in South Bend, Indiana to Merele and Francise Lynn, transitioned on January 3, 2013, in South Bend in the hands of her daughter Mercedes Shellito. Peggy’s life was one marked by adventure, spiritual quest, volunteerism, family, humor, survival, and service. In her early years she had many jobs including modeling, and also served in the U.S. Marines. Through several marriages she had four children and has many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Later careers included jobs in the arts, marketing, and fine art sales. She spent a good part of her life in San Francisco, the city she loved that loved her back. Bohemian and carefree, Peggy made fast friends and was an unofficial ambassador for the city of brotherly love, and delighted in networking, matchmaking, and enrolling people in New Age self-development activities. A dedicated member of Radiant Light Ministries, Peggy adored the Reverends Matt Garrigan and Carol Weber, and volunteered weekly for years at Sunday

celebrations and many workshops such as Excalibur and the Liberty Experience. During the 1980s, Peggy survived the devastation wrought by HIV/AIDS and was instrumental in providing emotional and spiritual support to hundreds of people who transitioned and those who survived the disease. Her motherly love was often the sole support some people would receive when even their family and friends shunned them for fear of contagion. In addition to Shellito, Peggy is survived by her brother Charles Lynn, half brother John Robinson, half sister Cheryl; children Cindy Posey, Michael Melley; and Jennifer Melley who predeceased her; numerous grandchildren and 12-great grandchildren; and many dear friends in San Francisco and beyond. A student of life, Peggy will be remembered for her candor, unconditional love for all, and generous spirit. Years ago she committed to living to witness the much prophesied year of 2012 and to the end of disease by 2020. At age 80, she passed peacefully surrounded by an abundance of love and light from friends and family on both sides of our world. A celebration of life service and potluck reception will be held Saturday, March 16 at noon, at St. Aidan’s Church, 101 Gold Mine Drive (Diamond Heights), SF 94131. Donations to cover services and more information: Gary Virginia, (415) 867-5004.

Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034892000

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034888300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TYCHO; ISO50; 635 DOLORES ST., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Scott Hansen. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/11/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NESTING DAYS, 929 RHODE ISLAND ST., SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed New Planet LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/08/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/08/13.

FEB 21, 28, MAr 7, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034860200

FEB 21, 28, MAr 7, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034898500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NATHANIEL PACHTNER, 226 TWIN PEAKS BLVD., SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Nathaniel Pachtner. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/28/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HUTONG, 2030 UNION ST., SF, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a limited partnership, and is signed Pejiu Wu Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/13/13.

FEB 21, 28, MAr 7, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034903600

FEB 21, 28, MAr 7, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034867700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BACANO BAKERY, 3033 MACARTHUR, OAKLAND, CA 94602. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Bacano Life Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/14/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/14/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BLUE KITE GROUP, 1586 46TH AVE., SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Yvonne Liang. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/15/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 01/30/13.

FEB 21, 28, MAr 7, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034905700

FEB 21, 28, MAr 7, 14, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034900200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GALAXY STAR ENTERTAINMENT, 703 MARKET ST. #350, SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Thebroth Inc. (DE). 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 02/15/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SUPERB GARDEN GROCERY, 2433 NORIEGA ST., SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Yan Kam Fu Wong. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/13/13.

FEB 21, 28, MAr 7, 14, 2013

March 14-20, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 13

In addition he remodeled the adjacent building, once famous for its rainbow-painted steps, to make the storefronts, totaling 1,375 square feet, ADA-compliant. He said it was meant as a trade-off for losing the 400-square-foot retail space next door. “City planning is now saying to use that small retail space we should have in 2005 gone through the conditional use permit authorization process. We didn’t know that and they didn’t tell us that when we got the permit,” he said. He said the delays and lost revenues

On the web Online content this week includes the Bay Area Reporter’s online columns, Political Notes and Wedding Bell Blues; the Jock Talk and Out in the World columns; articles on an anti-smoking campaign in San Jose, an update on SF Pride’s finances, Obama signing the VAWA, and an update on the Superman online story; and a photo of muralists who renovated their mural at the Women’s Building. www.ebar.com.

from keeping the business closed has been “frustrating,” but he is optimistic that the permitting issues are close to being resolved. “It has been more frustrating given I spent a lot of money remodeling the place according to an approved plan and then, after I finish remodeling, that plan is no longer approved,” he said. Wiener agreed that the delay in

seeing the Patio’s return has been frustrating. One of the largest restaurant spaces in the heart of the gayborhood, it has long left a gaping hole in the middle of the 500 block of Castro Street. “I used to go there quite a few times. I remember being very sad when it closed,” he said. “I have shared in the frustration in it being closed for so long.” t

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14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • March 14-20, 2013

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41 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE - EATING PLACE FEB 28, MAR 7, 14, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES

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Dated 02/22/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: GRAND HOTPOT LOUNGE INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 3565 GEARY BLVD., SF, CA 94118-3212. Type of license applied for

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In the matter of the application of: ROBERT BERNARD REISING III, for change of name & gender having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ROBERT BERNARD REISING III is requesting that the name ROBERT BERNARD REISING III be changed to OCTAVIA OZLEM REISING, and requesting a decree that the petitioner’s gender be changed from male to female. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 9th of April 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FEB 21, 28, MAR 7, 14, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-031165100

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The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: SUPERB GARDEN GROCERY, 2433 NORIEGA ST., SF, CA 94122. This business was conducted by a general partnership and signed by Sau Yin Wong & Yan Kam Fu Wong. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/17/10.

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41 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE - EATING PLACE FEB 28, MAR 7, 14, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 02/11/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: ROXY’S CAFE INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 2847 MISSION ST., SF, CA 94110-3907. Type of license applied for

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Dated 02/12/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: EL TOMATE, INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 2904 24TH ST., SF, CA 94110-4127. Type of license applied for

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Dated 02/22/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: SAN FRANCISCO CHAMPAGNE SOCIETY, LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 1097 HOWARD ST. #101, SF, CA 94103-2881. Type of license applied for

42 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE – PUBLIC PREMISES FEB 28, MAR 7, 14, 2013 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC13-549299 In the matter of the application of: NANCY BUTERA & TYRON JAMES HOOPER, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioners NANCY BUTERA & TYRON JAMES HOOPER, is requesting that the name COLE HOOPER BUTERA, be changed to COLE SEBASTIAN BUTERA. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 23rd of April 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FEB 28, MAR 7, 14, 21, 2013 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC13-549298 In the matter of the application of: JANE CASSELL SUMNER, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner JANE CASSELL SUMNER, is requesting that the name JANE CASSELL SUMNER be changed to AVERY GARLAND CASSELL. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 23rd of April 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

FEB 28, MAR 7, 14, 21, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034874000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LIDES, 550-15 ST., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Armando Torres. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/01/13.

FEB 28, MAR 7, 14, 21, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-034918800

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: YOGEN FRUZ, 3 EMBARCADERO CENTER, SF, CA 94111. This business was conducted by a corporation and signed by Two Towers Inc. (CA). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/13/08.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PER’S BIKE TOURS SAN FRANCISCO, 1200 17TH AVE. #301, SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Per Schwarzenberger. 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 02/21/13.

FEB 21, 28, MAR 7, 14, 2013

FEB 28, MAR 7, 14, 21, 2013

Read more online at www.ebar.com

March 14-20, 2013 • Bay area reporter • 15

Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034912700

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034935800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CHICO’S GRILL, 3771 MISSION ST., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Hilario Chico. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/19/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/19/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BLOCK BY BLOCK, 2801 LEAVENWORTH ST. 2ND FL, B-16, SF, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Mydatt Services Inc. (OH). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/28/13.

FEB 28, MAR 7, 14, 21, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034911800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WIFI GRAPHICS, 737 POST ST. #1222, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Steven Haskins. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/14/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/19/13.

FEB 28, MAR 7, 14, 21, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034893600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WIFI LEGAL GRAPHICS & CONSULTING, 737 POST ST. #1222, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Steven Haskins. 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 02/11/13.

FEB 28, MAR 7, 14, 21, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034918100

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034892300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: URSINE DESIGN, 945 HYDE ST. #3, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Jacob Ole Bjeldanes. 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 02/11/13.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034931800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: UMANZOR CLEANING SERVICES, 46 LAURA ST., SF, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Arles Umanzor. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/27/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/27/13.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034934900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KABUTO JAPANESE RESTAURANT, 5121 GEARY BLVD., SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed Eunpil Cho & Sunhee Cho. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/20/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/21/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NET STOP BUSINESS CENTER, 4460 MISSION ST., SF, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Thomas Lacey. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/28/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/28/13.

FEB 28, MAR 7, 14, 21, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034884300

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034896200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NUTRITION FOR THE PEOPLE, 290 DE HARO ST., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Ellen Goodenow Garcia. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/03/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/06/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ROADSIDE ROSY’S, 1018 COLUMBUS AVE., SF, CA 94133. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Rosa Nunez Thomas. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/12/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/12/13.

FEB 28, MAR 7, 14, 21, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034888200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PEOPLEFIRST REHABILITATION, 2043 19TH AVE., SF, CA 94116. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Kindred Rehab Services Inc. (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/08/13.

FEB 28, MAR 7, 14, 21, 2013 NOTICE OF ApplICATION TO SEll AlCOhOlIC BEvERAgES Dated 02/26/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: VITTORIO D’URZO. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 150 W PORTAL AVE., SF, CA 94127-1306. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SAlE BEER & WINE - EATINg plACE MAR 7, 14, 21, 2013 NOTICE OF ApplICATION TO SEll AlCOhOlIC BEvERAgES Dated 02/27/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: TAKEOFF U.S.A. INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 22 PEACE PLAZA #440, SF, CA 94115-3611. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SAlE BEER & WINE - EATINg plACE MAR 7, 14, 21, 2013 ORDER TO ShOW CAUSE FOR ChANgE OF NAME IN SUpERIOR COURT OF CAlIFORNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FRANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549311 In the matter of the application of: ARIF SALEEM HUSSAIN, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ARIF SALEEM HUSSAIN, is requesting that the name ARIF SALEEM HUSSAIN, be changed to ARIF HUSSAIN SALEEM. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 30th of April 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034930300

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034941500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SF HUSTLERS SOFTBALL TEAM, 4323 20TH ST. #7, SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Reuben Arthur Brown. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/04/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/13.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034942000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HOUNDS GET AROUND, 744 OAK ST. #8, SF, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Thomas E. Kilduff. 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 03/04/13.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034934600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LTI BOOKING, 251 KEARNY ST. 4TH FL., SF, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Liftopia, Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/28/13.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034936400

ORDER TO ShOW CAUSE FOR ChANgE OF NAME IN SUpERIOR COURT OF CAlIFORNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FRANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549313 In the matter of the application of: VICTORIA LEIGH ROBINSON, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner VICTORIA LEIGH ROBINSON, is requesting that the name VICTORIA LEIGH ROBINSON, be changed to VICTORIA ROBINSON SALEEM. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 30th of April 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034939500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NEAT ASIAN THINGS, 1825 POST ST., SF, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a trust, and is signed Steven T. Taylor, Shuji Shimada & Rieko Shimada. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/13/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/13.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 NOTICE OF ApplICATION FOR ChANgE IN OWNERShIp OF AlCOhOlIC BEvERAgE lICENSE Dated 03/04/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: MY KITCHEN, LLC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 1779 LOMBARD ST., SF, CA 94123-2907. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SAlE BEER & WINE - EATINg plACE MAR 14, 2013 NOTICE OF ApplICATION TO SEll AlCOhOlIC BEvERAgES Dated 03/04/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: CINDERELLA BAKERY INC. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 436-438 BALBOA ST., SF, CA 94118-3938. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SAlE BEER & WINE - EATINg plACE MAR 14, 2013 NOTICE OF ApplICATION FOR ChANgE IN OWNERShIp OF AlCOhOlIC BEvERAgE lICENSE Dated 03/04/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: EANLY LAY THONG, VICHETR THONG. The applicants listed above are applying to the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control at 33 New Montgomery St. #1230, SF, CA 94105 to sell alcoholic beverages at 3643 BALBOA ST., SF, CA 94121-2603. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SAlE BEER & WINE - EATINg plACE MAR 14, 2013 ORDER TO ShOW CAUSE FOR ChANgE OF NAME IN SUpERIOR COURT OF CAlIFORNIA, COUNTy OF SAN FRANCISCO FIlE CNC13-549336 In the matter of the application of: MERCEDES KEARNS, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner MERCEDES KEARNS, is requesting that the name MERCEDES KEARNS, A.K.A. MERCEDES MORGAN KEARNS, A.K.A. MERCEDES M. KEARNS, be changed to MERCEDES KEARNS HOGLUND. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Rm. 514 on the 9th of May 2013 at 9:00 am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034947600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VALOR SECURITY SERVICES, 590 BUSH ST., SF, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Mydatt Services Inc. (OH). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/09. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/28/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: APL THE WORLD OF ART, 1 DANIEL BURNHAM COURT #412, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Anson Poon Yu Lee. 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 03/05/13.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034935400

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034941800

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034951400

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034898400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SMALL TRADE COMPANY, 550 FLORIDA ST. #D, SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Matt Dick. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/15/10. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JAY + RENAE, 1327 CABRILLO ST., SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Rebecca K. Scott. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/13/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/13/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034947700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: YAN YANG BEAUTY SALON, 864 JACKSON ST., SF, CA 94133. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Timothy Vong. 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 03/05/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034942800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CAFE MADELEINE, 149 NEW MONTGOMERY ST., SF, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed San Francisco Madeleine Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/04/04. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034942900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CAFE MADELEINE, 300 CALIFORNIA ST., SF, CA 94104. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed San Francisco Madeleine Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/09/02. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034943000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CAFE MADELEINE, 43 O’FARRELL ST., SF, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed San Francisco Madeleine Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/01/99. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034950500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: AVRORA LOGISTICS, 3626 GEARY BLVD. #206, SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Atlant Consulting Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034941700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VIRGIL’S SEA ROOM, 3152 MISSION ST., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Triple Digits, Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034947000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LITTLE PAPER PLANES, 855 VALENCIA ST., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Little Paper Planes, Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/05/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034947500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BASH CONTEMPORARY, 210 GOLDEN GATE AVE., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Bash Fine Art LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/05/13.

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034900500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VALOR SECURITY SERVICES, 750 SUTTER ST., SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Mydatt Services Inc. (OH). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/09. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/28/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: STUDIO B DESIGN, 5425 COLLEGE AVE. #2, OAKLAND, CA 94618. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Maria Victoria O. Montilla. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/04/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EUREKA ST BOWTIES, 270 EUREKA ST., SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Kasey Spickard. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/12/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/13/13.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034937300

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034951000

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FIlE A-034953600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HARMONY SPA, 2450 TARAVAL ST., SF, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Yaling Zeng. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/27/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/27/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: OCEAN BEACH YOGA SF, 3925 A JUDAH ST., SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed Christina Beer & David Beer. 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 03/01/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CORT CRITTER CARE, 4323 20TH ST. #3, SF, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Deborah Stacey Cort. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/07/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CLAY HILL CONSTRUCTION, 1675 CLAY ST., SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Vincent Cosgrove. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/08/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 03/08/13.

MAR 7, 14, 21, 28, 2013

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FIlE A-03372760 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: YAN YANG BEAUTY SALON, 864 JACKSON ST., SF, CA 94133. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by Yan Miao Chen. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/01/11.

MAR 14, 21, 28, ApR 4, 2013

SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT NOTICE TO PROPOSERS GENERAL INFORMATION The SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT DISTRICT (“District”), 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, California, is advertising for proposals for Management Services to Operate BART’s Bike Facilities for BART’s Bike Station Program,Request for Proposals (RFP) No. 6M6063, on or about March 11, 2013, with proposals due by 2:00 PM local time, Tuesday, April 16, 2013. DESCRIPTION OF SERVICES TO BE PROVIDED The District is soliciting Management Services to operate BART’s Bike Station Program at Embarcadero, Fruitvale, Downtown Berkeley and Ashby Stations as described in Exhibit 1, AGREEMENT FOR TECHNICAL SERVICES, Attachment A, Scope of Services of this RFP. In brief, the services consist of the following: A. Operate two attended bicycle parking facilities and three self-serve group parking facilities. B. Coordinate operation of self-serve group parking with eLock Technologies. C. Contractor shall be responsible for the security of each Bike Station. D. Implement and maintain a marketing program for Bike Station operations. E. Provide a display of informational brochures and maps for customers. F. Contractor shall provide monthly reports and an annual survey on Bike Station operations. G. Maintain and keep confidential User Registration System. H. Provide a single, locally based manager as the primary point of contact for all management responsibilities. I. Contractor shall respond in a timely way to user emergencies and complaints in accordance with this agreement. J. Provide bike related retail and repair services. K. Provide janitorial services for each Bike Station. L. Enter into a sublease agreement with BART. M. Options for additional operations at MacArthur and Civic Center are pending. N. Optional Price Reduction Strategies, ie: Revenue Sharing. A Pre-Proposal Meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 27, 2013. The Pre-Proposal Meeting will convene at 10:00 am at 300 Lakeside Drive, 11th Floor, Conference Room #1100, Oakland, CA 94612. At the Pre-Proposal Meeting the District’s NonDiscrimination Program for Subcontracting will be explained. All questions regarding MBE/WBE participation should be directed to Ron Granada, Office of Civil Rights at (510) 464-6103 – FAX (510) 464-7587. Prospective Proposers are requested to make every effort to attend this only scheduled Pre-Proposal Meeting, and to confirm their attendance by contacting the District’s Contract Administrator, telephone 510-464-6545, prior to the date of the Pre-Proposal Meeting. WHERE TO OBTAIN OR SEE RFP DOCUMENTS (Available on or after March 11, 2013) Copies of the RFP may be obtained: (1) By written request to the District’s Contract Administrator, 300 Lakeside Drive, 17th Floor, Oakland, CA 94612. Reference RFP NO. 6M6063, Management Services to Operate BART’s Bike Facilities and send requests to Fax No. (510) 464-7650. (2) By arranging pick up at the above address. Call the District’s Contract Administrator, 510-464-6545 prior to pickup of the RFP. (3) By E-mail request to the District’s Contract Administrator Carl Asbury, e-mail address casbury@bart.gov (4) By attending the Pre-proposal Meeting and obtaining the RFP at the meeting. Dated at Oakland, California this 8th day of March 2013. /s/ Kenneth A. Duron Kenneth A. Duron, District Secretary San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District 3/14/13 CNS-2456289# BAY AREA REPORTER

Target practice

Sly seduction

Nights in the city

Out &About

O&A

The

Vol. 43 • No. 11 • March 14-20, 2013

www.ebar.com/arts

Celebrating Patti LuPone by David-Elijah Nahmod

T Scene from director Christina Sun Kim’s Pretty Pictures. Courtesy CAAMFest

Choice moments in Asian American film by David Lamble

AAMFest, formerly the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival, plays March 14-24 at several Bay Area venues, including our lovely Castro Theatre. Queer Convergence Shorts From a sixpack of shorts available for screening, three stand out. Pretty Pictures Director Christina Sun Kim presents the droll idea of a young girl conjuring a fantasy female lover from her sketchbook. Visiting her rather proper aunt, Laney’s bathtub/bedroom reveries are most rudely interrupted by her nasty if stunningly

beautiful cousin (Mick Tolbert). This fantasy short might, with considerable effort, become a full feature. Last Tea Party Director Melanie Ramos puts two hot boys, best friends Charlie and Mike, into an alcohol-fueled romp on the eve of their induction into the Singapore military. Charlie’s discovery of the depth of his feelings for Mike becomes a sexy revelation in beautifully executed underwater pool scenes. There’s a nice “fight or fuck” moment in the back of a cab; it helps that one of the See page 20 >>

ony-winning Broadway legend Patti Luout story. “There was a lot of drama around my Pone will sing her heart out at Live at dad’s coming out. We don’t speak now. My dad the Rrazz from March 19-24. The Evita is very damaged.” superstar will pay tribute to another theatrical In Patti Issues, Rimalower explores the tulegend, the great songwriter Kurt Weill, multuous relationship between his among others. A mere two days father and him, and how his perafter LuPone’s show closes, sonal struggles intersect with UC Berkeley will host Patti his deep love for and workIssues, in which Patti’s ing relationship with Lubiggest fan, actor Ben Pone. The show garRimalower, pays homnered quite a following age to the effect his in New York. Its fan idol has had on his base includes Alan life. Cummings, Justin LuPone counts Vivian Bond, and herself among LuPone herself. Rimalower’s fans. “Patti’s wonThe two now enderful!” said joy a friendship Rimalower. and a working “She’s such a terrelationship. In rific supporter of separate telethis show. She rephone interviews ally talks me and with the B.A.R., this show up.” they expressed disWhen we spoke appointment that to LuPone the folthey’d be missing lowing day, she Broadway legend each other’s Bay Area confirmed her admishows. ration for Rimalower. Patti LuPone, coming to Rimalower shared She also expressed her Live at the Rrazz. tales of the dysfunctional love for San Francisco. childhood that planted the “I can’t wait,” she said. “I seeds for his life as an actor and love the city. It’s a pity that it’s his love for LuPone. “I needed to been so long since I’ve been there. Ethan Hill escape from toxic situations at home,” he I’ve never been to Japantown!” said. He describes LuPone’s “balls-to-the-walls She’s aware of her strong following among fierceness” as being empowering to him during gay men. “I don’t know why that is,” she said. his youth. He shared a dual father/son coming See page 30 >>

In Garry Winogrand’s viewfinder by Sura Wood

S New York (ca. 1960), gelatin silver print by Garry Winogrand; Garry Winogrand Archive, Center for Creative Photography, U. of Arizona; The Estate of Garry Winogrand. Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

ometimes I feel the world is a place I bought a ticket to,” said the prolific American street photographer Garry Winogrand. “It’s a big show for me.” A man driven by an insatiable appetite for taking pictures, Winogrand was fearless when it came to shooting, an act infinitely more satisfying to him than printing or editing. When he died prematurely from cancer at the age of 56 in 1984, he left behind a vast archive of nearly 6,500 rolls of film with 250,000 undeveloped images – a staggering 300,000 pictures – he and the public had never seen. “Simply saying Winogrand’s output was large is like saying

{ SECOND OF TWO SECTIONS }

the Grand Canyon is a hole in the ground,” explained Washington Post photography columnist Frank Van Riper. Whether or not he led an unexamined life we’ll never know, but Winogrand certainly bequeathed an unexplored body of work that he wasn’t inclined to reflect upon or organize before his died. That task, along with culling previously printed material, fell to protégés like Leo Rubinfien and curators from San Francisco and the National Gallery of Art, who spent three years putting together the enormous retrospective now at SFMOMA. Influenced by Robert Frank and Walker Evans, and friends with contemporaries Lee Friedlander and Diane Arbus, Winogrand See page 20 >>

<< Out There

18 • Bay Area Reporter • March 14-20, 2013

Table manners by Roberto Friedman

uring a recent R&R getaway in Carmel-by-the-Sea, Out There and the charmant Pepi went to the tapas restaurant Mundaka and shared many a small plate. Boquerones (white anchovies), atun (seared tuna in squid ink aioli), albondigas (chorizo meatballs and clams on saffron couscous), chirivia (saffron-parsnip puree), bravas (fried potatoes) and aceitunas (olives) stuffed us. Dessert was a candy-cap mushroom flan. Excellent repast, young and hip clientele, in two intimate and elegant rooms. It made us stop to consider our relationship to food. We eat so many meals out, rushing off to some opening or reception, we’re more out than in. So food and drink become the social media for our funz timez with others. Even at the bar of our favorite eatery, where we can be found after presstime most weeks, we’re not just stuffing our

face or partaking of the grape. We’re interacting with kind and charismatic waiters, bartenders, and a few fellow regulars. Think of it as our type of LGBT community center. The Brooklyn-based writer Jonathan Ames has said that when a waitress brings him his victuals, it fulfills some deep-seated maternal need. We’re on the opposite end of the Kinsey scale from straight, so we can’t really say the same. Mostly we enjoy the bartend who knows the wine we enjoy and has poured it before we’re parked barside. We enjoy the waiter who knows we do the Times crossword, and was stumped by a clue. We’re in awe of the regular who schmoozes the entire staff, in and out of the kitchen, and knows all their aspirations. He truly is the mayor of the place. Meal-taking is so much more than nutrition maintenance. “When I plan a menu,” wrote movie queen Joan Crawford in her second memoir My Way of Life, “I consider color,

Brandstatter

“Jupiter and Mercury with Philemon and Baucis” (ca. 1620-25), oil on canvas by Peter Paul Rubens (detail). From The Pleasures of the Table in Art by Daniel Uchtmann.

texture, taste, and balance. “Color: A red vegetable next to a yellow one looks unappetizing. Two white ones, like celery and cauliflower, look awful. “Texture: Creamed chicken and mashed potatoes make too much mush. Always serve something crisp with something soft. “Taste: Never team two sours, two sweets, two bitters. Candied yams and cranberry sauce are both delectable, but served together they break two of these rules, color and contrast. “Balance: Courses shouldn’t be uniformly rich nor [sic] light. A toorich menu might consist of a heavy cream soup, a roast with thickened gravy and potatoes, and a heavy whipped-cream-topped dessert. If the main course is substantial, the first should be light, crisp and appetizing, and the dessert an airy sherbet or a compote of fresh fruit.” Also, you may not be surprised that: “I have some strict rules about how food is presented. Hot food must be on hot plates. Salads must be served on cold plates. No drips.

When meat is put onto a serving platter there’s bound to be a little splatter, but it should be wiped clean before it’s brought into the dining room.” And you thought she was strict about “no wire hangers!” There were no wire hangers at the glamorous places we frequented last week. Scoped by Out There at the Director’s Circle and Artist’s Circle preview and opening night for the big Garry Winogrand show at SFMOMA: songstress Tracy Chapman, looking fresh and engaged. Scoped by OT at opening night of ACT’s Dead Metaphor: investigative journalist Phil Bronstein. He and ACT artistic director Carey Perloff will have a post-show discussion following its performance on Wed., March 20, exploring issues raised by the play, unemployment rates among veterans, and the politics of postwar living. Last Tuesday night we were invited to an intimate tasting of Mondavi wines at Epic Roasthouse, where current and library vintages M by Michael Mondavi,

Emblem and Isabel Mondavi were poured in the company of famous wine family scions Michael, Rob & Dina Mondavi. It was like enjoying the fruit of the grape in Florence at the house of the Medicis. There we were enjoying exquisite cabernet on the patio alongside the celebrated Bay Bridge, and feeling our varietals. At one point Michael M. confided in us how his wife regulates his wine-tippling by adding a secret “red line” to the label of the pinot noir. Why, Pepi does the same thing for us! Except for the part about designing the wine label. But having given you a glance at our wining and dining, we must leave our dipsomania as a topic for another time and column. This week’s apt illustration comes from the bounty of Daniel Uchtmann’s The Pleasures of the Table in Art (Brandstatter), which pursues this theme through 38 works from the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna. There’s lots on offer here, from seafood (“Fish Market,” ca. 1621, Sir Anthony Van Dyck) to carnage (“The Slaughtered Ox,” 1566, Maerten Van Cleve) to wanton debauchery (“Beware of Luxury,” 1663, Jan Steen). All in a week’s work for OT.

Mental state

One of Australia’s most lauded new movies will be given a special free screening on Sat., March 23, 11 a.m. at the Vogue Theater, as part of a continuing series of films from the UK and beyond sponsored by the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation. The film, Mental, was nominated for seven Aussie Oscars, including Toni Collette for best lead actress, and P.J. Hogan for best original screenplay. Hogan directs the story of a dysfunctional family reportedly based on his own life. When the mother of five teenage daughters succumbs to delusions and is hospitalized in a mental ward, their ill-prepared dad (Anthony LaPaglia) picks up an eccentric hitchhiker (Collette) who becomes their nanny and transforms their lives. Hogan is said to display the same light touch he did directing My Best Friend’s Wedding. To reserve your free tickets, e-mail voguersvp@gmail.com with the word “mental’’ in the subject line. Say how many tickets (up to four) you require. You will receive a confirmation via e-mail.t

Michael Mondavi Family Estate

A Michael Mondavi signature wine glass, with the fruit of the grape.

Theatre >>

March 14-20, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 19

Unsentimental journey by Richard Dodds

store-bought quilt wouldn’t do any good, but one built by the hands of Miss Flora Devine will help coddle an ailing baby back to health. Shirlene Holmes’ A Lady and a Woman is like a quilt, or perhaps more like a tapestry, because the makings are so delicately combined. Religion, folklore, and spiritualism find comfortable connections with a story of carnal desire, social taboos, and a fearsome love in this play of unusual welcome that Theatre Rhino is now presenting at the Eureka Theatre. Written in 1990 by Holmes, a member of the Georgia State University faculty, it is also a prescient statement on the current evolution of same-sex marriage. That it is set in a small southern town in the 1890s, specifically in an AfricanAmerican community, adds a friction that the playwright is then able to soothe. This is the story of the prim and proper Miss Flora, who runs a small inn, and Biddie Higgins, a roughhewn newcomer to town in need of lodging. At first, Miss Flora is wary of this assertive traveller, a freelance butcher of livestock, who seems unduly interested in the absence of any man in her life. There was one once, Miss Flora eventually confides, but he left her scarred both physically and emotionally. She doesn’t quite know how to react when Biddie compliments the long scar running down her cheek. “It’s like a medal or something,” says Biddie. “Says you made it back from the last battle.” Director John Fisher’s production deftly shapes each scene that can often involve a developing love, distressing imagery, and gentle humor in a single vignette. How fortunate he is to have Velina Brown and

David Wilson

Dawn L. Troupe, left, and Velina Brown find themselves in an unexpected relationship in Theatre Rhino’s A Lady and a Woman.

Dawn L. Troupe as Miss Flora and Biddie, characters who come to exquisite life in these two intimate and revealing performances. The playwright takes these characters on a journey that on the surface can seem unlikely for its time and place, but Holmes masterfully uses the colloquial dialogue to create a statement on the pursuit of

happiness that never sounds like a polemic. There is blood and glory and sympathy in this story that finds timelessness in the very specific, very honest world it creates.t A Lady and a Woman will run at the Eureka Theatre through March 24. Tickets are $15-$30. Call (800) 838-3006 or go to www. therhino.org.

Sharpshooter by Richard Dodds

mall clusters of furniture cycle about on a turntable to accommodate the changing scenes in Dead Metaphor, George F. Walker’s new play at ACT. The first scene takes place in a job counselor’s office as a young veteran, recently returned from Afghanistan, is puzzled by the series of rote questions. It’s a wonderfully written scene of absurd incongruities built on plausibilities. But just as the turntable goes round without moving ahead, Dead Metaphor finds itself spinning out a plot trapped in a spiral of diminishing returns. The young war veteran, played with a deceptively dim-witted affability by George Hampe, has returned home with the one skill his military service has provided. He’s an ace sniper, a confounding jobplacement challenge for Anthony Fusco’s amusingly plodding bureaucrat. Running out of questions, the counselor finally asks Dean what would be his dream job if he could choose anything without restraint. Dean says he’d like to write greeting-card messages. “You know, sincere on the outside, and inside a little sarcastic.” The counselor doesn’t readily have any good matches for snipers who want to write greeting cards, but he concocts a plan that holds dramatic promise as political satire but progressively succumbs into flimsy facsimiles of dark comedy. Walker is a widely produced playwright in his native Canada,

(((((((((

Kevin Berne

Rene Augesen plays a devious politician who has a job for an ex-sniper (George Hampe) recently returned from Afghanistan in Dead Metaphor at ACT.

although his popularity has not seeped deeply across the border. An opinion on his skills would be foolish based on this singular encounter, but I expect deeper and more consistent work has helped establish his reputation. In Dead Metaphor, Walker has trouble establishing a coherent world, which is not the same thing

as a realistic world. Even if you are skirting absurdity, there must be some consistency in the way that planes are tilted. In this story, the milquetoast job counselor is implausibly married to a nationally famous politician played by Rene Augesen with a Machiavellian crypto-fascist Sarah Palin authenticity. Eureka! There is a job for the sniper after all, but as targets keep flipping, our interest does not escalate in proportion to the developing deadly intrigues. Director Irene Lewis’ production could maybe find better balances, but the script doesn’t offer opportunities for significant improvements. The other characters, the sniper’s parents and his ex-wife, are competently played by Sharon Lockwood, Tom Bloom, and Rebekah Brockman, even if their presence has only minor impact. The playwright has in his hands an intriguing and timely subject. As soldiers return from our current military incursions, the skills they have developed to keep themselves alive, while eliminating as many of their shadowy counterparts as possible, don’t have much practical application back home. “I’m giving you a chance to kill for a point you can actually understand,” says one of the characters to the ex-sniper. The problem is that we don’t really understand it.t Dead Metaphor will run through March 24 at ACT. Tickets are $20$95. Call 749-2228 or go to www. act-sf.org.

www.ebar.com )))))))))

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

20 • Bay Area Reporter • March 14-20, 2013

Asian American film

From page 17

boys sports glasses and red hair. Tom/Trans/Thai Director Jai Arum Ravine finds a unique angle for approaching the silence around transgender identity in Thai culture. The only flaws in this gender performance art are some hard-to-read subtitles in the film’s daylight segment. (Castro, 3/17; Kabuki, 3/20) Abigail Harm This Amanda Plummer vehicle resonates in highly idiosyncratic ways. Plummer is a NYC shut-in who only ventures out to read books to blind clients. Veteran Burt Young virtually steals the movie as a horny and very funny old bugger. One night Abigail has a special visitor (Will Patton) who rewards her for saving his skin. The reward: a young Asian male lover. Director Lee Isaac Chung does a masterful job updating the Korean folktale The Woodsman and the Nymph. The piece is a revelation for those who recall Plummer as Yolanda, the profane restaurant robber, in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. (Kabuki, 3/17, 18) Dead Dad Director Ken J. Adachi

Courtesy CAAMFest

Scene from director Royston Tan’s Old Romances.

and actor/writer Kyle Arrington’s script crackles with the kind of mordant wit that comes in handy when you’re an adult child in a family where the togetherness gauge is on empty. “Dad, you were weak and kind of a shit-head. Now you’re a box of ashes that also doubles as a coaster.” So speaks the most together (possibly because he’s the adopted Asian kid) older brother Alex as he and his siblings Russell and Jane drink and fight over disposing of the family

mansion and Dad’s remains. Pushing the boundaries on just how clueless and bitchy relatives can be before you permanently walk on them, Dead Dad does offer some choice grieving moments, at a longabandoned miniature golf course and an infant’s no-holds-barred birthday party. (New People, 3/16, 24; Kabuki, 3/19) Mekong Hotel If you have a yen for staring at the Mekong River as ghosts cavort and a mild-mannered musician strums his guitar,

then Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s almost-feature, mostly still-life “drama” is your cup of tea. I’m not saying that this emperor, creator of some imaginative New Wave Thai Cinema (Tropical Malady), has no clothes, but he’s definitely pushing his Cannes accolades for all they’re worth. (Plays with Jennifer Phang’s short Advantageous, PFA, 3/16; New People, 3/17) 15 Director Royston Tan, a selfconfessed Singapore-raised “wild boy,” reveals the dark side of his famously anal island-nation with a hyperkinetic look into the psyches of frustrated schoolboys in this 2003 punk feature, expanded from a music-video short. The boys are seen in high-risk misadventures: exchanging tattoos and body piercings, joking about decadent sex with girlfriends and each other, rumbling with other Chinese boy gangs, getting caned at school and tossed out of their homes. The feature is considerably sadder than the short, with its focus on the suicidal fixations of Singapore’s prank-prone hooligans. Tan treats suicide seriously, but also playfully: a young man busses around the city looking for aesthetically suitable buildings from which to jump. (PFA, 3/20, with onstage chat between Tan and critic Valerie Soe) Old Romances For director Tan, New York City and his beloved Singapore have one thing in common: blink, and some architectural wonder or cozy corner of your childhood will have fallen to the wrecker’s ball. Just as Woody Allen has snuck little tours of Manhattan into films like Hannah and Her Sisters, Tan has now devoted two feature-length docs to recording an ever-disappearing slice of his island nation’s past. In just over 65 minutes, we bounce from old grocery stores that extended credit to a dog-training facility from the British era, to a decrepit old home for crocodiles and a clubby ex-pat coffee shop. We sense the horrific impact on the city of the WWII Japanese invasion, and see the fruits and ravages of Singapore’s economic miracle. (PFA, 3/17; Kabuki 3/19)

Garry Winogrand

From page 17

was a brilliant if erratic documentary street-shooter who chronicled postwar American life, particularly the period of the early 1960s. A native New Yorker who grew up Jewish and working-class in the Bronx, he prowled Manhattan with his lightweight 35mm Leica stealth camera, poised to capture whatever caught his discerning eye. His great subject was the social landscape of urban and suburban life and its disintegration during the second half of the 20th century. He immortalized the American carnival, from cowboys, hippies and anti-war protestors to actors, athletes, politicians and animals in the zoo. In the latter venue, he sought and found humanity in a very wary orangutan with giant feet

Linsanity I had never connected being queer with my crazy, fatherinduced love for big-money pro sports until working at SF’s A Different Light LGBT bookstore in the early 1990s. By far the biggest customer response to celebrity authors was for Olympic diver Greg Louganis and out baseball umpire Dave Palone: crowds wrapped around the block as if headed to the Castro Theatre. Director Evan Jackson Leong exposes just how big-time sports-fan madness can overtake an ethnic tribe. Leong examines the energy that overtook Asian American fans during the brief but electric moment when a slight, skinny, Palo Alto-raised, one-time Harvard point guard became the toast of Madison Square Garden. It’s probably futile to force-feed the non- or anti-fan with stats on just how explosive Jeremy Lin’s impact on the game in his first five starts was, but Leong’s storytelling chops are more than up to showing the frustration experienced by Lin, a talented if not obviously athletic kid as he blew past the competition for his high school squad; survived being ignored by most big-time college recruiters, finally snagging a spot on the Harvard roster; then, when the pro draft didn’t happen for Lin, managed to sneak his way on and quickly off two pro teams before hitting it big for the injury-plagued New York Knickerbockers. Linsanity is also a three-generation family journey, an entertaining basketball primer for dummies, and a largely hype-free zone where it’s clear that Lin’s post-Knicks NBA career is just beginning, while not everyone is rooting for the kid. Leong deftly hints at bigger themes – reverse racism and a pro-thug culture – without making needless enemies or impeding the flow of his once-ina-lifetime tale. Linsanity attains the exhilarating, hard-to-describe joy of one of those three-point game-winning shots that can define a career and turn an ordinary mortal into some kind of god. (Castro, opening night, 3/14)t www.CaaMedia.org

and ancient eyes that took stock of the photographer as if to say, “Now I’ve seen everything.” In another shot, a man’s disembodied hand drops a single peanut into an expectant, unfurled elephant’s trunk, whose owner is out of range; presumably, both were satisfied with the transaction. A portion of Winogrand’s prodigious output, 300 black & white photographs, is included in the show, which assembles iconic images of New York City, Texas and Southern California, and at least 100 images that haven’t been published or exhibited before. Display cases are filled with contact sheets, work he did for Life magazine and other publications, photos taken of him by his friends and he of them, poems and letters like one he sent to Evans, See page 21 >>

Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery San Francisco

New York World’s Fair (1964), gelatin silver print by Garry Winogrand; Collection SFMOMA; The Estate of Garry Winogrand.

DVD >>

March 14-20, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 21

Dangerous liaisons by Tavo Amador

n real life, charming, ambitious, charismatic, amoral people are to be avoided. On screen, however, they can be fascinating. That’s certainly true of the protagonist in Something for Everyone (1970), now available on DVD. This elegant black comedy marked Broadway legend Harold Prince’s film-directing debut. It’s set in the Austrian Alps a few years after World War II. Widowed Countess Herthe von Ornstein (Angela Lansbury) lacks the funds to maintain the castle left to her by her husband. She, her son Helmuth (Anthony Higgins) and teenage daughter Lotte (Jane Carr) struggle along in the Dower House with a small staff and constant concerns about money. Among other things, the countess laments not being able to afford fresh strawberries and cream. She longs for the pre-Nazi era, recalling the family’s homes in Antibes and Paris, and the luxurious, carefree life they enjoyed. When her accountant tells her she must use common sense and be cautious about money, she replies, “‘Common’ and ‘cautious’ are words that never have been and I hope never will be applied to me.” Into this bucolic, tragicomic world comes sexy Konrad Ludwig (Michael York), who since childhood has imagined living in a castle. He befriends the Countess’ footman, who introduces him to Klaus, the butler (Wolfred Leir), in hopes of getting him work. Klaus rejects the idea. Later that evening, the footman, who has been drinking with Konrad, is accidentally killed by a train. Konrad replaces him. Klaus notices Helmuth and Konrad flirting – the young master is smitten. He warns Konrad that he will fire him if he isn’t careful. Konrad sneaks into Klaus’ room, is shocked by what he finds, and reports him to the village constable. The police investigate, and the devoted Klaus is forced to resign. Konrad replaces him. Lotte, drawn to Konrad, watches all these events with a cynical amusement. He doesn’t take her seriously. Before moving into the castle, Konrad had seduced young An-

Garry Winogrand

From page 20

whom he greatly admired, asking for a recommendation to accompany his application for a Guggenheim. Evans turned him down. Would it be ungrateful to observe that the show is too big, or that it’s exhaustive and exhausting? Well, it is. So pace yourself. The early photographs, taken on Winogrand’s home turf – he moved away from NYC in 1971– are vital and uninhibited, and distill the arena he knew best: the slice of Manhattan between Macy’s and Central Park. The exhibition’s first image (1950), a sailor on shore leave walking down a deserted bridge at twilight, the street lamps blurred by mist, prompts the question: What will be his story? Elsewhere, a boat steams toward the gray skies above the Manhattan skyline, and in an extraordinary photograph, silhouetted men in coats and hats pause at night in front of a brightly lit store-window display of women’s evening dresses. A teenage extra with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Winogrand was entranced by its faux glamour, and compared the carnal pleasure of being backstage with the dancers to “being smothered in thighs.” The experience presaged his fascination with women, many of them less alluring than the fetching Italian starlet/model Elsa Martinelli, seen here seductively taking a drag on her cigarette in a swanky nightclub, and his

neliese Pleschke (Heidelinde Weis), daughter of a wealthy, vulgar bourgeois couple. The Pleschkes want to buy the castle, but it’s entailed and cannot be sold. Konrad arranges for Anneliese to marry Helmuth, bringing a big dowry with her. The countess is delighted. “To money,” she toasts. Neither bride nor groom is happy at the thought of a wedding, but Konrad persuades them it’s necessary. For Anneliese, it’s a way of escaping her grasping parents. When she discovers Konrad and Helmuth in bed, however, she relents. Soon, Konrad solves the problem of the Pleschkes to the advantage of Helmuth. The countess complains to Konrad about back pain. He gives her a massage. His “divine” touch performs a “miraculous cure.” She tells him he’s the “new man” for this “new world.” She, a descendent of Attila the Hun, the widow of a descendent of Frederick Barbarossa, knows his time has come. The past is dead. The aging Princess and bankrupt aristocrats who have made up her social life are relics. She’s a survivor. Konrad makes love to her. The next morning, Konrad resumes his duties, but as Lotte watches, he goes into the waiting Helmuth’s room and undresses. Soon, the countess announces that she and Konrad will wed. Helmuth, furious, hurt, disgusted, confronts his lover. “You can sleep with anyone, can’t you?” “If I have to. But I have my preferences,” replies Konrad, devouring Helmuth’s mouth with a kiss. The old guard and the villagers are invited to the lavish wedding, held in the castle. But it turns out to be quite different from what they and the audience expect. York is superb. His rich voice, killer smile, and impossibly lean body make him devastatingly sexy. He seduces the viewer with the same ease that enchants everyone in the film. He was among the first to play a gay or bisexual character, and to kiss another man on screen. He would do it again in Cabaret (1972). In 1980, he replaced Richard Gere on Broadway in Bent, playing a gay German imprisoned by the Nazis. Lansbury, soignee and lovely, is

love of the spectacle of theater. The acrobatic man dressed in a business suit and caught airborne in midbackflip above the chaos of a parade in the 50s could be the artist’s alter ego. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players” is a theme that finds its way into numerous pictures. Winogrand was partial to ambiguous, strange groupings of random humanity that convey an alone-in-the-crowd feeling, as well as smaller scenes of quiet desperation like one where a woman barks at her well-heeled male companion seated at the Stork Club, signaling an evening gone wrong despite the uncorked champagne and white tablecloths. After leaving New York and heading West, Winogrand lost his cultural compass and his work its potency, a product of too much open space, perhaps. But he seemed to be invigorated by the sprawling vulgarity of L.A., “a place,” says Rubinfien, “where freedom goes when it goes too far.” It was there that he wove together ruined beauty and despair in the show’s final image, of a shapely platinum blonde lying dead and discarded in the parking lane of Sunset Boulevard as a jazzy Porsche speeds by. Taken shortly before the artist’s death, it’s a knockout punch, a portrait of desolation, and a testament to the ruthlessness with which life goes on. (Through June 2.)t

wonderful. She relishes her splendid lines, delivering them with comic zest. In her distinguished movie career, she seldom played elegant, stylish leads. Her Countess is a welcome change from her customary supporting character roles and very different from Jessica Fletcher. Higgins (billed as Anthony Corlan) is touching as the enamored Helmuth. Konrad has given him a happiness he had never imagined, but it comes at a price. Jane Carr, who would have a very successful TV career (notably in the series Dear John), is an intelligent Lotte, easily underestimated and full of surprises. The clever screenplay is by Harry Kressing and Hugh Wheeler, based on Kressing’s novel The Cook. Florence Klotz, with an uncredited assist from Irene Sharaff, designed the spectacular costumes. John Kandler wrote the original music. The film was neither a critical nor a box office success, although it should have been both. Prince would direct only one other movie, the ill-fated A Little Night Music (1977).t

<< Music

22 • Bay Area Reporter • March 14-20, 2013

Cover stories by Gregg Shapiro

illie Nelson may have got his start as a songwriter of renown (“Crazy,” “Funny How Time Slips Away”), but it was his albums of standards (see 1978’s Stardust and 1982’s Always On My Mind) that brought the “red-headed stranger” some of his greatest crossover success. Throughout the course of Nelson’s lengthy career he has returned to the standards album format, as he does on his latest, Let’s Face the Music and Dance (Legacy). Also credited to Family, Nelson’s band, the 14-track disc is perhaps most fascinating when one considers what songs a songwriter of Nelson’s stature would choose to interpret. Songs such as the title tune, “You’ll Never Know,” “Walking My Baby Back Home,” “I Can’t

Give You Anything But Love” and “I Wish I Didn’t Love You So” take on a certain poignancy when sung by Nelson at nearly 80. Like Nelson, Bettye LaVette has been around awhile. Gay men of a certain age may remember LaVette for her amazing 1978 disco hit “Doin’ the Best That I Can” on the legendary West End Records label. But by that point LaVette had been a recording artist for more than a dozen years, working in the R&B realm. Like a variety of older artists, including Candi Staton, Bobby Womack and Loretta Lynn, LaVette was rediscovered by a younger generation, and in 2005 released I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise, an album of cool covers on the hipster Anti label. Thankful N’Thoughtful (Anti), LaVette’s fourth album for the label, picks up where the oth-

ers left off, with LaVette applying her soulful growl to a set of tunes by established (Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Waits) and younger (Patti Griffin, The Black Keys, Gnarls Barkley) songwriters, with compelling and heartfelt results. Adele’s Oscar win for “Skyfall,” her theme song to the latest James Bond film, has made movie music cool again. It’s hard to imagine that young opera upstart Jackie Evancho would have covered that tune on Songs from the Silver Screen (Columbia/Syco) if it had been made available to her, but it would have been interesting to hear what she would have done with it. Predictably, Evancho stuck with age-appropriate material from The Lion King, Mulan, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Tangled. But hearing a 13-year-old singing “My Heart Will Go On” (from Titanic), “Come What May” (from Moulin Rouge) and “Some Enchanted Evening” (from South Pacific) may give some listeners pause. Far less conventional and nearly indescribable, Petra Haden’s Petra Goes to the Movies (Anti) is essentially vocalese versions of a variety of vintage movie-theme music. Haden provides all-wordless vocals for her unique interpretations of “God’s Lonely Man” (Taxi Driver), “Psycho Main Theme,” “Carlotta’s Gallop” (8 ½) and “Cinema Paradiso,” with illuminating results. On the occasion when she does perform a song with lyrics, as in “Calling You” (Bagdad Café), “This Is

Not America” (The Falcon and the Snowman) or “It Might Be You” (Tootsie), she is joined by top-notch musicians such as Brad Mehldau, (her father) Charlie Haden and Bill Frisell, respectively. Is there nothing the wacky MacFarlane family won’t do for attention? Seth singlehandedly brought down the Oscars, hitting a new all-time low. His kid sister Rachael MacFarlane, who has a history of providing voices for animated characters (including her brother’s shows American Dad and Family Guy), does her thing to a variety of standards on Hayley Sings (Concord/20th Century). While she doesn’t eviscerate any of the songs (we’ll leave that level of destruction to Seth, the pride of Fox), the disc is nothing to write home about. The Living Sisters, formerly a charming trio consisting of established artists Inara George, Eleni Mandell and Becky Stark, follow up their sweet debut disc of originals with Run for Cover (Vanguard), an EP collection of songs written by others. Expanding their membership to include Alex Lilly, the quartet does unexpected and delightful things to songs by George Clinton (“Can You Get to That”) and Dolly Parton (“Jolene”), among others. Rickie Lee Jones has been seriously dabbling with cover tunes since her underrated 1983 EP Girl at Her Volcano, on which she performed distinctive renditions of “Lush Life,” “Walk Away Renee” and “My Funny Valentine.” Produced by

Ben Harper, The Devil You Know (Concord), Jones’ third full-length disc of cover songs, maintains the tradition she established, combining her idiosyncratic vocals with a fascinating selection of material. Standouts include her take on Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” the Rolling Stones’ “Play with Fire” and Donovan’s “Catch the Wind.” A thoughtful and inspired tribute to the late Etta James, Loving You More - In the Spirit of Etta James (Shanachie) by Leela James (no relation) puts a contemporary spin on a set of songs linked to the groundbreaking soul goddess. When it comes to the 1978 movie musical Grease, you either love or hate it. The same can be said for the Fox series Glee. So imagine what happens when two polarizing creations meet face to face, as they do on Glee: The Music presents Glease (Columbia/20th Century). Enough said about that. Arriving in time for both the 35th anniversary reissue of Rumours and the announcement of a tour, the Fleetwood Mac tribute disc Just Tell Me That You Want Me (Hear Music) features an unusual cross-section of artists performing songs from the course of the Mac’s recording career. The best of the set includes “Landslide” by queer artist Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons), “Rhiannon” by Best Coast, “Angel” by Marianne Faithfull, “That’s All for Everyone” by Tame Impala and “Gypsy” by Gardens & Villas.t

Propulsive ‘Cesare’ by Tim Pfaff

andel’s Julius Caesar, too, came, saw, and conquered. The probably gay composer himself revived his 1724 opera Giulio Cesare in Egitto three times. It was one of the first of his 40-plus operatic masterpieces to clear 20th-century airspace, make a secure landing, and establish a regular flight schedule, now heading a list of the dozen Handel operas in the working repertoires of international opera companies. At the outset of the Handel tercentenary in 1985, the idea of Giulio Cesare at the Met would have been less imaginable than onstage elephants in Aida, but these days it’s easier to cast than Aida is. To prove the point, the Met’s refashioning of David McVicar’s Glyndebourne production, with out gay countertenor David Daniels as Caesar (a role he already has sung at the War Memorial), will reach an international audience in the live HD telecast of April 27. Giulio Cesare has as often been buried as praised in the studio, despite its praises having been sung more than 50 times. The Handel audience is, like Caesar’s Gaul, divided into three parts (at least), and there may never be a single, go-to recording of the work all can agree is the best. But one that enters the fray as indispensible is the recently released Giulio Cesare (Naïve) led by out Handel specialist Alan Curtis.

The recording, taped in 2011, benefits not only from the creative lifetime Curtis has spent plumbing the musical and dramatic depths of Handel’s operas, but also from his deep, hands-on knowledge of the whole range of “figured-bass opera.” In his fine note, Olivier Rouviere argues persuasively that the work has had its staying power because Handel drew from the disparate operatic traditions in which he worked; they constitute the palette from which Curtis paints. He notes that his Giulio Cesare is the first to honor Handel’s tempo markings. Lest that read as just another helping of the most overcooked porridge in historical performance, original tempos, it’s the first account of this Wagner-length opera in my experience never to seem overlong. It’s propulsive in an innerdirected way, nimble, light on its feet, and never heedless of the text, whose “Venetian” mix of drama and comedy turns out to be a heady brew. This is the most I’ve cared about the people in Giulio Cesare since

Peter Sellars’ riveting production in Boston in the late 1980s. Polar opposite as these two interpretations might seem on the surface, they both See page 26 >>

Music>>

March 14-20, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 23

Concerts before taking it on the road by Philip Campbell

he San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas performed compositions last week that are also scheduled for concerts on the orchestra’s upcoming East Coast tour. Brahms, Beethoven and Samuel Carl Adams (son of John) filled a mostly satisfying if slightly underwhelming program that felt like a very good dress rehearsal. This week the ante is being upped when Davies Symphony Hall will resound with the Mahler Ninth. An MTT & SFS specialty from the massive and historic Mahler project, the composer’s last completed symphony is set for two evenings of the tour: Carnegie Hall on March 21, and closing night at the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC, March 23. Things may be touch-and-go with the tour itself, since the musicians recently voted unanimously to strike if current contract negotiations are not resolved. They have been riding without a contract for about a month now. It is pretty clear they mean business. Every player wore a badge onstage during the concert last week, and a lot of the audience (and even a few DSH workers) sported badges of support as well. Needless to say, there was no hint of acrimony during the performance. The opening Drift and Providence by young Samuel Carl Adams (co-commissioned by the SFS and the New World Symphony) debuted here a mere six months ago, and we have since heard it broadcast live from DSH on one of the orchestra’s weekly radio broadcasts. We liked it from the get-go, and familiarity is deepen-

Felix Broede/DG

Pianist Yuja Wang performed with her usual tasteful artistry.

ing our regard. The work is fresh, modern, inventive and accessible. The titles of the five virtually seamless movements, meant to evoke starting points rather than literally describe the arc of the score, suit the mood and give us insight about the writer’s intentions. Once again, Adams was synthesizing sounds from the orchestra through his laptop during the 20-minute performance, and available for a shy and appreciative bow. Pianist Yuja Wang, a personal and local favorite, will also be traveling with the orchestra for the tour. Her appearance last week playing the Beethoven Fourth was a taste of what East Coast audiences will be hearing, but I imagine her usual flame will be turned up a notch by then. Wang’s customary eloquence and crystalSee page 30 >>

<< Out&About

24 • Bay Area Reporter • March 14-20, 2013

Shamrock shake by Jim Provenzano

ven if you’re not Irish, lots of people like to celebrate St. Back to Life/Back Patrick’s Day in ways that real to Reality. Fri 15. Irish people consider…embarrassing, to say the least. Add to the fact that, pre-sainthood, Patrick allegedly drove “all the snakes” out of Ireland, which is an island, and therefore difficult for snakes to emigrate to (i.e., there probably weren’t that many to begin with). But the snake symbol may mean more about pre-Christian symbolism, and its demise after Paddy all-but forced his religion on the Pagan of all Pagan isles. Even the shamrock, considered a symbol of earthy connections, was deceptively re-symbolized as that of the Christian trinity. Basically, it’s all a hoax whipped up by the Catholic Church. So forget the green beer. Attend some inebriatingly beautiful arts events, dance up a storm, or drink somewhere without the blarney.

Thu 14 Alfred Hitchcock Films @ Pacific Film Archive Screenings of the major works of the master of cinematic suspense. March 14: Vertigo (7pm). Thru April 24. $5.50$13.50. UC Berkeley Art Museum, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 642-1124. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Altan @ Yoshi’s Oakland Celtic band celebrates 25 years and a new CD of traditional Irish music. $20-$30. 8pm & 10pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square. (510) 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

Big River @ College of Marin

Human Rights International Film Fest @ YBCA Weekly screenings of compelling films about worldwide rights struggles. This week, Bidder 70, about civil disobedience and climate change. $8-$10. 7:30pm. Thru Mar. 28. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. www.ybca.org

A Lady and a Woman @ Eureka Theatre Theatre Rhinoceros presents Shirlene Holmes’ two-character drama about a late-19th-century African American lesbian couple. $15-$30. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 3pm. Thru Mar. 24. 215 Jackson St. (800) 8383006. www.therhino.org

Laughs @ The Lookout Comics Ronn Vigh, Natasha Muse, Charlie Ballard, Bebe Sweetbriar, Pippi Lovestocking, Yuri Kagan and Justin Lucas do gay stand-up; Valerie Branch MCs. $10. 10pm. 16th St. at Market. www.lookoutsf.com

Roger Miller and William Hauptman’s Broadway hit musical, based on Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, gets a local student production. $10$25. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Mar. 17. James Dunn Theatre, 835 College Ave., Kenfield Campus, 485-9385. www.marin. edu/departments/PerformingArts

Sounds; gay

usic by for and in some cases, about, LGBT folks gets a sound off this week. – J.P.

City of Tomorrow. Fri 15.

The Tubes @ Yoshi’s Theatrical 70s-80s rock band (“White Punks on Dope”) returns, featuring Fee Waybill. $30-$34. 8pm. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Shih Chieh Huang @ YBCA Taiwanese artist’s colorful installations create sculptural ecosystems from found objects. $8-$12. Exhibit thru June 30. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St. 979-2787. www.ybca.org

Wanderlust @ Oddball Films The Romance of Transportation, a collection of retro short airline films and promos. 8pm. March 15, 8pm: Learn Your Lesson, Scott Baio, excerpts from the actor’s AfterSchool Specials. Each $10. 275 Capp St. 558-8117. www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Fri 15 Better Than You @ The Marsh Kurt Bodden’s satirical solo show pokes fun at self-help gurus. $15-$50. Fri 8pm. Sat 8:30pm. Thru Mar. 30. 1062 Valencia St. at 22nd. 826-5750. www.themarsh.org

Back to Life/ Back to Reality @ Abada Capoeira School The House of Aviance presents a house ball, with vogueing, dancing and utter fabulousness. Performances by A Dance and others; DJs include Gehno Aviance (House of Aviance), Steve Fabus and Sergio Fedasz (Go Bang and many other events). 8pm: Paris is Burning. 9:30pm- runway ball. 12am dance party. $10-$15. 3221 22nd St. www.theadance.com

Trebor Healey

Judy Grahn. Thu 14.

Judy Grahn @ Modern Times Bookstore The acclaimed lesbian author reads from and discusses her new memoir, A Simple Revolution: The Making of an Activist Poet, which also documents the women’s and gay rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s. 6pm. 2919

CAAMfest @ Various Venues The Center for Asian American Media’s annual film festival, which includes several films with LGBT characters, themes and directors ( Bejing Flickers, Someone I Used to Know, The Cheer Ambassadors, Sunset Stories and others). Opening night includes a screening of Linsanity at the Castro Theatre (429 Castro St.) and a party at the Asian Art Museum (200 Larkin St.). $12$175. Thru Mar. 24. Various venues and times. www.caamfest.com/2013

Little Shop of Horrors @ Regents Theatre, Oakland Producers Associates stage a local version of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s hit Off-Broadway musical based on the 1950s Roger Corman film, about a talking alien carnivorous plant, and the nerd who grows it. $30-$50. Thu-Sat 7pm. Sun 2pm. Thru March 24. Valley Center for the Performing Arts, Holy Name University, 3500 Mountain Blvd, Oakland. (510) 339-0241. www.woodminster.com

Trebor Healey @ Various Venues One of SF’s gay lit prodigal sons (A Horse Named Sorrow, Faun ) returns for a series of readings and events. Mar. 14, 7pm: ‘Why There Are Words,’ with six other authors, Studio 333, 333 Caldonia St, Sausalito. www.whytherearewords.com Mar. 18, 7pm: WordWeek’s ‘LGBT Authors Read From New Work,’ with Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Michael Alenyikov, Ali Liebegott and Dylan Edwards, at Caskhouse Brewpub, 3853 24th St. www.friendsofnoevalley.com. Wed, Mar. 20, 8pm: Smack Dab, co-hosted by Larry-bob Roberts and Kirk Read, with open mic., at Magnet, 4122 18th St. www. magnetsf.org Mar. 21, 7:30pm, a reading and talk with local gay mystery author Mark Abramson, at Books Inc., 2275 Market St. www.booksinc.net www.treborhealey.com

ODC Dance Downtown @ YBCA The vibrant local dance company performs two world premieres and three 2012 favorite works by Brenda Way, KT Nelson and Kate Weare (in two programs). Opening night gala March 14 with a dinner and post-show party at the St. Regis ($150 and up). Special LGBT night out March 22, with a pre-show reception at 6:30pm (free/ RSVP online). $20-$75. Wed/Thu 7:30pm. Fri/Sat 8pm. Sun 4pm. Thru Mar. 24. Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard St. www.odctheater.org

San Francisco City Chorus @ Lakeside Presbyterian Handel’s Samson (a free adaptation of John Milton’s play Samson Agoniste ) and Bright Seraphim are performed. $12-$20 (K-12 students free). 8pm. 201 Eucalyptus Drive. www.sfcitychorus.org

San Francisco Lesbian/ Gay Freedom Band @ Ebenezer HerChurch Dr. Martin H. Seggelke conducts Johan de Meij’s 1988 Symphony No. 1 Lord of the Rings, performed by the 70-piece band (this is not the film soundtrack). Free. 8pm. 678 Portola Drive. Also March 17, 4pm, at Temple Isaiah, 945 Risa Road, Lafayette. www.sflgfb.org

City of Tomorrow @ Old First Church The “retro-futurist” wind quartet (who’ve won awards, and whose ensemble includes a lesbian and trans musician) performs contemporary and early modern works by Keeley, Berio, Milhaud and Lindberg. $14$17. 1751 Sacramento St. www.oldfirstconcerts.org

Hedwig and the Angry Inch @ Boxcar Theatre New local production of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s popular transgender rock operetta, with multiple actorsingers performing the lead, including Jason Brock, Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, Arturo Galster and Trixxie Carr. $25-$40. Wed-Sat 8pm. Also Sat 5pm. Extended thru April 13. 505 Natoma St. 967-2227. www.boxcartheatre.org

The Chairs @ Exit Theatre Cutting Ball Theater’s production of Eugene Ionesco’s new translation of the satirical play about some allegedly priceless chairs, and the greedy connivers who fight over them. $10-$50. Thu 7:30pm. Fri-Sat 8pm. Sat also 2pm. Sun 5pm. Thru Mar. 31. 277 Taylor St. 525-1205. www.cuttingball.com

Dead Metaphor @ A.C.T. American Conservatory Theatre’s world premiere of George F. Walker’s dark comedy about the politics of postwar life for a modern-day war veteran. Special pre- and post-show programs thru the run. $20$85.Tue-Sat 8pm. Wed, Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Mar. 24. 415 Geary St. 749-2228. www.act-sf.org

Fallaci @ Berkeley Rep Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright/journalist Lawrence Wright’s intriguing twoperson play dramatizes an interview with real-life journalist Oriana Fallaci, whose career included ferocious questions put to world leaders, but who reacts differently when the pointed questions are aimed at her. $14.50-$89. Tue, Thu-Sat 8pm. Wed & Sun 7pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru April 21. Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

Greedy Lying Bastards @ Various Cinemas Craig Rosebraugh’s documentary about the greed and profit-focused deterrents to addressing global warming and climate change. At AMC Metreon 16, Grand Lake (Oakland) and other Bay Area movie theatres. www.greedylyingbastards.com

House of Floyd @ Yoshi’s Pink Floyd tribute band performs Dark Side of the Moon and selections from The Wall (8pm) and Animals (10pm). $24 each. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Trisha Brown Dance Company @ Zellerbach Hall Celebrated post-Modern choreographer’s company performs her final two pieces, Les Yeux et l’âme and I’m going to toss my arms—if you catch them, they’re yours, a Bay Area and California premiere respectively, along with a restaged work from her muscular 1980s repertory, Newark (Niweweorce). $30-$68. 8pm. Bancroft Way at Telegraph Ave., UC Berkeley campus. (510)642-9988. www.calperformance.org

Out&About >>

Labayen Dance/SF @ Dance Mission Theatre Enrico Labayen's Rites of Spring, Awit ng Pag-Ibig (Love Songs) and dance works by guest artist Malu Rivera-Peoples and others are performed. $20-$25. 8pm. Also Mar. 16, 8pm & Mar. 17, 7:30pm. 3316 24th St. at Mission. 826-4441. www.labayendancesf.org

The Lisbon Traviata @ New Conservatory Theatre The gay theatre company performs Terrence McNally’s (newly revised) darkly comic play about obsessed gay opera fans and their entangled relationships. $22-$44. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Mar. 24. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. 861-8972. www.nctcsf.org

The Real Americans @ The Marsh Berkeley Dan Hoyle returns with his acclaimed solo show with multiple characters based on his travels to the most liberal and conservative regions of America. $25-$50. Fri 8pm. Sat 5pm. Thru April 6. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. 826-5760. www.themarsh.org

March 14-20, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 25

Bay Area Rainbow Symphony @ SF Conservatory of Music The inclusive symphony performs works by LGBTQ composers and musicians: Maestra Jessica Bejarano returns to BARS as guest conductor, opening the program with Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz’s Overture for Orchestra. Piano virtuoso Daniel Glover performs Rachmaninov’s Concerto No. 2 with the orchestra, and Bejarano and the ensemble conclude with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. $15-$35. 8pm. 50 Oak St. (800) 595-4TIX. www.bars-sf.org

Royal Treasures from the Louvre @ Legion of Honor Exhibit of decorative arts, most never seen in the U.S., from the reigns of Louis XIV to Marie-Antoinette, from the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Free-$20. Tue-Sun 9:30am5:15pm. Thru March 31. Lincoln Park, 34th Ave and Clement St. 750-3600. www.legionofhonor.org

Daniel Glover with Bay Area Rainbow Symphony. Sat 16.

Tarot: Art of Fortune @ Modern Eden Gallery Opening reception for a large group show of 75 artists’ interpretations of the entire deck of Rider-Waite Tarot cards. 6pm10pm. Thru April 9. Tue-Sat 10am-6pm. 403 Francisco St. 956-3303. www.moderneden.com

Sun 17 Girl With a Pearl Earring @ de Young Museum Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis, a new touring exhibit of Dutch Masters paintings, drawing and etching; Thru June 2. Also, Eye Level in Iraq: Photographs by Kael Alford and Thorne Anderson, thru June 16. Also, Objects of Belief from the Vatican, thru Sept 8. Also, artist fellows Andy Diaz Hope and Laurel Roth’s triptych mural, The Conflicts, a contemporary tribute to the historic Unicorn Tapestries. $10-$25. Tue-Sun 9:30am-5:15pm. (til 8:45pm Fridays) Thru Dec. 30. Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. 7503600. www.famsf.org

The Makem & Spain Brothers @ Yoshi’s Oakland Folk band performs traditional American music. $20. 7pm. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square. (510) 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

Michelle Shocked @ Yoshi’s Folk-rock singer performs live. $22-$25. 7pm. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Miranda Sings @ Live at the Rrazz Quirky comic singer performs live. $17.50$25. 7pm. 1000 Van Ness Ave. (800) 380-3095. www.liveattherrazz.com

SF Hiking Club @ San Bruno Mountain Join GLBT hikers for an 11-mile St. Pat’s Day meander through hill, glen and brae on the monolithic San Bruno Mountain on SF’s southern edge; along several small trails into a larger figure-8 hike on the way to the top and back down. Carpool meets 9:00 at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. 837-8990. www.sfhiking.com

St. Patrick’s Day Celebration @ Starry Plough, Berkeley 40th annual marathon concert of authentic Irish music, with Fergus, McBride Irish Dancers of California, plus a traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner ($12). No green beer, no phony accents! $10. All ages 4pm-10pm. 21+ after (til 1:30am). 3101 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 8412082. www.starryploughpub.com

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room

The Ruling Class @ UC Berkeley Student production of Peter Barnes’ 1968 dark comedy about a Brit who inherits his father’s lordship, money and Parlaiment slot, but instead wants to help the poor and donate his inheritance. $10-$15. ThuSat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Mar 17. Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Berkeley campus. (510) 642-8827. www.tdps.berkeley.edu

The Waiting Period @ The Marsh Brian Copeland returns with his popular solo show about chronic depression and his near-suicidal thoughts while awaiting a gun permit. $30-$50. Fri 8pm. Sat 5pm. Thru Mar. 30 (100th performance!). 1062 Valencia St. at 22nd. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Sat 16 As You Like It @ La Val’s Subterranean, Berkeley Impact Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s crossdressing romantic comedy. $10-$25. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru Mar. 30. 1834 Euclid Ave., Berkeley. impacttheatre.com

Bareto @ Yoshi’s Eclectic Peruvian jazz-pop band performs. $30-$50. 8pm & 10pm. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Batman on Robin @ Mission Comics & Art Group exhibit of erotic Batman and Robin artwork that outs them as a gay couple, with works by several local artists. Reg hours 12pm-8pm (6pm Sun). 3520 20th St. 695-1545. www.missioncomicsandart.com

The Big Gay Train @ Napa Wineries

Donna Sachet and Harry Denton host the weekly fabulous 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

Mon 18 Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni's Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht (aka Trauma Flintstone). 9pm-1:30am. 4 Valencia St. at Market.

Rita Moreno @ Berkeley Rep

Enjoy Out in the Vineyard’s luxury fivecourse dinner party aboard a vintage train that stops at four scenic Napa Valley gayowned wineries; after-party at Bank Bar at the Westin Versa Napa Valley. $160-$175. 6pm-9:30pm. www.outinthevineyard.com

The Oscar, Grammy, Tony, and two-time Emmy award winning actress, in conversation with radio journalist Michael Krasny, discusses her newly published memoir. Free/limited seating. 7:30pm. Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org

Kehinde Wiley @ Contemp. Jewish Museum

The Taming of the Shrew @ Café Royale

New exhibit, The World Stage: Israel, a series of vibrant portraits of Middle Eastern and African men, created by the gay artist. Other exhibits ongoing. Free (members)-$12. ThuTue 11am-5pm (Thu 1pm-8pm) 736 Mission St. 655-7800. www.thecjm.org

SF Theater Pub’s immersive performance of Shakespeare’s comic battle of the sexes. 8pm. Also Mar. 19, 25 & 27. 800 Post St. at Leavenworth. 441-4099. www.sftheaterpub.wordpress.com

Jon Macy’s art in QU33R. Tue 19.

Ten Percent @ Comcast 104 David Perry’s talk show about LGBT people and issues. This week, Perry speaks with Frank Stenglein and Nick Sabatasso from Bridgemen, a community building project for gay and bisexual men; acclaimed photographer Duane Cramer; and Project Runway winner Mondo Guerra. Mon-Fri 11:30am & 10:30pm. Sat & Sun 10:30pm. www.comcasthometown.com

Word Week @ Noe Valley Friends of Noe Valley present a seven-day festival of Noe Valley-based and nearby authors, reading, speaking and selling their books; including LGBT authors night March 18, 7pm at Caskhouse, 3853 24th St., with Michael Aleynikov, Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Dylan Edwards, Trebor Healey and Ali Liebegott. ‘How I Got My Book Published,’ Thu., March 21, 7pm at Savor Restaurant, 3913 24th St., with Karen Joy Fowler, Thaisa Frank, Jim Provenzano and Rob Rosen. Gay author Alvin Orloff is one of several authors reading at the Festival, where many writers will be selling their books; March 23, 2pm-5pm at St. Philip’s Church Hall, 725 Diamond St. at 24th. www.friendsofnoevalley.com

Conversation 6 @ SF Arts Commission Gallery SF-based Jason Hanasik and Amsterdam artist Berndnaut Smilde’s dual installation about home, dislocation and impermanence, which includes Smild’e fascinating indoor clouds. Special artist talk March 20, 6pm-7:30pm: Smilde, Melissa Buron (de Young Museum) and Doug Richard (Google Street View artist). Thru April 27. Main gallery, 401 Van Ness, Veterans Bldg. Hours Wed-Sat 12pm-5pm. www.sfartscommission.org

Legendary @ GLBT History Museum African American GLBT Past Meets Present, an exhibit focusing on African American words, images and sounds that connect inspirational commentary by local queer community leaders with historic artifacts. Thru April 2013. Also, Migrating Archives: LGBT Delegates From Collections Around the World features historical items from nearly a dozen countries and archives. $5. Reg hours Mon & Wed-Sat 11am-7pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistorymuseum.org

Litany

amous and prolific gay and lesbian authors (including yours truly) read from and discuss their work, at local bookstores, and as part of a week-long festival of events in scenic Noe Valley. – J.P.

Tue 19 Gay Men's Sketch @ Magnet Group exhibit of drawings made at the gay men’s sketch group that celebrates 25 years of drawing sessions at Mark I. Chester’s studio. Thru March. 581-1600. www.magnetsf.org

Patti Lupone @ Live at the Rrazz Legendary Broadway star ( Gypsy, Evita ) performs Far Away Places, a musical journey of her travels, with songs by Sondheim, Cole Porter, Kurt Weill and others. $55-$75. 8pm. Also Mar 20-22, 8pm. Mar 23, 7pm & 9:30pm. Mar 24, 7pm. 1000 Van Ness Ave. (800) 380-3095. www.liveattherrazz.com

QU33R Book Party @ Alley Cat Books Comic artist contributors Justin Hall ( Glamazonia ), Tyler Cohen ( Primahood ) Dylan Edwards ( Transposes ), Jon Macy ( Fearful Hunter) and Mari Naomi ( Kiss and Tell ) will attend a pop-up party and preview for the Rob Kirby-edited comics anthology. 7pm9pm. 3036 24th St. 824-1761. www.dogearedbooks.com

Wed 20 Dawn Richard @ Yoshi’s Lead singer of Danity Kane performs songs from her solo album. $20-$24. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Labayen Dance. Fri 15.

Sheila E. @ Yoshi’s Oakland Fab drummer-singer (“The Glamorous Life”) performs with her band. $28-$35. 8pm & 10pm. Also Mar 21 & 22. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square. (510) 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

Thu 21 Comedy Bodega @ Esta Nocha The weekly LGBT and indie comic stand-up night. 8pm-9:30pm. 3079 16th St. www.comedybodega.com

Dot 429 @ Hyatt Regency The gay & lesbian professionals group hosts a cocktail & appetizer reception, with celebrity chef Yigit Pura. Proceeds benefit the LGBT Center. $35-$45. 6pm-9pm. 5 Embarcadero Center, 3rd floor Atrium lobby. www.dot429.com

Freddie Jackson @ Yoshi’s Grammy-nominated vocalist performs. $25-$42. 8pm & 10pm. Also Mar. 22. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

To submit event listings, email jim@ebar.com. Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication. For more bar and nightlife events, go to www.bartabsf.com

<< Society

26 • Bay Area Reporter • March 14-20, 2013

We love the nightlife!

by Donna Sachet

onday night’s inaugural San Francisco Nitey Awards brought together nightlife-lovers from far and wide to the Castro Theatre! The red carpet was rolled out, the Sailor Jerry Rum airstream mobile home greeted VIP guests, and the upstairs reception was a who’s who of city partygoers, including Mark Rhoades, Jeff Doney, Alix Rosenthal, Anaconda, La Moni Stat, Mutha Chucka, Audrey Joseph, Janine Shiota, and Terrance Alan. Once inside, the awards show experienced some minor technical difficulties, but nothing too much for able co-emcees Liam Mayclem and Renee Richardson, trophy presenter Kenshi Westover, and a diverse group of presenters, including Demetri Moshayannis, Cassandra Cass, Patrick Gallineaux, and Myles O’Reilly. Award-winners ranged from Best Dance Club Ruby Skye, Best Gay Dance Club Beat Box, and Best Gay Bar Lookout, to Best Hotel Bar Chambers at the Phoenix, Best Transportation Company Uber, and Most Notable Drag Queen Sister Roma, who graciously shared the honor with this humble columnist. Many of the attendees tumbled down the street to a lively post-party at the long-shuttered Patio on Castro Street, where every eye was anxious to get a more thorough glimpse inside. After a lackluster Hollywood Academy Awards show the week before, all in all, the Nitey Awards are off to a great start! Wednesday night took us over the Golden Gate Bridge to Tiburon and the gorgeous home of Gus & Bahya Oumlil-Murad, where a cordial group, including Mark Calvano, Joel Goodrich, Heidi Betz, Alex Rivera, and Richard Sablatura, showed their support for Shanti. Coming up on Saturday, April 13, is Shanti’s Breast Cancer Program’s Speakeasy cocktail celebration at the Old Mint, a unique and perfect location for this themed event. But this night’s main topic was Shanti’s annual fall gala Compassion is Universal, celebrating 38 years of service, coming on October 9. That makes Shanti one of the very first San Francisco organizations to address the AIDS epidemic, beginning back in 1974 and still delivering essential services to thousands of individuals with hundreds of peer volunteers, now under the leadership of charming Kaushik Roy. Mark your calendars for both events. The Victoria Theatre in the Mission was the perfect location for Robbie Wayne’s production of Pageant – The Musical! This adaptable musical has seen many lives since its 1991 off-Broadway debut, but last Friday’s packed house adored this slick cast, including local drag favorites Cookie Dough and Daft-Nee Gesuntheit. From evening gowns and bathing suits to talent competition and spokesmodel demos, these gals pulled out all the stops with their appropriately cheesy host for a rollicking good time. Among the other

Giulio Cesare

From page 22

capture the ribaldry alongside the dead-seriousness of the story – and take the trouble to tell a story. Curtis opts for the mezzo rather than the countertenor Caesar, and Marie-Nicole Lemieux’s dusky, lowlying voice relishes the assignment. Sometimes the grueling coloratura gets the best of her (a haphazard “Al

Steven Underhill

Woman about town Donna Sachet poses with a special friend during a recent event at the Castro Theatre.

Steven Underhill

Actor/dancer Vincent Rodriguez III flying high above the Castro. His credits include the national tours of Anything Goes, Xanadu and 42nd St.

theatre-goers were Frankie Fernandez & Saybeline, Tora Hymen, Erin Lavery & Erin McCarthy, Lexicize Lexiliving, and Reigning Emperor Drew Cutler. Afterwards, Nitey Award-winning BeatBox beckoned us to Locoya Hill’s third monthly #HOMO dance party, where we reunited with Steven Satyricon, Gib Bolton, Christopher Vasquez, Tony Arsan, Leo DaSilva, Andrew Gibbons, Kevin Lisle, and returning Down Under travelers

Brian Kent and Suzan Revah. Resident DJ Russ Rich found just the right balance to keep the crowd on their feet all night, as the laser lights and other special effects, friendly staff, and spacious setting all reminded us of why we love BeatBox! Next #HOMO is Friday, March 12! Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all! Emperor Frankie & Empress Saybeline with David Slack host a party from 5-8 p.m. at OMG, 43 6th Street, and bars all over the Castro will be serving specialty drinks and donning green for the day. Remember, everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!t

lampo dell’armi”), while at other times it fits her like a suit of armor (“Se in fiorito ameno prato,” with the zippy violin obbligato of Il Complesso Barocco’s new “concertmaster” Dmitry Sinkovsky). She touches the same third-act-Tristan note Jeffrey Gall did, in Boston, in Caesar’s own “per pieta” (“Aure, deh”) in the genuinely moving final act. No Cesare can be victorious without a defining Cleopatra, and Karin

Gauvin has the torturous part so securely in her voice she can train her entire attention on the development – and fine-shading – of the entrancing character. Her “Per pieta,” at the opera’s fulcrum and emotional core, is almost uncomfortably involving, and her shrewd, affecting negotiation of the short but soprano-cadaverlined road between the last act’s “Piangero” and “Da tempesta” revels in See page 27 >>

Karrnal >>

March 14-20, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 27

Knack sacks

manlike, until Diaz climbs atop the dazzle dick for an exciting RC. His darker skin squeezing round the pink of Paddy makes a swell visual, and where it’s usually Paddy pounding rapid-fire power jabs into a partner, now it’s Diaz who whacks his body onto Paddy’s piston. When Diaz tires, Paddy starts his famed machine-gun poking. I swore I’d never write, “OMG,” but OMG, this vertical pumping into Diaz’ butt is a popper hit to the eyes. Nonetheless, it’s a performance. How do you personally engage a guy like Paddy? You partner him up with Trenton Ducati, and get a scene that

by John F. Karr

e come right up-to-date with the pleasurable viewing of Falcon’s recent Seduced and the brand-new Sun Kissed. Tony Dimarco joined Bruno Bond to co-direct Seduced, and the result’s as basically sunny and a little rougher than Bond’s Dripping Wet #4, covered in last week’s B.A.R. Its feisty action is well-matched by Dominic Pacifico’s bouncy music, and the performers are front-rank. I’d advise you to disregard the various controversies about the seemingly troubled Spencer Fox that swirl around the porn blogs, and enjoy his rowdy, expert performance with Calvin Koons that launches Seduced. Koons is a delicious bundle of youthful butch who has an all-star cock and a fabulous knack for receiving a fuck. Fox, a str8 performer who doesn’t seem to actually have much bi in him, nonetheless shows a level of engagement with his co-stars that you don’t get with a similar performer, Paddy O’Brian, whom we’ll be considering in a couple paragraphs. Fox also lays a massive load on Koons’ tongue, an oral cum-shot that could feed a family of five. Well-packed muscle blond Charlie Harding throws his weight at Dylan Roberts, and young cutie Aaron Blake shows his wiles in making it seem like stern top D.O. is doing the seducing in their scene. D.O.’s fucking technique is formidable, and Blake’s tender ass is ha-cha-cha. I was more partial to Johnny Ryder topping Tanner Wayne. Ryder’s very stiff cock gets mighty fine display, and though the scene’s not a top thriller, the guys are hot to look at and have pretty hot sex. I’m also partial to a title like Sun Kissed, which promises warmth and a good time. And that’s what Sun Kissed delivers, in Falcon’s familiar and plush wine-country setting. I’m a little curious about the film’s line-up of scenes. It’s unusual, perhaps unprecedented, for a per-

Courtesy Falcon

In his first mainstream movie, young cutie Aaron Blake hits the box cover for Falcon’s Seduced.

former to be featured in three scenes of a four-scene DVD. That’s the honor given Paddy O’Brian in Sun Kissed. Are these Paddy’s last scenes for Falcon? Why isn’t the work of such a popular performer spread out over a couple movies? Is it because only one of the scenes is of the front rank? I’ll never get over the wonder of Paddy’s face, form, and phallus. He’s truly a feast for the eyes. His moves are arresting, and his performances wow –

but are so exactly the same each time out that it seems a patented routine. And piling up three of his offerings shows that his ultimate effectiveness depends almost entirely on his partners. Paddy’s opening scene with Edin Sol is close to filler. Paddy goes through his routine – he’s worshipped, then throws a hot fuck. Sol sucks cock well, but the kid’s too passive, and actually a little too plain to be much of a foil for his top. Ray Diaz comes off better – he’s got some chops of his own, and works hard. Yet their fuck is work-

Courtesy Falcon

Trenton Ducati (left) pushes Paddy O’Brian over the top in Falcon’s Sun Kissed.

Giulio Cesare

From page 26

the artistic freedom that comes from musical discipline. Giulio Cesare aficionados care as much about Cornelia and Sesto as they do about the glamor pair, and Romina Basso and up-and-coming Hungarian soprano Emoke Barath rise to their assignments, turning their eagerly awaited duet at the end of the long first act to an act of mindmeld far more compelling than the

gushy canary croon lesser singers settle for. Johannes Weisser, the wunderkind Don Giovanni of a few years ago, is a slippery-voiced but dramatically threedimensional Achilla. Filippo Mineccia gets through the role of Tolomeo, but without the vocal cunning to pull off the joke Curtis sagely finds in it. In an almost eerie cross-label substitution, fellow countertenor Xavier Sabata creates a complete character out of two short Tolomeo arias in his new Handel Bad Guys CD (Aparte).

Curtis’ long-term, always morphing instrumental ensemble Il Complesso Barocco works at full throttle, playing in keen responsiveness to the singers as well as to Curtis. One of the joys of this set is for once not having to brace oneself for the entrances of the horns (they’re wonderful) in an opera that makes considerable, pointed use of them. For anyone wondering why Curtis has taken so long to get to this Handel high-water mark, the answer is in this penetrating performance.t

ranks high on a short list of Paddy’s “Best Of.” Ducati’s not at all passive. He impales his face on Paddy’s fatty when the top face-fucks him, and when Paddy drives it mercilessly up his ass, he takes it with noisy vigor. Where the other scenes sustained a plateau, Trenton’s reactions escalate things over the top, and Paddy’s usual poke becomes a frenzied St. Vitus dance. And when he explodes, cum graces Trenton’s tongue and drips off his chin. In the movie’s only non-Paddy scene, the fantastic Tate Ryder – titanium cock and exotic beauty – flips fabulously with Shane Frost. www.FalconStudios.comt

<< Film

28 • Bay Area Reporter • March 14-20, 2013

Environmental action heroes by David Lamble

hould we flood the Sistine Chapel so tourists can get nearer to the ceiling?” This pointed barb comes up early in director Mark Kitchell’s A Fierce Green Fire, an ambitious and at times thrilling attempt to document the history of a worldwide environmental movement that the filmmakers claim may be the single most vital mass political cause in modern times. The joke is a reference to all those dams constructed in the thirsty Western half of this country in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Opens Friday in the Bay Area.) Divided into five acts, the movie has five celebrity narrators identified with environmentally themed films, starting with Robert Redford (A River Runs Through It) and ending with Meryl Streep (Silkwood). A Fierce Green Fire kicks off with the account of an ancient but fierce water battle recently rekindled on the San Francisco election ballot. After the 1906 earthquake, when a good portion of the city burned down due to low water pressure, a move sprang up to dam the Hetch Hetchy valley in Yosemite National Park. The plan by the Forest Service was ferociously opposed by the Sierra Club under

John Muir, who compared flooding nature’s treasures with desecrating a religious shrine. The dam folks won out, and modern San Francisco got its famously pure water supply, Redford noting that Muir died a few years later, “reportedly of a broken heart.” The memory of their loss at Hetch Hetchy would not be forgotten at the Sierra Club, and years later under an even more resolute leader, Berkeley-born David Brower, the conservationists would exact their revenge. The occasion was the Johnson Administration’s mid-60s plan to flood the nation’s natural cathedral, the Grand Canyon. Employing mass actions, witty newspaper ads (spiced by the Sistine Chapel joke) and a take-no-prisoners attitude, Brower would prevail, but at a price. As detailed by the filmmakers, and documented in an astute profile by New Yorker writer John McPhee (Encounters with the Archdruid), Brower would come to be viewed in the mainstream as an environmental extremist for his resolute opposition to “progress” and support for population control. “Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license.”

First Run Features

Greenpeace activist Bob Hunter aboard the Phyllis, from director Mark Kitchell’s A Fierce Green Fire.

My favorite environmental action was to pass along a copy of McPhee’s Brower book to one of those cute boys who periodically dot my neighborhood with clipboards, “panhandling” for the environment. A Fierce Green Fire stands with Brower in holding politicians in low repute when it comes to protecting Spaceship Earth. The film’s next

act resonates with irony as the one politician getting high marks is none other than Richard M. Nixon, for creating the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and signing clear air and water bills. The hapless Jimmy Carter is roasted for his record on what would prove to be a turning point in the fight against toxic waste dumping, the battle over Love Canal. The discovery by housewives in the Western New York community that their neighborhood had been poisoned by the dumping of more than 20,000 tons of toxic materials into a nearby industrial canal – in the process producing exotic birth defects like kids with extra fingers, toes and rows of teeth – would lead to a publicity black eye for Carter, as the women temporarily held two of his EPA officials hostage pending his agreement to buy their pollutionruined homes. The doc then shifts its focus from the US to worldwide battles. Particularly stirring is the chapter on the rise of the Greenpeace movement, as the kids offering up their bodies to save endangered sperm whales come to learn that Russian whaling crews have nothing but contempt for Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence. It’s at this point that the film starts

to drift from actions familiar to an American audience. The filmmakers do make a strong case for the principle that successful actions are grass roots-based, not top-down. In a final cautionary note, Streep asserts that the latest environmental crisis, global warming and the resulting climate change, may be a dilemma too big for traditional save-the-planet groups. A Fierce Green Fire derives its earcatching title from the comment by an environmentally aware hunter observing the life drain from the eyes of a female wolf he had just shot. As is impeccably documented here, the environmental movement has for the past 50 years pretty much rocked along, responding to each crisis as it comes along like some kind of fire brigade. As one “tree hugger” defiantly declares, “The recent discovery of an ozone hole over Antarctica should make an environmentalist out of anybody.” Humankind’s historic fecklessness in the face of dangers that can be ignored should be noted. As Whole Earth Catalogue founder Stewart Brand reminds us, saving the planet got a huge boost from NASA-generated pictures showing a green and apparently vibrant earth floating over a barren moon.t

DVD >>

Memorial days by David Lamble

irector Andy Abrahams Wilson explores the storm of controversy that unexpectedly envelops a beloved if little-known Bay Area memorial in The Grove. Originally created by a hardy band of volunteers as a serene way to remember friends and lovers lost to AIDS, the AIDS Memorial Grove had its profile significantly raised in 1996 when Rep. Nancy Pelosi obtained for it the status of a national memorial (one of 44). This perk became rather pesky when a band of AIDS activists raised questions as to why visitors to Golden Gate Park discover the leafy, sequestered memorial largely by acci-

dent. An internal battle to raise the profile of the Grove by erecting a Vietnam Veterans-style memorial there provoked a public squabble, with volunteers threatening to sit down in front of the bulldozers. To his credit, Wilson gives both sides of the flap a fair hearing, while making it clear which side he favors. A crucial moment has backers of a design competition parading their handiwork before Pelosi, who, as one participant notes, has a pained expression on her face, as if she had just been stabbed in the neck. This is a complex, moving exploration of an overlooked local landmark. Bonus features: 45 minutes of

bonus footage, deleted scenes, filmmaker chats, trailers, discussion guide, and closed captions.t

Books >>

Academically kinky

by Jim Piechota

exual Outsiders by David M. Ortmann and Richard Sprott; Rowman & Littlefield, $34 For the legion who fully embrace it, a BDSM (bondage/discipline/ sadism/masochism) proclivity is so much more than simply donning leather chaps and polished black boots while winding your way through the beautiful throngs at the Folsom Street Fair. It is a way of life, yet it can also remain a mystery for the uninitiated. Psychotherapist David Ortmann and research psychotherapist Richard Sprott, both Bay Area residents, are here to help. In their important new book Sexual Outsiders, they use their clinical expertise to produce an entertaining, non-clinical treatise in support of those who feel marginalized by their kink and bondage lifestyle. The book’s introduction features an e-mail from “Colin,” who writes, “I’m a pervert, and my thoughts are bad.” He fears that by revealing or acting out his private gay sexual fantasies, it will bring about crushing isolation and shame. After three years of visits to Ortmann’s office, he can now accept that his feelings are normal and there’s nothing to hide. This type of sexual exploration and counteraction

remedy-therapy permeates much of Ortmann and Sprott’s guidebook. The authors stress that while our culture values and places great emphasis on “binary viewpoints” (things are either “good” or “bad,” no in-between), there are subjects such as human sexuality and gender that don’t always conform to that ideal. In terms of BDSM, they describe the practice as “the eroticization of power,” enveloped in community, exploration, experimentation, and nonjudgmental expression. They take us through many aspects – positive, negative, clear or confusing – of the kink lifestyle. Case histories (many verbatim) from Ortmann’s private practice make up a substantial portion of the book. Many afford fascinating glimpses into an array of personal lives stimulated by curiosity yet fraught with confusion, about subjects ranging from coming out, exploring kink, initiating role-play, communication, and dominant-submissive partner responsibilities. The authors relay crucial information on consensual BDSM activity, mentoring, education, drug use, limitations, power play, and aftercare. Be forewarned, however: some material isn’t for the timid. A true story written by a submissive man who

explores scat play with his Master is both highly erotic and unexpectedly audacious. A closing chapter on assistance, where to connect with local BDSM groups, and recognizing “red flags” in others’ behavior (translation: trust your instincts) closes out a powerful book that will resonate both with newcomers to the kink scene and those already active within it. Effectively conveying their message of inclusiveness, dignity, authentication, and willful self-exploration, Ortmann and Sprott’s volume also aims to provide in-depth understanding for those on the outside of the BDSM arena. These informative and provocative pages encourage those who question or are fearful of their sexuality to confront it head-on, and edge themselves that much closer to their own autonomy.t

Television >>

March 14-20, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 29

High queer visibility by Victoria A. Brownworth

e’ve been pretty excited by all the queer sightings on the tube lately. It makes us feel so visible. There are several new shows over on Logo right now that you’ll love if you like reality TV and drag. Okay, who doesn’t like drag? It’s so American. You just know Sen. Lindsay Graham, Mr. I-Never-Married, is dressing up when he’s not doing the Sunday talk show circuit. Any day now he’s going to show up on RuPaul’s Drag Race. But if you are looking for something a little deeper than lite Logo fare, queers are popping up all over the rest of the TV landscape: queer actors, queer characters and even queer actors playing queer characters. But most importantly, queer showrunners providing a landscape for the queers. To us, there seems a clear parallel between the number of LGBT characters on the tube and the number of queer showrunners, producers, directors and screenwriters. Hannibal premieres on NBC April 4. Almost as good as The Following, Bryan Fuller’s latest vehicle is plenty queer and also co-stars out queer actor Eddie Izzard. We have always loved Fuller’s shows. He does dark, edgy comedies with intriguing twists (someone is usually dead). Hannibal is way darker than Fuller’s last show, Pushing Daisies. This is not comedy, but it definitely is edgy. We’re looking forward to seeing how Fuller’s queer sensibility comes through in Hannibal, since we always thought Dr. Lecter had a lot of duality going on. And as portrayed by Mads Mikkelsen, Yikes. Fuller has had run-ins in the past while attempting to present queer characters in previous shows. He was very outspoken about his problems with MGM, the production studio for his Showtime drama Dead Like Me, when he tried to introduce a gay character. In an interview Fuller asserted, “I had arguments where they would tell me I didn’t know what a pretty woman looks like because I’m a gay man. It was the worst type of gross old-boy studio experience you could imagine. They were constantly trying to strong-arm me. It was the worst experience of my life.” Look for Fuller to push every imaginable envelope with Hannibal. Person of Interest has been excellent since it premiered. The creation of Jonathan Nolan (The Dark Knight), it’s consistently in the Top 10 in the ratings, and has garnered critical acclaim for being among the best shows on the tube. So it was great to see out queer actor Luke Macfarlane (Brothers & Sisters) on the March 7 episode of Person of Interest. Macfarlane played sweet Scotty on B&S, Kevin’s long-suffering husband. On Person of Interest, he portrayed a very different kind of character, and with his natural Canadian accent for once. If you missed it, catch it at CBS.com. The Following is one of the hottest shows on the tube right now. Critically acclaimed, great ratings, compulsively watchable, really smart and well-acted. It’s also the creation of Kevin Williamson, out queer producer/screenwriter/director. Not surprisingly, The Following has queer characters. Do you need another reason to watch? We’ve been ragging on Glee throughout the current season. We don’t want to hate on it, but we haven’t been thrilled with the new direction, so to speak. The biggest mistake Ryan Murphy could have made was to have half the show’s

most important characters graduate and go elsewhere. Which means we are divided between elsewhere and McKinley High on a weekly basis. Which makes breaking into song ever-so-much more complex. As well as putting the show’s very title in question. And now Santana (Naya Rivera), our fave bad girl, has moved in with Rachel (Lea Michele, who is the new cover girl for Pantene and mascara and maybe marshmallows) and Kurt (Chris Colfer) in New York. And Rachel might be pregnant. And the father may be an escort. And how can it be The Rachel Show again if we aren’t even having it at McKinley, where we already voted for a new Rachel? You see the problems. Nevertheless, the 500th musical number just aired, and who could resist “Girls (and Boys) on Film?” Who could resist Kurt and Santana and Rachel living their dream in New York, even if it meant McKinley was so far away it was almost out of our memory banks? But what about McKinley? What about the high school version of Cheers, where everybody knows your name? What about Sue? What will happen with Rachel and Finn if she’s pregnant by someone else? There are seven more episodes until the May 9 cliffhanger, which Lea Michele says will be dramatic, and she says she’s not going anywhere. Plans for the fifth season are in the works. Will Glee get better? Will it ever go back to old Glee? Will we learn to love NY Glee? Only time will tell.

Long-running lesbians

Only time and some new episodes starting March 14 will tell what’s going to happen with Seattle Grace on Grey’s Anatomy, where trouble’s brewing in every direction, but where Arizona and Callie are now officially the longest-running lesbian couple in prime time. We were worried when Arizona lost her leg, but things are better now. Rumors had been flying that this would be the show’s last season, but that rumor seems to be dying, which is a relief to us. But what happens when the crash survivors buy the hospital? That’s what we want to know. Also a relief to us is that Anne (Julie White), the acerbic, grieving lesbian friend of Ryan’s (Matthew Perry) on Go On, has finally gotten to kiss a new woman. We were afraid she was going to be one of those token queers that wander around some shows being the only one of their kind in an entire city or town. It was really nice to see her kissing a

new hot woman. Speaking of hot women, we always feel a little old to be watching Pretty Little Liars, but – they sure are pretty. And lesbian. And we love watching them. Speaking of pretty things we love to watch, the CW is finally letting 90210 go after five seasons. It had some queer moments, all of which have been compiled online. It makes us feel old just knowing we were around for the original 90210. Speaking of pretty again, we were pretty distressed after this week’s episode of Chicago Fire. Leslie the lesbian (we know, everyone calls her by her last name, Shay) is not taking the breakup with Clarice very well. Who could blame her? Clarice broke her heart not once, but twice, and the second time she broke it with a baby as well as herself. Ah, the baby. That baby brought something out in our favorite lesbian paramedic, and now she wants one of her own for the standard teenage-girl-from-a-badhome reason: so someone will love her and never leave her. Oh Leslie, Shay, dear girl. We’re a little anxious that she and her pal Severide (the gorgeous Taylor Kinney) are going to make a baby the old-fashioned way. Because they are both too screwed up to have a relationship of their own, they are best friends, they work together, and they are both so pretty. We love Shay and Severide. They are both very tortured people, just like real life, except a lot prettierlooking, but having a baby together? Please. Don’t do it. Besides, who will watch the baby when you are out saving other people’s lives? Nothing says “no more relationships for you, Leslie” more than single motherhood. Speaking of motherhood, let’s pause for a word from our sponsors. One Million Moms, arguably the craziest little right-wing fixation group out there (they seem to not really be a million – more like 40,000, but still enough to be irksomely vocal), is at it again. If you recall, they were in high lunacy mode this time last year when JCPenney announced that Ellen would be their spokesperson. They organized a boycott. But it didn’t work. Now they are boycotting Geico. Why? Wait for it. They assert the new ad featuring Geico’s signature pig promotes bestiality because the pig is out with a young woman, and their car breaks down, and she wants to get cozy. Oh. Dear. God. Do you really believe this is for real? Because, you know, the pig is talking like a human. And driving a car. And using a cell phone. So conceivably, in the universe where pigs talk, drive cars and use cell phones, yes, they might also date human women. But until that day comes, please find something important to boy-

NBC

Queer actor Eddie Izzard co-stars on Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal.

Richard Foreman/ABC

Dan Bucatinsky as James on Shonda Rhimes’ Scandal.

cott, like drones or poverty. Speaking of ads we love, the new Kindle ad debuted this week. A man and woman are sitting beachside. She’s reading from her Kindle. They talk. She’s discussing her new paperwhite Kindle (no glare) with him. He says he’s just ordered one and suggests they “celebrate.” Is he hitting on her? “My husband’s bringing me a drink right now,” she tells him. “So’s mine!” he replies. They turn to see their two manly men with drinks. The end. Now shouldn’t One Million Moms be boycotting this ad? Since marriage equality is fast becoming the new normal, whereas pig/human love, not so much outside of the luau. Speaking of same-sex marriage, we do love Kristin Chenoweth (Glee, Pushing Daisies, The Good Wife). The Tony- and Emmy-winning actress and singer was at it again last week talking about bad Christians and good gays. In an interview on CNN last year, Chenoweth, who is an evangelical Christian, said in response to a question about sin and gays, “If it was a sin to be short [she is 4’11”], what would I do? Well, I’d be right on the hell bus.” Hell bus. We loved that. Because that’s where the evangelicals usually want to put the queers, of course: on the hell bus. Last week, while on tour in the UK, Chenoweth said in an interview, “I just want it to hurry up and not be an issue any more. I’m very proud of the work that has been

done so far. I want us to hurry it up a bit more. I think it’s important to say this because a lot of people think if you’re religious or you have any sort of faith, you’re automatically against equality in marriage.” Chenoweth, who did the red carpet interviews for ABC prior to the Oscars and also performed the closing satirical song with host Seth McFarlane, was adamant that marriage equality is “the biggest equal rights issue” in America. She also said that Christians who are against marriage equality are “anti-Christian” because such attitudes are “the antithesis of what you believe if you believe in Jesus. No, no, no, no, no.” Gee, that’s kind of what we always thought. Maybe because Jesus kind of says as much in the Sermon on the Mount. Thank you, Ms. Chenoweth. And she can hit an F6 (the F above high C).

Scandalous behavior

Speaking of marriage equality, we’re still thinking about the spectacular March 7 episode of ABC’s Scandal. We almost hash-tagged it there, because we had to tweet about it, it was so good. We know married gay male couples are becoming de rigueur on the tube of late, but there isn’t another gay male couple quite like Cyrus (Jeff Perry) and James (Dan Bucatinsky) on Scandal, which is the best political drama on TV. See page 30 >>

Serving the LGBT communities since 1971

30 • Bay Area Reporter • March 14-20, 2013

Patti LuPone

From page 17

Patti LuPone: Faraway Places, March 19-24, Live at the Rrazz, 1000 Van Ness Ave. Tickets: (800) 380-3095, (415) 394-1189, or www. liveattherrazz.com. Ben Rimalower in Patti Issues, Choral Rehearsal Hall, BareStage at UC Berkeley,

Lavender Tube

From page 29

Last week’s episode was climactic, revealing who was actually responsible for the assassination attempt on the president. It was a shocker. Supreme Court Justice Verna Thornton (Debra Mooney, who was also terrific for four years on Everwood) finally died. In an episode where every minute had something in play, there were a series of amazing events. Revelations from Verna completely changed the course of the action, because it wasn’t just what she did reveal (that

Fitting tribute

line articulation were apparent as always, and she performed with her usual tasteful artistry. There wasn’t much heat until the wonderful closing Rondo: Vivace, and Wang appeared fairly uninvolved, if technically superb, until then. The second half of the bill was given to a plodding Brahms Symphony No. 1 that started and ended with passion and drama enough, but suffered from ponderous speeds starting with the second movement. The divided strings sounded rich and transparent, and Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik’s contributions were uncommonly sweet and powerful. If it didn’t quite provide the expected results, it probably will when the frisson of new listeners is added. Let us hope nothing stands in the way of sending MTT’s burnished Brahms on the road.

The previous week did supply some release and a needed catharsis (no, I won’t say closure) when Tilson Thomas and the musicians dedicated the concerts to recently deceased Principal Oboist William Bennett. The grief was palpable and the mood rightfully subdued following the shocking death from a brain hemorrhage of one of the SFS’ most treasured and appreciated performers. After a brief and heartfelt eulogy and a moment of silence with everyone standing throughout the hall, MTT started a program that included a remarkably appropriate Bruckner Symphony No. 7. Bruckner is famous for his vast edifices in sound that take listeners on long and reflective journeys. There is an inevitable sense of spiritual growth and hard-won understanding in most of the

enormous scores, and it takes musicians of both talent and insight to traverse them successfully. MTT has laid the groundwork for the Seventh in the past, but on this occasion he seemed more intent on exploring the byways. With the deepest concentration and intensity of emotion, the orchestra followed his lead. It was an overwhelming and deeply moving performance that presented the colleagues of William Bennett (and their remarkable conductor) with an opportunity to express their mourning and respect in music. The program started with soprano Nadine Sierra singing two arias from Mozart’s Zaide. Her performance was bright and engaging, and I like the clarity and strength of her tone. We hope to hear her again in a more extended selection.t

conceive a new endgame. Olivia always goes to blackmail, while Cyrus tends to go to murder. Except this was James, Cyrus’ husband, who was needing “fixing.” The night before the testimony, Cyrus and James have a confrontation in their bedroom. James, who has already told David Rosen (Josh Molina), “I don’t want to see my husband carted off to jail,” is on edge. He and Cyrus have their new baby, and James is in love with her. He knows that he has to protect her, even if it’s at the expense of Cyrus. When James and Cyrus have it out in their bedroom, Cyrus notes, “If ever there were a case for gay marriage, this is it.” Spousal privilege. Which doesn’t apply in a federal case because of DOMA. Suddenly Cyrus stops talking and asks James to take his clothes off. The argument has got heated, but we didn’t think it was that kind of heated. Neither did James. “What?” he asks. Cyrus tells him again to take off his clothes. He’s suddenly afraid James is wearing a wire. James is affronted, but strips down to his briefs. He demands that Cyrus do the same. Then the briefs must come off as well. They stand there, naked, and Cyrus reveals the truth: Yes, the votes at the one polling booth in Defiance were rigged. Just enough to win the election. James looks like he’s been punched, but he knew it. He’s the one who went to Defiance, after all, and discovered the rigged memory card when he was working on the story. But now his own husband has confessed to rigging a presidential election. But Cyrus has more to say. As they stand literally and metaphorically naked and exposed, Cyrus reveals his deepest feelings. “I should have been president,” he tells James. He explains how smart he is, how visionary, how ready to lead. “But I have sex with men,” he says, clarifying what we already know: there’s a glass ceiling for queers that is unbreachable. The closest Cyrus can get to the power of the presidency and creating that kind of change is the role he has, Chief of Staff, top advisor to the president. Cyrus deconstructs the second-class status of gay men with brutal, painful, heartbreaking clarity. They stand there silent, naked. Then there is the sound of the baby crying, and James turns to go. Cyrus is desperate. “I love you.” James tells him he has to think of their child. The next day as James is about to enter the courthouse, Cyrus calls him, asking him not to testify. A hit man he has hired is following James. The scene cuts back and forth between Cyrus on the phone with James, and Cyrus on the phone with the hit man. He can’t do it. But neither can James. He perjures himself on the stand, sundering the entire investigation and leaving David

Rosen out in the cold. This is why Shonda Rhimes is such an important showrunner for LGBT people. Because no one else is writing gay TV like this. No one else is putting queer couples like Arizona and Callie on Grey’s Anatomy, and Cyrus and James on Scandal, on the front burner every week in prime time. These aren’t tertiary characters. Cyrus is one of the three central characters on Scandal, and Callie is one of the five central characters on Grey’s. These characters help drive the total plot, not just some tangential queer drop-in storyline. All the scenes related to Arizona losing her leg were amazing. And Cyrus’s confession: devastating. Because even though we know he’s totally wrong and what he’s done is corrupt and worse, we understand it. We understand it to the core of our being. Jeff Perry, who is not gay, was extraordinary in this scene. Cyrus’ outrage and fear become visceral as his face reddens and the veins pulse in his neck. A deeply moving, intensely provocative, and totally Emmy-worthy performance. Perry was brilliant. This is what we want to see on the tube: more real LGBT people whom we can believe in, because the characterizations are honest, and the people putting these shows together know real queers, they aren’t just guessing. Alas, it’s not every show. We do like a sitcom now and again, and there are quite a few good ones on the tube. We love Modern Family, which always delivers. We liked how the news media picked up on Jesse Tyler Ferguson tweeting about how cute the Kansas City firemen were who rescued him and his co-stars from a stuck elevator. We also like The Neighbors, which precedes it. The show is funny and edgy, and has had a lot of queer moments since its debut last fall. But the March 6 episode hit a really sour note: Sandra Bernhard as a seriously damaged lesbian driver’s ed instructor at Amber’s (Clara Mamet, and yes, she’s the daughter of David Mamet, and can act) high school. We tried to figure out the point of Bernhard’s performance on The Neighbors. Was she ad-libbing? Was she coming on to Amber? Was she just over-sharing? And in either event, why? Every other line of hers was, “I’m a lesbian.” She tells Amber that she was with Danica Patrick. “Not that anything happened.” But the implication is, of course, that she had sex with the superstar racecar driver who is nearly 30 years her junior. Ha ha. The performance fell flat for us, and came off as a very negative lesbian portrayal on a show that has been very cool with queers thus far. Speaking of cool with queers, we had to laugh at Jimmy Kimmel. Showcasing the Liberace HBO film cover that was on last week’s EW on his March 7 show, Kimmel quipped, “Behind the candelabra, or is it can-

delabra in the behind? I want to collect a thousand of them and use them for wrapping paper for the rest of my life.” Wrong, yet still funny. Speaking of great one-liners, we really liked Monroe (Silas Weir Mitchell) on the March 8 Grimm premiere saying to Nick: “Don’t go off half- or any level of cocked.” That one goes into our repertoire, although we have no idea when or where we would use it. Nevertheless, great line. Speaking of great lines, we can’t help liking Chelsea Handler. She’s just so funny. On a recent episode, Sandra Bullock appears as Chelsea is taking a shower. Bullock is also naked. She tells Chelsea that she won’t sleep with her, and that Chelsea has to stop sleeping with her guests, and then she slaps her. Bullock slapping or kissing other women has become a shtick for her, and it’s always surprisingly funny. And also perversely sexy. Not worth a look, according to a tweet from the Lesbian Mafia on March 8, are either Bravo or Lifetime. Both networks were accused of “pimping women as nasty bitches and hookers. Not for women.” An interesting point to make on International Women’s Day about two networks designed primarily for female viewers. Meanwhile, Jennifer Love Hewitt, the star of Lifetime’s The Client List (the second season began March 10), about, yes, a hooker, is the new spokesceleb for Old Navy. Hoodies for hookers? Or is it hookers for hoodies? Speaking of anomalies, what is gay Olympian Greg Louganis doing judging a celebrity diving competition? We’re all for watching Louganis dive or simply walk around in a Speedo, but? Splash premieres on ABC on March 19. Among the contestants are super-sized comedian Louie Anderson, Chelsea Handler sidekick Chuy Bravo (who, at 4’, might make for a literal cannonball off the high dive) and basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is 7’ 2”. Kendra Wilkinson provides babe factor. Several other pseudocelebs round out the contestants that Louganis will judge. We can think of lots of hilarious scenarios for this show, but most of them end in someone dying or a variation on a roadrunner cartoon, so maybe not so funny after all. As for Louganis, all we can say is, oh how the mighty have fallen. This show seems one step up from pool boy. Meanwhile, Hell’s Kitchen is back with a vicious Brit vengeance, Dancing with the Stars is back next week (this season’s queer contestant is Andy Dick, but we’re pretty sure he’ll be voted off the parquet quickly), and The Voice returns sans Christina and Cee Lo, but with Shakira and Usher. Queer competitions will be heating up all over. And with this much queer TV to watch, you really must stay tuned.t

“You’ll have to ask them that! I think they like good, strong performances. I appreciate all my audiences!” LuPone’s Rrazz show, Faraway Places, is inspired by her latest CD. In addition to Kurt Weill, she’ll perform songs by Sondheim, Cole Porter, Willie Nelson, Edith Piaf, and even the Bee Gees. When asked what else audiences might expect, LuPone’s advice was to come to the Rrazz and find out. “These shows I do are a journey,” she said. “I like to take the audience by surprise.”t Christian Coulson

Patti Issues performer Ben Rimalower. March 26, 8 p.m.; and The Marsh, 1062 Valencia St., March 27, 7:30 p.m. Tickets: www.pattiissues.com

Cyrus and Olivia both knew about the vote-tampering in Defiance), it was what she didn’t (that Mellie also knew). And then, of course she died. But not from the cancer. In her final moments, after she told the president that she and everyone else had been wooed by his charm, she said, “We sold our souls for you.” It’s an amazing performance, but it also rips the charismatic candidate, who turns out to be not quite what his supporters expected or hoped. As the tensions build over what will be revealed by James when he testifies under oath, Olivia (Kerry Washington) and Cyrus tried to

SF Symphony

From page 23

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