May 23, 2013 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter by Bay Area Reporter

Roxie honors filmmakers

Binational amendment axed

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Report: Milk stamp set for 2014

Giants win ‘Cure’ game

by Matthew S. Bajko

he United States Postal Service will reportedly release a stamp featuring the late gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk in 2014. It would mark the first time a stamp has been issued specifically to honor an LGBT person. Linn’s Stamp News, a weekly publication that covers the mail service, is reporting in its May 27 issue that Milk was among the special stamps chosen for next year by the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee Jim Leff during its closed door meetings earlier this A mockup of a year. Harvey Milk An anonymous stamp source sent Linn’s a copy of the panel’s January 31 and February 1 meeting minutes where 2014 stamps were debated and chosen. It included a notation that the minutes regarding the Milk stamp, along with a number of other choices, had been approved at an April 13 meeting. Reporter Bill McAllister, who provided the Bay Area Reporter with a copy of the article posted to the website of the subscription-only publication May 13, cautioned in the story that “there is no certainty” that the Milk or other listed stamps would be issued in 2014. The documents McAllister was provided, nonetheless, list the Milk stamp for release in May next year. Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts, asked last week about the status of the Milk stamp, told the B.A.R. the agency has “neither confirmed nor denied what the line-up will be for 2014.” He said Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe would finalize the list of 2014 stamps, which normally number 30 per year, sometime in late August or September. According to Linn’s, others set to be posthumously celebrated with their own postage include actress Elizabeth Taylor, Apple founder Steve Jobs, and chef Julia Child. In 2010 Milk’s openly gay nephew, Stuart Milk, told the B.A.R. that the Postal Service had contacted his family that year to inquire about his famous uncle and asked about upcoming milestones. He did not return the B.A.R.’s request for comment this week. Some had speculated the stamp could be issued this year, as November 27 will be the 35th anniversary of the death of Milk and former San Francisco Mayor George See page 9 >>

Vol. 43 • No. 21 • May 23-29, 2013

Trans Latinas seek city funds by Matthew S. Bajko

A Jane Philomen Cleland

he San Francisco Giants honored the late closer Rod Beck Tuesday, May 21 during the team’s 20th annual Until There’s A Cure game at AT&T Park, which helped raise money for the nonprofit Until There’s A Cure Foundation. Players, like pitcher Sergio Romo above, wore red ribbons on their

uniforms as part of the evening’s tribute. The Giants went on to defeat the visiting Washington Nationals 4-2 in 10 innings, off a two-run walk-off homer by fan favorite Pablo Sandoval. The Giants were the first professional sports team in the U.S. to raise HIV/AIDS awareness with the special pre-game event.

s transgender Latinas increasingly speak out about the discrimination and harassment they experience in San Francisco’s Mission district, a nonprofit is asking city officials to fund its work to prevent such violence. El/La Para Translatinas emerged in 2006 after Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida, where it had been a program, Rick Gerharter lost its funding. It is mainly volunteer-led Isa Noyola but has been able to tap into HIV funds in order to hire three part-time staffers. In 2012 El/La estimates it saw 300 trans LatiSee page 7 >>

Large turnout of Manning supporters expected at Pride by James Patterson

he state of the LGBT community, on the eve of Pride Month, is strong, proud, and ready to celebrate 38 days from now. Many marchers will not only be celebrating their sexuality, relationships and, with the U.S. Supreme Court’s help, possibly marriage equality, but a large number are expected to march in support of imprisoned gay Army private first class Bradley Manning. Although the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee board rescinded Manning’s grand marshal honor late last month, many of his supporters continue to view him as a community grand marshal. At a recent mock Pride board meeting, local activists who were present unanimously voted to reinstate grand marshal status on Manning, the whistleblower who leaked 700,000 classified government documents to WikiLeaks. He has confessed to some of the charges against him and is awaiting a court-martial on the others. In an unscientific polling of individuals at events around the Castro in recent days, the bword, as in boycott, was mentioned, but it was not a popular idea, even from some who previously endorsed it. In a letter to the editor of the Bay Area Reporter last week, San Francisco resident Loren

Rick Gerharter

Sue Englander from the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club speaks about the pending court-martial of gay whistle-blower Bradley Manning during a May 17 rally in the Castro to mark the International Day Against Homophobia.

P. Meissner Jr. announced a Facebook page titled “Boycott SF Pride 2013 unless Bradley Manning is made Grand Marshal.” At press time, the page had only 29 Likes and the majority of the postings on the page urged against

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a boycott. Meissner told the B.A.R. that his call for a boycott of Pride’s sponsors was solely as an individual. There appeared to be no community See page 9 >>

<< Community News

2 • Bay Area Reporter • May 23-29, 2013

NCLR honors LGBT Dreamers at gala by Elliot Owen

s the prospects for an inclusive comprehensive immigration reform bill in Congress dwindled, the National Center for Lesbian Rights honored a group of LGBT Dreamers at its 36th annual gala benefit last weekend. The Dreamers, many of whom were brought to the U.S. as children by parents who entered the country without a visa, advocated for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act – a bill defeated in the Senate in 2010 that would have provided qualifying young people with more work and education opportunities. About 1.8 million Dreamers now qualify for a recently signed executive order called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which offers temporary deferment from deportation and work permits to people who were brought to the U.S. under the age of 16. Former NCLR board of directors co-chair Olga Talamante presented four LGBT Dreamers with the organization’s Courage Award. The young people received the award on behalf of the entire LGBT Dreamer community. Carla Lopez, Luis Liang, Alejandra Estrada, and Jose Mendoza each gave acceptance speeches to standing ovations by the 1,500 people who attended the gala at the Westin St. Francis and later a party at the Metreon. After completing an NCLR summer internship through United We Dream’s Queer Dream Summer program and then receiving her work permit last year, Lopez, 23, is now working as an NCLR program assistant. “NCLR has been one of the biggest support systems I’ve had in my life,” Lopez told the Bay Area Reporter. “They show how open and progressive the LGBT community can be, that immigrant rights are queer rights, queer rights are immigrant rights, and together they’re human rights.” NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell echoed the sentiment in an interview with the B.A.R. Underlining the importance of merging movements, she emphasized how necessary

Elliot Owen

Carla Lopez was one of four LGBT Dreamers to receive the Courage Award. She is now an NCLR program assistant.

alliances are to moving forward. “We’re always looking for how we can make our movement stronger,” Kendell said. “One way we do that is by building relationships and collaborating with communities that understand stigma and have been targets of discrimination. The immigration issue is an LGBT issue and we literally proved the truism that we’re everywhere.” This year, the Justice Award was given to Jennifer Tobits, an NCLR client who, after enduring late wife Sarah “Ellyn” Farley’s battle with cancer, fought to have her marriage recognized in Illinois after her in-laws challenged the union by laying claim to Farley’s assets. The award was presented to Tobits by former NCLR client Sharon Enlowsmith, the surviving spouse of Diane Alexis Whipple, who was attacked and killed by two dogs in San Francisco in 2001. “It’s a bigger deal than I ever thought it would be,” Tobits told the B.A.R. “I started out depleted after my wife passed away and then was faced with Ellyn’s parents and their bigotry and hatred of our relationship. Finally, I’d had enough and woke up one day deciding to fight. Then NCLR got on board and I felt I had an army of support. If there’s any part of this that

would help someone else not be afraid during their partner’s last moments, then it’s worth it.” To the surprise of the audience, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom took the stage to present the Founder’s Award to NCLR legal director Shannon Price Minter for 20 years of groundbreaking work with the organization. An out trans man, Minter argued before the state Supreme Court in the 2008 case that won same-sex couples the right to marry, was lead counsel in former NCLR client Enlowsmith’s wrongful death suit, and has secured protections for numerous segments of the LGBT community. Currently, he is helping to defend a California law passed last year that bans licensed therapists from attempting to change the sexual orientation or gender expression of young clients. “I love working for NCLR so much,” Minter told the B.A.R. “So many of the issues we’re making progress on are the same issues I came here to work on. That’s been incredibly gratifying. I’ve really grown up in this organization both personally and professionally. I didn’t know they were going to do this until very recently and I’m really surprised and touched by it.” The only other individual to receive an NCLR Founder’s Award was NCLR founder and retired San Francisco Superior Court Judge Donna Hitchens in 2011. Kendell stressed to the B.A.R. that Minter’s importance to the organization, in addition to the broader LGBT movement and community, cannot be understated. “Shannon means everything to NCLR,” Kendell said. “We would not be the organization we are, have the vision we do, or have won the cases we have, without him. In the larger LGBT community, he has helped to shape and influence almost every key movement issue. If anyone made a list of the top 10 most influential and important LGBT lawyers in the country – Shannon would be on that list.” NCLR raised $84,000 at the gala dinner. For more information about NCLR, visit http://nclrights.org.t

HRC panel to focus on immigration and LGBTs compiled by Cynthia Laird

he San Francisco Human Rights Commission will hold a community forum on inclusive comprehensive immigration reform Wednesday, May 29 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Latino/Hispanic Community Room at the main library, 100 Larkin Street. Organizers said that the primary objective of the town hall meeting is to enable the public to better understand why it is critical that current comprehensive immigration reform proposals address the specific needs of the LGBT community. “As the LGBT community and its allies continue to fight for unqualified equality on the federal level, this fight must also extend to demanding inclusive immigration reform if unfettered equal rights for the LGBT community are to be truly realized,” stated Michael Pappas, a human rights commissioner and chair of the agency’s LGBT advisory committee. Scheduled panelists include Arcelia Hurtado, immigration policy

adviser with the National Center for Lesbian Rights; Anoop Prasad, staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus; the Reverend Richard Smith, vicar at Episcopal Church of Saint John the Evangelist; and Amy Lin, a student who’s involved with the Chinese Progressive Association. The event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the HRC’s LGBT advisory committee, Our Family Coalition, and Out4Immigration.

Town hall on gay suicides

Following several recent incidents of gay men who have died by suicide, the Community Initiative will hold a town hall meeting on the topic next week. Titled “When the Rainbow Isn’t Enough,” the forum takes place Wednesday, May 29 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at 385-A 8th Street (next door to Mr. S Leather). Doug Sebesta with the Community Initiative said the meeting is about why so many gay men are still killing themselves and what the community can do about it. The session also will look at building resilience within the

community. Panelists will include Race Bannon, Michael Brandon, Blue Buddha, Veronika Fimbres, and Jorge Vieto Jr. Timothy Vollmer will moderate the meeting. The event is open to everyone and all perspectives are welcome.

Class on job interview skills

If you are unemployed or underemployed a free program at the San Francisco Public Library might be for you. On Saturday, May 25 the library will host a class entitled “Successful Interviewing ” from 10 a.m. to noon on the lower level of the main library, 100 Larkin Street. The first step to landing a job is to know what you want and what you have to offer. The next step is to be able to express it in an interview. Participants will learn to interview with confidence. Class topics will include how to get an interview with your top picks, building your self-esteem, finding out what employers want to see in an employee, having the right attitude, practicing interview questions (including the hard ones), and interview preparation. See page 6 >>

Community News>>

May 23-29, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 3

Castro plazas’ summer events lineup expands by Matthew S. Bajko

Castro community group is expanding its summer entertainment lineup and is seeking Bay Area performers and vendors to fill the slots. The Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District won a $10,000 city grant for its “Live! In the Castro” program that hires local artists and musicians to perform in the gayborhood. The monthly Sunday entertainment offerings have enlivened Jane Warner Plaza during the summertime for years. With the funding from the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the schedule of musicians, spoken word poets, and other artists will now stretch for nearly eight months with everyother-Sunday concerts and weekday offerings. Not only will the CBD be able to once again program performances at the public parklet on 17th Street at Castro and Market streets, it will also do so across the street at Harvey Milk Plaza atop the Castro Muni station. The CBD has brought musical acts to the plaza each summer since 2010. Selected performers have included Afro-Cuban band T Mambo, the Saddle Cats western swing band, and swing vocalist Belinda Blair. The CBD has hired theme parks consultant Kile Ozier, a self-described “itinerant creative guy,” to oversee the program and scout for appropriate acts. A press release about the program expansion promised “it’s going to be a kickass summer in the ‘Stro.” “We want these plazas to become destinations, touchpoints;

Rick Gerharter

State Senator Mark Leno speaks in Jane Warner Plaza Sunday, May 19 at a Harvey Milk Day observance. The Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District won a city grant and will be expanding entertainment in the plaza this summer.

places where people come just to see what’s going on,” stated CBD Executive Director Andrea Aiello. “After all, we are at one of the primary physical and cultural crossroads of this iconic city.” Ozier, 61, founded the annual AIDS benefit centered on the Oscar broadcast known as Academy of Friends back in the 1980s. In 1990 he left San Francisco and bounced around the globe, with stints in New York, Los Angeles, Orlando, and Melbourne, Australia. His resume includes being creative director for Universal Studios in Florida to more recently opening a water park in Dubai. He returned to town in April 2011 and will now use his talents

New chief named for queer publisher by Heather Cassell

he largest independent queer publishing company in the U.S. has a new publisher and the business will remain LGBT-focused even though she is a straight ally. Brenda Knight, who has more than 20 years of experience in the field, was named publisher of Cleis Press earlier this month. Felice Newman, chief financial officer and co-founder, made the announcement. Knight, 54, had been associate publisher of Cleis Press and founder of the imprint Viva Editions under the publishing house. She said she is “thrilled” to be stepping into the role of publisher of the lesbian feminist publishing company and the imprint. “She was so successful and she has taken the company in such a great direction it seemed really clear that she was virtually doing the job of publisher as associate publisher,” said Newman, 57. “It made sense to give her that promotion because really she is the right person for the job and she will take the company in even better directions and there will be even more growth.” Cleis founders Newman and Frederique Delacoste, both out lesbians and friends, have been in the publishing industry for more than 30 years. The women are now focused on spearheading their passions and their unique skills at strategically guiding the company into the future while letting go of the daily operations. Delacoste, who was not available

Courtesy Cleis Press

Brenda Knight is the new publisher of Cleis Press and Viva Editions.

for an interview, will remain president of Cleis Press and publisher of Midnight Editions, the company’s human rights imprint. Newman will stay on as chief financial officer. Newman is the author of the bestselling Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us, with more than 125,000 copies in print, published by Cleis. Cleis will remain feminist and queer and will have a solid LGBT staff, the women told the Bay Area Reporter. “It didn’t matter how anybody identified,” said Knight. “I love acquiring LGBT books and I’m honored to be what I think of as a standard-bearer and carrying it on.” Newman agreed. See page 9 >>

honed from amusement parks to inject a bit of theatricality to the heart of the Castro. “I want people to feel like there is spontaneous artistic activity going on everyday or two” at the Castro plazas, Ozier told the B.A.R. Auditions are starting “right away,” he added. Those chosen will receive a stipend, though the amount has not been set. Last year the CBD paid $100 an hour per performer or up to $400 an hour per group for larger acts. Interested performers and vendors with an idea for how to populate the plazas should email Ozier at Talent@CastroCBD.org. If possible, artists should include a reel of their work.t

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4 • Bay Area Reporter • May 23-29, 2013

Volume 43, Number 21 May 23-29, 2013 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Thomas E. Horn Bob Ross (Founder, 1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko Seth Hemmelgarn Jim Provenzano CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Dan Aiello • Tavo Amador • Erin Blackwell Roger Brigham • Scott Brogan Victoria A. Brownworth • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Chuck Colbert Richard Dodds • David Duran Raymond Flournoy • David Guarino Peter Hernandez • Liz Highleyman Brandon Judell • John F. Karr Matthew Kennedy • David Lamble Michael McDonagh • David-Elijah Nahmod Elliot Owen• Paul Parish • James Patterson Lois Pearlman • Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota Bob Roehr • Donna Sachet • Adam Sandel Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Ed Walsh • Sura Wood ART DIRECTION T. Scott King ONLINE PRODUCTION Jay Cribas PHOTOGRAPHERS Danny Buskirk Jane Philomen Cleland Marc Geller Rick Gerharter Lydia Gonzales Rudy K. Lawidjaja Steven Underhill Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge Christine Smith GENERAL MANAGER Michael M. Yamashita DISPLAY ADVERTISING Simma Baghbanbashi Colleen Small Scott Wazlowski NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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Scouts’ first step shouldn’t be end

eaders of the Boy Scouts of America are expected to vote Thursday (May 23) on a proposal that would allow gay boys into scouting, but continue to prohibit gay men from being troop leaders. The Boy Scouts’ ban on openly gay members and troop leaders has been on the books for decades and even survived a U.S. Supreme Court challenge in 2000 because it is a private organization. So with this background, the current proposal is indeed a step in the right direction. But it’s critical that the BSA, should it adopt the new policy, not stop with the admission of gay boys and that it go on to embrace full equality, including allowing gay men (and lesbians) to be troop leaders and den mothers. And we think BSA executives know that it’s only a matter of time until this happens. For one thing, Scout leaders must realize that openly gay boys will grow up to be openly gay men, and that some of these men will want to remain involved with scouting. Normally, a youth group would welcome a member as he ascends to leadership rank or after aging out of a program. The proposal that BSA officials will be voting on rejects that natural progression. Additionally, the proposed policy change sends a negative and mixed message to gay boys, even as it’s touted as a positive step. It’s telling them they 1) must leave scouting when they turn 18, or 2) must go back in the closet. Neither is acceptable. Then there is the problematic message inherent in BSA’s proposal: that gay men are dangerous and should be viewed as sexual predators. This is total crap, and is perpetrated by anti-gay groups like the Family Research Council and American Family Association. In fact, as Media Matters notes, the “gays as pedophiles” talking point has been widely debunked by child

welfare experts. The BSA itself has acknowledged this, stating on its own website that “the BSA makes no connection between the sexual abuse or victimization of a child and homosexuality.” The Scouts, having been burned by past child sex abuse scandals, also have what officials call “stringent” policies in place for the safety and privacy of youth and adult members. And they should have those policies, just like any other reputable youth organization. After years of petitions from gay rights supporters and dismissals of gay youth and leaders BSA appears to be on the brink of slowly opening the closet door. And indeed,

a door partway open is better than one completely shut. But in the ensuing months, Scout leaders must commit to revisiting the policy. If they don’t, the issue likely will be foisted upon them once gay Scouts begin aging out of the program and want to remain as volunteer troop leaders. BSA as an organization should commit to its mission of preparing young people to “make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and law.” It’s time that the Scout Oath and law are updated to more realistically reflect today’s society, and acknowledge that upstanding citizens can be gay. Expanding its policy to accept openly gay adults as troop leaders would be a historic milestone on the way to achieving full equality.t

Smoke-free bars have broad support choice for the 70 percent of smokers who want

by Brian Davis

he LGBT community smokes cigarettes about twice as much as the general population. Why do we smoke so much more? Research shows that the stress of homophobia leads to higher smoking rates. Homophobia leads to higher drinking, illegal drug use and suicide rates as well, but the difference is that our community is addressing these other issues, while the epidemic of smoking is largely ignored, despite the fact that tobacco kills more people nationally than AIDS, alcohol, illegal drugs, suicide, murder, and traffic accidents combined. Although this fact from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides valuable perspective, it should not lead to a “my disease is worse than yours” competition. We need to find ways to work together to fight the common enemy and help the LGBT community become the healthy, powerful force it deserves to be. My new position at Tri-City Health Center in Fremont offers an opportunity to begin to build that unity. My new workplace primarily provides two services: an HIV/AIDS clinic and a transgender support center (called TransVision). Working together we can help protect people from HIV and support the transgender community, which faces the most oppression of all. My project, Just for Us – LGBT Tobacco Prevention Project, can help meet those goals, as HIV-positive smokers develop full blown AIDS and die more often and more quickly than HIV-positive non-smokers, and since transgender women face a greater risk of blood clots if they smoke and take hormones. All of our community health organizations can only benefit by adding a tobacco component. Homophobia has led to a general lack of queer competency in the health care system (making us less likely to seek medical support for quitting), has historically limited our meeting places largely to bars and clubs (where smoking is often legal on patios and some indoor spaces), and has led to Big Tobacco targeting our community with advertising that takes advantage of our vulnerability. Tobacco ads aimed at us have implied that smoking and accepting an LGBT identity are both “choices” (when smoking is hardly a

Courtesy Brian Davis

Brian Davis

to quit), and suggested that tobacco companies support our struggle for equality (while giving the lion’s share of their political donations to right-wing politicians). Clearly, the struggle against homophobia is also the struggle against the bane of tobacco use in our community. As acceptance of LGBT people grows, we will hopefully see a reduction in smoking and other destructive behaviors, but we can’t afford to sit back and wait for society to change. We need to take action now if we are going to save lives. One important place where that needs to happen is at the bars and clubs where we build our community. Fortunately, we have made progress in recent years, but there is still much work to do to reduce our exposure to Big Tobacco’s influence and create environments that encourage smokers to quit and protect all of us from secondhand smoke. May 31 is World No Tobacco Day, a yearly day of recognition led by the World Health Organization that points out the impact of smoking worldwide. This year’s theme is “Ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.” Many bars in Alameda County, such as the White Horse Inn on the Oakland-Berkeley border, have pledged not to allow tobacco dis-

count coupons, other giveaways or advertising on its premises. Yet, there is at least one queer bar in San Jose that allows merchants of death to provide its patrons promotional offers that make it easier to start smoking and harder to quit. There are now more smoke-free spaces in San Francisco than ever before, including Jane Warner and Harvey Milk plazas as well as Cafe Flore’s outdoor patio. QBar’s former smoking room is now smoke-free. Pilsner Inn has expanded the smoke-free area of its patio and removed some of the ceiling to reduce secondhand smoke exposure. Powerhouse has removed most of the ceiling in its outdoor area, and the Cinch is limiting smoking to the back wall of its patio. Yet, as long as so many of our bars allow smoking, we will continue to find it hard to end the brutal assault on our bodies by nicotine and over 50 cancer causing chemicals. We know that smoke on patios and in these smoking rooms is “unhealthy” (by EPA standards) because my last project measured it (partnering with UCSF). We know that every peer-reviewed study has shown that bars don’t lose money when they go smoke-free, and often become more successful. We know that 80 percent of over 1,300 people we surveyed at Pride in 2011 want smoke-free patios. Bars could be a complete force for good. Many of us like to go out and have a few drinks every now and then, myself included. But many of us can’t stop drinking when we start. Do bar workers try to spot problem drinkers and cut them off? I don’t know because I don’t work on alcohol, but I hope they do. But unlike alcohol, tobacco can’t be used safely. It is a product that enslaves and increases the risk of death for the user – social smokers included. It’s time for all LGBT people to start working together to end the scourge of homophobia and the effect it has on all of our lives – including the destructive impact of tobacco. Let’s start now to build the community we all deserve.t Brian Davis runs Just for Us – LGBT Tobacco Prevention Project with the TriCity Health Center in Fremont. For more information on World No Tobacco Day, visit http://www.who.int/tobacco/wntd/en/.

Politics >>

May 23-29, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

LGBT funding fight in Oakland heats up by Matthew S. Bajko

fight in Oakland to preserve funding for LGBT youth programs is proving to be unusually heated this year. In recent weeks a queer mom filed a complaint against a representative for the city’s lone out city council member, Rebecca Kaplan, due to negative comments the person allegedly made about her bringing her baby to a hearing. Kaplan has also been criticized for her handling of the issue, as has the manager of the city department that oversees funding for youth programs. The subject line of a press release sent to the Bay Area Reporter summed up the anger LGBT youth advocates have been feeling regarding this year’s funding process. It stated, “City of Oakland snubs gay and lesbian youth in recent funding portfolio.” At the heart of the debate is how the Oakland Fund for Children and Youth and its Planning and Oversight Committee are allocating $10.5 million to youth programs. In 2009 Oakland voters passed Measure D requiring 3 percent of the city’s general fund be dedicated to services for children and youth. According to a funding document posted to the agency’s website, it is recommending that Our Family Coalition, an LGBT-family focused nonprofit, receive $48,187 for its Building Strong Children in LGBTQ Families program. But several LGBT-specific youth programs did not make the initial list of those recommended to receive funding. Youth UpRising had sought $146,500 for its Queers and Allies Initiative but did not make the cut. The AIDS Project of the East Bay had sought $150,000 from OFCY for a program titled Save Our LGBTI-Youth. While its proposal scored higher than two other programs that were recommended for funding, the AIDS agency was left off the list. LGBT advocates have noted they have seen “significant erosion” in funding from OFCY since its creation in 1998. They also contend their complaints that the agency’s 2013 request for funding proposals did not single out a need for LGBT youth services have fallen on deaf ears at Oakland City Hall. “I voiced to both elected and appointed city officials my fear that reviewers would fail to consider the important needs of this vulnerable subpopulation of youth, and would propose little or no funding for LGBTQI youth programming. Sadly, my fears have proven too true,” stated the Reverend Roosevelt Mosby, executive director of Sexual Minority Alliance of Alameda County, a nonprofit, multi-service safe space and youth center serving primarily LGBTQ youth of color. SMAAC has received funding from OFCY as a subcontractor with the AIDS Project of the East Bay. The two nonprofits receive $125,000, with most of the money given to SMAAC, for a program known as Youth Health Conductors. SMAAC trains up to 200 LGBT youth in various life skills, while the AIDS agency provides space, administrative oversight, and additional funding from other

Rick Gerharter

Oakland City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan

sources. The agencies and their supporters appealed the decision not to renew their funding during the OFCY Planning and Oversight Committee’s May 8 hearing but left disappointed. In a phone interview this week, Kevin Bynes, director of the AIDS Project of the East Bay’s health promotion department, was clearly frustrated with the funding decisions. “It is ridiculous in this city, with as many LGBT people as there are in Oakland, of $10 million they can’t find $10 to give to LGBT youth,” said Bynes. “There is not a program in the city of Oakland that works with LGBT youth other than this program. This has been the only funding stream we have identified to allow us to do that work with them.” OFCY Children and Youth Services manager Sandra Taylor said the funding decisions are made through an open, fair, and competitive process. She noted that a program’s score is not the only criteria used to select those that are recommended for funding. “There are no guarantees for continued funding,” said Taylor. “Many older youth programs note they will serve LGBT youth in their projections of who they will serve.” She added that the oversight committee has not finalized the list of programs it is recommending be funded in the 2013-2014 fiscal year. Due to the issues raised by the LGBT advocates and other concerns it has heard, the panel is planning to meet next week – likely May 29 – before it sends its funding recommendations to the City Council, which has the last say in the process. Asked if it is possible that one of the LGBT-specific programs will be added to the final list, Taylor said, “Yes, there is a chance they will get funding.” The oversight committee, she added, “will step back and consider another recommendation.” It is not just Taylor’s agency that has faced criticism. Bynes expressed frustration with Kaplan, who serves in the council’s at-large seat and represents Oakland residents citywide. “I am really disappointed there has been a lack of advocacy from her office about the plight of LGBT youth in this city,” said Bynes, adding that he has been a supporter of Kaplan and volunteered on her political campaigns. Asked about the funding controversy by the B.A.R., Kaplan’s office responded in an emailed

statement that the councilwoman has publicly advocated that OFCY consider the needs of LGBT youth and is hopeful funding for LGBTyouth programs will be included in the recommendations sent to the council’s Committee on Life Enrichment, which will take up the matter June 17. “It’s extremely important to me that Oakland serve all its youth – and that we work proactively to serve our historically-underrepresented LGBTQ youth,” stated Kaplan, the council’s president pro tem and a member of the life enrichment committee. “In order to fully represent and serve all of Oakland’s needs, it is important that the committee’s recommendation include support for LGBTQ youth. “Though the committee’s final actions are still pending, I am encouraged that it has taken steps recently to make sure that its funding recommendations are inclusive of the LGBTQ community,” added Kaplan. Kaplan’s office also stated that OFCY has agreed as part of its future decision-making process to track and report the number of LGBTQ staff members of applicants and the number of LGBTQ youth who are being served. “I’ve been assured that this metrics-based process will be included in their evaluation process going forward,” stated Kaplan. “This is a significant win for Oakland’s ability to support outcome-oriented programs that serve everyone in our community - and that do so successfully.” Her office declined to comment about the complaint filed against Nina Horne, Kaplan’s adult appointee to the oversight committee. Taylor also declined to address the complaint, while Horne could not be reached for comment. Tiffany Lacsado, 34, attended the last POC hearing with her 18-month-old son, Buhay, to advocate for funding for the LGBT programs. Unemployed, she couldn’t afford to pay for childcare that night. She claims that Horne, who chaired the meeting, complained that her son was being disruptive, commented he wasn’t being cared for, and “in a very judgmental tone and manner” asked that the baby be kept quiet. The comments “left me humiliated and upset,” Lacsado, a former employee of SMAAC and the AIDS agency, told the B.A.R. “I didn’t understand what was going on. This is the fund for Oakland children and youth. The meeting is open to children.” While the committee sets aside time at the beginning of its agendas for parents with small children to speak, Lacsado wants it to do a better job of making its evening meetings “more accessible to parent-advocates” who want to attend the full meeting.t Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 8615019 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar. com.

On the web Online content this week includes the Bay Area Reporter’s online column, Political Notes; letters to the editor; the Out in the World column and an update on the murder of a gay Mississippi mayoral candidate. www. ebar.com.

Read more online at www.ebar.com

May 23-29, 2013 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 11

Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035116600

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035065500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ORCHID’S ORGANICS, 257 BRADFORD, SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Richard Slayen. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/2013. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/17/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PALM BEACH ARCADE, 1043 KEARNY ST., SF, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Inter-Regional Service Corporation (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/01/08. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/25/13.

MAY 23, 30 JUNE 6, 13, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035112800

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035075000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: R.G. GENERAL BUILDING MAINTENANCE, 402 CAMPBELL AVE., SF, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Rolando Madjus. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/16/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/16/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SCHATZI LLC, 791 VALENCIA ST., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Schatzi LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/22/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/30/13.

MAY 23, 30 JUNE 6, 13, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035104900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LAW OFFICE OF JESSE JONG, 1142 EDDY ST. UNIT D, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Jesse Jong. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/14/13.

MAY 23, 30 JUNE 6, 13, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035093600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: COBANNA, 298 4th AVE. #313, SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a Limited Liability Company, and is signed Cobanna LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/08/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/08/13.

MAY 23, 30, JUNE 6, 13, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035107800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: 26TH STREET BOOKKEEPERS, 3861 26TH ST., SF, CA 94131. This business is conducted by a Limited Liability Company, and is signed Robert & Company LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/15/13.

MAY 23, 30, JUNE 6, 13, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035104500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LUXSME, 888 BRANNAN ST. #2055, SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Amber #1 Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/14/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/14/13.

MAY 23, 30, JUNE 6, 13, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035098500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TAYLOR STREET COFFEE SHOP, 375 TAYLOR ST., SF, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Taylor Street Coffee Shop Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/10/13.

MAY 23, 30, JUNE 6, 13 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-034283300 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: TAI CHI RESTAURANT. This business was conducted by a corporation and signed by Colin TC Inc. (CA). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/18/12.

MAY 23, 30 JUNE 6, 13 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE LICENSE Dated 05/16/2013 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: BUTTERS ENTERPRISES 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 582 SUTTER ST. SF, CA 94102-1102. Type of license applied for

41 – ON-SALE BEER AND WINEEATING PLACE MAY 23, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE LICENSE Dated 04/10/2013 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: GOLDEN RIVER RESTAURANT. 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 5827 GEARY BLVD. SF, CA 94121-2004. Type of license applied for

41 – ON-SALE BEER AND WINEEATING PLACE MAY 23, 2013

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035044300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MAKE UP OR BREAK UP, 212 FAIR OAKS ST., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Heather R. Baker. 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 04/16/13.

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035064300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TWINKY PUPPY PALS, PUPPY PALS; 33 HIGUERA ST., SF, CA 94132. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Eric Michael Moren. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/24/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/24/13.

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035045300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LAGUNA CAFE, 1821 HAIGHT ST., SF, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Khaled Hegazy. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/15/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/16/13.

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035063100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GRUENWALD PRESS, 1663 MISSION ST. (BACK MEZZANINE), SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed John Gruenwald. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/06/05. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/24/13.

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035020300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LA PROMENADE CAFÉ, PROMENADE CAFÉ; 3643 BALBOA ST., SF, CA 94121. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed Eanly L. Thong & Vichetr Thong. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/05/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/05/13.

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035065400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CLOUDY CATE QUILTS, 690 HEARST AVE., SF, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Catherine C. Sherman. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/31/12. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/25/13.

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035064100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NIC CRUSH, 201 MISSION ST., SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Maria P. Aleman. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/24/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/24/13.

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035067200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TEXTIZEN, 155 9TH ST., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Vox Metropolis Inc. (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/02/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/25/13.

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035063700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ASIT NAVIGATION & INTERNATIONAL CO. LTD., 600 OAK ST., SF, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Hazem Akleek. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/23/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/24/13.

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013

NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE LICENSE Dated 05/17/2013 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: LAURA T 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 4737 GEARY BLVD. SF, CA 94118-2908. Type of license applied for

41 – ON-SALE BEER AND WINE- EATING PLACE MAY 23, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION FOR CHANGE IN OWNERSHIP OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE LICENSE Dated 05/17/2013 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: ANDALE S F CENTRE. 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 845 MARKET ST. #FE7 SF, CA 94103-1921. Type of license applied for

41 – ON-SALE BEER AND WINE- EATING PLACE MAY 23, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035073300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TOTALLY NON TOXIC, 3156 MISSION ST. #3, SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Randen D. Kane. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/29/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/29/13.

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-032385800 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: ITALIAN HEART CYCLING, 1370 CHESTNUT ST., SF, CA 94123. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by Luca Ortolani. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/16/09.

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-033616700 The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: KINDRED NURSING AND REHABILITATION-VICTORIAN, 2121 PINE ST., SF, CA 94115. This business was conducted by a limited liability company and signed by Kindred Nursing Centers West LLC (DE). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 06/08/11.

MAY 02, 09, 16, 23, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035072700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GEORGETTE CRIMSON, 199 NEW MONTGOMERY ST. #1004, SF, CA 94105. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Tina Lorayne Reith. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/29/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/29/13.

MAY 09, 16, 23, 30, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035080700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: APARTMENTSINSF.COM; POST REAL ESTATE ADVISORS; 1895 JEFFERSON #306, SF, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Chuck Post. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/02/13.

MAY 09, 16, 23, 30, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035047000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HIGH ROAD PARTNERS, 3746 20TH ST., SF, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed Paul R. Hurley & Cynthia Cummins. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/17/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/17/13.

MAY 09, 16, 23, 30, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035078200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: POCKET CHANGE, 657 HOWARD ST., SF, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Lunch Money Co. (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/23/11. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/01/13.

MAY 09, 16, 23, 30, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035074700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BASQUE HOTEL; 15 ROMOLO; 15 ROMOLO PL., SF, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Galileo Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/00. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/30/13.

MAY 09, 16, 23, 30, 2013

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035083100

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035044200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TAHBAZOF LAW FIRM LLP, 1256 HOWARD ST. #201, SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability partnership and is signed Sufi Tahbazof Hariri & Yosef Tahbazof. 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 05/03/13.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ROUGH NECTAR, 47 PALM AVE. #4, SF, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Erin Eisenhower. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/16/13 The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/16/13.

MAY 09, 16, 23, 30, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035090200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SST APARTMENTS, 1256 HOWARD ST., SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SST Investments, LLC (DE). 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 05/07/13.

MAY 09, 16, 23, 30, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 05/06/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: APPLE NORCAL 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 2770 TAYLOR ST. 3RD FL., SF, CA 94133-1204. Type of license applied for

47 - ON-SALE GENERAL EATING PLACE MAY 16, 23, 30, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 05/10/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: JUAN MANUEL GALLARDO, MARIA ELENA GALLARDO. 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 3248 18TH ST., SF, CA 94110-1913. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE - EATING PLACE MAY 16, 23, 30, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 05/06/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: ALCYONE, 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 10-16 CALIFORNIA ST., SF, CA 94111-4803. Type of license applied for

48 - ON-SALE GENERAL PUBLIC PREMISES MAY 16, 23, 30, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 05/02/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: IST, 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 1222 NORIEGA ST., SF, CA 94122-4408. Type of license applied for

41 - ON-SALE BEER & WINE - EATING PLACE MAY 16, 23, 30, 2013 NOTICE OF APPLICATION TO SELL ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES Dated 04/30/13 To Whom It May Concern: The name(s) of the applicant(s) is/are: GASHEAD PRODUCTIONS 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 2351 MISSION ST., SF, CA 94110-1813. Type of license applied for

47 - ON-SALE GENERAL EATING PLACE MAY 16, 23, 30, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035106000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MENDESKARR LIMO SERVICE, 3845 LAWTON ST., SF, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Camila Mendes Severino. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/14/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/14/13.

MAY 16, 23, 30, JUNE 6, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035046600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE PAMPERED GIRL, 225 GOUGH ST., SF, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Hong Thi Nguyen. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/17/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/17/13.

MAY 16, 23, 30, JUNE 6, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035081100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JAPHICDESIGN, JAPHIC DESIGN, 74 NEW MONTGOMERY ST. #314, SF, CA 94105. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed Jackie Phung. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/02/13.

MAY 16, 23, 30, JUNE 6, 2013

MAY 16, 23, 30, JUNE 6, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035104200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CITY DWELLER, 1440 DE SOLO DR., SF, CA 94044. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed David Brian Gohn. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/25/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/14/13.

MAY 16, 23, 30, JUNE 6, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035040600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THIRD EAR DEAR, 1180 HOWARD ST #308, SF, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed Mary Ann Masagca & Michael Masagca. 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 04/15/13.

MAY 16, 23, 30, JUNE 6, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035078300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WORLD GATE JEWELERS, 1 MARKET ST., SF, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed Diva Poulos & Sophia Poulos. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/01/13.

MAY 16, 23, 30, JUNE 6, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A- 035098000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MOBILEY, 859 HARRISON ST. #B, SF, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Mobile Lab LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/10/13.

MAY 16, 23, 30, JUNE 6, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035089800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ISLA STUDIO, 1945 WASHINGTON ST. #304, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Isla Studio LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/07/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/0713.

MAY 16, 23, 30, JUNE 6, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035091200 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HEARWHOSATTHECLUBS.COM, 1353 BUSH ST. #112, SF, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed Music City LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/07/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/07/13.

MAY 16, 23, 30, JUNE 6, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035050400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: QUINTANA ALBERT LLP, 201 SPEAR ST., SF, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a limited liability partnership, and is signed Hallie Albert & Rory Quintara. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/09/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/18/13.

MAY 16, 23, 30, JUNE 6, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035100900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO REENTRY CENTER-SFRC, 3012 16TH ST. #201, SF, CA 94103-5933. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed Recovery Survival Network (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/13/13.

MAY 16, 23, 30, JUNE 6, 2013 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-035105500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ALIMENT, 790 BUSH ST., SF, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed 790 Bush St Ventures Inc. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/10/13. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/14/13.

MAY 16, 23, 30, JUNE 6, 2013

ebar.com

Gatsby rocks

Riots of spring

Viva Vito

Out &About

O&A

The

Vol. 43 • No. 21 • May 23-29, 2013

www.ebar.com/arts

Liberace lives! by David-Elijah Nahmod

Haughty “Alldunns” in The Painting.

Michael Douglas stars as Liberace in HBO’s Behind the Candelabra.

Off the canvas by David Lamble

new, imaginative, French animated feature (opening Friday at Landmark Theatres) should challenge and delight a wide swath of film buffs. Jean-Francois Laguionie’s The Painting has something for everyone: it’s conceived and executed in a traditional style of animation that should fascinate fans of representational art while still appealing to aficionados raised on Picasso or Pollock. Its core story-conceit is that the figures within the paintings of an especially irascible artist, possessing a notably dark sense of humor, come alive, jumping off their canvases to finish themselves following the benign neglect of their creator. Movie-wise, The Painting draws on methods as diverse as those pioneered by

Walt Disney in his 1920s “Laugh-O-Gram” live action/animated shorts, about the adventures of a little girl named Alice, or by Woody Allen, ahead of his time, in The Purple Rose of Cairo, his saga of a movie-addicted, Depression-era dame who sees her favorite movie star leap down from the screen. The Painting may well conjure up unsettling images for those who share my back-story of having once been head-over-heels about a couple of decidedly free-spirited young painters. Back in the late 1970s, when Dallas’ magnificent fine-arts district was still home to a warehouse-style gay disco, Robert used to dispose of some of his works by gifting them to See page 19 >>

Beyond Scarlett & Blanche

ecause she gave brilliant, Oscarwinning performances in two of the most coveted roles in Hollywood history, it’s easy to overlook Vivien Leigh’s

(1913-67) other movies. Like most English actors of her era, she preferred the stage to film, even though the screen made her an international star. Consequently, she made

Courtesy HBO

n Sunday, May 26 at 9 p.m., HBO will premiere Behind the Candelabra, director Steven Soderbergh’s eagerly anticipated biopic of Mr. Showmanship, the late Liberace. The film will focus primarily on Liberace’s relationship with Scott Thorson, his much younger chauffeur/lover. Oscar winners Michael Douglas and Matt Damon star as Liberace and Thorson, respectively. Douglas is particularly impressive in his capturing of the entertainer’s speech patterns and body language. Looking at clips of Liberace today, it’s difficult to believe that his primarily female audiences had no idea they were looking at a flamboyant gay man. In addition to his incom-

parable piano prowess, Liberace’s act included prancing – sometimes flying – across the stage, clad in lavish furs and jewels. Whether he was playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata or speaking to a sold-out house, the entertainer’s hand gestures were grand. Liberace went to great pains to remain closeted during his lifetime, and the fans believed every word of it. It was a different era. “Such things” were not discussed in those days. But in fact, his lavish lifestyle included showering his much younger male lovers with expensive gifts, which often included cars and homes. A press screener was provided to the B.A.R. for viewing. In the film, Douglas and Damon See page 14 >>

by Tavo Amador

relatively few pictures. During her long, troubled marriage to Laurence Olivier, she was determined to prove herself his equal in the theatre. Critics were often hostile, refus-

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara.

ing to believe that anyone so beautiful could be talented. The recently released Vivien Leigh Collection includes Gone With the Wind (1939) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), both of which have long been available. Of greater interest are the other pictures the set contains. In Waterloo Bridge (1940), she plays Myra, an exquisite ballerina who meets Roy, a British soldier (Robert Taylor), during World War I. They’re smitten, but their affair results in her being kicked out of the ballet company. After they marry, he is sent to the front. She thinks he has been killed, but keeps the news from his mother and breaks off contact with the family. Depressed, too proud to ask for help, she sinks into prostitution. While waiting for potential clients at a train station, Myra sees Roy, very much alive. Their bittersweet reconciliation is touching, as is the tragic denouement. Leigh is sympathetic and believable, obliterating every cliche. The handsome Taylor seems very American, but he’s otherwise at his best. Mervyn Leroy directed. The film was a commercial success. She and Olivier, free from their respective spouses, wed in 1940, and starred in Alexander Korda’s That Hamilton Woman (1941). See page 15 >>

{ SECOND OF TWO SECTIONS }

on 6/23

Get together with Lily Tomlin for an unforgettable night of fun and sidesplitting laughter. This unique comic artist takes her audience on a wise and howlingly funny trip with more than a dozen of her timeless characters – from Ernestine to Sister Boogie Woman, Mrs. Beaszley to Edith Ann. ENTER TO WIN AT WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/LGBTsf PURCHASE TICKETS at www.UptownTheatreNapa.com

<< Out There

14 • Bay Area Reporter • May 23-29, 2013

Shaking your symphony booty by Roberto Friedman

e never thought we’d see a concert musician doing a right excellent Michael Jackson moonwalk on the stage of Davies Symphony Hall, but goshdernit, we have now seen exactly that. Last Thursday night’s Spring Gala evening at Davies, which paired powerhouse R&B singer Janelle Monae and her spirited band with the San Francisco Symphony, was a triumph. Elegant in black-and-white threads and serious pompadour, Monae gave her considerable all to a set-list that included hits by the Jackson 5, Prince, and Charlie Chaplin (“Smile”). Monae oneupped Shirley Bassey by putting her own mark on “Goldfinger.” She colored blue outside the lines in “Peachtree Blues.” She got the normally staid Davies crowd up on their feet and shaking their booties in the aisles when she encored with her hits “Tightrope” and “Babopyeya,” finishing us off with her catchy new single (with Erykah Badu) “Q.U.E.E.N.,” from her upcoming album The Electric Lady. Since Out There has known a Q.U.E.E.N. or two in our life, the new song was right up our alley. The concertizing crowd, which leaned youthful like a Junior League B&W Ball, got the party started with a sparkling wine reception in the grand lobby of Davies Symphony Hall. The glamorous afterparty transpired in the City Hall rotunda and antechambers, with live music by an M.J. cover band, rad cocktails, and yummy edibles. Proceeds benefit the SF Symphony’s education and community programs providing music education to Bay Area schools. Plus, now Out There is a newly de-

Candelabra

From page 13

offer moving performances as Liberace and Thorson, whose sometimes stormy relationship led Thorson down a path of alcohol and drug abuse. The relationship ended badly, with Thorson suing his ex for palimony in a much-publicized case

Kasey L. Ross Photography

Members of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus strut their stuff.

Fri., June 26-28 (the opening-night gala is on Thurs., June 27). Tickets ($25-$60) are available at www.sfgmc. org or through City Box Office at (415) 392-4400.

The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus Board of Directors were our amiable hosts at a viewing of the exhibition Living the Legacy, iconic images of Harvey Milk and classic Castro Culture by acclaimed San Francisco photographer Dan Nicoletta. The party at Herth Real Estate was held in anticipation of SFGMC’s upcoming

35th anniversary celebration concert Harvey Milk 2013, which will feature the world premiere of the new choral work I Am Harvey Milk, words and music by Andrew Lippa. Lippa was in the house along with producer Bruce Cohen and other IAHM colleagues. SFGMC artistic director Dr. Timothy Seeling remarked that you could identify the New York contingent at the party because they were clad in blacks and grays. Nicoletta’s photographs from the Milk era looked great on the office walls and in the cottage out back. Each was carefully annotated to put the players and places in context, primary source material for future historians. Seeling referred to Nicoletta with respect and affection, saying he was our living link to Harvey Milk and the spirit of 1970s gay San Francisco. The production of I Am Harvey Milk, which marks the 35th anniversary of Milk’s assassination and the Chorus’ first singing in public, will run at the Nourse Theatre in SF Wed.-

that effectively outed the superstar. But as Liberace lay dying of AIDS in 1987, the two met again. In tears they admitted that they truly loved each other. Screenwriter Richard LaGravenese spoke to the B.A.R. about his process in telling this very complicated true-life story. “I downloaded a lot of his mu-

sic,” said LaGravenese. “I watched whatever documentary or television footage I could get. But my primary source was the Scott Thorson book, which included a great deal of Liberace’s biography.” LaGravenese said he also spoke to friends and relatives of Liberace. “Ray Arnett, who directed all of Liberace’s shows for over 20 years, con-

firmed what many others have said, including Scott, that Liberace was a big-hearted, generous, loving man. Of course he was also a star, who had built his career from the ground up, coming from nothing. So he had a star’s sense of entitlement and loyalty as well. He was absolutely devoted to his audiences.” The film was reportedly first pitched as a theatrical release. It found its way to HBO when director Steven Soderbergh was unable to find a studio willing to back it due to its overtly gay and sexual content. LaGravenese said that total freedom was the order of the day at HBO. “When I wrote the scene of their lovemaking while Liberace does poppers, I didn’t think it would get shot, but I wrote it, and it did.” The scene made it into the final cut.

Andrew Zaeh

R&B singer Janelle Monae triumphed with the San Francisco Symphony.

voted fan of the talented Janelle Monae. As her lyric puts it so eloquently, “The booty don’t lie!”

Singing queens

Wheels of fortune

In On Wheels (FSG), the author Michael Holroyd, acclaimed biographer of George Bernard Shaw, Lytton Strachey and Augustus John, recounts his lifelong obsession with motor vehicles. A few highlights: During a Russian party, lover Philippa Pullar drank so much vodka “that it was lucky her car was out of order that night. She caught the last bus home, and ended the night in bed with the bus conductor. ‘Really, my dear, it’s easier to get oneself serviced these days than one’s car!’” Later in life, Holroyd taught his wife, the novelist Margaret Drabble, to drive. “I also advised her, she claimed, never to park over a grating or an open drain, or she would cer-

tainly drop her keys down it when trying to unlock the door.” Re his biography subject the gay Bloomsbury author Strachey, Holroyd writes, “In 1922, at a particular crisis in the complex emotional climate in which he lived, he made the gift of a car to the burly Ralph Partridge (who was in love with Dora Carrington, a lesbian who had fallen passionately in love with the homosexual Lytton, who was greatly attracted to the heterosexual Ralph).” Sounds like musical sidecars! Viva Vivien: A review in this week’s issue celebrates the recent release of the Vivien Leigh Collection, several of her pictures compiled in one DVD set. We offer this anecdote to sweeten the pot. In his movie-queen book Bette and Joan, author Sean Considine writes that when Joan Crawford withdrew from Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), director/producer Robert Aldrich wanted Vivien Leigh to replace her. When contacted by a studio executive about it, Leigh reportedly replied, “No, thank you. I could just about stand looking at Joan Crawford’s face at six o’clock in the morning, but not Bette Davis.” Oh, burn.t

“What’s important to understand, and the reason I was drawn to the story, is that these two men genuinely loved each other,” said LaGravenese. “Perhaps at first there were more hidden agendas, but after a while I truly believe these two men loved each other. And that had to be at the core of the story or it’s not real. Otherwise it becomes some camp parody of a relationship. I believe they had a real marriage in every way but legal.” Behind the Candelabra co-stars Dan Ackroyd as Liberace’s agent, Debbie Reynolds as his mother, and Rob Lowe as a creepy plastic surgeon/pill-pusher. For a complete schedule of all Behind the Candelabra airings, go to: www.hbo.com/movies/behind-thecandelabra/index.htmlt

Courtesy HBO

Michael Douglas and Matt Damon star as Liberace and his lover Scott Thorson in HBO’s Behind the Candelabra.

Film >>

May 23-29, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 15

The rise and fall of Jay Gatsby by David Lamble

’m a sucker for director Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, filmed on Aussie locations, scored by Jay-Z, and starring real-life best friends Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby and Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway. I gulped down F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 50,000-word novel and even endured the dreadful 1974 Jack Clayton-directed movie (script by Francis Ford Coppola). The first big switch Luhrmann (with co-writer Craig Pearce) pulls on both Fitzgerald and Clayton/ Coppola is to flesh out the role of the novel’s all-knowing narrator, Nick Carraway. Maguire’s Nick relates the rise and spectacular demise of his friend Jay Gatsby to a shrink (Aussie legend Jack Thompson) as he dries out from booze addiction. Unlike Sam Waterston’s simpering, passive Nick in the 1974 version, Maguire’s wry, grounded take, rooted in craft and his long friendship with DiCaprio, allows a modern audience to see DiCaprio’s boldly stylized Gatsby as more than a petulant, nouveau-riche interloper. This allows us to grasp the degree to which Fitzgerald’s Gatsby is at heart a story of class warfare, disguised as a doomed love affair. There’s an enchanting moment midway through the story when Gatsby asks a huge favor of Nick: to allow him to have a tea-time sortie with Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan). As the two men circle each other in the rainforestlike splendor of Gatsby’s garden, we see just how vulnerable this man/ boy is, how much his Prohibition hooch-fueled bacchanal parties have been staged as the ultimate extravagant gesture, to prove to the born-rich Daisy that she should repudiate her marriage to the racist, womanizing Tom (a ferocious Joel Edgerton) and run off with the former poor-boy Gatsby. His new-

Vivien Leigh

From page 13

(They previously had supporting roles in 1937’s Fire Over England.) She was first-billed as the scandalous Emma Hamilton, with whom Napoleonic War hero Horatio Nelson (Oliver) had a notorious affair. Leigh’s Emma is convincing, an adulteress who had more than one lover. Olivier is fine, but she seems more natural on screen. The popular movie struck a patriotic note, with Napoleon substituting for Hitler. Plagued by tuberculosis and poorly understood bi-polar disorder, she was off the screen until 1945’s lavish Caesar and Cleopatra. Directed by Gabriel Pascal with a screenplay by George Bernard Shaw, it’s a faithful version of his play, which he confidently compared with Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Top-billed Claude Rains is a witty, shrewd Caesar, who resists the charms of the youthful Egyptian would-be queen while focusing on the political issues the Romans face. Leigh is breathtakingly beautiful, and gives a vivid, nuanced performance, beginning as a flighty girl and becoming an ambitious, intelligent ruler. Pascal, an almost uncritical admirer of Shaw (he had previously produced successful films of Pygmalion and Major Barbara), directs too reverently. The first part is talky. The last 30 minutes, however, are rousing. With a strapping Stewart Granger, on the verge of becoming a matinee idol on both sides of the Atlantic, Flora Robson, wearing dusky makeup and unintentionally campy as the queen’s devoted slave Flatateeta, and, in a bit, the young Jean Simmons, who would marry Granger and have

Courtesy Warner Bros.

Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby in director Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby.

found wealth seems suspiciously tied to the criminal businesses of the sinister Jewish gangster Meyer Wolfsheim (Amitabh Bachchan). It’s in this scene that Nick discovers why he – a struggling bond salesman who pays $80 a month to rent a humble cottage next to Gatsby’s estate – is the only one to receive a personal invitation to Jay’s big parties. Rather than feeling badly used, Nick is deeply touched, and in signature Maguire adolescent exuberance, grants the favor. “I’m going to call Daisy and invite her to tea.” Gatsby, embarrassed at the nakedness of his need, offers to throw some business Nick’s way. “You wouldn’t have to do any business with Wolfsheim.” “It’s a favor, Jay, a favor.” This emotionally resonant scene sets the stage for Gatsby’s fall, but also allows the filmmakers to pay off clues about Gatsby’s debt to the mobster, believed to be based on the real-life gambler Arnold Rothstein,

a successful Hollywood career in the 1950s and 60s. (Leigh was alternating Shaw’s and Shakespeare’s Cleopatras opposite Olivier on Broadway when she won her second Oscar in 1952.) As Anna Karenina (1948), Leigh challenged the legacy of Greta Garbo, who had played Tolstoy heroine to great acclaim in Love (1927) and, using the correct title, in 1935. Leigh is glorious as the reckless, doomed Anna, who throws away respect, social status, financial security, and surrenders her son to live with Count Vronsky (handsome Kieron Moore). If audiences are to find Anna affecting, the actress playing her must convince them that she has no control over her feelings – Anna must follow them no matter what may happen. Leigh is utterly compelling, a supremely romantic creature, helplessly self-destructive. Viewers watching as she slowly, inexorably moves towards her tragic fate are unlikely to remain dry-eyed. She’s better than Garbo. Keira Knightley was foolish to invite comparisons. Ralph Richardson is a chilling Karenin, demanding sympathy for his humiliation, yet remaining unlikeable. Leigh’s physical and mental health remained frail, and she was often unable to work. She made only four more movies: Streetcar, The Deep Blue Sea (1955), The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961, the year she and Olivier divorced), and played one last aging, southern beauty, Mary Treadwell in 1965’s Ship of Fools, another stunningly etched portrayal in the unsuccessful but excellent film version of Katherine Anne Porter’s sole novel. In 1963, she won a Tony for Best Actress in a musical for Tovarich. See page 25 >>

whose dastardly coup was fixing the 1919 World Series. As Fitzgerald fans know all-toowell, this brilliant, hard-drinking literary genius was in no way politically correct, by either today’s standards or those of the early flapper era. Not only is the character of the attack-dog-like heavy Tom Buchanan steeped in Henry Ford-worthy, paranoid-white-guy racial theories, but Fitzgerald was quite capable of revealing his highly ambivalent if not virulently anti-Semitic views in almost an ambush style. Deep into the novel, a female associate of Wolfsheim’s is boldly introduced as a “Jewess.” And this movie Gatsby is the first time in eons in which the “K-word” has been dropped (once). This realism comes into sharper focus in appreciating the filmmakers’ musically hip soundtrack. One of the reasons you love this Gatsby, if you do, is the gloriously anachronistic mash-up of George Gershwin

and Jay-Z, along with Jack White covering U2’s “Love Is Blindness,” Fergie’s “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody,” and Sia’s “Kill and Run.” Watching Gatsby from the “conversation pit” of Berkeley’s California Theatre multiplex, I felt like I had Nick’s invite. While Robert Redford has been forgiven his halting, blandly boring, almost cadaver-

ous Gatsby, it’s hard to get over what a terminal snooze the 1974 Oscarwinning (for Costume Design and Music) production was. Coppola has never forgiven Clayton the “mutilation” of his vision of Gatsby and Daisy with a long set-piece between Redford and the equally miscast Mia Farrow. The new Gatsby doesn’t try and make more of the enigma of this relationship than the screen possibly can. Luhrmann succeeds by sticking to his unique vision, and by trusting his beautiful man/boy leads to fill any gaps left by the underwhelming Carey Mulligan. When I first saw the long-available trailer for this extravagant, postmodern Gatsby, I was worried that DiCaprio’s take might come off as laughably over-thetop. Sure enough, an audience member at the California was chortling suspiciously, as if Leo might be a joke. But that’s always the risk of exposing oneself to art in the company of people who have no stake in professional decorum. For those of us who delighted in Leo’s sassy Rimbaud (in the queer-friendly Total Eclipse) and Tobey’s turn as the plucky guerilla fighter standing up to slavery in Ang Lee’s Ride with the Devil, this is our Gatsby. t

Courtesy Warner Bros.

The Gatsby estate in director Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby.

<< Books

16 • Bay Area Reporter • May 23-29, 2013

Choreography creates chaos by Tim Pfaff

he Rite of Spring will have its 100th anniversary as a dance(d) work on May 29. It’s best known now as “Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du printemps),” with performances of it in the concert hall commonplace – against all odds, given its difficulty as music – and its appearances on the ballet stage comparatively few. At its stormy Paris premiere, it would at least equally have been considered Vaslav Nijinsky’s, or Serge Diaghilev’s. A century later the dispute still rages over whether it was Stravinsky’s score or Nijinsky’s choreography – or both – that caused the riot in the Theatre des Champs-Elysees (that may or may not have been carefully calculated by Diaghelev, director of the Ballets Russes and Nijinsky’s main patron and lover at the time). The long subsequent life of the music and the shorter one of the dance point to the latter, though the matter may never be settled. One of the best-known accounts of the riot is by Count Harry Kessler, a gay aristocrat who was an integral member of the international art scene – and not just as a hanger-on – for a half-century. Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler 1880-1918 (Knopf), recently reissued in paperback, is essential (and transfixing) reading for anyone interested in the arts in the 20th century. Kessler, who appeared at the end of the rehearsal the night before the premiere to find himself in the company not only of the cre-

ators but also of the likes of Andre Gide and Maurice Ravel, ends his entry of May 28 with, “The common opinion was that tomorrow evening the premiere would be a scandal.” His entry for May 29, at the end of which he finds himself in a taxi at 3 a.m. with Diaghilev, Nijinsky, designer Leonard Bakst, and Jean Cocteau, after vividly recounting the riot in the theater (the police were called), came to a shrewd judgment: “A thoroughly new vision, something never before seen, enthralling, persuasive, is suddenly there, a new kind of wildness, both un-art and art at the same time. All forms laid waste and new ones emerging suddenly from the chaos.” In the audience, Debussy, known to have strongly disliked Nijinsky’s choreography for his Diaghilevcommissioned Prelude a l’Apres-

midi d’un faune and Jeux, in Kessler’s account shouted, “What a bunch of imbeciles,” presumably to those outraged audience members whose racket threatened to drown out the music. But it’s fairly clear that it was the ritualistic, Earth-stomping choreography by Nijinsky – who further incensed the crowd by not performing in the piece – that most incensed a ballet audience that had sat contentedly, pre-intermission, through Les Sylphides. A scholarly attempt, by Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer, to reconstruct the unnotated choreography from other historical evidence, which the Joffrey Ballet performed in 1987 (including at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Auditorium), hinted at the work’s primitivism. It failed for being unconscionably boring, controversial only to other scholars. Because the only images of Nijinsky’s dancing and choreography are stills, his artistic cadaver has been ripe for the pickings ever since his departure from the stage, after seven years of dancing, and his death, incurably insane, 30 years later. The centenary of Rite is sure to increase the chatter. Writing about more attempted reconstructions, dance critic Joan Acocella observed, “Before [with Rite], you could say they were doing their best. But ‘Nijinsky’s Last Dance?’ This is starting to look like a racket.” Unless you’re a scholar of dance or queer culture, everything you want to know about Nijinsky is in Richard Buckle’s still-unsurpassed (and compulsively readable) biography, Nijinsky’s Diaries edited by

Acocella, and Acocella’s easily-Googled articles. The evidence is that Nijinsky’s first and primary sexual interest was in women, that he fully partnered with men sexually, that he probably had his first sexual experience (and possibly the great love of his pre-mad life) with Prince Pavel Lvov, a ballet patron who acquired Nijinsky but also cared about the young and not-yet-famous (but much sought-after) dancer and bountifully provided for him both materially and emotionally. Seeing a road to fame for Nijinsky, Lvov passed him on as a lover to Diaghilev, about whom Nijinsky seems to have been far more ambivalent, but who did make him the most famous dancer in the world. In a move that proved shattering for both Nijinsky and Diaghilev, on an international tour of The Rite in the summer after its Paris premiere, which a busy Diaghilev did not accompany, Nijinsky abruptly married Romola de Pulszky, who remained his wife for the remainder of his life, but who took only women lovers after Nijinsky. The great dancer was, in many senses of the expression, regularly put on the couch before and after his descent into madness. Puzzling out his sexuality and seeming androgyny has become a sometimes disturbing sub-industry of its own. Being treated like chattel as a beautiful young man may seem shocking (though Nijinsky took to the wealth and luxury as to the manner born), but the practice was a widespread and well-known part of Russian dance culture (and remains so today). The latest exploitation of Nijin-

sky and his mystique is a tawdry new biography, Nijinsky: A Life (Profile Books) by Lucy Moore. It’s the worst kind of speculative biography, adding little to what is known, skating across the standard controversies, minimizing discussions of the dances themselves, and – its main aim – proposing a psychosexual interpretation of Nijinsky’s personal sexual development as manifested in his dances – itself not a new idea, and less interestingly handled here. The language is less psychobiography than fanzine, as Moore imagines the great moments of Vaslav, as she compulsively calls him, in confabulated detail. If there’s a source for her statement that, backstage at the premiere of Rite, “Beneath his arms, the thin silk of his shirt was already wet through,” it doesn’t make one of the endnotes that comprise more than a third of the book. It’s a sweaty affair. So, although Nijinsky is still for sale or trade 100 years on, more substantive celebrations this year may shed more light on Nijinsky’s Rite. It’s worth investigating www. theriteofspringat100.org.t

Spellbinding by Jim Piechota Invisibility by David Levithan & Andrea Cremer; Philomel Books, $18.99

rom a literary perspective, combining the literary prowess of seasoned writers like David Levithan and Andrea Cremer is catnip for the bookish. It results in Invisibility, a new novel that’s rich in detail, creative in plotting, and a hit for a crossover young adult-adult audience. A surefire collaborative success, the story follows two dynamic teenagers who are challenged with the use and control of their supernatural powers. Levithan is a prolific, gay YA author who has penned such bestsellers as Boy Meets Boy and his first book-to-screen collaborative effort with Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Cremer is the esteemed author of the supernatural thriller series Nightshade. They play beautifully well together in this story set in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, as 16-year-old Stephen, cursed with invisibility and desperately lonely, is finally spotted by a sameaged girl in his apartment building, and a cute romance ensues. New York City is painted by the authors as a uniquely bustling yet

fervently romantic city, a place Stephen finds “remarkably easy to be invisible,” especially in Central Park, where he spends most of his afternoons. This all changes after Elizabeth enters the picture, and Stephen introduces her to the Park, where she, a transplant from Minnesota, has inexplicably never visited before. Together they explore the beauty of sections like The Ramble, “where the park resists the landscape and becomes a rough-and-tumble twist of secret paths.” Together with Elizabeth’s formerly bullied gay brother Laurie, whose character development happily surpasses See page 18 >>

<< DVD

18 • Bay Area Reporter • May 23-29, 2013

Stars in their eyes by Gregg Shapiro

well as Lily Tomlin, Bruce Vilanch, Gabriel Rotello, Jim Fouratt, Arnie Kantrowitz, Rev. Malcolm Boyd, Armistead Maupin, David Ehrenstein, Karla Jay, Michael Denneny, Felice Picano, Michelangelo Signorile, Larry Kramer and Jenni Olson, among others), sing Russo’s praises, with every note ringing true. Vito is not to be missed. DVD bonus material includes audio commentary, interview outtakes and excerpts from Our Time. In Starlet (Music Box Films), early-20-something Janie (Dree Hemingway, daughter of Mariel Hemingway) lives out of her suitcase in the room she shares with the affectionate male Chihuahua she named Starlet. She doesn’t care for the room’s appearance and wants to make changes to it. But friend and Oxy-snorter Melissa (Stella Maeve), whose drug-dealing/videogameplaying manager/boyfriend Mikey (James Ransone) owns the San Fernando Valley house, discourages her from doing anything drastic, such as painting the walls. With Starlet in tow, Janie hits yard, garage and estate sales, buying various knickknacks and furniture.

At one, she encounters grumpy, elderly widow Sadie (Besedka Johnson, making her film debut), who sells her an oversized thermos. Back at home, Janie fills the thermos with water, intending to use it as a vase. But when she tries to insert the flower stems, something is in the way. Dumping it out in the sink, Janie discovers rubber-banded rolls of cash totaling thousands of dollars. After spending some of the cash on a shopping spree, Janie tries to return the thermos and leftover money, but the unsociable Sadie, who told her that there were “no refunds” at the time of the sale, won’t even talk to her. Determined to somehow return part of her newfound wealth to Sadie, Janie finds a way to reach out to the standoffish older woman, and before you know it, the “tough cookie” has softened. Janie takes Sadie grocery shopping and joins her at church bingo. But Sadie remains suspicious of Janie, and even maces her at one point, accusing her of being a “scammer,” and then calling the police. But Sadie realizes she has misjudged Janie and apologizes. As they get better acquainted, Sadie reveals that her late husband was a successful gambler and left her wellprovided for. Janie takes Sadie to the cemetery so she can bring flowers to his grave. As much as Janie learns about Sadie, that’s how little Sadie knows about Janie. For example, Sadie has no idea that Janie is a rising star in the adult-film industry. We watch as Janie, as her porn-star identity Tess, films an explicit sex scene for the porn studio with which she is affiliated. Melissa (stage name Zana), on the other hand, is frozen out of the industry due to her erratic, drug-fueled behavior. Melissa’s new Camaro is repossessed and her mobile phone is turned off due to lack of payment. When Melissa discovers Janie’s cash stash, hidden in a pair of red, thigh-high boots in her closet, this creates a rift between the girls and leads the vengeful Melissa to do something that affects more than just their relationship. Meanwhile, the cracks in Janie and Sadie’s friendship are beginning to show, and it won’t take much to make it shatter. Filmmaker Sean Baker effortlessly contrasts the innocent development of an unlikely friendship with the darker, hardcore elements of Starlet. He flirts with the audience’s comfort level and how far he can push it. Starlet may not be to everyone’s taste, but it should be seen for the lead actresses’ performances alone. DVD bonus features include audio commentary, cast and crew interviews, audition and rehearsal footage, behind-thescenes and making-of featurettes, and more.t

session in a witch’s hexatorium, and many otherworldly hurdles, all preparing them for the surprise appearance of Stephen’s demonic grandfather Maxwell Arbus, the man who originally cursed him with invisibility, and whose power is incrementally killing Stephen. As the tension amps up in the second half, the authors are sure to keep everything young-adult-friendly with pizza breaks, lively high school vernacular, and some burgeoning gay-boy tingles for Stephen and Laurie. Much like Rick Yancey’s

recent blockbuster YA hit The 5th Wave, Levithan and Cremer have left some plot strands dangling and kept enough narrative ambiguity to allow for the birth of several sequels. They’ve also held several characters (and their complex friendships) open for further interpretation. It could be the beginning of a great co-authored series about gay and straight magical friends coming together to fight evil and promote goodness and light in Central Park and everywhere else. Just as charmed and charming as life should be.t

n recent years, filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz has made a name for himself with documentaries about showbiz folks, as in Spine Tingler! (horror filmmaker William Castle) and Wrangler (gay porn legend Jack Wrangler). His latest, Vito (First Run Features), now out on DVD, is a respectfully rendered portrait of and tribute to gay rights activist and gay film expert Vito Russo, author of the seminal work The Celluloid Closet. Fittingly described as “our gay hero,” Russo had a passion for the movies. But before he found a way to express that, he became an LGBT rights activist following the Stonewall riots, more specifically the 1970 raid of the Snake Pit bar. This was a turning point for Russo. He became an early and active member of the Gay Activists Alliance, and took part in a variety of protests in New York, including one at Harper’s magazine and another at the office of the City Clerk. Combining the political with the cultural, Russo initiated the movie nights at the GAA headquarters. He understood the value of watching movies with an all-gay audience in a safe and open environment. Russo soon became a recognizable face in the movement, and was influential in getting Bette Midler to speak and sing at a particularly volatile 1973 Pride rally. With his writing career in full swing (he was a contributor to The Advocate, among other outlets), Russo also worked with film at MoMA. It was there that he began to catalog the images of queer characters in movies. In 1973, he began his Celluloid Closet lectures/screenings that would become the basis for his groundbreaking book. Just as he was becoming one of the first gay celebrities in the early 1980s, appearing on nationally syndicated news programs and hosting the Our Time gay cable show, the AIDS crisis began. Once again, Russo was on the frontlines of activism, co-founding not only GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) but also ACT UP (with Larry Kramer and others). Never giving up the fight even as his lover Jeffrey Sevcik died, close friends were dying all around him and his own health diminished, Russo was the picture of courage and bravery right to the end. Interviews with family members (brother Charles and cousin Phyllis) as well as close friends and associates (including his biographer Michael Schiavi, as

Spellbinding

From page 16

that of Levithan and Cremer’s central characters, they discover minor inconveniences to Stephen’s reality, and the story seems to coast a bit until the halfway mark. The trio seek to break the curse that made Stephen invisible (his family lineage is inherently evil). While attempting this, they encounter supernatural entities (“hexologists,” “spellvoyants,” “spellseekers,” “spelltraffickers,” take your pick), a magical training

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t <<

Film >>

May 23-29, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 19

Off the canvas

From page 13

me. Decades after this affair, I still live with the canvases; it’s especially amusing to imagine that any of the figures depicted, from a prehistoric dinosaur to the venerable blues singer Bessie Smith, might flee my walls in search of their now middleaged creator. My second painter boyfriend, Scooter, described frenzied moments when Robert would slash failed canvasses with a butcher knife when the two shared a Mission flat. The center of Laguionie’s richly imagined world is a fortress-like castle where the “aristocrats,” figures from finished paintings dubbed “Alldunns,” lord it over their halfcaste unfinished cousins, “the Halfies,” while both heap scorn on the pencil-conceived “Sketchies.” The warring factions have no idea where their bemused creator, the long-absent painter, is, or whether he’ll ever return to finish the works in which they reside. In a funny prologue to the main adventure, a sexy, big-nosed Alldunn youth, Ramo, hopelessly smitten with a Halfie lass, pleads with imperious Alldunn “posers” who plan to enslave the lesser characters at the urging of a clown-like leader, sort of a bullying cousin to Zippy the Pinhead. The scene begins with Ramo pleading for mercy for the “half-breeds,” the adolescent invoking the principles of the French Revolution, while getting a scornful reception from Zippy and his followers. “Your words are fueled by shame and hate. We should blot from our minds our differences, and focus in on how we are the same!” “Our Ramo is trying to justify his love affair with a Halfie. The days of blissful idealism are over, my friends: If we let in Halfies, why not Sketchies? Where will it end?” “All he’s interested in is power.” “There is no shame in being su-

EXCLUSIVE BAY AREA LGBT MEDIA SPONSORS

Scene from Jean-Francois Laguionie’s animated French feature, The Painting. Will a long-absent painter return to finish his work?

perior. My pretty little things, you are the light that illuminates this castle!” The Painting then turns into one of those archetypal journeys through the underworld described by the late mythologist Joseph Campbell – the type of Christianinfluenced sojourn fueling blockbuster franchises like the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings series. Here the very artifice behind our plucky little band’s creation keeps the proceedings from dissolving into a Tolkien Armageddon or a Potter special-effects miasma. The most disturbing moments occur when the characters stumble across a secret chamber where the slashed remnants of discarded canvasses provide a terrifying reminder of the collateral damage when a painter’s work fails to achieve some inner goal. Does The Painting deserve its 80-minute running time? It depends on what you bring to the show. Moviegoers with a keen, visually charged imagination who enjoy minimally conceived characters thrust against a rich palette of colors

and shapes will find themselves in a latter-day visual Fantasia. The movie recapitulates the history of modern art and raises vexing questions about an artist’s vision, his work habits, and the existential dilemma of if and when a work of the imagination, executed in oils on canvas, can ever be finished. The attentiondeficit crowd may feel the occasional longueur and pine for one of Disney’s famous half-features, like Song of the South, so effortlessly filling the hours of Uncle Walt’s Wonderful World of Disney on TV. Fortunately, Landmark is showing an Englishlanguage version, thus sparing the subtitle-hating from losing half the dialogue to infuriating technical glitches. As The Painting reached its whimsical happy ending, I recalled my skinny young painters, wondering if the guys who left me a record of nearly every rite of passage through their 20s – from a collage of the last cigarettes puffed to nifty miniature abstracts in wax – would have turned my walls into a miniature Warhol factory, if we had endured as long as their canvases.t

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<< Out&About

20 • Bay Area Reporter • May 23-29, 2013

by Jim Provenzano

Out

bou t

O&A

es, those young faces are familiar to fans of the TV show Glee. See and hear two of its stars performing live. Okay, so Darren Criss’ show is already sold out, and Alex “Unique” Newell is performing out in Alameda, but hey! I don’t decide such things. Enjoy these and/ or other gleefully talented performers. And read our interview with Alex Newell on www.BARtabSF.com

Darren Criss, Wed 29

Thu 23

U.S. premiere of Irish playwright Mark O’Rowe’s poetic fantastical drama about three people ripped from their ordinary lives into a strange underworld of serial killers and lovesick demons. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun (& Sat June 1) at 2:30pm. Fort Mason Center, Bldg D., 3rd floor. 441-8822. www.magictheatre.com

Jess Curtis, Jörg Müller, Fri 24

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma @ The Hypnodrome

Thrillpeddlers performs Scrumbly Koldewyn and Pam Tent’s new, full-length restored version of The Cockettes’ 1971 wacky drag musical comedy on the 42nd anniversary of the original production. Thu-Sat 8pm. Extended thru June 29. 575 10th St. at Bryant. (800) 838-3006. www.thrillpeddlers.com

Fri 24

Pericles, Prince of Tyre @ Berkeley Rep

Abigail's Party @ SF Playhouse

Mike Leigh’s biting comedy pokes fun at striaght suburban Brits in the ‘70s disco era, where a cocktail party goes overboard. $30-$100. Tue-Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Also Sat 3pm. Thru July 6. 450 Post St. 2nd. floor of Kensington Park Hotel. 677-9596. www.sfplayhouse.org

Acid Test @ the Marsh Warren David Keith’s solo show, Acid Test: the Many Incarnations of Ram Dass, about the ‘60s guru, returns. Fri 8pm. Sat 5pm. Thru May 18. 1062 Valencia St. at 22nd. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Obie Award-winning director Mark WingDavey revamps Shakespeare’s actionpacked seafaring drama full of knights, pirates, villains and kings. Special events thru the run. $29-$77. Tue-Thu-Sat 8pm. Wed & Sun 7pm. Also Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru May 26. Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. at Shattuck. (510) 647-2949. www.BerkeleyRep.org

Peter White @ Yoshi’s Jazz fusion guitarist performs with his band at the cool nightclub. $22-$29. 8pm & 10pm. Also May 25. 1330 Fillmore St. 655-5600. www.yoshis.com

Birds of a Feather @ New Conservatory Theatre

May 23: Black Swan (7pm) and Dancer in the Dark (9pm). May 29: Spring Breakers (7pm) and Enter the Void (8:45). $8.50$12. 429 Castro St. 621-6120. www.castrotheatre.com

Marc Acito’s comic play about Central Park Zoo’s gay penguins, Fifth Avenue hawks, and the silly human reactions to such flighty families. $22-$45. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru June 2. 25 Van Ness Ave, lower level. 861-8972. www.nctcsf.org

Philip Glass Ensemble @ YBCA, Davies Hall

By & By @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley

American Conservatory Theatre presents the National Theatre of Scotland’s globally acclaimed military drama-dance performance work, appropriately staged in the enormous Mission District Armory’s Drill Court. (Special bike valet night May 23). $44-$82. Tue-Sat 8pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Sun 7pm. Thru June 9. 333 14th St. at Mission. 749-2228. www.act-sf.org

Burqavaganza @ Brava Theatre

Vidhu Singh’s satire of political and religious oppression, banned in Pakistan, gets an acclaimed local production performed by Ajoka Theatre Company. $12-$17. ThuSat 8pm Sun 3pm. (May 26, 7pm ). Thru June 2. 2781 24th st. www.brava.org

Comedy Bodega @ Esta Noche

Enjoy the fun weekly LGBT and indie comic stand-up night. This week, Mark Davis headlines with Lydia Popovich. Marga Gomez hosts.8pm-9:30pm. 3079 16th St. at Mission. www.comedybodega.com

Jack Curtis Dubowski Ensemble @ Luggage Store Gallery

Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night @ Exit Theatre Cutting Ball Theater’s production of Andrew Saito’s poetic Beat-like family saga, full of eccentric characters. $10-$50. Thu 7:30. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 2pm, Sun 5pm. Thru June 16. Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor St. 525-1205. www.cuttingball.com

First in a series of talks, panels and film screenings about Bay Area radical protest history focuses on the “Redwood Summer” and the rise of Earth First, plus controversies. 7pm. 2313 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. www.bayarearadicalhistory.wordpress.com

Show/Off @ Red Devil Lounge

Drag, comedy, burlesque, music variety show, with a bevy of drag queens, DJ Sergio Fedasz spinning tunes, and live music by Darling Gunsel and Corpus Hideous. $10. 10pm show. 1695 Polk St. www.reddevillounge.com

Smuin Ballet @ Various Venues

The SF modern ballet company tours East Bay and Carmel. $50-$70. May 22-26 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St. May 31-June 1 at the Lesher Center, Walnut Creek, Civic & Locust Sts. June 7-8 at the Carmel Sunset Center. 556-5000. www.smuinballet.org

Strange Shorts @ Oddball Films

Odd and vintage short films and excerpts. May 23: God, The Devil and Betty Boop, bizarre short films with Satan. May 24, Play With Your Toys; animated toy shorts scare the kids! Thu & Fri. $10, 8pm. 275 Capp St. 558-8117. www.oddballfilms.blogspot.com

Burqavaganza, Thu 23

Dear Elizabeth @ Berkeley Repertory

Sarah Ruhl and Les Waters’ new play based on the letters between 20th-century poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Previews; opening night May 29. $29-$72. Tue, Thu-Sat 8pm. Wed & Sun 7pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru July 7. Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949. www.BerkeleyRep.org

Foodies, the Musical @ Shelton Theater

Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue of songs and sketches about food. $32-$34. Fri & Sat 8pm. Open run. 533 Sutter St. (800) 838-3006. www.foodiesthemusical.com

Hedwig and the Angry Inch @ Boxcar Theatre

New local production of John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s popular transgender rock operetta, with multiple actor-singers performing the lead, including Katya Smirnoff-Skyy, Jason Brock, Arturo Galster and Trixxie Carr. $25-$40. Wed-Sat 8pm. Also Sat 5pm. Extended with open-ended run. 505 Natoma St. 9672227. www.boxcartheatre.org

Jess Curtis, Jörg Müller @ CounterPulse

The Presets, Fri 24

The Presets, Dragonette @ Fox Theater

Australian electropop duo with a queer edge perform live. $32.50. 8pm. 1807 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. www.thefoxoakland.com

Spencer Day @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko

The celebrated local pianist-singer-composer performs music from his new CD The Mystery of You, and selections from his prior albums. $55-$75. 8pm. Also May 24 (8pm) & 25 (7pm). Hotel Nikko lobby, 222 Mason St. (855) 636-4556. www.ticketweb.com

Sweet Charity @ Lesher Theatre, Walnut Creek

The Tony Award-winning musical about a call girl (book by Neil Simon, music and lyrcis by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields), is produced by Center Repertory Company. $38-$47. Tue-Wed 7:30pm. Thu-Sat 8pm. Some Sat and Sun 2:30pm. Thru June 22. 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. (925) 9437469. www.centerrep.org

Sat 25

Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi

Musical comedy revue, now in its 35th year, with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs. Reg: $25-$130. Wed, Thu, Fri at 8pm. Sat 6:30, 9:30pm. Sun 2pm, 5pm. (Beer/wine served; cash only). 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd (Green St.). 4214222. www.beachblanketbabylon.com

Experimental ensemble performs electroacoustic structured improvisation music. $6-$10. 8pm. 1007 Market St at 6th. 2555971. www.outsoud.org

Redwood Summer @ The Holdout, Oakland

Shotgun Players’ production of Lauren Gunderson’s scifi thriller drama about an eccentric professor of cloning who puts his skills to use after a family tragedy. $20-$30. Wed & Thu 7pm. Fri & Sat 8pm. Sun 5pm. Thru June 23. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. (510) 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org

The duo’s Performance Research Experiment #2: Paradox of the Heart (Phase 1) takes on a scientific movement environment. Fri-Sun 8pm. Thru May 26. 1310 Mission St. www.counterpulse.org

The Medea Hypothesis @ Berkeley City Club

Three actors play several roles in Marian Berges’ modern adaptation of Euripedes’ Medea. $15-$28. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 5pm. 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. (510) 5581381. www.centralworks.org

The Merry Wives of Windsor @ Buriel Clay Theatre

African-American Shakespeare Company’s production of The Bard’s comic middleclass spin-off from the King Henry plays, reset in the urban U.S. 1950s, with Sir John Falstaff scheming and plotting. $10-$35. Thu 10am, Sat 8pm. Sun 3pm. Thru May 26. Arifcan American Arts & Culture Complex, 762 Fulton St. at Webster. (800) 838-3006. www.African-AmericanShakes.org

Subtitled The Evolution of Family Affirming Children’s Literature, exhibit curator Randall Tarpey-Schwed shares his unique collection of children’s books that portray gay or lesbian parents. Thru Aug. 1. Hormel Center, 3rd floor, 100 Larkin St. 557-4400. www.sfpl.org

The Last War Crime @ Delancy Street Screen Room Low-budget dramatic narrative film based on the actual accounts that led to Dick Cheney being charged with war crimes. Free/donations. 6pm & 8pm. 600 Embarcadero. www.LastWarCrime.com

The veteran comic expounds (get it?) on everything and anything, with her dry wit. $25-$80. 8:30pm. Jewish Community Center, 50 Acacia Ave., San Rafael. 839-9474. www.marinjcc.org

SF Hiking Club @ Almaden, Mt. Tam

Black Watch @ Armory Community Center

The iconic minimalist composer’s 75th brthday is honored, as his musicians perform a live score to the Cocteau film La Belle et la Bete (Beauty and the Beast). Pre-show conversation with Glass on May 25, 6pm. $40-$65. 8pm. Also May 24 & 25. Lam Research Theatre 700 Howard St. Also, May 26: Koyaanisqatsi screened with the score performed live at Davies Hall. $40-$65. 7pm. 201 Van Ness Ave. 9782787. www.performances.org

Tom Stoppard’s masterpiece of romance and literary intrigue, with 19th and 20thcentury scenes in an English country house, is performed in a new production directed by Carey Perloff. $25-$200. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. (some Sun 7pm or 8pm, weekdays matiness 2pm). Thru June 9. 415 Geary St. 749-2228. www.act-sf.org

From Heather’s Mommies to Tango’s Daddies @ SF Public Library

Paula Poundstone @ Osher Marin JCC

Arcadia @ American Conservatory Theatre

New & Classic Films @ Castro Theatre

Terminus @ Magic Theatre

Gleeway

Blues, Brews & Oysters @ Dance Palace, Point Reyes 38th annual fundraiser for the Marin Headlands arts space, with a performance by Quinn DeVeaux & The Blue Beat Review, Soul Delights and other groups, plus beer, oysters, food and a silent auction. $10$20. 11pm-6pm. 503 B St. Pount Reyes. 663-1075. www.dancepalace.org

Bjork @ Craneway Pavilion, Richmond

The Icelandic art/pop music composersinger performs a special intimate in-the-round concert of music from her CD Biophilia. $75-$150. Also May 25 & 28. 8:30pm. 1414 Harbour Way South, Richmond. www.ticketmaster.com

Join GLBT hikers on an 8-mile hike in Almaden Quicksilver County Park near San Jose, an area steeped in California goldmine an Indian history. Carpool meets 8:45am at Safeway sign. 740-9888. May 27: a 9-mile hike along the south side of Marin’s Mt. Tamalpais along Temelpa and Wheeler trails. Carpool meets 9:15am. (510) 985-0804. www.sfhiking.com

UnderCurrents @ SOMArts Cultural Center

UnderCurrents & The Quest for Space, a group exhibit of works by Asian American women about stereotypical depictions of Asian Americans. Tue-Fri 12pm-7pm Sat 12pm-5pm. Thru May 25. 934 Brannan St. 863-1414. www.somarts.org

Sun 26

Comedy Explosion @ 1772

Paul Doyle hosts another night of LGBT and gay-friendly stand-up comics, including Casey Ley, Land Smith, Keith D’souza, Kristee Ono, Larry Dorsey Jr., Matt Lieb,Zach Garner, Kymedienne Jackson and Johan Miranda. $10. 21+. 8pm. 1772 Market St (formerly Rebel). www.charlieballard.com

Grease Sing-Along @ Castro Theatre

You better shape up, and go back to high school because we’re hopelessly devoted to sing-along events at the Castro! Laurie Bushman and Sara Moore cohost; goody bags, costume contests, kid-friendly matinees and more cinematic musical fun. $10-$15. 2:30 & 8:30. May 26 & 27. June 1-3. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room

Donna Sachet hosts the weekly fabulous brunch and drag show. $45. 11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. Big Dive, a Memorial Day weekend event, follows with drink specials. 450 Powell St. in Union Square. 395-8595. www.harrydenton.com

Trannyshack @ DNA Lounge

Heklina and her entourage of drag talents (Cookie Dough, Becky Motorlodge, Grace Towers, and more) do a Madonna tribute show; Guy Ruben DJs. $15. 11pm. (club 9:303am). 375 11th St. www.dnalounge.com

Vital Signs @ The Marsh

Alison Whittaker’s solo show about her career as a nurse. $15-$450. Sundays, 7pm. Thru June 16. Upstairs Studio Theatre, 1062 Valencia St. 282-3055. www.themarsh.org

Out&About >>

May 23-29, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 21

Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg, Thu 30

Beat Memories: Photographs of Allen Ginsberg @ Contemporary Jewish Museum

New exhibit of vintage prints taken by gay Beat poet of his friends Jack Kerouac and others. Thru Sept. 8. Also, The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League, a group exhibition of fascinating photos from 1936-1951 taken by members of the progressive collective that documented the eras of postwar struggles, McCarthy blacklists, and urban life. Free (members)-$12. Thu-Tue 11am-5pm (Thu 1pm-8pm) 736 Mission St. 655-7800. www.thecjm.org

Comedy Bodega @ Esta Noche

Camile Rose Garcia @ Walt Disney Museum New exhibit of Goth interpretations of the Alice in Wonderland story. Thru Nov 3. Also, see biographical exhibits about Walt Disney, early sketches and ephemera from historic Disney movies. Frequent lectures and film screenings. $5-$20. 104 Montgomery St., The Presidio. www.waltdisney.org

California Native Plant Bloom @ SF Botanical Gardens Seasonal flowering of hundreds of species of native wildflowers in a century-old grove of towering Coast Redwoods. Free$15. Daily thru May 15. Golden Gate Park. 6612-1316. www.SFBotanicalGarden.org

High Heel Drag Race @ Castro Country Club The 4th annual drag race in real drag and heels raises fun and funds for the LGBTinclusive sober space. 11am registration. 12pm race. 4058 18th St. www.castrocountryclub.org

Monday Musicals @ The Edge The renovated bar shows fun musicals each week, with Broadway touring performers occasionally stopping by to sing, too. 7pm2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

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.

Tue 28 Funny Tuesdays @ Harvey's Ronn Vigh hosts the weekly LGBT and gayfriendly comedy night. One drink or menu item minimum. 9pm. 500 Castro St. at 18th. 431-HARV. www.harveyssf.com

Giuliano Bekor, Piotr Perski @ Geras Tousignant Gallery Two exhibits; Perski’s panoramic Bay Area and Barcelona landscapes, and Bekor’s stunning golden male nude photos series, Odyssey. Exhibits thru June 10 & 19. 433 and 437 Pacific Ave. 986-1647. www.gtfineart.com

The Roxie Cinema’s 2nd annual Filmmakers Awards honors gay documentary Oscarwinners Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and Hima B; seasonal food by Chef Leif Hedendal., cocktails, dancing a live auction and more fun. $175 and up ($250 per couple) 6pm-10pm. 2424 Mariposa St. 6133778. www.RoxieDinnerParty.org

The weekly LGBT and indie comic stand-up night. 8pm-9:30pm. 3079 16th St. at Mission. www.comedybodega.com

InForum @ Castro Theatre The Commonwealth Club presents a Nofilter Conversation with Mike Krieger and Kevin Systron, the cofounders of Instagram. $15-$65. 7pm. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

Migrating Archives @ GLBT History Museum Migrating Archives: LGBT Delegates From Collections Around the World features historical items from nearly a dozen countries and archives, each showcasing an archive of prominent LGBT persons. $5. Reg hours Mon & Wed-Sat 11am-7pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistorymuseum.org

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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

When the Rainbow Isn’t Enough @ Community Initiative

Liz and Ann Hampton Callaway, Wed 29

Mon 27

Dinner Party @ The Verdi Club

Town hall meeting on suicides in the gay male community, with panelists Race Bannon, Michael Brandon, Blue Buddha, Veronkia Fimbres and Jorge Vieto, Jr. Timoty Vollmet moderates. 7:3pm. 385-A 8th St. www.communityinitiative.org

Thu 30

San Francisco Magic Parlor @ Chancellor Hotel

Whimsical Belle Epoque-style sketch and magic show that also includes historical San Francisco stories; hosted by Walt Anthony. with optional pre-show light dinner and desserts. $40. Thu-Sat 8pm. 433 Powell St. www.SFMagicParlor.com

Without Reality There Is No Utopia @ YBCA

Group exhibit/installation of politicallythemed art focusing on the clash of Capitalism/Communism, propaganda/disinformation, financial lies and truths, and other global issues. Free/$10. Thru June 2. 701 Mission St. 979-2787. www.ybca.org

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

Alex Newell

Wed 29 Butterflies & Blooms @ Conservatory of Flowers Popular exhibit transforms the floral gallery into a fluttering garden with 20 species of butterflies and moths. Free-$7. Tue-Sun 10am-4:30pm. Thru Oct. 20. 100 JFK Drive, Golden Gate Park. 831-2090. www.conservatoryofflowers.org

Darren Criss @ The Fillmore The cutey-pie singer/actor and San Francisco native performs music from his upcoming solo album with his band, plus Glee and Starkid ( A Very Potter Musical ) fan faves. $25. 8pm. 1805 Geary St. 3466000. www.DarrenCriss.com www.thefillmore.com

The Decameron @ Fort Mason Center Ten-day series of café-style storytelling theatre; site-specific performances of chapters in Boccaccio’s fanciful classic work of literature. Various nights 8:30pm, thru June 9. $35. The Firehouse, Bay St. at Buchanan. 424-7249. thedecameron.org

Liz & Ann Hampton Callaway @ Feinstein’s Vocal sister act performs classic pop and Broadway hits. $70-$95 (includes $30 food/drink credit). 8pm. (Sat 7pm & 10:30pm; Sun 7pm).Thru June 2. Hotel Nikko lobby, 222 Mason St. (866) 6631063. www.feinsteinssf.com

Fri 24: Pride Night @ Great America, Santa Clara Looking for a little holiday getaway? The annual GLBT party at the East Bay amusement park is MCed by Pollo Del Mar, with DJed music and a featured live song set by Alex Newell (The Glee Project and Glee’s “Unique”), plus Wendy Williams, Phoenix Normand and Kevin Mikal. Cookie Dough brings The Monster Show drag fun, and DJs The Perry Twins, MC2, Shawn Perry and Kidd Sysko spin dance tunes. $40-$55. 4701 Great America Pkwy, Santa Clara. (408) 988-1776. www.CAGreatAmerica.com/PrideNight - Read my interview with Alex Newell on BARtabSF.com

<< Society

22 • Bay Area Reporter • May 23-29, 2013

Steven Underhill

Adam Lambert, Jinkx Monsoon and Wilson Cruz at the GLAAD Media Awards in San Francisco.

Star power in San Francisco by Donna Sachet

he GLAAD Media Awards take place in only three cities – New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco – and boy, are we fortunate to be one of them! The gala demonstrated the professional production value, star power, and elite guest list for which GLAAD is known. From a red-carpet entry and seated gourmet dinner to a splashy awards presentation and lively post-dinner dance, this party had it all. Celebrity guests included RuPaul’s Drag Race’s Jinkx Monsoon and Honey Mahagony, Top Chef’s Jennifer Biesty and Yigit Pura, Sunday’s a Drag’s Cassandra Cass and Thomas Ogden, The Amazing Race’s James Davis and James Vaughan, and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’ Kyle Richards. The big moments on stage were when the SF Giants received the Corporate Leader Award, including a video montage of their many contributions to the LGBT community, and when Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom accepted the Golden Gate Award, introduced by his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. Also in the audience for this elaborate celebration were Geoff and Hilary Newsom Callan, Richard Sablatura, Adam Sandel, John Marez, Bebe Sweetbriar, Terry Penn, Doug Waggoner, Rick Hamer, Jerry Deal, Troy Anicete, Curt-Gerard Robinson II, Mario Diaz, Tracy Curtis, and Skye Paterson. When one attends as many galas, balls, and fundraisers as some of us do, we struggle to distinguish one event from another, built on the same basic formula and populated by many of the same people. Last Thursday’s Cirque de l’Arc broke the mold, delivering a jubilant, circus-themed celebration with a variety of entertainment and rare touching moments. We raised money for The Arc SF, a nonprofit service and advocacy organization for intellectually and developmentally disabled adults, encouraging independent living, meaningful lives, and involvement in the community. Many of the clients and staff were included in planning and entertainment, including splashy musical production numbers led by Director of Operations Mark Kirk aka Kitty Glamour, well-known drag performer and local fundraiser. We co-hosted with Bevan Dufty, Dan Cousins served as ringleader, Lenny Broberg led a spirited auction, and entertainment was provided by Vocal Minor-

ity of the SF Gay Men’s Chorus, Galilea, Cockatielia, Alexis Miranda, and DJ Page Hodel. The exuberant crowd included Reigning Emperor Drew Cutler & Empress Patty McGroin, Jerry Coletti, Marlena, David Carney, Bruce Francis, Misty Blue, Sharon McCool, Roxie Hart, Dave Wheeler, and Project Open Hand’s Kevin Winge. What a night of laughter, tears, and support! Friday night, Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center hosted Bloom at Terra Gallery, emceed by the iconic Tita Aida, with silent auction, awards presentation, and entertainment by local singing legend Jason Brock, L10, Ariyaphon Southiphong, and DJ Juanita More! Although we understand groups need to try new locations and concepts, the tight quarters and cacophonous acoustics here were challenging. We did manage to touch base with API’s Lance Toma, Asia SF’s Larry Harshbarger, Transgender Law Center’s C. Nathan Harris, Positive Resource Center’s Leigh Illian, Academy of Friends’ Matthew Denckla, Empresses Remy Martin, Cher A Little, and Sissy St. Clair, Emperor Fernando Robles, Dani-

elle Logan, Frank Woo, Savannah Summers, and Miguel-e Gutierrez escorting the Queen of Tonga. From there, we headed to OMG club for an installment of Galilea’s new Girlie Show, then back to the bosom of the Castro, where lo and behold, Wilma Mason has returned after some major personal set-backs. Looking good, Wilma! Finally, on Saturday, we supported Fritz Lambandrake’s Runway Couturier student fashion show in the middle of the outdoor Asian Heritage Celebration. A blaze of creative fashions paraded the runway, many with Asian influences, with judges including Supervisor Jane Kim, Linda Blake, and this humble columnist. Fashion and its admirers are alive and well in San Francisco! Next fashion show: Galleria Mall on July 3. Also upcoming is Marriage Equality’s awards ceremony on Wed., May 29, at Hotel Phoenix’s Chambers restaurant, with Gavin Newsom and Dennis Herrera scheduled to attend. The Mr. and Miss Gay Pageant on Sat., June 1, at Hotel Whitcomb, AIDS Emergency Fund’s disco tea dance from 4-8 on Sunday at Beatbox, and a tribute to the late Marvin Hamlisch on Sunday night at the Venetian Room of the Fairmont Hotel complete the weekend.t

Steven Underhill

Tita Aida, Jason Brock and Juanita More at the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center’s Bloom at Terra Gallery.

Karrnal >>

May 23-29, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 23

Courtesy CockyBoys

Playful and passionate Jett Black debuts in the CockyBoys feature Paint It Black.

Ginger male by John F. Karr

t sort of crept up on us. What was once a rarity now rages. Everywhere you look, there are Ginger Men abounding. Men’s fashion magazines have a dozen of ’em before you even get to the table of contents, drinking Stella Artois and showing off the high-end clothes of Hugo Boss, Canali, and Ralph Lauren. And in porn? The boys whom Chuck Holmes barred from Falcon years ago because they were “hard to film” are now being filmed at their hardest by sexographers at every company. Take a cruise around porn, and whataya see? Pubes and crowns in candy apple, coral, brick, rust and rose. I took a cruise of my own, and rushed off to the movie theatre to see Kon-Tiki as soon as it opened. I’m all over such an exciting adventure story, but what’s it got, stuck on a tiny raft in the middle of the Pacific, wet, nearly naked and with beards growing into bushy thickets as the weeks sail by? A smorgasbord of six Norwegian and Swedish gingerhunks sporting full-on red, terra cotta, and rust (with some of that Land of the Midnight Sun ice-white, too). Oh, the way the sun glints off the wispy golden fleece on forearm and leg. For me, it’s porn of a different kind. You want to amp your English blond to brazen? Then search the biggest thrill in red radiance, Seth Fornea – he’s the ne plus ultra of burnt orange beauty, with stunning face, body, and cock to boot. With all this going on, I thought the days of cinnamon shag at the House of Karr would never end. And, suddenly, pow! My reverie in red was bleached out, upstaged by a slender slip of a lad named Jett Black. A real misnomer, that name, because he’s blond. With light hints of ginger gold, perhaps. But blond. He’s a youngster. Mighty cute. Looks 16 but is actually 20. He was born and raised in Europe, which gives him the hint of an accent. He’s a charmer, alright, with disarming smile, twinkling eyes and deep dimples. You say you don’t care for such a wispy willow body? Well, just watch the deep arch of his back as he undulates in ecstasy. Watch him

writhe a slinky embrace around his partner like a snake. It’s all because of Jett that the first syllable of sinuous is sin. And his sweet personality? That virginal purity simply spouts seduction. He seems almost chaste, but then he’s begging to be defiled. In the interview that begins Paint It Black, a collection of the first scenes he’s filmed for CockyBoys, he best sums up his contrasting qualities. “I’m a good boy,” he says. “And then I go wild.” The uncut performer is versatile, but likes bigger guys who can throw him around. “Vanilla sex can be so pure,” he says, “but being tied up and thrown around is definitely not a bad thing, either.” There’s no bondage in Paint It Black, but there is a thick, black 10” dildo. When you watch Jett work it in, during the movie’s opening solo, you’ll believe his claim that he’s tight. But in it all goes, and when it’s firmly planted in the deep, he churns up a spurter of an orgasm. This introduction had me so riled

up my hormones were colliding so hard they sounded like the bells of St. Mary’s. Things quieted down as Jett’s duo scenes followed. His first partner (in a scene filmed shortly before the solo that was presented as his debut) is young Arnaud Chagall. He’s good-looking, but not really a top. Jett’s still a quivering sexpot, and I liked watching the boy’s playfulness become supplanted by plain old lust. But Jett’s abandon needs to be met by a greater hunger, some ferocity. He gets that in the last of his three scenes, delivered by dynamic Gabriel Clark, an uncut, buff and salacious slammer known elsewhere as Gabriel Lenfant. Jett’s dance-training shows when his legs are split wide, draped over opposite sides of an armchair, so Clark can drill him from below. Jett’s solo had me rabid for more. It’s swell. But I don’t think the duo scenes fulfill his potential. Can director Jake Jaxson get it in the future? He documents the sex alright, but doesn’t get a relationship. The movie’s two other decent though not particularly memorable scenes present CockyBoy stars Pierre Fitch, Jake Bass, and Mason Star.t

<< Television

24 • Bay Area Reporter • May 23-29, 2013

Season finales in the End Times by Victoria A. Brownworth

ll we can say about what we’ve been seeing on TV is: Wow! The thing about the End Times is, everything gets very intense and exciting, and you just don’t know which way to look first. If you don’t think it’s the End Times, check out video of the tornadoes in Texas and think about the firestorm of scandals in Washington. Plus, another state passed marriage equality and scientists say we need to eat more insects for perfect protein, and just in time, the cicadas are here! So, yes, it’s all very exciting. Since we brought up the End Times, let’s just mention that this week Rev. Pat Robertson, who hasn’t said anything supercrazy for a bit, felt compelled to remind people he was still nuts by telling his TV audience that it was the woman’s job to keep men under control and keep them satisfied. One more reason for lesbians to be grateful they are queer. Robertson’s statement at least had an Old Testament feel to it, which may have made it palatable to the Old Testament types. But when Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh testified at Congressional hearings about what Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel called an “epidemic” of sexual assault in the military, Welsh said he thought it was part of a “hook-up mentality.” Welsh’s outrageous diminishing of rape to “hooking-up” merely underscored the problem women who have been raped have experienced in the military. The Pentagon numbers, which were the stuff of news stories on every network (Katie had several victims on to discuss the issue), were unprec-

edented. Between 2010 and 2012, reported rapes increased by 30%, from 19,300 to 26,000. That’s a lot of “hooking-up.” President Obama noted that the epidemic “must not be tolerated,” and that the victims deserved justice. (Fewer than 1% of perpetrators were convicted in the military trials.) What was not raised by anyone in these hearings or on TV talk shows or even news is that there has been a significant percentage of men raped in the military as well. Perhaps that will be dealt with before the hearings end. Because there have to be gay servicepersons who have experienced this. One of the other major news items on every network and tabloid/talk show was Angelina Jolie’s announcement that she’d had a prophylactic double-mastectomy after she discovered she carried the BRCA1 gene for breast and ovarian cancer. Jolie, who has been a strong activist for women’s issues, particularly in her role as an ambassador for UNICEF, gave an exclusive interview to ABC’s Diane Sawyer in which she noted, “I have to be a lot braver today than I was when I was 20.” Out lesbian actress and comedian Wanda Sykes had the same surgery in September 2011. She had revealed both her cancer and that she’d had the surgery to Ellen on Ellen’s Sept. 23 show (watch it at NBC.com). Sykes was a guest on The Tonight Show the day after Jolie’s big reveal and noted, “It’s just something odd that Angelina Jolie does something and now my titties are back in the news.” Titties was bleeped, but an uncensored YouTube video went up almost immediately, and the news ran with the story. Sykes went on to note that she “didn’t even think of

Angelina Jolie announced that she’d had a prophylactic doublemastectomy.

my breasts in a nostalgic way,” but that she was glad to be alive. There’s been significant blowback from physicians about Jolie’s decision, some saying that she really should have gotten her ovaries removed, because there’s no test for ovarian cancer (to which we have to ask, why not?) and so it’s the more threatening disease. ABC medical consultant Dr. Jennifer Ashton noted a few days after the reveal that the ovary removal is “paramount” in women with the genetic marker. On Chris Hayes’ All In on MSNBC, he raised that issue and also the concomitant one that only a small percentage of women diagnosed with breast cancer have this genetic marker. Hayes also revealed the numbers for African-American women and breast cancer – they are most likely to be diagnosed late and most likely to die from the disease. Sykes has also mentioned this. As Jolie said herself, money is an issue with regard to all forms of breast cancer screening. So as the Republi-

cans put forward yet another bill to repeal Obamacare, perhaps people should write their congresspeople. Men get breast cancer, too. And TG persons taking hormone treatments are also at high risk for the disease. We were glad to see Sykes speaking out about her breast cancer experience on the tube, since lesbians are not just at high risk, but also tend to ignore many of their own health issues, in part because of the homophobia they face from the medical community, and also because of financial issues. We are a cancer survivor and wrote an award-winning book about lesbians and cancer, Coming Out of Cancer: Writings from the Lesbian Cancer Epidemic, so we know.

Anatomy’s end

Speaking of lesbians and things medical, the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy on May 16 was phenomenal. In keeping with what Shonda Rhimes has done each season, there was a catastrophic event that would test all the main characters to their limits – and some beyond. For 9/10ths of the hour we feared they would kill off the main character, but fortunately she was saved. We can’t really imagine Grey’s Anatomy without Meredith Grey. But in last season’s cliffhanger they killed off her sister, Lexie. The entire season has had our fave lesbian couple ever, Callie (Sara Ramirez) and Arizona (Jessica Capshaw), in trouble. Last season’s plane crash that killed Lexie and Callie’s best friend Mark, who was also the father of Callie’s and Arizona’s baby, also cost Arizona her leg. The simmering rage and resentment that Arizona has felt toward Callie because she couldn’t save her leg (Callie’s an orthopedic surgeon) because gangrene set in has altered their relationship. Arizona had trouble reconnecting with Callie. Their sex life, which had been intense, ceased for the majority of the season and only resumed recently. They are one of the only queer TV couples who get to have sex. Arizona had phantom limb pain as well as serious self-consciousness about her loss and the change in her body. Her leg was amputated to just below the hip. As an aside, this storyline brought a lot of the issues of amputation to the general public in an accessible way. Considering the literal hundreds of thousands of amputees in the U.S., definitely a public service. In recent weeks there’s been a new girl in town, another pediatric wiz like Arizona. Lauren (Hilary Burton) and Arizona had immediate chemistry. We heart Callie with her zaftig Latina beauty, so we resist Lauren, who is slim and blonde, not unlike Arizona herself. And that chemistry kept building as the two consulted over a particularly horrifying and difficult case. But when the case resolved, and Lauren was preparing to leave and they went to an on-call room to say good-bye and the lights went out because the storm had started early – Arizona knew almost immediately after the sex that she’d done the wrong thing. Callie was always the cheater in all her relationships (she got pregnant by Mark the old-fashioned bisexual way). But the intensity of the chemistry between Arizona and Lauren was undeniable. Plus, Lauren made Arizona feel desired and sexy and not like a patient. But when Callie saw the two of them in the neo-natal intensive care unit and Arizona’s wedding ring was pinned to Lauren’s scrubs (because they had dressed in the dark), there was no good explanation for how that had happened. The fight between Callie and Arizona was a true lesbian fight

and then some. Callie said, “We’re married. We have a child.” Arizona, who had been feeling guilty and bad about what had happened, was still feeling that way. Except then Callie went into how the plane crash had changed their lives and all they’d gone through and Mark had died – and that was it for Arizona. An entire season of her rage just exploded. She told Callie she wasn’t in the plane crash. That it wasn’t her experience. “Bring in a saw and I’ll cut off your leg, and we’ll be even.” Callie looked like she’d been slapped. But Arizona wasn’t done – there was so much more. She explained how Callie hadn’t been there to hear Meredith screaming when Lexie died, or herself screaming from the pain of her compound fractured leg and the bone that had sliced through the flesh. And she reminded Callie that she had trusted her to save her leg and she didn’t. Callie said she’d saved her life. But Arizona retorted, “You didn’t lose anything.” Standing there stunned, Callie said, “Apparently, I lost you.” This was five minutes from the end of the episode and the final scene between the two, so we don’t know what will happen. We really love these two as a couple – they seem like real lesbians to us. And when Arizona told Callie she’d never loved or trusted anyone more, we could tell how much had been broken with that leg, even if what Callie had done (because we watched the whole thing happen) was the only choice after weeks of trying to save the leg with horrifying contraptions. We won’t know until September, when they all come back. What we do know is that Shonda Rhimes knows queers. And if she actually is one, we’d really like to see her come out, because she’s gotten a lot of awards from GLAAD already. Rhimes and her rise to TV fame have been topics on a lot of TV spots this past week. Scandal also had its season finale following Grey’s Anatomy, but we are still processing what happened the last few weeks and we don’t want to give away any spoilers to this complex political show for those who haven’t seen the entire season yet. Scandal has become a favorite among the Beltway cognoscenti. On Scandal nights, it’s interesting to see who’s tweeting about the show. One White House watcher, Jake Tapper, former senior White House correspondent for ABC and interim anchor for This Week, and now Chief Washington Correspondent for CNN as well as anchor for CNN’s daily news show The Lead, has long been a devotee of Scandal and follower of Rhimes. He featured her on The Lead right before the season finale, saying that it was the show “all Washington insiders are watching.” The interview is definitely worth a look (CNN.com), as Tapper and Rhimes discuss what it takes to make Washington work in a dramatic TV series. Speaking of which, a brief aside. CNN’s Anderson Cooper loves HBO’s Veep, which he tweeted the other day, saying he’d just finished watching the entire season and loved it. So if the Silver Fox loves it, shouldn’t we all take a look? Meanwhile, Scandal is as good as The West Wing was in the 90s. And Jeff Perry as the gay, patriotic and often-nefarious Chief of Staff Cyrus is superb. Kate Burton is back with a vengeance as the right-wing, anti-gay VP, Sally, who has decided to run against Fitz when he runs for president. Wow. Just wow. The show has also broken an unspoken color barrier. Kerry Washington, who was featured on GMA and Nightline the day before the series See page 26 >>

Music >>

May 23-29, 2013 • Bay Area Reporter • 25

Springtime dance party by Gregg Shapiro

ad band name aside, Letting Up Despite Great Faults deserve credit for creating a 21st-century version of new wave on Untogether (lettingup.com). Their appreciation for New Order comes through loud and clear right off the bat on opener “Visions.” If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (or laziest, depending on where you stand), then New Order should be thrilled. There’s innovation in the imitation, which is what makes songs such as “Visions” memorable. LUDGF doesn’t rely on New Order influences alone and earns a place at the EDM table with propulsive tracks including “Postcard,” “The Best Part” and “Numbered Days,” which update new wave with ease. Mia Pharoah (Modern Art) by Miniature Tigers makes new waves in the same pool as LUDGF. But Miniature Tigers sound more like they’re competitive swimmers, beginning with the sparkly “Sex on the Regular.” Keeping with the pools and swimming metaphor, “Afternoons with David Hockney” might be more of a challenge to dance to, but is worth a listen. The dance action picks up with the loping “Easy as All That” and the whizzing “Boomerang.” Aussie EDM duo The Presets have yet to recapture the radiant exhilaration of their 2005 full-length album debut Beams, but Pacifica (Casablanca/Modular) comes close. Opener “Youth in Trouble” sounds like a tip of the hat to Underworld if there ever was one, getting things started on a darker dance mood. “Promises” is as promising a dance exercise as you are likely to find, and it’s impossible not to fall for the charms of “Fall.” “A.O.” will have more than a few listeners cheering and chanting along while they dance, and just try not surrendering to “Surrender.” Originally released a dozen years ago around the time that acid jazz had reached its peak and was losing favor among listeners, the reissued and remastered Tourist (Blue Note/ EMI) by St. Germain (aka Ludovic Navarre) was the ultimate last hur-

Vivien Leigh

From page 15

Her 1967 death triggered a huge wave of popular and professional grief. Olivier was reportedly inconsolable. Critic Kenneth Tynan, who had lambasted her sexually alluring Lady Macbeth opposite Olivier in 1955, wrote that his original opin-

rah. Opening track “Rose Rouge,” featuring a Marlena Shaw sample, is a dance-floor jam of the highest order. “So Flute” is funky and fine, “Latin Note” hits all the right notes for dancing, and “Pont Des Arts” is magnifique. Mom & Dad (cherublamusica. com), the second disc by Tennessee (!) electro duo Cherub, is an unexpected delight. Drawing on a healthy dose of Prince’s influence that you can hear clearly on “Dear Body,” Cherub makes heavenly and funky dance music. “La Casa del Obispo” could be a lost Scissor Sisters cut, and “XOXO” will have you clapping and dancing along before you know it. “Doses and Mimosas” is an infectious booty-mover, and “Lynndenberries” is a sweet one. On The Spirit Indestructible (Interscope/Mosley), Nelly Furtado sounds like she’s trying to merge the “spirit” she displayed on her first two albums with the urban hipster she portrayed on 2006’s

ion “was one of the worst errors in judgment” of his career. Perhaps Tennessee Williams, who hadn’t seen Leigh’s Blanche in the London production of Streetcar and was skeptical of her being cast in the movie, summed her up best when he said she brought everything to the part he had intended, and much that he had never dreamed of..t

Movie star Vivien Leigh: determined to prove herself.

Loose. This is most obvious in back-to-back tracks such as the street strut of “Bog Hoops (Bigger the Better)” and the empowerment track “High Life.” That’s the way it goes throughout the disc – the club stomp of “Parking Lot” precedes the sentiment of “Bucket List.” The club anthem “Waiting for the Night” (not to be confused with JLo’s “Waiting for Tonight”) comes before the personal “Miracles,” and so on. The deluxe edition expands the disc by six tracks and features a Tiesto remix of the acoustic bonus cut “Thoughts.” When a band such as Stars makes reference to a song such as “Relativity” by Big Audio Dynamite as they do on “The Theory of Relativity,” then you get a good idea where they’re coming from on The North (ATO). Alternating between straightforward and enjoyable dance numbers “Hold On When You Get Love and Let Go When You Give It,” “The Loose Ends Will Make Knots,” “Progress,” and more alt-pop oriented fare, including the Cocteau Twinsinfluenced “Lights Changing Colour,” Stars shine brightly. Pink has come a long way since her urban/suburban debut a dozen years ago. Her evolution included party-starter, in-your-face feminist and power balladeer. Covering as many of those bases as possible on The Truth About Love (RCA), Pink doesn’t abandon her dancing (read: gay) fan-base. “Blow Me (One Last Kiss),” dance-rocker “Slut Like You” and high-kicker “Walk of Shame” all deserve a place on any dance party mix-tape.t