November 21, 2019 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter by Bay Area Reporter

Castro fire

Sontag reexamined

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Vol. 49 • No. 47 • November 21-27, 2019

SF nonprofit to be AIDS quilt steward by Cynthia Laird and John Ferrannini Jane Philomen Cleland

he AIDS quilt – all 50,000 panels – will return to the Bay Area, under a new agreement that transfers stewardship of the mammoth AIDS memorial to the National AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco. Additionally, the Library of Congress will preserve the quilt’s vast archival collections in Washington, D.C. Details of the arrangement were announced during a news conference at the Library of Congress in Washington Wednesday morning. The quilt will be moved to a warehouse near the Oakland International Airport from its current location in Atlanta, John Cunningham, executive director of the AIDS grove, told the Bay Area Reporter in an exclusive interview Monday. Speaking by phone before leaving for Washington, Cunningham told the B.A.R. that the Names Project Foundation, current keepers of the quilt, had for some time been looking for a long-term permanent home for the AIDS memorial.

Dr. Alisson Sombredero, left, the new chief medical officer for the Community Health Center, was joined by Executive Director Lance Toma at a news conference Tuesday.

SF health center names medical officer by John Ferrannini

he San Francisco Community Health Center has named an HIV specialist as its new chief medical officer. Dr. Alisson Sombredero, who was introduced at a news conference Tuesday, November 19, said she remembers the moment she decided to go into HIV care. She was a 20-yearold medical student in Colombia. “I had a patient who was my age and he was dying from an opportunistic infection, and he was a gay man and had a partner,” Sombredero, a straight ally, said. “I needed to test the partner and when I came back to the patient’s room to give the news that the partner was positive, I thought to myself that I would not be able to forgive somebody for infecting me. “But what I saw was two beautiful men, in love, promising to be together and taking care of their disease together – and that made me realize that I always wanted to be surrounded with people like them,” she added. Sombredero, 38, headlined a meet-and-greet at the health center’s main office on Polk Street. Formerly known as the Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center, which was founded in 1987, SFCHC has grown from focusing on API clients to the LGBT community more generally, particularly transgender and HIV-positive people. SFCHC also has a clinic on the fourth floor of the San Francisco LGBT Community Center on Market Street. District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney was at the event, and highlighted the importance of the health center for the community. “This is a place where people can feel at home, be seen and understood and that’s critically important for health and wellness,” Haney said. “Dr. Sombredero has exactly the kind of background, knowledge, and commitment that the (health center) has long had.” After graduating in Colombia, Sombredero completed an internship in HIV and infectious diseases in Spain and worked at both Highland Hospital in Oakland and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. She was most recently the chief of the HIV division of the Alameda Health System. Sombredero said she hopes to use her Oakland background to strengthen connections be-

The AIDS quilt was last fully displayed in October 1996 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Rick Gerharter

SFMTA looks to speed up J-Church

by Matthew S. Bajko

onday night the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency held a meeting in Noe Valley to present to the public its proposal for speeding up service on Muni’s notoriously slow J-Church subway line. The presentation kicked off at 5:30 p.m. Yet those downtown trying to make it to the meeting, held at a recreation center a short walk from a J-Church stop, left work that night to discover the next J-Church trains wouldn’t arrive for 28 to 30 minutes. They expressed their frustrations in text messages to District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, a gay man who represents most of the neighborhoods that the subway line traverses through on its route. “It is not functioning anywhere near close to how it could be functioning,” Mandelman told the Bay Area Reporter. J-Church trains, which carry 17,000 riders on weekdays, should arrive every nine to 10 minutes on weekdays and less frequently on weeknights – every 15-20 minutes – and every 12 minutes on weekends. But J trains are adhering to the schedule only 75% of the time. Since being elected in June 2018, Mandelman has been meeting with SFMTA staff to discuss ways to address the lackluster performance of the J-Church, which leaves the underground subway tunnel behind the Safeway shopping center on upper Market Street to turn left onto Church

See page 12 >>

Rick Gerharter

Noe Valley residents check out information on proposed changes to the J-Church Muni line at a community meeting Monday.

Street. It then runs along the surface street through the Castro and Noe Valley before heading to Glen Park and its terminus at the Balboa Park BART and Muni station. “When we started down this process, I was hoping to see some game-changing solutions that would make the J work,” said Mandelman. “These may be good improvements – I think many or all of them are – but we are still looking for the game-changer.” As part of its J-Church Improvement Project,

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SFMTA plans to approve a slew of quick fixes next year. It has proposed timing several traffic signals along Church Street to benefit the trains and turning a four-way stop at Cesar Chavez and Church Street into a traffic light stop. It is looking to remove the inbound stop at 30th and Church streets – which is roundly opposed by residents in the area – since there are several other stops a short walk away. And it is reviewing if J-Church trains can travel faster than See page 12 >>

<< Community News

2 • Bay Area Reporter • November 21-27, 2019

Castro fire displaces 7

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he mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development will be assisting four businesses impacted by a four-alarm fire that left three injured and seven residents displaced on Castro Street early Saturday, according to a city news release. The four businesses, which can apply for up to $10,000 for fire and water damage, are Q Bar, Body, Osaka Sushi, and Cafe Mystique. The money will come out of the office’s small business disaster relief fund, according to the release. The fund provides assistance to San Francisco small businesses so that they can recover as quickly as possible, as disaster loans can sometimes be held up for weeks or months. “The city family is here to provide more than financial support,” Mayor London Breed said in a statement. “We will also help to provide technical assistance with permitting so these small businesses can reopen as quickly as possible.” Employees who were put out of work by the fire can contact the office for assistance in getting public services and benefits such as unemployment insurance, according to a statement sent to the Bay Area Reporter on Monday. The cause of the fire, which was reported at 4:23 a.m., is still under investigation, Lieutenant Jonathan Baxter, a San Francisco Fire Department spokesman, wrote in an email to the B.A.R. Monday. The fire department got there at 4:29 a.m. and 121 firefighters were involved as it swept through the apartments above the businesses, leaving seven residents displaced, Baxter wrote. The fire was put out at 7:51 a.m., he added. At least three people were injured, including a firefighter who had minor injuries and another victim who was taken to the hospital due to smoke in-

Michael Yamashita

Firefighters mop up after a four-alarm fire in the Castro early Saturday morning.

halation. A third person who suffered from smoke inhalation reportedly declined transportation to the hospital. There will be a fundraiser for those affected at Oasis, an LGBT bar in the South of Market neighborhood, Wednesday, November 27, according to Sister Roma of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman is coordinating with Christopher Vasquez, the communications director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, to put on a fundraiser at the Castro bar and nightclub Beaux for the victims Saturday, November 30, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., according to Mandelman aide Tom Temprano. Q Bar is also partnering with DNA Lounge to present its “legendary Saturday night party,” Cake, at DNA Saturday, December 21, at 10 p.m., according to an announcement on the South of Market nightclub’s Facebook page. The Castro LGBTQ Cultural District Working Group set up a GoFundMe page (https://bit.ly/2CQTCoL) seeking to raise $25,000 to help those displaced by the fire and for the employees at Q Bar and Osaka Sushi, which are closed for the time being.

SF pays $13K in ‘Supergirl’ lawsuit settlement by John Ferrannini

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At press time, over $5,000 dollars had veen raised. Mandelman said in a statement to the B.A.R. Monday that “this fire is an additional burden that the neighborhood doesn’t need.” “This fire in the Castro upended the lives of the people who live in the buildings and the people who own and work at these important small businesses. The Castro is already experiencing significant challenges with vacant storefronts and quality of life issues,” Mandelman said. “Thank you to the brave firefighters from the San Francisco Fire Department for their quick response.” Body, a Castro Street clothing store where over $5,000 in merchandise was destroyed, was open Monday and Tuesday, according to general manager Isaiah Carter. Carter anticipates the store – which experienced water damage – staying open going forward, but it is currently cash only, as of press time, because the credit card readers were destroyed. “It’ll probably only be a half day because nobody carries cash anymore,” Carter said. Cafe Mystique was also open for business Monday. t

he city of San Francisco recently paid $13,000 to the transgender activist known as the “Supergirl of San Francisco” to settle a First Amendment lawsuit brought against it – which already resulted in change to the written policies that cover City Hall protests. Shawn Sunshine Strickland, aka Supergirl, went to City Hall in April 2017 to hold a one-person demonstration against police inaction on a physical attack she said that she experienced four months earlier. At that time, according to the lawsuit, sheriff ’s deputies intimidated her in an attempt to make her leave the premises and took her banner and backpack. City Hall policy at the time did not allow for any protests without permits. A second incident occurred in December 2017, when Strickland again went to City Hall to mourn Mayor Ed Lee, who died earlier that month. The same sheriff ’s deputy forced her away from City Hall and misgendered her, the lawsuit alleges. Strickland was already in touch with lawyer Donald Wagda, who said that he went to City Hall to see the protest policy. “Having reviewed the policy, it looked to me like some provisions were unconstitutional under the First Amendment,” Wagda said. “Further research confirmed my suspicions – many provisions were unconstitu-

Courtesy Donald Wagda

Shawn Sunshine Strickland, aka the Supergirl of San Francisco, pets a dog.

tional under 9th Circuit case law.” The suit was filed in September 2018 in federal court. The city announced in spring 2019 that it would be changing its policy – protests involving fewer than 10 people do not need permits, and up to 150 people can gather for “spontaneous expression in response to news or affairs coming into public knowledge less than 48 hours prior to that expression.” Wagda said that the new policy, which went into effect in October, is a victory for freedom of expression. “It’s a great benefit in response to breaking news to be able to show up at City Hall without a permit,” Wagda said. “That’s when people want to have their voice heard.” Strickland said she used the money – which she received weeks ago – to find housing and that she now

lives in the East Bay. Strickland said she adopted the “Supergirl” persona in response to the violent incident in January 2017, when she said a transphobic security guard at Dignity Health St. Mary’s Medical Center attacked her. In an emailed statement to the B.A.R. Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Dignity Health said she could not provide comment “due to patient privacy rules.” “I’m really into superheroes and it’s a symbol that gives me strength,” Strickland said. “Donning a cape and going around town helping people, even putting myself in dangerous situations – it has made a difference.” Strickland said that she spoke for 10 minutes at the August listening session at the Glide Memorial Methodist Church in the Tenderloin, when San Francisco Police Chief William Scott apologized for the way police have treated members of the LGBT community. She also said she had the opportunity to discuss it with Mayor London Breed, who Strickland said promised the city would do better going forward. “Nobody should have to go through what I did,” Strickland said. “The main thing is that the authority figures need to be put in check when they don’t do the right thing.” The San Francisco City Attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment as of press time. t

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<< Open Forum

4 • Bay Area Reporter • November 21-27, 2019

Volume 49, Number 47 November 21-27, 2019 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Michael M. Yamashita Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013) Publisher (2003 – 2013) Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman BARTAB EDITOR & EVENTS LISTINGS EDITOR Jim Provenzano ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko • John Ferrannini CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ray Aguilera • Tavo Amador • Race Bannon Roger Brigham • Brian Bromberger Victoria A. Brownworth • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Belo Cipriani • Dan Renzi Michael Flanagan • Jim Gladstone David Guarino • Liz Highleyman Brandon Judell • John F. Karr • Lisa Keen Matthew Kennedy • Joshua Klipp David Lamble • Max Leger David-Elijah Nahmod • Paul Parish Lois Pearlman • Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota Bob Roehr • Gregg Shapiro • Gwendolyn Smith Sari Staver • Tony Taylor • Charlie Wagner Ed Walsh • Cornelius Washington • Sura Wood ART DIRECTION Max Leger PRODUCTION/DESIGN Ernesto Sopprani PHOTOGRAPHERS Jane Philomen Cleland • FBFE Rick Gerharter • Gareth Gooch Jose Guzman-Colon • Rudy K. Lawidjaja Georg Lester • Dan Lloyd • Jo-Lynn Otto Rich Stadtmiller • Kelly Sullivan • Fred Rowe Steven Underhil • Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge • Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small Bogitini VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING Scott Wazlowski – 415.829.8937

AIDS quilt, welcome home

he Names Project Foundation’s announcement this week that it intends to transfer stewardship of the AIDS Memorial Quilt to the National AIDS Memorial Grove was welcome news indeed. The Names Project is expected to officially close its doors by the end of next year, after the quilt panels are moved to San Leandro and its vast archive is relocated to the American FolkLife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The AIDS grove is the appropriate organization to act as the quilt’s caretaker – the two share similar missions to memorialize the lives lost to AIDS. A few years ago the grove played an analogous role for the HIV Storytelling Project, which allows people to share their stories about the disease. More importantly, after many years, the quilt will return to its rightful home in the Bay Area, where it was started by Cleve Jones, Mike Smith, Gert McMullin, and others. Both Jones and Smith praised the news, and Jones in particular expressed relief. Jones and the Names Project had a falling out about a decade ago when the quilt was moved to Atlanta and the board fired him as its spokesman after 15 years; he filed a lawsuit and they later settled out of court. The 50,000 quilt panels will be housed in a warehouse near Oakland International Airport. John Cunningham, executive director of the grove, told us that the agency is committed to maintaining the Names Project’s educational programs, such as lending out panels to schools, and a newer initiative, Call My Name, which works in African American communities to remove stigma about HIV/AIDS and add their own panels. Cunningham told us that he’d like to expand that program to possibly the API, transgender, and hemophiliac communities. By including all affected communities, the quilt’s mission will

Rick Gerharter

Sister Jezabelle, left, and Sister Honey, BE! look at the quilt panels dedicated to lost members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at the display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in the Castro district that took place in 2012.

continue to be relevant and impact lives. The quilt is a wonderful educational opportunity; and as time passes with more and more people unaware of the terrible AIDS years, it combines history and remembrance in a powerful way. As equally important, the quilt’s huge archive of correspondence, photos, tributes, and other ephemera will be housed in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, making the collection more accessible to researchers and the public. “The Library of Congress is proud to serve as the home of the National AIDS Memorial Quilt archive to preserve its legacy and give the memorial a home both on the East Coast and West Coast,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said in a news re-

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Editor’s note: This article mentions several transphobic incidents.

News Editor • news@ebar.com Arts Editor • arts@ebar.com Out & About listings • jim@ebar.com Advertising • scott@ebar.com Letters • letters@ebar.com Published weekly. Bay Area Reporter reserves the right to edit or reject any advertisement which the publisher believes is in poor taste or which advertises illegal items which might result in legal action against Bay Area Reporter. Ads will not be rejected solely on the basis of politics, philosophy, religion, race, age, or sexual orientation. Advertising rates available upon request. Our list of subscribers and advertisers is confidential and is not sold. The sexual orientation of advertisers, photographers, and writers published herein is neither inferred nor implied. We are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork.

lease. She added it will help to humanize and demonstrate the scale of the AIDS pandemic in a powerful way while honoring lives lost. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) deserves kudos for helping to make the transfers possible. For several years, the Names Project had been searching for a new home for the quilt until Pelosi brought the parties together. Congressman John Lewis (D-Georgia) and Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) are also to be commended for their work on the project. Julie Rhoad, the president and CEO of the Names Project, deserves recognition for 1) realizing that a new home was needed for the quilt and archive and 2) understanding that a nonprofit can, in her words, “close and cease operations” when it is no longer needed. That’s a realization that a lot of nonprofit organizations struggle to foresee or accept: the ability to recognize when change is necessary by either consolidating with another agency or closing. It’s a difficult responsibility, and Rhoad, from what we understand, took a thoughtful approach and was willing to work with the AIDS grove and political leaders for an outcome that benefits the quilt, its archive, and the public. Finally, Cunningham and the AIDS grove board are to be applauded for stepping up and embracing this project. Shipment of the quilt panels to Oakland will begin next month, and the last are expected to arrive by the end of January when a comprehensive review will be conducted to ensure proper handling and care. The AIDS quilt, which started as a creative and poignant memorial, now includes thousands of panels, 105,000 names, and sadly continues to grow. It’s a unique and powerful symbol that requires funding for conservation and promotion. The AIDS grove has done an important service to preserve our history for which we should all be thankful.t

On smokeout day, trans folks need a world worth quitting for

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epending on which research you believe, as many as one in three trans people uses tobacco. We are three Asian American trans women who grew up and live in Fremont, a large, relatively conservative suburb between San Francisco and San Jose. As it so happens, one of us smoked menthol cigarettes until recently, when she quit to start hormone replacement therapy. So, why do so many trans folks use tobacco? Our high use rates rival those of other demographic groups like Native Americans and young bisexual people in the United States, and adult men throughout much of Asia. Our behavior is not some innate failing but a response to our circumstances. For our population at large, it’s not being transgender that’s the issue; it’s living in a society replete with transphobia and transmisogyny. Among the general population, most people who smoke or vape want to quit, yet trans women who face discrimination for being trans are less likely to try quitting in the first place, and will have less success when they do try. It’s not that we don’t know it’s unhealthy. That fact has been hammered into us by decades of public health messaging. Yet, when we’ve had sexual obscenities shouted at us from across the street and been called embarrassments and “not even human,” breathing in cancercausing chemicals becomes something we can easily do. The accompanying head rush from nicotine, the quick high, and the comforting taste of tobacco become a coping mechanism and a ritual to put up with omnipresent anger and outright hate that merely living attracts, even in San Francisco where we work and attend school. The trans smoking rate doesn’t just appear spontaneously in adulthood. California regularly asks students statewide how they’re doing. Trans students’ responses tell us they try tobacco more

Amaya Wooding

Amaya Wooding created this image of estrogen pills in the shape of a no smoking sign against the trans flag for a recent health equity conference.

than their non-trans peers, do so at an earlier age, and are more likely to use cigarettes and other products on school grounds. This early experimentation often leads to lifelong addiction and poor health. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Trans-led spaces are the backbone of our efforts to heal ourselves. It makes sense; no one else can credibly talk about our problems and our solutions. We respond to cessation services that address our concerns. Even when it’s hard for us to care about our health, we respond to hearing that tobacco use can counteract estrogen and sour our surgical recovery. We can set a goal of zero for the trans smoking rate, but focusing on cessation without addressing the structural problems is a Sisyphean endeavor. In the larger services network, we need providers who see us, accept us, and affirm us, not just when we try to quit tobacco but throughout medicine. We need providers who don’t look to our transness as an overriding cause for any care we seek. When we get misgendered on the phone

because of our voice, or in emails because of staff who don’t know how to use singular they, or call us the wrong name, we remember, and often we don’t come back. Even with the best services, how can we expect trans people to quit when we haven’t addressed the factors and forces that drive us to use tobacco in the first place? When we confront transphobia, we must also grapple with the reality that many trans people’s struggles are exacerbated by other substance use, poverty, racism, unemployment, homelessness, and mental illness. Our ancestors understood the significance of specialized social roles such as bakla in the Philippines, fa’afafine in Samoa, and dàn in Beijing Opera was, but colonialism replaced these with the false binary of boys and girls. Where there was once spiritual or artistic significance in our feminization, our cultures see deviance. On this Great American Smokeout day, which is November 21, we still invite trans folks to quit using tobacco for a day, even if only to reflect on what unmet needs the rituals of tobacco use fulfill. We invite everyone to bring about a world where Transgender Day of Remembrance is silent and trans lungs are healthy and clean. Your contributions can be small and concrete: Give money to black trans women. Buy a binder for your nonbinary or trans man friend. Practice using singular they. Most of all, to paraphrase a song from “Mulan,” which is a cultural touchstone for both Asian Americans growing up in the 1990s and 2000s and trans men and transmasculine folks: think of instead, a world worth quitting for!t Amaya Wooding is a Chinese and Filipino American trans woman working in LGBTQ+focused tobacco control at San Francisco Community Health Center, formerly API Wellness Center. Lynn Chan is Taiwanese American trans woman who works at a nonprofit in San Francisco. B. Chen is a Chinese American trans woman who studies psychology and drinks too much coffee. Post-graduation she aspires to be a therapist. All authors use she/her pronouns. For LGBT smoking cessation resources, visit https:// smokefree.gov/lgbt-and-smoking.

Politics >>

November 21-27, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 5

CA Dems back queer San Diego congressional candidate

by Matthew S. Bajko

he California Democratic Party is throwing its support behind queer San Diego City Councilwoman Georgette Gomez’s bid for an open House seat. If she wins, Gomez would be only the third LGBT community member elected to Congress from California. At the state party’s convention held in Long Beach last weekend, Gomez easily blocked her main intraparty opponent, former Hillary Clinton campaign adviser Sara Jacobs, from winning the endorsement. They are both seeking the 53rd Congressional District seat as Congresswoman Susan Davis (DSan Diego) opted not to run for reelection in 2020. Also in the race is political newcomer Janessa Goldbeck, who is queer and a military veteran. “Earning the endorsement of the California Democratic Party is a huge moment for our campaign,” Gomez wrote in a Facebook message thanking convention delegates for their support. “I’m ready to go to Congress and fight for the change our communities need – health care for all, a Green New Deal, affordable housing.” The only other LGBT Democratic congressional candidate known to be running in 2020, gay Congressman Mark Takano (DRiverside), also picked up the state party’s support. Takano is seeking a fourth term representing the 41st congressional district. (The first out woman among California’s congressional delegation, bisexual Congresswoman Katie Hill, resigned last month following reports of an improper sexual relationship with a staffer, which she has denied, and the publication of nude photos of her. No out candidate is running in the special election March 3 for her 25th Congressional District seat north of Los Angeles.) As expected, gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) also won the state party’s endorsement for his 2020 re-election campaign. Wiener first won election to his 11th Senate District seat in 2016 and is seeking another four-year term next November. “I’m honored to be endorsed by the Democratic Party,” Wiener told the B.A.R. “During these dangerous times, the Democratic Party is – and must be – the defender of our democracy and progressive values. I’ll always fight for key progressive priorities, such as housing, public transportation, criminal justice reform, environmental protection, and civil rights.” His district includes all of San Francisco, Colma, Daly City, a part of South San Francisco, and the unincorporated community of Broadmoor. To date, no other Democrat has pulled papers to challenge Wiener, who is likely to have a cakewalk of a campaign next year. Former state Senator Quentin Kopp, an independent moderate who served three terms in the Senate, had indicated in the summer interest in running. But he was recently told he could not do so due to the state’s term limit rules for legislators, which now bar them from serving in the statehouse for more than 12 years. According to elections officials, no Republican has filed to run against Wiener. The only person to do so is Green Party member Barry Hermanson, who at this point seems assured of nabbing second place in the March 3 primary where the top two vote-getters regardless of party will advance to the No-

Courtesy Gomez for Congress campaign

Congressional candidate Georgette Gomez

vember 3 general election. Wiener is the current chair of the seven-member Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, and his re-election next November is seen as key to helping maintain or possibly expand the caucus’s membership during the 2021-2022 legislative session. He and lesbian Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) are both up for re-election next year, while lesbian state Senator Cathleen Galgiani (D-Stockton) will be termed out of office. In the Assembly, gay Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) and lesbian Assemblywoman Sabrina Cervantes (D-Corona) will both be seeking re-election to two-year terms. Their colleagues gay Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) and lesbian Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman (DStockton) will both be departing from the Legislature’s lower chamber. Eggman is a leading candidate to succeed Galgiani in the state’s 5th Senate District, while Gloria is the frontrunner in the 2020 San Diego mayor’s race. Gay San Diego City Councilman Chris Ward is the heavy favorite to succeed Gloria in the 78th Assembly District, while queer single mom and midwife Sarah Davis is also running for the seat. The state party endorsed Atkins, Cervantes, Low, Eggman, and Ward last weekend, as well as gay former Assemblyman John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) in his bid to succeed state Senator Bill Monning (D-Carmel), who is termed out of his 17th Senate District seat along the Central Coast. Running against Laird is fellow Democrat Maria Cadenas, a lesbian single mother and nonprofit leader, while two Republicans have also pulled papers for the race. Monning endorsed Laird to be his successor Wednesday. It followed endorsements in recent days from Governor Gavin Newsom and his predecessor, Jerry Brown, who appointed Laird to be his secretary of natural resources. “I am pleased to get the endorsement of the California Democratic Party,” Laird told the B.A.R. “The recommendation was on a 126-1 vote – and with the endorsements of (Newsom and Brown) in the last few days, I have great momentum heading into the primary election.” Tiffany Woods, the Northern California co-chair of the state party’s LGBT caucus, told the B.A.R. that she was “excited” to see all of the current LGBT lawmakers and Laird be endorsed by the party, as well as the endorsement for Gomez. “Maintaining our current LGBTQ elected seats, as well as in-

creasing current numbers, is critical in adding and strengthening LGBTQ protections in California,” noted Woods. Two out candidates who lost in 2018 and are running again next year also secured the state Democratic Party’s endorsement at the convention. Lesbian former San Jose resident Jackie Smith is trying to unseat Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R-Granite Bay) from his 6th Assembly District seat in Placer County. Gay Mission Viejo Realtor and grandparent Scott Rhinehart is aiming to unseat Assemblyman William Brough (R-Dana Point) in the 73rd Assembly District. Brough is fighting accusations of inappropriate behavior by four women and already has one Republican opponent for his Orange County seat in addition to Rhinehart. Snubbed by their party were the three other known out Democratic legislative candidates running in 2020. In the 23rd state Senate District race to succeed termed out Senator Mike Morrell (R-Rancho Cucamonga), the party endorsed journalist Kris Goodfellow. Unable to win the party’s backing was San Bernardino City Unified School District board member Abigail Medina, who identifies as both queer and lesbian. The party also went with two incumbent Los Angeles area Assemblymen who are facing gay opponents next year. Assemblyman Mike Gipson (D-Carson) was endorsed; running against him for his 64th Assembly District seat is David Cunningham, who would be the first openly gay African American to serve in the Legislature. Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (DLos Angeles) also was endorsed. Seeking his 53rd Assembly District seat is Godfrey Santos Plata, who was born in the Philippines and would be the first out immigrant elected to the state Legislature. At the convention, the state party did not consider an endorsement in the race for the open 28th Senate District seat. Former state Senator Jeff Stone (R-La Quinta) resigned this month to take a job with the Trump administration. The special election to fill his seat and Hill’s vacant House seat will be held on the March 3 primary ballot. If no candidate secures more than 50% of the vote then a runoff with the top two vote-getters will be held May 12. Lesbian aging policy expert Joy Silver, who narrowly defeated Stone last year, is seeking the seat. And transgender Palm Springs City Councilwoman Lisa Middleton left LGBT convention attendees with the strong impression that she would also seek the seat. If she does, she could become the first trans person elected to the state’s Legislature and be the first transgender state senator in the country. t Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http:// www.ebar.com Monday mornings for Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion. This week’s column reported on election news in Palm Springs. Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes. Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 8298836 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.

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<< Commentary

6 • Bay Area Reporter • November 21-27, 2019

One day after by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

n November 20, transgender and nonbinary people – and our allies – across the world came together to honor those murdered due to anti-trans violence. This year marks the 20th since a group of people in San Francisco, including yours truly, and another group in Boston decided to take to the streets in their respective cities, launching the Transgender Day of Remembrance. TDOR, as it is commonly known, has largely remained the same over these past two decades, though the way it is honored has traveled down a few avenues. In some places, “and resilience” has been added to the name, acknowledging that there are indeed many of us who have survived, and who continue to thrive. It’s a good acknowledgement that we are more than just our deaths. By the same token, many have expanded this out to a week of events, under the name “Transgender Awareness Week.” This, in turn, has expanded to “Transgender Awareness Month” in some areas, including San Francisco. I have less love for this, but only from a semantic side. I feel that we need more than just awareness that we exist in this world, no matter how long a time period this is applied to. Some TDOR events opt to go beyond the understanding that this is an event focused on anti-transgender violence. They may add in cases of suicide to their tally, a choice that I can empathize with – but that I opt not to typically include on the lists that I compile. Some, too, add in just about every transgender death they can find, perhaps out of a misunderstanding as to what TDOR is about – again,

Cynthia Laird

San Francisco City Hall is lit in the colors of the trans flag.

anti-transgender violence – or perhaps to inflate the numbers on an issue where, quite frankly, one death is too many. Passing away after a long, violence-free life is not what TDOR is about. Would that it was. That said, I don’t tend to tell people what they can and cannot do when it comes to TDOR. I may have been one who helped get the ball rolling for this event honored globally, but I don’t like to think of it as something that I or anyone else needs to control. People grieve in different ways, and it would simply be wrong to force my personal view onto the whole. Even if, I must admit, I have. I have to acknowledge some uncomfortable truths when it comes to TDOR, ones that I often find myself pondering. I often feel that the white trans woman that I am should not

be a spokesperson for a contagion that predominately preys on black trans women. It’s not that I wallow in “white guilt” about it, per se, but I use it as a reminder to center voices other than my own, and try to use my privilege constructively. I also often contemplate the ways that TDOR may have framed the trans rights struggle as a whole. Much as I alluded to above, there’s a lot of living we all do. We are resilient; we do – when given the chance – thrive. At the end of TDOR, our candles are extinguished, our signs and banners are put away, and we go back to living our lives. One day after TDOR, I want you

to ask yourself a simple question: what are you doing today to try and make the next TDOR an observance where fewer names are read, and instead, more of us are flourishing. Next Transgender Day of Remembrance, we may have a new president-elect and they may be willing to stop the horrible rollbacks of our rights that have happened under President Donald Trump. It’s also likely that races from the halls of Congress to your local school board will be decided, and each of those may affect us. Leading up to the election, it’s important for people to help those candidates who will stand with the trans community.

We also live in a time where misinformation about transgender people runs rampant. We still live with unfounded specters of transgender restroom predators. Lately, too, we’ve seen this absurd notion of men trying to infiltrate women’s sports under the guise of transgender rights, with no less than “South Park” making an even deeper mockery of the idea. These make life harder for us, and instill fear of us in others – anxiety that can lead to violence against us. Now that this year’s TDOR has passed, people should continue to help educate others and show that these same fears are not part of reality. Right now, there are young – and not-so-young – transgender people who may be coming to terms with their own transness in this awful world of 2019. They may be facing homelessness after their families kick them out, harassment in their schools or workplaces, or face confrontations that could lead to their own deaths. This is the challenge I put forth to you: do something November 21, and every other day, to build a better world for trans and gender-nonconforming people. On November 20, transgender and nonbinary people – and our allies – across the world came together to honor those murdered due to anti-trans violence. We remember our dead, we honor our resilience, and we rededicate ourselves to creating a better world where people are not murdered because someone had an issue with transgender or gendernonconforming people. I won’t tell you how to honor our dead, but please heed this: one day after, we must show that we will continue to fight like hell for the living. It is the least we can do. t Gwen Smith remembers. You can find her at www.gwensmith.com.

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Units are monitored through the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development and are subject to owner occupancy and other restrictions. For more information and assistance with your application, contact HomeownershipSF: (415) 202Applicants for 1433 BUSH must obtain a loan pre-approval from one of the approved participating lenders listed 5464 or info@homeownershipsf.org. For questions about the building and units, contact at SFMOHCD.ORG/MOHCD-AUTHORIZED-LENDER-LIST to apply. All adult household members who 1433 BUSH: 415-767-5164 or Info@1433bushsf.com. will be on the title of the BMR unit must complete first-time homebuyer education through one of the City’s 5 All applicants are encouraged to apply. Lottery preference will be given to: *Certificate of approved housing counselling agencies in order to apply. Preference, **Displaced Tenant Housing Preference holders, ***Neighborhood Residents and households that currently live or work in San Francisco. *Certificate of Preference (COP) holders are primarily households displaced in Redevelopment Project Areas during the 1960’s and 1970’s.**Displaced Tenant Housing Preference (DTHP) holders are tenants who were displaced by an Ellis Act eviction, Owner Move In eviction and tenants displaced by fire.***Neighborhood Resident Housing Preference (NRHP) are residents living in the same supervisorial district or within ½ mile buffer of the project.ordinance passed into law Dec, 18, 2004. The specifications are subject to change at any time and should not be relied on as representations, express or implied. Square footage or floor areas shown in any marketing or other materials is approximate and may be more or less than the actual size.

Community News>>

November 21-27, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 7

Rejuvenate your vitality!

SF supervisors honor transgender leaders

We can make a difference in how you feel about yourself.

ll 11 members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Tuesday, November 19, honored a trans person as part of the city’s Transgender Awareness Month activities. Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, left, recognized jazz singer, writer, and longtime Glen Park resident Andrea Horne.

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In his remarks, Mandelman noted the commemorations marked the first time the entire board held such a ceremony. Other supervisors and their honorees were: Sandra Lee Fewer, Jackie Thornhill; Catherine Stefani, Leo Petroni; Aaron Peskin, Nikki Calma; Gordon Mar, Martin Rawlings-Fein; Vallie Brown, Kenya Boudreaux and Felicia Elizondo; Matt Haney, Lynn Breedlove; Norman Yee, Jesse Kolber; Hillary Ronen, Maggie Sanchez; Shamann Walton, Samantha Jo-Dato; and Ahsha Safai, Cecilia Chung.

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Bodybuilding as self-actualization

Escape

by Roger Brigham

to Palm Springs

’ve always had a somewhat ambivalent fascination with the sport of bodybuilding that transcends the obvious erotic appeal and focuses on the sport’s artistry and discipline. I’ve never been one to call attention to myself but admired those who were willing not just to put themselves on display, but deliberately put themselves out there to be judged. I have respected the vision and the discipline it takes to sculpt and build out of one’s own flesh into a beautiful display of symmetry, proportion, and elegance. I’ve also mourned the deaths and ailments so often triggered by those who use chemical crutches to cheat their way to their goals. Now, transgender bodybuilding is giving me an entirely different reason to enjoy the sport. In this context, even scars are beautiful, reminders of the physical and psychological challenges for the athletes to lay claim to their own bodies. Frameline hosted last weekend in Oakland a free screening of “Man Made,” an award-winning 2018 documentary focused on four transgender male bodybuilders who competed in Trans FitCon, an annual all-transgender bodybuilding competition in Atlanta. It is a compelling film that goes past the headlines and political lenses through which so many of us gain our knowledge of transgender issues and delves into the pain, the joy, and the journeys of self discovery necessary for some individuals to navigate to free themselves from the grip of the imperfect gender binary. After the film, I got the chance to chat with one of the competitors from the film, Dominic Chilko, and what bodybuilding meant to him as a transgender man. “Bodybuilding gave me the opportunity to build the body I always dreamed of before I was even able to be on hormones as well as throughout my transition,” Chilko, 28, said. “I learned what my body is capable of through bodybuilding. I learned patience and how to push myself past my usual comfort zone to achieve my goals.” During the course of the film, Chilko meets his biological mother

Courtesy Facebook

Dominic Chilko appears in the documentary “Man Made.”

and has his breasts surgically removed. It is the loss of the breasts rather than finding his mother that seems to have the more emotional punch; the moment Chilko sees his new reflection, the first time he sees himself with his eyes the way his heart has always seen him – well, it is a gut punch that is the emotional peak of the film. And then he and the other bodybuilders put themselves on display for all the world to see and judge. “It is strange because the way you see your body may not be the way the judges see your body,” Chilko said. “It takes a strong individual to stand up there and be judged in front of a crowd of people. It’s not for the light-hearted.” The film is available through Amazon and iTunes. For more information on the documentary, visit http:// www.manmadedoc.com.

Santa Skivvies Run set

The annual Santa Skivvies Run, a one-mile jaunt through the Castro by runners dressed in scanty holidaythemed outfits that benefits the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, will be held Sunday, December 8. Registration costs $35. Runners pledge to raise a minimum of $125 or more. The fun event has a goal of $80,000. As of the start of this week, more than $17,500 was reported to have been pledged. Race check-in will be at 9:30 a.m.

outside the Lookout at 3600 16th Street. The run begins at 11 and finishes at noon with a block party and fashion show. For registration and other information, visit http://www.santaskivviesrun.org.

Spurs make history – sort of

At first the headlines coming out of the San Antonio Spurs’ loss to the Portland Trail Blazers were crystal clear and dramatic: when Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich was ejected in the third quarter of the eventual loss, Becky Hammon stepped in to lead the team the rest of the way, making her the first woman to act as head coach in the NBA and, indeed, the first woman to serve as head coach of any of the U.S. major men’s professional teams. But wait – there’s less! The Spurs later said Hammon was just one of three coaches who led the team after the ejection, and Popovich himself said the actual acting head coach was former NBA superstar Tim Duncan. History denied. Regardless, the presence of women coaches in men’s pro sports, although still negligible, is growing and the NBA so far seems closest to actually making the eventual breakthrough. Hammon, hired by the Spurs in 2014, led the team during the summer league season; and Nancy Lieberman led an NBA development team in 2009 before being hired as an assistant by the Sacramento Kings in 2015. t

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<< Queer Reading

8 • Bay Area Reporter • November 21-27, 2019

New biography reexamines Sontag by Brian Bromberger

he was America’s last great literary star, her beautiful, glamorous face adorning popular magazines in the 1960s, photographed by Andy Warhol and Richard Avedon. Later, she was universally recognized by the white streak in her black hair (her hair had gone gray after chemotherapy and she had it dyed), an image that became better known than her writing. Novelist, essayist, activist, playwright, filmmaker, and one of the most influential critics and public intellectuals of her era, Susan Sontag set the cultural debate in her time, widening its parameter, in a way no intellectual had done previously, standing at the junction of art, culture, politics, feminism, and sexuality when all those areas were radically changing. A whole generation looked to her to make sense of this new modern culture, as she made thinking exciting, even sexy. Enormously complex in her private existence, 15 years after her death

at age 71 from leukemia, biographer Benjamin Moser, a gay man, has attempted to reexamine her mythologized and misunderstood life in a new 800-page biography, “Sontag: Her Life and Work” (Ecco, $39.99). He had unprecedented access to Sontag’s archives held at UCLA, which includes more than 100 journals, thousands of letters, family photographs, draft manuscripts, and even her personal computer. The Bay Area Reporter spoke to Moser, 43, when his book tour came to San Francisco in October. The book outlines a tumultuous life beginning with Sontag’s birth to wealthy parents in 1933 in New York and the death of her father at age 5, leaving her raised by her cold, alcoholic mother. Reading at age 3, Sontag was a literary prodigy, graduating high school at 15, attending UC Berkeley, and then the University of Chicago. She made a list of all the people she had sex with between her first time at 14 and her engagement three years later: a total of 36 people, an indica-

Brian Bromberger

Author Benjamin Moser holds a copy of his new biography, “Sontag: Her Life and Work.”

tor of a lifelong sexual voracity. At 17, she married one of her older college instructors, sociologist Philip Rieff, and gave birth to their son, David, at 19. They remained unhappily married for eight years. Moser discovered that Sontag wrote most of Rieff’s major monograph, “Freud: The Mind of the Moralist” (1959). In order to gain custody of David during their divorce, Affordable homeownership opportunities she had to surrender authorship rights for seniors at 901 Bayshore Blvd. of this book. She took a one-year fel3 one-bedroom “Below Market Rate” homes priced lowship at Oxford and returned to her from $196,842 – $240,449 without parking. son and New York in 1959. Rules and regulations for senior communities require at Sontag’s landmark essay, “Notes on least one occupant to be 55+, but not necessarily the owner. Camp,” defined as “seeing the world Applicants must be first-time homebuyers and cannot exas an aesthetic phenomenon,” which ceed the following income levels: exposed gay culture with its artifice and exaggeration to a wider audience, 60% of Area Median Income 2019 would make her famous in 1964. She (for Unit 208 and 308) was at the intersection of everything One person - $51,700; 2 persons - $59,100; and everyone, zapping the world 3 persons - $66,500; 4 persons - $73,900 etc. with her mind, and attending dinners with celebrities such as Jackie 100% of Area Median Income 2019 (for Unit 206) Kennedy and Leonard Bernstein. The book notes that she had affairs with One person - $86,200; 2 persons - $98,500; men and mostly women, including 3 persons - $110,850; 4 persons - $123,150 etc. Robert Kennedy, Warren Beatty, the Applications must be received by 5PM on Thursday, December artist Jasper Johns, playwright Maria 5, 2019. Apply online through DAHLIA, the SF Housing Portal at Irene Fornes, French actress Nicole https://housing.sfgov.org or mail in a paper application with a Stéphane, and dancer/choreographer self-addressed stamped envelope to BMR 901 Bayshore, P.O. Lucinda Childs, all of which ended Box 420847, San Francisco, CA 94142. Postmarks will not be conunhappily. sidered. Paper applications can be downloaded from https:// Sontag intersected with some of the housing.sfgov.org or picked up from Zephyr Real Estate, 2282 key historical events of the mid to late Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94114. For more information 20th century: the Cuban revolution, a or assistance with your application, please contact Julia Lo at trip to North Vietnam at the height of Zephyr Real Estate, (415) 518-2875 or julia@teamhonda.com. the war, coming out of a Berlin theater Units available through the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of when the wall came down, and Israel Housing and Community Development and are subject to monduring the 1973 Yom Kippur War. itoring and other restrictions. Visit www.sfmohcd.org for proOccasionally arrested for her activgram information. ism, as well as generating an FBI file, Sontag saw her writing as paying attention to the world, convinced auJuliaLo_BMR_112819.indd 1 11/19/19 8:56 AM thors should take stands on issues and be on the front line of protests. Her books became defining works of nonfiction: “Against Interpretation,” “On DISPLAY OBITUARIES & IN MEMORIAMS Photography,” “Illness as Metaphor,” as well as her more criticized novels – often as a way to cut her down to size because she thought she was so great – “The Volcano Lover” (about Lady Emma Hamilton) and “In America” (which won her a National Book Award). In 1975, at age 42, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer and given six months to live, but an aggressive prolonged chemotherapy, The Bay Area Reporter can help members of the community and a strong will to live, saved her reach more than 120,000 LGBT area residents each week life. She wrote against the idea that illwith their display of Obituary* & In Memoriam messages. ness was a punishment or something people deserve, obliterating the use of RATES: $21.20 per column inch (black & white) illness as a metaphor, denying illness $29.15 per column inch (full color) had psychological or moral etiologies, though she never mentioned her own battles against disease in her work and DEADLINES: Friday 12noon for space reservations avoided the use of “I” in her books. Monday 12noon for copy & images Her famous candle-lit production of “Waiting for Godot” in a besieged TO PLACE: Call 415-829-8937 or email Sarajevo in the early 1990s brought advertising@ebar.com international attention to the Bosnian cause. Moser said in the interview that * Non-display Obituaries of 200-words or less are FREE to place. this incident “was the place where the Please email obituary@ebar.com for more information. interests that Sontag had pursued throughout her life coincided.” She was criticized at the time for it being a stunt of self-aggrandizement, “yet when I went to Sarajevo, people still 44 Gough Street, Suite 204, San Francisco, CA 94103 love her and named the square in front

of the National Theater in her honor. She could very easily been killed any day of the week and she went back 11 times. She was the only international person of that fame who stayed and honored the people,” he said. Her final relationship, with photographer Annie Leibovitz, was tempestuous and never publicly acknowledged, even though Leibovitz spent almost $8 million supporting Sontag, who demeaned her at times. While everyone else thought Sontag treated her shabbily, Leibovitz didn’t feel that way. “She has been at the top of her profession for 50 years and one of the things she’s good at is dealing with divas,” Moser said of the photographer. “She couldn’t have had her career if she was afraid of Catherine Deneuve or Joan Crawford. She loved Susan and was proud to take care of her and provide for her. She took those photographs of her dying (published after her death) out of real love for her (“you really feel it when you’re with her”), not to exploit her. Some people felt they were inappropriate, but that was her prerogative as an artist.” Moser believes being a child of an alcoholic and closeted shaped Sontag’s character, as did the chasm between her thoughts and knowing her real feelings or being attentive to her body. In the New Yorker about the 9/11 attacks, Sontag wrote, “Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a ‘cowardly’ attack on ‘civilization’ or ‘liberty’ or ‘humanity’ or ‘the free world’ but an attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?” Her comments were vilified at the time, with the New Republic comparing her to Osama bin Laden.

Long project

Moser spent seven years working on the book. “I had written my previous book on the Brazilian novelist (‘Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector,’ 2009) and during that process I was fascinated by this world of female intellectuals and thought there was a lot there that was exciting and not being said about that time and people and that was shocking,” he said in the interview. “I wanted to inhabit that world and she seemed like a logical step, but it wasn’t my step. I was asked by her estate to consider doing this

Lynn Gilbert via Wikipedia

Susan Sontag in 1979

because of my previous biography. It made sense to me and it still does, despite two different countries. I’m the authorized biographer but this is not the authorized biography. They are two different things. I was the first to see the secret archives at UCLA that no one else has seen, given access to certain people. There was a split between Sontag’s partner, Annie Leibovitz, and her son, David, after her death. I was approached by David’s people. David could read and comment on it, but I had total freedom, which allowed me to be more critical than I would have been originally.” Sontag engendered strong feelings, even among her friends, who could both love and hate her. “Someone could tell you an inspiring story about her and in the next breath say something horrible about her,” Moser said. “How do I bring these two together? I didn’t. I just let them be and let the reader make their own conclusions. She was an extreme person and that’s why you can’t take your eyes off her. She can be kind and caring, then be the complete opposite. I think for a writer, it’s fascinating to figure that out. But I don’t figure it out. I just leave it there. I hope a more balanced picture can emerge.” There was a kind of battle between the public Sontag, who read every book and attended the opening of any major cultural event, coming across as intimidating, and the private Sontag who was constantly self-critical and felt she was a failure. “They are diametrically opposite people, except the public Sontag is performance, as she’s obsessed with the great divas in the shadow of Hollywood,” Moser said. “Her mother was obsessed with Hollywood and that’s why they moved to California, partially. She felt small, weak, especially about being gay, and she needed to project strength to protect her image. And she writes about this in ‘On Photography,’ where the image overpowers and subdues the actual person.” For all her writing on the importance of being authentic, Sontag was never able to reconcile her sexuality. After her first experience of lesbianism at 15 in Berkeley, she felt a need to change herself, to learn to enjoy sex with men, which led to her marriage, which didn’t work and left her with a sense of shame, Moser said. “I was talking ... to a prominent lesbian writer, Terry Castle, and she See page 11 >>

Seeing in the Dark on hiatus Award-winning writer Belo Cipriani’s monthly column about disability issues and the LGBTQ community, Seeing in the Dark, is on hiatus.

Community News>>

t Wan named executive director of Port of Oakland

November 21-27, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 9

compiled by Cynthia Laird

is responsible for the seven and a half miles of San Francisco waterfront adjacent to the San Francisco Bay and is the leaseholder for nearly 600 tenants. It does not have a seaport. A port spokesman said that Wan’s salary is $365,000.

he governing board of the Port of Oakland has selected a gay man as its new executive director. Danny Wan, a former Oakland City Councilman, and most recently the port’s interim executive director, was appointed to the position November 14. He replaces Chris Lytle, who retired in July after six years at the helm. The Port of Oakland oversees the Oakland Seaport, Oakland International Airport, and nearly 20 miles of waterfront, including Jack London Square entertainment district. According to a port spokesman, Wan becomes the first openly gay executive director of a major U.S. seaport. “We’re fortunate to have Danny as the port’s new chief executive – not only is he an experienced public professional, he is also a local leader with demonstrated commitment to the communities the port serves,” port board President Ces Butner said in a news release. Wan is a familiar figure in Oakland. In 2000, he became the first openly gay member of the City Council, representing Chinatown and the Lake Merritt areas. From 1996 to 2000, he represented Oakland, Alameda, and San Leandro on the East Bay Municipal Utility District board of directors. According to the release, he brings more than two decades of experience in public agency law, finance and environmental policy, community relations, and strategic planning. Wan takes over at a key moment. In September, the port reported that operating income increased 4.1% in Fiscal Year 2019. It reported operating income of $66 million for the year on operating revenue of $397 million. At Oakland International Airport, 13,594,251 passengers chose to fly to or from Oakland in 2018, up 4% in

Understand Barriers, a prosecutor diversion program. The challenge was open to the 166 members of the NewDEAL (Developing Exceptional American Leaders), an organization that supports state and local pro-growth progressive elected officials through the exchange of ideas and engagement with other top public, private, and nonprofit sector officials. The winners of the New Ideas Challenge will be announced November 21 at the NewDEAL’s conference in Washington, D.C.

Cisneros a finalist in ideas challenge

Courtesy Port of Oakland

Port of Oakland Executive Director Danny Wan

comparison with 13,072,245 passengers in 2017, according to the airport. Last week, the Wall Street Journal, in its Best Airports 2019 section, listed Oakland airport as the best in the mid-size category. The San Francisco Chronicle reported last week that the airport is the cheapest to fly out of among the three in the Bay Area. The port is now reviewing its strategic direction heading into a new decade, the release noted. “It’s an honor to lead an organization that operates international transportation and shipping hubs and that generates tens of thousands of jobs,” Wan stated. “I look forward to working with the board and an excellent port staff to plan for even greater efficiency in moving people and goods and to grow benefits for the state and the communities that surround the port.” Wan takes over an organization with three principal businesses: aviation, maritime and commercial real estate. The port directly employs more than 450 people. In San Francisco, lesbian Elaine Forbes was named executive director of the Port of San Francisco by the late mayor Ed Lee in 2016. The port

In other municipal news, gay San Francisco Treasurer José Cisneros has been named a finalist in the 2019 New Ideas Challenge, which is a competition among rising and innovative state and local policymakers to propose the most effective solutions to an array of challenges. Cisneros was selected for his efforts to reduce the impact government fines and fees have on San Francisco’s at-risk populations. His Financial Justice Project is a finalist in the “Empowering Disadvantaged Communities” category, which includes ideas that ensure people facing systemic obstacles have a chance to contribute and thrive. A news release noted that his initiative is leading the nation in assessing and reforming how fees and fines impact San Francisco’s most vulnerable residents. “I am thrilled to be named a finalist and to be included in this group of talented leaders across the country,” Cisneros said in the release. “This is an important time to share practical ideas that give people, and their communities, a fair shot to reach their full potential.” The two other finalists in the category are gay West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon for West Sacramento On-Demand: Mobility for All, and Columbus, Ohio City Attorney Zach Klein for Helping

Thanksgiving dinners for those in need

If you’re in need, several Bay Area organizations are holding free Thanksgiving dinners or distributing food. All occur Thursday, November 28, unless otherwise noted. In San Francisco, Tenderloin Tessie will hold its annual meal from 1 to 4 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church, 1187 Franklin Street. The Oakland LGBTQ Community Center will offer a Homecoming dinner event from 1 to 9 p.m., with food being served from 2 to 5. Center staff, volunteers, family, and friends are welcome to attend. The center is located at 3207 Lakeshore Avenue (enter on Rand Avenue). Glide church will hold its Thanksgiving meal for homeless and food insecure individuals from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the dining hall at 330 Ellis Street in San Francisco. At 10 a.m., people are welcome to attend the worship celebration in the sanctuary. In San Jose, the Billy DeFrank LGBTQ Community Center will hold a Thanksgiving community potluck from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 938 The Alameda.

In Concord, the Rainbow Community Center will hold a harvest feast Wednesday, November 27, which will include a hot meal and a to-go bag. Two seatings will be held: from 3 to 4:30 p.m. and from 4:30 to 6. The center is located at 2118 Willow Pass Road. For more information, contact (925) 692-0090 or rcc@ rainbowcc.org. Gobble Gobble Give feeds homeless people on Thanksgiving and San Francisco is one of the participating cities. It also provides donated clothing and toiletries. According to a news release, people can sign up at https://www.gobblegobblegive. org/ and click on “Locations,” then choose “San Francisco.”

Lesbian Jewish seminary leader in Bay Area

Rabbi Deborah Waxman, Ph.D., the first woman and first lesbian to lead a Jewish seminary, will be in the Bay Area starting this week. Waxman is affiliated with Reconstructing Judaism, a progressive stream of American Judaism. She leads Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Pennsylvania. On Thursday, November 21, at 12:30 p.m., Waxman will speak at the Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Road in Berkeley on “Hashivenuu: Jewish teachings on Resilience.” This is also the title of her podcast where she explores how different practices with Judaism cultivate resilience in politically turbulent times. Waxman will speak in San Francisco at Or Shalom’s potluck dinner Friday, November 22, at 6:30 p.m. Or Shalom is located at 625 Brotherhood Way. On Saturday, November 23, at 4 p.m., Waxman will attend an afternoon Shabbat meal at Ner Shalom, 85 La Plaza in Cotati. t

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<< Obituaries

Former AIDS grove board member Jack Porter dies

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and a longtime volunteer, died Friday, !A ¢ Òì Ü[ Q§AÎe November 15. He was 81. ¸ ®}¹ ÖÖÖ ®®®® John Cunningham, the grove’s ex n ënÎî ÒnÎë [n !n QnÎ ÒnÎë [nÒ ecutive director, told the Bay Area Re { porter î§å e§ ¢§Ü î§åÎat¶A¶nÎ §Î { thatÎn[n ën Mr. en ënÎî Porter §{ died UCSF 0A¢ ÎA¢[ Ò[§ AÎnA ¸ ®}¹ ÖÖÖ Öôôô î§å Aën A¢î [ Î[å AÜ §¢ ÃånÒÜ §¢Ò §Î ¶Î§Q n Òb §Ü nÎ A {§Î¢ A AÎnAÒ ¸sôô¹ Þ®ô ã }} Medical Center of complications Ün n¶ §¢na $åÜÒ en A {§Î¢ A ¸sôô¹ ££ }Öôô from a fall. 0A¢ ÎA¢[ Ò[§ AÎnA ¸ ®}¹ ÖÖÖ Öôôô ÜÜ¶aØØììì¼Ò{[ Î§¢ [ n¼[§ ØA[[§å¢Ü “Jack Porter, for nearly three de §Ü nÎ AÎnAÒ ¸sôô¹ Þ®ô ã }} §Îcades, {Aí Ü§ ¸ ®}¹ §Î §¢ ¢n AÜ of the § n en ënÎî ÒåQÒ[Î ¶Ü §¢Ò AÎn was } Þ s®× the beating heart ÜÜ¶aØØììì¼Ò{[ Î§¢ [ n¼[§ ØA[[§å¢Ü A[[n¶Üne {§Î A ¢ å ÜnÎ §{ {§åÎ grove,” Cunningham said in a stateìnn Ò¼ 0åQÒ[Î ¶Ü §¢ ÎAÜnÒb ì [ ¢[ åen ! ÒÒne en ënÎ nÒa

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Aîb AQ§Î mel, among Aîb others, envisioned a place a historian of the grove, which is lo Aîb 2 A¢ Ò ë ¢ A¢e Î ÒÜ AÒ¼ in Golden Gate Park that they could Aî ÎnAin San Francisco’s nÜÎ§enÒ OÒ{[ Î§¢ [ n¼[§

åÒÜ§ nÎÒ ì § AÎn ¢§Ü În å AÎ î cated Golden Gate Ò[ neå ne turn into Ü§ a În[n ën gardenÜ nÒn as aen ënÎ nÒ place toì rePark and is the country’s only fed §§ Ò Q§§ ÒOÒ{[ Î§¢ [ n¼[§ Qn [ AÎ ne kã¼ôô {§Î nA[ eAî¼ -În å member and honor all lives touched erally recognized AIDS memorial. eAîÒa ÒåQÒ[Î ¶Ü §¢Ò ¢[ åen en ënÎî §{ åÒ ¢nÒÒ QåÒ ¢nÒÒOÒ{[ Î§¢ [ n¼[§ by AIDS.” å¶ Ü§ n Ü ¶În å ÒÒånÒ en ënÎne Porter visited several times a week Ü Î§å §åÜ Ü n înAÎ¼ became §Î nA[ ¶În å That eventually the AIDS

AÜnQ§§ and helped care eAÜnQ§§ OÒ{[ Î§¢ [ n¼[§ for the grove and its ÒÒånb î§åÎ ÒåQÒ[Î ¶Ü §¢ A[[§å¢Ü QA A¢[n Memorial Grove. In 1996, legislation Circle of Friends, where he would colì Qn [ AÎ ne å¶ Ü§ k×¼ôô ¢ Ü n Q ¢ §§eÀ § n {§§eOÒ{[ Î§¢ [ n¼[§ sponsored ¶nÎ §e ì n¢by Ü n Representative ¶În å ÒÒån Ò Nancy lect mementos left by others in the $¶ ¢ §¢ §¶ ¢ §¢OÒ{[ Î§¢ [ n¼[§ Pelosi en ënÎne¼ 2 Ò ì ÎnÒå Ü ¢ A¢was signed (D-San Francisco) memory of loved ones lost to HIV Ae åÒÜ n¢Ü Ü§ Ü n n¢ Ü §{ î§åÎ into law by then-President Bill Clin0¶§ÎÜÒ Ò¶§ÎÜÒenÒ OÒ{[ Î§¢ [ n¼[§ and AIDS. ÒåQÒ[Î ¶Ü §¢¼ -Î [nÒ AÎn ÒåQ n[Ü Ü§ [ A¢ n ton that elevated the grove as the A¢e ¢[ åen A¶¶ [AQ n ÒÜAÜn A¢e §[A Cunningham said that Mr. Porter’s 0Üî n ÒÜî nOÒ{[ Î§¢ [ n¼[§ ÒA nÒ ÜAínÒ¼sole -Î [nÒfederally AÎn nÎ ¢designated [nÎÜA ¢ country’s collection will remain with the grove §åÜ î ¢ AÎnAÒ¼ -nÎ §e [A ¶§ÒÜA n ¶A e 2ÎAën ÜÎAën OÒ{[ Î§¢ [ n¼[§ National AIDS memorial. and be displayed each World AIDS Day. AÜ 0A¢ ÎA¢[ Ò[§b

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Mr. Porter. statement praising cation to the memorial was also a £ ®ôÞ ã£ss¼ “My family and I are deeply sadtestament to his love for his former dened by the passing our Ü§dear -§ÒÜ AÒÜnÎa 0n¢e AeeÎnÒÒ of [ A¢ nÒ partner, Stephen Marcus, who left us 2 n 0A¢ ÎA¢[ Ò[§

Î§¢ [ nb £ô® ! ÒÒ §¢ friend, Jack Porter,” Pelosi stated. “Jack ago,” many years Cunningham stated. 0Ü¼b 0A¢ ÎA¢[ Ò[§ £ ®ôÞ¼ and his late, beloved partner, Stephen “Finally, Jack and Stephen are togethMarcus, were instrumental in estaber again and it gives us great peace lishing <nAÎ the National AIDSãÖÖ Memorial knowing that.” ®}} Z 9§ å n Grove in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Cunningham told the B.A.R. that c ãô®£ 0A¢ ÎA¢[ Ò[§ Î§¢ [ n Park, and Jack spent many years dediMarcus’ adult children were with Mr. cated to protecting and preserving Porter when he died. Marcus was a this beautiful place of peace and relandscape architect. membrance as a longtime volunteer.” In an undated piece on the grove’s Pelosi said that Mr. Porter, like so website, Mr. Porter wrote about Marmany of his generation, came out cus, and how the grove got started. later in life and that he had wanted Marcus, 49, died of AIDS-related a place for the LGBTQ community, complications in December 1989. friends, and family, to honor their The couple met in 1982 and were toloved ones who “died in the shadows.” gether for eight years. “Jack’s tireless work and volunMr. Porter noted that his and Marteerism helped transform a former cus’ names were inscribed in the Cirswamp into sacred ground where cle of Friends. the community can gather to remem“Stephen was on the board of the ber those lost to HIV/AIDS,” Pelosi local tree-planting organization, stated. “Thanks to the committed efFriends of the Urban Forest, that was forts of Jack and countless others, for founded by his good friend, Isabel over 25 years, the AIDS Memorial Wade,” Mr. Porter wrote. “With so Grove has been a sanctuary to mourn many in the city dying from this new as well as a public space to bring peodisease, Stephen and a small group ple together in the fight for LGBTQ that included Alice Russell-Shapiro, rights, including marriage equality.” Isabel Wade, David Linger, Nancy Pelosi added that over the years McNally, David Fox, and Jim Hor-

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she and family members have spent time pulling weeds at the grove and planting trees to help maintain the 10-acre site. According to his obituary, Mr. Porter was born August 9, 1938 in Fort Dodge, Iowa, the son of Gretchen Smith and Thomas B. Porter. He graduated in business and marketing from the University of Iowa in 1960, and shortly afterward joined the U.S. Army, serving in Germany, Australia, and Eritrea. Mr. Porter moved to the San Francisco area in the 1970s and for many years worked for Lockheed Martin in the South Bay. In 2007, the board of the AIDS grove rejected a controversial “Living Memorial” design element that would have seen about 90 blackened steel poles, a new entrance, and a sidewalk overlook to the memorial. It had been was proposed by New York architects Chloe Town and Janette Kim. In what was described as a close vote, the board ultimately decided the organization didn’t have the capacity to raise the estimated $6 million for the project. People familiar with the decision declined to publicize the vote tally, the B.A.R. reported at the time. Mr. Porter eventually resigned from the board over the design issue. One of the arguments in favor of the design was to bring more attention to the grove. “AIDS is not over. We need to let the world know the grove is here,” he told the B.A.R. at the time. Joanie Juster, a straight ally who’s long been involved in HIV/AIDS charity work, fondly recalled Mr. Porter. “Jack was the very soul of the AIDS Memorial Grove,” Juster wrote in a Facebook message, “His kindness and generosity exemplified the spirit of volunteerism” Mr. Porter is survived by his sister, Jill, in Iowa, and her children Cory (wife Carol), and Scott (wife Kaylene); by his niece Elizabeth (husband Jordan) and nephew Dan (wife Marla); stepdaughter Lucy Marcus; stepson J. Cooper Marcus; daughterin-law Angela Laffan; and grandsons Myles and Remi Marcus. Mr. Porter was preceded in death by his sister, Anne Hill. A memorial service for Mr. Porter will be held Sunday, December 1 – World AIDS Day – from 5 to 7 p.m. at the AIDS grove, located in Golden Gate Park at Nancy Pelosi Drive and Bowling Green Drive. Mr. Porter’s writing about he and Marcus can be read at https://aidsmemorial.org/ stories-stephen-marcus/ t

Obituaries >> Joseph Conrad Brewer December 22, 1944 – October 24, 2019

Joe Brewer, retired psychologist in San Francisco, died October 24, 2019 in Palm Springs, California, where he resided with his spouse, Scott Tyman Brewer. Son of Homer and Lenore Brewer of Decatur, Georgia, Joe grew up in the homophobic South, yet emerged as a proud gay man who remained proud also of his Southern heritage. An Eagle Scout, he graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1966 and later earned a master’s degree from the University of Texas in Austin. Joe resided in San Francisco for most of his life, earning a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology and practicing as a clinical psychologist for many years. In 1984, Joe worked with Martin Delaney to create Project Inform. In addition to his husband, Joe is survived by siblings Jeff

(Karen Parisi) and Kat Taylor (Sharon Mann); nephews Alex Brewer and Blake Deeds; niece Kayla Brewer; and his dogs Milo and Cooper. Memorial donations may be sent to Desert AIDS Project in Palm Springs, or Animal Samaritans in Thousand Palms, California. Post photos and memories on the Facebook page “In Honor of Joe Brewer.”

Richard Peter “Pete” Cullinane September 19,1941 – September 4, 2019

Richard Peter “Pete” Cullinane, 77, of Sequim, Washington died September 4. His husband, Bruce Paddock; niece, Lara Smith; nephew, Edward Smith; great nephew Sebastian Smith; and dear friend Trudy were at his side. Pete was born in Arlington, Massachusetts to Elvy and Dorothy (Buonomo) Cullinane. A graduate of Arlington High School, Pete was a

lifelong lover, and participant, in all aspects of the arts. His own art, music, and unique sense of style entertained and created lasting memories for all. He was a set painter for the New York Metropolitan Opera and also painted sets for motion picture and television shows before moving to San Francisco. In San Francisco, Pete joined the San Francisco Opera company and painted sets for their productions. He eventually operated his own painting and design company, working for clients like Ketchum Advertising as well as business and residential clients before finally retiring and moving to Sequim in 2005. Adventure, motorcycles, travel, and staying in touch with friends and family were lasting aspects of his personality. In addition to the aforementioned survivors, Pete is survived by several cousins. He was preceded in death by his parents and brother, Paul Cullinane. A memorial service celebrating Pete’s life was held October 5, 2019 in Sequim.

t <<

Community News>>

AIDS quilt

From page 1

He told the B.A.R. that in February, he was approached about the possibility of the San Franciscobased nonprofit being that home by Dan Bernal, a gay man who is HIV-positive and chief of staff for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (DSan Francisco) district office and vice president of the San Francisco Health Commission. Julie Rhoad, president and CEO of the Names Project, told the B.A.R. that the nonprofit will transfer its operations to the grove and “will close and cease operations” early in 2020. It will cease to exist entirely by the end of next year. Rhoad said that she is excited to have found “the right partners” in the grove. “This is the culmination of chapter two of the history of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and the Names Project. It makes perfect sense for the quilt to return to its birthplace,” Rhoad said. “I’m very excited for this.” Cunningham said that the AIDS grove and the quilt, “through their very existence, have had a tremendous impact in telling the story of the AIDS crisis and the AIDS movement, a story of social justice.” The Names Project Foundation used to be located in San Francisco. Its history dates back to 1985 when Cleve Jones had participants in that year’s annual candlelight march honoring the deaths of gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone write down the names of people lost to AIDS onto placards that were then attached to the federal building near City Hall. Two years later Jones, Mike Smith, Gert McMullin, and several other people opened a Castro storefront and the AIDS quilt was officially born. Smith said that he and Jones are happy that the quilt is coming back to where it was born, and said that the two have become closer in the last few months. “I think it’s a wonderful moment in the history of the quilt,” Smith said by phone. “I’m de-

November 21-27, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 11

Sontag

From page 8

said when she read ‘Notes on Camp,’ she knew Susan was gay, as she was gay herself and knew how to recognize the signs,” Moser said. “But there was no recognition in the culture itself. People were surprised that Liberace was gay. That’s a true story you can’t even believe now. People missed it. It changed so fast, that you could be a writer and lesbian and that wasn’t considered unusual. Edmund White told me she would have lost two-thirds of her readers if she had come out of the closet then. True of the 1960s but not the 1990s. “But the attitudes you grow up with stick with you way more than you want them to,” he added. “She came from a time of total lesbian invisibility and a time when you could have your child taken away from you and this almost happened to her. You’re in constant legal jeopardy. Whatever internalized homophobia she had, it was very scary. Then you grow up, move to San Francisco, and think no one cares. But that isn’t true; people do care. She did a lot of things for lesbians that didn’t involve actively coming out of the closet. She was so beautiful, smart, interesting and I can’t tell you how many lesbians told me how inspiring they found her as they were growing up and had no role models, especially as writers or intellectuals.” Moser said he didn’t want to judge people from different historical times. “I am very respectful of gay history

Courtesy YouTube

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recalls the early days of the AIDS Memorial Quilt during Wednesday’s announcement at the Library of Congress.

At the announcement, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden noted the quilt was “a symbol of hope, healing, and remembrance.”

She said that close to 636,000 people have died of AIDS in the U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), co-founder of the Congressional HIV/AIDS Caucus, said that the quilt will be stored in San Leandro, part of her congressional district, near the airport. “We stand here in remembrance of people who died of AIDS,” she said. “Their story will be known by future generations.” Congressman John Lewis (DGeorgia), who represents Atlanta where the quilt is currently, said the new agreement is a good one. “From the earliest days of the AIDS crisis, this community provided for each other,” he said. “From the heights of the civil rights movement we spoke of love – love your brother ... love your friends.” Cunningham said that financial support for the project came in part from Gilead Sciences, which “stepped up to help.” Pelosi, a mother of five, recalled when Jones first broached the topic of a memorial quilt. “I said to Cleve, ‘a quilt? Nobody sews,’” she quipped. “That was my wisdom at the time.” Jones pointed out, “One of the greatest obstacles to fighting AIDS remains stigma.” In a statement to the B.A.R., Pelosi said it “is a privilege to welcome the AIDS Memorial Quilt permanently back to the Bay Area.” “For over 30 years, the AIDS

and what made my life uninteresting to people, the fact that I can be gay and no one cares. I’m aware of the genealogy of that, those who got arrested, lost their children, or committed suicide,” he said. “I just feel sorry for her. I wish she had been able to be comfortable with her sexuality and been able not to care what anyone thought about her. Still, she could hide. No one looking at her would have thought lesbian, even if all lesbians back then knew it. She never managed to shed these homophobic attitudes entirely. Because it’s one thing to know something intellectually, and something else to accept it emotionally.” Moser said that Sontag considered herself a feminist but was uncomfortable with certain aspects of feminism as it emerged in the 1970s. “A lot of older feminists in her generation don’t consider her a feminist, they felt she didn’t write about the state of being a woman, the historical situation of women. It’s a little bit true but also a little unfair. Because what she wrote represented the possibility of being a woman intellectual, women as artists and public figures,” he said. “She didn’t like labels and anytime she was described as a woman writer she didn’t like that. She was just a writer. “The feminist critique of her was that she was the exceptional woman in this male chauvinist cultural world, like the black family allowed in the neighborhood so homeowners could say they are integrated, but of course there was only one there,” he added. “Her presence both preserved the pa-

triarchy as well as undermined it.” Sontag has been accused of erasing the difference between high and low culture because she wrote on popular subjects. “The real vile accusation after ‘Notes on Camp’ comes out, was of putting gay male culture with its irony, playfulness, and secret codes into the level that polite society could now scandalously read about, as intellectuals weren’t supposed to engage with such marginal material,” Moser said. It seems today’s preoccupation with Instagram, selfies, and the use of photos to understand people’s lives, is exactly what Sontag writes about in “On Photography.” “What Instagram is for most people is presenting a more attractive version of your life to other people,” Moser said. “With filters, it’s somewhat fake but also real as there is someone behind it. She writes about the tyranny of image and a lot of times when you talk about things that don’t seem related to photography such as an eating disorder or body dysphoria, they come from being judged by the camera, and the supremacy of the image to the actual person. “There’s not much in her essay ‘On Photography’ that needs to be updated. It’s just gotten worse. It used to be for famous people and now it’s about high school students. That’s why when people ask me – if they haven’t read Sontag – what should they start with, I recommend ‘On Photography.’ It takes this very abstract-sounding

lighted it’s coming back to San Francisco and we’re opening up a new chapter of visibility for the quilt. It’s a wonderful marriage – I’ve always had great respect for the people at the grove. You couldn’t have a better partner.” Smith has been consulting on “the logistics of this very complicated move” for the past two months. The last time the full quilt was put on public display was 1996 when it was on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. At that time it was over a mile long and several hundred yards wide, Smith said. Jones told the B.A.R. that the quilt will be “back where it belongs.” “I am thrilled and grateful,” he said. Rhoad said that while the first chapter was with Jones and Smith, the second chapter was focused on “stewardship” and preserving the quilt for future generations. Cunningham told the B.A.R. that while Jones has been kept apprised of the talks, he was “not actively engaged” and did not play an active role in the negotiations. Jones and the Names Project have a stormy history, as the nonprofit fired Jones in 2003. He sued and the two parties settled a couple of years later.

Ceremony

quilt has stood as a beautiful tribute to those lost to the devastation of HIV/AIDS and has reminded us all of our responsibility to tell the personal stories lovingly stitched into every panel,” Pelosi said. “We are deeply grateful to the Names Project and the National AIDS Memorial Grove for joining together to ensure that this powerful memorial continues to be a source of comfort, education and engagement for generations to come.” Cunningham said the quilt would begin the move to the East Bay next month. All the panels should be relocated by the end of January.

Archive

He added that the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress will become the new home for the National AIDS Memorial Quilt Archive in 2020. The archival collection currently totals more than 200,000 items. It includes biographical records, correspondence, photographs, tributes, epitaphs, news clippings, and artifacts submitted by panel makers that add context about the lives memorialized on the quilt panels. The archive also documents the creation, marketing, and exhibition of the quilt over the last 32 years. According to a news release, digital assets include images of all the quilt blocks and detailed information about the creators of quilt panels. The American Folklife Center will preserve the archival records, which will be made available to researchers and the public after archivists process and organize the materials. Cunningham explained that the AIDS grove’s offices are currently located in the Flood Building on Market Street in downtown San Francisco. He said it is the grove’s hope to move back to the Castro and display some of the quilt panels there. “We’re exploring that for next year,” he said. A conservationist will do an analysis of the 52 tons of quilt panels once they are in Oakland, Cunningham said, to ensure they “are handled in the right way.” It is the AIDS grove’s intention to continue the Names Project’s educational display program – philosophical question – what is the relationship between an object and a metaphor of that object – and makes it fun and funny, freaky, and terrifying,” he added.

Camp

Sontag’s essay on camp is still read 55 years later. You can see its influence even in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with its camp theme for this year’s Met Gala, quoting Sontag on the gallery heading. “It is dated in its own way but I was excited as an archivist to find the first draft on that essay, which was titled ‘Notes on Homosexuality,’” Moser said. “And gay people know this was about gay culture but most others did not. This was breaking the codes. She would be proud that essay was being read 55 years later. She held a mirror to gay people and even though she’s ironizing it and making fun of it, she spent much time observing it and trying to figure it out. “The essential message of that essay is her real attraction to it, as well as being repelled by it, there is a sexual thrill to it, doing dirty things in private and not talking about it, which is a turn on; the other part is she admires these lives that are constructed outside bourgeois heterosexual expectations. She finds that thrilling. It’s not because she’s gay or a woman but she’s a thinker who came up through the suburbs of California. She’s thrilled by the idea she doesn’t have to be like her parents. Camp is a kind of freedom, making fun of middle America – the part of the

where quilt panels are displayed at schools and other locations – and a newer initiative the Names Project started, Call My Name. “This program is aimed at the African American community,” Cunningham said, adding that quilting is done in African American churches and other centers so that members of that community lost to AIDS can be remembered. He expressed hope that the project could be expanded, perhaps to the Asian Pacific Islander, transgender, and hemophiliac communities. As part of the agreement, the AIDS grove will embark on a fundraising initiative in order to build a preservation fund so that the quilt “is never in a state of risk,” Cunningham said. According to the Names Project’s most recently available tax filings, it had a deficit of about $500,000. The 2017 IRS Form 990 stated that Rhoad’s salary was $100,000 and the organization received $150,000 in quilt display fees. Cunningham was asked if the quilt would be part of the museum the grove announced two years ago. Rather than build its own museum focused on the AIDS epidemic, Cunningham said the nonprofit is now exploring opening a center for social conscience. The GLBT Historical Society is embarking on its own plan for an LGBTQ history museum, which it would like to locate in the Castro. A recent feasibility study the historical society commissioned said such a project would be doable, and there were two options: one for a museum and one with the museum and its archives housed in one location. Terry Beswick, a gay man who’s the executive director of the society, has sought support from city officials for the project. Cunningham said that he has discussed the projects – an historical society museum and the AIDS grove’s center – with Beswick. “I’ve had constructive conversations with Terry,” he said. Beswick did not immediately return a call seeking comment, but in a Facebook post he wrote, “Wonderful news.”t

world she came from,” he added. There hasn’t been a public intellectual like her, a woman who could be on the cover of Vanity Fair and write essays about French philosophy. “She stands for being rooted in culture and tradition while still engaging with contemporary art, politics, sexuality. If you want to know what’s going on in the world and a non-Twitterized view of all these things, reading Sontag is the best door. ... There is no one like her today. She rightly belongs in the LGBT pantheon even if that’s a label she might not have wanted. She would have been pleased that so many lesbians look to her as a symbol who opened up things for her,” Moser said. Moser is concerned that people don’t read Sontag today. “One of the things I hope this book will change is that people will get more interested in her ideas and work,” he said. “But the fact is some of her novels are good, others aren’t, but the same is true of her essays. But as a biographer you’re interested in why they are good or bad, why they succeed or don’t. Why is she thinking that?” As Sontag was dying, Moser said that her last words to her son, was fittingly, “I want to tell you...” “We will never know what she wanted to say but it expressed a desire to express herself and communicate – her life’s work,” he said. “The reason her work has stood the test of time is that she, more than any other American writer of her generation, gives you a key to culture.” t

<< Election 2020

t Buttigieg surge in Iowa ‘changes what is possible’ 12 • Bay Area Reporter • November 21-27, 2019

by Lisa Keen

success he’s having on the campaign trail – will certainly inspire more LGBTQ people to run in communities they once thought impossible to win,” said Parker. “The floodgates have been opened – and we will see the effects of that in 2020.” In addition to the general public’s feelings about gay people, Buttigieg has had to overcome other hurdles: being essentially unknown to most voters nationwide, being the mayor of a small Midwestern city, and carrying a hard-to-pronounce name into the public arena. But Buttigieg has polled and fundraised well enough to stay on the national debate stage and as a steady contender when better known Democrats have had to bow out (like former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York) or have failed to break into the top five in a field of 17 candidates (Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota). The Des Moines Register-CNN poll released November 16 came just two days before a CBS poll found Buttigieg essentially tied in Iowa with Biden and Sanders. A Monmouth University poll two days before that showed him in the lead in the Hawkeye State, but by only 3 points that the margin of error essentially neutralized. The Des Moines Register and CNN called 2,012 “active registered voters,” including 500 “likely Democratic

caucusgoers.” The survey was conducted November 8-13 and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.4 points in the Democratic sample. So, Buttigieg’s 9-point lead is significant. The Iowa poll immediately increased the amount of media attention and consideration being given to Buttigieg’s bid for president, as well as tougher scrutiny. The Washington Post did an article noting that a stock photo used as an illustration for Buttigieg’s “Douglass Plan for Black America” was a photo of a Kenyan woman. The Associated Press examined whether Buttigieg might be “overstating” his military service in Afghanistan. The New York Post reported criticism of a photo of Buttigieg in front of a Holocaust memorial. And NBC did a story saying Buttigieg was “struggling with black voters,” which has been the case for months. That was heightened this summer after an officer-involved shooting in South Bend left a black man dead. Speaking of black voters, a poll released Monday of likely voters in South Carolina, which has a much greater percentage of black voters than Iowa or New Hampshire, showed Buttigieg stalled at 6%, compared to previous polls. Buttigieg came in a distant fourth among the candidates with all South Carolina voters; Biden took 33%, Warren 13%, and Sanders 11%. And Buttigieg garnered less than 1% of the vote among black voters specifically.

Voters saying they didn’t know which candidate they would vote for accounted for 18% of those surveyed in South Carolina. The Quinnipiac University poll surveyed 768 likely Democratic primary voters; the margin of error was 4.8%. Buttigieg also faces scrutiny that his campaign overstated the number of black South Carolinians supportive of his “Douglass Plan” to address myriad issues in the African American community. The top 10 Democratic presidential candidates faced off for their fifth nationally televised debate Wednesday, this time on NBC, with lesbian political commentator Rachel Maddow and three other female reporters asking the questions. One new Democratic candidate – former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick – entered the race last week. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is preparing to enter the Democratic race. Neither will be on the debate stage because they have not yet collected the necessary number of contributors, dollars, and polling numbers required by the Democratic Party for participation in the debates. Meanwhile, the latest national poll, released Monday, shows Buttigieg hanging onto fourth place, with about 7% of the vote, well behind frontrunner Biden (with 30%), Warren (with 18), and Sanders (with 15).t

refinements to the existing proposal,” she wrote in an emailed reply to questions. “The ultimate decision will be made by the SFMTA board.” Mandelman told the B.A.R. he feels “generally positive” about the proposed changes and expressed his gratitude to the SFMTA for coming up with a plan to improve J-Church service, which he called “abysmal.” But he questioned how much of an impact the changes would have in the near term. “I don’t know if any of these changes altogether are going to deliver the service people living in Noe Valley, Glen Park, and the Castro deserve,” said Mandelman. Anything to improve his commutes on the J-Church would be welcomed by Keith Kunkel, a gay man who lives on Liberty Hill and takes public transit to his job at a hardware store in Oakland. Most weekdays he leaves his home at 6:30 a.m. in order to grab a J-Church headed downtown, where Kunkel will transfer to a BART train at the Montgomery station. Half the time Kunkel opts to walk roughly 20 minutes to catch a BART

train from the 16th and Mission streets station rather than wait for a JChurch. On Fridays especially, when he leaves a little later in the morning, Kunkel said it can take 45 minutes to make it to the Montgomery station via the J-Church. “It sounds good,” Kunkel said after reviewing the proposed changes at the meeting Monday night. “It would be nice if some of this stuff happens.” Mandelman said it is “not uncommon” for people in Noe Valley to walk to the 24th and Mission streets BART station to get downtown rather than wait for a J-Church. “I hear that from a lot of people,” he said. Six years ago city transportation leaders attempted to improve service on the J-Church line by adding red transit-only lanes and restricting private vehicles from making left-hand turns at certain intersections so they weren’t delaying the transit trains. The changes reduced travel time variability by 27% and improved travel times up to 14% on that segment of

the route in the Castro and Duboce Triangle neighborhoods. More recently, the transit agency has instructed operators of the historic trolley cars that travel along the J line from their overnight yard at the Balboa Park station when being put into service or taken offline to stop at the J-Church stops to pick up and let out passengers. Doing so adds additional capacity to the line, especially during mornings and evenings. Nonetheless, complaints continue about the J-Church. It is often slowed down by the numerous stop signs and traffic lights along Church Street. Several stops along the route in Liberty Hill require the transit agency to only run one-car trains on the line because there would be no safe place for passengers to disembark from additional cars. Other issues that can bunch up J trains is how the underground tunnel running below Market Street was initially built, requiring both the J line and the N-Judah line to cross outbound L, K, and M trains when headed toward downtown from the Duboce tunnel. And if any train stalls

in the subway system, there is no way to easily run other trains around it, leading to systemwide backups. SFMTA is working with several other agencies to renovate the bathroom at the Embarcadero station to make train operators’ bathroom breaks “more efficient.” It also has a pilot underway to speed up how J-Church trains turn around at that station. In the spring, the agency plans to increase its management of the line to address trains bunching or falling behind schedule. Additional, more expensive fixes for the J-Church are under consideration as part of the SFMTA’s longer term Muni Forward initiative looking at systemwide changes in years to come. Kato told the B.A.R. those improvements could improve travel time on the J-Church line by an additional 15-20%. “This has to be the start not the end for improvements on the J,” said Mandelman. To learn more about the coming changes to the J-Church line, visit https://www.sfmta.com/projects/jchurch-improvement-project. t

of SFCHC, said that Sombredero is the choice to help the center move forward on its trajectory of trying to keep up with “our city’s twists and turns, our prosperities and our crises.” “What it takes to provide the highest quality health care for the most vulnerable is to have a workforce that mirrors our clients,” Toma said. “We’ve built an exceptional and intentional clinic team who are transidentified, who are immigrants, who have experienced homelessness, who are lesbian and gay, who are people of

color and all at their cores every one of them is committed to our communities with their hearts and souls.” Brian Ragas, a gay man who is the communications manager of SFCHC, said that it’s this background that made Sombredero the perfect pick after a long search. Haney noted that the health center’s clients are three-quarters people of color, over half are LGBT, and 30% are transgender. The center has 6,140 clients per year, according to the San Francisco Community Clinics Consortium.

“Her background in internal medicine in vulnerable populations, particularly in Colombia and the East Bay in Oakland and in the HIV unit – that’s the population we serve here,” Ragas said of Sombredero. Dr. Royce Lin, a gay man who is the outgoing chief medical officer, said that after two years with him working part-time the health center (he has a full-time position with the Department of Public Health) was in need of someone to take the job full-time. “This center is very close to me. I

got to know it in 2000 as a client, and what is always amazing is when you come to a place thinking you’re going to be judged but instead it’s pure love and acceptance,” Lin said, adding, “I’m thrilled. I couldn’t be happier with the choice.” Ragas said he could not disclose the Sombredero’s salary but said that the annual budget of SFCHC is $8.5 million. According to the agency’s 2016 IRS Form 990, it had paid former chief medical officer Dr. Tri Do, $185,400. t

n a historic first, a gay presidential candidate for a major party nomination has topped the polling in Iowa, the first state that will select its delegates to the party nominating conventions. A Des Moines Register-CNN poll of likely Democratic caucusgoers found 25% support South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, compared to 16% for Senator Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), and 15% each for Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. But it wasn’t just Buttigieg’s first-place polling that snared the headlines. He’s done that before. It was the fact that his support in Iowa constituted a 16-point leap in less than two months that drew notice. “This is a real surge,” said an article in the conservative National Review. Now, pundits are analyzing the why and how behind that surge. Buttigieg has spent considerable time in Iowa, a factor that often translates into better polling. In early November, for instance, he made 11 appearances in four days – compared to seven each by Warren and Sanders and four by Biden. He’s also aired an “aggressive” number of television ads, according to www. fivethirtyeight.com. And CNN attributed the improvement to Buttigieg’s strategic decision to position himself as a moderate alternative to

J-Church

From page 1

the current 25 miles per hour along Randall Street enroute to and from the Glen Park BART station stop. A number of safety improvements are also under consideration, such as improved buffer zones at stops and removing parking spaces at certain stops, which the SFMTA refers to as “daylighting.” “The near-term improvements could reduce travel time between 30th and Market Street by about 5%. This travel time savings would be invested into providing more leeway in the schedule, which will improve reliability,” SFMTA spokeswoman Erica Kato told the B.A.R. The current plan is for SFMTA to hold a public hearing on the proposals, said Kato, then present a final list of proposed changes to the SFMTA board sometime in February or March for approval. “The J Church Project will be reviewing community feedback regarding all project proposals and will assess whether there is a need to make

SF health center

From page 1

tween medical resources and organizations in San Francisco and the East Bay. “Fortunately, I have worked for six years in Alameda County and have very strong relationships,” Sombredero said. “I know that we can definitely strengthen this more and streamline it more with our communities; not only with people living with HIV but also for transgender medicine too.” Lance Toma, a gay man who’s CEO

Rick Gerharter

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has surged among Iowa caucusgoers, according to a recent poll.

Warren and Sanders. Whatever the reason, for the LGBT history books, the polling carries extra significance. “That an openly LGBTQ presidential candidate is leading in one of the most important primary states is a revolution in American politics, and it forever changes what is possible,” said Annise Parker, president of the LGBTQ Victory Fund. Parker herself made history in 2009 when she became the first openly gay person to be elected as mayor of Houston, one of the top five most populated cities in the United States. The Victory Fund endorsed Buttigieg in June. “Pete’s run – and the tremendous

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Legals >>

November 21-27, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 13

Legal Notices>> ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-555316 In the matter of the application of: TIMOTHY DONALD ARMSTRONG, 701 TAYLOR ST #509, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner TIMOTHY DONALD ARMSTRONG, is requesting that the name TIMOTHY DONALD ARMSTRONG AKA TIMOTHY D. ARMSTRONG AKA TIMOTHY ARMSTRONG AKA TIM ARMSTRONG, be changed to TYMN ARMSTRONG. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514 on the 10th of December 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-555322

In the matter of the application of: ASHLEY LAUREN NELSONHORNSTEIN, 255 STEINER ST #501, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ASHLEY LAUREN NELSON-HORNSTEIN, is requesting that the name ASHLEY LAUREN NELSON-HORNSTEIN, be changed to ASHLEY LAUREN NELSON. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 12th of December 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-555331 In the matter of the application of: ROSE KHALLOUF & LEO DETOMASO, 1595 33RD AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ROSE KHALLOUF & LEO DETOMASO, is requesting that the name OLIVIA KHALLOUF DETOMASO, be changed to OLIVIA ROSE DETOMASO. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, on the 17th of December 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-555330

In the matter of the application of: PHUOC MINH NGUYEN, 201 TURK ST #301, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner PHUOC MINH NGUYEN, is requesting that the name PHUOC MINH NGUYEN AKA DAVID PHUOC MINH NGUYEN be changed to DAVID PHUOC MINH NGUYEN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514, on the 17th of December 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038829300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MITOMOTO PHOTOGRAPHY, 1508 IRVING ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JAHDE MITOSINKA. 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 10/18/19.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038842900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SRI PUBLIC RELATIONS, 388 MARKET ST #1300, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SRI LAKSHMI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/27/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/28/19.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038839800 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CLA COMMERCIAL CLEANING SVC, 138 GAMBIER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LUIS ALFONSO CHANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/25/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/25/19.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038829500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MUGFUL, 823 KANSAS ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed PARASKEVAS APOSTOLOPOULOS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/18/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/18/19.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038834000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CACHESTARS GLOBAL, 1300 GILMAN AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed HERALD DANILO BERMUDEZ AGUILERA. 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 10/23/19.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038832000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FEI FEI DAYCARE, 460 36TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121.This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LIFEI BIAN.The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/19.The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/21/19.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038833300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PARTNERS, 3896 NORIEGA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed PAUL EDWARD GREER, PAUL CURTIS SUGIMOTO & RICHARD CHARLES TUCKER. 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 10/22/19.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038824600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VANYSOL, 2905 16TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed VALERIA GALVEZ, MARISOL PRADO & NANCI SANCHEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/11/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/15/19.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038828300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ZEBRA, 149 NEW MONTGOMERY ST #303, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed TURBO TECHNOLOGY, INC (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/17/19.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038832800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LEUNG’S WHITE CRANE ASSOCIATION, 32 SAINT LOUIS ALLEY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed LEUNG’S BROTHERS INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/01. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/22/19.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038831000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ISABELLA’S SHUTTLE, 1181 GILMAN AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed COSME MOLINA & REINA MOLINA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/21/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/21/19.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-029691000

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: FIVE STAR NAIL & SPA, 2920 DIAMOND ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94131. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by CUONG VIEN LA. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/08/06.

OCT 31, NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF DONALD EDWARD STEVENS IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-19-302700

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of DONALD EDWARD STEVENS. A Petition for Probate has been filed by KATHLEEN M. STEVENS in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that KATHLEEN M. STEVENS be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: November 26, 2019, 9:00 am, Dept. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the latter of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: LAUREN T. CORMAN #292981, MICHAEL L. CORMAN #70495, THE CORMAN LAW OFFICES, APC, 740 FRONT ST #200, SANTA CRUZ, CA 95060; Ph. (831) 427-2414.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-555339

In the matter of the application of: MARIA GUADALUPE DE LEON, 1785 MCKINNON AVE #A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner MARIA GUADALUPE DE LEON, is requesting that the name KAYLEE MARIE DE LEON, be changed to KAYLEE MARIE RODEGEB DE LEON. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 19th of December 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038853800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RFR PRODUCTION, 837 GEARY ST #306, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CHACRIT TAECHOTIROTE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/01/19.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038851700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GOLDEN GATE DISEGNO, 5 ISADORA DUNCAN LN, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed PEDRO NEL OSPINA HINCAPIE. 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 10/31/19.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038834200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HUME, 927 LARKIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BRANDT HEWITT. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/23/19.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038846900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JUST LIKE MOM PRESCHOOL, 2336 21ST AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JULIYA CHERDAK. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/01/02. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/29/19.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038848600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MELA MELO, 3301 CLAY ST #204, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MELISSA DOERKEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/15/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/30/19.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038851500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: VELA TAX & ACCOUNTING, 43 ELLERT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CARLOS RONALD VELA. 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 10/31/19.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038840700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HI HO SILVER SAN FRANCISCO, 1904 FILLMORE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed VICTORIA DUNHAM. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/01/10. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/25/19.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038844100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RAPID REGISTRATION SERVICES, 1530 UNION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ROBIN FRALEY. 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 10/28/19.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038844300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HAYES PIZZA, 2077 HAYES ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CARLOS ZARATE AMBROCIO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/16/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/28/19.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038822000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GOODFELLA’S PIZZERIA AND GRILL, 377 BAY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed HAMED SALHI & FARIDAHMAD BAKHTARY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/10/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/10/19.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038848800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN FRANCISCO SPCA, 201 ALABAMA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SF SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION (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 10/30/19.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038846700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DCCX BRAND; NETZERO EXTRACT SERVICES, 1500 BURKE AVE, UNIT A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed THE BURKE GROUP (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/29/19.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-038629900

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: AWAKENED SELF, 109 STONECREST DR, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by SANTIAGO ROCHA. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 04/26/19.

NOV 07, 14, 21, 28, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-555370

In the matter of the application of: SURYADI JUNAEDY C/O CHUNG N. PHANG, ESQ., LAW OFFICES OF CHUNG N. PHANG, 300 FRANK H. OGAWA PLAZA # 209, OAKLAND, CA 94612, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner SURYADI JUNAEDY, is requesting that the name SURYADI JUNAEDY, be changed to PETER LIM. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, on the 14th of January 2020 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 14, 21, 28, DEC 05, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-555350

In the matter of the application of: MICHAEL DRAPER CALFEE, 2261 MARKET ST PMB 181, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner MICHAEL DRAPER CALFEE, is requesting that the name MICHAEL DRAPER CALFEE aka MICHAEL CALFEE aka MICHAEL D. CALFEE, be changed to MICHAEL KITTEN DRAPER CALFEE. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, on the 24th of December 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 14, 21, 28, DEC 05, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038848100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: THE BEST MAID SERVICE; MENDEZ CRUZ CATERING; 25 LESSING ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LUIS ARTURO MENDEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/29/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/29/19.

NOV 14, 21, 28, DEC 05, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038830300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MOONSPIRED, 1010 16TH ST #233 SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JI MOON. 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 10/21/19.

NOV 14, 21, 28, DEC 05, 2019

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038860500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: STUDIO C SKINCARE; PUCKER PUNCH COSMETICS; 2159 UNION ST #5, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CHERYL L. ROUCH. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/01/03. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/07/19.

NOV 14, 21, 28, DEC 05, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038827000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: COLLECTIVE LIGHT PRODUCTIONS, 633 CAMBRIDGE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GEOFFREY KEN ICHI NORMAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/16/19.

NOV 14, 21, 28, DEC 05, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038843900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SILICON VALLEY VENTURE CAPITAL CLUB, 388 MARKET ST #1300, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOHN QUOC NGUYEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/21/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/28/19.

NOV 14, 21, 28, DEC 05, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038856100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: STORYTREE, 2101 FOLSOM ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed REBECCA WILLIAMS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/01/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/04/19.

NOV 14, 21, 28, DEC 05, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038861300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PERCEPTIVE ENTERTAINMENT, 1479 14TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed LORRAINE HESS & ERIN CRYSDALE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/08/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/08/19.

NOV 14, 21, 28, DEC 05, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038860100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SF CITY PROPERTIES, 4153 24TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed MURPHY O’BRIEN REAL EST. INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/07/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/07/19.

NOV 14, 21, 28, DEC 05, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038849400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: UDUPI PALACE, 1007-1/2 VALENCIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed UDUPI 266 SF, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/30/19.

NOV 14, 21, 28, DEC 05, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038858200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DECK THE HALLS; JUNGLE THEORY; 1490 SACRAMENTO ST #24, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed GUERRILLA VISION LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/05/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/06/19.

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-555377 In the matter of the application of: JOYE WILEY #191156, 2140 SHATTUCK AVE #1108, BERKELEY, CA 94704, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner EDISON ALEXANDRO ENDO, is requesting that the name EDISON ALEXANDRO ENDO, be changed to ALEX ENDO. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103, Room 103 on the 9th of January 2020 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038844400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MOOVIETRIBE. COM, 1 AVENUE OF THE PALMS #413, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94130. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JASON HANCOCK. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/28/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/28/19.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038842000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RW HARBOR AUTOMOTIVE SERVICE, 175 BAY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RAYMOND WONG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/25/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/25/19.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038850400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SF LASH HABIT, 409 16TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARIA VAZQUEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/30/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/30/19.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038832100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DEZAYNO, 237 KEARNY ST #9048, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DAVID GREENE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/14/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/21/19.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038828500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: COSINA MAYAH RESTAURANT, 2909 16TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RODOLFO MAAY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/17/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/17/19.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038862900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: XSPACE BUILDERS, 3150 18TH ST #222, MAIL BOX 113, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed TOMAS PASCUAL. 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 11/12/19.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038867500 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DELCID TRUCKING, 1788 19TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SANDRA CASTELLANOS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/15/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/15/19.

NOV 14, 21, 28, DEC 05, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038841100

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038862700

NOV 14, 21, 28, DEC 05, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-555332

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038863000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LOVE, INDIE B, 555 MISSION ROCK ST UNIT 420, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94158. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed LOVE, INDIE LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/15/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/25/19.

In the matter of the application of: PANG TSU WANG, 901 BAYSHORE BLVD #313, SAN FRANCISCO, CA94124, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner PANG TSU WANG, is requesting that the name PANG TSU WANG, be changed to PETER PANG TSU WANG. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, on the 17th of December 2019 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-555383 In the matter of the application of: HALLIE CHERTOK, 85 MANCHESTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner HALLIE CHERTOK & MIRIAM ROTKINELLMAN, are requesting that the name KAYDEN BERNIE CHERTOK ELLMAN, be changed to KAYDEN BERNIE CHERTOK-ELLMAN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Room 103N on the 14th of January 2020 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-19-555381 In the matter of the application of: LANCE DALTON SHANNON, 3533 16TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner LANCE DALTON SHANNON, is requesting that the name LANCE DALTON SHANNON, be changed to GAGE DALTON LENNOX. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Room 103 on the 14th of January 2020 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038866000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BRAVO PIZZA, 5145 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed PETER PROKOPOS. 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 11/14/19.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: STRATEGICONCEPTS, 93 CLEARFIELD DR, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DAVID CARRASCO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/12/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/12/19.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: IL CILENTANO, 579 COLUMBUS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed SANTOLO ESPOSITO & YANESSA BACANI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/12/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/12/19.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038863600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: G & O TAX SERVICES CORP, 1341 STOCKTON ST #10, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed G & O TAX SERVICES CORP. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/19/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/12/19.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038856500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SWEET GLORY, 721 LARKIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed THE GREY HOUSE INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/30/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/05/19.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038860600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PACIFIC EDGE REAL ESTATE GROUP, 215 WEST PORTAL AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed ALEC MIRONOV, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/15/19. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/07/19.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038861900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CALIFORNIA SMART FOODS, 2565 THIRD ST #341, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a married couple, and is signed RUDY MELNITZER & HELAINE MELNITZER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 12/01/00. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/08/19.

NOV 21, 28, DEC 05, 12, 2019

Domestic abuse

Child abuse

Adam & Steve

Ivory tower

Vol. 49 • No. 47 • November 21-27, 2019

www.ebar.com/arts

MTV Documentary Films

Gay Chorus meets the Deep South by David-Elijah Nahmod

he San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus showed tremendous courage in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s ascension to the presidency and the passage of “religious freedom” laws that legalized LGBT discrimination in conservative states. Joined by the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, they embarked on a tour of the Deep South, performing for a largely Christian audience in churches, concert halls and community centers. The idea was that in order for laws to be changed, hearts and minds must be changed first. The result was a transformative journey for both the audience and for the members of the chorus. See page 17 >>

Members of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in “Gay Chorus Deep South.”

Betye Saar, “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima” (1972). Wood, cotton, plastic, metal, acrylic paint, printed paper and fabric.

Benjamin Blackwell, courtesy of FAMSF

Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Sasha Cooke as Hansel and Heidi Stober as Gretel in SF Opera’s “Hansel and Gretel.”

Art from injustice

Witch hunts by Philip Campbell

he final production in the San Francisco Opera’s fall season is also the first big entertainment of the holidays. Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” opened last week with English director and designer Antony McDonald’s sweet storybook retelling, a co-production with London’s Royal Opera. See page 18 >>

by Sura Wood

“S

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS }

oul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” is the most overtly political exhibition the Fine Arts Museums have presented in recent memory. See page 15 >>

Out There>>

November 21-27, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 15

Art & pleasure trip to San Jose by Roberto Friedman

quick jaunt to San Jose brought Out There many happy hours of art enjoyment. The San Jose Museum of Art is currently showing a handful of special exhibits, but in our opinion it was selections from their permanent collection that really stole the show. “Almost Human: Digital Art from the Permanent Collection” showcases artists who use digital and other technologies such as virtual reality and AI in their work. As you’d expect from a museum set right in the heart of Silicon Alley, their collections of art created from new and emergent technologies are extensive, from the early days of computer electronics through the present future-is-now day. “Rose Breathing” (2003), a 3-D computer animation of an animate blossom created by Andrea Ackerman, greets viewers with visual delight at the exhibition’s entrance. “Memoria” (2000), an early video piece by Bill Viola, is an image of a man’s face undergoing emotional changes, shot by a low-grade sur-

Soul of a Nation

From page 14

It’s an export from the Tate Modern, London, an unusual point of origin for a show deeply entrenched in the turmoil experienced by African Americans whose lives and art are inextricably linked to the abiding wounds of slavery and the inequality and bigotry, institutional and personal, that persist. Witnesses and participants in history, the 60 artists from across the country, who contributed over 150 works to the exhibition, make their presence felt and voices heard. The charged subject matter here, by turns loaded with anger, a profound, unassuaged sense of injustice, and hope, makes for powerful art. Over the years, black artists have encountered hostility to their work from mainstream galleries and museums who have shut them out and refused to show it, depriving them of outlets and audiences of a rich cultural resource that deserves to be seen. This show is but one corrective; progress has been made, but there’s a long way to go. The exhibition, which recently opened at the de Young (the local version incorporates Bay Area artists), covers two turbulent decades, from 1963 to 1983, a period of sociopolitical upheaval when the country was roiling, grappling with civil rights and incendiary issues of race, identity and the meaning of freedom that remain in play in a nation more polarized than ever. That summary, however, doesn’t begin to convey the breadth of the exhibition. The artworks are loosely divided into 10 thematic sections, the first built around the Spiral Group that was formed in 1963 and mounted its sole exhibition in 1965. In case you were under the impression that

veillance camera and projected onto silk cloth. It’s low-tech but high-impact. “Info Glut II” (1997) by Alan Rath is an early example of the artistic employment of electronics. It uses cathode-ray tubes, of all ancient technologies! But the knockout piece of “Almost Human” perhaps gives the exhibit its title. It’s a fiberglass sculpture by Tony Oursler called “Slip” (2003), and it incorporates video of two human eyes and a mouth splayed across its surface so that the piece appears to be living and breathing as we encounter it. There’s something about animated human features that compels attention and empathy, even when they come at you courtesy of a Sony VPL C55 projector. (Through Aug. 9, 2020.) “Beta Space: Pae White” displays that LA-based artist’s amazing craftsbased artwork, including a large virtuoso tapestry and a hanging mobile sculpture with the up-to-date title “Whistleblower.” (Through Jan. 19, 2020.) “With Drawn Arms: Glenn Kaino and Tommie Smith” includes Kaino’s large, impressive fiberglass, steel and wire sculpture “Bridge” African American artists are monolithic, the only thing members of this New York coterie could agree upon was that they’d exclusively show austere black-and-white pieces. Norman Lewis’ dramatic painting “Processional” (1965), for instance, was inspired by the three 54-mile civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama that were viciously attacked by state troopers. Set against a black background, the abstract images of marchers start as a narrow band that widens and gathers strength, like film pouring from a movie projector that begins as a shaft of light that ultimately fills the big screen by the end of its journey. Ming Smith, the first female member of the Kamoinge photography collective, whose mission was to promote positive images of black life, created striking portraits of performers like Grace Jones and Sun Ra. In her sparkling black-and-white photograph “America Seen through Stars and Stripes, New York City, NY” (1976), the ultra-cool central figure in a blinding white smock and reflective sunglasses is a star in his own right. Smith is one of an impressive number of women prominently featured in the show. A whole section devoted to the gifted visual storyteller Betye Saar includes her most iconic indictment of black stereotypes, “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima” (1972), a signature work that Angela Davis once said launched the black women’s movement. In this handcrafted, politically explicit diorama, Saar turned the offensive “mammy” of yore into a revolutionary. Rebelling against her past enslavement, she clutches a rifle in one hand and a broom in the other. Also on view is Elizabeth Catlett’s “Black Unity,” a monumental mahogany sculpture of a clenched fist

Courtesy of the artist and Haines Gallery, SF

Mike Henderson, “Non-Violence” (1968). Oil on canvas.

Black Power 1963-1983” now at the de Young Museum in SF. Oaklandbased artist Woody De Othello offers anthropomorphized sculptures that seem simultaneously human and animal, humorous and tragic. (All three, through Apr. 5, 2020.) San Jose Museum of Art, 110 South Market St., SJ. Info: www.sjmusart.org.

Hail Santana

(2014), a suspension of slats made from a series of cast sculptures of his arm giving a clenched-fist salute. “Speed City: Civil Rights to Black Power” examines the intersection of sports and black activism from 1960s San Jose, a worthy counterpoint to “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of

We stayed overnight at the Hotel Valencia, a luxurious accommodation right on the Ramblas-style San Jose shopping and dining strip known as Santana Row. The street was strung with festive lights and hopping with visitors. Off the hotel lobby, three floors up, a bar and a restaurant overlook a Spanish-style courtyard with chairs and tables surrounding a sweetly flowing water feature. There’s an outdoor pool six floors up, with chaise lounges, a hot tub and the San Jose sun burning warm enough to take a dip. Our classic corner suite seven flights up came with a Juliet balcony from which we could stand, arms outstretched over the faux Ramblas, and sing a few bars of “Don’t cry for me, Argentina!” were we that sort of person. That way we could invoke three Latin cities – Verona, Barcelona and Buenos Aires – in one Silicon

inspired by a gesture of defiance from African American athletes who raised their fists in solidarity with the Black Power movement at the 1968 Olympics. Less well-known are the two demure faces, eyes half-open, that grace the other side of the famous work. There’s a wonderful array of assemblages like one by David Hammons made out of pork ribs, costume jewelry and bicycle inner tubes, and a grouping produced by L.A artists. In response to the racial violence that engulfed and destroyed

their communities, they gathered detritus from their shattered neighborhoods and transformed it into art. One of those artists, Melvin Edwards, reached back into the sorrowful history of lynching for his “Lynch Fragments” series (1965), a row of terrifying, cold steel objects attached to a gallery wall. Intended to inflict pain, they suggest instruments of torture, humiliation and a shameful legacy of hate and murder. Defying gravity, and caught as if in slow motion, John T. Riddle Jr.’s sar-

San Jose Museum of Art

Tony Oursler, “Slip” (2003). Fiberglass sculpture, Sony VPL CS5 projector, DVD, DVD player, speaker, from “Almost Human: Digital Art from the Permanent Collection” of San Jose Museum of Art.

Valley gesture. The view was lovely, the suite was very nicely appointed, and dinner downstairs at the hotel restaurant Oveja Negra, an array of so-called “unruly tapas,” was toothsome. From the land we sampled their signature lamb albondigas, from the sea we enjoyed garlic prawns, and from the garden we had patatas bravas, all washed down by some good Spanish wine. It all reminded us we want to return to Catalonia. But in the meantime we’ll be back, San Jose, California! Just try keeping us away. Info: hotelvalencia-santanarow.com.t

Courtesy Hotel Valencia

The terrace of the Hotel Valencia on Santana Row in San Jose.

castically titled scrap-metal sculpture “Gradual Troop Withdrawal” (1970) is startling. A headless, nameless soldier, his body torn asunder, is blown backward off his feet by the force of an unseen blast. The piece is a nod toward black soldiers who suffered a disproportionate number of casualties and catastrophic injuries during the war in Vietnam. Bay Area artist, SFAI alumnus Mike Henderson, who currently has a solo show at Haines Gallery, is repSee page 16 >>

<< Books

16 • Bay Area Reporter • November 21-27, 2019

Art Streiber

“In the Dream House” author Carmen Maria Machado addresses the topic of lesbian domestic abuse.

It takes two to tangle by Tim Pfaff

s I was reading Carmen Maria Machado’s new memoir “In the Dream House” (Graywolf Press), something made me think of Alison Bechdel’s long-running cartoon strip “Dykes To Watch Out For.” In her book’s Afterword, Machado mentions a book that made her laugh out loud, “a pretty shocking thing to do in the middle of writing this book.” At that I forgave myself my fond association, and it occurred to me that Machado’s book is about dykes to watch out for, and that writing as cauterizing and indelible as hers makes Machado a dyke to watch out for. “Dream House” addresses the topic of lesbian domestic abuse, though it also circles the subject. It is about Machado’s living through an abusive lesbian relationship, but for all the commonalities with that experience as related by others, she could hardly be more empathic that this story is hers. Harrowing as much of it is, Machado never demonizes her abusive ex-girlfriend (though the reader likely will), and never loses the focus on what in recovery circles would be called “her part in it.” She distinguishes that from having been a “battered woman.” Precisely because she’s narrating verbal, emotional, soul-gutting “domestic” abuse, few readers who have been in a romantic relationship will not oc-

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casionally feel their blood run cold with the shock of recognition. “When people do not believe what you tell them about her and the Dream House,” she writes near the end of the book, “you’ll wish she had hit you. Hit you hard enough that you’d have bruised in grotesque and obvious ways, hard enough that you took photos, hard enough that you went to the cops, hard enough that you could have gotten the restraining order you wanted. Hard enough that the common sense that evaded you for the entirety of your time in the Dream House had been knocked into you.” The Dream House, a savage double entendre, is the one in Bloomington, Indiana she co-habited off and on with her ex. It’s of course what they called it before it turned into the nightmare factory. But Machado uses it as an almost unbearably extended metaphor, and each of the book’s mostly short sections, some aphoristically short, is entitled “Dream House as [Something].” “Dream House as Confession” is a predictable entry and comes early. “Dream House as Memory Palace” better sums up the work as a whole. But as it moves toward its self-consciously reluctant conclusion – the subject, after all, is the ordeal of saying farewell – sections such as “Dream House as the Queen and the Squid” tell tales that startle the most emotionally exhausted reader back into consciousness. “The Dream House as Picaresque” aptly describes its method. The personal story Machado tells could hardly be less linear in its telling, but the seemingly scattershot nature of the chapters, some almost academic in their treatment of the topic, disguises a deep architecture. It’s orbital and ultimately ensnaring. The numerous epigraphs sprin-

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Soul of a Nation

From page 15

resented by “Non-Violence” (1968), a visceral large-scale painting that’s a cross between an ugly outburst of police brutality and a waking nightmare. Punctuated by distraught creatures in ebony shadows and shocks of electric blue, with a white cop in a Nazi armband brandishing a bloody knife, and a Ku Klux Klansman portrayed as a ravenous ghoul, it’s anything but a peaceful scene. Henderson says what he misses most about those volatile

kled over the book’s five sections, almost inscrutably identified with Roman numerals only, may feel like being raked over the spines of every book in Machado’s library. And there are footnotes, but soon you don’t mind and wouldn’t think of skipping them. Gradually it becomes apparent that the writing is administered in doses that are, individually, all anyone could take. The writing itself regularly knocks the wind out of you. “It is summer in New York, and the heat is an animal that won’t climb off.” In Iowa in July, “Mosquitoes flock to you; your legs are swollen with their needs.” As for the Dream House, “Places are never just places in a piece of writing. If they are, the author has failed.” “The house is not essential for domestic abuse, but hell, it helps.” And the kicker: “The Dream House was a haunted house. You were the sudden, inadvertent occupant of a place where bad things had happened. And then it occurs to you one day, standing in the living room, that you are this house’s ghost: you are the one wandering from room to room with no purpose.” There is, if no polemicizing, teaching and a desire to teach everywhere in this book. “I imagine that, one day,” Machado writes near the end, “I will invite young queers over for tea and cheese platters and advice, and I will be able to tell them: you can be hurt by people who look just like you. Not only can it happen, it probably will, because the world is full of hurt people who hurt people.” Along the way Machado notes that the first book addressing the topic of lesbian abuse was written the year she was born. She predicts, and hopes, that hers is not the last word, but it’s inconceivable that there will be another like it.t decades is the idealism and sense of community. It’s a sentiment echoed by Linda Goode Bryant, founder of the Just Above Midtown Gallery in New York City, a venue where overlooked black artists had a platform for their work. On a recent tour of the show, she recalled the camaraderie and avid engagement of those times. “What conversation are we having now,” she wondered, “and who are we having it with?"t Through March 8, 2020. famsf.org.

On the web

This week, find Victoria A. Brownworth’s Lavender Tube column, “Putting the GLAAD report in context,” online at www.ebar.com.

Film>>

November 21-27, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 17

Out to Pastor: Dr. Seelig’s Southern journey

MTV Documentary Films

San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus Artistic Director Dr. Tim Seelig during the chorus’ concert tour.

by David Lamble

“G

ay Chorus Deep South” embeds us with members of the San Francisco Gay Men’s

Gay Chorus

From page 14

That journey has been documented in the new film “Gay Chorus Deep South,” which was the closing night film at Frameline 43 this past June, and now opens on Nov. 22 at the Roxie Theatre. Directed by David Charles Rodrigues, “Gay Chorus Deep South” is a powerful work in which people from different backgrounds strive to find common ground. There are many moving stories in the film. Dr. Tim Seelig, the chorus’ Artistic Director, recalls coming out at age 35 when he was working as Associate Minister of Music at First Baptist Church of Houston. Seelig lost his job, his home, his family and his friends. For Seelig, the Deep South tour is a stark reminder of all he went through. But he forges on, determined to spread his message of love and inclusion. Rodrigues’ camera follows the chorus on their journey as they travel through states like Mississippi, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. These are some of the most conservative states in the country and have some of the worst anti-LGBT laws on the

Chorus as they and their truly fearless leader embark on a four-state tour through Trump Country. For Artistic Director Tim Seelig, the trip brings up painful memories of his

books. While they do face some protesters, they also find many people embracing them. The tour also serves as a catalyst for some chorus members to reconnect with family members. One chorus member who suffers from cancer is visited by his father and stepmother, with whom he had not had a conversation in years, when the chorus appears in Mississippi. It’s a happy reunion and a moving moment when the gay son and the conservative Christian dad reach out to each other and find common ground. Perhaps the film’s most powerful moment is when the chorus marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. In 1965 the bridge was the site of a civil rights march that turned bloody after the police brutally attacked the protesters. But all remains peaceful when the chorus marches across the bridge brandishing rainbow flags. It’s an unforgettable image. There are also scenes of the chorus in performance, and the music, much of it gospel, is beautiful. There’s a lovely rendition of “Amazing Grace.” The chorus, with its haunting unified voices, turns

past life as a heterosexually married member of a Houston, Texas Baptist Church. Seelig’s decision to come out resulted in First Baptist leaders expelling him from their fellowship

at the same time his wife took off with his young sons. Director David Charles Rodrigues’ film explores a wide swath of issues confronting LGBTQ people in Dixieland states swept by Trump. The film takes special pains to note the growing number of antiLGBTQ laws emerging from solidly Republican legislatures throughout the former Confederacy. But the dramatic heart of the film unfolds in a conversation Seelig has with a hypocritically pious Southern pastor at the Holly Grove Baptist Church, whose front lawn bears the sign, “God Is the Supreme Court.” In his church office, Pastor William Pender makes clear to Seelig that he’s fiercely opposed to the emergence of an LGBTQ political movement within his congregation. “If it smells of demonstration, if it smells of in-your-face, then I’m going to get pushback. My job is to keep saying there are ways for us to hold the center here. So the idea of [gay activism] just rubs me wrong.” Seelig dismisses Pender’s tokenism: “I have found that not to be enough, because it means, ‘Oh, bless your heart.’ Then you go home and just rail and scream into a pillow. So

the level of being hospitable is just not good enough for me anymore. Because you can stab me in the back while you’re hugging me. And I’m not interested in being ‘tolerated.’ The harder step is to celebrate the uniqueness.” To which Pastor Pender replies, “I just haven’t felt the urge to do that.” The scene ends with the two men staring each other down, in a clear sign that tolerance of queer folks doesn’t extend far beyond this office in the heart of Trump-leaning Dixie. Later in the car, Seelig explains to his friends, “I’ve lived that very painful Southern veneer of ‘We’re hospitable to all,’ and that veneer is basically bullshit!” He adds that in his experience, the Southern Baptists were not interested in diving too deeply into modern relationship problems for which their Jesus had no easy answers. Fueled by fantastic choral music and the power of love from an amazingly diverse and talented chorus, this film captures the heart and soul of a contemporary civil rights movement whose members won’t rest until rainbow flags begin replacing still-visible Confederate banners. (Opens Friday.)t

MTV Documentary Films

Members of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus performing during a tour of Deep Red states in director David Charles Rodrigues’ “Gay Chorus Deep South.”

it into a plaintive call for building bridges. “Gay Chorus Deep South” shows

that it’s possible for LGBT people to co-exist with the Christian community. It’s not going to be easy to

make that happen, but the chorus’ tour and the subsequent film are a good first step.t

industry giants like Robert Redford (“The Company You Keep”) and Oliver Stone (“Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps”). In “Honey Boy” (now in theaters), LaBeouf ’s screenplay provides a compelling fictionalized account of his rollercoaster life to date. The film traces a young actor’s rocky childhood and early adult years as he attempts to come to terms with a rodeo-clown dad and his own substanceabuse demons. In the LaBeouf tradition, “Honey Boy” director Alma Har’el raised some hell at this year’s Sundance Award ceremonies. “I’m really proud to be here in a year where 44% of the directors are women,” she said. “The hustle is real. We’re here, we’re ready. Stop sending us to shadow fucking white men!” Her chip-on-her-shoulder approach contributes to the tension in 12year Otis’ attempt to move on past

his loutish dad. The film’s main plot, aspiring kid actor Otis (Noah Jupe) duking it out with blowhard dad (LaBeouf, hair thinned, hardass demeanor), overshadows the subplot, where 22-year-old Otis (Lucas Hedges) finds himself in young-adult rehab. LaBeouf is effective as the raging Cajun dad, whose company could easily inspire a kid to run away to join the circus. Hedges is fine, but his part of the film is upstaged by the 12-year-old’s trying to survive the

abusive father. The Hedges subplot would probably work best as a third-act coda. There’s a moment late in the film that best captures LaBeouf ’s take on childhood’s end, a scene where Dad complains about being given handouts from his son’s burgeoning acting earnings. James: “How do you think it feels to have my son paying me? How do you think that feels?” Otis (sadly): “You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t pay you.”t

Rocky road by David Lamble

t seems like a lifetime ago that I chatted with a young rising star with the improbable but memorable name Shia LaBeouf. Back in the infancy of the new century, LaBeouf was working his way up the Disney Studio food chain. Having graduated from the Disney Channel’s “Even Stevens Show,” he had just starred in the Bill Paxton-directed Disney golf movie “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” detailing a 1913 competition when a teenage golfer beat out adult champs in a world-class match. Sensing that this gay feature-writer might enjoy a “homo hook” for the “Greatest Game” piece, LaBeouf informed me that he had a lesbian aunt. Flash-forward 18 years, and the now-30something actor is more than just a household name. With

58 credits on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), LaBeouf has his own big-bucks franchise series (“Transformers”) and works with

<< Theatre

18 • Bay Area Reporter • November 21-27, 2019

Rebel hearts at a women’s college by Jim Gladstone

porary slang. Ross and Mbong are both self-possessed and magnetically attractive, swashbuckling their paths forward while unbuckling preconceptions about butch-femme roles in lesbian partnerships. Shinyeyed Jasmine Milan Williams nearly steals the show as Marks’ most ardent pupil Pearl, capturing the angst of adolescence with a pining, pouting fervor. Ulises Alcala’s costumes exult in androgyny without feeling inappropriate to the play’s period. Nina Ball’s nifty scenery, with its secret sliding drawers, rotating panels and floating roof eaves, works beautifully with the Aurora’s compact thrust stage. The play finds horniness in the horns of dilemma and crashes through stereotypes of dry bioplays. It’s a rabble-rousing evening of education in American women’s history and universal ways of love.t

pedagogy – which includes al fresco classes, shared cigarettes, and a syllabus highlighted by Virginia

Woolf ’s gender-dismantling “Orlando” – stirs protests from parents and donors, whom Woolley is left to manage. The couple’s biggest conflict comes nearly 20 years later when Woolley cautiously turns down an invitation to speak at a public rally for women’s right to vote. In contemporary parlance, theirs is a love story between a career diplomat and a social justice warrior. Along with Woolley and Marks’ mutual admiration and sexual attraction (director Dawn Monique Williams orchestrates some goosefleshinducing bedroom scenes), their generation gap and differences in activist modus operandi are baked into their relationship. Decades pass and society convulses – WWI, women’s suffrage, Woolley’s dismissal from her presidency – but “Bull and a China Shop” is focused on the theme and variations of a couple’s life. The spry script and Aurora’s punchy staging keep the action lively and the audience on its toes. The dialogue is slap-your-face fresh, peppered with F-words, wisecracks and contem-

Eddy Street’s Exit Theater, you can practically catch a whiff of enderloin edge meets “Let’s perineal perspiration. There’s put on a show!” pluck in no rib-removal but plenty of Left Coast Theatre’s clothesrib-tickling as they’re joined by shedding, zinger-flinging protheir lesbian counterparts: Jane duction of “The Most Fabulous (Antonia Blumberg), a crunchy Story Ever Told.” An ideal progranola New Ager, and Mabel phylactic against the coming (Jessica Lim), a bossy-in-overalls holiday season, Paul Rudnick’s Lea DeLaria type. A newfangled, Bible-thumping comedy (both dick-dangled spin on Bible Testaments are pretty much stories ensues, highlighted by a beaten to a pulp) was originally beast of a circuit party aboard produced over 20 years ago, Noah’s Ark, during which Steve but still packs comedic punch is propositioned by a promithanks to its timeless targets of nently protuberant rhinoceros organized religion and homoplayed by Byron Guo, precipitatLeft Coast Theatre Co. phobic bigotry. ing one of several relationshipMikey Conner and Max Seijas in “The Most In the first of two only-loosestraining crises among our leadFabulous Story Ever Told.” ly related acts, we meet Adam ing couples. and Steve, played with goofy, The evening’s second act ner. You’re not allowed to touch their cartoonish, briefly buck-naked finds a religiously mixed gang junk, but in the wee, seedy Eden of glee by Max Seijas and Mikey Conof queer New Yorkers (Christians,

Jews, atheists and a Mormon) celebrating a consumerist Christmas along with queer marriage and parenting. Jokes-a-million are thrown at the walls, and most stick. Amidst the barrage of one-liners, playwright Rudnick (“Jeffrey”) suggests that we’ve come a long way, baby (Jesus), but still have plenty of room to grow. Rudnick is never able to keep a straight face for long, and whenever a semi-serious bit of dialogue pops up, it’s quickly crowded out by another punchline or auxiliary characters, like a wheelchair-bound lesbian rabbi with a cable TV show and a tinge of Marianne Williamson (Kim Saunders, chewing her way through Christian Heppinstall’s sparse but effective scenery), or an off-duty go-go boy (Guo again, adorable again). The simple production – Dr.

Seuss-evocative cardboard trees, Crayola-colored jockstraps, generic holiday décor – feels altogether appropriate for the sketch-comedy feel of Rudnick’s best material here, which director Neil Higgins highlights rather than the show’s fleeting half-moments of half-baked philosophy. Ribald, loose-jointed and playful, this production is a sort of happily subversive queer community theater that’s all-too-rare in San Francisco these day. Its handmade feel and upbeat spirit deserve a warm embrace from audiences. It feels genuinely mirthful and uncommercial.t

ugnacious and poignant. The intertwining of these two words aptly describes many a longterm relationship. So it is with Mary Woolley and Jeanette Marks, whose up-and-down coupledom is the thumping heart of “Bull in a China Shop,” playwright Bryna Turner’s gutsy political romance now on stage in a handsome production at the Aurora Theatre Company. Woolley was Marks’ professor at Wellesley College when the reallife pair first met in the mid-1890s. Turner’s play inspired by their story opens in 1901, as they move from Boston to rural Massachusetts, where Woolley, 38, has been hired for the presidency of what is now Mount Holyoke College (then referred to as a “Female Seminary”), and fast-forwards through a highlight reel of their fractious but enduring partnership over more than three decades. While Woolley (Stacy Ross) and Marks (Leontyne Mbele-Mbong), 12 years her junior, bond over their passionate proto-feminism,

the tensions in their relationship are clear from even this early stage. Woolley aims to drive social change as an institutional insider, redefining her era’s notions of women’s college as an upper-class “school for wives” by eliminating coursework in the likes of domestic science and equestrian studies in favor of serious academic studies of philosophy, political science and literature, akin to what male students of the time might pursue. While Marks benefits by being appointed one of the college’s youngest English professors (ultimately chair of the department), she resents moving from the city to the sticks and being asked to live in the shadow of her partner. In an early, troubling sacrifice to political prudency, Woolley decides that, until a promised President’s House is built on campus, she must live apart from Marks, relegating her lover to faculty housing. But Woolley flaunts this official discretion by visiting each night for bedtime affection, then returning to her own quarters. Meanwhile, firebrand Marks’ anti-patriarchal

David Allen

Stacy Ross in playwright Bryna Turner’s “Bull in a China Shop.”

Bull in a China Shop, through Dec. 8. Aurora Theatre Co., 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets ($35-$70): (510) 8434822, www.auroratheatre.org.

Bible borscht belt by Jim Gladstone

Hansel & Gretel

From page 14

McDonald’s cheerful vision of spunky youngsters outsmarting a wicked old witch is softer than the Brothers Grimm edition, but Hump-

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erdinck’s librettist, his sister Adelheid Wette, already cut the more frightening bits. This is a determinedly family-friendly show in English translation, with some sophisticated visual asides for adults. SFO is onboard with discounted ticket prices for children, and the War Memorial Opera House management is happy to supply booster seats. This doesn’t mean grownups won’t enjoy themselves. The show is big and bright, and the musical values are high. If you’re feeling shy, find a kid and introduce them to the wonder of opera. It’s a win-win for all. Humperdinck’s tuneful score, like Wagner in a really good mood, is catchy and hummable. The broad sweep of the lush symphonic orchestration is thrilling. On opening night, conductor Christopher Franklin occasionally lost his grip on the big orchestra, but the strength of the singers prevailed. Only the chorus of Gingerbread Children at the conclusion sounded a little thin. They made up for it with endearing energy and sincerity. The settings, starting with a beautiful scrim inspired from a photograph of a rustic scene, and many clever details add charm and wit to the stage picture. From the cuckoo clock atop the proscenium to the big glowing cherry and inserted cake knife on the roof of the witch’s house (right out of Hitchcock’s “Psycho”), the show has a magical look. The costumes are

attractive, and lighting by original designer Lucy Carter, reproduced for the revival by Neill Brinkworth, is wonderfully inventive. Using the auditorium’s iconic starburst chandelier for a strobe effect in the Witch’s Ride was one of many surprises. All of McDonald’s team (himself included), associate stage director Danielle Urbas, associate set designer Ricardo Pardo, lighting designers Carter and Brinkworth, and choreographer Lucy Burge (just enough cuteness), are making their SFO debuts. I could have lived without the pantomime dream sequence at the end of Act II, when McDonald makes a mash-up of Sondheim’s “Into the Woods” characters like Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, and Rapunzel, with Disneyesque Princesses Cinderella and Snow White, and another more obscure character from the Grimms, Rumpelstiltskin. He stopped my grumping with an inspired depiction of the angels guarding the sleeping children. The kindly Sandman portrayed by excellent current Adler Fellow mezzosoprano Ashley Dixon, and his graceful assistant Will-o’-the-wisp (dancer Chiharu Shibata), dangled a chain of paper dolls above them as silver glitter softly fell. It was a simple enchanting moment. After an intermission stroll through the lobby decorated with seasonal greenery, the audience, which included a gratifying number of respectfully absorbed young

The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, Thurs.-Sat. through Dec. 14. Exit Theater, 156 Eddy St., SF. Tickets ($29.99): (415) 6733847, www.lctcsf.org.

people, returned for the big showdown with Rosina Lickspittle, the Witch. Another current Adler Fellow, soprano Natalie Image, opened Act III as a radiant Dew Fairy, and set a positive tone, but it wasn’t long before pervy old Rosina made her entrance. In the spirit of a British Christmastime “panto,” talented character actor tenor Robert Brubaker played her in drag – at first. Then McDonald had him strip off the skirt and blouse and toss the wig, until he looked like Michael Cerveris as Sweeney Todd. That was scary, but I doubt many understood the motivation. Brubaker could have hammed it up but Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera didn’t, and his vocal articulaRobert Brubaker as the Witch and tion was amazing considering Heidi Stober as Gretel in SF Opera’s the physical demands. He just “Hansel and Gretel.” wasn’t very funny. He will doubtless relax into the sheer silliness of the part as the run is becoming adept at playing boys, goes on. but her spot-on (and adorable) porMezzo-soprano Michaela Martrayal could not mask the richness tens and bass-baritone Alfred and flexibility of her voice. Stober Walker as the titular siblings’ parhas added warmth to her bright ents were both in rich voice. Their tone, and her acting is unforced and sympathetic characterizations convincing. The youngsters in the minimized the mother’s borderline audience had no trouble suspendabusiveness and the father’s drunking their disbelief, and the adults enness. We only wished they had were also happy to see the kids are more to sing. all right by final curtain.t Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as Hansel and soprano Heidi Stober Hansel and Gretel continues as Gretel seem ideally cast. Cooke through Dec. 7. sfopera.com

Linda Ronstadt tribute

Leather

www.ebar.com

Vol. 49 • No. 47 • November 21-27, 2019

Arts Events

Nov. 21-28, 2019

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<< Cabaret

20 • Bay Area Reporter • November 21-27, 2019

Tracks of her Tears Oasis pays tribute to rock legend Linda Ronstadt

Marilyn Fowler and Peter Fogel are among the performers at the Linda Ronstadt tribute concert.

Ruby Vixenn and Leigh Crow will cohost the Linda Ronstadt tribute night and fundraiser at Oasis.

by David-Elijah Nahmod

n Sunday, November 24, SoMa nightclub Oasis will host a tribute concert to rock legend Linda Ronstadt. The show features an all-star line-up of talent, including local legends Leigh Crow, Ruby Vixenn, Heklina, and others. The evening is a fundraiser for No Mas Muertes (No More Deaths), an organization that is near and dear to Ronstadt’s heart. Ronstadt has often asked fans to donate to the organization, which offers legal help to immigrants. According to its website, the mission of No Mas Muertes “is to end death and suffering in the Mexico– US borderlands through civil initiative: people of conscience working openly and in community to up-

hold fundamental human rights.” Ronstadt is part Mexican on her father’s side. Leigh Crow spoke to Bay Area Reporter about the Oasis show. “I had been thinking about promoting a show like this, then got into a move and got waylaid from it,” she said. “But then after the documentary came out, Heklina said we should do a live Linda Ronstadt tribute. I said I would book this because I’ve already thought it through!” Crow then asked a variety of vocalists from the Bay Area country scene to come and sing. “We’re also going to get some jazz notes and some Latin notes,” she said. “We decided it would be a great fundraiser to show how important, influential and inspirational Linda

has been to so many different vocalists of so many kinds.” Crow addressed what she thought Ronstadt’s legacy might be. “She’s one of the greatest singers of this century,” Crow said. “She could seemingly master any genre she saw fit.” In addition to rock, Ronstadt has sung jazz pop standards, Mexican music, and country. She even performed in a Broadway musical, The Pirates of Penzance, in the early 1980s. Now retired due to a battle with Parkinson’s Disease, Ronstadt makes her home in San Francisco. She was recently the subject of Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, a feature-length documentary. Crow said that she doesn’t know if Ronstadt is aware of the Oasis show. An attempt was made to find

A concert moment from the new documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice.

Ronstadt’s publicist, but she didn’t know if they had succeeded. “But because it’s a fundraiser hopefully she won’t give us a cease and desist,” Crow said with a laugh. The Oasis show is comprised primarily of female vocalists, including Marilyn Fowler, Jill Rogers, Catherine Foreman and Jessica Rose. They’ll be backed up by what Crow calls “an all-star, killer band.” Peter Fogel will be heard on guitar, with

Joshua Raoul Brody on keyboards, Jen Gandy on a second guitar, and Tim Perdue on bass. Crow said that pre-sales for the show have been good. “People are very excited when I tell them about the show,” Crow said. “A lot of people have forgotten about how much they love Linda throughout the ages. She’s been a top-selling vocalist in every decade. I’ve heard her most of my life, and I think the documentary really gave people a renewed interest into her music.” Crow has a message for those who might be on the fence about coming to the show. “Coming to this show would expose them to a lot of great music of a lot of different kinds,” she said. “If they have any interest in learning about the past century of music they should come. Linda has been an inspiration to all kinds of vocalists, so I think her impact is pretty important.” Tracks of My Tears: A Linda Ronstadt Tribute, Sunday Nov. 24, 7pm at Oasis, 298 11 St. $20. www.sfoasis.com No Mas Muertes: www.nomoredeaths.org

For full listings, visit www.ebar.com/events

Thu 21 Dee’s Keys @ Beaux Weekly live piano and open mic night with Dee Spencer. 4pm-8pm. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Events @ Steamworks, Berkeley The stylish bathhouse’s DJed events take place Thursdays-Sundays. $7$62, plus annual memberships $160. Open 24/7, every day. 2107 4th St., Berkeley. (510) 845-8992. www.steamworksbaths.com

Harry Poofter and the Sorcerer’s Rhinestone @ Oasis

Fri 22

Lesli Margherita @ Feinstein’s

Premier of the drag parody of the J.K. Rowling fantasy books. $27-$50. 7pm. Thru Nov. 30. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Queer Roots @ El Rio

Long Island Thursdays @ White Horse Bar, Oakland

Live music with Blackberri, Juan and the Pines and Eli Conley. No cover. 8pm-11pm. 3158 Mission St. elriosf.com

Get snockered with cheap drinks at the historic gay bar. 9pm-2am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com

Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences Parties at the museum with fascinating spacious nature and science exhibits; Nov. 21: DJ Raymond Fernandez. $12-$15. 6pm-10pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. www.calacademy.org

Queeraoke @ Tamarack, Oakland Dana Morrigan hosts the 1st & 3rd Thursdays queer karaoke night, 7:30pm-1am. No cover. 1501 Harrison St., Oakland. tamarackoakland.com

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Viewing @ The Café Watch the British edition of the drag competition show. No cover. Picante, Latin dance night, follows (9pm-2am). 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Steve Grand @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The hunky gay singer-composer performs his songs and a few covers. $55-$90 ($20 food/drink min.) 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinssf.com

That’s So Ravin’ @ The Stud DJs Chrissy, Siobhan Aluvalot and Chuck Gunn spin grooves. $5. 9pm2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Fri 22 Beards & Booze @ The Edge Beers, bears, cubs, snacks and grooves. $5. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. www.edgesf.com

La Bomba Latina @ Club OMG Drag show with DJ Jaffeth. $5. 9pm2am. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Brittany Howard @ The Fillmore The stellar vocalist performs; Georgia Anne Muldrow. $49. 9pm. 1805 Geary St. at Fillmore. www.thefillmore.com

Cinematic Orchestra @ The Regency The electro-jazz band performs; Photay, PBDY, Patrick Watson open. 8pm. $35-$40. 1300 Van Ness Ave. www.theregencyballroom.com

Nightlife Events>>

Friday Nights at the Ho @ White Horse Bar, Oakland Dance it up at the historic (and still hip) East Bay bar. 9pm-2am. 6551 Telegraph Ave. whitehorsebar.com

Get Busy @ Driftwood Elaine Denham guest-DJs a night of funk, soul and disco, with residents Wes Charles, Sweet Willy, e’Lish and Jimmy DePre. $5. 9pm-2am. 1225 Folsom St. www.driftwoodbarsf.com

Ghost Light @ The Independent The fascinating ‘new prog. rock’ band performs; Andrew St. James opens. $20. 9pm. 628 Divisadero. www.apeconcerts.com

Growl’r @ SF Eagle Bears, cubs, otters, pigs etc night, and men, too! DJ Russ Rich. $5. 9pm-2am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Lesli Margherita @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The Broadway star performs her sassy show, Rule. $45-$70 ($20 food/drink min.) Also Nov. 23. 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinssf.com

Sat 23 Aquabats @ The Regency The festive fun band performs, with special guests PPL MVR and Jacob Turnbloom. $25-$30. 8pm. 1300 Van Ness Ave. theregencyballroom.com

La Bota Loca @ Club 21, Oakland Banda Los Shakas performs live at the LGBT Latinx night. $10. 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St. club21oakland.com

Daddy Issues @ The Stud DJs Juan and Robin Simmons spin electro, disco, techno. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Lips and Lashes Brunch @ Lookout Weekly show with soul, funk and Motown grooves hosted by Carnie Asada, with DJs Becky Knox and Pumpkin Spice. The yummy brunch menu starts at 12pm, with the show at 1:30pm. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Mango @ El Rio

DJ Marcos Moreno spins at the bear bar. $5. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

The popular women’s afternoon dance party with DJs Edaj, Marcella, Olga and La Coqui droppin’ the best in hip-hop, dancehall and Latin grooves. $8-$10. 2pm-8pm. 3158 Mission St. www.elriosf.com

Piano Bar @ Martuni’s

Metal Night @ Lone Star

Mimoso ‘70s-‘90s @ Lone Star

Musician extraordinaire Joe Wicht leads tasteful sing-along selections. 5:30-8:30pm. 4 Valencia St.

DJs MetalBob and BulldogMike play hean and hell-themed hard rock and metal tunes. $5. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

November 21-27, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 21

Holiday Chocolate Salon @ County Fair Bldg. Sample a huge array of artisan-made chocolate desserts, drinks and more. $10-$20. 1199 9th Ave at Lincoln Way, Golden Gate Park. www.FallChocolateSalon.com

Leather Bar Show Tunes Sing-Along @ SF Eagle Paul Hogarth and Maria Konner accompany the fun muscial theatre singing night. $10. 7pm-11pm. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Mister Wives @ The Independent The genre-blending high-energy pop band performs; Foreign Air opens. $29-$100 (VIP). 8pm. Also Nov 25. 628 Divisadero. apeconcerts.com

Queer Tango @ Finnish Hall, Berkeley Same-sex partner tango dancing, including lessons for newbies, food and drinks. $5-$10. 3:30pm-6:30pm. 1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley. www.finnishhall.org

Sundance Saloon @ Space 550 The popular two-stepping linedancing, not-just-country music night, with free lessons. $5. 5pm-10:30pm. Also Thursdays 6:30pm-10:30pm. 550 Barneveld Ave. sundancesaloon.org

Mon 25 KQ League Night @ Detour Game tournament at the renovated former Brewcade bar/restaurant. 7:30pm-11pm. 2200 Market St. www.detoursf.com

Holiday Chocolate Salon @ County Fair Bldg.

Drinks for LGBTQs and pals, plus vegan and chicken snacks. Weekly 4pm-9pm. 478 25th St., Oakland. www.foragekitchen.com

Steam @ Powerhouse Monthly bath house night with wet gogos, in towels, Steamworks Berkeley swag. $5. 9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

SubMission: Cocktails & Comedy @ The Armory Club Weekly stand-up comedy show in the basement of the SF Armory Club; grab a craft cocktail from the bar upstairs and prepare for a night of laughter with the right amount of kink. Doors open at 6:30. $15, 1799 Mission St., Shows start at 7pm and 9pm (downstairs not wheelchair accessible). https://bit.ly/2IdEVj8

T4T4 @ The Stud Live music acts Erica Mar, Scissoring, and Fiera. DJs Dolland Liza. $10-$20.9pm-3am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Total Request Late @ Oasis

Mixtape @ Jolene’s DJs Jibbs, Koma-T and La Femme Papai spin an Afro-Latinx celebration, with partial proceeds to BAAITS. $10. 9pm-2am. 2700 16th St. at Harrison. www.jolenessf.com

Mother @ Oasis Heklina’s popular weekly drag show, with wild acts and music tribute themes. Nov. 23 is a Dolly Parton tribute. $10-$15. 10pm-2am. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

The Playground @ Club BNB, Oakland Dance night at the popular hip hop and Latin club. $5-$15. 9pm to 3am. 2120 Broadway. (510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Pretty in Ink @ Powerhouse DJ Franko, gogo guys and, oh, you have a tribal tattoo? Groundbreaking. $5. 9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Uhaul @ Jolene’s

Sun 24

DJ Kween Uneek plays groovy grooves. 9pm-1am. 3158 Mission St. www.elriosf.com

Drag night with Mercedez Munro. No cover. 10pm. 4067 18th St. www.midnightsunsf.com

The new basement tribute to the old Ginger’s Trois hosts weekly singing fun. 8pm-12am. 86 Hardie Place. www.gingers.bar

The weekly fun night at the Bernal Heights bar includes prizes, hosted by Kitty Tapata. No cover. 7pm-10pm. 424 Cortland St. wildsidewest.com

Truck Tuesdays @ Atlas

Queeraoke @ El Rio

Super-cruisy night at the new semiprivate club. $10-$20. 9pm-2am. 415 10th St. www.atlas-sf.com

Midweek drag rave and vocal open mic. 10pm. 3158 Mission St. www.elriosf.com

Marcus Rivers plays live music at the stylish wine bar; weekly 8pm-10pm. 1666 Market St. yieldandpause.com

Queer Bowling @ Mission Bowling Club Pins and big balls, monthly with LGBT pals at the cool bar, restaurant and bowling alley. 6pm-9pm. 317617th St. www.missionbowlingclub.com

Underwear Night @ 440 Strip down to your skivvies at the popular men’s night. 9pm-2am. 440 Castro St. www.the440.com

Vamp @ Beaux Women’s night with a sultry vampire theme; goth, red & black, lingerie attire welcome but not required; bondage and BDSM demos, too. DJs Olga T and Jayne Grey. $5-$15. 8pm2am. 2344 Market St. beauxsf.com

Tue 26 High Fantasy @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge Weekly drag and variety show at the intimate bar, with live acts and lipsynching divas, plus DJed grooves. $5. Shows at 10:30pm & 12am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. auntcharlieslounge.com

Donate to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s pre-holiday party. 8pm. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Bondage-a-Gogo @ The Cat Club The weekly gay/straight/whatever fetish-themed kinky dance night. $7$10. 9:30pm-2:30am. 1190 Folsom St. www.bondage-a-go-go.com

Freeball Wednesdays @ The Cinch Free pool and drink specials at the historic neighborhood bar. 8pm-1am. 1723 Polk St. www.cinchsf.com

GAYmes @ Port Bar, Oakland

Trivia Night @ Detour Games and arcade fun at the renovated former Brewcade bar/ restaurant. 7pm-11pm (free game play 7pm-8pm). 2200 Market St. www.detoursf.com

Thu 28 Junk @ Powerhouse MrPam and Dulce de Leche cohost the weekly underwear strip night and contest.. $5.10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Board games night; Baila Conmigo, queer Latinx fundraiser (2nd Wed.), Wet & Wild drag shows (1st & 4th Wed.). 2023 Broadway. www.portbaroakland.com

Latin Explosion @ Club 21

Karaoke Night @ Club 1220, Walnut Creek Sing along at the East Bar gay bar; dance nights on weekends, and drag shows, too. 9pm-1am. 1220 Pine St., Walnut Creek. club1220.com

Latin beats, Lulu and Jacqueline’s drag show, gogo hotties and a packed crowd. $10-$15. 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St. club21oakland.com

Pizza Party @ Jolene’s Celebrate Turkey Day with free pizza and dance grooves. 9m-2am. 2700 16th St. www.jolenessf.com

Queer Karaoke @ Club OMG

Weekly dance night at the renovated nightclub with a view. $10. 9pm-2am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Caroel J. Bufford @ Venetian Room The New York cabaret star performs her new concert, You Don’t Own Me: The Fearless Females of the 1960s, at the swanky hotel’s ballroom. $55$65. 5pm. Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason St. www.bayareacabaret.org

Turkey Stuff with The Sisters @ Oasis

Wed 27

DJ Bill Dupp, intimate dance floor, gogo cuties, all in the heart of the Castro. 8pm-2am. 4067 18th St. www.midnightsunsf.com

Sugar @ The Café

United We Groove @ El Rio

Miss Kitty’s Trivia Night @ Wild Side West

Stallion @ Midnight Sun

Aussie drag sensation and Britney impersonator Derrick Barry performs at a 2000s dance party with DJs Presto and Drew. $20. 10pm-2am. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com The popular women’s dance party returns at the new nightclub, now weekly. 10pm-2am. 2700 16th St. at Harrison. www.jolenessf.com

Karaoke Cocktails @ Ginger’s

Steven Underhill

Queer Happy Hour @ Forage Kitchen, Oakland

Is The Grubstake your favorite late night eatery? Here, John serves up tasty omelets and ‘taters. Nominate your favorite restaurants, nightclubs, and more in our 2020 Besties. Go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NominateBesties2020

Munro’s at Midnight @ Midnight Sun

Music Mondays @ Pause Wine Bar

Sun 24

Besties breakfast?

Mon 25

Queer Bowling @ Mission Bowling Club

Weekly singing night; unleash your inner American Idol; first Thursdays are Costume Karaoke; 3rd is Kinky Karaoke 8pm. 43 6th St.

Tater Thots @ SF Eagle Thanksgiving variety show with drag, comedy, burlesque, (JD Fierce, Madd Dogg 20/20, Gem N/Aye, The Boys of Bearlesque, host Mr. SF Leather 2018 Matt Welch. No cover/donations. 8pm-11pm. 398 12th St. sf-eagle.com

Thump @ White Horse, Oakland Electro music night with DJ Matthew Baker and guests. 9pm-2am. 6551 Telegraph Ave. whitehorsebar.comt

<< Arts Events

22 • Bay Area Reporter • November 21-27, 2019

Exclusion @ Presidio Officers Club

Changing and Unchanging Things @ Asian Art Museum

Exhibit documenting the Presidio’s Japanese-American incarceration during World War II; other exhibits show the history of the former military base and the SF peninsula. Also, Andy Goldsworthy’s fascinating outdoor sculpture exhibit three-mile walking tour. Free, Tue-Sun 10am-5pm; extended thru June 2020. 50 Maraga Ave. www.presidio.gov/officers-club/ exhibitions/

Changing and Unchanging Things: Noguchi and Hasegawa in Postwar Japan (thru Dec. 8). Contemporary works by Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, Kim Heecheon and Liu Jianhua; and exhibits of historic sculptures, prints and antiquities. Sunday café specialties from $7-$16. Free-$20. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. 200 Larkin St. http://www.asianart.org/

Expedition Reef @ Cal. Academy of Sciences Exhibits and planetarium shows with various live, interactive and installed exhibits about animals, plants and the earth; Skin, a multi-species hands-on exhibit; Deep Reefs, Giants of Land and Sea, Gems and Minerals, and more. $20-$35. Mon-Sat 9:30am-5pm. Sun 11am-5pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

Mon 25

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For full listings, visit www.ebar.com/events

Thu 21 Atomic Clown @ Potrero Stage Sara Moore’s new autobiographical comedy show. $26-$42. Nov 21-23, 8pm. 1695 18th St. www.potrerostage.org

Cells to Self @ Exploratorium New exhibit with amazing displays showing how single cells in the human body work, portraits engineered from DNA and more (talks, hands-on workshops and nightlife events). $20-$30. Pier 15 at Embarcadero. www. exploratorium.edu

Classic and New Films @ Castro Theatre Nov 21: The Ox-Bow Indicent (6:40) and My Cousin Vinny (8pm). 22: ski movie Timeless (7:30). 23: The Godfather (2pm, 7:30) and A Wedding (5:10). 24-27: Renée Zellweger in Judy (3:30, 6pm, 8:30). $8-$16. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

Literary Speakeasy @ Martuni’s James J. Siegel’s monthly reading and music night, in the intimate lounge of the martini bar; this month with Jay Hartlove, Kar Johnson, Justin Lucas, Tomas Moniz, and Ari Moskowitz. 7pm. 4 Valencia St.

SFCM Opera @ SF Conservatory of Music Performances of Mozart’s The Impresario and Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos. Free/RSVP. 7:30pm. Also Nov 22. 50 Oak St. www.sfcm.edu

Terry Baum @ Exit Theatre Book launch party for the playwright/performer’s new book, One Dyke’s Theater. 8:30pm. 156 Eddy St. www.theexit.org

Through the Windows @ GLBT History Museum Documenting Twin Peaks Tavern, a film screening and panel discussion with director Petey Barma and producer Bret Parker. $5, 7pm. Also, Performance, Protest & Politics: Gilbert Baker’s Art , a new exhibit of the works and ephemera by and about the creator of the Rainbow Flag. $4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Fri 22 The Cake @ NCTC The Off-Broadway hit’s about a Christian baker whose daughter wants a cake for her same-sex wedding. $34-$49. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm thru Dec. 1. 25 Van Ness ave. www.nctcsf.org

Cinematic Orchestra @ The Regency The electro-jazz band performs; Photay, PBDY, Patrick Watson open. 8pm. $35-$40. 1300 Van Ness Ave. www.theregencyballroom.com

Gay Chorus Deep South @ Roxie Theatre The inspiring documentary about the SF Gay Men’s Chorus’ Southern U.S. tour. Nov 22-27 various times. 3117 16th St. www.roxie.com

Gypsy @ Alcazar Theatre The classic Styne, Sondheim, Laurents musical about the life of Gypsy Rose Lee and her vaudeville family gets a Bay Area Musicals local production. $30-$100. 8pm. Thru Dec. 8. 650 Geary St. www.bamsf.org

Leslie Margherita @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The Broadway star ( Matilda, Dames at Sea, Zorro ) performs her sassy music cabaret show, Rule. $45-$70 ($20 food/drink min.) Also Nov. 23. 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinssf.com

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Sat 23 The Batman Armory @ Cartoon Art Museum Artwork, Batman props and costumes on display, thru Feb. 16. Free/$10. 11am-5pm daily; closed Wed. 781 Beach St. www.cartoonart.org

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child @ Curran Theater The acclaimed two-part musical based on the J.K. Rowling bestseller begins previews. $59-$300. Openended run. 445 Geary St. www.harrypottertheplay.com

Other Cinema @ ATA Gallery Weekly screenings of wacky, unusual, short, documentary and animated films; free books, vinyl, VHS and wine. $7. 8:30pm. 992 Valencia St. www.othercinema.com

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui @ Lohman Theatre, Los Altos Hills Bruce McLeod’s adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s classic about political corruption and fascism, reset in a seedy cabaret. $5-$20. Thru Nov. 28. Foothill College, 12345 South El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills. foothill.edu/theater

SF Hiking Club @ Point Reyes Join GLBT hikers of the SF Hiking Club for a 9-mile hike at Point Reyes. Bring: water, lunch, layers, hat, sunscreen. Carpool meets 9:00 at Safeway sign, Market & Dolores. www.sfhiking.com

The Tale of Despereaux @ Berkeley Rep Pigpen Theatre Co.’s inventive and imaginative muscial retelling of the beloved, Newbery Medalwinning modern fable. $35-$85. 7pm & 2pm thru Jan. 5. 2015 Addison Ave., Berkeley. www.berkeleyrep.org

Testmatch @ Strand Theater

No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man @ Oakland Museum No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man, an exhibit of amazing large artworks; thru Feb 16. Free/$15. 1000 Oak St. http://museumca.org/

Queer Tango @ Finnish Hall, Berkeley Same-sex partner tango dancing, including lessons for newbies, food and drinks. $5-$10. 3:30pm6:30pm. 1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley. www.finnishhall.org

Mon 25 Illuminate SF @ Citywide 40+ installations of light art sculptures in and outside buildings by more than 30 local artists. Free; walking tour info at www.illuminatesf.com

Keith Secola @ Café Valor Wounds Many, an exhibit of works focusing on the artist’s Northern Ute heritage. Thru Dec. 13. 401 Van Ness Ave., lobby. www. sfartscommission.org

Various Exhibits @ NIAD Art Center, Richmond Exhibits of art by visiting professionals, and art made by developmentally disabled people. Mon-Fri 10am-4pm. 551 23rd St., Richmond. (510) 620-0290. www.niadart.org

Tue 26 Aeronauts Journey @ Treasure Island Promotional event for the new film, with a sprawling Victorian fair, period performers and bites, and a replica of the “Mammoth” balloon (as featured in the film). A VIP screening of the film will begin at noon. 699 Ave. of the Palms. www.aeronautsjourney.com

American Conservatory Theater’s production of Kate Attwell’s dual-story about women’s cricket and British colonialism and power. $15-$110. Tue-Sat 7:30pm. Wed & Sat 2pm. Thru Dec. 8. 1127 Market St. www.act-sf.org

Sun 24 Cirque du Soleil @ Oracle Park The amazing circus company brings Amalúna to the big tent. Pre-show festivities 6:30pm. Show 8pm. $54-$300. Wed-Mon most 8pm, +matinees. Thru Jan. 12. 24 Willie Mays Plaza (cross bridge to parking lot). www.cirquedusoleil.com

Wed 27

James Tissot @ Legion of Honor

Gallery of Illustrious Queers @ SF Main Library Photographer Jordan Reznick’s LGBT portrait photo exhibit. Hormel Center, 3rd floor, 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org

Natasha Dennerstein, Hilary Brown @ Wolfman Books, Oakland The two writers read from their works at #We, the queer literary series hosted by Richard Loranger. 7pm. 410 13th St., Oakland. www.wolfmanhomerepair.com

Wed 27 Interior/Exterior @ Museum of Craft & Design Group exhibit of works curated by Ariel Zaccheo; also, Dead Nuts: a search for the ultimate machined object, curated by David Cole; both thru Dec. 1. 2569 3rd St. sfmcd.org

James Tissot @ Legion of Honor James Tissot: Fashion & Faith (thru Feb 9); Strange Days: Dada, Surrealism, and the Book (thru Nov 10), other beautiful exhibits of classical and modern art. Free/$30. Lincoln Park, 100 34th Ave. www.legionofhonor.famsf.org

Modern Art Exhibits @ SF MOMA Nov 14: Zackary Drucker and Susan Stryker discuss the photography exhibit of works by April Dawn Alison (7pm, floor 1). Soft Power, a new exhibit of 20 artists, 12 countries, 58 new works. The Chronicles of San Francisco, photomuralist JR’s interactive community giant group portrait; also, Don’t! Photography and the Art of Mistakes ; Far Out: Suits, Habs, and Labs for Outer Space ; other exhibits of Modern art. Free/$25. Fri-Tue 10am-5pm; Thu 10am-9pm. 151 3rd St. www.sfmoma.org

Thu 28 Safeway Holiday Ice Rink @ Union Square The ice rink in the middle of downtown SF, is open for skating fun. Skate rentals $3-$18. 10am11:30pm thru Jan. 20. Union Square, 333 Post St. unionsquareicerink.com

Winter Park @ Civic Center Enjoy holiday festivities, ice skating, and concessions; open Thanksgiving; 12pm-9pm thru Jan 5. $13-$18. Civic Center, Grove St. at Polk. www.winterparkicerinksf.comt

Leather>>

November 21-27, 2019 • Bay Area Reporter • 23

Thankfully kinky

Ghee Phua

Billy O’Connell, founder of LeathermenTravel.com.

by Race Bannon

that comes your way.” My favorite gratitude quote comes from English poet John Milton. “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.” Being thankful for what we have serves as Whisper a foundation to build the strength to perse- Christopher Wood, a local leatherman vere in trying times who is known for his tireless volunteer and to allow ourselves work within the BDSM and kink to acknowledge what communities. good we do have in our I’m thankful for the amazing lives upon which we can work our local public health officials build further happiness have done to bring about awareness and success. of undetectable is untransmittable As a local gay kinkster, and PrEP bringing our city much I’m thankful for a lot. closer to getting to zero new HIV I’m thankful to live in infections. This has done much to a place that recognizes revive gay men’s sexual culture. the value of the leather I’m thankful to live in a place that and LGBTQ communicontinues to lead on issues like civil ties, not just with words, rights while acknowledging that but through actions like LGBTQ and kinky people are worendorsing the Leather and thy of a place at the table. LGBTQ Cultural District Those are just some of the things and supporting the confor which I’m grateful. struction of the new Eagle

Plaza. t’s that time of year again when Thankful Kinksters I’m thankful that despite conwe’re all preparing to be thankI asked a few local kinksters who certed efforts by conservative rightful. Thanksgiving is around the do good things for our communiwing forces, our sexualities corner and many of us ties what they’re grateful for in this and our culture continue will gather with famwonderful city of ours. to thrive and grow. ily or friends, kinky or Joan Norry, someone whose perI’m thankful to live otherwise, and hopespective I respect in our scene, had in a place that not only fully enjoy the holithis to say about being thankful has a year-long bustling day pondering that for and I think her answer reflects how leather, kink and erotic which we’re thankful. many other kinksters feel. culture, but also has The life-changing “As somebody who keeps a clear events like Folsom Street power of thankfulness, definition between community and Fair, Up Your Alley and gratitude or apprecialifestyle I would say I’m thankful for Pride that brings kinky tion, however you want the community and the decades of and LGBTQ people in from to phrase it, is accepted among work that people have done to get all over the world to enjoy our city, many of the greatest philosophers us to a place where we can meet and and for us to enjoy those people. and thinkers. do the things that make us who Essayist and philosopher Ralph we are. I am thankful to be a part Waldo Emerson once said, “Culof that community, past, present tivate the habit of being grateful and hopefully in the future. I’m for every good thing that comes thankful for the community that to you, and to give thanks conkeeps evolving to include who we tinuously. And because all things are today and who will be comhave contributed to your ading into our community in the vancement, you should include future, and for the generosity and all things in your gratitude.” support of strangers for events Roman Emperor and stoic and projects based solely on our philosopher Marcus Aurelius shared lifestyle.” said, “All you need are these: cerBilly O’Connell, the founder tainty of judgment in the present of Leathermen Travel (LeatherMark I. Chester moment; action for the common menTravel.com) was succinct in good in the present moment; and Joan Norry, a longtime and highly reexpressing his thanks. an attitude of gratitude in the spected person in our local leather scene. “I’m thankful for San Francispresent moment for anything co’s supportive leather communi-

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What are you thankful for? Take a ty and a worldwide brotherhood few minutes to think about that. Reof leathermen.” flecting on what’s good in our lives, If you’re a leatherman and that for which we’re thankful, can haven’t checked out Billy’s webbolster us in harder times and help site yet, do so. It’s a great resource us all realize, among other things, for the traveling leatherman (and that we’re rather damn lucky to be for that I’m thankful). Bay Area LGBTQ kinksters.t Amp Somers, of Watts the Safeword and Mr. Friendly SF fame, offers his own take on thankfulRace Bannon is a local author, ness to which I think just about blogger and activist. www.bannon.com every kinkster can relate. “I think many kinksters can recall that first fetish that caused their stomach to flutter. For me, it was being caught in a game of ‘cops and robbers’ as a kid and (very horribly) tied up and suddenly having a very terrifying boner. It scared me. Made me feel like I was broken or something was wrong with me for being turned on. That is until I grew up and found the kink community, found the words to explain what I liked, how to connect through my kinks and find a welcome place to explore.” One of the more tireless contributors to our local scene is Christopher Wood. Here’s his statement of thanks. “I am thankful to live a reality I’ve crafted from fantasy. My ever-changing world is born and reborn from the Kegan Marling creative, perverted minds of my family, my community, Amp Somers, who educates newcomers and myself. It is this erotic and seasoned kink players alike on his freedom for which I am most YouTube channel, Watts the Safeword. grateful as a kinky man.”

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