November 23, 2017 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter by Bay Area Reporter

TDOR observed in SF, SJ

LGBTs return home after fires

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Robert Rauschenberg

John Waters Christmas

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Vol. 47 • No. 47 • November 23-29, 2017

Farley named new trans adviser

Covered CA enrollment underway

by Sari Staver

by Matthew S. Bajko

lair Farley, the director of economic development at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center for the past 11 years, has been named the mayor’s senior adviser on transgender initiatives, replacing Theresa Sparks, a trans woman who is retiring. Farley, 34, is a transgender woman and will begin the position December 4. “Clair Farley has been an inspirational leader in our city on LGBTQ economic and social rights issues,” Mayor Ed Lee said in a news release. “In her new role she will carry on the important work that Theresa Sparks set Clair Farley in motion and will assure that San Francisco continues to pioneer policies and programming that inspire the rest of the country to follow suit. “San Francisco has a long-standing commitment to advancing and protecting the rights of the transgender community and with Clair’s leadership we will continue our work to make San Francisco a safer, more diverse, and more equitable city,” the mayor said. In an email to the Bay Area Reporter, Farley said she was honored to have been appointed to the job. “This has been a remarkable month despite these challenging times, with over seven transgender candidates winning elections across the country and the passing of vital trans policy in California,” Farley wrote. “I am looking forward to new challenges,” she wrote. “I will be working with my new team conducting a broader gap analysis of resources and services. It is important that we are listening to the needs of our community members and leaders as new policies and programs are developed.” Farley said that she will also be working with other cities and local departments “to make sure that we continue to be a safe haven for all marginalized communities; and that we are doing the work to model innovation and best practices in housing services, violence prevention, youth services, healthcare, employment, and community empowerment.” Sparks told the B.A.R. this week that she doesn’t like the word “retirement.” “I’m leaving full-time from the city,” she said. Sparks has worked for the city for two decades, spending much of that time as executive director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. She also served on the Police Commission, becoming the first trans president of the oversight body. See page 16 >>

Jane Philomen Cleland

A helping hand for Thanksgiving

akland City Councilman Abel Guillen, left, hands a turkey to Sarah Huang and Gordon Wu at his third annual Thanksgiving Basket Giveaway that

took place Saturday, November 18 at Roosevelt Middle School. Guillen, who identifies as two spirit, and volunteers distributed 500 holiday dinners to 2,000 people at the giveaway.

espite the uncertainty surrounding the Affordable Care Act due to President Donald Trump’s desire to end the federal health insurance program, health officials in California have mounted a marketing blitz to enroll residents of the Golden State in insurance plans for 2018. Covered California, the state’s health insurance marketplace, has blanketed the state with advertising to alert people who are required to buy health insurance on their own that they must enroll by December 15 so their coverage will begin on January 1. Signing up by that deadline will also avoid any gaps in coverage or a tax penalty for not having health insurance. The final day to renew or enroll in Covered California health insurance is January 31. Now in its fifth enrollment period, the state-run exchange has already seen a brisk pace in signups this year. During the first two weeks of November, Covered California saw 48,000 new customers purchase one of its plans it offers. According to the See page 17 >>

Events set for World AIDS Day by Seth Hemmelgarn

vents are planned around the Bay Area next week to mark the 29th annual World AIDS Day (December 1), which commemorates the lives lost and the work that remains to be done in fighting HIV and AIDS.

Grace Cathedral

San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral will be recognizing the 30th anniversary of the Names Project, with panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt on display. The exhibit, which can be viewed from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, will culminate on World AIDS Day at 7:30 p.m. with an event that will include the rededication of the cathedral’s newly renovated AIDS Interfaith Memorial Chapel. The cathedral is at 1100 California Street. Call (415) 749-6300 or visit https://www.gracecathedral.org for more information.

National AIDS Memorial Grove

The National AIDS Memorial Grove will host its annual Light in the Grove fundraising gala from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday, November 30. The event will include a candlelight reflection in the Circle of Friends and a walk through Redwood Grove to the banquet. Cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and a buffet dinner will be served, and there will be special musical and artistic performances.

Rick Gerharter

Panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt from the Names Project hang in the main nave of Grace Cathedral on San Francisco’s Nob Hill.

“Light in the Grove’s theme this year is ‘Bending the Arc Towards Justice,’ capturing the spirit of hope, determination, and resistance that has been at the foundation of the National AIDS Memorial – and our community’s response to the AIDS pandemic – since the beginning,” organizers said in an email to supporters. Gay former San Francisco supervisor and state senator Mark Leno, who’s running in the city’s 2019 mayoral race, will be honored at the event for being “a longtime friend of the

memorial and tireless champion for civil rights, the LGBT community and HIV/AIDS organizations,” organizers said. The grove is located in the eastern end of Golden Gate Park at the intersection of Bowling Green and Middle Drive East, across from the tennis courts. Tickets start at $250 and are available at http://www.aidsmemorial.org/ events/2017-light-in-the-grove/. See page 16 >>

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2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • November 23-29, 2017

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Gay SF man denies murder charge by Seth Hemmelgarn

he gay man accused of fatally stabbing his boyfriend in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley has pleaded not guilty. Othman Al-Muttalaby, 26, who’s being held on $10 million bail in the death of Keith Harris, 48, appeared in orange jail clothes and handcuffs with a white brace on his right hand as he entered his plea Wednesday, November 15. Harris was found November 2 on the floor of his apartment at 340 Hayes Street, two days after he’d last been seen alive. Little information about what allegedly happened between him and Al-Muttalaby, who’d been living with him, has been shared. Al-Muttalaby was arrested November 7 at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Jail records indicate that he was transferred to County Jail #2 on November 16. Police have said that he’d been treated for an injury in the hospital, but officials haven’t disclosed what that injury was or how long he’d been hospitalized. People who knew Harris, who

Courtesy SFPD

Othman Al-Muttalaby

was as an engineering manager at Automotive Mastermind, and AlMuttalaby, who’s worked as a go-go dancer, porn actor, and fitness trainer, described both men as kind and have expressed shock at what’s happened. They said they hadn’t witnessed trouble between them, but Al-Muttalaby had reportedly been suicidal in the weeks leading up to Harris’ death.

During his court appearance last week, Al-Muttalaby at times leaned his head on the shoulder of Deputy Public Defender Cindy Elias, who later told the Bay Area Reporter that Al-Muttalaby doesn’t want to speak with the media. (Al-Muttalaby has also been known as Alkoraishie Ali and Ali Liam.) Mark Russell, a Sacramento man who said on his Facebook page that he used to live with Al-Muttalaby, has shared much of the B.A.R.’s coverage about the case with friends. In comments he made on his page before Al-Muttalaby’s arrest, Russell said AlMuttalaby “is crazy. ... I’m just glad he is out of my life and I sold the condo. He doesn’t know where I live now.” Russell has told the B.A.R. that he was “stunned” about Harris’ death, but he has declined to share many details on his relationship with Al-Muttalaby. The B.A.R. hasn’t been able to locate any civil or criminal court records indicating that Al-Muttalaby has had any previous legal troubles in the Bay Area. Al-Muttalaby’s next court date is December 13.t

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<< Community News

4 • BAY AREA REPORTER • November 23-29, 2017

Tree lightings start the holiday season compiled by Cynthia Laird

everal tree lightings will take place over the next few days, signaling that the holiday season is in full swing. All events, unless noted, are free and open to the public. Macy’s in San Francisco’s Union Square will hold its tree lighting Friday, November 24, to coincide with Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. in Union Square Park, right across from the store. The reusable tree will be decorated with more than 43,000 energy-efficient LED lights and 700 ornaments. People can enjoy entertainment from the San Francisco Boys Chorus, the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, San Francisco Playhouse’s “A Christmas Story: The Musical,” and a visit from Snoopy and Santa. The tree will be lit at about 6:50 p.m. As previously noted in the Bay Area Reporter’s Business Briefs column, the Castro Merchants will have a holiday tree lighting ceremony Monday, November 27, at 6 p.m. in front of the Bank of America building at 18th and Castro streets. The 555 California Street tree lighting ceremony by Vornado Realty Trust will be held Wednesday, November 29 in San Francisco. This year, the tree lighting will team with celebrity chefs and vintners for a ticketed All-Star Holiday Culinary Kickoff that benefits families affected by the northern California wildfires through grants provided by Ronnie Lott’s All Stars Helping Kids Foundation’s Fire Zone Relief Project. The festivities begin at 6 p.m. and will feature a special acoustic performance by country music singer Frankie Ballard, as well as appearances by sports celebrities and tasting selections from top chefs. Tickets are $249 and available at www.555treelighting.com. In Oakland, the Jack London Square tree lighting will take place Friday, December 1, from 5 to 7 p.m. Festivities include a 55 foot Mt. Shasta fir tree with 5,000 lights,

entertainment from local Oakland musicians, and more. The square is located at the foot of Broadway. Finally, the Presidio Trust will hold its annual tree lighting Friday, December 8, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at the Main Post, across from the Presidio Community Y (corner of Lincoln and Funston). People can gather around the tree and sing holiday classics along with the Golden Gate Carolers – the tree lights up at about 5:30. Light refreshments and kids activities will follow in the Presidio Community Y gymnasium. There will be a lantern-lit evening forest walk at 6:30. For other events, visit www.presidio.gov/events.

SF Symphony at the LGBT center

The San Francisco Symphony’s string quartet will perform a free concert Monday, November 27, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street. The chamber concert will be followed by a Q&A with the musicians, and all attendees will receive a discount code good for 50 percent off for upcoming symphony performances. Space is limited and registration is strongly encouraged. To sign up, visit http://bit.ly/2ATqCu8.

Get set for Giving Tuesday

After Black Friday and Cyber Monday, nonprofits are hoping to receive some holiday cheer on Giving Tuesday November 28. Nonprofits around the Bay Area, including the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and Out and Equal Workplace Advocates, are participating. People are encouraged to visit websites of organizations they support and make a donation. SFAF, which is marking its 35th anniversary this year, is encouraging donors to give $35 (or more) “to support the critical work we are doing every day to confront HIV in our communities,” the agency said in an email blast.

cars visiting more than 1,000 seniors. This year’s event will honor Patrick Arbore for his 44 years of work making life better for seniors. Arbore, a gay man, is the founder of the Friendship Line, a 24-hour toll-free crisis line (800-971-0016) for people aged 60 and over and adults living with disabilities. Tickets for Cable Car Caroling are $75 and can be purchased by visiting http://bit.ly/2zJ6A7U.

SF Vets Film Fest Charity Vargas

The Presidio Trust offers a unique holiday tree lighting ceremony at the Main Post of the national park.

The foundation has a fundraising goal of $18,000, said CEO Joe Hollendoner. For more information, visit www. sfaf.org/give35. Out and Equal has a $10,000 fundraising goal, the agency said in an email to supporters. It is dedicating Giving Tuesday donations to its Workplace Summit Young Professionals Scholarship Fund so that 10 future leaders can attend the organization’s annual conference next year. For more information, visit http:// outandequal.org/donate/.

Dine out, help North Bay AIDS group

Food for Thought will hold its Dining Out for Life event Thursday, November 30. The organization provides food to people living with HIV and other illnesses in Sonoma County, parts of which were devastated by the recent North Bay wildfires. Organizers said that over 65 Sonoma County restaurants are participating and will donate 20 to 25 percent of a patron’s bill to the nonprofit. “At this time of great need in our community, please dine out and support these restaurants that so generously give back to our community,” organizers said in a news release. For a list of participating restaurants, visit www.fftfoodbank.org.

Caltrain seeks reps for bike panel

Caltrain is seeking applicants for its Bicycle Advisory Committee,

which serves as the primary venue for the interests and perspectives of bicyclists to be integrated into the Caltrain planning processes. The committee is comprised of nine volunteer members from San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties. One member from each county represents a public agency staff member, a bike advocacy organization member, and a Caltrain bike passenger from the general public. Current openings include: San Francisco County public agency, San Mateo County public agency and bike organization, and Santa Clara County general public. Applications are due Thursday, November 30, and are available at www.caltrain.com/bac or by calling (650) 508-6391. The committee meets every other month at 5:45 p.m. in San Carlos, a block from the Caltrain station. All meetings are open to the public.

IOA’s Cable Car Caroling

The Institute on Aging will hold its 33rd annual Cable Car Caroling fundraiser Saturday, December 2, from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. People should meet at Roosevelt Middle School, 460 Arguello Boulevard in San Francisco. The event, with its theme “From Generation to Generation,” brings cheer through traditional carols and other holiday songs to isolated seniors across the city at assisted living centers, skilled nursing facilities, and individual homes. Last year over 500 carolers traveled on motorized cable

The sixth annual San Francisco Veterans Film Festival will be held December 2-3 in the Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin Street. Admission is free. OneVet OneVoice, which produces the festival, said it shares the real stories of service men and women as well as veterans, unfiltered by Hollywood. The festival is also an opportunity for veterans to find support while allowing people to learn about issues facing those who serve in the military. The festival includes 13 films made by veterans, veteran families, independent filmmakers, and students. This year’s animations, dramas, and documentary short and feature length films include unique points of view on a range of situations. There will also be panel discussions. “The program of films and speakers provides real stories of struggles as well as real solutions, helping veterans in attendance while educating the broader community, which supports healing by making a smoother transition back to home, family, and work,” Eddie Ramirez, founder of the film festival and OneVet OneVoice, said in a news release. Some of the films are “Thank You for Your Service,” by Tom Donahue, which looks at the mental health crisis in the military; “After Fire,” by Brittany Huckabee, about three Latina veterans; and “The Catcher,” by Cassie Guidry, an animated short about a soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. For a full list of screening times and panel discussions, visit https:// www.sfveteransfilmfestival.org/. t

Letters to the editor >> Milk plaza redesign unnecessary

I’m writing in support of the opinions expressed by Howard Grant regarding the redesign of the Muni Metro entry and surrounding area [“Plaza architect weighs in on update,” Guest Opinion, November 16]. The proposed new design is unnecessary and would cause considerable inconvenience to the public. I’ve lived in the Castro for 44 years (when I moved in, the first neighborhood resident I met was when I took a roll of film to the camera store on Castro Street that Harvey Milk had just opened), and I walk through the Castro-Market intersection every day, so I know the area well and have observed transportation patterns and pedestrian circulation over many years. In my opinion, the existing subway entrance and Harvey Milk Plaza area are well designed and attractive. Since esthetics is a subjective matter, other people may disagree, or may feel that the proposed redesign is more appealing. But from a functional point of view, there can be no doubt that the new scheme has serious problems. The vast majority of Muni Metro users enter the subway station from Castro Street, where the bus lines stop (or they exit the station to get one of the buses or visit the Castro Street businesses), so the existing subway entrance is perfectly located. In contrast, if the new design is executed, subway users will have to walk uphill along Market Street, nearly to Collingwood, and then enter and go down into the station––requiring much more walking, as well as exposure to the elements in bad weather. The only reason for this clearly impractical arrangement is the sloping “stadium” structure that would replace the existing subway entrance. As Grant points out, the “assembly and protest” activities for which this structure is intended are provided for already, for example in the Jane Warner Plaza area. In my experience, the types of “stadium bleachers” envisioned in the redesign often prove to be underused for their intended functions and become unmaintained eyesores. Another inconvenience of the redesign, of course, would be the long period of disruption while the existing subway entrance and surrounding area were torn up and the new construction was undertaken. And in a different way, the general public would be inconvenienced by the spending of millions of dollars for an unnecessary project. Although I’m trained as an architect, I have no personal

investment in this issue, for I never made a design of my own for this project, and I don’t know Grant or any of the other professionals involved in the matter. I simply feel the need to state that the proposed redesign is a bad idea from just about every point of view.

protests, rallies, memorials, etc. but, as history has proved, when the LGBT community needs more space we have never hesitated to take over the streets. Let’s keep the dialogue going. Peace and love my peeps.

Paul V. Turner, Professor of Architectural History, Emeritus Stanford University San Francisco

Joe Mac San Francisco

Questions about plaza redesign

Maybe I’m late to the party, I hope not, but, after seeing the “winning” redesign of Harvey Milk Plaza I have a few questions [“Milk plaza design winner named,” November 2]. 1) What’s the point of the elevation of the design? To get a better view of five lanes of Market Street and 17th Street traffic and a busy intersection? 2) Has anyone considered the folks living at Collingwood and Market streets and how they feel about thousands of transit users now entering the Muni station outside of their front doors? Or the idea that transit users will now have to walk an extra block to enter the station? Finally, and most important to me at least, what’s wrong with the plaza as it is now? As I exit daily out of the Muni station, coming up the wide steps (the only Muni station in San Francisco where the steps are not straight, by the way), I still get giddy seeing the giant rainbow flag, then the historical landmark Twin Peaks Tavern and then the welcoming and beautiful Castro Theatre sign. With the new design and moving the station opening, I would see none of that. Instead, we would see a chain fence and a no-longerused Muni tunnel. I’m not one of those negative nellies who are against any and every bit of change. I love the palm trees on Market Street, the trollies at Jane Warner Plaza, the wider sidewalks, and the rainbow crosswalks. But I question spending $10 million (say that out loud) on this proposed project. The phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” comes to mind. Sure, maybe spend some money to spruce it up – a water feature, plants, mosaics? Lastly, I’ve read that one of the reasons for the redesign is that the tiered amphitheater would allow for more people to gather there for

Gay community has never been inclusive

Let’s be honest here: we all have likes and dislikes, turn-ons and turn-offs – that’s totally human. But when using apps or these specific websites designed for meeting others, it’s just not as easy to emphasize what you seek using civil language as it is to mention what you exclude, using the word “no ...” [“Jack’d goes after Grindr for alleged racism,” November 9]. As a senior gay man of color it pains me to say the same-sex world has never been totally inclusive, and it still isn’t. We’re supposed to be a community, but a true community supports all its members despite their individual differences. It has always made me sad that so many of us are so unkind to each other and attempt to justify it as being “just a preference.” Ken Hensley Alameda, California

Congrats to the Aussies

We were cheered to see the recent article on the Australian marriage issue [“Aussies vote ‘I do’ to marriage equality,” November 16]. As a person who lived in Sydney from 1980-83, worked for our then-national gay newspaper, Campaign, and was secretary of the gay business association, I recall the horrific homophobia that permeated the land at that time. We sure have come a long way, baby, from those days of restrictive thinking and acting. How extraordinary it is to see such a refreshing change in that far-away nation. We lost so many strong and dedicated gay men to AIDS that it’s sad to look back. But I know how proud they would be to hear the latest news from their country. They helped to make it happen, just as surely as their activists do now. Onward and upward. Mary Richards Cathedral City, California

#ShopSmall Neighborhood merchant associations will celebrate Small Business Saturday. Shop their small businesses all day! Balboa Village Merchants Association Calle 24 – Mission and 24th Street Castro Merchants Association Chinatown Merchants Association Clement Street Merchants Association Divisadero Merchants Association East Cut Community Benefit District Excelsior Outer Mission Merchants Fillmore Merchants Association Greater Geary Blvd Merchants Association Hayes Valley Neighbor and Merchants Association Inner Sunset Merchants Association Lower Haight Merchants and Neighbors Association Merchants of Butchertown Noe Valley Merchants Association North Beach Business Association One Bayview Polk Street Merchants Association SOMBA – South of Market Business Association Union Street Association Valencia Corridor Merchants Association

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<< Open Forum

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • November 23-29, 2017

Volume 47, Number 47 November 23-29, 2017 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Michael M. Yamashita Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013) Publisher (2003 – 2013) Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman BARTAB EDITOR & EVENTS LISTINGS EDITOR Jim Provenzano ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko • Seth Hemmelgarn CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ray Aguilera • Tavo Amador • Race Bannon Erin Blackwell • Roger Brigham Brian Bromberger • Victoria A. Brownworth Brent Calderwood • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Belo Cipriani Richard Dodds • Michael Flanagan Jim Gladstone • David Guarino Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell • John F. Karr Lisa Keen • Matthew Kennedy • Joshua Klipp David Lamble • Max Leger Michael McDonagh • David-Elijah Nahmod Michael Nugent • Paul Parish • Sean Piverger Lois Pearlman • Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota Bob Roehr •Donna Sachet • Adam Sandel Khaled Sayed • Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Sari Staver • Jim Stewart Sean Timberlake • Andre Torrez • Ronn Vigh 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 • Steven Underhil Dallis Willard • Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge • Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small Bogitini VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING Scott Wazlowski – 415.829.8937 NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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Hate crimes jump, bias persists I

t’s not surprising that the number of hate crimes in the state jumped more than 11 percent in 2016. The year saw a spike in crimes based on a victim’s race, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity, according to FBI statistics, which are from the Uniform Crime Reporting system, which gathers data from agencies that volunteer their information. Haters are emboldened when they see their presidential candidate disparage minorities and immigrants; they feel even more so now that Donald Trump is in the Oval Office. Most of the reported hate crimes in San Francisco indicated victims were targeted because of their sexual orientation. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, there were 60 more hate crimes last year than in 2015 in the Bay Area’s nine counties, with the most reported in Alameda, San Francisco, and Santa Clara counties. Nationally, in 2016, law enforcement agencies reported 1,218 hate crime offenses based on sexual-orientation bias, according to the FBI report. The vast majority, 62.8 percent, was prompted by anti-gay (male) bias, while 21.5 percent were prompted by anti-LGBT bias. There were 130 reports of incidents based on gender identity. Of those, 111 were anti-transgender and 19 were anti-gender nonconforming. Locally, gay San Francisco Supervisor Jeff Sheehy has called for a hearing “immediately” about hate crimes against the LGBTQ community. For 2016, San Francisco police reported 16 hate crime events based on the victims’ sexual orientation or gender noncomformity. For 2015, police reported 12 hate crime events that were based on the victims’ sexual orientation or gender noncomformity. “Here in San Francisco, the increase came from attacks on our LGBT community,” he said at a recent board meeting, referencing the recent FBI report. “The Trump administration has enflamed tensions and we are at risk. We have to stand up

to the Trump administration, to the white supremacists and the Nazis.” As the board’s only out member, Sheehy said he wants to hear from city departments about the issue. We urge Sheehy to hold that hearing soon. But hate crimes aren’t the only thing the LGBTQ community has to endure. On the heels of the FBI report is a new survey of LGBTQ adults that was conducted for National Public Radio by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Titled “Discrimination in America,” pollsters surveyed 3,453 adults age 18 or older and included nationally representative samples of African-American, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, whites, men, women, and LGBTQs. The results for the 489 LGBTQ adults surveyed were stark. “Overall, LGBTQ Americans report significant personal experiences of discrimination, across many areas of life,” the report’s executive summary states. A majority of all LGBTQ people have experienced slurs (57 percent) and insensitive or offensive comments (53 percent) about their sexual orientation or gender identity. Strikingly, 57 percent reported that they, or an LGBTQ friend or family member, have been threatened or non-sexually harassed, been

sexually harassed (51 percent), or experienced violence (51 percent) because of their sexuality or gender identity. And, after years of fighting over bathroom rights in jurisdictions across the country, the report states that 34 percent of LGBTQ people surveyed said they or an LGBTQ friend or family member have been verbally harassed in the bathroom or been told or asked if they were using the wrong restroom. The survey shows that LGBTQ people of color are twice as likely as white LGBTQ people to have been personally discriminated against because of who they are when applying for jobs and when interacting with police. They are six times more likely to say they have avoided calling the police (30 percent) due to concern for anti-LGBTQ discrimination, compared to white LGBTQs (5 percent). That’s a big problem. Law enforcement often can’t investigate without a report. These reports are critical in that they provide a paper trail for the victims and for police agencies, especially those that report crimes to the FBI. The report states that discrimination is a prominent and critically important matter in American life and throughout the country’s history. The issue is how to lessen bias in our society. That certainly won’t happen while Trump is in office. His appointees have spent their first year in the administration minimizing LGBTQs, pretending we don’t exist, and attempting to erase us from society. As the holiday season begins, LGBTQ people must recommit to standing up for themselves and their friends. Instead of avoiding politics with family members, we need to boldly state that mistreating us, misgendering us, discriminating against us, and attacking us is not OK. We need to continue seeking redress in the courts, like the trans people suing the administration over Trump’s trans military ban. We need to continue reporting hate crimes against us. Statistics like those in the FBI’s hate crime report and NPR’s examination of discrimination are evidence that there is a lot of hate out there. We can say, “Love wins,” but a more apt strategy is to continue educating those who are ignorant, and fighting for equality that we all deserve. t

SF needs more LGBTQ shelters by Brenda Cordova

magine you are walking down the street in San Francisco enjoying the view until suddenly you come across a sidewalk full of homeless encampments. What do you do? Do you avert your eyes trying not to make eye contact because perhaps you will see a person behind those eyes, a person just like yourself that just happens to find themselves in a difficult situation? Do you think to yourself, “Well, if they really wanted to they could go to a shelter.” The reality is that it is not always that easy. There are only 1,203 adult shelter beds available in the city, which has over 7,000 homeless individuals, and to get a bed for the night there is a waitlist with over 1,000 individuals hoping for a spot. For the LGBTQ homeless population, it is even more difficult to find a safe shelter. Many are still harassed in shelters and feel unaccepted by other shelter residents. Many of them feel safer in the streets than in the shelters. In the streets, they can choose who they sleep next to and most build their own tent communities with other LGBTQ homeless individuals. This is a vulnerable population and many of them are already fleeing homes after feeling unaccepted. There is only one shelter in the city where LGBTQ individuals feel safe and accepted, a 24-bed facility named Jazzie’s Place. LGBTQ homeless individuals account for 30 percent of the total homeless population in San Francisco, according to the 2017 Point-In-Time count. The number of LGBTQ people who are homeless is too high. Something must be done. If ignoring the problem is not the answer then what is an alternative, calling 311? Last November, Proposition Q passed, making it unlawful to place tents on sidewalks without a permit, but before removing encampments the city must give tent residents 24-hour notice of removal and find shelter for all residents. Problem solved, right? Not

Rick Gerharter

Homeless tent encampments sit under the freeways at Division and Ninth streets in South of Market.

exactly. What happens after someone calls 311 to report an encampment? Well, San Francisco Public Works is called out to physically clean up the encampment and if workers encounter residents residing in the encampment, the San Francisco Police Department is called. The SFPD then offers tent residents shelter services. If the tent residents refuse shelter services, then they are asked to pack up their belongings and clear out of the area, usually moving a couple blocks down. If the residents accept services, then the Homeless Outreach Team is called. The tent residents are then transported to a Navigation Center or placed on the shelter waitlist. Except for Navigation Centers, which allow couples to stay together with their possessions, there is no guarantee that someone will be sheltered with their partner or those they may have been sharing their tent with.

For LGBTQ individuals who have faced harassment at other shelters, there is apprehension to stay at a shelter. According to LGBTQs on the street, there is a waitlist of about a month to stay at Jazzie’s place. Why is it that LGBTQ homeless individuals must be forced to pick unsafe options, either stay on the streets or feel harassed emotionally and even physically at a shelter? In a city that has been a pioneer for LGBTQ rights it is unacceptable for there to be so many LGBTQ community members out on the streets. There are only 24 shelter beds targeted to the LGBTQ homeless population of over 2,000. What we need are more LGBTQ-targeted shelter beds. The number of LGBTQ safe shelter spaces is disproportionate to the homeless population that identifies as LGBTQ. Once an individual has a shelter bed, more focus can be placed on housing-led interventions. Someone who has a safe place to sleep for the night has a much better capacity to accept assistance and be proactive in acquiring assistance for housing, employment, mental health services, and substance abuse services. It all starts with a safe night’s sleep. So what can we do to help the thousands in our LGBTQ community who are experiencing homelessness? We can start by demanding that the city provide more safe LGBTQ-targeted shelters. Don’t wait until it is a problem in your neighborhood, on your sidewalk, or even outside of your door, act now. Let’s help the LGBTQ members of our community have a safe place to sleep at night. Call Mayor Ed Lee’s office at (415) 554-6141 and demand more LGBTQ-targeted shelters. t Brenda Cordova is a current resident of San Francisco and has been here since 2012. She is currently completing graduate school for a master’s in social work at the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

Politics>>

November 23-29, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

Former SF homeless advocate seeks E. Bay Assembly seat by Matthew S. Bajko

or five years in the late 1990s Judy Appel served as director of the civil rights legal division at the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness. She then spent four years focused on drug policy reforms while working at the Drug Policy Alliance before becoming executive director of Our Family Coalition, a nonprofit focused on LGBT families that she oversaw for nearly a decade. Now Appel, who serves on the Berkeley school board, hopes voters in the 15th Assembly District will elect her next year to the state Legislature, where she would be the first LGBT lawmaker from the East Bay and the second lesbian married mother serving in the lower chamber. “My experience is deep, real, and progressive. I turned Our Family Coalition around to have a larger focus than just white families,” said Appel, 52, who left the agency last fall and now works for the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, having parted ways in August with the California School-Based Health Alliance as its executive director in order to have more time to focus on her campaign. Over a breakfast of fried eggs and fruit last Friday at the Vault near Berkeley’s Ashby BART station, Appel laid out what elevates her above the other five serious candidates in the race to succeed Assemblyman Tony Thurmond (DRichmond), who is running to be the state’s superintendent of public instruction after serving two twoyear terms in the Legislature. “I focus on my 25 years working

for this community and the important social justice issues people in this district are deeply concerned about,” Appel said. “I have the leadership skills to be effective in Sacramento.” The Assembly district includes the cities of Albany, Berkeley, El Cerrito, El Sobrante, Emeryville, Hercules, Kensington, Piedmont, Pinole, Richmond, San Pablo, Tara Hills, and a portion of Oakland. Appel is one of three out candidates in the race. Lesbian Richmond City Councilwoman Jovanka Beckles was the first to enter the race this spring, while bisexual East Bay Municipal Utility District board member Andy Katz is running a second time for the seat. The Berkeley resident dropped out of the race in 2014 due to a lack o f financial support and endorsements from community groups and local leaders. Also running for the seat are a number of straight candidates, including Oakland City Councilman Dan Kalb; El Cerrito City Councilwoman and registered nurse Rochelle Pardue-Okimoto; and former Obama campaign aide and White House staffer Buffy Wicks, who lives in Oakland. “I am the public education candidate in this race,” said Appel. “I am the only one who has experience as a leader in the LGBT community.” Although she has often endorsed more moderate candidates, Appel considers herself to be a progressive and points to her decades of work on issues such as police accountability, homelessness, LGBTQ issues, and drug policy reform. “I feel I have a very strong

compass on progressive values and am good working in collaboration with people so we can make change,” she said. Appel grew up in Chicago until, at age 9, she moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her parents divorced when she was 3; her 82-year-old mother now lives in El Cerrito and works as a social worker for an agency focused on older Japanese Americans, while her 82-year-old father resides in Los Angeles and continues to work as a business entrepreneur. The youngest of three girls, Appel’s oldest sister lives in Pleasant Hill. Her other sister, who died nine years ago, struggled with psychiatric issues and homelessness. In 1987 Appel graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in environmental studies and moved to Central America for four years to work on reducing pesticide use in Costa Rica and then Nicaragua. She returned to the U.S. in 1991 to attend UC Berkeley, where she earned a master’s degree in urban planning and a law degree from its Hastings College of the Law. There she met her wife, attorney Alison Bernstein, with whom she has two children, Kobi, a sophomore at Sarah Lawrence College, and Tris, a Berkeley High junior. In 2001 they moved to Berkeley, where Bernstein has lived since she was 5 years old. A decade later Appel won election to the city’s school board, gaining an inside view to policymaking and how it can effect change in people’s lives. Two years ago she determined she wanted to seek election to the Legislature in order to enact policies on a statewide basis. A key concern for her is improving the state’s education system, from boosting programs such as arts education and

East Bay Assembly candidate Judy Appel

vocational training for students to paying teachers more and ensuring schools have the resources they need. She pledged to tackle reforming Proposition 13, which limits how much property taxes can rise each year and is blamed for starving the state and its schools of funding. Appel would push to split off commercial property from Prop 13 so that it only applies to private homes. And she supports moving California toward having a single-payer form of health care.

LGBT issues

As for LGBT issues, Appel doesn’t have specific legislation in mind but pointed to the need to continue to address issues confronting transgender people. Since entering the race this summer, Appel has been focused on introducing herself to voters in western Contra Costa County, as they are “an important part of our district,” she noted. She is confident she can survive the June primary,

where the top two vote-getters regardless of their party affiliation will advance to the general election next November. The last time the seat was open, in 2014, 26 percent of the primary voters were from Berkeley. Having run two citywide races for her school board seat, Appel is well known in the famously liberal city. In last year’s election, she garnered 39,461 votes, noting her total was more than that of the newly elected mayor, Jesse Arreguin. “My goal is to stay for 12 years in the Legislature. This isn’t a steppingstone to higher office,” said Appel. “This is what I want to do and be there long enough to see my policy initiatives through.” A number of San Francisco LGBT leaders are co-hosting a fundraiser next week for Appel at the home of gay BART board director and former supervisor Bevan Dufty. The two first met two decades ago when Dufty worked for former Mayor Willie Brown and Appel was with the Coalition on Homelessness. Dufty pointed to her knowledge about education and homelessness, “two huge issues,” as for why he is supporting Appel. He added that her race “is probably our best opportunity” next year to elect an additional LGBT Assembly member from the Bay Area, as the only other person expected to be on a local ballot is gay Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), who will be running for re-election in the South Bay. “I think that she would do a great job. She has been campaigning hard, and I am impressed,” said Dufty. Co-hosts of the November 29 fundraiser, which costs $100 per person, include lesbian former supervisor and Clinton administration See page 16 >>

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<< Commentary

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • November 23-29, 2017

November hope by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

n Election Night, I watched a miracle unfold. The first big news dropped during dinner November 7. I watched on my phone as news that Danica Roem was leading Bob Marshall in the race for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates quickly changed to word that she was victorious. It was a huge win, given that Marshall was a 26-year incumbent, as well as an anti-LGBT Republican who sponsored the state’s bathroom bill, and Roem is a transgender woman who would be directly impacted by same. Just like that, Roem rode a blue tide into power in Virginia, with a campaign that rebuffed Marshall’s attempts to bait her for being trans. Roem did address being a transgender woman, but was wise enough to move quickly beyond being simply “the transgender candidate” and focus on bread-and-butter issues that she intended to handle. Soon after, I read about Andrea Jenkins’ win in Minneapolis. Jenkins, an African-American trans woman, won a spot on the Minneapolis City Council. A short while later, trans man Tyler Titus won a seat on the Erie School Board in Pennsylvania, while Stephe Koontz, a trans woman, was victorious in her bid to be on the Doraville City Council in Georgia. I was ecstatic. In a matter of hours, four transgender people had been elected. While none were the first trans people to be elected to office – there have been many before, both out and otherwise – the night was nonetheless a watershed moment and many of the candidates made history in their jurisdictions. We weren’t done at only four, however. After the polls closed in Palm Springs, California, Lisa Middleton, a trans woman, won a seat on the City Council. As more late results trickled in, Gerri Cannon, a trans woman, got onto the Somersworth, New Hampshire School Board, and Phillipe Cunningham, a trans man of color, took a second spot on the Minneapolis City Council. Surely seven was far more than anyone could have hoped for, and yet we still weren’t done: Raven Matherne finished out Election Night with her win on the Stamford Board of Representatives in Connecticut. Eight transgender people across the United States were elected. They were joined by a number of other diverse voices, including the first openly intersex public official, Betsy Driver, in Flemington, New Jersey, the first Sikh mayor, Ravi Bhalla, in Hoboken, New Jersey, and many others. It was a big night for democracy, for diversity, and a positively huge time for transgender people. The following night, November Representing the “best of the best” in LGBT media, with 8, marked the 40th anniversary of Harvey Milk’s historic victory in over a million readers weekly in print and online. San Francisco, becoming the first openly gay man elected in Califor212-242-6863 nia. It felt as if he was smiling on Representing the “best of the best” in LGBT media, with us all that evening, as we moved over a millioninfo@nationallgbtmediaassociation.com readers weekly in print and online. forward. www.nationallgbtmediaassociation.com I’m usually the first to talk about 212-242-6863 how bad things are right now for info@nationallgbtmediaassociation.com transgender people. And it does www.nationallgbtmediaassociation.com seem vital that we keep fighting. We need to respond to all these attacks, and keep moving forward. I’d be lying if I said I think any of those, at least in the short term, will be easy. We’re being cast as the big enemy right now, and facing an onslaught of rights rollbacks under the current administration. We’re still seeing anti-transgender murders in the

How do you speak to the LGBT community?

Through the publications they know and trust.

How do you speak to the LGBT community?

Through the publications they know and trust.

6/6/17 2:19 PM

Christine Smith

United States every two weeks or so. If I’m pessimistic, there are plenty of reasons for it. At the same time, we can take this one moment, this one night, and get a bit of hope from it. As hard as our battles are, we can gain traction. It wasn’t that long ago that no candidate would have even championed transgender causes, let alone been out as transgender themselves. Such would have been the death knell of candidacies in even liberal-leaning locations. I would like to think I need not remind anyone what Milk had to say about hope, but it seems relevant to note at this point. “So if there is a message I have to give, it is that I’ve found one overriding thing about my personal election, it’s the fact that if a gay person can be elected, it’s a green light,” said Milk. “And you and you and you, you have to give people hope.” On November 7, 2017, the transgender community, in the wake of so much hatred, was given hope. We can be elected, and that is no small thing – especially in the wake of the Trump administration and so much awfulness focused on transgender people. That night, transgender people young and old got some hope. There may be a transgender kid out there who, until that night, was thinking of ending their lives – and now they might some day join Koontz, Cunningham, Cannon, Roem, Matherne, Jenkins, Middleton, Titus, and other transgender elected officials. They now know that they can live out of the shadows, and be not only accepted within their communities, but represent them. There will be more coming up; Kim Coco Iwamoto announced her campaign for lieutenant governor of Hawaii (she previously served two terms on the the Hawaii Board of Education, having been elected in 2006), while Martin Rawlings-Fein and Mia Satya are both running for seats on the San Francisco school board. I am sure that there are other candidates out there that I don’t know about. So let us etch this one night when those of us who are transgender were victorious in the face of so much adversity and made a name for our community and ourselves. Let’s hold onto that hope, and let it guide us through these difficult times and into a better future for us all.t Gwen Smith is pondering running sometime, too. You’ll find her at www.gwensmith.com.

<< Community News

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • November 23-29, 2017

Bay Area schools plan to purchase LGBT textbooks by Matthew S. Bajko

Best Wedding Photographer as voted by BAR readers

choolchildren in the Bay Area will be among the first to use recently approved textbooks that include LGBT history lessons as local districts are making plans to purchase the new materials once they are released next year. California became the first state in the nation to require public schools to use textbooks that include lessons about the LGBT community and its history when the State Board of Education voted November 9 to approve 10 LGBTQ-inclusive history and social studies textbooks for K-8 classrooms. The state board’s decision stemmed from the passage in 2011 of the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Education Act, authored by gay former state Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), which required school districts to teach students about LGBT individuals and people with disabilities. Over the last two years educators and LGBT activists have been developing the curriculum standards to implement the FAIR Act. The final step was the approval of the textbooks, which school districts can now purchase. They are allowed to choose other materials, as long as they include the required LGBT content and other lesson plans detailed in the state education agency’s History/Social Science Curriculum Framework. A number of local school leaders contacted by the Bay Area Reporter said their districts are planning to

Franklin-McKinley School District board member Omar Torres

buy the updated textbooks once they go on sale. Despite it facing a $15.1 million deficit in its current budget, the Oakland Unified School District has a pilot phase underway for textbook adoption and incorporating the criteria established by the FAIR Act, district spokesman John Sasaki told the B.A.R. “Pending final budget decisions, we are proposing to adopt new fourth-eighth grade materials next year, high school materials in 201920, and K-third grade materials in 2020-2021,” wrote Sasaki in an emailed reply. Omar Torres, a gay man serving on the board of the FranklinMcKinley School District, which oversees a number of elementary and middle schools in San Jose, also told the B.A.R. that his district would be phasing in the new

LGBT-inclusive textbooks. “We will be piloting them ﬁrst. It’s part of our process,” explained Torres. Noelani Pearl Hunt, vice president of the Santa Clara Unified School District Board of Education, also expects to see her district purchase the new textbooks for its schools. But she was unsure of how soon they would make it into classrooms. “I cannot wait to see our students reading about a significant time in our history. My entire career I have focused on equity in all aspects of society, and this is just one step toward that,” said Pearl Hunt, a straight ally who has pushed for a number of LGBT-supportive policies while on her school board. Lesbian Berkeley Unified School District board member Judy Appel, who was involved in the fight to pass the FAIR Act as well as the development of the new teaching framework for what LGBT lessons to include in the curriculum, expects students in the East Bay city to be using the new textbooks but was unsure if they would be in place by the start of the 2018-2019 school year next August. “Berkeley is excited not just for the LGBT inclusion but the new framework updates our whole curriculum,” noted Appel. Gentle Blythe, the spokeswoman for the San Francisco Unified School District, did not respond to the B.A.R.’s questions on if the See page 16 >>

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an Francisco officials have launched a new housing wait list for people who are living with HIV. Plus Housing, a prioritized list of people looking for permanent housing units or subsidies, is federally funded by Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS and locally by San Francisco’s general fund. The list, which debuted in October, is operating as a pilot program for the first several months, according to the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, which oversees the program. To be eligible, one has to be living with HIV; have an annual household income that’s less than 50 percent of the area median, which is currently $40,350 for one person; and have a rent that’s more than 50 percent of their pre-tax monthly income. Exemptions from the rent requirement include people who are homeless and people who are living in transitional housing. Barry Roeder, the gay man living with HIV who serves as MOHCD’s strategic project specialist, said that as of early November, the agency had received about 250 applications, which is “less than we expected.” Brian Basinger, executive director of Q Foundation (formerly the AIDS Housing Alliance), had thought that having HIV would be enough to get on the Plus list. Told by the Bay Area Reporter that that wasn’t sufficient, Basinger said, “It’s his program, so if that’s what he says, then we have to believe it. ... I’m not trying to get into a tit for tat with MOHCD. In general, they’re one of the most gracious and easiest to work with departments in the city.” Basinger, who’s living with AIDS, added, “In my worldview,

Rick Gerharter

Q Foundation’s Brian Basinger

everybody with HIV in San Francisco would be able to get on a list for housing, especially since it’s a wait list, and with the last wait list, people were waiting 15 years. By erecting barriers that prevent people from getting in line today, we are preventing them having access to a safety net when they might need it in five years, or 10 years, or 15 years” as their circumstances change. “That’s one of the struggles we had with these previous wait lists, and I thought it was one of the lessons we learned,” he said. Asked why having HIV isn’t enough to make someone eligible for the program, Roeder said, “We’re trying to reach the people that are in the greatest need. We have people who are making six figures a year and think, ‘What the heck. A subsidy? I’ll take the subsidy.’” One of Basinger’s main concerns is that many San Francisco residents who are living with HIV are also homeless.

“The disparities are criminal, and they are driven in part by the lack of focus on the housing needs of people with HIV and AIDS at City Hall, which is informed by the HIV community’s lack of organizing to make sure that our needs are met,” he said. “Their failure to provide an adequate response is the result of people with HIV’s failure to demand it.” Basinger also said he had thought that people living with HIV could get on the list, and then “get bonus points” for meeting other criteria. Someone may be on a list for 15 years, “so their rent-to-income ratio today has very, very little bearing on what their rent-to-income ratio might be in the future,” said Basinger. “That calculation should only happen at the time that somebody is being called up.” Roeder, who volunteered that he’s lived in a rent-controlled apartment in the city for 24 years, said there have been a couple of people who had expressed interest in getting onto the list but made too much money. He said that they’ve been welcomed to apply. “We intend to keep this list open. ... The more urgent your financial situation is, the higher you’ll rank,” he said. Despite his concerns, Basinger is still hopeful. The Q Foundation offers subsidies that are designed “specifically to help people when they’re having a crisis, so when you take our subsidy program and Plus Housing in totality, it’s actually a profound improvement in the system of care as a whole. We work hand in hand. We’re emergency and they’re long term.” For more information, go to http:// sfmohcd.org/plus-housing. For information on the Q Foundation, visit http://theqfoundation.org/.t

Community News>>

November 23-29, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 11

LGBTQs must work with others, panel asserts by Charlie Wagner

he message was “You gotta give ’em hope,” as Harvey Milk famously said, at the 10th annual State of the LGBTQ Movement Update, presented by the Horizons Foundation November 8, a day after eight transgender people – and scores of LGBs – were elected to state and local offices across the country. Intersectionality, working with groups outside the LGBTQ movement, was another strong message. “Intersectionality has to be a mandate for our movement,” said panelist Jessica Stern, executive director of OutRight Action International. “And we have not always been as activist against racism and other causes. Other groups have seen our issues as a liability but now it feels like we cannot get anything done except in coalition.” Another panelist also said that the LGBTQ community must work with other groups. “When you are under threat, you realize you need to pull together,” asserted Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California, the statewide LGBTQ lobbying and advocacy organization. The talk was part of Horizons’ Q Series, which started in 2008 to “create connections in the LGBTQ community between donors, grantees and the general public” according to Roger Doughty, president of the nonprofit. Two other LGBTQ leaders joined Stern and Zbur on the panel: Isa Noyola, deputy director of the Oakland-based Transgender Law Center, and Rea Carey, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force. “Last year we were in a state of shock and disbelief, but this year provides significant hope,” Doughty said in his opening remarks, referring to the 2016 election of Donald Trump as president and the November 7 election that saw 38 Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund-endorsed candidates win their races. The most prominent of those was Danica Roem, the first openly transgender person elected to a state legislature. She won a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates, defeating a 26-year anti-LGBT Republican incumbent. Doughty kicked off the program, held at Merrill Lynch’s downtown San Francisco office and attended by 90 people, by asking the panelists, “What are you more concerned or scared about than a year ago and what less?” “It is appropriate to use the term scared, and we have a real fear of the current administration,” Stern replied. “Our question is whether the U.S. would show up if we are under attack, for example in Chechnya. We organized a huge pressure on the U.S. State Department, but they did not speak up. We are also worried about the access of rightwing evangelical Christians to the administration.” Beginning in February, government forces in Chechnya began rounding up gay men or those perceived to be gay. Carey listed nuclear war and the dismantling of democracy as her top fears and bemoaned the dismantling of many significant LGBTQ successes, often by executive order. “I worry that the federal government will not enforce anti-discrimination laws if anyone claims religious discrimination,” she said.

Barry Schneider Attorney at Law Charlie Wagner

Jessica Stern, left, Rea Carey, Isa Noyola, Rick Zbur, and Roger Doughty talked about the state of the LGBTQ movement at a Horizons Foundation panel November 8.

“But I am thrilled with the level of engagement we are now seeing. People are showing up for each other and that gives me hope.” Noyola said her main fear was anti-trans violence but she is very concerned about what she called the “prison industrial complex.” She discussed TLC’s effort to help people fleeing other countries and pointed out there were problems with Immigration and Customs Enforcement even during the Obama presidency. She applauded “so many trans folks being elected across the country.” Zbur agreed with Carey that war is his top fear, but described receiving many calls after the Trump election about keeping medical coverage for trans families. “Coverage of pre-existing conditions was very important for transgender and HIV individuals,” he said. Lifetime appointments for conservative judges are very troubling to him but he also said, “I am now less afraid that the energy we see about making changes will dissipate.” On the question of current priorities, Carey suggested, “Part of holding the line is showing up. If we can prevent things from being taken away, that is a win. There was an effort to remove sexual orientation from the U.S. census but we raised strong objections and the census question was restored, which impacts millions of dollars for our organizations.” Noyola said a top TLC priority is to “think about all the ways our community has survived violence. We see so much messaging from hate groups.” “Part of the world seems to be moving in one direction and part in another,” Doughty said, and asked, “How does it look to you?” “Every day we hear about a huge win and a huge setback,” Stern responded. “I am shocked by the pace of mass arrests in the last five weeks, for example 61 LGBTQs in Egypt and more than 75 in Indonesia. HIV programs are coming under attack and violence against transgender people is so common it’s not even reported.” But Stern said there are also some positives. “I also hear every day about acts of resistance,” she said. “We see some progress in the Eastern Caribbean and the European Court of Human Rights’ decision against forced sterilization has forced 22 European Union members to change their laws.” Stern challenged the audience to consider, “How can we use our safety to help the thousands who are not safe?” Zbur said that, in California, things are better than in a lot of

other states. “I want to continue moving the needle and we are fortunate to have an incredibly supportive governor,” Zbur said. Governor Jerry Brown last month signed a bill, coauthored by gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and gay state Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego), that modernizes the state’s HIV criminalization laws. “And we are now working on revising the sex offender registry, which has about 40,000 people who were simply convicted of lewd behavior,” the catchall law often used to harass LGBTQ people, said Zbur. Wiener authored the bill, which Brown signed, to revamp the registry. On the question of how the LGBTQ movement is doing, Carey said, “So much of our work is intersectional. Many of us do our work based on our being white people but we cannot avoid intersectional efforts.” Philanthropist Al Baum, a longtime Horizons supporter who attended the discussion, said he sees intersectionality happening in two ways. “One is that LGBTQ organizations are working better together,” he wrote in an email after the event. “And LGBTQ organizations are working more with other groups because everybody realizes it’s absolutely necessary to work with black and women’s groups. I believe this is a permanent change and is good for the country as a whole.” Noyola said TLC has a strong racial justice component. A November 10 New York Times article noted that almost all trans people murdered in the last few years have been nonwhite women. “Visibility is a double-edged sword for us,” Noyola said. Carey talked about whether achieving marriage equality caused donors to lose interest in LGBTQ causes, but said that the LGBTQ Task Force “actually saw an increase in small donors. People are seeing racial and economic justice as central to our movement.” Zbur said that, in California, he sees schools as a focal point of the right wing. “We want to provide tools to people who are in advocacy positions,” he said. Stern called for action on the part of the community. “We cannot tune out either domestic or foreign policies if we care about LGBTQ rights,” she said. “We have an opportunity to see how other movements have persisted and won.” t

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<< National News

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • November 23-29, 2017

DOJ, gay groups differ on bias in cake case by Lisa Keen

y one legal expert’s assessment, the Trump administration’s argument for allowing a baker to refuse service to a same-sex couple would lead to “anarchy.” In a nutshell, the Department of Justice brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado – a case that will be before the court for oral argument Tuesday, December 5 – argues that selling cakes is like staging parades. DOJ points back to a decision in the 1995 Hurley v. Irish-American Gay case in which the Supreme Court ruled that Massachusetts could not enforce its law against sexual orientation discrimination in public accommodations. The state had found the organizers of a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Boston violated the state law when they refused to allow an openly gay contingent. The high court said enforcement of that law against the parade organizers violated the First Amendment right of the parade organizers to control the message of their event. The DOJ equates the refusal of Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker, to sell a cake to a same-sex couple for their wedding reception to the refusal of parade organizers to allow an openly LGBT contingent in their public procession. (Ironically, just this year, the Boston parade organizers voted to let an LGBT contingent into the parade.) Led by Jeffrey B. Wall, a former clerk of conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, the DOJ brief contends that, “Forcing Phillips to create expression for and participate in a ceremony that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs invades his First Amendment rights in a manner akin to the governmental intrusion in Hurley.” It’s interesting to note that Phillips

acknowledges on his shop’s website that he took “less than 30 seconds” to refuse to sell a cake to Charlie Craig and David Mullins for their wedding reception. The 28 wedding cake designs featured on his website are beautiful and demonstrate an artistry, but only two include images that reference male-female couples and none conveys anything about anyone’s religious beliefs. Ryan Karerat, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the couple, said the couple were “turned away before they could discuss designs ... as soon as [Phillips] realized the cake was for them.” Nevertheless, Phillips’ attorneys at the Alliance Defending Freedom contend, “Phillips serves all people, but cannot convey all ideas or celebrate all events.” And DOJ contends that selling any wedding cake to the same-sex couple compels Phillips to express a message and “participate” in an event that violates his religious beliefs. Robert Post, the Sterling Professor of Law at Yale University Law School, said that DOJ’s logic, if extended to other businesses, “would effectively undo anti-discrimination laws generally” and lead to “anarchy.” “Almost all our behavior carries a message,” said Post, in a telephone press conference call last week. “If I went around claiming I could hit you because it’s expressive – I can make anything I do expressive ... [and the] country becomes ungovernable.” Attorney Mary Bonauto said the DOJ is trying to “shift emphasis to the cake as opposed to the law obliging all businesses covered by the public accommodations law to serve customers.” The Colorado law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations

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Courtesy Alliance Defending Freedom

Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, will have his case heard before the U.S. Supreme Court next month.

covers companies that are open to the public, and can include a wide variety of businesses – hotels, cabs, grocery stores, restaurants, medical offices, pharmacies, and day care centers. “There is no exception for creative or beautiful products,” said Bonauto, who argued for equal protection of LGBT couples in Obergefell v. Hodges. That case led to the 2015 decision that struck down state laws that banned recognition and licensing of marriage for same-sex couples. Like Post, Bonauto said that, “If the court accepts the petitioners’ views, then there will be barely a shred of anti-discrimination laws in place.”

Previous decisions

Not surprisingly, attorneys for Colorado and the same-sex couple (the ACLU is representing Craig and Mullins) put their emphasis on different previous decisions by the Supreme Court. Ria Tabacco Mar, counsel of record for Craig and Mullins, said in a telephone press conference for the National LGBT Bar Association, that Phillips’ religious exercise claim is “really nothing but a recycled argument like we saw in the 1960s, when the owner of a barbecue restaurant called the Piggie Park claimed that his religious beliefs meant he could not serve black diners in the same space as white customers.” In Newman v. Piggie Park and a number of other decisions, states the ACLU’s brief, the Supreme Court has “affirmed repeatedly the government’s ability to prohibit discriminatory conduct over the freedom of expression, association, and religion objections of entities ranging from law firms and labor unions to private schools and universities to membership organizations open to the public, to restaurants, and newspapers. Retail bakeries should fare no differently.” The Supreme Court’s 1968 decision in Piggie Park included a footnote that described as “patently frivolous” the restaurant owner’s claim that “his religious beliefs compel him to oppose any integration of the races whatever.” Colorado’s brief argues that Hurley does not apply here because the parade organizers were “a private, non-commercial association,” not involved in a commercial enterprise, as is the baker. The state law regulates a business’ “refusal of service,” not its freedom of expression. “Both Phillips and the United States ask the court to convert the doctrine [of freedom of expression] from ‘a right of self-determination in matters that touch individual opinion and personal

attitude’ ... into a license for commercial entities to refuse sales and service because of their customers’ protected characteristics. The doctrine does not apply so indiscriminately,” states the Colorado brief, “and expanding it to apply here would cause profound doctrinal and practical problems.” Phillips has failed before the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the Colorado Court of Appeals, and the Colorado Supreme Court. But in order to have his appeal taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court, his legal team’s briefs had to convince at least four of the nine justices to give him a chance. Given the precedent of cases like Piggie Park, the strong pro-LGBT arc in Supreme Court decisions since Hurley, and the fact that just three years ago the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal in a very similar case (Elane Photography) out of New Mexico, it’s somewhat surprising that four did give Phillips a nod, observers noted.

Prior LGBT victories

Of the nine substantial LGBTrelated decisions in front of the Supreme Court since Hurley, the LGBT side has won eight times. The only loss was in 2000 with Boy Scouts v. Dale. That case, too, involved a state law against discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodations. And there, too, the court ruled that enforcement of the law against the Boy Scouts was a violation of the group’s First Amendment right to “expressive association.” But like the parade organizers, the Boy Scouts group was identified as a “private” organization and not engaged in a commercial activity when it barred inclusion of gay scouts and leaders. (And like the Boston parade organizers, the Boy Scouts of America association has subsequently agreed to allow openly gay members and troop leaders.) At the same time the Supreme Court held the Boy Scouts could exclude a gay Scout leader, it acknowledged its decisions in two cases involving public service organizations – decisions that held “states have a compelling interest in eliminating discrimination against women in public accommodations ...” “We have held that the freedom [of expressive association] could be overridden ‘by regulations adopted to serve compelling state interests, unrelated to the suppression of ideas, that cannot be achieved through means significantly less restrictive of associational freedoms,’” the court stated. But two non-LGBT related decisions in recent years could signal the court’s willingness to

carve out more exceptions for free exercise exemptions: Hobby Lobby and Trinity. In the 2014 decision of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby, a 5-4 majority ruled that a federal law may not require a closely held commercial employer to provide health insurance coverage for contraception if that employer claims that to do so violates his or her personal religious beliefs. LGBT activists took some comfort from the majority’s statement that the ruling applies only to the contraception mandate, but they worried that the recent mistreatment of LGBT people in employment and other commercial settings made the decision very troubling. And in June, a 7-2 majority ruled in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer that a state’s denying funding to a school that “would have received [a state grant] but for the fact that Trinity Lutheran is a church” violates the free exercise clause of the First Amendment. LGBT activists had argued the school should be denied state funding because it exercised its religious beliefs against homosexuality and against other religions in determining which children it would exclude. “For as long as we have had antidiscrimination laws we’ve had challenges,” Samuel Bagenstos, a former DOJ official under the Obama administration, said during the ACLU’s conference call on the Masterpiece case. “... You could imagine any white supremacist business saying they discriminate against blacks because it sends a message. ...” In a brief to the Supreme Court on the Masterpiece case, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Equality California, and 11 other organizations detail numerous cases in which LGBT people have been discriminated against in the name of religion. They include a funeral home in Mississippi refusing to pick up the body of a deceased gay nursing home resident saying, “This goes against everything I believe in. I’m a Christian.” Midwives who claimed their work was part of their ministry repeatedly turned down a lesbian couple in Tennessee, preparing to give birth to their child. And “a California-resident lesbian couple was refused by a bed and breakfast in Hawaii, the owner telling them she ‘felt uncomfortable renting a room to homosexuals, citing her personal religious views,’” the brief states. “The risk of continued discrimination is particularly acute,” stated the Lambda brief, “when those providing services to the public believe they are entitled, in the name of religion or free speech, to refuse service to others based on who they are.”t

Community News>>

November 23-29, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 13

Avant-garde take on Dickens classic has queer influence by Michael Nugent

an Francisco’s Theatre of Yugen is bringing back its critically acclaimed work “A Noh Christmas Carol,” beginning December 1, with a queer twist. Originally premiering in 1993, this adaptation, written by Theatre of Yugen founder Yuriko Doi, utilizes the traditional Japanese theater forms of noh, ky gen, kabuki, and the avantgarde dance form butoh to retell the Charles Dickens classic. This year’s production features LGBTQs in leading and supporting roles and is directed by a gay man. Other LGBT people are also involved in the production, including Jacob Ritts, a queer Jewish man who plays Mashima, and Cassie Barnes, a queer woman who is the production’s lighting designer. The story is transported to the early Meiji era Japan, the parallel period to Victorian England. Ebezo Sukurooji (Ebenezer Scrooge) receives a visit from his deceased business partner Jakube Mashima (Jacob Marley), warning him to change his miserly ways or be doomed to linger forever as a hungry ghost. The miraculous intervention of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet-To-Come take Sukurooji on a wondrous journey through life and time in a profound attempt to remind him that life exists far beyond the numbers and figures of business. This story of redemption, with its moments of otherworldly magic and mystery, make for a perfect parallel to classical noh drama; the living and the ethereal coexist in a delicate and beautiful liminal space that so perfectly evokes y gen, or profound grace. “The world of Noh is unlike anything we get to experience in Western theater,” said artistic director Nick Ishimaru, a gay man who lives in San Francisco. “It is a liminal space where spirits come and go, and the corporeal interact freely with the phantasmal. As a theater form, it relies on physicalized conventions to contain this liminal space. I find training in Noh to be highly meditative. It assists me in being aware of my entire body and encourages me to feel every small movement as I move through space.” In adapting the work to Japan, “A Noh Christmas” explores a more Buddhist, spiritual take on the familiar tale. “Sukurooji is the one who’s suffering is being averted through the intervention of his friend Mashima and the Ghosts of Christmas,” said Ishimaru. “Sukurooji’s attachment to material wealth, his hoarding of money and refusal to do anything with it, is his source

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Ebezo Sukurooji (Shannon Davis) chastises his clerk Kurando (Eric Rich) in Theatre of Yugen’s “A Noh Christmas Carol.”

of attachment, and, ultimately, will be his source of suffering. Mashima is seeking a release from his suffering as well, that only the redemption of Sukurooji can accomplish. His lesson is that we must always care for one another, always value our human connections beyond the trappings of the world. Community must be embraced to escape eternally wandering the Earth as a hungry ghost.” Actor Shannon Davis, a bi and queer woman, will play Sukurooji. “I am proud that I get to perform a role not often open to women,” Davis said in an interview. “And doubly proud that I’m able to perform it in a Kabuki style, whose tradition forbids women from performing at all. “Kabuki and Kyogen have clear, strong archetypal caricatures, just like the Dickens stories; making it a good fit,” she said. “For example, in Kabuki, we have the Aragoto (rough style of samurai) character. Applying this style to my performance creates an old, grisly, financial warrior Scrooge. What is fascinating is just how familiar this Scrooge feels, even to Western audiences with no Japanese theater experience.” Explorations of the collaborators’ diverse cultural backgrounds led to moments of symbiosis. “I’m part Native American (Ojibwe and Potawatomi),” said Davis. “There are surprising similarities between my cultures and traditional Japanese stories, animal imagery, spirituality, and music. Nick and I have had fun sharing the similarities of our cultures with each other. We’re hoping to collaborate in the future on a project that focuses on the intercultural nature of tradition and spirituality.” Ishimaru said he’s a fourth generation half-Japanese American. “Between my identities as a nonwhite citizen and a queer person who was not totally gender conforming,

all of my life I’ve felt like I occupy a liminal space, lingering somewhere between American and outsider,” he said. “As a queer person, I find my queerness encourages me to utilize gender to full effect when casting. In ‘A Noh Christmas,’ having a genderbent casting has opened up new readings on the nature of community.” The story is also deeply informed by the current crises in the world. “Dickens wrote in a time of great economic and social change in England,” said Davis. “He saw the heartless aristocracy and rising merchant class profit on the backs of the less fortunate. In these stories, he reminds us that true riches are found in human connections and kindness, not in material wealth or gain.” Davis said that the lessons remain relevant today. “With the current political climate of wealth before all else, we would do well to remember that we are all connected. You may see some similarities between Scrooge and current political figures,” she said. Ishimaru noted, “A Noh Christmas Carol’ is a reminder to reconnect to our communities, be they social, familial, or economic. This story is not just a literal wake-up call to one man to become altruistic; it is a reminder that we are all on this journey through life together and in times of crisis, our most crucial duty is to be our best selves, both for the sake of others and ourselves.”t “A Noh Christmas Carol” will run December 1-24 (Friday-Sunday) at Theatre of Yugen, 2840 Mariposa Street in San Francisco. Tickets are $40 general, $50 VIP (includes drinks). For student discounts, contact the box office. For more information and to purchase tickets, go to www.theatreofyugen.org.

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<< Community News

14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • November 23-29, 2017

Fountaingrove Lodge residents return home by Heather Cassell

esidents of the Fountaingrove Lodge, an LGBT senior living facility in Santa Rosa’s Fountaingrove neighborhood, were happy to finally return to the lodge November 13, following the October wildfires. Nearly 100 residents waited anxiously for a little more than a month after fleeing the flames that roared through the Fountaingrove neighborhood and left much of it in smoldering rubble. The lodge, currently the nation’s first LGBT retirement community, is a part of Oakmont Senior Living, a luxury retirement community that includes Oakmont Terraces, Oakmont of Varenna, and Villa Capri. The lodge and its apartments were spared by the inferno, leaving it mostly unscarred. Only the edges of the American and rainbow flags that flew at the entrance to the lodge were singed, while the lodge’s property itself only suffered some burn marks on the stone along its parameters, Drue Mordecai, senior marketing director at Fountaingrove Lodge, told the Bay Area Reporter. Oakmont Terraces and Varenna also survived the flames. Villa Capri burned down. Mordecai, 52, and a gay man, said that the residents were grateful to be able to return home. “The miracle is that it still stands. It’s a total miracle,” said Matile Rothschild, 84, who evacuated with her partner, Joan Zimmerman, 81, to a senior community in Albany. The B.A.R. attempted to interview some LGBT residents of the communities that were destroyed, but was unsuccessful due to individuals being focused on searching for temporary housing and other immediate needs.

Community made the difference

All of the lodge’s residents were

successfully evacuated during the early morning hours October 9. An estimated 95 lodge residents, along with 332 residents of the Terraces, Varenna and Villa Capri, were evacuated by bus by Oakmont staff and first responders. Some individuals left in their cars and went to the Costco and Macy’s parking lots, said Mordecai and Crystal Robinson, vice president of sales and marketing at Oakmont Management Group, which owns Oakmont Senior Living residences. Oakmont provides on-site housing for some employees, they said. Mordecai noted that three of the lodge’s residents were on vacation at the time of the northern California wildfires. Some residents were also evacuated by family members, who were able to access the Fountaingrove neighborhood that morning, according to media reports that questioned evacuation procedures at Oakmont. Oakmont is currently under investigation by state agencies examining the evacuation of the facilities and unauthorized cleanup before agencies approved owners’ entry onto the property. “We are cooperating fully with investigators,” wrote Robinson in an email to the B.A.R. Mordecai couldn’t comment on the investigations, only saying, “The truth will come out” and that the media reports “will be proved wrong.” “Frankly, we saved everyone,” continued Mordecai, who had been turned away by authorities at the Fountaingrove Parkway, like other Oakmont management team members. “I have so much respect for so many people that I call heroes now because of what they did.” Lodge residents defended Oakmont when the B.A.R. asked about media reports about the investigations into the evacuation. “We all got out. That shows that we had a lot of preparedness,” said Rothschild.

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FD 1306

COA 660

People at the lodge were prepared as best as they could be for the disaster, many told the B.A.R., describing the heroics of their fellow residents who were floor captains, lodge staff who were on duty, and Mordecai and another manager’s quick actions to secure temporary evacuation to New Vintage Church and alert residents and staff. On the hill, the lodge’s residents and staff initiated their evacuation plan with resident floor captains and staff waking residents up and gathering them in the designated meeting place at the lodge. More than 400 Oakmont seniors were immediately taken to, and welcomed at, the church by pastor Andy Vomsteeg until it, too, was placed on evacuation notice. “I was kind of scared, but not too panicked because we have a system and it was time to implement it,” said Taura Anderson, a 66-year-old lesbian who is one of two of the head floor captains at the lodge. She eventually evacuated to her sister’s house in Pinole. Some residents were alert enough to quickly get dressed and pack to-go bags and grab their car keys, cellphones, and chargers, while others were confused and only showed up at the designated meeting place in their robes and slippers. The fire was very close to the lodge, residents said. “The last glimpse I had in the lobby looking out was huge flames right at the door, like balls of fire, just huge flames right out the door of the lodge,” said Rothschild. Two cooks brought the community’s van to the front of the lodge and started loading up patients from the adjacent memory care building and some people from the lodge. Other residents manually opened the garage door to access their cars, residents said. “As I drove out, it was like nothing I’d seen in my lifetime,” said Charles “Ben” Miller, 79, a gay man who transported several other residents to safety. “It almost had a surreal beauty to it because all the moss on the trees was on fire, so the trees were kind of like outlined, silhouetted against the yellow. It was fascinating, but it wasn’t fun to drive through.” Rothschild told the B.A.R. that one of the residents who stayed behind with one of the cooks let firemen into the lodge, so they could bypass fences to get to the flames threatening the back of the building. Many of the seniors temporarily settled in at the church, watching the news projected onto a wall. Groceries were brought in for the cooks and cots were set up by the city of Santa Rosa, while Oakmont staff and church volunteers cared for the seniors. A few Fountaingrove residents made their way to friends’ houses, second homes in San Francisco or elsewhere, or took off in their RVs. Others extended their vacations, said Mordecai and residents who spoke with the B.A.R. On the afternoon of October 9, family members started picking up their loved ones at the church, while Oakmont management arranged transportation to temporary housing at its other residencies in the East Bay. Vomsteeg was grateful that the seniors were able to get off the hill and his church was able to welcome them. “It was great to help our community and just let other people know that we were here for them,” he said.

Heather Cassell

Members of the Sonoma Valley LGBT Seniors Group recently reflected on last month’s wildfires. In back, from left, Diana Hendrickson, Kathy Severns, Nancy Dito, Deborah Riggins, and Gary “Buz” Hermes. In front, from left, Dee Salomon, Laura Haight, and Janice Farrell.

group and website for the lodge. Anderson said the communication system “really worked for us.” “It’s very important for us as a community to be a community,” she said. “Anything in the world that you want to know about the lodge is on that site,” said Rothschild. “That has kept us together. It’s been absolutely wonderful. It’s like we still have a community even though we’re all scattered around.” Kennedy noted that the lodge is a special place to live. “It’s a very unique place in terms of a retirement community because we all know each other and really, really missed being together,” he said. “It really is a community.”

Other LGBT seniors

For other LGBT senior communities in Sonoma County, staying connected with their neighborhoods, and the Sonoma Valley LGBT Seniors Group, emergency alerts, and keeping up with the news was key. Throughout the crisis the LGBT seniors in the group created a phone tree to check in with everyone and notify each other when friends were located and where people were safely evacuated. Others told stories about neighbors staying behind and protecting their houses and neighborhoods. “Yeah, but we are fortunate, so fortunate,” Kathy Severns, 69, said about the house she lives in with her wife, Diana Hendrickson, 65. Severns said their 87- and 86-year-old neighbors stood guard, spraying water on all of their neighbors’ houses. The seniors praised the city of Sonoma, where businesses and chefs turned out to “fix all those beautiful meals for all those people,” said Hendrickson. “I was like, wow.” The grace that Sonoma County residents overall illustrated during the tragedy inspired and left members of the group in awe. Janice Farrell, 73, smiled, saying, “The love that we’ve seen in the outpouring is always there, it’s there already, but we don’t express it or share it with each other very often. It’s only in the face of tragedy.”

Bob Stender/Tibidabo Photography

Fountaingrove Lodge residents Sharon Long, left, and Martin Devin celebrated returning to the lodge November 13 after being evacuated for more than a month.

Looking toward the future

Many claimed that the fire was unusual and that nothing like it happened before, but Cal Fire told ABC News earlier this month that the fire mimicked a blaze in 1964 that took a similar path under similar dry conditions, topography, and high winds, raising questions about rebuilding in the neighborhood. Yet, people are talking about rebuilding, including lodge residents who are grateful and want to extend their sense of community to the Fountaingrove neighborhood, which was severely damaged. “We are clearly very fortunate. We know that others were not so,” said Anderson. She, like others, expressed sadness for their neighbors, but hoped that residents of the lodge will contribute to help the Fountaingrove neighborhood rebuild. Members of the Sonoma LGBT Seniors Group have also already started helping their fellow LGBT seniors who lost everything by making donations. On the day the B.A.R. met with them, they gathered money to help a gay man who lost his home and business in the fire. t

Scattered community

Over the last month, lodge residents expressed their gratitude to Oakmont management and staff, the church, and their fellow community members. They praised couple William “Bill” Baird and John Kennedy, one of the original Fountaingrove residents. The men, both in their 70s, evacuated to their home in San Francisco and created an online

Courtesy Fountaingrove Lodge

The American and rainbow flags fly at half-mast at Fountaingrove Lodge after the October wildfires.

Sports >>

November 23-29, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 15

Giving thanks on the ice by Roger Brigham

s we collectively prepare to sit down to hearty Thanksgiving feasts of tofu turkey and gluten-free pumpkin pie topped with sugar-free marshmallows, let us all take a moment to give thanks to the Gay Games for supplying us with late-breaking good news in figure skating – that wonderfully graceful sport of athletic artistry that has had a sporadic reputation for homophobic nastiness. While the global and national scenes were suffering through a year of hurricanes, repugnant political divisiveness, floods, fires, earthquakes, sexual scandals, increasing foreign tensions, and even the prospect of a war with North Korea, the LGBT sports world that this column focuses on was suffering its own sucky 2017, from the last-minute collapse of the World Outgames in Miami and the interminably long ongoing investigation there to determine if the organizers will suffer any criminal charges, to the yet-to-be decided court battle over ownership rights to the Sin City Shootout, throwing that wonderful event in to a pit of uncertainty. Just as we were about to stop believing in unicorns and any hope of ever making it over that friggin’ rainbow, along comes word that athletes competing in same-sex pairs in

Dan Weber

Bradley Erickson held Jay Kobayashi in their “Brokeback Mountain” duet at Gay Games VII in 2006.

figure skating or ice dancing at the 2018 Paris Gay Games will not face the wrath of the mainstream international skating federation. If you know anything of the history of figure skating in the Gay Games, you will realize that this is a Very Big Deal. It signals the end to a heart-wrenching battle that has waged since the 1998 Gay Games in Amsterdam, the first time the Gay Games ever ventured into Europe.

Paris organizers announced on Facebook late last week that two years of talks between the Gay Games and the International Skating Union had ended with an agreement for the 2018 tournament to be “a joint competition utilizing both ISU and the Ice Skating Institute.” “Our previous experience at former games were such that we really wanted all skaters to be united and to really start to change minds about the Gay Games,” Manuel Picaud, copresident of Paris 2018, told the Bay Area Reporter. “This is a first step.” In a separate email, Paris 2018 said that among the events the competition will offer are mixed pairs free skating and ice dance under ISU rules; and mixed pairs and dance under ISI rules. It said it plans to announce competition specifics on its website, http://www.paris2018.com, November 27, when registration for the event opens. Longtime local skater Alan Lessik said, “The International Gay Figure Skating Union is very excited about this change. Ever since the Gay Games in Amsterdam, local Gay Games organizers have tried to work with the ISU and have been rebuffed. This is great news as it allows skaters to compete under the International Judging System rules. We will continue to have the traditional Gay Games

pairs and groups competitions under ISI rules, which we have used before.” Lessik explained that ISU had agreed not to “sanction skaters, coaches, and judges who participate in the ISI portion of the competition. In Amsterdam, the threat of sanctions made the games an exhibition and not a competition. In Sydney, it caused the local judges to pull out. Other judges and coaches from the ranks of the Gay Games skaters had to fill in at the last minute. Chicago, Cologne, and Cleveland just worked with ISI and did not try to engage the ISU federations. This sanction issue has not be a big issue in the U.S., but in Europe and Australia, it has been.” Lessik was also involved in a successful effort earlier this year by members of IGFSU to get U.S. Figure Skating to add gender identity to its non-discrimination policy, starting a change. org petition and serving as group spokesman. “It was only about four years ago that USFS added sexual orientation to their non-discrimination policies, so this was a very quick response from them for this request,” Lessik said. There are cynics in this world (I know – hard to believe) who assume that the Gay Games are restricted to

gays and lesbians (they’re not; they’re open to all adults regardless of orientation, identity, race, gender, religion, or health status) and opine that they are not needed. And yet the Gay Games are necessary, they are the “vehicle of change” their founder envisioned, and they operate not just by changing the lives of participants and spectators, but by working to get mainstream institutions to become more inclusive. Think figure skating is an isolated example? It is not. The Gay Games pioneered dropping invasive genetic testing and have discarded the onerous drug-testing requirements of elite mainstream sports to be more inclusive of every-day recreational athletes with various medical issues and limited personal resources. They offered women’s wrestling a decade before the Olympics did. And now this. To the French Federation of Ice Sports, members of Paris 2018, the Federation of Gay Games, and every member of IGFSU who brought same-sex figure skating to the Gay Games in 1994 – and who have fought every toe loop and camel spin since to reach this milestone – I say, merci. Now, pass me a drumstick. t

More than 20 million now on HIV treatment by Liz Highleyman

ccess to antiretroviral therapy for HIV has risen dramatically worldwide over the past two decades, and nearly 21 million people are now receiving lifesaving treatment, according to a new UNAIDS report released in advance of World AIDS Day on December 1. UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé released the “Right to Health” report Monday, November 20 in the Khayelitsha Township near Cape Town in South Africa, a country with one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world. “Many people do not remember

Jan Brittenson

UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé, left, and South African Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi at the 2016 International AIDS Conference in Durban.

that in 2000 there were only 90 people in South Africa on treatment,” Sidibé said. “Today, South Africa has the biggest life-saving treatment program in the world, with more than 4 million people on treatment. This is the kind of acceleration we need to encourage, sustain and replicate.” According to the report, an estimated 36.7 million people were living with HIV worldwide in 2016. Of these, 20.9 million were on antiretroviral treatment through June 2017, up from 685,000 in the year 2000. South Africa has been one of the global leaders in scaling up treatment. “In 2001, the first person in Khayelitsha started HIV treatment,” said South African Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi. “Today there are almost 42,000 people on treatment here. The success of Khayelitsha’s treatment program is a microcosm of the massive success of South Africa’s HIV program.” Despite this progress, an estimated 1 million people worldwide died of HIV-related illnesses in 2016, which can happen when people do not take antiretroviral medications or start treatment too late. The report also says that 1.8 million people were newly infected with HIV in 2016. This represents a 39 percent decrease from the 3 million people who were infected each year at the height of the epidemic in

Obituaries >> Juan Perez IV September 3, 1971 – October 23, 2017 Juan Perez IV, 46, was the oldest of three boys and two sisters. He was from Corpus Christi, Texas. He left home when he was young, shortly after high school, and spent several years in a relationship in Texas. He lost a partner to a disease when he was in his early 20s. Then he moved to San Francisco. He was an awesome friend. He was truly an awesome friend. A good friend. A very loving gay man.

the late 1990s, according to the report. New infections among infants and children fell by about 50 percent between 2010 and 2016. But countries vary widely in their success at stemming the epidemic. The reports says that while new infections have fallen by 48 percent since 2000 in sub-Saharan Africa, they have risen by 60 percent since 2010 in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where the epidemic is largely driven by sharing needles for injection drug use. Effective treatment that suppresses viral load to an undetectable level prevents HIV transmission, as does PrEP using the Truvada (tenofovir/ emtricitabine) pill taken daily or

before and after sex. The World Health Organization now recommends that all people diagnosed with HIV should be treated as soon as possible, and that all people at substantial risk should be offered PrEP. San Francisco was the first jurisdiction to push for universal early treatment in 2010, and the city has also been a pioneer in PrEP implementation. UNAIDS has set a goal that by 2020, 90 percent of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status, 90 percent of those diagnosed with HIV will be on antiretroviral therapy, and 90 percent of those on treatment will have achieved viral suppression.

Some countries are on track to reach these targets, but others are falling behind. The report emphasizes that more funding is needed to close the gaps. Funding for the global AIDS response has reached nearly $20 billion annually, but experts predict a $6 billion shortfall for HIV programs in 2020, according to the report. The report emphasizes that health care, including HIV care, is a human right, and one that cannot be denied to marginalized groups who bear the brunt of the epidemic, including transgender people, gay and bisexual men, sex workers, and See page 17 >>

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Honestly, I can’t tell you how he got here, and/or how he first found the party scene in San Francisco. However, it took a toll on his body. About 2013, he was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension. He was so much more than what took his life. A special man who loved to cook and loved the simple things in life. He would hardly ever turn a friend away. He is survived by his family in Texas and his even larger family here in San Francisco (you know who you are). I will miss you the most of all. We love you and miss you, Juan. You left much too early. But you changed our hearts. A memorial service for Juan is scheduled for December 2 at 5 p.m. at the Old Mission Church, at Dolores and 16th streets, next to Mission Dolores Basilica. Call Brian at (415) 685-1232 for details. We will go to dinner afterward.

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<< Community News

16 • BAY AREA REPORTER • November 23-29, 2017

World AIDS Day

From page 1

Next Friday, former President Bill Clinton will deliver the keynote address at the grove. In 1996, Clinton signed the legislation spearheaded by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) that designated the grove as the country’s sole federally designated national AIDS memorial. As previously reported, Clinton has never visited the grove, though he did send a video message when he was honored by the organization five years ago. The Clinton Foundation has funded programs in developing countries to combat HIV/ AIDS, including lowering the costs of medications for people. “We are so proud to have President Clinton be such an important part of our World AIDS Day commemoration and honor his global commitment to provide care and help find a cure for this devastating disease,” said grove Executive

Farley

From page 1

“I’ve been doing this for 20 years,” she said. “I think it’s time to get younger leadership.” Sparks added that the things she has set in place as the mayor’s senior adviser on trans issues “are really forward-looking.” As for her biggest accomplishments while serving the city, Sparks said getting trans health care – first for city employees and then through Healthy San Francisco – and police reform were at the top of her list.

LGBT textbooks

From page 10

district would be purchasing the new textbooks next year. Gay school board member Mark Sanchez could not be reached for comment.

EQCA sends out school surveys

A week prior to the state education board’s approval of the new textbooks, the statewide LGBT advocacy organization Equality California sent surveys to 330 unified school districts in the state as part of the process to grade each of them on how well they are educating and protecting the rights of LGBTQ students. As the B.A.R. noted in April,

Political Notebook

From page 7

appointee Roberta Achtenberg; lesbian former National LGBTQ Task Force board member Pam David, executive director of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund; and Bob Hartnagel, a gay dad who works in the office of the president of the University of California. The event will take place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. next Wednesday. To RSVP and be sent the address for the fundraiser, email Dufty at Bevan.dufty@gmail.com.

Milk march set for Monday night

The 39th vigil for Harvey Milk, hosted by the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, will take place Monday, November 27, after the annual Castro Christmas tree lighting ceremony that evening. The event comes nearly three weeks after the city’s LGBT district came together to mark the 40th anniversary of Milk’s historic election November 8, 1977 to the District 5 seat on the Board of Supervisors representing the

Director John Cunningham. In addition to Clinton’s address, the grove will honor David McMurry, retired global public health manager at Chevron, with its Humanitarian Leadership Award. Ruth Corker Burks, also known as the “Cemetery Angel,” will receive the Thom Weyand Unsung Hero Award for her work in the darkest days of the epidemic in Arkansas, where she cared for hundreds of young gay men abandoned by their families. The event featuring Clinton will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and is free, like previous World AIDS Day commemorations. Due to security, it will be ticketed this year, Cunningham said. Tickets for the public became available Monday at http://bit.ly/2ho7NGX. Additionally, visitors will have to go through security. Backpacks and other bags are discouraged, since there will be bag checks, he said.

Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy in the Castro district will lead the third annual “Inscribe” event, where local residents, business people, and visitors will use colorful sidewalk chalk (provided) to write messages and draw pictures on the sidewalks in the 400 and 500 blocks of Castro Street (between Market and 19th streets). Inscribe is the brainchild of community activist George Kelly. The effort has seen the names of more than 1,000 people written out along the sidewalks.

The Evolution of AIDS Activism, 1981-1990

nonviolent direct action in response to the AIDS crisis in San Francisco – one of the first places in the world where militant activism AIDS emerged,” an email from the GLBT Historical Society said. From the beginnings of the movement in 1981 to the ACT UP protests at the VI International Conference on AIDS in 1990, the exhibit draws on historic photographs, stickers, T-shirts, and other ephemera from the historical society’s archives. Shriver and several AIDS activism veterans will be at the opening, which will also include light refreshments. The display is sponsored by the design company IDEO. Admission is free for historical society members, and $5 for others.

with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Women Organized to Respond to Life-threatening Diseases, Bay Area State of Emergency, and the drug company Gilead. The “Mocktino party” will include a drag show, spoken word, a panel discussion, and a transgender day of the dead altar exhibit. Food and refreshments will be served. The center is located at 3207 Lakeshore Avenue (entrance on Rand Avenue).

Health Trust benefit

On Thursday, November 30, a benefit for Health Trust AIDS Services will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Silicon Valley Capital Club, 50 W. San Fernando Street in San Jose. For more than 20 years, the Health Trust has worked to serve people who are living with HIV/AIDS in Santa Clara County. Tickets are $150. Visit http:// healthtrust.org for more information. t

Also December 1, students from

From 7 to 9 p.m. December 1, the GLBT History Museum, at 4127 18th Street, will unveil “Finding Our Voice, Claiming Our Place: The Evolution of AIDS Activism, 1981-1990,” a new section in the permanent exhibition, “Queer Past Becomes Present.” “Curated by longtime AIDS activist Mike Shriver, the display traces the creation of brash, unapologetic,

“Look what’s happening with police reform,” she said. As for her future plans, Sparks said that she plans to do some writing and has been asked to consult for different groups. In its news release on Farley’s appointment, the city said that San Francisco is the first city in the nation to have a position dedicated to advancing the rights, leadership, and policies of the transgender and gender nonconforming communities. According to the city, Farley will advise the mayor on LGBTQ issues and will lead the city in its work

on transgender policy, community engagement, and program management. She will oversee city-funded projects for the transgender and broader LGBQ community, assist other city departments in implementing strong and inclusive community initiatives, and create a gap analysis of transgender resources across housing, violence prevention, youth services, health care, employment services, the criminal justice system, and community empowerment. The city also said that Farley will be convening a transgender advisory committee.

In addition to her position at the LGBT center, Farley has worked nationally to advocate for increased visibility of LGBTQ communities and has co-chaired several local committees, including the annual Trans Day of Visibility and Transgender Day of Remembrance, which was Monday. During the Obama administration, Farley was invited to the White House to participate in the inaugural LGBT Innovation Summit, was recognized as a “Soldier of Social Change” in San Francisco magazine’s annual Women in Power issue, and received the 2017 Outstanding Voices Award from the

San Francisco Business Times. “In light of the current administration, we must stay vigilant and keep investing in building our resilient and diverse communities,” Farley wrote in her email. “I am so grateful to be working for the city that I love and will make sure that no one gets left behind on our path to full equality.” Farley’s salary in her new job will be $132,000. The LGBT center will be conducting a search for Farley’s replacement. t

EQCA’s statewide schools scorecard is the first of its kind in the country. It will examine everything from if the districts are teaching the LGBT curriculum and have LGBT supportive student groups to if they have gender-neutral bathrooms for transgender students and allow same-sex couples to attend proms and other school functions. Officially known as the Safe and Supportive Schools Index, it is a program of the Equality California Institute. Law firm Latham & Watkins LLP provided pro bono assistance with the project, while the California State Superintendent of Public Instruction and an advisory committee comprised of teachers’ organizations, school districts, school board members, and LGBTQ

and allied organizations consulted on the survey’s development. “This survey will provide the information we need to evaluate the progress that school districts have made in California,” stated EQCA Executive Director Rick Zbur. “The index and report will convey best practices to teachers and administrators on how to increase acceptance, prevent bullying and suicide, and give LGBTQ students the tools to succeed.” School districts have until January 15 to turn in the completed survey. The results of the scorecards will be released in a public index and report in mid-2018. Modeled after the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Municipal Equality Index, which surveys major cities on their LGBT laws and protections, EQCA’s

schools scorecard is meant to be used by parents, students, and community members to push their local school districts to adopt policies and programs that support LGBTQ students. The local school officials the B.A.R. contacted all said their districts would be filling out EQCA’s survey. “I think Berkeley does a good job but those surveys are helpful for self-assessment as well,” said Appel. EQCA decided to start with just scoring public schools and only those districts that are unified, meaning they teach kindergarten through high school. It could add private schools in the future as well as smaller public school districts that only have elementary or high schools. Both the textbooks and EQCA’s schools survey are expected to be a

focus of discussion when nearly two dozen LGBTQ school board members from around the state meet during the annual conference of the California School Board Association next Thursday, November 30, in San Diego. This year, for the first time, EQCA is sponsoring a reception for the education leaders. “It is pretty amazing how far we have come from the Briggs initiative, where we weren’t going to let LGBTQ people teach our kids, to having LGBTQ leaders on school boards around the state,” said Appel, referring to a homophobic ballot measure numbered Proposition 6 that California voters overwhelmingly defeated in November of 1978.t

Castro, Noe Valley, and the Haight at City Hall. His victory marked the first time an out LGBT person was elected to public office in both San Francisco and California. Tragically, Milk and then-mayor George Moscone died the following year on the morning of November 27 inside City Hall after being shot by disgruntled former supervisor Dan White. That evening thousands of mourners marched down Market Street from the Castro to City Hall holding candles to honor and remember the fallen progressive politicians. Each year since the political club has honored its namesake on the anniversary of his assassination by holding a candlelight vigil to commemorate Milk’s memory and legacy, as well as that of Moscone’s. This year’s gathering will begin at 7 p.m. at Harvey Milk Plaza above the Castro Muni station at the intersection of Castro and Market streets. “I think it is such an important time to honor the legacy of Harvey,” said Kimberly Alvarenga, one of the Milk club’s two lesbian copresidents this year. “It feels like we are coming full circle. The issues so

relevant for our community many years ago continue to be important.” After a short program of speakers, including an open mic for attendees to share their thoughts, a candlelight processional will head to 575 Castro Street, the site of Milk’s camera shop and now a store for national LGBT organization the Human Rights Campaign. According to Milk’s friends, his former lover Scott Smith spread some of Milk’s ashes under a plaque honoring the late supervisor when it was first dedicated. “He never left Castro Street; he is always here,” Allan Baird, a union organizer who worked with Milk on the boycott of Coors beer, said at the ceremony marking Milk’s election four decades ago. “Go by the old camera shop and say hello to Harvey; he is looking over everybody.”

The decision came as a surprise to Mandelman, who told the B.A.R. following the PAC vote that he didn’t request an early endorsement from the Milk club. Mandelman, an attorney who serves on the board overseeing City College of San Francisco, is running on the June primary ballot against appointed Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, a gay married father who is the first openly HIV-positive person to serve on the board. It is the second time Mandelman has sought the District 8 seat, having lost to former Supervisor Scott Wiener in 2010. The two gay leaders are seeking to serve out the remainder of Wiener’s term through the end of 2018, as he resigned two years into his second term as supervisor after being elected to the state Senate last November. Mayor Ed Lee tapped Sheehy earlier this year to fill the board vacancy. No matter the outcome of the June race, Sheehy and Mandelman have both filed to run for a full fouryear term on the November ballot next year. They engaged in their first debate, co-hosted by the Milk club and the more moderate Alice B.

Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, last Monday, November 13. It was the first of a series of debates the two clubs plan to hold with the candidates, with the second one to be primarily organized by the Milk club and likely to take place in January. For that reason, Alvarenga told the B.A.R. this week that the club would hold off on early endorsing Mandelman in the race until next year. “I don’t think we are going to endorse until after the next debate,” she said. As for the Alice club, it too is planning to endorse in the race sometime in early 2018. t

Inscribe in the Castro

Milk club postpones early D8 race endorsement

Last month the Milk club’s political action committee had recommended that the club early endorse its former president, Rafael Mandelman, for District 8 supervisor at its monthly meeting November 21.

Oakland LGBTQ Community Center

The new Oakland LGBTQ Community Center will hold its first World AIDS Day event from 5 to 10 p.m. December 1 in partnership

Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion, will return Monday, December 4. Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ twitter.com/politicalnotes. Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 8298836 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.

Community News>>

November 23-29, 2017 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 17

Legal Notices>>

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-553388

In the matter of the application of: OTHEL LAMONT WEIR II, 1462 43RD AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner OTHEL LAMONT WEIR II, is requesting that the name OTHEL LAMONT WEIR II, be changed to MONTY GARCIA CANTERO. 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 5th of December 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted. NOV 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037820900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MARTITAS KITCHEN, 2560 MARIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARIA GUZMAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/27/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/27/17.

Rick Gerharter

San Francisco Board of Supervisors President London Breed, Mayor Ed Lee, Peter V. Lee, Executive Director of Covered California, Dr. Vitka Eisen, CEO of HeathRight 360, the muralist APEXER and others celebrate the installation of a mural, background, that serves as a reminder that the enrollment period for Covered California ends December 15.

Covered CA

From page 1

agency, the signups marked a 23 percent increase from those who enrolled during the same time frame last year. The agency estimates that individuals who qualify for financial help to purchase insurance can find a plan with a monthly premium under $100. The more people who do sign up with Covered California helps to reduce the cost of insurance plans offered through the exchange. The agency believes its efforts to get both healthy and sick people to enroll, thus creating a more balanced risk pool, helped to lower premiums 6 to 8 percent in 2015 and 2016. Gay Congressman Mark Takano (D-Riverside), the state’s lone LGBT representative in Congress, issued a statement at the start of the month to “strongly urge” Californians to purchase insurance plans during the enrollment period. He noted that due to the strength of California’s insurance market, consumers in the individual market who did not receive subsidies will pay an average of $115 per month less than in 2017. “Despite the Trump administration’s attempts to undermine the law, the Affordable Care Act continues to expand the number of people who have access to the care they need,” stated Takano. “There is far too much misleading information being shared by the White House and those who have vested interest in breaking our health care system.” Covered California has about 1.4 million people currently enrolled. In San Francisco more than 37,000 people either signed up for or renewed qualified health insurance plans

HIV treatment

From page 15

people who use drugs. The report also highlights the importance of reaching adolescents and young adults, who have among the highest rates of new HIV infection in many countries. “Transgender people have been shut out many times before,” Phylesha Brown-Acton of the AsiaPacific Transgender Network says in

TDOR

From page 2

People speculated on how they made their money or what they had between their legs, and this made me angry. But they didn’t need me to fight their battles for them.” Roma noted the continuing trend of killing transgender people. “Tonight is our night to come together and to call upon our allies to save trans lives,” she said. “It’s the deadliest year on record,” said keynote speaker Raquel Willis, who is a national organizer for the Oaklandbased Transgender Law Center. “I’m

through the state exchange last year. An estimated 3.3 percent of city residents are still uninsured. Local health officials believe most of the people who are uninsured are unaware they qualify for low or no-cost health coverage and are encouraging them to enroll with Covered California this year. “Now is the time for San Franciscans to take action and get covered,” stated Barbara Garcia, a lesbian who is the director of the city’s Department of Public Health. “Having access to health care does not have to be expensive or confusing, so sign up right now.” Covered California insurers available to San Francisco residents in 2018 include Kaiser, Blue Shield, Chinese Community Health Plan, Health Net Life, and Oscar. Many residents are eligible for significant tax credits through Covered California to help pay the cost of their insurance, noted the health department. Due to larger tax credits, nearly four out of five people will see their monthly premiums stay the same or decrease, according to the agency. People can visit Covered California’s “Shop and Compare” tool to review options for affordable health coverage on its website at www.CoveredCA.com. Because no data is collected on the sexual orientation or gender identity of the people signing up for health insurance through the ACA exchanges, it is unknown how many LGBT people have done so. Anecdotal evidence, however, indicates the LGBT community has greatly benefited from it. As the Bay Area Reporter noted earlier this year, the LGBT advocacy organization Equality California

estimated that of the 22 million people who gained insurance through the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal in California, 2.2 million are likely LGBT people. Due to the ACA, commonly referred to as Obamacare, transgender individuals have particularly benefited, as federal regulators adopted a rule prohibiting health insurers from denying transgender individuals preventative services that didn’t correlate with their new gender, such as transmen who still need Pap smears or mammograms. Nor could they deny insurance to people with pre-existing conditions, a barrier that had prevented many transgender people from being able to access health care. People living with HIV or AIDS have also been able to lower their medical costs due to Obamacare. The San Francisco AIDS Foundation, in partnership with LYRIC, the Lavender Youth Recreation Information Center, is holding a Covered California Info Session next month to answer questions about the health insurance exchange and the various plans it offers. The session will take place from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, December 2, at Strut, SFAF’s health center for men in the Castro, located at 470 Castro Street. The city is also providing assistance to people interested in signing up with Covered California or Medi-Cal, or if they do not qualify for those programs with Healthy San Francisco, the city’s universal health access program. For in-person enrollment assistance, call (415) 558-4700 or visit the San Francisco Human Services Agency’s service center at 1400 Harrison Street. t

the report, “We have been strategic about getting into the meeting rooms, but there is still a lot of work to be done. We must be heard in those meeting rooms, not silenced or ignored.” For gay men, discrimination and criminalization are often barriers to HIV prevention and treatment. “The main reason standing in the way of gay men and other men who have sex with men and their right to health is the

criminalization of individuals and their behaviors and wide discrimination against vulnerable populations,” according to Elie Ballan, executive director of the M-Coalition, an organization focused on health care for gay men in the Arab world. “The right to health is not a plan to be completed within certain dates – it is a mission, a vision and a way of life to ensure the health of current and future generations.” t

tired, and I know many of you are.” Willis pointed out that many of the dead were black trans women or trans Latinas. “The killings do cross racial lines and include trans men,” she said. “They are more than just numbers, they lived full lives. We owe it to those we lost and to the next generation to make it better. We’ve got to believe in trans power – trans power started the larger LGBTQ movement.” Jim Howley, a trans man who transitioned in 1999, called for the infighting in the community to stop. “All this does is weaken us before the federal government,” he said,

as he recalled a recent incident in which he was attacked by the police on a beach in Alameda. “Police violence is real.” Mikaela Kendrick, a well-known cabaret performer, followed Howley with her moving rendition of the hymn “Amazing Grace.” Kendrick’s performance was followed by a moment of silence. Speakers Lisa Altman and Rexy Amaral also called for the dead to be remembered, for the violence to end, for transgender people to be treated with respect, and for cisgender allies to support the transgender community. t

NOV 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037815000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PIKITOS, 2336 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BRINDISSY GARCIA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 10/23/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/23/17.

NOV 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037793900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MOMUMENTAL, 30 STEINER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SERENA SAEED-WINN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 09/30/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/06/17.

NOV 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037807200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LUMINOUS DARLINGS, 1521 GOLDEN GATE AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA. 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CHRISTOPHER G. DEWINTER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/16/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/19/17.

NOV 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037794400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PENPOINT MEDIA, 39 HARTFORD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SARAH E. ENOCHS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/01/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/06/17.

NOV 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037809300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: O’CONNOR CONSTRUCTION, 719 38TH AVE #1, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JASON O’CONNOR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/10/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/20/17.

NOV 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037814800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: OFF THE CHAIN, 1140 INGERSON AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CHARITIE BOLLING. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 10/23/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/23/17.

NOV 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037815100 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: STUDIO NELUMBO DESIGN; STUDIO NELUMBO YOGA; YOGA NELUMBO, 1817 24TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed STEFANIE SCHUR. 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 10/23/17.

NOV 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037819400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DATADRIVEN SCIENCE, 4221 20TH ST #4, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JAN BELKE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 10/25/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/26/17.

NOV 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037791600 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NATIVE BURGER, 3420 GEARY BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed KOBUKSON INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/05/17.

NOV 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037800700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: 5537 MISSION STREET HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, 5537 MISSION ST # 201, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an unincorporated association other than a partnership, and is signed 5537 MISSION STREET HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/16/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/16/17.

NOV 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-035682500

NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF ESTATE OF MICHAEL JONES AKA MICHAEL C. JONES IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-17-301309

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of ESTATE OF MICHAEL JONES AKA MICHAEL C. JONES. A Petition for Probate has been filed by MARION ELLIOTT in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that MARION ELLIOTT 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: Dec 06, 2017, 9:00am, 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: LYNN A. DEAN, SBN 107729, SEASONS LAW, P.C., 3500 DOUGLAS BLVD., SUITE 250, ROSEVILLE, CA 95661; Ph. (916) 786-7515.

NOV 09, 16, 23, 2017 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-17-553442

In the matter of the application of: ANXO MAXXUM FLYNN, 451 KANSAS ST #505, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107, for change of name having been ﬁled in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner ANXO MAXXUM FLYNN, is requesting that the name ANXO MAXXUM FLYNN, be changed to JEFFREY STEPHEN MARCUSJOHN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, ROOM 514 on the 28th of December 2017 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

NOV 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037826800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SHELLEY SKIN CARE, 81 LANSING ST #202, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SHELLEY CONSTANTINI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/02/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/02/17.

NOV 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037817300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SHOPPER LOYALTY REWARDS, 1863 19TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RAFAEL ROMERO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 10/01/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/25/17.

NOV 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037804000 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PASTRY ROOM, 2778 24TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ADRIANA BEATRIZ PONCE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 10/17/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/17/17.

NOV 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A037827300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HANDY HANDS, 529 NATOMA ST., SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CASEY LOGAN JINKS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/02/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/02/17.

NOV 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037823900 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BREWSTER HISTORIC PRESERVATION, 141 PIERCE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed WILLIAM B. BREWSTER, JR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 01/31/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/31/17.

NOV 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037820700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CYBER MAX WAREHOUSE, 420 BERRY ST #439, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94158. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ZHAO WEI HUANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 10/18/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/27/17.

NOV 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037824200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: 9 VESSELS, 1063 MARKET ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ALFRED WU. 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 10/31/17.

NOV 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037800000

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: MARTITA’S KITCHEN, 2560 MARIN ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by YAZMIN GUZMAN. The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/26/14.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GVBRIEL HANDPOKES, 530 STOCKTON ST #208, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GABRIEL MAY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 10/13/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/13/17.

NOV 02, 09, 16, 23, 2017

NOV 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017

<< Classifieds

18 • BAY AREA REPORTER • November 23-29, 2017

Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037827100

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037841800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CIW AND SONS PLUMBING CO, INC., 1501 PALOU AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CIW AND SONS PLUMBING CO., INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 10/21/16. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/02/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WINNIESBABYHOUSE, 1901 44TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed WEN JIAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/13/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/13/17.

NOV 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037827900

NOV 16, 23, 30, DEC 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037828600

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: EMPIRE REALTY ASSOCIATES; EMPIRE EMERITUS, 1699 VAN NESS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation and is signed PACIFIC UNION INTERNATIONAL, 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 11/03/17.

NOV 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037828400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WORKFORCE HEALTH SOLUTIONS, 7434 GEARY BLVD. SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed OHANESSIAN PHYSICAL THERAPY, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/01/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/03/17.

NOV 09, 16, 23, 30, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037831400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ARCH HOUSE MUSIC, 1232 B WILLARD ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MICHAEL ANGEL PARTIDA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/15/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/03/17.

NOV 16, 23, 30, DEC 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037825400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: LA FARGA MUSIC, 2530 36TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed WILLIAM W. KWOK. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 10/20/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/01/17.

NOV 16, 23, 30, DEC 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037833300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PAGE & PIERCE LAUNDRY, 800 PAGE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed HUANHUA CHEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 10/08/12. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/07/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: FIRST EAGLE DELIVERY, 87 STONEYFORD AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed ADELCIO PONTES & LEONARDO TORRES. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/08/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/08/17.

NOV 16, 23, 30, DEC 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037837100

NOV 16, 23, 30, DEC 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037833500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NIMBLEWITS DOLL COMPANY, 179 TEDDY AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed PATRICIA HEWETT. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/24/07. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/09/17.

NOV 16, 23, 30, DEC 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037841000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BRILLIANT KIDS + CHILDCARE & PRESCHOOL, 445 AMAZON AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SHIU KUEN NG TSANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/13/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/13/17.

NOV 16, 23, 30, DEC 07, 2017

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DALY CITY FALCONS BASKETBALL CLUB, 207 SKYLINE BLVD, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94132. This business is conducted by a general partnership, and is signed HIEN TRAN & JUNES AUBE VALDEMORO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 10/25/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/08/17.

NOV 16, 23, 30, DEC 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037824400 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RAVOT, 115 CLEMENT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed SPARKYS GLOBAL LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/31/17.

NOV 16, 23, 30, DEC 07, 2017

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037841300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: 18/8 FINE MEN’S SALON SAN FRANCISCO EMBARCADERO, ONE EMBARCADERO CENTER LL, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed JB DESTINY PARTNERS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on NA. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/13/17.

NOV 16, 23, 30, DEC 07, 2017 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-035986600

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: SUBWAY SANDWICHES #61240, 425-D BATTERY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business was conducted by a limited liability company and signed by LETAP SUBS LLC (CA). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/08/14.

NOV 16, 23, 30, DEC 07, 2017 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-034168600

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: SUBWAY SANDWICH #53761, 160 BROADWAY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business was conducted by a corporation and signed by LETAP ENTERPRISES, INC. (CA). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 02/29/12.

NOV 16, 23, 30, DEC 07, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037830300 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WOLFRAM LOGISTICS, 5657 CALIFORNIA ST #3, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed AI LI LIANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/01/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/06/17.

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037851000

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037839600

NOV 23, 30, DEC 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037849900

NOV 23, 30, DEC 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037848800

NOV 23, 30, DEC 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037851100

NOV 23, 30, DEC 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037840000

NOV 23, 30, DEC 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037850500

NOV 23, 30, DEC 07, 14, 2017

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PROSPECT STUDIO, 41 PUTNAM ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed FIONA HOVENDEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/16/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/16/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SF GATHERING PLACE, 1300 KEARNY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YULIA ISKANDAR. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/14/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/16/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: COPPER & MARUKO, 1058 PLYMOUTH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed GRACE IEONG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/15/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/16/17.

NOV 23, 30, DEC 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037835700

NOV 23, 30, DEC 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037845400

NOV 23, 30, DEC 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037847800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HASETPHARMA, 3428 FULTON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DANIEL WONDWASSEN WOLDEMICHEAL. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/14/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/14/17.

NOV 23, 30, DEC 07, 14, 2017

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SIAM ORCHID THAI MASSAGE, 39 POLK ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed PRASOMSUK LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/10/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/10/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: HOUSE OF SUSHI, 2157 POLK ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed MSAB GROUP INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/01/12. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/15/17.

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BRIGADEIROSPRINKLES, 1999 BROADWAY #22, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed BREDE WEG PARTNERS LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 11/15/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/15/17.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: JENNIFER NORMOYLE THERAPY, 1939 DIVISADERO ST #2E, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JENNIFER NORMOYLE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/07/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, C.A on 11/09/17.

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GRANDE ELECTRIC, 1800 GOUGH ST #1, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed FRANCISCO ANTONIO SIGUENZA GRANDE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/16/17. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 11/16/17.

NOV 23, 30, DEC 07, 14, 2017 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-037852700 The following person(s) is/are doing business as: WAGO SUSHI, 2365 CHESTNUT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed WAN HWA CHOI. 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 11/17/17.

Broadway baby

Hey, Jesus

Xmas cheer

Swiss Miss

Vol. 47 • No. 47 • November 23-29, 2017

Rick Gerharter

www.ebar.com/arts

Rauschenberg rewrites the playbook “Monogram,” a celebrated “Combine” by Robert Rauschenberg, shares a gallery with paintings in SFMOMA’s exhibit “Robert Rauschenberg: Erasing the Rules,” seen here at the press preview.

by Sura Wood

FMOMA closes out 2017 with a bang in one of its best shows of the year. “Robert Rauschenberg: Erasing the Rules,” a retrospective enthralling not least for its astonishing variety, covers six decades of the prodigious, free-ranging career of the iconoclastic gay artist whose body of work has been called “the visual equivalent of the great American novel.” An experimental, out-of-the-box painter, sculptor, printmaker, photographer and graphic artist, he had a fondness for reconfigured contraptions and a zeal for collaboration. Dancers and choreographers like Merce Cunningham, composer/chance master John Cage, visual artist Jasper Johns, who was also one of his lovers, and assorted musicians, scientists and engineers were among those who fueled the creative energy of this sociable man who had a finetuned sensitivity to his environment in every sense of that word. See page 24 >>

Renowned violinist Pinchas Zukerman played with the SF Symphony.

Paul Labelle

Craig Schwartz

Carmen Cusack stars as a Southern woman sorting out a complicated past in “Bright Star,” recreating her Broadway role in the tour coming to the Curran Theatre.

Visionary vibes

Back to her roots

by Philip Campbell

by Richard Dodds

ust in time for Thanksgiving, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony stuffed Davies Symphony Hall with the big and bountiful Symphony No. 4 (1916/24) of Charles Ives last week. Following recent performances of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Symphony No. 3, “The Camp Meeting,” the massive event was also recorded for future release on the Orchestra’s SFS Media label. Iconic is the catchphrase for everything these days, but it aptly describes the visionary genius of Ives’ writing. As a great American voice and groundbreaking thinker, he broke free of establishment restraints early in the 20th century to compose music years ahead of its time. Sounding every bit as startling and bold today as the first complete performance in 1965 must have over a decade after the composer’s death, the giant parade and exciting “ride” that is the Fourth rocked DSH from the basement to the rafters with a joyful noise. Thanks, MTT! See page 24 >>

brick thrown from a window nearly ended Carmen Cusack’s previous San Francisco appearance as she made her way to the theater for a rehearsal of “South Pacific.” But she’s happily returning to the city with the chance to bring the underappreciated Broadway musical “Bright Star” to the Curran Theatre beginning Nov. 28, and she is also glad that it’s in a different neighborhood. “Bright Star” was Cusack’s first musical on Broadway, and it got her noticed in all the best ways. An unknown to New York audiences when “Bright Star” opened, it was hardly her first starring turn in a major musical production. She had toured the UK as Christine in “Phantom of the Opera,” played Fantine in “Les Miserables” in London’s West End, traveled the United States as Nellie Forbush in “South Pacific,” and starred as Elphaba in “Wicked” in Australia and across America. See page 22 >>

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS }

<< Out There

20 • Bay Area Reporter • November 23-29, 2017

Best Wedding Photographer as voted by BAR readers

Meeting the Marchesa by Roberto Friedman

WINNER Best Wedding Photographer

Steven Underhill BBB_BAR_112317.pdf

PHOTOGRAPHY

415 370 7152

WEDDINGS, PORTRAITS 1 10/23/17HEADSHOTS, 4:25 PM

stevenunderhill.com · stevenunderhillphotos@gmail.com

ooks are the most extraordinary things. They let you into other people’s lives, in a way that can be intriguing, intimate or absolutely revealing. This is true of fiction as well as of nonfiction, of course, but perhaps nowhere as much as in memoirs. How else would Out There get to know the slightest thing about the life of the Marchesa Luisa Casati, for one example, and a good one at that? The book that brought us the Marchesa’s acquaintance is “Infinite Variety: The Life and Legend of the Marchesa Casati, The Ultimate Edition” by Scot R. Ryersson and Michael Orlando Yaccarino (University of Minnesota Press), and the lady in question was famous for strolling the streets of Europe in the early 20th century “naked beneath her furs, parading cheetahs on diamond-studded leashes.” Fun fact! The Marchesa Casati was the model for paintings, sculptures and photographs by artists of the caliber of Man Ray, and found posterity in print by such authors as Jean Cocteau, Ezra Pound and Jack Kerouac. After a lavish life in Italy and France – Rome! Paris! Capri! – she crashed to earth, more than $25 million in debt, in 1930, when she decamped to

London, where she lived in somewhat more moderate fashion until her death in 1957. But her extravagant style influenced 20th-century fashion in the designs of Alexander McQueen, Karl Lagerfield, and others. The book includes an afterword by Francesca Granata, and a foreword by eternal queen Quentin Crisp, no shrinking violet himself, who writes of his one and only meeting with the Marchesa, “She arrived wearing black velvet from head to foot, her mouth painted blood red, and carrying a very tall umbrella with a decorated handle. And, you must understand, this ensemble was being worn in the middle of the day.” Crisp describes her intentions: “She wanted to fulfill an ideal, a vision of how she should look and exist – to become a being of her own invention, not only of any particular sex, or time, or size, or shape.” Such a volume lives or dies depending on the quality of its illustrating photographs, of course, and this one has 32 full pages of them,

including portraits of the MC complete with cheetahs, in 18th-century fancy dress, in the gardens of her palazzo in Venice, and as portrayed in drawings by Leon Bakst and others, in sculptures by Jacob Epstein and others, and in paintings by Romaine Brooks and others. We see her in photos posing with her pet snakes, in surrealist portraiture by Man Ray, and in extravagant costumes such as the one Bakst created for her as the Queen of the Night. A true party girl, the Marchesa stood for a certain ideal of feminine presentation. Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli is quoted as saying, “She represented a past age of splendor when a few beautiful and wealthy women adopted an almost brutally individualistic way of living and presenting themselves to the public.” Cheetahs very much included. Speaking of Crisp, aka “The Naked Civil Servant,” this week sees the publication of the third and final installment of his autobiography, “The Last Word,” formerly titled “Dusty Answers.” The pub. date coincides with the 18-year anniversary of Crisp’s death in November 1999.t

Offstage love story by Brian Bromberger

Finding Roger: An Improbably Theatrical Love Story by Rick Elice; Kingswell, $26.99

CMY

t’s often been said that one criterion to judge the success of a person’s life is by how much love they inspired in others. If that is the marker of accomplishment, then the life of actor Roger Rees can be said to have been a blockbuster. “Finding Roger,” written by Roger’s partner and husband of 33 years, playwright/author Rick Elice, is both a tribute and heartbreaking love letter. Rees died on July 10, 2015, at age 71, of the same brain cancer currently plaguing Senator John McCain. He underwent treatments for about a year before his death, but managed to perform on Broadway in the musical “The Visit,” co-starring Chita Rivera, up until two months before he died. Americans knew him best from two memorable TV appearances: as Robin Colcord on “Cheers,” and as Lord John Marbury on “The West Wing.” But the theater was his first love. Five days after he died, the marquee lights of all Broadway theaters were fittingly dimmed in his honor. But Rees’ life off the stage was as dramatic as any play. Rees was a good, decent man, known by his friends as Rog. He also was part of a beautiful devoted gay love story with Elice. “Finding Roger” starts with what Elice calls “The Roger Reports,” journal entries begun a week before Rees passed away, the first one a long email sent out to family and friends detailing Rees’ fight with glioblastoma. “He’s been struggling with it since October, when on a beautiful fall day, he started walking into people and things, and our lives changed forever. There is no cure.” After his death, Elice continues the entries as a way to process his broken heart, profound loss, and “the shape-shifting immediacy of despair.” Elice’s grief is penetrating

and at first inconsolable, but eventually leads to the healing gift of memory and thankfulness. Their passionate affair did not have an auspicious beginning. Rees’ greatest triumph as an actor was his performance in London and Broadway as the title character in Dickens’ “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby,” a massive Royal Shakespeare Company 8+ hour production spread over several days that won Rees a Tony Award and, when it was adapted for television by A&E, an Emmy nomination. It also was when he met Elice. Elice, a struggling actor fresh out of Yale Drama School, was ticked off that the play was not hiring any Americans, and even went to Actor’s Equity wanting to start a committee to keep British actors out of Broadway. But his friend Kate Burton (daughter of Richard) told him that he had to go see it, as it would change his life. He balked at the $100 ticket price, but, borrowing the money from his father, he did attend the play, and was smitten by Rees, even sending him a mash note, though he received no response. Almost a year later, writing ad copy for “Cats,” he saw Rees visiting the director Trevor Nunn, who directed “Nickleby.” Summoning his courage, he asked him to dinner. Hesitant at first, Rees relented, and it became an all-night, once-in-a-

lifetime experience. But Rees returned immediately to London to star in Tom Stoppard’s play “The Right Thing.” They continued to write, and Elice traveled to London, even meeting Rees’ mother. After three years of longdistance love, they set up “ecstatic domesticity,” at first in London, later in New York. In the early 80s, Rees was becoming an alcoholic. Drunk one night, he drove home with Elice, arguing about his drinking, and they almost plunged into the Thames River off the Albert Bridge. Rees totally blacked out the incident the next day, but it inspired him to stop using alcohol. Rees converted to Judaism (Elice’s religion) and became an essential part of Elice’s big family. They married in 2011, and collaborated on two plays Elice wrote: “Peter and the Starcatcher,” about Peter Pan; and the thriller “Double Double.” Rees starred in both. “Finding Roger” is a memoir highlighting some of Rees’ top moments, both professionally and privately. At times it reads like a long eulogy, including friends’ speeches at the memorial service held at Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theater, two months after he died. There are also tribute letters from Kathleen Turner, Jeremy Irons, Dame Judi Dench, writer Charles Busch, Tommy Tune, and Sir Kenneth Branagh, among many others.t

On the web This week, find music writer Tim Pfaff’s review of a new recording of Messiaen’s “Quatuour pour le fin de temps” (“Quartet for the End of Time”), “Apocalypse now,” online at www.ebar.com.

To keep from slipping on the ice, polar bears have fur on the bottoms of their feet. You may have to hold onto a friend.

Open through January 7 Explore the science behind the season and learn how Arctic polar bears survive and thrive in frozen polar ecosystems at this annual holiday exhibit. This year, falling snow flurries, wintry surprises, and an all-new holiday ice rink await! Open every day this holiday season. Get tickets at calacademy.org

28525-CAS-TisSeason-Print-Polar-Bay Area Reporter-9.75x16-11.16.17-FA.indd 1

11/16/17 5:36 PM

<< Theatre

22 • Bay Area Reporter • November 23-29, 2017

Chorus girl makes good by Richard Dodds

Even so, the story from the early 1930s that became a quick showbusiness cliche is offered with enough finesse to carry an audience along as a novice chorus girl is thrust into the lead of a big Broadway musical during the depths of the Depression. “You’re going out a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star,” the director says to the just-off-the-bus Peggy Sawyer before her big entrance less than 24 hours after taking over from an injured Broadway diva. Does she succeed? The answer may be obvious, but we’re still able to absorb the characters’ suspense in this production. It’s not a high bar to leap, but Samantha Rose projects more stage presence (despite an unfortunate hairstyle) than Ruby Keeler did in the 1933 movie, and also has a stronger voice. Keeler’s talents were largely found below the knees, and Rose’s terpsichorean skills make believable her sudden rise through the chorus ranks. As Billy Lawler, the show-withinthe show’s juvenile lead and Peggy’s aspiring suitor, Nikita Burshsteyn is a strong dancer with a big voice, a strained grin, and a countenance that can be hard to distinguish from a couple of other featured players (often costumed in similar brown vests that take away one potential

f you’re going to do one thing really well, and the show you’re doing is “42nd Street,” it had better be propulsive tap-dance routines. That is the ace in Bay Area Musicals’ hand as it takes on the 1980 Broadway musical that gave director-choreographer Gower Champion the ultimate sendoff. (He died hours before opening night, a fact famously announced by producer David Merrick during a curtain call that had been rapturous up until that moment.) Even operating at a significantly smaller scale in the production at the Alcazar Theatre, choreographer Matthew McCoy still provides a wow factor as his cast furiously pounds the floorboards. There are other pleasures in this opening production of BAM’s third season, although more modest and intermittent, and housed on a basic set of understandable budget limitations but inexcusable unattractiveness. Amid a clutter of instruments and modern equipment, the sixpiece band is center stage throughout the production crammed into a space beneath an upstage catwalk with some of the musicians looking hunched over to fit. Since the production is pretty much scenery-free, the setup does no favors to what is performed in front of it.

Carmen Cusack

Ben Krantz

Cast members of Bay Area Musicals’ “42nd Street” go into their dance at the Alcazar Theatre.

roots, singing gospel in church at 5-years-old. It feels like the comfiest jeans in my wardrobe, even though it is a challenge to do eight times a week, because of the emotional journey that my character goes on.” Despite an ardent fan-base, “Bright Star” had a disappointing Broadway run. It was always going to be a tough sell, an intimate show competing with the big-name musicals that are always first to lure in casual theatergoers. “It’s a challenge because we can’t tell people what the story is about without giving too much away,” Cusack said. “I wish I had a dime for every time someone said to me, ‘I had no idea what I was going to see, and I am totally blown away.’” What can be said of the plot, which shuttles between 1925 and 1945, is that we learn of the hard

From page 19

But there is something about her role in “Bright Star” that more musically connects with the roots behind a versatile voice and its story with personal resonance. Playing a woman in North Carolina at two stages in her life, a rebellious backwoods teen in 1923 and an emotionally restrained magazine editor in 1945, Cusack earned a Tony Award nomination for her “simply gorgeous Broadway debut,” in the words of The New York Times. Written by singer-songwriter Edie Brickell and actor-comedianauthor-musician Steve Martin, the show’s score is an amalgam of pop, folk, country, and bluegrass. “I have all these different styles in my voice that I’m able to use just like a hat I put on,” Cusack recently said from Los Angeles, where the “Bright Star” tour debuted. “This particular vocal style takes me back to my southern

identifying clue). The performer who most readily holds your eye is Laurie Strawn, as the imperious star who can’t go on with the show. Her expressions, body language, and delivery are deliciously corrosive. As the director of the biggest show Broadway has seen in years, the youngish DC Scarpelli is in the ballpark with his performance, if not

totally connecting with the character’s world-weariness. Director Daren A.C. Carollo’s staging is largely about traffic control, but once the cast finds their places, there are moments of effective interplay. Carollo and choreographer McCoy share credit for the scenic design, unevenly lit in Courtney Johnson’s lighting

design, which lacks the kind of shoestring imagination that could offer its own wink on the musical’s extravagant past.t

knocks that Alice Murphy, Cusack’s character, takes on a journey from impetuous youth, which includes a fling with the mayor’s son that takes a tragic turn, on to the self-contained editor of a literary magazine who agrees to mentor an aspiring writer recently returned from the war. More than half of the original Broadway cast is present in the tour, which will travel to Salt Lake City after SF with Cusack, then beyond featuring a new leading lady. “I’ve been with the show since 2013,” Cusack said, which is when a series of pre-Broadway workshops began before the show arrived on Broadway in 2016. “Anytime a workshop would come along, I dropped everything because this show had an organic family feel. But now it’s time for me to move on. I have other fish to fry.”

This would include a Broadway musical based on the movie “Bull Durham” in which she has signed to play the Susan Sarandon role. “And there’s another really exciting musical with really exciting people assigned to it, but I can’t go into that,” she said. “I have noticed a lot more offers on the table for new projects.” Yet a career in musical theater was never on her radar as she grew up in Alabama and Texas after her teenage parents split, and her mother remarried and gave the young Carmen three half-sisters to watch over. A gig on a cruise ship led to a shipboard romance with a musician and an invitation to live in England. “We got along and he asked me to marry him, and I thought, yeah, I don’t want to go back to Texas. I thought it could be fun and we could put a band together.” They were living in Manchester when circumstances changed in major ways. “Of course, the marriage didn’t last,” Cusack said. “But it did go on for four-and-a-half-years.” (She is now married to Scottish actor Paul Telfer.) While her first marriage was unraveling, she took a long shot on an open call for the UK tour of “Phantom of the Opera.” She stood in line in the rain, and walked away as understudy for the leading female role of Christine Daae before taking over the role. Then she was asked to audition for Cosette in the West End production of “Les Miserables,” and

she shook things up by auditioning with a Whitney Houston song. “I think they were shocked because they expected me to do something soprano-y, and I gave them my belt range.” Cusack opted to take an understudy role for the haggard Fantine rather than go for the fulltime job as ingenue Cosette. “Everybody thought I was crazy, but I knew what I was doing because I wanted to change things up.” Again, the role soon enough became hers. And again, back in the U.S., the understudy role for Elphaba in the touring “Wicked” turned into the role itself. Next was the “South Pacific” tour, playing the normal-asblueberry-pie Nellie Forbush. It was during the tour’s 2009 stop at the Golden Gate Theatre that Cusack had a near-death encounter with a brick. Running late for a rehearsal, she was taking hurried strides to the theater. “Lucky for me I was moving incredibly fast when I felt this wisp of wind on the back of my head and the clay splattering on my heels.” Playing the Curran does promise fewer encounters with building supplies, and also offers more of the intimacy in which the show can best thrive. “We’re now at the Ahmanson in Los Angeles, and I thought our show might be swallowed by its bigness. But it’s held up very well, but we’re very much looking forward to the Curran. It’s a much better fit for the show.”t

T H E F U R R I E S T H O L I DAY T R A D I T I O N NEW CONSERVATORY THEATRE CENTER IN ASSOCIATION WITH SE ASON PRODUCE RS: NORMAN AB R AMSON & DAVID B E E RY, LOWE LL KIMB LE EXECUTIVE PRODUCE RS: ANDREW NANCE & JIM MALONE Y PRODUCE RS: E D DECKE R & ROB E RT LEONE PRESE NTS

“42nd Street” will run through Dec. 10 at the Alcazar Theatre. Tickets are $35-$65. Call (415) 340-2207 or go to bamsf.org.

“A local tradition”

“Brilliant”

SAN FRANCISCO TRAVEL

TALKIN’ BROADWAY

“Fresh and delightful”

“Hilarious”

SF EXAMINER

FOR ALL EVENTS

THE MUSICAL MUSIC & LYRICS BY ROBERT LOPEZ & JEFF MARX

BOOK BY JEFF WHITTY

BASED ON AN ORIGINAL CONCEPT BY ROBERT LOPEZ & JEFF MARX

DIRECTED BY STEPHANIE TEMPLE MUSICAL DIRECTION BY BEN PRINCE ORCHESTRATIONS AND ARRANGEMENTS BY STEPHEN OREMUS

DEC 1, 2017 – JAN 7, 2018 BUY TICKETS AT NCTCSF.ORG BOX OFFICE: 415.861.8972 25 VAN NESS AVE AT MARKET ST AVENUE Q is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. 421 West 54th Street, New York, NY 10019. Phone: 212-541-4684 Fax: 212-397-4684. www.MTIShows.com Avenue Q has not been authorized or approved by the Jim Henson Company or Sesame Workshop, which have no responsibility for it’s content.

Craig Schwartz

Carmen Cusack first played San Francisco as Nellie Forbush (with David Pittsinger) in “South Pacific” in 2009.

Music>>

November 23-29, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 23

Christian rocker, out gay man by David-Elijah Nahmod

n “Hey Jesus,” one of the tracks on his solo album “Love Is Love,” Trey Pearson sings plaintively to the Lord. “It’s been awhile since I came out,” he sings. “Do you love me the same? I just wanna be loved for who I am.” For nearly two decades, Pearson was the frontman for Everyday Sunday, a top-selling Christian rock band. His song “Wake Up! Wake Up!” was the most-played Christian rock song of 2007, and his 2009 album “Best Night of Our Lives” made Billboard’s coveted Top 200 chart. Today Pearson lives a very different life. His coming out made national news, drawing support in some circles and disdain in others. “Everyday Sunday is done,” Pearson told the B.A.R. “Everyday Sunday was my baby that I started when

I was turning 16 years old, so I always had different people tour with me over the years. A lot of the guys from the earlier years have been extremely loving and supportive, and I’m still close to quite a few of them.

Some haven’t been as kind, or just haven’t talked to me.” He addressed his feelings and longings about coming out in the song “Hey Jesus.” “‘Hey Jesus’ encompasses all of the emotions that I felt leading up to coming out,” he said. “I think so many people within the LGBTQ community have felt these emotions when they came up in the Church. I don’t believe that I’m unloved anymore, but that song came to me in less than a half-hour in my living room, and then I spent hours crying on the floor, because I had felt those things for so long.”

Pearson directly addresses those who don’t support him. In the song “Don’t Dance,” he defiantly sings, “If you think I’m going to hell, then don’t dance to my music.” With “Love Is Love,” Pearson officially walks away from the concept of Christian music, though he remains steadfast in his faith. “I think Christian music is too much a subculture designed to make money off people’s beliefs,” he said. “It is part of a larger problem of fundamentalist Christianity controlling people, and leads to a lot of inauthenticity. I’m just excited to share my art, and I have a lot to say. I’ve tapped into a creative part of myself that I never had been able to before, and I’m excited to share it.” A number of the songs on the album, such as “The Good Grief ” and the title track, have a melancholy feel as they deal with the emo-

tions of loss and of yearning to be oneself. Pearson said he was speaking directly from his heart. “There are a few songs on ‘Love Is Love’ that I bawled my eyes out as I wrote them,” he said. “I think a big thing for me in coming out has been to celebrate the freedom, joy, and peace that I’ve found, but also to allow myself to grieve for people I lost in the process, and to grieve for things I missed out on in not accepting myself earlier.” Pearson hopes his message will reach others struggling with coming out. He offers a simple explanation as to the album’s title. “‘Love Is Love’ has become a mantra in the LGBTQ community that stands for the right to love and be loved fully. This gay love song, and this album, represent that freedom for me.”t treypearson.com

Swiss Women voting by Erin Blackwell

aving gone through the recent pathetic attempts of USA voters to elect a halfway respectable president, it comes as a shock to see people take voting seriously. It’s hard to imagine not being able to vote and really wanting to. And as a force standing in the way, God is the last thing that comes to mind. Yet, as recently as 1971, Swiss women could not vote. The reason given was the all-encompassing cosmic organization that kept kings on their thrones, birds in the skies, and women barefoot and pregnant. This year’s Swiss Oscar hopeful, “The Divine Order,” opens Friday at Landmark’s Opera Plaza and Shattuck. What a shock to the perfectly calibrated Swiss social clockwork enmeshed in the eternal valleys and hillsides of towering Alps, among belled cattle and running rivers of milk chocolate, to awake to the uncertainties implicit in women’s rights. “Divine Order” follows Nora, wife of Hans, sister of Theres, and mother of two small boys in handknit sweaters, as she gets a whiff of freedom – wafting over from

France, perhaps, although that infinitely more scandalous country goes unmentioned. Suddenly her personal circumstances are revealed as inherently political, and she starts to see everything in her life as overdue for a makeover. Writer-director Petra Volpe gives her nostalgia-laced homage to the everywomen who cast off their psychopolitical chains the standard melodramatic treatment. You laugh and worry watching “Divine Order,” wondering how close to the bone it’ll cut. Not very close. This fond glance over the shoulder at the generation coming to consciousness in the 1970s never exhibits any revolutionary zeal, only hints of rebelliousness. Possible dramatic conflicts are simultaneously sketched in and left non-finito. A spirit of equilibrium or stasis stifles promising counterforces before they can fully express themselves. Nora, named for Ibsen’s famous anti-husband door-slammer in “A Doll’s House” (1879), is a simple, earnest, loving, pig-headed, uppity working-class housewife who’d like to have a job outside the home. Hans, newly promoted to manager

of his machine shop, is afraid he’ll lose the respect of his men if he can’t control his wife, and who’ll take care of the children? His boss, factory owner and spinster Charlotte Wipf, is a mouthy anti-feminist harpy in the Margaret Thatcher mold who cries out for a climactic smackdown with our heroine. Maybe it’s simply not in the Swiss genes to milk a dramatic conflict for maximum clash, tears, and triumph. All conflicts in “Divine Order” resolve themselves in mysterious ways that suggest an underlying principle of clocklike dependability hardwired into the Swiss psyche. Maybe this levelheaded gene, so screechingly absent from the increasingly nasty USA cultural divides, is what moved the Tribeca Film Fest to give the film its audience award for best feature. The ultimate fantasy for Americans, far more unbelievable than space aliens, superheroes, or talking dinosaurs, is a civil society in which adults can rationally argue for well-defined goals and gracefully step away from positions proven detrimental to the general welfare. “Divine Order” works as a dream. Every dream fulfills a wish, Freud

Zeitgeist Films

A scene from “The Divine Order,” a film by Petra Volpe.

observed. We wish to have what we want without disturbing the underlying status quo we don’t even notice is there. Every change in human social consensus alters the cultural landscape in ways unforeseen and deeply regrettable. For every action there is a reaction. Now we’re stuck

with the Kardashians as role models for young women, grotesque collateral damage diametrically opposed to the purest intentions of the women’s liberation movement. Where do we go from here? Swissair, Swiss chocolate, Swiss watches, Swiss bank accounts, Swiss brains.t

in the 90s when he was adding to our shared pop vocabulary with his 1997 debut feature “Slacker,” or the pokes at patriotism and high school hazing rituals in his 1993-produced, 1976-set last-day-of-school comedy

“Dazed and Confused.” Linklater co-wrote the “Last Flag” screenplay with Darryl Ponicsan, based on the latter’s novel. The film’s soundtrack includes a Bob Dylan classic ballad, “Not Yet Dark.”t

Military madness by David Lamble

n “Last Flag Flying” director Richard Linklater offers a fracturedfairy-tale sort of sequel to Hal Ashby’s 1973 Navy buddy/comingof-age saga “The Last Detail.” Thirty years after they served together in Vietnam, former Navy corpsman Larry “Doc” Shepherd (an unusually low-key Steve Carrell, the suicidal gay Proust scholar from “Little Miss Sunshine”) re-unites with his old pals, former Marines Sal Nealon

(TV’s “Malcolm in the Middle” goofy dad Bryan Cranston) and Reverend Richard Mueller (longtime Spike Lee star Laurence Fishburne) to bury Doc’s son, a young Marine killed in the Iraq War. We later learn that the Marine Corps’ version of the incident involves a considerable amount of “dressing up” of the “killed in action” story to fit the corps’ political needs of the day. Early in the film, Doc is amazed that Sal agreed so quickly to leave his business and slip into the un-

Wilson Webb

(L to R:) Bryan Cranston as Sal, Steve Carell as Doc, and Laurence Fishburne as Mueller in “Last Flag Flying.”

known with a buddy he hasn’t seen in years. “You turn over the keys of your bar to a guy who’s asleep on your pool table, and then you jump in your car and you drive me to hell and gone, and you don’t even know where we’re headed.” One of great joys of this dramedy is just how funny these old farts can be when they remember how crazy they once acted as young sailors. Taking a break in a Midtown bar near Penn Station, Rev. Mueller ponders his friend Sal’s drinking habits. “That went down awfully quickly.” “I’m drinking for two now that you’ve gotten old and boring.” 1970s movie buffs or Turner Classic Movies viewers may recall how wild-and-wooly Ashby’s original “Last Detail” slapdash adventure was. That movie’s point of view was fueled by a ferocious performance by Jack Nicholson as a pitbull-like Navy Shore Patrol cop. One of film’s greatest assets is offering a vivid window on a past that is irrevocably gone forever. “Last Flag Flying” lacks the earlier film’s explosive thrustand-parry style. Still, Richard Linklater fans will appreciate the sense that this stillyoung master has recovered the wit and inventive style he possessed back

<< Film

24 • Bay Area Reporter • November 23-29, 2017

Great Dickens by David Lamble

thrift ways. The time is late Fall 1843. Six weeks before Christmas, it occurs to this desperate man that a short Christmas-themed novella might sell. Maybe even a Christmas Eve ghost story. “TMWIC” (opening Friday at Embarcadero Cinemas) forces Americans to acknowledge the debt we owe our English cousins from the Victorian era for Bleecker Street Media the trappings of this Dan Stevens as Charles Dickens in “The most commercial of Man Who Invented Christmas.” holidays. The filmmakers contend that the Christmas we celebrate and painful memories of having emerged from the characters Dickbeen forced as a child to work in a ens hatched during a time of great filthy bootblacking factory due to personal stress: Scrooge, Marley, his father’s (Jonathan Pryce) spend-

n the trailer for his latest screen turn, “The Man Who Invented Christmas,” the now-88-year-old Christopher Plummer, the movie’s Ebenezer Scrooge, ends his pitch with the old miser’s signature response to anybody who might cause him to spend an extra shilling on foolish nonsense: “Bah humbug!” This latest attempt to explain why Christmas should matter to persons of all faiths, including non-believers like Yours Truly, begins with the plight of a once-popular writer. Charles John Huffam Dickens is 31, in debt, and facing a vexing case of writer’s block following poor sales for his last three novels. This youthful, handsome Dickens (British actor Dan Stevens, known for the 2006 gay UK TV series “The Line of Beauty”) has a wife, young children,

Rauschenberg

that could be hurled by a medieval catapult; “Dirt Painting” (for John Cage, 1953), in which a generous dollop of mold and dirt is wedged into a An omnivorous, innovative mawooden casing for posterity; and on nipulator of images, Rauschenberg a nearby wall, “Untitled (Gold Paintcharted his own path forward after ing)” (1953), where crinkled metallic Abstract Expressionism with an papers, housed in a handmade wood adventurous use of materials, an frame, form their own topographical inclination towards found objects, map. Just across the room: “Erased interactivity and new technologies de Kooning Drawing” (1953), a delibefore any of the above were in cate, pivotal work with a back-story. vogue, and an ability to digest just After requesting a finished drawing about everything, which makes his from Willem de Kooning and makwork, even from the 1950s and 60s, ing a persuasive case for his intenstartlingly current. tions, Rauschenberg erased it many The show of 150 objects in an times, leaving behind a faint ghost array of media, enhanced by illumiof the original work framed in gold. nating text that doesn’t overpower After some time spent out of view, the visual or intellectual experience it ignited the art world. The impact of the art, is impeccably laid out and of the piece, regarded as the birth thought through by SFMOMA’s suof the conceptual gesture, lay in the perfine Senior Curator of Painting thoughts it provoked in the minds of and Sculpture Gary Garrels and coviewers rather than what they actuorganizer Sarah Roberts. (The artist, ally saw. who died in 2008, had a long, fruitDuring this productive early ful relationship with the museum, period – and what period wasn’t? dating back to the mid-1970s.) – the artist crumpled newspaper Everywhere one looks there’s clippings and painted over them in something that catches the eye or black. Later, in two tactile, richly piques the imagination, starting in textured, rectangular works, literally one of the first galleries, where one ripped from the headlines, he added finds a glass cabinet of curios contextiles and layers of gooey, lugubritaining memento boxes with stone ous reds. “Shades” (1964), an untalismans, fragments of frescoes and orthodox venture feathers; “Elemental Sculptures” of H4H16-BAR-ad.qxp_Layout 1 11/18/17 12:18 PM Page into 1 bookmaking, arrived a decade later. An antiquated rocks tethered to metal rope slings From page 19

Y FOR TH WA EH E H

MONDAY

Holiday Gala & Concert

DEC. 4, 2017

MARINES’ MEMORIAL THEATRE

YS XVI IDA OL

THE RICHMOND/ERMET AID FOUNDATION PRESENTS

HELP IS ON

609 Sutter Street, San Francisco

SILENT AUCTION: 6:30PM PERFORMANCE: 7:30PM AFTER PARTY WITH CAST: 9:45PM BENEFITING PROJECT OPEN HAND & LARKIN STREET YOUTH SERVICES

Auctioneer: LENNY BORBERG 2017 Awardee: MARK RHOADES

FEATURING THE TOURING CAST OF THE HIT BROADWAY SHOW

ALADDIN Disney’s ALADDIN

AMERICAN IDOL, recording star KIMBERLEY LOCKE Two-time STAR SEARCH grand champion JAKE SIMPSON AMERICA’S GOT TALENT seimi-finalist/cabaret star SHAWN RYAN X-FACTOR Top 10/cabaret star JASON BROCK Jazz/Cabaret Star KIM NALLEY Cabaret Stars LEANNE BORGHESI & JESSICA COKER VELOCITY CIRCUS founder/lperformer GREGANGELO

VIP After Party at Clift Hotel 495 Geary Street, San Francisco Dancing to the beats of GoBang!

Tickets & Information: www.reaf.org

3-D portable library in a terrariumlike frame that’s lit from behind, the piece utilized Plexiglas “pages” with inky images from discarded New York Times printing plates. Never short on humor, Rauschenberg bought a stuffed angora goat for $15, lodged a tire around its middle, and stationed it on collaged wooden blocks (“Monogram,” 1955-59). How the tire came to be there and the work’s meaning remain a matter of speculation, but the paint smudges on the subject’s bewildered face suggest it took a nose dive into drip painting. It holds court in the same space as “Collection” (1954/55) and “Charlene” (1954), exhibited together for the first time in 40 years. These early “Combines,” works of wildly colored controlled chaos that broke down barriers between painting and sculpture, were laced with street detritus, found photographs and veiled references to gay culture – or in the case of the erotic hybrid “Bed” (1955), an undisguised allusion to his love affair with artist Cy Twombly. Rauschenberg’s door was always open to new collaborators, and having a pulse wasn’t a requirement. At a time when he was looking to prove himself as a serious commodity on the New York art scene, he produced a series of 34 illustrations based on Dante’s “Inferno,” one for each canto (1958-60). Irritated by the homophobic implications of “Punishment for the Sodomites,” a section where the condemned are forced to walk through a rain of fire

SF Symphony

From page 19

The cacophonous collage of marching bands, old hymn tunes and songs, ethereal string choirs, subterranean percussion and quartertone and orchestral pianos needs many virtuosi and two conductors to make proper impact. The strings play an important role, as well as other members of the more conventional orchestra, and MTT kept them all on a clear and harmonious and sometimes consciously unharmonious course throughout the densely packed performance. Young German conductor Christian Reif, SFS Resident Conductor and Wattis Foundation Music Director of the SFS Youth Orchestra, was stationed upstage of the podium to further coordinate as second conductor, and piano soloist Peter Dugan was prominently positioned downstage left. Starting with a longer spoken introduction than usual, necessarily so, MTT warmed the matinee audience with his patented blend of insight, information and gentle humor. He obviously admires and loves Ives. He made certain the

and Tiny Tim. Director Bharat Nalluri and screenwriter Susan Coyne created this holiday treat based on the book of the same name by Les Standiford. The film is about the creative process by which a nimble fiction-writer like Dickens, author of 20 novels, can bring characters to life on the page who remind him of people he knows and may dislike for reasons profound or petty. “TMWIC” will not be everyone’s Christmas eggnog treat. Stevens brings a slightly waspish quality to his Dickens that makes Plummer’s Scrooge seem cheerful in comparison. His irritable demeanor does allow us to grasp just how hard it is to author even an inferior work. I would have preferred James McAvoy in the role, for his ability to project charming qualities in even the most churlish characters. But the movie

features deft supporting turns from the best of Britain’s theater-trained film actors. Supporting Stevens’ Dickens and Plummer’s Scrooge are Simon Callow as Leech, an illustrator who’s sure he can’t finish this complicated work under Dickens’ tight deadline; Donald Sumpter as Scrooge’s partner, five years dead; Bill Paterson as Mr. Grimsby; and Anna Murphy as the Ghost of Christmas Past. When Dickens died in 1870, he couldn’t have imagined that his stories would live on in motion pictures. For all its flaws, “TMWIC” joins a flood of Dickens on film that would melt the heart of the meanest miser. With its lovely production values, the new film is best seen in large-screen format. Follow it up with a DVD/Blu-Ray of the 1951 British “A Christmas Carol” with Alastair Sim.t

Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Archives

Robert Rauschenberg, “Pelican” (1963), performed for the First New York Theater Rally, 1965.

on scalding sands at the bottom of the seventh circle of hell, the artist registered his displeasure by including an outline of his toes in red crayon. A prescient and wily fuser of art and technology, his five-part, found metal assemblage “Oracle” (196265) qualifies as his first technological artwork. The components of this dystopian auto-body graveyard – a detached car door mounted on a typewriter table, a sooty gray exhaust pipe on pushcart wheels – are embedded with radios. But if you’re shopping for a torture device that can double as a surefire crowdpleaser, “Mud Muse” (1968-71) is just the ticket. Working with a team from Teledyne, Rauschenberg engi-

neered a huge cauldron with thousands of pounds of bubbling mud the color of split-pea soup; when activated by a sound recording, it erupts like the Old Faithful geyser. And let us not forget the zippy “Money Thrower,” a diminutive mascot Rauschenberg designed for kinetic sculptor Jean Tinguely’s 1960 event “Homage to New York.” The small Rube Goldbergesque machine, a battered electric heater sporting second-hand coiled springs, spit silver dollars into the air with the aid of gunpowder, which is always handy to have around. Take your time. Go twice. Have a ball.t

game crowd of listeners would make it through the relatively short (approximately 31 minutes) but immensely complicated experience with maximum enjoyment and minimum confusion. Ragnar Bohlin’s SFS Chorus also helped illustrate, beautifully singing six of the hymns quoted and subtly woven into the score. “Sweet By and By” and “Beulah Land” still sound wistfully familiar, but “Nearer, My God, to Thee” resonates with modern listeners most, probably due to the historical fact the band played it on the sinking Titanic. There are many wonderful and easily accessible moments in the Fourth, especially the richly textured Fugue. The riotous Comedy: Allegretto and the spiritually mysterious and primal Finale: Largo maestoso still pack the most typically Ivesian punch. MTT, Reif, pianist Dugan, the Chorus and all of the assembled musicians concentrated intently on the daunting work before them, but clearly managed to enjoy the assignment. If Ives had included a section needing whistling (he threw in almost everything else), the ensemble would have aced it.

The second half of the performance featured a guest appearance by renowned Pinchas Zukerman in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major. His customary strength and achingly sweet (in a very good way) tone fits the piece well, and I have long admired his interpretation. His approach has changed little over the years, but there were a few moments when the seasoned pro seemed to be on autopilot, a magnificent and well-oiled machine that could use a touch of freshening. The large crowd was probably there primarily to hear Zukerman’s famous rendition, and rightly so. It was a powerful performance that earned a sincere standing ovation. There was no encore, but after all the concert’s embarrassment of riches, it was hardly necessary. Let’s hope the Ives performances won some converts and the recordings will be available as soon as possible in the new year. This week MTT returns to the podium for another Thanksgiving feast. Mahler’s sunny and evocative Fourth Symphony will feature local favorite mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard as soloist.t

Through March 25.

Arts Events

Shining Stars Vol. 47 • No. 47 • November 23-29, 2017 Greg Gorman

www.ebar.com V www.bartabsf.com

John Waters Holiday kitsch and camp with the Pope of Trash by Jim Provenzano

“I

get the Bay Area Reporter every time I’m in San Francisco,” said John Waters in probably the coolest unsolicited endorsement of our newspaper. The prolific filmmaker, bestselling author, and master raconteur is back in town, and he’ll share the latest edition of his Christmas show on Tuesday, November 28 at Great American Music Hall. See page 28 >>

John Waters

et stuffed with nightlife fun, then burn off those sweet potato calories on the dance floor. Your holiday weekend fun is served.

On the Tab

Gooch

November 23-30

e 26 >> Listings on pag

Thu 23

The Monster Show @ The Edge

{ THIRD OF THREE SECTIONS }

<< On the Tab

26 â&#x20AC;˘ Bay Area Reporter â&#x20AC;˘ November 23-29, 2017

Sat 25 Bob Downe @ Oasis The wacky gay Australian comic, dubbed The Prince of Polyester, brings his solo songs & stories show to the SoMa nightclub. $25-$35. 7pm. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Code @ The Edge Host Erick Lopez celebrates his birthday at the only recurring leather & kink event in the Castro. Clothes check and sexy fun, with DJ Sean McMahon. $5. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. edgesf.com

Dickslap @ SF Eagle Vin Sol, Kelly Naughton, Vivvyanne Forevermore, Kelly Lovemonster and Nicki Jizz. $5. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Lips and Lashes Brunch @ Lookout

Sat 25

Bob Downe @ Oasis

Edited for space. For full listings, visit www.ebar.com/bartab

Thu 23 Gayface @ El Rio Queer weekly night out at the popular Mission bar. 9pm-2am. 3158 Mission St. www.elriosf.com

Gratitude Feast @ Castro Country Club Potluck dinner with food, fun and fellowship at the LGBT sober space; side dish sign-up sheet at the front desk. 1pm-3:30pm. 4058 18th St. castrocountryclub.org

Junk @ Powerhouse MrPam and Dulce de Leche cohost the weekly underwear strip night and contest, with prizes. $5. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

The Monster Show @ The Edge The weekly drag show with host Sue Casa, DJ MC2, themed nights and hilarious fun; yes, open Thanksgiving night! $5. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

Picante @ The Cafe Lulu and DJ Marco's Latin night with sexy gogo guys. 9pm-2am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Pot Luck Dinner @ Lone Star Saloon Bring a dish to share at the bear bar's annual feast, with Turkeys by Charlie. 2pm-6pm. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Thanksgiving Dinner @ SF Eagle

Club Papi @ Club 21, Oakland Hip Hop and Latin grooves event, with 3 dance floors, gogo studs (including porn cutie Armond Rizzo), drag acts, and special retro DJed grooves. Nov. 24 is a Black Friday Blowout, with Valentina, Yara Sofia and Jessica Wild. $10-$20. 9pm4am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. www.club21oakland.com

DTF Fridays @ Port Bar, Oakland Various DJs play house music, and a few hotties gogo dance at the new gay bar's weekly event. 9pm-2am. 2023 Broadway. (510) 823-2099. www.portbaroakland.com

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

Friday Night Live @ El Rio Enjoy the weekly queer and LGBTfriendly live acoustic concerts. $5pm. 3158 Mission St. www.elriosf.com

Hella Gay Comedy @ Club OMG Queer joke night, with host Nasty Ass Bitch. $15. 7pm. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Shenanigans @ Oasis The monthly costume dance party hosts a Pajama Party; break out your onesies and PJs. $5. 9pm-3am. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Steam @ Powerhouse

Chef Hank prepares turkeys, and staff members bring side dishes. (check website for times). 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

The monthly bath house-style night's 7-year anniversary, with toweldancing gogos, DJ Sergio Fedasz. $5. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie's Lounge

Red Hots Burlesque @ The Stud

Disco guru DJ Bus Station John spins grooves at the intimate retro music night. $5. 10pm-2am. 133 Turk St. at Taylor. auntcharlieslounge.com

Fri 24 Ain't Mama's Drag @ Balancoire Weekly drag queen and drag king show hosted by Cruzin d'Loo. 8pm10pm. No cover. 2565 Mission St. www.balancoiresf.com

Big Boy @ Lone Star Saloon Big time fun with the bears. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

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. lookoutsf.com

Mother @ Oasis Heklina's popular drag show, with special guests and great music themes (No bachelorette parties admitted! Yay!) Nov. 25 is a Dolly Parton tribute. $10. 10pm-3am (11:30pm show). 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Blessed @ Port Bar, Oakland

Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni's

Carnie Asada's fun drag night with Carnie's Angels Mahlae Balenciaga and Au Jus, plus DJ Ion. 2023 Broadway. www.portbaroakland.com

Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht. 9pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market.

Dirty Musical Sundays @ The Edge

Strip down to your skivvies at the popular men's night. 9pm-2am. 440 Castro St. 621-8732. the440.com

Sing along at the popular musical theatre night, with a bawdy edge; also Mondays and Wednesdays (just not dirty). 7pm-2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. www.edgesf.com

GlamaZone @ The Cafe Pollo del Mar's weekly drag show takes on different themes with a comic edge. 8:30-11:30pm. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Jock @ The Lookout Enjoy the weekly jock-ular fun, with DJed dance music at sports team fundraisers. 12pm-1am. NY DJ Sharon White from 3pm-6pm. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.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

Mon 27

The Playground @ Club BNB, Oakland

Epic Karaoke @ White Horse, Oakland

Revamped night at the popular hip hop and Latin dance club. $5-$15. 9pm to 4am. 2120 Broadway. (510) 759-7340. www.club-bnb.com

Mondays and Tuesdays popular weekly sing-along night. No cover. 8:30pm-1am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. whitehorsebar.com

Polyglamorous @ F8

Donna Sachet's Songs of the Season @ Halcyon

Featured DJ Brown Amy plays classic soul and house grooves, on vinyl! Plus resident groovies and a pop-up number by Persia. $7-$12. 9:30pm-3am. 1192 Folsom St. polyglamorous.club

Strip down to your skivvies at the famed leather bar, with host Dulce de Leche and DJ Marcos Moreno. 398 12th St. at Harrison. sf-eagle.com

Tue 28 Cock Shot @ Beaux Shot specials and adult Bingo games, with DJs Chad Bays and Riley Patrick, at the new weekly night. No cover. 9pm2am. 2344 Market St. beauxsf.com

Dragula @ Oasis New weekly screenings of LA's Boulet Brothers dragtastic TV show of ghoulish glamour. No cover. 7pm. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Hysteria Comedy @ Martuni's Open mic for women and queer comics, with host Irene Tu. 6pm-8pm. 4 Valencia St.

Karaoke Night @ The Stud Sing Till It Hurts with hostess Sister Flora; 2 for 1 happy hour, no cover. 8pm-2am. 399 9th St. studsf.com

Karaoke Cocktails @ Ginger's The new basement tribute to the old Ginger's Trois hosts a weekly singing fun. 8pm-12am. 86 Hardie Place. gingers.bar

Naked Night @ Nob Hill Theatre Strip down with the strippers at the clothing-optional night. $20. 9pm. 729 Bush St. at Powell. 397-6758. www.thenobhilltheatre.com

Stag @ Powerhouse

Dance, drink, cruise at the Castro club, with DJs Gay Marvine, Taco Tuesday and Matthew XO. 9pm-2am. 2369 Market St. www.cafesf.com

Happy Hour @ The Cinch

Velvet Variety @ Martuni's

Komedy Kiki @ The Stud

Reception and fundraiser for the nonprofit host of the annual Oscar party, with store discounts, cocktails and nibblies; perfect for pre-holiday shopping. $20. 6:30pm-8:30pm. 340 Post St. academyoffriends.org

Pretty in Ink @ Powerhouse Tattooed lover boys' night, with DJ Becky Knox. $10 benefits Flagging in the Park. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Sugar @ The Cafe

Gratitude to Gifts: a Holiday Kickoff cabaret variety show of songs and comedy with Lisa Appleyard, Craig Jacobs, Nick Leonard, Jack Sanchez, Russell Deason and Ryan-Patrick Welsh. $20. 7pm. 4 Valencia St.

Sun 26 Aftermath @ SF Eagle Enjoy the darker side of dance music at the new monthly night, with DJs One A, Charlotte the Baroness, Jacob, Cole and others. $5. 7pm-12am. 398 12th St. at Harrison. sf-eagle.com

Big Top @ Beaux Enjoy an extra weekend night at the fun Castro nightclub, plus hot local DJs and sexy gogo guys and gals. $8. 9pm2am. 2344 Market St. Beauxsf.com

Happy hour at the historic neighborhood bar. 5pm-8pm. 1723 Polk St. www.cinchsf.com Jesus U. Bettawork and Justin Lucas cohost the queer-centric laugh night. $5. 8:30pm. 399 9th st. studsf.com

Musical Mondays @ The Edge Sing along at the popular musical theatre night; also Wednesdays. 7pm2am. 2 for 1 cocktail, 5pm-closing. 4149 18th St. at Collingwood. edgesf.com

No No Bingo @ Virgil's Sea Room Mica Sigourney and Tom Temprano cohost the wacky weekly game night at the cool Mission bar. 8pm. 3152 Mission St. www.virgilssf.com

Opulence @ Beaux Weekly dance night, with Jocques, DJs Tori, Twistmix and Andre. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Single, or a couple looking for an extra? Cruise it up. $5. 5pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

Wed 29 Academy of Friends @ Williams-Sonoma Union Square

B.P.M. @ Club BnB, Oakland Olga T and Shugga Shay's weekly queer women and men's R&B hip hop and soul night, at the club's new location. No cover. 8pm-2am. 2120 Broadway, Oakland. bench-and-bar.com

Hump @ Powerhouse Vinyl grooves with DJ Jim Collins. $5. 7pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

Juicy @ Club OMG Weekly women's event at the intimate Mid-market nightclub, with DJ Micah Tron. 9pm-2am. 43 6th St. clubomgsf.com

Michael Feinstein @ Feinstein's at the Nikko The celebrated singer-pianist performs his new 'Home for the Holidays' concert. $64-$105. 7pm. Also Nov 30, Dec 1, 2 & 3 (various times). $20 food/drink min. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Miss Kitty's Trivia Night @ Wild Side West The weekly fun night at the Bernal Heights bar includes prizes, hosted by Kitty Tapata. No cover. 7pm10pm. 424 Cortland St. 647-3099. wildsidewest.com

This Charming Band @ Rickshaw Stop

Underwear Night @ SF Eagle

Underwear Night @ 440

The 25th annual (and last) holiday concert, featuring Donna Sachet, Sharon McNight, Kippy Marks, Leanne Borghesi, Dan O'Leary, Brian Kent, Kenny Nelson, Paula West (Mon. only), Adam Reeves (Tue only) and Jason Brock (Wed. only) with proceeds benefitting Positive Resource Center/AIDS Emergency Fund. $25, $60 and up. 7pm. Also Nov. 28 & 29. 314 11th St. donnasachet.com

The saucy women's burlesque show hosted by Dottie Lux will titillate and tantalize. $10-$20. 8pm-9:30pm. 399 9th St. Also Sunday brunch shows at Piano Fight Theatre.144 Taylor St. www.redhotsburlesque.com

The Smiths tribute band performs Morrissey et al's hits, with DJs Omar, Aaron Axelson and Mario Muse. $15. 9pm. 155 Fell St. rickshawstop.com

Movie Night @ SF Eagle

Thu 30

Bright Light Bright Light @ Rickshaw Stop

Enjoy drinks and a flick, with trivia games and prizes. 8pm-2am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Pan Dulce @ Beaux The hot weekly Latin dance night with sexy gogo guys, drag divas and more, with Club Papi's Frisco Robbie and Fabian Torres. $7. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Cabaret>>

November 23-29, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 27

classics Michael Feinstein Christmas with the cabaret king by Jim Gladstone

ou could fill a sizable fleet of sleighs with the Christmas music that’s been written and recorded since the beginning of the twentieth century: From obvious tinsel-grabs like Charo’s “Mamacita ¿Donde Esta Santa Claus?” and Kenny Chesney’s “All I Want for Christmas Is A Really Good Tan,” to more earnest offerings like the annual compositions by alt-darling Sufjan Stevens and the pretty terrific We Three Kings album from folkie sisters The Roches. But in the estimation of Michael Feinstein, who brings a carefully considered holiday program his eponymous boîte at the Hotel Nikko next week, there are barely enough truly great Christmas songs to stuff a stocking. In fact, when the only Christmas album Feinstein himself has ever recorded was reissued in 2014, it arrived like a slimmed-down Santa, reduced from thirty tracks on two discs to a single CD with half as many songs. “When I first recorded that album [in 2001], it was an exclusive item for the Home Shopping Network,” Feinstein recalled during a phone conversation last week. “And frankly I was padding the list because they wanted a double album; you know, ‘All of your favorites…and more!’ I included some songs that I honestly didn’t have a great enthusiasm for.” What distinguishes the songs that made the maestro’s repertoire featured on the revamped A Michael Feinstein Christmas (originally titled An Intimate Holiday with Michael Feinstein)? “I prefer songs that they have real substance that goes beyond Santa, and sleigh bells, and reindeer. When

Michael Feinstein

you think about ‘The Christmas Song’ [‘Chestnuts roasting…’], and ‘White Christmas’, and ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’, those are three in particular that have a genuine emotional expression.” Another aspect of Feinstein’s favorite holiday songs is the fact that, in addition to festivity, they touch upon the feelings of wistfulness and melancholy that most adults will acknowledge is wrapped up in the Christmas season: Irving Berlin’s lyrics to “White Christmas” portray the perfect holiday as a sepia-tinged memory of a more innocent time, now almost beyond the narrator’s reach. Feinstein also points to “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” as a song that captures a bit of the holiday season’s attendant angst. “The lyric is not as facile or elegant as some of the others,” he says. “But it’s still got some emotional heft.” And the lyrics to “Have Yourself

A Merry Little Christmas,” originally written by Hugh Martin for Judy Garland to perform in the 1944 movie musical Meet Me In St. Louis, have been gradually bullied toward happiness over the years. Garland and Vincente Minnelli objected to the original opening lines, “Have yourself a merry little Christmas/ It may be your last/Next year we may be living in the past,” which Martin, working for hire, changed to “Have yourself a merry little Christmas/Let your heart be light/Next year all our troubles will be out of sight.” Thirteen years later, explained Feinstein, “When Frank Sinatra was recording the tune, he felt the line ‘Until then we’ll muddle through somehow’ was too bleak, and Martin changed it to ‘Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.’” While Feinstein often shares such anecdotes about the music he performs in concert, he says that, amidst the news and politics of this year in particular, he’d be remiss to deny his audiences a chance to indulge in the happier aspects of Christmas music. “The bottom line is that a lot of people love these songs,” he says. “And in times like these, people’s hearts have to be touched.”t Michael Feinstein performs Home for the Holidays at Feinstein’s at the Nikko. $64-$105. Nov. 29, 7pm. Nov 30-Dec 2, 8pm. Dec 3, 5pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. feinsteinsatthenikko.com

Thu 30 Bright Light Bright Light @ Rickshaw Stop The British pop band, aka gay singercomposer Rod Thomas, performs music from their new album. Ah Mer Ah Su and Asuah open. $15 8pm. 155 Fell St. brightlightx2.com

Light in the Grove @ Nat’l AIDS Memorial Grove The annual elegant fundraiser for the Grove includes cocktails, hors d'eouvres, a buffet dinner, entertainment and beautiful art installations. $250 and up. 6pm9:30pm. Nancy Pelosi Drive at Bowling Green, Golden Gate Park. aidsmemorial.org

Literary Speakeasy @ Martuni's The monthly authors and cocktails event this time features multipleaward-winning author Michael Nava, singer-songwriter Lisa Assolino, poet Natasha Dennerstein, journalist/ podcaster/writer Philip Harris, and poet/host James J. Siegel. No cover. 7pm. 4 Valencia St. facebook.com/ Martunis-994554857261865/

Naked Men Sketched @ Lone Star Saloon Yes, a nude male drawing event. 6pm-9pm. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

Nap's Karaoke @ Virgil's Sea Room Sing out loud at the weekly least judgmental karaoke in town, hosted by the former owner of the bar. No cover. 9pm. 3152 Mission St. 8292233. www.virgilssf.com

Planet Booty @ The Independent The groovy sexy Oakland soul band performs at the cool nightclub. Sun Hop Fat opens; DJ Jah Yzer plays between sets. $15-$18. 8pm. 628 Divisadero St. planetbooty.org

Thu 30

Planet Booty @ the Independent

Queer Karaoke @ Club OMG KJ Dana hosts the weekly singing night; unleash your inner American Idol ; first Thursdays are Costume Karaoke; 3rd is Kinky Karaoke 8pm. 43 6th St. www.clubomgsf.com

Rice Rockettes @ Lookout Local and visiting Asian drag queens' weekly show with DJ Philip Grasso. $5. 10:30pm show. 3600 16th St. www.lookoutsf.com

Sundance Saloon @ Space 550 The Country-Western line-dancing two-stepping dance night. $5. lessons at 5:30pm, dancing til 10:30pm. Also Sundays. 550 Barneveld Ave. sundancesaloon.org

Thursday Night Live @ SF Eagle Rock bands play at the famed leather bar. $5-$10. Nov. 30: Daisy World, SPF and Warp. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Throwback Thursdays @ Qbar Enjoy retro 80s soul, dance and pop classics with DJ Jorge Terez. No cover. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. QbarSF.com

Thump @ White Horse, Oakland Weekly electro music night with DJ Matthew Baker and guests. 9pm-2am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com

<< Feature

28 • Bay Area Reporter • November 23-29, 2017

John Waters

From page 25

Waters’ show includes tales of his young life in Baltimore, which of course led to creating some of the most revered cult film classics of our time. If you haven’t yet enjoyed Pink Flamingos, Desperate Living, Female Trouble, Serial Mom, Hairspray, Polyester, or his other films, you owe yourself a holiday viewing binge, if not a cultural illiteracy bead-reading. Since the 1970s, Waters and his stars, including Divine, Mink Stole, Edith Massey and other Baltimore natives, turned film culture upside down with a series of crass, hilarious subversive classics. For local fans who’ve enjoyed Waters’ previous solo shows in the Bay Area, you’ll enjoy his new edition. Waters, now 71, recalled the first time he performed a Christmas-themed show, in 1996 at the Castro Theatre. “That was the first time I did a Christmas show, with Marc Huestis,” he said of the sold-out event that featured the late Arturo Galster. “The Castro’s always great. I’ve played there many times for many different shows and movies. It’s a great neighborhood.” Waters, who rents apartments in San Francisco and New York, and owns a home in Baltimore, mentioned that he used to live in the Castro, “in my wild youth.” “I love returning to San Francisco. It’s my greatest luxury, having an apartment there. I usually go back

in January, August, or whenever I have to be on the West Coast. It’s my getaway.” At the mention of fans seeing him on local buses, Waters, said, “I wanted to do an ad for Muni,” imagining a similar version of his classic ‘no smoking in the theatre’ PSA, “but they wouldn’t pay me. I take all the different routes. My favorite is when they have the raids of people who don’t pay their fares. It’s always the most normal-looking little old ladies, and they’re so indignant! That’s why I ride every day.” A John Waters Christmas also inspired a 2004 album anthology of lesser-known renditions of holiday classics and obscurities, like “Here Comes Fatty Claus” by Rudolph & Gang. His books Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America, Role Models, Crackpot, and Make Trouble are also hits. Asked about his least and most favorite aspects of Christmas, Waters said, “The awful thing now in certain households is having to talk with a relative who’s a Republican good boy. But actually, I like Christmas. I find it insane and extreme. When someone in a store wishes me a Merry Christmas, I say, ‘Excuse me. I don’t believe in the Virgin Birth.’ That’s a fair response. It’s a religious thing. I’m very much against church in the state. I support the Satanic Temple, even though I’m not a Satanist. They’re like the Yippies. They fight church interference in the state, force Satanic statues to be near Nativity scenes. I’m for infiltrating living crèches that

start speaking in tongues.” From his films like Multiple Maniacs (which includes Divine’s rosary sex scene shot in a church), Waters’ obsession and rejection of his Catholic upbringing runs throughout his work. “I feel bad for Joseph. He is the most underwritten person. He did nothing. He didn’t even get to impregnate Mary. Was he impotent?” Among Waters’ holiday tradition targets are excessive home decorations. “We have one block in Baltimore that’s famous for it, called ‘Miracle on 36th Street,’ where all the houses are completely overdone. There are traffic jams up and down the street. The children must be mortified. You can’t go to sleep because the lights won’t stop blinking. They’re assholes. I’d like to buy a house there and refuse to put one light up. I’d be so hated!” Waters adds another target of tackiness to his holiday favorites. “One new thing that’s ludicrous are the inflatable Nativity scenes. When they collapse, I thought that vandals had punctured them, but often, people turn the air pumps off to save on their electric bill. They didn’t want to be ‘fuelish.’ That’s the new tacky Christmas decoration. I say, if you can’t afford them, don’t buy them.”

Stocking stuffer

Along with a John Waters DVD, another gift idea is his first spoken word vinyl record, Make Trouble, which marks another milestone for the prolific filmmaker, author, and solo performer. Produced by Grammy-winning producer and acclaimed author Ian Brennan, the album includes Water’s tales of evil nuns, sneaking into burlesque shows, and avoiding high school reunions. The work is based on a commencement speech he gave at Wesleyan University, where he also donated materials for their special collections archives. Waters has also spoken at other colleges, like the Rhode Island School of Design, where he noted, “Somehow I’ve been able to make a living doing what I love best for fifty years without ever having to get a real job.” Of course, Waters’ ‘real job’ has long been the unique career path of shocking, outraging and amusing film audiences. From his early 8mm shorts to his midnight movie underground hit Pink Flamingos, Waters has been praised by his actors and colleagues as a consummate businessman, a master of PR and practicality, from his early no-budget films, to his more commercial successes. Writer William S. Burroughs dubbed him ‘The Pope of Trash.’ Waters said he’s proud of the audio version of Make Trouble. “It looks kind of like a real 45 re-

cord; it’s red like an old Rosemary Clooney record. I just like the idea of being on new vinyl. I thought it would be good for my street cred; as good as hitchhiking.” Asked about his latest kitsch discoveries, or if new kitsch exists, Waters said, “What it used to mean was; find something so bad it’s good. You can still do that, but now everybody tries to be bad. Big Hollywood tries to do that, making arch comedies that aren’t funny. It’s switched around a little. That’s why I say in my book, ‘I want to be an insider.’ That used to be a terrible word. But now, everybody wants to be an outsider. I’ve only been an insider re- John Waters onstage at one of his recent Christmas shows. cently.” Waters revels in his ‘insider’ status headlincause I always rewrite it, but peoing the Great American Music Hall, ple have told me their horror stobecause it’s next to the O’Farrell ries about the tree falling, usually Brothers porn and strip club. involving liquor or the dog.” “I remember the days when you For his own celebrations, Waters got little flashlights and you could recalled his annual party in Baltiexamine pussies. Can you imagine more, where last year, he couldn’t doing ten shows a day like that? attend, because he was hospitalized Even James Brown didn’t work that for a kidney stone. hard.” “I actually like not going to my At my mention of a new queerown parties, so I might do it again. inclusive cabaret show at the venue, I had one year where Jean Stein Waters asks if it’s “new hipster bur[the late writer and New York solesque.” cialite] threw me a book party, but “That’s not doing floor work. I said, ‘Oh, I’m not coming!’ I copied love that term.” He switches to the her, because I thought it was a good voice of a jaded stripper: “’We don’t idea; just have parties and don’t go.” do floor work.’ That means split Themed Christmas parties, atbeaver. That would be a good punk tended or not, sound better with band name.” another Waters-esque twist. Waters also mentioned the Nob “Office parties where you’re Hill Theatre and Blow Buddies supposed to trade gifts for ten dolas gay venues he likes, but doesn’t lars? You should purposely get a visit. “But I’m so happy they’re still gift you know a coworker would in business.” hate the most. That’d be fun. One year, someone gave me the Cha Cha heels! soundtrack to Rocky. At the time, Without going far back into WaI lived on the seventh floor, and ters’ career, but while keeping with threw it out a window. Someone the holiday topic, mention of the could have been hit by it. Imagine infamous and frequently imitated being killed by a Rocky soundtrack cha cha heels Christmas tantrum on Christmas Eve.” performed by Divine in Female Commenting on contemporary Trouble bears mention. Waters is holiday mishaps, Waters predicted, quick to fact-check. “This year, people don’t want to “Most drag queens don’t know go home, because of all the politiwhat cha cha heels are,” he said. cal arguments. I tell people to pass “I’ve seen cha cha heels contests. out whistles, so any time someone They’re not high heels. They’re starts in, they can blow a whistle short dancing shoes.” and they’ll stop. If not, it’s gonna As for the Christmas tree acbe a big year for trees and turkeys cident in Female Trouble, Waters gettin’ knocked over. It’s gonna be a said, “It really did happen to my mess, a big mess.”t grandmother. Nobody pushed her, but I heard her scream. I heard A John Waters Christmas, at Great presents smashed, and as a selfAmerican Music Hall, November ish child, I thought, ‘I hope mine 28, 8pm. $55, $125 meet & greet. didn’t break.’ My grandmother 859 O’Farrell St. dreamlandnews.com even thought it was funny, later. slimspresents.com It’s not in my current show, be-

A classic Christmas moment with Divine (right) from Female Trouble.

Leather>>

November 23-29, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 29

Accessing kink Making leather space for all

Gooch

Patrons at The SF Eagle in June included a wheelchair user and his friends.

by Race Bannon

ver the years, I’ve become aware of the difficulties some kinksters with disabilities deal with while trying to fully participate in our scene. I realize I run the risk of appearing to speak for such people by writing this column, but I absolutely do not. What I do hope is that we all increase our awareness and, when possible, our accommodation for people with such challenges so that as many of our entire kink, kinkcurious and sexually adventurous family can best engage with the entire range of what we do and who we are. Per the 2010 U.S. Census, about 57 million people in our country (19 percent of the population) had a disability that year, according to a broad definition of disability, with more than half of them reporting the disability was severe. It’s likely about the same today. That’s a lot of our LGBTQ leather and kink brethren who face potential obstacles to social interaction and play. I think it’s incumbent upon each of us to do what we can to make our scene as accessible and fun for everyone. Last week, the San Francisco Leathermen’s Discussion Group hosted a presentation by Daniel Sonnenfeld, International Mr. Deaf Leather 1996, titled ‘Learn Kinky Sign Language and More About Disabilities to Help Get You Laid.’ I attended Daniel’s presentation, which was full of great advice on how to accommodate, interact with and play with people with disabilities. I asked him for some basic advice on how we can adjust our venues, events, social interaction and play to offer better opportunities. “Getting to know a person with disability is just like with everyone,” he said. “Focus on us as people. Start up the conversation with the simple stuff. Find out what kinds of activities they like, and what previous kink experiences (if any) they enjoyed. Be aware of assumptions. We all have our biases, conscious and otherwise. Don’t overestimate or underestimate our capabilities. Ask about any limitations and concerns, and have fun, play and be creative. “Make kinky spaces accessible,” Sonnenfeld added. “Someone who is deaf or hard of hearing will be visually oriented, and a well-lit play space is a big plus. Think about adapting safe words. For a person who can’t hear, use hand signals or an object that can be held and dropped, like a handkerchief.”

In addition to what Daniel offered, there was a lot of other great information in Daniel’s presentation; so much information that it doesn’t do full justice to it to encapsulate it here. But I think it has such value that it’s worth trying. I’ve also added some input from other kinksters with disabilities I’ve chatted with over the years. Be open minded and accepting. An open and accepting mind is more likely to generate more empathy for the challenges some in our kink communities face. Try to overcome your fears of engaging with a person with a disability. If you’re the top in a play situation, communicate at each step over the course of the scene. Always ensure the bottom is comfortable asking for information from you and figure out a clear communication mechanism to allow for that in both directions.

Erik Will

Daniel Sonnenfeld, International Mr. Deaf Leather 1996, presenting on kink and disabilities at a recent SF Leathermen’s Discussion Group event.

Encourage and make it safe for people in social situations, attending events, and in play situations to disclose any specific needs, limitations or concerns they might have and work together to accommodate them. Never patronize. Don’t assume someone’s difference makes them a bottom, or a top. Don’t assume it’s okay, or not okay, to fetishize someone’s disability. To the greatest extent possible, make play spaces accessible to the widest range of disabilities you can. Consider offering play space tours in advance so people with disabilities can learn how to navigate the space later and possibly offer sug-

gestions on how to make it more accessible. Sadly, play spaces are often constrained by the real estate and design configuration they’re given. Retrofitting a space isn’t always an option. But there are still things one can do to improve accessibility at least somewhat. The same accessible space needs apply to all spaces too; bars, events, venues, classrooms, clubhouses, and so on. In San Francisco many of our spaces are older and have a small square footage footprint. Thus, configuring them for full accessibility can be difficult and the costs for doing so can sometimes be astronomical. Still, spaces do try and do what they can. When the San Francisco Eagle remodeled their bar after it was purchased by the most recent owners, they installed an accessible bathroom and moved the main bar so that it was easier for a wheelchair and those who need more space to walk to use the area. Another SoMa bar, The Hole in the Wall, in its newer space, has two accessible bathrooms and a wide floor plan. One specific space improvement suggestion that pops up a lot is improved lighting, either in the entire space or designated areas. For the visually impaired, the better lighting makes the space less treacherous to navigate. For the hearing impaired, it allows them to better read lips which is more difficult in low light environments. Remember, not all impairments are visible. Ambulatory issues are easier to spot, but things like cognitive issues, someone being on the autism spectrum, with sensitivities to fragrances or smells, or having an issue like epilepsy (for which others need to be alerted) aren’t something you can see visually. Reach out to those in your social circle or those coming to your events and ask about such things. Be enthusiastic about asking. Let people know you truly want the best environment for everyone, when feasible. As I’ve chatted with various kinksters with challenging situations that keep them from fully engaging with the rest of the scene, I’ve also come to realize not everyone sees their situation as a disability, or the language we sometimes use isn’t well received. I hope all of us will keep learning how to best discuss this extremely important topic. What I’ve mentioned here is but the tip of the iceberg in terms of disability issues and the solutions to improving access. If this column does nothing more than continue this discussion, it’s done its job. Because this is something that needs to consistently stay on our radar. I’d like to also offer an idea to the various kink venues, producers, clubs and organizations in the area. Consider appointing a disability adviser on your staff, organizing committee, production crew or board of directors. This would provide an informed person to advise on such matters and this could potentially greatly improve participation of kinksters with disabilities in our scene. Let’s all do our best to make what we do as accessible to as many kinksters and those who mingle with us as possible. There will at times be limitations to what we can do because of space constraints, money or other factors, but we should certainly do what we can.t

For Leather Events, visit ebar.com/bartab Race Bannon is a local author, blogger and activist. You can reach him on his website, www.bannon.com.

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<< Arts Events

30 • Bay Area Reporter • November 23-29, 2017

Arts Events November 23-30

rky, efer bird or Tofu Whether you pr ts en ev ts ar d eken your holiday we uelty-free. are juicy and cr

Also, Faces of the Past: Queer Lives in Northern California Before 1930, featuring vintage tintypes, mugshots and historic documents of LGBT lives; and, Lavender-Tinted Glasses, a queer Summer of Love look curated by Joey Cain. $5. 4127 18th St. glbthistory.org

SF Symphony Quartet @ LGBT Center A special concert performed by a string quartet from the San Francisco Symphony. Free/register. 6:30pm. 1800 Market St. www.sfcenter.org

Fri 24

Tue 28

The Royale @ Aurora Theatre, Berkeley

Edited for space. For full listings, visit www.ebar.com/arts

Thu 23

(Happy Thanksgiving! For fun bar events tonight, see On the Tab, page 26)

Ten Percent @ Comcast

Girls of the Golden West @ War Memorial Opera House San Francisco Opera’s production of John Adams’ new opera about the Wild West, directed by Peter Sellars. $26-$346. 7:30pm. Nov 24, 26, 29; Dec. 2, 5, 7 & 10. 301 Van Ness Ave. www.sfopera.com

The Normal Heart @ Gateway Theatre

David Perry’s online and cable interviews with notable local and visiting LGBT people, broadcast through the week. Wed 7pm, Thu-Tue 11:30am & 10:30pm. ComcastHometown.com

John Fisher directs and stars in Theatre Rhinoceros’ production of Larry Kramer’s award-winning drama about a New York gay activist’s struggles amid the 1980s AIDS epidemic. $20-$40. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm. Tue 7pm. Thru Nov. 25. 215 Jackson st. therhino.org

Fri 24

The Royale @ Aurora Theatre, Berkeley

Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi The musical comedy revue celebrates its 43th year with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs. Book now for festive holiday shows. $25-$160. Beer/wine served; cash only; 21+, except where noted. Wed-Fri 8pm. Sat 6pm & 9pm. Sun 2pm & 5pm. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd. (Green St.). 421-4222.beachblanketbabylon. com

Black Rider @ Ashby Stage Shotgun Players’ production of the Williams S. Burroughs, Tom Waits and Robert Wilson adult fairytale musical about a lowly clerk who must prove himself to his fianceé’s father by riding through a mysterious forest. $25-$40. Previews; opens Nov 17. Thru Dec 31. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. www.shotgunplayers.org

A Christmas Story @ SF Playhouse Local production of Benj Pasek, Justin Paul & Joseph Robinette’s Tony-nominated musical adaptation of the classic movie about a young boy’s holiday hopes for a rifle. $20$125. Tue-Thu 7:30pm, Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Jan. 13. 450 Post St. www.sfplayhouse.org

Classic & New Films @ Castro Theatre Nov. 22-29: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast sing-along (7pm), Nov 28: Pete Souza: An Intimate Portrait of President Obama (7pm; sold out). Nov. 30: Tim Ferriss: Tribe of Mentors (6:30pm). $11-$16. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

Concept Series 21 @ Green Room Raw Dance’s 21st showing of dances-in-progress, in the elegant scenic reception room, with popcorn, coffee and snacks. $paywhat-you-can. 8pm. Also Nov. 25, 3pm & 7pm. 401 Van Ness Ave. www.rawdance.org

Ringside drama about boxing and race by award-winning TV writer and producer Marco Ramirez ( Orange Is The New Black, Sons of Anarchy). $33-$65. Tue-Wed 7pm. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm & 7pm. Thru Dec. 10. 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. www.auroratheatre.org

Small Mouth Sounds @ Strand Theatre American Conservatory Theatre presents Bess Wohl’s acclaimed Off-Broadway comedy about the wellness industry and spiritual gurus, set in a woodsy retreat center. $14-$90. Tue-Sat 7:30pm. Wed & Sat 2pm. Thru Dec. 10. 1127 Market St. www.act-sf.org

Le Switch @ NCTC Philips Dawkins (The Homosexuals) ’ witty new play about a gay librarian who’s swept into a romance at a Montreal wedding. $25-$50. WedSat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Dec. 10. 25 Van Ness Ave, lower level. nctcsf.org

Sat 25 42nd Street @ Alcazar Theatre Bay Area Musicals’ new production of the classic Broadway musical. $20-$75. Thu-Sun various times thru Dec. 10. 650 Geary St. bamsf.org

SF Hiking Club @ Redwood Regional Park Join GLBT hikers of the SF Hiking Club for a nine-mile hike on a beautiful, mostly forested loop in Redwood Regional Park in the Oakland hills. Hike meets at Rockridge BART at 9am. (510) 9269220. sfhiking.com

Turandot @ War Memorial Opera House San Francisco Opera’s production of Puccini’s classic opera. $40-$300. 7:30pm. Also Nov. 28 (7:30), Dec 3 (2pm), 6 & 9 (7:30). 301 Van Ness Ave. www.sfopera.com

Deal With the Dragon @ NCTC

Sun 26

Kevin Rolston’s acclaimed solo show explores his unique life experience. $25-$50. Wed-Sat 8pm. Sun 2pm. Thru Dec. 3. 25 Van Ness Ave., lower level. www.nctcsf.org

OutLook Video @ Channel 29 The weekly LGBT TV show, with updates on current events. 9:30pm. www.outlookvideo.org

Sabbath @ Contemporary Jewish Museum Smile! The Comics of Raina Telgemeier @ Cartoon Art Museum New exhibit of works by the awardwinning author and illustrator of graphic novels, at the museum’s new location. Free/$10. Thu-Tue 11am5pm. 781 Beach St. Thru Mar. 20. cartoonart.org

World Tree of Hope @ City Hall Join Rainbow World Fund’s 12th annual festive tree decorating events, where thousands of paper origami cranes send messages of hope. 8am8pm. Thru Nov. 30 (Nov 29, until 2pm). 1 Dr Carlton B Goodlett Place. worldtreeofhope.org

The Dorothy Saxe Invitational group exhibit, thru Feb 25. Also, Jewish Folktales Retold: Artist as Maggid (thru Jan 28); In That Case: Havruta in Contemporary Art-Allison Smith and Christina Zetterlund (thru July 3); and Kutiman: Offgrid Offline (thru July 8). Lectures and gallery talks as well (Fridays 12:30pm). Free (members)-$12. Fri-Tue 11am5pm, Thu 11am-8pm (closed Wed). 736 Mission St. 655-7800. https:// thecjm.org/

Various Events @ Oakland LGBTQ Center

Mon 27

Social events and meetings at the new LGBTQ center include film screenings and workshops, including Bruthas Rising, trans men of color meetings, 4th Tuesdays, 6:30pm. Film screenings, 4th Saturdays, 7:30pm. Game nights, Fridays 7:30pm-11pm. Vogue sessions, first Saturdays. 3207 Lakeshore Ave. Oakland. oaklandlgbtqcenter.org

OUT/LOOK and the Birth of the Queer @ GLBT History Museum

Wed 29

OUT/LOOK and the Birth of the Queer, a new exhibit about the groundbreaking LGBT quarterly based in SF from 1988 to 1992; curated by E.G. Crichton, with a special commemorative new edition for sale.

Jeffrey Braverman @ LGBT Center The photographer’s new exhibit David, in Brief. Thru Dec. 5. 1800 Market St. www.sfcenter.org

Thu 30 Finishing Touches @ GLBT History Museum Benefit for the Louise Lawrence Transgender Archive, with Shawna Virago, Birdie Bob Wyatt, J. Raoul Brody, MC Carol Queen, and archive talk with Ms. Bobbie Davis. $donations. 7pm-9pm. 4127 18th st. lltransarchive.org

The Golden Girls @ Victoria Theatre The hugely popular drag performances of Christmas episodes from the classic elder women sitcom return, with Heklina, Matthew Martin, D’Arcy Drollinger, Holotta Tymes and more. $25-$40. Thu-Sat 8pm. Sun 7pm. (Sun Dec. 10 & 17, 2pm). Thru Dec. 23. 2961 16th St. goldengirlssf.com

Light in the Grove @ Nat’l AIDS Memorial Grove The annual elegant fundraiser for the Grove includes cocktails, hors d’eouvres, a buffet dinner, entertainment and beautiful art installations. $250 and up. 6pm9:30pm. Nancy Pelosi Drive at Bowling Green, Golden Gate Park. aidsmemorial.org

Seal, SF Symphony @ Davies Symphony Hall The acclaimed soul-pop singer, with the Symphony, performs jazz & swing classics from his new album, Standards. $45-$250. 7:30pm. 201 Van Ness Ave. sfsymphony.org

World AIDS Day Mask Exhibition @ Terra Gallery Clínica Esperanza at Mission Neighborhood Health Center hosts a mask-making party for patients, staff and friends, with appetizers and drinks, and a performance by Mazzy Star. 6pm-9pm. 511 Harrison St. mnhc.org/medical-servicescategories/hiv-services/ To submit event listings, email events@ebar.com

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November 23-29, 2017 • Bay Area Reporter • 31

Shining Stars Steven Underhill Photos by

Marlena’s 78th Birthday @ Twin Peaks E

mpress Marlena (aka Gary Mclain) celebrated her 78th birthday at the historic Twin Peaks Tavern on Saturday, November 18. Local luminaries attended (Alexis Miranda, Nic Hunter, Shaun Haines, Galilea, Erick Lopez, Sister Roma, Kevin Lisle, Leandro Gonzales and others), offering praise, hugs and drink toasts. See plenty more photos on BARtab’s Facebook page, facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife. See more of Steven Underhill’s photos at StevenUnderhill.com.