artist set up a GoFundMe for him after he was injured during an assault near his home in the Tenderloin neighborhood. The artist, Diego Gomez, may be known to readers as he designed the Bay Area Reporter’s 2016 Pride cover.
When asked what he’d like people to know, Gomez, 43, told the B.A.R., “don’t punch people in the face that didn’t do anything to you.” He spent his October 2 birthday in the hospital.
The GoFundMe has raised over $35,000 of a $40,000 goal as of October 8. In an Instagram post October 7, Gomez explained what it was that had happened the night of September 30.
50th Castro fair sizzles
The 50th edition of the Castro Street Fair Sunday, October 6, was sizzling, as temperatures reached the 90s in San Francisco. Mary Vance was one of several performers
at the Juanita MORE! stage, as attendees took in the show. Crowds were a little thinner than usual in the early afternoon, but as shadows lengthened, the streets became full and crowded.
SFUSD quiet on LGBTQ parents group launch
by Matthew S. Bajko
Two years after the school board approved the creation of an advisory body for parents of LGBTQ students, the San Francisco Unified School District is working to launch it this academic year. But school district officials have provided few details about their plans for convening the Queer Transgender Parent Advisory Council.
Since August, the Bay Area Reporter has inquired about the QTPAC’s formation, including how many people applied to be on it, how many will be selected, and when it will first meet. As the district had previously said it had no money to fund the staffing for the advisory body, the B.A.R.
See page 2 >>
President and Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz
U.S. Senate
Adam Schiff
SF Mayor London Breed, first choice
Aaron Peskin, second choice
SF Board of Supervisors
Dist. 1: Connie Chan
Dist. 3: Sharon Lai, first choice
Danny Sauter, second choice
Dist. 5: Dean Preston
Dist. 7: Myrna Melgar
Dist. 9: Roberto Hernandez, first choice
Stephen Torres, second choice
Dist. 11: Ernest “EJ” Jones, first choice
Michael Lai, second choice
SF District Attorney
Brooke Jenkins
SF Board of Education
Matt Alexander
Jaime Huling
John Jersin
Parag Gupta
City College of SF
Luis Zamora
Alan Wong
Aliya Chisti
Heather McCarty
BART Board Dist. 9 Joe Sangirardi
OTHER RACES
Alameda County Board of Supervisors
Dist. 5: John Bauters
Oakland City Council
Dist. 3: Warren Logan
Dist. 5: Erin Armstrong
At-Large: Rowena Brown
Berkeley City Council
Dist. 2: Terry Taplin
Dist. 6: Andy Katz
Congress (Bay Area)
Dist. 2: Jared Huffman
Dist. 4: Mike Thompson
Dist. 8: John Garamendi
Dist. 9: Josh Harder
Dist. 10: Mark DeSaulnier
Dist. 11: Nancy Pelosi
Dist. 12: Lateefah Simon
Dist. 14: Eric Swalwell
Dist. 15: Kevin Mullin
Dist. 16: Evan Low
Dist. 17: Ro Khanna
Dist. 18: Zoe Lofgren
CA Assembly Dist. 14: Buffy Wicks
Dist. 16: Rebecca Bauer-Kahan
Dist. 17: Matt Haney
Dist. 18: Mia Bonta
Dist. 19: Catherine Stefani
Dist. 20: Liz Ortega
Dist. 21: Diane Papan
Dist. 24: Alex Lee
Dist. 25: Ash Kalra
Dist. 26: Patrick Ahrens
CA Senate
Dist. 3: Christopher Cabaldon
Dist. 7: Jovanka Beckles
Dist. 9: Marisol Rubio
Dist. 11: Scott Wiener
Dist. 13: Josh Becker
Dist. 15: Dave Cortese
Dist. 17: John Laird
SAN FRANCISCO PROPS
Yes on: A, B, F, H, I, J, L, M, O
No on: C, D, E, G, K, N
CALIFORNIA PROPS
Yes on: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 32, 33, 35
No on: 34,
by John Ferrannini
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins faces one challenger – a prosecutor she fired who has contrasting views about criminal justice – in her bid for reelection this year. Ryan Khojasteh is backed by progressives, while Jenkins is running on her record that her office has beefed up prosecutions after voters recalled former DA Chesa Boudin two years ago.
It was in the aftermath of that June 2022 recall that Mayor London Breed appointed Jenkins, who formerly worked in the DA’s office but left and helped lead the campaign for Boudin’s ouster. Voters had become anxious over crime and repeat offenders during Boudin’s tenure. Jenkins was handily elected to finish the remainder of Boudin’s term in November 2022 against attorneys Joe Alioto Veronese, Maurice Chenier, and John Hamasaki.
Officials at the San Francisco Unified School District have been mum on plans for an LGBTQ parents’ group.
Cynthia Laird
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, left, and prosecutor Ryan Khojasteh are running against each other on the November ballot. courtesy the campaigns
Artist Diego Gomez is recovering after being assaulted in the Tenderloin.
Courtesy Diego Gomez
SOMA businesses struggling with thefts
by John Ferrannini
The South of Market neighborhood’s queer businesses are among those battling burglary, break-ins, and attempted break-ins over the past few months. The incidents have prompted speculation that they are from the same or related groups of organized thieves.
Simi Grewal, a gay and queer woman and sommelier who is co-owner of DECANTsf wine shop at 1168 Folsom Street, told the Bay Area Reporter in a recent phone interview about two alleged thefts in a two-day period over the summer. Oasis, an LGBTQ nightclub, reported an armed robbery in July, and the Stud and Powerhouse LGBTQ bars have reported attempted break-ins.
“Three incredibly large guys around 8 o’clock pretended they were looking for tequila. We don’t sell liquor,” Grewal said, recalling the June 1 incident. “They basically kind of went to different parts of the store and started taking items off the shelves. One of them even went behind the bar.”
The three stole almost $1,000 in merchandise. Grewal said her business partner, Cara Patricia, had to go to the police station to file a report June 2 on the June 1 incident because officers didn’t respond, citing a “concert in the Civic Center,” she said. (There was a Skrillex rave at Civic Center Plaza.)
“The cops even told us they identified them as folks who were doing similar things around the Bay,” Grewal said. Then, as Patricia was returning to DECANTsf from the police station, there was another theft, Grewal said. This time, someone came in and took alcohol without paying. Officers did respond to the June 2 incident, and staff filed a police report on that matter.
San Francisco Police Department Public Information Officer Paulina Henderson confirmed this account in a statement to the B.A.R., which noted that on June 2 around 4 p.m. “a reporting victim came into Southern station to file a report regarding a burglary of a business located on the 1100 block of Folsom Street.”
“Officers were advised that several suspects entered the business on 06/01/2024 at approximately 8:50 p.m. and stole store merchandise prior to fleeing the scene,” Henderson stated. “Through the course of the investigation, two adult males were identified in their involvement in the above-mentioned crime and other organized retail crimes by investigators. The suspects were booked into custody for their arrest warrants.”
The two Oakland residents were arrested for the out-of-county charges. Clarence Labor Loftin, 30, was arrested on suspicion of second-degree robbery and on suspicion of two counts of second-degree burglary and is in custody in Alameda County. John Fitzgerald Stroman Jr., 32, was arrested on suspicion of second-degree robbery, second-degree burglary, and grand theft, and is in custody in Contra Costa County.
also asked how much funding had been allocated toward it.
To date, the school district has not provided answers to those questions. In a brief emailed reply on September 4, SFUSD media relations coordinator Katrina Kincade had informed the B.A.R., “At this time applications are closed and our team is working on steps moving forward to get the group up and running. We will share more updates as soon as we have them.”
Asked again this week to respond to the B.A.R.’s questions for this article, Kincade replied Tuesday afternoon, “We do not have any updates to share at this time. We will let you know when we do.”
Earlier this year, the school district had posted online that it was accepting applications from parents interested in serving on the QTPAC. (The post-
The San Francisco Public Defender’s office and the San Francisco District Attorney’s office didn’t return requests for comment for this report as of press time.
DA Brooke Jenkins filed charges against Stroman, whose case is making its way through the San Francisco courts.
Grewal said she feels police response times in the SOMA neighborhood are too slow.
“You go to North Beach and there are cops eating pizza on the corner, so clearly there are cops, but we can’t get people to show up when you call 911,” she said.
Business owners in their section of SOMA are thinking of starting a merchants association to advocate for their interests with the city government and with the SFPD, Grewal told the B.A.R. (There already is the South of Market Business Association that covers the entire neighborhood, which didn’t return a request for comment.)
“City Hall is very grudgingly listening to us,” she said. “Our precinct captain, Luke Martin, is good at trying to help. … The top doesn’t seem to care about SOMA. I was talking with the chief of police [William Scott] and I spoke to him asking, ‘What is it going to take?’ … I felt that boilerplate, ‘We’re working on it.’”
A spokesperson for Scott didn’t return a request for comment.
Gay District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents SOMA on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, used to be head of strategic communications for the SFPD. He told the B.A.R. in a phone interview he understands Grewal’s concerns and those of other SOMA business owners. Dorsey framed the issue in terms of the police staffing shortage that’s affecting the entire city and the epidemic of commercial robberies throughout the Bay Area.
“I know there is frustration with the police response. In fairness, I don’t think the police department is being neglectful or lazy, I think the issue is the police staffing issues I’ve been working hard to fix,” Dorsey said. “The department is getting run ragged and that does empower a kind of category of crime, like orga-
ing had said the deadline to do so was August 30, though the online page for applicants to fill out initially had said parents had until September 27, which the district corrected after being asked about the discrepancy by the B.A.R.)
Parents and guardians of SFUSD students in any grade from pre-K to 12th grade who are 2SLGBTQIA+, which stands for Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Gender NonConforming, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, and Agender, were welcome to apply.
Martin Rawlings-Fein, who is a bisexual and transgender father, applied to be a general member of the QTPAC, which he had advocated to see be formed.
“I think it is really important that parents are given the opportunity to stand up and work for their kids and make that happen,” said Rawlings-Fein, who with his wife, Shelli, has a 13-year-old daughter, Lia, who attends Hoover Middle School as an eighth grader this year.
nized retail theft and burglary operations, to thrive.”
The SFPD has a shortfall of about 500 officers – and 450 more will be eligible for retirement by 2030. Scott and Mayor London Breed announced last week that the SFPD welcomed its largest police academy class since 2018, which has 50 recruits.
“I’m excited to see so much interest from new recruits wanting to serve their community in this noble profession,” Scott stated in a news release. “They will join a force of extraordinary officers who are doing a tremendous job fighting crime and keeping the public safe in San Francisco. I want to thank Mayor Breed for making police staffing a top priority and getting our department back on track following an unprecedented national policing crisis.”
Breed touted “significant investments we are making and the reforms to our hiring process.”
“A fully staffed police force is key to our public safety strategy, but it’s not the only piece,” she stated. “We’re also deploying new technology, using alternatives to policing to free up resources, and investing in violence prevention and community building. I’m grateful for these newest additions to our police force, and to all those who are serving today.”
As the B.A.R. previously reported the police academy class of 12 officers that graduated on September 5 of this year had been the largest since 2019 until this month.
Dorsey is promoting Proposition F on the November ballot as a way to stem the tide of a depleted police force. Prop F would give eligible officers the ability to defer retirement and continue working in neighborhood policing roles or helping with investigations. Their retirement benefits would be placed in a tax-deferred interest-bearing account, which they would collect upon retirement.
“I think that will make a difference,” Dorsey said.
Meanwhile, he is also supportive of a new merchants association covering the section of SOMA where DECANTsf is located.
Their older daughter, Sadie, who is queer, graduated out of the district and is now a sophomore in college in New York City. While he doesn’t want to take a leadership role in the QTPAC, Rawlings-Fein told the B.A.R. one reason he applied to be a member of it was to ensure parents who are transgender are represented on it.
“I am hopeful the makeup of the committee, of the PAC itself, actually is this rather than just being name service,” said Rawlings-Fein, referring to the 2SLGBTQIA+ acronym. “Like, here we are naming it this but don’t have any trans people.”
In mid-September, Rawlings-Fein was notified by the school district that it had received his application for the QTPAC and asked for confirmation that he was seeking a general membership. Since then, he has not heard that he has been officially selected for it or when it will hold its inaugural meeting, though
“I am aware there are folks considering a merchants association,” he said. “I think that’d be a great idea. … My observation is it’s just a better way to engage and be involved with city government. I often find myself in a position where I’m competing with 10 other supervisors for limited city resources, so having merchant organizations shoulder to shoulder with me on that can be really helpful.”
Dorsey said that in his experience, there are two major kinds of retail theft in the Bay Area.
“There is the kind of low-level, addiction-driven, random kinds of break-ins and retail thefts,” Dorsey said. “Then there’s a kind that is highly sophisticated and highly organized and aware of where there are vulnerabilities and how to exploit those that can play out in everything from burglaries to catalytic converter thefts and organized retail theft episodes. … The crews or organized gangs – that is a real phenomenon and part of the reason the state gave us funding for license plate readers, because a lot of these gangs operate in the multiple-county Bay Area.”
The state’s Organized Retail Theft Grant Program provided San Francisco $17.3 million in September 2023 for license plate readers at over 100 intersections. Those readers are being installed, and Mayor London Breed has touted their effectiveness. She said at a June news conference that over 100 license plate readers had been installed so far.
“We’ve made arrests,” she said at the time.
Other businesses hit Meanwhile, DECANTsf is not alone in SOMA – as the B.A.R. reported July 19, the drag nightclub Oasis was the victim of a robbery, according to its owner San Francisco drag laureate D’Arcy Drollinger.
The club’s cleaning crew was robbed of their wallets and cell phones by four armed gunmen, according to Drollinger.
Nate Allbee, a co-owner of the SOMA bar The Stud, told the B.A.R. that the 1123 Folsom Street establishment has “been lucky.”
with much of the calendar in October taken up by Jewish High Holy Days, the rabbinical student predicted it wouldn’t be until November at the earliest.
“I am in the dark as well,” RawlingsFein told the B.A.R. when asked if he knew the answer to such questions.
Proposed in 2021
When it was first proposed in 2021, the QTPAC was to have 25 people, according to a PowerPoint presentation at one school board meeting. It was expected that the school district would need to budget $180,000 toward hiring a person to staff it. This year, the school district is facing a precarious budget situation with a $421 million deficit projected for its next fiscal year. Tuesday, SFUSD announced a list of schools facing closure, including an elementary school named after the late gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk, as a way to cut $100 million from its budget.
Nonetheless, “we had to redo one of our windows,” he said, after “someone was trying to knock it out” in early September.
“We are very careful but there’s not anything you can do about it – you just got to hope and pray,” he said. “There’s a particular group of people targeting bars because they know they can.”
The Stud didn’t file a police report about the incident, but Powerhouse, a few blocks west at 1347 Folsom Street, did after someone tried to break into their establishment on August 23. Powerhouse general manager Scott Richard Peterson told the B.A.R. that there was some damage on the bar’s door.
“They just put a hole in our door with a sledge hammer,” Peterson stated. “Neighbors interrupted and they drove off.” Peterson believes the same people later that Friday targeted Mars bar at 978 Brannan Street, which the owner reported was burglarized August 23.
Mars didn’t return the B.A.R.’s requests for comment, but owner David Kiely told KRON-TV that burglars “came in, broke open the front doors, stole the ATM and two cash registers and they were out the door.” Kiley also alleged it was the same crew that had targeted Powerhouse, as it was the same morning.
SFPD’s Henderson stated to the B.A.R. that officers responded to Powerhouse at 4:56 a.m. that morning.
“Officers arrived on scene and observed damages to the door of the business,” she stated. “Officers were advised that suspects attempted to break into a business and fled in a vehicle. Officers conducted a walkthrough and did not locate any subjects inside the premises nor observed any damages inside the business. There were no reports of items stolen at this time.”
On all the investigations mentioned in this report, even the DECANTsf case where there’s been an arrest, anyone with information is asked to contact the SFPD at 415-575-4444 or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with SFPD. Tipsters may remain anonymous.t
“There is so much going on right now. It is really important we focus on our students and focus on helping kids be themselves and meet them where they are at,” said Rawlings-Fein about the QTPAC being able to advocate for LGBTQ families amid all the various issues confronting the school district.
As for its responsibilities, the QTPAC is “to provide a space to listen and take action to create more welcoming, affirming and supportive schools for 2SLGBTQIA+ students and families,” per the application posted this year. “Our mission is to honor the diversity of families, parents, and caregivers and support them to be leaders and advocates in their 2SLGBTQIA+ students’ education by listening to their experiences, uplifting their voices, sharing information, and shaping the development of district resources, policies, and programs.”
page 13
Sommeliers Cara Patricia, left, and Simi Grewal co-founded DECANTsf, which has a location at 1168 Folsom Street in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood.
Courtesy DECANTsf
Oasis nightclub was robbed the morning of July 18, owner D’Arcy Drollinger wrote on social media.
Courtesy Oasis via Instagram
Volume 54, Number 41
October 10-16, 2024 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 & NIGHTLIFE EDITOR
Jim Provenzano
ASSISTANT EDITORS
Matthew S. Bajko • John Ferrannini
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Christopher J. Beale • Robert Brokl
Brian Bromberger • Victoria A. Brownworth
Philip Campbell • Heather Cassell
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Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell • Lisa Keen
Philip Mayard • Laura Moreno
David-Elijah Nahmod • J.L. Odom • Paul Parish
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Gwendolyn Smith • Charlie Wagner
Ed Walsh • Cornelius Washington • Sura Wood
ART DIRECTION
Max Leger
PRODUCTION/DESIGN
Ernesto Sopprani
PHOTOGRAPHERS
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Rick Gerharter • Gooch
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Advertising rates available upon request. Our list of subscribers and advertisers is confidential and is not sold. The sexual orientation of advertisers, photographers, and writers published herein is neither inferred nor implied. We are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork.
SF prop recommendations
There are 15 San Francisco propositions on the November 5 ballot covering everything from infrastructure to city commissions to retirement changes for first responders. Below are our recommendations.
Bonds
Proposition A: Schools Improvement and Safety Bond. YES. This measure needs 55% affirmative votes to pass. It would authorize the San Francisco Unified School District to borrow up to $790 million by issuing general obligation bonds that can be used to improve, repair, or upgrade its sites, and to build new facilities. The SFUSD is in a dire financial situation right now, and being able to borrow these bond funds would allow it to make needed changes it would not otherwise be able to afford. Vote YES on Prop A.
A rendering of the proposed redesign for Harvey Milk Plaza, which would receive funds under the Proposition B infrastructure bond.
Proposition B: Community Health and Medical Facilities, Street Safety, Public Spaces, and Shelter to Reduce Homelessness Bond. YES. This measure needs 66.66% affirmative votes to pass. It would allow the city to borrow up to $390 million by issuing general obligations bonds for a variety of projects. Of chief interest to the LGBTQ community are two that are listed: $25 million for the renovation of Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro neighborhood, and $28 million to relocate City Clinic, which is outdated and provides a lifeline to so many community members and other residents. There are many other important projects as well, such as $63.9 million for street and sidewalk safety projects and $66 million to repair and renovate Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center and Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, the publicly funded skilled nursing facility. With the city staring down budget deficits in the next couple of years, issuing bonds is an important way these infrastructure projects can get completed. City policy is to limit the amount of money it borrows by issuing new bonds only as prior bonds are paid off, thereby avoiding an increase in property taxes. It is strongly supported by Mayor London Breed and all 11 supervisors. Vote YES on Prop B.
Charter amendments
Charter amendments need 50% plus 1 affirmative votes for passage.
Proposition C: Inspector General. NO. This is the idea of Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin in response to recent city corruption scandals. It would establish the position of inspector general in the office of the city controller, who is appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the Board of Supervisors to oversee the city’s financial affairs. The city charter already requires the controller to receive and investigate complaints of alleged misuse of city funds and improper activities by city officers and employees, among other items. The controller can examine the records of city boards, commissions, officers, and departments, but does not have subpoena power to require third parties, such as contractors and lobbyists, to produce documents. Prop C would allow the controller to hire an inspector general and allow the controller to subpoena documents from third parties. San Francisco has had excellent controllers who have rooted out corruption – and continue to do so. We don’t think an unelected person – and the likely attending staff – is needed as an inspector general. Vote NO on Prop C.
Proposition D: City Commissions and Mayoral Authority. Proposition E: Creating a Task Force to Recommend Changing, Eliminating, or Combining City Commissions. NO on both. One of the things we love about San Francisco is that there are lots of commissions. These advisory bodies play a vital role in local government and give volunteer commissioners valuable experience, offering an opportunity for some of them to seek elected office themselves. Yes, San Francisco has a lot of com-
missions, but the solution is not to ride roughshod over them, eliminating many with little thought. That’s the reasoning behind Prop D, spearheaded by Together SF Action, an advocacy group. Prop E, advocated by Peskin, would take a more thoughtful approach and go through a public process to determine if some commissions should be jettisoned.
According to Prop E proponents, the arts, library, health, and small business commissions would be eliminated under the more draconian Prop D. This is ridiculous. All of these bodies are critical. The health commission was resurrected in the early 1980s partly as a result of the AIDS epidemic. According to the city’s “A Brief History of the Health Commission,” a body was convened in the early 20th century but eventually determined to be no longer needed and dissolved. Then, in the early 1980s, when San Francisco General Hospital was at risk of losing its accreditation and AIDS was rising as an epidemic, a charter amendment was proposed in 1984 to establish a health commission and approved by voters. The modern-day commission was created in 1985. Since then, numerous LGBTQ people have served as health commissioners, alongside physicians, nurses, and others, providing a much-needed queer perspective to the Department of Public Health on issues that affect our community.
While Prop E is the better of the two, we aren’t convinced that San Francisco government needs to be gutted in one of the areas it’s known for: public participation by interested residents who love their city. Vote NO on Props D and E.
age. The reason for this change, according to the seven supervisors who voted for it, is due to the higher incidence of cancer among older firefighters. Prop H would allow firefighters to cut their cancer risk by being able to retire early. This does impact the city’s fiscal situation, with increases pegged at $3.7 million in fiscal year 2025-26, and increasing through 204041. Firefighters have one of the most dangerous jobs in the city, and this measure would standardize the retirement age. Vote YES on Prop H. Proposition I: Retirement Benefits for Nurses and 911 Operators. YES. This would allow eligible Registered Nurses to purchase service credit for hours they worked on a per diem basis. Prop I would also move 911 dispatchers, supervisors, and coordinators from the Miscellaneous Plans to the Miscellaneous Safety Plan for compensation those employees earn on and after January 4, 2025. As members of the Miscellaneous Safety Plan, these employees would be required to pay an increased amount into the pension plan and would receive increased pension benefits at retirement. Members of the Board of Supervisors support Prop I because there is a shortage of 911 operators and RNs. Vote YES on Prop I.
Proposition F: Police Staffing and Deferred Retirement. YES. This measure would establish a Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP) for eligible police officers. Full-duty police officers in the ranks of officer, sergeant, and inspector who are at least 50 years old and have at least 25 years of eligible service with the department or another law enforcement agency could participate. Participants would continue to work fulltime for the department at their current salary and benefit levels. Participants must agree to perform neighborhood patrol work or conduct investigations, regardless of their previous assignment. Participants would only be allowed to participate for up to five years. The pension payments the participant would have collected upon retirement would be placed into a tax-deferred and interest-bearing account. When their DROP period ends, participants must stop work for the city and they’d receive their deferred monthly pension payments with interest. This is a solution to keeping officers in the department as the city works to recruit more sworn personnel to alleviate the staffing shortage of about 500 officers. Vote YES on Prop F.
Proposition G: Funding Rental Subsidies for Affordable Housing Developments Serving Low Income Seniors, Families, and Persons with Disabilities. NO. Unfortunately, this is a set-aside, which means that money from the city’s general fund would be earmarked for a new $8.25 million Affordable Housing Opportunity Fund for Seniors, Families, and Persons with Disabilities. This could be adjusted 3% until fiscal year 2045-46, based on the city’s revenues. The city is in a deficit mode right now, meaning it cannot afford money to be taken from the general fund for specific purposes –there’s already too much of that in the budget. There is a provision in the proposal that if the city’s deficit is $250 million or more, it can reduce the amount of money into the fund, but the city must contribute at least $4 million in 2026-27 and at least $8.25 million in each later year.
More importantly, however, the city already has subsidies for those who are extremely low-income. The city also provides subsidies for those who formerly experienced homelessness. The city should manage its budget and continue providing rental subsidies but without the mandate of this charter amendment. Vote No on Prop G.
Proposition H: Retirement Benefits for Firefighters. YES. This would lower the age of retirement for firefighters hired before January 7, 2012 from 58 years of age to 55, the age at which these members can receive the highest pension based on
Proposition J: Funding Programs Serving Children, Youth, and Families. YES. This does not create a new fund. The city already funds services for children, youth, and their families through the Children and Youth Fund, the Public Education Enrichment Fund, the Student Success Fund, and other programs. Prop J would change the way the city evaluates funding for services to children, youth and their families by monitoring outcomes. According to proponents, it would ensure that the city and the San Francisco Unified School District plan, coordinate, and account for funding spent to improve outcomes. Vote YES on Prop J.
Ordinances Ordinances require 50% plus 1 affirmative votes for passage.
Proposition K: Permanently Closing the Upper Great Highway to Private Vehicles to Establish a Public Open Recreation Space. NO. There are many issues with Prop K, including the fact that proponents want to build a park when they’re already at the beach. But the city doesn’t have millions of dollars for a park, and, as far as we can tell, there is no plan by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to mitigate the traffic issues associated with closing a portion of this vital commuter artery. The Upper Great Highway is already closed to vehicle traffic on weekends and holidays; that seemed to be a good compromise. More to the point, Prop K shouldn’t even be on the ballot. This is something that should be determined by the Board of Supervisors. The city elects its supervisors by district. In this case, gay District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio should have brought forth a plan with funding attached for his colleagues to vote on. Supervisors are elected to make the hard decisions. Passing this off to a citywide vote sets a bad precedent and leaves westside residents at the mercy of voters throughout the city. The San Francisco Chronicle recently did an informal survey on the Upper Great Highway (between Ortega Street and Noriega Street intersections) during the morning commute and the reporter was “surprised” to find that vehicles use it – 1,656 during the 8 to 9 a.m. commute on Thursday, September 5, and 467 peo-
Eligible San Francisco Police officers would be able to defer retirement under Proposition F.
John Ferrannini
People walk along the Upper Great Highway, which is currently closed to vehicle traffic on weekends and holidays.
Courtesy Great Highway Park
Proposition H makes changes to retirement benefits for San Francisco firefighters.
John Ferrannini
Courtesy Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza
t Politics >>
In hotly contested South Bay House race, Low and Liccardo to debate
by Matthew S. Bajko
With the congressional candidates sniping at each other for months, the October 11 televised debate between gay state Assemblymember Evan Low (D-Cupertino) and former San Jose mayor Sam Liccardo (D) could produce feisty exchanges between the two South Bay leaders. They are seeking to succeed Congressmember Anna Eshoo (D-Palo Alto) in the state’s 16th Congressional District.
Last year, Eshoo opted not to seek another term in her House seat, which straddles Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. It led to a heated primary race in March that saw Liccardo emerge in first place, and Low tied with Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian (D) for second.
It appeared all three would advance to the November 5 general election ballot. But a former aide to Liccardo sought a recount, claiming he was doing so on behalf of Low. The state legislator cried foul, accusing Liccardo of working behind the scenes to bump him out of the race.
In the end, Low emerged victorious over Simitian by five votes, keeping alive his bid to become the Bay Area’s first LGBTQ congressional member. It also maintained months of acrimony between the two campaigns.
Even Liccardo’s announcement the morning of their scheduled debate last Wednesday, October 2, that he had to pull out of it due to having laryngitis was met with suspicion by Low’s camp. Low campaign manager Lindsey Cobia told debate co-host KQED that Liccardo’s doing so “was suspicious,” though the public broadcaster reported it had seen Liccardo’s medical records showing his doctor had ordered at least five days of vocal rest.
political consulting firm Impact Politics LLC.
“He has another million in his state account, and I have no doubt that he will spend the rest to try and illegally win,” wrote Liccardo, 54. “If you are as outraged as I am, now is the time to take action. Donate, volunteer, and show Evan that he can’t get away with this illegal behavior.”
Low’s deputy campaign manager, Lam Nguyen, in a statement to the San Jose Mercury News accused Liccardo’s campaign of once again having one of his endorsers “file false and meritless complaints to distract from Sam’s own ethical failings.”
Meanwhile, LGBTQ advocates this week announced new investments to support Low’s candidacy. They are also organizing people to knock on voters’ doors on behalf of Low this Saturday.
It initially was unclear if the debate would be rescheduled. But within a day co-hosts KQED, NBC Bay Area and Telemundo 48 announced it was a go for October 11, which happens to be National Coming Out Day for the LGBTQ community. Set to begin at 7 p.m. Friday and moderated by NBC Bay Area anchor Raj Mathai, the 60-minute debate will be aired live on both the television station and KQED Public Radio.
It comes as the rhetoric between the two candidates’ camps has heated up in recent weeks. South Bay firefighters and police have lashed out at Liccardo, blaming him for laying off 49 firefighters and the hollowing out of the San Jose Police Department during his time as mayor.
“There is a reason why every law enforcement organization has not endorsed Sam Liccardo: we don’t trust him,” stated Steve Slack, president of the San Jose Police Officers Association, which is backing Low, in mid-September.
That followed the contretemps in August stemming from a complaint former Federal Elections Commission Chair Ann Ravel, who is among Liccardo’s endorsers, had filed accusing Low’s campaign of using nonprofit Stand With Asian Americans’ contact list in violation of federal campaign laws. It prompted Low backer former congressmember Mike Honda to pen a blistering rebuttal accusing Liccardo of resorting to “dirty tricks” that was published by the news site San Jose Spotlight.
This month, Liccardo and the campaign watchdog group Defend the Vote accused Low of illegally using funds in his state legislative campaign account toward his congressional race. Defend the Vote Executive Director Brian Lemek filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission asking it to investigate the matter.
In an email to his supporters October 7, Liccardo wrote that he was “outraged” about the matter. His campaign included a link to a federal filing showing $545,000 from Low’s “Evan Low For Assembly 2024 Committee” had gone to
A new poll conducted on behalf of Equality California Votes, an independent federal super PAC aligned with the statewide LGBTQ+ civil rights organization, found Low and Liccardo in a statistical tie less than a month before Election Day. According to the poll, Low garnered 45% support and Liccardo received 48% with 7% of the 600 respondents undecided. Conducted September 5-10, the poll had a margin of error of ±4.0%.
The political action committee also released two new ads Tuesday on behalf of Low that will air on connected TV and other digital platforms as part of a six-figure media buy. The 15-second positive spot highlight Low’s record of results in the California Assembly protecting reproductive freedom and marriage equality.
Low has been ramping up his fundraising appeals, sending out text messages to his supporters asking them to donate at least $25 toward his campaign coffers.
“We’ve built this campaign on the power of people like you – those who want to see a new generation of leadership in Congress and for the time, see both LGBTQ+ and Asian representation in CA-16,” noted Low’s campaign in an October 5 text.
At 41 years old, Low would be one of the youngest LGBTQ congressional members should he be elected next month. He would also bring the number of out members in California’s congressional delegation to three.
Other races
Gay Congressmembers Mark Takano (D-Riverside) and Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) are expected to easily win reelection to their Southern California House seats in November. Takano, 63, and Garcia, 46, early on endorsed Low in his primary race.
Looking to join them is gay lawyer Will Rollins, 40, who is making his second bid for a House seat in the Palms Spring area. Rollins is aiming to oust from office conservative Congressmember Ken Calvert (R-Corona) from his 41st Congressional District seat.
Unlike when he first ran against Calvert, 71, in 2022, Rollins this time around has received early backing and support from the Democratic Party. He announced this week raising more than $10.6 million for his 2024 bid, which makes him “the highest-raising challenger without self-funding in the state’s history,” according to his campaign.
“Supporters across California’s 41st and folks across the country know that our district is one of the best chances to take back the House and fight for our freedoms,” stated Rollins. “I’m grateful for the support and I look forward to finishing the job in less than 30 days.”
In recent weeks, Rollins has released several ads attacking Calvert and criticized him for declining to debate him. Polling shows their race in a dead heat.
A poll by the University of Southern California, CSU Long Beach, and Cal Poly Pomona conducted last month found Rollins and Calvert both with 46.1% among the 539 respondents. It had a margin of error at ±4.2%.
With their race potentially determining which party controls the House, it has garnered national attention. So much so that GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) is coming this weekend to campaign with Calvert.
“The 41st District will decide who controls the House of Representatives. Join us this Sunday in Corona for a Get Out the Vote rally with Speaker Johnson!” Calvert wrote in a post on X.
As for Rollins, he rolled out this week a video pitch on his behalf from actor and activist Eva Longoria on his social media accounts.
In it, she calls Rollins “incredible” and “the fresh bold leader we need right now in Congress.”
The three universities also polled voters in Eshoo’s district and found Lic cardo leading 30.9% to 20.1% over Low, with over 40% of the 544 respondents undecided. It also had a margin of error at ±4.2%.
In the East Bay race to succeed out going Congressmember Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), who fell short in the March primary for one of the state’s U.S. Senate seats, queer candidate Jennifer Kim-Anh Tran, Ph.D., is seen as the underdog against fellow Democrat teefah Simon, a BART board member. The USC/CSU Long Beach/Cal Poly Pomona poll had Simon leading 27.9% to 14.8% for Tran with a margin of error of ±4.3%.
Two other gay Democratic congressional candidates mounting rematches this year have not gotten the same party support as Rollins has received. Progressive lawyer David Kim aims to oust from office Congressmember Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles) from his District 34 House seat to become the first out Korean American elected to Congress. Progressive activist Derek Marshall is seen as the underdog in his race against Congressmember Jay Obernolte (R-Hesperia) for the District 23 House seat in the high desert areas east of Los Angeles. The USC/CSU Long Beach/Cal Poly Pomona poll didn’t include either Marshall’s or Kim’s races. t
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South Bay congressional candidates Evan Low, left, and Sam Liccardo will appear in a televised debate Friday, October 11.
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SF Dems fight to win for Harris-Walz at new HQ
by John Ferrannini
If they’re seeking to help hometown favorite Kamala Harris’ campaign for president of the United States, denizens of overwhelmingly Democratic San Francisco need look no further than the vacant old Nordstrom Rack on Market Street – now decorated with hand-drawn poster board signs and featuring an abundance of cookies and candy bars.
And it isn’t the only way San Franciscans who want to see former President Donald Trump lose his bid to return to the White House can get involved in national politics. One gay man is organizing trips to Nevada, a swing state, while another is helping coordinate volunteers to make phone calls in support of Democratic candidates.
At the local Democratic headquarters, people can come to rub shoulders with top party leaders like San Francisco Congressmember and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a straight ally, who showed up during the Bay Area Reporter’s October 2 visit. Pelosi was there to tout San Francisco’s Proposition H, which would lower the retirement age for firefighters from 58 to 55, allowing them to access their pensions earlier. Proponents say it’s needed to reduce firefighters’ exposure to carcinogens.
“Our firefighters are our nobility,” Pelosi said, speaking to members of the San Francisco Fire Fighters Union Local No. 798, AFL-CIO who were at the headquarters. “I’m so proud to be associated with you. Guess who my appointee is for elector to the Electoral College?”
Pelosi’s appointee to the Electoral College – every member of Congress gets one – is Shon Buford, a firefighter, who told the B.A.R. he’s grateful for the opportunity, which came about after “a lot of work and support.”
Pelosi said that “one of my proudest possessions is in my office, it’s a chief’s hat given to me by the chief of the New York City firefighters, the white hat, for the work we did for the health care for the 9/11 firefighters. It’s such a proud possession.”
Pelosi was speaker when the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act was passed in 2010. Zadroga was a New York City firefighter whose 2006 death was attributed to exposure to toxic chemicals while responding to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The act establishes a medical program for first responders to those attacks, and it has been reauthorized by Congress until 2090.
Pelosi spoke about the vice presidential debate October 1 between
Congressmember Nancy Pelosi stopped by the San Francisco Democratic Party headquarters Wednesday, October 2, to support phone banking and text banking efforts for the Harris-Walz presidential ticket.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Republican vice presidential candidate Ohio Senator JD Vance. She attacked Vance for saying that Trump had worked to “salvage” the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, which Pelosi shepherded to passage in 2010.
“They call that gaslighting or something,” she said. “His [Trump’s] first intention as president was to destroy the ACA. Either they’re stupid or they think we’re stupid.”
She added that Vance’s remark “shows the extent of the disassociation with fact, truth, or what,” and said that all she’s done in politics has been done “for the children.”
“When you get in this arena, you got to be ready to throw a punch, take a punch, and throw a punch – for the children,” she said. “It’s so important, so important.”
Getting out the vote ‘like learning to ride a bike’
The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, or DCCC, set up shop at 901 Market Street on September 10, party Chair Nancy Tung, a straight ally, told the B.A.R. during the visit. The first floor, all 15,000 square feet of it, is being used for phone banking, text banking, and letter writing into key swing states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that could determine the outcome of the election. The second floor is 30,000 square feet and, “if we’re able to fill it, we’ll fill it,” Tung said.
But there’s more at stake November 5 than the presidency – Democrats have
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a tenuous hold on the U.S. Senate and are trying to flip control in the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a two-seat majority. The path to victory might run through California’s Central Valley or Orange County, Tung said, and so volunteers are also phoning people in those congressional districts from the headquarters.
“During the day is a little slower –there’s retirees with a little more flexible schedule,” Tung said. “Primetime for us is Monday to Friday, 5 to 7 o’clock.”
Nonetheless, Tung said that the party takes walk-ins if they have a laptop, a mobile device, and headphones.
“Whenever people get a ‘yes, I’m going to support,’ they get to ring a little bell on the table and people clap,” said Tung, who took over as party chair earlier this year.
Phone and text bankers and letterwriters are also focused on “encouraging non-traditional and occasional voters to turn out,” Tung said.
The party isn’t keeping exact numbers of voters reached because the technology connecting phone bankers to voters runs through thousands of phone numbers and only connects when someone answers the phone, Tung said.
Omar Rincon, a gay man who is copresident of the San Francisco Young Democrats, was phone banking during the B.A.R. visit. He was calling into California’s 22nd Congressional District, where Democratic former assemblymember Rudy Salas is seeking to unseat Congressmember David Valadao (R-Bakersfield). In 2022, Valadao beat Salas by a margin of 3,132 out of 102,856 votes cast.
“Democrats are trying to fight for the House. It’s definitely a priority,” Rincon said, adding he did some calls on behalf of Harris to battleground states Wisconsin and Michigan earlier.
“These are two of the most important states,” he said.
Peter Gallotta, a queer man who is an elected member of the DCCC, has helped teach people to phone bank.
“I think the thing I always tell folks is that it’s like learning to ride a bike. Those first few calls might be a little wobbly, and you might need to stop and take a break to adjust your approach, but after the first five to 10 calls, you find your groove,” he stated. “You know your pitch, you know how to handle some of the voters who just want to get you off the phone, and when you land that first ‘yes’ from the person on the other end of the phone, it feels as good as the wind in your face as you blissfully pedal forward on that bike.”
The best part, he stated, is that “anyone can do it and learn how to do it.”
“We’ve got training wheels for you, but trust that they will come off soon enough,” he stated. “It actually is a lot of fun. We’ve had a few volunteers recently say, ‘This is so addicting.’ Because when you get that ‘yes I’m voting for Kamala Harris,’ all you want to do is get another, and another, and another.”
San Francisco Democratic Party Chair Nancy Tung stood in front of campaign signs for candidates and measures the party has endorsed.
‘Center of the universe’
Work isn’t the only thing offered by 901 Market Street – there were watch parties for the presidential and vice presidential debates, there are signs and buttons available to take home for candidates and propositions endorsed by the San Francisco Democratic Party, and of course, plenteous snacks.
Michael Nguyen, a gay man who is also an elected member of the DCCC, told the B.A.R. that he enjoyed the vice presidential debate watch party.
“I was at the VP debate watch party there last night, and the space is huge,” he stated October 2. “It is much more fun to do phone banking in person, but there are also virtual options, but you won’t get homemade brownies and cookies made by our volunteers. If you have the gift of gab, you can totally help make a difference to make sure folks have a plan to vote and are motivated to get to the polls.”
San Francisco Police Commissioner Debra Walker, a lesbian and artist, drew art of Harris that is being sold for $20 a pop. Walker stated that she was inspired because she and Harris have a longlasting professional relationship. Before becoming California’s attorney general, Harris served as a prosecutor in San Francisco and was elected in 2003 as the city’s first female district attorney. (She also became the first African American woman and South Asian American woman in California to hold the office.)
“I have known VP Harris for several decades now and feel so inspired by the possibility that she will be our first woman president,” she stated. “I was honored to do this portrait of her standing with an illuminated Statue of Liberty. This piece is entitled ‘It’s Time’ because – it is. And as VP Harris has said – she will be the first but not the last.”
Harris, if elected, would be the first woman, first Black woman, and first South Asian American to be president; she is already the first woman, the first Black American and the first South Asian American to be vice president.
Asked which of the local races is drawing the most interest, Tung said the campaign to reelect San Francisco Mayor London Breed, the party’s only endorsed mayoral candidate.
“She’s got people coming in to phone bank,” Tung said. “[District 3 supervisor candidate] Danny Sauter’s people have come in to use the space.”
Sauter, a straight ally who is the party’s sole endorsement for supervisor of the Financial District, Chinatown, North Beach, and Fisherman’s Wharf neighborhoods, told the B.A.R. that “the energy at the headquarters is electric.”
“We’re all working hard to get Democrats elected at every level,” Sauter stated. “It sometimes can be hard to know how to get involved in politics. With the headquarters, you can simply walk in and you’ll be volunteering for important campaigns within minutes.”
Trevor Chandler, a gay man who is the party’s No. 1 choice in the race
for District 9 supervisor, covering the Mission, Portola, and Bernal Heights neighborhoods, is also an elected member of the DCCC himself. He told the B.A.R. he isn’t using the space for his own campaign.
“Proud to have my signs up there though,” he stated. “The headquarters demonstrates the seriousness our new majority has brought to San Francisco’s Democratic Party ... our campaign headquarters is a bold statement that the San Francisco Democratic Party is back and ready to lead.”
Joe Sangirardi, a gay man running for the regional transit BART District 9 seat (San Francisco) and who was elected to the DCCC on the same SF Democrats for Change slate as Chandler earlier this year, told the B.A.R. that “Like San Francisco, our new HQ is aggressively ambitious.”
“People want to visit this space. It feels like you’re transported to the center of the universe,” Sangirardi stated. “We have phone banks, text banks, letter writing, print making. Whatever you’re comfortable with, you’ll find it here. We’re the most civically engaged city in America. This election, we need to take that muscle we’ve built and translate it into saving our democracy. So, invite your friends.”
Anyone who wants to sign up for a phone banking or texting shift can do so from the San Francisco Democratic Party’s website.
Not the only effort
There are other efforts, too, to turn out the vote to ensure a Democratic victory. Manny Yekutiel, a gay man who owns the eponymous cafe in the Mission, and who as the B.A.R. previously reported hosted a fundraiser for the Democratic ticket when it still featured outgoing President Joe Biden, stated that he’s hoping to get 100 volunteers per weekend to the swing state of Nevada each weekend of the four preceding the election. He already has 75-80 people signed up for each weekend, he stated October 2.
Asked how much interest he’s gotten thus far, Yekutiel stated, “A lot.”
He added, “The hope is that it builds as we get closer to Election Day.”
A bus will leave from Manny’s cafe at 1 p.m. Fridays and return Sunday evenings. All expenses, including motels, meals, and other transportation, are paid for.
People interested can fill out a Google Form at https://tinyurl.com/ bddkf2cb
For those inclined to stay in the Golden State, Yekutiel is also hosting 24 hours of letter writing from October 23 at 8 a.m. to October 24 at 8 a.m. People interested can sign up on Eventbrite at https://tinyurl. com/354v8m4z.
Meanwhile, gay longtime attorney Charles Spiegel has been coordinating letter-writing campaigns, phone banking, and text banking since Trump’s 2016 victory.
“What we try to do is look for areas to work in geographically that are important swing states for president, that have important Senate elections and, if lucky, important House elections,” he said in a phone interview. This year, volunteers as part of the Bay Area Coalition and Action SF have sent 15,000 postcards, he said.
Sending postcards has now ended, but people can still phone bank at home, Spiegel said, for both the Harris campaign and congressional races.
“Phone banking is often remote from people’s houses,” he said. “As long as you have a laptop and a smartphone, you can do that remotely.”
Immediately after Election Day, letter writing will start up again to get in touch with voters who may not know their ballots need to be corrected in order to be counted.
People interested in getting involved should email actionsfteam@ gmail.com. t
Omar Rincon
John Ferrannini
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Couple relocates boutique to Noe Valley
by Matthew S. Bajko
When the seasonal gift boutique Terrasol first opened its doors in 2004 on Larkin Street in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, it quickly drew a loyal customer base among the nearby residents needing holiday decor.
The blazing dose of Christmas lights adorning the shop’s facade also likely drew in clientele.
“We stuck out like sore thumbs. It caught everyone’s attention, especially the people who live on Nob Hill and drove straight up Larkin to get home,” recalled Stephen Trimble, 58, who co-owns the store with his husband, Alberto Rojas, who is also in his 50s.
A friend who lived next door to the store gave the couple just five months before they would shutter the business because of the rough-and-tumble nature of the neighborhood. Yet, they not only survived but also thrived.
“One woman who was a regular of ours told us one day, in her Southern accent, that we were the diamond in the coal mine of the Tenderloin,” said Trimble.
Eventually, they relocated Terrasol to the city’s Polk Gulch neighborhood. Until earlier this year, they had been leasing a storefront on California Street just up from Polk Street. But during last year’s busy Christmas holiday shopping season, a flood damaged their space’s basement storage area.
With safety issues on the street also leading them to often keep their front door to Terrasol locked, meaning shoppers had to be individually let in, the couple decided to seek a storefront to rent elsewhere in the city. A trip to look at a potential space in Noe Valley led them to discover their new location at 1307 Castro Street.
It had been vacant since pet store The Animal Company moved out in 2020 to take over a corner space down the block at 24th and Castro streets. With the 1,100 square foot storefront perfectly sized to fit the needs of Trimble and Rojas, the couple quickly worked out a lease deal with their new landlord and announced in April their plans to move into it.
“When we saw this one, we thought, ‘It is huge.’ It also has strong light,” said
Trimble, as the front windows beam with sunlight in the afternoons.
They reopened in late July, filling the last remaining vacant storefront on their block. It is highly trafficked due to including a Walgreens location with a small parking lot free for customers to use for up to an hour.
Since opening their doors, the couple has had longtime customers of theirs stop by to welcome them to the neighborhood since they live nearby.
“People are very happy we are here,” said Rojas.
At the moment, the shop is filled with new and vintage-styled Halloween decor for customers to decorate their homes in all manner of spooky ways. Bats, ghosts, and pumpkins come in various decorative items, with their selection of ornaments to festoon a Halloween tree a particularly big hit with shoppers at their new location.
“People here love Halloween,” noted Rojas.
Added Trimble, “We heard this
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neighborhood goes all out for Halloween, and one street hosts a block party.”
Another hit with customers of their new location has been wooden cutouts made to look like pumpkins on one side and snowmen on the other so they can be displayed from Halloween through Christmas. Trimble makes the porch boards ($169) himself in the private back area of the store.
“People here live in homes and have yards they can decorate,” noted Trimble, as opposed to most of the people who shopped at their former location and “live in studio apartments.”
The couple also stocks myriad ornaments and household items themed to the Day of the Dead. But customers in need of adornments for the Mexican holiday annually observed November 1 and 2 be forewarned, the day after October 31 the shop will close for seven days to switch over to its yuletide stock for Hanukkah and Christmas.
“We close for a full week post Halloween to do our big flip. Once we reopen, it will be all Christmas,” said Trimble, noting they don’t carry many items specifically themed for Thanksgiving.
A love of Christmas
One reason for their lengthy turnover closure is the couple annually puts up more than a dozen Christmas trees of varying sizes, each with a different theme. Thus, one will feature ornaments celebrating San Francisco and the city’s famous icons like the Golden Gate Bridge and cable cars.
Another is adorned with gay-themed ornaments, while a third sports solely food-based ornaments. There are separate trees for cat lovers and dog lovers.
“We have one with a huge sea theme. We make sure to say it is a sea theme and not a sea section,” joked Trimble.
They do carry over their Day of the Dead ornaments to affix to one of the holiday trees. Another is dressed in Hanukkahthemed ornaments.
“We call it the Hanukkah bush. It is always right in the middle of everything in the store, just like Hanukkah is,” said Trimble.
installations at various hotels. He then landed a job with a florist downtown, whom he worked for a decade until opening Terrasol with Rojas.
The name incorporates the facets of the earth and the sun, as when they first opened Terrasol, they also sold plants, with Trimble tending to the store’s outdoor floral garden. It also harkens to the store’s revolving merchandise in tune with seasonal changes brought on by the sun’s orbital path.
“With earth and sun, we cover all the bases. We change with the seasons and are all over the board,” explained Trimble.
Each January, Trimble and Rojas take the month off. During that time, they enjoy their personal Christmas decor at their studio apartment near Union Square.
“On the Epiphany every January 6 we will take down our tree,” said Trimble, referring to the Christian holiday also known as Three Kings’ Day for it marks the date when three wise men are believed to have visited the baby Jesus.
Shortly thereafter, the couple will attend the yearly gift show in Las Vegas to scout out merchandise to stock throughout the year. They usually carry such items as candles, greeting cards, puzzles, novelty socks, and cocktail napkins.
In addition to the fall holidays, they re-theme their shop for various celebrations. Thus, shoppers will find items on sale at Terrasol for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, LGBTQ Pride Month in June, and the Burning Man desert bacchanal in late August.
“Most people know of us for Christmas. People always show up in July hoping for Christmas merchandise to already be out,” said Trimble, noting they are not solely focused on the yuletide. “We change with the seasons.”
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Rojas and Trimble have been together 22 years after first meeting at a local gay entertainment venue. Rojas, who grew up in Bluefields, Nicaragua, moved to San Francisco in 1990 to pursue a career in graphic design.
Trimble grew up in the San Joaquin Valley town of Madera near Fresno in California’s Central Valley one of five siblings, just one of whom is straight. With an older brother living in San Francisco’s LGBTQ Castro district with his partner, Trimble moved in with them in 1994 when he relocated to the city.
“My brother told me I could be broke and unemployed in Fresno, or I could be broke and unemployed in San Francisco,” joked Trimble, who had worked various jobs in construction and retail.
In San Francisco, he was hired by a friend of his brother’s to work on themed
With the Christmas season always their busiest time of year, Trimble and Rojas will keep Terrasol open seven days a week when they reopen in November after switching out most of their Halloween merchandise. They will also extend the store hours, which for now are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
For updates about Terrasol, check out its Instagram page at https://www.instagram.com/terrasolsanfrancisco/ t
Correction
Last month’s column about the online LGBTQ marketplace Famm should have noted it includes international brands and is aiming to have 25,000 users of its app Famm Connect within six months of its launch. It also should have reported that co-founder Marianna Di Regolo was born in Orange County and graduated from SF State in 2009. The online version has been updated.
Got a tip on
or
Terrasol recently relocated to Noe Valley.
Matthew S. Bajko A decorative bat is one of the many spooky items for sale at Terrasol.
Art Bodner
Alberto Rojas, left, and his husband, Stephen Trimble, have relocated their boutique store Terrasol to Noe Valley and now have Halloween-themed merchandise on display.
Art Bodner
British diplomat ushers in LGBTQ History Month LGBTQ History Month>>
by Cynthia Laird
I t was one of the hottest days of the year but guests mingling in the backyard of the British Residence in the city’s Presidio Terrace didn’t seem to mind. They were there to celebrate the start of LGBTQ History Month along with San Francisco Pride officials and political leaders.
It was also the last official event for Nguyen Pham, a gay man who has finished his stint as board president of SF Pride. Suzanne Ford, a trans woman who is executive director of the organization, said the two have worked together at the Pride organization for seven years.
“Tonight marks our last public event together,” she said, before adding, “he’s terming out; we didn’t throw him out.”
Pham, the first gay Vietnamese president of the SF Pride organization, took the helm as president in 2022. Tammy Sandhu, the British consul general in San Francisco, held the reception October 1 to usher in LGBTQ History Month and promote the consulate’s role in supporting the LGBTQ community. Sandhu leads U.K.-U.S. relations across the Pacific Northwest, including Northern California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and Alaska.
During her remarks, Sandhu, an ally, mentioned the close relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. For a long time, she noted, LGBTQ people could not serve as British diplomats; that changed with the lifting of the ban in 1991. She also said that harassment of trans people – which is ongoing in both countries – “has to stop.”
“But tonight is a celebration of hard-won LGBTQ+ rights,” she said, adding that the British government
was the first foreign government to march in a San Francisco Pride parade. It took part again in this year’s parade, where officials carried a rainbow Union Jack flag, the consulate’s LinkedIn page noted, similar to one that was flown outside the residence at the reception.
“I arrived in 2021,” she said, adding that the rainbow Union Jack was flown at the residence then. It will remain up for LGBTQ History Month, she added.
During his comments, Pham said SF Pride is no stranger to history.
“We’re making history tonight – SF Pride and the consulate,” he said.
Ford talked about her childhood in Kentucky and how far she has come. “We would not be here if we didn’t have shared values of the Brit-
ish government, especially the current government,” she said.
Ford also noted that trans women are being targeted in the U.K. and the U.S. In the U.K. women such as JK Rowling post anti-trans comments on social media, while in the U.S. many states have banned gender-affirming care for trans youth and prohibit trans women from participating in women’s sports. Recently, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that three colleges have forfeited games against San Jose State University’s women’s volleyball team. One of the team’s players has filed a lawsuit against the NCAA.
In the lawsuit, co-captain Brooke Slusser, a junior at SJSU, claims she overheard a teammate saying she was transgender after a rumor,
ABC-7 TV reported.
“Please don’t forget that,” Ford said of the ongoing harassment largely directed at trans women.
Pham presented Sandhu with one of the rainbow flags that had flown along Market Street.
Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) expressed his gratitude to SF Pride and the consulate. “This is a pivotal time that becomes all the more important for these partnerships,” he said. “I’m grateful for the consulate. We do face a lot of danger right now.”
Wiener also welcomed gay Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego), who attended the event.
BREEXIT!
In July, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Ward’s Assembly Bill 1955 that prohibits public school districts
from outing students without their permission. Ward’s bill, titled the SAFETY Act for Support Academic Futures & Educators for Today’s Youth Act, sailed through the Legislature. It was presented to Newsom in early July and the governor signed it July 15.
Ward is the incoming chair of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus.
Ward said that after Newsom signed AB 1955, he received calls from states like New York and Vermont inquiring about the legislation He said he was “grateful” for the British consulate.
Patrick Carney, a gay man who is co-founder of the pink triangle installation atop Twin Peaks each June, attended the event with his husband, Hossein Carney, doctor of business administration.
“Since this event is a kickoff to LGBTQ+ History Month, I am wearing this pink triangle T-shirt for a reason and also gave Consul General Sandhu one too, because the symbol is an extremely important part of our history which we must never forget,” said Carney, who is also on the city’s arts commission. “In fact, the pink triangle sums up a continuing theme throughout much of our history. We need more LGBTQ+ History Month events; this is one of the few I have been to and it is wonderful it is happening soon after the announcement that they have finally found a permanent home for our own GLBT History Museum and archives in the Castro.” Carney was referring to the September 26 announcement by Mayor London Breed and exclusive coverage in the B.A.R. that day about the city being in talks to purchase the building at 2280 Market Street as the home for a permanent freestanding LGBTQ history museum. t
San Francisco voters should withdraw support for re-election of Mayor London Breed after her dragging our city into a doom loop.
BREEXIT!
Under Mayor Breed, residents, businesses and tourists alike experienced:
• Excessively long, damaging Covid lockdown
San Francisco voters should withdraw support for re-election of Mayor London Breed after her dragging our city into a doom loop.
• Defunding of $120 million from SFPD
Under Mayor Breed, residents, businesses and tourists alike experienced:
• Retail businesses large and small collaps ing, retail core decimated
• Excessively long, damaging Covid lockdown
• Tourism, convention and hotel industries damaged
• Defunding of $120 million from SFPD
• Downtown Financial District at record high office vacancies
• Retail businesses large and small collaps ing, retail core decimated
• Prolonged crime spike; a demoralized and understaffed SFPD and Sheriff’s Departments
• Tourism, convention and hotel industries damaged
• Failed crackdowns on drug dealers now roaming freely, preying on addicts 24 hrs. a day
• Downtown Financial District at record high office vacancies
• A Safe Injection Sites policy snubbing federal laws
• Prolonged crime spike; a demoralized and understaffed SFPD and Sheriff’s Departments
• Insane $16 billion city operating budget we cannot afford
• Several high-profile City Hall corruption fiascos and resignations
• Her unlawful race-based initiatives and programs
• Several high-profile City Hall corruption fiascos and resignations
• Unconstitutional Reparations Plan perpetuating segregation and racial stereotypes
• Unconstitutional Reparations Plan perpetuating segregation and racial stereotypes Make
State Senator Scott Wiener, left, joined British Consul General Tammy Sandhu, outgoing SF Pride board president Nguyen Pham, Assemblymember Chris Ward, and SF Pride Executive Director Suzanne Ford at an LGBTQ History Month reception at the British Residence in San Francisco October 1.
Cynthia Laird
Castro merchants endorse Progress flag mural
by John Ferrannini
The Castro Merchants Association voted to support a mural of the Progress Pride flag at Jane Warner Plaza. In other business, the members heard about October events, the November election, and an update on state legislation.
New mural proposed
Artist Harry Breaux told the merchants that he wants Jane Warner Plaza to be a second pillar of a grand neighborhood entrance alongside Harvey Milk Plaza – the spaces are across the street from each other at Castro and Market streets. Both public spaces are hoping for facelifts, with $25 million in funding for Milk plaza included in the Proposition B infrastructure bond measure on the November 5 ballot.
Meanwhile, city planners held a meeting in March to discuss Jane Warner Plaza, which is carved out of a side street adjacent to a gas station and built around the terminus for the city’s trolley line featuring historic streetcars from around the globe. The space is a challenging one to transform from a roadway to an outdoor neighborhood amenity.
“I’ve been in the Castro since 1971,” Breaux, 79, said. “The Castro is what allowed me to be a gay man. That is the gateway: Harvey Milk plaza on one side, Jane Warner Plaza on the other. That is the gateway.”
Breaux is underwhelmed with plans currently in the conceptual stage to renovate Jane Warner Plaza. As the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, the San Francisco Transportation Authority approved a key report featuring potential future designs. So far, $100,000 has been spent – $25,000 by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to look into how transit operations would change and $75,000 by San Francisco Public Works to look into how the plaza’s design would change.
The first phase of the project proposal would cost $4-$5 million, according to Public Works, with a total cost of $6-$8 million. The plaza is named after Warner, a lesbian San Francisco patrol special police officer whose beat included the Castro. She died in 2010 after a yearlong battle with ovarian cancer. Warner also penned the B.A.R.’s Crime and Punishment column for many years, and a plaque in her honor can be found at the entrance to the plaza accessed from Castro Street, the text of which was written by B.A.R. assistant editor Matthew S. Bajko.
One proposal involves the city purchasing the land on which currently sits a Chevron gas station.
“There is nothing planned for the future, absolutely nothing, except for the
hope they’ll be able to buy the gas station and build a beautiful plaza,” Breaux said.
So, he has a plan of his own.
“For about $3,500, I paint a primer; I paint the colors and I paint a UV protector and I turn it into a Progress Pride flag that the world can see on a webcam,” he said. “That is all I’m asking for – is just the permission.”
The colors would be painted on the ground at the plaza. It would also serve as a reminder of calls to see the Progress Pride flag be flown on the flagpole in Milk plaza, which partly led to the city landmarking it and the giant Pride flag flown on it over the summer to ensure it is never changed.
The Progress Pride flag is a variation of the rainbow flag that includes a chevron of black, brown, light blue, pink, and white stripes that specifically represent people of color and the trans community. It was designed by Daniel Quasar in 2018.
But the city’s labyrinthine bureaucracy stands in the way of the beautification project, Breaux said.
“I’m told I have to go to the San Francisco Arts Commission – there’s a $1,500 application fee and it takes six months to get approved,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe this will just appear some day without all that. We’ll see. But what I’m asking now is for the merchants to let me know if they think this is a good idea or not.”
Breaux explained that if the usual process is followed, support from neighborhood groups such as the merchants, but also the Eureka Valley Neighborhood Association, will be helpful.
“This can be done next week if I had the right pathways to bureaucracy,” he said.
“The Castro can make a statement, while we get Harvey Milk Plaza constructed.” With no pushback, zero no votes, and only one abstention, the merchants agreed.
Breaux said he wanted to “cut the shit, get the paint brushes out and do it.”
October events
Merchants association President Terry Asten Bennett, a straight ally who coowns Cliff’s Variety at 479 Castro Street, told the members there’s much to be excited about in October.
On October 10, there’ll be a concert in Jane Warner Plaza from 5 to 6:30 p.m. to commemorate Fleet Week.
On Friday, October 18, the neighborhood is launching the first in a series of night markets, as the B.A.R. previously reported.
“I am told from our vendor they have brought in some food trucks so it’s not just all cold food,” Asten Bennett said. “I’m a little disappointed only four Castro merchants have signed up to participate. There are 21 vendors but they have mostly signed up from outside.”
On Sunday, October 20, is the Castro Stroll, which features art and live music. On Saturday, October 26, merchants will have the opportunity to activate their storefronts for Halloween with financial support from Civic Joy Fund, as they did last year.
That night there’ll be a DJ and drag performances in front of the Castro Theatre – currently closed for renovations –as there was last year.
The following afternoon at Noe Street the merchants will be holding a Halloween event including costume contests judged by Sister Roma of the drag nun philanthropic group Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Merchants are also encouraged to pass out candy.
“If you want to be a trick-or-treat location, we will be providing candy,” Asten Bennett said. “Get people into your business.”
Nonetheless, businesses should prepare for all kinds of sugar cravings.
“I do highly recommend you plan on fluffing up your candy beyond what we can give you,” Asten Bennett said.
The merchants are also looking for donations for its annual holiday tree, to be lit in early December, Asten Bennett said.
“All of the red ornaments were stolen last year,” she said, adding that the cost to replace the ornaments will be about $5,000.
Remember in November
Brian Springfield, a gay man who is executive director of Friends of Harvey Milk Plaza, came to talk up Prop B and pass out signs for business owners to put in their windows.
“It’ll encourage others to vote yes on B,” he said, though he acknowledged, “I know some of you might not like to put up political signs in your windows.”
Prop B, a $390 million infrastructure bond measure, includes the aforementioned $25 million for renovations at Harvey Milk Plaza and $27 million for the relocation and expansion of services of San Francisco City Clinic in the city’s South of Market neighborhood, as the B.A.R. has reported.
Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman touted the proposition, noting that “we really need to pass this.” It needs 66.66% affirmative votes to pass. Mandelman said passing Prop B would be the best way to find the funds for the two projects.
Mandelman also mentioned Proposition M, which only needs 50% plus 1 to pass. The measure seeks to undo burdensome fees for small businesses. Mandelman said that if Prop M passes, he and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin will seek to undo burdensome fees for small businesses.
“Forty-nine of the most annoying fees small businesses experience,” he described. “Things like tables and chairs – but also weights and measures – would go away for most businesses. It should make life less annoying for a lot of small businesses.”
Mandelman also joked about showing up to the meeting during the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, a high holy day.
“I would not skip out on Jewish new year for anything but the Castro Merchants,” he quipped.
Mandelman also touted his ongoing efforts to lift various restrictions on gay bathhouses in San Francisco. He led successful efforts in recent years to change zoning laws and restrictions from the 1980s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic. But as the B.A.R. reported earlier this week, there are still old restrictions in the police code that antedate the foregone restrictions – including a requirement there be a daily register of bathhouse patrons that at any time can be demanded to be seen by either police or a health department employee. It must include not only people’s names and home addresses but also their hour of arrival, and which room or cubicle they were assigned.
Mandelman said that back in the heyday of San Francisco’s now moribund bathhouse scene, “I think there was just an ignoring of those laws in the 1970s and 1980s in the gay bathhouses that happened.”
In another San Francisco Police Department matter, Mandelman told attendees that if they’re interested in the topic, they should weigh in on potential changes to the police station boundaries in San Francisco at a public meeting at the Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library main branch at 100 Larkin Street Tuesday, October 15, at 5:30 p.m. The potential changes would move the Castro down to Sanchez Street to Park Station. Currently, most of the LGBTQ neighborhood is in the Mission Station precinct. The current boundary between Park Station on the north and Mission Station on the south is Market Street, as the B.A.R. reported in a story about the potential changes.
He said the reason he’s heard for the proposed change is that Park Station is underutilized and Mission Station is overextended.
Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (DSan Francisco) made a rare appearance at the meeting. Wiener, who lives in the Castro and previously represented the area on the Board of Supervisors, touted his legislative wins as chair of the Senate Budget Committee this session and urged a no vote on state Proposition 36, which would increase criminal penalties for certain drug and theft crimes.
“The Legislature passed a very robust set of public safety bills this year, working together with the governor and other folks to address organized retail theft, serial stealing, but also auto break-ins, that I’ve been trying to pass for seven years,” he said.
One of those was nixing the socalled locked door loophole – that is, a requirement that there be proof doors were locked before prosecuting an auto break-in.
“We finally got rid of that, and the governor signed the bill,” he said, referring to Senate Bill 905. “Just because you don’t get it done the first time doesn’t mean you stop trying.”
Wiener said that the Legislature also passed a bill aggregating serial shoplifting of $950 or above to a felony.
“The bills that we passed already target retail theft and auto break-ins,” he said, and are “much more effective for their needs than Prop 36. We did the work in the Legislature in a very focused way to address a focused situation around retail theft. Unfortunately, some rightwing DA’s have decided they were still going to go to the ballot, which will send people to state prison for simple drug possession.”t
Artist and Castro resident Harry Breaux, left, talked about his proposal for a Progress Pride flag mural in Jane Warner Plaza at the October 3 Castro Merchants Association meeting, as President Terry Asten Bennett looks on.
John Ferrannini
Community News>>
Fleet Week roars into SF
compiled by Cynthia Laird
San Francisco Fleet Week roars into town with the Blue Angels Air Show among the most popular events this weekend. But plenty of other, less noisy, activities are also planned.
U.S. Navy ships began arriving Sun day. Lieutenant Commander Chloe Morgan, U.S. Navy public affairs of ficer, stated in a news release that a tribute was paid to 9/11 victims on the flight deck of USS Somerset, named after Somerset County in Pennsylvania, where the Flight 93 National Memorial is located.
(Mark Bingham, a gay man, was one of the pas sengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 who tried to stop the hijackers. The plane was en route to San Francisco.) The num bers “93” were spelled out on the flight deck, Morgan stated.
As for the Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Squad ron will hold its shows from noon to 4 p.m. October 11-13. The Blue Angels will also make several survey flights over the Bay Area Thursday, October 10, in the afternoon, the release stated.
Kenneth “Kenny”
Patrick Landes
August 5, 1967 – August 26, 2024
Kenneth “Kenny”
Patrick Landes, aged 57, was tragically killed by his husband in a senseless act of domestic violence at his home in Mexico City on August 26, 2024. Kenny was born on August 5, 1967, in Kansas City, Missouri and graduated from Blue Springs High School in 1985. After graduating, he moved to California with his family and attended San Diego State University, where he met his wife, Lisa. They were married for four years and had one daughter, Lauren, before Kenny came out to his family. Kenny spent the following decade in San Francisco before returning to San Diego and completing his degree in graphic design with honors in 2005. He launched his career working in Las Vegas for the MGM casino group and then returned to San Francisco to continue his career. In 2018, Kenny moved to Mexico, which he found enchanting, where he taught English and loved long walks with his dogs Luna, Xiao, and Milo.
Keep Informed.
Stay Empowered.
Kenny was an avid participant in local gay communities and a fierce and loving friend, brother, son, and father. His favorite pastimes included flagging, dancing, and sunbathing on nude beaches. Kenny’s bright spirit and loving nature touched the lives of all who knew him. He will be remembered for his sense of humor, compassion for others and his sound advice to his family and friends.
Kenny is survived by his daughter, Lauren Palmerino; parents Patrick and Jean Landes; sisters Karen Landes and Renai Crossman; and countless extended family and friends. He was preceded in death by his brother, Ronnie Landes. Kenny’s husband, Jose
Ramon Rodriguez Cano, died while fleeing custody.
Kenny’s beachside celebration of life will be in San Diego on Sunday, November 17. Friends are invited to contact the family at Landes0805@ gmail.com for information. In lieu of flowers, please donate to a GoFundMe that the family has established: https://gofund.me/a186c646
Daric “Rocky” Wolkenhauer November 9, 1945 – September 22, 2024
Daric (aka Rocky) Wolkenhauer passed away at home on Sunday morning, September 22, 2024. He was born on November 9, 1945 at Georgetown Hospital in Washington, D.C., where his father was stationed in the Navy. He later grew up in the East Bay, as his parents had before him, graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in English, and working several decades as a high school teacher in the Mount Diablo school district.
He lived most of his life in San Francisco, before recently moving to Walnut Creek with his husband of 20 years, Danny Scheie, whom he married on August 12, 2004 in Toronto, Canada. Daric was a hardcore opera buff, an avid cinephile (watching a film a day even in the hospital), and an aggressive world traveler. He loved little parrots, most especially Rocky, Donna, Timmy, Duffy, and Bingo. Besides his husband, Danny, he is survived by his sister, Gail Johnson; his nephew, Kevin Johnson; and his great nephew, Kostas Johnson. A memorial will be held at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland (designed by Julia Morgan while she was doing Hearst Castle) on his birthday, November 9, at 11 a.m.
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A U.S. Navy ship sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge Sunday, October 6, as it arrived for San Francisco Fleet Week.
Petty Officer 1st Class Jesse Monford
See page 12 >>
Obituaries >>
“I was walking my dog and noticed a young girl in a car and thought, ‘Is she being trafficked?’ Someone immediately walked toward me and said, ‘That’s really weird [you’re] looking at her, I should punch you.’ That’s the last thing I remember,” Gomez stated in the post. “Apparently I [was] assaulted near my home in the Tenderloin, my nose and ear was filled with blood. Luckily, the ambulance brought my dog with me.”
San Francisco Police Department Public Information Officer Eve Laokwansathitaya confirmed Gomez’s account in a statement to the B.A.R. October 7.
“On September 30, 2024, at approximately 9:20 p.m., San Francisco
Now, Jenkins, a straight ally, is running for a four-year term. Khojasteh was hired by Boudin in 2020 and fired by Jenkins upon her ascension. Khojasteh, 30, is a graduate of UC Hastings (now UC Law San Francisco) and works at the office of Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, who, like Boudin once did, is currently facing a recall effort that recently picked up support from Congressmember Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin).
During the last race, Jenkins fended off criticism about receiving over $100,000 from Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, a nonprofit linked to the Boudin recall effort, though she said she had resigned from Boudin’s office to be a volunteer on the effort. More recently, the DA was criticized for hiring Monifa Willis, a longtime friend who is not an attorney, to be her chief of staff.
Different approaches
Nonetheless, Jenkins has remained one of the most popular elected officials in San Francisco. She raised the office’s conviction rate for the first time in eight years, Mission Local reported in 2023.
In a questionnaire Jenkins returned to the Bay Area Reporter seeking the endorsement of the paper’s editorial board, she stated that she’s seeking to center community concerns while tackling the city’s biggest problems, which she identified as “the drug crisis, retail theft, property crime, and violence against our AAPI and vulnerable communities.” (The B.A.R. did endorse Jenkins last week.)
“I have intently listened to the concerns of residents in historically LGBTQ neighborhoods such as the Castro. Many of these residents and the Castro Merchants Association have communicated to me that they have been victims of burglaries and vandalism,” Jenkins stated. “I have sent staff from my investigations
News Briefs From page 11
The aforementioned United States Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon is a 24-man rifle platoon, often referred to as The Marching Twenty-Four, the release stated. The unit performs a unique silent precision exhibition drill. The purpose of the platoon is to exemplify the discipline and professionalism of the Marine Corps, according to the release. The public is invited to watch them perform at various locations October 11-13. For details on the schedule, visit fleetweek. org/events/silent-drill-platoon.
For more information about Fleet Week, go to fleetweeksf.org.
<< Editorial From page 4
ple from 5 to 6 p.m. Friday, September 6. In short, about 3,000 vehicles use the highway during commute times. That should be no surprise.
police officers responded to the 700 block of O’Farrell Street on a report of an assault,” Laokwansathitaya stated.
“Upon arrival, officers made contact with the victim, whom they found sitting on the sidewalk with blood all over his face and hands. Medics arrived on scene to render aid and transport the victim to a local hospital to treat his non-life threatening injuries.”
Laokwansathitaya stated that “through the course of the investigation, officers learned that when the victim was walking westbound on O’Farrell Street, an unknown male suspect approached the victim and punched him, causing the victim to fall to the ground. The suspect then fled from the area.”
Gomez stated that he was sent to the neurological intensive care unit at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, “where
unit to assist with active shooter trainings in the Castro to help inform nightlife staff of what to do to protect themselves and community members. My office is working hard to ensure that their concerns are addressed and that offenders who create this unsafe environment are held accountable.”
While an assistant district attorney, Jenkins was a dedicated hate crimes prosecutor. She stated in her questionnaire that “especially given the rise in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and violence at a national level, it is imperative that members of our LGBTQ community feel safe.”
As DA, Jenkins prosecuted at least two charges of hate crimes against the LGBTQ community. One involved a 2023 incident in the Castro neighborhood where a man was charged with assault and a hate crime charge after he was accused of hitting a man and stealing a Pride flag. Another involved gay District 9 supervisor candidate Trevor Chandler, who was allegedly attacked earlier this year while campaigning by a man who yelled homophobic slurs at him. A jury acquitted the man in the Castro case, and a judge dismissed the hate crime charge in the Chandler case. Jenkins also stated she “recently relaunched the LGBTQ Community Advisory Board in my office.”
Khojasteh, a straight ally, stated in his questionnaire that he doesn’t feel LGBTQ people are getting justice in San Francisco.
“I recognize that the LGBTQ community has a history of distrusting the police and law enforcement,” he stated. “I look to the Compton’s Cafeteria Riots, for example, in San Francisco. More recently, I look to the tragedy of Banko Brown’s unjustified killing and failure to prosecute.
The job of the district attorney is to hold everyone accountable under the law in a fair and impartial manner. I do not believe this is happening in our city.”
The Compton’s riot, which occurred in August 1966, predated the more wellknown Stonewall riots of 1969 in New
Ballot measure forum at Openhouse Openhouse, the LGBTQ senior agency, will have a forum on ballot measures Monday, October 21, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the agency’s community space at 75 Laguna Street. The forum will be held by the League of Women Voters, a century-old, nonpartisan organization that works to educate the public on policy issues, ballot measures, and the importance of voting, an announcement stated. The league does not support or oppose candidates, but does take positions on some ballot measures at the state and local levels.
To RSVP, contact rsvp@openhousesf.org or (415) 231-5871.
I was being treated for multiple facial fractures, possible concussion, and ‘blood in my brain.’”
Gomez told the B.A.R. he is recuperating at his parents’ house and has been in and out of the hospital.
“It’s hard for me to walk, get up, sit down, sleep, my memory is blurry; my headache is in almost constant pain, I can’t chew cause my jaw hurts & I’m on lots of medications,” he stated.
The GoFundMe was set up by Lauri Green, a friend of Gomez’s who didn’t return a request for comment. Green stated on the GoFundMe page that “we want to rally around him in this time of need.”
“Diego has a long road to recovery ahead of him, and we are unsure when he will be able to return to work,” Green continued. “Medical bills and living expenses in San Francisco can be overwhelming, and we want to
York City, widely viewed as the birth of the modern day LGBTQ rights movement.
Banko Brown
Less than a year into her tenure, Jenkins declined to file charges against then-security guard Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony in the killing of Brown, an unarmed Black transgender man, at a downtown Walgreens. She almost immediately determined that it was a case of self-defense, though surveillance footage that her office released after heavy public criticism showed Brown retreating.
Brown had allegedly attempted to shoplift $15 in candy. It took until this summer for California Attorney General Rob Bonta to announce his office did not find Jenkins abused her prosecutorial discretion in this case, as the B.A.R. reported, and would not file charges himself against Anthony.
“While I wish this tragedy would have never happened in the first place, my office and I carefully reviewed all of the facts and evidence available and followed the law in making our decision to not charge the suspect in this case,” Jenkins stated in her B.A.R. questionnaire. “We take our prosecutorial responsibilities seriously and recognize how important it is that we make decisions on facts, law and our collective prosecutorial judgment, without being swayed by politics. We are committed to fair and ethical prosecutions that our experience tells us we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt and will never shirk our responsibilities for political expediency.”
Khojasteh blasted Jenkins in his questionnaire, stating that she “made unnecessary and prejudicial statements that imperiled the case from the start.”
“Contrary to what a district attorney should be doing, Jenkins quickly made the defense argument for the suspect –‘the evidence clearly shows that the suspect believed he was in mortal danger
State unveils new ‘homepage’
Governor Gavin Newsom on October 4 announced the launch of the newly redesigned website, CA.gov, the official flagship website for the State of California. This overhaul is the latest milestone in the state’s ongoing digital strategy to improve user experience, accessibility, and service delivery for millions of Californians, according to a news release.
As the state continues to lead the way on digital innovation, this redesign reflects a commitment to making government services more efficient, accessible, and user-friendly, the release stated. By leveraging technology, California is transforming how residents interact with their government
ensure he has the support he needs to focus on healing.”
Gomez earns income from illustrations, design, makeup commissions, and Etsy merchandise, which “is not possible at this time” of his recovery, he stated. He also teaches at City College of San Francisco but can’t due to six weeks of rest his doctor is suggesting. In addition to the B.A.R. Pride cover, Gomez’s art has been featured throughout the city, such as at Hot Cookie at 1817 Polk Street, and in murals on the rooftop of Oasis at 298 11th Street, and at 2352 Market Street. No arrests have been made in the case, which is still an open and active investigation. Anyone with information is asked to contact the SFPD at (415) 575-4444 or text a tip to TIP411 and begin the message with SFPD. t
and acted in self-defense,’” he continued. “This is an outrageous statement for a prosecutor to make. It is not our job to make the defense case for them. And it is incumbent upon us to allow all the evidence to come through and assess it responsibly. With this statement, as the head of the DA’s office, she doomed this case.”
Khojasteh promised to bring the Brown case before a grand jury in his first 100 days if he is elected.
Quality of life crimes
Khojasteh stated he has a wider perspective to better serve people involved in the criminal justice system.
“I am the only candidate in this race who has worked as a prosecutor in both the punitive and rehabilitative sides of the criminal justice system,” he stated. “My experience informs my perspective of wanting to strike the right balance – a balance between accountability and incarceration with rehabilitation and treatment.”
In her questionnaire, Jenkins touted keeping Boudin’s innocence commission, “an external advisory body to my office that investigates cases of innocence and wrongful convictions.”
“Unfortunately, there are far too many cases of innocent people being behind bars when they shouldn’t be,” she stated. “My office is committed to ensuring the integrity and longevity of the Innocence Commission for years to come.”
Khojasteh countered that Jenkins “has kept it ‘alive’ in name only.”
“Cases have been halted and there has been no movement,” Khojasteh stated. “I heard this directly from someone currently serving on the commission. This is unacceptable.”
Khojasteh stated he’d be committed to “file charges and prosecute criminal activity” in cases of so-called quality of life crimes, such as smash-and-grabs, but that each case has to be prosecuted in the context of what brings justice to the situation.
and ensuring that services are always within reach.
SamTrans seeks public board members
The San Mateo County Transit District Board of Directors is seeking applicants to fill two public member seats. A news release stated that successful candidates will be responsible for setting policy for the district, which operates SamTrans bus, paratransit, and micro transit services; oversees shuttles and other contract-operated supplemental transit services; and generally, serves as the mobility manager for San Mateo County.
Applicants must be residents of San Mateo County outside of the coastal region and must not have held elective
“Perhaps a vandalizer has unresolved mental health challenges or substance abuse challenges,” Khojasteh stated. “Well, it is within my discretion to refer them to treatment as an alternative to jail to get them the help they need to prevent future vandalisms. This is all a case-by-case basis.”
Jenkins stated, in response to the same question about quality of life crimes, that “accountability comes in many different forms.”
“For more serious and repeat offenders it may be jail but for others it is often rehabilitation and treatment or even vocational training,” she stated. “I believe that we must be putting offenders in a position to be successful through accountability. Simply releasing someone who has committed a crime due to their addiction or mental health issues does not assist them in treating their issues and engaging in pro-social behavior.”
Canceled forum
Jenkins and Khojasteh were invited to participate in a League of Women Voters forum in the city’s China Basin neighborhood that was to be held October 7. It was canceled, however, because “one of the two candidates could no longer participate due to a family emergency,” according to an October 3 email from the league.
“Because we’re nonpartisan, we don’t hold forums with only one candidate,” the league continued.
Khojasteh stated to the B.A.R. that this was the only debate Jenkins had agreed to though she’d been offered four other invitations. He couldn’t attend due to “a funeral in Wisconsin,” he stated October 7, and that it’d been canceled over a month earlier.
“They tried to push on me a Zoom interview at the airport,” he added. “It’s baffling behavior.”
The Jenkins campaign didn’t return a request for comment for this report. t
office within the past year, the release stated. Incumbent board members may re-apply.
The board consists of nine members: three appointed by the Board of Supervisors; three who are appointed by the City Selection Committee, who are council members representing the northern, central, and southern portions of the county; and three public members, one of whom is a coastside resident. Regular meetings are scheduled for the first Wednesday of the month at 2 p.m.
Applications are available online at https://tinyurl.com/4e6yekjf or by calling (650) 551-6108. The deadline to apply is Friday, November 1, at 5 p.m. Each appointment has a fouryear term. t
Proposition L: Additional Business Tax on Transportation Network Companies and Autonomous Vehicle Businesses to Fund Public Transportation. YES. This is an increase to the gross receipts tax that
Those who want to go to a park can visit the world-class Golden Gate Park just adjacent to the north end of the Upper Great Highway, or continue taking advantage of the vehicle-free Upper Great Highway on weekends. Vote NO on Prop K.
these companies already pay and would fund Muni, which is facing severe cuts due to the end of emergency federal funding during the COVID pandemic. The new tax rate would range between 1% and 4.5% on taxable gross receipts. (Prop L needs to get at least one more vote than Prop M in order to pass.) Vote YES on Prop L.
Proposition M: Change to Business Taxes. YES. This would greatly help small businesses as they work to recover from the pandemic. It would eliminate most small businesses with gross receipts up to $5 million, adjust business registration fees, and adjust the administrative office tax rates for certain large businesses. Proponents state that it will
prevent large businesses from leaving the city and reduce business license fees for restaurants, hotels, arts venues, and neighborhood stores. (If Prop M receives more votes than Prop L, then Prop L would be voided because both change the gross receipts tax system.) Vote YES on Prop M.
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Diego Gomez designed the Bay Area Reporter’s 2016 Pride cover.
B.A.R. Archive
by Jim Gladstone
Saturated in hormones and harmonies, Shotgun Players’ production of “Choir Boy,” is a bracing entertainment, as endearing, self-serious, and gloriously florid as the blossoming minds of the teenage boarding school boys it portrays.
The 2012 drama by Tarell Alvin McCraney, best known as the screenwriter of “Moonlight,” stylishly directed by Darryl V. Jones, focuses on the emerging personalities, sexualities, and ethi-
‘Choir Boy’ sings out strong
cal sensibilities of a sextet of young men who attend Drew Academy, a prestigious all-Black prep school where strict, well-intentioned codes of conduct create a surface tension barely strong enough to contain the roiling adolescent passions and confusions bubbling beneath it.
Tunes top tropes
The primary distinction between “Choir Boy” and most of the slightly soapy, single-sex academia genre (plays including “The Children’s Hour,” “Another Country,” “History Boys,”; films released dur-
ing McCraney’s own youth, such as “Dead Poets Society,” “Cider House Rules,” and “School Ties”) – beyond the fact that the primary characters are Black – is its thrilling incorporation of music (arranged by Jason Michael Webb) and dance (choreographed by Aejay Antonis Marquis).
The story’s six teenage characters are all members of Drew’s well-known choir, promoted by the school’s board as a sort of hood ornament for fundraising and recruitment drives, a concrete manifestation of the school’s standards for aesthetic, religious and disciplinary excellence.
Aby Finbar LaBelle
lways a delight for San Franciscans, Litquake, the West Coast’s largest independent literary festival, returns to the Bay Area and celebrates a quarter century of programs, including a wealth of queer events, authors, and icons that are not to be missed. Here are our selections, with plenty more in the full schedule at venues around the Bay Area October 10-27.
Booksellers Ball
@ Club Fugazi Experiences
Kicking off the festival in style, Litquake beckons audiences to a night of revelry and literary-themed drag performances. Joe Waldington of Happy Endings, aka Jubilee! will host Litquake’s Silver Jubilee. Promising “abundant libations and a sizzling lineup of literature,” the event will feature music presented by Bff.fm’s DJ Lead Teddy and a reading nook curated by San Francisco’s most revered independent booksellers. Oct. 10, 7pm-10pm, $75/$100 to sponsor a bookseller, 685 Green St.
Foglifter Issue Launch Party @ Strut
Join queer literary journal and publishing house Foglifter in the launch of the Fall 2024 issue of their biannual journal. Created by and for LGBTQ+ writers and readers, the organization elevates historically silenced voices to the forefront. Readings and appearances by Starlight Shamsi, Amalee Beattie, sienna fereshteh, Eden Nobile, and Grayson Thompson. Limited copies of the journal are for purchase. Oct. 11, 7pm-8:30pm, Free, $10-$15 suggested donation, 470 Castro St.
Irregular Feedback: Writers on Music @ Make-Out Room
Inspired by the work of writer Hanif Abdurraqib, Irregular Feedback offers an opportunity to hear writers speak about music. Featuring Hieu Minh Nguyen, Phoebe Cakes, Safia Elhillo, José Vadi, and Anna
Held, deep-dive into great albums, genres, and musical artists of the past six decades. Oct.12, 7:30pm-9pm, $12-$15, 3210 22nd St.
Modern Magic with Michelle Tea @ The Lost Church
Celebrated and award-winning queer activist and author Michelle Tea weaves elements of mem-
But “Choir Boy” isn’t a musical. While some of the songs (largely gospel numbers, with a few diversions into more contemporary R&B, one of which is a gorgeously performed but dramaturgically too-on-the-nose rendition of New Edition’s “Boys to Men”) are diegetically integrated in the storyline, sung by the characters at choir concerts and rehearsals. Others are presented interstitially, between scenes, amplifying and embroidering upon the story’s themes.
oir, fiction, and poetry, crafting work that is distinctly San Franciscan. Joined in conversation by Diana Helmuth and abridged with an interactive intermission, this night is full of “stories and spells.” MK Chaves moderates the conversation, while Julia Halina Hadas brews witchy cocktails. Oct. 13, 8:15pm-10pm, $18, 947 Columbus Avenue.
Queering Myths: Caro De Robertis and Navid Sinaki @ City Lights
Welcome two accomplished novelists, Navid Sinaki and Caro De Robertis, and their latest novels. Sinaki’s debut novel, “Medusa of the Roses” navigates a queer couple’s journey amidst the repressive political landscape of modern-day Iran. In contrast, De Roberti’s “The Palace of Eros” explores the dangers posed not by the government but by the Gods themselves. The night’s discussion centers around “the queer love story as a vehicle for interrogating society” and will be moderated by Jasmin Darznik. Oct. 15, 7:30pm-9pm, Free, $10$15 suggested donation, 261 Columbus Ave.
Read for Filth: Queer Erotica @ Fabulosa Books
A celebration of queer erotica, this event will have readings of queer literature, drag performances, and cocktails to boot! The talent includes comedian Baruch Porras-Hernandez, DJ Lead Teddy, Polly Amber Ross, and other drag superstars. Oct. 17, 6:30pm-10:30pm, Free, $20-$40 suggested donation, 489 Castro St.
The Rise of the Book Ban & the Freedom to Read @ KQED
The afternoon’s discussion draws on the U.S. and its exponential rise in banned books, especially when it comes to trans identities. The day starts with a block party and open house at KQED Headquarters. Speak with San Francisco’s City Librarian Michael Lambert, Becka Robbins, and authors Maggie TokudaHall and Maia Kobabe (author of “Genderqueer,” the top-targeted book for bans in the U.S.). Proceeds go to Books Not Bans. Oct. 19, 4pm-4:45pm, Free, 2601 Mariposa St.
William Schmidt (front) and cast members of ‘Choir Boy
Shotgun Players presents drama by ‘Moonlight’ screenwriter
Ben Krantz
Baruch Porras-Hernandez at Fabulosa Books
Jubilee! Michelle Tea
Justin Vivian Bond receives MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant
by Jim Provenzano
Known to San Franciscans as a nightlife and theater regular in the 1990s, Justin Vivian Bond has been awarded a MacArthur Grant. The performer’s wacky Kiki & Herb cabaret show premiered at the former Ivy’s bar, now Martuni’s, back in 1993.
Since then, Bond, who also wrote a popular column for the Bay Area Reporter in the ’90s, has gone on to acclaimed concerts in New York City and around the world. Bond frequently has returned to San Francisco for sold out shows at Feinstein’s at the Nikko, and at larger venues for a few New Year’s Eve specials with pianist Kenny Mellman, and even at Carnegie Hall. The duo has also released a few albums, and Mx. has two solo albums as well.
“Keep it pretty. Keep it shallow. Keep it Genius!,” Mx. wrote in a witty Facebook post on October 1.
“Thank you to all the mystery people who advocated for this grift and thanks to The Goddess for convincing The MacArthur Foundation to fall for it. I’m incredibly honored and very overwhelmed. Blessed be.”
Bond is among 22 recipients of genius grants who each will receive an $800,000 stipend. The winners are
anonymously nominated. The honor is given out each year by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, recognizing individuals in a variety of fields. Since 1981, more than 1,100 people have been awarded the fellowships.
Hundreds of friends and fans of Bond responded to the news with joy.
“So happy for you!” wrote San Francisco DJ Don Baird. “I’m screaming for you. I’ve known since before Eichelberger’s that you were performance genius, lots of us did. But every performance comes complete and no one could have anticipated the consistent ascent of your talent, the dignified, undeniable star power, the perfection of your craft, because it’s goddamned uncanny and the trajectory is going higher still. There is no other star like you, danger still intact.”
Stage and film actor Ann Magnuson wrote, “Amaaaaaaaaazing! Just what the gal with the ZING deserves! I’m about to cry. I am so proud of you!”
Celebrity tribute show presenter and author Marc Huestis wrote, “We always knew you were a genius. Now the world is catching up!”
Bond’s memoir, “Tango: My Childhood Backwards and in High Heels” (Feminist Press) won the Lambda
Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction. Mx. is also the recipient of an Obie, a Bessie, and a Tony nomination, an Ethyl Eichelberger Award, The Peter Reed Foundation Grant, The Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant for Artists, and The Art Matters Grant.
In a later [excerpted] Facebook post on Oct. 6, Bond wrote, “Of course I’m overwhelmed with gratitude toward those who put me forward for the MacArthur fellowship. The ‘Genius’ part tickles me to no end. In England some artists get to be a ‘Dame,’ and here in the US, if you’re lucky you get to be a Genius! As a Glorious Broad, and a Saint (thanks to The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence), I joyfully accept the title ‘Genius’ on behalf of all of the people who have held me steady on my path, come to my shows, formed friend groups, fallen in love, gotten loaded, cried, or laughed.
“I feel like this honor is shared with my community because you are my director, my producer, and my audience. You’ve seen me through many changes through the years and continued to show up.t
www.justinvivianbond.com
Randy Rainbow is full-spectrum funny
by Gregg Shapiro
Can we all agree that there’s nothing worse than reading a book by a humorist and not laughing? Not even once. Fear not, as gay humorist and performer Randy Rainbow more than exceeded my expectations, as he will yours, with his hilarious new book “Low-Hanging Fruit” (St. Martin’s Press, 2024).
If you loved his 2022 memoir “Playing With Myself,” you’ll find as much, if not more to love in the new book. His trademark sense of humor from his videos transfers with ease to the page in the essays. There are multiple laugh-out-loud moments throughout the two dozen essays. Always a delight to talk to, Randy made time for an interview shortly before the publication of his new book, and in advance of his October 14 event at the Haymarket Theatre in Palo Alto.
Your first book, “Playing With Myself,” was a memoir, and the new book, “Low-Hanging Fruit,” is a humorous essay collection. Did it feel like you were exercising different writing muscles than you did for the first book; essays versus memoir?
It did a little bit. I think I had a little more fun writing this book. Save for the fact that I was shlepping around on tour as I also make wellknown in the book. That wasn’t fun. To not have the –I hate to say burden– but the responsibility of doing
page 15
Out Loud: A Celebration of Queer Poetics @ Yerba Buena Gardens
Bringing together an array of poets from the Bay Area literary scene, get ready for a queer BIPOCX group who define themselves as “the queer at the tip of your tongue.” Oct. 20, 12pm1:15pm, Free, $10-$15 suggested donation, 750 Howard St.
Swole: The Meaning of Muscle Panel & Party @ The Stud
If you haven’t already celebrated the revitalization of The Stud, do it with
a chronological memoir, really getting everything right and then telling your story. I felt like I was just free to shoot the shit and have a little fun.
Were these essays written in one creative burst or over the course of years?
Over the course of a few months.
The second half of my tour is when I started doing it. So, probably about five to six months.
The first essay “Letter of Resignation” reminded me of Fran Lebowitz. I’m so glad.
an evening of literature and “Swolethemed” drag with a night of performance and dance. Writer and cultural critic Michael Brodeur joins personal trainers from Bay Strength to discuss his new book “Swole: The Making of Men and the Meaning of Muscle,” with a drag show curated by a Bay Area favorite, Hands. Oct. 21, 7pm-10:30pm, $17-$20, 1123 Folsom St.
Equipped with “reading glasses” an outstanding cast of drag superstars parody the most hilarious celebrity memoirs and autobiographies, with
And then, lo and behold, you name-check Fran in the second essay “Gurl, You’re A Karen.” Do you consider her to be an influence on your work?
Not directly. I’m a fan of hers. But I just feel sympatico with her for all the obvious reasons. I have a problem with everything [laughs] and being able to be funny and creative about it in this book was very cathartic, I felt.
Something similar occurred when I was reading the essay “I Feel Bad About My Balls,” which recalled another humor essayist;
no one off limits. Hosts James J. Siegel and Elsa Touché present an evening of theatrical flair plus prizes! Oct. 22, 7pm-9pm, $25 general/$30 premium runway seating, 298 11th St.
Greetings, from Queer Mountain: Maybe Today, Satan @ Gilman Brewing Company
Embrace the chaos of life with the long-running national LGBTQ+ storytelling showcase, Greetings, from Queer Mountain. Host and curator Michael Foulk (Queer Film Theory 101) invites beloved writers on stage to read work about facing our shadow selves. Oct. 23, 7pm-9pm, $12-$15, 912 Gilman Street, Berkeley.
Nora Ephron, whom you mention at the conclusion of the piece. Is she an influence?
Again, a fan. I wouldn’t say she ever directly influenced me although I guess since becoming an author myself, I read all of her books, so I love her. But not a direct influence. I think I listened to her audiobook of “I Feel Bad About My Neck” and that’s what inspired that chapter.
“Notes From a Litter Box,” written in the voice of your cat Tippi, made me wonder if you’d agree that there has never been a better time than now to be a childless cat person.
Isn’t it funny? That was the least political chapter in the book, the least controversial chapter, and now it’s all anyone’s talking about. It’s our time! What with Taylor Swift and everything, it’s terrific. I wrote that long before all of this JD Vance nonsense, but it certainly has put some wind in our sails, and Tippi’s! Who heard her name and she’s looking for treats. Here you go, dear. In the audiobook, the great actress Pamela Adlon voices Tippi.
Could you foresee writing a children’s book about Tippi? Well, what can I say? I don’t know how much I’m at liberty to discuss. Fuck it, I’ll discuss it! I did write a chil-
Bay Area Reporter Presents: What We Wrote During the Blip @ Martuni’s Our very own Arts Editor and award-winning author Jim Provenzano presents an exceptional lineup of writers –Yume Kim, Horehound Stillpoint, Gaia Veenis, and André Le Mont Wilson – who will share works written during the pandemic, alongside stories that imagine the “potential collapse of democracy.” Grab a drink and savor this absolute must-see stop on Lit Crawl, the annual closing night packed with readings at venues along Valencia Street at one-hour intervals (5pm, 6pm, 7pm). Oct. 26, 5pm-6pm, Free, 4 Valencia St.
dren’s book, and I’m saying it to whoever asks me. It comes out next year, and that’s actually what we’re planning the tour around, when it comes out around Pride next year. I won’t get into exactly what it’s about, but I will be revealing that very soon. And Tippi is a major character in it.
“Low-Hanging Fruit” arrives in advance of Election Day 2024 and includes the “Randy Rainbow for President” and “My Gay Agenda” essays, along with running political commentary, as well as a dig at “Donald Jessica Trump” which you say you couldn’t resist. All kidding aside, please share your thoughts on the 2024 election.
Oh God, kidding aside? How dare you! I have no thoughts that are not kidding because I have to kid to keep my sanity. It’s literally insane. I’ve left my body over it. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what to expect. I try to be positive, but I don’t know what that means anymore. I cannot wait for it to be fucking over! t
Read the full interview on www.ebar.com.
Randy Rainbow reads from and discusses his new book with Angie Coiro, October 14 at the Haymarket Theater, 50 Embarcadero Rd. in Palo Alto. $27 and up. www.eventbrite.com www.randyrainbow.com
Lifeform: Jenny Slate @ Palace of Fine Arts
Time spent with award-winning actor, comedian, author, and queer icon
Jenny Slate is never time wasted. Hear Slate read from her new book of essays, “Lifeform ” and get to know her with a moderated conversation and audience Q&A; a perfect last note to a month filled with literary and queer happenings that promise to inspire writers and captivate the LGBTQ+ community. Tickets include a signed copy of “Lifeform.” Oct. 27, 7:30pm9pm, $82-$92, 3601 Lyon St.t www.litquake.org
Justin Vivian Bond at a 2019 Joe’s Pub concert in New York City
Randy Rainbow Dirty Sugar Photography
Vinyl destination
by Gregg Shapiro
From 1964 until Diana Ross’ departure in 1969, The Supremes (as they were known in the beginning) released as few as two albums a year (or as many as five, as in 1965). In 1968, when the trio’s moniker became Diana Ross and the Supremes, they released five LPs, including “Love Child” (Motown/Elemental Music), newly reissued in limited edition 140gram virgin vinyl edition.
With this new set-up, a change in tone, such as the album’s semi-controversial title tune, is not all that surprising. Three songs written by Ashford & Simpson, including “Some Things You Never Get Used To,” were the roots of a long-creative relationship between Ross and the songwriting/performing couple. Additional highlights include “Does Your Mama Know About Me” (co-written by Tommy Chong!), “Honey Bee (Keep On Stinging Me),” and “How Long Has That Evening Train Been Gone.” elemental-music.com
It must be a testament to the commitment of the members of the B-52’s that each of its remaining long-term members, Kate Pierson, Fred Schneider, and Cindy Wilson, have only released two albums apiece under their own names over the course of the band’s 45-year recording career. Pierson’s latest album, “Radio & Rainbows” (Long Meadow Music/Crush Music/ SongVest Records), arrives 9½ years after 2015’s “Guitars and Microphones.”
Dedicated to Pierson’s wife, Monica Nation, the album takes Pierson in a variety of musical directions, including dance (“Take Me Back to the Party,” co-written with Jimmy Harry), the suitably spooky “Every Day Is Halloween” (co-written with and featuring Sia), the island breeze of “Pillow Queen”, the funky “Dream On” and “Living In a Monet” (featuring queer musician Gail Ann Dorsey). instagram.com/thekatepierson
After 25 years of releasing albums (nearly a dozen!) on the indie Blue Corn Music record label, the amazing queer singer/songwriter Ruthie Foster is now on the legendary Sun Records label with her newest release “Mileage” (Sun).
Pressed on vivid baby blue vinyl, the 10-song album, consisting of nine Foster originals (co-written with the record’s producer Tyler Bryant and Rebecca Lovell) contains Foster’s blend of influences, such as gospel, searing blues-pop, a radiant love song (“Rainbow”), and soulful stomp (“Slow Down”), all delivered in her powerful vocal style. ruthiefoster.com
I’m late to the cult of experimental singer/songwriter Jerry Paper, only becoming acquainted with the nonbinary artist at the time of the release of their ninth album, 2022’s “Free Time.” Jerry Paper’s new album, “Inbetweezer” (Stone’s Throw), on pretty, pink vinyl, while maintaining the artist’s distinctive musical perspective, somehow feels more accessible than its predecessor.
Even the chaotic no-wave sax solo on the otherwise shimmery “Moonstruck,” isn’t a deterrent to the pleasure of the song. Other standouts include “New Year’s Day,” the bubbly electro of “Scenic Route,” and the bizarre retro pop of “Everything Angel.” instagram.com/jerrypaper_reality
Diana Ross, Kate Pierson, Ruthie Foster & more
Just when you think you’ve heard almost every iteration of the female singer/songwriter possible, an artist such as Cassandra Jenkins comes along. With her new album, “My Light, My Destroyer” (Dead Oceans), she takes her place alongside contemporaries such as Mitski, Angel Olsen, and Phoebe Bridgers, while also carving out her unique niche.
Not many artists can incorporate field recordings into an album and never once disturb the fabric of the record. Additionally, the way that Jenkins transitions from stunning folk (“Devotion”) to full-tilt rock (“Clams Casino”) makes it look deceptively simple even though it isn’t. Cassandra Jenkins performs on Oct. 13 at Rickshaw Stop. cassandrajenkins.com
Queer Canadian musician TR/ ST (aka Robert Alfons) has a way
with propulsive electronic dance music on his new album “Performance” (Dais). If there were any justice, these songs would be in regular rotation in queer dance clubs across the globe. You can hear the influence of ’80s new wave on TR/ST, but the music also feels both timeless and of the moment.
TR/ST performs on Nov. 20 in San Francisco at Regency Ballroom. trstonline.net
Straight rapper Logic probably took his fans by surprise with the music video for his Grammy-nominated 2017 hit single, “1-800-273-8255,” which featured a storyline about the
outing of a gay, Black, teenager, and the homophobia he faced from classmates at school.
Regardless, the video did a lot of good, as the number in the title was for a suicide hotline. As we all know, sometimes our allies come from the most unexpected places.
Logic has released his 13th album, “Ultra 85” (Bobby Boy/BMG), a double-LP set on blue and white splatter vinyl. When Logic does what he does best, spitting rapidfire rhymes and raps, the album is ultra-enjoyable. However, there are too many distracting skits that interrupt the flow. logicmerch.com t
Read the full online review, with music videos, on www.ebar.com.
Peter Hujar’s ‘Portraits in Life and Death’
by Robert Brokl
The only book of his work published in his lifetime in 1976 to little attention, Peter Hujar’s “Portraits in Life and Death,” considered a cult classic by some, has been reissued by Liveright Publishing/W.W. Norton & Company.
The collection, with new digital scans from Hujar’s original negatives, is illuminated by an excellent essay by Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Benjamin Moser (Clarice Lispector and Susan Sontag). Coincidentally, Sontag contributed the essay for the original, reprinted with this revival. Sontag’s essay is what one might expect: elegant, opaque, and self-referential, affirming kinship with Hujar’s perspective aligning with her own.
Moser’s introduction connects the photographs’ subjects by their outsider status and marginality, including sexual orientation, and bohemian underclass poverty, illustrated by a Hujar self-portrait, leaping gracefully in a decidedly ungentrified loft of peeling paint and thread-bare rugs.
Fashionable, eventually
Avant-garde ambitions are apparent in retrospect, but fame and fortune were not paramount goals of these individuals then, although several became wellknown, even successful. Moser catalogs their destinies: five died of AIDS, including Hujar; some like Divine and Sontag died of other causes like disease; “T.C.,” the stripper, leaves no traces, and a few, like John Waters and Fran Lebowitz, are among the living.
Moser states that the times, culture, and tolerance have caught up with Hujar and his coterie, “How, in just a few years, gayness would become fashionable, and then with
Hujar’s posthumous fame, orchestrated by his zealous executor, novelist and literature professor Stephen Koch, underscores the tragedy that his career was cut so short, only another ten years of working after this book.
what in retrospect seems fantastic speed, unremarkable. It is another indication of the hygienic function of time: as time can burnish a work of art, it can also expand the views of marginal people, and render their way of seeing comprehensible, even desirable. Because gayness has been so domesticated, it is hard, now, to imagine how different certain Hujar pictures looked in their own time.”
Hujar posed many of the subjects reclining, most staring back at the photographer, and us. No artful, flattering lighting or suggestions of narrative; minimal black, white, and gray.
An astonishingly youthful Waters, wearing his trademark pencil-thin
mustache, lounges provocatively, almost parodying the conceit of making love to the camera, whereas Divine looks rather pensive.
Peter Thek, Hujar’s lover (we’re told his amorous relationships usually evolved into friendships) and a better-known photographer at the time, appears struggling to stay silent, conversation interrupted. Posing shirtless and prone, Hujar appears muscular and trim, ruggedly handsome. He had earlier been included, after all, in Andy Warhol’s movie “The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys,” a compilation of Warhol’s “Screen Tests,” four of which had featured Hujar.
Voids and Silences
Moser writes cryptically that “Hujar feared being remembered as a gay photographer, but a photographer who was gay.” And while many of his most iconic images are of men, he also made several photographs of women alive with agency and obvious intelligence, as well as beauty.
A young, fresh Fran Lebowitz, lit cigarette in hand, wearing rumpled white shirt and pants, stares Hujar down, impassive, not exactly confrontive but certainly not coy, either.
<< Choir Boy
From page 15
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” for example, reflects the isolation felt by young men living away from home for the first time.
“Rainbow Round My Shoulder” obliquely reinforces the braided sense of burden and extraordinariness that accompanies being a gay student in an institution that refuses to acknowledge the existence of homosexuality as anything but a sin.
While related to the play’s narrative, the profound, resonant beauty of these gorgeous musical numbers expands upon and ultimately envelops the story itself. The self-serving motivations of individual characters are subsumed within the music’s sense of communal transcendence.
Audience members who appreciated the cooperatively contrapuntal relationship of dialogue and music in the recent Broadway San Francisco touring production of “Girl from the North Country” will recognize a kindred spirit in “Choir Boy.”
McCraney’s daring construction – a highly engineered, slightly moralistic plot, elevated and carried within the greater good of musical cumulus – is a work of heartfelt genius. It pressures audiences to grapple with the clash-prone coexistence of wellmeaning individuals and well-meaning institutions.
Some of his most memorable images were yet to come, like Candy Darling on her deathbed, and the “Come Out” Gay Liberation Front march after the Stonewall riots. He was also yet to meet and photograph David Wojnarowicz, who became his partner (sexual in the beginning), collaborator, and subject.
Both had rough starts in life, like orphaned, feral wolves: Hujar was the child of a waitress and father he never met, raised by grandparents in New Jersey speaking only Ukrainian. After moving to New York City to live with his mother and new husband, “an alcoholic bookie named Snookie, he left, at age sixteen, after his mother threw a bottle at his head.” Both Hujar and Wojnarowicz succumbed to AIDS, Hujar first in 1987, age 53, Wojnarowicz, only five years later in 1992, age 37. What must have made the volume arresting in its first appearance, and even today, are the portraits of the living, from the years 1974-75, followed by images of the dead, from the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo, Italy, taken earlier by Hujar in 1963.
Moser and Sontag make a case for Time, ruthless and remorseless though it may be, erasing irrelevancies and dross, leaving art of the stature of a Hujar burnished and deepened over time. ‘Eternal’ may be a cruel myth, but Hujar has a shot.t
Peter Hujar’s portraits
Peter Hujar’s ‘Portraits in Life and Death,’ $75, 100 pages. www.wwnorton.com
Peter Hujar prints, and the 2022 catalog book ‘Peter Hujar, curated by Elton John,’ are available at Fraenkel Gallery, 49 Geary St., 4th floor. www.fraenkelgallery.com
Ensemble excellence
A charismatic cast led by William Schmidt as Pharus, a musically gifted but self-aggrandizing gay student, is captivating from the first scene. Wesley Barker strikes a perfect balance of sweetness and strength as Pharus’ straight, athletic roommate, AJ. Miles Meckling makes Pharus’ nemesis, Bobby, into more than a rote homophobe. Omar Stewart plays David, the most religiously devout student, with a cryptic air that allows audience members to be genuinely surprised by a plot turn. And Chachi Delgado, an unsung utility player in many a Bay
Area production, takes advantage of a worthy showcase for his limber physicality and tender baritone.
The ensemble is so sharp and engaging with its line-readings and scene work that one becomes fully absorbed in the plotted melodrama from the get-go, only realizing the show’s layered conceptual complexity after it’s over.
“Choir Boy” is terrific as you’re watching it, and then, it gets better.t
Cast members perform a song in ‘Choir Boy’ Ben Krantz
Peter Hujar’s self-portrait
Liveright Publishing/W.W. Norton & Company
of John Waters, Fran Lebowitz and Divine
‘Sneaking Around’
by Myron Caringal
“Sneaking Around,” by San Francisco-based producer Emily A. Meehan, is a raw, complex film that offers a frank portrayal of modern relationships, set against the backdrop of the varying landscapes that is San Francisco.
The upcoming queer film’s social commentary and human moments leave viewers questioning the meaning of happiness, success and love in a city that can just as easily build you up as it can tear you down.
At the heart of the film is Frances Cunningham, played with nuance by Mb Weider. Cunningham, a 56-yearold venture capitalist, is trapped in a loveless marriage with her unfaithful husband, Jay, while navigating her own emotional and sexual identity. She splits her time between a modern Berkeley Hills home and her old college condo in the city that she now rents out as an Airbnb condo.
With her Stanford degree and Tesla, and an ongoing planning of an IPO, Cunningham embodies the classic image of a powerful, affluent white woman in San Francisco. Yet, beneath the surface, she’s deeply disconnected, unknowingly searching for more through her pursuit of younger women.
Differing perspectives
The film divides into three explicit acts –or what Meehan refers to as “rounds” in a battle, corresponding to the months of October, November, and December. Each act showcases Cunningham’s relationships with three different women. Despite their briefness, these relationships mirror the gaps in Cunningham’s life, offering temporary comfort while exposing her fragility.
In round one, we meet Lyric Summers (Natalia Dominguez), a bookkeeper who moved back to San Francisco after losing her passion for singing in Los Angeles. The contrast between Lyric’s free-spirited life and Cunningham’s material wealth is stark, with their relationship oscillating between romantic tension and moments of awkward disconnect.
Lyric’s simple pleasures in intangible aspects contrast with Cunningham’s fixation on wealth and productivity, with moments of friction arising from their differing worldviews. Their interactions are both intimate and transactional, with Cunningham often slipping into an almost motherly role and offering unsolicited professional advice, which reflects her own strained relationship with her college-aged son.
The narrative deepens in round two, introducing Miranda (director Meehan), an Uber driver who embodies a quintessential San Francisco spirit: free-spirited and transient. Miranda lives out of her car, finding adventure and fulfillment in her mobile lifestyle, while Cunningham is horrified at the thought of such a life.
This section of the film pokes at the growing disparity between those who thrive within capitalism and those pushed to its fringes. Meehan cleverly depicts the theme of urban decay, with Miranda remembering her youth in the city: bonfires, bong rips, and best friends who’ve now moved out of the city.
Local landscape
Meanwhile, Frances clings to her privilege, offering to pay for Miranda’s therapy in a misguided attempt to “fix” her, without realizing that Miranda doesn’t want or need saving.
Throughout the film, San Francisco itself plays a pivotal role, almost becoming a character of its own. Meehan showcases this in smaller notes, like a brief nighttime shot of a coyote wandering the streets, a subtle metaphor for those surviving in the city’s changing landscape.
The film crescendos in round three with a dramatic shift in tone and Cunningham’s new pursuit with Lani (Mayumi Roller), a clerk for a boutique in Lower Haight. It quickly takes on an explicitly sexual tone, complete with intimate scenes that are both raw and mechanical, underscoring the emotional distance Cunningham keeps from her lovers. Yet, Lani craves more.
Much like the others, this final relationship with Lani shows Cunningham’s tendency to impose her worldview on those simply trying to exist outside the societal structures
that define her life. As the film reaches its climax, it becomes clear that Cunningham’s world is crumbling.
“Sneaking Around” delivers a refreshing and authentic take on modern love and its complexities in an era when casual bisexual and polyamorous relationships are only beginning to gain visibility in mainstream media.
The film also navigates San Francisco’s shifting socioeconomic landscape in Meehan’s depiction of the city as both a utopia and a dystopia. The complex relationships in each act highlight the widening class divide, pitting the city against itself.
In a city as seductive as San Francisco, the cycles are unrelenting. Meehan’s narrative leaves viewers with a thought-provoking message: “That’s the story of Francis in San Francisco. A city someone once described as a beautiful woman who lures people with her majesty only to chew her up and spit them out. But every time someone leaves, another person replaces them.”t
‘Sneaking Around’ plays Oct. 9 through Oct. 15 at the Little Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St. $6.62-$15.62. www.roxie.com
Natalia Dominguez and Mb Weider in ‘Sneaking Around’
Saunter Films
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