October 12, 2023 edition of the Bay Area Reporter

NOW's anti-lesbian past

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"'Rocky Horror'

ARTS

More vetoes from Newsom

ARTS

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Anthony Rapp

The

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Serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities since 1971

Vol. 53 • No. 41 • October 12-18, 2023

Gay SF man’s 2018 killing gets new look from TV’s Grace

by Ed Walsh

Courtesy Governor’s office

Kinna Crocker was appointed to the Sonoma County Superior Court.

Newsom names lesbian family lawyer Crocker to Sonoma bench

by Matthew S. Bajko

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overnor Gavin Newsom has named Kinna Crocker, an attorney of East Indian ancestry who specializes in family law, to a vacancy on the Sonoma County Superior Court. The lesbian Santa Rosa resident aims to close down her law firm and take her oath of office by the end of October.

“I am working very hard to do that at the moment. The goal is as soon as possible,” Crocker, 46, told the Bay Area Reporter during a phone interview October 6.

The 2002 University of San Francisco School of Law graduate has had her own practice since 2013. In the spring Crocker submitted her application to be considered for a judicial appointment by the governor, having contemplated doing so for several years.

“After having conversations with my colleagues, as well as sitting judges, I finally decided to throw my name in the ring. I applied in April of this year,” said Crocker, a married mother of 15-year-old twin daughters. “I really contemplated over the application process and really dug deep to decide what I wanted to do.”

A registered Democrat, Crocker is filling the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Arthur Wick. She was one of 15 state superior court appointments that Newsom announced October 5.

San Francisco attorney Charlie Spiegel, a gay man who also specializes in family law, called Crocker an “excellent choice” in an email to the B.A.R. Crocker noted that it isn’t often that a family law practitioner is selected for a judicial appointment. Before becoming a sole practitioner, who also specializes in LGBTQ legal issues, Crocker was an associate at Terre Family Law in Santa Rosa from 2011 to 2013. The National LGBT Bar Association named her one of the Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40 in 2013.

Prior to that she was employed with the law firm Lozano Smith from 2010 to 2011.

Between 2004 and 2008 she had worked for the Northern California Family Law Group in Sacramento.

See page 10 >>

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ationally known legal commentator and television personality Nancy Grace is blasting the San Francisco Police Department’s handling of the grisly killing of a gay man in 2018.

Grace and her Fox Nation team are investigating the death of Brian Egg, 65, whose torso was found in a fish tank in his South of Market home two and a half months after he disappeared. No one has been prosecuted for the crime and it remains unsolved. Grace plans to profile the case as one of three unsolved crimes for a yet-unnamed Fox Nation streaming series planned for next year. A producer and camera crew were in San Francisco and Palm Springs last week interviewing people with knowledge of the case, including a reporter from the Bay Area Reporter.

“We chose to cover the Brian Egg case for many reasons,” Grace stated to the B.A.R. in an email interview. “I don’t like the idea that pleas for help are ignored. It pains me to hear that victims’ voices go unheard. This neighborhood and all Egg’s friends and family think no one cares. That’s wrong ... we care.

Ed Walsh

A Fox Nation crew, right, looked into Brian Egg’s backyard during a recent visit in preparation for a show about the case. Police had found bone fragments in a planter there after searching the home in 2018.

“This case is almost unbelievable,” she added.

“Neighbors call police multiple times to check on Egg, a neighbor, known in the community for tenderly caring for plants and even inviting the homeless to his home if they needed a place

to stay. Police didn’t come and neighbors spotted unknown individuals coming in and out of Egg’s home, but no Egg. The final straw? They spot soapy water pouring out of the house, smell bleach, and later, a crime scene cleanup van is See page 10 >>

Feinstein, SF’s ‘forever mayor,’ lionized at City Hall memorial

by John Ferrannini

A

fter America’s powerful raised their voices in praise of Dianne Feinstein at her memorial service October 5, the late senator’s granddaughter reminded San Franciscans what made her, in the words of another speaker, their “forever mayor.”

“For San Franciscans, Senator Feinstein guided the city through tragedy, saved our beloved cable cars, created the iconic Pier 39, and fought for the LGBTQ community during the height of the HIV/ AIDS epidemic,” Eileen Mariano said.\ But to Mariano, Feinstein was a lot more.

“To me, she will be remembered as the most incredible grandmother,” Mariano said, adding that when she herself was born, Feinstein noted how similar they looked and advised her daughter, Katherine, to name her Dianne.

“From then on, she and I were extremely close,” Mariano said. “When I was a toddler, we could amuse ourselves for hours playing hide and seek. … I would spend nights at my grandmother’s house whenever she was home in San Francisco. She taught me to play chess – although she hated losing. We would pick flowers from her garden and draw them together – although only her drawings were worthy of being made into prints. She would give me haircuts at home in the kitchen, much to my parents’ dismay ... and she loved teaching me about San Francisco’s history.”

Feinstein died at her Washington, D.C. home

SF Chronicle pool

Eileen Mariano, left, speaks at the memorial service for her grandmother, senator Dianne Feinstein, October 5 outside San Francisco City Hall. Looking on are Mayor London Breed, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Congressmember Nancy Pelosi.

September 29 at the age of 90. She had been in poor health in recent months.

Congressmember Nancy Pelosi (D), who has represented San Francisco in the United States House of Representatives since 1987 – including two stints as speaker – paid tribute to her longtime friend and associate, and also brought up her passion for flowers.

“She loved flowers,” Pelosi said. “To show them, to grow them, to paint them, to share them.”

The hourlong service in front of San Francisco

City Hall was dramatically punctuated by the United States Navy Blue Angels flying overhead as they practiced for last weekend’s air show as part of the city’s Fleet Week. Current Mayor London Breed noted Feinstein started the popular event in 1981.

“It’s what Dianne wants,” Pelosi said when she was interrupted by the flyover. “That’s what we get.”

While Feinstein was “a mentor of generosity and sweetness,” she was still tenacious and effective at work See page 2 >>

<< State News

2 • Bay Area Repor ter • October 12-18, 2023

Newsom nixes trio of LGBTQ-related bills

by Matthew S. Bajko

ployment and Housing Act. But Newsom vetoed the bill October 8. In a veto message his office released Sunday, Newsom criticized the language of AB 524 for being ambiguous and not clearly defining what acts against employees covered by it would constitute unlawful discrimination by their employers.

He was also critical of a lack of specification in the bill for what would be deemed lawful denials of “special accommodations” for the impacted employees. Thus, Newsom argued, the bill would be difficult to implement and could result in employers facing “costly litigation,” he wrote.

“During my tenure as governor I have consistently advanced policies to help parents and families, including expanding paid family leave and increasing the state’s investment in child care,” noted Newsom in his veto message. “While I appreciate the intent of this bill, I am concerned about the large burden it will place on employers, particularly small businesses, especially given the ambiguous nature of the language.”

In doing so, Newsom sided with business interests like the California Chamber of Commerce. It had named AB 524 one of its 2023 “job killer” bills it was tracking this year.

While Wicks praised Newsom for signing another of her bills, AB 1394, that allows survivors of child sexual exploitation to sue social media platforms, she had yet to comment about his vetoing AB 524 as of Monday afternoon.

It was the fourth bill related to LGBTQ issues that Newsom has vetoed this year. As the B.A.R. previously reported, in late September he spiked legislation that would have required state judges to take into account parental support for their transgender children during custody disputes.

On October 7, Newsom vetoed two other LGBTQ-related bills. AB 1432

by Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles) would have closed loopholes in existing law to ensure that health insurance policies provided to Californians by out-of-state employers with out-of-state insurance contracts include coverage for abortion and gender-affirming care. Newsom reiterated concerns about the “well intentioned” bill leading to litigation.

“I commend the author for working to provide additional assurances that California residents can access abortion services and gender affirming care,” wrote Newsom in his veto message to lawmakers. “It is a priority of my administration to ensure that abortion and gender-affirming care are safe, legal, and accessible. However, it is not evident that out-of-state health insurance plans serving Californians do not already cover this care.”

Also on Saturday Newsom vetoed AB 1645 authored by gay Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Santa Monica/West Hollywood). It would have closed loopholes and strengthened protections in existing law to ensure that California health insurers continue to provide free and complete coverage for preventive services like PrEP, an effective medicine for ensuring people remain HIV negative, and testing for sexually transmitted infections.

HIV advocates have raised concerns about access to such preventative health services because of a federal lawsuit conservative business owners have filed

seeking to cite their religious beliefs as a reason for not covering PrEP and other sexual health services in the health insurance policies they offer to employees.

But Newsom raised several concerns with Zbur’s bill, including its impact on costs.

While he noted his appreciation for the freshman lawmaker’s efforts to increase access to various preventative health care services, Newsom wrote in his veto message that “components of this proposal depart from structures in federal and state law, such as the existing policies for reimbursement to noncontracted providers.”

He added, “because this bill exceeds the cost-sharing provisions under the Affordable Care Act, it would result in increased costs to health plans passed on to consumers through premiums.”

Zbur nor Carillo have yet to issue comments regarding the gubernatorial vetoes of their bills.

“Dianne went to her first civic engagement with Katherine [her daughter] in a stroller,” Pelosi said. “Dianne was such a commanding mayor for 10 powerful years that when her term was up and some other people started running for mayor, including some men, schoolchildren were saying ‘can a man be mayor?’”

Due to her being president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Feinstein became mayor in November 1978 following the assassination of then-

mayor George Moscone, who was killed with gay supervisor Harvey Milk by disgruntled ex-supervisor Dan White.

She announced the news of their deaths to a shocked city and nation from inside City Hall.

Her status as a pioneering woman was the focus of remarks from Vice President Kamala Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and the state’s attorney general who became a colleague of Feinstein in the Senate until

she became vice president.

Harris remembered being at Feinstein’s victory party the night she was elected California’s first female senator in 1992. She called the late senator “an icon of California,” “a standard-bearer of America,” a “giant of the Senate,” and a “dear friend.”

“Fast forward to today, when I again traveled to the city to celebrate Dianne, this time from Washington, D.C. on Air Force Two,” Harris said. “Dianne: the

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overnor Gavin Newsom over the weekend nixed three pieces of legislation aimed at addressing health concerns facing LGBTQ individuals. It brings the number of LGBTQ-related bills he has vetoed this legislative session to four.

One of the vetoed bills would have provided protections for California workers who need time off to care for their biological or chosen family members. It marked the second time this year that bills addressing workers whose households include members who are not familial relatives had hit roadblocks in becoming law.

The pair of bills were both authored

by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (DOakland) and had drawn strong support from LGBTQ rights advocates and groups promoting gender justice policies. Chosen family members of workers are people they are not legally related to but have close bonds with and care for when they are sick.

The 2023 legislative proposals built off of Wicks’ Assembly Bill 1041 that was passed by lawmakers last year and led to the state’s family leave provisions covering workers with chosen family as of January 1. Many LGBTQ individuals consider their close friends or acquaintances to be their chosen family due to being estranged from their biological family members.

This year, Wicks had introduced AB 518 to give workers the right to receive Paid Family Leave wage replacement benefits while on leave to assist their chosen family. The bill had passed out of the Assembly in late May but failed to move out of the Senate’s Appropriations Committee in September.

The Legislature did pass Wicks’ AB 524 that would make it unlawful for employers to refuse to hire, fire, demote, or take other adverse employment action against workers because of their responsibilities to their biological or chosen family members. It would have made “family caregiver status” a protected characteristic under the state’s Fair Em-

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Feinstein From page 1

– a quality that led the congressmember to call Feinstein the city’s “forever mayor.”

“I have a T-shirt,” Pelosi said. “‘I survived Dianne’s staff meetings.’”

A trailblazer

Pelosi paid tribute to Feinstein the trailblazer, too.

From X

Governor Gavin Newsom has nixed bills covering LGBTQ health concerns.

LGBTQ bills become law

As of October 9, Newsom has signed into law 14 bills that either provide protections for LGBTQ Californians or address their health needs. Most recently, he signed Senate Bill 487 by outgoing lesbian Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) ensuring that a health insurer, or health care service plan, doesn’t penalize a licensed California health care provider who performs gender-affirming care services.

It was one of nine bills Newsom signed September 27 that provide stronger protections for providers delivering abortion care, expand the health care workforce, and protect patient reproductive health care information. Another was AB 571 by Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Laguna Beach) that prohibits an insurer from refusing to provide malpractice insurance to a provider on the basis of them offering abortion, contraception, or gender-affirming care that is lawful in California but unlawful in another state.

A third, AB 352 by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), enhances privacy protections for elec-

tronic medical records related to abortion, gender-affirming care, pregnancy loss, and other sensitive services, closing a major loophole in privacy protections for people traveling to California for abortion and gender-affirming care. The legislative moves in Sacramento come as lawmakers in other states target abortion providers and physicians who treat transgender children, as well as their parents.

“Radical politicians continue their all out assault on women’s health care with dangerous and deadly consequences,” stated Newsom. “The right to an abortion is enshrined in California’s constitution. We will continue to protect women and health care workers who are seeking and providing basic care.”

In a thread on X (formerly Twitter) Bauer-Kahan wrote, “No one should have to choose between seeing their doctor and being arrested. With AB 352, patients won’t have to make that horrible choice.”

Newsom has until Saturday, October 14, to sign or veto the two remaining LGBTQ-related bills before him that the B.A.R. has been tracking this year.

Both concern the needs of transgender individuals.

Under AB 1163 by Assemblymember Luz Rivas (D-Arleta) various state agencies and departments would have until July 1, 2026, to revise their publicuse forms so they are more inclusive of individuals who identify as transgender, gender nonconforming, or intersex. They would also need to collect data pertaining to the specific needs of such individuals, such as their medical care and mental health disparities, as well as the population size of the various communities.

AB 1487 by Assemblymember Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) would establish the Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Wellness Reentry Fund to provide grants for reentry programming “specifically to support transgender, gender variant, and intersex people who have experienced carceral systems.”

If Newsom signs the bill creating it then the fund would need to have money allocated to it in future state budgets. t women of America have come a long way. Our country has come a long way, and you helped move the ball forward and our nation salutes you, Dianne.”

Harris also thanked the Feinstein family.

“To many of you, she was supervisor, mayor, senator and then chairman,” Harris said. “To Katherine and Eileen, she held the most important titles of all, mother and grandmother. ... I don’t have See page 4 >>

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t In its past, women’s group NOW purged lesbians 4 • Bay Area Repor ter • October 12-18, 2023

by Victoria A. Brownworth

structures. She “gained her sense of identity not from the men she related to, but from her internal sense of self and from ideals of nurturing, community, and cooperation that she defined as female,” the manifesto read.

Later Bunch would write, “It is the primacy of women relating to women, of women creating a new consciousness of and with each other, which is at the heart of women’s liberation, and the basis for the cultural revolution,” articulating the principle of the woman-identified woman that would become a cornerstone of lesbian activism in the 1970s in the post-purge feminist movement.

T

he online National Women’s History Museum describes Betty Friedan as “co-founder of the National Organization for Women” and “one of the early leaders of the women’s rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s.” But the plaudits given to Friedan often overlook that lesbians were once purged from NOW. Friedan inspired millions of women with her 1963 best-selling book, “The Feminine Mystique,” which gave voice to their frustrations with their limited gender roles and helped spark widespread public activism for gender equality.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act had banned sex discrimination in employment, yet the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the government agency that had been established to enforce workplace equality, did not acknowledge the sex-discrimination clause, effectively nullifying the Civil Rights Act’s addition of gender.

As the women’s history museum website details, Freidan’s groundbreaking book “helped transform public awareness” of such discrimination and propelled Friedan into the leadership of the nascent women’s liberation movement where she was often referred to as the “mother” of second-wave feminism.

In 1966, Friedan, Pauli Murray, and Aileen Hernandez co-founded NOW. Murray herself was a gender-nonconforming lesbian, and Friedan was NOW’s first president and authored NOW’s mission statement: “... to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.”

Among the objectives of NOW were “securing the enforcement of antidiscrimination law; gaining subsidized child care, abortion rights, and publicaccommodations protections; and passing the Equal Rights Amendment.

NOW was able to bring about changes large and small – to hiring policies, to credit-granting rules, to laws – that improved the lives of American women,” the museum’s website states.

NOW was itself a groundbreaking organization, which made Friedan’s purging of lesbians from that organization in 1970 – after calling them the “lavender menace” in an interview with the New York Times Magazine – significant on myriad levels. That action effectively separated lesbians from mainstream feminism, just as they had been separated by gender from the decidedly male gay liberation movement.

NOW’s Susan Brownmiller, whose book “Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape” would become another critically important feminist treatise, tried to make a joke of Friedan’s comment by calling it a “lavender herring,” but that just further alienated lesbians in the organization.

Mainstream media had already dismissed the feminist movement as “a bunch of bra-burning lesbians,” so Friedan and other straight feminist leaders were acutely sensitive to this labeling – and dismissal – of all feminists as lesbians. Friedan wanted “feminine feminists” in the movement.

Friedan, like many straight feminists, did not want feminism associated with

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Feinstein

From page 2

to tell you that it is not easy when a loved one lives a life of public service, especially a person as hardworking and selfless as Dianne Feinstein. So to you, the family, we thank you for all the sacrifices you have knowingly and unknowingly made over the years that have allowed her to serve. And on behalf of the people of the United States, we are grateful to you.”

Breed said she remembered that she first met Feinstein as a child while a French horn player in the Benjamin Franklin Middle School band – the mayor’s band.

NOW changes its ways

Diana Davies. Image source: Manuscript and Archives Division, the New York Public Library

Linda Rhodes, left, Arlene Kisner (sometimes misidentified as Arlene Kushner), and Ellen Broidy participate in the “Lavender Menace” action at the Second Congress to Unite Women, in Chelsea, New York on May 1, 1970.

- or tainted by - “man hating” and lesbianism. As lesbian activist Karla Jay later wrote in her memoir, “Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Liberation,” “I’m tired of being in the closet because of the women’s movement.”

The blatant hostility toward lesbians and the move by Friedan and others to disassociate the feminist movement from lesbianism took on its own activism. NOW established policies that were exclusionary of lesbians in the early years of the organization. NOW newsletter editor Rita Mae Brown, a lesbian, stated, “lesbianism is the one word which gives the New York NOW Executive Committee a collective heart attack.”

Ripple effect

The lesbian purge at NOW was momentous and had a ripple effect for lesbian activists. It was also surprising as lesbians had been so pivotal in the founding of NOW and in the impact and influence of second-wave feminism. Many of the key figures of that wave of feminism and of NOW itself were lesbians. These included NOW cofounder Murray; Brown, a lesbian theorist who was a member of The Furies collective and authored the first mainstream lesbian novel, “Rubyfruit Jungle;” and graphic designer Ivy Bottini, who designed NOW’s logo (still used today) and was president of the largest chapter of the organization, New York NOW. Yet the taint of the lavender menace was perceived by Friedan and other straight feminists, Shirley Chisholm and Gloria Steinem among them, to be problematic: lesbians were perceived as “man hating” and mainstream feminism was intent on presenting the movement as pro-woman, not anti-male. Lesbians were still viewed as perverts and even as mentally ill. It would be several more years before the psychiatric community’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders would change its view that homosexuality was a mental disease.

As Hannah Quayle wrote in a blog post about the purge, “Lesbians were placed within an unnatural category of the ‘third sex.’ This ‘third sex’ was associated as a gross abnormality which violated female anatomy, heterosexual desire “Whenever there was an important event or activity, she chose us to perform. We played in City Hall and at Super Bowl celebrations. ... Mayor Feinstein always took the time to talk to us, tell us how amazing we were, and remind us that we were her band,” Breed said. “It was her advice on how to heal and lead that gave me strength. But I don’t know if she recognized that none of the things she told me as an adult were ever as important as what she showed us as children.”

The two shared a kinship, Breed said.

Feinstein took over as the city’s first female mayor after Moscone was killed.

Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Pauli Murray shown seated in her study.

and gender behaviour by associating masculine features upon the female body. In this sense, lesbians were not considered ‘real women,’ and stood outside the category of ‘woman’ in a physical, sexual, personal and political sense.”

Quayle asserted that within the mainstream feminist movement and NOW, “Lesbians had to find an effective way to address the accusation that their masculinity was somehow complicit with men and the patriarchy, and that lesbian influence would not in fact dismantle strict heterosexual categories as it was widely believed. Heterosexual feminists excluded lesbians from the feminist movement in the 1960s based on this discomfort towards their sexuality.”

In 1969, the same year as the Stonewall riots, Bottini, president of the New York chapter of NOW, broached the subject of lesbianism and the movement in a public forum titled, “Is Lesbianism a Feminist Issue?” Bottini – like Brown, Murray, and others – thought lesbians were leaders of the feminist movement, not background players. It was lesbians like Susan B. Anthony who had also led the first wave of feminism in the U.S. But Friedan was adamant that lesbians not derail the feminist movement and the work that she and others were doing to establish equity in employment and reproductive rights (Friedan was also co-founder of NARAL, the prochoice organization). Lesbian visibility, Friedan believed, would allow men to

dismiss the feminist movement as fringe and something most women didn’t want to be associated with. Trumpeting her assertions and coining the term “lavender menace” (which a group of New York lesbians would later adopt to form a group of radical activists), NOW president Friedan fired newsletter editor Brown.

Friedan then orchestrated the purge of lesbians, including Bottini, from NOW’s New York chapter. That action did not go unremarked. At the 1970 Congress to Unite Women, 400 feminists from NOW and elsewhere were in attendance. Brown, Bottini, Jay, and a dozen other lesbian feminists marched to the front of the auditorium wearing T-shirts that read “Lavender Menace.”

One of the women, Charlotte Bunch, who was also a member of The Furies collective with Brown, read the Lavender Menace’s manifesto, “The WomanIdentified Woman.” That paper was considered the first major lesbian feminist statement. That action was among the first to challenge the heterosexism of heterosexual feminists and to present lesbians not as a lavender menace or mentally ill perverts, like the DSM defined them, but rather as more feminist than anyone, because they were women independent from, and unconnected to, men and to compulsory heterosexuality.

In the treatise, the “woman-identified woman” defined herself without reference to male-dominated societal

Breed took over as the city’s second female mayor after mayor Ed Lee died in December 2017 after suffering a cardiac event at a Safeway. (In January 2018, the Board of Supervisors selected then-supervisor Mark Farrell to serve as mayor until a special election was held in 2018, which Breed won.)

Breed noted how the iconic presence of Feinstein sent a message to subsequent generations of women that they weren’t excluded from leadership.

“For kids my age, we just always accepted that a woman could be in charge, that a woman could do whatever a man could do,” Breed said. “We believed that.

We considered it normal.”

Concluded Breed, “She was our mayor, our champion, the leader of our band. And I know I speak for all of San Francisco when I say she will be missed.”

President Joe Biden gave brief recorded remarks, remembering Feinstein’s role in the 1994 assault weapons ban.

The two served in the Senate together from 1992, when she was sworn in, until Biden became vice president in 2009.

“God bless a great American hero,” the president said. “She was something else. She was a dear friend. God bless Dianne Feinstein.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck

Friedan’s action did not end with that Lavender Menace demonstration at the Congress to Unite Women, but pushback from within NOW’s ranks resulted in a near-embrace of lesbians within the organization just two years post-purge.

In 1971, NOW passed a resolution (https://now.org/resource/now-leadingthe-fight/) declaring, “that a woman’s right to her own person includes the right to define and express her own sexuality and to choose her own lifestyle [sic].” There was also a conference resolution about lesbian mothers that declared it was “unjust” to force lesbians to remain in heterosexual marriages or remain closeted to keep custody of their children.

The NOW Task Force on Sexuality and Lesbianism was established in 1973, and NOW resolved to introduce and support civil rights legislation designed to end discrimination based on sexual orientation. Del Martin was the first open lesbian elected to NOW leadership, and Martin and her partner, Phyllis Lyon, were the first lesbian couple to join NOW. Martin and Lyon, who died in 2008 and 2020, respectively, were co-founders of Daughters of Bilitis, the first lesbian civil rights organization in the U.S. Over the next 20 years, NOW would go on to support lesbian fights for everything from those custody battles to same-sex marriage and lesbians in the military. NOW supported the right of a lesbian co-parent to seek visitation by filing an amicus brief in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court case T.B. v. L.R.M. That right was upheld by the court: “where the child has established strong psychological bonds, with a person who … has … provided care, nurture, and affection, assuming in the child’s eye a stature like that of a parent.”

NOW also supported hate crimes legislation that included lesbians and trans women as early as 2002 and came out in support of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act that then-President Barack Obama signed in 2009. It expanded the 1969 federal hate crimes law to include sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability.

It all started with a purge. The history of that purge made history – and redefined the feminist movement. t Victoria A. Brownworth is a longtime contributor to the Bay Area Reporter and Philadelphia Gay News. This article is part of the LGBTQ Media History Month Project coordinated by Philadelphia Gay News.

Schumer (D-New York) also paid his respects. He mentioned Feinstein’s legendary work ethic, saying she made it through a day of a summit in Lake Tahoe with a fracture.

When asked how she got through the day, Feinstein answered, “I just did,” Schumer recalled, using the incident as a case in point for her whole career.

Schumer also made the only other reference to LGBTQs, recognizing Feinstein for fighting for marriage equality.

She was one of the few no votes on the Defense of Marriage Act in the 1990s.

And while she initially was somewhat See page 10 >>

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<< Open Forum

6 • Bay Area Repor ter • October 12-18, 2023

Volume 53, Number 41 October 12-18, 2023

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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 Michael Flanagan •Jim Gladstone Liz Highleyman • Brandon Judell • Lisa Keen Philip Mayard • Laura Moreno David-Elijah Nahmod • Paul Parish • Tim Pfaff Jim Piechota • Adam Sandel Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Charlie Wagner Ed Walsh • Cornelius Washington • Sura Wood ART DIRECTION Max Leger PRODUCTION/DESIGN Ernesto Sopprani PHOTOGRAPHERS Jane Philomen Cleland Rick Gerharter • Gooch Jose A. Guzman-Colon • Rudy K. Lawidjaja Georg Lester • Rich Stadtmiller Christopher Robledo • Fred Rowe Shot in the City • Steven Underhill • Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Christine Smith

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Newsom’s health vetoes send wrong message G overnor Gavin Newsom’s vetoes over the weekend of two health-related bills send the wrong message to LGBTQs and straights alike.

One would have required public schools to provide free condoms to students while the other would have closed loopholes and strengthened protections for insurers to provide coverage for preventive services like PrEP, one of the most effective HIV prevention tools available. At a time when red states are taking action to restrict reproductive rights and conservative business leaders want to be able to refuse PrEP coverage because it goes against their religious beliefs, Newsom’s actions are head-scratching.

Condoms in high schools

Lesbian state Senator Caroline Menjivar (DSan Fernando Valley) authored Senate Bill 541. In addition to requiring public high schools to offer free condoms to students, the bill would have also prohibited retailers from refusing to sell condoms to youth. Condoms, as we well know, are not only effective at preventing unwanted pregnancies, they’re also effective at preventing sexually transmitted infections like HIV. The LGBTQ community, in particular, was regularly bombarded with safer sex messages regarding the usage of condoms.

Menjivar was frustrated by Newsom’s action.

“Governor Newsom set us back in the fight for sexual health equity with the veto of SB 541- Youth Health Equity and Safety,” she stated. “This is a youthled bill, and we need to meet high school students where they are to properly address the STI crisis in California.

Statewide data indicates over half of all STIs are experienced among youth ages 15-24 years old. That age group is in school, which means we need to provide resources for them while in school.”

In his veto message, Newsom blamed the bill for being an “unfunded mandate” as for why he couldn’t sign it given the state’s $30 billion deficit.

That means that public school districts, many of which are cash-strapped, would have had to pay for the condoms. But for large orders, condoms are cheap, a fact pointed out by the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which criticized the governor’s veto.

1997-2012), have the least knowledge about HIV compared to previous generations. HIV/AIDS has been with us for more than 40 years, and today many young people do not know what the dark days of the epidemic were like, or about effective prevention such as condoms.

The veto also doesn’t make sense given that Newsom has promoted himself as a champion of reproductive rights – and he’s signed numerous bills to strengthen those in recent years even as many parts of the country are restricting access to abortion and other services. The cost for condoms would be a rounding error in California’s $310.8 billion budget.

Bill Wilson

Governor Gavin Newsom

“When purchased in bulk, as a state the size of California certainly would do, condoms cost just pennies apiece,” stated Whitney Engeran-Cordova, vice president of AHF’s public health division.

“Unplanned teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, on the other hand, disrupt lives and can cost teens, their families, and the state of California countless millions in health care, housing, and other services.

“Governor Newsom is being short-sighted with his ill-conceived veto,” Engeran-Cordova added.

He’s right. While HIV is no longer the death sentence it once was, getting infected can lead to major changes in a person’s life, including the need for stable housing and specialized health care.

HIV medications aren’t cheap either.

Menjivar dismissed money as a legitimate reason for the veto.

“Governor Newsom stated this veto is based on funding, but California has extensive funding for STI prevention, community partners are ready and able to provide condoms to these programs in their service areas, and we spend millions of dollars on STI health care annually when prevention costs far less than treatment,” she stated. “I am committed to continuing the fight for sexual health equity for all Californians.”

AHF pointed to research that found young people, such as those in Generation Z (born between

PrEP

Making legislative changes in support of PrEP access was not a winner this year in Sacramento.

Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) had to pull his SB 339 in September after the Assembly Appropriations Committee inserted language into it that he considered to be a “poison pill” amendment that ran counter to his aim of expanding access to PrEP. His bill sought to increase the amount of PrEP that pharmacists are authorized to provide without a doctor’s prescription. It also would have required health plans to reimburse pharmacists for PrEP services. It built on Wiener’s first-in-the-nation legislation passed in 2019 that authorized people to acquire PrEP from a pharmacist without a doctor’s prescription.

Newsom vetoed the other piece of PrEP legislation, Assembly Bill 1645 by gay freshman Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Santa Monica/ West Hollywood). It would have closed loopholes and strengthened protections in existing law to ensure that California health insurers continue to provide free and complete coverage for preventive services like PrEP, an effective medicine for ensuring people remain HIV-negative, and testing for STIs. As we reported this week, HIV advocates have raised concerns about access to such preventative health services because of a federal lawsuit conservative business owners have filed seeking to cite their religious beliefs as a reason for not covering PrEP and other sexual health services in the health insurance policies they offer to employees.

See page 7 >>

Attacks on queer youth ramp up in CA

by Paulina Angel

T

here is an attack going on here in California, and the victims are transgender and gender non-conforming youth. The seeds of this attack were planted in February when Assemblymember Bill Essayli (R-Riverside) submitted Assembly Bill 1314, Gender Identity: Parental Notification. The legislation would have allowed for the forced outing of trans students without their consent. The next step Essayli took was to try to get something similar passed at a regional level to prove that there was support for his bill. He found an ally in Barbara Hale, the then-president of the Riverside County Board of Education, who represents both Murrieta Valley and Temecula Valley. She submitted a resolution to be voted at a board meeting that took place in Indio in early April. But the resolution failed 6-1 when representatives and LGBTQ leaders of the LGBTQ Community Center of the Desert, Trans Community Project, Planned Parenthood, and Equality California spoke up against it. AB 1314 itself would also die in an Assembly committee two weeks later.

You may think that it is over after this double defeat, but it was only the beginning.

In recent reports, it was discovered that an antiLGBTQ group reached out to the Desert Sands Unified School District, which serves the Greater Coachella Valley, in May to pass a resolution similar to what was presented at the Riverside board of education meeting; this is still being monitored. In July, the Chino Valley Unified School District in San Bernardino voted 4-1 on its own forced outing resolution, disregarding opposition from leaders, including State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, whom board President Sonja Shaw had thrown out of the meeting. A couple of weeks later, the Murrieta Valley school district would also pass a resolution that is a copy of what was adopted in Chino Valley.

Back in 2011, one of the first pieces of pro-LGBTQ education legislation, Senate Bill 48, the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Education Act, was signed into law by then-governor Jerry Brown. The law, which went into effect in 2012, requires social studies curriculum to include instruction on the role of LGBTQs and persons with disabilities in state history. It prohibits instruction that

Courtesy Paulina Angel

Paulina Angel

promotes discrimination.

Two years later, Assembly Bill 1266, the School Success and Opportunity Act, was signed into law. It extends gender identity and gender expression discrimination protection to transgender and gender-nonconforming K-12 students in public schools. Since then, there have been more than 10 bills signed into law protecting LGBTQ youth, with a majority of them education-based.

In swift moves, the above-mentioned school districts and several others have violated these laws, and thus discriminated against LGBTQ students in the district. (Attorney General Rob Bonta has sued the Chino Valley school district and a judge has temporarily blocked the policy from going into effect.) By doing so, this opens a panic and a heightened threat against the well-being and mental health of students, which could potentially lead to students dropping out of school, or worse, suicide.

Not all students feel comfortable with coming out to their parents, and kids are a whole lot smarter than what society gives them credit for. Youth understand the way of the world, as well as their own identity as a human being.

At the age of 5, I had a clear idea about the world around me, as well as who I was. I recognized that I was born in the wrong body, and who I was didn’t align with what I felt about myself spiritually, mental-

ly, and emotionally. I really wish that I knew someone that I could have turned to and talked about how I felt.

It was hard going through my youth worrying about a secret that I couldn’t share and it tore me up inside, which caused me to develop social anxiety issues.

But if I knew that I could have gone to my teacher or a school counselor, to talk about it, I feel that things would have been a whole lot different.

Today, we have educators that are now trained in childhood development, which has since been updated to include LGBTQ youth. Youth now have the option to talk to a school counselor or their favorite teacher, without worrying of a trust being broken.

But it’s people like Essayli, a GOP politician who wants to make a name for himself, who are forcing kids into the closet. And for what? He’s not thinking about the youth that’ll get hurt in the process. It is not about the parents, speaking of which, if parents today are as understanding, then there shouldn’t be any problem; but this is all just to get his name out there, to be one of the new faces in the GOP that can create problems with the LGBTQ community.

Luckily for the LGBTQ community, we have many top advocacy organizations across California monitoring these new attacks and are ready to be present whenever another resolution should be heard. At the time of this being published, there will be school board meetings in Tustin and Redlands where supporters of the forced outing policy will likely engage in a hostile fashion to encourage it to be adopted.

There are also MAGA groups like Moms For Liberty and Protect Kids California that are planning on making it a ballot initiative for the November 2024 elections.

I just have one thing to say to Essayli: Bring It, because the LGBTQ community in California is mighty and well organized, and we’ll continue to fight for equality and protections for our community. t Paulina Angel is a transgender activist and musician based in the Coachella Valley.

She serves as founder/director of Transgender Resource Advocacy and Network Service (T.R.A.N.S.), executive director of Trans Community Project, board member of Palm Springs Pride, co-founder of East Coachella Valley Pride, co-lead of #Out4MentalHealth at Rainbow Pride Youth Alliance, and co-founder of the Every One Initiative with Goldenvoice.

t

Politics >>

October 12-17, 2023 • Bay Area Repor ter • 7

Gay Pelosi chief Bernal seeks waiver for UCSF job

by Matthew S. Bajko

work and dedication of the researchers, physicians, nurses and staff of UCSF,” wrote Bernal. “It would be my great privilege to be a part of UCSF’s leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS, addressing health disparities in underserved communities, and other critical areas.”

According to the ethics staff report on Bernal’s waiver request, he has already given notice to Pelosi of his intent to take the job with UCSF. A search firm had contacted him in April about the position, which he received a tentative offer for on August 29.

It came just days prior to Pelosi announcing September 8 that she planned to seek reelection in 2024. It ended months of speculation that she might retire from Congress when her current term ends next year.

According to the ethics staff report, it had advised Bernal to delay terminating his job with Pelosi until the ethics commission voted on his waiver request. It also raised questions on if Bernal had violated city rules by pursuing the job with UCSF at the same time as he was approving contracts for the university.

But Bernal informed the ethics commission that he had sought advice from the city attorney’s office after being contacted about the UCSF position. He also stated that he would abide by the restriction that bans him from lobbying the city’s health department on behalf of UCSF for a year in his new job.

“None of my actions as Health Commissioner were taken in order to accrue any personal benefit, financial or otherwise, nor were they taken with the intention of benefiting a prospective future employer,” wrote Bernal. “Therefore, the waiver I am requesting would be fully consistent with the intention of the law.”

With Pelosi likely to secure another term next fall, and thus being able to keep Bernal on as her chief of staff in her district office in San Francisco, a job Bernal has held since 2002, the ethics staff saw no evidence that he would face “extreme hardship” should he not be granted the waiver. It also noted that due to Bernal’s “experience and skillset” he is likely to find other “well compensated” jobs he could take that would not require his needing a waiver.

The staff report noted that was not the case when gay former District 8 supervisor Jeff Sheehy was granted a post-employment waiver by ethics commissioners in 2018. Sheehy, the city’s first supervisor living with HIV, had been appointed to a vacancy on the Board of Supervisors in 2017 but the following year was not elected to serve out the remainder of the term. (Current District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, one of three gay men now on the board, had won that race.)

After stepping down from the board, Sheehy sought a waiver to be rehired by Attorney at Law UCSF, for which he had worked for 17 years. While he had participated in the approval of three UCSF contracts as a supervisor, Sheehy was granted the waiver so he could apply to work again • Divorce w/emphasis on for the university.

Real Estate & Business Divisions “In contrast to Mr. Bernal, Mr. • Domestic Partnerships, Support & Custody Sheehy was unemployed, had looked • Probate and Wills for other employment opportunities in www.SchneiderLawSF.com his desired field, and was unable to find any other suitable opportunities,” noted the ethics staff report. *Certified by the California State Bar According to the website Legistorm, which compiles compensation figures, 315 Montgomery St., Ste. 1025, San Francisco, CA 94104 Bernal earned $174,058.38 working for Pelosi last year. He noted in his letter to the ethics commission he would double his income by taking the UCSF job, which would also come with “generous Vice President of Advertising retirement and other benefits.” advertising@ebar.com Such compensation would help him pay off the legal bills he racked up from divorcing his ex-husband, noted Bernal, and help defray his expected travel costs to care for his elderly parents who live in Florida and “have complex medical needs.”

“In many ways, it feels like I have been preparing my entire career for this position,” wrote Bernal. “By grant44 Gough Street #302, San Francisco, CA 94103 ing this waiver, the Ethics Commission (415) 829-8937 • www.ebar.com would enable me to continue my government service while addressing my current and future financial obligations and preparing financially for retirement without incurring more debt.”

The ethics staff did allow for some wiggle room with its recommendation on Bernal’s request, noting that the commission could determine there are “relevant” factors to show that he would face “an extreme hardship” by being denied the waiver.

“If the Commission determines that not granting the waiver would cause extreme hardship to Mr. Bernal, the Commission should approve Mr. Bernal’s waiver,” states the ethics staff report.

Should Bernal be able to take the job with UCSF then the health commission would need to elect a new When you plan your life celebration and lasting remembrance in president and Mayor London Breed advance, you can design every detail of your own unique memorial and provide your loved ones with true peace of mind. Planning ahead would have a vacancy on the overWhen your celebration lasting protectsyou your plan loved ones fromlife unnecessary stress and and financial burden, sight body to fill. While he is the lone When you plan your life celebration and lasting remembrance in allowing them to focus on what will matter most at that time—you. remembrance in advance, you can design every gay man on it, there are currently two other health commissioners fromadvance, the you canofdesign every detail of your ownand unique memorial detail own memorial provide Contact usyour today about theunique beautiful ways to create a lasting legacy LGBTQ community. at the San Francisco Columbarium. and provide your loved ones with true peace of mind.

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it would result in increased costs to health plans passed on to consumers through premiums.”

We’ve reported for years that the number of people eligible to be on PrEP is vastly lower than it should be, especially among people of color.

This legislation was an effort to ease those disparities by making sure that PrEP remains free and covered on insurance plans in California.

Prevention is cheaper than providing care. We all know this. Yet the governor has demonstrated

with these two vetoes that even prevention is too expensive. We urge Menjivar, Wiener, and Zbur to reintroduce their respective pieces of legislation next year with changes if needed.

Newsom should have signed the bills by Menjivar and Zbur so that California could be on the forefront of HIV prevention and so that young people could be in more control of their lives. Instead, we got excuses of dollars over common sense and good public health.t

D

an Bernal, the longtime gay chief of staff to Congressmember Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), is seeking a waiver from San Francisco’s ethics watchdog body in order to take a job with UCSF as its vice chancellor of community and government relations.

It is needed due to his being a member of the city’s health commission, on which he serves as president.

Yet the ethics commission’s staff is recommending that Bernal’s waiver request be rejected. The oversight body is scheduled to take up the matter when it meets Friday, October 13.

In a texted response to the Bay Area Reporter Wednesday, Bernal wrote, “Out of respect for the process, I won’t be commenting before the meeting this Friday.”

Because UCSF has numerous contracts with the city, some amounting to tens of millions of dollars, Bernal needs an exemption from the city’s rules governing when members of oversight bodies can receive compensation from city contractors. Under the prohibitions, Bernal would need to wait one year after stepping down as a health commissioner before he could become an employee of the public university.

But Bernal would like to take over the vice chancellor role immediately.

In a letter dated September 29 to the ethics commission, Bernal argued that he should be granted a waiver enabling him to do so since he had only nominal involvement with the city contracts he approved for UCSF over the last 12 months.

He noted that the health commission had not debated or discussed any of the contracts, totaling more than $75 million, nor discussed a legal settlement where the city and the worldrenowned medical school were co-defendants and each received $100,000.

Rather, he wrote, the matters were all unanimously adopted by voice votes as part of the commission’s consent calendars.

Plus, Bernal noted, it was public health staff that brought forward the contracts, all of which were recommended for approval by the oversight body’s finance and planning committee, of which he is not a member. To further bolster his argument, Bernal pointed out that the health commission is not the decision-making authority when it comes to the health department’s contracts and legal settlements.

Per guidance from the city attorney’s office, “the commission acts only in an advisory capacity by reviewing and recommending contracts and settlements that must be approved by the Director of Health or the Board of Supervisors,” wrote Bernal, 53, who was appointed to the health oversight body in 2017.

In his letter, Bernal noted that “as a person living with HIV for more than 33 years,” he not only has a deep, personal tie to UCSF but has benefited from its pioneering research into HIV and AIDS. “I know that I would not be alive today without the decades-long hard

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Newsom, however, cited other reasons, including the bill’s impact on costs. “However, components of this proposal depart from structures in federal and state law, such as the existing policies for reimbursement to non-contracted providers,” his veto message stated. “Further, because this bill exceeds the cost-sharing provisions under the Affordable Care Act,

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<< Business News

8 • Bay Area Repor ter • October 12-18, 2023

t

SF coworking space incubates lesbian restaurateurs

by Matthew S. Bajko

rants. “Our future goal is to help others with grants or loans to open a business, which is so hard to do in this town.”

I

n the coming weeks Suki and Katya Skye will open a restaurant near San Francisco’s Polk Gulch neighborhood featuring fare from their Eastern European roots. The couple have teamed up with Russian-born and Frenchtrained chef Katerina Pervushina, who will oversee the kitchen and has helped craft the menu.

The couple live in Tiburon and scrounged up funding from friends and family in order to sign the lease at 1085 Sutter Street at Larkin Street to open DACHA Kitchen & Bar located just off Polk Street. They are currently going through the city’s inspection process and soon hope to announce an opening date.

The name refers to the country homes many Eastern European families own, explained Suki Skye, 44, who is of German ancestry as well as Ukrainian. Her wife, who emigrated from Russia in 2014, and Pervushina both have fond memories of spending time at their familial dachas, she told the Bay Area Reporter.

“It is a place to bring your family in the summer, a place of rest, and a place where you eat food from the garden. It felt like the right vibe of this place we are trying to create,” said Suki Skye.

The couple have been together five years and married in May 2020 at San Francisco City Hall. Katya Skye, 41, in 2019 co-founded Manhattan Zodiac, a bar catering and consulting business that also offered mixology classes for aspiring bartenders. When COVID hit, she pivoted to offering classes online, which soon attracted

Coming out of COVID

Rick Gerharter

Suki and Katya Skye, left, operate DACHA Cafe & Bar at coworking space Trellis, co-founded by Jason and Rebecca Pan.

the attention of large companies who booked her for their virtual parties and other events.

“December 2020 was nuts in our house,” recalled Suki Skye, who lent a hand behind the scenes.

When in-person gatherings were safe to hold again, she would assist her wife onsite as a barback. Earlier this year, the couple were introduced to the team behind the coworking space Trellis, having been booked to work a fundraiser held at the business in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood.

The owners of Trellis had wanted to find someone to take on the operations of their on-site cafe and bar, which had largely gone unused since they took over the space at 981 Mission Street near Sixth Street. It previously had been a coworking space called COVO.

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They struck a deal with the Skyes, who opened the DACHA Cafe & Bar there on August 7.

“It is a gorgeous space,” Suki Skye told the B.A.R. during an interview in late September while seated at the bar’s counter.

The cafe and bar are open to the public Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It also hosts a happy hour from 3 to 5 p.m. on Fridays that is drawing in customers.

“We have done a lot of marketing to draw people from the neighborhood and invite them to come in. We redid our sign outside so people know we have coffee,” said Suki Skye, referring to the sandwich board by Trellis’ entrance that prominently features a cup of coffee paired with a croissant and invites passersby to “Come On In!” As this is the first time the Skyes have operated a brick-and-mortar eatery, it has served as a bit of a test kitchen as they work to open their restaurant. They are adjusting their cafe menu based on customer feedback and employing a strategy aimed at making the service industry more rewarding for those working in it, especially women.

They have offered small shares in their business for others to invest in.

Thus, the LLC they formed to open their DACHA locations is 96% women-owned and 82% queer-owned, said Suki Skye.

“One of the things that is really important to Katya and I is creating a better service industry for the service industry,” she said, adding their goal is to help other women and people of color who have historically struggled to find financing to open their own restau-

Joining Suki Skye to talk with the B.A.R. was Trellis co-owner Rebecca Pan, who lives in San Francisco’s Corona Heights neighborhood with her husband, Jason, and their young son.

They opened the co-working space in the spring of 2021 with two queer co-founders; Brandon King remains as Trellis’ operations manager while Beau-Robert Metcalfe, who had been the company’s strategy manager, has since departed.

“It’s been great and hard,” Rebecca Pan, 43, told the B.A.R. about operating a business amid the ongoing impacts of the COVID pandemic to San Francisco’s downtown, which has an office vacancy rate around 30% and seen multiple retailers shutter their doors.

“It’s been great in that we have been able to be this oasis of acceptance and inclusion and safety, and be able to connect with and support so many incredible entrepreneurs,” she said. “It’s been hard in that the fentanyl crisis is right on our doorstep and SOMA is one of the last places to bounce back post-COVID. It is maybe 50% of what it was in terms of businesses being open and people living and working downtown.”

A key reason for why Trellis remains open, said Pan, is because they worked out a revenue-sharing deal with their landlord. Thus, both benefit when the business does well in a given month or they share in the financial pain when it doesn’t.

“When we win, he wins. When things are hard, it is hard for both of us,” said Pan, noting that they do have a guaranteed minimum they must pay each month.

And they cover any damage to the building, such as when someone lit it on fire or broke one of the windows.

“It allows us to operate in a way we wouldn’t be able to otherwise,” said Pan. As for the global furniture company Ikea working to open nearby its own coworking space at the building it now occupies that straddles Market and Mission streets, Pan told the B.A.R. she is not concerned. Having opened the fourth coworking space in San Francisco back in 2010, she expressed

confidence that the need for such offices has yet to be met.

“I am confident that the city’s business market or population can sustain a coworking space on every block,” said Pan. Asked about Mayor London Breed’s suggesting the shopping center vacated by mall operator Westfield a block away on Mission Street be turned into a soccer stadium, Pan told the B.A.R. she was unaware of the proposal. But if it had a similar impact as the Chase Center, built by the Warrior’s basketball team, has had on its Mission Bay neighborhood, Pan said she would welcome such a sports arena and events space being built.

“My son retired from soccer when he was 7, so it is not a big passion for our family,” Pan joked.

With its spacious three-level brickand-timber building, Trellis provides private meeting rooms and office space, as well as communal areas, for those looking to work outside of their home. It offers different levels of paid monthly memberships and day passes, plus provides the option to rent out its private rooms for meetings or the entirety of the space for events.

In addition to welcoming in owners of tech startups and LGBTQ workers, Trellis has worked to be an inviting space for the local Filipino community. It sits within the confines of the city’s Filipino cultural district and has opened up the space to be used by a number of Filipino organizations to have events there.

Having the cafe not in operation “was tragic,” said Pan, as people routinely would try to order things from it. She told the B.A.R. they couldn’t be happier in finally leasing it to the right partners in the Skyes.

“It felt obvious to us that we needed to activate this space,” said Pan. t For the full menu at the DACHA Café and information about the soon-to-open restaurant, visit dachaprojects.com To learn more about Trellis, visit its website at trellis.social.

Got a tip on LGBTQ business news? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 829-8836 or e-mail m.bajko@ ebar.com.

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Breed presents Fauci with key to city Drew Altizer through the Mayor’s Office of Protocol

S

an Francisco Mayor London Breed, left, presented the key to the city to Dr. Anthony Fauci during a ceremony in the mayor’s office at City Hall Wednesday, October 4.

A news release stated Breed cited Fauci’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and his decades-long work leading the fight against HIV/AIDS when she honored him. City Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax, a gay man, was in attendance at the ceremony. Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for nearly four decades, retired from government service in 2022. He oversaw an extensive research portfolio of basic

and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat established infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, tuberculosis, and malaria as well as emerging diseases such as Ebola, Zika and COVID-19. Fauci stated, “It is such a wonderful honor for me to receive the key to the City of San Francisco, a city that I love and have enjoyed visiting often over the past 50 years, and where I have so many friends and academic collaborators.” The key is the City and County of San Francisco’s highest honor, according to the release.

Community News>>

t Castro biz group launches flag donation program

October 12-18, 2023 • Bay Area Repor ter • 9

compiled by Cynthia Laird

T

he Castro Merchants Association has announced the new Rainbow Flag Donation program whereby the giant rainbow flags that fly at Harvey Milk Plaza at Castro and Market streets will be given to a nonprofit group when they are retired.

The most recently retired flag is being donated to the Stonewall National Museum, Archives, and Library in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The flag was taken down September 29, ahead of the Castro Street Fair, and dedicated in memoriam to the late U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), who had passed away earlier that day at the age of 90.

These giant flags were designed by the late Gilbert Baker, who co-created the first rainbow flag in 1978 with friends Lynn Segerblom, a straight ally, and James McNamara, who died of AIDS-related complications in 1999. Since then, Baker, who died in 2017, has been credited with turning the rainbow flag into a worldwide symbol of LGBTQ rights. The flag at Harvey Milk Plaza is considered an art installation, and the merchants group is responsible for replacing the flags as they become worn.

Terry Asten Bennett, a straight ally who co-owns Cliff ’s Variety and is president of the merchants group, promoted the new program in a news release.

“The rainbow flag is not just a piece of cloth but a beacon of resistance and inclusion,” Bennett stated.

“With this program, we hope to seed these values in places where they are most needed. Through every flag we send out, we are extending the spirit of the Castro neighborhood – a spirit of community, collaboration, and resilience.”

Florida, of course, is home to some of the most anti-LGBTQ laws in the country, spearheaded by anti-LGBTQ Governor Ron DeSantis, now a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.

Representatives of the Stonewall museum stated that they are appreciative of the effort.

“The Rainbow Flag Donation program reminds us that everyone is welcome under this flag,” stated Robert Kesten, executive director of the museum. “Stonewall National Museum, Archives, and Library is such a place, and we look forward to being the new home of this precious symbol of Pride and community.”

The merchants association stated that those eligible for a retired flag must be nonprofit organizations, schools, museums, artists or other similar institutions or individuals.

Recipients also must have a mission aligned with promoting LGBTQ+ rights and fostering diversity, equality, and inclusivity, the release stated.

Applicants must also express a clear vision of how they plan to use the flag and be responsible for shipping costs.

Requests can be sent to the Castro Merchants Association at info@castromerchants.com.

Since the new flag was just installed, it is not known when it will be retired.

Warner Johnson via Castro Merchants Association

The new giant rainbow flag flies at Castro and Market streets September 29 as members of the U.S. Navy band prepared to perform in Jane Warner Plaza when they were in San Francisco for Fleet Week activities.

Accessibility Project that will also see changes to the San Jose Avenue Corridor, including transit and pedestrian safety improvements that will be discussed and voted on at the meeting.

The meeting takes place at 1 p.m. at City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place.

For more information on the JChurch project, go to https://tinyurl. com/ytv3prt5.

Grayson elder confab coming up in SF

The 10th annual Howard Grayson LGBTQ Elder Life Conference will be held Saturday, October 21, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Openhouse, 75 Laguna Street in San Francisco. Conference convener Sue Englander stated that the event, which is free, will be in-person and online.

Health updates include information from Teresa Palmer about Laguna Hon-

da Hospital, the city’s long-term care facility that has recently been the subject of federal investigations; Dr. Monica Gandhi of UCSF will discuss the status of public health after COVID; and Alejandro Martinez from Openhouse, the LGBTQ senior services agency, will talk about longterm HIV survival and its issues. There will also be infor-

mation about how to get involved this year for the city’s 2024-25 HIV/AIDS budget. Paul Melbostadt, a gay man and attorney, will provide information on elders and their rights, especially regarding conservatorship.

Entertainment will include performer Tookta Jamaporn, an internationally known Thai folk singer, and comedian Karen Ripley.

Lunch will be provided for the inperson gathering.

The conference celebrates the life and legacy of Grayson, a longtime member of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club and labor activist, who died alone in a hospital in 2011. His death troubled many and underscored the challenges of aging in the LGBTQ community, Englander noted. The Milk club started the conference in 2012 in Grayson’s memory.

The Openhouse site is wheelchair accessible and ASL interpretation will be provided.

For more information, contact Englander at graysonconference@gmail.com or (415) 902-9358.

The YouTube streaming link is https://www. youtube.com/@GraysonConference.

See page 11 >>

SFMTA update on Church and Market intersection

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will hear a service update about the J-Church Muni Metro line and bicycle safety improvements at its stops at the Church and Market Street intersection at the Tuesday, October 17, board of directors meeting. The board is expected to vote on the items.

Specific to the intersection is proposed legislation to approve the bike pathway, but not yet the final design for it, according to an email announcement. Also still pending is the design of a proposed transit plaza at the busy location.

It’s part of the J-Church Safety and

This resource is supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs as part of the Stop the Hate program. To report a hate incident or hate crime and get support, go to https://www.cavshate.org/.

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10 • Bay Area Repor ter • October 12-18, 2023

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Crocker

From page 1

“When I interviewed with the governor’s office, the last question they asked me was if there was anything I wanted the governor to know. I said that I appreciate the governor’s focus on diversifying our bench in terms of the diversity of our legal community as well,” recalled Crocker, president of the Sonoma County Bar Association.

“Not only because of my identifiers in race, gender, and sexual orientation, I am also grateful he values diversity of practice. Not a lot of family law attorneys are named to the bench. Our expertise is something very valuable we can bring to the bench.”

Born Kinna Patel in London, England the middle child of three sisters, Crocker immigrated to the U.S. with

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ramento after law school but decided to relocate to Sonoma County after they had their daughters in order to be closer to Ashle Crocker’s parents, as she grew up in Santa Rosa.

“We were desperate for help,” quipped Kinna Crocker.

Crocker told the B.A.R. she believes she will bring the number of out judges on the Sonoma bench to two once she takes her judicial oath due to the appointment of another lesbian lawyer earlier this year. As the B.A.R. reported in March, the Sonoma superior court had no LGBTQ judges in 2022 per the judicial demographic data released annually by the state judicial council.

“Becoming a judge is the ultimate manifestation of my obtaining my U.S. citizenship,” she said.

The first time Croker ever stepped foot into a U.S. courtroom was when

she took her oath to become an American citizen at the age of 16. It was inside a small courthouse in Greeneville, Tennessee.

“I remember walking into the courtroom and I felt intimidated and excited at the same time,” recalled Crocker. “I remember seeing a large seal on the wall and wondering what happened in that room on a daily basis and what would the walls say if they could talk. Seeing the judge I felt in awe and felt the power of the robe in that courtroom as I was given the privilege of becoming a citizen.”

That day left a lasting impression on Crocker, who early on was drawn to the legal profession as a fan of the TV show “Law & Order.” Later she saw first hand how the law can be used to marginalize people as someone barred from marrying the love of her life.

Quoted in a 2008 guest opinion

2018 killing

From page 1

spotted outside. Police arrest the guys who ordered the professional cleaning crew, but then let them go! WE WANT JUSTICE FOR BRIAN EGG.” A 2019 autopsy report revealed Egg’s cause of death was “unspecified homicidal violence with blunt force trauma,” as the B.A.R. previously reported. (https://www.ebar.com/story. php?276315) Grace said she was hopeful that her report will help generate new leads.

“I truly believe that media attention and investigations like ours can definitely heat up a cold case,” she stated.

“The more attention a case gets, the more people hear about it, and the more people start talking. That’s when memories are jogged and hopefully, tips will follow.

“I remain hopeful that justice will prevail,” the former prosecutor wrote.

“I’ve spent my life dedicated to representing crime victims, often women, children, minorities and others who seemingly have no voice, like Brian Egg. He no longer has a voice, it’s wrong.”

When asked whether she and her team faced difficulty from San Francisco city officials as the B.A.R. did in its efforts on the case, Grace responded, “Yes, we’ve faced some roadblocks in this investigation. Police tell us it’s an ongoing and ‘active’ investigation as reason not to comment. We have also, however, met neighbors and others who insist they

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her family when she was age 2. They ended up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Crocker would go on to graduate from Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Having long dreamed of moving to California, she applied to the San Francisco-based law school after deciding to pursue a legal degree. Coming out of the closet to her friends at age 20 also played into her decision to relocate to the Bay Area.

“My identity had a lot to do with that. Jokingly my friends would say everyone in San Francisco is gay, it is where you should go,” recalled Crocker. “I know that is not true, but it was a safe space for me to figure out who I was.”

At law school she met her future wife, Ashle Crocker, who now works as an assistant city attorney in Santa Rosa. The couple had moved to Sac-

Courtesy SFPD Courtesy Fox Nation

TV legal commentator Nancy Grace

won’t give up until Egg’s killer is behind bars. That keeps us going.”

San Francisco police turned down Grace’s request for an interview about the case, she added. Police did not respond to the B.A.R.’s request for comment.

Background

Police had said that Egg was last seen near his home on 228 Clara Street some time in late May or early June 2018. One of the two people initially arrested for the crime, Lance Silva, then 39, purchased a 2007 BMW for $5,000 using Egg’s debit card on June 1, 2018. Silva was held in jail in Alameda County on a parole violation until April 2019. He was on parole for a

grand theft conviction stemming from his embezzlement of his employees’ retirement accounts. The B.A.R. talked to Silva briefly through a video call in jail but he would only respond that he wanted to talk to his lawyer.

Police said that after getting calls about Egg’s disappearance and reports of strangers living in the home, they visited the home three times but left after there was no answer at the door. After the third visit to the home, witnesses said there were signs of someone doing a deep clean to the home with soapsuds and the smell of bleach seeping from the front of the house.

Police finally entered the residence on August 14, 2018 after being alerted

Brian Egg’s 2018 death has been ruled a homicide.

by neighbors when a crime scene cleanup crew showed up at the home.

Police arrested Robert McCaffrey, then 52, at the home. He met the cleanup crew and planned to pay them for the work in cash. He was released days later after authorities said there wasn’t sufficient evidence to charge him.

After searching the home for four days, police found Egg’s torso in a six foot long fish tank. It was in a small room and the doorway to the room was hidden by a picture. Egg’s head and hands were missing. The tank was filled with drain cleaner in an apparent attempt to dissolve the remains. Human bone fragments were found in a planter in the backyard.

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piece in the B.A.R. about the legal fight for marriage equality, Crocker noted, “It hurts to be reminded that we are not treated equally under the law.”

The couple married in June 2008 shortly after the state’s supreme court ruled same-sex couples in California had a right to wed. Voters that November brought the same-sex weddings to an end with the passage of Proposition 8, which was later overturned by federal court rulings in 2013. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality nationally in 2015.

“Getting married and being threatened with that being taken away, I do have a sense of fairness, justice and equality that I plan to bring to the bench,” said Crocker, who had taken her wife’s last name when they first became domestic partners in 2006.

As a judge, Crocker will earn $232,399. t Lesbian former San Francisco Police commissioner Petra DeJesus tried in 2018 to get Police Chief William Scott to talk about the department’s “wellness check” policy. As the B.A.R. reported at the time, DeJesus’ efforts to question Scott at a police commission meeting were met with opposition from the commission’s clerk and another commissioner, who said the item needed to appear on the agenda before it could be discussed Egg’s brother, Devin Egg, previously told the B.A.R. that he had called his brother in June or July but the person who answered the phone said his name was “Nate” and that Brian would call him as soon as he returned home from walking his dog. He never called back. Devin Egg said that an answering machine was installed on his brother’s home phone with a mysterious voice that said that Brian Egg was on vacation. Devin Egg said his brother was not big on technology and never owned an answering machine.

Neighbors were critical of the police response, telling the B.A.R. that their suspicions were not taken seriously.

Police would not disclose to the B.A.R. how many calls they received reporting Egg’s disappearance and suspicious activity at the home, because, they said, the case is under investigation.

The B.A.R. attempted to reach the building owner and got a generic voicemail greeting. A message left at the number was not returned. t

Feinstein

From page 4

critical of then-mayor Gavin Newsom’s decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004, she became an opponent of Proposition 8, the samesex marriage ban that voters narrowly passed in 2008. Prop 8 was later ruled unconstitutional by federal courts.

Rabbi Jonathan Singer of Temple Emanu-el led those assembled in praying the Twenty-third Psalm – “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” – with a cantor singing the verses in Hebrew. Schumer said that when his daughter moved to San Francisco, and had nowhere to attend synagogue during the high holy days, Feinstein informed him she’d be attending with her.

The state’s political luminaries were out in full force in attendance, including Newsom, now the state’s governor, and some 30 senators, including Senator Alex Padilla (D-California). Last week, Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler (D), a Black lesbian, to replace Feinstein and she attended the service, as did gay Congressmember Mark Takano (DRiverside) and lesbian Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin).

Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (DSan Francisco) spoke for many in the past week in a statement before the memorial – as a leader of a city in overlapping crises, Feinstein not only beat them but moved the city forward.

“As we bid Dianne Feinstein a final farewell, let’s remember what she meant to San Francisco,” Wiener stated. “She became mayor during one of the most dif-

SF Chronicle pool

Rick Gerharter

Congressmember Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, remembers her good friend and San Francisco neighbor Dianne Feinstein at the late senator’s memorial service October 5.

Former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown touched the casket of former mayor and U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein as she lied in state in City Hall October 4.

ficult periods imaginable for our city. She led San Francisco out of the fires of political assassinations, mass cult suicides, and a mass die-off of gay men due to a new, terrifying virus,” Wiener stated, referring not only to the Milk-Moscone assassinations but the mass suicide at People’s Temple founder Jim Jones’ Jonestown compound in Guyana that occurred just before the City Hall killings.

“She led us through these difficult times while also rejuvenating downtown, saving the cable cars, and reestablishing San Francisco’s role as a global leader. Dianne Feinstein will go down in history as a truly iconic leader for San Francisco and our nation,” he added.

Thomas E. Horn, a gay man who is president of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center and former publisher of the B.A.R., counted

involved with her off and on ever since.”

It’s the city’s Board of Supervisors who have to work with the mayor in addressing the crises of today. Gay Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents District 6 (South of Market), attended the memorial. He stated he met Feinstein during a rare unsuccessful campaign – that for governor in 1990. Feinstein was among the first California politicians the native New Englander had ever met.

“As luck would have it, I worked for the consulting firm that was part of her successful Senate bid two years later,” Dorsey stated to the B.A.R. “She was an admirable and influential leader for the Democratic Party as well as for our city, state, and nation. I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to work with her and her office on many issues, public safety chief among them. She will be missed.”

himself among Feinstein’s friends and was at the memorial. He told the B.A.R. that “it’s a very sad day” just before the ceremony. He had known Feinstein since the 1970s.

“She was a monumental figure in the life of San Francisco, the state, and the country,” Horn said. “She put the city back together on the heels of tragedy, and we are bidding her a final farewell.”

Jim Haas, a gay attorney, was not there. He stated in an email that Feinstein had recently sent him a “beautiful inscribed pewter tray” for his 70th birthday.

“When she first became supervisor in 1970, she [later] became president of the board,” Haas stated. “I went to her and offered to organize a group of young people to look into issues and make recommendations for her. … I have been

Joel Engardio, a gay man who represents District 4 (Outer Sunset) on the board, was also in attendance but never met Feinstein.

“As the newest member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, I feel her influence every time I enter City Hall,” he stated. “She was a trailblazer who shaped our city, state, and nation over a half century of public service. Her legacy will be remembered.”

Rafael Mandelman, a gay man who represents District 8 (Castro-Noe Valley) on the board, stated, “It was a beautiful memorial, an appropriate sendoff for a great San Franciscan who had shattered glass ceilings and done so much good for our city, state and country.”

Feinstein’s family held a separate private funeral service. t

t

Community News>>

October 12-18, 2023 • Bay Area Repor ter • 11

Oakland LGBTQ Port Bar vandalized, co-owner says

by John Ferrannini

T

he sun came up over Oakland’s Port Bar last Wednesday with its two front windows and glass entrance door apparently broken in what its co-owner believes was an intentional act.

“Someone shot out all the windows to the Port Bar this morning,” Sean Sullivan, a gay man who is the co-owner of the popular downtown Oakland watering hole, told the Bay Area Reporter October 4. “The police said it appears intentional.”

The bar is located at 2023 Broadway. Sullivan stated in a text “this only happened to the Port Bar. Like not even the empty storefront next door.”

Oakland police told the B.A.R. October 5 that “officers determined there are no known threats or issues to suggest a hate crime at this time.”

Paul Chambers, the strategic communications manager for the Oakland Police Department, stated that the communications division “received a report of a possible shooting.”

“When officers arrived, they learned that the windows of the business had been damaged by rocks being thrown at the windows,” he stated.

Sullivan said the police told him the windows were shot through with what appeared to be lead bullet “weights,” or metal projectiles.

The bar opened in 2016, and features popular drag events, as well as

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News Briefs

From page 9

Queer electeds among those on USF panel

Bisexual state Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-San Jose) and queer Sunnyvale City Councilmember Alysa Cisneros will be among the speakers at a panel Tuesday, October 24, at 7 p.m. hosted by the University of San Francisco and KQED. The panel, made up of some of the Bay Area’s youngest elected officials, will also feature Alexander Walker-Griffin, the mayor of Hercules.

The three will share their visions for the region’s future with KQED politics correspondent Guy Mar-

Courtesy Sean Sullivan

The windows of Oakland’s Port Bar were vandalized October 4.

nity Center issued a statement of its own via Instagram.

“It is with a heavy heart that we share with our followers and LGBTQ+ community that @theportbar, one of the oldest queer bars in Oakland, was targeted for violence this morning,” the center stated. “We do not have any more details about this incident but encourage people to reach out to the owners @theportbar for more information and to show your support.”

The LGBTQ center, located near Lake Merritt, had its own windows broken in June 2020 in an act of vandalism that police called a hate crime, as the B.A.R. previously reported.

Lesbian Oakland at-large City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan issued a statement October 5.

“The Port Bar is a place of refuge for countless LGBTQ people to find community and feel safe to be and express their true selves,” Kaplan stated. “While we don’t yet know the motivations of this attack, targeted violence against LGBTQ people and places is rising, fueled by antiLGBTQ rhetoric and legislation.

Unfortunately, Oakland is not immune to this.

“While we work to advance public safety solutions for everyone, as a xity and a community we must also condemn these attacks wherever they occur, unite to support the Port Bar as they repair and recover, and

reaffirm our commitment to uplifting and protecting LGBTQ rights and spaces,” she added.

Sullivan, who helped organize the city’s Pride festivities just weeks ago, was asked by the B.A.R. at that time about violence in the Bay Area in general and Oakland in particular as concerns over crime reach a fever pitch.

“We wish it was safer. ... I would say it’s difficult day-to-day – I still struggle,” Sullivan said at that time.

“Criminals who break windows don’t care if they are breaking an LGBTQ person’s car window or a heterosexual person’s car window, but that’s on both sides of the bay. It gets situated in Oakland, but it’s the same as downtown San Francisco, and other parts of San Francisco, but LGBTQ people are undaunted and we will not let unfortunate incidents stop us from celebrating queer joy.”

There’ve been a number of criminal incidents against Bay Area queer bars recently; yesterday the B.A.R. reported about break-ins in San Francisco’s Castro and SOMA neighborhoods.

Last week, the B.A.R. reported about vandalism at the Cinch Saloon on Polk Street, and last month following Pride in San Jose the Splash Video Dance Bar had to temporarily close due to vandalism. t

dancing. It serves as an anchor for a nascent but growing LGBTQ scene in the neighborhood, an alternative to San Francisco’s Castro and South of Market mainstays.

“We are devastated,” Sullivan said.

“Our staff work hard to provide a welcoming, safe space to our beautiful LGBT community and to have this happen now with so much going on in our community is just heartbreaking.”

Sullivan created a GoFundMe after “so many nice people asked if they could help,” he stated. The fundraiser, which has a goal of $10,000, had raised $14,297 as of October 10. Sullivan was grateful, stating via Facebook, “Thank you everyone for your generous support! These are challenging times but knowing how much everyone cares about The Port Bar means so very much.”

The Oakland LGBTQ Commu-

zorati and USF student fellow Caitlin Kennedy.

The event takes place at the public broadcasting station’s event space known as The Commons inside its headquarters at 2601 Mariposa Street in San Francisco.

Admission to the in-person event is $10; free for students with valid ID. There is no cost to watch the livestream.

The event is presented in conjunction with Conversations for the Common Good series from the Leo T. McCarthy Center at USF, which is supported by the Walter and Elise Haas Fund and by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.

To register, go to kqed.org/ event/3574.

Marin Pride event

bridges that people can take to get to Marin County.

Marin Pride will feature entertainment and programming for all ages, including a main stage with a variety of LGBTQ+ performers, as well as outdoor activities. Community members are encouraged to attend with their chosen families and dress in their proudest and most colorful attire.

“Pride is all year long,” stated Joe Tuohy, who started in May as executive director of the Spahr Center.

“The LGBTQ+ community exists outside of June, and we are excited to celebrate Marin Pride with our community in October.”

Marin isn’t the only North Bay community celebrating Pride. As

the Bay Area Reporter previously reported, Russian River Pride in Guerneville will take place this weekend, with a parade set for Sunday, October 15. For more information, go to https://tinyurl.com/3nb6akud.

For more information on the Spahr Center and Marin Pride, go to thespahrcenter.org. t

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-23-558239

SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MICHAEL DURAND. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/01/2019. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/13/2023.

(CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/07/2018. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/29/2023.

94124. This business is conducted by a married company, and is signed KUMIKO FURUKAWA & THOMAS IANNUZZI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/12/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/12/2023.

The Spahr Center, Marin County’s LGBTQ community center, will hold the Marin Pride festival Sunday, October 22, from noon to 4 p.m. at Stafford Lake Park, 3549 Novato Boulevard in Novato.

A news release stated that the event is free for all ages and will celebrate LGBTQ+ arts, culture, community, and history of Marin.

“We shouldn’t have to leave our home to feel proud of who we are.

You can cross either bridge or travel north and there are Pride events everywhere. Marin deserves Pride too,” stated Pamela Chavez, the Spahr Center’s new director of community outreach, referring to the Golden Gate and Richmond-San Rafael

Legals>> STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-04041044

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as ZIPPY LOCKSMITH, 674 11TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business was conducted by a limited liability company and signed

by QUICKSMITH LOCKSMITH LLC (CA). The fictitious business name statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/02/2023. The abandonment of fictitious business name statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on .

SEP 14, 21, 28, OCT 05, 2023

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE: JD22-3172

In the matter of the application of UNNAMED BABY GIRL, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner MICHAELA ROBERTS is requesting that the name UNNAMED BABY GIRL be changed to BROOKLYN ERIN ROBERTS. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 19th of OCTOBER 2023 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-23558236

In the matter of the application of JULIA IRENE SMITH, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner JULIA IRENE SMITH is requesting that the name JULIA IRENE SMITH be changed to JULIA NORQUIST. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 14th of DECEMBER 2023 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-23-558237

In the matter of the application of TIFFANY NICOLE WALKER, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner TIFFANY NICOLE WALKER is requesting that the name TIFFANY NICOLE WALKER be changed to TIFFANY NICOLE CARTER. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 14th of NOVEMBER 2023 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

In the matter of the application of ERIC JOSEPH LANG, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner ERIC JOSEPH LANG is requesting that the name ERIC JOSEPH LANG be changed to ERIC JOSEPH WEBER. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 5th of DECEMBER 2023 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

AMENDED ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-23-557803 In the matter of the amended application of CLOUD QUAIN ADAMO, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner CLOUD QUAIN ADAMO is requesting that the name CLOUD QUAIN ADAMO AKA BEN C. ADAMO AKA CLOUD ADAMO AKA BEN ADAMO AKA BENJAMIN CLOUD ADAMO be changed to BENJAMIN CLOUD ADAMO. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 31st of OCTOBER 2023 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401364

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MILAGRO COCINA MEXICANA, 90 CHARTER OAK AVE UNIT 27, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ARIEL G. VALVERDE BUENDIA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/06/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/06/2023.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401422 The following person(s) is/are doing business as RIPPLE & COMPANY, 718 LONG BRIDGE ST #323, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94158. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RIPPLE KALRA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/11/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/13/2023.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401423

The following person(s) is/are doing business as RICHMOND REVIEW; SUNSET BEACON, 2467 28TH AVE,

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401335

The following person(s) is/are doing business as EL FLACO NICA BEAUTY & BARBERSHOP, 2450 MISSION ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JOSE A. MENDOZA RODRIGUEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/31/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/31/2023.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401450

The following person(s) is/are doing business as LINDO YUCATAN, 393 EDDY ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed FAUSTO S. MAY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/18/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/18/2023.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401348

The following person(s) is/are doing business as OLD DRAGON MEDICINE; FYRE DRAGONNESS, 451 DONAHUE ST UNIT 502, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ADRYANNA KENNA SADGE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 06/03/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/01/2023.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401424

The following person(s) is/are doing business as EAST BAY LIFE, 891 BEACH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SIMONE KOGA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/13/2023.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401311

The following person(s) is/are doing business as EARLY CARE EDUCATORS OF SAN FRANCISCO (ECESF), 445 CHURCH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SAN FRANCISCO EARLY CARE EDUCATOR RESOURCE PROGRAM (SFECERP)

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401373 The following person(s) is/are doing business as TA FINANCIAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT, 236 WEST PORTAL AVE #125, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SKYLOR CORPORATION (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/01/2019. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/07/2023.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401389

The following person(s) is/are doing business as J. THE JEWISH NEWS OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, 131 STEUART ST #600, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH COMMUNITY PUBLICATIONS (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/12/2003. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/08/2023.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401442

The following person(s) is/are doing business as THERAPY DEVA, 582 MARKET ST #1909, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed DEVA SEGAL, MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPY AND CONSULTING, INC. (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/15/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/15/2023.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as KENTFIELD HOSPITAL SAN FRANCISCO, 450 STANYAN ST, 6TH FLOOR, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed KENTFIELD AND SAN FRANCISCO SPECIALTY HOSPITAL, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/06/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/11/2023.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401407

The following person(s) is/are doing business as GIRL THOS, 1094 REVERE AVE UNIT 146, SAN FRANCISCO, CA

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401399

The following person(s) is/are doing business as COSTA FLORA, 2741 GREENWICH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed ALL STUDIO LLC (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/18/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/11/2023.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401390

The following person(s) is/are doing business as ENZYME CULTURAL CENTER, 33 NORFOLK ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed 33 NORFOLK COLLECTIVE, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/01/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/08/2023.

SEP 21, 28, OCT 05, 12, 2023

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-23-558250 In the matter of the application of KIN CHIN, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner KIN CHIN is requesting that the name KIN CHIN be changed to NICK CHIN. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 21st of NOVEMBER 2023 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-23558205

In the matter of the application of ASHLEY MALLOY, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner ASHLEY MALLOY is requesting that the name ASHLEY MALLOY be changed to ASHLEY MARTIN-PRIDEAUX. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 26th of OCTOBER 2023 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

<< Classifieds

12 • Bay Area Repor ter • October 12-18, 2023

CITATION AND NOTICE OF HEARING IN SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA IN AND FOR THE COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO. ADOPTION OF LAJHANA’E ICEANA BRADDY: ASHTON MCCANTS AND SHAVONTAE GOLDEN-MCCANTS, PETITIONERS. CASE NO. 22AD00125

TO JONATHAN MORRIS BRADDY: By order of this court, you are hereby cited to appear before the Judge of this Court on 10/31/2023 at 11:00am, in Department 124, of the Superior Court of Sacramento County, located at 3342 Power Inn Road, Sacramento, CA 95826, to show cause, if any, why your biological child, Lajhana’e Iceana Braddy, should not be freed from your custody and control. 1) You are further noticed that said Petition alleges that you have left the child in the custody and care of another without provisions for support and failed to communicate with said child since she was an infant; 2) You are further notice that petition alleges that you have been convicted of a Felony and the facts of the crime are of such a nature so as to prove the unfitness of the parent to have the future custody and control of the child. 3) The said petition seeks to terminate claim of parentage and to declare the minor child. Lajhana’e Inceana Braddy, free from parental custody and control. You are hereby notified that you have a right to appear in person and/or through an Attorney. If you want to contest this proceeding but are unable to afford counsel, the court shall appoint counsel for you, unless representation by counsel is knowingly and intelligently waived by you. You are hereby notified that if the court finds that the interests of the child require representation by counsel, the court shall appoint counsel to represent the child, whether or not the child can afford counsel. If private counsel is appointed for the minor child, the court will set the fees and the parents may be ordered to pay the fees if they are able. If you fail to appear at the time and place stated above, the court may terminate your right to custody and control of the minor child. Date: 08/21/2023, Clerk of the Court. Attorney for Petitioners Ashton McCants and Shavontae Golden-McCants: Katie Lester (SBN 323579), 202 Providence Mine Rd. #106, Nevada City, NV 95959; (916) 246-8331; lesterlaw@gmail.com.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-23558253

In the matter of the application of MADISON KATE VANALLSBURG, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner MADISON KATE VANALLSBURG is requesting that the name MADISON KATE VANALLSBURG be changed to MADISON KATE VANOSTRILLO. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 28th of NOVEMBER 2023 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-23558254

In the matter of the application of MAX VORTEX CARILLO-OSTROW, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner MAX VORTEX CARILLO-OSTROW is requesting that the name MAX VORTEX CARILLO-OSTROW be changed to MAX VORTEX VANOSTRILLO. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 28th of NOVEMBER 2023 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401474

The following person(s) is/are doing business as FISHER LAW OFFICE, 505 MONTGOMERY ST, 10TH FL, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed KATHLEEN V. FISHER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/20/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/20/2023.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401448

The following person(s) is/are doing business as REVIVING TOUCH, 1801 BUSH ST #119, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed THANAWAN THUCHSUMRITH. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/18/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/18/2023.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401445

The following person(s) is/are doing business as ACON BUILT, 731 BRYANT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed EDWARD BRADY. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/25/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/18/2023.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401434

The following person(s) is/are doing business as KENSINGTON PROPERTIES, 217 KENSINGTON WAY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94127. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed HELENE ST. JOHN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/04/1998. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/14/2023.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401488 The following person(s) is/are doing business as NUTRITION FOR MOMS, 3129 FILLMORE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JENNIFER SATO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/25/2018. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/21/2023.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401456

The following person(s) is/are doing business as SOFAR JANITORIAL SERVICES, 3038 26TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ARNOLDO J. TURCIOS CARRANZA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/19/2023.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401508

The following person(s) is/are doing business as RJN TRAVEL, 602 CASTRO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RORY NORDEEN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 02/13/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/25/2023.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401463

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MN STAR LOUNGE, 3128 16TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed TEA DE CHINE INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/19/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/19/2023.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401356 The following person(s) is/are doing business as COLLINA, 1550 HYDE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109.

This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed ALISOC CORPORATION (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/04/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/05/2023.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401420

The following person(s) is/are doing business as 3426 3428 3428A 16TH STREET HOA, 3428A 16TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94114. This business is conducted by an unincorporated association other than a partnership, and is signed JOHN A. CORTEZ, TIMOTHY DOHERTY, MARIO GUERRIERI & 3426 3428 3428A 16TH STREET HOA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 11/27/2013. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/13/2023.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401440

The following person(s) is/are doing business as PHOTO CRAWLS, LLC; AGILE THAT WORKS, LLC, 3435 CESAR CHAVEZ ST #206, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110.

This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed CYBERBEARS, LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/15/2023.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-0397081

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as SINCERITY REALTY, 1160 BATTERY E ST #100-9928, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business was conducted by an individual and signed by MARY ANN CADORNA. The fictitious business name statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 05/05/2022. The abandonment of fictitious business name statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/25/2023.

SEP 28, OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

NOTICE OF AMENDED PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF KATHLEEN MARIE SCHOLTEN IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-23-306591

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of KATHLEEN MARIE SCHOLTEN. An Amended Petition for Probate has been filed by LISABETH SCHOLTEN FINCI in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that LISABETH SCHOLTEN FINCI be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent. The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court. The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. (This authority will allow the personal representative to take many actions without obtaining court approval. Before taking certain very important actions, however, the personal representative will be required to give notice to interested persons unless they have waived notice or consented to the proposed action.) The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority. A hearing on the petition will be held in this court as follows: NOVEMBER 09, 2023, 9:00 am, Dept. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: SCOTT D. ROSS, ESQ. (SBN 104851), 800 OAK GROVE AVE #250, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94025; Ph. (650) 353-3999.

REMOTE ACCESS TO DEPARTMENT 204: A) Appearance or Public Access by Video and/or Audio via Zoom: Parties, counsel, and witnesses may appear by video or audio-only telephone through Zoom. For a video appearance, go to zoom.us, click “join a meeting” and input meeting ID 160 225 4765 and password 514879. For an audio-only telephone appearance through Zoom, call 1-669-254-5252 and key in the meeting ID 160 225 4765#, then the participant ID 0#, then the password 514879#. Toll rates may apply. Counsel, parties, and witnesses appearing by video must input their first and last name into the “Your Name” dialogue box. B) Appearance by Audio via CourtCall: Parties , counsel, and witnesses may appear by audio-only telephone through CourtCall by calling CourtCall at 1-888882-6878 and obtaining an appearance access code for the hearing’s scheduled date and time. A CourtCall appearance may be made by mobile phone. CaoutCall appearances may require the payment of a fee, even for parties with fee waivers. C) Public Access by Audio via CourtCall: For audioonly access through CourtCall, call the mute public line for Department 204 at 1-415-796-6280 and enter access code 12129865#. This line will allow a member of the public to listen to the proceedings; it will not support an attempt to appear before the Court.

OCT 05, 12, 19, 2023

AMENDED ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-23-557995

In the matter of the amended application of OLIVIA RUTH HERNANDEZ BAMACA, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner OLIVIA RUTH HERNANDEZ BAMACA is requesting that the name OSCAR MIQUEAS GUTIERREZ HERNANDEZ be changed to MIQUEAS GUTIERREZ HERNANDEZ. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 1st of NOVEMBER 2023 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

OCT 05, 12, 19, 26, 2023

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-23558252

In the matter of the application of JOHNSON LIAN CHENG WU, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner JOHNSON LIAN CHENG WU is requesting that the name JOHNSON LIAN CHENG WU be changed to JOHNSON WU. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 28th of NOVEMBER 2023 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

OCT 05, 12, 19, 26, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401261

The following person(s) is/are doing business as DAZZLING HOMES, 12772 SARATOGA SUNNYVALE RD #1000, SARATOGA, CA 95070. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LINDSEY ANNE DAZEL NICHOLS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/15/2022. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/24/2023.

OCT 05, 12, 19, 26, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401417

The following person(s) is/are doing business as HJ CUSTOM CRAFT, 134 ARLETA AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NORMA O. JUAREZ HERNANDEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under

the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/13/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/13/2023.

OCT 05, 12, 19, 26, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401493 The following person(s) is/are doing business as CLUAIN MEALA PLUMBING, 545 VICENTE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DAVID MCGRATH. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/22/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/22/2023.

OCT 05, 12, 19, 26, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401358

The following person(s) is/are doing business as PAPER BOAT ART STUDIO; PAPER BOAT STUDIO, 425 DIVISADERO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed YING ZHANG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/05/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/05/2023.

OCT 05, 12, 19, 26, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401503

The following person(s) is/are doing business as FABIO’S PAINTING, 3288 21ST ST #180, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed FABIO PAINTING & DECORATING INC (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/25/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/25/2023.

OCT 05, 12, 19, 26, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401535

The following person(s) is/are doing business as CT DENTAL, 771 SACRAMENTO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed SEEWAN CHIU DDS INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/20/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/20/2023.

OCT 05, 12, 19, 26, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401554

The following person(s) is/are doing business as CIRCLE OF FRIENDS ADULT DAY HEALTH CARE, 1550 STEINER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94115. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed CIRCLE OF FRIENDS ADULT DAY HEALTH CARE, INC. (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/29/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/29/2023.

OCT 05, 12, 19, 26, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401564 The following person(s) is/are doing business as BAGATELLA, 3348 STEINER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed 3348 STEINER INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/02/2023.

OCT 05, 12, 19, 26, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401406

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MISSION LOTERIA, 4830 MISSION ST #104, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed L MISSION LOTERIA LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/15/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/12/2023.

OCT 05, 12, 19, 26, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401545

The following person(s) is/are doing business as PET CENTRAL SF, 1411 POWELL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed EJC GROUP LLC (CA).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/16/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/28/2023.

OCT 05, 12, 19, 26, 2023

SUMMONS (FAMILY LAW) SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, 400 MCALLISTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102 NOTICE TO RESPONDENT: DONALD CLARK CUNNINGHAM, YOU ARE BEING SUED BY PETITIONER: BERSATH VERDUGO DOMINGUEZ AKA BERSAIN VERDUGO-DOMINGUEZ CASE NO. FDI-23-798307

You have been sued. Read the information below.

You have 30 calendar days after this Summons and Petition are served on you to file a Response (form FL-120) at the court and have a copy served on the petitioner. A letter or phone call, or court appearance will not protect you.

If you do not file your Response on time, the court may make orders affecting your marriage or domestic partnership, your property, and custody of your children. You may be ordered to pay support and attorney fees and costs.

For legal advice, contact a lawyer immediately. Get help finding a lawyer at the California Courts Online Self-Help Center (www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp), at the California Legal Services website (www.lawhelpca.org) or by contacting your local county bar association.

NOTICE – RESTRAINING ORDERS ARE ON PAGE 2: These restraining orders are effective against both spouses or domestic partners until the petition is dismissed, a judgment is entered, or the court makes further orders.

They are enforceable anywhere in California by any law enforcement officer who has received or seen a copy of them. FEE WAIVER: If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the court clerk for a fee waiver form. The court may order you to pay back all or part of the fees and costs that the court waived for you or the other party. The name and address of the court are: Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco, 400 McAllister St. San Francisco, California 94102. The name, address and telephone number of petitioner’s attorney, or petitioner without an attorney is: BERSATH VERDUGO DOMINGUEZ, 684 ELLIS ST #513, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109; (415) 509-4409. Date: 07/10/2023.

Clerk of The Court, Damon Carter, Deputy.

STANDARD FAMILY LAW RESTRAINING ORDERS: Starting immediately, you and your spouse or domestic partner are restrained from: 1. Removing the minor child or children of the parties, if any, from the state without the prior written consent of the other party or an order of the court; 2. Cashing borrowing against, canceling, transferring, disposing of, or changing the beneficiaries of any insurance or other coverage, including life, health, automobile, and disability, held for the benefit of the parties and their minor child or children; 3. Transferring, encumbering, hypothecating, concealing, or in any way disposing of any property, real or personal, whether community, quasi-community, or separate, without the written consent of the other party or an order of the court, except in the usual course of business or for the necessities of life; and 4. Creating a nonprobate transfer or modifying a nonprobate transfer in the manner that affects the disposition of property subject to the transfer, without the written consent of the other party or an order of the court. Before revocation of a nonprobate transfer can take effect or a right of survivorship to property can be eliminated, notice of the change must be filed and served on the other party. You must notify each other of any proposed extraordinary expenditures at least five business days prior to incurring these extraordinary expenditures and account to the court for all extraordinary expenditures made after these restraining orders are effective. However, you may use community property, quasi-community property, or your own separate property to pay an attorney to help you or to pay court costs.

WARNING – IMPORTANT INFORMATION California law provides that, for purposes of division of property upon dissolution of a marriage or domestic partnership or upon legal separation, property acquired by the parties during marriage or domestic partnership in joint form is presumed to be community property. If either party to this action should die before the jointly held community

property is divided, the language in the deed that characterizes how title is held (i.e. joint tenancy, tenants in common, or community property) will be controlling, and not the community property presumption. You should consult your attorney if you want the community property presumption to be written into the recorded title to the property.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-23558827

In the matter of the application of GAVIN OCAMPO SENORA, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner GAVIN OCAMPO SENORA is requesting that the name GAVIN OCAMPO SENORA be changed to GAVIN OCAMPO. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 4th of JANUARY 2023 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-23-558268

In the matter of the application of ELIJAH TERRELL DONALDSON JR., for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appears from said application that petitioner ELIJAH TERRELL DONALDSON JR. is requesting that the name ELIJAH TERRELL DONALDSON JR. be changed to ELIJAH TERRELL BACCAL DONALDSON JR.. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 103N, Rm. 103N on the 21st of DECEMBER 2023 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401588

The following person(s) is/are doing business as PADMA CONSULTING, 1150 LOMBARD ST #3, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARGARET W. SOUTHERLAND. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 10/09/2013. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/04/2023.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401432

The following person(s) is/are doing business as RAMBO CLEANING SERVICE, 1495 CASA BUENA DR #205, CORTE MADERA, CA 94925. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed EVELYN PATINO. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/14/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/14/2023.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401572

The following person(s) is/are doing business as PROSPER PLAY, 1787 OAK ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LUCIE SCHULZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/21/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/03/2023.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401457

The following person(s) is/are doing business as MI ZE LA, 777 JACKSON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94133.

This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed CHUNXI LIU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 03/16/2015. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/19/2023.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401425

The following person(s) is/are doing business as FIRST CLASS PARKING MANAGEMENT, 22 HAWTHORNE ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NATHAN KOFF. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 04/14/2015. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/13/2023.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401378

The following person(s) is/are doing business as STATE MARKET; BIG TIME MARKET & DELI, 1231 GENEVA AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NANCY S. KHARSA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 05/10/2003. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/07/2023.

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and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/29/2023.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401557

The following person(s) is/are doing business as COASTAL SEQUOIA, 1140 HARRISON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed RITTER VENTURES LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on N/A. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/29/2023.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

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OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401460

The following person(s) is/are doing business as METRO HONG KONG DESSERT, 928 STOCKTON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed METRO HONG KONG DESSERT (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/19/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/19/2023.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401585

The following person(s) is/are doing business as GIRON CONSTRUCTION, 1485 BAYSHORE BLVD #222, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed GECMS, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 08/31/2012. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/04/2023.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

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The following person(s) is/are doing business as PRESTON DILIGENCE, 1653 ALABAMA ST #A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed KM PLANNING STRATEGY (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 09/29/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 09/29/2023.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-0401594

The following person(s) is/are doing business as UPFRONT, 576 SACRAMENTO ST, 3RD FL, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed UPFRONT ENERGY INC. (DE).

The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 01/04/2023. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 10/06/2023.

OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

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OCT 12, 19, 26, NOV 02, 2023

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‘The Rocky Horror Show’ Ray of Light & Oasis deliver a definitive delight

D’Arcy Drollinger as Frank-N-Furter in Ray of Light Theatre & Oasis’ production of ‘The Rocky Horror Show.’

by Jim Gladstone

T

o borrow a line from playwright-composer Richard O’Brien, Ray of Light Theatre “has discovered the secret, that elusive ingredient, that … spark that is the breath of life itself!” in its electrifying resurrection of O’Brien’s own “The Rocky Horror Show” now on stage –and on the bars, the gogo platforms, and the dance floor– at Oasis through November 4.

That special sauce is a merciful immersiveness that washes the dust off material that, de-

spite the blind devotion of many ardent fans, has grown more and more moribund over the 50 – eeek!– years since its London debut.

Director Jason Hoover understands that for all its sci-fi and horror B-movie pastiche, “Rocky Horror” was first and foremost a celebration of uninhibited self-expression. And their go-for-broke cast brings a fresh queer exuberance to this production. The show grabs audiences by the crotch and the funny bone, jerking them away from its nostalgic aspects and into a vital present tense.

In San Francisco, 2023, D’Arcy Drollinger really is our Frank-N-Furter, and our Oasis. Who

Russ Rowland

Anthony Rapp’s ‘Without You’ Musical musings on love and loss

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toyed with the borders between performers and audiences, fantasy and reality, binary and infinity.

But the 1975 film adaptation –despite bringing much wider visibility to the show– gave us silver screen as fourth wall. Where live versions of “Rocky” had coaxed actors and spectators toward a rule-busting orgy together, the midnight movie version placed a prophylactic membrane between them. Bouncing slices of toast off a sheet of vinyl is a far cry from breaking down gender boundaries.

else could host this Halloween party? Beyond actor or drag queen, Drollinger is tent pole and den mother. A genuine center of our queer community, in all its gravity and levity, Drollinger is the person, the venue and the role all rolled into one.

Some terrible thrills

Dr. Furter made his first public appearance within months of country rock band Dr. Hook releasing “Freakin’ at the Freakers’ Ball,” a title which aptly describes the experience of attending this vividly reinvigorated “Rocky.”

Early productions of the show provocatively

See page 15 >>

by David-Elijah Nahmod

Stamets is married to a character named Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz). The show’s scripts allow the audience to see their fully developed relationship. Both actors are perfect for their roles as both are openly gay in real life.

F

rom October 19-22 actor Anthony Rapp, whose career took off when he was cast as Mark Cohen in the now classic musical “Rent,” will bring his solo musical “Without You” to the Curran Theater.

In 1994, Rapp was broke and working at Starbucks. But his life was about to change when he auditioned for “Rent,” a new musical by an upand-coming writer named Jonathan Larson. This is where “Without You” begins. Sharing the stage with a five-piece rock band, Rapp tells the story of the early years of “Rent,” which includes the death of Larson right before the show’s off-Broadway preview. “Rent” went on to become a global phenomenon which Rapp was part of. “Without You” is therefore a story of profound joy and unspeakable loss.

“Rent,” which is loosely based on the opera “La Bohéme” by Giacomo Puccini, Luigi Illica, and Giuseppe Giacosa, tells the story of a group of impoverished artists struggling to create a life in Manhattan’s bohemian East Village as the shadow of HIV/AIDS hovers over them.

Rapp has over the years had a varied career not only on the stage, but in film and on television.

Unfortunately, he was unable to talk about his film and TV roles at present due to the ongoing Screen Actors Guild strike, which is a shame since he is currently starring in another groundbreaking production.

In 2017 he was cast as Paul Stamets in “Star Trek: Discovery,” the first openly gay character on a “Star Trek” series. The series, which will soon stream its fifth season on Paramount+, has allowed Stamets to be a fully-fleshed out character.

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Success and loss

But back on earth, “Without You” is adapted from Rapp’s memoir of the same name.

“The memoir was published in 2006,” he said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “It took quite a while to write. I never anticipated turning it into a show. We just finished a several-month run here in New York. I felt that this was the most full iteration of it, yet all these years later. It focuses on the period of time in the early-mid ’90s when I got cast in the first studio production of “Rent,” which was a ten-performance workshop at New York Theater Workshop. A year later I joined the off-Broadway and Broadway productions at the same time that my mom was diagnosed with cancer.”

Rapp pointed to how shocking and unexpected Larson’s death from an aneurism was. He recalls finding it difficult to go on stage after Larson’s death, but he and his co-stars felt that they had to go on. “‘Without You’ is a snapshot of that period of my life,” he said. “But it really does go between the first auditions and then little snippets of rehearsal moments, focusing on the night that Jonathan died. But it also goes back and forth between that story and the story of my mom’s diagnosis and going home to visit her during the time that I was in the show.”

Rapp recalled that his mother was able to come See page 14 >>

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<< Film & Theater

14 • Bay Area Repor ter • October 12-18, 2023

‘Kiss Me Kosher’

Israeli queer romcom

by Gregg Shapiro

W

hether you call it “Kiss Me Kosher” (Menemsha), or by its original name “Kiss Me Before It Blows Up,” the full-length feature debut by writer/director Shirel Peleg is a charming addition to the canon of contemporary Israeli cinema. It’s an effective queer romcom that also manages to make a political statement.

Shira (Moran Rosenblatt), a kind of modern-day lesbian Casanova, coowns a Tel Aviv bar called The Jewish Princess, named for her grandmother Berta (Rivka Michaeli). Shira is extremely close to Berta, who lost most of her family during the holocaust.

In fact, Berta is a major investor in Shira’s bar.

While playing Monopoly and smoking cigarettes, Shira talks excitedly about her new girlfriend Maria (Luise Wolfram), a young woman scientist from Stuttgart, with whom she is moving in after being together for only three months.

While Berta is accepting of Shira being a lesbian, she’s not particularly thrilled with Maria being from Germany. But Berta doesn’t have room to criticize anyone as she is carrying on a secret (to everyone but Shira) relationship with Palestinian doctor Ibrahim (Salim Daw).

Fortunately for Shira, her entire family, including Israeli-born mother Ora (Irit Kaplan), American “settler” (as Berta calls him) father

Menemsha Films

Luise Wolfram and Moran Rosenblatt in ‘Kiss Me Kosher’

Ron (John Carroll Lynch), sister Ella (Aviv Pinkas), and brother Liam (Eyal Shikratzi), have been accepting of her being a lesbian since she came out at 13. Liam is also happy about

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Maria’s arrival as he has decided to make the duo, “his favorite Israeli/ German dyke couple,” the subject of his film school documentary.

When Ora and Ron are interviewed

<<

by Liam for the doc, in unison they reference Shira scoring the holy trinity of girlfriends, “lesbian, gentile, German.”

But things get off to a rocky start.

Shortly after Maria arrives, she and Shira run into Neta (Noa Biron), one of Shira’s exes. An awkward moment leads to a sudden proposal, including a ring, from Maria. She is the first in a series of Shira’s exes, including Maya (Dafi Shoshana-Alpern), who begin popping up around Tel Aviv. Berta is relentless in her disapproval of Maria, and it doesn’t help that Maria isn’t forthcoming about her German family’s history.

A planned visit to Israel by Maria’s (unmarried) parents, Hans (Bernhard Schütz) and Petra (Juliane Köhler), only serves to complicate matters. Petra is obsessed with not crossing the Green Line (the border between Israel and the West Bank).

Additionally, she is harboring a potentially dangerous secret about her family’s activities during World War II. While all these details sound like undeniably serious subject matters, they are handled in ways that manage to be both comedic and respectful. Peleg deserves credit for not only creating characters that feel genuine but also places them in situations in which humor is used to diffuse tension without being overly silly.

Wolfram, Michaeli, and especially Rosenblatt, all turn in performances that never fail to hold our attention.

In Hebrew, Arabic, German, and English, with subtitles. Rating: Bt www.menemshafilms.com

Anthony Rapp

From page 13

to the opening of “Rent” on Broadway and that she died a little more than a year later.

“It was devastating,” he said. “She wasn’t just my mom, she was my biggest champion and supporter. I did not come from a show biz family, she was a single mother of three. As I’m becoming a father myself, I’m now just a few years younger than she was when she died, I feel like I have even more understanding of all the things she had to do to make all of our lives work, which kind of really blows my mind even more now, all these years later.

“I would not have been able to do any of the things I did if it weren’t for all her support and making it possible.

I don’t know how she managed to maintain her work, raise three kids on her own, with very little outside help and to afford me the opportunities to do the work I was doing since I was a little kid.”

“Without You” is a narrated show, but there are also portions when moments of dialogue from Rapp’s life are enacted. Sometimes a song comes in to help illustrate the story. Moments recalled include his first audition for “Rent,” the first day of rehearsal, and the night Larson died. He also recalls moments with his mom and what it was like going home to visit her during her illness. As the show progresses he’ll be singing pieces of songs from “Rent,” as well as original songs. As a solo show it’s only Rapp and the band who are onstage. Rapp plays all the characters.

“Back at the theater where ‘Rent’ premiered on Broadway, there was a wall backstage where people would sign and leave messages for us,” Rapp recalled. “And I asked if there was any way we could do something like that for this show. Not just to leave messages for me but to leave messages to their loved ones that they’ve lost.

“People took that on in such a major way that by the end of our run I don’t even know how many messages we had. We had hundreds of messages, so that to me speaks to one of my deepest hopes that the response from the audience would be that it would give them access to find ways to healer to be in

Russ Rowland

Anthony Rapp in ‘Without You’

touch with their grief in meaningful ways so that they could connect with people that they’ve lost.”

Ongoing legacy

Larson’s musical was not without controversy. Soon after it opened, writer Sarah Schulman alleged that “Rent” bore striking similarities to her 1991 novel “People in Trouble.” She later wrote extensively about it in her book of essays, “Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America.”

“It was upsetting to read about it,” Rapp said of Schulman’s accusations.

“It was after Jonathan had died, so he had no opportunity to address it himself personally. I know that he had been working on this text himself for any number of years. So much of the ma-

terial in ‘Rent’ was inspired by ‘La Boheme,’ so I can’t speak to it in any way to what she said she felt was stolen. In the time I knew him I never knew of him to talk about any influences other than ‘La Boheme,’ so I just thought it was a shame that this was being sort of aired after he had passed away.”

Rapp feels that “Rent” has left a substantial legacy, and that shows like “Hamilton” could not have existed without “Rent.”

“The legacy is that it inspired new generations of writers to take risks and bring their vision of what musical theater can be fully in line with music that speaks to today’s audiences as well as stands on the shoulders of the traditions of storytelling that are in theater,” he said.

“But I also think that ‘Rent’ opened many people’s hearts and minds to the AIDS epidemic in new ways, and to talking about LGBTQ characters and issues in new ways. I think that ‘Rent’ is part of the ongoing conversation that has been going on for a while, and it’s really been reaching critical mass about income inequality and home insecurity. It’s contributed to people thinking about those who are less privileged than others.”t Anthony Rapp’s ‘Without You,’ October 19-22, at the Curran Theater, 445 Geary St. $49 and up. www.broadwaysf.com www.withoutyoumusical.com

t

Theater>>

October 12-18, 2023 • Bay Area Repor ter • 15

All Photos: Rachel Z Photography

All three photos from Ray of Light Theatre & Oasis’ production of ‘The Rocky Horror Show.’

Upper Left: Roeen Nooran (Brad) and Melinda Campero (Janet) with Joe Greene (Riff-Raff) behind them.

Left: Joe Greene (Riff-Raff), Trixxie Carr (Magenta) and Carissa Hatchel/Snaxx (Columbia) Above: Kipp Glass (Rocky) and phantom ensemble actors.

<<

Rocky Horror

From page 13

While a few bold teens in every suburb dared to wear fishnets and strut up front, most remained distance-keeping cinema thrillseekers, willing only to watch others be other. Shouted lines that started as sharp callback quips quickly ossified into neutered non-conformity, camp as canon, zombian bed death.

This critic first saw “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” at Yale University in 1984. Cue sheets and shopping lists were distributed days before, so everyone could learn their lines and buy the proper props. I beg your pardon.

Bit of a mind flip

Perhaps the greatest horror wrought by the picture show is that

once “Rocky” was released on film, even stage productions began to be treated more like screenings than parties. The endless fusillade of hoary puns previously shouted at non-responding celluloid were now yelped at live actors. When audiences contented themselves by following rules, “Rocky” could feel like a fossil.

Even when Ray of Light produced the show on the proscenium stage of

the Victoria Theatre (The Oasis iteration debuted in 2021) there was a faint whiff of decay in the air; the rot of the rote.

But despite the fact that, commercially, they had a Halloween evergreen on their hands, the company’s creative team has proven its commitment to the show’s fundamental energy and ideals by changing venues and radically reimagining the “Rocky” experience.

While the classic songs –“Time Warp,” “Sweet Transvestite,” “Dammit Janet”– are all here, they’ve been remixed and souped up by Music Director Ben Prince with dance beats to keep the audience’s bodies as engaged as their attention.

As production numbers weave their way around Oasis’ main room and ticketholders sing and dance along, all the world (or at least the club) is indeed a stage, players and playgoers cheerfully encouraging one another to take on whatever roles they desire.

Among the uniformly first-rate cast, two newcomers stand out; emerging local cabaret star Ryan Patrick Welsh in a decadently etched turn as the Narrator, and Roeen Nooran as the nerdlicious, tightywhitey-clad Brad.

In some brilliantly conceived stagecraft that tips a hat to many attendees’ memories of “Rocky Horror” in movie theaters, clips from the 1975 film are used for occasional scene transitions.

Bright new footage of current cast members (by Pseuda) is also interpolated into the staging, warping both time and media.

Lighting (Sophia Craven), choreography (Dane Paul Andres) and sound design (Jules Indelicato) work in tandem make the show feel as much like a party as a performance while never obscuring the dialogue or making it difficult to follow the plot. And the costumes by Daniel Harvey are spectacular; even the ones worn by cast members.

This is a “Rocky Horror Show” for longtime fanatics, folks who thought themselves long over it, and curious virgins alike. Whether you’ve previously seen “Rocky” on stage or on screen, this experience feels like the one it always should have been.

Embrace its spirit and it will toucha touch-a touch you right back.t ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ through Nov. 4. $45-$100. Ray of Light Theatre at Oasis, 298 11th St. (415) 795-3180 www.sfoasis.com www.rayoflighttheatre.com

<< Books

16 • Bay Area Repor ter • October 12-18, 2023

Justin Torres’ brilliant ‘Blackouts’

by Tim Pfaff

J

ustin Torres deploys fluid, engaging writing throughout his new novel, “Blackouts” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), that’s far from frivolous but not shy of hilarity when warranted. In a way all its own, it’s a consistent pleasure to read.

“Blackouts” is picaresque in its juggling of storyline, but the unseen art behind its smooth, inviting surface operates as a foil to faux profundity.

The organizing tale is of two men, Juan and an unnamed man from his dark past who turns out to be in it for the long haul. Readers will have no problem believing that they met, in the non-specific but imaginable past, in a nuthouse, where, to be clear, they both were inmates.

So they’re not model citizens or personages held up for emulation.

Torres proves himself a bonafide magician whose elaborate tricks are more felt than observed but intended to strike with a singular awe, like carnival acts focused on a single eye-catching outcome. The book eschews the operatic for the democratic, making it okay for readers of all persuasions to feel delight by how nimble the writing is.

Farewell to the animals

After the surprise success of his debut novel, “We the Animals,” readers sent out an impatient call for more.

To his credit, Torres took seven years to satisfy them, hugely worth the wait.

The skeleton and most of the meat of the novel consist of late-night conversations between an older and younger man, both of Puerto Rican extraction and both gay. These passages read like a kind of queer Platonic dialogue, heavier on meaning than on cold philosophy.

The closest Torres comes to gravity is his ruse about what drives The Unnamed –Juan calls “nene,” or “sweetheart”– to seek out the dying Juan’s

redoubt, a tumbledown residence hotel known as the Palace. He’s really craving authentic companionship, but his stated mission is to learn all there is to know about a demonstrably serious (and historically authentic) book entitled “Sex Variants,” in whose production Juan was somehow involved.

That opens an earnest rehash of the trials and tribulations of queer people as treated –in all senses of the word– by the psychology professionals. Torres doesn’t even flirt with the didactic.

There’s a reminder that early versions of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” the psychiatrists’ Bible, deemed homosexuality a form of “insanity” in need of a “cure.” It took until 1980, when the DSM’s renewed discussion of homosexuality at all (after disappearing altogether) found another subtle form of erasure, redefining same-sexuality as “egodystonic” homosexuality, a technical term insulting in its opacity.

Play within the plays

Torres weaves the narrative strands together with myriad devices, the most fetching of which are late-in-thenight tales Juan coaxes out of his adulator, a kind of tweaker Scheherazade.

The stories within stories are themselves frequently interrupted, not to create narrative density or confusion but to imitate the elliptical nature of life as we know and live it. There’s no better example than the movie plot summary –the film may or may not be called “Starve a Rat” –Juan extracts from his amanuensis wannabe.

The movie, at least as retold by “nene,” includes the sexual exploits of two of the principals, Sal and Norwood, who bear a more than faint resemblance to Juan and nene but are compelling in their own rights. Most impressively of all, the “digressive” sections testify to Torres’s mastery of an enormous range of writing styles.

Author Justin Torres

The language comes in torrents, washing reader expectations clean.

For sheer matter-of-factness, it would be hard to surpass nene’s confession: “Mostly I placed that [personals] ad because I was broke and had been for just about every day of my adult life.”

The “blackouts” of the title are the redactions –a word today’s news has taught all of us– in the printed text “Sex Variants,” as trenchant in their silence as those in a Trump indictment.

The words that peek out are telling, when they are readable, that is.

Those redacted pages are sprinkled generously throughout the novel with no further explanation, or any needed.

The other attention-getting visuals are grainy reproductions of uncaptioned photographs (sometimes themselves censored with old-fashioned black bands) that bear, or don’t, on the text they decorate.

“Blackouts” all but demands being read in hardcover, hold-in-the-hand, behold-with-the eye format. In a kind of extravagance of the printer’s art as practiced today, the novel is assembled in a wonder of presentation.

The text is printed in a burnt-umber typeface also used in the inserts. End papers and bold section heads are further elements that quickly become more than ornament.

Alvin Orloff’s ‘Vulgarian Rhapsody’

Author Alvin Orloff

by Jim Piechota

A

s the proprietor of Castro Street’s literary emporium Fabulosa Books, author Alvin Orloff knows good books. And he’s written one, too, with his fourth novel about a group of queer San Francisco residents who feel the pinch of the dot-com boom in the late 1990s.

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At center stage of “Vulgarian Rhapsody” is Harris McNulty, an aging, “ordinary” queer San Franciscan who loves shoes and gay bars, adopts a retro “white trash” fashion aesthetic, and whose face “displays a timelessly haggard quality.” Readers who consider this description a bit on the bitchy side of crass need only consider the narrator: an unnamed, judgmental story-

teller to whom Harris has owed $92 for many years.

Yes, narrating all the action is an omniscient voice embodying the kind of biting, humorously sarcastic personality every reader has either befriended or steadily avoided like the plague in social circles. But, in the context of Orloff ’s entertaining novel, their presence is an uproarious treat

as they guide the story of Harris and his trans roommate Maxine through the ups and downs of urban life by the Bay. It’s 1999 and for readers who were in San Francisco back then, the era was a unique time of good and bad transition. The internet and cell phones were living their best lives, venture capital firms were swimming in profits, and the term “start-up” was foaming from every enthusiastic, overconfident entrepreneur’s lips.

However, for folks already enjoying life in the big urban sprawls, it also meant gentrification, skyrocketing rents, tech worker infiltrations, bloating cost-of-living expenses, and a crushing recession that would bankrupt business upon business.

Harris and Maxine are gloomily feeling the weight of the times, but, for now, they are shakily surfing the great wave of survival. Maxine’s career as a musician barely surviving in a Tenderloin apartment has seen better days as her age group (she’s “pushing fifty”) struggles to keep their bohemian artist scene relevant and their livelihood self-sufficient and above-water.

Bemoaning the “computer savvy youngsters” flooding the city, Harris, disillusioned with his job at a market research firm, scours the city exploring cheaper housing options.

He contemplates moving in with his friend Wally, or with Maxine, or with several other friends who begin to carefully weigh the possible (disastrous) consequences of having someone like Harris permanently share their spaces.

He’s a social character who parties, then after-parties with friends like Sasa and a group of other dynamic folks during a particularly energetic

Such as Torres has a debt to his fiction-writing contemporaries, it’s in his treatment of “nene” as someone more than a hustler or whore. He isn’t just the narrator, he’s us. There’s no inhibition in the sex writing, which takes its place in this magnificent edifice of a novel as a matter calling for candor rather than sensationalism.

Read the full review on www.ebar.com.

‘Blackouts’ by Justin Torres. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 300 pages, $35. www.us.macmillan.com wwwjustin-torres.com

house party scene where Orloff ’s talents for one-liners and colorful dialogue exchanges are at the height of their powers.

Before it’s thought that Orloff ’s novel is all fluff and no substance, there are moments of seriousness which arrive courtesy of Maxine. In addition to being a true star on the stage, she adds nuances of sobering humility to all the flamboyant exploits.

Her layered perspective on the grim reality of AIDS in the 1990s is memorable as she somberly remarks how the disease decimated a particular theater troupe (and artistic community at large) she knew as “funeral after funeral devastated the group and its audience. Those who didn’t succumb to the virus fled for the hills, hunkered down in their apartments, or traded entertainment for activism.”

Locals will revel at frequent mentions of former (and current) queer haunts like Muddy Waters coffeeshop, Café Flore, Amoeba Records, the Eagle, and A Different Light Bookstore, to name just a few. They are all joyously embedded within this fun, frothy tour of a bygone time and place where San Franciscans were at the mercy of free-flowing greed and a tech tidal wave that moved all of us online whether we liked it or not.t

The launch party for Alvin Orloff’s ‘Vulgarian Rhapsody’ will be on Thursday, October 19, 7pm at Fabulosa Books, 489 Castro St., with guests Brontez Purnell, Jennifer Blowdryer and Birdie Bob Watt. www.fabulosabooks.com ‘Vulgarian Rhapsody’ by Alvin Orloff; Three Rooms Press, $16. www.threeroomspress.com www.alvinorloff.com

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<< Film & Celebration

18 • Bay Area Repor ter • October 12-18, 2023

‘Dicks: the Musical’

by David-Elijah Nahmod

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eligious conservatives will no doubt have a collective stroke when they hear about “Dicks: the Musical.” The film is filled with all kinds of raunchy humor, including twin brothers who fall in love and a flying vagina.

You have to see it in order to believe it.

But perhaps the film’s most “offensive” (to religious conservatives) aspect is “Saturday Night Live” actor Bowen Yang as a flamboyantly gay God. While Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally are billed as the film’s stars, “Dicks” really belongs to newcomers

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Crass queer comedy’s oddly fun

Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson, who play Craig and Trevor, two allegedly heterosexual alpha males who find out that they’re long-lost twin brothers; never mind that they don’t look anything alike. In an R-rated riff of the classic Disney film “The Parent Trap,” the boys plot to get Harris and Evelyn (Lane and Mullally), their longestranged birth parents, back together.

As Mom and Dad, the two veterans are hilarious. Harris is an eccentric older gay man who speaks nonchalantly of his penchant for men. Harris has a side-splitting musical number called “Gay Old Life” which has been posted on YouTube. It’s highly unlikely that the video will remain there because he sings about almost having his dick bitten off. Mullally joins in at the end of the song to announce that she has no pussy. And this isn’t even the film’s raunchiest scene!

Harris has two “friends,” a pair of monstrous-looking puppets, called his “sewer boys.” They live in a cage in his apartment and keep him company.

He feeds them by spitting deli meat into their mouths, which they eat hungrily. It’s gross, but funny.

Rapper Megan Thee Stallion has a guest role as Craig and Trevor’s female bossy employer. She stops the plot at the film’s midway point for a show-stopping number, “Out-Alpha the Alpha,” in which she sings about dominating men while leading several dudes on leashes.

Sharp and Jackson play their roles as though they were two bipolar guys having a manic episode. They’re funny for a while, but at a certain point they become tiresome, though both performers display decent comedic chops. They’re quite familiar with these roles. The film is based on their two-man Off-Broadway musical, “Fucking Identical Twins,” in which they starred. “FIT” might have been a better title for the film, because (spoiler) that’s exactly what the boys end up doing in the film’s final act. Is there a movie theater on the planet that would be willing to put such a title up on its marquee?

It’s Mullally who walks away with the film’s top acting honors. She plays

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Both photos: A24

Above: Megan Thee Stallion, Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson in ‘Dicks: the Musical’ Below: Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally in ‘Dicks: the Musical’

Evelyn as an eccentric old kook with an outrageous lisp. She speaks quite openly about having lost her pussy, which she now carries around in her purse. It’s one of many gags in the film that will no doubt leave LGBTQs, the film’s target audience, in stitches.

Director Larry Charles is no stranger to over-the-top raunchy comedy. His filmography includes two extremely vulgar albeit very funny Sacha Baron Cohen films, “Borat” and “Bruno.” The auteur knows how to mine a laugh from the most absurd situations and how to keep things moving at a fast pace. The film’s 86-minute running time feels shorter than it is.

You have to hand it to distributor A24. They green-lighted the film and are gleefully promoting it. It remains to be seen if “Dicks: the Musical” will appeal to the target queer audience. At the screening the Bay Area Reporter attended, the mostly gay audience seemed to be having a good time.t ‘Dicks: the Musical’ is playing at the Alamo Drafthouse New Mission Cinema, 2550 Mission St., and the AMC Kabuki, 1881 Post St. More theaters will be added on October 20. tickets.dicksthemusical.movie

Italian Heritage Festival & Parade Photos by Steven Underhill

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he 155th annual San Francisco Italian Heritage Festival and Parade drew thousands of fans of food, drinks, tradition, a parade of notables, marching bands, floats, men and women in uniform for Fleet Week, and even a pair of Brown sisters impersonators. www.sfitalianheritage.org For upcoming nightlife and arts events, check out Going Out this week and every week on www.ebar.com.

For more Steven Underhill event photos, visit www.facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife and www.stevenunderhill.com

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Music>>

October 12-18, 2023 • Bay Area Repor ter • 19

Q-Music: queer pop playlist

by Gregg Shapiro

L

GBTQ History Month may have come and gone, but there’s an abundance of music from our community to get listeners through the rest of the year and well into the next.

“Mono” (Giant), the title of queer, hip hop-influenced singer/songwriter K.Flay’s new album has a frightening significance. Due to a health crisis, she has lost hearing in her right ear. In other words, she no longer hears in stereo.

She addresses the subject in album opener “Are You Serious?,” a song in which she captures the trauma of the experience, and yet she proves herself to be a survivor, making an album in the aftermath of this massive change in her personal and professional life.

Not an easy listen, but well worth the time, K.Flay alternates between lashing out and taking her lashes on songs including “Hustler,” “Punisher,” “Carsick,” “In America,” “Irish Goodbye,” “Chaos Is Love,” and “Yes I’m Serious.” If you’re a fan of queer singer/ songwriter Caroline Rose, you’ll likely dig K.Flay, too.

K.Flay performs on March 27 & 28, 2024 at The Independent in San Francisco. www.kflay.com

Queer, DC-based musician Rye Thomas of Soft Punch says his music is “For the queer and the damaged and the eternally curious.” Like K.Flay’s “Mono,” Soft Punch’s album “Above Water” arrives following a debilitating illness. The baker’s dozen songs, including “Here Comes The Chorus,” “Now’s The Time,” “An Astronaut,” “Semaphore,” “Here/Now,” and “Fine,” are the very definition of sophisticated bedroom pop, intimate and incandescent. Soft Punch also packs a punch on the harder rocking song “My Head.” www.softpunchmusic.com In its lush and distinctive way, the music of the coolest Icelandic band Sigur Rós (led by openly queer Jónsi) has always felt orchestral. Therefore, when you hear “Átta” (BMG), the band’s first album in 10 years, on which it performs with the London Contemporary Orchestra (under the direction of conductor Robert Ames), it sounds perfectly natural. “Átta,” available in a double LP set (meant to be spun at 45 RPM), is as gorgeous a musical statement as the cover art (a Pride banner set ablaze) is unsettling. Songs such as “Blóðberg,” “Gold,” “Mór,” “Andrá,” and “Fall,” do offer a kind of musical comfort in these difficult times. www.sigurros.com Mouths of Babes is a notable queer duo. Comprised of Ingrid Elizabeth (of Coyote Grace fame) and Ty Greenstein (of Girlyman renown), the couple brings years of musical experience to this new project as you can hear on the new album “World Brand New.” A seamless blending of Ingrid’s Americana-oriented style with Ty’s pop-influenced sound, Mouths of Babes might be the most compelling queer duo since the Indigo Girls.

The message of making the “world brand new” runs throughout the album, from the title track to politically

meaningful numbers including “One For Me” and the dazzling “My Country.” “Jubilee” is the perfect name for the joyful, Cajun-fueled tune at the center of the album. Mouth of Babes’ cover of Holly Near’s “I Am Willing” (featuring Vicki Randle) is simply stunning. www.mouthsofbabesmusic.com Ragana is also a queer female duo (Maria and Nicole, who divide their time between Olympia, Washington, and the Bay Area), but on the polar opposite end of the spectrum from Mouths of Babes. Purveyors of pitchblack metal, Ragana serves up visceral metal sludge accompanied by vocal-chord bloodying shrieks.

That said, the title cut of its new album “Desolation Flowers” (The

Flenser), is described as “a hymn of gratitude for queer and trans ancestors, known or unknown, by blood or affinity, whose joy and survival make our lives possible, and whose memo-

ry inspires and helps us resist the tide of increasingly visible hatred and oppression.” How’s that for a statement?

As Miss Jean Brodie herself said, “For those that like that sort of thing, that

is the sort of thing they like.”

Ragan performs Nov. 3 at Eli’s Mile High Club, Oakland, with Kim and Cheree. www.ragana.org

“The thing about playing somebody like that is it wakes you up to all these possibilities. I mean, the one thing I’ve been very concerned about is to not limit myself either, whether it’s artistically, physically, sexually or mentally.

He’s been a great lesson to me, put it that way.”

—Tim Curry,

on playing Frank-N-Furter in “The Rocky Horror Show”

Take your place among the BEST! Readers of America’s longest continuously-published and highest circulation LGBTQ newspaper have made their opinions known in our annual readers’ poll selecting the BEST PEOPLE, PLACES, and THINGS TO DO in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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