September 6, 2018 Edition of the Bay Area Reporter by Bay Area Reporter

Out candidates in Oakland

Cat Brooks interview

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Since 1971, the newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ community

Vol. 48 • No. 36 • September 6-12, 2018

Oakland Pride highlights displacement of LGBTs Ed Walsh

A growing memorial lies outside Brian Egg’s Clara Street home.

SFPD blasted over headless torso case

by Ed Walsh

s friends and neighbors of Brian Egg are preparing to gather next week to remember the man whose headless torso is believed to have been found in a fish tank in his home, serious questions are being raised over whether the San Francisco Police Department’s early inaction in the case effectively jeopardized the department’s current homicide investigation. “I am ENRAGED about the police response to this case,” a woman wrote on a thread about the case on the Nextdoor social media site after the story broke last week. “Multiple reports were made to the police about this!!! What more could a neighbor have done if the police were not willing to take this seriously??? This is appalling!!!!” Echoed Jamie Whittaker, a gay former District 6 supervisorial candidate who is known for his grassroots work in the South of Market area: “If this doesn’t alert everyone that SFPD is asleep at the wheel and just cashin’ paychecks, forget It. Burglars/trespassers just explain, “Oh, the owner is on vacation??” Wow. No words.” Egg’s longtime friend and neighbor, Scot Free, started the Nextdoor posting August 2 to rally support to help find Egg after police did nothing other than knock on Egg’s door and then told neighbors that Egg was out of town, information that police had apparently received from Egg’s answering machine. But neighbors and relatives told the Bay Area Reporter that the message in itself was very suspicious because Egg never used an answering machine before and the message wasn’t in his voice. Egg’s brother, Devon Egg, told the B.A.R. that after getting the answering machine once, he called back and talked to a man who said that his brother was walking his dog and would call right back. No one called back. Police said that they got calls from neighbors in late July and took a missing persons report from Egg’s sister August 7. They went by the home twice in July and again on August 7. Each time, officers knocked on the door and left when there was no answer. Despite neighbors reporting suspicious activity at the home, the police never characterized Egg’s disappearance as suspicious and never attempted to enter the home. Neighbors said shortly after either the first or second time police knocked on the door, there were signs that someone was frantically cleaning the home with bleach. Soapsuds could be seen leaking from the front of the house and the front door was painted. A notice posted last week on See page 14 >>

Oakland Pride supporters installed temporary rainbow crosswalks Sunday, September 2, at the site of the festival at 20th and Broadway. From left, Niko Durr, Ari Curry, Rami KD, Lindha Axelssom, and Tia Cutting help paint the crosswalks.

by Alex Madison

akland Pride is back Sunday, September 9, with new additions and a focus on the challenges the LGBT community faces in the East Bay. The theme of the ninth annual Oakland Pride festival and fifth annual parade is “Love.

Community. Resistance.” “It starts with love. It allows us to be out and proud to be who we are,” said Carlos Uribe, cochair of the Oakland Pride board, in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “Community holds us together and allows us to move forward. Resistance is important, including resisting the LGBTQ community being pushed out

of Oakland and San Francisco because housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable.” The parade steps off at 11 a.m. at Broadway and 14th streets in Oakland and ends at Broadway and 20th streets, the main entrance of the festival. The festival goes from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. See page 2 >> Jane Philomen Cleland

SFO reveals Milk terminal plans by Matthew S. Bajko

fficials at San Francisco International Airport are planning to mount a crowd-sourced exhibit about the late gay Supervisor Harvey Milk inside the terminal named in his honor. It is just one of the elements the city’s airport is planning for the under renovation Terminal 1, which was renamed Harvey B. Milk Terminal by the supervisors and former mayor Mark Farrell this spring. Also to be installed will be new signage and artwork throughout the terminal, as well as a temporary display on a construction wall in the terminal’s Boarding Area B. Next July, airport officials expect to unveil the temporary exhibit, which is slated to remain until May 2021. The permanent exhibit, signage, and several art pieces would be unveiled in February 2020, according to the airport’s current timeline. The last of the artwork featuring Milk would be unveiled in November 2022 when the full terminal is slated to open. The first of SFO’s four terminals, Terminal 1 is undergoing a $2.4 billion remodel that is being rolled out in stages. The city’s arts commission in early August voted in support of the airport’s plans to honor Milk and present his life story inside the terminal. An owner of a camera store on Castro Street, Milk helped organize the neighborhood’s new LGBT residents into a potent political force that in November 1977 led to his

Courtesy SFO

A rendering of the Central Inglenook in the new Terminal 1 shows a wall of photos of Harvey Milk, as well as larger images.

election to a supervisor seat. The first out LGBT person to hold public office in the city, as well as California, Milk was killed inside City Hall the morning of November 27, 1978 by disgruntled former supervisor Dan White, who also fatally shot then-mayor George Moscone. In 2013, gay former supervisor David Campos had proposed naming the entire airport after Milk. Due to a lack of support, Campos worked out a deal with the late mayor Ed Lee to instead name one of the airport’s terminals

in honor of Milk. An advisory panel last year selected Terminal 1 as the best choice, leading to city leaders approving the selection earlier this year. The legislation called for the city’s arts commission to approve the designs of the various elements of the terminal renaming. The proposed signage is to be submitted to City Hall for final approval by December. According to the plans approved last month See page 14 >>

{ FIRST OF THREE SECTIONS }

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<< Community News

2 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 6-12, 2018

Annual HIV report highlights disparities, declining numbers Assisted Reproduction • Surrogacy • Prenups Divorce • Custody • Parentage Disputes

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he San Francisco Department of Public Health presented its latest HIV epidemiology report to the Health Commission Tuesday, September 4, showing that while the number of new infections continues to decline, African-Americans and homeless people have persistently higher infection rates and poorer outcomes. The DPH reported 221 new HIV diagnoses in 2017, the lowest number since the start of the epidemic. This represents a 5 percent decline from 2016, following two years of steeper drops of around 15 percent. The latest findings indicate that San Francisco is making progress toward achieving the goals of its Getting to Zero initiative: zero new infections, zero deaths due to HIV/AIDS, and zero stigma against people living with HIV. “While new infections are still dropping, the pace of decline is slowing, which will make it harder to get all the way to zero unless we continue to innovate with new programs to reach those populations where infections continue to occur,” Susan Scheer, Ph.D., director of the DPH’s HIV Epidemiology Section, told the Bay Area Reporter. Sixty percent of people with newly diagnosed HIV in 2017 were men who have sex with men. People who inject drugs (including gay and bisexual men) accounted for 25 percent of new diagnoses, and heterosexual men and women accounted for 6 percent. The decade-long decline in new infections among people who inject drugs has leveled off and may be starting to increase slightly, according to Scheer. Fourteen percent of newly diagnosed people were homeless. White people accounted for the largest proportion of new HIV diagnoses (38 percent), followed by Latinos (25 percent), African-Americans (17 percent), and Asians (13 percent). However, based on their small share of the city’s population, AfricanAmericans have the highest rate of new infections (116 per 100,000 people, compared with 39 per 100,000 for white men). New diagnoses continued to decline among white, Latino, and Asian people, but showed a slight uptick among black people. Women represent a small fraction of new diagnoses in San Francisco (12 percent), but the diagnosis rate is about four times higher for black women compared with white, Latina, and Asian women. In fact, the rate for black women (43 per 100,000) slightly exceeds the rate for white men. Two percent of newly diagnosed people were trans women; data are insufficient for trans men. No infants or children have been diagnosed with HIV since 2005. At the end of 2017, there were 15,952 people living with HIV who were San Francisco residents at the

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Oakland Pride

From page 1

New this year is a pancake breakfast with Oakland Firefighters IAFF Local 55 at 9 a.m. at Frank Ogawa Plaza, at Broadway and 14th streets. For $10 it’s all you can eat eggs, pancakes, and sausages with mimosas available for purchase. Proceeds go to Oakland Pride. (For $12, you can get pancakes and non-alcoholic beverages.) Uribe said the event is being held in hopes of encouraging more people to come out and watch the parade after they enjoy breakfast. The parade will have over 80

Liz Highleyman

Health department officials Tracey Packer, left, Dr. Susan Philip, Nikole Trainor, Dr. Susan Buchbinder, and Susan Scheer, Ph.D., spoke about the city’s new HIV surveillance report at Tuesday’s Health Commission meeting.

time of diagnosis – about 60 percent of whom are still living in the city – along with about 3,000 who were diagnosed elsewhere and now live here. About three-quarters of people living with HIV are gay and bisexual men. As survival improves, their average age is rising. Sixty-five percent of HIV-positive people in the city are now over age 50, and 28 percent are over 60. The number of deaths among people with HIV remains roughly level, at 244, and may be rising slightly, Scheer said. For the past two years, deaths have barely exceeded new infections. But mortality due to HIV-related causes continues to fall, accounting for 38 percent of deaths among HIVpositive people. The leading causes of death are now non-AIDS cancers (15 percent), heart disease (11 percent) and accidents, most of which are drug overdoses (8 percent).

Improvements in care

San Francisco continues to do better than the country as a whole when it comes to helping people with HIV get tested and treated in a timely manner. Overall, 94 percent of people with HIV in San Francisco are aware of their status, showing the effectiveness of frequent and targeted testing, Scheer said. The number of people diagnosed late, around the time they develop AIDS, continues to fall and is now at 11 percent. Once diagnosed, people with HIV are starting antiretroviral treatment and achieving undetectable viral load faster, which reduces disease progression and lowers the risk of transmitting the virus to others. The latest figures show that 83 percent are linked to care within a month of diagnosis, 71 percent remain in care for three to nine months, and 85 percent achieve viral suppression within a year of diagnosis. Scheer explained that some people do not come back for a subsequent care visit within a year, and therefore are not counted as

contingents, including groups protesting Costa-Hawkins, a California law that limits rent control, and support for Proposition 10, the November ballot measure that would repeal it. It’s important that this year’s Pride bring awareness to the gentrification of the area and the displacement of the LGBT community, particularly of queer and trans people of color, Uribe said.

Pride on TV

For the first time, the parade will be televised. Local broadcaster KOFY TV20 will air coverage of the parade Sunday, September 16, at 7 p.m. on

being retained in care, but they stay on treatment and maintain undetectable viral load. The time from diagnosis to achieving viral suppression has fallen from 145 days in 2013 to just 66 days. However, the report shows some notable disparities. Looking at all people living with HIV (not just those newly diagnosed), 74 percent have undetectable viral load. But this falls to 67 percent for people who inject drugs and all the way down to 32 percent for homeless people. Dr. Susan Buchbinder, Tracey Packer, Nikole Trainor, and Dr. Susan Philip from DPH described various initiatives aimed at reaching groups that have more new infections, poorer access to care, and lower rates of viral suppression, emphasizing the importance of integrating efforts to fight HIV, hepatitis C, and sexually transmitted diseases. As recently reported in the B.A.R., rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia are rising both locally and nationwide, with a smaller increase in early syphilis. Surveys of gay men in San Francisco show that consistent condom use has been declining for more than a decade, and serosorting dropped off precipitously around the time PrEP came into widespread use, according to Philip. There are currently no biomedical approaches like vaccines or PrEP to prevent these STDs, but the city is prepared to test such methods if they are developed and receive funding, she added. Addressing the Getting to Zero goal of reducing stigma, Buchbinder noted that a growing body of evidence shows that people on treatment with fully suppressed viral load do not transmit HIV, supporting the “undetectable equals untransmittable” message. “It’s very important to get the word out. It’s an important anti-stigma message and it’s also important for decriminalization campaigns,” she said, referring to laws that make it a crime to expose someone to HIV. t

cable channel 713. The program, hosted by Amber Todd, will air again on September 23, also at 7. There are three grand marshals who will be honored in the parade this year; Brendalynn Goodall, vice president of the East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club, is the legacy grand marshal; Robbie Clark, an Oakland activist and deputy director of Black Futures Lab, is the community grand marshal; and Ivan Garcia is the youth grand marshal. Other contingents include Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center, See page 15 >>

<< Open Forum

t SFPD’s troubling response in Egg case

4 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 6-12, 2018

Volume 48, Number 36 September 6-12, 2018 www.ebar.com PUBLISHER Michael M. Yamashita Thomas E. Horn, Publisher Emeritus (2013) Publisher (2003 – 2013) Bob Ross, Founder (1971 – 2003) NEWS EDITOR Cynthia Laird ARTS EDITOR Roberto Friedman BARTAB EDITOR & EVENTS LISTINGS EDITOR Jim Provenzano ASSISTANT EDITORS Matthew S. Bajko • Alex Madison CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ray Aguilera • Tavo Amador • Race Bannon Erin Blackwell • Roger Brigham Brian Bromberger • Victoria A. Brownworth Brent Calderwood • Philip Campbell Heather Cassell • Belo Cipriani • Dan Renzi Christina DiEdoardo • Richard Dodds Michael Flanagan • Jim Gladstone David Guarino • Liz Highleyman Brandon Judell • John F. Karr • Lisa Keen Matthew Kennedy • Joshua Klipp David Lamble • Max Leger Michael McDonagh • Juanita MORE! David-Elijah Nahmod • Paul Parish Sean Piverger • Lois Pearlman Tim Pfaff • Jim Piechota • Bob Roehr Adam Sandel • Jason Serinus • Gregg Shapiro Gwendolyn Smith • Tony Taylor • Sari Staver Jim Stewart • Sean Timberlake • Andre Torrez Ronn Vigh • Charlie Wagner • Ed Walsh Cornelius Washington • Sura Wood ART DIRECTION Max Leger PRODUCTION/DESIGN Ernesto Sopprani PHOTOGRAPHERS Jane Philomen Cleland • FBFE Rick Gerharter • Gareth Gooch Jose Guzman-Colon • Rudy K. Lawidjaja Georg Lester • Dan Lloyd • Jo-Lynn Otto Rich Stadtmiller • Kelly Sullivan • Fred Rowe Steven Underhil • Dallis Willard • Bill Wilson ILLUSTRATORS & CARTOONISTS Paul Berge • Christine Smith ADVERTISING/ADMINISTRATION Colleen Small Bogitini VICE PRESIDENT OF ADVERTISING Scott Wazlowski – 415.829.8937 NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE Rivendell Media – 212.242.6863

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

or 18 years, law enforcement has told the public, “If you see something, say something.” But what if concerned friends and family of a missing gay man did see something – unusual activity at his home – and did say something – called police, filed a missing persons report – and nothing happened for months? Unfortunately, this appears to have occurred in the case of Brian Egg, 65, who is officially reported as missing. Subsequently, a headless torso was found in a fish tank in his South of Market home a couple of weeks ago. In fact, San Francisco police declined to return messages from our reporter for days, and only issued a bland statement to the media after the San Francisco Chronicle inquired about the case. After the Chronicle and Bay Area Reporter published articles about it last Tuesday, SFPD brass finally held a news conference and asked for help from the public. Here’s the problem: for weeks the public had been contacting police and gossip about Egg’s disappearance had been percolating on the social media site Nextdoor. Egg, a popular former bartender at the Stud, hasn’t been seen since late May or June. Police officials tried to defend their (in)action at the news conference. They cited three instances in which officers went to Egg’s home, but since no one answered the door, they left. They cited his outgoing answering machine message as evidence that Egg was not in danger, even though his brother told the B.A.R. that Egg didn’t have an answering machine. Investigations Bureau Commander Greg McEachern said that police weren’t aware of that information. It is troubling that San Francisco police were apparently duped by an answering machine; after all, an outgoing message isn’t proof someone is alive. Egg’s brother told the B.A.R. that the man’s voice on the machine wasn’t even his brother’s. The police waited too long to enter his home. At this point, it’s been almost four months since anyone has seen Egg, giving suspects ample opportunity to tamper with,

Ed Walsh

San Francisco Police Department Investigations Bureau Commander Greg McEachern speaks to reporters at an August 28 news conference.

or destroy, evidence. Two men were arrested in connection with Egg’s disappearance, but were released when the San Francisco District Attorney’s office dropped the charges, pending further investigation. Later, one of the men was detained in Alameda County on a parole violation. The DA’s office demands overwhelming evidence to prosecute a case, but there appears to be little evidence and the torso is badly decomposed. The head and hands are missing. Gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the chair of the board’s public safety committee, must hold a hearing about the mistakes made by police in this case and call department officials to testify. It appears that officers did not take Egg’s friends’ concerns seriously, and the supervisors need to know why that happened. Likewise, the Police Commission should question department officials about the obvious shortcomings that were

revealed. A search warrant isn’t required for police to do a wellness check if there is a reasonable suspicion that a person is deceased or in danger. We cannot fathom why they didn’t use common sense and waited so long to enter Egg’s home. We also need to hear from police Chief William Scott and how he will institute changes so that similar mistakes are not repeated. We hope that the SFPD did not give low priority to this case because Egg is a gay man. But it is disturbing that officers dropped the ball when neighbors begged the cops to keep checking. There are lots of LGBT seniors living alone in the city. Several years ago, the San Francisco LGBT Aging Policy Task Force issued its report that pointed to isolation and how that could pose a risk for LGBT seniors who live alone. It’s important for LGBT seniors to have friends or social groups for their safety and well-being, yet, as we see in the Egg case, that wasn’t enough to spur police to thoroughly check his home when neighbors became increasingly concerned.t

Zhao unfit to serve on SF school board by Marilyn Murrillo

e need members on the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Trustees who are effective leaders dedicated to the safety and education of all students. This November, voters will elect three new trustees. One candidate, Josephine Zhao, has a history of virulent transphobic policy positions. Specifically, Zhao has dehumanized transgender people in public statements by saying that allowing transgender students to access the restroom according to the gender they identify with would lead to “rape” in schools. This is exactly why Zhao is unfit to serve as a trustee. Furthermore, transgender students deserve school board trustees that are 100 percent committed to the safety and education of all students. Zhao has apologized. Her apology is very late and comes after she was publicly called out for not apologizing; this is further evidence of her lack of fitness to serve as an elected official. Furthermore, we should question the judgment of any elected officials who continue to endorse this transphobic candidate for SFUSD school board. The fact that Zhao is an immigrant is not germane to the issue of transphobia because San Francisco is a city that welcomes immigrants. San Francisco does not, and should not, welcome transphobic candidates for elected office. Transphobic hate speech, discrimination, and harassment is harmful to the mental health of transgender students and can lead to attempted suicide. For example, 46.5 percent of respondents to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey of 2008-2009 admitted to having attempted suicide. However, only 4.6 percent of the general

School board candidate Josephine Zhao

U.S. population in 2006 reported attempted suicide. The National Transgender Discrimination Survey revealed a statistical significance associated with those denied restroom access and attempted suicide and “suggests that there may be a distinct relationship between the stress of not being able to use bathrooms ... and one’s mental health.”1 According to Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, there are many reasons why individuals attempt suicide and “If you make people’s lives miserable, they’re more likely to have a mental health reaction to that.”2 We just can’t trust Zhao to protect transgender students or to advocate for transgender students’ needs and concerns based on Zhao’s penchant for transphobic hate speech. What San Francisco needs is candidates

for elected office that are well prepared for the increasing challenges that face SFUSD’s diverse student body. Zhao has demonstrated that she is willing to demonize transgender students while advocating for school policies and she has demonstrated that she is not prepared to be an effective leader on the SFUSD Board of Trustees. Furthermore, according to JoAnn Bartoletti, chair of the National Policy Board for Educational Administration and executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, “Schools need effective leaders now more than ever to take on the challenges of educating students for success in the 21st century ... They stress the importance of both academic rigor as well as the support and care required for each student to excel.”3 How can we trust Zhao to support and care for SFUSD transgender students, given her history of hate speech against transgender students?t Sources: (1) Kutner, M. (05/01/16). Denying Transgender People Bathroom Access is Linked to Suicide. U.S. Newsweek. Retrieved August 20, 2018 from https://www.newsweek. com/transgender-bathroom-law-studysuicide-454185. (2) Kutner, M. (05/01/16). Denying Transgender People Bathroom Access is Linked to Suicide. U.S. Newsweek. Retrieved August 20, 2018 from https://www.newsweek. com/transgender-bathroom-law-studysuicide-454185. (3) National Policy Board for Educational Administration. Retrieved March 20, 2018 from http://npbea.org/. Marilyn Murrillo, M.A., a transgender woman, is a substitute teacher.

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<< International News

6 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 6-12, 2018

Outcry after Malaysia canes two lesbians by Heather Cassell

GBT and human rights activists around the world have denounced Malaysia for the September 3 caning of two lesbians under Sharia law. On Monday morning, an estimated 100 onlookers watched as the two unidentified women, reported to be 22 and 32 years old, were struck six times each with a rattan cane in front of the Sharia High Court in Kuala Terengganu, the capital city of Terengganu. It is the first time that women have

been publicly punished for being caught in a consensual same-sex relationship, according to experts. The women were also fined an equivalent of $800 each. The caning had been delayed a week due to “technical difficulties,” officials told reporters. The women were caught attempting to have sex in a car in April. They were sentenced for having “sexual relations between women,” known as musahaqah, and caned for sodomy, known as liwat, by the high court, which

oversees religious and family matters in the Muslim-majority country. Under the law, same-sex relationships between women are punishable by up to three years in prison. The federal anti-sodomy law has been applied only seven times since 1938, according to Human Rights Watch. Four of those times were against former opposition political leader Anwar Ibrahim, who was accused, and served time, for alleged homosexuality. Anwar was released from prison and

pardoned by the king of Malaysia in May, which allows him to run for political office again. He has aligned himself with former opponent Mahathir Mohamad, now the prime minister. This potentially places him in a position to succeed Mahathir, reported the New York Times. Anwar has remained silent regarding the women’s punishment. According to the Star newspaper,

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the older woman didn’t wince at the blows. However, the younger woman began to sob when she was struck. Representatives of the Terengganu government and Sharia law advocates told the Times that the two women were fully clothed when the caning occurred and the punishment wasn’t meant to harm them. The purpose of the punishment was to serve as an example to others under Islamic law. Musa Awang, president of the Syariah Lawyers Association of Malaysia, defended authorities’ actions. “The Sharia way of caning is not brutal and oppressive, as claimed by certain quarters,” said Musa, reported the Times.

Outcry

Advocates from Malaysian LGBT and women’s groups, and legal and mental health experts, decried Monday’s caning. Representatives of the organizations all called for an end to corporal punishment in Malaysia, which has experienced an increase in attacks against its LGBT community and other groups in recent years. “Caning is a form of torture, and to inflict this brutal punishment publicly on two people for engaging in consensual, same-sex relations sends Malaysia back to the Dark Ages,” Gwen Lee, interim executive director for Amnesty International Malaysia, said in a statement Monday from the organization. “Caning is a dreadful reminder of the depth of discrimination LGBTI people face in the country and a sign that the new government condones the use of inhumane and degrading punishments, much like its predecessor,” Lee added. Representatives of the Malaysian Bar stated that the country shouldn’t tolerate caning and called for a repeal of all forms of corporal punishment. “It is a harsh and barbaric form of punishment that causes harmful and long-lasting psychological effects and has no place in a modern and compassionate society such as ours,” said George Varughese, the president of the legal association in a statement. Others called on halting attacks on Malaysia’s LGBT community and repealing laws criminalizing homosexuality. “We need to stop targeting the LGBT community,” Charles Santiago, a lawmaker who is part of the governing coalition, said in a statement, reported the Times.t Got international LGBT news tips? Call or send them to Heather Cassell at Skype: heather.cassell or oitwnews@gmail.com.

EPA, via Shutterstock

Two women were each caned six times after pleading guilty to homosexual activity at the Sharia High Court in the state of Terengganu, Malaysia, on Monday.

Correction

rscbayarea.com | 888-DRS-4-IVF

The August 30 article “SF seeks new plan to combat rise in STDs” should have stated there are vaccines to prevent hepatitis A and hep B. There is currently no vaccine for hep C, though research is ongoing to develop one. The online version has been corrected.

Politics >>

September 6-12, 2018 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 7

EQCA endorses East Bay candidates by Matthew S. Bajko

will become the first transgender man to hold public office in California when he is sworn in later this year. “California is ready for a ‘rainbow wave’ of openly LGBTQ leaders to claim their seat at the table this year and fight for full equality at all levels of government,” stated Equality California Executive Director Rick Zbur.

he state’s main LGBT advocacy group has endorsed two out candidates running in the East Bay this November, as well as a queer woman running to represent San Francisco on the board that oversees the regional BART transit agency. Equality California will only consider endorsing LGBT candidates seeking local offices, unlike with state and federal races where it does endorse straight candidates supportive of LGBT rights. Lesbian Berkeley City Councilwoman Lori Droste secured EQCA’s support in her bid for re-election to a second four-year term. One of two out council members, Droste holds the District 8 seat and lives with her wife, Carrie, and their two young children, Simon and Cora, in the city’s Elmwood district. Running against her are planning commissioner and attorney Mary Kay Lacey, green transportation designer Russ Tilleman, and Alfred Twu, a designer and artist who is nonbinary. The East Bay Stonewall Democrats, the LGBT political club for Alameda County, last month early endorsed Droste in the race. EQCA also announced August 28 that it had endorsed Cesar Zepeda in his second campaign for a seat on the Richmond City Council. In 2016 he lost his bid to become the first out gay man elected to his city’s council and only its second LGBT member, after lesbian Councilwoman Jovanka Beckles, who is running in November for the Assembly District 15 seat. Her council term expires in January, and Beckles’ seat is the only one of the three on the November ballot that is open. The other two incumbents are seeking re-election to their council seats, which are voted on citywide, and there are 11 other candidates in the race. A Mexican immigrant, Zepeda has called the East Bay city home since he was 8 years old. A homeowner and neighborhood leader in Richmond’s Hilltop district, Zepeda last year helped launch the Lambda Democratic Club of Contra Costa County LGBT political group. In the race for the District 8 seat on the BART board, EQCA endorsed Janice Li, a queer bicycle advocate. She is vying to succeed the current officeholder, Nick Josefowitz, who is running for San Francisco supervisor in District 2. William Walker, a gay man who was a student trustee on the college board but lost his bid for an elected seat on the body, is also seeking the BART seat, which includes three of the city’s BART stations at Embarcadero, Montgomery, and Balboa Park. The other candidates are Jonathan Lyens, who is blind and works at the San Francisco Department of Public Health; Melanie Nutter, a former head of the San Francisco Department of the Environment; Brian J. Larkin, who lost a 2016 bid for the city’s District 1 supervisor seat; and Eva I. Chao. The Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club is backing Li in the race, while Lyens secured the endorsement of the San Francisco Democratic Party. No candidate was able to secure the support of the more moderate Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club. There are already two out members on the nine-person BART board: gay District 9 Director Bevan Dufty of San Francisco and lesbian District 3 Director

Injury besets gay school board candidate

Richmond City Council candidate Cesar Zepeda

Rebecca Saltzman, whose district includes parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Last week, EQCA endorsed 10 openly LGBTQ candidates running for local office around the state. The list included Jason Galisatus, a gay man running to be the first out council person in Redwood City, and Cabrillo College Board of Trustees appointee Adam Spickler, who ran unopposed for the Santa Cruz seat and

Ray Mueller, a gay man running for a seat on the Alum Rock Union School District board in San Jose, has had his campaign plans upended by a shoulder injury. After marching in the Silicon Valley Pride parade Sunday, August 26, Mueller and his son were leaving the festivities when he took a misstep and stumbled off the sidewalk. He fell and broke his right shoulder. He spent the night being treated at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Express Care and was put on bed rest for a week. While he is not

suspending his campaign due to the injury, Mueller is cutting back on his in-person voter outreach efforts. “It would take more than a busted shoulder to get me out of this race, and I’m almost certain there’s nothing that would hold me back. Our son’s schools are that important to me,” Mueller told the Bay Area Reporter. “I’m on rest for now, out of work for the week, but I will be back out on the doors soon, but knocking with my left hand. This is going to keep me off the doors a bit, so the importance of mail has increased, and I’ll be making lots of calls too.” To help him bolster his ability to reach voters by mail, Mueller asked his supporters last week to contribute to his campaign. He is planning to hit the campaign trail again with a “day of action” on September 22, kicking off with a volunteer rally that morning and an afternoon fundraiser hosted by a number of his LGBT supporters.

Lesbian lobbyist joins SF firm’s Sacramento office

Alice Kessler, a longtime lobbyist for LGBT issues in the state Capitol, is now partner in the Sacramento office of Lighthouse Public Affairs, which was started in San Francisco. As the B.A.R. first reported on its website Monday night, Kessler, 40, a lesbian mom of a 6-yearold daughter, started her new job Tuesday, September 4. She left the Sacramento-based legislative and regulatory advocacy firm DiMare, Brown, Hicks & Kessler, where she had been a managing partner. EQCA’s outside legislative director the last six years, Kessler will continue to serve in that role now that she is with Lighthouse. t Political Notes, the notebook’s online companion, will return Monday, September 10. Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes. Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 8298836 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar. com.

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<< Elections 2018

8 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 6-12, 2018

Out candidates seek Oakland council seats by Matthew S. Bajko

trio of out candidates is seeking election in November to seats on the Oakland City Council, including a pair of political newcomers inspired to run for office following the election of President Donald Trump two years ago. The current political climate prompted lesbians Maria L. “Marlo” Rodriguez and Pamela Harris, who also identifies as bisexual, to mount council bids this fall. Meanwhile, Oakland City Councilman Abel Guillén, who identifies as two spirit, is seeking re-election to his District 2 seat. Guillén is one of two out members on the Oakland council, along with lesbian at-large City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan. Her current term doesn’t expire until early 2021. Of the three council candidates, Rodriguez and Harris face particularly tough campaigns as they seek elected office for the first time. Harris is running in a crowded field for the open District 4 seat, while Rodriguez is trying to oust controversial District 6 Councilwoman Desley Brooks from office. In early April, Councilwoman Annie Campbell Washington announced she would not seek re-election to her District 4 seat, citing the “toxic” tone at City Hall as the reason. Mayor Libby Schaaf, who had held the District 4 council seat and is up for reelection this fall, laid the blame for the dysfunction on Brooks, who remains popular in her district despite the various political and legal controversies she has weathered. The District 4 seat covers the Oakland Hills neighborhoods off Highway 13. Seven people – three women and four men – qualified for the race to succeed Campbell Washington. The councilwoman and mayor have endorsed Oakland native Charlie Michelson, who was raised by his mom, a lesbian who came out after divorcing his father. A shipping company executive, he lives with his female partner, Morgan, and their three children in the Thornhill neighborhood. Also running are Kaplan’s chief of staff Sheng Thao, a single mother endorsed by her boss; Joseph E.

Jane Philomen Cleland

Courtesy Rodriguez for City Council campaign

Oakland City Council candidate Pamela Harris

Oakland City Council candidate Maria L. “Marlo” Rodriguez

Oakland City Councilman Abel Guillén

Simmons, senior pastor of Greater St. Paul Church; Nayeli Maxson, executive director of the Alliance for Community Development; Joe Tanios, a city public works employee and union leader; and Francis “Matt” Hummel, who ran against Kaplan in 2016. Harris has Schaaf’s second choice endorsement in the race, as Oakland uses ranked-choice voting to elect council members. But she has yet to team up with any of the other candidates to run a coordinated campaign asking voters to rank them on their ballot. A nonprofit finance professional and documentary filmmaker, Harris, 47, grew up in Altadena, outside Pasadena. She earned a B.A. from Vassar College, the first in her family to graduate from college. She returned to California to care for her mother when she was diagnosed with cancer. Nearly two decades ago she moved to Oakland after meeting her now wife, the novelist and San Francisco State University professor Carolina De Robertis. The couple moved to the Upper Dimond neighborhood nine years ago with their two children and Harris’ mother. It was her youngest son’s reaction to Trump’s election that led her to become more politically engaged. “After the last election, my son – I think he was 7 at the time – he woke up and at the top of his lungs said, ‘I am not coming down and stepping foot in a country where that man is president.’ I had to convince him to come down, and really what I was saying to him was to not let that person

stop us,” recalled Harris, a former Fulbright grantee to Uruguay. A former board member of the LGBT-focused East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club, Harris was elected a delegate to the California Democratic Party from her Assembly District in January last year. The top-vote getter in that race, Harris hopes her no-nonsense style will connect with voters in the council district. “People really want someone who is plainspoken and no BS,” said Harris, who looked to former Uruguay president Jose Mujica for inspiration. “Seeing an unapologetic progressive, plainspoken man at the helm nationally was really formative for me.” While the district represents some of the city’s more conservative neighborhoods, Harris is confident her message will nonetheless resonate. She is a champion of ensuring housing is seen as a human right, wants developers to set aside affordable units on-site when building market-rate housing projects, and believes the city can be doing more to house the homeless by utilizing public land and collaborating more closely with local churches. “I think people are changing the way they think about leadership and about the articulation of the issues,” said Harris. “I think people are hungry for something fresh and unencumbered and uncompromised, and that is what I bring.”

believes that residents of East Oakland are ready for a change in their council person. But most are afraid to say so publicly due to the influence that Brooks wields, Rodriguez told the Bay Area Reporter in a recent interview. “I think voters feel intimidated to support someone other than the incumbent,” said Rodriguez, who lives with her partner, Katherine Webb, a server at a Jack London Square restaurant. Raised in New Orleans, Rodriguez graduated Southeastern Louisiana University with a nursing degree in 1990. She came to the Bay Area as a traveling nurse in 2002 and had been living in San Francisco when Hurricane Katrina devastated her hometown in 2005. Her home in the Crescent City was destroyed, as was her parents’ house. She returned for several months to help her family recover and repair her own home, then came back to her job in California. She became active with a number of local organizations, including the East Bay Women’s Political Alliance and the Stonewall LGBT political club. But it wasn’t until after Trump’s election that she thought about running for public office. “I think, like a lot of people, after the lies of Trump, people are frustrated and looking at politicians who are not enacting policies that benefit people,” Rodriguez said. “People here in Oakland, in our community, are being left behind.” Some of the ideas she is promoting as a council candidate include

East Oakland

Rodriguez, 52, a registered nurse at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, also

attracting a full service grocery store to the district, seeking a professional women’s basketball team to replace the Golden State Warriors when they move to San Francisco, and allowing artists to move into vacant storefronts in the district’s commercial corridors. In terms of addressing Oakland’s growing housing crisis, Rodriguez thinks the city should streamline projects that include affordable units or senior housing. As for developments that only include market-rate housing, she believes they should pay a fine. Rodriguez is one of four challengers to Brooks this year. The others are Natasha Middleton, a management analyst at the Alameda County Probation Department; business owner Loren M. Taylor; and foster youth counselor Mya Whitaker. While she expects Brooks will be re-elected, Rodriguez plans to remain active no matter the outcome of the council race. “I would stay committed to seeing these issues are paid attention to,” she told the B.A.R. The Stonewall club will vote on endorsing in both women’s races at its meeting September 13. To clinch its support, a candidate needs at least 60 percent of the vote.

Councilman seeks second term

Guillén, 43, is seeking another fouryear term as the councilman for District 2, which includes Chinatown, Grand Lake, San Antonio, and Trestle Glen. He is facing a strong challenge from Nikki Fortunato Bas, who stepped down last month as executive director of the Partnership for Working Families. Like Rodriguez, she is the daughter of immigrants from the Philippines and vying to be Oakland’s first Filipina councilwoman. Also in the race is Donte Kenzie Smith, one of the black men reported to police by a white woman for having a barbecue at Lake Merritt in the spring. The East Bay Stonewall Democrats last month early endorsed Guillén, who has Schaaf’s support. See page 15 >>

Prop C supporters kick off campaign in Castro by David-Elijah Nahmod

eeking to galvanize support for Proposition C, which would raise taxes on big corporations in San Francisco to fund homeless services and supportive housing, about 100 people rallied and knocked on doors in the Castro last weekend. If passed, Prop C will levy a half percent in gross receipts tax on corporate revenues over $50 million. According to supporters, if passed, Prop C will generate $300 million per year to help tackle the housing affordability and homelessness crisis. The money would, supporters say, create 4,000 affordable homes for low-income San Franciscans, fund 1,000 new shelter beds to more people off the street and indoors, fund mental health and substance abuse treatment, and add more public restrooms, jobs for people to help keep the city clean, and create thousands of rent subsidies to help people stay in their homes. The coalition in support of Prop C has been named Our City, Our Home. Some attendees at the September 1 rally also expressed support for California Proposition 10, also on the November ballot, which would repeal the CostaHawkins Act that puts limits on how cities can implement rent control measures. A number of organizations are

Rick Gerharter

Lesbian former health commissioner Roma Guy spoke in favor of Proposition C, a comprehensive homeless and housing measure, at a campaign kickoff in the Castro September 1.

taking part in the Yes on C campaign, including the Coalition on Homelessness, Q Foundation, Eviction Defense Collaborative, Democratic Socialists of America, League of Pissed Off Voters, Chinatown Community Development Center, and the Harvey Milk and Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic clubs, among others. Also attending the rally was gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents the Castro; gay former District 8 Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who’s now on the BART board; lesbian former health commissioner Roma Guy; and gay former state

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano. “Homelessness is my top priority,” Mandelman said. “The bottom line is that we do not have the housing and shelters we need to get very sick people off our streets. Proposition C is a once-in-alifetime opportunity to give us the resources to address this problem.” Mandelman noted that opponents feel that Prop C will drive businesses out of the city. “The real threat to economic activity are the terrible conditions in our public spaces,” he said. Jodi Schwartz, a queer woman who’s executive director of the Lavender Youth Recreation and

Information Center, noted that six out of every 10 young people who come through LYRIC’s doors are homeless or unstably housed. “As a society, we continue to fail in our responsibilities to provide a safe and loving community for queer and trans youth along their path to adulthood,” Schwartz said. “The result is often homelessness. Forty-nine percent of San Francisco’s homeless youth identify as LGBTQQ.” “Props C and 10 will give us permanent solutions to quality of life issues affecting all of us who live and move about in this great city by the bay,” added gay longtime activist Ken Jones. “We can do better. We must do better. Props C and 10 begins to make full participation in San Francisco life, hope, and opportunity a reality for us all; and, not just for those who are with us now, but for all those who will walk these paths in the future.” After the rally the crowd dispersed to canvass the neighborhood, knocking on doors to urge people to vote in support of Prop C. There will also be joint phone banking co-organized by the Milk and Alice clubs. “I’m thrilled that Alice and Milk have come together in unity to address the crisis,” Gina Simi, a lesbian who co-chairs the Alice club, told the Bay Area Reporter. “We, as a city, are better than this and we must do better.”

Honey Mahogany, a queer, gender-nonconforming co-president of the Milk club, also spoke to the B.A.R. “There’s no reason why we can’t get this passed with more than 50 percent plus one of the vote,” Mahogany said. “When we take care of the poorest, the sickest, the most vulnerable, everyone does better.” Cynthia Crews-Pollock, a queer woman, attended the rally and went out to canvass. “I am here because this is the first real chance San Francisco has to take care of our own and to prevent homelessness, to keep people housed, and to create a city that loves people back,” Crews-Pollock said. Brian Basinger, executive director of the Q Foundation, said that he was pleased with Saturday’s turnout. “Thirteen and a half percent of the HIV community is homeless,” Basinger wrote in an email. “Twenty-one percent of the transgender community is homeless, 50 percent of homeless youth are LGBTQ. We can end homelessness in the trans, HIV, and LGBTQ youth communities. If we all pull together and demand change, we can pass Prop C to build more affordable housing accessible to the lowest income San Franciscans than has been built in the past 30 years.” For more information, visit http://www.ourcityourhomesf. org.t

National News>>

September 6-12, 2018 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 9

Chaos surrounds Kavanaugh at confirmation hearing by Lisa Keen

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Judge Brett Kavanaugh appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday for his confirmation hearing.

week’s hearing, the confirmation process for Kavanaugh, a federal judge, had the feel of a fast train charging toward the U.S. Supreme Court with only a perfunctory stop at the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Republicans have the majority on the committee and are clearly ready to recommend Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the full Senate. The full Senate, with the appointment of Republican Jon Kyl (Arizona) to the seat left vacant by John McCain’s recent death, retains the Republican majority there. The Republican leadership has changed the rules to require only a simple majority to confirm a Supreme Court nominee. And Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has said the Senate could vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination by October 1, the beginning of the Supreme Court term. On Wednesday, Grassley even instructed Kavanaugh that it would be “inappropriate” for him to answer any questions from senators concerning his opinion on specific cases, and on Tuesday, Grassley ignored long-standing committee rules of procedure. When Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) quoted the rules that would require the chairman to entertain a Democrat motion to adjourn, Grassley essentially asked Blumenthal if he could quote a rule that prevented him from ignoring that rule. Later, when Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) pressed Kavanaugh

Just days before the start of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Windy City Times filed an expedited Freedom of Information Act request, seeking documents about Kavanaugh’s possible involvement in anti-LGBT activities by the Office of Special Counsel. The FOIA request is attempting to determine if Kavanaugh may have been involved in a move by then-Office of Special Counsel Director Scott Bloch to fire or re-locate employees in that office based on their sexual orientation. Lambda Legal on Tuesday also filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, seeking to compel OMB to produce the documents requested in three other FOIA requests submitted in mid-August. The lawsuit states that OMB has not responded to the requests, that the information sought in the FOIAs address an “urgent need to inform the public,” and asks the court to intervene. “Since Donald Trump and Senate Republicans refuse to disclose Judge Kavanaugh’s involvement with Bush-era scandals like the reassignment and termination of LGBT workers at the Office of Special Counsel during the time that Kavanaugh served as staff secretary in the Bush White House, we have taken matters into our own hands and have filed a FOIA request to learn the full scope of his involvement,” said Sasha J. Buchert, a staff attorney with Lambda Legal. “From what little we know about this notorious purge of LGBT workers, it is evident that senior members of the Bush White House – and likely Brett Kavanaugh – were at the center of See page 15 >>

Project Inform to honor former E.D. Van Gorder compiled by Cynthia Laird

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he board and staff of Project Inform will honor former Executive Director Dana Van Gorder at the agency’s Evening of Gratitude Wednesday, September 12, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Monroe Jazz Club, 473 Broadway Street in San Francisco. Van Gorder stepped down in late June from the agency that does advocacy work around HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. He led Project Inform for 10 years. The reception will include appetizers and beverages; guests must be 21 and over. Under Van Gorder’s leadership, Project Inform has been instrumental in its efforts to ensure that the Obama administration created and implemented an effective national HIV strategy, as well as the adoption and funding of the Getting to Zero plan in San Francisco. Since the election of President Donald Trump, federal efforts around HIV/AIDS has decreased; the president fired the remaining

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on when he knew about “warrantless surveillance” while Kavanaugh was in the White House, Grassley interrupted to announce a new rule to give Kavanaugh time to carefully consider his response to Leahy’s questions.

.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had a look of feigned nonchalance on his face as the first protester yelled out during the second day of his confirmation hearing. The nonchalance seemed strained as other protesters, including at least one lesbian, stood up to yell out their opposition to Kavanaugh’s confirmation. The disruptions Wednesday morning were a continuation of the interruptions on the first day of the hearing, Tuesday, September 4, when at least 70 demonstrators were escorted out of the hearing room, one by one, as they yelled out their concerns about President Donald Trump’s second nominee to the Supreme Court. The protesters became a visible and vocal metaphor for efforts by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee and other opponents of the nomination, including LGBT activists. They tried to slow the confirmation process, expressing concern that important information about Kavanaugh’s character and commitment to “equality for all” might be gleaned from various documents from his tenure as staff secretary to then-President George W. Bush. Kavanaugh voiced support for “women’s equality” and “equality for all” in his opening remarks and during questioning by senators on Wednesday. But when Kavanaugh enumerated the other categories of discrimination threatening equality for all, he came up with a truncated list: race and ethnicity. And the evidence for his support for women’s equality seems primarily based on his hiring of many women law clerks and calling on female students in class when he taught law. The Bush archive withheld many of the documents from Kavanaugh’s work in the Bush White House and, when it did release some documents, it did so only hours before Tuesday’s hearing. But despite the unprecedented protests at the first two days of this

Barry Schneider Attorney at Law

Rick Gerharter

Dana Van Gorder

members of the HIV/AIDS advisory council nearly a year ago after several resigned. The event is hosted. Space is limited and those wishing to attend should RSVP by September 7 at https://www. projectinform.org/ d a n a s - re cep t i on/. Donations in Van Gorder’s name are also being accepted.

Ahead of the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco next week, activists and others will take part in “Rise for Climate, Jobs, and Justice” Saturday, September 8. Marches will take place in cities nationwide, and locally, those interested can participate in San Francisco. Churches, labor unions, and others are expected to have contingents. In San Francisco, people can gather for meditation at 8 a.m. at Ferry Park, 100 Clay Street, followed by an interfaith service and Shabbat service at 9:15. From there, that action moves to Sue Bierman Park, at Washington and Drumm streets, where at 10 a.m. there will be music, celebration, and a choral flashmob. Marchers will then line up and proceed to Civic Center Plaza at 11. At noon, there will be a resource fair and street mural painting in Civic Center Plaza. Leaders from around the world will gather in the city September 12-14 for the climate summit. For more information on the September 8 march, visit https:// peoplesclimate.org/sept-8/. t

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<< Obituaries

10 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 6-12, 2018

Former Stompers Boots owner Mike McNamee dies Saving space beautifully!

by Cynthia Laird

ike McNamee, a gay leather man who owned the popular Stompers Boots in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood for many years, died August 23 at California Pacific Medical Center after a Call Now to brief illness, friends said. He was 79. Make an Appointment Mr. McNamee, who had enjoyed a with a Wallbed Expert! successful career as a television news photographer, bought the building that housed Stompers, at 323 10th 2 Convenient Locations Street, in 1989. At the time, it housed a 550 15th Street real estate office and then was the office Suite #2 of City Bike, a motorcycle magazine. San Francisco After City Bike moved, Mr. McNamee 415-854-7748 opened Stompers, as the neighboring leather store did not sell boots. He lived 2515 S. El Camino Real above the store, recalled his longtime San Mateo friend, Peter Haase. 650-264-9541 The store’s concept was based on Newly Designed Location Stompers Boots in New York City, Accessories and More From which had closed 15 years earlier, his friends, David King and Gayle Rubin, wrote in separate emails. Largest Selection of Murphy Wallbeds In Town! SFMurphyBeds.com “Stompers in New York was owned by Lou Weingarden; it was a boot store in the front, and one of the Wallbeds_053118.indd 1 5/30/18 10:46 AMfirst leather art galleries in the back,” Rubin, a lesbian longtime San Francisco leather community member and associate professor at the University of Ann Arbor in Michigan, wrote. “Stompers was instrumental in the legitimation of gay male leather iconography as an art form, a movement that was also facilitated by the Fey-Way Studios here in San Francisco and by the Leslie-Lohman Gallery, also in Manhattan.” King wrote that the shop opened in September 1996, just in time for the Folsom Street Fair. “And the first of the annual Stompers backyard boot parties, which later expanded to also include Dore Alley Fair,” King wrote, referring to what is now known as the Up Your Alley Fair and is held in late July. By all accounts, those boot parties were infamous. There was no cover charge, Haase recalled. “You only had to be wearing boots. (Some guys only wore boots),” he wrote in an email. “Those parties were wonderful, and perhaps the Main line service up to 100’, with access point. Warranty included. most visible aspect of Mike’s generMay not be combined with other offers. osity to the community.” Service limited to San Francisco County resident, 8am to 7pm. REX, a gay San Francisco artist A locally owned and operated franchise. Lic# 974194 who uses only one name, wrote in an email that Mr. McNamee was “a legwww.MrRooter-SFO.com endary SOMA figure and fixture of the San Francisco leather/biker scene in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.” “A passionate Harley-Davidson biker, he was famous for his open house parties during the Folsom Street Fair each year that he hosted S T HEADSHO at his shop and garden behind featuring free food, drink, and good S company,” REX wrote. “Mike was a PORTRAIT unique individual who will be sadly S missed by all who knew him in the T N EVE San Francisco SOMA scene.” Mr. McNamee ran Stompers for 15 years, King said, and created an iconic brand name and destination point for hundreds of visitors to San Francisco. Haase said that he got to see a particular aspect of Mr. McNamee’s

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creativity when he created Stompers’ website in 2002. “He was definitely a visually-oriented man, excellent with both still and video cameras, and he gave the site a terrific look (and lots of great shots of boots and leather),” Haase wrote. “But what I really loved was the copy that he wrote for the site,” Haase added. “He had a knack for writing words that ‘talked the talk’ of Stompers Boot Shop. His copy spoke to 25-year-old guys looking for their first pair of work boots, as well as older men who’d walked many miles in theirs. I often complimented him on that, but he waved it away. “He just knew how to create an environment that got both men and women into boots, and that was because he loved the things,” Haase wrote. Mr. McNamee sold Stompers in 2011 and it eventually became an online store, now based in Florida. On the website, the current owners paid tribute to Mr. McNamee. “We here at Stompers Boots would like to take a moment to commemorate the memory of Mike McNamee, the founder and original owner of Stompers Boots in San Francisco, now located in Fort Lauderdale and owned by Christian Marcello and Bear Man,” the owners wrote. “We were honored to know him and will continue to carry on his legacy.”

TV news career

Mr. McNamee was born September 10, 1938 in Minneapolis. He moved to San Francisco in 1977. Prior to arriving in the city, Mr. McNamee worked for a Sacramento TV station, and then a station in Washington state. Once in San Francisco, Mr. McNamee began a long career at KRON 4, where he worked as a news photographer, Don Sharp, his former supervisor, told the Bay Area Reporter in a phone interview. “He served as my chief photographer from 1992-1998,” Sharp, now a news operations manager at KPIXTV, said. “He was one of the best.” Mr. McNamee went on assignment for KRON to China and Japan, Sharp said. Significant career highlights came in 1984, when Mr. McNamee covered the Democratic National

Convention in San Francisco and the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles shortly afterward. “We had just finished the Democratic convention in San Francisco, which was the same year as the Olympics,” Sharp said. “He says, ‘Don, are you going to send me down to LA? Well then, can I ride my motorcycle to LA?’ It was the second time he did that. He got down there, and we got great rolling shots from Mike’s motorcycle.” The station had previously opened a bureau in Washington, D.C., Sharp said, and Mr. McNamee rode his motorcycle across the country when he worked there. “He lived on the edge with that motorcycle,” Sharp said. Sharp, who is straight, said Mr. McNamee “never tried to hide himself in the closet.” “He and I used to have these great conversations,” Sharp said. Joseph Riordan also worked with Mr. McNamee at KRON. “He worked with all the photographers and editors and genuinely tried to please everyone, which wasn’t easy,” Riordan wrote in an email. “Mike was a very funny, very sweet, masculine guy. We were all together back in May for a reunion of former and current KRON employees and he was there. He was very happy.” King said that Mr. McNamee retired from KRON around 1998, prior to the sale of the station to Young Broadcasting.

‘Miracle Mile’

Haase wrote that Mr. McNamee “was definitely a product of the Folsom Street “Miracle Mile” of the 1960s and 1970s. “He knew all the bars, and saw it all. And with his death we have lost one of the last men of that era,” he wrote. Ken Hedrick, a Stompers customer, wrote in an email that he approached Mr. McNamee in 2010 when he heard he was interested in selling the store. There had been complications around finances, and Mr. McNamee ended up putting almost all of his personal assets into the operation, Hedrick wrote. “When I (and my late husband, Walter Huxley) took control of the operations, he was at a low point,” Hedrick wrote, “but with grace and character, continued forward.” Mr. McNamee continued to work for the store by redesigning the website, sending out weekly sales flyers, and occasionally worked the floor, as well as acted as an adviser, Hedrick wrote. For Noel Plemmons, Mr. McNamee “was the gay role model that so many of us didn’t get to have because of AIDS,” he wrote in an email. “Somehow, Mike was able to avoid the virus and lived to see many friends pass, but to also be a father figure for a younger generation of us,” Plemmons wrote. “He liked to pretend he was a bad boy, but he really was one of the most principled people I knew.” See page 14 >>

Obituaries >> Nickylyn “Totie” “Nickko” Cava Jellison September 13, 1969 – August 3, 2018

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It is with great sadness that the family of Nickylyn “Totie” “Nickko” Cava Jellison announces his passing. Nickylyn was born in Bocolod City, Philippines, September 13, 1969, and immigrated

with his family to the United States as a toddler. Raised in Honolulu, Nickylyn moved to San Francisco when he was a teen and graduated from Wallenberg High School. He studied marketing and early childhood education at UC Davis before working as a project manager in the tech industry. He loved his dogs, Odessa and Leah, visited many countries, and saw every Cirque du Soleil show he could. More than anything, he shared his laughter, generosity, and loyalty with all of us. On August 3, 2018, Nickylyn went on to his final pilgrimage.

Nickylyn leaves behind his parents, Nicomedes and Linda; his brothers and sister, Nickclair, Christopher, Nick John, and Nicolette, along with each of their spouses; many nephews and nieces whom he adored; his ex-husband, Tim Jellison, and Leah. A celebration of Totie/Nickko’s life will take place Sunday, September 16, from 2 to 5:30 p.m., at the Academy, 2166 Market Street in San Francisco. Nickko would have appreciated any memorial donations to an animal rescue organization of your choice.

<< Commentary

12 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 6-12, 2018

Cat Brooks takes activism to campaign trail by Christina A. DiEdoardo

fter more than a decade fighting for the people of Oakland, both in the streets and the halls of government, Cat Brooks decided to run for mayor after she saw first-hand how some of the city’s most marginalized residents struggle to survive. “I asked some housing advocate comrades of mine to take me to the [homeless] camps,” she said during a recent interview. “Driving by them is one thing, but I wanted to go inside. I did that.” Brooks took a deep breath before continuing. “It’s horrific. There’s no words for what it’s like inside of there,” she said. “I learned later that finally [Mayor] Libby [Schaaf] had been cajoled into going to see the camps. She had the ability to see what is happening in those camps, to see people with bite marks from rats, which are eating them alive, to see women who are

Jane Philomen Cleland

Oakland mayoral candidate Cat Brooks

claiming husbands because they’re tired of being raped, to see the drug dealing, to see the needles, to see the gaping sores on peoples’ skin. She saw it.

“Which means she had the ability to go back to City Hall and say ‘Enough. I don’t care what the rules are. Move (on this)’” Brooks said. “And she didn’t. “I had a crisis of conscience that day,” Brooks said, as she remembered how she felt about the city’s inaction in the face of a crisis. “I can’t make it make sense in my head. It’s like how I stayed up one night as a kid trying to figure out how someone could hate me because of the color of my skin. It was that kind of a moment.” To many, the housing crisis in Oakland seems as intractable as the structural racism that contributes to it. However, Brooks, an AfricanAmerican woman who was born and raised in Las Vegas before relocating to Oakland over 12 years ago, has made a career of challenging seemingly intractable problems, most notably through her work with the Anti Police Terror Project, which she co-founded in 2014.

“On January 1, 2009, Oscar Grant was murdered by then-BART police officer Johannes Mehserle, and Oakland erupted,” she said. “I got pretty consumed with that struggle and after the initial rebellions happened, the black and brown folks who were leading those rebellions in large numbers went back to work or home or to take care of their families and what remained were very well-meaning white allies and comrades. But they were white allies and comrades without an analysis that black people should be leading issues that most dramatically impact black people.” Meanwhile, “The state just kept killing us, not only here in Oakland, but across the country,” she said. “We were doing a lot of protests of power in the street all the time. We could and did call up people by the thousands – we were in the leadership in the marches after

Trayvon Martin, for example.” It was those experiences that caused her to ponder a deeper strategy. “Because we were all organizers, we had a conversation about what we were actually doing,” Brooks said. “Sure, it felt good to be in the streets, it felt good to scream at police and it was important – we believe protest is important, it impacts the public debate, reporters cover it, it impacts the public conversation – but what we’re interested in is movement building. “What we’re interested in is a qualitative change and transformation of the conditions that our people are living in and an end to the police violence in our communities,” she said. “Simply protesting wasn’t going to cut it.” Enter the APTP, which combines public advocacy and direct action with support for the survivors See page 14 >>

Private parties, or ‘seshes’, are growing by Sari Staver

he black market is back. Well, it probably never went away, but immediately after Proposition 64 went into effect in January – enabling many dispensaries to sell recreational cannabis to the public – several black market dealers I interviewed said their business dried up. “My customers wanted the experience of shopping in a dispensary and having a wide selection of products,” said one LGBT longtime former Castro dealer, who asked that her name not be used. She closed her decade-long business when her phone stopped ringing. But now that the increased prices – in some dispensaries, more than 50 percent, in large part because of new taxes – are the new reality and entrepreneurs are organizing new ways of distributing their products, there are new opportunities to try before you buy and get large discounts to boot. The new underground cannabis market is difficult to track but worth it if you enjoy the adventure, said longtime Berkeley cannabis consultant Brent Saupe, who I met a decade ago when I responded to a Craigslist ad selling cannabis plants. Saupe, a well-known activist and former member of a mayoral task force on

Sari Staver

Berkeley cannabis consultant Brent Saupe

cannabis, ran a nonprofit South of Market group, the Pot Club, which provided a space for medical patients to grow their own medicine. Saupe, who has been providing medical cannabis to patients for over a decade, is now part of the “sesh” (session) community, where underground dealers get together at private parties to sell discounted products. For a $5-$10 admission, “you can smoke all the weed you want for three to four hours, meet providers, and get some great deals,” said Saupe in a telephone interview. At the East Bay events Saupe has attended, flowers and dabs have been

We have MOVED! After 35 years renting on Potrero Hill, we finally put down permanent roots in San Francisco, and moved into our own home South of Market!

as much as 75 percent under retail while vape pens are often half-price. “Once you attend one sesh, you won’t have to search again for others. They’re every weekend in northern California, once you know how to find them,” he said. The best way to track down a sesh, according to Saupe, is to search Instagram accounts using the key words “cannabis sesh.” I did a search in late August and came up with a handful of leads for upcoming events. For those wary of buying black market products, perhaps concerned that the flowers aren’t tested for pesticides, as is now required for the retail market, Saupe said the dealers he has met were mostly “people who were legit and legal” before the expensive and complicated regulations to sell legally were enacted this year. According to Saupe, local testing labs are “still unreliable,” a sentiment echoed by many in the industry. Saupe recently submitted several identical samples to two leading laboratories, which found very different results. At least one dispensary executive thinks seshes are a “great idea.” Debby Goldsberry, the chief executive officer of Magnolia Oakland, as

well as the manager of a new dispensary, High Fidelity in Berkeley, acknowledged that dispensaries have been forced to pass along their regulationrelated expenses, making dispensary products more costly than ever. Although seshes are in direct competition to her dispensaries, Goldsberry said they are an “important way of keeping our culture alive and well.” Ideally, she added, regulations will eventually be enacted to make such gatherings “licensed and safe” she told the Bay Area Reporter in a telephone interview. In San Francisco, Dan Karkoska, who produces events for Puff, a loosely organized queer cannabis group, had a private party at a SOMA coffee shop last month, where joints, dabs, and medicated beverages were served. “We sold out,” Karkoska wrote in an email to the B.A.R. Puff plans to have another event in October. Karkoska suggested keeping up with Puff activities (including its monthly marijuana appreciation drag parties on the second Thursday at the Stud) by joining the Queer Cannabis Club on Facebook or following Karkoska on his Instagram account, djdanksf. Medical patients needing

OKELL’S

cannabis have another option: trying to join one of the compassionate use programs sponsored by dispensaries, which are required to have such a system in place. When recreational cannabis was legalized, many such programs had severe cutbacks because everyone in the cannabis industry suddenly faced additional costs to stay in business, said Magnolia’s Goldsberry. On the horizon, said Goldsberry, is legislation that could greatly liberalize the compassionate use programs, Senate Bill 829, which was approved by the state Assembly in late August. The bill, introduced by gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), will exempt compassionate care programs from paying state cannabis taxes when they are providing free medical cannabis to financially disadvantaged people living with serious health conditions. Goldsberry said the bill is expected to pass the Senate and be signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown. If approved, the bill “will be very good news” for patients, she said. t Bay Area Cannasseur runs the first Thursday of the month. To send column ideas or tips, email Sari Staver at sari@bayareacannasseur.com.

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<< Community News

14 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 6-12, 2018

Headless torso

the home warned of a spike in water usage, which a neighbor believes was the result of a squatter in the home trying to flush away evidence. Initially, police arrested two men charging them with homicide, fraud, theft, ID theft, and elder abuse. The San Francisco District Attorney’s office, deciding it lacked sufficient evidence to prosecute, dropped those charges pending further investigation of the case. One of the two men arrested, Robert McCaffrey, 52, was freed, the second, Lance Silva, 39, was held in Alameda County on a parole violation. According to a charging document, that parole violation stemmed from Silva using Egg’s credit card to buy a used car for $5,500 June 1, and again using the card to pay a crime scene cleanup company to clean Egg’s house August 14. Police finally searched Egg’s home when they were alerted by neighbors after that crime scene crew showed up. Three days later they discovered human remains

Mike McNamee

From page 10

Rubin wrote that Mr. McNamee was involved as a member of the committee that selected the names to be recognized on Ringold Alley. Officially known as the San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley, it consists of bronze bootprints honoring men and

Resist

From page 12

of those killed by police violence, which Brooks said is especially critical. “We’ve worked with more families than I count – and I’ve only met two who were organizers or activists in some right of their own already,” she said. “You’re talking about families who are going about their daily lives when this horrible thing happens to them and then not only does law enforcement not support them, they terrorize them. “We wanted to create an organization that could walk families through that process and we wanted communities to feel empowered,” Brooks said. “It’s a very hopeless feeling when things keep happening to you, which is a common story for black people, for brown people, for indigenous people in this country.” After four years of work by APTP and allied organizations, Brooks said that feeling is starting to change locally. “We have worked with media successfully to change the way they talk about police violence,” she said. “The media no longer just allow the Oakland Police Department to put out their statement (after an officerinvolved shooting); they’re always coming to check with us. We’ve been a consistent and continuous voice around police violence.” Theirs is also a voice that appears to be heard by those with the badges and guns. “The OPD has only killed one person since November 2015,” Brooks said. “That’s not because there’s been some great shift within OPD on how they view black and brown bodies; that’s a tactical and strategic decision because it’s clear there’s a base of

a phone receiver and walking away at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. Silva has a previous criminal history in Alameda County. In 2015, he was sentenced to six months in jail and ordered to pay back $43,380 he stole from the retirement accounts of four employees of the National Upholstery Company, a company that is no longer in business that he once owned. Silva is on probation for that grand theft conviction until May 2020.

From page 1

Milk terminal

From page 1

by the arts commissioners, the main display about Milk will be located in a pre-security area in Terminal 1 South. Located on the departures level, it will be housed in what the airport is calling the Central Inglenook. The SFO Museum is working with photographer Daniel Nicoletta, a gay man and close friend of Milk’s, to seek images of the gay

Vigil planned

second floor of the home. Police may have removed the door as evidence. By Monday evening, September 3, more than a half dozen bouquets were in place by the metal gate and about as many candles were placed just inside the gate. Announcements of the vigil were placed in the middle and on both sides of the gate. Several messages of condolences were written on heavy construction paper and cardboard and woven in the gate. A white piece of paper with a printed sentence that was held in place by two bouquets probably best summed up the neighbors’ sentiments: “His life was as beautiful as his death was ugly.”

were not returned by press time. But in a news conference last week, police defended the department’s response to the case. A number of reporters questioned why police didn’t do more on the case early on. Jaxon Vanderbeken, a veteran crime reporter now at NBC Bay Area, asked Commander Greg McEachern about the three “welfare checks” that police conducted on the home and why police didn’t do more. “That doesn’t sound like a welfare check, that sounds like a waste of time,” the reporter said. McEachern reiterated that police didn’t consider Egg’s disappearance suspicious and, without that suspicion, no further action was warranted. Earlier in the news conference, McEachern said Egg had last been seen in late May or early June. McEachern noted that police got information that Egg was out of town from his answering machine message. But when told by the B.A.R. that Devon Egg said his brother never owned an answering machine and that the voice on the machine was not his brother’s, McEachern said he wasn’t aware of that information.t

in a large fish tank that was hidden in the home. Police are awaiting a DNA test before they positively identify the headless corpse. Free told the B.A.R. that Silva was the man he saw squatting in Egg’s home. Silva declined a jailhouse interview, telling a reporter “I just want to talk to my lawyer,” before hanging up

Friends and neighbors are planning a vigil to remember Egg Tuesday evening, September 11, on what would have been his 66th birthday. It will be held in front of his home at 228 Clara Street, near 5th and Harrison streets, where he had lived for more than 40 years. The vigil is scheduled to run from 7:25 until 8:45 p.m. Since news of the case broke last week, a growing memorial appeared at the metal security gate in front of Egg’s home. The door that neighbors observed being painted is missing, exposing the staircase leading to the

women who left a lasting imprint on the city’s leather community during their lifetimes. The bootprints are made from the left and right soles of a pair of Dehner boots owned by Mr. McNamee, Rubin pointed out. Haase recalled a visit to South of Market with Mr. McNamee a couple of years ago. “We walked to a bistro a few

blocks from his home,” Haase wrote. “Stompers had been sold (twice by that time) and the website he loved had been replaced with some generic thing. He looked around the bistro and saw young men staring at laptops, and looked out the window to see new Audis, BMWs, and Lexuses driving by. He said, ‘SOMA has moved on, and that’s just the way it goes.

It’s probably time for me to move on, too,’” Mr. McNamee moved to Santa Rosa in 2017, with his husband, Jimy Sylvia, and their dog, Emit. Sylvia did not feel up to speaking with the B.A.R. “He loved his new home and garden,” Hedrick wrote, adding that Mr. McNamee visited him in Palm Springs in May.

There will be no funeral or official memorial service, King wrote. For people in the Bay Area, the monthly BLUF/Hotboots leather event at the SF Eagle, 398 12th Street, Saturday, September 8, at 9 p.m. (no cover charge if in leather) may be a good occasion for people to gather to remember Mr. McNamee. t

people who will force accountability.” Even when police guns are silent, Brooks said, it doesn’t mean communities of people of color are not suffering at the hands of those the state claims exist to protect them. “Why are we only responding when they kill us when we know police violence happens in our communities every single day, from sexual assault – which is the primary way women of color experience state violence – all the way up to murder?” Brooks asked. “Why, if we know that the number one cure to the ailment of police murder is no engagement, are we not generating conversations about what does it look like to not rely on law enforcement for community security and what happens to families? “I’ve worked pretty diligently over the last four years to make this a mainstream conversation because it should be a mainstream conversation as it’s a mainstream experience if you’re black in this country,” she said.

“It’s going to be hard – hard as hell,” she said. “But what if all our energy was used to build the most progressive city in this country? “Under the 45 administration, fighting locally makes the most sense,” she said, referring to President Donald Trump, adding with a smile, “and who knows how to fight like Oakland?”

It’s that kind of focus on problems that previous administrations have left unaddressed that Brooks wants to bring to City Hall. “It’s going to take time to undo what’s been done,” she said. Even so, if she wins “the immediate thing that changes is the direction that law enforcement is given in how they do and do not patrol our communities. Moreover, “there will be no more development that happens without citywide community benefit agreements,” she said. “There will be no more development that happens that’s only serving people who can afford apartments at five, six, seven, eight thousand dollars a month. When term limits come up on these

commissions and boards, you will see a much more diverse group of people sitting on these commissions and boards.” A good example, she said, is the planning commission. “The planning commission is a seven-person body,” Brooks said. “As of a couple of weeks ago, there are two out of the seven who are not directly tied to Realtors or developers.” Regarding the housing crisis, Brooks wants to act both tactically and strategically. “It’s critical that we repeal CostaHawkins, but we have an immediate crisis in the streets of Oakland that we can do something about,” she said, referring to the statewide law that restricts the ability of cities and counties to impose rent control and is on the ballot as Proposition 10. Her ideas include rezoning and modifying vacant city warehouses to serve as temporary housing, working with school districts to re-purpose closed schools, which already have bathrooms and other infrastructure, to shelter people who are homeless. “There are things we can do right know while working on the longerterm solution of permanent housing and jobs which, for whatever reason, the city is just not doing,” she said. Eight other candidates besides Brooks are running to unseat Schaaf in November, but the only one who comes close to Brooks’ name recognition is local civil rights attorney Pamela Price, an African-American woman who was defeated in June in her run for Alameda County district attorney. While Brooks declined to comment on Price’s recent decision to enter the race, she’s clear-eyed about the general task ahead of her.

in the nature of guidelines rather than binding rules – would think that the city’s take is the one that controls the matter. Indeed, the Department of Elections openly states on its website that it is collaborating with ICE – and confirmed this in an email to a local activist, which is now in Resist’s possession. According to the department’s email, “This is a policy consistent with all voter registration information for the City and County of San Francisco.” While I’d contend the department has no business collaborating with ICE at all, especially given the provisions of the sanctuary city ordinance (which, among other things, prohibits “Assisting or cooperating, in one’s official capacity, with any investigation ... public or clandestine, conducted by the federal agency charged with enforcement of the federal immigration law”) it’s especially egregious in the case of non-citizen school board voters. There’s a clear distinction between that (largely fictional) fascist bugbear of people who intentionally register and vote in general elections who aren’t entitled to do so and San Francisco parents and guardians who wouldn’t have registered to vote if the city hadn’t amended its charter to give them the ability to do so in school board races – and who the city is now putting on ICE’s radar. Registration closes October 22 for the November ballot, so there’s still time – if only just – for the city to fix this injustice if there’s the political will to do so. If there isn’t, San Francisco will have shown yet again that its commitment to protecting immigrants is more rhetorical than real. t

icon from the public for the display. In its presentation to the arts commission, the airport said it was also looking for photographs from the 1960s through the 1980s that document not only Milk and his political campaigns, but also the city’s LGBT community in the 1970s. Those images will be “exhibited salon style on a wood-paneled wall,” according to the airport, in the corner space at the bottom of a bank of escalators. “On each side, the exhibition will

feature floor-to-ceiling images of Milk on surrounding blackenedsteel panels,” states the design plan. “Interior photographs will be produced at approximately 13 1/4 x 20 inches and will be displayed in a semi-random grid-based pattern, with historical and informational text placed throughout.” A third oversized image on blackened steel will be located around the corner from the exhibit inside the secure area of the airport so it is visible to arriving passengers. The

photos submitted for the Harvey B. Milk Gallery will also be used for the temporary display to be installed on a construction wall running from Gate B1 to Gate B9. The airport is also planning to install two large artworks honoring Milk. One would span the threestory atrium in the departures level, with the other placed curbside on the arrivals level. The individual artwork for each area is not yet selected, nor has the airport detailed what the exterior and interior signage for

ABC7 News

Suspect Lance Silva

Unaddressed problems

Criticism intensifies

The neighbors’ criticism of police intensified after the remains were found in the home last month. Several told the B.A.R. they were falsely assured by police that Egg was on vacation, information that police apparently got from Egg’s answering machine message. The B.A.R.’s calls, emails, and tweets to San Francisco Police Chief William Scott and other city officials

Non-citizen voters may have cause for concern

Several months ago, the City and County of San Francisco announced to great fanfare that non-citizens who were the parents or guardians of children attending classes in the San Francisco Unified School District would be able to vote in school board elections, beginning with the November ballot. At the time, giving parents a direct voice in the management of the schools their children attend was billed as a great leap forward, but the way it’s being implemented is leading many to wonder if it’s really two steps back. That’s because the city is sharing the information provided by non-citizens who do register to vote in school board elections with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Given that voting in American elections “in violation of any federal, state, or local constitutional provision, statute, ordinance, or regulation” renders one not only inadmissible but deportable under the Immigration and Nationality Act, any non-citizen who registers and votes could be putting themselves and their families in the agency’s crosshairs. While the city’s charter allows non-citizens to vote in school board elections, only the brave or the foolhardy would assume that an agency like ICE – whose agents often see constitutional requirements more

Got a tip? Email me at christina@ diedoardolaw.com.

the Milk terminal will look like. “The packet we presented only relates to art installations, which is why you see installation locations in which the artwork has yet to be selected,” explained SFO spokesman Doug Yakel. “What’s not included here is the overall terminal treatment ... exteriors, thresholds, etc.” The airport is planning to publicly unveil those aspects of the design for the Milk terminal sometime in October.t

t <<

Community News>>

September 6-12, 2018 • BAY AREA REPORTER • 15

Oakland Pride

The East Bay Stonewall Democratic

Club will host its sixth annual Pride Breakfast before the parade September 9. It has a new location this year at the Rotunda Building, 300 Frank H Ogawa Plaza in Oakland, and takes place from 8 to 9:30 a.m. The theme this year is about the importance of voting: “Your Vote. Your Power.” “We’re saying you must get out and vote,” Goodall said in a recent interview with the B.A.R. “The last few years, we’ve seen the attack on our community and marginalized individuals. Voting can bring change and is a must.” The guest speaker this year is local preacher, poet, and activist Marvin K. White. White, a gay man, will talk about the impact that informed voting, locally and nationally, has. The club, now in its 36th year, annually recognizes people and organizations that have advocated for the LGBT community and have made a positive impact in the East Bay. Six awards will be given out at the breakfast in three different categories;

trailblazers, community champions, and new this year, LGBTQI allies. Being honored in the trailblazer category is Alameda County Superior Court Judge Victoria Kolakowski, the first transgender person elected to a judicial post in the country. (She is the wife of B.A.R. news editor Cynthia Laird.) “We see her as a tireless advocate for the LGBT community and trailblazer of those who came after her,” Goodall said. Kolakowski was co-chair of the Bay Area Transgender Law Association from 1996 to 2000, formerly served as president of the old East Bay Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club (the former name of the Stonewall club), and was the first transgender person to serve as president of the International Association of LGBT Judges. A junior at Castlemont High School in East Oakland, Dymond Garrett is also receiving the Trailblazer Award. Garrett is a leader of Youth Alive, whose mission is to prevent violence and create young leaders. “She has been a tireless local and national voice against gun violence. She’s also dedicated to unifying and helping people of color and LGBT youth,” Goodall said. Last in this category is Alyah Baker, a queer woman of color and co-owner of the community-based organization Qulture Collective. Opened in 2015, the queer community center located in downtown Oakland is used for workshops, classes, studio work, and social hangouts for the purpose of being a safe space for queers and allies. The sole Community Champion Award will go to Ola Osaze, a transmasculine queer, who heads the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project of the Transgender Law Center. The project addresses the ways in which the LGBT community

room. But the volume and number of interruptions at the first day of Kavanaugh’s hearing were much more disruptive than usual. “This is something I’ve never gone through before in 15 Supreme Court nominations,” said Grassley. It was a sentiment echoed by other Republicans on the committee. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) called the audience vocal protests “insolence” and said, “These people shouldn’t even be allowed in the room.” Surprisingly, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), the ranking Democrat on the committee, characterized the protests as “a lot of noise” and appeared to thwart the efforts of her Democratic colleagues by launching into her opening statement at Grassley’s urging. Grassley kept pushing the throttle on the committee’s agenda, though, by Wednesday morning, he advised Kavanaugh he would

let the protesters continue to disrupt the hearing because he was letting “these people have their free speech.” During their opening statements Tuesday, several Democratic senators briefly referred to LGBT rights. Senator Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) evoked the image of civil rights movements by African-Americans, women, and LGBT people to express his concern that the hard won gains of these movements seem to be in jeopardy. Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) said Kavanaugh’s vote on the Supreme Court could decide such things as “whether a gay or transgender worker is treated with dignity or as a second-class citizen.” Harris told Kavanaugh that she is concerned he will not treat all Americans equally. Leahy called Kavanaugh a “political operative” on important issues in

the Bush White House and said, “we know those issues include abortion, same-sex marriage, and torture.” Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) said the documents missing from those released about Kavanaugh’s years in the White House include a “35-month black hole,” during which the Bush White House took a stand against marriage for same-sex couples. Senator Chris Coons (D-Delaware) said he was concerned Kavanaugh embraces an approach to the law that “would undermine the rights and protections” for millions of Americans, including LGBT Americans.” Kavanaugh’s remarks to the committee focused heavily on his family and friends and their support and influence on his life. He said his mother, a judge, “taught me the importance of equality for all Americans – equal rights, equal dignity,

and equal justice under the law.” He also promised to keep an “open mind in every case.” But he was also clear that he believes a judge “must interpret statutes as written ... [and] the Constitution as written, informed by history, and tradition and precedent.” That statement will be read by most to mean that Kavanaugh is not the kind of judge who reads laws in the context of present day realities or sensibilities. Such judges are less likely to say that a law prohibiting discrimination “based on sex” includes discrimination based on sexual orientation. And judges around the country today are being asked to interpret laws, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, to include sexual orientation. The second day of the confirmation recessed at press time and will continue the rest of the week. t

Guillén defended his record on the council, pointing to his stances on national issues, like opposing Trump’s border wall, and focus on more provincial concerns like fixing potholes. “I am among the hardest working council members that delivers results for our district,” said Guillén, a renter in the Gold Coast neighborhood near Lake Merritt. “I think the residents I have served over the last four years can point to tangible improvements in every part of the district.” He pointed to his co-sponsoring with Kaplan legislation requiring any developments be built on public land be 100 percent affordable.

The council will take it up this fall in committee. But his support for a controversial housing development near Lake Merritt continues to be an issue. Dubbed Lakehouse Commons, it will consist of a 90-unit affordable housing project and another building with 252 market-rate units and 18 units for moderate-income households. Since the city owned the land, housing activists argued it should be used solely for affordable housing. Guillén believes the deal he helped broker in 2016 with the developers, the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation and UrbanCore,

was a win-win for the city that allowed it to use its affordable housing trust fund on other projects. “We ended up with 30 percent affordable housing on site, which I think should be a model for other housing projects,” he said. Earlier this year local affordable housing advocates filed an ethics complaint against Guillén, claiming that he should have recused himself from voting on the project due to receiving nearly $2,000 in donations from people tied to the project. He maintains he followed the city’s regulations governing donations and that the charges are politically motivated. As for complaints that the city has

not done enough to house the homeless, Guillén agrees. He believes Oakland needs to forge stronger partnerships with churches and faith-based community groups working to address the issue, and is a backer of constructing tiny homes for those living on the streets. “We need to do a hell of a lot more on homelessness,” he said. He said he is taking nothing for granted in his bid for another term and has been talking to voters all year on why he deserves to be re-elected. “This is part of the democratic process. I welcome the spirited debate,” said Guillén. “I am looking forward to a robust campaign.” t

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038254000

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038246200

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038254600

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038243300

From page 2

which opened last year, and the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band, among many others. The festival will have over 200 vendors to explore. A new vendor this year is a trans resource booth sponsored by Kaiser Permanente. “The booth will be there for families and youth who have questions about transitioning or specific questions around gender-nonconforming topics and to provide resources to the community that they may not seek on their own or have means to get,” Uribe said. Festivalgoers will also see a designated teen area for the first time this year. Historically, Oakland Pride has offered an area specifically for LGBT families, but the board felt it was important to provide a space just for teens, Uribe said. Along with activities like video games and access to the nearby skate park, the area will also serve as a resource hub for LGBTQ youth. The festival has a full entertainment lineup for its four stages. The headliner, Amara La Negra of the TV show “Love and Hip Hop: Miami,” is an R&B artist with a Caribbean and Latin American influence. Also scheduled to perform is Oakland native Tre Edwards, aka Rebel. Previously the musical director of Harlem Gospel 2016 winter tour, Rebel is now pursuing a solo career. His newest album spreads the message that past experiences do not define one’s self. Other performers include rap artist Papi Torre and DJ Kill Bill. Lesbian comedian Marga Gomez will make her debut as Oakland Pride’s emcee. The East Bay’s largest LGBT celebration is a Pride “different than any other,” Uribe said. He hopes this year

Kavanaugh

From page 9

the scandal. LGBT people, and all Americans, deserve to fully understand the views and positions taken by a lifetime nominee to the federal bench and Lambda Legal will continue to fight for that transparency.” Lambda Legal, the Human Rights Campaign, and almost 100 other national, state, and local LGBT groups have gone on record, through various letters to the Judiciary Committee, as opposing Kavanaugh’s confirmation, in addition to concerns that Kavanaugh would favor the use of religious beliefs to undermine laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBT people. Protesters are somewhat common at congressional hearings, interrupting to express their views knowing that security guards will quickly escort them out of the

Oakland candidates

From page 8

His critics have used Guillén’s alliance with the mayor to attack him as he seeks re-election. He has also come under fire for his handling of development issues in his district, particularly when it comes to affordable housing versus market-rate developments. “We are all concerned that Oakland is losing its heart and soul. The incumbent is well-funded by the very forces that threaten our city,” wrote Fortunato Bas, who has the backing of local union leaders, in an email to supporters. In an interview with the B.A.R.,

Jane Philomen Cleland

Sarah Varela, left, and Penny Varela-Halsey enjoyed themselves at last year’s Oakland Pride festival.

will better serve the intersections of the LGBT community, including race and socioeconomic statuses. He also hopes the celebration of Oakland’s past resistance movements will help inform the work still to be done. “At Pride this year we need to resist the national policies and ideologies coming from the current presidential administration and not be taken backward,” Uribe said. General admission to the Oakland Pride festival is $10, and $5 for children under 12. A portion of the admission goes toward Oakland’s Pride’s Community Partners Program, which has donated nearly $50,000 to LGBT friendly organizations and charities since 2010, according to the Pride website. The parade is free and open to the public. For more information about the parade and festival, visit https:// www.oaklandpride.org/.

East Bay Stonewall Pride Breakfast

is targeted by the criminal law and immigration enforcement system. The ally award will go to state Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley). Skinner is a longtime ally and has a lesbian daughter. She co-authored last year’s Gender Recognition Act with lesbian state Senator Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), which added a third gender option to birth certificates and driver’s licenses, allowing Californians to identify as nonbinary. PG&E will also be honored. The electric company was one of the first major companies to support the No on Prop 8 campaign in 2008, which opposed Proposition 8, the ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in the state of California that was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Admission for club members is free, for non-members it’s $20 and includes a discounted club membership. For more information, visit https:// eastbaystonewalldemocrats.org/ event-3013771.

LGBTQ center turns 1

Oakland’s LGBTQ Community Center, which opened last year during Pride weekend, will celebrate its first anniversary Friday, September 7. From 1 to 5 p.m. will be events for LGBTQ seniors, followed by an anniversary open house from 5:30 to 7:30, and an anniversary party from 7:30 to midnight. Events will feature the Oakland East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus, speakers, Oaktown 8’s square dance club, and live musical and drag performances. The center is located at 3207 Lakeshore Avenue (entrance on Rand Avenue). Donations are welcome. For more information, visit https:// www.oaklandlgbtqcenter.org/ and click on “Anniversary.”t

Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038255700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ACCENT REDUCTION STUDIO, 1621 LINCOLN WAY, #B, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed MARY DAVIS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/07/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/09/18.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: MANGROVE KITCHEN, 312 DIVASADERO ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ATTHAPON INKHONG. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/07/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/07/18.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SHUNPING HOME IMPROVEMENT, 420 LISBON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed LIWEI DING. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/02/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/02/18.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: KIBATSU, 400 HAIGHT ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed MUTEKI INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/08/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/08/18.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TALLER TECHNOLOGIES, 555 CALIFORNIA ST #4925, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94104. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed DELAWARE QUADRIGA, INC (DE). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 07/01/13. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/01/18.

AUG 16, 23, 30, SEPT 06, 2018

<< Classifieds

16 • BAY AREA REPORTER • September 6-12, 2018

Legal Notices>> FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038258100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CMME CONSULTING LLC, 1536 18TH ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed CMME CONSULTING LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed fictitious business name or names on 07/09/18. The statement was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/10/18.

AUG 16, 23, 30, SEPT 06, 2018 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-18-554170

In the matter of the application of: SADIE COLLEEN YEAGER AKA SADIE C. YEAGER AKA SADIE YEAGER, 501 38TH AVE #304, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121, for change of name having been filed in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner SADIE COLLEEN YEAGER AKA SADIE C. YEAGER AKA SADIE YEAGER, is requesting that the name SADIE COLLEEN YEAGER AKA SADIE C. YEAGER AKA SADIE YEAGER, be changed to SADIE COLLEEN YEAGER BLACK. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 11th of October 2018 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

AUG 23, 30, SEPT 06, 13, 2018 ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE FOR CHANGE OF NAME IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FILE CNC-18-554169

In the matter of the application of: SAMUEL LUCAS HICKS AKA SAM HICKS AKA SAMUEL L. HICKS AKA SAM L. HICKS, 501 38TH AVE #304, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121, for change of name having been ﬁled in Superior Court, and it appearing from said application that petitioner SAMUEL LUCAS HICKS AKA SAM HICKS AKA SAMUEL L. HICKS AKA SAM L. HICKS, is requesting that the name SAMUEL LUCAS HICKS AKA SAM HICKS AKA SAMUEL L. HICKS AKA SAM L. HICKS, be changed to SAMUEL LUCAS HICKS BLACK. Now therefore, it is hereby ordered, that all persons interested in said matter do appear before this Court in Dept. 514, Room 514 on the 11th of October 2018 at 9:00am of said day to show cause why the application for change of name should not be granted.

AUG 23, 30, SEPT 06, 13, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038252700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ALFA DA CHILDCARE, 1316 SUNNYDALE AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NICOLE D. CHAPMAN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/07/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/07/18.

AUG 23, 30, SEPT 06, 13, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038236400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: GRAMERCY REAL ESTATE AND DEVELOPMENT, 1177 CALIFORNIA ST, SUITE A, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94108. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed STEPHEN KEITH GOMEZ. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on NA. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 07/30/18.

AUG 23, 30, SEPT 06, 13, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038260100

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DIAMOND SERVICES, 1446 THOMAS AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94124. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed OLMEN MEJIA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/13/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/13/18.

AUG 23, 30, SEPT 06, 13, 2018

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038263200

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ENVIROCERN, 50 CALIFORNIA ST #1500, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed RAGNAR STEFANSSON. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/13/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/14/18.

AUG 23, 30, SEPT 06, 13, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038262900

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SEA KEANE, 869 46TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94121. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed SEAMUS KEANE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/14/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/14/18.

AUG 23, 30, SEPT 06, 13, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038265400

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: CUP+FORK, 3200 CALIFORNIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94118. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed A & C HOSPITALITY (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/01/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/15/18.

AUG 23, 30, SEPT 06, 13, 2018 NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF ROBERT M. BYRNE AKA ROBERT MACDOWELL BYRNE AKA ROBERT BYRNE IN SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO: FILE PES-18-302156

To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of ROBERT M. BYRNE AKA ROBERT MACDOWELL BYRNE AKA ROBERT BYRNE. A Petition for Probate has been filed by WENDY LYNN BYRNE in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco. The Petition for Probate requests that WENDY LYNN BYRNE 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: SEPT 18, 2018, 9:00 am, Rm. 204, Superior Court of California, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102. If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney. If you are a creditor or contingent creditor of the decedent, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the latter of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined by section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code. Other California statutes and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law. You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk. Attorney for petitioner: KERI L. PANKOW, ESQ. 309972, PLAGEMAN, LUND & CANNON LLP, 1 KAISER PLAZA #1440, OAKLAND, CA 94612 Ph. (510) 899-6100.

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 2018

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038249500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BOCONCEPT, 1 RHODE ISLAND STREET, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94103. This business is conducted by a limited partnership, and is signed CONTEMPCO GP LLC, GENERAL PARTNER OF CONTEMPCO, ILP,(CA); SOREN KROGH-JENSEN; CARLINE ANTONCICCI. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 01/01/10. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/06/18.

AUG 23, 30, SEPT 06, 13, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038284500

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038265100

SEPT 06, 13, 20, 27, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038290500

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038284700

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038265300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: ALONZO CLEANING SERVICE, 101 OCEAN AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94112. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed JESSICA PINEDA. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/27/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/27/18.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: POTRERO 76, 401 POTRERO AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94110. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed GAWFCO ENTERPRISES, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/23/13. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/15/18.

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038254200

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038264900

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038262700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: BROWN & CO. REAL ESTATE GROUP; BROWN & COMPANY REAL ESTATE, 1624 CALIFORNIA ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed TIMOTHY BROWN. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on NA. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/14/18.

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038265700

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: RHUBARB PALACE MUSIC, 1689 FULTON ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed FRANK GRAU. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/09/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/15/18.

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038273500

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NAIBU MAINTENANCE, 830 LAGUNA ST #K, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed BRUCE LEE. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/21/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/21/18.

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038259300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: A. BAMBER; DESIGNS BY OKSANA, 1241 24TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94122. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed ADRIANNA BAMBER. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/10/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/10/18.

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SAN BRUNO & SILVER SHELL, 2380 SAN BRUNO AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94134. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed PETROMART RETAIL GROUP, INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 07/01/14. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/15/18.

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038276300

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: SF ROOTS, 2323 46TH AVE, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94116. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed HELLO SAN FRANCISCO LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/22/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/22/18.

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038260000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TL CAFE, 517 O’FARRELL ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by a limited liability company, and is signed TRIPLE J INDUSTRIES LLC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 07/31/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/13/18.

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018 STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME FILE A-036645100

The following persons have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name known as: TONIC BEVERAGE CATERING, 2209 POLK ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business was conducted by a corporation and signed by DISGRUNTLED GOAT INC (CA). The fictitious name was filed with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/25/15.

AUG 30, SEPT 06, 13, 20, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038293000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: NATALIE BLAIR SKIN STUDIO, 870 MARKET ST #761, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed NATALIE BLAIR MORRIS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/29/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/30/18.

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: DFY CONSULTANTS, 747 SHRADER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed DONNA YELMOKAS. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/28/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/29/18.

SEPT 06, 13, 20, 27, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038276000

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: TERSE SYSTEMS, 645 WEBSTER ST, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94117. This business is conducted by an individual, and is signed WILLIAM SARGENT. The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 07/12/17. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/22/18.

SEPT 06, 13, 20, 27, 2018 FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT FILE A-038254800

The following person(s) is/are doing business as: PICO LATIN STREET FOOD, 900 N. POINT ST #101, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94109. This business is conducted by a corporation, and is signed DELHI DARBAR INC (CA). The registrant(s) commenced to transact business under the above listed ﬁctitious business name or names on 08/08/18. The statement was ﬁled with the City and County of San Francisco, CA on 08/08/18.

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SEPT 06, 13, 20, 27, 2018

SEPTEMBER 2018 OUTREACH San Francisco Arts Commission News Grants Application Window Now Open San Francisco Arts Commission’s Grant Guidelines for 2019-2020 are now online. Grants are available for individual artists, youth arts, social justice, organization projects, capacity building, literary teaching artists, facilities planning and improvements. Applications due beginning in October. Learn more and apply at sfartscommission.org. Annual Grants Convening On September 20, 5-7:30 pm Join us in the Herbst Theater for a celebration of San Francisco’s artistic community featuring performances, videos, and awards to the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Artistic Legacy Grant award winner and more. Free and open to the public, with a reception to follow.

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RFP Questions? Email michael.king@sfgov.org Need alternative formats for persons with disabilities? Email eugene.flannery@sfgo.org, or call (415) 701-5598 Board of Supervisors Regularly Scheduled Board Meetings December Meetings Come and see your local government at work, the Board of Supervisors hold weekly meetings most Tuesdays at 2:00 p.m. in Rm. 250 of San Francisco City Hall. • September 4 • September 11• September 18 • September 25 You can also view them online at www.sfgovtv.org . LANGUAGE INTERPRETATION AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST CHINESE…. SPANISH…. FILIPINO Requests must be received 48 hours in advance required for interpretation. For more information see the Board of Supervisor’s website www.sfbos.org, or call 415-554-5184. The City and County of San Francisco encourage public outreach. Articles are translated into several languages to provide better public access. The newspaper makes every effortto translate the articles of general interest correctly. No liability is assumed by the City and County of San Francisco or the newspapers for errors and omissions.

Fall Film

Big dreams

Great Tveit

Women in love

Vol. 48 • No. 36 • September 6-12, 2018

Cory Weaver

www.ebar.com/arts

Fall Preview: San Francisco Opera Soprano Lianna Haroutounian as Nedda in “Pagliacci.”

by Philip Campbell

Fall Preview: Art Galleries by Sura Wood

ince the gallery scene began to decentralize in the city, there has been a proliferation of new venues in addition to a plenitude of established ones. Below, find a microcosm of what’s in store this fall. Jenkins Johnson Gallery: In “Somewhere in Between,” the Harlem-based, African-American assemblage artist David Shrobe melds painting, drawing and collage. From found materials and debris recovered near his home, he has constructed custom-framed, fragmented portraits that collapse barriers between past and present. The faces of his subjects, appearing masked or veiled, peer out at us, echoing ancient tribal affiliations and the horrific legacy of slavery. (Sept. 22-Oct. 27) jenkinsjohnsongallery.com See page 28 >>

Courtesy of the artist and Jenkins Johnson Gallery

ith little lag time between a hectic summer and new fall season, San Francisco Opera is launching the first productions fully programmed (with one exception) by the administration of General Director Matthew Shilvock. The debris from burning down the house during three summertime “Ring” cycles has been cleared for the upcoming gala. The most famous operatic double bill of all time will ignite new flames starting Sept. 7, when verismo shockers “Cavalleria Rusticana” and “Pagliacci” open the 96th season. See page 17 >>

David Shrobe, “Knelt” (2018), oil, acrylic, fabric, wood and paper.

{ SECOND OF THREE SECTIONS }

<< Out There

18 • Bay Area Reporter • September 6-12, 2018

Bring on more fall arts

Kaiser Permanente is a proud sponsor of the

by Roberto Friedman

production marks the 20th anniversary for the ore arts events are Mary Sano Studio of coming to the Bay Area Duncan Dancing, dedithis fall! Let’s list some. cated to the preservation San Francisco Gay Men’s of Isadora Duncan’s Chorus will celebrate its art, and to exploring its 40th birthday with a weekcontemporary relevance end of events, Oct. 26-28. through ongoing new It kicks off on Fri., Oct. 26, work. Performing will 8 p.m., with “Tribute: Our be Mary Sano and her 40th Birthday,” a concert at Duncan Dancers includSt. Ignatius Catholic Church ing Eriko Tokaji, special in SF. “Paying tribute to the guest Adrienne Ramm, memory of the almost 300 classical piano Mutsuko singers the Chorus has lost Dohi and Hiroko Mizuto the AIDS pandemic, the no, her son Tony Sano Chorus will perform the reChapman, composerflective ‘When We No Longer contemporary piano GaTouch,’ composed in 1991, briela Hofmeyer, violin the first requiem dedicated Diana Rowan, and harp to those lost to AIDS. FeaShoko Hikage. Fri.-Sat., tures the Chorus, orchestra Sept. 7 & 8, 8 p.m., ODC and acclaimed soprano Ellie Theater, 3153 17th St., Dehn (Teatro alla Scala, San SF. Info: odc.dance/ Francisco Opera, Metropolidreamingisadora, (415) Musica Marin Festival tan Opera).” Tickets ($35863-9834. $60): www.SFGMC.org or Baritone Marco Vassalli will perform as part of the The Kinsey Sicks “Musica Marin Festival.” (415) 865-3650. will celebrate their A press agent thought that 25th anniversary in San B.A.R. readers might find Francisco with their films and 18 short films will be baritone Marco Vassalli of some critically acclaimed show “Things showcased. Opening-night films visual interest. We can’t imagine You Shouldn’t Say,” “the true story are “Freelancers Anonymous” and why (joke!), but here’s the lowof four friends from San Francisco “1985.” Centerpiece narrative film down: “Musica Marin Festival # 6, who had a life-changing epiphany “Wild Nights with Emily” stars Sat., Sept. 22, 8 p.m., Saturday eveat a Bette Midler concert in 1993 Molly Shannon. BENT has three ning Festival Concert, St. Stephen’s that led them to form The Kinsey feature docs, including one of speChurch in Belvedere, CA: The last Sicks in an effort to find joy during cial interest to dog-lovers, “Life in concert of the day will be held the darkest days of the AIDS crisis.” the Doghouse.” To celebrate LGBTQ in St. Stephen’s magnificent sancPlays Marines’ Memorial Theatre, History Month, “Dykes, Camera, tuary, including an informative 609 Sutter St., SF Fri., Oct. 5, 8 Action!” investigates the history Q&A with Musica Marin’s p.m.; Sat., Oct. 6, 3 & 8 p.m. There of queer women filmmakcomposer-in-residence will be a special post-performance ers, and “50 Years of Clint Borzoni and talkback with the cast and speFabulous” looks at the baritone Marco Vascial guests moderated by Kinsey life of Jose Sarria and salli. Vassalli joins our Sicks co-founder and former cast the activism of the Festival strings in the member Irwin Keller immediately Imperial Court. www. Primary Lock-Up /// Vertical — Square Primary Lock-Up /// Vertical — Square inspired performance following the 10/5 performance. BentFilmFest.org. of Samuel Barber’s Tickets ($40-$75): (415) 967-2227, Opera Parallèle, the Join us for new films, discussions, and special ‘Dover Beach’ and or boxcartheatre.org. Bay Area’s innovative Borzoni’s two songs Cappella SF and artistic direcevents that spark green ideas and connections. contemporary chamfor Baritone and String tor Ragnar Bohlin will present ber opera company, Quartet. The concert “Crown Jewels of Britain – A JourChange isn’t just necessary. will open its 2018-19 will end in grand style with Fesney through Centuries of British season with a new production of It’s Elemental. tival musicians performing MenMusic,” on Sat., Sept. 15, 8 p.m., at Philip Glass’ “In the Penal Colony” delssohn’s B-flat viola quintet.” the Cathedral of Christ the Light, (2000), based on a story by Franz www.musicamarinfestival.com. 2121 Harrison St., Oakland; and Kafka, with libretto by Rudolph @greenfilmfest Out Sacramento way, celebrating Sun., Sept. 16, 5 p.m., Mission Wurlitzer. Three performances #itselemental its 27th anniversary, BENT-SacDolores Basilica, 3321 16th St., SF, will be given as part of Glass’ “Days @KPSanFrancisco ramento International LGBTQ followed by a reception. Tickets: and Nights Festival” at the Golden Film Festival brings three days of cappellasf.org or at the door. Bough Playhouse in Carmel, LGBTQ film and live entertainFinally, hopes are high for the CA, Fri., Oct. 5, 7 p.m., and Sun., ment, Fri.-Sun., Oct. 12-14, to November 2 Focus Features reOct. 7, 2 & 7 p.m. A parable for the the Crest Theatre in downtown lease “Boy Erased.” “From writerconsequences of the abuse of power, Sacramento. Six feature-length director Joel Edgerton, the film the opera is set at the turn of the last tells the story of Jared (Academy century on a remote island, where a Award nominee Lucas Hedges), the high-ranking visitor arrives to witson of a Baptist pastor in a small ness the use of a strange machine American town who is outed to in execution of a prisoner. The OP new conservatory theatre center Seduces with the shameless allure his parents (Academy Award wincreative team is led by founder and Season Producers: Lowell Kimble, Ted Tucker of an old movie trailer” ners Nicole Kidman and Russell Executive Producers: Jorge R. Hernández artistic director Nicole Paiement, —New York Newsday & Ron Jenkins Crowe) at age 19. Jared is faced with who will conduct, and creative diProducers: Jeff Malloy & Dean Shibuya, Bennet Marks & Kim Harris, Richard Meiss & Peter Rudy an ultimatum: attend a conversion rector Brian Staufenbiel. Tickets therapy program, or be permanent($45-$85): www.daysandnightsfesly exiled and shunned by his family, tival.com. friends, and faith. ‘Boy Erased’ is Mary Sano, one of the world’s the true story of one young man’s foremost interpreters of Isadora struggle to find himself while being Duncan’s choreography, presents forced to question every aspect of “Dancing Dreaming Isadora” at his identity.”t ODC Theater San Francisco. This

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<< Film

20 • Bay Area Reporter • September 6-12, 2018

Fall Preview: Film by David Lamble

he end of summer gives filmlovers a peek at the serious film fare headed our way. Our picks combine old friends and newcomers ready to rumble. As always, it’s fascinating to see how LGBTQ films figure in the ongoing cultural mix. “The Hummingbird Project” Jesse Eisenberg and Alexander Skarsgard set out to succeed in the cut-throat world of high-frequency trading, establishing a fiber optic cable linking New Jersey and Kansas. They’re thwarted by their old boss (Salma Hayak). “A Rainy Day in New York” In Woody Allen’s 48th film as writerdirector, a couple visiting Manhattan finds bad weather and unexpected adventures. A stellar cast includes Timothee Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Rebecca Hall, Jude Law, Liev Schreiber and Diego Luna. “The Old Man & the Gun” Robert Redford, who recently announced his retirement from acting, appears in a shaggy dog story about a charming old hold-up art-

Hanway Films

Jesse Eisenberg and Alexander Skarsgard star in “The Hummingbird Project,” coming soon to a theater near you.

ist so nice about his heists that his victims feel sorry about bringing him in. This “mostly true” tale costars Sissy Spacek, Casey Affleck, Danny Glover, and Tom Waits. “Dead in a Week or Your Money Back” Writer-director Tom Edmunds’ dark piece about a young man who, having failed nine times

to kill himself, outsources the job to a professional killer. “7500” Joseph Gordon-Leavitt stars as a pilot whose plane is hijacked by terrorists. “Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grinelwald” The second installment in author J.K. Rowling’s postPotter series stars Eddie Redmayne.

“Shirley” An acclaimed writer of horror fiction is inspired to write when she and her hubby offer shelter to a young couple. Stars Elizabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg and Logan Lerman. “Gore” A young man’s summer in Italy is enlivened by a chance encounter with his idol, gay author Gore Vidal. Michael Hoffman directs Kevin Spacey, Michael Stuhlbarg and Douglas Booth. “The Dirt” Jeff Tremaine directs this musical bio-pic about rock band Motley Crue. “Backseat” Political fable about right-wing former V.P. Dick Cheney, father of a lesbian daughter. High-powered cast: Christian Bale (Cheney), Amy Adams (Lynne Cheney), Steve Carell (Donald Rumsfeld), Bill Pullman (Nelson Rockefeller), Sam Rockwell (Pres. G.W. Bush), Alison Pill (Mary Cheney), Lily Rabe (Liz Cheney), Tyler Perry (Gen. Colin Powell), and Justin Kirk (Scooter Libby). “The Pretenders” James Franco helms this romantic feature, a triangle between a photographer, a director and an actress (Brian Cox,

Juno Temple, Franco). “The Garden Left Behind” Tina, a young transwoman, and Eliana, her grandmother, navigate Tina’s transition and try to build a space for themselves as undocumented immigrants in Trump’s America. With newcomer Carie Guevara, Hollywood institution Edward Asner, Michael Madsen and Danny Flaherty. “Beautiful Boy” Based on twin father/son memoirs, the painful journey taken by a son (Timothee Chalamet) and a dad (Steve Carell) as they battle over Nick’s possibly terminal drug habit. “If Beale Street Could Talk” “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins adapts gay African-American author James Baldwin’s novel. Features actors Kiki Layne and Stephen James. “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” When writer Lee Israel fell out of favor, she turned to the craft of deception. Melissa McCarthy, Richard T. Grant and Dolly Wells star in Marielle Heller’s confessional, screenplay by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Witty.t

Realizing Hollywood dreams by Brian Bromberger

“I

dare to dream, and never took no for an answer. Early on I was told I would be nothing, and in my heart I knew I had to fight that. I was going to be something.” Lee Daniels, the powerhouse gay African-American director and producer, is profiled in the PBS summer series “Breaking Big,” hosted by Carlos Watson, available to watch through September.

“Breaking Big” examines how influential artists, innovators, and leaders (author Roxanne Gay, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand) became successful. It recounts their most dramatic turning points, “overcoming insurmountable obstacles and long odds to reach their own potential to break big.” Few would have predicted success for Daniels, who grew up on the tough streets of West Philadelphia, watching kids dodging bullets. Yet even at age five,

he knew this gang environment was not going to be his fate. Very young, he had an interest in the arts, reading from the theater section at the public library, and playing with Barbie dolls instead of the boxing gloves his cop father gave him. His father – violent, tried to beat the gay out of him – was shot and killed in a holdup, leaving his mother to raise five kids. His grandmother knew Daniels was gay when he was eight, but encouraged him to be honest

and stay the course, because he had been “anointed.” Dropping out of college, he took a bus to Hollywood to chase his dreams, initially homeless. He became a receptionist at a nursing agency, but decided to create his own at home, employing 100 nurses, making a lot of money. AIDS hit, and he watched lovers and friends die. Believing his days were numbered, Daniels pursued sex in bathhouses but miraculously didn’t contract AIDS, though he used drugs to help ease his pain. A chance encounter with a producer led to his working as an assistant on the set of the Prince film “Purple Rain,” learning how Hollywood operated. He sold his nursing agency for over $2 million, then found his niche casting actors. “‘No’ was not an option for me.” His brother was sent to jail, but his girlfriend bore him two kids. Lee didn’t want them, but his partner did. At 11 months he left them alone to look for drugs, but realized his failing in what became a turning point. He entered rehab, got his career back on track, and embraced his new role as father for his nephew and niece. He produced a film for Lionsgate, “Monster’s Ball,” that became a hit and won Halle Berry the first African-American Best Actress Oscar. This success gave him the courage to direct “Precious,” about a dysfunctional black teenager, with themes of

sexual and emotional abuse, as well as AIDS. Initially seen as impossible to finance, it got the backing of Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, and won critical raves and awards. Daniels directed the Hollywood hit “The Butler,” then conquered TV with the Fox phenomenon “Empire,” a musical drama about an entertainment company and its founders’ family, including Jamal, an out gay man in hip hop. When he first arrived in Hollywood, Daniels felt embarrassed about his background, but didn’t begin to thrive until he embraced both his blackness and gayness. “You have to be ready to be ridiculed for your beliefs. I speak for that face you don’t see. I want to change your thoughts about black people, gay people. That’s why I’m so out. It’s important to live in your truth. I’m not perfect, but wake up every morning trying to be a good man.” As psychologist Ellen Langer notes, with such a bleak childhood history, Daniels was set up for failure. But instead he saw his differences and negative experiences as assets. Daniels feels obliged to pass his story on to kids, telling them not to be afraid, they can do what he has done. Daniels’ travails and triumphs, upliftingly told in “Breaking Big,” should inspire all queer people to strive to be resilient, purposeful, and keep moving ahead with their creative vision, despite the challenges.t

·· ·· PBS

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Director-producer Lee Daniels is profiled in the PBS series “Breaking Big.”

OCT 31 - NOV 17 CHER.COM

<< Theatre

22 • Bay Area Reporter • September 6-12, 2018

Catch a rising star: Aaron Tveit by Jim Gladstone

atch him if you can. Broadway heartthrob Aaron Tveit originated the roles of emo-boy Gabe in the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Next to Normal” and Frank Abagnale, Jr., a part played on film by Leonardo DiCaprio, in the musical version of “Catch Me If You Can.” After his San Francisco concert debut at the Marine’s Memorial Theater on Sept. 27, he’s unlikely to make it back to the Bay Area for quite some time. That’s because Tveit (rhymes with “straight”) is committed to a long, likely career-making run in the lead role of Christian in the Broadway adaptation of Baz Luhrman’s “Moulin Rouge.” Reviewing that show’s out-of-town tryout in Boston, New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley wrote with unusual fanboy mooniness, describing Tveit’s turn as the love-wrenched Christian as “a role he was born to play.” “We don’t have our Broadway theater or date quite locked down,” Tveit said in a phone call just days

Nathan Johnson

Aaron Tveit: “I like maintaining some mystery.”

after closing in Boston last month, “but it’s definitely happening. “My music director and I are debating about whether to include anything from ‘Moulin Rouge’ in San Francisco,” said Tveit, who’s currently leaning toward the possibility. A video of Tveit performing

“Come What May,” one of the musical’s few original songs, has already been released. For the most part, like the movie, the stage version of “Moulin Rouge” is a particularly hectic sort of jukebox musical, with fragments of pop songs stitched into kaleidoscopic medleys. Updated from the film, the stage version now includes snippets of Gaga, Adele and Lorde, among others. In some sense, it’s an ideal production to elevate Tveit’s already rising star. “I was not a theater kid,” he said of growing up in Middletown, New York. “I was a pop music guy. I listened to a lot of 90s R&B. I was huge into Boys to Men. Then later, I went through a period of Nirvana and Soundgarden. My parents listened to a lot of Eagles and Paul Simon, who I think really influenced my voice and the way I sing.” But while Tveit has performed pop songs in concert before – his live album “The Radio in My Head” includes covers of Taylor Swift and Billy Joel – he’s planning

a showtune-focused set for his San Francisco debut. “It’s based on a concert I did at Lincoln Center earlier this year,” said Tveit, who was a music major at Ithaca College before dropping out to join a national tour of “Rent.” At college and on tour, Tveit suddenly found himself in the thick of the theater community. “When I got to Ithaca I really only knew the few musicals I’d done in high school,” he recalled. But Tveit has since become a Broadway aficionado. “I think when I’m older, I’d like to play Sweeney Todd and Valjean.” Tveit played Enjoiras in the film version of “Les Miserables,” alongside Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman. He’s already tackled two Sondheims, playing Bobby in a production of “Company,” and John Wilkes Booth in a London run of “Assassins.” Despite such serious aspirations, the musical role Tveit is most widely recognized for by his female fans, who call themselves Tveiter Tots, is Danny Zuko, from Fox TV’s 2016 “Grease Live.”

“It’s inevitable with TV shows that are seen by millions of people,” he said. In New York, he’s also frequently identified as Trip van der Bilt, a recurring role he played on “Gossip Girl” for three years. “It’s weird, because the character was kind of an asshole.” The handsome Tveit, who maintains a strict policy of keeping his personal life private, also has also won a contingent of gay fans, not only for his musicals and “Gossip Girl,” but also for his role in the 2010 film “Howl,” in which he played Peter Orlovsky, the lover of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, and had a makeout scene with James Franco, as Ginsberg. “I like maintaining some mystery,” said Tveit. “It lets me move from role to role without being typecast.”t Feinstein’s presents Aaron Tveit, Thurs., Sept. 27, 8 p.m. Marines Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter St., SF. Tickets ($70$105): www.ticketfly.com.

Syrian complications by Jim Gladstone

n the first page of the program for Shotgun Players’ production of Guillermo Calderón’s “Kiss,” “A Note from the Director” is subtitled, “Spoiler Alert: Please read after the show!” Meta-Spoiler Alert: If a director, in this case Evren Odcikin, believes that a plot twist is the most noteworthy aspect of his play, what’s about to be spoiled is an audience’s evening. Spoiler Alert: The primary plot twist in “Kiss”’ three-sectioned

script, performed in an intermissionless 90-minute eternity, is that the first of those sections, an overwrought melodrama, is revealed to be a play within the play. Thank goodness, because it’s laughably awful, a Damascus-set contemporary love triangle that somehow avoids any mention of Syria’s ongoing war and suffering. What a relief for the mystified Shotgun audience when, about 40 minutes in, the soap episode concludes with the four leads taking a faux curtain call, then suddenly switching from their melodrama

characters to their second roles: playing the actors who performed in the melodrama, now ready to engage their audience in a post-play discussion. This sublimely executed gimmick is by far the production’s most effective mind-meld of playwright, director and cast. There were audible gasps of surprise in the theater on the night I attended. The well-meaning Actors, led by Laura (Elissa Beth Stebbins, deliciously over-earnest), explain that they originally discovered the script of their play online, posted by its exiled Syrian playwright, Amira,

AT THE FAIRMONT VENETIAN ROOM

10/14

9/30 MATTHEW MORRISON

GAVIN CREEL

(Glee, Finding Neverland)

(Hello Dolly!, Book of Mormon, Hair)

11/4 KATE BALDWIN

Tony winner

12/2 PIAF - No Regrets CHRISTINE ANDREAS

1/20 CARMEN CUSACK W/ SUSAN WERNER

(Hello Dolly!, Big Fish, Finian’s Rainbow)

3/24

Multi-Grammy winner

3/3 JOHN PIZZARELLI & JESSICA MOLASKEY

CATHERINE RUSSELL

5/19

Tony winner

LACHANZE (Summer, Once on this Island, Color Purple)

Tickets: www.bayareacabaret.org 415-927-4636

who has recently been located in a Lebanese refugee camp. Now, for the first time ever – suspend disbelief! – they are about to meet Amira, via Skype, to publicly discuss her play along with the audience that’s just seen their performance. The ensuing scene is handled with acute verisimilitude, from the Actors fumbling with Cheshire Isaacs a computer projector, to a Phil Wong (Youssif/Daniel) and Wiley temperamentally staticky livestream, to the pal- Naman Strasser (Ahmed/Martin) in a pable frustration of Amira rehearsal for Shotgun Players’ “Kiss.” (Rasha Mohamed) speaking through a translator. Of course, in a single phone call, She quickly realizes and points they’ve had but the slightest glimpse out that these sensitive Western of Amira’s reality. So they’re not thespians have completely misinterreally making reasonable adjustpreted and mistranslated her play, ments, just another set of mistakes. deaf to its cultural context. Written And this set can’t be written off as as sorrowful, tragic realism, it’s been daft naiveté; it’s unthinking, guiltturned to buffoonery by arrogant wrenched flailing. Which is not would-be do-gooders. enjoyable to watch. This scene is tight and impactful. Calderón seems to realize that The audience squirms, feeling the it’s unreasonable to force audiActors’ profound embarrassment. ences to sit through the full length It’s a dramatically powerful, wellof this misguided attempt at recrafted demonstration of ill-indemption. But his solution throws formed assumptions undermining things into further disarray: As good intentions. Despite an overthe cast performs a stylized, fastlong opening gambit, playwright forward abridgement of the first Calderón has delivered, clearly and act, the play’s entire meta-conceit of cleverly. audience-as-character, experiencing But Calderón immediately gilds events in real time with the Actors, the lily: The troupe’s distraught coris destroyed, and Calderón’s script respondent goes on to explain that begins to contort into nonsense. she is actually not the Playwright The Actors solicit a few audience (who has been killed), but her bevolunteers to join them on stage reaved sister. We see her projected to play the role of a smaller audion the wall crying, “I am not Amira. ence, breaking rules of both physics I am not Amira.” We get it. The lives and logic. The entire play now feels of Middle Eastern refugees and trapped in a corner of Calderón’s those of comfortable Westerners making. Having whipped up a frantic aren’t reflective (nudge, nudge) of dynamo energy, it literally explodes. each other. Booms. Flashes. Gusts of smoke. “Kiss” is already a convoluted Amira/Not Amira glides sepulplay. Why add a superfluous characchrally forward onto the Actors’ ter death for no clear reason beyond cozy living room set. Dimensions wedging fanciful wordplay into a have collided! Time and space have scene that otherwise draws its power deformed! The horror of war is from its realism? incomprehensible! Art can never Turns out, Calderón’s just getreplicate life! ting started. We’re on to Part 3, Now you get to read “A Note where nothing makes sense. While from the Director.” Odcikin’s comrightly mortified, the Actors don’t mentary doesn’t actually give much apologize to Amira’s sister, or to away at all. You could read it ahead their audience. After the conference of time and still be surprised. Both call abruptly comes to an end, they by the big plot twist, and the big huddle up in a private chat, then mess that follows. t jump into a do-over. Slipping back into character mode, they attempt “Kiss” runs through Sept. 23. to perform the same script, but with Shotgun Players, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. Tickets ($7-$32): the tone and nuances its playwright www.shotgunplayers.org. intended.

ANNE BRIGMAN: A VISIONARY IN MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY September 29, 2018–January 27, 2019

My pictures tell of

my freedom of soul,

of my emancipation from fear. —Anne Brigman, 1913

Donald W. Reynolds Center for the Visual Arts | E. L. Wiegand Gallery 160 West Liberty Street in downtown Reno, Nevada

Lead Sponsor Wayne and Miriam Prim Major Sponsors The Bretzlaff Foundation; Carol Franc Buck Foundation; the Satre Family Fund at the Community Foundation of Western Nevada; Louise A. Tarble Foundation Sponsors Carole K. Anderson; Barbara and Tad Danz; Nancy and Harvey Fennell | Dickson Realty; Nancy and Brian Kennedy; Mercedes-Benz of Reno, an AutoNation Company; Whittier Trust, Investment & Wealth Management

Anne Brigman, The Breeze (detail), 1909/printed 1915, gelatin silver print. 9 ⅝ x 7 ⅜ inches. Wilson Centre for Photography.

<< Music

24 • Bay Area Reporter • September 6-12, 2018

Early Baroque casts its spell by Tim Pfaff

or American lovers of singing, late summer can be a dry spell, best deployed to clear the ears from the extreme singing that is opera, since more is coming. Between the broadcasts and livestreams from the big European festivals, my ears have wandered to two singular new recordings of 17th-century vocal music that have cast a spell on me. This hymns the healing power being early Baroque, there’s of sleep without the edge of the genderfuck just under the complaint heard in Handel’s surface of these performances “O sleep, why dost thou Harmonia Mundi that adds its own kind of aural leave me?” Richardot’s tone frisson. Out French tenor-baritone Marc Mauillon. becomes steadily more imThe French mezzo-soprano ploring throughout the piece. Lucile Richardot has the lowest With each verse we’re invited traditions of Dowland songs and female voice I’ve heard since deeper into her consciousness as exPurcell arias, as Douce points out in Vivica Genaux, who can without efpressed in richly modulated singing. his accompanying notes. fort sound like a bass. With RicharThe more emphatic, declamatory The title “Perpetual Night” alerts dot, it’s a sort of an inverted-gender style of the next song is by William you to the fact that the repertoire effect; she sounds more like a counLawes, who gets three here, and will will lean toward the Dowland “Flow tertenor than most countertenors be among the more familiar commy tears” sensibility, but the fare sound like altos, yet her voice has poser names. His “Whiles I thinks is varied in a way that feels both depth and penetration few of her standing lake” provides immediate natural and leavening. There are male counterparts achieve. assurance that this group of songs two purely instrument tracks that On “Perpetual Night” (Harmonia will not be unrelievedly dour, though provide further ear-soothing at perMundi), she joins Sebastien Douce’s there will be ample “tears” along its fectly timed intervals. superb Ensemble Correspondences route. It would take a scholar to fully The CD opens with Robert for a beautifully programed selecunpack the text of the third, “Go, Johnson’s ”Care-charming sleep,” tion of “ayres” and songs from happy man,” but it has that light, a melismatic, strophic song that 17th-century England, in the two

tripping sound that could imitate the feelings of a woman just having sent off a satisfied man. Richardot’s voice commands attention from the beginning but also burrows into your inner ear, making deep emotional private places resonate, free of the peskiness of the ordinary earworm. The recital reaches its peak with Purcell’s “When Orpheus sang,” but Douce has the sense to let it taper away with John Blow’s “Epilogue: Sing, sing, ye Muses.” I usually just let it keep playing. Fans of the French Baroque probably already have a favorite rendering of the Holy Week “Lecons de tenebres.” Drawn on the lamentations of the Biblical Jeremiah, the Lecons are the musical ground zero of Catholic solemnity, but by the time of the Couperins, some sensuality, of a spiritual sort, enters in and works those wiles. The out French singer (tenorbaritone; he’s a Pelleas) Marc Mauillon has launched his most ambitious project to date with the first cycle of the “Lecons,” composed for the court of Louis XIV in 166263 by Michel Lambert (Harmonia Mundi) and likely the earliest musical setting of the Lecons we have. As realized here, it’s far more austere than its successors, but its medita-

tive quality packs its own power. You don’t hear the grinding work that went into this recording of a “score” with barely any precise, set melodic or harmonic indications. Mauillon, in tenor mode, is accompanied only by harpsichord, gamba and theorbo, playing in complete, enlivening sync. The very sparseness quickly becomes addictive, erasing clock time. A singer with a broad repertoire, Mauillon’s sound here is more acerbic than in opera roles and may require some adjustment on the listener’s part. But, like Richardot’s, it has a deep, resilient core that asks the listener only to let it in to acquire its own entrancing kind of pull. There are keen minds at work here. The copious embellishments are improvised, yet dispatched so nimbly that the sound is not artificial but, in the manner of the Gregorian chant that underlies it, replete with the fullness of spirit. This project pushes out the boundaries of what we understand as Baroque. Living 200 meters from an active mosque, I hear a muezzin chant the call to prayer throughout the day. Until I heard Mauillon’s singing this Lambert, that has been the grounding music of my daily life. These Lambert “Lecons,” too, have to be heard if you’re to believe.t

away from her stifling family life and the strict hold her mother has on her. A sharp contrast to Bea is the brash, outgoing Kate (Lucinda Armstrong Hall), one of the three. Bea and Kate are immediately drawn to each other, and enter into a fast and deep friendship, to the chagrin of Bea’s mom. As Bea and Kate become closer, it becomes obvious the two may be falling in love, an unspoken love. Is Bea feeling the first stirrings of a lesbian identity she may not yet be aware of? “I’m glad you don’t have a penis,” Bea tells Kate after they look at nude centerfolds of buxom women. The two girls also share a few kisses, as Kate teaches Bea how to French kiss. Bea wants Kate to return to Toronto with her and her family at the end of the summer, but that can never be. When the summer is over, both girls’ lives are forever changed. Salisbury and Hall give nuanced performances as Bea and Kate, both actresses beautifully conveying the stirrings of first love. Salisbury is especially good as she plays out Bea’s frustrations: she has never been allowed to be herself. Through Kate she finally lives. A far different film is Breaking Glass’ “My Life with James Dean,” a French film with English titles. Johnny Rasse stars as Geraud, a filmmaker who comes to Normandy in order to attend several screenings of his latest film. His first screening is a disaster, with only one person in attendance. But Balthazar (Mickael Pelissier), the theater’s 15-year-old projectionist, also watches the film, and immediately falls in love with

the 30-ish auteur. This is a comingof-age experience for the young Balthazar, who realizes that he’s gay by watching the gay-themed movie. At first Geraud seems interested, but he balks when he realizes how young his new fan is. Their story alone might have made for an interesting film, but director Dominique Choisy brings in too many subplots, making “My Life With James Dean” feel disjointed. Completely out of left field comes a storyline in which the theater’s programmer is revealed to be a distraught lesbian who’s desperate to hold onto her girlfriend. When we first see the girlfriend, she’s bound and gagged. She decides to give the relationship another try. There’s yet another subplot about Gladys (Juliette Damiens), the concierge at the hotel where Geraud is staying. She seems to be off in her own little world, abruptly quitting her job in the hope that Geraud will cast her in his next film. The film meanders aimlessly around these three plots, never giving much focus on any one storyline. Towards film’s end, Geraud’s estranged mother, not previously mentioned, shows up at one of his screenings. The two go out for coffee, make small talk, then say goodbye. Why they’re estranged is never made clear. “My Life with James Dean” is a confusing dramedy with too many storylines. It’s obvious that Geraud has feelings for Balthazar, but this can never be properly explored in a film that jumps around its various subplots.t

Young love

by David-Elijah Nahmod

reaking Glass Pictures, a distributor that specializes in bringing independent LGBT cinema to the DVD and streaming markets, offers two films that take very different looks at the theme of young, first love.

Set in Northern Ontario over the course of a single summer, Ingrid Veninger’s “Porcupine Lake” introduces viewers to Bea (Charlotte Salisbury), a shy and isolated 13-year-old who’s desperate to break out of her shell. She’s spending the summer in a small town with her parents (Delphine Roussel, Chris-

topher Bolton) whose marriage is in trouble. Dad is an alcoholic. This not-too-happy family is working at a gas station/diner combination that Dad owns. One afternoon, to Bea’s delight, three girls her own age walk into the restaurant to buy some ice cream. Bea sees them as a chance to break

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<< Film

26 • Bay Area Reporter • September 6-12, 2018

Castro Theatre does September by David Lamble

he Castro Theatre greets the first month of Fall with a juicy collection of classic thematic double bills. Among the highlights is a oneday retrospective of the work of Italian film star Marcello Mastroianni (Sept. 22). “Airplane!” (1980) This nonstop laugh rush from Jim Abrahams and the Zucker Brothers was designed to spoof bloated 70s disaster flicks like “Airport.” Peopled by an ensemble of B actors with sober reputations (“Sea Hunt”’s Lloyd Bridges, Dis-

ney hero Leslie Nielsen), there were enough goofy gags to spark anyone’s fear of flying. “The Blues Brothers” (1980) The late John Belushi at the apex of his brief reign as the king of cinema hip. This John Landis-directed gem was a logical follow-up to the naughty campus farce “Animal House.” With cameos from Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and James Brown. (both 9/7) “The Princess Bride” (1987) Rob Reiner directs a multi-star revisionist fairy tale. With Billy Crystal and Cary Elwes.

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“Time Bandit” (1981) Terry Gilliam delivers a Monty Python spinoff, an absolute rib-tickler to those raised on British whimsy. (both 9/8) “9 to 5” (1980) Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton stage an office coup against a dumb macho boss (Dabney Coleman). Who says liberated gals don’t have a sense of humor? Plays with “The Best of Everything.” (both 9/9) “Whitney” Kevin MacDonald’s controversial bio-doc of the late pop singer Whitney Houston, who died at the height of popularity. Includes chats with music industry movers and shakers: record executive Clive Davis, singer Dionne Warwick, and TV talk host Merv Griffin. (9/10) “The Mystery of Picasso” This study of the great painter arrives in a brand new 4K Restoration print. “The Wages of Fear” (1953) French suspense classic follows a group of South American tough guys who transport nitroglycerine for a living. With Yves Montand and Charles Vanel. (both 9/12) “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” Fans of the Swedish pop quartet ABBA will love this song-filled pop artifact. (9/16-17) “Sorry to Bother You” Oakland telemarketer Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) finds himself in a macabre universe after he discovers the key to material glory. Cassius falls under the spell of Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), a cocaine-snorting CEO who offers him a salary beyond his wildest dreams. Making his feature debut, writer-director Boots Riley’s bold satire co-stars Tessa Thompson, Terry Crews, Danny Glover, and the voices of David Cross, Steve Buscemi, and Patton Oswalt. “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992) David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama portrays conmen/ salesmen attempting to eat their colleagues’ lunches in a darkly funny take on the cutting edge of hype. Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Bruce Altman and Jonathan Pryce illustrate W.C. Field’s axiom, “You can’t cheat an honest man!” The core of the piece is the intensity of Baldwin and Spacey’s young studs leaning on old guy Lemmon. This is “Death of a Salesman,” the piranha version! (both 9/18) “Battleship Potemkin” (1925) Sergei Eisenstein’s silent classic created the rulebook for early silent cinema in this gripping depiction of a sailors’ mutiny that helped spark the Russian Revolution. “The Battle of Algiers” (1965) A documentary-style narrative depicts the long-simmering revolt (1954-62) of Algerians against the French colonial regime. A textbook for filmmakers and revolutionaries. (both 9/20) Tribute to Italian film star Marcello Mastroianni. All films are in Italian with English subtitles: “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” (1963) Sophia Loren stars in a

trio of tales. In one, she performs a striptease for Mastroianni. “8 1/2” (1963) Mastroianni is a 43-year-old film director emotionally unraveling because his latest drama lacks a script. The unhappy man is surrounded by professional toadies and tabloid journalists. Federico Fellini’s brilliant satire on the state of the art-house film business. Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. “A Special Day” (1977) On a day when all of Rome is lying prostate at the feet of Adolph Hitler, the story unfolds in a huge apartment house where Sophia Loren, married to a Fascist blowhard, is left alone while

Daddy and her six kids fill spots along the parade route. Loren’s day takes a weird turn when her rude pet bird flies into the flat of a gay man (Mastrioanni), a radio announcer fired for being queer and unpatriotic. The pair bond while martial music and Fascist speeches blare on state radio. “La Dolce Vita” (1960) Fellini cast Mastroianni as a tabloid journalist covering decadent Roman society. “Divorce Italian Style” (1961) Pietro Germi directs Mastroianni as an unhappy married man who devises a very Italian solution to his domestic misery. Won an Oscar for its provocative screenplay. (all five, 9/22) “The Beatles Yellow Submarine” (1968) The 50th anniversary edition of this splendid animation is a revelation. Cartoon versions of John, Paul, George and Ringo travel to Pepperland to save citizens from the Blue Meanies. It’s pure silly fun, its soundtrack brimming with Beatle songs “All You Need Is Love,” “When I’m 64,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and the title ballad. (9/23-24) Tribute to the late gay film star Tab Hunter is hosted by Film Noir authority Eddie Muller: “Damn Yankees” (1958) In adaptation of the hit Broadway play, a long-suffering Washington Senators baseball fan strikes a pact with the Devil to derail the Bronx Bombers’ winning ways. With Ray Walston and Gwen Verdon. “Polyester” (1981) Tab in a bizarre career reboot as the romantic partner to John Waters’ greatest creation, the magnificent Divine, as a terminally bored housefrau. With Waters’ regular company, including Mink Stole. (both 9/27) “Chinatown” (1973) A story about that most precious of commodities, fresh water, and what ruthless men will do to secure an endless supply of it. Set in drought-plagued Southern California in the late 1930s, this ultimate LA tale features a battle to the death between demonic land baron Noah Cross (scary-good John Huston) and cynical private dick J.J. Gittes (Bogart-worthy turn from Jack Nicholson). Jake is handed a cheating husband case that leads to City Hall, then to a dry LA River bed where tons of water are being dumped at night. Seeking the culprit, Jake runs into a knife wielding enforcer (director Roman Polanski), who slashes the detective’s nose. Screenwriter Robert Towne (Oscar for Best Original Screenplay) manages to combine literate dialogue with sharply drawn, conflicted characters and worthy thematic tropes: incest, murder and insatiable greed. A glorious metaphor for corrupt SoCal water politics, “Chinatown” remains the film that best spells out the stakes of living in the world’s most attractive and dangerous desert community. With Faye Dunaway. (9/28)t

<< Music

28 • Bay Area Reporter • September 6-12, 2018

Fall Opera

From page 17

All productions are new to the War Memorial Opera House, described by Shilvock as thematically divided between fairy tale operas with messages and works of “pure unadulterated emotion.” Each is meant to “speak to the heart.” Old associations are spread throughout cast and crew listings, but fresh talent and promising introductions are included. There is diversity, some colorblind casting and a woman will be seen on the podium: South Korean rising star Eun Sun Kim. Of the eight conducting assignments, six spotlight mainstage season debuts. The hunt for a new music director is on. A preview of Summer 2019 will appear later. Curious newcomers, veteran opera-lovers and ardent opera queens can focus, for now, on the exciting array of fall offerings. Single tickets went on sale in June for a special one-performance-only concert featuring superstar Placido Domingo with Ana Maria Martinez, Arturo Chacon-Cruz, and conductor Jordi Bernacer. They sold out fast, but seats and packages remain for everything else. Mascagni’s sensational “Cavalleria Rusticana” (big tunes, big feelings) and Leoncavallo’s shocking tearjerker “Pagliacci,” staged by Argentinian tenor-turned-director Jose Cura, have been moved to the Italian barrio of Buenos Aires. Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk returns after her fine Amneris in “Aida” to sing Santuzza in “Cav,”

and soprano Lianna Haroutounian returns from previous SFO successes in Puccini to portray Nedda in “Pag.” She faces tenor Marco Berti as her betrayed husband Canio, the original scary clown. (Sept. 7-30) It would be hard to think of anything better to capture the imaginations of opera neophytes, but if a slightly less feverish drama filled with bel canto pyrotechnics is wanted, Donizetti’s “Roberto Devereux” might be just the ticket. The story of Queen Elizabeth I’s tempestuous relationship with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, hasn’t been staged here for almost 40 years. British director Stephen Lawless reunites stars of 2014’s “Norma,” with “reigning diva” soprano Sondra Radvanovsky portraying Elisabetta, acclaimed mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton making her role debut as Sara, and powerful tenor Russell Thomas also making his role debut as the title character. (Sept. 8-27) The time is ripe for a spanking new “Tosca,” Puccini’s guilty pleasure that early established the SFO brand. The latest incarnation, set in designer Robert Innes Hopkins’ striking red-hued color scheme, stars international and local favorite Brian Jagde as Cavaradossi and baritone Scott Hendricks as big bad Baron Scarpia. Making her Company and role debuts, glamorous Italian soprano Carmen Giannattasio is Tosca. Her looks (ambassador for Bulgari Jewelry) and thrilling voice fulfill the image of a passionate diva. British conductor Leo Hussain makes his SFO debut. (Oct. 3-30)

Courtesy of the artist and Chinese Culture Center

Wesley Tongson, “The Light” (1992), ink and color on board.

Fall Art Galleries

From page 17

SF Camerawork: The devastating impact of the infernos that have ravaged Northern California is the focus of “Forage from Fire: Excavation Images,” in which photographer Norma I. Quintana acts as a chronicler of memories. She documented the charred remnants of her home and studio, casualties of the Napa Atlas Fire that swept through her neighborhood last year. Though most of her possessions were destroyed within minutes, she salvaged from the ashes some burnt, barely recognizable objects that survived their trial by fire – Christmas ornaments, a manual typewriter,

doll parts, kitchen utensils – whose ghosts she has preserved for posterity. (Oct. 4-20) “I am to see to it that I do not lose you” pairs two bodies of work that form a link between retrieved history and an imagined future: one by Orestes Gonzalez, a New York-based photographer; the other from Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, an artist, performer, and zombie drag queen of mixed Pakistani-LebaneseIranian descent, who looks at the intersection of queerness and Islam. Ali Bhutto’s multimedia project “Tomorrow We Inherit the Earth,” a fusion of textiles, performance and photography-related imagery, envisions the dawning of a queer rebellion and femme guerilla warriors, while Gonzalez’s “Julio’s House”

Florenzo Niccoli

Soprano Carmen Giannattasio will sing the title role in “Tosca.”

The General Director adds one of his favorite composers to the season with Richard Strauss’ lyrical “Arabella.” Director Tim Albery, famous for his triumphant open-air staging of “Peter Grimes” on a beach, moves indoors to make his SFO debut. Company veterans Ellie Dehn (a lovely “Manon”), Brian Mulligan (superb as “Sweeney Todd”), Heidi Stober (the vixenish Norina in “Don Pasquale”) and Michaela Martens

(unforgettable as Klytemnestra in “Elektra”) fill the main roles. German conductor Marc Albrecht, chief conductor of the Dutch National Opera, makes his SFO debut. (Oct. 16-Nov. 3) The West Coast Premiere of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” co-commissioned by SFO during David Gockley’s tenure, arrives in time for the holidays. Matthew Shilvock calls them one of

modern opera’s best artistic partnerships, and their heartwarming and insightful story of a man on the brink arrives with revisions after the world premiere. There is no sugarcoating, but the message of hope remains. American tenor William Burden returns to SFO following appearances in the world premieres of “The Gospel of Mary Magdalene” and “Heart of a Soldier.” He was convincing as Laca in 2016’s “Jenufa.” Singing the iconic role of George Bailey; Burden offers another opportunity to appreciate his impressive range. Angel Second Class Clara, waiting centuries for a chance to earn her wings and get a promotion, will be portrayed by two young sopranos making their SFO debuts. Originally from South Africa, Golda Schultz sings most performances. American soprano Kearstin Piper Brown appears on Dec. 9. Baritone Rod Gilfry has traveled far and wide since he blew the roof off the War Memorial as Stanley Kowalski in the 1998 premiere of Andre Previn’s “A Streetcar Named Desire.” He makes a welcome return as George Bailey’s nemesis Mr. Potter (#6 on AFI’s list of the 50 Greatest Villains in American film history). Director Leonard Foglia re-teams with choreographer Keturah Stickann for another Jake Heggie opera. Their brilliant work on “Moby Dick” (2012) was supported by conductor Patrick Summers, who returns to lead “It’s a Wonderful Life.” (Nov. 17-Dec. 9)t sfopera.com

tours his deceased gay uncle’s luxuevery day. (through Sept. 29) themethe sky high above the ocean waves, riously decorated, memento-filled sandprojects.com she subverts imagery from Persian home in Miami’s Little Havana. Euqinom Gallery: “Intersection and Indian miniatures, challeng(Nov. 1-Jan. 5) sfcamerawork.org of Gazes” is a group show of multiing despotic regimes, the atrocities Chinese Culture Center: “Wescultural photographers pushing the of war and those complicit in the boundaries of conventional portrailey Tongson: The Journey” centers perpetuation of both. Washed in ture. It features local gay artist Jamil watercolor, ink and acrylic, simulon the late Hong Kong ink artist Hellu, who took staged theatrical taneously nightmarish and whimsiwho was a singular voice in conpictures of members of the LGBTQ cal realms are inhabited by faceless temporary ink painting. Diagnosed community dressed in costumes figures linked in an endless chain with schizophrenia at the age of that reflect their ethnic and cultural of violence, and decapitated horses 15, he retreated from the art world, heritage. Kristine Potter’s “Manihauling fire through rubble-strewn toiling in solitude during the last fest” reevaluates myths of cowboy landscapes dotted with crippled oil decades of his life, a period when he masculinity by photographing men refineries and nuclear plants. Tackforsook the brush and relied solely in traditionally feminine poses in ling the state of American politics on his nails and fingers. This, his rugged Western landscapes; and in and the country’s role in global first American solo exhibition in “Bully Pulpit” Haley Morris-Cafiero tensions, “The War Room” may over two decades, traces the evolurepresent the most overtly political responds to a bullying campaign tion from his earlier work that grew work produced by the 90-year-old sparked by a previous series in out of his classical training through painter David Simpson in his 60which she photographed people the mature, large-scale paintings in year career. His outrage over abuse gawking at her appearance. Suffice which he employed ink rubbing, of power and wanton destruction, it say, she turns the tables on her marbling, splash and paper-crumlike ISIS dynamiting the ancient site antagonists. (Sept. 5-Oct. 27) pling techniques. (Oct. 12-Dec. 15) of Palmyra, seeps through the layers Haines Gallery hosts two conwww.c-c-c.org of his abstract, light-refracting cancurrent solo shows from Bay Area Themes+Projects: In “Play vases in which clouds of smoke and artists. Shiva Ahmadi, an Iranian Time,” the young French photogash evoke chaos and the fog of war. American, drew on Middle Eastern rapher Maia Flore, investigates (Sept.6-Oct. 27) hainesgallery.com traditions and childlike, storybook uncharted territory between the Berggruen Gallery is exhibiting visual motifs to comment on georeal and the fantastical. Inspired by a survey of important works on political turmoil for her exhibition music, literature and theater, and paper and paintings (1959-2010) “Burning Song.” In sculptures, taking a cue from the cinematic stoby the late Nathan Oliveira, the aespaintings and in her short animated rytelling style of French filmmaker videos, where figures fly through thetically independent-minded Bay Jacques Tati, she weaves Area figurative painter and ambiguous scenarios that Stanford professor, who veer from the bizarre to created haunting, exquithe surreal. The current sitely balanced composishow draws on two of the tions of the human figure artist’s recent series. “By – often isolated in the landthe Sea” was shot in 26 scape – over the course of locations along the French five prolific decades. (Sept. coast, where Flore appears 6-Oct. 13) It’s always unas a character on the edge wise to separate a girl from of a cliff poised to dive into her steed, and in the case the water below, or standof British photographer ing on the shore raising a Mary McCartney, it would push broom toward the have meant a loss for the sky. In another image, a art world. “The White bright white, glowing orb Horse,” her largest body of rests snugly inside a crater work to date, includes porat dusk, as if the moon had traits of her magnificent fallen to earth and sought white stallion, a vision out shelter there. In “Le Voyage of a fairy tale or myth, phoFantastique” the mischietographed in the verdant vous Flore embarked on Sussex countryside of her enchanted visits to famous youth. The images convey French cultural sites, the tacit intimacy and trust places like the Chateau de Chris Woodcock, courtesy of the artist and Haines Gallery between rider and horse, Thoiry, where one might steeling away into green spy a giraffe loping across Shiva Ahmadi, “Pressure Cooker #9” (2018), meadows or venturing into the manicured lawns of intaglio hand-etching on metal pressure cooker forests after nightfall. (Oct. the mist-shrouded castle, from Afghanistan. 18-Nov. 21)t something you don’t see

Arts Events

Nightlife Evnets

www.ebar.com

Leather Vol. 48 • No. 36 • September 6-12, 2018

courtesy of Feinstein’s at the Nikko

Camp‘Liberace concert and Liza Live’ at Feinstein’s

by David Elijah-Nahmod

n September 13, two show business legends will take to the stage of Feinstein’s at the Nikko when Liberace And Liza Live! A Tribute comes to the club for what promises to be a gay night of entertainment. See page 30 >>

Fred Rowe

David Saffert and Jillian Snow Harris as Liberace and Liza Minnelli.

Mind Your Queer Bizness

by Juanita MORE!

Supporting LGBT-owned shops, bars and restaurants

n March of this year, two hundred of my closest friends and I led a parade down Polk Gulch to lay wreaths at the sites of former queer businesses along that infamous corridor. The Brass Liberation Orchestra held us together with a raucous rendition of St. James Infirmary Blues as we swept up dozens of unsuspecting gawkers who we’d somehow failed to scare away. See page 32 >>

Juanita MORE! (center) with chefs Cory Alexander Armenia and Cole Church (to her right and left) and the kitchen staff of Jones.

{ THIRD OF THREE SECTIONS }

<< Cabaret

30 • Bay Area Reporter • September 6-12, 2018

HEADSHO

PORTRAIT

EVENTS

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From page 29

Classically trained pianist David Saffert will perform as the flamboyant Liberace, while Jillian Snow Harris will show that life is a cabaret with her take on Liza Minnelli. Bo Ayars, who served as Liberace’s music director for thirteen years, will be conducting the Feinstein’s show. Liza (hopefully) needs no introduction to readers of a gay publication. Daughter of show business legend and gay icon Judy Garland, Liza herself was embraced by the LGBT community early in her career. She returned the adulation, becoming one of the first major stars to publicly stand with her gay fan base. Harris spoke to the Bay Area Reporter about the connection between Liza and the LGBT community. “Because she’s fabulous!” Harris said. “And honest, vulnerable and fearless. I’m gay, and struggled to find comfort in my own identity. Liza, Judy Garland, Cher, Dolly Parton; I find all of these ladies inspiring. They are absolute individuals and teach us not to apologize for who we are. Liza is still evolving, which keeps everyone guessing. She is a master at being herself, I think that’s her secret. Her popularity will endure for future generations to come, and I hope that in some small way I’m helping to plant those seeds for younger audiences.” Harris has a strong background in comedy, being a graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City. She has performed at the Gotham Comedy Club, The Laugh Factory, and Comix NYC as a Liza impersonator, yet promises that her take on Liza does not disparage the singer. “My interpretation is treated seriously and with the utmost respect,” she said. “It is a tribute to one of the greatest living legends of our time. Are there humorous moments throughout the show? Absolutely. Liza herself is a very funny woman. Also, we are talking about a show where Liza and Liberace are BFFs. That in itself is fairly amusing, though they have plenty in common, besides sequins.” Harris’ interest in musical performance goes all the way back to her childhood in Salem, Oregon. “I was a very shy kid, and musicals were a magical escape,” she said. “Naturally I wanted in on that magic. I’m lucky to have started performing young, in front of my stuffed animals when no one was looking. Expression is so important for growth, and it eventually helped me step out of my shell and achieve another very important artistry that some like to call social skills.” Harris also spoke of the personal connection she feels towards Liza, and why she feels moved to perform as her. “When I was a child my mother brought home a beat-up copy of (Liza’s film) Stepping Out,” she recalled. “From the first moment she appeared onscreen, I was a goner. Sheer talent aside, what caught my eye the most was her remarkable ability to be vulnerable. Yes, I was 8. I still struggle with this in my life, and I guess I wanted to emulate someone who didn’t give two flips about what people thought. I wanted to let loose, so who better to emulate than Liza? I do feel a kind of personal connection to her in the sense that through her voice, I was finally able to find my own.” Saffert, who has performed in the actual mansion that Liberace once called home, talked about his connection to Liberace, a brilliant pianist who often flew out on stage bedecked in jewels and furs. “Liberace and I were both from Wisconsin,” Saffert said. “We were both classically trained piano players that eventually found joy in combining the classics with current music. As I started working on

courtesy of Feinstein’s at the Nikko

David Saffert and Jillian Snow Harris as Liberace and Liza Minnelli.

Liberace’s voice, I realized that my grandmother used to talk exactly like him. In fact, I love speaking as him because it reminds me of home and of many of the people I miss.” Looking at old clips of Liberace now, it’s often hard to believe that his audiences never realized that he was gay. The entertainer remained deeply closeted throughout his life. “We’re celebrating Liberace’s 100th birthday next May 19th,” said Saffert. “He died in 1987, a time when homosexuality was still greatly disapproved of, joked about, and hidden. And because he died of pneumonia as a result of AIDS, Las Vegas did not give him the honors it gave all its mighty entertainers. Vegas never dimmed the lights or named a street after him, which it did for all its legendary performers. My sincere hope is that, had he lived, he would eventually have felt empowered enough to come out. And had he come out, I think he still would have lived quietly and privately, and his sexuality would never have made it to the stage.” Saffert also addressed why he performs as Liberace. “My portrayal of Liberace started off as a stunt; something I added into a variety show that I had already created,” he said. “What I never expected was that his music and comedy would get such energetic applause and laughter. I had to keep doing it. He was so warm and generous onstage. He wanted to share his music with everyone. And not only music, but clothing and rings. When I perform as him showing off my clothing and rings, I feel like I’m in 2nd grade doing show-and-tell. And his

music is glorious and fun. I mean, I get to play Gershwin, Boogie Woogie, and Chopsticks. He was a joy of a performer and I feel honored and humbled to be playing him.” Like Harris, Saffert considers his performances to be a serious homage, albeit laced with humor. “I do treat it seriously, but that doesn’t mean it’s not funny,” Saffert said. “Onstage he was an incredibly funny and lovable guy who took his music very seriously. The trick is to play him honestly. I really don’t need to add anything. His stage presence and persona was already bigger than life, so why make it anything more than it already was?” Saffert feels confident that Liberace’s legacy will continue to endure. “So many performers were and are inspired by Liberace and his lavish, eccentric performances: Michael Jackson, Elvis, Elton John, Lady Gaga,” he said. “It also helps that Liberace’s likeness and image have been seen in some recent movies and television such as Behind the Candelabra, Blade Runner 2049, and Mozart in the Jungle. He’s nostalgic to some, and eccentric, kitschy, and fabulous to others. He’s one of few artists that had a 40+ year career in show business. No one was like him, and no one will ever be like him.”t David Saffert and Jillian Snow Harris bring ‘Liberace and Liza Live! A Tribute’ to Feinstein’s on Thursday, September 13 at 8pm. $30-50 ($20 food/drink min.) Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.feinsteinsatthenikko.com

photo courtesy of Feinstein’s at the Nikko

David Saffert as Liberace, with his dogs and “chauffeur, Scott Thorson.”

<< MORE! Stuff

32 • Bay Area Reporter • September 6-12, 2018

Fred Rowe

Fashionable guests at Juanita MORE’s birthday party.

MORE! Stuff

From page 29

Wreath after wreath, we mourned the passing of a bygone queer renaissance along Polk Gulch, marking facades that have since transformed into new, less queer establishments, or - worse - been left vacant. And in the short months since our macabre procession, we’ve said farewell to yet another relic of this city’s gaiety, the Nob Hill Theater. Surviving this city has never been easy. And let’s be honest, some of your favorite haunts caved after decades not because business took a dive, but because their owners cashed out to Palm Springs. (Who can blame them, really?) If we can still cling to any remnant from Polk Street’s queer zeitgeist, though, it’s that it’s always been a hustler’s game. That said, in spite of your creature comforts, change is not always bad, and in a city renowned for its tendency toward reinvention, part of surviving is at least being open to embracing new things. You don’t need to line up for the block’s most recent addition. I appreciate cautious hesitation in a person, but it doesn’t hurt to check it out on off-hours. That said, let me be clear about a couple of important things. First and foremost, by the time you’re reading this, I’ll have officially launched my takeover of the restau-

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rant at Jones (620 Jones St. at Geary), and you’d better line up because every Tuesday through Sunday from 5pm to 10pm, my meatballs just might change your life. The math is simple - if you don’t come to eat I don’t have a restaurant. Second, and the real point of this week’s column, you don’t have any business mourning loss of queer businesses if you’re not doing anything to keep them in business.

Shop Queer

Supporting small queer business means getting your shoes shined at your local queer-owned cobbler, flirting with the racks at that cute atelier down the street, and tossing back a Paloma with the regulars at your local gay watering hole. So let’s go for a little stroll through some of my favorite queer-owned businesses in this city, and I’ll remind you along the way that you have the power to make sure that they stay in business. I live and shop mostly within a four-block radius of my house, so stop your whining and grab some doggie bags for Jackson. Gimme Shoes, 416 Hayes St. To know me at all is to know that I’ve always been a shoe whore. One of my earliest memories was from primary school when my godmother taking me shopping for the one pair of sneakers I would be wearing for the entire school year. It would have been a wise choice to get the sneakers she was coaxing me towards, but I was eight years old and I was very excited by the opportunity of being allowed to pick out the ones I really wanted. I don’t know why anyone would be surprised that I chose the flashiest dress shoe in the store. And so Juanita was born. Those shoes were ridiculous on the basketball court, but instead of adapting, I simply quit stomping around the court. My lifelong love of fancy footwear had begun. Now it’s an addiction as bad as gambling. I wish there was a Shoe Addicts Anonymous meeting where I could share my struggles with similarlyafflicted people. (If you’ve made it this far into the column - yes, this is actually a cry for help.) When Gimme Shoes opened its doors right around the corner from my tiny Tenderloin apartment in the 1980s, I was hooked. It was a tiny space in the bottom of an apartment building and had just a few shelves with exposed brick walls. But each shoe was special. The owner, Jary Warwick, has kept his finger on the pulse of the most coveted styles of men’s and women’s shoes, and, naturally, his finger on my beating heart.

Hi Tops 2247 Market St. Speaking of those boys on the basketball court, just because I refuse to run laps in high heels doesn’t mean I’ve stopped drinking with them, calling out their thin machismo from under my towering wig, and, by the end of the night, helping them into a cab after they’ve helplessly poured their feelings all over the locker room floor. And Hi Tops is my favorite place to do it. Much has been written about this thriving Castro hotspot, including in the pages of Sports Illustrated. But the real reason I keep coming back is that of the generosity and community awareness of owners Jesse Woodward and Dana Gleim. Together, these two have turned a kitschy gay sports bar concept into a true community hub, frequently hosting events to raise money for this or that cause and going above and beyond to create a space that is inviting to more than just the minimal-BMI jock set. And now they have just opened another bar in West Hollywood! M.A.C. Modern Appealing Clothing, 387 Grove St. I’ve been a fan of Modern Appealing Clothing since siblings Ben and Chris Ospital and their mother Jeri first opened the shop in 1980. Back in those days, the shop was located on Post Street just a few blocks from Polk Gulch, littered as it was with queer-owned shops and bars. Polk Gulch gentrified pretty rapidly over the next several years and couple of decades, and the neighborhood lost a lot of its queer charm. But for a long time, before it moved to Hayes Valley, M.A.C. held its ground amid rapid change. This family-owned store has remained a fashion staple for San Francisco’s seriously stylish. In spite of the increasing accessibility of major international fashion brands, M.A.C. has showcased and empowered local designers and artists, building community and facilitating the growth of San Francisco’s local fashion scene. Sui Generis, 2231 Market St. Owned and operated by my dear friends Miguel Lopez and Gabriel Yanez, Sui Generis quickly became a Castro staple after moving to its Market Street location in 2008. Miguel and Gabriel have supported my annual Pride Party by selling tickets every year. I hope you know that it is my way of getting you off of Eventbrite and into the store - to also hopefully shop. The consignment store model is perfect for those with moderate incomes but expensive taste. While Mr. David makes most of my gowns these days, I’m not shy about getting a great deal on designer brands from time to time, and Sui Generis is the place for it.

Above: Todd Barket with Juanita MORE at Unionmade. Middle: Miguel Lopez, Juanita MORE and Gabriel Yanez at Sui Generis. Left: Chris Ospital, Juanita MORE and Ben Ospital at Modern Appealing Clothing. All photos: MOREboy Isaac

Unionmade, 493 Sanchez St. Oh gosh, this retail-heavy list is really beginning to show my indulgent side. But I have to put in a good word for Unionmade and its delightful owners and community members Todd Barket and Carl Chiara. Unionmade might have a higher price point, but this isn’t fast fashion. This isn’t disposable wear. Every item at Unionmade is a time-tested style and certain to last you through all of San Francisco’s seasons. It’s been my privilege to partner with Unionmade on a number of projects, including taking over their 18th Street-facing wall with an enormous mural of myself. As a local icon, a distinction I hold without qualification, I’m particularly proud of this brand adjacency.

There are so many more queer biznesses I could write about - more than print space will allow. So, that’s all for now. My fingernails are strained from all of this click-clacking at the keyboard, and Jackson needs to go out for a pee. Let me just leave you with this: it’s really important to support small queer businesses. It’s really important to give back to the queer institutions that make this city one worth living in. Shop local, shop queer, or don’t be surprised when your favorites ship out. You can find a growing list of queer businesses at my website (juanitamore.com/queer-bizness/) and if you’d like me to highlight your own queer business, send me an email at juanita@juanitamore.com. See you next time. Loads of Love, Juanitat

Steven Underhill

The popular sports bar HiTops.

<< Arts Events

34 • Bay Area Reporter • September 6-12, 2018

Arts Events September 6-13

Curtain Call @ Sip Tea Room

Exhibit 2018 @ Harvey Milk Photo Center

Tarzan @ Lucie Stern Theater, Palo Alto

Society Cabaret’s talent show (moved from the Hotel Rex during renovations) with Bill Cooper and Barry Lloyd. $15-$25. 8pm. 721 Lincoln Way. www.siptearoom.com

Group exhibit of prints by members, volunteers and staff. 1pm-4pm. Thru Sept 16. 50 Scott St. www.harveymilkphotocenter.org

Palo Alto Players’ production of the Broadway musical adapted from the Disney animated film, and very loosely based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels. $25-$55. Thru Sept 23. 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. www.paplayers.org

Each and Every Thing @ The Marsh Berkeley Dan Hoyle returns with his hit show about attempts to connect in a busy digital world. $25-$100. Thu & Fri 8pm, Sat 8:30pm. Thru Sept. 29. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. www.themarsh.org

Follies @ Alcazar Theatre

Thu 6

Circus Vargas @ Solano Town Center, Fairfield

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

Thu 6 Circus Vargas @ Solano Town Center, Fairfield The California family-run circus (with no animals abused!) takes on a fun pirate theme, with hunky acrobats, plus clowns, jugglers and other talents; pre-show lets kids learn magic tricks and more. $15-$72. Thru Sept 10, 1350 Travis Boulevard, Fairfield; at other NorCal venues thru Oct. 14. www.circusvargas.com

Classic and New Films @ Castro Theatre SF Green Film Festival opening night screening of Into the Okavango; 6pm reception, 7:30pm screening. Closing screening Sept 13: Genesis 2.0 (4pm); The Condor and the Eagle (7:30pm). Sept 7: Airplane! (7pm) and The Blues Brothers (8:45). Sept 8: The Princess Bride (3pm, 7pm) and Time Bandits (4:50, 850). Sept 9: The Best of Everything (2:15, 6:30) and 9 to 5 (4:25, 8:45). Sept 10: Whitney (6pm, 8:30).$11-$14. 429 Castro St. www.castrotheatre.com

A Doll’s House: Part 2 @ Berkeley Rep Theatre Lucas Hnath’s innovative funny ‘sequel’ to the Henrik Ibsen theatre classic about a 19th-century housewife who returns to the husband she abandoned. $23-$75. Thru Oct. 21. 2025 Addison St. www.berkeleyrep.org

Fringe Festival @ Exit Theatre Annual festival of intimate independent and unusual plays; 20 shows, 9 nights. $10-$85 (10 shows) Thru Sept. 15. 156 Eddy St. www.sffringe.org

Garrett + Moulton @ YBCA Theater Stabat Mater and Mad Brass, world premiere dances by innovative choreographers Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton. $20-$42. Thu-Sat 8pm Sun 3pm. Thru Sept. 9. 700 Howard St. www.garrettmoulton.org

Genevieve Quick @ Asian Art Museum Planet Celadon: Our Receiver is Operating, a dance and video performance imagining Asian American identity through science fiction. 7pm & 8pm. Sept 8 & 9 at 1pm & 2:30pm. 200 Larkin St. http://www.asianart.org/regular/ planet-celadon

Kiss @ Ashby Stage, Berkeley Guillermo Calderon’s play about a group of actors who discover a script set in Damascus, begin performing what appears to be a romantic melodrama about life in Syria, but which proves to be more of a mystery. $7-$42. Thu-Sun thru Sept. 23. 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. www.shotgunplayers.org

Oakland Pride Kickoff @ Club BnB, Oakland Comics Sampson McCormick, Kia Barnes, rapper Young Shorty Doowop and DJ Mellanique Robicheux entertain at an Oakland Pride weekend kickoff party. $10$20. 9pm-11pm. 2120 Broadway, Oakland. www.club-bnb.com

Two Friends @ Cornerstone, Berkeley Music duo (Matt Halper and Eli Sones) performs their dance music pop songs. $21-$24. 8:30pm. 2367 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. www.twofriendsmusic.com

Vanessa Hua @ City Lights Bookstore The author reads from A River of Stars and The Golden State, in conversation with Lydia Kiesling. 7pm. 261 Columbus Ave. www.citylights.com

Washed Up on the Potomac @ Custom Made Theatre World premiere of José Zayas’ play about D.C. proofreaders caught up in a possibly murderous scandal. $30. Thu 7pm, Fri & Sat 8pm. Sat 3pm. 533 Sutter St. 2nd floor. www.sfplayhouse.org

West Side Story @ Hillbarn Theatre, Foster City Peninsula production of the classic Bernstein/Sondheim musical about New York City gangs, based loosely on Romeo and Juliet. $35$52. Thu-Sat 8pm, Sat & Sun 2pm. Thru Sept 16. 1285 East Hillside Blvd., Foster City. www.hillbarntheatre.org

Fri 7 Cabaret @ Cinnabar Theater, Petaluma The Tony-winning Kander & Ebb musical set in Weimar Germany, and based on gay author Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, gets a North Bay production. $20-$40. Thru Sept 16. 3333 Petaluma Blvd. North. www.cinnabartheater.org

42nd Street Moon theatre company performs a concert staging of the classic Stephen Sondheim musical about aging showgirls. $45. 8pm. Also Sat Sept 8. 650 Geary St. www.42ndstmoon.org

The Four Freshmen @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko The multiple award-winning legendary vocal quartet performs. $41-$75 ($20 food/drink min.). 8pm. Also Sept 8. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.fourfreshmen.com

Game of Thrones in Concert @ SAP Center, San Jose Touring orchestra performs music from the hit TV show. $36-$121. 8pm. 525 W. Santa Clara St. San Jose. gameofthronesconcert.com

Hella Gay 5K @ Lake Merritt, Oakland The Queer Gym’s third annual fun run around the lake. $20-$35. 8am11am. Meet at the Ampitheater. https://thequeergym.com/

Live in the Castro @ Jane Warner Plaza The outdoor entertainment series returns, with musicians and MC Donna Sachet. 12pm. Castro St at Market. www.castrocbd.org

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

Wild SF Walking Tours @ Citywide Enjoy weekly informed tours of various parts of San Francisco, from Chinatown to the Haight, and a ‘radical’ and political-themed LGBTinclusive tour. Various dates and times. $15-$25. wildsftours.com

Sat 8

Mamma Mia! @ Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek

Hella Gay 5K @ Lake Merritt, Oakland

The ABBA jukebox musical gets a local production. $39-$83. Thru Oct. 7. 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. www.lesherartscenter.org

One Life Stand @ The Marsh Berkeley A Modern Girl’s Guide to Enlightenment & Other Disorders, Alicia Dattner’s solo show about heteronormative dating, how to spot narcissists, and more. $20-$100. Fri 8pm, Sat 8:30pm, thru Sept. 29. 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. www.themarsh.org

S.M. Shifflett @ Strut Opening reception for Performative Identities, the artist’s exhibit of paintings depicting LGBT people in striking allegorical scenes; drinks and snacks. 8pm-10pm. Exhibit thru Sept. 470 Castro St. www.strutsf.org

Sat 8 Beach Blanket Babylon @ Club Fugazi The musical comedy revue celebrates its 45th year with an ever-changing lineup of political and pop culture icons, all in gigantic wigs. $25-$160. Beer/wine served; cash only; 21+, except where noted. Wed-Fri 8pm. Sat 6pm & 9pm. Sun 2pm & 5pm. 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd. (Green St.). 421-4222. www.beachblanketbabylon.com

Caesar Maximus @ Music Concourse We Players’ performs Nick Medina and Ava Roy’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, with a circus theme, performed outdoors at the park’s museum area. $35-$65. Thu-Sun 5:30pm. Thru Sept. 30. Music Concourse Drive at Golden Gate Park. www.weplayers.org

Native Gardens @ Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts Karen Zacarias’ suburban comedy about a Latino family’s move to a Washington family obsessed with their prize-winning garden. $40$100. Thru Sept. 16. 500 Castro St., Mounatina View. TheatreWorks.org

Writers With Drinks @ The Make Out Room Authors and cocktails with Jane Smiley, R.O. Kwon, Maria Dahvana Headley, Rose Eveleth, Barbara Jane Reyes and Courtney Harmeister. $5$20. 7:30pm-9:30pm. 3225 22nd St. www.makeoutroom.com

Raw Design @ Museum of Craft and Design

Sun 9

Exhibit of modern scultures. Also, Judy Kensley McKie: Cast of Characters, and Anchors in Time: Dominic De Mare; each thru Oct. 28. Free/$8. Tue-Sat 11am-6pm. Sun 12pm-5pm. 2569 3rd St. sfmcd.org

Gary Gach @ Green Arcade Bookstore

San Francisco Mime Troupe @ Dolores Park The acclaimed theatre company returns with Rotimi Agbabiaka, Joan Holden and composer Ira Marlowe’s new political satire, Seeing Red: A Time-Traveling Musical, where a disgruntled Trump voter goes back to the Socialist movement of 1912. Free ($20 donations). At parks and venues throughout Northern California, thru Sept. 9. www.sfmt.org

Fri 7

S.M. Shifflett @ Strut

The author of Pause, Breath, Smile: Awakening Mindfulness When Meditation Is Not Enough discusses his book. 5pm. 1680 Market St. www.TheGreenArcade.com

Painting is My Everything: Art From India’s Mithila Region @ Asian Art Museum New exhibit of contemporary and historic Indian art; also, Pema Namdol Thaye’s A Guided Tour of Hell (thru Sept. 16), Traces of the Past and Future; Fu Shen’s painting and calligraphy, thru Sept., plus exhibits of sculpture and antiquities. Sunday café specialties from $7-$16. Free-$20. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm. 200 Larkin St. www.asianart.org

Ecstatic Dance @ Sacred Heart Church Weekly group freeform dance with a spiritual flavor at the former churchturned event space. $15. 9am-12pm. Also Wed. and Fridays in Oakland and Fairfax. 554 Fillmore St. www.ecstaticdance.org

Fernando Reyes, Kathleen King @ Mercury20, Oakland Dual exhibit of paintings, thru Sept 12. Thu-Sat 12pm-6pm (Fri til 9pm). 475 25th St. at Telegraph, Oakland. www.facebook.com/ paintcongressblue

Arts Events>>

September 6-12, 2018 • Bay Area Reporter • 35

Oakland Pride @ Downtown Oakland

Empowerment in Print @ GLBT History Museum

Ken Knabb @ City Lights Bookstore

Annual celebration of LGBTQ Pride, with DJed and live music at four stages, kid-space, beverages, and a march. 11am-7pm. www.oaklandpride.org

Empowerment in Print: LGBTQ Activism, Pride & Lust, a mini-exhibit of periodicals from the collection. Angela Davis: OUTspoken, a new exhibit about the historic lesbian activist and scholar, and Faces of the Past: Queer Lives in Northern California Before 1930, part of the Queer Past Becomes Present main exhibit. $5. 4127 18th St. www. glbthistory.org

The author of The Situationists and May 1968 discusses the historic revolt in France. 7pm. 261 Columbus Ave. www.citylights.com

Opera in the Park @ Golden Gate Park San Francisco Opera celebrates the opening of its 96th season with an annual free outdoor concert, with soprano Lianna Haroutounian, mezzosoprano Ekaterina Semenchuk, tenor Marco Berti, baritone Dimitri Platanias and conductor Daniele Callegari. 1:30pm. Robin Williams (Sharon) Meadow www.sfopera.com/park

Pride Breakfast @ Rotunda Building, Oakland East Bay Stonewall Democratic Club hosts its sixth annual meal and honors before the Oakland Pride March. $20. 8am-9:30pm. www.eastbaystonewalldems.org

Shawn Ryan @ The Sound Room, Oakland The talented gay singer perform his witty new cabaret show, Memoirs of a Gay Shawn, an official Oakland Pride event. $20-$25. 6pm-8pm. 2147 Broadway, Oakland. www.shawn-ryan.com

Mon 10 Connecting Threads @ JCCSF Quilts From the Social Justice Sewing Academy, an exhibit of textile art by local youth, with political themes. Mon-Fri 8am10pm, Sun 8am-8pm, thru Nov. SF Jewish Community Center, 3200 California St. www.jccsf.org

Linda Kosut @ Sip Tea Room

Sun 9

Veiled Meanings @ Contemporary Jewish Museum Veiled Meanings: Fashioning Jewish Dress, from the Collection of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, an exhibit of detailed clothing from dozens of countries; thru Jan 6, 2019. 736 Mission St. thecjm.org

Tue 11 The Black Woman is God @ SOMArts Cultural Center Multi-genre group exhibit of art depicting African women, created by dozens of artists. Reg hours TueFri 12pm-7pm. Sat 12pm-5pm. Thru Oct. 2. 934 Brannan St. www.somarts.org

Coal + Ice @ Fort Mason Clifford Ross’ mezmerizing Light Waves II, an installation of LED walls displaying digital extreme climate change videos. Sun-thu 10am-5pm. Fri til 9pm, Sat til 6pm. Thru Sept 23. 2 Marina Blvd. www.cliffordross.com

Comeda es Medecina @ Galería de la Raza Group exhibit of works by artists focusing on the topic of food justice from Latinx, Chicanx, Central American, indigenous, and immigrant perspectives. 2857 24th St. www.galeriadelaraza.org

Shawn Ryan @ The Sound Room, Oakland

Perfectly Queer @ Dog Eared Books Children’s book author Anand Vedawala, journalist Andrew Lam, and novelist Wayne Goodman read from their work. 7pm. 489 Castro St. www.dogearedbooks.com

Peter Hujar: Speed of Life @ BAM/PFA, Berkeley Exhibit of photos by the New York 1970s-’80s art/celebrity scene gay photographer who died of AIDS in 1987; thru Nov. 18. 2155 Center St. Berkeley. www.bampfa.org

R.O. Kwon @ City Lights Bookstore The author of The Incendiaries reads from and discusses the new work. 7pm. 261 Columbus Ave. www.citylights.com

Various Events @ Oakland LGBTQ Center Social events and meetings at the new LGBTQ center include film screenings and workshops. See website for details. 3207 Lakeshore Ave. Oakland. www.oaklandlgbtqcenter.org

Wed 12 Vanessa Hua @ City Lights Bookstore The author reads from her debut novel, Fruit of the Drunken Tree. 7pm. 261 Columbus Ave. www.citylights.com

Robert Kennedy, Jr. @ McCroskey Mattress Loft The author and activist in conversation with author David Talbot (The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years). $5. 4:30pm. 1687 Market St. Books at www.TheGreenArcade.com

Thu 13 Dance Concerts @ CounterPulse Deborah Slater Dance and John Fesenko’s In Civility #2: Outrage Machine and Daevron and Raissa Simpson’s Push Dance Company’s TecTonic Shifts are performed. $20$35. Thu-Sat 8pm. Thru Sept 22. 80 Turk St. www.counterpulse.org

The veteran cabaret singer sings songs, accompanied by G. Scott Lacy, and discusses her career with Paula Heitman. $15. 8pm. 721 Lincoln Way. www.societycabaret.com

Queer Love on Barbary Lane: Tales of the City @ LGBT History Museum Author/scholar Ramzi Fawaz shares an illustrated discussion about the history of Armistead Maupin’s best-selling books, and how the initial serialized SF Chronicle column reached LGBT people. $5. 7pm-9pm. 4127 18th St. www.glbthistory.org

Stand Up, Stand Out @ Oasis An evening of film, stand-up comedy and conversation with Tom Ammiano, Karen Ripley, Dirk Alphin and Paul Boneburg. The film tells the story of three gay teachers’ fight for equal rights during the Gay Liberation Movement of the 1970s, which led to the blossoming of the Valencia Rose Cabaret, the first gay-owned and operated comedy club in the U.S; directed by David Pavlosky. $20-$40. 7pm. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Wayne Goodman @ Hormel Center The author of three historical novels discusses his adaptations of nearlylost gay books. 6pm. SF Public Library, 3rd floor, 100 Larkin St. www.sfpl.org To submit event listings, email events@ebar.com. Deadline is each Thursday, a week before publication.

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<< Nightlife Events

Thu 6 Gayface @ El Rio Queer weekly night out at the popular Mission bar. 10pm-2am. 3158 Mission St. www.elriosf.com

Jade Bird @ The Chapel The affable talented singer performs music from her first album; Field Report opens. $16-$18. 9pm. 777 Valencia St. www.jade-bird.com

John Sebastian @ Freight & Salvage, Berkeley Founder of the ‘60s band The lovin’ Spoonful performs classic songs. $35$40. 8pm. 2020 Addison St., Berkeley. www.thefreight.org

Oakland Pride Kickoff @ Club BnB, Oakland

Tubesteak Connection @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge

Comics Sampson McCormick, Kia Barnes, rapper Young Shorty Doowop and DJ Mellanique Robicheux entertain at an Oakland Pride weekend kickoff party. $10-$20. 9pm-11pm. 2120 Broadway, Oakland. http://www.club-bnb.com

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

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

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

Queer Muslim Futures @ The Stud

Karaoke Dokey @ Flore

Discussion followed by music night; Organized by artist and performer Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (aka Faluda Islam) in collaboration with Arshia Fatima Haq, Hushidar Mortezaie, Laylatul Qadr, and Saba Taj. 8:30pm-2am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Monty Quilla hosts the new weekly amateur singing night. 9pm-12am. 2298 Market St. www.flore415.com

Sundance Saloon @ Space 550

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

Long Island Thursdays @ White Horse Bar, Oakland Get snockered at the historic gay bar. 9pm-2am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com

The Country-Western line-dancing twostepping dance event celebrates 20 years. Free thru April 29; $5 after. 5pm10:30pm. Also Sundays. 550 Barneveld Ave. www.sundancesaloon.org

Martini Thursdays @ Trax

Thursday Night Live @ SF Eagle

The Haight gay bar offers cheap gin & vodka cocktails. 1437 Haight St. www.traxbarsf.com

Rock bands play at the famed leather bar. $8. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Playmates and soul mates...

Two Friends @ Cornerstone, Berkeley

Sampson McCormick at Oakland Pride Kickoff @ Club BnB, Oakland

Fri 7 Beards & Booze @ The Edge Beers, bears, cubs, snacks and grooves. $5. 9pm-2am. 4149 18th St. www.edgesf.com

Bear Trap @ Lone Star Saloon Beer, bears, booze and tunes. $5. 9pm-2am. 1354 Harrison St. www.lonestarsf.com

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

Curtain Call @ Sip Tea Room Society Cabaret’s talent show (moved from the Hotel Rex during renovations) with Bill Cooper and Barry Lloyd. $15-$25. 8pm. 721 Lincoln Way. www.siptearoom.com

Desperate Living @ The Stud Funhouse night of clowns and clowny drag acts, live music with Year of the Fist and more. $5-$10. 9pm-4am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

The Four Freshmen @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko

San Francisco:

The multiple award-winning legendary vocal quartet performs. $41-$75 ($20 food/drink min.). 8pm. Also Sept 8. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www.fourfreshmen.com

Megamates.com 18+

Friday Nights at the Ho @ White Horse Bar, Oakland

1-415-692-5774

Thu 6

Music duo (Matt Halper and Eli Sones) performs their dance music pop songs. $21-$24. 8:30pm. 2367 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. www.twofriendsmusic.com www.cornerstoneberkeley.com

Dance it up at the historic (and still hip) East Bay bar. 9pm-2am. 6551 Telegraph Ave. whitehorsebar.com

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

Hard Fridays @ Qbar DH Haute Toddy’s weekly electro-pop night with hotty gogos. $3. 9pm-2am (happy hour 4pm-9pm). 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Latin Explosion @ Club 21 The popular Latin club with gogo guys galore and Latin music. $10-$20. 9pm-3am. 2111 Franklin St., Oakland. www.club21oakland.com

Manimal @ Beaux Gogo-tastic dance night starts off your weekend. $5. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Prism @ Qube Bar & Grill, San Mateo New weekly LGBT night at the Peninsula restaurant and bar. 8pm11:30pm. 4000 South El Camino Real, San Mateo. https://qubelyfe.com/

Ror:Shok @ SF Eagle Johnny Rockitt’s rockin night of drag and music, with DJ Superinto.it. $5. 9pm-2am. 398 12th St. sf-eagle.com

Nightlife Events September 6-13

Sat 8 La Bota Loca @ Club 21, Oakland Banda Los Shakas performs live at the LGBT Latinx night. $10. 9pm-4am. 2111 Franklin St. club21oakland.com

California Rum Fest @ SOMArts Fourth annual celebration of rum, with tastings galore from 40 brands, an outdoor Tiki bar and live music. $60$70. 2:30pm-6:30pm. 934 Brannan St. www.californiarumfestival.com

Daddy’s Boy @ Atlas The monthly dance and super-cruisy party for daddys, bears, cubs and the men who lick, er, like ‘em; with DJ Trever Pearson. $10-$20. 10pm-3am. 415 10th St. https://bit.ly/2MDeZkB

Drag Brunch @ Hamburger Mary’s Food, bottomless mimosas and drag shows with Kylie Minono, Patty McGroin and more. Seating 11am, show 12pm. 531 Castro St. www.hamburgermarys.com

Golden Gate Gaymes @ Collingwood Park Miss and Mr. Golden Gate Scarlett Menzie and Michael Timineri cohost an outdoor day of fun games and food. $20-$100 (4-person team). 12pm-3pm. 100 Collingwood St. Stepdown ceremony 4pm-7pm at Beaux, 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Leonce @ The Stud Molly House Records brings the DJ to town, along with Foozool, davOmakesbeats. $5-$10. 9pm-4am. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

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

Mother @ Oasis Heklina’s popular drag show, with special guests and great music themes. Sept. 8 is a Prince tribute night. DJ MC2 plays grooves. $15$20. 10pm-3am (11:30pm show). 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Oakland Pride Kickoff @ Starline Social Club Impulse SF and Swagger Like Us cohost an Oakland Pride kickoff afternoon dance party. 21+. $5-$10. 2pm-7pm. 2236 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. https://www. starlinesocialclub.com/StarlineSite

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

Pound Puppy, BLUF @ SF Eagle The leather group and the cruisy/social night combine forces at the famed leather bar, with DJs Sprklbb, Kevin O’Connor and Oscar Pineda. $10. 9pm2am. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Saturgay @ Qbar Stanley Frank spins house dance remixes at the intimate Castro dance bar. $3. 9pm-2am (weekly beer bust 2pm-9pm). 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

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

Tribute Celebration @ Pier 27 Tony-winning Broadway/TV actor Billy Porter ( Kinky Boots, Pose ) is honored at the gala fundraiser for the SF AIDS Foundation, with vacation package auctions, wine, cocktails, food, live and DJed music. $100, $350 and up. 6pm-10pm. James R. Herman Cruise Terminal, Pier 27. www.tribute.sfaf.org

Fri 7

Manimal @ Beaux

Safada @ Oasis Celebrate Brazilian Independence Day with music and performances, special guest-DJs, drink specials, Brazilian Hits, Baile Funk, American Pop, and Latin Beats. $10-$15. 10pm-2am. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

Stank @ Powerhouse Ripe Armpit Contest and more raunchy fun with host Leon Fox, DJ Robin Simmons, sweaty gogos and Spunk Lube freebies. $5. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. powerhousebar.com

Steven Underhill

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

t Logan Alexander

36 • Bay Area Reporter • September 6-12, 2018

Nightlife Events>>

September 6-12, 2018 • Bay Area Reporter • 37

Gaymer Night @ Midnight Sun

Nightlife @ California Academy of Science

Stand Up, Stand Out @ Oasis

Weekly fun night of games (video, board and other) and cocktails. 8pm-12am. 4067 18th St. www.midnightsunsf.com

Enjoy science, nature exhibits and nightlife at the unique weekly parties. Sept. 13: Noise Pop presents Classixx live with DH Sweater Funk plays 80s funk and boogie. $12-$15. 6pm-9pm. 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park. www.calacademy.org

An evening of film, stand-up comedy and conversation with Tom Ammiano, Karen Ripley, Dirk Alphin and Paul Boneburg. The film tells the story of three gay teachers’ fight for equal rights during the 1970s, which led to the blossoming of the Valencia Rose Cabaret, the first gay-owned and operated comedy club in the U.S.. $20$40. 7pm. 298 11th St. sfoasis.com

Hysteria Comedy @ Martuni’s Wonder Dave and Aviva Siegel cohost the queer comedy and open mic night, featuring Nori Reed. 6pm-8pm. 4 Valencia St.

Vice Tuesdays @ Q Bar

Thu 13

Tom Ammiano and Karen Ripley at Stand Up, Stand Out @ Oasis

Sun 9 Beer Bust, Apocrypha @ SF Eagle The popular daytime party, where $10-$15 gets you all the beer you can drink, supporting worthy causes. 3pm-6pm. The T-dance and dark/ goth drag show follows, with DJ Spaz; 7pm-1am. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

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

Blessed @ Port Bar, Oakland Carnie Asada’s fun drag night with Carnie’s Angels Mahlae Balenciaga and Au Jus, plus DJ Ion. 2023 Broadway. www.portbaroakland.com

Chest @ Powerhouse The monthly nipple play and bare chest fetish Happy Hour, 4pm-9pm. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Dandy @ Oasis The terrific monthly drag king variety show, with cohosts Leigh Crow and Ruby Vixen. This month’s theme is ‘Teen Angst.’ $15. 7pm. 298 11th St. www.sfoasis.com

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

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

Sat 8

Shag @ Powerhouse Sleazy tracks with host Nic Candito DJ Valence and dragerazzi Nicki Jixzz, MaShugganuttz. $5. 10pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

Sunday’s a Drag @ Starlight Room The weekly brunch and drag show with a panoramic view. $45. 11am, show at noon; 1:30pm, show at 2:30pm. 450 Powell St. in Union Square. 395-8595. www.starlightroomsf.com

Mon 10 Epic Karaoke @ White Horse, Oakland Mondays and Tuesdays popular weekly sing-along night. No cover. 8:30pm-1am. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. whitehorsebar.com

Gaymer Meetup @ Brewcade The weekly LGBT video game enthusiast night includes big-screen games and signature beers, with a new remodeled layout, including an outdoor patio. No cover. 7pm-11pm. 2200 Market St. www.brewcadesf.com

Munro’s at Midnight @ Midnight Sun Drag night with Mercedez Munro. No cover. 10pm. 4067 18th St. 861-4186. www.midnightsunsf.com

Piano Bar 101 @ Martuni’s Sing-along night with talented locals, and charming accompanist Joe Wicht. 9pm. 4 Valencia St. at Market.

Pillows @ Powerhouse Glamamore’s crafts and creative drag night. 9pm-2am. 1347 Folsom St. www.powerhousebar.com

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

Tue 11 Cock Shot @ Beaux The weeknight party gets sexy, with DJ Chad Bays spins sexy grooves. No cover. 9pm-2am. 2344 Market St. www.beauxsf.com

Pound Puppy, BLUF @ SF Eagle

Queer femme and friends dance party with hip hop, Top 40 and throwbacks at the stylish intimate bar, with DJs Val G and Iris Triska. 9pm-2am. 456 Castro St. www.QbarSF.com

Wed 12 American Horror Story @ SF Eagle Free screenings of the new season of Ryan Murphy’s gruesome TV series. 9pm. 398 12th St. www.sf-eagle.com

Club 88 @ Flore New weekly piano bar sing-along night with alternating hosts Maria Konner, Kitten on the Keys and Alan Choy. 9pm-12am. 2298 Market St. www.flore415.com

Comedy Showcase @ SF Eagle Kollin Holtz hosts the open mic comedy night. 5:30pm-8pm. 398 12th St. at Harrison. www.sf-eagle.com

Dick at Nite @ Moby Dick Grace Towers’ weekly drag show at the fun local bar. 9pm-12am. 4049 18th St. www.mobydicksf.com

Follies & Dollies @ White Horse Bar, Oakland Weekly drag show at the historic gay bar. 9:30pm-11:30pm. 6551 Telegraph Ave, (510) 652-3820. www.whitehorsebar.com

Gigante @ Port Bar, Oakland Juanita MORE! and DJ Frisco Robbie’s new weekly event, with Latin, Hip Hop and House music, gogo gals and guys, and a drag show. $5. 9pm-2am. 2023 Broadway, Oakland. www.portoakland.com

Miss Kitty’s Trivia Night @ Wild Side West The weekly fun night at the Bernal Heights bar includes prizes, hosted by Kitty Tapata. No cover. 7pm-10pm. 424 Cortland St. 647-3099. www.wildsidewest.com

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

Pan Dulce @ Beaux Sept. 12: Connie Pena’s Jennifer Lopez tribute show, plus drag divas, gogo studs, DJed Latin grooves and drinks. 9pm-2am (free before 10:30pm). 2344 Market St. www.clubpapi.com

Queeraoke @ El Rio Enjoy Dulce de Leche, Rahni NothingMore and other talents, and karaoke for queens. 9pm. 3158 Mission St. www.elriosf.com

Thu 13 Liberace & Liza Minnelli Live! A Tribute @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko David Saffert and Jillian Snow Harris’ glamorous, comedic musical tribute to the two music icons. $22.50-$50 ($20 food/drink min.). 8pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. www. feinsteinsatthenikko.com

FBFE

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

Puff @ The Stud The monthly queer marijuana appreciation night includes rockin’ diva Maria Konner, DJed music with Sergio Fedasz, DJ Dank’s birthday celebration, Stoner raffle, but no smoking in or near the bar, please. $10. 7pm-10pm. 399 9th St. www.studsf.com

Want your nightlife event listed? Email events@ebar.com, at least two weeks before your event. Event photos welcome.

<< Leather

38 • Bay Area Reporter • September 6-12, 2018

Bringing back the fun

Both photos: Rich Stadtmiller

Left: The always sexy Stephan Ferris, Mr. Friendly 2018, emceed the contest and produced it in collaboration with Onyx Northwest. Right: Ronaldo R. stuffs hot dogs in his mouth for the contest. Rich Stadtmiller

The five extremely sexy men who competed in the Mr. Friendly’s Power Bottom Contest at the Powerhouse bar. Left to right: Raymond Howe, Gage Lennox, Sean Huck, Ronaldo R., and John Montwillo.

by Race Bannon

his week I want to talk about fun; sheer, unadulterated fun. When you mention to those outside of the leather and kink worlds that the object of what we do and who we are is supposed to be fun, they nod and say, “of course!” But sadly, often the fun is overtaken by egos, tribalism, snobbery, rigidity, absolutism and a host of other maladies that, to be fair, eventually infect just about every culture and subculture, bar none. It’s to some extent part of the human condition. Still, it’s profoundly satisfying to attend a gathering of any kind, but especially a kinky one, where the entire purpose of the event and proceedings is fun. If it raises a few bucks for a worthwhile nonprofit, that’s a beautiful secondary benefit, but the focus on fun is welcome. Stephan Ferris, Mr. Friendly 2018, and the men of Onyx Northwest, a local leather club for men of color, teamed up on Saturday, August 25, at the Powerhouse bar, to produce a contest that was without a doubt the most fun I’ve had at a contest in a long time, the Mr. Friendly’s Power Bottom Contest. The idea of the contest was spawned when Graylin Thornton, a contest mentor who was prepping Stephan for his run for International Mr. Leather at which Stephan took third place this past May, asked him, “What title would you want if you were not Mr. Friendly?” To which Stephan answered, “I would create a fun title and call it Mr. Power Bottom.” Graylin said, “Great idea. You should do that.” Thus, Mr. Friendly’s Power Bottom Contest was born because a good idea is a good idea. Hopefully you can tell by the name of the contest that it wasn’t meant to be taken in any way seriously. Not at

all. In fact, every effort was made to ensure that this contest was entirely fun, silly, irreverent and sexy. Prior to the event, to add to the telegraphing of the contest’s humorous intent, Stephan would post teasers on the Facebook event page that hammered home the notion that no one was to take this contest in any way seriously, often using America’s Next Top Model television show references in jest. “Do you have what it takes to be America’s Next Top Power Bottom?” “We don’t have a oneyear supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics or a cash prize of $100,000, but we do have a collection of butt toys and other goodies from Square Peg Toys and Mr. S Leather for each contestant!” To give you yet more of an idea of how not-seriously the producers took the contest, they advertised the contest with the tagline, “No duties. No responsibilities. No sash, No drama. Just back-in-the-day fun!” Stephan acted as the quite competent emcee for the night’s shenanigans. The door fees and raffle ticket purchases served as a benefit for St. James Infirmary. Before the competition began, the geared-up men of BLUF SF took the stage to present Onyx Northwest’s President, Trey, with a check for $900 as a donation from the proceeds from BLUF SF’s annual gear dinner held the Thursday before Up Your Alley street fair. Competing for the donated toys, and obviously the glory of being named Mr. Power Bottom, the five extremely sexy contestants played along as great sports throughout the entire evening of silly challenges. The good sports (it was for charity after all) competing were Gage Lennox, Raymond Howe, Sean Huck, Ronaldo R., and John Montwillo. Judging these aspiring power bottoms were Matt Horne, Justin Hall and Orpheus Onyx.

First the contestants had to demonstrate how hungry they were by stuffing as much meat (in this case, hot dogs) into their mouths as they could. I seem to recall the highest number was 10, but I was laughing so much I don’t recall exactly. Then each contestant was presented with a pop question from the judges because, as the contest rules stated, “Sure, any douchebag on steroids can catch a few loads, but our contest values intelligence, wit and snark.” Much snarkiness ensued. After the pop questions the judges narrowed down the field to three men. Once the three were selected, each contestant had to plead their case as to why they deserved to be Mr. Power Bottom. Each man was eloquent with tongue firmly planted in cheek as to why they should win the title. Then the judges eliminated one man to produce the two finalists. The final two power bottoms,

which turned out to be Gage Lennox and Raymond Howe, then faced off in a “Deepthroat for Your Life” challenge during which they were each blindfolded and then while kneeling face-to-face had to expertly deepthroat a doubled ended dildo held in between them. Each of these two men were valiant in their efforts to deepthroat the rubber double appendage, but in the end (see what I did there) it was Raymond who took home the title of Mr. Power Bottom, a title that I’m sure he and the entire community will hold in the utmost and highest regard (as they should). Congratulations to Raymond. I’m sure you’ll use your newly won title as a proper calling card around town. So, yes, I’m reporting on a fun contest, but I have an ulterior motive for highlighting this event: the fun. It was all about fun. As I mentioned at the beginning of this column, I wanted to talk about fun because I think that too often the fun is squeezed out of what should otherwise be a sexy and joyful experience. Now and then we do some serious stuff. So be it. Maybe that’s

Judges for the Mr. Friendly’s Power Bottom Contest were (left to right) Matt Horne, Justin Hall, and Orpheus Onyx.

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

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necessary. Sometimes we have to address some serious stuff, but as I’ve written about elsewhere many times, if it’s ultimately not about fun, why bother? We have BDSM classes, organizational meetings, and adopt mantras such as “safe, sane and consensual” and “risk-aware consensual kink,” all somewhat serious stuff. And that’s all wonderful. However, kink BDSM, fetish and leather sex of all kinds are supposed to be fun. If they weren’t, why would anyone do it? I try to herald the importance of keeping fun in our scene as much as possible and using this bonkers and enjoyable power bottom contest seemed to illustrate that concept pretty well. Go forth and socialize, organize, gather, fundraise, have sex, play, and most of all, have fun!t

–Freddie Mercury

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Shining Stars>>

September 6-12, 2018 • Bay Area Reporter • 39

Shining Stars

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Steven Underhill Drag & Burgers @ Hamburger Mary’s

erving up burgers and drag shows, the recently opened Hamburger Mary’s has become a popular Castro district restaurant for locals and tourists alike. Last Saturday, patrons enjoyed a Labor Day Weekend night of food and fab drag fun, including Carnie Asada, Au Jus and Bionka Simone. Evening shows start at 10pm Friday and Saturdays, plus Drag Brunch each Saturday and Sunday (11am and 1pm). Reservations recommended. Hamburger Mary’s, 531 Castro St. https://www.hamburgermarys.com/sanfrancisco/ See plenty more photos on BARtab’s Facebook page, facebook.com/lgbtsf.nightlife. See more of Steven Underhill’s photos at StevenUnderhill.com.