September 19, 2024 edition of the Bay Area Reporter
SFPD looks to move Castro out of Mission precinct
by John Ferrannini
The San Francisco Police Department is considering moving the Castro neighborhood from the boundaries of its Mission Station to Park Station. The proposal would put all of the LGBTQ neighborhood under the jurisdiction of one police precinct; it is now split between the Mission and Park stations.
The idea is one of 15 proposed changes to police station boundaries throughout the city.
“By making some adjustments to our station boundaries, our officers will be more efficient and effective as they continue to do a tremendous job policing San Francisco,” Police Chief William Scott stated in a news release.
There are a number of opportunities for people to provide feedback, either by joining a focus group or at upcoming meetings in October.
There are 10 police districts in the city; the proposals affect the boundaries of eight of them.
Currently the Castro area is divided. Mission Station, the precinct of which is located at 630 Valencia Street, covers the Castro south of Market Street. Park Station, the precinct of which is located at 1899 Waller Street in Golden Gate Park, covers north of Market Street.
Evan Sernoffsky, director of strategic communications for the SFPD, told the B.A.R. September 17 that “the whole idea is we are improving police services to each district.”
“I think the Castro is one of the most visible changes – obviously a very iconic and important neighborhood in San Francisco, so we want to be sure to make sure just like everywhere we are delivering the best service possible,” he said in a phone interview. “My understanding is a lot of resources in the Mission are on the southern end and eastern end of the station boundaries, and we feel we can get resources to the Castro quicker and more efficiently from Park Station.”
The proposal was made in consultation with people on the ground, as well as experts in the field, he added.
“We consulted all the district station captains and other subject matter experts for the analysis and we will be taking this to a variety of community meetings as well, but basically, we analyzed the resources for each station, streets that officers travel down to respond quickly, as quickly as possible, for priority calls for service,” he stated.
See page 11 >>
Mayor signs Castro Pride flag landmark ordinance
by John Ferrannini
San Francisco Mayor London
legislation
a ceremony Friday,
SF to LA AIDS/LifeCycle fundraiser to end after 2025
by John Ferrannini
The final AIDS/LifeCycle bicycle fundraiser will be next year, according to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles LGBT Center, bringing to an end an event that has brought in $300 million to the two organizations for their HIV/ AIDS services over three decades.
The reason is that it has become “financially unsustainable,” according to a news release sent to the Bay Area Reporter prior to a virtual town hall September 11.
“In the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, production costs for the 7-day event have skyrocketed, while fundraising has been on the decline,” the release stated.
Earlier this year, the 545-mile bike ride fundraiser from San Francisco to Los Angeles’ Pride weekend raised $10,984,492 between June 2-8. Next year’s goal will be to exceed the event’s record of $17.8 million, which was in 2022. The 2025 iteration will run June 1-7.
The San Francisco Standard reported last month that ridership was down this year, and with it, money raised. The outlet also reported that the AIDS/LifeCycle had to lay off some staff members.
The decision to end the biking fundraiser means Congressmember Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) will need to clear his calendar next June if he wants to become the first U.S. senator to participate in the weeklong event.
The first member of the House to participate in the ride, back in 2014, Schiff had told the
B.A.R. earlier this year that he would like to claim that honor as a member of the U.S. Senate, as he is expected to be elected this November as California’s junior senator. AIDS foundation officials praised the ride and what it has accomplished over the years.
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Baldwin Birthday Bash
Russian River Pride
New head of SFHRC 'Legally Blonde'
San Francisco Police Chief William Scott, left, walked along Castro Street with new Mission Station Captain Liza Johansen.
John Ferrannini
The San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles LGBT Center announced Wednesday that the 2025 AIDS/LifeCycle bicycle fundraiser would be the last.
Courtesy LA LGBT Center
Rick Gerharter
Breed gave powerful remarks as she signed
landmarking the late Gilbert Baker’s rainbow flag installation at Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro during
September 13. The oversized banner at Castro and Market streets serves as a welcoming beacon to the LGBTQ neighborhood.
A new oversized rainbow flag is unfurled at Castro and Market streets September 13 after the late artist Gilbert Baker’s flag installation was officially declared a city landmark.
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These 4 for SF school board
The San Francisco Unified School District is in trouble. From a massive deficit to looming school closures, the seven elected commissioners have their work cut out for them. In November, city voters will elect four commissioners to the Board of Education and it’s telling that Matt Alexander is the only incumbent seeking reelection. Queer Commissioner Mark Sanchez and his colleagues, Kevine Boggess and Jenny Lam, have opted not to seek reelection.
That means voters will have an opportunity to remake the board. (Gay Commissioner Phil Kim, whom Mayor London Breed appointed in August to replace former president Lainie Motamedi, is not up for election this November but will face voters in the local election thereafter.) Of the candidates who returned our endorsement questionnaire, we recommend the four below.
Matt Alexander
A former longtime teacher and principal in the district, Alexander, a straight ally who has two adult sons, now works as a bilingual community organizer. Currently board president, returning Alexander to the body would ensure some continuity as members grapple with the fiscal and school closure issues, among other matters. He noted that the district’s track record when it comes to shuttering schools has been “deeply flawed, with a disproportionate impact on the Black community and low-income residents.”
“Because of this, I’ve been skeptical about school closures – but it’s also true that in 1996, the year I started teaching in SFUSD, we had 64,000 students, and this year we have 49,000,” he wrote. “Fewer students means less state funding, so we have to decide if we want to keep spreading our resources thinly across over 100 campuses, or if it makes more sense to have fewer schools which are each better resourced. We should only move forward with mergers or closures if we can get the process right and avoid the negative impacts of past closures.”
He stated he would follow the lead of students, families, and educators in the process. District Superintendent Matt Wayne recently stated that the district would name schools recommended for closure in October. (He was to release the list this week.)
On support for LGBTQ students, Alexander stated that on a policy level, the district is very supportive of trans students. “We need to keep advocating to ensure that those policies are carried out in practice, every single day, in every SFUSD school,” he stated.
In terms of the district’s budget, Alexander pegged the problem largely to a structural deficit, meaning its long-term projected expenses exceed revenue. Since 2021, the district has had fiscal experts assigned by the California Department of Education, he noted. The state agency has moved the district to a “negative” certification, indicating that progress must accelerate, he stated. The state does not see SFUSD as being close to receivership, which is a good thing. Still, there are problems with the district’s ability to track budgeted, filled, and unfilled positions, and the district still does not have a functional integrated payroll system. The board must address those challenges.
Alexander has a solid sense of the issues facing the district and has institutional knowledge. He has our endorsement for reelection.
Jaime Huling Huling is running on a slate with fellow candidates John Jersin and Parag Gupta. A bi married mom of two children, one a second grader in the district, Huling would bring a welcome additional LGBTQ voice to the board. She’s a former staff attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights and previously served on the San Francisco Human Rights Commission’s LGBTQ Advisory Committee. In January, she left the city attorney’s office to take a job as a supervising deputy city attorney with Oakland’s city attorney.
Huling stated in her questionnaire that school closures will be difficult. “I’ll push to ensure that resource alignment results in fully-staffed, fully-funded schools in historically underserved neighborhoods, especially those in the southeast,” she stated. “As schools do close, I would work to ensure that teachers and staff at affected schools are supported in finding new roles within the district. We’ve got too many vacancies at our schools now, and filling those with experienced United Educators of San Francisco educators ensures that all of our students receive the enrichment opportunities and supportive resources that our kids deserve.” She agrees with the criteria set by the district that any closures are based on equity, excellence, and effective use of resources.
One idea she has regarding LGBTQ students is that the district may consider offering resources for trans and queer students as they prepare for college to ensure their rights are protected, especially if they are considering campuses out of state. “Helping all students pick post-graduation options that will set them up for success is a key part of college and career readiness,” she added.
Huling welcomed the addition of Kim to the school board in her endorsement questionnaire last month. “Although my family appears outwardly straight, I have come to personally identify as bi,” she stated. “I’ve spent my entire life in queer and queer-adjacent spaces as an LGBTQ-rights activist, and hope to be a resource and listening ear for LGBTQ students, faculty, and parents. Having worked at NCLR and Lambda Legal, I have connections to many experts in the field who I can reach out to as issues facing the community continue to evolve.”
Huling would bring a wealth of knowledge to the school board and she has our endorsement.
John Jersin
Jersin, a straight ally who has two kids with his wife, works at LinkedIn and stated in his endorsement questionnaire that one of his signature projects removed bias from the recruiting search process at thousands of employers. “The ‘LinkedIn Recruiter Representative Results’ project, as covered by MIT Tech Review and elsewhere, was a project I led to prevent discrimination based on gender identity,” he stated. “To this day, it’s the only effort of its kind on any hiring platform, and I have been vocal about the need to remove bias from other platforms.”
Jersin eventually became a parent and that’s what got him interested in seeking a school board seat,
he stated. “Now, as I see my kids about to spend the next 10+ years in SFUSD, I see the challenges our district faces – the financial crisis, the staffing crisis – and I see how my skills and experience are a direct fit. I would be the only member of the board with significant financial experience,” he wrote.
On the district’s staffing shortages, Jersin was direct. “We talk far too little about the staffing crisis,” he stated. “By some estimates, on the first day of class this year 20% of classrooms didn’t have a teacher. Roughly 25% of the teachers we do have aren’t qualified to teach, and we’ve taken away credential pathways.” He added that pay must improve and that due to his experience at LinkedIn, he knows about effective recruitment methods.
Jersin, the brother-in-law of a teacher in the district, noted he’s been appointed to a panel tasked with overseeing the district’s facilities spending – another experience that sets him up to be an effective board member. “I found millions in potential savings after my very first meeting,” he stated. “After investing $5,000,000 in a central kitchen, SFUSD wasn’t using it to its full capacity. We could have and should have been producing more nutritious, better tasting meals for students, and saved loads of money.”
As a parent, Jersin stated the school closure process so far “has been unclear, and anxiety inducing.”
“While the district must consider school closures in light of decreasing enrollment, we have failed to optimize our budget before making such drastic cuts, and closures will not solve the problem on their own,” he added.
Jersin has a lot of good ideas and his fiscal background should be a benefit. We endorse him for the school board.
Parag Gupta Gupta, a straight ally whose daughter attends a district school, was elected to the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee this year. Now he wants to help the beleaguered school district. He’s an executive at Mercy Housing, the largest affordable housing organization in the country, with $4.4 billion in assets. (Mercy partners with Openhouse on its affordable housing for seniors, including LGBTQs.)
On school closures, Gupta stated he attended two resource alignment town halls, as the sessions are being called.
“The announcement on which schools will be closed will occur in a few weeks,” he stated. “I appreciate the three criteria that have been identified: 50% equity, 25% excellence, and 25% effective use. ... I recognize that potential school closures will result in meaningful disruptions to impacted students, teachers, and families and that is why thorough stakeholder engagement must continue.”
Gupta is committed to dramatically reducing bullying as one way the district can help LGBTQ students: “I remember being bullied because of the brown color of my skin and being called racial epithets. It hurt and made me feel like I did not belong. … If elected to the San Francisco school board, I will monitor and ensure enforcement of a zero tolerance policy concerning LGBTQ discrimination with a strong set of procedures to deal with bullying.”
Gupta brings a solid background in fiscal management that should be welcomed by the district. We endorse him for a seat on the school board. t
City College board endorsements
Like the San Francisco Unified School District, City College of San Francisco has had its issues with fiscal stability. While the situation is OK now, problems are on the horizon with the 2025-2026 fiscal year if enrollment doesn’t increase. This November, four seats on the college’s Board of Trustees are up for election. Trustee Shanell Williams, a bi woman, and Murrell Green, Ph.D., are not seeking reelection. In fact, Green recently resigned and Mayor London Breed appointed Luis Zamora, a gay Latino man, to the seat, potentially giving him a leg up in the race as he was already a candidate. Below are our recommendations.
Luis Zamora
Zamora was just sworn in as a trustee earlier this month. In his endorsement questionnaire, Zamora explained the funding problem. “While CCSF
has achieved short-term stability, the looming end of ‘hold harmless’ funding poses a serious threat,” he stated. “In a nutshell, aside from student enrollment, community colleges receive funding from the state based on full-time equivalent students, or FTES. As you can imagine, the number of FTES has dropped dramatically starting even right before the pandemic. The state enacted ‘hold harmless’ funding, in which it decided to fund community colleges at 2017-2018 student levels. In a sense, if community colleges were below 2017-2018 FTEs, the state would pay the difference. For several years, CCSF has been funded for more students than it has had. That funding runs out in 2026.
“In light of these looming shortfalls, I would advocate for developing a long-term fiscal plan to align with the state’s new Student Centered Funding Formula,” he added.
Zamora also called for more transparency around the college’s budget process.
There is also the need for more students. City College is well-known for its programs, and Zamora
would like to revamp its marketing, as well as “revitalize our course offerings by working with the academic senate around innovative programs around emerging technologies like AI, reinvest in pipelines like skilled trades, and provide the support our students need,” he stated.
City College must also hire a permanent chancellor. Interim Chancellor Mitchell Bailey, a gay man, is expected to serve for about a year. Zamora outlined some of the things he’s looking for in the permanent hire. “I would be specifically looking for someone with financial acumen, someone who has strong leadership skills and a vision for CCSF outside of just stabilization, a person who should be adept at community engagement, and someone with a clear understanding of shared governance principles,” he stated. These are good ideas, and voters should elect Zamora to a full four-year term.
Trustee Luis Zamora
Courtesy the candidate
School Board Commissioner Matt Alexander
Courtesy the candidate
School board candidate Jaime Huling
Courtesy the candidate
School board candidate John Jersin
Courtesy the candidate
School board candidate Parag Gupta
Courtesy the candidate See page
In Walnut Creek, Patch runs to be 1st out council member
by Matthew S. Bajko
Running two years ago for a seat on the Walnut Creek City Council at age 33, Laura Patch faced questions about her youthfulness and lack of political experience from voters in the suburban Contra Costa County city. Unsurprisingly, she came up short on election night.
“Walnut Creek voters like people to serve eight, 10, 12 years on a city commission before they will support them as candidates for City Council. I got a lot of that two years ago when I tried to run,” recalled Patch, a senior product manager and process improvement specialist for the Sierra Club.
Undaunted, Patch remained civically engaged and determined to win election to one of the council’s five seats that are voted on citywide. She volunteers with the Walnut Creek Community Cleanup Crew, Walnut Creek Downtown, and Sustainable Walnut Creek.
She also sings lead with the Diablo Vista Chorus and the Sweet Adelines, a barbershop style chorus, both of which she joined in 2019. Last year, Patch became an inaugural board member of the University of San Francisco’s Women in Leadership Program for those midcareer and seeking executive and managerial roles.
Earlier this year, when an opening came up on her city’s transportation commission, Patch successfully sought appointment to the seat in May.
Another change since her first council candidacy came with Patch coming out of the closet as queer. As such, should she win election this November 5, she would be the first known LGBTQ council member in the city.
with Walnut Creek so there is not a lot of sentiment to get rid of people currently in office,” said Patch, a condo owner near the city’s Walden Park who lives with her Chihuahua mix breed rescue dog Sookie, named after the chef Sookie St. James from the TV show “Gilmore Girls” played by Melissa McCarthy. “I think it is really coming down to what can me and the other two non-incumbent candidates offer this city in terms of different viewpoints.”
“I’ve always known I am not a zero on the Kinsey scale. Recently, talking with some of my friends in the community, it felt disingenuous to say I am straight when I am not,” said Patch, who is single and started her coming out process last year.
Her sexuality has not, as of yet, been an issue in this year’s campaign. In fact, it hardly comes up, Patch told the Bay Area Reporter during a recent phone interview to discuss her candidacy. (https://www.laurapatch4wc.org/)
“In our candidate forums and such, people ignore the queer issues in a fascinating way to me. I am not experiencing direct attacks; they are ignoring the issue because they don’t want to address it,” said Patch, who gave an example of what happened at a recent event. “At one forum the other candidates were asked about DEI and how the city can be more accepting of diversity. My question was how to get young people involved in the city.”
She is one of five candidates seeking the three council seats on this fall’s ballot. Two incumbents are seeking reelection, City Councilmembers Kevin Wilk and Cindy Darling, thus the race is largely expected to come down to which of the three newcomers will win the open seat.
“People for the most part are happy
Alan Wong Wong, a straight ally, is currently the board president. He said enrollment is up and he has a more positive outlook on the budget, though he acknowledged the change in state funding that’s coming in 2025-2026. “To qualify for more state funding, City College must increase enrollment in line with the new formula, freeze expenses for several years,
City Councilmember and gay Berkeley City Councilmember Terry Taplin
Three other out city council can didates in Contra Costa County have also yet to be endorsed by the Victory Fund. Lesbian BART director Saltzman liam Ktsanes
rito, which already has two out council members, and gay tech leader Benavente in Concord to be its first out council member.
Patch grew up in the East Bay county in the leafy hamlet of Orinda on the other side of the Oakland Hills; her older brother now calls Florida home. Her parents divorced in 2012, and her mother now resides in Danville and is retired from owning a business that sold office furniture. Her father moved to Redwood City and is an attorney and partner at the San Francisco law firm Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP.
After high school Patch left to attend UCLA, graduating in 2011 with a B.A. in political science then returned to the East Bay to serve as an AmeriCorps member for a year. Afterward, she en rolled in George Washington University for graduate school, leaving in 2014 with a master of arts in communications, cul ture and technology.
At 35 years old, Patch would be the youngest person on the council and the only member who doesn’t live in a single-family home. She also comes with a career in community activism versus owning or working at a business.
“For me, it is important we are making sure there is representation of different viewpoints on the city council. Studies have proven diversity leads to better choices and decision making,” said Patch.
She is running against two straight married dads, real estate broker Brendan Moran (https://www.electbrendan.com/) and John Muir Walnut Creek Emergency Department Dr. Craig DeVinney. (https://craigdevinney. org/) Among Moran’s endorsers is gay Contra Costa County Supervisor Ken Carlson, while gay former Hayward city councilmember Kevin Dowling is among those backing DeVinney.
Patch’s endorsers include the Contra Costa Labor Council, the Democratic Party of Contra Costa County, of which she is an elected member, and gay Pinole City Councilmember Devin Murphy She serves as external vice president of the Contra Costa Young Democrats and secretary of the Diablo Valley Democratic Club; both groups have also endorsed her in the race.
Patch is awaiting word on if the LGBTQ Victory Fund will endorse her. The national LGBTQ political group endorsed Murphy’s bid for a second term last December and in late August endorsed bisexual Palo Alto City Council candidate Katie Causey. It is also supporting the reelections in November of bisexual South San Francisco
or both,” he stated. “Assuming no more enrollment growth, City College might not be eligible to receive increased funding until the 2031-32 fiscal year. However, if City College grows 8% in annual enrollment in the coming years, it could be eligible for increased funding as soon as the 2028-29 fiscal year.” As for enrollment, Wong stated, “As of May 14, 2024, the spring 2024 semester credit FTES has increased by 509 (or 12%) over the spring 2023 credit FTES at the same point in the semester.”
Wong stated that to further grow enrollment, “City College has increased its marketing efforts using new digital platforms and traditional methods to communicate its affordability and array of courses for potential transfer students, mid-career professionals and lifelong learners.”
Over the next four years she bounced around the Bay Area, living in Sunnyvale, Danville, and San Jose, until buying her condo in Walnut Creek in 2018 the same year she was hired by the Sierra Club. Based out of its Oakland headquarters, Patch has worked remotely since the start of the COVID pandemic four years ago.
Come October 21 through Election Day Patch will be on sabbatical in order to focus on her campaign. Among her platform priorities are allowing for dense infill housing developments near the city’s downtown and two BART stations, incentivizing new construction to add solar and wind installations to provide energy for tenants or residents, and providing local financial resources for affordable housing and homeownership.
“Walnut Creek is becoming a great regional center in Contra Costa County. It offers great shopping and great din ing as well as activities to do in the eve ning,” noted Patch. “I think it provides a safe city for youth to not participate in destructive activities, if you will. To em brace that, I think, is really important.”
Asked if she would run a third time for a council seat if she again falls short in this year’s contest, Patch told the B.A.R. she would be unlikely to do so.
“If having run twice and the voters decide I am not the right fit for council, I would look at other opportunities to serve my community,” said Patch.
For now, she is focused on connect ing with residents and earning their vote. Patch has been hitting up local farmer markets, community events, and knock ing on doors to promote her candidacy.
“For me, it is getting out into the community and talking to voters,” she told the B.A.R. when asked what she sees as her path to victory this year. t
“The Free City College program, which uses municipal funds to directly pay student tuition, has increased access to education and encourages student enrollment,” he added. “We have also prioritized scheduling the most in-demand courses supporting job training and transfers to four-year institutions.”
But problems are likely for this popular program, as Wong, a former legislative aide for former District 4 supervisor Gordon Mar, stated the city has cut back on its funding. He stated that if reelected, he would continue negotiating with the city to preserve the Free City College funding.
As for a new chancellor, Wong stated he is looking for someone who has a commitment to making collective deci-
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Laura Patch is running for a seat on the Walnut Creek City Council.
Courtesy the candidate
Trustee Alan Wong
Courtesy the candidate
Gay man takes helm at SFHRC after director resigns
by John Ferrannini
San Francisco Mayor London Breed named a gay man as acting executive director of the city’s human rights commission late last week as allegations of potential wrongdoing in her administration sent shockwaves through the mayoral race.
Mawuli Tugbenyoh was tapped as acting executive director September 13, according to a news release. He’d most recently been deputy director in the San Francisco Department of Human Resources, where he helped with reforming the city’s hiring process, according to the release. He is a co-chair of the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club, which solely endorsed Breed in the mayor’s race.
“My focus will be on rebuilding the community’s trust through transparent, accountable actions that allow us to advance the transformative work of the Human Rights Commission,” Tugbenyoh stated. (SFHRC didn’t return the Bay Area Reporter’s request for an interview.)
The news came after the San Francisco Standard reported September 12 that Sheryl Davis, who first went on administrative leave and then resigned September 13, signed off on $1.5 million in contracts with a local nonprofit, Collective Impact, run by a man with whom she shared a home address and a car. Davis was required to disclose this and allegedly didn’t.
A San Francisco Chronicle investigation also revealed alleged financial mismanagement at the city agency, reporting that people were overpaid tens of thousands of dollars, that expenses were approved without documentation, and that one nonprofit director received a reimbursement for a $10,000 Martha’s Vineyard rental.
A Standard reporter last Friday
asked Breed – who has described Davis as a friend – if she knew about this relationship. The mayor said, “Not right now, not right now.”
During an editorial board meeting September 16, the B.A.R. asked Breed when, then, could she answer that question.
“Right now, everything is under investigation,” she said. “There’s only been one reporter that has been as aggressive, in my face, the way I was treated. I would have been happy to take him outside and have a conversation and answer a question but he was completely out of line. I have said I am very uncomfortable, you know, with people violating my personal space, and he was out of line and he asked me the same question at least four times and it was just inappropriate for a reporter. I’ve never had – other than one, kind of, gotcha reporter, get in my face like that since I’ve been mayor. I just want to say that for the record.”
Breed added, “I will answer whatever question is appropriate for me to answer based on the fact that this thing is under investigation. It involves personnel issues, it involves contracts and other things. It is definitely important that I don’t say anything that’s going to put this investigation in jeopardy. And when it is appropriate and what is appropriate for me to answer, I will do so at that time because I have no problem in answering it. … I have known and worked with Sheryl Davis for many, many years, many, many years – I consider her a friend and have always appreciated the incredible work that she has done to support and uplift community.”
On September 17, Breed issued a statement about Davis and her male friend. “I was aware that Sheryl Davis and James Spignola were very close. That’s why I made it clear to former Director Davis on multiple occasions that she needed to wall herself off from all decisions related to Collective Impact. While protective measures were put in place, they weren’t implemented soon enough or to the extent necessary. As mayor, I take full responsibility because the buck stops with me.”
A main issue has been Davis’ oversight of the Dream Keeper Initiative, a priority program that Breed started in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis back in 2020.
The Dream Keeper Initiative is a citywide effort launched in 2021 to reinvest $60 million annually into San Francisco’s diverse Black communities, according to its website. The initiative was housed in the human rights commission office, with Davis overseeing day-to-day operations.
“This really hits hard,” Breed told the B.A.R. “After the tragic death of George Floyd, there was an uprising
not just in this city – in this country – to do something. There were so many people and organizations that promised change and support to the African American community and San Francisco did something. We did something, and I’m proud of that work and of what that could mean and has meant in terms of the investments and the success of all the good things that it’s done, but I am devastated over the fact that now, it is in jeopardy and there are some real concerns over the mismanagement of the program.”
Breed said before the revelations she had already ordered a hold on further resources going to Dream Keeper “until there was a full and thorough and transparent investigation to ensure the public these dollars are being used for the purpose intended.”
Peskin, Farrell call for investigations
Most of Breed’s top opponents in November’s mayoral election wasted no time pouncing on the situation. One challenger, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, announced his intention to hold hearings on Dream Keeper and related matters at the Government Audit and Oversight Committee.
“Millions of taxpayer dollars are being siphoned off and lining the pockets of corrupt administrators and their associates, instead of being put to work to strengthen our neighborhoods and improve the quality of life for the people of San Francisco,” Peskin stated. “With news of each scandal, the public trust in local government erodes further. This type of corruption has plagued this administration: I’m calling for immediate accountability.”
Former interim mayor Mark Farrell, who is also running, called for a federal investigation.
“For $120 million in public resources that should have been used to address our officer staffing and public safety crisis, we now know that funds went to pay for a home rental in Martha’s Vineyard, cigars, bourbon, and motorcycle rentals in Lake Tahoe, and to services provided to residents in Oakland,” Farrell stated. “There are now multiple reported, reoccuring examples of the misuse of public resources and cronyism. Enough is enough.”
A recent Chronicle article detailed that Urban Ed Academy was awarded $1.2 million under the program to place Black teachers in public schools, It turned out that after three years, only five people were placed in San Francisco schools. Most of the people who got jobs through the program ended up working for youth-focused nonprofits or teaching in Oakland, the paper reported.
Candidate Daniel Lurie, an heir to the Levi’s fortune who later became founder and CEO of the nonprofit Tipping Point Community, tied the scandal to separate allegations about a Farrell mailer in support of Proposition D and a Chronicle story about his actions in support of an effort to open school yards on weekends.
“In a matter of hours these two insiders have eroded public trust for years to come,” Lurie stated. “It’s time to turn the page on corruption in San Francisco. Our residents and taxpayers deserve accountable, effective leadership – no more backroom deals, conflicts of interest, or pay-to-play schemes. We won’t get the change we need by replacing one corrupt insider with another. They spent their careers building up a broken system that they’ve been caught exploiting, repeatedly. It’s sheer arrogance for them to claim that they alone can fix it.” t
Supes panel supports transit board nominee Chen
by Matthew S. Bajko
Gay transit advocate Mike Chen is closer to being seated on the oversight body for San Francisco’s transportation agency after a supervisors committee voted Monday to recommend that he be confirmed. The full Board of Supervisors is set to take up the matter at its September 24 meeting.
Chen’s appointment to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors has been pending since May. Mayor London Breed had nominated Chen to succeed Lydia So, whom she had named to fill a vacancy on the city’s planning commission. Chen would ensure the transit body has both LGBTQ and Chinese representation on it if confirmed to fill out So’s term through March 1.
Its last out commissioner, gay Mission cafe and event space owner Manny Yekutiel, resigned in the fall. The mayor appoints the seven members of the SFMTA board, while the supervisors have confirmation power over her nominees.
“AIDS/LifeCycle has existed as a beacon of strength and hope for people living with HIV and LGBTQ+ communities for more than 30 years,” stated Tyler TerMeer, Ph.D., a gay man who is the CEO of the foundation. “As a person living with HIV, participating in this event for 16 years has been life-changing in the best ways – as it has for so many other past and present participants.
“We have built an incredible community, and supported so much more than an annual bicycle ride
The supervisors’ Rules Committee delayed voting on it in late July in order for Chen to meet with Chinatown leaders and others. Board President Aaron Peskin, who represents the historic neighborhood as the District 3 super-
– we have made an impact on the HIV epidemic,” TerMeer added.
“The work of SFAF and the center remains as important as ever, and we look forward to working with the AIDS/LifeCycle community to find meaningful ways to continue the ride’s legacy.”
Los Angeles LGBT Center CEO Joe Hollendoner, who is also a gay man and previously was CEO of the AIDS foundation, stated “funds from this event helped change the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic. No longer is HIV the death sentence it was when the ride began thanks to the advancement in treatments,
visor, had requested the postponement due to “radio silence” from Chinatown transit advocates on Chen’s appointment.
Peskin is one of the three members of the Rules Committee along with District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton, the rules chair, and District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí its vice chair. (Peskin and Safaí are both running against Breed in this year’s mayoral race.)
With Walton absent from the committee’s September 16 meeting, Safaí served as acting chair. He and Peskin both voted in support of seeing Chen become an SFMTA board member.
Safaí told Chen he believes he “will do the job to the utmost of your ability, so I am happy to support your nomination today.”
Peskin thanked Chen for meeting with Chinatown leaders, whom he said had recommended afterward that he approve his nomination, “and I am ready to do that today.”
Chen had told the B.A.R. he had spent the last several weeks meeting with various Chinatown representatives, from residents and transit advocates to
and new cases of HIV are declining thanks to interventions like PrEP.”
“We are incredibly proud of the impact the ride has had on our local communities and the HIV epidemic nationally,” Hollendoner added. “With every mile ridden and every dollar raised, the AIDS/LifeCycle community has brought us closer to the end of AIDS. I could not be more grateful to the AIDS/LifeCycle community for all they have done for the clients served by the center and SFAF.”
In a statement made briefly before the town hall, an AIDS foundation spokesperson stated, “SFAF and the center remain committed to HIV
business owners and nonprofit leaders. At the hearing, he noted he had “been very busy” during August reaching out to various groups in the neighborhood.
“I have committed to the groups to provide consultation,” Chen said on the myriad transit issues of concern to them.
Safaí requested of Chen that he also confer with the Transport Workers Union Local 250A, which represents Muni operators.
“Not many commissioners interface with them or talk with them, so I encourage you to reach out to them,” he said.
Chen also had strong support from groups concerned about street safety issues, such as Kid Safe SF, Streets For People and Streetsblog SF, which has published editorials written by Chen.
Walk San Francisco also has called for Chen’s confirmation.
“We believe Mike Chen will be a leader that prioritizes the City’s Vision Zero policy and efforts, and focused especially on vulnerable populations like seniors, children, and people with disabilities. He has a strong dedication to reliable and comfortable public transportation, which we believe is absolutely
services and will continue to explore ways to fund those services. At this time, we do not know what our future fundraising efforts will include, but we wish to preserve the legacy of ALC and hope that Riders and Roadies will remain engaged with the agencies.”
Cleve Jones, who co-founded the AIDS foundation back in the early days of the epidemic, said AIDS/ LifeCycle ending is part of a much larger trend.
“I am very concerned that HIV/ AIDS organizations across the country face some very serious challenges and significant corporate and
necessary to end severe and fatal traffic crashes,” wrote Jodie Medeiros, the organization’s executive director, in a September 12 letter to the Rules Committee. Chen, 33, is a data engineer at Coda Project Inc. He and his boyfriend live in a one-car household in Lower Pacific Heights along the Van Ness corridor. A member of the SFMTA Citizens’ Advisory Council since January 2020, Chen highlighted his role as a transit advocate during his successful campaign for a seat on the Democratic County Central Committee on the March 5 primary ballot. He then was elevated to the role of director of internal operations for the governing body of the San Francisco Democratic Party.
The DCCC members voted to support Chen’s SFMTA board nomination at their July 24 meeting. It passed with 21 members in support, three against and eight abstaining.
He needs at least six votes from the 11 supervisors to be confirmed. If seated, Chen will need to be reappointed next year to a full four-year term as an SFMTA commissioner and again go before the board for a confirmation vote. t
philanthropic partners have reduced or ended their support in San Francisco and across the country,” he said in a phone call.
For example, the Levi Strauss Foundation announced last year it was “winding down its HIV/AIDS grantmaking program by the end of 2023, reallocating efforts and playing a pioneering role in supporting other critical issues of the day – namely in the areas of democracy, reproductive justice and immigrant rights” after working on HIV/AIDS since 1982.
Mike Chen spoke at the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee Monday, September 16.
Screengrab from SFGovTV
Mawuli Tugbenyoh has been named the acting director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission.
Courtesy Mawuli Tugbenyoh
Sacto couple creates online LGBTQ marketplace
by Matthew S. Bajko
With the upcoming holidays fast approaching, shoppers in need of gifts who also want to support LGBTQ businesses can utilize the online marketplace at the website Famm. Its owners have curated a list of nearly 400 LGBTQ-owned companies from across the U.S.
Among those featured are several food and beverage brands based in the Bay Area, such as Sincere Cider Equator Coffees Cowgirl Creamery, Kokak Chocolates, and The Chaga Company. As for queerowned home goods purveyors, there are candle company Matthew Dean Stewart from Brooklyn, New York, and Humboldt House that features items from Chicago-based makers and artisans.
Then there is the online gift boutique Fruitloots based in West Hollywood, California. The queer-owned company curates gift boxes filled with goods made by LGBTQ+ and people of color producers. Not only does Famm provide links to the websites of the different brands it highlights, it also posts to the blog section of its own website interviews with various company founders.
“With us, we really felt it was important to be more intentional in where we are spending our dollars, and we wanted to spend our dollars with the queer community,” said Famm coowner Cat Perez
Another “big part,” noted Perez, was sharing the stories of the LGBTQ business owners. The write-ups offer visitors to Famm a way to better familiarize themselves with the LGBTQ entrepreneurs.
They were sparked by Marianna Di Regolo, Famm’s other co-owner who is also married to Perez, often doing her own online searching to learn more about the brains behind a business.
“It is an opportunity to share more info about them,” explained Di Regolo to the Bay Area Reporter in a joint interview with her wife to discuss their own backstories and business plans for Famm.
They include the planned launch later this year of the Famm Connect app, intended as a business-to-busi-
ness match-making service for LGBTQ entrepreneurs. It is an extension to the list of LGBTQ+ service providers that can already be found on the Famm website.
Nearing 100 featured under the website’s “services” page, the LGBTQ providers run the gamut from offering financial services and interior decorating to home organizing and family building.
Eying to go live with the app in October or November, the couple is already compiling an early access sign up list for LGBTQ-plus identified professionals who want to use it.
“Really what it is – I don’t like using this but it is essentially what it is – is the queer LinkedIn so to speak,” said Perez. “It is where LGBTQ-plus professionals or business owners sign up and connect with each other in a more intentional way. It was born out of the conversations and connections we have made meeting these entrepreneurs and professionals while building Famm.”
Founders have Bay Area roots
The queer couple, who have a 3-year-old son, Nico, whom Perez gave birth to, is trying to have a second child, whom Di Regolo will give birth to hopefully next year. They recently moved out of downtown Sacramento into a larger home in Gold River in anticipation of growing their family.
Perez, 43, who is Puerto Rican and Korean, grew up in New Jersey and moved to San Francisco nearly 20 years ago after graduating from Adelphi University on Long Island with a B.A. in art. One of her first jobs was with Williams Sonoma as a brand packaging designer.
Di Regolo, 37, who also identifies as pansexual, is Iraqi and Irish and was born in San Diego and grew up in Sacramento. After enrolling in San Diego State University and finding the LGBTQ community there wanting, she transferred to San Francisco State University, graduating in 2019 with a B.S. in business administration and marketing.
Fifteen years ago, the women had first met at the now-closed lesbian bar The Lexington Club that had been on a side street in the Mission district. Di Regolo had dated a friend of Perez’s and they often ended up at the same events.
By 2017, they were both working for the technology platform HealthSherpa, which Perez co-founded.
Two years later Di Regolo left her job with the health care company and began dating Perez.
In 2021, the couple married and, in 2023, they quit their corporate jobs to focus full time on building out Famm.
The business name is a nod to LGBTQ people forming chosen families due to being estranged from their
birth families. The couple has created their own queer family with the people they have befriended in the Sacramento region.
“Just having that family, that queer family, is really, really important to us. We wanted to build that in our business,” said Di Regolo.
She was adopted into an Italian and Lithuanian family who five years earlier had adopted her brother. Their father grew up in San Francisco and had family in the East Bay.
At age 19, Di Regolo met her birth mother who now lives in Texas and has four sons with her husband. She has never met her birth father, who met her birth mother in Europe and followed her back to Southern California, where she grew up and he now lives in San Diego.
Perez recalled having a “pretty messy” coming out process with her religious family – her dad was raised Catholic, while her mom began taking her and her siblings to a Korean church – and not speaking to her parents for a time. (They are now the closest they’ve ever been, she said.)
“Getting older as queer folks, finding community or re-finding that was important to us,” said Perez.
Those familial relationships and experiences led them to feel Famm was a perfect name for their business venture.
providers to connect. “It has been really fun and really rewarding. A lot of service providers have been connecting afterwards, becoming friends or partnering and buying from each other. That has been really cool.” Their aim is to sign up at least 100 service providers by the end of the year. When the Famm Connect app goes live, it will be free to use at first. But the couple is looking to monetize it in 2025, with a goal of bringing in upward of $25,000 after the first six months of operation.
As for the brands they feature, they do not earn a commission or share in the proceeds from sales made by customers who find them via their Famm listing. The couple will reach out to business owners about adding them to the website and welcomes companies to reach out to them about being included.
“Any e-commerce brand selling a product interested in being listed, or a service provider who is interested in getting their own page on Famm, they can literally go to our website and click the ‘get listed’ button,” noted Perez. Famm was born from the couple hunting online for LGBTQ-owned companies to support and wanting to make finding such businesses easier for everyone.
“We want to build support for each other within this idea,” said Perez of the couple’s goal with Famm. “We want to build a foundation here for queer folks and LGBTQ-plus folks to create their own table, and not just have a seat at the table, to build up wealth and a legacy.”
As for how they earn an income via Famm, the couple charges a fee – $15 per month or $150 per year – to the LGBTQ service providers who want to have a page featuring them on the Famm website. (The brands selling products do not pay a similar fee.)
“These pages are much, much more robust than the brands pages,” said Di Regolo, adding they also offer quarterly virtual meetups for the service
Festive Russian River Pride returns
compiled by Cynthia Laird
The annual Russian River Pride parade and festival returns this weekend to Guerneville, with parties and other events celebrating the LGBTQ community. The parade starts Saturday, September 21, at noon at the intersection of River Road and Mill Street.
Following the parade, the festival will be held in the parking lot of Lark Drugs, 16251 Main Street, featuring DJs, drag performers, and musicians, a news release stated. This year’s theme is “River Proud.”
“We are so excited to once again celebrate this wonderful festival in Guerneville,” stated Dan Samson, co-chair of the Russian River Pride Board of Directors. “Guerneville has such a rich history of acceptance and inclusion of all people, and it’s long been a home to a thriving LGBTQ+ community. This pride festival will be a special opportunity to recognize and celebrate everyone who contributed to that amazing legacy. While this is a moment to celebrate our past, it’s also an important opportunity to look forward to the future.”
Due to a groundswell of dedication and passion for Pride in the community, a group of volunteers reintroduced this local, small-town parade to Guerneville last year, with a mission to help support the Lower Russian River Area, the release stated. That mission is supported by local leaders, among them Sonoma
County District 5 Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, who will be speaking at the Pride festival, according to the release.
Last year’s event raised $32,500 for grants to local nonprofit organizations as they strive to make headway after the COVID pandemic.
“Like many communities throughout California, this region is still struggling in many ways to recover from the pandemic,” stated Buddy Russell, co-chair of Russian River Pride. “This celebration is about uplifting the LGBTQ+ community, but it’s so much more than that. We were so honored to be able to support a number of great local organizations last
year and we are looking forward to doing more of the same this year.”
Other activities taking place include Prom Redux on Friday, September 20, at 7 p.m. at Surrey Resort, located at 16590 CA Highway 116. DJ Rotten Robbie will be spinning. Tickets start at $39.19.
After the festival on Saturday, people can head over to the R3 resort for a Pride Variety Show from 6:30 to 9 p.m. The R3 Hotel is located at 16390 Fourth Street at Mill Street. Tickets start at $12.51. (The R3 Hotel, one of the last LGBTQfocused resorts in Guerneville, was put up for sale in June for $4.564 million, as the Bay Area Reporter noted.)
Pride After Dark, a dance party, takes place at 9 p.m. at the River Theater, 16135 Main Street. Tickets start at $28.52. Finally, an intergenerational brunch will be held Sunday, July 22, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Solar Punk Farms, 15015 Armstrong Woods Road. Tickets start at $17.85. For more information on Russian River Pride events, go to russianriverpride.org.
SF LeatherWalk coming up
The San Francisco Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District will hold the an nual LeatherWalk, Sunday, September 22. The event kicks off Leather Week ahead of the Folsom Street Fair on Sunday, Sep tember 29.
This is the fourth year that the cultural district has over seen the event. The walk starts at 11:30 a.m. outside San Francisco City Hall, on the Polk Street steps. Participants then proceed through the South of Market neighborhood, ending at SF Eagle Plaza for the Leather Pride Fest.
“We wanted to see it in the world and use it ourselves,” said Perez.
One idea they have tossed around is to host summits or more regional in-person events for the business owners listed on Famm to meet each other as well as Perez and Di Regolo, who have connected with most of them only virtually. As for opening their own Famm brick-and-mortar shop stocked with goods made by the LGBTQ makers, the couple hasn’t made it a part of their business plan.
“That is an amazing idea,” said Di Regolo, “and would be so cool. But it isn’t something we pictured.” t
Got a tip on LGBTQ business news? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 829-8836 or email m.bajko@ ebar.com.
in the 1960s,” a news release stated. The district has a goal of raising $22,000 to install the first 17 plaques, all on Folsom Street, the release noted.
For more information, go to leatherwalk.org.
Local LGBTQ+ Media Giving Day October 8
News Is Out, a collaboration of six LGBTQ+ media outlets representing more than 250 collective years of experience covering the community, is launching the first Local LGBTQ+ Media Giving Day Tuesday, October 8, during LGBTQ History Month. Interested people don’t have to wait until next month and can donate now, a news release stated.
The event is free, but people can opt to walk as a fundraiser or join a team.
The cultural district is raising funds for its Leather Legacy Landmarks sidewalk plaque initiative, which honors 77 “iconic and sometimes raucous SOMA locations that began serving our community
The first gay publication in the U.S. started 100 years ago this year – 1924’s Friendship & Freedom, produced by Chicagoan Henry Gerber and his peers, the release noted. The newsletter was shut down by police after just two issues. Later publications included ONE, Mattachine Review, The Ladder, Gay Community News, and hundreds of other LGBTQ+ media over the past 50-plus years, including the Bay Area Reporter, which started 53 years ago in April 1971. Currently, according to News
See page 11 >>
Drag nuns from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence rode in last year’s Russian River Pride parade.
Gooch
Famm co-founders and spouses Cat Perez, left, and Marianna Di Regolo look to expand their listings of LGBTQ-owned businesses on their website.
Famm
Gay former SF Examiner publisher Ted Fang dies
by Cynthia Laird
Ted “Teddy” Fang, a gay man who was the former publisher of the San Francisco Examiner and other newspapers, died September 9 in his Dolores Heights home. He was 61.
Mr. Fang is survived by Tony Thompson, his husband of 27 years, and his mother, Florence Fang.
An obituary prepared by the fam ily did not indicate a cause of death, but a spokesperson said it was due to natural causes. It noted that Mr. Fang, who was born on March 13, 1963 in San Francisco and lived in the city all his life, was a brilliant student. He at tended Lowell High School in San Francisco and UC Berkeley, where he was an ethnic studies graduate.
Mr. Fang became a leader in the Bay Area’s newspaper industry. He negoti ated the 1999 acquisition of the San Francisco Examiner, and was pioneer ing as the nation’s first Asian Pacific American publisher of a major metro politan daily. He oversaw the difficult transition of the daily from a paid to a free circulation business model while sustaining its ability to be an avenue for some of the community’s major voices, the obituary noted. Mr. Fang was publisher of one of the nation’s largest free distributions of neighbor hood newspapers, the San Francisco Independent and San Mateo Indepen dent, the obituary added.
He served as editor and publisher of AsianWeek newspaper in the 2000s, according to his LinkedIn profile, and also worked at the paper as circulation manager and general manager from 1980-1984.
Thomas E. Horn, a gay man who is the former publisher of the Bay Area Reporter, called Mr. Fang “a dear friend.”
“When Bob Ross died in 2003 and I was left at the helm of the B.A.R., I turned to Ted for advice,” Horn wrote in an email, referring to the founding publisher of the LGBTQ newspaper. “Ted was publisher of AsianWeek. He was so gracious in walking me through all the nuts and bolts of news paper publishing. I will be forever grateful. I will miss him enormously.”
Returning to his family’s China town roots, in 2023, Mr. Fang pub lished the archives of AsianWeek. com, 30 years of print and online content from the paper, dubbed the “Voice of Asian Pacific America.” The weekly was started by his father; Mr. Fang published it with his mother and brother, James, from 1979 to 2009.
Community work
Mr. Fang is also known for his many contributions to the city and communities of San Francisco, the obituary noted. Mr. Fang was focused on improving the health and well-be ing of his community. Most recently,
Donald Bruce Chambers
June 26, 1946 – July 22, 2024
Donald Bruce Chambers died peacefully and gracefully at home in the arms of his loving spouse, Patrick Horay, on July 22, 2024. His courage and calm nature endured throughout the 30-year challenge of progressive Parkinson’s disease. He was 78.
Keep Informed. Stay Empowered.
Born in Quincy, Massachusetts, he held degrees from the University of Virginia and his Ph.D. was from UC Berkeley. He retired from the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Services.
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In addition to his spouse, Don leaves behind his brothers, Richard Chambers and spouse Larry Deymude; and Tim and Christina Chambers; (Ken Chambers preceded him in death in 2001); and a special goddaughter, Katie Martin-Stutzman and her daughter, Kiera. A Zoom memorial will be held.
Please consider a donation to pdactive.org in honor of Don.
Moving to Berkeley, California in 1976, he met Horay, his love, and began a 48-year relationship that embraced family and friends. Their home and garden were a sanctuary and gathering place for many celebrations, retreats, and neighborhood events. They created a chosen extended family, and Don worked actively and served on the board of directors of both the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco and New Spirit Community Church of Berkeley.
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Ted Fang owned and published the San Francisco Examiner newspaper.
Courtesy the Fang family
“Even if we have political differences we can all agree that uplifting and supporting and recognizing and investing in our LGBTQ community will always be at the forefront of our values here in San Francisco,” Breed said at the ceremony, which was at the GLBT Historical Society Museum on 18th Street. “So I am proud to be here today and to sign this legislation and to share it and tag every anti-LGBTQ elected leader in the world and tell ‘em to bring it because this is San Francisco and we will never back down.”
The mayor, who is facing a tough reelection in November, also called attention to her administration’s efforts on behalf of the LGBTQ community, including supporting plans to renovate Harvey Milk Plaza, where the flag has flown since 1997. Some of the mayor’s accomplishments include that also appointed the inaugural drag laureate in the city, appointed LGBTQ heads to the fire and health departments, and declared a public health emergency over the mpox outbreak in 2022 to mobilize city resources in fighting it.
While D’Arcy Drollinger became the first drag laureate in the world when Breed appointed her in May 2023, the city of West Hollywood, California actually approved the position first, but didn’t name Pickle, its drag ambassador, until June 2023.
“What I appreciate the most about being here in the Castro community is that we work together, Supervisor [Rafael Mandelman], to make those unprecedented investments in the things to address the disparities that we know have existed in San Francisco,” Breed said. “We talk about our values but when we put policy in dollars into those values, we demonstrate our strength as a city and our commitment to showing the rest of the world how it should be done. … We need to make sure that San Francisco is a place you get to see that when you come to the Castro and you land in Harvey Milk Plaza you need to see that, not just hear it.”
Joining Breed and community leaders at the signing was Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who is one of four major candidates hoping to oust Breed from Room 200 at City Hall.
After the landmarking ordinance was signed, a number of Castro community stakeholders walked the newest flag up to Harvey Milk Plaza, where it was installed.
AIDS/LifeCycle
From page 6
“As I understand it, individual contributions only make up less than 5% of San Francisco AIDS Foundation’s total revenue with major events like AIDS/ LifeCycle and AIDS Walk and the various galas returning less on investment, it seems to me like we all need to step up, so that’s exactly why my birthday party is a fundraiser,” Jones continued.
Jones was referring to his October 11 birthday bash at the Hibernia, which will mark the debut of the Cleve Jones Community Fund, which will help support the AIDS foundation and the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which he also co-founded. It takes place on Jones’ 70th birthday.
Asked how much his birthday fundraiser would be able to come up with, Jones said it won’t solve the shortfall but would “be a start.”
Virtual town hall
At the town hall webinar, which officials said was viewed by just under 900 people, TerMeer and Hollendoner
From page 5
sions instead of unilateral; a commitment to sound financial planning and fiscal stability; and a commitment to student success.
Mandelman, a gay man who represents District 8 – including the Castro – on the Board of Supervisors and who got the landmarking proposal passed this year, thanked his predecessor in office for spearheading the idea.
“It was Jeff Sheehy who started us down this path in 2017, and Jeff has been dogged and persistent in ensuring we do this right and so thank you, Jeff, for that,” Mandelman said.
Sheehy, also a gay man, was friends with Baker and was appointed supervisor by the late mayor Ed Lee in January 2017. He lost to Mandelman in a special election for the District 8 seat a year later.
Sheehy told the Bay Area Reporter after the event that his involvement goes back even further than that – to when the flagpole was first installed.
“Gilbert was my friend. I helped Gilbert put up the flag back in 1997,”
Sheehy said. “I was president of the [Harvey] Milk [LGBTQ Democratic] Club, and he and I were wandering the Castro Street Fair and we saw [thenmayor] Willie Brown and so Gilbert gave his pitch on the idea.”
Brown was in favor of massive public art projects in the city at that time,
Sheehy said.
“He wanted San Francisco to be like Paris,” Sheehy said.
Brown was initially scheduled to attend the ceremony but could not make it.
Baker’s flag was installed November 8, 1997 – the 20th anniversary of Milk’s historic election to the Board of Supervisors, which made him the first openly gay elected official in California.
Milk and then-mayor George Moscone were assassinated in November 1978, just 11 months after Milk took office.
thanked the riders and roadies for their support since the event started in 1994.
“This was a time our community was dying from a highly-stigmatized virus and very few resources existed to fight HIV,” Hollendoner said. “We raised awareness about HIV and the LGBTQ+ community in the communities we rode through.”
TerMeer said that “specifically cycling events have struggled to return to pre-pandemic levels” and that AIDS/ LifeCycle is one of several cycling events that have tried to regain their
to access bathrooms, sports teams that corresponded to their gender identities, and gender-affirming care for minors.
Beal had to blink back the tears as he intoned “even though the narrowminded bigots there are saying ‘you can’t fly that flag,’ the people of San Francisco, here, are telling them, ‘yes, you can.’”
Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) who has faced death threats and false accusations from antiLGBTQ forces, as the B.A.R. previously reported, also reflected on this point.
“They’re saying anything that represents our community is something harmful to children,” he said. “When it’s in fact the opposite – it’s about saving the lives of our kids.”
Mindful of anti-LGBTQ climate
Mandelman also thanked Bevan Dufty, a gay man who was Brown’s director of neighborhood services at the time, before he himself became District 8 supervisor. Dufty, now serving his last term on the BART regional transit agency board, told the B.A.R. after the ceremony “what a day” – but was mindful of the increasingly tense political and social environment in which LGBTQ people operate.
“As we celebrated, we are very aware that Republican forces are again trying to erase us by banning Gilbert’s flag. This current crop of [Donald] Trump, [JD] Vance and [Ron] DeSantis should join John Briggs, Jesse Helms, William Dannemeyer, and others in the dustbin of history,” he said, referring to the current GOP presidential ticket, the Republican Florida governor, and past anti-LGBTQ political leaders.
Charley Beal, a gay man who is president of the Gilbert Baker Foundation, also spoke on how renewed homophobia and transphobia in the 2020s have led to the flag being banned from flying in government buildings in some school districts and local municipalities. He said he received a letter from a student in a Pennsylvania school district that became the 54th to enact a Pride flag ban.
Last year, a Gallup survey showed a decline in the number of Americans who felt homosexuality morally acceptable (64% agreed, down from a record-high of 71% in 2022, as conservative-led states passed laws restricting transgender people’s ability
footing post-COVID.
“Our fixed costs to ride have skyrocketed while participation and fundraising have not kept pace,” TerMeer said. “In recent years, too much of those costs have been going to the production costs.”
According to TerMeer, between 2019 and 2023, the cost of producing the event doubled. He did not provide dollar amounts.
“To keep ALC in its current form would result in us thinking about a fundraising cost that is much higher than the industry standard or is even ethical for events like ours,” TerMeer said.
The foundation cited the end of the SMART Ride in Florida as an example of another bicycle event impacted by increasing costs.
A foundation spokesperson stated, “We have taken action to contain expenses, including re-evaluating vendor contracts, reimaging Orientation Day, minimizing staff travel, reducing the size of the ALC workforce, and more. Even with these efforts, expenses have risen dramatically, and participation has
Mandelman and Beal thanked the late Tom Taylor, the keeper of the key to the Castro flagpole, and his late husband Dr. Jerry Goldstein, for their years of support. Taylor died in 2020, as the B.A.R. reported, and Goldstein passed away in 2023.
Taylor’s niece, Angela Traeger, 48, was at the ceremony, and stated to the B.A.R. afterward her memories of her late uncle in an email.
“My memories of Gilbert and Tom were mainly in Tom’s shop on Isis St.,” she stated. “Gilbert walked in one day while I was working with Tom and his friend, an honorary auntie of mine, on my wedding invitations. The wedding invitations included dried ferns and a sheer baby blue cloth wrapping. When Gilbert saw us trying to cut the sheer cloth without threads fraying out, he threw up his arms, grabbed a pair of scissors, and gasped, ‘STEP ASIDE!’”
She continued that “for as much as Tom accomplished, I was impressed at how whenever I called his cellphone, he always picked up and took my call.”
“From my earliest memories Tom & Jerry were my uncles,” she stated. “There was never an alternative cover up story. They were a couple, loved each other, and were the glue in our family. If you didn’t call them for a few months, guaranteed one of them would call you. They sat in their fair share of traffic driving up to my house for family parties in Marin. I am so thankful they were safe to be out for my entire life.”
The flag is now changed quarterly by the Castro Merchants Association, which happened September 13 as the neighborhood prepares for the Castro Street Fair October 6. Begun by Milk and marking its 50th anniversary this year, the outdoor festival helps raise funds to pay for the flags flown on the flagpole.
The association’s president, straight ally
consistently declined to a point where it is no longer financially sustainable for us to continue producing the ride.”
TerMeer also stressed that peer-topeer fundraising “from other bicycle events to walks that are happening” have suffered.
“We’ve been finding other ways to fill in gaps at our agencies in the best ways that we can,” TerMeer said. “Depending on the outcomes in various races in the years, in the months, ahead, our funding could be in jeopardy.”
Hollendoner said that leaders are continuing to have conversations about an attenuated ride, or something similar, in the future.
“We do not think it will look like the current form of the seven-day, 545mile, and for that reason we needed to have that proper closure,” he said.
There will be kick off rides, usually around 20 miles, for the 2025 event in the East Bay October 5, in the North Bay October 6, and in Sacramento October 12. For more information, go to aidslifecycle.org.
Cailin Corbett, the director of AIDS/ LifeCycle, stated in the webinar chatroom that the fundraising minimum is
Terry Asten Bennett, said she was grateful for the role she played in the landmarking.
“I am so grateful to have been part of the process in getting us to this point,” she stated to the B.A.R. after the ceremony. “I love our community and want the whole world to know there are places where you will be accepted and free to be who you are and love who you love. I worked with our community to raise this now landmarked beacon of hope. I am so grateful to everyone who made this day possible.”
As the B.A.R. previously reported, Baker co-created the first rainbow flag with friends Lynn Segerblom, a straight ally who now lives in Southern California, and James McNamara, a gay man who died of AIDS-related complications in 1999. Baker and his friends came up with a rainbow flag design that had eight colored stripes, with one version also sporting a corner section of stars to mimic the design of the American flag. It debuted at the 1978 San Francisco Pride parade.
“It really is a three-person, not a oneperson, flag making. Everybody played their part and then some,” Segerblom told the B.A.R. in a 2018 phone interview from her home in Torrance, southwest of Los Angeles.
Baker would go on to eliminate the stars and reduce the number of colored stripes to six. Over the ensuing years, Baker turned that standard six-color banner into an international symbol of LGBTQ rights.
Baker died unexpectedly in 2017 at the age of 65, and the foundation created in his name donated a segment from one of the first rainbow flags that flew in front of San Francisco City Hall during the 1978 parade to the GLBT museum, where it is now on public display.
The historical society is looking for a site for a larger, permanent museum. Wiener, who helped appropriate state funds for this purpose, said in his remarks, “We are going to ... create a much larger and amazing LGBT history museum in this neighborhood.”
In July, the Board of Supervisors accepted a $5.5 million grant from the state for an LGBTQ history museum but finding a site has been elusive, so far. Wiener had secured the state funds, which have a deadline of March 1, 2026 to be spent, as the B.A.R. reported. LGBTQ leaders and the GLBT Historical Society would like the museum to be located in the Castro, potentially kitty-corner from the flagpole site on the property of a long vacant commercial building. t
$3,500 this year.
TerMeer stressed that this isn’t the end of “our collective fight for this community.” He said that having been involved in AIDS/LifeCycle has been life-changing.
“In short, I think this ride and experience has really helped me find a sense of belonging and pride and acceptance over the years and I’m just so grateful to be in this community,” he said. Gilberto Mendoza Jr. stated in the webinar chat, “It’s been my pleasure to help out with this ride since CAR3,” referring to the old California AIDS Ride, which the LifeCycle supplanted. “We all have done so much to help end HIV/ AIDS. For that I am truly grateful. I will always keep in my heart all those who have stepped up and did something. I participated each year to honor my two partners who passed away during the early years. I will always honor their memory and all that we have done to help others and remember those no longer with us. As a HIV+ person for at least since 1987, I am thankful that I have stayed healthy to have been able to help others. I will certainly miss the LOVE BUBBLE.” t
Wong has done a good job on the college board and voters should reelect him.
Aliya Chisti The other incumbent running is Chisti, a straight ally and the first Muslim elected to public office in San Francisco. Concerning
Free City College, Chisti has some experience that will be vital as the college works to renegotiate its agreement with San Francisco officials. “As the former Free City analyst at the Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families, I have an extensive understanding of this program and if reelected I will use my expertise to lead the negotiation process to protect the Free City program for our community,”
she stated in her questionnaire. She added that while the program covers tuition, other expenses are not included. “Free City only covers $46 per unit for students that are SF residents and meet the California one-year and one-day residency requirements per education code for in-state tuition fees,” she explained.
“We must continue to address basic needs for students and total cost of attendance,
such as expenses for books, transportation, food, and housing.”
The search for a permanent chancellor will be critical, she stated.
“City College has had 10 Chancellors in 12 years, which has led to instability at the college,” Chisti noted. “A long-term commitment to City College’s success is << Editorial
See page 11 >>
SFAF’s Tylor TerMeer, Ph.D.
Courtesy SFAF
San Francisco Mayor London Breed signed legislation designating the oversized rainbow flag and flagpole as a city landmark during a September 13 ceremony at the GLBT Historical Society Museum.
Rick Gerharter
Trustee Aliya Chisti
Courtesy the candidate
The Los Angeles Blade covers Los Angeles and California news, politics, opinion, arts and entertainment and features national and international coverage from the Blade’s award-winning reporting team. Be part of this exciting publication serving LGBT Los Angeles from the team behind the Washington Blade, the nation’s first LGBT newspaper. From the freeway to the Beltway we’ve got you covered.
Baldwin birthday event organizer Becka Robbins
Majesty Scott (center) and the cast of ‘Legally Blonde: The Musical’
‘Ride the Cyclone’ debuts at NCTC
by Jim Gladstone
Anew variant of a decades-old catchphrase may trip off the tips of local theatergoers’ tongues as they peruse the season’s upcoming productions: “I see horny dead people.”
San Francisco stages will offer a three-ring circus of hormonal horror in the coming months kicking off (and kicking the bucket) with “Ride the Cyclone” at New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC) on September 20.
It’ll be a literal nightmare before Christmas when “Beetlejuice: The Musical” returns to the Golden Gate Theatre on December 24. And Ray of Light’s acclaimed, immersive “The Rocky Horror Show” will haunt Oasis in October.
But first up is the new blood: the eagerly anticipated Bay Area premiere of “Ride the Cyclone,” a critically acclaimed, virally vaunted musical
<< Legally Blonde
From page 13
While the large supporting chorus is markedly multicultural, the characters pitted against Elle in the plot-a boyfriend who dumps her, his new Yankee flame, an imperious law professor-remain white and self-righteous (Seth Hanson).
Every time they speak to her condescendingly or laugh at her guile-
about a sextet of randy teens who’ve been killed in a rollercoaster mishap trying to sing their way out of limbo.
The crew of misfits includes the effortfully self-possessed Noel Gruber, who observes, “Being a gay man in a small rural high school is kind of like having a laptop in the stone age. I mean, sure, you can have one, but there’s nowhere to plug it in.”
In his big solo musical number, Gruber, played by Jon Gary Haris in the NCTC production, shares his fantasy of being a tough-talking female prostitute in post-WWII Paris.
Morbid originality
“Delightfully weird and just plain delightful” said The New York Times of “Ride the Cyclone” when the show opened Off-Broadway in 2016, following acclaimed runs in Chicago and across Canada (The music, lyrics, and book were all written by British
less opinions, audience members are forced to consider what exactly is eliciting such scorn. Is it Elle’s girlygirl materialism and manner, or is it the color of her skin? Do you have any doubt? (That’s also a reminder of how flimsy the original material’s plot is).
Apart from the clever orchestration and movement that infuses one production number with an HBCstyle drumline and stepping (Music direction is by Jad Bernardo; chore-
“Ride the Cyclone” at NCTC.
“I think one of the reasons why is that that don’t want to do things they’ve seen over and over. Why put on ‘Mean Girls’ when it’s already been a movie twice? Why is anyone doing a musical of ‘Shrek’?” (Local audiences can ponder that question when the ogre arrives at the Golden Gate Theatre in December).
“This show is fresh and original and genuinely connects with the feelings of freedom and of angst that teenagers experience and that we’re all familiar with from our own teenage years,” said Temple.
Kids today
Temple is particularly qualified to assess the musical’s emotional authenticity. In her fulltime job as NCTC’s education director, she works as a teaching artist, introducing teenagers (as well as younger children) to the theater through the classes and youth productions that have always been a core of the company’s mission.
Columbia-based duo Brooke Maxwell and Jacob Richmond).
One of many new musicals overshadowed by the mid-decade “Hamilton” juggernaut, the show nonetheless went on to well-reviewed productions in Seattle and Atlanta. But it was only after the pandemic blew up that “Ride the Cyclone” did likewise.
Video clips from past productions and stylistically eclectic songs from a 2021 digital cast recording offered a timely blend of gruesome morbidity, faint hope, and winky innuendo that worked like catnip on moody housebound theater kids and their friends. As musical numbers circulated online, they helped build an incorporeal cult of millions around a show few of them had seen.
“I read an article recently that said that fewer and fewer high school students are participating in theater,” said Stephanie Temple, who is directing
ography by Jill Jacobs), there’s nothing particularly Black about this version of the show beyond some of the cast members’ races.
The directors are conducting a fascinating experiment with audiences as their subject. You sit in the Victoria Theater contemplating complicity. The influence of the superficial gets under your skin.
Still, while casting a Black actor as Elle is a successful provocation, it doesn’t lead to a coherent overall reconceptualization of what has never been more than a C-grade storyline. Even with this audacious tweak, “Legally Blonde” remains a cotton candy cloud of a show; musically unmemorable and, at times, wincingly silly (My lord, the recurring “Riverdance” gag is idiotic!).
Kudos to set designer Matt Owens and costume designer Katie Dowse for the many variations of pink in their
Since its founding by Ed Decker in 1981 as a theatre education center for youth from underprivileged back-
grounds, NCTC has worked to serve young people in the Bay Area. Even frequent attendees of NCTC shows may be largely unaware of the institution’s educational bedrock. In fact, the NCTC’s queer-themed main stage series didn’t begin until 14 years after the company’s founding.
The cast members of “Ride the Cyclone,” who are in their twenties and thirties, have benefited from Temple’s regular interaction with adolescents, as she’s helped them embody characters much younger than themselves.
“They’re pretty playful performers,” said Temple, “but sometimes in rehearsal I have needed to pull them back into a younger mindset, to remind them of the amount of freedom you feel when you’re young and to try to embody those feelings.”
Temple has also been able to share insights about contemporary teenagers’ attitudes with her cast.
“Young people’s conversations around queerness are evolving,” she noted.
So, while there is only one character who specifically identifies as gay in the “Ride the Cyclone” script, Temple said, “They’re living in a world where someone maybe being queer is just a normal possibility, not necessarily a major plot point.
“In rehearsals, we’ve shared questions about all the characters and what lies beneath the surface of the play. The characters Noel and Mischa definitely have a connection; they’re a great example of positive male affection. We’ve talked about how some of the female characters may have crushes on each other. They’re playing contemporary high school students. The lines are much more blurred than they used to be.”t ‘Ride the Cyclone’ at New Conservatory Theatre Center. Sept. 20Oct. 20. $35.50-$72.50. 25 Van Ness Ave. www.nctcsf.org
color-drenched handiwork. And to everyone involved for adding a bit of brain-bending nutrition to this show’s empty calories.
“Legally Blonde” has always been a guilty pleasure. This version may have
you blushing for a better reason.t ‘Legally Blonde: The Musical’ through Sept. 29. $21.99-$74.99. Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St. www.rayoflighttheatre.com
Majesty Scott and Seth Hanson in ‘Legally Blonde: The Musical’ Jon Bauer
A musical number in ‘Legally Blonde: The Musical’
Jon Bauer
The cast of ‘Ride the Cyclone’
Lois Tema
Director Stephanie Temple
Theater >>
Center Rep’s ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’
by J.A. Valentine
With their current mounting of “Arsenic and Old Lace,” Center Rep pulls off a type of theater that often proves elusive: the Style Piece, a heightened reality in which every member of the acting company is on the same page.
Joseph Kesselring’s spiked chestnut has been continuously produced in smaller theatres since it’s 1941 premiere, with a single, unsuccessful stab at a Broadway revival in 1986. A tale of murders and manners, originally conceived as a thriller, the first production quickly changed tactics and embraced the comedic subtext.
Here, it is reflected through a decidedly queer prism, with most of the roles played by gender-swapping actors. From the alpha auntie through the last supporting player, there isn’t a weak link. A potentially burdensome concept resulted in simply excellent casting. There is no self-aware winking going on, the characters are embodied, not commented upon.
Broad comedy is served up, replete with sight gags, prop comedy and pronounced regional dialects, without ever neglecting those essential ingredients: high stakes and commitment.
In their directorial debut for the company, artistic director Matt M. Morrow proves a thoughtful chef. A few deft edits have been made to the script, with some streamlining of all those clattering dishes, which serves to keep things moving. Pace, pace, pace. Now this test kitchen is cooking with gas.
Details, demure drag
Brooke Kesler’s costuming is traditional in silhouette, precise in the details. Yi-Chien Lee’s set is higher concept, with a color palette skewing
to purples, emerald green, black and white domino; a very Tim Burton mood. The period accurate furnishings are framed by a proscenium that has melted askew.
Most stylized are the bold lighting effects by Kurt Landisman, who garnishes the proceedings with glowing neon accents within the set, which could upstage the storytelling, were they not so strategically applied. That and James Ard’s playful sound design, bonk audiences on the head to announce the arrival of new characters and underline plot points. It becomes a framing device that divides the play into neat vignettes. The overall effect is a beloved classic viewed on a pinball machine.
Presiding over this parlour is Danny Scheie, whose Aunt Abby has the teeth to run the Brewster family and wrings laughs out of nearly every line she utters. Subversive and sly, sarcastic and confrontational, she frequently tests the threshold of the fourth wall, yet remains a proper little old lady. Alternating between piercing vocalizations and smartly underplayed line readings, she keeps you guessing what she’ll do next.
Michael Patrick Gaffney as sister Martha, proves you should never underestimate the demure. Wielding a massive ruffled bosom and the moral high ground, she is the perfect partner in crime.
Wit and backbone
The reveal of the sisters’ peculiar hobby is complicated by the return of their long-absent, nefarious nephew, Johnathan, who is required to resemble Boris Karloff and intimidate every character in his path. In this role, DeAnna Driscoll, a comic bulldozer, nails both. (Kudos to wig designer Emily Haynes, who transforms Driscoll’s
dome into a squared blockhead.)
The other nephew and his fiancé are the straight couple of the piece, both literal and figurative. Carla Gallardo’s Elaine is no shrinking violet, she has the wit and backbone to prevail among this eccentric melange. Cody Sloan as Mortimer juries the situation with exasperated befuddlement and ultimately, charms. Much comedy is made of his position as a theater critic, an undignified undertaking, but someone has to do it.
The buffet of character actors who round out the cast clearly relish their roles. Skyler Sullivan as Dr. Einstein and Catherine Leudtke as Uncle Teddy are chucklesome. Drag king performances are chronically underrated. In this production they also represent
the world outside the Brewster house, mainly the scrutinizing eye of law enforcement. Here Brenda Arellano, and Taniko Baptiste in particular, earn their badges. This creates an even playing field, where nothing should be taken at face value, and everyone can be more than they seem.
Lizzie Borden was acquitted largely because no jury would believe a woman capable of the acts she was accused of. “Arsenic” operates on the same principle, easily likened to the practice of queer “coding,” hiding in plain sight under the guise of normalcy. But, judge a book by its cover at your peril.
In the perpetual quest to appeal to both older subscribers and modern sensibilities, this production should achieve both. It’s neither a starchy
museum piece nor an avantgarde besmirchment. Rather, it’s a reimagining that serves the material and delivers big laughs.
Full disclosure: I have worked with this company and some of these folks are colleagues, so bias could be claimed. Fuller disclosure: I’m so envious of this cast that I arrived smelling of sour elderberries. Turns out, the production is so well realized and entertaining, I put the poison pen away. I am compelled instead to give it my highest recommendation and plan to return for a second helping.t
‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ at Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek. $49 and up, thru Sept. 29, 1601 Civic Drive. lesherartscenter.org
DeAnna Driscoll and Skyler Sullivan in Center REP’s production of ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’
Kevin Berne
Left: Danny Scheie, Cody Sloan and Michael Patrick Gaffney in Center REP’s production of ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’
Right: Danny Scheie and Michael Patrick Gaffney in Center REP’s production of ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’
Both photos: Kevin Berne
‘The Worst of Waters’
by Jim Provenzano
Fresh off the cha-cha heels of the large-scale exhibit honoring his films at the Los Angeles Academy of Motion Picture Arts Museum in 2023, filmmaker, author and artist John Waters returns to Rena Brantsen Gallery for his fifth exhibit of unusual and odd art pieces. Get out them cha-cha heels, super fans, because Waters will be in attendance at the opening reception September 21.
Subtitled “Works never before exhibited in San Francisco; the rudest the hardest to sell the just plain wrong,” the exhibit includes photographic prints, sculptures, and appropriated movie imagery that spark a demented form of joy.
From punishment to traumatic events and a skewering of masculinity, the exhibit even includes a G-rated version of Waters’ “Pink Flamingos” acted out by children. Objects d’art take on an absurdist scale reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp’s alias, R. Mutt.
The oft-entitled Pope of Trash,
biases has left us with the gift of his writings. That he was unflinchingly raw and honest, that he exhibited such tremendous degrees of curiosity, that he was so deeply engaged in the movement is testimony to his brilliance as a writer. That he became a beloved public figure who’s legacy endures is a gift to all of us.
Please tell us how this event came to be.
I’m the founder of Books Not Bans, which has the mission of fostering joy
whose many films include “Pink Flamingos,” “Desperate Living,” “Hairspray,” “Crybaby,” and the cult classic “Multiple Maniacs,” started collecting art as a child in Baltimore. Waters recently bequeathed his extensive collection of art and archives to the Baltimore Museum of Art with the condition that they name, in his honor, The John Waters Restrooms; allgender, of course.
While fans of his movies are legion, some may not know that he has exhibited his oddball artwork at museums around the world, including the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, the Wexner Center of the Arts in Columbus, and he was even selected as a juror for the Venice Biennale. He’s an outsider turned insider, as he said in interview with CBS News.
Waters has also had five books of his photographs and sculptures published since 1997. And he’s also a connoisseur of unusual art. In the CBS interview, he said what attracts him is
and connection through literature. We’ve gotten a lot of press for sending desperately needed queer books to communities in red states. We’ve sent 810 books so far, with another 200 going out at the end of the month. Books not bans also throws literaturethemed parties. To highlight, the first one was called Read for Filth, and took place as part of Litquake in October of 2023.
One of the ways that Baldwin is so remarkable is that his reach extended beyond his writing into activism, as he was a key part of the Civil Rights movement. He turned 100 this year, and it felt important to honor him
“something that stops me in my tracks, that surprises me.”t
‘John Waters: The Worst of Waters,’ at Rena Brantsen Gallery, Sept. 21- Nov. 16. Reception Sept. 21, 5pm-7pm. 1275 Minnesota St., Minnesota Street Project. www.renabranstengallery.com
with festivities. We wanted to throw him a proper birthday party that had all the sense of revelry. We’re so lucky to have his writings and the very least we could do was to have cake and champagne.
Leigh Pfeffer, the museum manager of the GLBT Historical Society, and I talked about throwing a party in his honor and we’ve managed to pull this together. I’m so excited that the event will be at the museum.
What will the event entail?
Drag! Cake! Champagne! Short readings from excerpts of Baldwin’s essays. We’re going to have time for people to socialize, of course. This will be a vibrant and joyful event.
A super cool thing is that the contents of James Baldwin’s record collection is available for listening online, so the music used in the drag numbers will be music that Baldwin had a connection to.
What do you hope that guests will take from the event?
My goal is for guests to come away with a sense of connection and inspiration. The electricity of these ideas and his beautiful phrasing should be experienced out loud. You don’t have to be an academic or even a habitual reader to appreciate the awesomeness of Baldwin’s prose. I want raucous celebrations of the writer that have made our world more just and connected.t
James Baldwin 100th Birthday Bash, September 19, 6pm, GLBT History Museum, 4127 18th Street, $20, free for museum members. www.glbthistory.org www.fabulosabooks.com
<< James Baldwin
From page 13
Above Left: Coco Buttah
Above Right: Afrika America Below: Anthony Rollins-Mullens
John Waters with the cast of ‘Kiddie Flamingos’
Above: John Waters’ ‘Hairball’ print, 2014 Below: John Waters’ ‘Stud’ and ‘Guzzle’ print, 1998
All photos: John Waters/courtesy Rena Brantsen Gallery
‘My
Old Ass’
by Brian Bromberger
Have you ever wondered that if you knew what would happen in the future, would you change any decisions made today? This tantalizing question pervades the new whimsical yet bittersweet coming-of-age fable film, “My Old Ass,” that at first seems like it will be a frolicking lesbian summer escapade, but then radically changes direction in a story line that encompasses both regret and possibility. It’s the type of movie where you might be laughing and shedding tears simultaneously, which could account for its being a breakout hit at this year’s Frameline Festival.
Produced by actress Margot Robbie and written/directed by upcoming Canadian filmmaker Megan Park (“The Fallout”), free-spirited teenager Elliott (Maisy Stella) is ready to leave her rural home to attend college in Toronto. Her parents own a cranberry farm. She’s determined to have a riotously fun idyllic summer, including hooking up with her long-time crush, a female barista at the local coffee shop.
To celebrate her 18th birthday, she motorboats to a remote island with her two BFFs, Ro (Kerrice Brooks) and Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) to trip on psychedelic mushrooms. At first Elliott doesn’t think she’s feeling anything, but then suddenly finds herself talking with a wisecracking 39-year-old woman, her literal old ass (Aubrey Plaza) who claims to be the woman with a Ph.D. she will become in two decades.
She gives Elliott two pieces of advice: spend more time with her family (particularly after she forgets to show up to her family’s own birthday dinner for her) and stay away from anyone named Chad. Later, she will golf with her brother and assist her mother in the kitchen.
Troubling Chad
Of course, the next day, she meets an adorable, kind, sweet-natured college student named Chad (Percy Hynes White) hired as a summer worker on Elliott’s family farm. This presents a conundrum for Elliott because she identifies as a lesbian, only having had relationships with other women.
Her family and friends have always been supportive, accepting her as she is. At first, she keeps her distance from him, yet the more time she spends with Chad the more attractive he becomes to her. Meanwhile, through her cell phone, Elliott (if only we could phone into our past) keeps in contact with her old ass, pumping her as to why she’s so negative about Chad, which she initially refuses to disclose, but later her reasons will emerge under pressure.
The film has the supernatural logic reminiscent of last year’s “All of Us Strangers.” We are never told how or why the older vaguely unhappy Elliott can communicate with her younger self, which is fine because it avoids the pseudo-scientific gobbledygook explanations that deflated previous time travel fantasies. The viewer just goes with the flow, accepting the ruleless fantastical premise.
What the film does so well is capture that exciting awkward period between leaving home, a liminal rite of
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”
—James Baldwin
Second chances with a younger self
passage, betwixt and between the previous state you are leaving behind and the new state you are heading towards, but haven’t quite arrived. It’s a transitional vulnerable time where you can make mistakes but also mature, as you encounter life’s unpredictable events which force you to grow up.
Foolish acts
The film keenly explores decisions
we make when we’re young, but later wish we could change, even though we know we can’t go back. But what if you suddenly did? Would you correct any mistakes or find you would still commit the same foolish acts again?
“My Old Ass” also pressures us to cherish and be grateful for the present, because we don’t know what lies ahead where our lives could change in an instant.
Park excels at capturing the energy, authenticity, and idealism of youth approaching adulthood, expressing both honest realism towards life’s limits and a playful spirit where anything seems possible. Stella embodies these characteristics and brings vibrancy, positivity, and warmth to Elliott, but also honesty. Plaza doesn’t look like Stella, but they do share a similar authentic vibe
and eventually a mutual trust, with Stella radiating depth and a razorsharp wit. She’s a survivor which gives hope to Stella.
The older Elliott has some bitterness borne out of experience so perhaps by interacting with her younger self, she can regain some of life’s delight which she’s lost. A minor criticism is that Plaza disappears for most of the film and one wishes there were more of her.
The sexuality element is minimized. Park, who’s straight, avoids any impression of a lesbian finding salvation through a heterosexual romance or that it’s a phase. Instead, the Elliott character and the film is comfortably compassionate with a shifting identity and/ or fluidity. Elliott is as discombobulated by the turn of events as is the audience, but there’s no judgment whatsoever.
Overall, this unforgettable film is a delightful surprise etching an elegiacal poignancy and avoiding any sentimentality. We’ve all wondered ‘what if ‘about our lives and “My Old Ass” tells us to enjoy what we have here and now, reminding us it’s the small moments of life that matter most.t
‘My Old Ass’ opens September 19 at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. www.drafthouse.com/sf www.mgm.com
Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza in ‘My Old Ass’
Marni Grossman/Amazon MGM Studios
Davóne Tines’ ‘Robeson’ A
by Tim Pfaff
Bass-baritone Davóne Tines has built a reputation for doing things his way on the concert stage. The out 37-year-old Harvard and Juilliard graduate was given complete instruction on the how-to’s of singing and program planning. He then had the nerve to make programs only he could make, sell them to a rapidly expanding audience, and garner a reputation as the singular artist he is.
Unsurprisingly, Tines’s debut album, “Robeson” (Nonesuch), not only reflects his artistry; it’s also one no other singer could match. Having devoted his career to transmogrifying “art music” as usually practiced, he might wish the same “freedom,” the word defining his own music, for all his colleagues.
It may seem odd, on the surface, that this new CD is predicated on the life and art of Paul Robeson. But as it plays out, Tines’s homage to America’s legendary, some would say finest, Black performer of song, musical theater, and the stage suits Tines perfectly. That’s primarily because, like his modern successor, Robeson was an activist working for Black rights at literally life-threatening risk levels, leading him to contemplate suicide in a Moscow hotel room after CIAadministered LSD.
It takes a few
For “Robeson,” –and, one suspects, for his own artistic future– Tines has assembled a band he has named The Truth. The band’s core membership is pianist John Bitoy and sound artist Khari Lucas, and Tines further credits the director Zack Winokur as cocreator of “my most personal artistic statement to date.”
That said, “Robeson” is all but crowded by performers, vocalists and instrumentalists alike, working on Tines’s wavelength, who do much more than contribute to this recording project. The album marks musical
collaboration of the highest order, and “Robeson” would be unimaginable without every one of those voices.
Among the musicians Tines recognizes as influences, jazz giant Miles Davis stands out. In a way, jazz seems like the only word that characterizes this material and its aural means, though there’s nothing particularly “jazzy” about the finished sound. The songs on “Robeson” are many-layered and musically sophisticated, but, like the best jazz, they feel improvised, despite the manifest care that has gone into the arrangements (mostly by Tines) and the recording itself, which reaches Nonesuch’s highest and most exacting standards.
Another homage
Still, other than to Robeson himself, Tines sings a tribute to Julius Eastman, the late Black gay composer and performer Tines calls “one of my idols, whom I call an ancestor.” Experimentalist to the core, Eastman had his advocates in his own day (the 1980s and ’90s), but like so many composers before him, died largely misunderstood and underappreciated, broke, alone, and in ill health, possibly from HIV infection.
It’s tempting to say that Eastman’s time has come. Many of today’s most adventurous performers and ensembles, including full symphony orchestras, are revisiting his music in what is probably the boldest revival of a musically challenging gay composer since the ongoing resurgence of interest in the music (and life) of the late Canadian, Claude Vivier.
Tines writes about Eastman in his notes (which, on evidence, are part of the composition as a whole) for ‘Scandalized,’ the fourth track on the new recording. A riff on the tongue-incheek (Tines’s word) spiritual, “Scandalize My Name,” it takes the listener to church stylistically as well as in spirit. Julius Eastman’s brother Gerry, a jazz guitarist, takes a central place in the revelry.
Tracks of his tears
At no point is it in doubt that this album is the most serious of undertakings. Its principal theme is freedom and the grueling path to it. And in the notes to “Let It Shine” (an infinite gospel vamp” in Tines’s words), the singercomposer acknowledges that, in ways similar to Robeson and Eastman, the album, which took shape during the pandemic, proceeds from Tines’s own artistic low point. But it also charts the journey out of despair, and Tines is clear that, in composing and performing it, “I couldn’t contain the joy of feeling that survival and personal change were possible.”
“Fly Away,” which present-day audiences may know primarily from the Baz Luhrman film, “Elvis,” takes yet another Black spiritual and, well, flies away with it. Tines says it began with pianist John Bitoy’s almost random practicing Ravel’s “Le Gibet” the haunting third movement of the notoriously difficult ‘Gaspard de la nuit,’
pelling singing in head voice (falsetto) from Tines on offer in this collection. It completes the picture of his voice as it roams between the first rendition of “Ol’ Man River,” the song with which Robeson is most associated, when Tines favors the listener with sepulchral bass notes, and the last one, which seems like a different song altogether.
His “normal” range is baritonal, deployed with an uncommon sense of drama. But the departures from exact pitch and other givens of the recital platform are not failings but, rather, evidence of the singer’s impressive range, in terms of expression as well as of vocal compass.
It’s hard to communicate what a departure this is from the usual singer debut recording, say nothing of the ever-more-obligatory “theme” album. For all of its challenges –this is not music for the casual listener– Tines’s songs are immediately absorbing, and in the end harder to let go of than to welcome.
before one of the recording sessions. It quickly morphed into a jam, only to become one of the wildest and most transfixing tracks on the album.
It also elicits some of the most com-
“Some Enchanted Evening” has never sounded quite like this before, and ‘Todesbanden,’ based on a Bach cantata, won’t pass any historical authenticity test while it sweeps you away. “The House I Live In” takes its inspiration from a short film starring Frank Sinatra and then returns from that land of encores to a hymn to promote racial and socio-economic equality.
Tines calls “Lift Every Voice,” sometimes called the Black national anthem with its words by James Weldon Johnson, his favorite song. It could also serve as the motto for this brave new program, where every song, and every voice, lift the willing listener up.
In related news: in that odd way of the recording industry box set, Sony Classical has issued all of Robeson’s own recordings for Columbia, RCA, HMV, and Victor. The 14-disc set includes Robeson’s 1944 production of Shakespeare’s “Othello.”t
Davóne Tines, ‘Robeson,’ Nonesuch Records, CD and streaming. www.nonesuch.com www.alsoanoperasinger.org
Davóne Tines
Davóne Tines
Noah Morrison
Cold
by Victoria A. Brownworth
The current political landscape will likely be the subject of the cold open on the premiere of season 50 of “Saturday Night Live.” The hit sketch comedy show will debut the new season on Sept. 28 at 11:30p ET/8:30p PT Live on NBC and Peacock. The host and musical guest for the first episode have not yet been announced.
Three new comedians will be joining as featured players for this historic season; Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim, and Jane Wickline. Per NBC’s media release, Padilla, a Bay Area native, has been a member of the comedy troupe Groundlings Main Company since 2021. Wakim is a Lebanese-American comic and was selected as a New Face of Comedy at the 2022 Just for Laughs Comedy Festival. Wickline was a cast member on TikTok’s live show, “Stapleview,” and performs sketch comedy on tour. Out gay cast member Bowen Yang returns for a fifth season.
Brian Jordan Alvarez exemplifies that axiom “it gets better.” Bullied for being gay as a kid in Tennessee, he’s now starring in his own FX series he created, “English Teacher.”
by gay neuroscientist Oliver Sacks, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” and “An Anthropologist on Mars.” “Brilliant Minds” premieres Monday, Sept. 23 at 10/9c on NBC and streaming next day on Peacock.
FX’s “English Teacher” stars Alvarez as Evan Marquez, a high school teacher in Austin, Texas who often finds himself at the intersection of the personal, professional and political aspects of working at a high school. Evan wants to be a principled person but often runs into trouble because of it, striving to meet the conflicting needs of students and parents amidst ever-changing rules.
By Evan’s side at Morrison-Hensley High is his friend group of other teachers. Chief among them is his best friend Gwen Sanders (Stephanie Koenig), the eager and optimistic history teacher who tends to see the best in people, even when she probably shouldn’t. Then there’s PE teacher Markie Hillridge (Sean Patton). Though he can seem gruff and abrasive, beneath the surface, he possesses a knowledge of human nature that often proves valuable to Evan. When they aren’t disagreeing, Markie and Evan share a genuine bond, but they’re usually disagreeing.
Principal Grant Moretti (Enrico Colantoni) wants nothing more than peace and the path of least resistance, a path Evan is rarely willing to take. While Grant keeps his own opinions close to the vest, he respects Evan’s passion, even if it makes his own job more difficult. Guidance Counselor Rick (Carmen Christopher) barely wants to be at this school. He sees himself as an entrepreneur, but still loves hanging out with the other teachers. Evan’s boyfriend Malcolm (Jordan Firstman) is a former teacher at Morrison. Wild and free-thinking, Malcolm often draws Evan back into a pseudo-relationship.
When Grant informs Evan that he is being placed under investigation for a long-dormant incident where he and Malcolm kissed in front of students, Evan suddenly feels that he’s under a microscope and is being targeted for his sexuality. Evan is left with one rule to abide by: no relationships with faculty, only to meet Harry (Langston Kerman), a charming new teacher who seems to be interested in him.
Over the eight-episode season, Evan navigates his relationships, his students and his fellow faculty and tries to answer the question: can you really be your full self at your job?
Mindful
Out gay actor Zachary Quinto stars as the eccentric Dr. Oliver Wolf in NBC’s new medical drama “Brilliant Minds.” NBC describes the series as focused on “a gifted neurologist who uses his unconventional approach to treat puzzling psychological cases.”
The series is inspired by the books
Oh, gross
Is it possible we have three new fall dramas starring out queer actors? It is!
Niecy Nash-Betts stars in the new FX horror series, “Grotesquerie” created
by Ryan Murphy, Jon Robin Baitz, and Joe Baken for FX. “Grotesquerie” premieres Sept. 25 on FX and streams on Hulu.
FX notes, “Evil is all around us.” (Too right!) In Murphy’s 10-episode “Grotesquerie,” a series of heinous crimes have unsettled a small community. As FX details, Detective Lois Tryon (Nash-Betts) feels these crimes are eerily personal, as if someone –or something– is taunting her.
At home, Lois grapples with a strained relationship with her daugh-
ter, a husband in long-term hospital care and her own inner demons. With no leads and unsure of where to turn, she accepts the help of Sister Megan (Micaela Diamond), a nun and journalist with the Catholic Guardian.
Sister Megan, with her own difficult past, has seen the worst of humanity, yet she still believes in its capacity for good. Lois, on the other hand, fears the world is succumbing to evil. As Lois and Sister Megan string together clues, they find themselves ensnared in a sinister web that only seems to
raise more questions than answers.
The
also
series
stars Courtney B. Vance as Marshall Tryon, Lesley Manville as Nurse Redd, Nicholas Alexander Chavez as Father Charlie, Raven Goodwin as Merritt Tryon and Taylor Swift’s squeeze, Super Bowl champion Travis Kelce.
Written and created by Ryan Murphy, Jon Robin Baitz and Joe Baken, “Grotesquerie” is directed by Max Winkler, Murphy, Alexis Martin Woodall and out gay filmmaker Elegance Bratton.t
Left: Brian Jordan Alvarez in ‘English Teacher’ Right: Niecy Nash-Betts in ‘Grotesquerie’
Both photos: FX
Local LGBTQ+ Media Giving Day
October
8th!
Celebrating 100 years of local media for and by our community.
The first gay publication in America was 100 years ago this year—1924’s Friendship & Freedom, produced by Henry Gerber. It was shut down by police after just two issues. Through the years, LGBTQ+ media faced similar censorship and hardships. But 100 years later, there is a chance to revitalize this journalism and make it stronger to face the anti-LGBTQ+ backlash, providing critical coverage of this vital part of the U.S. media landscape.
This first year, with one donation, you can support six of the top LGBTQ+ outlets serving our community:
Bay Area Reporter – Dallas Voice _ Philadelphia Gay News Tagg Magazine _ Washington Blade – Windy City Times
This project is a program of News Is Out, a collaboration of six of the top local LGBTQ+ media across the country, supported by Local Media Foundation, a 501(C)(3) organization. Tax-deducible donations can be made anytime from now until Oct 8th. Scan the QR code to donate now! Learn more here: givebutter.com/LGBTQequityfund When you give to one, you give to all
