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FREE | VOLUME SEVENTEEN, ISSUE TWO | JANUARY 18 – 31, 2018

In This Issue COVER STORY If you hear something racist, say something 18-25

REMEMBRANCE Daniel Dromm’s mom, PFLAG pioneer, was 85 13

CRIME DNA vindicates lesbian rape victim Daily News ripped 05

TRAVEL Empire State’s answers to winter doldrums 16

CIVIL RIGHTS LGBTQ issues fall off SCOTUS docket 06

FILM Zachary Booth offers drifter’s gift 28

CRIME Legalized pot gets Assembly hearing 08

OPERA “Fellow Travelers� debuts in NYC 29

Lesbian singer stakes claim on faith 32

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January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

POLITICS

Johnson Faces Daunting Budget Realities of Trump’s America New speaker acknowledges “finite” resources, “difficult choices,” as he underscores commitment to his local district

DONNA ACETO

Speaker Corey Johnson speaks with Gay City News and its sister papers, Chelsea Now, Manhattan Express, and the Villager in his City Hall office on January 9.

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

A

s Corey Johnson assumes the role of speaker of the City Council, he has made some important and expensive promises that multiple constituencies are expecting him to keep. But he is also facing the prospect of cuts in federal and state dollars that could make fulfilling those promises difficult.

“Almost a third of our budget is from the state and federal governments,” said the 35-year-old who is beginning his second term representing a district that includes the West Village, Chelsea, and Hell’s Kitchen. “Until we have a better picture of what the impact is going to be from the state and federal level, we need to be even more fiscally prudent.”

On January 3, the day Johnson won the speaker’s job in a lopsided 48-1 vote in the 51-member City Council, Governor Andrew Cuomo said in his annual State of the State speech that New York was facing a $4 billion deficit in the fiscal year that begins on April 1 and the possibility of another $2 billion in cuts in federal aid. Those cuts will inevitably find their way into

4

the city’s budget — which is $86 billion in the current fiscal year — in state aid cuts and in reduced direct federal aid to the city.

Other reductions in revenue could result from the recently enacted federal tax reform law that allows taxpayers to deduct only the first $10,000 in state and local taxes on their federal returns.

That could prompt some wealthier New York taxpayers who pay a large portion of city and state income taxes to decamp for lower tax states.

“I believe we’ve done a good job so far at spending money on big picture things that are important to the city while at the same time by putting money away in reserves for when the downturn comes,” Johnson said during an hour-long January 9 interview with Gay City News and its sister NYC Community Media newspapers Chelsea Now, Manhattan Express, and the Villager. “The downturn is coming.”

There is no shortage of demands on the city’s budget. There are all the usual items that every politician must fund, such as police, the fire department, sanitation, and the schools. Then there are the bigticket items.

AIDS groups have successfully

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Johnson stands in front of a resistance poster he has mounted in his new City Hall office.

lobbied the state and the city to implement the Plan to End AIDS, an ambitious undertaking that proposes to reduce new HIV infections across the state to 750 a year by 2020. The city has said it will get to 600 new HIV infections annually by 2020. The plan uses anti-HIV drugs to keep HIV-negative people uninfected and HIV-positive people uninfectious. It also expanded services, such as housing and nutrition, for both groups to keep them healthy and taking their anti-HIV drugs.

The de Blasio administration and the City Council are committed to creating 200,000 units of affordable housing over 10 years, with just six years left now to achieve that goal. The administration and the City Council support closing Rikers Island, the city jail, by 2027, which would likely mean opening additional jails elsewhere

in the city or at least upgrading existing facilities.

The city has at best a limited ability to raise revenues on its own.

“Most of the city taxes except the property tax are not within the purview of the City Council,” said Johnson, who is openly gay and HIV-positive. “I wish the city had more taxing authority, but under the State Constitution, we don’t.”

On affordable housing, at least part of the solution is not building new housing, which is expensive, but keeping the affordable units, such as rent-stabilized units, in place, restoring those illegally taken out of rent-stabilization, and pushing back against legal and illegal efforts to convert those homes to market-rate housing.

“Number 1, it is cheaper in a very

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COREY JOHNSON, continued on p.5

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

CRIME

DNA Vindicates Lesbian Rape Victim Daily News Smeared NYPD names suspect in 1994 assault columnist Mike McAlary claimed was a “hoax”

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

N

early 24 years after a lesbian was raped in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and then called a liar and a hoaxer in the pages of the New York Daily News by columnist Mike McAlary, the NYPD is reporting that it linked the DNA found in that case to a man who is serving what is effectively a life sentence in state prison for other sexual assaults he committed.

“She was called a liar by one of the most famous columnists in New York City and she’s had to live with that all of these years,” said Gabriel Rotello, who was a Newsday columnist in 1994 and the leading defender of the woman. “She’s been vindicated after all of these years and I’m thrilled with that.”

Using DNA recovered from semen found on the woman following the April 1994 rape, police are asserting that James Webb, 67, committed the assault. He is currently serving a sentence of 75-years-to-life for 1998 sexual assault convictions.

Webb is not eligible for a first parole hearing until 2070. The statute of limitations has run out on the 1994 rape and Webb cannot be charged in that case.

The rape occurred just days before the woman, then 27, was to participate in a Brooklyn rally opposing anti-LGBTQ violence. McAlary, who died in 1998, wrote three columns that represented the rape as a hoax, the woman as a liar, and said that she was going to be arrested.

She sued and was represented

by Martin Garbus, a noted First

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COREY JOHNSON, from p.4

significant way to preserve the affordable housing that currently exists in New York City,” Johnson said. “The biggest way to do that is to strengthen the rent laws, which sadly the City Council has a very limited say over. It’s done by the State Legislature.”

The city Rent Guidelines Board has approved small or no rent increases for rent-stabilized units in GayCityNews.nyc | January 18 – 31, 2018

Amendment attorney who previously only represented publishers in libel cases. In his 1998 book, “Tough Talk: How I Fought for Writers, Comics, Bigots, and the American Way,” Garbus devoted an entire chapter to the case.

Garbus wrote that in earlier legal proceedings unrelated to the woman’s libel lawsuit, McAlary admitted to inventing stories and fabricating quotes to “illustrate” a story. He was deposed twice in the libel case and eventually had to reveal that he had a single source for his columns — John Miller, then the head of the police department’s press office.

In his deposition, Miller, who now heads the NYPD’s counterterrorism unit, disputed that he had ever supported McAlary’s assertions except to say that police first advised reporters to proceed cautiously on the story as the investigation continued.

Rotello, who had previously been the editor-in-chief of OutWeek, an LGBTQ weekly that published from 1989 to 1991, interviewed Miller who told him that McAlary called him after the first column was published saying, “Can you lock this thing down, can you bail me out, can you this, can you that? I’m like, Mike, what the fuck is the matter with you… [W]here do you jump to this conclusion that A, it’s a hoax or B, more outrageously that she’s about to be arrested?”

After Rotello published his column, Miller denied making the comments only to have Rotello produce a recording of the conversation.

“It made quite a splash at the

time, and the next day John Miller called me up at home and apologized to me,” Rotello told Gay City News. “None of that helped the victim.”

In an initial and stunning reiteration of McAlary’s 1994 lies, the Daily News repeated those falsehoods in its 2018 story on the revelation that Webb is the likely perpetrator of the 1994 rape, writing, “Many initially had their doubts about the victim’s claims in the Prospect Park rape case, especially Daily News columnist Mike McAlary, who said at the time that police sources had told him the woman had made up the attack.”

McAlary was alone in doubting the woman and, at the time, three Daily News reporters “warned their editors that some of their police contacts disputed the accuracy of [McAlary’s] account,” Garbus wrote in his book. In 1994, 30 members of the Daily News reporting staff

signed a petition calling McAlary’s first column “a disgrace” and demanding that the paper issue a public apology to the woman and the newspaper’s readers, Garbus wrote.

The initial Daily News story has since been updated to say, “Her account was quickly met with skepticism by some cops and Mike McAlary, a columnist for The News whose doubts were fueled by accounts from police sources.”

The Daily News, which did not respond to an email asking if it was standing by McAlary’s columns, said in its 2018 story that McAlary relied on “police sources,” “some cops,” and “detectives.”

The libel suit was dismissed in 1997 and the woman elected to not pursue an appeal, though Garbus believed an appeal would be successful. The judge in the case, Charles Ramos, remains on the Manhattan Supreme Court bench.

recent years. And the city can and has pushed back against landlords who have illegally converted rentstabilized units to market rate, though some of that effort has relied on the city’s district attorneys, notably Cy Vance in Manhattan and Eric Gonzalez in Brooklyn.

The state Division of Housing & Community Renewal, the primary agency that regulates housing, has been less effective in that work.

“New construction is very expen-

sive,” Johnson said. “Construction costs for new housing have gone up dramatically over the past four years.”

At the same time, like the mayor, Johnson favors a focus on supportive housing, which can be even more expensive than just building affordable units because supportive housing has the ongoing costs of providing social and health services to residents.

“I really, really want to priori-

tize supportive housing,” he said.

“Housing equals healthcare, as our friends in the HIV community always said.”

All of this means more costs and more pressure on the city budget.

“There are going to be difficult choices to make,” Johnson said.

“We are going to have a finite amount of tax dollars, and we’re going to have to figure out where

DUNCAN OSBORNE

Lookout Hill in Prospect Park, where police now say James Webb, in 1994, raped a lesbian whose account was termed a “hoax” by a prominent Daily News columnist.

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COREY JOHNSON, continued on p.15

5

CIVIL RIGHTS

Two LGBTQ Issues Fall Off Supreme Court Docket High court won’t revisit standing issue in challenge to anti-gay Mississippi law; Wisconsin school and transgender student settle

TRANSGENDER LAW CENTER

Ash Whitaker (right), with his mother, Melissa, has settled his suit with the Kenosha, Wisconsin, school district, so the question of trans students’ rights to access restroom facilities consistent with their gender identity will not go before the Supreme Court in its current term.

BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD

A

s the Supreme Court’s 2017-18 term began in October, it looked like a banner term for LGBTQ-related cases. Petitions were pending asking the court to address issues ranging from whether LGBTQ people are protected against discrimination under federal sex discrimination laws covering employment (from Georgia) and educational opportunity (from Wisconsin) to whether queer people in Mississippi had standing to seek a federal order preventing a religiously-motivated and viciously anti-gay law from going into effect and whether the Texas Supreme Court erred in holding that the 2015 federal marriage equality ruling did not necessarily require a municipal employer to treat samesex married couples the same as different-sex married couples in its employee benefits plan.

The high court had already granted review in a gay wedding cake case from Colorado, which was argued on December 5, and another petition involving a Wash-

6

ington State florist who refused to provide arrangements for a samesex wedding was waiting in the wings.

But the hopes for a blockbuster term have rapidly faded. In December, the court declined to hear the Texas employee benefits case and the Georgia employment discrimination case involving the sex discrimination provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s Title VII. And now in January, the court has declined to hear the Mississippi case, and the Wisconsin case — on the question of whether transgender students are protected by sex discrimination provisions of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 — has settled, with the school district agreeing to withdraw its Supreme Court petition.

It may be that the only LGBTQrelated issue that the court decides this term is the one it heard argued in December: whether a business owner’s religious objections to same-sex marriage or his right to freedom of speech would privilege him to refuse to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. An opinion is expected by the end of

K APLAN & COMPANY

The Supreme Court will not review the standing issue that, to date, has barred two plaintiff groups, one represented by Roberta Kaplan, above, and the other by Lambda Legal, from challenging Mississippi’s new harshly anti-LGBTQ law.

June.

Challenge to the Mississippi Anti-Gay Law On January 8, the Supreme Court refused to review a ruling by the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had dismissed a constitutional challenge to Mississippi’s infamous H.B. 1523, a law enacted in 2016 that protects people who discriminate against LGBTQ people because of their religious or moral convictions. The Fifth Circuit ruled that none of the plaintiffs — either organizations or individuals — in two cases challenging the Mississippi law had “standing” to bring the lawsuits in federal court.

H.B. 1523, originally scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2016, identifies three “religious beliefs or moral convictions,” protecting anybody who acts in accord with those beliefs in a wide range of circumstances against “discrimination”

by the state. The beliefs laid out in the statute are that “marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman”; “sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage”; and “male (man) or female (woman) refers to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.”

Among other things, the law would protect government officials who rely on these beliefs to deny services to individuals and would preempt the handful of local municipal laws in Mississippi that ban discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity so that victims of discrimination would have no local law remedy.

Mississippi does not have a state law banning sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination, so H.B. 1523, as it relates to private

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SCOTUS DOCKET, continued on p.15

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

HUMAN RIGHTS

Globally, A Burst of Pro-LGBTQ Rulings Progress in India, Latin America, and the European Union

Get your MOJO back Erectile dysfunction

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BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD

O

ver just four days — January 8 through 11 — major courts on three continents issued rulings affecting the rights of tens of millions of LGBTQ people.

On January 8, the Supreme Court of India ordered reconsideration of the 2014 decision that restored the country’s law against gay sex. The following day, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights advised Costa Rica — and thus another 15 countries in Central and South America bound by the American Convention on Human Rights that do not yet have marriage equality — that same-sex couples are entitled to marry and also ruled that transgender people are entitled to get legal name changes without having to undergo sex reassignment surgery. And on January 11, one of the advocates general of the European Court of Justice, responding to a request for a preliminary ruling from the Constitutional Court of Romania, advised the ECJ that same-sex spouses of the citizens of member nations must be treated the same as different-sex spouses under a European Union directive governing movement among its member states.

With 1.3 billion people, India has the second largest population in the world, while the European Union member countries have more than 500 million residents and the countries within the InterAmerican Union, not including the US and Canada, have a combined population of more than 600 million. These three rulings, then, affect a wide swath of the planet’s roughly 7.6 billion people, and marriage equality may soon become the norm throughout the Western Hemisphere, with only a few holdouts among states that do not recognize the Inter-American Court’s jurisdiction.

GayCityNews.nyc | January 18 – 31, 2018

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The Indian ruling is yet another step in a complicated and long-running story. In 1860, under British administration, the Indian penal code was adopted with Section 377 providing, “Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman, or animal shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years, and shall also be liable to fine.� This colonial enactment, carried over into national law when India became independent after World War II, has been interpreted to outlaw all same-sex oral and anal intercourse.

Although infrequently enforced, it has had the same stigmatizing effect as anti-sodomy laws in Western societies did through much of the 20th century.

Many LGBTQ people in India rejoiced in a highly public way in 2009 when the Delhi High Court, responding to a lawsuit filed by the NAZ Foundation, an HIV/AIDS advocacy group, ruled that Section 377 was unconstitutional regarding private, consensual adult same-sex intercourse. The government initiated no appeal, so many saw the lengthy, scholarly ruling as final.

A group of religious and social conservatives, however, led by Hindu astrologist Suresh Kumar Koushal, brought an appeal to the

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INTERNATIONAL, continued on p.14

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POLITICS

AMNH Catches Flak over Breitbart Funder’s Role Rebekah Mercer, major donor to climate change denial groups, on science museum board

BY PAUL SCHINDLER

A

n activist group formed this past November is criticizing the role that Rebekah Mercer — a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump whose family foundation has donated millions of dollars to climate change deniers — as a board member at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH).

The group, Revolting Lesbians, is planning a January 21 protest outside the museum and is also drawing up a letter to each member of the AMNH board calling for the resignation of Mercer, whose family, according to Politico, has given the museum $2.9 million.

“We think it is outrageous that someone who pours millions of dollars into climate change denial is sitting on the board of a preeminent scientific institution in New

GRAPHIC COURTESY OF REVOLTING LESBIANS

A graphic developed by Revolting Lesbians for their January 21 protest of Rebekah Mercer’s role as a board member at the American Museum of Natural History.

York City,” Jo Macellaro, one of the organizers of the January 21 action, said in an email message.

Mercer, who lives on the Upper West Side, is the daughter of Robert Mercer, whom Forbes maga-

zine has identified as among the nation’s 25 highest-earning hedge fund managers, and she directs the Mercer Family Foundation, which is a major supporter of conservative causes. Newsmax Media

owner Christopher Ruddy, who is a close confidante of President Donald Trump, has called Mercer “the First Lady of the alt-right.”

Last spring, the Washington Post reported on the father and daughter’s participation at a Heartland Institute conference in Washington, where speakers ripped into the overwhelming scientific consensus surrounding climate change and applauded the Trump administration’s hobbling of the Environmental Protection Agency.

According to the Post, the family’s foundation has given more than $5 million to the Heartland Institute since 2008. The Heartland conference received financial backing from other groups that the Mercer Family Foundation also supports, including the Media Research Center, the Heritage Foundation, and the Center for the Defense of Free

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REBEKAH MERCER, continued on p.9

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Assembly Holds Hearing on Legalizing Pot As Democratic legislators sound ready to move, Cuomo launches study of neighboring state reforms

BY NATHAN RILEY

D

emanding that New York State stop racist law enforcement patterns by legalizing adult use of marijuana, advocates told members of the State Assembly, including Health Committee chair Richard N. Gottfried, a Chelsea Democrat, that police stops are traumatizing black and brown New Yorkers.

At a January 11 hearing in Lower Manhattan, speaker after speaker insisted that being searched, handcuffed, marched into court, and chained to other arrestees in the morning is often traumatizing.

“Marijuana decriminalization has fallen short and will continue to do so,” Kassandra Frederique, the New York State director of the Drug Policy Alliance, contended.

Even with reductions in stop

8

BRICE PEYRE

Democratic Assemblymembers Michael G. DenDekker of Queens, JoAnn Simon of Brooklyn, Crystal D. Peoples-Stokes of Buffalo, and Richard N. Gottfried and Linda B. Rosenthal of Manhattan at the January 11 hearing.

and frisk, it remains up to the police officer to distinguish between private possession and possession in public view, which can trigger

a criminal arrest. Those nabbed, overwhelmingly black and Latino New Yorkers, are fingerprinted and given retinal scans. Police officers

have no immediate way of knowing if their victim faces deportation or

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POT HEARING, continued on p.9

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

䉴

REBEKAH MERCER, from p.8

Enterprise, the Post reported.

Desmog, a website that bills itself as “clearing the PR pollution that clouds climate science,” reported that Robert Mercer gave $1.25 million to the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, which is led by Art Robinson, a biochemist who formerly taught at the University of California at San Diego and has become a leading climate change denier. The Oregonian reported that the elder Mercer also spent millions to support several challenges Robinson launched against Democratic Congressmember Peter DeFazio.

According to Politico, the Mercers have also invested $10 million in Breitbart News and $5 million in Cambridge Analytica, the data research firm that has figured prominently in reporting on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. In a rare public statement recently, Rebekah Mercer denounced Steve Bannon for stinging comments he made about the Trump White

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POT HEARING, from p.8

loss of a job or a scholarship, but no matter what the arrestee is left cowed and confused.

Over the past 20 years, more than 800,000 New Yorkers living in a “decriminalized” legal environment have faced criminal charges.

In 2016, there were 20,133 arrests, more than 85 percent of them among African-American and Latinx New Yorkers and one-third of them under 21.

The Start SMART (Sensible Marijuana Access through Regulated Trade) New York campaign supplied most of the witnesses at a joint hearing of the Assembly Health, Codes, and Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Committees. With Codes chair Joe Lentol of Brooklyn out sick, Gottfried presided with fellow West Sider Linda B. Rosenthal, who chairs Alcoholism and Substance Abuse. The three committee chairs have primary oversight of legislation legalizing marijuana that is sponsored

by Buffalo’s Crystal D. PeoplesStokes, who traveled to the city for the hearing. The effort is champiGayCityNews.nyc | January 18 – 31, 2018

House in Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury,” and days later Bannon was forced out of his role as executive chairman of Breitbart.

The low public profile that both Mercer and her father have consistently maintained personally has enabled them to defy precise characterization, though the millions of dollars in foundation expenditures and multiples of that in political spending — $25 million in the 2016 election alone, first for Texas Senator Ted Cruz and later for Trump, according to USA Today — paint a picture of them as among the most lavish of right-wing patrons.

In its story about the Heartland conference, however, the Washington Post noted that the Mercer Foundation, in 2014 and 2015, gave $500,000 to Berkeley Earth, a research group founded by physicist Richard Muller, who was once a climate change skeptic but since 2012 has argued that human activity is at the foundation of global warming trends. Muller described Robert Mercer as “very open” to his group’s research.

On the Facebook page calling for the January 21 protest at

AMNH, Revolting Lesbians argue that their research indicates that the total commitment by the Mercer Family Foundation to climate change denial amounts to $22 million. The Heartland Institute, it notes, bragged in promoting last spring’s conference that it “persuaded Trump that man-made global warming is not a crisis.”

Explaining the objectives of the planned protest, the group’s Macellaro wrote, “Our main goals for this action (and follow-up actions) are to expose Rebekah Mercer and make the general public aware of who she is and what she does (including, of course, her role in getting Trump into the White House), and ultimately to have her removed from the board of the museum.”

The founders of Revolting Lesbians includes longtime activists from ACT UP, the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization that launched the battle to open up the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade to LGBTQ participation, and the Lesbian Avengers — such as Maxine Wolfe, Anne Maguire, and Marie Honan — as well as from Trump resistance groups such as Rise and

Resist. Revolting Lesbians plan to march in the January 20 Women’s March protesting the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, one day prior to their action at AMNH. A museum spokesperson, in an emailed message, wrote, “At the Museum, decisions about research, exhibitions, and public programs are made by scientists and educators. That is not a role that donors or Trustees take on.”

The museum is currently engaged in a major expansion with the construction of the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation. The project has drawn some community opposition because it encroaches on a small portion of the surrounding Theodore Roosevelt Park. In a 2015 op-ed in Gay City News’ sister publication Manhattan Express, City Councilmember Helen Rosenthal championed the Gilder Project, writing that it would “impact our ability to understand some of the most critical issues that face our world, such as climate change.”

A message left at a phone number in Rebekah Mercer’s name was not returned as of press time.

oned in the Senate by East Side Democrat Liz Krueger.

Frederique demonstrated the dire need for reform with horrifying stories of marijuana arrests gone wrong. Two New York City detectives were indicted for raping an 18-year-old girl after searching her car for marijuana. Wayne Henderson, a 25-year-old New Yorker died on Riker’s Island after his parole was revoked for marijuana possession. One fifth of all parolees sent back to prison are violated for potrelated infractions. In the Bronx, 69-year old Mario Sanabria died during a no-knock search for marijuana. He was taking care of his 92-year-old brother-in-law, and the man named in the warrant was not at home. According to a July 21, 2017 New York Times story, the city’s Administration for Children’s Services separated Colyssa Stapleton from her children for months before it became clear she was a victim of a false marijuana arrest.

Other reasons advanced for legalizing pot included the tax revenue stream available to officials contending with an estimated $4 billion shortfall in state revenue

and the opportunities for enhancing the medical marijuana program currently crippled by restrictions imposed by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2014.

The hearing included testimony from two police professionals.

Sherriff Barry Virts, from Wayne County on Lake Ontario, warned that legal pot would make the drug more easily available to young people, but Major Neill Franklin, a retired Maryland police officer who is executive director of LEAP, an organization of police officers opposed to prohibition, supported adult use. He argued that the illegal sellers use children to sell and deliver product because the young needed the money and if arrested face lighter penalties.

The Assembly hearing took place amidst a roller coast ride for the emerging legal pot movement.

On January 1, legal sales began in California, but just three days later, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions terminated an Obama era policy of stepping back from federal prosecution of marijuana growth and sales operating legally under state law. Almost immediately, a cloud

was cast over legal activities in eight states. The head of Alaska’s cannabis program, a police chief, immediately resigned.

In Colorado, however, where pot became legal four years ago, Democrats and Republicans rose in unison to protect their program.

Republican Senator Cory Gardner warned Sessions he would block appointments at the Justice Department unless the AG backed down. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader, defended California’s new law, insisting that protection of legal pot sales be in the budget with a bar on federal dollars going to pot prosecutions in states that have legalized. Politico could find no member of Congress willing to speak up in favor of Sessions’ assault on adult-use legalization.

The legislature in Vermont responded to Sessions by becoming the second state sharing a border with New York to adopt adult-use.

Massachusetts’ legalization will be implemented later this year. And New Jersey, under the leadership of Governor Phil Murphy, elected

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POT HEARING, continued on p.39

9

REMEMBRANCE

Danny Dromm’s Mother, PFLAG Stalwart, Dies at 85 A public school teacher like her son, Audrey Gallagher was ubiquitous ally in Queens, citywide

BY ANDY HUMM

W

hen Audrey Gallagher died on January 4 at the age of 85, she left a hole in the heart of New York’s LGBTQ community, especially in her home borough of Queens. While she was perhaps best known as the mother and champion of out gay City Councilmember Daniel Dromm of Jackson Heights, she was also a co-founder in 1993 of the Queens chapter of PFLAG (then known as Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), where she was a mainstay as hospitality chairperson for many years, as well as a ubiquitous presence at everything from Queens Pride and the inclusive St. Pat’s for All Parade in Sunnyside to LGBTQ events throughout the city.

Gallagher died of a heart attack after an evening out for dinner with her son. At her wake in Jackson Heights, Dromm showed me a selfie of the two of them smiling only an hour before her passing.

“My beautiful mother was my Rose Kennedy,” Dromm said in a written release, referring to the mother of President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert and Ted Kennedy — all of whom Mrs. Kennedy campaigned for. “My mother knocked on over 1,500 doors to get me elected, wrote a beautiful letter to seniors in the district, and was constantly seen campaigning with me. Everywhere I went people always asked me about my mother. I truly believe she was the main reason I won.”

Dromm defeated incumbent Councilmember Helen Sears in 2009 in a hard-fought campaign in which scurrilous literature attacking Dromm’s sexuality was anonymously distributed. Having his Queens-born Irish Catholic mother at his side made an enormous difference in the race.

Bill Meehan, the business manager of Queens Pride, remembers Gallagher from Dromm’s 2009 campaign. “She worked as a pair with Deirdre Breslin, Jimmy’s sister, who she’d known since high school at Mary Louis Academy,” he said.

“They had no trouble stopping and asking anyone and everyone to vote for Danny — and God help the person who spoke against him.”

On election night, Gallagher told the celebratory crowd, “One day a long time ago when his father said he was going to vote for Goldwater, he got mad at his father and said, ‘Oh, yeah? Well I’m not votin’ for no one!’ He was 10 years old.

And he never stopped doing it [politics] from that time on… God, do I love this guy.” (Watch Gallagher’s remarks at vimeo.com/250334636.)

Professionally, Gallagher, like her son, worked as a teacher in the New York City public schools, then ran her own nursery school, directed day

GayCityNews.nyc | January 18 – 31, 2018

COURTESY: OFFICE OF COUNCILMEMBER DANIEL DROMM

Audrey Gallagher with her son, out gay Queens City Councilmember Daniel Dromm.

care centers and unionized them, and, after moving to Port Jefferson, Long Island, unionized paraprofessionals there.

Dromm came to prominence in 1992 when he came out while working as a grade school teacher to stand up to the anti-LGBTQ District 24 school board led by Mary Cummins, who opposed the “Children of the Rainbow” elementary school curriculum that integrated gay family issues into it. While he had been out to this mother since he was 17, the torrent of controversy involving her son “was quite shocking to her,” according to last week’s release from Dromm. But she threw herself into the LGBTQ movement — marching in 1993 in the first Queens LGBTQ Pride Parade, organized by her son, and then co-founding the PFLAG chapter.

“Audrey had a wonderful way of speaking with parents and children alike,” Anne Quashen, president of PFLAG/ Queens said in a written release. “They felt that they could really open up to her thanks to her warmth and kindness.”

PFLAG/ Queens outreach and media director Larry Nelson — who was also a co-founder of the chapter with Gallagher, Jeanne Manford, PFLAG’s founder, and Claire and Lenny Vogel — said, “From the get-go, Audrey was a very outspoken parent who wanted to show the world the unconditional love she had for her gay son.”

Having moved back to Flushing from Long Island in 1992, Gallagher resumed teaching at PS 234 in the South Bronx until her retirement in 2002, though she worked as a substitute teacher in Queens for several years thereafter.

Brendan Fay, co-founder of the Lavender and Green Alliance and, in 2000, the St. Pat’s for All Parade that welcomed LGBTQ groups for 15 years before the Fifth Avenue St. Patrick’s Day Parade ended its exclusionary policy in 2016, said, in referring to the Queens LGBTQ community, “We became her extended family.” Fay recalled that she defended St. Pat’s for All in the Queens newspapers when the inclusive parade was under attack early on.

In a written release, Fay said, “Her love of Irish music is reflected in her story of naming Danny after her favorite Irish ballad, ‘Danny Boy.’” At Gallagher’s wake, out gay Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer told Gay City News that during Dromm’s annual St. Patrick’s brunch in Queens, “at the end Audrey would lead everyone in singing ‘Danny Boy’ in the most sweet and tender way that I’ve ever seen. To see her singing that to her son is my favorite memory of her in the 25 years that I’ve known her. She was always there with Danny. They were a team” — much as Van Bramer is with his mother and the new out gay speaker of the City Council, Corey Johnson, is with his.

Gallagher’s funeral at Blessed Sacrament Church in Jackson Heights on January 9 was attended by many in the LGBTQ community in Queens and throughout the city as well as by many of Dromm’s Council colleagues, including Johnson and former Speaker Melissa MarkViverito. (Dromm was just named chair of the powerful Council Finance Committee.)

Out gay former State Senator Tom Duane was there, too, and said, “Irish mothers are fierce in protecting their families. Her life became devoted to Danny and the people he loved.”

Bishop Pat Bumgardner of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York said that Gallagher “always came to our Easter Banquet on the Saturday before Easter,” seeing part of her duty as a PFLAG leader to be a presence at community events.

Mary Audrey Gallagher was born on September 6, 1932 in Brooklyn, grew up in Long Island City and Rego Park, and was a graduate of St. John’s University. In addition to Dromm, she had four other children, Lori, who died in 1988, Marybeth, John, and Joseph.

“She helped change the lives of generations of children who were lucky to have Ms. Gallagher as a teacher and those of us who loved her as a friend and mother of the LGBT movement in Queens,” Fay said.

Gallagher’s memory will be honored at the 25th anniversary of Winter Pride, a benefit for Queens Pride, at the Astoria World this coming Saturday, January 20. For more information, visit queenspride.org.

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INTERNATIONAL, from p.7

Supreme Court, where a two-judge bench reversed the Delhi High Court ruling in 2014, holding that the Indian Constitution did not bar the old colonial law and rejecting the High Court’s reliance on decisions from other nations, including the US. Claiming that are very few homosexuals as a proportion of the population, the Supreme Court held that the sodomy issue was not a matter of great importance and was for the legislature, not the courts, to decide.

The effort to obtain further review from a larger panel of the 26-member court has been time-consuming, carried out on separate tracks by both the NAZ Foundation and a new group of plaintiffs, the latter of which argued that other recent rulings — most notably a later 2014 ruling on the rights of transgender people — cast significant doubt on the Koushal decision’s reasoning.

Responding to the new plaintiffs, the Supreme Court’s January 8 Order in Johar v. Union of India Ministry of Law and Justice, by a three judge panel including Chief Justice Dipak Misra, provided an extensive summary of the arguments against the constitutionality of Section 377, quoting from the 2014 transgender ruling and a 2017 privacy case, and granted the petitioners’ request that a larger panel of the court be convened to reconsider Koushal.

Interestingly, nobody from the government appeared to oppose the request for reconsideration.

A different bench of the Supreme Court is separately considering the NAZ Foundation petition, and the Indian press has speculated that the two cases could be combined before that larger panel.

Indian jurisprudence is famous for its slow motion, but there was some optimistic speculation that an opinion from a larger bench may emerge later this year. In light of the serious criticisms of the Koushal decision by other benches of the court, commentators were upbeat that the original Delhi High Court’s order striking down criminalization of gay sex will ultimately prevail.

Marriage Equality in the Americas The Inter-American Court’s ruling on January 9 came in response to a petition submitted two years

14

ago by Luis Guillermo Solís, Costa Rica’s president, who had run for office on a pledge to expand LGBTQ rights but soon encountered legislative intransigence. Inquiring about both marriage equality and transgender rights, Solís received a strong affirmation on both counts from the court, which sits in Costa Rica’s capital city, San José. According to translations of the opinion published in English-language media sources, the court said that governments subject to the American Convention on Human Rights “must recognize and guarantee all the rights that are derived from a family bond between people of the same sex,” and that establishing a separate institution for same-sex couples, such as civil unions, was not adequate from the point of view of legal equality. Recognizing the legislative intransigence encountered in Costa Rica and many other Latin American countries, where the Catholic Church has a heavy influence on social policy, the court recommended that governments pass “temporary decrees” while new legislation is considered.

The Inter-American Court, in common with the European Court of Human Rights, is not empowered directly to order a government to do anything. Sometimes the court has resorted to demanding that governments explain why they have not complied with its rulings. Solís, however, reacted to the decision by calling for full compliance across Latin America.

“Costa Rica and the other countries that have accepted the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court must fully comply with the court’s opinion, respecting each country’s processing time, jurisdictional and administrative spaces,” the Tico Times reported Solís telling reporters, even while acknowledging that his nation’s action would require a “gradual process” of negotiation among the branches of government and political parties.

The court also found that transgender people, as a matter of human rights, should get official recognition of their gender identity, without any requirement for surgical gender confirmation procedures “Love is a human condition that should be respected, without discrimination of any kind,” the Costa Rican government said in an official statement. “The State confirms its

commitment to comply.”

The countries that are legally bound by rulings of the court include Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, and Uruguay. Some of those countries still penalize gay sex, while others — Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and many states in Mexico, where a complex legal process has been unfolding for several years — already have marriage equality. The Inter-American Court’s ruling may hasten marriage equality’s spread to the remaining Mexican states, and litigation on this issue is now pending in the Supreme Court of Panama.

Marriage Equality in the European Union In the European Union, Advocate General Melchior Wathelet’s preliminary ruling in the case of Relu Adrian Coman, a Romanian citizen who married Robert Clabourn Hamilton, an American, in Brussels while Coman was living there and working for a European Union agency, may portend a significant advance for marriage equality on that continent. Coman sought to bring his spouse back home to Romania, but the government was unwilling to issue a spousal visa. Coman brought his case to the Constitutional Court of Romania, which referred the issue to the European Court of Justice for a determination of its obligations as a member of the Union. If the court decides to follow the advocate general’s recommendation, its ruling becomes law throughout the European Union.

Wathelet’s opinion is narrow and technical because it doesn’t address the broad question of rights, but rather the narrower issue of interpreting the European Union’s policy guaranteeing freedom of movement among member states. “Free movement of persons,” including their families, is recognized as “one of the fundamental freedoms of the internal market” created by the union.

Romanian law defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman and specifically states that samesex couples may not marry. There is also no registered partnership status for same-sex couples.

Wathelet quoted an earlier decision stating that “EU law must be

interpreted ‘in the light of present day circumstances,’ that is to say, taking the ‘modern reality’ of the Union into account.” The aim in this is to avoid the law becoming static and placing a drag on economic and social development among the member states.

Noting that since 2004, the number of member states with marriage equality has grown from two to 11, with Austria joining that group over the next year, Wathelet wrote, “That legal recognition of same-sex marriage does no more than reflect a general development in society with regard to the question. Statistical investigations confirm it; the authorization of marriage between persons of the same sex in a referendum in Ireland also serves as an illustration. While different perspectives on the matter still remain, including within the Union, the development nonetheless forms part of a general movement. In fact, this kind of marriage is now recognized in all continents. It is not something associated with a specific culture or history; on the contrary, it corresponds to a universal recognition of the diversity of families.”

Noting a growing body of rulings from the European Court of Human Rights protecting same-sex partners, Wathelet recommended that the court answer the Romanian Constitutional Court’s questions by holding that “the term ‘spouse’ applies to a national of a third State of the same sex as the citizen of the European Union to whom he or she is married” for purposes of complying with the European Union’s freedom of movement directive. As a result, Coman’s marriage to an American citizen while living in Belgium, a European Union country that allows same-sex marriages, gives his spouse a derivative right under the union’s directive to automatically obtain a spousal visa to enter and live in Romania. Since Hamilton himself is not a European citizen, his right is not direct but instead results from Coman’s right to have Romania respect his marriage and family life.

Reflecting the social divisions within the Union, several Eastern European nations — Latvia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania — opposed this conclusion, while it was supported by submissions from the Netherlands and the European Commission.

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

䉴

COREY JOHNSON, from p.5

we spend them.”

These are the big picture matters that the new speaker will have to attend to, but he cannot forget the district that first elected him to the Council in 2013 and elected him a second time last year. It appears he is keenly aware of that.

On January 3, he was running on little sleep and noted at least twice during the Council vote and at a later press conference how

䉴

SCOTUS DOCKET, from p.6

individuals and organizations, was mainly symbolic except in the cities of Jackson, Hattiesburg, and Oxford and on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi.

Two groups of plaintiffs brought constitutional challenges against the law in the Southern District of Mississippi federal court, where the case went before Judge Carlton W. Reeves, the same judge who ruled for plaintiffs in a case challenging Mississippi’s ban on samesex marriage a few years earlier.

He issued a preliminary injunction against implementation of H.B. 1523 on June 30, 2016, the day before it was to go into effect, finding that it would violate the First Amendment by establishing particular religious beliefs as part of the state’s law. The plaintiffs also challenged it on equal protection grounds. Reeves refused to stay his preliminary injunction, and so did the Fifth Circuit.

But when the state appealed the preliminary injunction itself, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit, ruling on June 22, 2017, found that the district court did not have jurisdiction to issue the injunction because, according to Circuit Judge Jerry Smith’s opinion, none of the plaintiffs could show that they had suffered or were imminently likely to suffer the “concrete and particularized injury in fact” necessary to confer the “standing” required to challenge the law in federal court.

The standing rule developed by the Supreme Court long ago aims to avoid tying courts up in hypothetical cases and issuing advisory opinions. Federal courts, the high court held, have authority to resolve only “real” cases.

GayCityNews.nyc | January 18 – 31, 2018

tired he was. Still, he appeared at Community Board 4, an advisory body that he once served on and chaired, that evening.

“My district office is going to continue to be a place for constituents to come when they need help with an issue, and I look forward to a continued partnership over the next four years,” he said at that meeting. “As your councilmember, I want to thank you for your friendship. I also want to let you know that I’m not going anywhere. I still

live in Chelsea.”

During his interview with Gay City News, Johnson brandished several sheets of paper that listed 50 items of importance to his district. He also had his deputy chief of staff for community affairs and his Council office chief of staff attend. He was careful to note stories or issues that had been covered in Chelsea Now and the Villager.

There is all of this, and then there is politics. Johnson still seems young, but the arc of his ca-

reer shows ambition and thought.

His service on Community Board 4 shows he planned to run for his current Council seat well before the election, and he clearly began running for speaker several years ago. Term limits mean he is out of the Council in four years. So what is next?

“I do want to serve in public office,” he said. “Four years from now is 60 political lifetimes from now.

I don’t know what’s going to happen… I will run for something.”

The Mississippi plaintiffs asked the full Fifth Circuit bench to reconsider the three-judge panel’s ruling, but the circuit judges voted 12-2 not to do so, announcing that result this past September 29.

The dissenters, in an opinion by Judge James L. Dennis, bluntly stated that “the panel decision is wrong” and “misconstrues and misapplies the Establishment Clause precedent.” Indeed, wrote Dennis, “its analysis creates a conflict between our circuit and our sister circuits on the issue of Establishment Clause standing.”

Dennis pressed home the point by citing numerous cases from other circuits which, he held, would support allowing the plaintiffs to seek a preliminary injunction blocking the law from going into effect. This gave the plaintiffs hope they might be able to get the Supreme Court to take the case and reverse the Fifth Circuit, since one of the main criteria for the Supreme Court granting review is to resolve a split in authority between the circuit courts on important points of federal law.

The court’s denial of the petitions from the two plaintiff groups was made without any explanation or open dissent, leaving important questions about how and when people can mount a federal court challenge to a law of this sort unresolved.

H.B. 1523, meanwhile, went into effect on October 10.

A challenge to H.B. 1523 continues before Judge Reeves in the district court, as new allegations by the plaintiffs require reconsideration of their standing and put into question — especially in light of the Supreme Court’s June 2017 ruling in Pavan v. Smith, an Arkansas case involving the right

of same-sex parents to have both their names on their child’s birth certificate — whether the Mississippi law imposes unconstitutional burdens on LGBTQ people seeking to exercise their fundamental constitutional rights.

guidance issued under President Barack Obama interpreting Title IX sex discrimination provisions to protect transgender students, both Title IX and the 14th Amendment require the school to recognize Whitaker as a boy and allow him to use boys’ restroom facilities.

This past August 25, the school district petitioned the Supreme Court to review the Seventh Circuit’s decision, even though Whitaker had graduated in June.

In the meantime, Pepper ordered the parties into mediation to attempt a settlement, with Whitaker’s June graduation undoubtedly contributing to the pressure to settle, and the parties asked the Supreme Court several times to extend the deadline for the young man to respond to the district’s petition while negotiations continued.

According to press reports on January 10, the case settled for $800,000 and an agreement that the district would withdraw its petition.

The settlement and the petition’s withdrawal leaves the Seventh Circuit’s opinion standing as the first appeals court ruling to conclude on the merits that Title IX and the 14th Amendment require public schools to respect the gender identity of their students and to allow students to use sex-designated facilities consistent with their gender identity.

Lacking a Supreme Court ruling on the point, however, the decision is only binding in the three states of the Seventh Circuit — Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana, the same three states bound by another Seventh Circuit ruling last year holding that employment discrimination because of sexual orientation violates Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The Wisconsin Transgender Student’s Lawsuit Two days after the court announced it would not review the Fifth Circuit ruling, the parties in a case involving the legal rights of transgender students under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a federal sex discrimination law, and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, announced a settlement of their lawsuit. Under the agreement, the school district will withdraw a petition asking the Supreme Court to reverse a ruling in favor of transgender high school student Ash Whitaker by the Chicago-based Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Whitaker graduated from Wisconsin’s Tremper High School in the Kenosha School District last June.

Whitaker transitioned while in high school and asked to be allowed to use the boys’ restroom facilities, but district officials told him there was an unwritten policy restricting bathroom use based on biological sex. He sued the district under Title IX, the federal law forbidding sex discrimination by schools that receive federal money.

US District Judge Pamela Pepper in the Eastern District of Wisconsin issued a preliminary injunction on Whitaker’s behalf in September of 2016 and refused to stay it pending appeal.

On May 30, 2017, the Seventh Circuit upheld Pepper’s ruling, finding that even though the Trump administration had withdrawn a

15

TRAVEL

NYS Trips to Beat the Winter Blues Empire State provides getaways for a new year’s rejuvenation

DARREN MCGEE/ NYS DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The Adirondacks’ Whiteface Mountain is the longest and highest vertical drop east of the Rockies.

BY ROSS D. LEVI

W

ith the holidays over and temperatures continuing to drop, winter in New York State provides terrific opportunities to fight off the cold weather doldrums. From outdoor winter fun to shopping for post-Christmas bargains and taking in art exhibits or one-of-a kind performances, the Empire State offers great destinations for a long weekend getaway or a full-fledged winter break.

Of course, some people look forward to winter all year long and the opportunity to ski, snowboard, snowshoe, and more, and New York is a paradise for lovers of outdoor winter sports. With more ski areas than any state in the nation, there are multiple slopes within an hour of New York City — whether traveling by car or on one the many available bus excursions — some offering equipment rentals and lessons. Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks is the longest and highest vertical drop east of the Rockies, ski areas in the Catskill Mountains range from beginning to expert, and full-service resorts in the Chautauqua-Allegheny region in western New York include amenities like spas and indoor water parks.

An equally good workout at a slower pace is available via crosscountry skiing at resorts, state parks, and nature preserves, with

16

DARREN MCGEE/ NYS DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

A frosty Niagara Falls.

trails traversing varied landscapes from lakeside to forests to mountaintops. Or trade the skis for snowshoes to take a beautiful and exhilarating trek through the winter scenery. Motorized snow fun comes in the form of snowmobiling over 10,000 miles of groomed trails in areas like the Tug Hill Plateau east of Lake Ontario, whose average 200 inches of annual lakeeffect snowfall make it one of the snowmobile capitals of the US. Other snow fun includes tubing at parks with tubes, lifts, hills, and everything you need for a day or night of fast-sliding fun. Saranac Lake hosts what National Geographic calls one of the two best winter carnivals in the world, complete with a magical ice palace. There are similarly wonderful winter events statewide, like Jazz on the Vine Winterfest on Long Island and the Snommegang craft

NYS DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Bristol Mountain in the Finger Lakes.

beer festival in central New York.

You can also take in the scenery on horseback — or open sleigh! — at places like Rocking Horse Ranch in Ulster County or the Ridin-Hy Ranch in the Adirondacks.

You don’t need any equipment or experience to go down the Olympic bobsled at America’s only dedicated bobsled track in Lake Placid, twice host to the Winter Olympic Games.

Just join your driver and hold on for the thrilling 55 mile-per-hour ride! Afterward, enjoy the Alpine town’s shops, restaurants, and activities on frozen Mirror Lake, with rides down a toboggan chute or on a real dogsled. Lodging choices range from posh to family-friendly for a great winter escape.

Even those who balk at outdoor fun in the winter find great getaways in New York State, some at off-season discounted rates. Cares bubble away at luxurious spa resorts, from Gurney’s Montauk on Long Island to the Gideon Putnam Resort & Spa in Saratoga Springs and Mirbeau Inn & Spa in the Finger Lakes town of Skaneateles.

Dine in world-famous restaurants or take cooking classes at the Culinary Institute of America in the Hudson Valley. Eat (and stay) at Belhurst Castle in the Finger Lakes. Try ice wines along the Niagara Wine Trail.

See music, dance, and comedy in unique venues, from historic Proctor’s Theatre in Schenectady to the Cooperstown Concert Series

DARREN MCGEE/ NYS DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Ellicottville in western New York’s Cattaraugus County is the base for several skiing resorts as well as a shopper’s haven.

at the grand Otesaga Resort Hotel.

The shopping, food, and entertainment options of Destiny USA await in Syracuse at one of America’s largest malls, where you can try the largest suspended indoor ropes course in the world! And New York’s museums offer a tremendous variety, from western art at the Frederic Remington Art Museum in the Thousand Islands, to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House Complex in Buffalo, to the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Museum in Jamestown.

Whether indoors or out, an amazing winter awaits you right here in New York State.

Ross D. Levi is New York State’s executive director of tourism and coordinator of I LOVE NEW YORK LGBT. More information on planning a New York State getaway is available at iloveny.com/winter or iloveny.com/lgbt.

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

CIVIL RIGHTS

On Volatile Day, Activists Descend on ICE Office Immigration rights leader’s detention leads to a rough police encounter, a second march on federal building

A question many Americans ask themselves daily during the Trump administration.

PHOTO ESSAY BY DONNA ACETO, REPORTING BY PAUL SCHINDLER

E

ven as congressional leaders scrambled last Thursday to forge an agreement on the fate of roughly 800,000 Dreamers, federal agents in Manhattan from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a leading immigration rights advocate, Ravi Ragbir, as he did a routine check-in with government officials. When he learned he was being detained, Ragbir, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, fainted and as an ambulance arrived to carry him to a hospital, a crowd of supporters including several city councilmembers, arrived at the Jacob Javits Federal Building downtown to protest the immigration rights leader’s detention.

A scuffle between the activists and police and federal authorities led to the arrest of Councilmembers Ydanis Rodriguez of Manhattan and Jumaane Williams of Brooklyn, both of whom were captured on video receiving rough treatment. Chelsea’s Corey Johnson, the new Council speaker, was also on hand, and, according to the New York Times, said, “It got a little too rough here today from law enforce-

Actress Kathleen Chalfant.

18

Linda Sarsour, a leading advocate for Muslim Americans and other immigrants.

ment,” before telling a nearby police official, “Your people were out of control!” He added, “I want the PC to call me now!,” referring to NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill.

Hours later, at 5 p.m., immigration rights advocates turned up outside the Manhattan offices of ICE at the federal building at Varick and Houston Streets. Among those showing their support for Ragbir were members of the New Sanctuary Coalition, Make the Road New York, Rise and Resist, Judson Memorial Church, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Brooklyn Councilmember Brad Lander, Linda Sarsour, an advocate for American Muslims who helped organize last January’s Women’s March, and actress and activist Kathleen Chalfant. Police adopted a largely hands-off approach to the late-day protest.

As the demonstrators were rallying on Varick Street, Trump was busy at the White House throwing a huge wrench into the discussions about immigration and a fi x for the dangers fac-

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, at right, joined the protesters.

Protesters rallied outside the ICE offices on Varick Street in support of immigration rights leader Ravi Ragbir.

ing the nearly million residents in the US under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program by referring to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as “shithole countries.”

Last year, the president had said, according to the New York Times, that Haitian immigrants “all have AIDS” and that Nigerian immigrants would never “go back to their huts.”

That evening, the White House defended the president’s words without making any reference to the “shithole” comment. When Trump took to Twitter the following morning to try to backpedal, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the minority whip and the only Democratic elected official in the room, said the president had used the word “shithole” repeatedly amidst comments that were “hate-filled, vile, and racist.”

Brooklyn Councilmember Brad Lander.

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

POLITICS

Honoring King While Resisting Trump On slain civil rights leader’s holiday, Times Square rally rejects “shithole” label president hurled

BY REBECCA FIORE

N

early a half-century after the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and on the holiday memorializing him, hundreds gathered together in the freezing cold of Times Square for a Rally Against Racism, held in response to President Donald Trump’s most recent inflammatory and racist comments — referring to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as “shithole countries.”

Cara Noel, communications director for 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, which hosted the January 15 rally, explained, in an emailed statement, that the “coalition came together to show the world that working people are taking a stand for our sisters and brothers from Haiti, throughout Africa, El Salvador, and other nations that have been targets of the hatred and bigotry of the Trump administration.”

She said the coalition made a conscious decision of holding the rally on MLK Day to honor King and show “the world the progress we are making towards helping to achieve Dr. King’s dream.”

It was one of five rallies that day — including ones at Washington Square Park and in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn — against the current administration, according to Take Action NYC (takeactionnyc.com).

Numerous public officials as well as event organizers and members of the public spoke out against Trump’s slur and voiced support for the city’s immense immigrant population. The roster of speakers included Mathieu Eugene, the first Haitian-born person elected to the New York City Council, and Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte, the first Haitian-American woman elected to office in the city.

“Today as we celebrate the legacy of a champion for justice, Dr. Martin Luther King, it is important we come together to condemn the words of the president and offer respect for Haitians, Africans, and immigrants,” Eugene, who represents Brooklyn’s District 40 GayCityNews.nyc | January 18 – 31, 2018

DONNA ACETO

On the Martin Luther King, Jr., national holiday, crowds thronged Times Square to remember the slain civil right leader and denounce President Donald Trump’s notorious “shithole countries” slam last week.

Haitian pride was a prominent feature of the rally.

solidarity with my Haitian people.”

St. Valliere was one of many who brought their children, the next generation, along with them. Erika Drezner, an American Studies teacher living in Brooklyn, brought her son and held up a sign with part of Langston Hughes’ poem “Let America Be America Again.”

“I’m patriotic, but I’m patriotic in the context of knowing this country was built on white supremacy,” Drezner said. “That’s a tension I struggle with as a white teacher every day.” Saying she goes to about one protest a week, Drezner added, “We need to put our bodies in the way of this administration.

It’s so disastrous and scary on so many levels.”

Repeating the phrase “Can you hear us, Mr. Trump?” to the enthusiastic crowd, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson said, “The silver lining is that [Trump] has awoken a sleeping giant, immigrants, women, undocumented, LGBT people, people of color, poor people, and union members. We are in the struggle together. Every time he says this, he wants us to feel beaten down, divided. But on a cold Martin Luther King Day, in his name, we are out here at the crossroads of the world, Times Square, standing united, all communities against the maniac in the White House.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio took to the

podium to remind the audience to not get discouraged by the racist rhetoric coming from Washington and to remember that America is a “society that welcomes and respects all.”

The mayor also said, “I say to anyone in this city who hears something they find appealing in the voice of the president that if these same standards were applied to your ancestors, you wouldn’t be here in this country. Treat the new generation of immigrants just as we wish our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers were treated, that this is meant to be a place for all.”

Protestors held up signs including, “Stop the Billionaire Bigot” and “America is an Ideal not a Race,” and an American flag with the words “Resistance is Patriotic.”

Ulysses Contreras said he attended the rally because he felt it was crucial to keep King’s legacy and dream alive.

“With everything going on in the country, it’s important for us to carry [King’s mission] on and to understand that his death was not in vain,” Contreras said. “We need to do better as a people, be more inclusive, be more respectful.

It’s important to be out here demonstrating, letting the government and Trump administration know that he can’t divide us, we are still here.”

on the Council, said. “Haiti is the model of liberty. Haiti is the model of human dignity.”

Many members in the crowd, draped in the Haitian flag, shouted “1804!” — the year of Haiti’s independence from French colonizers.

Haiti is the only nation established as a result of a slave revolt and is considered the first black republic.

Bichotte, representing the 42nd Assembly district in Brooklyn, which has the largest number of Haitian immigrants in the city, explained that not only did the president’s comments come days before MLK Day, but also just one day ahead of the eight-year anniversary of the earthquake that devastated the small Caribbean nation, killing as many as 300,000 people.

“We are still mourning,” Bichotte said. “How insensitive can you be, Mr. Donald Trump? But then again, you go around and make money off our backs, off the backs of the countries you call shitholes.”

Daphne St. Valliere, born and raised in Brooklyn, came to the rally with her brother, her husband, and their two children, ages four and six. She is the daughter of immigrants, making her a firstgeneration Haitian immigrant.

“It is deplorable how our president is speaking about black and brown people,” she said. “I’m here in

DONNA ACETO

19

FROM THE EDITOR PUBLISHER JENNIFER GOODSTEIN

jgoodstein@cnglocal.com FOUNDING EDITOR IN-CHIEF & ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

White Man’s Burden: A Dialogue on Race & Resistance

PAUL SCHINDLER

editor@gaycitynews.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR DUNCAN OSBORNE

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS DONNA ACETO (Photo Editor) CHRISTOPHER BYRNE (Theater), SUSIE DAY (Perspective), BRIAN McCORMICK (Dance)

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Seth J. Bookey, Anthony M.Brown, Kelly Jean Cogswell, Andres Duque, Michael Ehrhardt, Steve Erickson, Andy Humm, Eli Jacobson, David Kennerley, Gary M. Kramer, Arthur S. Leonard, Michael T. Luongo, Lawrence D. Mass, Winnie McCroy, Eileen McDermott, Mick Meenan, Tim Miller, Donna Minkowitz, Gregory Montreuil, Christopher Murray, David Noh, Sam Oglesby, Nathan Riley, David Shengold, Ed Sikov, Yoav Sivan, Gus Solomons Jr., Tim Teeman, Kathleen Warnock, Benjamin Weinthal, Dean P. Wrzeszcz

ART DIRECTOR

BY PAUL SCHINDLER AND CLARENCE PATTON

L

ast week, Gay City News reached out to Clarence Patton — a longtime African-American gay leader and former executive director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project who now heads up the Pipeline Project and Pipeline Consulting — asking him to write about President Donald Trump’s “shithole countries” comment and the resistance to both his administration and racism in America generally. At Patton’s suggestion, instead he engaged in an online dialogue with editor Paul Schindler.

Highlights of the conversation follow.

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PAUL SCHINDLER: Hi Clarence. Given the president’s “shithole countries” comment yesterday, I will preface this request by acknowledging three things I think I already know about your thinking: (1) that we didn’t really learn anything more about Trump’s racism yesterday; (2) the racism didn’t just spring up since January, 2017; and (3) as you once wrote, this one’s for you, White folks, to address this shit. That said, I would really love if you’d be willing to write something for next week’s issue about how people should respond. In tandem with yesterday’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement action here in New York and the protest and police over-response that followed, I feel like this might be something of an inflection point. Let me know what you think.

CLARENCE PATTON: Hey Paul, I’m wondering what I could say that’s not already been said. A counter idea could be more of a collaborative thing — which would actually be more in the spirit of where my head’s at, as you’ve noted: I believe it’s the responsibility of White folks to get it together. What that would look like is a co-written piece or the transcript of a conversation, perhaps this one you’ve started here.

PS: Well, in part, I am eager to get voices in next week because I am feeling plum out of ways to write about this stuff. I’d love to set aside a spe-

20

COURTESY OF CLARENCE PATTON

Clarence Patton, who leads the Pipeline Project and Pipeline Consulting.

cific time to do that so I am not facing other distractions.

CP: The reason I think the collaborative thing might work and be more interesting and useful is that if you’re looking to get different voices into the paper it works for that. And if I’m looking to encourage more White folks to speak/ act on these things, it works. I’m not opposed to a solo piece, but it’d again be a POC preaching at White folks, who’d then either be offended, be sheepishly obedient because some magical Black oracle told them what to do, or have some other useless response.

PS: Let’s do the dialogue. [That dialogue followed one day later.]

PS: Hi Clarence, I reached out to you because this past week’s comments from Donald Trump about “shithole countries” drove home for me how unending his outbursts are, the fact that we have no idea how extreme his outrages and actions may become, and just how futile it can sometimes feel in figuring out how we should respond to him. Readers probably have a good idea of the kind of work you did when you led the Anti-Violence Project, but before we dive into the Trump matter, can you briefly describe the work you’re doing now?

CP: I’m both director of the Pipeline Project, which focuses on leadership

development and advancement for LGBT People of Color, primarily in the non-profit sector, and principal of Pipeline Consulting, a related consulting firm that engages in organizational development and change work, also primarily in the non-profit sector. I started Pipeline as I was leaving AVP. PS: When I first approached you about writing an op-ed, you wondered what you could say that was new in light of the storm of reaction to Trump unleashed immediately after his comments were reported. Does that reflect your frustration that you and others of us who are critics of the president are stymied in finding new and effective ways to counter the negative impact he’s having on the country. In essence, that we all react the same way but are not able to get our thinking across to those on the other side?

CP: For me personally, not really or precisely. My frustration stems from the sense that after every new outrage — particularly around race — Trump-perpetrated or otherwise (i.e., the election of Trump was about more macro race issues than “just Trump”) — America, White America, specifically and in particular, acts as though this is the first thing versus the latest in a long history of things,

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BURDEN, continued on p.21

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

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BURDEN, from p.20

let alone a signifier or symptom of our still-unresolved racial issues, challenges, and deficits. That denial and short memory are frustrating, exhausting, annoying, and dangerous. By the way, I’m sure there’ll be lots of White folks reading that saying, thinking, or responding, “Not me!,” which is not helpful...

PS: You mean the denial and short memory of White America writ large about the history and persistence of racism, right?

CP: Yes. DONNA ACETO

PS: And I guess, not even writ large, which I suppose is a way of excluding myself, but in White America as a whole?

CP: I almost challenged you on the “writ-large” thing a second ago, but again... #exhaustion, LOL! Look, just about every Black person recognizes the fact that they are made responsible for how Blacks “writ-large” are viewed; it’s a significant benefit of privilege that Whites don’t — and don’t have to — carry that same anxiety for their community.

PS: Fair enough. On Facebook, on at least one occasion — and you may have touched on this point on many occasions — you talked about this being a problem that White people need to take leadership on, and I think I have a sense of where you’re going with that, but, first, am I summarizing your view correctly, and secondly, can you drill down more specifically on what that means for me or any other white person reading this — or not reading this?

CP: Sure. In this country and context, White folks set up, maintain, benefit from, and at times violently enforce our racial codes and rules. They also — through the political and financial power they hold — do it through policy at the macro level and discrimination at the individual level, both knowingly and unconsciously. Whites also — despite some of their anxiety — remain the plurality in this country. So by the numbers, the dollars, and the levers of power, Whites hold most if not all the cards — and that will remain so for decades, at least.

How in the world could resolution GayCityNews.nyc | January 18 – 31, 2018

Paul Schindler, editor-in-chief of Gay City News.

to something that’s a core part of America’s DNA ever change without White will?

And here’s the kicker, in order for it to change, White advantage would have to be compromised.

The meeting where that’s negotiated would be a fun meeting to attend... The other piece driving my saying that — in the political context — is that it’s White folks voting for these fools, from Trump on down. They need to engage in behavior change.

PS: So, first, responding to the “advantage being comprised” comment, there is an element here of certain situations being zero-sum, is that right? That some power and advantage need to be surrendered to rectify wrongs and inequalities?

CP: Not necessarily zero-sum...

PS: But sometimes some advantages need to be surrendered in the interest of equity?

CP: I believe that if everyone were actually allowed to perform at the height of their skill, productivity, and pleasure, we’d actually have expanded opportunity. For instance, what’s been the cost — material and otherwise — to things like: (1) Barring Blacks from GI mortgages after World War II? Allowing them access wouldn’t have disallowed Whites from it. (2) What did America lose as it enforced laws and policies that specifically sought to under-educate Black children?

(3) We know it costs more to house someone in prison than to educate them, yet we’ve made a choice to spend the extra money disenfran-

chising people versus educating them. I think the advantages you’re talking about would dissipate in a true meritocracy anyway since they’re often false.

PS: Let me shift over to your point about White folks voting for these fools, from Trump on down.

I’m guessing in your typical day, Clarence, most of the White folks you meet did not vote for Trump, but you also say “it’s not helpful,” for that group, including me, to say, “He’s not talking about me.” Can you say more about that?

CP: We’ve got a guy now who was born as a member of the Lucky Vagina Lottery, whose two closest “advisors,” his daughter and sonin-law, are also simply members of the Lucky Vagina Lottery, with no other discernible qualifications for anything really. Without bogus advantage, the man in the White House likely would’ve been shaking a cup for money years ago.

PS: So we all need to acknowledge our privilege and our advantage if we are to move toward greater or true equality? And even a lot of us who despise Trump won’t do that?

CP: Acknowledge and manage.

And nope.

PS: Nope, we won’t do that, you mean?

CP: Yes. Even though those folks may not have voted for Trump, their privilege preexisted him. And what was their pre-Trump privilege-mitigation strategy?

PS: Maybe 75 years ago, a prominent Swedish sociologist, Gunnar Myrdal, writing from outside, said race is the central issue in American life. Do you agree with that?

CP: Yes. I agree with that. It’s just that White folks don’t realize it, while the rest of us have to if we’re going to survive and manage the system we’re in. In part because “the system” is the water White folks are swimming in that can drown the rest of us. I have lots of White folks whom I love and love me in my life, BUT… there certainly have been an uncomfortable number of instances when some of them have actively or in effect let me down when the need for them to sacrifice their racial comfort on my behalf has arisen.

PS: This is a tough question, but can you thumbnail an example of that unwillingness to sacrifice White racial comfort? I think that would add depth to folks’ understanding of your point.

CP: Sure, in college one of my best friends said I could rent the spare room in the apartment he was renting with a couple of his friends. At the end of summer, when those friends arrived, their parents freaked out that this Black guy was there. I had to leave. Fortunately, other friends let me stay at their place until my fall lease started.

PS: I’m trying to adequately express my “wow” to that.

CP: LOL. But there have been (good) surprises from White folks, too.

PS: Let me talk about other divisions beyond race — class, education, religion, geography. Do you think that, let’s say, a white Jewish or agnostic progressive from New York or Chicago or Austin is going to be any more effective than a black woman from Detroit or Oakland in speaking to the racial antagonisms or anxieties of white voters outside the big cities?

CP: I don’t know that one would be more effective than the other... what doesn’t help is what I call “bullshit” about the racial anxieties of White voters/ people inside (let’s be honest about even parts of New York) and outside the big cit-

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BURDEN, continued on p.24

21

PERSPECTIVE: Media Circus

That Word — Over and Over and Over Again

BY ED SIKOV

I

have never seen or heard the word “shithole” more in my life than I have since January 11. Not only was that the day I turned 61, but it was also the day that Rump — in a marvelous prelude to Martin Luther King Day — employed the word to describe Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa.

Writing for the Washington Post, Josh Dawsey described the scene: “President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they discussed protecting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to several people briefed on the meeting. ‘Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?,’ Trump said, according to these people, referring to countries mentioned by the lawmakers. Trump then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries such as Norway, whose prime minister he met with Wednesday. The president, according to a White House official, also suggested he would be open to more immigrants from Asian countries because he felt that they help the United States economically.”

Since then, there has been a steady shitstorm of shitholes from which it has been impossible to escape. The New York Times, being the paper of record and all, was obliged to print the word as a matter of historical fact. What was striking was the sheer number of times it appeared in the paper.

The Times’ stated policy is to use a questionable word once in the beginning of the article and then, in subsequent references, replace certain key letters with asterisks or dashes in a nod to good taste.

Well, apparently when the president of the United States uses the word “shithole” to describe other sovereign nations, that policy gets thrown out the window.

As far as Rump’s mentioning Norway in the context of being a nonshithole nation is concerned, many people — reporters and columnists for newspapers, all of Twitterdom — couldn’t help but notice that Norwegians tend to be very blonde and very white, while the citizens of Haiti and Africa tend to be rather darker. (Asked at a Senate hearing whether Norway is a predominantly white country, the secretary of Homeland Security responded, “I actually do not know that, sir, but I imagine that is the case.” And her name is Kirstjen Nielsen!)

This observation led to a number of truly ridiculous conversations and “think pieces” that ask whether or not Rump is a racist. I say, if it has the shithole of a duck….

Isobel Thompson, writing for vanityfair.com, summarized the racism angle this way: ”Following days of international condemnation, Donald Trump announced on Sunday that he is ‘not a racist’ and denied that he had used the word ‘shithole’ to describe African nations during an Oval office meeting on immigration last week. ‘I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed, that I can tell you,’ he told reporters as he arrived at Trump International Golf Club in what has become a characteristic use of superlatives (in 2015 Trump argued that he was ‘probably the least racist person on earth,’ and at a White House a news conference last year he professed to be ‘the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.’)”

Could this whole thing become even more farcical? Of course it could! Enter Ivana!

From HuffPost’s Willa Frej: “Ivana Trump on Monday denied her ex-husband is racist after he reportedly called Haiti and African nations ‘shithole countries.’ ‘I

don’t think Donald is racist at all,’ the president’s first wife told ‘Good Morning Britain.’ ‘Sometimes he says these things which are silly, or he doesn’t really mean them.... But he’s definitely not racist, I’m sure of that.’”

Meanwhile, the story of Rump’s whores came and went without generating any outrage at all. Michelle Goldberg of the Times writes, “On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that, a month before the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen arranged a $130,000 payout to the porn star Stephanie Clifford, known by the stage name Stormy Daniels, to stop her from discussing a 2006 dalliance with Trump. The New York Times added new details. The Daily Beast then reported that another porn actress, Jessica Drake, who had accused Trump of offering her $10,000 for sex, signed a nondisclosure agreement barring her from talking about the president. In any other administration, evidence that the president paid hush money to the star of ‘Good Will Humping’ during the election would be a scandal. In this one it has, so far, elicited a collective shrug… If it turns out there were payoffs to hide non-consensual behavior, there may be an uproar.

But sleeping with a porn star while your wife has a new baby, then paying the porn star to be quiet?

That’s what everyone expects of this president.” So Rump fucked a couple of whores. Ho hum. Goldberg is right — it’s what we have all come to expect.

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22

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January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

REMEMBRANCE

Mathilde Krim, amfAR Founder, Dies at 91 Scientist brought social justice passion to war on AIDS

DONNA ACETO

Dr. Mathilde Krim with ACT UP founder Larry Kramer and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, at a 2006 New York Times Talk focused on the 25th anniversary of the first public health recognition of AIDS’ emergence.

DONNA ACETO

Dr. Mathilde Krim greets Bob Tisch and his wife Joan (partially obscured), then a board member at Gay Men’s Health Crisis, at a 2005 GMHC event.

BY PAUL SCHINDLER

D

r. Mathilde Krim, a geneticist and virologist who between 1983 and 1985 founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), which became the leading private funder of research, advocacy, and treatment to battle the epidemic, died on January 15 at the age of 91 at her home in Kings Point on Long Island.

Krim had ample professional experience motivating her interest in AIDS, including her 1953 Ph.D. in biology from the University of Geneva in Switzerland, her research on cancer-causing viruses at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and her leadership in the interferon program at the SloanKettering Institute for Cancer ReGayCityNews.nyc | January 18 – 31, 2018

DONNA ACETO

Dr. Mathilde Krim, seen here in 2006, died this week at the age of 91.

search in New York.

But, according to Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist Nan Robertson, to understand Krim, “one must go back to a single event that changed her life forever, shaping every major decision thereafter.” Born in Italy and raised in Geneva, she was at a movie house there in the winter

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MATHILDE KRIM, continued on p.24

23

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BURDEN, from p.21

ies. I remain one of those people who says that if they’re too dumb to recognize that their racial animus is stupid, misplaced, and masking economic and (their own) cultural anxieties and they keep supporting folks who create and/ or exacerbate those anxieties, then aren’t they kind of stupid by definition? I’m not good on that since I don’t have any empathy in that direction.

PS: Okay, I follow that. So then I think I sense what your response to the following question may be: There was a lot of talk after the election about how Democrats and/ or Hillary Clinton were not speaking to the economic and cultural anxieties of voters in many parts of the country. What’s your view of that perspective, and do you worry that in trying to reach out to those voters progressives might be inclined in some way to co-sign racist attitudes?

CP: There was a quote going around this week about convincing the lowest White man that he’s better than the best Black man...

She/ they — perhaps they could’ve done better. But I bet the ones who voted for Trump weren’t listening anyway, and probably wouldn’t have. Plus, electorally no one needs them — certainly not on the left —

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MATHILDE KRIM, from p.23

of 1945 when she saw newsreels of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. The scenes of emaciated survivors struggling to stand up informed her passionate outrage at all forms of prejudice and discrimination, Robertson wrote.

Asked by the New York Times nearly 40 years later what prompted her to move out front in the fight against AIDS, Krim said, “Because I was incensed.” Her obituary in the New York Times recalled that in 1988 she told the Times Magazine that she acted because of the prevailing public attitude she found at the time, explaining, “They felt that this was a disease that resulted from a sleazy lifestyle, drugs, or kinky sex — that certain people had learned their lesson and it served them right.

That was the attitude, even on the part of respectable foundations

24

to win. If you can keep the natural coalition as it stands now, energize non-voters who were really at fault for her loss, and perhaps bring over some of the White women who really fucked all of us in 2016, then you can win... just about everywhere.

PS: So you’re saying, first, that Trump was playing directly to racist attitudes and worldviews and that with him doing it, Clinton did not have a chance to make a pocketbook argument to them? But also that reaching those voters is not key to a winning strategy?

CP: Well, you also have to remember that after Obama, White folks needed a reassuring “re-set.”

That “lowest White man” quote is important because as I said during Obama’s administration every time White folks lost their minds — which was frequently— that Obama had broken the White folks. His existence, his proficiency, his (and his family’s) beauty, his eloquence, his “goodness” (remember, within a year look at Trump’s scandals; we’re still waiting for the “Wolff book” on Obama... it’s apparently never going to come) was a shock to the system of those White folks. So a reassuring, completely unhealthy bit of Caucasian hatred was called for.

are their hearts and minds ever going to be changed, and is there any value in communities of color and/ or their leaders trying to engage them?

CP: Not to my mind; others may rightfully feel differently. That’s where King was going before he was killed, but I’ve got no interest in it myself.

PS: How has the Trump era changed the way you do your work? Do you feel that communities of color and other communities under siege are significantly more mobilized than before and, if so, are you confident that can be sustained over the long haul?.

CP: We all have limited resources, and I think that if there are some folks who think they can work with those White folks to pull them out of what at this point is living in a place of pure unreality, then I say, “Have at it.” It’s just not of interest to me.

PS: If those voters aren’t needed,

PS: And on the question of mobilization in communities of color and on the left?

CP: With respect to my work, the core hasn’t changed much. What have been large and clearly growing emphases are those of “care” and “sustainability.” And I definitely think there’s more mobilization in communities of color. We know

that are supposed to be concerned about human welfare.”

In his 1997 book “The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America,” Charles Kaiser wrote, “One scientist outside the government was more important than any other heterosexual in New York City in sounding the alarm about the growing crisis.

Her name was Mathilde Krim.”

The late Allan Rosenfield, who was the dean of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and a longtime amfAR board member, wrote, “Mathilde did carry AIDS into the social mainstream. She saw that AIDS would demand the intellectual resources of the fields of medicine, basic science, and public health, and she set out to bring them to amfAR to guide its research grantmaking, overturning many stereotypical notions of gay men in the process.”

AmfAR credits Krim as being a pivotal figure in moving Washington to belatedly provide significant funding for both research and treatment regarding the epidemic, after nearly a decade of neglect.

AmfAR grew out of Krim’s collaboration with Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, who in New York in the early 1980s pioneered a community-based approach to studying and responding to AIDS. With other allies, they formed the AIDS Medical Foundation in 1983, which two years later merged with a California-based group to form amfAR. By the time Krim stepped down from the group’s board in 2004, it had come to be known as amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, to reflect both the global impact of the epidemic and the group’s broad international reach.

In addition to her scientific credentials and her impassioned advocacy, Krim also brought a con-

the score.

PS: Sustainability is keeping the push going and growing. What is care?

CP: Care is self-care and care for our colleagues, friends, and family.

PS: The Times did a story getting person on the street reaction in Africa to the “shithole countries” comment and one woman from Rwanda said that he’s trolling the whole world and we have to stop “feeding the troll.” Do we all overreact to everything he says, do we help him distract from other issues, or is it necessary to call him out each and every time? Will that help in peeling off his 2016 voters who held their nose when they supported him?

CP: I’ve often had a problem when people have tut-tutted the attention paid to his inappropriate or hateful things fearing that it takes our eyes off the larger policy ball... as if we don’t have the capacity or smarts to do both. It’s bullshit. For me, if he’s throwing out red herrings (and I do not believe he is that smart or deliberate) to distract from hateful policy, but in doing so is further eroding the national discourse and inuring us to racist, sexist, and xe-

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BURDEN, continued on p.25

nection to New York society life and its deep pockets, with her marriage to Arthur B. Krim, an entertainment lawyer who had chaired both United Artists and Orion Pictures as well as the Democratic National Finance Committee. Krim was able to bring on board Elizabeth Taylor, who became the group’s founding international chair and lent Hollywood glamour and universal visibility to an epidemic that in its earliest years was ignored by public officials and other leading figures in American life.

Because her commitment to the AIDS issue was motivated, in good measure, by her passion for social justice, Krim found an easy fit with the street activists who scared off other establishment figures. In 2006, Larry Kramer, whose 1987 appearance at the LGBT Community Center is credited with launch-

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MATHILDE KRIM, continued on p.25

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

ä&#x2030;´

BURDEN, from p.24

nophobic ideas, then one is as important at the other. If people donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the capacity to focus on and process both, then thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unfortunate, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s their problem and they shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t whine to the rest of us or attempt to compel us to limit our own ability to multi-task or manage the whole picture.

PS: Last question: Can this country eventually get beyond what Trump has unleashed or given voice to, or are the kinds of divides we are seeing now something we need to be prepared to confront over the foreseeable future? Do you have any optimism that demographics â&#x20AC;&#x201D; both the greater diversity of American society and the aging of young people with more positive attitudes â&#x20AC;&#x201D; will decide this battle?

CP: The better part of me actually thinks that this is the final

ä&#x2030;´

MATHILDE KRIM, from p.24

ing ACT UP, said of Krim, â&#x20AC;&#x153;One can only be filled with overpowering awe and gratitude that such a person has lived among us.â&#x20AC;?

In a written statement issued by the Treatment Action Group, which grew out of one of ACT UPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s committees, its executive director, Mark Harrington, said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have lost an inspirational, tireless, and catalytic leader of our movement.

Dr. Krim understood the gravity of the epidemic, in its earliest and darkest days, and was driven by her own remarkable intelligence, fierce commitment to civil rights and social justice, extraordinary social and political networks, and true grit to galvanize funders, scientists, policy leaders, and activists toward a single cause: ending HIV and AIDS as a threat to humanity.â&#x20AC;?

Tim Horn, the groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deputy executive director, said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I genuinely believe that we wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be where we are today without Dr. Krimâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brilliance, determination, and mobilization. Beyond her unparalleled contributions to HIV/ AIDS research fundraising and awareness, she was an interminable source of strength, support, and wisdom for countless activists over the years.â&#x20AC;?

GayCityNews.nyc | January 18 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 31, 2018

throes of this stuff â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s gonna be/ is a motherfucker. And if we can make it through, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be better. BUT, we need to do the work; and as per where we started, White folks need to do the yeomanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s amount of it. So if White folks are not prepared to be uncomfortable for a bit while we fight and work through this shit, then the lesser part of me that thinks that â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is just and will always be Americaâ&#x20AC;? will be proven right, but hey, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got friends whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll put me up in Amsterdam and France, so... thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s that. Strike one up for Black folks with some privilege and resources.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s those of us without that are the real concern.

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PS: Anything else you want to say that I should have brought up?

CP: Congrats for â&#x20AC;&#x153;phoning a friend.â&#x20AC;? Black friends and white friends are going through/having that same exchange all over the place these days.

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Krim, whose husband died in 1994, is survived by her daughter Daphna Krim of Bethesda, Maryland, a grandson and granddaughter, and her sister Maria Jonzier of Port Washington.

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www.gaycitynews.nyc 25

THEATER

Treasure Trove of Legendary “Trinkets” Paul E Alexander’s musical has heart, sass, ass, and stroll

BY SCOTT STIFFLER sk if he’s a cop before getting into the car, don’t do anything until you’ve been paid, and contain your stroll to the Village side of the Meatpacking District — because the Chelsea precinct? “They will arrest a bitch in a minute.”

That’s the job training dispensed by skilled and savvy leader of the pack Diva to juicy but naïve new girl Strawberry, as fellow ladies of the night Mistress Blondie (dominatrix fem top) and Janet (sex siren with real breasts) trade insults and swap war stories. Before long, the whole group is strutting their well-choreographed stuff, and outbad-girling Donna Summer by singing “Walk, Walk The Night,” a salty/ bittersweet take on the world’s oldest profession.

Mary, Dorothy, Toto, whatever your street name is, one thing’s for sure: We’re not in 2018 anymore.

It’s the 1990s, and this is the opening scene of Paul E Alexander’s “Trinkets” — an ultimately euphoric but often sobering musical that shines a well-lit, long-overdue spotlight on drag and transsexual prostitutes during an era of uneasy cultural visibility (after the big reveal of “The Crying Game,” a decade until “RuPaul’s Drag Race” premiered, and quite a few years before the LGBT got its Q).

“Bartending, whoring, or being performers. There weren’t many options,” Alexander noted of the musical’s core group of sex workers, whose search for a better life takes them from dangerous streets to welcoming clubs and back again (or, in a perfect world, off to Paris with Mr. Right). “They had this thing inside of them that society didn’t accept or acknowledge,” Alexander said. “There was a struggle: Should I remain how I look or look how I feel?”

That dilemma crystalizes in an exchange familiar to anyone whose parent has appeared, unexpectedly and uninvited, at their workplace.

In this case, long-legged hooker Janet (an immaculately assembled Jay Knowles) is forced to defend

TRINKETS

A

26

Gene Frankel Theatre 24 Bond St., btwn.

Lafayette St. & Bowery Through Feb. 3 Thu.-Sun. at 7 p.m.

No performance Jan. 25 $40; $30 for students & seniors Each night limited $20 tickets at the door genefrankeltheatre.com Or 917-841-7567 Nintey mins., with intermission

LOLA FLASH

Kevin Aviance owns the stage as Mr. Pea, emcee at Trinkets.

both job and gender when mother (the diminutive, scene-stealing Sharon Niesp) arrives in a car determined to take her “son” home.

Their Dorothy/ Sophia dynamic is effectively played for laughs, until it comes to light that the family has been doing some ghosting. “When Grandma died and we were at the funeral,” Janet recalls, “you never once said to any of your friends there that I was your child… And when I saw the obituary listed every family member by name including all of her great grandchildren, and I was referred to as ‘other grandchild,’ that sealed it.”

Here and throughout, Alexander’s ear for the authentic language and urgent cadence of those on the take, make, or defense is no accident: He based these characters, be they close to the bone or composites, on the people whose reallife gains and losses played out during his time spent as part of Jackie 60 — the legendary weekly party that redefined nightlife in the 1990s, pushing back hard against encroaching homogenization by embracing the full spectrum of human expression. Its introduction of spoken word and performance art into the dance and music mix made Jackie 60 more than a destination for debauchery (effectively weeding out those who only showed up for

transgressive thrills).

True to that spirit, Alexander populates the titular club where much of “Trinkets” takes place with hookers both present (our four girls from the opening scene) and past (an ex-streetwalker who married money and owns the place), as well as muscular backup dancers, lithe go-go boys, no-nonsense drug dealers (of the cash-only and bathroom BJ variety), flat-broke johns, and jealous supermodels — plus a famous fashion designer in search of new adventures and nose candy.

Broadly played with reckless air kisses and a not-of-this-earth accent by the howlingly funny Nora Burns, Bev Everly’s memorable entrance is based on a Jackie 60 velvet rope incident involving Donatella Versace, Kate Moss, and the tough-but-fair door policy of Kitty Boots (herself a famous London fashion designer who created Jackie 60 with Chi Chi Valenti and DJ Johnny Dynell; see mothernyc. com for the whole story).

Jackie 60’s decade-long run came to an end on the very last day of the previous millennium, with cameras rolling throughout 1999 for a documentary that never materialized, further cementing Alexander’s desire to use “Trinkets” as a means to explore aspects of that era. “At the time, living it, it

was very magical, the good and the bad of it all,” he reflected. Another motivating factor: Like Diva (deliciously played with drizzles of sex, sympathy, and sass by multipageant title-holder and nightlife host Honey Davenport), Alexander saw the shifting landscape of his own chosen profession and decided to create new opportunities.

Having parlayed his emcee and performance skills from the Jackie days into solo underground dance single success, Alexander gained international notoriety as part of the dance-pop trio The Ones (who scored a #1 Dance and #3 Pop hit with “Flawless”).

“Ten years later, after The Ones slowed down” is where Alexander said he found himself, with decades of accumulated memories and stories to tell — which takes us to the present, the “Trinkets” project, and a casting coup whose story parallels his own experience.

“The music business has changed,” Alexander said, in a tone of clear understatement. “No one is buying records like they used to, so we have that in common. What are we going to do now?” The other part of that “we” is fashion designer and nightclub personality Kevin Aviance, whose bold bald look disrupted the drag queen paradigm back in the day and still turns heads (among his hits as a club/ dance musician, “Din Da Da” peaked at #1 on Aug. 23, 1997 and spent 16 weeks on

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TRINKETS, continued on p.34

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

THEATER

Our Precious Bodily Fluids at Risk Split Britches’ Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver confront us with Dr. Strangehate’s dilemma

BY TRAV S.D. he clock is ticking. That’s the big takeaway from “Unexploded Ordnances (UXO),” the new show by Split Britches in the “Under the Radar Festival” at La MaMa. To zing the point home, they set a time-clock in the theater and instruct the audience to set their cell phone alarms to go off in an hour. The moment is dire; these ladies aren’t screwing around.

No sense in beating around the bush. The “moment” to which we refer is the out-of-control presidency of Donald Trump who, among a thousand other roiling and looming catastrophes he’s spawned, appears hell-bent on bringing about a nuclear showdown with North Korea. “UXO” never mentions that threat specifi-

UNEXPLODED ORDNANCES (UXO)

T

La MaMa Ellen Stewart Theatre 66 E Fourth St., btwn.

Bowery & Second Ave., second fl.

Jan.18-20 at 8 p.m.

Jan. 21 at 4 p.m. $25; $20 for students & seniors lamama.org/uxo 80 mins., no intermission

THEO COTE

Lois Weaver in the Situation Room in Split Britches’ “Unexploded Ordnances (UXO),” at La MaMa through January 21.

cally, for their metaphor covers so many other potential disasters, but the nukes are unavoidably foremost in our minds given that the collaborators — queer theater and performance pioneers Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver — have chosen Stanley Kubrick’s World War III satire “Dr. Strangelove” as the framework for their discussion.

Literally.

One enters La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre to find a large, triangular configuration of conference tables and three enormous video screens dominating the space. This is the “Situation Room.” It has been set up so that we can discuss a Situation that requires no further description,

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a Situation so fraught it affects every person in the world. Shaw tell us this at outset, as she riffs with characteristic beat poeticism about the various sexual and gender types this show will be for, and it’s all of them: queer, cis, trans, etc., etc., etc.

The current piece has much in common with Split Britches’ recent work dealing with Shaw’s stroke in 2011. At the moment, they seem to be saying, we are experiencing a political stroke that is afflicting the entire world. And so, after a fashion, the star of “UXO” is the human race through the agency of the audience, with Shaw and Weaver very generously stepping back to facilitate.

Shaw, as the General (very loosely conjuring George C. Scott’s character in “Dr. Strangelove”), is the comic

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SPLIT BRITCHES, continued on p.32

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GayCityNews.nyc | January 18 – 31, 2018

27

FILM

A Drifter’s Gift Zachary Booth sweeps into a Southern preacher’s life and upends the repression

BY GARY M. KRAMER n the nifty little sleeper “The Revival,” now out on VOD and DVD, Zachary Booth gives an electrifying performance as Daniel, a drifter who turns up at the Southern Baptist church where Eli (David Rysdahl) is a preacher. The two men quickly initiate a clandestine relationship.

However, their taboo fling becomes increasingly problematic — especially when Eli’s wife, June (Lucy Faust), discovers evidence of her husband’s affair.

Booth makes Daniel a terrific foil for Eli, who is grappling with his forbidden desires. Daniel seduces Eli with a blowjob and taunts him verbally. The drifter also turns up in Eli’s church one day and has an intense encounter with the preacher in front of the congregation.

The actor imbues Daniel with an air of mystery that is alluring and seductive. Booth is no stranger to playing queer parts. He appeared as a gay man in last year’s “After Louie,” a gay son in the dysfunctional family drama “Last Weekend,” and one half of the troubled gay couple in Ira Sachs’ “Keep the Lights On,” among other roles.

Currently appearing Off-OffBroadway in the play “The Thing with Features,” at the Barrow Group Mainstage, Booth spoke via Skype with Gay City News about “The Revival,” his penchant for playing gay, and his new play.

I

GARY M. KRAMER: Daniel is a drifter. Can you recall a period in your life where you have been adrift?

ZACHARY BOOTH: I created a backstory in my mind for Daniel that wasn’t related to personal experience. But there was a period when I was an adolescent. My mom was sick with cancer, and she passed away when I was 15.

It’s been 20 years, and it’s only now that I realize how shut down I was. I was existing in the world but not communicating with any-

28

BREAKING GLASS PICTURES

a lifetime of repression can do to someone. We are as a society where certain religions repress sexuality.

We haven’t grasped how damaging that can really be. If we take a look at the events surrounding us and the backlash of the repressed and the oppressors — the fight they are putting up with these ideas — the turn of this story is not far-fetched; the root is in the shame and the regret.

Zachary Booth in Jennifer Gerber’s “The Revival.”

THE REVIVAL Directed by Jennifer Gerber Breaking Glass Pictures bgpics.com/2017/the-revival

one what my life was like. That’s drifting — being in the world without connecting. It offers a level of protection. The downside being, of course, that you lose out on a lot of what life really is.

GMK: What do you think Daniel wants from Eli? Is he just there to fuck him, or is it more that he wants to fuck with him?

ZB: Eli offers Daniel incredible stability. Daniel is not sleeping under a roof and four walls. He’s also not getting a lot of interest from anyone else. The fellowship that comes with the religion and camaraderie of that is really powerful. It sweeps Daniel up. Because their relationship is so forbidden for Eli, it makes Daniel feel that much more special to be desired by someone who feels it’s wrong to desire him.

GMK: What is the appeal of playing queer characters? You’ve made quite a career out of taking gay roles.

ZB: I don’t go seek them, but I certainly wouldn’t turn a role down. I try my best to look at every role and not identify it by its queerness. It’s the arc of the character,

THE THING WITH FEATHERS Barrow Group Mainstage Theatre 312 W. 36th St. Through Feb. 10 Mon., Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m.

Sun. at 7 p.m. $25-$35 barrowgroup.org/thing-feathersscott-organ

the risks they are taking, and the story they tell. I do take it into account. I have collected a menagerie of queer characters. There are challenges they face that are intriguing to me as an actor and a storyteller.

Honestly, when I get a part and it’s a gay role that does go into my mind. There is a fear: Can I only play queer characters? Or is that they way people are looking at me? But all these roles are ones I identify with and I am passionate about. I’m inspired with the filmmakers I’m working with.

GMK: There is considerable talk in the film about sin, and shame, and regrets. The characters made bad decisions. How did you process these emotions?

ZB: I don’t know that Daniel’s decision comes out of shame or regret like Eli’s. Those are powerful emotions and they can drive us to do things we don’t think we’d be capable of. This film explores what

GMK: Are you religious, or spiritual? What do you put faith in?

ZB: I put faith in a lot. I’m not religious. I’m not raised with any religion. My mom told me if I wanted to go to church to be back by lunch. I went to a Jewish temple when I was kid, my sister reminded me. I’m definitely spiritual. I went through a period in my life where having some faith saved me. The cast and crew had terrible upbringings in strict religious homes. I was the clueless guy from New York who said his prayers and meditated.

GMK: You are currently appearing in the play “The Thing with Feathers” that also plays with the themes of power and relationships.

Can you discuss that?

ZB: The story is about an older man who seduces a young girl online. He shows up at her house and nothing is as it seems. It’s about power and manipulation and what happens when we irresponsibly use our power. It touches on sexual harassment. It’s topical with what’s happening in the workplace and these huge figures, and the abuses of Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein.

If there is to be lasting change, it’s involves talking to one another.

Pointing figures and getting angry on social media isn’t the most effective approach. We have to be accountable for our own actions and know they have an impact on the way we treat each other. The play touches on that abuse in a big way — before, during, and after.

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

OPERA

The Politics of Desire In “Tosca,” “Fellow Travelers,” lovers caught up in their day’s power play intrigues

BY ELI JACOBSON pera does personal drama and emotional conflict very well but intellectual, social, and political concepts are less suitable for musical adaptation. Two operas about a pair of lovers caught in a web of political power and intrigue opened this month. One was an expensive new production of “Tosca,” a standard repertory staple at the Metropolitan Opera. The other was the New York premiere of “Fellow Travelers,” a gay-themed contemporary opera set in the 1950s McCarthy era that used elements of the past to illuminate the present and future.

Puccini and his librettists cut down the history and politics in the source play “La Tosca” by focusing on the primal conflict of the three protagonists. Though lavish and realistic production values make a nice background for this opera, the crucial elements are three bloodand-guts performers going for broke and a director who knows how to make the effects land.

In April 2010, Jonas Kaufmann, Patricia Racette, and Bryn Terfel took over the opera, triumphantly ignoring the lamentable Bondy production and performing with chemistry and commitment. This season’s second “Tosca” performance on January 3 featured talented performers in a handsome production with all the makings of a great evening, except that they failed to connect with their roles and each other. Each performer was working moment to moment without an overarching sense of character or musical structure to guide them.

Director Sir David McVicar is not entirely to blame — the disjointed rehearsal process saw the main players change up to two weeks before opening night. The New Year’s Eve gala opening night cast featured a second-choice star soprano, tenor, and baritone led by the third conductor assigned to this troubled venture. By the second

O

GayCityNews.nyc | January 18 – 31, 2018

JILL STEINBERG

Aaron Blake and Joseph Lattanzi in Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce’s “Fellow Travelers,” performed this past weekend as part of the Prototype Festival at John Jay College’s Gerald W. Lynch Theater.

performance things were settling in, mistakes were corrected, and the performances were improving but not enough electricity was being generated onstage.

The handsome new sets and costumes by John Mcfarlane harken back to the 1985 Zeffirelli spectacular featuring realistic renderings of the original period settings in Rome circa 1800. This production mainly departs from tradition by raking the stage upward from stage left to stage right suggesting a world set askew. The tilted rake looks awkward and bizarre in the Act I church but is less jarring in the later acts where it fits the miseen-scène better. Scarpia’s chambers in the Palazzo Farnese have distorted perspectives and exaggerated angles with twisted human figures painted on the walls giving a hellish cast to the atmosphere.

Act III features a human-scaled rendering of the Castel Sant’Angelo ramparts that Zinka Milanov and Richard Tucker would be perfectly at home in.

Mcfarlane’s costumes are less felicitous, including a strapless black lace evening gown with jet beads for Tosca in Act II that looks like something worn by Mistinguett in a

KEN HOWARD/ METROPOLITAN OPERA

Vittorio Grigolo and Sonya Yoncheva in Sir David McVicar’s production of Puccini’s “Tosca” at the Metropolitan Opera.

pre-World War I revue. Cavaradossi models a pristine white puffy shirt and pants that no painter would wear while working.

David Finn’s lighting is also problematic. In Act I, a lighting unit kept switching on and off randomly downstage left. In Act II, the windows in Scarpia’s chambers had light streaming in though the scene takes place at night, and in Act III the Roman night looked flat, dull, and murky.

McVicar’s direction keeps mostly to the standard “Tosca” playbook, with extraneous and fussy bits of eccentric stage business (often in-

volving unnecessary supernumeraries), easily ignored, to let you know that he is “directing.”

On short notice, Sonya Yoncheva has definitely gotten Tosca into her throat and brain but I saw little sign that she had the role in her heart or gut. A petite raven-haired beauty, Yoncheva comes across as too much the generic leading lady in Act I, missing Tosca’s neurotic jealousy and diva hauteur. In Act II, there was a lack of desperation — Tosca is a trapped animal fighting for her honor and her lover’s life but Yoncheva never mussed her hair or broke a sweat. In some ways, Tosca is a precursor of the #MeToo movement, lashing back at a powerful male sexual harasser.

Yoncheva’s interpretation lacks prima donna authority and volatile danger — in time she may develop into a persuasive full lyric Tosca.

The dark core of her multifaceted soprano has grown in size, easily filling out the expansive vocal line and dauntlessly surmounting Puccini’s large orchestra in the dramatic outbursts of Act II. The silvery radiance that overlaid that dark core has receded somewhat, replaced with some edge on high notes, a more pronounced vibrato, and a lack of a true pianissimo.

However this lush, vibrant voice did great justice to the score, though less to the character.

While Yoncheva’s characterization seemed underdone like she wasn’t working hard enough onstage, Vittorio Grigolo’s Cavaradossi emerged overdone and was visibly working too hard. Grigolo has the right vocal timbre — sunny and ringing if a bit slender for his character’s more heroic outbursts.

Grigolo brought too much temperament and too little musical and theatrical discipline to the role. He overemphasizes each individual word and note so that musical phrases lose legato flow and shape — this was exacerbated by loose and inaccurate rhythmic values. Grigolo’s

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POLITICS OF DESIRE, continued on p.34

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THEATER

Pregnant Pause A riotous, topsy-turvy world where women are extinct and men can give birth

BY DAVID KENNERLEY ou might think that a play about a world where women are extinct would smack of misogyny. But Robert O’Hara’s wild, politically charged satire “Mankind” turns out to be highly sympathetic toward the female gender. The men, it soon becomes clear, are desperately lost without them.

Both written and directed by O’Hara (his raucous, raunchy “Bootycandy” caused a stir a few years back), the comic drama is set a century after women have vanished. Why? Because abortion was outlawed, and once women’s rights eroded away so did the women themselves. But the men adapted, developing the capability to have babies. Never mind that society evolved into a harsh police state where conversations are recorded and men get thrown in jail for seeking an abortion.

Which is precisely what happens to regular guys Jason and Mark, who are causal “fuckmates” and freak out when Jason realizes he’s pregnant. The heated exchange, where they repeatedly call each other “dude,” is as hilarious as it is unnerving.

“Dude, this was never supposed to turn into a relationship,” Mark says bitterly. “Dude, you think I want to have a child with you?,” says Jason. After the argument, they awkwardly embrace, like dudes.

MANKIND

Y

Playwrights Horizons 416 W. 42nd St. Through Jan. 28 Tue.-Wed. at 7 p.m.

Thu.-Sat. at 8 p.m.; Sun. at 7:30 p.m.

Sat.-Sun. at 2:30 p.m. $39-$89; ticketcentral.com Or 212-279-4200 Two hrs., with intermission

JOAN MARCUS

Bobby Moreno and Anson Mount are “fuckmate” dudes who stumble into an unplanned pregnancy and a brand-new female-centric religion.

After the baby is born — miraculously, it’s a girl! — the play veers into wacked-out territory reminiscent of the Theatre of the Ridiculous, the broad countercultural movement from the 1960s. The already strange plot grows ludicrous.

The fathers become celebrities and lead a popular new religion comprised of fervent male “feminists” who worship a goddess called SHE. The central icon is a vulgar golden baby bleeding from the mouth (don’t ask). The costumes, by Dede M. Ayite, get glitzier — the divine duo’s ecclesiastical robes are resplendently gaudy.

All this would spin out of control were it not for Clint Ramos’ solid, ingenious set design, elevated by Alex Jainchill’s artful lighting and Lindsay Jones’ corny-yet-chilling music and sound.

Sturdy performances also help

bolster the proceedings. For the most part, Bobby Moreno, as Jason, and Anson Mount, as Mark, play it straight, though by the end they can’t help but camp it up a bit.

The legendary André De Shields, who appeared on Broadway in the original “The Wiz” and “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” is a delight to watch as one of Jason’s fathers and other roles that defy easy description. David Ryan Smith, Ariel Shafir, and Stephen Schnetzer tackle numerous supporting roles with gusto and finesse.

For his part, O’Hara is fascinated with the gender limitations of language. Starting with the title, “Mankind,” women are inherently excluded. Other words like “history” and “amen” also are male-centric (in the new feminist religion, hymns are peppered with “ah-wo-

men” instead of “amen”).

Also of note is that since homosexuality is the order of the day, gay identity is rendered irrelevant.

As in “Bootycandy,” O’Hara likes to break the fourth wall and get the audience involved. At the end of the first act, male theatergoers find themselves standing and reciting a spoof of the Lord’s Prayer, honoring Goddess instead of God and chanting, “We justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment.” The uneasy fact that women in the audience are left out underscores the central conceit of the play.

To be sure, the entertaining “Mankind” is brimming with bold theatricality. And yet, it’s not easy suspending so much disbelief — only 100 years for male bodies to develop eggs and a womb? — or finding meaning amidst the mayhem. Granted, the pro-choice and anti-religion messages come through. But ultimately we leave the theater dizzy and unsatisfied, scratching our heads.

Feeling a Bit Jumpy Three new plays about women in trying times

BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE

W 30

elcome back to dystopia. In Lucy Kirkwood’s new play, “The Children,” we

once again find ourselves in a postapocalyptic world. In this case, it’s the aftermath of a nuclear disaster in a remote cottage in England after an ill-planned plant near the coast erupted in an accident and

poisoned the environment, perhaps for generations.

Robin and Hazel, a long-married couple and nuclear physicists, still live in the shadow of the plant in an uneasy stasis of survival and wait-

ing for inevitable… what? We’re not exactly sure, but it won’t be good, and a sense of gloomy foreboding lingers over the grubby cot-

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FEELING JUMPY, continued on p.31

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

JOAN MARCUS JOAN MARCUS

Ron Cook, Deborah Findlay, and Francesca Annis in Lucy Kirkwood’s new play, “The Children.”

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FEELING JUMPY, from p.30

tage with questionable plumbing and few, if any, luxuries. Miriam Buether’s evocative set is disconcertingly askew, creating palpable discomfort from the outset.

The action is precipitated by the arrival of Rose, a fellow scientist who hasn’t seen Robin or Hazel in decades. Rose first appears in the midst of a prodigious nosebleed and the bloodletting, subsequently metaphoric, continues from there.

It seems Rose has romantic history with Robin and so long-subdued resentments and concerns bubble up to the surface over the course of the nearly two-hour one-act.

The children in question are not Robin and Hazel’s four biological children, but the next generation that is going to have to deal with the mess created by the world run by the likes of Robin, Hazel, and Rose. The question of what, if any, obligation is owed to those who come after is a central theme of the play. What makes it fascinating, however, is that for all the concern about civilization’s future, the characters are mired in their comparatively petty grievances. The play becomes a fascinating commentary on how personalities and ego undermine more noble natures as well as on the ongoing tension between our emotional and intellectual selves.

Given that the play involves three characters in a tight environment, the play is talky, puncGayCityNews.nyc | January 18 – 31, 2018

THE CHILDREN Samuel J. Friedman Theater 261 W. 47th St. Through Feb. 4 Tue.-Wed. at 7 p.m.

Thu.-Sat at 8 p.m.

Wed., Sat.-Sun. at 2 p.m. $60-$149; telecharge.com Or 212-239-6200 One hr., 50 mins., no intermission

tuated by some comedy from both the plumbing and a fight between the women that leads to a surprising consequence. Playwright Kirkwood only reveals what she’s about slowly, so there are some sections of the play that can be baffling, and it’s only as the drama accumulates that the audience discovers what’s afoot. The heft of the dialogue is lightened by the consistently wonderful performances of the three actors.

Ron Cook is the resolutely upbeat center of a lot of the action — and the tension between the women. Francesca Annis as Rose plays a psychological game as her motives are revealed. She is a wonderful counterpoint to Deborah Findlay as Hazel, who is determined through yoga and yogurt to stay healthy against all odds. And there are some pretty intense odds.

Tightly directed by James Macdonald, the piece deftly balances the horror of human-caused environmental destruction with the

Ellen Parker, Franchelle Stewart Dorn, Polly Draper, and Kathryn Grody in Susan Miller’s “”20th Century Blues.”

wounds we can’t help but inflict on one another by our nature. It is a classic theme that recalls John Dryden’s 17th century lament: “Poor mortals that are clogged with earth below.” Much as we might rail against it, the sad human truth is that destruction — of all types — is in our nature.

The essential question of “20th Century Blues,” Susan Miller’s new play can be summed up in the lyric from Noël Coward’s song of the same name: “What is there to strive for/ love or keep alive for?”

If this gentle and affectionate play about women’s friendships over 40 years, were just a “women’s play,” it wouldn’t be as affecting as it is. Rather, it is a play about aging, time, how we change, what’s gained, and what’s lost. This is not the most original concept, to be sure, but Miller’s expression is always compelling, and even when it feels a bit contrived there is an emotional ground that rings true.

Danny — a woman — is a photographer who has been taking pictures of three friends over the past 40 years. They gather every year to keep tabs on one another and pose for a photo. When a gallery asks for a retrospective of Danny’s work, she wants to use the photos of her friends. When presented with a release form, each of them has issues with something that was personal and intimate suddenly being seen by the public. For each of them,

20TH CENTURY BLUES Griffin Theatre Pershing Square Signature Center 480 W. 42nd St. Through Jan. 28 Tue.-Fri at 7:30 p.m.; Sat. at 8 p.m.

Wed., Sat.-Sun. at 2 p.m. $79-$99; ticketcentral.com Or 212-279-4200 One hr., 40 mins., no intermission

the photos chronicle a life and connection, and the vulnerability that comes with the potential of merely being seen as random people getting older is real and more than a bit threatening to their histories and identities.

It’s a timely theme as an aging population wrestles with becoming invisible and marginalized even as they still feel very much alive.

If Miller’s characters sometimes seem a little bit like literary devices manipulated to make points, they are nonetheless appealing, thanks to the outstanding cast. Polly Draper as Danny and Ellen Parker, Franchelle Stewart Dorn, and Kathryn Grody as the friends are fully believable as people who have known each other for four decades, and the shifting dynamics among a group of friends who have known one another for so long is one of the principle pleasures of the play.

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FEELING JUMPY, continued on p.39

31

MUSIC

Staking Her Claim on Faith H. C. McEntire confidently embraces her Southern country roots

oriented Mount Moriah in 2011.

Recently, she has performed with singer/ songwriter Angel Olsen, who plays on this album, along with lesbian musician Amy Ray from the Indigo Girls and riot grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna. Despite her experience in her first band, she claims that her true musical heritage lies in country and gospel, not punk. With the exception of a ticking drum machine on “Wild Dogs,” the production on “Lionheart” tends toward the traditional. It sometimes resembles the Springsteen/ Stones-influenced sound of more mainstream contemporary country singers like Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell, as on “Dress in the Dark,” “Quartz in the Valley” and “Baby’s Got the Blues.”

As she did with Mount Moriah, McEntire clearly sings with a Southern accent. On half of the album, her vocals and songwriting are backed with beautiful string arrangements, as on “One Great Thunder.” “A Lamb, A Dove” begins with piano and gradually adds ped-

al steel guitar. “Wild Dogs” actually combines programmed drums and strings to a lovely effect. The vibe on “Lionheart” alternates between a Southern rock touch and mellower ballads.

Kicking off with “A Lamb, A Dove” is a deliberately confrontational touch, but “Lionheart” quickly abandons that. The rest of it is much lighter, on both Christian and lesbian references. “Dress in the Dark” seems to be addressed to a former lover who has become a junkie, something not entirely clear though McEntire sings, “I can only feel the marks winding around your arms.” “One Great Thunder” devotes its sole four lines to death. But McEntire’s lyrics are full of Southern flavor, evoking writers like Carson McCullers.

“Red Silo” muses, “back when this whole town smelled like tobacco/ back when we thought this would last forever.” “Lionheart” consciously evokes a period when McEntire wouldn’t have been made able to make this album as an out lesbian. The juxtaposition of im-

agery in “A Lamb, A Dove” makes a political statement that lies dormant but implicit in the rest of the album. As a result, it never seems like a nostalgia trip.

The issue of authenticity frequently and obviously comes up when white artists perform R&B and hip-hop. But it’s also a sore spot in country music, where Canadian artist Colter Wall sings about working class life despite the fact that his father was the premiere of Saskatchewan and actor Kiefer Sutherland has made some dreadful forays into the genre.

If one has heard the corrosive guitars of Bellafea rip away, one would understand why McEntire now insists that the country and gospel elements of “Lionheart” really are her heritage. But it’s also a chosen decision to state that lesbians have just as much right to play this style as conservative white men. And her skill as a singer/ songwriter seems unquestionable to me, as does the quality of this album’s production and arrangements.

“Lionheart” is being released by the label that brought the world Arcade Fire, who helped turn indie rock into a “genre” and whose performers could play arenas and win “Best Album of the Year” Grammys, but McEntire never sounds like she’s slumming in indie. I hope the audience that made Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow,” which explicitly said it’s okay to be gay, a mainstream country hit a few years ago finds out about the existence of “Lionheart” and enjoys it.

very thing our society needs more of — meaningful political dialogue — here becomes inimical to a thing we need even more badly: swift, decisive rescue.

Luckily for us, this is New York City. Only in this town could you pluck 10 random people from the audience and have them all be intelligent, wise, fascinating, and articulate. But Shaw and Weaver aren’t exactly lying down on the job either (well, Weaver lies down, but on her belly and then she proceeds to slide

and flop from table to table like a robot porpoise. Don’t ask questions.

It’s just what she does.) And Shaw is her usual dashing, suave self, riffing poetically, and even singing a couple of ‘50s tunes: the Dominoes’ hilariously appropriate “Sixty Minute Man” and the spoken parts of the Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace.” Meanwhile, Weaver (dressed in something like a private school girl outfit) is the charming and patient mistress of ceremonies.

I wish I could say one walks out

of the show with bushelsful of hope, but, much like the Kubrick film it evokes, the experience (including the public discussion) is apt to inspire sober pessimism. Perhaps to prevent us all from leaving the theater and walking directly into oncoming traffic, they end the evening by reading aloud some hopes for the future that audience members had written on bits of paper at the top of the show.

Perhaps the expectation of a single desire coming to pass is all we need to ensure a future.

BY STEVE ERICKSON he first song on “Lionheart,” the debut solo album by out lesbian Americana singer H. C. McEntire, gets to the point pretty bluntly. “A Lamb, A Dove” mixes Christian and gay imagery repeatedly. She’s obviously reclaiming the language of the religion, if not its substance, for women who have often been treated cruelly by it.

The song’s verses could be played on Christian radio: “It’s a wild world that will make you believe/ In a kingdom full of mercy and faith/ It’s a fine line and I will walk it with grace.”

All the verses, however, end up with the “dove,” to whom McEntire is singing, as her lover. And unlike many queer lyricists who avoid personal pronouns, she wrote “A Lamb, A Dove” as a song explicitly dedicated to a woman.

McEntire’s interest in Christianity isn’t new, dating back to her previous band Mount Moriah’s “Miracle Temple Holiness.” When I asked her label Merge Records’ publicist if McEntire is a practicing Christian now, McEntire replied directly to me, “I was raised in a Southern Baptist church. My family has been going to that church ever since my ancestors founded it in the late 1790s. That being said, I don’t currently self-identity specifically as a Christian.”

McEntire began her path in music as the singer of the loud Sonic Youth-cum-Sleater-Kinney band Bellafea, forming the more roots-

H. C. MCENTIRE

T

䉴

SPLIT BRITCHES, from p.27

relief and troublemaker. Weaver, as the President, selects and moderates a panel of 10 “elders” drawn from audience volunteers who have admitted to having been born during World War II or the Korean War. She tells us that it is a tradition borrowed from the Lenape Indians to hear from the Old Ones before taking action.

One of the ingenious paradoxes and tensions of this piece is that the

32

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H.C. McEntire.

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

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33

䉴

TRINKETS, from p.26

the charts; Billboard put him at 93 in their ranking of all-time most successful dance artists). Basically playing the role Alexander assumed at Jackie 60, Aviance’s Mr. Pea is the emcee who presides over club Trinkets (“Come on in and see how it feels, ’cause tonight you’re in Hell in High Heels.”). The veteran entertainer claims the show’s best-produced, executed, and choreographed number: the club-as-church anthem “Bless This House.”

“We were rivals in the ’90s,” Alexander said of Aviance. “He was the one who inspired me to keep going and put out another song.”

Multiple jitney rides en route to a gig on Fire Island one summer

䉴

POLITICS OF DESIRE, from p.29

natural charisma, Italianate tone, and evident commitment and passion make up for a lot of faults.

The imposing bulk of Zeljko Lucic’s rough-hewn baritone and physique are also positive assets.

However, the experienced Serbian baritone sounded foggy and gray-toned with a dull, inert stage presence that sucked the life out of Scarpia’s confrontations that should crackle with tension and energy. His voice faded away behind the orchestra and chorus during the Act I “Te Deum” climax.

Conductor Emmanuel Villaume was also working moment by moment — just keeping the trains running on time without energizing the drama or guiding the singers to more artistically persuasive interpretations.

There is nothing about McVicar’s “Tosca” production that would stop a committed trio of performers and a fiery conductor from thrilling audiences. This crew didn’t gel or create sparks but hopefully they will improve over the run (including for the HD transmission on January 27).

The Prototype Festival presentation of the New York premiere of “Fellow Travelers,” a chamber opera with music by Gregory Spears and a libretto by Greg Pierce, also concerns a pair of lovers caught in a web of politics and desire. The difference here is that these lovers are

34

cemented their friendship. Now, having collaborated on “Bless This House” (Aviance co-produced with Uri Dalal, from lyrics written by Alexander over a decade ago), Aviance is “the first one to arrive and pretty much the last one to leave, every single show. He’s taken the backstage role, helping the straight guys who are doing drag. He’s just been amazing.” (Aviance’s presence as house mother has served the show well; the colorful 18-member cast varies in their degree of stage experience, but there’s not one dud in the charisma department.)

Asked if the younger members of the cast fully fathom the challenges faced by LGBTQs two decades in the past, Alexander said, “I don’t know if kids can understand the limitations and the struggle. It took

these pioneering souls to push forward in a time when it wasn’t de rigueur. I hope they appreciate it now. But I don’t know that they think about history as much as I might have. There’s good aspects and bad aspects of that, because I feel they are who they are; very comfortable in their skins, having transformed at a young age.

Whether they be drag queens or transsexuals or gay men, they are living their freedom.”

There’s one area, however, where Alexander doesn’t mind playing the “back in my day” card: his uncompromising placement of a power ballad to send the audience out on a high note. “I’m Proud of Me” has the emotionally exhausted but resolute Diva witnessing the convergence of several story arcs and

staring down the prospect of her own future, declaring, “I’m proud of me/ And if no one else will show it/ I’m the one that knows it/ I’m proud of me.”

“I just needed a song to sum it up,” Alexander said, “an ‘And I Am Telling You’-type number. I’ve seen so many shows over the years where it’s all operatic. There’s no song you want to sing from it.

‘Wicked?’ The young queens you see performing these Broadway songs, if you don’t know the story, you don’t get the song. ‘Aquarius,’ ‘Let the Sun Shine In.’ These were songs you could play on the radio.

I wanted everyone to walk home singing ‘I’m Proud of Me’ — to be uplifted, to look in the mirror and congratulate themselves. That’s what we need to be doing.”

not artists but two male political operatives whose sexuality places them in a precarious position during Senator Joseph McCarthy’s “Lavender Scare” in ‘50s Washington. Timothy Laughlin is a naïve young newspaper reporter with conservative religious and political views who catches the eye of State Department official Hawkins Fuller. In Laughlin, Fuller sees both a political speechwriter and a potential lover.

Laughlin and Hawkins are an example of opposites who attract but also eventually repel: Catholic Timothy is deeply conflicted about his homosexuality but accepts himself for what he is, remaining true to himself and his lover. Hawkins sees homosexuality as something he does, not who he is, and is equally flexible in his political affiliations, managing to adapt himself to the shifting political currents and mores. State Department workers like Fuller are called in for interrogation for “deviant practices,” the prevailing view being that homosexuality leaves employees open to blackmail that could lead to treason. In the process, careers and lives are destroyed and mistrust reigns. As remains the case today, right-wing demagogues are willing to use the gay community as a scapegoat in manipulating their followers by inciting fear and paranoia.

Spears and Pierce focus on the emotional arc of the two male protagonists, cutting down subplots, the flashback framing device, and

much of the political background from the original novel by Thomas Mallon. Like Puccini, composer Spears conceives opera as a form of primal emotional communication and connection with the voice as the lead instrument. The first motive we hear is a persistent ostinato figure evoking tension, expectation, and unease but this is followed by a lyrical searching melody suggesting emotions trying to connect in an uncertain world. The vocal lines are melismatic, with repeated words to subtly altered notes; Spears has said he was emulating the longing lines of medieval troubadour songs with their plaintive texts about parted lovers and impossible desires. All of the musical techniques are rooted in traditional compositional techniques but are used in highly personal ways to communicate the story and emotions in a truthful manner. By being so true and honest to the characters rather than adhering to some abstract compositional style, Spears finds an individual musical voice that is totally accessible yet very unique.

Pierce’s libretto is elegant and economical as is Kevin Newbury’s fluid minimalist production, courtesy of Cincinnati Opera, which commissioned the work that premiered in June 2016.

Tenor Aaron Blake acts and sings the role of Timothy Laughlin with clear focus and subtle nuance, revealing the fragile inner emotional world of the character. (Blake was also impressive vocally and

dramatically as Louis in NYCO’s “Angels in America” last summer.)

His acting in the final scene was a study in complete emotional devastation and isolation.

In contrast, baritone Joseph Lattanzi as Hawkins Fuller is all warm bonhomie and surface charm with something elusive and shifting behind the attractive facade. Lattanzi’s warm lyric baritone and Arrow Collar Man good looks give the character a seductive charisma that makes us empathize with all who come under his influence.

As the sympathetic Mary Johnson, who knows more than she wants to but still cares, soprano Devon Guthrie had a gleaming warm soprano that illuminated the intelligence and compassion of the character. An impressively versatile ensemble, which included Marcus DeLoach as Senator McCarthy and Vernon Hartman as Senator Potter (among other roles), provided a vital and specific background for this doomed gay affair.

The American Composers Orchestra led by George Manahan played the score with great attention to fine details and consistent musical energy. The freshness and energy of the performance was all the more impressive heard in the fourth performance scheduled over a three-day weekend at John Jay College’s Gerald W. Lynch Theater.

“Fellow Travelers” continues its journey to the Lyric Opera of Chicago in March, proving that this new opera has legs.

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

ADVERTORIAL

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haps they’re checking out a house in a new neighborhood or thought they saw someone they knew on the street corner. It can be easy to veer into the direction your eyes are focused, causing an accident. In addition to trying to stay focused on the road, some drivers prefer the help of lane departure warning systems.

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a rest area and spend 10 minutes snacking there before resuming the trip.

Reading Glancing at an advertisement, updating a Facebook status or reading a book are all activities that should be avoided when driving. Even pouring over a traffic map or consulting the digital display of a GPS system can be distracting.

35

Misfits and Matinee Idols Trudie Styler talks about “Freak Show,” MoMA presents Joseph Cotten

BY DAVID NOH rudie Styler, actress, producer, philanthropist, and the wife of rock god Sting, adds another accomplishment to her cornucopia of achievements, with “Freak Show,” her engaging, funny, and uplifting debut directorial feature film.

Based on the novel by former notorious club kid James St. James — who once partied hard with the likes of Peter Gatien and convicted killer Michael Alig at the Limelight in Manhattan — it’s the tale of Billy Bloom (Alex Lawther), a gay, dragobsessed teen who suffers daily bullying at the Southern high school to which he has been dragged by his rich, conservative father (Larry Pine), known as Daddy Downer.

Bereft at being separated from his Auntie Mame-like mother (Bette Midler), he defiantly faces down the hatred by determining to be elected homecoming queen, and has the most unlikely of allies in Flip (Ian Nelson), the excruciatingly comely school football star, who is, himself, a closet artist.

To fall under the spell of Styler is a magical thing, indeed, and the moment she warmly embraced me recently in her gorgeous Central Park West digs, in front of a roaring open fire and a wall-sized Basquiat, I was handed a bowl-sized cup of cappuccino and whisked into the most vibrant, creative, and glamorous of worlds — her world.

The January 10 New York premiere of “Freak Show” (which has a leading anti-bullying non-profit, Stomp Out Bullying, as one of its sponsors), took place at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema — sadly on one of its very last nights being open — with a swanky party at Public Kitchen, and was attended by a glittering crowd, ranging from Hugh Jackman, Gina Gershon, and Donna Karan to downtown denizens like St. James himself, Lady Bunny, Amanda Lepore, Tony winner Lena Hall, and John Cameron Mitchell.

Sting, greeting me with a double kiss, said, “My wife raved about you!” and introduced me to Ger-

FREAK SHOW

T

36

Directed by Trudie Styler IFC Films IFC Center 323 Sixth Ave. at W. Third St. ifccenter.com

COURTESY: DAVID NOH

“Freak Show” director Trudie Styler, star Ian Nelson, and David Noh, who moderated two Q&As with the director and actor at IFC Center this past weekend.

shon as “Dr. Noh,” which I hadn’t been called since fifth grade in Hawaii. Styler had earlier given me a hug at the theater, declaring, “I covet everything you have on!” Her birthday had just occurred, so it was a double celebration, as the crowd sang to her, and Hall and Mitchell, introduced as Sting’s “favorite cabaret artist,” performed selections from “Hedwig and the Angry Itch,” with Hall also doing a particularly knock-out job on Radiohead’s classic “Creep.” St. James also emceed a fashion show, featuring a Fellini-meets-Tim Burton cast of elaborately bedizened freaks.

My review of the film in Film Journal International moved Styler to ask me to moderate a couple of talk-backs with her and her star Nelson on the film’s opening weekend at the IFC Center. It was truly fun to hang in the theater’s raffish green room watching this diva arrive with her hair and makeup team and meeting the adorable Nelson, who’s from North Carolina, the youngest of four children of an opthamologist and has acted in the popular web series “Hey, Johnnie,” as well as playing Jennifer Lopez’s

son in the agreeably trashy “The Boy Next Door,” which had that immortal line of dialogue uttered by its star, “I think he really likes me.

He gave me ‘The Iliad’ for Christmas. It’s a first edition!”

Styler again admired my outfit and, saying that her Cartier Deco diamond arrow earrings matched it, removed one of them and bade me wear it for our Q&A. (The folllwing night, she regretfully said she’d had a pair of vintage Chanel earbobs for us to wear but had dropped one and broken it.) On both nights, the audiences were enthusiastic in support of this film, and their questions were answered with charming directness, humor, and, particularly in the case of Nelson, who actually boarded with Styler during the 22-day shoot, a particularly beautiful sincerity. Calling Styler his second Mom, he said, his days in New York were completely taken up with training sessions to prep him for his jock role, and drawing classes, museum visits, and artist encounters to explore the artistic side of his role.

During World War II, with many

of Hollywood’s biggest matinee idols signing up for military duty, Joseph Cotten (1905-94), a newcomer from the Broadway stage, with credits to his name like “The Philadelphia Story” with Katharine Hepburn, became a star and probably the most interesting leading man on the screen of the day for the quality of films he was involved with and solid performances he delivered.

The Museum of Modern Art is paying tribute to him in its “Modern Matinee Series: Considering Joseph Cotten,” through February 28, and the chosen selections are certainly a nice way to escape the winter chill. Virginia-born Cotten’s career was inextricably linked with that of genius Orson Welles, whom he’d met in 1934, and he made his film debut in “Citizen Kane” (Feb. 16, 1:30 p.m.) as the title character’s humorous and sage BFF and sometimes nemesis. They followed that with the butchered masterpiece “The Magnificent Ambersons” — a much richer and deeper film than the loudly extolled “Kane” — in which Cotten gives one of the most ineffably charming and brilliantly understated performances in cinema as a pioneering auto magnate, thwarted in love and even somewhat skeptical of the impact his business will have on mankind.

Leading ladies particularly bloomed when cast with Cotten, with his quiet masculinity, obvious intelligence, and subtle yet nicely unsuppressed romantic ardor. These gift were nowhere more in evidence than in the haunting, richly satisfying Gothic romance/ film noir, “Love Letters,” with its surprisingly terrific script by Ayn Rand, beautiful Victor Young score, magnificent Lee Garmes cinema-

䉴

MISFITS AND MATINEES, continued on p.37

January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

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MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

Joseph Cotton and Jennifer Jones in William Dieterleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Portrait of Jennie,â&#x20AC;? with cinematography by Lee Garmes, screening January 25 at the Museum of Modern Art.

ä&#x2030;´

MISFITS AND MATINEES, from p.36

tography, and Jennifer Jones at her most radiant and compellingly neurotic as the amnesiac with a dark secret whom Cotten falls for.

Upcoming in the series are two more films he made with Jones, his courtly gravitas marvelously providing dramatic ballast for her rococo emotionalism, both produced by her husband David O. Selznick, for whom she was chief obsession, both personally and professionally. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Duel in the Sunâ&#x20AC;? (Jan. 19, 1 p.m.) was the producerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s foolishly florid, high camp attempt to outdo the success of his â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gone with the Wind,â&#x20AC;? an epic Western in which Cotten is largely wasted in the pallid â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ashley Wilkesâ&#x20AC;? role of pining for Jones, a gorgeous, uncontrollably lusty halfbreed version of Scarlett Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hara who prefers the dangerous â&#x20AC;&#x153;Clark Gableâ&#x20AC;? character, as personified by a no-good Gregory Peck, with the telling name of Lewt McCanles. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Portrait of Jennieâ&#x20AC;? (Jan. 25, 1:30 p.m.) returned the pair to more familiarly ethereal terrain, with Jones cast as a girl who may actually be dead, but just doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know who the hell she is, whether careening around in an exquisitely snowy Central Park or striking a very beauteous pose for artist Cotten in his shadowy studio in wondrously romantic and moody post-war Manhattan. All the Cotton-Jones films deserve to be watched on the big screen since they were photographed by the great Garmes, a virtual Rembrandt with light, whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d GayCityNews.nyc | January 18 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 31, 2018

MODERN MATINEES: CONSIDERING JOSEPH COTTEN Through Feb. 28 Museum of Modern Art 11 W. 53rd St. $12; $10 for seniors; $8 for students moma.org/calendar/ film/3910?locale=en

earlier turned Marlene Dietrich from plump hausfrau into total golden goddess in the exhilarating series of films he made with Josef von Sternberg in the 1930s.

Cotten doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have all that much to do in George Cukorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s compelling gothic, lavishly produced â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gaslightâ&#x20AC;?

(Feb. 23, 1:30 p.m.), dominated as it is by Charles Boyerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s memorably malevolent tyrannical husband to Oscar-winning Ingrid Bergmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sensitively rendered portrait of a Victorian bride in peril (with a pert, Cockney, 17-year-old Angela Lansbury already riveting as their sexy, uppity maid). Much less efficacious was Cotten and Bergmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reteaming in Hitchcockâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Under Capricornâ&#x20AC;? (Jan. 31 & Feb. 28, 1:30 p.m.), a Technicolor period thriller set in Australia, with definite similarities to â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gasightâ&#x20AC;?â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s confused wife formula, but a big old mess any way you look at it.

Carol Reedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Third Manâ&#x20AC;?

ä&#x2030;´

MISFITS AND MATINEES, continued on p.39

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January 18 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

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POT HEARING, from p.9

in November on a pro-legalization platform with 56 percent of the vote, is likely to follow suit soon.

The nation’s earliest legal pot initiatives came through the work of advocates who won popular refer-

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MISFITS AND MATINEES, from p.37

(Jan. 26, 1:30 p.m.) is, next to “Ambersons,” Cotten’s finest film, a deserved classic of suspense with the darkest of overtones, set in a mesmerizingly eerie Vienna (which, when I visited it some years back, had a theater entirely devoted to daily showings of the film). Edard Albee’s “A Delicate Balance” (Feb. 14, 1:30 p.m.) was adapted into film in 1973 by Tony Richardson and, in it, Cotten plays one half of a mysteriously frightened-out–of-their wits couple who arrive at the posh home of close friends, aristocratic Paul Scofield and Katharine Hepburn, with the intention of never leaving again (one of Albee’s most brilliant and funny notions.)

More conventional leading man duty came with these: In the viv-

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enda. In New York, the lead will be taken by legislators, not first and foremost the advocates. Following the January 11 hearing, Gottfried, in a written statement, said, “The hearing was extraordinarily informative, and the testimony certainly conveyed the importance of

the issue for people’s lives. People need to understand that this is not about just allowing a recreational activity; our current law destroys tens of thousands of lives a year.

The hearing made that very clear.”

This week, Cuomo announced a study of a “Regulated Marijua-

na Program” in consultation with “state agencies” that will look at the impact of “legalization in surrounding states.” There was no mention in the governor’s announcement of studying the program in Colorado, which now has four years of success under its belt.

idly Technicolored “Niagara” (Feb. 1 & 21, 1:30 p.m.), Cotten is cuckolded husband to Marilyn Monroe, as a ruthless vamp, early in her career, as opposed to the appealingly touchy-feely bimbo she later became. “The Farmer’s Daughter” (Jan. 24, 1:30 p.m.) has him putting up with Loretta Young in a cornball audience-pleaser that has her being Swedish ‘til it hurts, with a two-ton heavy accent and a blonde coronet braid. She mystifyingly won the 1948 Oscar for this — over the far more deserving Gene Tierney in “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,” which, by the way, wasn’t even nominated. “I’ll Be Seeing You” (Jan. 18, 1:30 p.m.) was my father’s favorite song, and indeed the world’s, during World War II, and I imagine has something to do with the film, which is one of those “I’m

a loser, so are you, let’s fall in love” soaperas positing Cotten, mentally shattered by the war, falling in love with shoplifter Ginger Rogers, just released from jail, who goes home with her deep dark secret to a much too inquisitive Shirley Temple, as her bratty sister.

For horror fans, there are two delectable entries: the indelible “Soylent Green” (Feb. 9, 1:30 p.m.), with its oft-repeated tag line that gives the whole show away and Edward G. Robinson, Charlton Heston, and Chuck Connors in a pissing contest as to who is the biggest ham. Along with this, MOMA is screening “Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte” (Feb. 2 & 22, 1:30 p.m.), a true gay camp favorite, with Bette Davis at her most baroque-grotesque, essaying a Southern belle manque who faces eviction from her family

plantation as well as the machinations of greedy Southerners like Cotten (calling up his own roots in a moustache-twirling way), Olivia de Havilland (surprisingly effective and mean in the role Joan Crawford bowed out of in the midst of shooting, claiming she was too sick to go on, yet sending press releases from the hospital), Agnes Moorehead (the very definition of hilariously over-the-top, as Bette’s maid, snarling Velma Cruther, whom this always enterprising actress seems to be playing as black but in white face), and Mary Astor, who quietly steals the entire film away in two mournful and melancholy scenes.

The screening of this hysterical gem should be an especially lively one, given the affection an entire segment of the New York population (all of them gay) has for it.

FEELING JUMPY, from p.31

THE GIRL WHO JUMPED OFF THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN

Seen through this lens, even when the plotting seems forced, it is the connection among the women that keeps the production in focus.

An eager, ambitious, and basically innocent woman is ground up in the Hollywood machine.

Sounds very timely, doesn’t it? Actually, it’s timeless because “The Girl Who Jumped Off The Hollywood Sign” is set in 1949. The girl in question, one Evie Edwards, an aspiring starlet at the end of her rope, is about to follow in the footsteps of Peg Entwistle who really did commit suicide by leaping off the sign, presumably driven to it by her failure to break into the movies.

This account is fictional, however, and as written and performed by Joanne Hartstone, it’s a heartfelt look at dreams and the desperation that comes from having lost everything and feeling there’s nothing else to live for. And so, she finds herself in the center of the “H” teetering on the brink of a fatal plunge.

First, though, Evie is going to GayCityNews.nyc | January 18 – 31, 2018

Theater for the New City 155 First Ave. at E. 10th St. Through Jan. 21 Jan. 18-20 at 8 p.m.

Jan. 20-21 at 3 p.m. $20; smarttix.com

TOM KITNEY

Joanne Hartstone in her one-woman show “The Girl Who Jumped Off The Hollywood Sign.”

tell us the story of how she got there. It’s quite a tale, starting in a Hooverville in Missouri and ending up in LA. Her mother dead, her father has moved to California and film-struck Evie (her real name is Evelyn) wants to be a star. She recounts her unfortunate misadventures in the film trade, punctuated by flashbacks and songs that simply, but effectively convey Hol-

lywood of the late 1940s.

Hartstone has the speech patterns down and a bright-eyed urgency about her that’s endearing and pitiful at the same time. It’s clear Evie is not cut out to give what it takes to be a star, including some questionable moral choices.

She’s got a great voice and an ear for mimicking styles like Judy Garland as she takes us on her tragic

journey.

Under the direction of Vince Fusco, the piece is clear as Evie moves in and out of fantasy sequences.

Set designer Tom Kitney has given her the top half of the “H” to balance on, which Hartstone deftly leaves during these interludes.

This is a warm and entertaining 70 minutes, in which we see that the challenges of showbiz are a constant — and a constant drain on the soul for those not in the pantheon of stars. Does Evie leap?

I’m not telling, but you should jump at the chance to see this wonderful performance.

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They didn’t treat me like patient #7265. They treated me like Anne.

ww

My Mount Sinai is Mount Sinai Women’s Cancer Program . 325 West 15th Street

646-257-3695 mountsinai.org/chelsea

#MyMountSinai

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January 18 – 31, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc