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Feds Tracked Mob Bar Control into ‘80s 03

Back to School; Back to Bullying? 07

Dennis Cooper’s New Film 21

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CHANGE IS IN THE AIR, BUT IS IT IN THE CARDS FOR CYNTHIA? Page 04

DONNA ACETO

Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Cynthia Nixon meeting with LGBTQ people of color at the Aloft New York Brooklyn Hotel on August 22.

FREE | VOLUME SEVENTEEN, ISSUE EIGHTEEN | AUGUST 30 – SEPTEMBER 12, 2018

In This Issue COVER STORY Cynthia Nixon’s audaciously steep path 04

FILM Terence Davies’ “Distant Voices, Still Lives” 22

REMEMBRANCE David McReynolds, prominent pacifist, dies at 88 06

Xenophobia “celebrated” in Arizona town 24

CIVIL RIGHTS Housing rights for LGBTQ seniors 12 PERSPECTIVE The iron law of prohibition 14

Wigstock 2.HO on September 1 16

THEATER High school garage band revisited 26 THEATER Geeking out inclusively at Flame Con 30

August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

HISTORY

Feds Tracked Mob Control of Gay Bars into the 1980s FBI surveilled and prosecuted Maﬁa skimming, violence, and police payoffs

DUNCAN OSBORNE

The New Showcase at 146 West Fourth Street, as it looks today, was among nine LGBTQ clubs operated by the Gambino crime family that were raided by the NYPD and the federal government in 1971.

BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

ocuments obtained from the FBI as well as state and federal court documents show that organized crime control of bars and clubs serving the LGBTQ community was pervasive in the 1960s and was found as late as 1980 in New York City. “[T]he informant advised that Matty The Horse Ianniello operates numerous bars in the area of 48th Street and 6th and 7th Avenues, NYC,” an unidentified FBI agent wrote in a December 1, 1965 memo. “He stated this individual is a ‘made guy’ in the Vito Genovese ‘family.’ He further advised that in the operation of these bars, he has a partner who is a Jewish fellow and a real big guy physically.” In response to a Freedom of Information request, the FBI released 1,600 pages of documents that detailed organized crime ownership of nightclubs and bars in Manhattan. Published reports from the ‘70s identify Ianniello as the leading mob owner of bars in the city, and Gay City News originally sought records only on Ianniello’s businesses. On June 22, 1966, Harold Baer, an assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York, launched a grand jury investigation into “hoodlum infiltration and control of hotels, motels, bars,

restaurants, and caterers... in the Greater New York area.” The result is that the FBI records refer to other mobsters who also operated bars serving the LGBTQ community. The FBI records support the assertion that Ianniello dominated the market. A November 11, 1967 memo states, “According to what informant learned Ianniello owns mortgages or shares in about 6080 bars in the Broadway area and controls the ‘strip’ from 6th to 8th or 9th Avenues between West 43rd and West 49th Streets.” Ianiello, who died in 2012, and Ben Cohen, the “Jewish fellow” who was his business partner, made bar owners take out loans from them. If the owners fell behind on payments, they seized the business and incorporated it under a new name with a front man operating it. They owned bar equipment and vending machine companies and made bars and nightclubs use their vendors. They skimmed profits from businesses they owned. In 1985, Cohen, Ianniello, and 17 other defendants, including three of Ianniello’s brothers, were indicted for violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, mail and bankruptcy fraud, and corporate and personal income tax evasion. They were convicted. Ianniello was sentenced to six years in federal prison, and Cohen was sentenced to five years. Cohen and Ianniello

GayCityNews.nyc | August 30 – September 12, 2018

BET T YE L ANE/ COURTESY OF LESBIAN HERSTORY ARCHIVES

Kooky’s, a lesbian bar at 149 West 14th Street, was believed to have had Mafia connections and been operated by mob boss Matthew Ianniello in 1973.

each had to forfeit $666,667 representing their share of the more than $2 million that was skimmed from five businesses from 1979 to 1982. One of those five businesses was G.G. Barnum’s Room on West 45th Street, according to documents filed by the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance in a proceeding in which Cohen and Ianniello challenged the state taxes due on the skim. In 1980, G.G. Barnum’s Room was a “gay disco” with a “cabaret show,” the state said. It was a drag show, and the club had a gay male and transgender following. Ianniello was already wealthy. In a February 8, 1966 memo, an informant told the FBI that he was “one of the richest mid-Manhattan buttons” — or a “made man in a Mafia organization — and that

he “will finance the opening on a new bar in Manhattan. Informant noted that on many occasions the owners were forced to use shylock loans furnished to them by” Ianniello and Cohen. That anti-Semitic slur is used interchangeably with loan shark throughout the FBI files. FBI informants asserted that Ianniello owned the Stonewall Inn. Various informants also had him owning at least 12 other bars or after-hours clubs that served the LGBTQ community in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Records from the Knapp Commission, which investigated police corruption in a number of industries beginning in 1970, support the informants and add details. The commission looked at the 19th

➤ SURVEILLANCE, continued on p.8

POLITICS

Change Is in the Air But is it in the cards for Cynthia? BY PAUL SCHINDLER

ollowing an August 22 appearance before a small crowd of mostly young LGBTQ people of color at a downtown Brooklyn hotel, Cynthia Nixon took a moment to answer the most critical question Gay City News had about her uphill quest to become governor of New York. How in the less than five months between election day in November and the April 1 deadline for the state to deliver its annual budget does she propose to turn around a huge ship amounting to roughly $170 billion to reflect the progressive values she has crisscrossed the state to espouse? “You know, if I am elected governor of New York State it will usher in such a new day,” she said. “And I’m not the only person up for election this year. We will have Andrea Stewart-Cousins as the leader of the State Senate Democrats, and we have had so many priorities teed up for so long that the Republicans will not introduce into the State Senate.” Asked, in a follow-up, if she was saying that Albany’s Democratic establishment would readily embrace her as their leader — both Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie are supporting her opponent, incumbent Andrew Cuomo — she responded, “Absolutely, because what you have now is a governor who calls himself a Democrat and calls himself a progressive but is really looking for cover from Republicans for all of this legislation he doesn’t want to enact, either, because it’s too progressive. He thinks it puts him in a bad position when he runs for president. Or, more often, he just does nothing.” Nixon’s answer was not without its merits. Throughout her campaign, she has emphasized progressive goals that have widespread popularity in the age of Trump but have not advanced under Cuomo in two terms — comprehensive campaign finance reform, more eq-

DONNA ACETO

Cynthia Nixon fields questions from Gay City News at an August 22 appearance in Brooklyn.

uitable funding for public schools statewide, improvements in the city’s ailing subway system coupled with enactment of a comprehensive congestion pricing scheme to curb the city’s traffic gridlock, single payer health care, codifying the reproductive freedom now guaranteed by an imperiled Roe v. Wade, and marijuana legalization. And in highlighting those shortfalls in Cuomo’s record, Nixon repeatedly cites something that angers many progressive New York Democrats — the governor’s implicit support for the eight Democrats who, until recent months, had caucused as the Independent Democratic Conference and, along with one other dissident Democrat, made it possible for the minority Republicans to maintain control of the State Senate. Those Republicans, in turn, have blocked the issues Nixon highlights in her campaign, many of which Cuomo has also given considerable lip service. Despite the strength of her political positioning, Nixon is clearly struggling. In her last campaign finance filing, she showed less than half a million dollars on hand versus nearly $25 million for the incumbent. The challenger touts her clean hands for not accepting corporate donations, but she has notably fallen short in motivating the type of small-dollar grassroots donations that have fueled other political insurgents. Public polling also offers scant encouragement. In more than half

a dozen surveys by three different polling outfits, Nixon has never done better than a 22-point deficit compared to Cuomo, and the three most recent polls put the gap at more than 30 points. In her remarks on August 22, Nixon seemingly acknowledged that yawning gap by arguing that New York State, since the election of Donald Trump, has seen a surge of new Democratic registrations totaling more than 580,000, “most of them progressives,” she said. “We have a real path to victory,” she insisted. But the new registrations Nixon cited amount to more than the total turnout in the 2014 gubernatorial primary, when Zephyr Teachout, who had less name recognition than Nixon enjoys, surprised pundits by capturing 34 percent of the vote. Nixon’s troubles are, in some respects, at odds with news elsewhere. In recent gubernatorial primaries in Georgia and Florida, Democrats chose the progressive alternatives, both African-American, in Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum, respectively. Closer to home, of course, political newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez toppled Congressmember Joe Crowley, the Queens Democratic leader. A key hurdle Nixon faces is the suspicion that many Americans — and progressives, especially — have toward “celebrity” candidates in the wake of Donald Trump’s emergence.

Earlier this year, two seasoned political observers, in comments to Gay City News, articulated this handicap in blunt terms. George Arzt, who owns a communications and lobbying firm long active in city politics, noted that Cuomo could say, “You have a novice in Washington, and look at what a mess he’s made of the nation, if not the world, in terms of destabilizing it. You need an experienced hand to defend our values.” Mitchell Moss, an urban policy and planning professor at NYU, was even more scathing in his assessment, saying, “I believe that government requires some level of knowledge and experience that is not found on the Broadway stage or the TV screen or the wrestling ring. The problem we have is that we don’t know enough about Cynthia Nixon and what we know about her is not relevant.” It’s safe to bet that neither Arzt nor Moss style themselves as part of the resistance, but a daunting challenge facing Nixon is that many people who do identify as Trump’s opposition have repeated much the same view in conversation or social media posts. Unsurprisingly, Nixon has found little support among institutionalized advocacy groups that rely on long-term relationships to advance their issues. Organized labor is solidly with the governor, and, in fact, the primary effect of the Working Families Party’s endorsement of Nixon seems to be the party’s loss of its key labor alliances. More distressing for the challenger, no doubt, is her inability to win a stamp of approval from leading women’s and LGBTQ rights organizations. Cuomo boasts endorsements from the Human Rights Campaign and the New York chapters of both Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women. And it’s not just the established players that have eschewed her candidacy. Leading grassroots marriage equality activists took Nixon

➤ CYNTHIA NIXON, continued on p.5

August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

SLUG ➤ CYNTHIA NIXON,, from p.4 to task in no uncertain terms when she implied that Cuomo’s key role in winning equal marriage rights here in 2011 was his way of helping New York Republicans get an issue that was increasingly hurting them off the table. In a sign-on letter in which longtime activist Cathy MarinoThomas, a former board president of Marriage Equality USA, took a lead role in crafting, the group stated, “Ms. Nixon’s account of the political landscape at best shows naivety and ignorance or at worst is a cynical omission of the truth. Her take is not just inaccurate, it’s undermining of important work by true activists and supportive elected officials. It is also self-serving and amounts to a gesture intended to serve her current purposes that rewrites history and erases work that transformed hundreds of thousands of lives for the better.” If the rebuke from grassroots marriage activists stung, Nixon arguably got the better of a more famous intra-LGBTQ fracas. In March, when Nixon, a staunch supporter of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s two mayoral campaigns, announced her run, former Speaker Christine Quinn, who did not enjoy Nixon’s support in 2013, told the New York Post, “Cynthia Nixon was opposed to having a qualified lesbian become mayor of New York City. Now she wants an unqualified lesbian to be the governor of New York.” This was not Quinn at her best, and Nixon wasted no time making hay of the gaffe, saying via Twitter, “When I announced yesterday that I’m running for gov, one of Cuomo’s top surrogates dismissed me as an ‘unqualified lesbian.’ It’s true that I never received my certificate from the Department of Lesbian Affairs, though in my defense there’s a lot of paperwork required.” “Unqualified Lesbian” T-shirts soon surfaced. Nixon, who married her wife Christine Marinoni — a public policy expert who shares her deep commitment to issues of educational equity — in 2012 and has three children, including a 21-yearold transgender son, does have her LGBTQ supporters. The Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club endorsed her, and Brooklyn’s Lambda Independent Democrats were suf-

ficiently divided between the two candidates that they made no gubernatorial endorsement. Among gay elected officials, Brooklyn City Councilmember Carlos Menchaca endorsed Nixon very early, and has since been followed by Queens Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer and Manhattan Assemblymember Daniel O’Donnell. It was O’Donnell, as sponsor of the Marriage Equality Act, who put the first points on the board when the Assembly passed the measure in 2007. Cuomo, however, has won endorsement from the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York City, the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats, and the Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club of Queens, along with Council Speaker Corey Johnson from Chelsea and Councilmembers Daniel Dromm of Queens and Ritchie Torres from the Bronx. Meanwhile, LGBTQ endorsers of Nixon have been joined by other leading progressives across the city, including Ocasio-Cortez, Councilmembers Antonio Reynoso and Brad Lander of Brooklyn, former Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, several candidates, like Jessica Ramos and Robert Jackson, waging primary campaigns against IDC-affiliated state senators, resistance groups such as several chapters of Indivisible, and political clubs including the Broadway Democrats, the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, the Coalition for a District Alternative, the Downtown Independent Democrats, and the Village Independent Democrats. The Nation magazine, a big booster of de Blasio’s candidacy in 2013, has also endorsed Nixon. It will take something like a political earthquake for Nixon to prevail over Cuomo on September 13. But even in defeat, she could take pride in raising the visibility and viability of key issues including marijuana legalization, universal health care, and the governor’s accountability for saving our subways. And it is certainly refreshing to hear a candidate speak in such unvarnished personal terms about having a child come out as transgender and being warned by a mother who had to resort to an illegal abortion about the dangers of ever going back to that time.

GayCityNews.nyc | August 30 – September 12, 2018

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REMEMBRANCE

Gay Peace Activist David McReynolds Dies at 88 Twice the Socialist presidential candidate, Manhattanite got woke in postwar Germany BY ANDY HUMM

avid McReynolds, who died at 88 on August 17 in Manhattan, is being primarily remembered as one of the nation’s leading pacifists and anti-war campaigners and as a two-time Socialist candidate for president. But he took the bold step of coming out publicly in an article in 1969. And while he never considered the LGBTQ movement his primary cause, he maintained a lifelong commitment to living openly. McReynolds dedicated 40 years to working in the War Resisters League with the legendary A.J. Muste and was mentored by Bayard Rustin, also a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., and the lead organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. Rustin, too, was openly gay. McReynolds had opposed the Korean War in the 1950s and marched with the early Civil Rights Movement. To protest the Vietnam War in 1965, McReynolds joined four other men in suits in publicly burning their draft cards in defiance of the law, though he was not prosecuted because he was 36 and so beyond draft age. He considered the action “penance” for voting for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 in his race against Barry Goldwater. Johnson had convinced many peace activists —including Dr. Benjamin Spock — that he would not escalate US involvement in Vietnam. McReynolds became a key leader of the massive anti-Vietnam War demonstrations of the 1960s and into the ‘70s and the tumultuous demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago over Johnson’s war. He also played a major role in the 1982 anti-nuclear march in New York that was at the time the largest demonstration ever to take place in the city. A dedicated socialist, he ran for Congress in 1958 and ’68 and for president of the United States in 1980 on the Socialist Party USA line — the first out gay person to run for the office. “I want a society where people are more able to work — and work hard — at jobs that they enjoy and make a contribution to the world around them, but we don’t live in that kind of society,” he said in a video interview with filmmaker Anthony Giacchino. When he ran for president again in 2000, he received an unusually high number of votes (2,908) in Palm Beach County, where voters were confused by the infamous “butterfly ballot” where voters who meant to vote for Al Gore ended up voting for candidates like McReynolds adjacent to his line. (Gore lost Florida by 1,784 votes to George W. Bush.) He was also the Green Party candidate for the US Senate

THOMAS GOOD/ NLN

David McReynolds, in 2009, at the Left Forum in New York City.

against Chuck Schumer in 2004. He made each and every race in order to raise issues — from nuclear disarmament to economic justice — that were not embraced by the major parties. In the early 1950s while a student at UCLA, McReynolds had a sexual relationship with the dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey that helped him to accept his own gayness because Ailey “was the first gay person I met who was free of guilt.” McReynolds was born October 25, 1929 in Los Angeles into a conservative Baptist family. “My parents always said I was the cause of the Depression,” he said wryly. Visiting Germany in 1951 and seeing the destruction wrought by war, he said, “I had a profound religious experience and went up to an old lady and said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ and broke down.” He said he realized that as an American, “I dropped the bombs.” This sparked his pacifism and resistance to all wars. “The reason you don’t kill is because each human being is unique and irreplaceable,” he said. “They are a shadow of yourself, they are a part of you… That person is my brother or my sister.” In addition to his lifelong activism, he was a prolific and accomplished photographer and a cat-lover. A longtime resident of the East Village, he was close friends with Quentin Crisp there. “David McReynolds waged a helluva fight

against war and greed,” said gay civil libertarian Bill Dobbs. “At turns a gentle pacifist and irascible, McReynolds made a mark with a lifetime of principled activism for a humane world.” Veteran gay and peace activist Steve Ault, who worked with McReynolds for over 40 years and with him and Bruce Cronin on the ’82 antinuke march, relayed that Cronin told him, “David suffered neither a heart attack nor a stroke. He fell and was immobilized, probably for six days before being found. He was alive but unconscious. He died about a day later, succumbing to multiple organ failure from extreme dehydration.” Ault said that McReynolds joined Allen Ginsberg and the non-gay songwriter and singer Dave Van Ronk in checking out the Stonewall Rebellion while it was in progress and that Van Ronk was the one who ended up getting arrested. Gay attorney and activist Michael Lavery, a founder of Lambda Legal, wrote on Facebook, “I met him in the Fall of 1961 in Pittsburgh when he was organizing for the Student Peace Union and Turn Towards Peace anti-nuke protest at the White House, November 1961.” Also on Facebook, Laurence Pagnoni, a nonprofit fundraising expert, wrote that McReynolds was “proud to have been Bayard Rustin’s assistant at the Fellowship of Reconciliation where he once told me ‘my values were refined toward nonviolence and I learned so much from Bayard.’” Gay political scientist and activist Ken Sherrill, in an email, wrote that he had admired McReynold’s anti-war and anti-nuke activism since “I was sixteen, but we first met when I was in my early 70s.” He added, “David was a gay man and he liked looking at men, thinking about them, and talking about them. What do I mean, ‘them?’ I should say “us” but I wasn’t as wholesome as his type. What I loved was that this gay man of a certain age still lusted after men who he found attractive. We should all live long enough to keep on doing that.” In a speech in 2011, McReynolds said, “Do not be dismayed that we are in such a troubled time. Large numbers of Americans seem impressed by Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, or Donald Trump. Would you rather have found yourselves in a comfortable time when your voice wasn’t needed?... Even in defeat, we are victorious, for we have given our lives a meaning others should envy. In struggling for something greater than ourselves, we will be transformed.” McReynolds is survived by his brother, Martin McReynolds, and sister, Elizabeth Gralewski. A memorial service is being planned for December 2, with details to be announced later. August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

EDUCATION

Are Schools Ready to Combat Bullying This Year? A new chancellor, who champions his gay brother, could step up DOE efforts BY ANDY HUMM

chool starts September 5 in New York City for 1.1 million students in 1,800 schools with a new chancellor, Richard Carranza, who has served in San Francisco and Houston and who wrote in June about his support for his gay twin brother, Reuben, and explained “Why It’s So Important to Include LGBTQ Education in Schools.” The new school year will be a test to see whether that promise and the school system’s commitment to seriously change school culture to stop bullying and integrate LGBTQ issues into curricula will make a meaningful difference. “My job is to ensure that in every school, in every classroom, our beautifully diverse student population is reflected, represented, and nurtured,” Carranza wrote in Teen Vogue. “My job is also to provide teachers and school staff with the resources they need to teach more inclusive lessons, and the tools to facilitate thoughtful and engaging conversations about race, sexuality, gender, and other relevant topics.” The city Department of Education (DOE) ramped up its procedures for taking and dealing with reports of school bullying last year in the wake of bullied Bronx student Abel Cedeno killing a classmate and wounding another a year ago in what his defense lawyers say was self-defense. Led by out gay Queens City Councilmember Daniel Dromm, a six-hour hearing was held in October by the Education Committee where then-Chancellor Carmen Fariña was put on the defensive, but announced $8 million in new initiatives to address bullying. Dromm said the City Council appropriated $1 million for GSA’s — school clubs once called gaystraight alliances and now termed gender sexuality alliances — and diversity clubs. “The Council also doubled the funding for a program called History UnErased to integrate LGBT

ANDY HUMM

FIERCE’s Jason Morales, Abena Bello of the Ali Forney Center, Desmond is Amazing, Bree from FIERCE, and the Department of Education’s LGBTQ liaison, Jared Fox, at an August 25 town hall on bullying at Judson Church in the West Village.

history lessons from $100,000 to $200,000 and gave another $100,000 to the LGBT Network to get into the schools and do staff training on LGBT issues,” he said. “The DOE had a training day for 900 students and teachers on LGBT issues. These are all steps in the right direction, but still a drop in the bucket in a city with a $25 billion [school] budget.” Dromm said, “Every school should have a GSA and every principal who doesn’t have one in their school should be questioned why.” Current policy is to mandate a GSA if it is requested by a student in any school, but estimates are that less than 15 percent of city schools have them. The DOE is required to report on the actual percentage in October. At an “Anti-Bullying Town Hall: LGBTQ+ Youth in Our Schools” sponsored by the group FIERCE, a community organization led by LGBTQ young people of color, at Judson Church on August 25, students, advocates, and parents tried to come to grips with why bullying is so pervasive and how to curb it. Mustafa Sullivan, FIERCE’s director, said, “Our culture is violent. It was created through violence, and adults don’t want to deal with

GayCityNews.nyc | August 30 – September 12, 2018

that. The question is how do we address this violence in a humane way?” “Staff and adults in general need the ability to look at students as people and be trained in dealing with the trauma that so many of these students are living with,” said Abena Bello, a client advocate at the Ali Forney Center for homeless LGBTQ youth. “What happened to this person [who bullies] for them to act this way? What’s happening at home? Is there abuse at home?” Latifah Blades of FIERCE cited the crisis in school safety. “There are officers what beat up kids and drag them through the hallway,” she said. Jason Morales, also of FIERCE, said that metal detectors are necessary due to gang violence in schools. Desmond, an 11-year old “drag kid” and founder of a house called Haus of Amazing (Desmondisamazing.com) who performed at the forum, said, “I want to show the world that kids can do drag and kids should always be themselves.” Jared Fox, the LGBTQ Liaison for the DOE, went over all the policies and procedures the schools

have established to deal with bullying. “If you are bullied you can tell any teacher and the teacher has 24 hours to let the principal or Respect for All liaison put it in the online registry,” Fox said. He added that students or parents can also go directly to the 311 system to report incidents. He said students are entitled to a copy of the complaint reports. “The principal has five days to conduct an investigation,” Fox said. “And your parents do not have to be notified.” He praised the new chancellor for his commitment to dealing with LGBTQ and bullying issues and to the new structures being set up within the department. Fox talked about a brochure he developed explaining how to address bullying, but acknowledged there was no plan to get it into the hands of every single student in the school system. Bree, a FIERCE organizer, who had harrowing experiences in school for being gender non-conforming, said she was not made aware of her recourses when she was in high school. Fox said that if any transgender student is not being allowed to use the restroom corresponding to their gender identity, “Let me know and I will call the principal.” His email is jfox16@schools.nyc.gov. This week, Miranda Barbot, a spokesperson for the DOE, said, “We understand the impacts bullying can have on students’ social and emotional well-being as well as their academic success, which is why we have invested significant resources to better serve students and families. We work to make resources available and well-known to all students and families, and at the start of every school year, schools are required to distribute Respect for All information to all students. Additionally, staff members are trained annually on reporting protocols, and will be trained on culturally responsive

➤ BULLYING, continued on p.35

䉴

SURVEILLANCE,, from p.3

Precinct and the Sixth Precinct, which includes the West Village, in its investigation into corruption in bars. The commission said that Ianniello and Aniello Dellacroce, a senior member of the Gambino crime family, were “frequently mentioned as having ‘some of the action’ in the after-hours bars” that served the LGBTQ community in the West Village. Members of the Gallo crime family were also operating LGBTQ clubs in the Sixth Precinct, the commission concluded. In an October 25, 1969 memo that refers to the separate FBI files for Ianniello and Dellacroce, an informant told the FBI that he heard that the two men “were backing after hours joints” and listed the 123 Club on University Place among four clubs. The Mattachine Society of New York, an early LGBTQ rights group, listed the 123 Club in a 1968 bar guide. Eddie De Curtis, a member of the Gambino crime family, operated at least two “queer joints” — Caesar’s Corner and the Rat Race — according to a December 27, 1968 FBI memo. In 1965, the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office convicted Eddie De Curtis, John Vignini, and Daniel Fatico, a Gambino

DUNCAN OSBORNE

The Bohemia, a lesbian bar, at 15 Barrow Street, as it looks today, was also alleged to have been operated by Matthew Ianniello.

crime family member, for operating a “disorderly house” in Island Park, Long Island. Nassau County investigators observed “indecent and disorderly homosexual activities,” which meant “boys dancing with other boys and girls dancing with other girls” and touching each other through their clothing at The Magic Touch, De Curtis’ bar. Using wiretaps, investigators learned that De Curtis also operated Mask, a bar on 125th Street in Manhattan that served the LGBTQ community. In 1971, a task force comprised

of the NYPD, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the IRS raided nine after-hours clubs in Manhattan. Six of the nine are either listed in LGBTQ bar guides from the time or are known to have served the LGBTQ community. Among the 28 people arrested were Paul Di Bella, a member of the Gambino crime family, his stepson Nicholas Di Martino, and Hubertus Schied, according to The New York Times. The Knapp Commission reported that Di Martino and Schied were front men for Ianniello, suggesting that there was

some cooperation among the Mafia groups. This may explain why the Stonewall was known to have been operated by the Gambinos, but owned by Ianniello. The criminal groups exploited every part of the LGBTQ community. The “Where the Girls Go” section of the Mattachine bar guide lists “The Bohemian” on Barrow Street and “Kookies” on West 14th Street as lesbian bars. In an anonymous 1967 letter to the FBI that accused Ianniello of bribing a local politician, the writer said that the mobster owned “The Bohemia” among seven clubs. Five of the seven are known to have served an LGBTQ clientele. Kookies, or “Kooky’s” according to Martin Duberman’s “Stonewall,” was run by the “fearsome” Kooky, a heterosexual woman, who had suspected “Mafia connections,” Duberman wrote. By 1973, when Kooky’s had become a go-go bar, the FBI was told that Ianniello owned it. A September 17, 1966 FBI memo says that Ianniello’s Midtown bars, the 49er and the Mardi Gras are “frequented by ‘B’ girls, prostitutes and Lesbians [sic].” B girls, or bar girls, work in what are known as bust out bars where they urge customers to spend more. An-

➤ SURVEILLANCE, continued on p.9

HISTORY

Stonewall Rioted, FBI Yawned Weeks after police raid, agent’s report takes no note of days of unrest BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

ust 10 days after a 1969 police raid on the Stonewall Inn sparked several days of rioting in the West Village, an FBI agent had news about Matthew Ianniello, the owner of that bar and a member of the Genovese crime family. “Ianniello fag or queer club operations on the Lower East Side have been virtually closed down by the NYCPD over the last month,” the agent wrote in a July 12, 1969 memo documenting two conversations with the informant. “He lost two main after hours clubs, The

Stonewall and the 123 Club were closed for illegal sale of alcohol.” The agent, whose name is blacked out in the document, either did not know of the June 1969 riots or did not think they were worth mentioning. The informant supplied the names of five other “homosexual or lesbian after hours clubs” — the 12th of Never, the Rat Race, the Tel Star, the Show Place, and the Nautilus Club. Documents contained in 1,600 pages of FBI records that Gay City News obtained under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that the bureau had been investigating

Ianniello since at least 1964 and had known since at least 1967 that he owned the Stonewall Inn. On June 17, 1968, an informant told the FBI that the 123 Club and the Stonewall, “both ‘fag’ joints… allegedly pay off heavily to NYCPD in the amount of $1500 to $1600 per month.” In a May 29, 1970 memo, an agent recounts the recent history of the Stonewall Inn from the FBI’s perspective. It was closed in 1969 for the “illegal sale of alcohol,” an agent wrote. In contacts with the State Liquor Authority, two informants, and surveillance of the bar, the agent reported no

activity. “In view of the above information indicating that the Stonewall Inn is no longer in existence, it is recommended that this case be closed administratively,” the agent wrote. An August 16, 1977 memo suggests that the FBI visited the location at least one more time. A cross reference in Ianniello’s main FBI file has a “183” code for a Racketeer, Influence and Corrupt Organizations investigation and the name “Bagel Nosh.” That is the name of the restaurant that replaced the Stonewall Inn at 53 Christopher Street.

August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

䉴

SURVEILLANCE, from p.8

other memo dated “August, 1966” refers to an unnamed woman “who is a Lesbian [sic] and hangs out with a real ‘low life’ crowd in Matty Ianniello’s bar.” The criminal groups maintained their grip on these businesses through violence, including murder and arson, directed at customers and competitors and by bribing police and State Liquor Authority investigators. In June 1968, an informant told the FBI that the Stonewall and the 123 Club “allegedly pay off heavily to NYCPD in the amount of $1500 to $1600 per month.” The Knapp Commission found that bribes ranged from a few hundred dollars a month to up to $3,000 a month for larger clubs. In 1964, Frank Hogan, then the Manhattan district attorney, convened a grand jury to conduct “an extensive investigation of a bribery conspiracy involving police and officials of the State Liquor Authority,” according to state court records. The target was Cohen. Ianniello was subpoenaed to testify and appeared twice. Ianniello claimed he could not recall being warned to stay away from a police sergeant named O’Shea because the sergeant was under investigation and he could not recall “having entertained police officers, other than a police captain, at his farm,” according to state court records. Ianniello, who owned a farm in New

GayCityNews.nyc | August 30 – September 12, 2018

PUBLIC DOMAIN

The late boxing champion Emile Griffith, as he appeared in a 1971 magazine, was identified in a 1968 FBI report as a “well-known faggot” who frequented gay clubs in Lower Manhattan.

Jersey, was convicted of criminal contempt for his false and evasive answers. A September 19, 1966 FBI memo says that a “NY State Liquor Authority (SLA) investigator,” whose name is blacked out, is “under the

control” of Ianniello and Joe Cataldo, a member of the Genovese crime family. Cataldo ran the Candy Store, “a hangout for homosexuals,” a 1967 FBI memo says. The FBI records show no sympathy for the LGBTQ community. FBI agents who authored the memos referred to the clubs as “faggot joints” and the customers as “queers.” A few of the anti-LGBTQ slurs were in quotes suggesting that the insult was used by the informant and not the agent. A notable example is a December 9, 1968 memo that discusses boxer Emile Griffith, who died in 2013. “Informant advised that Emile Griffith, the boxing luminary, is a well-known faggot (homosexual) and often frequents the ‘queer’ clubs in lower Manhattan,” the agent wrote. It was in this landscape that the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) emerged following the 1969 Stonewall riots that mark the start of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. At a meeting this year of activists who are challenging how New York City’s Pride Parade is run and how it represents the LGBTQ community, Michela Griffo, a former GLF member, noted that environment. “We risked our lives for you,” Griffo said at the town hall that was held at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center and organized by the Reclaim Pride Coalition. “The police would not protect us, the Mafia threatened to kill us.”

CRIME

Rashawn Brazell’s Accused Killer Convicted in Separate Murder Kwauhuru Govan found guilty in woman’s death year prior to gay man’s 2005 gruesome slay BY DUNCAN OSBORNE

Brooklyn man who is charged in the gruesome 2005 murder of Rashawn Brazell was found guilty of seconddegree murder in the 2004 killing of Sharabia Thomas, a 17-year-old Brooklyn resident. “Sharabia’s bravery when she fought for her life helped bring her killer to justice and he has now been held responsible for this brutal yearsold murder,” Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, said in an August 21 written statement. “Today’s verdict is a testament to the importance of my Cold Case Unit that’s working tirelessly with the NYPD to solve old crimes using the latest technology.” Kwauhuru Govan, 40, who lived in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, was arrested after the DNA in cells found under Thomas’ fingernails was matched to Govan’s DNA. Thomas’ dismembered body was discovered in two laundry bags in an alley in Bushwick. She had been strangled and beaten. Govan faces a maximum sentence of 25 years-

COURTESY: BRA ZELL FAMILY

Rashawn Brazell was 19 at the time of his 2005 murder.

to-life at his scheduled sentencing on September 7. Prosecutors can use a conviction in one case to press a defendant to plead in a second case. Defendants will agree for a number of reasons, including avoiding consecutive sentences. The Brooklyn district attorney has given no indication as to how his office will proceed in the Bra-

zell case. Govan has vehemently stated that he is innocent. Brazell, 19 at the time of his death, was gay. In June 2016, the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad and the district attorney’s Cold Case Unit matched the DNA found under Thomas’ fingernails to a sample of Govan’s DNA that was uploaded to a national DNA database following his 2014 arrest for an armed robbery in Florida. After his release from prison in Florida, he was arrested and extradited to Brooklyn. After linking Govan to Thomas, police realized that Govan lived across the street from Brazell in 2005, a law enforcement source told Gay City News last year. Police found that a bag that belonged to Govan and that had Brazell’s blood on it was recovered in the subway station where parts of Brazell’s body were discovered. There is additional evidence in the Brazell case that police would not disclose. Desire Brazell, Rashawn’s mother, has advocated for her son since his death in 2005. As often happens with cold cases, friends and family

➤ CONVICTION, continued on p.11

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August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

COMMUNITY

P-FLAG Leader Audrey Gallagher Honored Daniel Dromm’s late mother remembered with Jackson Heights street-naming BY ANDY HUMM

he was one of the cofounders, in 1993, of the Queens chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays and also one of the most beloved mothers in the borough — especially by the LGBTQ community and the Queens political establishment. Now the street where she lived in Jackson Heights has been named in her honor. On a bright, sunny Sunday August 25, they all turned out on 91st Street south of Northern Boulevard to dedicate it as Mary Audrey Gallagher Way and pay homage to a pioneering activist for civil rights, labor, and education, as bagpipes keened in the morning air in a ceremony presided over by veteran Irish gay activist Brendan Fay. The most visible advocacy by Gallagher, who died at 85 on January 4, grew out of her love for her gay activist son Daniel Dromm, now the Finance Committee chair of the New York City Council — defending him in his campaigns for justice and public office and involving herself in the larger LGBTQ movement. But she also worked as a New York City teacher and union organizer, was active in Irish culture and causes, and was a devout Catholic. Congressmember Joseph Crowley said, “I would not have been the public servant I was were it not for Audrey.” City Comptroller Scott Stringer

➤ CONVICTION, from p.10 grew increasingly angry with what was a failed investigation at the time. In 2006, the New York Post published a story that police were looking for a former neighbor of Rashawn’s less than a month before a planned event to protest the lack of progress in the investigation. “They are denying that they ever said that,” Desire told Gay City News in 2006, referring to the police quotes in the Post story. “I think

JOHN MCCARTEN/ COURTESY OF COUNCILMEMBER DROMM’S OFFICE

(Front, l. to r.) Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, Mary Beth Dromm, Councilmember Daniel Dromm, John Dromm, Kathy Dromm; (back l. to r.) Assemblymember Michael DenDekker and Congressmember Joseph Crowley.

said as the list of luminaries was read out at Queens political events, “When they heard Audrey’s name the room would erupt in applause more than for any elected official.” Borough President Melinda Katz, who has a gay brother, said, “Audrey got me to join P-FLAG in ’94 and became a big part of my life.” State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky said, “Audrey puts us Jewish mothers to shame.” Queens City Councilmember Francisco Moya said, “Every mortal will taste death, but not everyone will taste life. Audrey tasted life.” And Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer, an out gay Sunnyside resident, said, “Audrey was a mother who loved her gay son fiercely. We would not have been able to accomplish what we did without the love of our mothers.” Among the other LGBTQ leaders on hand were Melissa Sklarz, running for Assembly from Queens’

they threw this out there because of the march. The detective on the case asked me if I talked to anyone.” The Brazell case was often compared to other notorious homicides that were quickly solved by law enforcement, with advocates saying that the difference in Rashawn’s murder was attributable to his race and sexual orientation. Govan’s next appearance in the Brazell case is scheduled for September 7 before Judge Joanne Quinones, the judge who heard the Thomas case.

GayCityNews.nyc | August 30 – September 12, 2018

30th District in the September 13 primary, former State Senator Tom Duane, veteran activist Laura Morrison, and a host of activists from the borough. Dromm’s sister, Marybeth, said, “I’m proud to be my mother’s daughter and the brother of a gay man.” She spoke of her family having gone

through “a lot of tragedy,” losing their father early in life. “My mother had to raise five kids by herself and loved us totally and completely. Before the street name was unveiled, Dromm closed with a moving tribute to his mom with whom he was very close. He spoke of her love for Jackson Heights, which he represents, and for her family — keeping them together through the poverty that befell them after the death of her first husband. “She loved gay people and really wanted to be a part of the LGBT community,” Dromm said, recalling the way in which she mediated between a gay couple fighting during a Queens Winter Pride event, calming them down. He said she stood up for him when he was under attack — particularly as a public school teacher assailed by social conservatives a quarter century ago — “and for all gay people.”

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CIVIL RIGHTS

Appeals Court Finds LGBTQ Senior Housing Protections Seventh Circuit rules lesbian can challenge elder facility’s indifference, hostility BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD

federal appeals court has ruled that a lesbian resident of a senior rental facility in suburban Chicago may sue to hold the facility’s management accountable for severe harassment against her by other residents due to her sexual orientation. The August 27 ruling from a unanimous three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a decision by District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan, an appointee of President George W. Bush, to dismiss her case. The decision marks an important appellate precedent for the protection of LGBTQ people living in senior housing facilities. Marsha Wetzel moved into Glen Saint Andrew Living Community in Niles, Illinois, after her partner of 30 years died. There she has a private apartment and access to meals in a common area, and the tenant agreement requires residents to refrain from “activity that [Saint Andrew] determines unreasonably interferes with the peaceful use and enjoyment of the community by other tenants” or that is “a direct threat to the health and safety of other individuals.” Tenants who violate the agreement can be evicted by Saint Andrew. Wetzel was not closeted and spoke openly with staff and other residents about her sexual orientation when she moved in. “She was met with intolerance from many of

L AMBDA LEGAL

Marsha Wetzel prevailed at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, winning the right to pursue her claim of discrimination in the senior housing facility she lives in just outside Chicago.

them,” wrote Chief Judge Diane Wood in summarizing Wetzel’s allegations. In considering Saint Andrew’s motion to dismiss Wetzel’s case, the court considers whether her allegations, if proved at trial, would violate her rights under the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA), which forbids discrimination because of sex. Wood’s summary of Wetzel’s complaint makes for horrific reading. “Beginning a few months after Wetzel moved to Saint Andrew and continuing at least until she filed this suit (a 15-month period), residents repeatedly berated her for being a ‘fucking dyke,’ ‘fucking faggot,’ and ‘homosexual bitch,’” Wood wrote. “One resident, Robert Herr, told Wetzel that he reveled in the memory of the Orlando

massacre at the Pulse nightclub, derided Wetzel’s son for being a ‘homosexual-raised faggot,’ and threatened to ‘rip [Wetzel’s] tits off.’ Herr was the primary, but not sole, culprit. Elizabeth Rivera told Wetzel that ‘homosexuals will burn in hell.’” Wetzel’s complaint also describes physical abuse, including her being knocked off the motorized scooter she depends on to get around, spit at, and being struck from behind while residents shouted anti-gay epithets. According to her complaint, there was “brief respite” after she complained to staff, but the abuse soon resumed. “The management defendants otherwise were apathetic,” Judge Wood wrote. “They told Wetzel not to worry about the harassment, dismissed the conduct as accidental, denied Wetzel’s accounts, and branded her a liar.” Wetzel also alleges that management retaliated against her by relegating her “to a less desirable dining room location,” “barred her from the lobby except to get coffee,” and “halted her cleaning services, thus depriving her” of services guaranteed by her tenant agreement. Management also falsely accused her of smoking in her room and one Saint Andrew worker “slapped her across the face” when she denied having done so, Wetzel alleges. In what sounds like a transparent attempt

➤ SENIORS, continued on p.13

FAMILY

Lesbian Co-Parent Advance in New Jersey Mother’s partner eligible for emotional distress relief in child’s death BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD

n a significant ruling on August 17, the New Jersey Appellate Division, the state’s intermediate appeals court, expanded the range of “bystanders” who can claim relief for emotional distress caused by the negligence of others to include non-marital same-sex families. A unanimous three-judge panel — taking account of the momentous developments in public attitudes toward LGBTQ families in recent decades — ruled that a Mercer County trial judge should

not have dismissed the lesbian coparent of a young child who died in a tragic traffic incident from a lawsuit seeking relief. In 1980, the New Jersey Supreme Court first recognized, in the case of Portee v. Jaffee, that a parent who witnessed the agonizing death of her young son, trapped between an elevator’s outer doors and the wall of the elevator shaft, could sue for the emotional distress she suffered due to the negligence of the building owners and the elevator company in causing her son’s death. The courts have gradually shed

their earlier reluctance to award damages for emotional distress to people who had not themselves suffered a direct physical injury, but they have been cautious about expanding the range of such potential liability. The 1980 Portee case limited the range of bystanders eligible to seek such compensation to those in “a marital or intimate, familial relationship” with the injured party. In 1994, the State Supreme Court ruled that the fiancé of a man killed in a traffic incident, who had witnessed the vehicle strike his body and attempted to

comfort him while awaiting an ambulance, could sue the driver of the vehicle for negligent infliction of emotional distress. The court emphasized that they were cohabiting and engaged to be married at the time, concluding that this was a sufficient “familial relationship.” In the case decided on August 17, co-plaintiff Valerie Benning was standing on a street corner with her then-same-sex partner — and now spouse — I’Asia Moreland and their children. Benning and Moreland had been living togeth-

➤ BYSTANDER, continued on p.13

August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

ä&#x2030;´

SENIORS, from p.12

to set her up for an eviction for non-payment, management failed to send her the customary rentdue notice sent to all tenants, but she remembered to pay on time, â&#x20AC;&#x153;but she had to pry a receipt from management,â&#x20AC;? according to Woodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s summary of Wetzelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s complaint. After sharply curtailing her activities outside her apartment, Wetzel filed this lawsuit, alleging violations of the FHA as well as state laws that forbid sexual orientation discrimination in housing and public accommodations. Saint Andrew made no argument that the FHA does not ban sexual orientation discrimination, which is unsurprising since the Chicago-based Seventh Circuit was the nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first appellate court to rule that sexual orientation claims are a subset of sex discrimination claims under the employment antidiscrimination provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Actâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Title VII. Instead, Saint Andrew argued that the landlord cannot be held liable for discrimination by other tenants under the FHA without a showing of discriminatory animus by the landlord. The facility also argued that FHA deals with refusals to rent and does not cover â&#x20AC;&#x153;post-acquisition harassment claims.â&#x20AC;? And, Saint Andrew countered Wetzelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s retaliation claim by arguing again

â&#x17E;¤ BYSTANDER, from p.12 er for 17 months and were jointly raising Morelandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s two children born (before their relationship began) and Benningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s young godson. Benning was holding the hand of two-year-old Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Maya Moreland as they waited for a traffic signal to change in Trenton. Suddenly, a fire truck collided in the intersection with a pickup truck, and the pickup truck struck Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Maya, who was â&#x20AC;&#x153;propelledâ&#x20AC;? 65 feet south of the intersection and later died from her injuries. Benning was also knocked down, and the next thing she remembered was lying on the ground and the confused panic that ensued around her, struggling to her feet and running toward Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Maya, and hearing screams from observers of the scene, then the ambulance trip to the hospital and the

that she did not allege the facility was motivated by discriminatory animus. Judge Der-Yeghiayan agreed with the defendantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; FHA arguments and dismissed the case, opting not to separately consider Wetzelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s claims under Illinois state law. Writing for the appeals court, Judge Wood relied on Seventh Circuit cases of workplace harassment decided under Title VII. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The harassment Wetzel describes plausibly can be viewed as both severe and pervasive,â&#x20AC;? she wrote, referring to the Title VII standard. â&#x20AC;&#x153;For 15 months, she was bombarded with threats, slurs, derisive comments about her family, taunts about a deadly massacre, physical violence, and spit. The defendants dismiss this litany of abuse as no more than ordinary â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;squabblesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;bickeringâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; between â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;irascible,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;crotchety senior resident[s].â&#x20AC;&#x2122; A jury would be entitled to see the story otherwise.â&#x20AC;? The appeals panel confronted the question of whether there was a basis to impute liability to Saint Andrew for the hostile housing environment, a question new for the 7th Circuit. Here, the court borrowed from principles established under another statute, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act,

â&#x17E;¤ JUMP, continued on p.13

SLUG

â&#x17E;¤ SENIORS, continued on p.32 hysteria she suffered upon learning Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Maya was dead. The opinion quotes extensively from her deposition describing her experience and the emotional and psychological trauma she suffered. Moreland and Benning filed suit against multiple defendants, claiming a variety of damages. The Appellate Divisionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ruling involved the trial judgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decision to grant the defendantsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; motion to dismiss Benningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s claim for compensation for the emotional distress she suffered as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;bystander.â&#x20AC;? At the time of this 2009 incident, Moreland and Benning were not legally related to each other, and Benning was not legally related to Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Maya. The couple could not marry in New Jersey, though they could have registered as civil union partners.

GayCityNews.nyc | August 30 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; September 12, 2018

â&#x17E;¤ BYSTANDER, continued on p.32

! ! I

â&#x17E;¤ JUMP, continued on p.13

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BY NATHAN RILEY

eventy-two thousand overdose deaths in the US is the latest Centers for Disease Control Prevention estimate for 2017. It’s a huge number: more deaths than AIDS took in any single year. Beyond referring vaguely to increasing support for a “public health” response, a recent New York Times story largely blamed substances more than policies for this painful failure. But drug war opponents do blame policies — those of the criminal justice system. It’s called the iron law of prohibition: the greater the intensity of law enforcement, the higher the potency of the drug targeted. A former director of NORML, Richard Cowan, summed it up this way: “the harder the enforcement, the harder the drugs.” When alcohol was prohibited, beer and wine disappeared and the bootleggers made booze often described with gallows humor as “bathtub gin” — industrial alcohol mixed with flavoring in a tub that on occasion poisoned the drinkers. Today the poison is fentanyl ordered on the Internet from China and delivered in packages like the thousands of other items. The kick this drug adds to heroin and, most recently, to stimulants like methamphetamine and cocaine is an example of the iron law. None of these drugs is made with any protections for the consumer. Different policies could produce different results. In 2015, the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction published comparative statistics on overdose fatalities. Portugal, which decriminalized all drug use in 2001 — meaning drug users and their street-level suppliers no longer fear arrest or police intrusions — had three overdose deaths for every million citizens. The second lowest rate. Clearly decriminalization has not caused the disasters — increased use, the endangering of children — that the prohibitionists warn will happen if police are replaced by public health officials. The European average overdose deaths per million was 17.3. The United Kingdom was way above av-

erage at 44.6, while for the Dutch it was 10.2 In the United States, using a different statistical base employed by the United Nations Office of Drug Control, in 2015 the death rate was 245.8 per million people between the ages of 15 and 64. August 31 is International Drug Overdose Awareness Day, and the United States, while pledging to increase treatment and access to overdose prevention medicines, is also stepping up police enforcement. No less than Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, writing in the New York Times this week, is condemning safer consumption spaces where users can legally take drugs under the watchful eye of health professionals, who may be able to connect them with treatment options. The iron law of prohibition suggests that increasing the intensity of law enforcement and implementing tolerant public health measures will conflict and likely create worse public health problems. The current problem in the US can usefully be examined using this lens. In 2000, when doctor prescriptions for pharmaceutical opioids were high and before warnings spread that OxyContin caused addiction, the pills were easily diverted from their prescribed use. But 20-20 hindsight today reveals that opioid-related overdoses remained relatively low during this era. As restrictions on pharmaceutical supplies increased, overdose deaths started to spike. The overdose deaths examined in 2000 were traced to pharmaceutical pills; by 2010, pharmaceuticals were a declining cause while heroin was on its way up. People who formerly depended on pills had become injecting heroin users. In 2000, deaths from fentanyl were virtually nonexistent. By 2017, it was the major problem — and what’s worse, fentanyl is now mixed with meth and cocaine, making these stimulants surprise killers. This is the paradox of the iron law, when pharmaceutical pills were easily found, there were overdoses, but historical trends make clear that the level of overdoses deaths were low and public health measures could have kept this number down without police involvement.

Today, the drug war is renewed by alarm over overdose deaths. Sheila Vakharia, PhD, a policy expert at the Drug Policy Alliance, reports that stimulants are a growing cause of overdose deaths. In an email, she wrote that the CDC’s latest national overdose data — for the period between December 2015 and December 2017 — show that “cocaine-involved overdose deaths went from 6,841 to 14,058 (over doubled) and methamphetamine-involved deaths went from 5,777 to 10,523 (80+-percent increase).” In New York State over the same period, she continued, “cocaineinvolved overdose deaths went from 354 to 690 (almost double — 95 percent increase) and methamphetamine went from 36 to 133 (269 percent increase!!).” This problem is not going away. What should have been done in 2000 — when it was discovered that pharmaceuticals were being used by drug users — was an intensive education campaign about how to recover from overdoses and instruction on how to minimize harm from using the pills. A long-range strategy would also have looked at why these pills were becoming attractive to users while regulators attacked the false advertising of Purdue Pharma. One reason for the increase in addiction is that users thought the pills were safer than injecting heroin. That perception was correct, but it was easy for the government to control the supply of these pills and as they became more scarce, users started injecting heroin. In time, dealers began cutting heroin with fentanyl and then we really saw deaths explode — eventually reaching the 72,000 figure we saw last year. Criminalizing a person’s intimate habits is a bad idea. It can even be fatal. Let me conclude with a great leap of faith. Opposing the prosecution of users and their dealers is something conventional politicians like Andrew Cuomo support only reluctantly, while less practiced politicians like Cynthia Nixon and Zephyr Teachout are proving to be open-minded about how to address drug use in society. Their inexperience might well be an asset. Let’s hope others learn from them. August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

PERSPECTIVE: Insider Trading

LGBTQ Rights in Brooklyn, Back Then ready to take on the president. I think Engel should stop speaking if he has nothing intelligent to say… Crickets.

BY ALLEN ROSKOFF

fter ruffling some feathers with my take on the state of affairs for the LGBTQ community in the Bronx, let’s move over to Brooklyn with a “then and now” look. This column will reminisce on the “then.” In 1971, four city councilmembers — one from Brooklyn and three from Manhattan — introduced the nation’s first gay rights bill. Councilmember Leonard Skolnik represented Brooklyn Heights and was an original sponsor. With the addition of new names on the bill in 1974, things really started to get interesting. The bill passed in committee by a 7-1 vote but was defeated on the floor 2219. Monroe “Mac” Cohen, a sponsor of the bill who represented the Mill Basin and Marine Park areas, voted against it, claiming he was pressured by police and firefighters in his district. Sam Horwitz, another sponsor, also voted no. In Horwitz’s case, he claimed that Buddy Beame, Mayor Abe Beame’s son, threatened him with a primary if he voted for the bill. The mayor was against the bill, though his wife, Mary, was for it because she thought her hairdresser deserved his rights. Good for you, Mary. Luis Olmedo, an advocate for the bill, voted no at the request of Thomas Cuite. Olmedo wound up in serving time for extortion. Sam Wright abstained and also wound up serving time for extortion. Bad things do happen to bad people. Howard Golden, who later became borough president, was a no vote on the Council and extremely homophobic. Brooklynite William Thompson, Sr., was dead set against the bill and his position was non-negotiable. His son, William (Bill) Thompson, Jr., who later became city comptroller and ran a close race against Michael Mike Bloomberg in 2009, was a fierce advocate for gay rights. Bill tells me that his father (who later became a judge) regretted ever being against gay rights and has performed gay weddings. Then there was Leon Katz, a notorious landlord who hated us. Ted

A flyer activists used in their battle against Council Majority Leader Thomas Cuite of Brooklyn over the city gay rights law.

Silverman was a loud “no,” though his wife (who was also his chief of staff) was a loud “yes” — but, alas, she had no vote. Silverman’s campaign manager, Bernie Catcher, a Brooklyn legend and deeply closeted, came out to Silverman on Yom Kippur pleading with him to vote aye. Silverman wouldn’t budge. Bernie was part of a group called The Study Group, which was comprised of out gay political activists as well as influential gay people in government and politics, many of whom would only work behind the scenes and remained closeted. It was the 1970s and people were afraid of being ostracized by their families and being unemployable, but they still wanted to be helpful. Brooklyn had its share of closest cases: Former Council President Carol Bellamy; Allard Lowenstein, who ran for Congress in Brooklyn; and Fred Richmond, who after a stint in the City Council served in Congress from January 1975 to August 1982. Richmond was arrested in Washington for soliciting sex from a 16-year-old boy. In 1982, Richmond was convicted on federal corruption charges. As a result, he resigned from office. By a long measure, the gay community’s greatest nemesis was Brooklyn’s Thomas Cuite, who represented Red Hook. As a com-

GayCityNews.nyc | August 30 – September 12, 2018

mitted Catholic, Cuite was the singular reason the gay rights bill did not pass during his reign as Council majority leader, who then played the role the speaker has since the 1989 Charter Reform. Meade Esposito, the Brooklyn county leader, was committed to the bill’s passage and would have me in his office while he called in numerous councilmembers to lobby them. Days before a vote on the bill, I was in his office meeting privately and he asked me in his gravelly voice what else he could do. I said call The New York Times and tell them you say the bill must pass. He got reporter Frank Lynn on the line and said, “Frank, front page tomorrow, Meade Esposito says the gay rights bill must pass.” It was on the front page the next day. Next column: the Brooklyn of today. Odds and Ends New York City’s most irrelevant member of Congress, Eliot Engel, recently offered his trademark blah blah blah about the race for state attorney general. “I don’t think we should pick an attorney general specifically to go after Trump,” he said when asked last week if he thought the candidates currently in the field were

If you opened up Webster’s Dictionary and looked up the word, “sleazeball,” by all rights you should be able to find a familiar name: Bronx State Senator Jeff Klein. Klein formed the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), which allowed him and other fake Democrats to caucus with the Republican minority to keep control of the body. As a result, there have been no LGBTQ-related pieces of legislation passed, no Dream Act, no strengthening of abortion rights laws, and no new tenant protections. Klein recently sent out a mailing referring to the city comptroller and City Council speaker as “Manhattan Elite” as a way to diminish their support of his rival, Alessandra Biaggi, whom he curiously charged was “parading” herself with Scott Stringer and Corey Johnson. Interesting dog whistle… um, choice of words. The true candidate of the socalled Manhattan Elite is Jeff Klein. Just follow the money. I wonder how Bronx voters will feel knowing that their famously transactional state senator is in the pockets of slumlords who live in Manhattan. The only thing more conspicuous than Jeff Klein’s fake tan is the dirty money he takes from real estate. All of the so-called Democratic senators who belonged to the IDC must be defeated. On a recent visit to Palm Springs, California, I met with some local gay activists. I marvel at how Palm Springs has changed from 30 years ago when I first started visiting there. Back then it was totally Republican: congressmember, mayor, and other local electeds. Now Raul Ruiz, a Democrat, is in Congress, Mayor Robert Moon is gay, as were the two previous mayors — including Mayor Ron Oden, one of a few openly black gay politicians in the US. The five-member City Council is entirety LGBTQ and all Democratic. Viva la Palm Springs!

PERFORMANCE

Dream Weavers Lady Bunny, Neil Patrick Harris drag Wigstock into the 2.HO era was an article in The New York Times that mentioned RuPaul is not scheduled to perform at Wigstock this year and that there was a bit of a rivalry between RuPaul and me. Honey, first of all, if there’s a rivalry, he’s clearly winning hands-down! But to say we have a rivalry? That was the same day RuPaul launched his podcast with me… When you’re friends with someone since your early 20s, and roommates for, you know, a decade? That’s not a rivalry… And I mean I do things with the “Drag Race” queens all the time. I did that “Werq the World” tour twice, affiliated with World of Wonder, the production company of “Drag Race.” Last year, I played Cardiff, in Wales, twice. And I’ve never played there before. And I go on tours with these girls, because such a fever has been created around drag. So that’s what’s been gained.

BY SCOTT STIFFLER airstyles come and go, fake eyelashes eventually lose their grip, and even the fiercest foundation fades with time. But showbiz survivor Lady Bunny is digging her heels in and seeding the field for things to come — by bringing a “2.HO” relaunch of her iconic Wigstock gathering to South Street Seaport’s Pier 17 on Saturday, September 1. There, in a classy, one and a half-acre rooftop venue standing in stark contrast to Wigstock’s gritty Tompkins Square Park roots, audiences will see a seven-hour, all-star lineup of veteran and contemporary drag talent serving an “outrageous and unapologetically entertainmentrich show” co-produced by, among others, none other than “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” alum Neil Patrick Harris. Word of Wigstock’s return spread on social media several weeks ago faster than a flame that’s just come into contact with Aqua Net — and, just as quickly, proud press whore Lady Bunny gave consent to fill a hole in her schedule for a phone interview at the ungodly hour of 8 a.m. Coffee in hand, she spilled the tea on everything from Donald Trump to makeup tutorials to manufactured rivalries, all before heading out to Fire Island for a solo gig (“Pig in a Wig”).

SCOTT STIFFLER: Why bring Wigstock back at this particular point? LADY BUNNY: When Wigstock originally started, gay people were scared. People were dropping like flies from AIDS. I was probably 22, and I wasn’t very politically involved. I was certainly no mastermind like Larry Kramer or any of the other people who formed ACT UP and fought so bravely. I couldn’t conceive of a die-in outside of a church. It just wasn’t in my DNA — but what I could do is be a clown and throw a party and make people who had not succumbed to AIDS enjoy themselves.

JONATHAN BAYME

Bosom buddies Lady Bunny and Neil Patrick Harris are among the busy brains behind the relaunch of Wigstock.

I could bring everyone together and remind us that we are still alive and we can banish some of the darkness that AIDS brought, by having a silly celebration. And I think, in a similar way, I was very involved in slogging it out with my dearest friends during that very, very long primary leading up to the [2016] election. The election had, of course, what I feel to be the worst outcome, although I didn’t like either of the choices… and I think that we really are in a malaise. We’re stunned. And I won’t liken Trump to AIDS, but let’s just say that we could use a party now, too. STIFFLER: How has the culture changed in terms of embracing drag — and in its mainstreaming, what have we gained? LADY BUNNY: We’ve gained a

lot of people who are interested in drag. We’ve also gained lot of drag personalities from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” who are phenomenally talented, like Bianca Del Rio, Jinkx Monsoon, Latrice Royale, Bob the Drag Queen, and Willam — and it just so happens that they’re all performing at Wigstock. So, I mean, it put drag on the map in a big way. And I, as an associate of RuPaul’s, have been mentioned on the show, so I benefit from the mainstreaming… It’s great. Sometimes Ru will make a joke about me and people say, “Oh girl, he read you last night.” And I’m, like, “You can’t make a joke about somebody on a national TV show unless they’re somewhat known.” And if they don’t know, they can Google it… This is what I think is funny: People want to pit drag queens against each other. There

STIFFLER: Has there been anything lost because of the mainstreaming? LADY BUNNY: Of course. We did an annual comedy show called “Queens of Comedy” at the Castro in San Francisco and the show was popular. We did it for several years and they would add an early show and ask us to keep our act clean because kids came to the early show — and, for someone who cut their drag teeth in late night gay bars, I was always encouraged to do things that were filthy, outrageous, kooky. Definitely not tasteful. So that was a bit of a culture shock. And then I did one of those big “RuPaul’s Drag Race” queen roundup shows… And everyone in the front row were young women, like 15 and up. I said, “Wow, this is wild, the front rows of drag shows are women?” And they said, “Yeah, they’re the ones who buy the merchandise. They’re our biggest fans.” Now part of me misses hanging out with women, because I

➤ WIGSTOCK 2.HO, continued on p.25

August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

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FILM

The Suicide Vests of Cherbourg Dennis Cooper, Zac Farley talk about their “Permanent Green Light” BY STEVE ERICKSON ennis Cooper has left an impressive mark on gay fiction, with his George Miles cycle and five subsequent novels. In the past two years, he’s turned to screenwriting in collaboration with French director Zac Farley, making “Like Cattle Towards Glow” and “Permanent Green Light.” Cooper’s writing has been unfairly stereotyped by its surface interest in sex, violence, and drugs, which has led to readers and observers to overlook its emotional content and the way he’s used these subjects to explore both form — especially in a prose style that attempts to capture the vernacular speech of American youth — and questions about identity. (His novel “The Sluts,” which mostly plays out on an online forum whose members are obsessed with a mysterious hustler, seems like a premonition of the age of “fake news” and trolling.) Although “Like Cattle Towards Glow” drew in part from his writing and used English dialogue — while Cooper now lives in Paris, he doesn’t speak French — “Permanent Green Light” focuses on a group of teenagers in the city of Cherbourg who hang around wearing suicide vests, without having any particular ideology or connection to terrorism. Despite the potentially charged subject matter, it’s a delicate and even gentle view of youth, with hushed sound design. Cooper and Farley will present it at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on September 5, followed by a screening of Philippe Grandrieux’s excellent film “Un Lac.” The next day, they will give a talk followed by James Benning’s experimental feature “Landscape Suicide.” Gay City News spoke to both men recently.

STEVE ERICKSON: Dennis, you’re in the fairly unusual position of having your film script produced in your 60s after a long career writing novels, which you seem to have

MPM PREMIUM

A scene from Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley’s “Permanent Green Light.”

given up in favor of filmmaking. What inspired you to explore film? DENNIS COOPER: Well, I wrote a bunch of scripts all through the years that were never made. None of the projects ever happened. Zac and I were working on various projects together. I wanted to make this porn film. No one would make it ‘cause it was too weird. This producer, Jürgen Brüning, wanted to read the script. I said to Zac, “Do you want to think about doing this with me?” So we revised the script and the producer said yes. There was an opportunity to make this film for $40,000, as an experiment. Zac had already made videos. There was no sense at this point that we would end up making films as a series, it was more like, “Let’s try this weird project, like other things we’ve been thinking about.” We were happy enough with it that I ended up wanting to make films. I don’t think about them as screenplays, which we write together, even though that’s what they are. I don’t know about the form. It’s more like writing for theater, which I’ve been doing for a long time. It’s the language part of a larger project. ERICKSON: You’ve also worked in a very collaborative context. At the beginning of “Permanent Green Light,” it says “un film de Dennis Cooper et Zac Farley,” but then it breaks that down to “co-written by Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley” and

GayCityNews.nyc | August 30 – September 12, 2018

“directed by Zac Farley.” COOPER: It’s totally a collaborative project, but one of Zac’s strengths is visual. Mine is writing. Zac listens to what I have to say, but his end is visual style. We write together, but I do most of it because that’s my thing. It’s not delegated. We do everything together from beginning to end. I end up being the one who does most of the writing, but I don’t think about it like I’m the screenwriter and he’s the director at all. I trust him on the visuals. I took a couple filmmaking classes in college and realized I have no gift for visualizing narrative, although I have ideas about it. Zac and I are really on the same wavelength. I know that whatever he wants to do is exactly what I’d want to do. But I’m always there, saying, “What about this angle?” ERICKSON: There are a very few music selections: Thomas Brinkmann, Destroyer, and Pig Destroyer. I know what a big Destroyer fan you are from your blog, but how did you decide on those choices? They carry extra weight because the film’s so silent for long stretches. COOPER: We had precise moments where there would be music. All of it would be heard by the characters. There was nothing loud added on by us as filmmakers. We knew early on we wanted to use the Destroyer song. Luckily, Dan [Bejar, the singer /songwriter behind the Destroyer] let us use it. I

knew there would be a scene with a girl with a heavy metal song. We wanted an electronic track that was not danceable. We both loved this Thomas Brinkmann song, and he said okay. I knew Pig Destroyer liked my work, so they said okay too. ZAC FARLEY: I got really obsessed with the Brinkmann track. It has all these silences in it. The performer who dances to it figured it out within the silences. It’s very complicated, and I found it very exciting. COOPER: We didn’t want a score. That would’ve been very ugly. ERICKSON: Your film has been compared to “Nocturama.” That seems very lazy. I think that’s just because of the characters wearing suicide vests. People are likely to think of terrorism, though, especially because it’s set in France. If the film was made in America, I think people would think of school shootings. Your film actually reminded me of North American films like “Over the Edge” and “Out of the Blue” and a sort of nihilism that came into teen pop culture with punk. Were you thinking about that at all? COOPER: I like “Over the Edge” a lot. I don’t think it’s a nihilist film; I think it’s utopian. Roman’s a magician. He’s like David Blaine. He wants to create this spectacle that’s so amazing that people will be blown away. Committing his life to this act is a way to make the event of his disappearance even more spectacular. I was always thinking about that. In the end, it acknowledges that it didn’t work and his friends are fucked-up. His reference point is this guy who disappeared without a trace. But he doesn’t have any resources so he ends up deciding to explode himself because it’s practical. ERICKSON: I thought about the way teenagers can flippantly flirt

➤ CHERBOURG, continued on p.28

FILM

Poignantly Quiet Desperation Terence Davies’ “Distant Voices, Still Lives,” restored, gets a revival BY GARY M. KRAMER 4K restoration of out gay filmmaker Terence Davies’ landmark 1988 feature debut “Distant Voices, Still Lives” gets a week-long run at the Metrograph starting August 31. The film, a bleak and lyrical drama, tells the story of a working class family in 1950s Liverpool in two parts. The first half, “Distant Voices,” features the death of the father (Pete Postlewaite) and how his wife (Freda Dowie), and children, Eileen (Angela Walsh), Tony (Dean Williams), and Maisie (Lorraine Ashbourne), remember him. The second half, “Still Lives,” which is set and shot two years later, focuses on the children getting married and, in some cases, starting their own families. The filmmaker based the story on his own family and memories, though there is no queer content; Tony is straight. The film is actually the second in Davies’ autobiographical trilogy, preceded by “Trilogy,” a compilation of three shorts — “Children” (1976), “Madonna and Child” (1980), and “Death and Transfiguration” (1983) — and followed, in 1992, by the feature “The

BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE

Freda Dowie, Dean Williams, Angela Walsh, and Lorraine Ashbourne in Terence Davies’ “Distant Voices, Still Lives.”

Long Day Closes.” Davies shoots “Distant Voices, Still Lives” in a sepia-tone that conveys both a sense of nostalgia and emphasizes how colorless the characters’ lives are. The filmmaker uses still shots and pregnant pauses to create a tableau that emphasizes just how stifling it was to be part of this family. The feel is palpable and relentless. Davies offers brief moments of release by having the characters sing to escape their troubles.

Music not only triggers the characters’ memories, but it also provides a way for them to express their emotions. The film’s dozen-plus songs — some sung by characters, other heard on the soundtrack — are all effectively employed. When the family matriarch is hanging out of a window she is cleaning, she recalls the reasons for marrying her husband as Ella Fitzgerald sings, “Taking a Chance on Love.” However, as the song continues to play, her husband’s abusive behavior is shown, delivering a powerful counter-message. Likewise, during a tense air raid, the family and neighbors gather in a shelter, where young Eileen is asked to sing. Her thin voice warbles “Roll Out the Barrel,” an ironic contrast to the fear everyone is experiencing. The first half of “Distant Voices, Still Lives” depicts the physical, psychic, and emotional abuse the father inflicted on the family. Maisie must scrub the cellar floor if she wants to go to a dance, and Dad denies Tony’s request to have a drink with him. When Eileen wants to take

➤ DISTANT VOICES, continued on p.23

Apocalypse Any Day Now “Prototype” is an adventurous embellishment on weather porn BY STEVE ERICKSON 63-minute 3D non-narrative film inspired by a hurricane’s impact on Texas, Blake Williams’ “Prototype” is undoubtedly going to be the most adventurous film to get a theatrical release in New York this year (even if it’s telling that this is happening at a museum). So far Abbas Kiarostami’s “24 Frames” is its only real competition. “Prototype” does conjure up precursors: the images of beautifully horrific oil well fires in Werner Herzog’s “Lessons of Darkness,” Ken Jacobs’ use of 3D to explore the past in an avant-garde context, and the many TV reporters who have braved extreme weather — assaulted by wind and water as they clutch a microphone and struggle to maintain their balance — to give firsthand takes on it. Its powerful scenes of

GRASSHOPPER FILM

A scene from Blake Williams’ “Prototype.”

racing storms and waves even have connections to Hollywood and Asian action cinema. But “Prototype” aims for both abstraction and a recognition that it’s describing something real about our culture. It’s tempting to give this film an eco-political reading. After all, it kicks off with a grounding in genu-

ine history, showing still photos of people and property damaged by a 1900 Galveston hurricane in its first few minutes. But it has a posthumanist streak: “Prototype” leaves people off-screen after that and instead foregrounds the screens through which we increasingly see the world. It’s self-aware enough to

keep reminding the spectator of the whole history of TV and cinema, with boxy screens reminiscent of very old televisions placed within the frame. Williams does not exactly use split screens; instead, the spatial freedom offered by 3D allows him to place screens on top of each other. “Prototype” relies on superimposition and juxtaposition, where ambiguous images interact in dialogue. More than most films, its visual style interacts closely with sound design. Williams — who is responsible for every role in the credits except production — created a mixture of wind and sea effects and electronic drones. “Prototype” smashes together the past, present, and future. The awful weather depicted in Hollywood sci-fi films like Roland Emmerich’s 2004 “The Day After Tomorrow” no longer

➤ PROTOTYPE, continued on p.23

August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

â&#x17E;¤ DISTANT VOICES, from p.22 work in a resort with her friends, he makes her feel such guilt that she fights back tears on the way to the job. These painful moments are all artfully composed and beautifully acted. Daviesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; accomplishment is that he can communicate so much by showing so little. The impressionistic approach packs a tremendous emotional punch. One of the few tranquil moments has the three young children spying on their father as he sings and whistles â&#x20AC;&#x153;When Irish Eyes are Smilingâ&#x20AC;? while grooming a horse. A scene late in the film illustrates Daviesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; skill in creating meaning by juxtaposing contrasting images. As

â&#x17E;¤ PROTOTYPE, from p.22 seems like a vision of our possible destiny the way it did in the recent past. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more like our literal day after tomorrow: just ask a resident of Puerto Rico or their close relatives here in New York. The futuristic overtones of this film are weirdly but deliberately

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Love Is a Many Splendored Thingâ&#x20AC;? plays on the soundtrack and cinemagoers are crying at the film of the same name, Davies cuts to an image of two men falling through space and through windows. The scene is as gorgeous and stark as it is violent, but this is a film full of beauty, starkness, and violence. It is then revealed that one of the men is Maisieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s husband, George (Vincent Maguire). He has fallen off scaffolding and is now in a hospital recovering, producing more tears for the family. Even Tonyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wedding is a somber affair: there is nary a smile among the handful of guests or even the couple, which is oddly ominous. All of this is not to say the film

lacks bright moments, but most of them are courtesy of Micky (Debi Jones), Eileenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s friend who can sweet talk Eileenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s father into letting Eileen go to a dance or beg for five more minutes to have a cigarette outside the door at curfew. Micky displays a vivacity lacking in the rest of the characters, and her rendition of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Buttons and Bowsâ&#x20AC;? is a highlight. But there seems to be a pall cast over her life, as well, as she and Eileen, talking outside a pub one night, realize that their close friendship may become more distant now that they are both married and at the mercy of their husbands. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an especially poignant moment in a film full of powerful scenes. One of the most intense episodes

has the father ruining Christmas dinner in spectacular fashion, destroying the meal and then insisting his wife clean up the mess. Watching him suddenly seethe with rage and then act on it is starkly upsetting. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Distant Voices, Still Livesâ&#x20AC;? may be airless at many moments, but it delivers an emotionally authenticity despite it deliberate, even artificial staging. Daviesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; talent is to make viewers feel every one of its harsh moments.

dated. It treats the spectator like a disaster flaneur: a lengthy sequence around the 45-minute mark evokes the POV of a driver along a bridge high above a turbulent sea. Williamsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; sensibility is far from narrative-oriented, but it calls up J.G. Ballardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s many novels and stories in which men find their existential destiny in natural environments ex-

periencing ecological disaster. The popularity of apocalyptic and dystopian tales defines the current moment in American culture â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the appeal of Huluâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s TV adaptation of â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Handmaidâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Taleâ&#x20AC;? to a significant percentage of its audience clearly lies in the sense that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s describing a world thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just a step away and that we could easily

find ourselves living in. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Prototypeâ&#x20AC;? does not present itself as that kind of well-meaning warning. Instead, it implicitly acknowledges its own schadenfreude. Williams obviously took a great deal of delight in creating these images of catastrophe. On some level, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Prototypeâ&#x20AC;? is a

â&#x17E;¤ PROTOTYPE, continued on p.24

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FILM

Never All That Great Ambitious but stunted film tackles ackles history hist of American xenophobia BY STEVE ERICKSON n his novel “Requiem For a Nun,” William Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” That quote is now too famous for director Robert Greene to use an epigraph for his hybrid non-fiction film “Bisbee ’17,” but it’s a very fitting way to describe a movie whose imagery suggests an American version of the Holocaust tied together with premonitions of our contemporary disastrous xenophobia. The title refers to an Arizona town “celebrating” the 100th anniversary of an event in 1917 when 2,000 immigrant miners — mostly Latino, but also Eastern European — in Bisbee were forced into a freight train and sent to starve to death in the New Mexico desert for the crime of organizing into a union. Greene’s model seems to be the radical Britishborn director Peter Watkins. I’m sure this was conscious on Greene’s part, since he’s said his favorite film is Watkins’ “Edvard Munch.” Watkins cast his work with non-professional actors who shared the political views of the characters they played, and Greene continues this process: he works with people with whom he obviously disagrees strongly. The concept of the desert death march evokes Watkins’ “Punishment Park,” even if it really took place. Actors constantly find connections to the real histories of their families: one sees the name of his late father outside an abandoned mine. The gay Mexican-American actor Fernando Serrano, who becomes the most central person “Bisbee ‘17” settles on, relates to the story because his mother was deported back to Mexico on drug charges when he was a child. “Bisbee ‘17” embarks on a revision of the kind of historical recreation that leads other people to restage Civil War battles in parks. In fact, the town of Bisbee is very close to both Tombstone and the Mexican border, and Greene consciously offers a revisionist version of the spectacles of American history frequently staged around the country. If conventional historical reenactments

➤ PROTOTYPE, from p.23 much better crafted, imaginative, and formally complex version of the “weather porn” compilations aired on several cable TV channels. Williams does not shy away from spectacle or offering the viewer pleasure. But he does not let the spectator find easy footing in his film. Is “Prototype” a documentary about

JARRED ALTERMAN/ 4TH ROW FILMS

Fernando Serrano in Robert Greene’s “Bisbee ’17,” which opens September 5 at the Film Forum.

show men pretending to be outlaws firing blanks into each other in the middle of the street, the film does something much more ambitious. In the process of making “Bisbee ’17,” Greene tries to force the residents of Bisbee to confront their town’s ugly history and the spectators of his film to learn about this forgotten chapter of America’s past and think about its connection to the nastiness of our present moment. I have the unpopular opinion that Greene’s last film, “Kate Plays Christine,” is his weakest (although he’s disowned his debut, “Owning the Weather,” as too conventional and impersonal), but it’s unsatisfying and frustrating by design. The tale of the making of a narrative film about TV news anchor Christine Chubbuck, who blew her brains out live on air in the early ‘70s, it offers scenes of casting and rehearsal, but its true agenda is demonstrating the impossibility of telling Chubbuck’s story and even the failure of basic empathy. The film suggests that it’s futile, voyeuristic, and implicitly sadistic to try representing states of depression and suicidal thoughts, especially when a male director and cinematographer are filming a female actor. “Bisbee ‘17” plays its funny games in a far friendlier and more accessible, but still pointed, way. In a bravura long take, Serrano (dressed in period costume) seemingly walks from the present into the past, going to a smoke-filled stage

the 1900 Galveston hurricane, a depiction of a fictional future storm, or an exploration of abstract imagery inspired by such weather? All of these ideas occurred to me while watching it, but none seems adequate. It’s hardly a conventional political film, but it is anything but removed from the world we live in. In that, it evokes Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s “Leviathan.” Those directors deny any

as he announces his name and his role in the film. Other actors also introduce themselves to the camera. Here, Greene is interested in a different kind of hybrid: juxtaposing the past and present, and the facts of that past with the fiction he’s creating now. The difference is that this fiction is relatively convincing. Greene proves that he could direct a fairly good conventional period piece if he wanted to, although he obviously doesn’t. For a film with radical aims, “Bisbee ‘17” winds up being rather reassuring. It never mentions Donald Trump’s name once, but the parallels between the violent behavior of the men in power in 1917 and those of our current leaders are impossible to miss. But most of the tragedy it depicts belongs to the past. Near the end, someone describes the film’s project by saying, “This is like the largest group therapy session.” Greene dodges the ethical issues that come with films that fictionalize the Holocaust or other massive historical tragedies by constantly having his actors talk to the audience as themselves and remind us that we’re watching some highly mediated mix of documentary and narrative. Hell, there’s even a musical number. But “Bisbee ‘17” leaves Serrano stranded between two worlds. At the end, I felt that it could have delved much further. Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing,” in which Indonesians who killed “communists” with their government’s blessing and suffered no consequences reenact their murders in cinema, takes on a similar project of re-creation, and it’s so bleak that it’s almost unwatchable. “Bisbee ‘17” deals with violence that’s 100 years in the past, not within its subjects’ lifetimes, and that distance may be partially responsible for a film that works more on a conceptual level than as an engagement with American history’s own bleakness. BISBEE ’17 | Directed by Robert Greene | In English and Spanish with English subtitles | 4th Row Films | Opens Sep. 5 | Film Forum, 209 W. Houston St. | filmforum.org

agenda but nevertheless made a far more powerful depiction of humanity’s destruction of the sea and its fish than more overtly ideologically driven docs like “The Cove.” “Prototype” shows a creative potential in 3D that mainstream cinema has squandered, with exceptions like Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” and Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity,” just so that it can add a few more dollars to ticket prices. But afterwards, one

might have second thoughts about what its pleasures stem from, and these qualms seem built into them. It will be perfect entertainment when the next superstorm heads toward New York. PROTOTYPE | Directed by Blake Williams | Grasshopper Film | Aug. 31-Sep. 9 | Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Ave., Astoria | movingimage.us

August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

ä&#x2030;´

WIGSTOCK 2.HO, from p.16

got my start in rock clubs like the Pyramid and others in Atlanta that were extremely mixed, and then went on to work in clubs like Limelight and Palladium â&#x20AC;&#x201D; mixed clubs. So I always enjoyed having girls around, and now itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s come full circle. During the Circuit years, girls did not mingle much with gays that much. It was hard beats and hard bodies, you know, maybe a few â&#x20AC;&#x201D; can we still say fag hag and fruit fly? So that part, I actually like. However, these 15-year-old girls, they know zero gay subtext and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not going to possibly appreciate a joke about a yeast infection, which would send audiences in a gay bar into a tizzy. But any performer has to somewhat tailor their show to an audience, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just common sense. And I think one of the other things thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been lost is the kind of drag that inspired me to do Wigstock, which is kind of quirky and offbeat â&#x20AC;&#x201D; definitely not as polished. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m seeing drag turn into a, like, status symbol kind of thing where, ooh, you have to have this quality of lace front wigs, and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m like, â&#x20AC;&#x153;No, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t. I skip money on Botox on my forehead and I wear bangs that go right down to my eyebrows, which I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even pluck.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;ŚEvery queen is making these makeup tutorials, where they not only hold up every product after they apply it, but they smirk, as if to say, â&#x20AC;&#x153;He, he, he, I can afford this product.â&#x20AC;? But for me, getting whatever I could get from a thrift shop that was made for a woman and fit me, it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t about the polish. It was never about spending hours conceiving of a look. It was the spirit you brought that to the party, the dancing, the lip-syncing, the singing. My crowd, my kind of queen, is less polished. Makeup is what you do before you get on the stage. If you spend five hours on your makeup and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve got nothing to do on the stage except look like your makeup is gorgeous? To me, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dull, because drag is performance-oriented. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d rather see someone with [less than perfect] applied makeup and a cheap wig tear up a number. But for Wigstock, I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t book any who are what they call â&#x20AC;&#x153;look

queensâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; I mean, Bianca Del Rio does both. Her makeup is incredible, her wigs she does herself, her costumes she makes herself, but she had an act before she went on â&#x20AC;&#x153;Drag Race.â&#x20AC;? And I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t typically tell queens what to perform at Wigstock. I mean, of course, I might say so-and-so is doing an extremely similar number â&#x20AC;&#x201D; might you want to change that? Sometimes I will guide them or make suggestions, but sometimes their own suggestions are better than mine. There are some queens, like Lypsinka, whom I would never dare to suggest anything to [laughs]. But what was the actual question [laughs]? Because thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s one other point that my coffee haze is trying to bubble through. STIFFLER: I think youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve covered it. Talk about your role in this relaunch. LADY BUNNY: Apparently, executive producing. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be emceeing and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all working together and making decisions on everything from props to lighting to ticket sales to whatever. We had a location, which fell through. It was in Brooklyn. We all loved it, but we didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get it. But we actually found a better location, which is the exquisite Pier 17. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so nice, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m afraid they may not let some of the performers in. Diana Ross and Gladys Knight will be performing there in the fall â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and honey, if itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good enough for them, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good enough for Big Bad Bunn.

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WEAR IT!

STIFFLER: How did co-producer Neil Patrick Harris get on board? LADY BUNNY: We had originally discussed some sort of reality TV show, which was about the reviving of Wigstock and how it would culminate with a two-hour episode of the festival. That idea languished for quite awhileâ&#x20AC;Ś We were trying to make it kind of a semiscripted thing with silly ideas, like Neil didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really want to help me organize Wigstock, that he wanted to get into my panties. We worked on it and it kind of morphed into, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Why donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t we just do a festival instead, and make a documentary?â&#x20AC;? And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing. WIGSTOCK | South Street Seaportâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Pier 17 | Sep. 1, 3-10 p.m. | $95-$1,000 at wigstock.nyc.

GayCityNews.nyc | August 30 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; September 12, 2018

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THEATER

Working It A wonderfully silly musical and an imperfect but satisfying old play y hilarity. The piece’s ostensible villain, you can’t help liking him. Two other members of Juggernaut — Paul Whitty and Manu Narayan — are hilarious as older guys straining to recapture a younger guy’s game. At the center of it all is Mitchell Jarvis as Mitch, the (relatively) sane man amidst the madness. Jarivs is a great singer and adept comic and is completely charming. He delivers the show’s message — follow your dreams and don’t sell out — with a light touch.

BY CHRISTOPHER BYRNE f you’re looking for pure, undemanding fun on Broadway this summer, well, there’s no shortage of shows. “School of Rock” is going strong. “Head Over Heels” is pure fun, and “SpongeBob SquarePants” is inspired silliness, but you’ll want to see that soon — it closes next month. Now comes “Gettin’ the Band Back Together.” It’s formulaic. It’s predictable. And it’s a total blast. With a book by Ken Davenport and The Grundleshotz and music and lyrics by Mark Allen, it’s overflowing with goofy charm, jokes you can see coming from a mile away, and just enough meta musical theater commentary to let the audience know this show knows exactly what it’s up to — delivering a no-holds barred good time. Add to that a wonderfully talented cast, an original score that has ‘80s and ‘90sinformed harmonic jokes, and a joyful, infectious energy. Only the most adamant curmudgeon wouldn’t give in to the fun. The plot is the stuff of the fluffiest romantic comedy. Mitch Papadapoulus has been laid off from his Wall Street job and has to move back in with his mom in New Jersey. Soul searching ensues, though not too deep because it leads to the idea of recapturing high school’s glory days by getting his old garage band, Juggernaut — which had won a battle of the bands years before — back together. Mitch’s friends have all given up on their dreams and are stuck in deadend jobs, so it’s an obvious solution. Juggernaut has to go up against its old nemesis, Mouthfeel, headed by Tygen Billows, who transformed his slacker high school days into a local real estate fortune. His band overcame its defeat decades before and has won ever year since. Still, that long-ago loss rankles. There are romantic complications as Dani, Mitch’s ex, is now with Tygen, though it’s a fraught relationship. Then there’s Mitch’s mom, Sharon, who was a groupie back in the day and whose house is about to be foreclosed on by Tygen. Band newcomer Ricky Bling has his own high school issues, including a crush on Dani’s rebellious daughter. It all comes together at the final battle of the bands where Juggernaut tries to reclaim its glory. Amazingly, it all makes sense, and as romcom trope heavy and unrealistic as it is, including a completely ridiculous deus ex machina ending, the mostly stock characters come off as charming. If you find yourself cheering for them at the end, well, that’s the intention and — like the “bend and snap” from “Legally Blonde” — it

JOAN MARCUS

Mitchell Jarvis in Ken Davenport, The Grundleshotz, and Mark Allen’s “Gettin’ the Band Back Together,” Together, now at the th Belasco.

TODD CERVERIS

Larry Bull in Lillian Hellman’s “Days to Come,” directed by J.R. Sullivan, at the Beckett Theatre through October 6.

works every time. The cast is fantastic. In particular, Sawyer Nunes as Ricky Bling plays the guitar like a madman and nails every comic bit. Ricky is a somewhat lost high school student, forced into the band by his math teacher Bart, one of the original Juggernauts. As Bart, Jay Klaitz makes a lot of jokes you’d expect from a bad math teacher, but he also has a crush on Sharon and that storyline has its own creepy-cute twist. Marilu Henner, as Sharon, is a riot. She’s not a singer, but you could believe her character inspired a classic rock song. Brandon Williams as Tygen is simply great, with moments of truly stupid

Lillian Hellman’s follow up to “The Children’s Hour” was “Days to Come,” a family drama wrapped in a labor drama, with plenty of melodrama thrown in. It’s a difficult play that lasted only seven performances on Broadway in 1936 and has only been revived once in New York, 40 years ago. That makes it just the type of thing the Mint Theater Company likes to sink its teeth into. The current production at the Beckett Theatre under the direction of J.R. Sullivan grapples with the script’s difficulties and comes up a winner. In fact, with its themes of privilege, economic uncertainty, and morality, it is quite timely. The plot concerns the Rodman family of fictional Collum, Ohio, where they run a brush company and live in comfort in a large house. With the factory hobbled by a labor strike, Andrew Rodman has called in strikebreakers, naively thinking that will end his troubles. But a fall-off in business has the company heavily leveraged and Rodman indebted to his lawyer, Henry Ellicott. Henry is carrying on an affair with Andrew’s restive wife, Julia, who, in the dark about the state of the business, wants to break free of the constraints of her life. When Leo Whalen, a union organizer, arrives, it sets up a conflict with strikebreaker Wilke, and a town once able to solve its own problems is suddenly at the mercy of battling outsiders. Andrew genuinely wants to keep peace in the town he loves and for the men, like Thomas Firth, who have long worked for him. But tensions come to a head, and the life of the town is changed forever as tragedy ensues. Hellman is almost existential in her take on the fraying of a social fabric — much of it built on illusions and lies, to be sure — that had once kept the town in a kind of stasis. If this is progress, it’s not at all appealing. The play is at its best when Hellman reaches for depth in her characters. It bogs down with an extended section about the thugs Wilke has brought in to protect the Rodmans, but we do gain

➤ DAYS TO COME, continued on p.33 August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

OPERA

Doing Janacek’s “Vixen” Proud In “Barbiere,” the new shtick no better than the old shtick en Krupp made Pasek’s Wife a moving three-dimensional cameo, also registering positively as a Woodpecker and the Head Hen.

BY DAVID SHENGOLD limmerglass’s 2018 season continued with an inspiriting production of Leos Janacek’s 1924 “The Cunning Little Vixen,” surely the first opera based on a comic strip. Aged 69 at its Brno premiere, Janacek filled the piece with his feeling for nature and a mature appreciation of life’s inevitable cycles. It can tempt directors and designers into cutesiness, but E. Loren Meeker and set designer Ryan McGettigan crafted something organicseeming, largely autumnal rather than vernal visually — and, in a sense, emotionally. Choreographer Eric Sean Fogel obtained extraordinarily detailed, diverting work from the cast, dressed and styled with spectacular imagination by Erik Teague and Dave Bova, respectively. I’ve sometime felt out of sorts with Kelley Rourke’s “Make’ em laff” Cooperstown translations, but here she caught exactly the right tone. One frankly doesn’t visit Glimmerglass for the orchestra, but music director Joseph Colaneri led his forces with very solid results. If you’ve heard the Cleveland or Juilliard orchestras play “Vixen” — just two of the recent high-profile stagings that made the Newspaper of Record’s characterization of this highly sophisticated, multigenre piece as “a rarely performed folk opera” so doubly baffling — some of the section playing in Cooperstown on August 10 sounded thin. But — as in the following afternoon’s “Barbiere di Siviglia” — ensembles held together swimmingly and solo instrumental work was cleanly stated. Eric Owens — locally an artistic advisor — gave wonderful life and empathetic spirit to the Forester: a truly great performance, “starry” while always serving the ensemble and the work. The very top of Owens’ bass-baritone proved recalcitrant, but otherwise he sounded rich and resonant, his crystalclear, highly expressive enunciation of the text furnishing a model

K ARLI CADEL / THE GLIMMERGL ASS FESTIVAL

Joanna Latini and Eric Owens in the Glimmerglass Festival’s production of Janackek’s “The Cunning Little Vixen.”

to the entire company. The final scene moved me more than anything on this stage since — well — his 2012 rendition of Weill’s “Lost in the Stars.” Remarkably, Young Artists took all the other roles — some of them doubled and trebled as usual. As Velma in “West Side Story,” soprano Joanna Latini had showed herself a very capable dancer. Her presence and physicality onstage here as the titular Vixen were quite amazing in range and effectiveness. She moved with grace and expressiveness and has a wonderful face for the stage. Her singing, full of spunk and feeling, was usually quite accomplished, showing a substantial lower register rare in this role. But occasionally she pushed or slid into top notes. The Vixen isn’t really a part for judging voices — there’s a lot of shortmotived, conversational stuff and not much cantabile singing — but Latini certainly showed herself a committed, talented performer one looks forward to hearing in other assignments. As the macho Fox with whom the

GayCityNews.nyc | August 30 – September 12, 2018

Vixen produces a welter of cubs, high mezzo Alyssa Martin sang ardently with a pleasing throb of vibrato. Colaneri conducted their passionate duets very effectively; hearing the vocal blend and soaring lines made me wonder if Janacek had ever heard Massenet’s “Cendrillon.” Solid bass Zachary Owen deftly created complete portraits in sound and movement of the Forester’s supercilious barmate the Parson and the irascible Badger whom the Vixen summarily evicts. Tenor Dylan Morrongiello drew elaborate portrayals of the Mosquito and the lonely Schoolmaster, showing career potential for English and American rep character roles — though his diction proved needlessly fussy. The bass portraying the poacher Harasta — who kills the Vixen in a terrifyingly sudden moment, here strikingly set-off in Mark McCullough’s evocative lighting plot — acted vividly but lacked the vocal chops for the role. Katherine Maysek shone briefly as the canine Lapak. Substantial-voiced mezzo Gretch-

Staging the Rossini, Francesca Zambello admirably used very little of the provincial shtick that usually encrusts this repertory staple comedy. She devised a lot of new shtick, though: she and costumer Lynly Saunders took the idea of “Barbiere” as commedia dell’arte and ran with it full-bore. Sure, Beaumarchais’ characters have some roots in commedia characters — Figaro’s a variant of Brighella, the crafty servant — but there’s also a huge admixture of elements from Moliere and Diderot. To me, neither the plot nor the music matched the sledgehammer, repetitively gagged commedia-style execution we saw here, with choral and extra Pulcinellas deployed to the point of exhaustion — and certainly as distractions from major musical moments. Some, guffawing nonstop, clearly watched rather than heard the show. Guess that’s one way, but not why I attend opera. I liked John Conklin’s Della Robbia blue background and airy, Neo-classically allusive flown units indicating Bartolo’s house and the Seville setting. Robert Wierzel’s precise lighting is always a Glimmerglass asset. Joshua Hopkins’ slight but high-wattage Figaro dominated vocally: agile and cocky but never obnoxious. The Canadian baritone can’t quite trumpet his high notes, but it’s a well-trained, attractive sound from top to bottom, he colors words creatively, and — uncommonly for Figaro — his florid work proved as good or better than the afternoon’s Rosina (Emily D’Angelo) and Almaviva (David Walton). Tall and nice-looking, both proved solid though not exceptional exponents in their roles. After last summer’s spectacular coloratura mezzos (Allegra de Vita in Handel and Aleks Romano in

➤ GLIMMERGLASS, continued on p.33

䉴

ERICKSON: At the same time, I’m sure you’re well aware that when the film goes into commercial release in France and the US, there will be tons of attempts to give it a topical political reading and people will attempt to view it as a film about terrorism. COOPER: I don’t think they will. We haven’t had that reaction at all so far. We’ve had people mention “Nocturama” a lot. FARLEY: Part of the project was to make a film that doesn’t lend itself to that kind of reading in an easy way, for good reason. Any kind of argument that tries to read it that way is ultimately gonna be a little bit shaky. COOPER: It’s true that critics will jump on some lazy thing and go with it. But I have a feeling it’ll be more about nihilism and despair.

can watch it at home. The work on the sound design is definitely meant for a theatrical space. Also, from the very beginning of writing and making the film, the sound emphasis was there. It’s what gets the film going. The main character has this almost synesthetic relationship between sound and emotion. COOPER: We spent a really long time working on the sound. There was this guy we worked on for “Cattle.” We obviously didn’t have a lot of money, but he gave us as long as we wanted to get the sound right. It was filmed with the idea “We’re going to have this particular sound here,” but obviously when you shoot live sound, the shots are very much about what the sounds are going to be at that particular time. Our main problem was seagulls. We shot in Cherbourg, which is on the sea, although there’s no indication of the sea in the film. There are lots and lots of seagulls. FARLEY: I won’t settle on a take if the sound is unusable. I’m not interested in re-recording. A lot of the times, for all the house exteriors, we literally had people going to all the neighbors who were cutting the grass and bribing them to stop. If that didn’t work, we also had someone who was knowledgeable enough to add another frequency that will add to the texture of a car passing by. It’s also about knowing how to use those accidents, which is really exciting. COOPER: We got really lucky, because there’s a shot where Roman crosses a bridge at night. All these different cars stop and start. We got this perfect, amazing sonic take that’s the real sound which happened to exist for that shot.

ERICKSON: The sound design seems particularly French, in the tradition of directors like Duras, Tati, Bresson, and Godard, who made their soundtracks overtly stylized whereas American narrative films tend to make their soundtracks feel naturalistic even though they’re just as artificial. Even your use of silence seems like very obvious negative space. At the same time, watching it in a theater with a powerful sound system is a very different experience from people eventually watching it on their laptops. Do you worry about that? FARLEY: We made that film for the theater. It’s great that people

ERICKSON: Was your choice of location dictated by funding? FARLEY: We had to shoot the majority of the film in Normandy, which was fine. The film was developed in a way that we could live with the flexibility of a variety of environments. But in a number of places in France, you can find this sort of architecture and relationship between high rises and more horizontal developments. Once we got the funding from Normandy, I just went out and got super-thrilled and excited about Cherbourg and some of the landscapes that were there. It was a lucky constraint. COOPER: As opposed to the out-

CHERBOURG, from p.21

with images of violence and death in relation to your film. Your characters form a sense of community, and I can actually see something positive and utopian in that. FARLEY: I definitely think the film sets up a radical possibility that ultimately fails. COOPER: The fact that it’s a violent act is circumstantial. He could easily have done it another way, that’s just all he could think of. The suicide bomber vest and the fact that they exist in this form where they can collect them is due to suicide bombers, but no one has any interest in that thing at all. As he says in the film, the only thing that interests him about suicide bombing is that it completely disintegrates a person.

sides of the city, Cherbourg’s housing projects are right in the center, with houses right around them. FARLEY: They have the best plan for projects. There’s a giant hill in the middle, and there’s this assumption that the seaside land is the more expensive land. But the hill has the best views, and the suburban housing is all around it. It’s very unusual. ERICKSON: There are American filmmakers I know who are working on the same level that you are but they have to raise money from Kickstarter or save it from their day jobs. It amazes me to see films from, say, Ecuador by first-time directors that are co-productions with eight countries. How much have you benefited from state funding? FARLEY: Enormously. It would’ve been close to impossible to make the film without public funding from the state. At the same time, we don’t perfectly fall in line with what French funding is built up for. COOPER: There’s a number of different ways you can fund films. Every region has a grant. There’s also the CNC. There are foundations. If you make films for small budgets, like we are, it still takes time. You can propose a film and be sure you will eventually make it. I have so many friends who are filmmakers here who have been trying to make a film for five or six years and they just haven’t been able to do it. For that kind of money, you have to shoot in French and in France. Gaspar Noé doesn’t seem to have a lot of trouble making money. Christophe Honoré seems to get everything funded. Once you’ve established yourself as a filmmaker and you’re part of that world, you can get money to make your films. FARLEY: Gaspar has a hugely hard time making films. He was only able to make “Climax” because the budget is three million. ERICKSON: What kind of direction did you give to the actors, and what was their take on the characters and narrative? FARLEY: Most of the work was finding the right people in casting. It wasn’t so much shaping them. We knew in casting that things could shape or adjust. Once we settled on who we were going to walk with, it was a matter of finding a balance

between the text in the script, their performances, and the interactions between them. It was more finding the right level of focus than any style of performance. COOPER: We’d see someone and think, “That’s the character.” They’d do line readings and then we’d sit and talk with them and find out what they’re like naturally. We sat and talked with Benjamin [Sulpice], who plays the main character, Roman, and said, “That’s it. That’s him.” It wasn’t incredibly difficult to get them to give these amazing performances. They seemed to figure out what we wanted pretty consistently. There were just details, like “Can you be a little less adamant here?” The person that was the professional actor had to take it down a bit. FARLEY: He’s a great performer, but most of the work was balancing out the actors and energies between them. We had to make it work between two or more people. COOPER: Théo’s [Cholbi] a professional actor. Benjamin is in acting school, but he had never been in a film before. None of the rest had any acting experience. Two were dancers. León, the girl, is the daughter of a friend. Julien [Fayeulle], who plays Ali, is a rapper. The kid with the long hair is the singer in a punk band. But none of them except Théo and Benjamin had any acting experience. I assume they all related to their characters, but we never talked to it. FARLEY: I didn’t want them to become characters. I just wanted them to become super focused, present, and mindful. We never talked about characterization, like you have to feel this. COOPER: Someone asked, “What are their sexual orientations?” I said, “Mostly they’re the same as the people who play them, which means I don’t know. I didn’t ask them.” The only performer we know about is Sylvain [Decloitre], who is openly gay. PERMANENT GREEN LIGHT | Directed by Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley | In French with English subtitles | MPM Premium | Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, 165 W. 65th St. | Screening: Sep. 5 at 6:30 p.m. | Francesca Beale Theater, 145 W. 65th St. | Dennis Cooper Talk: Sep. 6 at 7 p.m. | filmlinc.org

August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

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TO BE INCLUDED IN THIS DIRECTORY CALL (718) 260–8302 GayCityNews.nyc | August 30 – September 12, 2018

CULTURE

Geeking Out on Inclusion Flame Con grows as it redefines LGBTQ culture BY CHARLES BATTERSBY uring the weekend of August 18 and 19, subway riders in New York might have noticed that costumed nerds were flooding the city. International Cosplay Day took place in Central Park, Liberty City Anime Con at the New York Marriott Marquis, and, at the Sheraton Times Square, there was Flame Con. Billed as “The World’s Largest Queer Comic Con,” this was the event’s fourth year, and its third change of venue (previous installments took place in Brooklyn). Flame Con continues to grow in attendance and scope. At a quick glance, it looks like any other con: There are excited fans lined up to hear celebrities speak, a hall of vendors selling art and indie comics, and an abundance of cosplayers dressed up like their favorite characters. Upon a closer look, attendees will see some distinct details: Most of the people at Flame Con are wearing badges with their preferred gender pronouns (free stickers were placed on tables throughout the con, featuring the options He, She, They, and Ask Me). All of the bathrooms are gender-neutral. Rainbows and unicorns adorn nearly everyone, and none of the cosplayers is carrying replica firearms. The “No Firearms” policy is rare at cons. Phoenix Comic Fest enacted a similar policy last year after a man with real guns tried to enter that convention, and Flame Con’s policy was implemented two years ago, after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Kevin Gilligan, a Flame Con organizer, explained, “We want Flame Con to be a welcoming experience for all, and we don’t want anyone to feel unsafe. In order to do that, we have challenged our cosplayers to either come up with cosplay that doesn’t require weaponry or find clever alternatives. If your cosplay can’t be defined without a weapon, then maybe you should re-look at your cosplay.” The attendees lived up to the

CHARLES BAT TERSBY

Audience and judge favorites from the August 18 costume contest.

CHARLES BAT TERSBY

Season 8 “RuPaul’s Drag Race” contestant Dax ExclamationPoint, here cosplaying Batgirl, was one of the judges in the August 19 cosplay contest.

challenge, sporting outfits that rivaled what is seen at much larger cons. Another thing that separates cosplay at Flame Con from other cons is the “Come All” attitude in the contests. Many cons have strict application processes for people who want to be in their

cosplay contests. Hopefuls have to apply months ahead of time, and even then only a small portion are worthy of walking the stage. Flame Con has a more welcoming attitude: A contest is held each day and anyone can join, even jumping into the line on the spur of the moment.

Asked what judges look for in the winners, one of them, Flame Con’s cosplay co-chair, who goes by the name Tea Berry-Blue, said, “Costumes that, to us, embody the spirit of Flame Con and the spirit of joy, diversity, and inclusion.” A guest judge this year, Trungles, explained that the judges look for “someone who’s really enthusiastic about their community and character, and who put a lot of dedication and love into their costume.” Although gay and straight geeks are enthusiastic about the same things, the LGBTQ community has taken a particular liking to the “Steven Universe” cartoons. It’s an adventure show with a sweet sensibility and an exceptionally diverse cast. The cute animation is childlike, but it often addresses social themes that adults can appreciate as much as kids can. Trungles explained that “Steven Universe” is “a property that we can share with the younger members of our community. Some people latch onto this as a reclamation of a childhood where we can be open and embracing of our queerness, while also sharing it with the rest of our community. The show does a really good job of crossing those generational bridges.” Flame Con attendee Victor explained, “I knew ‘Steven Universe’ for the first time when I knew that Jinkx Monsoon, winner of ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Season 5, was doing the voice of Emerald. I was gagging by the fact that a drag queen was participating in such a project. I was thinking, this is gonna be so controversial, because ‘Steven Universe’ looks like a toon for kids. So that’s how I got interested in the show. I really admire how LGBTQ culture is becoming part of the society, where we are just another person in it, not freaks anymore.” Among the other unique finds at Flame Con were a performance by an LGBTQ cheerleading team, a panel on using corsetry and breast

➤ FLAME CON, continued on p.31

August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

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According to this cosplayer, Flame Con is â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ack ack! Ack ack ack! ACK!â&#x20AC;?

ä&#x2030;´

FLAME CON, from p.30

binding for cross-dressing cosplayers, and no less than three musical theater performances inspired by shows like â&#x20AC;&#x153;Star Trekâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Firefly.â&#x20AC;? Flame Con explores LGBTQ identity from many angles. Among the panels this year was one moderated by writer Ali Abbas, which looked at how gay Muslims are depicted in TV and film. Muslim characters have recently appeared in projects like â&#x20AC;&#x153;X-Files,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Punisher,â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Bold Type,â&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Person of Interestâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and many of these characters are gay or trans. In a light-hearted discussion, Abbas pointed out that some media depictions of Muslims and trans people are quite similar. He said both groups are â&#x20AC;&#x153;highly visible in the media and the news, but the people who are representing us on television and in art, theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not trans and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not brown.â&#x20AC;? Abbas cited how beards and hijabs are easy ways to make characters look Muslim, or how trans characters refer to their transition

in dialogue â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but that the portrayals are often inaccurate. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a high visual demand for [trans and Muslim characters] now,â&#x20AC;? Abbas said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;but the people filling that demand donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a horse in the race. So they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to care about how theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re representing these people.â&#x20AC;? When asked if one can be both a devout Muslim and gay, Abbas explained, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very nuanced. I can only talk about it by region. You have Lebanon, which has had free HIV healthcare since the â&#x20AC;&#x2122;80s. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still illegal to be gay on the books, but they have gay bar cultureâ&#x20AC;Ś It depends: Muslim by Muslim, region by region, country by country. The problem is convoluting it all so that theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all just brown.â&#x20AC;? As Abbas spoke to this reporter, a cosplayer approached and complimented Abbas on his rainbow sneakers. Deep discussions on global politics, theology, gender identity, and fabulous shoes. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Flame Con in a nutshell. The event has been confirmed to return in 2019. For more info, visit flamecon. org and geeksout.org.

GayCityNews.nyc | August 30 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; September 12, 2018

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➤ SENIORS, from p.13 under which schools have been held liable for harassment of students by other students when that conduct was brought to the attention of authorities and they failed to take appropriate remedial steps to assure that victims were not denied equal educational opportunity because of their sex. The question, Wood wrote, was whether the facility management had “actual knowledge of the severe harassment Wetzel was enduring and whether they were deliberately indifferent to it. If so, they subjected Wetzel to conduct that the FHA forbids.” The court rejected Saint Andrew’s argument that the landlord-tenant relationship is so different from the school-student relationship that applying the Title IX standard is inappropriate. “We have said only that the duty not to discriminate in housing con-

䉴

BYSTANDER, from p.13

The trial judge had to determine whether Benning’s relationship to L’Maya came within the scope of existing precedent of an “intimate, familial relationship between plaintiff and the injured person.” The trial judge, not named in the appeals court opinion, said that an “intimate” relationship would not “suffice” unless it could be considered “familial.” “There is a requirement that they have to be family,” that judge wrote, noting that the precedent “didn’t say family-ish or something similar to a family. It says familial and there are cases that must use the word family. It has to be family and there’s no question of fact that Ms. Benning was not. The evidence is that she was a girlfriend and she might have been part of the child’s household, but by any definition that I can find in the law about family, Ms. Benning doesn’t meet it.” The trial court also noted, “Ms. Moreland and Ms. Benning weren’t even engaged at the time. I understand the laws regarding same sex relationships had changed over time but there was a statute that did allow for that in New Jersey and whether they could have availed themselves of any such

ditions encompasses the duty not to permit known harassment on protected grounds,” Wood wrote in response. “The landlord does have responsibility over the common areas of the building, which is where the majority of Wetzel’s harassment took place. And the incidents within her apartment occurred precisely because the landlord was exercising a right to enter.” Though Saint Andrew argued it was “incapable of addressing” the harassment Wetzel endured, Wood noted that the tenant agreement imposes obligations on residents to not engage in conduct that is a “direct threat to the health and safety of other individuals” and to refrain from conduct that would “unreasonably” interfere with “the peaceful use and enjoyment of the community by other tenants.” And that same agreement gives Saint Andrew the right to evict violators. Yet, according to Wetzel’s complaint, the facility took action against her for

complaining rather than against her harassers. Wood also noted a 2016 rule published by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development providing that a landlord could be held liable under the FHA for failing to “take prompt action to correct and end a discriminatory housing practice by a third party” if the landlord “knew or should have known of the discriminatory conduct and had the power to correct it.” The court also decisively rejected Saint Andrew’s claim that the FHA anti-discrimination provision does not apply once the apartment is leased to the tenant. The statute bans discrimination regarding “services or facilities,” and the court pointed out that “few ‘services or facilities’ are provided prior to the point of sale or rental; far more attach to a resident’s occupancy.” The court also rejected Saint Andrew’s argument, which the district court had accepted, that the FHA’s

anti-retaliation provision required proof of the landlord’s discriminatory intent. “If we were to read the FHA’s antiretaliation provision to require that a plaintiff allege discriminatory animus, it would be an anomaly,” Wood wrote. “Like all anti-retaliation provisions, it provides protections not because of who people are, but because of what they do.” The court’s focus was on whether the landlord took adverse action after a tenant complained about violation of her rights under the FHA, not whether the landlord is biased against somebody because she is a lesbian. Sending the case back to the district court, the appeals panel revived Wetzel’s FHA claim and also directed to the court to “reinstate the state law claims” that had been dismissed. Wetzel is represented by Lambda Legal and cooperating attorneys from Foley & Lardner LLP.

laws in other jurisdictions hasn’t been addressed in any of the papers” submitted to the court. In ruling to dismiss the claim, the trial judge wrote, “Ms. Benning was a part of a very small child’s life for 17 months at most. There’s no evidence that there was any permanent bond or that the relationship that she shared with the decedent was one that was deep, lasting, and genuinely intimate.” The trial judge pointed out that the kind of evidence that would exist if there were a custody or visitation or adoption proceeding, such as a psychologist’s report, was unfortunately missing in this case. Benning’s lawyer argued that dismissing this claim was inappropriate, because the question of “familial relationship” required a full hearing of the facts about her relationship to L’Maya and should not be disposed of as a “matter of law” without the opportunity for such a hearing. The Appellate Division initially refused to review the trial court’s dismissal of Benning’s claim, but the State Supreme Court then directed it to accept the appeal, solely to address the question “whether Benning falls within the class of litigants entitled to bring a civil action against defendants under

the tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress.” Writing for the Appellate Division panel, Judge José L. Fuentes traced the development of this legal doctrine in New Jersey, noting that the state high court in 1994 unambiguously rejected “any attempt to restrict the claimants to married persons.” The Appellate Division concluded that Benning had “presented sufficient evidence from which a jury could find that she and twoyear-old L’Maya had an intimate familial relationship at the time of the child’s tragic death.” Fuentes’ opinion noted how social change has expanded the public’s understanding of such relationships far beyond what it was when Portee was decided in 1980. “Thirty-eight years ago,” he wrote, “gay, lesbian, and transgender people were socially shunned and legally unprotected against invidious discrimination in employment, housing, and places of public accommodation under our State’s Law Against Discrimination. The notion of same-sex couples and their children constituting a ‘familial relationship’ worthy of legal recognition was considered by a significant number of our fellow citizens as socially and morally repugnant and legally absurd.

The overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens now unequivocally reject this shameful, morally untenable bigotry; our laws, both legislatively and through judicial decisions, now recognize and protect the rights of LGBTQ people to equal dignity and treatment under law.” The court emphasized that the trial judge should have given Benning an opportunity to provide more evidence about the nature of her relationship with L’Maya, but also suggested she would have been “better served” had her counsel introduced evidence in opposition to the defendants’ motion “with certifications from individuals who knew and saw these two women interact with these children on a day-to-day basis.” Benning was represented on appeal by Robin Kay Lord, with Clifford D. Bidlingmaier III, of Kardos, Rickles, Hand & Bidlingmaier, assisting on the brief. The case attracted amicus participation in briefing and arguing the appeal from Garden State Equality, New Jersey’s state LGBTQ rights organization, represented by Jennifer L. Hamilton, and from the New Jersey State Bar Association, whose out gay former president, Tom Prol, also presented a brief and oral argument.

August 30 – September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

â&#x17E;¤ DAYS TO COME, from p.26 insight into how the strikebreakerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cynicism conflicts with Andrewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more conventional morality. Julia, increasingly conscious of her own privilege, approaches Whelan, but their interaction merely points up how class disparities have blinded the Rodmans. Thomas, who was Andrewâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s friend since childhood, sees his life shattered by tragedy and must give up the myths that made his life bearable. With all these broken pieces, the world of Collum will never be right again. If the play is imperfect â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and it is

â&#x17E;¤ GLIMMERGLASS, from p.27 Donizetti), Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Angelo emerged talented but no revelation. Her lower register is potent and the passagework quite skilled; initially she tended to a hard, shrill top. Act Twoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Contro un corâ&#x20AC;? suited her better, and voice and character warmed some. Walton displayed informed if somewhat overdecorated style. Tight at full tilt, his timbre soft-

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the moments of humanity and social criticism are compelling. The cast does an excellent job. Though stilted language and clumsy exposition mar the first act, the characters emerge and develop in the second act. As Andrew, Larry Bull is caught between his need to rebuild his business and his love for the people. Haunted by his successful father and grandfather, he is incredulous at his wifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s infidelities and lost in a changing world. Dan Daily is powerful as Wilke, the strikebreaker, the playâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most clearly written and deeply cynical character. Chris Henry Coffey is

heartbreaking as Thomas, who like Andrew, is a casualty of a changing world. As Julia, Janie Brookshire is best in her more focused scenes. Roderick Hill as Whelan, the union organizer, is outstanding, portraying the most sympathetic character in riveting fashion. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Days to Comeâ&#x20AC;? never reaches the level of clarity of Hellmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s contemporary Clifford Odets, whose sympathies were decidedly with labor. Hellman bit off a lot in trying to cover so much emotional and sociological territory. Happily, the Mint has made the most of it, giving the audience something substantial to

chew on.

ened in quieter phrases. Colaneri should not have had â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or let â&#x20AC;&#x201D; him sing all of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Don Alonsoâ&#x20AC;? section in grating character voice. The Countâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bravura scene, now fairly standard, was wisely not attempted. Dale Travis, a fi xture on major regional stages for three decades, can still give lively performances and his Bartolo was marked by crisp recits and enduring ease and color in patter passages;

sustained phrases, however, juddered, and at times â&#x20AC;&#x201D; like the end of â&#x20AC;&#x153;A un dottor della mia sorteâ&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; he scraped through on sheer professionalism. Don Basilio got treated the most conventionally: a skulking and strutting low camp figure evoking Father Guido Sarducci. The role needs first-line vocalism but the unyouthful-sounding Young Artist cast here had neither the quality nor the steadiness to put

it over. Though saddled with much unsubtle â&#x20AC;&#x153;busybodyâ&#x20AC;? business, Alexandria Shiner showed real vocal promise with a cleanly inflected, even-scaled Berta who successfully held the top line in ensembles. Ben Schaefer furnished unusual linear elegance as Fiorello.

GETTINâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; THE BAND BACK TOGETHER | Belasco Theatre, 111 W. 44th St.| Tue., Thu. at 7 p.m.; Fri.Sat. at 8 p.m.; Wed., Sat. at 2 p.m.; Sun. at 2:30 & 7:30 p.m. | $49.50$169.50 at telecharge.com or 212239-6200 | Two hrs., 30 mins., with intermission DAYS TO COME | Mint Theater at the Beckett, 410 W. 42nd St. | Through Oct. 6: Tue.-Sat. at 7:30 p.m.; Sat.-Sun. at 2 p.m. | $65 at telecharge.com or 212-239-6200 | Two hrs., with intermission

David Shengold (shengold@yahoo.com) writes about opera for many venues.

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GayCityNews.nyc | August 30 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; September 12, 2018

August 30 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; September 12, 2018 | GayCityNews.nyc

➤ BULLYING, from p.7 education in the coming years.” A Bullying Complaint Portal is being launched soon and a Bullying Complaint Coordinator has been hired to administer it. In addition to the contact information Fox provided, Barbot said that students and parents can report bullying via email at RespectforAll@ schools.nyc.gov. Students who request a transfer due to bullying “will receive a transfer offer,” something that was not offered to Cedeno despite his family’s years of complaints about being bullied. A

transfer might have averted the incident at his Bronx school last year that left Matthew McCree dead and Adrian Laboy injured. The city, Barbot noted, is providing $23 million to train all staff over the next two years in “antibias and culturally responsive education.” Three hundred schools are being targeted with funds to enhance school environments through “social-emotional supports,” training staff and students “on self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making.”

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Despite all these procedures the DOE points to, Skye O’neal Adrian, a youth organizer with FIERCE, told the town hall, “The process from reporting an incident to when it gets to DOE remains unclear. Even though Jared says it is a seamless process, it doesn’t look that way right now. Young people just aren’t aware of the reporting system.” FIERCE, he said, is planning more town halls in the other boroughs. Details will be posted on the group’s Facebook page. With kids coming out at younger and younger ages, most school

environments around the country are not prepared. Just this week, a nine-year-old boy who came out as gay at his Denver elementary school was subjected to kids telling him to kill himself. And he did. “It’s not enough to tell students that they will be accepted for who they are,” Chancellor Carranza wrote in Teen Vogue. “We must show them, in the literature we read, in the language we use, and in the way we invest our resources, that we are a deeply connected society made up of different voices and perspectives that all deserve to be seen, heard, and respected.”

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