Frontiers Vol. 32, Issue 12

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INSIDE VOL 32, ISSUE 12 | OCT 2 - 15, 2013

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Eric Garcetti

PHOTO: RYAN FORBES | RYANFORBESPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

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INSIDE

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VOL 32, ISSUE 12 | OCT 2 - 15, 2013

LEADING BY EXAMPLE Kelly Smith ......................................................14 NEWS News Briefs ......................................................16 ObamaCare Enrollment Begins ................20 SOCAL EVENTS GUIDE Calendar ..........................................................39 SnapShots ......................................................40 Food2Know ....................................................44 Eating Out ......................................................46 ENTERTAINMENT Film Reviews ..................................................50 Music Reviews................................................52 Theater Reviews ............................................54 COLUMNS Drive..................................................................56 Out & About....................................................57 Billy Masters ..................................................58 Little Miss Know-It-All ................................59 Gossip Gay......................................................60 CITY GUIDES West Hollywood ............................................61 Palm Springs ..................................................62 HEALTH Off the Couch ................................................67 FRONTIERS MARKETPLACE Listings ............................................................68 Business Profile ..............................................69

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FRONTIERS4MEN Adult Classifieds............................................70 Sex Ed................................................................74

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PHOTO OF ERIC GARCETTI BY: Ryan Forbes, ryanforbesphotography.com 100 percent of Ryan’s photography fees will be donated to the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center.

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Frontiers magazine is published by Frontiers Media, LLC., 5657 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 470, Los Angeles, CA. 90036, and distributed throughout Southern California. Up to the first three copies of any single issue are free; additional copies are $10 each. Violators caught stealing or destroying issues will be prosecuted under California Penal Code 484. For magazine subscriptions, please call (323) 930-3220. The contents of Frontiers may not be reproduced in any manner, either in whole or in part, without permission from the publisher. All rights reserved. Letters to the editor, artwork, photography, manuscripts and other correspondence may be submitted to Frontiers at the above address. We cannot acknowledge or return material unless accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Allow at least three months for processing. Publication of the name or photograph of any person or organization in articles or advertising in Frontiers is not to be construed as any indication of the sexual orientation or the HIV/AIDS status of such person or organization. Copyright © 2013, Frontiers Media, LLC.

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ONLINE Find these articles exclusively at

THE POWER OF ‘OUT’

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By Mike Ciriaco

On October 11, 1987, the gay community basked in the light of our queer culture when half a million protestors participated in the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. LGBT leaders Rob Eichberg and Los Angeles' own Jean O'Leary decided to commemorate the event's anniversary by founding National Coming Out Day, a holiday promoting a safe world for LGBT individuals to live truthfully and openly. In honor of this year's National Coming Out Day, Frontiers shines a spotlight on 100 of the most influential openly gay individuals throughout history.

FrontiersLA.com/Features

JOE KOMARA RULES THE GIRLS

ENTER TO WIN

By Frankie Lefferson The Girl's Guide to Depravity is Cinemax’s hit series based on Heather Rutman's popular book and blog of the same name. It follows the love lives of three friends—Sam, Jenna and Megan—as they navigate through the complicated rules of dating and mating. But it’s the friendly gay bartender, Tyler, who stole our hearts. He apparently did the same to the show’s producers, too, because the man largely behind the bar in season one comes out—literally—in season two and gets a whole lot more screen time.

FrontiersLA.com/ExclusiveInterviews

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By Jerry Schad & David Money Harris SoCal boasts one of America's most diverse landscapes, making it a dream come true for hikers of all skill levels. For the more experienced trailblazers in the area, some of the country's most challenging trails sit close to home. Here are five area trails to take your hiking to the next level, from Jerry Schad and David Money Harris's 101 Hikes in Southern California. FrontiersLA.com/Features

BOOK REVIEWS

by The Bookworm

In need of a good read?

Check out our reviews of Cat Sense by John Bradshaw and Raising My Rainbow by Lori Duron.

FrontiersLA.com/ BookReviews

AFTER ‘I DO’:

THE GOOD FIGHT

By Rolf Danner Rolf and Jeff tied the knot in 2008. For both, that gloriously bright California day came at the end of a long journey, culminating in the congratulations of friends and families. Little did they know that their journey had only just begun.

MarriageEqualityFrontiers.com

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FrontiersLA.com Volume 32, Issue 12 5657 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 470, Los Angeles, CA 90036 Phone: (323) 930-3220 Sales Fax: (323) 857-0560 Administration Fax: (323) 848-2058 Accounting Fax: (323) 857-0503

Publisher / CEO / Editorial Director David Stern Creative Director Ed Baker Managing Director of Integrated Media Dustin Tyner Editor-in-Chief Stephan Horbelt News Editor Karen Ocamb Associate Editor Brenden Shucart Senior Art Director Garett Yoshida Associate Art Director George Skinner Graphic Designer Michelle Aguirre Advertising Directors Vic Gerami, Randall Ross, Brenda Stevens, Cristian Valencia, Billy Wright Palm Springs Advertising Director Vic Gerami

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firstname.lastname@FrontiersLA.com Contributing Writers Aaron Batts, Dr. Greg Cason, Peter DelVecchio, Gossip Gay, Stephan Horbelt, Gary M. Kramer, Jim Larkins, Dan Loughry, Billy Masters, Michelle McCarthy, Dana Miller, James F. Mills, Paulo Murillo, Karen Ocamb, Brian Padgett, Sebastian Martin Pérez, Eric Rosen, Dominik Rothbard, Steve Roth, Brenden Shucart, Steve Siler, George Skinner, Les Spindle, Kevin Taft, Mark A. Thompson, Paul V., Duane Wells Contributing Photographers and Illustrators Gabe Ayala, Brenden-John Photography, Ryan Forbes, Glen Hanson, Ed Krieger, Paulo Murillo, Karen Ocamb, Rolling-Blackouts, Jonathan Sirand, David Vendette, Tom Whitman Presents, Win Win Imaging

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IN MEMORY OF BOB CRAIG, FOUNDING PUBLISHER

©2013 Thanks to the dawn of the information age, we believe distribution/circulation not only encompasses hard copies printed and the pass-on rate of those hard copies, but web browsing and electronic copies being downloaded by our growing online readership. This has become a substantial boost to the number of readers of our magazine. Currently, an average of 30,000 hard copies are printed biweekly. Studies have shown each hard copy has a probable “pass-on rate” of two to three, meaning each hard copy taken will be seen by two to three additional readers. With the pass-on rate alone, estimated readership can conservatively average 55,000 to 90,000, not encompassing visitors who visit us online at FrontiersLA.com.

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OCTOBER 15, 2013

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BUILDING COMMUNITY

Leading by Example

Kelly Smith’s PHOTO: BY DAVID VENDETTE

Hollywood Net-WERQ!

By Michelle McCarthy

Eight years ago, Kelly Smith quit his job, packed up anything that would fit in his car and drove cross-country to Los Angeles in search of a career in the entertainment industry. He knew no one. Now the director of production at Drew Barrymore’s production company, Flower Films, Smith is doing what he can to help those who are just starting out in Hollywood. In 2011, he founded The Hollywood Net-WERQ!, a social networking group for gays and lesbians in ‘the biz.’ The organization, which boasts more than 700 members, posts job listings on its Facebook page along with information on its monthly happy-hour mixers.

Why did you decide to start The Hollywood Net-WERQ!?

When I moved to L.A., I didn’t have any kind of network meeting to attend, I didn’t have any friends and I moved here not knowing anyone. I came here to get into the production business and didn’t know how to get started. I was in New York a couple of years ago working on Top Chef and Celebrity Apprentice, and I found this group online called The Pink Mafia Network. I went to a few of their happy hours. I talked to the founder of that group and was like, “Do you guys have a West Coast version?” They said no, so I decided to create one myself. I opened it up for everybody—whether you’re a studio or an agency or a management company or an actor.

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What are you hoping to accomplish with the group?

I want to create a place where you can go and find job postings and meet people. I didn’t want it to be so business structured where you’re kind of forced to mingle. At our happy hours, I have job lists on-hand, and I try to make sure people are meeting each other. If you’re a writer and I know you’re looking for a manager or an agent, and I know one there, I’ll introduce you. I try to mix and mingle with the people and introduce people.

Where do you meet up?

Usually at Revolver [in West Hollywood]. We’ve done them at Marix once or twice, and The Abbey has reached out to me to have it there, but I kind of want to keep it in a smaller place.

Who’s invited to join?

We’ve got everyone from assistants to executives to producers to actors. I don’t discriminate. It is mainly for gays and lesbians, but we’re not going to discriminate—straight people are welcome, too. It’s all about networking and making contacts and friends, so everyone is welcome. You join the group through our Facebook page.

What happens at your happy hours?

Before an event, I search through the RSVPs, especially for new members. When they show up, I try to immediately run

over and introduce myself. It’s just like a happy hour. I’ll have 20 to 25 job lists that I print out. I pull the job openings from industry websites, and sometimes people will send me job postings as well for their own companies. If people ask me about them, we’ll go through them. It’s super casual. Again, I don’t want the structured feel. There are no speeches, and people don’t need to get up and talk. It’s more like ‘come and have fun.’ And it’s not just about trying to find a job connection—you can also find people you want to hang out with. You can find friends through the Net-WERQ! as well.

You’re established and successful. What motivates you to help others?

I didn’t move here ‘til I was 30, so I was starting over. If you don’t have a core group of friends, you don’t really know where to start. L.A. can be overwhelming.

People get so discouraged after, like, six months. I always tell people when they move out here, you have to give it two years—with work and friends—before you really find your footing. The Hollywood Net-WERQ! is fun and easy. It doesn’t take up too much of my time. I post jobs two times a week and do a happy hour once a month. facebook.com/groups/156754197747952

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AUGUST 6, 2013

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NEWS

By Peter DelVecchio and Karen Ocamb

Transgender Homecoming Queen Faces Backlash

Senate Confirms Gay Judge, Rubio Nixes Another On Sept. 24, the U.S. Senate confirmed Justice Department attorney Todd Hughes to sit on the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals by a vote of 98-0, BuzzFeed reports. Hughes is the first openly gay federal appellate judge in U.S. history.

The Federal Circuit Court sits in Washington, D.C., and has a specialized jurisdiction including patent appeals and appeals from the Federal Court of Claims.

The nomination of another openly gay man to the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, however, was effectively blocked on Sept. 23 when Sen. Marco Rubio, RFla., withdrew his support. William Thomas, currently a sitting Florida state judge, would have been the first out black man on the federal bench.

Rubio’s move has been slammed as pandering to the Republican Tea Party base, many of whom abandoned him after he helped craft a comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the Senate earlier this year.

Transgender Marina High School student Cassidy Lynn Campbell of Huntington Beach, Calif., was thrilled to learn she’d been voted homecoming queen on Sept. 20, beating out five other finalists, KABC reported.

“I wasn’t doing this for me,” she said. “I was doing this for so many others.”

But joy soon turned to heartbreak due to what Campbell in a YouTube video called the “ignorant” and “negative” backlash against her victory.

“It just hurts so bad, because I feel just as much of a girl as all of them do,” she said.

Cassidy was known as Lance until three years ago, when she began living openly as a girl. “They think that I’m just a boy doing this for fun, and I’m just dressing up as a girl and trying to win a crown when that is completely the opposite of what it is.”

Putin, Milonov Defend Russian Anti-Gay Law Anti-LGBT legislation enacted in Russia this July has sparked outrage worldwide, including calls for boycotts of the upcoming winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, or the transfer of the games to a more gay-friendly venue.

The law prohibits so-called gay “propaganda,” but is being used as a bludgeon against all things LGBT and is blamed for an uptick in anti-gay violence in Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Vitaly Milonov, the author of the original law in St. Petersburg, however, continue to defend the measure, often in bizarre terms.

The law works “no infringement on the rights of sexual minorities,” Putin said on Sept. 19, according to USA Today. He also appeared to blame legalized gay marriage for European population declines, saying “the Europeans are dying out ... and gay marriages don’t produce children.”

In an impromptu interview in St. Petersburg with French journalist Julien Pain, Milonov chastised “European country officials [who]

support those who rape kids,” presumably referring to gays. He went on to accuse gays of being “against Christians,” and opined that French officials had used chemical weapons against anti-gay protesters in Paris earlier this year. Milonov also denied any violence against LGBT people in Russia, adding that gays often beat up straights.

Meanwhile, a protester disrupted the New York Metropolitan Opera’s Russianthemed opening on Sept. 23, shouting “Putin, end your war on Russian gays!” the New York Times reports. Outside, protesters chanted and unfurled a 50-foot banner saying “Support Russian Gays!”

Russian opera icon Anna Netrebko, performing opening night, has said on her Facebook page, “I have never and will never discriminate against anyone.”

“Some people say I have to say more,” she told The Big Story, “but that is the maximum I can say right now. In my next life, when I will be a politician, we talk.

SPEAK OUT

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“I’m not going to go into Russia and tell [Vladimir Putin] to go to hell and things like that.”

“I expected to encounter homophobia, (and did), but did not expect the extreme misogyny we faced.”

—Out music icon Elton John in an interview with NPR, explaining that he intends to keep performing in Russia and will be “diplomatic” in expressing his opposition to that country’s draconian anti-LGBT laws.

—Longtime LGBT civil rights activist Robin Tyler regarding her resignation, along with four other women, from the North Hills West Neighborhood Council.

“It was a dead town, but it’s looking up.”

—JJohnny Cummings , openly gay mayor of tiny Vicco, Ky., regarding his town’s prospects after passing an anti-discrimination measure protecting gays eight months ago, as reported by CBS News

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OCTOBER 15, 2013

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NEWS

By Peter DelVecchio and Karen Ocamb

Prop. 8’s Frank Schubert and NOM Attack Trans Student Law What are deeply conservative Catholics like Prop. 8 strategist Frank Schubert and NOM President Brian Brown to do when the Pope says to stop focusing on gay marriage, their primary source of income?

“We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards,” Pope Francis said in a Sept.

19 interview.

They’ve contorted their mission into being blatantly anti-LGBT. Schubert signed up with the right-wing Capitol Resource Institute to push for a ballot initiative to repeal AB 1266, the School Success and Opportunity Act that Gov. Brown signed into law last August. The trans student law takes

effect on Jan. 1, unless suspended by the qualification of an initiative that would go on the November 2014 ballot.

Existing law prohibits discrimination based on gender, gender identity and gender expression, but AB 1266 enforces the law, requiring that students “be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.”

Schubert boiled that down to co-ed bathrooms and signed up the National Organization for Marriage, where he is the political director. “AB1266, the co-ed bathroom law, is a horrible attempt by

activists to strip society of all gender roles and uses children as a weapon in their culture war,” Brown said in a fundraising email to supporters.

Schubert’s Privacy for All Students campaign has until Nov. 12 to submit 505,000 signatures to qualify the referendum. However, Schubert might run into a legal problem—campaign sponsor CRI had its tax-exempt status revoked by both the California Franchise Tax Board and the IRS for failing to pay three years in taxes. The California FTB says the exemption has been restored, but the IRS told Frontiers unequivocally that CRI’s status remains revoked as of February and that the IRS, not the FTB, determines tax exemptions. (Find an extended version of this story at FrontiersLA.com.)

4 States Deny Benefits to National Guard Spouses

Prop. 8 strategist Frank Schubert

Quick Pic Out U.S. Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., tweets a photo lampooning U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, RTexas, for mounting a purported filibuster against ObamaCare funding. Under Senate rules, Cruz’s ‘filibuster’ could not have succeeded; in contrast, Democratic Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis’s filibuster prevented passage of Republican abortion restrictions during a special legislative session.

PHOTO BY THE ENQUIRER/GLENN HARTONG

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Four states—Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas—are refusing to permit same-sex spouses of National Guard members to apply for benefits at state military facilities, forcing them to travel to federal installations instead, U.S. News on NBCnews.com reported Sept. 24.

The Pentagon extended full family benefits to all married servicemembers after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of the Defense of Marriage Act on June 26.

The Defense Department has so far taken no action against the recalcitrant states.

“All federal military installations (in Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Louisiana) will issue IDs to all those who provide a valid marriage certificate from a jurisdiction that recognizes same-sex marriage,” Pentagon spokesman Nathan Christensen said in an email to U.S. News.

National Guard representatives in the four states say they are simply following their state constitutions, which define marriage as between a man and a woman.

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OCTOBER 15, 2013

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NEWS

ObamaCare Enrollment Begins

BY KAREN OCAMB AND SEBASTIAN MARTIN PÉREZ ObamaCare “is not about politics. It’s about dignity,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sept. 12 at a White House/HHS event entitled “The Impact of ‘ObamaCare’ on the LGBT Community.” That’s not how some House Republican conservatives see it. On Sept. 20, the House voted to continue funding the federal government but defund the Affordable Care Act, known as ObamaCare.

Open enrollment for ObamaCare begins Oct. 1 with coverage and services starting Jan. 1, 2014. The new law—which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court last June—is intended to provide health insurance for most of the 30 to 50 million uninsured Americans. “First,” Obama said after the ruling, “if you’re one of the 250 million Americans who already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance—this law will only make it secure and more affordable. Insurance companies can no longer impose lifetime limits on the amount of care you receive.

They can no longer discriminate against children with pre-existing conditions. They can no longer drop your coverage if you get sick. ... They are required to provide free preventive care like checkups and mammograms,” and people under 26 will be permitted to stay on their parents’ policies.

Nonetheless, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has pledged to do whatever it takes to get rid of ObamaCare, even if it means shutting down the government.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid, D-Nev., says that’s not going to happen. However, if no agreement is reached on a continuing resolution to fund the government, most nonessential federal operations would come to a halt on Oct. 1.

Meanwhile, HHS is educating the public about what to expect and how to access ObamaCare.

That includes targeted outreach to the LGBT community with an “Out 2 Enroll” campaign. But some speakers expressed skepticism during the HHS event. For instance, while the implementation of ObamaCare makes health care insurance more accessible, data collection, effective messaging and education about the challenges and opportunities raised by the new legislation are needed. In particular, race and class figure as prominent roadblocks for the LGBT community to access health care.

Although men who have sex with men constitute only two percent of the nation’s population, they constitute two-thirds of all new HIV infections.

This especially impacts young gay, bisexual and ‘men who have sex with men’ of color, with Latinos aged 18-24 at three times the risk of contracting infec-

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tion as white men, and Black men aged 18-24 at eight times the risk of infection as white men. With treatment-as-prevention and effective messaging and outreach that targets the most heavily impacted people—young men of color—it has become possible to imagine an AIDS-free generation.

Masen Davis, Executive Director of the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, presented key issues that transgender men and women face in accessing health care. Transgender people are twice as likely to face employment discrimination— four times as likely if they are transgender and black.

Fifteen percent of transgender people survive off less than $10,000 annually. In addition, many transgender people have reported that their health care providers are culturally incompetent when it comes to transgender-specific health care, to the effect that many avoid regular doctor’s visits. Incompetency not only dissuades transgender people from seeking preventive medicine; it also places another obstacle in accessing the hormone therapy needed to sustain their gender identities.

Ari Gutierrez, Co-Chair of the Los Angeles-based Latino Equality Alliance, also participated. “The Affordable Care Act represents a ‘movement moment’ for the LGB and T community. For the first time, our community will be guaranteed access to affordable health care, which can change the trajectory of the quality of life for LGBT youth and our families,” Gutierrez told Frontiers. “For communities of color, ObamaCare represents an opportunity to receive LGBTcompetent health services in our own communities.”

L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center CEO Lorri Jean says there are numerous studies showing that “LGBT people suffer severe income inequality compared to our straight counterparts.” For example: * Gay men earn up to 32 percent less than similarly qualified heterosexual men. * Up to 64 percent of transgender people make less than $25,000 a year. * About 24 percent of lesbian and bisexual women between the ages of 18 and 44 are broke. (That’s compared to 19 percent of straight women.)

“These income disparities translate directly to inadequate health care,” says Jean.

But, as Jean says, “ObamaCare will change that.” For six months starting on Oct. 1, “legal residents without access to affordable health insurance through their employer will be eligible to purchase health coverage through Covered California , coveredca.com. This is California’s version of the ‘exchanges’ you’ve probably heard about.

This works for people of all income levels who lack affordable insurance through their employer.”

Using the “shop and compare” tool at Covered California, people can check out the different plans and different prices and, Jean notes, “[t]here are significant nuances for people with HIV.” For more information, go to: tinyurl.com/l6xs5df; the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s website, lagaycenter.org; out2enroll.org; and HHS.gov/healthcare.

Ari Gutierrez, Co-Chair of the Latino Equality Alliance

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OCTOBER 15, 2013

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L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s First 100 Days Portend a Shift in Governing

BY KAREN OCAMB

PHOTO: RYAN FORBES, RYANFORBESPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

Glancing at the photo of former Los Angeles mayors Jim Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa uniting hands with Mayor Eric Garcetti on Inauguration Day at City Hall, an abstract metaphor emerges, suggesting a new dialectic movement to shift the way government works, business is done and citizens are engaged in the city of Los Angeles.

Hahn was quiet, shy, lawyerly—more politically conservative than many in his Democratic Party and even his family dynasty. Villaraigosa was Hahn’s counterpoint—gregarious, liberal, an up-

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from-the-streets union-centric politician with national ambitions.

Garcetti is the fortuitous synthesis moving forward—the Oxford scholar with a master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University who “cut his teeth as an activist working on issues of equality and civil rights” in ACT UP/New York and who today is a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve Information Dominance Corps working on naval intelligence. Philosophically and concretely, Garcetti represents a new direction, a gusto for rethinking what is—with a fidelity and deep sense of duty to the nobility of public service.

The whole atmosphere around Garcetti is different. Unlike the steely coldness of Hahn or the stratospheric rock star status of Villaraigosa, Garcetti is imminently approachable. Despite almost 100 days as mayor, his office is unadorned, almost Zen-like, a clean, paperless desk with a laptop as the central focus. On his bookshelves proudly sits a model of a concrete ‘X’—a model of the design for the 1960s-era American Cement Building across from MacArthur Park—and a book featuring acid rocker Jimmy Hendrix on the cover in openmouthed ecstasy. The mayor says the bookshelves will be filled with things given him by others as he fixes a reporter a cup of coffee from The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, which he proudly announces is headquartered in L.A. This quietly breathtaking Aquarian act of humility is emblematic of this young mayor’s character. Eric Garcetti is profoundly aware that his power derives from the governed—citizens who are his equals and deserve the best the city can offer.

In his first 100 days, Mayor Garcetti has already brought city government to the people in a number of ways, such as his Government 101 classes and, on Sept.

5, walking door to door in Venice with gay Councilmember Mike Bonin and roughly 200 neighbors in the 11th Council District.

“Mayor Garcetti's neighborhood walk

with me, going door to door in Venice, captures perfectly the tone he is setting and the way he is governing—refreshingly open, remarkably accessible and focused intently on getting back to basics and delivering neighborhood services. He is a natural at the front door and in the living room, discussing potholes, affordable housing and people's dreams for their families,” Bonin, who represents the 11th Council District, told Frontiers. “It's an exciting time to be in government, and you can genuinely feel that we are on the verge of big and great things.”

From an LGBT-specific perspective, Garcetti immediately jumped in and replaced Villaraigosa on the Mayors for the Freedom to Marry campaign.

“Eric is doing a great job! It’s no surprise to me that Eric was eager to become a co-chair of Mayors for the Freedom to Marry and make the case to mayoral colleagues in every part of the country that marriage for committed same-sex couples is a profound good for families and communities,” Marc Solomon, Freedom to Marry’s National Campaign Director and close Garcetti friend, told Frontiers. “I see only great things ahead.”

Garcetti made clear his ongoing commitment to equality at a small community reception for him at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center on Sept.

8. In introducing him, Center CEO Lorri Jean— who hugged him tightly when the new mayor arrived—said, “He is one of the smartest people you’re ever going to want to find, and he truly cares about Los Angeles and our people, including our people.”

Garcetti was moved, noting “the level of friendship and intimacy I feel—not only with the leadership of the Center, but with the Center. This is a homecoming.”

He flashed back to when the Center held a reception for Villaraigosa right after his election and how Villaraigosa was there for the LGBT community as Speaker of the Assembly years before.

“For me to be here eight years later—being welcomed by what feels like my community, in the deepest sense of saying that—really fills me with such optimism about our future.”

He noted that history books make significant moments appear as if they were easily achieved.

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Garcetti hugs the Center’s Lorri Jean

PHOTOS BY KAREN OCAMB

Garcetti with gay staffers Oliver Delgado and Justin Gonzales

Jim Hahn, Garcetti and former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

But, Garcetti said, “We know in the midst of making history how slow those lines are written, how painfully those paragraphs are made. And yet when we are part of history, as we all have been in this moment in time, we have needed each other more deeply than ever, each one of us, realizing that our fates are so closely tied that if we don’t recognize equal rights for all, none of us are truly free.”

Indeed, it was the LGBT movement—the “adding letters” that expanded inclusiveness— that “helped us rethink what inclusion means. It means building affordable housing for LGBT seniors at Triangle Square so the triple discrimination of being poor, gay and a senior didn’t mean you couldn’t find a community of your own. It meant for the transgender community here in Los Angeles not just making sure that the LAPD stepped up and realized that the crimes that were—and still are—being committed against our transgender community needed a level of nuance and understanding and education that we would integrate in, but, even in better times, we would have, for instance, the first transgender job fair in the city’s history.”

Now Garcetti thinks about “How will we com-

plete this vision for each one of us for a truly just and great city?”

Indeed, the Frontiers interview focused heavily on that ‘how’ of governing. So far, Garcetti said his biggest achievement has been building his administration team, which includes two top gay aides—Rich Llewellyn as mayor’s counsel and Rick Jacobs as deputy chief of staff.

“Absolutely my first priority is to make sure that people who will be the backbone of this administration are in place,” Garcetti said. “[P]art of what … people have missed is not about who stays, who goes—it’s about what they are going to do. So we’re going to have a new culture with as many departments as we can by Day 100. ...

We’ll have metrics. There are goals—quantitative measures that I can look at—that the public can look at. For the first time, it won’t be just a hodge-podge of campaign promises. It will be thoughtful, methodical, transparent governing.”

Among his portfolio of duties, Rick Jacobs is essentially running the “strategic office.”

“Rick will be me when I can’t be some place, but he’ll also help remind us that there’s a bigger world outside of these walls, because living here, working here, the place can take you over when

you realize there are 3,909,500 people who are not at City Hall,” Garcetti said. “He’ll also do the Office of Strategic Partnerships, which is nonprofit, public-private partnerships aspects, and also protocol for our diplomacy efforts. So that will be an important part, too. And I think he brings in great experience and understanding of the nonprofit world and how to leverage up relationships with foundations and community partners with advocacy groups.”

“Mayor Garcetti looks at Los Angeles as a city greater than the sum of its parts,” Jacobs told Frontiers. “He knows that LGBT people are key to the fabric of every community, and that’s how he looks at our work here. It’s refreshing and empowering to know that our mayor thinks about whole people rather than labels. That’s the L.A. of today, and ideally the nation of tomorrow.”

To achieve that, Garcetti will continue to communicate directly with the people—as many discovered when the mayor Tweeted about potholes while on jury duty.

“I will regularly communicate with the people, whether that’s me directly Tweeting, whether that’s my social media team looking at the hastag #LAMayor and our accounts, whether it’s our outreach teams doing our community walks— which I did as a councilmember. We did our first one in Venice. I was hoping a few dozen people would show up. Over 200 people came,” he said.

“So we will talk to and find Angelenos using every medium we know how except banners on planes.”

Garcetti outlined what his strategy looks like. “There are three strategic goals I have and nine categories of action. The largest strategic goals are: jump-start our economy, rethink city government and to build a new civic fabric. The nine goals within that include everything from

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L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s First 100 Days Portend a Shift in Governing

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‘live within our fiscal means’; ‘become customer friendly’; ‘train a future work force’; ‘get more people to work.’”

He intends to explain his vision concisely “in plain English.” He also sees three levels for his own involvement. “The official power I have directly as mayor, the collaborative power I have with city council and other levels of government—be they neighbors or metro or the state— and the informal, soft power I have to convince the private sector, the nonprofit sector and the community neighborhood space to engage with me toward common goals. And we have some very specific metrics—20,000 green jobs and a program to do that by cleaning the water, by installing solar power and by making buildings more energy efficient.”

The energy efficiency stuff, he says, “pays for itself.”

“I won’t try to be all things to all people. A mayor is limited in what he can do,” Garcetti said.

“People think there are unlimited resources, but I am rethinking the city, so it’s not just an office full of 100 people doing work. It’s a city staff of nearly 50,000 public employees that—if respected, trained and lifted up—can be even more skilled ambassadors, innovators and delivery personnel of these services.”

In some ways, Garcetti is reimagining his Navy experience as a template for civilian use, such as the training the military received before the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

“My experience in the Navy is that training across a mass of people from different backgrounds and different ethnicities and different ages and genders—and now, thankfully, sexual orientations—you can do that if you actually embed that culture,” Garcetti said. “I want to have customer service be a value that’s taught.”

Garcetti is also very keen to reward and lift up the civil service workers who have been beaten down by ideology and the economy. “I will have high standards for accountability. I will make sure we can sustain our finances,” Garcetti said. “But I will also tell the stories of the good that we do.

We have chosen this pathway for a reason— because we believe in what we do. And I think it’s important for the public to know that—to feel like

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PHOTO: RYAN FORBES, RYANFORBESPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

they’re listened to when they give feedback, and for us all to be able to improve as we provide those services that people deserve.”

Garcetti also thinks it is time for the Neighborhood Councils to rethink their mission and agenda, too. That can’t come soon enough according to longtime feminist and LGBT civil rights activist Robin Tyler, who is on the board of the North Hills West Neighborhood Council and alleges virulent sexism as well as a possible violation of the Brown Act. “As someone who has worked in the movement since the 1970s, I have experienced a lot of discrimination,” Tyler told Frontiers. “But I have never had to face the blatant sexism and misogyny that I have encountered while being elected to the North Hills West Neighborhood Council,” along with three other women board members.

Garcetti would not comment on the charges but said that accusations of discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation “have to be taken seriously by the city. Period. Full stop.” A staff member subsequently got in touch with Tyler

about the situation.

The Neighborhood Councils need to write their second chapter,” Garcetti said. “[W]e need to either step backwards and say that Neighborhood Councils shouldn’t exist—which is not my opinion—or empower them with more. ... Henry Kissinger said that university politics were so vicious precisely because there’s so little at stake.”

Perhaps—specifically around reviewing land use projects—the Neighborhood Councils should have more formal powers. And “widening the number of people who participate. Sometimes it’s too few, and those too few voices—ones that are dysfunctional—chase anybody new away. … That’ll be important. And engaging traditional community organizing. ... You begin to teach people how to engage in the community, because nobody gets this book when they’re born or arrive in Los Angeles” on how government works.

Interestingly, the future Garcetti is proposing is a city government in which both Tea Party and Occupy L.A. activists can participate. And that’s a cultural shift that could shake the nation.

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Montréal BY STEPHAN HORBELT

Montréal is a collection of stark dichotomies, though in the best way possible.

Known for its Old World charm, the French Canadian city is also a bustling, modern destination, and despite being an island, Montréal is effortlessly connected to the rest of the world. The city’s neighborhoods are as varied as they come, each providing a unique perspective on urban life—from the gay village surrounding Sainte-

W Montréal The W brand is of course synonymous with hip luxury, and Montréal’s property is hardly an exception. Centrally located for the LGBT traveler, the W is only three short metro stops from the gay village and sits among art galleries, boutiques and various museums. Your expansive room acts as a stellar home base for your time spent in Montréal, and its bright white bathroom—with a tub and walk-in shower—is sure to elicit giddiness. Also, needless to say, the hotel offers all the amenities you’re accustomed to as an international traveler.

Grumman 78 What started as Montréal’s first taco truck has become one of the city’s most outstanding brick-and-mortar restaurants. Having crafted the perfect formula of an inventive menu, quality ingredients and a convivial atmosphere, Grumman 78 may beckon you back a second or third time while on your tour of Montréal. Inspired by the lightness and freshness of Baja Mexican food, dishes here are served without pretension in a raw, industrial space among original local artwork and a Ms. Pacman machine.

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Jardin Botanique Montréal One of the world’s largest botanical gardens, Montréal’s offers more than a lifetime of stunning landscapes.

On-site are the remarkably diverse Chinese Garden, Japanese Garden, a Bonsai and Penjing collection and an Insectarium. Most recently the botanical garden featured the International Mosaiculture event, which showcased 50 jawdropping, larger-than-life horticultural works by artists from 25 countries.

L’Aigle Noir It seems to be an established fact that the bear community loves itself a patio, a deck—any open outdoor space, really.

The Black Eagle is Montréal’s ‘bear bar’ submission—a fun, friendly space where the hirsute of Sainte-Catherine meet to ogle one another and imbibe cheap drinks.

As it turns out, due to Canada’s stringent liquor laws, you’re better off drinking beer (unless you enjoy ridiculously weak cocktails), so why not do so with the bears? Much like the bars of L.A.’s East Side, you’ll find raunchy porn on the TV, music that branches out from deep house tracks and the occasional leather harness-clad gentleman.

Catherine Street to the hipster-populated Mile End—yet they are all patches on the diverse quilt that makes up Montréal.

The LGBT traveler will find whatever he seeks here, whether that is an indulgence of sophisticated culture, fine dining and luxe shopping or an id-fueled vacation of dancing, drinking and hedonistic dalliances. Either way, there is quite literally something for everyone in Québec’s largest city.

Philadelphie to Monaco: Grace Kelly— Beyond the Icon

Café Sardine

Apollon

A café by day and a restaurant by night, ‘trendy’ doesn’t even begin to describe this pint-sized establishment.

And here’s another word: ‘heavenly.’

It’s surprising that Café Sardine’s miniscule kitchen is able to turn out as many stellar dishes as it does, but you surely won’t regret your choice of eats here, from the crab croquette to the couscous (though the menu likely changes with the seasons). Leave room for dessert, as you’ll most definitely want to try the freshly made doughnuts, and be sure to wash it down with a homemade soda. No trip to Montréal’s Mile End neighborhood is complete without a meal here.

A popular nightclub in the gay village with its name and décor inspired by the Parthenon, Apollon provides two floors for hedonistic nights of dancing. It’s the venue of choice for those searching out the true ‘nightclub’ experience, thanks to a powerful soundsystem, LED lights and a giant screen. Naturally, the emphasis here is on dancing, with bars to hydrate you and various nooks and crannies to rest your weary legs.

One of Sainte-Catherine’s various ‘see and be seen’ hot spots, Le Saloon is the perfect place to grab a bite before drinking the night away. Of course, you can get started here as well, thanks to a slate of cocktail creations mixed by the handsome staff. In the form of sustenance, Le Saloon invites you to chow down on sandwiches, salads, burgers and more.

This exhibit, making its North American debut in Montréal, has been a popular attraction among LGBT travelers. It traces the extraordinary journey of Grace Kelly’s life—from Hitchcock muse and Oscar winner to the princess of Monaco—via personal objects, testimonials, love letters, photos, film clips and her own clothing and accessories.

The exhibit provides a window into the life of a woman who significantly influenced other women and was a constant focus of fascination.

Le Saloon

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Prague

BY STEVE ROTH

With the recent passage of anti-gay laws in Russia and an increase in homophobic violence in that country and other parts of the region, you may be asking yourself, Is Eastern Europe safe for LGBT travelers? Fortunately, in the Czech Republic and its stunning capital, Prague, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’—and not only safe but welcoming.

An ancient mélange of cultures, Prague

straddles the Vltava River, spilling 1,000 years of history into its cobblestone streets and medieval alleyways. Prague dodged much of the bombing and devastation of World War II that leveled so many other cities in the region, leaving intact one of the world’s most striking collections of Gothic, Baroque and Art Nouveau architecture.

Prague’s movie set good looks have not been lost on Hollywood. The city and its iconic

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Prague Castle and Charles Bridge have served as backdrops for movies ranging from Yentl to Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol. You may feel like you recognize the Gothic masterpiece Tyn Church, which dominates the Old Town Square. Legend has it that the church gave Walt Disney the inspiration for his Sleeping Beauty castle. True or not, the fairy tale beauty of this city captivates the same way Disney’s animated films captivate children.

InterContinental Prague

Hilton Prague Hotel

Termix

Prague Pride

Conveniently located near the Vltava River and on the edge of the historic Jewish Quarter in Old Town, the InterContinental Prague is an excellent choice for deluxe, international accommodations paired with easy access to some of the city’s top sights. The extensive breakfast buffet at the newly refurbished Restaurant Primator provides the perfect sustenance after a workout and swim in the hotel’s large and well-equipped fitness center, one of the best in town. Enjoy dinner or cocktails on the summer terrace of the Zlata Praha Restaurant on the hotel’s ninth floor and you’ll understand why Prague is nicknamed “The City of a Hundred Spires.”

A few minutes by cab from the city’s historic center, the Hilton Prague Hotel pairs the comfort and efficiency you’d expect from a major American hotel chain with a European touch. If you’re combining your holiday in Prague with a few days of business before or after, this may be the ideal hotel for you.

The rooftop Cloud 9 Sky Bar & Lounge is a great place to unwind and enjoy a coffee or cocktail along with stunning views of the city and Prague Castle across the river.

A 10-minute cab ride away—in leafy, suburban Vinohrady—you’ll find another smattering of gay and gay-friendly bars and clubs, including Prague’s largest gay disco, Termix. Packed and smoky beyond belief on the weekends, Termix hosts karaoke nights on Thursdays with a young audience belting out pop favorites in English (surprisingly well) and Czech (interesting). If you’ve never seen a drag queen in a black bob lip synch “I Will Survive” in Czech, you really need to plan a trip to Prague.

Prague is also home to the biggest and best LGBT event in the Czech Republic, Prague Pride. Falling in mid August—with 2013 just its third year— it is already the largest LGBT Pride celebration in Eastern Europe and a great reason to visit this historic city.

With a variety of diverse activities ranging from the TransgenderME photo exhibition to a unique ‘silent disco’ (everyone has headphones) at the Pride Piazzeta, Prague Pride is well-organized, growing in size and a testament to the city’s tolerance and gay-friendliness. This year, for the first time ever, the Pride parade passed through Old Town Square, the historic heart of the city. Thousands of locals and tourists alike joined the parade as it wound through Old Town and across the river to the festival grounds, making history along the way.

Pálffy Palác Across the river in the Mala Strana quarter, the gay-friendly Pálffy Palác is a great place to take your significant other for a romantic dinner. Set in an impossibly charming Baroque palace, meals on the garden terrace afford great views of Prague Palace on the hillside above.

Stare Mesto

Café Flirt Bar

LGBT travelers will also find in Prague a gay scene that blends easily into the city’s polyglot and touristheavy population. Prague doesn’t have a ‘gayborhood’ per se, but many of the city’s most popular gay and LGBTfriendly bars and clubs are clustered together in Stare Mesto (literally “Old Town”), not far from the city’s most popular sights on the eastern banks of the Vltava.

Back in Old Town you’ll find Café Flirt Bar, Prague’s answer to a Silver Lake or East Village pub, and Club Friends, a cozy downstairs club and neighborhood bar with a small dance floor and a fun mix of women and men—and a few drag queens tossed in for good measure.

Find the rest of your Prague itinerary at FrontiersLA.com/Travel.

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Romance

BY MARK A. THOMPSON

There's something about Seattle that keeps the city on nearly everyone’s bucket list. It’s one of those places that makes people want to start anew and fall in love with life again. All that green and blue, the forests and the water, Puget Sound and Elliott Bay and Lake Washington and the San Juan Islands—it’s balm for the soul.

Even if you’ve never been to Seattle, you’ve seen photos of

Hotel 1000

Capitol Hill

Q

For your own romance with Seattle, you might check in here, the 120-room downtown boutique hotel that is located on one of the city’s most vertiginous blocks. The top of the block is six stories above the pavement at the bottom, which makes for stunning views throughout the building.

Opened in 2006, Hotel 1000 is a part of the city’s first residential-hotel complex, and the rooms are the equivalent of pied à terre apartments. The hotel’s attention to detail makes you feel that you’re residing in a full-service residential building—a glass of champagne upon arrival, a car and driver for your needs within a two-mile radius, your shoes polished and shined and same-day drycleaning services.

Studio 1000, the lobby lounge, serves complimentary coffee and Mighty-O Donuts, which are lethally delicious and which will fortify you for your peregrinations around the city.

The center of the city’s LGBT life is Capitol Hill, which is located east of Downtown Seattle and up a steep hill, about a one-and-a-half-mile walk, though the rewards are worth the exercise. Punctuated with trendy restaurants, stately homes and lushly forested parks, Capitol Hill feels like an idyllic, bohemian American village where musicians, stroller moms and artists celebrate the good life with the city’s hipster LGBT population.

At sunset, if you take a stroll through Volunteer Park and climb the 106 steps to the top of Capitol Hill’s water tower (relax, it’s good for the glutes— and besides, it’s free), you’re rewarded with a panoramic vista of some of Seattle’s most recognizable landmarks.

After dinner, you might consider shaking your moneymaker at Q nightclub in Capitol Hill. Designed by the same architectural firm that created Apple’s signature cube on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, Q has reinvigorated Seattle’s LGBT nightlife. With a renewed focus on music, sound and lighting— and the motto “Music is Our Message”—Q has become the bellwether of 21st century nightclubbing.

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Pike Place Market With more than 10 million annual visitors, Pike Place Market is, arguably, Seattle’s definitive tourist destination.

Open since 1907, it’s a nineacre historic district home to more than 200 businesses, including a farmers market, bakeries, butchers and fishmongers, all buzzing with caffeine energy, which is to be expected at the home of the original Starbucks, which opened in the market in 1971.

the seven-hill city ringed by snow-capped mountains and the waterways heading into mystical realms. Seattle makes people dream of another life—the one where they’re in touch with nature and, thus, themselves.

Today, Seattle is second only to San Francisco in American cities with the highest percentage of LGBT residents.

Olympic Sculpture Park

Seattle Great Wheel

In spite of what you might think you know about Seattle’s weather, the city actually receives less rainfall than New York, especially if you visit Seattle between the months of May and September.

In clement weather, take a leisurely stroll along Seattle’s historic waterfront to Olympic Sculpture Park, which is one of Seattle Art Museum’s other facilities around the city. The nine-acre sculpture park features magnificent pieces by such illustrious sculptors as Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Ellsworth Kelly, Claes Oldenburg, Richard Serra and Louise Nevelson. With sunset vistas across Elliott Bay, Olympic Sculpture Park is the sort of picturesque locale that Hollywood employs for marriage proposals in a Seattle rom-com.

Given that same-sex marriage has been legal in the state of Washington since December 6, 2012, why not get hitched in Seattle? Live your own Hollywood rom-com and pop the question atop the newly opened Seattle Great Wheel.

Located along the Alaskan Way on Pier 57, Seattle’s historic 1896 Gold Rush pier, the Seattle Great Wheel is illuminated in the evenings with enough psychedelic LED lights to resurrect Seattle native son Jimi Hendrix.

If you still recall with fondness the scene in E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web in which Fern and Henry Fussy ride the Ferris wheel and stop at the top, then the Seattle Great Wheel has your name on it—especially if you reserve the luxury gondola outfitted with leather bucket seats and a glass floor.

Find the rest of your Seattle itinerary at FrontiersLA.com/Travel.

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Seduction BY MARK A. THOMPSON

Here, on Germany's northernmost island—a windswept landscape of majestic cliffs, lush meadows, flowering heathland and unspoiled sand dunes—is where Thomas Mann lived and wrote Death in Venice, witnessing the pulchritude of German youth as they frolicked on the wide beaches of Germany's most famous holiday isle.

For over a century, Sylt has been a sanctuary for writers, journalists, publishers and performing artists, thereby insuring that the island's fabled beauty is immortalized in art.

Those who have been smitten by Province-

town on Cape Cod will recognize immediately the similarities—a literary haven at land’s end, supported by a live-and-let-live culture comprised of fishermen, naturists and naturalists.

While Sylt has been a fashionable seaside resort since the 19th century, the island has become in recent years a summer destination for German celebrities and a global jetsetting population. Alongside this influx has been an invasion of upscale boutiques, with many of the island’s ubiquitous thatchedroof houses now home to luxury purveyors

such as Hermès, Cartier, Bulgari and Louis Vuitton. The island also has no less than six Michelin-starred restaurants—three of them with two stars.

With 11 villages and one town, Sylt supports nearly 20,000 residents who welcome nearly 1 million visitors a year. They come for the 25 miles of sandy beaches—and the “Strandkorbe,” the ubiquitous beach basket chair that has become a global symbol of Sylt’s relaxing vibe and chill atmosphere.

More than 12,000 Strandkorbe are spaced along Sylt’s shore.

Westerland

Saunas

Hotel Stadt Hamburg

Alte Friesenstube

Sylt’s only town is this 10,000-resident locale, which is where the trains arrive and where visitors will find lodging and a surfeit of cafés, shops, boutiques, pubs and restaurants.

Of equal interest to the LGBT population might be the numerous saunas on Sylt. As incongruous as that fact might seem to denizens of southerly beach resorts, Sylt’s median temperature in midsummer averages a bracing 60 degrees, and a blanket of snow covers those fabled dunes in winter. Sylt’s saunas, therefore, are as therapeutic and indulgent as they are necessary.

If you sauna on Kampen beach at La Grande Plage, there’s an adjoining bistro that serves exemplary local cuisine, as well as freshly harvested oysters from the island’s own beds, which are widely considered to be among Europe’s finest.

And it might well be at that moment, while sipping a crisp Riesling and slurping fresh oysters and gazing out across the North Sea, that you recognize your good fortune in having landed on the shores of paradise.

Since 1869, this charming hotel in Westerland has been run by three generations of the Hentzschel family. More than 100 staff members provide attentive hospitality throughout the labyrinthine property, which is marked by fresh flowers, antiques, paintings and enough wallpaper and chintz to make Mario Buatta, “The Prince of Chintz,” chortle with delight.

The hotel’s 72 rooms and suites are complemented by a charming lounge with fireplace and an in-house spa.

Located next to the casino and a quick walk to the rail station, Hotel Stadt Hamburg is but a short stroll from Sylt’s fabled white sand beaches and Haus Kliffende, where Thomas Mann spent time writing.

A member of Relais & Chateaux, Hotel Stadt Hamburg offers the relaxed ambiance of an English country house on the enchanted isle of Sylt.

If you’ve yearned to discover the essence of the German word “gemütlichkeit,” which is often understood to mean a style of cozy home comfort that would make Martha Stewart quiver, then you need only to cross the threshold of Alte Friesenstube.

Built in 1648, Alte Friesenstube is the oldest thatch-roof cottage on Sylt, currently one of the island’s most popular restaurants. Resistance to its kitschy charms is futile. The walls are covered with decorative tiles, and the staff is garbed in clothing from another century. You needn’t fear that the menu is handwritten in Plautdietsch, for the food is as tasty as it is gemütlichkeit—and all the more so with a post-prandial round (or two or three) of the house aquavit.

Kampen To the north is the village of Kampen, with its flowering heathlands and stunning red cliffs, which glisten like gold in the setting sun. Sylt’s most cosmopolitan village, Kampen is as charming as it is elegant, with old Frisian holiday homes topped with traditional thatch roofs. Originally made from the island’s indigenous reed stalks, a thatch roof—which can last for 30 years—stores heat in the winter and keeps homes cool during the summer.

Die Kupferkanne In clement weather, head here (“The Copper Pot”) in Kampen. A coffee house situated in a grove of pines, Die Kupferkanne would be worth a trip merely for the panoramic vistas of the Wadden Sea, but there’s also delicious coffee at this picturesque locale.

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Fall further in love with Sylt by visiting FrontiersLA.com/Travel.

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AwaitsYou BY MARK A. THOMPSON

The recent conclusion of Pride Toronto’s 33rd edition this past June marked the commencement of Toronto’s preparation for the citywide celebration of WorldPride 2014. From June 20-29, 2014, Pride Toronto will host the first WorldPride event ever held in North America in an effort to raise awareness of inequality— and, consequently, to effect positive change through education and outreach.

As Pride Toronto Co-Chair Francisco Alvarez states, “Our vision

Pride Toronto

Gladstone Hotel

Toronto’s first Pride celebration was held in 1984, and since then Pride Toronto has become one of the world’s largest Pride celebrations, with an estimated attendance of 1.2 million people.

A two-time winner of “Best Festival in Canada” and one of the “Top 50 Festivals” in Ontario, as well as one of Toronto’s eight city-designated signature events, Pride Toronto is a 10-day celebration that culminates in a massive three-day final weekend. During Pride weekend, Toronto’s gay village becomes a 26-block, eightstage, night-and-day street festival that resembles the free-and-fearless lovechild of Mardi Gras and Burning Man. While most cities around the world celebrate Pride with a march or a parade, Toronto has three—the Dyke March, the Trans March and the Pride Parade (which features more than 150 floats and marching— or dancing—contingents).

It’s way more than a hotel.

In fact, it’s almost an entire neighborhood—and, in truth, the Gladstone Hotel has been instrumental in putting Toronto’s Queen West neighborhood on the lips of hipsters everywhere.

Art here is pervasive, with 37 artist-designed hotel rooms, exhibition spaces, artists’ studios and a ballroom that hosts everything from readings and lectures to burlesque shows.

Gladstone guests have access to two green roof terraces and complimentary Gallant Bicycles.

There are also weekly drawing classes, trivia nights and neighborhood walking tours.

As the Gladstone tagline asserts, this hotel is “Where the he[art] is”—and ever since the property’s regeneration in 2005, it has worn its LGBTQ DNA on its sleeve loud and proud. Pride at the Gladstone is a 10-day celebration that coincides with the hotel’s annual art exhibition, “That’s So Gay.”

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National Gallery of Canada You’ll know it by the spider: Louise Bourgeois’ majestic and masterful “Maman” (1999), a massive bronze and steel arachnid, complete with egg sac, that protects and defends the entrance to the National Gallery of Canada.

Whether you regard Bourgeois’ sculpture as progeny of E.B. White’s Charlotte or a distant relative of Ridley Scott’s Alien mother, upon entrance you’ll be rewarded with the world’s largest collection of Canadian art.

Designed by Moshe Safdie (who also designed Montreal’s Habitat 67), the granite-andglass structure opened in 1988 and has been acclaimed as one of Canada’s top 20th century architectural buildings.

Apart from Canadian art, you’ll find some of modern art’s most iconic works, such as Warhol’s “Brillo” and Pollock’s “No. 29, 1950.”

for WorldPride is that all of the city is hosting,” which means that Toronto will be celebrating the largest Pride in the world.

Consider this a head’s up—and an opportunity to start planning now for your WorldPride Toronto vacation. Think about it: LGBT people from around the globe, all celebrating in the name of planetary Pride. What could be closer to life on our home planet?

Here are a few reasons to rise up and show your Pride at WorldPride Toronto.

Niagara Falls

Smith Restaurant

Don’t roll your eyes. Now that same-sex marriage is happening from the East Coast to the West, Niagara Falls is more alluring than ever—but not only for honeymoons (a tradition inaugurated by Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother and bride in 1803).

Explore the tunnels behind the Falls (after an elevator ride that plunges 150 feet through solid bedrock) or soar atop the Niagara SkyWheel— Canada’s largest observation wheel—and view the falls from the heavens.

Of course, no trip to Niagara Falls is complete without a trip on Maid of the Mist. Since 1846 (in a sidewheel steamboat ferry), Maid of the Mist has been thrilling crowds with its excursions to the very base of the Niagara Gorge. (Hornblower Niagara Cruises takes over the franchise in spring 2014.)

Now there’s one more very good reason to head to Church Wellesley (aka ‘the Village’) in Toronto. Smith is a three-level restaurant-cum-lounge bar with a backyard patio and a topfloor dance club.

Smith has a design aesthetic that evokes a sleek rustic country house. Mismatched china and chairs commingle with dark wood antiques and iron implements.

Upstairs, a profusion of gilded mirrors and frames hang on painted brick walls.

The atmosphere at Smith is often equivalent to a large house party at someone’s weekend house. With a focus on comfort food and regional fare, the menu includes country club favorites such as Cobb salad, shrimp cocktail, steak frites and a bread pudding that is reason enough to book a table.

For even more reasons to head to Toronto, go to FrontiersLA.com/Travel.

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By George Skinner

Something Old,

Something New

Honeymoon Destinations for Us All With political attitudes on gay marriage rapidly changing, the world has truly been made into our oyster. No longer boxed into gay-owned hotels and resorts, newlywed LGBT couples planning honeymoon getaways are free to travel almost anywhere their wanderlust may lead them.

But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and a tiny bit of research into your destination’s stance on gay marriage and anti-discrimination laws is still a necessary task before packing a single bag.

Perhaps after all the stress of writing, producing and starring in the spectacular production simply known as “Your Wedding,” you don’t feel like doing a ton of homework on foreign politics. We hear you. So as a little matrimonial gift to you and your better half, we’ve compiled a list of honeymoon destinations that have passed our preboarding screening and are cleared for take-off. After all, this is your honeymoon we’re talking about, and you should be able to hold hands in public like any other couple still shaking the rice from their shoes!

For the Sunseekers: French Polynesia

For the Road-Trippers: Santa Barbara

First off, it’s French, which automatically gets romance points. Second, we’re talking over-thewater bungalows with glass floors looking at the ocean below. Third, it’s totally trending. And why not? How can you possibly go wrong with white sand beaches, volcanoes, centuries-old vanilla plantations, coconut groves and crystal-clear water? Not to mention that since France passed marriage equality in June, LGBT travelers are granted full protection status by the French Polynesian government—one more feather in the beret of this tropical diamond.

Not everyone wants to spend hours flying, which is completely understandable. To you I say, hello Santa Barbara! Easy to get to from most anywhere in California, Santa Barbara is a wine lover’s paradise that boasts enough five-star hotels, gourmet restaurants and tranquil spas to pamper away the most persistent of post-wedding headaches. For couples that actually want to leave their hotel room, nearly every property offers guests electric bikes for exploring the coast or visiting the city’s winery-packed Funk Zone. If you feel like it’s just not a vacation until you’ve dipped your toe into water, snorkeling lessons in the nearby Channel Islands should be just the ticket.

For the Historians: Buenos Aires Known for its art, food and that Madonna movie, Argentina is one of the most affordable honeymoon destinations in the Americas—and it approved same-sex marriage in 2010! For a taste of authentic old-world romance, you can’t go wrong with the ornate ironwork and crooked streets of Buenos Aires. Ripe with culture and history, the city truly sparkles at night when the restaurants and cafés flow into the streets and live music spills from gallery openings and rooftop bars. Don’t cry for me, indeed!

For the Adventurers: Cape Town I know, I know. A safe same-sex honeymoon in Africa? But hear me out: South Africa is the one African country that has banned gay discrimination and legally recognizes gay marriage. Both unabashedly wild and utterly cosmopolitan at the same time, Cape Town offers LGBT travelers beautiful scenery, a thriving art scene, fine dining, surfing and penguins! Stay at the Cape Grace Hotel, which treats LGBT honeymooners to daily wed-

ding gifts like bottles of champagne and handmade artisan chocolates. Another nice touch is that the online honeymoon registry allows your friends and family to pay for any of your preselected activities!

For the Fashionable: St. Bart’s While the Caribbean as a whole is massively homophobic, the one notable exception is St. Bart’s, a French-governed island (again, thank you, France) that has legalized gay marriage and welcomes LGBT tourists with open arms. Long favored by gay A-listers like Marc Jacobs, Zachary Quinto and the ladies of the DeGeneres-de Rossi household, St. Bart’s is the epitome of chic, even if you’re not doing a thing but eating, drinking and lounging—chicly, of course—on one of the island’s 27 sparkling white sand beaches.

For the Romantics: Mallorca In 2005, Spain became the third country to legalize gay marriage, and while popular tourist destinations like Barcelona and Stiges are buzzing with gay nightlife, picture-perfect Mallorca is a fairy tale come true with its own lively gay thread—Anais Nin lived here, for goodness sake!

How much more queer are we asking for? Located in the Balearic Islands and described by Chopin as the most beautiful place in the world, Mallorca is comprised of 11th century stone villages, narrow streets, olive groves, bustling cafés and a vivid artistic community. Visitors can chose between luxury resort accommodations in the larger towns or pastoral country estates that have been converted into luxurious boutique hotels in the villages. Wherever you lay your head at night, you’ll absolutely believe in happily ever after.

Find all our our same-sex wedding editorial at MarriageEqualityFrontiers.com.

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IN TRANSIT

By Stephan Horbelt

Gear for the Discerning Traveler Z2300 10-Megapixel Instant Print Digital Camera by Polaroid

What fun is traveling without the proper gear? Whether you're headed overseas or across state lines, these products will have you prepared and ready for anything while away from home. As an added bonus, you’ll also be a bit more stylish than you were before.

Instantly capture, edit and print images as full-color 2”x3” prints with this new addition to the Polaroid instant digital camera line. Don’t deal with ink cartridges or ribbons—just the photo paper. The images you take are also easily uploaded to social media platforms. $179.99, amazon.com

Sparrow Rolling Garment Bag

by ECBC Abbey Folding Dopp Kit The dopp kit is essential for any ‘guy on the go,’ and this fashionable tri-folding case by Wheelmen & Co. is perfect for both the rugged outdoors man and the modern, urban dweller.

Travel comfortably with an adjustable dopp kit that easily adapts to small spaces while you’re commuting on planes, trains, cars or bikes. $99, wheelmencompany.com

Travel has been made inifinitely more convenient with the advent of rolling luggage, but ECBC’s latest line of luggage also comes equipped with a battery backup pack compatible with most devices. Never again will you search the airport for a plug. You’ll also love the fold-out garment section, which promises to keep your wardrobe wrinkle-free. $399, ec-bc.com

Rolls-Royce Bespoke Luggage Even if you can’t afford this high-end line of luggage (though you should really think of them as investment pieces), it’s always nice to know what’s out there. These bags are sure to fit any globe-trotting traveler’s style. $19,744.45 for four-piece set. rolls-roycemotorcars.com

Leuchtturm1917 In this digital age, the trend of journaling is coming back in a big way.

What better time to write in your journal than while on the road, in the air or drifting at sea? Leuchtturm1917 stands for premium quality, and these journals are made the same way they have been for more than 90 years. leuchtturm1917.com

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Knockaround Sunglasses You’ll need a shield for those baby blues while exploring, and I can’t endorse these sunglasses enough. Forget the Tom Ford shades—opt for something playful and easier on the wallet.

Choose from super fun color combinations or get creative and customize your own pair. $14 and higher, knockaround.com

Voyager Digital Luggage Scale The only thing worse than overweight baggage fees is finding out your bag is too heavy after arriving at the airport. Avoid that potentially expensive situation altogether with this portable scale. Simply clip the scale to your suitcase or bag and lift—the weight will appear almost instantly. Best of all, it’s leightweight itself and portable. $19.95, eatsmartproducts.com

Jiraiya Beach Towel This limited edition towel features a sexy illustration by legendary gay erotic artist Jiraiya, and it’s a must-have accessory for the warmweather traveler. The towel made its official debut at this past year’s San Diego Comic Con and is now available online. $65, gaymanga. bigcartel.com

Rosetta Stone One of the beauties of travel is experiencing a culture different than your own. Immerse yourself in that culture by learning its native tongue. Rosetta Stone is offered in more than 30 languages, using a blend of basic coursework, live interactive sessions with native speakers and an online community. $179 for basic Level One kit, rosettastone.com

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EVENTS

NIGHTLIFE

THEATER

EXHIBITS

go to FrontiersLA.com/Entertainment for more listings Through Nov. 2

Fri. | Oct. 4

IDENTITY | RETROSPECT

THE LIGHT BULB

Advocate & Gochis Galleries This is a retrospective exhibition by acclaimed photographer Alexandra Gibson, who spent five years with Frontiers.

The exhibit includes selected images from many of her photo series as well as pieces from her extensive work as a journalist and filmmaker. lagaycenter.org Wed. | Oct. 2

COMEDY CURING CANCER The Groundlings Theatre The Groundlings team up with iO West, Straitjacket Society, Acme Comedy and The Second City to raise donations for the V Foundation for Cancer Research. Get your tickets now for this incredible night of improv with Groundlings Main Company members. Have a feelgood laugh while helping others! groundlings.com

NoHo Arts Center This work is a stylized, hilarious farce where eight marketing executives must create the campaign for the first-ever light bulb that will not burn out. Making this product the most successful in American history has a price, and this unlikely group of ‘professionals’ finds out just how a sound bite and snapshot sway American consumers. Through Nov. 9. nohoartscenter.com Fri. | Oct. 4

ANGEL CITY JAZZ FESTIVAL Various L.A. venues Included as part of the Sixth Annual Angel City Jazz Festival will be six concerts and three film screenings, with selected filmmaker/artist Q&As. The theme of this year’s festival is Metamorphosis: Artists on the Cutting Edge of Change. Venues include Royce Hall, LACMA, REDCAT and the Ford Amphitheatre. Through Oct. 13. angelcityjazz.com Fri. | Oct. 4

Thu. | Oct. 3

EAT YOUR WORDS The Standard Hollywood This is an intimate evening of storytelling in the tradition of The Moth and This American Life, hosted by Greg Walloch. The stories are inspired by a food theme—food politics, the best meal you ever ate, a food memory. Each show will feature a rotating cast of the city’s most outstanding storytellers and comedians, L.A. area chefs, bartenders and urban foodies.

Thursdays through Dec. 5. standardhotel.com

CUB SCOUT Faultline One of the East Side’s most popular parties is back with the October installment of its signature blend of rhythm and soul.

DJ duo Critter Control—along with San Francisco Den Mother Lady Bear—will have you dancing, cruising and drinking cheap draft beer. eaglela.com Fri. | Oct. 4

SOUTH AFRICAN ARTS FESTIVAL DTLA The inaugural festival will showcase seven films and seven musical artists representing the diversity of the South African experience at free events over two days. Highlights include Saturday’s outdoor South African Music Festival and a day of South African films screening on Sunday. Through Oct. 6. sa-artsfest.org

MICKEY GOES GAY The happiest place on Earth gets the rainbow treatment once again at this year’s Gay Days Anaheim at Disneyland. LGBT folks in the thousands will descend on Disney in red shirts for an entire weekend of fairy tale bliss.

But if you think Gay Days Anaheim only offers up an opportunity to walk through Disneyland among our like-minded gay brethren, think again. What was once a small one-day gathering has become a full weekend event with parties, gatherings, group photos, scavenger hunts, private meals and much more.

Take-no-prisoners hairstylist and business expert—and two-time Frontiers cover model—Tabatha Coffey takes over Gay Days for a few hours on Friday, Oct. 4, as she chats about her life, career and more. Tickets for An Intimate Conversation with Tabatha Coffey are $20 and available now.

Gay Days gets going in Southern style on Friday night at Wonderland, benefiting Point Foundation. DJ Ray Rhodes spins, while Momma and Desiree La Femme make your trip down the rabbit hole more fabulous than ever.

On Saturday evening, Oct. 5, the star of Trick and Girls Will Be Girls returns with more stories about her life and delightful songs sure to get you in the Disney mood. An(other) Evening with Miss Coco Peru is a show that’s sure to change your life! Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door.

For those looking to kick up their heels after a Saturday spent in the park, Glee star Alex Newell, Disney’s Susan Egan and DJ Kimberly S beckon you to the dance floor at Kingdom, taking place at the House of Blues Anaheim. Opt for a VIP Party Pass and gain access to all of the weekend’s fabulous parties.

Sunday at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen is the place to see, be seen and drink unlimited mimosas. Feast on scrumptious N’awlins cuisine, including Brennan’s decadent bread pudding. Go online for info on securing reservations.

Assuming you’ve waited long enough after eating, it’s time to dive in the pool once again at Sunday’s annual Gay Days Anaheim pool party, Plunge! with DJ Zach Moos, taking place at the Anabella Hotel just across the street from the park.

Check out the full schedule of Gay Days Anaheim events and research discounted park tickets at the Gay Days website. There you’ll also find info regarding the first-ever Gay Days Anaheim cruise, setting sail on Jan. 13.

Gay Days Anaheim Oct. 4-6 Disneyland gaydaysanaheim.com

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SOCAL EVENTS GUIDE Sat. | Oct. 5

Mon. | Oct. 7

3RD ANNUAL GAY SPELLING BEE

FIONA APPLE

Eleven Nightclub

Walt Disney Concert Hall

It’s time once again for the Gay Spelling Bee, the most f-u-n you could have on a Saturday night. Come see who wins the sash! It’s a $10 entry fee, and all the proceeds go directly to APLA and the AIDS Walk. This year the door prizes are better than ever, including four VIP tickets to Chelsea Lately and two VIP tickets to Halloweenie! eleven.la

Fiona Apple is poised to make her debut performance at the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall.

This intimate, one-nightonly performance will feature songs from throughout her career.

Blake Mills, guitarist and opening act throughout Apple’s most recent tour, will continue his collaboration in this performance. laphil.com

Sat. | Oct. 5

Mon. | Oct. 7

THE GUARDSMAN

LES GIRLS

A Noise Within

Avalon Hollywood

Set in pre-World War I Budapest, The Guardsmen follows Nandor, a Hungarian stage star, who is terrified that his recent marriage is already on the rocks. He concocts a scheme meant to invigorate the passions of his starlet wife, but his absurd plan unleashes a series of unintended consequences in this comic game of love and marriage. Through Nov. 30. anoisewithin.org

An evening of song and celebration benefitting the National Breast Cancer Coalition Fund, Les Girls will begin with a silent auction before the big cabaret. The 13th annul “Get Lucky” cabaret promises to be a sexy, witty and fun evening surrounding an incredible cause, with stars like Eric McCormack, Peter Gallagher, Minnie Driver and more making an appearance. breastcancerdeadline2020.org

Sun. | Oct. 6

Tue. | Oct. 8

GLEH ANNUAL GARDEN PARTY

WHISKEY DICK

Saddlerock Vineyard This year’s event celebrates two of the nation’s largest cities, Houston and Los Angeles. Honoree presenters include Houston’s lesbian mayor, Annise Parker, and John Duran.

Put on your boots and bowtie for an afternoon of delicious Texan fare, great silent auction items and amazing views of California. gleh.org Sun. | Oct. 6

THE LAST DANCE The Road In The Last Dance, Jake, a 77-year-old ex-Marine, lives in a remote Mexican fishing village with Gloria, a renowned artist, in a volatile relationship troubled by his past. She is convinced his delusional behavior is from pain medications, but could it be guilt from his involvement 50 years ago in the most notorious event of the 20th century? roadtheatre.org Sun. | Oct. 6

UNDER & OUT 2 Skylark Hotel Palm Springs is going to stay hot in October when Chelsea Lane Bodywear presents Under & Out 2, a poolside reception and fashion show benefitting Desert AIDS Project. Featuring men’s swim and underwear designs, the show will feature the latest from Diesel, Frank Dandy, C-In2, Hugo Boss and many others. The event also includes a DJ and celebrity emcee Wesley Eure. chelsealane.com

» CONFESSION SATURDAYS | THE ABBEY Photos by Rolling-Blackouts

Fubar WeHo’s favorite raunch pit brings back the original gay outlaw party—a night of country music and rock ‘n’ roll that will take place every Tuesday night. Stop in for $3 drafts, $4 well drinks and $5 Fireball whiskey shots. The Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings tracks come free. fubarla.com Wed. | Oct. 9

L.A. ANTIQUES, ART + DESIGN SHOW 3Labs Studio This year’s 18th annual show returns to serve as the first weekend-long event at the new 3Labs Studio. The opening night party will honor famed husband and wife team Annie Kelly and Tim StreetPorter as recipients of LACMA’s Design Leadership Award. Through Oct. 13. losangelesantiqueshow.com Wed. | Oct. 9

ARCLIGHT CINEMAS DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood Created to give independent filmmakers a platform to showcase their ability to present compelling true stories, this year’s festival entries are among some of the industry’s most highly anticipated films. Films include Let the Fire Burn, The Square, The Other Shore and A World Not Ours. Through Oct. 13. arclightcinemas.com

Find more photo albums — and additional photos from these events — at FrontiersLA.com/Entertainment.

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Thu. | Oct. 10

THE HOMOSEXUALS Atwater Village Theatre The Homosexuals is a wildly funny, heartwarming play that explores various friendships through the lens of sexual tension. On his first night in a Mid-western city, Evan meets a circle of men who become his closest friends and potential lovers. This Joseph Jefferson Award nominee for ‘best new work’ is for anyone who has ever fallen in love with a friend. Through Dec. 1. celebrationtheatre.com Thu. | Oct. 10

DON’T TELL MY MOTHER

WALK FOR A CAUSE

AIDS Walk Los Angeles Oct. 13 aidswalk.net

Cafe Club Fais Do-Do Celebrate the two-year anniversary of this comedy show that presents true stories you’d never want your mom to know (and National Coming Out Day). Special guests include Beth Grant, Jen Kober, Rob Gleeson and famed drag queen Courtney Act. Nikki Levy hosts, with live music by Abby Posner. donttellmymother.com Thu. | Oct. 10

PIONEER DJ ART MIX EXHIBIT The Bank The Art Mix exhibit, hosted by Downtown L.A. Art Walk, features custom art pieces from a lineup of legendary DJs, famed urban artists and popular consumer brands. The one-night event is part of a unique fundraising initiative to benefit the VH1 Save the Music Foundation. pioneerdjusa.com/artmix

The world’s first AIDS Walk took place in 1984 during the height of the AIDS epidemic and saw 4,500 courageous and visionary people assembling at Paramount Studios. AIDS Project Los Angeles raised an astonishing $673,000 that day.

In the years since, AIDS Walk Los Angeles has become the largest AIDS fundraising event in California, bringing 30,000 participants together annually. Since its inception, the event has drawn over a half-million participants, who have collectively raised nearly $75 million. The money raised by APLA each year helps the organization provide vital services to thousands living with HIV/AIDS in the L.A. area, and helps run the country’s largest network of prevention programs.

On Sunday, Oct. 13, sign-in is set to begin at 8:30 a.m. in West Hollywood. Walkers will enter the walkers’ corral via Melrose and Santa Monica. The opening ceremony will take place at 9:15 a.m., and at 10 a.m. the AIDS Walk begins. Walkers will trek 6.2 miles through the city and end up back in West Hollywood. Find more info regarding the big day at the AIDS Walk website.

Find more photo albums — and additional photos from these events — at FrontiersLA.com/Entertainment.

» CUB SCOUT | EAGLE L.A. |

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FOOD2KNOW Margaritas

BY ERIC ROSEN

When it comes to margaritas, forget the cheap tequila and sour mix. Bartenders (or mixologists, as they’re becoming more commonly known) all over town are reinventing this classic Mexican cocktail with exciting new flavor combinations.

Guelaguetza

Mercado

Rivera

This restaurant has a bar devoted to tequila’s misunderstood sibling spirit, smoky mezcal, and the cocktails they make with it are outstanding—including the Mez-Choco with aged mezcal, Bailey’s, Oaxacan chocolate and a float of Minero mezcal. 3014 Olympic Blvd., L.A. guelaguetzarestaurante.com

The recently opened mid-city location of this Santa Monica favorite (from the family that owns Yxta in DTLA and landmark Arco Iris) serves up a refreshing cocktail called the Del Bosque with Sotol Suave, silver tequila, muddled cucumber, mint and lime juice.

7910 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles. mercadosantamonica.com

Julian Cox is one of the most respected mixologists in town, thanks in part to the creative concoctions on his menu here, including the Donaji, with mezcal, citrus, agave syrup and chapulin salt (that’s salt with crushed crickets in it for a little extra flavor). His signature, however, is the Barbacoa with mezcal, spicy chipotle, ginger, lime and a stick of beef jerky. 1050 S. Flower St., DTLA. riverarestaurant.com

Find more photo albums — and additional photos from these events — at FrontiersLA.com/Entertainment.

» TRANNYSHACK L.A. | DRAGONFLY |

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Fri. | Oct. 11

Fri. | Oct. 11

BROWN & OUT THEATER FESTIVAL

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

The New Casa 0101 Theater

BY ERIC ROSEN

Casa 0101’s Third Annual Brown & Out Theater Festival features a collection of eight world premiere comedic and dramatic short plays, skits and monologues celebrating the Latino/a LGBTQ experience.

The festival kicks off on National Coming Out Day. Through Nov. 3. casa0101.org

Nuart Theatre They were five students with nothing in common, faced with spending a Saturday detention together in their high school library. To the outside world they were simply the Jock, the Brain, the Criminal, the Princess and the Kook, but to each other, they would always be The Breakfast Club. Part of a midnight movie series, the film will be featured in 35mm print. landmarktheatres.com

Fri. | Oct. 11

MODERNISM WEEK Palm Springs Palm Springs Modernism Week will coordinate a fall ‘season kickoff’ including double-decker bus tours and more. The tours will highlight both predominant architectural styles of Palm Springs— Mid-Century Modern and Desert Spanish. Homes of the rich and famous—including Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Cary Grant—will be included. modernismweek.com

Sat. | Oct. 12

EIOTOWN: I’M BACK! 945 Chung King Road Eiotown, the artist responsible for West Hollywood’s famed Out of the Closet window displays, throws his fourth annual event featuring artwork, paintings and photography. He is encouraging attendees to get creative and wear something made out of paper material. eiotown.com Sun. | Oct. 13

Fri. | Oct. 11

DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE David Schall Theatre

TACO STAND

PHOTO: RYAN TANAKA

Chef Walter Manzke has graced the kitchen of some of L.A.’s most distinguished fine dining establishments, including Bastide and the more laidback French bistro Church & State, so when

Petty Cash Taqueria 7360 Beverly Blvd., L.A. (323) 933-5300 pettycashtaqueria.com 46

FRONTIERSLA.COM

he and partners took over the former Playa space on Beverly, it was natural to assume the chef’s next act would be another high-end experience.

But just as he does in each and every plate with his culinary imagination, the San Diego native surprised Angelenos by opening a colorful and casual (and very lively, most nights!) Mexican joint where the main attractions are tacos and margaritas—only here they’re made with premium ingredients and some creative twists.

Start with sips from the cocktail menu, like the Y’allAintEvenKnowIt spicy margarita with lemon, curacao, añejo tequila and a dash of habanero tincture for a kick, then have a nibble from the Munchies portion of the menu. The chicharrones with spicy avocado-carrot-pineapple dip are tantalizingly crunchy, while the pig ear nachos with poblano cream and a soft egg on top is the most popular choice.

All options from the ceviche bar showcase the best seafood the city has to offer, but the standout is the ceviche negro with white sea bass, squid ink, mango, chile de arbol and peanuts. It’s fresh, inventive and tasty. If you have a large party, try the aguachile en molcajete, which is sort of like an enormous ceviche bowl made with your choice of seafood and fish.

The pork carnitas tacos with salsa verde and guacamole are juicy and tangy, but the tacos with charcoal-grilled octopus with chile de arbol, peanuts, jack cheese and avocado are truly distinctive and delicious.

For dessert, you can’t go wrong with either the creamy leche flan with strawberry sauce or the piping-hot deep-fired buñuelos dusted in cinnamon and sugar and served with hot chocolate sauce for dipping.

Jeffrey Hatcher's adaptation of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde novella takes us from Victorian drawing rooms to the grim alleyways of London as it examines the inner struggles of our lives. What is the nature of the beast that lives in all of us?

This is a smart and suspenseful new take on Stevenson’s look at the evil lurking in the hearts of men.

Through Nov. 17. actorsco-op.org Fri. | Oct. 11

CIRQUE DU SOLEIL’S TOTEM Port of Los Angeles The trademark blue-and-yellow big top returns with an all-new aweinspiring production with Totem.

This Cirque du Soleil production and winner of New York’s Drama Desk Award is inspired by mythology and illustrates through a visual and acrobatic language the evolutionary progress of species.

Through Nov. 10. cirquedusoleil.com Fri. | Oct. 11

THAT AIN’T NO LADY! Casita del Campo New York legend Lady Bunny brings her one-’woman’ show to L.A. for two nights (two shows each night).

It’s Bunny’s first full-length show in almost a decade, fast-paced and action-packed with glitzy costumes and that trademark gravitydefying bouffant wig. cavern clubtheater.com

ONE QUEER FILM FEST DTLA This festival celebrates LGBT History Month in October by honoring the rich history, culture and diversity of our community through the works of contemporary filmmakers.

The festival will be followed by a post-screening reception in the lobby. All proceeds benefit ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives. onearchives.org Sun. | Oct. 13

SIZE Here Lounge This Tom Whitman weekly party celebrates nine years of great Sunday afternoons. Expect to find a gorgeous group of guys imbibing and dancing before starting up the work week. And because bigger is better, Billy Francesca hosts Size Queen from 4-7 p.m. tomwhitman presents.com Mon. | Oct. 14

UNCORKED The Rose Palace Beginning with a cocktail reception, Uncorked is a musical exploration of the Beatles’ iconic White Album. Staged in the midst of creativity at Pasadena's Rose Palace, where looming parade floats-inprogress enliven the environment, Worby, members of the orchestra and friends from the worlds of rock and soul trace a path of discovery through the Beatles’ songs. muse-ique.com

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E! TROTS

THE GLOBE One of the LGBT community’s favorite cable networks, E!, travels the globe in the new eight-episode half-hour series Party On, which heads to internationally exclusive resorts and gorgeous beaches to soak up the local party scene. Hosted by Emmy-nominated Bold and the Beautiful actress Jacqueline M. Wood, each episode will focus on the vistas, cocktails and cuisine of one glamorous locale. Here’s what Jacqueline had to say about cable’s latest travel show.

Were you fairly well-traveled to begin with when you were approached with the idea for Party On? Yes, I was. Traveling has always been a part of my life. I’m very spontaneous. I would just pick up and go, sometimes by myself, sometimes with friends or people I’d just met. That’s always been who I am. When I was approached about Party On, I immediately wanted to come on-board— 48 hours in each place and seeing what kind of mischief I could get myself into.

spondents around the world with a camera crew? You get to see the most luxurious party destinations. It’s an inside look behind the velvet rope— VIP clubs, beach parties, take in the culture, high-end shopping. You name it, Party On has it! I jet-set to each location using social media to meet people in the area. You get to see the craziness unfold! As an actress, I’ve been lucky enough to experience some pretty amazing parties and travel for work, but nothing like this.

This was next level!

What makes Party On different from other travel shows that send corre-

What are some of the destinations we’re going to see in the upcoming season? A millionaire’s playground

of opulence in Sardinia and St. Tropez, the crazy parties of Ibiza, beautiful beaches of Mykonos and so much more.

Did you come away from this first season of shooting with a favorite destination? I couldn’t tell you a favorite destination. They were all incredible. Each place had something different to offer. You will see why when the show premieres!

After exploring local ‘party scenes’ around the world, how does the L.A.

party scene compare? L.A. definitely has some great party scenes, and the clubs are up to par with the rest of the world. However, when I travel and go out to clubs, I really let my guard down because I know I won’t run into industry folk or random old friends.

It feels like more of an adventure when I go clubbing in foreign destinations, like anything can happen! In L.A., I know that I’ll usually go home early and hit up the same late-night diner with the munchies.

Party On premieres Dec. 5 on E!

Find more photo albums — and additional photos from these events — at FrontiersLA.com/Entertainment.

» FUNCTION | AKBAR |

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ENTERTAINMENT

FILM

REVIEWS DON JON Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore Now showing

***

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has worked steadily since his early days on Third Rock from the Sun. Over the past decade he’s created an impressive résumé, choosing wisely from Mysterious Skin to Inception and so on; he’s an incisive, inquisitive actor. And he brings those qualities to Don Jon, the directorial debut that he also wrote. He’s all muscle and swagger in the title role, and has the Italian-American New Jersey patter down. Like many, Jon’s addicted to porn, so much so that it’s impaired his ability to connect. Yet he tries, valiantly, when he meets Barbara Sugarman (a plucky Johansson), the girl of his steamy dreams. When she lays down the law about no porn, he does what any of us would do—he lies. There’s comedy in the conceit, and the film’s stark with its guy-talk about porn. He coaxes lived-in, entertaining turns from Tony Danza, Glenne Headly and Brie Larson (father, mother, sister), and a flaky, melancholy one from Julianne Moore as the older woman who might teach him the real value of sex. Yet the film doesn’t gel. It’s spirited throughout, though its tone is wobbly. It has its pleasures, but they’re fleeting, much like porn itself. —Dan Loughry

FIVE DANCES

GRAVITY

VALENTINE ROAD

Starring Ryan Steele, Reed Luplau, Catherine Miller Opens Oct. 4

Starring Sandra Bullock, George Clooney Opens Oct. 4

Starring Lawrence “Larry” King, Brendon McInerney, Dawn Boldrin Airs on HBO Beginning Oct. 7

*****

The exceptional Five Dances, set in the modern dance world, is a hypnotic drama that showcases four performers and a choreographer working on a routine for an upcoming show. The story, which alternates between narrative and performance, benefits from its ‘action’ being the dance/movement and from the actors/dancers’ assured body language. Filmed largely in a Soho studio, Five Dances has Chip (Steele), an 18-year-old from Kansas, living his dream of performing in a company. His mother wants him to return home, but he prefers to stay in New York— even though he is, it is revealed, homeless. A fellow performer, Katie (Miller) offers to take care of Chip, while Theo (Luplau), another member of the company, initiates a sexual relationship with him.

Writer/director Alan Brown makes these dramatic interactions involving by shooting Five Dances in an almost documentary style. Yet it is the various dance sequences that break up the narrative that truly form the story. Chip and Theo’s relationship is best depicted without words, in a highly erotic nude pas de deux.

And give Five Dancers extra credit for not making the gay male dancers stereotypes. Steele gives a remarkable performance as Chip but the entire cast and film is impressive.

—Gary M. Kramer

*****

Eye-popping and breathtaking, Gravity is a phenomenal achievement by director/co-writer Alfonso Cuarón. The brilliant, extended opening sequence— one continuous take(!)—showcases the sensational cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki as well as some incredible 3-D effects. Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) tries to survive in space after satellite debris kills one of her colleagues and forces her to be tethered to astronaut Matt Kowalsky (Clooney). This plot may be slight, but it generates several exciting sequences, such as the dizzying sequence in which Stone goes spinning into orbit. Here and throughout the film, Gravity creates the immense feeling of weightlessness, and it is enthralling. Watching Stone’s brown eyes widen as she fears for her life is transfixing. The film also reveals moments of emotional depth—most notably during Stone’s monologue, where her tears float towards the audience. Bullock is extraordinary not only in these intimate scenes but also during the intense moments involving Stone desperately trying to save her life (and Kowalsky’s) while floating in space. That the film introduces a creaky plot element that is meant to inspire Stone’s survival may be a minor distraction for some viewers, but overlook that and concentrate on the astonishing visuals, as well as the tremendous use of sound, music and silence. Gravity is truly gripping.

—Gary M. Kramer

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****

Some real-world events strike us with more horrific power than we know how to process; they can feel to us surreal, hardly fathomable, beyond human.

9/11 is one. The HBO documentary Valentine Road, directed with exquisite balance by Marta Cunningham, explores another event that happened much closer to us here in California. On February 12, 2008, in Oxnard, Brendon McInerney, who had turned 14 a mere 19 days beforehand, shot 15-yearold Lawrence “Larry” King, an effeminate, transgender boy who, a few days earlier, had asked McInerney to be his valentine. McInerney, an abused kid from a broken home, was tried as an adult, and the case generated national coverage. The film touches on a number of hot-button subjects—transgender teens within the public school heirarchy, bullying, homophobia, our justice system, etc. Yet Cunningham—a mother who was engaged (and also enraged) by the case, went to the trial with her infant on her hip and just decided to make this documentary—presents the facts dispassionately. Surely, our sympathy in the LGBT community lies with the senseless tragedy of Larry King, though by the time Valentine Road is over, we realize we’ve been watching the story of two helpless victims.

—Dan Loughry

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ENTERTAINMENT

MUSIC

Elton John The Diving Board (Capitol Records)

**

REVIEWS

My favorite iteration of Elton John isn’t his early flirtation with Americana (circa Tumbleweed Connection) or his slick ‘80s midperiod (circa I don’t remember and don’t want to), but the ‘70s pop maestro who’d switch from ballads (“Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”) to rockers (“The Bitch Is Back”) to the weird little hybrids he used to toss off in his sleep (“Tower of Babel” comes to mind). His last great records were released in 1975, his last listenable one the 2010 collaboration with Leon Russell. His 31st record, The Diving Board, continues in the vein of his late period work from 2001’s Songs from the West Coast on. “Take This Dirty Water” has an easy, swinging blues vibe.

“My Quicksand” is a stately ballad. His voice is rough around the edges throughout. Yet The Diving Board is pretty much like the last four—earthy, simple, on occasion successful and not nearly as interesting as you would hope. It’s great that he’s stopped chasing the pop zeitgeist, but I wish his idea of maturity meant more than, frankly, warmed-over Americana (which he explored more thoroughly back when he wanted to be a cowboy, or at least sleep with one). —Dan Loughry

Holy Ghost!

of Montreal

Said The Whale

Sub Focus

VV Brown

Dynamics (DFA)

lousy with sylvianbriar (Polyvinyl)

hawaiii (Hidden Pony Records)

Torus (Universal)

Samson & Delilah (YOY Records)

**

If you follow James Murphy’s DFA record label, you know it means business when it comes to eclectic dance music, and Holy Ghost! are no exception. However, this is the most brazenly ‘80s wannabe-sounding record you might hear all year. Personally, I appreciate the throwback going on, and for the most part, the group does it pretty well. But there just seems to be very little passion or fervor going on here.

The first three tracks are the clear winners. “Okay” is an engaging mid-tempo meld of Hall & Oates and Howard Jones. “Dumb Disco Ideas” (the best track on the disc) is eight minutes of galloping beats, cowbells, soaring vocals and a psychedelic breakdown.

“Changing of the Guard” has a bouncy, aerobic New Wave feel.

But three good songs do not a great album make, and a track like “I Wanna Be Your Hand” is a poorly executed nod to Don Henley. While “Bridge & Tunnel” percolates with a Simian Mobile Disco-esque beat and some robotic vocals sung about hitting the Big Apple clubs till the wee hours of the morning, it has no spark of true ado. My advice is to stick to the singles you like best and patiently wait for the new Chromeo record.

—Paul V.

**

Now on the band’s 12th LP, Georgia’s of Montreal certainly hasn’t run out of ideas. Unfortunately it seems like the band has run out of good ones. After hitting a critical and commercial peak with 2007’s Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, things have gone downhill for Kevin Barnes and company. Each successive album has been less and less enjoyable, with last year’s Paralytic Stalks being the audio equivalent of a car wreck. Apparently the band’s sales have been slipping as well, causing a major rethink within the band. The new direction? To throw everything out and start again. lousy with sylvianbriar—as awkwardly titled as all the band’s albums (and also sans caps)—was recorded differently than all other of Montreal albums, sporadically and with live instruments only. No electronics. No freak-out funk breakdowns. Just meandering songwriting with lo-fi production. It’s not the worst, and diehard fans will probably appreciate tracks like “Obsidian Currents” and “Sirens of Your Toxic Spirit,” but honestly, the fun is gone with of Montreal. Kevin Barnes has rid himself of his angst and, frustratingly, isn’t that interesting anymore. This is a case of clutter for the sake of clutter. This is Lousy with a capital ‘L.’ —Dominik Rothbard

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*****

****

Said The Whale has quite possibly produced rock music’s first concept album about politeness.

Whether this was intentional or just a side-effect of being Canadian remains unclear. What is clear, however, is that Said The Whale has released one of the best albums of 2013. The strangely titled hawaiii (no caps, three i’s) hosts 12 shimmering pop songs within its brisk 35 minutes. There isn’t a dud in the bunch. Lead single “I Love You” is gaining a lot of U.S. attention with its MXC-skewering video, but it’s only a taste of what hawaiii has to offer. The album opens with the one-two punch of “More Than This” and future single “Mother.” “On the Ropes” brings an electronic tilt to the band, making them sound like Miike Snow’s friendly Canadian cousins.

“Willow” wouldn’t sound out of place on a Vampire Weekend album yet still manages to sound entirely original. “I Could Smoke” is another standout, and a reminder of just how gosh darn polite these guys can be while rocking the f*ck out. This is Said The Whale’s fourth album and most accomplished. The band sounds more confident in its own skin, and the songwriting has never been sharper. This is a must-buy. Order it from the band’s website and get a Said The Whale beach ball! How polite is that?

Sub Focus (aka DJ/producer Nick Douwma) is a buzzworthy London export who just wowed the city while headlining the Glastonbury Festival. Primarily known as a drum ‘n bass and jungle aficionado, he’s now synonymous with the ‘anything goes’ mantra of today’s robust EDM scene. Much like the stellar Disclosure disc, Torus enlists a flurry of guest vocalists who give each track its own earworm melody and emotional signature.

Sunday Best’s Alice Gold lends her powerful but childlike pipes to the pulsating “Out of the Blue” (one of the true drum ‘n bass entries here); Catherine Pockson (from Alpines) anchors the downtempo and buzzing “Tidal Wave”; the full-throated Alex Claire heads to Ibiza on the roof-raising “Endorphins”; and Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke handles the gold prize track, entitled “Turn It Around.”

Kele’s plaintive vocals are the perfect accompaniment to this gentle melody married with a gutpunching beat. The great thing about this disc is the ease with which Douwma can hopscotch from house to jungle to electropop to drum ‘n bass sounds without needing to stop and catch his breath. This is yet another stellar electronic release that has a uniquely British signature within its grooves, and one that dance music fans will want in their collections.

—Dominik Rothbard

—Paul V.

****

Why labels make the decisions they do is a mystery to everyone (including, apparently, record companies). When Capitol shelved VV Brown’s sophomore record Lollipops & Politics in 2012, I was left scratching my head, as Brown previewed it in a stupendous showcase show at the Hotel Café a month prior to its scheduled release. I’m joyful to announce that her official second release, Samson & Delilah, will be out in October, on her own label.

(Take that, Capitol!) While the doomed Lollipops & Politics followed the blueprint of Brown’s excellent debut, Travelling Like the Light—jumping, New Wavetinged pop tunes—Samson & Delilah traffics in what the British press now calls indietronica (i.e., New Wave part three or four, but who’s counting?). The songs are deep in electronic atmosphere, as is Brown’s shockingly operatic voice (it’s processed more than Velveeta). Luckily, her ear for great tunes survives. (She even turns the vocal processing into the central hook of the eerie “Igneous.”) She could be channeling The Knife (“Beginning”) or La Roux (“I Can Give You More”) or even Florence + the Machine (the title track). But mostly she sounds like an artist who could tackle—and dominate—any genre that she chooses.

—Dan Loughry

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ENTERTAINMENT

THEATER REVIEWS

THE LARAMIE PROJECT: 10 YEARS LATER DAVIDSON/VALENTINI THEATRE | 1125 N. McCadden Place, Hlywd.

Through Nov. 16 | lagaycenter.org/theatre You might wonder what more could be said about the tragic events that took place in Laramie, Wy., on Oct. 6, 1998.

On that terrible day, Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and left to die on a fence after being targeted by two men who picked him up at a gay bar. Six days later, he passed away. The original play was written and performed by members of the Tectonic Theater Project headed by Moises Kaufman. They conducted hundreds of interviews with the inhabitants of the town and constructed a play told from their perspective. Ten years later, Kaufman and company returned to the small rural town to follow up with the people on how the international news story affected them and whether anything had changed for them

personally or for the town.

Set in an intimate theater setting with the audience circling a wooden stage, the set theater itself has a woodsy all-American quality. It feels as if it is part-stable, part-cowboy bar. Discreet lighting alters the colors of the walls, and the center wooden-slatted stage becomes the centerpiece of the action.

It’s a gorgeously realized design that brings the audience close to the people the actors portray and the events of that fateful day.

Portraying a litany of different townspeople—as well as the members of the original theater company—the ensemble cast does an exemplary job of keeping each character distinct. Sometimes an actor can slip from one portrayal to the

PHOTO: WIN WIN IMAGING

next in moments, never once allowing the audience to be led into confusion. The script by the Tectonic Theater Project is rich and well-rendered, although it’s a bit too long. The emotional core of the show would lend itself nicely to working without an intermission, as this is a story that builds in intensity. Act One, while interesting, tends to repeat certain points more than once, so a bit of editing wouldn’t be out of the question. Act Two, however, is hard-hitting and really drives home why it’s important to revisit the tragedy. By the end, the emotional impact was palpable.

Directed by Ken Sawyer—who easily moves his cast throughout the small space in creative ways, even mixing the actors in with the audience so that we feel a companionship with them—the entire evening seems to draw the audience together with the cast, which makes you feel like you are all going through something together. It’s the beauty of how it was staged and the ability of an A-game cast that achieves this. Despite its length, it’s a worthy follow-up to the original and a solid reminder that we should never forget.

—Kevin P. Taft

THE OLD SETTLER PICO PLAYHOUSE | 10508 W. Pico Blvd., L.A. Through Oct. 27 | plays411.com/oldsettler John Henry Redwood’s bittersweet 1998 play blends warm humor and rueful irony in its gently resonant portrait of faded dreams and the ways we learn to accept the cards that fate deals us while appreciating our blessings. Director William Stanford Davis and a sublime four-member cast parlay this atmospheric kitchen-sink drama into a subtly profound experience, imparting humor and heart in equal measure, while offering a richly atmospheric portrait of a particular time and place.

The story—set in 1943 Harlem, when segregation remained an everyday reality for African-American citizens— revolves around two middle-aged spinster sisters. The more subdued and serious-minded Elizabeth (Ruby Hinds) and the drolly amusing Quilly (Jolie Oliver) sometimes get on each others’ nerves, but their mutual familial love is palpable. They toil as domestic workers and share a humble but comfortable tenement home.

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When an attractive younger man (portentously named “Husband,” charmingly played by John R. Davidson) happens into their lives and moves in as a boarder, this Southerner becomes a catalyst for possible change among the sisters, as the equilibrium of their strong bond is tested. The gentleman has arrived to connect with his girlfriend, Lou Bessie (Crystal Garrett), but it soon becomes apparent that she’s more likely a user than the love of his life. An improbable romantic spark ignites between Elizabeth and Husband, which creates jealousy and tension between Elizabeth and Quilly.

Employing the old-fashioned form of the ‘well-made play,’ this work smoothly spins its involving narrative.

Under Davis’ assured direction, the cast achieves a smooth chemistry, while offering three-dimensional portraits of the characters who inhabit this tale of fleeting romance and the worth and durability of familial relationships.

PHOTO: ED KRIEGER

The cast is perfectly balanced, delivering credible and nuanced performances throughout, but the script is at its best as a vehicle for two seasoned actresses who know how to sink their teeth into the sisters’ hilarious and touching dialogue. At moments, their encounters suggest a black female version of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple but the material is greatly enriched by the seriocomic thread running through every scene and the story’s intermittent reflec-

tions on the African-American culture at this time and place in history. An additional plus comes in occasional song segments, with Hinds’ prowess as an opera singer enhancing the pleasure.

The wonderfully detailed and attractive set by Thomas Brown, lighting by Carol Doehring and costumes by Grace Goodson-Witcher provide the finishing touches to Interact Theatre Company’s wonderfully satisfying offering.

—Les Spindle

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COLUMNS

DRIVE

By Steve Siler

2014 GMC Sierra: Pickup Perfection As much as Prius drivers claim moral high ground when it comes to getting around town on a whiff of gasoline, the fact of the matter is that people still like trucks. Big ones. And not just in Texas.

And not just for contractors.

Indeed, there are many people who just like big pickups, and for them there may be none better than the 2014 GMC Sierra. Along with its twin, the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado (which, to be fair, is just as slick), the Sierra wears squarejawed styling that is both butcher and classier than ever. A little extra glitz comes via LEDs above and below the big headlights, while massive chrome wheels are available to fill the wheelwells. Seriously, this is a truck that brandishes its gleaming, chrome-grilled hugeness with chest-thumping pride.

Now, given that not everyone is keen on brazen displays of bling and bravado these days, I didn’t know what reaction to my silver SLT test truck was going to be like during the week I had it, but without exception, people loved it— especially after they climbed inside. The heated and cooled seats inside were covered in supple brown leather, with a stitched dashtop and huge swathes of real aluminum contributing a sense of richness once reserved for Cadillacs.

Lighting is all provided by LEDs, while the center screen presents its many controls in an app-like arrangement not unlike your iPad. Bluetooth is included, of course, as are two household power plugs and no fewer than five (yes, five) USB ports to plug in and charge your gadgets. This is one luxe rig.

The sense of luxury continues on the road, with cabin tranquility rivaling

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that of Lexus’s big LX570 SuperUte. The engine is quiet (too quiet, perhaps), while brilliant aero tuning allows utterly zero wind noise in, even at high speeds.

Steering is accurate, though the brakes and accelerator both feel spongy and rather unresponsive. Also, as a full-size truck (a 4X4 in the case of my tester), the Sierra does retain a bit of bounce over the road, though hardly enough to rattle the fillings out of your mouth. At least parking is a cinch, thanks to front and rear parking sensors and a rear camera. And even with its big V-8, fuel

economy is more akin to crossovers than big trucks, with EPA ratings of 16 city/22 highway and 18 overall.

While this truck’s $49,710 out-thedoor price may sting (base for a 4X4 SLT Crew Cab is $43,125), consider that it also came with forward collision warning, OnStar, land departure warning (handy on a truck this high and wide), a moonroof, powerful Bose audio and even a heated steering wheel. Overall, it convinced me that, greenies be damned, trucks are more awesome than ever.

Long live the big Amurrrrican pickup!

By the Numbers 2014 GMC Sierra SLT 4X4 Price as tested Styling Engine Handling Interior décor Quality Interior space Cargo Space Parkability EPA fuel economy, city/hwy

$49,710 ##### ### ### ##### ##### ##### ##### #### 16/22 mpg

2015 BMW i8: The High-Style Hybrid Taking the Frankfurt Auto Show by storm earlier this month was BMW’s much-anticipated i8 plug-in hybrid sports car, this time in full-fledged production trim. What you see here is exactly what BMW will sell starting next year as a 2015 model—butterfly doors, radically disjointed body panels and all. A turbocharged gas engine powers the rear wheels, while an electric motor powers the fronts; together they help the i8 scoot to 60 mph in just 4.4 seconds.

With prices starting at about $138,000, you’re gonna have to bring some green to go green.

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COLUMNS

CLEARING A PATH Last time in this space, we celebrated the new generation of activists who have become committed to AIDS Walk Los Angeles. Some people have never known life without AIDS, and for them there is no stigma. On Oct. 13, the oldest AIDS Walk on the planet turns 29, and I for one am in awe of its success and so admire its longevity. I think it’s worth a spin here as to why, with contemporaries collapsing over the years—like Lamar Odom’s credibility or Psy’s chances of having a smash with “Gangham Style 2”— AIDS Walk Los Angeles has continued to flourish and grow.

At 29 years old, APLA’s AIDS Walk has outlived the all-star themed concerts we used to do, superstar fashion events, art shows, summer parties, movie premieres, dance-a-thons and decorator showcases. At almost 30, it not only still exists, it thrives. And at a time where fibbing about attendance at public events has become an accepted sport, AIDS Walk registers and counts the walkers—and, yep, there really are 30,000 men, women and children from all over Southern California showing up in West Hollywood to truly make a difference for our family, friends and lovers living with HIV and AIDS. As the gut-wrenching consciousness and concern of HIV/AIDS has faded a tad and dripped a bit like drool to the gutter for so many, why has this event continued to grow and prosper? I believe because it is honest and it is easy. There is a very real purity in charity walks of all type. It can’t be fudged, because in this case, 30,000 individual souls are stepping up on a Sunday morning to stroll in honor, memory and hope.

Unlike buying a ticket to some bash, there is a very real sense of important personal participation in AIDS Walk Los Angeles. My sweet friend Madonna Cacciatore at the Center oversees a bunch of significant events that require gut-level commitment to play. Her recent Beach Classic was a smash, and the Center’s LifeCycle remains one of the premiere events in the world of AIDS Service Organizations. Yet these events are tough! You train, and you mentally and physically prepare for the supreme act of battle. The folks who step up and deliver on that level in this war blow me away.

AIDS Walks require less yet can indeed convey the same results. There is no diet, no real training necessary, yet it is still one person’s direct action toward handing over honor, memory and hope. So many wonderful people are walking this time for a myriad of reasons. Omaira Jesus is team leader for Team Bibi Juice, in honor of her cousin. She and her team are walking in New York, San Francisco and L.A. I spoke with hilarious out comedian Jordan Charles Pease, who is walking for the first time. He is part of that generation that has always known AIDS and simply wants to do something.

There is Helen Jasmine Cho, a first-time walker and team leader of Team Burrito, and Celia Velasco leading the CBS team for the first time. Joe Husman remains committed—he has been walking every year since 1986.

Jay Benoit, team leader from John Marshall High, will once again bring hundreds of students with him, and Dan Foley will walk, just as he has every year since 1985.

It has been said that nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime.

Therefore, we must be saved by hope. I guess nothing true, beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history. Therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone. Therefore, we are saved by love. In less than 30 years, AIDS Walk Los Angeles has raised over $75 million, one dollar at a time.

The joy is in the journey, so come walk that journey on Sunday, Oct. 13. The more of us who stroll, the clearer the path. aidswalk.net

OCTOBER 15, 2013

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COLUMNS

“This was a two-hander. And Matt, you’re only as good as your other hand. So, I can’t tell you ... the only reason I’m standing here is because of you. You really deserve half of this. So, you want the bottom or the top? The top?

I figured that.”

—Michael Douglas thanks his Behind the Candelabra co-star, Matt Damon, when winning the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie.

After the morose Emmy awards show, which featured a death before every commercial, heading to the HBO after-party at the Pacific Design Center was a joyful soirée. With an expanded event space bedazzled in a kaleidoscope of colors (courtesy of premier party planner, Billy Butchkavitz), revelers celebrated well into the night. I spent most of my time schmoozing with the cast of Veep—specifically the stunning Sufe Bradshaw. By the end of the night, I went from gabbing with Derek Hough to fellow Bostonian Matt Damon. That’s when I knew it was time to go. Why press my luck?

For months, Johnny Weir has told anyone who would listen that he planned to compete in the upcoming Sochi Olympics. Aside from the personal reasons of not wanting to miss his last chance at an Olympic medal, he had an interesting argument. Who better than a flamboyant skater to challenge Russia’s anti-gay legislation? Why should his efforts be thwarted by prejudice? Why not face his opponents and basically dare them to imprison him ... possibly dressed as a dying swan? It was an argument I could get behind—and surely I’m not the first man to get behind Johnny Weir. Of course, the popular activist stance is that one must boycott all things Russian or one is tacitly endorsing the prejudice. In the end, the conflict came to an anti-climatic conclusion when the U.S. Figure Skating organization announced that Weir did not register for the qualifying rounds of the national championships.

And with that, I suspect his amateur career has come to an end.

But fear not—there is a notable gay who still plans on performing in Russia, and there’s a good chance that he, too, could be dressed as a swan. In December, Elton John will be giving a concert in Moscow. “I’ve got to go. And I’ve got to

think about what I’m going to say very carefully. There’s two avenues of thought— do you stop everyone going, ban all artists coming in from Russia? But then you’re really leaving the men and women who are gay and suffering under the anti-gay laws in an isolated situation. As a gay man, I can’t leave those people on their own without going over there and supporting them. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’ve got to go.”

Cher recently revealed that she turned down an invitation to appear at the Sochi Olympics. “I can’t name names, but my friend called who is a big oligarch over there, and asked me if I’d like to be an ambassador for the Olympics and open the show. I immediately said no. I want to know why all of this gay hate just exploded over there. He said the Russian people don’t feel the way the government does.”

A spokesperson from the Olympic committee immediately shot back, “There have never been any negotiations with Cher about her possible participation in the ceremony.” It was also noted that Cher did perform a very special private concert in Russia for billionaire Suleiman Kerimov in December. Although the anti-gay legislation wasn’t passed until June, we hear she returned in July to perform in Dagestan for the opening of a new stadium, home to Kerimov’s soccer team.

Steven Daigle

Elton John

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The lines between reality television and the porn industry are being blurred more and more every day. One of the popular gay personalities to make such a transition is Steven Daigle, who previously appeared on Big Brother. He effortlessly

made the transition to gay porn under the his law studies this month. But fear not— direction of Chi Chi LaRue with Steven he’s not abandoning his career as an enterDaigle XXXposed. Since then, he’s not limtainer. Apparently, Logo produced a soap ited himself to gay porn. He also appeared called The Vines of Sauvignon Blanc that in a heterosexual flick (stating it was his launched this summer on Twitter’s video first heterosexual experience). His latest app, Vine. The owner of the vineyard news is something I suspect he’s far more (played by Stephen Guarino) has only familiar with—he’s getting into the baretwo minutes and six seconds to live, so back porn business. And his debut is surely he has to wrap up his affairs and finesse a title that flows trippingly off the tongue, some feisty family and friends. Logo ordered regardless of the direction: Cum Whore.

22 episodes, each lasting six seconds— Well, that just about says it all, doesn’t it? yes, six seconds! Pulling out my trusty And now for our featured attraction. abacus, that adds up to 132 seconds of When one of the most gorgeous leading original programming by our gay network. men from television, stage and film masCould it be that Sara Gilbert inadturbates on camera, my ears do start vertently answered one of the biggest burning (thankfully it’s rumors of her life? Sure only my ears burning seems like it. Last week, the and not anything furladies of The Talk were ther south). When I revealing big emotional was first sent the video secrets. Sara’s stemmed of Cheyenne Jackson from when she was dating allegedly masturbating her Roseanne co-star, Johnny to completion and Galecki. After they’d make bemoaning the out, she’d get depressed. absence of his Uh-oh, that’s never a good boyfriend, I was forced sign. They discussed it, and to closely inspect it she revealed she might be with an expert’s eye. gay. “He was super sweet Even before I delved about it,” she says. But then into this task, I firmly she continued the story: “I believed that it was a started dating a woman who fake. Cheyenne is was, like, 18 years older than many things, but I was who was also in the stupid is not one of public eye, and it was somethem. I wouldn’t thing that could have really, expect him to do anylike ... people could have thing as reckless as found out about.” Who was filming himself jerking this woman? Faithful readers off—and he certainly of this column know the wouldn’t send it to answer. In fact, I believe it’s someone. Alas, after one of the first stories I ever Cheyenne Jackson thorough investigation, broke. And Sara’s right—the I do believe it’s the real woman is, indeed, 18 years deal. Aside from a brief (unfortunate) older. Back then, I blabbed all about it. But glimpse of his face, a stray shot of the new now, my lips are sealed. tattoo on his arm confirms its veracity. My When Logo is redefining ‘a quickie,’ findings were reinforced when some webit’s definitely time to end yet another sites were pressured to take the video column. Since we once again ran long, we down. But some websites ain’t only have a moment to remind you to BillyMasters.com. check out BillyMasters.com, where it’s never This leads nicely into our “Ask Billy” a quickie—always a longie. Certainly all question. Roger on Cape Cod writes: “You the penises in this week’s column prove recently mentioned Reichen in your column. that. But I’m here for you, regardless of What is he up to these days? We haven’t the topic. All you have to do is drop a note heard much from him.” to Billy@BillyMasters.com and I promise to Last year, Reichen Lehmkuhl get back to you before Cheyenne announces announced his intention to attend law his next project ... with Steven Daigle! So, school. I’m happy to report that he was until next time, remember, one man’s filth accepted by Loyola Law School and started is another man’s bible.

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TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE BEING FIERCE Editor’s Note: The below was Jackie Beat’s very first Little Miss Know-It-All column, running in the pages of IN Magazine on Feb. 5, 2004. It’s been nearly 10 years!

Dearest Readers, Welcome to the very first installment of my brand-spanking-new advice column.

Yes, you heard right—advice column! OK, so right about now several of you are undoubtedly scratching your perfectly gelled fauxhawks and wondering, “how is this loudmouthed yet drop-dead gorgeous bitch qualified to dispense anything other than maybe the occasional genius snide comment under her remarkably fresh breath?” You have a point. I mean, let’s get serious. Am I a licensed therapist? No, I am not. I am, however, a drag queen, a Leo and a somewhat semi-famous underground celebrity— which all adds up to one lethal combination—what scientific experts have dubbed The Little Miss Know-It-All. So feel free to send this she-male an e-mail— after all, as a modern sodomite you are probably online approximately 23.5 hours a day trolling for nameless, faceless nostrings sex. Take a break, pervert, and drop me a line. Maybe I can make fun of—er, I mean help you with—your problem! Like I did these poor confused people (who are 100 percent real and not merely made up by me because it’s the first column and no one has sent in any questions yet)...

Dear Little Miss Know-It-All, I just got my first tattoo. I am such a huge fan of yours that I decided to have your gorgeous, youthful face inked into the taut twin mounds of flesh that are my 22-year-old Latino ass. I was wondering the best way to care for it while it is healing. It is still very red and tender. What should I do?

Signed, Confused Gay Guy Who Got a Tattoo of Your Face on His Ass

Dear Confused, As a tattooed lady myself, I know all too well just how painful getting ‘inked’ can be. Here is a foolproof way to minimize your discomfort and speed the healing process: Make a paste out of equal parts Tabasco Sauce, fresh-squeezed lemon juice and kosher salt. Rub this miraculous mixture into the red and tender area as hard as you can. Faster than you can scream, “Cheese Is H. Key Riced, that hurts like a motherf*cker!” it will be all better. Just kidding! Put Bacitracin ointment on it and leave it uncovered, dumdum.

Dear Little Miss Know-It-All, Should I shave off all my pubic hair?

I have heard that some guys like it, but I have also heard that it itches something awful when it grows back.

Signed, Standing Here with Clippers Waiting for the Next Issue of IN to Come Out Dear Standing, Yes! Do it! Fire up that gas-powered weed whacker and go to town! But instead of opting for totally bald and boring down there, may I suggest sculpting your plentiful pubes into a whimsical prancing animal like those in the topiary garden surrounding the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland? Kidding! Look, unless you’re a starstruck cancer victim trying to seduce Michael Jackson, or a disturbed velvetwearing girl/woman who is severely crushing out on Woody Allen, there is no reason to shave your nether regions.

Body hair is hot, and soon enough you won’t have any of it on your melon-like head while all the once-downy, chestnuthued hairs on your ancient body will become thick and coarse and turn the color of a dead honky that was pulled out of a lake. So step away from the clippers and celebrate your fabulous body hair, stupid.

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Queersay WORK JERK Every gay who is any gay has heard Britney's new smash single “Work Bitch” no less than 5,500 times already. The song has only been out for a week and yet it’s burned out our iPods’ repeat button. I can’t explain this phonographic phenomenon. I mean, let’s get real—the beat is done to death and the lyrics are less than intellectually inspired, yet we love it to no end!

That said, I’d like to send out an “Oh, no she didn’t!” to the queen who street-walks the locker room of WeHo’s 24 Hour Fitness with hungry eyes. Gurlfriend claims that not only did he produce Britney’s single, but also that he choreographed the upcoming video. And the worst part is that gays not in-the-bubble-gum-pop-know actually believe him.

The lyrical liar holds court as half-naked hunks hang on his every word. He tells stories of Britney’s diva nature, lyric changes forced upon him by the “big, bad record label” and even regales the tale of how no less than five backup dancers humped his rump in an impromptu offscreen orgy.

Word to the not-so-wise: This creepy creep is lying through his shade-throwing teeth. At best, the only set he’s been on is Acres of Ass 3 as a second-rate fluffer. Don’t let his Brit-adjacent tales woo you into working over his deceitful monkey, because you’re sure to end up with the clap—and we ain’t talking ‘bout jazz hands!

LOVE TO THE LESBIANS Rarely do I drop posts that aren’t bitchy, biting and all-around self-loathing, but this time my cold, dead heart felt the need to relay a reader’s comment I recently received.

Multiple times over this past year, I have written about an Oscarnominated actress on the proverbial fence about coming out of the proverbial closet. While many of you have made fun of her—my favorite email calling her a “chicken beaver”—a reader named EW wrote in with words of beautiful and thoughtful encouragement, which I wanted to share: “My utmost respect to all my fellow LGBT people who weren’t afraid in that moment we came out to our loved ones and family. It might be hard at first—can give us self-denial situations and even a major shock to our family—but there’s no greater feeling than having the skeleton in the closet finally revealed. As long as we aren’t doing anything to harm anyone, and God is our witness, we can live a normal and Drop me your peaceful life.” at

dirty little secrets m. .co queersay@hotmail r give I neve And don't worry, oat! up my deep thr y, go to For more Queersa Queersay. m/ .co LA ers nti Fro

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[Wiping away a tear] I concur!

XOXO, Gossip Gay

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PHOTO: PAULO MURILLO

WEHO RECOGNIZES SEPTEMBER AS NATIONAL RECOVERY MONTH

CITY CONTINUES TO CONDEMN LGBT DISCRIMINATION IN RUSSIA

BY PAULO MURILLO Staff presented the West Hollywood City Council with an update on the city’s response to the violent acts against the LGBT community in Russia at the council’s Sept. 16 meeting. According to reports, attacks against LGBT individuals are on the rise after recent anti-LGBT legislation was signed into law by Russian President Vladimir Putin—prompting the city council to pass unanimously a resolution titled “Condemnation of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Legal Attacks on the LGBT Community and New Laws Targeting LGBT Tourists and Winter Olympics Participants” at a council meeting this past Aug. 5.

In response to Russia’s refusal to overturn their anti-gay laws—as well as the ongoing violence against Russian LGBT people—the city continues to campaign in support of LGBT organizations and individuals in that country. Actions by the city of West Hollywood include publicizing, criticizing and condemning the discriminatory actions of Russian President Putin, the Russian legislature and the

non-governmental groups and individuals who are attacking LGBT people in Russia; providing assistance to LGBT organizations who are working to fight discrimination and advance equality for LGBT people in Russia; and providing assistance to LGBT people who want to leave Russia and obtain asylum in the United States.

West Hollywood continues to be an advocate for the rights of all people. It has passed several resolutions denouncing discriminatory policies in the U.S. and abroad, which include the city’s stand against the prejudiced system of apartheid in the republic of South Africa and Namibia in the ‘80s; it opposed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 1993; and it condemned the violence against LGBT demonstrators in Moscow in 2007, to name just a few. The city also hosts the Human Rights Speaker Series to educate the public about international LGBT issues.

For more information, contact Fran Solomon, Deputy to West Hollywood Councilmember John Heilman, at (323) 848-6460.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE CITY’S ACTIONS AGAINST THE ANTI-GAY VIOLENCE IN RUSSIA? “I’m of the mind that anything that brings attention to the issue is ultimately going to be helpful, whether it’s the Stoli Vodka boycott or the viral videos of the violence that’s taking place over there. An ongoing conversation about the Olympics is important as well—any attention to the atrocities taking place in Russia is important.”

—Jason Powell

“I think what the city is doing is very important. The more support we have, the more we become aware of the gay issues—not only at home, but also abroad. One of the reasons I moved to West Hollywood from Texas seven years ago was for the support of this community, so it is important to band together to support each other.”

—Geoff Bosmans

The month of September has been declared “Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month” by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. TheWest Hollywood City Council approved the Human Services Commission’s recommendation to increase service resources for residential substance abuse treatment and psychiatric care at an Aug. 19 meeting. This approval will result in additional availability of residential and transitional sober living treatment beds, psychiatric evaluations and medication management for WeHo community members facing addiction and mental health challenges.

The city’s Social Services Division has also updated and reissued the Substance Abuse Services Guide, which offers an extensive list of treatment options, 12-step meetings and other substance abuse-related programming.

Copies are available at City Hall and on the city’s website in a PDF format that can be downloaded.

National Recovery Month is observed during the month of September, but it is celebrated all year round. This is a national observance that educates Americans on addiction treatment and mental health services that can enable those with a substance abuse or mental disorder to live a healthy and rewarding life; it also applauds the accomplishments of individuals in recovery and those who support them.

For more on National Recovery Month, visit recovervmonth.gov.

SPEAK OUT “I think any support is good, but the only thing I can’t get on board with is that we’re talking about one city. I think this needs to be a lot bigger than one small city where gay people live. I think West Hollywood should band together with Los Angeles and other large cities to send a bigger message and address concerns on a political level in Russia.”

—Josh Bunney

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DESERT

HOT TOPIC

26TH ANNUAL DESERT AIDS WALK COMES TO COACHELLA VALLEY

BY JAMES F. MILLS Desert AIDS Walk isn’t just about helping out people with HIV/AIDS. It’s about health in general.

The 26th annual event, held on Saturday, Oct. 19, will have a health fair associated with it.

“We have a Health and Wellness Festival as part of the Desert AIDS Walk,” explains Brett Klein, events and retail marketing manager for Desert AIDS Project, which puts on AIDS Walk each year. “We’ll have testing. We’ll have HIV testing as well as blood sugar testing, blood pressure, podiatry, etc. There’ll be over 50 vendors—pharmacies, medical providers, health groups, charities.

And it’s all free.”

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Emphasizing overall health has become an important part of people’s HIV/AIDS care as the disease has evolved from being a death sentence to more of a chronic condition. But the health festival is open to everyone.

“You don’t have to be HIV-positive to participate. Nor do you have to be LGBT,” says Klein. “If we can help people become aware of the health conditions, then it’s worthwhile.”

Over 1,500 people are expected to participate in the two-mile walk, which steps off from Ruth Hardy Park at 9:30 a.m., makes it way through the Movie Colony to Palm Canyon Drive to Tachevad Drive and then back to Hardy Park (with

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plenty of water stops all along the route).

Many more are expected to be on the sidelines cheering people on and participating in the health fair.

“It’s a great way for families of all ages to have a fun festive day in Palm Springs and in the park,” says Klein. “We have everyone from great grandparents to babies. And they can bring pets— well-behaved pets. It’s a very fun walk.

There’s entertainment in the park, food and nibblies prior to, during and after the walk. If there’s someone who wants to just come and sit under the trees and enjoy the music, they can do that too.”

Last year’s AIDS Walk was held in early November as part of Greater Palm Springs Pride festival. This year, its back to being a separate event.

“Last year, we were part of the Pride parade because AIDS Walk was being honored for its 25th anniversary with the Spirit of Stonewall Advocate of the Year award,” says Klein.

While many businesses and companies will sponsor groups of people, other contingents will be made up of families or groups of friends.

“For several years, we’ve had a contingent made up of nothing but families,” says Klein. “It’s, like, 50 people strong.

They’re really dedicated to the cause.”

The cause, of course, is raising money for HIV/AIDS research and treatment, as well as AIDS awareness. Desert AIDS Walk has raised $6.25 million since it began in 1987.

“In our valley, the prevalence of HIV is estimated at 67 percent higher than

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the national average, which puts everyone at greater risk, especially when you consider that more than 53 percent of Coachella Valley residents have never been tested for HIV,” says David Brinkman, CEO of Desert AIDS Project.

“We’re thrilled that essential decisionmakers and influencers have signed on to join our walk and to Get Tested Coachella Valley, because the CDC estimates that approximately one in five people living with HIV in the U.S. don’t know they are infected.”

The good news is that the journal Science hailed an international study as the “2011 Breakthrough of the Year” when it proved that if an individual who begins taking the right medications soon after becoming HIV-positive is 96 percent less likely to pass the virus to others.

“Expect to hear a lot more about Get Tested Coachella Valley from DAP and the other coalition partners in the months to come,” says Brinkman. “But in the meantime, here’s hoping everyone will join us at the walk and continue to spread the word to ‘Walk – Get Tested – Stop AIDS.’” In August, Desert AIDS Project was named a Top 20 HIV/AIDS Charity

by About.com. That distinction came because DAP meets a strict set of standards for nonprofits, including spending 75 percent of its budget on programs, raising $100 for every $15 spent on fundraising and having complete financial transparency. desertaidsproject.org

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ROSS MATHEWS NAMED CELEBRITY GRAND MARSHAL FOR PALM SPRINGS PRIDE

BY JAMES F. MILLS Television personality Ross Mathews has been named the celebrity grand marshal for this year’s Greater Palm Springs Pride Parade.

The host of the new interactive talk show Hello Ross—airing Fridays at 10 p.m. on the E! cable channel—Mathews will ride in the parade, which goes down Palm Canyon Drive starting at 10 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 3.

Mathews is no stranger to the Palm Springs area. He and his partner, stylist Salvador Camarena, have a second home in the desert. The two bought a 1950s home in the Movie Colony in 2012 and quickly made themselves a part of the local scene.

“Palm Springs is my favorite place in the world. I have loved Palm Springs for such a long time, and now I’m a member of the Palms Springs community,” Mathews told Frontiers during an interview last year. “I bought my dream house; I’ve been saving for it for a decade, and now we’re restoring it. We get out here anytime there’s a hole in my schedule.”

A graduate of the University of La Verne, where he studied communications, Mathews got his start on TV in late 2001 as “Ross the Intern” on TV’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, serving as a correspondent who covered movie premieres, awards ceremonies and more.

What was intended as a short-term gig lasted almost 10 years, as Leno’s staff and viewers loved his gushing celebrity reports.

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Now a regular panelist on TV’s Chelsea Lately, Mathews also won viewers over as they watched him lose more than 40 pounds in 2007 on the Celebrity Fit Club reality series.

A native of Mount Vernon, Wash., Mathews is also a best-selling author thanks to his book Man Up! Tales of My Delusional Self-Confidence, which came out in May. While he makes jokes about some of his foibles and antics in the book, Mathews also has a serious side, going to schools as a motivational speaker.

“I go around the country and encourage kids to celebrate the part of them that is different,” said Matthews.

“What’s unique about us is something to be honored. It’s not something you hide—it’s something you embrace.”

An active speaker in the equal rights arena, Mathews was the recipient of the Human Rights Campaign’s 2011 Visibility Award.

Joining Mathews in the parade is Joe Jervis, author of the popular, awardwinning LGBT news and culture blog Joe.My.God, who will serve as the national grand marshal.

Locals Mark Jones and Brian Vatcher, who spearheaded the idea of bringing the Forever Marilyn statue to Palm Springs, will serve as community grand marshals, along with local LGBT activists Melanie Jones and Ellen Zimmerman. pspride.org

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HEALTH

OFF THE VO TV OF BRA

COUCH

By Dr. Greg Cason

ESY COURT PHOTO

THE INVISIBLE MAN By the time you read this, I will be invisible. No, it’s not because I invented some cool secret potion, nor am I sitting on top of a nuclear waste dump. Rather it’s because I am turning... well, it starts with an ‘f,’ and f-words (er, numbers) like

Dr. Greg Cason is a licensed psychologist based in West Hollywood, specializing in cognitive therapy with individuals and couples. He can be contacted by going to DrGreg.com.

that are just too profane to put into print.

My powers of invisibility are not in my work or relationships. With both I enjoy far better success and satisfaction than I have ever felt in the past. And they’re certainly not with people who want money or favors. Someone seems to have written my number on all of their restroom walls.

My invisibility is in areas I really didn’t care about in the past and probably won’t miss in the future—gay bars and sex apps.

Now, I am not on any sex apps— things like Grindr, Scruff or Adam4Adam—but I have done my fair share of research. Besides being a useful tool for the busy gay guy on the go, I also see them as God’s gift to the socially awkward.

We all like to order in once in a while, right?

At the risk of sounding like a complete narcissist, I can still walk into a bar and enjoy an annoying amount of attention. Though I once secretly believed they saw me as goodlooking, now I just think they recognize me from TV. The truth is probably somewhere inbetween.

So where’s my beef, Clara Peller? (If you’re not old enough to know who she is, Google her). My beef is the loss. Loss of a power I rarely used. I mean, even though Samantha Stevens lived her life like a mortal on Bewitched, she did get bummed when her magic powers were taken away.

And so it is true for many women as they age. Though (mostly straight and bi) women spend much of their life trying to prevent preg-

nancy, when the day comes that they can no longer procreate, they go through a grieving process as well.

Let’s face it. Being young and good-looking has power in gay society—well, in the gay male society. I see much more respect and reverence for women of a certain age in the lesbian community, but even that is starting to change.

Even if in most situations I stick out because of my height, loud mouth or I just tripped and knocked over a tray of food, I still know it’s coming. Losing my imagined sex appeal in a mythical Craigslist ad is only the beginning.

I think that is what this mid-point in life offers, a view of the past and a glimpse of the future. Eventually—if I am lucky enough to live that long—I will take a ride in Wonder Woman’s invisible plane with everyone else who is lucky enough to get there too.

Oscar Wilde once said, “Youth is wasted on the young.” True dat. But could there be times when age is wasted on the old?

Yes! Especially when the old don’t learn from the past and appreciate what they have in the present. This is going to be especially important now that we are living longer and having better quality lives as we age.

According to a study published just this month in American Journal of Public Health, not only are we living two years longer than the previous generation, we also have fewer disease symptoms and physical limitations. Basically, we are living longer and healthier lives than ever before.

That’s great, because older people also have some cool advantages over the young that may somewhat compensate for no longer

getting free drinks at a bar or having sex without the use of a blue pill or a VISA card.

Luckily for people like us, those who cross into the second half of life generally have a happier outlook than their younger counterparts. Even the gay ones. They feel more competent and in control.

And, perhaps not surprisingly, they have better judgment and make decisions faster than a teen cheerleader’s topless selfie can be texted to her entire high school—and that’s fast.

What is especially great is that these new oldsters are less neurotic than they used to be. It seems that getting older means not sweating the small stuff quite as much. And it couldn’t come at a better time.

Another finding from the study is that younger people have more anxiety, walking problems and other issues related to a sedentary lifestyle than ever before. So they will literally be sweating the small stuff, in mind and body.

So older people are going to have to be in good shape to push the youngsters’ wheelchairs to the pharmacy to pick up their Xanax.

Won’t it be nice to still be needed?

So though I may need to get used to being called “sir” outside of the Folsom Street Fair, and I may never be carded again, I should also brace myself for what appears to be a happier and more content life ahead. That I can do.

And if I am lucky to live long enough to take that ride in Wonder Woman’s plane with a lot of other people who are invisible to the outside world, I hope they serve cocktails, because it is going to be one hell of a party!

If you have any questions and/or comments, please direct them to: Frontiers, 5657 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 470, Los Angeles, CA 90036, or email them to feedback@frontiersla.com.

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ATTENTION ADVERTISERS Read your ad carefully when it initially appears. We are not responsible for errors or minor copy changes after first issue of publication. If an error is found, please contact the classifieds department immediately for corrections. Frontiers assumes no responsibility for error or omission of copy. The right to reject, edit, cancel and determine proper placement of a classified ad is the right of this publication.

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

BY DUANE WELLS

In the heart of West Hollywood, Brick & Mortar—the popular local purveyor of up-to-the-minute, on-trend menswear—has earned a favored place among the city’s trendsetting patrons.

Tucked into the historic 1920s-era home of the studios that once bore the name of sartorially savvy Hollywood icon Douglas Fairbanks, the boutique shop run by partners Evan Hughes and Steve Fogg is as much a stylish destination today as it was nearly a century ago, albeit for completely different reasons.

With that kind of pedigree, you might be led to believe that Brick & Mortar was the result of some lifelong plan—or at the very least a long-term passion for retail—but on this score you would be wrong. In fact, aside from a passing dalliance with retail in college, neither Hughes nor Fogg could claim much in the way of traditional retail experience before diving headfirst into the running of what they describe as an “urban neighborhood boutique.”

“I lived in and loved West Hollywood before I opened the store,” Hughes explains. “[But] I would be on Santa Monica Boulevard for dinner or drinks with friends almost any night of the week, [and] one thing that always bothered me was that there weren’t more cute, trendy shops. You know, the kind that line the streets of The Castro or PTown. So I decided that I wanted to open a place of my own, despite having never been a business owner.”

Their desire to fill a gaping hole in what was available on the boulevard not only informed the opening of the store but also the uniqueness of the collections it carries. “I try to focus on clothing—especially local brands made

in Los Angeles or Southern California— but I also carry jewelry, edgy housewares and gifts and irreverent greeting cards,” Hughes offers. Put even more simply, Fogg distills the essence of Brick & Mortar down to the basics, describing the store as “a fun, trendy and affordable place with clothing I would actually wear.”

Beyond the hipster fashions that adorn the store’s racks, however, Hughes and Fogg see their retail offering as more than the sum of its bricks and mortar, but instead as an extension of the neighborhood around it.

“Community is about having a connection to something that’s bigger than you,” Hughes explains in reference to the store’s relationship to its surroundings. “In terms of Brick & Mortar, it’s about creating a brand that Steve and I are proud of and a place that’s fun to shop and that has clothing people are excited to wear.”

“And it’s also about identity and knowing that the people around you share common interests and have had similar struggles,” Fogg adds.

Common struggles, different times.

With the exception of the most exclusive enclaves, the urban neighborhood boutique seems destined for the same fate that has befallen many of those nostalgic ‘mom and pop’ convenience stores that have been so romanticized in classic films—distant, wistful memories of a time long past. Brick & Mortar, however, turns that notion on its head, reminding us all of the old Hollywood adage, “give the people what they want and they will give you what you want.”

Shop Brick & Mortar online at shopat brick.com or visit the store at 8713 Santa Monica Blvd. in WeHo.

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SEX ED

PATIENT POINTERS FOR SENSUAL SUCCESS

BY JIM LARKINS As powerful as the sensations of sex are, there is even more strength in temporary restraint. If you want to know the key to keeping your partner coming back to the bedroom, hungry for love each and every time, the answer is more in what you don’t do than what you do.

If you lead him on slowly, forcing him to wait patiently for the best of what you have to offer sexually, he’ll experience the kind of mind-blowing orgasms that will remain permanently etched in his memory.

One of the reasons the techniques of sexual delay are so effective is that they create an air of mystery. Keep him guessing as to when the next caress will come, where the next kiss will be planted and when you’ll finally yield to his appetite and give him the desired happy ending.

On the flip side, nothing kills an otherwise sexually healthy relationship faster than predictability. Think about it.

Unless you’re one of the fortunate few who enjoy a completely unpredictable and exciting career, your work day isn’t replete with edge-of-your-seat anticipation. The same goes for your erotic encounters. Do you really want humdrumness to put a yawn where there should be a cry of ecstasy?

Think of delayed gratification as the opposite of your typical porn scene. It doesn’t take long for blue movie super-

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stars to get to the point of penetration.

And with all the hot action lighting up the screen, it may seem like whatever they’re doing is working for them. But remember these are paid actors and they don’t represent a valid depiction of real life.

In fact, one of the main things that adult films lack—plenty of foreplay—is something you can utilize in your passive prologue to great sex. To really get the proverbial juices flowing, you have to realize that foreplay starts way before you reach the bedroom threshold. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should get busy with a mobile knob-bob on the commute home. Once again, the ‘less is more’ rule applies. A simple caress of the thigh followed by a nudge to the crotch should get him ‘pointed’ in the right direction.

If you’re on the ball, you’ll reap the benefits of thinking ahead. Provided you’ve had the opportunity to set the stage for a celebration of the senses, your lover will be welcomed with the aroma of his favorite dish wafting from the kitchen or his favorite erotically enticing music softly resonating throughout the love den. Again, these elements in and of themselves may have nothing to do with sex, but they play an important part in the prelude to an exciting and unforgettable evening.

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