NY Congressional Candidate Ritchie Torres - Sept. 17-24, 2020

September 17 & 24, 2020

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Contents

LIFE AWAKENING

Ric Burns’ documentary Oliver Sacks: His Own Life explores the pioneering physician’s most profound case study: himself.

By André Hereford

BRONX TALE

In November, Ritchie Torres will likely become the first gay Afro-Latino elected to Congress. He knows firsthand the stakes for democracy couldn’t be higher.

Interview by John Riley

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Volume 27 Issue 18

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HIGHER PLANE

Sufjan Stevens returns with a glitchy, trippy, highly judgmental meditation on the state of the world.

By Sean Maunier

GREETINGS FROM FUN CITY p.5 THE WAY I SEE IT P.8 MIKA’S I LOVE BEIRUT p.9 DC JAZZFEST p.14 KENCEN’S NATIONAL DANCE DAY p.15 DRIVE-IN MOVIES p.16 THE BLACK CAT’S ANNIVERSARY p.17 NATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL p.18 FITNESS IS A DRAG p.19 ALL IN p.20 PERFUME GENIUS p.21 RETROSCENE: ANNIE KAYLOR’S 80TH BIRTHDAY p.23 THE FEED: STRIKE OUT p.25 SHAMEFUL SHIRT p.27 RACIST RANT p.28 HONEST ANSWERS p.31 LACK OF CARE p.34 RELIGIOUS TEXTS p.35 FUN RUN p.37 BAND REBRAND p.40 TELEVISION: WE ARE WHO WE ARE p.53 RETROSCENE: SCARLET’S BAKE SALE p.57 RETROSCENE: OMEGA p.59 LAST WORD p.59

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Washington, D.C.’s Best LGBTQ Magazine for 26 Years Editorial Editor-in-Chief Randy Shulman Art Director Todd Franson Online Editor at metroweekly.com Rhuaridh Marr Senior Editor John Riley Contributing Editors André Hereford, Doug Rule Senior Photographers Ward Morrison, Julian Vankim Contributing Illustrators David Amoroso, Scott G. Brooks Contributing Writers Sean Maunier, Kate Wingfield Webmaster David Uy Production Assistant Julian Vankim Sales & Marketing Publisher Randy Shulman National Advertising Representative Rivendell Media Co. 212-242-6863 Distribution Manager Dennis Havrilla Patron Saint Kenneth Lewes Cover Photography Coutesy of Torres for Congress During the pandemic please send all mail to: Metro Weekly PO Box 11559 - Washington, D.C. 20008 • 202-638-6830 All material appearing in Metro Weekly is protected by federal copyright law and may not be reproduced in whole or part without the permission of the publishers. Metro Weekly assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials submitted for publication. All such submissions are subject to editing and will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Metro Weekly is supported by many fine advertisers, but we cannot accept responsibility for claims made by advertisers, nor can we accept responsibility for materials provided by advertisers or their agents. Publication of the name or photograph of any person or organization in articles or advertising in Metro Weekly is not to be construed as any indication of the sexual orientation of such person or organization.

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WARREN PIECE

Spotlight

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Greetings from Fun City

T GOES OUT LIKE A LIVE SHOW, BUT it's edited and presented in a way that is campy and fun,” says Rod Thomas of his album release livestream on Friday, Sept. 18. The Welsh-born singer-songwriter, who currently calls Manhattan home, is better known by his pop moniker Bright Light Bright Light. And the record in question is Fun City, an ebullient, profoundly catchy, pop-perfect celebration of life in an extremely queer lane.

For the show, Thomas secured New York’s dazzling Club Cumming (“I asked them,” he says matter-of-fact, “and it was amazing of them to let us use it”), and everything was filmed in a socially distant, responsible manner. “It's basically as if we've done a TV special,” he says. “You know, like when you have an evening with an artist, talk a little bit, and then present a song. There's a costume change for every song, and we go through the full album, start to finish.”

A one-night-only event, Greetings from Fun City will be “livecast” at 8 p.m. in four different time zones: Australian, British, East Coast America, and West Coast America. A ticket allows viewers to watch it at any of those time zones.

“So you can watch it early or late,” says Thomas.

“Whenever you want.”

Guests include luminaries from across the LGBTQ spectrum. “It's a mix of people from the

entertainment world and political world. Musicians, actors, filmmakers — a really nice blend of people from every walk of life in the LGBTQ-plus community.” Among those stopping by: Pennsylvania State Rep. Brian Sims, Australian bad boy of pop Brendan Maclean, the luminous singer KAYE, sassy Southern YouTube humorist Andrew Joseph Duffer, and elegant drag queen Jujubee, with plenty of additional surprises in store.

Thomas decided to produce Greetings from Fun City after his plans to tour the album’s release were derailed by the pandemic, a loss that impacts him on a perceptibly emotional level.

“The original idea of touring this album, for me, was to go and have local outreach with local drag queens, local queer performers, local charities, and build the story of how we need to have conversations about how to help everybody,” says the artist. “How we have to amplify voices and support people that don't get the support they need. For me, the fact that we don't get to do that is the most distressing thing about the shutdown.

“Hopefully, this broadcast will touch upon issues and suggest solutions and courses of action that people haven’t thought about, or need a bit of a reminder to do, and does it with a tongue-in-cheek and sense of humor, but also, like, a heart that is really hoping that people just work a bit harder to care about other people.” —Randy Shulman

Greetings from Fun City is Friday, Sept. 18, at 8 p.m. across four time-zones. Tickets are $10 for the Livestream only, or $35 for the Livestream and a Special T-shirt. Visit www.brightlightx2.com.

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Spotlight

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Byte Night: Zoofari 2020

OOFARI, THE 35-YEAR-OLD, CULInary-focused fundraiser for Friends of the National Zoo, moves online for 2020 and shifts toward serving up food for thought rather than actual food. This year’s free, hour-long event will include an official panda cub update from a National Zoo director, success stories shared from the Smithsonian’s Conservation Biology Institute, the chance to see “awesome animal demos,” as well as some “surprise celebrity guests.” There’s also a silent auction featuring a bevy of animal-created paintings, travel packages, virtual backstage zoo experiences, and a restaurant gift card or two.

But what of the culinary stars and attractions that once were Zoofari’s bread and butter? Well, the most prominent is Tim Ma (American Son, Laoban Dumplings), who will serve as the event’s host, dispensing “Culinary Tips & Tricks” in between all the news from furryville. There will also be a number of other chefs on hand, including Cathal Armstrong (Kaliwa, Hummingbird), Erik Bruner-Yang (Maketto, Spoken English), Amy Brandwein (Centrolina), Bobby Pradachith (Thip Khao), and Jerome Grant (Sweet Home Cafe, Jackie at Dacha Navy Yard).

Their participation is chiefly reserved for a set of pricey culinary VIP packages — and only available to gourmands willing to fork over some green. At $6,000, the Restaurateur Package in6

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cludes a meal for up to 10 guests prepared by a participating chef off-site then delivered to your home along with wine pairings (plus a few Zoo-specific perks). At $10,000, the Chef’s Package features a meal for up to 10 prepared by a chef in your home, including wine and cocktail pairings (plus more Zoo perks).

The VIP selections start at $2,000 for a Brewer’s Choice Package, in which an expert from City Brew Tours will lead a sample of 15 craft beers, with cheese and chocolate pairings, for up to 10 guests (plus Zoo perks), and also include a $3,500 Wine Lovers Package featuring a sommelier-led tasting of eight bottles from Bluemont Vineyard for up to 10 with a Cabot Cheese gift box.

Organizers suggest one way this year’s Zoofari participants can enhance their evening in a suitably culinary way: by purchasing food from one of the roughly 40 restaurants and cafes that participate in Zoofari and support FONZ, a list that includes Agora, Central Michel Richard, Iron Gate, Georgetown Cupcake, Matchbox, Rappahannock Oyster Co., Sababa, and the Hamilton.

Friday, Sept. 25, at 6 p.m., with pre-bidding for the auction starting Friday, Sept. 18. Free through the GiveSmart platform, but registration required for access. Donations of $60 or more come with a pair of “custom species-saving Freaker socks.”

Call 202-633-3045 or visit www.fonz.org. —DR

Spotlight

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Residue

.C.’S RAPID AND ONGOING GENTRIfication is the focus of filmmaker Merawi Gerima’s striking feature debut Residue. It follows aspiring filmmaker Jay (Obinna Nwachukwu), who returns to the District to find his old neighborhood has been gentrified beyond recognition. Dealing with alienation from his friends, troubled by the disappearance of a loved one, and unsure of his place in this new community, Jay confronts issues of identity, isolation, and loss on a tumultuous personal journey.

Gerima writes, directs, and produces the drama, billed as a “powerful and poetic reflection on topics that are both deeply personal and undeniably universal.” Residue also tackles

systemic racism, underemployment, and Black male identity in the nation’s capital — themes that resonate in cities across America, particularly during ongoing nationwide protests.

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2020 Slamdance Film Festival and an official selection at the 77th Venice International Film Festival, Residue has drawn strong praise from critics. Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY Releasing, an independent film collective that amplifies the creative voices of people of color and women of all kinds, is distributing the film, which debuts on Netflix on Thursday, Sept. 17, and will have a limited theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles. Visit www. netflix.com. —Rhuaridh Marr SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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PETE SOUZA

Spotlight

Souza

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The Way I See It

ETE SOUZA HAS BECOME AN UNLIKEly internet star during the Trump era. Official White House Photographer under President Barack Obama, Souza gained notoriety for deliberately and carefully selecting photos of the Obama presidency and juxtaposing them with news coming from the Trump White House — often with sharp captions to accompany the visuals. For instance, after Donald Trump branded former aid Omarosa Manigault a “dog” on Twitter in 2018, Souza shared a photo of Obama with Bo, one of two Portugese water dogs, writing, “A real dog waiting for a real President.”

That rise to internet fame led to the release of 2018 book Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents, which contrasted photos of the Obama presidency with tweets from his successor. After ris-

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ing to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, filmmaker Dawn Porter has taken inspiration from Shade and Souza’s personal story — including his time as a photographer for the Reagan administration — to create The Way I See It, an unprecedented look behind the scenes of the Obama and Reagan administrations, viewing the unique and tremendous responsibilities of the presidency from the perspective of a man who had an eyewitness account — and the photos to back it up.

In the process, the 102-minute film reveals how Souza transformed himself from a respected photojournalist to a searing commentator on the issues we face as a country and a people. The Way I See It releases theatrically on Friday, Sept. 18, and premieres on MSNBC on Friday, Oct. 9 —RM

JULIAN BROAD

Spotlight

Mika

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Mika: I Love Beirut

HE YEAR 2020 WAS SUPPOSED TO BE the year Mika returned to D.C., with a rare local concert. His May date at the Lincoln Theatre was not to be, and it has since been canceled outright, not merely postponed, along with all North and South American dates on his Revelation Tour, which was to launch at Coachella.

Rather fortuitously, the gay international pop star recorded a show in New York last fall. Released in January, Live From Brooklyn Steel does work as a kind of would-be D.C. concert keepsake, given its setlist featuring most of Mika’s biggest hits, yet focused on My Name Is Michael Holbrook, his remarkable fifth album whose title references his two given names. Released last October, the album ranks as Mika’s most mature and arguably his most accomplished, which only compounded the sense of sorrow when the pandemic laid waste to the tour.

The year 2020 had already turned out to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year for Mika as for pretty much everyone, everywhere by the time one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions in history rocked and ravaged the

capital of Lebanon. As it turns out, the massive explosion that ripped through Beirut in early August, which left an estimated 300,000 people homeless and hospitals overrun with wounded residents, has weighed heavily on this London-raised artist of Lebanese origin.

“Although far away, my heart broke for the families losing their homes, their livelihoods and their loved ones in this catastrophe. I wanted to do something to help in any small way I can. That is why I am staging a livestream concert in aid of the people of the city,” Mika recently wrote.

“Beirut is the place of my birth, is part of me, and will always be in my heart. ‘I love Beirut.’”

This Saturday, Sept. 19, Mika is set to perform “an intimate show from a special location, with a number of surprises from friends,” with all ticket sales going directly to support the efforts of Red Cross Lebanon, Lebanese Food Bank, Islamic Relief, and Save the Children Lebanon.

He also set up a GoFundMe campaign to accept additional donations. The livestream starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are $10. Visit www.mikasounds. com/i-love-beirut. —DR SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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BILL HAYES

Spotlight

Sacks

Life Awakening

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Ric Burns’ documentary Oliver Sacks: His Own Life explores the pioneering physician’s most profound case study: himself. By André Hereford

VEN HIS DEAREST FRIENDS, AND most avid readers of the books and stories that made him famous, might not ever have known that Dr. Oliver Sacks was gay until he wrote about it in his 2015 memoir, “On the Move: A Life”, published just before he died at the age of 82. Sacks hadn’t really discussed — and was thus never defined by — his sexuality, any more than he was defined entirely by his groundbreaking work with patients suffering encephalitis lethargica, as covered in his best-selling book Awakenings.

Sacks discusses being gay, and nearly every other aspect of his extraordinary life, with candor, humor, and characteristic insight in the warmly engaging documentary Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, directed by Emmy-winning documentarian Ric Burns. It was mere months before

Sacks passed away at his home in Manhattan that his close friend and longtime editor Kate Edgar contacted Burns to get the cameras rolling. “[She] called me in early January 2015 and said, ‘Hi, I’m Kate. Oliver’s dying. Will you come in and start filming?’” recalls Burns. “So we did.”

Burns and crew didn’t go through the usual path of raising funds. “We didn’t have any time,” he says. “We had to go in right away. And so within weeks, we were in his apartment. And we met Oliver and filmed Oliver where we found him, for the most part in his apartment, surrounded with friends, family members, relatives, colleagues, writers.” The assembled circle of loved ones includes Sacks’ partner, Bill Hayes, who, along with Edgar, helped provide the filmmakers research images, photography, home movies, and a practiSEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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Sacks

cal guide to experts on Sacks and his work.

From Sacks biographer Lawrence Weschler to NPR host Robert Krulwich, “this cohort of people” each provided pieces to the puzzle of Sacks. “So what we had was zero oversight, maximum access,” says Burns. “and you only get that if where you start is, ‘We’ve made the decision.

We’ve chosen you. We now are going to enable you. We’re going to trust you.’ So you get that bundle, have it handed to you, and then it’s your responsibility not to fuck it up.”

The film’s featured on-camera contributor is, of course, Sacks himself. Reading from the then-unpublished manuscript of On the Move, Sacks narrates his late-in-life love story with author and photographer Hayes, and describes how, at 18, he was harshly rejected by his dear mother, a leading obstetrician of her day, for revealing his homosexuality.

“The film is a mixture of his extemporaneous reflections about himself, his family, his mother, life, neurology, chemistry,” Burns says. “Sometimes it’s what his friends or family members or colleagues had to say about it. I really enjoyed the fact that we didn’t feel like we had to shape the material, but we had to use the material as we found it, as it came to us through Kate and Oliver and Billy and this amazing assortment of characters. And out of that came the attempt to understand Oliver’s subjectivity, his own life.”

Sacks — who spent much of his life probing the mysteries of the brain and consciousness, while remaining in many ways a mystery to those who knew him best — offers himself as his last, per-

Burns

haps most intriguing case study. Burns and his crew were able to help him complete his story.

“Every frame of the movie that was Oliver, you could feel it in who he was,” says Burns. “The young boy loved by his mother, the youngest of four, the person kind of traumatized by the psychosis of his brother, Michael, cursed and cast out by his mother, fleeing to California, riding a motorcycle, failing as a scientist, finding the patients in Beth Abraham, creating this life for himself, always alone. And finding late in life Billy Hayes, the only person he ever really had a deeply satisfying love relationship with outside his family. You feel each one of those frames of Oliver’s life all the time in Oliver. Which is wonderful because, as reserved as he was, he kind of wore himself on his sleeve and that’s a lovely, sometimes vexing and even exasperating quality for a person to have.”

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life reveals many qualities in its subject, chief among them his empathy — for patients, other humans, all living things — and his passion for understanding where biology and biography intersect. “He just wanted to connect,” says Burns. “He was a person who was gifted in connection, and in many ways disabled in connection. He wanted connection, found it hard to connect, and found a way to connect.

And it was the work of a lifetime. So he’s a scientist. He’s a doctor, neurologist, clinician, writer.

But in some sense, he’s an everyman. He’s doing those things as his specific way of being somebody grappling with those questions. And that’s incredible.”

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life premieres nationwide on Wednesday, Sept. 23 on the virtual cinema platform Kino Marquee and Film Forum virtual cinema. Visit www.kinolorber.com.

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Spotlight

JADA IMANI M

VIKRAM VALLURI

Allison Au Quartet

Marc Cary

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DC Jazzfest

ITED AS ONE OF “50 ESSENTIAL SUMmer Festivals” by the New York Times, the rescheduled 16th annual DC Jazz Festival jumpstarts fall as an online series of livestreams available to a truly global audience. The large and diverse music festival continues its tradition of showcasing many of the hottest names in the music genre, ranging from emerging homegrown artists to established international superstars.

Headlined by the Danilo Pérez Trio, Marc Cary, the Matthew Whitaker Quartet, Allyn Johnson and Sonic Sanctuary, and the String Queens, the lineup includes over 20 performances, highlighting local sensations ranging from jazzy-soul vocal powerhouses Cecily and Christie Dashiell, to the go-go pioneers in the Chuck Brown Band, to harmonica virtuoso and Stevie Wonder-collaborator Frédéric Yonnet, who will be accompanied by The Band With No Name.

Also featured are singing bassist Ben Williams, pianist Dado Moroni, the Nasar Abadey Trio, Jack Kilby & the Front Line, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Baby Rose, rapper/sing-

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Cecily

er Maimouna Youssef aka Mumu Fresh, Heart of the Ghost, experimental quintet ¡FIASCO!, Giveton Gelin Quartet, Allison Au Quartet, recording artist Heidi Martin, and alto-saxophonist Herb Scott. Performances will stream from neighborhoods across the city.

Meanwhile, five up-and-coming jazz bands from around the world will compete in the event’s annual DCJazzPrix Finals, with the winner receiving a $15,000 cash prize as well as performance opportunities at a future JazzFest and New York’s Tribeca Performing Arts Center — and determined in large part based on votes from the audience. Camilla George, DreamRoot, EJB Quartet, Reis-Demuth-Wiltgen, and Mike Casey will compete Sunday, Sept. 27, in a livestream from Union Stage at the Wharf. The festival runs from Thursday, Sept. 24, through Monday, Sept. 28. Free, but donations accepted to benefit the DC Jazz Festival Music Education Program. All concerts will stream from www. facebook.com/dcjazzfest and www.fans.live.

Visit www.dcjazzfest.org. —DR

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE KENNEDY CENTER

Spotlight

National Dance Day @ Home

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HIS SATURDAY, SEPT. 19, THE KENnedy Center presents the 11th annual celebration of dance and movement presented in collaboration with American Dance Movement, an organization founded by Hollywood producers Nigel Lythgoe (So You Think You Can Dance) and Adam Shankman (Hairspray). This year’s virtual program includes interactive classes led by dance organizations and schools from all eight wards in the city, teaching everyone of all ages and abilities the basic moves of everything from Afrobeat to disco to jazz, and all accessible from the Kennedy Center’s website and its Facebook page.

Activities start at 11 a.m. with a beginner’s ballet class taught by Monica Stephenson of the Washington School of Ballet geared toward those aged 8 to 10 and requiring participants to be accompanied by a “barre, a chair or countertop that comes to waist level.” After that comes a series of lessons in choreography set to jazz and pop songs, including an all-ages jazz routine set to “The Other Side” from Troll’s World Tour and another to “We’re All In This Together” from High School Musical, both led by CityDance and kicking off at noon; a portion of a dance to Michael Bublé’s “Feeling Good” originally per-

formed at Black Lives Matter Plaza earlier this summer and led by the Dance Institute of Washington’s Ashanté Green at 1 p.m.; and a “slay your cardio” choreographed fitness routine set to Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” and led by DivaDance DC at 2 p.m.

The schedule continues with a lively jazz class from the Northeast Performing Arts Group and instructor Arrington “AJay” Lassiter at 3 p.m.; an all-levels and ages Afrobeat class, combining African, hip-hop, and contemporary movements as taught by Dache Green and presented by Dance Place at 4 p.m.; and two classes presented by Dance Loft on 14, one a deep house/urban contemporary class incorporating principles of modern dance, syncopation, floor work, and footwork as taught by instructor Ronya-Lee, the other a re-Disco class paying tribute to line dances from the 1970s with insights from writer Tim Lawrence and music by DJ Jason Peters, both at 5 p.m.

Things come to a head — or, rather, a foot — at 6 p.m. with the learning and performance of a special group choreography “line dance” routine, after a short virtual welcome by D.C.’s Congressional Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Call 202-467-4600 or visit www.kennedy-center. org. —DR SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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DISNEY

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Spotlight

Selma

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Drive-In Entertainment

EXT FRIDAY, SEPT. 25, AVA DUVERnay’s 2014 historical drama Selma, about the 1965 voting rights marches in Alabama led by Martin Luther King Jr., will return to the big screen as the first in a month-long Drive-In Movie Series set up in a parking lot just south of Audi Field in Buzzard Point. The Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District has organized this Friday night series, with each screening limited in capacity to 75 cars and benefitting a different local school or charity, including DC Central Kitchen, Van Ness Elementary, and the Capital Area Food Bank. Actor Stephan James portrays John Lewis, the civil rights leader who was badly beaten by police during the infamous “Bloody Sunday” events, and the screening is offered as a tribute to the recently departed Georgia congressman.

October then ushers in horror and mystery films for Halloween, starting with Abominable on Oct. 2, Knives Out on Oct. 9, the original 1931 versions of Frankenstein and Dracula on Oct. 16, and Us on Oct. 23. The series will close on Oct. 30 with a classic Halloween title, either Beetlejuice, The Corpse Bride, The Addams Family, or Poltergeist, whichever gets the most votes as the “people’s choice” in a survey. Screenings start at 7:30

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p.m. The Akridge Lot, 100 V St. SW. Suggested donations of $20 per car per screening. Visit www.capitolriverfront.org.

Meanwhile, Broccoli City, a local Black-owned social enterprise organization, has teamed up with Events DC for another pop-up drive-in theater this fall, with space for up to 350 socially distanced vehicles, in a parking lot outside of RFK Stadium. Double features are encouraged at Park Up DC, with at least two screenings per night Thursdays through Sundays. Guests must remain inside their cars, with lawn chairs and blankets not allowed to be set up outside vehicles; facemasks and proper social distancing required to use nearby restrooms. The schedule includes Disney’s Moana on Friday, Sept. 18, at 7 p.m., Fast and the Furious 7 at 9 p.m., and Black Panther at 11:30 p.m.; Disney’s Onward on Saturday, Sept. 19, at 7 p.m., and Poetic Justice at 9 p.m.; and White Chicks on Sunday, Sept. 20, at 9 p.m. Other titles screening in the series include Do The Right Thing, Coco, Men in Black, Dead Presidents, Anchorman: The Legacy of Ron Burgundy, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Selena. Now to Oct. 3. RFK Campus Lot 5, 2400 E. Capitol St. NE. Tickets are $29 to $45 per car per screening, with double features sold separately.

Visit www.parkupdc.com. —DR

PARADIGM

PHOTO COURTESY OF BLACK CAT

Spotlight

Black Cat’s original 14th St. location

Algiers

The Black Cat’s 27th Anniversary

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VERY SEPTEMBER THE BLACK CAT celebrates its anniversary by hosting a festival-worthy lineup of shows featuring indie and alt-rock bands, as well as other popular performers regularly booked by the venue. The 14th Street club will continue that tradition this year by virtually streaming two shows with material specially recorded for its 27th anniversary.

This Friday, Sept. 18, brings pre-recorded clips from Ted Leo, Algiers, Mike Watt, and David Combs of Bad Moves, plus new performances recorded directly on the Black Cat Mainstage

by Teen Cobra, Technophobia, Ilsa, The Owners (Black Cat’s Dante Ferrando, Catherine Ferrando, Laura Harris, and Al Budd), and Donna Slash and her fellow Gay/Bash drag queens.

A few weekends later, on Friday, Oct. 2, the venue will feature footage of Hammered Hulls (the supergroup of D.C. punk legends Alec MacKaye, Mary Timony, Mark Cisneros, and Chris Wilson), Des Demonas, and Janel and Anthony. Veteran Black Cat employees, members of D.C.’s music community, and “a few other odds

and ends” will factor into the two-night programming. Both shows are set for 9 p.m. on the Black Cat’s recently launched YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/c/BlackCatDCMusic.

The events are free, but donations are encouraged and will benefit the venue as well as the featured performers.

Additionally, the Black Cat will host another celebratory show, this one a livestream from the Darkest Hour, performing from the Mainstage in honor of the local heavy metal band’s 25th anniversary — all as a fundraiser for the venue. “The Black Cat has been a constant refuge for us over the years and so it feels right to give back now,” the band said in an official statement. “We need art, we need music, and we will need a place to all come together eventually to heal from all of this. We want those of our friends who work in the music/art/live events industry to know that we see you, we are here for you, and most of all that you are not alone.” Saturday, Sept. 26, at 7 p.m. Cost is $10. Call 202-667-4490 or visit www. blackcatdc.com. —DR SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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JAMES J. REDDINGTON

TIMOTHY GREENFIELD SANDERS GETTY IMAGES

Spotlight

Albright and Reynolds

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National Book Festival

EXT WEEKEND, THE LIBRARY OF Congress will turn to a new page with its 20th National Book Festival, as it seeks to connect audiences across the country for an interactive, online celebration of “American Ingenuity.” This year’s virtual festival will provide opportunities to take a deeper dive into three timely topics that weave throughout the festival: “Fearless Women,” focused on books by and about strong women and female trailblazers; “Hearing Black Voices,” with books affirming Black culture and Black contributions to the American experience; and “Democracy,” with books assessing the state of democratic principles here and abroad.

The festival will feature new books by more than 120 of the nation’s most-renowned writers, poets, and artists, presented through live author chats and discussions as well as on-demand videos. Among the specific highlights on tap: the presentation of the Library’s Prize for American Fiction to two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Colson

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Whitehead; former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright with her cheekily titled memoir Hell and Other Destinations; Melinda Gates with her book The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World; Jason Reynolds on Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, the book he co-wrote with Ibram X. Kendi; a discussion with Ibram X. Kendi and Saeed Jones on confronting racism and bigotry with a focus on Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist and Jones’ How We Fight for Our Lives; Rebecca Boggs Roberts and Lucinda Robb on The Suffragist Playbook; Thomas Frank and Christopher Caldwell on The Road to Populism; Today show co-host Jenna Bush Hager on her collection of stories about her grandparents, Everything Beautiful in Its Time; and Chelsea Clinton on her book for young readers, She Persisted in Sports: American Olympians Who Changed the Game.

Friday, Sept. 25, through Sunday, Sept. 27.

Follow @librarycongress, use the hashtag #NatBookFest on Twitter, or visit www.loc.gov/ bookfest. —DR

CASSIDY DUHON

Spotlight

Fitness Is A Drag: The Little Mergay

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OGA INSTRUCTOR DAN CARTER IS leading a new high-intensity interval training workout, combining strength-training, core work, cardio, and stretching, resulting in “a bootcamp class unlike any other.” The twist: If you prefer, instead of doing cardio, you can “sit back and watch” Cardi O, or whatever the drag queen du jour’s name happens to be. Carter leads the 45-minute routine alongside his drag alter ego, Virginia Whine.

“It had always been my dream to combine my two great loves of drag and fitness, but it was hard to conceptualize an in-person event,” Carter says. “Streaming a class online gave me the perfect opportunity to put together this hybrid workout and show.” Fitness Is A Drag, or #FIAD, is a drag-themed fitness class structured around familiar yet twisted themes and open to all levels of experience, with room for modification. The series kicks off Saturday, Sept. 19, at 11 a.m. with a The Little Mermaid-inspired show in which participants can join Ari’yall, Little Sebastian, and all their “undersea friends as they crunch, burpee, and mountain-climb their way out of the ocean and into the real world, making new friends (and enemies) along the way.” Fitness Is A Drag will continue with campy spins on three

other tales: American Whorror Story on Oct. 24, Spongebob Square-dance on Nov. 14, and A Dolly Parton Holiday Special on Dec. 19.

Danimal Fitness has also ordered reinforcement in the form of cocktails, partnering with a new bar and delivery service: Jane Jane, a Southern-style cocktail venture, soon to open in the Liz building, at 1705 14th St. NW, from the team of Ralph Brabham and Drew Porterfield, the married couple behind Beau Thai and BKK Cookshop, and their best friend Jean Paul “J.P.” Sabatier. Cocktail orders must be placed at least two days in advance, so last-minute participants this month will have to fend for themselves, rather than imbibe Jane Jane’s offerings of Ursula’s WAP, a mix of tequila and rum with lime, grenadine, simple syrup, and bitters, or the P-Town-inspired Planter’s Punch blend of light and dark rums with pineapple, orange, lemon, and grenadine. Certainly so, if they hope to live up to the MerGay motto: “Flipping your fins you don’t get too far, a cocktail is required for jumping, dancing.”

Reserve your spot at www.danimalfitness. com. For more on Jane Jane, including how to have cocktails delivered on weekends, visit www. janejanedc.com. —DR SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS

Spotlight

All In: The Fight for Democracy

T

OUTED AS AN INSIDER’S LOOK INTO “laws and barriers to voting that most people don’t even know is a threat to their basic rights as citizens,” this critical, timely documentary from filmmakers Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés focuses on the experience and expertise of Stacey Abrams. The first Black woman to become the gubernatorial nominee for a major party in the United States, Abrams would have likely gone on to become the first Black woman governor of her home state of Georgia, had her opponent not stacked the decks in his favor. Brian Kemp worked to suppress turnout by purging many hundreds of thousands of voter registrations in the months leading up to the election, before arbitrarily deciding to put more than 53,000 new voter registrations, most of them from minorities, on hold a month prior to the election — which Abrams lost by roughly 50,000 votes.

All In: The Fight for Democracy shines a light

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on voter suppression, an insidious issue that has corrupted American democracy, and the very cause that has been Abrams’ cris de coeur since she launched Fair Fight Action in the immediate wake of the 2018 election. In addition to the film’s global release on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, Sept. 18, the filmmakers and Amazon Studios will launch #allinforvoting, a campaign to combat misinformation about the voting process, to help educate and register first-time voters, mobilize communities to have their voices and values counted in November, and train citizens to know how to recognize and report voter suppression when they see it. Armed with such useful information, the documentary, Odie Henderson writes in a review posted to www. rogerebert.com, serves as “a valuable public service wrapped in an educational, informative, and engaging documentary.” Available Friday, Sept. 18, on Amazon Prime Video. Visit www. amazon.com/adlp/allinmovie. —DR

NACHO DELAGARZA

Spotlight

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Perfume Genius

NSTEAD OF THE MULTI-CONCERT tour that had been planned to promote the late spring release of new indie-rock music under his alias Perfume Genius, Mike Hadreas will perform a one-off livestream from the Palace Theater in Los Angeles accompanied by a sixpiece band and a string quartet — and just before his 39th birthday — to showcase the music featured on his fifth studio album, Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, released in May. On the album, as in life, dissonance, harmony, struggle, and joy are all bound up together. Rather than smoothing over the tension and contradiction between them, Hadreas, always a skillful and deliberate songwriter, thoughtfully embraces them as parts of a whole. Dialing back some of the excess of his previous work allows more variation to emerge, making for a more fluid and dynamic album that rarely loses its fire. Hadreas has become more comfortable with guitars and bass, using them to great effect to add a depth and element of dissonance to tracks like “Describe.”

Human intimacy as described by Perfume Genius is a powerful and intensely felt force, even

as it is furtive, unpredictable and often fleeting.

To listen to Set My Heart On Fire Immediately at a time when our relationships to our own bodies and those of others has been so turned on its head is a fraught but rewarding experience, its bluntness and honesty feeling almost like permission to feel the full depth of our basic longing for human contact.

Fans should also check out the special merch for sale, including limited-edition t-shirts and posters as well as pre-orders of a forthcoming book and companion to the album, “a limited-edition monograph [revealing] the unseen procedures beneath the music, vivid conjurings that became songs, and tactile byproducts from exercises in world-building,” with portraits of the artist by French photographer Camille Vivier. Saturday, Sept. 19, at 3 p.m. Tickets are $15 in advance or $20 the day-of; another $5 grants access to an intimate, acoustic solo encore at 4:30 p.m. Both streams available for rewatching until the end of day Sunday, Sept. 20. The concert also serves as a benefit for Immigration Equality. Visit https:// perfumegenius.veeps.com. —Sean Maunier SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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RetroScene

Annie Kaylor’s 80th Birthday Party - Annie’s Steakhouse Monday, August 20, 2007 - Photography by Ward Morrison For more #RetroScene follow us on Instagram at @MetroWeekly

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WIKI COMMONS

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Strike Out

Rowling

JK Rowling’s new Cormoran Strike book sparks anger over ‘transvestite serial killer.’ By Rhuaridh Marr

J

K ROWLING HAS BEEN SLAMMED BY transgender activists over reports that her new book features a male serial killer who dresses up as a woman in order to carry out his attacks.

Troubled Blood, the fifth title in Rowling’s Cormoran Strike series, which she writes under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, was released on Tuesday. It features an investigation into the

murder of a missing doctor, with police suspecting a “murderous cross-dresser,” per CNN. According to the Daily Beast, at one point Cormoran Strike, the book’s protagonist, says that the killer’s victims “had been hoodwinked by a careful performance of femininity.”

In an advance review of the book, British publication The Telegraph opined “what critics of SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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theFeed Rowling’s stance on trans issues will make of a book whose moral seems to be: never trust a man in a dress.”

Rowling has garnered headlines in recent months for her apparent embrace of anti-transgender language and views, with the Harry Potter author being criticized for tweets containing language that has been characterized as transphobic, including claiming that sex was being replaced with gender identity.

After backlash over the tweets, the author later published a blog post titled “TERF wars,” in which she made unsourced claims about gender identity and detransitioning, drawing further ire from LGBTQ people and allies.

Her comments even led stars of the Harry Potter film franchise to publicly support trans people, including lead actor Daniel Radcliffe, who published an essay affirming that “transgender women are women.”

British charity Mermaids UK, which helps trans and gender-diverse children, youths, and their families, issued a statement saying it was “concerned” about Rowling’s reported use of a person presenting as another gender as a serial killer character. The charity also noted that Rowling had previously included a trans person as a suspect in her 2014 Galbraith book The Silkworm.

“This is a long-standing and somewhat tired trope, responsible for the demonization of a small group of people, simply hoping to live their lives with dignity,” Mermaids told CNN. “We are disappointed to hear that the author might be propagating the same, long-standing and hurtful presentation of trans women as a threat,” a spokesperson said. “As a children’s charity, we are bearing witness to the very real hurt felt by young people who once saw Ms. Rowling’s fiction as a place of comfort, friendship and escape.

“The author recently expressed support for trans people’s right to live free from persecution,” they continued. “Her latest book might cause those still enjoying her books to question that sentiment.”

Nick Adams, GLAAD’s director of transgen26

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der representation, told PinkNews that Troubled Blood was part of a pattern of “films, TV shows, and books using the ‘cross-dressing psychopathic killer’ trope,” which Adams said had “been created over and over by cisgender people.”

“This false and lazy storytelling device is based not in reality but in thinly-disguised homophobia and transphobia, and conflates gender non-conformity with evil,” Adams said. “Gender expression isn’t a danger to others. These false narratives put real transgender and gender non-conforming people in harm’s way.”

Trans activist and writer Paris Lees tweeted that while Rowling’s book featured a “‘transvestite serial killer’…in the real world the number of trans people killed in Brazil has risen by 70% this past year, young trans women are left to burn in cars and men who kill us (for being trans) are pardoned and sent home.”

She asked her followers to “look inside your heart and question what is really happening here.”

“I don’t expect people who aren’t trans to [ever] truly understand, but all I can tell you is that it’s beyond depressing to live day in day out under the threat and memory of violence towards you while simultaneously being told that you are in fact the threat. It’s completely sick,” Lees wrote.

“Like many trans people I faced violence all through my childhood and teenage years SIMPLY FOR BEING TRANS whilst being told that *I* was a pervert and a threat to others,” she continued. “Are you happy to live in a society that treats people like this? And if not how are we going to change it?”

Lees noted that average life expectancy for a trans woman of color in the United States is just 35 years old, adding, “The insult and injustice of being painted as the threat while this is happening to us is an unbearable evil.”

“Trans people I’m sorry we have to keep seeing this crap I know how upsetting it is particularly if you’re having your own problems not to mention worrying about the state of the world,” she concluded. “Please know you’re not alone and that you’re worth so much more than how this society treats us.”

RICH PENKOSKI ON TWITTER

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Brielle Penkoski’s t-shirt

Shameful Shirt

Pastor threatens school with lawsuit after daughter sent home for homophobic t-shirt. By Rhuaridh Marr

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HOMOPHOBIC PASTOR IS THREATening to sue a public high school in Tennessee after his daughter was sent home for wearing an anti-gay t-shirt. Rich Penkoski, leader of extremist anti-LGBTQ hate group “Warriors for Christ,” told the Christian Post that his daughter’s First Amendment rights were violated after she was told to leave Livingston Academy in Livingston, Tenn.

His daughter Brielle, who is 15, wore a t-shirt with “homosexuality is a sin” written on the front, as well as “1 Corinthians 6:9-10,” which is a Biblical passage interpreted by many Christians as outlawing homosexuality — though the exact translation is still subject to debate.

“My 15 year old was thrown out of school for the day for wearing this shirt,” Penkoski tweeted last month. “#lgbt wants to trample on your #free-

speech rights while they cry for special rights.”

Speaking to the Christian Post, Penkoski said that Brielle was sent to the school’s principal, Richard Melton, who asked her to remove the shirt because of its “sexual connotation.” When she refused, she was sent home, he said.

Penkoski complained that one of the school’s teachers had an LGBTQ Pride sticker in their classroom featuring the words, “Diverse, Inclusive, Accepting, Welcoming Safe Space For Everyone.”

He seemed perplexed as to why Melton would allow the sticker, but not his daughter’s homophobic t-shirt, and said that Brielle wanted to “express her values.”

“She wanted to do this on her own. She wanted to go there to…express her values like all the other kids do,” he said. “They’ve got kids walking SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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theFeed around with the pride symbol on their sneakers and pride clothing and nobody bats an eye.”

Penkoski continued: “She was basically censored. It’s not fair…that she’s told that she can’t wear that shirt and other people can wear the stuff that they wear.”

He also complained that his daughter was punished for being a Christian and repeating “what the Bible says,” even though her shirt was not a direct quotation.

“Simply saying ‘homosexuality is a sin’ is not hate speech,” he said. “That’s what the Bible says.

And we need to start preaching truthfully.”

He is now reportedly “contemplating legal action,” according to the Christian Post.

Penkoski has a history of anti-LGBTQ statements, and has publicly opposed Drag Queen Story Hours, where drag queens read books to children. Last year, his YouTube page for Warriors for Christ was demonetized after repeatedly posting anti-LGBTQ content, including opposition to gay and transgender people.

He has tweeted accusations that LGBTQ people “prey” on children, including accusing gay people of “always targeting children” and saying they want to “take children from Christian homes to indoctrinate” and branding them pedophiles.

“The lgbt messiah is the state,” he tweeted on Sept. 15. “They want to use their messiah to trample on Christians rights. They think teaching children the Bible is abusive and advocate for their removal from the Christian home. They PREY on children whereas we PRAY for them.”

He has also called gay people “perverts,” and said homophobia is a “made up word” and “satanic propaganda.”

“Homophobia is a made up word perverts like to use to denigrate anyone who would speak truthfully about their perverse lifestyles,” he tweeted on Sept. 11. “It’s nothing but satanic propaganda. We as Christians don’t need validation from Godless reprobates. Our validation is in Christ.”

Racist Rant

Donald Trump allegedly called The Apprentice contestant a ‘Black fag.’ By Rhuaridh Marr

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ONALD TRUMP’S FORMER LAWYER Michael Cohen alleges that the president called a contestant on The Apprentice a “Black fag.” Cohen, commonly known as the president’s “fixer” during his time with Trump, made the allegation in his new book, Disloyal: A Memoir.

He claims that Trump ensured that Jackson Kwame, a gay, Black man, would not win the NBC reality show’s first season in 2004.

“There was no way I was going to let this Black fag win,” Trump allegedly said, according to Cohen.

Kwame, a Harvard graduate and businessman, was the runner-up of the first season, after Trump opted to fire him and instead hire Bill Rancic, future husband of E! News host Gi28

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uliana Rancic.

“Trump reminisced to me about Rancic, who had been in a head-to-head with another contestant, Kwame Jackson,” Cohen wrote. “Kwame was not only a nice guy, but also a brilliant Harvard MBA graduate. Trump was explaining his back-and-forth about not picking Kwame. ‘There was no way I was going to let this black fag win,’ he said to me.”

Cohen claimed that Trump frequently made racist comments off-camera: “As a rule, Trump expressed low opinions of all Black folks. What he said in private was far worse than what he uttered in public.”

Trump has previously been accused of using racial slurs during filming of The Apprentice and spin-off The Celebrity Apprentice, which he host-

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CNN

GAGE SKIDMORE

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Trump and Jackson

ed between 2004 and 2015, Magician and entertainer Penn Jillette, of duo Penn & Teller, told Vulture in 2018 that Trump would “say racially insensitive things that made me uncomfortable” while filming Celebrity Apprentice in 2012.

“I don’t think he ever said anything in that room like ‘African-Americans are inferior’ or anything about rape or grabbing women, but of those two hours every other day in a room with him, every 10 minutes was fingernails on chalkboard,” Jillette said.

Former Trump political aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, who also appeared in the first season of The Apprentice alongside Jackson, accused Trump of using a racial slur in reference to Jackson while filming their season.

At the time of her accusation in 2018, Jackson told Variety, “Hard pass on all things Omarosa, no thank you. By me commenting or you covering the story, it simply adds fuel and attention to tomfoolery.”

However, later that year, after Cohen told Variety that Trump had referred to Jackson using 30

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a homophobic slur, Jackson told Newsweek that he was “definitely not surprised” by the alleged slur.

“Did it hurt me personally? Not in the slightest,” he said. “I have a reasonably thick skin, and I have worked in corporate America. I have been a black man for 44 years in America, and I know what that means, and I know what comes with the territory.”

Last week, Cohen appeared on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, where he said that Trump hated former President Barack Obama and frequently made racist remarks about him, The Hill reports.

“His hatred for Barack Obama is plain and simple: he’s Black, he went to Harvard Law, he graduated at the top of his class, he’s incredibly articulate, he’s all the things that Donald Trump wants to be,” Cohen said. “And he just can’t handle it. So what do you do if you’re Donald Trump and you can’t handle it? You attack it.”

Trump frequently touted the false conspiracy theory that President Obama was not a U.S. citizen as part of attempts to delegitimize his

theFeed and xenophobia hardly,” Obama wrote. “But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks.”

In a statement, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany disputed the claims made in Cohen’s book, saying, “Michael Cohen is a disgraced felon and disbarred lawyer who lied to Congress. He has lost all credibility, and it’s unsurprising to see his latest attempt to profit off of lies.”

TAMRON HALL SHOW

presidency, including a 2011 appearance on The View in which he asked the president to “show his birth certificate.”

In 2018, former First Lady Michelle Obama wrote in her memoir Becoming that she would “never forgive” Trump for spreading “reckless innuendos” about her family that endangered their safety.

“The whole [birther] thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry

Honest Answers

Gillum and Hall

Andrew Gillum, former mayor of Tallahassee and Democratic rising star, comes out as bisexual. By John Riley

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NDREW GILLUM, THE FORMER mayor of Tallahassee and one-time rising star in the Democratic Party who ran for governor of Florida in 2018, has come out as bisexual in an interview with journalist Tamron Hall as part of her self-titled talk show.

Gillum agreed to sit down for a pre-recorded hour-long exclusive interview with Hall, whose

second season of her talk show kicked off on Monday, marking the first time she has returned to her New York set since the show was forced to stop production due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

In the interview, the 41-year-old Gillum addressed rumors swirling around him after he was found intoxicated in a hotel room at the SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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theFeed Mondrian South Beach Hotel in March, accompanied by two Florida men, one of whom was a well-known escort who allegedly overdosed on what is believed to be methamphetamine.

Police eventually decided not to bring any charges against Gillum related to the incident.

Meanwhile, Gillum entered rehabilitation for alcohol addiction and withdrew from public life, asking for privacy for himself and his family.

His decision to enter rehab also also resulted in his stepping away from his positions as a guest commentator on CNN and as head of Forward Florida, a progressive organization focused on registering and engaging Floridians — particularly low-income individuals, voters of color, and infrequent voters — on various political issues.

Speaking with Hall in his home city of Tallahassee, Gillum — accompanied by his wife of 11 years, R. Jai, at various points throughout the interview — talked about his struggles with alcohol, and how that addiction spiraled after losing a potentially history-making 2018 campaign that would have made him Florida’s first Black governor. He added that he attempted to hide his dependence on alcohol from his wife.

“I had an aid to help me sort of numb that,” Gillum said in part of the interview teased by the Tamron Hall Show. “And that is, I took to, you know, to drinking at a level that I had never done before. In the morning when I would have my coffee cup, somebody might think coffee was in it, but it was really whiskey.”

When discussing the details of the night when he was caught in the South Beach hotel room, Gillum said he identifies as bisexual.

“The truth is, is that, Tamron, everyone believes the absolute worst about that day. At this stage, I don’t have anything else to have to conceal,” he said. “I literally got broken down to my most bare place, to the place where I wasn’t sure that I wanted to live. Not because of what I had done. But because of everything that was being said about me.

He continued: “What was most hurtful was this belief that I was somehow living a lie in my marriage and in my family. That was the most hurtful to me because I believe we’re all entitled 32

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to mistakes. And I believe we’re entitled to those mistakes without having every other respectable and redeeming part of our lives invalidated. And I felt like the love that I have between my wife and I, my family, but most important, the authenticity that I tried to lead with was all in question at this point.

“And to be very honest with you, when you didn’t ask the question, you put it out there, is whether or not I identify as gay. And the answer is, I don’t identify as gay, but I do identify as bisexual. And that is something that I have never shared publicly before.”

R. Jai Gillum, fighting through tears, told Hall that it was difficult to see naked photos of her husband from the night in question, because she had always thought of him as “the strongest man I know” and had to reconcile that with his feelings of helplessness.

“Honestly, I got angry,” she said. “I thought he was being taken advantage of in a way that was unfair. I thought that the whole situation, if it had happened to a woman, it would be a very different narrative. If anyone had a tabloid with a woman lying naked on the floor, would the pictures have even made it out? It would have been criminal.”

R. Jai Gillum also claimed that her husband had revealed his sexual orientation before they married and said she had accepted it.

“I just believe that love and sexuality exist on a spectrum,” she said. “All I care about is what’s between us and what agreement do we make to be in a relationship with each other?

“I mean, there are couples that have open marriages, there are couples who have all different kinds of covenants with one another that everybody else doesn’t know,” she continued. “And at the point where you have to reveal your covenant to the world, to then be criticized or questioned with good intentions or bad, that’s a lot of pressure. And so I’ve told him before, saying that ‘yes’ was solely about me and you. It wasn’t about me, you and the world.

“So, I don’t know, you know someone has asked me before, ‘Would you have made a different decision?’ and I had to say, ‘I don’t know.’ I think perhaps, being as young as we were — you

H AV E Y OU SEEN OUR I NSTAGR A M ?

Th er e’ s a l ot t o L i k e!

Cl i ck t o Fol l ow Us @ m et r ow eek l y

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theFeed a means in order to render that, that I couldn’t do that,” he said. “Now, would it be hard? Absolutely. But Donald Trump is President. You’ve got elected officials who are on tape not inebriated and passed out and taken advantage of, but folks who are literally voluntarily terrorizing people’s lives. And it’s captured on video. And they wear it as a symbol of pride.”

He added: “I firmly believe that in the years to come, whatever the second or third act will look like, that it’s going to move me closer to what my destiny, what my contribution is supposed to be.

Should have, could have, would have, you know, meeting everybody else’s expectations, that’s Andrew of March 11. It’s not Andrew of today.”

GAM1983 - SHUTTERSTOCK

know I wasn’t even 30 yet, I may have said no because at that age, I know I wouldn’t have had the maturity to say, while I am privately okay with this, I don’t know that I have the strength to continually defend my relationship or my marriage to anyone who doesn’t understand.”

Gillum did say he could see returning to politics in the future, “if I put my mind to that.” He said he had originally thought he would play a role as an elected leader, but has opened himself up to the possibility that any involvement may have to take a “different form.”

“There is not a thing that has happened in my life, scandalous or not, to cause me to believe that if I have service to give in elected office as

Lack of Care

A

VA allegedly didn’t tell Navy veteran he was HIV-positive for 20 years. By Rhuaridh Marr

NAVY VETERAN IS SUING THE U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, also known as the VA, after doctors allegedly failed to tell him that he had tested positive for HIV in the ’90s.

The veteran from South Carolina, known as John Doe to protect his privacy, claims that doc34

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tors at William Jennings Bryan Dorn VA center in Columbia, S.C., withheld a positive test result from him in 1995.

Doe wasn’t formally diagnosed and provided antiretroviral treatment until 2018, by which point the disease had progressed to AIDS, The State reports.

theFeed “The VA had actual knowledge beginning in November 1995 that Mr. Doe was HIV positive and the standard of care required he be informed of the positive test and proper treatment begin in 1995,” McGowan, Hood and Felder, the firm representing Doe, wrote in the suit. “In clear contravention of the standard of care, Mr. Doe was not informed of the positive HIV test until decades later.”

According to the suit, Doe sought treatment for mental and physical injuries stemming from a shipwreck in 1976. His medical records show that doctors noted a positive result for HIV while he was at Dorn VA center, but Doe says that they failed to actually inform him of the result.

He only learned of his diagnosis in 2015, the suit alleges, after a VA doctor noted the positive test result during a conversation.

Per the doctor: “I looked at the patient and ask [sic] him who was his infectious disease doctor, and patient states [sic] did not have one and [I] ask [sic] him if he knew that his HIV test was positive, and he stated [he] never was told it was positive.”

While the doctor reportedly suggested that Doe confirm the diagnosis with another test, the lawsuit doesn’t state whether this occurred.

Instead, in 2018, Doe was hospitalized in nonVA facility Maimonides Medical Center in New York City, where his diagnosis was confirmed and he was given access to antiretroviral treatment.

Doe’s suit states that if he had been made aware of his diagnosis sooner, he would not have progressed to “full-blown AIDS,” which has permanently affected his health and immune system. “[Doe] needlessly suffered for decades with co-existing conditions common in HIV infected persons, including lymphadenopathy, neurotoxoplasmosis, muscle aches and joint pain,” the lawsuit states.

It adds: “Had Defendants acted within the standard of care, Mr. Doe would not have suffered the losses he has suffered, and will continue to suffer in the future, and more likely than not, he would not have developed AIDS.” Speaking to ABC News, Chad McGowan, Doe’s lawyer, said, “The treatment he’s getting now is effective, but he’s had essentially 25 years of wear and tear for having no treatment.”

He added: “[Doe] feels extremely guilty about the girlfriends he’s had over the last 25 years because he didn’t know.”

Religious Texts

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Christians threaten to hang gay people ‘in a loving way’ in leaked WhatsApp chats. By Rhuaridh Marr

N LGBTQ GROUP IN THE CAYMAN Islands is demanding that police investigate a Christian WhatsApp group after leaked messages showed members discussing killing gay people “in a loving way.”

Screenshots from a conversation between members of Cayman Caribbean Cause, which includes leaders from the local religious community, were anonymously emailed to LGBTQ group Cayman Colours, Cayman Compass reports.

In the texts, members urge for the murder of LGBTQ people on the Caribbean island and suggest that homosexuality should be criminalized.

One person said that they should “maybe hang one or two [gay people] in a loving way” to warn other gay people against living openly.

That same person also suggested adopting the Koran’s stance on homosexuality to criminalize homosexuality, writing, “If this was a Muslim country, they’d be [thrown] out by the thousands.”

Group members also shared photos of lawmaker Kenneth Bryan meeting with Colours Cayman last year, and offered suggestions on using the comments section of a Cayman news website to attempt to sway opinion towards their SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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JESO CARNEIRO/FLICKR

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anti-LGBTQ attitudes.

Bishop Nicholas Sykes, who organizes the group, denied any knowledge of the messages when asked by Cayman Compass.

Royal Cayman Islands Police Service Commissioner Derek Byrne said in a statement that no criminal complaint had been made, but that police had been contacted about the messages in the group chat.

“We are aware of overt concerns among some members of the community who are challenging the LGBTQ community. Our assessment at this stage is that these persons are operating in a space of free speech and right to peaceful protest and that they have ensured not to breach boundaries that would amount to suspected criminal behavior,” he said.

“While the posts that I have seen are challenging and overtly opposed to the LGBTQ community, they do not reach a criminal threshold to justify alarm, distress, harassment to any individual, i.e., a breach of the penal code. The RCIPS will continue to monitor the matter on an on-going basis to ensure that the criminal law and penal code is not breached.”

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But the RCIPS was later forced to issue a separate statement after Colours Carribean, which is connected to Colours Cayman, decried Byrne’s description of the message, and noted that the Cayman Islands Penal Code prohibits intentional harassment, alarm, or distress, calling his statement “legally questionable at best.”

“Threats of hanging, however dressed up, or suggestions of how to ‘eradicate’ LGBTQIA+ people by any means go well beyond causing alarm and distress to our vulnerable community — they are exceptionally disturbing and dangerous,” the group said.

Colours Cayman said that Byrne’s statement had “a sinister and compounding impact on LGBTQIA+ people that he should be reprimanded for as it could, itself, be construed as criminal.”

“By his negligence, the Commissioner, hopefully unintentionally, has risked giving the ‘green light’ for people to harass, alarm and distress an already marginalized community without any criminal consequences,” they said, adding that Byrne should apologize for his “inexcusable failure of judgment.”

theFeed many criminal offences contained in our legislation that provide considerable protection for our community against harassment, alarm, distress, etc., which provide the legal basis for the investigation and prosecution of such crimes.”

The statement continued: “RCIPS wishes to advise the public that the matter will be kept under constant review and monitored on an on-going basis to ensure that the criminal law and penal code is not breached.”

FACEBOOK

RCIPS responded by saying that an investigation would be carried out into the messages, despite not receiving any criminal complaints.

“As a service we take any complaints regarding any content seriously and any such complaints received will be fully and thoroughly investigated to the full extent of the law,” RCIPS said in a statement.

RCIPS noted that there is no specific reference to hate speech in the Penal Code, “there are

Fun Run

DC Frontrunners Pride 5K

Capital Pride joins over 34 Pride organizations for National LGBTQ+ Pride Stride Virtual Run. By John Riley

T

HE CAPITAL PRIDE ALLIANCE HAS joined 34 Pride organizations across the country to create the first-ever Pride Stride virtual 5-kilometer and 10-kilometer run.

In partnership with EnMotive and producers of the Allstate Hot Chocolate 15K/5K race series, the virtual run, sponsored by LA Pride, will commemorate National Coming Out Day,

on Sunday, Oct. 11. All participants will receive a goodie bag featuring Pride-branded swag and Pride Stride-themed finishers’ medal, plus a fanny pack and more.

The event will be held virtually due to concerns about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which led several LGBTQ organizations to cancel their Pride Month celebrations. It allows each SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

37

theFeed participant to safely walk or run solo at their own with our Black and Brown brothers and sisters leisure, without needing to worry about massive in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. crowds, a time limit, and without having to fol- The health and safety of our community is our low an official route. top priority, and Pride Stride is an opportunity “Collectively, we’ve had to stay indoors during for us to come together safely to celebrate.” our Pride season thanks to the pandemic and Locally, the Capital Pride Alliance and the DC follow safety guidelines, but we didn’t go away, Front Runners running club will be encouragLA Pride President Sharon-Franklin Brown said ing individuals to participate in both their annuin a statement. “It’s importal DC Front Runners Pride ant that we show we havRun 5K and the national viren’t stopped making each tual 5K/10K run. and every member of our Organizers will also be respective communities visencouraging participants, ible and matter. We’re leadespecially members of the ing the effort to get people LGBTQ community, to regmoving and help them get ister and promise to vote out, figuratively and literin this November’s presially, across the country to dential election, which will safely show their pride in carry great consequences solidarity with this event.” for members of the LGBTQ “This year, a majority of community, especially with Pride organizations had to regard to the makeup of the cancel or dramatically scale U.S. Supreme Court. back their celebrations,” “These times require us Steve Ginsburg, the presito reflect and modify the dent of EnMotive, said in a actions that we take and statement. “We are thrilled the programming that we —LA Pride President to partner with so many develop in our fight for full Sharon-Franklin Brown Pride chapters across the freedom and equality,” Ryan nation to support kindness, Bos, the executive director unity, courage, and strength through this virtual of the Capital Pride Alliance, said in a statement. event helping bring the community together.”

“We are thrilled to partner with other Pride While LA Pride is calling for individuals to organizations across the United States for the insign up and participate, each of the participat- augural, nationwide virtual Pride Stride 5K/10K. ing organizations is promoting the Pride Stride This event will be part of our #StillWeVote among their own communities. A portion of each campaign, a call to action for members of the participant’s Pride Stride registration fee will LGBTQ+ community and our allies,” Bos conbenefit their local nonprofit Pride organization. tinued. “Our votes are our voices, and we have “The COVID pandemic greatly impacted Pride too much at stake to sit by idly. Let us acknowlcelebrations around the world, and the heartland edge that #StillWe must run and walk to the balwas not exempt,” Jennifer Carruthers, the pres- lot box or mailbox for this November’s General ident of Capital City Pride in Des Moines, Iowa Election!” said in a statement.

“To ensure the safety of our community, all Registration for the Pride Stride Virtual Run is $40. in-person Pride activities were canceled and re- To register, or for more information, visit www. placed with virtual events,” Carruthers contin- pridestride.org or follow @pridestrideofficial on ued. “When possible, we masked-up in solidarity Facebook and Instagram.

"We’ve had to stay indoors during our Pride season thanks to the pandemic and follow safety guidelines, but we didn’t go away."

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theFeed

Band Rebrand

Come Spring, DC’s Different Drummers will be sporting a fresh new logo and a new look in high-tech uniforms. By John Riley

D

C’S DIFFERENT DRUMMERS, THE Washington area’s LGBTQ musical organization, is getting a makeover. Gone are the red-and-white collared shirts and khaki shorts that members wore as they marched in D.C. Pride Parades or gave special performances at local sporting and cultural events. Now, 40

SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

marchers will be clad in a black shirt and pants, with splashes of rainbow colors and a D.C. flag design on the front. The shirt’s back boasts a treble clef, a rainbow inside one of its curves.

Given the band members will be marching in Washington’s humid climate, Charles Roth, artistic marching band director for DC’s Different

theFeed Drummers, notes that the fabric, provided by G2 Performance Apparel, is the result of research that seeks to make marching band uniforms durable, breathable, and lightweight. That, in turn, allows the marcher freedom of movement and prevents them from overheating.

“They would put different monitors and sensors on different people in a band, like a snare player, and see what their vital signs were as they were performing. The results showed that they were doing a lot of cardio work,” Roth explains. “There’s evidence brought forth from that research showing that marching band members are quite the athletes, and G2 Performance used that data to figure out how to make the uniforms more comfortable and avoid heat exhaustion.”

Roth adds that the black undertone of the uniform makes the other colors in the uniform “pop” and is less resistant to fading or staining than lighter-colored materials.

“You’ll notice that if you have uniforms of a lighter fabric, that they’ve become a little bit more difficult to sustain,” he says. “You typically see in the marching band world, a number of different organizations or high schools or colleges, go with a darker underlying cover.”

In addition to the color and more intricate design, each individual band member will have the opportunity to express their own unique identity through a sash flag on their left hip.

“We are allowing each member to choose any LGBTQIA-identifying flag that fits their personality,” says Roth, noting that it’s a subtle break from the rigid individuality usually imposed on marching bands. “It could be a trans flag, a nonbinary flag, a Pride flag, a bear flag, anything that falls under that umbrella.”

The new uniform design, including the sash flag, was developed with the input of the group members as part of a larger rebranding effort undertaken by the board of directors.

Meredith Carpenter, president of the DCDD board, says the logo for decades has been based around the “lambda man” symbol, consisting of the greek letter lambda, with a drawn-on head and two circles that look like marching band drums. Many younger members of the group

did not recognize lambda as an LGBTQ-specific symbol. That, coupled with the lack of rainbow colors in the logo, led the board to push for a newer, more modern approach.

The rebranding took a year-and-a-half, and was undertaken by an intergenerational, cross-sectional group of band members who sought input from their fellow musicians through surveys or open forums and tried to incorporate that feedback.

The rebranding, as well as the new uniforms, were expected to be rolled out this past summer, but things were complicated by the COVID-19 outbreak. The group has been unable to perform since March.

“We are following all of D.C. and the CDC guidelines, all regional and national guidelines, and just waiting until things are safe,” says Carpenter. “We’ve started another committee that is putting some guidelines together, and have reached out to a number of medical and public health professionals to use their expertise to help guide us.

“We are not rushing into getting back together in any physical, in-person kind of way. I know that the percussionists may have a distant outdoor event with groups for Capital Pride, but they’ll be in masks, outdoors. But in terms of our traditional ways of interacting, we’re watching and waiting to see how things are going to go.

Most of our members want to get together and see each other, but they’re not interested in pushing the boundaries of what COVID can do.”

While COVID-19 has disrupted the group’s performance schedule for 2020, Roth is hoping to begin performing, and to roll out the new uniforms, sometime in the spring of 2021 — preferably in time for D.C.’s annual Cherry Blossom Parade and Festival.

“We’re not sure what the future is going to bring,” he says. “We’re keeping it a little bit loose in terms of the time frame. We’ll take it week by week and month by month, and hopefully we’ll soon be able to perform again.”

For more information on DC’s Different Drummers, visit www.dcdd.org.

SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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Bronx Tal In November, Ritchie Torres will likely become the first gay Afro-Latino elected to Congress. He knows firsthand the stakes for democracy couldn’t be higher.

Interview by John Riley

M

Photography courtesy of Torres for congress

Y LIFE IS SOMETHING OF A METAphor, because I grew up in a public housing project, right across the street from the Trump Links at Ferry Point golf course,” says Ritchie Torres. “And as the golf course was undergoing construction, it unleashed a skunk infestation on the public housing development. So I jokingly told people that I've been smelling the stench of Donald Trump well before he became president.”

Growing up in the shadow of Trump’s golf course — which received more than $127 million in taxpayer dollars from the city — had a significant influence on Torres’ life, prompting him to become a housing organizer, and then housing director for a Bronx Councilmember.

“I remember thinking to myself at the time: What does it say about our society? What does it say about our values and our priorities that we're willing to invest more in a golf course than in the homes and lives of Black and Brown Americans?” he says.

In 2013, Torres became one of the youngest people elected to a seat on the New York City 42

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le

Council — a feat nothing short of stunning in the Bronx, where political machines had a history of overwhelming insurgent candidates.

“I was 25 years old, openly LGBTQ in a comparatively conservative county,” he says. “I had no ties to the dynasties of Bronx politics, no ties to the party machine. But I knocked on thousands of doors, went into people's homes, and heard their stories. And I won my first campaign on the strength of door-to-door, face-to-face campaigning. And I became the first openly LGBTQ elected official in the borough of the Bronx.”

For six years, Torres amassed a fairly progressive record on the City Council before deciding to run for Congress, after 30-year incumbent Jose Serrano announced he would not run for re-election to New York’s 15th Congressional District seat. His chief opponent was longtime Bronx politico Ruben Diaz, Sr., a fellow member of the City Council and a former state senator with a history of inflammatory, anti-LGBTQ statements and actions.

Yet even though polling showed Torres to be one of the stronger candidates against Diaz — who actually refused to commit to vote for Democratic nominee Joe Biden over President Donald Trump — he received criticism from progressives for accepting campaign donations from real estate developers, even though he was endorsed by End Citizens United and did not take corporate PAC money. And despite having served as a delegate for the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016, he didn’t earn the endorsement of Sanders or the senator’s top surrogate, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who represents a neighboring district. He bristles at charges that he is insufficiently progressive, pointing to his support of several progressive policies, including the two biggest issues associated with the progressive movement: the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. “You can say anything about anyone, without regard to the truth,” Torres says in response to his critics. “What I find is the criticism primarily comes from white gentrifiers who feel the need to lecture me on systemic racism and progressivism. And I refuse to be lectured.

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“I spent most of my life as a poor kid of color who had nothing handed to him. I had to fight for everything that I have in my life. And I ran for public office to become a leader in my community. I have roots in my community, and I refuse to be lectured by white gentrifiers on what it means to be progressive. Screw them.”

In early August, after weeks of delays in counting mail-in ballots from the Democratic primary, Torres was officially named the Democratic nominee for New York’s 15th Congressional District. He’s favored to win in the November general election, due to the 15th District’s status as the most Democratic-leaning congressional district in the nation. As he looks forward to likely becoming the district’s next member of Congress, Torres speaks hopefully of the things he’d like to do to make the lives of working people, like his family members and his neighbors, better.

He also hopes his election will provide some hope and inspiration for LGBTQ youth of color.

“As LGBTQ youth increasingly can see themselves in their own government, at the highest levels of American politics, that's progress,” he says. “That's reason to hope. There’s a whole host of us — candidates like Mondaire Jones, Gina Ortiz Jones, and myself — who have broken barriers. The ‘rainbow wave’ that has swept politics, from Mayor Pete downward in recent years, is reason to hope. And the rainbow wave sends a powerful message that we're here, we're queer, and we're not going anywhere.”

METRO WEEKLY: Apart from living opposite

Trump’s golf course, what was your childhood like?

RITCHIE TORRES: Well, the Bronx has always been my home. Always has been and always will be.

I spent most of my time in poverty, raised by a single mother, who had to raise three children on minimum wage, which in the 1990s was $4.25 an hour. I have a twin brother who's five minutes older, and a sister. We grew up in public housing in conditions of mold and mildew, leaks and lead, without consistent heat or hot water in the winter. And so when I think about all the struggles affecting the poorest parts of our country, whether it be poverty or inequality, food insecurity or

housing, these are not only abstractions that I studied intensely as a policy, these are struggles that I've lived in my own life. For me, policy is personal.

MW: Was your family religious?

TORRES: I was born into a Catholic family. My family was more culturally than doctrinally Catholic. But in Latino culture, there's an emphasis on machismo.

There is homophobia institutionalized in every culture, but including Latino culture. And so I felt inhibited by the absence of LGBTQ visibility in my own upbringing, and that deterred me from coming out.

MW: When did you officially come out?

TORRES: It was more of a process than a single moment. Back when I was in high school, I stumbled across the MySpace profile of a teacher. And came to discover that he was gay. And so I approached him. And when I did, I spontaneously came out. He was the first openly LGBTQ person I had ever met. I grew up in a sheltered upbringing in the Bronx, where there were no visible models of openly LGBTQ people. I had no conception of a world beyond the immediate boundaries of the public housing development in which I lived. For me to meet someone in my life who is openly LGBTQ was an inspiring experience.

And then when I was a housing director on the city council, I came out to a few of my colleagues, and when I chose to run for public office, that was the definitive moment of coming out. When I ran for public office, I concluded that I had to be out to everyone, because coming out was a matter of authenticity and integrity. And I owed it to the public to be honest about this. So there's a sense in which my first campaign for the city council was the culmination of my coming out process.

What’s remarkable is that seven years before,

I was at the lowest point in my life. I was struggling with depression, abusing substances, I dropped out of college. There were moments of suicidal ideation. I felt as if the world around me had collapsed. And then seven years later, I became the youngest elected official in the largest city in America.

MW: You said you felt like the world around you had collapsed. What was fueling it?

TORRES: Depression runs in my family. So part of it is genetic. But part of it is just personal traumas in my life: the death of my grandparents, sexual identity crisis, certainly the struggle to come to grips with my own sexual identity and the fear of rejection.

MW: When you were first running for office as an out gay man, did you receive any pushback on the campaign trail, or were you advised to keep your sexuality secret?

TORRES: I had consultants warn me about the risk of coming out. But I felt internally compelled to be who I was, and to run as the person that I am.

I have the belief that integrity and authenticity are not only good morals, but are also good politics. That voters can smell a lack of authenticity from a mile away. So I thought it was important to be who I was, that it would make me a better public servant and a better person.

MW: In your congressional primary, you beat RuSEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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“When I think about all th e st r ugg le s af f ec t i n g t h e poor e st parts of ou r cou n t ry, w h et h e r i t b e pov e rt y or i n eq uali t y, food i n s ecu r i t y or hou s i n g, TH E S E AR E STR UGG LE S THAT I ' VE LIVE D I N MY OW N LI F E .

FOR M E , POLI C Y I S PE R SON AL .” ben Diaz, Sr., who has been an institution in Bronx politics for quite some time. He obviously has a connected family, with his son being the borough president. Was there ever a point where you doubted yourself or thought that maybe it was too much to take on that machine, so to speak?

TORRES: I was cautiously hopeful that I could win. The race for New York-15 was the most fiercely contested congressional primary in New York City. There were eleven candidates, including five elected officials. The frontrunner was said to be Ruben Diaz, Sr., who is known to be the most homophobic elected official in New York state politics. In the 1990s, he said that the Gay Olympics would lead to the spread of AIDS. In 2011, he was the only Democratic state sena46

SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

tor to vote against marriage equality. And a year ago, he said that the city council is controlled by a homosexual cabal, to which I jokingly replied, “That's the most accurate thing you've ever said.”

He has compared abortion to the Holocaust and has described sexual harassment as a compliment.

MW: And got a sort of nod from President Trump.

TORRES: Right. He was the Donald Trump of the Bronx. Conventional wisdom among political observers held that Ruben Diaz, Sr. could not be beaten because he's been an institution longer than I've been alive, and that I, as a young gay man, had no clear path to victory in the South Bronx, where the median voters are traditional and senior citizen. It was thought that the median voter in the South Bronx would naturally gravitate toward Ruben Diaz, Sr. But against all odds, on the strength of the grassroots campaign, I not only won, but I defeated Diaz so decisively, that I drove him to retirement, which is precisely where he belongs.

MW: You two both have both served on the City Council at the same time. What was your working relationship with him like?

TORRES: We had no working relationship, especially after his comments about homosexuals controlling the city council. After those comments especially, he became persona non grata, so I essentially had no working relationship with him.

MW: Did you ever interact with him?

TORRES: I mean, we've been in meetings together, and there were moments of cordiality, but there were moments of contention as well.

MW: When you won your primary victory, there were a number of other closely watched races in the New York area. Mondaire Jones won in a Westchester-based district. You had Jamaal Bowman, who upset Eliot Engel. You had AOC unseat Joe Crowley last cycle, and this year she defended her seat. You had Carolyn Maloney pull out a narrow victory against Suraj Patel, who, in some circles, is described as a progressive. What's going on in New York that is leading to these insurgent campaigns?

TORRES: Incumbency is no longer an insurance policy in an age of anti-establishment fervor. And

there is both a progressive wave and a rainbow wave sweeping American politics. And I think what we've seen increasingly is the emergence of congressional leaders who are every bit as diverse as America itself. American representative democracy in the United States is becoming genuinely representative. If elected, I'm set to become the first LGBTQ member of the New York City congressional delegation and the first out Afro-Latino member of the United States Congress. It's one thing to have an openly LGBTQ member of Congress in the Gayborhoods: Hell's Kitchen or the Village. It's something else to have an LGBTQ member of Congress from the South Bronx, in the place where you least expect it. That is a distinctive kind of breakthrough in LGBTQ representation and politics. And the triumph of an openly LGBTQ congressional candidate over the leading homophobe in New York state politics is a powerful testament to how far we've come.

MW: You have received criticism from the left that you are not progressive enough. How do you define the term progressive, and do you feel you match that term?

TORRES: At the heart of progressivism is a belief in progress, a belief that the government can and should play a role in improving people's lives.

And as a progressive Democrat, I see COVID-19 not only as a challenge, but as an opportunity.

If the Democrats win control of the presidency and the Senate, we will have the makings of an FDR moment. We will have a once in a century opportunity to fundamentally reinvest in America on the scale of the 21st Century New Deal.

A massive reinvestment would enable us to recover from COVID-19, fight catastrophic climate change, create the next generation of green jobs, create a comprehensive social safety net that establishes both health and housing as human rights. And begin to address the root causes of systemic racism which was powerfully laid bare by the 1619 Project. So the pursuit of all those goals is deeply progressive.

MW: During this pandemic, there are a number of people who say they’re hurting and that this is a time for sweeping, direct action that gets money to

people who need it most, and back into an economy that is suffering from the shutdowns. How are you going to prioritize the economic well-being of your constituents?

TORRES: The highest priority is to put people back to work and to put money in the pockets of working people and families. That is the highest priority, as well as providing federal funding for state and local governments that are providing vital public services. Our state and local governments, especially New York City, are teetering on the brink. COVID-19 has revealed to the nation the vulnerabilities of the social safety net.

MW: We’ve heard similar promises before from other politicians. But it seems that once they come to Washington, there's a point at which good intentions stop. Obviously we can't control who rules the Senate. But many of those candidates end up deferring to longer-serving members or playing by the rules, which can frustrate voters when change is slow and incremental.

TORRES: No one has ever accused me of deference, and no one has ever accused me of playing by the rules. This is not a theoretical question.

Take a look at the record that I built on the City Council. I've been an independent, pragmatic, effective public servant willing to cause good trouble. Who's been willing to speak truth to power.

Who's been willing to fight for the causes that matter most to him. And that's the same fighting spirit that I would bring to Washington, D.C. — I'm not going to D.C. to “kiss the ring.” I'm going to D.C. to deliver for my district. I'm going to represent the poorest congressional district in America, living in deep suffering, and I feel a deep sense of urgency around delivering for my constituents in the immediate term.

MW: Should you be elected to Congress, there are caucuses that you would have a chance to join.

Have you thought of any that appeal?

TORRES: I would join the Progressive Caucus.

And for the record, I support the Green New Deal and Medicare for all, despite misrepresentations of my record.

MW: You can also join the CHC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus or the Congressional Black Caucus. But there is a rule that you cannot join both.

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47

TORRES: I'm well aware of it. I wrote an op-ed on it.

MW: As an Afro-Latino, how much does it offend

you that you cannot join both caucuses?

TORRES: A tradition that prohibits membership in both the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is a form of erasure.

Under the traditions of Congress, you can either be Latino or Black, but you cannot be both. But in the real world, you can be both. In the real world, Afro-Latinos like me do exist. And we should never be forced to choose between two identities that are equally important to us. In the real world, identity is intersectional rather than binary.

MW: I know that one of your other opponents was endorsed by the CBC and you were endorsed by the CHC. Were you offended by the CBC’s decision not to endorse you?

TORRES: I take none of it personally. Individuals and institutions make endorsements for a whole host of reasons, and I don’t take any of it personally. What I do take personally is the tradition that prohibits membership in both the CBC and CHC, because that affects my ability to govern. When you’re at an institution like Congress it’s important to be in the room where decisions are made. And both the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are among the most 48

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important rooms of decision-making in Congress.

MW: Since you wrote your op-ed, has anybody from either caucus reached out to you? Have there been discussions about this?

TORRES: There have been discussions. I will keep those discussions confidential. All I can tell you is that I intend to try and vote to the extent that I can. And my position remains the same. I feel it is a matter of deep conviction that I have a right to join both, as an Afro-Latino.

MW: What other issues do you see Congress not taking action on that need to be addressed?

TORRES: We have to address the affordability crisis. The crushing costs of housing and health care and higher education is crippling American families, crippling American businesses.

In the South Bronx, more than half of the residents spend more than half their income on rent.

And that's before you factor in the cost of food and transportation and utilities and prescription drugs. And so I’m in favor of housing vouchers for all, so that families in need pay no more than 30 percent of their income toward their rent. I'm in favor of expanding the child tax credit, so that families struggling during COVID-19 can receive up to $3,500 per child every year. And I'm in favor of really massive investments in our social, human, technical, digital infrastructure.

COVID-19 has held up a mirror to the deeper inequalities of American life. And one of the inequalities that weighs most heavily upon families in the South Bronx is the digital divide in New York City. There are 900,000 households that have no broadband internet connection — 900,000 households, 2.2 million New Yorkers, 29% of all the city's households. In an age of remote learning, without Wi-Fi access, there's no means of accessing an education. So in an age of remote learning, we've seen the transformation of education from a public good to a private luxury, reserved for those who can afford it. That, to me, is a betrayal of public education as both a public good and a human right.

MW: You were recently involved in a political dispute with Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, who called you a “firstclass whore” after you questioned whether there

was a slowdown in solving gun crimes in New York City. How did that attack make you feel?

TORRES: I held the police union’s feet to the fire, and instead of responding to me respectfully with an opposing argument, and facts and statistics, the Sergeants Benevolent Association chose to denigrate me, calling me a “first-class whore.”

Now keep in mind that Ed Mullins, of the SBA, has a long pattern of denigrating people of color, women, and members of the LGBTQ community.

He's a first-class bigot. He has referred to an African-American NFL linebacker as a wild animal.

He referred to the Latina health commissioner as a bitch. He promoted, among his members, a racist video that portrays people of color as Section Eight scam artists and welfare queens. He appeared on Fox News with a coffee mug bearing the logo of QAnon, which is a far-right conspiracy movement that traffics in anti-semitism. He has threatened violence against the mayor and has illegally invaded the primacy of the mayor’s daughter. So there’s a long record of hate and harassment that ought to disqualify Ed Mullins from serving in any position of public responsibility.

A man of his history and volatility cannot be trusted to police communities like mine, to treat us with the respect we deserve, the respect that the NYPD promises. The motto of the NYPD is "Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect" and what we've seen from Ed Mullins is nothing but a lack of professionalism and disrespect squarely directed at people of color, women and members of the LGBTQ community. My attitude is: enough is enough. Ed Mullins should resign.

MW: Why do you think he has received so little pushback from police officers in response to his offensive comments?

TORRES: The crisis is deeper than a few bad apples. There’s a culture of impunity, a blue wall of silence, that enables police misconduct. The role of the police unions is to defend police misconduct, no matter how egregious. The doctrine of qualified immunity is essentially a license to brutalize black and brown lives. And the blue wall of silence encourages even good officers to turn a blind eye to the brutality of fellow officers.

MW: Had you been in Congress, would you have

“ I had con su ltan t s war n m e about t h e r i s k of com i n g out. B ut I f e lt i n t e r n ally com pe lle d to r u n a s t h e pe r son t h at I am .

I h av e t h e b e li e f t h at i n t eg r i t y an d aut h e nt i c i t y ar e not on ly good mor als , b ut ar e also good poli t i c s .

VOTE R S C AN S M E LL A L AC K OF AUTH E NTI C IT Y F ROM A M I LE AWAY.” supported the Booker-Harris bill, the Justice in Policing Act? TORRES: Yes. And I favor the abolition of qualified immunity.

MW: When people take to the streets to protest or to demonstrate, that tends to be an indicator of failed policies or a broken political system. What is your SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

49

“Under the tr ad i t ion s of Con g r e s s , you c an e i th e r b e L at i no or B l ac k , b ut you c an not b e bot h . B ut i n th e r e al wor ld, Af ro L at i nos li ke m e do e xi st. An d WE S HOU LD N E VE R B E FORC E D TO C HOOS E B ET WE E N T WO I D E NTITI E S THAT AR E EQ UALLY I M PORTANT TO U S .” advice to people who want to bring about change?

TORRES: Keep protesting. Keep agitating. Change does not happen in a vacuum. The political system is responsive to activism and agitation. So my advice to protesters on the streets is to keep protesting. It works. It has an impact. We’ve seen police reforms enacted or pursued at every level 50

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of government, and those efforts did not start in a vacuum. Those efforts took hold following mass demonstrations around the murder of George Floyd. Change requires an inside game and an outside game, and the elected officials often play the inside game. But the burden lies on the activists to play the outside game. It’s the interplay between the two that drives social change.

MW: We know that the Equality Act has stalled in the Senate. Obviously, there is some hope that with a Democratic Senate, it would be brought up for a vote. But regardless of what happens with this year’s elections, what actions do you feel need to be taken to improve the lives of LGBTQ people and specifically LGBTQ people of color?

TORRES: There has to be recognition that the Equality Act is a guarantee of legal equality. But legal equality is only one piece of social equality and we have to ensure that vulnerable communities within the LGBTQ family get their fair share of federal resources. We have to ensure that we have mental health services specifically oriented towards the needs of LGBTQ residents. We need to ensure we have housing, specifcally oriented toward the needs of LGBTQ youth. We have to be mindful of the need for services as we are of the need for legal equality.

Housing is my passion. LGBTQ youth have disproportionally higher rates of homelessness and disproportionately higher rates of suicide.

Those two facts are not coincidental. Those two facts are closely connected. Health and housing are closely connected. When you have no access to stable housing, you are much more vulnerable to mental illness and substance abuse, to overcriminalization and sex trafficking. So the lack of housing is destabilizing every aspect of your life. And we see that dynamic play out tragically in the lives of LGBTQ youth, who continue to be displaced from their own homes at the hands of their own parents. And those LGBTQ youth tend to look a lot like me.

MW: We’ve recently seen courts start to move in the direction of agreeing, once and for all, that LGBTQ people are covered by various federal laws. But the other day we had President Trump issue a list of potential Supreme Court nominees containing the

names of a number of anti-LGBTQ figures. How much of a risk does a second Trump term pose to the LGBTQ community?

TORRES: The greatest threat to LGBTQ equality is the Supreme Court. We have to win the Senate.

We have to abolish the filibuster. And we have to appoint progressives to the Supreme Court. My greatest concern is what I call the "weaponization of the First Amendment," the weaponization of religious liberty. There has been a concerted effort by the conservative movement to radically reinterpret religious liberty as a license to discriminate against the LGBTQ community. And if that conception of religious liberty were to be adopted by the Supreme Court, it would have the effect of desecrating LGBTQ protections at every level of government, including the Equality Act. That is the greatest threat to LGBTQ equality.

MW: On the other hand, we’ve also seen some members of the LGBTQ community try to defend this administration’s record on LGBTQ rights, trying to convince us that our own perceptions are mistaken or wrong. What would you say to those individuals?

TORRES: It's not my place to tell anyone in the LGBTQ community what their political preferences should be. What I will tell you is that there is no defending the indefensible. And Donald Trump’s record on the LGBTQ community is indefensible. To his LGBTQ defenders, I would tell them you’re entitled to your own opinions, but you’re not entitled to your own facts. The fact is, Donald Trump has been consistently hostile toward the equality of LGBTQ people. There's a whole host of regulations that he has put in place or attempted to put in place that have conspired against our community. And no amount of gaslighting is going to change that fact.

MW: How worried are you about voter apathy or disengagement this cycle?

TORRES: Well, I have a constant concern about a lack of voter engagement. But it seems to me the energy's on the left. The energy's on the Democratic side of the aisle. Biden raised over $340 million in the span of a single month, which is as definitive a sign of energy as any I've ever seen in national politics. I think most Democrats real-

ize that Donald Trump is an existential threat to everything that we value as a party: he's an existential threat to the social safety net, to our democracy, to our planet. And that four more years of Donald Trump is too horrifying to imagine.

MW: I know that a topic close to your heart is curbing gun violence. But gun reform legislation has been stymied in Congress. What do you see as solutions to gun violence that Congress can or should take?

TORRES: We often speak of American exceptionalism. And the worst form of American exceptionalism is with the epidemic of gun violence.

Among the wealthiest countries in the world, the United States is alone — it uniquely has an epidemic of mass shootings and gun violence. And we have more gun violence simply because we have more guns. We have to limit the number of guns on our streets and limit access to those guns. So we need gun safety legislation at the federal level. There's no substitute for federal gun safety.

MW: Would you back an assault weapons ban?

TORRES: Yes. Universal background checks, an assault weapons ban, a ban on high capacity magazines.

MW: If you ask most voters, they generally don’t have positive opinions about either major political party. As a Democrat, how do you communicate to Americans why you believe the Democratic Party’s positions are better for them?

TORRES: There is a staffer of a U.S. Senator [Thom Tillis, R-N.C.] who told a woman with cancer, “You're out of luck.” The Republican response to working people who have suffering in their lives is you're out of luck, whereas Democrats recognize that there are some public goods that are so essential that the government is obligated to guarantee it. We all can guarantee universal health care, affordable housing, access to a quality education. We are the party that believes in investing in America that believes in investing in everyone, so that all of us can have a fighting chance at a decent life.

For more information on Ritchie Torres’s campaign for Congress, visit www.torres.nyc.

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YANNIS DRAKOULIDIS HBO

Television

Kids ’R Us

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HBO’s queer-themed We Are Who We Are encapsulates the unique coming-of-age atmosphere on a U.S. military base in Italy. By André Hereford

OR SHEER, YOUTHFUL EXUBERANCE, the close-knit group of teens at the center of Luca Guadagnino’s We Are Who We Are (HHHHH) can’t be beat. Their joy and abandon permeates the screen — when they’re not also grappling with the disorienting experience of life as Army brats, hailing from U.S. military bases around the world and currently stationed with their parents on a seaside base in Chioggia, Italy. Guadagnino similarly captured that fleeting exhilaration called youth in his Oscar-winning film Call Me By Your Name, depicting Elio and his friends drinking, hanging, and splashing around like gay porpoises.

All that release serves a purpose for We Are Who We Are and for these kids, whose inner lives

and lives indoors aren’t always so joyful. Fraser Wilson (Jack Dylan Grazer) arrives on base with his moms Maggie (Alice Braga) and Sarah (Chloë Sevigny), the new base commander. He’s seemingly determined to remain aloof from his fellow American teens abroad — until he lays eyes on Caitlin (Jordan Kristine Seamón), a half-Nigerian beauty who intrigues him enough that he spends much of the first episode shadowing her and her crew, including her brother Danny (Spence Moore II), best friend Britney (Francesca Scorsese), and her boyfriend Sam (Benjamin L. Taylor II), around the island.

Fraser is also mightily intrigued by his mom’s charming chief aide, Jonathan (Tom Mercier), continues on page 51 SEPTEMBER 17 & 24, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM

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Music

Higher Plane

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Sufjan Stevens returns with a glitchy, trippy, highly judgmental meditation on the state of the world. By Sean Maunier

IKE MOST OF US, SUFJAN STEVENS has been sitting with a lot of discomfort lately. His latest release, The Ascension, is a sprawling, 80-minute epic of an album that puts his angst over life, death, and love on full blast and shares much in common with his 2010 electronic fever dream, The Age of Adz. After the inward-looking and deeply personal Carrie and Lowell, his latest album finds him getting existential, with a message that we are all in this together, and that fact alone should terrify us.

The Sufjan we hear on this album is a much more overtly disaffected and world-weary artist, although more specifically with the state of his home country than the rest of the world. The closing track, “America,” released in July as the first single from the album, reckons with his disillusionment at what it means to live in America today, a disquieting sentiment coming from an artist who made his name on twee folk-pop mythologizations of the country in the mid-2000s.

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Stevens spends much of The Ascension (HH✍ HHH) yearning for one thing or another. It’s a yearning that takes different forms, but at its heart always boils down to a search for some essential humanity beneath the noise. “Video Game,” released earlier this year along with a video starring and choreographed by TikTok star Jalaiah Harmon, openly laments the difficulty of finding “invaluable” worth of the self in the midst of the “ephemeral” approval of the outside world. “I Wanna Die Happy” consists of the single, titular phrase, repeated ad nauseum over a gradually swelling mess of synths. It’s a technique that Stevens returns to repeatedly on tracks like “Ativan,” “Death Star,” and “Ursa Major,” allowing hazy instrumentals to gradually morph from an ambient dreamscape into clanging, quasi-industrial chaos, giving the whole album a sense of unease, verging on outright turmoil. “Landslide” uses this instrumentation to great ef-

fect to present love as a crushing, overwhelming force.

Even when Stevens is saying very little, he remains a powerful storyteller. “Gilgamesh,” in characteristic Sufjan Stevens style, blurs metaphysical lines hunting at a bond that is both divine and visceral. Love has always been shrouded in ambiguity in Stevens’ songwriting, as has the question of whether it is dealing with the human, the divine, or both. Complicating matters, he has never been shy about wielding biblical, contemporary Christian, and more nebulously spiritual imagery and language in his songwriting. With lyrics that are rich in allegory and narrative power, The

Ascension is no exception.

Despite the weight of the subject matter, The Ascension is an unexpectedly fun listen. Many of the songs are genuinely catchy and the ones that aren’t are still compelling in their intricacy. And as heavy as his lyrics are, they are wry, sardonic, and oddly hopeful. “Sugar,” his meditation on “the desire for goodness and purity,” drives home the glimmer of optimism underlying the album, that even in the middle of unprecedented tumult, the good can still be found, recovered, and created, and even the things that are irreparably broken can ultimately be replaced with something better.

The Ascension will be released on all streaming and download platforms on Friday, Sept. 25.

The physical release date is Oct. 2. continued from page 49

but appears uncertain, in general, about his attraction to guys. As he soon discovers, Caitlin lives with uncertainty about her sexuality and gender, and the pair’s quick-setting bond creates sharp, painful ruptures in their other relationships. Mimicking the beachy rhythm of the town, if not the more regimented energy of the military base, We Are Who We Are moves its plots along slowly across the four episodes HBO made available for review. But that’s all the better to dig into each character’s identity and idiosyncrasies.

Episode one, led by It scene-stealer Grazer’s electric performance, sticks closely to Fraser and his two moms. Sevigny offers a sterling dual reflection of Sarah’s confident command of her soldiers, versus what goes on inside the Wilsons’ home. Sarah and Fraser’s closeness might supersede that between Sarah and her wife, fueling a permissiveness that would not fly in the households of many of the parents watching. Fraser

drinks, he curses, he brazenly defies authority. In one alarming moment, he strikes Sarah, knocking the wind out of her and us. It’s shocking, but then, not so much. This is, after all, not TV, it’s HBO, a network that knows shock and awe programming.

The show’s writers also know enough about character to offer no easy explanations for why any of this proud circle do what they do. Episode two retells much of the previous hour, but from the point of view of Caitlin, whose closeness to her dad, Richard (rap star Kid Cudi, in a fine turn), suffers in the wake of her newfound friendship and dawning awareness of her identity. But Richard, who clearly feels he was passed over for command of the post, might be experiencing his own identity crisis. Stories overlap, intersect, and collide elegantly here, bolstered by tart, unforced humor and a feast of natural beauty — from Venetian lagoons lined by tall grasses, to kids being kids in the midst of paradise and violence.

We Are Who We Are airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on HBO. Visit www.hbo.com.

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RetroScene

Scarlet’s 33rd Annual Bake Sale - Titan Saturday, Feb. 14, 2004 - Photography by Todd Franson

For more #RetroScene follow us on Instagram at @MetroWeekly

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RetroScene

Omega

Friday, Oct. 17, 2008 - Photography by Ward Morrison

For more #RetroScene follow us on Instagram at @MetroWeekly

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LastWord.

People say the queerest things

“Sarah’s primary win shatters another lavender ceiling in our movement to build LGBTQ political power.”

--Victory Fund President and CEO ANNISE PARKER, in a statement after Sarah McBride secured the Democratic nomination in the race for a seat in the Delaware State Senate. McBride will likely win the seat in November, becoming the first openly trans person elected to a state Senate in the United States. “Sarah’s win is a powerful reminder that voters are increasingly rejecting the politics of bigotry in favor of candidates who stand for equality,” Parker said.

“ I am proudly the first openly elected lesbian in North Dakota. So that is why I am not paying any heed to your crap.”

—Minot, North Dakota city councilwoman CARRIE EVANS, delivering an incredible response to an anti-gay resident who, along with many others, complained about the city flying a Pride flag to support LGBTQ people. “Every single person is entitled to see themselves represented,” she said. “We are not some group of people who live in San Francisco or Seattle. We are here. We are your elected officials. We are your brothers. We are your sisters. And don’t tell me you’re not hatred or anger. That’s all I feel. I’ve had to listen to it for days now, as has the mayor and many of my colleagues. It is unacceptable.”

“ It was really painful for him because so much of his childhood was tied up with Harry Potter.”

—CYNTHIA NIXON, speaking to the Independent about her trans son’s reaction to Harry Potter author JK Rowling’s anti-trans comments. “The books seem to be about championing people who are different, so for her to select this one group of people who are obviously different and sort of deny their existence, it’s just...it’s really baffling.”

“ If I have to cast what people think is the real thing for a role, I wouldn’t be able to cast.”

—Director LUCA GUADAGNINO, who is gay, responding to criticism that he didn’t cast gay actors in the lead roles for Call Me By Your Name in an interview with the Independent. “I cannot cast a gay man to play Oliver. I have to cast Oliver to play Oliver because the identities of gay men are as multiple as the flowers in the realm of earth. So there is not a gay identity.

One person who is gay is completely different to another person who is gay.”

“Everyone in America should feel secure in who they are,

”

in their identity, free from fear of persecution, targeted violence, and bullying.

—JON OSOFF, the Democratic candidate seeking to unseat Republican Sen. David Perdue in Georgia, speaking to Q Conversations.

Osoff, whom HRC called a “true ally,” said he has “a deeply rooted belief in the equality of all people and commitment to expanding human rights and to ensuring that everyone...is treated with the compassion and dignity and respect that they deserve.”

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