San Francisco Bay Times - November 30, 2017

November 30 - December 6, 2017 | sfbaytimes.com

EL RIO

RECEIVES LEGACY BUSINESS STATUS

In the News

Compiled by Dennis McMillan Report Finds 2017 Is the Deadliest Year Yet for Transgender People There has been more reported violence against transgender people so far in 2017 than any year before in the U.S., according to a report recently released by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which tells the stories of all 25 transgender people who have been killed this year. LGBT people are already more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other minority group in the U.S. This study shows that that trend is particularly deadly for transgender people, and it is ever increasing. The majority of the victims were of people of color, and 80 percent were transgender women. ​towleroad.com Clair Farley Named Senior Advisor for Transgender Initiatives

Mayor Ed Lee on November 20 announced the appointment of Clair Farley as the Mayor’s Senior Advisor on Transgender Initiatives. Farley will work directly with the Mayor and City Administrator Naomi Kelly on LGBTQ policies and oversee development of new transgender initiatives. Theresa Sparks, who held the position previously, will be retiring from a full-time role in City government to pursue other projects and interests. Farley’s appointment is effective on December 4. “I am so honored to follow in the footsteps of Theresa Sparks and all the leaders before us,” said Farley. “This has been a remarkable month despite these challenging times, with over seven transgender candidates winning across the country and the passing of vital trans policy in California. We must stay vigilant and keep investing in building our resilient and diverse communities. I am so grateful to be working for the City that I love and will make sure that no one gets left behind on our path to full equality.” Farley will be convening a transgender advisory committee to inform the Mayor, City departments, and the broader LGBTQ initiatives throughout the City.

She will also be supporting new and emerging policy, such as implementing SB179 that will allow a third gender on state identification cards and SB310, the groundbreaking bill that will make it easier for trans inmates to change their identification documents. sfgov.org Nearly 21 Million People Living with HIV Now on Treatment Ahead of World AIDS Day, December 1, UNAIDS released a new report showing that access to treatment has risen significantly. In 2000, just 685,000 people living with HIV had access to antiretroviral therapy. By June 2017, around 20.9 million people had access to the life-saving medicines. According to Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS, such a dramatic scale-up could not have happened without the courage and determination of people living with HIV demanding and claiming their rights, backed up by steady, strong leadership and f inancial commitment. unaids.org Former President Bill Clinton to Speak at National AIDS Memorial Grove on December 1 Former President Bill Clinton will give the keynote address during World AIDS Day ceremonies in San Francisco, helping to culminate a year of events marking 25 years since the National AIDS Memorial was created to honor those lost to the AIDS epidemic. World AIDS Day is observed globally on December 1 each year for people to unite and recommit to the fight against HIV, show support for people living with it, and commemorate those who have died. This year’s World AIDS Day commemoration events at the memorial in Golden Gate Park are built around the

theme “Bending the Arc Toward Justice,” honoring people from all walks of life who have made a difference in the fight against AIDS. David McMurry, retired Global Public Health Manager at Chevron, will receive the Humanitarian Leadership Award and Ruth Coker Burks, known as the “Cemetery Angel,” will receive the Thom Weyand Unsung Hero Award.

The next generation of leaders who are working on the front lines of education and prevention will be celebrated, announcing the recipients of the 2017 Pedro Zamora Young Leaders Scholarship. These young leaders will help to ensure the AIDS epidemic and struggle for a cure is never forgotten. (For more information on World AIDS Day, see page 18 of this issue.) aidsmemorial.org Renewed Effort to Allow Cities to Extend Alcohol Sales to 4 AM On November 28, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) joined nightlife supporters, labor, community members, and business leaders to rally around support for a renewed effort to allow—but not require—cities to extend sales of alcohol at bars, nightclubs, and restaurants (but not liquor stores) to as late as 4 am. The new 5-year pilot program version of the LOCAL Act, which stands for Let Our Communities Adjust LateNight, preserves complete local control in terms of decision-making and applies only to the six cities whose Mayors have expressed interest in the bill: San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Sacramento, West Hollywood, and Long Beach. Mayor Ed Lee said: “The bill strikes a perfect balance by introducing new opportunity while still providing local jurisdictions the ability to prioritize the public safety of our neighborhoods and determine— business by business—whether such an extension is desirable.” Senator Wiener will introduce the new bill when the Legislature reconvenes in January. sen.ca.gov Plus Housing Program for HIV Clients Has Launched Plus Housing is a program through the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development for low-income people living with HIV/AIDS. In this new program, applicants can choose to be considered for either (or both) permanent housing subsidies and units. Plus Housing is federally funded by Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS, and locally by the San Francisco General Fund. It should be noted that the Plus Housing program is in pilot mode for the first six months or so, which means they reserve the right to make adjustments to program policies as needed, in order to serve the overall program aims and provide the greatest benefit to San Franciscans living with HIV/AIDS. sfmohcd.org/plus-housing Did Starbucks Put a Lesbian Couple on Its Christmas Cup? The annual “controversy” of the Starbucks Christmas cup continues, as fundamental rightwing Christians are convinced it has included a lesbian couple holding hands on this year’s design. And Starbucks isn’t denying it. While the hands are completely unidentifiable as male or female on the cup, the TV commercial promoting it shows a female couple getting cozy over cups of coffee, before reaching out to touch one another’s hands. The rightwing homophobes, of course, are particularly worked up about this. lgbtqnation.com Second U.S. Judge Halts Proposed Transgender Military Ban Another federal judge has halted a proposed transgender military ban,

expanding on an initial ruling issued last month against the plan by President Donald Trump’s administration. In a preliminary injunction issued in Baltimore, U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis ruled that transgender service members have “demonstrated that they are already suffering harmful consequences” due to the proposed ban including threat of discharge, stigma, and the cancellation or delay of surgeries related to their gender transitions. The six plaintiffs in the lawsuit he reviewed have all been receiving hormone therapy.

Trump had announced on Twitter in July that the government would not allow transgender individuals to serve in the military in any capacity. The order was a proposed reinstatement of a longstanding policy that barred transgender people from joining the military and also subjected service members to discharge if they were revealed to be transgender. That policy was changed last year under former President Barack Obama. But in a strongly-worded passage from his 53-page decision, Garbis wrote that the “capricious, arbitrary, and unqualified tweet of new policy does not trump the methodical and systematic review by military stakeholders qualified to understand the ramifications of policy change.” edgemedianetwork.com Interfaith Emergency Winter Shelter Schedule Announced Mayor Lee, Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing Director Jeff Kositsky, the San Francisco Interfaith Council and Episcopal Community Services have announced the schedule and details for the Interfaith Winter Shelter Program, an initiative that provides additional shelter services at local churches. Now in its 29th year, the Interfaith Winter Shelter Program began on November 19, and will run through February 24, 2018. The City and Episcopal Community Services are collaborating with the San Francisco Interfaith Council to provide additional shelter services to homeless San Franciscans during the winter months. The Interfaith Council works to identify the four host churches where the overnight shelter is located and to identify the church groups, congregations and community groups who sign up to provide the evening meals throughout the program. Spaces are reserved on a first come, first served basis each Sunday. The reservation ticket will allow the guest a seven-night stay. Two meals will be served to shelter guests each night. Last year, more than 95 percent of the beds were occupied for the Winter Shelter Program. sfgov.org SF Small Business Commission Approves Longstanding Gay Bar El Rio for Legacy Business Registry The San Francisco Small Business Commission unanimously approved El Rio for inclusion on the Legacy Business Registry, which recognizes longstanding, community-serving businesses as valuable cultural assets to the City and provides educational and promotional assistance to encourage their continued viability and success in San Francisco. In total, 113 small businesses that have been operating in San Francisco for 30 or more years are on the Legacy Business Registry. Founded in 1978 in the Mission District as a Brazilian leather gay bar, El Rio is a mixed events space and bar with a strong community-oriented agenda. “El Rio is a gem in the Mission District, and takes the term ‘neighborhood bar’ to the next level,” said Gloria Chan, Director of Communications, Office of Economic and Workforce Development. (For more about El Rio, please see the cover and pages 12–13.) sfgov.org S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

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The Science and Art of Giving me! When I would ask to have a cookie, my mother’s response was always, “Sweetheart, that’s what they’re there for—I made them for you.” Looking back, I’m not sure what made me feel so good: getting to have a cookie or hearing my mother’s response.

Moving People Forward Brett Andrews With all that is going on in the world, it is heartening to see how our mood and behavior can change during this festive season of giving and gratitude—much like a swallow that instinctively knows to migrate during the winter. Unconsciously, we even seek to recreate this elated feeling all throughout the year.

Have you ever paid attention to how you feel when you give a gift or do a good deed for someone? That warm, euphoric feeling is not just a feeling; there is hard science behind it. When we give or receive a gift—or volunteer—pleasure chemicals are released in the brain, making us feel enraptured and energetic. These chemicals also help the mind to stay calm and focused on tasks, and they further help us to resist depression and other mood disorders.

While there is credible science to back this all up, there is so much more to giving, which helps us to lead healthy and productive lives. These intangible benefits are the result of what I call the art of giving.

A couple of my earliest memories of experiencing the art of giving were sitting with my mother and watching her bake cakes and cookies throughout the holiday season. It brought my mom such joy to have neighbors stop by for a minute or more to pick up a tin of homemade goods. I also fondly remember a cabinet in the far corner of the kitchen called the “goody-goody” cupboard. I’m not exactly sure who named it, but if I had to guess, I would say that individual was

Indeed, I am grateful when I receive a gift. Accompanying my gratitude are also the heady and often fleeting thoughts like how much effort went into actually producing a gift. Maybe the person took time off from work, or maybe the gift was fashioned by their hands. I think, “How long have they been planning this? How did they know this is what I’ve been wanting or needing?” And while all of those questions have and deserve answers, what is most important is that I meant enough to someone to be a beneficiary of their generosity.

Giving and receiving is one of the laws of Deepak Chopra’s Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. In the book, Chopra equates giving and receiving to the harmonious flow of energy. The precious currencies exchanged are the joy and appreciation that we feel for one another every time we engage in this way.

I pen this knowing that the many benefits of giving and receiving are not groundbreaking, or earth-shattering, information. I write this as a note of thanks to all of you for instinctively knowing when and how to do something for someone else just because.

Your expression of kindness may have made all the difference. Thank you!

Happy Holidays to you and yours.

Brett Andrews is the Chief Executive Director of PRC (http://positiveresource.org/Default.aspx), which is the only place for people living with HIV/AIDS or mental health disabilities to get comprehensive benefits counseling and employment services in San Francisco. Andrews is a member of the San Francisco HIV/ AIDS Provider Network, the San Francisco Human Services Network and the Mayor’s CBO Taskforce. He additionally serves on the Board of the National Working Positive Coalition.

Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) for 2017 was observed on Monday, November 20, to honor trans people around the world whose lives have been lost to antitransgender violence.San Francisco City Hall was lit in the colors of the transgender flag, and an event was held at the SF LGBT Center, co-sponsored by the Center’s Trans Employment Program and El/La Para Translatinas and more.

On November 24, the vigil against volience toward the queer community was held at Harvey Milk Plaza. tdorsf.org

Photos by Rink

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FAIR and Courageous Conversations for the Holidays political, and social divides among Americans during this Trump era.

Comedian Sarah Sliverman’s I Love You, America on Hulu recently joined the line-up alongside staider, yet refreshing, offerings such as actress Ellen Page’s Gaycation on Vice TV that explore LGBTQ cultures and clash with mainstream societies around the world.

Cross Currents Andrea Shorter Holiday gatherings should be about being together, loving and enjoying each other, sharing our blessings, and strengthening the ties that bind.

Along with the infinite online recipes for the best ever homemade cranberry sauces and cornbread dressings are the chats about how best to enjoy a copacetic stress-free visit with family and friends whose world views might not jive with yours. The sum of at least 98% of the red alert advisories is to steer clear of any discussion about politics altogether.

Declarations of “politics free zones” at the dining table abound as the favored policies for maintaining peace, harmony, and good digestive health at many a favorite auntie’s annual gathering of loved ones of varying partisan persuasions. In these tense and politically divisive times, one might just want to avoid a potentially explosive chat about the daily hazardous emissions spewing out from the West Wing with that uncle still sporting his red MAGA cap. That showdown might be inevitable, but just not right now, and certainly not before your favorite sweet potato pie is served.

Exploring, debating, resolving, and coming to an understanding about political differences might not be on the menu for most holiday gatherings, but it is exactly the content that is being served up by a wave of binge-worthy cable and streaming series. Comic W. Kamau Bell’s United Shades of America and CNN Commentator Van Jones’ The Messy Truth are just a few efforts now to explain the cultural,

The search for comic and sobering truths; the origins of racial, cultural, economic, and regional divides; as well as commonalities fuel these formats for both entertaining and educational food for thought. Among the annual sports events, parades, and classic holiday movies, perhaps these shows might be airing in the background, providing a little runway for one of those courageous conversations to softly land with that uncle in the red cap.

Gaycation particularly stands out as a documentary series that takes viewers to Japan, India, France, Ukraine, Brazil, Jamaica, and the U.S. to learn about how LGBTQ communities survive, individuals live and are treated.

Obviously, each country presents its own share of multi-dimensional challenges, barriers and dangers about being openly LGBTQ within the respective societies and historical contexts. Highlighting those differences and commonalities from culture to culture, context to context, provides an eye opener to those who might otherwise presume a much less dimensional outlook on what it means to be LGBTQ in the world.

The vital importance of learning and understanding what it means to be LGBTQ in various contexts also serves as the basis for another welcome development for California public education: the recent approval of K–8 textbooks including the contributions of LGBTQ people to American history.

Following a long, controversial journey towards the enactment of the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act sponsored by San Francisco’s former State Legislators Mark Leno and Tom Ammiano and signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown, at least 10 textbooks

that include information about the contributions of Native Americans, LGBTQ people and people with disabilities have finally been approved by the California State Board of Education.

As California stands as the first and only state to enact such progressive measures toward building a more inclusive society, predicted resistance in other states toward similar measures supporting diversity remains strong. Conservative factions’ prohibitive “no pro homo” laws or policies stand on the premise that teaching anything remotely positive about LGBT people or issues will serve to indoctrinate, recruit, and turn youngsters into raging homosexuals.

Apparently, had I not in my formative years read or heard about the contributions and struggles for equality of iconic figures such as Harvey Milk, Bayard Rustin, or Audre Lorde, I would not be a lesbian. Well, okay, then.

There might be plentiful holiday advisements against having those “courageous conversations” about the toxic political tensions that seek to divide us as family, friends, and neighbors.

As a result, you might not ever fully understand or accept why your uncle or cousin voted the way they did in 2016. Still, it is empowering to know that with the full enactment of the FAIR Act, upcoming generations of voters will be even more informed, educated, inclusive, and respectful of the diverse experiences that truly inspire the promise of real American greatness—and their overdue hardfought deservedness for having a seat at the table.

That should make for a really interesting conversation with the uncle in the red cap.

Andrea Shorter is President of the historic San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women. She is a longtime advocate for criminal and juvenile justice reform, voter rights, and marriage equality. A co-founder of the Bayard Rustin LGBT Coalition, she was a 2009 David Bohnett LGBT Leadership Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Harvey’s Halo & “Hope Will Never Be Silent” Photos by Rink

From the unveiling on November 8 to the November 18 grand finale, the evening sky above Castro Street was lit with the dramatic Harvey’s Halo light displays by Ben Davis, founder of Illuminate. The “Hope Will Never Be Silent” permanent neon art installation was also unveiled on the old Bank of America building at Harvey Milk Plaza. Colleagues and friends of Harvey Milk and social justice activists spoke at the unveiling, and a DJ and dancers joined the celebration on the final evening.

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Putting City College Students First our homelessness crisis is out of control, I’m afraid that our students’ struggles are even greater. Addressing homelessness should be the responsibility of every local public agency and a priority for every San Francisco elected official.

Tom Temprano It’s hard to believe that 2017 will soon be coming to a close, and with it my first year serving as a member of the City College Board of Trustees.

City College got a lot accomplished this year, coming out from underneath the cloud of our accreditation crisis to successfully implement the Free City College program, hire a new permanent Chancellor and increase enrollment for the first time in five years.

At the top of our 2017 goals as a board was a simple concept: put students first.

Centering students in our college decision-making seems like a no-brainer, but having it be the first lens we look through is critically important.

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Community College District found that almost 1 in 5 of its students were homeless and two-thirds couldn’t afford food. In San Francisco, where

Rafael Mandelman, my fellow Trustee, knows firsthand how homelessness impacts young people and made addressing it our priority, too. He led the college’s efforts to end student homelessness and food insecurity, introducing a first of its kind resolution at our November meeting that paves the way for City College to build housing for homeless students either on campus or in nearby developments like the Balboa Reservoir.

As San Francisco Bay Times readers know, LGBT youth are disproportionately likely to become homeless.

The 2017 San Francisco Homeless Survey found that 49% of homeless youth surveyed identified as LGBTQ. It wasn’t a coincidence then that our three gay Trustees—Rafael, myself and our colleague Alex Randolph— were the three co-sponsors of this resolution.

At that same meeting, we also put students first by giving them a muchdeserved raise. Thanks to a studentled movement, City College’s 1300 student workers will now receive San Francisco minimum wage. This amounts to an $800,000 a year investment in our students’ future. For-

mer student Trustee Bouchra Simmons fought alongside my colleagues Shanell Williams and current Student Trustee Bouthaina Belayadi for years to make this raise a reality.

Unfortunately, most colleges around the state refuse to do this, subjecting students to unlivable below-minimum wages. In San Francisco, the most expensive city in California, we often had students who would have preferred to work at school take off-campus jobs instead because they couldn’t afford not to do so. City College’s student workers are workers too, and no worker should be paid under minimum wage.

2018 will bring new challenges and opportunities as we act to protect our undocumented students from the Trump administration, continue to grow our enrollment and launch new training programs and classes in growth areas like those related to cannabis. I’m looking forward to taking this on next year and continuing to put City College students first.

Tom Temprano was elected to the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees in 2016, making him the city’s youngest elected official. He also owns Virgil’s Sea Room, a small business in the Mission District, and is a member of the San Francisco LGBT Community Center Board of Directors. Follow him on social media at twitter.com/tomtemprano & facebook.com/tomtempranoSF

Enough Already, We Need Stricter Gun Control speech and encouraged me to join the rif le team. She was thrilled to have a female on the team; especially one who could “shoot the eyes out of a fly at 50 feet.”

Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History Louise “Lou” Fischer When this column goes to print, approximately 3 weeks will have passed since the horrific mass casualty shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, and 2 weeks since a crazed gunman killed 5 people a mere 3.5 hours north of us in Rancho Tehama, California. While I “hope and pray” another mass casualty event does not happen between the time I submit this article and its publication, I’m fed up with prayers; it is time to demand action. Recent mass shootings have broken records with body counts increasing at each tragic and preventable event. Enough is enough. We need stricter gun laws.

I have my own personal story about guns and shooting. I grew up in a bedroom community in Connecticut where kids played with BB and pellet guns. My father, aka the “Most Risk Averse Parent in the World,” did not allow me to have a pogo stick, skateboard or a mini-bike because he deemed those too dangerous, but a BB gun and eventually a .22 caliber rifle were considered safe (go figure). My father taught me shooting skills, gun safety and to never, ever point a gun at a person or any living being. I was not interested in hunting; I was too squeamish to shoot anything that would bleed and preferred to put well-placed holes in paper targets and blast away the occasional clay pigeon.

I became extremely skilled at shooting a rifle, but unfortunately I was not as skilled at shooting a basketball and suffered the defeat of being cut from the high school basketball team. The coach of the rif le team gave me the “one door closes, another one opens”

The training was rigorous: we practiced 4 days a week and worked with specialized instructors on the weekends. I rapidly progressed through the NRA-administered program of marksmanship and achieved the rank of “Expert,” the highest rating for a high-school shooter. I was recruited by both the military and the top college shooting program in the U.S. and was invited to train with the women’s Olympic shooting team (damn that 1980 boycott!).

I won multiple awards and received an offer from the NRA to be featured in their national publication, American Rifleman. While I was proud of my accomplishments, my political ideologies—and those of my parents—diverged wildly with the rhetoric of the NRA, and I declined their invitation to be the token “All-American Girl and Shooting Phenom.” My mother cut right to the chase: “What happened? They couldn’t find a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed girl from the Midwest?” After graduation, I hung up my rifle, and except for a few sporadic outings including one particularly successful day at an amusement park (when my eyesight was still perfect), I haven’t done any shooting since 1980.

I loathe the NRA, but loved the sport of shooting. I enjoyed the camaraderie of my teammates and the thrill of competition. I am completely against big-game “sport hunting” (I’m looking at you, sons of Trump!) unless the animals are armed, thereby making it a fair fight. That would certainly cut down on senseless sport killing. While I did not hunt, I was surrounded by the hunting community, and learned that ducks are hunted with single action shotguns and deer are shot with longrange bolt-action rifles, never with automatic weapons.

The NRA started out as a well-intentioned recreational program in 1871 to “promote and encourage rifle shooting.” It served shooters, not gun makers. In the mid-1970s, this changed.

They formed a lobbying arm and PAC (political action committee), and became one of the most powerful special interest groups in the U.S. They spend

approximately $250 million per year to influence members of Congress on gun policy. Don’t be fooled by the slick marketing—the NRA serves the gun industry and automatic weapons are gun makers’ most lucrative products.

Automatic and semi-automatic weapons equipped with high-quantity magazines, such as the popular AR-15, are very good at one thing: shooting many humans rapidly. They are weapons of mass destruction and are not appropriate for hunting, personal protection or any civilian use. The standard caliber .223 bullet is not sufficient to stop a deer or large game, but it is very efficient against human targets.

More guns do not make the country safer. The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (Right to Bear Arms) made sense in 1791, but in the 21st century we do not need a wellarmed militia. How many more lives have to be shattered before we come to our senses and make these weapons illegal? Mourning the dead and consoling the families with thoughts and prayers do nothing to prevent future carnage.

Our elected officials must stop taking blood money from the NRA and start enacting stricter gun laws and more rigorous background checks.

The only guns that should be legal are those used for recreational shooting or sensible hunting. There needs to be a limit on bullets sold and autoloaders must be banned. If hunters cannot bring down their game with a maximum 3-shell shotgun then they have no business hunting, and should play video games instead.

I urge you to get involved and to tell our lawmakers that enough is enough. Join a group like “Moms Demand Action” (www.momsdemandaction.org) and “demand action from legislators, companies, and educational institutions to establish common-sense gun reforms.”

It is time to turn those “thoughts and prayers” into action.

Louise (Lou) Fischer is the Co-Chair of the Board of Directors for the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club and has served as an appointed and elected Delegate for the State Democratic Party. She is a San Francisco Commissioner and has served in leadership positions in multiple nonprofit and community based organizations.

Eichen’s Lighting, established in 1957, is a family-owned and operated lighting center showcasing a broad selection of designer styles for all your lighting needs. With a refreshed look and modern merchandise, Eichen's Lighting offers quality customer service with competitive prices.

Our remodeled showroom features displays including Hubbardton Forge, Visual Comfort, Arteriors, Tech Lighting, Currey & Co., Robert Abbey and more!

Just a 15 minute drive from San Francisco with plenty of convenient parking 580 El Camino Real San Bruno, CA 94066 650-583-6938 www.eichenslighting.com Monday - Saturday 10am - 7pm S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

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How to Find Transparency in Your Financial Relationships a Registered Investment Adviser (RIA). This type of financial firm has fiduciary duty, which means they must always act in their clients’ best interests.

Money Matters Brandon Miller

Of course, many talented and trustworthy advisors work for big-name firms. But the reality is that corporate priorities can also sway how they serve clients. Often, advisors at big firms have to meet sales quotas or push products that contribute to their employer’s bottom line. They might charge commissions for their work— even if their choices make you lose money.

Choosing a financial advisor is one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make. After all, this individual or team will have access to your life’s savings—and you have to trust them to guide you toward the future you desire.

RIAs have a f iduciary role when working with clients that includes disclosing any conf licts of interest, and must present solutions that are in their clients’ best interests. Not putting your needs first is literally against the law.

But, amidst all the industry hype and jargon, understanding how to identify a true financial ally can be incredibly challenging.

Expect Clear Communications As an RIA, we have to complete a form called the ADV, which outlines every aspect of the services we provide for clients, the fees we charge, and how we work. And, the Securities and Exchange Commission requires us to write the content in plain

Search for an RIA One way to find a financial professional you can rely on is to look for

English—which means no burying our true actions in jargon or legalese.

So, what can you do to help ensure you find clear guidance that looks out for your best interests? Start by asking the right questions.

The next time you meet with a financial professional, I recommend asking them these questions to help find the insight and transparency you deserve: • Are you a fiduciary?

• How do you charge for your services?

• Where can I find information about conflicts of interest you may have?

• How will you put my needs first?

Ultimately, an RIA provides transparency you might not find at other firms. And in today’s complex, constantly changing financial world, you deserve to understand exactly what your advisor is doing on your behalf.

Brandon Miller, CFP, is a financial consultant at Brio Financial Group in San Francisco, specializing in helping LGBT individuals and families plan and achieve their financial goals.

Two Fun Off-Season Car Stars It’s the rare new car that invigorates you when you twist the key, and the rorty Abarth version of the Fiat 500 will inspire that. Add the convertible aspect—it’s really a panoramic sunroof, since the side rails have not been cut out—and the 500C Abarth can bring sunniness to even the foggiest of our days.

Auto Philip Ruth The holiday season brings thoughts of giving gifts, both to your loved ones and to yourself. The commercials encouraging impulse purchases of big ticket items are coming, and it won’t be long before your TV screen is filled with images of new cars draped with red bows.

With the Abarth emphasizing acceleration and road-holding, the Dune heads in an off-road direction as it evokes the dune buggies based on Beetles of the 60s and 70s. Reaction to it from onlookers was almost universally positive. Some liked the references to the Beetles they grew up with, and some just liked the unique Sandstorm Yellow paint job. In a sea of white and silver sedans, it’s easy to find the Dune in a parking lot.

Those deals can make sense if you’ve been looking for a vehicle that’s suddenly featured in the promotions.

There can also be opportunities at dealers looking to clear inventory before the end of the year. What you want to be careful of is being pulled into a long-term commitment based on the euphoria of seasonal cheer.

Both the Fiat and Volkswagen were strong performers. Both had automatic transmissions, and I would have preferred a manual in each, but both acquitted themselves well in hilly San Francisco. The Dune had the usual Volkswagen initial turbo lag, where there’s just a dash of hesitation when you step into the throttle. The Fiat also needed a beat for its turbo to spool up. But once they got going, both these convertibles had no problem sloughing off the traffic around them.

December is also a fine time to buy a convertible, as snow and Tahoe are usually on Northern California’s buyer’s minds. That brings us to this week’s Fiat 500C Abarth and Volkswagen Beetle 1.8T Dune Convertible, which are two appealing droptops with very different personalities.

While the six-speed automatics in each didn’t appreciably slow these cars down, the Fiat’s changed the dynamic of driving this pipsqueak sportster. The toy-car shifter in the manual version is no prize, but at least it provides a more active role in deciding when the turbo will dispense

Castro Community Benefit District Event at Black Bird

Fiat Abarth

VW Beetle Dune

its boost. The automatic places you in a more passive role, because you’re waiting for it to decide on a gear before you can really kick it. The Volkswagen’s slushbox, on the other hand, was more on-point.

The usual reliability caveat applies to both these brands, so you’d be prepared for maintenance that could be more involved than what you’d find in others. But as an off-season purchase in the thick of year-end discounting, you might be able to swing a deal that’s as freeing as these cars can feel.

Philip Ruth is a Castro-based automotive photojournalist and con s ultant (www.gayca rg uy. com). Check out his automotive staging service at www.carstaging.com

Photos by Rink

Castro Community Benefit District (CBD) executive director Andrea Aiello welcomed guests to the organization’s benefit for Castro Cares held on November 16 at the Blackbird bar on Market Street. Longtime Castro Ambassador’s volunteer Harry Breaux was honored. Speakers included mayoral candidate Mark Leno, SF Assessor Carmen Chu, Mission SFPD Captain Gaetano Caltagirone and Castro Community on Patrol’s Greg Carey.

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Happy Holidays from Castro Merchants!

By Daniel Bergerac Businesses in the Castro/Upper Market neighborhood are ready for another bright, busy and exciting holiday season—with great shopping, drinking and dining opportunities.

To get us all in the holiday spirit, Castro Merchants has put up lots of holiday decorations. They include the 28’ brightly decorated and lit Holiday Tree at Castro and 18th Streets; silver and red bows on the Upper Market Street Median palm trees from Valencia to Castro Streets; and—again this year—warm white lights glowing nightly on sidewalk trees along Upper Market from Dolores to Castro Streets.

Santa and his Elf (musically assisted by members of our fantastic community band and choruses) already helped us light the Holiday Tree. It now glows nightly in front of Bank of America at Castro and 18th Streets. The big donor banner— thanking and listing over 100 of our 300+ members who supported the holiday decorations—is up at the Bank of America corner at 18th and Castro.

Later this month, we’ll also co-host with Sha’ar Zahav (our local Congregation that welcomes all) the third annual Castro Hanukkah Menorah Lighting on Wednesday, December 13, starting at 6 pm in Jane Warner Plaza (Castro at 17th and Market Streets). All are welcome, and be sure to bring your own Menorah from home to light along with the giant one we’ll have.

The Castro offers gift ideas and shopping for everyone, with selections from fashion to funky, with fun and practical in between. See, touch, compare and discuss with friendly, knowledgeable staff live and in person before you buy those special gifts, not in the dark on a flat internet screen! And, take it home then, to start wrapping when you’re ready, not after it finally arrives (maybe) on a truck.

And, don’t forget to have some warm holiday get-togethers with friends and loved ones at our great selection of restaurants and watering holes. There is no need to travel to crowded shopping districts and malls—we’ve got it all right here for you in the Castro.

We hope that you’ll join us this holiday season. Come out and play in the Castro!

Daniel Bergerac is President of Castro Merchants

Castro Tree Lighting Ceremony 2017 Photos by Rink and Paul Margolis The Castro’s beautiful tree, dressed for the occasion, was officially lit in a ceremony held on Monday, November 27, at its 18th and Castro Street location. Joining emcee Donna Sachet were civic and business leaders, including Castro Merchants Association president Daniel Bergerac, Castro Community Benefit District’s Andrea Aiello and SFPD Captain Gaetano Caltagirone and members of Castro on Patrol.

PHOTO BY PAUL MARGOLIS PHOTO BY RINK

PHOTO BY RINK

PHOTO BY PAUL MARGOLIS

PHOTO BY PAUL MARGOLIS

PHOTO BY PAUL MARGOLIS

PHOTO BY RINK

PHOTO BY PAUL MARGOLIS

Sisters Dana and Kitty blessed the tree and all gathered. Holiday music was provided by the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band, San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and Lesbian & Gay Chorus of San Francisco. Santa Fred Bothe and Elf Seth Morrison arrived and were met by neighborhood residents and children whose eyes were filled with wonderment as the big tree sparkled with white lights and large colored ornaments.

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El Rio Receives Legacy Business Status On Monday, November 13, the San Francisco Small Business Commission unanimously decided to add El Rio to the city’s Legacy Business Registry. El Rio, Your Dive (to give its full name), is a neighborhood bar and LGBTQ+ space located at 3158 Mission Street in the Mission La Lengua neighborhood, a Karen small, southern section of Bardsley the Mission nestled between Noe Va l ley and Ber na l Heights. The venue is well known for providing a safe and supportive space for a variety of community events and fundraising activities.

In response to a study that showed the city’s small businesses were closing in record numbers, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors created the Legacy Business Registry in March of 2015. In November of that year, voters passed Local Measure J, which altered the definition of Legacy Businesses and created the Legacy Business Historic Preservation Fund. The goal of the Registry is to recognize the cultural importance of longstanding, community-serving businesses and to encourage their continued viability and success with educational and promotional assistance. The Fund supports these goals by offering yearly grants to Legacy Businesses and to property owners who extend ten-year or longer leases to those businesses.

To qualify for the Legacy Business Registry, a business must be 30 years or older, have contributed to the history and culture of its neighborhood, and have been nominated by the Mayor or by a District Supervisor. Qualified businesses complete a lengthy application and must make their case for inclusion on the Registry at a public hearing before the Small Business Commission.

In an interview with me for the San Francisco Bay Times, Dawn Huston, El Rio’s Owner, said that her employees drove the application process and put in an incredible amount of work to make sure it was successful. She is very grateful to these employees, to District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen—who nominated the business—and to the numerous community members and groups who supported the application.

Huston sees the Legacy Business Registry as one small piece of a bigger picture, as the city adopts a variety of strategies to retain small businesses. The granting of Legacy Business status is a way of saying “well done” to El Rio and its staff, both for the success of the business and for the ways it has nourished the diverse community that it serves.

By accepting inclusion on the registry, El Rio commits to preserving its name and the physical features and traditions that define the business and its craft. Both the Small Business Commission and the Historic Preservation Commission recommended that El Rio preserve key features, such as the large bar and shuff leboard inside the venue, the outdoor garden, community altar, large lemon tree and wooden deck in the back, and the large wooden Carmen Miranda and Marilyn Monroe paintings on the walls.

In addition, the Commission called for the safeguarding of the traditions that defined the bar as a community institution, including a business model that involves profit sharing with its employees and multiple ways of giving back to the community and neighborhood in which it is rooted.

El Rio has been a neighborhood staple since 1978, when Malcolm Thornley and Robert Nett opened it as a “leather Brazilian gay bar” designed to celebrate the owner’s passions for Brazil, motorcycles, and the leather and LGBTQ community through art, music and events. For example, they started the Salsa Sundays live music tea party, a bi-monthly institution that is still a beloved feature of El Rio’s calendar and one of the best places to see live salsa music in the city.

These interests provided the inspiration for the business, but from the beginning it was designed to be a mixed bar that was open to everyone who embraced the owner’s accepting and open spirit. As it says in El Rio’s Legacy Business application: “The heart of [El Rio’s] community includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex communities of color and their friends. We have always been a mixed space, and our community also encompasses a broad range of public school teachers, service workers, construction workers and trades people, musicians, dancers, artist, politicians and activists.”

To help support this diverse community, Thornley and Nett began to hold weekly benefit parties. When Huston took over ownership of the bar in 1997—after working with Thornley and Nett for a number of years—she used her background in the non-profit sector to greatly enhance this aspect of the business. Now the bar holds several benefits a week for a wide range of causes and community organizations.

PHOTO BY SANDY MORRIS

By Karen Bardsley

Dozens of groups and individuals have been helped through these benefits including Larkin Street Youth Services, SF LGBT Center, Lyon Martin Health Services, Community United Against Violence, Causa Justa, San Francisco Dyke March, Give a Dog a Bone, Leonard Flynn Elementary School PTA, Michigan Women’s Music Fest, Rocket Dog and many, many more.

Above all, El Rio is a neighborhood bar where one can relax, have an affordable drink and perhaps play some shuffleboard or (most recently) ping pong. Despite gentrification in the Mission and the displacement of many of its traditional residents, El Rio has committed to keeping its pricing accessible and to welcoming customers both old and new.

As well as hosting a variety of one-off benefit events, El Rio houses regular events that have become essential gathering places for certain Bay Area populations. For example, El Rio goes out of its way to stage events that create women-centered queer spaces. One such event, “Mango,” a monthly dance party for queer women of color and their friends, celebrated its 21th anniversary this year. The long lines of people waiting to get into the event attest to its importance and popularity.

Furthermore, it will continue to be a community center, providing a safe place for people to enjoy themselves, celebrate, and do some good for a valuable cause. In so doing, “legacy” seems an appropriate moniker for the business, as the word captures both the idea of historical significance and the sense that something is being passed on to the future as a gift from that history.

Changing economic realities have forced many women-centered queer businesses to close, and the traditionally LGBTQ neighborhoods are becoming less and less affordable. As a result, many of the Bay Area’s queer women have become social nomads. Using social media platforms to spread the word, they assemble at venues across the city, temporarily making bars and restaurants women-dominated, queer spaces.

It is a testament to the growing acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community that so many Bay Area businesses are welcoming to these momentary transformations. The constant shifting from place to place, however, can be disorienting. It is important that some of the traditional spaces and events remain. El Rio is one of those safe harbors, a place where queer women can, and do, come together on a regular basis.

In gaining Legacy Business status, El Rio, Your Dive, is looking both to the future and to the past, and to inviting Bay Area residents both old and new to join in on the fun. “Support local businesses,” Huston advises. “Make the world you want to live in with your actions and with your pocketbook.” If there is a cause that you want to support or a space that you want to create, she advises to “be an event producer.”

As the past 39 years of this Legacy Business’ history attest, it is easy enough to do, especially when you have El Rio on your side.

Karen Bardsley is an independent scholar and writer who lives in the Bay Area.

El Rio Feels Like Home

By DJ Olga T El Rio has always felt like home since the very first time I was able to DJ at the opening of Mango, San Francisco’s longest running tea dance for women and their friends, 21 years ago. Just the fact that a bar owner gave a women’s party an actual Saturday was a huge deal. Also, it is refreshing that El Rio is an LGBTQ space that truly welcomes everybody—and I mean everybody, as El Rio is dog friendly as well—regardless of gender identity, sexual identity, race, age, and countless other labels that tend to separate us.

To know that you can always come to El Rio and not be judged or feel out of place for simply being whoever you may be is so incredibly valuable. In my many years of DJing all over the Bay Area and countless venues on the West Coast, I have never ever felt so supported and safe as I do here.

DJ Olga T spinning for Mango at El Rio 12

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It’s rare to work with bar st cellent service to their patr the community they serve work as a team, are extreme include communities of col and organizations. El Rio ting every and any “ism” e everyone feel safe, welcome

I’ve often worried about the more simply because of the ket, which has displaced so es in the past few years. El the city—whether they’re q people and communities th

e day that I would hear that El Rio is no e needless greed in the real estate maro many people and cherished businessl Rio and countless other businesses in queer or not—are very important to the hey serve.

By Amy Meyers El Rio has been a melting pot of the San Francisco cultural scene for many decades. Famous for $2 Pabst Blue Ribbon in a can, homemade margaritas and a “dress your own” Bloody Mary bar, the drink selections appeal to a broad cross-section of San Francisco tastes.

Longtime bar owner Dawn Huston caters to the diverse communities of San Francisco both in age and culture—from the fiery progressive political activists to the lesbian “Olivia Cruise” crowd. The bar provides 3 performance spaces that on any given night run the gamut from thumping rap or loud screaming guitars in the back room to high-energy salsa on the patio or intimate “coffee-house” folk inside the main bar.

I have been a part of the San Francisco music scene since I moved here in 1991; in the 90s, late night venues were a perfect match for my music. But now, my coffee shop “pop-rock” originals and Fleetwood Mac covers don’t translate well to the late night edgy music scene of the hipsters.

But on the back patio at El Rio on a lazy San Francisco Saturday afternoon, the vibe is hip and festive with just enough edge to be cool enough for the millennials while still catering to the 40+ crowd. This is my stage. These are my people. I can feel the chill in the air, but the strategically placed heat lamps keep me and my fingers warm while I strum my guitar or bang the keys on my piano.

Friends mingle, dance, and enjoy the music in what feels like their very own house party. For decades, the legacy of El Rio is not the building that houses the business, but what has become a home away from home for the numerous political, cultural, and artistic communities of San Francisco.

There’s, of course, the historical significance, but even within that, I think the cultural richness that is nurtured and passed on through the decades—when people love and support a business that loves and supports them in the way they interact at the venue—is priceless. What I mean is that long-standing successful businesses like El Rio thrive because of events or activities that are not solely driven on profit, but rather are a rich combination of entertaining, political awareness, community building and even fundraising that is directly relevant to the people and community that support the business.

People who walk into El Rio, whether they’re heterosexual or not, immediately sense that El Rio is different and that difference feels good and it feels safe. That vibe, that mindset of the place being community driven and supported, is key and it exists because of the longevity of the space and the people who run and support it.

It’s a welcome relief to know that El Rio won’t b e g oi n g a ny wher e soon. Like I said before, El Rio always feels like home to me and that is never a place you want to disappear or lose.

DJ Olga T hosts the ultra-popular Mango events at El Rio. Mango celebrated its 21st anniversary in October of this year. Called “Northern California’s master of the decks,” DJ Olga T keeps dance floors packed week after week.

For more info: http://djolgat.net/

S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

IS PHOTO BY SANDY MORR

PHOTO BY SANDY MORRIS

IS PHOTO BY SANDY MORR

Amy Meyers

Singer/songwriter Amy Meyers is a San Francisco-based performer who appears in musicals, theatrical productions, TV programs and films. She is also a teacher who has mentored many local musicians. For more info: http://www.amymeyersmusic.com/

PHOTO BY SANDY MORRIS

taff who not only care about proving exrons, but also who genuinely care about e. I have always noticed how the staff ely diverse, and completely support and lor, transgender and non-binary people doesn’t shy away from fiercely combatevery day, all the time, in order to make e and relaxed.

El Rio Embodies San Francisco’s Diversity and Creative Energy

NOVEM BER 30, 2017

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More on AIDS Survivor Syndrome validation from data in a massive research project that has studied the course of the epidemic since 1983.

The Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) monitors a cohort of almost 7,000 HIV-negative and HIV-positive men recruited from four sites around the country. Its original purpose was to understand the spread and natural history of HIV, and that purpose has now evolved into studying the effects of HIV on aging.

Roland Schembari and Bill Hartman, Co-Founders Randy Alfred, Founding News Editor 1978 Kim Corsaro Publisher 1981-2011

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Tom Moon, MFT Recently in this column I discussed the insights of Tez Anderson, a San Francisco gay writer and activist who developed the concept—based largely on his own lived experience—of A IDS Survivor Syndrome (ASS).

The term describes a cluster of symptoms, such as depression, lack of future orientation, self-destructive behavior, substance abuse, suicidality, etc., which result from having lived through the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Especially vulnerable, Anderson believes, are those who became HIVpositive in the 1980s and 1990s when HIV was considered a terminal diagnosis.

His work is now receiving attention from the research community and

Every six months, participants have interviews, physical exams, cognitive testing and blood collection for biological outcome data. On November 3, Ron Stall Ph.D., from the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, did a presentation for members of the communities affected by AIDS in San Francisco about what the MACS data has to say about AIDS Survivor Syndrome.

He began by reminding us all of just how horrifying it was to be a gay man before there were effective treatments for HIV by quoting Cleve Jones (When We Rise): “The death rate soared ... . The obituary section grew to fill two, sometimes three full pages. Every week almost everyone in the neighborhood would read that someone they knew had died. We lost over a thousand people a year, just in

San Francisco, every year for over a decade.”

ally numb, experiencing strong feelings of anger, or feeling threatened.

As the number of plague years grew into double digits, gay men were stretched to their limits. Jones recounts that “within the ranks of the activists and throughout the community, people were bitter, exhausted by a decade of misery and death. Every day I thought about dying. I wondered how much more time I had. I wondered how much it would hurt. If I wasn’t going to have a long life, how could I make what time remained worth living?”

Stall found that there is “substantial psychological distress among men in the MACS” and, interestingly, that this is true for both HIV positive and HIV negative men. At the same time, he pointed out that the large number of men who are free of ASS symptoms is testimony to the multiple resiliencies that these men have been able to deploy in responding to the stresses of this historically unique epidemic. For better and for worse, AIDS has shaped the lives and experience of a generation of men who have survived the epidemic.

In the MACS cohort, 27% of the men currently report that they have lost more than 10 close people to AIDS. More than a third of these men are still grieving, 7 percent “still deeply grieve,” and 3% report that they grieve these losses “nearly every day.”

What are the effects of so much suffering and loss on those who experience it? Study participants were asked how frequently in the past six months they had experienced items from a list of nine symptoms of emotional distress. 19.42% said they had been depressed, 9.65 % had felt isolated, 6.25% had experienced anxiety, and 22% said they had experienced three or more of the following symptoms “fairly frequently”: trouble sleeping, nightmares, feeling that they have no future, feeling emotion-

He also observed: “We are now in a situation in which HIV/AIDS is becoming a disease of the aging, which is very good news.” But “that said, we have no idea how men who have lived through such a unique experience will express health and disease as they approach old age. The men of the MACS are still likely to surprise us as they age, and may well express constellations of psychosocial health problems that could not have been predicted at the start of the epidemic.”

Tom Moon is a psychotherapist in San Francisco. For more information, please visit his website http:// tommoon.net/

Carla Ramos Web Coordinator

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CONTRIBUTORS Writers Rink, Sister Dana Van Iquity, Ann Rostow, Patrick Carney, Kate Kendell, Alex Randolph, Heidi Beeler, Gary M. Kramer, Dennis McMillan, Tom Moon, Tim Seelig, Cinder Ernst, John Chen Rafael Mandelman, Jewelle Gomez, Phil Ting, Rebecca Kaplan, Leslie Katz, Philip Ruth, Bill Lipsky, Karen Williams, Donna Sachet, Gary Virginia, Zoe Dunning, Marcy Adelman, Stuart Gaffney & John Lewis Brandon Miller, Jamie Leno Zimron Thom Watson, Michele Karlsberg Lyndsey Schlax, Elisa Quinzi, Randy Coleman, Debra Walker, Wendy Ross, Howard Steiermann, Andrea Shorter, Tom Temprano, Lou Fischer, Karin Jaffie Photographers Rink, Phyllis Costa, Jane Higgins Paul Margolis, Chloe Jackman, Bill Wilson, Jo-Lynn Otto, Sandy Morris, Abby Zimberg ADVERTISING Display Advertising Standard Rate Cards are available online at sfbaytimes.com or calling: 415-503-1375 Custom ad sizes are available. Please inquire! The Bay Times reserves the right to reject any advertising at the discretion of the publishers.

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Continue Debra Chasnoff’s Legacy - You Can Help!

With her huge heart and keen intelligence, Debra Chasnof f (1957– 2017) touched the lives of vast numbers of people through her fierce commitment to effecting social change with media. Her filmography includes some of the most influential LGBT and social justice-related documentaries ever made. The following is just a partial list: Choosing Children (1984) Director/ Producer/Editor Deadly Deception—General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment (1991) Director/Producer It’s Elementary—Talking About Gay Issues in School (1996) Director/Producer Homes and Hands—Community Land Trusts in Action (1998) Co-Director Wired for What? (1999) Director/ Producer That’s a Family! (2000) Director/ Producer Let’s Get Real (2003) Director/Producer One Wedding and a Revolution (2004) Director/Producer

CALENDAR Event listings for consideration to be included in the Bay Times online or print Calendar section should be sent by e-mail to: calendar@sfbaytimes.com. © 2017 Bay Times Media Company Co-owned by Betty L. Sullivan & Jennifer L. Viegas

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It’s STILL Elementary (2007) Director/Producer Straightlaced—How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up (2009) Director/Producer Celebrating the Life of Del Martin (2011) Director/Producer A Foot in the Door (2012) Director/Producer

2015, she began documenting all facets of her experience. She envisioned a film that could help shape how people with cancer, their families, caregivers, healers, and medical practitioners approach lifechanging diagnoses. She hoped to provide a powerful example of how to live fully in the face of an unknown prognosis. Central to Chasnoff’s and her wife Nancy Otto’s approach to dealing with cancer was an insistence that no one put a timeframe to her life expectancy. They offered the rest of us a breathtaking example.

since the beginning—are committed to seeing this project through.

Hundreds of hours have been filmed and there is much research and development to be done. She entrusted Otto, Lidia Szajko, Joan Lef kowitz, Kate Stilley and Carrie Lozano to follow through with the film, which has the working title Prognosis.

Deadly Deception, which uncovered health and environmental side effects caused by the production of nuclear materials, won an Academy Award for Best Short Documen- In honor of Chasnoff ’s work and tary. Many of us will never forget activism, her family and friends— her historic speech during the cere- many of whom are filmmakers and have been making this film with her mony. With her Oscar held aloft, she thanked her then Please consider making a contribution via her production life partner, making her the first lesbian ever to do so. company GroundSpark: https://groundspark.org/get-involved We also remember her dedication to the community, her warmth and great sense of humor. She was a loyal friend to many, often supporting the subjects of her films both on and off camera.

Many of you may not have k nown about her more than two-year long journey with breast cancer. Following her diagnosis in June

PAMELA GERARD/NOE VALLEY VOICE

Mario Ordonez Juan Ordonez

Debra Chasnoff (right) at work a few years ago with her wife Nancy Otto

GLBT Fortnight in Review

By Ann Rostow Top It, Nana Happy holidays, everyone. Mel and I are in Connecticut with some family members, including a five-yearold granddaughter who sings “This is my Fight Song” over and over again in a tuneless shout. She also makes elaborate requests of us, begging with wide eyes. Will we peel an entire orange, but not cut it, and remove all the white stringy parts? Will we make tea, add sugar and honey and pour it through a funnel into a tiny plastic container? Of course, we agree to these favors only to find the uneaten orange in a corner on the kitchen floor, and the flask of tea in the kids’ bookcase. This child eats pickles and olives and likes to take sips of beer.

What will become of her, we wonder?

She has two brothers, an older Legoobsessed charming bro type, and a little mystery man, age two, who amazingly has learned a series of polite responses.

“Shiloh, I just finished folding those clothes.”

“Thowwy.”

“Here, Shiloh, have this.”

“Tank you.”

Where does that come from? Readers, do you all find it adorable? Is it just me? I should stop. Or as Shiloh would say: “Top it.”

Oh listen, before we start, you may not recall that I mentioned this phenomenal movie Call Me by Your Name about six months or so ago, when people were saying it was going to be sensational. Now it’s been released in New York to rave reviews. The film is an absolutely beautiful gay love story set in northern Italy in the early 80s.

I have seen a lot of overrated GLBT movies partly, in my opinion, because some straight reviewers feel uncomfortable telling gay readers that Gay Movie X sucks, ergo: a number of mediocre gay films get credibility. But this one sounds like a real winner.

The Last Bear So, the citizens of Australia decided in their wisdom to cast their nonbinding postal votes in favor of marriage equality. Now, the parliament will have to pass a law to that effect, and they must do so without authorizing antigay amendments that could render the whole thing moot. At this point, it looks as if several political parties have agreed on a clean bill, so to speak, leaving conservatives without much of a say in the final legislation.

That’s great news, but we’ve heard optimistic-sounding news out of Australia before now, haven’t we? Knaves and scoundrels that they are.

And speaking of Australia, I just stumbled on an amazing headline that reads: “Duplicitous Teddy Bear Shocks Amazon Shoppers with Grotesquely Long Legs.” Yes, I know.

This actually has nothing to do with Australia. But you may recall how I feel about Australian news in general.

I don’t trust it. Meanwhile, of course, I had to click on the story of the “duplicitous” teddy bear and his “grotesquely” long legs. I needed to make sense of it all.

It turns out that some company elongated the legs of their stuffed animals so that they could charge extra for the six-foot bears. But because they put the added length all in the legs, their shocked customers were taken aback by the bears’ distorted appearance.

Further, the sneaky Amazon presentation used clever camera angles to make the bear look normal. But it wasn’t normal. It had grotesquely long legs.

I’m thinking someone could shoot a horror film with this bear in action as the killer. Possibly, the bear could also have grotesque arms. It could be set in Australia, maybe featuring a group of aboriginal tribesmen who pray to the bear on moonless nights near the ocean. During the day, as the police struggle to understand the killer’s cruel psychology, we get to know a Labor Party representative who claims to support marriage equality while harboring a secret hostility towards gay couples. Could he be next on the long-legged bear’s list of victims?

With Enemies Like These…

I have two excellent transgender legal victories to report this week, but first, I have to exit the GLBT Legal Highway and meander down one more little side road. The road takes us to Massachusetts, to a recent meeting of MassResistance, the antigay group first formed during the marriage battles of the first decade.

We are witness to the start of a conference called “Countering a LGBT Agenda.” The stage is empty, save for a podium and mike. A sixty-something white guy steps up to welcome everyone and introduces “Derek” who is going to kick off the conference with “a song thing,” (he says with a hesitant smile).

Derek proceeds to take the stage and performs an endless interpretive dance with two multi-colored ribbon/flags that he waves flamboyantly through the air, rhythmic gymnaststyle, as he glides around to the tune of a song called “The List.” In the interests of full reporting, I checked the lyrics for the song. They describe the act of creating a list of your mistakes, but then tossing the list to the wind.

“But love keeps no record of wrong, no, no, Love keeps no record of wrong, no, no, Love keeps no record of wrong, no, no, Listen to me, love keeps no record of wrong, no, So let it go.

Let it go.

Love tears the list in a million little pieces.

Cast your sins as far as the East is from the West.

Say goodbye to the list.”

I’m sorry, but WTF? Derek, who appears to be one of these “recovered” gay men, ends his presentation after five very long minutes, to a light smattering of stunned applause. I highly recommend you watch it for yourself.

Another Judge Nixes the Trans Ban You surely remember that a federal judge in the D.C. area recently ruled in favor of several transgender service members who are contesting Donald Trump’s impetuous ban on transgender men and women in the military.

Although the government intends to appeal that decision, they do not have much of a shot of convincing the leftleaning U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reverse the ruling.

Now, a second federal judge has turned thumbs down on Trump’s illconsidered trans tweet. Marylandbased Judge Marvin Garbis wrote what sounds like a blistering critique of the President’s head-turning maneuver.

No, I haven’t read the opinion, but legal eagle Art Leonard of New York Law School tells us it’s a good one, calling Trump’s decision a “capricious, arbitrary, and unqualif ied

tweet of new policy,” which “does not trump the methodical and systematic review by military stakeholders qualified to understand the ramifications of policy changes.”

I won’t completely rehash Trump’s impulsive move last July to ban transgender military personnel, an action that he took after zero consultation with military experts, and seemingly while under the impression that the U.S. had yet to put trans troops into uniform. In fact, there are thousands of transgender men and women in the armed forces, particularly since President Obama authorized open trans service in 2016.

After the tweet, the anti-trans rhetoric was somewhat soothed when Defense Secretary Mattis said the policy was under review and that no one would be discharged until next March at the earliest. Indeed, government lawyers have tried to convince the federal courts that transgender plaintiffs have no reason to complain since none of them have yet been discharged from the military!

Judges like Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of D.C. and now Marvin Garbis have not been impressed with this reasoning, noting that the imminent threat of being fired is more than enough grounds to sue.

Nor does the fact that the government has yet to drop the hammer on trans troops suggest that there’s some doubt as to whether or not the ban will go into effect. The administration has made clear it intends to dismiss an entire category of military staff come hell or high water. Happily, it seems the federal courts are not going to make it easy. In addition to the aforementioned lawsuits, two others are pending in federal courts in Seattle and L.A. It’s Elementary In other great transgender legal news, a federal judge in Pennsylvania refused to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a transgender elementary school student (via her mother) against the school district that refuses to let the eight-year-old girl use the facilities.

According to the court record, (via an account by Art Leonard of NYLS, comme d’habitude) the Supervisor was even heard to mutter, “Minersville isn’t ready for this.” Actually, I turned it from a simple quotation into a “mutter,” but it feels right.

Here’s an interesting part. You may recall that the Obama Justice Department interpreted Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to ban discrimination against transgender individuals in public schools and colleges. In fact, that’s why the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in favor of transgender student, Gavin Grimm, in a case that made it to the Supreme Court’s 2016/17 docket.

However, Trump, Sessions and the rest of the crew over at Justice withdrew the Obama interpretation, leading the Supremes to send Grimm’s case back to the Fourth Circuit for a re-hearing. It was not a positive development by any means, but then again, the Trump administration did not replace Obama’s legal views with the opposite positions. Instead, they left everything up in the air, subject to legal debate. While Minersville lawyers tried to argue that Trump had reversed Obama’s policies, Judge Robert Mariani pointed out that this is simply wrong. Citing a similar case out of Pennsylvania, Mariani said Trump’s withdrawal of Obama’s legal guidance “appears to have generated an interpretive vacuum pending further consideration by those federal agencies of the legal issues involved in such matters.” (continued on page 21)

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www.jkzllp.com | www.jkzllp.com/español S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

NOVEM BER 30, 2017

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A Look at LGBTQ Life in Taiwan whose implementation they view as having been too slow and too variable by region.

6/26 and Beyond Stuart Gaffney & John Lewis Taipei Pride It seems only fitting that San Francisco and Taipei, sister cities since the year of Stonewall, 1969, host the largest LGBTQ Pride marches and celebrations in North America and Asia. This year’s Taipei Pride was “the largest LGBTQ gathering of any kind ever in Asia,” explained Simon Tai, head of the organizing group.

In the last issue of the San Francisco Bay Times, we reported on the community’s efforts to make the Taiwan constitutional court’s promise of marriage equality a reality now. Today we report on Taipei Pride itself, and other wonderful aspects of Taiwan’s distinctive queer community.

Taipei Pride is a place where Taiwanese and other LGBTQ Asians can come together and be surrounded by love, support, and community.

The joy is palpable—as is the community’s commitment to attaining full legal equality and social acceptance in Taiwan as well as in other Asian nations.

We personally met participants not just from Taiwan, but also from mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, Thailand, and Myanmar (Burma). Just before the march was to begin, a huge LGBTQ flag made its way through the crowd like a rainbow dragon.

Taipei Pride is very down-to-earth and community-based. It is entirely volunteer run with over 500 volunteers taking part, according to head organizer Tai. We were struck how nearly everyone participated in the march rather than standing on the sidelines just to watch. While some organizations had f loats or trucks, most of the 160 groups simply marched together as contingents on foot. Anyone could join in and hold a sign with whatever message they chose.

In addition to the push for full marriage equality, defending and expanding LGBTQ education in public schools was a major theme of Pride. In 2004, Taiwan enacted the groundbreaking national Gender Equity Education Act, mandating gender education in public schools from early ages t hrough h igh school. Activists credit such education, which has included LGBTQ curriculum, as a significant factor in broadening public acceptance of queer people. They seek expansion of LGBTQ education under the act,

After losing the marriage equality court decision, however, anti-LGBTQ forces—particularly several conservative political Christian groups—are attempting to remove LGBTQ education from schools, thereby preventing students from learning about the true diversity of Taiwan’s population.

By contrast, Taipei Pride illuminated the beauty of our community’s diversity. LGBTQ Christians, people living with HIV, transgender people and many others proudly and exuberantly made their presence known to the broader society through the 75 media outlets present. They also felt the embrace and acceptance of the community. The Tongzhi Hotline, a prominent LGBTQ service and advocacy organization, distributed thousands of cards and stickers reading “HIV+ OK” as they have done at many other events.

Also experiencing embrace and acceptance were LGBTQ people from other parts of Asia who came to Taipei Pride to be completely openly queer because it may not be safe to do so in their home countries—be they Pakistan, Singapore or mainland China. Two months ago, we visited Destination Bar and community center in Beijing, China, where Pride marches and rallies are banned and living as an openly gay person can be very difficult.

Soon after we arrived at Taipei Pride, we were amazed and delighted to see that perhaps the biggest float in the entire parade was that of Destination Bar—topped with muscular gay dancers from Beijing, strutting their stuff to the great pleasure of the crowd—something they clearly could not do in a parade at home. It was a powerful image of oppression and freedom, frustration and hope, repression and joy.

Indeed, Taipei Pride is becoming a place for Asian LGBTQ activists and leaders from diverse parts of the continent to come together to meet, share ideas and experiences, strategize, and gain support and inspiration from each other that they take back to their own countries.

Some aspects of Asian cultures— such as social conformity and the importance of family responsibility—overlap, while other elements diverge. Activists in some Asian countries face enormous barriers to building LGBTQ communities and to making gains for LGBTQ legal rights, and it is easy for them to feel isolated. Coming together in Taipei with international activists enables everyone to feel connected and part of a worldwide LGBTQ movement and community Taiwan International Queer Film Festival In the days leading up to Pride, the Taiwan International Queer Film Festival showcased an impressive lineup of queer films from across Asia and around the world. With

The organizers and works from the Spectrosynthesis LGBTQ Art Exhibit 16

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Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Museum and Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Monastery, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

the theme of “Queer and Camp,” this year’s 4th annual festival made good on its promise to provide audiences the opportunity to “unapologetically let their inner self shine through.”

The festival is also becoming a meeting place for international filmmakers and artists, just as Taipei Pride is for activists and the community at large. This year, the Asian Pacif ic Queer Film Festival Alliance, a consortium of 25 LGBT oriented film festivals in the region, held its first in-person meeting at the Festival, called the Asian-PacifStuart and John visit Guo Mama Hours Cafe ic Film and Culture Forum.

We loved many pieces in the exhiJay Lin and other founders of the bition, and Sun explained that a Taipei queer film festival are bring“recurring” theme of the show is ing the best of the festival and much “acceptance and tolerance.” “The more to the world through their new essence of what we are trying to say” platform: GagaOOLala (https:// is that “if we take apart all the exterwww.gagaoolala.com/en/home), nal features … maybe we can have which they have termed a “Gay a better look at the essence of oneNetflix” for Asia, if not the world. self. Who are we? And for me the GagaOOLala boasts the largest message is that if we are not that difcollection of LGBTQ film in Asia, ferent inside, why is there discrimiand features movies, short f ilms, nation?” documentaries, series and original “One of the most touching mocontent. ments” for Sun happened when he was at the exhibition one day and he Spectrosynthesis: A “saw a mother bringing her son who Groundbreaking LGBTQ Art was 5 or 6 years old. And the mothExhibition er was explaining to her son that in In addition to queer film, the Mu- this world there’s man loving womseum of Contemporary Art, Tai- an, woman loving woman, woman pei, this fall hosted the f irst-ever loving man, and man loving man. major LGBTQ-themed exhibition That’s just a fact of life. And the son at a government museum in Asia. just looked up and said, ‘Yes,’ and The path-breaking show featured nodded. That to me makes it all artists from Taiwan, China, Hong worthwhile.”

Kong, and Singapore, as well as The Only LGBTQ Taoist other places.

Temple in the World Patrick Sun, Executive Director of With respect to queer spiritual and the Hong Kong-based Sunpride cultural life, Taiwan is also distincFoundation, co-host of the exhibi- tive. Over two-thirds of Taiwan’s tion, expressed his pride at being population identifies as Taoist or “part of this beautiful, beautiful Buddhist, and Taiwan boasts, as far country” in which people are “very as we know, the only Taoist temple warm and accepting.” He said the in the world specially dedicated to museum was “totally behind” the serving the LGBTQ community. exhibition from the beginning, and According to founder Taoist Masthat the museum and the govern- ter Lu Wei-ming, thousands of LGment gave them a “free hand” with BTQ people have come to the tem“no censorship.” ple since its creation in 2006.

The temple, called Wei Ming Tong (Hall of Martial Brilliance), is dedicated to the centuries-old Taoist God Tu‘er Shen (Rabbit God), who originally oversaw gay “love and relationships,” but now protects LGBTQ people in all aspects of their lives. According to an account from the early Qing dynasty, a man named Hu Tianbao fell in love with an attractive male inspector and was caught peering at the inspector through a bathroom wall. Hu confessed his same-sex love and attraction to authorities, who then executed him by beating him to death. Thereafter, Hu became the God Tu’er Shen to compensate for the injustice of being killed for being gay. Master Lu explained that Tu’er Shen suffered because of who he was and whom he loved, and thus can empathize with challenges LGBTQ people face today.

Master Lu also described how queer people have been a part of Chinese history and culture, and how being LGBTQ is a natural part of Taoism. According to Master Lu, “in ancient China, the culture didn’t see gay people as much different from others. They were looked at equally as normal people.” Indeed, texts report instances of young male couples marrying and being recognized by each other’s families in the Ming and early Qing dynasties in Fujian Province of China, where many early Chinese Taiwanese came from.

Photos courtesy of John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney

Scenes from Taipei Pride 2017

As Master Lu explained, Yin and Yang—how seemingly opposite aspects of life are actually deeply interconnected to form a whole—is central to Taoism. In the famous circular symbol, a dot of Yin appears in Yang, and a dot of Yang is represented in Yin. In Master Lu’s words, nothing “exists alone,” and LGBTQ people “are natural in the world,” represented by the circle.

“Woman is normal inside man, and man is normal inside woman.” In Chinese temples, Guan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, is depicted as both male and female and neither male nor female—free of the constraints of gender—and able to offer compassion for all.

Patrick Sun echoed these ideas in his vision of Spectrosynthesis: “In all of us, it’s not like black and white, binary gender. There’s a woman living in [a man, and] a man living in [a woman]. We have a masculine side and a feminine side, and probably many, many more sides that we have not explored yet.”

Coming Out in Taiwan Taiwan is one of the safest countries in the world as far as street crime.

Although anti-LGBTQ violence exists, we were struck by how comfortable some young people seemed to be expressing their sexuality. During our visit, we noticed young Taiwanese gay couples and trans people simply being themselves openly at such ordinary places as the subway station and Taiwan’s famous night food markets. Many people told us they did not have to hide amongst their friends and community.

This represents change. Arthur Chang, a long-time volunteer at the Tongzhi Hotline, told us that originally most callers were LGBTQ people in distress about their sexuality. Parents also called upset when their child had come out to them. Now, Chang says many callers are LGBTQ people wanting to talk about romantic or relationship problems.

Coming out is not easy for all, however, and perhaps especially for older adults. Chang told us of an annual weekend bus tour for older gay men that has enabled many closeted gay men who are married to wom-

Dumplings

en to have a few days to be who they really are. Despite the fact that employment discrimination is prohibited nationwide, coming out on the job can be risky. Although Chang noted signif icant changes in hotline calls, many activists told us that when it came to coming out to parents, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was the unspoken rule.

One person who is responsible for change and who passionately wants more children to come out to their parents and be accepted is the extraordinary woman known as Guo Mama, head of Loving Parents of LGBT, Taiwan. Guo Mama herself sets a powerful example for other parents of LGBTQ people. When she suspected that her own daughter was queer, she encouraged her to come out, and her daughter did as a lesbian. But Guo Mama thought that something else was going on and encouraged her daughter to consider whether she was transgender. Guo Mama’s daughter soon thereafter came out as her son. Her

child’s grandparents were so supportive that they insisted that the genealogy engraved on their family gravestone be changed to identify that that they had a grandson and not a granddaughter.

Guo Mama told us that she has personally helped over 500 parents to accept their children’s coming out to them over the last 13 years, and she has devised practical steps for LGBTQ people and their parents in the coming out process. Her underlying message to parents of young people struggling with their sexuality and coming out: “Your child needs your help now more than ever.” Her message to LGBTQ Taiwanese about parents is: “We don’t throw our kids away.” Through her work, she has found that parents are willing to do things for their children “beyond their children’s imagination.” Guo Mama’s dream is to bring families closer together and to remove the stress of “living double lives” and “telling lies.”

Rice Soup

Final Evening at Taipei’s Natural Hot Springs As we reflected on our experience of LGBTQ life in Taiwan, our last evening in Taipei seemed almost metaphorical. The city of Taipei boasts marvelous natural sulfur hot spring spas along the banks of a steaming river in the hills on the outskirts of town. On a Saturday evening, we went with friends to visit Emperor Hot Springs, a venue very popular with gay men.

The spa is gender segregated, and we soaked in the soothing waters with over two hundred others. The atmosphere was relaxed and casual with many folks hanging out and chatting with friends, while others soaked silently. In one pool, you could lie down with your head resting on a piece of wood made soft by the warm mineral waters. We felt as if we could float there forever.

Afterward, bathers dress and join each other—gay and straight to-

gether, straight families with small children and groups of friends—to savor pots of warm rice soup and other delicious Taiwanese food. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Actually, it does get better, and it w i l l—when t he Const itut iona l Court’s promise of marriage equality and the dignity that comes with it become a reality—and as progress toward full LGBTQ equality and inclusion continues. Taiwan’s amazing LGBTQ community, with its inspiring activists, leaders and allies, is doing everything it can to make that dream come true. We hope to be planning a return visit soon.

John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney, together for over three decades, were plaintiffs in the California case for equal marriage rights decided by the California Supreme Court in 2008. Their leadership in the grassroots organization Marriage Equality USA contributed in 2015 to making same-sex marriage legal nationwide.

Taiwanese Native Desert S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

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World AIDS Day: ‘My Health, My Right’ 1996. The next year, UNAIDS created the World AIDS Campaign to focus on year-round communications, prevention and education. The Campaign became an independent organization in 2004.

Faces from Our LGBT Past Dr. Bill Lipsky In 1986, James Bunn was a broadcast journalist at KPIX in San Francisco.

He and Nancy Saslow, a special projects producer, had just been honored with a Presidential Citation for Private Sector Initiatives for AIDS Lifeline, their community education series, when Jonathan Mann asked him to help create a Global Program on AIDS for the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO), headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

Bunn accepted, becoming the initiative’s first Public Information Officer (PIO).

Bunn remembered later at the time: “The stigma that surrounded AIDS was actually twofold. One of it was what you could easily argue had to do with homophobia. But also, there was a stigma of fear. There was a lot that people felt they did not know about the epidemic and they were afraid. And they were right to be afraid because of the things that they were hearing,” most of which simply were wrong.

Bunn believed that such animosity and ignorance made AIDS and those who might be affected by it “something that people didn’t want to talk about.” AIDS sufferers “did not want to bring up whatever it was that their experience was with it because in those days, people were being fired from their jobs. They were being denied Social Security benef its. They were being ostracized by their families. They were being evicted from their homes because they were sick and dying.”

Bunn resolved to do something about these issues. Working with Thomas Netter, also a PIO at WHO in Geneva, the two men developed the idea of a World AIDS Day. On October 27, 1988, the U.N. General Assembly officially recognized the first occasion as December 1, 1988. It has been observed on December 1 each year since then, making it the longest-running disease awareness and prevention initiative of its kind in the history of public health.

The Global Program on AIDS became the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in

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Over the years, first World AIDS Day and then the World AIDS Campaign have emphasized and informed different issues about the disease and its consequences. The first year’s campaign was “Communication.” It was followed by “Youth,” “Women and AIDS,” and “Stigma and Discrimination,” among others.

2017’s topic, “Increasing Impact Through Transparency, Accountability, and Partnerships,” is part of a year-long campaign, “My Health, My Right,” which “focuses on the right to health” and “explores the challenges people around the world face in exercising their rights.”

The red ribbon has been the symbol of HIV and AIDS awareness since 1991. Adopted by the Visual AIDS Artists Caucus in New York, it was worn for the first time in public by the actor Jeremy Irons at that year’s Tony Awards. It has appeared on thousands of posters, numerous stamps—even a circulating coin—issued by countries all over the world to observe World AIDS Day and to encourage understanding.

Since 2007, the White House has recognized World AIDS Day by displaying a red ribbon on the North Portico. It was the first banner or symbol not an American flag to be prominently exhibited on the building since the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.

From San Francisco’s City Hall to Baltimore’s Washington Monument to Inverness Castle to the Sydney Opera House, buildings and monuments worldwide glow with red light on December 1.

Symbols and proclamations and stamps are not enough, however.

Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 76 million men, women, and children around the world have become infected with HIV, approximately the combined population of the 13 Western United States. 35 million people have died of AIDS-related illnesses, more than one million last year alone.

Despite tremendous progress made across the years to combat the disease, the threat is not over. In 2016, approximately 1.8 million people around the world became newly infected with HIV, a number twice the total population of San Francisco.

For the first time, more than half of the estimated 36+ million people living with HIV globally have access to life-saving treatment, but that still leaves at least 17 million who do not; some 30% of those who carry the virus do not know it.

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Because HIV continues to be a major public health issue and a personal tribulation for people everywhere, World AIDS Day is still a vital initiative. Fortunately, each of us can help to stop this deadly disease, beginning with the time we give on World AIDS Day simply to: • talk with people we know and love about HIV prevention, about why this day still matters, and about HIV’s ongoing impact on our communities— and theirs; • volunteer at a nearby service organization; • contact local, state, and federal leaders to increase their response to addressing the epidemic; • join an awareness day event; • honor those whose lives have been lost to AIDS; • remember our shared humanity and act accordingly.

Bill Lipsky, Ph.D., author of “Gay and Lesbian San Francisco” (2006), is a member of the Rainbow Honor Walk board of directors.

Your Guests Will Be Floored by Boogie Lights Entertainment

By Johnny Viramontes Lighted dance f loors may ver y wel l be t he key to changing your next event from ordinary to extraordinary. First famously appearing in the 1977 blockbuster film Saturday Night Fever, LED dance floors have been lighting up rooms ever since with bright mesmerizing colors and patterns. At Boogie Lights Entertainment, we specialize in this art.

Before & After

We of fer several distinct styles of f looring, each having its own variety of beautiful colors and patterns. Our most popular is dubbed the “Infinity Floor.” It consists of a high-powered, computercontrolled beautiful solid black acrylic f loor with 36 separate LEDs per panel, which can total up to 4000 LEDS. You can choose between thousands of colors as well as many fabulous patterns to customize it for your event. With sizes ranging from 8’×8’ to 20’×20’, this floor can light up any room.

Another style will transport you and your guests to the Saturday Night Fever disco “2001 Odyssey.” This floor can be set to an interactive mode so that its lights flash with the touch of feet or to the beat of your favorite music. Instead of having your first dance on a drab standard dance floor, make it unforgettable with marvelous patterns and colors.

Boogie Lights Entertainment floors have been featured on TV, in music videos, wedding shows and in high-end fashion shows such as Melange. We work to make our services affordable, so all may enjoy the elegance of LED flooring. We have brought our floors to everything from small charity events to big Silicon Valley Fortune 500 company parties.

Now that we are in the busy holiday season, it is best to call and request your special day to confirm if it is available. Ask about our DJ services and photo booth too!

Johnny Viramontes is the founder of Boogie Lights Entertainment. For more info: https://www.boogielightsentertainment.com/

Frederick Sullivan and Jaime Botello, who oversee the Weddings & Occasions page for the “San Francisco Bay Times,” are the talented wizards behind Sullivan-Botello Events (http://sullivanbotelloevents. com) and SnB Party Rentals (650-877-0840, www.snbpartyrentals.com). Both are Certified Wedding Planners with extensive experience in creating memorable, personalized events for special occasions. Their rental service is incredible, offering everything from beautiful gold Chiavari chairs to LED dance floors, and all at competitive prices. They are the creators of the Gay Vanity Wedding Show and are longstanding members of the Golden Gate Business Association, which is the nation’s first LGBT Chamber of Commerce.

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Sister Dana Sez: Words of Wisdumb from a Fun Nun as they served the public in City Hall. On the night of their murders, a group of tens of thousands gathered in the Castro and began an impromptu candlelit march to City Hall. The event commemorates the lives and untimely deaths of these two extraordinary individuals on the anniversary of their assassinations in 1978 and commemorates the spontaneous candlelight march the night of the shootings. The HARVEY MILK LGBT DEMOCRATIC CLUB hosted their 39th annual VIGIL FOR HARVEY MILK in Castro’s Harvey Milk Plaza. On the anniversary of Harvey’s assassination, we honored our hero, his legacy, and the decades of community activism that has followed in his wake.

There was a short speaking program from legacy club members and community leaders. Then they opened the mic for folks to say a few words, after which we made a short candlelit walk to the spot of Harvey’s camera shop, now the HRC store. From there, we headed to The Mix for a mixer of our own.

By Sister Dana Van Iquity Sister Dana sez, “Hey Congressmen, reaching across the aisle does not mean giving a reach-around!”

Sister Dana celebrated Thanksgiving (or what I like to call “ThanksGAYing”) with three dozen LGBTQ friends and non-nuclear chosen family in a lovely Castro home—eating and drinking too much, but not having to address any rightwing crazies since we were all very much partners in progressiveness. Then as an extra bonus, our hosts had Leftovers Night two days later for more eating and drinking too much. On that Thanksgiving Day, I was especially THANKFUL to be GAY!

We celebrated “SHELF LIFE,” the art of Dominic L. Garcia, where his photography is being exhibited on their first and third floor galleries at Strut until the beginning of January.

Inspired by some of the great performance artists of the 1960s, he adopts the practice of using his body to convey ideas. “After stripping off all my clothes, remote shutter in hand, I climb into a glass case, onto a shelf, or paint half my body. Some photos are inspired by various Greek stories and motifs,” says Garcia. “The classical nude poses are over-dramatized situations of a figure contorted in tight spaces. These are in proximity to contemporary objects; they express my ideas of obedience, labor, vulnerability, and commercialism.

By integrating a nude figure with clothes as shackles or weights, the images ask the viewer to question their relationship to commonly purchased objects.

Many people say, and Sister Dana sez, “The holidays don’t begin until you’ve seen Donna Sachet’s Songs of the Season!” Donna Sachet’s 25th Anniversary SONGS OF THE SEASON, held at Halycon, benefitted PRC and AIDS EMERGENCY FUND. The show delivered an evening filled with a variety of locally and internationally recognized and spirited entertainers, all designed to usher us into the joy and excitement of the holiday season. These special Silver Anniversary performances featured some of our favorite performers: Sharon McNight, Kippy Marks, Leanne Borghesi, Dan O’Leary, Brian Kent, Kenny Nelson, Paula West, Adam Reeves, and Jason Brock. And, of course, Donna sang some of her lovely standards and a few new tunes.

We joined ACADEMY OF FRIENDS at their annual HOLIDAY PARTY at sponsor WilliamsSonoma in the Polk in support of Bay Area HIV/AIDS service organizations. We enjoyed live entertainment, festive cocktails and bites prepared by the Williams-Sonoma chefs while shopping for all our holiday essentials. The mission of AoF is to continue raising money for HIV/AIDS services for this community as long as the need endures. They have distributed over $8.8 million to HIV/AIDS services since the beginning of the pandemic.

On November 27, 1978, Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were killed 20

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Sister Dana sez, “Now don’t miss these great holiday events coming up!”

Take four talented drag performers, cast them in two new Xmas episodes of the uproariously funny TV show The Golden Girls and you have an assured night of theater for the

PHOTO BY PAUL MARGOLIS

The annual HOLIDAY TREE LIGHTING event, always held the Monday after Thanksgiving, was sponsored by CASTRO MERCHANTS. For all to see through December, this 28-foot custom-decorated community Holiday Tree is in front of Bank of America, Castro at 18th Streets. The program featured Mistress of Ceremonies and First Lady of the Castro, Donna Sachet; holiday music and sing-along with Golden Gate Men’s Chorus, Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco, San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, and the San Francisco Lesbian/ Gay Freedom Band; brief greetings from City Hall and other elected officials and special guests; a blessing by The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence; then Santa and his Elf showed up by special S.F.P.D. escort to light the Tree. All of Castro Merchants’ 100+ Holiday supporters are listed on the big sponsor banner hanging through the Season, from the side of Bank of America.

Sister Dana sez, “For your amusement, go to this URL to see a Catholic school’s statue depicting a saint handing a young boy a loaf of bread. But the location of the bread, seemingly emerging from the saint’s cloak, and the proximity of the boy, suggests something far less wholesome than the innocent offering of a baguette.” http://www.sfgate. com/weird/article/Catholic-school-statuesuggestive-loaf-bread-12378804.php

for Blanche’s sexy antics, Sophia’s cutting wit, Dorothy’s consternation, Rose’s endearing stupidity and lots of beefy shoulder pads. Nothing warms your heart—or keeps you laughing— like THE GOLDEN GIRLS-LIVE. December 1–23 at the Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th Street. victoriathratre.org Join RAINBOW WORLD FUND, San Francisco’s LGBTQ humanitarian organization, for the 12th Annual RWF WORLD TREE OF HOPE TREE LIGHTING Celebration on Monday, December 4, from 6–8 pm in the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda. Admission is free, but get there early for good seating. The festive holiday event promises a concert by the Grammy winning San Francisco Boys Chorus; Armistead Maupin; performances by Broadway’s Meggie Cansler and Joey Khoury; The Secret Garden’s Katie Maupin; emcees Cheryl Jennings and Donna Sachet; Mayor Ed Lee; Deputy Consul General of Japan Shoichi Nagayoshi; Origami Artist Linda Mihara; The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will bless the tree; and much more. rainbowfund.org SANTA SKIVVIES RUN, an annual half naked and/or costumed run for charity through the Castro is on Sunday, December 10. Don your gay apparel! Check in is from 9:30–10:45 am. The run begins at 11 am with the start & end at Lookout, 3600 16th Street. 100% of the proceeds from Santa Skivvies Run support the free HIV prevention, care, and support services of SAN FRANCISCO AIDS FOUNDATION. With your support, San Francisco can be the first U.S. city to end the transmission of HIV. Santa Skivvies Run may cause uncontrollable jolliness, sudden loss of clothing, fundraising fabulousness, and bouts of glittery creativity. sfaf.org “HELP IS ON THE WAY FOR THE HOLIDAYS XVI” is a holiday concert and gala by RICHMOND/ ERMET AID FOUNDATION to benefit LARKIN STREET YOUTH SERVICES and PROJECT OPEN HAND. The event is on December 4, 6 pm silent auction, 7 pm doors open at the Marines’ Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter Street, 2nd floor. This year’s gala will feature cast members from the Broadway touring cast of Disney’s Aladdin, plus other special guest stars including: American Idol recording star Kimberley Locke, 2-time Star Search grand champion Jake Simpson, America’s Got Talent semi-finalist Shawn Ryan, X-Factor finalist Jason Brock, Velocity Circus founder/performer Gregangelo, jazz diva Kim Nalley, and cabaret star Jessica Coker. An after party with the cast will take place at the nearby Clift Hotel in the Redwood and Velvet Rooms. The after party will feature an assortment of decadent desserts, wine tastings, and special spirit bars. 100% of the ticket sales will go directly to the beneficiary agencies. reaf-sf.org

On Christmas Eve, you’ll find Sister Dana and volunteers–such as Justin representing the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus–in the lobby of the Castro Theatre distributing Home for the Holidays programs to the thousands of audience members who attend every year. It’s time to order your tickets for the 2017 show at 5, 7, or 9 pm on Sunday evening, December 24th: sfgmc.org

entire family. Now a yearly tradition, this loving tribute to the characters the entire world has come to know and love features local drag stars Heklina (Dorothy), Matthew Martin (Blanche),D’Arcy Drollinger (Rose), and Holotta Tymes (Sophia). Prepare yourself

Join STRUT at 470 Castro Street on December 1, 8–10 pm for their last Art Opening of 2017.

Oscar Gallegos Zamora is their artist for December. The Art at Strut program has been exhibiting the work of a local Gay or Queer artist once a month for over 14 years. This upcoming exhibition is entitled “PHYSIQUE AND FANTASY,” a series of col(continued on page 21)

ROSTOW (continued from page 15)

SISTER DANA (continued from page 20)

Legalese, yes. But I love the Trump justice department being accused of leaving us in “an interpretive vacuum.” I assume they were too confused to figure out that their conservative lawyer pals would be better served if they formulated some horrible rightwing anti-gay and anti-trans guidance of their own. Or maybe someone from the Deep State distracted them with a shiny object. Shiloh, my cordial two-year-old, has a colorful wooden toy called “Doodle.” I think it would work.

“Well, I think Title IX is limited to the traditional male and female ... .”

“Mr. Sessions. Over here! It’s Doodle!”

“Well, looka here. It sure is! Doodle! Where’ve you been hiding? Get a load of this little fella, Mr. President.”

The Silence of the Deer As I’m trying to focus on important GLBT news, my wife is telling me that over 100 reindeer have been hit and killed by trains in Norway over a three-day period. She left the room, but sure enough, a quick search confirms: “Reindeer massacre as herds hit by speeding freight trains… .” “Errant trains slaughter rein-

deer herds… .” And, “Reindeer bloodbath! Horror as 106 of the beasts are run down ... .”

Heavens!

At first, I feared that ten thousand reindeer were killed each year in this fashion and that these articles were simply drawing attention to the problem. But, thankfully, the mishaps are not routine. In this case, I gather, the reindeer were hanging out on the rail beds. They were too remote to be corralled, but the train operators were warned to slow down and honk at the spot where they were grazing and wandering around. The message never got through, however, and the engineers ran their trains at top speed down the track, scattering dead reindeer in their wake.

I’m not one for forced Christmas gaiety and crazy lights. But then again, Christmas is a sweet time of the year, and reindeer are an important Christmas symbol. I’m talking about happy, dancing and f lying reindeer, not dead ones. Not reindeer cut down in the prime of their lives while frolicking with their friends and cavorting on the snow berms that elevate the Norwegian freight lines.

It’s bad Christmas mojo; that’s all I’m saying. arostow@aol.com

lage shadow boxes that depict muscular men from vintage bodybuilding magazines, modern-day gay magazines, and the internet placed in their own dream worlds. The series was originally inspired by the many vintage bodybuilding magazines that were coded gay media that carefully avoided breaking the obscenity laws of the time. Free drinks and light snacks will be provided. strutsf.org For a third consecutive year, INSCRIBE will be happening in The Castro on World AIDS Day, December 1. Children will be given sticks of chalk to inscribe on Castro Street sidewalks the names of their friends and relatives with HIV. Join them for their morning circle at 9 am on WORLD AIDS DAY. Then join their event programming at STRUT around 10:30 am.

ART SAVES LIVES studio and performance space will again offer a free reception for the public to enjoy approximately 20 different artists’ works and their presence at the 518 Castro Street

studio on December 8. Manager and artist in residence Thomasina DeMaio promises the usual lineup of talented performers. Wine, beer, soda, and passed-around bites are complimentary as are customary from 6–9 pm. @ sfartslave The third annual HANUKKAH MENORAH LIGHTING with SHA’AR ZAHAV is on Wednesday, December 13, 6 pm in Jane Warner Plaza (Market at Castro-17th Streets). It is sponsored

by CASTRO MERCHANTS. Sister Dana sez, “T-rump is utterly unfit to serve as president.

From obstructing justice by firing the head of the FBI, to threatening nuclear war with North Korea, to normalizing white supremacy, he has shown that he is exactly the person the founders had in mind when they wrote impeachment into the Constitution. So bring it on!”

Happy Birthday to Naturalist Kim Powell of Blue Water Ventures Many San Francisco Bay Times readers are joining us in wishing a very “Happy Birthday” to Blue Water Ventures naturalist and guide Kim Powell. She has led many LGBT community members on a variety of outdoor adventures for more than a decade, and we are happy to feature her once again here.

Powell’s 60th Birthday Celebration was a multifaceted one and included multiple locations in Santa Cruz, where she is based. Powell enjoyed a birthday visit with family including her mom, brother and Nellie plus their pup; an outing with friends on the beach behind the Dream Inn Hotel near the famous Santa Cruz Boardwalk; and a evening costume party and dance. By all accounts a great time was had by all and especially the birthday girl herself, as can be seen in the photos.

Powell and guide Nikki Doyle recently led a “Betty’s List” kayaking outing in Sausalito. Watch for announcements of future outdoor events with Powell, including our annual visit to Año Nuevo State Park coming up in early 2018. To learn more about Powell and the guided tours she hosts, visit bluewaterventures.org

Happy Birthday to Empress Marlena Photos by Rink & Ken Hamai A large contingent of our readers and friends were at Twin Peaks Tavern on Saturday, November 18, for the annual birthday celebration of Empress Marlena, Queen Mother of California, Absolute Empress XXV. Numerous toasts were hoisted by the standing room only crowd with many sharing tall tales and stories of good cheer about their friendships with Marlena.

PHOTO BY RINK

PHOTO BY KEN HAMAI

PHOTO BY RINK

PHOTO BY KEN HAMAI

PHOTO BY KEN HAMAI

All attending also enjoyed the view from Twin Peaks’ windows of the Harvey’s Halo finale dubbed the Billion Bubble Salute & Dance Party. Created by the non-profit organization Illuminate, the display at Harvey Milk Plaza took place on selected November evenings following the unveiling ceremony on November 8 that marked the 40th anniversary of Harvey Milk’s election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. We enjoyed that the finale coincided with the evening of Marlena’s birthday celebration and are looking forward to many more such celebrations to come.

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE DE YOUNG AND LEGION OF HONOR

Willem van Aelst’s Flowers in a Silver Vase (1663) At the Legion of Honor, Gallery 15 Willem van Aelst initially trained and became a master in his native Delft, then traveled to France and Italy, before ultimately settling in Amsterdam. The Italian spelling of his name, used for the signature of this and other post Italian period paintings, adds a veneer of distinction and suggests these foreign experiences and contacts, most particularly his association with patrons such as Ferdinand II de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

As there are layers of significance to the artist’s signature, so the imagery and meaning of this f lower-piece is artfully layered. In an apparently informal profusion of blooms and foliage, the artist carefully constructs a dynamic baroque composition. Dramatic lighting is choreographed to emphasize the principal blooms, creating a diagonal across the picture’s surface.

Equally baroque is the activation of the entire scene, beyond the object’s actual potential for movement. This is achieved by an insistence on the irregularity of the organic forms, which curve and countercurve out of, and back into, the mass of the bouquet.

Several traditional symbols of time’s fleeting nature are included, despite the joyous overall nature of the piece. Note the tattered ribbons of the open watchcase and the fully opened tulip ready to drop its petals. Such allusions to the transience of life and beauty invest this seemingly straightforward still life with a moralizing aspect, transforming it into a vanitas still life, an essay on the vanity of life.

For more information: https://art.famsf. org/willem-van-aelst/flowers-silvervase-5121

The courtyard at the Legion of Honor Museum

Willem van Aelst, “Flowers in a Silver Vase,” 1663.

Oil on canvas, 26 3/8 x 21 ½ in. (67.6 x 54.5 cm).

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Hermann Schuelein, 51.21

Gaining a Better Understanding of an HIV+ Uncle’s Life

By Lyndsey Schlax (Editor’s Note: Teacher Lyndsey Schlax of the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts launched the nation’s first on-site high school LGBT course in 2015. She has resumed teaching that groundbreaking class. In this column, her students share their thoughts about LGBT-related matters, including their concerns, what they have learned in class and more. The below two pieces were written by students in Grade 12.)

Understanding Class was rough recently. We addressed the HIV/AIDS crisis and the horrific death tolls that ravaged the gay community. It was hard to process such heavy content. I am, however, immensely grateful for this lesson.

It gave me invaluable insights into the life of my great uncle who is currently living with HIV/AIDS. 22

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He has never been a completely out gay man, but my family has met many of his “friends” over the years, and could connect the dots. His closeted status is understandable, given that he was raised in Virginia and served in the Navy for the majority of his life. A message of acceptance for the gay community was never directly expressed to him.

While I have never grown close to him, his distance and rigid pessimism make more sense to me now than ever before. He has had to live with a challenging condition for a large portion of his life, and the infection stemmed from his acts of love toward another—an act of love already painted by the media as an immoral act.

Then, to top it off, his partner of many, many years passed away due to AIDS. What a life of confusion, contradiction, and pain he has led. That could, in even the best-case scenario, result in a pessimistic disposition.

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While I have often expressed sympathy for his story, I never fully understood his journey until this week.

A Long Road When I was a kid, I went to a very liberal elementary school near the Haight. Once a year, for a few years, whichever teacher I had would take me and the rest of the class to the same play, which was about HIV/AIDS. Every year was the same. The play would tell us about how AIDS was a disease that could be transmitted sexually or through blood and, while I had no idea what sex was at the time, it still gave me a basic understanding of the condition. It has also shown how far we have come in terms of education, awareness, and understanding regarding HIV/AIDS. When AIDS first became an issue, no one had any idea what it was. While many of the people suffering from the disease had gotten infected with

STUDENT VOICES HIV years earlier (leading to AIDS), symptoms didn’t really show for most of them until the 80s. Because this “mystery illness” largely affected the gay community, it wasn’t really discussed, and some even thought of it as a punishment for those affected. Even the president kept his mouth shut.

It eventually became hard to ignore, however, when it began affecting public figures and when gay and lesbian activists pushed for it to be recognized. Eventually, we learned about the disease and were able to figure out how to prevent it and to come up with ways to treat it. We have thank-

Lyndsey Schlax has been a teacher in the San Francisco Unified School District since 2008.

She is uniquely qualified to address multiple areas of LGBT studies, having also specialized in subjects such as Modern World History, Government, Economics and U.S. Politics. She is a National Board Certified Teacher, and earned her M.A. in Teaching at the University of San Francisco. fully come very far since the days when, as a child, I went yearly to that play.

For more information about the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, please visit http://www. sfsota.org/

LAVENDER pen tour

Lavender Pen Tour: On Stage - Birmingham Photos by Gareth Gooch In our previous issue (November 16, 2017), we devoted pages 9–11 to the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus’ recent historic Lavender Pen Tour with the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir. SFGMC Artistic Director Tim Seelig provided an intimate, diary-like account of the tour’s seven days of performances in Jackson, Mississippi; Selma and Birmingham, Alabama; Knoxville, Tennessee; Greenville, South Carolina; and Charlotte, North Carolina. If you missed this coverage, which included photos of off-stage moments, you can go to ISSUU (issuu.com/sf bt) and read this story online.

We have since been thinking about how best to present the collection of on-stage images by photographer Gareth Gooch, who documented the entire tour and took more than 28,000 wonderful photos. For this issue, we decided to highlight images from one concert only: the performance in Birmingham at the Alys Stephens Center.

You can also enjoy videos from the tour on YouTube using the search words “Lavender Pen Tour.” Amazing performances from throughout the tour await you!

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From the Coming Up Events Calendar See page 36 Sunday, December 3 - Unleash! Dance Party @ Ivy Room, 860 San Pablo Avenue, Albany. DJ Page Hodel and JD Mysdefy presented by Alex U. Inn at the Ivy Room. 4pm. ivyroom.com

Thursday, December 7 - Drag Queens on Ice 2017 @ Union Square Park, Geary and Powell Streets. Colorful drag personalities return for a night of lip-synching and lipstick. 8-9:30pm. unionsquareicerink.com

Mark Morris to Appear in His Spicy, Irreverent Holiday Classic The Hard Nut at Zellerbach

Here in the Bay Area, twenty-two years after making its West Coast debut on the stage at Zellerbach Hall, The Hard Nut returns to Cal Performances at UC Berkeley with nine performances from December 15–24, including a 3 pm matinee on Christmas Eve! The beloved audience favorite, back at Cal Performances for the first time in five years, is part affectionate homage and part campy reinterpretation of the season’s ubiquitous Nutcracker performances. Morris’ lavish retelling, with a cast of 33 dancers, will have Tchaikovsky’s score performed live by members of the Berkeley Symphony and the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir.

Here is the fairytale-tinged synopsis: ACT I Dr. and Mrs. Stahlbaum’s annual Christmas Eve Party. Their children Fritz, Marie and Louise wait in the den. Party dances: polka, hokeypokey, hesitation, stroll, bump, waltz.

Friend of the family Drosselmeier brings animated toys that he’s made.

He gives a Nutcracker to the children.

Fritz breaks it. The children fight. Dr. Stahlbaum changes the subject. The guests go home. The family goes to bed. The housekeeper cleans up.

Marie can’t sleep and comes downstairs to see if the Nutcracker is resting comfortably. At midnight, she is frightened by rats. Everything in the room grows to giant size. G.I. Joes led by the Nutcracker battle rats led

by the mutant Rat King.

Marie kills the Rat King with her slipper. She falls unconscious. The Nutcracker is transformed into a young man. Marie is tucked in. A worried Drosselmeier makes his way through the blizzard.

ACT II Marie is in a fever. Drosselmeier comes to see if Marie is resting comfortably and tells her one of his stories:

PHOTOS BY JUL IETA CERVAN T ES

Celebrating its 25th Anniversary, The Hard Nut is a cascade of wit and wintry beauty. This lavish, gender-bent love letter to the traditional Nutcracker ballet transplants E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original story from the straight-laced 1890s to the swinging 70s, with raucous parties, dancing G.I. Joes, whimsical costumes, and a “Waltz of the Snowf lakes” like no other. Based on the comic book art of Charles Burns and featuring Tchaikovsky’s complete original score, Artistic Director Mark Morris’ lyrical, modern retelling playfully preserves the warm spirit of an essential holiday tradition.

THE HARD NUT Once upon a time a King and a Queen had a beautiful baby girl named Pirlipat. The Queen’s old enemy the Rat Queen threatened to ruin little Pirlipat. The nurse and the cat were left to guard the baby at night.

While the nurse and cat slept, the Rat Queen destroyed Princess Pirlipat’s face. The Royal Family was horrified by the sight of their formerly beautiful daughter. The Rat Queen explained that the Princess would regain her beauty only after a young man cracked the hard nut, Krakatuk, with his teeth and stepped backwards seven times.

The King commanded Drosselmeier to find the hard nut or face decapitation. Drosselmeier set off in search of the hard nut. He traveled the world for fifteen years before finding it back at home.

The ugly teenage Pirlipat watched as one young man after another attempted to crack the hard nut. The last one to try was Drosselmeier’s own nephew. He succeeded. On his seventh step backward, he stepped on the Rat Queen, killing her. Pirlipat became beautiful and rejected the young Drosselmeier as he started to become ugly—like a nutcracker.

At this point, Marie interrupts the story and offers her love to young Drosselmeier. Mrs. Stahlbaum acknowledges her daughter’s new maturity with a flower dance. Everyone in the

world joins Marie and young Drosselmeier in celebrating their love. The two go away together forever.

Mark Morris Dance Group: The Hard Nut Performances will be Friday–Saturday December 15–16 and 22–23 at 8 pm; Thursday December 21 at 8 pm; Saturdays December 16 and 23 at 2 pm; and Sundays December 17 and 24 at 3 pm in Zellerbach Hall.

EPILOGUE

Tickets range from $40–$135.

Half-price tickets are available for UC Berkeley students.

Tickets are available through the Ticket Office at Zellerbach at 510-642-9988, at the door and at calperformances.org

Louise and Fritz are sent to bed.

For more information about discounts, go to calperformances.org/discounts

k Mark Morris himself will play the role of Dr. Stahlbaum. Morris has been hailed by The New York Times as the “most successful and inf luential choreographer alive and indisputably the most musical.” Since founding Mark Morris Dance Group in 1980, he has created close to 150 works for the company, many of which—like The Hard Nut—are widely considered masterpieces. Morris has established himself as someone who, as The Denver Post wrote, “easily ranks among the top five living American choreographers ... and has already carved a major place for himself in the history of modern dance.”

Veteran Lauren Grant returns for the 21st year performing as Marie, and the iconic role of the maid will be played by Brandon Randolph, only the second person to play this part since The Hard Nut’s premiere in 1991.

The production’s retro costumes were designed by Martin Pakledinaz, and its pop-art sets were created by Adrianne Lobel.

In conjunction with the performances, members of the company will host a Community Dance Class on Sunday, December 17, at 11 am in the Bancroft Studio, leading participants in movement sequences from the iconic “Waltz of the Snowflakes” scene from The Hard Nut. Tickets are $5, and capacity is limited. Pre-registration is required (calperformances. org/learn/calendar/2017-18/).

KIT’N KITTY’S

QUEER POP QUIZ

Death Drop Gorgeous What is the name of the 1990 documentary that chronicles the ball culture of New York City?

A) Vogue B) Paris Is Burning C) Torch Song Trilogy D) American Dream Queens ANSWER ON PAGE 34

Karin Jaffie as Kitty Tapata hosts Miss Kitty’s Original Trivia Nights at The Wild Side West on Wednesday nights from 8 pm–11 pm, 424 Cortland Avenue in San Francisco. As Tapata says, “It’s free, fun and friendly! To play is to win!”

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Holiday Arts Preview Holiday Gaiety

Christmas Revels

Book of J

Victoria Hanna

Girls of the Golden West Dance Along Nutcracker Armistead Maupin

Cheyenne Jackson

Tony Bennett

Michael Feinstein’s Home for the Holidays November 30–December 3 Feinstein’s at the Nikko, 222 Mason Five-time Grammy Award-nominated Michael Feinstein will return to one of his favorite cities with an all new show celebrating the magic of the season.

Feinstein will perform holiday favorites and classic standards from the Great American Songbook. feinsteinsatthenikko.com Steve Silver’s Beach Blanket Babylon Holiday Extravaganza November 30–December 30 Club Fugazi, 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd.

The world’s longest running musical revue will roll out its Holiday Extravaganza that is not to be missed.

The show will feature a chorus line of tap-dancing Christmas treats, parodies of traditional carols, King Louie XIV in red and green taffeta and glitter, pop culture spoofs and the legendary gigantic Yuletide Hat. beachblanketbabylon.com Tenderloin Tessie Christmas Cabaret Spectacular December 1 St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, 101 Gold Mine Drive Songstress of the Tenderloin Vanessa Bousay and Michael Gagne, President of the Tenderloin Tessie organization, will be featured, along with James Campbell at the piano. The first annual edition of this new show will benefit the services provided to help those in need. tenderlointessie.com Girls of the Golden West December 2, 5, 7 & 10 SF War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Girls of the Golden West brings the story of East Coast transplant Dame Shirley, whose letters chronicle life in the Gold Country camp. Additional characters include Ah Sing, a Chinese immigrant working as a prostitute; Ned Peters, a cowboy and former slave; and Josefa Segovia, a young Mexican barmaid. Racism, nativism and culture clashes are among the key themes in this story of incidents, most of which actually occurred on the Fourth of July, 1851, at Rich Bar in Downieville in the new state of California. sfopera.com Help Is on the Way for the Holidays XVI December 4 Marines’ Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter Street

Richmond/Ermet Aid Foundation’s annual holiday gala and concert will include a silent auction, reception, concert and VIP after-party in the Redwood Room at the Clift Hotel. Featured artists will include cast members from the hit Broadway show Disney’s Aladdin as well as American Idol’s Kimberley Locke, Star Search’s Jake Simpson, America’s Got Talent’s Shawn Ryan, X-Factor’s Jason Brock, Velocity Circus’ Gregangelo and cabaret stars Kim Nalley, Leanne Borghesi and Jessica Coker. The show will benefit Project Open Hand and Larkin Street Youth Services. richmondermet.org Tony Bennett December 5 Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa Tony Bennett observed his 90th birthday in 2016 and is still celebrating with an international schedule of concerts on his tour, Tony 90, featuring his hit tunes from a remarkable career spanning seven decades. Bennett has a remarkable 19 Grammy Awards and most recently received the Library of Congress’ 2017 Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. During his milestone birthday year, he appeared in a two-hour NBC special with an accompanying CD entitled Tony Bennett Celebrates 90: The Best Is Yet to Come and published his fifth book, Just Getting Started. lutherburbankcenter.org 32nd Annual Christmas Revels Friday, December 8–10, 15–17 Scottish Rite Theatre, 1547 Lakeside Drive, Oakland A Scottish Celebration of the Solstice will be the theme of this annual community pageant featuring professionals and local amateurs singing and dancing their hearts out to music from diverse cultures and ritual traditions. The company will celebrate the shortest day in song, dance and spirited folk tales with Scottish tunes and lore plus perennial favorites the Lord of the Dance, Abbots Bromley Horn Dance and more. The Revels, originally founded by ethnomusicologist John Langstaff, has brought its unique theatrical, participatory arts-form to California audiences since 1986. calrevels.org Elfstravaganza: Making the North Pole Gay Again!

December 8–9 Nourse Theater, 275 Hayes Street

The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus will present its annual holiday season concert with singing and hijinks to whisk the audience away on a journey from the comfort of their seats all the way to the North Pole. With some 250 elves in their best holiday drag, a team of reindeer and the handsome lumbersexuals, Mr. and Mrs. Claus will sing opera and welcome a few nuns for an unforgettable night. sfgmc.org Holiday Gaiety with Armistead Maupin & The San Francisco Symphony December 8 Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Avenue Award-winning novelist Armistead Maupin will join the San Francisco Symphony with artists Peaches Christ, Cheyenne Jackson, Bob the Drag Queen and more for something a little more naughty than nice. Maupin will read wickedly funny excerpts from his coming of age memoirs and enjoy the yuletide cheer with holiday hits from the SF Symphony and the dazzling lineup of guest stars. sfsymphony.org Dance-Along Nutcracker December 9–10 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street Nutcrackers of the Caribbean will be the theme of the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band’s annual frolic where audience members participate by dancing to live music from Tchaikovsky’s classic performed by the Band.

The show, a parody version of the original, will feature Bay Area theater and cabaret stars, including Joe Wicht, Ruby Vixen, Dee Nathanial and Zelda Koznofski. As the story goes, Clara and Fritz will set sail with Captain Drosselmeyer and Queen Rattannia in search of buried treasure. The cast will sing and dance its way through the parody, and when the “Dance-Along” sign flashes, audience members will take up their tutus and pirouette along. dancealongnutcracker.org Chanukah Concert with Book of J and Victoria Hanna December 9 St. Cyprian’s Church, 2097 Turk Street San Francisco Live Arts will present an original “not your parents’ type of Chanukah concert” featuring Yiddish Melodies, psalms and stories told through blues and traditional American music with sounds of rap, hip-hop S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

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Holiday Arts Preview

(continued)

The Hard Nut

Vocal Rush Smuin Contemporary American Ballet

Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir

and more. Interpretations of traditional Jewish texts will be combined with traditional Middle Eastern sounds. The Book of J is a duo comprised of vocalist Jewlia Eisenberg and guitarist Jeremiah Lockwood. Victoria Hanna is a Jerusalem-based artist who is world-renowned for her variety of vocal techniques in preforming ancient and modern Hebrew texts. sflivearts.org

Linda Tillery

Hallelujah! Let Us Break Bread Together Tribute to Prince & Leonard Cohen December 10 Oakland Symphony Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakland This will be a celebration of life and love with the Oakland Symphony and more than 200 voices from four different choirs. The incredible mix of guest artists will include Linda Tillery, Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Kugelplex, Vocal Rush and more. All will pay tribute to Prince and Leonard Cohen in a joyful mash-up of the traditional and unexpected. oaklandsymphony.org Holiday Soul with the San Francisco Symphony December 12 Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Avenue The Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir will join the Symphony along with vocalists CeCe Winans, Edwin Hawkins and Paula West for an evening of soul, jazz and Christmas classics with vocal fireworks and foot-stomping energy. sfsymphony.org Smuin’s The Christmas Ballet December 14–24 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street Smuin Contemporary American Ballet will present their 23rd annual show that will surely make your holidays sizzle. The Christmas Ballet includes two acts filled with an array of ballet, tap and jazz. It might even “snow” in San Francisco at the end, so be sure to look up as the event comes to a close. smuinballet.org LGBTQ Night at The Hard Nut December 15 Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley Cal Performances invites the LGBTQ community with a special offer (Promo code: LGBTQ ) to The Hard Nut featuring a rollicking gender-bending performance by the Mark Morris Dance group of Tchaikovsky’s classic Nutcracker. The Hard Nut is a humorous, retro-modern take on the beloved tale with a swirl of dancing snowflakes and a Waltz of the Flowers. The show will run through December 24. (See page 25 for more information.) calperformances.org Windham Hill’s Winter Solstice with Barbara Higbie & Friends December 16 Freight & Salvage, 2020 Addison Street, Berkeley To celebrate the Solstice, artists from the multi-platinum selling Windham Hill series will present a program of original and traditional acoustic music in a joyous holiday concert. The program will feature LGBTQ community favorite Barbara Higbie, Grammy-winning guitarist Will Ackerman, Grammy-nominated composer Alex de Grassi, and talented musicians Todd Boston and Ellen Sanders. thefreight.org San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus’ Home for the Holidays December 24 Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street The 28th Annual Home for the Holidays concert, with performances at 5, 7 and 9 pm, will return to the Castro for a holiday celebration that has become a ritual for many LGBTQ community members and friends. The show will feature classic holiday favorites, along with new works. Over-the-top production numbers are promised with humorous and tender moments, too. The lines to get in will be around the block and every show will likely sell out, so go online and reserve your seats ASAP if you would like to attend! sfgmc.org

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CASTRO STREETCAM

Girls of the Golden West Transports Audiences to California’s Gold Rush Era

presented by

PHOTO: CORY WEAVER/SAN FRANCISCO OPERA

sfbaytimes.com

Hye Jung Lee as Ah Sing and Paul Appleby as Joe Cannon in a scene from John Adams’ “Girls of the Golden West.”

Now at San Francisco Opera is Girls of the Golden West, the newest opera by American composer John Adams.

With a libretto drawn from historical sources by director Peter Sellars, Girls of the Golden West explores the true stories of pioneers on California’s Gold Rush frontier during the 1850s.

2017 marks John Adams’ 70th birthday year and performances of the composer’s works for the concert and opera house stages have been presented around the world. Girls of the Golden West, which Adams began composing in June 2015 and completed this summer, is the culmination of these celebrations.

items of the week A little something for everybody!

Created expressly for San Francisco Opera and initiated by former General Director David Gockley, Girls of the Golden West is a co-commission and co-production with the Dallas Opera and the Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam. The opera is also the latest collaboration between the Company and Adams, which also includes productions of Adams’ Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer and Doctor Atomic.

A California resident, Adams said: “I have a cabin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains not far from where these events in the opera took place. I know the terrain. I have hiked through those valleys and along those hillsides.

This is home to me. Not many composers can hope to be as lucky as I to have this connection to the historical reality.”

Girls of the Golden West transpires in the historic mining camps of Rich Bar and Downieville during California’s transition from territory to American statehood, a period that coincided with the Gold Rush and its unprecedented migration of people from around the world attracted by the prospect of striking it rich in the region’s gold fields.

Sellars’ libretto draws from sources illuminating multiple perspectives of this global event, including the California history classic The Shirley Letters, a collection of 23 letters by Louise Clappe—penned under the name “Dame Shirley”—describing the rugged conditions and clash of cultures in the gold mining camps from 1851 to 1852; the diary of Chilean miner Ramón Gil Navarro; memoirs of fugitive slaves; poems of Chinese immigrants; the Argentine poet Alfonsina Storni; Frederick Douglass’ speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”; gold miner songs; and Mark Twain’s Roughing It.

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Reflecting on the primary sources that comprise the libretto for Girls of the Golden West, Sellars commented: “The true stories of the forty-niners are overwhelming in their heroism, passion and cruelty, telling tales of racial conflicts, colorful and humorous exploits, political strife and struggles to build anew a life and to decide what it would mean to be American.”

he hustle and bustle of the “shopping season” has begun. Take a minute to breathe and be grateful for our amazing community. Nobody is perfect, but we are pretty darn lucky to have each other.

Happy Holidays from all of us at Cliff’s.

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock said: “John and Peter have created an opera that not only explores our history, but is also about us and who we are in the present. We think about people coming from all over the world in pursuit of wealth and glory. Some succeed; many fail. The tension of trying to figure out how to live together is not too far removed from where we find ourselves in 2017 here in San Francisco.”

Girls of the Golden West has just four more performances at the War Memorial Opera House: December 2 @ 7:30 pm, December 5 @ 7:30 pm, December 7 @ 7:30 pm and December 10 @ 2 pm.

As Heard on the Street . . . What do you miss about San Francisco when you are out of town? compiled by Rink

Jennifer Schuster

Don Ho Tse

Kippy Marks

David Herrera

Veronika Fimbres

“Burritos”

“Really good Chinese food and the fog”

“The sense of community”

“The cold weather and the food”

“I miss the ambiance of the Castro, and especially the friendly party crowd at the 440 bar”

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More Tales from Armistead Maupin in New Documentary Out on DVD shook hands with President Richard Nixon.

Film Gary M. Kramer Jennifer M. Kroot’s adulatory documentary The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin is out December 5 on DVD. This adoring film, which coincides with the publication of Maupin’s memoir, Logical Family, offers extended interviews with the San Francisco-based author best known for Tales of the City. His celebrity friends, who include Laura Linney and Olympia Dukakis—who starred in the PBS miniseries of Tales—as well as out actor Ian McKellen, and writers Neil Gaiman and Amy Tan, among others, praise the “quirkiness” and “honesty” of the author’s writing.

Maupin h imself g uides v iewers through the key elements of his early life. The author grew up as part of the Southern aristocracy. He tried— mostly in vain—to please his conservative father. He was a teenage Republican, and even worked at one time for Jesse Helms at a North Carolina TV station. (Ironically, the future Senator would speak out publically against PBS’s airing of Maupin’s Tales of the City, because government funds were used to promote homosexuality, nudity, drugs, and other threats to family values.) Maupin also once

These stories, which include Maupin’s description of losing his virginity at age 25, may be more familiar than untold for anyone who has read interviews with the author over the years, or even glanced at his Wikipedia page. They f low from the author’s mouth with ease, however, and hold viewers in rapt attention. Kroot knows that it is best just to turn the camera on Maupin and let him speak because he is such an engaging raconteur. The filmmaker sometimes includes clips from the Tales of the City’ miniseries, photos from Maupin’s life, and archival clips of San Francisco in the 1970s to break up the talking heads, but these edits neither enhance nor detract from the narrative.

Maupin explains—for anyone who doesn’t know—how he came to write Tales of the City as a serial in the San Francisco Chronicle. Nevertheless, most fans of the books or miniseries will wish they could have read the Tales in the daily paper as it first appeared in print so they could have hung on every word. Maupin describes creating Mary Ann Singleton, Michael “Mouse” Toliver, and the mysterious Anna Madrigal, and the challenges the gay and transgender characters posed to the Chronicle editors and readers. One of the film’s highlights has Maupin reading some of the paper’s letters to the editor responding to his work.

But The Untold Stories of Armistead Maupin is also about how Maupin himself became comfortable in his own skin. He describes his manhood issues growing up. He eventually accepted his sexuality and came out when he moved to San Francisco. He

talks about his relationships with his friends and partners, and eventually meeting his husband, Chris Turner on DaddyHunt. Maupin is candid about his personal life—his previous partner, Terry, was HIV-positive, and Maupin and Chris have an open relationship—but there is not much personal dirt. Maybe some of the ugly stories about Maupin’s father, or a suicide in his family history, count.

Kroot does talk about some of the controversies surrounding Maupin.

He famously “outed” Rock Hudson, after the actor had been hospitalized in France for an AIDS-related illness. Earlier in the film, Maupin recalls fumbling a pass (or two) Hudson made, but that anecdote comes across as slightly unsatisfying as it lacks juicy details. Moreover, Ian McKellen counters the Hudson outing scandal by claiming that Maupin and his then-partner Terry encouraged the British actor to come out publically in 1988.

It app ea r s a s if Kroot never seems to want to be too critical of her subject. She emphasizes that Maupin’s work provides considerable joy to fans. Tales offered readers, and viewers, hope and role models for LG BTQ cha racter s who had not been portrayed as normal

people or in a very positive light in popular culture. That is worth celebrating. When Maupin explains that his goal was to “put his life i n t he c on text of the rest of the world,” where gay and s t r a i g ht c a n co-exist, it is poignant and affecting.

While the film br ief ly ment ioned M aup in’s other novels, Maybe the Moon, a nd T h e N i ght Listener, the focus here is on Tales.

Kroot builds to a dramatic crescendo involving Maupin and the other interviewees reading aloud sec-

tions from Michael Tolliver’s coming out letter in the Chronicle, which doubled as the author’s coming out letter to his family. It is a terrific, emotional, and inspirational letter—one that might even jerk tears, especially when Maupin describes the response it receives from his parents.

The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin showcases the author’s talents as a writer. While it is meant to enchant fans—and it will—the film also serves as a 90-minute advertisement for Logical Family, should anyone want to know what else Maupin has left to tell. © 2017 Gary M. Kramer Gary M. Kramer is the author of “Independent Queer Cinema: Reviews and Interviews,” and the co-editor of “Directory of World Cinema: Argentina.” Follow him on Twitter @ garymkramer

Recent appearances have found Armistead Maupin signing books and entertaining audiences from locations in the Castro to London, Paris and beyond. His new memoir, Logical Family, is now available. armisteadmaupin.com

Inspiration from Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde We found ourselves in the company of a multi-denominational crowd of several hundred similarly stricken people. Some were openly weeping, others like me were shaking our heads, trying our hardest to figure out how to stay open-hearted and politically clear-headed in what promised to become an incredibly difficult time.

Words Michele Karlsberg Michele Karlsberg: For this issue of the San Francisco Bay Times, I present a guest article written by award-winning Minneapolisbased novelist Judith Katz.

On the night of November 9, 2016, I went with my partner Paula to a prayer vigil at Shir Tikvah synagogue in Minneapolis. I’m not much of a prayer vigil gal, I went mostly to be with Paula and because it seemed like the right thing to do.

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Religious leaders from left-leaning religious institutions sat in a circle in the center of the standing room only crowd. Each offered some form of consolation—prayer, song, poetry.

To be honest, I was skeptical about the whole affair, and cynical, though I was moved by the size of the crowd.

And then, a revelation. A woman minister got up, unfolded a piece of paper and read this short poem by the late Adrienne Rich: My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power reconstitute the world.

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I nudged Paula in the arm. “Of course,” I said. “We’re dykes. We have Adrienne Rich. We totally know how to do this.”

The next day, someone on Facebook posted this quote by Audre Lorde: Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing.

“Of course,” I said to myself. “We absolutely know how to do this! We have Audre Lorde!”

In the days that followed, photos and quotes by literary luminaries and resisters such as Grace Paley, Joan Nestle, and Robin Morgan appeared on Facebook. Queer and feminist theatre makers and visual artists posted messages of opposition to what we knew would be our coming status quo. We were urged by journalists like Masha Gessen not to normalize the behavior of the man who became our president.

W h e n Wo m e n’s M a rches were orga n i zed i n cit ies around the countr y the day after the Predator in Chief was inaugurated, I remembered holding hands with hundreds of other women a nd c i rcling the Pentagon at the Women’s Pentagon Action following Ronald Reagan’s election. I am heartened by the excellent examples of resistance set by the folks in the Black Lives Matter and Occupy movements, and by the young people who blocked highways in protest and by the legal aid folks who posted themselves at airports around the country to help incoming immigrants in the face of the Big Mouth in Chief’s cruel, unusual, and illegal travel bans.

The fact of the matter is, dykes of my generation have been through some-

thing very close to this before. Lorde, Rich and ot her ar t ists/act iv ists helped then, and they’re helping us now. We resist by paying attention. We act. We refuse with all of our hearts to shut up.

Judith Katz is the author of two published novels, “The Escape Artist,” and Running Fiercely Toward a High Thin Sound.”

S h e h a s r e c e i ve d B u sh F o u n d a t i o n , McKnight Foun dation, and National Endowment fellowships for fiction. She is an academic advisor at the University of Minnesota.

Michele Karlsberg Marketing and Management specializes in publicity for the LGBT community. This year, Karlsberg celebrates twenty-nine years of successful book campaigns.

Acute Knee Pain

Take Me Home with You!

knee pain that brought tears to my eyes. I knew I did something. Next, I made a dumb mistake. I let my desire to box override my common sense.

I proceeded with my workout. Even though I was careful, as I caught my partner’s left hook, I felt my knee “go” again.

Easy Fitness Cinder Ernst In the last few columns we’ve looked at muscle pain that comes from working out and “pop up pain” that comes and goes easily. Today you’ll discover a few good ideas to have in case you hurt yourself with an acute injury.

I’m going to focus on knee pain as it’s quite common and I’m really good at helping with knees. Most of the techniques work for any acute injury.

According to The Cleveland Clinic, acute pain comes on suddenly and is caused by something specific. It is sharp in quality and usually doesn’t last longer than six months. Acute knee pain is often caused by a sports injury, a trip or misstep, or some other accident.

My right knee has taken a beating through the years. Most recently, I was simply bending down to get my boxing gloves out of my bag when I heard a “sound” and felt a sharp

Here’s what I should have done: RICE. This memorable acronym stands for Rest Ice Compression Elevation. Rest is first on the list. Stop what you are doing and rest. Injuries can teach you to be a good partner to your body. Pause, take a breath, quiet your mind and listen to your body.

You may have to take a break from certain activities for a period of time.

Active rest is a concept where you stay active, but rest the injured body part.

Active rest for me after that boxing injury was to ride a stationary bike and not box for a while. I also did some upper body weight lifting. For some of us who love our sports, rest feels like punishment. Active rest can take the edge off. Active rest also promotes healing by increasing overall well-being, physically and mentally.

The next step in RICE is ice. Icing an acute injury can slow down inflammation and swelling. Ice can also soothe the pain itself by numbing the area. With knee pain, I ice at the drop of a hat. I keep a bag of frozen peas in a Ziploc bag as my go-to ice pack. I also keep an old ACE bandage handy to make icing easier and more convenient. I use the ACE bandage to keep the ice pack in place on my knee; in

Juju

this way, I can move around and still take care of myself.

The recommendation is to keep the ice on the affected area for 15 or 20 minutes at a time. If you are off your feet, then icing every hour is good. If you are up and around, then icing a few times a day is good. For a hand or foot injury, sometimes soaking in ice cold water is more effective than an ice pack. Make friends with your ice pack.

Compression is the C in RICE. Compression is tricky, because you use it to slow swelling, yet you don’t want to cut off circulation. I don’t recommend that you use compression without receiving help from your doctor or health professional. If you are going to use compression, start with a loose wrapping and keep an eye on the area.

Elevation is the last step in RICE. The purpose of elevating is to slow or reduce swelling. The injured part ideally needs to be above your heart.

With a knee injury, you want to elevate, so that your foot stays even or

“My name is Juju! I’m just a big, sweet jellybean. I love spending afternoons at the dog park, meeting new friends and playing with tennis balls. Now that the holidays are here, my dream is to spend the season in my forever home—maybe yours!?”

Juju is presented to San Francisco Bay Times readers by Dr. Jennifer Scarlett, the SF SPCA’s Co-President. Our thanks also go to Krista Maloney for helping to get the word out about lovable pets like Juju.

To see Juju and other pets seeking their forever homes, please visit: San Francisco SPCA Mission Campus 250 Florida Street San Francisco, CA 94103 415-522-3500 Dr. Jennifer Scarlett and Pup Aside from major holidays, the adoption center is open Mon–Fri: 1–6 pm and Sat– Sun: 10 am–5 pm. Free parking is available for those wishing to adopt! For more info, please visit sfspca.org/adopt

above your knee. Another way of saying this is not to let your foot hang down.

Pile lots of pillows under your knee, lower leg and foot. You can do the same with an injured ankle.

In conclusion: the quicker you rest and ice, the better.

Cinder Ernst, Medical Exercise Specialist and Life Coach Extraordinaire, helps reluctant exercisers get moving with safe, effective and fun programs.

Find out more at http://cinderernst.com

Randy Coleman hails from New York, but has lived in San Francisco since 1975. Coleman shares that before moving to the Bay Area, he studied Art History and Architecture at Boston University while working as a resident artist for architectural rendering at a Massachusetts historical society. “All of my life I’ve been an artist,” Coleman says. “To know me is to know that I have a passion for art and architecture. I love this project for the San Francisco Bay Times, and hope that you enjoy my sketches.”

SF Sketch Randy Coleman

© Randy Coleman, 2017 S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

NOVEM BER 30, 2017

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Harvey Milk/George Moscone Memorial Vigil Photos by Rink and Paul Margolis A large crowd from the Castro neighborhood and beyond joined members and volunteers from the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club for the annual Harvey Milk/George Moscone Memorial Vigil on Monday, November 27.

Milk Club co-presidents Kimberly Alvarenga and Carolina Morales led a rally and candle-lighting at Harvey Milk Plaza.

An intergenerational line-up of activists, some of whom worked alongside Harvey Milk during his campaigns, spoke of their memories and their concerns over the current political climate.

PHOTO BY RINK PHOTO BY PAUL MARGOLIS

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PHOTO BY PAUL MARGOLIS

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Following the rally, attendees marched behind the Milk Club banner on Market Street toward the 18th and Castro rainbow crosswalk intersection and on to the site of Harvey Milk’s camera store where the HRC shop is now located.

PHOTO BY RINK

KIT’N KITTY’S

QUEER POP QUIZ

ANSWER (Question on page 20) B) Paris is Burning Paris Is Burning captured New York’s drag scene in the 1980s—and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it. The documentary focused on balls, voguing and the ambitions and dreams of those who gave the era its warmth and vitality.

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Professional Services

LAW OFFICES OF MILES & TORRES Estate Planning 1393 Noe Street, San Francisco, CA 94131 (415) 308-2307 www.milestorreslaw.com

PHOTO BY SANDY MORRIS

N ewPer spec ti ves Center for Counseling

S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY   T IM ES

NOVEM BER 30, 2017

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SEE MORE EVENT LISTINGS IN OUR HOLIDAY ARTS PREVIEW ON PAGES 29-31

COMING UP

Compiled by Blake Dillon

CALENDAR OF UPCOMING EVENTS sfbaytimes.com

30 : Thursday Light in the Grove @ National AIDS Memorial Grove, Nancy Pelosi Drive & Bowling Green Drive, Golden Gate Park. The annual fundraising gala presents a moving candlelight program and walk featuring live entertainment, cocktails & hors d’oeuvres and a buffet dinner. 6:30-9:30pm. aidsmemorial.org HRCSF’s November Happy Hour @ Lookout, 3600 16th Street. All are welcome to socialize with HRC members, community friends and allies. 7-8:30pm. hrc.org/local-issues/community/ san-francisco Finishing Touches Benefit @ GLBT History Museum, 4127 18th Street. A program to support the completion of the Louise Lawrence Transgender Archive, with emcee Dr. Carol Queen; performances by Shawna Virago, Birdie Bob Watt and J.Raoul Brody; and archive highlights with Ms. Bobbie Davis.

7-9pm. lltransarchive.org Gayface (Queer Vibezzzzzz) @ El Rio,3158 Mission @ Cesar Chavez. Happening in the venue’s Front Room with tunes by a local DJ, the event is a queer gathering held every Thursday. 9pm-2am. elriosf.com Sing Along Beauty and the Beast @ The Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street. Disney’s popular classic presented for sing-along.

7pm and repeating on December 3 at 7pm. castrotheatre.com Gordan Parks: Legacy @ Jenkins Johnson Gallery, 464 Sutter Street. A multi-media exhibition exploring the relationship between the works of Gordon Parks and those of artists he inspired, collaborated with and drew inspiration from. 10am-6pm, Tuesday-Saturdays through Dec 9. jenkinsjohnsongallery.com The Seen: What You Would Have Seen on Haight Street in 1967 @ SF Public Library Park Branch, 1833 Page Street. An exhibit of then and now photos providing a walk down memory lane of the Haight-Ashbury scene from 1967.

Through December 7. sfpl.org

1 : Friday World AIDS Day Inscribe in the Castro @ Castro Street between Market and 19th Streets. Harvey Milk Civil 36

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Rights Academy students and others will create colorful chalk images on the sidwalks to celebrate life and remember and honor those whose lives have been affected by AIDS. 10am. harveymilk.com World AIDS Day National Observance @ National AIDS Memorial Grove, Nancy Pelosi Drive & Bowling Green Drive, Golden Gate Park. President Bill Clinton will give the keynote address at this year’s event. 11:30am3pm. aidsmemorial.org World AIDS Day & Evening Activities @ Grace Cathedral, 1100 California Street. The Day’s plans include the AIDS Interfaith Memorial Chapel Morning Prayer, 9am, and Reading of Names, 10am12pm; Candlelight Labyrinth Walk, 5-6:30pm; and the Stories and Song program, 7:30pm. gracecathedral.org World AIDS Day Mask Exhibit @ Terra Gallery, 511 Harrison Street. An intimate ceremony and a live performance along with the annual masks exhibit, sponsored by Terra Gallery with Mission Neighborhood Health Center’s HIV clinic. Clinica Esperanza, will present hand-crafted masks by clients, staff, local artists and community members. 6-9pm. terrasf.com Covered California Info Session @ Strut, 3rd Floor, 470 Castro Street. Information is available during the Open Enrollment period for those who need health insurance to pay for meds and medical needs. 1-3pm and on December 7, 4:30-6pm. strutsf.org The Evolution of AIDS Activism Exhibit Opening @ GLBT History Museum, 4127 18th Street. In honor of World AIDS Day, the Museum will unveil a new exhibit, curated by activist Mike Shriver, including historic photos, stickers, t-shirts and more reflecting nonviolent direct action in response to AIDS in San Francisco.

7-9pm. glbthistory.org Annual Holiday Tree Lighting @ Jack London Square, Oakland. This annual family friendly event, a fundraiser for several nonprofit groups, celebrates the start of the holiday season at the waterfront with the lighting of a spectacular 55-foot Mount Shasta Fir Tree adorned wth 5,000 sparkling white lights. Tasty drinks and holiday treats available for purchase.

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5pm–7pm. jacklondonsquare.com/ events/special-events Book Event with Bonnie J Morris @ Laurel Bookstore, 1423 Broadway, Oakland Historian and women’s studies professor Bonnie J Morris will discuss her latest book of fiction Sappho’s Bar and Grill. 7-9pm. laurelbookstore.com Tenderloin Tessie Christmas Cabaret spectacular @ St Aidan’s Episcopal Church, 101 Gold Mine Drive. Host Vanessa Bousay and a troupe of entertainers will bring a kid-friendly holiday show benefitting the holiday dinners program of Tenderloin Tessie serving thousands on Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

7-8:45pm. tenderlointessie.com Sink @ The Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama Street. The dance company Circo Zero, founded by Keith Hennessy, brings an interdisciplinary and experimental work using rants, dance and ritual to address current politics. 8pm. Also on December 2, 8 & 9. joegoode.org Lillian Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine @ Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addition Street, Berkeley. Written in 1941, the play is a timely examination of moral obligation, sacrifice and what it means to be American.

8pm. Through Dec 31. berkeleyrep.org

2 : Saturday Hometown Holidays Community Celebration @ Downtown Redwood City. An all-day family friendly event, the celebration includes a parade, live entertainment including big band holiday tunes, carnival and train rides, snow, Santa Claus and more plus an evening tree lighting. 10am-8pm. hometownholidays.org Hey Girl Hey - Puerto Rico Fundraiser @ ERA Art Bar & Lounge, 19 Grand Avenue Oakland. Meet, mingle, and dance, with special guest DJ Rockaway. Support those in need. 5-9pm. heygirlheyproductions.com Macy’s 31st Holiday Windows & Pet Adoptions @ Union Square, 170 O’Farrell Street. SFSPCA’s pop-up adoption center inside Macy’s Holiday Windows. Daily 11am-1pm, 5-7pm through January 1. sfspca.org Hands On History: Girls (and Some Guys) of the

Golden West @ San Francisco History Center, Main Library, 100 Larkin Street. A close-up showand-tell using 19th century books, manuscripts, broadsides, newspapers, letter sheets and photography to explore the background for Girls of the Golden West, a new opera premiering at San Francisco Opera on selected dates through December 10. sfpl.org and sfopera.com Country Nights Women’s Partner Dancing @ Lake Merritt Dance Center, 1st Floor Lounge, 200 Grand Avenue, Oakland. First Saturdays Women’s partner dancing and lessons. 7pm Lesson; 8pm Dancing. countrynightsdance.com

3 : Sunday We’re All Queens! A Drag Queen Story Hour Kids’ Drag Ball @ Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa. RADAR Productions brings the first every drag ball for kids, hosted by Honey Mahogany of RuPaul’s Drag Race, designed for the entire family to play, imagine and dress-up. 10:30am-2pm. radarproductions.org Picture Perfect @ Women’s Building, 3543 18th Street #8. Picture Perfect is a series of events of which the main focus is to spark meaningful conversations and enlighten creative women around key topics surrounding the digital space, entrepreneurship, and selffulfillment. 11am-2pm.

Unleash! Dance Party @ Ivy Room, 860 San Pablo Avenue, Albany. DJ Page Hodel and JD Mysdefy presented by Alex U. Inn and the Ivy Room. 4pm. ivyroom.com Zoolights at Oakland Zoo! @ Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Road, Oakland. Enjoy the Bay Area view from festively-lit gondolas, with a music-themed light show, express train and more. 5:30pm and additional dates through January 1. oaklandzoo.org Jacqui Naylor Quartet @ SF Jazz Center, 201 Franklin Street.

Singer/songwriter Jacqui Naylor returns to SF Jazz as part of her tour introducing her new album entitled Q&A. 6 and 7:30pm shows. jacquinaylor.com

4 : Monday A Conversation About Free Speech on Campus

with Janet Napolitano and Erwin Chemerinsky @ The Commonwealth Club, 110 The Embarcadero. The University of California’s president will discuss with the author his new book, Free Speech on Campus. 5:30pm. commonwealthclub.org World Tree of Hope Tree Lighting Party at San Francisco City Hall @ Doctor Carlton B. Goodlett Place. Rainbow World Fund presents the annual World Tree of Hope, decorated with thousands of white origami cranes, with emcees Cheryl Jennings and Donna Sachet, a program of live performances, dignitaries and a blessing by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence followed by refreshments. 6-8pm. worldtreeofhope.org Wednesdays at Feinstein’s @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko, 222 Mason. A rotating series of events presented each month on Wednesdays, including Broadway Bingo at the Nikko with host Katya Smirnoff-Skyy and musical director Joe Wicht. 7pm. feinsteinsatthenikko.com

5 : Tuesday Phenomenal Woman Conversation & Benefit Reception @ Futures Without Violence, 100 Montgomery Street in the Presidio. A host of non-profit organizations and agencies will present an evening of cocktails and light dinner with a discussion featuring former Attorney General Eric Holder, Recode’s Kara Swisher and more luminaries in an event to support Futures Without Violence & Essie Justice Group. 5:309:30pm. ladiesgetpaid.com Grab ‘Em By The Songs @ This monthly first Tuesday event features women songwriters from the Bay Area preforming songs in the round. It has been postponed for December, and will return on January 2 with host Kim Lembo and guests Maya Dorn and Emily Yates. 7pm. uptownnightclub.com Durst Case Scenario @ The Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia Street. Will Durst’s new solo show extends its run of production presenting political humor for folks who don’t like politics. Extended through December 19. themarsh.org Queer Youth Meal Night @ San Francisco LGBT Center, 1800 Market Street. Dinner is served

every Tuesday evening for LGBTQ youth ages 18-24 with drop-in mental health and HIV Testing services available and opportunities to connect with community service providers from LYRIC, Larkin Street, HRTC and Street Soccer USA. 5-7pm. sfcenter.org

6 : Wednesday Michael Krasny in Marin: Oy, Does He Have Jokes for You @ Ourdoor Art Club, One West Blithedale, Mill Valley. Marin Commonwealth Club presents Michael Krasny, host of KQED’s “Forum” and author of Let There Be Laughter: A Treasury of Great Jewish Humor and What It Means, in a rocking conversation with light hors d’oeuvres.

7:45-9pm. commonwealthclub.org Home for the Holidays at Carolwood @ Walt Disney Family Museum, 104 Montgomery Street in the Presidio. The annual seasonal exhibit celebrate’s Walt Disney’s love of trains. 10am-6pm Daily except Tuesdays. waltdisney.org ’Tis the Season for Science and Holiday Ice Rink @ California Academy of Sciences @ Golden Gate Park, 55 Music Concourse Drive. The Academy’s annual holiday exhibit celebrates how animals adapt in snowy ecosystems; and the outdoor Holiday Ice Rink has skating sessions available daily. 11am5pm through January 7 (check special schedules for Christmas Day). calacademy.org Question Bridge: Black Males @ Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak Street, Oakland. A selection of videos featuring more than 160 black men from across the U.S., answering each other’s questions on family, love, interracial relationships, community, education and wisdom.

Wednesdays through Sundays through February 25. museumca.org

7 : Thursday 88th Annual Golden Gate Park Tree Lighting & Winter Carnival @ John McLaren Lodge, 501 Stanyan Street. Free activities include carnival rides, cookie factory, arts and crafts for kids, visit from Santa plus live music and entertainment. 6pm. sfrecpark.org Winter Lights in Golden Gate Park @ Conservatory of Flowers Illuminated Artwork SF, 100 John F. Kennedy Drive. A stunning new light art installation, Photosynthesis: Love for All Seasons, will be unveiled at the landmark location. 7pm. sfrecpark.org Author Talk: Finding the Soul of the Sixties @ GLBT History Museum, 4127 18th Street. Journalist Carol Blackman presents her new non-fiction book based on local history during the 1960s, including the story of activist José Sarria and the movement for LGBTQ rights.

7-9pm. glbthistory.org Drag Queens on Ice 2017 @ Union Square Park, Geary and Powell Streets. Colorful drag personalities return to the ice for the 8th year for a night of lip-synching and lipstick that’s sure to have audiences of all ages laughing and dancing.

8-9:30pm. unionsquareicerink.com The Secret Garden @ Gateway Theatre, 215 Jackson Street.

42nd Street Moon’s production of the Emmy Award-winning Broadway musical addressing the themes of love, loss and healing. Selected dates through December 24.

42ndstmoon.org Castro Art Walk @ Castro District Locations. A neighborhood

art walk held monthly on the first Thursday of each month at multiple hosting locations. 6-9pm. Castro Art Walk on Facebook.com

8 : Friday Norm Lewis Wishes You a Swingin’ Christmas @ Feinstein’s at the Nikko, 222 Mason Street. A leading man in numerous Broadway shows, Tony-nominated Norm Lewis made history as the first African American character in Phantom of the Opera. 8pm continuing December 9 & 10. feinsteinsatthenikko.com Game Night @ Oakland LGBTQ Community Center, 3207 Lakeshore Avenue, Oakland. Free night every Friday for older teens and adults in the common ground community room. 7:30-10:30pm. oaklandlgbtqcenter.org Dark + Light Exhibit @ Harvey Milk Center for Photography, 50 Scott Street. An exhibit of Rock & Roll photography

by Jay Blakesberg featuring iconic images of The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, The Rolling Stones and more. Through January 6. harveymilkphotocenter.org

9 : Saturday SantaCon 2017 @ Union Square, 333 Post Street. Bring an unwrapped toy that can be donated to the U.S. Marines Corps Toys for Tots campaign and join the celebration by being one of 8000 dressed in a Santa suit of any kind, plus Elves are always welcome.

12pm. santacon.info/San_Francisco-CA/ Salvation Sisters 2017 @ 18th and Castro Street. Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence will ring bells and raise awareness, funds and eyebrows in support of DrawBridge to help Kids Access Art. 6-8pm. drawbridge.org Sarah Bush Dance Project’s Homeward World Premiere @ Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, 2704 Alcatraz Avenue, Berkeley.

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of her dance company, artistic director Sarah Bush presents choreography about the variety of emotions around the concept “home.”

7:30pm. sarahbushdance.org 13th Annual Happy Homo Holi-Gays Ho-Down @ Lookout, 3500 16th Street. A fundraiser to benefit wildfires victims, featuring a Christmas costume competition and many dancers, prancers and vixens. 9pm-2am. lookoursf.com East Bay Alternative Book & Zine Fest @ Omni Commons, 4799 Shattuck Avenue, Oakland. Featuring more than 70 vendors selling zines, comics, books, art and workshops led by local artists and zinesters, the EBABZ is a non-profit event supporting education about the zine, self-publishing and DIY community of the Bay Area. 11am-5pm. ebabz.org Writers with Drinks! @ The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd Street. Featured writers include Becky Chambers, Alyssa Cole, Danna Staaf, David D. Levine, Dean Rader and Lauren Sanders.

7:30-9:30pm. charlieanders2@gmail.com Klimt & Rodin: An Artistic Encounter @ Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, 100 34th Avenue. The exhibit pairs selections from the Legion of Honor’s Rodin collection with signature pieces by Klimt, many making their first visit to the U.S.

9:30am-5:15pm, Tuesday–Sunday through January 28. legionofhonor.famsf.org

10 : Sunday Santa Skivvies Run 2017 @ Lookout, 288 Noe Street. This annual romp around the Castro is a benefit for the SF AIDS Foundation and all are welcome. 10am-4pm. santaskivviesrun.org Holiday Craft Fair @ Harvey Milk Center for the Arts, 50 Scott Street. Local artists offer handmade holiday gifts for sale and art activities for all ages will be provided. 11am-4pm. hmcaevents@sfgov.org Sunday’s A Drag @ The Starlight Room, Powell Street. Hosted by Donna Sachet, the event features a brunch and a troupe of entertainers. The event is described as “The Greatest Drag Show in San Francisco.” Two shows every Sunday at 11am and 2pm. starlightroomsf.com Santa Rosa Gaydar Event @ Graton Resort & Casino, 288 Golf Course Drive West, Rohnert Park.

Santa Rosa Gaydar and Northbay L Scene present an evening of free bingo with fun prizes, complimentary hors d’oeuvres and more.

1-5pm. santarosagaydar.com Mama’s Annual Christmas Toy Drive @ Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk Street. Collette Legrande-Ashton and Aunt Charlie’s host Mama Reinhardt’s Annual Christmas Toy Drive for Camp Sunburst. 4-7pm. auntcharlieslounge.com

11 : Monday A Dyke, A Pervert and a Transwoman Walk into a Bookstore @ Dog Eared Books Castro, 489 Castro Street. Authors Deb Busman, Jordy Jones and Natasha Dennerstein read from their recent works. 7-8pm. dogearedbooks.com Winter Fairyland Dragshow Fundraiser & Holiday Party @ Lake Merritt Hotel Terrace Room, 1800 Madison Street, Oakland. A fundraiser supporting Oakland’s new LGBTQ Community Center, the evening will include food, spirits, disco dancing and a line-up of drag performers paying tribute to stars of yesteryear led by emcee Cruzin’ Da Loo. 6-10pm. oaklandlgbtqcenter.org

12 : Tuesday GGBA Holiday Make Contact @ Bernstein, 555 California, Suite 4400. The Golden Gate Business Association’s monthly networking mixer will be hosted at the wealth management company Bernstein located on the 44th floor of the Bank of America Building. 6-8pm. ggba.com Sister Circle @ Openhouse, Community Room, 55 Laguna.

All woman-identified community members are welcome to come together and make connections at a luncheon held every 4th Tuesday.

12:00-1:30pm. sylvia@openhouse-sf.org Queer and Trans Open Mic @ Oakland LGBTQ Community Center, 3207 Lakeshore Avenue, Oakland. Presented by Spectrum Queer Media and hosted by Kin Folkz and Blackberri, the event provides a safe space for transformative collective self-care with the LGBTQIA2S and Authentic Ally community. 7pm. oaklandlgbtqcenter.org S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

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Round About - All Over Town Early Holiday Season

Photos by Rink

An array of holiday cards and gift items are displayed in a window at Cliff’s Variety on Castro Street.

It’s beginning to look a lot like the Holiday Season in the Castro and all over town. Our legendary photographer Rink has been out and about documenting our community at many events and locations. We hope you enjoy Rink’s images in this early holiday season issue.

Paul Perretta and Evan Sermeno, on November 24, displayed s'mores holiday cookies at Hot Cookie on Castro Street.

The holiday tree is shining brightly at 18th and Castro Streets.

The Castro Merchants Association’s sign recognizing its holiday program sponsors at the “Hibernia Beach” area at Castro and Market Streets

The holiday window display at Knobs clothing store on Castro Street Window display artist Shaun Freeman with his holiday window at PO Plus on Castro Street

Leandro Gonzalez, Frankie Fernandez, John Weber, Mercedes Munro, Gary Virginia and Saybeline Fernandez at the Imperial Council’s bake sale at the Lookout bar on November 11

Many lights comprise the decorated entrance at Westfield Mall on Market Street.

Members of the Iranian community attended the unveiling of the Rainbow Honor Walk plaque honoring activist Fereydoun Farrokhzad.

Chablis contributed a chocolate cake that he made to be sold at the Imperial Court’s Holigay Bake Sale at the Lookout.

Sister Anni and Emperor Nic Hunter made holiday decorations during the Imperial Court’s Holigay Bake Sale at the Lookout.

Event auctioneers Gary Virginia and Donna Sachet with Susan Fahey of the San Francisco Sheriff’s office at the PRC 30th Anniversary held at the Four Seasons Hotel

Among the new plaques recently unveiled by the Rainbow Honor Walk organization is this one dedicated to NASA astronaut Sally Ride.

Holiday decorations welcome all arriving, departing or just passing by at the Powell Muni/BART Station.

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SA N FRANCISCO BAY T I ME S

Reigning Empress Mercedez Munro (center), holding the blueberry and pineapple pie he baked, is flanked by hosts Cher-A-Little and Khmera Rouge at the Imperial Council's Holigay Bake Sale at the Lookout.

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DJ Lamont and DJ Zach were spinning tunes at the Four Seasons Hotel for the 30th Anniversary Gala of PRC.

Event emcee Ken Jones with Dan Bernal at the 30th Anniversary Gala of PRC at the Four Seasons Hotel

With an understated hoiday theme, the Good Vibrations window on Polk Street suggests gift items.

Holiday snowflakes and rainbow wands are enhancing Orphan Andy’s festive decor for 2017.

Larry Doss stands next to the blow-up Santa decoration outside Terrasol gift shop on Polk Street.

San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band performed holiday music at Harvey Milk Plaza to promote the Dance Along Nutcracker show Nutcrackers of the Caribbean to be held on December 9 and 10 at Yerba Center for the Arts.

Artist Carlo Abruzzese presented his work at the Open Studio held at Developing Environments on November 12.

Holiday trees bring a festive look in the windows at Castro Village Wine Company on Castro Street.

An audience gathered at Strut on November 4 for the art show opening of artist Joe Mazza.

Kevin Steen, executive director of Rainbow Street, a shelter for LGBT refugees. The fundraiser was surrounded by supporters at the organization’s benefit for queer and trans refugees held at the Midnight Sun on November 18

Artist Debra Walker displayed her digitized prints created from original paintings during the Open Studio at the Developing Environments art building on November 12.

Host Juanita MORE! was surrounded by guests attending the benefit for the Women’s Building held at the Cafe lounge on November 18.

A display in a window at Cliff’s Variety on November 2 commemorated the 40th Anniversary of Harvey Milk’s election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

DJ Elaine Denham with host Juanita MORE! at the Cafe on November 18 where a benefit was held for the Women’s Building.

Michael Helquist, author of the recently released biography Marie Equi, gave a presentation at the GLBT History Museum on November 8 about activists of a century ago.

A member of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence collected donations at the benefit for Rainbow Street held at the Midnight Sun on November 18.

Theatre Rhino’s John Fisher thanked the cast for a birthday gift during the opening night reception for Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart held at Gateway Theatre.

Sister Chola, with volunteer greeters Monica Niblett and Clara Hill, at the Midnight Sun, welcomed guests attending the benefit for Rainbow Street held on November 18.

The cast, staff and volunteers of Theatre Rhinoceros at the opening night of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart on November 4 at Gateway Theatre S AN F R ANC IS C O BAY T IM ES

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