RIP, Jose Sarria (The Widow Norton, Empress I of San Francisco)

The Widow Norton (1997)

Jose Sarria, Her Royal Majesty, Empress of San Francisco, Jose I, The Widow Norton, passed away this morning.  Read the BAR's wonderfully detailed obituary here.

And this is how I'll always remember her.

The Producers auf Deutsch

Frühling für Hitler

According to the New York Times, "The Producers" has opened to good reviews in Germany. In fact, it seems to be doing better in Berlin than it did in Vienna (where it closed two months earlier than planned).

There seems to be some unease about some specific references -- at least one review has asked “whether it was really necessary to have so much Nazi paraphernalia onstage.” And it sounds like swastikas have been expunged from the production (see the pretzels in the photo below).

Memorial March video

Moscone/Milk memorial march

Found via Towleroad:

Nice video summary of the event.

Memorial March

(Click photos to enlarge.)

Thanksgiving Day, November 27, was the thirtieth anniversary of the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Traditionally, the Harvey Milk Democratic Club memorializes the event by recreating the candlelight march that took place in the wake of the murders.

They often take some license with the particulars of the event. When the anniversary coincided with the world premiere of the opera, 'Harvey Milk," instead of marching to City Hall, the march ended outside the Orpheum Theater (where the opera was being performed). This year, they reversed the direction of the march, starting at City Hall steps and ending at 575 Castro, the site of Harvey's camera shop.

I think that a combination of two things -- the fact that this is the 30th anniversary (and many believe that all anniversaries in multiples of five are significant milestones that must be marked), and the release of Gus Van Sant's "Milk" -- helped turn this year's memorial into a much larger event than it has been in recent years. The crowd was considerably larger than the last time I went to one of these -- in fact, I'm pretty sure it was considerably larger than the organizers expected. There were more speeches than the last time I attended (Tom Ammiano, Stuart Milk, Willie Brown, George Moscone's son, Carol Ruth Silver, Harry Britt, Holly Near), and the SF Gay Men's Chorus performed several numbers. They also asked the SF Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band to perform a couple of numbers (one to open the memorial, and then at the end as accompaniment for the chorus "If My Friends Could See Me Now"). And they asked the band to lead the march down Market Street (which they don't do very often, either). (By the way, sorry I don't have pictures from City Hall. We were lectured sternly about moving around a lot during the speeches and the chorus numbers, since we were effectively "on stage" the whole time.)

Now, usually I'm pretty jaded about such events. I have a very "if you've seen fifteen of them, you've seen them all" attitiude. And I think that music choices can be very tricky as well -- "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" is way too maudlin for my tastes, but "Tear the Roof Off the Sucker" would be horribly inappropriate as well. In fact, we had been told to bring "All I Wanna Do (Is Have Some Fun)," but mercifully we did not ever play it. And by and large this event was very predictable, very much like all the others. So I would prefer to mention the moments that stood out for me.

* I was personally very pleased to see and hear Harry Britt -- probably the last time I saw him was at one of these very memorials several years ago.

* Tom Ammiano's one joke involved what Harvey would have thought of Sarah Palin: "Hate your politics, love your shoes."

* Holly Near commented on the three television helicopters hovering overhead, saying that they must think we were holding Brad and Angelina's wedding instead of a memorial. No one could have voiced my own internal feelings more accurately at that moment.

* The shouts of "We can't hear you in back" grew tiresome. I believe it was Carol Ruth Silver who finally snapped back, "Thank you for the constructive criticism." For some reason, it made me flash on the Sermon on the Mount scene from "Life of Brian" ("I think he said 'Blessed are the cheese makers'").

* When they were giving the "Thank you" list at the end, when they mentioned the band's name, the surge in the crowd's reaction was more than I would have guessed, and it was very gratifying.

* As we passed Lucky 13, several people came out of the bar to watch, and they applauded as we passed, and I heard of couple of them yell "Thank you."

* As we passed the Lookout (formerly "The Metro"), several people on the patio applauded, and the band and the marchers started chanting "Out of the bars and into the streets." Which is slightly tainting the Milk and Moscone memorial aspect by dragging Prop 8 to the forefront, but nevertheless appropriate under the circumstances and in keeping with Harvey's spirit.

* When we were marching downhill, I turned around to see the march behind us. I was surprised to find that I could not see the end of the march. As far as I could see up Market Street, it was people with candles.

* I think we made some people's night. There was a HU-U-UGE line down Castro Street of people waiting to see "Milk" (as it turns out, the line went around the corner onto 18th and around the corner again onto Hartford, where it disappeared into the dark). To be standing in line outside the Castro Theater waiting to see a movie about Harvey Milk, and having the candlelight march pass you in real life while waiting.... The only place I can think of that I would rather be is right where I was -- in the front of that candlelight march, playing "If My Friends Could See Me Now."

It's always good to end one of these events on an extremely up note.

"Milk" mini-clip

Milk Rally

This is a very small portion of a much longer scene, but not at all inappropriate for the events of this week.

Also notice Cleve Jones (the real one, not Emile Hirsch) standing in the background in the pink triangle T-shirt

Keep your eyes on the MILKtheMovie YouTube channel for more clips like this between now and the release date.

Sorry, no spoilers

I'm not going to talk at length about the film itself because I'd rather wait until other people have a chance to see it without my biases ringing in their ears.

I will give you this quote from an article by Paul VanDeCarr, available on the film's website: "[Rob] Epstein tells me his documentary ["The Times of Harvey Milk"] 'was really about the "public Harvey," and Gus's film is going to show so many more dimensions to the "person Harvey".'"

I'll go along with that.

Let's just say that there are no big surprises. They cannot be faulted on their historical accuracy. All the places are authentic -- not just recreations, but the actual places where most of these events took place. They have taken very few liberties with history (and the few that they have taken are so minor that they are easily forgiven).

There's nothing in the film that you don't expect to be there. It felt like a lot of time passed over the course of the film, but the film itself didn't feel long.

Everyone knows how this film will be received in the Castro -- it's kind of an automatic hit unless it's really, really bad and inaccurate. So I guess my question is how it will be received in places where people don't already know this story, chapter and verse.

We were speaking with a volunteer usher in the lobby who is about my age (we were both in high school in 1978). She said she remembers hearing about the assassinations at the time. But then she said, "I understand that someone else was shot as well?" We said that, yes, the mayor was also killed. She asked, "Were they together as a couple?" We said, oh, no. Before she could ask more, I said, "If you don't already know this story, I'm not going to spoil it for you. The truth is actually stranger than you can imagine. You wouldn't believe me if I told it to you, so just watch the film and be surprised."

Event particulars:

I have no celebrity sightings to report -- only local celebrities that you would expect to see (Mark Leno, Bevan Dufty, Jan Wahl, Hank Plante, Tom Ammiano). We saw Tory Hartmann in the lobby. She does not seem to have aged a day since "The Times of Harvey Milk," and she looked FABulous.

Tickets were not sent out in advance (so that no one could create counterfeit tickets -- the tickets turned out to be huge, about one-third the size of a letter-sized piece of paper), so all tickets had to be picked up at Will Call in the parking lot behind/beside the Castro. A woman was walking up and down the Will Call line asking people if they had tickets they weren't going to use. I didn't have the heart to tell her that if I weren't using one of my tickets, I could have given it to at least five other people at my office alone, not to mention friends who would have leapt at the opportunity.

There was a sizable and vocal "No on 8" protest going on directly across Castro Street from the theater. This struck me largely as preaching to the converted, except perhaps for all the TV cameras that were in front of the theater pointed in their direction. The "red carpet" area was in the street in front of the Castro Theater, so the protest would have been in the background of virtually all TV camera shots.

Tickets turned out to be assigned seating (I didn't even know that the seats were numbered in the Castro). And our seats were right in front of the projection booth in the balcony. But I ain't grumbling about that. First, we got into the freakin' world premiere, so I wasn't gonna be picky about where I sat (something about "gift horses" and their mouths). Second, since there was no one behind us, that meant that when we got cramped in those tiny seats, we could just stand up.

My favorite moment of the evening: On the way out, there were small crowds hoping for Sean Penn sightings. One young woman kept asking, "Was it good? Is it going to win Best Picture?" Then she said, "I was in the parade scene. Did you see me? I was the one in teal."

And, yes, I got my three seconds of screen time during the "No on 6" victory party scene. My trombone appears first, followed shortly by me.

The film's web site has been expanded (that's where the lovely photos above come from), and it's no longer the bare bones "poster and trailer" site that was up last time I checked about a month ago. So you should check that out sometime. There is now a place for people to type in their own stories of people who inspired them.

"Milk" World Premiere Tonight

Gus Van Sant's movie "Milk" starring Sean Penn and Josh Brolin as Harvey Milk and Dan White, respectively, opens in limited release at Thanksgiving. It opens nationally in early December. And its world premiere starts in about two and a half hours at the Castro Theater.

The Castro is decked out with banners, lights and barriers (click on the pictures for a much bigger, more detailed version). There are police barriers on the other side of Castro Street as well. As I was coming home from work, there was a large crowd of people lining the street across from the theater holding "No on 8" signs and handing out flyers.

Even though the premiere is sold out, I'm assuming there will be a long line to get in. So I'm going down shortly after five in hopes of getting a half-way decent seat.

Tonight's event is sponsored by Levi's in support of Hetrick-Martin Institute, Larkin Street Youth Services, Point Foundation and the SF LGBT Community Center

For further reading, I have been sent this article speculating about why "Milk" is not being widely publicized as yet. [UPDATE: Read also Focus Features CEO James Schamus's refutation.]

[UPDATE: My thoughts on tonight's event can be found here.]

Home Movie Day, October 18th

Via Boing Boing

Home Movie Day is October 18th.

Submit your 8mm, Super 8 and 16mm home movies before October 3 for inclusion in this worldwide home movie festival.

Local venues include the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley and the San Francisco Media Archive on Capp Street.

On the Home Movie Day website, John Waters is quoted as saying, "There's no such thing as a bad home movie. These mini-underground opuses are revealing, scary, joyous, always flawed, filled with accidental art and shout out from attics and closets all over the world to be seen again. Home Movie Day is an orgy of self-discovery, a chance for family memories to suddenly become show business. If you've got one, whip it out and show it now."

Sponsored by The Center for Home Movies, a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization.

1953 Exhibition

Rome Police Hold Anniversary

It's like a marching band half-time show with motorcycles.

And with groovy music, to boot.

The Wodehouse Problem

P.G. Wodehouse led a largely quiet and uneventful life. Biographers are often at a loss for really interesting, meaty stories to recount about Wodehouse other than the two most famous events in his private life.

First, he spent a large amount of time fighting tax authorities. As a British citizen living and working in America, he was being double-dipped by both taxing authorities (this was before international tax laws took into account the fact that people sometimes had to file returns in two countries).

Second, he was widely believed to have committed treason during the second World War.

He and his wife were living in France when the Nazis invaded. Wodehouse and his wife were captured and interned. Wodehouse turned 60 while being interned, and, according to their own rules of internment, the Nazis freed him.

In fact, they released him slightly before his 60th birthday, possibly because they had some plans for him.

Immediately upon his release, Wodehouse was approached by a German offering to allow him to speak on the radio about his experiences in the internment camps. Wodehouse agreed immediately, thinking this was a wonderful way to let his fans know that he was okay. He gave five radio broadcasts. The full texts of those broadcasts can be found here:

Broadcast 1

Broadcast 2

Broadcast 3

Broadcast 4

Broadcast 5

The content is innocent enough. If anything, his portrait of his captors is not exactly flattering.

But what never occurred to Wodehouse was that cooperating with the enemy in any fashion could easily be mistaken for treason. Just speaking on the radio without being coerced, any amiable interaction with the enemy looks bad and, therefore, probably is bad. The Germans certainly were aware that Wodehouse's speaking on German radio would be construed as his giving support to the Germans -- otherwise, they would not have asked him to do it.

These broadcasts went out in the wee small hours of the morning. Virtually no one in England actually heard them. The news stories that circulated said that Wodehouse had conducted broadcasts for the Germans, but they failed to mention anything about the content of those broadcasts.

Wodehouse was widely regarded as a traitor. He had his defenders, including George Orwell, but his detractors, including A.A. Milne, were far more vocal. Wodehouse never returned to England again during his lifetime.

It is generally believed that his knighthood in the mid-1970s was intended to be the government's way of telling Wodehouse, "We believe you did nothing wrong." Wodehouse was informed of the knighthood, but he passed away before the official paperwork arrived at his home.

More detailed versions of this story can be found here and here.

A recent article about Orwell, including his defense of Wodehouse, can be seen here.

And here is a recording of Wodehouse reading one of the broadcasts.