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.

San Francisco Pride Parade 2013

SFLGFBand: SF Pride Parade 2013

Video of the band in the parade.  Virtually no one else.  Very band-centric video.  Because no one else in the parade matters, right?

Pink Saturday 2013

SFLGFBand: Pink Saturday 2013

Here's the band playing in the middle of Castro Street at Pink Saturday last weekend. 

Yes, I know there a continuity thing with Mike's sunglasses and baton.  I don't care.

DOMA/Prop 8 Celebration in the Castro - SF Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band

SFLGFBand: DOMA/Prop 8 Celebration

Here's my montage from Wednesday night in the Castro.  Yes, it's a bit Band-centric.  So sue me.

Dance-Along Nutcracker 2012

DAN 2012 - Overture Miniature

It's that time of year again...

Dance-Along Nutcracker 2011: Promo #1

 
Dance-Along Nutcracker 2011 Promo: Russian Dance

I just posted the first promotional video for this year's Dance-Along Nutcracker.  More to follow.

Gay Prom

Tonight was the Gay Prom in Hayward.

Every June, the Lambda Youth Project and Project Eden host a prom for LGBTQ youth and straight allies.

And every year, some fundamentalists come to wave signs and scream at the kids that they'll die before they turn forty, that they're evil and that their going to the prom is making the baby Jesus cry.

So every year, Project Eden asks the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band to come stand outside the prom and play music to drown out the fundamentalists.

In the last couple of years, these fundamentalists have gotten bolder and uglier and nastier. This year, there were two men with megaphones. One wore a jacket with "Fear God" and many other Westboro-worthy things printed on it (followed by a woman in a similar jacket carrying a video camera and recording the crowd). The other man wore a shirt that on the front had the word "Homo" with a slash through it, and on the back read "Got AIDS Yet?" (photo below). Both were repeatedly yelling into their megaphones that the people trying to block their megaphones were hate-filled hypocrites.

Can you imagine? You're holding a prom, and some innocent man just happens to walk by and just happens to yell through a megaphone that everyone going into the prom is evil and going to hell. If people ask him to stop, it can only be from hatred, not from self-defense or anything like that. And if they physically try to stop him from delivering his love-filled message of hellfire, damnation, disease and early death (caringly and tenderly through a megaphone), it can only be because they hate both Jesus and free speech. And the people waving signs that say " 'Gay' = Pervert" or "Homo Sex is a threat to national security" or "You were NOT born gay!" cannot possibly be the hateful people in this scenario.

Part of me says, "Go ahead. Let them speak as freely as they want. The kids need to get used to hearing this and seeing their neighbors display their true colors." But part of me says that this could still be too much too soon for some of these kids.

The most telling thing of all to me is the fact that the organizers ask that no one videotape or photograph the kids going into the prom. The kids have no way of knowing who is behind the camera. For all they know, you might be taking their picture in order to put it on the Internet in order to say, "Here's a gay person. If you see him/her, injure or kill him/her." Which, given the fates of several LGBT youths (Californians Gwen Araujo and Lawrence King come immediately to mind), is not an entirely unreasonable fear. In past years, some kids have freaked out at the sight of cameras and turned away from entering the prom.

This year, I was tempted to walk up to one of the guys with the megaphones and say, "Dude, don't you think you're overcompensating just a little? I mean, I can totally understand why you would have some self-esteem issues, but you're not completely unattractive. I'm sure that there is some man out there who would be willing to go out with you, especially if you took a little more care with your hair or your clothes. Maybe you just haven't met the right man yet. Hell, if it will shut you up, I will personally take you over behind those bushes right now."

But I know better than to think seriously that this would accomplish anything.

California Academy of Sciences

We went to the California Academy of Sciences this afternoon for the first time since they reopened in September.

I forgot that this was Martin Luther King Day weekend. Apparently, that means a lot to parents with kids who have a three-day weekend. People literally came from all over the state to go here this weekend. The man in line in front of us was from Irvine, and the woman behind us drove from Sacramento.

The practical upshot is that we waited in line for forty-five minutes before we got into the building.

Another thing I learned. When the AoS website stops selling tickets, it does NOT mean that they are sold out. People were walking up to ticket vending machines and buying tickets and getting in line. So showing up without tickets in hand does not stop one from getting in the door.

The other upshot of the holiday weekend is that two of the biggest attractions at the AoS (the Planetarium and the Rainforest exhibit), the two that require separate tickets, were both sold out. For clarity -- they don't charge separate admission, but because seating is limited, they have to issue tickets to stop people from fighting over who gets in to see them.

The Steinhart Aquarium, on the other hand, was open and available. Very busy, but acheivable.

Would I recommend that people go to the AoS? Yes. Would I recommend that they go on a holiday weekend? Hell, no. Would I recommend that they go on a weekend at all? Probably not.

As always, click on photos to enlarge.

Marriage protest rally

We're just back from the protest at City Hall. It was a balmy morning -- mid to high 70's (it's 76 in our back yard right now), with nothing to be seen in the sky except a couple of news helicopters.

The band (the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band) gathered to play music before the rally ("California Here I Come," "San Francisco," "Wedding March/Chapel Of Love" medley, that kind of stuff). For some reason, they escorted the band into the secured area, just outside of the area reserved for media, seniors and disabled.

So for about the first hour, I had a prime spot for taking pictures of the people speaking, (up to the point where Mark Leno started speaking). We had to shift around so they could enlarge the area for seniors and disabled, so I couldn't see anymore after that. Then they turned the speaker away from the steps so the sound would carry farther down Polk Street.

That was just that little bit too much. I mean, the sound system was loud enough as it was, but having it pointed directly at us was just deafening and intolerable. And just as they turned the speaker, the sprinklers came on and started drenching everyone's feet (and my trombone, and my jacket, and Phil's trombone, and the bass drum....). So we pushed through the crowd back down the sidewalk to the corner of Polk and Grove, where we played music for another fifteen minutes or so and then came home.

I think Penny Nixon might have been one of the better speakers that I heard. If you don't know of Penny Nixon, she used to be the pastor of the MCC in the Castro until it closed a few years ago. She and her partner have a daughter that she spoke of a great deal, describing how she took her daughter with her to vote, and how she hasn't yet found the right way to explain to the six-year-old what Prop 8 is or why it passed. But her strongest point was her affirmation that she's staying in the church to prove that being gay and being religious don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Not that any form of organized religion is anything that I would choose for myself, but I applaud her for standing firmly for what she believes in and for her hope and optimism.

As always, Tom Ammiano was both funny and rousing, in turn.

I have to say that the day was surprisingly similar to the filming of the post-parade rally for "Milk." The rally was in the same spot (though there was no stage this time), the crowd seemed of a similar size, though today's crowd was probably larger today -- they stretched about as far from the left of the stage to the right of the stage, but the crowd today could stretch farther back. The band was standing (and I was standing) in almost exactly the same spot. It really was quite a deja vu moment -- the only thing missing was Sean Penn.

So, anyway, I had to get up early to make it in time. I've been sick for the last week and a half, and I'm still getting over it. I'm tired, but I can't go back to bed because I've got to go to work now. At least one of the news helicopters made a couple of passes over the Castro, just to check that no one's rioting, I suppose.

I tell you, I really don't want choppers over Castro to become the rule and not the exception. They've been here (1) Halloween, (2) election night, (3) the night of the march into Dolores Park, and (4) today. So that makes four times in two weeks. As I said before, if I wanted to listen to helicopters all the time, I'd move to Los Angeles.

(Note: All photos are 936X1248. Click to enlarge.)

Apologies

You might have noticed that I haven't said "boo" about Wednesday's candlelight vigil at City Hall or last night's march from Civic Center to Dolores Park.

Unfortunately, I've got some exceedingly severe work deadlines next week -- more than usual -- plus I've had a sinus infection and cough all week.

And those two things just exacerbate each other -- I can't afford to take time off work to self-medicate and get over this faster, and working while being sick just generally seems to take longer than usual. It has only been in the last couple of nights that I have actually slept all the way through the night without waking up every two hours from coughing.

We went out onto Castro Street for about an hour Tuesday night, and that turned out to be too long, and I was fairly miserable at work the next day because of it. So I skipped the other two events in hopes of not extending this illness any longer than I need to.

I left work at 6:30 last night, so as I was walking up 18th Street, I was passing crowds of people leaving Dolores Park. In our apartment, I could hear crowd noises coming from the park, and I could hear them much better when I opened a window.

At this point, I have to say that I want to see some clear, centralized organization, though. I have been completely swamped with groups and causes on Facebook -- "1,000,000 Million Strong Against Newly Passed Prop 8," "Proud American, Disappointed Californian," "Californians Ready to Repeal Prop. 8," "Make Pride a Protest March Again," "Restore Equality to California in 2010" and on and on and on and on and on. So I hope that a clear and organized response starts to emerge soon.

I am aware that three lawsuits have been filed to stop the enactment of Prop 8. I hope that they work. But those things happen out of sight, and people want to see something right this minute that says they shouldn't lose hope. So would someone please, please, please come up with something more unified than the scattershot responses I've seen so far?

On the plus side, I'm very proud that there has been no rioting or destruction of property in response to Prop 8. Not that I'm against such things on principle. Rather, I feel that since the overwhelming majority of San Francisco and the Bay Area voted "No" on 8, to get destructive here would be reaching out to hurt our friends and would achieve nothing constructive.

Half mast

The flag is wrapped around the pole and, therefore, not waving in the breeze. But the giant Pride flag at Castro and Market is flying at half mast this morning.

"No on 8" sent out this message this morning:

"Roughly 400,000 votes separate yes from no on Prop 8 – out of 10 million votes tallied.

"Based on turnout estimates reported yesterday, we expect that there are more than 3 million and possibly as many as 4 million absentee and provisional ballots yet to be counted.

"Given that fundamental rights are at stake, we must wait to hear from the Secretary of State tomorrow how many votes are yet to be counted as well as where they are from.

"It is clearly a very close election and we monitored the results all evening and this morning.

"As of this point, the election is too close to call.

"Because Prop 8 involves the sensitive matter of individual rights, we believe it is important to wait until we receive further information about the outcome.".

Prop 8 on the Daily Show

I kind of wish some of these things had been said on national TV before now.

But at least they got said before election day.

Election Day

Not to brag, but it only took me about 10 minutes to vote. But only because I lucked out.

First, I have a sinus infection that descended on me fairly quickly yesterday. (That's not the lucky part.) As a result, I slept fitfully, waking up every two hours like clockwork (unable to breathe and coughing -- that's not the luck part, either). So when I woke up at 6:00, I just stayed up. (That's the lucky part -- accidentally waking up early.)

Second, I had a doctor's appointment this morning at 10:00 -- a five-minute visit with my podiatrist to confirm that the orthotics I got a month ago were free from defects.

So, between being up earlier than usual and not having to be anywhere until later than usual, I thought this might be my opportunity to go vote early.

Unfortunately, being sick(ish), it took me longer to get ready than usual, so it wasn't until nearly 8:30 that I was ready to go. I walked the one block to our polling place, and the line coming out of the door went for about a quarter of a block. Figuring that I had about 45 minutes at most before I had to leave for the doctor's office, I decided I should wait until later.

After I got out of the doctor's office, I went back home and checked the polling place again -- virtually no line now. I walked in the door at 10:35, and I walked out again at 10:42.

For those of you not in the Bay Area, let me describe the process, just as background for what I want to say later:

At our polling place, you are greeted by three people. One finds your name on their first list and has you sign your name. The second confirms your address with their second list and then writes down the hour during which you showed up. The third hands you your ballots (there is only one electronic voting booth at our polling site, as opposed to about ten booths for manually marking paper ballots) and a "Privacy Sleeve" to hold your completed ballots in until you feed the ballot box. Specifically, the polling place for our neighborhood is in the lobby of an old folks' home, so it's not unusual while waiting to vote for you to see caregivers helping little old ladies adjust their underwear (yes, I saw that once today).

Also, there are two kinds of propositions on our ballots. State propositions are numbered, whereas City propositions are assigned letters. So Prop 8 is a State of California proposition, while Prop H is a City of San Francisco proposition. Today, we have Props 1 through 12 plus A through V (the closest I've ever seen the city come to running out of alphabet). We have a total of 34 propositions, plus School Board, Community College Board, State Assembly and several other local elected officials. So we have three very long ballots (one for people, one for numbered props and one for lettered props) printed on both front and back.

The volunteers at the polling place were extra-vigilant today. The woman in line in front of me had brought the Bay Guardian's endorsement mailer with her, and a volunteer told her to put it out of sight. She looked shocked and said, "Are you telling me that I can't have this with me?" He said, "You can have that with you. You just can't carry it out in the open. Hide it."

Behind me in line was a rather scraggly looking man. While Volunteer #2 was checking my address, Volunteer #1 asked him his name. I won't actually swear that he scratched his crotch as he answered, but what he said was "Uh, yeah. I wanna vote for Barack Obama. Whadda I gotta do?"

Entertaining on the one hand, but encouraging from another point of view: This must have been his first time voting, either the first time in a very long time or the first time ever in his life.

Then, more evidence of first-time voting. As I was marking my ballots, it became obvious that the two young men (early to mid-20s) were friends who had come to vote together. What made it obvious was the way in which they started discussing the ballots and the propositions.

"Prop 8 is the gay marriage one, right?"

"Yeah."

"We're supposed to vote 'No' on that one, right?"

"Yeah."

The volunteer (the same one who made the woman put away the Bay Guardian mailer) came over to them.

"Guys. You can't talk out loud about anything being voted on."

"Oh. Sorry."

Again, it has its own entertainment value, but it also seems to indicate voters who don't have a lot of experience in the polling place.

As I was feeding my ballots into the electronic ballot box (kind of like feeding a really big dollar bill into a change machine), a little old man came shuffling into the lobby and shouted, "Everybody needs to vote the same way as I did. I'm not telling you how to vote, and I'm telling you how I voted, but I'm telling you that everybody has to vote the same way as me." Then he chuckled to himself and shuffled out onto the sidewalk for a cigarette.

"Yes on 8" parody

YouTube

Courtesy of World O' Jeff.

I try not to dip into politics too often here simply because political discourse often would violate my "Nothing Serious" policy.

But this parody of the "Yes on Prop 8" propaganda commercial hits the target pretty squarely while still allowing me to maintain the "Nothing Serious" promise.

But, seriously, this video needs as much exposure as it can get. Spread it far and wide.

Two down, one to go

California votes three times this year.

Presidential primary in February (plus a lot of lettered and numbered propositions).

General election in November.

And today, the primary for state senator and state assembly (plus a lot of lettered and numbered propositions).

So that's two down and one more to go.

The difference today was that my polling place had one single electronic voting machine. Five booths for manual paper ballots, and one lonely little electronic machine. The people in charge of the polling place seemed pretty anxious to show it off. While they were handing Chip his paper ballots, a voice behind me said, "Would you like to try the electronic voting system?" A woman sitting to the side said that we will be using that system in future.

Since nothing terribly urgent was riding on today's vote beyond "Migden or Leno," I figured I'd try it.

Frankly, the thing that bothered me most was the fact that the screen was facing out into the middle of the room, so people walking behind me could potentially watch me voting if they so chose.

So if you've never voted on one of these things, this was the process on the machine used at my polling place.

First, they gave me a card labeled "Voter Card". That got inserted into a machine where I personally encoded the card with my party affiliation.

Once that was confirmed, I inserted the card into a machine similar to the one pictured above. Each screen offered one to three issues at a time. The "vote for no more than 12 candidates" page, obviously, took up one full screen by itself, while the Superior Court Justice, State Senator and Assemblyman races all showed on one screen.

That was pretty straightforward -- touch the name (or touch "Yes" or "No"), review, hit "Next".

Then it came time to review the full ballot. It showed me all my votes on one screen for my review and approval. Because I had not voted for twelve people on the "no more than 12 candidates" page, it highlighted that race in red and offered to let me go back and vote for more people. There was not really a clear "Accept this" indication, but I finally figured out the "review paper ballot" was the way I should go. It printed out my votes on a kind of thermal-looking credit card receipt paper and scrolled it in front of me under glass, so I could confirm that the machine's paper trail matched my electronic vote.

So that was the adventure of the day, my attempt at trying something new.

Discussing it on the way home, Chip said that he thought that thermal paper is too easily tampered with -- get it wet or hot, and it becomes unreadable and completely useless.

So I think that when November comes, if I'm given the option of paper ballot or e-vote, I'll take paper.