Clayton shows its Pride

es inclusive event is part of Queer Athletic Futurity and challenges how people look at conventional forms of athleticism. Activities include dance performances and stunts from FACT/SF, a contemporary dance company, and CHEER San Francisco, the primarily LGBTQ pep squad, as well as workshops from coaches from a variety of sports. The aim is to show that anyone, inclusive of orientation, ability, and experience, can be athletic.

The event is free. RSVPs are not required but can be made at https://tinyurl. com/ekjms7mk

Rainbow Honor Walk raises $45K

The Rainbow Honor Walk, the nonprofit that highlights the contributions of deceased LGBTQ pioneers with sidewalk plaques in San Francisco’s Castro district, recently announced an exhibit of art by the late acclaimed artist Beth Van Hoesen raised $45,000 for the project.

The exhibit, “Beth Van Hoesen: Punks and Sisters,” ran January 17-February 25 at the city’s Altman Siegel Gallery, the release stated. Van Hoesen, a longtime Castro resident who died in 2010, and her estate donated a significant number of her works to the Rainbow Honor Walk for sale to benefit its work.

“Thank you Beth Van Hoesen,” stated Donna Sachet, board president for the Rainbow Honor Walk. “Thank you to Diane Roby, who administered her artistic estate. Thank you, Altman Siegel Gallery and especially thank you, Peter Goss, our longtime supporter and board member who helped to facilitate the sale of the Rainbow Honor Walk’s Beth Van Hoesen artworks.”

To date, the honor walk, working with San Francisco Public Works, has installed 44 plaques along Market, Castro, 19th, and Collingwood streets.

As the Bay Area Reporter has previously reported, the first 20 plaques were installed in 2014 with additional plaques added in 2017, 2019, and last year. In February 2022, the next 24 honorees were announced with design of their plaques commencing this year, as the B.A.R. reported. One of the inductees is B.A.R. founding publisher Bob Ross.

All funds for manufacture of the plaques are raised privately, with each plaque costing approximately $6,000, the release noted.

For more information on the Rainbow Honor Walk, including a map of the plaques, go to rainbowhonorwalk.org.

Panel recalls

1973 Coors boycott

The Coors boycott and beer strike of 1973 will be remembered at a panel discussion and organizing workshop Saturday, June 24, at noon at the Teamsters Local 2010 Hall, 7739 Pardee Lane in Oakland.

The local aspect of the boycott started in 1973, when Allan Baird, a straight ally, took charge of a union strike against Bay Area distributors, including the Coors Brewing Company. Baird reached out to his neighbor, gay future supervisor Harvey Milk, to build a coalition. Coors also had a 178-question employment application form, as Nancy Wohlforth explained in 2017 on the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ website.

“One question demanded: ‘Are you a homosexual?’ If you answered ‘yes,’ that terminated your application,” she stated. “Another demanded ‘Are you pro-union?’ If you answered ‘yes,’ that terminated you, too.”

Even after Teamsters Local 888’s boycott of Coors ended in 1975, Baird continued to work with Milk – both against the anti-LGBTQ Briggs initiative in 1978 that would have banned queer people and their supporters from teaching in California’s public schools, and for LGBTQ equality in the labor movement. Milk was elected the city’s first openly gay supervisor in 1977 and was assassinated in November 1978.

The event is free. To register, go to https://tinyurl.com/3f3bfnfz. t

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The reason being that the restaurant, established in 1893, hadn’t hosted a drag show until last week.

“I am very excited to be here in a space where you would normally not find queer performers,” said Friday.

In attendance were friends Liz Polo and Damien Keller, who both work nearby. Polo, a straight ally, owns Polo Promotions and has had an office in the city’s downtown business district for 22 years.

One of her clients is Schroeder’s, as she has helped with its marketing efforts. When COVID struck back in March 2020, the city ordered all non-essential businesses to shutter, forcing restaurants to close their dining rooms and most employees of downtown offices to pivot to working from home.

“We saw the devastation with COVID. When I would walk by here, this place would be empty,” recalled Polo. “Everyone says they want to support local businesses, but it takes action to support them. We need to walk in and order drinks or food and be there for each other.”

Keller, a gay man originally from San Diego, agreed. He has worked in the hospitality industry in the Bay Area for several decades and had just been hired as director of sales and marketing for the Galleria Park Hotel on Sutter Street in downtown San Francisco when COVID forced the hotel to close its doors for a year.

Furloughed during that time, Keller eventually returned to work. This year the hotel has seen its business rebound, he said, and is nearly sold out over Pride weekend later this month.

“This is a great way to celebrate Pride,” said Keller of the special drag show. “Especially with what is going on in the world today with drag, visibility is important.”

He was referring to the bans against drag performances and laws attacking drag performers being adopted in conservative-led states. In Florida, the administration of Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, has targeted the liquor licenses of businesses that host drag shows, as the Bay Area Reporter has reported. (A federal judge on June 2 struck down Tennessee’s law that restricted drag shows as unconstitutional.)

“More than ever I want to go out to support drag. When someone says ‘Don’t do it,’ I want to do it more,” said Keller.

Downtown coming back

As for San Francisco’s business district, Keller noted that, “downtown is coming back.”

The drag show was the brainchild of Robbie Silver, executive director of the

Downtown SF Partnership, a nonprofit that promotes businesses and provides services in the city’s Financial District and Jackson Square Historic District areas. The Vallejo resident had landed on the idea during one of his morning commutes via ferry.

“My staff calls them my ‘ferry thoughts.’ Seeing the Golden Gate Bridge when it is not foggy is inspiring,” explained Silver, adding that most of his best ideas come to him while crossing San Francisco Bay.

A few months ago he came into work not only with the idea to put on drag shows in downtown venues but also with a name for the endeavor, “Drag Me Downtown.” He budgeted $40,000 toward it and empowered his community benefit district’s staff to implement it.

“Arts and culture belongs in downtown San Francisco and drag belongs in downtown San Francisco,” Silver, 31, told the B.A.R. during a joint interview with Friday outside of Schroeder’s at one of its parklet tables. “Bringing drag to downtown is a new concept.”

While several venues, from restaurants and hotels to nightclubs and bars, have hosted drag shows in the area on weekend nights or Sundays during brunch, and during Pride weekend at the end of June, post-work drag shows on weekdays aren’t a common occurrence in San Francisco’s financial district, several business leaders in the area told the B.A.R.

Popular entertainment

Long a beloved entertainment within the LGBTQ community, drag shows have taken off in popularity with the general public over the last decade largely due to the success of the television competition show “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

Silver is a fan of the show and, though a few seasons behind, watches it via a streaming service with his mom, whom he moved up from Riverside to help care for five years ago.

With headlines blaring that San Francisco’s downtown is in a “doom loop” of demise, due to employees working remotely and stores shuttering for a lack of customers, Silver wanted to change the narrative and felt hosting drag shows in June would be a novel approach for drawing people back to the area and giving office workers a reason to stay after work.

“I wanted to add a little queer flair to what would be a heteronormative downtown,” said Silver, adding that his drag name would be Silver Linings. “Coming out of COVID downtown needs to come out of the 9 to 5 mindset and offer opportunities for not only performers but also attendees to come downtown after hours and see a drag show.”

It had an even more personal component for Silver, who years ago befriended the owner of Riverside gay bar The Menagerie, David St. Pierre. In September, after a long battle against cancer, St. Pierre died at the age of 59.

“I felt his presence in the room,” said Silver about watching the drag show at Schroeder’s.

Speaking publicly for the first time about his own sexual orientation, Silver is bisexual and only came out of the closet to his mother three years ago. He did so after breaking up with a boyfriend and his mother, noticing he was upset, asked him what girl had broken his heart. In reply, Silver showed her a pick of his ex.

Recalling the story, Silver joked to the B.A.R., “I guess this is my coming out party.”

Hired at the age of 29 to oversee the Downtown SF Partnership, making him one of the youngest executive directors of such an entity, Silver has always been “in awe” of the architectural details of the area’s buildings and its history. He first came to the city as a teenager with his cousin shortly after they had gotten their driver’s licenses and took a road trip to Northern California.

He had bought a poster of San Francisco’s downtown, which hung in his dorm room at California Baptist University in Riverside, from which he graduated in 2014 with a degree in communications. Nearly a decade later he now works as one of the area’s biggest boosters.

“San Francisco has always been a welcoming place to be. It has always been welcoming to me,” said Silver, first hired to be the marketing director for the Union Square Business Improvement District in 2018.

Friday is the drag persona of Bobby Rivera, 39, a gay man who is also initially from Southern California. Born in Los Angeles, he “lived all over” the area until moving to Gilroy right before high school after his mother met his stepfather and they relocated to be with him.

For the last 13 years he has called San Francisco home and currently lives in the Mission and works as a hairstylist at Revamp Salon on 16th Street. About five years ago he started performing as Bobby Friday, which was a nickname a friend gave him during his clubbing days in his 20s, and was crowned Grand Duchess 48 last year by the Grand Ducal Council Of San Francisco.

Friday founded the Haus of Friday, a company specializing in custom-styled wigs and merchandise, as well as event production and hosting. Her wig styling business is called Wigs By Friday.

Every second Saturday of the month Friday hosts and performs at Pop Up Brunch at Beaux, a gay nightclub in the Castro LGBTQ district. At the nearby

APE know cares deeply about his community, cares deeply about his district, and cares deeply about the LGBTQ+ community. He’s someone I trust, someone I admire, who’s honest and hardworking, and when he comes to me and tells me this is what he wants to do in his district and thinks this is best, I’m going to honor that.”

Peskin, who voted for the fixedseating amendment in committee, saw things differently. Peskin, who represents North Beach and Chinatown, said it’s “nothing short of tragic that this interior landmarking of the Castro Theatre has invoked division and anger, and sadly, intentionally sowed.”

Peskin invoked Harvey Milk, the late gay Castro supervisor, who asked that the movie palace first be landmarked (which it was in 1977) after the 1963 demolition of the Fox Theatre on Market Street.

“I don’t think we need to make this decision beholden to the inertia of one party’s investment,” Peskin said, referring to APE.

District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar and Mandelman said that the vote shouldn’t be considered a referendum on APE’s plans. The latter called landmarking the space under the original historic preservation commission recommenda- gay bar Lookout, she hosts the drag show Glamatron every third Thursday of the month, and this month she will be working the drag brunches on Saturdays at the venue 650 Jones with the same street address in the city’s Tenderloin.

Melissa Buckminster, the Downtown SF Partnership’s marketing and communications manager, had reached out to Friday with an offer to come on board as a consultant and producer of the drag show pop-up performances the organization wanted to present each Thursday night in June. Friday loved the idea of bringing drag performers to venues they normally wouldn’t perform in.

“San Francisco has always been known as a queer mecca, which is a beautiful thing for the LGBTQ-plus community. But it is interesting that parts of the city haven’t gotten to experience that,” said Friday. “For instance, I was surprised to learn this restaurant and bar has been here that long and never had a drag show. That was interesting to me.”

Her only expectation for the pop-up event at Schroeder’s was that “everyone had fun,” said Friday. “I think we did that.”

Seeing a packed house of people clapping for and supporting the drag performers “was incredibly amazing,” said Silver, and portends the initiative should be a success.

“It is going to be a good time for Pride in San Francisco,” predicted Silver.

All of the drag pop-up events run from 5 to 7 p.m. This Thursday, June 8, it will take place at Latin Steakhouse, 56 Belden Place. For June 15, the flower market Nigella, at 388 Market Street, Suite 105, will host it.

It moves to One Market Restaurant, 1 Market Street, on June 22 and to Pagan Idol, 375 Bush Street, on June 29.

Friday is hosting the next two popups then turning over emceeing duties to MGM Grande, with Bionka Simone overseeing the final one of the month.

The featured performers last week were drag king Madd Dogg 20/20 and drag queen Rahni NothingMore.

Others set to perform include Coco Buttah, Dulce De Leche, Helixer Jynder Byntwell, Jota Mercury, Mary Vice, Nicki Jizz, Vera, and Voodonna Black. They run the gamut from male drag queens to nonbinary and transgender drag performers.

“Drag is an art form and it encompasses everything and everyone,” noted Friday.

While the Drag Me Downtown events are free to attend, tipping of the performers is recommended. (At the June 1 pop-up Friday gave a tutorial for how to hold up bills of a dollar or more for the performers and had a diner practice screaming out, ‘Yes, work, slay! Take my fucking money!’)

Those who pre-register for $10 via the website https://downtownsf.org/ do/drag-me-downtown receive a free fan and feather boa, which were procured from Polo’s promotional business.

The proceeds benefit Trans Thrive, the transgender drop-in center operated by the SF Community Health Center that moved into its own space earlier this year at 1460 Pine Street near Larkin.t

Gay APE spokesperson David Perry was jubilant in his statement to the B.A.R.

“Thank you San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Everyone who treasures the Castro Theatre, the Castro neighborhood, and the film and LGBTQ programming that is so much a part of both should be grateful tonight,” he stated. “An irreplaceable international icon now has the ability to be preserved, restored and to evolve for this and future generations.” tions “good preservation hygiene.”

“The sentiment in the neighborhood, at least as I am reading it, is strongly in support of the APE project,” Mandelman said. “The Castro Merchants, Harvey Milk’s own merchants group, is highly supportive of it.”

Indeed, last week the merchants voted overwhelmingly to drop conditions it had previously set for endorsing APE’s plans, as the B.A.R. reported.

Mandelman and Safaí disagreed with the Fox comparison.

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“This is not like the Fox Theatre,” Safaí said. “We are not talking about demolishing. We are literally talking about restoring frescos, restoring chandeliers … but also for it to be an adaptable space.”

Stephen Torres, a queer man who is executive co-chair of the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District, one of the many groups opposed to APE’s plans, told the B.A.R. after the vote, “Although we are disappointed that the Board of Supervisors did not take this opportunity to mandate proper stewardship over a threatened community asset, we will continue to support the broad coalition of community stakeholders as they seek to ensure that community self determination. We are grateful to the supervisors who have stood by our position.”

Peter Pastreich, a straight ally who is the executive director of the Castro Theatre Conservancy, which is opposed to APE’s plans, condemned the decision.

“The Castro Theatre is a beloved landmark and a vital community asset, and should be treated as such,” Pastreich stated. “Today’s vote, indicating the su-