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Sam Jay: Taking Aim - Metro Weekly, August 6, 2020

Whether it’s her new Netflix special or writing for SNL, Sam Jay is building a comedy career that is as bold as it is masterful. Interview by André Hereford. (Page 26) Also: Beyoncé’s visual album Black is King is a majestic love letter to Black communities past and present. (Page 37) And local theatre sensation Jade Jones is preparing to unleash her pandemic-born nonbinary persona, Litty Official. (Page 9) Out on the Town p.5 Spotlight: Speed Racer p.11 The Feed: Equality Pledge p.13 Salty Senior p.14 Criminal Behavior p.15 Federal Fumble p.16 Selling Hate p.18 Executive Action p.20 Bezos Backpedals p.22 Dangerous Deportation p.24 Gallery: Art & Activism p.32 Television: Streaming Through Time p.35 RetroScene p.38 Last Word p.41 Patron Saint: Danitra Vance

Whether it’s her new Netflix special or writing for SNL, Sam Jay is building a comedy career that is as bold as it is masterful. Interview by André Hereford. (Page 26)

Also: Beyoncé’s visual album Black is King is a majestic love letter to Black communities past and present. (Page 37) And local theatre sensation Jade Jones is preparing to unleash her pandemic-born nonbinary persona, Litty Official. (Page 9)

Out on the Town p.5 Spotlight: Speed Racer p.11 The Feed: Equality Pledge p.13 Salty Senior p.14 Criminal Behavior p.15 Federal Fumble p.16 Selling Hate p.18 Executive Action p.20 Bezos Backpedals p.22 Dangerous Deportation p.24 Gallery: Art & Activism p.32 Television: Streaming Through Time p.35 RetroScene p.38 Last Word p.41

Patron Saint: Danitra Vance

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Contents<br />

<strong>August</strong> 6, <strong>2020</strong> Volume 27 Issue 13<br />

9<br />

LADYKILLER<br />

Local theatre sensation Jade Jones is preparing to unleash<br />

her pandemic-born nonbinary persona, Litty Official.<br />

By Doug Rule<br />

TAKING AIM<br />

Whether it’s her new Netflix special or writing for SNL,<br />

<strong>Sam</strong> <strong>Jay</strong> is building a comedy career that is as bold as it is masterful.<br />

Interview by André Hereford<br />

26<br />

37<br />

ROYAL TREATMENT<br />

Beyoncé’s visual album Black is King is a majestic love letter<br />

to Black communities past and present.<br />

By Sean Maunier<br />

OUT ON THE TOWN p.5 SPOTLIGHT: SPEED RACER p.11<br />

THE FEED: EQUALITY PLEDGE p.13 SALTY SENIOR p.14<br />

CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR p.15 FEDERAL FUMBLE p.16 SELLING HATE p.18<br />

EXECUTIVE ACTION p.20 BEZOS BACKPEDALS p.22 DANGEROUS DEPORTATION p.24<br />

GALLERY: ART & ACTIVISM p.32 TELEVISION: STREAMING THROUGH TIME p.35<br />

RETROSCENE p.38 LAST WORD p.41<br />

Washington, D.C.’s Best LGBTQ Magazine for 26 Years<br />

Editorial Editor-in-Chief Randy Shulman Art Director Todd Franson Online Editor at metroweekly.com Rhuaridh Marr Senior Editor John Riley<br />

Contributing Editors André Hereford, Doug Rule Senior Photographers Ward Morrison, Julian Vankim Contributing Illustrators David Amoroso, Scott G. Brooks<br />

Contributing Writers Sean Maunier, Kate Wingfield Webmaster David Uy Production Assistant Julian Vankim<br />

Sales & Marketing Publisher Randy Shulman National Advertising Representative Rivendell Media Co. 212-242-6863 Distribution Manager Dennis Havrilla<br />

Patron Saint Danitra Vance Cover Photography Courtesy of Netflix<br />

During the pandemic please send all mail to: <strong>Metro</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> PO Box 11559 - Washington, D.C. 20008 • 202-638-6830<br />

All material appearing in <strong>Metro</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> is protected by federal copyright law and may not be reproduced in whole or part without the permission of the publishers. <strong>Metro</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials submitted for publication. All such submissions are subject to<br />

editing and will not be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. <strong>Metro</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> is supported by many fine advertisers, but we cannot accept responsibility for claims made by advertisers, nor can we accept responsibility for materials provided by advertisers or their<br />

agents. Publication of the name or photograph of any person or organization in articles or advertising in <strong>Metro</strong> <strong>Weekly</strong> is not to be construed as any indication of the sexual orientation of such person or organization.<br />

© <strong>2020</strong> Jansi LLC.<br />

2 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

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4 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


Out On The Town<br />

Compiled by Doug Rule<br />

PLATONIC<br />

Gay Olive and her straight best friend Billy are busy New Yorkers<br />

in hot pursuit of love — who share what they see and do along<br />

the way in recorded voicemail messages to each other. Created<br />

by budding writer-director Erin C. Buckley, PLATONIC is a<br />

new 10-episode web series set in what is described as “a memory<br />

of New York City just before the pandemic.” A YouTube<br />

exclusive starring Summer Spiro as Olive and Ryan King as<br />

Billy, the series is notable for the way “[it] juxtaposes the radical<br />

intimacy and hazy boundaries of non-romantic relationships<br />

with the sexual fluidity and emotional ambiguity of modern<br />

dating.” PLATONIC launches with “Episode 1: Phone Tag” on<br />

Wednesday, Aug. 12. Visit www.platonicseries.com.<br />

#STILLWELAUGH<br />

In partnership with the DC Center, the Capital Pride Alliance<br />

has been overseeing a multi-episode web series created as<br />

an alternative to the organization’s usual June festivities. It’s<br />

showcasing some of the key people and places that make the<br />

local LGBTQ community so rich and rewarding. Available for<br />

streaming from @CapitalPrideDC on Facebook and YouTube,<br />

Pride In The City launched in late June with #StillWeEntertain,<br />

featuring performances by Shi-Queeta Lee, Willie J Garner,<br />

Manuex Pop, MzzAmirraO, the Canales Brothers, Destiny B.<br />

Childs, Billy Winn, and KC B. Yoncé. The series continues with<br />

#StillWeLaugh, a showcase of area comedians and their standup<br />

routines. Violet Gray, Jake Leizear, Dana Lollar aka D-Lo,<br />

Franqi French, Valerie Paschall, Kevin McLain, and Jake Jacob<br />

are featured in the episode, which debuts Friday, Aug. 7, at 7<br />

p.m. Visit www.capitalpride.org.<br />

Platonic<br />

KLECKSOGRAPHY <strong>2020</strong><br />

A total of 17 theater companies and more than 50 artists will<br />

team up in creative collaborations led by Rorschach Theatre<br />

Company, joined this year by representatives from 1st Stage,<br />

Arena Stage, Mosaic Theater, Pointless Theatre, Round House<br />

Theatre, Spooky Action Theatre, and The Welders. Named after<br />

a childhood game that later inspired Hermann Rorschach’s<br />

famous Inkblot Test, Klecksography embraces the metaphor<br />

of that test by instructing all participating artists to create new<br />

works inspired by the same artistic source: the 51st State Murals<br />

project, those D.C.-centric murals that went up in various parts<br />

of town in late June in honor of the vote for D.C. statehood by<br />

the U.S. House of Representatives. #Klex<strong>2020</strong> will result in 10<br />

new short plays and six short films showcasing the talents of<br />

some of D.C.’s best emerging artists, working together in assorted<br />

teams. Premieres Sunday, Aug. 9, at 7 p.m. The video will<br />

remain available on YouTube through Aug. 16. Pay-What-You-<br />

Can donations are encouraged. Visit www.rorschachtheatre.<br />

com or www.bit.ly/klex<strong>2020</strong>.<br />

PANTHEON<br />

Last spring, Happenstance Theater premiered Pantheon, a new<br />

work of devised theater from the Helen Hayes Award-winning<br />

ensemble that incorporates themes and characters from ancient<br />

Greek mythology. Sharon Crissinger captured a performance of<br />

the stage production that the company is now offering as a video<br />

rental. Set in the 1940s, Pantheon revolves around a chorus<br />

of factory workers brought to life by Happenstance’s married<br />

co-founders Mark Jaster and Sabrina Mandell along with Gwen<br />

Grastorf, Sarah Olmsted Thomas, and Alex Vernon. “With an<br />

ample smattering of amusement,” reads the official description,<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

5


Pantheon<br />

“the performers invoke the Muses, offer Sacrifice, suffer Hubris,<br />

consult Oracles, and meet Fate as they portray an array of mortals<br />

and Gods whose flaws reflect their own.” Through Aug. 30.<br />

Rentals are $10 for a 30-day streaming period. Visit www.vimeo.<br />

com/ondemand/pantheon.<br />

THE SIGNATURE SHOW<br />

Last week ushered in the launch of a biweekly digital series<br />

focused on artists touted as “the past, present, and future of<br />

Signature Theatre.” The region’s preeminent musical theater<br />

purveyor kicked off its newest production with a half-hour episode<br />

starring several of its most popular showstoppers, including<br />

Nova Y. Payton (Ain’t Misbehavin’, Hairspray), Natascia<br />

Diaz (Passion), and Heidi Blickenstaff (Disney’s Freaky Friday),<br />

while also featuring one of Broadway’s leading contemporary<br />

composers, Tony winner Tom Kitt (Next to Normal). Offering<br />

a mix of performances and interviews, the inaugural edition<br />

of The Signature Show had talent to spare, a packed lineup also<br />

including Emily Skinner, Inés Nassara, Christiane Noll, DeWitt<br />

Fleming Jr., Jacquelyn Piro Donovan, and Jennie Harney-<br />

Fleming, plus a tribute to music director and composer Darius<br />

Smith. Episode 1, released July 30, is currently available at<br />

www.bit.ly/sigshow1.<br />

FACTION OF FOOLS: FOOLISH FRIDAYS<br />

Faction of Fools, D.C.’s Helen Hayes Award-winning commedia<br />

dell’arte theater troupe, has shifted its energies during the pandemic<br />

to work on screen, developing a series of 12 short video<br />

comedies, each touted as “a little amuse-bouche of commedia<br />

dell’arte.” A three-month exercise in frivolity designed with the<br />

usual spirit of summer in mind, Foolish Fridays is lighthearted<br />

fun to help send off summer and ease into fall. The series officially<br />

launches on Friday, Aug. 7 at 7 p.m. on Facebook with the<br />

cocktail party “Toast to Foolish Fridays.” Greg Benson of the<br />

Bar None podcast will lead this toast to “sweet comedy” with a<br />

“bitter cocktail” — specifically focused on a Negroni, the classic<br />

composed of equal parts gin, vermouth, and Campari that is as<br />

quintessentially Italian as commedia dell’arte. The videos will<br />

be available on both Facebook and YouTube. Visit www.facebook.com/factionoffools.<br />

Commissary<br />

VOTE READY<br />

A slew of indie-rock musicians have signed up with the nonprofit<br />

organization HeadCount to motivate their fans to update their<br />

voter registration. Confirming registration before the cutoff for<br />

fall elections is an important way to ensure one’s vote will be<br />

counted on election day, especially if there have been recent<br />

changes in local voter rolls. All those who check their status<br />

over the next week through HeadCount’s website will receive<br />

a free ticket to a special livestream of original self-recorded<br />

performances. Part of the “Live From Out There” series, the<br />

concert, set for Friday, Aug. 14, at 7 p.m., includes performances<br />

by The War on Drugs, Kyp Malone and Jaleel Bunton of TV On<br />

The Radio, Daniel Rossen and Christopher Bear of Grizzly Bear,<br />

Robin Pecknold, Waxahatchee, Kevin Morby, Tarriona Tank<br />

Ball, Hand Habits, Ciggy, Kam Franklin of The Suffers, Allison<br />

Russell and Leyla McCalla of Our Native Daughters, and The<br />

Building. Visit www.headcount.org/voteready.<br />

COMMISSARY’S BOTTOMLESS BRUNCH<br />

Over the years Commissary, the casual neighborhood restaurant<br />

in Logan Circle, has become known for its brunches, including<br />

those themed to coincide with special events, from the Oscars to<br />

Beyonce and <strong>Jay</strong>-Z at FedEx Field. Fortunately, you don’t have<br />

to wait for a special occasion or even the weekend anymore, as<br />

Commissary has now started offering brunch every day — and<br />

yes, you can even go bottomless with your mimosas or Bloody<br />

Mary’s if you dare. The menu ranges from Ricotta Blintzes with<br />

strawberry and fresh mint ($11), to a Southern fried chicken<br />

sandwich with a sunny side up egg ($12.50), to an Avocado Bowl<br />

with poached eggs ($11). Brunch and breakfast is available every<br />

day from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Commissary is located at 1443 P St.<br />

NW. Call 202-299-0018 or visit www.CommissaryDC.com.<br />

To mix it up a bit, on weekends you could drop in to the original<br />

EatWellDC eatery on the block, Logan Tavern. The 17-year-old<br />

restaurant has added new items to its weekend brunch menu,<br />

including a Tomato Caprese Omelet featuring fresh mozzarella<br />

and heirloom tomatoes from EatWellDC’s farm in Maryland<br />

($14.50) and the Brunch Platter of French toast and eggs accom-<br />

6<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


Rasika<br />

Luca Buvoli<br />

panied by bacon, turkey sausage, and home fries ($16). Brunch is<br />

served Saturdays and Sundays between 10:30 a.m. and 3:15 p.m.<br />

Logan Tavern is located at 1423 P St. NW. Call 202-332-3710 or<br />

visit www.LoganTavern.com.<br />

RASIKA SIMMER SAUCES<br />

Noted local restaurateur Ashok Bajaj has bottled up three premade<br />

simmer sauces based on the recipes from Sunderam, the<br />

James Beard Award-winning chef. There’s Makhani, the mild,<br />

creamy tomato sauce that is ideal for chicken tikka, paneer, or<br />

Indian cheese, or over vegetables; Korma, the mild nutty aromatic<br />

sauce that pairs well with lamb and other braised meat<br />

dishes as well as paneer; and Vindaloo Curry, a spicy tangy chili<br />

sauce for chicken, lamb, pork, and shrimp. “The from-scratch<br />

sauces are labor intensive to create,” Sunderam says, “so we are<br />

making it easy for our clientele to design their own fabulous<br />

dishes in a fraction of the time by utilizing these time-tested<br />

recipes.” The sauces are available for purchase at Rasika Penn<br />

Quarter and Rasika West End as well as at their casual sister<br />

venue Bindaas Cleveland Park, plus carryout via Caviar and<br />

Doordash. Each 16-ounce container is priced at $10, or $25 for<br />

three. Call 202-466-2500 or visit www.rasikarestaurant.com.<br />

LEBANON THEN AND NOW: PHOTOGRAPHY FROM 2006 TO <strong>2020</strong><br />

Originally planned as a physical show to be displayed at the<br />

Middle East Institute’s art gallery in Dupont Circle, Lebanon<br />

Then and Now captures the dizzying social, political, and economic<br />

developments that have marked Lebanon over the past 15<br />

years through the work of 17 photographers and one filmmaker.<br />

Organizers of the MEI Art Gallery, which launched last year<br />

with the aim of presenting socially engaged art from the Middle<br />

East and helping foster cross-cultural dialogue, thoroughly<br />

reimagined this temporary exhibition to become an immersive,<br />

360-degree virtual experience. As selected by Beirut-based<br />

curator Chantale Fahmi, the featured artists in Lebanon Then<br />

and Now include, among others, Lamia Maria Abillama, Pierre<br />

Aboujaoude, Hussein Beydoun, Blanche Eid, Jana Khoury, Elias<br />

Moubarak, Badr Safadi, and Jack Seikaly. Now to Sept. 25. Visit<br />

www.mei.edu/exhibition/lebanon-then-and-now.<br />

STEVEN WALKER: THIS ROUND’S ON ME<br />

The vulnerability Steven Walker faced in dealing with depression<br />

and anxiety is reflected in the fragile glass works the artist<br />

has created in This Round’s On Me. Known for illuminating<br />

landscapes and nocturnal paintings, Walker switches things<br />

up with this personal series of still lifes. Bold brushstrokes<br />

and emotive color palettes express the artist’s deepest feelings,<br />

while objects placed within the glass evoke positive memories<br />

from his life, offering viewers a sense of hope amidst darkness,<br />

as well as the play between light and dark that Walker experiences.<br />

Presented by Georgetown’s Calloway Fine Arts, the show<br />

is intended to signal to those suffering from depression that<br />

they are not alone. On virtual display to Aug. 22, with in-person<br />

visits by appointment only. Calloway Fine Art & Consulting,<br />

1643 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Call 202-965-4601 or visit www.<br />

callowayart.com.<br />

LUCA BUVOLI: PICTURE: PRESENT<br />

Through his ongoing Astrodoubt and The Quarantine Chronicles<br />

series, multimedia artist Luca Buvoli has been reflecting on our<br />

present-day realities through the guise of a fictitious astronaut.<br />

Named Astrodoubt, the character doesn’t let an earth-shattering<br />

deadly pandemic get in the way of his escapist fantasies<br />

about life in outer space or a post-pandemic future on this<br />

planet. Buvoli, an Italian-born, New York-based artist also on<br />

the faculty at the prestigious Maryland Institute College of<br />

Art in Baltimore, was invited by the Phillips Collection to produce<br />

new work that engages in some way with the museum’s<br />

permanent collection as part of its Intersections series — and<br />

becoming the first-ever digital Intersections edition in the process.<br />

The result is an extension of Buvoli’s Astrodoubt series<br />

— with the astronaut exploring 12 paintings from the collection,<br />

inserting text to reflect on each scene depicted from an often<br />

tragicomic perspective of COVID-19. Featured on the Phillips’<br />

website as well as on its Instagram, Picture: Present is a 12-day<br />

exercise, with a new scene released each day through Friday,<br />

Aug. 7. A Zoom Artist Talk with Buvoli is set for Thursday, Aug.<br />

13, at 5:30 p.m. Visit www.phillipscollection.org or www.instagram.com/phillipscollection.<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

7


Spotlight<br />

Ladykiller<br />

Local theatre sensation Jade Jones is preparing to unleash her<br />

pandemic-born nonbinary persona, Litty Official<br />

JADE JONES WAS BARELY A TEENAGER WHEN SHE<br />

first heard the axiom “there’s no business like show business.”<br />

Then a seventh-grader, Jones was attending a performance<br />

of Annie Get Your Gun, the musical the familiar phrase<br />

is drawn from. “That production really stuck with me,” she says.<br />

“It definitely was a catalyst for me wanting to do theater.”<br />

It was a delayed catalyst. Jones didn’t pursue work on the<br />

stage until after college. “I had a serious self-confidence issue<br />

growing up,” says the 30-year-old. “And as much as I wanted to<br />

perform, I didn't think that people believed in me. I was told I<br />

was too black, too fat, too queer. There was definitely something<br />

different about me that I was told the market was not interested<br />

in. So I redirected my focus from performing to teaching.”<br />

While working as a drama instructor in D.C., Jones decided<br />

to try her hand at acting, and auditioned for Hair at The Keegan<br />

Theatre. Just like that, she was all in. “It was the first professional<br />

production I ever did,” she says, adding,<br />

“I got naked on stage.” In the six years since<br />

Jones has proceeded to steal scenes and<br />

hearts everywhere from Creative Cauldron<br />

to Mosaic Theater. Recently, she picked up<br />

two Helen Hayes nominations, including one for her memorable<br />

turn as Little Red Ridinghood in Into The Woods at Ford’s.<br />

“My <strong>2020</strong> was looking amazing,” says Jones. “I was booked<br />

up all year. I was doing The Amen Corner [at the Shakespeare<br />

Watch Litty Offical<br />

perform “Say Nuthin”<br />

Theatre] and then I was going to have a week off [before] Much<br />

Ado About Nothing. Then COVID hit, and I lost all my jobs. I was<br />

like, ‘What am I going to do?’ I felt that maybe this was the time<br />

to explore other aspects of myself and my creativity.”<br />

Enter Litty Official, the Dr. Jekyll to Jones’ Mr. Hyde.<br />

“There's a side of myself, of Jade, that's sweet and compassionate<br />

and joyful and generous. And I've definitely portrayed and<br />

expressed that part of me on stage,” she says. “Litty Official is<br />

the flip side of that.”<br />

Named after a penchant for getting lit using the nomenclature<br />

of social media, Litty Official is a rappin’, rhymin’ nonbinary<br />

ladykiller. “Litty Official is an unapologetically Black, queer alien<br />

who hails from Planet #TooMuch. They are thick and proud,<br />

with a heart as cold as a frozen daiquiri,” Jones says. Litty’s fivesong<br />

debut mixtape, He Could Never, drops this weekend.<br />

Ultimately, Litty Official grew out of Jones’ childhood experiences<br />

— right down to her fascination with<br />

Annie Get Your Gun: The persona’s motto<br />

stems from that show’s signature song,<br />

“Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better).”<br />

“As a queer youth, there was always a part<br />

of me that felt in competition with the boys — whether it was<br />

sports, whether it was sexual orientation,” she says. “In my older<br />

and wiser age, I've discovered that there is no competition. Litty<br />

is the creative expression of that revelation.” —Doug Rule<br />

Litty Official performs Saturday, Aug. 8, at 8 p.m., at Songbyrd Music House, 2477 18th St. NW. The concert will be livestreamed<br />

as well as projected into the venue’s outdoor dining area. Tickets are $20 for a livestream link.<br />

Call 202-450-2917 or visit www.songbyrddc.com.<br />

He Could Never, Litty Official’s debut mixtape, will be available on Spotify and Apple Music on Saturday, Aug. 8.<br />

For details follow @littyofficial on Instagram.<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

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10 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


Spotlight<br />

Speedo Racer<br />

Coree Woltering and Team Onyx blaze trails and scale mountains<br />

on World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji.<br />

BILLED AS THE WORLD’S TOUGHEST RACE, THE<br />

11-day, multi-terrain Eco-Challenge Fiji, by all<br />

accounts, lives up to its daunting title. Viewers can<br />

judge for themselves with the <strong>August</strong> 14 release of Amazon<br />

Prime’s World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji, a ten-episode<br />

event hosted by Bear Grylls. Sixty-six teams from thirty<br />

different countries run, climb, bike, sail, paddle, spelunk, and<br />

swim through jungles and rivers, over mountains and the<br />

Pacific, racing to claim victory.<br />

"They definitely designed the course to make it just unforgiving,”<br />

says elite ultra-runner Coree Woltering, who competed<br />

in the Eco-Challenge as a member of Team Onyx — the first<br />

all-Black, predominantly LGBTQ team in expedition racing.<br />

“It takes an all-around athlete to be able to do something like<br />

that, and just an extremely mentally strong person.”<br />

Woltering would know. As a pro runner specializing in<br />

competing at distances longer than a marathon, he just set a<br />

formidable new record in June, running the<br />

1,200-mile Ice Age Trail in under 22 days. The<br />

Illinois native had been thinking of taking on<br />

the Trail for a while, but, surprisingly, it was<br />

life under the pandemic shutdown that made the enormous<br />

undertaking possible. “Normally an effort that big would just<br />

take too much out of me,” he says. “So I wouldn't be able to do<br />

that in the middle of a racing season. But with COVID and no<br />

races coming up, this was just kind of the perfect time to do it.”<br />

Click Here to<br />

Watch the Trailer<br />

While the Ice Age Trail was the longest expedition<br />

Woltering has completed — “three weeks of running and just<br />

being out there every day” — he still calls Eco-Challenge Fiji<br />

“the toughest race I've done.” And he hopes that his and Team<br />

Onyx’s performance inspires others on their own boundary-pushing<br />

adventures. “You don't see a lot of people of color<br />

in the adventure racing world,” he says. “You don't even necessarily<br />

see a ton in the outdoor [sporting] world, and especially<br />

not at a high level. So I just think it's really important to be a<br />

role model and show that people of color do love the outdoors.<br />

We love adventure. We can do these things.”<br />

Woltering recognizes a similar importance in representing<br />

the LGBTQ community on the course. Yet, racing with<br />

a purpose, he still makes a point of keeping the competition<br />

fun. Known for racing in a pair of Speedos, the runner, who<br />

found a fellow adventurer in his professional skydiver husband,<br />

assures, “You'll definitely see a few Speedos in Eco-<br />

Challenge.” The Lycra briefs might even be<br />

Woltering’s secret weapon.<br />

“It's really funny. I was racing a 50K in<br />

Florida in 2015, and I was going to the beach, so,<br />

of course, I packed a couple Speedos. But I also packed my running<br />

shorts, or at least I thought I did. On race morning, I found<br />

out that I forgot to pack my racing shorts. And so people are like,<br />

‘It's Florida. No one cares. Just wear a Speedo.’ And I was like,<br />

‘Okay.' So I wore a Speedo and I won the race.” —André Hereford<br />

World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji is available for streaming starting <strong>August</strong> 14 on Prime Video. Visit www.amazon.com.<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

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12 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


Among the specific promises made in the platform are<br />

that the party will enact protections for LGBTQ+ youth who<br />

find themselves homeless, reverse the Trump administration’s<br />

transgender military ban and its attempts to discharge service<br />

members living with HIV, and provide coverage for HIV/AIDS<br />

treatment and HIV-prevention medications, including pre- and<br />

post-exposure prophylaxis.<br />

With respect to health care, Democrats have vowed to<br />

reverse a Trump administration rule that allows medical providers<br />

to refuse to provide certain types of care or treatment<br />

to LGBTQ people or others based on the provider’s personal<br />

religious beliefs.<br />

The party has promised to reinstate a provision of the<br />

Affordable Care Act prohibiting discrimination based on sex<br />

— including gender identity — by insurance companies and<br />

medical providers, and ensure that transgender people receive<br />

any care, including hormone therapy or gender confirmation<br />

surgery, that their doctors have classified as medically necessary<br />

to treat gender dysphoria.<br />

In keeping with positions embraced by its presumptive nomtheFeed<br />

IDA MAE ASTUTE FOR ABS<br />

Democratic National Convention 2016<br />

Equality Pledge<br />

Democrats’ <strong>2020</strong> platform pledges to advance LGBTQ equality,<br />

undo Trump’s attacks. By John Riley<br />

A<br />

DRAFT OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S <strong>2020</strong> PLATform<br />

solidifies the party’s stalwart commitment to<br />

advancing equality, and offers one of the most pro-<br />

LGBTQ party platforms ever. Shared by the Democratic<br />

National Convention, which is set to take place virtually from<br />

<strong>August</strong> 17-20, the platform draft checks off several key policies<br />

that LGBTQ people have either been trying to push through<br />

Congress for years, or that reverse harmful policies enacted by<br />

the Trump administration.<br />

In the platform’s preamble, the party vows that it will “give<br />

hate no safe harbor,” whether in the form of “bigotry, racism,<br />

misogyny, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or white supremacy.”<br />

“Democrats will protect and promote the equal rights of all<br />

our citizens — women, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities,<br />

people with disabilities, Native Americans, and all who have<br />

been discriminated against in too many ways and for too many<br />

generations,” the preamble reads.<br />

“We commit ourselves to the vision articulated by Frederick<br />

Douglass of ‘a Government founded upon justice, and recognizing<br />

the equal rights of all.'”<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

13


theFeed<br />

inee, former Vice President Joe Biden, the platform also praises<br />

a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision finding that employment<br />

discrimination against LGBTQ people is unlawful, and promises<br />

to pass the Equality Act, which would prohibit discrimination<br />

in several other areas of life in addition to employment, such<br />

as housing, credit, jury service, public accommodations, and in<br />

accessing federal programs.<br />

Other planks of the platform include making sufficient mental<br />

health, substance abuse, and suicide prevention services<br />

available to LGBTQ individuals, ensuring all transgender and<br />

nonbinary people can obtain official documents reflecting their<br />

gender identity, combating the epidemic of anti-trans violence,<br />

investigating alleged hate crimes, and reinstating Obama-era<br />

guidance protecting transgender students from discrimination<br />

under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act.<br />

The party also promises to advocate for LGBTQ human rights<br />

abroad and call out instances of anti-LGBTQ violence and discrimination<br />

in other countries.<br />

“Democrats will advance the ability of all persons to live<br />

with dignity, security, and respect, regardless of who they are<br />

or who they love. We will restore the United States’ position of<br />

leadership on LGBTQ+ issues by passing the GLOBE Act and<br />

appointing senior leaders directly responsible for driving and<br />

coordinating LGBTQ+ issues at the State Department, USAID,<br />

and the National Security Council,” the draft platform reads<br />

“We will ensure that our immigration policies account for<br />

the needs of LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers, and that we<br />

use the full slate of human rights promotion and accountability<br />

tools to defend the universal rights of LGBTQ+ people. We will<br />

amplify the voices of LGBTQ+ persons around the world and<br />

counter violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ persons<br />

wherever it appears.”<br />

The party’s platform stands in contrast to that of the<br />

Republican Party, which repurposed its full 2016 platform<br />

for this year’s upcoming November election, meaning it still<br />

contains opposition to to same-sex marriage, support for religious-based<br />

refusals of service, opposition to same-sex adoption,<br />

and endorses the right of parents to determine whether to pursue<br />

conversion therapy for their LGBTQ-identifying children.<br />

Shortly after adopting its 2016 platform for the <strong>2020</strong> election,<br />

the Republican National Committee released a memo<br />

seeking to shore up their support among right-leaning LGBTQ<br />

people and social libertarians by claiming that President Donald<br />

Trump has taken “unprecedented steps to protect the LGBTQ<br />

community,” citing his policies around increased funding for<br />

HIV/AIDS and his administration’s efforts, led most recently<br />

by former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell,<br />

to encourage countries with laws criminalizing homosexuality<br />

to repeal them.<br />

While Trump made history as the first Republican candidate<br />

to support same-sex marriage, his administration has repeatedly<br />

pursued policies — ranging from restrictions preventing<br />

transgender individuals from serving in the military, to religious-based<br />

exemptions for health care workers, to its efforts<br />

to define “sex” as based only in biology — that critics say harm<br />

LGBTQ people.<br />

FACEBOOK<br />

Highland High School’s <strong>2020</strong> drive-through graduation ceremony<br />

Salty Senior<br />

Salt Lake City high school publishes anti-transgender quote in yearbook. By John Riley<br />

THE SALT LAKE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT IS APOLOGIZing<br />

and condemning an anti-transgender quote from a graduating<br />

student that has sparked controversy after it was published<br />

in this year’s edition of the Highland High School yearbook.<br />

The quote, from senior Daniel Totzke, claims: “There are<br />

only two genders and a lot of mental illness.”<br />

It was published underneath his photo in the space generally<br />

reserved for inspirational or heartfelt messages from graduating<br />

seniors. The person who first called attention to the quote was<br />

another student, who identifies as part of the LGBTQ community.<br />

14 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


theFeed<br />

“I’m not usually one to post,” the student wrote in a Facebook<br />

post that has been shared more than 7,500 times. “But I can’t<br />

help but post about this. I am a student at Highland High School<br />

going into my senior year. Due to the coronavirus our school<br />

did not receive its yearbook until today. Shockingly, one of the<br />

senior quotes was not as funny as the rest…. ‘There are only two<br />

genders and a lot of mental illness.’ This is a clear attack towards<br />

the trans community at Highland.<br />

“As a member of the the LQBTQ+, this was extremely offensive<br />

to me and many of the students at my school,” the post continues.<br />

“I demand action to be taken against the student and the<br />

administrator that made it so hate speech could go into our <strong>2020</strong><br />

yearbook. The quotes were submitted before COVID started and<br />

the yearbook came out late. There is no excuse for this. Please<br />

help me make this public so [the student] can face the consequences<br />

of his actions.”<br />

It is unclear exactly how the controversial quote managed to<br />

make its way into the final yearbook without vetting from student<br />

editors, faculty yearbook advisors, or other administrators.<br />

The district confirmed that the quote was genuine and had been<br />

published in the yearbook in a statement to the Deseret News.<br />

“Unfortunately, one of the senior quotes in the yearbook<br />

included hate speech. Even more unfortunately, this quote was<br />

published in spite of the editing protocol in place for the yearbook,”<br />

the statement reads.<br />

“This yearbook quote is absolutely unacceptable and in no<br />

way reflective of the Salt Lake City School District, the value<br />

we place on every student, and the standards we strive to<br />

uphold,” Interim Superintendent Larry Madden said in his own<br />

statement. “Let me make it clear that the Salt Lake City School<br />

District condemns hate speech in any form.<br />

“To have something like this included in one of our high<br />

school yearbooks is abhorrent. We are committed to providing<br />

a safe and equitable learning environment for all students,<br />

including our LGBTQIA+ community. To our LGBTQIA+ and<br />

other marginalized students I say, please know how deeply your<br />

teachers, school administrators and district leaders care about<br />

you and your well-being,” Madden added.<br />

An investigation is ongoing into how the quote managed to<br />

evade scrutiny. The district will also be working with Highland’s<br />

new principal to review the editing process to ensure a similar<br />

incident doesn’t happen in the future.<br />

“The inclusion of this quote in the yearbook is more than<br />

just an administrative oversight; it is an affront, an attack on our<br />

Highland community and our LGBTQIA+ community in particular,”<br />

Jeremy Chatterton, who started as the new principal in<br />

July, said in a statement.<br />

“As principal, I will not allow hate speech like this in my<br />

school community. While the student in question has graduated,<br />

I want to reassure community members that I will take the steps<br />

necessary to make sure something like this is never allowed to<br />

happen again.”<br />

UNICEF ETHIOPIA-2013-SEWUNET<br />

Criminal Behavior<br />

Laws criminalizing homosexuality increase risk of gay men getting HIV. By Rhuaridh Marr<br />

GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN IN COUNTRIES WITH<br />

harsh laws criminalizing their sexual activity are almost<br />

five times more likely to have HIV than in countries<br />

where homosexuality is legal. That’s according to a new study by<br />

Johns Hopkins University, which examined men who have sex<br />

with men (MSM) in ten sub-Saharan countries, aidsmap reports.<br />

In countries with laws harshly penalizing homosexuality, MSM<br />

are 4.6 times more likely to be living with HIV than those in<br />

countries where same-sex sexual activity is legal, researchers<br />

found. For countries where criminalization exists, but punish-<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

15


homo-empire couldn’t tolerate even one commercial enterprise<br />

not in full submission to the tyrannical LGBT agenda.”<br />

She later canceled a planned meeting with a Politico reporter<br />

and refused to respond to press inquiries about her comments.<br />

Shortly after her appointment to USAID a few months ago, her<br />

previous tweets — which had since been made private — were<br />

once again trumpeted in the media, prompting a coalition of<br />

congressional members to write a letter to John Barsa, the acting<br />

administrator of USAID, to demand Corrigan’s resignation.<br />

In the letter, the members said that Corrigan’s comments on<br />

LGBTQ people and those who support them, as well as additional<br />

comments she made on women in leadership, gender roles,<br />

and immigration were “in direct opposition to the work USAID<br />

supports.” They also said Corrigan “has no place in a federal<br />

agency” and expressed concerns about USAID’s commitment<br />

to fostering a work environment free from discrimination or<br />

harassment.<br />

“The statements made by Ms. Corrigan create a hostile work<br />

environment and are antithetical to the principles the agency,<br />

and indeed America, espouses. To date, there has been no public<br />

retraction of these comments from Ms. Corrigan, or demand by<br />

USAID, or the White House that she retract them, but rather a<br />

statement defending Ms. Corrigan as ‘committed to enacting the<br />

policies of President Donald J. Trump,'” the letter read. “For the<br />

sake of USAID’s employees, the beneficiaries it supports around<br />

the world, and the core values of the agency, we urge you to<br />

immediately condemn this speech, and demand Ms. Corrigan’s<br />

resignation.”<br />

But on Monday, Corrigan appeared unapologetic, promising<br />

to hold a press conference on Thursday to “discuss the rampant<br />

anti-Christian sentiment at USAID” with Jacob Wohl and Jack<br />

Burkman, political operatives who have, in the past, made scandalous,<br />

but unproven, claims about opponents of the Trump<br />

administration, accusing former Special Counsel Robert Mueller<br />

of sexual misconduct, claiming that Kamala Harris is not a<br />

natural-born U.S. citizen, and that Pete Buttigieg had sexually<br />

assaulted a Michigan college student, among others.<br />

In a Twitter thread, Corrigan claimed she “watched with hortheFeed<br />

ments are less severe, MSM are more than twice as likely to be<br />

living with HIV.<br />

Researchers analyzed 8,113 MSM in 10 sub-Saharan countries<br />

with varying degrees of criminalization: Burkina Faso, Côte<br />

d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, and Rwanda, where homosexuality is<br />

legal; Cameroon, Senegal, Togo, and eSwatini, where homosexuality<br />

is punished with less than eight years in prison; and Gambia<br />

and Nigeria, where MSM face more than ten years in prison for<br />

having sex.<br />

In the four countries without criminalization, 8% of the men<br />

were living with HIV. In countries with some criminalization,<br />

that figure rose to 20%. In the two countries with the harshest<br />

punishments for same-sex sexual activity, more than half of the<br />

men sampled (52%), were living with HIV.<br />

Researchers also examined HIV rates relative to whether<br />

countries ban pro-LGBTQ organizations. In countries that<br />

restrict organizations serving MSM, men were more than twice<br />

as likely to be living with HIV.<br />

“Decriminalization of consensual same-sex sexual practices<br />

is necessary to optimize HIV prevention efforts and ultimately<br />

address the HIV epidemic,” Carrie Lyons, senior researcher,<br />

concluded.<br />

Matthew Hodson, executive director of NAM aidsmap, told<br />

PinkNews that countries sometimes argue that “[preventing]<br />

the transmission of HIV and other STIs is sometimes used to as<br />

cover to introduce or retain homophobic laws.”<br />

“This report quantifies the increased risk of HIV acquisition<br />

in countries that criminalize homosexuality and demonstrates<br />

the relationship between severe penalties for same-sex sexual<br />

behavior and higher prevalence of HIV,” Hodson said.<br />

He added: “We will not end HIV without ensuring the rights<br />

and dignity of LGBT people are respected.”<br />

Federal Fumble<br />

Trump appointee who called US a ‘homo-empire’ departs USAID. By John Riley<br />

A<br />

TRUMP APPOINTEE WITH A HISTORY OF ANTI-<br />

LGBTQ comments has left her position with the U.S.<br />

Agency for International Development, after members of<br />

Congress demanded her resignation due to her public remarks.<br />

According to NBC News, Merritt Corrigan, the deputy White<br />

House liaison at USAID, was fired on Monday following months<br />

of attacks from LGBTQ advocates and congressional Democrats<br />

who found some of her past tweets and public statements offensive<br />

and contrary to USAID’s mission.<br />

Shortly after, Corrigan unlocked her previously private<br />

Twitter account and issued six tweets, blasting USAID, congressional<br />

Democrats, and the media, and issuing a series of<br />

anti-LGBTQ attacks.<br />

“Let me clear: Gay marriage isn’t marriage. Men aren’t<br />

women. US-funded Tunisian LGBT soap operas aren’t America<br />

First,” Corrigan tweeted.<br />

She also claimed that she is a victim of anti-Christian discrimination<br />

who has been unfairly targeted for holding conservative<br />

beliefs.<br />

It remains unclear whether Corrigan’s termination was<br />

specifically because of her tweets, or whether the tweets were<br />

issued in response to the loss of her position, which could have<br />

been due to other factors.<br />

In 2019, Corrigan, a former employee of the Republican National<br />

Committee, took a new job as a political liaison at the Hungarian<br />

embassy in Washington, D.C. After news of her employment<br />

broke, Politico staffers Daniel Lippman and Lili Bayer reported<br />

on Corrigan’s past tweets, noting that she had routinely praised<br />

Hungary’s authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a vocal<br />

opponent of LGBTQ equality, for his conservative views, calling<br />

him the “shining champion of Western civilization.”<br />

On her Twitter profile, which was made private shortly<br />

after Corrigan’s comments came to light, Corrigan had said that<br />

“Liberal democracy is little more than a front for the war being<br />

waged against us by those who fundamentally despise not only<br />

our way of life, but life itself.”<br />

In another tweet, she criticized the LGBTQ rights movement<br />

for allegedly bullying opponents into submission, writing: “our<br />

16 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


theFeed<br />

TWITTER<br />

ror this week as USAID distributed taxpayer funded documents<br />

claiming ‘we cannot tell someone’s sex or gender by looking at<br />

them’ and that not calling oneself ‘cis-gendered’ (sic) is a microagression.”<br />

She added: “I’m not cis-anything. I’m a woman.”<br />

She accused several Democratic politicians, including House<br />

Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, New Jersey Senators<br />

Bob Menendez and Cory Booker, and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine<br />

of pushing for her ouster and slandering her. She also challenged<br />

Engel to a debate and called Daniel Lippman, the Politico<br />

reporter who first reported on her more controversial tweets, a<br />

“stalker.”<br />

“For too long, I’ve remained silent as the media has attacked<br />

me for my Christian beliefs, which are shared by the majority<br />

of Americans,” she tweeted. “Let me clear: Gay marriage isn’t<br />

marriage. Men aren’t women. US-funded Tunisian LGBT soap<br />

operas aren’t America First.”<br />

“The United States is losing ground in the battle to garner<br />

influence through humanitarian aid because we now refuse to<br />

help countries who don’t celebrate sexual deviancy,” Corrigan<br />

added, referring to LGBTQ rights and efforts to encourage<br />

other countries to repeal laws criminalizing homosexuality.<br />

“Meanwhile, Russia and China are happy to step in and eat our<br />

lunch.”<br />

Corrigan<br />

USAID released a statement to NBC News confirming that<br />

Corrigan is no longer employed at the agency.<br />

“USAID takes any claim of discrimination seriously, and<br />

we will investigate any complaints of anti-Christian bias Ms.<br />

Corrigan has raised during her tenure at the Agency,” Pooja<br />

Jhunjhunwala, acting USAID spokesperson, said in a statement.<br />

“USAID does not comment on the specific basis on which<br />

employees leave the Agency. All political appointees serve at the<br />

pleasure of the Administrator.”<br />

The Human Rights Campaign celebrated Corrigan’s departure,<br />

but noted that the Trump administration has many appointees<br />

who have expressed identical sentiments in positions<br />

throughout government.<br />

“Sadly, Merritt Corrigan is not unique in the Trump<br />

Administration. She is the exact type of anti-LGBTQ zealot<br />

that Trump recruits and places in positions of power,” HRC<br />

Government Affairs Director David Stacy said in a statement.<br />

“Corrigan’s biased and harmful beliefs are not shared by the<br />

vast majority of Americans. Corrigan is a symptom of a larger<br />

problem. It’s time to hold the Trump-Pence administration<br />

accountable at the ballot box and elect a leader this November<br />

who supports the fundamental humanity of LGBTQ people and<br />

appoints people who share that basic decency.”<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

17


theFeed<br />

FOX56<br />

A<br />

GROCERY STORE IN PENNSYLVANIA WAS SUBjected<br />

to protests after displaying a sign accusing LGBTQ<br />

people of spreading “deadly diseases and sickness.”<br />

Wenger’s Grocery Outlet, in Mifflinburg, Penn., caused outrage<br />

last month after creating a sign asking customers to be respectful<br />

of those choosing not to wear face masks to help prevent the<br />

spread of COVID-19.<br />

It featured misinformation about the coronavirus, in addition<br />

to anti-LGBTQ language accusing LGBTQ people of living a<br />

sinful lifestyle.<br />

The sign questioned the severity of the coronavirus pandemic,<br />

which has led to more than 114,000 people becoming infected<br />

and more than 7,200 deaths in the state, and suggested that the<br />

virus was a “political agenda.”<br />

It also featured a fake quote from U.S. Rep. Alexandria<br />

Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claiming that the New York congresswoman<br />

had urged for businesses to remain closed until after<br />

November to harm Donald Trump’s re-election chances.<br />

But it was a section at the bottom about LGBTQ people that<br />

drew particular ire from locals, the Daily Item reports. It accused<br />

LGBTQ people of living a “lifestyle” of “sin,” and accused them<br />

of spreading “deadly diseases and sickness.”<br />

“There are people who got covid19 and not all the others<br />

living in the same house got it,” the sign said. “This proves that<br />

covid19 IS NOT AS CONTAGIOUS AS THE NEWS MEDIA<br />

AND MANY OTHERS HAVE BLOWN IT UP TO BE. A lot of<br />

these same people support LGBTQ. This lifestyle is sin in God’s<br />

eyes and spreads deadly diseases and sicknesses.”<br />

Selling Hate<br />

Pennsylvania store protested for sign saying LGBTQ people<br />

‘spread deadly diseases.’ By Rhuaridh Marr<br />

After heavy criticism, the sign was removed and employees<br />

in the store began to wear face masks, according to Daily Item.<br />

“I hope they did it for the right reasons,” one resident said.<br />

“I’m glad they took down the horrible sign and I’m hoping they<br />

apologize for the comment about the LGBTQ community.”<br />

Patricia Arduini, president of the Susquehanna Valley Ethical<br />

Society (SVES), told Daily Item that she hoped Mark Wenger,<br />

owner of the grocery store, had removed the sign and implemented<br />

masks after further researching the seriousness of the<br />

COVID-19 pandemic.<br />

“I’m also still not hearing a meaningful acknowledgement or<br />

apology to the LGBTQ community,” Arduini said. “It was a very<br />

divisive statement and not appropriate in uniting a community.”<br />

After the removal of the sign, a Pride rally was held in the<br />

street outside the store. Dozens of activists and allies lined the<br />

town’s main street, wearing coordinated t-shirts in small groups<br />

to form the colors of the Pride flag.<br />

Speaking to FOX56, I Am Alliance founder Victoria Mathews<br />

— who helped organize the rally — said those who attended were<br />

“here to love…not for hate,” and hoped the show of support for<br />

LGBTQ people would “bring unity and a greater understanding.”<br />

“I am a gay man in central PA who grew up here, around<br />

here,” Trevor Leon, who attended the rally, told FOX56. “It’s<br />

hard.”<br />

Leon added: “Some little gay kid growing up here in Central<br />

PA is going to see this and see all the support and hopefully it<br />

helps.”<br />

Counter-protesters in cars featuring Confederate and U.S.<br />

18 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


theFeed<br />

flags circled the location of the rally, revving their engines and<br />

blasting horns.<br />

One van featured a sign saying, “Obey sodom = takeover +<br />

annihilation,” while many of those attending the counter-protest<br />

expressed their support for Donald Trump.<br />

“Doesn’t mean we don’t love them,” Carl Schreck, a counter-protester,<br />

said. “It just means it’s sin. My sin’s no different<br />

than her sin, but God says you should not be a homosexual.”<br />

Wenger has yet to publicly comment on the sign, or the subsequent<br />

criticism of his store.<br />

TONI REED<br />

Executive Action<br />

Canadian mayor offers to help anti-gay resident leave town. By Rhuaridh Marr<br />

A<br />

CANADIAN MAYOR HAS OFFERED TO HELP A<br />

local homophobe find a realtor and move out of town<br />

after backlash over an anti-gay letter. Tyler Gandam,<br />

mayor of Wetaskiwin, Canada, said that he was “happy to help”<br />

the anonymous author of the letter leave the city after they complained<br />

about a pro-LGBTQ yard display last month.<br />

It came after Wetaskiwin resident Jessica Hanks won the<br />

Grand Prize in the city’s Canada Day yard decorating contest,<br />

after winning the most votes from the public.<br />

Hanks, whose 15-year-old daughter is gay, had included a<br />

Pride flag in her display in a show of inclusivity.<br />

She received an anonymous letter after winning the competition,<br />

but rather than a note of congratulations, its author told<br />

Hanks that she was supporting a “‘sick’ portion of society.”<br />

“You apparently have no pride in being a true Canadian in<br />

that I do believe that was a multi-coloured ‘flag’ hanging on your<br />

fence indicating the ‘sick’ portion of society,” the anonymous letter<br />

said. “Junk like the ‘Pride’ followers have no place in society<br />

and certainly not in Wetaskiwin.”<br />

The author also criticized the painting of rainbow crosswalks<br />

in the city in June to celebrate Pride month, writing, “I sincerely<br />

hope and pray you were not one of those who painted the avenue-way<br />

by Norquest college. If you were, SHAME ON YOU!”<br />

Hanks said the attack felt particularly personal as the mother<br />

of an LGBTQ child.<br />

“I started crying,” Hanks told the Pipestone Flyer. “My daughter<br />

was standing beside me as I read it and my daughter is gay.”<br />

Hanks shared the letter on Facebook, saying she was “proud<br />

as hell to support the LGBTQ community. As the mother of a<br />

gay child.”<br />

“She is not sick. She is not disgusting. She is perfect in EVERY<br />

SINGLE WAY,” Hanks wrote, adding that the letter “shook me<br />

20 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

21


theFeed<br />

to my core.”<br />

The post was quickly filled with supportive comments, condemning<br />

the letter and its author and offering encouragement to<br />

Hanks and her daughter.<br />

“It was nice to see Wetaskiwin have my back,” she told the<br />

Pipestone Flyer, adding that she would be retaliating to the letter<br />

with “even more love.”<br />

“When you drive by my house next time the rainbow will be<br />

even bigger,” she said.<br />

The letter also drew the attention of Mayor Gandam, who<br />

took to Facebook to support the city’s LGBTQ community and<br />

offer to help the letter’s author find a realtor and move out of<br />

town.<br />

“If the person who wrote this, sees this post, please know that<br />

I was one of the people who proudly helped paint the Pride crosswalks<br />

on Main Street this year and last year,” Gandam wrote.<br />

“I’m proud of the City I live in and get to be the Mayor for.<br />

I hope that we continue to build inclusivity in our community,”<br />

he continued. “If you’re unhappy with how things are and need<br />

help finding a realtor, please let me know, I’ll be happy to help!”<br />

SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL<br />

Bezos<br />

Bezos Backpedals<br />

Jeff Bezos opens door to allowing donations to<br />

anti-LGBTQ groups through AmazonSmile. By John Riley<br />

AMAZON CEO JEFF BEZOS POTENTIALLY OPENED<br />

the door to allowing customers to donate to anti-LGBTQ<br />

groups during an antitrust hearing on Capitol Hill earlier<br />

this week. Bezos caved under fierce questioning from U.S.<br />

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) about Amazon’s Smile program, which<br />

donates 0.5% of eligible purchases to the charitable organization<br />

of a customer’s choice.<br />

Under the current guidelines, however, some groups are<br />

ineligible to receive donations because they allegedly “engage<br />

in, support, encourage, or promote intolerance, hate, terrorism,<br />

violence, money laundering, or other illegal activities.”<br />

Gaetz asked why certain organizations, such as Catholic<br />

Family News, the Federation for Federal Immigration<br />

Reform, the American Family Association, the Family<br />

Research Council, and Jewish Defense League are not eligible<br />

to receive donations.<br />

Bezos responded that Amazon currently uses information<br />

from the U.S. Foreign Asset Office and the Southern Poverty<br />

Law Center’s list of known “hate groups” to determine whether<br />

an organization is ineligible, according to Business Insider.<br />

“I’m just wondering why you would place your confidence in<br />

a group that seems to be so out of step and seems to take mainstream<br />

Christian doctrine and label it as hate?” Gaetz said of the<br />

SPLC. “…Since they’re calling Catholics and these Jewish groups<br />

hateful groups, why would you trust them?”<br />

Bezos acknowledged that Amazon was using an “imperfect<br />

system,” and was open to suggestions on how to determine eligibility,<br />

to which Gaetz suggested “a divorce from the SPLC.”<br />

Later in the hearing, Bezos was again asked about the SPLC<br />

and implied that Amazon would explore other options when<br />

22 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

23


theFeed<br />

determining appropriate organizations to which customers may<br />

choose to donate.<br />

“While I accept what you’re saying that the SPLC and US<br />

Foreign Asset Office are not perfect, and I would like a better<br />

source if I can get it, that is what we use today,” Bezos said.<br />

If Amazon were to follow Gaetz’s lead and allow the groups<br />

he mentioned to receive donations through the Amazon Smile<br />

program, the company would effectively be funneling money<br />

towards a number of groups that vehemently oppose LGBTQ<br />

rights, including the American Family Association and the<br />

Family Research Council, which was removed from Amazon<br />

Smile’s list of eligible organizations last month.<br />

According to the SPLC, the American Family Association regularly<br />

engages in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric towards any expansion of<br />

LGBTQ rights, based on the belief that homosexuality, same-sex<br />

marriage, and transgenderism are sinful and harmful to society.<br />

AFA’s “One Million Moms” offshoot has become infamous<br />

for calling for boycotts of companies who express support for<br />

LGBTQ rights or representation, with the Hallmark Channel<br />

serving as its most recent target due to the channel’s statements<br />

that it may be considering introducing LGBTQ characters or an<br />

LGBTQ storyline for one of its famed Christmas movies.<br />

The Family Research Council, meanwhile, regularly lobbies<br />

lawmakers to oppose legislation that promotes LGBTQ rights or<br />

same-sex marriage, including nondiscrimination bills, anti-bullying<br />

laws, hate crime laws, and allowing LGBTQ individuals to<br />

serve openly in the U.S. military.<br />

FRC even opposed a Trump administration initiative calling<br />

on countries to repeal laws criminalizing homosexuality, even in<br />

places where homosexuality or same-sex activity is punishable<br />

by prison or death.<br />

The group’s president, Tony Pekins, said that pushing countries<br />

to repeal their anti-LGBTQ laws would be a form of “cultural<br />

imperialism.”<br />

FACEBOOK<br />

Dangerous Deportation<br />

al-Bokari<br />

Saudi Arabian court sentences Yemeni blogger to prison and deportation<br />

for supporting LGBTQ rights. By John Riley<br />

A<br />

COURT IN SAUDI ARABIA HAS SENTENCED A<br />

Yemeni national prison and deportation for an online<br />

video expressing support for LGBTQ rights. The New<br />

York-based Human Rights Watch reported that on July 20,<br />

Yemeni blogger Mahomaed al-Bokari was sentenced to 10<br />

months in prison and eventual deportation back to Yemen for<br />

“violating public morality by promoting homosexuality online.”<br />

He has also been charged with “imitating women,” with<br />

prosecutors claiming he had undergone gender confirmation<br />

surgery to become a woman — which al-Bokari has denied. He<br />

will be fined 10,000 Saudi riyals, or the equivalent of $2,700, for<br />

his alleged crimes.<br />

24 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


“These charges show that the court decision is based on<br />

discriminatory accusations against al-Bokari based on his perceived<br />

sexual orientation and gender expression,” Human<br />

Rights Watch said in a news release. Al-Bokari, 29, has 30 days<br />

to appeal the verdict.<br />

Saudi Arabia often brings charges against people who advocate<br />

for LGBTQ rights by using cybercrime laws to prosecute<br />

content that authorities find objectionable. <strong>Sam</strong>e-sex relations<br />

are illegal and punishable by death in the country.<br />

Last year, CNN reported that five men were executed in<br />

Saudi Arabia for allegedly admitting to having se with other men,<br />

but human rights watchers believe they were beaten into giving<br />

false confessions.<br />

Al-Bokari was arrested in April after posting videos to<br />

Snapchat in which he urged others to respect the personal freedom<br />

of gay people, according to Middle East Eye.<br />

“Everyone has their own rights,” he said. “Homosexuals have<br />

their rights. I hope you will leave homosexual people alone and<br />

not intervene in their personal affairs. Everyone is free.”<br />

He previously fled Yemen in June 2019 after being threatened<br />

by local militia groups, and has since been living in Saudi<br />

Arabia as an undocumented migrant. His eventual deportation<br />

back to Yemen is all but certain to endanger his life.<br />

“Saudi Arabia’s public relations campaigns tout the kingdom’s<br />

‘progress,’ but the court’s jail sentence for peaceful<br />

speech and then deportation to Yemen where the defendant’s<br />

life is at risk shows how hollow these claims are,” Rasha<br />

Younes, an LGBT rights researcher at Human Rights Watch,<br />

said in a statement.<br />

“Saudi Arabia should match rhetoric with reality and drop<br />

the case and the deportation against al-Bokari immediately.”<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

25


<strong>Taking</strong> <strong>Aim</strong><br />

Whether it’s her new Netflix special<br />

or writing for SNL, <strong>Sam</strong> <strong>Jay</strong> is building<br />

a comedy career that is as bold<br />

as it is masterful.<br />

Interview by André Hereford<br />

IN HER FIRST NETFLIX ORIGINAL COMEDY SPECIAL,<br />

3 in the Morning, <strong>Sam</strong> <strong>Jay</strong> comes out swinging. <strong>Aim</strong>ing<br />

punchlines at ripe targets from Elon Musk and Donald<br />

Trump to the last man she slept with before coming out as a lesbian<br />

(“I just hope I’m not the reason you’re like this”), she slays<br />

without breaking a sweat. Filmed in Atlanta, where the comic<br />

was born, the hour-long special captures the Boston-raised<br />

<strong>Jay</strong>’s distinct humor and worldview in a tight burst of raw<br />

energy and rapid-fire edits that match her swaggering delivery.<br />

Before filming the special, <strong>Jay</strong>, also an Emmy-nominated<br />

writer on Saturday Night Live, and 3 in the Morning director<br />

Kristian Mercado Figueroa brainstormed its flow over blunts.<br />

“We talked for an hour and a half just about ideas,” she says.<br />

“This is what I wanted and how I wanted it to feel, and what<br />

he was thinking.” She played Mercado her 2018 live stand-up<br />

album, Donna’s Daughter, and showed him some of her appearances<br />

on shows like Netflix’s The Comedy Lineup, and her<br />

half-hour Comedy Central Stand-Up Presents special. “We just<br />

vibed,” she recalls.<br />

“I also really liked the way he lit people of color, and I just<br />

thought he knew what to do with melanin,” she says of the<br />

filmmaker, who also directed Hannibal Buress’ latest special,<br />

Miami Nights. “That was exciting to me because I was like, ‘I<br />

want to look good up there. I don't want to be washed out and<br />

shit.’ You know what I'm saying? So then we just kept building<br />

the vision and it came out. I couldn't be happier. I'm so glad that<br />

I went with him.”<br />

The product of a happy collaboration, 3 in the Morning<br />

reflects a solo performer ready to flex her confidence on the<br />

global stage. <strong>Jay</strong> surely earned some of that nerve by struggling<br />

through her 20s, moving between Boston and Atlanta, ultimately<br />

surviving a period during which she felt truly lost. “All<br />

the endeavors that I had been pursuing were falling apart, and<br />

I just really didn't know what I wanted to do,” she says. “I felt<br />

completely unfulfilled and was just moving through life, but not<br />

feeling like I was impacting life or even controlling my own.”<br />

By then, <strong>Jay</strong> had tried her hand at comedy, without finding<br />

her direction. Yet, at her lowest, “the stand-up bug just started<br />

to come again,” she says. “I was being funny in group settings<br />

and I was happiest when I was doing that. And I was just like,<br />

‘Man, you kind of ran away from this thing in a way and it may<br />

be the thing, because you're scared of it, that you need to be<br />

walking head-on towards.’”<br />

So she hit her stand-up head-on, honed her unfiltered comic<br />

voice, and toured and hustled her way onto some major lineups.<br />

“I did Just For Laughs, which is a big comedy festival that happens<br />

in Montreal every year. I was there for New Faces, which<br />

is one of the highest honors of the festival. I had a really good<br />

set and there were some SNL producers in the audience, and<br />

they just reached out to my management, ‘Will she audition in<br />

L.A.?’ Because that's where I lived at the time.”<br />

<strong>Jay</strong>’s L.A. audition went well enough for Saturday Night<br />

Live to fly her to New York to audition in front of the show’s<br />

legendary executive producer Lorne Michaels. “That went<br />

well, and then they just offered me a writing job.” Nearly four<br />

seasons and two Emmy nominations later, <strong>Jay</strong>, the show’s sole<br />

Black lesbian staff writer, has found her direction, writing<br />

installments of recurring parody Black Jeopardy and other viral<br />

sketches, like Cha-Cha Slide, which featured John Mulaney as a<br />

White guy at a Black wedding who’s casually hip to the culture.<br />

“That's one of my favorite sketches,” she says. “It was, for<br />

me, one of the first sketches where I got all my Black love<br />

into it. And I was like, ‘Yay, look at it, look at it happening.<br />

This is cool!’”<br />

26<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


NETFLIX


METRO WEEKLY: You said you talked with 3<br />

in the Morning director Kristian Mercado<br />

about how you wanted the special to feel.<br />

What was that?<br />

SAM JAY: I wanted it to feel intimate and<br />

I wanted it to feel important, without<br />

saying it was important. I wanted you to<br />

know it was a moment, because it was<br />

a moment for me, but I didn't want it to<br />

be like, "Ladies and gentlemen! Coming<br />

to the stage...!” You know what I mean?<br />

Because that's not how my actual life is in<br />

stand-up right now. I'm still meeting audiences,<br />

I'm still building a fan base, I don't<br />

go to any show and they just lose their<br />

fucking minds for me. So I didn't want to<br />

portray that in the special, when it's not<br />

real. But I also was like, this is special. So<br />

how do we do both of those things? And I<br />

feel like we executed it, or at least we did<br />

to a degree that makes me happy.<br />

MW: I didn't really think about that whole<br />

“crowd goes wild,” Robin Williams entering<br />

the Met kind of thing. Do you foresee that<br />

for yourself?<br />

JAY: I don't know if I'll ever be that style<br />

of a person. I don't know. I don't think so.<br />

MW: Now let's take it back. How did you get<br />

started in comedy?<br />

JAY: I tried comedy when I was 20, 21, and<br />

my cousin, she was married to this dude<br />

named Chris, he was a local comedian<br />

and I had always wanted to try comedy. I<br />

remember when I was like 12, he had put<br />

on this show for kids — funny kids — and<br />

he asked my two cousins to do it and he<br />

didn't ask me. I was so hurt. I never said<br />

anything but inside I was like, "I want to<br />

see if I can maybe do that."<br />

MW: Because you thought you were funny?<br />

JAY: I thought I could maybe do it. I've<br />

always been interested, I've always been<br />

a super comedy fan, watched since I<br />

was very young, probably too young to<br />

be watching some of the things I was<br />

watching, but I was just always super into<br />

comedy. Loved the Wayans family, would<br />

watch anything they made, love Eddie<br />

Murphy, would watch anything he made,<br />

then eventually that grew into watching<br />

Comic View, sneaking to watch Def Jam,<br />

trying to retell Def Jam jokes at school,<br />

falling in love with Niecy Nash and just<br />

always following funny people. That went<br />

all the way through high school, and when<br />

I started watching The State and Strangers<br />

with Candy, and all these different sketch shows. I just always<br />

had an affinity for that kind of stuff. Finally, around 20, I was<br />

like, "I want to try this thing." And I tried it. It wasn't good.<br />

MW: Stand-up or sketch?<br />

JAY: Stand-up. I never tried sketch. I was always in a stand-up<br />

space mentally. But I just didn't connect to it. It just didn't feel<br />

like how I thought it was supposed to feel. And then I got sick, I<br />

“My girl is a<br />

little vain. I<br />

wasn't talking<br />

about her at<br />

first and she<br />

was like, ‘You<br />

don't ever talk<br />

about me.’<br />

I just didn’t<br />

have anything<br />

to say. And<br />

then WHEN<br />

I STARTED<br />

HAVING<br />

STUFF TO<br />

SAY, SHE WAS<br />

LIKE, ‘DON'T<br />

BE TALKING<br />

ABOUT ME!’”<br />

was in and out of the hospital for a while,<br />

and then when I finally was healthy, I<br />

moved to Atlanta to go to school around<br />

22, 23. I went down to Atlanta, but did<br />

not really go to school — I just used that<br />

as an excuse to get the hell out of Boston.<br />

Partied a bunch, drank a bunch, and then<br />

started messing around with music and<br />

stuff, and just forgot about it. [I] just<br />

was just doing other things and moving<br />

through life and these other directions.<br />

And then when I hit about 27, 28, I was<br />

just really lost a bit.<br />

I got sick again in Atlanta, it had<br />

come full-circle in a trash-ass way. It was<br />

terrible. I had ended up sleeping on my<br />

friend's floor, and this dude comes in and<br />

he's her roommate and he's like, “<strong>Sam</strong>?”<br />

He knew me because he used to sleep on<br />

my floor. So it was just like, “I got to go.<br />

This is all the way bad.” And I've tapped<br />

this out, my Atlanta run is over.<br />

So I took my ass back home, and when<br />

I got home, everyone's still doing the<br />

same shit. Boston's a small town. My family,<br />

still everybody's working at a hospital<br />

or working on a public bus and all that<br />

kind of shit. And I'm just watching everyone<br />

be in a rut and I'm like, "This can't be<br />

life." And the stand-up thing is still nagging<br />

at me. And I'm like, "You just need to<br />

go ahead and put your head down and try<br />

this shit." So I called up Chris, my cousin's<br />

husband. And I was like, "Hey, man I<br />

want to get back on the [open] mike.” And<br />

he was like, “Oh, you’re serious?" I'm like,<br />

"I'm serious." And he was like, "All right,<br />

well, there's a mike on Sunday." And I<br />

went, I got booed, but there was this kid<br />

there and he told me about all the other<br />

mikes in the city and I just kept going.<br />

MW: That night were they booing your<br />

jokes?<br />

JAY: They just didn't want comedy. It was<br />

at this VFW type situation that they had a<br />

party, and then they were doing comedy<br />

after the party, but the people who were<br />

at the party hadn't cleared out and they<br />

wanted to watch basketball and [organizers]<br />

were like, "No, we’re going to start<br />

this comedy show." And seriously, as<br />

soon as I said a word, this dude from the<br />

back was like, “Boo, shut the fuck up!”<br />

So I didn't even get to do it for real. But<br />

it was also like, I felt like that was God<br />

being like, "Bitch, this is what it’s going<br />

to be. Either you going to keep pushing with this shit or you're<br />

going to let this stuff knock you off your square. We going to<br />

check you right here, right now." And so, I felt like it was a test.<br />

I just kept getting up and, really, three minutes turned into five<br />

minutes, turned into 10, turned into 15.<br />

MW: I mean, would you have wanted to start out with killing from<br />

the very first set?<br />

28<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


JAY: I don't think so. You want to get in the trenches with it and<br />

build it, for sure.<br />

MW: Now, shooting this special in Atlanta, why there?<br />

JAY: I just have a connection to the city. I lived there for eight<br />

years. I was born there, but I moved when I was a baby, very<br />

young, so I don't remember it. So I'm Boston raised, basically,<br />

but I was born there and I have family there. And that's where<br />

I found myself, that's where I came out,<br />

that's where I met my girlfriend, it's where<br />

I met my first group of queer gay friends.<br />

You know what I mean? Really just when<br />

I feel like I came to be who I am.<br />

MW: How are gay and lesbian comics<br />

received there, and in terms of booking,<br />

throughout the south?<br />

JAY: I don't feel like I've had issues. I've<br />

done shows in Asheville, North Carolina<br />

and at the Dead Crow, which is near<br />

Wilmington. I've done Florida.... So I don’t<br />

think I’ve had issues. But sometimes you<br />

get to those rooms and yeah, you'll get a<br />

bunch of white people, for lack of a better<br />

word, that just ain't gonna go with the shit.<br />

And they might walk out in the middle of<br />

a Trump joke, because they don't want to<br />

hear what you got to say. I think they sit<br />

down ready to not want to hear what you<br />

got to say because of what you look like.<br />

They’re already like, "We're not going<br />

to like this." You know what I'm saying?<br />

Sometimes you get that, and it just is what<br />

it is.<br />

MW: Since you brought up Trump. In 3 in<br />

The Morning you make a case that Trump<br />

is “the first nigga in the White House.” I<br />

think I caught your meaning. Although I<br />

can see how it could be misconstrued. Do<br />

you ever worry, with that joke or any joke,<br />

about the humor being taken the wrong<br />

way?<br />

JAY: Well, I'm curious what part of it do<br />

you think could be misconstrued?<br />

MW: You seem to make a dichotomy<br />

between what a president would do and<br />

what a “nigga” would do. That’s what you<br />

set up, and I guess some people could construe<br />

what a “nigga” would do as not necessarily<br />

somebody who is...<br />

JAY: Black?<br />

MW: Black. I guess the thing is you're not<br />

using that word just to mean Black, and<br />

a lot of people could think you are, and it<br />

could go down a whole other rabbit hole.<br />

JAY: I just feel like if you listen, then you<br />

know that's not the case. And if you want<br />

to be triggered, then you're going to be<br />

triggered. But then you want to be triggered,<br />

and I can't do nothing about the<br />

people that want to be triggered.<br />

MW: But it feels like a lot of people want to<br />

be triggered these days.<br />

JAY: Yeah, they do. But that has nothing to<br />

do with me. I think if you listen for what<br />

“You'll get a<br />

bunch of white<br />

people...and<br />

they might<br />

walk out in<br />

the middle of<br />

a Trump joke,<br />

because they<br />

don't want to<br />

hear what you<br />

got to say. And<br />

I think THEY<br />

SIT DOWN<br />

READY TO<br />

NOT WANT TO<br />

HEAR WHAT<br />

YOU GOT TO<br />

SAY BECAUSE<br />

OF WHAT YOU<br />

LOOK LIKE.”<br />

it is, you get the joke in it. I tell it that way specifically, because<br />

the white people will hear it, and I definitely want the ones that<br />

support Trump to face a reality of what they're supporting and<br />

stop pretending that it's something else that it isn't. And so it's<br />

also that level of, let's take the veil off of this and stop playing<br />

these games. You all being nigga’d. That's what's going on. He's<br />

nigging in there and just doing whatever the hell he wants to do<br />

and let's not pretend it's something else.<br />

MW: It's a strong opinion.<br />

JAY: You’re making me nervous. I felt<br />

good about the joke, now you making me<br />

nervous.<br />

MW: Oh, no. No. I want strong opinions in<br />

my comedy. Another strong opinion, and<br />

something that I support in general, you<br />

make a statement that trans women are<br />

real women. And I'm wondering if you've<br />

had any trans women or men in your audience<br />

who have reacted or responded to any<br />

of your trans humor.<br />

JAY: I've definitely had trans women and<br />

men in the audience. And they've never<br />

specifically come up to me and been like<br />

this or that about the joke as much they'd<br />

just be like, "That's funny. And I appreciate<br />

the angle you're coming at." But it also<br />

lives in that same space as the Trump<br />

joke, right? Where you can listen for one<br />

thing and then you can run with that, and<br />

you can take it and go left, and say that<br />

I'm being anti-trans if you want to, if you<br />

want to be triggered. Or you can listen to<br />

the joke, and hear all the different levels<br />

and things that I'm playing on and trying<br />

to speak about, and see that I'm genuinely<br />

trying to push the dialogue and open<br />

the conversation up.<br />

But I can't write thinking about the<br />

triggered people, because then I'll be<br />

writing in a box, you know what I'm saying?<br />

Because I am queer, I'm gay. I definitely<br />

don't want to be saying anything<br />

that's anti-my community. So I do think<br />

about things like that. Even when I wanted<br />

to do the trans joke it was like, I had to<br />

think about, “What are you saying? What<br />

are you trying to say? Why do you want<br />

to say this? Why do you think it needs to<br />

be said?” And I do those types of checks<br />

in my head before I move forward with<br />

any joke: Me Too, trans, Trump. It's like,<br />

"Why are you saying this? Why do you<br />

want to say it? Why do you feel like you<br />

need to say it? Okay. All your chakras are<br />

aligned and in a good place, go forward."<br />

MW: Sticking with people not necessarily<br />

being triggered, how has your wife<br />

responded to seeing herself and your life<br />

presented in your stand-up? Or is that<br />

something that you prepare somebody for<br />

when you start dating?<br />

JAY: I mean, so this is a real funny question<br />

because my girl is a little vain. So I<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

29


NETFLIX<br />

“I do checks in my head before I move forward<br />

with any joke: Me Too, trans, Trump. It's like,<br />

‘Why are you saying this? Why do you want to<br />

say it? Why do you feel like you need to say it?<br />

Okay. ALL YOUR CHAKRAS ARE ALIGNED AND<br />

IN A GOOD PLACE, GO FORWARD.’”<br />

wasn't talking about her at first and she<br />

was like, "You don't ever talk about me."<br />

And I was like, I don't know, I just didn’t<br />

have anything to say. And then when I<br />

started having stuff to say, it was like,<br />

"Don't be talking about me!" But in the<br />

realness of it, I run everything by her.<br />

She's such a big supporter. I don't know<br />

if I would even be here without my girl in<br />

my corner. She literally goes on the road<br />

with me and I hate going on the road,<br />

especially I hate going alone, and going<br />

with her always just enriches the experience.<br />

Even all those jokes I got out of<br />

Europe, I have to attribute that to my girl.<br />

If I would've went on that European tour<br />

alone, I wouldn't have much of nothing<br />

to say about the trip.<br />

So in that regard, I run everything<br />

by her. Like, "Babe, I'm thinking about<br />

doing this or talking about this thing,<br />

and are you cool with that?" Or, "Are you<br />

uncomfortable?" if I do just get on stage<br />

and happen to riff something, and it just<br />

comes out — when I get off, I'm like,<br />

"Was that too much? Do you not want me<br />

to say this part?" Or, "Are you cool with<br />

all of it?" Because I do respect her, and<br />

I don't want to be out there disrespecting<br />

her. Even though people are going<br />

to watch it and be like, "Oh shit, she be<br />

talking crazy about her girl." I want home<br />

to be good. I want us to be like, we good<br />

and we know what we on.<br />

MW: I've never dated a comic, so it’s never<br />

come up, but I feel like if it takes a lot of<br />

nerve to be a comic, it must take a lot of<br />

nerve to be with on. Is that the case?<br />

JAY: Yeah, my girl, she's no pushover. If<br />

she don't want something, it's not going<br />

to happen. I always tell people, "I'm really<br />

the bullied one." If only people knew.<br />

A lot of this stuff I have to run by her<br />

because I'm just afraid of her. And I'm<br />

like, I don't want to deal with no static<br />

later on.<br />

MW: So I want to talk about SNL, because<br />

I am a lifelong fan of that show. Was it<br />

a show that meant something to you as<br />

a kid?<br />

JAY: Well, yeah. I definitely watched it. I<br />

was younger and I feel like the show is one<br />

of those shows where it comes in phases.<br />

So I remember being like nine, 10, and my<br />

parents would watch it. And so by default,<br />

I knew about it and knew the players and<br />

stuff. And then I used to watch Eddie<br />

Murphy's Best of SNL tape that my mom<br />

had all the time. So I was aware of the<br />

world and what the world was.<br />

Then, when I was in my early teens,<br />

it was all Molly Shannon, and I loved all<br />

that. And I would go to every SNL movie.<br />

30<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


Night at the Roxbury. Superstar. I would go see all that stuff and<br />

I knew all the characters. And then you had the Maya Rudolph<br />

years, with Gemini's Twin. So it's just like different points in the<br />

show, that I just had these different things that I fell in love with.<br />

So I was aware of it, but I never thought of myself in that space.<br />

As I was doing stand-up and, as you see how my special is, I'm<br />

like, "I don't live in NBC world." I'm over here doing some whole<br />

other shit. So I never even saw myself in that space.<br />

MW: Well, do you have a favorite Black Jeopardy sketch?<br />

JAY: I like the Tom Hanks one.<br />

MW: Honestly, I think they're all good. I liked the Chadwick<br />

Boseman one.<br />

JAY: I wrote on the Chadwick one. So it's by default that's my<br />

favorite, but that's not fair, I feel. If I take myself out of it, the<br />

Tom Hanks one.<br />

MW: What is the process of getting something from the kernel of an<br />

idea or a joke to script, then to something that's getting rehearsed<br />

and on air?<br />

JAY: I mean, the process is brutal and really not up to me. All I<br />

do is, I write it, then it goes to the table. And maybe it'll go, and<br />

maybe it won’t. And even through that process, even if you can<br />

get past that and you're like, "All right, we're going to make the<br />

sketch,” you still have to make it from dress [rehearsal] to air, so<br />

you can get chopped somewhere between there. And then sometimes,<br />

if the air's running over or it's crazy, and there's no time,<br />

because it's live, you might be bottom of the show, you might get<br />

chopped. So you never really feel safe, or feel things are going to<br />

go till it goes and you see it, and you're like, "It happened, cool."<br />

MW: Are writers at the table for those first reads?<br />

JAY: Yeah, everybody is.<br />

MW: I just have to ask, did you have anything to do with Cha Cha<br />

Slide? Because that's like —<br />

JAY: I sure did, boo.<br />

MW: I wouldn’t say somebody could be triggered by that because<br />

it's so good-natured, but I could see how, again, people could miss<br />

the meaning despite the fact that there's so much love in that<br />

sketch.<br />

JAY: That's just my comedic voice, I guess. It's just like, you<br />

could catch it or you could take it another route if you want to<br />

take it another route.<br />

MW: I wonder this every summer, when the show is on hiatus, is there<br />

stuff happening right now in the world that you might be dying to<br />

write about? Jokes that you would want to make because there's all<br />

kinds of shit going on. How are you getting your comedy out?<br />

JAY: Well, I've just been doing a lot of writing. I have some projects<br />

that I've been working on, so I've just been trying to throw<br />

Click Here to<br />

Watch the Trailer<br />

for <strong>Sam</strong> <strong>Jay</strong>’s<br />

Special<br />

my energy into the things I can do. You know<br />

what I mean? I can write these shorts and I<br />

can play around in this world through writing<br />

and having Zoom sessions with my homies<br />

and jamming on stuff in that kind of way. And<br />

then there's been a few little popup shows that<br />

are outside of New York that I've been able to<br />

bop to, here and there, just to take the edge off. And at least, if I<br />

really got fucking pressed and I'm like, "I need to talk about this,”<br />

there’s somewhere to kind of do it now, but it is tough, because<br />

it's not every night, it's not how it used to be.<br />

That's what makes New York magical for comics. It's like,<br />

you can get up every night, do three, four shows every night and<br />

really build something. Honestly, if the world wasn't shut down,<br />

I'd probably be 20 minutes into another hour by this point.<br />

MW: How did you build the hour for 3 In The Morning? Was that<br />

over the course of a bunch of road dates, or did you just hole yourself<br />

up writing?<br />

JAY: It was a little bit of both. When I first got the news that I<br />

was going to do it, it was just getting up a lot in New York. It was<br />

just really pounding the material out in New York and getting it<br />

to a place where I was feeling good about it, because I feel like<br />

New York's the best place to do stand-up. I think the audiences<br />

are just savvy, they know comedy, they love comedy. New York<br />

you can really fuck with them, that's how a lot of these bits got<br />

made, because I was doing this shit in New York and they're<br />

a place that'll let you fuck around and say some crazy shit and<br />

push them and really figure out the nuance of it.<br />

Then I was like, "Okay, once I get it there, now let me take it<br />

on the road and figure out how to make this palatable to more<br />

than grimy New Yorkers." And just grow it out like that. That's<br />

why it was so important for me to go to Europe, because I just<br />

wanted to also have gotten that more global and international<br />

test to know, “All right, I'm not just talking out my ass.” And that<br />

gave me the confidence to say the stuff I said, because I took it<br />

all around.<br />

MW: What is next now that 3 In The Morning is out of the bag?<br />

JAY: I mean, I got some projects in development, some things<br />

that I'm working on that I'm excited about that I can't talk about,<br />

but hopefully they all work out. I'm going to keep writing, doing<br />

stand-up and just let that take me wherever it takes me. And I'm<br />

also just chilling and going to let it just wash over me and think<br />

about what I want to do next, to be honest, and just assess where<br />

I am after all of this and then see where my voice is bringing me.<br />

MW: Are you going to do SNL this season?<br />

JAY: I am, because there is no touring and I need a job.<br />

MW: When reading up on you, other names come up like SNL cast<br />

members Danitra Vance and Ellen Cleghorne, Maya Rudolph,<br />

Leslie Jones. What is it like to be part of that legacy of Black<br />

women at SNL when, frankly, not that many Black women have<br />

walked through that door and created a sustained impact?<br />

JAY: I mean, it's huge. And I think also it's a big deal because,<br />

like you said, it's not a lot of Black women that walk through that<br />

door. And I think the more that do, the more that will, and the<br />

more that will even attempt to. I feel like they can. I definitely<br />

know I was one, I didn't even think that was a door that could<br />

open for me until it opened. And so I definitely feel like just<br />

being in those spaces and also creating in your true voice and<br />

your authenticity, and not letting that be decided by the space,<br />

but you bringing something to the space, only helps up the visibility<br />

for people that look like us.<br />

MW: Speaking of, how are you keeping your fade together?<br />

JAY: You know what? I was really messed up for a while, because<br />

I was taking [lockdown] seriously, so I was<br />

not getting a haircut. I was like, nope, nope,<br />

nope. So I was really Sherman Klump-ing out<br />

here. Shit was looking super crazy. But then I<br />

had to do something for TV, and I was like, "I<br />

cannot." So my barber's been coming over, and<br />

he'll be like full hazmat. But I'm doing the DJ<br />

Khaled thing.<br />

MW: I was going to say, because your special starts out with you<br />

getting your hair cut, that a barber’s a good person to have out on<br />

the road with you when the time comes.<br />

JAY: Yeah. I feel like that's when I’ll know I’ve made it, when<br />

I'm like Diddy and the barber’s just with me everywhere. That’s<br />

when I’ve arrived.<br />

<strong>Sam</strong> <strong>Jay</strong>: 3 in the Morning is currently available for streaming on<br />

Netflix. Visit www.netflix.com.<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

31


Gallery<br />

Outrage I - Will we have to march again? by Andrea Rowe Kraus<br />

Art & Activism<br />

IN <strong>2020</strong>, WE CAN NO LONGER STAY SILENT ON THE<br />

issues that matter.” And with that as an opening statement,<br />

Dupont Circle’s Studio Gallery is off and running with<br />

the artist cooperative’s latest all-members exhibition. Art &<br />

Activism showcases artworks that have been inspired by one<br />

or more of the social movements of our time: from Black Lives<br />

Matter to immigration reform, women’s rights to LGBTQ<br />

equality, climate change to the coronavirus pandemic.<br />

Available for viewing either as a traditional exhibition<br />

in the reopened gallery space or as a virtual display, Art &<br />

Activism features works by member artists, among them<br />

Gordon Binder, Gary Anthes, Kimberley Bursic, William<br />

Bowser, Deborah Addison Coburn, Suzanne Goldberg, Lois<br />

Kampinsky, Thierry Guillemin, Yuno Baswir, and Lisa Allen.<br />

Some participants have also elected to donate a percentage of<br />

their sales to a charity of their choosing.<br />

On display to Aug. 22. Studio Gallery is open by appointment<br />

on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and to the general<br />

public on Fridays and Saturdays from 1 to 6 p.m., with a maximum<br />

of five guests in the space at any one time. Face masks<br />

required. The gallery is at 2108 R St. NW. Call 202-232-8734<br />

or visit studiogallerydc.com.<br />

32 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


Day 2 by Sally Kauffman<br />

Honor Guard (First Time Ever, Pride Parade)<br />

by Gordon Binder<br />

Scale Model for Border Protection Facility, Trump Era, 2019 by William Bowser<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

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34 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


Television<br />

NETFLIX<br />

Streaming<br />

Through Time<br />

Umbrella Academy and Dark use time as a narrative device,<br />

while Mrs. America returns us to a critical time<br />

in our history. By Randy Shulman<br />

WITH THEATRICAL RELEASES HAVING COME TO A SUDDEN,<br />

screeching halt, our collective eyes have turned to our TVs and devices,<br />

where streaming services now reign supreme. There is so much exceptional<br />

content out there — both new and classic — that it’s helping make quarantine a bit<br />

more bearable. With that in mind, here are three binge-worthy shows that you should<br />

immediately put at the top of your must-watch list.<br />

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY. The Netflix series bears only a modest resemblance to the<br />

comic book series written by Gerard Way and lavishly illustrated by Gabriel Bá. The<br />

toning-down of the book’s extravagant violence is for the better, though the storyline<br />

remains as offbeat and wild. The adventures of a profoundly dysfunctional family<br />

of adopted siblings, each with his or her own special superpower,<br />

retains all of its bizarreness, and season two, which dropped<br />

last weekend, is as good as, if not better than, the first. Both deal<br />

with the siblings attempting to halt a predetermined apocalyptic<br />

event, and both delve into some fairly resonant emotional terrain.<br />

Season two, which takes place in Dallas leading up to Kennedy’s<br />

assassination, elevates the show’s LGBTQ quotient in a beautifully organic way. The<br />

cast is fantastic, with standouts including a quietly simmering Ellen Page, Kate Walsh<br />

(doing her very best Wendie Malick), David Castañeda as the brash, impetuous Diego,<br />

a scene-stealing Robert Sheehan as the flamboyant clairvoyant of the clan, and the<br />

remarkable Aidan Gallagher, whose portrayal of the time-traveling Five, a fifty-something<br />

assassin trapped in the body of a 14-year-old, brings essential gravity and urgency<br />

to both seasons. Bonus: Mary J. Blige shines in season one as a brutal assassin from the<br />

future. I heard a rumor you’ll drop everything and watch it now on Netflix. (HHHHH)<br />

MRS. AMERICA. This FX on Hulu miniseries does a little time-hopping itself, back<br />

to the ’70s and the incipient struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment, notably the<br />

war of words (and baked goods) between conservative nightmare Phyllis Schlafly<br />

and her minions and the queens of women’s rights Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug,<br />

and Shirley Chisholm, who slowly, tortuously attempt to get the ERA ratified. It’s<br />

Click Here to<br />

Watch the Trailer for<br />

“Umbrella Academy”<br />

Umbrella Academy<br />

a stunningly well-written and produced<br />

series, and features perhaps the most clever<br />

opening credits sequences you’ll ever<br />

see. Cate Blanchett makes a steely yet surprisingly<br />

vulnerable Schlafly without ever<br />

attempting to make her sympathetic. She’s<br />

essentially a demon in apron strings. The<br />

ensemble is sensational — there’s not a bad<br />

performance, from Rose Byrne as Steinem<br />

and Margo Martindale as Abzug to Uzo<br />

Aduba as Chisholm and Sarah Paulson,<br />

as an amalgam of several conservative<br />

women who, as the series progresses,<br />

evolves ideologically. It’s Tracey Ullman,<br />

however, who walks away with the series<br />

as a brash, perpetually inflamed Betty<br />

Frieden. It’s a masterful performance in a<br />

series filled with them. Exclusively on FX<br />

on Hulu. (HHHHH)<br />

DARK. If you’re looking for the granddaddy<br />

of mind-bending time-travel shows, this<br />

German Netflix-produced series, which<br />

recently concluded a satisfying three-season<br />

run, can’t be beat. It’s a mind-scrambler<br />

of a show that gets<br />

more and more addictive<br />

as it moves forward<br />

(and backward and<br />

sideways). A mix of science<br />

fiction and dense,<br />

brooding drama, Dark keeps pushing its<br />

own envelope on what a series is capable<br />

of. For example, by the time you get to the<br />

middle of season three, you are witness to<br />

a murder that is at its very core impossible.<br />

And yet, there it is. It leaves you gobsmacked.<br />

Dark is one of those meticulously<br />

considered shows that you can either<br />

obsess over or go with the flow and enjoy<br />

the ride. Either way, by the time you get to<br />

the series finale, the landing is so perfect,<br />

so beautiful, so emotionally resonant, that<br />

you’re instantly ready to return to season<br />

one, and give it another go. (HHHHH)<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

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36 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


Music<br />

PARKWOOD ENTERTAINMENT<br />

Royal Treatment<br />

Beyoncé’s visual album, Black is King, is a majestic love letter<br />

to Black communities past and present. By Sean Maunier<br />

A<br />

FEW YEARS AGO IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN FAIR TO CALL BEYONCÉ THE<br />

queen of pop, but with her unmatched ability to push boundaries and set the<br />

tone of conversations, she likely deserves a bigger crown than that. Even so, her<br />

latest project is an ambitious one, even for her. She noted on her Instagram that the<br />

making of Black is King (HHHHH) was a “labor of love,” an undertaking that aimed to<br />

do no less than tell the story of millennia of Black history and to discover “what it truly<br />

means to find your self-identity and build a legacy.” More than a year in the making and<br />

filmed on three continents, it is a massive, sprawling effort, one that Beyoncé and her<br />

long list of collaborators have clearly poured their hearts and souls into.<br />

Beyoncé is of course all but synonymous with the visual album, having established<br />

herself as a master of the genre with Lemonade. Each scene is markedly distinct from<br />

the one preceding it, both visually and in tone, but together they<br />

tell a cohesive story of a young African king cast out from his family<br />

who must find his way back, guided by his childhood love and his<br />

ancestors. Conceived as a companion piece to The Lion King: The<br />

Gift, it reimagines and reinterprets the story for a <strong>2020</strong> audience. The<br />

project incorporates audio from the live-action remake of The Lion King, as in the first<br />

interlude, when a voiceover of James Earl Jones as Mufasa plays over images of African<br />

families as well as celestial bodies.<br />

Black is King is awash with immediately recognizable symbolism. Beyoncé and her<br />

co-director Kwasi Fordjour incorporate pan-African as well as biblical and Christian<br />

imagery, with Beyoncé herself cast as guide, narrator, and both literal and figurative<br />

Click Here to<br />

Watch the Trailer<br />

Black is King is available to stream exclusively on Disney+.<br />

mother. She may be at the center of the<br />

story, larger than life as she so often is, but<br />

this time she is more its storyteller than its<br />

subject. As she puts it in the opening track,<br />

“I’ll be the roots, you be the tree.” The<br />

project acts as a corrective to the sweeping<br />

narratives of human history and culture<br />

that have been handed down to us and<br />

have all too often actively marginalized,<br />

forgotten and scrubbed out the stories<br />

and contributions of Black individuals and<br />

communities. Images from classical western<br />

art are reimagined accordingly, with<br />

Beyoncé appearing in the likeness of the<br />

Madonna and child.<br />

As much as she deserves praise as the<br />

driving force behind it, Black is King is<br />

bigger than Beyoncé, a fact which is not<br />

lost on her. Driving the point home, the<br />

film ends with a dedication to her son<br />

Sir, right before the credits<br />

play over an extended<br />

version of “Black Parade,”<br />

the song she released a few<br />

weeks ago to coincide with<br />

Juneteenth. Setting the already powerfully<br />

resonant songs over the gorgeous, inspired<br />

visuals elevates them and their storytelling<br />

power, elements that weave together<br />

beautifully to tell a complex, timely and<br />

necessary story.<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

37


RetroScene<br />

Remingtons, Feb. 15, 1997 - Photography by Randy Shulman<br />

To see more photos from this event online, click on the photos below.<br />

38 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


RetroScene<br />

Liquid Ladies at Phase One, Oct. 15, 2002 - Photography by Michael Wichita<br />

To see more photos from this event online, click on the photos below.<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

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40 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM


LastWord.<br />

People say the queerest things<br />

Do you know what WE are sick and tired of?<br />

“<br />

our racist, homophobic, tyrannical, golfing<br />

idiot of a president.”<br />

—CLAUDIA CONWAY, daughter of presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway, in a tweet responding to President Donald Trump<br />

complaining about people being “sick and tired” of apparent congressional inaction with regards to “Big Tech.”<br />

We are thrilled to continue our legacy of<br />

“<br />

creating a holiday destination that is welcoming to all<br />

at Lifetime. ”<br />

—Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network programming Executive Vice President AMY WINTER, in a statement announcing that the channel<br />

is producing its first-ever holiday movie featuring LGBTQ leads, The Christmas Set-Up.<br />

Our treaties ensure that<br />

“<br />

every person in Europe is free to be who they are,<br />

live where they like, love who they want<br />

and aim as high as they want. I will continue to push for a #UnionOfEquality. ”<br />

—E.U. Commission President URSULA VON DER LEYEN, in a tweet supporting the Commission’s decision to cut funding and other opportunities<br />

to six cities in Poland that have declared themselves to be “LGBT-free” zones, as part of increasing intolerance towards<br />

LGBTQ people in the Eastern European nation.<br />

I might be the first person they’ve ever seen who stands up and just says, like<br />

“<br />

it’s a normal thing that you should not be ashamed of,<br />

that I’m transgender. ”<br />

—OWEN BONDONO, Michigan’s recently crowned Teacher of the Year, speaking to NPR-affiliate Michigan Radio about the importance<br />

of being an out, visible trans person in school. Bondono, a ninth-grade English teacher,<br />

is the first known trans winner of the award.<br />

Took me a while, but<br />

“<br />

I am proud to be gay.”<br />

—Swedish singer-songwriter DARIN, in an Instagram post coming out as gay. One of the Scandinavian country’s best-selling artists<br />

with seven number one albums, the 33-year-old wrote, “Everyone in the world should be able to be proud and accepted for who they are.<br />

I know how difficult it can be.”<br />

AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM<br />

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42 AUGUST 6, <strong>2020</strong> • METROWEEKLY.COM

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