You look AH-mazing YaY! Area. All sparkly and glittery and gorgeous with the amount of fabulous things to do this weekend. This weekend I have a favor to ask of you, community. Over the last six months I have
been working with an organization that I hold near and dear to my heart, Our Space. Our Space creates safe and affirming space where LGBTQ youth can socialize, build community, develop leadership skills and access culturally relevant mental health services. I have been in LGBTQ community for a LOOOOOONG time and I wish that I had a place like this to go to when I was young. I have been inside their offices, worked closely with some of the youth that go to Our Space and I cannot even begin to describe how they have changed me. It has been such an affirming experience for me. So often, as LGBTQ adults, we get caught up in our day to day lives and struggles. We may not always remember that there is an entire generation coming up that we have access to in ways we didn’t in the past who need our help, guidance and leadership 
skills. They will be the adults over the next 20-30 years that will be taking over our activism, our events, our shows, our history. We have a unique opportunity to positively impact them in ways the generation before mine were not able to because we didn’t, as young people, have places like Our Space or social media. This weekend they are throwing a fundraiser to help offset the cost of hiring youth leaders. I had an opportunity to catch up with the Program Director of Our Space, Stephanie Perron. Check out what she has to say and then continue below to see all the great events this weekend.
M
iz Chris [MC]: Where are you from?
Stephanie Perron [SP]: I’m from New Hampshire, grew up in the woods on Rock Pond (we were the only people who lived there year round, and we had a crank toilet before they were environmentally cool — mostly it was just mortifying to me and my 12 year old self when I had my friends, or my love interests, over and had to explain which toilet to use for what). But Rock Pond was beautiful and totally immersed in the smell of pine needles. I spent my summers swimming from morning to night and my winters skating and sledding — I feel really lucky to have grown up on that magical pond.
[MC]: What is the history behind Our Space? / How did you become the ED of Our Space?
[SP]: Our Space is a program of Bay Area Youth Center, a division of Sunny Hills Service and I’m the Program Director (not ED). In 2009 I started at BAYC as a mental health clinician working with transitional age foster youth. When I joined the team, BAYC was in the process of planning a symposium for mental health and foster care workers in Alameda County on the experiences and needs of LGBTQ youth in foster care. I quickly joined that committee and became one of the lead organizers of the symposium. The symposium was a smashing success and when it was over Alameda County Behavioral Health Care Services offered BAYC a contract to start providing competent and affirming mental health services to LGBTQ youth — the Our Space community center (and all its fabulous services) was born out of that and I was offered the position of Program Director. For the first two years it was just me at Our Space — I furnished Our Space with free furniture off craigslist, provided mental health services to LGBTQ youth, ran drop-in hours at the community center and searched for funding. And then last year we were blessed with a contract from Alameda County Social Services to provide intensive and targeted support services to LGBTQ youth in foster care or at risk of entering the system. This contract has allowed Our Space to expand into its current state with a team full of glitter fabulous & magical staff.
[MC]: Why are you holding the Bad Glamour Shots for a Good Cause Fundraiser this weekend?
[SP]: We are raising money to launch a youth leadership program, rooted in principles of social justice, at Our Space. Specifically we are hoping that by the time the dance floor has emptied and all the bad glamour shots have been taken, we will leave the event with at least 50 new Our Space monthly donors. If we do that we will have the funds needed to create (and sustain) up to four youth intern positions at Our Space, which is a direct investment in the lives and leadership of queer and trans youth in our community.
Earlier this year Our Space was honored as one of the inaugural grantees of HYPE (Horizon’s Young Professionals for Equality), and have been charged with growing the Our Space donor base with LGBTQ people ages 35 and under. Originally I thought it would be important to have a homegrown gala of sorts — something that would grab the attention of the queer and trans adults in my community — and that is when the idea of Bad Glamour Shots for a Good Cause emerged (and was absolutely inspired by a college friend in Chicago who had a similar event a few years ago). I’m hoping Bad Glamour Shots for a Good Cause will be a kick a** party for our community and get queer and trans adults pumped up to invest in the youth in their community by becoming an Our Space monthly donor.
[MC]: Tell us why it is important to fund youth facilitators?
[SP]: The majority of youth who come to Our Space are queer and trans youth of color, and many of them have been through foster care or have been to juvy (or jail), are homeless or marginally housed, and have extensive trauma histories. Our youth are often made to feel invisible by the larger world and by the people in their lives who are supposed to love them unconditionally and have their backs. Combine these feelings of being invisible with the impact of systemic oppression, and the reality is that it becomes incredibly difficult for our youth to get a job or have access to safe schools or safe space in general. So at Our Space we are growing our youth leadership program that started last spring with the QOOL Youth Committee that planned the first East Bay Youth Pride. We recognize the power of our young people as survivors and community organizers and fierce and fabulous change agents in our community, and it is absolutely critical that as queer and trans adults and as a queer/trans youth center that we invest in our youth. So funding youth facilitators is important because queer and trans youth deserve to be paid for their leadership and deserve the opportunity to further grow their skill sets and knowledge. And it’s important because the skills they will grow at Our Space will carry over into other areas of their lives and positively impact their chances for gaining employment and reaching their educational goals. And on a totally programmatic level at Our Space, funding youth facilitators means that all of Our Space’s peer support groups will be co-facilitated by queer and trans youth, and that as a program we are moving forward towards our dream of being inter-generational in our leadership.
East Bay Indie Film Festival
Scream
The New Parish
579 18th Street, Oakland
7 p.m.
This Fall the East Bay Express celebrates the darker side of independent cinema in a vibrant display of horror, macabre and exploitation shorts with the “East Bay Indie Scream Film Festival”.
The film festival will take place at The New Parish in Oakland on October 17th . Tickets are available at www.thenewparish.com. The evening will feature:
† Festive Film Screening & Awards
† Hosted by Jamie DeWolf (Tourette’s without Regrets) & Sidney Sin (Kiss Kill Consume)
† Bloody Horrific Sexy Disturbing burlesque stars recreating classic scenes from your favorite horror flicks! Variety Show includes Lola Martinet, Lady Satan, Meeks Baker, Ophelia Coeur de Noir, Patricia Misery, Balla Fiya, Grace Bones, Hunny Bunnah, Szandora LaVey & Prisoners of Love!!!
† Our esteemed Judges: Victor Miller Screenwriter of Friday the 13th, Wednesday Mourning of Oddities San Francisco, Kelly Vance East Bay Express Movie Reviewer, Jim “Kingfish” Sweeny Executive Producer of the Hubba Hubba Review, Kahlil Karn & Cate Freyer of the Oakland Underground Film festival.
† Costume Contest – Come dressed in your spookiest attire
† Tickets $10 at www.thenewparish.com.
Lovebirds
The Marsh
1062 Valencia Street, SF
8 p.m.
Love before it was digitized: Marga Gomez’s tenth solo play, Lovebirds, is a comic tour de force about incurable romantics chasing their heart’s desires during the seductive 70’s in Greenwich Village.
Orestes dreams of Gladys, a singer with a tin ear married to Richard, an academic who never sleeps and is never awake. On the other side of town Orestes’s daughter, Barbara, cuts off her hair, changes her name to Dahlia, and discovers the Joy of Lesbian Sex.
Philly, a nightclub photographer, sees it all and captures the Lovebird’s moments with her trusty old polaroid for just 5 bucks a pop while her man waits in the Eldorado. This is a work in progress in collaboration with celebrated international director David Schweizer (Rinde Eckert, Ann Magnuson, Sandra Tsing Loh) sound designer Mark O’Brien and lighting designer Patti Meyer.
Culture F*ck
Show and Tell Concept Shop
1300 Clay St. #160, Oakland
6:30 p.m.
Na’amen Tilahun is an SF bay-area based writer, a former book reviews editor for Fantasy Magazine and fiction editor for 580 Split for Mills College. His writing has appeared in/on So Speak Up, Collective Fallout, Faggot Dinosaur, Dead Animal Handbook, The WISCon Chronicles vol. 2, Fantasy Magazine, Feminist SF – The Blog, io9.com and in the new collection, Queers Dig Time Lords. He has a BA in English and Creative Writing and an MFA in Fiction and Literature both of which he only regrets 60% of the time.
Culture Fuck is a feminist, anti-racist performance space for radical outcasts, passionate queers, gender liberators, intellectual non-conformists, and everyone else who loves to break rules and subvert social propriety.
Cost: Donate what you can- everything goes to the artist! No one turned away for lack of funds.
Arrive at 6:30pm to meet your host, shop the store, eat/drink, socialize, and sign up for the performance list. Performances will begin at 7pm. Heads up: we need to be done by 8:30 so the sign up will be limited. First come; first served!
You are welcome to perform spoken word, poetry, music, dance, comedy, theatre, and prose. Please bring your zines, books, chapbooks, or edible merchandise to offer for donation or to freely distribute!
Access is love: Please keep it scent-free so everybody can show up and not have to leave due to chemical injury! (leaving off perfume, cologne, essential oils and using frag-free detergent on yr clothes helps a lot.) The venue is wheelchair accessible, including bathrooms (yeah!) We make sure space is saved for wheelchair/scooter users in front.
Qumbia Qrew
La Estrellita Cafe
446 E 12th St, Oakland
10 p.m. – 1:45 a.m.
$3 – $7
Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA) is a national network of students and youth organizing with
farmworkers to eliminate sweatshop conditions and modern-day slavery in the fields. The SFA works in alliance with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW).
www.sfalliance.org
Early birds! This Friday ¡Q2! starts with a Latin-Lesbian-Musical-Cocktail hour RIGHT AT 10pm…just to warm up the night!
Pajaritxs tempranerxs! Este viernes el ¡Q2! comienza la noche a PUNTO DE LAS 10PM con un coctelito Musical de Lesbianas, nomas para calentar motor!
¡Q2! is….
A queer dance party!!!!
We are a collective of community based organizers aiming to create a queer identified space that is open to chavas/os, cumbieros, and allies who support the struggle for justice in our hoods. We are Festive. We are Fierce. We are the Qumbia Qrew!!!
Darling Nikki
Slate Bar
2925 16th Street, SF
9pm-2am
$5
Darling Nikki is for all homos, lesbos, gaywads, East Gay + San Fransissy queens, queers and their pals! We are going back to our material girl roots and going DEEP 80’s…. 80% 80’s! The other 20% will be a mix of other good sh*t that makes you sweat.
This month we benefit the Homeless Action Center!
HAC provides free public benefits advocacy to people who are homeless and mentally ill in Alameda County. In addition to helping clients obtain sustainable income and health insurance, HAC also works with community stakeholders to reduce the harms associated with a lack of housing and healthcare. Combining professionalism and compassion, HAC provides barrier-free legal assistance to the hardest to reach populations.
Bad Glamour Shots for a Good Cause
Fundraiser for Our Space
The New Parish
579 18th Street, Oakland
9pm
21+
$10
THREE photographers taking the BEST bad glamour shots you will ever get! FOUR DJs slappin’ those beats on the wheels of steel on TWO dance floors keeping you movin’ and groovin’ with jamz from now and throwbacks from back in the day. ONE fabulous night of fundraising for the LBGTQ youth in our community.
Our Space – where it is safe to be yourself in conjunction with fiveTEN Oakland Events invites YOU to join us on Saturday, October 19th in Oakland at the New Parish as we bring BACK spandex, big hair, aquanet, feathers and the soft focus. It is going to be a night of glittery magic.
Pre-Sale Tix are $7 for entrance and includes 2 very good BAD Glamour Shots of you, you and your sweetie and/or you and your crew. What a deal! Pre-purchasing your tickets guarantees you get in the front of the line for your BAD Glamour Shots!
Hosted by Mona Webb with a special performance by The Lady Ms. Vagina Jenkins
Our Space is launching a youth leadership program and we need your help to fund it. We are looking for 50 people to stand up for qt youth leadership by becoming monthly donors (at a minimum of $10/month) – this money will go directly to qt youth in our community in the form of monthly stipends. If we reach our goal of 50 donors we can hire multiple youth leaders. The qt youth who come to Our Space are, in large part, youth of color impacted by homelessness, foster care and/or the juvenile justice system — youth who are largely made to feel invisible by people in their lives, but youth who we see as fierce and fabulous change-agents, whose survival skills are viewed critical leadership qualities. Becoming a monthly donor means you are making an investment in these youth, honoring their leadership and all they have to offer the world.
♥♥♥ The ENTIRE door, every last cent, goes to fund programs specifically targeted to LGBTQ Youth in the Bay Area through Our Space. ♥♥♥
PLUS droppin’ those beats all night long: DJs Val G, Trinity, Motive, Becky Knox
Queer Tango
Finnish Brotherhood Hall
1970 Chestnut St. Berkeley
7 p.m. – 11 p.m.
We are going tango deep, dear lovely — a weekend of queer tango everything with Sharna Fabiano, an amazing tango dancer, leader and follower, who has been at the forefront of same-sex tango in the United States.
7-8 pm: Musical Dances – tools to enhance flow and connection on the dance floor, whether it’s your first class or your 100th – with Sharna, assisted by Pier.
8-11 pm: Milonga. DJ Dan’s vinyl mix of alt & traditional tango.
PLUS: marvelous morsels and merrymaking
Bay Area vs. Sacred City
The Armory
333 14th St. SF
Doors open at 6:00PM with First Whistle at 7:30PM
General Admission: $15 in advance, $20 at the door
Fourteen B.ay A.rea D.erby Girl skaters, including seven of our all-stars, take on our good friends the Sacred City Derby Girls in the final bout of the home season at the historic Armory building in San Francisco.
GA Seating is on a first come, first served basis.
There will be bleachers, “suicide” floor seating along the track, limited chair seating, and standing room sections.
In order to sit trackside, you must be at least 18 years old. If you do not have valid photo ID to verify your age you will be required to move.
VIP: $35 in advance, $40 at the door
Guaranteed Bleacher Seat Along the Straight Away (first come first served)
Extra Butt Room
One Beer
Small Merch Gift Items
”Talk Derby To Me” Liaison
Separate Ticketing Line
Group Tickets (10+)
Golden State Slam
Grand Lake Coffee House.
440 Grand Ave, Oakland
Doors open at 7pm show starts at 7:30 SHARP!
GET THERE EARLY or you might not get a piece of cake, a seat or get in!
$7 before 7:00pm
$10.00 After
All ages welcome
Four years might not mean a lot for some people but it sure means a lot for us. In four years we’ve had 15 featured poets feature on Verses & Flow Season’s 2 & 3, our 1st ever slam team finishing 5th in the Nation at the National Poetry Slam Competition and nominated “Slam team of the year” at the National Poetry Awards, be the first venue from the West Coast to compete at the Southern Fried Poetry Slam and some of the BEST poetry features in the country. Hell, we’re so bad ass even our venue was featured on the TV Show “Catfish”.
So for all that we feel that it’s time to celebrate and what better way to do so is to have 3 of the hottest poets on the planet all featuring the same night.
Javon Johnson- Multiple National Poetry Slam Champion and finalist, Def Poetry, Verses and Flow seasons 1,2 & 3, video on WorldstarhipHop and all around kick ass poet
Prentice Powell- Verses & Flow season 1,2 & 3, Oakland Poet of the Year winner, Oakland Grand Slam Champion, National Poetry Slam Finalist and poetry performance technician
Shawn William (Formerly known as “nerCity”) – 3 Time Grand Slam Champion, Verses & Flow Season 3, Featured on the Apollo in Harlem, King of the Mic Slam Champion in both New York and California.
And all of this will be hosted by Tab Danger and D’Dra White with DJ Nina Boss on the 1’s & 2’s and Jazz Le Blonc supplying the “Hi’s and Hugs” for the people.
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