Out There visits wine country... Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee and James Schamus, who writes and produces Lee's movies - to talk to UC freshmen... Davies Symphony Hall is party central... Zoe Heller's gay crush... and become a cover boy! This week in Out There.
Ride ’em gayboy!
It’s always good to get out of town for a sojourn, however brief, and the lush, fertile counties of Marin and Sonoma are just a cork’s throw away from downtown SF. Last week, Out There took a few days’ R&R in the North Bay, coming back refreshed and rejuvenated. We stayed at Inn Marin, a roadside hostelry in Novato which has just undergone a $2 million "green renovation," winning plaudits from California’s Green Hotel Certification program.
The floors, shams and coverlets at the Inn are all made from bamboo, because that wood is hella sustainable and converts eight times more carbon dioxide to oxygen than trees. Best of all, to our mind, bamboo is hardwood stylish and comfortable for bare feet. In our room, we kicked off our shoes.
We visited the Roche Carneros Estate Winery for a guided tour on horseback through its 2,100-acre cattle ranch in Southern Sonoma, with a pastoral view of San Pablo Bay at the bottom of rolling hills, astonishingly still emerald green from the rain. Along with most happy fella Pepi , OT trotted through lovely vineyards of Syrah and Chardonnay, working up a thirst for working our way through a wine list. The clay-heavy soil of the Carneros region produces grapes with a juice OT enjoys!
So for the first time in our so-called life, OT was on a horse, hot to trot. Pepi looked so handsome and Brokeback Mountain -like upon his fiery steed, heels in stirrups and head in his straw hat. OT, on the other hand, was an absolute beginner, so was given the horse Banjo, who was said to be great for beginners and, erm, children.
Banjo got the comedy underway early when, as the rest of our riding party galloped ahead on the trail, stage right, he decided he’d rather sample some tasty-looking tall grass down another path, stage left. "Whoa!" we declared in our deepest, manliest voice, as our guide had instructed us. We yanked the reins in the opposite direction and looked for the gearshaft. To put it in reverse.
Banjo looked backwards with his big, bemused eyes as if to say, "Dude. You obviously don’t know what in tarnation you’re doing."
Eventually we got the hang of it, and soon had Banjo fording streams and hoofing up hills. Except for an odd propensity to tailgate the horse in front of us and get his nose all up in her rear, Banjo was a gentleman. We enjoyed our first equestrian endeavor, and the estate wines at the end of the trail were our reward.
We also had two great meals in the North Country, one at the Inn Marin’s excellent restaurant, Rickey’s, which was having a benefit dinner for Big Brothers & Sisters, and the other at Boca, an Argentine-inspired steakhouse in Novato. Manager Shah Bahreyni personally recommended the Malbec, and chef George Morrone , whose c.v. includes Aqua and the Fifth Floor, well met our appetite for flesh seared medium rare, with South American heat in the sauces.
Over the coastal range in West Marin, we toured the small, ecologically-oriented farm at Inverness Valley Inn, set on 15 acres nestled between Point Reyes National Seashore and Tomales Bay. We enjoyed getting to know some animals we were not going to eat: a pack of dairy goats, a beautiful alpaca and a lordly llama. This Inn is also green in its approach, generating electricity from solar panels, and offering a swimming pool with saline, rather than chlorine, purification. Innkeeper Leslie Adkins gave us some farm-fresh eggs from her fancy chickens to bring back to the city.
More info on these nearby attractions can be found at: innmarin.com, rochewinery.com, rickeysrestaurant.com, bocasteak.com, and invernessvalleyinn.com .
Be a cover boy!
Faculty party
Our spy at the UC/Berkeley Faculty Club says he knew they were coming - Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee and James Schamus, who writes and produces Lee’s movies - to talk to UC freshmen, and give a couple of lectures. Schamus and Lee were having lunch in a Club room back by the creek. "James looks just like he did 20 years ago when he was a grad student at Cal, and editor of The Berkeley Poetry Review. The kitchen was all agog because Ang Lee was here, and there were folks lying in wait to see them walk out of the Bowker Room.
"I’m not sure what all a gossip columnist would want to know, but James does have a little silver in his curls now, yet still has the bounce in his step he had as a grad student. He was dressed like a prof of film studies at Columbia, which he is. He was walking out of the bathroom, always a good moment for a gay man, looking devilishly charming, and recognized me right away."
Music hall
If a building is a "machine for living," as high modernist architect Le Corbusier declared, then surely Davies Symphony Hall is a machine for music-making. Last Friday night, it was a machine for partying, too, as after the conclusion of the San Francisco Symphony concert conducted by incoming San Francisco Opera music director Nicola Luisotti, the SFS’ new Davies After Hours program kicked off. This was the first in a series of performance/receptions in the Hall’s second-tier lobby, with music, champers and conviviality. SF-based cellist Alex Kelly made modern music with a nod to SFS principal cellist Michael Grenabier, who had earlier delivered a star turn in Ernest Bloch ’s Schelomo.
Life at second-tier level was a revelation for OT, as we surveyed the bustling Grove St. scene from a balcony high overhead. And to think we rarely venture north of Premium Orchestra Row M! Future Davies After Hours dates follow concerts on April 24 and May 22; find out more at www.sfsymphony.org.
Mother love
Author Zoe Heller is back with her third novel, The Believers (Harper), a riotously entertaining romp through one lefty NYC family’s cavalcade of political and personal disillusionments. Heller’s second novel, Notes on a Scandal, was made into an award-winning film starring Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. The Sunday Times of London reported that it was inspired by the case of the Washington State public schoolteacher Mary Kay Letourneau, who had sex with her 13-year-old pupil. "But perhaps the idea of a lesbian crush owes something to an episode in Heller’s childhood.
"’One night when I was about 10, a woman turned up at our house announcing she was in love with my mother,’ Heller wrote in the 1995 compilation Mothers by Daughters. The woman, who worked at the office where Heller’s mother was running a campaign to save London Transport, seemed unbalanced and was disabused of her notion to move in with the family. ’This was my first exposure to the idea of Sapphic love,’ Heller recalled."
Blvd. of broken dreams
Have those Cover Girl looks? GayPocket San Francisco, the seasonal pocket-sized LGBT guide, has announced their first Cover Model Contest to search for a model for the cover of their Summer guide. The deadline for entries is April 5, and contest details and guidelines are available at www.gaypocketUSA.com.
Finally, former SF Mayor Willie Brown walked into Le Central one fine recent afternoon, and a wag sitting at the bar called out to him, "Hey Willie, I heard they’re going to name a street after you!"
King Willie drew himself up to full height and replied, imperiously, "It’s not a street. It’s a boulevard ."
Out There is staying out of this latest tempest in a teapot dome, because we learned long ago in our service to the popular press that for some people, no amount of attention paid them, not even buckets of ink, is ever enough. But we will offer one small caveat. Remember: decades after its name change, no one in New York City ever calls 6th Ave. the "Avenue of the Americas."