Out in the Bay

The Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes" is non-stop holiday hilarity all month at The Victoria Theatre in San Francisco's Mission district with Trannyshack creator, Heklina, and her band of merry drag stars. Marilyn visits with Heklina, who plays the Bea Arthur role, and Cookie Dough, who plays her mother. Marilyn saw the opening night which was a benefit for Project Open Hand and guffawed throughout. What a way to start the festivities! Leave it to the queens, honey! 

How does marijuana help people with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other illnesses? How is the federal crackdown on growers, distributors and dispensaries in California and other states that have decriminalized medical pot affecting patients who rely on marijuana to relieve their pains and help them heal?

Furniture mogul Mitchell Gold talks with Marilyn Pittman about his book, "Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America." The book features essays by Barney Frank, Richard Chamberlain, pro basketball player John Ameche, ambassador Jim Hormel and many others, including ministers, gay teens, and mothers who have lost gay children to suicide.

Poet and writing professor Toni Mirosevich's book of poems, The Takeaway Bin, is inspired by "Oblique Strategies," a dilemma-solving game created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt in 1975. Have a dilemma? Pick a card. Or pick a poem. Hear Toni read from The Takeaway Bin and her earlier books of poems and flash fiction, Queer Street and The Rooms We Make Our Own, and talk with host Eric Jansen about her life and "lyric documentaries."

San Francisco jazz singer Russ Lorenson has gotten rave reviews over the last five years as he's toured the USA with his critically-acclaimed tribute to Tony Bennett. This coming Tuesday, his tribute to rock, jazz, folk and country crooner Bobby Darin premieres in San Francisco’s Rrazz Room.