Eric Jansen

Marilyn Pittman's sound portrait of the late great disco diva Sylvester. Josh Gamson talks with Marilyn and reads from his biography, "The Fabulous Sylvester." We hear from fans at the book party launch in 2005 at the The Center and live concert footage with Sylvester and The Weather Girls, Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes. (Broadcast February 26, 2015)

It seems gay pride is spreading. Yet mere miles from San Francisco, many LGBT people have reason not to feel safe or be “out” at work. 

Harvey Milk in His Own Words, and Why Dan White Killed Milk and Mayor George Moscone.  On tonight's call-in edition of Out in the Bay, meet journalist Mike Weiss and publisher Vince Emery. Weiss' book Double Play: The Hidden Passions Behind the Double Assassination of George Moscone & Harvey Milk is a gripping account of why Dan White did it and a riveting look at the modern history of San Francisco politics.

Project: Lohan is a multi-media theatrical event about the life of Lindsay Lohan, who went from pre-teen Disney starlet to convicted felon in less than a decade. It's a mad dash through Lohan's rise and fall ordeal, told by 6 cross-dressing actors playing 5 dozen characters in 90 minutes with 172 costume changes! The script is all text found in tabloids, TV news, court transcripts, 911 calls and the like. Why is our society so obsessed with fallen Hollywood idols?

7 pm on Out in the Bay:  Time travel with Alice B. Toklas and Charo.   Hear Alice B. Toklas in her own voice -- on a rare morsel of tape 60 years old -- describing her first encounter with Gertrude Stein, and more from the curator of  “A Place at the Table: A Gathering of LGBT Text, Image and Voice” at U.C.

Out in the Bay host Eric Jansen speaks with Joey Cain, curator of the San Francisco Public Library exhibit "Radically Gay: The Life of Harry Hay,"  which honors the centennial of gay rights pioneer and labor activist Harry Hay's birth.

Voguing at the Fresh Meat Festival. Tonight's Out in the Bay is on "voguing" and more, with members of Vogue Evolution, a top dance crew from New York, and singer Emily Vasquez (American Idol and The Glee Project ). They're here for a world-premiere performance at this weekend's Fresh Meat Festival of Transgender & Queer Performance, and joined us for a chat and special Out-in-the-Bay-only performance in our studios.

Maura Halloran plays two lesbian lovers, their cat and their nosy landlady in “Pussy,” and Genevieve Jessee plays herself, her hippie mom and her Deep South grandmother in “Girl In, But Not Of, The ‘Hood.”  On this week’s Out in the Bay, hear Jessee and Halloran perform selections from their intriguing solo shows and talk about their work and about DIVAfest, a celeb

Are lesbian, gay and transgender seniors getting proper and respectful care in nursing homes, day-care centers and in their own homes?  A groundbreaking state-funded survey in Alameda County showed very encouraging trends, and also room for improvement. Dan Ashbrook of the non-profit group Lavender Seniors conducted a series of caregiver trainings also funded by the state grant.

‘Success’ and a Faun’s Afternoon. Richard Howard, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and translator, amuses us while musing on French fauns, ghosts of all-but-forgotten New York cruising spots, and the cultural figures he’s memorialized or channeled in verse – including painter Alice Neel, dancer Isadora Duncan and Madame Charles de Gaulle.  Now in his eighties, this “living legend” shares his poems, tells us about the eroticism of translation, and reflects on gay life before many of you were born.

Inequality hits LGBT people right in the assets. Remember all the hype about the “marriage penalty”?   Actually, most of the penalties come if you cannot marry. Legal inequities -- especially the federal Defense of Marriage Act -- allow or even require discrimination in taxes, pensions, health care, real estate and much more. At this taxing time of year, financial advisor Mark Grace (photo 2) and estate planning attorney Susan von Herrmann (photo 2) fill us in on the extra steps queer people must take to protect themselves and their families financially.

This week's Out in the Bay features two new Bay Area dance productions.  In LandHome, Great-Uncle Billy was killed 30 years ago in Cleveland for "how he dressed."  The Secret History of Love delves into the speakeasies, cabarets and other meeting places of decades past when queer love was even more illegal than now. 

Choreographers and dancers Sean Dorsey, Sheena Johnson, and Atasiea (Kenneth Ferguson) share their stories and their work with host Eric Jansen and you.  

Spring into summer with the Bay Area Rainbow Symphony (BARS)!  Eric Jansen's guests on this live edition of Out in the Bay are BARS principal clarinetist Susan Barnes; and San Francisco Opera violinist and Oakland East Bay Symphony co-concertmaster Dawn Harms (pictured), who is featured guest soloist for BARS' March 24 concert. They'll play selections from upcoming BARS concerts and tell us about this four-year-old LGBT community orchestra that's been called "a breath of fresh air" in the Bay Area classical music scene.

How does a comic deal with personal tragedy? On this week's Out in the Bay, hosts Marilyn Pittman and Eric Jansen play excerpts from Marilyn's solo show, "It's All the Rage," about her parents’ 1997 murder-suicide, and talk about rage, PTSD, gender roles, and how humor, friends and her wife helped her survive.  

Lou Harrison: A World of Music is a new documentary about a composer some consider among the greatest of the 20th Century.  Harrison charted new territory in  music by combining Western classical styles with Eastern music, and is credited with - among other kudos - firmly establishing gamelan music in the U.S.  He also lived an openly gay life in New York City in the 1940s before moving back to California to compose in serenity.  Among his fans and collaborators were San Francisco Symphony conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, composers John Cage and Janice Gitek, c