Sister Boom Boom and JCC
Unfinished History
Sister Boom Boom.
Photo: David Green
Where The Nun Runs the Men's Locker Room
Jewish Community Center, 3200 California Street. One of San Francisco's most beloved weird characters, Jack Fertig, a.k.a. Sister Boom Boom, worked here at the reception desk for the Sports Center. Sister Boom Boom, who ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1982 as the "Nun of the Above" candidate, was a frequent spokesnun for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of drag-queen nuns dedicated to the expiation of stigmatic guilt and the promulgation of universal joy. With respect for personal religious beliefs, the Sisters would often satirize hierarchs and institutions, religious and/or political. Though a quintessential San Francisco phenomenon, the Sisters were in fact founded in Iowa City, Iowa, on Holy Saturday, 1979.
--Dr. Weirde