San Francisco: San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and has a colorful history with the gay and lesbian community. Bump! kicks off this episode at the epicenter of this amazing city, the Castro, where we take a walking tour of this historic gay neighbourhood and witness the changes it has experienced over the last 30 years. Take a seat, front row center at Theater Rhinoceros, the oldest gay and lesbian theatre company in North America. San Francisco is also home to the #1 monthly lesbian publication, Curve Magazine; we stop by their offices to meet the woman behind the words. Next, we make an emotional visit to a poignant monument – the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. To wind up our tour of this gay capital, we drop by several popular local hangouts and toss back a couple of cool ones along the way.
New York: Jazz step through New York with Bump! in the theater district in search of cheap tickets for the hottest shows on and off Broadway. Next, humorist Kate Clinton treks us around the Upper West Side – a popular “guppie” neighbourhood. In recent years, Chelsea has evolved into a major gay district. Long-time resident Richard Winger gives us his take on this trendy area and how the iconic “Chelsea Muscle Boy” is now getting on in age! For jocks (and their supporters), the Chelsea Piers complex on the west side of Manhattan is home to many gay sports teams. Shannon tries playing with balls for a change – basketball, soccer, golf and baseball, that is! From there we head south and traipse through fabled Greenwich Village with native New Yorker Arthur Strickler, including visits to the legendary Stonewall Inn, where the fight for LGBT civil rights was born, and other popular watering holes in this historic gay quarter. And finally, we join Clare Cavanah of Toys In Babeland, who reveals what a lesbian playground the Lower East Side has become, complete with shops, sex clubs, bars and other attractions for the grrrls!
Chicago: Host Charlie David visits Chicago, “the San Francisco of the Midwest.” He hangs out in Boystown, Hollywood Beach and Andersonville, finding out that Chicago’s gay scene isn’t limited to one neighbourhood. Charlie indulges in cupcakes, wine and a manicure, and visits Bears like Us, a store for a different type of Chicago Bear.
Looking at “Bump!”
Gay Travel DVDs
Amos Lassen
“Bump!” is the very first gay and lesbian travel television series and Alluvial Filmworks (Village Lighthouse) is releasing it. The first two have just been released as you can see in my reviews here at eurekapride.com. The series is tailored to our community’s tastes and each installment which will be released during the next seven years presents a gay-friendly destination in a format that is not only informative but upbeat, stylish and fun.
Each DVD will take the viewer on a personal tour of the place and will include interviews with local residents as well as with celebrities, personalities and gay icons. We get an in-depth look at the social scene of each site visited and we visit all of the places that have something to offer our community---coffeehouses, beaches, historical sites, nightclubs, shopping, parties and whatever else may arise.
“Bump!” makes it easy for us to visit places we may never have the opportunity to get to.
The hosts, Charlie David (from “Dante’s Cove) and playwright Shannon McDonough guide us as we visit many different places.
“Bump!” is sure to find its place as the authority for travel information and entertainment for us. We get new aspects about so many places that it is amazing. I understand that major video stores will carry the series and the DVDs are also available to rent from Netflix and also for sale at amazon.com and 10percent.com.
I have seen the first two, one on Mexico and the other on Great Britain and enjoyed them both.
