Search - Bump! American Highlights on DVD

Chicago, New York City, San Francisco

Amos Lassen | Little Rock, Arkansas | 05/18/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Bump!: American Highlights"

Chicago, New York City, San Francisco

Amos Lassen

The "Bump!" DVD video series is definitely comprehensive. This new one takes us to three major American cities with large GLBT populations and we start off in San Francisco, one of the world's most beautiful cities and has a long history with our community. The Castro which was once the center of gay San Francisco is our starting point and it is in the process of undergoing change. We begin at the oldest gay and lesbian theater in America, the Rhinoceros and then we stop by the offices of "Curve", a monthly national Lesbian publication. Of course we want to as well as need to see the national AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park and our bud Charlie David takes to a few of the local bars where we enjoy a drink and meet the locals.
New York, New York is the place for theater on the U.S. and it has much more too. We head for the theater district looking for cheap tickets just like the local New Yorkers and then lesbian comic Kate Clinton shows us around the Upper West Side which has recently become a "guppie" neighborhood, Chelsea has become the major gay area and a meet Richard Winger, a resident and he tells us all about it. The nearby Chelsea Piers are the homes of the gay athletic groups. "Next Stop Greenwich Village' where we tour with Arthur Strickler and visit the Stonewall Inn, where our true liberation began and go to the other bars in the area. Lastly we meet Clare Cavanah who tells us about the lesbian playground in the Big Apple.
"Let me cool my heels right down at Marshall Fields" is the line from the song that epitomizes Chicago, the "San Francisco of the Midwest".. We go to Boystown, Hollywood Beach and Andersonville and discover that gay Chicago is in more than one neighborhood. Of course it is not New York or San Francisco but has a flavor all its own/
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