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A chronicled re-telling of the gay-rights movement in the United States, beginning with the Stonewall riots in 1969.

On The Bus' original intention was to be a fun-loving, rambunctious, half-hour Internet program about a group of young, gay men on a bus trip from Los Angeles to Burning Man, a festival of radical self expression in the Nevada desert. However, after returning from a week of shooting, stereotypes had fallen apart, and it became clear that this story had far more to tell than a half hour internet show could lend. Almost immediately On The Bus challenges the viewer with the notion that "Even in absolute freedom, some things are still sacred." - Damon Intrabartolo (cast member #6) . It is here that Director Dustin Lance Black begins this story. Lance is hired by The Digital Entertainment Network (DEN) to produce, direct and participate in an Internet reality show with an all gay cast. He then hires Billy Kaufman as co-producer and cast member number two. Charles Kinsley, a gorgeous actor/waiter, Jason Webb, porn star Dean O'Conner, and Jimmy Sjodin, a Swedish Olympic diver soon follow. Concerned with the Network's desire to cast only the most attractive men, director Dustin Lance Black lobbies hard to include Damon Intrabartolo, an average looking music composer, who climbs on board armed with wry observations, and a biting wit. Once on the road, bumps along the way lend to an unplanned sleep-over in a Reno hotel. It is here that sexual tensions breed rivalry, the most intimate details of these fast new friends are revealed, and question number two arises, "Sex, Sex, Sex, maybe that's all there is." - frustrated director Dustin Lance Black. Arriving at Burning Man, it would seem that nothing is too radical or extreme for the adventuresome sextet. Innocence and experience come face to face as members of the cast explore the sexuality, drug culture, and wild freedom of the event. However, when sexual tensions finally come to a head, a sandstorm smashes through their campsite acting as a metaphor for the group's inner turmoil. Over the course of the week the show evolves, and sexual tensions take a back seat as the cameras delve into the often-conflicted souls of this eclectic group, shattering the happy-go-lucky stereotypes they were originally brought on board to brandish. Through newfound friendships, and forming animosities, these young men explore the darkness, freedom, joy, and adventure of Nevada's annual Burning Man event, and come out questioning the roles they play and the masks they wear in their daily lives.

Many years ago in a small house in South Central Los Angeles, a childlike little man with a wobbling gait and a high pitched voice abandoned his law books to dedicate his life to giving Sci-Fi and Horror films, "a little bit of dignity." In 1962, Dr. Donald A. Reed created The Count Dracula Society, and soon thereafter was named the world's authority on Count Dracula. From Fritz Lange to Rock Hudson, Elsa Lanchester to Ray Bradbury, Hollywood's glitterati all showed up (many wearing fake fangs). Within the decade, his campy Count Dracula Society evolved into the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films. The capes and fangs morphed into tuxedos and golden Saturn Awards, and by the late 70's his award show was on every TV set in the United States. Today, genre filmmakers such as James Cameron, Dean Devlin, and Bryan Singer dominate the box office, each never failing to recognize the importance of this eccentric little man's undying support for their films and their careers. Time and time again, he is introduced as the man responsible for bringing genre filmmaking to the mainstream, but unlike the filmmakers and authors he supported, Dr. Reed never made a dime from his work. Like a young boy, monster movies, not money, were his passion. In 1999, Dr. Reed underwent triple bypass surgery. As a chocolate cake eating diabetic, he wasn't given long to live. His award shows were no longer being televised, and he was scratching out a meager existence in a run down house in the ghetto of Los Angeles preparing for his 26th Annual Saturn Awards dinner. MY LIFE WITH COUNT DRACULA documents the final days of the man who brought the undead to American pop culture as he faces the grim realities of his own mortality.

Ostracized after coming out or being outed by someone, Cleve Jones, Ken Jones, Roma Guy and Diane leave everything they know behind to seek safe harbor in San Francisco, where they join the LBGTQ movement.

Part VI. 2008. The legalization of same-sex marriage has had a roller coaster of a ride. The latest victory was the California Supreme Court ruling that it is a constitutional right for people of the same sex to marry each other. That led to Proposition 8 on the November ballot in California, that proposition which would overturn the Supreme Court of California ruling if it passes, which it does by a narrow margin. While the younger generation of the LGBT community have a renewed energy in taking up the fight following the Prop 8 defeat, Cleve, who saw what happened during the AIDS crisis in gay and lesbian partners having no legal rights when it came to issues of their significant other, sees a bigger picture in that there should be civil liberties for all, a fight which he sees at the national congressional level. Chad Griffin, who entered the Prop 8 fight late in the game and who is aware of Cleve's intention, tries to confirm an unfounded rumor in taking a meeting with who would traditionally be seen as the enemy, conservative lawyer Ted Olson. Confirming that rumor, Chad enters the fray with a riskier but more expeditious idea to get to Cleve's end goal. Roma, a Board of Health commissioner in San Francisco, meets one of Diane's poor cancer patients at the hospital, she unable to receive health care because she can't pay for it. As such, Roma's new civil liberties fight is to work toward universal health care in the city, and not only have subsidized health care on a disease by disease basis which is currently the case. Annie, who now has a good relationship with her mothers, has just given birth for the first time, to a daughter named Justice. Annie and her long term boyfriend Jandro are finding that they are facing financial pressures which leads to a request by Annie which she would not even have considered ten years earlier. And Ken long ago rediscovered God in his life, the church which saved him during a crisis. The City of Refuge Church, which rents out space once a week in the church Ken attends, leads Ken to what he feels is his next mission, as much for himself as for the people on the receiving end: providing meaningful support to the trans community. Part VII. 2010. "Words have meaning" is stated by a few characters which will play specifically into Cleve, Diane, Roma and Annie's lives. With David Boies and Ted Olson at the legal helm, the fight to bring the results of Prop 8 to the US Supreme Court first has to be fought in a front of a judge at a California District Court. If that fight is lost, their journey ends in failure. If that fight is won and is successful in the US Supreme Court, it would mean civil liberties for the LGBT community in all fifty states, and not just California. As the pro Prop 8 side has hired a powerful and astute lawyer in Charles Cooper, Cleve is concerned that he has only called one marriage expert to testify, Cleve who cannot help but believe there being a surprise twist in their argument. Boies has his more knowledgeable theory on Cooper's reasons for having only one expert witness, which may be confirmed or refuted with the testimony of that expert, Dr. David Blankenhorn. David, Ted, Cleve and Chad's fight takes an unexpected turn when Roberta Kaplan enters the fray, she representing Edie Windsor, who was presented with a $363,000 estate tax bill upon the death of her female spouse. Windsor's case aims to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act itself. In the fight, David, Ted, Cleve, Chad and now Roberta know that they have to win the hearts of Americans, most specifically the one occupying the White House, he who they hope will make a public statement in support, which may be their most difficult challenge. Meanwhile Roma seems to be in a funk despite she having won the fight for universal health care in San Francisco. Annie is the one who can see what Roma needs. That result leads to Roma and Diane being even more invested in the fight at the Supreme Court. And Ken is dismayed that many of what he would like to accomplish at the City of Refuge Church, such as the provision of food and shelter, cannot happen within their limited funds. He turns to some old friends for help in that matter, and hopes to bring his new and old churches together in that fight for more comprehensive supports for the marginalized in the name of Christian love and acceptance.

Part II. 1977. Cleve is working on Harvey Milk's next bid for a city supervisor seat, they hoping it will be fourth time lucky. Roma and her associates are not officially supporting Milk as they see him as just another white male. Cleve is now a well known gay activist, he having mobilized the gay population in the city. With Scott having returned from Amsterdam, Cleve, Scott and Marvin look for a place in the city they can call home. Roma, now out to her Catholic parents who support but worry about her, has been able to open the Women's Building, a safe haven for women which is out of bounds to all men. Diane announces that she wants to have a "turkey baster" baby, which she had not previously discussed with Roma or Jean, only one whose opinion about which she really cares. And Ken is living with Richard and his wife Ellen, the arrangement to protect all involved, especially Richard who still has to be in the closet for professional reasons. This arrangement becomes especially difficult for Ken, who is getting more involved in gay public life, initially with the coded named Diversity Committee, which is currently organizing an annual fair. Their collective worlds are turned upside down with Proposition 6 sponsored by California state senator John Briggs, which if it passes would give school boards the right to fire any staff person for advocating or practicing homosexuality. The homosexual community realizes that if the initiatives passes, it is just the first move to quash any homosexual rights and may even lead to such acts as being legally able to take away biological children of homosexual parents. It also directly affects Richard with his job and Diane in her effort to have a baby. This initiative acts as a catalyst to bring Cleve, Ken and Roma's forces together, the first mission to get Milk elected as a symbolic gesture against Prop 6. But they also realize that it will take a mobilized state-wide ground game to defeat the proposition. The gay community embarks on another and unexpected fight starting twenty days after the vote. Part III. 1981. The murders of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, which were ruled manslaughter by the all white/all straight jury, mobilized the gay community even further where they are now making inroads at the political level, Cleve who is working for a state assemblyman. With the birth of Diane's baby, Diane and Roma's relationship takes a turn where Diane feels a need to focus on her new job as a nurse at the hospital, and taking care of Annie. Ken is operating a center for youth at risk, most of those kids who have come from elsewhere, some who are gay, and have no support at all and thus largely end up on the street otherwise. And the new sexual freedom that gay men in particular feel they can now exhibit partly manifests itself in public sex in bathhouses. The gay community begins to be rocked once again when large numbers of gay men, especially in larger urban centers, fall ill with immune damaged systems, more often than not leading to death. The disease is initially coined gay related immune deficiency (GRID). Ken sees it among the gay youth at the center. Cleve and his friends, who frequent the bathhouses, notice brown lesions on some of their skin, which is eventually known as Kaposi Sarcoma (KS) and which is an indication of that immune breakdown. Dr. Marcus Conant, Cleve's friend who is treating many of those afflicted, wants Cleve, as a known voice in the gay community, to act as a liaison between the gay community, and health officials and researchers in finding out the cause and the transmission of the disease, the speculation that it is a communicable disease spread by gay sex. Pat, working for public health, has some preliminary but thus far inconclusive data, which may not be sufficient answers for Ken, Cleve and the gay community. The gay community is turning on itself, the witch hunts for the tell-tale signs of the brown lesions. Diane, on the front line at the hospital, feels that Roma and their friends have abandoned their gay male sisters at this crucial time in their lives. It may take the disease spreading into non-gay male populations for the world truly to take notice and care.

Part IV. 1992. The gay male and lesbian movements are merging closer and closer to being one cohesive and supportive family. The AIDS epidemic has devastated the gay male community, with Cleve, Ricardo, Ken and Richard all having tested positive for the virus, some having been close to death, but all who have watched most of their gay friends die. Both Cleve and Ricardo, and Ken and Richard have vowed to each other that they will stay with each other to the end, through what will most likely be a painful death. Those vows may be difficult to keep if and when the time comes. In their own individual health situations, Cleve has so far refused to take AZT, wanting to feel better without the drug than feel crappy with the drug, with no real proven evidence that the drug will prolong life. Cleve may have to go to "the other side" to get access to more promising experimental drugs. He will get some unexpected support in the matter. And under changing circumstances, Ken decides he has no other option but to request VA medical services. Ken and Richard in particular will discover what their rights are as individuals in the life and death decisions for the other. Cleve has continued to fight for gay rights, his calls having fallen on deaf ears in the White House through the Reagan and Bush administrations. He is now touring with the AIDS quilt, it not only a symbol to the memory of the fallen gay men, but what Cleve hopes will be visual reminder of what gay men are fighting for. The organized gay community does not all have the same perspective of the quilt that Cleve does, some who want to burn it. Incoming President Clinton has promised many of those rights for which Cleve has been fighting. The gay and lesbian communities will discover how much Clinton will keep to his promises in these political times. Roma and Diane have now been living together for a few years with Diane's now ten year old daughter, Annie. Although Diane has been able truthfully to tell Annie that she does not know who the sperm donor was, Annie wanting to know who her father definitively is comes much earlier than Diane or Roma had expected. If they oblige Annie's request to try and discover his identity, they may not like the outcome. And Cecilia goes through some emotional highs and lows in her desire to become a full fledged female. Part V. 1997. Annie, now in her mid-teens, is acting out, feeling like an outsider, but wanting to fit in as she sees it. That's why she dresses and acts like a Latina, to mimic her friends in their Mission neighborhood. Her outward anger is largely directed at her mothers, in they living like a "normal" family when she sees they aren't. When Diane and Roma discover the extent of Annie's misbehavior, they decide to take what they consider extreme action. Annie, who does see life a little differently in her new environment, decides to take a direction that she feels will get her to a short term goal. Ken is still in the VA hospital. Against regulations, he has been drinking and using illicit drugs, which may place Cecilia at risk as his sponsor, she having gotten her life on track following her gender reassignment surgery. Ken does find a kindred spirit in fellow support group member David, who Ken will discover is going through his own issues beyond the HIV. And Cleve, having moved to Palm Springs for health reasons, has felt one disappointment with the Clinton administration after another, most specifically Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. Clinton creating a new position of Senior Advisor on Gay and Lesbian Issues does not placate Cleve. The person in that position is well-intentioned Richard Socarides. Cleve will learn that Richard is the son of Dr. Charles Socaridies, who has worked his life in the study of homosexuality being caused by an overbearing mother and absent father, and whose testimony has partly been the reason for the success of a multitude of anti-gay legal cases. Cleve will also learn that Richard is gay, and has a "don't ask, don't tell" relationship with his father, despite Richard knowing that his father knows he's gay. Richard also divulges to Cleve that his own growing up does not support his father's thesis, Richard who has done nothing professionally to discredit his father. In his personal life, Cleve makes an unexpected connection with a neighbor named Courtenay, a relationship with her which is a first of its kind in his life, but one which may have a difficult road because of his HIV status.