“I’ve heard this sh*t is crazy,” my friend Diego said to no one as we joined the line to get into the party. She just didn’t like ’em very much.”Īmen, brother. My brother Don summed it up: “Mama loved men. I’m sure the cute boys were all chasing her. Married at least three times and had movie star looks when she was younger. She was the Elizabeth Taylor of North Georgia. (“Trick” is the word for a one-night stand or a hook-up in the gay world.)Īs my late mother once said, “Don’t pick the first watermelon you thump.” And trust me, Mama knew what she was talking about. I was averaging three tricks a week and was on my way to a hundred for the year. Many younger guys love the daddies, and I now fit the proverbial bill. I thought that younger guys, to whom I was always attracted, wouldn’t like me with silver hair, but it was the opposite. My formerly dyed-brown coif was now a gleaming stream of silver hair that moved oh-so slightly in the cool breeze. I adjusted my little angel wings as we approached the front entrance of the Marquis Villas Resort and flexed my biceps for a bit of a pre-party pump. This year there would be 5,000 people in attendance. The first year, it attracted about 500 of his friends. It began in 1990 by a party promoter named Jeffrey Sanker. But what was to become the mack daddy of them all was the White Party in Palm Springs. They were typically denoted by colors and, in most cases, fueled by drugs and sex (for example, the Black Party in New York-always dark and seedy). The circuit referred to a series of all-night, and often all-weekend, gay dance parties.
I had T-shirts made for my gang of friends, with “Bar Stars” on the front and “Circuit Certified” on the back. In fact, things were going so well that I got a little cocky. I once read a quote from a guy who said, “If you can’t look at yourself in the mirror and jack off, how can you expect someone else to?” Thousands of dips on the Roman chair helped tighten my flabby abs. Rep after rep, bench pressing my body weight gave me a chiseled chest. Hundreds of arm curls resulted in apple-like biceps. I started running in the park and working out at the local gay gym. Chunky didn’t work for the guys I was now attracted to and whom I wanted to be attracted to me. One July, before we headed back to school in August, my mother had to buy “Husky” jeans for me from the Sears store over in Rome, Georgia. A little too much junk in the trunk, if you will. In high school, I had always been a little chunky. I was a grown-a**-man now with the body to prove it. It was a long way from small-town Georgia where I grew up, and I was no longer a naïve child in Sunday school. Subscribe to our newsletter for a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
How about we take this to the next level? It is hotter than a whore in church, as we rednecks like to say. I peered into the distance as the night sky’s lights danced like tiny stars among the hills beyond. I was flying solo at a cool mid-century hotel where I hoped to have company for at least part of the weekend, and I began to feel the synthetic courage to make it happen. We each took a half-hit of Ecstasy before we left the hotel room. Either way, it felt like I had stuck my finger into the outlet while shaving, and the current was firing through my veins. I’m not sure if it was the crisp, cool night (and the fact that I was shirtless) or if I was just really, really excited. My entire body tingled as we made our way through the desert evening. As Beyoncé revives her country era, the BeyHive continues to recognize the impact “Daddy Lessons” had on Americana-country music.A post shared by Mark Pettit Springs, 1992 Beyoncé and The Chicks also received backlash for performing the song at the 50th Annual Country Music Association Awards. It was rejected by the Recording Academy when it was submitted for consideration in the Country categories. The song landed on the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop charts, but it wasn’t completely embraced by the Country community. Despite its western appeal, “Daddy Lessons” was met with mixed reactions. Shortly after the album dropped, she teamed up with The Chicks for an incredible remix that helped make the song a classic. The ode to fathers who raised their girls to be tough allows Bey to flaunt her soulful vocals over a harmonious collective of banjos, harmonicas, acoustic guitars and drums. Back in 2016, the Houston native released her first Country song “Daddy Lessons” as a part of her Lemonade album. Act II isn’t Beyoncé's first foray in Country.