And obsession is more like it! I begged my oldest sister Andrea to take me to see him in concert in 1972. There weren't many other boys there, but I can pretty much guarantee that every one of us was gay. And screaming and shrieking for David!
All I knew, was I could not resist that shag haircut, his gleaming huge smile, and those beautiful green eyes. And his voice was so soothing and amazing to me. And Friday nights back then meant the holy-grail of pre-teen TV for kids:
"The Brady Bunch" followed by "The Partridge Family" - pure 70's gay boy heaven!
I bought every "16" & "Tiger Beat" magazine he was in. I even made two separate scrapbooks: One for David alone, the other for the rest of the cast.
One day when I was about 12, I was hanging out with my sister Linda and her teenaged girlfriends. They were all playing records, and one of her friends pulled out the sleeve on my Partridge Family "Up To Date" album. And she saw what I had written on the white sleeve inside:
I drew a flower around the hole in the middle, and wrote: "The petals of love for David Cassidy" - and I was MORTIFIED she saw that! My sister has no recollection of this, of course...
I was lucky enough to meet David Cassidy just before his 40th birthday here in LA, and he was just as sexy. And a super nice guy, too.
David was the FIRST, mega pop star of the TV age.
Rest in peace, David. Thank you for everything!
Paul V., your Blogmaster - Los Angeles, CA
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Click here: "Born This Way: Real Stories of Growing Up Gay" book
Inspired by the "Born This Way Blog" - BornThisWayBlog.com
Inspired by the "Born This Way Blog" - BornThisWayBlog.com
5 comments:
This is SO awesome! You got to meet your first crush!
Does anyone remember the picture pic of David on the front of Rolling Stone which showed pubic hair? I've still got it stored somewhere and will have to find it now.
Yay! I love that picture of you guys from the "Mystery Date" days! Look how cute you look, Paul.
That About Sums it Up...
By the time me and my best friend (since kindergarten) had entered our adolescence, the Partridge Family series had begun on Friday nights. He and I both developed huge crushes on David. Once a month, we rode our bikes to our small town's one convenience store (still, in those days, a novelty) and thumbed through the magazines "16" and "Tiger Beat." If either had pictures of David, each of us purchased one. If those pictures were also barefoot, that was a huge bonus. I remember the way the cashier (always an old lady with tobacco stained teeth and bad breath) scowled at us as we checked out, and even acted like our money was dirty. I was very pleased to find out, just a few weeks ago, that most of David's barefoot pictures that I can remember are downloadable on the internet. It has been decades since my mother threw my David scrapbook away---probably during my first term away at college---and now I have it back, almost completely intact . . . saved on my laptop.
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