“It’s like, ‘Guess what, this is brown-owned,’ ” Krishnan said. That way, people stopping by for the bar’s fruity drinks, Latin-inspired food and regular drag performances can tell that it’s run by people of color. Krishnan purposely stations either himself or his husband, general manager Kamath, at the entrance of Cockatoo. “But we’re like, ‘Hey, we’ve got this.’ ” “Everybody says 13th Street is not gay anymore,” said Cockatoo owner Krishnan. “You literally pick your day and you’re able to have a place to go that you can identify with.” She hopes this is just the start of a diversifying Gayborhood. “I do appreciate the inclusivity and just the variety,” Evans said. Level Up regular Shonda Evans said she makes the trip from her North Philly home to the Center City bar two or three times every week. “Thick and Sexy Night” is centered around body positivity.Ĭustomers have noticed. There are regular parties for lesbians, and shows designed to welcome trans people. In this world, at this time, can love really join the tribes of man? It was not a question when the Judds asked, “Don't you think it's time?” Naomi knew the answer all along.The Walnut Street club hosts events most nights of the week - each one geared toward a different demographic from the LGBTQ community. It was so beautiful and artful, he thought it was a Broadway song. I once sang that song at a piano bar, and a man in the audience approached me afterward, impressed by the song (probably not by my performance). The lack of animosity between us reminds me of that line in “Love Can Build a Bridge,” perhaps Naomi’s crowning achievement as a songwriter: “Love and only love can join the tribes of man.” When my husband and I moved to Philadelphia and they stayed in New York, we continued our campground reunions, and there was never a camping trip without a Judds singalong around the fire, under the starlit Pennsylvania sky.īoth couples have since divorced, and I have remarried - making sure to impress an appreciation of the Judds upon my new husband - but we all remain close and in touch. Soon we two couples became inseparable, taking camping trips together several times a summer. I had to go to all the way to New York City to find my country people. One night a Judds song came on, I forget which one, and one of my new friends began singing along. There, I cultivated a new circle of friends, many of them also from Michigan. Like Naomi, I had persevered and made it out. I went off to college, got married (well, committed - same-sex marriage wasn’t yet legal in those days) and ended up in New York. When cancer visited one of my leg bones after my senior year in high school, I thought of Naomi and her hepatitis diagnosis. Naomi’s single motherhood, a nurse trying to score a recording contract, clicked with my view of my newly widowed mother, another country woman, trying to keep it together while still raising children. And would Ashley have made it in Hollywood without her mother’s support?Īs I grew older, the story of the Judds impressed me, and I saw bits of it in my own life. But without Naomi’s harmonies and stage presence, I doubt her daughter ever would have become the one-name star she is. Wynonna was clearly the bigger voice of the duo. For a lonely gay boy in the rural Midwest, they were a calling card, and a lifeline of sorts. But I still always think of my grandpa.)Īnd after my father died, I wanted to be at that breakfast table they sang about in “Love Is Alive,” soaking up all the love that sat there. (The song has since lost its luster for me a bit - the good old days weren't really that good. When I was a preteen beginning to reckon with my sexuality and dealing with bullies, and the Judds sang “Mama He’s Crazy,” I understood the narrator's insecurities - why would anyone want me?Īfter my grandfather died, I listened to “Grandpa” over and over, crying that he would no longer be able to tell me about the good old days, which he actually used to do.
My first (and only) sighting of them is forever etched in my mind.Īfter word Saturday of Naomi's death, I'm now realizing how much I've been through with them.
I’m not sure what it was, but for me and for most people, the chemistry between Naomi and Wynonna and the feelings they stirred inside the listener were almost tangible.