That's Mr. Faggot to You: Further Trials From My Queer Life - Softcover

Ford, Michael Thomas

4.02

351 ratings by Goodreads

9781555834968: That's Mr. Faggot to You: Further Trials From My Queer Life

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1555834965 ISBN 13: 9781555834968

Publisher: Alyson Books, 1999

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An Excerpt

The Perils of P.E.

Summer is here, and I should be in shape. I even promised myself that this year I'd go to the gym and just do it. But once again I'm not ready. My stomach is still too big, my shoulders too small. Blame it on Wally Shufelt.

Wally Shufelt--Mr. Shufelt--was my fifth grade gym teacher. One of those aging ex-jocks who failed to make it to the majors, he told us at least once a month how the Dodgers almost signed him right out of high school but a knee accident sidelined him before the start of spring training. Instead, he spent his years taking out his frustrations on the boys he used to be, dedicating his life to making men of us. And he took to it with a fervor generally found only in missionaries and defenders of the spotted owl.

I think for most gay men gym class was a black or white thing. For those of us who could actually do things like tackle, hit balls, and sink free throws, it was a junior version of nirvana, complete with sweaty bodies and blossoming hormones. For those of us completely bereft of any coordination whatsoever, it was a different story altogether.

Today I can enjoy physical activity--I have even been known to watch sporting events from time to time--but back in my school days I was decidedly in the second camp. Although my father had been the star athlete at the same school 25 years earlier, I inherited none of his talent. And in a backwoods school where excelling in academics was nothing compared to being able to score 42 points in the first half of whatever game one was playing, this was a decided disadvantage.

How I dreaded those alternating days when fourth period came and I had to enter that cavernous, wooden-floored palace of misery with its stench of varnish and unwashed adolescence. Many were the mornings when I would wait for the bus and pray as hard as I could for God to bring about the Second Coming before 11:00 rolled around and I was forced to see what new ordeal Mr. Shufelt had prepared especially for me.

You see, although we engaged in the usual seasonal gym class cycle of soccer-basketball-baseball, Mr. Shufelt was happiest when putting us through the paces of some activity of his own design. He was of the firm opinio

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Review:

Michael Thomas Ford garnered lots of laughs in 1998 with Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Me and Other Trials from My Queer Life. The follow-up collection of pieces from his syndicated column, That's Mr. Faggot to You, continues Ford's exploration of contemporary gay life. In the title essay, reports of a teenager who successfully sued his school district for failing to prevent physical and mental abuse by his classmates prompts Ford to recall his own traumatic high school experiences and leads him to recognize that, years later, "he is happier, more successful, and a great deal more attractive" than his classmates. In other essays, he discusses the you-and-me-against-the-world relationship he has with his black Labrador, proposes a new line of Christian-friendly action figures (including a Jonah and the Whale Play Set, "appropriate for bath-time use or fun in the pool"), and even manages, despite his uncertainties, to offer an adolescent nephew dating advice (concluding that "guy problems were guy problems, regardless of who the person creating the dilemma was or how many holes she or he had"). That's Mr. Faggot to You is a humorous slice of contemporary gay life that's bound at least to elicit a smile from any reader.

From Publishers Weekly:

Cranky, bemused and extremely funny, Ford (Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Me) is brilliant even on potentially mundane topics like high school reunions ("Michael Thomas Ford is very proud to announce that he is still queer... [and] happier, more successful, and a great deal more attractive" than his former schoolmates) and the giving of advice to his 12-year-old nephew about girlfriends (it wasn't so bad, once he mentally substituted Roberto and Jesse for Amber and Megan in the junior-high love triangle). Ford is peeved at a number of people, including Baptists boycotting Ellen, a certain senator from North Carolina and former ACT-UP leaders who now want gay men and women to be "just like everybody else." Ford admits, "I had a vague notion that to be just like everybody else was to no longer exist. But secretly I was glad I could stop wearing my earring." He has love in his heart, too, for Wynonna Judd, for instanceA"Yes, it's true. I want to have big jouncing breasts and masses of thick red hair. I want full, pouty lips that curl up in an Elvis sneer. I want to caress my guitar while thousands of lesbians squeal in delight and wet their cheap vinyl seats as they watch me totter across the stage in tight cowboy boots. I can't help it." He also champions "Dawgs" ("the blue-collar citizens of the canine world") against joggers, picnickers and other obstacles. "I'll tell you what," he says to an overprotective parent. "If he bites her, you can have him shot. And if your little girl bites him, I'll have her shot." Not for the faint-hearted, or fans of Jesse Helms, this collection achieves the feel of a down-and-dirty dish session with a very amusing friend.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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