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Michael Thomas Ford
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 It's
Not Mean If It's True by
Michael Thomas Ford
The third collection of
Michael Thomas Ford's syndicated humor pieces from his column
"My Queer Life" more than lives up to its sparkling
predecessors, Alec
Baldwin Doesn't Love Me and That's
Mr. Faggot to You. Revel in Ford's tart summary of the
suppressed all-gay season of MTV's Real World, with its
outbreak of crabs and a heart-rending incident involving the
impossible-to-find Julie Andrews recording Live in Japan.
Ponder in pity or solidarity Ford's brave revelation that he has
no style sense whatsoever and is taken for a hopelessly muddled
straight man whenever he wanders into a J. Crew or a Gap. The best
essays here are often not the topical ones, in which Ford responds
to recent antigay news, but the most whimsical. In "Ah-Choo,"
he proposes a useful new hanky code, based not on sexual
proclivities but on personality traits, such as Orange Hanky for
"Tanning booth aficionado and gym bunny" or Green Hanky
for "Eats only organic produce." Don't miss his mordant
reflections on the outing of Tinky Winky in "Et Tu, Po?"
or his "Condensed History of Queer Sex," beginning with
God's anger at Adam and Steve for eating forbidden fruit: "As
punishment, Steve's name and penis are both severely shortened,
forever altering history." --Regina Marler
 Alec
Baldwin Doesn't Love Me and Other Trials of My Queer Life by
Michael Thomas Ford
The short humorous essay is a form that few
writers can master. Sure, pithy and funny are easy enough (if you
are, in fact, pithy and funny), but the failings of most humorous
essays come from a lack of seriousness. Humor is most effective
when the writing articulates a clear, thoughtful point of view.
The essays in Michael Thomas Ford's Alec
Baldwin Doesn't Love Me and Other Trials of My Queer Life are perfect models of the form. Ford, who writes a syndicated
column titled "My Queer Life," can muse on anything from
Martha Stewart's manias to his devotion to Alec Baldwin's chest,
from the elusive gay gene to right-wing Fundamentalist
Christianity (in which he was raised), and he manages to make us
laugh and sometimes even cry. His ironic view of a world that
keeps threatening to be wonderful but never quite succeeds
dovetails perfectly with his desire for world peace, freedom for
gay people, and better sex. Witty, funny, and surprisingly moving,
Michael Thomas Ford explains life to us and it actually begins to
make sense.
 That's
Mr. Faggot to You : Further Trials from My Queer Life
by
Michael Thomas Ford
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.
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Excerpt:
With two best-sellers and two Lambda Literary
Awards under his belt, Michael Thomas Ford is still cranky. Lucky
for you. The author of Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Me and That's
Mr. Faggot to You returns with more skewed observations on the
strange state of the queer union. As fans of his previous
collections have happily discovered, little escapes his attention,
and no topic is too controversial or sacred to be tackled.
"The Condensed History of Gay Pride" is enough to send
any politically correct gay leader shrieking into the streets...
Site includes a biography, news, contact
information and more.
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By Edward Guthmann, The Advocate
Excerpt:
Michael Thomas Ford has been called a lot of
things since he started his writing career: "the gay Dave
Barry," "a gay everyman," and his personal
favorite, "the gay Erma Bombeck." It came about, he
says, "because I was just kind of this ordinary guy who wrote
things that people could relate to." Ordinary on the surface,
anyway: At 31 the Boston-based author has written 40 books in a
wildly divergent range of genres and using several pen names...
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| Michael
Thomas Ford: Here We Go Again
Author's Note from the Alyson
Books Website
Excerpt:
Earlier this year I spent three months traveling
around the country in support of my book Alec Baldwin Doesn't
Love Me and Other Trials from My Queer Life.
On the night of the first reading, as I stood in
front of the audience looking out at the expectant faces, I
couldn't help but wonder, Why are these people here?
I knew why my friends were there; I'd forced
them to come. I knew why I was there; my publicist made me go. But
those other people--the men and women who had no such reasons for
showing up--why had they come out on a rainy Thursday night to
hear my stories?
Afterward, when I was signing books, a man
approached me and held out his dog-eared copy. "I just wanted
to say thanks," he said as I scribbled my illegible
autograph. "Thanks for writing about our lives."
His statement took me by surprise. Until that
moment, I'd been under the impression that I'd only been writing
about my life. But as I went from coast to coast visiting cities
from L.A. to D.C., Orlando to Minneapolis, I heard this same
statement repeated again and again. "Thank you for writing
about our lives." Pleased, but still a little baffled, I
nodded and smiled...
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By Michael Thomas Ford, from Inside
Out
Excerpt:
By the time this column appears one of my
favorite queer bookstores -- Boston's wonderful Glad Day Book Shop
-- will have closed. In business for almost a quarter of a
century, the store is closing not because of financial
difficulties, but because the space they've occupied for many
years is being turned into high-end condos and they can't find a
new space in a neighborhood overrun with Starbucks and Pottery
Barns.
The story of the independent bookstore being
forced out by the ever-encroaching chains, online stores, and
rising costs of operating a small business isn't a new one. And
when it comes to queer, alternative, or women's bookstores, the
casualties have been particularly high. But this is more than just
a business issue...
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Names Index:
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C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
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Q R
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