American Football Is Gay

Sometimes, as a big football contest is approaching, people say things to me, like, "so Wes, who do you want to win the big game?" And I used to say things like, I don't give a crap.

Then they would spend the next fifteen minutes to an hour telling me how I am a failure as a human being because I don't have an interest in football. (Or any other spectator sport, except women's single figure skating and women's single nude gymnastics.)

Being that sort of person that I am, I got tired of always being the one on the receiving end of the criticism. So rather than say I don't give a crap about football, I now instead say Football Is Gay.

Now, the truth is, I don't think football is gay. But I do KNOW that every guy who insists I'm a failure as a human being for not liking football is a raging homophobe.

Sure enough, almost every time I say football is gay, even people who know me well enough to know better protest vehemently. They walk right into a Football Is Gay diatribe, by demanding to know how I could say such a thing. (If they weren't such big loser homophobes they would just say, "So?")

If you want to play along, here are some of the high points of the diatribe.

Tight Ends. Just anyone can't be a Tight End. It takes talent. It requires flexibility. You have to be able to block OR receive. Good practice: on your dates with your boyfriends, alternate as butch or fem.

Of course all football players live for the chance to handle a ball. Some of them, like these, practice for hours dancing around, handling balls. Note that these players have been practicing so long their balls are blue. Hey guys, the trick for preventing that is to let the balls drop gently before "rushing to the next play."

In the picture below we see the main reason women and gays love football. Men in tight pants freely displaying themselves squatting and bending over.

Football fans point to cheerleaders as proof that football is not gay. But these women are not allowed anywhere near the huddles. They are the fag hags of football. When a player does well do any of these women pat him on the butt? Hell, no! It'll be one of their gay team-mates every time! And the fag hags will cheer them both on!

Maybe this wavehead isn't gay. BUT HE'S PROUD TO BE A FUCKING WAVEHEAD?

Seriously, football isn't gay. But here's graphic proof of how homophobic it is. Look at this picture that shows how a typical center sees himself. A lone lion on the field ready to snap the ball to no one in particular and win the game all by his ferocious own self.

Compare that to the reality, and recognize that the denial can only be explained by a refusal to admit that the job entails a hand up your crotch every five minutes, and you're just one boy in a field of 22, all taking turns rolling around in the grass on top of each other.

Another Crappy Birthday

OK, it wasn't as bad as the first. It was even better than the second, which wasn't celebrated at all, since animals don't get birthday parties.

It began with my Father getting his photographic equipment out. He set up a tripod in the middle of the living room, and a dining chair was set in front of it.

I was placed in the chair. He had to focus the camera. He measured the light and did his calculations to set the exposure time just right. He had to hang a sheet up to block sunlight from the window.

Then the big moment came. My Mother handed me an oblong object and my Father said, from behind the camera, "Here it is! Here's the ball!" I was excited! I looked around for the ball. I didn't see it, but I was sure it was there somewhere. I was happy, and there was a flash, as my Father got this picture.


After the picture was taken I said, naturally, "Where ball? What ball?"

My Father said, "It's in your hand, silly"

How is a football a ball to a 3-year-old who has never even seen a football game?

I've often wondered how bad it would have been if we were a normal family, and my parents hadn't tried to kill me on my first birthday, and I hadn't only just recently begun to bond with my Father again.

The way things were, it just symbolized everything that was wrong. I had a Father who couldn't see me unless he was imagining me being him. If I couldn't be identical to him, I was disposable. My Father was a football fan. I must be a football fan.

Even before I started crying, my Mother said, "I told you he wanted a round ball." I burst out in tears, and my Father said, "It's a ball! What's wrong with him that he can't see it's a ball!" "It's not a ball," she said. "It's a football." "A football is a ball!"

It took several minutes for my Father to calm down. Mother talked him into promising to get a real ball soon. I was talked down out of my sobbing, as I gradually was convinced that the next time wouldn't be just like this one, and the next "ball" wouldn't be shaped like a donkey, or the Eiffel Tower, or a stupid coat hanger.

Another present was brought out. I got a "kelepona", a telephone. It was a toy telephone with a spinning dial, just like the new one that my parents had recently got, replacing the old wall model.

Below are four photos. In all but the one on the lower left I was Kona. My Mother said something mean about me just before that shot was taken, and Alaka'i came out, protecting Kona from hearing the insult. You can see anger that Kona wouldn't have had. My Mother said to my Father, "See? See what I've been telling you? Look at him. You can see he's different! I told you the freak's got a split personality!"

My father told her she was crazy. "There are no such things as split personalities."