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46
A whole new ball game
never actually have watched a W orld Series
game. It never struck me as a fun thing to
do because I’m not a sports fan.
I
along to Hall and Oates songs on the radio. He
took me to my first concerts and taught me
how to smoke pot with a water bong. A ll in all,
World Series proves to be an eye-opener for this sissy
T h e closest I ever came to watching a
televised baseball match was a gay pom video
called The Bases Are Loaded. I dated a man
who dragged me to Baltimore Orioles games,
hut he lured me with beer and hot dogs.
neurotic about the
W e were in the middle o f that blush o f new
Washington Red
love, when you do things with the understand
skins, he doesn’t
ing that it will sustain your shave
sex life.
on game days
That man also had me cooking and
and has a minia
living in a Washington, D.C., sub
ture wooden Red
urb, so baseball was an ugly natural
skin he touches
progression.
I never have been much for
television, period. M y first name
has guaranteed that I’ve been
haunted by Capt. Kirk jokes since
kindergarten.
Supremely creative men still use
Star Trek as a pickup line shortly
before asking me, “ W h at’s your
sign.7” But I never have watched an
episode o f that show, either.
I’m a little baffled by the allure
o f baseball, which is supposedly the
epitome o f all things American. To
me, picking between the N ew York
Yankees and the N ew York Mets
was a daunting prospect, akin to
sorting out a favorite in the Israeli-Palestinian
war. Th e so-called Subway Series had me
scratching my noggin with confusion.
I have three older brothers, one o f whom is
an obsessive sports fan. H e would watch tiddly
winks if it were televised.
H e’s an avid golfer, which is something else
that falls into my aesthetic blind spot. H e’s so
My sports-loving brother,
however, never pulled any o f
that crap. I haven’t always
given him proper credit.
I’m currently writing a book
about being openly gay in high
school. Funny how the
memory molds our
personal history.
Sometimes
we remember
things to be
worse to give
ourselves
impressive
sob stories.
Sometimes we
at kickoff.
If anyone else
touches it—
ever— that
person is
responsible
for the jinx o f
an entire sea
son. M y brother is
40 years old; this
behavior has been going
on for quite some time.
Growing up, 1 pretty much
assumed all o f my brothers were homo-
phobic assholes. I mean, come on. Two o f them
are born-again Christians, and one o f them is a
sports fan who lives in Jesse Helms territory.
Sometimes their words and actions bore out
my assumptions. W hen I came out in high
school, one o f them condemned me at his
breakfast prayer group. O ne o f them donates
money to Operation Rescue and opens my mail
to his children to make sure I’m not indoctri
nating them into my “ lifestyle."
imagine things being better to
dull the pain that accompanies
truth. In my case, 1 let the stereo
types about macho heterosexual
sports fans get in the way o f our relationship.
This is a man who only recently has started
watching the Oscars. How much can you trust
someone who doesn’t watch the Oscars?
But the truth about my brother is he really
tried. He took me out on cold mornings to
teach me to kick field goals. He tried in vain to
teach me how in the world they calculate a
first down. H e took me to football games in the
freezing cold, and on the way home we sang
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asked him.
“ A re you really watching it?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“T h e Yankees, man! H ow about you?”
“T h e Yankees.. .man.”
God, I feel like Hillary Clinton.
jn
KlRK R e a p lives in Northern California and
can be found at wtvw.temenos.net/kirkread.
I h a v e n ’t had a
single drink today
... they’ve been
I
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straight people in general.
Tim e and distance have allowed me to be
more forgiving. However awkward it was for
me to be gay in a flamboyantly heterosexual
family, they were no better prepared for it.
M y brother the sports fan, as I look back on
it, has been pretty damn great to me. N o w it’s
my turn to try to understand him.
W h en the first game o f the series ended—
after what seemed like 53 innings— I called
him. I still had no idea who to root for.
During the third inning I started making
hash marks in two columns to tally which team
had the cutest players. But I gave up.
“W h o are you rooting for in the series?” I
B ES T SELECTION
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BM PORTLAND!
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loving moments.
Gay people often run from family, for gcxxl
reason. I ran like hell from my brothers.
I went to D.C. and N ew York and San
Francisco. Living in the gay ghettos gave me a
touch o f cynicism about the redemption o f
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he hit all the marks.
As I’ve written about him and my other two
brothers, I’ve realized how selective memory can
be. I expeded to dredge up all sorts o f repressed
memories o f them taunting me as a sissy.
But I haven’t. I’ve remembered a lot o f very
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