"Straight Acting" Down South
My film will be broadcast on New Zealand television soon. Any country that obsesses over Rugby, loves itself a good beer, and elects a tranny to Parliament can't be too bad in my book.
posted by leftcoastbreakdown.com at 12:45 PM
1 Comments:
I haven't seen your movie yet. its showing in tucson this weekend and im out of town. I may just buy it. 10 bucks what a deal. The reason im commenting is that I read something in the description that reminded me of my personal experiences with contact sports and being the gay one on the team. I come from a family of three brothers; im the youngest. We used to run football plays every christmas morning with the new equipment santa claus left under the tree. Santa claus must have had gaydar because the year before i got that easy bake oven i prayed for. Hmm My oldest brother must have known too because from then on he made sure that i got sports equipment. My brother toughened us up by forcing us to slam through eachother carrying the ball. Anyway years went by and i went from teeball to the Jr. Olympics. I was a confident athlete among the other neighborhood kids but at school my shyness and fear caused me to be picked on and chosen last until one day hidden in the outfield the ball just happened to land in my hands and from that day on i became valued. By myself at home I could hide out in my room reading GQ and dreaming about gymnastics and iceskating but at school it was about being tough to block and take a hit. Playing football, soccer and track helped my self esteam not to mention gave me a free ticket to the lockerroom show. The girls liked me because i was polite and cute but behing my back the guys called me queer. Too small and too slow for line positions I was a soccer style place kicker and my worst enemy was my holder. At the game for state my school was losing to my old school and in the last quarter we came back and scored making it 12 to 13. We attempted to run all extra points and in the last seconds of the game we had a chance to run it or tie with my kick. The holder placed the ball on the astro turf instead of the block and my kick went wide. I sat alone on the bus back to the school and on the way to the lockerroom my worst enemy; my holder patted me on the waist and said it was not my fault. The next day the other team players let me know that It shouldn't have come down to me alone to tie that game. That was over twenty years ago but i still hold it as one of the most important moments of my life. On that day i learned that in order to be respected as an equal I didn't have to be better, stronger or tougher than straight men. Today some of my most trusting and intimate relationships are with straight men. I thank contact sports and my big brother for teaching me how respect myself as an equal.
kevin Armendariz, tucson, arizona
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