With two best-sellers and a Lambda Literary Award under his belt, Michael Thomas Ford is still cranky. Lucky for us. 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. But Ford's favorite target remains himself. The fact that Cher's butt is more famous than he is really irks him, and he is willing to pretend to be straight in order to get help while shopping for clothes. He murdered his rival's "egg baby" in high school to secure a good grade, and he sacrificed his own to a chocolate cake. Whether he is equating becoming a man with buying a barbecue in the very moving "Rite of Passage" or considering the state of parenthood in the unforgettable "Cheaper by the Dozen," Ford continues to observe life in ways that help us more closely observe ourselves-while never, never forgetting to make us laugh."In Ford's hands, pretty much anything can yield a laugh. He is an idea humorist-genially misanthropic, suspicious of ideology and convention, cynical or passionate depending on the occasion. And he is something else: a good read.-Lambda Book ReportMichael Thomas Ford's previous essay collections, Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Me and That's Mr. Faggot to You remained on best-seller lists for months, earning him unanimous critical praise and a Lambda Literary Award for humor. His syndicated column, My Queer Life, runs in dozens of papers nationwide, and his weekly radio program of the same name can be heard on Stellar Networks at www.gaybc.com. He lives in Boston, where he is finishing his first novel.