Randy Rainbow

A friend shared her copy with me so I had no financial stake in it and didn't think it would amount to much. I only knew RR from his (fantastic) videos so didn't think he was anything more than a youtuber with a gift for humorous political video.

I was delighted to learn that RR's life was quite interesting and that everything in his life seemed relevant to the place he is now. But I was particularly delighted that he writes so well.

I normally don't enjoy writers who make a lot of asides but RR is just so damn funny that I loved the asides, too. And I appreciated his honesty on his mistakes and the airing of the heat he faced for his earlier style of humor. Educating readers with humor and honesty is so much better than pointing fingers and blaming others.

One nitpicky observation: He spent a lot of time talking about being overweight but none of the photos in the book show him that way. Was he imagining that or did he just censor his photos? Kind of hard to imagine him doing either so it left me wondering.… (mehr)

I’ve been a big Randy Rainbow fan for several years, and reading his memoir gave me a new appreciation for who he is. That said, his book must set a record for the most number of dropped names in any memoir ever written. And I had only heard of about a third of them. My wife says that’s my fault, not Randy’s. I think the reason so much of the book is name dropping is because Randy is still star struck by what has happened to him in the last ten years. He has gone from a greeter at Hooter’s Restaurant to an international phenom in a relatively short time. And make no mistake about it, he’s done it on his own with old fashioned hard work. The stories in this book will make you feel like they happened to you because that’s how he reacts to everything unexpected that comes his way, like Barbra Streisand, Carol Burnett, Rosie O’Donnell and even Stephen Sondheim. They were all childhood heroes and they all became his friend. A charmed life doesn’t get any more charmed than that.… (mehr)