Lyon of the Highlands (The Lyon’s Den Connected World)

 Playing with Myself by Randy Rainbow

Title:  Playing with Myself
Author: Randy Rainbow
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Genre:  Biographies & Memoirs, LGBTQIA, Nonfiction (Adult) 
Format:  Kindle
No. of Pages: 251
Date of Publication:  19 April, 2022
My Rating:  4 Stars

My Thoughts 

I didn’t know who Randy Rainbow was until the former presidency was in effect. Within a few weeks of the election, I was in the hospital with such an awful panic attack that I thought I was having a cardiac issue. Thankfully, I wasn’t and a few days after that event my husband introduced me and our teens to Rainbow’s videos and they were so wonderfully funny and a guaranteed source of laughter (a limited and precious commodity at the time) during that shitshow of a presidency and the pandemic early days. As a result, my entire family and I adore him. I truly do thank him for helping so many of us through the DJT years and the pandemic. Randy Rainbow is a treasure of a human. 

I really appreciated learning more about Randy’s early life, younger life, and present day. I loved reading his story and hope it becomes an audiobook, with Randy narrating. 

eARC kindly provided by St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley. Opinions shared are my own.

Description

An intimate and light-hearted memoir by viral sensation and three-timeEmmy-nominated musical comedian Randy Rainbow that takes readers through his life—the highs, the lows, the lipstick, the pink glasses, and the show tunes.

Randy Rainbow, the man who conquered the Internet with a stylish pair of pink glasses, an inexhaustible knowledge of Broadway musicals, and the most gimlet-eyed view of American politics this side of Mark Twain finally tells all in Playing with Myself, a memoir sure to cause more than a few readers to begin singing one of his greatest hits like “A Spoonful of Clorox” or “Cover Your Freakin’ Face.”

As Randy has said, “There’s so much fake news out there about me. I can’t wait to set the record straight and finally give people a peek behind the green screen.” And set the record straight he does. Playing with Myself is a first-hand account of the journey that led Randy Rainbow from his childhood as the over-imaginative, often misunderstood little boy who carried a purse in the second grade to his first job on Broadway as the host at Hooters and on to the creation of his trademark comedy character. In chapters titled “Pajama Bottoms” (a look back at the days when he wore pajama bottoms on his head to pretend he was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz), “Yes, It’s My Real Name, Shut Up!” (no explanation necessary...) and “Pink Glasses” (a rose-colored homage to his favorite accessory), Playing with Myself is a memoir that answers the question “Can an introverted musical theatre nerd with a MacBook and a dream save the world, one show tune at a time?”