Randy Rainbow - Playing with Myself

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For my mom, Gwen, and all the women whove lifted and inspired me

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Fine, I didnt write that. But its how I really wanted the opening chapter of this book to begin. No phrase could more perfectly epitomize the last six years of my life, full of unimaginable highs and lows, for me personally and on the world stage. Unfortunately, my buzzkill editor has advised against direct plagiarism. Apparently Mr. Dickens would be none too thrilled. And you know Charles Gurl is litigious.

Of course it wouldnt be the first time I borrowed from one of the greats to create my own art. If youre reading this now, its likely youve seen my song parody videos on the internet. Its more than likely at least one of them has popped up on your social media feed, or in an email from your favorite aunt at some point over the last few years. Perhaps you were so inclined to share one of them with your friends from work, or your boyfriend, or his mom, or your cool pansexual cousin, or that other aunt whos hopelessly devoted to Fox News but still has a commendable sense of humor and hard-core loves the score from Les Mis.

Or perhaps it wasnt your vibe and you rolled your eyes after the first few seconds before dramatically untagging yourself from the post in protest and returning to your preferred guilty internet pleasure: potato-scratching ASMR makeup tutorials (or whatever youre into). The point is, were together now and I forgive you!

Yes, its me! Randy Rainbow, or as many of you have inaccurately referred to me on various occasions throughout the years, Rainbow Randy, Robbie Raincloud, Reading Rainbow, Ryan Reynolds, and oh, that queen.

Of course, theres also a fair-to-middling chance you have no idea who the hell I am (fame can be fickle like that these days). Perhaps I just looked too unbearably adorable on the jacket of this book for you to resist when you found it on the shelf at your local thrift shop or next to a pair of hideous Ivanka Trump made-in-China flats on the clearance rack at Nordstrom. Well, assuming you decided to throw caution to the wind and buy the book instead of those flats (which wouldnt have gone with anything in your closet anyway), please rest assured, I am extremely famous.

When they first asked me to write a whole book, I was hesitant. Sure, Id already done a lot of autobiographical writing in my day, but mostly on Twitter. And after careful research, I determined that books often require more than 240 characters. Fuck that, I concluded. (See what I did there?) I know, youre probably rolling your eyes and thinking, Get a load of her, turning down book deals in this economy, and youre right.

Then I realized what a golden opportunity this could be, having now reached a certain level of maturity, to finally come out! Not in the way I came out to my best girlfriend Kelly in a hotel bathroom at the Tampa Marriott during the Florida State Thespians competition of 1999. When I say come out, I mean more like in the eighteenth-century aristocratic debutante presenting herself to society kind of coming out. I never had a proper bar mitzvah because I dropped out of Hebrew school. And I never had a quinceaera like many of my friends because when I turned fifteen, my mother insisted I was not a young woman of Latin American heritage. So lets think of this book as a combo of all those time-honored, coming-of-age traditions I missed out on (minus the shitty DJ and plastic party favors).

See, if youre familiar with my work, you are likely familiar with my personathe heightened-reality, campy, scripted, comedic version who often breaks into song. Sure, thats one part of me, but what you may not realize is that behind that bubbly character is an actual personan introverted only child, full of angst, flaws, insecurities, past heartbreaks, and yes, impossibly perfect bone structure. Hopefully, as you read on, youll come to know more about the person behind the persona behind the pink cat-eye glasses. But why not, lets kick right off by dispelling some of the most egregious fake news, alternative facts, lies, myths, and propaganda often circulating about me.

1. It was once written in a review of my work that I am the love child of Harvey Fierstein, Bette Midler, and Anderson Cooper. While I was not able to fully corroborate this genealogy on Ancestry.com, nor can I practically imagine such a romantic tryst among those three gay icons (actually, now Im totally imagining it, and so are you), Im gonna go ahead and say that ones true. (Hey, its my book.)
2. Ive seen a number of QAnon-style conspiracy theories about me perpetuated by cyborgs, trolls, and bots on social media. Recently, one such tweet referring to me as a little mutant freak claimed that I am a CIA asset, probably born in a lab somewhere. This is also entirely true.
3. Some extreme right-wingers seem to believe Ive been hired by Nancy Pelosi and the DNC to push their agenda. Joking aside, this is false. Believe it or not, my work is not at all politically motivated and neither am I. Ive never been a political junkie by nature, and Im not a pundit. My shtick as a topical comedian and satirist has always been to cover whatever you, the audience, are talking about. It just so happened that around 2016, yall started talking about nothing but politics (I wonder why), and I simply followed suit! While, like many, I have become much more woke to those topics over the years, and while some of my spoofs may contain a heavier dose of my genuine opinion than others, my work is rarely a personal testimony, and never a political endorsement, or even condemnation, in any grown-up sense of those words. Its merely a colorful snapshot of a moment in time as I see it, a funhouse mirror reflection of all sides. That has at least been my intention to this point, anyway. So dont act so surprised when you tell me your Republican mother loves me, too. Im not. Why the hell shouldnt she?
4. Yes, its my real name. Randy Rainbow (not Randall, not Randolph, not Randonc) is the name that appears on my birth certificate, my New York State ID, my Social Security card, and in black Sharpie ink on the inside of every pair of underwear I own. I know, it sounds like the corniest stage name ever. Believe me when I tell you, I would not have chosen it for myself. It was a very difficult childhood (just read the next few chapters!). My name may seem perfectly on-brand now, but frankly, thats only because I had no choice but to grow into it! For all those birthers out there still demanding receipts, here, once and for all, in plain black and white, in the very first chapter of my very own book, is everything I presently know about the official origin of my very real last name.

My great-great-grandparents, the Regenbogens, lived in what was then Austria-Hungarylikely between 1860 and 1880. Like many other Jews, they fled to England to avoid religious persecution. The German word