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Openly Bob

Name: Openly Bob
Author: Bob Smith
ISBN: 9780380732005

by Bob Smith

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Overview

As an openly gay comic, Bob Smith broke barriers with an appearance on "The Tonight Show." Now Smith offers up his own original, whine-free perspective on being grown up and gay.In OPENLY BOB, the acclaimed comedian candidly, and humorously, tackles issues facing grown-up gays as they make their place in an overwhelmingly straight society. From bringing your boyfriend home to your father's funeral, to being the only gay couple at a family wedding, to surviving couples counseling, Smith's decidedly wry spin on the events of our lives resonates with keen observation and hilarious truth."So Mom says to me on the phone, 'Just because you're coming home for your father's funeral doesn't mean we can't have fun!'"Sex education, meteor showers, lesbian ventriloquist dummies, fleamarket shopping, body piercing, pot -smoking drag queens, environmental correctness, Judgment Day, Samuel Beckett, Newt Gingrich, Coco Chanel, Sigmund Freud—nothing and no one escapes Smith's incisive eye in this very human collection of comic essays.

Synopsis

A gay version of Jerry Seinfeld? Bob Smith is that out comedian who managed to snag an appearance on The Tonight Show, among other dubious honors that befall the most talented among us. He's funny, he's bright, he's out of the closet, and he embraces life in all its aspects -- even some of the straight parts, like his Buffalo, New York, family holiday in which his lover has the audacity to bring up the weather as polite topic of conversation in a city of nothing but weather. Funny, poignant, smart, and always entertaining, Openly Bob is a book that will touch your heart -- and other body parts, if you let it.

Out Magazine

Smith lays bare the worst fears, most intimate moments, with insight and aplomb -- Out

About the Author, Bob Smith

Bob Smith is the author of Growing Up Gay, written with the Funny Gay Males, which was nominated for a Lambda Award. He tours extensively, performing across the country, and has written for numerous television shows, including Roseanne's, Saturday Night Special, and the MTV Video Awards. Smith is set to star in a new gay sketch-comedy series, coproduced by the CBC and Showtime, for which he will write and perform. Raised in Buffalo, New York, he now lives in Los Angeles with his boyfriend, Tom. You can E-mail Bob at [email protected].

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
Out and Laughing

Bob Smith is that out comedian who managed to snag an appearance on "The Tonight Show," among other dubious honors that befall the most talented among us. He's funny, he's bright, he's out of the closet, and he embraces life in all its aspects — even some of the straight parts, like his Buffalo, New York, family holiday in which his lover has the audacity to bring up the weather as polite topic of conversation in a city of nothing but weather. Funny, poignant, smart, and always entertaining, Openly Bob is a book that will touch your heart — and other body parts, if you let it.

Smith starts his collection of memoir-stand-up-performance-art writings with a memory of holidays spent with Mom and Dad and lover Tom in the far north of Buffalo. The juxtaposition of his retired cop dad and housewife mom with Tom and his attempts to blend in with a family that centers its life around morning television and sitcoms and a gigantic feast that apparently is smaller than the normal meals at this house — well, it slowly but surely gets funnier as it goes. What's nice about this book is that Smith doesn't work too hard to get a laugh — he has produced the gay equivalent of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon.

From relationship issues in the section called "The Dark Side of the Honeymoon," in which Smith brings up couples counseling, to "Between the Lines: Auditioning to Play Tom Cruise's Gay Brother and Other Roles," in which Smith discusses his foibles and fumbles in Hollywood and the roller coaster of auditioning for movie roles, OpenlyBobshines as a witty, wholesome but hip conversation with a very talented guy.

In the chapter titled "A Few Notes on Sex Education," he sets the rules of romance: "Number One: If you need immediate gratification on a first date, order dessert. Always remember: It's easier to not finish a piece of cake than it is to not finish a blow job."

For a good time, or just a leisurely stroll through this delightful comic's guide to life, love, and a gay point of view, grab Openly BoB, and sit back and enjoy.

Entertainment Weekly

Hilarious.

Lambda Book Report

Bob Smith is a real writer...a trusty and tart guide, and as you'd suspect, a master of the one-line observation...But what readers, gay and straight, will really appreciate are the direct approach and the eye for detail that make this book a touchingly personal document. Smith brings a sensibility and a sensitivity that make this one of the most rewarding gay books of the year.

Lambda Book Report

Bob Smith is a real writer . . . a trusty and tart guide, and as you'd suspect, a master of the one-line observation. . . . But what readers, gay and straight, will really appreciate are the direct approach and the eye for detail that make this book a touchingly personal document.. . . Smith brings a sensibility and a sensitivity that make this one of the most rewarding gay books of the year.
-- Lambda Book Report

Out Magazine

Smith lays bare the worst fears, most intimate moments, with insight and aplomb -- Out

Paper

OPENLY BOB is a dazzlingly funny, semiautobiographical, hardcover one-man show.

Paul Rudnick

Bob Smith is that rare phenomenon: a hilarious gentile. OPENLY BOB is his wickedly funny diary...Not only is this book entertaining and touching, but it also includes perhaps the finest Lucille Ball anecdote of our time.

San Francisco Chronicle

Emotionally powerful, obviously honest...a true heart and a very funny one as well.

Publishers Weekly

Most books by stand-up comedians consist of shtick, but the relentlessly quippy Smith, the first openly gay comic to appear on the Tonight Show, successfully crosses over into the comic essay. His autobiographical tales are engagingly tart: bringing his lover home to his family ("There are times when having an uncommunicative, repressed family can be a real benefit"); working as a caterer in his early 20s ("New York criminals treat waiters better than the so-called `high society'"); trying to keep his dignity while auditioning in Hollywood ("The defining characteristic of being a big queen isn't effeminacy... [it's] flamboyant enthusiasm"); performing in the gay summer playground of Provincetown, Mass. (he and fellow members of the Funny Gay Males trio devastatingly dish a drag imitator of Carol Channing). The collection can seem scattershot, but Smith redeems himself with his take on relationships ("Know Thy Selfishness") or his description of a therapist who delighted in hearing his problems ("Schadenfreudian"). And the comic's final essay, about the funeral of his father, an alcoholic ex-state trooper who drove his family nuts but also accepted his gay son's sexual identity, is at once hilarious and touching.