Openly Bob [Paperback]

Bob Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1999

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Bob Smith writes about topics that are standard elements of almost any actor-humorist's repertoire: family visits, early jobs, auditions for parts, and the ups and downs of romantic relationships. The major difference between Bob and most other comedians, however, is that he's openly and unashamedly gay.

Openly Bob is not, however, a collection of gay jokes. When Bob's sexuality is relevant to the joke, it comes up, as in his thoughts on how to abate right-wing fears about homosexuals using sex education in public schools as "recruitment." "Our educational system has proved," he writes, "that if a subject is taught in a boring enough manner, Americans will make every effort to avoid it for the rest of their lives. If homosexuality was taught in the same manner as trigonometry, even most gay people would have no use for it after graduation." The rest of the time, however, Bob's gayness is not an issue, but simply a state of being. His jokes aren't funny because he's gay; his jokes are funny because they're funny. "How did Tom and I come to realize that we needed couples counseling?" he asks at one point. "We had sex less frequently. Then we had sex less frequently than people in full-body casts. We stopped having sex. Finally, our relationship stopped other people, gay or straight, from wanting to have sex." Bob Smith's wit and intelligence, which garnered Openly Bob a 1998 Lambda Literary Award, will make him an equally appealing humorist to both gay and straight readers. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The first openly gay comedian to appear on the Tonight Show, star of an HBO special, and member of the popular comedy troupe Funny Gay Males (with whom he co-wrote Growing Up Gay, Hyperion, 1995), Smith here assembles a collection of 13 humorous essays?autobiographical musings that range over topics of everyday life concentrating on the often banal, sometimes absurd family encounters to which everyone can relate. After opening with a Thanksgiving visit to his parents in Buffalo, he relates attendance at the wedding of his lover's nephew and closes with a recollection of going to his father's funeral. His sometimes biting observations on his family's dysfunctions are probably better delivered as part of a stand-up routine. By contrast, Smith's characterizations of fellow bird enthusiasts on an outing in Central Park are subtle and generous. While his homosexuality is a constant?and a constant source of humor?it is treated ultimately as just another quirk in one man's view of life. Well recommended wherever humor books circulate.?Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (February 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380732009
• ISBN-13: 978-0380732005
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,683,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laughing out loud in the privacy of your home., October 13, 2003

By 

Richard Riga (Orlando, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Openly Bob (Paperback)

No matter what, no matter when, no matter how often I read this book, I laugh every time. I've read each book from Bob Smith at least 5 times, and I am enlightened, humored and tickled every time I (re)read them. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes reading autobiographical humor, especially if you've ever thought your life was funny enough to publish.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A clean-cut all-American gay boy can be funny? Yes very!, June 19, 2001

By 

Stephen O. Murray "Stephen O. Murray" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Openly Bob (Paperback)

The clean-cut all-American boy Bob Smith was probably an altar boy (as well as being an alter-boy). The son of a heavy-drinking New York State trooper and a devoutly Catholic mother, he grew up in Buffalo. The book begins and ends with visits to his hometown, accompanied by his life-partner Tom. They also visit Tom's parents in their Florida retirement home, survive a hurricane that strikes Provincetown and two bouts of couples counseling. Being a professional comedian, Smith finds plenty that is funny about these events and nonevents. Some of the quips fall flat, and he sometimes drives metaphors into the ground, but his enjoyment at playing with language is infectious, and even the outright jokes are usually based on keen perception of the absurdities of his own life and the society around him.

Smith's humor is genial, even when aimed at attitudes and behavior that deeply annoy him. Whereas David Sedaris sometimes strikes me as vicious (though I'm sure he'd label his extremes "Swiftian" and dismiss Smith as a gay Thurber), Smith's bile drains somewhere other than in his writing.My favorite chapter is the one that verges on talking about sex (something many other gay comics focus upon, but Smith all but ignores), "A Few Notes on Sex Education."

It seems that he comes by his optimism naturally, since his mother tells his sister "Just because you're coming home for your father's funeral, doesn't mean that we can't have fun."

The book is _not_ a string of one-liners. It is a collection of keenly observed essays on a number of facets of American life (in a range of places I've already enumerated). They are connected primarily by how Bob Smith sees and describes the world, but most of the book coheres around one monogamous gay couple and their extended families ("The terms 'immediate' and 'extended' are apt because my immediate family can cause instant mood swings and my extended family is better kept at a distance"). Although relentlessly breezy in style, the book is framed by a moving tribute to his parents.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Laugh-O-Rama, March 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Openly Bob (Hardcover)

When this collection of essays won the Lambda Award several years ago, beating out David Sedaris' wonderful "Naked," I was incredulous. "With whom, pray tell," I pondered bitchily, "did Bob Smith sleep to win that award?" Fast forward to 2000: I actually read "Openly Bob." NOW I KNOW WHY BOB WON: Because he wrote the funniest, the most insightful book of a gay man's life and times that I have read, including -- and I never thought I would write this -- Sedaris' "Naked" or "Barrel Fever." And, kids, I read everything. So, I heartily recommend Bob Smith's "Openly Bob" to all.