Randy stops by CHQ and chats with Corey
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00:00Channel Q, excited to be spending some time with a very funny human.
00:05It's Randy Rainbow.
00:06Thanks for joining us.
00:07Hi, Corey.
00:08Thanks for having me.
00:09You are so busy right now doing all sorts of different things.
00:12You're zigging and zagging.
00:13You've got the tour that's kicking off in just a couple of weeks, the National Freakin'
00:19Treasure Tour.
00:20Tell us about it.
00:20What can we expect from the show on stage?
00:24Well, it's a variation of the concert show that I usually do, which, you know, fans of
00:29the videos will not be disappointed.
00:31I'm giving the greatest hits.
00:32It's me.
00:33It's a live band.
00:35I'm singing.
00:36I'm, you know, there's stand-up comedy.
00:41There's some audience participation.
00:44And there's some special, you know, treats in store.
00:47I mean, I don't want to give too much away, but Donald Trump is expected to make an appearance.
00:52Oh.
00:53Present me with a Kennedy Center honor.
00:56Just things throughout.
00:57Yeah.
00:57Again, not to give everything away, but we have special, special surprises in store.
01:02And, you know, you, you bring that up.
01:04Why did you want to do this tour now?
01:07The money.
01:08I mean, go ahead.
01:10Finish the question.
01:11Yeah.
01:11I mean, obviously this is your, this is your full-time job.
01:14This is your chosen profession.
01:15But was there anything happening in the world that made you say, you know what, I need to get my brand of, of humor and joy and entertainment out into the world at this moment across the country?
01:26Do you mean this particular year or for the last decade?
01:30I mean, yeah, right?
01:32Sure.
01:33All of it?
01:34All of it.
01:35Well, I mean, it started, you know, it all happened very serendipitously for me.
01:39And I won't give you, I won't bore you with the whole story.
01:41You can pick up a copy of my memoir, bestselling memoir, Playing With Myself, available wherever books are sold.
01:46And I go through the whole kind of journey that took me to this brand of humor.
01:51But it started with just, as most things do with me, just kind of like a cheap, campy gag of inserting myself into the headlines and interacting with whatever that may be.
02:02It started 10 years ago or more, actually, 14 years ago, I think, when I was dating Mel Gibson, which is kind of how a lot of people first were introduced to me.
02:12And then I just kept following the bouncing ball of the news cycle.
02:17And needless to say, come 2015, 2016, that led to Trump.
02:22And I just kept going with it.
02:24And over that time, especially, it became more and more clear, particularly when I started doing these live concerts and meeting people face to face who would tell me these lovely stories about how, you know, my videos helped get them through and helped them cope.
02:40Particularly when we got into COVID times, it became more clear that this, you know, as I always knew, comedy is very important.
02:51And so that's really the motivation for getting out there, particularly at this time, you know, with all we're going through.
03:01But mainly, it's the money.
03:02As you're building the plan for the show, you mentioned following and keeping up with the news cycle over the years.
03:11Right now, that in itself is a full-time job.
03:13Do you get exhausted with all that we're inundated and then at the same time trying to put that through your machine and push it out as art that makes people feel good?
03:23It can be exhausting, especially now.
03:25And again, I've been doing this now going on a decade, specifically this, covering mostly this administration because that's just what is the obvious thing to cover.
03:35That's what's generating the most material, whether we like it or not.
03:38So that could get tired for the audience and for myself.
03:42And so the way that I combat that is by making, trying to make it more fun for myself.
03:48So, you know, in the old days, I'm not the kid anymore.
03:52So, like, I don't stay up all night, like, doing the exact headline of the day.
03:57Because, first of all, there's so many different soundbites, headlines, and catchphrases and all of that.
04:03So you can't keep up with that.
04:05But long story short, I keep a running list of songs that I want to do.
04:11And, you know, comedy and musical comedy specifically that I want to do.
04:15And I've been able to kind of work that.
04:19Like, for example, one of my recent parodies was To Define Gravity.
04:22I just obviously wanted to always just do that song.
04:26And so it came time to do that.
04:29And that had been on my list.
04:31But so all that to say, I'm just, you know, trying to make it more fun for myself.
04:36That, in addition to the fact that I take more time with the production than I used to,
04:41I used to churn things out overnight, which was great for the brand and to get my name out there.
04:45But it was a pain in the ass.
04:48And now I take more time.
04:50I work with a musical team.
04:52And they create, instead of the old days when I used to just pull karaoke tracks,
04:56I have actual Broadway musicians putting these orchestrations together specifically for me.
05:01So all that stuff makes it a hell of a lot more fun for me.
05:04And therein for the audience, I hope.
05:07We're Channel Q, spending time with Randy Rainbow.
05:09Also, you mentioned your memoir.
05:11You're also now a children's author.
05:14Excited about this book, Randy Rainbow and the Marvelously Magical Pink Glasses.
05:19It sounds like, oh my gosh, look at that.
05:21Ready with a prop.
05:22It just came hot off the presses.
05:24It sounds like a really lovely and fun story.
05:28Tell us about it.
05:29And also, why did you want to write a children's book?
05:31Um, well, you know, I wrote two adult books.
05:36And then they came to me with the idea of doing this.
05:38And it seemed like a great, wonderful idea.
05:41They gave me, you know, full creative control of the idea.
05:44I said, you know, let's do a little character named Randy Rainbow.
05:47This has been my name.
05:48Again, you can read the memoir.
05:50And I tell you the whole story of how this is actually my actual name on my birth certificate.
05:54It's not a corny stage name, believe it or not.
05:56You did not know that.
05:57I would not choose that.
05:59It was a very painful childhood.
06:00But I said, damn it, I'm going to make it work for me now.
06:04And so I thought a children's book was the perfect way to use this character of little me.
06:11And it's, you know, about a little kid who's kind of lost in the universe and gets bullied on the playground.
06:18Very, very based on reality.
06:20And his grandmother gifts him a pair of these magical pink glasses, which allow him to do and be and go anywhere he wants.
06:31And it's basically, at the end of the day, a story about using your imagination and creativity to find the courage within to be yourself.
06:40So it very much promotes, you know, expressive freedom and identity and being yourself and all that stuff that, you know, we need reminders of.
06:49In this day and age, it'll be banned everywhere, I'm sure.
06:52Well, that was going to be a question for you is, do you think about that when you're putting out a book like this?
06:58Of course.
06:59I expect that it will be wherever books are banned.
07:01I'm sure this will be at the top of every list.
07:03And good.
07:05You know, I'm very proud to be contributing something like this at this time.
07:10Now, again, nowhere in the book does it say Little Randy Rainbow is gay.
07:13It doesn't mention, you know, pronouns or whatever, you know, gets people riled up.
07:18It's just about, you know, being genuine and it's about being considerate and all of those things.
07:28But it will be politicized by anyone who I'm sure wants to do that.
07:32Right, right.
07:33It sounds like you're up for that.
07:35You're ready for that.
07:36Absolutely.
07:36I mean, everything that I do has obviously a political bend to it.
07:43So I'm used to, you know, half the country not digging it.
07:46Although I think when you, you know, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, which I didn't write, but I've heard that.
07:54And that's sort of what I try to do with all of my work, including the videos that are most popular, which are seemingly would be the most polarizing thing.
08:05But I have Republican type people coming to my shows all the time and saying, I don't agree with you necessarily on everything, but I love your videos.
08:12They make me laugh.
08:13And in fact, they have created a space for my left leaning family members and I to come together and enjoy something about these topics.
08:22That to me is the best compliment you can give me because I think we need a lot more of that kind of thing these days.
08:28That is a great compliment.
08:29That's lovely.
08:29You know, you talk about the book and the character having this relationship with his grandmother.
08:35Did you have someone in your life that you had that relationship with?
08:39Nanny, my grandmother.
08:40So this is very much, you know, I could, I could talk about it for hours, but it all comes back to Nanny and the actual pink glasses started as a sight gag in my parody videos that just when pretending I was like a serious journalist pretending to interview these subjects, I would put on these plastic like party favor glasses and it was just got a laugh.
09:02But then over the years, people started coming to the live shows, wearing their own pink glasses.
09:08I'm no fool.
09:09They're now branded and sold in the lobby.
09:12But they would tell me these lovely stories about how like we, I wear the pink glasses and they make me feel better.
09:18Or I wear the pink glasses to get me through challenging times in my life.
09:21Or people have sent me, you know, messages and pictures over the years of them wearing the pink glasses while undergoing chemotherapy treatments.
09:29So it seemed to take on a deeper meaning, these, these pink glasses for my audience.
09:35And then I kind of adopted that back from them and realized that the pink glasses, you know, I kind of made them the, a physical embodiment of my overall philosophy of what I'm trying to do with these videos and this book and everything, which is to see the world through a lens of joy and humor and specifically musical comedy.
09:58And that philosophy was really given to me by my grandmother.
10:03And she is the other main character in this children's book.
10:06So the children's book really is very much a love letter to her.
10:09What a beautiful tribute to her.
10:11I think there's a special bond I found with everyone in their grandmother, a lot of people in their grandmother, but particularly gay males and their grandmothers.
10:22Yeah, I had, I had, yeah, yeah.
10:24So I, I, I, I liked that this was, you know, this was a celebration of that.
10:32Yeah.
10:32Oh my gosh.
10:33You're going to make me cry thinking.
10:34Oh my God.
10:37What a, what a beautiful message.
10:39Excited for the book released in just a couple of weeks, May 27th.
10:43Also got the show, the, the stage show, the tour kicking off very soon.
10:47You can send tickets to the show.
10:49You can buy the book.
10:50You can buy the old books at randyrainbow.com.
10:53Yes.
10:53Did I sell it well?
10:55You did.
10:55The older, they're not even that old.
10:57There was one, the new book.
10:58There's the new previous books.
11:00That's all right.
11:01But the newer book came out just a few months ago, actually.
11:04So yeah, get, get everything.
11:06Get the glad, get the, you know, Mother's Day is upon us.
11:10I don't know when this will air.
11:11Pride is upon us.
11:12Get a cute tank.
11:13Halloween.
11:14Christmas.
11:14Halloween.
11:15Yeah.
11:15Women's might sit in the, in the, the holidays are always appropriate.
11:18Perfect.
11:19First of all, thank you so much for the time, but thank you for spreading, you know, joy
11:23and thoughtfulness and all the things that you do with, with all of your, your content
11:27and your art and now the show in the books.
11:29So thank you so much.
11:30Appreciate you.
11:31And Terry, we can take care.
11:33Bye.
11:33Thanks.