Start Without Me
Start Without Me (I’ll Be There in a Minute)
By: Gary Janetti
I should probably start by saying that I had no idea who Gary Janetti was before I read this book. I entered a Goodreads giveaway for the book because it was marketed as a funny book and I like funny things.
Janetti is writer and producer for Family Guy and Will & Grace, which are both popular shows, so I’m assuming a lot of people would find this book funny. There’re lots of positive reviews to that affect.
Unfortunately, for me, this book didn’t do it.
First and foremost, there were a ton of f- and s-words. And sentences do not need those to be funny.
It felt to me that so many of his ’comedic moments’ required profanity or sexual innuendo or relied on the fact that he’s a gay man. That’s not my kind of comedy.
The back of the book says- “Gary Janetti is bothered. By a lot of things. And thank God he’s here to tell us.”
Each chapter was something else he was complaining about and he generally tried to wrap each one up with something light-hearted or positive. A lot of comedians make jokes about things they hate or ‘don’t understand.’ I get that. But I don’t think Janetti nailed it. It seemed too actual complain-y to me instead of tongue in cheek. Maybe he’s just too believable.
The Funny
To be fair, there were a few things that were funny or that I related to.
For example, he took piano lessons and he gave his logic for why he failed to practice the week between. Thursday is too close to Wednesday (piano day), Friday and Saturday are the fun days and you of course don’t practice then and ruin your weekend. Sunday is too depressing because a new week is starting. Then Monday and Tuesday you avoid because you know you haven’t been practicing and everything is too hard. That was pretty much the same logic I had when I took piano lessons!
He also recounts a really awkward and bad situation he had back when people didn’t have cell phones. He says:
“Today you would pull out your phone and text ‘You can’t believe what a nightmare this is’ to every single person you know. But back then you had to just sit with it. There was no way to get it out. Nobody to help you gauge your sanity.”
Cell phones truly are a necessity.
And then I enjoyed these two quotes as well:
“Nuns can be unpredictable.”
[From his Commencement Address chapter] “I’m guessing most of you will be working in the service industry within a few weeks and will be wondering how that happened. Well, it happened because there aren’t that many jobs and your major was likely stupid.”
But then we can talk about how he has a whole chapter dedicated to why he thinks The Wizard of Oz is the gayest movie ever created.
And we can talk about his views on weddings and marriages, his preoccupation with appearances, how he always thought how glamorous it would be if his parents would divorce, and how much he hates people and tries to avoid them (hence the title). I mean reading this I would not want to have a conversation with him. I would be imagining all the negative things he would be thinking about me and the situation while we talked.
Random Ponderings
I know that a lot of why I didn’t think this book was funny is because Gary and I live life from very different worldviews. His humor is not my humor. I’m not the target audience, I get it.
I’m probably going to regret voicing these questions on the internet, but when I read a book like this where Janetti makes statements about ‘gay men’ frequently throughout the book as if the collective group of gay men are the same, I have to wonder… is it true?
What does it mean to be gay?
According to Janetti gay men: hate throwing sports balls, have a low threshold for physical pain, love Broadway musicals, love being dramatic and b****y, love fashion, love gossip, and love going to the gym. (And a few other things that I feel like probably apply to the general public)
But the point is… these things feel superficial and yet when I think back to gay men I’ve seen on reality TV or portrayed in movies, they fit (what I would call) this stereotype. I guess I’m curious what other gay men who read this book think. Do they say ‘All these things! Same!’ or do they say, ‘That’s not me’?
I’m not trying to start a discussion on my beliefs on sexuality and gender, this doesn’t seem like the right book for that nor the book’s intent, but reading this book does make me feel like gay men have kind of created this ‘caricature’ of what it means to be a gay man. And it doesn’t seem like they picked a very good one.
I don’t know if gay men would claim the qualities they have (that don’t fit into the traditional definition of masculine) to be feminine, but if they were to say that, as a woman I would feel offended by that. When I think of a woman I don’t feel like I would fit any of the qualities he talks about. So IF gay men view themselves as more ‘woman’ than ‘man’ (??) I would feel like they’ve reduced what it means to be a woman to something quite simple and inaccurate.
This book seems to highlight the fact that today’s culture is ironically creating smaller boxes of what it means to be a man or a woman. What does it mean to be a man or a woman? By blurring these boundaries it feels like we’re creating more caricatures and categories for people instead of diversity.
Using broad strokes, Janetti depicted what it is to be a gay man. And I wonder if that is a helpful or a hurtful strategy or way of communicating. Does it allow for diversity? Should it?
ANYWAY! That’s a rabbit trail of thoughts I had. Obviously there are no simple answers, but I’m bravely sharing my musings because it’s what reading this book evoked for me.
Conclusion
My negative review of this book and the reason for why I would not recommend it are based on two things: the coarse language and that I didn’t think it was funny.
If you already know who Gary Janetti is and you’re already a fan, then you’ll probably like this book.
If you don’t like the shows Family Guy or Will & Grace, you probably won’t really enjoy this book either.
And if he writes another book… you guys can start that one without me.
[FYI: For an example of a book that I found funny, even though I don’t agree with all of her beliefs, is Jenny Lawson’s book ‘Broken (in the best possible way)'. There is language in that one but at least I found a lot of her book almost laugh out loud funny.]
**Received an ARC via a Goodreads Giveaway**
This book released April, 2022. If you fit the target audience, you can purchase this book through my affiliate link below.
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