The Todd Glass Situation

A Bunch of Lies about My Personal Life and a Bunch of True Stories about My 30-Year Career in Standup Comedy

By: Todd Glass, Jonathan Grotenstein

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

A hilarious, poignant memoir from comedian Todd Glass about his decision at age forty-eight to finally live openly as a gay man - and the reactions and support from his comedy pals, from Louis CK to Sarah Silverman.

Growing up in a Philadelphia suburb in the 1970s was an easy life. Well, easy as long as you didn't have dyslexia or ADD, or were a Jew. And once you added gay into the mix, life became more difficult. So Todd Glass decided to hide the gay part, no matter how comic, tragic, or comically tragic the results.

It might have been a lot easier had he chosen a profession other than stand-up comedy. By age eighteen, Todd was opening for big musical acts like George Jones and Patti LaBelle. His career carried him through the Los Angeles comedy heyday in the 1980s, its decline in the 1990s, and its rebirth via the alternative comedy scene and the explosion in podcasting. But the harder he worked at his craft, the more difficult it became to manage his "situation." There were the years of abstinence and half-hearted attempts to "cure" himself. The fake girlfriends so that he could tell relationship jokes onstage. The staged sexual encounters to burnish his reputation offstage. It took a brush with death to cause him to rethink the way he was living his life; a rash of suicides among gay teens to convince him that it was finally time to come out to the world.

Now, Todd has written an open, honest, and hilarious memoir in an effort to help everyone - young and old, gay and straight - breathe a little more freely. Peppered with anecdotes from his life among comedy's greatest headliners and tales of the occasionally insane lengths Todd went through to keep a secret that - let's face it - he probably didn't have to keep for as long as he did, The Todd Glass Situation is a front-row seat to the last thirty plus years of comedy history and a deeply personal story about one man's search for acceptance.

©2014 Pragmatic Media, Inc. (P)2014 Audible Inc.

great book

I wish it was Todd reading. the narration is great it's just missing that personal touch.

A great book!

Please check out Eddie Pepitone's documentary "The Bitter Buddha", which is available on Amazon. Thank you.

Worth It

Where does The Todd Glass Situation rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's okay. I enjoyed a lot of the story, but the ghostwriter + someone else narrating it makes it harder to really connect it to Todd. It just feels a little... removed. But I still enjoyed it.

Any additional comments?

Overall, enjoyable, but it's only about a 3.5 on a 5 point scale.

A great listen

I was a bit skeptical about picking this up because it wasn't read by the author (understandably so), but it's so definitely written in Todd's voice that the narrator becomes hardly distinguishable from the author. This book has a great balance between the happy and sad, and the funny and sensitive. I highly recommend it for anyone who is a fan of Todd Glass.

Todd’s Situation is a Real Glass

Any additional comments?

Yes! I started out this review with a bad pun on Todd’s last name.

I ordered the book after seeing Todd appear on Jon Stewart’s, “Daily Show”. Before the Daily Show appearance, I had not heard Todd preform. Listening to the book and hearing his inspiring story of overcoming ADD and dyslexia and the barriers of being a gay performer in a largely straight world, I have become a fan him and of his pod cast, The Todd Glass Show on I-tunes. The book is a real tribute to his adaptability and taking his social acumen ability and shaping it into a career as a successful comedian. Fortunately, he was blessed with rugged good looks that made posing straight (his situation) an easy reach. The books glimpses behind the scenes of what it takes to make it as an up and coming comedian, makes the book worth the listening to in and of it-self.

Thank God, Todd is now well known enough and public attitudes have changed enough, so Todd does not have to twist his life experiences into “straight humor” in order for it to be funny and publicly accepted. As a listener, from the Midwest and 15 years older than Todd, I get why Todd had to develop a public image not true to his gay nature. As time goes on, I pray this necessity will become less and less obvious.
This book is not just for gay people. Liberal minded people of any orientation with a live and let live attitude may find it instructive to see what hoops closeted people have to jump thru. On the other, hand bigots and judgmental people will not enjoy it. They should go read their Scripture or listen to Fox News.

I am very happy I saw Todd on the Daily Show, listened to the book and now listen to his pod cast. I have made him a regular part of my listening experience along with the Stephanie Miller Show on [Censored] {If interested in where to find the Stephanie Miller Show GOOGLE it as Audible will not let me give you the web address} and Gay USA, weekly news cast, on YouTube. I recommend that you buy and listen to Todd’s book about his situation and how he came to embrace himself and love it.