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Shop nowAmerican Freak Show
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Learn moreIn just three short years, Willie Geist has gone from behind-the-scenes producer at MSNBC to rising on-air star, as the host of Way Too Early with Willie Geist and cohost of Morning Joe. He's fast, he's funny—something of an early-morning Jon Stewart.
Now, in his first book, Geist focuses on America's ongoing parade of giant pop culture personalities, beings inflated by the Internet and twenty-four-hour cable news and tethered only loosely to the ground. Think helium-filled characters like Sarah Palin, Bernie Madoff, Rod Blagojevich, Miley Cyrus, Jon and Kate, Miss California Carrie Prejean, Captain Sully, and the aptly named "Balloon Boy." They float into our lives, consume our attention as we gawk from the street, and then slowly drift away as another one bobs into view.
In a series of hilarious yet biting satirical essays, Geist captures the absurdity of today's pseudocelebrity-obsessed culture. Among other things, he reveals Sarah Palin's 2012 Inauguration speech, broadcast to a national audience live from the site of WWE's Monday Night Raw as a tribute to "Real America." Geist also takes us inside the room for the Bernie Madoff Celebrity Roast in Hell. Roastmaster Pol Pot provides the laughs. And you'll pull up a seat for Sunday coverage of the seventh annual Kim John-Il Celebrity Golf Tournament, where Dear Leader teams with the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and funnyman Ray Romano for a good cause and some bad golf.
Lately, American life seems like a parade of larger-than-life, overinflated giant balloon characters. Geist has written their made-up stories.
Willie Geist is the host of MSNBC's Way Too Early with Willie Geist and cohost of Morning Joe. He also hosts Zeitgeist, a satirical video blog on MSNBC.com. Willie joined MSNBC in 2005 as a senior producer of The Situation with Tucker Carlson. Prior to that, he was a producer and writer for the critically acclaimed sports debate show I, Max, hosted by Max Kellerman on Fox Sports Net. A graduate of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, Willie lives in New York City with his wife and their two children.
Johnny Heller, a Golden Voice Lifetime Achievement Award winner, has recorded over 800 audiobooks spanning every genre. He is a four-time Audie Award winner; an AudioFile Best Voice, Booklist Editor's Choice List, and Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award winner; and the winner of over thirty Earphones Awards. His national and international audiobook coaching workshops are called "game changing" by attendees. AudioFile magazine named him one of the top fifty voices of the twentieth century.
Jo Anna Perrin is a New York-based actor, photographer, and writer. She has appeared in film, television, and on stage, in New York, Los Angeles, and regionally. Jo Anna has narrated numerous audiobooks for major publishers, small independent presses, and American and foreign university publishers. Her narrations have received critical praise from AudioFile magazine, Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. Jo Anna's voice-over experience includes commercial, documentary, and animation work. As a portrait and headshot photographer, her photos have appeared in magazines and newspapers, online, and in print, including in AudioFile magazine, the Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Publishers Weekly says, "Her delivery is always confident and clear. Listeners will never be bored."