American Freak Show, Willie Geist
American Freak Show, Willie Geist
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American Freak Show
The Completely Fabricated Stories of Our New National Treasures

Author: Willie Geist

Narrator: Johnny Heller, Jo Anna Perrin

Unabridged: 4 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/24/2010


Synopsis

In 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.

About Willie Geist

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.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Stewart on November 13, 2015

Fun book! This is a collection of short, fictional stories involving various tabloid personalities. Some fans of some of these people might possibly object to the portrayals, but Geist seems pretty much on target at least most of the time. I'm not much of a celebrity watcher, so some of the nuances......more

Goodreads review by Michael on November 14, 2022

This book is an underwhelming execution of a confused premise. In American Freak Show, MSNBC contributor Willie Geist looks to capture the insanity of the American zeitgeist (in 2010) through the lens of trashy supermarket tabloids. The fictionalized excerpts comprising this book are styled to parod......more

Goodreads review by Smellsofbikes on March 19, 2011

hated it, didn't find it funny, but I misunderstood the premise when I picked it up: I thought it was a book about stories that were false but represented as true, like "Lies Across America" when it is actually just fake stories, like The Onion or The New Yorker's Shouts & Murmers.......more

Goodreads review by Tricia on January 24, 2011

hilarious!......more