American Freak Show (15 page)

Acknowledgments

I
’ve always found the term
Acknowledgments
a little weak for a book’s thank-you list. An “acknowledgment” is quite literally the recognition that someone or something exists. It’s important to me that you know the following people exist in human form, but more importantly that I appreciate their support and guidance. In fact, let’s go with
Appreciations
.

First and foremost, to my wife and most trusted editor, Christina. She’s been helping me with my homework since Mr. Kaplan’s sixth-grade English class. No chapter was good enough until she laughed out loud.

To my beautiful babies, Lucie and George, for growing up in a city whose nursery school tuitions put the Ivy League to shame. I had no choice but to take a second job.

To my sister Libby, the funniest chick I know. She’s endured a lifetime of my material.

To Tom Connor, my literary agent and longtime family friend, for convincing me that writing a book while hosting a daily early-morning television show and raising two small, helpless children was a good idea. I wish he’d been more clear that you actually have to
write
the book after signing the deal. I’ll read the fine print more closely next time.

To Gretchen Young, the superstar editor at Hyperion, for giving me complete freedom but stepping in to save me from myself when necessary.

To Elizabeth Sabo, Ellen Archer, Elisabeth Dyssegaard, Marie Coolman, and Christine Ragasa at Hyperion. And to Will Balliett, the man who brought me in and wisely got out before I brought the entire publishing house to its knees.

To my extended family, the Lewises. Especially “The Uncles”—Herb, Mike, and Bert—whose performances around the Christmas dinner table scarred me for life. I’m so glad they did.

To my friends Joe and Mika, for sucking me into the fantastic ongoing freak show that is
Morning Joe.

And finally, to Jonas Salk for finding the polio vaccine. Just one less thing I have to worry about. Nice work, man.

About the Author

Willie Geist
is the host of MSNBC’s
Way Too Early with Willie Geist
, the cohost of
Morning Joe
, and a contributor to several NBC News programs. He also hosts the web show
Zeitgeist
on MSNBC.com. Geist lives in New York with his wife and two children.

This is not the first book written about quantum mechanics, but it just might be the last. The theory presented inside these pages is so revolutionary that it has stunned the scientific community into reconsidering centuries of thought about the behavior of energy and matter. Prepare to have your mind blown.

Sorry, that’s the introduction to Willie Geist’s
next
book-the culmination of his life’s work. Look for it next spring, just in time for Mother’s Day.
This
book is about his other passion: freaks.

When he’s not in the lab, Geist spends his time on MSNBC’s
Morning Joe
sifting through the wreckage of American politics and popular culture. These days, that’s a big job. With an Alaska hockey mom turning, almost overnight, into a national icon and threatening to move from Wasilla to the White House, with the world’s most famous athlete now associated less with the Masters and more with the strippers, and with reality TV working around the clock to ensure the constitutional right of every man, woman, and child to fifteen minutes of fame, Geist’s business is thriving.

In his hilarious first book,
American Freak Show
, Geist takes the smart, biting observation loved by his television audience to new satirical extremes. The real-life characters who now haunt our daily lives are cast as stars in completely made-up scenes that, frankly, are not all that far from reality.

Geist treats us to the first look at President Sarah Palin’s unconventional inaugural address, performed live on WWE’s
Monday Night Raw
after her renegade victory in the 2012 election. We go inside the ballroom for a Dean Martin-style welcome roast of Bernie Madoff upon his arrival in Hell, with Pol Pot serving as sidesplitting roastmaster. Geist provides us with never-before-seen FBI wiretap transcripts of the more mundane, but equally profane, telephone conversations of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. And George W. Bush’s batting-cage-and-waterslide-themed plans for a presidential library are laid out publicly for the first time.

From Obama to Oprah, Afghanistan to Lohan, and Snooki to the Salahis, Willie Geist spares no one as our host of this wild
American Freak Show
. You’ll laugh out loud while weeping for the future of America.

Copyright