Space, sally ride. For more information on this weekends television schedule, visit us online at booktv. Org. Now on booktv, bill and willie geist discuss their relationship and their careers in journalism. Its about 45 minutes. [inaudible conversations] im not a huge believer in introducing people that you all know, so bill and willie geist. [cheers and applause]x i am assuming you know which is which. Fellas, this is a funny book. You might expect that from these two men if you know their tv work. It is also filled with a lot of heart and a lot amazing honesty. Bill, you used to be a reporter here in town. And when you were they didnt let me downtown. One of the many great mistakes the Chicago Tribune has made. It is very, very long list. I want to read something. I am going to do some reading from the book because i like the way these two guys write. Bill writing to willie until you were 12 i had been a newspaper reporter saying his parents owned a paper in illinois. But i guided you away from newspapers. But because they were becoming extinct yet but because i had bad experiences like being trapped for eight years in an Office Writing about sewer board refre refre refrendem. Remember when i had a column anybody remember that . He could not move up from the suburbs. Here is one reason. Mike rick likeded my column so much he put his hands around me neck at an Christmas Party saying you young punks are trying to steal my job. Bill was flattered by that. Willie, do you have any membery of your dad as reporter for t tribute . I was born at [ applause ] i was born at evanston hospital in 1975 and we moved when i was five years old. The New York Times came calling. The Chicago Tribune, the downtown paper didnt come calling, but the New York Times did. We moved to new jersey and i grew up around new york city. My dad likes to say he was providing a service because raising a child in chicago as a cub fan under illinois law is child abuse. So he said the yankees are won a couple world series so he had a chance. I used to tell him winning and loosing wasnt important. He would eat everything and fall asleep in the six inning which is a good policy for any cubs fan. But still watch this how many of you are still loyal cub fans . Why . Why . I am still a cubs fan, too. But i dont know why . For someone who moved at the age of five i had a lot of allegiance. My parents met at the university of illinois. My second senior year. He said it was a good thing he flunked his classes oh he would not have met my more. I had people on my wall from chicago. These two never had the talk of sex in this book. And there is a great deal of it. As willie writes i was thrust into a version of eyes wide shut. People were having parties and spinning the bottling and disappearing in the closet for seven minute increments. I know the book was seeded and the idea came from a mutual agent. But it seems like something you would say no about. I think we did. A lot of people said because we are in the communication business they said you caught ought to do something together. And my dads longterm agent had the idea. We thought it sounded like a hassle. And a couple years ago my dad went on cbs sunday morning and announced he had parkinsons disease. That was to get attention. It was the same week Anderson Cooper came out. [ applause ] about that moment, willie writes that he did do this it was your proudest moment as a son. I was proud of him because i knew how difficult it was. My dad has had parkinson 22 years and for the first ten he didnt tell me or my sister. We thought he was slowing down and probably too young in hindsight. But we have family here who can relate. When you grow up in 1950, campagna illinois, there is not a lot of hugging and touchy feeling. There are so psychologist there. They keep opening and closing and running away. My sister and for years said just tell meme. Viewers, Family Friends who you have not officially told know. I knew how hard it was to do. We were sitting in the living room when it was live and we watched it together and i was incredibly proud and there were a lot of tears in the room. Bill, you are a private man. How does a very private man deal with that very public role of being on television . Even though you are telling stories, it makes you a public figure. You can appreciate this, rick. As a newspaper reporter you are with the person you are interviewing and i dont have to face many. This is the biggest audience i have faced in years. Be nice, everybody. It is very much just talking to a camera and over the years you try to forget about camera being there. Everybody with all of the videos are comfortable now. Everybody is used to it. You come from a vastly different parenting time. Here is just another bit and i am reading so much of this because the writing is very, very good and compelling. Lets be honest, sometimes the job of parenting is too big for any two people. This is you writing willie. Sometimes you have to call in for backup. We call it third party discipline. Anybody in a uniform does. Police man, fireman, lifeguards, gas station attendance, movie ticket takers and anyone wearing a hard hat will do. Bill, you were not particularly your father wasnt at all an emotionally outward sensitive fellow. A couple of my cousins are saying no right now in the audience. He took photography so he would go down and there. He would close the do if you have opened it it would ruin everything. He was a High School Teacher so i think he had enough. I have a 4yearold and 6yearold. And our 4yearold boy george is great but he acts up. He will throw things around the restaurant and at the diner they have the window where the food is coming out and we say the chef is watching. And in the neighborhood my son worships the new York City Police department and loves firefighters. There is a restaurant we go in and down the road is the 20th prestinct and we go in and they give him batches and equipment. And 120 times we take him in there when he has been bad. We talk walk in and she senses something is different. And the cop comes up with the badge and uniform. And we say george has been hitting his sister and i know you have bigger fish to fry. And the cops are like george, dont hit your sisters. No vegetables. Lets go george clean it up. And he is back pedaling against the wall and it buys us like a month of good behavior. Hes going to be seeing one of those psychologist. He will need therapy but that is done the road. Yes, it is not today. It is obvious if you are watched or read them these are funny men. You say laughter was a daily bond between the two of you. Is it genetic . I dont know . I had not thought about that. Yeah probably, but it was also the tone in the house. My dad wasnt a heavy handed disciplinary man but he was funny. He worked hard and came home and there was laughter and it was funny. I think you pick up a world view which is not sure and you have a bs detector and you are curious. I dont know if it is genetic or the feel in the house. The read jeep story must have been influential. Bill what did you spend our advance on of 10,000. We put a list up and the kids put down private planes and yachts. So i went out and blew 7700 on a red jeep. There were no seats. Options were passenger seat, windshield. The red jeep, for you, willie had a once family it is worse than dad describes. It was a cj 7 and it was our family car. It wasnt we keep it in the garage. It took us on vacations, grocery store, drove us to school. And the floors rusted out through the bottom by the time i was driving age. And first year didnt work and now power steering. Your foot would go through the floor because of the rust and you had to start it in second which on a hill can be exciting. And it was actually my mother who taught me how to drive and she would take me out and teach me how to drive on the hill and i would be cursing the car and she would be laughing. And she told me if you can drive this car you will me able to drive any car for the rest of your life. It wasnt that hard to drive. In that state it was. Driving on a manual jeep cj 7 with no power steering is like teaching a child to read on a toll story. Your wife and willies mom has one of the most suspect quotes and endorsements i have ever read in my life. Are you sure you want to publish this. I would like each of you to talk about the importance of your wives and they are in the book. The importance of that long term relationship not just for you but that notion of family. It is great. It was expressed in unusual ways. We didnt have the big talks. We got a lot through osmosis. I tried to teach him the things i young man should know but i hadnt been taught that. I would take him fishing and golfing and i could not do it. That is where my mom stepped in. She is from barrington by the way. She was a cheer leader and they added an extra letter in the cheer to make the cadence work. They didnt know it until i corrected it 50 years after the school. They were the broncos but it became bronchos. She didnt know it was wrong. They met at the university of illinois and she has been a social worker every day of her professional life. She worked in the Robert Taylor homes and it is what see loves to do. She is a social worker to this deign day in harlem. I think i got from her charity and emathy and all of those things you dont also get empathy you would not get from me. Exactly. That is where i was going with this i wanted to get there first this is a fatherson book but as you read through the lines you see my mother is the biggest influence. And your wife. Childhood sweethearts. I met her at 11. Got married at 12. That is the kind of father he was. Reporter the other interesting characters in the book and it is about a father and son but there are other interesting characters. The grandfathers are fascinating. One is in the hockey hall of fame. My mothers grandfather played for the red wings in the 1930s and won two stanley cups and was the captain of the team and enducted into the hall of fame. None of those genes were passed on. I am still the kid with the figure states on grasping to the wall we have a picture at the enterance saying keep this guy. Perhaps that is the most impre impre impressive thing about me and my great grand father is in the hall of fame for hockey. Bill your son was a very talented athlete in high school and beyond that. Not beyond that, no. You were a raucous father watching the games. Yes, i was one of these people that should be sent to a mental hospital. Have you seen Dennis Hopper in hoosiers . My dad would get on the ref and he was often the only voice in the gym. He was clever in his insults so he got away with it. Was there pride in seeing him excel in athletics . Yeah, it was fun to watch him. I always said i am his biggest fan and i still am my first basketball game i scored 16 points. My dad had an assignment for the times but he raced back to time square and wrote a game story that is in the book and it is great family hair loom. You did try to teach him you left his drinking . We talked about that two weeks ago. Finally had that big conversation. I like the uncle who comes into the book. A functioning alcoholic counseled me drink scotch and water and you will not get sick. It was a tip for teens and in that fall i was the only 16yearold in town who drank scotch. Do you ever remember having a kind of first formal cocktail together . I dont remember the exact cocktail but he said we are going to do it under my roof. But it was okay to have a drink and friends over. We are not throwing a party but you can drink and watch the game. So a hundred people would show up. The police came to one of these functions. Well, they came to all of them. We got to know them very well. A guy walks out the driveway and i run out and say we need to turn the music down. And he said it isnt that. It is the bus was left on on a neighbors lawn. There was a charter bus idling because we brought in people from out of town. Out of state. We took project ad venture in high school where you repel and rock climb and we took it as practical as 17 year olds because my friend had a third floor to himself. It was a great place to hang out for teens but the second floor was where the dad was and he was tough. So you were not getting up the stairs with anything. So we started a system with pole up the house and we had people repelling up and down. The father called me and said there are ninjas going up the side of the house maybe you learned that kachlt. Your camp experience is great. Camp served not just a place for carefree boys to spend a magical summer but a safe wooded refugee for convicted gang offenders to serve out their sentence as camp counselors. His mother and i wanted him to go to real camp up in the northeast with pristine lakes and the pine scented air and they make lanereds and so we found the place we went to park camp expo and looked at 200 different camps. And the guy came over and gave apressa presentation in the living room and a 25 off coupon. So we dropped willie off at the perfect camp. It was me and another friend because the others went to a camp. It was the lake, activities and we were identifying leafs and fantastic. But the Counseling Program there, the counselors were rehabillitated gang members and they fought a lot. One night they slashed each others tires in the parking lot. That was a banner day at the camp. At any given moment a couple different ones were having relationships with the nurse who was the only woman at the camp. God forbid you skin your knee and knock on the door and it was always locked because they were busy in there. A lot of paperwork in health care. And then one day an an outbreak of empentigo and they didnt know how to treat it. So they stripped us down and power washed us off. And i still have a scar on my arm. This was 1988 from this because they dont recommend Power Washing for such disease. My father had great intention and send his son to camp and we get it wrong in the end. And when you were a senior it maybe the influenced of your bodies at camp but when you go to your dad and say you want to get your ear pierced i say that is something pirates do. This is supposed to be a great act of rebellion and i told my mother and she said if you do it i am taking you to do it stow is done right. Others were jamming the needle through the ear on ice. So when you mom takes it takes the rebellion out. At the nail saloon. It is true. She took me to her nail saloon. She said lets get your ear pierced and i sat there next to the women and got my ear pierced with the rest of the team. Much of this book is based on the charming memories and would you in the writing of this book, would you trade chapters . What was the process like . We were in different rooms that is for sure. We started out the best part was sitting down with my mother and wife and the four of us and hashing through you come out with the best of your best. It is long process. Thinking about your entire life is a daunting process. The camp chapter my dad started with this is what i intended to do. We edited each other. That is a fascinating process. It is like selfpsychiatry. It was. I said about the project whoever buys or how many few copies it sells the idea that we are going too in a bound volume all of our stories and i can hand this to my kids and they will know who i was and their grandfather and it will be on a shelf somewhere priceless to me. There are universal stories no matter how functional or dysfunctional your own families were you will find something in here that mirors that or evokes it for you. Before i could read or write i knew elvis birthday of january 8th. Why is that . My dad was obsessed with elvis. I guess it would have been his 40th we are assuming he is long gone. He is in buenes aris with tupac maybe. So we dressed up and there are pictures in the book. To give you idea of what the house was like. And you dont realize it was strange as a child. We had a ceramic bust of elvis on a ped stool in the dining room as though it were high art. He deserved to be on a ped stool. The other thing is my dad was a steak and shake free. I didnt know this was strange either until i went to other kids houses. The art in the dining room was the three stock photographs of the food they hang in the restaurant. We framed the steakburger with the fries. The other was the milkshake and the other was the chilly fries. That was our art. I didnt realize until later how strange it was. If andy worhol did that he would have made 10 million who is the late film credit who is obsessed with steak and shake . Roger ebert. So they should stop writing and stop being doctors. We just got one in new york and it is right next to lettermans studio because he wanted a steak and shake. Bill, you have done more books than willie. Talk to me about the different joys in writing for print and television . You are a Brilliant Television writer, too. Thank you. I always write something too long where the editor should have gone shot. Most editors should be shot. There are not a lot of words in a television script. 500 words or so. They are both gratifying. It is fun to work in tv with a group of people working on a project but i dont like other peoples opinions so. Who does . All exjournalist dont. Will, what about for you . You had jokes for conan. Did you want to be a writer . I think i got it from my dad. He has been on the tv but he was in the papers first. A producer used to read his column called him and said you ever think about tv and he jumped in. Bill, did you say that looks easy . No, he called me, i had never met him. He called me on a weekend morning and said have you thought of tv and i just read an article saying andy roony got a Million Dollar advance and i said yes, i have. It came to me recently. And the rest is history. Charles crow called me at home and said come do it. It will be fun. And i said if you talk to me about the dental program i would not have gone. And it turns out i am a sucker for fun. And willie is that way, too. No question. Willie, how did you you sent jokes to conan, right . I went to vanderbilt and i was a fan of conan. I sent a package of jokes. I was working at a liquor store and i remember the mailbox i put it in. I was 22 years old, put this packet of material and sent it to the address where his show was and waited to hear back. I did get a letter back and i remember holding it and i was like i am going to preserve this moment because this is when i got the job. I opened it and it was a form letter saying we have not used your material but we have not read your material. And they had to say that for legal reasons because if they did a joke with something i wrote i could sue them. That was my first whiff of rejection and then is a long story but i moved to atlanta and started working at cnn after that. Bill, watching from the sidelines as the guy who shouts and screams, have you found yourself doing that as willies career has progressed remarkable well . [ applause ] or shouted in private and given advice . I think when he first started i gave him tips. I am still a newspaper reporter on tv. I was never told what to do with my clothes and air as you can see for yourself hair but he got on tract and was great and as i say i am his biggest fan. He was on tv too early for me. Thank god for dvrs. I had a show on at 5 30 a. M. You may have missed it. And after about the first two days i noticed my parents stopped commenting on it. But he didnt sit me down saying get into journalism but just his example and watching how much fun he had and the places he went and the people he met i could see it was a fun career. That is kind of what the book is all about. It is like the birds and the bees. Sgr it is also about the shadow a father with pleasantly cast not on just one child but all of your children in ways that you dont realize you are casting it. I will end this so we can get questions. Havent these guys been amazing . [ applause ] i am telling you thing. There better be more people than buy the book than cub fans . How many are going to buy the book . About two hands. It is Remarkable Book as are some of bills other books. I have not read yours willie. One of the most touching and real and honest portions of the book, bill, is when you write about and you never did that before or spoke about it, your experiences in vietnam. He said i have never talked about that or anyone even myself but you do it on these pages. How hard was that . It was hard because i denigrated people that came back and told war stories. I think people do it in bars for a free drink or to be entertaining. I didnt want to be enter taining or trade on the problems like death that some of the people over there willie, what was it like reading this session for you . This was the one piece, you know someone 40 years, and you think you know everything, but i knew nothing about it. He was a combat photographer. And i have seen the pictures and i wanted to know the stories. And it was just something ever time it came up he would drift away and it was clear he didnt want to talk about it. And i said dad, it would be nice for us if you would write a chapter about vietnam and he blew he off and one day i was walking down the street and get an email and it was the chapter that is in the book. And what strikes me about it is for someone who said he put it away and tried not to remember it he remembered everything. It is unbelievable. And tell me the writing can get more honest than this. I dont know if i killed anyone in vietnam. I shot at lethal bullet spewing bushing trying to kill us and enemies were later found behind them. And he ends this by saying when they announced the fall of saigon i went into another room and cried for the 58,000 who had died for nothing. Not even to serve as a cautionary lesson to never make the same mistake again. We already have. How many of you want to buy the book now . [ applause ] it is quite a remarkable story. You can laugh your head off with this book but it exist for me on a number of levels. Many of them terrible heart felt and serious. You are the role model of what a father and son should be and you make a lot of money in tv and it isnt as hard as delivering babies. It anyone wants to ask a question, step up to the microphone. No state capitals, please. Since no one is stepping up, willie, what is matt lower really like . He is an old fashion gentlemen. He shakes everybodys hand, he is good to everybody. You look up to certain people, my dad, and matt and Brian Williams and you watch how they conduct themselves and you sit back and watch. He knows everybodys name, shakes hands, holds doors and he is a good guy and a role model to me. That is great. And willie is matt lowery tomorrow. I am filling in tomorrow in new york you must also know these two gentlemen landed at o hare at 1 20 and made it down here. The taxi from the runway to the terminal was as long as the flight. We thought we landnd in per. Bill, how do you feel . Ups and down. It is draining the energy you put out. When they said i had parkinson i told willie i was going to write a book called i would shoot myself but i might miss. I thought that was dark. I cannot believe anyone has a question. You know what it is . I am doing a great job with the noort interview. How many wish the tribune hired bill geist when they had a chance . How many think now they should offer both of these guys a sindicated column . [ applause ] yes, sir . [inaudible question] in the same manner as matt lowary if Joe Scarborough was here you would be laughing and impressed by how well he understands politics. He is a good friend and why i am here today. Morning joe started because his radio show was on msnbc for three hours and when he got in trouble for talking about the rutgers Womens Basketball team and he was let go. And they were pulling people off the street to host . You got an hour in the morning to get an nbc idea. Joe had a primetime show at night and it was his idea to take the morning and turn it into politics. He was watching me and he plucked me. I didnt know him well. And dad knew micka better. I owe joe a great deal of gratitude. Morning joe was the first time i hosted a tv show. Willie, i want to know if you have ever tried to Parallel Park in chicago because i understand you are one of the best in the world. Top five. I said in an interview years ago someone said what is your special skill . And i said i am one of the five best Parallel Parkers in america. And sure enough the first day they had three cars and they made me on Live Television i did a little love tap and cracked under pressure. I dont think i have done it in chicago but new york is tough. Chicago they tow you away first. Tow them away i will end this. I have enjoyed this. And i enjoyed the book. And willie has something in the epilogue that gets this. It is half a paragraph that is funny and touching and that is what this is all about. The great gift of writing this book, besides the opportunity to teach you dad over the phone how to attach a word document to an email still doesnt know how to do it. It allows us to sit down and review ow life together and not many people get that chance. You guys did. Bill and willie geist. Thank you. [ applause ] i hate to be the guy that breaks up this party. Another round of applause. They did a great job. Bill geist and willie geist, thank you, gentlemen. They are going to be signing copies of their book good talk, dad and they will be downstairs in the cafeteria so head down there if you are interested in getting it signed. Have a great afternoon and thanks for coming to the lit fest. [inaudible conversations] booktv is on facebook. Like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers, watch videos and get uptodate information on events. Facebook. Com booktv. Booktv continues thousand with Christy Kristie macrakis. She talks about the history of invisible ink going back to ancient greece. She looks at the use of invisible ink during the revolutionary war, by the nazis, the stasi, the cia and others. She also talks about people who came up with new and important ways to hide messages over the years. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. Dr. Kristie macrakis is
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